Show notes
You must innovate if you want to change your life, your bank account, and the world. Innovation is easier said than done. In “Zero To One” the author, Peter Thiel, opens by saying that if you are merely following and 100% mimicking other people, you will always be one step behind. You can sign up for my VIP Club and get the book here http://bit.ly/1GvRE5B Thiel says, "Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.” The key (as I talked about on my live TV show - tune in at 11:30am daily on TaiLopez.com) is knowing the exact balance between brand new innovation and not falling prey to "Nudist Buddhist Syndrome." "Nudist Buddhist" is what one of my mentors, Allan Nation, says is the law of innovation. He told me, “You can be a nudist and people won’t think you’re super weird, because it’s just one thing weird about you. And you can be a Buddhist and people will give you a pass cause that’s only one weird thing about you. But you can’t be a nudist Buddhist. That’s too weird.” So for me, it’s not just blind innovation. I don’t want to come up with the solution on how to do underwater basket weaving. There’s no demand. It’s too weird. It’s too "Nudist Buddhist." Where you want to be is that happy medium where people feel like, “Wow, this is insightful, this is something I’ve never heard before.” But yet their conservative, pragmatic, risk-averse side says, “Yes, I’m willing to take a chance on this new product.” How can you actually do this? Well in your career and in business, Peter Thiel says: “Start small and monopolize. Every startup is small at the start. Every monopoly dominates a large share of its market. Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. The reason is simple: it’s easier to dominate a small market than a large one. If you think your initial market might be too big, it almost certainly is.” Peter Thiel is exactly right. Think about it. Facebook was able to beat out the 800 lb gorilla Myspace by starting out by always erring on the side of being too small. At first Facebook was just Mark Zuckerberg in his room and his first customers were his roommates. And then he moved on to just dominating and monopolizing his one university. And once he conquered that he moved on to the next stage, which was conquering and expanding his monopoly to all universities. It wasn’t until he had conquered this step-by-step that he then went on to acquire over a billion customers. Not many people can say their business hit a million customers. Zuckerberg was able to say he reached a billion. You may not want to be a billionaire, but there’s a lesson to be learned. Go "straight to the top" in what you learn. Remember, the main principle that Peter Thiel believes in is that whatever your idea is, just shrink it down. In one of my VIP coaching calls I talked about the book “Switch” by Chip and Dan Heath where they discussed the need to shrink a problem. If your goal is to make a million dollars a day, think about it more like you need to make $80K per month. Since even that still seems like a big problem, then shrink that down so you only need to make $2-3K a day. That’s a realistic goal. Err on the small side like Zuckerberg and eventually you can have market share and change the world. When you do this your bank account will never look the same, and neither will the impact that you have on the world. Stay Strong, Tai P.S. If you want to learn how to get people to pay attention to your big idea, don't miss my free online seminar @ 12 pm PST http://bit.ly/1GvRE5BLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
