On today’s edition of The Solopreneur Hour we’re discussing a familiar topic: the 8 steps to becoming a successful solopreneur. Previous guests have highlighted their progression through these 8 steps and how vital they are to any solopreneur’s journey.

And today we’re diving in deep to look at each step, what it means, how to implement it and use it to springboard to the step after it. Dawn Marrs Ortiz joins us to walk through these necessary and powerful steps. All of that and more on the 217th episode of The Solopreneur Hour.

More About This Show

Before Dawn and I talk about those 8 steps, we also have a chat about the early days of this show and what it was like for me. I talk about the origins of The Solopreneur Hour, how I made the leap from my traditional support role to being center stage as your host and leader on the solopreneurial journey we’re all taking together.

Listen in for some great nuggets, including David Ralph’s foray outside of his comfort zone and his awesome Yoda impression! After you listen to that, follow along below to really nail your solopreneur journey. And if you’re already in business, revisit the 8 steps to see where you might need to double down.

Here they are:

1: Discover Your Passion 

Don’t worry about what you know or what you’ve done, think about what you LOVE. Have you stayed up all night working on something and hardly noticed it was 4am? THAT is your passion. What’s that thing you could talk about til people fall off their bar stools? There’s your passion my friend!

2: Immerse yourself in the culture: dive on in.

Three questions to ask yourself about the thing you love: who’s who of that world? What are the top blogs/forums? Where do you go to get the latest info? Answer those and then dive into each: subscribe to the blogs, the podcasts, visit the forums daily and read the books the leaders of your industry are reading and writing.

3: Seek knowledge.

You can see how this is the next obvious step after step two. Once you’ve lasered in on the culture and how to inform yourself about it, now you’ll actually inform yourself with this step and become wise on your industry. Find out whatever you can and go wherever you have to go to learn EVERYTHING about your topic. This is what the greats do to become great, so do it too!

4: Make the decision to TAKE (imperfect) ACTION!!!

Nothing gets done without action. You’re a hustler, now show it. Take your knowledge from the previous three steps and put it into action.  You’ve gotta pull the trigger at some point or you won’t get anywhere further along your timeline. So commit to take action, even if it isn’t perfect just go for it and you’ll learn as you go along. Again, this is what the leaders of the world do so you can too.

5: Surround yourself with leaders. 

Speaking of leaders! Now it’s time to build those relationships with them. Relationships: this is the only thing that matters in business and in life. Build relationships, especially with the leaders of your industry, and you’ll see your life shift like never before.  You are the product of the 5 people you spend the most time with so make those 5 people GREAT.

6: Take MORE action.

Action begets more action so take some now and commit to continually doing so. Make your actions based on your knowledge and what you’ve learned so far, and GO.

If you’re taking action on a daily basis you’re going to produce more results and see more changes than someone who just starts, then stops. So be one of those people who takes action, and then more action, and then more action. Pretty soon you won’t have to tell yourself to take action because it’ll just be ...