Transcript
A (0:00)
Quick one. Want to say a few words from our sponsor, NetSuite? One of the most overwhelming parts of running your own business, as many of you entrepreneurs will be able to attest to, is staying on top of your operations and finances. Whether you're just starting out or whether you're managing a fast growing company, the complexities only increase. So having the right systems in place is crucial. One which has helped me is one called NetSuite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast. And NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid platform. With this single source of truth, you'll have the visibility and control to make fast, informed decisions, which is crucial in business. I remember the chaos of scaling my first business and trying to keep everything in order. It was an absolute nightmare. And it's tools like NetSuite that make this easier. So if you're feeling the pressure, let NetSuite lighten the load. Head to NetSuite.com Bartlett and you can get a free download of the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. That's NetSuite.com Bartlett what about hard work? Does it matter?
B (1:04)
Well, since you ask it so simply, I'd say no or it certainly is not the most important thing. In fact, I think hard work leading to success is a myth. That. And let me, let me give you two examples. Okay? The first is to qualify what I mean, I work with a lot of, as we spoke earlier, before we actually began the session, about how younger people are different places in their life than older people, especially with career and how they think about it. And earlier in my life, I used to do triathlons. You know, the races that combine swimming and then biking and then running and back when I used to do them, they don't do it quite the same way anymore. It would be a mass water start. You have four or five hundred people who the gun sounds and all five hundred of them plow into the water simultaneously. Not a phase start. And as you can imagine, it is a shit show. You mean you're getting kicked and your goggles are being knocked off and you're being held underwater. And you quickly realize that if you want to be able to survive in this mass start, you're going to sprint for those first 4, 5, 600 yards to get yourself far enough in the front of the pack that you have open water. And in my opinion, work life is kind of like that when you're younger, when you don't really know what you're Doing when you have to go down a lot of false ends because you're not sure. Productive. You better work your ass off. You better sprint. You better work three times harder than everybody else in the company. So it's essential, but ideally, you get yourself far enough ahead that you recognize. I can't go at this pace for the entire T of the triathlon. I needed to. To get myself some breathing room, but now I can back off. So, yeah, at certain points in your career, you need hard work. At certain points in the trajectory of your business, you need hard work. You're fundraising. You can't say, oh, we're closing the round. I'm taking vacation for two weeks. We're doing M and A. I'm going to be. I'm only going to work a couple hours. No, you're going to have to grind it. But that's not the answer. All right, one more little story, which is part two to this, which is why I say that it's a myth for hard work. So during one part of my career, I lived in Europe. I was doing international marketing for a big software company. We had an office in Paris, and I lived in Paris, but I was meeting every week with the marketing people in our other branches. So probably four days out of five, I was flying, fly to Copenhagen one day, then I'd fly down to Milan, then I might fly to London, then I might fly to Madrid in one week. So I spent a lot of time at the airport, and because I'm sometimes not that organized, I'd be late, and you would find me just sprinting down the concourse in my blazer and my wool coat, trying to desperately make the plane. And what I found out was that probably 49% of the time I'd pull up to the gate and the plane was delayed, and. And I have to wander onto the plane, no problem at all. I could have made it on crutches. Instead, I'd sit there marinating in my sweat for another hour before the plane took off. Or the other 49% of the time, I'd come sprinting down the concourse, and you'd see the plane halfway out in the Runway about to take off. And what I realized is it didn't make a difference whether you ran for a plane or not, that you're either gonna make it or you weren't gonna make it. And that running didn't make the difference. And I vowed then and there I'd never run for a plane again, and I never have. And I'm telling you that story because It's a metaphor in that so many entrepreneurs spend all this time running for planes. They are up all night polishing their deck. They're reviewing the work of people to make sure the spelling is correct. They're double checking every detail. They, they are working so hard. But I know from experience that it's like running for the plane. Most of the time doesn't make a difference. You don't lose the deal at 2 o'clock that morning because you didn't check the funds. You lost that deal four weeks ago when you didn't have some fundamentals right or you just weren't the right company to begin with. No matter how hard you worked, you weren't going to change the outcome. And that is the key to having some balance in your life as an entrepreneur is this recognition that if you're smart about the things that you choose to focus on, you make 99% of the difference and that all that extra work does not really change the outcome any.