In this last installment of Ken Courtright’s Ten Most Profound Things, he explains why you’re repeatedly stuck in the same jam you’ve been in before and lets you in on a hard truth every entrepreneur should accept. Discover and take advantage of your limitations in this episode.
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The Brain
The Brain That Got You Into The Jam Cannot Be The Brain That Gets You Out Of The Jam
This is episode number 10 of a 10-part series on the concept of profound. In this series, I dropped ten different nuggets of what I believe were the ten most profound things that effected my 23, 24-year business career. These are the things that escalated Kerri and I’s business either forward or saved us from going backward. If you haven’t read the previous nine, they’re short, 3 to 10 minute snippets, you might want to review them. This is number ten. This is episode 138 overall and this one is titled The Brain.
The subtitle of this hopefully profound little concept is, “The Brain That Got You into the Jam Cannot Be the Brain That Gets You out Of the Jam.” This is a takeoff from Einstein. His belief was, “Your brain and all the collective knowledge and wisdom that you have got you to the point you’re at now.” If you’re into a jam of some kind, a financial jam, an employee jam or especially if it’s a repetitive jam that you find yourself in again. Einstein’s concept was the whole centerpiece of a mastermind group. Meaning, you are one person.
Entrepreneurs are thick-skinned and hard-headed. They won't simply reach out for help. Click To TweetYou collectively have your life’s wisdom and you’ve made decisions leading you to this point. If you’re in a jam and it’s a tight one, the odds are strong that your vision of what might not get you out of there. Quite frankly, if it could’ve, it probably already would’ve. It’s something to consider. To give you some ideas of how impactful and how real this is, Steve Jobs was fired from Apple. The founder of the company, the guy that built it with everything he had and gave it everything he had. He got the company to a size that involved the board of directors and investors. The bottom line is, Steve could only get the company so far based on his knowledge and wisdom. It needed a collective board to take it to the next step.
In Steve’s case, in fairness to Steve, the board didn’t do any better. He ended up coming back to the company, take it to a step further, but there was another board that he’s passed on. He continued to take it much further than Steve. There have been countless entrepreneurs that are dealing continuously with this challenging issue. The reason I kept this to number ten and the last one is this, entrepreneurs, as a rule, are thick-skinned and hardheaded. Meaning they will things to happen. For them to absorb that, they can only get something so far to where they’re going to have to step aside and bring other brains in, it sometimes simply doesn’t compute. I’ve struggled with this my whole life. At points in my past, I’ve brought in BrainTrust and it escalated us. I’ve also brought in BrainTrust and it’s crushed us.
There is an incredible book that allows an entrepreneur to keep their own brain on the issue and try to muscle through it. It’s called Illuminate by David Corbin. It is outstanding. I’ve read it 1.5 times and dog-eared the heck out of that book. It’s truly amazing because if there is a way to get through something that you got yourself into, illuminating is maybe the only way to do it. What I have found is that still illuminating is only going to get you so far. Especially if it’s a growth challenge, you’re probably going to have to at some point bring in outside brainpower.
I want to keep this short. It’s more of a challenge to those reading to ask yourself, “Are you currently in a situation where before things got tough or could be tough to where maybe you should bring in some outside counsel to help you?” Are you in a pickle and in your heart of hearts, “I’m not going to make it through by myself.” I’ve been here before time and time again. This is a repetitive character flaw that you’re sitting in the middle of. I left this to the last one because this is profound. I know many entrepreneurs that will simply not reach out for help.
Quite frankly, there’s a lot of serial entrepreneurs that are serial entrepreneurs because they get the seven-year itch and they’ve got to do something else. It isn’t that they have to do something else, they can’t get past the seven-year spot. They’re unwilling to bring in outside help so they sell off what they have and start something new. It’s kind of a phenomenon. It’s an interesting study. I’m hoping this helps that the fact is and the proof shows that the brain that got you into a jam quite often cannot possibly get you out of a jam. Take care.
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