How 8-figure minds think

Models for superior growth

Last week, I hosted a group of fantastic entrepreneurs for a “mastermind” of sorts.

All of them over the $1M mark, most over $5M annually, a few over 8-figures.

I know these people well.

My “job” is amazing. I’m in the trenches with founders & owners, navigating complexities, problems & opportunities — and these entrepreneurs are some of the best.

They all have teams. They’re all comfortable spending money (lots of it) to run successful organizations. And they’re missional — as in, it’s about more than a paycheck.

I’ve studied a lot of Jim Collins (Good to Great, Great By Choice, etc) and a common theme with long-term successful companies is this: they are MISSION-ORIENTED. The money is a means to an end for some, a byproduct for others (a byproduct that must be tracked & managed).

But the money is not the “end goal.”

Here are 8 traits of successful CEOs, founders & entrepreneurs that you must model if you are to be successful.

If you’re rather watch this, you can do so here.

8 Figure Lessons

• They know what they want and pay for it (dues paid on every level)

You see them consistently setting pricy targets and paying to hit them. Not just monetarily — mentally, emotionally, and physically, too.

• Theirs words and their activities line up (if you say you want something and then sleep through every opportunity to get it, you should just quit)

A horrible place to be is when you don’t trust yourself. The only way out of this spot is to line your mouth and your actions up and keep them aligned.

• They learn quickly (mistakes happen but they’re optimized mentally to not repeat them… one mistake is a lesson, two mistakes in the same area is just stubbornness)

In the video, I talk about a time I was training a bunch of sales hooligans. This was a repeated theme: learn it the first time, it’s a competitive advantage.

• Their lives are hard but they enjoy it (if you can’t reframe difficulty and lean into it you don’t deserve to be a winner)

Check out the “Upside of Stress” book — it talks about how stress can be a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it. A friend of mine recently was complaining about how his hormones are out of balance due to stress.

Not true. It’s his relationship with stress… humans were built to endure stress & pressure. Get better at managing the pressure and you unlock a key to moving up in rank.

• They get mad when they perform underneath their threshold (high expectations, high standards, high targets; none of them are justifying anything)

Professional athletes who are actually good hate underperformance. They don’t justify it with anything. Try to talk Michael Jordan into a good mood after a sloppy performance… you’re wasting your time.

• They’re not busier than you (poor people are busier than rich people… if you’re busy, so busy you can’t respond to people or consume the right information — it means you have no control… control of time leads to control of money)

A common misconception in today’s society is that busy = success. It doesn’t. The lazier you are intellectually, the busier you are physically.

• They have good partners at home (none of them, neither the women OR the men, have ever said ‘Oh this sounds great but my spouse isn’t in so sorry no’)

Self-explanatory…

One of my good friends is married to an absolute killer. They don’t move forward if either of them have a problem or level of uncomfort about something. The key is, she’s smart, he’s smart — and they’re both missionally headed in the same direction…

It’s important to find a good partner or you’re dead in the water.

• They are not afraid of failing (they’re terrified of wasting time or anything taking longer than it NEEDS to… the ratios are optimized for growth & improvement, not safety and “security”)

I can predict how you’re going to do in your business by these things.

Lock them in…

And watch the video below for some extra context.

-Taylor