Between 17 and 24 years old, I built 2 companies... that failed. Why did they fail? Fear. Fear can cripple entrepreneurs and businesses before they’ve even started. Fear of the unknown, fear of making a wrong decision, fear of embarrassment… It’s the internal battle and if you don’t think it’s happening, you’re lying to yourself. Every successful entrepreneur, from Jeff Bezos to Elon Musk to Richard Branson, was once a terrified young adult that no-one knew.

What does success mean? Get specific… what exactly does it look like to you? Is that word just a placeholder for some anonymous measure of public respect and acceptance? Is it about bank account zeros? My idea of success has changed… a lot. The answer I’d have given you when I was 21 is nothing like the answer I’d give you now. Why?

A few weeks ago, I owned up to the biggest mistakes I made in my 20s... mistakes that cost me literally millions. This video is the sequel. Believe it or not, when I turned 30 I didn’t magically become an angel, with a perfect track record of success.  (Shock! I can hear your gasps from here)

So here’s a crazy story.... In January, I started training for an Ironman 70.3 event.  I had never done anything like this before in my life… and I knew it was going to be f-ing hard. I’m 6’3” and weighed 235lbs... I looked more like a linebacker than a skinny triathlete. An Ironman 70.3 (aka: Half Ironman) consists of a 1900m swim, 90km bike ride and 21km run. This is how I broke down my goals:

I’ve got to come clean... I’m not a guru. I can’t read your future, don’t perform miracles, and I’m about as enlightened as a stick. I’m just a SaaS-obsessed business coach that has made WAY too many mistakes, enough to fill entire encyclopaedias of ‘what not to do’. But I did do something right: 

I have a confession... In my mid-20s, I was the worst leader. I was trying to run a team and was wildly out-of-touch with so-called “good leadership”. I just didn’t know it yet. I held a team offsite, a getaway with the executive team to reflect on the quarter, set goals and come away reinvigorated. It didn’t work. My fault. I tried to force passion on the team, crack the whip on our productivity and focus on project management. In

Hate to break it to you, but it’s not all about money. I mean it. Here’s an example... One of my coaching clients recently hit a milestone that we’ve been working towards for years:  $1M per month in profit.  After 9 years of hard work, he turned that dream into a reality. HUGE achievement! But instead of celebrating, the next question that came was... “What was the purpose? Why am I doing this? If we make more money as a

If I could take all of the BS about “success” and cram it into the single most actionable statement ever, it would be this: The key to success is consistency. I don’t care how cheesy it is... It’s the truth. Print it on a T-shirt. Crochet it on a wall hanging. Hashtag it on Instagram. Just don’t forget it. If you want to be successful at anything BE CONSISTENT.

I nearly screamed at my lawyer…  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Years ago, I was finishing up a real estate deal when my lawyer told me that I had to notarize a document. No signature, no deal.  But that signature had to be from a notary, someone that’s earned the authority of the state to approve that I actually was who I said I was.

Alright... Time to let the cat out of the bag: I’m a huge Elon Musk fan. Not because he’s in the limelight most weeks, but because of how he thinks about business. Elon thinks laterally.  He comes at business problems from obscure angles and I think that’s the secret behind his genius. If you could apply even one-tenth of his innovation to your business, you’ll leave your competition in the dust and future-proof your growth.