“Your financial wins will be predicated on the number of marathons you run instead of the number of sprints you win. Most people seek out short-term victories versus long-term legacies.”
- Jared Yellin
I am extremely patiently impatient!
I want mountains moved yesterday…
I want new ideas born by the minute…
I want innovation happening within seconds…
But where I am extremely patient is in the space of long game success and impact.
Far too many business owners and entrepreneurs are trying their best to WIN quickly and move on and typically they will, but in the long run they are losing because of the amount of victories that are never seized as they go from short game to short game to short game without ever squeezing all of the juice out of of each relationship and/or opportunity.
And eventually this catches up…
Because the rat race of short game victories becomes unsustainable, exhausting, and NOT fun over time, you want to try and eventually wind down whatever it is that you are doing, but since the livelihood of your business is in the short game, you have not built the financial infrastructure to benefit from the effort you have previously put in.
I have a great friend who was on this path until this year…
100% of his success was transactional.
He would do X and get paid Y and that was all he would ever be able to glean from each opportunity he said YES to.
Sometimes Y was a big victory, but it was a short term win which meant that each week, month, and year he would rely on doing X to get Y and there was NEVER an end in sight.
This person is in the world of online launches and he manages affiliates.
His relationship capital is worth billions of dollars.
His ability to build rapport and be likeable is unmatched.
His economic status is a fraction of what it should be.
I challenged him this year to think differently about his role and even more importantly, think differently about the type of WINS he was pursuing.
YES, you could say yes to an ONLINE launch and reach out to relationships to support this online launch and make $100,000 on this online launch, but that is the financial capacity for that opportunity AND it takes a ton of your time.
VERSUS…
Being very selective with what you say YES to and choosing opportunities that might take the same amount of effort but will pay you $10,000/month residual, which might sound like a TON less than $100,000 in one shot, but let’s pretend you do 4 deals like that a year, now you have predictable income of $40,000/month forever!
And as this new way of operating in the long game ensues, you will see your residual compensation accelerate as you will continue to get paid on the effort you previously put in versus the effort you need to continue to put in.
AND AND AND - this works for every business and if it does not work for your business then I encourage you to diversify your energy so that at least a part of your inputs are invested into long-term wins.
Before I pivot from this statement, what I encourage you to consider, if your main thing doesn’t have a mechanism to get you paid over and over again, is to look at making investments into early-stage technology companies. I launched an Angel Investor Network called ChangeMaker Ventures that will help you achieve this outcome so that you can begin to build a long-term financial legacy. Take a look here: www.changemaker.ventures
Shift Your Thinking From Short-Term Victories To Long-Term Legacies
Long-Term Legacies require discipline...
Long-Term Legacies require patience...
Long-Term Legacies require grit…
Most people don’t ever fully benefit from their long-term efforts because a shiny short-term object appears and steals their attention because it “sounds cool” to talk about the quick win versus the longer victory.
But here’s one of many examples of myself…
About six years ago, I built a very strong relationship with a leader inside of the largest business coaching certification in the world.
He saw a ton of value in SYNDUIT for his group and began making appropriate introductions to the right people to move our relationship forward.
It took about two years until the right people and I were sitting on a Zoom demo.
EVERYONE was pumped by the opportunity to work together and I got a YES to proceed.
After about two weeks this YES was followed up by a NOT RIGHT NOW and the journey ensued.
This sequence of a Zoom meeting to a yes to a NOT right now happened 4x and at any point I could have said…
“Screw the long-term legacy, let’s go for the short-term victory,” which would have looked like launching a solution without the support of corporate (something they said I COULD do), but I knew this would lead to a suboptimal outcome when compared with being patient, disciplined, and flexing my muscles of grit.
As much as everything inside was pushing me to forget about the long-term and go short-term, I kept on and in 2020 we had a Zoom meeting followed by a yes and then followed by a launch date.
This long-game journey led to a multi-million dollar launch that will produce in the upwards of $4-5 million dollars a year...every year!
YES, I could have gone short-term on this relationship and probably made $300,000-$500,000 one time, but the long-game is always more lucrative if you have the discipline AND systems to get there…
What SYSTEMS Am I Referring To?
I have been asked often how I play the long-term because even people that are part of my long-game legacy are fascinated by my ability to create progress, while remaining patient.
So, here’s my system when forming WIN-WIN long-term legacies…
Find out what matters to the other person.
Make it my mission to solve at least part of their vision.
Connect monthly with something new and exciting AND immensely care about the new and exciting in their lives as well.
Focus on getting many YESs on my way to long-term legacy.
Keep notes on each conversation so that you can pick up where you left off.
Ensure progress is made during each interaction so there is a genuine interest to talk from all parties.
Once the big WIN-WIN is clear, communicate what you see and be the reason it becomes a reality through the actions you take.
Listen, most will give up on their long-term legacy in order to have a short-term victory, so you are definitely not alone if you decide that the long-term is just too arduous, but if you are able to remain disciplined and build a pipeline of relationships then you will be able to optimize your earning and impact potential. The most important aspect of this is to make sure that you are creating genuine WIN-WIN relationships, not just going through the motions. You are not being casted into a role, you are creating your long-term legacy.
I have been known to go so long-term with my relationships that it almost feels like it will never materialize into anything, but it always does as patience is key and having a pipeline will make it so that you are winning on the entire journey because certain relationships will mature faster than others but let them all mature - there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Live with Intention,
