You Have a 0% Chance of Failure if You Do This

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You can't take time out of theequation with entrepreneurship. When I got into
sales, I was making no moneyfor the first two months because I sold
some deals and you know, inRhode Island, it took like sixty days
to install, sometimes ninety days,and I didn't make a single dollar for
like two months. Uh and thenmy you know, so that first two

(00:20):
months it really was hard. Idid not think that solar was what I
was going to be doing. Ijust thought it was something I was,
you know, trying and seeing whatwas gonna happen. But luckily, the
only reason I stuck with it wasI remembered what my dad had said.
I used to play soccer and Iwas this fat little kid, and obviously
soccer you have to run a lot. So I hated it. I would

(00:40):
like scream every time before practice,like, no, I don't want to
go because we had to run somuch. He said, you know what
you signed up for this season.You have to finish this season. You
can't quit in the middle of aseason. When you make a commitment,
you have to stick to it.And that always stuck in my head.
You know, it's just if youmake a commitment, you have to stick
to it. So I had madethis commitment I was gonna try this solar

(01:04):
thing out. I didn't really giveit a timeframe, but you know,
I stuck to it until I sawsuccess. You know, I don't know
when I would have quit, butyou know, if I saw other people
were being successful, I was like, I have to at least find success
in this and then I can kindof decide what I'm going to do from
there. But I really had noother options, you know, I was
literally delivering pizzas or shucking oysters orbeing a commercial fishermen were my only other

(01:27):
options at that time. So Istuck to it. And next thing you
knew, I'd made about eighty thousanddollars gross my first year, and I
was you know, I started offnineteen and I was twenty by the end
of that first year. The nextyear, twenty twenty one years old,
I made half a million dollars doingthe same thing in California. And you

(01:49):
know, after that made half amillion, I was, you know,
doing great for the first three monthsof the next year, and then I
decided to go and start my ownbusiness. I wanted a bigger challenge,
you know, I knew what Iwas doing there, it didn't seem like
my my CEO is. There's reallya lot of growth potential from there.
So I'm like, let me startmy own thing. You know, if
this guy can do it, Ican do it too. So the first
two years of that, I tooka huge financial haircut I didn't have.

(02:15):
It's not like I and I didn'tlower my living standards. Really, I
just didn't have as much to youknow, access to invest I was never
big into vacationing or you know,anything like that, are partying big or
buying crazy expensive stuff. But Ijust like investing my extra money. So
I actually had to take money outof investments in those two years, which
really really hurt because I knew Iwas on the If I just kept doing

(02:38):
what I was doing, I wasgonna be worth you know, I'm well
over a million dollars by like twentyfive, but I chose to take on
this way bigger challenge. And asI'm doing I'm like, is this the
right thing? Like, you know, I'm making way less money, it's
taking longer to make the same amountof money doing this. Then you know,
just what I was doing before,and I'm older, and I thought
I was I'd be smarter, moreconnections by now, but I'm making less

(03:00):
money. And you know, everyday was faced with like someone quitting or
you know, a deal canceling orjust something something bad happening, you know,
just things not working. And it'sjust like, you know, just
recently kind of hit the point wherelike I'm you know, doing well now,
like better than I was before becauseI've figured it out. I figured

(03:23):
out, you know, way betterevery single piece of the equation when it
comes to this thing, and thatcould only have come with time. You
know. I tried to read everybusiness book and get every mentor and do
every convention and everything like that,just like I did with the sales thing.
And it's just time could not betaken out of the equation. Building
a business is a harder thing thanyou know, just being a sales guy.

(03:47):
It's just more complex, not thatit's harder or physically, but it
is way more complex. There's moreto think about, there's no one there
to help you. You have nosupport staff, no support team, so
it's just way harder. So theheart of the challenge it is there's going
to be a time allocated and foryou it's going to be longer than someone
else, it's going to be shorterthan for somebody else, just dependent on

(04:11):
you know, luck, timing,skill, experience, and you know,
things that you really have zero controlover. So just realize, if you
do something for long enough and yousimply don't quit, you will succeed.
Right, The whole game of businessis just staying alive as long as possible,
And that's something I learned from AlexHermosi, where it's you know,

(04:34):
as long as you can stay alive, keep the boat floating, you are
going to succeed bigger and bigger becauseyou're getting over these dumb little learning curves
that you have to figure out.So literally, just keeping the boat afloat
is the is the point of business. You know, ninety five percent of
businesses fail in the first whatever year, So you've all heard that quote.
It's a scary statistic, but it'sbecause honestly, I would say most of

(04:59):
those failures quote unquote are just peoplequitting. One thing that I found out
about, you know, six monthsin when I realized that this crap was
gonna be harder than I thought,was that if I don't quit, I
cannot lose. I cannot lose ifI do not quit. You know,
you cannot call me a loser ifI'm still in the game. The game
didn't end until I quit. Sothat's something I stuck to it. It

(05:23):
was very hard. It was likeI still didn't know if it was the
right thing. But I suck tothat old thing that my dad told me,
is you you made a commitment,You're going to stick to it until
you see success. I had agoal obviously, I went into business to
do better than I was selling andcreate something more massive, and I'm I
was not going to quit until Idid that, And so that was that's

(05:45):
really the key business is if youdon't quit, you will not fail and
you cannot take time out of theequation. It has to be there and
for you it's going to be differentthan it was for someone else. That
was one thing I did very poorlyis I kept comparing myself to other people.
Well, he did it so muchfaster, and you know, he
was younger and his desire and itdoesn't matter. He either got lucky,
he had some sort of experience,you didn't have a connections or timing.

(06:09):
It doesn't matter what it was.But for you. You know, you
have your own time horizon that it'sgoing to take, whether it's a you
know, a month, a year, two years, five years, ten
years. But you just can't takethat time out of the equation.