Get Yourself A Jockey
About 15 years ago, a buddy and I, Dean, were going to be an action coach. The coach’s name was Todd down in South Charlotte. It was a franchise that Brad Sugar started to help businesses, like a business coaching franchise. Todd owned this little local vicinity in Charlotte, but he reported to a guy named Steve who owned the territories or licensing for North and South Carolina. So, when Todd would talk, occasionally he'd refer to Steve.
At the time, my buddy was running a window cleaning company and I was in real estate. And in these talks, I keep hearing about how Steve owned all these businesses. Not just these action franchises, he had his hand in all these other things, maybe 10 different businesses. I wondered how he was able to do that. I couldn’t do one, my buddy couldn’t do one, how is this guy doing 10 or even five?
So, I started pestering Todd about meeting Steve. And I can be pretty persistent and consistent. He would reply, “Paul, Steve's really busy. I don't even see him myself.” And I continued every week that we met asking if I could meet Steve even for just 10 minutes. Long story short, I must have pestered him sufficiently enough.
This was like a Blue Vase thing. If you've ever heard, there's a book called The Blue Vase about being a go-getter and the character goes on a quest. But no excuses, he just got the job done. Todd eventually texted me at 11:30 at night to tell me that I was meeting Steve at 6.30 in the morning. That may be an exaggeration a little bit. It was the next morning.
I get to the meeting. I'm all nervous. I see Todd, I see Steve. I'm this little dude. I sit down and Todd says, “Oh, you made it.” And I tell them, of course. Todd introduces me to Paul. And then Paul asks me, “How can I help you?” I tell him how much I wanted to meet him. And then share with him that I’m struggling with one business and wanted to know how he managed to have so many businesses.
Steve tells me that Todd had shared a bit about my situation at the time. And then he asks me a very powerful question for the Christian entrepreneur, the coach. “Do you like to start things?” and goes on about how I have a lot of ideas and I agree. And then he asks, “Do you like to like to stay with those things long-term and finish them?” And I'd never thought of that before. I'd never seen that. It was a blind spot. I tell him, “Now that you mentioned it, not really.”
He then proceeded to tell me about this principle of the business starter and the business finisher. There's a certain entrepreneurial creative energy that loves to start things. But then conversely, there's the person that hates change and that just loves to run on the rails. That's the finisher. And here's what he said to me that it was a radical thing. He said, “Paul, every business needs a jockey.”
I had no idea what he meant. But I was interested and asked him to tell me more. He explains that the jockey rides the horse. And then I asked well, how do you find a jockey? He goes on to say that jockeys are people that have already run their business, they don't like the hassles, don't like the headaches. They just want security.
The E-myth, the entrepreneur myth, is running your business is great. Well, if you can't handle the fire, the security is what you're after. Being an entrepreneur is almost the opposite. So, find somebody who has run a business, and bring them on. Give them enough compensation and then give them some incentive. Real simple.
And then you can still have the visionary, but you got the thing running. And so since then, people have talked about Rocket Fuel as a book where they talk about the visionary and the integrator. But Steve taught me this a long time ago. The principles are around forever, like the general manager, the COO, and the operations.
And so I came back. literally on the way home from that meeting, because it was literally about an hour and a half away. I was praying, I was downloading, I was thinking, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. Because what I'm doing ain't working. So within a couple of months, I hired my first jockey, pressed into that, and that's what allowed my wife and I to go take that vacation. And that was our first seven-figure business. And so that idea of jockey, I've always had in play since then, to this day.
I think of it now in terms of you got a business jockey, but you also have a division jockey. We've also had a home jockey for the last five years, except for a handful of months here or there. We go to care.com, we hire somebody, they come, they do our laundry, they do a light cleanup, they prep meals, they change sheets, they make sure toilet paper's filled, they sometimes shuttle our kids around. They go to the grocery store. It takes a massive amount of focus load from my wife and I. Home jockey. So that concept is I think incredibly powerful if you are a visionary entrepreneur. Lots of ideas. You need to have a project manager or a jockey to be able to execute those. Otherwise, it'll be very frustrating because you have all these ideas building up, but you have no expression, no outlet.
Or if you try to do it, you're not great at it and you dilute it all down and I'm still guilty of that to this day. It’s an important principle. It's a biblical principle. The apostles decided to hire somebody. Moses relied on his staff. Abraham and Lot had shepherds that were fighting over the water. So, they delegated, they had jockeys. And that's it, that's the only way that we can elevate out to create more white space, create more time, focus on our talents, and just sit there with a Bible, a yellow pad, look at the beach, download. What's the vision, Lord? What's next? What do you want us to do? And I'll just say this in conclusion.
I heard this on Osteen's podcast, and I thought it was fascinating. He was talking about a seed. A seed is just an amazing thing. If you think about it, you can plant the same, you can plant different seeds in the same soil. And that seed has the blueprint, the architecture to call forth the exact nutrients it needs to produce a tomato plant or a redwood, right? The seed is in the ground and it's getting stomped on and pressure in darkness. But the seed doesn't have to do anything except rely on how God created it for it to do its own thing. And what was fascinating was, Osteen was talking about how God is so articulate, such an attention to detail. Now that's part of his nature.
There are parts of his nature that are free-flowing, but there is a part of his nature that has a structure and a plan. If that's true, which it is, then that means that we are all planted at this time in the world for this economy, this culture, this post-COVID-ness, this time to be the light and to be the salt. He could have had us a hundred years ago. He could have had us a hundred years from now, but we're here today. And it's no accident. It's no mistake of all the.
I don't even know how many millions of sperm have to go find the egg. Like, he picked that one. So we're here for a reason, for a mission. And if you're a Christian entrepreneur, a Christian coach, your reason is to harvest and grow and be more tomorrow than you are today and enjoy it, both in the business, what you're doing, also outside of the business with your time, with your family, with your resources.
There are three critical things that I've learned over my twenty-plus years, evaluating over one hundred and fifty different business models as a Christian entrepreneur.
I've put together my observations and these three keys (I learned the hard way) into a Christian Entrepreneur Manifesto, along with some step-by-step walk-throughs and demonstrations.
There is no opt-in required.
It walks through my favorite model, the Finders model.
It might be interesting for a Christian looking to start something new or for the first time to escape the "business running them vs. them running their business" or the nine to five and not to have to work for themselves or someone else until the age of eighty.
Check it out here:
https://christianentrepreneurinc.com/go-video
I hope it helps!
Blessings,
Paul
PS: God is a big God.
He gives us above and beyond what we can ask or think.
We must ask big.
We must think big.
And if we don't, it's not His fault if we live limited.
Work hard, pray harder, and never ever ever ever quit.
You've got this!
PPS: Whenever You’re Ready... Here's How I Can Help You Generate An Additional $5 to $10k Per Month Or More:
- Check Out Our Christian Entrepreneurship Manifesto
Learn why some "make it" and others don't - Access More Articles Like This
Sharpen your Mindset, Model, and get Mentored - Watch Our Christian Business Incubator Training
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