Episode 263: Essentials of the Modern Business – Building Your Circle
Most of the time, we are afraid of adapting to changes and it includes getting out of our comfort zones. In this case, we are afraid of spending time with people who are more successful than us. Therefore, we are left with a network or circle of people who we look down on most of the time because either they are on our level or we look down on them. That’s why we feel “comfortable”. What can we do to change this? In the tenth and last instalment of the Essentials of the Modern Business series, Adam Stott talks about why building your circle with individuals better than us can change the course of your career. Adam shares how quality people can bring you up to their level. Listen to learn more!
Show Highlights:
- Spending more time with people that are higher than you
- Avoiding feeling better by competing with people on your level
- Be comfortable with getting beat and failure
- Types of people that you need in your circle
- Going out of your comfort zone
- How to get quality people to hang out with you
Links Mentioned:
Join the Ultimate Three Day Business Event and learn more Business Growth Secrets
Be part of our Facebook Group Big Business Events Members Network
Connect with me on Instagram @adamstottcoach
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
Adam Stott:
Welcome everybody to another episode of Business Growth Secrets with your host, Adam Stott, super excited to be here with you today. Hopefully you can add massive value in the last one on the list of the 10 essentials every modern business needs. So hopefully you’re paying close attention. You’ve listened to the other nine, you’re ready for number 10. And we will be revealing why the 10th thing that every modern business needs is a circle, a network. So let’s jump straight into today’s episode of Business Growth Secrets. Today, we’re talking about that 10th essential, which is your network, your circle. And the reason I wanted to make this number 10 is I feel it is incredibly important. And it’s something that a lot of modern business owners in today’s world are missing.
Yes, we want to embrace modern technology, we want to embrace social media. We want to embrace funnels and we want to embrace automation. All the things that we’re talking about, yes, we want to use outsourcing to build a team. But if we want to be successful, in the long term in modern business, we have to understand that no one is an island. You don’t want to be an island, you don’t want to be doing this all on your own in business. You need to build a circle and a network of people around you to help you.
One of my coaches taught me very, very early on that one person or one opportunity, one chance, one meeting can change the direction of absolutely everything. And a lot of people when they’re going out and growing businesses in today’s market are not utilizing and embracing people enough. So you have to really look at how I can go and build a bigger network of people and network of people that can help you and you build relationships with. This is crucially important. And it’s something you really don’t want to ignore. I thought we’d talk today a little bit about how you can build out that network. How you can start to create a circle of people around you.
So here’s a few tips. Foremost, you want to be spending time with people that are playing at a higher level than you. If you do not go and spend time with people hanging out and playing at a higher level than you. What you’ll find is you’re constantly looking down and you’re pulling everybody up, you’re helping other people. People coming to you for advice, you’re helping them out, you’re putting them up all the time. This means you’re looking down, and not looking up. You need to build an establish a network of people playing at a high level.
So you can raise your head start to look up at what is possible for you. What’s possible for your business, where can you go? What can you accomplish? What can you achieve, so you have to do absolutely everything you can to go and find people that are outperforming you in a massive way. You is you will find very, very quickly, your realms of possibility. What you believe is possible for you, what you believe is possible for your modern business is that you can actually achieve more. Because when you’re hanging out, when people plan at that higher level, you will start to see, hey, they can do it, I can do it too.
It will change your entire mentality, you’re going to pick up lots of different tips from those people. You’re going to get lots of support from those people. You’re going to be able to bounce ideas off of those people and have really good dialogue and understand how you can get things done in a much better way. So I think it’s something that you really got to look at. So my question to you is this: have you got connections and contacts with people? In your industry or in business that are doing 3,4,5,10 times the amount of revenues or profits that you’re doing?
And if the answer is no, you have to go and find those people. Those people are going to add so much value to you in the way they operate. In the way they think and the things that they do and you have to seek them out. I think so many people don’t do this. In fact, what a lot of people do when they’re in modern business, is they tend to either build relationships with people playing at a lower level, or they tend to look at competitors. To kind of do okay in close proximity to them, so they can feel better. And they can contrast themselves against that. You don’t want to do that, you want to find giants. You want to find people of industry that are smashing it, and go and spend time with them.
So you can see what’s possible for you super important. So really look at it, have you got 34567 people that are playing at a higher level than you. I really liked them this to this example, say that you were going to go out and you’re going to play tennis. You’re gonna have a game of tennis, and that was what you want to do. You want to learn tennis, and you decide to go and play against somebody that’s brand new to tennis as well.
You’re both figuring it out as you go along, you’re gonna have that game of tennis is not going to be very competitive. It’s going to be very slow, you’re going to be pushing the ball backwards and forwards. You’re not going to be growing, getting great results. One of you might be slightly naturally better than the other. One of you might, this might start moving forward and getting better, right. And then eventually, after you play 5,10,15,20 times, you’re both playing tennis, but you’re both playing it the wrong way. Let me explain what I mean, you’re holding back where you stand on the court the wrong way. You’re getting used to it, and you keep playing, but you don’t know what you don’t know.
Now, after playing 10/15 times, you actually start to think you know what I’m alright, and tennis. You go out, you go to a local club and find somebody who’s really good at tennis. And they absolutely batter you because they’re standing on the court the right way. They’re holding the tennis racket the right way. They are absolutely dominating you, getting you to run around like an absolute madman after the ball. And you don’t know what’s hit you because this person understands all the things that you didn’t understand.
You try to figure it all out on your own, this person’s probably been trained. So you want to spend more time playing that person and you want to, you want to be comfortable with getting beat. You want to actually be comfortable with not winning and going oh, okay, well, I really not that good. And I’m losing a bit. So I need to understand how I get better? Now after you play that game of tennis, you can go and have a conversation with the person and say, hey, look, you’re really good at this.
Obviously, I’m learning and I know, what’s the best way for me to hold the racket? What’s the best place for me to stand in the court? Let me look at what you’re doing. So can you look at what I’m doing? And tell me? What is it that you see that I don’t see? And when you start to have these conversations, that person is going to be able to say, Well, look, you’re standing in the wrong place, you’re holding the racket in the wrong way, you need to do this, you need to do that. And you’re going to be able to adapt your game and get better. That’s exactly the tennis example. But it’s the same in modern business.
When you start hanging out with people in modern business that are performing at a high level, they can see what you can’t see, you might think you’re doing great, and you might be doing great. But if you want to get to the next level, you have to be around people playing at that higher level than you. So always explain to people, that’s what you want to be driving towards.
You want to be driving towards the top players, the people that are doing better than you, the people that are outperforming you, you want to spend time with them, you want to learn from them, and you got to do whatever it takes to get around them. And if when you are around them, you feel uncomfortable, good. Because all progress takes care of itself outside your comfort zone. So you got to really push forward into doing that and start to build your network and start to build your circles hacking, do it practically?
Well, the first thing I’d say to you is, you know, if you’ve got no one around you right now, that is playing at a higher level than you This is probably one of the most important things out the 10 we’ve discussed, go and find somebody that is really playing at that high level look for one person to start with, you know, go out and find somebody who’s doing really, really well asked to spend some time with them in some way shape, or form or go and add some value to them.
This is what a lot of people do if they go, I’d really love to pick your brains, can I buy your coffee? That’s what they say to people that are playing at a high level, which basically means I want to pay two pound to spend loads of time and ask you loads of questions, because that’s all you’re worth.
So don’t ask people to do that. Don’t say, can I come and buy your coffee instead? Say to them, Hey, look, I’ve seen that you’re doing this bit of research, I’ve seen that you’ve launched in this book, I see that you’re out there on this podcast, I said how can I add some value to you? You know, is there anything I could do that could really help you spread your message? Or is there anything I could do to support your causes, maybe you’ve got a charity they’re supporting, and actually go out there and add some value to the person. Because once you’ve added some value to the person, the person will be like, oh, this person is cool. They’re helping me out. They’ve really tried to give me some value and done their research. And you can go and add some value.
You can spread their message, you can help them, you can go and meet them. You say hey, you know, look, do you need any help with this event you’re doing or do you need any help with this podcast on what you’re doing? Do you need any help with anything like that? As soon as somebody says he says yeah, actually I’d love some help. You go in, you help them out. You add some value and then you’re in progress. symmetry. So now you’re near that person, you’ve gone from not knowing anyone to help in a little bit to adding value getting close.
Now you’re close, you can ask the key question, hey, this is where I’m at right now, I’m looking to achieve more, I really value from someone like yourself, who’s achieved more, just a couple of pointers on what it is that I could do to get to the next level, you know, what is it that you’re seeing of where I am right now that I could be doing differently. And that person will gladly share that information with you.
And you will start to take the next steps now. What will probably happen if you follow the exact pattern is somebody will turn around and they’ll say, oh, yeah, I really think you should be doing this. And my friend, David, or my friend, Andy, or my friend, Susie, they could help you do that, actually. So you should go and get in contact with them.
So now what you’ve done, you took one high level person you now know to go and spend time with Susie, Andy David, and then they will do the same. Now you’ve got three, then you got four, then you got five, now you’ve broken a network, because you really will be the sum of the five people you hang around with the most, right. So if you hang around with five millionaires, you will become the sixth, if you hang around with five people in a bad situation, you will also become sick.
So you’ve got to hang out with quality people. And you’ve got to spend time with quality people as much as you possibly can. And you got to build it into an essential. Now the reason I wanted this on the 10 Essentials of the modern business is many people forget the old school. When we start talking about automation, we start talking about funnels, we start talking about ads, we start talking about all the cool stuff, that stuff does detach you from reality, and it detaches you from the world, that people are essential to success. So you do all that stuff, right in your business. But also look at how I am building relationships? How am I meeting new people? How am I building quality people, because they’re going to be the people to actually give you that step up to the next level.
So hopefully, you’ve enjoyed the 10 Essentials of modern business. And really having an old school one at the end, I think it’s really cool because you never want to forget those basic principles of success. Hopefully, you’ve had some great value if you haven’t listened to them all already. Go back and listen to them. All right, because there’s some really good nuggets and really good tips that can really help you to start achieving more success.
And if you’ve enjoyed the 10 Essentials of the Modern Business, you just joined the podcast in general, you know, it’d be really lovely if you’d be able to go and give us a review on iTunes or Spotify, or wherever you’re watching. Because that just helps us spread the message. We do the podcast completely free. It’s out there to help people. So I really love it. If you could help us spread that message and get that out to more people. Spread it on your social media, maybe put some, you know, share some of the different things I had to be absolutely awesome. And I’ll be very grateful. So big thank you to everyone that’s been watching. Keep watching. Make sure you subscribe, so you can get more lessons like this that take your business to the next level.
Hi, everybody, Adam here. And I hope you love today’s episode. I hope you thought it was fabulous. And if you did, I’d like to ask you a small favor. Could you jump over and go and give the podcast a review. Of course I’ll be super grateful. That is a five star review with putting our all into this podcast for you, delivering you the content giving you the secrets and you’ve enjoyed it. Please go and give us a review and talk about what your favorite episode is, perhaps every single month.
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