Transcript for:
Scaling Principles and Growth Mindset

Welcome to another edition of the Social Proof Podcast. We find amazing people that do amazing things and today is no different. Uh we have an author here, entrepreneur, business owner, coach, uh life changer. I was in the gym with my friend the other day, uh Justin P, who has um really he does a lot of online e-commerce business. He's like, "You're going to see who?" And I said, "Dr. Benjamin Hardy." He said, "Oh my gosh, he changed my life. I need to come." He couldn't make it this time, but um we'll give him one of those. Oh yeah, absolutely. I will give him a book. Justin Pete, I will get you this book, man. Uh, but we have Dr. Benjamin Hardy here, man. Author of your favorite book, whatever that is. It's a bunch of them, but I'm sure it's in your library. So, u, I guess I'll let you introduce yourself and how many, uh, you know, I people know that you're an author. I know you're an author and I heard you speak. I know you're an amazing speaker, but I love to know a little bit more about who you are as an entrepreneur. Yeah. So um honestly I started out not even with aspirations to be an entrepreneur. Um uh but as I learned more and more about uh growth, development, impact on naturally I just went into entrepreneurship. I was more way more interested in psychology uh and still am honestly. Um but my knowledge in psychology led to understandings of strategy and so now I just apply that rather than to people to companies. You went to school to be a psychologist. Yeah, I have a PhD in what's called organizational psychology, which is essentially business psychology. Um, and so I took a lot of uh understandings of psychology and strategy and organizations and uh a lot of what holds people back mentally, emotionally and what leads a person to start rapidly growing are similar principles for a company. And so uh give me a parallel. Um like one is just how people operate with time. So for example, a struggling person is going to let their past determine their present and future, right? A struggling person. So if something bad happened or um whatever it might have been, history etc. Like history is something good to learn from. But uh you know whether you grew up in a tough situation, I grew up my father was a drug addict for example, had plenty of traumatic experiences and people have their own uh past that impacts them. But if you let your past determine your present and future, then your future is going to be heavily diminished. And that's just a something that's been naturally taught in psychology. If you let your past determine your present and future, your your future is going to be very small and incremental. But it's not. And I the this was actually the presentation that I heard you speak on stage and at first when you said it, I had no idea what he was talking about. I said he said, "Well, your you said your p your present determines your past." asked and I said, "Well, how could that be?" And then you started to explain it and I did understand that you get to make today, you get to make sense of yesterday today. 100%. We all do it, you know, like we all look back on the past from the perspective of the present and we have to determine what it means and what we're going to do about it. Doesn't mean we diminish. It doesn't mean we ignore it. I'm not going to ignore that my dad was a drug addict. I'm not going to ignore events in history. I have to be responsible in the present to shape what it means and more importantly what am I going to do as a result. So, so the more linear and the more call it the limiting view of time and psychology is to let the past determine the present and for the present to determine the future. And so the more call it exponential more holistic more accurate view is to let the future determine the present right the future which is my choice right even Victor Frankl who wrote man's search for meaning he uh he was in the concentration camps of the Nazis he wrote you know a seminal book on psychology he said that the only thing that can give you present or the only thing that can give you meaning in the present and especially if you're in a situation like a concentration camp is to have a meaningful goal for your future right so the future and how you frame it and and a goal for it is what gives you not only resilience but it gives you meaning, hope, joy. And so it's really your future that determines who you're being in the present. And then it's you in the present that has to take ownership and responsibility of the meaning you give to your past, man. So, so, so, so that's the more exponential approach uh from a business standpoint. If you think about a business that's growing slow, right? They take their past and they use their past as the basis for the goals they set. Mhm. So, as an example, you know, I did a million in revenue last year, so because of that, I'll go for 1.5 this year. Right? They're letting their past determine their future rather than letting a different future determine their present. You always want your future and a a far more intense future, a lot bigger future, a more urgent future to impact your present. And that's really what goals are for. That's what that's what time is for psychologically. Like psychologically, the future and the past are just tools for navigating the present more effectively. I like that. But for someone who uh because it it sounds easier said than done though. It is the way I'm teaching takes a lot more choice and agency versus uh just letting it happen to you. Yeah. So I mean for for me let's say um we do $3 million last year. It it almost seems like a pie in the sky idea to say, "Oh, well, I'm going to go to 30 million and I'm going to let my I'm going to go to 30 million in the next two years," right? I'm But for it's hard for me. It's easier for me to say it, but it's hard for me to believe it and even know what to do is going to pull me to 30 million. How do we how do we get around that past framing for after this interview? I love it. Yeah. So, the first thing is use the future as a tool. Even use goals as a tool. A lot of people think that they first off have to know how to get there before they set the goal. That's wanting confidence before commitment, right? So, you're going to have to, you know, you don't get confidence until you start developing pathways to get there. Um, but rather than saying, "I need to know how to do this." Actually, the beauty of what would be called impossible goals or stretch goals in psychology is that you don't know how to do it. That's actually a beneficial place to be in. So, if you were to say, "All right, we're at 3 million this year. We're going to go for 30 in the next three. Not in the next 10, in the next three." And we're going to do that because that goal 3 years away is going to force us to look at everything we're now doing. Remember, the future is a tool to analyze the present and then to begin looking for different and better pathways. And so if you take 30 million and you just say, "What are we doing right now that has any relevance to 30 million, most of it would be none, right?" And so then that forces you to look at your current life, your current business, your current system, and say, "All right, so most of what we're doing can't get us to 30 million in three years, but what would?" And so now you start to do what's called pathways thinking. that strategy. Now you start to think, okay, how could we get to 30 million and who could get involved and what could we do? And yeah, most of what we're doing now starts to be irrelevant. Most of what we're doing got us here won't get us there. Most of who got us here won't get us there. But now we can start thinking from the future rather than thinking from the present. And you will start to generate pathways. You'll start to generate relationships and partnerships that can take the best of what you're now doing or maybe something different and start cranking it up towards that. When did you discover this ideology? When did you start becoming this person that thinks this way? It's been a long process, man. It's been studying uh psychology for 15 years. It's been studying strategy for a long time. It's been training thousands of organizations, working with people like Dan Sullivan, who I got a lot of great insight from. And just realizing that what's interesting is is that and there's even a quote from Dr. Marty Seligman. He created the field of positive psychology. He said that much of the history of psychology has been dominated by a framework in which people are driven by the past. So like it's it's a common understanding in psychology that people are just the byproduct of their past. But where the where the more modern research is showing is it's actually no, it's more people's goals. It's their future that's shaping who they are. And so the you know and that's what's really led to research on future self. What what a lot of the things that led me to it was number one going through a traumatic childhood. Number two, uh having a transformational experience serving a church mission. So I mean a lot of things that have influenced me is not just studying psychology or business but spirituality going through my own changes. Um and then just kind of think honestly thinking through things and just realizing yeah people are driven by their goals. So for example if someone's listening to your podcast it's because it fits somewhere in their goals. Yeah. like if if it didn't, they'd listen to something else. They'd watch something else, you know? And so, absolutely, everything we do is is driven by our goals or driven by our views of the future. And so once you get better and better at framing your future, you can start to weed out distractions, dead ends, and you can start finding better paths. You said you had a traumatic childhood. Tell me about your childhood. And I'd like to know someone when I'm having a conversation with someone that's highly accomplished. um the things that happen as a child and you know kind of growing up whether it's grade school then college and you know kind of like you're out of college and you're trying to figure it all out. That's really the stuff that inspires me cuz I'm like well if they were in this situation and then they got out of it I want to know what was that point. Was it a book you read? Was a conversation? Was it something unexplainable where who can tell me why I felt the way I felt or why someone came in my path? But when you say you had a traumatic childhood, what happened? Yeah. And I'd love to hear uh your own potential application of this in your own life. I mean, one was obviously, you know, parents getting divorced, it being a shock to the whole system. I'm the oldest of three boys. Um my father being massively depressed as a result of that. You know, that in and of itself kind of can really shake it pulls the rug out of your view of reality and everything's not as peachy as you thought it was. Yeah. Um, and so navigating that and then the the consequences of that, my father becoming a drug addict, him going through a massive depression, he was my hero, watching him just like become someone I couldn't really think about or talk about, someone to avoid. Um, we also during the all this time when I was a 16-year-old boy, I was with my two younger brothers and my mom and we were driving from Utah to Idaho, uh, Sun Valley, Idaho to visit a family friend. I was driving, my mom's in the back seat sleeping. She wasn't in a seatelt and we come ac upon a construction site. So this is already like I'm in high school, father's a drug addict. Like I'm in a confused state and um anyways, we were driving upon a construction site and there was some missing barriers on the road and so I went from one lane to the other and there was no road there. We were going 70 mph. I yanked the wheel. We ended up flipping and stuff. My mom gets thrown 50 ft from the car. Um rag dolls for 50 ft and I got knocked unconscious in a car accident. Right. I was a driver. When I wake up, my brother's like, "She's not in the car. Mom's not in the car." So, we go look at my mom's body just shaking, convulsing. And luckily, the some of the first people that got there were were like medics. Honestly, they weren't on duty, but they covered her up, called the police, like life life uh like a plane takes her. But luckily, she she lived. She was in a coma for three um for 3 weeks. But when we went to the hospital that night, I was just laying on a bed and uh a police officer eventually came out and he's like, "Which one of you is Ben?" Right. And I I'm like I got up, looked at my pillow, and my pillow had hair all over it. And he said, "You're in shock. Your hair is falling out." Wow. And so he took me out and uh he said something super important. He said, "You know, you're the oldest of three." He's like, "I have no clue what's going to happen to your mom, but like first off, he said this wasn't your fault." He's like, "There was a construction error." And the person who was supposed to come and look at the construction site didn't show up at work tonight. And there was a hundred cones of 100 uh 100 yards of missing barriers in between one lane to the other. It was only a two-lane highway. And so a truck had knocked over these barriers. And so I thought that the construction site was over. And so when I went over there was just missing missing barriers. And so the person who was supposed to come and look at the site just didn't show up that night. Um and so he's like, "It's not your fault." He's like, "But you still have to like decide what you're going to do." Did you think it was your fault? Like did you start to really blame yourself? I mean I don't know because I mean it was just it all happened so fast you know like I mean I was driving in one lane the cones ended and so I went to get over and all of a sudden the car just drops into rubble and so I just yanked the wheel and just hit my head and and so it was all so fast but he was but he was also like you have to make a choice about how you're going to react because it's going to impact your not only yourself but your younger brothers. And so he's again no clue if your mom's alive. He probably assumed she was dead, right? Like I mean it was not a good situation. She was in a coma for 3 weeks. But the only reason I share those stories is um there's a great quote from I think his name is Dr. Peter Lavine. He wrote a book on trauma. I think it's called um Awakening the Tiger. It's been a while. It's been years since I've studied deeply trauma, but one of the things he said is he said trauma isn't what happens to you. It's what you hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness. So I know that's kind of a big quote, but so it's not what happens to you. It's what you hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness. So in a lot of ways this guy was my empathetic witness. He was someone who understood me. He gave me space. I cried when he when I was talking to him and he gave me space and he helped me to in a lot of ways reframe it in the moment. Right? I could if he had hadn't come and talked to me I might have internalized it as this is my fault. Uh I could have internalized it as life sucks, God hates me. Like I could have internalized that as a lot of different things. Yeah. Which then could have made the trauma. Right. A trauma is how you internalize it and how you frame it. And so he kind of helped me say, "No, this is not your fault. Here's the an explanation of what actually happened, but also what do you do right now?" Yeah. And so he was an empathetic witness. And so those were just some of the events um that shaped me and numbed me in a lot of ways. Um but one back to the idea of Victor Frankl, you know, he says that, you know, and again he was speaking of people in the concentration camp and their psychology. These are people who had lost everything, people who had had their dignity stripped, their families killed in front of them. And he said the only way to regain inner strength is by having a future goal. And so for me, even through all that midst, all these different things going on, all these like um views of, oh, life's not what I thought it was. Oh, it's actually not that peachy. Oh, you know, etc., you know, um we just living in apartment, right? Um I still had a future goal, which in my case was serve a mission for my church. Like that was kind end all beall for you at that time. Yeah. And that's like you go there like 19 or 20 years old. And that was kind of like that north star that it was like if I can get to that, I'll probably be able to figure out what's next, you know? And that was an idea that I had gotten as a young child, which was just like, I'm going to go serve a mission for my church. That's just what you do. But I also kind of had a belief in that. And although a lot of these wreckage that I was going through somewhat led me to question that, that north star, that goal, I guess you could call it, gave me ability to navigate it. And so I was able to barely graduate high school, navigate through this and get on that. And not that that was the perfect goal. It could have been military. It could have been peace. It could have been it could have been business. It could have been something. It was just having something in the future that allows you to say this isn't the best right now. But I've got that and I'm going to use that to let me get through this and figure this out and maybe avoid losing my mind or or going down bad paths. It allowed me to not fully dive into drugs or other things that was going on around me. Did you go on that mission trip? I did. Okay. And what happened after that is that when you That was the trans that was massively transformative cuz it like exposed me to so many things. I went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for 2 years. Was you know in some tough spots in Pittsburgh. Um and you know got to be in a lot of different people's homes, do a lot of different community service, teach people about what is a missions work? what was what was the mission work and what is your your belief system or religion or yeah so Christian you know church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints but you know Christian and you know so we would do community service we teach people about God um teach people about Christ um but more importantly just build relationships with people of different backgrounds and do service without looking for reward we didn't get paid to be there we paid our own way to be there and so it's just two years of of getting out of yourself two years two years and so in that process I read hundreds of books and I really started to, you know, journal a lot and I I fell in love with learning and I I also journaled a ton and like was getting all of my childhood out of myself and on paper. I mean, there's a lot of research on journaling as a good starting point for uh you know, being honest with yourself about what's going on and how you feel about it and and helping you begin to look at it in different ways. And so, I began to journal a lot and I had no desire to be an author, thought leader. like I had no view of my future after that. But going through that experience, reading tons of books, expanding my mind, also just having different experiences with people of totally different backgrounds than me. And then just writing it all down. Uh I just fell in love with the process of writing. And that's when I decided I want to be an author. I didn't know it would be business books. I didn't know it'd be strategy books. I just I actually thought in the beginning I'd go home and write like religion books. Yeah. But I came home, realized that wasn't a path I wanted to go down and got really interested in business and strategy and and and exponential growth. And so that's kind of what's led me down this path. Before you went to school to be a psychologist, were you an entrepreneur? Did you have some businesses going? No. No, man. I mean, I've started multiple businesses, sold business since, but uh no, I was very interested in just the inner like psychology, the character of of a human. And then when it was time to go to graduate school, it was like, do you want to go study clinical psychology and be a clinician? Do you want to study social psychology and be a researcher? Do you want to study organizational psychology and understand organizations, leadership, people, motivations, teams? And so I just went the organizational route um and studied entrepreneurship and leadership like my research was on entrepreneurship studying the differences between successful entrepreneurs non-successful psychological characteristics of that as well as transformational leadership. What are the psychological differences between the successful and the unsuccessful? I mean there's a ton of psychological characteristics of differences between especially entrepreneurs versus wannabes and those who never get moving. Um, one of the things I really dug into was um, you know, commitment, like psychological commitment, committing to a goal, being willing to, uh, take risk for that goal. Uh, I developed a concept called point of no return psychology where you're willing to advance and make decisions that you can't always go back on. Like, you know, if you make a big investment in a company, right, or in yourself, maybe it's in your own company, maybe you take out a big loan, right? That can sometimes feel like a point of no return where you're like, I'm really going for this. Of course, you know, you can still, even if it falls apart, you can still recover, right? I think people overly dramatize things, but those feelings of like, I'm going to go forward and face the consequences of this even if I feel like I can't go back, right? And so, that was one of those things where I interviewed a lot of people who had started ventures and things like that. It's like, have you ever had those feelings where it's like kind of like, this is a point of no return. I'm not going back to my past self. I'm not going back to that job, right? or I'm not going back to that way of life and very common experience of like this is it I'm moving forward I'm not going back but why can't people do well I'll give an example so I might you married yes seven kids oh yeah absolutely so me and my wife we can have our husband wife issues that all couples have and I know that I should it's not that serious I know I should just say you know what let's put this behind I just, you know what? It was my fault. I apologize. Sometimes I can't physically get my mouth to say it and I just walk by her. What What's happening with mentally, emotionally, like cuz And I think the same thing happens to entrepreneurs. They're like, I want to do this business. I'm going to do it. I have the money to buy this camera to start this photography business, but I can't seem to get my hands to do it. What's happening here? Yeah. I mean, the nice part about humans is none of us have to be perfect. None of us are perfect. You can have those moments many times with your wife where the the better approach would be to apologize, say something, even if it's hard, and make the make the more long-term decision right now. But none of us can do that every single time. Of course, after a period of time, you go back and you're like, "Look, I was off, you know, I'm sorry." And you guys you guys can and so um you know a lot of what I I've studied is the relationship we have with our future self and how that future self impacts who we are today. Mhm. And so like if you think about what's the better move for the future that allows you to make better decisions today, right? The future is a tool for making wise choices in the present. It takes humility. You know one of the things that they've studied between growth mindset versus fixed mindset is that fixed mindset people don't want to be wrong. They have a fragile identity. They they don't want to be viewed as incompetent. They don't want to be vulnerable, right? They they they really try to protect their ego. Um because, you know, they they're just fragile. Whereas growth mindset people take, you know, you you make a mistake. You know that, you know, if if it doesn't work out, you'll figure it out, right? Um you don't need to overly prove yourself, you just want to figure it out, right? You want to learn. So, I think Bnee Brown said, rather than trying to be right, you just want to get it right, right? And so, you're more willing to imperfectly move forward, even if it's a little messy, and then just continue to learn as you go. And so I think often times when when we're in those situations where we either don't make make the move or we don't say that thing we should say you know we're overly avoidance based. We're overly fearful about you know our own ego or what what you know rather than just making the better move. Right. Yeah. I think I have traces of what you were just saying like I don't want to be wrong. It's like, and it's kind of weird because I I'm I'm okay being wrong, but I I get upset if someone's telling me something that I already know. You know what I mean? Or or or I feel like if I feel like you're trying to I don't know, like belittle me in a way, it's hard for me to shake that feeling of like, who are you talking to? Yeah. It's like, yeah, what where is this coming from kind of thing. for sure. But how do I shake out of it? You know what I mean? So I I think people understand their problem. The hard part is how do I get past this? Yeah. I mean, I think every situation you have, you know, I love the quote, and this is more of an alcoholics anonymous thing, but all progress starts by telling the truth. Yeah. Right. And so if you just literally admit like this is where I'm at. This is what I'm dealing with. Like this is how I feel. You don't have to make it about the other person. Like so sometimes when when we're talking about like leadership and and scaling a lot of times you have to go to like old clients and say I don't do this kind of work anymore cuz now I'm going this new direction right and you just tell them the truth right another one is like you have to fire someone right or it could be getting out of certain friend groups right because it's like you know they're going a different direction and if you just tell them the truth imperfectly and just say this is nothing you know like this is just where I'm trying to go right this is my goal or this is where we're trying to take the company if you There's a great book from Steven Mr. CVY. He wrote a book called The Speed of Trust. And it's all about, you know, you can still disappoint people yet gain their trust by being really honest with them. And I think sometimes we're just afraid to be honest, right? Hold on, hold on, hold on. I hold on. You can still say Say it. You can disappoint people, still gain trust, yet build trust by being transparent and honest, right? And so sometimes you do have to make new strategic moves or directions whether it's in a company or in your life. And that means changing your relationships, dynamics, letting go of things, adjusting relationships, disappointing people. And if you just are just dead honest, they might not like it in the moment. they might actually, you know, resent you and but but over time they realize like at least you were honest versus making it about them or shielding things or you know she's like just be honest, you know. Do they do they want that honesty or like the the disappointment ideally we will want if I tell you the truth I want you to say I'm so glad you told me the truth. Yeah. Obviously it impacts them. Yeah, but in our mind it's like you may put more weight on the disappointment and then I lose that relationship. So I just don't tell you the truth and I just hold it in. I mean my view is all progress starts by telling the truth that you live by. Yeah. I mean in some situations obviously um I forgot I forgot the full the full spectrum. There's like a really great framework on this but in some situations you know you don't have to like be as blunt on the truth. If someone's like, "Do I look great in this clothing?" Right? Like, you know, some situations, I mean, you don't have to you I have a younger brother who's who actually is autistic and like he literally just tells you his view of the truth even if it even if it's like, "Oh man, like that was tough." So, I I think you still are wise, but like when when you're talking about like when you're in a situation, you don't know what to do or you're you know, like best thing is seek help. like best thing uh the worst thing you can do is hold it in you know in addiction it's you start fighting a silent battle you start trying to do it without you know on your own and it just leads to like isolation um best thing you can do is like start gaining resources start telling people I need help I need support with this or I don't know what I'm doing can you help me and like actually start like you know exposing yourself you know rather than protecting yourself like a fixed mindset like no expose yourself I don't know what I'm doing here I I I need help I you know, I need a better perspective. Doesn't mean you have to exactly take their help, but I've been in a lot of situations where like I'm in the middle of an insane project and I honestly don't know my way out. Like I don't like writing a book, I don't know how to get to my destination and and the longer I just sit there by myself, like yeah, I can still work on my own. I'm pretty good at working on my own, but when I bring someone in, I'm just like, I'm freaking screwed. I'm screwed. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what to do. Uh then I can start to get some feedback. Then I can start to get some support. then I can start to find pathways out and then I can start working on it with help. And so being willing to expose yourself, being willing to admit this is where we're at right now. I love that. I love that. So you have the the new book coming out, the science of scaling says grow your business bigger and faster than you think is possible. So what I understand just talking to thousands of entrepreneurs is people's idea of scaling is all different, right? And even talking to you beforehand, even my idea of scaling is probably um off just based on my perspective, right? But tell me about the importance of this book, The Silence, the science of scaling. I think it's important. Um you know, Tony Robbins read it, felt it might reframe the whole topics of of strategy and scaling. Um Bob Gay read it. He created Bane Capital, one of the first venture capital firms in in the US. and um you know he absolutely loved it and uh said you know he's been a part of acquiring and scaling many companies and he's like this one changed my mind you know he said before reading this book uh I didn't think that any leader could become a strategist uh he said I thought only some leaders could scale and he said um I didn't think I didn't think most companies could scale he said I realize with the paradigm shift this offers um and and what what happens a company could transform itself so that it can scale. Now, most companies are not currently positioned to scale, but if they're operating from a better goal, from a better frame, as we call it, um they can then reposition themselves and find a more scalable approach. And so, so let's let's define scaling as it pertains to entrepreneurship for sure. And is scaling for someone who makes $200,000 a year in their business or $50,000 a year in their business. Is it a different conversation or a different definition for someone that's trying to go from 10 million to 100 million or the principles the same? I view the principles as largely the same. Okay. So, obviously there's different stages of business. Yeah. And different things you have to face at different levels. But uh the first the first notion is that um all human psychology which is somewhat what we've been talking about uh is driven by goals but all human systems in a business fits within the idea of a system is also driven by goals. Okay. And so the you know John Door who's a billionaire venture capitalist he said that a goal properly set is halfway reached. A goal properly set is halfway reached. The reason for that is when you set a goal at a certain level, that goal acts as a filter on on options on pathways. So, let me give an example and I wrote about this in 10x is easier than 2x. I talked about my son Caleb and he's a tennis player. He's one of the ones we adopted from the foster system. But, um, so he for a long time wanted to play college tennis, right? We live here in Orlando. You came here. Grateful for you, brother. Um, but if you know in Orlando, tennis is like a big deal, right? Right. And so there's hundreds of themmies, coaches from all over the world. You know, he's got a coach from Venezuela was an Olympian, like an amazing guy. But if Caleb wants to play college tennis, there's a lot of different options for him to get to or pathways, right? A lot of different pathways for him to get to college, right? Even here in Orlando, there's a 100 pathways. There's this academy, this academy, this academy, this academy, that coach. Like a lot of these people, although they may have different philosophies, different perspectives, there's a lot of different pathways for him to get to to that goal of playing college tennis. However, if he moved the goal up, call it a level up or an impossible goal or even a 10x, right? Just and if he said, "Rather than playing college, I actually want to play pro." If that goal became the new frame of reference or the new, you know, then most of those college options start to fall away cuz most of those college pathways can't get him to pro. Yeah. And so that goal forces you to filter your options a lot harder and say, "All right, so maybe there's hundreds of options to get to college. Maybe there's two or three that can get us to pro." Yes, sir. Right. only one or two coaches can possibly get us to that level. And so it forces you to filter your pathways and the people that you're involved with harder, right? Yeah. Absolutely. And so the first and so the beautiful part about going for a scale goal, right, in your case, right, 3 million to 30, is if you say, I'm going to go for 30 in the next few years, um it forces you to look at all of the things you thought you were going to do, all of the pathways you were going to take, and it forces you to look at them far more critically and say, could those pathways get me to that goal? probably not. And so then it forces you to say most of these although they're good, they're going to be a dead end at a certain point, right? And so I can keep on those paths because I've already invested in those paths. That's called some cost bias, right? Where you're on a path and you're like, I've already freaking invested so much in this, I better just keep doing it, right? That's linear. That's letting the past determine the future. Or you let the future say, what would be different pathways to getting there, right? And I got lots of examples if you want to hear them. But the the first step is always just recognizing that most companies aren't actually going for scale, right? And so that company owner who's doing 50,000, are they really going for for millions? Probably not. Maybe in are they really going for it or is it a distant thought? Right? Are they actually right? Is it actually a goal that they're solving? Right? Or if they're at 50,000, are they are they actually solving how do I get to 100,000? Because if they're solving from 50, how do I get to 100,000? Those are different decisions than if they're solving what does a million look like, you know, from here, right? If they're going for a million in the next 2 or 3 years, that's going to be a different set of decisions, a different set of hires, you know, they're going to have to make different decisions from a million than if they're saying, "I'm going to just get to 100,000, then I'll figure out what's next from there." For sure. For sure. So, let's let's put a definition on scaling. How would you define that? So, um, McKenzie did a study called Grow Fast or Die Slow. McKenzie being like one of the biggest consulting firms, they said that companies that are growing at least 60% a year, year over year over year, are the ones that are val enormously more likely to succeed. Yeah. And more valuable. A company that's growing 60% a year is more likely to succeed. Oh, that's why it's called grow fast or die slow. And I can explain why. But my view of let's explain why. You want to hear that? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So, and again most companies are growing at 10 20% and that's that's considered awesome growth. So, let me give an example. Let I I'll tell about a guy who who we've worked with. His name is Xavier Martin. He runs a a law firm, right? So, he was doing 2 million when we started working with him, about 2.5. And he actually had a goal that was massive, which is rare. He's like, I want to get my law firm to 100 million in revenue. And he's like, and I want us to be a national firm. Okay, that's that's an amazing like starting point goal cuz it's like, okay, like wow, there's nothing wrong with that goal. The problem is is that for him, he wanted to do it in 10 years, right? And so now I'm going explain why that's going to make make issues, right? Cuz a lot of goals is not only the goal itself, 100 million, but it's the timeline, right? The time frame, right? And so goals are about the scale of the goal as well as the timeline to do it. And so, um, basically what was going to happen was is because he was going for it in 10 years and I said, "You're going to make a lot of mistakes that are going to lead you to never getting there." Like, if a goal is 10 years away, its likelihood to achievement is almost zero because first off, it's so far away that it's a future that's not impacting the present enough. The purpose Yeah. The purpose of the future is as a psychological tool and even of goals is their impact today. Yeah. And so, because it was 10 years away, he wasn't actually solving for 100 million. Like I said about the other guy, he was actually solving for because he was at 2.5 million. He was solving for how do I get to five million, right? And so the decisions he was making today were how do I get to 5 million? And and those decisions were the very decisions that would make it almost zero likelihood that he'd get to 100 million because those decisions of getting to 5 million were actually decisions that are almost opposite decisions if he was solving for 100 million. He was hiring bad people. He had a lot of bad practice. And so what we did was we said, Xavier, your goal's great, your timeline's wrong. Bring the timeline forward to no more than 3 years, right? And he's like, he's a listener. He's a student. So he said, I'm going to go for it. And and we call this concept using time as a tool, right? Use time as a tool to filter more effectively. And so he brought his timeline forward to three years. And what immediately started happening was a lot of things. First off, he realized he used the future as the lens through which he began to look at his company. And he he first off, he realized, I have no theory or no actual plan of getting to 100 million. He's like, "I don't even know what a company at 100 million looks like." And he pro because he was not really solving for it. He was solving for how do I get to five? He was solving for the next linear step. And so the first thing that hit him was I don't even know what a $100 million company looks like. I don't even know what it means to get there. And so now when he's moved the timeline forward, he's like, I got to actually start to develop knowledge and and like a plan of what what it would take to get there and what a business model would take to get there. So he actually had to start thinking about it. But then he also started to look at his current business, right? Right? Because the future is the is is ideally the lens through which you look at the present, right? If you're way out of shape and you've got a healthy future, you use that healthy future to look at the present and be like, "Oh man, I'm eating like, you know, bags of Doritos and stuff like that, whatever." So, he looked at his company and he started to see all sorts of inefficiencies. He started to see that like his English sales team was like operating at like onethird his Spanish sales team. His Spanish sales team got was really good at taking leads and getting like initial calls. his English team was like 30% and his Spanish one was 90% conversion and he didn't he didn't realize that before because he hadn't he wasn't analyzing it from a higher goal and so like he realized that he realized all sorts of inefficiencies he also began to look at all the different forms of law that they practiced and he realized they're practicing like 10 15 different forms of law most of them are not very profitable most of them they don't even like doing um and so he began to simplify the business model and first off like uh he brought on a really good manager for the company like an operational manager. Um he began to strip out all the forms of law that they were doing that they didn't like want to become incredible at. And so rather than having 15 forms of law, they're like, "We're going to do these three better than anyone else." Right? So they simplified their focus um and just got rid of all sorts of inefficiencies. And he said, "Ben, if my goal remained 10 years away, most of this stuff I became aware of, I probably wouldn't have become aware of for 3 to 5 years or ever because we wouldn't have had to going for 5 million. At 5 million, we can keep all these inefficiencies. It's kind of like my son Caleb with tennis at in ca for Caleb to go to college. He could keep a lot of inefficiencies in his game that he would never have to address. Um because college allows for some of those inefficiencies, right? It's like it's like an amateur podcaster, right? They don't have to deal with certain things that you have to think about. Whereas like if he's going for pro, all of a sudden, you know, we call it frame floor focus, right? So your frame determines your floor. And like your floor is the baseline of what you can say yes and no to. Really, your floor determines what you say no to. And so if you think about professional athletes, like one of the people I wrote about in that book is Zion Williamson. Um like I'm a huge NBA fan. And what they say is the difference between the top pros like the Curries and stuff is less about their ceiling and more about their floor. Like their floor is their baseline performance. Steph, you're expecting him to go out and get 25 points. And so that's his floor, right? Whereas most people like they get there maybe once every 20 games. Steph gets there every game. Yeah, sometimes he dips below it, but his floor is so high. And so the problem with Zion is that his floor remained way too low personally, professionally. Like, you know, he had the highest ceiling. Everyone's like, "This guy's going to change the game." But he never raised his floor. And so he kept a lot of things in his life that, you know, were they stopped him from getting to that level. And so the only reason I I say that is kind a awful floor, bro. Awful floor. Dude, his floor his floor his floor on a personal side on a professional side is so low that like it doesn't matter what his ceiling is. His floor as a person and as a professional is not is not high. He's not he's not a professional at the level he needs to be to to be epic in the pros. So yes, the so so the floor high talent low floor. Yeah. So the model in this book is frame floor focus. When you raise the frame, the the floor goes up and and the floor really determines what you say no to. So like Steve Jobs and and I'll pull all this back, but Steve Jobs said that focus is really about saying no to almost everything. Warren Buffett said the same thing. He's like the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. They've got a really high floor, right? And then also so focus is about what you say no to, but strategy Michael Porter created the field of of of strategy and and and strategy is defined by what you don't do. So as a business strategy is defined by what you don't do largely and you are like this is what we do. This is how we do it. we don't do these 50 things. And so, and so the reason why if you're not growing fast, you're probably making awful decisions is because, you know, the very decisions you're making, if you're growing on a slow linear path are are are the problems that are going to lead your company to failing. Whereas, if you have the higher frame like what it happened to Xavier when he moved the timeline forward and he's like, "Holy cow, our business is not doing good and we're doing like 20 forms of law, 15 forms of law. We've got this bad team." He had to raise the floor and he had to say, "We need a better sales team. We need to get rid of all these inefficiencies. We need to get more focused in what we practice in law." And so now he's making decisions that are related to $100 million company, including who he hires and who he fires. And so now he's making scaling decisions versus making bad decisions, right? And so the people who aren't growing fast are probably making really bad decisions in their business because they're not operating from a a high enough goal that forces them to look at, dude, this stuff, this stuff's this stuff's a low floor. Like this stuff, this stuff's acceptable if you're going to grow at 20%. But if you want to grow 10x, like that stuff's not acceptable. The floor is way too freaking low. You're making And so you have to start stripping. Stop cussing at me, please. Just like I mean, you're really You don't even know me like that to be talking to me like this. Tell me tell me what's hitting you, bro. Tell me what's hard is because I've done so many things and I I just realized Tell me what's hitting you, brother. Um the I like to do cool stuff. Yep. And I've been doing uh certain businesses for a long time and I enjoy doing them, but but it's contradicting what I really want to do. Like there's nothing I can do right now that's going to make me hundred million dollars. And a hundred million isn't the goal. like in terms of money, but I would want to hit 100 million because I know I can like with my focus. You know, in your soul you can do that. Yeah. You know, maybe even on a spiritual level who you can be, but nothing I'm doing is going to lead me to all that stuff's below the floor, which is okay. What's beautiful again is is that your future is a tool. And so if you say, you know, how do I get to 100 million in three years? I'm not saying it needs to be possible, right? I literally go into the research on the fact that like it's actually good to have impossible goals because if you say how can I get to 100 million in three years, you can then begin to look at your present just like Xavier did and say most of this stuff can't get me there. That doesn't mean it's not awesome. It doesn't mean it didn't have meaning and purpose and that it wasn't like you don't have to be mad at the present or the past. That's not useful. It's using the future to say, "All right, most of this stuff's probably below the floor, right? Yeah, that's okay. It doesn't mean it's bad or the people involved are bad. I just know it's below the floor for me getting to 100 million and being who I know I can be. And so the question then becomes, what would be a pathway to getting to 100 million? What would be a business that could get me there? Who could get involved? Now you're doing again like and so back to John Dory, he said a goal properly set is halfway reached because if you set that proper goal doing 100 million in revenue, one reason why it's halfway reached is because now you can look at all the things you're currently investing yourself in and say from that goal. You always want to operate from the goal, not toward it. So you just say from the from the reality of 100 million, almost none of this stuff matters. Not not and so I don't have to be mad at it, but it it's below the floor. And so what would be some pathways I could take? Who are some partnerships I could get involved in? What would be a business model to get there? What business would I want to get into to get to 100 million? It may take you a bit out of what you're doing or it might just be a different model or format or definition of what you're now doing. But now at least you're solving that versus solving how do we get to five or how do we get to eight. It's like no, now we're actually operating from a properly set scale goal, right? Let me ask this. Uh h how many businesses are you involved in? Me? Yes. Like when you say involved in, what do you mean? Um that you actively run? one scaling.com and obviously you're writing a book that leads intocaling.com for sure. I mean I'll write many other books as well but for now that's the project right that's the scale project. What did you have to put down when you realized that you're going to build scaling? So many things, man. I mean, I literally wrote a a a LinkedIn post three days ago that said and literally I started with this. I I just uncommitted literally I just uncommitted to 50 podcasts that I was going to do this year and and many keynotes. I kept yours cuz yours was awesome, bro. No, dude. I I kept five and like yours is insanely respectable. You're awesome. I have and so but like the floor went up on those and I didn't do that because I don't like being on podcasts. I I I let go of over 50 podcasts that I was scheduled to do this year because um for the goal we're going for they were below the floor um like they not not they were good for my old pathways my old strategies of launching books and stuff like that but because our goal is so high I actually can't afford um those more linear pathways even though being on some podcast is phenomenal um we had to find more scalable pathways for for getting millions of copies of that book out versus me manually having these conversations. We did five and we have a high floor. There's some of that really looking at it from the goal and as we've been be bringing on what we call superhoos. Like superhoos are people who um Bill Gates one of the things he said back in the day was is that a good code writer like a software writer isn't 10 times better than an average one. They're 10,000 times better. Right? And so if you think about podcast, some podcasts do 10,000x a normal podcast, right? Um, and so that's called the power law. That's where they grab the 8020 principles. It's just, you know, few things or few people are creating not just 10x the results, but thousands of X the results of of the norm, right? And so those are the kind of superhoss you bring onto your team when you start scaling. If you go for 100 million, you're going to need to bring on team members and partners that can that are worth 10,000x, right? Um, and so, you know, back to your question, what we call pathways thinking is always being willing to let go of paths and even goals, right? So, for me, podcast and keynotes was just a pathway to a goal. I had to be willing to let that go in order to find a more in like a more powerful focus. Um, got it. And so, before before scaling, I'll tell you what I got rid of before scaling, I was actually growing a YouTube channel. Mhm. Um, I had like 100,000 subscribers. It was starting to grow fast. I'd be in the millions by now. But I realized that that pathway was not going to get me to my future self. Even if I scaled that pathway up 100x have 10 10 million YouTube subscribers. That pathway wouldn't be powerful enough to get me what I was what what I viewed as my future self. And so I let go of my YouTube channel. I I actually sold uh at the time a former coaching business that I had to to someone and I got rid of all those things. Um, and then I was working on what this this book and Blake Ericson who's the co-founder. He came to me and said, "I think we need to like dominate the topic of scaling, right? There's a quote in that book from A.G. Laughafley. He wrote a book called um I think he I think it's called I forget what it's a strategy book, but he said that strategy is choosing the game you'll play and choosing and figuring out how you'll win, right? And so you have to decide what's the game that's worth playing." Some people are like, I want to play the real estate game. Some people I want to play the, you know, the media game, right? And so it's choosing, you know, having the goal, but then choosing what's the game I'm going to play. And I just realized uh I don't really want to play the media game. That's not not not some people that's the freaking game that they're going to win. Yeah. That was a game that I didn't want to play, right? And so it's like, well, what's the game we want to get into and what's the game we want to win? And how do we win? Um and so Blake came to me and he said, I think we should dominate and reframe and own this subject of scaling because it's just not well done, right? And it's and it's a and actually it's a complete open opportunity. Like no one's dominating it. Even though it's a noisy arena, a lot of people are talking about it. No one's talking about it effectively. And so let's get in there and let's let's play that game and let's win it. But we don't have to talk. But but there's just so many options in business. And so we're going to just play the game of training companies how to scale. We don't need to. I mean, of course, the book will teach people how to do it, but we're we we've chosen our own arena, and that's the game we're going to play, and that's the game we're gonna that's the game we're going to dominate. Is there an exit for scaling.com? For sure. Yeah, there will be. What does that look like? Um, you know, we have like our our business goal, right? Obviously, we have a broader impact goal, right? We hope I mean, I hope really interesting people read that book, right? And it, you know, it has a big impact in the outside world. And for any for people who never do more than just read the book, I hope it transforms hundreds of thousands of companies. Um the company goal specifically is we want 5,000 members of scaling.com. And we have a really hard filter cuz I've been a part of business coaching programs, training programs and and in those programs often even still only there's outliers really massively growing like maybe five 5% of the people are like boom. even in like coaching programs. Yeah. It's like and so we were like, well, we want a program where everyone's scaling. And so like part of our requirement or our floor is that unless you're fully committed to 10xing your company in 3 years, you can't join because cuz if you if you don't have that commitment, then our framework won't work for you cuz we we operate from you have to have a higher frame and floor and be willing to find a better focus, right? And so if you want to grow linearly, our process won't work for you. Plus, that goes against our our our floor of we want everyone in our company scaling like all of our members. And so, we want 5,000 members um all scaling um and that that would equate and we want to do that within 24 months. So, let's let's say um I get to a point where in the next two days I do qualify because um like in my mind even as you're talking, you know how someone says something to you and you're you kind of blank out because you're thinking about all the stuff that they said 10 minutes ago. Is that what just hit you? 100%. What? So, what are you still thinking? I have to go back and watch this interview because But let's go back even and let's keep talking about it right now. Okay. So, okay, I'll give you this. Ah, let's do it right now, bro. Come on, bro. So, I have a company called um the morning meetup and we meet with entrepreneurs every single morning and I love it. It feeds me. I get my reps in. I have to come up with something to teach for an hour every day, which means I am I'm really good at like shaping a message, but I also have um I have a company that I'm helping podcasters grow as podcasters and I'm doing a conference called Podcast Summit. It's actually coming up. Um, you're going to kill by the way, man. You're so good. Ah, thank you, dude. I just love you. But keep going. Keep going. What's Keep hitting it. So, but then I have this this idea where I understand where podcasting is going, but because I have this company and this focus where I'm teaching entrepreneurs, it's really difficult. Now, I can scale that with a bunch of members, but any type of membership community, the game is bringing people in faster than they need. Is that the game you want to play? I've convinced myself yes because I love to see people grow especially these entrepreneurs that that people aren't really talking to because if you don't have 510 even $1,000 you can't there's no entry. So ours is $79 a month or like$500 for a year something like that and we're talking to beginning stage entrepreneurs and I love watching them grow. However, it's an impossible way of scaling, I believe. But I do have some ideas on this podcasting space where I can absolutely dominate and a model that I can scale and sell for 100 million when I do it right. But because my focus is divided with actually speaking gigs and like producing other people's podcasts and I've convinced myself that it all kind of works together. But as you talk, we're very good at again framing, right? We're very good at creating a frame in which this whole thing synergizes and it works together versus actually all these things are going in different directions and it's a split focus. So yeah, go ahead. So here's here's the thought on it, brother. Here's the thought on it. Um, back to the idea of focus. So Steve Jobs directly said focus isn't about saying yes to the thing you got you got to focus on. It's about saying no to the hundred other great ideas. He said innovation is saying no to a thousand things. And then again back to Michael Porter who invented the field of competitive strategy, he said that the essence of strategy is what you say no to. Right? Raising the floor means like my view of the floor is it's defined by what you don't do. Right? And so you thinking about a a goal that not only changes your game, right, but a goal that might change the game in a field, which is podcasting, right? That goal is going to force you to start saying no to a ton of things. Um, a ton of things you're now saying yes to, right? And so you have to ask, is keeping this thing worth, right? Because we we always think about accountability, right? Is this thing worth my my 100 million goal? Right? You know, and if you try to grapple with both, I'm going to give you a quote that's kind of a gut punch. But one of my favorite quotes is that we're kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal. Right? So listen to this right now. Listen. We're kept we're kept from our goal not by obstacles. It's not the obstacles you're going to face to get to 100 million. You're kept from that goal by a clear path to a lesser goal. Right? This thing, right? even though it's beautiful, it's meaningful, it's purposeful, um it, you know, you're making a contribution, it would likely cost you the hundred million, right? And so you have to think about it in terms of cost and you have to think about it in terms of impact. Uh often times when we raise the floor and we start to disappoint people, right? Or or feel like we're letting people down. Um you know, even in like a church setting, right, more of a gospel setting, right? Um, in order for a leader to to make a sizable impact, they've got to focus. And what that means is they can't do everything they want to do. And and often you start to feel guilty for for focusing. Cuz you're like, man, there's all these things these people I'm letting down or but it's like you can't allow yourself to feel guilty to focus if you're doing something that is is going to is what you feel called to do or what you feel is important and it will have its own impact, you know. Um not to say you can't spend time doing service or you know things like that but um you have to weigh like the opportunity cost like this thing might cost you largely reinventing the podcasting space building something that impacts a lot of people maybe reinvents the whole field of podcasting or at least sets up your family and and your future family for generational impact. So, um, you know, everything has has a price. And, um, you know, I I'm I'm a believer that if you're being honest with yourself first off, you already said in your core, you know, um, you know, who you are and who you could be and what you could do, that's the, you know, that and God are the first things you got to be accountable to. Your family, your beautiful wife, um, and then your future, right? that's what you got to be accountable to even if it means disappointing the present you know and and so you know that's it's a big opportunity it's a big thing for you to consider um I think that you going for that scale goal not only would transform you and your present but back to the idea of innovation is saying no to a thousand things you might innovate and change a game right that changes an entire field like you know wow oh I'm for sure going to read this beauty of going that's theauty of going for scale. Yes. Is that it's going to is that it forces you to to raise that floor and innovate and become professional at a level that might even change industries or change a game, but it'll definitely change you and change your company and change the decisions you make, right? To get this this podcast concept to 100 million. like you're gonna have to do a lot of things including whether it's bring on partners, bring on a CEO, like you're gonna have to do a lot of m like mature business concepts that you know you you not that you haven't done yet, but like that you know it's it's it's cool to let the future shape you and you know back to Xavier like the the attorney now that he's going for 100 million in 3 years like he's being required to make very mature businesses decisions that he would have never had to make before and like in terms of hiring or bringing on partners or getting mentoring from people at a very different level, right? Like he's having to to learn things and humble himself and and raise his maturity and his knowledge and his impact. Yeah. In ways that he wouldn't have had to if he had a lower goal or if the goal was 50 years away. Yeah. So, he's got now he's got to solve all that stuff now. And it's humbling as crap, man. I'm telling you, back to the idea of exposure. It's humbling when you're going for scale because right now you're not good enough. Right now, you're not the guy who can do that $100 million exit. This is true. But if you committed to it and focused on it, you could become that guy. What is the model of scaling.com for an entrepreneur that's in my situation I said I want to scale like is there uh meetups or meetings? Am I paired with a coach? How how does this work? Just like the actual program itself. Yeah. So you would be paired with a one-on-one strategist. You'd meet with them monthly or as much as you need, right? But every month you meet with them. Uh every week you'd fill out forms like they're short journaling forms, right? But they go into a system and the whole purpose is is that every week every month you're operating more and more from that goal. Right? So if you think about your 100 million goal when you start to become hyper effective in the prison uh in the present is when every week and every month you're operating more and more from that 100 million goal and that that thing shapes how I'm going to approach this week you know cuz if you're operating from that future it's going to be a different week than if you were just doing what you were doing last week. It's like man now I got to really have some interesting conversations or man I got to like I can't I don't have time for this anymore. And so, yes, you have a one-on-one coach. Um, every every few weeks we do group coaching sessions. These are led by myself and Blake. Um, Blake Ericson. Um, there's live events. There's there's lots of trainings. Um, and so, and then there's just relentless case studies, you know, some sort of uh like curriculum or like program cuz now I'm thinking about your company scaling.com. for you to exit this company, it has to like seamlessly work without you, right? Like I want to join because you're there, of course, what you think, but how are you going to get yourself out of it or how how does that work? It see beautiful questions. See, you're asking really phenomenal scaling questions. In order for it to work, it can't be about me clearly. And so like we're in process right now of obviously building a curriculum that uh allows people to apply this monthly. We call monthly scaling cycles. We have a curriculum. We even are we've even brought on what are called instructional designers. These are people who are really good at taking knowledge and formalizing it into like a content curriculum thing like that. Um we're also training strategists, right? Like by the time we're at 5,000 members, every one of those is working with 50 50 members. And so like we have to create a training process and we're in that process right now. Um where we'll have hundreds of strategists who are actually better at training this than I am. Like I'm a decent coach. I'm a decent coach cuz I can cuz I I I believe enough in the principles and I I feel like I could talk to like someone like you where I'm like, "Man, I want to get you to that 100 million goal." Like, and I feel like I could talk to you. Um, but there are people who are honestly better coaches than me. And so, we're very selective about who we bring on and we train them a certain way and a lot of times they don't make it right. And so, you're right, formalizing a system where I'm not I'm not there. I'm not the face. It's certainly not about Ben Hardy. Um, and getting that a play like a player team is how you build a system that can scale. So, you think about that in the beginning, right? Because you have to think about it now. Cuz I didn't like typically an entrepreneur, we think about, okay, we're going to build something one day. I'm going to sell it, but right now I've got to build it and do the thing and then trick it. If you're thinking from scale, if you're thinking from the goal, um, so there's a guy named Josh Weightskin. He's a learning expert. He wrote a book called The Art of Learning. He's a chess prodigy and then he left chess and he became a Taichi world champion and then a Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion. Like he's a phenomenal learner. And he had a concept where he was talking about how there's people that are high rep learners where like high rep learning means you have to have a lot of reps to get the lesson. Yeah. Right. Think about people who are like in bad relationship after bad relationship. High rep learners. And then there's low rep learners. People who they can have an experience and they can squeeze the juice out of it and they can they can learn so they don't have to repeat errors. Right. Um there's a guy on our team, his name is Joseph Wyn. Um, and he wrote a book called Don't Believe Everything You Think. It's a beautiful little book, self-published. He he came in and he he came in, he's what we call Superhoo. He came in and he's changed our marketing strategy. A lot of which is now why I'm not going to be doing a lot of podcast and keynotes because we brought him on and he's transforming our marketing strategy. But one of the things that Joseph's really phenomenal at is anticipation. So he says rather than high rep learning and low rep learning, what about no rep learning? which is obviously we all have to learn from reps, but if you're anticipating events versus always reacting to them, right? Like that's a that's a really phenomenal thing in business is anticipating what's going to happen. Like whether it's for your clients and solving those before they happen versus of course you can't anticipate everything, but the beautiful part about going for the higher goal is that it forces you to start like dealing with and solving things now. It's like, oh, like we actually have to build this phenomenal system that has to operate without me. Like and so I would wonder, you know, if you went for your 100 million goal, you know, the podcasting goal, like, and you went for it in a very short period of time, like what are some of the things you'd have to solve now that if you'd given yourself 10 years, you wouldn't have to be dealing with now. But now you have to deal with it. Now you have to anticipate it. Now you have to start to structure it from the goal, from the goal. And so it forces you to start being ahead of the game versus always reacting to the game. What is your what is your favorite story of scaling? And I'm sure I'm sure you read a lot of books. You talk to a lot of people. What is your favorite story? Can you think of a company where it's like that's the thing that inspires me? Um, I don't know if I would say I have a favorite story. I I I like I like little more down to earth stories that are are more like related to like anyone. So like I'll tell a story of someone who who I wrote about in the book. Her name is Alysia. So like Alysia is someone who has a heart of gold. um she lives like here in Florida and she she's someone who's been in the credit industry, right? She's been in the credit industry for 20 years and she's been a one-on-one one-on-one like you'd even call her a coach, but really she advises people on how to improve their credit. Mhm. And and and after being in the credit industry for a while, she realized like most of these credit companies, there's there's actually 50,000 credit repair companies in the US. these 50,000 companies, if someone is disputing a claim or they've got some or they're trying to improve their credit, people go to these people and they try to improve their credit. And what Alysia realized after a few years in the field is that like these these are very expensive for people. A lot of times people can't afford this, but also it's not really getting them a clear path to like improving their credit and maybe getting that home loan or that car loan or whatever. And so she created a software called LevelUp Score. And she wanted to do this for 10 years, but she hesitated to do it. And so she she hired a who, right, to the idea of who, not how. She had got a who, which was a software developer, partnered with him, and they developed level-up score. It's called LevelUp Score. And so I'll tell you why I like her story, cuz it fits with a lot of these principles. Um, she at the beginning of last year, so the beginning of 2024, and again, they made the software 5 years ago, but she's so busy busy in her one-on-one coaching practice. She's got kids, she's she's got her church or whatever. Like, she's busy. And so, she's has this important technology which honestly could change that industry, but she's too busy to do anything with it. And so, at the beginning of last year, she's like, I'm going to actually just try to get the word out about LevelUp Score. So, again, there's 50,000 of these credit repair companies that she wants to use her software with their clients, people who are trying to improve their credit. And so, she starts calling these one-on-one and just to test the market. And every time she explains her her software to these companies, they're like, "Oh my goodness, we need this." And so they create a little revshare deal where you know their clients put in their goal, they put in their their credit score and then it the the software actually gives them a tailored path to their goal including like here's some safe credit improving products like like safe vetted credit cards and stuff. And so it took her 90 days like Q1 of 2024 of calling 10 of these companies. Every single one of them said we need to use this. And so she had 10. So she essentially had 10 of these credit repair companies using her software by the end of Q1 90 days she had had 10 100% conversion rate. And so then she came to us and she learned frame floor focus and the importance of having an impossible goal. Mhm. Cuz an impossible goal forces you to get out of your current path. And so we said, Alysia, we want you to scale this thing. Um set an impossible goal and use that to shape your path. And so she firstly said, "Okay, I'm gonna go from 10 to 100," which is a 10x phenomenal. I'm gonna go from 10 to 100 in 90 days. And very quickly she realized that wasn't the right goal. Because she figured that in 90 days she could have 90 more of those one-on-one calls, right? Cuz she would just go from 10 to 100. And so we said that's not a powerful enough goal. There's a really good quote from a guy named Buckminister Fuller. Uh he says that you don't change things by fighting the existing reality. He said to change something you have to have a new model that makes the old model obsolete. Right? Explain that. You got to So you don't So you don't change things by fighting the existing reality. Right? If you're trying to change the public education system, right, or the podcasting world, you don't change it by fighting the existing system. You build a new model that makes the old system obsolete, right? And so and so but that's that principle is true of your own life. the new model is your future. That massive future that makes your existing system, your existing business obsolete, right? And so for her, she realized 100 100 people using my software in 90 days isn't a big enough goal to transform my existing approach. I'm still doing the same thing I was doing before and I'm still in my business all the time. And so she realized, I need a higher goal, an impossible one that forces me to think differently. And so rather than going for 100 in in 90 days, she she said I'm going to do something I don't think I can accomplish, which is beautiful. I'm going to go for a thousand of these companies using my software level up score in the next 90 days. And she said as soon as she said that, I want to as soon as she said that as her goal, I want a thousand of these companies using LevelUp score in 90 days. She her mind went blank and she said, I had no clue how to do it. She said, I realized that I had no clue how to do it. I had no pathway to get there and my think my current thinking couldn't get me there. M and so then what kicked off when you start thinking from the goal is again what we call pathways thinking. So she a lot of times people don't give themselves the space and the time to just sit and think. Sometimes when I'm honestly like advising people we'll we'll have them think from a really high goal and I'll just say I want you to think of a few people who might be able to give you some good insight and they're like there's no one. I'm like, I'm going to sit for a minute and I just want you to sit for a minute and think for a minute. Who could you talk to that might give you pathways to this goal? And if they sit there for even a minute, they're like, "Oh, there's one." And it may not be perfect, but he might be able to give me some info. There's one, there's one. People don't give. And so, what happened to Alysia when she set this goal of I'm going to have a thousand of these companies using my software in 90 days. First off, she realized I can't cold call a thousand people, right? I can't. And and so she started to she sat for literally 3 hours and journaled about it, pondered about it, prayed about it, and a lot of her ideas were really bad. Like she's like, I'm going to post in Facebook groups. And she she was just trying to pathway things. She was just trying but she gave herself the time to think about. And then then a thought hit her. And and and I as someone who really believes in journaling and just giving yourself some space to think and maybe even meditating and praying, if you give yourself some space, but if you're solving it from a goal, people will come to mind, paths will come to mind. And so the thought that came to her was why am I not actually looking to partner with the people who already serve my market? And so what what what thought came to her was there's already other software companies in the credit space that serve sometimes thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of these 50,000 credit repair companies. There's a lot of these software companies and she but she had imposter syndrome. She's like, "Well, they're too big. They won't want to talk to me." But she she's she basically said, "What if instead of going directly to the uh to the credit repair companies, what if I went to the software companies and partnered with them because they already have thousands of these using their software." And so, literally within a week, she was having a conversation with a guy who owns a company called Credit Repair Junkies. He he works he's got a software that helps improve these people's client experience. Turns out he's got 8,000 of these credit repair companies using his software. Wow. And so she's sitting there talking to him and she's explaining to him LevelUp Score and he's like, "This is freaking gamechanging." Wow. And so they form a partnership where he integrates Level Up Score into his software and now all of a sudden his 8,000 clients are being exposed to and using LevelUp Score incredible. And so she goes from 10 people to 8,000 people with one who a superh. A superh. Right. And so her old manual way was I'm going to have to if I want to get to a thousand I have to talk to a thousand who's but from the higher more impossible goal she had to go completely a different path and it was non what we'd call nonlinear right because the goal was so high it forced her to think very differently and she's like she would she said she would have never thought about partnering with other software companies unless she was thinking from the impossible goal and so what happened was is after that conversation again she made like an 800x jump right with one Right? Those are that that's when you start thinking more exponentially. Those are the more profound pathways. Then she started to build confidence where she started to talk to tons of other companies. Some of them, you know, but one thing that was really cool was when she thought thought from her impossible goal and then she realized that this might be a good pathway. It wasn't she wasn't sure, but she knew that maybe only one of them would be sufficient to get her to her goal 10,000. Turned out that one got her way past that goal. And so that then allowed her to start going and talking to many others. And now she's got lots of these software companies using her software, right? And she's really starting to make headway in that space. But then she began to think in other ways, like she began to thinking about, well, who are other really big industries that help people with their credit? And she started thinking about banks and credit unions. And so now she's starting to get in with big banks who are using her software throughout all of their branches and things like that with their clients. And so she's beginning to think more more strategically, right? And so this is just the reason I love that example is she's just she's a downto-earth person who who began to apply better strategy, better pathways thinking, but it takes you in a different direction. And yeah, she was required to actually sell off her coaching business which she had for 20 years cuz she cuz even though she loved her clients similar how you love those entrepreneurs, she loved them. She knew she felt in her heart, right, that scaling this thing would have a bigger impact and and and she also just felt like that was what she wanted to do and she felt aligned with it and so she was willing to sell off her existing business and and go this new direction and go all in. That was a beautiful story. Yeah, man. I love I love Alysia. She's a You meet her, she's a sweetheart. She's just a doll. She's just she's just so cool. But oh my gosh, that was an incredible story. But that's just like a it's it's an example back to the idea of a goal properly set is halfway reached because the first thing that when what happens when you operate from the right frame like this is a really important component of psychology is that we you know you've heard the idea that we all see the world through a frame or through a lens but the primary thing we see are pathways to our goals right they call that signal versus noise like pathways or or people that you feel are relevant like we call that signal whereas everything else is just kind of noise it's a distraction and so when you start setting really high goals um and you're using more urgent timelines it forces you to find different paths than you would have otherwise been looking for, different people, different partners, right? And and a lot of what you're now doing kind of becomes noise where it's like uh this stuff this stuff doesn't have the same impact. And so then then you have to grapple with am I willing to raise my floor? And that's the really the hardest point is am I willing to let go of of of what I've been doing or what I have to go down this this probably better path even though this better path might not be guaranteed. Yeah, I think we're done here. My brain is on fire right now. This was incredible. What was What's kind of the most things sticking out to you, man? Um that they I have some really really tough decisions to make and I'm starting to get excited about the idea that I initially thought I didn't have the time to really pursue right now. And I do have a lot of good ideas, but this is one that I know I can sink my teeth into. It's aligned with my brand. It's needed and I would have a lot of fun doing it. And I I would have a model that's not based on me being the attraction. So, I'm um yeah, that's that that that's where I'm at in terms of I've never even thought about cuz I'm thinking scaling is going from a th000 members to 2,000 members. But scaling for you is getting to 100 million revenue or exit. That's scaling. Having a future that reshapes your path, your direction and leads to you innovating and and focusing and doing things that no one else is doing. Absolutely. And it does create a it does force focus, right? Frame floor focus and choosing a focus path saying this is what I'm doing. This is who I am. You know, the goal and usually the impossible forces you to more clearly define yourself, right? To say this is who we are. This is what we do. This is who we do it for. this is why we're different than everyone else versus these are the five things I do. It's like, no, this is who we are. This is what we do, man. This is what we're about. This is what we're not about. What's What's been your biggest hurdle? Like, is there something that you know you're afraid of and you can't shake it? What has been your biggest hurdle in moving the way you're moving? Me personally, and maybe even something that you're still struggling with. Yeah. Me personally, I I feel like I um I got tons of hurdles, man. I got tons of hurdles. Um I think that I'm I don't know. I because I apply who not how. I often will bring in people who are are are like better formal leaders than me. Like I have I'm good at like casting a vision, leading strategy, provoking ideas. Sometimes it's hard for me to call people out, right? Like if I was working with you or even just buddies with you, like maybe I'd let I don't know if I'd let you off the hook. I'd challenge you and say, "Dude, David, I want you to get I want you to go do that thing." Uh I think I think I I think I I still need to get better at in a in a kind, loving way. Really, you know, even if I'm thinking about my kids, right? Like it's challenging to love someone and have high expectations, right? Sometimes you go one way or another, right? where like you you love someone but you have low expectations, right? Or you have too high of expectations but they don't feel your love, right? So if a kid like if a kid knows you love them but if you honestly like let them get away with just about everything, right? Um then then like that that that that doesn't create super healthy kids. But if you just if they just think ah like like dad doesn't love me and he just forces me to do all these things like if they don't feel your love then like then you're like a drill sergeant, right? And so having both like where like they feel your love but at the same time like you're challenging them to be better, right? And like but they know you love them, right? Like that's a really challenging balance to strike, right? Where like you can really like someone knows you love them, but like at the same time, not that they're requiring you to do anything, but they're inviting you to live to a higher standard and you know it it's really your choice. like but like and but they don't resent you for for challenging them. Like you're the person that gets the best out of people. So when when you go home, you're still that person that oh I'm dad. I go home and it's like this guy like they don't care. That's the beautiful part honestly about having a family is like I go home they don't they don't care that I was on your podcast. They're like dad you look dumb in those pants. You know what I mean? Or like you know what I mean? or like we just want you to watch this basketball game with us or let's go outside and throw the football or like you know or they just or I should just care what they care about, right? And so, but yeah, I think learning how to be a better leader, you know, is something that I'm still working on big time. Awesome. Thank you so much, man. Uh please let everybody know what's what's the next step of working with you. I know I'll be checking out scaling.com. Um is it open now? Oh, yeah. What I would say the the easiest thing for people to do is um go to scaling.com/auudiobook. First off, how much did this cost you? Because I know you had to buy scaling.com. Did you have to buy that? Oh, yeah. I bought it. How much was it, Ben? I can't tell you that much, huh? I can't tell you. But here's what I'll say. Go to scaling.com/auudiobook. And that is a spot where you can literally get the entire audio book for free. There's a web page there. you can listen to the entire audio book. The Ford by Tony Robbins, he recorded it himself. Um and and listen to the audio book. One of the things that we really want to do is um we want to give away a million copies of that audio book for free. Um back to the idea of SuperHos and when SuperHos often bring the best pathways with them. We brought on that guy Joseph Wyn who he wrote the book don't believe everything you think and he self-published that book and he learned how to scale stuff through ads. I've never done ads. Um, and so now we have a and so our goal is to give away a million copies of that audio book. You can again go uh scaling.com/audiobook. Um, but because of him and his strategic knowledge on spreading books, that's part of why my old pathways became obsolete. Yeah. And I then had to say, well, PC, do I keep doing my old pathways because that's what my old model or do I accept a new role? You know what I mean? And that's what happens when you bring on superheroes. You got to sometimes accept a new role and it's it's still a better role, but it's for a bigger game. doesn't have to be again about about you, but yeah, that's I I would just invite people to listen to the audio book or just grab the book if you know some people like you, you're a reader, which is freaking awesome. There's there's a lot of cool images and graphs in there and stuff like that to make the concepts come to life, but if you just prefer audiobook, scaling.com/audiobook, get it for free. Love it. Why are you doing that, the giving away for free? Because I would think that an author writes a book so that they can sell the book. So, it goes back to the idea of a simple versus a complex system. What am I optimizing? Am I optimizing for book sales or am I optimizing for members of scaling.com? I had to grapple with that because I'm I was an author first and I think well why don't I just sell a million copies. But that goal might actually literally get in the way of us growing this company. And so rather than needing that vanity metric or that goal, right, we're kept from a goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal. Luckily with the new and better model that, you know, our super crew brought with us, it's not about book sales anymore. It's about educating people. And if that means giving it to him for free, all the better. But but by giving away a million copies, I'll tell you we'll hit our goal. And so, um, literally, I had to let go of my old model. I mean, to be honest with you, I got out of being with the publisher, right? When we brought in that Superhoo, he was like, "We need the rights of the audio book, and if we're doing other books in the future, we need to self-publish in them." And I'm like someone who I've been in traditional publishing for 10 years, and I my last five books have been with the same publisher, Hay House. And because of that new model, I had to let go of the publisher. Wow. And now we're, you know, they're beautiful. They're amazing people. I love them. They were understanding, respectful. We got the rights of the audio book to be able to do that. And so, um, you know, you have to let go of old models to go for the impossible goal. And when you bring on Superhos, you can't keep operating as if things are the same way they used to be. Absolutely, Ben. Thank you so much, man. Listen, y'all do yourself a favor. Uh, go get the book, scaling.com. Go to scaling.com/auudiobook. Audio book. listen to it and buy it because you need to thumb through it and highlight. Grab those and make sure you're following uh Dr. Benjamin Hardy. What is your Instagram? U I don't even know, man. You don't know. Okay. So, it's go just find it. Okay. And I'll be tagging Dr. I think it's Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Gotcha. Gotcha. Make sure you check out uh his page and all the stuff he got going on. If you've enjoyed this, just go down a rabbit hole of just googling this man cuz he is brilliant. Brilliant. Check out some other books as well. But also do yourself a favor. Go get you some social proof. Meaning go build something. Build it really, really big. Then come back to your community and teach them how you did it. It's the only way our community grows. We out. Peace. That was careful.