How To Think With Dan Henry Why Most Entrepreneurs Don't Understand Effort
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So often, we think of effort as “giving it all you’ve got.” We hear phrases like “I can sleep when I’m dead” and “Just grind it out.”
Sure, that’s effort, and it might get you off the starting line, but will that kind of effort take you the distance?
No.
The truth is that kind of effort is really just brute force. Think about linebacker Clay Matthews charging down the field. He does a lot of heavy lifting, but the game could never be won by brute force alone. That kind of effort will leave you scratching your head, wondering why a certain funnel or software didn’t work for you the same way it worked for someone else.
Real effort is more about working smarter, not harder, like Tom Brady, as he skillfully looks for the right place and time to throw the ball. That well-placed, well-timed, skilled effort can take you the distance.
Learn skills before you put systems in place. Be intentional with your time and put effort in the right place at the right time, and you’ll see true growth.
Bottom line, if you’ve been working in your business for a while now, and you’re not successful yet, it’s because you’re putting your effort into the wrong things.
In this episode, I am going to cover:
- Why effort is often easily mistaken for brute force
- How applying the right kind of effort at the right time will grow your business
- How to know if you’re misplacing your effort in your business
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— TRANSCRIPT —
Hey, everybody, in today's episode, I'm going to talk about why most entrepreneurs truly and deeply do not understand the concept of effort. And this is over $20 million in personal entrepreneurial income speaking. So definitely pay close attention to this episode.
Alright, everybody. So let's talk about efforts, and I'm going to get real, real scientific on this one. So recently, you may have been listening to the podcast and heard that I had some; I've been the victim of fraud. Yeah. I had somebody try to purchase my home. They wrote bad checks to escrow. They committed check fraud. They tried, what we think it was, tried to commit wire fraud by sending tons of different wires and all this.
But here's the thing. I've been thinking about this. I talked to my realtor about it, talked to my lawyer about it, and I've been thinking about it. And I honestly don't think that, and you're probably like, what does this have to do with effort as an entrepreneur? Don't worry. I'm getting there. Trust me. So the thing is, I looked into the people that went to buy my home, and I looked into all this, and they live in a very, very, very, very, very modest home that they just got out of foreclosure. I'm talking like a $150,000 home, which around here in these parts is actually super; it's like a shack. I mean, this is a very, very expensive place to live compared to the rest of Florida. And if you're listening to this from like California or something, you're probably thinking, is it a hut?
You know, but the point is that I noticed something about these people was they wanted to see the home, like way more than normal. In other words, they came several times. Once they had the home under contract, they came several times. They, you know, like literally it was odd, you know? They wanted to be in the home a lot, and they even had excuses. Like they were, you know, bringing a designer and a builder, you know, check it out and get quotes yet, they tried to stiff the home inspector.
So it's like, you know, I thought about this. And I thought, what if these people were so desperate to feel wealthy, to feel what it's like to be successful, that they orchestrated this, this entire scam to be able, 'cause I mean, they're over here, and they're picking out cabinets, and they're saying, we're going to change this.
And Oh, you know, and it's like, I don't understand. 'Cause there's no end game for anything else, right? They're not; they're going to get caught. They're not going to make any money from this. I mean, one of the things that my realtor and I were talking about was, you know, what's their end game? Like, like they're not, there's no way they can get an advantage here. They can't make any money. They're not, they're just holding up the property, and we don't understand the end game. And I said I understand the end game. They're so desperate to feel wealth and feel success that they're playing this out like a movie, like a play, so they can just feel what it's like. And you know, they've gone to great lengths. I mean, apparently, the buyer said she was a lawyer, yet when we called the Florida bar, no such person.
So here's what this has to do with effort. You see, many times in life, people will become so desperate about a thing that they will, in their desperation, put in massive, massive amounts of effort to just like, you know, half-court shot. And it's odd because when it comes to actually accomplishing that thing in real life properly, it's the same, if not less, effort. I mean, think about what these people went through for this. Think of like; she put up a website that said she was a lawyer. If you go online, I'm not going to tell you her name 'cause I'm not going to do that. But there are websites. I mean, you can tell it's fake, but I mean, to go and put up a website to go do this, go to all the things they went through.
It's odd. It's super odd. You know, because that's a lot of effort. Imagine that if they put that much effort into growing a business or actually making a little bit of money, you know what I'm saying? So I see this in entrepreneurs all the time. They will sit there, especially online entrepreneurs. They'll sit there, and they'll put all this effort into something out of either desperation or overthinking something or doing something that just does not matter, but they won't put effort into the things that do matter.
Let me give you an example. I will see; this is like a real thing. I will see somebody literally build out an entire funnel for their business. They'll hear something. They'll read a blog. "Oh, well, we built a webinar funnel, but now we heard that challenges work better." And so they go and literally waste three weeks and build out this new thing, and then they hear this, and then they build this out.
And what you don't understand is that what makes those things work is, all the same, right? The stories you tell, the messages, what I call your core content, your core stories. That is what makes those things work. Let me give you an example. When I made a million dollars in a day, I did a two-day virtual event, and I pitched on the second day. Now, what was that two-day virtual event? That two-day virtual event was basically a two-day webinar. It was a webinar that I had done over and over and over and over again for like years that was stretched out, added to broken up, and enhanced. And I mean, it was lots of value. I mean, most of my webinars have lots of value, but it was essentially a long version, a long, more detailed version of what I would do on a webinar.
And think about that for a second. What really made that work? Was it the fact that I did an event versus a webinar versus a challenge versus a blah blah blah blah? No, it was because I put in effort in my core. My core stories, my core messaging. It didn't matter if I wrote; I mean, a lot of the stuff I taught was in my book. What's the difference between a book, a documentary, a webinar, a two-day virtual event, a challenge? Not a thing. It's the same content. It's just in a different deliverable, a different format. And what happens is in online entrepreneurship, when we're creating ads and email sequences and webinars and events, and blah blah blah, we are so focused on the delivery and not on the content that we forget that what makes it work is the content. It's irrelevant. What I mean, I've seen people use the same core content to use in multiple different types of funnels or strategies.
And it always works where others will try strategy after strategy, and they will never work. And why, because they're focused on the strategy and not on the core content, right? Somebody will literally, we have sales calls where a customer will be like, well, I need to learn this funnel. If I don't learn this funnel, I'm not joining. And it's like, dude, you know, you don't need that funnel. You need to develop like skills before systems, right? And we don't, maybe I could make more sales at my company if I lied to people and said, "Yeah, sure. We'll cover that. And blah blah blah," but no, I don't. I tell people the truth. The truth is you're full of crap. You don't know what you're doing. If you did know what you're doing, you wouldn't be on this phone call. You don't need to do this insane thing that you think you need to do because you read in a blog or you saw somebody talk about it on stage.
You need to develop the core content, the core skills, the core messaging that can be used in any of those things. And a lot of times when we tell people that, and we tell them the truth, they'll go, Oh, you know, and sometimes they don't, and that's fine. But I'd rather work with the people who are receptive to that and who don't live in this fantastical world, where they think that a certain funnel is going to actually help them just because, you know, it's a funnel.
No, it's your core messaging. So the point here is that when you're trying to be an entrepreneur, we always think about effort as I got to give a lot of effort, and not about, am I putting in the effort to put in the right effort, right? Am I putting in the effort to truly understand my effort? Because that is true effort. When you put in the effort to understand the context of effort and how your effort should be used, that is true effort. True effort is not going, you know, just a hundred percent, full tilt, full time, man. I'm not going to sleep. Dude, I sleep like crazy. Like I know, I need sleep because sleep helps me make good decisions. So I'm not going to not sleep, you know? Oh, I'll sleep when I’m dead. Grind it out. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Okay. You're like 20, and you read a book, and you watched Gary V for five minutes, that's you? Okay. Go back, go back to the spring break. Okay?
The bottom line is that proper effort is effort. Not just brute force. Okay? You got to work. And I know this is an old saying, you can't work. You gotta work hard or sorry. You got to work smart, not hard. But to go deeper on that, you have to work hard enough to where you can think about how to work, how to put the effort in, how to put the right effort in. I always say after years of doing this and thousands of clients and millions, that look, at the end of the day, if you've been working in your business for some time and you're not successful yet, it's always because of one simple fact, you're putting your effort into the wrong thing, that's why.
I've never ever met a person, a client, a colleague, friend, whoever came to me and said, I can't succeed. I've been doing this forever, yadda, yadda, yadda. And I look at what they're doing, and there's never been one single instance where I've ever said, or sorry, where I've ever not said, Oh, well, you don't need to be doing that. That's unnecessary. It's always doing things that are unnecessary, always, constantly. Okay. That is the major theme I see with every entrepreneur is they're putting their effort in the wrong place. It's much easier to do it the right way than to, just out of desperation, use brute force.
So I hope that helps. And of course, if you need further help, you can always apply to become a client at getclients.com or just visit getclients.com. There's a ton of free videos and stuff on there, and you know, all kinds of cool stuff. So anyway, I hope this helps. I'll see you guys in the next episode.