You Get Nothing by Staying Where You Are

Have you seen a change in the types of questions that you're being asked because the world has changed, people are more interested in personal branding or business or whatever else? Are people asking you new questions? No, I don't think. What are the questions that you get asked? I get asked a lot of like hey, I'm thinking about doing this thing,

what do you think? I'm thinking about starting this business. I'm thinking about starting a podcast agency, what do you think? And it doesn't matter what I think. I'm like and so I'll just ask the next question which is like, well, what have you done so far? Why do you ask that? Well, because the answer nine times out of 10 is

well, I haven't I was just thinking about it. I'm like, okay, well, then nothing's happened. What's going on there with those people that come up to you and they say they're thinking about something, but they haven't done anything about it? I'm guessing that they want to talk to me about business stuff and so this is the only business related thing that

they can talk about and so that's probably why they talk about it or they bring it up or they want to feel like in some ways it's like progressive productive procrastination or that I'm going to somehow give them one answer that's going to like finally get them over the hump of starting, but

most people start because one, starting feels like this very amorphous thing. When it when it I like I was going to say like have you has there ever been something that you don't know how to do? Well, whenever I approach something that I don't know how to do it, always feels

amorphous. It's like this big thing and I don't know where to start like how do like how do I grab onto a piece of it? And so having gone and attacked like these amorphous things like start a business which means nothing, you have to break things down to much

smaller steps of action. That's why for me the most basic thing to start a business is like get an LLC, open [clears throat] a bank account, have the ability to process money and then ask a stranger if you can do something for them in exchange for money. As soon as you do those four things, congratulations, you're a business owner.

You've already beaten like 95% of people who and you've also changed your title from watchapreneur to entrepreneur. And I think that is one of the most just like when you when a customer buys from you versus just consuming your free stuff, their identity completely changes. They're now a customer, which means they're far more likely to

purchase future things from me than somebody who's not bought something. That's why, ascensions and renewals are much easier than getting somebody to buy the first time, right? And so, I think to the same degree for us as entrepreneurs or people who aspire to be an entrepreneur, it's like go make the first dollar. And then as soon as you have that taste of like, this isn't I grabbed the

corner of this thing. I understand. I just got to get them to give me money to do something. Or I can build something and then have them buy it from me and then I have to figure out how to build more of them, right? If it's a thing. But like, that's it at the most basic level. And everything else is just is confusion.

If you could go back to the starting blocks and whisper something in Alex's ear when he was starting up, advice that would have made the journey easier, more profitable, whatever. What is What are the layers of advice you would have given him at this at starting blocks?

[sighs and gasps] So, I've thought about this a lot. If I went back in time and I saw an older version of myself, if he appeared in this room right now, let's say 20 years from now is looking at me, my hope is that he would say nothing.

Because it would mean that it worked. Now, if I if I was going back and let's say that I hadn't taken the step and I hadn't been able to make the jump, what would I say in that instance? is you have to decide whether you care more about your future than what other people think about your future.

Someone's version of you has to die. It's either your desired version of you or someone else's desired version of you. And the thing is you're going to be with you a lot longer than they are. I think everything at the very beginning of entrepreneurship comes down to one thing, which is fear. And justified. It's It makes sense to be

afraid. Like, there's a lot of risk, there's a ton of unknown, there's so much stuff that you don't know. But the only thing I can also say is that it also puts you in the exact same position as every other person starting up in entrepreneurship. They didn't know. And the only way to know is to start.

And to have faith that you will not know the way up the mountain, but as you walk up the mountain, the fog starts to clear. And the fog will always be there, but you'll will be able to see the couple steps in front of you. And so, your responsibility is to only take the steps that you can see in front of you. That is it. And then once you take those steps, the

next steps will become clear. And I think that's where there's an obsession with knowing the entirety. And it's because we want certainty. We want to know that if we do all of these things, it's going to work. And you don't. You want certainty from a world that will give you none.

And if you're uncomfortable with that, entrepreneurship might not be for you. Yeah. But I even say that and I almost I almost I almost regret saying that because I was so risk-averse when I started. Like people see the content now or they see you now and you're so confident and

great on podcasts. And like but I'm sure the first podcast you did, you like look at it and you just absolutely cringe, right? I had a video that I put out that was like the first content that I made that I was like reacting to my own first content. And it's horrendous. It's horrible. But the thing is that you have to be

willing to be cringe. You must embrace cringeness. You will not be cool. It will not look good. You will suck. And everyone will know you suck. And you will know you suck. But again, it's do I care more about their version of me or my version of me? And

am I willing to be a work in progress or am I unwilling to do it because I want to keep my current station in life? But the thing is that you're at a local maximum. And there's a desire in you probably, if I'm talking to my younger self, to be at a higher maximum than I am right now. I