How to Focus on What Matters In Your Business
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Trying to Be Everything to Everyone
My business coach was quick to diagnose me when we first came into contact.
A quality he first recognized in himself and later shared with me.
Superman Syndrome, he says...
What in God's name is that?
He shoots me an email with a description of not only what it entails but his ten step remedy to alleviate the aftermath of said phenomenon.
To summarize, it basically involves the Type-A entrepreneur that is burning the midnight oil on the reg while way over-committing across the board, in both personal and professional endeavors.
To say I was guilty of that, at that time, is the understatement of the century, to say the very least.
You see, us Type-Aers, whom largely identify our self-worth with that of our own accomplishments, when we're not achieving we feel a massive void in our lives.
For example, ever had a friend that used to literally brag about how busy they were and how they didn't even have time to eat, bathe, etc. etc?
They wear their preoccupied existence as a badge of honor, not only validating themselves to their peers but simultaneously coercing their own self-saboteurs.
And while I'm not about taking the opposite extreme and signing up for the Couch Potato Olympics, we have to strike a semblance of coherence in our lives that is representative of a healthy and well-balanced existence.
What we often find with people stuck in full-blown Superman Syndrome is someone that is trying to do way too much and push their bandwidths to all new horizons, sacrificing their "main thing."
And as uber-amazing Brendon Burchard, one of the top peak performance coaches on the entire planet, says in many of his teachings...you have to keep your main thing the main thing.
Simple. Practical. Effective.
So, how do the Elon Musks of the world grow multiple empires and seemingly juggle the world (or in his case, many worlds) in the palm of their hands?
Thousands upon thousands of hours perfecting their trade, countless nights building their first major bridge to success and more sacrifices made than most of us even care to consider.
At which point they can then hire an army of Fred Turners (See McDonald's Story) to launch their missiles to Mars and revamp the entire transportation industry.
Do you think Elon is currently in a Southern California factory with a socket wrench and a grease pan putting together a SpaceX rocket?
PS. I clearly have no idea how a space craft is made (HA!)
You get my drift, the answer is quite obviously a resounding no.
He's earned his stripes and he did so by making PayPal what it is today.
Not PayPal and 12 other business ventures all at once.
PayPal and PayPal alone was his sole focus for many years.
Why We Get Ahead Of Ourselves
Look, I can only speak for myself and the countless clients I've worked with where we clearly identified a correlation.
But what we have discovered is our measurement(s) for success are largely stacked up against the likes of the people we follow.
We read books about how Tony Robbins has annually provided something like 48 million meals around world, or some ungodly amount.
We watch Gary Vaynerchuk on YouTube talking about how he's Crushing It, Crushed It and currently Crushinged It all before sun down, 8 days a week.
And here we are...with our little startup that is just now maybe paying it's own bills like a high school graduate in their very first college apartment.
In all honesty, we'd actually be lucky to use that metaphor as a relevant descriptor for the maturation of our startup.
In fact, your business might have just taken it's very first steps without a guiding hand or muttered it's first few words that somehow resembled the English language in our own fabricated imaginations.
I digress...You aren't on their stratosphere and THAT. IS. OKAY!
Recently, I saw my dear friend and subject of our discussion today, Clint Watson, post something on social media in which he went into great detail about the failures of his ambition to try and do too many things.
You see, I knew Clint had been wrestling with wanting to do "more," as we had a lengthy discussion about it just months prior.
Just as my business coach had done for me, I too saw the very same confusion in Clint's eyes.
You could hear it in his voice, tangible as the coffee cup he drank from.
Clint had built a phenomenal business and did it completely bootstrapped.
To begin telling you just how difficult that is would take a blog two-to-three times the length of the one you're currently reading.
I not only respect Clint as an entrepreneur but admire him as a man on many levels.
I am very protective of my time and attention. Clint has earned both in a meaningful way and on a consistent basis.
Truth be told, the entrepreneurship space needs more Clint Watsons.
The type to roll up their sleeves and GSD, make no excuses and be an honorable man in the process.
So when I saw his video post revolving around his perceived mistakes I was worried, knowing he wasn't in the best place just months prior.
I sent him a text message and asked a question I also ask all of my clients.
I said, do you consider yourself an entrepreneur or a business owner?
He promptly responded and said business owner.
Now, I have nothing against business owners.
And yes, I recognize you have to be a business owner to also be considered an entrepreneur.
But let's just say there's an inherent and glaringly obvious difference between someone who has run a local, mom & pop for 35 years in relation to one of my rising tech startup clients.
Recognition of which bucket you fall in is critical, in my opinion.
For Clint to identify as a business owner was, in my opinion, a misdiagnosis of his career trajectory.
And when it's all said and done, I'd bet the mortgage on Clint Watson and anything he aims to accomplish in life.
But this is what happens to us when we go into Superman Syndrome Mode and try to take on the world and skip the necessary steps in our journey.
If you haven't had it happen yet, my friend, you most certainly will.
It, like everything else we've discussed today, is just part of being an entrepreneur and what we must experience before we put it all together.
View Your Setback as an Opportunity
I can't speak for Clint on this one just yet but I can speak to my own setback.
Recognizing my Superman Syndrome allowed me to get back to the core of why I became an entrepreneur to begin with.
In the midst of analyzing P&L's, perusing your annual revenue projections and identifying potential opportunities to hit those milestones, we lose a part of us that started along this path for a reason.
Truth be told, at certain points I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the person staring back at me.
Now, I didn't go murder a bunch of Younglings in the Jedi Temple in cold blood with no remorse (Star Wars Nerd Reference) but I definitely compromised on my values and did some things I'm not proud of.
Paying contractors later than we should have, forcing my employees to work longer hours than they had anticipated or were even scheduled for, not delivering maximum value to our clients but taking on their business because I was purely looking at the financial benefit in that arrangement...
You get the jest.
Essentially, what makes your company great or what will eventually make it resemble one as such.
Compromising on those values, in addition to the aforementioned Superhero Syndrome, are largely ways we find ourselves in need of a soft reset.
But here's what I want you to do instead of dwell on your perceived failures or setbacks.
Use this time as an opportunity to re-evaluate what you want out of life as an entrepreneur.
Use it to analyze what you've learned, where you zigged when you should have zagged.
Appreciate the people that were instrumental in your successes and maybe learn that it was never just about you but the people you strategically put around you.
Because, all the while, I was reaching to achieve my own accolades and pushing our company to new heights, I realized much of it was because I wanted the article in Forbes Magazine that celebrated my successful exit as I ventured off into the next big thing.
I aspired to get up on stage at a TEDx event to introduce my groundbreaking philosophies and secret sauce to startup success.
You know what I found?
All of those aspirations still exist inside of me, we just have to keep ourselves grounded enough to navigate those terrains and protect ourselves literally from ourselves on a daily basis.
And to respect the process that it doesn't, nor will it ever, happen overnight or by clouding your mind with distractions and alternative opportunities.
But rather, staying the course with what you've done, what you're doing and what's WORKING in your life and business.
So, in your retreat back to solitude, don't sacrifice on your ambitions and accept a disappointed new reality of your current circumstances.
Use it as a time to draw a new road map to the top of your own mountain of success.
As Ryan Deiss of Digital Marketer said to me as well as his entire audience of listeners at their DM Labs event in July of 2017...They didn't just go out and start building companies.
Their growth started by building one bridge at a time.
What you may find, through reflection, counsel and collaboration with your team, is your bridge may just be far closer to the other side of your gap than you even realized.
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Clint Watson, Health and Fitness Entrepreneur, joins Entrepreneur Hour to talk about his journey in fitness, how to focus and when to get back to basics in your business and refocus your efforts on your core value proposition.
Today’s Sponsor: Belay
Resources:
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: By John C Maxwell
Tony Robbins: Unleash the Power Within
Health, Fitness and the Pursuit of Fulfillment
Clint Watson’s primary life objective is to pursue excellence. Clint has 9 years of experience as an entrepreneur and leader in the Health and Fitness Industry. The time and money he’s spent figuring things out the hard way have been invaluable.
Clint has a burning desire to see others strive towards and achieve their "best self". His methods are simple, yet powerful. His keen ability to detect your B.S. (belief system) as well as his ability to hold his clients accountable are his super powers.
Clint has helped over a thousand people achieve and exceed goals in fitness and nutrition and has applied his methods for leadership teams and business owners across several industries including Real Estate, Construction, Banking, Professional Service, Education, and Food Services. Clint seeks to add value to leaders through thought-provoking questions, intentionality, accountability, and enthusiasm.
To Learn More about Clint, visit CreedGym.com