CHAPTER 6
LEAN IN
On a snowboard, it's common to feel tired, unstable, stuck or out of your depth. Most newbie riders naturally lean back to try to escape the situation that's troubling them.
They secretly wish they were off the mountain. However, the minute you lean back, your feet wobble, you can't steer and you find yourself face down in the snow. Leaning back causes you to lose balance completely. It hurts, it's humiliating and it makes you want to get the hell off the mountain even more.
Experienced riders know that leaning back doesn't work. They know that if they want to have a good time they must overcome the urge to lean back. They must lean in to the mountain.
As soon as they lean in, they get stability and control, and they get into the flow of things.
Most people are leaning back from their business, industry, job or even their life.
Secretly, they are wanting things to be easier. They want to have the idea and get paid for being a visionary. This isn't how it works.
Entrepreneurs are the ones who implement with excellence, not the ones who just sit around with nothing more than their lofty ideas.
Leaning back in your business or your life will cost you dearly.
Leaning back is when you start looking for an exit; it's when you want an old product just to keep on selling; it's when you get annoyed that you have competition. Leaning back is the lazy way, or the way of a coward.
True entrepreneurs lean in. When they have the chance to invest money in a smart way, they take it. If a great person becomes available, they hire them. If a competitor shows up, they get fired up for the challenge of outperforming them.
When you lean in, you don't dream of retirement. You don't hope for an exit to show up. You hope to see bigger challenges, you want your vision to show up faster and you dream of never retiring.
Leaning in means working with the best people, it means showing up with your game face on and leaving your doubts at the door.
Leaning in means taking the calculated risk, it means committing to being excellent and doing what it takes to solve whatever problems come along. It means spending time, money and energy when the opportunity comes along and then taking accountability for the results.
Leaning in is about pursuing your vision, loving your team, caring about the details and getting it right.
Leaning in is about wishing to be better, not wishing for things to be easier.
Strangely, leaning in produces an easier life.
Just like on a snowboard, when you lean in life gets easier. When you lean in your business works, you attract a great team, your products sell. When you lean out, life is hard. When you lean in life shows up as easy, you have stability and you attract opportunity.
Leaning back from your world produces a difficult life. You end up falling for every gimmick because you are searching for an easy answer. Leaning back makes everyone else lean back: the people on your team are also looking for an exit, they are also wanting quick fixes and they are only giving 50% of their best game.
If you want the results, you'd better be leaning in.
Before reading on, make a list of the key problems you need to solve in the year ahead so that your business succeeds:
NOTE: make this list first, before you go on.
LOOK FOR BIG PROBLEMS NOT SMALL ONES
So here's some bad news – you can't solve entrepreneurial problems, they get bigger as you get more successful. I have personally sat with thousands of entrepreneurs and they all have the same problems – marketing, sales, cash flow, recruitment, technology, systems, standing out, achieving growth, fear of failure, confidence issues, limiting beliefs, not enough time or money.
The only difference is that the scale of the problems changes. A small business might be looking to hire a sales person, a bigger business might need to hire a whole sales team. A small business might need to get a £25k overdraft, a bigger business might need £2.5m investment but it's the same problem – funding growth.
As you solve entrepreneurial problems, they are almost immediately replaced with another problem on a bigger scale. The difference between successful entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs is the size of the problems they are facing – NOT the nature of the problems. Conversely, if you scale back you'll experience the exact same problem on a smaller scale. You won't solve the problems; you'll just find yourself solving problems that aren't very inspiring.
By trying to solve problems, you set yourself up for anxiety, frustration and disappointment, because you're expecting to reach a point where no more problems exist. It would be like a footballer setting a goal to run onto the field and have no opponents; the nature of the game is that as you get better, the opponents get stronger not weaker.
The paradigm shift is to deliberately focus on bigger problems. Rather than trying to minimise problems or solve problems, successful entrepreneurs simply choose to solve more meaningful problems on a bigger scale. They go looking for a bigger problem that lots of people face. They try to solve the problem in a bigger and more powerful way. They go out to raise larger sums of money so they can help more customers. They develop technology that's more robust so they can deliver a better experience globally. They hire people who are big thinkers and doers to be on their team.
Consider the entrepreneurs you admire most. My bet is that if you look closely, you will discover that they have much bigger problems than you. Many of them are dealing with huge financial requirements, cutting-edge technology innovation and extensive government regulations. Every mistake they make costs millions, but they plough ahead regardless. They focus on solving huge issues in a transformational way, with high-end people and technology that aren't easy to find, develop or work with.
Rather than hoping to solve the problems you have today, start focusing on how you can take on bigger problems that will grow and expand as you do. Develop an expectation that, for the rest of your life, you'll be facing bigger and bigger problems.
Great entrepreneurs don't bother trying to solve business-related problems, they focus all of their energy on solving problems for their clients. The most successful entrepreneurs focus on solving problems for society. If you want to really unleash your entrepreneurial mind, start by trying to solve problems that relate to the United Nations Global Goals – the 17 most important problems facing humanity.
Expect that you are up for it – your shoulders are broad, your wits are sharp, surrounded by resources, you are alive at the most amazing time in history. You have what it takes to solve big and meaningful problems, so don't bog yourself down for too long with anything less.
ACCEPT THESE SEVEN HARD TRUTHS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
I see a lot of people who are struggling on their entrepreneur journey. They suffer stress, anxiety and all sorts of emotional highs and lows. Pretty soon they start leaning out and they wobble. Entrepreneurship was meant to be fun, it was meant to be a route to islands, endless parties and even space travel. What happened? Where did things go wrong?
Whenever I meet with a forlorn-faced entrepreneur, I share seven harsh truths with them to try and snap them out of their funk. On the surface my advice isn't motivational, in fact it seems downright depressing and makes you want to go back to a day job. But delve a little deeper and you'll see a formula for being a lot happier in business. When you deny these truths, you suffer. When you embrace them, you thrive.
TRUTH 1: IT'S HARD AND IT GETS HARDER
Entrepreneurship isn't easy: you're taking on people's problems. You are taking on problems for your customers, for your staff, for your family and ultimately yourself. This responsibility is something that your family and your staff won't or can't grasp (and nor should you try to make them – it's your journey not theirs). Entrepreneurship is so hard at times, it's not even worth mentioning how hard it is. Rather than hoping for the day it's effortless, you need to embrace the challenge. Realise that you aren't digging ditches or scavenging for food and water.
Your problems are entirely of your own making and you are engaged in a meaningful struggle to bring your vision out into the world. Stop looking for reprieve and start making things happen – accept that it's hard, but you're living in the most exciting time in history and it's hard because you've chosen a new path.
TRUTH 2: NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU
There's no entrepreneur coming to ‘take you to the next level’ – they are already building their own businesses. There's no world-class manager who's coming to join your team and fix every issue – they already work for Google and they would want crazy money to leave. They certainly wouldn't want to work for someone who needs saving.
In every way, you are in the driver's seat and everyone is looking to you for leadership. Great people on your team will be great because you made them great – you trained them, developed them and believed in their potential, even while they made mistake after mistake.
Removing the hope that someone is coming to save you leaves you with the realisation that this business is in your hands, and your hands only. Stop searching for the White Knight and start showing up with bravery and leaning in to your challenges.
TRUTH 3: IN ORDER TO DO THE WORK YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO WIN THE WORK
Here's the problem, in order to do the work, you need to win the work. You have to get a client to transfer the money, sign the cheque or enter their PIN. Until that happens, it doesn't matter how cool your ideas are or how good you are at delivering value to a client.
There's no easy sales system that generates clients passively. Great companies with billion-dollar brands still need excellent sales professionals to secure new business. No amount of content generates automatic sales, beautiful branding won't do it either, and great sales people will only perform on your team if they can see how you sell first.
Sales skills can be learned. You can craft brilliant presentations, get better at listening and work on your communication skills. Eventually you can inspire a team of people who help win business – but only if you can find your groove when selling first. Lean in to the sales process and never take your foot off the accelerator.
TRUTH 4: THINGS DON'T WORK FOR LONG
There's no foolproof system, there's no magic bullet and there are no people who just work hard without leadership. Every system will need to be refined, every cutting-edge strategy will become commonplace, every hot product will cool off, every ace team member will need training and every asset will need developing.
Business requires you to juggle and there's no such thing as a ball that just stays in the air, there are only people who get good at juggling. As soon as you give up on the expectation that things will just work, you suddenly embrace the challenge of dealing with more and more complexity. You discover a rhythm of pre-empting what needs your attention, and you begin to fix things just as they begin to break rather than waiting for them to get completely destroyed. Expect people and things to break down over time and lean in to the process of reinvention.
TRUTH 5: YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL
Despite your best thinking and most diligent planning, most of what you do won't work. Your best advertising will be ignored by most people. Your best sales presentation will be rejected by a huge portion of people you present to. Your foolproof solution will fall apart at a crucial time. You're going to lose a battle you should have won. You're going to be at a low point and then another thing is going to come along and crush you. You'll have days that you just can't get yourself fired up no matter how hard you try.
Some of the best entrepreneurs have had complete business failures and gone bankrupt. Even when the worst things happen, the sun comes up the next day and you have another opportunity to try something else.
Let yourself off the hook for being perfect – it's not even a possibility. Get on with doing the best you can and expect delays. Lean in to failure because it's a great teacher and it's part of the process.
TRUTH 6: IT'S UNFAIR
Sometimes people don't keep their word, some deals go badly and situations unfold that everyone agrees is wrong. Even when this happens, don't become jaded or bitter. Don't complain how unfair things are – accept it and move forward.
Keep the perspective that life in general isn't fair and there's a good chance you've been on the right side of the unfairness before. You were probably born in a country that gave you an unfair advantage, you probably had lucky breaks, you probably had an education millions of people dream of. You probably have an unfair amount of health and good looks. If you have running water and healthy food available, many people would consider those basics of life aren't fairly distributed. As an entrepreneur, you must never complain about how unfair things are for you, instead champion the causes of others less fortunate than yourself and solve problems others won't solve for themselves. Then you will be fine. Lean in to the unfairness and be grateful that you have the opportunity to overcome your unique set of challenges.
TRUTH 7: YOU'RE NOT ENTITLED TO REWARDS
You're not on this planet to be the recipient of riches and great rewards. You're not entitled to travel, to have a big house or to enjoy endless holidays.
You're here to solve problems for others. Your most rewarding work will be in the service of others, doing meaningful but challenging work. You might not get recognised for this work, the credit might go to someone else, or the people you help might not be grateful at times.
It just so happens you've already won the human lottery. By virtue of the fact you're alive at this moment, you're educated, have access to technology, medicine and information, you've already got the rewards. You're luckier than 99.9% of every human being that has walked the earth. Now it's time to bring your A-game for helping others.
As soon as you give up on the idea that you're doing this business for a payoff, and you just serve others as best you can and as sustainably as you can, you'll start to gain huge satisfaction from the work itself. Everything on top of the opportunity to serve will be a bonus. Additionally, without any sense of entitlement to rewards, you will be the one who chooses to reward yourself as and when you want to rather than expecting the rewards to magically arrive. Lean in to serving others and accept the rewards you choose.
Business is tough, but it's great. It's a challenge that forces you to perform at your best and it won't tolerate anything less. The main thing that makes business miserable is juvenile expectations that it should always be fun, fair, easy and rewarding by default. If you want it to be easy, it gets damn hard. Paradoxically, if you embrace the struggle, it's a lot more fun and you start to realise just how lucky you are.