Loading summary
A
Experiences make life more meaningful. And with Mastercard's priceless.com you can immerse yourself in unforgettable experiences in dining, sports, art, entertainment and more in over 40 destinations. From a round of golf with a legendary player to a cooking class with a celebrity chef, you can fuel your passions and create lasting memories. Explore experiences today@priceless.com exclusively for MasterCard cardholders. Terms and conditions apply.
B
It's better over here at&T customers switching to T Mobile has never been easier. We'll pay off your existing phone and give you a new one free. All on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com CarrierFreedom to switch today. Pay off up to 650 via virtual prepaid MasterCard in 15 days. Free phone up to $830 via 24 monthly bill credits plus tax, qualifying port and trade and service on go 5G next and credit required. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue credits. Your credit stop and balance and required finance agreement is due.
A
Hey everyone. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenholm, and in today's episode, you're going to learn why new ideas are keeping you poor. This is going to be a wake up call for many of you because if you're constantly chasing new ideas, you're not building wealth. The people who get rich, they know how to focus, they know how to double down, they know how to stay consistent. I'm speaking out of experience here because for many years I was chasing the next idea. I was just a slave to the next idea that pops in my head. Let's go do this. This is a new business idea. This is a good product. Oh, I can't wait to try this out. And I was constantly going from one thing to another and I had no momentum, had no consistency. I had no way to kind of build any kind of business that has any kind of value or reputation. And therefore I wasn't making any money. I wasn't making any significant wealth. Once I chose something to commit to and was consistent, which I call pick and stick, where you pick and stick to what you're doing. That's when I started to get momentum. That's when I started to build my wealth, started to build my business, started to be able to start thinking exponentially about what I can do and what I can earn. So today's lesson is incredibly important because if you're having a hard time getting traction, you're probably falling into this trap. It's time for you to get honest with yourself and have a new way forward. I'm going to show you how to do it. Let's get into it. Did you know that 70% of startups fail due to reasons like lack of focus, poor planning, or they're trying to do too much at one time? This was a study that I found from CB Insights. And the data really reveals that distractions will kill your business. Right? It's just a matter of time where you run out of time. And that's the thing about business, is that you need consistency and you need enough reps after another to learn, to iterate, to grow. But if you're not doing the same thing over and over, you don't get a chance to learn. Right? You're starting over all the time. And then you lose that compound interest of skills and reputation and customer testimonials and all that kind of stuff. Right? Today I'll explain how staying focused is the real secret to building wealth and why jumping from one idea to the next is keeping you stuck. It's keeping you from progressing and taking that next leap in your business, in your personal wealth. Let me show you how to do it. First, we need to establish something. We need to agree on something, and that is new ideas are your worst enemy, you might think. Omar, what are you talking about? Aren't business entrepreneurs, innovators, all about ideas? No, they're not all about ideas. They're actually about one big idea that they have and they focus on implementing that idea. Okay, I'm going to give you plenty of examples in today's lesson, but we need to establish that each time you jump from one new idea to the next, you lose momentum. Successful people don't do this, right? Successful people don't follow every shining object that comes up. They follow one path until it pays off. Jumping from one project to another feels like it's productive. Feels like, oh, I'm doing this and then I'm doing this. But you're actually counterproductive. It's actually disguised procrastination. That's the truth, is that you're moving from one thing to another because you don't want to go through the pain and the anguish of fighting through working something out, working out that idea till it gets better and better and refining it and shining it up. Right? Jeff Bezos didn't become rich because he started Amazon and then moved on quickly, Right? He stayed focused, right? He built it and then it became what it is to today, years and years later. It took him many years to become profitable, Many, many years to become a millionaire and then some years after that become a billionaire. But the point here is that he didn't just jump around, he focused on Amazon, right? And he focused on the one aspect of Amazon. First thing he did is he started selling books online. He became an online bookstore, which is actually quite brilliant because you don't really need to touch and feel books in order to buy them. You kind of understand they're usually books are bought by word of mouth and you could see the first couple PA pages through their website. But the point here is that Jeff focused on this. Let me just get a successful e commerce business that sells books. Once he did that, he started selling CDs and music. And once he did that, he started selling more things. And then after he started doing, he started selling everything right in his e commerce store. And then after that he did aws, which is, you know, selling servers up in the cloud. If you didn't know, it's one of the most successful arms of their business. But Amazon started creating their own products, the Fire Stick and, you know, Fire Tablet and whatever, all that kind of stuff. Some of them work, so them did. But the point here is that he focused and got successful first on one path, which was the bookstore. He found success, he had traction, the company went public, the stock went up. He was able to then invest and start selling other things. Right? He didn't just give up or pivot or think, oh, maybe there's more opportunity here, let me go over here. Before he hit the finish line, before he actually found success with the first thing. Second thing we need to establish is consistency matters. It matters. If you don't give yourself a chance to get better through reps, you'll never get good at anything. Right? Consistency builds mastery, right? And mastery is what we're looking for here. If you don't commit to something, if you just keep dabbling, you will never become great. You don't become great by dabbling, period. Right? Mastery comes from repetition and commitment. I learned this from this book, Mastery by Robert Greene. This is a great book which talks about a lot of different types of people. Some of them are called dabblers, some of them are called masters. There's also this other type called hackers. I'm not going to ruin the book for you, but one of the best books I've ever read in my life. Robert Greene is a genius when it comes to this. And guess what? People pay for what you master, right? People want great people at something because you're highly valuable. So therefore you're valuable. To the marketplace. Right? People are not interested in you being pretty good at 10 different things. That is not going to get you anywhere and it's not going to make you money. Let's take, for example, Elon Musk. Love them or hate them, you know, none of us are perfect, but let's use him as an example and his company, Tesla. He stuck with electric vehicles with Tesla, despite many early failures and setbacks and almost going bankrupt several times. Okay, let's talk about his company, SpaceX, where they're, you know, shooting up rockets in the sky, trying to get to Mars eventually, but they're also trying to reuse these rockets and get them to land. Right. A lot of people forgot that many rockets blew up in the air on live tv, okay? On live streaming, several times before they actually had a successful landing. All right? We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars just evaporated in the air in flames, literally. But he stayed consistent, he stuck to it. And now he has a very successful car company called Tesla, which is one of the best selling cars in the world. And SpaceX is changing the way people are thinking about space exploration and how rockets are used for sending payloads to space. Consistency and focus eventually pays off. Number three, something very important, something that I still have to remind myself constantly. So I'm still focused, right? And this is something I learned from Felix Dennis, who is the founder of Dennis Publishing, one of the biggest publishers in the uk, created many of the famous PC magazines as well as Maxim magazine. But. But he says, don't forget to chase the ball marked the money is here, okay? A lot of us forget to chase where the money is. Wealthy people focus their energy where the money already is. They double down on what works and resist that temptation to jump into something new. It's all about discipline and knowing when to stay in your lane. There are several times where I'm working on a business and the business is doing great, it's growing, I'm making money, I'm making a lot of profit. And then there's this opportunity comes and says, hey, why don't you start this little branch of the business? Why don't you get into this world? Why don't you build this product, right? And it's very tempting because there's a lot of promise. Now the thing about new ideas and new opportunities that come to you is that if you decide to take that opportunity, you will take away attention, time, effort, away from the thing that's working and making money. Money. You know that ball that says the money is here. You're keeping your focus away from that ball and you're looking at something else. You're going to dedicate more time and energy and sometimes money into that new opportunity. Now, the problem is that new opportunity is not proven. All you see is the promise. All you see is the good things that could happen. But you don't know all the bad things. The funny thing is that you know all the bad things in your current business, in your current endeavor, in the current product you're doing. You know all the challenges you have to deal with and you've kind of worked them out already. You're going into this blind and you don't know if there's money there, right? There's just some hope or wish that there's money there. Stop doing that, right? I had to stop myself so many times where it's like, I have this opportunity that I can take. I'm going to go ahead. No, the ball that's marked, the money's here is here where I'm working on. There's plenty of money here. Let me just keep on going here. That's if you want to get rich, right? If you want to explore new things, waste money and time, get frustrated, and if you have the time and patience for that, go ahead, by all means. But I'm not looking to waste my time and my energy. I only have certain number of years in my life and I don't want to expend it spinning my wheels. That's my personal opinion.
B
After investing billions to light up our network, T mobile is America's largest 5G network. Plus right now you can switch. Keep your phone and we'll pay it off up to $800. See how you can save on every plan versus Verizon and AT&T. @t mobile.com Keep and switch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service ported, 90 plus days with device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.
A
As entrepreneurs, when it comes to our finances, it can get confusing. It can get overwhelming. From expenses to vendor payments to reconciling accounting, it's a lot. If you're looking for a better way to simplify your finance operations, Ramp can be a complete game changer for you. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. I like the sound of that. Ramp gives finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With ramp, you're able to Issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of the month. This allows you to delegate certain tasks that require them to pay for things without you worrying about security. One of my favorite features is that RAMP's accounting software automatically collects receipts and categorizes your expenses in real time so you don't have to do it. This makes reconciling so easy. You'll never have to chase down a receipt again, and your employees will no longer spend hours submitting expense reports. The time you'll save each month on employee expenses will allow you to close your books even faster. RAMP estimates eight times faster. Businesses that use RAMP save an average of 5% the first year and now get $250. When you join RAMP, just go to ramp.commba ramp.commba R amp.commba cards issued by Sutton bank member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. One of my favorite quotes that encapsulates this whole idea is by David Packard, who's one of the founders of Hewlett Packard the computers. And he says that most businesses fail because of indigestion and not starvation, right? We take on too much, right? Too many opportunities, and we are in pain because of, oh, I got too much going on, right? I don't know where to split my ideas and my energy, my time and all that kind of stuff, right? So what you want to do here is you want to get in the habit of saying no. One of the things I learned the hard way is once you do something, once you choose to do something, it's like, say, for example, you get invited to a party this weekend, and that party is from 5pm to 10pm you decide to go to that party. Guess what? You can't do anything else other than that party. That's it. Every other opportunity, every other option you have, by saying yes to something, you're saying no to everything else. So be careful about what you say yes to because your time is limited. You don't have that much time. And by the way, a lot of people say time is on your side. I'm a believer that time is ticking, okay? You got to be very conscious about where you're spending the next month, two months, year, decade, because it's going to go like this and you're going to be say, oh, man, I'm way behind. Why didn't I focus? Why didn't I double down and work on what works? So this is my message to you. My message to you is make sure. You are conscious of the fact that I can't keep jumping up around and going from one thing to the next. I got to chase where the money is at, where I'm actually making money, where I'm getting traction. If you're in that position, be thankful and just focus. One of my favorite examples of this is Steve Jobs when he returned to Apple, right? He got fired from Apple, went to Next, and then he got rehired as a CEO of Apple. And the first thing he did is that he cut down the product line as much as possible, cut out all these products to focus on just a few things. And really it was the few things that Apple does best. And that's when Apple started to take off again. All right, number four, and I kind of touched on this a moment ago, but we're going to go deep. And that's lack of focus costs you time and money. Every time you abandon a project halfway, you waste time and energy that you invested, right? Meanwhile, somebody else is sticking to the project and getting better every day. And they're getting ahead and they're making money and they're getting richer. And that's just the bottom line, is that without focus, you'll never gain that momentum. You need to break through. Here's the brutal truth. Building something great takes time. It isn't always exciting. It is always fun in a walk in the park. But without focus, you're gonna stay stuck. If you keep switching gears, you'll be stuck at square one forever. Right? You'll just never get better and they'll get frustrated and eventually you're gonna give up on your dream. The bottom line is that new ideas are a distraction. They feel productive, but they're just delaying your success. Pick one idea, pick one product or business and see it through until it pays off. Wealth comes from consistency, not novelty. Right? The best way I've seen it done is that wealthy people get rich on one concept, on one idea. Once they get rich, they use that money to build the next concept, to build the next idea, to build the next product or service or business. But they don't do that until they hit a finish line and get enough wealth to be able to leverage that and do it easier the next time around. Right? Now, I know that today's episode was a little bit of tough love, a little bit in your face. But I am speaking out of frustration because of my own past. I was dabbling for way too long, probably for about eight or nine years when I was in a job of side hustling, building businesses on the side and I would try one thing another and it was really okay. But I wish I didn't do that because I didn't get any consistency and reps in getting better at any particular thing. But once I decided to choose something and commit to it and grind it through, even through the tough days, that's when I started to get traction, right? That's when I started to build something that was significant. That's when I started to make some money and get some financial freedom and not worry about my bills so much right now that's a great position to be in because now you have the luxury to say no to people and no to opportunities and allow you to stay focused. Now that's not going to happen by accident. You're going to have to focus, choose something that you believe in and work towards getting better at it every day. Thanks for tuning in to the $100 MBA show. I hope this episode gave you some sort of inspiration, even just a wake up call that you needed. If you want more insights, more resources, check out the description below on the video if you're watching on YouTube. If not, just go to 100-mba.net and we got a ton of resources, free templates, book reviews. We have over 2500 business lessons all for free. Check it out100mba.net I'm Omar Zenhom. Thank you so much for being a part of the $100 MBA and we'll check you in the next episode. We publish three days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. See you then. Take care. The kind of burgers you get today tells you a lot about yourself. You're either someone who settles for sad, same old same old burger. You're at a Carl's Jr obsessed with a tangy OG Western bacon cheeseburger, demanding a house made guacamole, loaded guac, bacon fired up for the insanely hot El Diablo or craving a classic Charbold Famous Star. Give in to your flavor cravings. Do your mouth to Carl's Jr. Good Burger.
Host: Omar Zenhom
Release Date: November 15, 2024
In Episode MBA2547 of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom delves into a crucial topic for aspiring entrepreneurs: how constantly chasing new ideas can hinder wealth creation. Drawing from personal experiences and renowned business figures, Omar provides actionable insights on maintaining focus, building momentum, and achieving financial success through consistency.
Omar opens the episode by highlighting a common obstacle faced by many entrepreneurs—the incessant pursuit of new ideas. He candidly shares his own struggles, stating:
“For many years I was chasing the next idea. I was just a slave to the next idea that pops in my head.” [01:20]
This lack of focus led to diminished momentum and prevented him from building a valuable and reputable business. Omar emphasizes that consistency and commitment are pivotal for wealth accumulation, contrasting this with the detrimental effects of constantly switching projects.
Referencing a study by CB Insights, Omar underscores the prevalence of failure among startups, attributing 70% of these failures to factors like:
He remarks:
“Distractions will kill your business. It's just a matter of time where you run out of time.” [03:05]
The takeaway is clear: without sustained effort and repetition, businesses fail to learn, iterate, and grow effectively.
To illustrate the importance of focus, Omar cites several high-profile entrepreneurs:
Jeff Bezos and Amazon: Omar explains how Bezos concentrated on building an online bookstore before diversifying into other ventures like CDs, AWS, and consumer electronics. This strategic focus allowed Amazon to establish a strong foundation and expand successfully.
“Jeff focused on Amazon, right? And he focused on the one aspect of Amazon... Once he did that, he started selling CDs and music.” [04:30]
Elon Musk with Tesla and SpaceX: Despite numerous setbacks, including rocket failures, Musk remained dedicated to his core projects. This unwavering commitment eventually led to the success of Tesla and groundbreaking advancements in space exploration with SpaceX.
“Consistency and focus eventually pays off.” [07:15]
Steve Jobs and Apple: Upon returning to Apple, Jobs streamlined the product line, eliminating superfluous products to concentrate on core strengths, which revitalized the company.
“He cut down the product line as much as possible... that's when Apple started to take off again.” [09:40]
These examples reinforce Omar’s argument that mastery and success stem from focused, sustained effort rather than spreading oneself too thin across multiple ventures.
Omar stresses that consistency leads to mastery, a concept he attributes to Robert Greene’s book, Mastery. He differentiates between dabblers and masters, emphasizing that:
“Mastery comes from repetition and commitment. I learned this from this book, Mastery by Robert Greene.” [05:50]
By dedicating time and effort to a single project, entrepreneurs can cultivate valuable skills, build a strong reputation, and create lasting customer relationships. This approach not only enhances personal expertise but also increases the business’s market value.
Drawing inspiration from Felix Dennis, founder of Dennis Publishing, Omar advises entrepreneurs to:
“Chase where the money is already at, and double down on what works.” [08:10]
He cautions against diverting attention to unproven opportunities, which can detract from existing profitable ventures. By prioritizing and reinforcing current revenue streams, businesses can solidify their financial foundation before exploring new avenues.
Omar offers several strategies to help entrepreneurs maintain focus and avoid the pitfalls of idea-chasing:
Pick and Stick: Choose a single idea or project and commit to it fully until it achieves success.
Say No: Be selective about new opportunities and resist the allure of distractions that don’t align with your primary goals.
Leverage Success: Use the wealth generated from your focused effort to fund new projects once your initial venture is established and profitable.
He encapsulates this philosophy with the advice:
“Wealth comes from consistency, not novelty.” [10:20]
Concluding the episode, Omar reflects on his personal journey, acknowledging the lessons learned from his years of dabbling:
“Once I decided to choose something and commit to it and grind it through, even through the tough days, that's when I started to get traction.” [10:00]
This personal testimony reinforces the episode’s central message: commitment and focus are essential for building significant and profitable businesses.
For more insights and resources, visit 100mba.net or check out the show on YouTube. Join Omar Zenhom on a journey to transform your business ideas into tangible wealth through practical, actionable strategies.