My business blew up when i started thinking like this

Theo Illouz
25 May 202413:08

Summary

TLDRIn this video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of independent thinking for business growth. They share their experience with online courses, acknowledging their value for beginners but cautioning against blind adherence to instructions. The speaker advises identifying market gaps, adapting pricing models, and being a problem solver. They highlight the need to take risks and innovate, rather than simply following the crowd or guru advice. The key takeaway is that success in business requires personal initiative and the courage to think and act differently, especially as markets become more saturated.

Takeaways

  • 🧠 Think for yourself when growing a business; don't just follow step-by-step instructions.
  • 📚 Online courses provide fundamentals but may not teach you how to adapt and think critically.
  • 💡 Identify market gaps and adjust pricing models based on data you collect.
  • ⚠️ Be wary of blindly following advice from online courses as many others may be doing the same.
  • 🎯 Success often requires adapting and problem-solving, not just following predefined paths.
  • 📈 Courses are beneficial for beginners to learn basics but thinking independently is crucial for long-term success.
  • 🔄 Constantly pivot and innovate as the market changes and becomes more saturated.
  • 🚀 Take calculated risks; money often follows those willing to take risks and adapt.
  • 👀 Pay attention to your competition initially but then focus on your unique approach.
  • 💬 Use online education as a base but develop your strategies and solutions.

Q & A

  • What is the main advice the speaker gives for growing a business?

    -The main advice given by the speaker is to think for oneself when growing a business, rather than just following step-by-step instructions from courses.

  • Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of independent thinking in business?

    -The speaker emphasizes independent thinking because business is not as simple as following instructions, and one must identify market gaps and adapt strategies based on collected data.

  • What is the speaker's view on the effectiveness of online courses for business growth?

    -The speaker believes that while online courses can provide a good starting point and teach the fundamentals, they may not be sufficient for long-term success due to market saturation and the need for unique strategies.

  • What does the speaker suggest is a common mistake made by beginners in business?

    -The common mistake suggested by the speaker is that beginners often rely too heavily on following instructions from courses without developing their own problem-solving skills and adaptability.

  • According to the speaker, what should one do after taking basic courses in business?

    -After taking basic courses, one should start thinking for themselves, identifying opportunities, and adapting to changes in the market rather than just following the course instructions.

  • What is the speaker's opinion on the role of luck in business success?

    -The speaker acknowledges that luck can play a part, especially if one enters the right industry at the right time, but emphasizes that long-term success requires more than just luck.

  • How does the speaker describe the evolution of their own business approach?

    -The speaker describes a shift from following standard practices taught by gurus to thinking independently, taking risks, and adapting to market changes.

  • What is the speaker's advice regarding competition in the market?

    -The speaker advises to initially observe and learn from the competition, but then to stop looking at what they are doing and start thinking independently to find unique solutions.

  • What lesson did the speaker learn that significantly impacted their business growth?

    -The speaker learned that 'Money Follows Risks' and taking calculated risks, rather than following safe, well-trodden paths, can lead to greater success.

  • What is the speaker's stance on the role of gurus and mentors in business?

    -The speaker appreciates the value of gurus and mentors for foundational knowledge but stresses the importance of developing one's own thinking and not relying solely on their advice.

  • What does the speaker suggest for those who have been in business for a while and are looking to grow?

    -For those who have been in business for a while, the speaker suggests unfollowing gurus, thinking independently, and taking risks to find new and effective strategies.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 The Importance of Independent Thinking in Business Growth

The speaker emphasizes the necessity of thinking for oneself when growing a business. They share their personal experience of initially relying on courses that provided step-by-step instructions but later realizing that business success requires more than just following instructions. The speaker advises identifying market gaps, adjusting pricing models, and making decisions based on collected data. They caution against blindly following online courses without considering the unique aspects of one's own business and market conditions. The speaker also points out that while courses can provide valuable fundamentals, especially for beginners, it's crucial to be a problem solver and adapt to market changes.

05:01

🔄 Adapting to Market Changes and the Role of Risk in Business

The speaker discusses the challenges of market saturation and the need to pivot strategies as the market evolves. They share their own experiences with staying in the same market for an extended period and the importance of taking risks, such as changing pricing models and marketing strategies. The speaker encourages viewers to disregard competitors and think independently, drawing a parallel to Elon Musk's approach to rocketry. They stress that money follows risk and that opportunities with less competition are more likely to be profitable. The speaker admits their past reluctance to take risks due to financial insecurity but acknowledges that taking calculated risks has led to success in their business.

10:01

🚀 Embracing Risk and the Journey to Independent Business Thinking

The speaker recounts their journey from following general advice from gurus to taking significant risks that have been rewarded. They highlight the importance of making independent decisions, such as changing the pricing model and marketing approach of their agency, despite the fear of failure. The speaker reflects on their initial reluctance to take leaps of faith and how that mindset did not lead to success. They advocate for a balance between listening to advice and thinking independently, especially as one gains more experience in the business world. The speaker concludes by warning against the dangers of blindly following gurus and encourages viewers to develop their own thought processes for making money.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Think for yourself

This concept emphasizes the importance of independent thinking in business. The speaker advises viewers to not solely rely on step-by-step instructions from courses but to adapt and make decisions based on their own observations and data. This is crucial for identifying market gaps and responding to changes, as highlighted when the speaker mentions how business is not as simple as following instructions and the need to adapt pricing models and strategies.

💡Courses

Courses are structured programs offering step-by-step instructions and knowledge on specific topics. In the video, the speaker acknowledges that while courses are beneficial for beginners to learn the fundamentals of business, they also stress that courses may not cover the nuanced, adaptive thinking required for long-term success. The speaker's experience shows that merely following courses without thinking critically did not lead to significant results.

💡Market saturation

Market saturation occurs when a market is flooded with similar products or services, making it harder for businesses to stand out. The speaker discusses how following popular business strategies can lead to entering saturated markets, thus reducing effectiveness. They explain that as more people follow the same advice from courses, competition increases, and the initial effectiveness of those strategies diminishes.

💡Risk

Taking risks involves making decisions that have uncertain outcomes, often necessary for achieving significant rewards. The speaker highlights that money follows risk, meaning that opportunities with higher risks often have higher potential rewards. They advocate for taking calculated risks, such as changing pricing models or marketing strategies, which helped their business succeed when traditional methods failed.

💡Gurus

Gurus are individuals who offer expert advice and strategies in a particular field. The speaker critiques the over-reliance on business gurus, noting that while they provide valuable insights, their advice is based on their own experiences, which might not be universally applicable. They encourage viewers to use guru advice as a foundation but to ultimately think and innovate independently.

💡Adaptation

Adaptation in business involves adjusting strategies and practices in response to market changes. The speaker emphasizes the need for continuous adaptation, such as changing pricing models or marketing approaches, to stay competitive. This is illustrated by their experience of having to pivot and innovate as their market became more saturated.

💡Fundamentals

Fundamentals refer to the basic principles and skills necessary for understanding and operating a business. The speaker acknowledges that courses are valuable for teaching these basics, such as sales techniques and technical skills. However, they also stress the importance of moving beyond fundamentals to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

💡Opportunities

Opportunities in business are favorable circumstances that can lead to growth and success. The speaker advises being proactive in identifying and seizing opportunities, even if they come with risks. They highlight that blindly following others can cause missed opportunities, and instead, one should innovate and capitalize on unique market gaps.

💡Problem-solving

Problem-solving is the ability to identify issues and devise effective solutions. The speaker stresses that business owners need to be adept problem solvers, as they must constantly navigate challenges that cannot be addressed by following standard instructions alone. This skill is crucial for adapting to market changes and sustaining business growth.

💡Experimentation

Experimentation involves trying new methods or strategies to see if they yield better results. The speaker discusses how experimenting with different approaches, such as changing the way they market or price their services, led to successful outcomes. This trial-and-error process is essential for discovering what works best in a constantly evolving market.

Highlights

The importance of thinking for oneself in business growth.

Courses provide step-by-step instructions but are not always applicable to every business situation.

Business requires identifying market gaps and adapting pricing models based on niche and customer data.

Online courses often provide outdated information as they are based on past data.

The necessity to adapt to market changes and think independently for long-term business success.

The potential pitfalls of following generic advice without considering the current market saturation.

The value of taking risks and adapting to the market for better business outcomes.

The speaker's personal experience with online courses and their limitations.

The shift from following recommended practices to thinking independently led to business growth.

The need to pivot and find new strategies as the market becomes more competitive.

The advice to disregard competition and focus on independent thinking for innovation.

Elon Musk's approach to problem-solving as an example of independent thinking.

The speaker's realization that money follows risks and the importance of taking calculated risks in business.

The idea that opportunities with less competition are more likely to be profitable.

The importance of not following the crowd and finding one's own path in business.

The speaker's transition from relying on gurus to making independent decisions for business growth.

The advice to listen to gurus but also to develop one's own critical thinking skills.

The conclusion that thinking for oneself is essential for business success and growth.

Transcripts

play00:00

hey everyone I hope you're doing well so

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in this video I want to share an advice

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that I believe to be really valuable

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when you want to grow any sort of

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business and that advice is to think for

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yourself and the reason why I want to

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give that advice is because when I first

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started with my business you know I've

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bought a lot of courses and courses give

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you this kind of step-by-step

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instruction like step one do this step

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two do this step three do this and

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although it's really good you know in

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order for you to get started because you

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get some instructions you also got to

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also understand that business is not as

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simple as just following instructions

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you got to think for yourself you got to

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identify the gaps in the market you got

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to change the pricing models depending

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on you know your Niche the customers you

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got to you got to do a lot of things you

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know that that that you can only change

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based off the data that you collected

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and any online course you're going to

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get they're going to give you like data

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based of that uh the data that um

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they're going to give you sorry

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instruction based of the data that the

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guru collected like it's going to tell

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you what worked for him but by the time

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you watch the course you got to

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understand that all the people watched

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the course too you're not the only one

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and and it's not it's just not that

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simple you know you cannot just follow

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simple instructions like that and get

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results now unless you are lucky you

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know if you get into the right industry

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at the right time and um the industry is

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not too saturated you might going to get

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lucky and yes sure you might going to

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buy the right course the right program

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and all of a sudden you know you're

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going to get great results just of

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following those instructions so I'm not

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making like

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um I'm not trying to generalize you know

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online courses and everything but you

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need to you need to think for yourself

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that's what I'm saying so if you if

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you're a beginner and you're trying to

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build like a business um courses are

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great you know if you have no idea what

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you're doing you never done any sort of

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business before you want to get your F

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in the door learn the basic the

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fundamentals that's great but also keep

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in mind that you got to you you got to

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be a problem solver you got to see

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opportunities when they arise and and if

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you're blind to this and you're just

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like let me just follow the step by

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instruction that someone taught me

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um I believe in my opinion that most of

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the time it's not going to be as

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efficient unless again you're at the

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right time you got the right teacher

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you're in the right Market you you you

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basically got lucky you know maybe you

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can get away with it but for how long

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you know there's always going to be a

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time the market is going to change and

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you're going to have to adapt with it

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and think so you know even if you do get

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lucky you will still need need to learn

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that skill to learn for

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yourself and yeah like obviously you

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know the the online education space is

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getting bigger and bigger and that's why

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you're getting a lot of courses and

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gurus online and you got to be careful

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because they make a lot of money of

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people wanting to learn how to you know

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travel the world while building their

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business or you know just making good

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money without having anyone without

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working for anyone so because this isn't

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such high demand there's a lot of Supply

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in know um there's a lot of supplies for

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like online education but please keep in

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mind it nothing is as black and white

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and you're going to have to really think

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for yourself and that's like the moment

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I learned that lesson is the moment that

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my business starting to blow up um just

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to give you a bit background so for me

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personally I've always you

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know you know purchased like uh online

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courses

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and they never really worked for me they

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gave me the fundamentals they taught me

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sales they taught me how to create as

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they taught me technical things but they

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didn't really tell me how to think and

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and if they did tell me how to think

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some of them did actually some of the

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gurus taught me all the saying they they

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they taught me that I needed to do that

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but I I never did it and therefore I

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always follow the the recommended PR

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practices in the niche you know which is

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you know like for me as an agency owner

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owning like a marketing agency the

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advice that I've been taught for a long

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time was find one Niche one service

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price it like this and and just scale

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like this you know like with one Niche

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one service and pricing it like this

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but then I realized that it's really not

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as easy because the more and more people

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get into this and more and more people

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are getting into you know online

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businesses the more competition you have

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and and the less things work you know

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the more

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people the less it works and you have to

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Pivot you know as the market is changing

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you have to Pivot and find ways around

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so the things that has worked for me is

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just staying in the same market for a

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long period of time and more recently

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it's been you know taking risks changing

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the pricing model changing maybe the the

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services maybe changing

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what else have we changed yeah the

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pricing model the the the marketing you

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know the way you Market yourself and so

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on like just doing things differently um

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has been really helpful and I'm not

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going to tell you exactly what I do

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because I don't want the whole point of

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this is that I've I had to think for

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myself so I don't want like a necessary

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competition and tell you exactly what

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I'm doing that is working for my

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marketing agency but the real advice

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that I'm giving you is just screw the

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competition whatever Market you're

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in maybe it's fine to know what they're

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doing when you're getting into it first

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into it um watch what they're doing copy

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it a little but as soon as you

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can completely BW a competition don't

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even look at what they're doing and just

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think for yourself uh be kind of like

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you be kind of like Elon mus was about

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to say you know when he builds

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Rockets he doesn't know what the hell he

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doing there's a rocket launch it

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fails it figures out why it failed and

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it it fixes the problem and it launches

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another rocket it blows up and so on

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like keeps doing that but there's no

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guru that taught Elon Musk okay this is

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how you got to build Rockets Rockets

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sorry um you have to think on its own

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and it's the same for any business try

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something it didn't work try something

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else and so on and you going to you're

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going to find something that works and

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keep in mind that's a lesson that you

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know took me a lot time to understand

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but Money Follows risks and I think the

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reason why a lot of people are not um at

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least the reason why I personally didn't

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really like to think for myself is

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because I I thought okay I'm broke I

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don't know anything so let me follow

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what this rich guy says because he knows

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it all and that's true to some extent

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but you can't just be blinded as well

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you know it's 50% listen 50%

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think uh and and I S to myself look this

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guy has so many testimonials so I I got

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to listen exactly what he does and um

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and yeah I want the path to leas

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resistance so if he's got so many people

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who he work with that he managed to help

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um most likely if I do what he say

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that's going to work and I I don't want

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to figure it out I want like the passive

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least resistance the pass of the the

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least amount of risks possible but the

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less risk there is in an opportunity and

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the less likely it's going to work

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because it means that it's saturated so

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if if you watching There's an

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opportunity that you have you know in

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building any sort of business and the

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past seems to be very well laid out be

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careful because if it's very well laid

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out it there's probably going to be a

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lot of people following it you know it's

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very unlikely that someone's going to go

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where the path is uh blurry so I'm

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trying to say is

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here yeah risk the Money Follows risk

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you know the more risk involved in an

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opportunity and this probably means that

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the more money there is because only the

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brave will take that opportunity and and

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and and and that means there's less

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supply for whatever Market you know um

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you choose so so therefore there's more

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money to be make made um but again it

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really comes down to you where you're at

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in your journey I think so I'm not here

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to say this is what you should do CU I

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don't know you but I can tell you what

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has worked for me so the first maybe

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three through four years of business you

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know I've been following you know gurus

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listening videos do this do this do ah

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it got some results but then the market

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got so saturated because obviously these

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gurus are getting bigger and bigger they

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reached a bigger and bigger audience and

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now now it's not like 10,000 people

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following their advice it's like a

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million so for me it's just like getting

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I I would need to do the math but it's

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probably 10 or 100 times harder for me

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to get results

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so so then you know the market is

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changing because there's more Supply the

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demand stays the same but there's more

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Supply so the market is changing it's

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getting more and more sophisticated and

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and you got to find ways

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to to do things differently basically

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and and the second for me the second I

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started taking risk and say okay this

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this stuff is not working anymore maybe

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it was working back then but now there's

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too much competition so I got to do

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something different and the guru is not

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going to tell me you know cuz they have

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no clue um they're not in my specific

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market so I had to think on my own like

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and and that those risks that I took

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whether it's changing the pricing model

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of my agency or whether it's um changing

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the way we Market ourselves service we

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the services we offer and so on those

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big risks and leaps of Fai that I took

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uh have been so far rewarded and that

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was the first time really that I took

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lips of faith in business because back

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then I was always like no leap of faith

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no let me do what's proven to work and

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that

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mindset didn't get me anywhere to be

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honest um but I'm sure you'll find

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someone that for whom that that worked

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you know but just for me like following

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blind

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advice didn't work but follow following

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general advice you know from

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gurus and and then you know using that

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as a base but just thinking on my own

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and just changing things because I I

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thought about it and even though I

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didn't trust myself I I still told

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myself okay I'm going to try as an

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experiment and see how that works what

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do I have to lose anyway and that that

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that was rewarded that behavior was

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rewarded and that's something that I'm

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working on you know doing more often

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because I just learned that lesson that

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business uh money likes risks so yeah if

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if you're not if you don't like Risk be

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careful be careful because there's not

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no such thing as a risk-free

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opportunity there just no and if there

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is that opportunity there's probably no

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money to be made at least in the way you

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think there's probably money to be made

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if you think differently so I think

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that's pretty much all I want to say in

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that video think for yourself still

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acknowledge you know what the guru says

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it depends where you're at in your

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journey if you're just starting I'm not

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saying Dodge the courses and all that

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that they're great to get started but if

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you've been in the game for a little

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bit unfollow all the gurus uh and

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unfollow them literally that's what I'm

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currently doing you know on Instagram

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and think for yourself because gurus are

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trying to sell you their thing they're

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trying to make themselves rich and they

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will tell you as much as they want

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they're trying to make you rich as well

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which on paper they do it doesn't mean

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that their you know process is actually

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going to help you and again I don't want

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to make generalization and I've I've had

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mentors that were great but you got to

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have this part of your brain that can

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think on its own too because making

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money for for making money I I believe

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that it is kind of required um so yeah

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that's that's it for that video let me

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know your thoughts on this in the

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comments and uh yeah have a great day

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