629: What Every Successful Entrepreneur Has Done To Get Where They Are

One of the biggest mistakes I see entrepreneurs make is that they see someone else’s success and try to replicate it as a “blueprint” for their own. Every successful entrepreneur has a unique journey and there’s no one-size-fits-all roadmap. The underlying principle of success is gaining knowledgeable experience and using those lessons to dictate your path. In today’s episode I highlight my own journey and how a series of choices led to the multiple 7-figure company I have today. Trust me, when I was starting out doing VA work for $18/hr, I could have never guessed what it would turn into…

I’ll be sharing:

• When assessing my own entrepreneurial path, I realized that none of my success was pre-planned.
• How my success came from taking action, learning from experience, and being open to unexpected opportunities.
• That there’s no substitute for trying things, failing, and learning from those experiences.

… and so much more.

In my programs, I give you step-by-step action plans for how to get from point A to point B in your business, and those resources will set you up to reach your biggest goals in the fastest, easiest way, BUT even with that, it’s up to you to put yourself out there and be willing to fail, try again, learn lessons, and keep freaking going.

Tune in for a very real conversation about entrepreneurship and why those who find massive success are the ones constantly taking action and moving forward. There’s a big question at the end of this episode that I want you to reflect on, so make sure you listen to the very end!

Like the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple or Spotify.

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Ways I can support:

[ENTREPRENEUR EVENT] FREE in-person event in Austin, TX for ALL Hirsh Community members! https://www.notforlazymarketers.com/experience

Tired of inconsistent revenue & marketing strategies that leave you overwhelmed? Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale to multiple 7-figures, book a call with Team Hirsh to see how we can help: http://helpmystrategy.com

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Hello my friends, welcome back to the podcast. I’ve had a week this week of living. I feel like I love weeks that just shake up my routine. I used to actually really struggle with that where it’s like I haven’t done my workouts as many times and I’m off on my habits and now. It’s just kind of a nice break sometimes and both my kids had birthdays two days apart so it’s like Christmas because we have their friend birthday party, their other birthday and my mom was in town and we got them. My kids have been really into baseball this year and so we bought them tickets to go see the Texas Rangers so we’re driving towards Dallas and staying the night and so we got to do that and then last night I went and saw. Jordan Peterson was in Austin and I had bought my husband tickets to the I guess talk show. Whatever for Christmas and so we got to go to that last night. I spent most of yesterday downtown Austin. Planning out and confirming details for part 1 of the ultimate entrepreneur experience and I can’t even I can’t even tell you guys how excited I am. I’m like I can’t, I’m so excited for so much of this event. It’s crazy.

What we’re doing in such a short amount of time but yet how it doesn’t really feel stressful at all and how everything just falls into place and is coming together so perfectly and I’ve never had an experience like this to this level where it’s so big. What I’m doing and should be extremely stressful like an event for a hundred people normally takes months for a business to plan. We’re going from idea to actually hosting the event in six weeks and everything’s like ready and we’re a week and a half away so anyways it’s been a really fun full week I’m still just like I feel like I dreamed about everything Jordan Pearson said it was it was really really good so anyways that’s my week. A little update from me and if you’re considering coming to the ultimate entrepreneur experience in Austin. Truly you guys it is going to be next level valuable connecting I mean it’s going to nothing like this has ever been done and it just combines so much into 1 experience. Play connection networking business strategy you know meeting in person it all in 1 and the details that we’ve taken into consideration are amazing. So notforlazymarketers.com/experience. You can make sure you save your spot.

If you can’t, absolutely cannot make it in person. There is a virtual option on May 7th. Alright today is kind of going off the theme of last week’s Thursday podcast which was about taking action and. I’ve been for whatever reason I’ve had a lot of conversations or just pieces of content or things at events I’ve gone to put in front of me around an entrepreneur’s journey and so I feel like there’s a reason for that for sure. But it’s definitely also giving me content ideas. So last week on Thursday I talked about how a billionaire shared his number 1 contributor to his success was the ability to take action quickly and how important that is as an entrepreneur that the faster you go from idea to execution and be willing to fail, be willing to make mistakes, the more successful you’re going to be, period. Today is a continuation of that in a way because at a past event that I was at there was a panel. And somebody asked the question to the people on the panel and said you know can you tell us what your journey was like can you tell us what you did in the beginning days to create success and as I knew what would happen but I don’t think she knew the answer.

Everybody had a different answer right? like none of them had even close to the same journey or did the same things but yet they were all million dollar business owners multi 7 figure actually some 8 figure business owners and it made me think about something which is. First of all when we go to create some sort of success. Even if it’s not in business, I’ve noticed myself doing this with things like Crossfit or gardening or health, what we do as humans. The way that our brain works is we want a step by step checklist. We want to know if we do these things we’ll get to that result and while there definitely are checklists. There definitely are roadmaps there definitely are things that you can do. There’s 1 underlying. Principle that trumps all the checklists, all the roadmaps, all the things that you can do and this is why every one of those entrepreneurs had a different answer because ultimately number one there isn’t 1 path to success. There is not a checklist to 7 figures. There’s not 1 way to get to that end result just like there’s not 1 way for me to make it to high up in the crossfit competition level right? There’s not 1 exercise program that I need to do that’s going to guarantee that I get there.

There’s not 1 method of building my homestead in my garden that is going to guarantee. It won’t get eaten by caterpillars and not produce right? or that it will be super successful every time right? There is no such thing as. 1 way to do something, one way to get to an end result There’s not 1 way to lose weight. There’s not 1 way to achieve any goal and that’s because the underlying principle of this is we are all unique, right? And so even in our business. We have unique experiences, unique expertise, unique gifts that we’re put here to leverage, same with all the goals that I just mentioned the reason why I can’t follow the same exact workout program is somebody else to get to exactly where they are is I’m built differently I have a different body. I might have a different muscle type like it would never work. Okay, and then so then it said like okay how do you figure out what to do? How do you create success? Well what every single successful entrepreneur does no matter what their story is. And matter what checklist they followed, no matter what they did, they learned through experience. 

So my answer to this question or to this podcast episode of what every successful entrepreneur does is gain knowledgeable experience and use that experience to dictate their path and so when this person asked this question of go back and tell us about your beginning story and how did you create your initial success. I realized and of course I knew this but I realized oh this is an important thing for people to hear this is how I get my content ideas is I hear other people like ask questions and other people answer and then I have something I want to say about it and I wasn’t on this panel and so I was like got to make a podcast episode initial success success in any area of your life. But. Business especially does not come from 1 idea or even a pre-planned out journey when I look back at my beginning of my business I did not sit down and write out and say here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to start as a virtual assistant for $18 an hour I’m going to learn all of these platforms and I’m going to know how to do everything and then I’m going to learn facebook ads and I’m gonna start doing marketing support for my clients and then I’m going to end up raising my prices up to like $35 an hour and then I’m going to decide. That I’m just going to offer marketing support and then I’m going to just offer marketing support and I’m going to do that all on my own and I’m going to write the copy and I’m go to load the ads and I’m going to be in charge of the strategy and then I’m gonna get so busy and have so many clients and be making $10000 a month.

But be completely burnt out and I have to build my team and then I’m going to have a million dollar agency and marketing company and I’m going to launch a podcast. I planned none of that like that’s the high level overview of my journey. None of it was preplanned. It was oh I’m going to do this thing to start. Going to be a virtual assistant 10 for $18 an hour because for me in that moment I had a newborn baby and I was twenty years old and I needed to be staying home I wanted to be staying home with this baby I needed to make money and so now I found a way to make money online that was the start. Right? And then 1 thing led to the next but the entire successful journey came from experience. It was not me sitting down and pre-planning the fact I was going to have a multi seven figure marketing company. It was never the plan. I was in college to be a naturopathic doctor like I didn’t even think I would be in marketing and here I am right? and so success in your business. No matter where you are today. Maybe you’ve created a little success but you have this whole next level where you want to get? Maybe you haven’t created success but you have this level you want to get to. No matter where you are today. All you need to know is you have these big dreams for more and you want to get to the next level and you want to continue to build and you want to continue to impact your you don’t need.

Every single step of how you’re going to get there really you just need the vision and the purpose which we talked about last. So. It’s kind of go coming like a series. We talked about the last podcast: your mission and your purpose has to drive everything and then you just have to understand what the next step is the next most strategic step. Because I think what happens is when we get so caught up in having a rigid strict blueprint or checklist that we have to follow like so and- so she built a million dollar business with a $2000 offer and so therefore I have to have a $2000 offer like no There’s there’s a million ways to do it and when we get so caught up in that I think we become blindsided to opportunity around us. It’s only been recently so a lot of this happened kind of on accident for me and it happened because I was willing to constantly take action. And success was not optional for me. It was like I will be successful. I don’t care how I get there. I’m going to make it happen but it was recently that I’ve realized oh I actually need to just keep in mind like this is my intention. This is my end result. And I want to also be open to ideas I haven’t thought of, you know creativity that I haven’t accessed because I’m so focused on a checklist now I’m not saying at all.

Having a checklist or having inspiration or having you know guidelines like that’s all my programs is it tells you you know, step by step what to do next but infused into those step-by-step things is the way is for you to make it your own which is going to come up around. Who your actual ideal customer is in your business. What your offer is, how much you charge, how you deliver your offer, your sales funnel, the topic of your sales funnel, the content that you create and also likely this is going to evolve as you evolve. Every entrepreneur if you look at what they were teaching. You know, five years ago, three years ago they’ve evolved and as they evolve as people like this is for sure happened to me, you look at me in the last year and my teaching and how I show up on this podcast has had to change because I have changed. So the bottom line is that the only way to get success and be successful and achieve a dream that you have in any area of your life has to come from experience. It has to come from trying things. It has to come from failing. It has to come from doing something that didn’t work and you learned the lesson on that. So if you can challenge yourself to do 1 thing in your business. It is to always be moving forward in action.

Whatever that action is, it’s a decision to say I’m going to do nothing. It’s a decision to say I’m going to pause for thirty days while I figure out x y z while I strategize what my new offer is going to be. Like those, those seasons are not necessarily bad in business. What is not what is quote bad in business I don’t really like using that word but is what is not going to equal growth. What is not going to get you where you want to go is subconsciously choosing to not take action. Because you don’t have the exact to do list of what you think you should do and you’re afraid of failing and so therefore you do nothing right? And so our brains are wired to go and look at what somebody else has done. And then want to replicate exactly what they’ve done right because I mean to an extent that’s part of how we work that has a positive side to it if we look at ourselves thousands of years ago like when we saw someone do something that worked and we got to replicate it. We evolved as humans. But I also think this hinders our success because if we are looking at a 7 figure entrepreneur like the ones who are on this panel and we’re like okay I’m going to dissect exactly what they did in their journey because.

If I do that then I’ll be successful. That’s where the mistake happens because it’s not how it works. If you replicate exactly what somebody else does it doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful because what they did it didn’t actually matter about the step by step. It’s that they had the principle of. Success wasn’t optional. I’m going to commit and do whatever it takes and I’m just going to keep trying things until I figure out something that works and I’m going to stay open to unexpected ideas or directions I should take based on feedback from the previous thing I just did. Experience is the only way to grow your business experience is the only way to get better at something is the only way if we use the examples of what I said earlier. My crossfit gardening anything I want to get better at the only way for me to do it is to do it. To take action is to learn where my unique weaknesses are in Crossfit and I’ve done this with my gardening. It’s to mess up. It’s to have aphids eat my entire garden last summer because it got too hot and I planted too late like. 

Now I won’t do that again this year you know but I won’t. I wouldn’t have been able to learn that lesson if I hadn’t done that and so when you look at any successful entrepreneur and you look at you know people that you look up to understand that their success did not come from this pre-planned journey like that’s a misconception of business. Every business you don’t sit down and plan an entire 7 figure business and have everything planned from a to z and then it actually works out that way like. You go and experience things and then you get the feedback from those experience and you’d go to the next thing and there’s everything in my business hasn’t been a result of that like there are many things that I have today in this moment that I’m like oh we would never be here if we didn’t have this issue over here. That’s you know, like the contrast you need those things to figure out what you don’t want to do to figure out what doesn’t work so today my invitation first of all, if you haven’t listened to the last 2 podcasts. They go really well with this. I guess I’m in this theme of getting you guys to have the confidence and the drive to make sure that you’re in action. But today my invitation is to just do an analysis and maybe even journal on am I searching. For somebody else successful to give me the blueprint, am I under the impression or the belief that if I just do what somebody else does or what I saw somebody else does or what they told me to do then I’ll be successful and also.

Am I constantly trying new things? Am I constantly putting myself in a situation where I am implementing what I believe to be the next best step not what somebody else thinks, not what somebody else is doing, not what I planned out on my twelve month plan but what I believe in this moment is the best next step for my business to get it to where I want it to be or is there. Another thing I should be doing is there something I should stop doing so I can start something else if I am not taking action. Right, am I too afraid to fail, am I too afraid to waste money or time and is that hindering my success and where do you have opportunity to move into action and to allow it. Experience to dictate your journey because the possibilities that open up when you operate this way and you allow experience and feedback from that experience to dictate what you’re doing in your journey are so huge. So that’s my invitation for you guys today. Hope you enjoyed today’s podcast episode. I can’t wait to see so many of you in Austin soon and I’ll talk to you next week!