[Music] I'm often asked because I've coached a lot of them Dan how is it that successful entrepreneurs think differently from other people and my first answer is that well first of all that entrepreneurs period think differently than other people uh for two reasons number one is that they uh take total responsibility for their own financial success and Security in the world where a lot of people are looking for an employer to actually do that for them to take responsibility or the government or you know some other institution who's going to actually be responsible for their you know their financial welfare and so that's the first way that entrepreneurs are different and the second way that entrepreneurs are different is that they understand that they don't get paid until they first of all create value so uh they don't get they don't get paid if they don't create value and they don't get paid first if they don't create value so there's this sense that they have to always be be uh they always have to be useful in the eyes of a consumer and uh and they may it doesn't matter how important or how valuable or how useful uh what you do in is in your own mind you know that you think that what you do is really superb and really wonderful but unless there's someone who wants to write a check for that it's it's not really worth anything at all and that's that's a hard thing for a lot of people to uh to to succeed at so that's the general difference between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs and that's not to say that there aren't uh lots of people who aren't entrepreneurs who don't take responsibility for the themselves and don't realize they have to create value but um they're the exceptions in their world where just to be an entrepreneur and to survive as an entrepreneur you have to have this now the second question is what's the difference between entrepreneurs period and really successful entrepreneurs because I think that's what every entrepreneur wants to know where is the uh the useful differences that I can focus on in my own Performance Based on the performance of the best performing entrepreneurs we're always looking for you know how do the superstars do it that's in any area of life but especially in the entrepreneurial world and so I'll use the term Superstar because um they they operate in a way that is just dramatically different uh dramatically better and dramatically bigger than ordinary entrepreneurs and uh my uh my sense is that this is what I'm going to describe here has probably always been true but it's being magnified and multiplied more in the 21st century than it was in the previous centuries and that is that instead of um trying to solve problems in the marketplace known problems in the marketplace the really great entrepreneurs are only interested in creating new capabilities so if I were to use a percentage I would say that probably 95% of all entrepreneurs are trying to solve an existing problem so it's it's uh the clients and customers need something solved but in many ways it's the client or customers who are defining the activity of the entrepreneur but the really great entrepreneurs really aren't interested in solving a problem they're very fascinated and motivated to create a new capability and one of my real Role Models here and he may be one of the greatest role models in the history of Entrepreneurship is Steve Jobs at Apple because Steve Jobs during the entire time that he uh had the he was at Apple both the first time he was there and then when he came back never did focus groups he would never bring in customers and clients and ask them what they needed what what were their problems What did the what did they want to solve but instead what he focused on he said if there was a really great new capability I wanted for myself in the world what would it be and uh you know one of the answers was I would like to be able to operate a computer without knowing code and a lot of people don't know this but Steve Jobs wasn't a great technology guy and so he saidou know it'd just be a lot easier for me if I could just have um click I could just click so the the he didn't invent this but he was the one who made it famous was called the you know the graphic user interface where instead of learning code and punching in code you all you did with the mouse uh is that you clicked you know you clicked uh the cursor you clicked on and you got the program things switch for everything so everybody in everybody in the computer world now uses graphic user interface but the reason why Apple was the first to use graphic user interface faster than anyone else is because Steve Jobs wanted this capability for himself the other thing is he said um uh with um you know cell phones which have been around for you know many years before Steve Jobs was there and he said uh why don't uh I I would like to have a capability where this could connect to the internet and uh I could have all sorts of different functions on the internet uh all sorts of uh what got to be called applications where if there was any kind of new electronic capability I would just be able to download it to my phone and that created the uh the Apple Store you know and uh you had iTunes where you could download things and you had the iPhone and so what his rule was was that where all projects get started is that I want a particular new capability for myself and if it really works for me probably a lot of other people will want to have it and I don't have to worry about what their needs are I don't have to worry about their problems I'm just going to take things that uh I need personally for my life and then he wrapped a formula around this and this is the second part of first of all the great entrepreneurs develop new capabilities for themselves and the second part of it is the great entrepreneurs uh build a formula around their capabilities that are always the same so for Apple the formula is we make beautiful technology that people love using and this is a Formula when you think about it that could last for a hundred years so uh I saw an article once and they said that apple is most likely of the great technology companies today uh to be still in operation 100 years from now and the reason is they have a formula so it doesn't really matter what kind of Technology uh is being made and so they can adjust to any kind of Technology but the one thing is that it has to be beautiful technology it has to be beautiful beautifully packaged it has to be the experience of using it has to be sort of a Beau full experience and the individuals the customers and clients who are using the technology love the experience so what they have so I would say going back to the question what is the difference between entrepreneurs in general and great entrepreneurs is that great entrepreneurs don't try to solve problems they try to create capabilities they try to create capabilities that they themselves want to have and then they have a formula so that no matter how technology changes how the world changes how the marketplace the economy changes they have a single strategy that they can stay with forever and uh I found that when you give these to differentiating points to most entrepreneurs they can make very very rapid progress and identifying the capabilities uh that don't exist now that they would like to have for themselves and also that they can create a formula that they can stay with forever and all of a sudden what might have been just sort of a reasonably successful entrepreneur they immediately make the shift to being a truly great [Music] entrepreneur