This week’s conversation on SUCCESS Line meant a lot to me personally. I talk to Joseph, an entrepreneur who feels a calling to share his expertise and become a motivational speaker. I remember exactly what it felt like to have that dream, and I remember exactly how fun, exciting, and challenging the journey has been to get to where I am now.
Joseph knows he has something worthwhile to share, but he isn’t sure where or how to begin. He had three specific questions that I think all entrepreneurs might recognize:
- What is the right path?
- Is now the right moment?
- What are the first steps I should take?
I believe it is never the wrong moment to chase after your dreams. In fact, if you wait for the “right” or “perfect” moment to appear, you will be waiting forever. Regardless of what dream you may be pursuing, read on for my top three tips to get in the game, break through the wall, and get your message heard.
1. Disregard the competition.
There are a lot of reasons why you might fail; deciding that someone else has already done it should not be one of them.
Instead, focus on your uniqueness. As my mentor Larry Winget says, “The goal is to find your uniqueness, and exploit it in the service of others.” If you are playing the game of uniqueness, you don’t need to worry about the competition because there will be no one else who does it quite like you.
For example, there has been an explosion of donut shops over the past few years. But there are still people opening more because each owner is doing it in a way that is uniquely exciting to them. If everyone said, “Well, there is already a Dunkin Donuts, why would I start a donut company,” we would have no donut shops at all.
Don’t give yourself the excuse that there are already too many people in your field—that is not a good enough reason to give up on your dream. In order to succeed, you need to pay little attention to what the competition is doing. You need all of your energy, attention, and resources focused on what you can be, not worrying about what other people already are.
2. Strive to forward the conversation.
If you want to be viewed as a thought leader, then you have to push the conversation forward.
It’s not enough to regurgitate what other people have said. Take the time to digest the wisdom of others, process it, critically evaluate it, and apply it to today. Consider:
- What’s missing from this?
- What would make this more powerful?
- What would make this more actionable?
This is part of the difference between dissolving into the noise from the hundreds of thousands of speakers out there and breaking through the wall. You break through the wall when you forward the conversation.
And don’t assume that just because you learned something brilliant from someone else that you couldn’t add more to it. So much of what we come up with is based on things we’ve learned from our mentors that we’ve then adapted and applied to the current age. You can (and should) do the same thing!
If you want to be a leader in any field, forward the conversation and advance the thinking that has already been done.
3. Say a lot about a little.
When you give multiple messages, you get diluted compliance.
This is a lesson we can all benefit from—speakers, team managers, leaders, even parents.
The hardest work is not running your mouth about every single thing you think. The hardest work is figuring out the one thing that needs to be said. Consider, “What is the one thing I need to get across to my team, audience, reader, or child?”
Don’t say a little about a lot, say a lot about a little. If you do that, I promise you’ll have much more success having your message heard and having your audience respond to that message enthusiastically.
The SUCCESS Line is no longer releasing new episodes on the SUCCESS Podcast Network, but you can still listen to the full conversation below.
