1 Thing All Successful Business Owners Do

At a high level, my personal brand focuses on helping people live a live they love.

There are three key elements that everyone needs to live their best life:

1. Self-reliance. A lack of freedom and autonomy is soul-sucking. It's hard to love life when you have little control over what you do or when you do it.
2. Making good money doing what you love. You won't love life if you don't enjoy your work or constantly stress about making ends meet.
3. Achieving your goals. Everyone has desires. Whether you want to lose weight or eliminate grunt work, you won't be happy if you can't make it happen.

If you can dial these in, your life will improve. It's that simple.

Unfortunately, many 9-5ers lack in one or more of these areas. I was one of them and remember the pain of working for others:

• 3% raises (if you’re lucky)
• Little control over your schedule
• Stuck with grunt work (even as you become more senior)

And this barely scratches the surface. The list could go on for days.

Most frustrated 9-5ers lack autonomy. They don't make good money doing what they love. And they don't know how to fix it.

That’s why I built my online coaching mentorship program.

I help them make good money doing work they love so they can become free and autonomous.

So today, I want to talk about one of the biggest things I see holding people back from living a life they love.

And I'll show you how to overcome it.

Why You Need to Move with Speed

Last week I explained the Trio of Effectiveness — the three key ingredients to achievement.

But I didn't talk about an essential variable:

Speed.

Speed determines how fast you achieve these goals — if at all.

Andrew Tate has 100 business lessons in his Hustler's University program. And he chose speed as his number one rule of business.

Regardless of what you think of him, his logic is sound.

When I look at my past, all my successes revolve around one major attribute: my ability to decide and act quickly.

The opposite is also true. My failures were filled with overthinking and slow decision-making. This led to little progress or worse (and more often), no action.

For five years I worked in the social skills niche. I wanted to coach people because I knew it would create fast income and experience.

But I didn't. It scared me. I was uncertain. And even though I pondered it, I avoided the ultimate decision — starting.

Then, I hired Jose Rosado to help me with online business. We both agreed I should offer coaching. And he urged me to act ASAP.

Once I did, things happened fast. I put my offer out there. I made sales. I got experience.

And I made more money in those eight weeks than I did in the previous five years.

Speed was the sole game-changer here. He didn't teach me how to coach. He didn't lend me his audience.

He got me to take immediate action and that's all I needed.

Here's a visual representation of the differences between moving slow and moving fast:

Actions, like money, compound over time.

• If you grow 1% every week, you’ll grow 68% in a year - less than double where you started
• If you grow 1% every day, you’ll grow 3778% - more than 37X where you started

It should be clear by now — the difference is ginormous.

If you want to succeed sooner, you need to move faster.

Fear Isn't the Only Reason You Don't Take Action

Most people think fear is their biggest enemy.

They don’t move forward because they’re scared of rejection or failure.

This is a big one, but there are several others:

• Waiting for the right time or opportunity. This is a poor mindset because success doesn’t come to you, it’s created through testing and iteration. Improving your beliefs is crucial. To get the future you want, you must create your own reality.
• Lack of clarity. Clarity is similar. We don't take action because we're uncertain. You need to know what you want. You need a plan. And, most of the time, action creates clarity. Not waiting.
• Need for validation. It's easier to do what you're told. We look to others to confirm our decisions. But relying on them means you lack the ability to make decisions, thwarting your speed.
• Letting old habits dictate your actions. You might have a habit of taking the easy route. If you don't work to change it, you won't take action when you should.
• Lack of motivation. If you don’t understand the importance of speed, you won't take action. If it's not a big deal to you, you won't change. You'll let indecision hold you back because you don't realize it's the primary issue.

If you struggle to achieve your goals, I imagine some of these resonate with you. Learning how to accomplish your biggest goals will help.

Don’t sweat though.

It doesn’t have to be like this forever. Soon I’ll show you what to do.

But first, understand when to move fast (because it's not ideal for every situation).

Speed is Not Good for Big Decisions

Speed will change your life, but it’s not always the right move.

• You don’t want to decide to marry a woman within minutes of meeting her.
• You don’t want to decide the topic of your book in two minutes if you’re going to spend the next two years writing it.

Strategic endeavors deserve high-quality decisions.

Ask yourself these two questions to know whether you should slow down:

1. How much time, energy, and money will this impact? If it impacts your life in a big way, it requires ample consideration.
2. Is it easy to reverse this decision? If not, it deserves ample consideration.

Marriage impacts your time, energy, and finances, in a big way. And it's not easily reversed. But asking a woman on a date has much less impact.

Choosing a niche could affect the next several years (or decades) of your career. But testing a market idea does not.

Speed is good for smaller decisions.

And there's a way to make small, fast decisions to achieve your long-term goals sooner.

Break Big Decisions Into Smaller Ones

Choosing your wife might be a big decision, but it doesn’t mean you can’t act fast today. You do this by finding smaller, less impactful decisions that get you closer to your goal.

You don't decide to marry a woman when you see her. You decide if you want to go talk to her.

This has a small impact on your life. If it doesn't work out, you can say, "nice talking to you," and walk away.

If you like the woman you’re talking to, you can make another quick decision — ask for her phone number. Again, this won't have a big impact.

As you move toward your larger goal, the decisions get bigger. Like deciding to date, become exclusive, get engaged, get married, or have kids.

But you get there by taking action and making a series of small decisions every day.

• Do I enjoy this relationship?
• Do I want to pursue this further?
• What can I do to improve the relationship?
• Should I make any changes to this relationship?

Some of these decisions may not be easy for you to make.

• Maybe you want to break up, but you don't feel certain.
• Maybe you have a habit of taking the easy road, so you stay together because you don't want to hurt her.
• Maybe you delay breaking up because you're waiting for the right opportunity.
• Maybe you're scared you'll regret ending the relationship.

These are common blockages.

But I’m going to show you how to overcome these obstacles so you can make fast decisions.

Don't worry, this isn't specific to marriage lol.

It works for building your online business. Or becoming self-reliant. Or achieving goals that have eluded you for too long.

Follow the steps below and you’ll become a decision-making machine.

You'll lead yourself and others to prosperity.

Six Steps to Move at Lightning Speed

Want to make fast decisions?

Want to achieve your goals sooner rather than later (or never)?

Follow these six steps:

1. Understand the importance of speed.

If you read everything above, you should know how important it is to move fast.

If you skimmed it, no problem. But you may want to go back later to ingrain this in your head.

Understanding the importance of speed will motivate you to make fast decisions.

2. Determine whether you should move fast.

We talked about this too.

Creative and strategic decisions need time to develop.

Ask yourself these two questions (repeated from above):

1. How much time, energy, and money will this impact? If it impacts your life in a big way, it requires ample consideration.
2. Is it easy to reverse this decision? If not, it deserves ample consideration.

If it doesn't need ample consideration, make a decision ASAP.

3. Break big goals into small actions.

If it's a big decision, see if you can break it down into smaller ones.

Working on a year-long project is a big decision. This isn't a light choice.

Ask yourself: What smaller step can I take to gain clarity and move forward?

• Can spend a few hours brainstorming ideas?
• Can you validate a product idea in a few days with a pre-sale?

The feedback from these actions provides clarity for your bigger decisions.

You reduce the long-term impact of failure by breaking big choices into smaller ones.

Your goal: find actions to take today that get you closer to making better decisions tomorrow.

4. Gain clarity.

As Tony Robbins says:

You can't hit a target if you don't know what it is.

It's hard to make decisions with speed when you don't know what you want.

Have you thought about whether you want to have kids in the future?

If the woman you're dating doesn't want children, but you do, you know it's not a good fit.

But you only know this if you take the time to understand your goals.

You also want to seek clarity with your plans.

Get guidance. Talk to people who have done what you want to do.

• Ask them what it's like. Is it the right goal for you?
• Ask about their recommended steps. Are you doing the right things? Can you improve your process?

It's easy to make quick decisions when you know what you want and how you plan to make it happen.

5. Start small.

Decision-making is a skill.

Taking action is a skill.

And the best way to develop any skill is with deliberate practice — the art of doing something frequently and repeatedly to improve your ability.

The Trio of Effectiveness — daily learning, action, and feedback — is ideal if you want your practice to lead to growth.

But even then, for practice to work, it needs to become a habit.

And the best way to make a habit stick?

Start small.

Force yourself to make fast decisions for actions with minor consequences:

• What to eat
• What to wear
• When to workout

You want this to become your default mode. For inconsequential decisions, speed is better than making the right choice.

Over time, you'll make bigger decisions (but not huge ones that deserve ample consideration) fast as well. Like:

• Who to DM
• Who to invite
• What to write about

As these habits spill into your business decisions, you'll move faster. You'll make more progress and achieve your goals in a fraction of the time.

6. Daily reminders.

Another way to make habits stick is to make them obvious.

But decision-making is different than other habits. It's not like writing, where you can block out 30 minutes every day to write.

You can only make decisions when prompted with a choice.

Instead of time-blocking, use reminders to bring awareness to this goal every day.

You can put it on your whiteboard like I do ("Speed" is my 2023 mantra).

Or a host of other ways:

• Post-it notes
• Alarms on your phone
• Tattoo it on your arm (lol)
• Reminders on your calendar
• Put it on your phone's lock screen

Get creative.

It could say, "Remember to make quick decisions."

Or it could say, "Speed," like mine.

As long as it brings awareness to this habit, it's working.

Whenever you have a decision to make, you want to become conscious that you have a choice — to ponder or decide.

Once you realize that, you can finally move with speed.

Over time, you'll change your life in ways you never thought imaginable.

Godspeed.

- Rob Riker

P.S. I moved slowly for most of my life.

Making decisions scared me. Taking responsibility scared me.

So I rarely made decisions. I looked for validation and let others choose for me.

Getting coaches helped change this (I'm not pushing you to get a coach or hire me — I have another lesson here :)).

They validated my ideas. BUT, it also led me to take quick action.

Yet, even recently I noticed I was moving slowly.

I came up with an idea in September that excited me. I let it noodle around in my head and I knew it was something I needed to do.

But I didn't move forward. I didn't move with speed.

And I didn't think much of it until a few weeks ago (late December) when the concept of speed reemerged in my life. This is when I decided 2023 would be the year of speed.

So I decided to take action on my plan from September. And I'm moving fast.

I can't wait to share it with you (you'll hear about it soon :)).

Until then, take a look at yourself.

Are you moving with speed?

Are you holding yourself back for no reason?

Is there something you can do (like gain clarity or make a smaller decision) ASAP?

Keep reminding yourself how important it is to move fast.

The sooner you do it, the better off you'll be.

I promise, if you take the advice here, you'll come back in the future to thank me for this letter. It's that life-changing.

Best of luck!