Mike Michalowicz joins Ed to discuss his career as an author and entrepreneurship advocate. He shares his journey through business ownership, the hard lessons he learned, how he got into writing, and what his work offers present and younger generations.

Mike is the creator of Profit First, which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies across the globe to drive profit, and Clockwork, a powerful method to make any business run on automatic. In his 2020 book, Fix This Next, Mike details the strategy businesses can use to determine what to do, in what order to ensure healthy, fast, permanent growth. His latest book, Get Different, gives readers the tools they need to stand out in any market.

Today, Mike leads two new multi-million-dollar ventures he uses to test his latest business research for his books. He is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and business makeover specialist on MSNBC. Mike is a popular main stage keynote speaker and is the author of Get Different, Fix This Next, Clockwork, Profit First, Surge, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

The Entrepreneurial Path (1:20)

In today's episode of the Athletics of Business Podcast, Mike Michalowicz discusses his career as an author and entrepreneurship advocate. He started his adult life as an entrepreneur right out of college. He knew about computers and started a computer service business for something to do. 

In the beginning, he was making revenue but not earning money. He didn't know what he was doing, and despite building and selling several businesses, he ended up losing everything to pay his debts and taxes. Figuring out his next move didn't come overnight. He eventually started journaling to cope, which led to his career as an author. 

Mike now writes down everything he learns about entrepreneurship and publishes them to help other entrepreneurs. He attributes his success to his ability first to test his theories on his own companies. Without experimental implementation, your idea ends up circulating as a good idea but doesn't take off from there. 

Persistence Brings Performance (10:02)

Routine isn't a set of shackles, but when coupled with discipline, it can equal freedom. We thrive in environments with procedures that allow us to predict outcomes. When we have the freedom to do whenever we want, when we want to, we're less likely to get anything done. And even when we keep to a routine, we're able to keep enough variety in what we do to keep from feeling stuck. 

The important thing is to give yourself the freedom to let whatever you're doing be bad. 50% of the time, your work will be sub-par; that's just the law of averages. It's not even going to meet your average standard. But that doesn't invalidate the other half above average or the top 1% that's top tier. The only way to get to that top percent is to keep going.

Leading with Vision (19:45)

A leader's vision is not the vision of the organization or team. Something might mean a lot to your ego but very little to everyone underneath you. We all have a dream; therefore, the job of a leader is to speak less and ask more. Once you understand everyone's dream, you can structure the organization to check off those boxes, which, in turn, check off your boxes. 

The inspiration behind My Money Bunnies was to empower the next generation to earn their way through life and be more disciplined with money. The way to manage money is straightforward, and as we get older, how we interact with money makes it more complex. It can get so complicated at times that we end up avoiding it. He tried to tackle the subject head-on and pass on the decades of entrepreneurial knowledge to the next generation earlier in writing his book. 

 

Additional Resources:

• https://gogetdifferent.com/
• https://mymoneybunnies.com/
• www.mikemichalowicz.com