1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,040 Jeremy, what is success to you? 2 00:00:04,560 --> 00:00:10,160 Yeah, I love that question because that is a question I ask of clients and Mastermind 3 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:14,000 members all the time. And the way I always phrase it, you know, when we're looking at whether it's 4 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:19,600 a job description or a project or a plan, we always ask like, what's your definition of success? 5 00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:24,160 Because if you don't know that, you can't tell if you're on the path or not. So when we talk 6 00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:28,800 about what success looks like for entrepreneurship, for example, well, that varies by the person. 7 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:33,920 But the definition that I always use and that I help folks out with is entrepreneurial freedom, 8 00:00:33,920 --> 00:00:38,320 right? Entrepreneurial freedom, yeah, it incorporates financial freedom, but that's 9 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:43,280 not the only piece we're talking about. Entrepreneurial freedom is your freedom of choice, 10 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:47,840 your freedom to decide how you spend your time, what you do during that time and who you do that 11 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:53,280 with. That can mean putting more time into your business. It could also mean being able to spend 12 00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:57,520 more time with your family or be able to travel more or be able to give back in your community, 13 00:00:57,520 --> 00:01:01,680 be able to provide jobs. It can be any of those things, right? But entrepreneurial freedom gives 14 00:01:01,680 --> 00:01:06,800 you that choice. And the question is, how do we get that entrepreneurial freedom? Well, that comes 15 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:11,760 down to processes and systems and the right people to run those. That's what frees you from your 16 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:16,240 business and allows you to choose how you spend time. And that's what provides that true 17 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:20,320 entrepreneurial freedom. That's been important to me my entire career. And it's what I work with my 18 00:01:20,320 --> 00:01:26,160 clients on all the time. It came from Emeth, I'm assuming. Emeth was, you know, was a big part of 19 00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:31,680 that for sure. Michael Gerber, amongst many other authors and experts, have shaped pieces of that. 20 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:38,320 That's awesome. But thank you for sharing that. Jeremy, this is a little hard question. 21 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:46,800 To you, what defines a great leader? We come across so many people in our show, 22 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:53,120 and entrepreneurs and leaders, they think they know what a great leader is and what 23 00:01:53,120 --> 00:02:00,960 it should be or ought to be. What is it to you? So, you know, I think leader and visionary can't 24 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:08,160 exactly be used interchangeably. However, as a founder, one of our main roles is not just to 25 00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:13,360 lead, but to lead with that vision. So, in terms of what makes a great leader, I think a lot of 26 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:19,760 that comes down to being the visionary and being able to set that far away, you know, be had that 27 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:27,920 big, hairy, audacious goal, and get others on your team behind you on that mission to reach that, 28 00:02:27,920 --> 00:02:31,920 you know, big, hairy, audacious goal. That's what we do as leaders, is we set that vision and we 29 00:02:31,920 --> 00:02:40,320 help others to get there. What would you say that some of the things that you have noticed are 30 00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:46,080 your people that stops them from being their great leader? Oh, my gosh. Almost all of it comes down 31 00:02:46,080 --> 00:02:50,080 to mindset. Mindset is one of the biggest blocks that gets in the way of folks being visionaries 32 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:54,960 or leaders. And, you know, that comes from a number of things. We could do an entire episode on that. 33 00:02:54,960 --> 00:03:02,480 But a big piece of that is imposter syndrome is so, so common, especially amongst entrepreneurs. 34 00:03:03,120 --> 00:03:07,600 And there's self-doubt. It abounds with an entrepreneur. It's this idea of the thing you 35 00:03:07,600 --> 00:03:12,960 want to do, you cast doubt on yourself and feel like maybe you can't do it or it's too audacious 36 00:03:12,960 --> 00:03:18,880 of a goal. And so that often holds founders back from setting that bigger vision. And then, you 37 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:22,880 know, we can talk more about these, but, you know, I'll give you just one more from a mindset 38 00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:27,440 standpoint, is this idea that you've got to go it alone. You've got to be the one who does it all 39 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:33,600 and can do it all. When the reality is you can bring on team members not only to take things off 40 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:39,280 your plate, but special hint, you can bring on team members who do things better than you do in 41 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:44,080 certain categories. And that is really freeing. So getting past those two mindsets that you're not 42 00:03:44,080 --> 00:03:49,040 an imposter, right? It's okay to have a big vision and that others can help you to get to where you're 43 00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:53,440 going is really freeing to entrepreneurs to get them to where they want to be as great leaders 44 00:03:53,440 --> 00:04:00,720 and visionaries. I would love if you have some stories regarding the same. If you have some 45 00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:06,400 stories where, you know, you came in or someone had that aha moment where like, oh my gosh, 46 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:10,000 I just didn't know I could do that. I would love to hear some of the stories from Jeremy. 47 00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:15,520 Yeah. So this happens all the time. And when you're behind the closed doors of a mastermind, 48 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:19,200 what's really nice is this is where folks share what's really going on in their business, 49 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:22,560 right? The things they're not going to share online or talk to friends or family or their 50 00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:28,480 team members about. But you get to the real truth of what's going on. And that can be the big wins 51 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:32,560 and successes that they don't feel comfortable sharing elsewhere. That can also be the failures 52 00:04:32,560 --> 00:04:37,360 and challenges and setbacks and being able to support and help folks through those, right? So 53 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:42,560 I love seeing those big aha moments, those big pivots, the new businesses that get launched 54 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:46,800 just from a conversation that came up on a mastermind, just from discovering that unknown, 55 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:51,360 unknown, the things you didn't know you didn't know. So we were talking about mindset shifts 56 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:57,440 earlier. We had a founder who had joined us that they were a solopreneur and they wanted to grow 57 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:02,720 their business. But one of the challenges of being a solopreneur is you're responsible for everything. 58 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:08,880 And in his case, he felt he had to be by his phone and accessible to his customers all the time 59 00:05:08,880 --> 00:05:13,600 because they needed him and he couldn't support them. That meant his customer's business was 60 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:19,120 offline until he got back to them. So this is a guy who loved the outdoors, loved mountain biking, 61 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:22,880 loved being in nature. But when you're in the great outdoors and the mountains, there's not always 62 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:28,160 great cell phone coverage. So because of this need to be connected to his customers, he wasn't doing 63 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:34,480 what brought him fulfillment, what got him the headspace he needed, what recharged him personally, 64 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:39,280 emotionally and everything else. And so that wasn't good for many reasons, right? So we're able to help 65 00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:44,800 him to, to unblock and bring on a support person, someone on the front line to be there to answer 66 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:50,800 the phone and emails when customers reached out and take care of them. So that way the customers 67 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:56,080 were cared for and he was able to get some time back. And he used a little bit of that to get back 68 00:05:56,080 --> 00:06:01,840 to nature, but he also used a bulk of that to do what was more important in his business, which is 69 00:06:01,840 --> 00:06:06,240 sales, bringing on new accounts, working on product and all those things that frontline customer 70 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:11,520 service was pulling him away from. So that's one of those examples. We've had other businesses where, 71 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:16,080 you know, many of us are serial entrepreneurs, meaning we've had more than one business, right? 72 00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:22,080 I've seen so many businesses launch within our mastermind groups that was like a side idea or 73 00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:27,840 filled a gap in an existing business, or was just, you know, a parallel business or a little idea 74 00:06:27,840 --> 00:06:34,000 that ended up eclipsing the business a member came in with. And we've seen that again and again, 75 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:40,160 you know, one example is we had someone with a software business, right? And it was a traditional 76 00:06:40,160 --> 00:06:44,160 older school software with software licensing and contract renewals and all that kind of stuff. 77 00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:49,520 But the world has gone the direction of SaaS, and there just wasn't really a good way of, you know, 78 00:06:49,520 --> 00:06:55,600 translating over the existing solution. And SaaS is great for so many reasons, right? You have 79 00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:00,240 recurring revenues, automatic billing, you know, self-serve, sign up and enrollment for clients, 80 00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:05,840 and so many more things. And so a new business was launched in the SaaS model. And that business 81 00:07:05,840 --> 00:07:12,080 continued to double and double and double. And that quickly eclipsed the older legacy business 82 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:18,720 by being able to bring on a whole new addressable market that was never a good client for the 83 00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:24,560 previous product that was waiting for the solution that our members able to create, simply by applying 84 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:29,040 those pivots and best practices from other folks in the room that had experience with continuity 85 00:07:29,040 --> 00:07:35,440 based businesses. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that, Jeremy. I have one more question for 86 00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:41,600 you. What is your goal for being on the show today, Jeremy? So entrepreneurial freedom is 87 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:47,280 something that is, you know, so, so powerful for me and has been what my entire career has been 88 00:07:47,280 --> 00:07:53,440 about. For over 25 years, I've been helping entrepreneurs to move towards and find that 89 00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:58,480 entrepreneurial freedom. And I know personally in my own life, just how freeing and meaningful that 90 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:04,160 can be. And I've seen firsthand how that can help others. And look, entrepreneurship isn't for 91 00:08:04,160 --> 00:08:09,200 everyone. It really should be only for us select weirdos. But if we're going to do it, let's make 92 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:14,000 sure we're truly building a business that brings us freedom and we're not just building ourselves a 93 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:23,520 glorified job. You are quoting Emeth in a way. And I cannot agree with you enough where a lot of us, 94 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:31,360 a lot of us self-employed people think I'm an entrepreneur and we go down this rabbit hole, 95 00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:37,760 not knowing what we're getting ourselves into. And only very, very few of us actually survive 96 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:44,080 in out of that, how many thrive. It's uncalculable in a way because so many businesses are failing. 97 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:49,680 Well, any business can really only go in three directions, right? You can pass it on to your 98 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:54,400 kids and have a multi-generational business, which rarely happens. And if you think that's going to be 99 00:08:54,400 --> 00:08:58,800 you, ask yourself, is that what your kids want? Right? It's rare these days that we truly have a 100 00:08:58,800 --> 00:09:03,760 multi-generational business. The second direction that can go is exactly what you touched on is you 101 00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:08,480 run it into the ground and you're out of business. And that's kind of sad to see your baby just 102 00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:16,560 be gone. Right? The third option is you can build a business to sell. So given those three choices, 103 00:09:16,560 --> 00:09:22,400 which one would you want to do? Let's assume you're going down that path of you want to create a 104 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:27,120 business you can sell. Well, then there's a number of things we want to do and get right. So you have 105 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:32,000 a saleable business. And what you're talking about earlier with Michael Gerber and Emeth is great. 106 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:36,720 You know, we're also fans of Kiyosaki and Cashflow Quadrant. That's where he talks about moving from 107 00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:42,080 employee to self-employed and then across this enormous chasm to business owner. Right? But what 108 00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:47,920 does it take to cross that chasm from self-employed to business owner? Well, it takes you being able 109 00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:54,320 to step away from the business for a day, a week, a month or a quarter. Right? When you can do that, 110 00:09:54,320 --> 00:10:00,400 now you know you own a business, an income producing asset, and you don't just have a glorified job. 111 00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:04,720 Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking 112 00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:09,840 forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get 113 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:13,680 more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to 114 00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:18,320 participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent 115 00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:31,200 time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.