Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 55. How to Develop The Right Mindset to Become A Successful Solopreneur With Michael Woodward
Transcript
- Michael Woodward (00:00): I think people think simplicity is easy. It really isn't and simple is a very complicated form. Louis Armstrong said that simplicity is the most complex form. Intro (00:16): Bigger. Doesn't always mean better. Welcome to the One-Person business podcast, where people who are flying solo in business, come for specific tips and advice to find success. As a company of one, here are your hosts, Joe Rando and Carly Ries. Carly Ries (00:35): Welcome to the One-Person business podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Carly Ries, Joe Rando (00:40): And I'm Joe Rando. Carly Ries (00:41): If you are just getting started and are in need of convincing that you've made the right decision to be a solopreneur, this is for you. It's just a little extra Monday motivation if you will. Michael Woodward is the founder of JumbleThink. The Jumble Think podcast focuses on telling the story of entrepreneurs who turn their dreams and ideas into reality. It has been ranked number one on the business and career categories on Apple podcast. I'll just pause right there and do a little clap Prior to starting Jumble Think, Michael owned a leading web design and development agency that built over 400 websites and web applications for small local businesses, international nonprofit organizations, and fortune 100 corporations. He's worked on projects for organizations like the Crowdstrike, Stanford, California Community Colleges, and Duarte. Just a few of those minor ones that we may have heard of. So, Michael, we are so excited to have you on the show and welcome. Michael Woodward (01:32): Thank you so much. It's an honor to be on, and I'm excited about today's conversation. Carly Ries (01:37): Oh my gosh, we too, I can't even talk because I'm so excited. Maybe we should just dive in before I keep talking over my own words. So a lot of times when, solopreneurs are starting out, they've narrowed down a bunch of ideas to one worth pursuing, but may not be super certain. How can they tell that the dream they've chosen to chase is the one that they're meant to actually be doing? Michael Woodward (01:58): That is a very complicated question. And one, I wish there was a simple answer. I have tried many things in my business career and in my life on how to do things and ideas and concepts. Some have worked really, really well. Some have failed. But there are tools out there that really help the process of narrowing down the ideas worth pursuing versus the ones that aren't. Before I dive into that though, I think one of the things that's really important to do is to stop and say, where are some things you're gonna get noise? Noise can always distract you from those ideas and dreams and from the things that you should and shouldn't pursue. Whether it's a vocation, whether it's an entrepreneurial endeavor, whether it's just something for fun. There are a lot of things that add to that clutter of life. Michael Woodward (02:47): It's really important to have some good people around you, whether it's a spouse or your family or friends, to have a really good network. Often they are great as a sounding board to kind of filter through what ideas are worth letting rise to the top and which ones aren't. But that's not always the case. Sometimes you need to filter out the bad noise. There are many reasons why somebody may discourage you and it might have nothing to do with your idea or you, it could simply be that they are afraid of what could happen or it's challenging them in their life. So sometimes you have to get the clutter of that noise out of your life. Sometimes you have to get the clutter of good things that are stealing your time and energy out of your life. And sometimes you simply need to stop something that's been awesome for a season, but it's run its course and you need to move on. Once you get past the noise state, what do you do? How do you filter through? There is this really trendy, cool concept. It's called The Ikigai, it's a Japanese concept. It's been around forever and it takes four concepts Joe Rando (03:53): I just want to say that I just pulled up a graphic of Ikigai as you were talking. I think that's incredible. You led me right there. Michael Woodward (04:01): I love that. So Ikigai is this kind of weird thing where you have these four circles that overlap in the center and the center box is the Ikigai. The perfected idea or concept or whatever you're processing. And so the four quadrants are what you love, what the world needs, what you're good at and what you can get paid for. When you put those four together and you go, this is something I love, but no one's gonna pay for it. Or you go, this is something the world needs, but I'm not good at it. That's probably an idea or a dream that you just need to scrap and say, Hey, this isn't something I want to do. This isn't a good business idea. It's when you marry those four quadrants together and you get to that sweet spot, that you can find that you kind of walk in this place of flow or ease state where it just seems like you're in that sweet spot of exactly what you're created to do. That makes it sound really easy, but it takes a lot of trial and error and just continuing the process and not giving up. So those are a couple things I would say that help narrow down a bunch of ideas worth pursuing into maybe the one idea that you should do Carly Ries (05:13): That is so helpful. I feel like that that's a big show stopper for some people. They just get in their head that they haven't picked the right direction so they just kind of freeze, which actually leads me to my next question. Another roadblock is that people hesitate when they start their business because of fear of the unknown. What can they do to overcome that mental roadblock? Michael Woodward (05:33): Well, there's a bunch of things you can do. I think the first thing is figure out what kind of unknown you're dealing with. There's a lot of different ways you can look at the unknown. One, It's something like the known unknown. You realize that maybe you don't have the right skillset or the right knowledge set, or you have questions that you go, these are roadblocks that are stopping me. This is the unknown. And so it's an awareness of the unknown that it is in front of you. Maybe it's a gap in something, but it's something that you can quantify and say, all right, I can get past this. I can figure it out. So that's one unknown. And I think sometimes people look at that and it gets daunting. We're gonna talk a little bit later about some ways to overcome daunting things. Michael Woodward (06:17): So you look at that unknown and you go, well, I can come up with a strategy of that unknown. Well, if it's a skill gap or a knowledge gap, you can jump on YouTube or read a book about it, or get a good mentor in that space and work through that process. So those known unknowns, you can navigate those. You can come up with a plan, a roadmap on how to overcome them. Then there's the unknown unknowns. Those are the places I think that the imagination goes wild. It's where things get really crazy. And you're like, what do I do with this? And it's simply where fear creeps in the most. It's that place of going "Well, what if I step out and I can't make money at this, and then I fail." So what is the, the fear? Michael Woodward (07:02): Is it the fear of the unknown, or is it a fear of failure? Is it a fear of finance? And I think that unknown fear; takes some time to reflect. Maybe it's journaling, maybe it's talking to a friend or a mentor or a coach and working through it. What is it about that unknown, unknown that's really the culprit of that fear. Begin to put in safety guards to say, if I do these things, I can mitigate the risk. I can navigate the uncertainty. Really work your way through it. What if it's a mental roadblock. It's just that kind of fight or flight kind of thing. You get to that moment where you're like, is this an unknown where it stops me in my tracks and now I'm mentally locked. Michael Woodward (07:54): I'm physically locked. I don't know my way forward. I would say one of the best things that a solopreneur can do to overcome that is, get around somebody that's already gone down the trail a little bit further than you. It doesn't have to be like they've made it and arrived, but maybe they're five steps ahead of you or 10 steps ahead of you in the process and go, all right, I wanna go start making custom guitars. Let's say maybe that's what they want to do. Well, go find somebody that's doing it. Ask them if you can get together with them over zoom or in person or whatever it is and ask those questions. Maybe you can take a class from a Luthier who makes guitars and learn the ins and outs and say, maybe this isn't the road I want to go, or maybe it is. Michael Woodward (08:38): By taking and really filtering through the unknown that's stopping you, the question mark you have, you can overcome that simply by really identifying it. I think a lot of people get stuck in the place of leaving the unknown, unknown, and not figuring out what really scares them about the unknown, and then addressing it. Really attacking it and saying, all right, that's rational, but how do I come up with a strategy that helps me through that? Or that's irrational. How do I get my mind in the right head space so I can move forward through the irrational fear. So really taking those three different levels of the unknown: the known unknown, the unknown unknown, but then also the fear of the unknown and really addressing each of those, you can come up with strategies and think of it rationally. It's like that purchase that you make. It's something that's tied to emotion where you're like, I'm gonna go get the new car and you get emotionally attached to it. Michael Woodward (09:41): Then you're buying a car and you find out three months later, you made a really bad purchase because you overpaid for it or something like that. It's that removal of the emotion to go in and rationally say, "yeah, I want that specific car, but I'm gonna do my due diligence. I'm gonna go shop it. I'm gonna go find the best price." Well, you can do that with your dreams and ideas or an entrepreneurial endeavor where you can actually come back and say, you know, I'm gonna step out of myself a little bit. And instead of emotionally look through the lens of the unknown, really step into it and say, "You know what, let's step away from the emotions and look at this rationally and then let's make the decision." And I think that's the place that you can find real breakthrough. Joe Rando (10:23): I'm curious. One of the things I've found is that I set ground rules for myself. I say, this is what I'm gonna do. This is what I'm not gonna do. This is how I'm gonna do it. This is how I'm not gonna do it. That really helps with the kind of regret you're talking about when something doesn't turn out to be as optimal as you expected it might be. I'm curious if you have any thoughts about that. I do it with the stock market. I have a stock market strategy. Some stock that people were telling me I should buy, goes way up. I didn't buy it because it didn't match my strategy. I don't regret those anymore. I just go that wasn't my deal. Michael Woodward (10:55): That is a great question. I'll tell you this story. So years ago I was working with a client and we were helping them build out their client portals, their website. This is back when we had our big agency in California and we're doing a lot of work in Silicon Valley. At the time this specific client came in and said, Hey, I know your hourly rate is X dollars per hour. Is there any way you can discount that? And I said, well, you're gonna be doing a lot of hours. Yeah. We can discount that down a little bit. And that will help you out with your project. And they said, well, could you discount it more and take equity in the company? And our rule was, because our experience had taught us, that when you take equity, it's incredibly risky. So basically I'm paying for the project out of my pocket with the hope that your idea will become reality. Michael Woodward (11:42): Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. So for years, we had invested in projects where it's like, Hey, we'll take 75% of our normal hourly rate and 25% of our time and that discount will go towards equity in the company. And then it just completely falls apart. So maybe the project gets launched. I've paid my guys, maybe covered my cost, but for me, I've not made anything out of the project. So I decided after doing that a few times, I wasn't gonna do it anymore. We had a company come in and they had a great executive team. They had a great idea. They had a great concept. They said, would you take equity? And I said, we just don't do that. So years later after we had worked with them for a long time, they went to an IPO for their business and the business on the stock market. Michael Woodward (12:33): Their IPO went for $96 billion. Our share would have been several million dollars in that. Now I can look at that and say, I regret that. And I can say I made the wrong decision, but that's viewing the information I had yesterday through today's lens. And that's never going to be a good measuring stick. So having those parameters had saved me from years after that. Also not losing a lot of money on ideas that fell flat. So by hedging it and saying, I'm not gonna take equity on both sides. Yeah. I lost a lot along the way, but I also gained a lot in money we would have lost by helping people with bad ideas or maybe even good ideas that they didn't execute well on. I don't know if that answers the question exactly, but I think having those parameters is super healthy and it's helpful. You've just got tp trust that those things are there to guard and protect you and then just be agile with it. As you go through the process and say, do I need to reevaluate? Do I need to change this? Is that a decision that's worthwhile? Joe Rando (13:39): Perfect. No, that's great. Thank you. That's the kind of thinking that has worked for me. I'm glad that you feel the same way. Carly Ries (13:46): Michael, you have so eloquently taken these complicated questions that so many solopreneurs have and have simplified them. That actually takes me to my next question. Because you're big on simplicity and simplicity is a key to innovative thinking, how can solopreneurs get on board with that and start eliminating all the chaos in their lives just to streamline everything? Michael Woodward (14:06): I think people think simplicity is easy and it really isn't. Simple is a very complicated form. Louis Armstrong said that "simplicity is the most complex form". What I think he was getting to and what I've learned along the way is, if you are building a project or chasing an idea or writing a book, it is easy to have that idea vomit. Where you have just a lot coming out of you and you build this bloated system, or you do concepts in your business that really don't apply to what you're trying to create. And all of a sudden you've diluted the core value of what you're creating. So with ideas or dreams or businesses, or just fun projects, it really doesn't matter. The more you can simplify it down, the more you can focus on what really matters. Michael Woodward (15:04): When you do what matters well, you can build out the rest as you go. I think a lot of people think that for a project to be successful, like, if I want to launch Facebook, I have to have all these bells and whistles. Well, we have to step back and say Facebook was incredibly minimalistic and simple when it launched. Twitter continues to be minimalistic and simple and it's successful. So you look at these different platforms that have done billions of dollars, trillions of dollars in revenue. You look at these businesses that have done well, and they focus on doing their core really, really well and not stepping outside of that box. So when you're approaching those dreams and ideas, when you're approaching a business, when you're launching a business, boil it down to the simplest form, build that and do it well. Michael Woodward (15:53): Then as you go along the process of working for a client or fulfilling a product or whatever it may be, find out those gaps that you wouldn't have known when you started out. Start building those to then support the simplest ,purest idea. I think that this is where you can get to a place of rapid development or rapid innovation or quickly getting to the market. And I think a lot of people, when they're in their first venture, they take a long time to get something out there. And it's because of that bloat and not taking the time to really simplify and create processes that help innovation and innovative thinking for that matter. Carly Ries (16:36): And now a quick word from our sponsor, Sponsor (16:39): You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a One-Person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. At LifeStarr, we're creating a One-Person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr. com. Carly Ries (17:05): Speaking of innovative thinking, The way I originally got introduced to Jumble Thinking, was just the idea of micro experiments and using those to try to help your processes and chase after your dreams. How can solopreneurs use micro experiments and I guess, what are they to start, and how can it benefit them in chasing after what they want? Michael Woodward (17:25): As you mentioned in the intro, I've built a lot of websites. Our team has built a lot of websites. I've worked with a lot of people on projects. We talked about that simplicity a second ago. That is the biggest problem, people get overwhelmed by the vastness of what they're trying to create. It's the number one thing I hear when I'm talking to somebody about their dreams or their ideas or their concept or their business, is that it just seems so overwhelming. Well, the way that you overcome that is by stripping it back. But how do you do that? That's really easy to say, Hey, strip your idea back, but then when you go to practice it, how do I do that? How does that actually happen? Well, I looked at the scientific method, which is very clear. Michael Woodward (18:16): It gives a model that can be used, we're all taught it in middle school and high school to use it to create these experiments that give us knowledge. Why wouldn't that apply to entrepreneurship and taking an idea or a product to market. So the goal of those was to help make things bite size. A micro experiment is simply that. It's walking through a process and doing it over and over again. It's a way to do rapid innovation. It's a way to build a business quickly. So the first question that you ask is the question. What is it that you want to answer in this micro experiment? Micro experiment shouldn't be a long experiment. It should be a couple of minutes or maybe a couple hours, maybe a few days, but at the most, maybe a month or two. Michael Woodward (19:04): In that time period, you're gonna ask that question and look for an answer. So you ask the question, then you set your timeframe and again, keep it quick and short. Then you run the experiment. So if I say, I wanna be a winemaker, maybe the question I first ask is, would I like making wine? Well, I don't know. I've never done it. So the first thing I would do is ask that question. Would I like making wine? Then I say, over the next three months, I'm gonna figure out if this is something I'd even enjoy doing. So then step three is run the experiment. Now you have to set up the control and the experimental thing that you're going to do. So the experiment might be, oh, I'm gonna go work for a winemaker for three months over the summer, or I'm going to go do an experience where I just travel through Napa and talk to winemakers. Michael Woodward (20:00): So you do that. And you run that experiment, asking that question all the way through. Then step four is you stop, stop and reflect. I think often we run these experiments, we do things, but we don't take the time to really process. I would say step four is one of the most significant steps in the process because without it, the rest really doesn't matter. So you reflect back. Did I enjoy this? What did I enjoy about it? Was there a specific part of it? You may go, I might really like being a vineyard manager. Okay, well, I'm going to go grow a vineyard and then sell my grapes. No, I really liked the process of making a wine. I'm gonna do that. No, I liked it all. I'm gonna do that. You take that moment to stop and reflect at that point and say, what did I love? Michael Woodward (20:44): What worked, what didn't work? What did I hate? Where are areas that I could really grow in this? What could I do better? And then you write that down. You journal it, you ask those questions. Step five is rinse and repeat, which is go through the process. Re-ask the questions. Set a new time limit, run the experiment again, stop and reflect and rinse and repeat. And again, these are bite sized things. So you should be able to do these quickly. These aren't things that should take years to do. I think a lot of people think, well, it's gonna take me five years or seven years to build a successful business. What if you use these micro experiments, you can find a quick way to make money quickly. And then you start growing the business by continuing to innovate, refine, invent, whatever it might be. Michael Woodward (21:29): You run these experiments again and again and again, and over the course of a month or two months or three months, you might run 20, 30, 40 experiments. All of a sudden you're like, what seems like should have taken two or three years. All of a sudden took a month or two months or three months. It's just that simple process of being intentional. Most of the things we do are often not intentional, and that's why they get bloated. That's why they get distracted. That's why they get off track is because you don't have an intention. You don't have a system to work. Then when you don't have that system to work, you go find the next shiny object and you're off in lala land doing something that wasn't even what you wanted to do. I think we've all done it. Where three months down the road, How did I get here? And I think using these micro experiments really help the process of innovating, quickly verifying ideas, building a business. These are steps that you can take to make it really simple. Carly Ries (22:31): So Michael, if I book a wine tasting trip to Napa, can I tell my husband it's for a micro experiment that you told me to do? Michael Woodward (22:39): Well, it depends on what outcome you want to have. Tell the IRS that too and write it off Carly Ries (22:44): yeah, right. There you go. Actually that was one of my bucket list items like a decade ago. It was so fun too. I actually did do that. it was such amazing experience. I wanted to bring this up, Michael. I know I told you offline that I spent five to 10 minutes looking through your bucket list on your website and listeners, if you want to see a comprehensive bucket list, we will include a link in the show notes. It is fascinating. I just have to know, what are the benefits of doing this and making your dreams a reality, cuz you have over 400. Michael Woodward (23:14): Yeah, 442 at the last I counted. I think I have over a hundred that have been completed. This has been something I've been working on for a long time. A friend of mine, a mentor of mine, a guy named Ed, years ago he said, "what are you guys gonna accomplish?" I was working for an organization. He was an administrator and he said, what are you guys gonna accomplish in the next three months, five months, year, five years, where are you guys going? What are the things you wanna accomplish? And it sparked the question of, what are the things that I think would be really cool to do? What are things that would bring more life to our family? What are things that would challenge me, entrepreneurial? What are the things that would bring life? Michael Woodward (23:57): I think that we get in this entrapped place where we do our job. We go home, we eat dinner, we spend some time maybe with family and then watch TV. We go to sleep and we just continue to do that every day of our life. And yeah, even with the pandemic, we started for many people pushing the boundaries of when we worked because there wasn't that boundary. So, years and years ago, I started this list and it's grown and I've accomplished a lot of them. It was just kind of things that caused me to think. James Altucher, who's a podcaster, he's been in the world of business for years, he has what he calls the list of 10, which is every day, he's writing 10 things to sharpen the idea muscle. Bucket lists kind of do that, but they also give you a goal, something to look forward to and then you can start really chasing those things and creating them. Michael Woodward (24:52): I think it's just a fun tool to push the boundaries of what you think is possible. I think a lot of people play it safe. A lot of people get stuck in their normal routines. And so for me, the bucket list has just been a fun journey of saying, these are things that would be just really fun to do. These would be really challenging things. These would be things that bring life and just make it more fun. Now I can go back to it and go, you know, I need to snap out of kind of the mundane or I need to snap out of the routine. What is something I could go accomplish and do?, And that's kind of how it grew and it's just been a lot of fun. Carly Ries (25:29): Well, it definitely served as an inspiration to me because then I started my list again. You're just full of words of wisdom for inspiring people. Do you have any resources, whether it's book, podcast, whatever, that you'd recommend for solopreneurs, if they're in need of some inspiration and motivation? Michael Woodward (25:45): I think James Altucher's podcast is great. That's a really fun show to listen to. It's one of the places, especially when I was going through some hard times and just feeling encouraged or discouraged actually at that moment, it gave me encouragement and it gave me some challenges and practical steps like those list of tens to challenge your brain, to think of ideas and concepts. One of my favorite books to recommend to people is a book called The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson. It's based off of the concept of The Hero's Journey, which is, Joseph Campbell. I would not recommend The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell because it is one of the most complicated books to ever read. You have to have a lot of background knowledge on literature and other things to understand what he's teaching, but The Dream Giver gives a process of what you can do to turn those dreams into realities. Michael Woodward (26:38): It walks you through the average journey somebody goes through. Whether it's an idea around family, an idea around business, an idea around just life in general, there's a common journey that most people go through. Again, Joseph Campbell called it The Hero's Journey, but The Dream Giver walks through that and it walks through the different obstacles that you're gonna face. The different frustration points you're gonna hit. The people who are gonna discourage you. It walks you through that process and while it's allegorical and a lot of the writing, they also, at the end of each chapter, have some challenges for you to reflect and think through as you're going through that process. And so real practical tool, very simple. I think the other one, the question that you asked earlier about how do you know if you have an idea worth pursuing or which one to choose, this book here it's, called Unhackable by Kary Oberbrunner. Michael Woodward (27:33): It is a 30 day. I don't wanna call it a workshop cause you're not really doing workshop, but program that you go through and each chapter deals with a different part of ideas and concepts and really, for the larger part entrepreneurship. And so that is a really good book to help you focus and come up with a strategy and being intentional. It's a lot of fun to do. The further you get in the book, the more work it is, but it is just a really cool book that helps people find that clarity they're looking for. So those are a couple of resources I would recommend. Carly Ries (28:10): Awesome. We will include all of those in the show notes. I'd be remiss if we didn't end a motivational inspirational episode without asking you what your favorite quote about success is. Michael Woodward (28:22): Can I give you two quotes? Would that be okay Carly Ries (28:24): Please Michael Woodward (28:25): Okay. So one of my favorite quotes isn't necessarily about success, but it is. It's by a guy named Leonard Ravenhill and he says "the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity." I'll say that again, the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity. I think we've all had those moments where something's passed us by and we've just been like, ah, I missed it. And a lot of those things come back to circle around and we can try to do them again. When you see those opportunities, you have to take them if you're gonna succeed. That's the first quote. The second one, you gotta do a Churchill quote. He said, "Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts." And I think that's a really important thing to remember. The best of times can turn into the worst of times. The worst of times won't kill you. And that you just gotta keep going. You know, as Dory, our famous little friend says just keep swimming. And I think that's an important thing for us to all remember. Carly Ries (29:30): So true. Well done Pixar for narrowing down that quote and simplifying it. Well, Michael, this has been so wonderful. I think I speak for both Joe and I, when I say thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people find you if they want to learn more? Michael Woodward (29:45): Head over to JumbleThink.com and we have a little place there. You'll see it pop up where if you want to get the little guide on micro experiments, it's completely free. We're not selling you anything. Just download it. We want you to chase those dreams. We want you do that. So if you want a little bit more detail in how you can do it, it's right there. Carly Ries (30:05): Love it. Well again, thank you so much. And listeners that wraps up another episode of the One-Person business podcast. Be sure to visit lifestarr.com/podcast to find more episodes and subscribe, or you can find us anywhere you listen to your shows. We'll see you next time. Closing (30:23): You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a One-Person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures. at LifeStarr, we're creating a One-Person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com