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Alex Charfen is a renowned entrepreneur, business coach, and health advocate dedicated to helping individuals unlock their full potential. As the co-founder and CEO of Charfen, a training, education, and consulting organization for entrepreneurs, Alex has empowered thousands to achieve success in both business and life. Beyond his entrepreneurial endeavors, Alex is deeply passionate about health and wellness, particularly in the realm of hormone optimization. Drawing from his own experiences and extensive research, Alex shares invaluable insights to help individuals reclaim vitality, achieve hormonal harmony, and optimize their overall well-being.Summary: In this episode, host [Your Name] sits down with Alex Charfen, entrepreneur, business coach, and wellness advocate, to delve into the intricacies of hormonal optimization. Alex shares his personal journey of transformation, from battling health challenges to discovering the key to hormonal balance and vitality. With a focus on hydration, hormone testing, and dietary consistency, Alex provides practical strategies for listeners to enhance their overall health and well-being. Through candid discussions on topics such as sexual intimacy, trauma healing, and the importance of energetic safety, Alex offers profound insights into the holistic approach to wellness. Tune in to gain invaluable knowledge and inspiration to embark on your own journey to hormonal harmony. In this episode, you'll learn:The importance of hydration and its impact on hormone regulation.Strategies for hormone testing and interpreting the results effectively.Practical tips for achieving dietary consistency and optimizing nutrition.Insights into the role of energetic safety in enhancing intimacy and healing trauma.How to navigate the journey to hormonal balance and reclaim vitality.The transformative power of addressing sexual trauma and embracing vulnerability.Actionable steps to kickstart your wellness journey and unlock peak performance.To listen to this episode, visit: https://ImpactNow.com/094Disclaimer: Neither Alex Charfen nor Peter King are medical professionals. Consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making any health-related decisions.
The Creator's Adventure - Course Creation, Entrepreneurship & Mindset tips for Creators
In today's episode, our host, Bryan McAnulty, sits down with renowned entrepreneur Alex Charfen, co-founder of the coaching company Sharfen. Listen until the end of the episode to get Alex Charfen's new book for free! Together, they tackle the challenges and triumphs of being an entrepreneur, discussing the importance of structure, boundaries, and self-care. Watch this episode to learn about your entrepreneurial personality and what are the keys to achieving sustainable success and fulfillment as a business owner. Alex Charfen is a renowned entrepreneur who co-founded CHARFEN, a coaching company that helps other entrepreneurs scale and optimize their businesses and achieve new levels of sustainable growth.
Every once in a while, life provides a sliding door moment. One of those pivotal moments in life for which there was a before and there is an after. This conversation with Alex Charfen is one of those moments for me, as it helped me find a level of self-acceptance that I've never found before. Here is a little bit about Alex...He was never meant to be the Co-founder & CEO of a multi-million dollar company. As a kid, Alex had a tough time learning, fitting in, and following other people's rules. His entrepreneurial journey started early on by selling things at school, and he went on to run a window washing service in high school and a financial consulting firm in college. In his twenties, Alex became a Fortune 500 consultant, working with some of the most successful people in the world. In his early thirties, he met his wife, Cadey, and sold his consulting business. Unable to stay out of the entrepreneurial world, Alex and Cadey started buying and selling houses and became one of the largest real estate companies in Florida in less than a year. Following the Economic Crisis of 2007, Alex and Cadey lost everything and went bankrupt. Rising from the ashes, they built an information product called the Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) designation. Through their designation, Alex and Cadey worked with the majority of major lenders and real estate brokerages in the United States to help our country recover from the mortgage crisis. As a result, they helped pull forward the recovery of the foreclosure crisis by five to seven years, sold over $70 million, were featured on the Inc. list of fastest-growing companies in the country three years in a row, and won many other awards.Alex went on to create the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT), helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs with six-, seven-, and eight-figure businesses to grow and scale. Today, Alex has created multiple multimillion-dollar companies, learned a lot along the way, and is teaching entrepreneurs how they can do the same. Sharing his journey with others led Alex to write for publications such as Success, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine, and his story has also garnered attention from major media outlets like MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Investor's Business Daily. As a result of his mentorship and success, Alex is now known as the go-to person for helping entrepreneurs ascend the Billionaire Code and understand how to plan strategically. Throughout all of this, Charfen's mission is to empower entrepreneurs to grow and scale their business and make their greatest contribution. If you want to learn more about Alex and his incredible work with Simple Operations, visit www.charfen.com.Key Moments: 03:00 - Alex's tumultuous childhood in Mexico City10:40 - Tony Robbins and Wayne Dyer make Alex even weirder14:01 - adversity as a precursor for massive success15:26 - a basic definition of The Entrepreneurial Personality Type16:06 - Ronan's tumultuous childhood17:44 - entrepreneurs are information seekers20:00 - how entrepreneurs are often persecuted by the system and then want to fix the system for everyone22:00 - momentum as a key determinant in an entrepreneur's happiness23:26 - what's wrong with me? 27:10 - changing the entrepreneurial scoreboard32:44 - the three elements of momentum38:19 - Alex's own brush with insolvency45:49 - Alex's phoenix rising from the ashes, and near collapse 56:27 - stillness in momentum 1:00:24 - a new definition of success1:05:44 - some thoughts on Bill Gates
In todays episode we explore how to reach that next level in one's life by embracing and integrating all of ourselves. From coaching to psychedelics tune in for some tips and tools of how you can level up. Alex Charfen was never meant to be the Co-founder & CEO of a multi-million dollar company. As a kid, Alex had a tough time learning, fitting in, and following other people's rules. His entrepreneurial journey started early on by selling things at school, and he went on to run a window washing service in high school and a financial consulting firm in college. In his twenties, Alex became a Fortune 500 consultant, working with some of the most successful people in the world. In his early thirties, he met his wife, Cadey, and sold his consulting business. Unable to stay out of the entrepreneurial world, Alex and Cadey started buying and selling houses and became one of the largest real estate companies in Florida in less than a year. Following the Economic Crisis of 2007, Alex and Cadey lost everything and went bankrupt. Rising from the ashes, they built an information product called the Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) designation. Through their designation, Alex and Cadey worked with the majority of major lenders and real estate brokerages in the United States to help our country recover from the mortgage crisis. As a result, they helped pull forward the recovery of the foreclosure crisis by five to seven years, sold over $70 million, were featured on the Inc. list of fastest-growing companies in the country three years in a row, and won many other awards. Alex went on to create the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT), helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs with six-, seven-, and eight-figure businesses to grow and scale. Today, Alex has created multiple multimillion-dollar companies, learned a lot along the way, and is teaching entrepreneurs how they can do the same. Sharing his journey with others led Alex to write for publications such as Success, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine, and his story has also garnered attention from major media outlets like MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Investor's Business Daily. As a result of his mentorship and success, Alex is now known as the go-to person for helping entrepreneurs ascend the Billionaire Code and understand how to plan strategically. Throughout all of this, Charfen's mission is to empower entrepreneurs to grow and scale their business and make their greatest contribution. "My passion is helping visionary entrepreneurs be seen and heard so that they can grow companies, build teams, and change the world. Once an entrepreneur starts hiring a team, the fastest way to grow their business is to do less not more. Process structure and routine will create freedom but we all fight process structure and routine. If your days are getting tactically harder, you are building a house of cards." -Alex Charfen If youd like to connect with Alex you can find him at the following links instagram.com/alexcharfen @alexcharfen twitter E-mail: alex@Simpleoperations.com
Leave a message for Ken or Alex here! In this episode of The Content Capitalist, Ken talks to Alex Charfen, a mentor, author, podcast host of the MOMENTUM podcast, and seven-figure business owner, about his journey from selling candy (and getting banned from doing it) to becoming a Fortune 500 consultant, and forming CHARFEN; one of the fastest growing small businesses in the country that helps entrepreneurs put process, structure, and routine into their lives, all while also making their greatest contribution. "I was always that kid that was super different, and I didn't really love school or didn't feel very successful in school. I wasn't very successful socially. I didn't have a lot of places where I felt like I belonged. And when I was about eight years old, . . . “ Hear how Alex started his first business when he was just eight years old, selling candy. And how he later started a financial consulting company in college, and after dropping out of college, wrote a book called ‘The Entrepreneurial Personality Type', which helps entrepreneurs understand themselves and their businesses better. Alex and his wife started their first online business in 2007, and have continuously evolved to meet the needs of their entrepreneur clients. Alex is passionate about helping entrepreneurs put process, structure and routine into their lives so they can grow businesses and not have to do everything themselves. Listen to hear more on Alex Charfen's journey to success. Follow Alex Charfen at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexcharfenwww.Momentumpodcast.com/https://simpleoperations.com/The Entrepreneurial Personality Type: Your guide to the most important and misunderstood people among us:https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurial-Personality-Type-important-misunderstood/dp/1944602305#Follow Ken Okazaki at: http://contentcapitalists.com/https://www.facebook.com/groups/influencervideohttps://www.instagram.com/kenokazaki/https://www.youtube.com/c/KenOkazakiContent Capitalists YouTube
Leave a message for Ken or Alex here! In this episode of The Content Capitalist, Ken talks to Alex Charfen, a mentor, author, podcast host of the MOMENTUM podcast, and seven-figure business owner, about his journey from selling candy (and getting banned from doing it) to becoming a Fortune 500 consultant, and forming CHARFEN; one of the fastest growing small businesses in the country that helps entrepreneurs put process, structure, and routine into their lives, all while also making their greatest contribution. "I was always that kid that was super different, and I didn't really love school or didn't feel very successful in school. I wasn't very successful socially. I didn't have a lot of places where I felt like I belonged. And when I was about eight years old, . . . “ Hear how Alex started his first business when he was just eight years old, selling candy. And how he later started a financial consulting company in college, and after dropping out of college, wrote a book called ‘The Entrepreneurial Personality Type', which helps entrepreneurs understand themselves and their businesses better. Alex and his wife started their first online business in 2007, and have continuously evolved to meet the needs of their entrepreneur clients. Alex is passionate about helping entrepreneurs put process, structure and routine into their lives so they can grow businesses and not have to do everything themselves. Listen to hear more on Alex Charfen's journey to success. Follow Alex Charfen at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexcharfenwww.Momentumpodcast.com/https://simpleoperations.com/The Entrepreneurial Personality Type: Your guide to the most important and misunderstood people among us:https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurial-Personality-Type-important-misunderstood/dp/1944602305#Follow Ken Okazaki at: http://contentcapitalists.com/https://www.facebook.com/groups/influencervideohttps://www.instagram.com/kenokazaki/https://www.youtube.com/c/KenOkazakiContent Capitalists YouTube
Is following the "hustle" culture the proven path to success as an entrepreneur? According to renowned business coach, Alex Charfen, no - especially if it means not taking care of yourself first. Alex Charfen is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, an organization that trains and supports entrepreneurs and small businesses. He is also an author, speaker, and podcast host of Momentum, and has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs with six-, seven-, and eight-figure businesses to grow and scale. In this powerful conversation, Coach Ajit and Alex Charfen explore what makes an entrepreneur successful, what are the common traits of successful entrepreneurs, and their best advice on how to thrive without burning out. It is a must-listen episode for every coach and entrepreneur out there! Key Insights: How curiosity leads to creativity. The reason why it's crucial for entrepreneurs to find what motivates them in life. Why sensitivity is an entrepreneurial superpower. How to manage your energy better. Why accepting discomfort is one of the biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs can make. Understanding decision fatigue. The truth about the “heroic hustle” culture. Listen to Alex's podcast at https://www.charfen.com/podcast/ Connect with Alex on Instagram @AlexCharfen. Connect with us! IG: @realcoachajit IG: @evercoach.mindvalley FB: Evercoach by Mindvalley Website: www.evercoach.com Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Master Coaching with Ajit. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review on your favorite podcast app, and don't forget to subscribe to enjoy every new episode, every single week.
Interviewing Alex Charfen who is a multiple 2 comma club award winner and CEO of Charfen.com Alex is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach who has spent 3 decades on the front lines of entrepreneurship and business, and is helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs with six-, seven-, and eight-figure businesses to grow and scale. Sharing his journey with others has led Alex to write for publications such as Success, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine, and his story has also garnered attention from major media outlets like MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Investor's Business Daily. As a result of his mentorship and success, Alex is now known as the go-to person for helping entrepreneurs ascend The Billionaire Code and understand how to plan strategically. Watch this episode where we've discussed: - Should you even think of becoming an entrepreneur or not? - What things you must consider to b ecome successful in this entrepreneurial journey? - What should an entrepreneur do if they are feeling discouraged, frustrated, and anxious? - What's the most important thing an entrepreneur should do for themselves to keep going? - The Best way to hire key leaders and team members for your company? And so much more... Make sure you join the group for more insightful conversations. You can join the group from here: facebook.com/groups/funneling --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nikhilsai/message
Over the course of the past six months, we have gone through the process of rebranding our entire company. We went from a personal brand “Charfen” to a corporate brand “Simple Operations.” It took us a while but we figured out that our personal brand was causing more confusion than clarity and making it difficult to work with us. It has been a huge eye-opener. I'm looking forward to sharing the lessons we learned and why we did this with you, it may help you in your business. Our entrepreneurial journey doesn't end here! Be sure to check out our Facebook Community filled with entrepreneurs just like you who are getting into momentum and building world-changing empires ---> https://charfen.com/community If you are an entrepreneur who is listening in and you can relate, then be sure and head over to https://momentumplanner.com/mps and gain access to one of the most requested business tools to grow and scale your business in any market condition, even in this one.
See if your question got answered live! Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everyone. This is Russell. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. I'm back with Josh today. And do I tell them what today's episode is, this is a really fun one? Josh Forti: Yeah. Today guys, we're doing rapid fire. We went to the community. We asked a bunch of different questions and by the way, we have like so many more to go over. So like, hey, just keep coming in, which is awesome. But it's a rapid fire Q and A with Russell to kind of bring out a side of Russell that maybe, maybe we don't get to see as much by asking just a bunch of rapid fire questions. Russell: There's some cool questions there. I think you guys going to enjoy. I think there's something for everybody. So listen, take notes. And next time we ask you for some questions, make sure you submit them maybe you'll get answered live. Josh: And called out. We called out some people. Russell: It's true. Maybe you got called out. You should pay attention. Anyway, thanks Josh. This was a fun episode, with that said, let's queue up the theme song and we'll get right back with some Q and As. Josh: All right. So this one I want to do a little bit different, kind of phase three here as we go through this is I went and ask community bunch of different questions and there's so many different ones. I've got screenshots on screenshots on screenshots of, on Facebook, on Instagram and kind of things like that. And so I thought it would be cool to go through and do a rapid fire style where we hit you with a bunch of different questions. And there's a lot of similarities, like underlying actual questions at what it is. But a lot of it is people they want to understand your thought process. They want to understand how you run certain things or how you do certain things or whatever. And so what I thought would be cool is I have enough questions to where we could literally do one a minute for the next couple hours. So take as much time as you want or need to go through this. But I think if we just went through and did like a rapid fire of like, all right, start here and then go through and do this, I think that'd be super beneficial. And I think it'd be a unique creative thing that we could try and see how people like it, sound good? Russell: That'd be fun. Let's do it. Josh: All right. So the first question is, and I think this kind of... It's interesting, I think this ties into both of our previous topics that we covered and talked about, whether it be podcasting and finding your voice there or funnels and figuring that all out is like... The question got asked probably three or four different times, some variation of like, what do you do when you don't know what you want to do yet, like when you haven't found that voice? And you're like, because I think... For me, it's interesting. I actually found my voice before I found my product, right? And I think a lot of people figure out what they are going to sell before they find their voice. And so for me it was a little bit easier because I had all these followers before I was ever selling anything and I was super broke and then I found dotcom secrets and it was like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." I literally went from making like $25,000 a year to like $250,000 a year and like one year. It was amazing because I just added it too. But a lot of people, they really struggle with like, "Okay, cool, I get all these things conceptually. I know I need a funnel and I know I need a value ad. I know I need a community and a following and raving fans. And I get all the things, but I don't know mine yet. I don't know the thing. And so when you're doing that, like what's the thing that you do or what advice would you give people to fix that problem of, or what things should they be focused on when they haven't found their voice yet? Russell: I'd say there's two directions on this, and both of them are correct. It's just depends on who you are. Number one, if you are a visionary, if you do the DISC profile, and you're a high I, you want to be the person that's there; the biggest key is not to wait. If I would've waited four click funnels and funnels, I never would've got here. I just started creating stuff that was bad like potato guns, zip brander, or forum fortunes. All these things that didn't work or I made very little money. No one's ever heard of, but I did 150 funnels before I was ever like, "I'm the funnel guy. I'm going to fun... I go on teach..." I started getting into funnels and then we built funnel software, but it was man 14 years and 150 funnels before I figure that out. But if I wouldn't have been in motion, I never would've found that. So if you are a creator and you know that's your calling, just start moving forward and find out what you're passionate about. If I was starting today, I would be into bio hacking, I'd be into nutrition. I'd be into those are the things I'm really geeking out about now in my life. So I'd be running that direction. I don't know what the opportunity's going to be, but I'm going to do something or I'm going to nothing… And then eventually I feel like God, as we start moving in a direction, like conscious I'm moving this direction, trying to figure this out; He will give us little ideas. He'll give us impressions and ideas. And He's trying to see like, "If I give Russell's idea, is he going to be good steward to this idea or not? And if I take it and I implement it, He's like, oh, he's a good steward of little thing, let me give him some more. Let me give him some more." And then 14 years later, He is like, "Okay, now I know he's worthy of this. Let me give him the big idea." But He's checking it. And if you get the idea, you're like, "Oh, I'm scared. I get fearful, whatever." And you don't do it, He's not going to give you the next one. He's like, "Oh, he's not a good steward of ideas." And He gives idea to somebody else. It's why, how many times you are like, "I had an idea for that, but so, and so did this." Because you weren't a good steward of the idea when it showed up. So that's the one thing it's like moving forward. The second thing is that some of you guys, you're not the visionary person and that's okay. There's 450 people who work at ClickFunnels who aren't the visionary person. And if it wasn't for all of them, I'd be screwed. There are people that are my number twos that are my psychics that are helping me support it and they can buy into my vision. In fact, I remember Leon who designs all my slides for me. He's one of the most amazing people in the world. And he was out here in Boise one day and he's a quiet guy, just more reserved and he's got to leave for the airport. And he pulled me aside, he said, "I want to talk to you real quick." And I was like, "Yeah, what's going on?" And he said, he's like, "I've decided that my mission in life is to help you to get your word out to the world." I got chills and I was like, "Oh my gosh. Thank you." It was such a cool thing. And I was like... And I got it. He's got this skillset. He's not going to be on stage doing the things and doing podcasts and stuff, man, without him, I couldn't do what I'm doing. So being a supporting role is huge. So find a vision you do believe in. If you're like... I think Dave Asprey in the bio... and the bulletproof movement is the thing, go get a job from them, go work for them, go work for free, whatever. It's like, go figure out how you can be close to that person and help bolster. It's like, I'm hoping that everyone believes in something. Figure out something you believe in, you're passionate about and go be a supporter of that. Your vision is not to be something you created. It's just something you're supporting and you're helping to move forward. And so that'd be my two advice, depending on which side you fall on. If you're not sure, just start running. Josh: Love it. Russell: See what happens. Josh: Love it. That's awesome. And I think that's really, really cool. My current assistant, I've cycled through a couple of assistants now and I finally have one and she's amazing. And she's just like, "I came into your company thinking that this is what you needed." And I was like, "Yeah, because that's what I told you I needed. But I had no idea what I needed." And she's like, "What you actually needed is this." And I'm like- Russell: "I need you to tell me what I need." Josh: ... right. I was like, "Are you going to leave me now?" She's like, "No, I believe in you. And I believe in your vision. I know what you're trying to accomplish. You didn't realize this is what you needed but I believe in you." And I'm like, "Huh, that is a relief." If you can find that person, that's lucky. Next thing kind of goes along with this another rapid fire one is, as you're going through and you are figuring out all these different things and testing through your things, how do you make it to where you're not confusing your audience and to where they don't feel you're just a mess, that's everything is everywhere? You're trying all these different things. You're throwing things at the wall. Is that just something that people are just going to leave and just be upset just because, or is that like, is there ways to minimize that and communicate to your community that you don't know what you're doing, but that this is the vision. This is what we're going. I'm just trying a bunch of different things. Is there a way to do that well? Russell: Yeah. I think a couple things, number one is understanding that until you really dial that in, it's going to be hard to get a huge following anyway. Like the other day I was searching my name with someone else's name that I did a deal with 20 years ago and it pulled up the Google results and there was like, "Oh, I was so embarrassed." Anyway, it was bad. But guess what? Those people are all gone now. They left. They're are not even aware what happened. They don't know who I am. Most people are like, "Russell I've been following you since the beginning. Ever since you guys launched Funnel Hacking Live." I was like, "Oh, I was in business 15 years before the first Funnel Hacking Live." "I followed you all the way back from Micro Continuity." I was like, "That was a long time ago, I was in business nine years before Micro Continuity." Most people... Just understanding the people are going to be... When you figure out the thing, it's going to be a whole new group of people. And so it's not stressing too much about that, but at the same time, it's like, it's helping people understand like, I'm experimenting. I call it marketing experiments or like I used to call mine dotcom secrets labs before I wrote the book and anything it's like, I'm practicing these principles. So I would like study SEO and talk about like, "Oh." And I'd sell SEO courses for other people because I'm learning from this person to understand SEO. I'm over here and I'm in a laboratory testing these things out. This is what I'm actually doing. And there's a lot of value in that because you're becoming in proxy the person and sometimes you can cut through stuff that's working and not working, you can get direct access to people that they can. So just helping them understand like, my end goal is I want to be... Again, if I was going to bio hacking world right now, my end goal is I want to be healthier. So for example, this is my live mushroom GTS root beer. It's literally my favorite thing. I get twice a day. It's from Whole Foods. It's got Reishi, Chaga, and Turkey Tail. The actual fruiting bodies of the mushrooms in here blended into this root beer. It tastes like root beer my grandma used to make, I love it. I'm obsessed with it. So I could be like, "This thing's amazing. I'm excited about it. And this is why, and this is why I did the study and this is why I'm doing it." I could probably sell a crap ton of these right now. And then I could find out something else like Anthony DiClementi, he's got this thing. And I'm like, "I can be excited. I'm testing it. I bought his newsletter. I bought his membership site." And so it's just like you as the, I'm like a reporter, who's testing these things out in the beginning until you figure out what your thing is and you can really dial it. Maybe I become the mushroom dude who sells mushroom root beer. I don't know, but anyway. Josh: Please stick with funnels. We need you in that lane more. Is it good? All right. Cool. Next question we got here is, do you ever struggle with scarcity and being in scarcity mode even after you've made... Had all the success and as much money as you you've made, do you still struggle with being in scarcity mode or have you evolved past that? Russell: I don't struggle with scarcity. I have a lot of my own issues for sure. And it's funny because every time someone launches the next click funnels killer, it annoys me. But then I'm like, "You know what? First off they're not going to... I'm willing to outwork all of them and so I'm not worried that way." Number two, competition drives me, which is really, really good. And number three, actually, Annie Grace messaged me this a little while ago. She was talking about her business and all these people who were competing and she felt they were leading her people astray. And I was like, "I get that." And I said, "The thing that's most comforting to me is actually a Bible scripture where Jesus Christ said, my sheep will hear my voice and they'll follow me." That's not direct translation, but basically that's just like, my sheep will hear my voice. And I believe that's something that was true for him. But I think it's true for all of us. It's a universal principle. And so what I understand is like, I'm going to go out there. I'm going to be Russell. The best Russell I can be. And a lot of people are not going to follow me. They're going to understand that person better or whatever. Like some other product better, but my sheep are going to hear my voice and they're going to follow me. I'm going to attract the right people and they're going to come to Funnel Hacking Live, and they're going to use my platform. They're going to be exciting. And those are the people I've been called to serve. I am not called to serve the people who are going to go and go somewhere else. Or they don't resonate my message or with me or whatever. And I got to be okay with that because my sheep will hear my voice. And that's my belief that helps me to not be scared of scarcity, because I don't want those people anyway. I want my sheep to follow me and I'm going to help them. I'm going to serve them. Because that's what I've been called to serve. Josh: That's awesome. That's super cool. All right, next one here is actually from Parker Woodward, shout out Parker. Russell: Yeah, Parker. Josh: He says, "How do you know what positions to put members of your team in so they personally thrive?" Russell: Man, I cannot tell you, just you know Parker, this is a constant thing. So if you read the book Good To Great, one thing he talks about is like finding the right people and then putting them on the right seats on the bus. And those are two different activities. And sometimes you nail it. You're like, "Got the right person. They're on the right seat on the bus. And it's awesome." So many times in my company, I find someone who's amazing and we put them in a thing and it's like, "Oh, they don't fit there." And you move around four or five times like, "This person sucks at their job. They're horrible." And it's not actually true. It's horrible. The problem is you have the right person in the wrong seat on the bus. You get them the right seat and then they thrive. And so it's understanding that and really defining it of like, "What are the seats initially?" Because I think that's... You had this with your system. I don't really know what the seat is. I just know I need help. And I'm drowning, what that is, right? Josh: Yeah. Russell: You or someone around you understands like, this is where I'm hurting, this is what I'm struggling and they can define the seat, then it's easy to find the right person, or you find somebody like knows the right person. And then having them like working with them, being okay like, "We may have to try a couple seats so we figure out, I know you're the right cultural fit. I know you're the right person, the right work ethic." But I don't know what the skillset is yet. Maybe they don't know yet either. And as soon as you're able to figure out what their unique ability is, then you put in the right spot and then they can thrive. And so it's a two step process. Josh: Interesting. All right. This one's from Braden. He says, "What are the biggest beliefs fundamentally that you had to shift early on in your life or career that you believe are required to get to $100 million and beyond?" Russell: It's funny you think it's like belief that some marketing principles. So I found out every tier, so me to get to a million dollars, I was trying to get a million dollars in the calendar year. It took me three years in row. I missed it by like 20 grand, three years in a row, I couldn't do it. And it was totally like a mental block. I didn't believe that I could do it for some reason. And after I did the first time it was like, "Oh." Then it was easy. And then 10 million was my next mental block. I missed it first year, second year we got, and then... So it's there's these mental blocks where I don't know if it's we don't believe in ourselves. We don't believe in, that we're worth. I don't know if it's, we don't believe worthy of it or we have the abilities of it, whatever. But the first thing is you got to believe in yourself. And that just comes with a lot of you doing things. Again, it comes back... We talked about earlier, like God gives you an idea. You're going to be a good steward of this idea. And the more often you take an idea and you run with it. Even if you fail, the more times you do that, the more you start trusting yourself. And that's a big part of it. Right now I can walk into a room where there's like, things are on fire and there's pure chaos, I have no idea what I'm going to go into it. I walk in knowing that the right idea's going to show up and I need it because I've done it so many times over and over and over and over and over again. I just know that it's going to happen. And I have belief in myself. That's the first thing. I honestly believe that the second thing, this comes back to the spiritual side of things, is that there's a purpose behind it. I struggled growing ClickFunnels because I thought that it was for Russell and Todd and our friends to make money. I thought that's what the business was, for probably the first three or four years. And it wasn't until I hired this coach who helped me see the connection between things. And she's just... Because I was always like, there's business and there's spiritual things. And God doesn't care right with my business because whatever. And she helped me bridge the gap. Like, "Do you see what's actually happening because this business..." She see people's lives are changed. All these kind of things. And she was the first person who said, "This is literally a calling that God gave you to do this." And as soon as I heard that and I felt it and I believed it, it changed everything for me. I was like, "This isn't just something Russell does as a hobby on the side to keep me busy till I die, this is what I was made for." I was made to do this, to inspire entrepreneurs, to change the world because each entrepreneur can do that. And when I heard that and I believed it, then it changed everything. It gave me permission like, "Okay, well then it's all my donkey Kong. I'm going to publish. I'm going to create, I'm going to write books. I'm going to do software. I'm going to do things." Because it wasn't just like money for money's sake. It was because this is the mission. This is the calling. I need to do it. And so it changed everything for me. So I think for you guys, that'd be the next thing is like, you got to be connected. Is this actually what God wants me doing? And if you believe that, you believe it's not just some side hobby, man it gives you the feel you need to grow row because now it's bigger than just you making money. Making money is so uninspiring. Changing the world because you were called to, at least, for me changed everything. Josh: That's super, super interesting. And so obviously, I've worked with Katie Richardson and tremendous mindset shifting things in there. And one of the things that I've learned just about mindset, what you said there is your brain, by default just runs. And so it will run with whatever program... Like 90% of your life is basically autopilot. You don't even realize that you're making the decision that you're making. So it's like, whatever program is there, that's how your life operates. And how you change that is not by changing this or all these different things, it's by literally reprogramming is changing belief. And so if you could actually just shift the belief, that's actually shifting the program. And so I think, for me, when I first got started in entrepreneurship, it was how do I hustle my way to success? It was freaking. I was at Gary Vaynerchuk working 18 hours a day. Let's go. And so I was like, "That's what I'm going to do." And it was like, Katie came in and was like, "Cool. That's the belief that you have and it's only going to get you so far." And then once you can replace that belief, that it's like, "Oh, you don't have to do that anymore, this is the way to do it." It was a real identity crisis. It was like, "But wait, no, I'm a hustler. I'm up to 4:00 in the morning, every single morning. You can't take that away from me." But then once the belief shifted, then it was like, "Oh, everything else in life shifted." It was like, "Okay, cool. Now I operate this way." And so that's super, super interesting that you say that because I feel like- Russell: If you look at like what I believe my only role is inside of ClickFunnels literally is for me to stand on stage, to write books, do podcasts, everything so I can get our customers to believe this will work for them. That's it. I know it works for them. But if I get them the tool and they don't believe this is going to work for them, it will not work for them. I get them to believe this works. I'm the head belief, cheerleader. That's all I'm actually doing is trying to take my... Whoever has the most certainty, any circumstance, any situation always wins. So when I come into something, I've got to come with more certainty than them and I've got to prove them I believe it can work and it can work for them. And if I can get them to believe it, then it'll happen. But that's the hardest thing is just the mental thing inside people's head. As soon as they believe it, you see it, because it's like, "Oh, they're struggling, struggling." And all of a sudden something happens, and I believe it'll work for them and holy cow, next thing they know they're Two Comma Club. It's weird. Because it makes sense. You're like, "No, it's just a process." Like, "No, it's a process, but your belief is your fuel and how you attack this thing one way or the other, 100% depends on if you believe is going to work." If I believe that if I write a book, a million people are going to buy it, I can go write a book. If I'm like, "I don't think anyone's going to buy it. What if they don't like it? What if..." I'll spend 25 years writing this book, it's never going to get done. The belief is everything. Josh: ... yeah. Garrett White talks about that with Warrior Way. He's like, "We tell people this isn't the only way, this is A way." And I was talking with my students the other day, I was like, "Hey guys, how many different ways are there to grow your business?" And they're like, "I don't know, thousands of them." I'm like, "Sweet, what's the way you grow their business?" And they're like, "Funnels." Like without even thinking about it. And it was like, "See what Russell did there." He convinced me… Russell: And that took me seven years of preaching consistently to get the market and get people to believe that. But it wasn't that… yeah. It's interesting. Josh: All right. The next question here, and this comes up... I mean this probably came up probably more than anything outside of funnels was how do you manage the relationship with your family and the balance between work and family? Because this is something I think a lot of people struggle with. I didn't even realize that this was a thing until I got married and then I got married and I was like, "Oh, I'm experiencing a little bit of this." And I'm like, I can't imagine like then kids and then being around. So how do you balance your work and your family and overwhelm and burn out and like... I mean there's limited amounts and it seems you can do everything Russell, like cause you're everything over there. So how do you balance that with your family and the work life balance of that? Russell: That's a great question. I get asked that a lot, which is interesting. I think a lot of people... Well I think the big problem is most people who are doing what I do, they have... The area of life they're the entrepreneur, they're killing it, and then the rest of their life's a wreck. Or they just don't talk about the rest of life. No one knows. And so anyway, a couple things is number one, Charfen had us do like a time study before. You ever heard of that before? Josh: Yeah. They were the worst. I hate them so much. Russell: So annoying. Yeah I did it for like three minutes, I was like, "I want to die." But you basically sit down and you start every 15 minutes, you're like, write down what you're doing during the day and really quick you realize, "Oh I'm only actually working two hours a day." And I think the average employee, I think is in two hours and eight hour days is actual productive work, the rest is… Josh: Yeah, something like that. It's super low. Russell: So the first thing is just by default, this is comes from me being a wrestler, right? As a wrestler, we have two hour practice. We got the limited time and I wanted to be the best. So I had to cram as much actual stuff in those small windows as humanly possible. And you know when you're an entrepreneur, you're going on a trip and it's like, "My plane leaves at 2:00, but I got an hour and a half to work." In the hour and a half, you'll get more done than an entire day typically. And so I trick my mind that all the time. So if you look at like a typical eight hour day, like I'm coming in from usually from 9:30, till 5:00, it's like my window that I'm here at the office. When I'm here, I'm super present. But what I do in that window of time is what most people do in a week. Because I don't... People always ask me, "Hey Russell, can I take you to lunch?" I'm like, "You have the luxury of lunch. I've not eaten lunch in, I don't know, decade and a half, I'm working. I quit Uber eats. I keep working. It shows up, I'm eating it. And I keep going." I don't waste time for that crap. I'm in the zone and I'm working and I'm not doodling and texting in a million different things. When I'm doing something, I'm doing the thing. I was up this morning from 5:30, till 7:00, I was writing copy for the new offer. And like, that's what I did by myself. Cranked it out. Seven o'clock, boom, I hear Nora talking, hear the kids getting up. And then I break my presence at the thing and I leave and from 7:00 to like 8:30 ish, I'm a dad. And so I take high school kids in school. I come back and I pick up Nora and I play with her a little bit. And then I get her fed and then Collette's getting her dressed and stuff and I go wake up Aiden and then me and Aiden are hanging out. We're talking about the day. And then Collette takes Ellie to school. Aiden's there. I get in the shower. I get dressed. And by nine o'clock I'm ready to go. And I jump in my car. I come here and then boom, I'm in Russell, like I'm entrepreneur mode and from 9:30 ish till 5;00 I'm here. I'm cranking. My days blocked out. I know everything I got to do during the day. I got a to-do list. I got schedule. Everything's blocked out. I knew from 9:00 to 10:30, me and you were here and I'm present. I'm not looking at 1000... We're here doing the thing, it's going to be done. And then at 10:30, I know exactly what I'm doing. As soon as we're done, I'm not sitting around for 30 minutes, like what should I do next. I know what's going to be happening and I'm going, I'm doing the thing. And so my days are like that. So boom, boom, boom, by the time I get to the end of the day, it's like, "Oh, I got a lot of done today. This is amazing." And then I go home. And when I walk through the door from my car in the garage to the door, I send... Before I walk to the door I stop. And I'm like, "Okay, I got to literally stop for a second." I'm like, I'm getting dad mode. I'm getting husband mode. And I get done and I walk through the door and I'm now a dad and husband. I'm not an entrepreneur. And I go, literally go to every one of my kids in the house. My love language is physical touch. I go give each a hug. I go give my wife a hug. And then I'm there. And from that time I'm dad till 9:00 and then from 9:00 to 11:00 I'm husband and 11 o'clock I'm in bed waiting for the next day. And so it's just, I'm really good at chunking time. And I'm not perfect. Some days I'll get depressed or I'll get tired or burned out or whatever, and I don't hit it. But for the most part, I would say I'm pretty consistent in getting a lot of stuff done in the windows that I got. Josh: That's super, super interesting. Being present and being present at work, being present at home, that balance that once again, something Katie talked about a lot is just like, be fully present with where you are and then set boundaries. Having those clear for that Russell: You ask my wife too, I'm not perfect at it, but I try to let things bleed from thing to thing. I try that when I walk through the garage door at night that I'm done with work and I'm home and then, you know what I mean? Josh: Yeah. Russell: And I think that's what most people don't do is like, it all just mushes together where they're doing everything. So everything becomes done inefficiently. I was listening to Dan Kennedy actually yesterday. He's like, "Would you hire a doctor who is going to do surgery on you, and while he's doing surgery, he's watching YouTube video and he's eating something on the side?" He's like, "No, you want presence if you're going to hire someone." Same thing, if you want to build a funnel, you need your designer and everyone who's doing this to have laser focus. You don't want them doing these other things because you need their full attention and presence. Josh: That's awesome. This one's from Paul Vanblum He says, and I'm going to paraphrase this here because... But how do you modify your behavior? Which is, like maybe you've got this thing that you... I don't know, scroll Facebook too much and you just can't seem to quit. I'm sure that's not a problem for you, but how do you go through it actually change or modify behavior? Because it sounds like a lot of your life is routine. Is that true? You figure out the process that works and then you go until it needs to change. And then it's just you pick the next process. So how do you go through and modify behavior that you want to be able to change? Russell: That's a big section of the new book that's coming out someday in the future. So this is a reality is that the shorter versions if we're running close on time is understanding that we do things that meet our needs. And so we had to figure out, how are our needs being met? Talked about this at Funnel Hacking Live a little bit with Tony Robbins, Six Human Needs, right? Like if any... I wish I could geek out on this for like two hours. Maybe this would be the first topic for next time we do this. Josh: Yeah. I was going to say maybe we do that. Russell: That'd be fun. But there's six human needs and there's four needs of the body. And anytime three of the four needs of the body are met, it creates a physical addiction inside you. So if you're scrolling Facebook all day long, it's because it's meeting a need. Like you're getting certainty from it. You're getting significance from it. And you're probably getting love and connection from it. So three of your four needs are being met... And variety, all four of your needs are being met by scrolling Facebook. So it's creating a physical addiction. So for you to break that physical addiction, it's not going to be easy unless you replace it with another physical addiction that you enjoy more. So it's like I have to replacing that. I can't just just willpower it out and got this thing out and be gone. It's like, I'm trying to get my needs met somewhere. And so they're getting met there, I'm good. So I need to get met somewhere else to replace it. It's a lot of people get their needs met by eating. And so they keep eating, eating, and they want to lose weight and they can't lose weight because all their needs are met there. And so until they replace those needs somewhere else, they're going to keep defaulting to that. Again, we can geek on that for a long time, but that's the core root of it. Is it fulfills your need until you get those needs met somewhere else you're going to keep falling back to it over and over and over again. Josh: All right. Last two, super rapid fire questions. Number one. What is the top, the number one or... I'll give you top three, because number one's impossible. Top three books outside of your own that someone must read? Outside of your own because duh obviously is DotcomSecrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Secrets. Thinking bio... Russell: Oh, depends on which area of your life looking at. I just bought... I spent a... not a small, a pretty big fortune buying the Napoleon Hill thing. So I'm in the middle of this Napoleon Hill like Deep Dive. Can I give you my three best Napoleon Hill books because that's all I got right now. Josh: There you go. All right, modify the question, three best Napoleon Hill books? Russell: Everything else seems like a distraction. So for me Outwitting the Devil is the best thing he's ever written. It is insanely good and very, very practical. Think and Grow Rich, I've been revisiting and like, oh, it's so good. And then the Laws of Success is not a book. It's a book series, which I now own. Oh my gosh. I don't know if I've even told you this yet. I think I showed you a quick picture, but- Josh: You showed me a video, yeah. Russell: ... The Laws of Success was published in 1928. I have his version that he wrote in 1925 before he sent it to the editors or publishers, first edition signed that he printed at a schoolhouse here in my possession. It's insane. Josh: I can't wait to visit your library bro. Oh my gosh. It's crazy. Russell: But those are the three. I would start with Outwitting the Devil because I'll make you fall in love with Napoleon Hill, then go Think and Grow Rich. And if you love that, then go into Laws of Success' it's like a longer form version of stuff, but it's... Ah, he's my favorite right now. Josh: All right, last question for you. And we all know the answer to this, but I thought it was a great last question to end on just to make sure in business, in marketing, in success for all of success, what's the number one skillset that someone must learn? Russell: Oh, persuasion. Josh: Persuasion. Russell: It's learning how to tell a story in a way that gets people to move. Because everything else, like I can outsource all the rest of it. But like I said, we're talking about creating the offer for the Magnetic Marketing. It's the story, the persuasion, the thing that's going to get people to move. And that... Because that weaves into your funnel, weaves into your email, like weaves into how you get your team to move. How you get your community. All the stuff comes down to that skillset of learning how to persuade people. Josh: Awesome. Well, Russell, I think that wraps it up. We'll see what the audience says. But that is a fun run. Russell: That was really fun, man. I appreciate that. This has been a good day. I woke up this morning working, have a ton of energy. This has been a lot of fun energy. I appreciate you appreciate it. And if you guys like these episodes like this, let us know and we'll do it again. This was kind of a test drive to see if you enjoyed it. Josh: Yeah, you got to let us know guys. Russell: And I had a lot of fun. So hopefully you did too. Josh: Was this was super fun. Yeah, man, for sure. It was good chatting with you and everybody go buy Russell stuff and ClickFunnels and all the things because it'll make you tons and tons of money and that's it. That's just the end of it. Russell: That's the real reason we did this… I wanted you to pitch the stuff so I didn't have to awkwardly tell people to buy it. Thank you so much. Josh: Okay. Everybody go buy stuff right now. It is amazing. That's my pitch. The first thing you're going to get is you're going to get a change of belief. The second thing you're going to get is you're going to get, I don't know what it is, a step by step process of the marketing bible. The third thing you're going to get is increase the status because Russell will like you. Boom there's my pitch. Russell: Boom. What more do you want in life? Come on now. Josh: Yeah, you can't imagine. All right, Russell. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate your time and we'll talk to you soon. Russell: Awesome. Thank you too.
A new way to look at the “big domino” and how it'll help you function as an entrepreneur. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ClubHouseWithRussell.com ---Transcript--- What's up everybody, good morning. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. Today, I want to talk about something that I know all of us entrepreneurs deal with a lot, which is pressure and noise. If you listen to Alex Charfen, if you studied him, the entrepreneur personality type, he talks a lot about how entrepreneurs, when you are able to lower pressure and noise, you can do greatness. You can change the world, but when the pressure and noise gets higher, it gets really difficult. And oftentimes it turns into chaos and into bad things. And so I talk about that during this episode, because I'm in definitely a state of increased pressure noise and I want to talk about what I'm doing to deal with it and how it's helping. So with that said, I'm going to cue up the theme song. When we come back, we're going to dive deep. All right. So sure, like most of you and every... Okay, what step you are in your entrepreneurial journey? If you are beginning, if you are growing, if you are scaling, if you are selling, if you are buying, if you were like, whatever you're doing, there are times when you have increased pressure and noise. And Alex Charfen's one of my friends, I love his stuff. He was one of our head coaches for two comma club, X coaching program for a while. And he has a whole message, he talks about entrepreneurial personality types, EPT as he calls it, people like us. and he always says, "You're not broken, you're not weird, you're just different. You're and entrepreneur and that's okay." And in his teachings, he talks a lot about just how entrepreneurs, a lot of times we think we're crazy. And like a lot of times entrepreneurs are the ones who snap and go crazy and go off the deep end and other times they're the ones who are creating the most amazing things in the world. And he talks about there's this fine line between greatness and chaos, right? And for entrepreneurs, the biggest thing you do is you have to if you can decrease the pressure noise around you, then you can succeed. But when the pressure noise goes up, that's where you typically, they crash and burn. If you think about if you've had a chance to crash and burn a business or two, you probably know it was during a season or a time of increased pressure noise, and it's hard to handle it. And that's when things happened, right? That's why it's so important to build a team and to have people around you and things help support you to decrease the pressure noise so you can succeed. So there's a little mini chunk out of Charfen's training so you guys understand kind of the context I'm talking about. But in my life over the last 30 days, has been an insane, increase in pressure noise. I can't talk about all the things, but people I love who I work with daily, or who have had health issues that I was not expecting, there's that. And then we just finished our first acquisition and we were in the middle of our second acquisition, so new companies coming in. We also have Funnel Hacking Live in 30 days. We also have a new coaching program that we are changing. We also have, I can't tell you all the things, there's a lot of stuff and it's exciting. And it's partially, it's the most exciting time of the business, right? I just have so many fun things and so many things I'm excited for it. But then on the other side, man, between all these things, I was not planning over the last 30 days the pressure and noise and things have gone up dramatically. And I don't know about you guys, but it's made it for me it's hard to sleep at night. I lay there in bed I'm so tired but I can't sleep because there's just these things happening and all the stuff and the stress and all the balls you're juggling, you don't want to drop them, right? And I'm curious, have you guys ever felt that before? And for me, the last month it's been hard to sleep. And then I come into the office and there's so many things to do that half of them I don't know where to start and there's this and there's this and there's this and all of them are on fire. And it's overwhelming sometimes. And so it's interesting because by default I want to get things done so I go and I start working, I'm trying to get task after task. But it seems like an insurmountable thing. And so earlier this week, I had a thought, and you guys have heard me talk about the big domino before, right? In every sales presentation, it's one big domino. If you can knock down that one domino, it takes care of everything else and all the other dominoes fall down. And it's true in selling, but it's true in a lot of aspects of life, right? And I started looking at all my big, huge tasks and all the things. Each to do had like 500 little sub to do's. Instead of looking at all the sub to do's, I started looking at the bigger tasks with bigger project and saying, "Okay, what's the one big domino I can do that's going to knock down all these little tasks?" There's no way I can do all of them, it's virtually impossible. What is the big domino or who is the big domino? Who is the person that's going to come that could take this off of my plate? What's been interesting is to be able to look at this differently, I've had to completely slow down, which has been hard for me because I'm like, "I'm not going to make it to the finish line if I stop." But at the same time, I'm not going to make the finish line no matter what. So, it's forced me to stop and say, "I got to find the person or the thing or whatever that's going to knock this thing down." It's made me sit there in my thoughts for a lot longer, which has been good. And I've often thought of how do I get done with the task? The thought is like, "Who is the person I can find it or what's the process or thing I need to do that gets rid of all the other tasks so I can actually make it to the finish line?" And as I've been doing that, it's been interesting because sometimes you ask better questions, you get better answers. And so that's the question I started asking. And all of a sudden the answer started coming clear and it was like, "Okay, well if I had a person for here, this would make all these things disappear." I'm like, "Well, who's the person for that? I don't know somebody." And it's like, "Okay, let's think." And sitting in your thoughts and thinking and thinking and praying and thinking and trying to figure things out. And all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, what about this person? Or how about this? Or how about this?" Or literally one of the things was a text message from a friend who was like, "Hey, there's this person you should meet." And it's like, "Oh my gosh, that person I think is the big domino is can knock down this set of things for me." And it's been interesting because this week I had a whole task list of stuff I had to get done and I had not had a chance to do my tasks yet. But I've had longer meetings, which I hate meetings. Typically, I have slow two to three hour meetings with certain people to build a relationship, to be able to hand the reins to somebody to then go and knock down the domino for me. And I can tell you Friday was the first time this happened. I remember leaving Friday and it was the first night I was just not stressed. When I left, I was like, "Oh my gosh, this might be possible." And today I did it again and it's like, "Okay, this might actually be possible." And it wasn't for me speeding up or spending more hours or doing more things. It was me stopping, stepping back and trying to figure out the big domino. So for you guys, as you are entrepreneurs and you have increased pressure noise, and you're stressing about all the things, I want to encourage you to slow down, or maybe even stop for a moment and look at those tasks differently. Not from "How in the world am I going to get get this done, where am I going to find the extra time?" But, "Who is the big domino or what is the big domino that if I can figure that out, it makes all these other ones irrelevant." And that's been the thing for me that's keeping me sane. It's getting me excited and helping me to now finally starting to see the finish line again. Like, "Oh my gosh, it's there, I can see it, it's possible, you're saying there's a chance I could actually make it to the end." And so, as I'm getting through that and again, I spent two and a half hours meeting somebody today and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I feel better. I'm going to probably sleep tonight a little bit. I'm pumped about that." It made me think I'm going to stop for a second and just do a quick podcast for my people, because I'm sure some of you guys are in that same season. If you're not now, you will be soon. And so just remembering the big domino concept in a way that you can solve these kind of problems for yourself. So I hope that helps, I hope that was useful. I'm grateful for all you guys for listening, for subscribing, for paying attention. I'm trying to serve you at my highest level and sometimes it's overwhelming, but I feel like we're doing good work. And I feel like the fruits of this stuff that we're creating for you guys right now is going to change a lot of lives, hopefully your life. So keep your eyes out. Everything from Funnel Hacking Live until January of 20, whatever next year is, 2022, it's going to be a crazy ride. You'll see a lot of stuff happened and it's going to be, fun. So I'm pumped. I'm pumped to show you what we've been working on. That's all I got. There's the tease. All right, appreciate you all each for listening and we'll talk to you all soon. Bye, everybody.
On the final day of the Charfen Summit, we gathered our members together for a unique opportunity to simplify their businesses so that they can grow and scale like crazy. Alex Charfen, a business growth coach who helps entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses, gives practical, tangible, and actionable tips that you can implement into your business right now. As we conclude this virtual event, we are going to ask what our members are going to go back into their businesses and implement. This is a unique opportunity for you to peek behind the curtain of the Charfen Summit and get key insights into what these incredible entrepreneurs are doing to create a massive impact on the world. In this podcast, you will learn what entrepreneurs around the world are doing right now to clarify where they are, create a plan to create the future, and execute like crazy. Your business has the potential to change the world, and the only way to see that potential become a reality is to implement a strategic plan. If you're ready to learn more, go to https://predictableplanningsystem.com/pps/pps-reg/ to get started. Our entrepreneurial journey doesn't end here! Be sure to check out our Facebook Community filled with entrepreneurs just like you who are getting into momentum and building world-changing empires ---> https://charfen.com/community If you are an entrepreneur who is listening in and you can relate, then be sure and head over to https://momentumplanner.com/mps and gain access to one of the most requested business tools to grow and scale your business in any market condition, even in this one.
When a team collectively cares about the shared goal of the company, and they transparently share their feelings, they will always create momentum. Alex Charfen, a business growth coach who helps entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses, gives practical, tangible, and actionable tips that you can implement into your business right now. This is a special look inside the Charfen Daily Huddle on a very important day in our company. We are launching a new product and this is the first day we are doing webinars to sell it. We have worked for months to create a product that will help entrepreneurs create a strategic plan for their business so that they can grow and scale predictably. By the end of this 10-minute podcast episode, you will understand: - How entrepreneurs can cast a vision for their team so that they can unify the team around the contribution they want to make in the world. - How entrepreneurs around the world need a strategic plan in order to maximize their momentum and make their greatest contribution. - How to use a small portion of intentional time to create the maximum amount of momentum for your team. The Momentum Podcast is created specifically for entrepreneurs like you to get into momentum and take the rest of the world with you. If this episode helped you do that, take a moment and leave a review. Let us know how we have helped you make a bigger impact on the world. Your business has the potential to change the world, and the only way to see that potential become a reality is to implement a strategic plan. If you're ready to learn more, go to https://predictableplanningsystem.com/pps/pps-reg/ to get started. Our entrepreneurial journey doesn't end here! Be sure to check out our Facebook Community filled with entrepreneurs just like you who are getting into momentum and building world-changing empires ---> https://charfen.com/community If you are an entrepreneur who is listening in and you can relate, then be sure and head over to https://momentumplanner.com/mps and gain access to one of the most requested business tools to grow and scale your business in any market condition, even in this one.
Nobody has a marketing problem. Everybody has a relationship problem either with themselves, their teams or their customers informed in that order. And I don't have a relationship problem. I don't have a marketing problem, but I also have to look at everything from a place of, is this serving me? Is this serving my team? And is this serving you? There are times where I have to pull back and take a peak.I have to pull back and look at the field. I can play my best game. I can be at my optimum performance level. But I always have to take a zoom back and be like, was that the most effective way that I could play that game? Could I have done it better? Could I have recovered faster? Could I've paced myself differently? Could I have hydrated differently? Could I have stretched? Could I have played a different play? That's our job as entrepreneurs.Do an audit of your business, look at your business, look at where you're spending your time. Do an audit of your time. As my buddy, Alex, Charfen teaches you find out where you're spending your time and ask yourself, is this moving the needle on my business? Is this the best way to do this? Could this be more efficient? Could I change this? Could this. Support my customers better. What does my team think? What am I customers thing, but I want you to take a day, put in your calendar, but 30 minutes it put an hour and it put two hours and it put the whole day in it. And I want you to objectively look at your life and look at your business. Like you're watching a movie and I want you to watch it from the outside. And I want you to check and I want you to look at it. And I want you to check in, is this the best use of my time? Is this align to my goals? Is this a line to my vision?Is this a line to what I said I wanted is my team aligned? Are my customers aligned? Do I really need to be doing that? Do I have to be on 17 social media platforms? Do I have to post eight times a day because the algorithm set it, do I have to do that? Can I do this? What if I did this? What it would look like? And I want you to play. I want to watch the movie and be the director of it. And I want you to find opportunity. I want you to find possibility. I want you to check your alignment. I want you to check your pastor. I want you to check your gas tank and be like, yes, I'm supposed to be doing this. I'm going to do more of it, that thing there's gotta be a better way. Or maybe there's a technology now, or maybe I can update that process or maybe I can cut back some time. And I'm doing that. you're the director of your life. You're the director of your movie. You're the director of your business. And only you can make it seen change. Only you can reshoot a scene only you can do it, but you have to be able to step back and observe.I want you to watch your business and watch your life and watch anything, your workout, your diet, your meals, your time, your family, time, anything. And I want you to watch it objectively like loving the story that you've written and loving the movie that you've made. And they'd be like, God. Can I make it better? Can I adjust it? Can I tell a better story? Can I make a different ending? Can I do anything? And then start making those adjustments, make a plan, commit and execute because there is one guarantee that I can give you in your life and in your business. And that's changed evitable and the faster you fall in love with it. And the faster you learn to use it as a tool, the faster the path to happiness and success, protect your foundations, protect your principles Like my non-negotiables that I'm always going to be doing this podcast. Like, and I say always, but like for the foreseeable future, I'm always going to talk about customer journey and marketing, and I'm always going to serve with value.Those are non-negotiables, but how I do it and the effectiveness of that I can look at all the time. Like if my job is to cook food fo people and to feed people, I'm always going to cook. I'm always going to feed people. I'm going to protect that, but then I can always do an audit, like. Can I better source ingredients? Can I better prepare it? Can I change the order? Can I deliver it better? Can I make that recipe differently? Can I change the volume? Can I make it last longer? Can I stretch it out? Like there's so many things that you can do.Don’t be afraid to do an audit and to make an adjustment, because if you get set and romantic, like this is the only way I have to do it this way, I have to do it this way. I have to do it this way. It puts your blinders on like a horse. And the only thing you see. Is what you're focusing on and you miss the opportunities that are surrounding you, and you always, as a business owner, as a human, as an entrepreneur, have to take a moment and widen your gaze and just witness just to witness what's happening, what's around you and what adjustments can be made. And then your job as the director is to choose. Should I make that adjustment? Should I not? How should I do it? How should I implement it? And then you go again, you shoot the scene and you check. Was that the winner? Look at how you've directed itself, far. Check the director's cut. See if you want to make any tweaks. See if you want to reshoot some scenes or see if you want to produce the movie and just give yourself that perspective
Are you feeling anxious? Or are you one of the calmest entrepreneurs in the room? I always remind our members and my team that the calmest entrepreneur in the room is the one that people will turn to. There is one thing I have experienced in working with entrepreneurs. When there is a crisis, or a last-minute “fire” shows up, entrepreneurs have this bias towards rapid, overwhelming reaction? We are the first to drop everything and drive home a solution. We often say things like... “How fast can I do something?” “What do I need to do?” Is this you or someone you know? I know I can relate, and if you can connect, I want you to know that you are not alone. Have you been showing up reactive lately? Do you ever feel accelerated? Do you feel a bit anxious at times? Do you feel like you need to unwind? It’s essential for us and others that we remain aware of how we show up. If you are showing up this way it will be ok. I invite you to check out our triple 7 breathing protocol to shift this feeling.
Welcome back to another episode of the mind of George show. Oh, and today's topic. Today's topic is timely. I didn't even know what to title today's topic. So I played with something along planning to win and thriving through setbacks. Also known as in my current life strapping in my seatbelt, tighter to enjoy the ride on the roller coaster because no matter what. Life, business and everything is going to be a ride. And the only way to enjoy it is to see it as a ride take in the sights and sounds as you're going over the Hills and just wait for it to stop, to unbuckle yourself, to look back and figure out what's next. Oh man. Oh, so let me tell you about my day. So what did I have for breakfast?I had a German chocolate cake for breakfast and not even out of a place of stress, but just out of a place of wallet. We are moving. In seven days, six days. And so I tell everybody the joke right now is we are road tripping from California to Montana, with four horses, three snakes, two kids, and one wife, but then come to find out, we're leaving a couple of the horses here, cause we don't want to move them into the middle of Montana in the winter. The snakes are coming with us over a four day road trip with the two kids, hotels, Airbnbs. And once we get to Montana, we're staying in a tree house for three days before we moved to a temporary house for three weeks. And then. Another temporary house for four months while we keep looking for homes, because it's crazy right now. And I've just been laughing a lot and I love it. And it's amazing. And I realized that I've been laughing because the amount of work that I've put in and over the years on being slow fluid versus rigid and understanding this game, and then it's just a game and that there's going to be times that things feel like they're killing me.And there's things that feel like they're weighing my chest out and feel like the world is ending and it's going to feel like there's no option. But there always is. And somehow if I look back on my life, my business, my successes, but also my lessons where I've made lots of money, but also lost lots and lots of money and made business lessons and decisions that weren't supportive or didn't have the ideal circumstances or outcome, then all those feelings were there, but eventually they were gone. And when I look back and reflect, there were lessons aligned with them. And so what I wrote today was how do we plan and thrive through setbacks or potential setbacks? And one of the things that I became a fan of a couple of years ago was stoicism.Reading about stoicism and understanding stoicism and reading Marcus Aurelius and doing a lot of things and adopting certain takeaways into my life. I am not a big proponent of that as the way, or that's the philosophy or that's the belief system. What I'm a big proponent of is individually all of us becoming students and then taking things that work for us from those different things too, create our own original, unique way of living.And so one of the things that I have really been focusing on and falling in love with his patients and enjoying the ride, and that's literally where today's episode comes from. And so in stoicism, they say momentum, or it's a reminder that you're going to die like that nothing is permanent and that we are on this path, but also to do an inventory of everything in our life and to not leave anything to chance, not leave anything unsaid, to not explore something to literally be like, Hey, this is it. And so what I've taken to adopt out of that is that no matter what happens from this point in my life, in an hour, from now a week from now a month from how I have no control over some circumstances, but I do have awareness that they're going to come.And that they're going to happen and that things are inevitable. And the more aware I am of the entire field that I'm playing on, the better prepared I am, when that situation arises to thrive through it, it was a really good book. I love Scott Carney wrote it. Scott Carney is an author who wrote a book that is called what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger, which is about cold therapy. And a little bit of introduction into what he calls the wedge. And then he just published a new book called the wedge and the wedge is exactly what I'm talking about today. It's where you basically train your central nervous system. So when you're hit with a trigger, like my ad account got shut down, my business is ending,my employee quit. They're seizing my assets that,we have the ability to stay in that moment without reacting to it. So we can become aware of our situation and choose how to respond, which is what led me to today's episode. And so when I look back at. What I've survived through, them wanting to amputate my legs in 2005 to being in a wheelchair for 12 months and being told I'd never walk again to struggling with an eating disorder for most of my life, to being an addict with opiates, to, I'm attempting suicide and all of those things, what was surrounding those moments and looking back on them. Why I've always been here and been able to pick myself back up is I've always been really keen to do an inventory of what's coming and what's to happen. So I'm familiar with it and it never feels like I'm getting blindsided or punched in the face. And as an entrepreneur, I willingly give up.Quote, unquote safety and security in exchange for ambiguity. I give up a steady paycheck to then have to create my own. I give up the health insurance and benefits and retirement plan that might come from working on building somebody else's vision to build my own and have to recreate it. And that means I also give up my clarity or my confidence to other people and I own it, which means that if I want safety, I have to create safety. If I want to plan, I have to create a plan. If I want to thrive through setbacks, I have to be aware of the setbacks and have a plan because at the end of the day, whether you work for somebody you're work for yourself, the buck always stops with you.Pick a book. Jocko. Does this extreme ownership, personal development, does this a hundred percent responsible, a hundred percent of the time. It doesn't really matter. But the buck stops here. And so one of the ways to win and to thrive is to realize that in this situation I am knowingly and willingly living a life of ambiguity.Stating that as my buddy, Alex, Charfen says, I'm going to go out into the future and get really clear on what I want to exist. And then I'm going to come into the present and I'm in a build it every day until it becomes a reality, which also means that there is not this set roadmap. There is not this set measure. There is not this container that if it doesn't work will be fall back upon, and that's what it takes. And that's the choice that I make every day. When I say I'm quote unquote, an entrepreneur, or I say that somebody else said this I'm unemployable. And so in that I think the most important step of all of this is understanding the field of the game that we're choosing to play. And so for me, the first part of planning and thriving through setbacks is awareness. Because when I look at that and I understand that the nature of the field of the game that I'm playing is guaranteed. Setbacks are guaranteed resistance or roadblocks because there are lessons and there's things that I'm bumping up against.And there is no perfection. There is no perfect plan except the one that we put into practice. And there is no certainty except the certainty in which I create. And so the way that I look at this is the more time I spend aware of myself in a relationship with myself, where I'm spending my time, the nature of where I spend my time, how I spend my time. I have a really clear, accurate picture of how to plan and mitigate setbacks. And so I wrote this down into four steps on how I would recommend somebody plan and plan to win and thrive through setbacks. And literally as I reflect on I'd call maybe 15 to 20 years ago, Personal development work and experience here from like my first combat deployment, which was in 2004.So 16, 17 years, 17 years of really becoming aware of myself and the work that I do, I broke it down into four steps. And so number one is a famous Mike's Mike Tyson quote, right? Number one is everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. But this is my awareness game, everybody has this plan to go play this perfect sport or have this perfect boxing match or this perfect fight. But if you never plan to get punched in the face, and then it happens, you are off your game and you will lose. But if you know that there's a chance that you get punched in the face, and there's a chance that you get knocked down, then you have the ability to recover or have a plan or a fallback to mitigate that.And so here's what I can tell you. I guarantee you, uncertainty is coming. I guarantee you resistance is coming. I guarantee you. I guarantee you that ambiguity will always exist. And the easiest way to mitigate it is being aware that it's coming as in stoicism doing a memento Mori, or as I call it for my mastermind students and people that I mentor and I work with, I call it the stinky fish.We've talked about this before. And so the first thing is understanding that you need to have a plan and you need to have a plan for every conceivable scenario. There's a chance that your product works or doesn't work. There's a chance that hire works or doesn't work. There is a chance that employee is going to embezzle money and steal from you. But there's also a chance that employee is going to take your company to the next level and be the best culture forever. And no matter what you can't guarantee, either outcome, you can just plan for whatever scenario comes to fruition. You have an action or a solution for, because that's what we do as leaders.And so step one for planning to win and thrive through setbacks is making sure that you have a plan and knowing that you're going to get metaphorically punched in the mouth, right? Hopefully not physically, but like no matter what. I can guarantee you that as long as I own an automobile, there's a really good chance that I'm going to get a flat tire or it's going to break down. And so if I get a flat tire, I'm not going to go slash the other three. I'm aware that I got a flat tire. I'm going to change it. And I'm going to move on because I have a plan. So step one. Is doing an inventory and knowing what situations might come and arise in any moment, whether you're planning a holiday trip, whether you are getting ready to take two weeks off of work, whether you're doing quarterly planning for your business or yearly planning, if you're doing an event, if you're doing a team culture thing, like no matter what, you have to look at the field that you're playing your game on and do an inventory across the field of everything that could potentially happen.And I don't put this on paper. I just think through it, I'm like, Oh yeah, I could totally be doing my mastermind event and lose power. I could totally have the chef not show up at the food. One of my team members could not make it because their flight got canceled and they were responsible for this.Like I have to be aware of every possible scenario so I can also be aware of the solution. So step one is awareness doing an inventory? Call it what you want, putting out the fears, the uncertainty, the resistance onto the table. And understanding what game you're playing, because that is a game. Step two is you have to practice the wedge.Step two is you have to practice being comfortable. Being uncomfortable. You have to practice sitting with this comfort. One of my, one of my teachers, one of my friends, one of my business partners, who's been on the podcast, Stefano Stephano says he says this to me all the time. If you want to deepen your service, deepen your practice. And it was like, get it right. And I'll never forget, I will call him or message him. Dude, I'm having a panic attack. Oh my God, like the world is ending. What do I do? And he's sit with it, lean into it, go deeper into it. And what he's basically saying to me is If I have this fear, or if something happens like an employee quits or something let's say my ad account gets shut down in that current moment. I'm not going to get the ad account. Cut, shut back down in that current moment. My is not coming back in that current moment where I realized I lost 10 grand on an ad. I'm not going to get it back there in that current moment, the only decision I make will be reactionary like reactionary based on my emotions.And it will be not clear. It will be clouded. And so what he's saying is when that happens, I need to sit with it entail. I am aware and I can respond, not react, which is why Scott Carney calls it, the wedge. And so one of the things that I do is I practice being in sitting. So if I get triggered today, like if something comes across my desk, like this is broken up, I literally look at him.I hear you. I'll get back to you in a couple of days. Okay. And I put it in my calendar for 24 hours in the future, which means like right now, currently I'll share an example. We're moving. So I sold my car and the BMW dealership is trying to Git me out of $5,000 that they owe me for a warranty I never used.And so I'm like, cool. And I literally. Gut, extremely angry and upset. And I was like, but anything I do in this moment is not going to work. So I set it in my calendar for tomorrow 24 hours in the future to look at it and be like, okay, what's the plan? What steps can I take? What, who do I have to call? But anything I do today, isn't going to solve the problem. It's probably going to make it worse. So what I'm doing is practicing that wedge. I'm still uncomfortable. I still have a little bit of anxiety about it, but I've acknowledged it. And so now I'm choosing to work on my business, record this podcast and go through that, knowing that it's scheduled for a date in the future, and I'll have time to process my emotions, to feel the emotions and to ride the roller coaster of them, which is a gift as a human being is to be able to ride the roller coaster of emotions because we modulate.And then when I come back to it, I will be clear because I have practiced sitting. And if I've paused and I come back, I don't have an emotional attachment. I don't have a knee jerk reaction. I'll probably have a lot of clarity. The path will be simple. I'll be able to have a healthy understanding of what I need to do or what can be done. And then I make an appropriate course of action based on that information and not my emotional response. And so I will be able to look at the situation as a set of ingredients for a recipe instead of a fire that I have to fight in the moment.So step number one is plan or do an inventory of everything that could possibly come up. So you're aware of it. So when it happens, you don't feel like you blindsided step number two is when it does happen, create and practice your wedge. Practice sitting with it, practice being with it. Don't try to make the feeling, go away, explore the feeling like I literally, if you're watching this, I'm sitting in my chair right now in my beautiful pink hoodie, but one of the things will happen is I'll get a call or I'll get off a call and I'll have this gut feeling. And so I literally will look down at my belly. I will hold it and I'll be like, what is that? What is that? And I will literally just sit here and explore it. And sometimes I get an answer and sometimes I don't, but just paying attention to it allows me to be exploring it rather than giving meaning to it and then reacting or acting based on that feeling.And so step number one is doing inventory of everything that's going to come. Step. Number two is practice your wedge, have a pause period for big decisions. Don't don't make a decision or a knee jerk reaction, wait until you've marinated on it. And the emotion has been removed. So you can look add it like it's an ingredient and then choose how you're going to respond, which then when you can look at it as an ingredient, you ask yourself these questions.So step number three is to ask yourself, right? And so what do you ask yourself? But when you look at the situation, you can look at what worked, what didn't work and what will I do differently next time. And so let's say you did a launch. And you're 24 hours post-launch or maybe you're an hour post-launch who did a webinar and you're like, Oh my God, nobody bought right.My webinars, a failure, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's actually happened to me a couple of weeks ago. My webinars, a failure. I suck my slides. Suck. I need to do it again. It's ah, She was like, Nope, leave it. So I put it for 24 hours later and I sat down with my journal and I was like, what worked, what didn't work? And what did I do differently? Or what will I do differently? And then I realized that there was a lot of things that did work. I had a whole lot of people show up for the webinar. I had the most amazing feedback from the webinar. People loved it. They put it into practice and I was like what didn't work? Not as many people bought, as I thought. And I had to really look at it differently. And then I was like, what would I do differently? And then I realized that when I made the offer, it was super confusing because I had, I gave people three options and I only should've given them one. And then I also made it really hard to join.And so I looked at it and I was like, Oh, we can totally do this differently. And so I was able to observe from a very high level without being emotionally attached to it, like just the ingredients on the field. And so I say ingredients all the time, because cooking is the analogy I use cause if I have these ingredients and I follow this recipe and I put it in the oven and I take it out and I don't like the result, I'm not going to never cook again.I'm just going to really be like, okay what was it? I was like, Oh, was that the right ingredient? Or did I not follow the process or did it not bake long enough? But if I look at it long enough, I can come to a conclusion or make a hypothesis like, Oh wow. It's a little overdone. Which means it wasn't the ingredients. It wasn't the process. It was the oven and the oven was either, it was too hot. Or it was in too long. And so I can make an adjustment and then try it again. But maybe the texture is good, but the taste is off and you're like, Oh, it's not the bake time. It's also not the process. And you look at the ingredients like, Oh, if I just reduce that and then do it again, I'll get a desirable result.And so I like to use ingredients and recipes as an analogy because they work everywhere in business. And so step three is to look at it as a measure of ingredients, process and result, which if you're familiar with lean six Sigma, they call this the model, but you just look at it as ingredients. And then the process and then the result, and you ask yourself what worked, what didn't work and what would I do differently.And then when you get the answers to all of those questions, you move into step four and step four is you take those ingredients. You take the answers to those questions you solve for what you can, and then you plan for the rest and take action. And that's the path and that will always be our path in every single thing that we do.So step one is, before you do anything. To plan before you do anything, you look at I'm about to do this launch. I'm about to take this trip. I'm about to hire this person. I'm about to boom, and you become aware of everything that could potentially come up and you don't have to do anything. You just have to have awareness of it. Uncertainties coming, resistance is coming, it might not launch, the supplier might be late and then you look at it. And then you practice your wedge when you know, it's coming okay, what happens if this does come, I'm going to practice? Oh, I'm just going to be uncomfortable.I might have a little anxiety. There might be some unknown. This is how I'm going to deal with it. But I'm going to look at the situations ingredients, and then step three, you're going to look at yourself in whatever situation, once it happens. And you're going to ask yourself, wow, okay. I planned for that. It worked. It was great. This didn't work well. What worked? What didn't work? What would I do differently? And so you're assessing after the situation or after something comes or after the launch happens or after the suppliers later, not late in any situation and you're auditing what was there, what worked, what didn't work, what will I do differently? And then you're taking those ingredients that you're aware of by looking at, the ingredients, the process, and the result. Then you're taking the answer to those questions of Hey, what worked that created this awesome result. Let's keep that. What didn't work. Let's get rid of that and replace that.What would I do differently? Let's add that. And then you solve for what you can, you plan for the rest and then you act. And then you take an action again. And so to use an analogy of cooking, let's say I bake a pound cake and I think a pound cake is a pound of flour, a pound of sugar, a pound of butter. I don't remember. But let's say I bake a pound cake, or maybe no, I'll do something else. I want a pineapple upside down cake. Let's say I bake a pineapple upside down cake. I have, yellow cake batter. I have some Brown sugar, a little bit of an ELA, some cherries, I don't, I haven't been a food blogger for a long time.And so I mix the ingredients that tells me to beat them in a stand mixer. I do tells me to put them in a pan let it come to room temperature. I do tells me to put it in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. I do tells me to pull it out and let it rest for 10 minutes. I do. And then flip it over and check it while I pull it out.I flip it over and check it. And it's under cooked. If it's under cooked, I'm not going to go back and be like, I'm never making this again. Or I'm changing all the ingredients. I literally am like if I can put it back in the oven, I will let me put it back in the oven. If I can't, because I already took it out of the pan, which I shouldn't have done, I should have given it the toothpick test.If I kept it in the pan, I can give it more time in the oven. And then I look at it, I'm like, Oh wow. In my oven, or for whatever reason. This is here. So next time, let me bake it for the same time, but let me check it in the oven. And then I'll make an adjustment for five more minutes. And you might realize that your oven, because of your temperature at your location takes 55 minutes instead of 50, right? That's it. And then you make an adjustment for the next time, but med say you bake it and it's literally an edible and you look at it, you're like, what's wrong. And you're like, God, it tastes like salt. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. And then you go back and realize, wow, I accidentally put salt in the sugar measurement.It said four tablespoons of sugar, but I use salt. Oh, that's not going to taste good. Let me remake it and make sure my ingredients are good. Put it through the same process. So what you give yourself as a very clear, measurable path on what adjustments to make, and that puts you in a position of power, because here's what I will say. I am nowhere near the finish line of my life. If I look at myself as somebody who became a student of life and consciousness and healing to, I can teach it. On that grade of zero to a hundred, I'd give myself 2%. I've maybe 2% of the game figured out and I got 98% to go. But in that 2%, what I have figured out is that the biggest secret to my success, my happiness, my joy, and my results always boils down to awareness.And the way that I look at life is that awareness is the finish line. Because once you are aware, you have all the ingredients required to choose how to act. And so for me, when I think about planning to win and thriving through setbacks, it's following those four steps over and over again, sometimes a hundred times a day, sometimes once a month, but in everything that we do to set ourselves up to win, to make sure our success is guaranteed as long as we trust the process. That's what I got today. Chocolate cake for breakfast, but it was really good by the way, especially with my Americano this morning. Some of the stuff that's on my plate and how I'm playing the game with a smile on my face, and then literally how I plan and thrive through setbacks and everything that I do.And so that's what I wanted to share with you today on this winning Wednesday. Ah, and it feels so amazing to talk about. I actually had a little anxiety when I started recording this podcast and I feel better again because I just coached myself and I was like, Oh, I'm sharing with you. Everything that I'm supposed to be saying to myself in the mirror, except I am watching myself film this.And I do see my face on camera. So I am giving it to myself. So I wind up take this. I want you to put this into practice. Tell me in the Facebook group, how this works for you. I am excited to be documenting this journey. So I will be documenting our move. I am back on Instagram, just so you guys know on Instagram, it's George Bryant.I am back on the gram. I am dropping stories every day, every other day. Go DM me and let me know what you want. Send me your messages there. I will be documenting this road trip. I will be talking about the podcast, but let me know. I am back on the gram. That is me and the team aggressively on the gram.And so go hit me up. And actually I would love to know if you come to my Instagram and you heard this episode, let me know if you hear this episode, send me a DM and say, Hey man, I love the episode. I hated the episode. You're crazy. I just want you to know I heard the episode, but I want you to know that I'm here and then we can have a conversation.I'll figure out how I can support you. So take this. Put this into practice. Remember that relationships will always meet algorithms and I will either see you next time, or you will hear me in your earballs, but now it's time to cue the outro.
Alex CharfenIs the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN. Pioneer behind the amazing evolutionary hunters, creator of the Billionaire Code, and a biohacker. Alex is an Entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach who has spent 3 decades on the front lines of entrepreneurship and business, and is helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs with six-, seven-, and eight-figure businesses to grow and scale.Quotes From Episode “For us as entrepreneurs, the more we’re willing to accept our feelings... the more we figure out who we are and what our motivations are and that's what’s really going to move us forward” - Alex Charfen“If we are putting content that has a dramatic media relevant effect on somebody’s business… we build trust” - Alex CharfenDon’t Miss:6:45 - Discover how Alex Charfen makes a lot of his decision around the business thru paying attention to energetics8:46 - “The Hidden Messages in Water” and how it completely changed my life12:13 - The brown rice experiment and how it influence our thinking16:30 - How to overcome internal struggles as entrepreneurs20:31 - Feeling your feelings and how its going to move us forward25:12 - Recognizing synchronicity29:10 - Find out how Alex help entrepreneurs with stuff that are not super sexy32:00 - Podcast is a big part of it!40:05 - Alex reveals the key behind the 3 membership levels44:43 - Listen as Alex takes you back the first year when he started his podcastLinks Mentioned in Episode Listen to The Momentum Podcast with Alex CharfenUnderstand the primary foundation of our company - The Billionaire CodeConnect With Us Make sure to subscribe to the show, we release a new episode every Tuesday at 9am EST. Subscribe to the Changemakers Calendar (and get a sneak preview of upcoming episodes and events)>>> Subscribe to The Changemakers CalendarIf you’re not yet in the Podcasting 101 Facebook Group, what are you waiting for???? Jamie & Gina goes live every Thursday and get a chance to meet your tribe of Entrepreneurs>>> Hang out with our Podcasting Family and Join us LIVE every ThursdayWant to join our Podcasting Family? >>> Join The Changemakers Family (In Our Private Facebook Group)Follow Jamie & Gina on Instagram (We LOVE When you Slide Into our DM’s) >>> Follow Jamie on Instagram @jamieatkinson>>> Follow Gina on Instagram @ginagetslostWanna launch your own successful podcast? We got you… >>> Grab Our 30-Point Podcast Launch Checklist For FREEJoin Our #1 Favorite Podcast Hosting Company Transistor & Get Our Pop-Up Podcast Tech Setup Walkthrough & Our Changemakers Podcast Funnel For FREE When You Use Our Affiliate Link Below:>>> Find Out How to Join Transistor For Your Podcast Hosting (Call to Action)Before you go, join our FREE 5-day training course on how to make money with your podcast!>>>Want our Breakdown of How to Monetize a Podcast in 5 days?
The Charfen Summit is the ultimate community of entrepreneurs banding together to grow and scale their businesses. It is normally reserved for members of our coaching programs, but today, we are going to give you a peek behind the curtain into the room. At the Summit, members of our programs get to take a deep dive into the foundational content of our systems and get direct coaching from Alex. Each time we host a Summit, it is game-changing for the businesses we work with and we all get into momentum together. In this clip, Alex is answering a question for Devin Dorosh, a member of our Catalyst program. His business, Grillaholics, is incredible and growing quickly. In this interaction, Alex discusses the Charfen Process, which is our framework for making decisions on anything we do as a company and it is the foundation of what we teach at every level of the Billionaire Code. Resources Mentioned: https://billionairecode.com
About Alex Charfen:Entrepreneur, author, speaker, and coach who has spent 3 decades on the front lines of entrepreneurship and business, and is helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs with six-, seven-, and eight-figure businesses to grow and scale.Career History: Alex's entrepreneurial journey started early on at a young age. In his twenties, Alex became a Fortune 500 consultant, working with some of the most successful people in the world. When he met his wife, Cadey, he sold his consulting business and together they invested heavily in the Florida real estate boom of the late 90's, and soon found themselves prosperous, but highly leveraged. When the market took a dive, they lost everything and were forced to declare bankruptcy. "It was," says Alex, "my darkest hour." Rising from the ashes, they built an information product called the Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) where they worked with the majority of major lenders and real estate brokerages in the United States, and taught other Realtors what they'd learned, offering education, tools and hope. Later they discovered that many of these principles applied to any small business, and with this theory CHARFEN was formed. Within the first few years, it became one of the fastest-growing small businesses in the country with the mission of empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale their business and make their greatest contribution.Sharing his journey with others has led Alex to write for publications such as Success, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Magazine, and his story has also garnered attention from major media outlets like MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Investor's Business Daily. As a result of his mentorship and success, Alex is now known as the go-to person for helping entrepreneurs ascend the Billionaire Code and understand how to plan strategically.~You can find Alex Charfen on… LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexcharfen/Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/charfen/Website: https://www.charfen.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexcharfen/?hl=enTwitter: https://twitter.com/alexcharfen?lang=enYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AlexCharfenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/charfen/Don't forget to check out Alex's 3-day event as he teaches his new Momentum Masterclass LIVE on October 6 to 8!======================================================================To book a power session with Reem, go to: https://calendly.com/reem-kharbat/30min To Join Reem's mentoring program, learn the same exact strategy she used to build her three 7-figure businesses, got featured in Vogue Magazine and Top Media, go to : www.reemkharbat.com Or Book a consultation call to see if you're a fit for this program at https://calendly.com/reem-kharbat/teal If you would like to learn 7 figure strategies to launch and grow your business and be surrounded by like-minded people, then make sure to join my community of elite entrepreneurs : https://www.facebook.com/groups/theentrepreneuracceleratorlab If you enjoyed the episode, if it helped you in any way, or if you had ONE aha moment, please let me know, hit the subscribe button and leave me a review and a comment. Please share it with 3 of your friends in the next 24 hours to get the message out! If you would like to connect with me & become friends :) Check me out at:https://www.facebook.com/reem.kharbatInstagram: https://instagram.com/reem.kharbatLinkedin: https://linkedin.com/reem-kharbatOr visit my website: https://www.reemkharbat.com/homeDo you want to launch your own podcast, then you have to check the Podcast Profit Lab Program; it's life changing! http://bit.ly/3bsS3xa
In this episode, I speak to Alex Charfen, CEO Charfen, who has created multiple multimillion-dollar companies and now has the mission to teach entrepreneurs a business scaling strategy called the https://billionairecode.com/decoded-main-a (The Billionaire Code). Learn all about: How there is no such thing as happy, successful, solopreneurs - and what you need to do How being a solopreneur is a stage, not a destination Entrepreneurs need MORE help than the average person; yet we're the ones who don't want to show we need help the most. Those who get the most help are the most successful
GEORGE: All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the did George show, where I make up intros off the top of my head, because people are amazing and I'm stoked to have them. And today's guest is somebody that I've wanted to interview for probably five years, except I didn't have a podcast nor reason to talk to him.And then we became best friends overnight. And so I'm excited beyond belief to have somebody that I look up to. I've considered a mentor through his teachings and what he's done. He stands for absolutely everything that is ethical entrepreneurship, caring about human beings, making a difference, building legacy businesses, and tolerance absolute zero bullshit will doing any of it. Well, Also leading by example, you know, that magic thing that we don't see a lot of on the internet where it's do, as I say, not as I do, because I don't want you to see what I do. Well, Alex Charfen is here today, CEO Charfen. He has built massively successful companies, navigated some of the biggest downturns of our world and my lifetime, and always come out on top with a smile on his face, grounded in the values that are important to him, his family, and leads by example.And so without further ado, Alex, welcome to the show. ALEX: Thanks George. That was one of the best intros I've ever gotten. And that was awesome. GEORGE: I feel like M and M and eight mile on Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM before I have my coffeeALEX: I want that on my phone so I can play it each morning. Before I start workingGEORGE: We'll send you the audio clip and then we can do it like the rock used to do as alarm codes, right? Like get up. And he yells at you. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm super, super excited to have you, man. I'm honored. This has been a long time coming and before we get into the deep, deep, deep stuff for the show, whatever, you know, navigating turns, we're going to end up in today. The first question that I always ask everybody to set context, the humanizes, and you have a lot of these, so feel free to take creative freedom with this one.What is the biggest mistake that you've ever made in business? And what was the lesson that you took away from it?ALEX: That's like trying to like walk into an Amazon warehouse and say, which is the best box. Cause there's so many options. You know, George when I consider mistakes in business, so many of them, I don't look at them as mistakes anymore because. I've learned from them to find where I am now.I feel like almost every mistake, every huge challenge that I created has, has actually taught me something and moved me forward. And I think the one place where I would say that. That there were actual mistakes that I regret. And, and, and here's why I regret them. I don't regret the learning from them, but the mistakes that I made were with people when I was younger, especially there was a tremendous amount of collateral damage and the businesses that I ran. I was one of those people, not any more or not at all anymore, but I was one of those people that if I was going to separate with somebody, I actually had to break them, break the relations.I had to make it okay with me. I had to make it so that it was so horrible that like we can never talk again. And when I look back at some of the separations that I had where people were either terminated or left, the companies that I ran, I feel like those are some of the biggest, the mistakes I made.And, and, you know, if I could go back and do it over again? I would, I would, you know, I would tell my younger self that you don't have to completely destroy a relationship to put it on pause. And you don't know, I have to completely demonize somebody to have them leave your company. Like those are all natural things that happened in the world.And today with contrast,when somebody leaves our organization now, or when somebody decides to go to another opportunity, doesn't happen often anymore. But when it does. It's totally different. You know, I've actually, I've, I've led several several employess because of COVID and some other reasons we've actually let a few people go.And it's interesting cause I've remained connected with them. We connect every once in a while, you know, we talk. And so having that experience of being able to work with somebody and then continue the relationship, even though it's no longer a working relationship, it has been extraordinary. And when I was young, I did not even allow space for that. And I think that was, this longterm mistake, honestly, that comes from a childhood of trauma and a childhood of bullying and a childhood of really challenging relationships where I didn't understand how to navigate them. And I brought that forward into my business career. That's the biggest reason.GEORGE: And there's so much gold in there. This is why we get along. So for some context guys, when Alex and I reconnected, we got on zoom for a half an hour and then were like, we need an hour that we need three hours. Now let's just keep talking all day every day because I was like, I was like, sorry, Katie, you can have them back now. I'm like, I'm getting my very much dopamine hit and I'm not gonna deny this, that I wanted this. Like, this was very much my drug today. And I'm okay with this one, right? This is one of those, like, I can go seek it as I need, you know, Alex, one of the things that I think is so imperative and we talked about this, but you and I have so many similarities in this.Is that in the beginning, right? Is this collateral damage? Right? I got feedback that there were trails of dead bodies behind every success. And there were two sides of it for me that were tough. Number one is I never celebrated, right. There was no space because it was never good enough. Right. And so that took from everybody and made it.And then really, I think, as an entrepreneur and a self-aware entrepreneur, and you talk about this as like evolutionary hunters and the way that you do this, I think it was your EPT, your entrepreneurial personality types. You know, one of the things that I think is so amazing as entrepreneurs is that we're driven for change.We want things to be better, but I think what the razors edges or the tight rope that we like to ride a unicycle down from is to come from when we go down the middle. And there's that part of us as entrepreneurs we're down there, the middle, all the one side was insecurity ego. It doesn't matter.It's never enough I'll sacrifice anything and then we've spent our life at this point, working towards self-awareness. You love, compassion, empathy, relationship, even you just said.I didn't think this was possible a couple of years ago. Like, wait, somebody can leave my organization and be better than when they got there.And we still have a relationship, like can still text. We can talk, right? Like this isn't, you know, purgatory exile, like we're going back in Mayan culture. So, what are some of the things? Cause you have like five core values at your company. You guys stand for humans. Like you stand for change, you stand for being, but I know that this is prevalent everywhere.And I had one of my mentors at a very young age Allen out. Alex told me that and I learned this as a Marine, too. Like my job wasn't to keep people underneath me. My job was to get myself fired and get them better than me. And there's a point where. You know, they have to leave the coop and they have to grow.But I think the biggest distinction is it was talked about in there world, but really it's our, our growth as a human, like on our side, like the self-awareness side. So what are some of the things that you do that you focus on? Like you help companies with operations, with culture, with flow, with team and people like, how do you go about that?And what are some of the things that you keep to keep your keel in the water as you navigate that? ALEX: Oh, man. There's that question, George.GEORGE: So that's the point. Now I can drink my coffee over here and go to town. Yeah. Where did you go? ALEX: George, I think in order to answer that question, I kind of have to take a step back and, and talk about where, where, like, I've come from.If you want to know how things are kept in motion now, I think we have to first draw, contrast as to how things were before. Yes, sir. When I look at when I was younger and well into my twenties I experienced a tremendous amount of trauma and I had the same, like this is, this came up in our, we just had a three day event with 200 companies around the world and it came up this week.I started, I taught, I talk openly about trauma and how it drives us in the present. And I often tell our clients until you are ready to work through your trauma, you are destined to create, or, and you will only continue to create trauma. Cause it's a pattern for people, hurt people. And that's really how it works.You know, when I look at somebody who's causing havoc in the world, what I see as somebody who's severely traumatizedand acting through those things. And so for me, when I was 26 years old, I went through a really severe breakup. I'm 47 now and at the time to do okay. I actually was, um, I was uncomfortable enough that the only time I felt comfortable in it was when I was drinking.The only time I really fell asleep and stayed asleep was when I was. Kind of loaded and I wasn't used to having those feelings like I had when I was younger. I had definitely I, was no lack of time in bars or drinking and entertaining and doing those things. But I hit this period where it almost became a necessity and not almost it became a necessity and it was severely challenging to go through that.And. My mom was a therapist in California and I was talking to her about it. I had tried cognitive behavioral therapy. I don't know if you've tried this too. You go in like, I don't, I don't want to demonize all cognitive behavioral therapy, but for me, CBT was so hard because you go in, you spill your guts and the person across the room.I see. How does that make you feel? And then you spill your guts more and then they say, I see, how does that make you feel? And then you spend more. And by the third time they say, I see you, how does that make you feel? I actually responded one time to a therapist. It makes me feel like I want to get up, knock you out because you're not helping me.I feel like you're just, this is frustrating. , I feel agitated and yeah. Triggered and all that stuff. And so I stopped doing that. And I remember calling my mom and she said, there'd be called EMDR. And, it's eye movement, desensitization and reprogramming. It'sa very weird sounding therapy, but it's actually amazing.I, you know, George, it's interesting that you were in the military and we, we talked so much about trauma because even back then, when I was 26, I had some friends that had been in the teams. And, they were VR for Navy seals. Yep. It was actually this huge experiment in the military to see if EMDR would help with the offloading of trauma and return to service.And they were getting incredible results with it. So for me that growth process has been understanding my trauma. Understanding where so much of my reactivity and almost automatic behaviors came from. And, and so much of a processing, what had happened to me has now allowed me to become more present and aware and you know, it's interesting, George.I used to think that I was so present and so aware when I was in my twenties and now I look back and it's like the funniest thing in the world because I was so detached and , not even feeling my feelings and understanding what was going on. I didn't even know how to interpret what was happening.And then I thought I did so much better in my thirties and I'm like, you know, nailed it. And then I look back and I'm like, no, I just had a better understanding, but I was still working through so much of it. And finally, I feel like in about the past 10 years in years, I've gone into another year of really being able to release things and process things and, and work through things.And that's been a combination of a ton of breath work. Breath work, I think has been one of the most effective things that I've done a tremendous amount of EMDR therapy and, and going back to then as needed, not like just when it's acute, but when I feel stuck or when I feel like I have writing blocks or anything like that.And then, really a lot of self exploration and a lot of and if you wanted to put a layer on all of that, It's process, structure and routine. And it's you say that this is what a day is like the process structure and routine that allows you to grow a business, grow your life, have what you want in your life.But for most of my life, I fought process, structure and routine more than anything else. Oh yeah. I had that, that, that impression that like, as an entrepreneur, What makes you successful is being whatever you want, anytime that you want. And so I held onto that myth, that illusion, that totally illusory place, it does not exist where you can be a successful entrepreneur and just wake up and do whatever the heck you want every day.It doesn't really work. I mean, you might be able to be a yeah, no, , there's not a situation where it works. And so. Um, I think the biggest shift for me has been committing to process, structure and routine, like up to and including even on a Sunday this morning, I got up, did my morning planning, went through my morning routine.Like I do every other day, sat down in a line with my family. It's like now it's an edict. It's not an option anymore. Cause I know that's where my strength. And really that's where my be present and productive and persuasive and influential. That's what it comes from.GEORGE: Totally. There's so much in that And I want to, I want to nail some, so people have heard me talk about EMDR before. Um, but I glance over it. Cause very rarely am I across from somebody who I'm like, Oh, you too. Right. Like, Oh, I, I remember, like I remember we did CBT and my wife actually walked us out. She was with me cause I was trying to process childhood trauma stacked on military trauma, stacked on battle entrepreneurial trauma.And she's like, this is not going to help you this like ALEX: 70 creative relationshipGEORGE: Oh yeah. Oh you, Oh, you, you re like, I mean, it's like a trauma definition, right? Like you open the book and the generic and it was a picture of every instance of my life. How they all exacerbated each other in different scenes.Yeah, right. Like, yeah. It was like, it was like almost like a storyboard for a movie at this point. AndI remember one EMDR appointment and I came out my wife's like, you're a different person, like one appointment, one appointment. And I think you nailed something too. And I think what's so important, Alex.And this is like the undertone of what you're talking about. And if anybody hasn't caught this yet, this success as an entrepreneur on the outside, comes from the commitment to the work on the inside. A hundred percent and it is a daily and I mean, daily committed practice to come in. And like EMDR for me was two years of, I think once or twice a week.And then it was like a once a year if needed. And now I just texted him and like just texting him, like gets me back into like where I need to go but I think, I think it's so important, like to reach the levels. When we talk about this, the two things that being number one is this commitment to self.Right. And like, it's what you teach now. It's the discipline, the intentionality, the process, the structure, everything that you're doing, but also the awareness of what it really means to be an entrepreneur and what we're doing. And you hit this and we live in a world right now where it's like, Oh, laptop, lifestyle, and boom, boom, boom.And yeah, you do whatever you want. I'm like, that's not what it's like. That Instagram life is not real. And entrepreneurship is amazing. It is the most freeing, powerful job, you know, whatever business opportunity on the planet. But within that, we also have to create our own containers and structure to make it that efficient.If not, it's just a new form of addiction to hide from the traumas and the pain that we've never worked on. no question. And I think, I think, and for you, like you say, yo, you're in your forties, I'm like, I became aware yesterday of things I was doing that I wasn't aware of. , I think it's this process and awareness, but I think it was like last year, maybe after the birth of my son, where I was like looking at it and I was like, Oh, you mean that?Like my name can't carry everything. And I say something and magically a million dollars appears like, why? Like, I don't understand, like, why didn't my launch crush? Like why don't my Facebook ads work? And nobody else's does, like, why don't they just work? Cause I deserve them to work. Right? Like there was this.There was this thing that like I had to be aware of and process through and eat some humble pie. And so there's so many golden nuggets that you said. Um, and, and the first question I asked you was like, how do you know, operate forward and this point, and you nailed it. But I think one more thing I want to unpack before we even get there is in the very beginning, when I asked you what was the biggest mistake or lesson, you said something so subtle, but so empowering statement to where you are. And you said the challenges I created. Not the challenges that happen to me, not the challenges that somehow magically fell on my plate, like the challenges I created and there's this level of ownership that we do in breath, in work, in life, in modalities that puts us in this situation of awareness and the ability to shift something.But I see a whole lot of time and we both coach entrepreneurs a whole lot of like, I don't know why this happened and this happened and they did this to me and they did this to me and it's like an advocation of responsibility and it was so subtle when you said it, but it's so powerful to hear you talk about it.Can you unpack that a little bit of like the difference between, you know, my business partner failed and walked away versus like I created this challenge.ALEX: Yeah, no question George. So. Years ago. I read this book. I think I can't remember who it was by, but I think it might've been Mark Victor Hansen. I think it was called the millionaire messenger.And it was a book that you read in two directions. So very interesting book where it had kind of a nonfiction and a fiction book together. I don't remember a ton about that book. I remember on one page, they had this graphic and it was the word responsibility with a line and underneath it blame and then underneath it said live above the line.And I remember that I actually have that on my well now with a couple of other equations that we've created as a company. But that responsibility over blame. I remember when I read it, I saw it and it was so 19. I'm like, no, you can blame. You can still like, yeah, you don't have to take responsibility for everything.And that was a journey that was probably a few years of like really working through that and understanding it. And then I remember one day it just clicked, you know, as honorable the faster we realized that we are for everything and we can take responsibility for everything. The faster we start to actually control our lives, create our destiny and be able to go in the direction that we want.I used to be the same as most people when I was younger and I had my business. You know, 911 happened for about eight weeks before. One of our biggest events when I owned a huge events company in Latin America. And I remember it happening and having the feelings of like, how could this happen to us?How insanely selfish and egotistical was the statement. 911 happened to us. Like, as I say it right now, I actually get kind of sick feeling in my stomach that I ever thought that way. But I remember actually saying it out loud and not even feeling like not feeling the. Body reactions and negative feelings, you should feel of making a statement that egotistical, which in retrospect shows me just how separated I was from my true self, just how detached I was.And as entrepreneurs what we work with our members on is responsibility over blame. Like how do you live in a world where you take responsibility for everything that's going on? And I have people, especially in today's timeframe, say things like, Oh, well, you can't be responsible for COVID.Sure you can be responsible for your reactions. You can be responsible for how you show up. You can be responsible for what you're going to allow and not allow into your mind. You can be responsible for how you lived through this situation. And, you know, I always tell people the bigger, the crisis, the bigger, the opportunity there's going to be more self billionaires made in this timeframe that at any other timeframe in the human history, And anyone who wants to argue that?Just go look, it's all ready. Oh, ready? We're all. We're only six or seven months in and look at the hundreds of billions of dollars of company value that has been added to the companies that we're well positioned and ready to go forward. And I think for us that's one of the things that are not for us, for me.That's one of the things that's really shifted for me is that now, regardless of what it is, I take responsibility and I put this on Facebook the other day. One of the observations that finally got through I've learned so much of what I understand in business and so much of what I know about relationships and how to create momentum as an entrepreneur has been observational.And one of the observations that has become crystal clear over time is that the more successful and entrepreneur. The more quickly, they turn every obstacle into an opportunity. The more quickly they turn every crisis into an opportunity. I've been around people that regardless of what's going on, they're just constantly shifting to housing and opportunity.How is this an opportunity? Most negative thing in their entire life. How can I create something better out of this? How do I grow from this? How do I move from this and that? You know, not that I'm a hundred percent there. I don't think, I don't know that I ever will be, but I'm so much closer to seeing everything as an opportunity.Than I ever was before. And so when Covid hit, I actually had somebody text me after one of my lives. And they're like, Hey man, it sounds like you're hearing the crisis sign. I'm like, Oh dude, that is not the impression I want to give. I'm not sharing it on. But I am fully conscious that this is the biggest opportunity a lot of us have had, and we should admit that to ourselves and get ready for it and go out and change the world because the world needs us now more than it ever has.GEORGE: totally.I think too, and you nailed this and, Oh man, there's so much here and you, and I think we might've been separated at birth at this point, which is so. Yeah, no, no, it was, it was like, and for those of you wondering like only like 32 people or so have my phone number and Alex doesn't give his out connected years ago.Never really talked to him. We both realized we both had our numbers in our phones, totally.I think too, and you nailed this and, Oh man, there's so much here and you, and I think we might've been separated at birth at this point, which is so. Yeah, no, no, it was, it was like, and for those of you wondering like only like 32 people or so have my phone number and Alex doesn't give his out connected years ago.and we were like, okay, there's a reason. And the timing and everything. And what you said, Alex, Uh, it's about the pursuit of turning things into opportunities, not the perfection of what it looks like.And I think as an entrepreneur for me, you know, cause my ego needs some love at this point in this moment. So I'm going to make a statement, you know, because I'm learning so much in this time. But when I think about it, for me, one of the things that I really fell in love with after processing the belief around it was that there is no finish line, but it's what I choose to do every day about it.And. You know, there were parts of COVID like I lost over a million dollars under contract. I lost two companies and 70 grand a month in MRR in basically like 60 days. And I'm like still on paper. I'm in financially. One of the hardest places I've ever been in. And I'm the happiest and clearest I've ever been.And it wasn't an overnight, it was a, I feel like, crap, what am I going to do today? I feel like crap, what am I going to focus on today? And instead of it taking six months or three years, eight years of depression, it took like a week and it was, I feel this way. I acknowledge how I feel. That's not going to change.What am I going to do about it then that created the opportunity for opportunity. Like it created the ability to see the opportunity. Yes. It's like when we sit in these rooms as entrepreneurs, consider it a virtual room of made of Rome, a metaphorical room, whatever you want to call it. I say this all the time, you know, from breath work and the therapy trauma that I've done in the work that I've done in personal defense.And it's like the worst thing you can stay as stock. We are evolutionary creatures. We are supposed to evolve. We are supposed to move forward. And you know, I heard this the other day and it's like, you want to know what anxiety is? It's unused energy move. Yeah. And I was like, Whoa, like I've been doing it for years, but it was this simple thing.But then when I think about the compartment of entrepreneurship, what is anxiety, I'm like it's stagnation in our biggest enemy, which is our brain. It knows our fears. It knows our insecurities. It knows our habits. It knows our addictions. And yet we think we can out convince it that somehow we're going to feel better about it.Where, what you talk about this is how I feel. I'm aware. This is how I feel. Breath gets you there. Cold therapy gets you there. Movement gets you there. Okay. If this is how I feel, I have two choices. I can either succumb to this feeling and surrender and die, or I can acknowledge it, which that this feeling is here.And I can take a step in a different direction. And it's something that like I've been obsessing about, like on a different level of obsession. And it's probably had one of the most profound effects on everything in my life. And, you know, financially to gain will come and it has already, but even outside of that, like the happiness, the joy, and go back to deployments.Like I remember like I'll never forget. I hit some, all I'm about to cry. I hit Somalia. When I was 19 years old, I just turned 20 and I spent 13 months in my life and probably one of the worst places on this planet. And I'll never forget, like, seeing people wrapped in carpets on the side of the road, cause they couldn't afford to throw them out of them, burning dead by.And I was like, I was like, I'm not a tough guy. I want to go home. I didn't have a home to go to, like I left trauma to get there. And like I remember for 13 months I was like, get me out of here. Like I can't be here. I don't know habit. I didn't have that choice. So luckily I found a few people that mentored me and I found waits and I found, you know, certain therapies and things that I could do, but I'm just, I just remembered, like if I say came to any of that, I would have died.Like I would have just died. I would have just stopped moving the whole world crashed and crushed on me and it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere. And it took me a long time to be able to talk about it, some of these things and to process them in for me, what I struggle with sometimes is that like, what I saw is like 1% of what some of my friends saw.Like 1% and I can't even imagine, you know, what that was there, but I think the biggest thing that I always took away from everything, and I thank the Marine Corps for this is like, I wasn't given the chance to stop. I wasn't. It was like, Hey, and like we say this, like, Oh, they don't want you to feel, no, they do.They don't really totally do, but they don't want you to stop. And it's this thing of like this pursuit for full word and growth and movement as we go. And so, you know, with what you're saying, The one thing that I wanted to hit and this is a really big one and this is so subtle, but when I did personal film, I was getting coached and they were teaching the distinction versus responsibility.Victim versus responsible victim versus responsible, right. They really push the boundary on the belief of this, right? Like a hundred percent responsible, a hundred percent of the time. And it was this interesting thing because we would get in trouble for saying, I take responsibility. And I was like, I don't get it.I'm taking they're like, you can't take it. You never didn't eat. There was no point in which you never had it. ALEX: There's no point in what you gave it up. And so you can't take it backGEORGE: You just feel like it did. And this distinction, like, it probably took me 10 years to understand, because there's so many times in business, right.Or as a consultant or with a student, or even in my own business, I like, Oh, I'll take it. And then I have to be like, Oh wait, no way. That was mine. The whole time. Yeah. And it's like this embodiment of it that is powerful. Like when we think about it. And so I didn't, I've never, I've never talked about a lot of the stuff that I, I experienced, like from a mindset perspective, they don't think I've ever been in the point to like really, um, process us.But you know what I love about you, Alex, and what I, you, you have this childlike curiosity and excitement mast with this tight container of structure that basically guaranteed success. ALEX: Thank you, but I appreciate thatGEORGE: Like, um, yeah, like I'm surprised I'm not walking around in diapers is my son's out of them. Like at that level of management. Cause there's times I feel like that, but you know, with that, I think what's so important and so powerful from like what I noticed with you. It's like when you get self-aware right.So you were talking about basically being, self-aware identifying what's here, understanding that we're responsible understanding that, you know, results equals opportunity depending on how we choose to see it. What I also love about that is that as you do this work on yourself, that awareness gives you a tool to see possibility versus resistance, right?And again, gives you the ability to react or not to react, to respond on a diamond pivot. Because there's no insecurity ridden. And I think about the times as an entrepreneur or where I was stuck and it was stocked because I had a belief that I was supposed to look a certain way, or it was supposed to be a certain way.And here's the news, flash entrepreneurship is basically a guaranteed. It's not going to look like you think it is every day of every moment for the rest of your life. Right. It's a commitment to chaos and it, and it's navigating that. And so in your, in your journey, and, and you've been in this game a long time, I mean, you, I don't even remember this specific you got, but like single-handedly denting the real estate crash market recovery and, you know, building like half a billion dollar businesses and I'm over here doing it for everybody else, but myself.And I'm a self jab on that one, but Oh, well, George, I've done some of that myself too.ALEX: I've you know, and, and I just, I don't want to, I don't want to like leave you on the hook there as a coach, as a consultant. One of the things that I'm now dealing with at 47 is that I've helped hundreds of entrepreneurs build businesses bigger than I have.And, and I, you know, I really like year before last, I sat down with Katie and I'm like, you know, Katie. I've done this too many times for other people this time, the business plan has to include us doing it for ourself.and this is, this is like my realization really in just like the past 24 to 30 months.And when the reason we restarted this company from scratch was energetic, not legal or anything else. It was, we wanted to shut everything down and start over. Cause this is going to be different. Yeah. And so July of 2017, Katie and I hit the reset button, shut everything down, went down to no team members started from zero, and this is the business that we're going to create the success out of that. just like, we help other peopleGEORGE: I'm for those of you listening, if you can't tell, like I've been an Alex fan boy for a long time, but like out of, out of respect, like out of like genuine, pure. Respect because there's these things like we, Alex, and I joke a lot.We talk about the state of the industry that we're in. We're probably going to unpack that in a little while, but yeah. You know, like people don't even pretend to be like snakes in the grass anymore. They're like, no, no, no, no. I don't care if the grass is there not, I want you to see me. And like, there's these people that walk it and they talk it and they believe it and they do it.And it's congruency. And Alex is one of those people, which I hide, we admire and respect. And I think it's an important point. Alex is an entrepreneur. I don't know about you, but you know, for me, I needed to build it for other people. To get those lessons, to have the awareness and understand why I was doing it to then be able to come in and be like, Oh, I still get to do it.And I think healed that part of me that didn't think I was good enough that I could only do it for other people. And also give myself a back door out of those daily routines and commitments and structure that would prove my core trauma wrong as a child. That I'm not good enough because that's really what it is like for me.If for me, it was like, Oh, it's so easy. I'll go, I'll diagnose your problems. I'll give you the things. I'll help you do it. I'll pour all my energy into you. Then you'll like me, and then I'll be good enough. And then at the same time I'm living on that dopamine and validation will also deny my own sovereignty of that.I can do this and I know this. And then the belief system there, and the pain that I had to experience was you do deserve this. You can have a bigger impact this way, but you're good enough. And, and that had to happen in silence. Yeah. You're worth it. Right. Like for me, my core wound is I'm not good enough.ALEX: I'm having like so many different, like first, I just want you to know this is a very validating conversation. And when you operate at the level that you and I operate as entrepreneurs, they're not maybe not the level, but when you operate at the level of awareness that we operate up.You often become, you often get invalidated because the other people around you don't even understand the conversation. Right. You know, I think what you just said, that is so true for so much of my career. Now, in retrospect, it's only, you see this in retrospect, I was not in the pursuit of success for myself, cause I didn't feel worthy.And I actually felt like the people around me were so much better than I was. That I put all my energy into helping those people all my time in it. Other people get become far more successful than I was because in so many ways I still felt like I was, you know, the, the short, you know, Mex, lat, Latin American accent, chubby kid in school.Cool. That everybody made fun of it. And I really, you know, when I was at, I did not have a lot of friends. I had a really challenging childhood. I wasn't good at relationships and all of that carried forward to the business world to the point where. But, it made me an incredible consultant because I wanted to help everybody so bad so that I would get validation and be okay and be worthy and not be that kid that I was running away from.And dude, Oh man, now I'm going to get emotional. And, um,as time went on, what I realized was, and what I am realizing is that I could honor that kid. And that I could actually love that child,and be okay with who I used to be and understand why I was the way I was and understand everything that I went through. And the more that I was able to process it and be aware of it.And the more I was able to let go of the common entrepreneurial belief that other people had it worse than I was. You kind of said it earlier. It's like a habit for us. As soon as we claim any type of trauma, we almost, I have to let out this relief valve. Oh well, but it wasn't as bad for me. You know, there was other people who had them and it wasn't that bad for me and it, but I I'm just going to claim a little bit of it.Yep. And the reality is every entrepreneur I've ever worked with has trauma that needs to be explored and validated and understood so that they can show up in the world the way that they want to, and the excessive reactivity that we carry around with us and the feelings we carry around with us, you know, George's, it's, it's one of the things that drives us into pursuit because.Here. Here's where I am today in my career. I understand that the goal is not the goal. The goal is the journey. Yes, it really is. It's the process it's going through it because here's what I know as an entrepreneur, as I have this analogy or theory that we are evolutionary hunters and I call it an analogy.But to me, I really do think this is evolutionary fact. We are that small percentage of the population that gets up every morning. Can't turn the motor off. It's always running we can't relax. We don't sit right. And we have this innate motivation to go into the future, create a new reality, come back to the present and then demand.It becomes real, no matter what we put up with. But the reality is, is no matter what goal or outcome or whatever it is that we put out there, as we are crossing the finish line, it loses all importance to us. As we're approaching the finish line, we start going, does this really matter? And it's because if you think about, if we're evolutionary hunters, The goal was never the hunt just keeps the tribe alive.The goal is you go back on the hunt. Yeah. The goal is you stay hunting. The goal is keep doing it over and over again. And there's food for everybody for the whole time that we needed. And so, you know, I look at it, I, I feel like we are programmed to be in pursuit, but not really finished. And so the whole goal is entrepreneurs is how do you keep.How do you keep creating that future? That is compelling enough and bright enough and exciting enough and engaging enough that you do what it takes to put yourself through the crucible. GEORGE: Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. When you said, and by the way, thank you for the accountability on the, uh, I had it way worse or they had it.ALEX: it twice this week in my own event. I said, and then, and I even pointed out like, Hey, I just use the release valve. I want everyone to know that that's like an unhealthy behavior of invalidating yourselfGEORGE: And it's basically saying, I don't believe in myself enough, or I'm not in my space or power enough to own the fact that this was my truth.Yeah. And, and what I'm looking for. And quite frankly, as everybody wants to get into the monitor, George, what I'm looking for is for you too, without realizing and liked me a little bit more because I experienced that while also add vacating it and doing it in a very subtle manipulative way and not in a bad manipulative way at heart bins in our subconscious all the time.Um, but this is why I love having friends like Alex, we get to talk about these things. Um, And the real, the real stuff. Well, I think what's so important about the real stuff. Alex is like, we talk about this, right? And we were talking about like, why we did what we did and why we consult them, why we still consult.And what I love is looking back. Cause I love my process through all of it. Like I had to do that. I had to learn that I had to be there. I had to not get that check. They had to not pay me that million dollars. Like I had to have all that happen. And now looking at it too the other side of it for me is I never understood the consequences of doing it for everybody else.The amount of sacrifices and collateral damage I caused because I wanted everybody else to like me versus everybody else respect me. And it was like, I'll go to a dinner. I didn't need to be at that dinner. I'll go to an event. I didn't need to be at that event. I'll go to that meeting. That was not a meeting.Like there were all these like ego fests that were. You know, validation collection, dopamine collection causing collateral damage and the ones I think that we swore as entrepreneurs, that we were doing it "right". Like I'm doing it for my family. I'm like, well now pretty sure. My three year old son, isn't going to be like, daddy, don't go to them zoo with me, or don't see me for three days because you go to this meeting because you want these people to like you versus do the work that it's there.And I think, you know, if I could give a gift to any entrepreneur, uh, it's the gift of awareness of the. The impact and the consequences, both positive and negative. That happened when we do advocate that sovereignty as entrepreneurs. And we, and we get into that because it took me a long time. And I think it's still a practice, but it's a practice that I've, I love at this point.Like I kind of love saying no at this point. Sure. Can you do now? Why we don't need to, like, we have a dinner meeting. I'm like, no, we can have a zoom meeting. I'm not leaving. Right. ALEX: Well, you get to the point where it's saying no, actually becomes the dopamine hit because you have, I mean, and this takes a while, so I don't want anyone listening, not to think that it's going to happen by Monday, but what happens is.When you stop abdicating the responsibility, you have to create the life you want. And you start actually, cause man, George, when you were just talking about going to the meeting and doing this and doing that you just described like most of my thirties, if there's, if there was an attention, getting the opportunity, I was in that attention, getting an opportunity with a whole line of justification for it.If there was a time and I got tons of opportunities, if I could get up on it. Really important stage with famous people. Like I was there no matter what. And a lot of the time it was for nothing else than the ego hit. Like really, it didn't even really build our business and build notoriety, but it was just building an ego hit. And I, when I look back at so much of that need for approval that need for validation that need for confirmation as an entrepreneur, when you finally realized that is so much of the, almost the automatic programming that's running, the decisions you're making, when you can start backing out of that and rising to a level of intention, everything changes.I had this really confronting Meaning with a coach of mine. I had this coach a while ago named Kirk Dando, super talented two guy and, um, Kirk and I became friends. That's why he was working with me. Most of the work that he did was with privately funded companies where he took a percentage and he was like a non named board member in dozens of companies.And we became friends. So he, he started working with me and we did a few, one days and he did a 360 for me and came in and interviewed my team. And he was doing the delivery of the 360. And we were in the middle of like, what about my team and what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. And he said, you know what, Alex.You don't have investors behind you. Let's just cut the BS, man. What's the most important thing in your world. And the reason he said you didn't have investors behind you is cause I had options. Most of his CEOs didn't have options. He said that he was like, you have options. Let's talk about this. I said, well, George, that's not George.I said, Kirk, that's easy. The most important thing in my world is Katie and my kids. And he goes, great. Let's take five minutes, get your calendar out and get your bank account out. And let's look at your spending time and spending money on Katie and your kids. And that way we can see if you're growing and you're the most important thing in your world.And I know he could see the blood drain out of my face. Cause at that point it was like getting called to the principal's office. I remember immediately thinking, Oh, there's no way my calendar or my bank account are going to show any type of like allegiance or affiliation to my family. Because up to, and including in the time I was with Kirk, I had been pushing them aside to get all this stuff done.And here's, what's interesting that meaning changed things. I actually went back to my room and sat down with Katie and I'm like, Katie, Kirk asked me this question that kind of knocked me backwards and I shared it with her and we talked about it for a long time. And from that point forward, I started shifting and I started saying, I need to assign responsibility to the things that are important to me.I needed to put more time to things that are important to me. You know, and, and I, I started building process, structure and routine around what was important to me. It's structured have spend time with family structure to make sure I was connected with my daughters structure to make sure that Katie and I had the time that we needed, otherwise, everything else just competes and wins.And here's, what's interesting, George by demand. Yeah. Ending the space and time for myselfby making that the most important thing. Suddenly my decision making in business got infinitely better. And almost overnight, we started moving in the right direction rather than spinning our wheels and not having things happen.And this is the thing that always like for most people feels like an oxymoron. When you first started doing this, I was putting less time in, but getting more results because when you start throwing up the constraints that are important, you look at time differently and you spend it differently. When you start allocating time to where you should be, not what you know to where you actually, when I say should be when you started actually allocating time around.What you want your life to look like your business will shift in a way that it actually gets to be the business that you want. You start building an organization that you really want. You start doing the things that you want. And it's interesting today at 47, you know, we, we, like I said, we reset a few years ago.We're around a little, little over 2.1 or 2.2 million in recurring revenue, right? Yeah. Now we're building this company completely differently. I'm, I'm absolutely not responsible for delivering. I built myself out of a lot of the responsibilities. And today I have a business that I love working with people that are like incredibly fun people to work with.And I'm more focused on people development than anything else right now. Cause that's where we're going to grow the nexttime in our business. But what's most important is I wake up every morning. I align with my kids. They hang out with me, they know what we do. We talk openly. There's a completely different dialogue in our house.And all of that, I think makes me not think all of that I know. Makes me the entrepreneur I actually want to be, and it actually allows me to start making decisions for the person I'm becoming instead of the person I'm running away from. Yeah. And I think for entrepreneurs, you know, I think that the same, I've heard the same, say, you know, make the decisions for the person you're becoming, not the person you are.And I'm like, that's not how it works for entrepreneurs. We either make decisions for the person we're becoming or the person we're running away from. We don't make decisions for the person. We never get to the place where you're making decisions in the moment because we don't live in the present. Nope.What that small percentage of the population that doesn't really even deal well with the no.GEORGE: That's why we have to practice breathALEX: That's what I, you know, what was I did it this morning. I did like, like three huge empty breath holds this morning and just like feeling the experience of whether my body was calling for oxygen or my mind.And where was it coming from and how does this make me react during the day? And, you know, I get up from breathwork sessions now I laid down on my floor and do a breathwork session. I actually feel like I'm in the present moment for a period of time. Yeah. It's interesting. You like get up and you're like, Whoa, the world is really intense if you're here, you know?GEORGE: Yeah. That's why I get up so early in the morning, like I used to get up at four 30 for my ego to show everybody I got up at four 30. Now I get up at three 30 now I get up at three 30, so nobody knows. And like, people think I'm nuts, but I was like, I wake up with my kids at six and when I was getting before 35, like my, I would get home, my son will be awake. My wife wanted to sleep in, but she'll be up. And I was like, am I doing this? And I was like, I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. Like if I get up at three 30, I get. Two and a half hours of alone time I'm home before my son wakes up, I'm done with my writing. I'm completely present for the day. I'm supporting my wife with what she wants based on her job and like her responsibilities.And I was like, yeah, that feels better. Like, and that's like, and like, by the way, I don't listen to music. I don't listen to podcasts. I work out in silence and I'd say five out of six times a week, I'm crying, I'm yelling, I'm looking at myself in the mirror. Like I'm a silver back gorilla and patting my chest and then crying two minutes later.Like I'm processing whatever's coming up in that moment you know, one of the things, yeah, ALEX: Let's not run past that because that, what you just said is so crucial. So let me, let me tell you how I used to work out. Yeah. So what I would do is, and this is during my four 30 in the morning taking a picture, so I could prove to everybody that I did it.So when I was doing the four 30 in the morning, prove to everybody that you did it, it was get up at four 30 in the morning, drink coffee, then wait about 20 or 30 minutes, drink a pre-workout because the coffee wasn't enough. You need to back it up with a pre-workout. Then go into the gym, close the doors.And we had a gym in our home. We close the doors, put towels under the doors. And then put on like limp biscuit or something ridiculous where it's just screaming and raging and yelling, and then get myself into a state where I could lift weights and not feel it. So I would get myself into fight or flight and then fight for an hour and a half with my gym.And it was like going, you know, and, and I don't mean to use this term in a way that indicates that I don't understand what it is really like to go to war because I don't want to minimize anything. Guys. What guys like you and the people that you were around, did George. But I feel like I went to my own little private one in the gym every morning.Totally. And, and it was cause it was instead of feeling the feelings and moving through them, it was creating so much noise and so much pain that I could push the feelings away. Yep. And, you know, I, I remember at my biggest, I looked back, it was probably like seven or eight years ago. I was about 240 pounds and going on Fox news.And I remember like seeing myself in the suit, my shoulders didn't fit in the screen. I looked completely inflamed. My neck and my head were kind of one thing. And recently a person on my team found an old Wistia video on me on Fox. And she's like, man, I saw Alex on Fox news from a while ago. I'm so glad I worked for this Alex and not that guy. Just watching the videos. He could tell, like how, how accelerated and how angry and , how detached I was. And I think, yeah. So many entrepreneurs think that they're, they're doing this incredible thing, working out and getting themselves in shape. And then I watched the workouts on not online and I'm like, man, why that might not be going in the right direction.GEORGE: Workouts for me are a tool like breath and they didn't use to be, they used to be an escapism for me. Right. And trust me, I was doing three days. I taught a world record for standing box shop. I was a competitive CrossFit athlete. Like my numbers are stupid. Stupid right. I'm five, seven. I can dunk. There's like, it's not mind blowing.And I was also dead lifting like six, 15 squatting, like five 85. I weighed 170 pounds. Like it was gnarly. Nowhere does that help me be a better human to my family? Right. But my ego loved it. ALEX: Standing there practicing the jump box jumper.Oh yeah. At one point I went not being a runner to actually going out and winning races in Austin, winning five Ks, 10 Ks, like going out and getting first, second or third place. And if there was a Clydesdale division, I always wanted it. 7,000 person race. I was first placed in Clydesdale. I was 240 pounds and I was the first place in Clydesdale.Because I was willing to do whatever it took. I finished that race and threw up about seven or eight times. Cause I pushed my body so hard. I still got first place. That was all I cared about. But I look back now and I'm like, dude not only will you, not in your body, you weren't in Austin during that?GEORGE: and then given more trauma and then came out without doing any of the work.And I remember my wife's like, you know, you should do personal development. Like I read books. That was my answer. Yeah. That didn't go well fast forward, eight years. And there we go. And now we're here we are now. Um, but yeah, I was, and then I had this like really big shift after my son was born where I realized like, wow, I can be in shape if I want, I can look, however I want, I can function however I want, but it's also a tool like it's an hour and a half a day or two hours a day that if I utilize it correctly, I can do it.I'll never forget. I was in the jungle with a shaman and, you know, lots of wise wisdom come from shamans to me. You know, one of them was like talking about relationships happening for a reason season or lifetime. And then you know, then a personal development teacher looked at me one day scrolling, and I said, what are you pretending not to know?Which hit me like a ton of bricksand then somebody else is like, what are you trying to avoid feeling? And that was the one that got me and it was the feeling part. Right. And so then I like looked at my day and I was challenged by Shaman said, I want you to eliminate. Any music with lyrics for 30 days, just get rid of it, get rid of it.Okay, cool. And I would listen to like music, like upbeat music, like I wasn't into like bitches and hoes, like all that stuff. And you know, but I would listen to music, but I would listen to music that allowed me to be romantic about who I used to be, or pretend that something was going to shift for me by doing nothing.And it was programming my brain into like the stagnation. And I was like, okay, cool. And I remember it was one of the hardest things ever to not have the radio on, in the car because what did I have to be present? I had to be with whatever was coming up and then going to the gym. I was like, okay. Right.And I'm like, don't lift. And all of a sudden I lost a hundred pounds on lift because I didn't have anything to like put me into that sympathetic state. And it was crazy, crazy what happened. And then for a wild, like this adoption period, I started to fall in love with it. And then I realized that. When I was there, the days that I was present and grounded, I felt like in my body and like emotionally good, I was lifting like crazy.And then there were days that like, It hurt to do a warmup and then I would scream or I would cry or I would laugh or I be like, I don't want to be here today. And then I could never walk out the door, but I was literally in the moment experiencing my experience and my feelings and it kind of became therapy for me.I rank it out? Can I yank it out? And then, or where can I go plug into somebody else's world to avoid mine? Right. Right.And then it was like, I have more work to do. I have more work to do. I have more work to enlist and entrepreneurs, your list will never end. And that's why it's so important. Like when you talk about structure, Alex structure gives us the container because no matter what we do, we're going to fill it. So if you give yourself a 24 hour container, you're going to find ways to fill it.But if you give yourself a two hour container, you'll fill it, but you also have to fill it with the stuff that moves the needles, move the levers and eliminates the bullshit. And that's been one of those things for me that I think in what you do and there's this belief like this paradigm around entrepreneurship, right?Like I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. And I was like, yes. And you have to realize that the moment you start being that is you lose the thing that built it and you end up right back where you started. ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. I love Maxwell's. You know, John, there's a lot of stuff that John Maxwell's put out that I just, that is so true.It's just truth. And he has this chart of the more leadership responsibility you have, the less freedom you have. And it's this very confronting belief system that the more responsibility I take on as a leader the less freedom that you actually have. And what you're doing is you're exchanging that freedom for making a massive contribution.And I think that. People want to argue. I have entrepreneurs all the time. Like one argue that and debate it. Yeah. And I always like at the end of the day, if you'd want to debate it, you can. But the fact is right only going to slow you down over time. And man George, that was intense. What you just shared because I think it's probably seven or eight years ago.It's definitely living in this house. I know, because in my gym here, I have a huge sound system and I built it so that I could go down into the gym. So I didn't hear anything in the world. I didn't even hear the weights clanking together because that sound was so high. I probably haven't turned that on in six or seven years, because now I look at my workouts, totally different.My workouts used to be an escape. It used to be like, go in, check out, get all this stuff done, working out with your body and then come out. But really not a lot of recall or recollection of what happened. And I, and a lot of like feeling here, like I did something, but not really connecting to everything that happened in the gym.Yeah. Yeah. I love Maxwell's. You know, John, there's a lot of stuff that John Maxwell's put out that I just, that is so true.It's just truth. And he has this chart of the more leadership responsibility you have, the less freedom you have. And it's this very confronting belief system that the more responsibility I take on as a leader the less freedom that you actually have. And what you're doing is you're exchanging that freedom for making a massive contribution.And I think that. People want to argue. I have entrepreneurs all the time. Like one argue that and debate it. Yeah. And I always like at the end of the day, if you'd want to debate it, you can. But the fact is right only going to slow you down over time. And man George, that was intense. What you just shared because I think it's probably seven or eight years ago.It's definitely living in this house. I know, because in my gym here, I have a huge sound system and I built it so that I could go down into the gym. So I didn't hear anything in the world. I didn't even hear the weights clanking together because that sound was so high. I probably haven't turned that on in six or seven years, because now I look at my workouts, totally different.My workouts used to be an escape. It used to be like, go in, check out, get all this stuff done, working out with your body and then come out. But really not a lot of recall or recollection of what happened. And I, and a lot of like feeling here, like I did something, but not really connecting to everything that happened in the gym.GEORGE: Like the guy over here covered in tattoos that had a blue Mohawk. When you met him, Right. Like that guyALEX: Something like that. You know, it was like, I'm never going to be in a place of being traumatized again by a room I'm gonna walk in and have everyone back at, you know, take a step back and.Now, you know, when I go work out, one of the, I have for a workout is a dry erase pen. My whole gym is surrounded in mirrors and there are so often I will be in the middle of a set. And this is like the Cardinal sin of working out. You're like almost to the place where you're done and I'll just drop the weight it's and go write down everything that just came to me.Yeah. Because yeah. Now it's more important. The realization is more important than finishing this app. And the belief system, you know, the beliefs that I can work through and the processing that I do is so much more important than the weight that I'm lifting. And I remember there was a point in my life where if I had a workout where the next workout, I didn't do more. I couldn't deal. It was demoralized thousand percent out. I don't even feel it. I'm like, wow, that was a great workout. I lifted half the weights, but look at the whiteboardGEORGE: Well, even, even the point of like stopping a set, like way to diminish seven reps of progress. RightALEX: It's like, man, I just threw it all away. Yeah. And you know, the, the, like the beliefs that we built when we're in the gym, the last set is where you earn over the last rep is where you earn it. So you're always chasing the last rep. Now I'm like, man, I don't want to lose this thought. GEORGE: Well, and then like really looking at what sets us apart as leaders.Right? Cause we're, we're when we say entrepreneurial, we're talking about leaders, we're talking about the small percentage of the world, right. That's willing to stand in a new belief system and I love the way that you described, like going into the future, but really. You know, when I wrote my personal mission statement for my life it's to stand with structure in the face of resistance to create possibility.Like, that's it. That's, that's what we do. And it's like, it's actually, the wind was when you made a commitment and you kept your word with integrity to get to the gym. You've already won. Everything at that point is bonus. Right? It's strengthening it's fortification it's reflection. It's you know, and like, yeah, if you have 30 pounds to lose and you do one wrap, like don't expect a result, but be aware of like, what's there, but it's really the intention that we put behind everything.And when you say it, right, you got up, yes. You create the structure and you commit to the routine and that's, it's the combination of those things. That is the wind. And you, I mean, I'm the same way, except for me right now, I realized. You know, in the last couple of years, I fell out of love with myself again, like at a deep, deep, deep level.And I was looking at it and I was working out crazy before lockdown. And I was like, okay, cool. And I was like, I'm posting videos every day. And I was like, looking back when it locked down and I didn't have a gym, we went up to the mountains and I was like, man, I really don't want to do anything. I don't want to do anything.I don't want to do anything. And I literally was like, why. And I was like, because I can't, because I don't like why I'm doing it. And I don't know why I want to. And I gained a lot of weight again, and I fell in love with my dad bod, but I gained a dad bought first. And then I looked at it and then I was playing with my son and I'm up here and I'm like, You know, this isn't what I want.And I was like, why? And I was like, I somehow fell out of love with myself, or this was an opportunity where I hadn't fully loved myself yet. Like, I hadn't loved where I was versus the guy with the big muscles or the tattoos, or could do this. Wait. So it was really interest because I started working out again and it feels different.It feels different. And then all of a sudden I wanted to get up here and it felt different and my workouts are very different. It felt different and I'm not humble, bragging. Like I just enjoy the process, but what's really interesting, Alex is I went through this point and I always wear like cutoff shirts.I won't take my shirt off. I still was struggling with self-consciousness and everything else. And then this, then I'm going to cry. But like 35 days ago, I went to the gym one morning and I was like, I'm not working out with a shirt on. I get to look at myself. Every moment of every rep every day. And every time I look in the mirror, I just get to tell myself I love myself.And it's a really interesting, because I started this challenge with my, with my business partner to lose weight, right. Like I was like, okay, I'm two 10, my fighting weights, like one 75. I want to be back there. 55 days of eating ma
What is the clear path to successful entrepreneurship? Is there a clear path? How can you balance your professional and personal life? Author, speaker and CEO Alex Charfen explains how entrepreneurs can expand their business.Like many entrepreneurs, Alex grew up feeling different from others. He was diagnosed with a variety of behavioral problems as a kid and never felt like he truly belonged. As a young adult, Alex struggled with balancing his professional and personal life. After discovering EMDR therapy in his late twenties, Alex started to see positive changes in himself and how he worked with others. The biggest change was embracing vulnerability. Alex discovered that being vulnerable as an entrepreneur allowed him to connect with his clients and colleagues. He noticed that transparency boosted his confidence and helped him with speaking engagements. In his twenties, Alex was running a consulting business while also investing in real estate. After losing everything during a housing market crash, Alex and his wife Cadey began teaching real estate brokers and lenders what they had learned. They soon found that they could expand their educational outreach to small businesses and started CHARFEN. CHARFEN’s mission is to empower entrepreneurs to grow their businesses beyond their expectations. Alex is also the author of The Billionaire Code Decoded, a guide for entrepreneurs to see where they are on their journey to success and how they can grow. Through his guide, Alex continues to help business owners expand their business and eliminate the guesswork. Alex has also written articles for Sucess, Entrepreneur and Inc. Magazine. Because of his knowledge and experience, Alex has become a go-to person for entrepreneurial success. Alex also explains in today’s podcast the importance of routine and stability. Many entrepreneurs work hectic schedules and sometimes put aside their health for the sake of their business. He stresses the significance of establishing a morning routine and prioritizing your health through exercise, adequate sleep and proper diet. Stability and routine are keys to success and help entrepreneurs to relieve stress, stay focused and gain confidence. Learn more about Alex and his mission on his website or tune in to his Momentum podcast. Alex is also offering a three-day momentum masterclass in October, where entrepreneurs can learn about his methods and the Billionaire Code. Connect with Alex on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
"The world can be in crisis, but you can be in momentum. As an entrepreneur, your job is to create a reality distortion field, where you do not participate in the crisis. The way I look at it is your focus determines your reality, so literally, your reality is yours to create." In today's episode, Carolina interviews Alex Charfen for the second time in her podcast. Alex is the CEO of CHARFEN, a company that is driven to help other entrepreneurs along their business journey. He has spent over 25 years mentoring entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies. In this episode you will discover: How you can ethically grow your business How to keep your team together while working remotely What is the best way to scale your consulting or expert based business How to build a team and hire the right people And so much more! Connect with Alex Charfen on instagram @alexcharfen and visit: billionairecode.com Register for his Masterclass momentummasterclass.com Episodes Alex Mentions at his Momentum Podcast: charfen.com/podcast Episode 645: Brand your process for freedom. Episode 201: The cadence of success Episode 60: Double your productivity in two weeks Connect with Carolina on Instagram @carolinamillan and apply for One on One Mentoring to help you take your life and business to the next level at https://go.workwithcarolina.com Get my Facebook Traffic Masterclass at fbmasteryacademy.com/minicourse Check out the previous episode with Alex, Episode 39 on Beyond The Hustle Podcast. Enjoyed the episode? Leave a 5 star review and subscribe!
Alex Charfen is a consultant, author, speaker, and coach who's helped business owners around the world achieve exponential growth and scale. His book, The Entrepreneurial Personality Type, dissects the commonalities of successful people and unravels why this tiny percentage of the population lives for momentum and making a positive impact on the world. In this special episode, Alex shares the story of his entrepreneurial journey and walks us through the concepts, frameworks, and systems that have helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs create momentum in their businesses.
One of the issues that we hear all the time from entrepreneurs is, my customers only want to deal with me. This is one of the most limiting conditions you can have in your business. If people only want to deal with you, then the growth of your business is constrained by how much time you have. No one wants to have a business where our time equals the growth of our business since it's limited. We work with our members to brand the process that people are purchasing that from them. For example, our process is called the Charfen cadence. It is a system to help you create a strategic plan, communicated to a team, and grow predictably. When people come to us, they come to us for the outcomes that the Charfen Cadence will give them, they don't expect to deal directly with me. Resources Mentioned: https://billionairecode.com
Archive 2 of Momentum for the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT)
In this episode, I'm going to share with you the strategies we teach entrepreneurs to achieve massive growth. Entrepreneurs from all over the world have applied our concepts and grown their business like crazy. Our systems work, and there's a reason. We show them exactly how to grow their business through our simple 5 step framework called The Charfen Process. This episode is a must-hear for CEOs. Because as a CEO, when you go through a process like this, you start to build more trust with your team. When they see you follow a process over and over again that get's a consistent result, you actually appear and become a better CEO. Our process has changed people's businesses, but what we're most proud of is this process changing people's lives. The people we have worked with have come back to us and said by using this consistent process, their personal lives have gotten better, their health has improved, and their relationships have improved. As the entrepreneur in charge, when you have a clear process that works over and over again, and you begin to trust it, it makes everything in your life easier. Resource mentioned: http://predictablebusinesssystems.com/
Archive 2 of Momentum for the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT)
As a leader of your business, you are the most important person on the team every day. When you take care of yourself first, you are able to take care of your team and move things forward. Today more than ever as leaders we need to be aware, present, and able to make the right decisions. The reality is that, as a leader in your business, your team will respond to the way you show up, now more than ever before. Being present and showing up in the right way will create confidence in your team during these challenging times. In this episode of the Momentum Podcast, I want to show you what it takes to create the systems in your life that will prevent crisis from doing damage to your business. It may sound cliché to "put your mask on first" but in a crisis like this one, it's not a cliché it's mandatory. When you are in leadership, the way you show up is going to determine how your team shows up, this is more important now than ever. Resources Mentioned: PredictableBusinessSolutions.com Morning.Charfen.com
Archive 2 of Momentum for the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT)
We just had the close of our second full year in business. The last six months have been exceptional for us. Our company has been growing like crazy. One of the major things we've focused on is planning. I always say that if you don't have a plan, you're going to be the biggest bottleneck. We've used our strategic planning process to coach 100's of millions of dollars in growth with our clients. Another thing we've really cracked down on is documentation of key processes and simplifying everything we possibly can to scale. To put things into context, in September of last year, we pulled all of our paid marketing so I could get out of sales and delivery. As a result, we grew our team to 15 people and had our most profitable year yet. We also launched our newest product, Billionaire Code Foundation. We started the Foundation with a small beta group. Our goal was 25 sales, and we ended at 32, with NO paid marketing. In the past few months, we also dealt with some serious health issues with my wife, Cadey. With my wife out of commission and me working at 30% productivity, our business still grew thanks to our incredible team. I can't stress this enough...having the right team is everything. We're currently at a $3 million run rate and on our way to the $3 - $10 million growth phase on the Billionaire Code. Stepping into this leader phase and delegating success has led us to have an amazing team culture. But the biggest and most exciting thing that has happened in the last two years is our client success stories. So many of our clients are exploding and hitting new milestones. Tune into the show for a full overview of what the past 24 months in business have looked like for us!
Archive 2 of Momentum for the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT)
This is a very special podcast. I had the privilege of interviewing our very own Graphic Designer, Karina Arnal. Karina has been on an incredible journey since she started working with us. Throughout this episode, she shares how her life has been completely transformed over the past year. Here's a sneak peek into her episode: Karina used to struggle with her personality type and perception of the world. She was constantly told she was weird, and her behavior wasn't normal. Karina felt like no matter where she went, she just never fit in. These urges were so strong that she moved from Venezuela to Ireland! She was diagnosed with clinical depression and was told she had it her whole life. She began therapy and shortly after joined Charfen as our Graphic Designer. She started to apply the content we teach in Momentum Masterclass and began experiencing massive changes in her life. Karina went from barely talking at all when she first joined to now recording this podcast! She quit smoking and has been smoke-free for over three months now! She has the desire to keep working towards having a better quality of life, wakes up happy, and wants to be alive. The world needs to hear Karina's story. If this helped you or you know someone who it may help, please share! Resources mentioned: https://freemomentumbook.com/ept
Archive 2 of Momentum for the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT)
Dr. Hailey Heard has been in our Billionaire Code Accelerator for a year. Before joining us, she had no idea how to keep scaling without structure. Her Company, MaxGen Labs, had a team of 3 and came into the Accelerator making $300k a year. They had tried other coaching in the past but couldn't get to the level of success they wanted. After a few short months of joining our program, Hailey and her team doubled their income. A year later, they hit a 300% growth in revenue and doubled their entire team! Hailey's biggest takeaway from the program? She said she could finally breathe as a doctor. Tune in to hear Hailey's success story and learn more about her company, MaxGen Labs. Make sure to check them out at maxgenlabs.com and use the code CHARFEN for 25% off!
Today Molly Keyser is interviewing Deanna Pecina! Deanna is the coaching manager and curriculum designer for Charfen. Her background is in the education field, where she was a middle school and high school teacher and administrator and curriculum developer for a count of 60k+ students. She is a military spouse who has had to learn to adjust her career based on multiple relocations. And, she is a course junkie. Who loves taking online courses! In this episode she covers: The one thing that most people are missing when they design courses How simple questions can greatly improve your student results The same principals from a 7th grade writing assignment will help you design better courses from scratch The importance of knowing your result when designing your course. And much more! You can see her work in action at www.charfen.com where she is the Head Coach, Coaching Manager, and Curriculum Designer. If you would prefer to watch this episode instead of listen click here!
When I talk to someone who believes that the seriousness of COVID-19 is overblown or a hoax, I ask them one question. "Have you talked to anyone on the frontlines, someone who is actually dealing with this?" The majority of the time their response is “no”. I understand that most people do not have the ability to call up an ER doctor or epidemiologist and ask them questions. At the same time, the fear and confusion around what is happening is real. I am lucky enough to have the ability to ask a professional for information, and a platform to share it with entrepreneurs like you. Today, I want to introduce you to my sister, Michelle. She is currently an ER doctor in Los Angeles county. Every week since the coronavirus first hit California I’ve been able to talk to her. Listening to her perspective after having been in emergency rooms for the last 19 years has clarified a lot for me. Michelle joined me on my podcast this week and I'm excited for you to meet her. It was a unique experience having Michelle as a little sister. When my mom asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'm pretty sure I told her a fire truck. Michelle knew she wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember, and she is younger than me. The principal at my school had to give me an exception to graduate because I had missed so many classes, she had the highest GPA in our high school's history. While I was transferring from college to college before finally dropping out, Michelle went to Stanford for her undergrad and obtained her MD from Harvard Medical School. She then completed a residency in Emergency Medicine and a Fellowship in Research at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center during which she obtained a Masters of Epidemiology from UCLA. Michelle was gracious enough to sit down with me and answer the questions that so many people have. The conversation that we had was enlightening, revealing, and insightful. I'm excited to share it so that you can understand what is happening with the virus and how you make the right decisions to keep you and your family safe. Resources Mentioned: https://www.lung.org/blog/covid-masks
INSTAGRAM COPY: WIN ALL DAY PODCAST - Episode 70 baby! . The latest WIN ALL DAY episode is live baby! And it is straight . The Creator of "The Billionaire Code”, himself! The Founder and CEO of The Charfen Institute and The Momentum Podcast!! @AlexCharfen . Alex is a true Entrepreneur that started his first company as a teannager. He has now built and sold companies and is on a mission to serve entrepreneurs. Charfen and his team help visionary entrepreneurs who can't turn it off. They help them by giving them the tools they need to change the world. That way, they can work in their strengths, and build world-changing empires. . We connected at at @clickfunnels event at a critical moment in my own life and now Alex has become a mentor and a friend. . Alex is THE BEST at what he does and you will learn more about that in this episode BUT the thing I love most about him is his heart for people. He genuinely wants to help and see the Entrepreneur WIN and he practices what he preaches as an Entrepreneur. . Here are just a few of the life changing things you will discover in this episode with the one and only, Alex Charfen. 1️⃣ COMPASSION AND EMPATHY - What it means to see the world from other people's perspectives and how you can grow an amazing business by convincing amazing people to go with you. . 2️⃣ VULNERABILITY - Alex discusses how one of the hardest things for an Entrepreneur is to ask for help and be real about what we need help with in business and how asking for help in his personal life changed everything for him. . 3️⃣ MOMENTUM - Every Entrepreneur lives for the state of momentum, moving forward and to make things happen. You will discover how to evolve humanity, create and change the world. . 4️⃣ BUILD A TEAM - How to build a team. Alex shares how he was scared to lead a team early in his career and how it felt like a prize fight. Now he shares why hiding nothing from your team could be the key ingredient in creating a winning team. . 5️⃣ LOWER THE PRESSURE AND NOISE IN YOUR LIFE - Alex shares how he asked for help and got trauma therapy, EMDR. You will discover how to lower the noise in your life so everything can get easier and you will get into momentum. 6. CLIENT CENTRIC MISSION - This one takeaway could be the difference in your business. His system to bring clarity to who you are and what you do. You will even hear His company's Client Centric Mission. . And that's just a few of the amazing wisdom bombs that Alex dropped during this episode. . If you want to WIN in business and in LIFE this episode is for you! . Get Alex FREE book so that you can get into MOMENTUM... . www.FREEMOMENTUMBOOK.com . Who loves ya?! I do! #winallday #coachjc #motivation #Entrepreneur #business #charfen #billionairecode
As a leader of your business, you are the most important person on the team every day. When you take care of yourself first, you are able to take care of your team and move things forward. Today more than ever as leaders we need to be aware, present, and able to make the right decisions. The reality is that, as a leader in your business, your team will respond to the way you show up, now more than ever before. Being present and showing up in the right way will create confidence in your team during these challenging times. In this episode of the Momentum Podcast, I want to show you what it takes to create the systems in your life that will prevent a crisis from doing damage to your business. It may sound cliché to "put your mask on first" but in a crisis like this one, it's not a cliché it's mandatory. When you are in leadership, the way you show up is going to determine how your team shows up, this is more important now than ever. Resources Mentioned: PredictableBusinessSolutions.com Morning.Charfen.com
So what are the important things? Family and Self Care. Again, I strongly recommend you conduct a 2 week time study to analyse where you are allocated and mis-allocating your time!
After completing a 2 week time study I found some challenges with where my time is being spent! Highly recommend you keeping a time study for 2 weeks - it can show you where some changes may need to be made. In this case, I need to offload my Tactical work and move towards more Strategic work!
What I've come to learn from my coaching work with Alex Charfen is that there are tasks I'm completing that can be grouped into something that's Tactical or something that's Strategic. Tactical tasks are repetitive but necessary things that need to be done in order to move forward. E.g. making a pizza Strategic tasks are times where you are planning the desired outcome of Tactical tasks. E.g. thinking about how to make the pizza taste better. As a growing Physio company I am focusing on where to better spend my time to help us grow effectively!
In this episode, I’m going to share with you the strategies we teach entrepreneurs to achieve massive growth. Entrepreneurs from all over the world have applied our concepts and grown their business like crazy. Our systems work, and there’s a reason. We show them exactly how to grow their business through our simple 5 step framework called The Charfen Process. This episode is a must-hear for CEOs. Because as a CEO, when you go through a process like this, you start to build more trust with your team. When they see you follow a process over and over again that get’s a consistent result, you actually appear and become a better CEO. Our process has changed people’s businesses, but what we’re most proud of is this process changing people’s lives. The people we have worked with have come back to us and said by using this consistent process, their personal lives have gotten better, their health has improved, and their relationships have improved. As the entrepreneur in charge, when you have a clear process that works over and over again, and you begin to trust it, it makes everything in your life easier. Resource mentioned: http://predictablebusinesssystems.com/ When you’re ready, here are a few ways my team and I can help scale your business: 1. Apply to work with me and my team. If you’d like to work directly with me and my team, to take you from where you are today to a place where there are consistent growth and scale, head on over to Predictable Business Systems and we’ll send over some details to get you started. 2. Subscribe to the Momentum Podcast. The Momentum Podcast will walk you through the importance of building a team, scaling companies, and ultimately, making your greatest contribution to the world. 3. Join Momentum Masterclass. In this course, you’ll learn how to eliminate pressure and noise, how planning systems play a massive role in your success, and the keystone habits every entrepreneur needs to develop. 4. Grab a free copy of my book: The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. This book will show you why, as an entrepreneur, there is nothing wrong with you, and how you’re not alone. We are the few who dare to dream of a better future and go into the world, insisting it become a reality.
I have been a huge fan of Alex Charfen's work and I've recently subscribed to his service so I can be a better and effective leader. This is key as I am the bottle neck of the business and in order to achieve the goal of what we're building I need to get out of the way. More to come...
When I first started my business, I was completely in control and I liked it that way. I didn't want to delegate tasks, I didn't want to outsource. I wanted my hands in everything that went on in my business.I think every entrepreneur goes through a similar process at the beginning of their journey. Like when you leave the nine-to-five world, it's like you have this risk fatigue. You've taken such a giant risk in following your dreams and turning your side hustle into a full-time career.And taking another risk by hiring someone to help you just doesn't seem doable. Your business is like your baby, and who can nurture it better than you can? So before I went to Alex Charfen, my business coach, for advice, I was obsessed with control.I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do less than ask someone for help. I actually thought that asking for help would hinder me or that I wouldn't be seen as successful by needing someone else's help or that this thing, like if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.But I was exhausted. I was overworking myself, my health suffered, my marriage suffered, and if we're being really honest, I wasn't allowing my business to reach its full potential.When I confided in Alex, he told me, "You're not that special, Marley." That sentence changed everything for me. I was slightly offended, but also extremely relieved. I learned very quickly that there were amazing, talented people out there who were better than me at what I felt was something that only I could do, and that they could come into my business and own their superpowers, allowing me to live in mine.By taking on every task yourself, you're actually limiting your business and capping your revenue. Whether you know it or not, you are fully capable of making the money that you have always dreamed of and more, but you can't achieve that goal without getting the help. And there are a ton of hardworking, talented people out there. To know more about that one step that turned out to be a giant leap in my business, stay tuned.Key Takeaways:CEO, at the time, meant chief everything officer (1:38)When I came to Charfen, I was frustrated by the ROI I was seeing (2:58)“You're not that special, Marley.” That sentence changed everything (3:43)You can't achieve that goal without getting the help… (4:23)It wasn't just about managing a team; it was personal development (5:35)Why, I think, entrepreneurs, avoid this process of taking on employees (6:51)Failure is a necessary part of entrepreneurship, and of life (8:22)I went from six figures in debt to making six figures a month (9:11)I have employees that say to me: “I can't believe I get paid to do this.” (10:12)You're not that special. You don't have to do everything in your business (10:50)The business starts to bloom as you fail and move forward despite fears (11:39)-----Additional Resources:Alex Charfen's podcastWanna increase your impact? Sign up for the Infinite Impact Challenge-----Connect with Marley:YouTubeFacebookInstagramFacebook Group
In January, 2019, the Medical Aid in Dying law, went into effect in Hawaii, and is formally called the Our Care Our Choice Act. What is it? It allows terminally ill patients with a six-month or less prognosis to go through a process to obtain medication to end their life. Dr. Norm Goody and Dr. Charlotte Charfen talk with host Sherry Bracken about how the process works. Air date: November 10, 2019
Are you and your spouse in alignment? Are you open and transparent with each other? Do you know what's going on in your husband's business? Does he know what's going on with you or at home? Cadey Charfen is here to explain why alignment, transparency, and communication in a marriage are incredibly important for growing together as a couple while growing a business. Cadey and her husband, Alex, have two rules for entrepreneurial success: your marriage comes first; and transparency in your marriage is absolute. We talk about a lot of things, but it all comes back to what Cadey and Alex call an alignment process. In other words, couples need to be on the same page in life and in business. Cadey Charfen is the president and co-founder of CHARFEN, a training, education and membership organization helping entrepreneurs identify and live in their strengths. Cadey directs strategy and systems development for the company, with a focus on marketing and customer experience. Under her leadership, CHARFEN was recognized among the Inc. 500 fastest-growing private companies in America three years in a row, reaching as high as #21. Cadey currently lives in Austin with her husband, Alex, and their homeschooled daughters, Reagan and Kennedy. Momentum Podcast Episode 564 (Part 1: The Marriage Process): https://www.charfen.com/podcast/564-part-1-the-marriage-process/ Momentum Podcast Episode 565 (Part 2: The Marriage Process): https://www.charfen.com/podcast/565-part-2-the-marriage-process/ CHARFEN Web site: charfen.com Momentum Podcast: https://www.charfen.com/podcast/ CHARFEN Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charfen/ Cadey Charfen's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cadeycharfen/ Alex Charfen's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexcharfen/ Alex Charfen's Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexcharfen/ CHARFEN YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm7h9ePRONYnfrPmLWAq2Lw Mrs. Startup Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mrsstartup/ Mrs. Startup Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/mrsstartup/ Mrs. Startup website: https://mrsstartup.com Karen's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/howellkaren/
Internationally recognized speaker and business consultant, Alex Charfen has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their business through his insights from consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500 and some of the most successful people in the world. Alex is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses and make their greatest contribution. An in-demand thought leader on business strategy and entrepreneurship, he regularly appears in major media outlets such as MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Investor’s Business Daily to provide his unique views and insights. Favorite Quote “You’re only as good as your next speech” Key Points 1. Focus on Momentum not Emotion A mistakes that many entrepreneurial type personality types make is that they focus on emotion, often failing to realize that many entrepreneurs are not as emotional as the rest of society. We thrive on momentum and achievement, not momentary pleasures, we thrive on knowing that we are making a difference and pushing the needle forward, not on feeling happy because of a joint we smoked or cute girl we went out with. If you focus your life on momentum, you will achieve success. There will be hard times, you will probably face more struggles and failures than the average person, you will feel discouraged and beaten down, but at the end of the day, it’s the momentum you are making that matters. 2. No One Average Ever Changed the World If you are ever feeling abnormal (hint if you are reading this, then you are not normal) or out of the loop socially, if you ever feel like other people don’t get you or that there may be something wrong with you, pause and think for a moment. Who do you know in history that achieved amazing things that we still remember who was normal? NO ONE! Not a single person worth noting in history was normal, they were all weird, they were all told that they were crazy that it couldn’t be done, that it would never work. But they kept moving and changed the world because of it. Never settle for average, average never changed the world. 3. Focus on Your Marriage and Romantic Relationships First Something that most entrepreneurs fail miserably at is their romantic relationships and marriages. Most entrepreneurs that you know of have likely been divorced or gone through serious break ups several times due to their personality and drive to achieve success in their business. However, when you focus on your marriage first, focus on your relationships first, you almost guarantee success in your business. Why? Because becoming the type of man who can attract his dream woman into his life, who can go through the rejection, through the emotional struggles, through the personal development that it takes to become a great boyfriend or husband, will develop himself into the type of man who will thrive and achieve in business. When you have the support and love of your wife, and when you have developed yourself into the man you need to be to attract and continue attracting her, you will achieve success. 4. You Have to Be Yourself and be Vulnerable Life doesn’t happen on high levels whenever you are living a lie, whenever you are pretending to be someone you are not, whenever you are putting on a facade to please others. Life only happens at a high level when you can be vulnerable, when you can be yourself, when you stop lying and get real with people. If you want your life to be fulfilling, not just full of material success, you have to drop the mask and be vulnerable. 5. Learn to Lower the Pressure and Noise If you have an entrepreneurial personality type, then odds are, the quiter things become, the more noise you find in your head, Even when you are relaxing you’re reviewing numbers in your head and stressing over business. Start taking care of your body, breathing, and relaxing and realize that you can quiet the noise in your head. You can lower the pressure and function at a higher level than you ever thought possible.
This is a very special podcast. I had the privilege of interviewing our very own Graphic Designer, Karina Arnal. Karina has been on an incredible journey since she started working with us. Throughout this episode, she shares how her life has been completely transformed over the past year. Here's a sneak peek into her episode: Karina used to struggle with her personality type and perception of the world. She was constantly told she was weird, and her behavior wasn't normal. Karina felt like no matter where she went, she just never fit in. These urges were so strong that she moved from Venezuela to Ireland! She was diagnosed with clinical depression and was told she had it her whole life. She began therapy and shortly after joined Charfen as our Graphic Designer. She started to apply the content we teach in Momentum Masterclass and began experiencing massive changes in her life. Karina went from barely talking at all when she first joined to now recording this podcast! She quit smoking and has been smoke-free for over three months now! She has the desire to keep working towards having a better quality of life, wakes up happy, and wants to be alive. The world needs to hear Karina's story. If this helped you or you know someone who it may help, please share! Resources mentioned: https://freemomentumbook.com/ept When you’re ready, here are a few ways my team and I can help scale your business: 1. Grab a free copy of my book: The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. This book will show you why, as an entrepreneur, there is nothing wrong with you, and how you’re not alone. We are the few who dare to dream of a better future and go into the world, insisting it become a reality. 2. Join Momentum Masterclass. In this course, you’ll learn how to eliminate pressure and noise, how planning systems play a massive role in your success, and the keystone habits every entrepreneur needs to develop. 3. Join our Billionaire Code Facebook Group. Come hang out in our Facebook group of over 2,000+ members where we regularly share about team building and company growth. 4. Subscribe to the Momentum Podcast. The Momentum Podcast will walk you through the importance of building a team, scaling companies, and ultimately, making your greatest contribution to the world. 5. Join one of our programs and work with me and my team. If you’d like to work directly with me and my team, to take you from where you are today to a place where there are consistent growth and scale, head on over to billionairecode.com and we’ll send over some details to get you started.
We just had the close of our second full year in business. The last six months have been exceptional for us. Our company has been growing like crazy. One of the major things we’ve focused on is planning. I always say that if you don’t have a plan, you’re going to be the biggest bottleneck. We’ve used our strategic planning process to coach 100’s of millions of dollars in growth with our clients. Another thing we’ve really cracked down on is documentation of key processes and simplifying everything we possibly can to scale. To put things into context, in September of last year, we pulled all of our paid marketing so I could get out of sales and delivery. As a result, we grew our team to 15 people and had our most profitable year yet. We also launched our newest product, Billionaire Code Foundation. We started the Foundation with a small beta group. Our goal was 25 sales, and we ended at 32, with NO paid marketing. In the past few months, we also dealt with some serious health issues with my wife, Cadey. With my wife out of commission and me working at 30% productivity, our business still grew thanks to our incredible team. I can’t stress this enough...having the right team is everything. We’re currently at a $3 million run rate and on our way to the $3 - $10 million growth phase on the Billionaire Code. Stepping into this leader phase and delegating success has led us to have an amazing team culture. But the biggest and most exciting thing that has happened in the last two years is our client success stories. So many of our clients are exploding and hitting new milestones. Tune into the show for a full overview of what the past 24 months in business have looked like for us! When you’re ready, here are a few ways my team and I can help scale your business: 1. Grab a free copy of my book: The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. This book will show you why, as an entrepreneur, there is nothing wrong with you, and how you’re not alone. We are the few who dare to dream of a better future and go into the world, insisting it become a reality. 2. Watch our free presentation on Momentum Masterclass. In this free training, you’ll learn how to eliminate pressure and noise, how planning systems play a massive role in your success, and the keystone habits every entrepreneur needs to develop. 3. Join our Billionaire Code Facebook Group. Come hang out in our Facebook group of over 2,000+ members where we regularly share about team building and company growth. 4. Subscribe to the Momentum Podcast. The Momentum Podcast will walk you through the importance of building a team, scaling companies, and ultimately, making your greatest contribution to the world. 5. Join one of our programs and work with me and my team. If you’d like to work directly with me and my team, to take you from where you are today to a place where there are consistent growth and scale, head on over to billionairecode.com and we’ll send over some details to get you started.
Alex Charfen is one of the very select few coaches I continually plug into... I have wanted to get this individual on here for quite some time, and Alex Charfen has been one of the reasons why my stuff is blowing up so much. I have learned that I need to listen to less people, and I'm very, very picky on those that I choose to dive deeply with… So for marketing and sales, I've really dove deep with Russell, (obviously) and you all know that. For systems and business systems, I've dove very deeply with Alex Charfen... he's the other coach that I pay a lot to and listen to as well. ...and I have other various ones that are very carefully selected... and I don't listen to ANYBODY else! I'm extremely careful about the content that I consume - so that I can spend most of my time just moving, rather than gathering MORE information… ... which I don't think many of us need more of. So anyway, I'm excited for you guys to understand more of why Alex Charfen, for me, has been so key… So I asked him to come on the show and to teach a little bit more about the systems that all businesses need, regardless of whatever you're in. A lot of these are the systems that a brand new entrepreneur needs when they finally get that revenue coming in. ...and then there are systems that he creates for those who have an existing business and are ready to scale. Alex answers the questions… How do you know if you should be scaling or not? What are the five reasons why most companies fail to scale? If you guys like this interview, please reach out to him, (he did not need to do this) and say “Thank You!” At the very end, we have a special little thing for you, and so we're excited! Boom, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen, welcome back to Sales Funnel Radio - we're really excited to have you guys here. I'm with one of my good friends, who's become an amazing friend and definitely a mentor... I would call and consider him a brother as well. I want to introduce everybody to Alex Charfen. Before I really bring Alex on, I just want you all to understand, Alex Charfen was one of the guys that helped me understand why I am who I am... and that, it’s okay… and helped me lean into that. I talk to you a lot about leaning into your obstacles, leaning into those things that have been crappy in your life… … because they end up becoming your superpower. You all know my story of going to the first Funnel Hacking Live, Alex Charfen was one of the first speakers, and I took so many notes… I ran back home, I showed my wife and she goes "That's why you act the way you do?" And I was like "YES, it's because of this guy!” He had a crazy deep gravelly voice and I loved it. He was the man!" ...and I'm so excited to bring him on the show here: Guys, please welcome Alex Charfen, “How you doing, man?” ALEX: Steve, it is so good to be here with you, man. Thank you, and I echo your sentiments completely, and I consider you a brother as well, man. STEVE: Oh thank you so much, thank you so much. You know it was like two weeks ago; me and my wife were chatting about your material and going on through it, and she goes "Oh yeah, I have to remember this is how your brain kind of works." I was like, "Really naturally, yeah! You should really know that" so we'll go back through your stuff. You know, I've got that Capitalist Pig shirt that I wear all the time, but I really want one that just says, "Charfen will explain," or something like that, you know what I mean? That should be the next shirt… So much of what I do in this world just is NOT explainable without you. ALEX: Yeah, it's unique, you know, Stephen… I think when you characterize it that way, so much of what you do is different than what anybody in the world would ever expect... and that's what I've found from the day I met you. I think I walked up to you and said something like: "Hey man, I think we should talk. You're a really unique entrepreneur and I don't think you understand just how unique." STEVE: I remember you said that. ALEX: Or something like that. STEVE: Yeah I remember, and I felt like, you know in the Matrix when he's talking to that lady with the spoon bend... I felt like I was talking to her, and I was like: "What does he see in me? What are you looking at?" You know, and "Please dissect me!" So anyway, I really am pumped for you to be here and just massive incredible love. You have to understand, your name; it's NOT just a noun, it’s a verb in my vocabulary. People are like "How did you do that?” "I just Charfenized it, baby!" I say ‘Charfenation’ all the time. I was hanging out with the other ‘Charfenites.’ I'm going over the ‘Charfenation.’ "How did you do that?" “Oh, I ‘Charfenized’ it, baby!” Anyways, you're very much a verb in my vocabulary, and with my family... so it's really quite an honor to have you on, it really is. ALEX: Thank you Stephen, it's an honor to be here man, this is awesome. STEVE: This is really cool. Well hey, I wanna just start right out and just, I wanted to ask… My audience has heard a lot about you. I've talked about you a lot because there’s so much that ‘veI learned. Just recently, I was going through some of my old notes, from two years ago, from one of your events, and I was like "Gosh, you're so right, this is so cool!" It really has created additional leverage for what I'm trying to do. It works, it's real, and I want everyone to listen to this and listen to what Alex has to say here. Understand that *this* is how I've been doing what I’m doing. I learned marketing and a lot of sales from Russell... but how to have a life, systemize, and make my business an asset from Alex Charfen. So, anyway, could you just tell us how you got into this? 'Cause I know you weren't always… I mean I call it entrepreneurial optimization, I mean it's really what you do - it's not just the systems, but like: I'm wearing glasses now I'm drinking more water than I ever have in my life I'm doing all sorts of stuff I never would do, because of you How did you get into this? ALEX: - You know Stephen, I think if the question is, "How did I become an entrepreneur?” I didn't find entrepreneurship, it found me. This was really the only thing I ever felt comfortable doing in my life. Ever since I was a little kid, I was always the kid that was different than everybody else, crazy socially awkward, like what you see today… I don't try to be socially awkward, it's just natural. I was always different than the other kids I didn't really get along I had trouble in school All the systems in the world told me I was broken. … and then, when I was eight years old, my family went through kind of a financial downturn; my father lost a company. He didn't go bankrupt, but he went really close, and to make money for the family we were selling stuff in a swap meet on the weekends. I remember going to the swap meet for the first time and standing behind a folding card table, and a woman walked up, and I sold her a pen that had an LCD clock in it… (Like that was big time for 1981 or whatever or '78 or '79, or whatever it was). Stephen I can remember thinking at that moment, "Holy crap, I'm good at this. This is something I'm NOT terrible at." … because up until that point, I really hadn't found anything where it was like, "Hey, that was good." It was always’ "Almost got it, kid. You don't suck as bad as you did yesterday." I was the kid who consistently got *MOST IMPROVED* all the time, 'cause it's the award you give to ‘the kid who sucked the worst!’ And when that woman walked up, it was like "Hey, this is something I can do over and over again." And the more that I worked with my Dad, and the more that I experienced business, I loved it. The world is so random, but when you get into the world of business there are rules. …. there's an outcome. People are in it together, and you actually have to work together to accomplish and achieve. … if everybody cares about the outcome, it'll happen. And so *this* is where I feel comfortable. You know, it's funny, when I was a kid I used to create businesses, create business plans, write out time cards and all this other stuff, and as an adult, I thought that was like ‘the weirdest thing.’ I would reflect back and think like, "Man, I was such a weird kid." Now, that's exactly what my daughters do. My daughter this morning was at the kitchen table for three hours writing out a schematic for a water park she wants to build one day. STEVE: Wow! ALEX: And you are who you are, and I think, from the very beginning, this is who I've been. STEVE: That's amazing, and when did you decide to make a business around this and go actually help other entrepreneurs, like myself, who need these systems? ALEX: Well, the business that I have today, we started… So let me give you a little brief history. So in my twenties, I was a consultant, and you know, a lot of people ask about that. I did some consulting at a very high level at the Fortune 500 level... I built a very large business that almost killed me. And so I can tell the story really good... I can give you all the highlights and make it sound great: $250,000,000 company I've worked with Fuji and TDK and Memorex and Logitech, and all international business. Or I can tell you the other side of that coin… I had a $250,000,000 company I made less than $2,000,000 a year my margins were razor thin I had a bleeding ulcer I was probably over 300 pounds STEVE: Wow. ALEX: And so when I got out of that business, I wanted to do something completely different. So in my early thirties, I got into real estate, and we were taken out by the real estate market in 2007. Cadey and I introduced our first information product, and that's how we got into this world. We created a product called the Certified Distressed Property Expert Designation. In 2007 we were bankrupt, we introduced our product at the end of the year: In 2008 we did $500,000 in sales The next year we did $7,000,000 The next year we did $10,000,000 Over the course of the life of that product, we did about $70,000,000 We went from bankruptcy to liquid millionaires in a year. In 2013, the US Treasury came to our office and did a broadcast with us, where they said that, according to their research… Our company had pulled forward the foreclosure crisis five to seven years ….so it was intense. STEVE: Oh, yeah... ALEX: Really intense! And what happened was, right around 2011… A lot of our clients who were buying our product wanted help growing their business; so I took all of the stuff that I used to use as a consultant; the systems and structure Cadey and I used to run our business, and we started training it. And so since 2011, we've been training it in classes/ courses. In 2017, we started the products that we have today. So now we have : An entry-level coaching program called Billionaire Code Accelerator - for people who are doing over 300k a year A high-level coaching program called The Billionaire Code Grow and Scale - for people doing over 3,000,000 a year. STEVE: That's awesome! That's so cool. ALEX: Yeah it is the most fun I've ever had, Stephen… It's like every day, I wake up and here's what I get to do: I get to play in this playground with game-changing entrepreneurs that are starting businesses that are doing things that are just unreal. ...and our systems, our structures are kind of the backbone for how they're doing things. So on a daily basis, me and everyone on my team, wake up knowing that we are helping the game-changers change the world, and we recruit people who want to do that… We recruit for people who are passionate about our mission… Everyone on my team feels like their life's mission is being fulfilled through being in this business right now. It's the greatest thing I've ever done. STEVE: That's incredible, and I can tell everyone else who's listening and watching this now, it's exactly as he says it. I think I've been to three of your events now, and they have just been life-changing. I go through and it gives structure to the idea, but then, also, how I behave against the idea. So I can actually go in and breathe; I can live. I watched my Dad create this awesome company when I was a young boy, but it took him too. But everyone does that, it's super natural - so you to go in and… Remove the entrepreneur Create systems Create processes and procedures, and people that actually push forward their vision even further. ... it's incredible. I know it's not magical, but it feels magical, to me! I'm like "Oh my gosh!" I've actually had a tab open with your course open for like the last month and I'll just dive into another video, and I'm like "Oh my gosh! Back to the drawing board, that was so good!" And I go back to it again and again and again... it's just always up, everybody who's listening to me, it's always up. That's really what's teaching me how to run a company, rather than ‘me’ being the company, and I've loved that. *Just so powerful* I wanted to ask you kind of a key question here, and it's a question that I get asked a lot... People come through my programs, I'll help them make money. They go and make a lot of cash, and it's awesome... but then after that, like what do you do? What are the first systems that you find that new entrepreneurs with a sizeable amount of cash should actually go create first? What are those first few moves? ALEX: You know I think I definitely want to share a couple of systems Stephen, but first, I want to just share a thought process. ..and this is a tough thought process for most entrepreneurs to take on, and it's interesting 'cause I've watched you go through this shift too, right? ' Cause at the beginning, (and I just want everyone to know)... When I met Stephen Larsen, he was ready to take on the entire world solo! STEVE: Yeah. ALEX: Like all alone, right? And here's the thought process… After you start making money, the next thing to ask yourself is: How do I sustain this? How do I make it real? How do I make it last a long time? How do I make it so that I'm not the only driver here? when you get to the point where the momentum you're creating on your own isn't enough, and believe me, we all get there... Like I know that if you're watching me, watching Stephen, you're one of those entrepreneurs... and in the back of your mind, you have this crazy voice that has always told you: You're meant for more You're gonna do more You're gonna change the world You're gonna make a massive impact ... and if you've always felt that, then there's a shift you have to make in your thinking. Because here's the issue for people like us; I call it the Entrepreneurs Dilemma. For people like us… We need far more help than the average person to reach our full destination, but any request for help or support that we have to make, leaves us feeling vulnerable and exposed. Stephen, you with me? STEVE: Yes, yes, yes, yes, 100%! ALEX: And so here's the shift… We have to realize that if we're gonna change the world, that is a group activity, and leadership's a contact sport. So we have to wake up to the fact that when we start to: Build a team Create a structure Pour into the people around us Invest in those people Make them important Build relationships with them …. we will build the company that we have always wanted. That's the only way it's ever been done. The myth of the solopreneur who's changed the world is a myth - it's a joke. STEVE: So true ALEX: It's one of the most damaging things out there in the entrepreneurial world today. Because the fact is… Show me anyone that looks like they changed the world on their own, and I will show you a massive team behind them. STEVE: So true! There's this idea that gets pushed around now, and it's like, “I'm gonna go and be this person that does all this stuff. I'm the gift to the world...” ...and it's like “Okay….” but you can't do that on your own. In the last six months, I have begun to experience and feel burn-out. ALEX: Yeah. STEVE: I have never in my life experienced that, and it's been hard. The only way I've been able to create leverage is by listening to what you say and create those teams. ALEX: Yeah. Well then, Stephen, that's the thing… Here's the deal I want everybody to understand this: If you're an entrepreneur, you have a job, and that job is to… Stay out of burn-out Lower pressure and noise in your life Increase the protection and support that you have around you. Because if you don't work with that equation to constantly lower the noise and increase the support, lower the noise, increase the support… Here's what ends up happening… You are in an equation that doesn't work. … and it's not like anyone can come and argue against me here because this is like gravity. This is like you know the facts of life, this is like taxes. We're all gonna pay 'em. There's no way to argue against this, you're going to lose. And so in that situation, as an entrepreneur, you have to be really cautious about doing too much yourself, and about loading yourself up, because here's our instinct… (You know you have this, I have this, we all have it.) If there's something to be done, the first thought we have is, “How do I just get it done without telling anyone else,” right? Oh yeah! STEVE: Yeah ALEX: And it's like "I'm gonna conquer!" STEVE: Freedom baby! ALEX: We forget that humans are tribal animals, man. We are all terrible at most things. Let's get real… If you're good at a lot of things then you have a liability because you're not gonna be able to choose what you shouldn't do. I'm very fortunate, I suck at most everything, and that's like an honest reality. Anyone on my team will tell you like "Oh man, don't let Alex fill out a form, use the calendar, "send emails. We keep him out of all of our systems." Seriously my team actually knows when I have a password for a system and they monitor me using it, 'cause I'm so bad at that stuff. But on that same token, I know what I'm good at. I'm good at vision I'm good at where we're gonna go I'm good at putting the frameworks together I'm good at assembling a team … and by doing those things, we can grow a massive organization and have a massive impact. So for every entrepreneur, the key is to figure out what you're good at and do that to the exception of everything else ... and it's the hardest thing you'll ever do as an entrepreneur. Here's why… The second you start doing that you feel like you're being egotistical. You feel like you're being self-serving. But here's the fact: When you drive your business to get easier for you it will grow like crazy. But driving your business to get easier for you will feel like you're doing the wrong thing. It happens all the time. There's a discussion right now on our Facebook group, one of the CEOs in our group made a post, and I'm paraphrasing, but she said something like : "As I offload and reduce discomfort and get a team around me, I'm feeling less and less significant, am I doing this right?" And my answer was "Yes! You're absolutely doing this right. That's exactly how it's gonna feel!" Because we need to attach significance to the total contribution, NOT to your day-to-day activities. STEVE: Mmmm, that's powerful. You know it's funny I was It reminds me of … You know when I first got to ClickFunnels, it was just he and I. There wasn't like a copywriter, a videographer... it was just he and I! So we did every single role in getting these funnels out, occasionally there was an exception where he'd go "Oh someone's really good at X, Y, and Z," but then, by the time I left... ALEX: - Probably design or something… but everything else was you guys? STEVE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right! I knew enough Indesign and Photoshop, I was the one doing it most of the time... and doing first copy rounds, and it like, it was nuts! But by the time I left, it was funny because he had started implementing these types of things. I remember watching him during these funnel launches just laying on the floor, bored out of his mind. I've never seen him like that in my life, and he was almost going to a state of depression. He was like "I'm not needed in my own thing now. Ah no-one needs me anymore." It's a funny thing to realize, we're just the orchestrators. We don't play all the instruments. ALEX: We shouldn't, we shouldn't. And so, you know, back to your question about what systems should an entrepreneur start looking at? Now, I'm gonna talk high level, and I wanna share... You and I are really close friends, and I wanna share the most critical content we have for entrepreneurs with your group. STEVE: I appreciate that. ALEX: This is what we normally share internally once somebody joins our program… We share the five things that keep companies from scaling. The reality is, there are really five things that keep companies that should scale, from scaling. And here's what I mean ‘companies that should scale…’ You know, if you go talk to most consultants, venture capitalists, investment bankers, accountants, lawyers, whatever, they'll give you this laundry list of why companies don't scale: They didn't have enough money They didn't have the right people They didn't do all of these things The reality is, if you look at most companies that should scale, there are five clear reasons why they don't… So let me share them with you, but let me give you this caveat… Here's what I mean by "should scale..." If you've got a market If you're capable of selling If you could do more If you know you're leaving money on the table …. you should be scaling. If those things aren't there for you right now, go resolve that and then start scaling. Far too many people try and scale before they actually have all the steps in place. Then you just build infrastructure that does nothing. So let me tell you what the five things are... #1: So number one, first and foremost, absolutely most crucial, is… Most businesses don't have any type of strategic plan. So as a result, there's no go-forward strategy, and here's what happens in a business when you don't have a go-forward strategy. If you don't know where you're going, neither does your team ... neither does anybody around you And so you will, by virtue of math, become the biggest bottleneck in the company. Here's why… If there's no forward plan where all of us can point at and go get it and help you chase it down, every time we want to know what to do we have to ask you, and we have to go to you... and it's a death of a thousand paper cuts. You're literally in a place where you're: Telling people what to do Checking that it got done Telling them what to do again. And if you've ever been in that situation as an entrepreneur, you know that somebody only has to ask you twice before you're ready to flip out and lose it. Am I right Stephen? STEVE: Yeah, yeah, usually once. ALEX: Once, right, right, but by the second time you're like "Are you kidding me?" And so the way we get past that is we create a clear strategic plan, we share it with our entire team… ... and if the team knows where they're going, here's what happens. I want you to understand something about the people coming to work for you. If you're in a small business, you're hiring entrepreneurs. I know that there's this saying in the market, "You're either an entrepreneur or you work for one." I call complete and total BS - don't even bring that crap around me. STEVE: Yeah! ALEX: Every person on my team is an incredibly talented, hyper-motivated, world-changing entrepreneur, they just choose to be part of a team. And so you're gonna hire entrepreneurs, and the way you keep entrepreneurs absolutely and totally focused and excited, is you show them what they're hunting, you give them the kill. You say: Here's our plan This is what we're doing This is how you win. And if you hire the right people, they will walk over hot glass to get to that destination for you. STEVE: Yeah. ALEX: But if they don't know where it is, you're gonna demotivate them and completely de-leverage them. So number one, you have to have a strategic plan. In my experience, less than 1% of businesses do. Also, less than 1% of businesses ever hit $100,000,000. In fact only 3% ever hit 1,000,000. STEVE: Jesus. ALEX: So when you look at that, it's not 1% of businesses that hit 100,000,000, 0.01% of businesses ever hit 100,000,000, and the reason is... Most businesses don't know where they're going. And Stephen, by you having the tools to build a strategic plan in your business, hasn't it changed how you approach things? STEVE: Oh gosh, you guys remember when I tell you those stories of I left my job... I created 200 grand of revenue really quick but there were no systems I was the… Support guy Fulfillment guy Sales guy. I did every role, and I voluntarily, very painfully, had to turn down revenue to go build these structures. And I want you all to know, it was Alex Charfen's stuff that helped me go in and actually set those systems in place... and so, please understand my affinity for this man and what he does. About halfway through the year, I was only at like 300 - 400 grand, which is pretty good, but that last huge sprint came in because of the things that Alex Charfen and his team were teaching me. All those planning things that I use, and all the things that I've just lightly mentioned, they've all come from Alex Charfen, and it helped scale me. ALEX: That's awesome Stephen... Man, that makes me so proud. This is so cool! Like there's only one Stephen Larsen in the world, and I told you that the first day I met you… I'm like, "Dude you are completely and totally unique and I think I can help you build the company you really want." STEVE: Yeah, you said ALEX: And for us to be sitting here, and for you to say that, I got chills Stephen, that's so awesome. Thank you, man! STEVE: Oh man, I'm so jazzed about what we do, but it's because of what you teach I'm like "I can do it... " The first time I ever saw Stephen at an event, I did not leave the event until I'd cornered him and told him what I needed to tell him... because I knew you were gonna be exactly that type of person. ...and here's why it's so important to me, Stephen. I could tell the first time I saw you, that you were gonna have a massive effect on the world. But here's what I know about entrepreneurs; you're gonna have the biggest effect on the people closest to you - the people who are most proximal, your team. And when I see an entrepreneur like you Stephen, I'm like: "Man, if that guy builds a team he's gonna change hundreds of lives internally in his company. They're gonna change millions of lives externally, and I know those hundreds of people will build your legacy." And when I see somebody like you, I'm like, “Man! That is the path, let me show you how to do this.” The fact that it's working, is like, “Ah, it makes me so excited every day.” This is why I get up out of bed every morning and do what I do. STEVE: Ah, it's so fun man, feeling's mutual. You walked up, it was from that FHAT event that you were at. ALEX: Ah ha. STEVE: And you walked up and said, "There's a huge company in you and I don't think you know it, and I'm gonna help you pull it out of you." I remember when you said that, I was so scared. I was like, "There's no way that this is real! I know who you are, are you kidding me?" It freaked me out, and I had to own my own vision for a while. It actually took me a while to practice that. Anyway, so much has gone on in mental clarity and development from what you've taught, not just these systems and things around, it's really cool. ALEX: - So let's give the second one, Stephen STEVE: Yeah, sorry, sorry. ALEX: oh don't apologize, shit I love this part. So first you have a strategic plan… #2: Second, the thing that you need to have is A system to communicate that plan. Let me tell you something about us as entrepreneurs… We think we're good communicators, but we're lying to ourselves. The fact is, we are haphazard and emotional, and we're pumped one second and we're not the next, and we're all over the place… Here's what happens… When we have a team that has to deal with a personality like ours, and there's NOT a system for communication, it's random and haphazard and overwhelming... and it comes from all angles, and they're waiting for word from on high. Here's the fact, if you're the entrepreneur in charge, you're the MOST important person in the building all the time. You're the most important person on the team, in the tribe, in the group, and they're all waiting to see what you say. And if they're waiting for days and nothing's happened, they start thinking: Is something wrong? Did something go bad? Did we do something wrong? So you need a system. As an example: My team knows every Monday at 4:00, we're all gonna be on a weekly meeting together. They also know every day at 9:27 a.m. we're gonna be on a daily huddle, and I'll be there. They know that once a month we're gonna have a meeting where we show our strategic plan. They know once a month we're gonna have a meeting where they all get the results. So they all know when they're gonna communicate with me and how. From the first day you're on our team there's a system that controls how you hear from me. Not just me pumping stuff out there haphazardly. As a result, my team knows they're gonna hear from me, they trust it and here's what happens. I set the expectations, I meet the expectations, we create trust. I create trust with my team every time I do that. And here's the fact: If your team trusts you, you get way more out of them. If your team trusts you, they will do more for you. If your team trusts you, you'll get discretionary effort ... which means when they're driving, when they're showering, when they're doing something else, they're gonna be thinking about your business. Why? ...because it gives them momentum. So if you have a strategic plan and a system to communicate it, you're ahead of 99% of companies out there. And Stephen, same thing for you with the system, the structure? Like… We all fight structure, but once you put it in place, isn't it incredible? STEVE: Oh, it's amazing! Stuff's getting done right now, that we set in place once. and then, I'll be like "Oh, podcast episode just launched,!Oh, what day is it? Oh, that's sweet! Everyone just put it out, all right, cool!" ALEX: Right, I remember when I started getting messages like, "Hey, I love the new podcast!" And I'm like "Oh, we put a podcast out? Nice!" STEVE: I didn't do that, what are you talking about? ALEX: So you have #1: a strategic plan, then #2: a system to communicate. #3: Here's the third one, now this is BIG, really big, and most business owners just, they don't look at this ever and it's the biggest struggle is, or one of the biggest struggles is; You have to have a system to consistently document the right processes in your business. And by documentation, I mean having: A flowchart A process document A checklist Something that shows you how the important things in your business are done over and over again. For example: If you walk into a McDonald's, and you look above the fry cooker, there is a process to cook fries above that fry cooker. Anything that happens in that McDonald's, there's a process for literally every single thing, including: Unlocking the door Turning off the alarm Sweeping the floor That's why there's a consistent experience at McDonald's; I'm not saying it's a good experience, I'm saying it's consistent. In most businesses, in most entrepreneurial businesses, there's no process. In fact, it's even scarier than that... The process lives either in the owner's head or in an individual's head - so you lose a person, you lose the company. You lose a person, you lose a big chunk of what you're doing. STEVE: Hmm. ALEX: So you have to have a system in a business to consistently evaluate what processes are in the company, and then on a monthly and weekly basis document the right ones. The way that I would suggest you start, is you look at your customer experience: What is the customer experience in your company? What process documentation do you have to back it up to make sure that is completely consistent? If you do that, you're gonna beat most people out there... 99% of entrepreneurial companies have little to nothing documented in any type of process. STEVE: They're just shooting in random spots 24/7. ALEX: Or they're doing stuff like, "Here's how we do our customer on-boarding…” I trained Suzy Suzy trained Annie Annie trained Bob John does it now ...and you're like "Oh, cool! Let's go and see what John's doing?" Well, John's doing nothing close to what Suzy and Bob and everybody else was originally doing, and so you have these degrading processes in your business. And here's what happens… When you look at entrepreneurial businesses, they tend to… Go up in revenue Come back down in revenue Go up in revenue Come back down. If you're inside those companies, hundreds of times like I have been, here's what I can tell you… Revenue goes up as the process is working, and then when it breaks, it comes back down. *PERIOD* That's why businesses don't continue to go forward - there are processes breaking in the business. Whether it's marketing, sales, delivery, whatever it is there's a process breaking. When you document your proceses, you make them bulletproof. So in our business, we actually use: Lucidchart Flowcharts Sheets in Google Sheets A new product called Process Street - a distributed, automated process document system, which is incredible. So we have all of our processes in Process Street, and we have a distributed team around the world. We have somebody in Ireland who can do their part of the process, as soon as they hit the last button it transfers to somebody here in the US who can do their part of the process. STEVE: That's awesome. ALEX: Documenting your processes + Putting them in place = Game-changing STEVE: Holy cow, okay I wrote that down. I'm taking tons of notes so everyone knows, I hope they are as well…. And I'm not sharing! ;-) Process.st is the company, and we are so happy with it because... Stephen, here's what I want everyone to know,... Cadey and I have had five businesses get over $10,000,000 a year, and all five of them ran them with paper checklists. This is the first time we have automated checklists in Process Street. The last information products business that we had, we literally had three-ring binders that we would carry around the office and check stuff off. Having a three-ring binder with a process was so much better than having somebody trying to do it from memory. Now with Process Street, we can distribute that three-ring binder, and I can get reporting on who's doing what. STEVE: That's amazing. Yeah, I've actually seen the three-ring binder and I've thought, "Holy crap, that really is how he's doing it.” You would teach it and then I watched you actually do it.. 'cause you would record your stand up meeting calls in the morning ALEX: Yeah. STEVE: And I was, "Oh my gosh, that's so cool! I'm NOT doing that, interesting." Then I’d go back and take notes and start it. ALEX: And then implement. Well, and you know, there's this phrase in the entrepreneurial world. Ah... I kind of get a little triggered, right! STEVE: Let it out, baby! ALEX: You know the thing that people say from stage: "Here's what I want all of you to know. All you have to do is stop working in your business and start working on your business." And I'm always like: "Oh, good, thanks. Thanks for solving it all for us dude, that was awesome. You just solved all my problems with that really cliched BS thing that everybody tells entrepreneurs." When I was in my twenties, my instant thought was like, "How do I get on stage to punch that guy in the face?" And my then my second thought was like, "What a load of crap! If I don't work in the business nobody's answering the phones, sucker." Like, what's going on here? I don't know how to make that change. And so the way you make that change is… Working on the business means documenting processes. By making it: Clear Repeatable Real And so you have… A strategic plan that everyone understands A communication system everyone knows is gonna happen A system for documenting processes so everyone can repeat what's going on with your clients #4: The next step,(and this is BIG), is.. A consistent system for identifying, documenting, and then prioritizing the right project in the business. STEVE: Ah, this changed my life. *HARDCORE* ALEX: Whoa, Stephen, you know how game-changing this is because, here's the problem in most businesses… Projects are selected emotionally. Period, I can't tell you that they're done any other way - they're emotional. You go to an event and somebody says "I'm doing this thing," and then, the next day, you're doing that thing. You listen to a podcast or you hear a webinar, and the person says "Hey, I added this thing to my business," and the next day, you're trying to do that thing. In our business, if I have a really great idea that I want to implement today… If I'm like, "Man, this is a really high sense of urgency, we should get this implemented." It'll probably be somewhere around 45 days, and I'm totally okay with that. That's the timing it should be in my business. Now if there's an emergency we're gonna fix it that day, but if I'm like, "Hey, I see an opportunity here with something," it's probably a 45-day event… Why? I have a team and a structure, and a plan, and we have a system that's moving forward. We're already hitting our numbers, why would I mess with anything? I actually protect what's going on in the business I add things gently I add things carefully I make sure my team's into it too I make sure we have consensus In just in the last 60 days, we've gone from two million recurring to two point three million recurring, STEVE: That's awesome! ALEX: So why would I mess with what we're doing? STEVE: Yeah. ALEX: Yeah, so when somebody's like "Hey Alex, I got this "great idea for your business." I'm like "Awesome, get in line." And we'll put it into our system to see if we want to actually do this… Because the fact is… If you're getting sold as an entrepreneur on what your next project should be, you're probably in the wrong place. STEVE: Yeah, that's fascinating. I really agree with that. It was your planning system for figuring out which projects, I still do it. Top of every three months and it has guided everything we do. And while I do follow a few rabbits and I'm practicing bringing it back in, we still largely follow the plan as to what the business needs, and that's ‘grow and scale’ rather than this impulse of like: "Yeah, oh shiny object, shiny object, "that looks good, that looks good!" And it's been that discipline, that's the other thing that's always up is my waterfall... ALEX: Yeah, yeah, always! I mean mine's up right now. I mean I could share it right now. And the reason is I always have my strategic plan pulled up in front of me, I'm looking at it every single day. I'm asking myself: Is the team doing what we need to do here? How do I support people more? How do I help them do this more? Because when you look at our strategic plan, here's what it's made up of. Our one-year outcomes Our client-centric mission - which is our Superbowl, our hall of fame, the long term The 90-day projects we're focusing on right now What we're doing this month to hit those targets . So that waterfall of long term, to one year, to 90 days, to 30 days, I can see it all on one document and it tells me EXACTLY where I should be supporting the team and what we're getting done. And so here's what happens… I went to an event a couple of weeks ago, and I had an idea that was like "Oh man, we have to do this." Then I come back to the office, I look at the waterfall and I'm like "What do I want to kill in order to do this thing over here?" And you know what the evaluation was? *NOTHING* I'm not going to take anything off this, that would be crazy. There's no way I'm gonna go to my team and say, "Hey guys, in addition to all the other stuff you're committed to, here's a hot potato." I just backed down and I waited till the next time we had a planning meeting and I said, "Hey, there's this thing I think we should do." We evaluated it It went into the system It went into the plan There is very little knee-jerk reaction in our company because we are going so fast in a forward direction, that for me to challenge that in any way it has to be game-changing at a different level - so it rarely even happens. STEVE: Yeah, black-ops right? Call them black-ops? ALEX: Black-ops. STEVE: No black-ops! ALEX: No black-ops, baby! If it's NOT on the plan, you don't do it... or it's black-ops. And usually, the biggest creators of black-ops are guys like Stephen and I. So my team has an open license to tell me if I'm doing black-ops. They will actually call me out in a huddle, in a meeting, they'll be like "Ah, this sounds like black-ops," and then we'll make a note, we'll put it in a parking lot and do it later. STEVE: Oh, that's so cool, okay. ALEX: Yeah, that's one of the most important things you can do when you have a team Stephen… You train your team to criticize you and then you congratulate them when they do. STEVE: That's really cool, then they have a license to actually flex their brain instead of feeling like they're in a box. ALEX: Absolutely. You know I heard a story once about Larry Page, who runs Google, He was in a meeting and he really strongly stated a point. and one of the team members got emotional about it and started yelling at him. She was like, "I think you're wrong and this is why you're wrong," and Page was smiling… Afterward, she asked somebody "Hey why was he smiling?" ‘Cause she backed him down, and he actually said "You know what, I think this deserves more investigation. Let's do this." She walked out and she was shaking and all adrenalized up, she had just yelled at the CEO of Google, like, “What the heck's gonna happen to me?” She turned to somebody next to her, and was like "He was smiling, is that because he's gonna come down hard on me?" And the person was like, "No, he was smiling because you confronted him, he loves it, he wants it.” He knows that if people aren't confronting him, he's in a bad place. So I look at it in my team and I'm like, "Hey, if my team's not challenging me a little bit, then we're all just marching behind a duck." You know, I don't wanna have ducklings behind me. I want people who are saying: Hey, this might work This might not work We might have a better idea So you give your team license to criticize and license to call you on stuff. STEVE: Gosh, I love that. #5: So here's the fifth one... So we have: Strategic plan Communication system Selecting and documenting the right processes Selecting and achieving the right projects, ….and then, this is *BIG* Finding the right people It's NOT just finding the right people, its… Evaluating the company Understanding what the company needs right now What can you offload that is going to create the most momentum, not just for you, but for the team, for everything that you're doing together? What is the position that you need to put in place next - so that the company moves forward the fastest? And unfortunately, just like everything else I've named, planning, projects, process, all of those... people also become emotional. An entrepreneur wakes up one morning and says, "I'm doing too much, I'm gonna hire an assistant." Then they have the assistant sit next to them for three weeks, and they wonder why this doesn't work out? It's because you had the thought to get help, (which by the way I congratulate you on), but there was no process there to actually make it work. And so here's the process you need… Evaluate what's going on in the company Understand what the company needs Turn it into a job description Then you use it to recruit You do tons of interviewing You drive it until you have three people that you can select from You hire one of them and then you do at least a 90-day onboarding, high-intensity onboarding. When I'm onboarding an executive team member, I meet with them every day for the first month, three times a week for the second month, and two times a week for the third month. People tell me, "Hey man, doesn't that "feel like overkill?" I'm like: You don't understand what it means to have an executive team. Your job is to build relationships with those people. You want to know how you build relationships? There's one commodity that builds relationships. One! *TIME* - that's it. And so when I'm onboarding, when I'm bringing somebody on, (whether it's on my executive team or anywhere in the business), somebody is doing that high-intensity onboarding with them… Up close and personal every single day for the first 30 days making sure we have no drift. And so, when you have a system to select the right people, bring them on and then onboard them the right way… Here's what you avoid, (and Stephen this is like, Ah, this statistic drives me crazy)... In corporate America, I know because I used to be a consultant there. In corporate America, they would say things like, "Well we just hired so-and-so in that position so they'll probably be productive in four to six months." The first time I heard that I was like "Did he just say four to six months? Does he mean four to six days, or does he really mean four to six months?" Because in my business, even way back then), if I had to wait four months for somebody to be productive I would have been, “They're gone”! STEVE: Yeah, yeah, they're gone! ALEX: And so in our business, we actually have this experience right now. We recently brought on somebody else, a new person to help us in marketing, and with our onboarding process, he was actually achieving products within the first five days of his first week. STEVE: That's so cool! ALEX: And that's how it should be. You want somebody to come in, be effective and start contributing and creating momentum. Because here's what will happen… As an entrepreneur, if you're wired anything like I am, (and I know Stephen is), if you have somebody on your team that starts to feel like they're not carrying their own weight, you won't sleep. You won't sleep, it will rip you apart, Stephen am I right? STEVE: Yeah! ALEX: It will destroy you… And so here's the question though… Are they not carrying their own weight because: They're lazy? They don't want to? They aren't the right person? Or is it because it's not clear what they’re doing? STEVE: They have no idea what they're doing. They don't have confidence...I didn't help them! ALEX: Right, 'cause here's the thing. Your team needs three things in order to ultimately be effective and to be the type of team you want. And here's what I mean by that… As an entrepreneur here's what you want, you want a team that just does stuff and asks permission later. You want a team that achieves and lets you know how things worked out. That's it! I just know this is how entrepreneurs work. You want people who make really good decisions. You want people who move things forward. You want people who don't stand around waiting for stuff. And if you want to have a team that actually moves things forward as an entrepreneur… You gotta spend the time with them and let 'em know what your ethos is, and let 'em know how you make decisions… That's how you duplicate decision making. STEVE: Hm, gosh I love that. Okay, so… Strategic plan System to communicate System to document processes that can be shared inside the whole biz Documenting projects and the ones you're gonna work on Finding the right people ...and I actually personally just went through your onboarding training and it's so awesome! 'Cause it goes through and it's like this, you basically create a runway for 'em, right? And if they don't land, don't worry you've got parachutes and there are jumpy cords all over the place... - you're doing everything you can to help 'em win fast and lots of small tiny wins that build that confidence, and I was like: "That is brilliant. 'Cause that is not the way you're taught anywhere else.” ALEX: So Stephen, check this out, man. We recently fell out of the lucky tree on recruiting and we hired this guy named Greg Duby and he is, ah, amazing. He's like, he's just one of the most exciting guys I've ever worked with because he's so solid and so centered, and just so good at what he does. Greg is a former nuclear propulsion tech in the Navy, so you know what that is, that's the guy who rides the bomb around in the submarine, okay? STEVE: Yeah, that's amazing! ALEX: Yeah, you have to have advanced degrees in Physics, advanced degrees in Math. He's literally a rocket scientist. So he worked in the Navy, then he worked at NASA, then he worked for some of the larger consulting firms out there… I mean, he's done incredible stuff in his career. He's just one of the most solid people I've ever worked with, and within about two or three weeks into our company, in one of our daily huddles, we said, "Who got caught being awesome?" It's where we call each other out, and he said: You know, I just wanna call this company out for being awesome. “ I've been here for three weeks, I've never had an experience like this getting on-boarded anywhere... I'm up and running, I'm excited. I feel like I'm really part of the team. I feel like I've worked here forever and I'm three weeks in." And this is somebody who worked at some of the best consulting firms in the world, NASA and the Navy! And our little tiny company has impressed him so much because we did onboarding because he knew what he was supposed to do. And as a result, Greg, I think we're about three months in with him, and dude, there are projects that I thought were gonna take a year or two that are getting done this week. STEVE: That's so cool! ALEX: It's crazy. STEVE: It's just a completely different way to do it. One thing I hated in the military, I love the military, but you know, some things that are rough and that is that there are no clear guidelines on how to win ahead of time. The way you're instructed is by hitting barriers and then you get punished for it, and you're like: "Just tell me ahead of time and I wouldn't do it! But all right, let's do more push-ups." Anyway... ALEX: Something tells me you did a lot of push-ups, Steve! STEVE: I just want to say thank you so much for being on here. I asked for 30 minutes and you just completely over-delivered, and I just really want to say thank you to you. My audience already knows very well of you. Where can people go to learn more about you but specifically also get your help inside the business? ALEX: So the best place to learn more about us is to go to our podcast. I publish a podcast four days a week, which is essentially a one-on-one conversation with an entrepreneur growing a business. And the way that I create each one of those episodes is when a question or issue comes up in our coaching groups, I create an episode around it, we distribute it to the group. But then also we distribute it to anybody who's listening, so you can get the same coaching that I'm giving my high-level clients right on our podcast… It's called Momentum for the Entrepreneurial Personality Type, and you can check it out at momentumpodcast.com. And then, if you want to understand more about our products, about our coaching groups you can go to our website charfen.com, but better is to just reach out to me or to one of my team members through Facebook. The easiest thing, is just reach out to me, and I'll connect you with the right person in our company, and we'll go through a process with you to help you understand if we can help you. You know Stephen, we're pretty neat, we don't sell everybody. We actually get on the phone with a lot of people who we sell later, but we won't sell you unless it's time. We know exactly what solutions we provide, and if you have those issues and they link up, then we'll work together... but we go through a personal inventory in order to help you do that. So if anybody's interested in getting on a call with a member of my team, you can also shortcut the entire process by going to billionairecode.com… Answer a few questions and you can just set up a call link and you'll be on a call with one of my team members and they'll help you qualify and understand where you are. And just so you know, we don't do sales calls, they are all consulting calls. When you get on a call with my team, you won't ever feel like you're being sold, you'll feel like you're being helped. STEVE: Which is exactly what I have felt when I started doing that as well. Just so you all know he's very serious about that - that's very real. I always feel like I'm being helped by anyone on his team. ...and come to find out later, "Oh that was the sales guy!" ...You know what I mean? They dare to go in and actually they want to change the world and they're very serious about it. So thank you so much, appreciate it. Check out Billionaire Code. The Momentum podcast is a goldmine, it is one of those gems on the internet that is actually worth all of your time and attention. Thanks so much for being on here, Alex, I really appreciate you and love you, and thank you for being on here. ALEX: Stephen, dude, this has been an honor. I hope to be able to get invited back again, and as a Sales Funnel Radio listener, this is really cool. I appreciate you, man! STEVE: Thanks, I appreciate it! Hey, awesome episode right? Hey, once I figured out the simple patterns and formulas that make this game work, I had a new problem… Back when I eventually left my job and launched my personal business, I sold about $200,000 of product in around three months-ish… And while I thought I was King Kong, a new problem started. I was the business, there weren't any systems... I was support I was fulfillment I was the one in charge of getting the ads around I was the sales department I was the marketing department And I knew I wouldn't survive it alone… Better yet, I knew I'd never seen a rich solopreneur. This game takes a team. Contrast that to now, and my company does tons of stuff that I don't know how to do... What changed? His name is Alex Charfen, check him out at charfenrocks.com. So I usually don't bring tons of people on Sales Funnel Radio, but you should know that his programs, combined with my marketing skills, are why my business is killing it in revenue today, and NOT killing me personally. Alex Charfen's programs and training have been life-changing for me and my family... and taught me who I really am and what I'm meant to be. So when you're ready to build an actual business, an actual asset and NOT just make this another job… When you're ready to keep the role of entrepreneur but learn the role of CEO, go get started with Alex Charfen at charfenrocks.com. That's C-H-A-R-F-E-N rocks.com.
Dr. Hailey Heard has been in our Billionaire Code Accelerator for a year. Before joining us, she had no idea how to keep scaling without structure. Her Company, MaxGen Labs, had a team of 3 and came into the Accelerator making $300k a year. They had tried other coaching in the past but couldn’t get to the level of success they wanted. After a few short months of joining our program, Hailey and her team doubled their income. A year later, they hit a 300% growth in revenue and doubled their entire team! Hailey’s biggest takeaway from the program? She said she could finally breathe as a doctor. Tune in to hear Hailey’s success story and learn more about her company, MaxGen Labs. Make sure to check them out at maxgenlabs.com and use the code CHARFEN for 25% off! When you’re ready, here are a few ways my team and I can help scale your business: 1. Grab a free copy of my book: The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. This book will show you why, as an entrepreneur, there is nothing wrong with you, and how you’re not alone. We are the few who dare to dream of a better future and go into the world, insisting it become a reality. 2. Watch our free presentation on Momentum Masterclass. In this free training, you’ll learn how to eliminate pressure and noise, how planning systems play a massive role in your success, and the keystone habits every entrepreneur needs to develop. 3. Join our Billionaire Code Facebook Group. Come hang out in our Facebook group of over 2,000+ members where we regularly share about team building and company growth. 4. Subscribe to the Momentum Podcast. The Momentum Podcast will walk you through the importance of building a team, scaling companies, and ultimately, making your greatest contribution to the world. 5. Join one of our programs and work with me and my team. If you’d like to work directly with me and my team, to take you from where you are today to a place where there are consistent growth and scale, head on over to billionairecode.com and we’ll send over some details to get you started.
Alex Charfen is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN. He has spent his life seeking to understand how to make business grow, which evolved into the question, “How do you help people grow?” Through his research and years as a top consultant to billionaires, the Fortune 500 and Global 100, this question led Alex to discover the long-misunderstood Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT). Best-selling author Robin Sharma recently described Alex as “the most progressive entrepreneurial mind on the planet.” A highly sought-after speaker on entrepreneurial awareness, Alex has spoken around the world for tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and top global businesses to help them identify and live in their strengths.
These are two of the ways I stay so productive. Warning: it's not exactly for the faint of heart, and is likely to get stressful. Yet, you'll get your crap done… Today, I wanna share some NINJA productivity hacks that help me to get sooo much done. Join me, as I draw back the curtain, and give you a sneak peek behind the scenes, at Larsen Productivity 10. WARNING: These productivity hacks are NOT for the faint hearted! No whiners and whingers beyond this point… You’ve been warned ;-) MY PRODUCTIVITY HACKS 101 Before I go to sleep, I ALWAYS know what I'm gonna do the next day. It's NOT always the specific details, but I have an idea of what I need to focus on in the morning… So when I wake up, I don't have to answer the question of “WHAT?” I can just get on with things. If someone's like, “Stephen, I’ worried about becoming an entrepreneur because I don't know all the steps…” I’m like *NEWS FLASH* “Welcome to Freakin’ Entrepreneurship!” Some days, you ’ll wake up, and you WON’T know exactly how your day will go. There’s ALWAYS gonna a new challenge to meet or problem to overcome. That’s entrepreneurship, my friend. So, if you can get over that hurdle by knowing the CORE PROJECTS that you'll be working on before you even go to bed, that’s one of the BIGGEST productivity hacks I can give you. I know it sounds super simple, but Tim Ferriss talks about doing this in the Four Hour Work Week. You should never go to sleep without knowing WHAT you're gonna be doing the next day, at least for your major core projects. GETTING THINGS DONE! If you don't have a list, you should have a list of the BIG, major core projects you're trying to get done in the next month. Let me show you mine… *This* is exactly how I do it all. It’s something I learned from Alex Charfen, and I've kind of adapted it... I think through ALL of the top things that I wanna get done in the next three months. It's not like a giant list, we're talking major projects. Then each month, I think through each project, and ask; “What’s a huge thing I could get done?” For Example: Write a book. Do a live event, i.e., OfferMind So I start thinking through these massive, high-level things and start to make some lists This is the way I plan everything and stay super productive. Check this out… SETTING TARGETS I start with some 90-Day Targets: These are all things I could do in 90 days. These are all things I will do in 90 days. Then I think through: What could I do in the next 30 days? What I will do in the next 30 days? Does that make sense? When I launched my new content machine for Secret MLM Hacks, I used a similar system: Red = it's underway. Yellow = it wasn't realistic to get done this month, we're pushing it to next month. Green = it's done. Date column = for a specific day that I’ll do it Dollar Sign = the things that are revenue generating and focus specifically on those. I have a lot of stuff on here because I have teams... and I'm kind of a psycho anyway. Then I go through and I mark each one of these things, where I am and who owns that task, and who's getting it done. I don't see any issue showing you guys this stuff, this is how I run things. I run it in three-month swings. Every 90 Days, I redo my whole targets again. I've been using this system for the last five months now, and it shows ALL the tasks that I’ll focus on. That's why when people reach out to ask, “Stephen will you build a funnel for me?” If it’s NOT on my Target List, the answer is ALWAYS, NO! That thing is The Bible to me. I do NOT do ANYTHING that’s outside of my target list. It works really well. I know exactly which team members are doing what. I don't have to sit back and be like, “Well, who….?” Next, we’re going to create Trello boards that use the systems like we used to use at ClickFunnels. It's a specific project management style; it's 90-day targets of what I could do, what I will, and then 30-day runs. I think of them in 30 day runs: “What will I do in the next 30 days to hit that 90-day target... we're talking big major projects: Launch first funnel Write a book Do an event ... you know like, BIG things! What do I need to do in 30 days to get close to that? What could I do? What will I do? Who owns that task? Is it revenue generating? At the beginning of each day, I just update the list. Each month, I just copy that board/ that sheet so that I can see where the projects left off, then roll them forward and delete the ones that don't matter. I think through: Can close up that project? Is it done? Why is it not done? As far as getting crap done, this one of the biggest hacks I have. SET YOUR TARGETS Setting your own targets is simple. You can either create your own doc or just write them down on some paper or a whiteboard. What you could do in 90 days. What you will do in 90 days. What you could do in 30 days to hit those 90-day goals What you will do in 30 days to hit that 90-day goal. Then it’s 100% up to you to decide what you need to focus on. Remember, a huge long list of to-dos will do nothing but stress the crap out of you. Here’s how I do it… Before I go to bed each night, I choose only three moves to make the next day. I make three moves a day, and the ones I choose are ALWAYS the revenue generating ones. Then I do the highest revenue generating move in the morning time ... cause I know my brain's most fresh. If you’re NOT that way, whatever... find a way that works for you! But for me: I do the highest leveraged activities in the morning. I do the things that are not nearly as revenue generating, but still important (where it doesn't take as much mental bandwidth) in the evening or in the afternoon. I don't EVER do something that's NOT revenue generating Just three moves a day… Charfen calls it The Waterfall Method, and it’s worked extremely well for how I organize stuff. I'm gonna use some of the tactics from James Friel too and create a board in Trello… because I have at least 11 agencies working for me now, and we're all remote… So I'm NOT gonna send an Excel sheet out to everybody. This is how I run it: I only ever do revenue generating things. I don't ever do something that's not revenue generating (and if I need to, I question it hard). My role in this business is to market, I do NOT outsource that. As far as project planning goes, this one of the ways I stay so productive. … but that’s NOT really what I wanted to show you! MY NINJA PRODUCTIVITY HACK! So check this out... Every Tuesday for me is content creation day. Which means Tuesday morning. I go do a whole bunch of interviews with people. If you guys want me to get on your show, I’m totally willing to do that every Tuesday morning, just go to interviewsteve.com which will forward you to my Calendly link to book a time As soon as I'm done with interviews: I turn on all my flood lights, bloop! I put that paparazzi wall behind me (which was a grand!!!) I turn on my camera I shoot Sales Funnel Radio I shoot Secret MLM Hacks Radio This might NOT seem like it's related to productivity, but it totally is! It's one of the reasons. In fact, it’s one of the biggest productivity hacks! And I wanna share with you, why that is… BREAKING BELIEFS So, let’s hop on over to my Sales Funnel Radio Trello Board… Here’s where I keep all my ideas for future podcast episodes. I drop them in Trello, and then I number them. I say, “Hey, I'm gonna do this one cause it launches on this date. I'm gonna do this one cause it launches on this date.” Then I stream them in an order that’s designed to breaking your beliefs before you even know I'm doing that. What I'm doing is crafting content... that’ll launch certain things extremely effectively. I ALWAYS have my value ladders written out on my whiteboard, and so… If a project does not match up with or launch something on the value ladder. I DON’T do it! I craft the content that you’re hearing with a specific call to action to break and rebuild belief patterns. So when you hear the call to action, you're like, “Oh crap, I should really go do that.” CREATING CONTENTOkay, check this out, this is how I run all of the episodes for Sales Funnel Radio … I want two episodes a week, so I try to film the content three weeks ahead. We have a card in Trello for each episode. There’s: On deck. In Progress, (there's usually only one in there). Completed Episodes. On Hold We also have cards for: The Assets, (the intro, the outro, the passwords, the pics ...all the crap that actually makes it run). Future podcast episode ideas. The archive list of all the episodes, which is super cool if we ever need to go back to it. All of it links over to a Google Drive where we tussle it out. THE SFR TEMPLATE There’s a Sales Funnel Radio Episode Template that ensures each episode gets launched on time. My role is to come in here and to fill this all out with. Headline Subheadline The outro When the content needs to be done by As soon as I'm done, I tag the next person… DANIELS CHECKLIST Daniel goes in and makes all these mp3 things He masters, mixes, and puts together the episode The sound Then he tags the next person… MARLEY’S CHECKLIST Marley goes in and makes the video Chops out the 15-second versions for Instagram. Teasers that we post on Facebook, (she does a ton of stuff) Makes thumbnails Puts in an SEO friendly version of the transcription for YouTube, (we rank like crazy... we're now over at one hundred thousand minutes watched every single month on that channel alone!) All the keywords Uploads different versions Then the episode card gets passed off to the next person… HELEN’S CHECKLIST Helen edits the transcriptions for iTunes Writes an amazing blog (which is awesome) Writes the meta descriptions Then she passes the card to the next person… JULIA’S CHECKLIST Julia takes the blog and puts it into WordPress and makes it visually awesome Adds the SEO stuff Writes a teaser email, (all those emails that you guys are starting to see coming out, that's what Julia does.) Every time someone finishes an asset they go and re-upload it back to that Google Drive folder. There's a different folder for each episode. Next... COULTON’S CHECKLIST Coulton goes in and blasts out all the stuff to probably 15 different platforms (iTunes... and tons of platforms. It's really cool) Next person comes in… EMELY’S CHECKLIST Emely posts it in Facebook groups Posts to Instagram Blasts a chatbot out there Puts it on Instagram TV Next, it goes to a Pinterest person and an ads agency…. There's a lot to it, and it’s really powerful and really really potent. It works very very well! The content machine I've built is Freakin’ Big. It costs 20 -30 grand a month, EVERY MONTH just to run it! You don't have to start out that big, I certainly didn't. I started with a five dollar a month Libsyn account. Now you’re probably wondering two things: #1: “Stephen, how long does it take you to set all that up?” My answer is, Just do it! Who cares about the timeline... #2: “What has this got to do with a productivity hack?” Let me explain… MY FAST ACTION HACK So productivity hack, here we go… If I wait for the funnel to be done BEFORE I launch it and start talking about it, I will NOT get it done very quickly. The first I experienced this hack, I was sitting across from Russell in our first office. He didn't tell me what he was doing. He grabbed his phone and he went live on Facebook: “What's up, everybody? We've got this cool thing going on... (you can hear his voice, right!)... We've got this cool thing going on, and it's going to launch today at two o'clock! Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited about it. Woo!” Then he turned around, and said, “Dude, we've got this thing that's gonna be launching at two o'clock today!” I was like, “Yeah, I know. I just heard you tell everybody.” He's like, “Dude, you gotta go build it!” And… that's the way we launched everything! HOW TO GET CRAP DONE You’ll get crap done if you just start telling people about it... and then build it based on the reactions that you see them giving. That's how I launch pretty much everything. If I sit back and I'm like, “Well, it's not quite done yet, so I'm not gonna start telling people about it...” *Wrong Move* A Real Marketer would NOT wanna do that! You want as much noise as possible... so start making noise, and build it as you need to. MY 3 HOUR FUNNEL When I launched my latest OfferMind Funnel, I recorded a podcast talking about the HUGE list of the speakers that it’d be cool to have at my next event Dana Derricks Mark Joyner Jay Abraham Russell Brunson Peng Joon Todd Brown Frank Kern Dean Graziosi A lot of these guys I could actually get a hold of and pull out! Like, how cool would it be to have them at OfferMind. I'm not promising, but I'm gonna start reaching out and running Dream 100 Campaigns to these guys. (They'd also be great ones to promote my book when it comes out.) So I'm crafting out, and timing the launch of the funnel with the launch of content that supports what I’m doing... Why wouldn’t I teach you guys how I launched my first OfferMind... and why my very first event went so well. You don't see a lot of other events running that hard that awesome from round one... how did I do it? So I created the content teaching you how I did created my first event. What better of an outro to have to that episode, than “Hey, go to offermind.com…” However, 3-hours before that podcast was launched… there was NO FUNNEL to go with the outro. I had 3-hours to build an entire funnel. I had the bare bones already there, and I've built a lot of funnels... I'm NOT telling you guys to make it that tight, but start telling people WHAT you're doing. Let them follow the journey. Give them something to follow! That's what I'm doing! All my episodes break and rebuild belief patterns… After you learn exactly how I launched my first event so successfully, the call to action is gonna say, “Hey, why don't you go to OfferMind.com and get your ticket.”... BUT THE FUNNEL WASN’T BUILT BEFORE I TOLD EVERYONE ABOUT IT! The Ultimate Productivity Hack is to just launch... and build it before everyone shows up. Start telling people, and then go build once you see their reactions to it. The worse thing ever is to build something completely, then go tell people about it, and they're like, “Meh....” Does that make sense? I've got these cool ways to get crap done... like the Trello board I showed you earlier... BUT…. My productivity is tied to my content machine. I don't think people understand that. It’s how I'm able to just get crap done without stressing over stuff or overthinking things. PRODUCTIVITY HACKS & GETTING THINGS DONE These are the ways I stay productive: I've got a cool project management method I tell people about my stuff as I'm doing it, so I've got no choice but to launch. I know it sounds intense... People are like, “You're Crazy!” Yeah, okay... whatever, but it works! It’s how I get A LOT of crap done. BOOM! If you're just starting out you're probably studying a lot. That's good. You're probably geeking out on all the strategies, right? That's also good. But the hardest part is figuring out what the market wants to buy and how you should sell it to them, right? That's what I struggled with for a while until I learned the formula. So I created a special Mastermind called an OfferMind to get you on track with the right offer, and more importantly the right sales script to get it off the ground and sell it. Wanna come? There are small groups on purpose, so I can answer your direct questions in person for two straight days. You can hold your spot by going to OfferMind.com. Again, that's OfferMind.com.
I feel so honored that I got the chance to sit down with the fantastic and very unique Alex Charfen, who devoted his professional life to helping companies achieve growth. His approach to business growth is truly amazing. He helped me make some new decisions. Alex helps entrepreneurs to build an amazing team, grow their businesses and make the world a better place. If you want to achieve all your business goals, this is the interview you need to watch. Alex and his wife are homeschooling their kids and his opinion about the traditional school system is very interesting. He wants kids to be leaders, not followers which is the best way to raise our future generation. We also talked about how to run a business with your spouse. Is it a good idea or not?Alex had "a dark hour" when the real estate market crashed. But winners never give up! He went from 0 to multi-millionaire. Alex suffers from dyslexia and has some other problems, but that has never stopped him from living a life he wanted. Listen on Show Notes Hi everybody, this is Warrior Family and I’m Smillion Mori. Hi my friends! You’re all here because you believe that you can create and live the life worth living, but in order to live and create the life worth living, we must do something about it. And the purpose within this show is, that I bring you my friends, guests, their ideas, belief systems, habits, some hacks, tools, resources, that can help you create the life worth living. And today I have a special guest, Alex Charfen. He’s the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, a training, education and membership organization for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Alex has dedicated his life to answering the question: “How do you make business grow?” And even more importantly: “How do you help people grow?” He’s an expert on how to increase productivity, build massive momentum, and actually enjoy your business again without feeling like you are neglecting your family or sacrificing your health and happiness. Alex is also a biohacker, entrepreneur, speaker, and consultant for billionaires, Fortune 500 companies, and some of them most successful people in the world. And I’m here in his home in Austin. .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .inf_infusionsoft_form_content { background-color: #ffffff !important; } .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .inf_infusionsoft_form_container .inf_infusionsoft_form_header { background-color: #000000 !important; } .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .carrot_edge .inf_infusionsoft_form_content:before { border-top-color: #000000 !important; } .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .carrot_edge.inf_infusionsoft_form_right .inf_infusionsoft_form_content:before, .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .carrot_edge.inf_infusionsoft_form_left .inf_infusionsoft_form_content:before { border-top-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: #000000 !important; } @media only screen and ( max-width: 767px ) {.inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .carrot_edge.inf_infusionsoft_form_right .inf_infusionsoft_form_content:before, .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .carrot_edge.inf_infusionsoft_form_left .inf_infusionsoft_form_content:before { border-top-color: #000000 !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; } }.inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .inf_infusionsoft_form_content button { background-color: #000000 !important; } .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 .inf_infusionsoft_form_content button { background-color: #000000 !important; } .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 h2, .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 h2 span, .inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 h2 strong { font-family: "Oswald", Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; }.inf_infusionsoft .inf_infusionsoft_optin_36 p, .inf_infusionsoft .
Nathan Helberg teaches coaches and business leaders how to develop daily mental resilience through programs he offers. These are integral in achieving longterm visions, building culture and questioning self-belief. We live in an age of technology where instant gratification is promoted and the youth coming through do not have real depth or understanding of why they need mental resilience. For all high achievers, this is a must listen to podcast in understanding the importance of mental resilience.
…and how I’m going to dominate 2019 On today’s episode Russell explains what his five biggest takeaways from 2018 were and why. Here is a list of the five takeaways he talks about in this episode: Food as fuel The power of challenge funnels Transitioning from all-star to coach Understanding the difference between strategic thinkers, managers, and doers. And creating different front ends for your company that aren’t you. Listen here to find out why these are Russell’s biggest takeaways from 2018. ---Transcript--- Hey, what’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m so excited to have you here, in fact, today I’m going to be going over all the biggest lessons I learned during 2018, as I’m getting prepared for world domination in 2019. Hey everyone, I’ve been wanting to do this podcast for a while. In fact, I think my brother, who edits these podcasts, is about to kill me because I keep telling him I’m going to record this, I’m going to record it, I’m going to record it, and I haven’t and I haven’t. I was going to record it during Christmas break and then during New Year’s and now New Year’s is over and tomorrow I’m going on the Two Comma Club X cruise and I still haven’t recorded it. I was like, okay, I’m doing this. And I think the reason why is because I don’t, there’s so many amazing things. This year was insane. It’s still hard for me to fathom everything that happened over the last 12 months. Last year we ended the year really, really good. We went from, let me think about it, Clickfunnels year one we did….well, first year was like 3 months so whatever, a million bucks or whatever it was. But the first full year was 10 million, the second one was 30 million. The third year was 70 something million and this year we passed over a hundred million, which is crazy. It’s insane I didn’t think that was even possible. But it did and there’s so many things you learn at scale when things get bigger. The positive things at scale are way better, and the negative things are way worse. There’s just so much stuff and so many things I want to cover and talk about and I was like, how do I break this into a bunch of things? So I kind of broke them down into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different things. They weren’t the full, you know, everything I learned from the year, but I think some really powerful things that were good that I want to share that I think will help you guys. So that is kind of the goal and the game plan. Some of these things are personal, some are business, some are management, some are long term strategic thinking, and there’s a bunch of different things in between. So with that said I’m going to jump right into this. So number one, the first thing that I think was really, really big this year was shifting a lot of how, what’s the best way to say it, it has to do with health but it’s not being healthy. It wasn’t like I was eating different to get a six pack, some day I still want one, but that wasn’t the reason why, it wasn’t eating healthy to look good. It was like eating healthy because I needed to put better fuel in my body. I realized that I’m competing against entrepreneurs at all different levels. I’m competing against companies that get hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and I’m competing against people who have a team of 2000 employees working with them. I’m competing against people that have 30 different people with MBA’s working for…That’s what I’m competing against. So it’s like how do I compete against these people? I can’t do it based on more schooling or more money, I have to do it based on more energy. The output that I’m able to put into the work that I’m doing, and my team and everything, I had a big realization that I needed to change the fuel that I’m putting into my body. It’s interesting now, I’m going to share this with you guys, and some of you guys are going to think that I’m completely ridiculous, and I probably am because I want to put perspective because I know a lot of times people say, “I can’t eat healthy because it’s too expensive.” And I think that’s, for most of you guys, it’s one of those things like eating healthier, will actually in most situations, if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re building a business, it should make you more money. And it should be one of the number one focuses. So I started shifting the way I ate and what I was eating. It kind of started because I was listening to a podcast with Tony Robbins and Tim Ferris I believe, and Tim was asking Tony, “What’s your morning routine? What do you eat?” And it was so funny because Tony was like, “For breakfast I have salmon. For lunch I have salmon. For dinner I have salmon.” And he’s like, “You have salmon 3 meals a day.” And Tony’s like, “Yeah, it’s not food for me, it’s fuel.” And the negative side of that is Tony ended up getting mercury poisoning from too much salmon, so that’s not necessarily the right thing. But the statement he made, “It’s just fuel for me, it’s not food, it’s just fuel. I’m just eating to have the fuel for the energy I need to be able to produce what I gotta produce today.” And that had an impact on me. I heard that and I was like, oh my gosh. Look at some of this crap I eat. It’s not good for me. And I still don’t eat amazing all the time. That’s why I don’t have my six pack yet. That’s why I still got my love handles. We’re going on the Two Comma Club X cruise tomorrow and I’m like, dangit, I was going to have a six pack by now but I don’t. Not even close. But I realize that I’m using food for fuel, so the way I eat is different now. In the mornings I wake up and it’s like, what’s the fuel I need right now? So for me it’s a lot of water. Alex Charfen drilled that in my head. I drink a ton of water, I hyper hydrate in the morning. And then I look at the supplements I take. I’m a big believer in ketones. And not that I’m on a ketogenic diet, but I think there’s fuel in ketones. So I always do Prove It supplements every single morning, and every single night. I love their ketones supplements and not because I’m biased. They built a company, I had a little piece in it, but Brian Underwood and the team over there, they built an amazing company. They became the category king in ketosis, so their supplements are second to none. They, I know behind the scenes of the science and what they’ve been doing. And they’re on I think the fourth version of the ketone salts. Everyone else, if you’re buying this stuff, ketone salts on the market, they’re using salts from generation one or generation two, and these guys are already to number four. What they have is so much superior and it’s good. So even if you’re not on a ketosis diet, taking ketones is good. It’s fuel for your brain, it makes you feel good, and it tastes like candy, so that helps. And number two, I found this other ketone drink it’s called HVMN and it’s expensive, they’re $30 bucks a shot. In fact, I’m about to take one when I get off this podcast. They’re $30 a shot and you take this thing and I feel, it’s fuel, it dumps into your body and it’s amazing. It’s ketone esters, but it’s $30 per shot. The Prove It things are like $5 a shot, so between just those two things, I’m at $35 in fuel first thing in the morning along with my water. And then the next thing I have, I’ve been lifting heavy as well, so because of that I need more proteins than I normally do in my life. So I’m trying to get more proteins in, and I’m allergic to whey protein, so if I put whey protein fuel into my body I literally swell up. I get tired, it does all sorts of bad things for me. So what I do is I do a bag of bone broth with it. And the bone broth is not cheap either, it’s $30 a bag for this bone broth that I drink. So it’s like by lunch time I’m at 30,60, $65 just between the ketones and the bone broth, but that’s fuel I’m putting into my body. And then with the supplements, I’m probably close to a hundred bucks a day in fuel supplements I’m putting into my body. And it has meant the world of difference, my energy level, my excitement, my ability to produce is better when I have better fuel in my body. So that was kind of the first thing. And I know most of you guys are not going to be able to spend $100 a day on fuel for your body like I am. But I would recommend this year to start thinking about that. Food is fuel. And there’s time that food’s not fuel. There’s times when I go out with my wife and food I’m eating is not for fuel, it’s for a social thing. And I know that hey, we’re going out for sushi, this is not fuel, this is social hour so I’m going to have whatever I want, as much as I want, I’m just going to pig out, because I don’t need to be on right now, I just need to socially eat, and that’s what I’m doing and I’m going to enjoy the process. So I’m not the hardcore weight loss guy who’s like, I’m never going to eat healthy. It’s like I know when to be healthy. And if I do want to eat junk, I eat it at night before I go to bed, that way I can pass out and let my body figure out how to digest all that crap and get it out of me so I have energy again for the next day. But during the day I’m eating healthy all the time to make sure I’ve got the energy to be able to accomplish all I’m doing. So that was kind of the first thing this year, that big aha from Tony Robbins, which was this is just my fuel. This is not food, this is my fuel. And looking at it from that lens shifted how I started looking at stuff, and shifted how I was investing. If I was, I think Charfen said, if you had a million dollar race horse, what would you feed it? You wouldn’t feed it McDonalds and fast food, you’d feed it the best food you can. It’s like you are the race horse for your company, you should be doing the same thing. And when Tony said, “Food is fuel.” I was like, okay that’s it. What am I fueling my body with? So throughout the day I fuel it good. And I wish I was perfect, because again, I wouldn’t eat garbage at night or on weekends or whatever, but I’m not there yet. Maybe this year will be the year that that happens. And then next Two Comma Club X cruise I’ll have a six pack. But until then, I’m looking at food as fuel. So there’s number one. Alright number two, we’ve done a lot of funnels. Tons of funnels. Millions of funnels. Not really millions, but you may know that I’m slightly obsessed with them. And every time I see a new funnel type I try it out, we test it, we try a bunch of stuff. And I think I have a new favorite type of funnel and we re-launched it yesterday. So if you go to onefunnelaway.com you’ll see our one funnel away challenge. I am obsessed with challenges. Earlier this year, Natasha Hazlett who is going to be speaking at Funnel Hacking Live, she wrote a book and she started selling it through a traditional book funnel and it did okay, but it didn’t really crush it. And so she decided to change that from a book funnel into this challenge funnel. She kind of made it up and said, “Oh I’m going to have my book and it’s going to go with the challenge. People pay $47 for the challenge they get the book for free, and I take them through this live challenge experience.” And she did it and the first one crushed it. She did over six figures in sales. And she messaged me, she’s like, “Russell, I cracked the code. We’ve never had something hit like this before.” And she ended up doing 4 or 5 more challenges throughout the year, and she just barely passed Two Comma Club, and it was amazing. So she’s speaking at Funnel Hacking Live about challenges, but then she did challenges with some of her clients, her students, and other people and showed a bunch of other people. And everyone who’s doing these challenges is killing it. Then I saw Garrett White pops up with his challenge. And if you go to thekingskid.com you see his challenge, and it was like a four week challenge as well. So I funnel hacked him, bought his challenge, went through the process. And I called Garret up, I was like, “Dude, give me all your info, give me the intell.” And I picked his brain on how he’s doing his, and what he saw, and the pro’s and the con’s. And then I talked to Natasha, I talked to other people and I was like, this is the future. It’s forced consumption content. The biggest problem most of us have with our clients is not that the stuff we’re teaching isn’t good. The biggest problem is they don’t ever actually go through the stuff. How many of you guys have bought a course and then it sits on a shelf and you never read it or you never go through. Or you bought the member’s area and “Someday I’m going to login.” But you never do. Or you bought the book and it’s sitting there, right. The challenges force you to consume this stuff. So we launched our very first challenge, and it was a thirty day challenge, and we had 7500 people sign up for this challenge. And what’s amazing is that every single day it’s like, they would get a video from me, talking about strategy, videos from Julie walking through tactics of how to apply that strategy, and then Steven Larsen would get on live and motivate them and push them and yell at them and get them to do the thing. And it happened every single day. And after 30 days all the content disappeared and it was gone forever. And you either took advantage of it or you didn’t and that was it. And what was amazing is because everyone knew it was disappearing, because it was going away, because it’s like, if you don’t use it, you lose. It forced people to wake up and actually do the task and do the things. And holy crap, the weirdest thing happens. When somebody actually does what you say, they actually have success. So the challenge is the best way to get the result for your end customer. I think every business should have a challenge. So if you look at me over the next 12 months, you will notice that we have onefunnelaway.com as the front end challenge, but then it will also become the backend of every front end funnel we have. All our books, all our things, everything goes, leads into the one funnel away challenge. And they go through this challenge, we have a chance to actually affect them, actually give them the result they want. When they have the result, then they stick and they do more and more with you. Natasha was telling me on hers, the last day of her challenge she does a webinar where she sells her course and 80% of the people who complete the challenge buy the course. I think it’s like 25% of all people who sign up for the challenge buy the course. 80% of those who complete the course, 80% of the people who are taking action every single day end up buying the thing at the end. Garret White sells a $500 a month continuity at the end of his challenge and he was getting like 25% of the men who signed up to join the $500 a month continuity. It’s one of the best ascension vehicles in the world. So like I said, I think challenges are huge. I think it’s the future, I think every business should be having one. I know for us, that was kind of, of all the funnels we rolled out last year, that was the one that was the most shockingly surprising to me, and I was like, oh man, this is something we’ve got to focus on. Which is why, January 2nd, the one funnel away challenge launched officially again, and day one we had like 900 people sign up. And I think we got 2, I think it’s a little less than 2 weeks before the challenge actually starts and we’ll probably end up with another 5 or 6 thousand people who signed up. And we’re going to run it every other month throughout the whole year, and it’ll be the fuel that changes people’s live and gives them the fuel to want to ascend with us as a company. So challenges are number two. So number one thing from the year was food is fuel and focusing on the fuel I put in my body, and number two is running contests. Alright, number three. I did a whole podcast episode on this a little while ago, but it was the big aha I had after going on this retreat with a bunch of really smart dudes. And the big aha I had was that, I had been an all star in business and I had been writing copy and designing funnels and doing all these things, and I’d been trying to build this team. But the problem was, as an all star, I wasn’t a good team player. I was like, my team would try to do something and I’d be like, “Ah, you messed up.” And I’d rip it out of their hands and I’d just go dunk the ball myself and try to get all the credit about how great it was, right. And it was realizing that if I wanted to grow, I can’t go from a hundred million to a billion by me being a better all star. I don’t care how good you are. Michael Jordan, there’s only one Michael Jordan and you can’t get better, you stop growing at a certain point. And the only way to continue to grow is to shift from being an all star to being a coach. And that has been a really interesting transition for me. It hasn’t been as easy as I thought. But it’s been really rewarding, really fulfilling. In fact, just our internal agency when they had, in the last quarter of the year they had two funnels do over a million dollars, so we gave all the people on our team a two comma club award because they were the ones that executed on it. I gave some initial vision and strategy but they went in and actually did it. And I think for, you know one of the biggest things this year for us was just really focusing more on building our team and training our team and less of me doing the thing, and me stepping back and not doing the thing, but coaching the people who are doing it. And it’s hard, it’s different, it’s definitely a different skill set, but super, super important. I think for all of you guys, because you grow from yourself to a team, to wherever. If you’re a start up and you want to grow to a million, from a million to ten, ten to a hundred, it really has to come back to you learning how to become a coach. You being an all star, you can’t get past a certain level. And I got pretty dang far, we got, who knows-70-80 million dollars a year in sales with me trying to be the all star. But as we shifted to this concept of coaching our team and having them all be all stars, that’s when the growth started hitting again. And I’m looking at that right now inside the development team with Todd and Ryan, they’ve done such a good job of not just coding everything, they’ve built this team, and these processes in place, and they’ve become amazing coaches for these people. And now things move faster than they used to because of that. So the transitioning from all star to coach was another big one for me this year. So number one, the fuel we put in our body. Number two, the contest funnels. Number three, transition from all star to coach. Alright, number four. As I was doing this whole process of coaching people, and it’s funny because I have become mildly obsessed with personality profiling. The test I love, 16 personalities, which is a version of Meyer Briggs, I love. I love all these different things and I’ve been obsessed with them and learning them all. But this one, maybe this is a test, I don’t know. But it was kind of a realization I had as I was working with people on my team. And now that I understand it I’m like, oh my gosh. I look at things through a different lens. But I realized there’s like 3 tiers of how people work. There’s nothing bad about any of them, they’re just different. And I think before I thought things were bad because I thought one way and someone else thought a different way. I was like, ugh, they’re bad. They’re not doing a good job. But that’s not the case, there’s just a different skill set. So the three levels, and I’ll kind of map these out for you, the first one is there are people who strategically figure stuff out. They sit down, here’s the strategy of how it works and you can see this vision of how these things work and how they connect. They see the patterns and like, here’s the strategy behind how something works. So that’s one type of person. The second type of person is someone who’s a manager right. They are able to take this strategic vision and they can plug people in and they can manage those people to go and do the actual thing, they’re really good at the management of the process, the management of the people and the kind of plugging in the systems and doing that kind of stuff. And then the third tier is the people who actually do the work, the doers who actually go out there and they go and implement the thing. And again, I think for a long time in my life I was like, oh well strategic thinkers are the most important part. Or, the managers are the most. Or maybe the doers. Or whatever, it’s like all of them are so vitally important. And if you’re struggling right now in your business, my guess is that you’re probably missing one of those. You may be a great strategic person, you have this vision of where you want to go, but you suck at managing people and you’re not a doer, so you’re floundering. Or you’re a doer and you’re like, if someone gives me a task, I will do it. I will crush any task. But it’s like, it’s just me doing it, and it’s not a whole bunch of people because I’m not good at managing, and I don’t really know what to do unless someone tells me what to do, and visa versa. So it’s understanding, for a team to be effective you have to have all those. You know, we spent a lot of time this year working on org charts. And it was interesting, as we built org charts, there’s this flow. It looks like a big pyramid scheme. Here’s CEO and then it moves down to this level and this level. I used to always, I don’t, I always kind of hated it. What’s the guy on the bottom going to think, they’re clear down here, this branch of this tree? And it’s like, oh no. It doesn’t matter what part of the tree you are, the whole org chart is essential for the success of the company. There’s got to be people at the top of this thing who are strategic thinkers and a lot of times they make more money. Not all the time, but there’s a lot of value in strategic thinking right. And then underneath the strategic thinkers, then you have this layer of managers that are managing people, and then down below there’s these doers that are doing the actual work. And what’s interesting, I see a lot of times where we would have someone in our team who is a really good doer, they’re an amazing programmer, or amazing whatever. And we’re like, “Oh man, this guy is so amazing let’s move them up the org chart. Let’s make them a manager.” And all the sudden we put this person who’s like a rock star doer and we make them a manager and it’s like, they were so successful as a doer, but they suck as a manager, they don’t have management skills. Or we bring them up and say, “Hey, what do you think about this, strategically thinking?” And they’re like, “I don’t know.” And all the sudden they fail because we put them in a role where they’re supposed to be strategically thinking. And it’s like, no, you’re not supposed to be strategically thinking. You’re a doer and you’re supposed to go out there and actually do the thing. And I think, I look at our org chart now and there’s people who are doers who make more than the people who are managing them right. And that’s okay, because sometimes there’s a doer who’s insanely good at this thing and they should make more than their manager. I think in my head I always had this org chart where as you go down everyone gets paid less and less, and it’s not necessarily that way. It’s understanding the value of the role, what they’re doing is what they should be paid, but a doer can get paid more than a strategic thinker, it’s just a different level. I think for me, really understanding that, it’s like okay, there’s strategic people and there’s management people and there’s doer people. Understand those are the three different personality types and skill sets and all are essential to you being successful. So what I would encourage all of you to do today is sit back and be like, okay which one of those am I? Am I a strategic thinker? Can I sit down in front of a white board and map out a vision of this is what we’re going to do, and this is what it’s going to look like? And if you’re not, that’s okay. Don’t feel bad, but you need to get a strategic thinker on your team. You need to partner with somebody who is going to be that strategic thinker. The next question is okay, am I a manager? Do I love managing people and processes and plugging things in place and making sure everything is working together? Because if not, I’m not super…I’ve become adapted, I’m able to do that, but I don’t love that, it’s not my favorite thing. I should not be spending my time there. I need to find people who are really good at management. There’s this process I was trying to manage over the last 3 or 4 months and I just, it never got done because I’m not that good at management. And I just handed it off to somebody and it’ll probably be done in like an hour now, because that person, that’s their skill set. They’re amazing at managing and then doing. As my role in the company, in my dream job I’d just be a funnel builder. I’d be doing it all day long, that’s my favorite part of it. Unfortunately for me and the company, I’m more valuable as a strategic thinker, but I love doing it too, right. So there’s people on my team that just do it all day long. They write copy or they get to build funnels, or they get to do the design. I always tell them how jealous, I wish I could just be a doer, just doing the thing that you’re amazing at. That’s the thing for me, that I would love to do. In fact, my second, after, someday if we ever sell Clickfunnels, I’m going to come back and work for Clickfunnels and just be a funnel builder. That would be my dream. None of this stress of owning a company, and all the fun of just building the funnels. That’d be amazing. So just to understand that, there’s strategic thinkers, there’s managers, and there’s doers, and being okay with, first off figuring out who you are and second off, surrounding yourself with the other types of people because they are all essential for you to be successful. That was another big aha I had as I was going through this coaching phase and building the teams out. People I was super frustrated with until I realized, oh, they’re not a strategic thinker. Why do I keep giving this person strategic thinking opportunities, they’re an amazing manager. Let me get someone strategic to figure this out, build out the strategic vision, hand it to the manager and then they will run with it and make it amazing. But being upset at the manager because they’re not strategic thinking is wrong. I was in the wrong there, right. Or visa versa, you get the strategic thinker who is dreaming up all the ideas and we’re like, “Okay, go manage that, make it happen.” And they’re like, “I don’t know how to manage.” And then we’re angry at them. Like no, that’s what they are. It’s a super power, each of these are super powers. Understand that and coordinate people in the right spot and get your strategic thinkers to cast the vision, the managers to set up the processes, and then the doers to go and execute on the work. And when all three are working in synergy, that’s when you get magic happening. So number one, we talked about food as fuel. Number two, contest funnels. Number three, transition from all start to coach. Number four, understanding the difference between strategic thinkers, managers, and doers and how they all fit in your organization. And then the number five thing that was my last biggest takeaway for this year is, as we’re growing Clickfunnels, I feel bad, how many of you guys when you open up Facebook or Instagram all you see is my face 8000 times a day? I’m so sorry for that. But for a long time I’ve been the attractive character of Clickfunnels, therefore my face is out there, all those things. So it’s like, that’s what’s out there. It’s like eventually it gets so saturated that you can’t keep going with your one face, your one brand, your one thing. A million dollars is easy to keep pushing and getting your face out there. At a hundred million it’s like, man, we’re spending millions of dollars a month on my face, there’s only so many people in this world, it gets insane. So I was like, how do I do this? And also, let’s say we did want to sell Clickfunnels someday, or let’s say I wanted to retire or whatever, if my face is on the front of everything, it’s not a very good asset for somebody else to buy. So this year we started having this idea like, what are the other front ends we can create for Clickfunnels that aren’t Russell Brunson’s face? So that was the question, that was kind of the concept. And you will notice over the next 12 months inside our company, all the new things that are happening. We tested a couple, like one of them we had Kaelin Poulin, who just had her baby yesterday, by the way, she did a webinar, she did kind of my funnel hacks webinar but she did her version of it. And that’s done amazingly well, it’s sold great. It’s like people are hearing Kaelin’s story and they come to Clickfunnels and they don’t even know who I am, which is fantastic. So that’s one example. Some of them I can’t, I can’t tell details about them yet. But we are in the process right now, we signed letters of intent of acquiring a really large company, and the sole reason why we’re doing that is it gives me the ability to create dozens and dozens of front ends that aren’t Russell. They aren’t my face. They will lead people to Clickfunnels , but they aren’t my face, which is essential. So you guys will find out probably the end of quarter one, maybe early quarter two about that acquisition as long as it goes through. It should, and I’ll talk more about it and the strategy behind it because it’s so exciting. But I just, it’s like, we have a letter of intent signed but the deal’s not inked, so I gotta wait on that one. Another partnership I’m doing, again all the deals and partners and things I’m doing right now are all about like how can this be a front end that doesn’t require Russell Brunson’s face? So for you, I want you trying to think of the same thing. What are other front ends you can create for your business that aren’t always you focused. Are they a success story? Most of our ads that we’re developing now, we’re capturing success stories of our users. Our users are becoming the face of Clickfunnels. Our users are becoming the front ends. It’s not just Russell, not just his books, not just his things. The users are the ads. And we’re getting influencers making funny videos with influencers as the ads. We’re creating new software programs that aren’t just built into Clickfunnels because we’re building these tools externally where we can sell to bring people on the back end of Clickfunnels. So we’re building all the funnels and front end things that aren’t me, because if you see 22 Russell ads in a row, you’re likelihood of buying goes down with every single ad, because either you bought or you’re really annoyed with me. But if you see an ad from me, and then you see an ad from Tony Robbins and you see an ad from these other things that aren’t related, but they all push back to the same core thing, there’s magic there. So you’ll see this next year will be the year of a lot of funnels for our team. We’re building our agency, really, really large, but we’re doing it with a goal and a focus of it’s not Russell funnels. Actually I will give you a couple of examples to get the wheels in your head spinning. For example, Grant Cardone, we went and built a book funnel for him with the first 10x book. We flew on his plane and filmed the whole funnel there. So if you look at that book funnel, if you go and you buy the book through it, on the thank you page, basically it pushes people to Clickfunnels. So now we can target Grant and his audience, his people. He pays the ad dollars to sell his book, and the thank you page sells Clickfunnels and then we send a percentage of the affiliate commissions back to him. So it’s win/win where we’re able to help him drive traffic and sell a lot of books, which then in turn sells Clickfunnels. We’re trying to do the same deal with Robert Kiyosaki and potentially other people as well. Where it’s like, we’re helping them on the front end funnels and then in exchange we get customers on the back end. How many deals are there like that? That you can create where it’s like, I’m not necessarily the front, I’m able to leverage all these other people. So now in your newsfeed you’ll see Russell’s face selling my book, but you’ll see Tony Robbins book, you’ll see Grant Cardone’s book, you’ll see who elses book, you’ll see those things and you’ll buy them and it’s like on the backend, you’re introduced to Clickfunnels. Now it’s like, I can acquire a lot more customers, a lot of different type of customers through that process. Anyway, there’s kind of a vague way to explain it. You will see, that is my strategic vision for the year, and you’ll see it coming true over the next 12 months. And next year, when we’re doing the same podcast you’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s what he’s talking about. So cool. I see how it all fits together.” Alright so those are the five biggest things, as I was going through my list today, just thinking of the biggest takeaways from the year, I think it’ll help you guys. So number one is I’m looking at food as fuel. How are you fueling your body, and knowing that right now Russell spends $100 a day on supplements to fuel his body, what can you do different. Maybe you don’t eat cereal for breakfast, maybe you eat cereal for dinner when you’re ready to go to bed, but man, you eat eggs for breakfast, or you eat ketones for breakfast, or you skip breakfast all together to keep your energy high. So fuel is number one. Number two is the power of challenge funnels and contest funnels. If you want to see ours in action go to onefunnelaway.com, but this is now the core front end to all our businesses. All of our books and everything will lead to this and this leads and sends people up our value ladder. Number three, my personal role of transitioning from the all star on my team to transitioning to a coach. I think for all you guys, the faster you can make that transition from all star to coach, the faster you can grow and start scaling your companies. Number four is understanding the different types of thinkers. There’s the strategic thinkers, the managers and the doers. And understanding that all three of these roles are essential for success in your company. And you gotta figure out who you are and surround yourself with the others. And then number five, creating different front ends for your company that aren’t just you. So there you go. There’s five big things for my year. My guess is most of you guys listening to this, only one or two of those things will actually resonate with you right now. That’s totally cool. Some of you guys aren’t in the spot where you have one front end working, let alone a whole bunch of front ends. So don’t even worry about that now. But some of you guys, you’re tired and you try to get stuff done and you can’t focus and it’s like man, the fuel you’re putting in your body is destroying your ability to compete. So it’s like fixing your fuel as your biggest thing. Or maybe it’s like, maybe I have a funnel but it’s not going that way, maybe I make a contest funnel in the front end. Each of the other guys, I hope there’s something you can pick from it that will benefit you specifically. And then maybe check out this podcast again in a year from now and then some of the other ones will pop out for you. But anyway, hopefully that helps you guys. Appreciate you all, thanks for listening. And with that said, I will talk to you guys again very, very soon. Bye everybody.
How will your holiday be this Christmas? A holiday heaven or holiday hell? Sadly too many women will be around toxic work colleagues, toxic friends and toxic family to have little or no enjoyment. Statistically most families are defined as 'dysfunctional' yet the marketers of famous brands continually present false images of perfection all try to mirror. Be mindful this Christmas to notice what goes in, on and around your body - and the people who fill you up or suck you dry... Keep you number 1 - the world needs a healthy you! Learn more how to become an 'EndoBoss' and to take care of you and help heal your body at Https://HealEndometriosisNaturally.com and download your FREE top 5 Jump Start tips report Learn more about becoming a 'Huntress' with Alex Charfen at www.Charfen.com
Why Dave Decided to talk to Alex: Alex Charfen is co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, a training, education and membership organization for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Alex has dedicated his life to answering the question, How do you make business grow? which evolved into a larger calling to understand How do you help people grow? Listen to Alex and Dave talk about Alex’s Billionaire Code and the 4 Rs of organizations to figure out exactly where you business currently stands and how to excel to the next level. Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business: Why you can’t sell your way out (3:00) The Billionaire Code (9:00) The 1,3,7,1 Levels (14:00) Time Inventory (22:00) The 4 R’s (24:00) Quotable Moments: "When you make that transition from me to we, you have to change who you are as an entrepreneur." "There is a difference between having a product and having a business." "Your success is the sum of what you focus on." "Your business is broken and if things go well, it always will be." Other Tidbits: No business is perfect, you want a system and team that is adaptable. Embrass issues in your business and that’s how you grow. Links: FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar ---Transcript--- Speaker 1: 00:00 Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here's your host, Dave Woodward. Everybody. Welcome back. Speaker 2: 00:18 You guys. I seriously. I'm so excited for you guys to hear this podcast. This is a guy I have the hardest time getting. I see them all the time. We talk all the time, but to actually get enough time to have a focus for a podcast is next to impossible because he's literally building million and billion dollar brands. And with that I want to introduce and welcome back to the show Mr Alex Charfen. Alex, welcome. Thanks Dave. Great to be here with Humana. For those of you guys who don't know, Alex, it is. You're the honesty. I, I haven't. Rustled hasn't even been on more than once. So it actually, you're my first third time one. Actually, this is really cool and honestly I, for those of you guys don't know Alex, first of all, I'd recommend you go listen to the momentum podcast. I actually, the first time I met Alex was at genius network and I was so mad because he was giving out a limited supply of 500, literally numbered 500 of his entrepreneurial personality type books and it gave one to Russel and I'm like, dude, I am never going to get that. Speaker 2: 01:17 Russell doesn't give out his books, so that was like a gone deal and unfortunately been able to get a copy, but this is a guy who is literally helped thousands of entrepreneurs and a ton of my personal dear friends get over some of the struggles they have is as an entrepreneur to actually build a business and I think the key here is helping people really understand what it means to really build a business instead of just having a product. Now I know I've been to a ton of talking, but one of the things we're going to dive right into it, I am so excited about and that is this whole concept of why, in fact, first of all, before we dive in, anything else you want to say about how amazing you are, Alex? No, Dave, I just, Speaker 3: 01:51 I really appreciate you having me back on. You and I always have a lot of fun and I love the clickfunnels audience. It's like it's my favorite podcast audience if besides my own, and it's absolutely my favorite live audience, so I can't wait to speak in funnel hacking live this year. Speaker 2: 02:06 I am so excited about tickets. You should buy tickets. Seriously. If you haven't bought a ticket, go to funnel hacking live right now and go buy your ticket. You should be there because if you're not, you're going to Miss Alex and this is. This is your third time. It's my third time, but I want everybody to understand. I've been to have been to three funnel hacking lives. I missed one because the tickets sold out, so don't be like me like I, you know, I spoke three years ago. I missed the next one because there were no tickets left. We always sell out. So get your tickets. Go to funnel hacking, live back on right now and get you buy your ticket. I'm one of the topics. Alto, the great thing that Alex, so you could literally talk about a ton of different things. He's one of our two comma club x coaches and people absolutely love everything he does. Speaker 2: 02:51 He's a systems guy and understands people and more importantly what it takes to really build a business. And I think that's why I wanted to make sure I them on this time is we want to talk to you about this topic that has come up quite a bit recently and this whole idea as far as why you can't sell your way out. And with that I'm let Alex kind of talk a little about it and I'm going to come back and tell you a personal story here. But Alex, let's kind of. Let's dive more into this as far as why is it that you feel you can't sell your way out? Speaker 3: 03:20 So Dave, I want to give a little background to this. So I, you know, I've been a part of a lot of different groups in masterminds and one of the groups that I was in awhile ago used to have this same like you can sell your or market your way out of any problem and every time they would say that to the people in the room, I'd get a pit in my stomach. I get physically uncomfortable because I know that that's absolutely not true. Now you can of a lot of problems, but if you have a delivery issue and you sell more, you're going to have a bigger problem. If you have a ton of leads and you don't have a good sales team, you're going to have an even bigger problem. And so there gets to this point where you have sales and marketing or how you launched the business. Speaker 3: 04:01 Operations and processes and systems and putting the right people in the right place. The right communication in place and the right systems in place is how you really grow a company. And I think that's something that nobody really talks about because it's a lot of fun to talk about sales and marketing. But one of the reasons that I have so much respect for Russell is that he's building a real organization, a real team, and it's growing like crazy. And the reason is there's like 200 of you who are making click funnels grow and you know, if Russell early on had said, I'm just going to focus on nothing but marketing and not build the team, not build the organization to be anywhere near where you are today. Speaker 2: 04:36 I appreciate that. I can say that is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Uh, I've had a ton of different businesses over the years and, uh, one of those businesses I, I really thought because I had heard that saying that from the exact group that you mentioned, and I thought, you know what? I don't have a problem. As long as I can sell my way out, there's an I know I can market, I can sell, I will just, I'll just, I'll just put so much more massive action into this thing and I will solve every problem just by selling more and marketing more. And that in of itself will take care of everything. And what it ended up doing basically was land in the almost on the streets of the bankruptcy court because I had sold a whole bunch of stuff that I then couldn't fulfill on or I couldn't fulfill fast enough. Speaker 2: 05:20 And then all of a sudden I started getting refund requests. I'm like, no, you can't read. You can't know that. Okay, if I'm going to get a refund, that means I've got to sell even more. I got to sell to replace the one I just lost plus get more money in. And it literally just became this downward spiral, which I know is kind of a weird topic for us to be talking about here when we're talking about funnels and everything else. But what I really want to make sure you guys understand is how important these systems really are. We were wrestling with in a couple of weeks ago, we were joking around about we sold our way real fast to 10 million. I mean, it was real quick and we actually did a pretty good job of even selling in the first two by the time we hit our end of our second year, our third year, we're at over $30 million and that was where we started realizing, you know, and we fortunately had, we had people in place but we didn't have systems and that was one of the big differences. Speaker 2: 06:11 There's a huge difference between routine and having people in place and we were fortunate we have a very, very strong culture inside of our organization as well as a long with our customers. But the biggest problem we found is we didn't have the systems for those people. And again, we had always focused on hiring a players and we'd always focused on making sure that we had great people around us but the systems was, was our downfall. And that's again, when things you've talked so much about. So with that Alex, I want to kind of dive in more and help people understand what exactly. I mean this whole billionaire code you talked about. I remember the first time you laid this out to me, I just freaked out. I was like, oh my gosh, where's Alex? Ben? For the last 50 years in my life, I only heard about this and seen this because it, it literally applied specifically to every time I looked at all the business I've done over the years, every time I had one that didn't go well or had a problem with a partner, it was because of every single thing that was in your, in your code. Speaker 2: 07:08 I mean, it literally. It was like crap if I'd only known that. So I had learned through the school of hard knocks. So in the next 15, 20 minutes I'm going to have alex as he poured his heart and soul out to you and basically give you as much as he can. Speaker 3: 07:20 Yeah. And so, and here's, here's here. So first the billionaire code, the billionaire code is, is a matrix that shows the nine levels that it takes to go from zero to $100,000,000 and exactly what you should be focused on along the way. And today, you know when, when, if anybody who wants to can go to the billionaire code.com and you can download that Matrix, it'll show you exactly what it is. In fact, you can go to my podcast episode 180. There's 20 episodes, did spell out the entire billionaire code. And if you went to funnel hacking live, you can go watch the presentation from last year because I did. And what we all need to understand though, is as you ascend as an entrepreneur, once you get to around a million dollars, and this is why it's so important for this audience because right when you're hitting the two comma club, you make this massive transition as an entrepreneur from me to we like a lot of entrepreneurs can, can overclock it. Speaker 3: 08:15 They can push themselves up to 2 million, 3 million, 4 million without a team. But it's tenuous and it's hard and it's difficult and it feels really precarious. And when you make that transition for me to change who you are as an entrepreneur, you know, I tell people that in order to grow the business you want, you have to become the person who can run it and if you don't have the business you want, you haven't become the person who can run it yet. And the major change there is making this transition from being an entrepreneur centric you, to actually building the team, building the organization. And for us, the way we coach it goes in three different places. It's putting the right people around you, doing the right things, recruiting the right members. It's using the right processes so that there's a process for everything in your business, including how you communicate and focusing on the right projects. Speaker 3: 09:04 And the billionaire code gives you exactly what projects you should be focused on each level of development, but then you have these two levels level. Putting the right people in place and the right processes in place. And the biggest deficit in most entrepreneurial businesses is in the people department with process. Because here's what most people say when they work in an entrepreneurial business, we don't know where we're going. The strategy changes way too often and nobody communicates with us. So if you can solve that, your team knows where they're going and there's consistent communication. Your Business will explode. And like you've said, you know, we've taken even some members of like the inner circle who have had really fast growth businesses, but we add those things, three things, the right people, the right process, the right projects, and all of a sudden you've got a $10,000,000 business that goes to 50 million within like 10 months. So it's been cool. I honestly, I think one I can, we can talk about just recently I was literally just within the other day was and Ryan. Yeah, what an incredible difference. So I'll let you tell their story. You know that an ideal even. Well. So Brad and Brad and Ryan at Atlas. Well financial. So it's um. Oh Man. I always say I'm Brad's last name wrong. It's Brad and Ryan Lee. Speaker 3: 10:20 Crap. I always want to say Brad Cobb, because I grew up with a kid named Brad cops. So anyway, right. And he noticed like, I've told him this every time I say your name, I say it wrong, but um, but they're phenomenal entrepreneurs. I love the two of them. And we started working with them about nine and a half months ago and when we first started talking they were considering doing something else. Getting out of the atlas was walking away from it because they couldn't figure out how to make it work. And we sat down, we structured a structure to a plan where they were going to put the right person in place. So they got, they went out and got an executive assistant and then we started really planning around how they were going to both act in the business, what they were going to do in the business. Speaker 3: 10:58 And we created a forward looking strategy and they took that strategy and they went from about a $1,000,000 business to in about a nine and a half month period, a $3,000,000 business. Now they're well over $3 million. And they have some months where they're run rates over $4 million and I just had a call with those guys this week. They went from a two person team to a six person team there now in and now they're in the place where they're doing everything. They're now getting back out of the strategy there. They're moving, they're ascending again, going from one to three now they're going to go in and go from three to 10. But here's what's so important about this. The business that they had had that potential, it's just they didn't have the right people in the seats, the right processes in place, and they weren't focused on the right projects. We flipped that and immediately they go from one to 3 million and anybody who's listening who's in that two comma club range, it's crazy. If you've gotten there, you'd be blown away. What happens when you the right systems in place? Speaker 2: 11:55 It's an honest. It's one of the things I've loved the most. I'm joking around just before he did the recording as far as an email, we had to send out some of our subcontractors and it was kind of funny just because, uh, I've looked at that, the success of, you know, one of the great things about our inner circle is russell is a genius when it comes to the sales and marketing piece and I've seen a lot of our inner circle members of that, a lot of success in doing that. And it's been interesting as they've worked with us as well to then see the system to get in place and it's. And it just takes it to the next level. And I think the best part, the part I like the most is once you have the system in place, that's when you can go back to the sales and marketing and you can totally pour the gas on it. Speaker 2: 12:34 You know, when you do that, you. That's where you see that astronomical growth. And the hardest part for most of us as entrepreneurs is we get so focused just whatever our skill set is. And for me I'm a driver. I'm just always going to drive. I'm just going to push. I'm gonna push. I just believe I'll make something happen and I know even for Brad and Ryan, they were sales guys and financial services. You may have always in the financial service industries think I'm just going to sell, sell, sell, and they just get burned out. After awhile. You're like, I've been just busted my button and yeah, and money's coming in, but it's not growing. I think that's the part I want to make sure people, you guys are listening to this, understand there's a difference between having a product and having a business. You can start off selling a product which is great and it's one of the great things about click funnels is you can take that product and all of a sudden that product you can turn that. Speaker 2: 13:22 I look at Natalie Hodson. I mean natalie had this crazy, crazy product that I hit the two comma club selling a $37 Ebook, which is just astronomical. I mean you got to be, you don't have it upsale, you don't just have a $37 ebook but you did it. But again, the cool thing for me is I take a look at where she's at now. It's because of the people she's brought in. It's because of the system against you could sell and she could mark it and she did an amazing job and she got to that level. But to get to that next level it requires the things you're talking about. And so Alex, if you don't mind, if you could help people. Let's take a step back. There's a lot of, you and I have talked a lot about this whole idea as far as one, three, seven, one meaning $100,000, 300,000, $70,000, million, $3 million, 7 million, 10 million, 30 million, 70 million, 100 million. And at each of those tiers it kind of fits it a little bit. Kind of along the lines of your billionaire code. Yeah. And as people are in those different levels, what if you could kind of target those people who right now are under 100,000 and tell them what they should focus on and then from those people who are in that $3 million and then the million above, you don't mind. Speaker 3: 14:27 So if you're under 100,000, here's the biggest issue for most people that are under 100,000, you haven't decided who you're working with yet. You haven't gotten really clear on your market. I mean if you're just starting out, there's two things. It's one personal. Your personal skill sets, your habits, your routines, like are you as a human being ready to own a business? And for most people the answer is no, they're not doing the things that they need to do. They're not forward planning, they're not strategic planning, they're not clear on what really want. And then second, are you clear on who you want to serve? Once you get that covered from 100 to 300, it's how many leads can you generate? And can you lock in lead generation? Can you get that population coming towards you? Then from 300 to a million, it's building the system so that you can deliver and making sure you can deliver consistently and convert sales consistently and then from a million to three you have to not only build systems around what you do well, but then you have to build a team around what you do well and then now it gets interesting when you get to 3 million and you're going above three. Speaker 3: 15:23 That's a transition where your ability to lead a team is almost exclusively what is going to help you move forward. For most entrepreneurs, and I think what happens is a lot of entrepreneurs get there and they don't realize you have to make a full transition from doing everything yourself to having the team do it with you and it's not just having the team do the things you don't want to do anymore. It's having a team do most of what you do well and that's why I gave the numbers don't lie. The numbers of the United States are crazy. Check this out. There's 29 million businesses in the United States under a 100,000, $22 million under a million 25 million. So when you are. Sorry, 26 million. So when you look at the population of businesses in the United States, 26 million are under $1,000,000 out of 29 million and so the numbers don't lie. Most entrepreneurs never get there. If you get over a million dollars, you're part of the three percent club. Three percent of businesses overall that are ever started getting to a million dollars or more. That's why clickfunnels is so crazy because the fact that click funnels isn't just like the fastest growing business I've ever observed and one of the craziest Unicorns that's ever out there, but it's a million dollar business factory. I don't think that's ever existed in the history of the world before. Speaker 2: 16:41 No, we've again, it's because of people like you. It's because of a lot of. We have over right now. We were, in fact when you were in her office, we were kind of counting and as far as on the walls, the different plaques. So we're now just cross over 373, two comma club award winners and we just got our 27th application for eight figure awards and so you started adding all this up and I forget what the actual number was you and I came up with when you're in the office, but I mean it's literally billions of dollars a business that's been created and I think the part that I loved the most, especially as you take a look at your billionaire code, is the ability for a person who wants to move. And again, not all entrepreneurs do. They you get comfortable and there's nothing wrong with that. Speaker 2: 17:25 But for a person who really wants to get to that next level, whether it's from 300,000 to $700 from a million to three or from 3 million to 10, for those who really want to do it, there are people like you who can help you actually make that kind of thing happen. And I think the part I'm most excited about as far as clickfunnels is we've been fortunate to attract people like you and others and who it. Because they're here, it's becoming this magnet magnetism of others who all of a sudden come to clickfunnels. And I was literally just buying a domain and the company I was buying the domain from my. Anytime I buy a domain, I never tell them who I am. Speaker 2: 18:04 I've learned that you could ever get an email from j Levi Parker, that's kind of mine. Chris Brown. So it was funny because, um, we finally negotiated the terms and then his secretary was a big financial service company and they own this domain that we really wanted. And she finally says, now what's the email? And I told her the email. She goes, what's your name? I said, oh Dave. She goes, why is it j? Levi Parker? I'm like, Oh crap, I totally screwed that up. My name, here's my real name. And she goes, wait a second, hold on. And she puts me on the phone with the CEO who were buying the domain from. He goes, is this Dave Woodward from clickfunnels? I said, yeah. He goes, we love click funnels. And I'm like, Oh my God, I'm glad to know that now. But you'd probably charge more if you. Speaker 2: 18:54 He asked me and I'm glad that we didn't find that out up front and they actually did ask for a free click funnel hacking live ticket and the negotiation. But uh, no. My only reason I'm saying that is I think it's interesting as you take a look, this was a financial services company and I never would've thought click on those would apply to them. But again, these guys they're doing that this year it'll be about 12 to $15 million and they're using a product and yet at the same time what has got them there is people and systems. And I think it's one of the greatest skill sets that you've offered to so many other people. And I want to make sure that people who are listening, you've mentioned already the billionaire code. So if you want to go to the billionaire code.com and download that, highly highly recommend it. Speaker 2: 19:35 It's one of the greatest things out there as far as really the part I love most. Alex is in one sheet of seeing from zero to $100, million and little. You can find out where you're at and the part I like most about it is you could be, even though it's all columns, rows and columns, but all of a sudden you might be in one column but in a different role and you go, wait a second, I'm behind in these areas and you see where your weaknesses are and because that you're able to make those changes super fast. The other thing is if you didn't, if you haven't heard Alex's billionaire code, if you get a ticket funnel hacking live, you actually, we will send you the recordings from last year and I. It's one of my favorite presentations to be honest with you. I love anytime you speak, you have this unbelieve seeing you on stage. Speaker 2: 20:18 As much as it's cool watching you here and we're doing this podcast, but seeing you on stage, it's a totally different element. You are. You just come alive and it's the coolest thing for me to see because you pour so much into the audience. I mean, you're, you were born to be on stage. It's the coolest thing ever because of the way in which you give and you care so much because you connect so much better with the people as you see them. It's just you have this personal relationship with them. It's really a neat thing. For me. I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a complete introvert, like in real life. But um, I learned very young how to speak Speaker 3: 20:48 it. I love public speaking. It's one of my favorite things in the world. This is what you and Russell at the same, same exact way. Total introverts. You put you on stage and oh my gosh. It's like nobody believes I'm an introvert, but you know, I, I used to have a debilitating stutter. I had. So for anybody listening who's like, oh, I don't think I could ever speak on stage a lot. Younger English was my second language. So I had a crazy accent that I used to get made fun of for in school. I used to stutter because I was really, I had a hard time talking in front of people. I'm dyslexic, so if I ever had to read in public, it was really hard. It sounded like I didn't know how to read, but it was just the words were moving around on the page and um, you know, I, I learned how to speak in high school with my speech coach and getting the opportunity to speak on a stage like click funnels, funnel hacking live. Speaker 3: 21:38 It's crazy. There's so much energy in that room when you say you build a relationship with the audience in that room, they build a relationship with you. Well, thank you. Love 5,000 people that are dying to have a relationship with you, Alex. so one thing I'd want to make sure we touch on, and I think because it applies to anybody, no matter where they are in your billionaire code and that is your time study. Yeah. Kind of going into that real quick. Only because I was the worst person in the world on that and I hate this, but it's a life changer. So this is, you know, I've been a consultant for over 20 years and I use strategies that work and it doesn't matter how difficult they are, it doesn't matter how confronting they are. To me, it's how do we get the biggest result with the least amount of time and one of the things that we, we inventory as entrepreneurs is money. Speaker 3: 22:22 We all like we look at how much money we're making but we don't really look at what we're doing with our time. And so how do you inventory your time, take that data and improve what you're doing with your time. Because at the end of the day, your success is the sum of what you focus on. And until you can inventory where your focus is, you don't know what's really going on. So what we have people do in our programs and in our company like Haley right now, my assistant is doing it, two wait time study. She writes everything down that she's doing in 15 minutes and then commence. And anybody can do this. You write it down in 15 minute increments for two weeks. And what will happen is in the first couple of days, you'll already start modifying your behavior, but at the end of two weeks, right at the end of two weeks, you'll have a full inventory of where you spent your time for a two week period. Speaker 3: 23:07 And then here's what we have people do. Go through that inventory and mark, was it strategic or tactical? And as an entrepreneur, the more time you spend in strategy versus tactics, the more you're going to grow your business. And most entrepreneurs are over 90 percent tactical in any given week. And for me like this podcast with you, this is strategy. This is strategic. I'm the only one in the business that I would want to have do this. But setting up the time for the podcast, setting up the appointment, put it into the calendar, all those things. Somebody else did all of that for me. I just showed up and click the button. And so at the end of a two week time study, you really know where you are. And I think, you know, I, I often share with people your story that we were talking and you were asking me for strategies and then I shared the time studying and you're like, okay, I'm going to do that. And then two days later I get a voicemail where you're like, I just want you to know I kind of hate you. Speaker 2: 23:58 I totally, I really do that. Oh yeah. And I think the other part I do want you to talk about, and that's the four rs I'm going through right now and I'm creating for ours, for my, my role here at click funnels. And it's been fascinating for me as I've been doing this. As I look at the four rs with my time study, it totally changing the game because I'm like, oh my gosh. Even though that is what I'm classified with, strategy, I don't need to be the person doing that strategic thing and I can have someone else do it. Which was kind of, it was mine. Again, I'm still struck. I haven't completed my forearms right now. I'll have it done by tomorrow, but it's been fascinating for me to see that a lot of things that I thought I still needed to be doing, I don't. So if you don't mind, can you explain what the four r's are? Absolutely days. So, um, you know, Speaker 3: 24:49 in most positions in the world do you have a job description and a job description is usually like one or two paragraphs describing what somebody does in a role in our organization and the organizations we coach, we found one or two paragraphs woefully inadequate. And what we want to be able to do is give somebody a very clear idea of exactly what we want from the person. So whether you're recruiting or managing a team member, we use what we call a four r document, its role. That's where most job descriptions start. Stop. So we have a paragraph about the role, then we have responsibilities. What are the exact responsibilities that that person has? Then the results, what results is that person driving? And then the last thing is the requirements. And so for example, for a salesperson, you might have a rule that says, you know, this is an inside salesperson, they're going to be available full time, remote remotely located, they're going to call it on high ticket clients, and then in the responsibilities it's making 100 calls a week, having this level of conversions, this is how many actual live calls they have to have, and then in results it's driving x number of dollars in business a week and then you know exactly what the results that they should have the right client bringing in the right Avatar, making sure that there's not a high return rates, high retention rate, and then the last thing in requirements for sales might be excellent phone communication skills, excellent written skills. Speaker 3: 26:10 And so once you have that all built out, if you're recruiting, you are so likely to find the right person because it's very clear. And then this is the only document that we know of that you can take from recruiting right into the position. Speaker 2: 26:24 So it becomes a tool you find them with and you lead them with. I think that's the part you just said there. I for me has been the part I've enjoyed the most because I'm actually the people who work for me now I'm asking them to create their four r document and it has been so mind opening for not only for me because they're doing some things on there that that's not part of their role or the responsibilities and and other things that I thought they knew where their responsibilities don't even show up anywhere on, on the document. Speaker 2: 26:56 So again, anyone who's listening, if you have somebody who is works for you, and again, I think even if it's you're an assistant, it doesn't matter who it is. Impact. Yeah. I think you're crazy. These days. I, I fight all structure. I just innate in me to fight it. I just ate it, but it's been for me. The thing that has helped me the most is working with people like yourself, Alex. I'm like, okay, I gotta get into this thing and I have to realize that the structure actually is what's going to help me get to the next level. I mean, we'll do $100 million this year and you and I had the conversation earlier as far as, you know, Dave, who do you want to be and where do you want to lead? And for me, I know there's no way I can lead or be involved in a company that had $100,000,000 level unless I change who I am. And it kind of goes back to the, you know, the proverbial thing people have got you here will never get you there or at least the situations you're in, you have to change. And for me the best way of changing has been this for our document. It's been a great, great opportunity. Do you have any resources where people can go to get that or understand a better? Um, you know, Speaker 3: 28:02 we, we teach that in all of our programs. So if you go to a billionaire code.com or if you download the entrepreneurial, not download, sorry, if you buy a free plus shipping copy of the entrepreneurial personality type book, um, we will, we'll, we'll give you in our follow up sequence. We talk about where the for our documents are, where, where we, where we have all these resources. In fact if somebody wants to, they can go to free momentum book dot Com and get that. And by the way, I now have a funnel there that were, that I'm willing to share on funnel hacker radio because last year when I spoke at funnel hacking live, real funnels weren't quite there yet, but now we're very proud of the funnels were putting out. Um, we've got some pretty incredible click funnels now. Speaker 2: 28:43 Well, I think the coolest thing is the fact that, uh, if you haven't listened to Alex's podcast, a highly, highly recommend that you do as far as the momentum podcast, he actually, I have to give Kudos to him. He hit the, he got to the million dollar or the million downloads level faster than I have. I'm not there yet, so please support me and get me to the millions so I can come back and to be like, one point three, one, I'm, I think I'm around 900,000 and you started six months after me on a podcast and you're doing it like every day though. I mean I've got like 300, 85, 400. It's crazy. So it's just sheer volume. Speaker 2: 29:20 That's a lot of content, but the coolest thing honestly is I highly recommend you guys go check out the momentum podcast. It's what Alex contributes and gives is just amazing things for any entrepreneur to really help. And what I love is they're short the quick and it's stuff that people can implement that day and I think that's the, that's the secret. Does fast implementation. So again, we've talked about the whole idea as far as why you cannot, why can't sell your way out of your problems. Talk About for our document talking about time studies. Anything else you want to make sure we cover here in a few minutes before I let you get back to your day? Speaker 3: 29:55 Uh, you know, Dave, I think, I think we've pretty much covered it. You know, I have this saying that I share with business owners, your business is broken and if things go well, it always will be. And here's what I mean by that. You know, volume creates complexity and success creates deficits. And so as a business owner, you don't want a perfect business. What you want is you want a system and a team and a structure that is adaptable and can cover complexity and filling deficits. And I think that there's far too many business owners today, they think that some day they're not gonna have any problems. I would look at it differently. I wouldn't tell you all embrace the issues in your business, chase them down, hunt them down, solve them. And that's how you really grow a company by pretending like there aren't issues by, by wanting to perfect business, by trying to drive the problems out of your business, you're actually creating the biggest constraint you possibly can. So just remember, success creates deficits and volume creates complexity. What you want a team is a team and an organization that can cover both and you'll get to the level you want to as an entrepreneur. Speaker 2: 30:58 I love it. So everyone check out billionaire code.com. Make sure you follow Alex on his momentum podcast and by all means, if you have not bought a ticket to funnel hacking live, go there right now. Buy Your ticket. You do not want to Miss Alex on stage. This guy literally gives his whole heart and soul to anybody he comes in contact with. So the great thing about actually being with Alex at funnel hacking live is you're one of the most approachable people in the world, which is just, I mean, it's such an amazing thing for me to see how willing you are to give and share during the full three days, not just the time you're on stage, but as people I've seen you in the hall talking to people and you just give and give and you give and you give. So the only way you get that is by going to funnel hacking live.com. Spend time with Alex. it will literally bless your life. He's always blessed mine and it's been an honor to spend time with he and his wife and his two daughters. It's always fun. So Alex, Ian, thank you a ton. Any parting words here before we go Speaker 3: 31:49 now just say how your family for me, you're a constant source of inspiration and I love you man and I appreciate you having me on three. Pete. Now Speaker 2: 31:59 one. Thanks so much. I think so. I think someone trademark that. It's A. I probably owe some money on three people. We'll talk to you. Bye. Speaker 4: 32:12 Hey everybody. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to podcasts. If you don't mind, could you please share this with others, rate and review this podcast on itunes. It means the world to me. We're trying to get to as a million downloads here in the next few months and just crush through over $650,000 and I just want to get the next few 100,000 so we can get to a million downloads and see really what I can do to help improve and and get this out to more people. At the same time, if there's a topic there's you'd like me to share or someone you'd like me to interview, by all means just reach out to me on facebook. You can pm me and I'm more than happy to take any of your feedback as well as if people would like me to interview. I'm more than happy to reach out and have that conversation with you. So again, go to Itunes, rate and review this, share this podcast with others and let me know how else I can improve this or what I can do to make this better for you guys. Thanks.
Alex Charfen is one of my greatest teachers and mentors, his systems and processes for scaling and growing business are second to none. Alex is the founder of Charfen.com a coaching and consulting business that helps takes businesses from start up to to billion dollar enterprises. He is the author of the "The Entrepreneurial Personality type" https://www.charfen.com/free-ebook/ Podcaster at the "Momentum Podcast" Alex believes Every day, new members of this tribe of "Entrepreneurs" are born with a unique set of gifts and issues that will, for better or worse, drive them for all of their lives. They will chase momentum, and even long for it. They will have a hard time fitting into the systems built for everyone else. And, in the end, if they survive and are able to stay un-medicated and un-incarcerated, they will likely change the world. They’ve locked themselves in rooms and invented the light bulb but only after ten thousand failed tries; they have launched rockets into space and landed them safely, but only after explosions and scrubbed missions; they’ve built and lost great empires; and sadly, some, perhaps most, have spent their lives as misunderstood and out of step dreamers with unhappy endings. Alex has studied greatness for decades and here is what he has found: All of the notable entrepreneurs down through history have a great deal in common with each other, and, quite frankly, very little in common with the rest of the world. They share The Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT) with all of its quirks and idiosyncrasies. They are a restless bunch with an intrinsic need to move and build and strive. His own remarkable entrepreneurial journey reflects that. He is also the author of the Billionaire Code. https://billionairecode.com/know-the-code A framework and structure that helps show business owners where they are on the business growth ladder and what exactly they need to focus on at each level.C Alex has known from a young age that he was different, and this led him on a path to studying the world’s greatest entrepreneurs to find out how they achieved so much in their lives. His research led to founding the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT) and helping tens of thousands of 6, 7, and 8-figure entrepreneurs use this information to grow and scale their business while building maximum sustainable momentum. From consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500 and some of the most successful people in the world. Alex is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses and make their greatest contribution. An in-demand thought leader on business strategy and entrepreneurship, he regularly appears in major media outlets such as MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Investor’s Business Daily to provide his unique views and insights. Alex is married to Cadey and has two daughters Reagan and Kennedy and they live in Austin Texas
A private voxer message I sent to my partners, talking about the next phase for me personally inside of the company. On this episode Russell shares a Voxer conversation he had with his partners and later his team on why he’s reached the next phase in his journey to become a coach instead of an all-star. Here are the awesome things you will get to hear on today’s episode: Why Russell feels like his career has reached a point where he doesn’t know what his next goal should be. How going to a retreat with self-help guru’s helped him figure out where his focus should be. And why being a coach instead of an all-star could be the way to grow his company from 100 million dollars a year to a billion dollars a year. So listen here to find out why Russell’s next step is coaching his team so they can take the championship. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I’m excited because today I’m going to let you in behind the scenes of something that made me a little vulnerable (is that the right word?), nervous, but something that’s turned out to be really, really good. I think for a lot of you guys who are the all-stars and you are in the transition point to becoming the coach, this is going to be super valuable for you. So with that said, let’s jump into this episode. Alright everybody, so like I said, this episode is actually a Voxer that I sent to my partners inside of Clickfunnels. It was after I had a chance to spend a week with a whole bunch of amazing marketers and business owners kind of reflecting on what’s next for me, my next step, my next role. And I’m not going to lie, I was really nervous first off to vox those guys about it, and then after that I actually forwarded it to all the people on my traffic and funnel building team because it represents kind of a shift in focus for me personally and for them as well. And for me it’s just funny how nervous I was and the vulnerable of like, uh this is this scary thing that I’ve got to try and tackle. But doing so has been one of the greatest things for our company. Everyone’s getting excited now and seeing the vision and rebuying in, and the energy level since I mentioned it has been really, really fun. So I thought it would be fun to share with you guys. A couple of real quick caveats, is there’s some people I mention, some people who were on the trip as well, some people who are, you know just work internally inside of our team. So I’m going to have my brother beep out, or mute out those names and some of the confidential details. So if you hear little blips of sound, that’s what those are, but do not fear, all the good stuff is still in there for you. But for any of you guys who have been the all-star and you’re transitioning to trying to become a coach, which is the phase of the business that I’m in right now and it’s a nervous, scary exciting everything. I hope this will give you some perspective and help you out. And for those who aren’t there yet, but you’re wondering, “Where am I going? What’s the vision? What’s the future hold for me?” hopefully this will help you as well. So with that said, let’s jump right into this voxer and I hope you enjoy it. Hey, what’s up guys? I hope you’re doing awesome. I want to kind of record this for you guys based on some of my thoughts over the last probably two weeks or so, just to get your feedback and then I’m probably going to forward this on to the Funnel team and the Traffic team, just so they have some context as well. But I just wanted to kind of put it in here first and get your guy’s thoughts on it. Anyway, the last little bit has been really, really good for me. I’ve had some big personal aha’s about stuff and obviously we’ve done a lot of things right, because we’ve gotten to where we are. But I think also I’m kind of in this weird spot where I’m trying to figure out what my next step is and all that kind of stuff. So anyway, at Charfen’s event it was really good because they could help me understand a lot better, the team building and how to do meetings and how to structure things and just, it was really, really good. But even with that, it still, I left with this weird uneasiness. So when I was at the event, hopefully my car’s not too loud, it’s so loud when I drive. Anyway, when I went to the Mastermind group and we were with those guys up at the trout ranch or whatever, we did all the manly things like fishing and shooting, things I’m really bad at, then we finally got a mastermind together and kind of talked. It’s funny because normally mastermind groups are obviously like, we share marketing ideas, but this one was more like a men’s group, like self-help with a bunch of self-help gurus. So we were talking marketing, they were talking how to make yourself happier. Anyway, when they got to my turn they asked what my biggest struggle was that I needed help with from the group. And what I told them was basically, I said, my whole life I’ve always had something I was running towards. So when I was a wrestler, as soon as I learned about wrestling I became obsessed with it and I wanted to become state champ. So I would practice and go to matches and win and get my hand raised. Then I got better and became a region champ, I got my hand raised. I became a state champ and got my hand raised. I became an all-american, I had all these goals I was shooting towards. I had college and the next thing. I always had something I was aggressively running towards, where all my time, energy, effort, thoughts were moving toward that thing. And my senior year I was trying to be an all-american and at the Pac 10 tournament you have to be the top whatever, one or two spots in the Pac 10 to qualify for the nationals. I was seated, I shouldn’t and it’s ridiculous I didn’t, but lo and behold I choked and I lost and my career ended three weeks before I thought it was going to and it was the worst feeling in the world, losing. And then I was like, that’s it. I’ll never wrestle again. And it’s like my whole life, 15 years of my life up to that point was that and then it was gone and taken from me before I was ready. I would have gone into severe depression, I did a little bit, but I had this little business thing that I was doing at the time and to get my mind off the pain I just jumped into business and became obsessed, and that’s all I did for the next 8 years of my life. I gained 50-60 pounds. I was unhealthy, I was unhappy. But I had this thing and I was like, I had a new goal right. I wanted to make money online, I was chasing it. And at first I had this goal, I wanted to make whatever, if I make 6 figures a year that’d be insane. So I was like running towards it, and running towards it, and as soon as I hit it my hand got raised and I was like, cool now I’m going to make 7 figures in a year. And I was running, running, running, and I made 7 figures in a year. And then I was like, I’m going to make 8 figures in a year, and that one took me a lot longer. We ran it for 3 or 4 years and almost got there and that’s when the whole company crashed and then we built it back up. And then still, we maxed out at 3-3 ½ million during that time. And then Clickfunnels came and it was like, oh my gosh this is the thing. And I could see the opportunity and I started running, as we all did, started running and the goal is to build a ten million dollar a year business. And then boom, we hit and it was like, “Cool, let’s do 15 million.” Then boom, we did that. And then this year it’s like, “Let’s hit 100 million.” And we’re going to hit that this year. And then for me it’s like, “What’s the next goal?” What is the next goal? Going from 100 million to 200 million isn’t that exciting. It’s like winning another region champ. Where’s the next state championship, where’s the next national’s? What’s the next thing? And for me it’s like the next thing is a billion, which is so far away. It’s honestly the reason why I didn’t keep wrestling, because the next level after where I dropped off was the Olympics and I knew that to get the Olympics is like an 8-12 year thing. And I was like, I don’t have 8-12 years left in me. So that’s why I stopped wrestling at that point. And for me it’s like, that’s where it’s at right now. A billion dollars seems so far away. I’m like, well, do we sell? I guess that could be a hand raise. But then I’d be going through severe depression because I got nothing else after. This is my thing. So anyway, that’s kind of my question then. I don’t know what to chase, I don’t know how to get my hand raised, I don’t know what the next thing is. Because of that, I feel like I’m spinning in circles being really, really busy because I feel like I need to be busy. Because that numbs the pain of not knowing what the next challenge is going to be. So that’s kind of where I’m finding myself at. So I kind of shared that with those guys, and we spent the next hour getting personally developed. They were personally developing me, it was fun. And there are a lot of good things that came out of it, but the one voice that I heard that was speaking directly to me was basically like, I’ve always been a player right. It’s like I’m an all-star, and I haven’t been a good coach. I’m going to caveat that, like I have been a good coach to our clients. I’ve coached Brandon and Kaelin, Alex and Layla, all these people. I’m good at coaching people that are our students. But I’m like the worst coach ever for our internal team, our agency we’re building out. In fact, I was thinking about it. I feel like I’m that guy who, I’m the A-level player, the all-star and I’m playing on this team, and everyone on the team is good, but I have this weird thing where it’s just like…for example {Name Redacted} writes copy and it’s good, and instead of me coaching her on how to make it great, I grab it and I steal the ball from her and I’m like, “I’m just going to fix it.” And I fix it and I go and dunk the ball. “Look how good I am.” And I get my significance hit. Or {Name Redacted} will do a funnel and it’s good or something, but I’m like I could fix this. And I jump in and change stuff because I want to be the all-star and it’s good because we’re putting out amazing stuff, but it’s also bad because it’s like, I keep trying to be this all-star and it’s not helping the team, it’s hurting the team more than anything and I’m sure it’s discouraging to them and a whole bunch of other things that I probably wasn’t aware of until I started thinking through this. And I think for me, the next evolution, if we’re going to get to a billion dollars, it’s not going to be by me being an all-star. If you look at basketball teams, teams that have one all-star, they have an all-star who gets all the screen time, but the teams never win the championship. The championship teams are the ones that have an amazing team. And I realize that, if we’re going to get to a billion dollars, from the marketing side I can’t keep doing what I’m doing. Number one because I can’t handle more, number two, it’s not how we’re going to scale. The way that we’re going to grow to the next level is I have to retire from being an all-star player and become an actual coach. Two or three weeks ago I did the first training to our team on Hook, Story, Offer and trained them and everyone got excited and it was a really cool thing, and it was me coaching them. One of the guys in the group, his name’s {Name Redacted}, he’s the one that wrote the sales video for {Redacted}, if you’ve never seen it, it’s the greatest sales video in the history of the universe. He wrote the sales video, put it out there without having a list at all, and day one did like 350 thousand dollars in sales. Day two it was over a half million and it blew up. It was basically the best offer in the history of mankind until the FTC shut them down and they got in trouble for it. But he’s probably the best living copywriter right now. And he was doing these one off things like that and making a bunch of money but it wasn’t a company. And he and his two brothers partnered up and they built out a whole company and they have 150+ employees and they got 17 fulltime writers now, and this year they’ll do half a billion dollars in sales. So I asked {Name Redacted}, “How’d you do it?” and he’s like, “The way I did it, I couldn’t keep writing, to get to this level I can’t keep writing all the copy. So I built this team of writers and what I do, my job is I come in every single day and I give a copywriting course to my guys. I login and train them through copy and they get better. That’s how we were able to scale and grow so big because I have 17 writers I’m training every single day. I’ve become a coach. They probably don’t write as good as me, but they write good enough, really, really good level, and they’re getting better and better. That’s how we’re able to scale. It’s like me as an all-star, we could have gotten to 100 million dollars, but we couldn’t have gotten to 500 million, there’s no way.” Anyway, it was really interesting, and the other thing he talked about when he does copywriting training, it reminded me of how {Name Redacted}, do pair programming, where it’s not someone codes and you login and you’re like, “oh.” And you change stuff. Basically he brings the copywriter in and shows it on the big screen and shows, “You’re a great copywriter, but I’m going to be super anal here to get this perfect. And we’re going to go through this line by line.” And he would tell the person, “You need to change that period to three periods. You need to change that to a capital here.” And literally does the whole thing, but makes the person do it while he walks them through it, and that way the person is seeing why and understands the reasons behind it. Anyway, for me I think that’s the next step. I have to start transitioning away from being an all-star and hogging the ball and not developing my team, to actually focusing on becoming a really good coach for our team. So that’s kind of my big realization. Two other things to kind of add to it, if you read the book Do Great, it kind of talked about different levels of leadership. Like level four versus level five. Level five would be someone who builds it and when they leave the company continues to grow and excel, level four leader is someone who leaves and secretly hopes the whole thing collapses to prove how good they are at what they do. I think right now I’m a level four leader which is horrible and I don’t want to be, I want to be level five. So I want to transition myself that way. And then the last cool thing I want to share and then I’ll be done. My dad, and I was just thinking, I have the same thing with {Name Redacted} and all our project managers so far, they started doing project managing stuff and something happens and instead of just coaching them through it I rip it away from them, and it’s why we’ve gone through four or five people trying to do this. It’s like, I’m a destructive force. Not because I want to, just because I’m still learning. But anyway, my dad when he turned 60 a little while ago we did a big family reunion thing for his birthday, and my mom went through each decade of his life, zero to 10, tell us about that life, 10-20, you know when he was an athlete wrestling, then 20-30 he became…started his career and stuff like that, and 30-40 he was a dad and he was coaching us as wrestlers, and he was like a coach. And then 50-60, the next phase, and 60. You know, kind of walked through the decades. And my dad was a great athlete and it was kind of fun because I asked him afterwards. I was like, “Of all the decades what one was your favorite?” and he was like, “By far, my favorite was the decade when I was coaching you guys. That was my favorite, the best years of my life were those 10 years.” And I feel like I need to get to that point where I’m retiring from being an all-star and coaching our team. I think that’s my next challenge. I think I’m going to love it. I think it’s what our team needs, what our company needs before we’re going to get there. So anyway, I’m sure all you guys are thinking, “Of course, that makes sense.” But for me it was like a big aha, and giving me permission to shift my focus a little bit in an effort to help develop everybody and get our team to the best team in the world. Anyway, I just wanted to share that. Appreciate you guys and I will talk to you all soon. Bye everybody.
Episode 263: Must Listen Special Edition - Alex Charfen The Entrepreneurial Personality Type Today this is a special edition episode! Alex Charfen is in the mastermind group - he's unbelievable. This content is unbelievable, it's powerful and can change your life. Alex has built multiple large companies, even some that have been in the fortune 500 3 times! He's done Ted Talks. He's been on Fox News & CNN & so much more. Alex is a BEAST. "My goal in the world, eventually, is to get this content to the point where no evolutionary hunter suffers the fate at the hands of a coordinator, a communicator, a caretaker, who doesn't understand them and holds them in a box...." - Alex Charfen "Our society systems don't help us, they break us!" - Alex Charfen For people like me, who came out of a hometown blue-collar style business - this might all feel like a huge overwhelming thing. Over the decades, he earned his experiences. As a kid, Alex was just trying to fail as little as he could. Success felt so far away, even impossible. But he did it. He crushed it. Growing up, business was an obsession for him. It was the only thing he focused on. There are 3 stages of momentum that Alex talks about and goes deep into explaining them. As Entrepreneuers, Momentum isn't what we want. It's who we are. - Alex Charfen When you get really clear on who you are, this is when you start to decide what comes next. Alex discusses going into your new reality, a new reality of who you are, what you're meant to do and why you are here. Every one of us has that quiet little voice that says we are meant for more, that we can change the world. STOP DENYING THIS! You are you. You are who you are. Don't deny it any longer. Follow it. Lean into it. Accept it. It's who you are. Just remember this, "If you've ever felt alone, there is nothing wrong with you and you are NOT ALONE! For anything you are dealing with, someone in the world has done this, overcome it and changed the world." - Alex Charfen Learn more about Alex Charfen by checking out www.Charfen.com Buy Alex Charfens Book click here Check out his Podcast by https://www.charfen.com/podcast/ (clicking here) Interested in learning more, directly from Alex Charfen? https://www.charfen.com/programs/ (Click here) for program details! Connect with Alex Charfen on his personal Facebook by https://www.facebook.com/charfen/ (Clicking here) Follow with Alex Charfen on Twitter by https://twitter.com/AlexCharfen (Clicking here) Check out this podcast to change your life! If You Haven't Yet, Check Out RevenueBuddy. The ULTIMATE Visual Goal Setting Buddy!http://revenuebuddy.com/ ( Click Here )To Check It Out You can also check out the INCREDIBLE Super Course by http://supermarketingcourse.com (clicking here!) Have an idea for a Podcast Topic? A question you want to be answered live? Or just want to leave a random message with whatever you want? Now's your chance! You can now call my new Podcast Hotline number and leave a 3-minute message and I'll play some of these LIVE on the air! 810.201.4555 You can check out Joshua's AMAZING Marketing software by clicking here If you've enjoyed this PodCast this year if it's brought value to you, your life or your business could you please go to Itunes and leave a 5-star review? https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/radiusbomb-com-quick-talk-podcast/id1061375545?mt=2 (Click here to leave your review)
The two polar opposite mindsets that will either make you, or break you. On this episode Russell talks about having belief in your own success in order to actually be successful. Here are some of the awesome things he mentions in this episode: Why you shouldn’t have the Michael Moore view of success being a freak accident. Why believing in your own success will increase the likelihood of you achieving what you’re trying to do. And why being a skeptic has a zero percent success rate. So listen here to find out why if there is one, there could be two and you could figure out how to be number two. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I’ve got a little bit of a rant for you. Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast today, I hope you are all doing amazing. Yes, today is going to be a little bit of a rant, I hope you don’t mind. I need to get something off my mind. So this morning, I was looking at Facebook, as I often do in the mornings, just making sure that everyone is happy in our community of a160,000 people, and I was scrolling through and I somebody’s post, and the post made me want to jump up and down on my phone and smash it into little pieces. So yes, that’s what happened this morning, and that’s what inspired this rant. So first I’m going to tell you the back story that will set up this, then I’ll tell you what happened in the post. So this weekend I was listening to some Dan Kennedy, in fact, I wonder if there’s a correlation of me listening to Dan Kennedy and me wanting to do rants. There might be, he’s kind of a grumpy old man. But he’s still the best, I love learning from him. Anyway, I was listening to one of his courses this weekend, which I think I mentioned yesterday. He mentioned my name on, which is pretty awesome. But earlier he was talking, in fact, it was the first ten minutes of the course, and he started talking about this principle that I think is essential, and it lays out what I want you guys to understand today, during this podcast, to help make sure you’re successful. Because if you’re not careful in all things you do, you’re going to fall down this path, because I think human nature drives us down the wrong path, and if you’re aware of it, it’s easier to protect yourself from it. Basically he was talking about, when it comes to success, there are two completely opposite mindsets. The first one he called the Michael Moore view, and so the Michael Moore, if you guys know who Michael Moore is, I’m not a huge fan. I don’t watch all his videos or movies, but I’m aware of who he is. First he talked about the Michael Moore view, so he kind of set this up earlier in the presentation of what Kennedy talked about. He said that if you look right now in America, 1 out of 160 people are millionaires. That’s the odds, which aren’t that bad. If you go to the mall, I don’t know how many people are in the all at one time, but the odds are pretty good if one out of 160 are going to be millionaires, maybe that should be me. So that’s kind of what started it. He talked about that right now in America 1 out 160 is a millionaire. So the Michael Moore view, and I wrote notes on this, to make sure I got this right. Basically the Michael Moore view is that “1 out of 160 is a freak accident. 1% uses a freak accident just like lottery commission uses winners for advertizing to convince people they can win a game that they cannot so that they do not come with pitch forks and torches and eat the rich. It’s a freak accident to which the overwhelming majority can’t make it happen, so they shouldn’t aspire to it, and the whole game is rigged.” So there’s the Michael Moore perspective. Now that’s your perspective when you’re like, “I’m going to be successful in life, but I believe that it’s a freak accident, I believe that the only people that have been successful are put up there just for marketing and advertizing, and it’s just like lottery, like spinning a dice and the shots of winning are 1 in 160, but whatever.” So that’s the Michael Moore view. The opposite, the opposing view, the view of people who actually are successful is this, “If there is 1 then there could be 2 and I could figure out how to be number 2.” That’s it. So one is this a freak accident, there’s no way I could possibly make this happen, therefore I should not aspire to even try. Number two is, if one person did it, there could be two, and I could figure out how to be number two. Now think about your mindset in which one of these you lead with. Because I guarantee you I could look at where you are in your life or your health or your relationships, or whatever it might be, and I’ll tell you which one of these views you actually follow. You may believe that “Oh yeah, I’m definitely the opposed, the opposite of you Russell.” And you probably are on some things in life, but maybe not everything. So I want you guys to become hyper aware of this. A lot of times I will share something on a podcast or an event and it’s like a really cool case study of how somebody did blah or whatever and then people will look and say, “Well that works for Alex, because he’s in the gym industry. I’m selling dentists. We’re different.” Or “Kaelin’s selling weight loss to women, info products. I have something completely different.” And it’s like, no, look it and say if there’s one, there could be two, and I could figure out how to be number two. That’s the difference. So let me come back to what I started with. So this morning when I was looking at Facebook and scrolling through real quick, there’s someone who posted there. This lady, she posted, “I’ve been lurking in this group for three years now.” Notice how she even said lurking. Congratulations, you’ve been lurking for three years. She is definitely a Michael Moore type person. So she’s been lurking and she said, “Does it depress any of the rest of you guys to know that of the 160,000 people in this Facebook group, only 300 have become millionaires so far?” That was what she said, and I just wanted to unleash upon her the fury that comes to me sometimes, but I just smiled and ignored it, and now I’m doing this podcast rant and maybe I’ll link to it or something like that. Because that’s how she’s looking at it. Of 160,000 members only 300 have become millionaires and only 20 become deca millionaires. This thing is just a freak accident. The overall majority of people can’t make it happen, therefore they shouldn’t aspire to it, and the whole game is rigged. That’s what she’s saying, as opposed to looking and saying, “Oh my gosh, 300 of my peers in the last year have figured out how to be millionaires. 20 have figured out how to be deca millionaires. 10 million dollars or more in a funnel. If there is one, there could be two and I could figure out how to be two. That’s the mindset, that’s the believe you need to have to be successful, because I don’t believe it is a freak accident. I believe it’s people who believe. If I can leave nothing with you today than this, it’s belief is the key. If you believe then you’ll go and do the thing and you’ll actually have success. I look at the 160,000 people in our Facebook group, from that we have 63,000 active Clickfunnels members. So what’s that, 1 in 3 had enough belief in what we’re talking about to actually go and create a trial. So your odds just got better. 1 out of 3. If you have a Clickfunnels account, congratulations, of the people who are following our movement, you believe more than two thirds of them. Two thirds of them cancelled their success because they didn’t believe and they don’t even have an account. So if you have an account, congratulations, you’re already exceptional. Now inside that account, people who actually look at every day and actually use it, you’re likelihood to success probably doubles, right. People who have read the Dotcom Secrets and Expert Secrets books, the likelihood doubles. People who come to our events, the likelihood doubles. Right now, this weekend, today and tomorrow there’s the Two Comma Club X event, for those trying to get in the Two Comma Club. Those who are in San Diego this weekend, the success rate dramatically shoots up because they’re actually doing stuff. So if you look at the 160,000 or the 63,000 or the 300 millionaires, or 20 deca millionaires and you look at that, and you say look if there are 300, why can’t I do it too? If there are 20 why can’t I do it too? And then you go figure out how to be that other person. It’s really not that complicated. Most people never actually get there. I remember hearing, I can’t remember who, it might have been Charfen or it might have been somebody else, talking about how many businesses make it past a million dollars a year, ten million, a hundred million, all those kind of things, and what’s crazy is half of it is just showing up. If you just show up and read a book, you’re double as likely to be successful. Most people just don’t do the minimum effort. If you just do some things moving towards that goal, your odds become insanely good. 1 out of 160 in America you guys, are millionaires. There’s your odds. Those are pretty dang good. In our community so far, 300 have become millionaires. 20 have become deca millionaire. And every day someone new is becoming a millionaire. So I’d be looking at that saying, if everyday someone is becoming a millionaire, which day is mine? There’s 365 days this year, which one is mine? I’m going to go for it. Pick a day and then start running towards that thing and start figuring it out. If there’s one, there could be two and I could figure out how to be number two. That’s the goal you guys. And I want you, not just in business, it’s true in business, but all parts of life. If you’re trying to lose weight and you’re like, “I can’t do it. It’s a freak accident, it’s my hormones, it’s my this, it’s my genetics.” You’re looking at the Michael Moore view. Don’t look at it that way. That’s the best way to set yourself up for failure. Look at it the other way. If there’s one, there could be two and I could figure out how to be two. Now you’ve got belief, and if you believe it, then you’re going to start reading and you’re going to study and going to things and start moving forward and if you believe it, then you can achieve it. I know that sounds so cliché but it’s true. If you look at my job as the head cheerleader here at Clickfunnels, that should literally be my entire calling and career. All I’m trying to do is create belief. That’s it. Because anybody who believes it, goes and does it. I look at the 300 Two Comma Club winner, what was the commonality amongst all of them? They believed they could do it. So they figured out a way to do it. The people who didn’t, there’s some level of belief that’s holding them back. They don’t believe in something. Whatever it is, there’s some believe that’s holding them back and that’s why they’re not making it. They don’t believe that they’re good enough or they’re smart enough, or they’re fast enough or they don’t believe they’ve got enough talent. They don’t believe they could drive traffic. They don’t believe they could actually build a funnel. They don’t believe they could do design. They don’t believe, they don’t believe. There’s something that they don’t believe that’s keeping them back, and that’s all it is, is belief. It’s usually their belief switching back to this Michael Moore view. “Oh well, that guy can do it. Russell can do it because he looks so mature.” I look like I’m 11 years old. That should not be, Russell looks more mature than me. No, Russell doesn’t. I remember at the first UPW, the first Tony Robbins event I went to, he was talking about a lot of times all these things we have against like, “Oh I’m too young to be successful, I’m too old to be successful.” All these things are excuses. You take that and flip it and be like, “I’m so young that I’m going to have insights that they don’t have.” Or “I’m so old that I’ve got wisdom that these other people don’t have.” And take these things that are negative, I can’t do it because of whatever, and instead flip it around as that’s the reason why I’m going to be successful, because of these things. It’s the belief and if you guys just start breaking your belief patterns and start shifting them, I know that if you’re listening to this podcast, I’m preaching to the choir, but I promise you that if you’re struggling at something in this journey, it’s belief. That’s what you’re fighting with. So as much as you have to learn the skill set, which is important, it’s the belief in yourself to execute on it that actually keeps you back, more so than the skill set. The skills are easy to learn. Come on guys, this is not that complicated, seriously. If you spend 15 minutes inside of Clickfunnels, you can build a funnel. It’s not difficult. And anyone who thinks it’s difficult is lying to you. If you’re like, “I can’t figure out Clickfunnels…” Come on now. If you graduated high school you can figure out Clickfunnels. If you didn’t graduate high school and you were smart enough to get out before it ended, then you can use Clickfunnels. I don’t care which direction you are, you just need to have belief. If there’s one, there could be two and you can figure out how to be number two. I promise you that. You guys we are laying out so many tracks, so many things for you to follow, so many case studies and proof and as much stuff as I can muster from our community to give you guys belief that you have to look at it and you have to belief it. The skeptics never have success. There’s zero% success rate with skeptics. If you’re going to be successful, find somebody that you believe in, someone that you’re like, “Man, that person did it.” And then look at them everyday and say, if there’s one there could be two and I could figure out how to be number two. I don’t care if you have to lean on me, if you have to lean on Brandon and Kaelin, if you have to lean on Alex Harmosi, if you have to lean on any of our Two Comma Club winners, find somebody and look at them and say look, if there’s one, there could be two and I could figure out how to be number two. And then all you have to do is believe. Put all the skepticism, all the reasons why it might not work, all the complaints and frustrations and “Oh my software didn’t do this..” whatever those things are, put those things behind you and just believe and then run forward as if you’re trying to make it happen. That’s the difference between those who are killing it and those who aren’t. Skepticism will kill you in everything you’re trying to do. Believe, believe, believe. This stuff works, I promise you that. Some of you guys, this message is for, because you’re trying to figure out this marketing stuff, some of you guys this message is for other parts of your life. Some of you guys it’s because you’re in a marriage that you’re struggling with, some of you guys it’s because you’re relationship you’re struggling with. It might be your health, might be your finances. Whatever it is, this principle that I’m sharing with you can help in all the areas of your life. So figure out the stuff you’re stuck with, figure out the stuff that is keeping you back, that you’re being skeptical about, and find somebody who you believe in who has had success in that thing, and then this should become your mantra. If there’s one, there could be two and I could figure out how to be two. I hope that helps you guys, I appreciate you. Our team here is killing ourselves to give you guys the belief, the systems, the tools, like I said we got an event happening in San Diego that I’m not at this week, teaching people the systems for Two Comma Club, how to get into the Two Comma Club. I’m in here today, I was all day yesterday and all day today we’re making videos to create more belief. I’m just killing myself to make you guys believe. So if you just make my job easier and just believe. This stuff is true, I promise you guys that. I’ve seen it over and over and over again. Don’t be like that lady in the Facebook group who thinks it’s a freak accident because it’s not. All it takes is you believing and putting forth the effort. And if you do that you’ll have success. Alright guys, with that said, I appreciate you all, have an amazing day and we’ll talk to you all soon.
Alex Charfen is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN. He has spent his life seeking to understand how to make businesses grow, which evolved into the question, “How do you help people grow?” Through his research and years as a top consultant the Fortune 500 and Global 100, this question led Alex to discover the long-misunderstood Entrepreneurial Personality Type or EPT. Alex is a highly sought-after speaker on entrepreneurial awareness and has spoken around the world in front of tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and top global businesses to help them identify and live within their strengths. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE: What differentiates entrepreneurs from everyone else What laid the groundwork for Alex’s book, “The Entrepreneurial Personality Type” The common attributes of the entrepreneurial personality type How high sensitivity and awareness allows you to make things happen in your life How low pressure and noise compares to high pressure and noise Why Alex believes that entrepreneurs don’t know the difference between happy and sad The one thing entrepreneurs are driven by The power of taking on challenges while facing resistance How we become cognitively clearer when in momentum The four different types of people in the world RESOURCES Entrepreneurial Personality Type book: freemomentumbook.com Podcast: momentumpodcast.com Momentum Masterclass: www.momentummasterclass.com
Guest: Alex Charfen is developer of the Entrepreneurial Personality Type and host of the podcast by the same name. His upcoming book, "Defending Brilliance", applies this research children’s learning styles personality development and how they relate to the modern educational system. In this episode, we will cover: how Alex's research into the personality types of ultra successful business people lead him to understand why so many kids are being incorrectly diagnosed as ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, etc. in school today what the 4 general types of people are and what the one qualifying question for each that determines which group your child belongs to how to support your child in the modern school system if they are displaying some of these unique characteristics so they can remain Brilliant rather than being forced to fit into a box Resources mentioned in the conversation: Alex's website: www.AlexCharfen.com Link to his article: The 3 Questions Brilliant Children Need to Hear to download his free ebook on the Entrepreneurial Personality Type: http://www.charfen.com/blog/free-ebook/ Link to listen to his podcast in iTunes: www.MomentumPodcast.com About Alex Charfen: Alex Charfen is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN. He has spent his life seeking to understand how to make business grow, which evolved into the question, “How do you help people grow?” Through his research and years as a top consultant to billionaires, Fortune 500 and Global 100 companies, this question led Alex to discover the long-misunderstood Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT). Best-selling author Robin Sharma recently described Alex as “the most progressive entrepreneurial mind on the planet.” A highly sought-after speaker on entrepreneurial awareness, Alex has spoken around the world for tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to help them identify and live in their strengths and grow their empires. And now he applying this knowledge to children’s personality development, learning styles and how they relate to the modern educational system. All of this will be released in his upcoming book “Defending Brilliance”.
My guest today went from almost dying at birth, being physically and emotionally abused in school to building one of the most successful companies in the country, solving the foreclosure crisis and becoming a liquid millionaire within just 12 months of declaring bankruptcy. To say that Alex Charfen is an inspiration would be a severe understatement. His company CHARFEN, appeared on the Inc. Magazine list of fastest-growing private companies in America three years in a row and has been responsible for helping over 6 million homeowners facing foreclosure. His company has also structured deals for organizations like Fuji, Samsung, Cannon, and Walmart that totaled in the Billions! Today Alex is an internationally recognized speaker and business consultant, who has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses. Here’s a little rap I put together to help introduce him … From the moment he was born, his life was torn, Working from the age of 8 to put food on his plate. He decided his fate, it’s not too late to recreate. Don’t hesitate it’s never checkmate. From financial gain to going insane, Boy did he feel the pain. But realised it’s all in his brain. And now he lives to train. He didn’t struggle alone, didn’t just save his own, he helped people save their home, So what’s holding you back, he’ll get you on track, coz he’s got a knack so join his pack. And give your excuse the sack. Now let me introduce the man who will help us sharpen, here’s the one and only Alex Charfen What you will learn: Why entrepreneurs feel alone Why you have always felt different The 3 habits of a successful entrepreneur The 4 types of personalities The scientific breakdown of an entrepreneur Why we become complacent and what we can do about it Why entrepreneurs don’t have time for feelings How to become truly alive by hunting How to gain constant momentum … and MUCH MORE Interesting highlights: I open up abut something I haven’t spoken about before Alex get’s so passionate he starts to cry Alex opens me up Alex’s #1 practical advice: Go build your empireTweet This Wanna pick Alex’s brain? Join my exclusive FB group now (https://www.facebook.com/groups/canipickyourbrain) ! Resources & Links: The Entrepreneurial Personality Type (book) (https://freemomentumbook.com) Get Featured (http://www.GetFeatured.com) (Sponsor) Thank You for Listening! I would like to personally thank you for listening to my podcast. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with others. Just click on the social buttons below. Also, if you podcast on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/can-i-pick-your-brain/id1076916148?mt=2) , you would be joining me on my mission to help as many people as I can become really successful. And finally if you haven’t already subscribed podcast on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/can-i-pick-your-brain/id1076916148?mt=2) , so you can get automatic updates whenever another episode goes live!
Meet [Alex Charfen](http://www.charfen.com/bios/alex-charfen/), the man who pioneering adventurer who discovered the Entrepreneurial Personality type, and the Founder/CEO of [Charfen](https://www.charfen.com/). Alex works as a personal consultant to billionaires, Fortune 500 CEOs, and some of the world's most successful individuals of industry. In addition to his brain power he loans for top-dollar, Alex is also a prominent speaker and writer who has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs around the globe. Pssst—Check out Alex's FREE GIFT to all Leverage Podcast listeners [here](http://www.charfen.com/leverage) ## 10% OFF AT SWOONERY.COM USE DISCOUNT CODE leverage10 ## Key Quote “When I look at the world, I think there are different types of people. And when you look at the entrepreneurs, and when you examine entrepreneurs, we're different than most” ## What You'll Learn 1. The [Entrepreneurial Personality Type](http://www.charfen.com/blog/tag/entrepreneurial-personality-type/) 2. The difference between entrepreneurs and the majority of the population 3. The Contribution Gap and how Charfen helps bridge the gap 4. The 4-Step High-Level Process 1. Lower pressure and noise 2. Increase protection and support 3. Grow strengths and abilities 4. Make that greatest contribution 5. The BIG issue facing the vast majority of entrepreneurs 6. The importance of knowing what to do in order to achieve your vision 7. Why you should always communicate and authenticate your vision with your team 8. The [Scrum Methodology](http://scrummethodology.com/) 9. The meaning of, “Chase the membership you serve” 10. Alex's Top 3 pieces of advice - Make sure there's a clear outcome for anything and everything you do—not matter the action, know the desired outcome. - Above all, exercise transparency with your internal and external people—employees, clients, etc. - Practice accountability at all times. Make a habit of it. ------- [Get the FREE Optimize, Automate, Outsource Blueprint here.](%20https:/go.lessdoing.com/blueprint?utm_campaign=blueprint-ari&utm_medium=link&utm_source=podcast) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lessdoing/message
Learn about the entrepreneurial personality type, the contribution equation, the power of momentum and more with Genius Network member Alex Charfen. Alex is an internationally recognized speaker, business consultant, coach, co-founder and CEO of Charfen. He has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow and scale their business including consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500, and some of the most successful people in the world. Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from in this episode: 3 Awakenings of The Entrepreneur: Where they begin and you can harness their power Alex shares the one thing that makes you unique from everyone else The Contribution Equation: How unleashing your skills and abilities can change the world An advantage you have as an entrepreneur that can get you anything you want The Power of Entrepreneurial Momentum: How it makes you physically stronger and cognitively smarter Shownotes and links from this episode can be found at: www.ilovemarketing.com/286
Originally aired on 12/24/2016 Episode 93 of "In The Oil Patch" This week on "In The Oil Patch": host Kym Bolado and her cohost Alvin Bailey have Alex Charfen, Co-Founder and CEO of CHARFEN on the show! As always, we're also joined by our resident energy expert, David Blackmon! Let us know what you think about our shows on our Facebook page - Facebook.com/intheoilpatchradioshow and be sure to share, follow and like us on Soundcloud, Twitter and LinkedIn too! "In The Oil Patch" is brought to you by SHALE Oil & Gas Business Magazine and proudly sponsored by the South Texas Energy & Economic Roundtable (STEER) and the Kahlig Auto Group. Stay tuned for more great episodes every weekend! For our full schedule, please visit our Radio Show Schedule page and if you have any questions for our experts, please email them to radio@shalemag.com. Photo source: twitter.com/alexcharfen
Originally aired on 12/03/2016 Episode 90 of "In The Oil Patch" This week on "In The Oil Patch": host Kym Bolado and her cohost Alvin Bailey have Alex Charfen, Co-Founder and CEO of CHARFEN on the show! As always, we're also joined by our resident energy expert, David Blackmon! Let us know what you think about our shows on our Facebook page - Facebook.com/intheoilpatchradioshow and be sure to share, follow and like us on Soundcloud, Twitter and LinkedIn too! "In The Oil Patch" is brought to you by SHALE Oil & Gas Business Magazine and proudly sponsored by the South Texas Energy & Economic Roundtable (STEER) and the Kahlig Auto Group. Stay tuned for more great episodes every weekend! For our full schedule, please visit our Radio Show Schedule page and if you have any questions for our experts, please email them to radio@shalemag.com. Photo source: https://twitter.com/alexcharfen
Alex Charfen and the Entrepreneurial Personality Type, the Contribution Equation, the Power of Momentum, and more…with Genius Network Member Alex Charfen. Alex is an Internationally recognized speaker, business consultant, co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN. He has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow and scale their business including consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500, and some of the most successful people in the world. He is focused on helping YOU make your greatest contribution. This Ten Minute Talk™ Was Recorded Live At The Genius Network Annual Event. Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from Alex in this episode: 3 Awakenings of The Entrepreneur: Where they begin and you can harness their power An advantage you have as an entrepreneur that can get you anything you want The one thing that makes you unique from everyone else The Contribution Equation: How unleashing your skills and abilities can change the world The Power of Entrepreneurial Momentum: How it makes you physically stronger and cognitively smarter Shownotes, special resources, and links from this episode can be found at: GeniusNetwork.com/6
The Spotlight today shines on the compelling Alex Charfen. We will be discussing Breast Implant Toxicity, a topic that is seldom discussed and needs far more exposure. Alex is co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, a training, education and consulting organization for entrepreneurs and small businesses. To reach optimal performance in any single area, Alex believes entrepreneurs must have congruency throughout their health, relationships and business. This perspective led Alex and his wife Cadey to examine their health holistically, and eliminate elements of their environment -like breast implants- that were causing toxicity and pain in their lives. Together, Alex and Cadey counsel and coach entrepreneurs around the world to maximize their potential, and limit the pressure, noise and pain they tolerate on a daily basis. Alex is regularly called upon to share his unique insights and perspectives with major media outlets, including MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
The importance of entrepreneurs can’t be overstated. Alex Charfen, today’s guest, firmly believes that Entrepreneurs are critical for growth, momentum, and the economy. As he looks back at the founding of the United States he sees that all but one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was an entrepreneur. That means the nation was based on the spirit and mentality of the entrepreneur. You’ll likely recognize the importance of Entrepreneurs and the power of “The Entrepreneurial Personality Type” as we discuss Alex’s new book and why you need to know there is nothing wrong with you. In fact, if you’ve ever thought you were different, or that you were a little awkward, or felt like a misfit, or unique, then you just might have a new sense of confidence after hearing what Alex has to share with you. Every successful entrepreneur has built ritual(s) and structure into their lives. Entrepreneurs are acutely sensitive to pressure and noise in the world. As a high achieving entrepreneur, you can eliminate pressure and noise by using rituals and structure so you can simplify and leverage your time and energy. Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn in this show: Introduction to the Importance of Entrepreneurs, the Entrepreneurial Personality Type and Why Nothing is Wrong with You, [0:32] Who is Alex Charfen; [1:09] The two questions Alex asks high level coaching clients to empower them; [2:23] Why Alex says that we are momentum based beings; [7:10] What is the entrepreneurial personality type? [9:24] Why high sensitivity and awareness are the top entrepreneurial traits; [12:41] How entrepreneurs can handle the sensitivity and awareness of their personality; [15:10] The concept of “pressure and noise” and what entrepreneurs can do with it; [16:52] The solution for overwhelm; [19:30] How you can tap into the insights are collective learning from thousands of years; [22:03] How labels are attempts to define us, but don’t work for us; [24:45] Why Alex Charfen does what he does in the world; [25:40] How you can get Alex’s book, “The Entrepreneurial Personality Type”; [27:19] The importance of contribution and how it gets confused; [28:55] Gratitude: Alex thanks his wife; [30:23] Why community is vitally important for EPTs; [31:23] Legacy: What Alex wants to leave for his children and others; [34:08] The top strategies that have been a game-changer in the last 12 months; [35:49] Take Action: What you can do today; [37:50] Get in touch with ALEX CHARFEN Get the book for free: www.Charfen.com/GrowthToFreedom Website: www.Charfen.com SnapChat: @AlexCharfen Facebook: Alex’s EPT Group Twitter: http://twitter.com/alexcharfen Youtube: http://instagram.com/alexcharfen/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/alexcharfen/ Resources mentioned on this episode: BOOK: The Entrepreneurial Personality Type www.ILoveMarketing.com/265 ********************* This show brought to you by Done for You Solutions. Outsourcing doesn’t have to be difficult. Whether you’re looking for customer service, optimizing your website, or a virtual assistant to help with reporting, data, or research, Done for You Solutions can help. I’ve used Done for You Solutions for years and they help simplify. Click here to learn more and let the founder Ric Thompson know that you heard about him from our show. Genius Network is the place high level entrepreneurs go for collaboration, contribution, and connections not available anywhere else. Members get strategies for exponential growth and opportunities for deal making, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, and more. Membership is by application only. Click here to learn more. I was one of the original members when Joe started it in 2007 and today I get to help grow the company in my current role. You can also learn more about the Genius Network Annual Event here – which is the one time per year the group is opened to non-members. ********************* People mentioned on this episode: Joe Polish Robin Sharma =================== ABOUT DAN KUSCHELL: =================== Dan Kuschell is a success driven business growth strategist, a media contributor, and thought leader. He helps entrepreneurs, leaders, and business owners grow and scale their companies 10x by driving the flow of elegant ideas, execution, and team-culture for greater clarity, confidence, and direction. Dan has been recognized worldwide for creating results with his resources, books, and strategies. Meet Dan at http://www.DanKuschell.com Get more access to Dan's wisdom here: http://www.youtube.com/ChampionVision Watch/Listen to the show: http://www.growthtofreedom.com Tweet us at: https://twitter.com/dan_kuschell Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/dankuschellpage LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dankuschell Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/dankuschell Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/dankuschell
Alex Charfen has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their business through his insights from consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500 and some of the most successful people in the world. Alex is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses and make their greatest contribution. An in-demand thought leader on business strategy and entrepreneurship, he regularly appears in major media outlets such as MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Investor's Business Daily to provide his unique views and insights. Alex has recognized a certain set of traits that many entrepreneurs have in common, and from that, wrote his book, The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. In This Episode: Starting a business too young? Why systemization is is so important. Do entrepreneurs think differently? Does society fear united entrepreneurs? Alex's Favorite Quote: “Every failure carries with it the seed of an equal or greater success.” — Napoleon Hill Alex's Favorite Books: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller – Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century Revised & enlarged edition by Napoleon Hill (2005) Paperback Get Your Free Audio Book Links From Today's Show:charfen.com/cyolife Today's Sponsor: www.iboommedia.com jeremyryanslate.com/book jeremyryanslate.com/hosting
Alex Charfen has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their business through his insights from consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500 and some of the most successful people in the world. Alex is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses and make their greatest contribution. An in-demand thought leader on business strategy and entrepreneurship, he regularly appears in major media outlets such as MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Investor's Business Daily to provide his unique views and insights. Alex has recognized a certain set of traits that many entrepreneurs have in common, and from that, wrote his book, The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. In This Episode: Starting a business too young? Why systemization is is so important. Do entrepreneurs think differently? Does society fear united entrepreneurs? Alex's Favorite Quote: “Every failure carries with it the seed of an equal or greater success.” — Napoleon Hill Alex's Favorite Books: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller – Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century Revised & enlarged edition by Napoleon Hill (2005) Paperback Get Your Free Audio Book Links From Today's Show:charfen.com/cyolife Today's Sponsor: www.iboommedia.com jeremyryanslate.com/book jeremyryanslate.com/hosting
Alex Charfen has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their business through his insights from consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500 and some of the most successful people in the world. Alex is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses and make their greatest contribution. An in-demand thought leader on business strategy and entrepreneurship, he regularly appears in major media outlets such as MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Investor’s Business Daily to provide his unique views and insights. Alex has recognized a certain set of traits that many entrepreneurs have in common, and from that, wrote his book, The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. In This Episode: Starting a business too young? Why systemization is is so important. Do entrepreneurs think differently? Does society fear united entrepreneurs? Alex’s Favorite Quote: “Every failure carries with it the seed of an equal or greater success.” — Napoleon Hill Alex’s Favorite Books: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller – Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century Revised & enlarged edition by Napoleon Hill (2005) Paperback Get Your Free Audio Book Links From Today’s Show:charfen.com/cyolife Today’s Sponsor: www.iboommedia.com jeremyryanslate.com/book jeremyryanslate.com/hosting
Today we have Alex Charfen back on the FIVE Minute Bark Podcast. I also would like to share with you his amazing new course titled "Awaken Your Superpower" Find information on how you can review and purchase this course at: http://www.charfen.com/blog/awaken-your-superpower/ I personally am in the middle of this course and the title it's self explains it all.
This week I sat down with Cadey Charfen, co-owner of Charfen, an entrepreneurial coaching company. Cadey unschools and homeschools her children, and promotes success by promoting the four pillars of your life: self, family, business and relationships.
Alex Charfen has been working since he was eight years old. He sold his first company when he was 16 and another one when he was 21. After dealing with financial challenge due to the economic downfall in 2008, Alex and his wife, Cadey, founded a system to help homeowners in crisis called ‘Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE). This massively successful venture has helped 6-10 million homeowners facing foreclosure. CHARFEN, the company behind CDPE, grew quickly and appeared on the Inc. Magazine list of fastest-growing private companies in America three years in a row, reaching as high as #21 in 2011. Charfen is now a leading training and consulting organization. Alex uses mindfulness and meditation daily to maintain his edge and continue his momentum.Contact InfoCompany: http://www.charfen.com Most Influential PersonMy WifeEffect on EmotionsI have learned how to ignore the rest of the worlds judgement on emotion and pursue momentum. I think that for most of us people that think like you and I do have a hard time with happy, sad, frustrated, ticked off, pissed off, and confused, we don't know the difference. For me learning who I really was and getting a higher level of presence showed me that my life's motivation is to create momentum, forward motion and innovation not happiness. That's a bulls**t term that doesn't work for me.Thoughts on BreathingI think there is four pillars to becoming a transformational leader, breathing, hydration, nutrition and movement. Most people would say I was crazy because I didn't name one thing about the functions of being a leader, but if you breathe, you hydrate, you're supported nutritionally and you move an appropriate amount, you will be the most present person in the room.Suggested ResourcesBook: The Highest Goal by Michael RayApp: Paper and PenAdvice for NewbieGet away from electronics as much as you can and don't turn a screen on in the morning until you have had at least an hour or two of time to become present and plan your day. Then understand your intention for the day and record were you uncomfortable yesterday, that will take you out of the constant reactivity most humans are in today.Thank You Bonus As a thank you for listening, download your Fine Tune Your Focus, 5 Day Challenge. Be like my guests, get some meditation happening in your life. I've created 5 free simple, yet inspiring videos to help you get started with meditation. Please leave your name and email you'll receive it in your inbox right away. Download It here.
Internationally recognized speaker and business consultant, Alex Charfen has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their business through his insights from consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500 and some of the most successful people in the world. Alex is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses and make their greatest contribution. An in-demand thought leader on business strategy and entrepreneurship, he regularly appears in major media outlets such as MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Investor’s Business Daily to provide his unique views and insights.
This week Lian is with internationally recognised speaker and business consultant, Alex Charfen. Alex has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their business through his insights from consulting for billionaires, the Fortune 500 and some of the most successful people in the world. Alex is the co-founder and CEO of CHARFEN, empowering entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses and make their greatest contribution. An in-demand thought leader on business strategy and entrepreneurship, he regularly appears in major media outlets such as MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Investor's Business Daily to provide his unique views and insights. In this show Alex shares his fascinating story of going from a child described as 'retarded' and 'failing to thrive' to now running multi-million dollar organisations. He also talks about what he's discovered about the Entrepreneurial Personality Type and why this is so important to understand if you're an EPT! Warning: This show might activate your natural thirst, you'll have to listen to find out why! :) What you'll learn in this show: If you've struggled with feeling different all of your life, if fitting in at school or work was impossible, if you've been told to stop or slow down, if you've been told you're too intense.... you're probably an Entrepreneurial Personality Type. Alex talks about why society has it all wrong when it says 'different' means 'broken' when in fact, it's part of the natural design that we have this personality type because that very difference is exactly what humankind needs to innovate and move forward. Momentum and flow is something we can all tune into effortlessly every day when we're in alignment with what's natural for us. There's nothing wrong with you and you are not alone.
Alex Charfen—entrepreneur, teacher, author, speaker—is on a mission.He has spent 3 decades on the front lines of entrepreneurship and business. His journey has taught him many things, but he believes he has discovered one key that could change everything for small business owners. He is the author of The Entrepreneurial Personality Type, and has spent years helping other entrepreneurs find success. If done right your network will mean everything.. but Alex Charfen does not believe in cold calling people to pick their brain.In this episode Alex shares his views on entrepreneurship. Society gives labels like ADD to those who can't sit still and want to change the status quo, but there are the people who are having the largest impact on business. Being an entrepreneur gives you options, and being opinionated lets you follow through .... Alex has a lot of opinions and this episode is a real experience. Download today!!
Alex has dedicated his life to answering the question, How do you make a business grow? which evolved into a larger calling to understand How do you help people grow? It was this transition that led Alex, quite unexpectedly, to uncover a previously mislabeled and misunderstood population among us: the Entrepreneurial Personality Type™ (EPT). For the past two decades, Alex has created and curated proven business philosophies, models and strategies geared specifically to entrepreneurs. Expert in business growth with majority ownership of several multimillion-dollar businesses, Alex has been invited to share his strategies with business owners across the country and around the world. He's been featured on MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Huffington Post to provide his unique views and insights. He's here today to share his story with us as well as his message, which I think is really really important.. Enjoy!! --- Mission Statement: My mission is to create 200 new multi-millionaire business owners who solve world problems with entrepreneurship. How? You'll do better when you know better. Would it help you to have a mentor who can cut your learning curve by sharing their mistakes with you so you could avoid them? Would it help you to talk to that mentor and learn how they shifted their mindset to allow success to happen in the first place? Would it help you to hear them talk to other high-level entrepreneurs about their journeys, their mistakes and how they overcame their challenges to create the lives and financial success they desire? The Best Business Podcast was created for you to have all this in one place. If you like it, please subscribe, give an honest review and share with a friend you think will benefit so I may serve you both together. "Your success is my success." -- Daryl Urbanski
Cadey is the wife and business partner of a previous show guest, Alex Charfen. Born and raised in Dallas, she was a flight attendant when she met Alex 12 years ago and didn’t even realize she was an entrepreneur until they started dating! Her father was the entrepreneur in the family, but, unfortunately, she didn’t get to see much of that lifestyle as her parents were divorced, and her stepfather was a ‘corporate guy’, staying with the same company for 20+ years. While she didn’t stay with Southwest Airlines after meeting Alex, her time there was a great experience for her to see what a really dynamic company looked like from the inside out and to understand what did and didn’t work. After meeting Alex and discovering her entrepreneurial spirt, real estate was the natural path, as that was the predominant career background of almost her entire family. In her first year of selling real estate, she earned a triple-digit income, especially remarkable when considering the average 1st year agent’s income is approximately $28,000. She was off to a very successful start but she and Alex, like so many others, got hit by the housing recession of 2007-2008. While it was personally devastating at the time, it allowed them to look more carefully at their own financial habits, and just as important, it led them to develop the CDP course and designation. The CDP was an answer to all of the foreclosures that no one, even in the industry, knew how to effectively deal with. They made a HUGE impact with this course, even being told by a representative in the US Treasury that their program alone probably sped up the housing recovery by 5 years! Today, Cadey runs the operations and oversight for CHARFEN, the company she and Alex founded together. They focus on general entrepreneurship and want people to understand that if they can run a transparent business, then they can gain the support and trust that they need to go out and make the impact that they envision. For them, it’s not about creating a big company; it’s about creating a movement.
Alex Charfen is a husband and father as well as a consultant to some of the world’s biggest companies. He works closely with his wife, Cadey, in their business, Charfen, which is geared toward helping entrepreneurs and small businesses realize their potential in a very innovative format. He calls the concept 'Congruency' and his ideas are starting a revolution. Alex has prospered personally and professionally, with Congruency as the centerpiece of his business and life. His mantra is simple: “I wake up every day determined to be the best husband I can be, the best father I can be, and to help as many people as possible achieve their goals. I have found a way to build my business with these values, not in spite of them. And I’ve learned that when small business owners really do this, long-term success is practically guaranteed.” The frameworks created by Charfen are being used by businesses around the world. He is very passionate about the entrepreneurial mindset and how important it is to play to our strengths and not let labels and self-limiting beliefs hold us back. Below is a free membership to start your All-in journey! All-in Membership : A free video course and mentoring for those who know it’s time to get off the sidelines and step up to make a difference in their lives and the thousands behind you. Review All in Podast on iTunes Please tell us what you think becasue it matters to us. Click Here Show Sponsors We are currently looking for Sponsors and Advertisers. To learn more Click Here
The Online SuperCoach Podcast | Attract, Sell and Serve like a Million Dollar Online Coach.
Alex and his wife have been helping entrepreneurs scale their businesses, and create structure and momentum, using methods that are tailored to each specific entrepreneur's personality type. Some of the companies they've consulted with include Microsoft, Cannon, and Logitech to name just a few, and you can learn more about their work at Charfen.com Today we're going to talk about the defining characteristics of entrepreneurs, and how to use those traits to momentum in your life and in your business. There is a VERY good chance that you will walk away from this episode with Alex, feeling more understood as a person than you ever have before in your life. For show notes, links, information, and how to Attract, Sell, and Deliver like a Million-Dollar Online Coach, go to http://www.onlinesupercoach.com/