#A Lesson on Focus…
By: Tai Karun, Internet Entrepreneur
Tags: Business, Focus, E Commerce Business, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur

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A well-known challenge for entrepreneurs is our battle with focus and selecting which of our ideas gets priority over the others.

If you’re a seasoned hustler, then there’s no doubt you’ve battled with ‘Shiny object syndrome’ i.e. the temptation to halt/quit an existing hustle for something newer/popular that seems to be making others a lot of money.

What I’m about to share is my experience on the matter, the pain it caused & the lessons learned in hopes that it adds value to you on your journey.

My Story

In 2015, when I decided to ditch the path of the many and create my own lane of success, I pretty much dived head first into uncharted waters without the knowledge of ‘how’ I would achieve my goals.

As a result, the first 3 years of business would be filled with a lot of losses, broke days/weeks & juggling multiple things at once to keep me afloat.

However, things were very good at times.

At one point I considered creating a clothing line called R.O.T.N (Rich Off The Net), having set up a simple eBay store that sold 10K worth of sports memorabilia to American football fans per/month, netting £3.5K in profits with overheads of just £150.

In hindsight small money, but we gotta start from somewhere.

Imagine a young 22 y/old who had never made that type of money working 40+ hours a week at a regular job, now doing so working less than a few hours a day…

How?

Systems! — but we will dive into this in tomorrow’s email.

I pretty much became unemployable!

My thoughts:

“If I can build a profitable 10k p/m business this with minimal resources and overheads, I can definitely scale to higher revenue/profit amounts in no time”.

The universe however:

After 6 months of building my profitable online store, I received a notice of suspension from eBay for concerns pertaining to copyright infringement/licensing (hey I was ignorant to the all legal sh*t then 😂🤷🏿‍♂).

The worst thing about the news was by far the timing 😩.

I received the email minutes before boarding a flight to Greece with my girlfriend, so the level of “flexing” I had planned for the trip was cut by about 100%.

Me at the departure gate:

On my return from Greece, I was met with an indefinite suspension notice, and a once very lucrative income stream gone!

The thoughts running through my mind at the time were those of:

“Why didn’t I…what did I do with… I should’ve”

…and a whole bunch of other ramblings that would and could not change the reality of my situation.

It was at that moment that I decided to never depend on one income again!

A very wise thing to do, but as I’ll shortly reveal, how you go about actualising it can either make or break you.

Starting again from ground 0 was not hard at all.

I was now equipped with the knowledge and experience of how to start a lean profitable online business, and this time I could build it in 4x the speed.

However, the thought of building another profitable stream of income only for it to be snatched away began to plague my thoughts.

In an effort to prevent it ever recurring, I did what I recommend no serious entrepreneur even consider…

And that is set up and run multiple businesses at the same damn time.

I had worked on the eBay platform before, so setting that up was a breeze.

My cousin’s details were used to bypass the indefinite suspension obstacle, and I started dabbling in both the Amazon FBA and Print On Demand T-shirt business models.

My thoughts were:

“If I can figure out what works for each business model and apply the lessons of effective business systemisation and delegation from Mike Gerber’s book “The E-Myth”, I would have three profitable internet based businesses running simultaneously that would generate a combined total of £200k p/m in revenue, and pay myself a humble income amount of £10K per/month”

Hey…I was young and had no clue what tax avoidance was let alone why I would need the knowledge 🤷🏿‍♂️.

To avoid overextending this story, I found myself in a position that had my focus/energy completely scattered, hopping from one business operation to another daily, trying to make sure everything was in order, my virtual assistants were doing the right jobs, and most importantly we were profitable.

After 6 months of this, I started to see it’s a negative effect on my person, as I was stressed, fatigue settled in & the results for all the businesses began to dip drastically.

I knew that how I went about things was all wrong, and that if I wanted to do things the right way, it was imperative that I focused my energy on building one business at a time, systemizing our processes to ensure we were well oiled and profitable, and then hiring the right people to run the day to day operations before I moved onto the next venture.

It took 6 months of financial loss, physical fatigue and mental stress before I realised this, and if you read on I will share the core lesson I took from the whole experience.

The Lesson: Order Consequences

At this point in life, I was very fortunate to have great counsel from the mentors & coaches I had built relationships with along the journey.

By now you should be familiar with one of the main lessons:

“The only difference between a light that illuminates a room & a laser that cuts through steel is its focus”

However, the more crucial lesson was one explained to me by my first ever business coach Oscar — and it was the concept of ‘Order Consequences’.

What the concept demystifies is the real consequences of conscience decision making, and how important making decisions with the concept in mind should be to those seeking a balanced & fulfilled life.

Example:

A man’s goal is to live a life of wealth, peace & thrill while being able to give freely to people and causes he loves.

On the pursuit of this life goal, he comes across many opportunities that claim they can help him attain it.

One day when seeking thrill he meets a lady who embodies just that, but quickly realises that she poses a threat to both his peace (wife & kids) and wealth (Lawyer fees) if…. he gives into immediate gratification 🙃.

Order consequences:

1st: Pleasure (90% of you need to practice self-control 😂)

2nd: Divorce (If caught…don’t cheat 👀)

3rd: An ugly custody battle.

In this case, it is clear to see that indulging in the first order consequence of pleasure may provide immediate gratification, but the 2nd & 3rd order consequences ultimately lead to outcomes far away from his desired life goals.

If human beings were able to map out the order consequences of all life’s important decisions and identify what consequences would move them closer or further away from their personal fulfilment, they would (well not everybody… some of you are weird 🤷🏿‍♂).

How This Relates To Focus

I shared the above example to demonstrate how one can apply the concept to real life scenarios.

In the case of an entrepreneur, our problems are pretty unique, and the decisions we make affect the livelihood of pretty much everything/anyone we touch.

Therefore, it is vital that we concentrate our energy and focus on one project at a time, making room for great decision making that can stimulate great results.

Doing it any other way only leads to stress and empty pockets!

For emphasis:

“The only difference between a light that illuminates a room & a laser that cuts through steel is its focus”

The statement holds true in so many cases, but even more true with entrepreneurs due to the extreme focus needed to sell a vision, raise capital, lead teams, make profit, pursue personal passions, balance family life, all while trying to stay healthy (physically, mentally & spiritually).

Who would wanna double or even triple that workload?

Summary

Dream big! But focus on one thing at a time — Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Focus on systemising your business and hiring competent managers to run it’s day to day (Purchase this book: The E-myth by Mike Gerber).

Understand the concept of order consequences and have it in mind during important business and life decisions.

Love,

Tai Karun

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