Dan Martell - The Founders Operating System

00:00:00.000 The founder's operating system.

00:00:02.160 Today I'm super excited to share with you guys

00:00:04.020 kind of this philosophy I have

00:00:05.820 on how great founders operate.

00:00:08.740 You know, I remember a few months ago

00:00:10.120 I was talking with the founder

00:00:11.000 and they were having some struggles and challenges

00:00:13.020 raising their round of funding.

00:00:14.760 You know, so we met at my house

00:00:15.760 and we were talking through the strategy

00:00:17.020 and, you know, it got really clear to me quickly

00:00:19.940 that the challenge was actually not the mechanics

00:00:22.860 or the process because I had showed them that.

00:00:25.040 I showed them how the pre-marketing phase works

00:00:27.100 and the fundraising and the close.

00:00:28.260 All those things were being executed on, but the challenge was their approach to it or their mindset.

00:00:34.660 The conversations, the language they were using was not confident.

00:00:40.380 I don't know if you've ever talked to a friend that is just down.

00:00:43.360 Even though they're saying the right things, you just don't feel it.

00:00:46.480 That's what I was hearing.

00:00:49.320 And it reminded me about this analogy I like to use where, you know, a lot of people try to understand the applications in life.

00:00:56.180 They want to understand lean startup,

00:00:58.140 agile development, fundraising processes,

00:01:00.680 Facebook marketing, those are all applications,

00:01:03.220 but those applications actually run

00:01:05.140 on the operating system of the mind, right?

00:01:08.020 I'm obviously a computer geek,

00:01:09.340 so that analogy made a lot of sense.

00:01:11.180 You've got all these different things

00:01:12.220 you can learn how to do, the skills, the tactics,

00:01:15.140 but those at some point have to run

00:01:17.140 on the operating system, and if that's not great,

00:01:19.580 they don't run.

00:01:20.680 Those strategies or those tactics don't work.

00:01:23.280 You know, I don't know how many people

00:01:24.980 learn about Facebook marketing, but are they still doing it?

00:01:27.980 Do they even get going?

00:01:29.480 Do they start to see some results and not pursue it?

00:01:31.880 That's because the operating system isn't working.

00:01:33.880 So what I want to teach you guys today is three ways that I

00:01:37.280 think about improving your mindset or what I call the

00:01:40.180 founder's operating system.

00:01:41.880 The number one is the people.

00:01:43.180 You know, when you think about life, you're going to be so

00:01:46.180 influenced by the amount of people you spend the most time

00:01:48.180 with.

00:01:48.680 You know, there's a quote that says you're the average of the

00:01:50.080 five people you spend the most time with.

00:01:52.380 it couldn't be more true because essentially every idea you have comes from conversations.

00:01:58.480 Every moment where you feel pushed or challenged comes from somebody else either you saw do really

00:02:03.540 well or they asked you questions that made you kind of reassess where you were going and those

00:02:08.260 conversations, those people matter so much. So to be around them, you can organize founders dinners

00:02:12.920 and I did a video on this. You can go to events. You can build your personal advisory board or what

00:02:18.360 I call the dream 100, you know,

00:02:20.400 and really just be conscious that

00:02:22.160 to build that founder operating system,

00:02:23.660 you need to have the right people in your life

00:02:26.300 to push you towards that direction.

00:02:28.000 The second thing that I do,

00:02:29.540 that I've been doing now for 15 years,

00:02:31.380 is I read books.

00:02:32.980 Now, a lot of people say, well, I read a lot.

00:02:34.780 I read blogs, I read magazines,

00:02:36.220 you know, I subscribe to Fast Company, all these things.

00:02:38.340 Look, those things, when it comes to ideas and knowledge,

00:02:40.720 I consider those fast food.

00:02:42.420 Those are not deep, healthy, elaborate perspectives

00:02:46.980 on a strategy or an idea.

00:02:48.640 I recommend books, and I do two types of books.

00:02:50.780 I do books on things like leadership,

00:02:53.620 branding, marketing, positioning,

00:02:55.160 and then other ones on just biographies

00:02:56.900 because it kind of gives me that first one,

00:02:58.500 the people part, where I'm reading

00:02:59.920 about somebody else's journey and I can resonate with that

00:03:02.460 and it motivates me or excites me

00:03:04.160 or it kind of just opens up the breadth of thinking

00:03:07.900 that I can have around a problem.

00:03:09.660 Or it's just cool to understand how history has evolved

00:03:13.300 and how entrepreneurship has evolved as a profession.

00:03:16.880 Anyways, so books is a huge part of that.

00:03:19.220 Not magazines or blogs, real books.

00:03:21.260 Every day at minimum, I spend at least 30 minutes

00:03:23.960 while I'm eating breakfast.

00:03:25.120 But more than that, usually one to two hours a day

00:03:27.800 because to me, it's like compound interest.

00:03:29.720 The more I learn today, the bigger the return

00:03:32.500 is gonna be over time.

00:03:33.960 And then the third one is modeling.

00:03:36.040 You know, a lot of people talk about this idea

00:03:38.000 of best practices, but for me, modeling is identifying

00:03:41.840 three or four, maybe up to five people that you feel,

00:03:45.000 for what you're trying to accomplish,

00:03:46.200 they've really exhibited or accomplished that

00:03:48.940 in a way that you admire, right?

00:03:50.920 And that word admire is really important.

00:03:52.740 If it's business, if it's family, whatever it is,

00:03:55.360 you find those people and you try to model them.

00:03:57.440 Now, you may not have access to them.

00:03:59.140 You may not have their cell numbers.

00:04:00.980 Maybe you can't talk to them.

00:04:02.220 But you can at least pay attention

00:04:04.000 to how they communicate, how they work.

00:04:06.420 Maybe there's been books written on them,

00:04:07.840 maybe articles.

00:04:08.660 Read those articles and really try to model

00:04:11.660 the behaviors that you think,

00:04:13.340 those best practices, those success behaviors

00:04:15.140 to really get you the most.

00:04:16.480 And I do this for every major initiative in my company.

00:04:19.380 No matter what I'm trying to do,

00:04:20.340 I try to find the world's best people.

00:04:21.840 I always do world class.

00:04:22.840 That word world class is very important to me.

00:04:24.840 It shapes my operating system of thinking.

00:04:27.440 And find those people that are doing things at that level

00:04:30.040 and even if I don't understand it, just copy it.

00:04:33.040 Just borrow, be inspired because by doing it

00:04:36.840 and having faith in the process,

00:04:38.640 even if you don't completely understand it at first,

00:04:40.340 you'll at least get going, you'll get that feedback

00:04:42.640 and you'll start that process of modeling.

00:04:44.640 So those are the three areas.

00:04:46.240 To make sure that you really have the right people,

00:04:48.380 you read a lot of books, and you model success behaviors.

00:04:52.400 That is how you start to reshape the operating system

00:04:55.040 so that those applications can execute and work flawlessly.

00:04:59.040 So I hope you found this video useful.

00:05:01.140 I invite you to like and leave a comment below.

00:05:04.040 Let me know if you have some other ideas

00:05:06.180 for how you can improve your founder operating system.

00:05:09.400 I also wanna challenge you guys to live a bigger life

00:05:11.540 and a bigger business, and I'll see you guys next Monday.

Dan Martell - August 24, 2015

The Founders Operating System

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript