What I've Learned from 10 Years of Entrepreneurship

Over the last 10 years of my entrepreneurial career, I’ve…

• Created a purpose coaching brand
• Launched, operated and managed a digital marketing agency
• Designed viral video launches
• Built over 50 digital marketing funnels
• Overseen both successful and unsuccessful facebook ad campaigns
• Been in a TV show
• Lived in San Diego, Tulum, Costa Rica and Nicaragua
• Designed a TV show (more coming on this soon 😉)
• Coached over a hundred entrepreneurs/teams on building inspiration-driven marketing systems
• Launched my own courses
• Taken part in a multi-billion dollar deal
• Managed large teams
• Learned how to pitch to venture capitalists
• Sold out a live mastermind event
• Written 45 poems on the nature of life
• Given inspirational speaches at multiple events in different countries
• Befriended billionaires
• Published a book
• Fallen in love with the love of my life and proposed
• Partnered with my fiance to collaborate in the planning and building of regenerative communities
• Started our dream development project (Which is too soon to share about publicly yet but am so excited to do so soon! 😊)
• … And learned more challenging lessons than I can count.

These 10 years have taught me that my true genius and passion lies in the art and science of helping entrepreneurs, founders and teams share their gifts with the world.

So if that sounds like you, regardless of the size or industry of your business, here are 12 precious principles of wisdom I’ve learned over my last decade that I hope will bless your next 10 years…

1. Align To Your Personal North Star

Two years ago I swore my life to this prayer:  “I pray for infinite abundance, love and joy for all beings now and for all generations to come.”  I’ve built a muscle to come back to this prayer every morning and throughout the day, especially before big decisions.  I call it my North Star, and it lies at the core of everything that I create in the world.  I simply don’t spend energy on anything that doesn’t align with a trajectory towards my North Star’s vision of the future, and I can’t tell you how much easier it’s made everything in my life.  I have learned to believe in this prayer more than any situation around me that seems impossible to handle, and the result has always been a blossoming of synchronicities and miracles that guide me exactly to where I had dreamed without me having to force anything… Likely because Love is the only real force in the Universe and fear is just a human-created illusion.  So take the time to sit and feel into what your North Star is.  Make sure it is focused on service to something far greater than just your own personal needs, because that stops being an inspiring driver after a while.  Write out a bunch of options until you land on one you can marry.  Once you have found yours, practice speaking it and meditating on it so often that it bakes into your operating system for everything that you are. Tattoo it on yourself if you want. Because once you know your North Star, it becomes extraordinarily easy to stay on your true path of abundance because you’ll know the right things to say yes to by whether or not thinking of them makes you feel the same way your North Star statement does. Once you have a North Star, all work that once seemed stressful falls away and the only “work” you have left to do is just remaining centered and surrendered to the Divine inspiration that has been desiring to be birthed through you for your whole life.

2. Let Your Vision and Mission Guide Your Team

Many people skip this step in organizations and jump right to how to make money together.   But the thing to remember is, business is just a vehicle that can either be an extension of your mission in life which systematically communicates a valuable offering into the hearts of people you’re called to serve… Or it’s just a scheme you thought up because you saw an opportunity to make money or earn status.  The problem with creating a business that has no grander vision beyond making money or earning status is that without a compelling mission and vision to get everyone in your organization out of bed every day, communication from every member of your team will not be coming from the deepest, most honest, heartfelt vision and mission that all of your teammates share… It will instead be coming from their minds as they say what they need to say to get paid. Which means on some level, whoever your customers talk to will be just going through the motions with them in order to get paid… Which means in the long run, your customers will run to another brand that gives them a feeling that they actually GIVE A SHIT. The Universe is always expanding to the most conscious expression of life, and when you’re not pulling from your divine inspiration to inspire your whole organization then you’re out of sync with the force of evolution itself, and you’re also missing an enormous opportunity to make your organization grow with an ease and grace that is so magical it will blow your mind.  Take the time to dig deep into yourself and ask why you’re really here, what impact on humanity really fulfills you, and ask every single person in your organization those same questions.  Then write a new vision and mission statement together that everyone feels like they have ownership in, if you haven’t already.

3. Think WHO, not HOW

Turn your huge to-do list into more JOB DESCRIPTIONS.  Whether you’re the CEO or a head of a department or a manager within a department, the sooner you can remove yourself as the bottleneck with smart people doing what they love working alongside you to handle some load you don’t love doing, the sooner you will see your dreams accelerating.  Remember the Kenyan Proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.  It is SO MUCH MORE FUN working alongside people you love, trust and learn from because they love their jobs and do them so incredibly well.  Also, take the time to communicate solid agreements on everything with everyone on your team and write them down so everyone feels safe and excited to put their heart into it.  I know it sounds nuts, but there is someone who really is excited about doing every single task in your organization. Or better yet, there could be someone who knows so much about that task that they know how to automate it or strategize so well that the task is obsolete. When you’re clear on the list of responsibilities that will be handled by someone to take on a set of tasks, write out your dream list of characteristics that person has. Their capabilities, sense of humor, attitude, etc. Then in your meditations begin visualizing that person coming to you in Divine synchronicity. You’ll be blown away by how well this works, and who those perfect fits end up being. Definitely post your job descriptions, but doing this visualization work will help you know for sure in the interview whether you’re selecting the right person because you’ll feel the deep “yes” in your gut.

4. Hire the Sweet Spot Between Alignment and Capability

When you’re building your team, you need people who have both vision/mission/values alignment AND the skillsets/capability to fill the role that your company actually needs filled to execute your strategic roadmap.  People who are passionately vision aligned but lack the skills to knock their responsibilities out of the park are going to slow you down and end up making you or other teammates have to then take on those responsibilities yourself which will leave everyone feeling frustrated and inefficient.  On the other hand, people who are incredibly qualified for the responsibilities at hand but who are doing it because they are just looking for a paycheck and don’t see the vision or live the values are a cancer to the culture of your organization.  Get into the habit of asking every person in your organization the question, “What is your dream?”  That’s my favorite of all questions because most people’s dream IS the force that has already been pulling them through the experience that is most valuable for you to bring onto your team, and uncovering their dream will open the door to finding the position that will empower them to express the truest essence of their dream in harmony with empowering your shared organization to thrive.  This magical combination makes everything sparkle. Also, asking someone what their dream is is the single best way to predict the path of their actions. Why? Because no matter what their other incentives are, in the end people always take actions that gravitate towards their true purpose in life, which is evidenced by the dreams they carry in their heart. It’s our human nature. So your role as a leader is just to make sure that the position you put that person in allows the actions they take to be directly pointed towards the dream they already were dreaming to manifest.

5. Lead with Your Art

If you’re truly moving from your North Star and pulling from a deep place of mission in you and attracting team members whose purpose in life is to serve the same client you want to serve but with a complementary skillset, then your whole life just got easier.  You don’t have to pretend to anyone.  Just show up in the world expressing in a way that feels like the most creative expression of your purpose with intent to serve others.  Let yourself get creative with all the ways you could communicate value to your ideal client.  Let it come through you in multiple channels.  Let it come through your team in multiple ways and encourage them to explore their artistic expression and thus their creative gifts. Encourage your team to take time for themselves, be creative, and rest. They’ll be so much more creative and joyful that everything in your organization will rise to a new level. Art and Love are the highest expressions of the human experience, so let both of them come through all of the members of your organization and be amazed by how your audiences respond.

6. Listen

The greatest CEO’s, leaders, business partners, marketers and sales personnel I’ve ever met had one thing in common.  They LISTEN better than anyone.  When I was an Executive Recruiter I made my first placement in record time because I got on the phone with everyone and just asked good, sincere questions that came from me actually caring to understand their situation so I could respond with words that actually made their life better somehow, rather than blindly reading a script and seeing them as a potential sale. Remember, any interaction between any two human beings will move smoothly in proportion to the amount of trust that has been built.  So therefore, all business moves at the speed of trust. And real trust can’t be faked. Just like you would never go up to someone on the street and seriously ask them to marry you before you knew their name, don’t be so obsessed with your sales targets that you forget to give value to your prospects and get to know what they really want and make an offer to them that actually makes sense for their unique needs and desires. Or don’t be so obsessed with the idea of selling your thing online for passive income that you forget to take your enthusiasm totally out of the picture and imagine yourself in your customer’s shoes with their problems and then imagine, if you were them, if spending money on your product or service would be actually in their best interest to help solve their problem. Listen. To yourself. To your customers. To your teammates. To your family. To your spouse. To your friends. To nature. To the Divine. Quiet yourself down, and listen. It’s magical.

7. Understand The Principle of Business Intimacy

As I mentioned above, business moves at the speed of trust. So when considering compensation arrangements with strategic partners, first obviously make sure they align with your mission and vision. If they do, then consider the following three levels of business intimacy:

Business Intimacy 1.0:

This is when you agree on a set of deliverables and typically an amount of time, and when either the deliverables have been delivered or the time is over an agreed amount of money is transacted with whatever payment terms agreed. Think hiring an accountant to do your taxes. Simple, easy, clean, and requires the least trust and intimacy.

Business Intimacy 2.0:

This is when you and another party decide to defer payment until after winning together on an agreed upon transaction. Think selecting a realtor to help you sell your house, who only gets paid when the house sells. This approach requires a bit more trust and intimacy because it means that you will work closely with each other for a given period of time and when that work together bears fruit, you both win together, but only on that one transaction until another agreement is made.

Business Intimacy 3.0:

This is when so much trust and intimacy is built between parties that you decide to go into business together, sharing percentages of the entity that will handle many transactions over time. This approach requires the most trust and intimacy, and should be negotiated for only when you feel very comfortable with the person’s capabilities and alignment to your mission and vision.

When I figured these out, all strategic partnership conversations got so much more clear because I had a frame of reference to pull the basis of the conversation from. I typically start all business engagements at 1.0, and if things go well we continue into 2.0 then 3.0 if things are working out wonderfully. Once you understand business intimacy and also understand your ideal client, then your ideal strategic partners are just the people or brands or companies who share your ideal client in a non-competitive way. Super simple. Find them and brainstorm a win/win deal with them, and you’ll transform your business and probably theirs too. Influencers with big audiences and no idea how to monetize them are a great example of a good strategic partner at the Business Intimacy 2.0 level, where you make your offer to their following and share revenues only when sales happen. That being said, watch what people do, not what they say.  Beware of partnering with a startup with a great idea and a passionate pitch who has nothing to show for it unless you’re willing to go on the rocky road of kickstarting their project with them.

8. Meditate, Communicate, Implement, Learn, Repeat.

When you have a team around you (which is the only way to really make a meaningful impact without burning yourself out), you have the responsibility to communicate to them all the way through to make sure that you know that they know that you know that they know the exact vision, mission, strategic roadmap and responsibilities breakdown. Plus, when you communicate with an inspired team before taking massive action, they can give you brilliant insights that redirect what would otherwise have been a costly mistake, or you may find that they are passionate about taking on a piece of the responsibilities that you weren’t as interested in. Then once all the decision makers are on the same page, get to work getting some real feedback from your market. The key is to be grounded and strategic before being impulsive. Of course you prefer to move forward over staying stagnant in analysis paralysis… But the biggest killer of great project ideas that had great teams behind them was neglecting think all the way through the strategy before launching out into the world with a huge marketing campaign, only to find a mess of flawed assumptions, miscommunications, and misunderstood strategies strewn amidst the rubble of disappointed team members. I’ve seen that mistake happen many times, and it sucks. Take the time to do it right by being patient with yourself.

9. Empathy is the Key to Product Market Fit

Product market fit is that magical moment when you ACTUALLY understand your desired customer enough to present them an offer that you are willing to fulfill and that they are willing to spend their money on rather than with your competitors.  Whether you’re selling a $10 product or a $20,000 service or a tv show to an audience, the transaction only works when your customer ACTUALLY sees you as their best use of theirtime and money.  Now, we’ve all been turned off by impatient marketers who tried to use NLP or fast talking or too many exclamation points or fake countdown timers to manipulate us into action.  But thankfully, those approaches will never last in the long run.  The real secret to Product Market Fit is EMPATHY.  See your clients as your family members.  Spend time with them.  Meet them face to face.  Hear their life stories.  Listen to their fears and their sense of humor and their dreams.  Then get creative on how to serve them in a way that will give them lasting value right where nobody else understands them deeply enough to serve them.  And when you find success, never lose this practice.  The market is always changing because PEOPLE are always changing and so are their options and desires and challenges.  So check in with them, and really care.  You’ll see and clarity in your business. If you find that you’re pretending to care about your customers but you really don’t, it’s probably time to transition to a new use of your limited time on Earth. And let that be okay. But assuming you like serving your ideal client, once you’ve done this work of understanding them, and they’ve begun to vote for your offer with their money, then you’re finally ready to start thinking about running ads. But if you skip this step and head straight to Facebook Ads Manager, you’ve got way worse odds of success than if you put that same money in a Vegas slot machine. No viral video campaign will ever save you from missing on product market fit.

10. Feel Your Feelings

If you’re not meditating every day yet, start today.  Sit and be with the thoughts and emotions that are so commonly pushed aside by all of the time and energy we spend on work, social media, notifications, television, caffeine, distractions, etc.   If you’re letting the whimsical emotions that stem from your untamed mind lead you down an impulsive path, I can guarantee your results will be disastrous.  Or maybe you’ll manage to keep your business’s ship sailing straight, but your life will fall apart around you because the operations of it will drive you completely insane and your health will sooner or later deteriorate.  Once you’ve built a good relationship with your feelings and a good habit of feeling all of them, you will be less reactive because you will know how to process things.  You’ll also know how to recognize your intuition when it’s speaking to you, so you can listen to it more and more in business decisions and learn to trust your intuition above all else. Also, when you’re in tune with your feelings and able to communicate them compassionately with your team, your team will immediately trust you more as you’ve vulnerably presented yourself as a human being and not just a business brain there to accomplish an objective. And even more cool, making space to feel your feelings will allow you to be more comfortable in meditation, where you can start to receive brilliant ideas and solutions that make your life way more fun. Einstein did this all the time, he called them “thought experiments”, and they helped him figure out the most world-changing scientific discoveries of the last century. Make it a habit, and it will change your life too.

11. Tune Your Antennae Every Morning

Sometimes we wake up in the morning feeling amazing for seemingly no reason. Sometimes not. But either way, it is an amazing habit to get into the practice of aligning to a higher universal energy every morning before processing information and designing communication systems, in order to ensure that those systems are infused with the highest intention of love and service. My fiance and I exercise, meditate and journal together every morning to tune our antennaes. Try not scheduling meetings before 10am so you have time to take care of your mind, body and soul and create from your heart in the morning. Maybe you try yoga or an online workout class, sit with some energetic breathwork, meditate, visualize or write. Whatever works best to make you feel amazing. Any time I wake up and jump into a meeting or try to output with my mind before taking care of my body and soul first, it creates a very wobbly rest of the day and I unconsciously make up problems just to be in the stressful energy of trying to solve them. But when I make time for filling my cup, I open my mind to a level of higher order solutions to problems that makes the rest of the day so much more clear, efficient, focused and graceful. Make this habit a mainstay of your life, your business or your organization’s culture if you’re at that level, and you’ll see amazing results flourish.

12. Breathe… Get Into Nature… And Trust.

As an entrepreneur, things are never as good or bad as they appear. Don’t take it all too seriously.  The challenge lying in front of you is probably not going to be all the way solved by passionately applying more tactics from your mind anyways. Remember what Einstein said, “Our problems cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them”.  The real solution is probably related to you letting go of lower vibration emotions in your body that are blocking you from surrendering and trusting the path of abundance… Whether that’s trusting yourself with the responsibility of more success, trusting your team with responsibilities, trusting your abilities or trusting the Universe that you’re on the right path.  Spend time in nature.  Notice how everything is interdependent and intimately connected.  Watch the ease with which everything necessary gets done because of the degree to which it all seems to trust itself and each other - all at once.  Focus on breathing deep into your heart and feeling a guidance there that reassures you that as long as you trust the calling deep inside you and move from connection to that place, everything is going to be okay.  Because of course it will.  And even if everything you build falls apart, which it will sooner or later, when you die, your body goes back into this magical ecosystem of life on Earth, which is exactly what our body is made of from all the food we eat.  So get your feet in the grass, soil or sand and remember how good it feels to relax.  Do this often.  You’re going to die someday, so you might as well enjoy the ride.

13) Map Out Your Customer Journey

Part of the work I do with teams is pulling together all of their ideal customer, products and program offerings, email marketing initiatives, paid ads strategy, content ideas, price points, sales process, and fulfillment process into one clear digital whiteboard. Doing this clears your mind because it reduces the complexity of the entire marketing, sales and fulfillment journey into one fluid flowchart. But even more critically, it lays the foundation for successfully growing your team because you can immediately show new teammates your entire business model in a streamlined way for them to understand and start adding value to.

I could go on for an hour on any of these topics, but kept it short here.

I’m considering doing a free Inspiration Marketing workshop going deeper into the most desired topics mentioned, so let me know in the comments below if you’d like to join that workshop and which topics you’d be most interested in hearing more about there.

I hope this helps 🙏

So Much Love,

Joe