The top 8 distractions for entrepreneurs in 2017
Most entrepreneurs I know are obsessed with productivity. Productivity is concerned with rates of output, what if you are putting out the wrong things?
Distraction is the enemy of achievement, and achievement is more important than productivity.
If you are an entrepreneur like me you are ADD as fuck, and distracted at any given..wait, I have a list to make.
Celebrity
Entrepreneurs, and more to the point, Wantrepreneurs, like the rest of us, are obsessed with celebrity. Hey, I’m not immune to it. I love Gary Vaynerchuk like a brother and I’ve never met the guy. But like porn, it’s OK in small doses, just don’t let it get out of hand.
No famous entrepreneur is going to change your life. No internet marketer is going to give you any secret. I once got retweeted by @sacca it was a great moment for me, he has no fucking idea who I am, it did nothing for any of my businesses. If he did know who I was, it still probably wouldn’t do anything for my businesses. It’s on me — no one else.
It’s on you.
Conversions
Entrepreneurs worry way too much about things they can measure because they like to think they have control. I have news for you. You don’t have control. You have influence (sometimes) and that’s as much as you can hope for. Don’t obsess over numbers, because obsessing over numbers means neglecting everything else.
Most good things in business can’t be measured.
In case you don’t know my story, it’s very similar to every BS marketer’s story who is trying to sell you shit. I was broke, on the couch, after years of failure, then I had a lightbulb moment and turned that into a $1m business, selling it to a $1b company 3 years later. I wasn’t on the couch TBH, I never stopped working my fanny off, but you get the picture.
I measured everything along the way on that journey. I was obsessed with analytics and conversions, and follower totals and growth rates, and profit margins. When I look back at that journey, the big things that had all the impact weren’t measurable things. Launching (fast), finding a co-founder, getting press, building a strong brand, creating and telling a story, becoming an author, building a great team and keeping them together, randomly reaching out to a couple of companies about selling. Those were the big things.
Conversion rates being tweaked left and right by 5% would not have changed anything.
Netflix
When I was coming up as a business owner, one of my early mentors James Schramko used to often mention his #1 productivity tip. Stop watching Lost! I could relate to this because everyone else seemed to watch a lot of TV and I didn’t watch much at all. Huge distraction!
Then came the golden age of distraction-free entrepreneurship. Post internet but pre Netflix. Once we got used to concept of any time you need shit, you go get it, it was hard to live any other way. TV became a joke. I wouldn’t have been able to watch Lost if I wanted to, because it would have required me being available at a certain time, in a certain place, on a certain channel, ahh too fucking hard. So TV died.
Pre Netflix — The golden era of productive entrepreneurship.
And it lasted about 5 minutes. Until Netflix came along.
And we were back to square 1.
Don’t watch Lost.
Social Media
Social Media is the ultimate distraction of our generation of entrepreneurs. Sure you can turn a social media following into real cash money, assuming people aren’t just following you to look at your big tits or zero to hero 6 pack transformation. But getting to a fuckton of followers, isn’t quite as easy as lying on the beach in a hammock thinking up ways to post cheesy photos.
For most people, they won’t build a huge following, they will spend the entire time looking at other people, and fail to do any work.
This is another symptom of our obsession with celebrity. We assume people with shitloads of followers are making bank. In reality, the opposite is probably true. Rich people don’t have time for social media. Australia’s top 10 most valuable companies have a total of 175,000 followers combined.
Australia’s top 10 most valuable companies have a total of 175,000 followers combined. Warnie’s new girlfriend has 3.9 million.
Ego
The reason we chase social media followers so hard is because of ego. We all want to feel like we are the king (or queen). We chase celebrity, build our social media, speak at events, buy nice cars, start the coolest possible business (like a brewing company for example), because we want to be seen.
It’s fine, except it’s not that good for business. It’s very rare for a business to be successful off a personal brand. Not impossible, I heard you Oprah fans, but it’s rare. Most of the brands that people connect with are not personal brands. They are companies that solve a problem, tell a story, and innovate. Very rarely it’s about one individual.
If you are spending all of your time talking about yourself, updating the world on what you are up to every 5 minutes, and trying to become the next Gary Vee, I have some unfortunate news for you.
People don’t give a shit about you. They want to be delighted, inspired, or have their problem solved in a unique way. They don’t care about your selfie with Tony Robbins.
Get back to work.
Startups
Wanting to change the way the world is connected like Mark Zuckerberg, is a noble mission. Wanting to revolutionize personal computing and communication like Steve Jobs is great too. Saving earth and interplanetary colonization, Elon Musk-style is admiral also. But let’s be honest. Most of us would be happy with a 6 figure wage and the occasional cover story in the local paper.
I don’t want to dampen any ambitions here, but I think you have to be realistic when it comes to risk. I’ve seen far too many solo entrepreneurs thinking they are building the next game-changing app and not realizing how slim the chances are.
Since you’re obsessed with conversions and analytics, I will give you a number. Your % chance of inventing the next Facebook. Zero.
Another business
The biggest barrier faced by entrepreneurs is themselves. It’s not possible to be great at coming up with business ideas and be great at running a business. They are 2 very different skills. The lure of another shiny new idea is real, and while it’s important to embrace your creativity, it’s also important to double down on what is working.
This is something I struggle with a lot. Starting new businesses is fun. But you have to remember, that almost every business that starts will fail. If you are onto a good thing, don’t get distracted by something else. Shutting something down, assuming you’ve given it a well decent crack is fine, but constantly jumping from idea to idea is a recipe for failure.
Content (including this post)
Everyone, including me, is in the business of stealing your attention. There are a million blogs, all are great, there’s social media accounts to follow, email lists to subscribe to, Medium writers to follow, it doesn’t end. The distraction is real.
I’m being completely genuine in writing this. I hope it helps you. But I know there is a reasonable chance it will distract you. I don’t know that, so I just write but that’s why it’s on you. You can’t just consume content. I live by the motto of creating more than you consume. If you just consume, nothing will ever come of your best efforts.
Cheers to getting shit done in 2017.