Josh Cantwell: So, everybody, welcome back to Accelerated Investor. I’m your host, Josh Cantwell. And we’re continuing today with our discussion around the nine traits of elite entrepreneurs and eight-figure investors. I’ve been very fortunate to be around a lot of heavy hitters, ballers, whatever you want to call it. And I was smart enough. I’ve been smart enough since my dad was my first mentor to pay attention to see what these people were doing and to kind of copy and paste what they were doing. I listened years ago to people say don’t reinvent the wheel, just copy and paste what other people are doing, just R&D, rip off and duplicate what other people are doing.

And so, as I’ve observed entrepreneurs for the last 15 or 20 years, as I’ve been an entrepreneur, absolutely, this next one is something that I’m super passionate for. And so, going back to our discussion over the last couple of days and weeks, we’ve talked about the first three traits so far. We’re on trait number 4. Trait number 1 was to invest for cash flow now. Trait number 2 is that you’re 100% responsible for your own life and nobody’s coming to your rescue. Trait number 3 was that elite entrepreneurs have super time management skills, which leads me to trait number 4, one of my favorites, which is that elite entrepreneurs refuse and avoid leeches. They refuse and avoid the screen-sucking OCD loop. They refuse and avoid negativity and negative people. They refuse and avoid things that are in their way.

And so, let’s peel this back for a quick minute. As I’ve observed elite entrepreneurs, and I’d like to put myself in that category for sure, I found that elite entrepreneurs are inherently positive people. They’re inherently positive, they’re inherently growth-minded. And when you’re focused on growth, you’re focused on the future and you’re looking forward, you’re inherently positive. If you’re constantly looking backwards at a lot of the things that didn’t go right or things that didn’t happen well for you, that could lead to negativity because you have some anxiety over what happened before.

And so, these elite entrepreneurs who refuse and avoid leeches, they’re inherently positive people so they won’t associate with negativity, they won’t associate with people who are toxic or organizations who are toxic, they won’t associate with people or organizations that are leeches. They won’t waste their time on things that are leeches of their time. And so, the high level of this particular trait is refuse and avoid leeches. And when you think about refusing, avoiding leeches, one of the first things I think about is how fast and easy technology social media has become and what a negative time-waster it can truly be.

So, the question becomes how can I use technology and social media purposely because it is powerful, but how can I use it purposely? So, one of the things that I’ve done is I don’t keep most of my apps on my phone. The apps that I need, I download as I need them and use them as I need them and delete them. So, instead of just constantly having apps opening because of constantly surfing the internet, instead of constantly having tabs open on my Internet browser on my computer, I open what I need and I close it and delete what I don’t.

So, the question becomes for you, the question you have to ask yourself is who are the people, the places, and the things that you enjoy being around? What people, places, things, apps, websites that you actually get value out of? Not just surfing, blindly getting value, there’s no value in that. What people, places, things, apps, technology actually enhance your life when you use it or when you’re around it? Ask yourself that question right now. The people, places, things, technology, apps that you actually enjoy.

Now, ask yourself the converse question, which is who are the people, places, things, apps, technology that you hate to be around, and that you can ultimately cut out, refuse to be around and not associate with anymore? That’s the ultimate real question, high-level question that I’m asking you here is because elite entrepreneurs refuse and avoid leeches that have no value to them, that are the people, the places, things, the apps, the technology that provide no real joy, that provide no real value.

If there are apps that don’t benefit you, delete them and just download them as needed. If there are apps that you constantly are using to provide value to your life, and I’m not talking about entertainment here. Entertainment can absolutely be a leech because it gets in the way of true contribution, true value creation. So, if there are apps that don’t benefit you, delete them and then redownload them as needed. Like when I use Instagram, I use it, then I delete it. When I use Facebook, I use it, delete it, so I’m not surfing. Messenger same thing. I usually download those once a day, look at them briefly, check them out. Bunch of likes, bunch of loves, respond to some messages, and then delete them all.

So, if I’m going to be a positive person, if elite entrepreneurs are inherently positive, I cannot allow my time to be sucked into negativity, toxicity, leeches. I cannot go to negative places. I cannot go associate with negative people. And so, people that I think that are negative, leeches, toxic, drama…

There’s a few things that I’ve heard over the years that I think kind of stands out. So, one is if you’re around someone that tells the same negative story over and over and over, that person’s not telling that story because it’s benefiting anybody. They’re telling that story because they’re seeking attention. So, if you have to tell more than one person a story, you’re not looking to solve a problem. You’re looking for attention.

And so, I’ll pay attention to people that I’m associating with and if I hear the same person tell the same negative story more than once, then all the alarm bells go off. Okay. And I start to think like if they tell the story one more time to another person like nobody’s benefiting from that story. It’s a boring, negative, toxic leechy story. My alarm bells were going off to say like, “I don’t know if this is somebody that I can continue to be around.” And I definitely am observing whether I want to continue to be around them. Okay. It’s not something that I enjoy when people tell stories and I’m like, “Oh, God, they’re telling the same story again about the same crap drama.” Let’s not do that. Okay. And so, lead entrepreneurs who are leaders are inherently positive people. They’re growth-focused, and you can’t be negative and growth-focused at the same time. You can’t associate with toxic people and be growth-focused at the same time. You can’t associate and do negative, toxic, leechy things and be growth-focused at the same time. It doesn’t mesh together. Okay.

And so, last point I’m going to make here is some of you might say, “Well, what about my family? You know, I’ve got this sister. I’ve got my mother.” Look, we can’t help the family that we were born into. Can’t help the mother that brought us into the world. And so, that’s what Christmas and Easter is for. You know, maybe 4th of July weekend or Memorial Day weekend. So, if you have some of those types of people in your family, obviously, that’s not something you’re just going to cut them off just because they’re negative. But you could certainly stand up and say, “Look, you know, you’ve told me this same story several times. There’s really no benefit to that story. It’s only negative. You know, why do you tell negative stories all the time? You know, why are you telling me about all your ailments and all your people that you’re friends with who’ve died and everything that’s wrong with you and why your life is always terrible? The real life is terrible because that’s all you talk about is terrible things. Your life is boring because all you talk about is all the stuff that sucks in your life. It’s negative, and that’s why nobody wants to hang out with you so you have a boring life.” Right?

I just accepted I wasn’t going to go back into volleyball, wasn’t going to go back into coaching but I’ve observed this past year a lot of young girls that are not having good experiences in club volleyball. Parents are paying thousands of dollars. They’re traveling all over the country. And the kids are like, “You know, I’m just not having a good experience.” So, I talked to my wife and I said to my wife, I said, “Hey, I think I want to get back into coaching,” and I said, “There’s all these parents asking me to coach again.” And that was important to me. Like, I observed that and I thought to myself, “I guess I’m doing something right because all these parents want me to get back into coaching.” Why? Because I’m focused on progress. I’m focused on growth. I don’t need to crucify some young 12-year-old, 13-year-old girl over missing a spike or missing a serve. She’s trying her best. So, when I give her constructive feedback and I’m focused on, “Hey, the next one, you’ll get the next one. You’ll focus on what you’ve learned. Focus on the fundamentals.”

The word progress is so important to everybody. Like a lot of these parents, they don’t care if their kid is losing games. They care if their kid is getting better. You have one kid on a team. You got six girls on a volleyball court. You got ten kids on a baseball diamond for youth baseball. You got nine guys on a high school diamond. You got five kids on a basketball court. You got 22 kids, 11 on each side in football. There are teams. The teams determine if they win or lose. But is my kid getting better, making progress? And the lead entrepreneurs that I know, they’re always making progress. They’re always growing. They’re always doing the research. We talked about this earlier in the previous sessions around this. And so, when a parent tells me like, “Hey, Josh, will you please coach my kid?” it’s not about the games we won and lost. We certainly won more than we’ve lost but that’s because the kids are focused on getting better.

And the lead entrepreneurs refuse and avoid these leeches that are not getting better, that are telling negative stories, toxic stories, leechy stories. Nobody wants to be around that coach. They want to be around the ones that are growth-oriented, growth mindset, future mindset. We can get better. We can do fun things together. You know, leeches also tend to be very attention-driven. They want attention all the time. And the way they get attention is through negativity. It’s no different than the popular news, the modern newsreel. People watch it because it’s negative. It’s like you can’t take your eyes off the train wreck. That’s how negative people are. They are the train wreck. “Please don’t take your eyes off me. I am the train wreck. I am about to be a train wreck. Please pay attention to me. I need your attention.” That’s a leech. You can see it from a mile away. Okay.

And so, when you’re around people like that, respectfully excuse yourself. You know, if you’re at dinner, if you excuse yourself and go to the bathroom and find a way to get out, you know, if you’re in a business situation, you respectfully excuse yourself. And so, you got to get to another meeting that you got to get to. But a lead entrepreneur is guys building, you know, big businesses, eight-figure, nine-figure companies like mine. Dude, I don’t have extra time. In the extra time that I do have, I’m going to spend more time with my wife and kids. I’m not going to let some leech steal it from me.