¶ Entrepreneurial Journey and Self-Discovery
Hello everyone and welcome to Learning the Hard Way the Easy Way a podcast where we interview leaders about mistakes they've made and talk about what you can learn from their experiences . I'm your host , alex Culley . Thanks for tuning in Today . Our guest is Ernesto Mandowski . Ernesto is the founder of the Million Dollar Machine .
He helps service providers with designing systems to improve peace , performance and profit . His personal mission is to democratize business transformation tools and he shares insights on his podcast Million Dollar Machine Media across Spotify , youtube and LinkedIn .
Outside of work , ernesto enjoys reading , baking challah bread , working out and spending time with his wife in Miami , florida . Ernesto spent his career helping organizations of all sizes Fortune 500 companies to startups be more efficient and provide higher quality services .
Previously , he has served in various leadership and analytic roles with organizations like the Palm Restaurant , myers USA and Deloitte . Ernesto earned his bachelor's degree in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Florida . Ernesto , thanks for joining today .
Thank you , alex , happy to be here .
I'm excited to have you and I'm excited to ask , Ernesto , what did you learn the hard way ?
My whole life I was chasing a dream of pursuing hospitality technology , systems engineering and bringing all this together , and after 10 years I realized I was evading what I actually wanted to chase , which was being an entrepreneur and so can you talk a little bit about that aha moment if you had it , or when it kind of clicked , of what you really wanted to
do versus what you had been doing you read the alchemist ?
yeah , so for those who are not familiar with the alchemist , a very famous book and about a boy who's searching for treasure and travels across Africa and he makes it to the pyramids and someone basically tells him hey , you know , I always dreamed of this treasure in a Spanish town , which was where he was from .
So he goes home and he looks under the tree and he finds the treasure back where he started . And so when I in 2020 , I published a book , it was called Newbie and it tells this whole story of hospitality and restaurants and startups and everything that I had gone through .
Kind of at the end of the book , I realized the thing that I wanted to do this entire time , which actually started at the age of 18 , was being entrepreneur , was build my own experiences , and so in that moment of publishing the book or writing the last few sentences , was when I realized , like , okay , it's time to start a company .
What was it like having to give up the career you had , the expertise you had ? Did you see it like that ? Was it a change or was it an evolution ?
oh , definitely an evolution , I mean . But I think both um , I also don't think giving up is the word I would necessarily use .
I think every experience we go through will always be a part of us and while there are definitely no regrets , because everything that I do now is filtered through the lens of five-star hospitality you have to wonder like , why don't people do the thing immediately ?
Why don't they ? I don't know . Well , I I've often found in my own experience and in the coaching I've done , people are more concerned or focused on job title than they are on , or even job description than they are on , what you actually do in the role . What do you think about that ? Was that part of your experience ?
No , I never cared about the title . I cared about what I did , which I was very direct about . When I was 16 , prior to having that entrepreneurial experience I mentioned I read a book . It's called the Secret and it talks about the vision board and I said that I wanted to pursue a life focus on restaurants .
And then , hey , these are the three areas that I'm looking to be involved with and I consistently shaped whatever opportunities were presented to me . I kind of like made those opportunities what I was focused on , instead of like letting the title dictate what I would do , like I was the driving force and what I would do .
Do you find that's common with most people that you've worked with in your current or maybe previous roles ?
Definitely not .
I would . I would agree , and I think it takes a certain amount of confidence in being able to be clear about your expectations and desires on the front end . So where did that for you confidence come from ? How were you able to be clear about your expectations and desires on the front end ? So where did that for you confidence come from ?
How were you able to , you know , generate that specificity and know that if it wasn't what they were interested in or supportive of , maybe it wasn't the right opportunity for you ?
I think it was just I wanted to do what I wanted to do . My parents never thought that I could do this thing in restaurants . Maybe I was trying to prove something to them . Maybe I was trying to show people that it's possible to do what you want . I was trying to think of like , what was that childhood experience ?
You know , it was never like you can't do this . It was more of like have you ever heard of the concept of like , yes and Sure , Like improv , Like improv , like an improv , yeah , so an improv . You know you're in a scene and it's like something happens and you accept it and you add to it .
And so , whatever my mom , my parents or most parents are like , oh , you got to get a job , you got to get a job . It's like , yes , I got the job . It's like , yes , I got the job at Deloitte and I'm miserable . Yes , I'm going to sign up for that culinary entrepreneurship program and I'm going to still get a job in culinary operations .
And so it was like just continuing to yes and instead of no but or either , or . It's kind of like thinking you know how can you like add to the situation ? It's not an either or thing .
So , as you look back at your , at your whole career , your , you know , formative , focusing on what you wanted to do , do you now realize entrepreneurship was always there and and you were trying to fill it or do other things , or was entrepreneurship ? Did it come later , that experience you mentioned or things that happened later on ?
Formal entrepreneurship came later on . Obviously , I was in jobs for 10 years but I was always an entrepreneur , and maybe people have never heard that word . But an entrepreneur is someone who has a job , but it's a very entrepreneurial type of a job . There aren't many restrictions , there aren't many boundaries .
You kind of have to create your own boundaries in that type of a role and those aren't . You don't find those on the job boards . You don't apply for an entrepreneur . You don't necessarily see it in a title either . But if you see , I mean a chief of staff is pretty much an entrepreneur .
They have free reign to do whatever they need to do to help a group of people be more effective . So it's not common to find those , but um , they're out there .
So you decided , you wrote the book . You decided , you know you had this kind of aha moment . What came next ?
So I wrote the book . The book was called Newbie and it's inspired by bees and how we are all like bees , taking these insights from different parts of our lives and sharing them with other friends to benefit them and bring it back to our hive to create this unique value proposition .
I started my company it was called CPD Advisors and and kind of had that same ethos . Founders are just like bees they're extracting value from different sources and the market and events and experiences . They're transferring them . They're bringing it back to their company to create the value proposition proposition .
But because they're thinking months , many or years into the future , they unintentionally create this tension . So we started our company to kind of reduce that tension , to implement processes , implement technology , to keep people more on the same page . And that was the start of it .
Was there a fear you had to overcome ? Was that confidence still there ? Talk through . You know you have this sort of aha . Was there self-doubt of ? Maybe you know this isn't the right thing ? How was that experience ?
I mean , there's definitely self doubt , definitely fear . I was always in restaurants , so I thought people were just going to label me as a restaurant person .
Recently , I've been learning more and more that everything is projected from whatever you are experiencing within , and so I had to just get over that because , like I learned a lot in my experience in restaurants that could be transferred in any place , just like when , when I , when you recognize that everything that you learn is transferable , you now can have this
new confidence . And so it took several years to develop storytelling , refine the way I told the story . I actually don't even use the identity of CPD advisors anymore , because it didn't resonate advisors anymore , because it didn't resonate .
And so at some point you know you have to use tools that allow you to stay confident , that allow you to stay in that energy that you want to convey with people , and sometimes that's the name of your company , sometimes it's colors , sometimes it's product names that you offer .
It is a lay , it's a language that allows you to more effectively convey what it is that you do .
You're talking about an agility . I think you have a willingness , desire to try new things . Is that something that's always been with you , or is that something that you've developed later on , maybe through some of these experiences ?
you know , no one's ever told me that . So thank you for adding new distinction . Um , yeah , definitely is an agility . It's definitely something that I needed to pick up as I saw , I saw or perceived changes and when you have a vision , the world is not ready for that vision in the moment and it sometimes takes months , sometimes it takes years .
But you have to meet the world halfway . So you have to change , the world will change and you kind of meet the world halfway , so you have to change , the world will change , and you kind of meet in the middle and that's kind of the new reality that you create Well , personally and professionally .
I think that's important . A lot of times , though , at least in my experience , people are very committed to do what they've done before , even as they complain about the status quo , and there's a fear in change , especially changes in work , because people associate what they are , or who they are , with what they do .
But you've , from what you're saying , almost reinvented yourself personally and professionally , and I'm just trying to understand has this always been part of your style , your ability to be reflective , determine new things ? Is that something that's kind of always been with you ? I ?
think since I was 18 , yeah , since I was a teenager . Pretty much , I think , since I was 18 .
Yeah , Since I was a teenager pretty much . As you look back now , having made this successful jump into entrepreneurship , do you find yourself frustrated that it took you so long to get here ? Maybe not regret , but gosh , you know where would I be if I got to this place sooner . Or is it what you said earlier ?
All kind of part of the journey , and if you hadn't done those things , maybe you wouldn't have got to here .
I think there's people listening right now who may be frustrated with saying the same thing you just said . Not frustrated , maybe . Maybe there are days where you wish you got the answer sooner . But who's winning by carrying that ?
Well , what advice would you give to those people who maybe they know , rather than the aha moment , maybe they've had a slow build to realizing what it is they really want to do that there's a barrier or fear there that they haven't been able to get over yet . What advice would you give to them ?
My wife's a therapist and we have very different . I'm a coach , I'm a forward moving person . We have very different modalities or perspectives , but the advice is just do it . Just , I don't know what the fear is . I don't know what the person needs to get over . They need to see a therapist . If they need to talk about something , go hire the therapist .
Go do it Like , go take the class , go do the thing that scares the crap out of you , cause no one's gonna , no one's going to force you , no one's here to save you save you .
Is it your opinion on ? Is it better to try different things even if they don't work out , or should I ? Should I wait until I'm sure this is the thing before I put my energy and effort and maybe make major life changes to do so ?
They're never going to be sure . You're never going to be ready . There's never a right time . The conditions will never be perfect . You're always going to be sure . You're never going to be ready . There's never a right time . The conditions will never be perfect .
You're always going to have 19 things or reasons why it's going to go wrong , but it's just your ego doing what it's supposed to do and you not listen . I mean , you just got to do it , even though there's a hundred reasons why it won't work . Just got to do it . That's why Nike is so brilliant , I think .
You mentioned ego . I think at times there's good ego , there's obviously bad ego . What's been the role of of ego in doing all of this ? You know , in deciding to pivot , to become an entrepreneur , how did you have to leverage your ego , your confidence , but also be mindful of not being perceived as that egotistical person .
I think there's a like , there's a distinction of like the ego protecting you , and then there's like the , and then there's like the pride ego . When people say that like oh he's , he has such a big ego , it's like someone who's in the pride versus Versus someone who's afraid Of taking action Because of survival instinct .
So one is like noticing that Because it's two different types of Like the same name of ego , but it's different Definition . And even though I'm aware of these things , like sometimes it's nice , Like I feel I like notice myself , get excited when people like acknowledge me , Like I see that that's like oh , the ego , like my ego is getting excited .
I think it just goes back to awareness .
That's right . It's it's knowing when it's happening and when to cut yourself off . I mean , it's good to feel good about being recognized for your work , but allowing that to prevent you from working hard , or one of the comments you made earlier , thinking it's all just going to come to you I think that's when you get into danger .
Yeah , no , it's going to save you .
¶ Personal Vision and Work-Life Balance
I think ego also is connected to another thing you mentioned a few minutes ago about seeking and getting the help you need , whether that's mental health resources , whether that's mentorship .
How have you found you know your ability to ask for help , to get guidance , as part of your success in this transition , and is that something throughout your career you had or that you really had to actively seek out ?
Yeah , no , I was never given anything when I was 21, . I was in college . It was like my senior year and I met a guy and he was like , go get mentors Very important to have a mentor . And someone raised their hand and it's like how will you be our mentor ? And he said he's like yeah , I have a challenge . I do it every year .
I ask students to read three books and then I take a meeting with them . Sure enough , I was excited by this guy . I read the three books , sent them to him , sent him my responses and we had the meeting . And it was a nice breakfast meeting and he said great , what do you want to learn about ? And I said well , I want to learn about A , b and C .
He's like cool , here are three more books and go . And that was basically like my first lesson of like people will help you if you meet them halfway .
I think today's day and age , with tiktoks and the chat , gpts and all the technology that's out there , like we're expecting that people are going to make the time as instantaneously available as the answers on chat GPT .
And it's like yeah , you can have all these things in the palm of your hand , but it's not going to get you closer to your goal , and so people have to put in the work , and I put in the work my entire life , like no one gave me a job in restaurants , no one gave me a chief of staff role in the startup and no one gave me a key man bonus retention
for selling a hundred million dollar restaurant group like . You just have to ask for these things . You have to speak to people . You have to like get out there and and drive your vision because no one's going to do it and ask for help along the way , and when people see you're doing the work , it's like cool , I see you and they want to help you .
That I think is so important that people will help if they see you're willing and committed to helping yourself first , that you have to make that first step if you're going to ask others to make a step toward you . I'm wondering , you know , not everyone can be a visionary . Do you think there are people who their skill sets ?
They maybe just aren't that , they're more focused on you ?
You know , maybe the technical skills , the tactical skills , and if so , if you think those people are exist and it's okay and that's you need them , then how can they draw from some of the things you're saying to to improve and become more effective , to make advancements in their career and be more successful ?
Yeah , it's important to recognize your risk tolerance . Not everyone needs to be a visionary in respect that they need to be the CEO or a business owner that takes on all the risk of a company , but if you know your certain propensities as a human and your risk tendencies , there are . All of these visionaries need the support to do what they need to do .
I need a . I mean , I am a COO . I'm a fractional COO , like I even need a frack . I need a COO for me because I'm a crazy visionary with all these ideas , but I need someone who's going to be grounded and support me and do what I need .
So there are so many more people in the world that can be that role , but even though they're like W2 employees or maybe they're not like visionaries , they still need to be visionary of their own life and what they want to do .
I think that's a key point that just because you're not a quote unquote visionary doesn't mean you shouldn't focus on having a vision for your life and a man , you know , wave a magic wand . What does your life look like ? Uh , we do strategic planning for organizations and individuals , and the hardest thing for them to think about is well , gosh , I don't .
I'm not even sure what that actually looks like . It's . You know , you're busy . You're moving so fast life you don't often stop to think , pause and look forward in not your company's vision or your team's vision , but you as an individual . What do you want out of your life ?
Yeah , I think everyone , uh , founders and employees alike , are moving so fast these days , so fast . Too many newsletters , too many commitments , too many email addresses , too many calendars , too many whatever the Fs , and they're just like oh , I have so many emails Like dude , take some responsibility . And it's not an overnight thing .
I mean other people say , oh , the answer is going to Costa Rica doing a plant medicine , and it's not an overnight thing . I mean other people say , oh , the answer is going to Costa Rica doing a plant medicine and in three days , like your whole , all your problems are going to disappear .
It's like no , you don't need to like fix every , you don't need to boil the ocean in a day , but you need to be aware enough to like actually methodically tackle something bit by bit . But you need to be aware enough to like actually methodically tackle something bit by bit .
Well , there there are people who work to live and those who live to work , and it's personal preference .
And what I hear you say is , even if you're not someone who lives to work , even if your work to live and work is just a component that supports your life , family , personal , that you still need to have a vision for that personal side of your life , that this isn't just about how do you accelerate your career , this is about how do you live a more fulfilled
life . Am I understanding you correct ?
Yeah , yeah . And how do you do the things that allow you to be more relaxed while living your life ?
I think just about every single person I've ever met would say well , that sounds great , but how ? So what are your thoughts on the but how of living a life really more in alignment , being able to relax , being not so stressed out from all of the different stressors that attack us every day ?
Everyone's looking for the silver bullet and there isn't one silver bullet . But here's five ideas . I'm kind of coming up with them on the spot . And I'm like kind of coming up with
¶ Productivity and Entrepreneurial Growth
them on the spot . The first one is go to unrollme and pull up all the newsletter subscriptions that you have . That's what the tool does . It actually looks at all of your newsletter subscriptions . Unsubscribe all of them , like unsubscribe 80% of these newsletters you don't read them . Declutter .
Next , look at your calendar and just cancel all the meetings that aren't really adding value . People are gonna say , oh , but I have to be in that meeting . It's like do you or can you just send a memo ? Um , yeah , uh . Third one I use a tool called freedom , and freedom actually disables the internet from my computer and my phone until 9 .
And it starts at 8 PM . So literally disables and blocks me out of my own devices for 13 hours . It's not easy to do it because , like you know , I even I get anxious sometimes when I'm blocked , but I do it . Do a physical exercise , I do CrossFit .
You know people who are going to butt-how me with their previous injuries go for a walk for 60 minutes outside without your phone and then I don't have a fifth one , but I mean I think if I were to take a fifth one , it's like take a weekend and take a piece of paper and just like write out all the sources of stress that you have and just start
eliminating them at a pace that feels comfortable .
Wow , I , uh , I love this and I'm just going to kind of recap here what I heard . Uh , you know , one is declutter . Declutter the information you're taking in , uh , to reprioritize your time or make sure things you're doing are the highest and best . Use especially meetings , which I don't know one person who doesn't have meeting fatigue .
Number three you talked about monitor your internet usage and really cut down or scale back , put boundaries for physical activity , whatever that looks like for you . And then five , you know , reflect on your stressors and work to remove or eliminate them .
Yeah , and you just get it's pretty good . Pretty good , thank you .
And I don't think those are things that you have to do all at once every day , but having those five as references and saying let me set some time aside to do this and take baby steps , I think that's a real good playbook .
Thank you , you've talked and I know a lot of what your work focuses on is utilizing technology , and how do you use technology to improve your business , improve your life ? Is that something , when you made this transition to entrepreneurship , you knew would be part of it ?
Was it drawing from previous professional or personal experiences you had , or is , like everything else , things that have kind of evolved over time ?
um , as I was publishing my book , I discovered this software . That was like blew my mind . I don't know . Have you heard of notion ?
have not .
Do you use like Asana or Monday or any of these I'm familiar ? Yeah , so I . So Notion is a tool that can be customized based on your needs . It's very custom . A lot of software out there is not custom .
You kind of like take what's given to you , and when I kind of was exploring this idea of bees and connecting ideas with creating content , like just all the workflows , I said , wow , notion is it . And so I knew that it would be like a central part of my workflow .
And so I knew that it would be like a central part of my workflow , and I had to learn about how to explain this to people , because no one wants more tools , no one wants more technology , but everyone wants a million dollar machine .
So it's about you know finding ways of , a using tools but B communicating to others about how , like the impact versus what they are . I'm going to come back to the idea of connecting ideas . You've mentioned it a couple of times , but I'm zeroing in on this book .
The book experience being , you know you've you've connected a couple of transfer , transformational things in your life to that process Is that a fair way to the book was a catalyst , definitely . Well , I'm interested . What was the catalyst for the catalyst ? Why did you decide to write a book ?
How did that come about , and was it a conscious thing of of this being the right ? Was it feedback he got from others ? Where did the idea come from ? Came ?
from a pain , a painful moment . I uh , I want to tell . The first dream was to own six restaurants , and then the next dream was to implement systems engineering in restaurants , and then I started . I took a CRM class in college and then I started building a CRM for a nightclub .
Those were all like pet projects , but it became very real when I did have my first restaurant operations experience . When I was setting everything up , no one helped me my bosses . He was my mentor , he was very supportive of me , but he didn't teach me . I had to learn myself .
Bang my head against the keyboard way too many times , way too many support tickets , really like getting deep into the documentation of all the tools , and I had a vision that you know the industry was going to be more technology driven , and so I said I'm going to teach the next person , the next person after me , how to do my job really effectively .
So I said I'm going to write this book that's going to teach the next generation of restaurant analysts how to be successful and so that they don't have to go through the same 18 month learning curve that I went through . They could do it in a month . You know , that's the power of books .
Books collapse time and writing that book took me four and a half years and the message along the way kind of pivoted a bit , but it's still . I love reading and I think that you know books are also one of the fastest paths through learning new ideas , integrating them into your life and then creating change .
Kind of went around the question , but yeah , it was pain that caused the catalyst .
Well , I think pain and mistakes and the mistakes you had to make . What I'm hearing you say is you wanted to give to others what you didn't feel you got .
Yeah .
You mentioned . You know your first dream , your second dream , Going back to what you started with . You know what you had to learn the hard way of not just doing what you actually want to do , of trying to do different things , Not just doing what you actually want to do , of trying to do different things In the moment when those things were your dream .
You look back now and say , well , they weren't . You know , they what I thought was my dream , but , but maybe I was just trying to fill a void that wasn't and it wasn't the right fit now that I'm kind of looking back and I said , oh , the heart , the thing I wish I learned the easy way was just like do the thing .
I guess I was doing the thing , I guess I always was doing the thing . But now , looking back 10 years later , it's like , oh , you weren't doing the thing , but like I guess I was . So , whatever , whatever you're doing , like , keep , keep the main thing , the main thing . Some famous guy said that , but you just got to do it .
Like you asked me earlier , like , oh , how do people start doing it ? Just start . You want to write a book , write some pages , write some words , write some sentences , start doing the thing and don't set a .
You know entrepreneur , clients of mine , they like set these revenue , they keep setting revenue goals and they keep setting like number of client goals and they keep setting , oh , I want to be on this many podcast episodes and they keep setting all these results-based goals .
And it's such a results-based goals and it's such a backwards way of goal setting because they cannot control any of it . But you can only control what you're going to do from 6 am to 10 pm . That's what you can control .
And so like stating , like actions that you will do like I will write the pages , I will make the phone calls , I will record the videos , I will . I will speak to people , I will give a presentation . You don't know how many views you're going to have or how many referrals you're going to get or how many clients will sign with you .
So it's like you got to really change . Flip the switch on on goal setting .
Well , and I would even add on how you measure success , on your performance metrics , and what you described is a lot of entrepreneurs , business owners , they're measuring lagging indicators , the results , the outcomes .
Right .
But if that's what you're focused on , my experience is you're going to lead a reactive , responsive business instead of being proactive , measuring the leading indicators . And if you're always reactive , you're always going to be behind the curve . You're never going to get ahead and let alone stay ahead .
Exactly the point of life , I think , or the point of entrepreneurs is it's not just take the actions , it's build a business that allows you to take more action and create more change in the world , but still I think that's right .
It's , um , you know it's putting and it actually goes back to what one of the things I mentioned it's focusing on the title , focusing on , you know , the revenue , focusing on the wrong things instead of building that solid foundation that would allow you to achieve those things that you're actually you the outputs .
Um , I want to go back to what I heard just was kind of this reflection in the moment of you know that you were always kind of doing this thing , but it was in different environments or different , and so I'm hearing you right .
One of the things you you learned along the way is how to really zero in on that thing , that passion that had always kind of been a thread , but there were other things distracting from it , taking away energy or focus from it , and your decision was really to to make it the main priority and to articulate it in a very specific and clear way .
Is that , is that kind of what I heard you say ? Is that ? Am I understanding right ?
Yeah , yeah , I was doing . I was continuously articulating what I wanted to do . Not everyone was always understanding it , I guess in those
¶ Navigating Entrepreneurship and Information Overload
moments . You know , there's this one time in the path where I was at a very clear fork in the road where I had kept saying the thing . I had kept saying the thing I want to do restaurants and systems engineering and we didn't talk about this much .
But I like to bake bread and at that time I was baking bread out of my apartment and I had a client base inside of the office of Twitter , like X and my product , my bread , got famous in that floor . I was delivering this bread .
I was also kind of networking with that culinary program and two paths kind of converged together where I was at this fork between hey , do you want to go be this restaurant analyst at this company setting up the systems for this company ?
Or the guy who would eventually become like the global CMO of X basically told me like , hey , do you want to build this bakery business ? I'll introduce you to everyone that I know in New York city . You're just going to have to do the work . And it was like their entrepreneurship , the thing that , like , I thought , you know I wanted .
But I was like it's very clear , like entrepreneurship through a bread bakery or the dream that I think I wanted . And yeah , in hindsight like , oh , I wish I .
I say I wanted entrepreneurship all along , but like I was crapping my pants and it was way too uncertain for me to say yes and so I eventually went , which is still a great path , but it's it's just interesting how our perspectives like change over time and then like looking back and , oh , if I wanted entrepreneurship , why didn't I do that at the time ?
I guess I didn't really want entrepreneurship at that time and I was 24 years old , but I would have never got there if I never had something driving that forward .
And maybe it's not that you didn't want it . Maybe it's just that you weren't ready for it . And the right thing at the wrong time is still the wrong thing . And the right , the right thing at the wrong time is still the wrong thing . How often do you think about that decision ? Is it something that's top of mind ?
Is it ? You know you don't reflect on it too often , or do you feel it's one of those experiences that drive you today ? Not too often . It's a good story . It's good podcast material , you know . Or I bake now . I do bake now and I do like workshops online and teach people .
And it's a great story to say , like the role that Hala plays in my life , because , yeah , for me , role that Hala plays in my life , because , yeah , for me it's Hala , but for I don't know John was watching like it could be his glass blown cups . It's the same story , it's the same subject , it's just looks a little differently . So it's .
It's a great thing to use to inspire others about . Hey , like , these possibilities are out there , I want newbie . Like I want kids in high school to read that . I have seven interns right now working for me and I told them . I said , hey , I have this book . I'm not making it mandatory because there are other books that I want them to read .
Also , looks a little weird if I'm like oh , like , read my book . It's mandatory , but one one person is reading it and I asked him about it . I'm like , how , like , how is it going for you ? And he's like you know , it's really cool to see that you could do this in high school and then you could throw a party and that you could go after this dream .
And I'm like , yeah , that's kind of the idea like showing people what's possible .
And I , and one of the things I'm taking away is that the being entrepreneurial , that's been a consistent theme and that's different than being an entrepreneur .
And you , you know , your aha moment was that you wanted to take this entrepreneurial passion , this entrepreneurial spirit , these skill sets and make the jump to being an entrepreneur formally and that , I think , for those people who may be similar , they are always entrepreneurial they're not quite ready to be an entrepreneur .
To me , that might give some comfort to say well , it's not like I'm wasting time , it's not like I'm making the wrong decision . Maybe I just , you know , maybe the challah isn't fully baked yet , it's not ready to go forward .
And that's okay . But not everyone needs to be an entrepreneur , title or position . But everyone like what you said earlier , everyone does need a vision for their life and no one's going to give you , your employer , isn't going to grant you everything that you want in your life .
It's up to you to be an entrepreneur of your life and say , okay , how does the job , how is my , what is the return of my time invested in that job feeding me back to nurture my life ?
Well , I think you know again that , for anyone listening is is an important distinction . That you can be a work to live driven individual , that's okay , but it doesn't mean you shouldn't apply those same entrepreneurial principles to your , to your life . In fact , it's even more important because that's what you care about and are passionate about most , right ?
I want to pull a couple of things together that you've talked about . The idea of cross-pollination , what you said a second ago , and I'm going to take it in a different context not everybody needs to be an entrepreneur . I think there are people who shouldn't be an entrepreneur , an influencer , that they are or they try to be .
So , pulling those kind of things together , the idea that , a it's important to cross pollinate , to get ideas from others , to learn from other experiences and other people , but B there are a lot more people sharing ideas than there should be , that maybe some of the ideas are not good , not the right thing to do . How do you differentiate between that ?
How do you know which voices to listen to ? From your experience you know , as a , as a consumer of that information , but also your experience helping entrepreneurs and leaders become better , become more effective and and cross-pollinate themselves .
People are doing . People are . People are doing what they think they need to do . Everyone has a phone . Everyone can be an influencer . I think listeners what they can do is life is an experiment . You know , if I get an ad one day and the ad is like you should intermittent fast , I wouldn't necessarily say that's good or bad .
I would say , cool , let's run an experiment , let's try to intermittent fast . And you run the experiment and you talk to people and yeah , you're not going to change your life when you hear a message one time by some new influencer . That's why Google deprioritizes all these new websites and like really rewards websites that have thousands of backlinks .
So it's like in your life , you have to think about where are all the backlinks . So it's like in your life , you have to think about where all the backlinks and the cross references coming from . That's why when we're in high school , when we're writing our research papers , we have to spend three days putting together the bibliography .
Like we have to actually cite the source and make sure that it's credible and really verify . That's why Facebook now people are spending $15 a month for the verified check . Like this whole thing of like verification , trust , but verify , like whatever the message is , you could hear it . Verify it for yourself , though .
Well , yeah , one be curious , two experiment and three , three make sure you're doing your research . I think that's a pretty good uh framework on how to make sure you're not consciously or unconsciously consuming information that maybe wouldn't benefit you .
Maybe it's leading you down the wrong path correct and you know when you , when you go back to what we said earlier about like vision for your life , I was using restaurant systems , engineering and tech as like my filter or my lens People don't have lenses , so they're just like all right , just feed it on me .
Whatever you , you got to create some sort of bumper lanes because otherwise it's like there's enough amount of content being created like every 21 days to like serve all in the last hundred . I don't know what the statistic is , but like it's just like an obscene amount of information being produced every day , real now by ai .
Also , it's like what do you want to actually focus on ? Like who are you focusing on becoming ? And like if that part isn't set , then yeah , you're gonna just hear all sorts of crap from people .
You've talked about boundaries a few different times in a few different ways . Just now , with kind of the lens , the bumper lane , the boundaries of your technology consumption eight to nine , can you talk a little bit about the importance of boundaries in entrepreneurship ? Do you subscribe to the grind set ? You know you should always kind of be working .
Are there different approaches that you would recommend for people who feel like am I doing enough Versus how do I take that time ? Have a clear boundary , have a healthy balance in my life and my work and my relaxation ?
The simplest way to say it . Well , dan Sullivan is brilliant and he teaches this concept of the gap and the gain . And the gap and the gain it's the idea of like measuring where you are today versus where you were three months ago , versus measuring where you are today against the ideal of where you should be .
We all , people in general , think they should be somewhere that they're not and so because of that , that kind of grounding principle , they're like okay , I need to work harder so that I can get to where I should be , instead of saying , hey , today it's July 10 .
¶ Life Organization and Entrepreneurial Success
I set a quarterly goal of reaching out to 1000 people . When I reach out to 1000 people , I'm done . Like I did the goal and it took me I don't know 80 days .
Ideally , the next time I set a goal like that , it should take me 70 days Because you're getting better , you're getting smarter about things , but people you know thinking kind of in that frame of like setting action oriented goals . Also , I teach people like only set three goals at a time , or three goals per person on your team .
Only work on five to seven projects , for whatever reason . People just love to stack so much shit on their plate . They need to have so many . We spoke about meetings already . They're like oh , I'm so overwhelmed , I'm in back to back . So I'm like , why ? Like , what are they rolling up to ? What are the priorities they're rolling up to ?
I'm like , oh , you don't understand . I just I need this . And I'm like , do you ? And when I cause what I set up , I mean I literally set up the goals to projects , to actions , to meetings , like I create that , that link between all of these things . And when I tell them , hey , like , show me me , your , your projects , and they have 18 .
And then it's like okay , what priorities are they rolled up to ? Well , none of them . I'm like , so why are you working on them ? And you just see these these very obvious um gaps or holes that are not being filled . And for the life of me , I don't get get it .
But you know , I try to solve it by putting it like in front of multiple people , so that most people can like see the same information . Because as long as you can't like actually see it , if you're just imagining the chaos , people are just going to keep spinning the wheels .
Well , I , you know , I have my perspective , because I think you're exactly right and I think it's because people associate busyness with quality of work and self-value . If I'm not busy , that must mean I'm not important , that must mean I'm not doing enough and I beat up on myself and that starts the cycle .
But what it often leads to , I think , is people being busy , but being busy doing the wrong things . You know , being busy as um as the end , not the means . What do you think about that ?
Yeah , yeah , I think people do that because they don't take time to think about the end right , it's easier to stay busy than it is to pause , reflect and have those hard conversations yeah , it's easier to stay in the what you're familiar with and to do something new and uncomfortable because you don't know what it's going to turn out um , and I think you've
already kind of prescribed earlier .
You know , if you're you're that person who feels like gosh , I'm busy every day , that's , that's an indicator that there's something wrong here , and not that you're a bad person , but that there are steps you need to take to change it Correct , because I think , you can be busy , but you can't sustain busyness and still Still be healthy , healthy be balanced .
You can't , unless you got some serious drugs . I'm not perfect . I talk about all this theory . I also get anxious when I don't receive emails or I don't receive so , so I also get anxious . I also , like feel all the things that I'm describing . But even God rested one day when you've created the world .
Everyone , you know the Sabbath , whatever spiritual practice like , got to take time off , and if things break , that's when you can . If things break while you're not working , that's a sign of another thing , that's all .
That's right and I really am glad you said that . I'm sure if I were listening I'd think gosh , these guys . They're talking about it as if it's so easy . Of course it's not . But being able to describe and articulate what needs to happen , that's the first step to making it happen yeah , and there's a lot of thinking tools out there .
I mean I used to like trash on these when you go to these seminars and they give you these pdfs to fill out , like you used to trash on those and be like no , like it's not a digital database template .
But now I'm realizing , like actually how powerful these worksheets are , like actually write things down and the magic isn't in the worksheet , the magic is in you just doing it . There's so much out there that's free . Maybe I should make a couple of these free like reflective worksheets .
Honestly , I don't have much , but um just gave me a great idea well , uh , I'm , I'm glad and , um , if you do , uh , send it , because I'd love to see it cool um , so I'm interested . You know interested . This will be one of my last questions here , but after you made the jump from entrepreneurial to an entrepreneur , are there any mistakes you made ?
That pain that you really learned from that has made a big difference for you .
Oh yeah , I've recently realized why investors only give startups three months runway . It's not because they're assholes , it's because you need to create a forcing function such that you give people filters to prioritize opportunities .
And I had never in my first two years of business , I didn't really give myself financial boundaries , and so it's just like oh , it's just part of business . You're supposed to break even , you're supposed to , it's just part of the story . And now it's like no , I read profit first .
Every dollar that you make , you take out , you pay yourself 50 , 50 cents and you just have to keep these financial considerations as you're building the business . And so many of my clients are just like I don't have quickbooks , like my bank accounts are mixed like it's all kind of mixed together and I don't work in the capacity of finance .
But it just blows my mind how this mishmash of finance , how people keep going . That's been my biggest change .
Well , another common theme . I think you know the professional time boundaries .
But financial boundaries and recognizing that you know passion , wanting to make it work , those are very noble but those may not be the most important best things If you're not being very clear about the , the business model , the financial boundaries and and protecting yourself in the long run .
Correct . People get wrapped up in the emotions of well , if I , you said it like in the very , very beginning , they like think of their work as their identity . And so if they fail a startup , then they say something about them and it's like no , it doesn't , like you've never done this before . It's not supposed to be easy , it's supposed to be difficult .
You're challenging the core of your humanity . You're literally paradigm building . It's not supposed to be a simple , quick thing . It's supposed to be hard and gruesome and grueling . That's why you have to grind , but as you are grinding , you have to take care of yourself .
So it's just so much new information and context that when you add all this like steep learning curve , plus the newsletters , plus the FOMO from oh my god , I need to not make a worksheet it's just so much energy that's happening and , uh , the founder of Hewlett Packard .
It's like people die of indigestion more than starvation because they try to just take in so much stuff at one time that they burn out . So yeah , all in all , slow down , understand what's present , understand the actual boundaries and the bumper lanes and like where to focus your attention and be a lot more intentional about it .
I think that's um , I think that's spot on , and I when I took away what you just said is , if you know , just because your , your business , fails , doesn't mean you're a failure , so long as you have protected yourself along the way and not put yourself in a dangerous situation .
Exactly Took the words out of a dangerous situation because you allowed your emotion , your passion , the ego . You put those before self-preservation . Well , ernesto , we've covered a lot of ground today Entrepreneurship , boundaries , ego , fear , technology and different voices but I want to turn it to you for a final word .
You know , if there's one thing you want people to take away from our conversation here today , one final message you want to give , what would that be ?
The one final message is organize your life . That's such a big word that means so many different things to so many different people Cannot tell you how to organize your life . I think you're a strategic planner , Like there are people , like there are people in your worlds that can help you do this , and they will help you through their framework .
But you have to just take some time , organize your life , whatever that means . Take steps towards that life .
Thank you , Ernesto .
Thank you , Alex .
And thank all of you for tuning in Until next time . Bye now .