Dan Martell - Why Fear Is the Biggest Threat to Your Business Growth

00:00:00.000 Hey there, I'm Dan Martell,

00:00:01.000 serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.040 In this episode, I'm gonna share with you

00:00:05.240 how to overcome your fear,

00:00:07.040 how to overcome it because it's holding you back

00:00:09.840 from making the big moves that are gonna change your life.

00:00:12.120 Be sure to stay to the end

00:00:13.320 where I'm gonna tell you how to get access

00:00:14.440 to my Dream 100 training.

00:00:16.800 It is how you think of your peers,

00:00:19.040 your advisors, and your mentors.

00:00:21.100 Let's get into it.

00:00:30.000 I can still remember when I first started off in business, hiring my first employee,

00:00:39.720 it really was like a contractor. I wasn't even brave enough to hire the first person because

00:00:43.220 I literally thought they're probably going to steal from me. They're probably not going to do

00:00:47.800 the work properly. They're probably going to embarrass me. There's a good chance that they're

00:00:52.900 not going to stick around. And there was like all these fears from making the decision that was

00:00:57.740 holding me back from even making the decision.

00:01:01.180 And at the end of the day, from 17 to 24,

00:01:04.520 I built two companies that unfortunately failed.

00:01:06.780 And it was because I was always crippled by fear,

00:01:09.580 as fear of the unknown,

00:01:10.960 fear of making the wrong decision, et cetera.

00:01:13.920 And it was through reading books and understanding

00:01:17.460 that the level of success I wanted

00:01:19.920 had to come from being comfortable with the unknown.

00:01:23.800 And now I've made $25 million deals without losing sleep.

00:01:27.860 So I'm gonna share with you three unique

00:01:30.120 or four unique perspectives on how to think about fear

00:01:32.840 that hopefully will shift your mindset,

00:01:35.140 give you some clear actions to take

00:01:38.300 so that you can get the outcomes

00:01:40.520 and success that you're after.

00:01:41.820 Number one, risk reversal.

00:01:44.500 So the way you wanna think about this

00:01:46.660 is when you're making decisions,

00:01:47.980 Tim Ferriss writes about this

00:01:49.540 and has talked about it on his podcast,

00:01:51.600 where you wanna make a list of the pros and cons.

00:01:55.080 Because I think what happens is when you think of fear, right?

00:01:57.960 So, you know, recently I had a friend

00:02:00.000 that was thinking of doubling his business next year.

00:02:02.980 He's like, okay, you know, this year's been really challenging

00:02:05.440 but next year I really wanna hit the ground running.

00:02:07.260 I wanna hit full steam ahead and pour fuel on the fire.

00:02:10.100 He put some capital aside.

00:02:12.040 But there was this fear of like, you know,

00:02:14.140 what if I don't train people properly?

00:02:16.060 What if I don't get ahead of it?

00:02:17.780 And I said, just make the list.

00:02:19.180 Make the list of all the things that could go wrong.

00:02:21.340 And then write down all the things

00:02:23.580 that you have the ability and power to take action on

00:02:27.120 to overcome those risks.

00:02:28.700 And I think once you put it out on paper

00:02:30.540 and you see it with your eyes, it's way less scary.

00:02:35.380 You know, back in the day,

00:02:37.360 so that's on the writing it out.

00:02:39.840 The other thing that I wanna share with you,

00:02:41.260 I read a book a long time ago,

00:02:42.920 I think it was called Thinking Fast and Slow.

00:02:45.620 And in it, he talked about Jeff Bezos,

00:02:47.700 the founder of Amazon.

00:02:49.020 and Jeff talks about type one and type two decisions, okay?

00:02:53.160 And the easiest way to think about it

00:02:54.300 is a door going one way or two ways.

00:02:57.920 So one way is a type one decision,

00:02:59.760 and two ways is a type two decision.

00:03:01.280 He says, if you don't differentiate the types of decisions,

00:03:04.960 and this is where risk comes into play,

00:03:06.780 in regards to the ones you're making,

00:03:08.340 you sometime apply the same vigor and fear

00:03:11.400 to a type one decision, which is a one way,

00:03:14.140 I can't reverse, I can't come back from it

00:03:16.480 to a type two decision, right?

00:03:18.460 Or vice versa, you should give something

00:03:20.520 a little bit more analysis

00:03:23.100 and instead you just make a decision flippantly

00:03:26.300 or your team does even worse.

00:03:28.460 So what Jeff says is like things like buying a company,

00:03:31.380 that's a type one decision.

00:03:32.820 It's really hard to unwind

00:03:34.300 but hiring an employee that doesn't work out,

00:03:37.120 that's a type two decision.

00:03:38.320 Yes, it's gonna be unfortunate

00:03:39.900 that you didn't get the outcome

00:03:41.320 that you were hoping to achieve

00:03:42.360 because the person didn't work out

00:03:43.640 and you have a hole you got to now fit

00:03:45.220 and you got to explain it to your team

00:03:47.080 and all those things

00:03:47.560 but they're not type one decisions.

00:03:50.100 They're not things that you can't easily reverse.

00:03:52.820 And I think just understanding that,

00:03:54.480 and that's why I call it risk reversal,

00:03:56.100 is gonna allow you to separate

00:03:57.480 where you're spending your energy

00:03:58.940 and where you can really question yourself like,

00:04:01.600 this is only a type two decision.

00:04:03.460 Let's just make it and move on.

00:04:04.840 The delaying of making a decision is costing you more.

00:04:08.400 How many times have you ended up being forced

00:04:11.140 to move forward?

00:04:13.360 Timelines, resource constraints, whatever.

00:04:15.800 And at the end of the day, you made the same decision.

00:04:17.560 you would have made in the beginning,

00:04:18.660 but you just dragged your feet making it.

00:04:20.840 Clearly delineate type one, type two,

00:04:23.080 make that list, get it out of your mind in front of you

00:04:25.720 so you can see it and make sure you make a decision

00:04:28.180 to reverse that risk.

00:04:29.900 Number two, remove the ridicule.

00:04:32.240 So most people are not gonna make a decision

00:04:35.200 because of fear of being judged by other people

00:04:38.420 that they care about, you know?

00:04:40.860 But one of the quotes,

00:04:42.080 and I share this often with my friends,

00:04:43.460 is the people that care don't matter

00:04:46.800 and the people that matter don't care.

00:04:49.980 If I think about just the folks

00:04:53.620 that are mentors of mine, advisors,

00:04:55.760 you know, think about comments on social media,

00:04:57.760 comments below a video, a podcast episode.

00:05:00.660 You know, if those people's name are not Richard Branson,

00:05:04.280 Mark Cuban, or a list of my other mentors,

00:05:07.120 I'm not internalizing that feedback.

00:05:09.140 I'm not even really listening to it.

00:05:11.380 I'm looking for themes and patterns

00:05:13.120 because I'm always open to getting advice

00:05:15.340 on how I can make things better.

00:05:16.800 but I'm not putting a lot of weight to that feedback.

00:05:20.280 And I think that fear of being judged

00:05:23.380 is just so overly indexed

00:05:26.820 in regards to the weight people give,

00:05:28.240 it just doesn't matter.

00:05:29.180 To me, fear is an acronym.

00:05:30.600 I heard this a long time ago,

00:05:31.680 is false evidence appearing real, okay?

00:05:35.680 It's not true.

00:05:37.200 Your fear of being judged,

00:05:38.800 if you decide to move away or start that business

00:05:42.660 or go to a school that might not be as a popular decision

00:05:45.680 or pursue your passion.

00:05:47.580 But what are people gonna think?

00:05:48.940 Look, is it true?

00:05:50.400 Some people might criticize that decision 100%.

00:05:52.960 Guess what?

00:05:54.660 I'm not saying you don't love them.

00:05:56.200 I'm just saying that, you know,

00:05:57.900 people that care don't matter.

00:05:59.920 Like at the end of the day,

00:06:00.840 you gotta follow your heart,

00:06:01.660 you gotta follow your soul,

00:06:02.380 you gotta pursue your passion.

00:06:04.440 And a lot of times that fear is just unfounded.

00:06:06.620 I ran through this myself

00:06:08.700 when I decided I wanted to start coaching clients

00:06:10.700 because I came from being an entrepreneur,

00:06:13.280 serial entrepreneur, investing in companies,

00:06:14.940 building companies to all of a sudden now say hey I want to I want to coach I want to support

00:06:20.240 you know and I just felt like there was this negative stigma attached to that word

00:06:23.860 and I was fear that I had a lot of fear around my investors and my friends judging me for making

00:06:30.320 that decision and guess what turned out the complete opposite when I finally wrote a blog

00:06:36.060 post called what's next and explained to them my plan to serve as many people and have an impact

00:06:41.160 and create this YouTube channel, all these things,

00:06:43.380 many of them said, Dan, what took you so long?

00:06:47.360 I've seen this in you.

00:06:48.640 I'm so proud of you.

00:06:49.600 I'm so excited for you.

00:06:50.560 Some of them said, hey,

00:06:51.260 I've always had this same desire myself,

00:06:52.720 but I haven't been able to pull the trigger.

00:06:56.040 So I just want you to know that a lot of time

00:06:57.740 that fear is just false evidence appearing real.

00:07:01.000 And the people that you think will care,

00:07:04.540 they just don't matter.

00:07:05.780 Number three, upsize your problems.

00:07:08.440 So here's the reality is,

00:07:10.280 if you wanna grow, if you want success,

00:07:13.440 you gotta think of like, you know, in units of zero,

00:07:16.280 like $10 problems is maybe your level of uncomfortableness

00:07:20.320 that you're able to deal with today.

00:07:21.960 And you need to be able to learn to move

00:07:23.460 to $100 problems and $1,000 problems

00:07:25.160 and $10,000 problems and $100,000 problems.

00:07:27.500 And now that might sound crazy,

00:07:29.420 but that's kind of what's required.

00:07:30.940 I remember a great story of Oprah being sued

00:07:33.420 by the mad cow people for some comments she made on her show.

00:07:37.040 She was being sued for a billion dollars, okay?

00:07:39.300 a billion dollars and her response to the news and the media saying, hey, Oprah, what's it like

00:07:44.760 being sued for a billion dollars? She said, hey, I'm just grateful that I have a billion dollars

00:07:49.620 to be sued for. It was, it was just part of that evolution for her. It's, you know, if you want

00:07:57.240 to grow, that fear is stopping you from learning how to be uncomfortable with the uncomfortable.

00:08:04.920 Tony Robbins has a great quote that says,

00:08:07.220 your life quality is directly proportionate

00:08:10.360 to the amount of uncertainty

00:08:11.880 that you can comfortably live with, okay?

00:08:15.080 I remind myself this all the time.

00:08:17.080 Whenever I feel a little of anxiety around decision,

00:08:19.280 I'm just like, whoa, whoa, hey, whoa, why is that scary?

00:08:23.320 Let me put this down on paper.

00:08:25.120 Let me talk to my advisors.

00:08:26.500 Let me get some perspective.

00:08:27.920 Is this type one or type two?

00:08:29.340 And at the end of the day, I go, look,

00:08:30.800 this is just another opportunity for me to push forward,

00:08:33.940 overcome that, that like little feeling of anxiety,

00:08:37.680 make a decision and honestly invite,

00:08:41.020 upsize your problems because knowing that

00:08:44.520 when you go from a $10 problem to a $100 problem

00:08:48.460 and you can be okay with that,

00:08:51.040 then you're like, okay, I got this, right?

00:08:53.220 I mean, I literally give my team permission

00:08:55.620 to make five $10,000 problems

00:08:57.600 because at the end of the day,

00:08:59.380 I want them to be able to make decisions,

00:09:02.240 take risk, innovate, learn.

00:09:05.300 And if I'm fearful of those things

00:09:08.160 and I'm creating too much micromanagement,

00:09:10.180 it's not gonna allow people to develop.

00:09:12.360 And that's the only way we grow.

00:09:13.360 We gotta be comfortable with it.

00:09:14.860 Not invite it, not wish that it happens to us,

00:09:17.640 but just know, you know what, true freedom?

00:09:19.840 True freedom is knowing that I have the skill

00:09:22.020 and the process and the mental strength

00:09:24.580 to deal with whatever the world throws at me.

00:09:27.640 That, my friend, is true freedom.

00:09:29.820 Number four, massive, imperfect action.

00:09:34.660 My buddy Gebs says this all the time.

00:09:37.760 Michael Gebbins, on his YouTube channel,

00:09:40.120 he made t-shirts.

00:09:41.020 Now, I know it's not him that created the saying.

00:09:44.160 I've heard it many other times,

00:09:45.340 but I just think of him because that was his motto.

00:09:47.980 That was his mantra.

00:09:49.000 That was his call to arms for all his people

00:09:51.320 because as soon as you've said,

00:09:53.820 hey, yes, I have fear around this.

00:09:55.800 I've assessed it.

00:09:56.480 I'm making it.

00:09:56.940 As soon as you know,

00:09:58.380 and it speaks to your soul, you gotta move.

00:10:02.420 You gotta JFDI it.

00:10:04.180 You gotta take action, even if it isn't perfect.

00:10:07.140 Because what'll happen is that as soon as it,

00:10:10.140 it just snaps for you and you're like,

00:10:11.940 oh, I gotta do that.

00:10:13.280 If you sleep on it, you drag your feet,

00:10:16.420 your left brain's gonna analyze the can't out of it.

00:10:20.480 You're literally gonna wake up the next day

00:10:22.720 and have 14 reasons why you can't do it.

00:10:25.120 So my rule, just because I know that of myself,

00:10:27.780 I know that a big idea left on my plate to think about,

00:10:33.980 often my brain will just try to figure out

00:10:35.940 why I can't do it or why it's not the right time,

00:10:37.960 et cetera, et cetera.

00:10:38.720 And I wanna take massive and perfect action.

00:10:41.220 I wanna do something, anything that I can do today

00:10:44.360 in the next 20 minutes to move that forward.

00:10:46.520 It could be emailing a friend.

00:10:47.620 It could be making a phone call.

00:10:49.080 It could be pulling out a piece of paper

00:10:51.400 and drawing something out, making a commitment,

00:10:53.180 adding something to my calendar.

00:10:54.460 But take M-I-A. 0.98

00:10:57.060 So four strategies to remove fear from holding you back

00:11:01.480 to achieve your level of success.

00:11:03.400 Number one, risk reversal.

00:11:05.200 Number two, remove the ridicule.

00:11:07.020 Number three, upsize your problems.

00:11:09.840 And number four, M-I-A. 0.99

00:11:13.180 So as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:11:15.300 I wanna share with you an exclusive training

00:11:17.020 called the Dream 100.

00:11:19.240 It's my thinking around listing out the 100 people

00:11:23.340 you need in your life to be successful

00:11:25.840 So from the peers, the mentors, and the advisors

00:11:28.680 for whatever you're out to achieving,

00:11:30.160 click the link below to download that specific training.

00:11:34.440 It's going to give you the strategies to reach out,

00:11:37.340 who to reach out to, how to think about it.

00:11:39.560 It's got a 60, 30, 10 split.

00:11:42.360 It's a spreadsheet.

00:11:43.360 It's awesome.

00:11:44.200 It's one of my most powerful trains

00:11:45.780 when it comes to building your network.

00:11:48.020 And I really believe your network is your net worth.

00:11:50.220 So click the link below to download your copy.

00:11:52.880 And if you liked this video,

00:11:53.900 Be sure to smash that like button,

00:11:55.620 subscribe to the channel and leave me a comment below.

00:11:58.620 I'm gonna respond to the first 10 comments

00:12:01.660 with any questions, ideas, feedback you have around fear.

00:12:05.220 I'd love to support you.

00:12:06.580 And as per usual, I wanna challenge you

00:12:08.780 to live a bigger life and a bigger business

00:12:10.940 and I'll see you next Monday.

00:12:14.340 Bam.

Dan Martell - September 28, 2020

Why Fear Is the Biggest Threat to Your Business Growth

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