Dr. Benjamin Hardy: Scale Your Business 10x Faster with This Proven Framework | Entrepreneurship | E361

21:23And if you're willing, that young man, if he's willing, let go of that lesser goal, like strip it out. One of my favorite quotes, which I'm sure I've shared with you is we're kept from our goal, not by obstacles, but we're kept from our goal because of a clear path to a lesser goal. And so it's like, we have these lesser goals, him with the PhD, that the sooner he lets that go, the sooner he can actually just start solving the real goal. So the key things there is tight, shorter deadlines. Impossible deadlines. Impossible deadlines. Yeah. Keep the same big goals. Because when you said, okay, shift it from 10 to three, I'm like, oh, but then wouldn't you want to change the goal to be more realistic, but the whole thing is be unrealistic so that you can think differently.

22:00So that you can start solving the path. Because there often are pathways to the goal. They just are outside your base assumptions. They're not going to be based on your, you know, to your Marshall Goldsmith concept. They're not going to be the current path. They're not going to be the current model. So just as one example, there's a lady we worked with. She has a technology company and she works in the credit industry. She helps people improve their credit. And so she had 10 people using her software. And these are a bunch of credit repair companies. So there's like 50 ,000 credit repair companies in the United States.

22:28And so she wanted these 50 ,000 companies to use her software. And so her pathway to getting there was, I'm going to call them one at a time. And so after like 90 days, she had 10 of them using her software. They all loved it. Every single one who heard the software, they're like, we want this, we want to use this for our clients. And so I told her, Alicia, I want you to set an impossible goal because right now your current path is going to take you too long. It's going to take you a decade to have a sizable business. I want you to scale faster. And so she set an impossible goal. She said, I'm going to get a hundred of these credit repair companies using my software in 90 days.

22:57And I said, that's not an impossible goal. A hundred and 90 days. You can just keep cold calling. You need a goal that's so big, it's going to force you to stop doing your current path because your current path won't work. And so she's like, Ben, I'm not, I'm scared. And so she's like, okay, I'll go for a thousand. I'm going to go for a thousand. And again, it took her like a long time to get even to 10. So I'm like, now you're gonna go for a thousand credit repair companies using your software in 90 days. and she had no clue how to do it. She sat down, she journaled, she pondered, she prayed.

23:22And then while thinking about it, and this is called Pathways Thinking in Psychology, you always want to think from the goal, never toward it, right? You always want the future to shape the present. You don't want the present to shape the future. And so she was thinking from the future. She was thinking from this impossible goal, one, she had no clue how to solve. But if you actually just start trying to solve a goal, your brain's phenomenal, but also you can go get the right information. So the thought came to her, which she had not considered before. What if I just partnered with other software companies that already serve tens of thousands of these companies?

23:47There's already a lot of other software companies in the credit space that serve these 50 ,000 companies. Some of them serve thousands. Some of them serve tens of thousands. What if I just partnered with them and got my technology, my software embedded into their software? And so that was just a better pathway that wasn't available to her from a small goal. And so less than a week later, she had actually partnered with a company called Credit Repair Junkies. And it turned out he had 8 ,000 of these people, these credit repair companies using his software. Immediately, he embedded her software in and boom, she went from 10 people using her software to 8 ,000 in a week.

24:17Wow. But that's finding a better path, which you would have never been able to filter and find without trying to solve a goal that seemed impossible. So that's the beauty of them, is that there are pathways to get there, but they're gonna be very different from what's normal. And even just as another thought with strategy, Richard Rommelt, who wrote a book called Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, he said that good strategy is extremely surprising because of how rare it is. It's like, that's a really good strategy, but most people in her space wouldn't be thinking that way because they're trying to solve again.

24:47Rather than getting to 10 ,000, she's trying to say, how do I get from 10 to 20? Right, or how do I get from 10 to 100? And so that's just gonna produce really bad thinking, really bad strategy. Whereas you go for the much bigger goal, 1 ,090 days, almost everything she's doing is, it won't work. And so she's gotta find these really, really unique strategies that are just gnarly. That's part of the beauty of it. I love it so much. You're giving me so many ideas. I'm like, oh God, I need to like - I know, you share some. What's sticking out in your mind? We wanna be a$100 million company. Love that.

25:13Beautiful, three years or less. we were thinking, yeah, exactly. Like, I'm like, okay, I've got to shorten that timeline. What was your current timeline on it? I think it was three years. We want to be a hundred million valuation in three years. And one of the ways that we're going to do that is we've got to recruit huge podcasters. You do. You need the whales. We need the whales. Did I ever tell you that that's part of our core values? Oh, one of our core values is about whales so that we need to like secure whales. That's so funny that you mentioned that. And we always use the whale emoji in Slack whenever we get somebody big, you know?

25:44I love it. But, you know, I always need to think creatively, like, how do I get more huge podcasters in our network? And I do think more incrementally. And this is making me think I need to think, what do we look like as a hundred million dollar company? In three years. Yeah. And who's in our network and like, how did we do that? I guess talk to me more about how I can think about it from the goal itself rather than incrementally. Does that make sense? Yeah. So just so I understand, you want the company to be valued at a hundred million in three years. Yeah. Do you know what that would take? Probably us making$30 million in revenue.

26:21Okay. And we make, we're on track to make 10 this year.

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28:48I don't like it when people slow me down. I don't like hand-holding. I like to move fast, invent, rally people, inspire. But what I do need to do is ensure that somebody else can fill the enablement role, which I do have, Kate, on my team. So Working Genius helps you uncover these genius gaps, helps you work better with your team, helps you reduce friction, helps you collaborate better, understand why people are the way that they are. It's helped me restructure my team, put people in the spots that they're going to really excel. And it's also helped me in hiring. Working Genius is absolutely amazing.

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31:10Goals are simply tools. And so you can use a big goal and an urgent goal simply as a tool to re-look at your model, re-look at your paths, and to potentially think of new ones. And so just as an exercise, if rather than going for 100 million valuation, you went for 100 million revenue, you're at around 10. So if you just 10X the revenue in three years. Exactly. I know it's gnarly, but what wouldn't work that you're doing right now to get to 100 million revenue? Signing small podcasters. I have a whole social media agency So like maybe that whole thing needs to go away. Maybe, maybe. You know? Would that get you to a hundred million in three years?

31:46No. So see, this brings up frame floor focus that the big frame and not that you have to do that, but the frame being in this case, and the frame, as I said, is based on a goal. And that shapes what you see and what you don't see in the present. So if you just were to use the a hundred million revenue as a tool, then that would set a floor, which everything below the floor can't get you there. So that's a no, right? A big part of strategy is what you say no to. So again, you don't have to get rid of the agency. Again, this is all just a tool, but it's like, okay, if the agency won't get us there, at what point is that agency a dead end?

32:18At what point does it become something we're gonna have to get rid of anyways? Maybe it won't, maybe you just keep it as a concept. But the beauty of just kind of thinking is it's like, at some point that agency might become a dead end. And so it forces you to grapple with that sooner. And it forces you to say, what things that you're not thinking about right now? Because right now you might be solving for 30 million to get to the 100 million valuation, which is awesome. But what things are you not thinking about? And not that you have to have any pathways right now, but what pathways would likely or potentially get you to 100 million revenue in three years?

32:47Some of the things that we're working on, like building a creator house and studios so we can get more podcasters in the door and have like more incentives, having more money to give guarantees, like a record label does with advances to these really big podcasters that we're trying. So like there's certain things that we need to do. But would those get you to 100 million in three years? Maybe. And I'm not saying you have to do this. Remember, I'm just using this as a tool for pathways. I wouldn't expect you to have the answer to this because I just threw this at you. But it's like, what would it take?

33:15What would a single model be to get you to 100 million in three years? Again, I don't know. I'm just saying, what could it be? The cool part about if you tried to solve that is 30 million then becomes a cakewalk. You know, if you start thinking from that future. Well, let's back up. Sorry for throwing all that at you. No, that's okay. It's great. I can't wait to do this with my business partner and like think about it. strategy. It's such great strategy advice. So let's talk about the framework. Let's go through frame, floor, focus, and just like walk us through at a high level, each one of those stages.

33:44Yeah. So as I said, your frame is what you see. It's really all the pathways you see, and it's based on your goals. And so when you raise your frame or your goal to a seemingly impossible level, that then raises your floor. And your floor as a person or as an organization is defined by what you don't do. So when you raise your floor, that means you're actively stripping things out that you used to say yes to. And in order to scale and grow, you have to raise your floor. You have to say no to the things that can't get you to the higher goal. So what's the floor like analogy? Like help us understand that.

34:15In a company, a floor could be like, you know, in your case, I don't say yes to podcast below this floor or podcasters. So you said, yeah, it is like a requirement. That's one way of looking at it is like, I don't accept things below this. And so you set some floor or we don't work with people below this. So as an example, like one of the companies I've worked with, he's an advertising agency and he helps people get into retail stores like Walmart and Walgreens and he scales their products. And so for him, he doesn't work with people who can't get their product into a big store and can't be doing like 20, 40 million.

34:47So like he has a very high floor. If he goes below that, he's just gonna get muddled in all the competition of everyone else. And so he has a very high floor, but your floor can also be spiritual and emotional where it's like the floor is kind of your own internal integrity or accountability to your future. If you're going for a big future, right? Even your a hundred million goal, there's a lot of things that are below the floor that won't get you that goal that you're still saying yes to. And so whenever you say yes to things that are below the floor, you're actively lying to yourself and contradicting yourself.

35:15And we do this all the time. We all go below the floor. We lie to ourselves actively and justify it, or we do things that we know, you know, we hold onto things that are out of security or FOMO or to not disappoint people. And so when you're below the floor, you're actively lying to yourself. You're not being honest with yourself or others. You're not clear on who you are. This can even be true in relationships. My dad, just speaking personally, you know, is going through a relationship challenge. And like he said, I've not been clear on my floor. And because I've not been clear on my floor in terms of who I am and the kind of life I want to live, I've had relationships that are muddled because I wasn't really clear on what I wouldn't do.

35:52You know, it's really important to define what's a no. So it's like your boundaries. What are your boundaries in business and in your personal life? what are you saying yes to? What are you saying no to? And everything you're saying yes to has to align to your impossible goal. And when you raise the floor a lot, more and more things are no's. One of the things I've worked with is professional athletes. And often when someone's going from college to pro, the floor goes up extremely. So like if you look at the difference between like a superstar, like a Steph Curry versus some other really good basketball player who we don't know his name.

36:24The difference, yes, Steph's ceiling is higher. He's the best shooter ever, but it's really his floor that distinguishes him. The floor is that consistently he operates it. Say he makes 25 points a game. That's his average. That's where he's always at. So he has an extremely high floor, whereas this other player maybe gets 25 once every 10 games. The floor is really what divides the pros from the amateurs. There's a great quote that says that amateurs work until they get something right, whereas pros work until they can't get it wrong. I've seen in working with people that someone might have just incredible potential.

36:56They go from college to pros, but they never succeed in the next level because they keep their floor low. They keep hanging out with their old friends, right? Or like eating the way they did in college, right? And like, they don't raise their professionalism. They don't raise their floor in how they do everything. And so therefore their performances is not to the level required. So practically for businesses, how can they implement some of the things that ensure that they have a floor and that their organization knows what their floor is. And by the way, the floor protects you. If you go below it, you've not only muddled yourself, you've muddled your team.

37:29So the first thing is actually setting the goal because the goal always determines what it would be the floor. And then once you've raised the floor, you can then focus on the pathway to the goal. And so the first thing is actually really well defining the goal because the goal defines basically the floor. Once you've said, we are getting to 100 million valuation or revenue, whatever you decide, we're doing it in three years. And so what are all the things that absolutely we're doing right now that can't get us there? All of that stuff now is below the floor. If we keep doing it, we're not being honest with ourselves.

37:59We're not being honest with the goal. And so we have to start eliminating these things. The core element of any system is its accountability. And so if people keep going below the floor, the system's not holding them accountable to the goal. And so then the system is contradicting itself and it's going in too many different directions. And so it has to be established. Another way of looking at the floor is that it's the same thing as the culture, right? And so there's probably members of the team if you're going for the higher goal, they aren't gonna get you there. And it's like, well, if they're below the floor, you're sending the wrong message by either keeping them in their same role or keeping them on the team.

38:27And so it can be very difficult, painful sometimes to say, this is no longer a fit for where this company is going. And so you have to be willing to make some of those uncomfortable moves of letting go of things, clients, even team members. Until you do that, you're not ready to scale. You're not ready to go for the growth that's required. You're still keeping things in the business that are amateurish when you're trying to go pro. This is so helpful. And it just makes me realize like we're in this transition period. I recently let go of employees that have been with me for a long time and it was really hard.

38:57That's a huge signal that you're ready to grow though. And it was really tough, but they were actually thankful and knew that they were struggling and that I kept trying to put them in different roles and just wasn't working. People know, especially if you tell them we're going to get to a hundred million valuation three years, this is the level that we need to get to. Some people will stretch into it massively. Like some people are gonna be super aligned with it, excited about it. One of my favorite quotes is that the system is designed to defend the system. If you have team members that when you tell them the impossible goal or the massive new goal, if they're like defending the system, defending the SaaS quo, then like you know that you don't want a future that you're trying to avoid or trying to like delay.

39:37So it's a very good signal that you're ready to grow when you start letting go of legacy team members or things like that. Even though they're beautiful, you love them, you honor that they were vital to you getting here. It's an important indicator. Again, back to the idea that good strategy is rare and it's surprising because most people don't do it. When you start letting go of people or team members, sometimes family members that are team members, like some people have a hard time doing that, then you're like, okay, this person's serious. Like this person's raising the floor and that's the hardest part about scaling is raising the floor and beginning to strip out the stuff that has no bearing to the new goal.

40:09And as you grow a brand, the opportunities get better and better. So for example, I constantly get people who want production services from us. but production services for me and my business, for I have a 60 person team, but what ends up happening is we want to do such a good job that I want to get involved. He wants to get involved. We don't want to launch a show without all these different approvals and things like that. Yeah, because you have a really high floor and standard. Yeah, and some of these deals could be 20K a month and we're just like, we just can't do it. And so now in order to help us make that decision, I made a business relationship with a guy that produces podcasts that I've known for years.

40:45My really good friend that I know is awesome. and he's going to like white label stuff for us. And I trust him. And then we can focus. Yep. Focus. And take the demand, right? So let's move on to focus. Focus is really about how do you solve the goal back to a hundred million or whatever the goal is. Focus is all about what's the model and what are the pathways to the goal? So back to Alicia, who went from 10 to 8 ,000 credit repair companies using your software in a week, her focus shifted. It shifted from how do I get these people one-on-one to get on the phone to, how do I get other software companies to partner with me?

41:17So our focus in the present is all about what are the pathways or the highest signal, right? Signal versus noise. And so our focus is really about what's the model and what's the pathways to our goal and who's going to help us get there. That's the focus. Focus is really about just how do you solve the goal? And if you are trying to do five or 10 or 15 different things, if your model is complex, meaning you've got like multiple competing goals and things like that, then you just have to admit you're not focused. And if you're not focused, what that means is that you're below the floor and you're saying yes to too many different things and you haven't started to strip out the lesser goals or just the false requirements or just the shiny objects.

41:55So focus is crucial to scaling. And it's not just about focusing, it's about where you focus and it's about focusing on the right path and about getting the right people involved. And with the right focus, again, back to Alicia, you can 800x in a week with the right focus. If you're looking for those right paths, if you bring on the right Whos. One of the books that I read after I wrote 10X, which I wish I had read before that book, was called The 80-20 Individual by Richard Koch. And I might've even talked to you about it. He talks about super leveraged whos. You know, when I wrote Who Not How, I thought about people who can get a job done.

42:26But what that book taught me was, is that one super leveraged person can create not just 10X the results of an average person, but 100X or even 1000X. So like Bill Gates even has a very famous quote where he says, a great code writer isn't worth 10 times, an average code writer, it's worth 10 ,000 times. And so if you think about a podcast, there are some podcasts that get 10 ,000x the views of most podcasts. If you think about the S &P 500, there's seven main businesses in the S &P 500 that produce more revenue than millions of businesses. That's what they call the power law. It's another way of looking at the 80-20 principle, but the 80-20 principle on extreme.

43:07There are certain people that can create 10 times or 100 times or even 1 ,000 times the results of one, back to your idea of whales. And so when you think about focus, if you're trying to solve an impossible goal, 100 million revenue in three years, your focus is going to shift and you're going to start looking for things you never would have been looking for. You're going to start trying to solve what you weren't going to be solving for the more linear goal. Where you focus and what you're trying to solve and how you're finding and how you partner with those people, that's how you start making days that are worth months or years because now you're focusing on just such a more powerful path.

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48:06Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. As you're talking about Super Leverage, something that me and I keep mentioning my business partner, Jason. He sounds awesome. Good for him. We're always talking about, man, like what me and you can get done in a day would take the team months. And sometimes if I just have a problem, like I'll just do something and And he'll be like, that would have taken the team a month to do and multiple people. I guess, how can you find these super leverage?

48:39And it's just, is it more about putting people in the right place with the right experiences? Or I guess, how do you think about that? Or how do we find those people? First off, you need a goal that demands one. The thing is, is you don't need 10 super who's, right? But what I will say is, is as you go for the higher goal, that floor goes up where the performance expectation just naturally goes to a more higher performing room. So you might end up having half the team, but they're all the super performers. But in terms of these super who's that I'm talking about that create 10 ,000 times the results of a Norman, of a normal person.

49:13Norman. I like that word. You know what's funny is we actually literally just watched City Slickers yesterday, which is like an old movie and like Norman's the cow that he saved. And so that was like a total Freudian split. But anyways, if you don't have a goal that requires a super who back to the idea of focus, you won't find one. But if you do, what's cool about pathway syncing is that the super who's bring the pathways with them, right? It's kind of the idea of who not how, but again, on steroids. So for us, with our goal at scaling.com, we want 5 ,000 members scaling in scaling.com. And the best and easiest way to get there is through that book, The Science of Scaling, which I wrote.

49:48But then it's like, okay, I've sold millions of books, but there's people out there who are better at selling books than me. And so that's what got us thinking about this guy named Joseph Wynn, who he wrote the book, Don't Believe Everything You Think. And it was self published. And he's just a marketing genius. He's 26 years old. And like, when we identified Joseph, we're like, okay, this guy's a super who. This guy, if on our team, not only almost ensures we're going to hit our goal, which feels impossible, we're basically going from startup to the goal is to get to like 120 million revenue in two years.

50:16But knowing that in our case, the book is the crux to solving that goal and knowing that Joseph is one of the best book marketers in the world. Once we identified him, we're like, this guy transforms our company. Not only does he maybe half the timeline of the goal, which was already like an impossible goal and almost ensure success, but by bringing him on, our company is now fundamentally different. And so that's a super who. And so how do you find them? You first off, just have to have a goal that requires it. You won't find it by the way, if you keep your floor low, because if your floor is low, that means you're saying yes to those$20 ,000 opportunities, right?

50:51I know you've already offloaded that and you've white labeled that, but if you're down below the floor and you're focused and you're saying yes to all these things, then you're not solving the goal. So you'll never see those super who's because again, your frame determines what you see and that frame is based on the goal. And so those pathways or those high signal opportunities, they just won't be available to you because you're not filtering for them. Like our goal shapes how we filter our experience. And so when you start filtering for how do I get to a hundred million in three years, you're going to start to ask yourself those questions.

51:18Like Alicia found that super who, she went from 10 to 8 ,000 bang. Right. And so you'll start looking for those. They might not be exactly what you think. One example is often I've worked with people who they've taken a company and they've scaled it. Like they've gone 10 X, right? Maybe they went from one to 10 million or they went from 10 to a hundred million. And to go 10 X again, they just have to acknowledge, maybe it's someone who's the CEO that to go 10 X and do it fast, they can't be the CEO anymore. Right. So they actually have to step out and they need to bring someone in who can do it better.

51:47And when you have a big goal, sometimes you don't become the centerpiece. You can still have a huge role. That's what I love about what you've built. You have a phenomenal show, but you're building this network where you don't have to be the center. You've built a concept that's bigger than you. That's a really good signal. And if your goal is so small that you have to be the center, then you're not going to find super who's. Those super who's are not going to see you. They're not it has to be them. They can't let someone outshine them. They can't create a space where people can be more successful than them.

52:19And so that's what I wanted to set up at Scanning.com was, you know, to the idea of Blake Erickson coming in, he's 10 years younger than me. Joseph Wynn is 10 years younger than me. I would love to create a space where I'm not the center. It doesn't have to be about Ben Hardy. How can I make these guys 10 times more successful than me? I start then riding their coattails. And then elevating your success in the process too. A million percent. It's like, that's when you can start finding super who's. So let's talk about complex systems and why complex systems prevent us from scaling. And how can we tell if our systems are too complex?

52:47So a complex system by nature can't scale because it's going in too many different directions. There's too many competing goals. Often the goals aren't well defined. Steve Jobs said you have to work really hard to take something that's complex and to make it simple. So when he went back to Apple after he'd been fired and he went on his hiatus and he was at Pixar, he came back and Apple was very undefined. They had 350 different products. And he's like, which one of these really defines Apple? And they had no answer. And so he's like, we don't even know who we are. We have no definition. We have no clarity.

53:17And so a complex system is almost impossible to define because there's so many goals. It's like, who are we? What do we do? Well, we do this, we do that, we do this, we do that. And so in order to scale, you have to take something that's complex and you have to make it simple. And the the easiest way to do that is to have a goal that forces you to start stripping out all those other goals. Like the young man who I was telling you about with trying to become a professional soccer team, he had a complex system to get there because according to his system, well, in order to get to soccer team, I gotta first get a PhD, then I gotta run a firm, then I gotta do this.

53:47This is like a complex system or pathway to get to his goal. It's like, what if we just, again, move the goal forward and said, what's the most direct path to the goal? Forget all the other stuff for a minute. I know you've been attached to that idea of the PhD or whatever, but let's just let that go for a minute. What's the most direct path to the goal? Let's just start solving that. And then let's start to create a simple, direct focus path to that. Let's just solve that one thing. Let's not solve five or 50. Let's solve one. And so a simple system is something that is very thoughtfully crafted.

54:16And it's something that can scale. And so you have to ask yourself, what is my current system? How many different directions is it really going? Could it really get to 100 million in three years? And you have to be honest that some of this stuff we have to strip out because it's overly complex. It's making us overly diluted. We need to get ourselves focused again. We need to have a simple model that is going one direction. And then how do you think about offers? Is it possible to achieve a big goal and have multiple offers? I think it's possible, but I think that people often have too many offers.

54:49And those offers, back to Musk, he says that the most common mistake of a smart engineer is to optimize something that shouldn't exist. And so a lot of those offers would fall below the floor if they had a better goal. If you have like three or four competing offers or 12 or 15, the question is how many of those are optimizing things that shouldn't exist? How many of those are dead end paths that if you just went for a higher goal and did a shorter timeline, you just have to admit that offer's got to go. That's cannibalizing this, right? And so no, you don't have to have just one offer. But again, just back to good strategy is rare.

55:22How many people do just have one offer? Lewis Howes is a great example of this. I think he wrote about it in the book and he's been on the podcast. Do you want to share that story? Yeah. So I learned this from Rory, who's one of his friends. Oh, Rory Vaden. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a story that I learned from Rory's book. And I think some of the interviews that they had together that Lewis had a complex system. That's to your point. One of the hard parts about becoming successful is that there's a lot of easy pathways to success or easy pathways to things that would have been impossible to your past self.

55:48Especially as a creator entrepreneur, like Lewis, you could just keep selling all these different things to your audience. Yeah. So from what I understood about the situation, he had 12 to 15 to 20 different offers, right? He had a mastermind, he had courses, he had this, he had that. And his podcast was very marginal in his mind. And in having that strategy conversation with Rory, it was like, what if you just went all in on that one path? You had a simple system, right? You actually focused on that. At the time, I think he had like 30 million downloads. And so he's like, yeah, maybe I will create a simple model.

56:19Maybe I'll get rid of this and that. And he got rid of a bunch of things and just totally focused on his podcast. And the byproduct was two years later, he was one of the biggest podcasts in the entire world, right? He went from like 30 million downloads to 500 million plus. And you can do incredible things with a focused, simple system and a focused, simple model. And you have to work hard to keep it simple. Talk to us about that. So we can start off a simple model, but then day to day, so many team members touching it, it can end up becoming complex over time. So how do we maintain a simple model over time?

56:52So you have to keep the goal front of mind. You have to keep the floor very low. You have to be very honest when you're going below the floor. Honesty and transparency are vital. And so it's good to have team members openly acknowledging like this stuff is probably a distraction. So like with your partner, I think it's good for you guys to have rigorous conversations with each other where it's like, this is good, but is this really going to get us to the a hundred million valuation in three years. And when you can have that level of rigor and honesty and continuousness, and just because great opportunities come, and they do, really good ones come, you have to say, is this, even if it seems incredible, is this below the floor?

57:34And the more honesty you can have about that and start saying no, or being honest about the things you gotta get rid of. And sometimes the goal can shift, of course. Sometimes it's like, you know what? This thing just changes the game. But just continuous honesty, continuous transparency, The floor is the level of accountability you have to the goal. The floor is the level of accountability you have in your system. And it's very rigorous. And so just continuously checking it and then being honest as things creep in, because they always will, to say these things are below the floor, we have to strip these things back out.

58:01And so for me, on like a very practical level, literally like every week I get back with my assistant and we're like, let's really look at the schedule for the year. What are these things that made sense last month, but now it doesn't. It's below the floor. Like my past self was lying to themselves or they weren't as clear as I am now. So like just continuously looking at your agenda, continuously looking at what you're doing, what you're saying yes to, what you're up to for the week or for the month or for the rest of the year and just saying, how much of this stuff is really below the floor?

58:27How much of this stuff have I just uncommitted to? And they might be business. It might be relationships. It might be other commitments you've made to yourself, hidden commitments, false commitments, and just saying, if I said no to this, that'd be a massive signal to my future self. That'd be a massive signal to the goal that I'm serious. And it would surprise people and it would disappoint people and it would frustrate people. But it's me being honest. It's being more transparent to who I'm really wanting to be. We started up this conversation talking about identities, and even companies can have these identities that are preventing them from scaling.

58:55You talk about a lady named Stephanie, who's the CEO of a family business, and she basically had to let go of a legacy identity to scale. Can you share that story with us? So Stephanie was part of a family business. It's been around for 50 years. Her father was an inventor, patented these incredible products that were very valuable in the marketplace that they were in and very like high-end, very niche products. But her father passed away like over a decade ago. Their company has been known for these legacy products and his inventions and his patents and stuff. But they've been around for 50 years.

59:27They do like 25 million in revenue. And again, always just using a different frame to look at the things. Her goal is normally like 10 to 20 % growth a year, right? And they've been growing stagnantly, but growing consistently for decades. and I just said, what is your goal for the year? And this is at the beginning of 2024. And she said, my goal is to get to 30 million. And I said, what if you just doubled that and went to 60? And she said, there's no way we can get there. She said, we couldn't get our current products and services that we have to 60 million revenue in a decade. She's just like, it's just not there.

59:58And she's like, the only way I could get to 60 million is I would have to go this other direction. Rather than going products, I'd have to go like these services, which I've honestly been thinking about for a decade, but I've never pulled the trigger on it. She's like, there's even companies that have teams in these products that have these services that we could buy that I've been wanting to buy and having conversations, but I've just been thinking about it for a decade. And I said, well, what if you just committed to the 60 million and you, and so she started to think about that. But then I just said, Stephanie, let's think a little bit bigger rather than just thinking to the end of this year.

1:00:29What if we just 10X your company? What does your company look like? Because you're currently at 25 million. What does it look like in three years if you're doing 220 or 250 million? And she's like, we would have to be like one of the best service-based businesses. She's like, it's totally there. I say, that's the funny part is I often ask, like, is there a pathway there? And often the answer is like, yeah, but it would have to be this way. And so I said, well, what does that do to your father's legacy products if you wanted to go this way? She's like, well, I've actually been working on this and like, I'm just going to put it away and ignore it.

1:00:58And I'm like, well, what would happen if you just sold it? What if you just let that go, that part of your identity go and just sold it? And she's like, literally audibly was like, she got audibly gasped. Cause like, she's just like, I've never considered that. And I was like, well, what would happen if you sold it? She's like, honestly, we have someone who we've worked with for 40 years that would love to buy us and like buy us at a huge price. She's just like, it's just so hard to let go. Cause that's who we've always been, right? If we sell that and we go on the services, we would have to redefine ourselves.

1:01:26And what's really interesting about the research on impossible goals is that the bigger goal forces you to redefine yourself. Yeah. It forces you to redefine who you are, what you do, who you do it for. It forces you to let go of the old identity, the old models, the old way of doing things. Right. So to your point, like even to your questions with me before, it's great because I have a PhD in organizational psychology, which is business psychology, but I did do more like broad, like just general future self. And so when it was like, when I moved the goal really high, it forced me to remodel to like, let's just figure out how to apply this to business scaling.

1:01:58Right. And so like it forced me to remodel or redefine who I am, what I talk about and what I do. And so that's just a very common thing when you elevate the future self to very high levels that forces you to think in terms of a redefinition, a remodel. And most people are too afraid to own the new definition. I loved this conversation. I want to be respectful of your time. We just have a few minutes left. So first, tell us about scaling.com. What kind of tools are available there? How can people leverage what they're learning in this book, The Science of Scaling, and then go on that platform and put it into practice?

1:02:27Yes. So one thing that came with Joseph Wynn and just his incredible strategy, like I said, he's one of the top self-published authors in the world right now. We actually went to my publisher, Hay House, and they are allowing us to give the Science of Scaling audiobook away for free. So if you went to scaling.com forward slash audiobook, you can get the Science of Scaling audiobook for free, which I've never had that option available to me, but that's part of Pathways Thinking with Super Who's, right? So that's scaling.com forward slash audiobook free, full book, The Science of Scaling. But at scaling.com, one of the things that frustrated me, me being in some of the biggest coaching programs in the world for entrepreneurs is that first off, none of them are goal-based.

1:03:05You don't go in and have a goal and then be held accountable to that goal and like strategize on that goal. Instead, you just go through tools and prompts. And I mean, they're very valuable, but, and so I wanted to create something that was like, no, you're going for a 10X goal or more, and you're going to do it in three years or less, or you can't come. We're going for extreme scale here. And so we're going to apply this framework, which even people like Tony Robbins said, this changes the game of business strategy and scaling. We're going to help you apply this framework to your business and we're going to help you scale 10x more and achieve an impossible goal in three years.

1:03:35And actually, if you don't have an impossible goal, our framework doesn't work because it's based on everything we've been talking about is what I call strategic psychology. So if you're not willing to go for an impossible goal, our framework doesn't work for you because then you're going to be operating from your past and then you're not going to be able to raise your floor and strip everything out and build a new model. And so we wanted to create a performance based program where people actually come in and where scaling is the norm, rather than it being like some rarity, right? Like we're here in some room and most people are growing at 10, 20%.

1:04:04And there's that one person who's flying. We just said, we're just going to cap the environment. Our floor is that everyone's scaling. And so the only people we let in are people who are willing to commit to something that massive and then go through the process. And there's one-on-one accountability. Like we're like, now that's below the floor. You have to do the weekly reports. You get your monthly report. So I just want to create something that I felt was reflective of true scaling. And I wanted to create an environment where that was the norm. So basically companies are applying to be in your program and they go through your framework and they're held accountable to hit these goals.

1:04:40Do you get like a percentage of their revenue or something like this? We don't. No. You know, we've had many people say we should, especially as we're scaling companies 10x, which we do. No, we have a flat fee. It's$2 ,000 a month, right? You go to scaling.com, you apply if you're at a certain threshold. For us, the threshold is$500 ,000 per year revenue. So you have to have at least 500 ,000 revenue. A lot of the companies in ours are doing tens of millions, even hundreds of millions. But we want you to have at least a threshold of 500 ,000. And you have to be like the entrepreneur or a decision maker because the framework by its nature transforms your company.

1:05:10And so you have to be the one to implement it. and you've got to be committed to an impossible goal. Like if you're not committed to an impossible goal, then you're just in the wrong room and that's okay. There's lots of great business thought out there. So this would be a bad room for you. This is just so interesting. I wish I had more time to talk to you about it. I'll come back anytime. I love talking to you. You're one of the most like high floor, like professional, like you are incredible what you do. Oh, thank you. Every time I've had a conversation with you, it's this is the gold standard, period.

1:05:38Oh, thank you. It's just true. So as you know, we end our show with two questions that I ask all my guests. Since you come on so often, maybe answer from the frame of this conversation. Whatever. What is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? You have to have an impossible goal. If you already have some big 10 or 20 year dream, bring it to three years or less, because that will force you to start solving it now. It'll force you to let go of all your false requirements, your dead end paths. Obviously, an easy one is go get the free audio book, you know, and just listen to it, but, or listen to this and our other conversations, but have an impossible goal.

1:06:15If you don't have that, by virtue, you're operating from your past self. I'm going to go now and just try to think about our goal and how I can shorten the deadline and make it bigger. And then re-look at your system. See where there's some bits that are a little complex. And increase my focus. There's so many next steps. What is your secret to profiting in life? First one for me is always God. God is my core relationship. From there, my family. And then from there, choosing really big goals that stretch me and give my life purpose and force me to become better, force me to become more humble.

1:06:49So starting at the core and another one that really helps me profit is that kind of like I already said it with Blake and Joseph and even our other partners, I genuinely am happy to make other people more successful than me. Like it doesn't need to be about me. and I'm happy to set up games and systems where other people and hopefully super hoops can be enormously more successful than me. To me, that's very profitable, but it's also very enjoyable. So everybody can go to scaling.com to learn more about that. Get the free audio book, The Science of Scaling. Where can everybody learn more about you more generally?

1:07:25BenjaminHurry.com. It's just my regular website. But I think that honestly, the easiest way to learn about current me and future me is just that audio book. Thank you, Ben. It was such a pleasure. It's always a pleasure.

1:07:39Yeah, fam, Dr. Benjamin Hardy never disappoints. Whenever he comes on the show, he delivers such powerful insights and today was certainly no exception. And one of the most powerful ideas we explored today was the science of scaling. As has been explained, most entrepreneurs are stuck solving the wrong problems because they're chasing linear incremental goals. But 10x growth requires a complete reframe. It's not about doing more, it's about doing differently. Real scaling happens when you simplify, focus, and build something that can grow without breaking under its own complexity. We also dove deep into the idea of impossible goals, not just big goals, but impossible ones.

1:08:19Because when you set a goal that feels out of reach and give it a tight deadline, you activate a different level of thinking. This is called pathway thinking. You start shedding false steps, exposing your real challenges and aligning your actions with what actually matters. Time in that sense becomes a psychological lever and when you stop solving the wrong problems, you can start scaling for real. You think more creatively and you can align better to your goals. And another game-changing concept Ben talked about is raising your floor. That's what separates professionals from amateurs. It's not how high you can reach, it's how solid your baseline is.

1:08:55Once your impossible goal is set, the pathway becomes clearer. That means identifying the right model, aligning with the right people and cutting the noise because complex systems don't scale, focus does. And the more you can filter down to the essential few, the faster you can grow. So yeah, fam, I want you to ask yourself, are you solving the right problems? Are you setting impossible goals that stretch and scare you in the best way? And have you raised your floor high enough that excellence now becomes your new normal? Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting. If you listened, learned, and profited from this powerful conversation with Dr.

1:09:32Benjamin Hardy, then send it to somebody who you know is ready to think bigger, move faster, and scale smarter. And hey, if this episode helped shift your mindset, do us a solid and leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. It's one of the best ways to support the show and help more people discover this podcast. And if you prefer to watch this podcast instead, you've got a couple of options. Of course, you can head over to YouTube. We've got almost 60 ,000 subscribers on YouTube now, which is exciting. And we're also recently now on Spotify Video.

1:10:03At least all of my in-person content will be on Spotify Video if you're a premium user. So if you like watching your podcast on video, you've got those options. You can also connect with me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. And of course, special thanks to my Yap production team. I love everybody in my Yap Media family. Thank you so much for all your hard work. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off. Thank you.