MBA2549 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Have Fun While Growing my Business? - The $100 MBA Show

Summary

Podcast Summary: The $100 MBA Show – Episode MBA2549 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Have Fun While Growing my Business?

Episode Details:

Title: MBA2549 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Have Fun While Growing my Business?
Host: Omar Zenhom
Release Date: November 20, 2024
Description: In this Q&A episode, Omar Zenhom addresses a listener’s question about maintaining enjoyment while scaling a business. He delves into the relationship between fun, reward, and success, drawing insights from various successful individuals across different fields.

Introduction to Q&A Wednesday

[01:09] Omar Zenhom introduces the episode: Omar welcomes listeners to a special Q&A Wednesday episode, inviting them to submit their questions for future shows. He sets the stage for addressing Angela’s question: “How do I have fun while growing my business?”

Reframing Fun: From Enjoyment to Reward

Initial Response: Omar begins by challenging the conventional notion that growing a business must be inherently fun. He posits that instead of focusing on fun, entrepreneurs should seek reward and fulfillment from their efforts.

Key Quote: "It doesn't have to be fun. It needs to be rewarding. Success will be fun." — Omar Zenhom [02:15]

Discussion: He emphasizes that the journey toward success, characterized by overcoming challenges and achieving milestones, inherently brings satisfaction. Omar draws parallels with athletes and artists who endure rigorous training not for the enjoyment of each moment but for the rewards of their accomplishments.

Key Takeaway 1: Success Makes the Grind Worth It

Insight: Omar underscores that the pursuit of success provides the motivation to endure the daily grind. The anticipation of achieving goals transforms challenging tasks into meaningful steps toward fulfillment.

Example: He references Michael Phelps, who acknowledged not enjoying daily swimming sessions but found immense satisfaction in winning competitions. This perspective mirrors how business owners can view their efforts as steps toward significant achievements.

Key Quote: "Many of them don't love the process. They love the success that comes from dedication." — Omar Zenhom [04:30]

Key Takeaway 2: Find Joy in Building Something That Matters

Insight: Building a business that provides value and impacts others brings a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment. This meaningful work serves as a source of joy, even when the day-to-day tasks are not enjoyable.

Personal Example: Omar shares his experience at the DC bkk conference, where he delivered a keynote speech. The extensive preparation and effort culminated in positive feedback from attendees, reinforcing the rewarding nature of making a meaningful impact.

Key Quote: "Focus on building something meaningful. Enjoy the impact you're making." — Omar Zenhom [06:10]

Action Step: Entrepreneurs should concentrate on the positive impact their business has, whether it's solving a problem or enhancing customers' lives, to find fulfillment.

Key Takeaway 3: Enjoy What the Business Provides – Time and Financial Freedom

Insight: As businesses grow, they can offer entrepreneurs greater time and financial freedom. This freedom allows business owners to enjoy personal passions and activities outside of work, which constitutes the true fun derived from business success.

Example: Omar cites Richard Branson, who, despite building numerous businesses, uses his success to pursue activities like traveling and philanthropy, highlighting that the fun comes from what the business enables him to do.

Key Quote: "The real fun comes from that freedom and not necessarily the day to day hustle." — Omar Zenhom [07:30]

Action Step: Identify what your business can provide outside of daily operations, such as lifestyle improvements or personal fulfillment, and let these benefits be your source of enjoyment.

Conclusion: Embracing Reward Over Immediate Fun

Omar wraps up by reiterating that while the entrepreneurial journey may not always be fun, focusing on the rewarding aspects makes the effort worthwhile. He encourages listeners to find meaning and purpose in their work, ensuring that the ultimate success and impact provide the true sense of joy.

Final Quote: "The joy comes from not the daily grind, but the rewards that you reap along the way." — Omar Zenhom [11:45]

Omar invites listeners to submit more questions for future episodes and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a perspective that values meaningful achievements over immediate enjoyment.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs:

Embrace the Grind for the Sake of Success: Understand that enduring daily challenges leads to meaningful rewards.
Build Something Meaningful: Focus on creating value and making a positive impact to find fulfillment.
Leverage Business Growth for Personal Freedom: Use the success of your business to enjoy time and financial freedom outside of work.

Resources Mentioned:

Submit Questions: Visit 100-MBA-NETQ.
Subscribe on YouTube: The $100 MBA Show YouTube Channel
Free Resources: 100mba.net

Note: All advertisement segments and non-content sections from the transcript have been omitted to maintain focus on the episode's educational content.

Transcript

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B (1:09)

To the $100 NBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zinholm and today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday episode where we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners, or one of our viewers on YouTube or community members. If you have a question you want to ask, go ahead and send me your question over at 100- MBA-NETQ and we'll answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday. Today's question is from Ang and Angela asks how do I have fun while growing my business? This is a great question, but my answer might surprise you. It doesn't have to be fun. It needs to be rewarding. That's all it needs to be is rewarding. The truth is, success will be fun. The pursuit of success and the challenge of overcoming difficulty will be fun. Will be rewarding. Probably one of the most fulfilling things you'll ever do. And I'm going to give you plenty of examples of successful people in business and other fields of life and their perspective on should they be having fun or how much fun they're having to get to that successful level. In preparation of today's episode, I did a bit of research on many successful people that I admire. Olympic athletes, professional athletes, musicians, award winning actors, and of course business people. People that have built incredible businesses and many of them say they don't love the grind. Many of them admit that the training, the work to get there is brutal, but they push through because the reward is worth it. Sitting on that stage and winning that Grammy, right? Or building a business that helps so many people, they say it's worth it. The same goes with building your business. It's not always going to feel fun, but you're going to stick with it because of the rewards that are involved. It's going to be worthwhile for you, of all that pain and anguish, because the success and the impact you make will make you feel proud. And that leads me to my first key takeaway for you in today's lesson. And that is success is what makes the grind worth it. Many of the athletes that I've studied, the musicians, the business leaders, they don't always love the process. They don't love the work that it takes to become successful, but they love the success that comes from dedication. I remember seeing Michael Phelps in an interview with one of the most decorated Olympic athletes in history. He said that he didn't love swimming every day, right? But he loved winning and the satisfaction of knowing that he gave it his all. The same principle applies to business. When I look back at the things that I am most proud of, that I'm most happy that I went through, it was challenging, it was tough, it was a grind. But that was most rewarding that I actually got through that. Right? It's okay to have fun and enjoy the process as much as you can. We're going to talk about that in a moment. How to find the joy. At the same time, you got to remember that the things you're going to be most proud of at the end of your career, at the end of your life, are the challenges you went through. One of my favorite biographies is Open by Andre Agassiz, his autobiography. And the book starts with him saying, I hate tennis. I hate waking up morning feeling so sore I have to take a hot shower just so I can be able to walk to breakfast in my kitchen. Right? And he expresses his disdain for tennis, but he says, I keep doing it because I love being a champion. So what I want you to do as an action step is reframe how you see the work. It's not about having fun every moment. It's about knowing that every task you do is one step towards something meaningful, something that you're going to be proud of. Second key takeaway is find joy in building something that matters. Okay? While the day to day grind might not always be fun and exciting, building something that makes an impact is exciting, is special. Most people don't do this. We are privileged as business owners to get to do this. Knowing that your Business provides value to others, is deeply fulfilling and it brings a sense of purpose, a sense of I got to get up in the morning and make this happen. I'm going to give you an example from my own life, from my own experience. Recently I went to a conference called DC bkk. It's a very large conference of digital nomads and entrepreneurs. And I was a closing keynote there and I was working on my speech that I was delivering is about 30 minutes long and I wanted to impact the audience as much as possible. And it was a lot of hard work for me to, you know, first of all, fly to Bangkok, get there, you know, stay in the hotel, rehearse, work on my speech. I've been working on my speech for weeks and months beforehand, working on my slides. It's a lot of work. It's not easy, you know, and I'm sitting there, you know, trying to learn from the audience leading up to my speech. I'm the closing keynote. So there's a few days of conference before I get on stage and I want to learn from the audience and figure out, you know, who they are. I'm talking to them and during lunch, I'm networking, I'm exhausted by the end of the day, you know, I'm trying to make sure that I deliver the best speech possible and cater to the audience. And at the same time, I gotta make sure that I don't get sick and I get healthy, I stay healthy, I get on stage, I have energy, and then I don't flop and deliver a horrible speech or get nervous or whatever it might be. But I did it anyway and I wanted to really do a good job. I was so driven by the fact that I know that this talk can impact this audience and really influence them to move their business in the right direction. And I remember giving that talk on the stage and closing out the conference and then they would have like a dinner and a party later on. And at that party, so many people came up to me and said how much that talk impacted them. And in that moment in that party, I realized this is why I was doing it. It's because I really wanted to make sure I was making an impact. This is me. I want to have some significance in my life. I want to feel like my work actually impacts others. And that's what drives me to do all that work, to deliver a 30 minute speech and fly away back home and get back to work on something else, like this podcast. So it's not always going to be fun. The actual work leading up to the speech is a lot of, you know, heartache and a lot of endurance. And I have to rehearse it over and over and deliver and figure out what's the best way for me to communicate to the audience and make sure that I'm making eye contact and I'm working on my speaking skills and my delivery skills and all that. The point here is, is that leading up to that 30 minutes, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of pain, but I know it's going to be rewarding. So therefore I focus and I get it done. So the action step here is to focus on the impact your business has, whether it's solving a problem or making life easier for your customers. Let that be your source of fulfillment. Let that be the source of your fun.