Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Become a High-Performance Business Owner with Milton Hunt

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How to Become a High-Performance Business Owner with Milton Hunt · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Three, two, one, zero.
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  Ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the small biz chat podcast?
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  Well, it's time.
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  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
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  small business.
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  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
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  your business forward.
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  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Biz Chat podcast today.
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  Why pay for nine different business tools when one can do it all?
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  Zoho One is your all in one business operating system handling sales, marketing, finance,
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  scheduling, and more.
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  Streamline your operations, reduce costs, and scale faster for just Hi, everyone.
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  This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and I am so excited to welcome you to another
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  edition of the small biz chat podcast.
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  Here, we help small business owners get real answers so they can succeed as their own boss.
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  As the small biz lady, I am America's number one small business expert.
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  It is my honor to welcome you to today's show.
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  I would love to welcome my guest Milton Hunt to the stage.
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  He is an HR expert, motivational speaker, employee training specialist who brings real
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  world experience to help workplaces function better.
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  He's a proud native American and member of the Lumbee tribe, and he blends cultural insights
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  with proven strategies to inspire, develop and transform teams.
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  Known as an engaging edutainer, he delivers powerful practical ideas to corporate
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  government and private sector organizations.
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  If you want more information about him, head over to miltonhunt.net.
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  Milton, welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast.
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  Melinda, thank you so much for having me.
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  It's a pleasure to be here with you today.
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  All right, well, let's talk about your journey.
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  Like how did you get on this road to, you know, what inspired you to help entrepreneurs run
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  their businesses better and learn how to maximize their potential?
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  So my business comprises of two major elements, right?
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  We do the motivational speaking, the platform speaking.
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  This is where we were coined the term the edu tainer.
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  And then the other side is the leadership development training.
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  Don't I think anyone wakes up one day and says, you know, I'd love to be a motivational speaker
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  when I grow up.
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  However, your path and your journey and your experiences will take you to a station in life
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  that if you continue to move forward, you'll find yourself living your purpose, your passion
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  and your dream.
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  And so it was by default for me.
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  Real simple.
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  I was fired from my first three jobs.
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  I learned early on I didn't want to work for someone.
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  I learned early on entrepreneurship was exactly for me.
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  I love working half a day for myself so I don't have to work a full day for someone else.
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  I love the fact that I control my destiny.
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  So all those things spoke to my spirit and my heart.
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  So after wandering, and I mean literally wandering for the first early eighties, if you
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  will, of struggling and trying to figure out what to do.
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  One day I discovered that it was an opportunity to put a small book together.
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  Now in 1986, I want you to, if you can step back in that moment in time, I noticed it may
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  seem like ancient history for some of you.
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  But there was a time when you wanted to start a business, you would go down to the SBA.
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  You go to the small business administration, you go to a circuit courthouse to get a
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  license, whatever that looked like.
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  And everybody had a pamphlet, a brochure, a flyer that they would give you on what you
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  needed to know.
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  And then it just seemed to me as it dawned on me, why doesn't there one place where you can
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  get all this information?
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  Well, eventually we saw the one stop shop centers for entrepreneurship.
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  I'm not implying that I had the dream and the vision early on.
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  I'm just saying that was my way of thinking in 1986.
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  So I put this book together that would allow you to learn these different things.
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  Well, the beauty of the book was is that, hey, how are going to fund it?
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  So we sold advertisement.
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  Well, Melinda, the value became is we said, let's put more in the book than just these
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  forms, these flyers, these telephone numbers, and these places to go.
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  Let's put in there how to select an accountant.
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  Let's put in there why you need an attorney.
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  What is a business consultant supposed to do?
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  And we put all these things in here.
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  We distributed this book.
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  Well, got to tell you, after giving out 30,000 of these a year because distribution was the
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  key, I could then sell advertisement to fund the project.
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  Well, I had no idea, but when I was asked to give this book away, it led to the perfect
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  opportunity for me to stand and speak about this book.
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  Well, this is when my life changed, in 'eighty eight, when someone handed me $75 at the end of
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  talking.
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  And I said, what is this for?
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  And they said, we pay an honorarium to all our speakers.
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  Well, I discovered early on that there was more money in talking about the thing than there was
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  in doing the thing.
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  So I decided, how could I become this professional speaker that stood on stage?
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  So for the next five years, and I mean five years, when they talk about you got to put ten
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  thousand hours in something, I put twenty thousand hours in it because I knew this is
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  what I wanted to do.
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  I studied the Les Browns, I studied the Anthony Robbins.
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  I studied all these great speakers.
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  I flew to where they were.
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  I asked them to mentor me.
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  I I I read everything, copious books, and just I absorbed content.
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  I went to discover in 1995, I would launch what would be known as my own professional speaking
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  career.
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  And I'm proud to tell you today we command $10,000 an hour.
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  I'm proud to tell you we speak around the world.
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  I'm proud to tell you we speak to millions of people per year.
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  And so it's all about, first of all, to all my entrepreneurs listening today, you must be
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  passionate about something.
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  Because if you're not passionate about it, don't worry about it.
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  Somebody will find a passion for you to be passionate about.
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  And it might be called a job.
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  And you may not like it at the end of thirty years when they send you out to pastor and
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  you've not fulfilled those things in your life that you know that you were meant to do.
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  So my journey is one of struggle.
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  My journey is one of overcoming.
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  My journey is one of setbacks, but I will not quit and I will not stop because I knew this is
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  what I wanted to do.
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  Love it, love it.
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  All right, so let's talk about what are some of the common obstacles that you think prevent
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  business owners from reaching their full potential?
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  The number one is fear.
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  Fear of the unknown.
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  I don't know how to do this, but as long as someone else will plan my day for me and tell
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  me what to do, I'm okay with that.
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  The fear of rejection, you mean to tell me now I got to go present a product to someone, I
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  gotta go ask somebody for money?
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  After the last thirty five years, I've never had anybody write me a check.
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  I've had to go make a check.
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  And so there's a different concept, a different mentality, a different way of thinking.
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  The third is the fear of success.
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  This one I struggled with early on.
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  As a full blooded Native American, I found myself rising through the ranks of a place that
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  no one looked like me, no one talked like me, no one understood me, no one was from my
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  culture.
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  I've been the only Native American in the room for a large portion of my life.
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  But that's okay because it doesn't mean I can't have my passion in life.
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  And so those three things, I think, once you understand fear.
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  The other one is procrastination.
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  We're the biggest people that make the most excuses over the littlest things.
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  And what drives me crazy is procrastination is no more than the unwillingness to take action.
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  And so if you think about fear and procrastination, and then obviously there has
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  to be action, I think those are the components that when I ask people and I talk to people
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  about business, and especially if my entrepreneurs starting off and just getting
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  started, you have to overcome those things.
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  Okay, so tell me, a lot of entrepreneurs work incredibly hard they really still struggle to
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  grow.
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  So what do you think separates high performing business owners from those who stay stuck?
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  So I need people to say I've been in business ten years, but yet they don't operate like a
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  ten year business.
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  In other words, they've gone into business one year at a time for ten years.
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  That's how they got to the ten year mark.
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  They figured out what works and they keep doing it.
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  But what separates those business owners that scale, if you'll let me to use that word, that
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  grow is they put systems and processes in place that will continue to move even if they're not
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  there.
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  Now in the day of AI, here we are in a world where technology allows us to work smarter, not
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  harder.
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  They allow us to put these things in place.
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  So today, if you're listening and you're the person that has to do everything, I understand
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  that.
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  I took the trash out, I went to the mailbox, I made the deposits and I booked all the
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  appointments and I still do a lot of those things, but I learned how to leverage processes
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  and systems in place to make me more efficient because here's the key, I needed to buy back
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  more of my time.
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  Buy back more of your time.
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  I want an amen corner to all of that.
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  So let's talk about what do you think are some of the daily habits or practices that people
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  could use to stay focused, to stay productive, and really can help them stay aligned with
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  their long term vision for their business?
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  So early on when you introduced me, you talked about mindset, right?
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  I'm a firm believer of sometimes you have to change the way you think, right?
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  See, when life gives you lemons, most people would say, I'm gonna make lemonade.
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  But that's the most ridiculous thing you could ever do in your life.
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  When life gives you lemons, you should examine the garden of your life and ask yourself, why
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  is my garden producing lemons?
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  Have I planted lemon seed?
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  Because if I have, then you should expect lemons.
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  And then sometimes you should never drink the juice because you weren't built for bitter
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  juice.
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  You were built for sweetness, for greatness.
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  I don't care how much sugar you put in it.
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  And so at the end of the day, it's a mindset change.
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  Right?
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  It's changing the way you think.
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  It's it's understanding that you as an entrepreneur have control of one thing, and
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  that's do you believe in you?
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  That sometimes can be the greatest challenge we face.
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  We're so quick to believe in others.
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  We're so quick to say they can do it.
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  Well, why can't you do it?
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  See, the believability comes once you do something over and over and over and over,
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  repetitiously, producing a certain amount of incremental success builds believability.
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  So to those listening today, the first thing we do is we build ourselves.
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  We can't build a business until we build ourselves.
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  Sometimes we have to change the way we think about ourselves, seeing ourselves worthy of
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  success.
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  As a native American, we have the highest suicide rate in The United States, the highest
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  alcoholism rate in The United States, the highest dropout rate.
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  And I could go on and on and on.
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  And while there's only 6,000,000 of us in The United States, less than 2% of the population,
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  I set out as an early teen in Southeast Baltimore to check off every one of those
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  boxes.
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  And I was on my way to being every one of those statistics until I started a journey with a
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  mentor who said, I will believe in you.
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  And if you can't believe in you, borrow the belief that I have in you until you can see
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  what I see in you.
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  And that Doctor.
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  Bruce changed my life.
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  So some of us need to find some people that believe in us, that are willing to walk with
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  us, that are willing to coach us and mentor us.
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  And that actually dovetails beautifully into my next question, which is, how can business
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  owners better leverage their networks and partnerships and mentors to accelerate their
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  success?
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  Well, the first thing I wanna share is for those that don't have a mentor that are
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  listening today.
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  If you don't have a mentor, I want you to find that person that you admire.
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  Not admire because of the dressed in the cars and the thing, but for their accomplishments.
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  And I want you to find a way to approach them with this statement.
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  This is just real simple.
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  I admire what you've done.
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  I've studied what you've done.
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  I know you're a very busy person, but I'd love to have a cup of coffee with you to learn more
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  about what you do.
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  If I could just maybe have a virtual call.
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  And when they talk, you don't talk, you listen.
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  Because they're where you wanna be.
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  And you take copious notes.
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  And then you ask them this at the end, is it possible we might be able to do this again?
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  And you're building a mentorship relationship and you don't even realize it.
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  But what happens is we won't ask.
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  I love when young folks come to me and ask me for help, young entrepreneurs.
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  At age 65, I don't say I've seen everything.
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  I just say I've seen some things.
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  I know I haven't seen everything, I know I've seen some things, Melinda.
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  I know I've seen the economic turn downs.
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  Seen the market crash, I've seen real estate bubbles, I've seen COVID, I've seen some
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  things.
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  Right, right, right.
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  One of the things I would just add to that Milton is that one of the things that irks me,
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  so I have young people that always wanna talk to me and ask me, you know, how did I build a
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  brand that reaches a million entrepreneurs each week online?
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  But then they then sit down and ask me questions they could have easily Googled before
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  they, you know, like that is not okay.
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  Like if you get an opportunity to get twenty to thirty minutes of meeting with your mentor, you
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  better be ready with smart questions, not how did you get started?
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  You know what I mean?
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  That's not the right That's
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  the research you're talking about.
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  Right?
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  So those people that are serious will do the research practice.
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  Right?
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  I won't come and ask you, tell me your name of your first business and how did you get
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  started?
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  No, I will know the name of your first business, I will know what you sold it for, I
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  will know what your second business was and I will know how you leveraged that because I will
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  do my research.
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  But I can't even tell you how many times I've had meetings with young people or even not even
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  young people, other business owners who will like, tell me about you.
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  And I'd be like, what, like, are you kidding?
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  Like, I'm getting off of here right now.
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  But last question for you, Milton, what do you think is the best advice that you've ever
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  received?
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  Work on myself.
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  As a product of abusive relationship, alcoholic father, I became an alcoholic and a drug
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  addict, and and I became a lot of things as a result of my environment, what I've seen, and
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  my lack of discipline in my own life.
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  I had to work on me.
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  And some people are fortunate.
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  Like, you don't come from my background and you don't have those stories.
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  And so for those that don't have that, then the first thing you need to do is emulate success
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  through daily habits.
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  It's what you do every day that will determine where you'll be at the end of this thing called
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  life.
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  It's your daily habits that you do every day that will determine where you'll be.
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  So you gotta get good habits.
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  I have very terrible habits.
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  I have very terrible self image.
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  So as we're working on ourselves, we're working on our daily habits.
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  Now we got our daily habits, now here's the next thing we got to do.
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  We got to find something that people are willing to pay for.
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  And a lot of us don't understand that it's just that simple.
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  If you can solve a problem, you probably can get paid for solving a problem.
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  If you have a solution to something, someone's probably willing to pay you.
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  Sure.
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  But the thing is we're looking for this next multimillion dollar idea when the truth of the
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  matter is, why not make $10,000 a month?
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  That might change your life.
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  Definitely could for some people.
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  No, thank you so much.
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  Thank you so much for being a guest here on the Small Biz Chat podcast.
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  You've given us so much amazing insight, and I really appreciate you hanging out with us.
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  Thanks for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
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  more fantastic information and interviews.
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  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
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  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.