Episode 61 – The Secret to Success in Business and Life

Introduction    00:00:03    Marketing, explosive growth, and revolutionary secrets that can catapult your business to new heights. You’re now listening to The Underground Marketer Podcast with your host Tudor Dumitrescu, the one podcast devoted to showing new businesses how to market themselves for high growth.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:00:25    Welcome to the underground marketer. This is the place where we deliver the real truth about marketing and explore big ideas that can help new businesses thrive and grow into big ones. I’m your host, Tudor. And today I want to address a topic that’s very important to a lot of people who are running businesses and that’s developing consistency. So you see any goal that you set or any aim that you create for yourself, if that’s not backed by consistency, which means that you consistently develop some routines, some habits, some processes that are going to take you there and you perform them consistently. Then it’s not going to work out. And it starts from relatively simple things like losing weight or, um, some other like building a certain type of physique that you would like to achieve, or even building your business, right? It’s the same thing.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:01:18    If you don’t have the consistency and if you don’t have what it takes to stick to it, then it’s not going to work out. And I can tell you for certain, and I’ve watched beginners at business for probably close to 11, 12 years now. And the number one reason why most of them are not successful is this state. They lack consistency and they lack the discipline that is required to achieve success. You know, they’re basically not willing to make these sacrifices that are required for them to achieve that kind of success. And usually the main reason why this happens is because they are chasing goals that are not their own. So if your goal is not your own goal, right, and it’s not something that’s meaningful to you deep inside, and that speaks to you deep inside. If that’s not the case, then you are going to struggle to have the motivation and the energy to make it work.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:02:19    And most people, they choose their goals and they start chasing goals because other people chase them because it’s cool to chase those goals for all sorts of external rewards and so on. Right? And if you’re motivated by some form of external reward or by what other people say and all these things, then you’re just not going to have the energy that’s required to stick with things. You know, and business is hard. You have to work for a very long time and the reward is not certain. So if your motivation is not powerful, then it’s not gonna carry you through. And most people, they, they just want to start in business because they want to make a lot of money, you know, for external reasons. And they want to make a lot of money because then they think that their friends will like them more, or they will be more appreciated in society and so on.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:03:11    Right? And all those are like external things that they are expecting from the outside world. And they start in business. They, they open their business. And the problem that they face, right, is that that never happens. It just never happens that they get the rewards that they hope for soon enough, their effort basically is not yielding the rewards that they imagined. And this brings us to the second problem that I wanted to address, namely, that when people take action, they always underestimate the amount of action and the amount of thought and the amount of effort that’s going to be required to achieve their project. Right. And they don’t underestimated by a small amount. I’m talking here about underestimating things by a factor of 10 to a hundred, right? So there’s a huge mismatch basically between their expectation and what the actual situation is, right? And the, the lack of energy and drive that they have, because they’re not chasing their own goal combined with the fact that the effort that’s actually required to achieve what they set out to achieve is so huge.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:04:23    You know, by the time they realize that, then they just stop, you know, and they basically stop doing it. Or they just look for the next shiny object, the next big promise that this is going to be their turn. And this is going to be their way to achieve something great. Right. But greatness doesn’t come easy. Right? Greatness requires a lot of pain and a lot of sacrifice and a lot of work. And if you don’t get your expectations right, from the very beginning, then you’re going to struggle. I always say, okay, you made your plan and you plan for things, however you would like them to be. But always in the back of your mind, remain aware that there will be unforeseen obstacles. So at the very least, it’s probably going to take you twice, what you plan for. But usually much more than that.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:05:12    As I said, we usually underestimate things by a factor of 10 to a hundred, right? So just keep that in mind. And if you keep this stuff in mind, then when your expectations are not met, it’s going to be easier. You know, because you expect that you sort of foresee it already, that that obstacle is going to come onto your path. So, I mean, if you’re trying to develop consistency, the, the best advice that I have for you is that you have to spend time with yourself. You have to shut out the, basically the distractions from the outside world. And you have to spend time with yourself and basically figure out what you really want. And what’s really meaningful for you, right? Because until you do that, you are just going to be at the mercy of society. And what other people around you tell you that you should want and should do.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:06:03    And when you try to do that, you are just going to notice that you simply don’t have the energy to make it a reality, right? So even if you wanted to follow the path that other people recommend for you, if that’s not your path, you’re just not going to be able to do it right. Or you’re going to do it very badly. My motto is that you should always do something. You should always prefer, basically doing something badly. So to speak in terms of choosing an, a name that’s not appreciated by other people around you so long as you can perform that to the best of your ability, right? That’s more important. The, the quality of giving your best for what you’re doing is much more important than let’s say the external quality of the goal that you choose, right? So if you choose a goal that other people around you think that is bad in the sense that it’s not what they want, right?  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:06:54    That shouldn’t be a big roadblock for you. Because even if you were to choose what they want, you would not be able to perform to their satisfaction because it’s just not your goal. You’re not gonna have that kind of energy and that consistency that’s going to motivate you to keep going when things get hard. So getting to know yourself and shutting out distractions from the outside world is critical. The next factor, which is related to those two is basically you have to work to develop focus, right? So focus is pretty much the, the opposite of distractions. You know, somebody who is focused is not distracted and it takes discipline to develop focus, because basically you have to do a bunch of things. You have to figure out what your priorities are, right? And what’s actually important for you. And then you have to discipline yourself.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:07:50    So that for everything that comes into your life and everything that requires a response from you, you learn to judge, is this something that’s important for me or it’s not. And if it’s not, then no matter what happens, you just drop it. Right? And you focus on what’s important as human beings. We can’t actually do a lot of things during one day, right? The more tasks we have to do in one day, the less efficient we’re going to be, the more frustrated we’re going to be, the harder time we’re going to have. So it’s very important that you batch your tasks and you do similar tasks altogether. And usually if you handle three, maybe at the most four important and big tasks in a day, that’s more than enough. Right? And that’s what your process is. Being able to consistently do that. The next factor I want to address here is patience.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:08:45    So especially with consistency, that requires a longer term to bring you the results you might need to take action. For example, when you’re trying to lose weight, or you’re trying to sculpt your body into, let’s say a Greek God or whatever, it’s going to take consistency. That’s going to take months, maybe even years to reach there, right? So it’s not like you’re going to take action and you’re going to get this huge reward and wow, you’re going to, you’re going to be super motivated to keep going. That’s not how it works, right? So you are not gonna see much results for a long time. And in that time you have to maintain your consistency. And the way you do that is by learning to be patient learning, to celebrate the small victory of basically doing your routine or performing your habit consistently day after day, that is success, you know, and sometimes you have to momentarily.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:09:38    So to speak, forget about the big picture. If you are at, let’s say, if you’re at minute one right of a marathon, let’s say, and you know, that that marathon is going to take you in total, probably the whole of six hours. Let’s say to run six, seven hours to finish the marathon. And at minute one, you start thinking about six, seven hours. It’s going to feel impossible for you. You, the mind simply cannot comprehend. The thinking mind cannot comprehend that sort of time and that sort of pain that you’ll have to go through to get there. The mine cannot deal with that. It’s too much. So you need to shift your focus from the big picture, you know, and instead of thinking, I have so many kilometers left or I have so many hours left, you start thinking about the next step ahead. You know, I have so much left until I need to let’s say, turn a corner or whatever it is.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:10:35    And the more closely you can focus on the present moment, the more patience you can develop and the easier it’ll be for you to basically maintain your consistency and keep going and keep moving forward towards your goal. And it does require this sort of forgetfulness. And it’s the same in business, you know, in business. You know, I always tell people, you need to take action for at least one, maybe even two months, maybe even three months before you can actually see if things are working or things are not working, you know, anything shorter than that is just too short of a timeframe to enable you to perform any sort of analysis. That’s actually meaningful and it’s going to be a waste, right. And a lot of people, they start their businesses and they expect to make money out of Mount one. And that’s crazy. You should probably expect.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:11:24    I mean, it depends what you’re selling. I mean, if you’re selling something for very cheap. Yeah. I mean, probably you can make a couple of bucks the first weeks or even the first month, but that’s not going to be really meaningful. Right. I mean, are you trying to build a proper business here or are you just trying to make $50 in a month? You know, a lot of people, they they’re happy that they, they spent, for example, one weekend, they made 50 bucks. That’s not a good return on your time and that’s not a business, right. So you need to work for something meaningful and something meaningful is going to take time. If you’re trying to sell, for example, something that’s worth, let’s say $10,000, right. That’s not gonna take if you’re just starting out and it’s a new offer and you don’t know your market that well, and all of those things, right?  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:12:09    That’s, there’s no way that’s going to take you just two weeks or three weeks to do. That’s going to take at minimum, if you have experience and you know what you’re doing at minimum, it’s going to take one to two months. And I mean, the same is true for me. Right. If I were to do this, it would take me one to two months, for sure. Right? And it’s one of, to two months of consistent action and taking action. Speaking with people, performing your rituals. In the case of starting a new business, that’s pretty much sales and marketing consistently day after day after day. And that’s pretty much how you get rewards. So the most important thing I can advise beginners, who want to get started is that you need to develop consistency. And even people who are advanced, the things that are holding you back is your lack of consistency.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:12:56    For sure. I mean, everybody is searching for esoteric marketing strategies, you know, esoteric new age sales tricks and strategies and whatever. But the point is that people have not mastered the basics. Okay. So, and until you mastered the basics until you are really world class, the basics, it’s pointless to search for those esoteric things. I mean, even if you get those things right, you it’s just going to be a 0.1% improvement and you can make a much bigger improvement just out of mastering the fundamentals. If you look for example, in sports at all the pros, let’s say at the top levels in basketball, the coaches at that level are still saying exactly the same thing as they are to beginners. They watch your follow through. Don’t watch the ball after you shoot it. It’s always the same things. And it’s a mastery of the fundamentals that get people to that level.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:13:50    And it’s the same thing in business. So that’s pretty much what I wanted to share with you. In today’s episode, it’s all about developing consistency and this is super important. So everybody should be working on this. Everybody who is in business should be developing their consistency, making sure that they are aligned with who they are and what they desire, and that they’re moving in a direction where they have momentum and they can maintain that momentum. So that’s super important. So that’s it for today as usual stay tuned for the next episode. And until next time, remember to keep growing your business and providing massive value to the world. You are the reason why we’re all growing richer. Our freedoms are expanding and we’re all living in greater prosperity. Thank you.