The $2M vs $200M Founder Difference

The biggest difference that I see between founders who are like stuck at one or two million and the founders who are running $200 million companies is their belief systems. And I'm not talking about, you know, like woo-woo mindset type of stuff. I'm actually like I'm talking about things that you believe are like your dead certain you are absolutely right. And you are you know this thing to be true and you believe it in your heart of hearts, but they aren't. They're illusions, they're the the the things that you you can't even really see that are often times keeping you capped.

I'm going to share what that is. Now quick thing, I actually I break down stuff like this in a weekly email newsletter, um frameworks and patterns stuff that I don't I don't share on the podcast. You can hop in at https://www.google.com/search?q=rays-email.com if you if you want to.

Last week we, my wife and I took our our Cabo kids who've never seen actual snow, like they're they're eight and ten, it's kind of embarrassing, they've never actually like stepped foot, touched real snow. So, we took them to Park City in Utah and we did some skiing, did some snowboarding, had a ton of fun. And on the way back we had a a couple day delay, like unexpectedly in in Salt Lake City. So, you know, we're looking for some low-key things to do and ended up at the Museum of Illusions. And it's basically like an hour and a half of just like really cool, brainy, mind-bending type of shit, right? Like so you walk through and there's just there's exhibits where your brain is 100 percent sure of something that is completely wrong, right, by design.

And, you know, like there's this there's a tunnel that you walk through and, you know, it's a it's a straight path, but because of the uh the screen that's around it, you feel like you're falling to the side and you like you're physically like leaning and falling to the left side because of all the stuff that's around you even though the tunnel and the walkway that you're on is is straight. You know, there's there's pictures where you've got two boxes that look completely different sizes, you know, one of them looks like a a long skinny rectangle size, the other one is a a shorter you know square squatty looking thing and you're positive they're different sizes and the tops of the boxes are exact same, right? Or you've got like two lines that your brain swears are different lengths and they're the exact same size. They actually give you they give you patterns like these little templates that you hold over the line to prove it to your brain because it's so convincing that they are not, right?

And it's really fun. It's harmless in this controlled environment. You know, you go from exhibit to exhibit and you're like, "Damn how the in the fuck is that?" Like even after you know what the what the reality is, you're like, "I still don't get it," right? But here's the thing: like outside of that controlled environment, what if what if you're operating under some kind of illusion about something that actually matters, right? Like something of real significance?

And it got me thinking, like as we're as we're leaving this, you know, what if like one of your like the core business beliefs that you have is kind of like those boxes, right? Like you're certain it's true. You'd bet money on it. In fact you are betting money on it, you're betting part of your business on it, but it's just not. Maybe it's like, "Hey this business doesn't have the potential to do X," right? Or "No, that that channel doesn't work anymore. Outbound doesn't work anymore. SDRs don't work anymore," or "content doesn't work anymore," or "it's I've got to have money or I've got to have experience or I've got to have more connections before I can actually do that," or "it's I'm too young for this" or "I'm too old for that." Like it could be really anything. But what if that that belief, the one that you just you accepted as absolute truth is the thing that's keeping you from the shift that you want and it's simply not true?

The past year I've spent a a lot of time with entrepreneurs who have built $50, $100, $200 million businesses. And I've also spent a lot of time with with founders who have built $500,000, $1 million, $2 million businesses and they're stuck. Like they're they're trying to get to 10, 20, 50 million and and they can't, right? Like they've they've plateaued, they've capped. And the pattern that I see, like the biggest difference that I see between these two audiences is it's not work ethic, right? It's not intelligence, it's a belief system. You know, like the founders who are stuck are have a belief, like something that they know is true and it's holding them back because it's actually not, right?

And as long as they hold on to that thing, they're never going to get the next to the next level because they're fighting reality. Like no matter how much effort they put in, no matter how hard they try, no matter what the level of effort or intensity or how many reps they put in, they are fighting reality. And like a really common one I see and by the way that I've held myself personally is that we're more essential to the day-to-day operations of the business than we really are. And because we believe that, we stay in the weeds, we keep doing the shit that we don't really actually have to because we think we do, because we believe we do.

Like the question I'm asking myself right now is: what is one belief that I am dead certain is true and isn't? And maybe holding me back from getting to the next level? So what assumption am I making that's keeping me from getting to the next level? And there's a famous Mark Twain quote and he said, "It ain't what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so." And that's the note that I'll leave you on today. I hope it helps. Adios.