Working From Home: Episode 16 – Why do some entrepreneurs thrive and others fail? with Marco Robert
Nelson is joined by Marco Robert, a management consultant for management consultants, to discuss the four keys to success every “outlier” entrepreneur must cultivate.
Topics Include:
– Why systems make or break businesses
– The four keys to success every entrepreneur needs to cultivate
– Confronting false beliefs
– Modernity versus post-modernism
– Knowing thyself
Resources Mentioned:
Timestamps
[0:58] – The difference between businesses that thrive and businesses that fail is their processes and systems.
[3:02] – Building systems in creative disciplines. Borrowing systems from related and unrelated fields.
[8:10] – First steps a business owner can take to understand the systems they have in place, and the systems they’ll need in the future.
[13:20] – The four keys to success that every outlier entrepreneur has.
[16:20] – Are people born outlier entrepreneurs, or do they learn to become one?
[29:01] – Know thyself, and understand the world.
[37:38] – When your beliefs don’t map onto reality, and the modern versus post-modern conflict.
[45:02] – Why becoming an outlier entrepreneur is step one in building a successful business. Developing the four keys to success concurrently.
[51:27] – Marco discusses his current projects and forthcoming book.
[53:21] – Closing remarks from Marco and Nelson.
Transcript
00:05
Hello, and welcome to the working from home podcast with your host me Nelson Jordan. And today I’m thrilled to be joined by Marco Robert, who is a management consultant for management consultants, among other things, such as a business coach and serving on board of directors. Marco, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. No, no problem at all. So a management consultant for management consultants, how did that come about? Wow, wow, that’s a great, that’s a great first question. You see, I, I understood from a very young age that building businesses is about first and foremost about creating systems, right. And it’s the question I had in my head when I was in my 20s. Why? Why is it that some businesses thrive while others actually never make it? And I answered that question by Wow.
00:53
If you look at the world out there, the vast majority of businesses that thrive many of those are franchises, right, or they’re corporately organised businesses. So what do those have in common? They’re systemized. So they, they reside on the foundation of systems. So that’s when I started my journey right after college start to think, okay, if I want to become a successful entrepreneur, successful businessperson, I have to systemize businesses. So from the get go, that’s what I did. So as an employee, I was working in the hotel industry, I systemized everything, then I got recruited to turn around a restaurant, systemized everything about it. I was 27 years old. I figured, while I know, I know how to do this. So I became I started my own businesses became quite successful quite quickly, and I sold my businesses. My second, what am I going to do now? Well, I realised that I have this niche that a lot of people didn’t understand, which was how to make businesses more successful. So that’s when I went into the world of business consulting. And once I was in consulting, after six or seven years of consulting for businesses, there, I realised that most consultants don’t even know how to consult properly, because they don’t have a proper system for consulting. So I decided to take the system that I had created to consult with my clients, and turn that into kind of a training platform for training consultants. And today I do a lot of that I train a lot of consultants and coaches around the world. Yeah, that’s, that’s fascinating, really, I mean, it definitely resonates with me. Something I’ve found, as I’ve got more experience with conversion, copywriting and digital marketing, is the people that operate at the top level, the people that are able to generate results, Time after time, are those that have a process and refine that process. And I’m very much work to it. Because I think when we first go into a discipline ourselves, we’re trying to understand the principles that are actually at play, like what does make the difference? What are the things that we need to focus on here. And it’s kind of been remarkable. Like, before I was a copywriter, I always had this idea in my head, that copywriting was this kind of ridiculously creative discipline, that you would just pull these words out of thin air, and suddenly put them down on the page. And that was kind of where like, some semblance of magic happened. And kind of the more and more experienced I’ve become, the more I realised that that’s complete fabrication. Most of it is about having a good research and discovery process and briefing process. And if you do that, right, as I’ve said before, on this podcast, 60, or 70% of your actual writing is done via the research. So really, it’s about that framework. So yes, interesting that you kind of came to that very early on in your career and found a way, are there any kind of
03:58
industries that you kind of focus on? Or is it very much taking process from one industry that works and kind of seeing if that might be applicable to others? You know, it’s actually it’s actually one of my secrets. It’s not, no I wouldn’t say a secret, but my secret sauce is that most people who run a business, you know, whether the guy runs a $5 million a year manufacturing plant or somebody owns a couple restaurants, they do two or $3 million a year with somebody built, somebody has a bigger business. Most people think that in order to be successful in that industry, you need to become technically an expert in that industry. Nothing could be further from the truth, right? Because while maybe when you start as a plumber, you need to know how to fix, you know, plumbing leaks. But very, very soon if you want to build yourself into a business,
04:48
fixing plumbing, plumbing leaks is not important anymore, right? You can outsource that all the technical work. What becomes important is everything else. It’s all the business skills, while technical skills might help you start
05:00
Your Business skills is what actually is going to make you a multimillionaire. Right. And so a lot of my clients come to me and they say, Hey, you know, what do you what do you know about my industry? and funny enough?
05:11
I, when I was in my office, I used to have an office on the peninsula, south of San Francisco, and above my desk, there was a phrase and it said, No, I have never worked in your industry, because that was always the first question that people ask me, hey, what kind of experience you have in my industry. See,
05:30
what I do is, is beyond industries, it’s a system, I created a system by the way, which today is called boss or business. optimising strategic systems. So effectively, it’s a system for systematising, strategically, and optimising any business. Right? So I created I created this framework for helping my clients actually make better decisions and systemize their businesses, and it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you in fact, I prefer to work with a company that I don’t have any experience with because I don’t bring any biases. See, one of the reasons why people fail is because they bring their industry biases. And very briefly, I’ll give you an example. Just this week, I was working with one of my, one of my clients in Canada, she’s she owns a big daycare centre. Well, daycare centres have been affected dramatically right now, because of COVID. A lot of parents keep their kids at home right now. So she’s operating at about 50%
06:30
capacity right now. Right? So barely breaking even. And we, you know, we’ve been kind of going back and forth trying to figure out how we can take her to the next level. And we were just having a conversation, and what came about and she said, Marco, what you just told me is literally going to be worth millions and millions and millions of dollars for me in my business over the next few years. And what I told her, I would not have known if like her I only knew about, you know, the daycare centre business. I actually what I did is I call it hybrid thing, right? So I created I grafted something I learned from another industry, right on to her industry. And we created a hybrid, and we’re about to launch something that’s going to be very, very cool. That’s going to completely explode her business. So, you know, to answer your question, I’m kind of into industry, agnostic, you know, I used to say, I will work with anything except farms and minds. Well, guess what? I’ve worked with a lot of farms. I’ve never worked with the mind yet, but I’ve worked a lot of farms. Cool. So what’s the kind of first step for somebody who is within their own working with own they’re within their own business that they own. And they want to kind of understand the principles that are at play the systems that they have right now, that versus kind of the systems that they should have in the future? Where do they start?
08:01
See, and this is a mistake I made myself when I started out in business, right? I thought, okay, it’s all about systems. So all we have to do is systemize. So I went out and I did it, and it worked. And I became really successful very quickly. Then I started to teach this to my clients, all you have to do is systemize. All you have to systemize they’re like, Well, what does that mean? Then I shared with them some module, some methods, some principles on how to systemize that like, Okay, well, how do you do that? Well, this is how you do it, and I share with them how to systemize then Well, okay, but, but how we’re going to do it in my business, and then I share with them how to do it. And some of them still didn’t do it.
08:41
Right. Or sometimes they hired me to do it for them, I would do it for them. And then I’d show up a year later, and they’re not doing it. They’re not doing it anymore. And for the first four years of my practice, you know, in the early 2000s, I was pulling my hair, trying to figure out why is it people are paying me a lot of money. You know, management consultants can be pretty expensive. They were paying me a lot of money to help them systemize their businesses, but then either they didn’t do it, or I did it for them. And then they did they stopped doing it after a while even though we could prove the results. And I couldn’t understand why. And in one night, I was attending a seminar from a fellow consultant. And he said something like, something like, remember that the foundation of business is human beings. And it’s like, it’s like the bulb went out in my head. I’m thinking. And I understood, okay, for years and years and years, I’ve been advocating systems, but really below systems, you have a certain kind of individual and until you have until you have that certain kind of individual in charge of the business. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, right. So today I have a name for that person. I call that person outlier entrepreneur. outlier because they’re they standing
10:00
out in the world of amongst normal, average ordinary people and entrepreneurs because they have a, their life is devoted to the creation of value. They understand that owning a business is not like well going to work, you know, you go to work, you know, you clock in you’re 35-40 hours a week, you make your paycheck, you know exactly how much you’re gonna make. And that’s it. It’s all about me, me, me, me, me, right? When you think about it, most of the time we go to work. It’s all about me, me, me. I know how many hours me is going to work. I know how many hours means going to earn, how many how much money means to earn. It’s mee mee mee mee mee well, being an entrepreneur, by the sheer definition of the word, you know, entrepreneur comes from the verb which means to undertake, you undertake. So what do you undertake as an entrepreneur, you undertake to create solutions to societal problems, you undertake to create value for the world.
11:00
So, but that shift needs to happen, the average person out there doesn’t think like that. So in order to become very successful, before I can teach you about systems, you and I must make sure that you think and you act, and you are an outlier entrepreneur. Right. So that’s the, that’s the basic foundation of building a business. Like so sounds like more, the foundation is actually mindset, then
11:31
you Yeah, it’s Yeah, mindset is a good, I tried to steer away from the word because it lost so much of its homes, you know, people’s minds, I got a mindset, I got a mindset, right. So I steer away, but you’re kind of right. I think it’s a mindset, it’s an attitude. It’s a beingness. I like the word beingness. It’s who you are, are you an outlier entrepreneur? Or are you just a normal person out there? You know, and it’s so much easier to be a normal person. Because you know, you grew up with people around you who are normal people, your parents, probably normal people, your neighbours, the kids went to school with your teachers, you grew up with normal people. So as human beings, we love to adhere to the values of people around us. In fact, when we’re young, our sheer survival depends on it. So we are trained to be and act like normal, average ordinary people. But then if you want to become an entrepreneur, if you want to become a business person, and become a successful one, you need or something needs to shift, something needs to shift inside of you. And this is something that I work with a lot of my clients, especially at the onset, we work a lot on what does it mean to be an outlier entrepreneur? Right? In fact, what I do is I’ve actually broken it down into what I call the four keys to success, right? So becoming an outline entrepreneur, can be divided into four keys after 30 years of looking at other outlier entrepreneurs out there people who excel beyond
13:03
averages. Right. And there’s a lot of studies about that. He could say, well, is it the family they grew up in? No. Is that their health? No. Is it how tall they are? No. Is it their education level? No. Is it the country? They’re from? No. Well, it’s got to be the colour of their skin. No.
13:22
None of these preclude you to your success. Right? You can take all of these factors. There’s not a single one of these factors that you can say, you know, what the guy was, he was raised, rich by an abusive father. And that’s what No, this there is no factors. People have been looking at this for a long, long, long time. There’s no factors except I found these what I call these four factors. I call them the four keys. Successful entrepreneurs, no matter where they’re from around the world, have these four things in common? Let me share them with you. Oh, of course. All right. So number one is, I call it
14:02
emotional mastery. It’s an ability to actually master your own emotions. See, while most normal people out there get affected by what’s happening in the world around them, right? It’s good sunshine, whoo, I’m happy if it rains, whoo, I’m not happy, right? If, if my cat is alive, I’m happy if my cat dies, I’m destroyed for six months, right? So people allow external events, you know, to actually control how they feel if my candidate gets elected, right. We’re in the United States right now. You know, we’re coming up into elections. There’s a lot of people in this country right now, that are going to be very disappointed, because the country is kind of divided right now half and half. So half of the people will not have their candidate get elected. They’re going to be very disappointed. Well,
14:52
outlier entrepreneurs do not allow external events to affect how they feel internally. I call it emotional mastery. It’s like
15:00
they have this filter that filters out sounds.
15:03
It sounds like it has a lot in common with stoicism.
15:10
A lot, a lot. So but in fact, I’m a big, big fan of stoicism. And that’s pretty much what I mean, the whole idea of stoicism. And you find, by the way, that the most successful entrepreneurs out there adhere a lot to stoicism.
15:26
Right? So it’s not just that Marcus Aurelius of this world, but it’s a, you know, even today, when you actually start reading the biographies of entrepreneurs, you realise, well, whether they advocate for it what are they even know about it? They kind of act as tourists. So that’s the first step. Right? Well, I definitely mastery, I don’t want to jump on to the others just yet Marco, if you don’t mind, because I’d like to know. If we don’t find ourselves naturally with that demeanour. Is there a way of cultivating it?
15:59
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That’s a really good question.
16:04
You see, I think, the creator of this universe
16:10
made us in the perfect possible way, I want you to think about something. Most people don’t know this. But the last part of the human body to develop is the frontal lobe. Right. So as a, usually, in the early 20s, when the frontal lobe actually developed a, you know, you’re in, by the time you’re in your early 20s, your entire body is developed, the last party develop is your frontal lobe. And it turns out that your frontal lobe or some experts call it the executive centre, is your ability to discern, it’s your ability to, to consciously be aware of where you’re at. See, when you’re three years old, you’re not going to start arguing with your parents politically.
16:54
Right? You’re not you don’t necessarily have an opinion. Why? Because you don’t need an opinion. When you’re three years old, you need you need to follow the guide. Your survival depends on you fitting in, right? And
17:09
the closer we get to the to the early 20s, the more we want to distinguish ourselves. Well, the problem is that for many people, they are so ingrained in an ideology in a philosophy in a way of life. Imagine this, okay?
17:27
Imagine a young boy, maybe he’s born in a small village in Afghanistan, and it’s a radical village run by
17:37
ISIS, right? So imagine how he thinks, okay, imagine how the people around him actually think, right? We can we can portray this little kid, you know, how does he think? How does he see the world? What are his values, right?
17:53
Now, imagine this kid, he grows up, and he lives in this village, his entire life, look at who he becomes, right. Or now let’s take this kid away from his village, when he’s six years old. And let’s say he moves to New York City, because his parents decide to do a PhD at NYU.
18:13
Right? And he grows up in New York City. He grows up surrounded by people of all different faiths. Because he grows up drunk surrounded by a different world views, different values, we, you know, you would contain the content of American values are very different than Afghanistan values. So now look at this kid now, by the time he’s 25 years old, how does he see the world differently? He’s a completely different human being.
18:40
Right?
18:42
And this is not me saying that this is science saying that right? How, how much our environment actually affects us. Now, the truth is this. Starting at the age of 24/25, you can actually start to decide how you see the world. Now, is this kid who grows up in Afghanistan? Is he right? Is he wrong? I don’t know. Is the kid who grows up in New York City? Is he right? Is he wrong? I don’t know. You don’t know. Nobody knows. But one thing I know is that the kid in in Afghanistan and a kid in New York City are both convinced that their ways of life is the way of life. It’s not true. It’s not true. You know, it’s a perspective on to the world. And now obviously, we’re looking at what I’m talking about values, but I could go into beliefs I could go into anything. So I could go into the mechanism that will make you make decisions and take actions or, or not take actions because you understand your values affect your beliefs. your beliefs affect your thoughts, your thoughts affect your decisions. Your decisions will affect the actions you take or the actions you don’t take. And ultimately, that affects the results in your life.
20:01
So you want to become successful, you want to become more successful, you need to embody need up, you need to embody the Beingness of people who are successful. That’s it. And, you, me, everybody, starting at the age of 24/25, we have developed our executive centre so that we can discern. So just because I was born in the Mormon family in Utah, or a Catholic family in Chile, or
20:30
a democratic family in that state, or a hippie family in that state, I don’t have to stay like that. I can, starting at the age of 24/25, I can define myself, I can look around me, I can say, Well, I am who I am, because of the environment that I grew up in. And then I could choose to redefine myself. Now, that is, what every outlier entrepreneur out there has been able to do. It’s this, this ability to,
21:03
to gain more and more and more perspective.
21:07
So you want to change, you’re not going to change by sitting in your bedroom, or hanging out with your friends that you grew up in, you need to gain perspective. And you need to seek out perspective, you need to be curious, you need to be interested. That’s where it all starts, you know, and what I always say is this, my personal analogy.
21:31
There’s very, very few people who are born outlier entrepreneurs, very, very few, you know, you could contend that people like, you know, Mozart’s or, or
21:45
maybe Elon Musk, or, you know, Warren Buffett, or Oprah Winfrey or Michael Jordan, a Wayne Gretzky, you know, people who achieve the highest highest level of success in their own industry, maybe, maybe they were born outlier entrepreneurs, you know,
22:01
but for the vast majority of people, we’re not born outlier entrepreneurs, we have to discover our inherent ability to create a life for ourselves. And we do that simply by gaining more and more perspective. You know, if we do that by simply debating what everybody around us agrees is the truth. You know, we need to start debating and gaining perspective. So that’s the first step. Well, in gaining that perspective, how important do you think something like community is having the right people around you?
22:38
Yeah, absolutely. But again, you have to be careful, but you have to choose those people. Having the right people around you does not does not necessarily mean, you know, you staying around the family that raised you, in a sense for many people. If you again, in the middle where there’s I’m not, I’m not trying to condone anybody here. Okay, well, I’m not trying to condemn anybody here. What I’m trying to say is this. If you look at your life right now, and you’re not happy, if you say, you know what, I want more. Okay. Well,
23:11
even though the community around you right now might have served you, maybe these people love you tremendously. Maybe they’re supporting you. Maybe they’re not the right community for you. Maybe it’s time for you to seek out a different level of people. I always refer people to the book.
23:30
Jonathan Livingston, seagull, if you’ve read the book, but it’s a book written by an American, and it’s the story of the seagull, this awkward bird that actually wants to fly like a sparrow wants to fly. You know, like it like a bird does much more agile. And, and it’s a beautiful story of how the bird chooses to evolve by changing the circles in which the bird actually mingles in, right. So it’s a very interesting book.
24:01
And it’s that, to me, that’s kind of how life is.
24:05
You see, and this is kind of what I’m trying to say.
24:09
We have to be careful of not allowing our emotions to guide us. Remember, step one, emotional mastery. You know, just because your mommy makes delicious cupcakes, doesn’t mean you need to eat cupcakes. And even though she makes the most, but it’s just cupcakes. And every time you eat a cupcake, it’s made with love, and it feels really good. And she says, You know, I made these little cupcakes just for you. Right? Doesn’t mean that sugar is good for you. Doesn’t mean that you need to eat cupcakes. You need to have discernment to be able to say, Hey, you know what, okay, in my life right now, what do I need? Do I need cupcakes? Or do I need protein? I’m trying to run for a marathon. I want to run a marathon. cupcakes. No. protein. Yes. Mommy, I love you. No, thank you.
25:00
That’s a lot of emotional mastery. makes complete sense. So emotional mastery is characteristic number one that you kind of go for in this concept of outlier entrepreneur. What is number two?
25:14
Number two is akin to number one, they call it physical mastery. Right? So while number one,
25:21
you know, helps you to have a thriving mind or mindset, but if your words, characteristic two or key number two helps you to have a thriving body, or more stamina, it’s very, very important, you’ll find that people who achieve more in life,
25:40
They care a lot for the amount of energy they have.
25:45
And everything I bring this up. And if there’s people in the room that are that have distinguished themselves, they’re always like, Oh, yeah, man, I travel around the world to see my doctor, or I do this than that. And I have a, I work with this guy who shows me how to train my body better. And I, I have a nutritionist in my life where I’ve been reading books on vitamins and and you understand
26:09
people who are appliers, understand how important their body is important, having more and more and more energy is
26:20
because ultimately, these two things, the first to emotional mastery, and physical mastery, they kind of work hand in hand. Because if you don’t take care of your body, think about that. Think about how you feel the day after going out with your friends, and drinking five or six beers and eating pizza before going to bed. Think about how you feel the next morning, when you wake up, you’re not going to write a novel that’s going to that’s going to compete, okay, then the next morning, you’re not going to feel it, you’re not going to feel very good or very creative, because your body is going to be being slow. So there’s many things that people are going to step up, for example, like, and obviously, this is not the purpose of this call to go into, you know, physical mastery, but you know, just the digestive problems, right? You know, there’s digestion requires most of the energy of the body, right, we use so much energy. digestion actually affects what we eat. And the way we digest actually affects our hormonal system. And the hormones actually affect how we think it affects what decision we take. But this isn’t we don’t take. So today, literally, you could look at your life, and you can say, where I am right now is pretty much directly correlated to what the food you’ve been eating most of your life. It’s crazy. It’s pretty much correlated to the kind of physical activity you’ve had most of your life. See, people want to build successful businesses, but at the same time, they will I need to be just like my cousin Jimmy, who lives in my grandma’s basement, and who smokes pot plays video game all day and drinks beer every night. Right? No, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You cannot be like your cousin Jimmy, and also have the wealth of Warren Buffett. It’s not it doesn’t work, right? Or you cannot be like your cousin Jimmy and have the celebrity of Oprah. It’s not gonna work. You know, you have to make some choices. And so it’s very, very important. And people who are outlier entrepreneurs understand the importance of a thriving body through that highest level of stamina. Make sense? makes complete sense.
28:31
Right? I am, I’m ready to hear about key number three.
28:36
Okay, number three is actually also very important. I call it to Know thyself. Right?
28:44
If you have, you know, if you go back to the Greece antiquity, and you find out that, you know, there was a Temple of Apollo, where people would go and meet the
28:59
Oracle of Delphi, right at the temple of Apolo, so, all these Greek leaders, they would walk in there, and then they would, they wanted to seek the advice of the Oracle at Delphi, supposedly, you know, it was like,
29:13
before you could enter inside of the temple, it was one phrase inscribed on the on the door of the temple and it was Know thyself, because there’s nothing that is more important than to know yourself. And most people say I know myself, no, you don’t know yourself. In fact, in fact, what most people think,
29:33
what, who most people think they are, and who they actually are, are going in opposite directions.
29:42
Right?
29:43
The person you think you are and the person you really are, are two different human beings. And why do you think that is?
29:51
Well, that’s because there’s a lot of research done on and onto that, right.
29:56
There’s a lot of things called psychometric analysis.
30:00
Think that you could do the, you know, their analyses to understand how you think how what prevails in your thoughts, you know?
30:09
What kind of what kind of a human being are you and I remember doing one of these with my, my ex wife.
30:16
It’s one of my favourite ones called wealth dynamics, right?
30:21
And wealth dynamics is about understanding your profile as an entrepreneur. What kind of entrepreneur are you? And so before we did the test, we were actually attending an event with
30:33
the founder of wealth dynamics. What’s his name again? Roger Hamilton, he became a friend. He’s a great guy, Roger Hamilton.
30:42
And he’s explaining how his wealth dynamics
30:45
system works. And he said, you know, if you’re on this side, you’re an extrovert. If you’re on that side, you’re, you’re an introvert. So we’re trying to kind of figure out and I told my ex wife, I said, You’re totally that person, right? And then we do the test. And she’s not only not this person, she’s the exact opposite. And I’m like, What?
31:05
That makes no sense.
31:09
You’re not an introvert. And then she says, You know, I think I am. Like, what? You’re an introvert. I mean, we’ve been together for like, 15 years at that point, like, you’re not an introvert. And then we start having a conversation, and she said, You know what, I think most of my life, I have associated extraversion, with success. And I have tried to be more and more extroverted. But if I’m honest with myself, Marco, I feel much better when I’m alone. When I’m by myself when I’m gardening, and I start to think I’m like, Well, that’s true. She loves to do all these things. Right? So
31:47
if I had asked her before, she would have probably said she was an extroverted person. You know, she’s, but she was the exact opposite. Okay.
31:57
So, the point of to know yourself better is to do psychometric analysis. That’s the step one, you know, the Myers brigg, the disc, the strengths finders, the wealth dynamics. I mean, there’s a department at the University of Pennsylvania that studies it, they have come up with hundreds, there’s hundreds of these tests, just at the University of Pennsylvania. But that’s step one. Step two is to start to play that game. Because I’ve been advocating for this for 15 years. And I tell people, you know, they do these tests, and people do these tests, like they watch a movie. Oh, wow, that’s really cute. That was good. Oh, yeah. I’m guess I’m that profile. But then they go back to being what they’re in whether or not. So step two is you need to embody that. And at first, it feels weird. At first, it doesn’t feel right, to try to be who you’re supposed to be. But then you ease into it, and then it becomes easier and easier. Let me just give you an example. Okay, I grew up in a very blue collar environment. My parents were my mind. My parents were nurses.
33:02
Most of my uncle’s were mechanics, miners, lumber, they were lumber jacks, you know, things like that. So, I grew up in a very blue collar environment. And I always try to be kind of the man of the house, right? So, you know, Marco’s got a screwdriver and, and is trying to fix the door handle? Well, Marco never really like that, you know. And eventually, after throwing, you know, the hammers and screwdrivers in the sheetrock in the house, you know, because I’m getting angry, because it’s not me, I’m not a manual person. I had to start confronting that. And when I realised that I was not born to be like that. I’m not a manual person. I’m a creator. I’m a thinker. I’m an intellectual. And at first, it was weird, because I was fighting all of me. See, all of me, wanted to belong, all of me wanted to fix the cars and the door handles, and the cracks in the wall. All of me wanted that.
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But then if I listen to my inner voice, I didn’t want that. But I fought it. And it took a couple years of me fighting it. And eventually, I kind of really embodied who I really am. So the last 10-12 years I’ve been playing the game of life, like I’m supposed to play in my life is completely changed. Right? My life has exploded. See, what I always tell people is this.
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You know, if you’re born to be an orange, but you’re trying to be an apple all your life, not much is going to happen. Right? And that’s what that’s the problem. People are born to be oranges, and they tried to extract apple juice from life. Not gonna happen, dude, you need to face the fact that you are an orange and that you’re going to drink orange juice, not apple juice. And orange juice is good, and it’s good for you. Right? You need to embody that version of yourself. No matter what the world wants it to be, no matter what your parents want you to be, no matter what the news says you need to be you’re not an apple.
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You’re a frickin orange. So embody that and be that. Okay, so that’s step number three. And then step number four, is, you find I find that outlier entrepreneurs know the world. Right? So they’re fascinated by the world. It’s almost like they understand that this game of life is played
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in the world. So they’re fascinated by social sciences, you know, politics, but not entertainment politics, like what you see on the news know, the science of politics, you know, how does it work? Why is it the groups of people have to interact together and discuss public matters, right? Politics, sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, they are interested in the social sciences, because they understand that this is the world we live in, they understand that the only way for me to thrive is to serve the world. And the only way for me to serve the world is for me to understand the world. If I don’t understand the world that I live in, nothing’s gonna, it’s never gonna happen. Right? So it’s almost like innately, they’re driven by a, like, an innate desire to understand the world better and better. So took me 30 years to figure this out. Today, I say that we, you know, you want to become an extraordinary human being in any sphere of life. Its focus on those four things, master your emotions, master your physical energy,
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Know yourself, like, seek out to constantly know yourself better and better and better. And also seek out to know the world and where you live better than better and better and better. So I always say, it’s the process of mastery. When will you have achieved emotional mastery? Never. It’s, it’s a process, when will you have achieved physical mastery? Never. It’s a process. When will you know yourself? You say No, never. It’s a process. When will you know the world? Never. mastery is a is a devotion to a constant and never ending. desire to grow. Right? So to me, those that defines us like entrepreneurs make sense? Yeah. Great. Thank you so much for outlining that, in terms of your the final step, understanding the world, one of the things that I come across, even with like, very, very smart people, is sometimes confusing their understanding of how they want the world to be with actually confusing that with how the world actually is, is there a way of kind of breaking out of that paradigm of, I suppose, a way to stop fooling yourself that, you know, just because you act a certain way, you’re going to get a certain result? Because you think the world works like this? Or is that something that kind of those people that share that are almost doomed to keep repeating that behaviour until something snaps them out of it?
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This is, I mean, it would take me five hours to answer this question. Okay. I’m gonna be honest with you. This is this is the paradigm we live under right now. Right? We live at the cusp of two major philosophies right now, right? It’s called modern philosophy and postmodern philosophy. And we, the last 30 years or so of life, are kind of is where these two philosophies are, are stacking on top of one another. The modern world is basically this world that understands that there are realities, I throw this up, as far as back down, right? It’s gravity. And it’s pretty much a constant, right? In fact, most human beings believe that gravity is a constant, even though it’s not quite a constant. But it’s a most human being most, most people believe it’s a constant. So it’s very close to a constant. There’s there is a real world out there. And the postmodern world
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is the world that you know, nothing is real. We can, you can be whatever you want, you can pretend to be whatever you want. You’re six years old, you want to drink, you want to drink dry, no one can try it, just so you understand that it’s not good for you, right? It’s a completely different world. And we have an entire generation right now, that has been raised under this postmodern ideology. And I think honestly, that’s why we see a lot of challenges right now around the world, because you have an older generation that says, hey, there are precepts of life, right? This is how the world is. And then there’s a new generation that says, No, we don’t want to accept any of the precepts of life, you know,
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when it comes to
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they basically identify these, this new this new idea with identities, right? So sexual identities, racial identities, political identities, national identity. So people like to divide everything in identities. That’s the world we live in right now. So there’s a clash. So
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to try and answer and answer your question, because to me,
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to me, I make sense of these two worlds by basically saying this, okay.
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There are
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precepts that are not debatable.
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But once you agree to build on these precepts, everything becomes debatable. That’s the way that I build. That’s the way I see the world, right? In other words,
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base your life on principles that have actually based your life or your business, in this case, right? on ideas and principles that have worked. Don’t try, don’t try to challenge the foundations of what works when you’ve never done it before.
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But once you understand the foundational aspect of running life or, or thriving in business, then everything you build on top of that, please bring,
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bring your attitude, your desires, your craziness, your weirdness, your, you know, your resiliency, bring all of that, but make sure that you that you do not debate the foundation of society. And that’s the way that I see it.
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And that’s why I created these, what I call these four keys to success, you understand this, this puts a lot of space above that. There’s a lot of space above that, right? I mean, you can basically be anything you want. But please understand that if you want to succeed, you’re gonna have to master your emotions, your body, you have to know yourself, and you have to understand how the world works. Boom, that’s it. So that’s kind of my the best way that I can answer this question. Makes sense? Yeah, one of the things that I love personally about business, is that there’s certain things that are true. And if you don’t think they’re true, then you’re welcome to test them. And then the market is a very good,
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I guess, battleground and testbed for these things, if you if you hold that a certain principle is true, you’re very welcome to go out, start a business and see if that’s the case. And you’re very, very quickly find out whether you’re right, or whether you you’ve been wrong in fooling yourself. So I really like that aspect of it. Me too. But at the same time, you know, how many likes do people have? You know, people are like, you know, I’m gonna try it, like, it’s not gonna work. And what I always tell my clients is this.
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I say,
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a lot of people have argued with me over the years, right. And at this point in my life, you know, last year when I was sitting down with my marketing teaming, we were kind of calculating how much of an impact I personally have had on the world of business. And it’s well over a billion dollars, I have literally generated well over a billion dollars in the last 20 years. In increased wealth in this world, right, whether it’s increased sales, increase profits, increase value in their business, people seek different things. But it’s well over nine fingers.
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So I always tell people this, I say,
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you,
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you can debate the ideas, and you can fail. Or you can listen to somebody like me that has a track record, where my hindsight is actually your foresight. And that’s where you should start, start by following somebody that has a track record, instead of following your whims, your fancies, your weird ideas, you can do that later, start by following the basic principles of life. I’ve had a lot of people argue with me, and I’m not saying that to boast. I’m just saying that to convey a point.
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A lot of people have argued with me, and so you know, I’m gonna try differently. And I have yet to find one of these people actually become successful. But a lot of people have listened to me, and are part of the people that have that have made over a billion dollars over the last one years. Right. So there are my job over the last 30 years has been to,
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to identify what works. That’s my job, what works. And I started by saying, hey, it’s all about systems. And I realise, okay, there’s something below systems, and it’s, it’s the Beingness, it’s who you are. So make sure you’re the right person, then make sure that this person focuses on building systems and business.
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That’s a very, very, very good foundation for success. So within the four keys to success, is it kind of your expectation that for people to get the most out of them, they should be addressing all of these consecutively? Or is it very much this is the priority? And once you get to a certain level, with that, that key to success, you move on to the others? How does that work? I think you need to address them concurrently, not consecutively, right? In other words, you address them all at a time based on the priorities in your own life, like you know,
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and it’s, I have a client, for example, who reached out to me and he wanted to build a business and we we had a very honest conversation you understand? So
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sometimes I’m almost like a psychologist. Okay? Because we have to be honest, I don’t want to fake reality, right? I want to start on the footing of reality. This guy weighed probably about 450 pounds.
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And we started to drive to build his business and nothing was going anywhere. Well, he had no energy. So I said, Dude, the first day, you can’t build the business if you don’t have any energy. Instead, you sleep in until the guy was he had just retired from a career, and you wanted to start a business, what he was sleeping in until 10am in the morning, and by 4pm, he was exhausted. Like, you’re not going to be able to build a business like that. So the first thing we have to do is we need to get you more stamina, right? Now, does that mean that we don’t need to have emotional mastery? No, it all happens concurrently. It all happens at the same time. But you can prioritise in his case, it was like, okay, we’re going to build your business. But as we build your business, we need you to focus on getting healthier buddy. And that’s why I always say that
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becoming an online entrepreneur is step one of building a business. But while you’re doing step two, you’re still focusing on becoming an entrepreneur, enough entrepreneur, while you’re doing Step three, you’re also focusing on becoming an outlier. If the omnipresent factor of business, I’m 50 years old today, and I’m still focusing on improving how good of an outlier entrepreneur I am, all the time. In fact, that’s how you define being an online entrepreneur. It’s somebody who is constantly focused on the mastery of being better and better and better at being themselves. So it sounds like with that particular story, then that was although that they you kind of encouraged them to work on the four keys to success. At the same time, there was one particular aspect that needed fixing really, really quickly and needed more of the attention. So do you think it’s the case that most people, there’ll be kind of one glaring aspect, and that might require more attention?
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Very, very often. Emotional mastery, that’s this. There’s no coincidence here. That’s the reason why I put it at the top. And emotional mastery is a big, big issue. You know, the reality is this right? by 10am. In the morning, most normal average on there, people out there, they’ve already ruined any chance they have of making that day a successful day. Because something went wrong in the environment, right? The wife forgot to put gas in the car. How dare she, I told her I needed the car this morning, right? Or there’s too much traffic or, or there’s no more coffee, or the coffee is too cold or, or though you know, there’s not enough money in the bank account to pay the bill or understand, there’s always an external factor. And by 10/11 o’clock every morning,
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the person has made a decision to ruin any chance they have that day, becoming successful. And this happens day, after day, after day, after day. And then they wake up. They’re like 40/45 years old. They’re like, man, where’s my life going? Nowhere.
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Now, scientists tells us, they tell us, excuse me.
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scientists tell us that by the time we’re in the early 40s.
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It’s almost impossible to change anymore. I’ll tell you why. Because by the time we are in the early 40s,
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our neurological connections are so strong, because we’ve been repeating the same patterns over and over and over again, that we’re not interested. Okay. Think about this, right? You know, you’re still below the age of 40. But you know, by the time you’re 40, something guy says, Hey, you want to go to a baseball game? Well, so many baseball games,
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right? Because you know what’s gonna happen, you’re gonna get there, you’re gonna have a beer, you’re gonna sit in the bleachers, and have some popcorn and have a hot dog and watch the game, re re re, and go back home, you’re gonna fight traffic, and like, I don’t want to do that, right? Because we know, we know what’s gonna happen. You know, you’re five years old, and your daddy says, I’m gonna take you to a baseball game.
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I remember the first time I went to a baseball game, there was there was excitement. Right? So people are not excited anymore, but under 40 years old, because they know like they know too much about life. That’s why I say you need to step outside of the box. Because the reality is this, guys, if you’re watching this, please understand.
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Your brain has the capacity to reinvent itself
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at the same rate, as it did when you were in your 20s until you’re in your late 70s, early 80s. Right, it’s called brain plasticity. We can rewire our brain at the same rate as we did when we were in our early 20s. But most people choose not to
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you know if you’re if the operating system and your computer says all good
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Are you going to upgrade? Are you going to? No, you’re not. Because the operating system says all good. So you need an external force, you need a technician that comes in and says, Listen, Charlie, your brain is not all good. We’re gonna need to upgrade that software that you’ve been running the same software. Since 1996. We need to upgrade that software. Oh, well, that sounds like hard. Yes, it is hard. But there’s no other choice. Otherwise, you’re going to keep on repeating the same mistakes of the future of the past. Like, while expecting a new future, that’s insanity. So you want a new future, you want a thriving existence, you want an amazing retirement, you want a business that actually provides you with the lifestyle that you want? Well, we’re gonna have to start changing how you see the world, we’ll have to challenge your preconceived notions of life, your philosophies, your beliefs, your values, we’re gonna have to, we’re gonna need to be willing to change all of that, right?
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Now makes complete sense there as well. So I think you’ve given us a fantastic overview, and probably as much as you, you can do in kind of this this sort of time period. So can you tell me a little bit more about what you’re trying to accomplish at the moment on a personal and professional level?
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So right now, I have a book that I’ve been working on for a while, it’s actually called the outlier entrepreneur. I signed a contract with a publishing house a couple years ago, and we’re on the verge of releasing this book very soon.
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What else? You know, Funny enough, I usually travel extensively. I mean, I’m an international consultant. So I have tried from about 40 different countries. So usually, I’m on the road, four to eight months a year. Well, this year 2020, I’ve been home for eight, nine months, I actually came home
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in December of 2019, because my wife was pregnant. So we were expecting a baby. So I knew I was going to be home for the next four or five months. But I didn’t think I was going to be home for the next year or so. So we’re looking at ways as soon as they can start travelling a little bit, again, we’re probably going to do a tour, we’re going to do an international tour.
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I’m looking forward to that. So we’re working on that. You know, and otherwise, you know, it’s enjoying my life with my kids, my son, my child. And you know, maybe I’m gonna start working on my golf game, I live in Arizona. So winter is the best time here to play golf. So I’m probably going to start playing a little bit more golf this year, having a little bit more fun. And I’m a very creative person. So I’m always working on a new course for my clients. I’m always working on a new programme.
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You know, and then I at the same time, I have all these groups of people that I coach, and I consult with so you know, I’m a pretty good place in my life right now. Amazing. Yeah, definitely sounds like it. So if people are interested in learning more about yourself, or about the concept of the outlier entrepreneur, where can they go?
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So probably the easiest thing as you guys can look me up on LinkedIn. So it’s basically linkedin.com/Marcorobert. I also have a YouTube channel. Youtube.com/MarcoRobert
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or just my website, Marcorobert.com. There’s a lot of stuff out there.
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Yeah, yeah. And then what I decided to do also, is you and I talked before the training, and I’m working on a course right now. It’s already pre recorded. And it’s something that we’re going to start selling, I’m going to start selling it. It’s a 12 day course, on really how to be how to think like an entrepreneur. So every morning for 12 days, people get a message from me in their inbox. And it’s,
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it’s basically how do you need to think, Who do you need to be? What are the factors that are going to affect how you’re going your play your life, right? So it’s 12 days. And I decided to because we wanted to do this for you guys, I decided I’m going to give it to your viewers here or your listeners absolutely free. All they have to do is you can simply send an email to contact@MarcoRobert.com, and just in the email in the title just write outlier entrepreneur. And we will send you this 12 day course absolutely free. So you can actually watch it. And you can understand a little bit more. What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? And this course was actually the it was something I did for my clients at the beginning of the COVID. I was sitting at home, my schedule was cancelled. And a lot of my clients had a lot of questions like okay, how do we deal with this crisis? How do we deal with what’s happening in our lives right now? And I decided
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To put together this course, where I taught them how to be more resilient, how to be able to face adversity, how to think like an online entrepreneur. So for 12 days, every morning, I met with them. And then we recorded this course, it’s pretty cool, guys. So if you want this, it’s 100%, free, we’re about to put it on the website, we’re going to be selling it, I think we’re gonna be selling it for $997. But for your viewers and listeners, they can get 100% free by going to contact@MarcoRobert.com. Fantastic. Thank you very much for that Marco, very kind of you. And I’m sure our listeners will, will really appreciate that.
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And for the listeners, and anybody kind of watching this later, all of those links are going to be available in the show notes and the transcripts as well. So you’ll just be able to click over Marco, thank you again, it’s been a fascinating conversation. And I’ve really loved kind of listening to all of the different keys to success to be an outlier entrepreneur. I think it’s a fantastic and very, very interesting concept. So from a personal level, I just, I really enjoyed it. So I hope the listeners did as well. Thanks again. Well, thank you so much. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you.