PassionToProfit: How Successful Entrepreneurs Think Before Starting a Business | Entrepreneurship | Presented by Intuit

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Hey, Young Improfiters, welcome to episode one of our brand new series, Passion to Profit.

In this series, we're taking you step by step through the process of turning your big idea into a thriving business.

Whether you're still sitting on a side hustle or already dreaming of quitting your nine-to-five, this series is designed to simplify your journey from passion to execution and help you actually make money doing what you love.

In this first episode, we're diving into one of the most overlooked parts of entrepreneurship, the mental and emotional prep work that lays the foundation for everything that follows.

Before you launch your first offer or chase your first client, you need to make sure that you're ready for the ride.

By the end of this episode, you'll learn how to unlock your purpose, show up consistently, build real confidence, face fear without getting stuck, and protect your mindset when things get tough.

Because success starts in your mind long before it shows up in your life.

So if you're serious about turning your passion into profit, this is where your journey starts.

Let's dig in, young improfiters.

Passion is powerful.

It's the spark that lights you up, helps you to dream big, and pushes you to take the first step.

But passion alone won't carry you through the late nights, the setbacks, or the moments of self-doubt.

When you're building something from scratch, you need more than passion.

You need purpose.

Passion gets you started, but purpose is what keeps you going.

And here's the truth: that kind of fuel doesn't come from chasing money.

Legendary entrepreneur and financial expert Dave Ramsey has seen a lot of businesses come and go.

And when we spoke, he made it clear the ones that last are the ones that are rooted in purpose, not profit.

If your only purpose in business is to make money, you will not last.

Business is too hard.

It's too painful.

There's too many emotional ups and downs.

You work too freaking hard.

And if all you want is a stack of cash, as soon as you get a stack of cash, you're going to figure out it doesn't do it.

Now, I want you to make money.

I like making money, and I believe in making money.

I'm not against profit.

I'm a capitalist pig.

I love it.

And so I want you to go do that, but it does not get you there.

It doesn't fulfill you spiritually, psychologically, anything else.

And we always just say, you know, when I was a little kid, I never had lobster until I was like 14 years old because I grew up in a redneck neighborhood and the red lobster came to town.

That was the first lobster I ever got, but I loved it.

It's my favorite.

And I thought, man, if I ever get some money, I'm going to eat lobster every day.

No, you won't.

If you eat enough lobster, it tastes like soap.

If you get enough cars, they're just a stupid car.

If you get enough jets, it's just a stupid jet.

I mean, you cannot get enough money for the stuff to give you fulfillment that your spirit is not built that way.

Now, that's the truth.

If your only motivator is a quick buck, it won't be enough to sustain you when things get real.

Krista Williams, entrepreneur and co-host of the Almost 30 podcast, went even deeper when she reminded me that before you chase the title of entrepreneur, you need to get honest with yourself about why you're doing it all in the first place.

I feel like a lot of people want to be an entrepreneur for the idea of what being an entrepreneur is.

They kind of see what's happening online on social media.

They're like, oh, you work from home or you work on the beach or it's sexy.

Like there's a lot of entrepreneurship.

I think especially to earlier in the previous times that was like girl bossy and made everything really, really sexy and fun and like really Instagrammy and marketing.

And it's not like that.

It's, it's the most challenging thing that you'll do.

And it has made me so insecure at times and so low at times and so unsure of myself at times.

But it's also been so powerful.

So I would check first, like, what is the actual desire?

Because I think entrepreneurship doesn't happen.

I think your creativity and your idea happens.

I think you build what you want to do.

You become who you want to be.

You create what you're here to do.

And then you become an entrepreneur.

So I think it should be led by something that comes internally, like something that you feel like has to exist in the world.

So I think waiting until you have that like calling, that like desire that you feel it in your gut.

Yes.

You're like, this needs to exist.

I need to create this thing because it doesn't exist.

And I feel like.

my life sucks without it.

My life isn't as good without it.

So I think waiting until you're so called that the things that come up and the how of it all just goes away.

So when your why is so strong, your how just doesn't even, it doesn't even matter how it happens.

Like our passion and obsession with our connection and really finding this reason to help people feel less alone drove us to like stay up late at night, invest money and take the risk.

And so what I would say is find that thing or wait for that thing or look intently at the world a little differently with a different lens to see what is needed and then create that.

Yeah, fam, that's the kind of purpose that makes your vision non-negotiable because it's not just an idea anymore, it's a calling.

But clarity alone is just not enough.

To bring that purpose to life, you need practical tools and intentional strategies.

That's where Dr.

Benjamin Hardy comes in.

He's an organizational psychologist and an expert on entrepreneurial mindset.

And he shared actionable insight on the podcast on how to get clear on your why and use it to drive consistent, meaningful progress.

So the why is the reason for doing it, right?

So

this is where you start to become intentional.

So as an example, if someone's listening to this podcast,

my question would be, well, why are you listening to it?

And the why would then highlight what you're ultimately trying to do and what you ultimately value.

Like everyone's going to have a different why for why we're doing this.

You have a different why for interviewing me as I have for being interviewed, right?

And so

it's important to clarify and understand what, what, what the why is that's driving everything you're doing.

And I'm of the belief that you do choose the why.

Like you do choose it, you clarify it, but you can scrape away levels of understanding it.

But the why is just the purpose.

The purpose is the goal.

Like what is the ultimate reason you're doing this?

Aristotle would call that final cause, which is basically the end.

So as an example, like if like if I get up and go to the to the kitchen and start eating, well, it's like, well, why did I get up and go to the kitchen?

It might have been because I'm hungry, but it also might have been because I was triggered and I'm just trying to avoid, like, I'm just like trying to avoid working.

Like, and so it's just understanding the why and the purpose starts to help you realize what's driving your behavior.

Is it something you really want?

You know, like when you're a teenager, maybe your why was, which again, the why is the goal.

And this is why the goal drives everything you do, including your identity.

You know, when you're younger, the why might have been just to impress your friends, right?

And so there's always a why behind every action.

And how psychologists frame it is, is every goal is either an approach-oriented goal where you're trying to approach what you want or you're trying to avoid what you don't want.

And so the why is always going to either be approaching something you want or avoiding something you don't want, you know?

And so

it's helpful when the why is more approach-oriented.

Sure, you want to avoid bad things from happening, but if everything you're doing is just to avoid negative things from happening, um, that kind of probably shows that there's a lot of trauma that's unresolved in the past, and so you're trying to avoid a lot of pain.

So, if you're wondering where to begin, don't start with a perfect business plan, start by asking better questions: what's the deeper reason I want to do this?

What's pulling me forward even when it's hard?

Because when your why is strong enough, you'll find a way.

But, young improfiters, knowing knowing your why is just the beginning.

The real challenge is moving on that why.

That's where most people falter.

They wait, they wait till they feel ready.

They wait till things are perfect.

But let's face it, the universe isn't ever going to just wait for you to be ready.

You've got to just get started.

And I'm proof of this myself.

It took me a lot of episodes to finally find my footing with Young and Profiting.

But if I had waited for the perfect timing or a flawless plan or the perfect episode, I'd probably still be stuck and not a podcaster right now.

But I didn't.

I just went for it.

I published episodes even when it felt messy or not perfect.

And once I did that, the right opportunities started to show up.

Simply put, success happens for those who take action, even when it's messy.

And no one breaks this down better than Mel Robbins, the best-selling author, speaker, and host of the Mel Robbins podcast.

When I asked her how she got started and why she waited so long to go public with her famous five-second role, she told me it all began with her taking action before she felt ready.

If you're waiting for permission, this is your wake-up call.

You did not not share this fully with the world for three years.

Correct.

You felt like you weren't, you know, ready to give advice, like who would want to listen to you.

You felt like you didn't really know the science behind it.

So how did you build up the confidence to then put it out to the world and put in the reps, quite frankly?

It's a great question.

And as you're listening to this conversation, whether you're in a car or you're at the gym or you're watching us on YouTube,

there is something that you want to do in life, whether it's launching a business or becoming an influencer or monetizing social or building a YouTube following or publishing books or maybe it's starting your own podcast.

I don't know what that thing is.

Maybe you want to become a touring musician.

Maybe you want to start a fashion line.

There is something in your heart.

Maybe you want a Lambo.

I don't know.

It's your goals.

Whatever it is that you want, I'm here to tell you

that

you

do not need anybody's permission.

And you do not need to

have it all figured out.

In fact, you're never going to have it all figured out.

And every single day that you talk yourself out of beginning

or taking one step forward is a day that you're keeping yourself locked in a prison of your own making.

Because if you know something that you want, how dare you withhold it from yourself?

How dare you talk yourself out of it?

How dare you sit there and spend more time and energy manufacturing excuses and worrying about what other people think?

You get one life.

And no one is coming to save you.

No one is coming to do the work for you.

Nobody is going to pick you from obscurity and make you a star.

Nobody is going to build the business that you want to build.

And while you're sitting there drinking with your buddies, bitching about your current job, or you are sitting there telling yourself, I don't know what to do.

Your whole life is waiting for you.

There's literally a door right in front of you that is waiting for you to reach out and freaking turn the knob and open it.

And I'm going to tell you something.

My secret to success is very simple.

I get out of fucking bed when I don't feel like it.

End of story.

And Yap Gang, Mel's totally right.

Waiting to feel ready is a trap.

But even after you commit, it's easy to fall into a different kind of paralysis, the productivity illusion.

You tell yourself you're making progress because you're soaking up information, researching every option, listening to every single podcast out there, but you're actually not making real progress and you might be slowing yourself down.

That's why entrepreneur Pat Flynn warns us against overlearning.

He told me more information can sometimes do more harm than good, especially when it keeps you from actually taking action.

So overlearning, I think we can all relate to this where we're subscribed to way more than we need to consume, whether it's YouTube channels, podcasts, books.

I mean, if you think about the way most of us consume books, we go and we read those books and we might then pick up the next one and then pick up the next one.

And if we implement anything, it might just be a small sliver of what we had just read.

And I think that's a waste of time.

And we're at a point now in the world where there's just so much information that we can pretty much get whatever we want whenever we want.

just in the in the power of our phone.

We could like all the information is out there.

And if information were the answer, we'd all be where we want to be, but we're not.

And the trouble is, not only are we now at this buffet line of information and stuffing our plates full of it and overconsuming, and similarly to like a diet, we are lethargic, we are tired,

we're overweight, if you will, with information.

We're also being force-fed information, right?

There's algorithms putting things in front of us that we don't even know we need.

And again, we're consuming it.

And when we think about like the brain and why we do that, we're treating information like it's a scarce food source.

Because, you know, if you go back to, you know, cave person days or whatever, if you come across a food source, you hoard it because you might not find another one later, right?

This is like survival.

The trouble is we're treating information in the same way.

And right now, we need to make that distinction between just in case learning, which is what we've all been doing, and just in time learning, which is finding exactly what you need for what it is that's most important to you right now, knowing that when you reach that next step or next phase, those resources will be there.

Yet, again, we are just, I don't know, conditioned, if you will, from school or just society on learning everything about everything first and then probably never taking action at all or, you know, convincing ourselves that there's just too much or we're not cut out for this.

The classic example of over-learning is the person who is in their car listening to just whatever the next podcast is on their list just simply because they have that time.

And although, and again, that was me for a while, although it sounds like you're being productive, there is also such a thing called over-inspiration, where you now get drawn over here, and then you get drawn over there, and then you get drawn over here.

And every time you say yes to that new thing, you're also saying no to the thing that you've already committed to and that you're never going to follow through with anymore.

What Pat said really hit me because over-consuming without action doesn't just waste your time, it drains your confidence too.

And as an entrepreneur, confidence isn't optional, it's the anchor that keeps you steady when everything else feels uncertain.

Dean Grazioszi understands this better than most.

As an entrepreneur and investor who's built more than a dozen successful companies, he says protecting your mindset isn't just helpful, it's essential.

Here's what Dean shared about becoming a warrior in your own mind.

You must protect your confidence.

In a shifting time, in a crazy time, in a time you want to grow, you have to protect your confidence.

You've never made a good decision when your confidence is down.

You didn't get the date.

You didn't get the relationship.

You didn't get the job.

You didn't get the sale.

You got nothing when your confidence is down.

You know that.

So you have to focus on anything you can.

Borrow confidence from the past.

Borrow confidence from a great podcast.

Borrow confidence from an incredible book.

Borrow confidence from a mantra.

I can do this.

I can do anything.

God gave me a gift and I'm going to bring it to life.

Whatever it is you need to do, you got to work on your mindset because, again,

not quoting simple quotes, but Henry Ford said, if you think you can, you will.

And if you think you can't, you won't.

And so it doesn't matter if you have the greatest business.

If you get in your head, you're dead.

If you get in your head thinking this is going to go wrong, inflation is going to kill me.

What's going to go on with this election?

You're focused so much on the outside.

Your business suffers.

So for me, I would say go upstream and work on you.

Become unstoppable.

Have a mind that you can question the negative thoughts.

You can observe and say, I get that part, but I'm going after the opportunity, not the obstacle.

I'm going to focus on what I have, not what I've lost.

And

I think you need to be a warrior inside your mind right now more than any other thing.

Because once you have that, I would absolutely go with someone with an unstoppable mindset and a C opportunity than someone who's scared with an A opportunity.

Now, having confidence doesn't mean you're always crushing it or walking around feeling bulletproof.

Real confidence is knowing how to steady yourself when things get shaky.

Because trust me, in entrepreneurship, they will.

You'll second-guess decisions, you'll face setbacks, but your ability to protect and rebuild belief in yourself is crucial.

Because after the big mindset shift and the decision to start comes the real work, facing fear, rejection, and failure, and then showing up anyway.

When we come back, you'll hear from entrepreneurs who've done just that and found power in the process.

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Welcome back to our Passion to Profit series.

The bigger your dream as an entrepreneur, the scarier it's going to feel.

That's just the truth.

The more something matters to you, the louder that fear will get.

But what if fear wasn't something to avoid, but rather something to use?

That's what Jay Salmon argues.

He's a digital media innovator and author of a very popular book called Disrupt You.

And he shared with me how you can learn how to use your fear as fuel instead of letting it shut you down.

The fear is something that can be harnessed.

Fear is a positive.

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the guru charlatans that say fear isn't real.

We are biologically hardwired to be fearful.

You're only here because your great ancestors saw that saber-toothed tiger and ran.

The people that weren't afraid of it were lunch, okay?

But athletes can harness fear to make adrenaline, which makes their heart pump more and they get better results.

So

if you're afraid of starting your company because you'll be embarrassed, because you'll fail, because you'll lose your money, you lose family money, you'll lose other people's money, all real fears.

But if you're crossing the street and a truck's about to run you over, you're not thinking about those fears.

You're thinking about the existential one of if I don't jump out of the way, I die.

So now let's put this in the context of those fears about your business.

If you're at a job where you're not growing, where it's just paying you to survive, but not to thrive and live, you're going to trade a day, a week, a year, a month, years, 10 years.

You're going to wake up one day and realize you gave away the most precious thing in the world, the only life you will have for what?

Nothing?

And if you don't believe me, go talk to your grandparents, go to an old age home, ask somebody at that stage what their biggest regret is.

It's not what they failed at.

It's what they failed to try so focus on that fear and the others seem inconsequential and if people make fun of you here's a tip i have yet to meet a hater that's doing better than i am yeah

they're making fun of because they don't have the guts to believe in themselves

investors would rather invest in somebody that's already failed once than somebody that's doing their first business because it shows that you have grit if fear is a signal that you're stretching yourself then discomfort is the proof.

That's how former IBM CEO Ginny Rometti sees it.

She argues that the presence of discomfort is often the best signal that growth is happening.

In our conversation, she shared how she reframed discomfort as a green light, not a red flag, and how that shift empowered her to take on the kinds of high-risk opportunities that helped her rise to the top of one of the world's biggest tech companies.

I came up with this phrase that growth and comfort never coexist.

And I started to associate risk with growth, meaning, hey, if I feel nervous, oh, this is excellent.

This means I am learning something.

And that to me is the most important.

We say, how did you eventually get there?

Because I was willing to then take on risky assignments, do risky things.

And, you know, they can go one way or another.

There are many that I thought, oh, God, this is going to kill me.

But they usually don't.

And you really keep building your skills.

I think that is the most important thing for it's true for people, men or women.

It's true for companies.

It's true for countries.

This idea that you will never get forward without that feeling of discomfort, right?

It's just how you choose to look at it.

If as Jenny says, discomfort is the clearest sign that you're growing, then courage is what helps you lean into that discomfort.

But courage isn't just being about fearless.

It's about choosing to face fear with preparation.

I had to learn that the hard way.

When I got fired from my first job at Hot 97, it felt like I lost a part of my identity.

I was Holla from Hot 97.

I had poured everything into that role.

And suddenly I was forced not to just re-evaluate my career, but who who I was without that Hot 97 badge of honor.

It was really painful, but that experience is what built my grit.

It taught me that early failure and rejection aren't just dead ends.

They're information.

They show you what to let go of and where to grow next.

That's exactly what Tina Wells, an entrepreneur and the CEO of Buzz Marketing Group, shared with me.

I asked her what her main piece of advice to new entrepreneurs would be.

And this is what she told me.

I would say, hands down, get curious, look at, you know, emerging technologies, Always be aware of where trends are going and things are headed.

And don't be scared because the more you know, the more you can decide how you're going to use those technologies.

So especially if you feel scared about something, move in that direction and get yourself into a practice of really not approaching anything with fear.

I think to be a great entrepreneur, you've got to be fearless.

And the best way to show up and be fearless is to have knowledge, right?

The whole idea knowledge is power

definitely means more today than it ever did.

And so I would say hands down, get curious.

Just because you've pushed through discomfort and done your homework doesn't mean that success is guaranteed.

You can do everything right and still fall flat.

And that's just part of the game.

The most successful entrepreneurs, well, they don't dodge setbacks.

They expect them, they learn from them, and they level up because of them.

Every flop sharpens your instincts and builds up resilience.

Dave Ramsey reminds us that most ideas will fail, and that's not a problem.

I'm convinced about 90% of the ideas that we've had at Ramsey, including me, during the 33 years I've done this, is

about 90% of them suck.

That we survived them.

We lost money.

We lost reputation.

We look back on that stuff and we look, that's pitiful.

You were awful.

Those old tapes make me laugh.

But do it anyway because you don't know which 10% is going to work.

Quit doing the stuff that doesn't work, obviously.

But, you know,

and every idea I have is a good one when I'm out walking in the morning, right?

Or having a cup of of coffee.

Every idea is a good one.

But when it hits the market, most of them aren't.

So go do it anyway and keep going, keep going, keep going.

Don't stop, don't stop, never quit.

Now, that was such great advice from Dave.

And it's true what he says.

Most ideas fail, but the only real failure is giving up.

So what happens when things don't go your way?

Well, you've really got two options, resist reality or lean into it.

The best entrepreneurs choose the latter.

They don't waste time wishing that things were different.

They use what is to fuel what could be.

That's also the heart of the Stoic philosophy, and nobody explains that better than Ryan Holiday.

He's a best-selling author of The Daily Stoic, and he and I talked about why embracing reality is the most underrated growth strategy out there.

Acceptance, which is what amorphati is about.

Acceptance means a love, or amorphati means a love of fate.

Acceptance can be a hard sell to entrepreneurs because they're sort of like, well, I didn't get here by just accepting things.

And so it feels passive or it feels weak.

But actually, you did get here because of acceptance.

You accepted that it's raining outside.

You accepted that you're going to need to raise money to start your business.

You accepted that

most people are busy and don't care about what you're doing.

And that's why you designed a marketing plan.

That's why you designed a fundraising plan.

That's why you got an umbrella, right?

Like, when you have to accept reality before you can set about changing it, or you can set about

succeeding despite it.

And so Amor Fatih is this idea that instead of resenting things, instead of dreading them, instead of wishing they were otherwise, you accept them for what they are.

You embrace them and you're like excited about it.

You love, it's like turning the have to into get-tos.

It's deciding to embrace it and love it.

and to love the challenge of it.

To me, that's what it's about anyway.

Once you learn to face setbacks head on, the next challenge is sticking with it, no matter what.

It's easy to stay committed when things are going well.

That's where high performers set themselves apart.

When things get tough, they double down.

Rory Vaden is an expert in influence and performance psychology, and he told me why true success starts when you remove plan B and go all in on plan A.

Anything that matters to you is going to be hard to let go of.

The things that matter to you are the things that you've put the most time and love and energy and money and prayer into.

Right.

So you go, if you lose a loved one, why is it so hard?

It's because we've spent so much time together.

We have so many shared experiences.

That's, you know, we have so many interests and stories.

And so

the irony is that the more we have invested into something, the less likely we are to let it fail.

Well, what most people do is they keep their commitments conditionally.

They keep their their commitments as long as they're convenient to do so.

But the moment it becomes inconvenient to keep that commitment, we typically question the commitment or we challenge ourselves to go, oh, you know, maybe this, maybe I'm not cut out for this or maybe it's not worth it.

And so they go in search of something easier.

And in reality, they find that there's not anything easier.

They keep showing up and the same issues replicate again and again in their life because they struggle with commitment.

And the real thing to do is when you are kind of tested to go, I'm not sure if this is going to work out.

I'm not sure if this is the right thing, is to increase your commitment.

You increase your level of investment, right?

If you're struggling on social media and you just go, well, gosh, maybe it's not cut out.

You know, I'm not cut out for that.

Well, of course, then it's not going to be successful.

But the people who are successful at it are the ones that go, no, I'm going to figure this out.

I'm going to spend more time, more energy.

I'm going to hire coaches.

I'm going to hire an agency.

I'm going to learn.

Like, I'm going to figure this out.

So, I think the difference here is going,

you don't have a plan B.

You only have a plan A.

Now, you have to be flexible to adapt what plan A is, but leaving or quitting or escaping is not one of the options.

And that is one of the secrets of ultra performers, right?

They, they lock in on a goal and they go, I am going, I am going to achieve this.

How or when, I'm not entirely sure, but

I'm target locked and I'm going to find a way.

Other people go,

I'll do it if it's comfortable.

I'll do it if it's safe.

I'll do it if it's easy.

But not ultra performers.

So here's where we land, Yapam.

If your dream matters to you, don't just dip a toe in.

Go all in.

As Rory Vaden reminds us, ultra performers don't treat commitment like a light switch.

They don't flinch when it gets hard.

They double down because being mentally prepared to become an entrepreneur doesn't mean you have it all figured out.

It means you're willing to act without certainty.

You expect fear and you show up anyway.

You welcome discomfort and see setbacks not as a stop sign, but as an invitation to rise.

And that's a wrap for episode one of Passion to Profit.

Thanks for tuning in.

We've laid the mindset foundation of entrepreneurship, and now it's time to get tactical.

Episode two of this series is all about crafting an offer your audience actually wants because big dreams are great, but a clear offer is what gets results and sales.

All right, Yap Gang, that's a wrap for episode one.

I'll see you in episode two.

And this is your podcast princess, Halataha, signing off.

I've got to give a huge thanks to Intuit for sponsoring today's episode.

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If you've got experience in tax and bookkeeping, or even if you're just getting started, this is an incredible opportunity with flexible scheduling and the chance to make a real impact in people's lives.

It's the perfect side hustle or main hustle.

So if you're ready to get started, visit intuit.com/slash expert to learn more or apply.

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