This episode turned out to be more of a rant than an Episode! Do You Have a #BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)? Well, you won’t find it sitting on your ass! Put in your time & pay your taxes!
[Transcript]
Adam: Oh, where are you going? Okay. Well, I’ll see if I remember to cover that. All right, so we’re good to go? Cool. All right. Well, welcome again to another episode of The Steele Entrepreneur Show. My name is Adam Steele and this is episode…it’s episode 10 which is pretty cool. That’s a bit of a milestone. Now mind you, I do plan and sorry Brandon but we’re going all the way to 200. We’re going all the way to 300 I think. So we’ll just keep doing these until people say they suck so much that they don’t want to watch them anymore. So I’m afraid you’re along for the ride.
I don’t have anything planned for today. And quite honestly, I kinda feel a little bit guilty about it. I didn’t bring…usually I spend a little bit of time putting together notes or throughout the week I collect notes on my own. So when anything kind of pops up in my head I’ll write down on a piece of paper. I’ll scribble down the topic and then I’ll sort of check it out on Thursday again so the day before we tape and kind of just pick which one I can actually speak to without having…I don’t wanna have to rehearse. Like that’s a big thing to me because as soon as I start rehearsing that means it’s kinda like I often think of it this way.
If I can’t stand up in front of an audience without slides and speak to material and speak to it effectively and understand the material so much I don’t have to refer to slides, then I shouldn’t be talking about it. And the same applies with this show is I don’t wanna talk about anything on this show that I don’t know so well, that I don’t need to prepare. That doesn’t mean I don’t care though, you know, as I was saying a moment ago, I do feel a little bit underprepared. I do feel kinda guilty showing up to a show, wasting your time, wasting Brandon’s time without having prepared.
So we will call this an experiment. We’ll see where we go with this. I’ll try and keep it short. I know I’m not very good at that and we just kinda go from there. There’s a couple of things that I’ve been thinking about. Chris, our head copywriter, he’s been helping me. I’m not good at coming up with like ideas and then like for writing blog posts and stuff. Like blog posts are just of total pain in the ass for me which is kind of why I started this show is this is one way I can get content out and not totally fail. And not totally put myself through hell to do it. And it’s very silly to call blogging hell but for me anything that I don’t enjoy doing is kinda hell.
Because there’s so many things I do enjoy and those are the things that I’m going to do really, really well. So I don’t wanna do something that I’m going to suck at and then I’m not gonna get all that better at. And blogging is one of those things that I’ve tried in being consistent at before and it just doesn’t…I can’t get what’s in my head on to paper for whatever reasons. So anyways, we have this little system where he’ll go through these videos. He’ll go through like interviews that I do on podcast or what have you. By the way, we have our podcast on Google Play now so if that’s something of interest, if that’s easier to digest than this then check that out.
It took us a long time to get approved by Google which is really weird. We’ve got this little system where he’ll go through all the stuff and he’ll come up with titles. So stuff that resonated with him, stuff that seems to be resonating with other people and he’ll break that stuff out and he’ll say, “You know Adam, I think there’s something here. I think you can go deeper on this.” And so he’ll put together a few notes where basically he’ll say, “You know I think we can go a little bit deeper here. I think we can elaborate on A, B, and C. Can you do that for me?” And instead of typing something out for him I will do a voice recording and I will talk about that.
I’ll talk about whatever that topic is and then I’ll send that to him and then he’ll start. He kinda go straight essentially for me and then I’ll go through that. I’ll add a bunch more points. And at that point I’ll usually type some stuff out and then we’ll go back and forth, back and forth. And then it sort of getting closer to being ready as a blog post. Where I’m going with that is we did this one about passion the other day. And I don’t remember whether it was in a video I was talking about it or where he grabbed it from. But I went off on this tangent like all of a sudden I looked and we had 40 minutes of a voice.
And now I’m kinda setting the bar high and I certainly don’t wanna do 40 minutes. But it just I didn’t realize how big of a deal that topic was to me and how it kind of it is kind of my message. Like I have like a few important messages that I want to get across to you. And also kind of reinforce within myself and passion is one of them. And what I like to talk about is passion is a bit overrated or at least it’s a little bit…it’s not as important I think as everybody think it is. Passion is often used as kind of an excuse. You know I’m not passionate about it so I’m not going to do it and I’m contradicting myself because I was just talking about the blogging.
But I did do blogging. I did it for a while because it was a necessity. I needed to do it at one particular juncture. And now I’m just finding a different way to do it. But I don’t think you necessarily need to be passionate about something. If you know that you want to build a business and it doesn’t matter what you build. It’s just that you build something and I think and I fear and I worry and I know because I have these discussions with folks who are already entrepreneurs or folks that are sort of moving into that entrepreneurial life. And they’re so focused on I wanna create the Uber of this but I don’t know how to do that yet and I don’t have that unique angle. And so they’re paralyzed by that.
That’s where they stop and they don’t do anything, right? They think, “Well, that idea will come eventually. Eventually, I’ll figure out exactly what avenue I wanna take. And at that point I’ll take it.” But they’re foregoing the opportunity to fine tune their skills, basic, basic, basic skills that will be helpful when they get to that point. And when they get to that point I don’t give a shit how good their idea is. Ideas are plentiful. I have a lot of them. But it’s one’s ability. And you’ll hear this a million times, execution is everything, and it is. And if you aren’t able to execute on that idea you’re going to fail.
So if you spend all this time digging around doing nothing, waiting for this magical idea to hit you. And let me be honest with you, it’s been seven years I don’t have a magical idea. And I have exposed myself to so much in business and done so many different things both in the online space and offline space. I don’t have that magical idea yet. But I have spent seven years digging deep into the business world and figuring it out. Figuring out where I suck, where I’m good, getting better at where I suck. And that seven years of experience is gonna make me so much more prepared for when that idea finally hits me. And I’m in it for the long run.
If you think, if you know that building business and I mean if you know that building business is being an entrepreneur is your thing, if that’s what you wanna do then you got to start. You got to start doing it. Because it takes a long time to be good at that. I’m not good at that yet. I am mediocre at best. So you got to start now. You can’t wait for that idea because you’ll be waiting forever. And I’ve just got to imagine if you weren’t the type of person to be exposing yourself to all kinds of different things both in business and out, that idea may never come around. And then all of a sudden, you know, you’ve got 20 years in a corporate job.
And I’m assuming corporate jobs are not something you want to do. You want to build a business. That’s what you want to do, that’s what you know you want to do. Then you just forewent 20 years of the opportunity to learn, the opportunity to be ready for that opportunity. The opportunity to be ready to execute on that idea. And that that is my seven years in summary. That’s everything I’ve done is preparing for that opportunity, for that idea to come around that truly…that innovative idea, that thing the idea of like I don’t give…I like marketing at best. I don’t give a shit about it. Marketing is a tool, it’s a means.
I care about building businesses and I care about being ready for that real innovation, that thing that is going to change the world, like that I want it…it’s a silly comparison I think. Maybe it isn’t, maybe it is, we’ll see. But I do quite honestly compare myself to people like Elon Musk. Like I just I can’t help it. I can’t help but contrast. Where was he at this age? What was he doing? What was he building? What had he accomplished? And what is he doing now? Where is my Tesla idea, right? I’m building a fucking marketing company. That has been done over and over and over and over again. There’s nothing new. There’s nothing innovative about that.
Sure, I can do things a little bit differently. Great, but that doesn’t excite me. The building excites me and my bag excites me. My big, hairy, audacious goal, that excites me. That Tesla dream, that SpaceX dream, that whatever dream. I don’t know exactly that it is. I’m still figuring it out. But whatever it is, this is the process to get there. This is the journey. This is what I have to do. These are the taxes I need to pay to be ready for whatever that is. So I beg of you to consider that, to think about how much you really wanna be an entrepreneur. Because if you wanna be an entrepreneur then your soul right now is being crushed working for somebody else.
And I’m not saying there isn’t any value in doing that. Quite frankly, I wish I had. If I had spent maybe a year working for another marketing agency, I’d be way further along. It’s the truth. At that time I wouldn’t ask any questions because I was too prideful, too full of pride. So I would just try and figure everything out myself and that cost me a lot of time, a lot of struggle, a lot of unnecessary struggle. I didn’t need to be that hard. But that’s who I was at that particular time in my life.
So I’m not against it, I’m just saying if you feel that, you need to plan. You need to plan an escape. You need to get out. You need to take that leap even if it’s like I’m not suggesting that you quit your job. For me that worked because I was not and still am not committed enough. And that’s coming from a guy who has no issue waking up at 6:30 every morning and going to bed at 2 a.m. every single day, five days a week, and then working on the weekend as well. Like coming in here right now I’m exhausted. But that’s the price I pay for doing something, working towards something that I love. And so you have that same opportunity. You can work, that’s fine.
But get out there after work, go home, make dinner, and get to work. Get after it, do something. It doesn’t have to be amazing. I have told this, I don’t know if I’ve shared this on this show but when I got out and I quit. I just straight, I was just done. And that probably wasn’t the smartest idea but for someone like me that was the way to go. Everything failed for six months, like nothing. I basically didn’t make a dollar for six months, more or less. Maybe a little here, a little there, or whatever. But like the first thing that worked was selling Gmail addresses. Like how unsexy is that? But I got to know people on this internet marketing forum.
I started with little something. I figured out just the basic dynamics of buying and selling things. That’s not something I really have a lot of experience with before. And then it led to something else and then it led to something else and then it led to something else. So it doesn’t have to be this amazing thing. It doesn’t have to be this thing, this startup that you have to brag, that you wanna brag to your friends about. No one gives a shit. People give a shit that you’re doing something. And even if they’re hating, they’re hating because they can’t do something. They can’t bring themselves to do something. They’re fearful of what people think of them.
So just do something. It doesn’t matter what it is. Because like I said, you are getting yourself ready for whatever the something is, for whatever you care enough about to potentially devote the next decade to, to devote your life to. That’s what I’m looking for. For now it’s building business because that is the foundation. That is what’s gonna get me ready for that thing that I love so much that I wanna spend the rest of my life doing it. So dig deep, think about that. Because I can’t think of anything more important than doing something that is meaningful to you. I can’t think of anything more painful than going to work and hating what you do or disliking what you do or having these feelings that you don’t belong there.
Like you’re watching the clock, like that is so crushing and that is such a waste. So don’t worry about any of that stuff. Don’t worry about talent, don’t worry about skill. I mean that stuff is all secondary, it truly is. What matters is you do something. You pick up and you go and you get shit done and you be consistent about it and you stick to it, you commit to it, and you work your ass off. All the other stuff is just gravy. If you happen to have talent in that particular thing, gravy, awesome. It’s gonna set you apart from the many and the other thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people that are doing that thing. But it’s not necessary.
I knew I could rant on that. I told you that, Brandon, didn’t I? I kinda just went off on that one. I don’t know, I feel like maybe I should leave it on that. What are we for time wise?
Brandon: Just under 20 minutes.
Adam: Just under 20 minutes. You know I think the other thing that I’ll finish up on and then we’ll get out of here and enjoy the rest of our day, is that skills piece that I was just talking about. I think people put way too much stock in skill and talent, especially talent. I think talent makes a huge difference but I don’t think it makes the difference. I don’t think…I truly believe that there is nothing I am doing right now that I am particularly talented at. I think I’ve been consistent. I think I’ve worked hard. I think I put in the time. I have the time on the mat, like in jujitsu.
It’s the person who puts in the time, that’s what makes the belt. That’s what makes the difference between the blue belt and the purple belt and the brown belt and the black belt. It’s the time on the mat. It’s how many years you’ve devoted and being committed and being consistent and how many times you went per week. That’s the difference maker, that’s where everybody fails. So many people have so much talent but they are missing the main stuff, the goodies. And they take that for granted. They think that they can ride that talent and it’s just not true. I know that because I don’t have talent in this stuff.
I know that I have to compensate for that with these ridiculous insane hours. I have to…at the end of the week I am so exhausted and that’s because I don’t have that natural stuff. But that’s fine and I’m still getting where I need to go without that talent. So don’t let that be an excuse. It’s just not that important. When you find that thing that I was talking about before, the talent may lie in that. You came up with that because that’s something that you are passionate about and something that you, more than likely, have some talent in. But it’s not a prerequisite. It’s not something you absolutely need to be successful. It just isn’t. It’s being willing.
If there’s one skill I have, it’s being committed enough to stick it out, to work really, really hard. That’s it, the rest just comes. Just like that belt will come, that blue belt will come. When you spend enough time on the mat that blue belt will come, that purple belt will come, that brown belt will come. It may take 10 years but it will come. And this is, God damn it, this is such a thing with people my age and there are exceptions. Goddamn, there are exceptions. I take every opportunity to take to folks that are starting businesses my age, younger than me, older than me.
There are exceptions but there just seems to be this huge number of people that just seem to expect that they can put in four hours, five hours, six hours a day and get to put in five inputs and get a hundred outputs. It doesn’t exist. I don’t care what anybody says. It doesn’t exist. You have to put in the time. It doesn’t matter what it is, it could be the business you are building, it could be some goal that you have. It could be buying a home. You don’t deserve it unless you’re putting in the time, unless you’re doing absolutely everything in your power to make that happen. You don’t go out and buy those Starbucks. You save that money.
You don’t go out for drinks, you keep that money. You live in a tiny place, you save up that money. If you wanna start a business you eat bowl of noodles. You save that money, you put that money towards the business. Don’t know where this sort of expectation comes from that you can do so little and get so much. It doesn’t exist. And that I think I will leave it there. I don’t know that this is really an episode. It is a rant but we’re gonna make it into an episode and we’re gonna see if you like it. And if you’ll like it I want you to let me know. Because I wanna make material that resonates with people because it resonates with me.
I think about this stuff constantly. I go to bed thinking about this stuff. I wake up thinking about this stuff. So if it means something to you, I want you to let me know. I don’t want you just to subscribe. If you don’t subscribe that’s fine. I’d rather have a comment from you. I’d rather have you let me know what it meant to you, where you’re at, whether you’re dying inside to leave your job. Maybe not a good idea to do that on Facebook. You can send me a direct message or something like that. I don’t want your employers seeing that.
But if you’d like to support us, support the show, support the podcast, subscribe. It would mean a great deal to myself, to Brandon, to Rihanna, to Sarah, to Chris, to Serge, to everybody who’s working on this show on your behalf. And we’re on YouTube, we’re on Google Play, we’re on iTunes, we’re on Stitcher, we’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram, and even dabbling on Snapchat. I know I’ve said that before. I’m so terrible at it but I am getting a little bit better. And say hi. Let us know what’s up. Let us know if you have any questions and we’re gonna keep working hard to create content and create stuff that is easily digested by you. And see you in episode 11. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.
