1561: Answer this question and you'll find COMPOUNDING GAINS for your future self!

0:00Hey, what is up? Welcome to this episode of the watch opener to entrepreneur podcast. As always, I'm your host, Brian LoFramento, and this is a very special solo week where I am sharing with you the questions that I ask myself that lead me directly in the path of growth. I'm so excited to share these with you. It kicked off yesterday. So if you did not tune into yesterday's episode, definitely make sure you do that. That is episode number 15601560. Today, I'm going to share another question with you. I'm excited about it. Let's dive in. Now, obviously, as the host of a podcast, I am very much of the belief that when you ask good questions, you tend to find good answers. If you don't ask questions at all, then you're going to find way fewer answers in life and in business. And that's why I argue so frequently that we must be asking ourselves questions. We must be reflecting. We must be intentional. And that's where we can use

1:05either the calendar, a lot of people wait for January 1st or a catalyst, a spark from somewhere else. And that's why this week's episodes, I really hope invite you and encourage you and are that spark for you to sit down and say, you know what? It's time because next year starts right now. I want to start being super intentional and strategic with a way that I'm spending my time with a way that I'm growing my business and with the way that I'm growing myself. Because if I start doing these things today, I know that the results are going to start showing up. Maybe not tomorrow, but definitely in the new year. That's ahead. I feel like way too many people wait for the end of the year before even thinking about the new year. But good things compound, good things stack up. Lots of good things happen when you start being intentional. So yesterday, I shared a really big question in that episode, which is quite simply where is my universe expanding? And today,

2:06I want to share a completely different question with you. And one that gosh, every time I feel like I lean on this question, I come up with really good answers. And I tend to do the things that are the most impactful in my life and in my businesses. And this question quite simply is, what am I doing today? Or can I do today that I will appreciate five or 10 years from now? What am I doing today? Or what can I be doing today that I'm going to appreciate five or 10 years from now? Now, this question for me personally does some big things because every single time I ask it, it instantly in my head, I can feel a shift where I recognize and I acknowledge the fact that most of my decisions that I make today on a daily basis are decisions that drive forward growth today. But the truth is the biggest growth things that we can do, the most transformative things

3:09that we can do both in life and in business, those take time a lot of time usually. Think about this podcast. This month, we are going to celebrate this podcast's 10th birthday. And that's why when people ask me about how do you grow a successful podcast, I can't help myself. Part of the answer to that question simply is time. If I judged the merits of this podcast during our first year of being on air, well, it wasn't nearly as big as it is today. We didn't have listeners in over 150 countries. We were certainly not ranked top 1% of all podcasts on planet earth and one of the top 200 when it comes to business and marketing. None of those stats that blow my mind today were true in the first year or even two years or even three years. It took time. And so whenever I ask myself this question, it makes me realize that of course, as a business owner, I need to make a living in an order to do that. I need to be making immediate decisions today level decisions. However,

4:13the biggest things the podcast is one of the biggest parts of my entire ecosystem. It is truly my microphone to the world, which is a very powerful platform. I'm so grateful for all of you listeners worldwide. And I'll never forget in 2017 when I announced my first retreat. It's sold out because of all of you amazing podcast listeners that wanted to fly out to a mention in San Diego and hang out with me and my team and create some really special things. And I remember when I launched my second book, where did I announce it here on the air and all of the amazing businesses that have been launched, grown, scaled, exited thanks to so many incredible guests that come on here and you listeners take action on those things, which impacts the real world. And so the reason why I'm talking about all of this under the guys of the podcast is because the podcast is one of the answers that I came up with to this exact question that I'm sharing with you today. And so if I think all the way back to 2016 when I started this podcast, I did not reap any rewards from this

5:18podcast launching in 2016. I started to reap some rewards in 2017. For example, when I sold out my first ever retreat, that was really cool. But that was the culmination of me choosing many months prior in many sessions where I sat behind this microphone and hit record. And most importantly, I hit publish. It took time to get to that point. And so I frequently think about all of those little actions. For example, when I started selling online courses back in the mid 2010s, what was the biggest thing that allowed me to thrive there? I had an email list. I had built an audience way before I had the podcast as a platform. I was very intentional about building an email list. And you start to see how all of these things compound. Yet these big things, a podcast, an email list, a social media channel, a YouTube channel, whatever it may be, those are big long term things that we will not reap the rewards of. And that's why I love this growth question of what am I doing or

6:21can I be doing that I'm going to appreciate in five to 10 years? I think that it's really important to for all of us that we should be doing short term things and long term things because the lag between our actions and our results is very different depending on what actions we take. And so right now saying this out loud, for example, I know that showing up across different platforms, picking a platform, it's something that I have a lot of friends who are very successful YouTubers and I have not taken the time in the past decade or so to ever crack the YouTube nut. And so I always ask my friends, what was it about YouTube? How did you crack that nut? And it's certainly not an easy nut to crack, but they decided some time ago that that's the thing that they're going to do today that their future self will be thankful for. And I've shared this here on the air before. It's one of the most valuable lessons I've ever got from my mom. She still says it to this day to me is the time will pass anyways. I remember as a

7:24little kid how frequently I would complain about, oh, I really want to like French, for example. I took French as a kid in middle school and high school. And I remember being like, oh my gosh, some people are fluent so many languages. My mom's fifth language is English. And she said to me, she's like, we'll keep studying. And I studied day in and day out. And guess what happens when you study a new language on a daily basis? Absolutely nothing. You have to wait six months, nine months, a year, multiple years in order to get the result of fluency or even being conversational. And so when I was in those moments where I got discouraged, my mom always reminded me the time is going to pass anyways. Whether you do the thing or don't do the thing, six months is going to pass. Nine months is going to pass. A year is going to pass. And you either will have made six months, nine months, a year of progress, or you won't have. And the same is true for personal health and wellness and

8:27fitness. Just think about it. One thing that you and I can and should be doing that we are certainly going to appreciate five or 10 years from now is working out is taking care of ourselves is eating cleanly. Do we get to see those results on a daily basis? No, we most certainly do not. However, by asking this question, by accepting a very different timeline, then we typically operate on in our day to day, we tend to find those bigger answers that if we stick with it, and if we remind ourselves that our future self is going to appreciate it five or 10 years from now, then we can start slowly making progress in that direction. And so in our businesses, I've always loved I've brought it up in quite a few guest conversations. I've always loved that concept of you're always building two businesses simultaneously, the business that you have today and the business that you're going to have five years from now. And it took me a very long time to understand

9:29that concept and that premise as an entrepreneur because I very openly still to this day I stand by I very openly had the feeling of I can't predict what's what's going to be true five years from now. And that's true. I still stand by that notion here today. However, what I have realized in making longer term decisions, particularly as I matured in my later 20s and obviously now I'm in my mid 30s, what I realize is that even though we can't predict the future five or 10 years from now, we have no idea. I think five or 10 years from now, it's going to be a very different place. I do know what good things look like. I do know that picking a platform and building that platform and building an audience and having reach and exposure and and a captivated audience that loves you because you consistently serve them. That's only a good thing. And I also know that that takes a long time. And so if you are doing that today or you start doing that today, you're only going to appreciate it five

10:29or 10 years from now. And so that's why I love this question. It's a different time horizon. Obviously we shouldn't only be doing things that we're going to appreciate five or 10 years from now because we need to exist today. We need to win today. We need to make an impact today. We need to get paid today. There are all sorts of today pressures that we have to find those answers to. But the reason why I'm recording this episode and sharing this question for you is it's easy for us to focus on those today. Thanks. It's very easy because those are the things we're confronted with. So that's why I really believe that zooming way out and asking this big question at least quarterly and definitely annually of what am I doing or can I be doing today that I'll appreciate five or 10 years from now only leads to good things. And when you mix that in with consistency and discipline and that time horizon where things compound, holy cow your entire life and business

11:33can transform. So that's just two questions so far to kick off this week. I'm really sharing with you the good stuff that I reflect on when it comes to what are those next levers and next inflection points of my growth journey both personally and professionally. I hope you're stealing these from me and most importantly I hope you're sitting with them. Yesterday's question was where and how is my universe expanding and today's question is what am I or can I be doing that I'm going to appreciate five or 10 years from now. I'm excited to keep this series rolling this week. We've got some really special stuff in store for you this month and beyond but this month is the show's 10th birthday. So I'm super excited about that. So pound that subscribe button because we'll be coming at you every single day right here on the Wancher Pner to Entrepreneur podcast.