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A critical part of being any sales or business professional is networking. As conventional business wisdom says, “Show me your network and I'll show you your net worth.” But what does networking really mean? How does business and sales tie into it, if at all? Kofi Nartey addresses these questions and more in this quick podcast episode. He gives us four game changing strategies that will help you level up your networking game with little effort. Most importantly, Kofi discusses what networking is not and how you can refine the way you talk to people so each conversation opens up doors of opportunity. Tune in for all of these and more!

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Build Your Network, Build Your Net Worth!

Game Changing Strategies For Networking

I hope you have been enjoying the journey. It's been tremendous fun doing this, sharing it with you, and getting amazing feedback. In this episode, we're going to touch a little bit more on the business bucket of our full mogul buckets as it relates to business and a little bit about personal because we're going to dive into networking, build your network and net worth. A critical part of being any sales professional and business professional is the networking aspect.

We've all heard about, “Show me your network and I'll show you your net worth.” There's a direct correlation between our network, the people that we come into contact with, the people that we have in our circle, and our overall outcome, success, and net worth as it relates to life and our pocketbooks. I wanted to make sure we spent a little time on this. Let's dive right in. It's going to be fast and furious.

I want to get this into your systems and minds so you can start utilizing these tools. I'm going to give you, in the midst of this, four keys to bulletproof networking. I'm going to give you a lot more than that, but I'll make sure you guys leave with those four keys. First, let's define networking. What is networking? I like to look at networking as building connections and relationships. It's about building personal connections and relationships. It's not about doing business, deals, and referrals.

Does it lead to those things? Definitely. If you do it right, will you get those things? Definitely, but that's not what the networking piece is about. Networking is about making those real connections with people. It's about depth, not breadth. It's about going deep with people. I get teased a lot because I'm not a big fan of small talk. As I've gotten older, life is much more interesting when I can have meaningful conversations with people.

Networking is about depth, not breadth. It’s going deep with people. Share on X

When I go to networking events, I'm not running around the room trying to meet as many people as possible. I'd rather meet 1 or 2 people and have an in-depth and real conversation with them, something more meaningful and interesting. It supports the whole concept of networking in building a deeper connection much faster. The shallow end of conversations, I avoid. I don't love the small talk. Think about it. You think about a swimming pool. The shallow end of the pool is for the kids.

No offense if you love those small-talk conversations, they're just not for me. When I was in my younger days of business and networking, I also lived in the shallow end. We think of FORD or Family, Occupation, Recreation, and Desires. You want to get through those bullet points with people and use that acronym of FORD when I was networking so I can meet as many people as possible. These days, give me 1 or 2 good conversations and, hopefully, I've met the right people in the room, or I get directed to the right people that I do need to meet in the room and I'm winning.

Let's talk about networking in general. When we think about what it should be about, it's an opportunity to make a difference or an impact on somebody else's life or on the life of someone they know. Think about that. Think about your gifts, tools, business, and service, and how that can help other people. You'll look at networking as an opportunity to share your gifts with other people in a way that can be ultimately impactful and make a difference.

Networking Strategies: Networking should be an opportunity to make an impact on somebody else’s life or on the life of someone they know.

If your product and service are great, you'd rather have people working with you than mediocre competition. That means you'd rather be in front of as many people as possible versus hiding this gift, amazing product, service, culture, and care that goes into the service that you provide versus them landing in the hands of somebody who's subpar. We have to look at how we get in front of more people. Networking is a great opportunity to do that. It's not the moment for the sale. It's the moment for the relationship and the contact to be made that will ultimately lead to a connection, business, sales, and referrals.

With that, I'm going to go ahead and jump right into my four keys to extremely effective networking. This is something that I put a lot of thought into. It's one of my Kofisms that are bulletproof. You can argue with me about their validity, but you're going to lose the argument because they're bulletproof. My four keys to networking were born out of even just living in LA because, in Los Angeles, California, Hollywood, the big city of dreams, big lights, and movie stars, they always talk about, “It's all about who you know.” I thought about it as it related to networking, and I had to develop that further because I knew a lot of people, but it wasn't meaningful. I realized its four key ingredients as it relates to networking.

1) It does start with who you know. You have to look for opportunities to increase the number of people that you know. That's what networking events are for. It starts with access to people, the type of people you like to work with, and the circles that you want to be in, which gives you a chance to get to know other people 2) Who also knows you. It doesn't matter if you know somebody if they don't know who you are. They have to know who you are. When you get a chance to make that contact, you have to find ways to go after what we call mindshare. When they think of an industry that you're in, they think of you, but it does start with that initial contact. They have to know you and you have to be able to stay on their radar. 3) Who knows what you do.

They have to know what you do because you can't get business referrals or just general warm leads from people who don't know the business that you're in. You have to find gentle ways to keep that in play. You have to find ways to let people know what you do and also remind them of what you do. It's not extremely critical that you go deep into it on the initial contact. I'll explain why.

It's because it's more important to make contact and establish a way of following up. What you do will ultimately come out. If there's a way to build it into that engagement, it's even better. Stories are a great way to do that. People ask you, “How was your day?” You can tell a story about how was your day. “How was your week?” You can tell a story about your week. I'm going to give you a little bit more on the story aspect of it after I give you number four

Number four, who likes you? People generally are more apt to do business with someone that they like. First and foremost, can you get the job done? Likability is a factor. One of the keys in networking, as it relates to likability, is being interested, not interesting. You have to be interested in learning more about the person that you're standing in front of, whom you've been introduced to and met at this networking event. That has to be at the forefront more so than you being interesting.

Think about it. In life, people aren't heard. People go through life. They live at that surface level and shallow conversations and don't get to the meat of life. You could stand out from the crowd by using 2 ears and 1 mouth and being interested in them. It is learning more about them versus being interesting and just rattling off your resume or your life or talking about yourself.

You can stand out from the crowd by using two ears and one mouth. Share on X

I'll give you guys a funny example. I was at a networking event a couple of years ago. What tends to happen is, in a networking event, you walk in, meet a couple of people, or get introduced to the room, whatever it is. People were mixing and mingling. I went over and introduced myself to a couple of people who were already talking and started asking questions.

In my mind, I was like, “Be interested.” I wanted to hear more about the person I was talking to. I asked several questions. I didn't even talk about myself at all. They didn't know what I did. They knew my name. That was about it. I could tell that this person appreciated the questions I was asking and they appreciated just being heard. Somebody else came over and introduced themselves to our little threesome that was standing there. They introduced me. They said, “You have to meet Kofi. He's a great guy.”

I had just met this person. Now they're introducing me to the new person as somebody who's a great guy. What made me great? The fact that I listened and heard the words that they said. You have to be interested, not interesting. As it relates to that, I have a saying that you that some of you have read already. It's one of my Kofisms as well. It's listening with selfish ears. That relates to when you're at an event, at a conference or a speaker is talking, you listen with selfish ears. You listen for the things that resonate with you that can help bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. That way, if you're listening to somebody who's talking for 1 or 5 hours, they say that one thing that you've heard with selfish ears that resonates with you. It makes all that time worth it.

In networking, listen with giving ears. What do I mean by that? Listen for the opportunity to share something, make a connection, do something, and bring future value to that person in a way that benefits that person. Listen in ways to engage, support, help, and make connections and referrals to them. You'll even find that a lot of networking groups are non-solicitation groups. Meaning you're not there to pitch your business. You're there to make business referrals and people will reciprocate.

Back to storytelling. I love storytelling and teaching people about storytelling as a great way to network and a great way to build mindshare and credibility even because when people ask you what you do and you tell them, versus when people ask you what you do or how you're doing and you tell them a story, it hits differently. Sometimes I joke, “If I don't want to have a conversation with someone,” and they say, “What do you do?” I'll say, “I'm a real estate agent.”

Networking Strategies: Storytelling is a great way to network and a great way to build mindshare.

Those people don't want to talk to real estate agents. They might ask you, “How's the market?” and that's it, but they think you're going to start to sell them a house right there on the spot. Truthfully, I'm a real estate broker, business owner, and so forth, and much more than that, a businessman, a full mogul. There's a lot that I can share, but when people ask me about what I do or, “How is your week?” I tell a little story.

Usually, I'll make up a story that's based on that specific week that captures not only what I do, but how and who I do it for like, “As a matter of fact, this week was interesting. I was showing one of our luxury properties. The buyer had questions about the equestrian. It’s a very cool property because you can put one horse for every 5,000 square feet of property, and it's on 3.6 acres. It was great. As a matter of fact, it has a vineyard.” I was telling a story. Later on that week, I met with one of my agents because I had to support them in a deal. We were working on some negotiating strategies. I'd read this book Never Split The Difference. It was great because we used some of the tools from that book to get this guy over the finish line and get the deal done.

“How about you tell me a little bit about your week?” I've told a couple of stories that tell you a little bit about what I do, how I do it, who I do it for, and create that credibility. Make sure that you have some stories to tell and that you think about it that way versus just rattling off what you do. I have given you those four bulletproof keys. Let's recap those real quick.

Four keys to effective networking 1) Who you know, 2) Who also knows you, 3) Who knows what you do, 4) Who likes you. I'm coming back to number three real quick because who knows what you do is up to you to stay on top of your mind and continue to gain what we call mindshare. They think of an industry, real estate, and global. They think of soda and Coca-Cola even if they're not drinking Coca-Cola. That's called mindshare. It's up to you to stay in front of those people. We've all had that experience, especially in real estate, where you say, “See a friend of yours you haven't seen in a while,” and they say, “We just bought a house. We just sold our house. We totally forgot you were in real estate.” You're like, “I was at your wedding. How could you forget that I was in real estate?”

It happens. It's not their responsibility to remember. It's your responsibility to make sure that you stay top of mind. Now we talked about those four keys and staying in touch. Getting their information is more important than giving them your business card. Let's talk about the business card thing. Some people are like, “I don't do business cards.” That's fine, but you do have to have some way of staying in touch. Is it a business card? Are you going to text them on the spot? Are you going to DM them on Instagram? It's a great way of reaching out to people now and saying, “Are you on Instagram? I'll follow you. I'll message you.”

It's not other people’s responsibility to remember you. It's your responsibility to make sure that you stay top of mind. Share on X

We stay in touch that way, especially for the younger generations. Gen Z and Millennials love that. I've seen things now like tap where you have a metal business card, you tap their phone and it gives them all the information, or you pull up an app, tap their phone, and give them your information. I have mixed feelings about that because I've had people who I've tapped. I've got their information now they're contacting my phone. I go a week later to try to remember who they were because I did want to reach out for something and I just don't remember their name. I'm not scrolling through the 5,000 contacts on my phone to figure it out. I'd rather just send a text because then I can just scroll through my text from the past few days or weeks and find them. It's easier to do it that way. Sometimes I'll do both.

Know that if you have a business card, it's fine to give out your business card, but make sure you get information from them so you can follow up because even if they liked you a lot, it doesn't mean that they're going to remember your information or to follow up with you. It's up to you to follow up. As it relates to DMing or Direct Messaging via social media. That's what I talked about as an example of a way to stay in touch. Another thing to think about, and this is a pro tool for networking, is to prep your social media before you go to networking events.

What do I mean by that? One of the first things that people do is look you up. If you're leading with your social media like, “Let's connect on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn,” they're going to see your profile. They're going to see the last thing that you posted. They might even look further and see the last few things. No matter what, they're going to see the last thing that you posted. Make sure that it's something that makes sense for the audience you're going to be in front of. Make sure that it resonates or it aligns with the audience that you're going to be in front of.

If I'm going into a real estate event, I'm going to post something that's real estate related. If I'm going to speak to professional athletes or give a keynote for professional athletes and entertainers, I'm going to do something that's related to that or in my top 2 or 3 posts, maybe something from my acting days, a throwback from my sports days, or the fact that I work with celebrities, entertainers, and affluent and luxury clientele. It's going to resonate with the audience that I'm going to be in front of. There's immediate credibility when I introduce myself and increased reinforced credibility when they look me up and they see that my story, social media, or social proof is in alignment with who I said I was.

At the end of the day, you have these tools now to help you with your networking and your networking opportunities. Make sure you're finding groups that make sense to network in. You can also create your own networking groups, but make sure that it's a networking group that's effective, not just the social group. Social groups are a little different. They're fine, but they're not networking groups. Make sure you either are creating or finding the right networking groups to be a part of.

Make sure you’re either creating or finding the right networking groups to be a part of. Share on X

With that, you can go forth and build your network. Remember, it's about going deep with the people that you connect with and building those relationships. It's not about 1,000 people that you meet in one day. It's about meeting those key people and having better conversations with them. Remember the four tips that I shared with you. The mindshare that you gain with these strategic contacts and you continue to follow up and go deeper with people is what's going to lead to the word-of-mouth referrals and to them reaching out to you to do business with you.

There are a few things that are more powerful than those warm introductions, referrals, and word of mouth that you can use to help build your business. I hope this was helpful, these tools for networking. If it was, please share it with your team, your group at your office, your company, and with a friend. Reach out to me. Let me know if this was helpful. Let's stay on that full mogul journey together. Let's keep going. We'll talk soon. Thanks.

Important Link

• Never Split The Difference

Society may have given men a lot of advantages, but that doesn’t mean the average fella isn’t having a tough time out there. The challenges are there. The struggles are there. The failures are there. We just don’t get to hear about them very often. We’re afraid to talk about them. There is always this unspoken message for us to just man up and suck it up. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, when you start to look around, you’ll find that there are a lot of people who are willing to listen and help you out with what you’re facing. What challenge are you facing right now? Now is the time for you to be compelled to be vulnerable and seek support. Join this podcast as Kofi Nartey opens up an honest and unbridled conversation on what men deal with in this tough and cruel world. You don’t want to miss this. It will make you redefine what it really means to be a man.

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For My Fellas

What We Deal With As Men

Hopefully, you guys have been enjoying the Full Mogul journey. I’ve received tremendous feedback. I’ve had my wife as a guest several times and we both have received tremendous feedback and input from you guys that you are enjoying the show so far. If you’re new to the show, welcome. If you’re new to Mogul Nation, welcome. We’re talking about being the highest and best version of yourself across all aspects of yourself.

We’re not just talking to one part of you. We’re trying to talk to all of you, but this episode is a little bit different. I’m rolling solo because our topic is for my fellas. What do we deal with as men? There’s a lot of gravity to this conversation. I want this to be the beginning of the conversation. I thought a lot about it. I have some notes. I wanted to spend even more time crafting this, but I was like, “I have to start because there’s so much to cover, but there’s no way to cover it in one episode alone that I have to start the conversation.”

If this feels like just the beginning, it’s supposed to. If it feels like starting, it’s supposed to. My women out there, for the ladies out there, if you want to read to get a little insight, it’s totally fine. I was thinking about it. I’ll probably even ask my wife to do something for the ladies out there. It was put on my heart and my mind in my involvement with motivating people, teaching people, even in the real estate industry, with speaking to NFL players about professional athletes and life outside of the game.

There’s something that us men deal with. There are several things that we deal with and several challenges that are unique to men. This is not to isolate women. They have a whole different set of advantages and challenges that they deal with. In this episode, I wanted to speak to my fellas because there are only certain moments of access where we get glimpses into that vulnerability that men have. Those guys out there, my guys, some of my best friends, have that level of trust and rapport that the access to the vulnerability is there.

What Men Deal With: There are several challenges that are unique to men, and there are only certain moments of access where we get glimpses into the vulnerability that men have.

It’s embraced because it’s a safe space. When we’re dealing with people and we’re building and forging friendships, sometimes it takes a lot longer to get to that moment of trust or vulnerability where someone will open up to give you a glimpse of some of the things that they might be dealing with. Let me tell anyone who’s reading at the moment that a man gives you a glimpse. He opens his mouth to say something, to address some of the pain, and some of the challenges that he’s dealing with. There is a lot more going on there because we’ve been taught to pack those things away.

I want to jump into some of the notes that I have. I’m speaking from my heart, my position as a man, my experience as a man, and even specifically to some of my fellow alpha males. There are some additional challenges that we face as people who are leaders and people who are leaders of other men and leaders of people. Not everyone’s wired like me, and I respect that there are so many different personality types. I know that the world requires different personality types to function and for us to respect, relate, and understand each other.

Even to move big ideas forward, it takes different ideas from different perspectives and different personality types. I can only speak on my own. I come from a little bit more of a traditional, chivalrous, and alpha male background, that fight or flight, “I’m going to fight,” background. If I see you down, I’m going to help you up. If I see you in trouble, I’m going to step in and try to help. There are certain things and challenges that come along with that.

Raise Your Hand

I’ve also gained access to some of the pain and challenges that some of my other personality types are facing that I also face in moments. I describe myself as an alpha male, but my birthday falls in the realm of Cancer. I’m right on the Cancer-Leo cusp. I call myself a sensitive lion. I truly am a sensitive lion, but I am a lion. Don’t get it twisted. Let’s jump right into this topic.

One of the biggest challenges that we face as men is that no one truly cares. We hear that a lot. It’s not true. Part of it is that we’re a bit afraid to open up or we don’t have the avenues or channels to open up. Now, in society or institutions in general, there is not a lot of room or space for men to open up, be vulnerable to men, and express the challenges that we have. It ends up being a quiet struggle, depending on what you’re facing. There’s this feeling that no one cares.

No one cares about what’s going on, the challenges, and the pain. If they do hear you, what’s the energy you get back? “Man up, suck it up, and fight through it.” We’ve all heard those things. I have said those things. I’ve said those things to myself, which is also the most impactful, powerful place but also the most dangerous place when you’re saying it to yourself in the wrong moments, where it’s time to get some help and time to reach out and open up.

We have to start addressing some of these things. The source of our support is often when we try or when we’re trying to hold a specific image for ourselves. The challenge that we have as men is we want to maintain a certain image. I’m figuring out some of the ways I want to express this. When we have that image, we can’t ask for support because asking for support is not in alignment with the image that we’re trying to maintain.

I’ll give you an analogy. You’re driving a bus. Let’s call it a bus or a van and there are other passengers on the van. There are other passengers on the van who are relying on you and your hands are on the steering wheel. Both hands have to be on the steering wheel to drive safely. If you need help and you need to raise your hand, you can’t take your hand off the steering wheel because the role of the driver is to keep everybody safe and keep both hands on that steering wheel to make sure everybody stays safe as you’re going through the canyons, cutting through the curves, or whatever it is condition-wise that you’re dealing with. You don’t even have that moment or that time to raise your hand.

There’s another part of you, because I deal with this a lot, that you hear everybody behind you on the van, on the bus, laughing and joking and enjoying themselves and you’ve got that steering wheel. It’s because you’re so strong and mentally tough and you can handle this. That allows them to have the freedom, the joy, the comfort, and the lack of awareness to even be free the way they are. There is something rewarding about that until you reach that moment where you need to raise your hand.

We have this image that we hold. I have an image I hold of myself with this provider, as a father, as a leader, as I mentioned, or even as a coach. There are words like protector, and these are things that we’ve embraced as part of the “traditional culture” and “traditional roles” of masculinity or being a male or being head of household. These are all things that we embrace.

As part of it, it doesn’t allow room for us to show any weaknesses in these areas because people are looking to us so that they can be comfortable and know that they’re protected, provided for, and taken care of. These are things that a lot of us have embraced until it’s time to raise our hands. I keep coming back to that. There are moments where we don’t raise our hand for so long that the challenge becomes or feels insurmountable. There are emotions tied to it, the level of depression, feeling off track, feeling like you’re less than who you should be, feeling like you’re not heard or not respected that you reach that point where it’s like, “F it, I quit. I’m out of it.” That shows up in a bunch of different ways.

Sometimes, we see people bail out on partnerships. We see them bail out on relationships, marriages, parenting, fatherhood, and quitting jobs. There are all kinds of ways that the level of challenge reaches that point of, “F it. I quit,” because life is tough. Work is tough. Relationships are tough. Maintaining your health is tough. The world hasn’t provided much space or support for us men to share these challenges and deal with these challenges.

That time has to change. When we say we have to man up, what manning up is, in my opinion, is raising your hand. There’s nothing manly than that, to be honest. It’s raising your hand and saying, “I need a little bit of help. I need a little bit of support. I’m dealing with something today. I’m dealing with something this week. I’m dealing with something this year that I can use a little bit of support with or a lot of support with, help, an ear, or just to be heard.”

Work is tough. Relationships are tough. Maintaining your health is tough. And the world hasn't provided much space or support for us men to deal with these challenges. That has to change. Share on X

Be Built For Life

Keep it in mind, guys. If you’ve read the Full Mogul, if you’ve listened to me talk, if you’ve heard me anywhere if you know me, I believe I’m built for life. I’m built for the life that I’m living, and part of that is failure. We talk about failing. If you feel like you’re failing, know that that is part of the journey and it’s okay that you are not a failure. It is that part of your life, journey, or experiment. The word experiment is so powerful. It could be a job you’ve had for 2, 3, 4, or 5 years. It still was an experiment.

If you feel like you're failing, just know that that is part of the journey and it's okay. Share on X

It could be a relationship that you tested out. You thought you might get married and it didn’t work out. Technically, it was an experiment. Even if it’s something that you’ve gotten past the point of experimentation and it still doesn’t work out and still “fails,” it doesn’t mean that you are a failure. It’s just part of the journey.

I always say, “FAIL fast and FAIL forward.” FAIL is an acronym. I have two acronyms that I’ve created for the word FAIL, and I want you to embrace both of them. The first one, FAIL fast, Find All Important Lessons, and we do that fast. We want to learn from our failures. When we get down, stay down for a second. Embrace the pain and the challenge like when people lose the championship game. They stay on the court to watch the other people get the trophy.

They want to remember what that feels like because it fuels them. It fuels them to work harder next time and work harder in the off-season because they want to get back to that podium and win. It’s okay to embrace the emotions, just don’t get buried by the emotions. It’s okay to understand the emotions, just don’t get bogged down by the emotions. Don’t get paralyzed by emotions. Take that moment to find all the important lessons.

The second acronym that I have for FAIL is it’s the Fastest Access to an Impactful Life. You will not find exponential success or major success without failure. I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies. If you read them, the most successful people, the ones who have elevated in status and visibility, the millionaires, the billionaires, the multibillionaires, every single one of them, not 50%, 60%, or 70%, but 100% have faced or been on the brink of total failure before they broke through to success.

As a matter of fact, it’s often the moment you declare you’re going to pursue massive success that you get the quickest tests to see if you’re serious about it. You get up in the morning, and you’re going to say, “I’m going to have a great day. I’m going to have an amazing day.” You then get a flat tire. You’re going to have a super productive day. You get to the office, and you forgot your computer charger. You’ve got this big date. She finally said yes to going out with you. You got a new haircut and a new outfit, and two hours before, she cancels.

These are things that we deal with on and off over and over again. In business, you may be on the brink of losing your business, losing your company, not being able to make payroll, and not knowing how you’re going to pay the lease in the building the next month. These are signs that you have pushed yourself to another level. You’ve pushed yourself closer to your ultimate potential and you have to break through.

You may not make it on that specific path. You may fall down, lose that job, lose that home, or lose that what have you, but it doesn’t mean that you yourself are a failure. It doesn’t mean that you can’t pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and fight again. One of my favorite quotes was shared with me by one of my clients. One of my clients used to train with Chuck Liddell. Chuck Liddell is a UFC Fighter.

He told my client one day when they were in the gym. He said, “If I have enough energy to tap out, I have enough energy to figure a way out. If I have enough energy to tap out where I quit, I also have enough energy to figure a way out.” I love that quote because we look at every successful person who’s been on the brink of failure or bankruptcy and found that ultimate success. It’s because they got up, failed fast, and failed forward.

When we look at every successful person who's been on the brink of failure and ultimately found success, it's because they got up. They failed fast and failed forward. Share on X

It’s A Tough Place To Be In

We have some built-in advantages even as men. These are things that, to be honest, I’m working to change that we shouldn’t have. When we look at the number of millionaires out there, it’s 87% of millionaires are men. This means society has provided more access, more avenues, and more resources for men to achieve that status than they have for women. It is an unfair advantage. It is not fair. To be honest, I’m working to change that one because I believe that all people should have access.

Women and men equalize the playing field so that those who work hard, those who have the talent, those who put in the work, and those who have the skills can rise to their full potential. I’m married to a woman who teaches women’s empowerment. I have a daughter who I want to pave every way for her to reach her full potential without limitations. As it stands now, there are more ways and pathways for men to reach this status, reach those statuses, and reach those levels. If you have that door open, hold it open for the next person. Hold it open for the next woman that needs to come through that door.

That’s a side conversation, but it’s important that I share that part too. There are some specific challenges that we also face in these types of roles when you embrace this type of manhood of traditional male roles. It is everything from financial challenges where you may not be making enough money to support not just your family but even yourself. Remember, you are not your challenge. You might be broken for a moment, but your now is not broken. Broke is describing the temporary place that you find yourself in.

You are not a broke or broken individual. You may be broken for a moment, but you’re a thriving, resourceful, talented, resilient, and strong individual who will find their way back to the lifestyle and to the levels that you should and will be living. When we look at the financial challenges, another hedge against that, just as a tip, pro tools, as they say, is multiple streams of income. We have to look at multiple streams of income, different ways of making money, and side hustles. What are you doing? Don’t let your side hustle be a big distraction from your main career if you have a main career that’s super fruitful and you’re all in on it.

Even in your main career, maybe there’re different avenues for making money. I’m in real estate. I got a real estate firm and got agents that work with me. I support them in their growth, but there’s also an investment side where we can make money through flipping properties. There’s also the syndication side where we syndicate the flips. We also look at multifamily. We added short-term rentals as an option. That is multiple streams of income.

I also am building out a coaching program where I’m going to be training and coaching people, sharing what I know. Share my gift, and I’ll never run out. Why not share as much as I can with as many people as I can and do it through a coaching platform? It is another stream of income that I’m building out. We have to look at ways of having multiple streams of income. Men face dating challenges. I’ve been married for many years.

I haven’t had to worry about dating for years, but I can’t imagine what it’s like to date in this time period, where half the dating is happening through apps. I don’t even know if it’s happened. It might be more through different apps. It might be half of it is in person or more if it is in person. I don’t even know. What I do know is it’s still mostly up to the man to step forward, to show interest, which I think is fine. That also means the man has to face a lot more rejection.

I remember having to get over this rejection. One of the things that helped me is facing that failure over and over again. When I was in my freshman year or sophomore year of college, I had a couple of fun roommates. We’re still friends to this very day. One summer, we played this game where if you commented on a woman, you had to go talk to her. This was random, but this was the truth.

If you said, “She’s cute. She has a nice smile,” you literally go talk to her and get rejected if you had to, but face it. If we were driving, they would stop the car, kick you out of the car, go talk to her, go say something, and do it. It was a summer of rejection. It is not 100% rejection, but it’s a lot of rejection but you learn to deal with it. It’s something that we face and something that men face on an ongoing basis, having to figure out the dating rejection, having to dust yourself off and go at it again.

Remember, times have changed. What people are looking for has changed. If you’re getting or facing that rejection, it means that you’re closer to acceptance and finding the right person. People are looking for different things now. Even on the other side, men are forced to approach women who are coming at it from a mindset of, “No, I don’t need this. I don’t need that.” The same thing from the men’s side.

Traditional values have shaped and shifted over the years. It’s hard to know where somebody stands in that place. “Is it okay if I hold the door?” These are things that I grew up doing, but I’ve got a younger brother who’s still dating. He’s dealing with some of these things where he believes chivalry is not dead and some people are like, “I don’t need your chivalry.” That’s a tough place to be in.

You show up for the second date, and you’re like, “We’re going to do that.” They’re like, “What happened to chivalry?” I said chivalry is not dead and you rejected it. It’s a tough place to be in, but remember who you are throughout that whole process. Remember who you’re building, your full mogul buckets of what you ultimately bring to the table for that right person and that right fit.

When The Hero Gets Old

We could do a whole different conversation on relationships, which I’m sure we will, but know again that once you even find that right person, the journey to transition to a life together is a whole other processing conversation. We deal with aging as men. Women deal with aging in a different way and they have different challenges because society holds beauty standards for women. Aging affects how we process our masculinity because masculinity is also tied to our virility and our strength.

You lose strength and get gray hair, but we also have the advantage. We have the advantage of the word distinguished. These men age and become distinguished. Women age and it’s a different process for them, but we do face that. Our bodies change, our backs, our knees, and all the things that we deal with and you lose hair. These are things that you may have tied to what I would describe as your peak masculinity. What is your peak masculinity? It’s when you probably felt the strongest, the most athletic, most handsome, or whatever it is.

The good part is we control not only part of the narrative but part of what we’re doing through the process of aging. The emphasis and the importance have to be on health beyond appearance, but we care about what we look like. There are ways to impact your appearance. It is redefining yourself as you go. I love this when people say, “40 is the new 30, 50 is the new 40, and 60 is the new 50,” because it truly is.

People are eating better and staying healthier, but if you’re not, what do you need to do to get on track with that? We talked about the idea of the roles we play. Not only the roles that we play that society places on us but we embrace. I embrace being a father. I embrace being a provider. I embrace being a leader. I can’t be a great leader, father, and husband if I’m not healthy. The same for you.

For these other buckets that you have in your life, you have to make sure that health remains a priority so that you can help maintain the other buckets, especially the other buckets that relate to the other people in your life. I had a good conversation with a close friend of mine. I call it a good conversation. He might have been like, “Whatever, Kofi.” I give unsolicited advice because I ask for unsolicited advice. He’s a dad like me. He’s got kids like me. He’s at every sporting event like I’m at every sporting event supporting his kids. He is also super busy with business in life, but he’s been letting his health and weight go.

There’s this feeling of being a hero in one category, but you can’t be a hero in the other category. When your bucket gets so low that it’s redlining, that the alarms are going off, that your body is slowing down, it’s time to stop and revisit that. You might have to miss a game. You might have to do something different. You might have to say, “After this game, daughter and son, come walk with me. Let’s go for a walk. Dad needs to go for some walks. Dad needs to go to the gym. Come with me.”

When your bucket gets so low that it's redlining and the alarms are going off, it's time to stop and revisit. Share on X

Step Up And Be A Man

That hero status that you’re facing or embracing in one category of life can totally impact the other categories of life. It can shorten the life that you have to be a hero to that person. That’s the last thing that you want. We hear the word toxic masculinity. It’s another challenge that we have. There are also the benefits of masculinity. There are also times to perform masculinity. I talked about helping others, doing things with others, grinning, bearing it, and fighting through. That’s embracing things that are tied to masculinity.

It’s interesting because, having a daughter and a son, I get to see the processes differently. They’re their processes of development. When they play sports, what happens? How do they embrace the challenge and the fight? There are aspects of masculinity that my daughter embraces in certain moments of her athletic performance. It doesn’t mean that these things are exclusive to men. It means that society has given that label to male behavior.

The fight or flight, the grit, the physicality, and embracing those aspects that are tied off into testosterone and tied to the physical nature of strength and competitiveness. There are moments to embrace that. There are moments for women to embrace it. There are also moments for men to perform masculinity and embrace it. Another challenge that some of my friends have faced and some people I know faced is the lack of that masculine figure to even model after.

There’s sometimes a lack of a father figure. Some people have a dad in their house and still lack a father figure. How deep is that? It doesn’t mean just because you have somebody there that is the person that you can model after or who has provided the pathway or even example for you to model after. Let alone those people who grew up in a household that didn’t have anybody.

You’re looking at coaches, maybe your pastor, and at different places where you can see how to be a man. What does it even mean to be a man? It’s a challenge when you don’t have the examples there in front of you, you don’t have the right examples, or you have limited examples. I was fortunate enough to grow up with my dad in my life every day. He’s a great father figure. I think it’s the nature of young boys to see their dads as heroes.

What does it even mean to be a man? It's a challenge when you don't have the examples there in front of you or you don't have the right examples. Share on X

I look at my son’s eyes as he looks at me, and I can see that I’m still a hero in his eyes. I always want to keep that feeling of being his hero. It’s a unique thing with fathers and sons when you have that. You can even see it sometimes with coaching relationships as you know it, especially if you’re missing the father figure. Sometimes you embrace the coach who’s been a part of your life, who loves you while he’s pushing you and helping you develop through those adolescent phases and is part of that journey. You see that person as a hero in your life.

Sometimes it’s an older upperclassman, a freshman embracing a senior as that guide who helps them through that first year of high school and pulls them under their wing or the sports team, the football team, or whatever it is to help them understand the ways of being then how to navigate that space. These are all cheat codes. When you do have that father figure or when you do have that person in your household, it’s like having that cheat code. Sometimes you have to find that. You have to find the cheat code and find the examples that you want to embrace.

We have these ideas of villains, victims, and heroes. A lot of times, the men are expected to be heroes. We’re expected to be heroes. We’re called on to be heroes. It doesn’t mean women can’t be heroes because I have a lot of women heroes in my life. A lot of times in our society, in tradition, we are expected to be heroes. There are aspects of the hero role that are specific to us.

Understanding that moment when to be a hero or how to be a hero is important for us to define and discuss. There’s pressure. There’s pressure to step up in that fight or flight. Sometimes you should flight. Fly and move away. Diffuse the situation. There’s nothing stronger. When I say fight or flight, I’m not coming to punch somebody. I’m not coming to fight somebody. I’m not going to let my loved ones be pushed around, bullied, intimidated, and talk to a certain way.

It doesn’t mean that fighting is the first option. It doesn’t mean that. A couple of years ago, I may have been like, “Let’s go. What do you want to do?” At this age, I have wisdom beyond that. It doesn’t mean that you back down from the challenges, but it doesn’t mean that it has to escalate or should escalate to that level of the physical nature. These are all tough-in-the-moment decisions that we’re forced and expected to make as men. It’s not easy.

If you aren’t built that way and you have to learn that or if you aren’t built that way and you’ve never learned it, you’re not going to be that way, then there are other challenges you face in terms of judgment. These are things that we have to talk about. We have to be able to have safe spaces and talk about scenarios and talk to our friends like, “What would you do in the situation? How would you handle this?”

If not, all of these different things that we face as men and as challenges overwhelm us. You can find yourself in that hole of depression. I always say, “Are you in a hole of depression or a hole of despair? If you are, how do we convert that to a hole of preparation versus a hole of desperation?” If you’re sitting at that moment, remember what I said earlier, to embrace the feelings of failure, challenge, and defeat and use them as fuel for the next iteration of yourself.

Part of that fuel leads to a plan. That plan is part of your preparation. You have to see how quickly you can transition from desperation to preparation because the desperation will hit. It will hit for a week, a month, six months, or just days or even hours. It could even be hours. There are certain moments where you’re like, “This sucks and I’m pissed off. I’m mad and disappointed. I may be a little bit depressed. I might be depressed overnight and eat like crap. Whatever it is.”

The next day, it transitions from desperation to preparation. “What do I need to do to get to that next version of myself?” I’m going to encourage you to attack life the same way and know that the other side of the challenge, overcoming the challenge is one of the most rewarding feelings that we can have, especially as men embracing these roles. It is being able to provide, take care of ourselves, take care of others, and be a leader at the moment that it’s time to lead. It’s one of the most rewarding feelings.

Being a leader in the moments when it's time to lead is one of the most rewarding feelings. Share on X

The meal always tastes better when you’re hungry. It’s hard for you to appreciate a great meal if you had a good meal. When you’re hungry and that meal shows up, when you have worked hard, failed, felt all the challenges, and finally reach victory, you finally reach that accomplishment. Every aspect of that tastes better. Every aspect of that is good because being in contrast or the challenge creates a greater appreciation for the other side of things. One more step each day.

I love what Ed Mylett says. Ed Mylett has a great podcast that I listen to, the Ed Mylett Podcast. He wrote a book called The Power of One More. He talks about that. When you’re in those moments, do one more thing. Go one more day. Can you make it one more day? One more action. It is the power of one more. When we look at the evolution of masculinity over the years, there’s actual wisdom in even that experience that we can access through our readings.

Here is one of the books I read. I’m going to have to post a picture of what it looks like next to my bed. I probably have seven books next to my bed now. Normally, I have 1 or 2. I have one book that I’m reading and one book that I’m rereading because I always say reading new books but also reread the highlighted parts of the last book you read so you can own the information. I have about 6 or 7 books that I’m jumping back and forth between.

You Hold The Cards

One of them is The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. It’s a great book. What I love about that book is it quotes and it references a lot of amazing philosophers. What’s interesting is some of the greatest philosophers and warriors talk about strength, the power of control, and controlling your emotions. We talk about this fight or flight, and I’ve referenced it several times. It’s not always about who’s the quickest to anger and who’s the quickest to a physical reaction but who’s the quickest to a thoughtful controlled response.

I love that about it. The gift of this journey is that we do hold the cards. Remember when I talked about driving? I’m coming back to this reference about driving the van and everybody’s behind you happy and you need to raise your hand because you need help, but you can’t raise your hand because you’re driving the van. Do you know what you can do? Turn on your blinker and pull over. Take a moment. We do hold the cards to the outcome, but we can only control what we take responsibility for. Your hands are on the steering wheel of your life, so you control your life.

We do hold the cards to the outcome, but we can only control what we take responsibility for. And your hands are on the steering wheel of your life. Share on X

If you need help, a timeout, to pause, and to pull over, do it. Find somebody, whether it’s somebody close to you or sometimes it’s even easier to reach out to a stranger. It is somebody with experience, like a psychiatrist or a psychologist but someone who doesn’t know you to judge you based on past experience with you or knowing your history, somebody who’s going to come at it from a fresh approach.

What Men Deal With: Control your life. If you need help, if you need a timeout, if you need to pause, if you need to pull over, do it.

If you do reach out to somebody you know, it’s got to be somebody absent of the judgment of who you are and who you have been, but somebody is a safe space to do so. Find your trusted circle where there is no judgment. They don’t hold anything against you but they’ll also be honest with you in that moment or space where they allow you to be vulnerable.

I’m blessed to have a few friends. I can count them on just one hand, but I have a few friends like that where I can be 100% vulnerable with them and tell them exactly what’s going on because there’s zero judgment. They know they can use me in the same way. You have to take care of yourself. Take care of yourself mentally and physically. Being physically healthy can even help with being more mentally health healthy.

It can help with dealing with stress. As I referenced before, you can’t be a hero to others until you’re a hero to yourself and you take care of yourself first. The last couple of things is to find your faith. If you don’t have a religious foundation, you have to have some life philosophy that helps tether you to and that you can come back to in those moments of challenge. There’s nothing more powerful than having a word to come back to, having a book to come back to, and having a religious leader to come back to whom you can anchor yourself.

A lot of times, it’s not the person but the words behind that person that you can use to anchor yourself. I read a lot of motivational stuff, but I also have my faith-based anchor as well. I want to finish up by saying this to my fellows. Know that whatever you’re dealing with, somebody else is also dealing with. Whatever you’re challenged by, other people are also challenged by. It may not be in the same way, but the only way we’re going to know, the only way we’re going to get past it, and the only way we’re going to work through it is to raise our hands.

I want you to know that you’re heard. I hope this episode was helpful. I want you to know that you’re appreciated. Sometimes those moments feel like a thankless journey, the challenges of life, or even if you’re going in it alone and don’t even have someone that you have to take care of or support but you’re going it alone in this world. This world is fighting you back, beating you down, or kicking your butt from time to time. Know that you’re loved as a human being on this earth and that the world has an appreciation for you and the highest version of you. Let’s get to that highest and best version of you.

I hope this was helpful, Mogul Nation. It is a little bit of a different angle, different energy but just necessary. We will continue this conversation. If this was helpful for you, please reach out to me and let me know that you heard it and that it is helpful. Maybe it was helpful for somebody in your family or you’re going to share it with somebody in your family. We will continue on our mogul journeys.

Important Links

• Ed Mylett Podcast
• The Power of One More
• The Daily Stoic

How do you deal with haters? These people hide behind social media profiles and workplaces, and they are everywhere! In this episode, Dr. Mimi Nartey, co-founder of The Nartey Sports Foundation, delves into how to deal with your haters and explains what toxic support is. What motivates them to make unkind statements? How do we protect ourselves from haters? You better not miss this interesting topic with Dr. Mimi and Kofi Nartey today!

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Listen to the podcast here

HATERS: Face Them, Embrace Them Or Chase Them With Dr. Mimi Nartey

This episode is going to be a zinger. It's going to be a good one. I’m super excited about this. Some people aren't going to be excited about it because some people are guilty of being haters. We're diving into haters. The title of the talk is Haters: Face Them, Embrace Them, or Chase Them. We're going to jump right in, and I say we because I am joined by my number one supporter, not a hater at all, Dr. Mimi Nartey.

Thanks so much for having me. This is going to be a hot topic.

Let's jump right into the heat. What is a hater? How do we recognize haters? Who are these people? What does it mean to be hated?

I think this is great. There's an awareness now in popular culture about people who hate on other people. People love to throw that around. I hear our elementary school son talking about people hating or not hating. It's popular. We need to figure out what we mean. Who are these people in our lives that are hating on us? Why is it important? What does a hater look like? A hater is someone who could be online who's making unsolicited negative or limiting comments intended to attack you on a personal level.

There are more haters hiding behind social media profiles. We're definitely going to touch on that more than probably anywhere else.

There are also haters in your professional environment. Those are people who are also making limiting comments about your potential or taking actions to hinder you or harm your professional reputation. There could be haters in our own families sometimes who are making subtle undercutting comments about you with statements like, “I don't know who he thinks he is,” or, “She thinks she's too good.” Haters could be someone that you're interacting with on a social level. It could be a friend, a person who's supposed to be a friend, who might be creating campaigns of doubt about you.

I’m not going to let us brush past the family piece. We're going to dig into more of this and the whole definition of what we see as haters, but sometimes it's those who are closest to you. You have to have an awareness and have your radar on to be able to even recognize those comments and those people who are touching you on a subconscious level that's negative.

I call that toxic support. You have people in your support system or people who are supposed to be part of your support group, your mastermind group, but somehow the level of support that they're giving is insufficient because there's a little bit of toxicity there.

That's an amazing oxymoron. I love that, toxic support. Sometimes we think it's support. It feels like support. We expect it to be support because it's somebody that is close to us. There's an expectation of care and love, but it's toxic. It's laced with toxicity.

Another important one is sometimes that hater is that voice of doubt inside your own head. That's the foundation for Imposter syndrome. What are we telling ourselves? What is our own self-talk? Get rid of the negative self-talk because that's a form of hate that we can control.

We talked about family and people close to you being big. Your own head and your own thoughts are the biggest. They are number one in terms of hitting on your process and creating that doubt, creating that negative energy. That's extremely important. It's extremely important to fill your mind with other things that can counteract that and combat those even doubts that show up as hate within yourself.

When you look at all of these examples, these are some of the ones that I came up with off the top of my head. Most of us in life or in business are experiencing this dynamic. That's why this matters, this important conversation to talk about. What do we do?

What do we do when there's obvious hate, when there's subtle hate, when there are backhanded comments? Even defining it and recognizing it is the first part of the battle. I pulled up the dictionary definition. There's the street version. There's the hip-hop version and the colloquial version. The Cambridge dictionary definition was pretty spot on, even for the purposes of our episode. “It's a person who says or writes unpleasant things about someone or criticizes their achievements, usually on the internet.” You talked about that and touched on it already that it's usually people hiding behind something who are throwing out these comments and these negative mentions.

What's funny is haters are people who are trying to usurp some power from another person. There are spiritually healthy sources of energy and power and spiritually unhealthy sources of energy and power. Hating is a spiritually unhealthy way to try to get energy or power by taking it from someone else with some disempowering comments or actions. It's not sustainable and it doesn't last. I do think that it's easiest for people to try to pluck power or chip away at people online.

Hating is a spiritually unhealthy way to get energy or power by taking it from someone else with disempowering comments or actions. It's not sustainable, and it doesn't last. Share on X

You gave it the term toxic support. I even put in my notes. We never compare notes ahead of time because it makes it a little bit more dynamic when we show up and either are overlapping or contradicting each other. I had supportive haters because there are those people who are positioning themselves as part of your support group or a supporter of you, but they're only going to encourage you towards the limits or outcomes that they are comfortable with you reaching. They're going to push you to a point, not of your full potential, but of the potential that they're comfortable seeing you achieve.

At the end of the day, people are hating because of their own insecurity, their own ignorance, or their lack of exposure. They're basically feeling threatened and confused by your grateful confidence. A lot of times, your positivity is convicting. That conviction is disempowering to them.

They have to have some self-defense mechanism. It's the insecurity that you mentioned. Sometimes it's even jealousy. It helps them still feel good about their limitations, their limiting beliefs, or their lack of achievement in their own lives.

When people are exposed to someone with particular combinations of gifts and talents, discipline, gratitude, and confidence, it challenges their own subconscious programming. If they don't have the tools to deal with it, they hate on you.

Sometimes it's for attention. There are people who use hateful commentary, especially on social media. It is what we call clickbait. They're trying to get attention in their otherwise boring lives. I’m going to hate on the haters. I’m going to make comments like that. Your life is boring if all you have to do is hide behind a desk, hide behind a phone, hide behind a computer, and throw clickbait out at other people as hate.

Something else I want to throw out there is this. Unfortunately, as a woman, I can only speak about the experience of being a woman. We are socialized, and it almost seems like from a young age, to hate other women. We are fed lies that support a scarcity mentality. We're led to believe that there's only a limited amount of beauty, a limited amount of success, or a limited amount of happiness. If someone else has it, it poses a threat to me, when in reality, the truth is abundance, not limitation.

I want you to spend another minute or so on that one. For our women readers out there, this is something that we see. We see it on the internet, we see it on social media, and we've even seen the other side of it. Those are women supporting women and women adjusting your crown.

Real queens fix each other's crowns.

I didn't know what they were saying, but I knew there was something about a crown. Why is that so important?

Unfortunately, when we think about social oppression, what is it, really? Effective social oppression creates a situation where you disempower yourself. You are pushing down. You feel like crabs in a barrel, fighting for significance, importance, or validation on some level. Unfortunately, it's been tough with women. We're made to feel like, “If someone else is beautiful, that might mean that I’m not beautiful.” In reality, multiple people can be beautiful, have been, and will be for eternity.

I do think that what I have been encouraged by, as you're saying, is women's empowerment movements. That's the crux of it. It is about intersectional feminism, women respecting who we are in our myriad of beautiful expressions, and being encouraging and feeling like, “I can be who I am. I’m not threatened by someone else being who she is.” I’m empowered by other people's traits, talents, and gifts.

On the male side, we look at success the same way. We look at physical attributes the same way. We look at these things like, “From that scarcity standpoint, this person's successful,” or, “If they've achieved success in my industry, is there room for me to succeed? Is there a pathway?” Yes, there is. When you look at our Mogul Nation and our Full Mogul pursuits, the highest and best version of every individual creates the highest and best society. Imagine if everybody is living up to their full potential because their potential, your full potential, our Mogul Nation's individual full potential is unique to them. No one else will achieve your full potential.

There's a quote maybe from Gandhi. I’m definitely not going to get it exactly right. It's something to the effect that all of the problems in the world or the majority of the problems in the world could be solved by closing the gap between what it is that we're doing and what we have the potential to be doing collectively.

Coming back to the idea of clickbait, it is this whole thing that controversial sells. When somebody makes controversial statements, it gets them headlines. I feel like some people don't even believe at their core what they're saying or the hate they're putting out there. Some people have made a brand out of making controversial statements and creating these fires on Instagram and Twitter, and getting the news to talk about them. That's their only pathway to fame. They aren't even living their truth. They're throwing these things out to hate on other people or to make controversial statements to get attention.

That makes me think through all of the different kinds of haters there are out there. There are all of these different things motivating them to make these unkind statements on a daily basis for attention because they haven't quite tapped into or tuned into what their real gifts are and where should they be putting their energy for sustainable significance.

One other classification of haters would be institutional haters because not all haters are human. There is some systemic and institutional level hate going on, some things that can limit your progression and opportunities. Sometimes we create those in our heads, but sometimes they're real.

The haters can be explicit and deliberate like we're talking about. There are people who are out there saying whatever and doing whatever. That's usually likely in these cyberspaces where they don't have to be confronted or addressed back for the things or held accountable for the things they're saying. The subconscious haters, a lot of times, are the friends and family sometimes in that toxic support cycle where they may not even fully be aware that they are hating on you or why they're even doing what they're doing. These institutional haters, our cultural systems, and our political systems are unfortunately working on it but not optimally designed for everybody to be successful. A big institutional hater is the media.

The media is huge, which is why I know you like to avoid a lot of the rhetoric and the nonsense that's thrown out in the media, even to protect your vibration and your energy towards your own pursuits.

Getting back to the idea that a hater is a person who's chipping away at your energy and who's chipping away at your drive and your power, I limit my exposure to the media, especially visual media. If I want to update myself on the news or world events, I prefer to read my news because televised media or video media, is usually designed to provoke and destabilize you emotionally. I see that as a form of hate.

We've got to address our subtitle, Face Them, Embrace Them, or Chase Them. As I quickly lead into that, I wanted to touch on why we experience it as hate. Why do we feel like somebody is hating on ourselves? A lot of times, hate or those comments of hate or toxic support can serve as a reminder of a version of our former self that we’ve moved on from, or better yet, we’ve evolved from.

Those comments scare us because they remind us of that past. Even as you talked about the media and protecting yourself from the media, this is another reason we have to protect ourselves from certain people and certain types of hate because it can impact your own self-worth and your vision of your own self and even the pursuit of your goals.

What I’m hearing is that we have this vision of ourselves at our highest potential. That's somewhere in us. No matter what you've been through, no matter what childhood trauma you may or may not have experienced, somewhere in your heart is your understanding of your true potential and your true capacity.

We are all in an imperfect struggle or process to get to that. When we are experiencing hate, it perturbs our subconscious because we are trying to be pulled towards that highest version of ourselves, towards meaning, towards purpose, towards love, towards beauty, abundance, and expansion. What we have with this hating energy is someone trying to pull us back down, kill the vibration, keep us, at best, stagnant, if not pull us into a regression.

Let's jump right into when to face them and even to embrace them because sometimes we do have to take on our haters. Sometimes it even makes sense to embrace our haters. One example of that is when it provides you with the right spark and right motivation. This is a little bit of a tricky one. This can bring out the petty. You think about Michael Jordan, his pettiness, and his speech at the Hall of Fame, where he talked about all the people who said something negative or challenged him in a negative way. If you've seen The Last Dance, which I’ve seen nine times, I love it. It's a great documentary, all of that fueled him on a daily, weekly, monthly, and apparently his whole life. It fueled his drive for success.

This is important. If you're aiming for greatness in your career, greatness in sports, in your relationship, your family life, whatever it is, you're going to have haters. If you're aiming for greatness, especially in multiple areas of your life, you're certainly going to have haters. Everyone who's achieved something great, like your example of Michael Jordan, has experienced this particular form of adversity.

I do think that there are times when you can embrace your haters when the hater doesn't have close emotional proximity to you. Michael Jordan going back and looking at all of these people who may not have recognized his truest potential or his highest potential were people who still were at a certain particular emotional distance. That's why he could leverage that into fuel for himself.

Another time we should think through what we might be describing as hate, and maybe we want to embrace it, is when our haters are critics. What I mean by critic is there's an important difference there. A critic is a person that can make you better. It is a person who's a peer who may be offering actual insights and feedback that we may not want to hear, but it is important for us to embrace that.

I think about Dr. John Henrik Clarke, who's a famous African-American historian and professor. He basically created Pan-African studies. I remember him at a conference one day. He says something to the effect of, “I’m not here to debate with anyone. I’ve devoted twenty years of my life to this subject. I only debate with my equals. All others, I teach.” While that is a mic-dropping level-setting zinger in and of itself, what's important is he does acknowledge the opportunity when he would debate. That is when he encountered an equal.

For me, in my life, even through high school, college, and now as a full-on adult, I’ve embraced certain people that are intellectually my peers or know something more than I do, or I want to bounce something off of them. There are certain people in your life. I call them half-empty haters. They're not bad people at all. They're always cynical, or they're risk averse. They're cynical about everything.

Glass is always half empty to them until you prove to them that it's half full. I like those types of people for bouncing ideas off of them and realizing that they're not consciously trying to hate but rather gather information so they can believe in what you're saying. They challenge you in the right ways so you can justify and double down on what you're trying to do or maybe even gain some insider knowledge to make what you're doing better.

Those kinds of critics are the people with the experience and righteous authority to make objective evaluations on some idea that you have or some way that you're functioning. The difference between that critique or criticism and hate is the scope and quality of the commentary. Criticism is usually responsive rather than instigating. I might offer criticism to someone in response to something that they've said or written, carefully focusing on the logical fallacies, never intending to attack someone on a personal level.

You have to find people who will truly tell you like it is that you can trust. My good friend, Sharran Srivatsaa, I go to him quite a bit for conversations and to bounce ideas off of him. He's got a great podcast called Business School. Check it out if you haven't. He had this term that I refer to him as a sniper mentor. I can bounce a single statement off of him, and he's going to shoot straight and say, “Kofi, this is how you should do that. This is how you should attack it.”

It may come across as criticism or critique. He once told me about myself and about how I was falling short based on even gifts that I had and how I could do something better. I’m like, “I love you,” because he was willing to cut through it. You have to have those people in your lives. He's nowhere near a hater. He’s not an example of a hater, but these other people who come across as cynics, you can sometimes use them for that sniper mentorship where you go to them with a quick idea or a quick subject, and you're going to get that feedback. You're going to get those questions that make you better.

That feedback can move us all forward in thought. It makes us sharper in our methods and arguments. To some extent, some of the work that we have to do with ourselves is to understand whether someone is hating per se or is this someone who's trying to give me frank and honest feedback. Am I in a position to be able to receive that?

I also want to say it's a check for authenticity. That's a big one. It's a way to know that you are on the right path for you, by you, of you, and through to you. This is something I had to call myself out on years ago. It was like, “I get along with about everybody in my world. If I’m getting along with everybody, there's some part of my truth that I’m not truly embracing and not truly living.”

The true version of me can't rub everybody the right way. It's not true. You've been with me for many years. You've probably even seen part of that shift to call more things like I see them, to push people in ways that I think they could be better, to solicit unsolicited advice from people because I’m often giving unsolicited advice for that exact reason. I want it back. I want people to tell me how I can be better, but it's helped me live in my truth. Even a declaration I made a few years back was, “This is a year I’m going to transition to bringing out my haters.” It means I’m going to be living in my authenticity.

Everybody has a certain particular flavor. There's a certain particular flair. It can't suit all pallets. You do have to get to a place of comfort with yourself. That's a real sign of leadership, what you're describing, that process growth in leadership where you are willing to stand for what you believe in and recognize that it's not going to be what everybody believes in. That's what it is. I know that I’m not everybody's particular cup of tea, but then again, everybody doesn't necessarily have good taste. I’m just having a little fun. You have to be willing to have a little bit of controversy and conflict in order to walk in your real truth toward your purpose.

I love it because that authenticity that you bring to what you're doing creates more alignment with your inner being, your inner self. It creates more connection with what I call your tribe. The people who align with your line of thinking will embrace that. You'll even notice it in your social media feed, on your Facebook pages, and on your websites because when you make a statement that's bringing out the haters that are potentially controversial, they'll go to bat for you because they align with your thinking.

That's what I try to do, and that's how I try to function in my social media spaces. Beyond people that I’m friends with, I try to create a social media network that I think is in alignment with what I like. There's that reinforcing energy towards my goals, creating all of the different kinds of psychological cues to push me forward and help me be more authentic in the truth that I want to live.

Some of your haters, you can embrace for your own advantage. You can feed certain people who you know are haters or are rumor spreaders or who like to run and tell that. You can feed them certain information that's going to help your overall journey. It's going to help your overall messaging, and it's going to get you more clicks. You can use your haters who are trying to hate on you.

I love that, and maybe this is something that we can talk about in a future episode. There are a lot of ways to have other people and even leverage objects and opportunities to fight battles for you so that you don't have to spend too much energy or time fighting certain particular battles. You definitely can figure out how to leverage other people, opportunities, or objects.

We're going to do an episode on that. It was very controversial too. It was probably one of my most controversial social media posts. I had a social media post that I said, “Sometimes I let my clothes fight my battles. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada hit pretty hard.” People came out of the woodwork. Some people loved it, some people hated it. “You’re materialistic.”

Yes, you're right because it does do some of your speaking and communicating for you in whatever direction you're trying to take it. We're going to do an episode on that, for sure. I love this idea of leaning into it to find your tribe and embrace your authenticity because it means you're on the right path. It reminds me of that Drake song. I won't say the title of the song, but he's got the chorus that says, “More money, more problems. Bring on the problems.”

More money, more problems, bring on the problems because that's bringing on the money. That's part of the process. Let's talk a little bit about when to avoid them. We're coming up on time here, but I definitely want to make sure we cover when to fully avoid them or anything critical that we missed on the other two parts.

Right before we get into when to avoid them, I want to drop one little bit of knowledge on when to face your haters. We did talk about institutional haters, and I have to say I am an INFJ personality. People who do personality assessments will understand that. I am an advocate. People like MLK Jr. share my same personality type. I want to say we always need to confront haters that are on the institutional level. That's part of our purpose, part of our mission, and part of bettering ourselves as humankind. We need to be willing to face and confront haters on that level, whether cultural haters or institutional haters.

We always need to confront haters that are on the institutional level. That's part of our purpose, part of our mission, and part of bettering ourselves as humankind. Share on X

I’m going to piggyback on that, shout you out for that, and make sure that you guys processed what she's saying because I’ve seen it. You are an advocate. You are willing to take on the institution, take on the haters, not just for yourself, but even more so willing to take it on, on behalf of others, and on behalf of institutional challenges and institutional level hate. Not even just the individual level, but how do you change institutional problems without embracing them, facing them, and challenging them the way that you do? Shout out to you for that.

I want to encourage everybody to find your advocacy. Sometimes it does look like something that's confrontational. You can't be conflict-avoidant at all times. Also, it could be in the form of starting something new, starting organizations for women in a particular organization, or for people of color. That's the advocacy. That's when we need to stand up and take on institutions and face that kind of hate.

As we wrap up, let's talk about a few times or instances or reasons to avoid your haters. One of the first things that comes to mind for me is what I call castle building. When you're castle building, when you're building your big idea, or when you're building your identity, you have to protect that concrete until it firms up. You have to protect that foundation.

If you're building a house, you can't build on top of the foundation while the concrete is still wet. If you let negativity penetrate that concrete, you're going to have that negativity and that doubt all throughout the rest of the building process. When you have a new idea, sometimes it's better to keep it to yourself. Can you keep a secret? I can't. Sometimes you have to keep that.

It's even part of my focus and finish mantra. Focus on this or finish that before announcing it before sharing it because I’m building a new castle and I need to protect the purity of it. I need to protect the emotional fragility of that idea until I get to a place where I can share it with the world with confidence, and the negativity will bounce off or make it better.

I love considering timing as far as when it’s time to avoid haters. I want to talk about time and space. These are always good organizing principles. It's most important to avoid haters that have close proximity to you physically and emotionally. The impact of haters is usually a function of their proximity. If someone is close to you emotionally, they can do so much more damage to you mentally and emotionally as they try to disempower you. Think about those people that you might share something deeply personal or painful, and then later, they attempt to use that very same thing to try to tear you down.

It's the people closest to you that know how to use it against you to tear you down later.

Once I realize that kind of person in my life, I have a pretty absolute policy about those haters in close proximity. I cut them out swiftly, decisively, and without regret. I think of it as part of my process of being a highly self-disciplined self. Self-discipline is doing the things that you need to do even if you don't want to do it. I could face some social rejection on some level by cutting certain people out of my life. I need to be disciplined. If I’m serious about my goals, my process, and who I want to be and lining up with what I think God's vision is for my life, I need to be disciplined and remove those kinds of people out of my inner circles who I can't trust to be genuinely supportive of my process.

I want to clap. It's good, and it's also one of these moments. I always bring up how we don't compare notes until we get here, but you summarized three points for me. That is, 1) Considering the messenger. You have to consider the messenger. Sometimes certain messengers you have to avoid. 2) It ties into unhealthy emotional baggage or if it's purely a distraction. That unhealthy emotional baggage can also tie into who the messenger is if it is somebody who is closest to you. 3) That willingness to cut people out, that willingness to keep people at arm's length and even take it a step further and cut them out of your lives.

Some people don't belong on the same train, on the same bus, on the same mission that you are on. You can wave at them from the window. Peace. See you later. As a matter of fact, some people, you love them, but they can't be on the journey. They can't be on the bus. When you get there, “I’ll save a seat for you at the table.”

I found it fascinating because it's interesting some of these haters are in so much disbelief when you deny them access. At the end of the day, my passions and my pursuits are too important to me to let that dynamic thrive. You need energy to fulfill your purpose, and you can't afford to have those haters in close proximity to you, chipping away at that energy and at that passion that you have.

For my salespeople out there, too, sometimes we get nervous about living our truths and being authentic. “Kofi, I might lose clients, I might lose people.” The people that you're meant to work with, the people that you're meant to have in your inner circle, it is those people. The truer you are and the more authentic you are, the faster they'll show up. I’m not saying go make crazy political statements or go crazy. No, don't do that. Use some wisdom. You have to live in that authentic truth and don't deny yourself of that because that also will eat away at your core.

I want to throw something out about living in your authentic truth. As a little tip on that, it's important for us to focus on what we are in favor of and what we're more in support of rather than making big, bold statements about what we are against. Take a more positive and constructive approach to making statements about what you're for rather than even me saying, “I’m against this injustice or this bias. I’m actually for inclusion, love, and equity.” When you put things in a constructive way, it's also a lot easier to live in your truth in a way that's going to be sustainable and inclusive. You're still going to find people who hate you, but you're on your path toward your highest and best self.

Focus on what we are in favor of and what we're more in support of rather than making big, bold statements about what we are against. Share on X

Let's wrap this up. We've covered quite a bit here. Hopefully, we've said something controversial enough that we'll bring some haters to the table who will debate with us in a healthy debate. If they're not equipped for a healthy debate, then we'll teach them, as the doctor said. My last little thing here is fortifying yourself. Know what your goals are. We talk about definite chief aims, if you're familiar with that statement.

Knowing what your goal is to the extent that when you're castle building, when you've reached a point that you can share it, when you can invite those constructive critics in, those half-empty haters, you know when to avoid the people who have access to your emotional sensitivities. You know when to embrace them and use them. You have to build up enough fortitude and enough momentum that they bounce off of you when they're supposed to bounce off of you. Sometimes you're pulling that Neo and The Matrix and you're avoiding them all together.

You did a beautiful summary. The only thing I would offer in addition is, if you are trying to be successful and you're trying to be great, this is a part of the process. We're trying to offer, as Kofi has summarized so beautifully, some different strategies, some different guidelines, and some methods for you to begin to figure out how to address this because it is a part of the journey. Know that as those haters come out, look at it as an indication of, “I’m on my way.”

I’ve risen to a certain level of success or visibility that now the haters can finally see me. Let them come. Let them support your ambitions and your journey as a way of knowing that you are on your way. Thank you, Dr. Mimi Nartey. Thank you, wife. Thanks to Mogul Nation. Please comment. Send us notes on social media. Go to the website FullMogul.com. Share this show with someone. Secretly share it with your haters. We will see you on the next episode as we continue this mogul journey. Thanks. 

Important Links

• Dr. Mimi Nartey
• Business School

Are you a creature of habit? Does your day go by routinely? If yes, then you are already set for a bright future! In this episode, Kofi Nartey is joined by none other than his beautiful wife and social entrepreneur, Mimi Nartey, to discuss how creating a daily routine sets you up for lifetime success. Mimi dives deep into the biggest challenges many of us face when creating these day-to-day habits and shares how we can overcome them. She provides the strategies to help you create daily success habits, so you can fully be the master of your life. Full of insights on our psychology and identity, this conversation helps us see which parts of our lives push or limit us from reaching our full potential. Small habits build momentum towards excellence. Join Kofi and Mimi as they guide you towards this pathway to success.

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Listen to the podcast here

Daily Routine Or Daily Failure With Mimi Nartey

Why It's Important To Have A Daily Routine And How To Create One.

I'm super excited. I'm always excited to share with you guys and to do this. In particular, we're going to talk about a very popular subject, daily routine/daily habits. We're calling it Daily Routine Equals Lifetime Success: Why a Daily Routine is Important and How to Create One. I'm joined by a special guest who's been here before. Speaking of daily routine, my forever guest, my beautiful wife, Dr. Mimi Nartey. Please say hello.

Hello, guys. Thanks again for having me, Kofi.

Let's jump right into this. We are going to get to some great bullet points on how to start your day and how to build out your daily success routine and habits. Let's start with the why because if we're not motivated to do something, we'll never do it. Why is it important to have a daily routine?

I'm excited to talk about this as well. The why is critical. I'm going to jump in a little hot and heavy with a big idea here.

Brace yourselves, guys. We normally warm up and build into it. We're jumping right in. I don't know what she's going to say, so let's go.

Daily routines are important to address your subconscious programming. The single biggest challenge that we face is our subconscious programming, which are the subconscious thoughts, beliefs, and values that we hold that inform us about the relationship between constructs. What do I mean by that? I mean what's the relationship between success and struggle that we believe? Do we believe that there can't be success without significant struggle? What's the relationship between people who come from places we come from and ultra wealth that we're holding in our mind?

Do we think that a certain level of wealth isn't for people from our backgrounds? This is where all of our limiting beliefs come from. We have this subconscious programming, things that we've picked up from the way that we've been raised, from what we've been exposed to, or what we haven't been exposed to. A daily routine is a key strategy to address subconscious programming by building in daily. 1) Time to work on your mindset and 2) Actions that support the new beliefs that you want to hold about yourself and your potential.

That is heavy. That was the doctor and Dr. Mimi Nartey right there. My first bullet point was it starts with an idea. Why do you need a daily routine? It’s because you have to have an idea, a plan, or a goal that you're working towards. That daily routine in those daily success habits is part of the plan to get there. Now everything you said, and I had no idea where you were going to go with it, seems to fit neatly, messily, strategically, or perfectly in the middle of what I'm saying.

It starts with an idea or goal, and then there's the plan to get there. Part of what you are addressing and what you dropped in terms of knowledge is our psychology which helps us, prevents us, aids us, and slows us down in whatever capacity from getting there. How a daily routine or daily habits will help us break through those limiting beliefs or limitations that we have on a personality or psychological level.

We're going to use the words habit and routine synonymously. I know that they're slightly different, but we talk about daily habits and daily routines. You can google the daily habits or success habits of certain people or industries, and it's a very popular topic. If you say habit, it’s the same as routine. Routine is the same as a habit.

I'm passionate about the pathway to success, even this full mogul journey that we're on in the show, and what it's about. Let's talk a little bit about that and even dig a little deeper into what you dropped as your framework for this and the personality limitations. We're setting those goals and talking about the steps to get to those goals. How do this daily routine and daily habit factor in?

One thing about myself is I'm intentional. Again, I'm exposed to a lot of people that I see. They’re promoting or trying to influence with their different daily routines. It's worth it for me to dig deeper to understand why. How is this servicing them? Beyond quality skincare routine and getting that glow, how is this making a difference and amounting to a difference in people's lives? I want to believe that. I know it makes a difference in people's lives because I do know that there are certain habits or routines for highly successful people.

As I'm saying, it starts with this mental framework. That's so important for your success. You have to release certain things that are holding you back mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. Another challenge that we face as ambitious people in entrepreneurship, sports, or whatever it is that we're doing is, from time to time, we all lack motivation. Effectively having a daily routine keeps you moving one foot over the other even when you feel tired, burnt out, or not that into it. That's the importance.

Effectively having a daily routine keeps you moving one foot over the other even when you feel tired, burnt out, or not that into it. Share on X

I 100% love that. I feel like the words habit and routine are synonymous. It makes me think about the speaking that I do sometimes from stages. Whether I'm teaching a class, I'm doing training for agents, I'm talking to professional athletes, people in sports and entertainment, or the kids, I'm sharing from my heart. When I say sharing from my heart, I'm sharing from my gift. I get passionate about it.

I might start off slow, but I build quickly and I talk fast. I talk with a lot of energy and people can feel that energy, but that has to be converted into action items. I tell people that enthusiasm, the momentum you want to build, and the excitement are like caffeine. It wears off unless you turn it into action items. Habits can convert that enthusiasm and momentum into routines that lead to success.

That's so important because you do get a lot of people that are passionate and energetic, but translating that into meaningful change in their life or progress towards their goals, usually, it's a black box. That's what this is. This idea of establishing your habits or routines each day from morning and night is going to deconstruct the mystery and help you move. As I said, one foot over the other when you're passionate and enthusiastic and even when you're lacking a little bit of passion and enthusiasm.

It connected even to my point about motivation. Daily habits are also important when you are dealing with grief, pain, or illness and as a way to keep going when you feel you can't go on. Effectively, your routines create your mindset and your mindset creates your identity. When you are challenged in your identity by some level of trauma, it is your routines that are going to help you find your way back to yourself.

It ties, again, into my theory of alignment. We align with our emotions more so than we should. A lot of times, we need to align with the person that we truly are aiming to be owning that identity and finding ways to get back to that alignment. It’s like you wake up feeling depressed. I always say, “That's the day you need to put on your best outfit because it's going to help you align with the true version of yourself that you're pursuing, which is who you actually are.”

Those habits are routines. They help you stick to the plan, and you can't plan without a desired outcome in mind. If you're having routines and habits toward nothing, you're going to end at nothing. You need to establish that goal or that plan ahead of time because then, you can create the routines and habits to get there. Also, it lets you know once you have achieved that goal.

Right there, we see the benefit of routines all the way around for helping you to establish your identity and how that can be so protective. It is so that you don't skip beats in the pursuit of your goal because of natural burnout and lack of motivation. If you are interrupted by something that is traumatic or disruptive, you have a way to fall right back into what you know is a part of your true identity.

I have a Kofi-ism that says, “Don't let a moment ruin your momentum.” I can't tell you how many days I've set out with big plans for the day. I get to the office and I forgot my computer charger. Now I don't have a computer. You get distracted by a terrible email or a fire you need to put out at work, but it's a moment. Those things are going to pop up every day or every week. They're part of your journey.

You have to make sure that your routines and habits keep you on track and on the road. Those things are distractions that are thrown at you to challenge you to confirm and verify how focused you are. Are you focused and committed to getting from A to Z, reaching your goal, and reaching your outcome? You won't know that until it's tested.

I couldn't agree more with what you're saying. I have a Post-it Note on my computer keyboard that simply says, “Are you sticking with the plan?” I do think that if I break that down, what is questioning me is, “Am I in alignment with the routines and the habits that I believe are going to get me towards to arrive at the goals that I'm aiming for or striving for?” To your point, regardless of what happens during the day, as a mompreneur, there are always things that come up. I could be right in the middle of my fluid zone, and then I get a call from the school that somebody is sick.

That may not even be your kid.

In a post-COVID world, that's true. You do have these disruptions. Do I have a certain number of things that are targets for my day that are still moving me towards what I want, even if somehow, the bulk of my day gets rerouted or rescheduled in some ways?

Those habits allow you to own your day instead of your day owning you. I remember hearing this podcast that if you don't take control of your day, you wake up and you start checking emails right away instead of focusing on your list and your priorities. Your inbox from your emails becomes your to-do list and you let other people determine your priorities. You let other people determine what you're going to do with your morning, your middle of the day, and your afternoon. These habits and routines give you control. You wake up and start with your goal in mind versus reacting to what the world throws at you.

To even push your point a little bit further, not only will people be dictating what your to-do list is, but they will be taking you on their emotional rollercoaster. Having your own routines and habits are for you to be the master of your own emotions at different points during the day.

We need to quit and spend another minute or two on that because it's so important to guard ourselves against external emotions. You can only control your reaction and response to those things. Your reaction is usually an emotional reaction. Your response is thoughtful response. I always say, “Don't react but respond. The reaction is with emotion and response is with thought.” You also have to guard yourself against other people's emotions. I did a Full Mogul focus and finished a Friday post on Instagram about, “You've got to stop building up your emotional armor. Instead, start dodging the bullets.”

You don't want to keep getting stronger. I can take this from external pressures and external people and take on other people's problems and emotions. Sometimes, you have to pull a matrix and avoid other people's emotions. Block other people out of your world and stay focused on what you're doing. There's a time and a place where you can engage with other people and take on some of their challenges. There are other times and places that are even more important where you have to stay focused on your own.

I agree 100%. I would say in the roles that I have as a wife and as a mother, there is a lot of sharing the emotional processes of other people. It is what makes it so important that I dedicate time in my day to manage my own emotions and focus on getting myself into a routine that's going to have me balanced and aligned emotionally and psychologically.

If there's an inevitable part of your day where you have to take on other people, that's part of the role. It's important, as Mimi pointed out, to guard part of your day for yourself.

I used to do a lot of work in social justice parenting. You'll have my platform going and some different things that I do there. Social justice work is heavy work, and it is emotional work. What you are doing is saying, “I would facilitate crucial conversations or difficult conversations for people, where we're talking about social identity hot-button things around parenting their children.” I was basically holding the safe space emotionally for that. What I realize is I need routines. I need time to retreat, recover, and fill my tank up. Connecting back to myself through a certain process is my way to keep myself safe and continue to be able to give at that level.

That routine and those habits are systems that we create for consistency so that being human doesn't have to get in the way because we are all human. We have faults as humans. If we can create systems that we are dedicated to and committed to, that's how we move forward. We break through the inconsistency of being human, having these emotions, being on these rollercoasters sometimes, and having to deal with other people, but knowing that we have an endgame in mind.

Even owning that identity as we talked about it, it's a reframing. We always talk about the be, do, have versus do, be, have. The be, do, have is owning the identity and letting those habits and routines align with that identity. As an example, you want to start working out because you want to be fitter. Reframing that as, “I'm already a fit person. Now, what are my habits?”

It’s like, “I work out because I am a fit person.”

Exactly. Let's jump into a little bit more of the content. We're racing through time here. I know we've got a few more things we want to share. We want to jump into how to create daily success habits. Before we do that, let's talk a little bit more abound some of the strategies and things you're approaching in creating habits, why it's important, routines that we are using ourselves, or things you want to share.

It's around this idea of how I get started. How do I create a daily routine? What is that going to look like? From the MIMI Method perspective, there are several things that need to be part of your daily habits. It’s several things that need to happen on a daily basis. First of that is meditation.

We did an episode on the MIMI Method, but tell people what MIMI Method stands for. It's an acronym.

It’s Minimizing Inefficiency to Maximize Impact. That's a method about being really strategic, focusing on efficiency, and having the biggest impact that you can on the lives of others while reaching your fullest potential. For the most important daily habits, I've got meditation. That's worship, prayer, gratitude, and reflection. For me, on some days, that's fasting. Whatever that process looks like for each person, it's about that connecting on a spiritual level, That's what's important as one major component of a daily habit. Another one is movement. That's exercise or stretching. It could be yoga, bodywork, or something that gets your blood flowing. Those are my first two.

Those are amazing. It's important even as you're approaching and creating it. Now we're getting into that content. We're getting into the second part. How do you create your daily habits? These are strategies and tips for creating those daily habits. You have to identify your full mogul buckets. By this show, hopefully, you've tuned into the first episode, which gives you advice and tips on how to get started on your full mogul journey.

You have to know the buckets that you're feeding into and the identity that you are owning that these daily habits will support. If you haven't identified your full buckets, now is a great time to revisit that. Who am I as a person? What am I trying to accomplish? What impact am I trying to have? Who am I trying to help? Who do I need help from? How do I stay aligned with all of these different buckets?

All of that precedes this. You understand who it is that you want to be, and then these are the important bits that need to be a part of your day so that you can make sure you can execute that identity. As I said, firstly, this idea of meditation and reflection. It’s something that's spiritual and philosophical. The movement being another one. Let me add another one, which is learning. Learning needs to be a part of your daily habits because you need to be on a daily basis developing your expertise and staying intellectually stimulated.

Learning needs to be a part of your daily habits because you need to be developing your expertise and staying intellectually stimulated on a daily basis. Share on X

That's something that is part of my daily success habits that I presented at Inman. I took the main stage at Inman. It's a big real estate conference. There are a lot of entrepreneurs and techpreneurs. Mostly, real estate people. They had me present my ten daily success habits. You can find it on YouTube. It's a ten-minute video on YouTube. Google my name and put daily success habits. It'll pop up. Read and reread is one of them.

I always share that with the agents that I train and the people that I talk to. It's not about reading a bunch of new books every year. It's about rereading books that you've read because it's about retention and the information that you can own and apply. When you're reading, highlight the parts that stand out to you. Usually, you will highlight about 30% to 40% of a book. When you reread, only reread those highlighted parts. That's part of learning. It tied directly into what you said.

As I said, you're learning to develop expertise. It's not about necessarily exposing yourself to everything. I was a college professor for a couple of years. I would always tell my students, “What does it mean to be intelligent? It means that you know how to know things. It’s not that you know everything. We're not going to be successful at knowing everything.” I would challenge them to swing by the library after class and look at all the books they're never going to read before they die. It's not about accessing every single thing, but it's about finding one particular practice, epistemology, and philosophy. It’s finding the things that reinforce that and getting mastery of that concept and process.

Coming back to Bruce Lee’s quote, “I fear not the man who studied 10,000 kicks, but the man who studied one kick 10,000 times.” It's mastery. It even ties into the 10,000 hours.

Ten thousand hours invested into one process will make you a prodigy. That's Malcolm Gladwell.

You also have to have specific guidelines that apply to your personality and plans. If you google daily habits or if you watch mine, for example, it may not apply to your plan or your personality. I'll give you an example. When I was doing daily mantras and affirmations, and I had a list of things, the consistent words that I saw on my full-page list of affirmations were focus and finish. That's what applied to me as a serial entrepreneur. It was like, “Focus on this before starting the next task. Finish this before announcing it. Finish this before starting a new venture.” That's what applied to my personality and needed to be ingrained in my daily habits.

I love that you're saying that and talking about personalizing what it is that you're doing to yourself. I would say these elements that I'm offering are elements that you are going to operationalize in a way that makes sense for you. For the most part, based on what I've seen as far as different successful people. What are the components of their day? What has worked for me? What am I observing that has worked for you? What are we trying to instill in our kids?

These are the general most important things that need to be part of your daily habits. They do need to be personalized and align with your brand, your personal goals, and the identity that you are taking on. No matter what that is, there should be some component of meditation, movement, and learning. This one is planning and scheduling on a daily basis to assure that you are organized. You are moving towards your goals, you are building your brand and you're feeling accomplished on a daily basis.

A couple of notes on that specifically. It should align with the highest and best version of yourself and the most centered version of yourself. You have to have something in your daily routine that you know is centering for you. For me, it's working out. If I can work out, I know that's one part of the day that I fully own for myself. It's very centering. That's why I'll even do my no-sweat quickset.

I'll go in my work clothes. If I don't have time for a full workout, I'll do a ten-minute workout because I get to own those ten minutes. I'll do one exercise, except pull-downs, leg breasts, leg extensions, or whatever it is where I won't do enough to break a sweat. I keep the momentum for that bucket in my life because it's a very centering bucket for me.

One thing to point out because this is important as it relates to the philosophy of the whole conversation that we're having is that your daily routine is not your daily to-do list. It's a different thing. Your daily routine would be like for me, working out. My daily to-do list would be what I'm going to do exactly for working out. In my daily routine, I need to lead generate for my business. For my daily to-do list, how many calls am I going to make? Who am I reaching out to? What am I saying?

That's an important point, too. Your daily routine is the things that you're making sure of, the boxes you're checking, and the buckets that you're touching on a daily basis regularly to keep you centered and motivated. It’s to make sure that you are moving every day towards your goals, regardless of what life throws at you each day.

Even for us, part of our weekly routines is our walks. It's about a 2-mile roundabout walk and we talk about all this stuff. We might have season two of the show be our conversations from our walks as well.

I wish we could record this one.

They're so good. I remember on one of our walks, we were talking about daily habits and you talked about the idea of sequencing. I thought that was great because certain things build on other things. Certain habits build on other habits and certain habits set up the next habit. Do you remember part of that conversation?

I do. It's related to a concept called Habit Stacking. You have to stack certain habits on top of each other in order to be full and stable in your identity. This is important because sometimes we have a bunch of habits, but we're still not executing on our identity and thus, not executing on our goals. It’s because maybe the foundational habit is not there. All of those habits that you have aligned with either a different identity or some aspect of the same identity. If the foundational habits and identity aren’t in place, then you are on unstable ground.

You have to stack certain habits on top of each other in order to be full and stable in your identity. Share on X

Let's give an example of something like that. Is there anything that comes to mind? I've got a couple of things that come to mind like making your bed. That's an example that we talked about. You talking about that with even the kids and the importance of making your bed and even doing it in an excellent way.

You have to be certain to embed excellence and efficiency into your day. I was going to talk about this a little bit more when I talk about certain supplements of a morning routine versus an evening routine. It's important that you have, in your morning, intention setting and planning. As I was mentioning, some kind of self-care routine, which is pretty normal. We all are hygienic, but then also have small projects that build momentum toward excellence. That's because excellent execution builds momentum for your day.

Small projects that build momentum towards excellence. It’s such a good statement. If you're not driving, write that one down.

When I say small projects, what do I mean? The scale is making your bed as I said. We've got children that are pretty clever and sometimes they use that cleverness for good and sometimes they use it to try to work my nerves. I'll get comments like, “Why do we need to make the bed if we're going back into bed in the evening?” It is a small project that they can execute in an excellent way that starts to build momentum in their day toward excellence. They start the day being organized, tidy, and getting themselves going in this momentum.

It touches on all of that just making your bed. Remember the event we went to for the Navy SEALs Foundation? It was Admiral William McRaven. He wrote a book called Make Your Bed. He was talking about this idea of making your bed in the morning. You think about the military and the precision with which they do everything. He even said he brought that precision to making his bed.

It’s exactly what we're talking about. It starts your day in a certain way. It’s a certain level of organization, detail, and excellence. What I loved is he gave the story of the whole writing-the-book process and why he wrote the book. He also said, “At the end of your day, if your day has been bad, at least you have a beautiful bed to come back to.”

I'm going to give a couple of other little tips and hacks for starting to figure out how to put together your daily habits and daily routines. I've used acronyms and cheat codes to help me remember the broader ideas or things that I need to do that day. I'll give an example. I'll give last year's first. In 2022, I did 531. It was my cheat code.

Every day, I was going to have five personal touches for my business and for my life. I was going to make three deals happen. What do I mean by making a deal happen? For my people in real estate, they'll understand this. If you have a listing or a buyer, you have to be proactive in getting the house sold or finding a house. Making a deal happen meant that if my buyer had seen everything on the market, how do I find off-market opportunities?

How do I reach out to agents who might have new listings coming? What doors can I knock on to see if people are willing to sell? If I have a listing that hasn't sold yet, what agents can I put it in front of? What buyers can I put it in front of? How can I reframe it, reposition it, and share new videos and photos that I haven't done before? That's my making a deal happen and then one personal interaction with a center of influencer or key person that I needed to continue building a relationship with.

Fast forward to now, WILL. Every day, WILL. W stands for Workout. Every day I want to do something, whether it's a little walk or a full-on hour-long workout. If I have the time, it's great. Sometimes my no-sweat quick set where I go a ten-minute break in my office. I go to the gym next door, do that set, and come back. The I in WILL is for Impact. I want to have an impact every day on somebody in my firm or my life.

The two Ls are for Lead Generation For My Firm, so building the brand, getting the name out there, and creating opportunities for our agents. The second L is Lead Generation For My Clients and My Business. Come up with your own acronym. These are little hacks you can use. Come up with your own cheat code so that every day you're not reinventing the wheel. This is part of the daily routine.

I love that because I started going through that list of important things to incorporate into a daily habit. I talked about meditation, moving, learning, planning, and scheduling. This is also a way for you to even add additional emphasis and priority to certain aspects that are important to you. I want to throw in a few more that I didn't get to mention as far as what should be a part of your daily routine, and what should be a part of your life and practice on a daily basis.

Romanticized moment. As an individual, you should have certain moments and beats in your day that are designed to be a little bit more romantic, beautiful, elegant, and luxurious. That could be the skincare process and routine. We see that all the time. Influencers show this elaborate skincare routine where they're lavishing themselves with all kinds of beautiful creams and rubs. It could be getting dressed. If you're into fashion as I am, that moment is a romantic moment of styling yourself, pausing, and making sure something is beautiful and intentional.

As an individual, you should have certain moments and beats in your day that are designed to be a little bit more romantic, beautiful, elegant, and luxurious. Share on X

The one that I use all the time that I do on a daily basis for sure is a coffee break. I have a pretty expensive espresso machine. I'm not going to say it on air because I don't think my husband knows exactly how much I paid for it. I've got a beautiful espresso machine and lovely coffee. It’s a whole coffee syrup bar. At different points during my day, I will take a beat, come down, and have that process.

That, to me, feels romantic, beautiful, luxurious, intentional, and personal. That's an important beat in my day and it's part of my routine. Everybody should have certain elements of their day that are romantic in that way. That could be going for a walk, spending time in nature, whatever that means or looks like for you. That's because synthesizing things gives us inspiration. It feeds our souls in a certain way.

I'm going to find out how much this thing costs but I will vouch for it. I call it your coffee bar because you created it. You ordered that machine. You've got the coffees laid out. You have the syrups and the different vanilla and coconut flavoring. It's beautiful. The product is good. When you make a cup of coffee for me, it beats Starbucks and Coffee Bean. It's amazing. I can imagine that being part of your day is a chance to have that romantic moment.

Two more things really quick that need to be part of your day. I would say connection with your partner. You already dropped that. We’re trying to go for walks. That's important because on a daily basis when you're in a relationship, you want to be able to offer support and get support. Connection with your kids is the same thing. You want to be able to make sure that you're hitting the beats with them. The relationships that really matter to you, you're investing in them in some way, big or small, on a daily basis.

In some way, big or small, you are investing in the relationships that really matter to you on a daily basis. Share on X

Another one is knowing how to identify the things that will make that day a success. You have to identify the things that if that thing gets done, this day is a success. If it doesn't get done, the day is a failure. That comes from The Science of Getting Rich, the book that we've both read and listened to on audio multiple times. That has to be part of your day.

It's funny because I had that as a key element of a morning routine. Remember, I was saying you need to do some intention setting and planning so that you have your schedule together on a daily basis. You need to have your self-care routine and small projects that are building momentum. Also, you need to address the one big thing that gets checked off on your to-do list for the day that will already make the day more or less a success or something that's important.

A bigger-picture goal that you're working on. You need to get that activity done to make sure that you are foot right over left moving towards what you want. For example, we have children that are athletes. For our daughter, that's soccer training in the morning. You make sure you get that done and out of the way. That also prioritizes the identity soccer player in her own mindset because we are servicing that identity initially in the morning and then right after that, jumping into schoolwork.

Considering that example brings me to my next point. It can be dynamic. Your daily habits can change based on your goals. That is why we said you have to have a plan or something that you're working towards in those daily habits, and routines will get you there. You have to be able to pivot sometimes, update the habits, and change the habits. You want to have some foundational consistency or some things that do align with you.

For me, the working out or even those romantic moments that you are describing. Those things align with your inner core or inner child, the happy being inside of you that you want to make sure you're taken care of. Don't be afraid to make your habits dynamic as it relates to whatever the goal is at that time, whatever the plan is that you're trying to fulfill or things you're trying to reach, and give yourself grace along the way.

It's so funny because we did not plan to do this together. I have here that you need to reevaluate and redevelop your daily routine periodically to make sure that you're executing the routine that is in alignment with the next level of you. You have the routine that you're establishing. It constantly needs to be revised. If you think about it in terms of, say a life course theory.

You need to reevaluate and redevelop your daily routine periodically to ensure that you're executing the routine that aligns with the next level of you. Share on X

The routine that you have established at 5 is not the routine that you'll have established at 15 is not the routine that you'll have established at 25 because you're a different age and there are different things in your life. You can look at it as, “Who I am right now as an entrepreneur? My equivalent 5-year-old child entrepreneur self will not have the same habits as my 30-year-old entrepreneur self.” Not necessarily with 30 years invested, but where you've come in terms of the maturation of your business.

Even to double down on part of what you say. The most important part of even that sentence was the next level of you. Your daily habits aren't to maintain the status quo. Your daily habits are to take you to the next level of you.

The Harvard Business School in the past year usually does international trips to Asia, Hong Kong, or Thailand. Harvard Business School went to Ghana. That's amazing and remarkable. Side note, it’s cool that there's an interest on that level academically in what's going on in Africa. I thought it was so interesting that there was a student from the Harvard Business School, who had the opportunity to ask the president of Ghana anything.

The question that she asked was, “What is a typical day in the life of an African head of state?” It connects to this because what we have is an ambitious business student, a young woman who is trying to run a major Fortune 500 company or a nation potentially at some point. What she's asking is, what is effectively your daily routine so that I can glean some insight and wisdom and align my routine with what your routine might be? Think about that. If I align my routine with what the president's routine might be, even if I don't end up president, it's going to take me far.

I've been saying it a lot, but I love that too because it's so important. Another Kofi-ism is listening with selfish ears. If you ask questions like that, the answer is going to be something that you can pull out of what you need as it relates to your daily process. For example, if they say, “I read this and that every day.” That means they read every day.

It doesn't mean you need to read the exact same thing because you might be in a different industry, but they're reading every day. They meditate or go for walks. I hear exercise in there, getting centered again, and getting back to my foundational thought processes. How do I access those? How do I do that for my life? That becomes something that you can emulate and that takes you towards your goals.

It helps you establish that identity. That's that next level of you.

This has been super-duper amazing. I want to bring us home with a couple of final points. As I shared my daily mantra on the Inman stage, I'll share it here too. I don't say it as much anymore, but it was, “A great way to become more centered to revisit who I am. Not even who I was becoming, but who I actually was.” Give us a couple more points as we look to wrap up here.

I've got maybe a couple more little hacks for establishing your daily routine. One thing that I'll share is I have distinctly different identities on a day-to-day basis. I have different kinds of businesses that I participate in. I work and manage the foundation and the charitable giving arm of your real estate company. I'm a homeschooling mom. I like to organize those different identities day by day.

Fortunately, our daughter is in the homeschooling program and it's a hybrid program. She does go to school two days a week. I take on a different identity on the two days that I have both kids out of the house. All that to say, I have different routines for different days because that's how I satisfy all of the buckets that I'm pursuing in my full mogul journey.

I'll give another hack that piggybacks on that in a different way. It's accessing the different parts of your personality that apply to those different pursuits and obligations. One hack that I came up with, and I kept it to myself because I thought people would laugh at it, is I created a name that combined the personalities of all these different people whom I pull different things from.

For three years, I never told anybody, but I refer to myself as Kofi Kobama Jordartey Wallusk. Now, I'm sure you hear some names built into that, but I'll make it all completely clear for you. Kofi, of course, and the next Ko was for Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality. The Kobama was Obama. His tranquil approach to things that would typically be stressful to other people. That's what I pulled from him.

Jordartey Wallace. Jordan is Michael Jordan, this killer instincts. Artey was part of my last name, Nartey. Wallace was William Wallace from Braveheart because he was such a dynamic person. He was a warrior, a lover, a thespian, and everything. He was amazing. Usk as an Elon Musk. There are a lot of things I don't about Elon Musk. There are a lot of things that don't make him a full mogul because he doesn't keep certain aspects of his life together, his fatherhood, and so forth, but he's so ambitious in what he does.

He thinks so big. From that, I can extract big-thinking ideas. Another hack, if you want to come up with your combined name, think of the people that you pull from, even if they're fictional characters like William Wallace. There are aspects of those people or your mentors, people that you admire, and can glean something from in those moments where your personality needs to pull that out and apply it.

I only have a couple more. The second to last one is for a family. You may want to see how you can integrate morning and nighttime routines with the other members of your family. This creates rhythm and healthy codependence with your family. That's what a family is. That's your family culture and family rhythm where you have a partner, a partner and children, or just children.

You want to try to make sure that some aspects of those routines, maybe that's having dinner together as a family, which we often do, or it’s date night, which is not a daily thing. It is a weekly thing that's part of my daily routine on certain days. Those integrating and shared routines are also an important foundation for a strong family.

The last one is you want to create environments that reinforce your routine. That means you're adding or removing people, objects, energies, or attitudes. You want to have environmental cues that are moving you towards who you want to be that are aligned with the routine and the identity. Take things out of your environment that are moving, detracting, or pulling you away from those goals. An important hack for your daily routine is to check the environment.

I can attest to this. I'm shaking my head and I am agreeing because, in our house, Mimi is constantly changing things about the environment. She's created some beautiful, luxurious, comfortable mindset-changing environments in our home. it's an ongoing process. My only concern is that she's going to swap me out. We swapped out couches, lighting, and fixtures. The next thing you know I'm getting swapped out, but no. It contributes to how you feel in your space.

I've got a mini routine when I come into my office. I have a statue of a rhinoceros. I got a rhinoceros because the adult rhinoceros has no natural predators. That's how I feel in my career at this point. I don't have any natural predators.

I rub the rhinoceros’ back and then I have a candle every day. That candle is strategically positioned right behind the rhinoceros so I light a fire under his ass. It’s because you have to keep your own fire going and stay obsessed with your mission. If you don't burn or light a fire or don't feel that fire, then what are you doing? You're working from a place of lack of energy. It's one of those reminders.

I'm going to finish with the part of my daily mantra. That was the identity piece. This was one part of my daily habits. I did say it on stage. I'll share it quickly and then we'll wrap things up. I would get up every morning, look in the mirror, and say the following, “I am Kofi Nartey, strong, husband, father, full mogul millionaire, and man of God. I will build my business and build others through discipline execution and my ability to focus and finish.”

I would say that three times every day. It got to the point where the kids would overhear me and they would walk around the house saying, “I am Kofi Nartey.” It helped me own that identity to the extent that my kids even recognized those were the different aspects of daddy's identity. That's what the daily success habits or daily routine are about. It's about identity cementation, cementing who you are.

We're going to wrap it up. Thank you, guys, for tuning in. We hope this was helpful. Share with us on social media. You can go to Mimi Nartey @MimiNartey on Instagram or @Kofi_Sellebrity on Instagram. DM us. Let us know if this was helpful or things that you are doing in your daily routine. You can go to the FullMogul.com website and punch in some information there to make sure you get updates on the show. Share this show with somebody you think it'll be helpful. We continue to look forward to this full mogul journey that we're on with you guys.

Thanks so much for having me again. I’m looking forward to hearing from everyone.

You got it. Thanks again. That's a wrap.

Important Links

• Dr. Mimi Nartey
• Full Mogul: An Introduction + 5 Tips For Starting Your Journey – Past Episode
• Ten Daily Success Habits
• Make Your Bed
• The Science Of Getting Rich
• @MimiNartey – Instagram
• @Kofi_Sellebrity - Instagram

Are you considering launching a new business or adding a new product or service to your existing business? If yes, then you MUST listen to this podcast first. We will discuss the problem with a traditional SWOT Analysis, as well as the importance of TAM and PMF. Learn how to embrace one good opportunity that will bring you rewarding results and help bridge gaps in the marketplace – even if it will not be your life-long venture.

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Listen to the podcast here

Launching A New Business: SWOT vs. OTSW

The Most Important Podcast You Can Listen To Before Launching A New Business

I’m super excited to have you back on this Full Mogul journey, which is the relentless pursuit of the best version of yourself across all aspects of your life. You are on the Full Mogul journey with me. I'm excited to be a part of your journey. Hopefully, it's been helpful. This is going to be one of my favorite episodes so far. It's going to be a quick one but a critical one. The title of this episode is Launching A New Business, SWOT versus OTSW. This may be the most important episode you are going to read before launching a new business or adding a new product or service to your business.

I know a lot of you guys out there are entrepreneurs. A lot of you are in the real estate industry like I am, investors and financial planners and there are a lot of athletes out there but all of us have those moments where we're going to launch something new. There's been a spark in us that tells us we have the talent, gift and idea that we want to bring to the world. If we're going to do something like this, there's a little bit of analysis that immediately comes into play.

What Is SWOT?

Let's start at the beginning. What is SWOT? Let's define SWOT because this applies to whether you're launching a new business, adding an arm or service to your business, a new partnership in your business and anything that is going to be different from what you're doing in terms of starting from scratch, adding on, in addition to, will do something similar to a SWOT analysis. It's an old-school business term.

It still comes up from time to time but SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This is a term that's used in business school training. It's evolved quite a bit. We look at something called the total addressable market. You can google that. It's another version of a SWOT analysis. It's the total addressable market that you'll have for your product or service. Take a read at that as well.

For this episode’s purposes, we're going to stick with SWOT because it ties into re-engineering those letters into what I described as OTSW. Starting with the idea, “I'm good at something. I've created something cool so I want to make a business out of it. I want to create a service, company, storefront or online store but is there a market for it?” Let's jump right into that.

There are some benefits of SWOT. If we even break it down, it is Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. What are the strengths that you have? Normally, that's the easiest thing to identify because the idea, concept, theory and service were born out of strength. That gift that you have gave you that creative spark to say, “I'm going to turn this into a business.” It's not too hard to identify the strengths. Weaknesses are a little bit harder to identify but some of them are blind spots.

Also, you look at the business you want to get into or start and there might be some glaring weaknesses like licensing or a location that you need and a certain skillset that you don't have. Those are all weaknesses that will be part of your analysis as to whether or not this is a viable thing to pursue. What opportunities exist in the marketplace for this service, product and strength that you're bringing? Is there a TAM or Total Addressable Market? How big is that marketplace? Those are also something that has to be addressed.

The T is for Threats. What are the threats to the business or idea that you have? Who's the competition for the business or idea that you have? When we look at the competition, we have to look at it beyond who's doing what you're doing in the marketplace. Just because there's somebody who's doing it, doesn't mean that you can't do it too and you can't do it better.

Just because somebody is doing something doesn’t mean you can’t do it too or do it better. Share on X

Sometimes that lets you know that there's an addressable market for it. If that company is already thriving but there's no competition and they're not dominating the market, they're doing well, that might be an indication that with that threat or particular competitor, there's room to take them down or gain market share that they don't have access to or you can claw away from them.

There's also the threat of technology. A lot of times businesses don't think that they can be undercut by technology. You think of simple things like the Polaroid camera but then we went to digital. People got rid of the film. Kodak lost a lot of money because they created film then we went to digital and SIM cards. Everything's in the cloud. These are technological threats to select business models. Almost every industry, service and product needs to consider technological threats.

“Can AI or Artificial Intelligence replace what you're doing? Can a computer do it much faster and more efficiently? When people turn to that before they turn to you, what is your value add?” These are all threats. Coming back to the overall SWOT analysis, it can be a great filter to run your idea through, “What are my strengths? What are the weaknesses that I need to make up for or mitigate? What are the opportunities in the marketplace? What are the threats as well?” The challenge with this is if you start and lead with just your strengths and bull rush or move forward into a market, into what is “opportunity,” you may fall flat on your face. I'm going to tell you why.

What Is OTSW?

Let's reverse-engineer those letters. It's not exactly backward but we're reverse-engineering it. For the acronym's sake, we're going to call it OTSW. The reason that I full-heartedly believe in OTSW and why I've leaned into this concept is because you have to start with the opportunity in a marketplace. Where does the opportunity lie? What is not being serviced to the level or the extent that the consumer wants, needs or would appreciate if it occurs? That's where the opportunity lies.

We have to start with where the opportunity is. We look at the threats and then next to the strengths. We look at our strengths, the strengths of our product, service and skillset or whatever we're harnessing, putting together for this new venture. “What are the strengths that me, my service or my product has to fill that opportunity?”

New Business: Look at your strengths, as well as the strengths of your offers and skill sets, when putting together a new venture that can fill a market opportunity.

When we look at overall business success, the overall wealth that can be created, the overall size of a business and growth and scale, it's where the quality meets the quantity. The quality of the service that you're providing, the need for that service and the quantity at which you can provide it. It’s that scale at which you can provide it.

You look at things like Amazon. It has a great quality of service and a huge scale in terms of the market. Even Starbucks. The coffee is pretty good. You might like Coffee Bean better, your local Blue Bottle or whatever coffee shop you go to in your neighborhood. There's a huge addressable market, the efficiency of that. Other things tie into Starbucks like the brand. They've created a great brand for themselves, a culture of being tied to Starbucks but there's a huge addressable market and then they applied their strengths to that market.

I did mention at the top that SWOT has been replaced with product market fit and that's the degree to which your product satisfies strong market demand. This is something about Marc Andreessen, a famous entrepreneur. Google him if you haven't read about him. There is a lot to learn there but he coined this phrase back in 2007. We look at that product market fit, the opportunities in the marketplace and what strengths we have to fill them.

Real-Life Examples

I'll give you a couple of real-life examples. I got into real estate in 2003. I got my broker's license in 2006. It’s been rocking and rolling ever since. It's been a huge learning curve since the beginning. I feel like I'm a 5th-degree black belt but still have more stripes to add to my belt. There's always something new to learn. When I got into real estate, I quickly realized that it was a huge market. There was total demand for the market but you also had to have a specialization or a niche within the market.

Real estate is a huge market. Despite having high demand, you must have a specialization or niche within it. Share on X

There were so many real estate agents in 2003. Everybody I knew was either doing something in real estate or acting in LA. Here I am, I was doing both. I was an actor and a real estate agent so I needed to have a focus. I initially focused on condos and townhomes but I'm going to fast forward to when I transitioned into luxury real estate, more specifically sports and entertainment as a niche.

I looked at the opportunities, threats and competition but I also first recognized that there was a void in servicing sports and entertainment clients in understanding their lifestyle, the ebbs and flows of income, the need for privacy or security, the quick transitions that they often have to make, the traveling for work, the doing a $2 billion movie 1 year and not working for 3 years but you have the funds to get financed.

Lenders understand that there were all these nuanced differences in working with this type of clientele. I was in the heart of the entertainment industry here in LA. I had been part of the industry and sports world with my sports experience at Berkeley with my shot at the NFL with the Raiders. I had seen all of these aspects and nuances of this specific clientele. I saw that it was under service and no one owned that niche or specialized in it. That's where the opportunity was.

I looked at my strengths to apply. I had exposure to the niche and an understanding of their lifestyle. I knew a lot about real estate at that time. I had my broker's license. I had already been managing other people so I had a lot of contractual experience. I was good in my field and now I was going to take it to another level of specialization to service that market that was underserviced where there was a huge opportunity.

I've seen agents because I've built a great national brand with that. I get to speak around the country. It's a blessing to do and share that. A lot of agents want to get into sports and entertainment. The first thing I ask them is, “Is there a marketplace for it? Is there an opportunity?” They'll say, “John Elway lives down the street from me and I'd love to get his business.” “It's John Elway's third home in an area of Texas where he likes to fish.” There are no other sports teams or celebrities. I'm just making up this example.

You have to make sure that the opportunity is there. I've seen it with entrepreneurs whom we've given guidance to. I've given advisory services to help them with creating their brand, idea and strategy but they create an amazing widget or they're a technopreneur or an engineer. They're great at computer science. They can create an amazing backend and they feel great about their product but there isn't truly an addressable market. There isn't an opportunity that is truly scalable for what they've built.

Sometimes there is and there are other aspects that are missing like the right marketing strategy, packaging, branding and messaging, what type of marketing you're going to use and the name of your product. We'll get into some of that other stuff later. The first thing is to take that because we are entrepreneurs.

Moguls tend to be entrepreneurs. We're not going to deny the fact that it often starts with strength and sparks an idea but then we take that idea before we launch or move forward and we hold it up against OTSW. “What are the opportunities? Where does the opportunity lie? Where is the total addressable market? How big is that total addressable market? What is that product market fit? What are the threats to it? What are my strengths in service and bringing this to the marketplace in a unique way or a Blue Ocean Strategy way that I'm creating in a non-competitive space because what I'm doing is nuanced and different enough that I can excel without competition or at least get a huge head start on my competition in this industry?” We then finally move forward.

We are looking at the W, the Weaknesses and what gaps we need to fill. What things do we need to put in place to increase our chances of major success? Another great book to read is Blue Ocean Strategy. It's by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. I read it in business school. I have reread it 2 or 3 times. It’s another great book recommendation.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant

That blue ocean is defined as the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost to open up a new market space and create new demand. That's how they defined it in the book. It's about capturing the uncontested marketplace, the market space that doesn't have the same level as the red ocean, which is all the sharks, blood and where everybody is competing. That way, if you go to the blue ocean, you're making that competition irrelevant. You always got to move and swim towards the blue ocean, looking towards that ocean, where the O or Opportunities lie and where your strengths have the greatest chance of success.

Questioning Yourself

It comes back to questions. I have people say, “Does this limit me to doing things that fill gaps in the marketplace? Do I have to start by looking for those gaps in the marketplace? What if I'm not passionate about filling those voids? What if I want to do my thing?” You're an entrepreneur, which means you have to think through this process. You may have 1, 2, 3 or 4 gifts. I know you do. You have to look at which gift has the largest opportunity to help you reach the highest and best version of yourself as a Full Mogul.

You also have to realize that this is not always a lifetime commitment but it's something that you owe yourself to exercise that opportunity and that gift, take it to its highest level of potential where what you have achieved and the ultimate potential of that gift are staring each other eye to eye, then you can move on to the next thing.

Part of that process is whatever strength you've identified running it through OTSW. It has to be something that you do have a genuine passion for. You shouldn't do something that you dislike. You do have to do something that you have passion about but it doesn't necessarily have to be your life's work or the thing you're going to do for the next 30, 40 or 50 years. You might do it for 5 to 10 years and say, “I'm liking this. I've scaled. I'm going to do it for ten more.”

I've been in real estate for many years. There's a natural progression to how I've built my business, growing from just being an agent, to then being a broker, being an assistant manager, launching offices, building my team, specializing in sports and entertainment, building a national brand, expanding into new development, having my firm and residential agents that I support their growth. We have a new development team and investment arm. That has allowed me to add chapter after chapter to a book that continues to be interesting to me.

Some people reach a certain point and need to change industries. Think of what you're applying your gift to, this product, service, idea, additional arm to your business and this new service you want to launch. You've run it through the filter. You're going to do it. It may not be your life's work forever but it can be an amazing chapter in your book.

Sometimes, it's a new book. Don't be afraid to say, “The chapters of that particular book are done. It's time for me to write a new book with new chapters and a new vision for my life.” It might start with this amazing new idea that you have. The process, outcome or impact is going to be based on the passion that you have that gets you up every day, moving towards this success that you have calculated based on switching SWOT to OTSW.

I’ll give you one Kofism before we conclude here. Kofism is my life philosophy, “None of us were born to do what we are doing. The more we can overlay our gifts, passions, hard skills and soft skills, the more we will find alignment with what we're doing and joy in what we're doing.” Here’s a personal example. Was I born to do real estate? I don't think so. Could I apply my gifts to other things? Definitely.

I found so much alignment in this career with things that I'm passionate about, good at and like to do, everything from marketing to creativity, business strategy, negotiations, working with people and loving properties, architecture and building a real estate firm. Also, aspects of development, new development and the investment that can build generational wealth for myself and my clients. That's a lot. As long as I get to apply my gifts toward these pursuits for myself for the agents that work with me and my clients, I'm winning. It keeps my passion going.

In conclusion, SWOT versus OTSW before launching a new business, adding a new product or service to your line of business, company or store, try to find the biggest, most lucrative or scalable and self-fulfilling gap in the marketplace that you can fill. With that, this concludes this episode. I hope you enjoyed this. Please share. If you want to add to the story of SWOT versus OTSW, product market fit and total addressable market, please ping me. Find me on Instagram, @Kofi_Celebrity. Ping me on the website, FullMogul.com. I love to hear from you and your feedback. Let's keep going on this Full Mogul journey together. Take care. Bye.

Important Links

• Blue Ocean Strategy
• @Kofi_Celebrity – Instagram

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