Don't Just Surf - Master the Waves of Change

Mary-Lynn: 00:00:00

Welcome to the BIGG Success Show. Today: Four steps to ride the waves of change.

BIGG voice guy: 00:00:08

BIGG Success with The Professor and Mary-Lynn.

George: 00:00:14

You know, Mary Lynn, out of all the founding fathers, Ben Franklin is probably my favorite.

Mary-Lynn: 00:00:19

Is that right?

George: 00:00:19

Well, you know, he was just the guy...

Mary-Lynn: 00:00:21

Because he was electric?

George: 00:00:23

He had an electrifying personality, right? Yes. I mean, I think it's just the guy was so multi talented.

I mean, there's so many things that he accomplished in his life from, you know, what we know him as with politics to inventions to business, to, you know, the first this, the first that, his virtues, I mean...

Mary-Lynn: 00:00:42

Entrepreneurial, he runs the gamut.

George: 00:00:43

He really does. And he's just a fascinating man. And actually one of my early businesses was the Ben Franklin store.

So, you know, that kind of made me, you know, that kind of makes me interested in Ben Franklin.

Mary-Lynn: 00:00:54

Right.

George: 00:00:54

And out of all his quotes, one of them is very famous. And it's especially popular among politicians and tax collectors and also morticians.

Mary-Lynn: 00:01:04

Okay.

George: 00:01:04

That quote is, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes".

Mary-Lynn: 00:01:09

Boy, isn't that true? And I don't know, is it comforting to know that nothing's changed?

George: 00:01:14

I don't know if it is or not, but we do know that change is constant, as old Ben's subtly telling us with this quote. Now, going forward, here's one thing we can be certain of. Things are going to keep changing.

Mary-Lynn: 00:01:28

Yes. Whether we like it or not. Right. Whether we're ready for it or not. And the question is, are you leading change in your life or is it leading you?

George: 00:01:38

And as technology continues to develop, change is occurring more and more rapidly.

You know, Mary-Lynn, I saw a study some time ago that said that the world is changing a million times faster than the average person's ability to absorb it. We have constant change.

And so one of the things that people don't realize is entrepreneurship has been called the science of change because entrepreneurs understand how valuable change is because it's in the change that opportunity is created. So isn't it safe to assume that in the future the only change is going to be that change is going to change more frequently, more faster - right?

Mary-Lynn: 00:02:17

Put it that way, George. We do have a choice to make.

George: 00:02:20

Yes, we do.

You can either develop the skills to anticipate change so you get ahead of it, or you just respond to it after the pain becomes so great you just can't do anything else.

Mary-Lynn: 00:02:34

Alight, I guess I'll do this.

George: 00:02:36

Yes, begrudgingly.

Mary-Lynn: 00:02:37

Hopefully you'll see that the first choice is definitely the choice that you want to make. After all, that's what BIGG goal-getters do. And you have to ride the waves of change.

Sound effect - Large sound of a wave

Here are four things that you should evaluate to prepare for this awesome ride. Number 1: Understand your risk tolerance.

George: 00:03:03

Yeah. Now, when it comes to risk, you know the basic principle of finance, the basic principle of money is with risk comes reward.

Studies of wealthy people show that they take more risk on average than people who aren't wealthy. I think that's really important to understand. Wealthy people tend to take more risk.

Mary-Lynn: 00:03:22

Well, wouldn't you say it's because they have more to risk?

George: 00:03:26

I was hoping you would say that.

Mary-Lynn: 00:03:28

Yeah. Okay.

George: 00:03:29

But they also have more to lose. Do you ever think of that? The thing is the key thing to understand...

Mary-Lynn: 00:03:34

If you don't have much, then you have more to lose.

George: 00:03:38

You can, you can lose...

Mary-Lynn: 00:03:39

And if you have little and you risk it and you've lost everything.

George: 00:03:43

Right.

Mary-Lynn: 00:03:44

Or if you have a lot and you risk a little, you lose nothing.

George: 00:03:48

That's why entrepreneurs are not risk lovers. They are amazing risk managers, risk mitigators, they reduce the risk down to an affordable level.

And that's one of the secrets to being a successful entrepreneur. And as we always say at BIGG Success, entrepreneurship is something we bring to life.

So in your life, this is a principle you can use whether you ever start a business or not. Understanding that when you are a good risk manager, that's the secret to actually being successful.

Wealthy people are really good at that and that allows them to take more risk than the average person might. So now some people are so risk averse. So here's the real. This is really important to understand.

Mary-Lynn: 00:04:30

I've got a little bit. I need to hang onto it for all I've got.

George: 00:04:34

You're exactly right. So some people, they're so risk averse that they do nothing risky at all. They may do nothing at all. Okay.

And you know, unknowingly, they may be taking the biggest risk that anyone in today's rapidly changing world can possibly take. Doing nothing is doing something. So the key to managing risk is to stay steady and ride the waves of change.

Because making a sudden move can result in a big wipeout.

Sound of big wave.

But see, that's the thing entrepreneurs understand is if we can step into this little by little by little.

And how many times, Mary-Lynn, have we said, oh, we just wish that we would have gotten to this coaching client would have come to us earlier. You know, a lot of times we put off the important decisions or put off maybe bringing in important allies to a point where we make mistakes along the way that turn out to be very costly - and we can avoid them.

Mary-Lynn: 00:05:31

Moving on, number 2, another thing that you need to evaluate in preparing for your ride is to test your perceptions.

George: 00:05:39

Now, as we grow older, which I know nothing about, just look at my hairline for the rebuttal on that. Right.

Mary-Lynn: 00:05:47

Why did we both laugh so hard at that? I don't know.

George: 00:05:50

Yes. So as we grow older, we develop a point of view based on our past experiences. And unfortunately, those experiences.

No, unfortunately, those experiences are many.

Mary-Lynn: 00:06:02

Yes. For example, when we were wee, little toddlers, we learned that when you put your hands on a hot stove, it hurts so you don't do it again.

We learned our lesson.

George: 00:06:14

Sometimes, though, we take the wrong lessons away. You know, we put our hand on that hot stove and it hurts.

And so what we do is we never turn that stove on again, which means we never get any hot food. I mean, say, think about it.

Mary-Lynn: 00:06:29

That's extreme.

George: 00:06:30

We do the equivalent of that. I mean, as silly as that sounds, that's what we do. We get out of our comfort zone and. And get burned.

Mary-Lynn: 00:06:37

You hear that a lot. Yeah, I mean, you'll hear that a lot with romance. You know, like, I fell in love and I got burned. So you know what? Love stinks.

I'm never going to fall in love again. That's not the way to go. You don't want to be lonely all your life. There is somebody out there for you.

You just have to, you know, get back out there.

George: 00:06:55

Well, and in all areas of life, you got to keep testing, right? Keep trying things, because that's what's going to propel you forward to BIGG success. Not changing. Failing to change.

Failing to try, failing to push yourself past your comfort. That's a very dangerous attitude today. You know, maybe you've been thrown off a surfboard before. Well, get back on. That's the secret. Get back on.

You've been thrown off seven times. Get back on eight.

Mary-Lynn: 00:07:19

Yeah, exactly. You'll hear successful entrepreneurs say that's how they've succeeded.

Every time they made a mistake, it helped them get closer and closer to their BIGG win.

George: 00:07:29

Well, as I once heard Mark Cuban say, you only have to win once. So, you know, you can lose seven times, but if that eighth time you win and you win BIGG, everything's great.

That's what everybody will remember you for.

Mary-Lynn: 00:07:44

Change is constant, and today we're talking about how to ride the waves of change for your BIGG success. There are four ways to prepare for your ride, and number 3 is: Look for trends in the waves of change.

George: 00:07:59

Now, there are trends and there are fads. It's an important thing to understand when you're looking at change. Is it a fad or is it a trend? Fads come and go. Don't worry about them.

You know, I mean, I think of the hula hoop because I'm that old. No, actually...

Mary-Lynn: 00:08:15

I was thinking of 80s hair.

George: 00:08:17

Okay, 80s hair.

Mary-Lynn: 00:08:19

That's fun.

George: 00:08:21

Well, I'm thinking of a hula hoop. Okay. Now, you could have made a lot of money from the hula hoop, but it's here and gone, right? Okay. For the most part. 80s hair. I don't know what.

Mary-Lynn: 00:08:29

Timeless.

George: 00:08:30

Well, but not at the level that it was in its, its heyday.

Mary-Lynn: 00:08:34

Way back. Oh my gosh, you know, earlier we were talking about how old we were, or I said, you.

George: 00:08:40

This predates - This even predates me.

Mary-Lynn: 00:08:41

Oh, okay.

George: 00:08:42

Frankly, so I was too young to ever remember the hula hoop. I just saw them, right?

Mary-Lynn: 00:08:47

Can you hula hoop?

George: 00:08:48

Oh, I can't hula hoop at all. My hips don't. My hips don't go that direction.

Mary-Lynn: 00:08:53

I can. I can make it work for like one.

George: 00:08:56

I can barely do the hook. I can barely do the hokey pokey. So anyway, short term, we have fads. Trends are long term. You've got to get on board with those long term waves of change.

Mary-Lynn: 00:09:12

So thinking long term.

George: 00:09:13

Yes.

Mary-Lynn: 00:09:13

What will affect your future income?

George: 00:09:15

That's a good one. Yes, that's a really good one.

Mary-Lynn: 00:09:17

Something will, right? For good or for bad. I mean, we've seen stock market crashes.

We've got, you know, what does happen with COVID-19 and how the pandemic really shut down the economy. Is this short term phenomenon? Is this likely to continue? How is this going to affect me in the long run?

These are the types of things to be thinking about, right?

George: 00:09:39

Yes. And exactly. There are things that will be trends or turn out to be fads. And then there are some trends.

There are some trends that were coming anyway that are going to be accelerated. You can position yourself properly by seeing these waves of change coming. What opportunities will be created? What skills will be important?

Do you have them? Can you get them? Study your industry and be patient.

Study your industry, by the way, and consider whether or not you need a new, you know, your job, your employer, your industry. What's going to happen to those, you know, to that. As the waves of change come, picking the right waves takes less energy and offers the longest ride.

Mary-Lynn: 00:10:20

Ride it out, dude. All right, moving on to number 4, the fourth way to evaluate and prepare for your ride is: Don't expect perfection.

George: 00:10:31

Yeah, Mary-Lynn, don't expect perfection.

Mary-Lynn: 00:10:36

I think you're the perfect husband.

George: 00:10:38

I have it on tape now. I want you to know I'm gonna play that for you every time we fight.

Mary-Lynn: 00:10:42

Ruh roh.

George: 00:10:43

Alright, so here's the deal. If you take risk and try to get on the forefront of trends, it's very, very likely that you're going to make mistakes.

Even if you're perfect, you're going to make mistakes, right? So expect them. Celebrate them.

Mary-Lynn: 00:10:58

Wait, I'm supposed to celebrate a mistake?

George: 00:11:00

You're supposed to celebrate them because...

Mary-Lynn: 00:11:04

What if it hurts? I'm. Seriously, I can't. I mean, seriously, I could take a risk, financial risk of some sort, and it could really be painful.

It could be something that could affect me long term. I'm not going to be jumping up and down over that.

George: 00:11:15

Well, give you two things for that, Mary-Lynn. Number one, refer to our risk discussion from earlier and how entrepreneurs deal with risk. Right. They minimize it.

Number two, remember what my dad said, Boy, that's going to feel really good, son, when it quits hurting.

Mary-Lynn: 00:11:28

Okay, that's a good point. So the key that you're making, though, the point that you're making, though, is that, you know, we got to learn from the mistakes.

George: 00:11:36

Yeah. Think about it. You're gaining valuable knowledge while most people are still sitting on the beach. They think life's a beach.

You know, life's getting on the board and riding the wave.

Mary-Lynn: 00:11:48

Right. Right. And you can embrace change or you can begrudge it.

George: 00:11:53

Yes. And you only have one life to live, so why not find a BIGG wave and take the ride of your life to BIGG success?

Mary-Lynn: 00:12:02

One great resource for managing risk, for anticipating change, for having that entrepreneurial mindset, is our newsletter. If you aren't already subscribed, just go to BIGG Success - that's BIGG with 2 G's success dot com slash newsletter - biggsuccess.com/newsletter

George: 00:12:18

And to all you dudes and dudettes, thanks for listening today.

George & Mary-Lynn: 00:12:21

Until next time, here's to your BIGG success!

BIGG voice guy: 00:12:25

Find BIGG Success at BIGGsuccess.com