Every day of my life since the summer of 2014 when I started getting my own clients and formally became a businessman has felt like I’m walking in a maze. Sometimes I find bags of gold, sometimes I can see over the walls and find my way, and other times I wander into corners and I feel lost. But it’s always interesting and over time it does feel like I’m making progress and moving towards solving the maze and getting to the destination (if that even exists).
What I’m saying here is that most days and months are good, but sometimes things get difficult (don’t cry, no one said it should be easy). Sometimes I lose my way a little bit and waste time and energy and sometimes money on people and projects that don’t work out. But every time I’ve made a wrong move in terms of where I directed my energy in business, I’ve always found a way to get back on track and keep making progress in the maze.
My ability to get back on the correct path after mistakes is entirely due to my “business north star.” And my business north star is to help people. Whatever I do in business, wherever I’m directing my energy, it’s always about helping people.
But this isn’t altruism, and I’m no saint. The cold, capitalist truth in my life is that I don’t care about other people. What drives me, the source of my energy, is my own self-interest. The instant my eyes open in the morning, my mind fires up and I start thinking about how I can make myself richer, happier, and healthier. And the last thought I have before I fall asleep is about what I’m going to do the next day to make myself richer, happier, and healthier. There’s something called Team Me and it’s the only thing that matters.
I didn’t choose this wiring, and I didn’t create human nature.
(This would be a really good time to say “Don’t hate the player, hate the game” but it’s such a cliche thing to say at this point, but honestly there’s just no other better way to say it and because it’s such a cutting, true statement, I’m just going to say it anyway.)
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
But here’s where the nice part comes in, and here’s where the magic of capitalism reveals itself. The only way I can make myself richer, happier, and healthier is by helping other people. The only way I can get what I want, is if I help other people get what they want. It’s just a pure, natural, and mutually beneficial system. It almost makes my cry thinking about it. Without capitalism humans have no hope, but with capitalism and time, we can accomplish anything we want.
Capitalism and its free markets are what take my natural and undeniable drive towards my self-interest and harness it as fuel to be used to help other people. I’m only here to serve myself, but through serving myself I serve others. All I do is help other people, and through doing that, my self-interest in increasing my wealth, happiness, and health gets met. It’s a wonderful system, it’s a natural system.
Whenever I feel lost in the business maze, I just look up, see my north star of helping other people, and it leads me in the right direction. Whether it’s helping business owners get the best Google Ads results possible, or improving other advertisers skills on my podcasts and YouTube channels, or even just being a friendly support system for my clients and friends in the business world pursuing their own self interests, EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE IS ABOUT HELPING PEOPLE.
I’ll never be out of work, I’ll never be busted, and I’ll never lose to the maze. My north star of helping other people is my super power and it will never fail to help me win.
Help other people and you’ll be helping yourself.
