We work so hard every single day, yet our bank accounts never seem to grow. We feel like we are running as fast as we can, but we are staying in the exact same place.
It feels like everyone else has a secret we don’t know, and we are left behind. We are tired, we are frustrated, and we are starting to wonder if we will ever be rich.
We often think the problem is that we don’t have the “right” idea yet. We keep looking for a “trick play” or a magic secret that will finally make us millions.
The truth is that we are being kept poor by our own distractions and our inability to stay focused. We are chasing “shiny objects” instead of finishing the work we already started.
In the movie The Matrix, there is a famous scene with a woman in a red dress. While the hero is looking at her, an enemy points a gun right at his head.
In business, new opportunities are like that woman in the red dress. They look beautiful and exciting, but they are actually distractions that stop us from winning.
At every level of success, the “woman in the red dress” becomes more and more attractive. We have to learn to say “no” to a thousand good ideas so we can say “yes” to one great one.
A friend of mine once had sixty different businesses that he tracked on a spreadsheet. He made good money, but he was exhausted and his growth was stuck.
When he was asked which business he would keep if he had a magic wand, he realized he could grow that one business to $50 million. He spent the next year shutting down all his other businesses to focus on that single opportunity.
Even the most famous billionaires, like Mark Zuckerberg, did not have “side hustles” while building their empires. They picked one thing and did it until it covered the whole world.
We often think we are being smart by having many “buckets” of income. However, having five buckets with holes in them just means we are losing water five times faster.
Success actually comes from doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time. We must stop trying to be “cute” and start being consistent with our execution.
To escape the trap of being poor, we must follow three simple steps: Better, More, and New. This is the roadmap that allows us to grow our wealth by default.
First, we must make our current business Better by fixing the “holes in our bucket”. This means doing the boring basics that we know we should be doing but aren’t.
We need to fix our email marketing, improve our website, and train our sales teams to be better. If we are not doing the basics perfectly, we have no right to start a new business.
Second, once we have fixed the holes, we must do More of what is already working. We should not look for new products; we should just sell more of the product people already like.
If we have one person making sales calls, we should hire five. If we are making one video a day, we should start making five.
Third, we only try something New after we have completely maxed out the first two steps. Most of us fail because we jump to “New” before we have even mastered “Better” or “More”.
We must focus on three core values that customers will always want: Quality, Speed, and Service. People will always want things fast, they will always want them done right, and they will always want to be treated well.
If we deliver dry cleaning that is always clean and always on time, we will have an exceptional business. The strategy is not complicated; the hard part is doing it every single day for ten years.
We often think we need to be the “smartest” person in the room to get rich. But we can “demolish” the competition just by doing the basics better than everyone else.
Many people in boring businesses like lawn care or roofing are making millions because they stay focused. Meanwhile, the “smart” person is struggling because they are trying to do nfts, drop shipping, and consulting all at once.
It is arrogant to believe we can out-compete someone who is 100% focused when we are only 20% focused. We need to pay down our “ignorance debt” by learning one thing deeply instead of four things barely.
When we split our attention, we slow down our ability to learn and grow. We are dividing our progress by four instead of multiplying it by ten.
We must decide today when we want to start the “compounding clock” in our favor. This clock only starts when we commit to one thing for a very long time.
If we stay focused on one mission for a decade, our business will grow by default because our competitors will quit. They will get distracted by the “woman in the red dress,” but we will stay on the path.
We need to stop looking for the next big thing and start looking at the list of things we already know we should do. Let’s write down the top 25 obvious things that would make us more money right now.
Once we finish that list, we will see that we didn’t need a new idea; we just needed better execution. We must unlearn the habit of starting new things just because we are bored.
Real wealth is built through the “boring” work of making small, daily improvements. It is like “backyard football” where we just get consistent yardage every single play.
We don’t need fancy trick plays to win the game of money. We just need to stay on the field and keep moving forward without stopping.
If this article resonates with you and helps you find your focus, please share it with more people! Together, we can stop chasing distractions and start building real wealth.
PS – This article was inspired by the life-changing business advice found in Alex Hormozi’s video, How They Keep You POOR Forever.
