I pushed against a brick wall… and succeeded

Have you ever tried to move a brick wall?

Ever stood with your hands against it, pushing as hard as you can, without it moving?

You can push so hard, but no matter how hard you try, it doesn’t budge!

That’s what it can feel like to start and grow a business.

It can feel so hard. 

It takes so much time, effort, and maybe even blood, sweat, and tears.

It’s embarrassing to push so hard for achieving your dreams, just to fail or give up.

But sometimes, when we try to start new things, we fail because of our lack of skills.

It’s not the blood, sweat, and tears that kill us.

It’s the lack of skill that does.

So here are…

5 skills that can get you to the next step in your business

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1) Time management, prioritization, and planning your day

It goes without saying that managing your time effectively can change your life.

When I worked my corporate job, I remember sitting down with my manager and talking at length about how to manage our time.

I was working really hard, but not achieving the right results.

After my discussing with my boss though, I ended up focusing my time and energy on the things that mattered, rather than time-wasters.

And it completely changed my outcomes. 

My favorite resources on this:

Getting Things Done by David Allen

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris (it’s more of a time management book than an entrepreneurship book)

2) Speed

Speed is important.

Why?

We have such limited time in our days that if we dilly dally, we won’t have enough time to truly make our mark!

When I worked at Valuetainment, I watched Patrick Bet-David move with incredible speed. And that speed wasn’t just “speed in making decisions” - it was pervasive throughout his whole life:

• Speed driving or walking from meeting to meeting
• Speed in making decisions
• Speed in acting on recommendations

My favorite resource on this:

Working for someone who’s massively successful that you look up to. You’ll learn more doing this for 3 months than any other resource.

3) Learning how to say no

As an entrepreneur, half of your job is learning when to say no and when to say yes. 

When I started a business back in college, I said yes to everything. At school, I was involved in something like 7 different organizations, plus classes.

This took away from important things, like friendships, health, and my business. 

If I had learned how to say no, my business would have turned out much differently I’m sure. 

My favorite resource on this:

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy (although it talks about goal setting and achieving, it very much talks about how you need to focus on what matters).

4) Focus

Focus will either help you succeed or be your demise.

There are multiple levels of focus you need as an entrepreneur. 

• Opportunity focus: Focus on your business and ignore other business opportunities that don’t align with your goals
• Goal focus: You need to identify and focus on the next goal to achieve to push your business forward
• Task focus: (I struggle with this the most) Focus on the task in front of you and not social media, text messages, or email. 

My favorite resource on this:

Truthfully, not sure… Please recommend one!

5) Saving money & business budgeting

Have you been on TikTok and heard someone say, “Start an LLC so you can run your expenses through it and get tax write-offs!”

That sounds so smart.

And when you start a business, it’s easy to think, “Yeah, I should start a business so I can get tax write-offs!”

Here’s what they don’t tell you:

First, not everything can be written off 100%. That meal you paid for? Likely only 50% of the cost can be written off. Just because you spend money doesn’t mean every penny can be written off.

Second, “write-offs” are misunderstood. Calculating taxes (in a basic way) follows this formula:

(Gross income - Write-offs = Adjusted gross income) x tax rate - tax credits. 

What does this mean? Tax deductions/write-offs don’t lower your taxes 1:1- tax credits do. In other words, when you spend $1 of business money, you only get to reduce your taxes by a few cents- NOT a whole dollar. Tax credits directly reduce your tax bill, not write-offs.

Third, and most importantly, if you spend “business money” on things that aren’t really for the business, that’s money that’s not being reinvested. The goal of your business is to maximize profit, not minimize taxes.

So what do you do about this?

Budget for your business in a way that maximizes profit, not maximizing tax deductions. Lowering your tax bill is great, but maximizing your profit will be way better!

Don’t step over a dollar to save a penny.