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When we started this podcast, we had to figure out a lot of it on our own, which was pretty daunting at times. When you're starting off with something new, it seems like your to do list just keeps growing and it can begin to consume every waking moment. Finding the right tool that helps you out and simplifies everything can be a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names to brands that are just getting started. Shopify is also packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into With Shopify, Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com selling leadership go to shopify.com leadership I'm going to show you how to focus on the things that really make a difference. The timeless principles that will make your success inevitable.
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Welcome to the no Bullshit Leadership Podcast. In a world where knowledge has become a commodity, this podcast is designed to give you something more access to the experience of a successful CEO who has already walked the path. So join your host, Martin Moore, who will unlock and bring to life your own leadership experiences and accelerate your journey to leadership excellence.
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Hey there and welcome to episode 384 of the no Bullshit Leadership Podcast. This week's episode how to Make Success Inevitable. Traditionally, around this time, we produce an episode focused on the outlook for the year ahead. This year we decided to do something a little different. Rather than revisiting global macroeconomics and workforce trends and the potential impact of AI on business, we're going to focus on the success principles that will make a genuine difference to you. Your job is to distill the one or two principles that are most important in your context and work out how to embrace them in the coming year. There's some work in this. It's not just a casual listen, but I know you're up for it. It'll make all the difference as to how you launch into 2026. Our CEO and producer M sent me a link to the podcast episode from Alex Hormozi that really captivated me. Hormozi is the ultimate entrepreneur and he really cuts to the chase. He's absolutely done the work, he's made gobs of money, and he understands the principles of success as well as anyone. I've heard articulate them. This is pretty simple. I'm going to start by polishing up some of the success principles that I laid out in an earlier episode of no Bullshit Leadership, and then I'll give you my spin on Hormozi's brutal truths. They're guaranteed to give you a different perspective. If you can apply them consistently, your success will be inevitable. So let's get into it. The principles of success are universal. Whether you believe them or not, they are continually operating in the background. Just like Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of the Market, There are unseen forces that determine where you're likely to end up. If you understand these principles and apply them in your life, it's likely that you will be successful. And you'll soon see why. By successful, I mean having the things in your life that make you truly happy and fulfilled. For purposes of this episode though, we'll focus mainly on career and business success. But I'm sure you'll see the parallels with every other area of your life. A number of years ago I took a deep dive into the things that I believe are the greatest predictors of success, and it was episode 138. It's not what you know. I looked at the 10 factors that I think are the most likely to drive success in your career and business. So I want to start by taking a fly over the top of these. The first principle is it's where you start. Now, I firmly believe that anyone can be successful if they were born in a developed country. Western Europe, Scandinavia, the us, Canada, Australia, the uk. You know the usual suspects. Every OECD country has sufficient access to education, healthcare and social welfare. And of course even some of these are more favorable than others. But if you're born in a developed world, there is nothing to hold you back except what's in the six inches between your ears. How do I know? Because over and over and over, people from all walks of life, all types of adversity, every variety of upbringing and every socio economic background show us that it's true. Principle number two it's the values you hold. Some people are doomed to follow the path of least resistance. Their values are malleable and they adapt them depending on the situation. Having strong, consistent values that guide your behavior is going to put you on the fast track to success because they enable you to do things that are hard, unpalatable or just plain scary. Principle 3 It's the work you put in. Hard work is just table stakes. Don't kid yourself that you can take it easy. Choose to have balance in your life and still reach the pinnacle of your career. The world simply doesn't work like that. In these strange days of 9th place medals and participation trophies, it's easy to forget that the world is a competitive place and the people who outwork you are way more likely to succeed than you are. I hate to tell you this, it's just true. You need to decide what trade offs you're willing to make. Principle 4. It's your willingness to do more than the next person. Now, this is a bit of an extension of the last point on hard work. But are you prepared to do what others won't? Are you prepared to take accountability for your team and lead them to deliver superior results? Are you prepared to step into a volatile negotiation and work through the issues? Are you prepared to attack the root cause of a problem instead of fixing the symptoms with spit and gaffer tape? Are you prepared to hold your people to account for their behaviour and performance? This matters more than you can imagine. Principle 5. It's the tenacity you have. Can you persevere. Do you have the stamina to withstand major setbacks and disappointments and keep going anyway? Can you push ahead against all odds when others around you are giving up? Perseverance, resilience and passion all seem to coexist in people who are successful in both business and in life. It's the teams you build. You're going to come to realise that a lot of your success depends on being able to build the right team and then get the most out of each individual. But this takes work. It takes attention. It takes focus. It requires hard decisions to be made about good people who can't meet the standard you set. It takes a constant focus on developing their talent and not trying to show off your own. Principle 7 It's the reputation you carve out. Every interaction you have builds your reputation. Are you reliable? Are you a hard worker? Are you prepared to do difficult things when they need to be done? Do you put self interest aside to the greatest extent possible and do you give a shit about others or just yourself? Your reputation will either enhance or damage your career progression. So start acting like you really believe that that's true. Every meeting is a job interview. Every decision is an opportunity to improve your performance and the performance of your team. Every interaction with your people either increases trust or diminishes it. Principle 8. It's the risks you take. When I left CS Energy to start up your CEO mentor, I. I had more than one colleague come and say to me, oh, Marty, I'm incredibly impressed by your decision. You're leaving a safe, secure, highly paid CEO job to pursue your passion. What a gutsy move. And yeah, I got us settled into CS energy for another five years, but then I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. Every successful person knows that taking calculated risks is essential for success. But we tend to massively over index the risk of doing something bold and different. And we under index the risk of staying where we are. Principle 9 It's your attitude to learning I found a really big difference over the years between those people who rely on knowledge and those who rely on continuous learning. The principle that knowledge is power can be extremely detrimental. It'll actually rob you of the exponential growth that lifelong learners manage to achieve. Continuous learning is incredibly valuable. Making mistakes and learning from them. Always having a keen interest to know more, seeking out alternative views to give you a more balanced perspective, listening to other people's viewpoints and being a student of life and business and people. Finally, Principle 10 it's your ability to interact and build relationships. Relationships are incredibly important to your success, but it's not just about powerful allies. Relationships swing in all directions. You need great relationships with your team members based on trust and respect. And you also need the people above you to support you and to believe in you. They call these soft skills, but if you don't have them, you'll never be truly successful. Oh, and by the way, the people you choose to spend your time with really makes a difference. As well as episode 138, there are two other episodes where I delve into success principles that are well worth revisiting. The first is episode 130 Counterintuitive Truths, and the second is more recent episode 311, 12 Hard Leadership Truths. Now let me go on now to give you Alex Hormozy's wisdom. More and more, I found myself drawn to Hormozi via his podcast the Game. And I also often listen to his wife Layla, who has a podcast called Build. Between them, there's a huge amount of wisdom to be had, especially if you're running your own business. They are the real deal. The episode I'm going to look at today was called 15 brutal truths. I know at 36 that I wish I knew at 20. I'm not going to go through all of them. Instead, I'm going to cherry pick the stuff that I think will resonate most with our community of no bullshit leaders. The first principle is if you want to be successful, you will suffer. So you have to choose a goal that's sufficiently worth it. Building a big business will suck. Alex even says the process is horrible. Making bets with uncertain outcomes. Feeling the sting of criticism. Make goals that are so big that they're easily worth the pain. The cost of suffering is fixed, but the size of the goal isn't. And you get to pick this principle two you can beat 99% of people if you can master the shame of rejection, the boredom of repetition, and the pain of feedback. This is super interesting. In the world of the no bullshit leader, we know that leading is hard, and to do it well demands that we let go of some of our most basic urges. Respect before popularity. Excellence over perfection. Friendly, not friends. Saying no to dumb shit. All of these things go against the grain, and most leaders never master them. Principle 3 what you do next is always more important than what you did last. I love this one. I was watching a college football playoff game today and one of the head coaches was being interviewed after the halftime break. He said something super interesting. We've got to get good at Selective amnesia. If we make a bad play, we wipe it and move on. It's only the next play that counts. Always look to the next play. The fourth brutal truth is you need to do so much volume that it's unreasonable that you would fail. People grossly underestimate how many reps it takes to get good at something. In the beginning of anything, you will suck. I wish I was a better golfer, but I don't play often enough to be better. I know that I could be a really good golfer, but I'd have to dedicate a lot more time to it. To practice enough to play enough rounds, to take enough lessons that failure would become unreasonable. Now you can apply this principle to anything. Learning to fly a plane. Dating. Having difficult conversations with your people. Volume counts. Principle 5 Extrapolate any past success to future success. We tend to fear new situations because we don't see the applicability of our previous successes. Working this out is a huge confidence builder. Skills are generalizable. Because I did it in this area, I can apply it in another area. For example, in my case because I've run a few marathons or I know I have the mental strength to keep going through virtually any hardship. And if you're one of our younger, up and coming no bullshit leaders, you'll find this one interesting. Hormozi says that if you're young, you should work as many hours as you possibly can while you can. You won't always have that much energy to give. Trust me now. I still have enormous energy, but it's not a patch on the energy I had in my 20s and 30s. He says. Capitalise on it while you have it. Dig the well before you're thirsty. Brutal truth number six Keep showing up every day even when the rewards are not guaranteed. Your potential is determined by the amount of uncertainty that you're able to tolerate and for how long. You don't know whether or not you're going to get the promotion. You don't know if your new product will sell. You don't know if anyone's going to listen to your podcast. The people who keep showing up are the ones who eventually succeed. In another episode, Hormozi said, if you're building a business, you have to work your face off for 10 years. If you haven't been hard at it for 10 years, you can't really expect to be successful. Brutal truth number seven One of the biggest returns on effort is long term thinking. Why? Because so few people are willing to do it now. Even though there's a big push at the moment around being present and being in the moment, sometimes that focus can be an anchor on progress. If you can think about your long term position, it's going to force you to solve today's problems. If you're in a hole, do whatever it takes to get out of it quickly. There's no way you're going to be able to think about self actualization as long as you're worried about how to pay the rent. Principle number eight Sadness comes from a perceived lack of options I've had a number of clients over the last several years who've confessed to me that they'd rather not be doing what they're doing, but they feel trapped. Hormozi says that fear exists in the vague, not in the specific. This one is incredibly insightful. I call it Naming the Beast and I speak about this principle at length in the resilience module of Leadership. Beyond the Theory. Be specific about what you would prefer and what it would take to get it. What trade offs are you currently unwilling to make? What are you afraid of and what's the worst that can happen? If you call it out explicitly, it takes a lot of the power out of your fear. Brutal truth number nine Saying no to almost everything is the price for getting good at the most important thing. This is just simplicity and focus in action. Focus on the thing that makes the most difference. Don't expect that you're going to find success by shotgunning around and trying a million different things. Focus. Focus on the one thing that you're trying to achieve and be relentless. You get lucky by staying in the game for long enough for luck to find you. Some call this serendipity. Finally, brutal truth number 10. The only belief you need is belief in your own ability to figure it out. Huge shout out here to my daughter and the CEO of our business M on this one. She's been beating the house odds for years by constantly evolving, growing and figuring it out for our business. EM's learnt more about running a business in the last seven years than I did in my first 20. So the moral of the story is don't wait for perfect conditions. Just start. And once you start, stick with the uncommon path for an extended period of time, long after it makes sense to stop. These principles are incredibly powerful and they're also timeless. Most people, though, will never commit to them. They would rather deny that they exist and blame other people and circumstances for their lack of success. That's unfortunate, but it's entirely predictable. If you want to make success inevitable, take these lessons to heart. Bookmark this episode and just play it from time to time. Let these principles become part of who you are and I guarantee you will see the difference. Alright, so that brings us to the end of episode 384. I really hope you enjoyed it, but as I'm sure you know, listening is easy, leading is hard. That's why we created Leadership beyond the Theory, our flagship program that turns insight into action and action into results. This is where we unlock the secrets of elite leadership performance and give you the tools that you need to reach the pinnacle of career success. I'm looking forward to next week's episode, the Cost of Leadership. Until then, I know you'll take every opportunity you can to be a no Bullshit. Sam.