Are You An Imitator or Impostor？, with Andy Frisella - MFCEO164
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode of the MfCeo Project, I talk about why you shouldn't be an imposter and why you should be humble enough to recognize what your competitors do well and then try to improve their business model.
Transcript
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what is up guys you're listening to the mf ceo project i'm andy i'm your host and i am
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the motherfucking ceo guys today is thursday thunder which means it's gonna be more motivational
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based typically but today i've got some practical things i want to talk about before i get into
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that um remember we have a review contest going on where you go on itunes you leave a review
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and then we uh we choose uh five people who left reviews and then we're going to do a live skype
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for 30 minutes uh just me and you and i'll help console you help answer your questions help you
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get through whatever it is you're trying to work through um and basically uh just try to provide
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some real um value to you directly now recognize guys that the reviews are extremely important for
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us and also if you subscribe to the podcast it's extremely important to us and how we get ranked
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uh you know typically we're not asking you to buy things or sell you courses or do all this other
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bullshit and we don't really have commercials or anything like that so if you find a value in the
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con in the content that we're putting out if you could please leave us a review and subscribe to
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the podcast uh refer a friend those things are really helpful and really appreciated all right
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guys getting into what i want to talk about today um first i want to talk about two things i want to
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talk about imitation and then i want to talk about uh being an imposter okay uh i got a question from
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uh somebody i know on instagram who asked me she's starting a new business and she asked me about
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people who are imitating and copying her and what she should do about it and she wanted to know
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if she should call them out if she should uh you know attack them what she should do uh and i want
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to cover that with you guys not only what to do in that situation but why you shouldn't imitate people
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okay there's that saying imitation is the highest form of flattery that's bullshit especially in
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business imitation is usually the quickest way to die all right when it comes to business now there's
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always choice a b and c and i know some of you guys are thinking that right you got
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mcdonald's and you got burger king you got wendy's and you've got all these other places but to be the
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dominant player in the market those people are the leader those are the people that take up the
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majority of the market share they're the people who win the most or the people who make up the most
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money and the reality of them being a leader and everybody else imitating them is this and this is
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why you don't want to imitate someone when you're in business you if you're imitating someone else
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if you're trying to be like them if you're trying to become them if you're trying to uh you know
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steal their ideas the problem with that is this you're always waiting to see what they're doing
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and by the time you see what the other company is doing or what the other business is doing or what
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the other manager is doing or the person you're competing with is doing they have already done that
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you're seeing the outward effect of decisions they've made months and months and weeks and weeks ago
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you're seeing the outward result of the work they've done for the last you know however many
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months or years all right and you're trying to copy that and in their mind and their strategy
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they're already working on the next thing which by default puts you however many steps behind at all
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times so you can never actually come up with an original idea you can never win you can never be
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first you can only be another option and when you're another option you're usually not as good
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all right so when you if you own a small business and you see somebody else doing something and you
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think it's a good idea that's great recognize that your competitors have good ideas but instead of
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trying to copy their exact same idea you should try to take that idea one step further same thing if
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you're an employee if you're an employee and you see somebody doing something well be humble enough to
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recognize that all right you know you have a guy in the office who's competing for the same position
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as you be humble enough to recognize what he does well don't just shit talk him and say oh i fucking
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hate that guy that's what dumb fucks do okay smart people recognize what their competitors do well and
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then try to improve their business model in that way and then take it a step further okay so even if
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you're the guy in the office and you're competing with another guy recognize what he does well improve
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your game past his point and that's how you're going to fucking beat him all right but just imitating
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someone or trying to be like someone or trying to emulate someone guys you're cheating yourself out
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of all kinds of things because at the core your business could be actually better at the core your
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skills as a person could be actually better and when you imitate everyone you're you're basically
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cutting yourself off from the growth that would naturally happen to help you become the ultimate
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version of what it is you're trying to become and you don't know that you couldn't be smarter or better
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more effective or make more money than the next guy so by by putting yourself in a role to imitate
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you're cutting yourself short now let's say you are the guy being imitated all right should i call
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them out should i yell at them should i what should i do should i expose them that's our natural tendency
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to do those things but the reality of the guys is is that you don't want to do that because when you're
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the leader you have the most light shining on you and you don't want to take any of your light
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and shine it on whoever it is you're competing with so when you fucking you know acknowledge them
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or or or or talk shit about them or try to you know expose them first of all nobody fucking cares
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second of all how many of the people that follow you or look at you or customers of yours are now going
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to know about this other person and they're going to say well fuck maybe i'll give that person a shot
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because this person the person who's leading sounds very bitter about the situation maybe this person
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has something good to offer you're better off ignoring it you're better off letting it go
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all right the person who's following you the person who's copying you they likely have no fucking clue
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what they're doing and they're looking at the the shit that you you know made for the last two years
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and not the shit that you're making for the next two years and they're always going to be behind you
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so you don't have to worry about it all right it's it's a stupid thing to worry about so guys don't worry
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about people imitating you and don't be the person imitating someone it's the quickest way to
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fucking basically struggle in business all right if not completely kill it now with that being said
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i want to talk about something else there's something out there guys i get a lot of questions
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about all right and it's about it has to do with what we've talked about before we've talked about
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permission we've talked about you know feeling like we need other people's permission feeling like
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we need our parents permission our our school teachers permission our our uh you know other peers
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permission uh people who are higher up on the ladder's permission to go out and do something
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and you feel like naturally because you don't know enough and you don't have enough experience
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that you are not qualified to to move forward without someone's permission but guys here's the thing
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that permission never fucking comes and so when you're when you're in a situation where you're
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trying to grow you're trying to improve you're trying to progress and you feel like you know maybe
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you're not good enough or you're not qualified even though you've had some real success you know
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and some people go some people go their whole lives never feeling good enough because no matter how
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much success they have because they never are able to validate internally what their success is
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there's actually a real syndrome for that it's called imposter syndrome you can google it but it's
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basically people who can never feel like they're the real deal and they're always in fear of being
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exposed and guys everybody has that to some degree or another everybody everybody feels like you know
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the next guy's better than them or the the other company's better than them or they know something
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or more of an expert or they're more of this and guys you have to realize and this goes the reason i
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put these two subjects together so they kind of go hand in hand instead of imitating that person that
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you think is better you have to give yourself permission to go out and fucking be better all right
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so many people freeze up in the entrepreneurial journey and the entrepreneurial journey guys that's
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in actual business ownership and also in progression within a company because you should be thinking like
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an entrepreneur the entrepreneurial journey gets frozen up guys because people think they don't have
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what it takes when they look themselves in the eye when they look themselves in the fucking mirror
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they feel like they're a fraud and they're they live in constant fear of people exposing them or showing
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that they don't know something and guys i'm gonna tell you the quickest way to fucking get over that
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fear is this admit that you don't know everything all right it's okay to not know everything the best
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fucking phrase i ever learned to say is hey man i don't really fucking know that you know what if
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you're man enough to admit that you don't fucking know but you're willing to go out and find the
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answer that's a thousand times more valuable than it is to be the guy who fucking knows everything
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not knowing everything is a lot more valuable than the guy that knows everything guys okay
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being being ignorance is not is not not knowing ignorance is knowing if that makes sense you know
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we all know the guy who thinks he knows everything you don't want to be that guy be the guy who looks
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at the situation says you know what i don't really know what to do here but i'm gonna go fucking find
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out you know what sir i don't know the answer to the question that you make uh about our product but
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i'm gonna go find out right now for you what's more valuable what's more valuable the guy who can
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answer the question on the spot or the guy that shows he's willing to go way out of his way to get
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him the right answer think about that think about you calling a customer service or calling a company
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or or having an employee in your office or being uh talking to your boss and the conversation comes up
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and instead of him having the right answer he says you know what i'm not real sure what the answer is
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but i'm gonna go out and i'm gonna find the answer i'm gonna find the right answer for you
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and i'll get back to you right away what's more valuable to you him actually knowing the answer
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on the spot or you actually going out and and going out of your way to fucking track the answer
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now now guys a lot of people are gonna say well knowing answer on the spot shows he knows what
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he's doing he's qualified for a job bullshit it's about creating value and going out of your way
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with effort is a lot more valuable and people recognize humility that's a lot more valuable than
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knowing everything so guys don't be afraid to say you don't know because if you say you don't know
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it lets you off the hook for being exposed as a fraud because you fucking know you don't know
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everything so guys you know i think it's real natural for us to like you know feel like we need
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people's permission but nobody ever gives that permission your parents aren't going to give it
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your spouses are going to give it your bosses are going to give it your your peers aren't going to
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give it the your competitors aren't going to give it the people who you who you admire and aspire to
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be like aren't going to give it it's never going to be given to you guys so you have to quit fucking
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looking for it and you have to look internally to yourself to give yourself permission to say hey
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i don't know everything but i'm doing the best i fucking can and when i don't know something i can
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learn when i don't know the answer to something i can find it when i don't know how to do something
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i can figure it out and guys when you do that nobody can ever expose you for a fraud because you're
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already admitting that you don't fucking know everything you know the biggest problem with
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this is people's ego they let their ego get so fucking big and so fragile that they can't let
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anybody know that they don't fucking know well guess what nobody fucking knows i don't know you
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don't know nobody listening to this podcast fucking knows well there's all shit there's a ton of shit
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that none of us know we're trying to figure it out we're all doing the best we can and the best way
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you can become effective at that is letting yourself off the hook for having to have all the fucking