356 - A Steve Jobs Lesson, Case Study & A Reality Check

0:00A lot of people ask me, what does it take to succeed? and what separates the people that succeed. And so I wanted to do this podcast on that subject. First, I want to give you some words of Steve Jobs. It's a minute and 28 seconds, but I don't know of a better minute and 28 seconds to explain the process of what you're going to go through or are going through, some of the problems you're going to have, and then some of the solutions to that. A whole lot of knowledge and wisdom in a very short period of time. So I will include that here. People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing, and it's totally true.

0:50And the reason is because it's so hard that if you don't, any rational person would give up. It's really hard. And you have to do it over a sustained period of time. So if you don't love it, if you're not having fun doing it, you don't really love it, you're going to give up. And that's what happens to most people, actually. If you really look at the ones that ended up, you know, being successful, unquote, in the eyes of society and the ones that didn't, oftentimes it's the ones that are successful loved what they did so they could persevere. You know, when it got really tough. And the ones that didn't love it quit because they're sane.

1:28Who would want to put up with this stuff if you don't love it? So it's a lot of hard work and it's a lot of worrying constantly. And if you don't love it, you're going to fail. So you've got to love it, you've got to have passion. And I think that's the high order bit. The second thing is you've got to be a really good talent scout. Because no matter how smart you are, you need a team of great people. and you've got to figure out how to size people up fairly quickly, make decisions without knowing people too well, and hire them and see how you do and refine your intuition and be able to help build an organization that can eventually just build itself because you need great people around you.

2:12Okay. I hope that you listened to this part where Steve Jobs talked frequently. It will help you, it will motivate you, and it will remember not only do you need passion and understand it's hard work, but you need a good team around you. And then I wanted to talk about a case study. And this person is in the Pantheon, my Pantheon. So go over to Bruce Whipple Pantheon, and you'll be able to listen to the interview I did with him. but it can show you what some people have done in a relatively short period of time. Amir came from Persia as a young boy. He studied entrepreneurship at Georgia State University and then quickly dived into the business world.

3:03And after he was over here in America and in college, but he still sold cars to put himself through college. And he found a niche in the automotive market and turned that side hustle, basically, into selling one to five cars a month as a solo entrepreneur. And he eventually got to about 100 cars per month, had a full staff, grew it by 10 ,000 % from his humble beginnings, and then the rest is history. But I began mentoring him back in 2019 for a little while. He's a quick study. He didn't take a lot. But he spearheaded and decided he wanted to go into acquisitions and specifically mobile home parks.

3:55So he began acquiring them. He did that very successfully. I think he's got 25 now. He's built and learned how to manage. Really important. He said that I've got a pretty good management team in place that allows me to do other things. One of the things that it allows him to do was he went back to the car business, and I think he had a partner in that, bought out that partner. He knew how to grow businesses. He knew what he needed to do. And so now he's not quite$100 million in sales, but he's pretty darn close to$100 million in sales. And that's in about six years, five or six years. So certainly take a look at something like that and remember what it is that people can do if they have passion, if they work hard, all of those things.

4:57What he did say was, which is something I've said a lot, the hardest part of this is managing the business. He's got, as I say now, 100 employees or so. He's got a couple of these businesses that has good management below him, so they run well. But in a short period of time, he's done an awful lot. And now he's not sitting back on his laurels. he will probably sell that car business, use that money, and then do more deals. And I'm convinced that he'll be successful. So some people look at that and say, well, he was lucky. That's him, not me. And he might have had some luck along the way. It never hurts to have some luck.

5:43But he did it through a lot of hard work. He said, as I say often, the hardest part of this is running the business, and he thanked me and my mentor for what he learned in that regard. And certainly he did learn some things, but he did the heavy lifting himself. He learned what worked. He learned what didn't. He's automated a lot of processes, which will also make the sale easier because it's a good system he's got. So listen to that interview. Think of it as, how did he do it? He knew the steps. He followed the steps. If you don't know the steps, you should. Go over to brucewhipple.com. The Acquisition Advantage Boot Camp 2025 edition is the best work that I've put out with those steps, so you'll know what to do.

6:31People want to jump the steps. Don't do that. Follow the steps. They're there for a reason, and they've been successful. But each one of these case studies, and I'll do more of them, shows you that this is possible, that people do succeed in it. But remember Steve Jobs' words, and you've got to find a reason, your why, that you want to do this. Because it is hard work, and you will have setbacks, and you will have things that don't work out. But if your reason for continuing and your persistence is strong enough, that will overcome the setbacks and the disappointments along the way, and you'll focus on the end result, where you want to get to.

7:13You'll enjoy the work along the way, all the people that you're providing employment for. Think about the 100 people that work for Amir. He's responsible for what those families eat and what they do and where they live. It's a big responsibility. But you will grow into those responsibilities, and a lot of people take pleasure in being able to provide that for people. There are charities that you may want to support, and if that's the case, this will be an avenue, a vehicle to let you do that. So this would be a good podcast to listen to a few times and to remember why you're doing this, and then put the work in to be successful.