Today I want to talk to you about the two phases of success. This is going to be a little mini-series which is primarily for business owners and those looking to start their own business.
I’m an avid reader. Currently I’m listening to Crushing It by Gary Vaynerchuk. There is a common misconception when talking about business success. We’re led to believe there’s a smooth pathway from not making much money to making a lot of money. Success really comes in two phases. To understand these two phases is extremely important. Learn to recognize your phase.
The first phase of success is what I call the building phase. This phase is not associated with making lots of money. It’s not associated with lots of leisure time. The building phase is when you are building leverage by focusing on something intensely for a long period of time.
I will use myself as an example. Go to YouTube and watch my early videos made from my home on a little, grainy web cam with terrible audio. I spent six hours a day making content, posting blog articles, and posting podcast episodes. At the same time, I had to also sell credit card processing and build my own local ISO because I had to make some money!
Twelve months later I was still making zero money from these videos. After twenty-four months I might have been making a thousand dollars a month! This was my building phase. Rather than making money, I was generating leverage. My leverage was you. People in the industry know me as the credit card processing guy who publishes content and does training and consulting.
In the year prior to building my own business I made about $90,000 a year working for a big company as a sales trainer. I could have kept that job. Why did I leave that to make around $30,000 in the next year? I actually wanted to build a business. The building phase is where you say, “You know what? I’m going to sacrifice to build leverage.” Find something about which you are passionate and then focus entirely on that one thing. Recognize this is not the “big success” phase.
Phase number two is monetization. When you look at successful people, you are going to be tempted to emulate them. Be careful as you are seeing them in the monetization phase. You see them taking advantage of all that hard work and sacrifice invested many years prior to this point. A successful person is using this phase to make money to reinvest back into their business.
What you need to ask yourself is this, “How did they get started? What was it like? What did they learn from their experience? How many years did it take before they were making six figures?”
In which phase are you? Are you in the building phase or in the monetizing phase? If you are in the building phase, don’t tell me how much money you want to make. Tell me how much sacrifice you are willing to make! Sacrificing and acting on these insights will help propel you into success.
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