Few weeks ago in my email newsletter, I wrote about the hardest word in business being no meaning, saying no to good ideas, uh, that come at the expense of not having the energy or the time or the focus to pursue the great ideas and how. Not developing the discipline or the chops to say no to things and go all in on, on certain things ends up screwing you in business because you feel like you're playing it safer.
You know, you feel like you're, you're hedging to a degree, um, but you're really not like, you're actually, you're, you're keeping yourself from succeeding because you're not putting all of your resources and all of the, the, the attention and the focus that you need to make the one thing, the great thing. Actually work, right? So you're reducing the likelihood of success by saying yes to too many things.
And the reason I shared that was because at that time I was going through that process exactly right. Because, uh, since launching my new business, MSP Sales Partners in January, we've seen a, a huge uptick in, in enrollments, especially these past few months. And of course we want new enrollments, we want new customers. Like that's great. Like we're, we're growing. Awesome. The downside is it comes at a cost, right?
Because everything in, in business, everything in life comes, there's a trade off associated with it and with growth in the business. For me, what it is meant is trading off time, right? Because that's time is one of the, the very few things in. In the world, that is actually a zero sum game. You know, you can find ways to maximize it, you can find ways to, to leverage it. But at the end of the day, I can't manufacture more hours in the day.
And so when something starts to consume my entire calendar, my entire schedule, and I simply can't pack anymore in, then I've gotta start looking at what I, what can I say no to? And, and that was, that was kinda the background on that, on that newsletter. Like, that's what I've been going through. And, you know, the thing is, we've actually, in the past couple of weeks, we've made some really tough decisions.
Uh, you know, I've, it's done some, some really like, honest analysis on what can I take off of my calendar, like, what can I say no to? And you know, the shitty part is all, all the easy stuff is gone. Like at this point, all the things that make obvious sense, you go, okay, like kill that, kill that, kill that. I've already done all of those things, so you know, we're, we're at a point where we're looking at the calendar and I'm. I don't wanna say no to any of them. I wanna do all of them.
And I have up to now found ways to like, keep them all going. Um, but it's reached that point that it's, that it's not gonna work. So, you know, last, uh, last week, uh, we actually made an announcement that we're shutting down the community, uh, that we built community of entrepreneurs. And, um, like, frankly, it was disappointing. You know, like I. I've spent time building that thing. I've enjoyed the relationships that we've built in that thing.
Uh, you know, the, the weekly call, we would do like an office hours every Friday, and it was a call that I looked forward to, you know, I, I got energy from that call. Uh, and it didn't feel like it consumed a ton of time, right? So like, the, the time for money trade off wasn't, wasn't necessarily a, a bad equation for me. Uh, but. Like I said, like there's just, there's only so much time in the day. So if I want the MSP business to really take off, I have to start saying no to things.
Um, so that was one decision. Like we, we shut down the, the, the community. Um, this week, in fact, uh, I made the announcement to, I. All my coaching clients that we were shutting down the accelerator coaching program, which was also really disappointing. Like, this is something, I've been running this for three years and it's gone through a handful of different iterations.
Like it was, we started to scale it at some point, then I peeled it back and, you know, said I, I wanna focus more one-on-one. So at this point, like everyone that I'm working with are people that I know, like I've, again, good relationships with them, like they've been with me for a couple of years. And not something that I wanted to necessarily turn off.
But here's the thing, like while we, like, I'm doing a lot of things really well, like pretty well, but none of them like are actually getting done as well as they really could be. Like if I was being really honest with, with this and truly objective and looking at this and saying, Hey, if you, if you only did the coaching thing, could it be better? If you only focused on the community, would it be better if you only focused on the MSP business?
Would it be better And, you know, good enough, maybe good enough. But the, the reality is I know that we could be doing better. And when I really just like stepped back to, to assess that, like the, the truth was pretty evident to me. Like it was time to, to go all in. So we made some of those decisions and other things, uh, we've, we've turned off a, a few other things as well. And you know, the thing is like.
It made sense logically, you know, like sitting in a room with my advisors, you know, like, and kind of going through this and looking at the numbers and looking at the calendar, you go, you know what, this makes complete sense. Easy to make the decision, right? Like, Hey, I'm gonna cut a few smaller revenue streams. I'm gonna get back, you know, 10, 15 hours a week, and I'm gonna put all that time and that energy into, you know, growing the business that's already growing.
That's already starting to take off really simple. Right, but implementing it was a totally different ballgame. Easy to make the decision. Implementing it was tougher. And the thing like I, what I found was there's like this emotional part of implementing decisions. When you're saying no, when you're cutting, when you're turning off things that are good and making room for things that are great, you get it in concept. You get it factually and logically.
But when you start to, to put it into place and execute it, there's a, like, a motion starts to kick in and, you know, you start, I'm doing pretty good at sales, so I start like selling myself on this. You know, like, well, maybe, maybe we could keep this one going just a little bit longer, like maybe till the end of the year, uh, you know, may, well, what if the MSP business doesn't completely work out? Isn't it better to.
You know, to, to have some like hedge this and, you know, have three or four different, different streams, is it, do I really need to do this thing? And, and this is the, this is the battle that I think a lot of operators face. You know, like we, we have this tension between the strategy and the logic, like the things that make complete sense to us, and then this emotional homeostasis that keeps us where we're at that wants to keep us where we're at and we know what needs to be done.
Executing on those decisions. That's where the shake gets really hard and it's, it kind of reminds me of when I, when I was my first CEO role and I had a, a board of directors. Who group of smart guys, young, smart guys, all had successful exits. Couple Harvard MBAs, a Booth, BA, they had family offices, you know, sitting with some sharp dudes and there was one, one in particular, Carlos, and he used to kinda always say, well, you know, optionality is good. We want, we want more optionality.
And that stuck with me for years because first I was a really sharp dude, very successful. You know, I thought it was, I thought it was good advice, made good sense. Like optionality is good. Like you, you get to maintain some flexibility. You get to hedge your risk, you get to diversify that risk, like all that good stuff.
It's great for an investor, theoretically, actually, like Warren Buffett would argue, and there's plenty of arguments to be made for not diversifying in an investment portfolio, but that's for another day. But makes sense, right from an investment standpoint, like hedge your bets and diversify the risk and you can ensure, or more confidently, you know, kind of forecast what the results are gonna be. But as an operator. I optionality, I think is a curse.
Like I've just come to the conclusion that optionality is not what you want. Optionality is is not good as, as an operator, as somebody who's executing things, as a founder, who's trying to figure out which direction to go, because optionality makes all of these options feel open to you, and that creates complexity. And complexity leads to. You know, rethinking decisions and questioning yourself and, you know, having to double and triple and quadruple check math.
And, you know, I just, it leads to hesitation, right? Because you're like, oh, well, should I go this direction? Should I go this direction? Should I go this direction? Should I go this direction? And as an operator, you don't have the flexibility of. Doing multiple things really well simultaneously. Like it just doesn't work that way. So, you know, I made the decision with, with my business or businesses that we're removing optionality, right? Like we're putting our eggs into to one basket.
We're going into MSP sales partners, we're going all in. We're gonna build like a category defining business for MSPs for IT businesses, and. I feel good about it, like, but like I said, made sense. Logically implementing it was tough. But then after the decision also felt good, like, felt like relief, felt like, you know what a sense of focus, a sense of concentration, and I. That may feel risky, right? Because you're, you're, you're all in on something.
But like, feelings are really misleading, right? Like they're, I think feelings are a lot like a fun house mirror. You know? Like they, they distort your reality. They make like bold moves, things that you've gotta do, things that actually have a higher likelihood of success. Feel dangerous and they make status quo feel like it's safe. But if status quo was so good, then why are you trying to change it? Right?
It's obviously not so you're trying to make changes to get different outcomes, but every time you go to make significant changes, I. There's like a part of you that fights for homeostasis and that makes you feel safe. And it doesn't because the, like, the real risk is spreading yourself too thin. The real risk is trying to do everything.
The real risk is trying to maintain all of your options, thinking that by keeping all of your options open, that you're actually increasing the likelihood of success. And it doesn't, it's a trap, right? And I, I had started to fall into it, but I, I know better. Um, but it was, but even, like, even when you know it, like I've, I've got all the books, you know, like the, the one thing and essentialism and this and that.
So conceptually, you know, it, but like I said, executing is a totally different thing. So, you know, if you're, if you're in a similar place, right, and you're, you know, like a crossroads and you're kind of juggling too many things and unsure like where to let go, here's what I'll leave you with. Um, like clarity. For me is not found in spreadsheets and, and whiteboards. It's found in motion, right? It's found in movement. It's found in action.
And sometimes like the boldest business move that you can make is say no to good stuff so that you can say yes to the great stuff. And if you're in a similar place, you know, trying to figure out where to focus your time or feeling like you're spread too thin, hopefully this resonates. If it does, feel free to subscribe. Rate the podcast, do whatever, wherever you find this. Appreciate it. Adios.