Don’t Hate Your Business

Forget reading Richard Branson books and pulling core values out that sound nice to you. These will actually lead you away from who you are.

Look at yourself in the mirror and ask;

• Do I have any dignity and self-worth?
• Is there any reason for me to exist other than making money?
• Do I deeply respect the people who buy from me?

If most of those answers come up as zeros, commodify your business, target your price and hit the numbers.

Look at your business and say, what do we stand for? Well, here’s the thing.

The mistake people make is they go out and read a book, they go to a conference and they listen to somebody very, very smart who’s ahead of them, and then start adopting traits from others that don’t natively exist within you. Imagine if Paul McCartney did that, instead of singing like him, he started to sing like somebody else, where would he have gotten? If he believed he should be somebody in a different voice, in a different way, would the Beatles have existed? He had to own who he was, what he had and simply focus on that and have the self-esteem to stand up and say, “I don’t care what anybody else is doing. I sing this way. This is what I do.”

If you’ve been in it for ten years, five years or zero days, if you’re Steve jobs in a garage with nothing behind you, do we honestly believe Apple started with nothing behind him other than an idea? He didn’t start at zero. So at 10 years you look back and realize everything you’ve manifested is a direct result of your values, how you’ve connected to your market, how you’ve done everything. The mistake people make is they read a Richard Branson book and start trying to impose and adopt his values because he’s worth a billion. So if I do what Richard did, I will get to where he is. So if I sing like Paul McCartney, I’ll become Paul McCartney, right?

Gold Nuggets

1. Many entrepreneurs think that because they haven’t been to college that they can’t be successful. It’s the grit and the belief more than anything else that will get you to where you want to be.
2. David isn’t interested in studying your competitors and understanding what they’re doing.
   “When you’re going in to help a client, you don’t care what their competitors are doing.”
3. The fundamental flaw in the branding industry is that they think you know who you are, and you think they’ll figure you out. Neither of those are true.
4. It’s important for business owners to reflect on their core values. When you leave your beliefs out of the business, you’re leaving yourself out, and you’re on your way to being a commodity.
   “Every product that you make, and everything you do, is a deep reflection of your values.”
5. The mistake people make is they listen to people who are ahead of them, and they start adopting traits from other people that don’t natively exist within themselves.
   “What do you do that nobody else can do?”
6. Steve says Juliet is an awesome co-host because he forgot to ask David a question.
7. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to gather wood, divide the work, and give out orders; instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry