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MICHAEL HYATT: “’And I said to them, ‘You've got to learn to reframe problems because there has never been a moment in history for many of you’—and I'm speaking to my clients—‘for many of you where you've seen more problems. There are problems everywhere. There are problems every day. There are new problems, problems you've never faced before. But to the person who's a true entrepreneur, those problems represent opportunity because if you can solve the problem, that can result in an opportunity for your business where you can make a profit.’”
And so I've seen so many businesses—not every business, and sometimes it's outside of our control. I get that. There are things that happen. And I have friends in the hospitality industry, for example, who were shut down by the government. I mean, they didn't have any choice, you know? Some of them tried to pivot and were successful. Some weren't able to do that. But I know, also, a ton of entrepreneurs, certainly the majority of our clients, who've been able to pivot, solve problems, accelerate their growth during this time, and actually produce bigger, better results.”
INTRO: I’m Amy Porterfield, ex-corporate girl turned CEO of a multi-million-dollar business. But it wasn't all that long ago that I lacked the confidence, money, and time to focus on growing my small-but-mighty business. Fast forward past many failed attempts and lessons learned, and you'll see the business I have today, one that changes lives and gives me more freedom than I ever thought possible, one that used to only exist as a daydream. I created the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast to give you simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies to help you do the same. If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, or one in the making, who's looking to create a business that makes an impact and helps you create a life you love, you're in the right place. Let's get started.
AMY PORTERFIELD: Today's your lucky day, my friend, because I have one of my favorite go-to guests on the podcast. In fact, he's my mentor. And you know I love nothing more than giving you behind-the-scenes experiences from my own business. So consider today a little look into a conversation between myself and my mentor, Michael Hyatt.
Now, Michael is not only a bestselling author, but also one of the most successful entrepreneurs I know. His business was recently featured in Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing private companies, and he's just released yet another must-read book for entrepreneurs called Entrepreneurs Will Save the World. Is that title not incredible?
Now, I genuinely believe that this book could not come at a better time. And he's going to share in today's episode about how entrepreneurship is on the decline, and this is detrimental to our economy. So whether you're an entrepreneur or dreaming of becoming your own boss, consider this interview a calling for you to step into your role and show up as an entrepreneur for our economy, for our communities, and for ourselves. Michael's going to share a few traits every entrepreneur must possess; why entrepreneurship is one of the most essential things we need, whether our economy is thriving or not; and my favorite, the first few steps of a method that Michael has created for stepping into entrepreneurship and finding a solid solution that you are going to offer to your audience.
So get a pen and paper ready, because this episode is jam packed with takeaways. Also, be sure you stick around until the end, because Michael has a very, very hot tip for you that you won't want to miss. And if you're serious about becoming a successful entrepreneur, you're going to want to get this book and also hear what Michael has to share today. So enjoy.
Well, Michael, welcome back to the show.
MICHAEL: Thanks, Amy. Great to be with you, as always.
AMY: It's always a pleasure to get to sit down with you and chat with you. And you have another book. So, first of all, congratulations. It must feel amazing.
MICHAEL: Thank you. I'm super excited about this one because I feel like it's so timely.
AMY: It is so timely. So as I mentioned in the intro, it's called Entrepreneurs Will Save the World. And again, I don't think it could have come out at a better time. So I'm excited to dig in. And I got to start, like, right at the beginning. When I read that you have found that entrepreneurship has declined in recent years, I was so surprised, especially in the world I live in. So why do you think this is happening?
MICHAEL: Well, first of all, let me just say this. When I started doing the research, I was surprised, too, because my anecdotal experience would say that entrepreneurs are on the rise everywhere, because I live in a very entrepreneurial community, I travel with entrepreneurs, I hang out with entrepreneurs, and so to me, my world is all entrepreneurs. But as it turns out, when you do the research, that's not the case. There's been a decline.
And I think there's a lot of reasons for it, but one of the reasons is that I think culturally people tend to look down on capitalism in general. You know, this is not capitalism's best moment. There's kind of been a rise as sort of a more socialistic viewpoint. And people that make money, and particularly people that make a lot of money, are automatically suspect. And I think for some people, they just don’t want to do that.
And I've also seen that people today—and you see this among the Gen X, the Gen Y, the Gen Z—they're less likely to take risks. Now, I don’t know why that is exactly, but it's been documented in a lot of sources. And entrepreneurialism, whatever else it is, it's people who are willing to take a risk for the sake of a reward or some kind of gain.
So it is perplexing, but it's not a positive trend, in my view, given how highly I esteem entrepreneurs and what they're capable of.
AMY: Right. For sure.
And let's talk a little bit about the importance of entrepreneurship. I think the fear of being an entrepreneur can sometimes overtake that inner knowing of how important entrepreneurship is. So talk to me a little bit about the importance of this.
MICHAEL: Well, if you look at it from sort of a societal perspective, a cultural perspective, entrepreneurs are the ones who are motivated to solve problems, usually for financial gain but that's not the only kind of reward that people seek as entrepreneurs. In fact, I would submit that entrepreneurs can be found in every kind of industry, not just in business, but that you find them in education—I was just on the phone a moment ago with one—you find them in education, you find them in the military, you find them in the nonprofit world. But anytime you find somebody who's motivated, who’s curious, first of all, but then motivated to solve a problem, and they're doing it because there's some kind of reward—it may just be the satisfaction of solving the problem. It may be ‘cause there's a financial reward. It may be ‘cause there’s a promotion or there's some sort of esteem that accrues to them as a result of solving that problem—when you think about that, these people are essential to our culture because these are the people that are going to take on the problems and come up with real solutions, maybe solutions that we would have never considered, that would have never arisen in any other way. Every leap forward by society, there’s usually an entrepreneur that was behind it, not just because they were altruistic, but because they were emoted for some kind of gain. And that's not a bad thing. That's what makes the whole thing work.
AMY: Yes. It makes sense, for sure.
And you say that there are three ways that an entrepreneur contributes to society. And because I know my audience well, and I know they have huge hearts, and they're looking to make an impact, I want to go over these three ways. Can you talk about them?
MICHAEL: Yeah, I can. And let me just say it, preference it—the way you ask the question was very, very important: an entrepreneur contributes to society. Now, there's kind of this idea. You hear this a lot in media interviews, where somebody’s interviewing an entrepreneur, Elon Musk or somebody else. And inevitably this comment comes up, “In what way are you giving back to society?” And so my argument in part in the book is that entrepreneurs contribute already. I mean, it's great if you want to make additional contribution. I know your heart is generous. I think, you know, that's my heart. I love doing things like building schools in Africa. You and I have each had a hand in doing that through our friend—
AMY: Yep.
MICHAEL: —Stu. And that's an amazing thing. But I don't do it because I've extracted something from society and now I'm obligated to give back to sort of even the score. You know what I’m saying?
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: So I got this insight from Rabbi Daniel Lapin, in his book Thou Shall Prosper. Great book. Great book for entrepreneurs.
AMY: Okay, good to know.
MICHAEL: I never thought I'd be learning from a rabbi, but he's very wise when it comes to business. And so one of the things he says is never feel like you have to apologize for being successful, because as an entrepreneur—now I want to get into three areas you mentioned—we already contribute in three areas. First of all, communities, the communities we're operating in, benefit from the jobs that we provide and the growth that we produce.
AMY: That’s powerful. That’s powerful.
MICHAEL: It is. I mean, if you think about it, I employ forty people. I help support forty families, not to mention—and that's just my employees—that's not to mention the contractors, the vendors, the service providers, the hotels, the places where we do our events. You know, all of those people benefit from my entrepreneurial enterprise.
AMY: I've never looked at it that way. So that's fantastic. And my audience, they're just getting started, or many of them are, so let's say you employ one person or two people. I know one of my students, she has a virtual assistant for the first time. The virtual assistant is a mom of three that wanted to stay home with her kids. That right there is contributing.
MICHAEL: It is totally contributing. You are helping support that person. I'll give another example. And by the way, you're supporting them in a way that's better than just giving them money—
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: —because you give them an opportunity to do work, to fulfill their calling, to feel proud of their work, to have a sense of dignity about their work. And so, years ago, one of the things I tried to convince Gail of—my wife, Gail—is that she should hire a housekeeper, not full time, but just somebody to come in every couple of weeks and help her with the heavy cleaning. And so she said to me, she said, “I feel like that's my job. That's something you and I should be able to do together. We don't need help.” Well, let me tell you something. There are fewer things that I hate more than housework.
AMY: Amen.
MICHAEL: And Gail doesn’t like it either, you know? And neither one of us are very good at it. And so I said, “Well, I really think you need to hire somebody.” She said, “I just can't do that with a clear conscience.” And I said, “Okay, I'm going—” and I pulled out the big guns—I said, “You are depriving somebody else of the opportunity to express their gift, to use their skills and abilities, and you're depriving them of a livelihood.”
AMY: Okay, this is good! Yes, that’s a great way to look at it.
MICHAEL: So I kind of had to guilt her a little bit. And then it just so happened that our niece had just started a housekeeping business. She was amazing at it. Loved it. You know, there are people out there, and it's hard for some people to believe this, but we talk about in BusinessAccelerator, the Freedom Compass and the idea that there are certain things that you love to do and certain things you're really good at—that's your desire zone—and that's where you want to operate. But everybody's desire zone is different. So there are things that I hate to do that other people love to do. There are things that I love to do that other people couldn't imagine doing.
AMY: Yep.
MICHAEL: But when you find somebody who loves to do something that you hate doing, it frees you up to do the things that you and only you can do, the high-leverage things that really advance your business and your life.
So the way I sold Gail on this was I said, “You're depriving somebody else.” And I said, “Your niece, right here, just started a housekeeping business, and this would be a ginormous blessing to her to give her this work.” And she was amazing at it. And all of a sudden, it became crystal clear to Gail why she needed a housekeeper.
AMY: I love that.
MICHAEL: And she loves it.
And so everybody, every person we've hired, we felt like that. It's a way for us to contribute to other people in a way that retains their dignity, enhances their dignity, and gives them a way to express their gifts. So that's the first way that entrepreneurship contributes to society is the communities that we live in benefit from the jobs that we provide and the growth that we produce. In fact, I would say it's a moral imperative that we grow—
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: —because when we grow, we're able to employ other people, and we're able to help them realize their financial dreams. I think, Amy, of the forty employees that we have, they have dreams. You know, they want to move into that new house, or they want to put their kids through college, or maybe they want to contribute to their church or their favorite cause or whatever, and it takes money to do that.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: And so it's imperative for you and I to grow our businesses so that we can help them fulfill their dreams.
AMY: Yeah. Totally agree. I’m on the same page.
MICHAEL: Okay, number two. You ready for it?
AMY: Yep.
MICHAEL: Okay, number two, governments benefit—local, state, and federal benefit—through the taxes raised from your efforts. Now, I don't love this, but it’s reality, right? I mean, we all think we could pay less in taxes, but when you think how much the money that you make is taxed, I mean, first of all, as an entrepreneur, and for most of us, we probably have an LLC or an S corp, some kind of pass-through corporation—
AMY: Right.
MICHAEL: —we have to pay taxes on our profit. But not only that, we're paying payroll taxes. And every time we pay the people that are our employment, they pay tax on the income they receive. But that, it doesn't stop there. They go out, and they buy stuff. And when they buy stuff, they pay sales tax. And if they buy something big, like a house or a boat or something like that, there's registration fees that are kind of taxed, there’s property taxes. So all this network of taxes, in the best sense, makes our roads possible, makes it possible for us to live in a society where it can be relatively safe. You know, all those things are paid through taxes, so that if we have to call the ambulance, they're there for us. You know, all these things that we just take for granted are made possible because entrepreneurs are paying their taxes.
AMY: Yes. Okay, that’s an important one. And my grandpa, he was just a super-simple farmer kind of guy, but he did well financially. And he always said, “I hope I have to pay a million dollars in taxes”—
MICHAEL: I love that.
AMY: —because he knew he’d be doing well if he did. So looking at taxes in this positive light and supporting the government in that way I think is a great way to look at it.
MICHAEL: Well, and then the third reason, and probably this is the first place that most people listening to us talk would go, is that customers enjoy access to the goods and the services that we supply. So there is a contribution there. I'm making somebody’s life better. The essence of entrepreneurship is, in essence, we look for places where there's friction.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: So in your particular case, in helping people produce digital courses, there's friction because most people have never done that before.
AMY: Right.
MICHAEL: You make it faster, easier, and cheaper to do that. You eliminate the friction and make it so much easier. And let me just say this. I've been through your courses. At first I went through your course on webinars, and that changed everything about my marketing. And then I went through your course on courses, creating digital courses, and I had my team go through that, and that changed the way we produce digital courses. So you contributed to my life in a way that's allowed me, Michael Hyatt, to produce millions of dollars in revenue and profit.
AMY: Stop it!
MICHAEL: Seriously.
AMY: Michael, that means the world to me.
MICHAEL: Well, and helps support my team, their families, our community, the government. You don't even live in Tennessee—well, at least, not yet—but you don't live in Tennessee, and you've made a contribution in this community because of this customer—me—that you've helped. And every entrepreneur does that.
AMY: When you look at it like that, it's almost as though, like, I kind of stand up a little straighter. I feel really good. Like, yeah, I contributed to that. I think looking at it in this big sense really does remind you of how important your role is as an entrepreneur. And one thing you said in the book, you said entrepreneurs are essential in any economy, whether in times of prosperity or decline. And right now, Michael, that's why I said this book couldn't have come at a better time: entrepreneurs are needed more than ever right now.
MICHAEL: Yes, absolutely. And in fact, I remember talking in our BusinessAccelerator coaching program to our clients, and I was trying to kind of shape their mindset for this pandemic and what I knew was ahead because I had led through the Great Recession and I'd led through the recession that was back in 2000, 2001. And so I knew a little bit, you know, I'd learned the hard way how your mindset affects everything else. And I said to them, “You've got to learn to reframe problems because there has never been a moment in history for many of you”—and I'm speaking to my clients—”for many of you where you've seen more problems. There are problems everywhere. There are problems every day. There are new problems, problems you've never faced before. But to the person who's a true entrepreneur, those problems represent opportunity because if you can solve the problem, that can result in an opportunity for your business where you can make a profit.”
And so I've seen so many businesses—not every business, and sometimes it's outside of our control. I get that. There are things that happen. And I have friends in the hospitality industry, for example, who were shut down by the government. I mean, they didn't have any choice, you know? Some of them tried to pivot and were successful. Some weren't able to do that. But I know, also, a ton of entrepreneurs, certainly the majority of our clients, who've been able to pivot, solve problems, accelerate their growth during this time, and actually produce bigger, better results. It’s been true of our company. It’s been true for a lot of our clients.
AMY: Oh, yeah. I've seen it a lot in my students’ worlds right now and what they've been able to do with that. And I love what you just said. You have to be willing to reframe how you look at problems. And I remember when I first became an entrepreneur, I forget who told me this, but they said, “Just know, being an entrepreneur means you are a master troubleshooter.”
MICHAEL: Yep.
AMY: “You will literally be troubleshooting almost every day.” And the minute I stopped looking at problems and challenges as “I'm doing something wrong. This isn't working as planned,” but instead, “Oh, this is part of what I do,” it just changed everything for me.
MICHAEL: It's so true. And one of the cool things about being an entrepreneur, particularly in the kind of business that you're in or the kind of business that I'm in, is I'm not just solving the problem for myself.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: I'm solving it for my clients.
AMY: So cool. Yep.
MICHAEL: So just giving a concrete example. So we've been through a rigorous strategic-planning process over the last couple of weeks, and so we've got pretty much, probably 85 percent, of our plan for 2021 put together, and I feel great about it. But more importantly, I feel great about the process. But I said to Megan—this is the first year—Megan's my oldest daughter and our chief operating officer. So she's essentially, you know, leading the company right now. And so this is the first year I let her lead the process. And so I said to her, I said, “Megan,” I said, “As you’re going through this process, you’re not just solving the problem of planning and the need for planning for us, but you’re essentially creating the prototype for our clients. And so you need to keep them in mind as you're going through this process. You need to be asking yourself the question, where am I experiencing friction? How am I solving that? Am I keeping it simple? Am I eliminating complexity so that it's simple for our clients to implement? But everything you do in this process of strategic planning, I want you to think of it as a product that you're prototyping ultimately for our clients who will benefit from it.” And we literally approach everything that we do in that way. And that kind of creates that imperative to not just solve it, but it gives it much more significance, you know?
AMY: Yes. I was going to say, puts more meaning behind everything that you’re doing.
MICHAEL: It really does.
AMY: Yeah. That's really cool that you guys do that.
Okay, Michael, let's chat about the stages of the entrepreneurial method that create sound solutions. My audience is going to go wild over this because we love a good step by step. Now, I don't want to give it all away. You guys got to get your hands on this book. Michael’s going to tell you where to go in a moment to get this book. But, Michael, how do you feel about taking us through, let's say, the first three steps of the eight-step process?
MICHAEL: Yes, absolutely. Let's do that.
First of all, number one, observe the problem. I mean, it sounds obvious. But observe the problem. You've got to develop sort of the mindset that you're looking for problems—
AMY: Okay.
MICHAEL: —and particularly with regard to your customers or the clients you're trying to serve. And I've heard you say this when you talk about creating a digital course, as you talk about this a lot, but where do they get stuck? You actually have to know two things about your clients. You've got to know, first of all, what is their dream? What's their aspiration? And then secondly, and this comes to the problem part, observing the problem, what is keeping them from fulfilling that aspiration? What is keeping them from fulfilling the dream? What is keeping them from achieving the vision?
AMY: Okay, so I have a question for you on this one.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
AMY: A lot of my students that are just getting started, they often ask me, “But how do I figure that out, Amy? How do I know what problems they have in their aspirations?” What would you say to that?
MICHAEL: I’d say, “You got to talk to them.”
AMY: Yep.
MICHAEL: This is where a lot of entrepreneurs, this is, like, a huge mistake. They sit in the ivory tower, and they kind of speculate or try to guess what the problems are. Now, there's nothing wrong with coming up with a hypothesis.
AMY: Right.
MICHAEL: But then you've got to go test it. And you got to test it, and oftentimes, the thing that you think will work doesn't actually work in the real world.
Now, usually you got into an area where you've got some expertise, and so you have some experience. And I would say, first of all, don't try to foist on the world what hasn't been tested in the crucible of your own life.
AMY: Yes, I agree.
MICHAEL: So make sure that it's working for you. But just because it works for you—and I’ve learned this the hard way. You know, I'm a peculiar kind of person.
AMY: You are.
MICHAEL: Hey, you don’t have to agree with that.
AMY: You have habits that most people can’t stick with. Like, I always think you're a little bit superhuman. I know you wouldn't say that. But it's good that you bring this up. Things that you might, like, click with you easily, I don’t know are necessarily going to click with other people easily.
MICHAEL: No, that’s exactly right, and that's why you got to go test it in the real world. So I'll give you a concrete example. Now, this is a little bit of an embarrassing example because I really shouldn't be involved in this much level of detail in my business.
AMY: Okay.
MICHAEL: But back, after we had launched the first initial version of the Full Focus Planner, we decided to revise it based on the customer input that we were getting. So I decided—this happened to be in the summer, things were a little bit slower, and I love designing products. And I'm kind of a typesetting geek, and I understand the software. I used to do this back in a previous life in the publishing world. So I said to the team, I said, “Rather than contracting this out, I just want to do this. I want to interact with our customers, and I want to get their feedback, and I want to actually design the pages.” So they just said, “Okay. You probably should delegate that. But, hey, whatever. We’ll let you get by with it this one time.” So I would literally design a page that I thought that, you know, something I'd been doing in my own life that was working. And then I posted it in our private Facebook group for feedback from my audience, from the customers. And boy, did they tell me what they thought. If you ask customers what they think, they will tell you.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: And this is why—I mean, we had, like, 10,000 people in this Facebook group, which was a crazy number of people. But I mean, they would pile on. And if they had any—they had no consideration for my feelings, you know?
AMY: Don’t you hate that?
MICHAEL: They were like, “No, this sucks,” or “This just doesn’t make any sense.” So then I’d have to go back to my shop, to my digital shop, work on it a little bit more, try something else. But with each iteration, it got better and better. Why? Because I was trying to solve the problems they had. But here's the thing I found. I was trying to solve problems they didn't have.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: So they were saying, “Well, you know, it's great that you have that, but that's actually not a problem that we have.”
AMY: Yep.
MICHAEL: So it just really helped me to zero in on the actual problems they have.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: And so we've tried to do that. We haven't always done that, but we've tried to do that every time now, to kind of approach product development almost like software development, where we have users, and we always think of the first launch. I don't care what kind of product it is. The first launch is always the beta version.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: And so it has to get tested. So now we test things internally, not just me, but we test things internally. We have the whole team do it. And then we roll it out to a beta group, usually made up of some of our customers or clients that volunteer to do that. And then we roll it out to the whole world.
But the thing that we've learned, and this is really true, and the people that listen to this podcast, people that are in the digital space where they don't actually, for the most part, don't have to manufacture a physical item, they can iterate quickly. So they can attempt to solve the problem, and then they could try it again. And each time, they're getting closer, a little bit better, and again, helping their clients and customers achieve their dreams faster, cheaper, easier.
AMY: Yes, it makes sense. So being open to really noticing these gaps and solving the problems other people are having, and asking them is so important. All right. That makes sense.
MICHAEL: Okay. So let me go to another one that's closely related to this.
AMY: Okay.
MICHAEL: So then, you have to have a true desire—this is, like, number two—a true desire to solve the problem. Now, there's a lot of problems that, frankly, I don't want to solve, that I don't either have the experience, I don't have the gifting, it's better off for me to point them to somebody else. Like right now, I have zero desire to help my clients create digital courses. But I want them to solve that problem, so I just point to you. So how easy is that?
AMY: Good stuff. Yes.
MICHAEL: Yeah. So you've got to desire to solve the problem. So what problems are you uniquely gifted, qualified to solve? Because you can't solve everything. You don't need to solve everything. In fact, the quickest way to unfocus your business and start pursuing a lot of things that will distract you from your primary mission is to get involved in solving every kind of problem.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: And I think it takes humility and some wisdom to sometimes say, “You know what. I don't know the best way to solve that problem, but I know somebody that does. Why don't you check out this person.” Or sometimes you just say, “Look, I don't have a clue.”
AMY: Right.
MICHAEL: “I don't have a clue how to solve that problem, but I can see that's important, and I hope you get the help you need.” So pay attention to what you have a drive to solve.
AMY: That's important. I've never heard it said like that. Aspire to solve the problem. And if you don't aspire to solve that problem, you're likely in the wrong market or niche; or if you don’t want to solve it, you’ve got to pay attention to that. And I know that sounds ridiculous, like so simple, but a lot of times my students will want to create a digital course. And one of the things I tell them is it's got to light you up. You want to be able to talk about this morning, noon, and night because you want to solve that problem.
MICHAEL: Yes.
AMY: There's other things that you know well, but you're, like, if I have to talk about that one more time, I'm going to pull my hair out.
MICHAEL: Totally.
AMY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Yeah. You've got to want to solve this problem for somebody else's benefit, and you're not called to solve every problem, and that’s okay. It's got to be something that you're obsessed with, that you think about. You know, there are moments when you go, “Oh, this is going to be awesome when I finish this, because I know this is going to meet the needs of the people I'm trying to serve.”
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: If you find that welling up within your heart, you're probably on the right path.
AMY: Makes sense. Agree.
MICHAEL: Okay, a third one, because you asked me for three.
AMY: Yep.
MICHAEL: And I’ll get to this one quickly. So visualize a benefit, a benefit to you. Now, this, I think this comes to most entrepreneurs naturally, but pay attention to what's motivating you. Is it financial gain? And by the way, and I feel the need to say this, there's nothing wrong with that.
AMY: Amen.
MICHAEL: There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money, because money enables you to do a lot of good things, like hire more people, or even if you just go shop. You know, you and I were talking before we got on this. I just bought a new boat. Well, that helped the people that created the boat. It helped the dealer that sold the boat. I had to pay, oh my gosh, talk about a boatload of taxes, had to pay a boatload of taxes on it. You know, that helped the government where I bought it. So there's nothing wrong with wanting to make money.
Now, I would say that if you're willing to sacrifice your values to make money, that's not a good thing, obviously. So you got to do it in an ethical way that's good for everybody, that's a win-win for everybody. But it may be that. It may be just because you just get the satisfaction from seeing your clients benefit. And there's times, I think this is even your personality, you just take joy at seeing people become successful.
AMY: Yes.
MICHAEL: When they win, you just feel great joy.
AMY: Yep.
MICHAEL: And I would say that the older I get, the more that's the thing that motivates me. I just know, for example, going back to strategic planning, thing that we're creating, which will ultimately be a course, but I think to myself, “You know, I take great delight knowing that if I can help people plan their future in a way that’s strategic, it's going to make a huge difference in their business, and that gets me excited.”
AMY: Yes, for sure. So visualizing the benefit and getting really clear there.
Okay. So you just went through the first three steps. So observe the problem, aspire to solve the problem, and visualize a benefit. Now, you guys, there are eight steps here. So you've got to get the book because I know you're going to want to dive into each of these.
And Michael, that leads us to our next question. Where can people learn more about your book? because in my opinion, whether you’re an entrepreneur or dreaming of ditching your nine to five to become one, which many of my listeners are looking to change, from the nine to five to becoming an entrepreneur, this book is a must read. And even in eleven years of building my business, I got really fired up with what you shared. It gave me a new sense of pride as an entrepreneur. It made me want to do bigger things, do better things. And so whether you’re an entrepreneur now or you’re aspiring to be one, you’ve got to get this book.
So Michael, where can my listeners learn more about your book Entrepreneurs Will Save the World?
MICHAEL: Go to entrepreneurswillsavetheworld.com. That’s a website where you can find out all the book. And even Amy’s endorsement is on the book. Thank you so much, Amy, for that endorsement.
AMY: My pleasure.
Okay. So entrepreneurswillsavetheworld.com. Easy as that.
Now, Michael, before I let you go, I was wondering if you would share one hot tip with my listeners that they can apply today to start to see some progress as they move through their entrepreneurial journey.
MICHAEL: Yes. I would say, number one, shift your mindset. That's the most important thing. You've got to start seeing problems—every time one occurs. I know it's easy to get annoyed. It's easy to get frustrated—but I want you to start seeing problems as opportunities. Every time you solve a problem, even if it's just in your own business and has no customer or client application, once you solve that problem, it solves or eliminates the friction for your own business. But it's a different way of seeing problems. Instead of sighing, instead of dreading them, actually leaning forward on your toes and embracing them.
AMY: Ah. This one tip could make such a difference, so I really hope you start to apply it right away.
Michael, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you so very much.
MICHAEL: Thank you, Amy.
AMY: Okay, I could go on and on and on how much I love Michael Hyatt. He truly is my friend and mentor and the very first person I called when I realized that COVID was going to affect my students’ businesses. And he was the one who guided me to show up like a true leader.
So as you can see from just this one interview, Michael Hyatt delivers, and he is literally the entrepreneur that I go to because he has gone through so much in his business. He's seen so much. He's experienced so many challenges, setbacks, and wins, that if you're going to learn from somebody about how to become a top-notch entrepreneur, he's the guy. So I just want to encourage you: go get his book. I know you are going to love it.
Okay. Thanks so much for joining me today. I know you're going to love next week's episode as well, so I'll see you same time, same place next week. Bye for now.
