Why do leaders hide from funding their vision?
So a couple of reasons, I think, um, first of all, uh, in inherited fears,
and I say inherited fears because when you're born, there's only two fears
that you're ever born with, you know what they are?
Nope.
I have no idea.
Take a guess.
Um, fear of fall.
Well, fear heights.
Yeah.
And then fear of being alone.
Loud noises is actually the born with fear, right?
Everything else is created from your mind.
It's created from your environment.
It's created from your mentors and everything else.
And I think a lot of times what happens is the naysayers of the world kind
of get underneath the brain and then they're the ones that are saying,
Hey, like, you can't do that.
You can't do that.
Right.
And then we started developing self doubt and then we have imposter
syndrome and then it never works out.
So, um, I think the big, probably one of the bigger, depending on the level
of leader that you're, you're talking about, if they're kind of a newer
leader up and coming, imposter syndrome is a big thing.
I struggled with it for a lot of years.
Um, and it wasn't until one of my mentors asked me one question.
And that question was simple.
What do you have to believe to not have imposter syndrome?
Right.
Wow.
And I sat there and I made a list and I was like, Oh, well, that's already true.
That's already true.
Why the heck do I have imposter syndrome?
Like all of it's true.
And it evaporated like that.
Like it was really powerful for me.
Yeah.
Well, then that goes directly to my next question for you, Sean.
And how do leaders lean into funding the revision?
Yeah.
So I think once they can get past the imposter syndrome and the, and the fears
that are generated or created by their environment and the people around them.
Um, I think then it becomes a matter of, um, Deploying the best method
to truly fund their vision.
And so funding your vision is a interesting term.
I know you guys are pros at that.
And that's kind of your expertise of like how to help people to get
there and go in that direction.
But I think like, when it comes to funding your vision, funding to
me means more than money.
It means time, energy, blood, sweat, tears.
Uh, money is a big part of it.
Uh, permission, clarity, um, all of these words that kind of pop into my
mind when you say fund your vision.
And so I think like, um, first and foremost, most people need to have
kind of a map, right?
Cause if you don't have a map of exactly where you're going, like, Hey, I
want to take my company to here.
And you pin the, you know, pin the tail on the donkey, so to speak, put the flag
at the top of the hill, and then it's like, okay, that's the, that's the goal.
Right.
And then now what does my treasure map look like?
What is the path that I'm going to have to take in order to get there and then
start looking or thinking through what are the big steps and so step one into
funding a vision, I think does come with a little bit of clarity and then
understanding the map of where and what you're trying to accomplish.
And then even further, we take it into the vehicle.
What is the vehicle of choice that you've chosen?
Right.
And if it's a sales-based path, then you've really got one of kind of five choices.
Right.
You can, you can call people on the phone and close deals that way.
You can text message them as another way.
You can email market.
If you want it to do that, you could use DMS.
That's what we're the experts in the world about.
Um, or you can use snail mail, like old school, like send somebody in the mail.
I think what's interesting to think about that one is the generation that is
that we call the millennials, right.
They've never been direct mail to before.
So I think there's some juice coming back around, you know, how cycles always occur.
So like, I think there's going to be a wave of like direct marketers that really
do a great job with some of the millennials, which is going to be really
interesting to watch, like I'm just sitting, eating some popcorn, right.
Um, which I think is cool, but, um, into funding your vision, you first got to have
a map, right?
Well, first of all, you gotta get your mindset, right?
That's what we talked about, right?
You got to get out of the imposter syndrome.
You got to get tuned there.
Once you're tuned up, then it becomes, let's build the map.
And then we just got to jump over a couple of other false beliefs.
Can I really do this?
Is this something I'm going to succeed at?
Are people going to know me for this?
Right?
These are internal questions that you have to jump over.
And then eventually there's the externals.
Oh, it's going to be expensive to do this.
I got to go hire a dev team or I got to go build this thing or I got to go do
whatever.
And so once we get, we get the map tuned up and we've able to squash kind of the
internal false beliefs we have, and then also the external false beliefs that we
have at that point, there's not really anything left other than execution and
execution comes with discipline.
That's about it.
What was your most significant learning experience?
I can't say one, there's too many, right?
What I will share is this, is I think that along your journey, along your path,
there's always going to be significant learning experiences.
And I think the best way that I could describe it is, I just made a note about
this.
Give me just two seconds here.
This is valuable.
Like I wrote this whole thing about it, right?
Okay.
So most significant learning experiences come from when you're in a place called
the pit, right?
Everybody has pits.
Everyone has peaks.
We know them of ebbs and plows.
We know them ups and downs, wavelengths, whatever you want to call them, right?
When you're down here, you're in the pit.
This is the hard place.
This is the place that like it's the dark place where it's like, everything's falling
down on you.
You just lost this, your house, whatever, bankrupt, like all the stuff where you just
get into that place, right?
And I believe the most significant and profound moments in someone's life come
from inside of that pit.
When you're down here, as you start to climb up to the peak, right?
Because that's what we always want to get to is the, Hey, look at my fancy car.
Look at my big house.
Look at all the stuff that I'm doing.
Like, look, this is, I'm winning.
I'm winning, right?
Like I'm, I should be on the shows.
I should be like, that's cool.
And everybody can do that part.
That part's easy, but I think the most significant learning experiences happen
when you're in the pit and it is the hardest place to be.
I recall so many different stories.
I'll share maybe two of them.
The first one was after we built our first software product, it was called
digital genius lab and it helped the nine to fiver step out of the nine to five
life and learn paid ads to cold traffic online.
And then they marketed an affiliate marketing lifestyle business.
That's what my tech did.
It was amazing.
Um, but the problem was, is I was running that software company and I was also the
CEO of this massive network marketing business and I completely burned out and
I burned out to the point where I wanted to take my own life, Harry.
And I say that with grains of salt because, or without grains of salt, I should say,
because like I was driving down the highway and I saw a big tree and I thought to
myself, I just got off the phone with this really, really hasty client.
And I was like, I don't want it anymore.
I'm done.
I'm sick of this.
Meanwhile, just to back up for context, I was working like 20 hours a day.
I was living off coffee, Taco bell and water.
Like that was my diet.
It was terrible.
It was all like yuck.
Right.
And I had just been work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work,
work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work,
work, work.
Granted, we were making a ton of money.
Right.
It's not always about making money.
Right.
It's about having soul food.
It's about allowing your body and your soul to actually enjoy the journey.
Like that's the big piece of it.
That was a learning lesson for me.
But as I see this tree drive down the highway, I'm like, I was going to a mastermind
to present to Russell Brunson and his inner circle, because as I was part of that, and
I just thought I'm done.
I'm going to hit the tree.
And tears started streaming down my face.
And I pulled over.
I didn't do it.
Luckily.
The reason I didn't do it is because my favorite person in the world, my wife, was in the next
seat next to me and it was tough.
From that minute on, I decided again, the most significant learning experience in my
life from that portion of my life was don't quit.
I went to this event and I was like, Russell, I'm ready to quit, man.
I did this whole presentation of, hey, we did this launch and we made a quarter million
bucks here and then we faltered here and then we made another 150 here and then we did that.
This was in a period of like a very short period of time.
We were making big money, but it was messy.
At the end of the thing, Russell stood up and he's like, you're not going to like what
I have to share with you, Sean.
I said, what's that?
He said, you need to kill your baby.
You're a level 10 guy doing a level two thing.
I was like, whoa, no one's ever said something like that to me.
From that moment, don't quit, don't hit the tree into this room of kill your baby.
That was something that was totally scary for me.
But at the same time, I was just now, I'd made it through the bottom of the pit, but
I was still in the pit when Russell said that to me.
So a learning experience was, okay, my coach said to do this.
That's why I love coaches, right?
They collapse timelines.
They allow you to get faster further.
That's the idea.
My coach, Russell says, kill your baby.
I'd never sold a software product before.
So like, all right, it took us a year.
We ended up selling a software company.
Hooray.
Right?
That was a win.
But the bigger part of the transformation that I came through in that whole portion
of the story, it took Russell Brunson, it took Al Sharpen, who's a dear friend of mine.
I love him to death, mentor of mine as well.
And then it took my wife and my business partner, Chris.
Those are the four people that pulled me from Burnout Alley because Burnout Alley is never
a place anyone should ever, ever, ever be.
Right?
You need to have soul food.
You need to be eating yourself every single day.
But again, the most significant learning experience in that journey was when I was right at the
bottom of the pit about TIGMO and life.
Another example was a few years previous to that even, we were about to try a new method
of marketing and we had spent all of our money building out this amazing funnel.
We had started building up all these paid ads and we're running out of this thing.
So it was a challenge.
We spent tens of thousands of dollars to get this challenge going and we only had two
people register.
Yeah, it was a total, total catastrophe, a bomb.
And I was like, oh my God, what do I do?
We just spent all of our money.
I don't know what to do.
And again, lean on a coach.
Myron Golden was in my head at that time because I love him.
He's a dear friend of Uncle Myron as we call him.
And he goes, you just need to create an offer instead of having cash to get your way out
of it.
Like what can you offer that people will give you money so that you can have money and get
out of the situation.
And so my significant learning experience there again comes back almost the same ones.
Don't quit, think outside the box.
These are great lessons and do the work because if you do the work, you'll get the results.
I put the time in, I put the dollars in, I got the knowledge.
I spent over half a million dollars just getting good at one-to-one selling.
That was my skill.
That is my skill.
I'm one of the best in the world at it.
No questions asked.
I started my sales career selling government, business to government.
So I was closing $60 million contracts with Lockheed Martin.
That's where I started my sales journey.
And then I backed it all the way down into, hey, I'm going to sell a $97 thing online.
Totally different to a consumer, right?
Business consumer.
But then I found this medium ground business to business sales is the best period because
you get the highest margins and usually the least amount of pushback from a client.
The higher dollar tickets you charge, the less time those clients typically want from
you.
It's a weird thing how that works out, but I had to go through that myself and I had
to learn all that stuff.
But again, I was in the pit, but then that voice, that coach's voice.
So again, where's the most significant learning experience?
In the pit.
Where does it come from?
Your coach.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time
and attention.
I hope you have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro