5 lessons from 365 days of Founders Only Club

read on: themovementmemo.com

read time: 5 minutes 

Welcome to The Movement Memo, a bi-weekly newsletter where I share actionable tips to help you live your best day ever, every day.

Today's Programming 

• Movement: (21-15-9)*3 

• Quote: Dalio on work and life

• Lesson: 5 lessons from 365 days of Founders Only Club

• Optimization: My travel gym equipment

Today's Movement 

Complete 3 rounds for time:

21-15-9

• Alternating sl-arm dumbbell snatches
• Calorie row

♀ 30 lb

♂ 50 lb

Today's Quote

I used to view business as purely transactional.

I had people I worked with and then I had my friends.

Now I mix work and pleasure and have a hell of a lot more fun as a by-product.

The people I work with have become some of my closest friends.

There is something about the shared struggle of building a company together that builds lifelong friendships.

Today's Lesson Learned

365 days ago I launched Founder’s Only Club, a community for founders, VCs, and creators who are shaping the future of the health and wellness movement in the United States: 

With my consulting work for brands, I started to notice trends and common problems that all of the founders were facing, and I wanted to create a space for us to learn, share our knowledge, and grow together. 

Over the past year, we hosted 6 events in unique locations across the country, spun up a VC syndication to help our community raise money, and built friendships that will last a lifetime. 

Here are 5 lessons I learned from the first year of Founder’s Only (and the 100s of founders who have joined): 

Entrepreneurship attracts a special breed; there is a certain type of person who is willing to take the jump into the unknown. In his book Principles of Life and Work, Ray Dalio classifies these people as “Shapers”, or “someone who comes up with unique and valuable visions and builds them out beautifully, typically over the doubts of others”.

The entrepreneurs who joined Founder’s Only ranged from first-time business owners who are pre-product, to fund managers raising/ deploying billions of dollars of capital. Their skill sets and specific knowledge varied, but their personalities and principles were eerily similar. 

1. No one builds wealth by accident

The people with the most wealth also have the most conservative spending habits. Sure some of them have a few toys, and they may take a trip here or there, but they’ve mastered the fundamentals of building wealth.

Wealth doesn’t come from spending money on frivolous items; they all have a high personal profit margin or a high spending-to-saving ratio, and they view building wealth as a game with long-tail asymmetric returns. 

But no one taught them how to have a good relationship with money. In their 20s they took a deep dive into books, papers, and asked mentors questions. 

Over time they developed their “unique” view of building wealth. But what most don’t realize is that all of them share the same principles. 

2. The most successful people in the world love learning (and they will spend to pay down their ignorance debt faster):

Most people don’t like learning. They get down with college and they stop reading, they stop writing, and they stop actively developing new skills. 

A Harsh Truth: You get compensated for the skills that you have. If you aren’t actively adding new elements to your game, your growth is capped. 

The best in the world are obsessed with learning. But they also value learning smart. If they believe someone has the answers to their questions or has already mastered the skill they are trying to learn, they will do anything to learn from them.

Smart people hate wasting time or learning a skill on their own rather than having someone teach them.

3.  They’ve all had losers.

On the outside entrepreneurship looks amazing: control over your time, who you work with, and what you work on. 

In reality, it’s extremely difficult, stressful, and lonely, and no one has a perfect track record. 

Anyone who says they do is either too early in the game (don’t listen to them) or they’re lying.

To make money, most people have to lose money because they aren’t smart enough in the beginning.

People place the wrong bets, misread signals, or don’t develop a sound business model and rush in too soon. 

This happens to everyone, but the best learn from it quickly, and never make the same mistake twice. 

Additionally, once they realize the ship is going down, they sever their ties quickly.

2 founders in the past 90 days have returned investor capital because their idea wasn’t working, even though they had an additional 14 months of run rate.

In the short term, this hurt. In the long-term, their investors asked them to visit them first on their next venture because these actions built trust.

The entrepreneurship world is small; prioritize your reputation and word over everything else. 

3. Expand your time horizon.

The most successful people I know have a longer time horizon than anyone else.

They play 10, 20, and 30-year games that allow the power of compounding to take effect.

They spend all year making a few big decisions and then execute at a rapid rate once they decide.

This is a luxury that comes with experience.

However, early in your career, you don’t have the experience and insight that comes with age.

But you do have energy. Develop a bias for action, and make more decisions faster than anyone else.

This will decrease the amount of time it takes to develop the insight you need in your field.

Recognize that you’re 6 months into a 60-year career.

4. Niche down and differentiate

How do you become the best in the world at something? You do one thing over and over again for an extended period of time. Everything comes down to sets and reps. 

Eventually, you develop a reputation around “doing X”.

If you try to do everything, you will be great a nothing.

In 20 years, the wealth gap will be worse than it is today because only the experts will be significantly compensated. If you’re average you’re not going to last. AI will be able to do your job:

1. Faster

2. More Consistently (less emotionally)

3. Cheaper

To protect against that, determine where your interests overlap with your “natural” abilities and double down.

Do that one thing extremely well and protect against everything else at all costs.

5. Successful People Remember What It Was Like to Be Young (and they like helping others become successful):

People only see successful people where they are today; they can’t go back in time and see them struggling just like young, ambitious recent college grads are today.

But the struggles that you face today are what build you into the person you become tomorrow.

And you never forget your origin story. 

Successful people started exactly where you are today, inspired by the people who came before them, young, inexperienced, hungry, and motivated.

If you take initiative and develop a bias for action, people will notice and want to help you.

Unsuccessful people view “success” like a game of “King Of The Hill” that we all used to play as kids. They think those at the top are actively trying to push others down, to protect their position at the top. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Successful people love helping other people become successful, but the truth is it’s hard. There aren’t any shortcuts and it requires work. A lot of work. 

A lot of people receive a ton of feedback, suggestions, and recommendations but very few people act on them.

The ones that do and the ones who eventually become “King Of The Hill”. 

Today's Optimization

Everyone who knows me knows that I am huge on routines and building my day around my list of Tiny Wins. I love to travel because seeing new places, being around new people, and mixing up my environment inspires me and boosts my creativity. However, I hate how travel impacts my ability to train, which is why I always keep a RX Smartgear jump rope in my travel bag.

It removes any doubt about whether or not I will be able to get to a gym for a workout and allows me to train wherever I am. Plus, I like to control everything about my training. I don’t want to rely on a gym to “maybe” have the right-sized rope for me. I want to control the controllable, and keeping my RX Smartgear with me is a little thing, but it adds up over time. Today RX Smartgear is offering  Movement Memo subscribers a deal: 15% off your purchase using code “EHINMAN”

Know friends, training partners, or co-workers who would take value from weekly tips on a healthier lifestyle, enhanced accountability, and improved routines? Thanks for sharing!

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Publisher: Eric Hinman

Editor-in-chief: Bobby Ryan