Surround yourself with FEP’s
Welcome to my blog (and welcome to the craziness that happens in both my world and my head)!
Firstly, I wanted to say a massive thank you for taking the time to read my first blog! I know there is a lot of content on the internet so I am humbled that you have chosen to click and read what I have put down onto paper (well onto the computer screen)!
I wanted to explain why I have started a blog and give you a bit of background on me (for those of you who I don’t know). The essence of starting a blog has come about by wanting to express myself through content. I have always been a writer and I have always journalled and writing things down gets me absolutely clear on the future.
Therefore, I have started this blog to not only provide value to everyone reading it, but also to provide value to myself. Putting my thoughts down onto paper is a good way of maintaining accountability to doing what I say I am going to do in the future. I wish I had created a blog in 2012 to detail my journey of building my cleaning business from 0 to 400 staff in the space of 4 years but I didn’t — therefore if you want to know more about that journey then click here for a good read.
Since selling AGC (refer to link above) in June this year, I have taken the best part of 5 months off to define my future. In August I announced I was started a talent management company — Iconic Management Group.
Since then a lot has changed and I am no longer pursusing talent management so Iconic Management Group is changing.
I am now pursuing a business that I am completely aligned to and we are already going bonkers with how busy we are — and we haven’t even launched yet!
I have absolute focus again (like I did when growing AGC) to build my new business and grow it globally over the coming years. The best part- I will be documenting that journey through my blog and it will be raw, honest and authentic the whole time. When shit hits the fan, I will tell you shit has hit the fan. When everything is good, I will tell you that things are going well but its time to double down as you cannot get complacent. This blog will be show the raw truth of rapidly growing a global business.
Now, you are probably waiting for the ….and the new business is….line. That will need to wait until I announce the new business in a few weeks but for now I can tell you that it is a business that will help over 1 million people in this world by 2025.
Find your FEP’s and stick with them
I wanted to speak about something that has become so clear to me as being the single most effective and impactful way to increase your mindset to go and get what you want. This has been a massive factor for me over the past 5 months.
You have all heard the saying ‘you are the average of the 5 closest people to you’. This is SO true and SO important to making shit happen.
After reading two books ‘The Subtle Art of How Not To Give a F*ck’, and ‘Minimalism’ I soon did an audit of who I surround myself with. I also realised that I am happiest when I am surrounding myself with the best of the best people, elite performaners and A Players. I love everything high performance — cars, sport, bikes but most importantly — people. I hold these high standards onto my own performance and am constantly looking for ways to improve my own performance and to become better. I realised in order to continue to progress after selling AGC ( I will be writing a blog in the future about how hard the months after selling a business is), I needed to action the audit of my closest people.
Although I did have a good closest 5, I wasn’t overly amped by my closest 5. I actively searched for elite performers and soon realised that they also want to work, and be mates with Fellow Elite Performers (FEP’s). Go and find your FEP’s and your life will be so much easier and you will stop giving a f*ck what people think. It is pretty simple — if you don’t do something you want to do solely because you are concerned or worried about what one of your closest friends will think, then get rid of them. It is simple. Yes, it is that simple. Don’t hang around people you don’t like. If you live with them, move out. It really is that simple.
Now, this isnt saying go and get rid of all of your friends. This is solely relating to the 5 people you spend the most of your time with. This can be business partners, employees or employers, your partner, your parents. This is the circle to audit and as soon as you do, replace a low performer (high performer is defined differently by everyone depending from what they value) with a FEP. It is as simple as that. If you have a shit boss that you spend the majority of your time with, leave them as they will drag you down. The other thing to note is that your 5 closest people should be better than you — although it is tempting to be the best of your friends, find people who will bring you up.
Bringing this into a practical sense — I can safely say that the people I have on board for my new business are the best, hands down. No questions asked. No arguments about it.
I will be spending the majority of my time with these people and when you put the best people in a room, coupled with executing the best plan, if you do the maths then it is a pretty clear path to success.
You also need to make sure that these people are not Fake FEP’s. If you have someone who aligns with you, make sure that they really do align with you and that you are looking at it from a completely neutrual perspective. A lot of people say they want success and to work hard but then simply do not work hard. A lot of people say they want to be healthy, but don’t exercise or eat healthy. These are fake FEP’s. Fake FEP’s are the worst.
I am fortunate to have realised at my age that the people I align myself with are going to make me or break me in the future.
I recently travelled to Sydney where I had 11 meetings in a day. Every single meeting I had in that day was with a FEP and I came away from that trip with a whole new view of my business. I felt so pumped and amped and was so excited about meeting with these 11 FEP’s that it only further instilled that the cliche saying of ‘you are the average of your 5 closest people’ is absolutely, 100% correct.
That is my thoughts for today — thanks so much for reading and I promise the standard of my blogging will increase over the coming years as I document the journey of me growing [enter new business name here].
Please feel free to reach out to me at any of the following:
Instagram: @jordanwwalsh
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanwalsh/
Email: jordan@iconicgrowth.com.au
Cheers!
Jordan
