The Blog Of Greg Rollett

“The Ford Contour”

Here I am, clearing my chest.

I don’t like the minimalist talk from bloggers making big bank. Or marketers making big bank and hiding it. Or minimalism from people that are broke.

I’m also not a fan of generating “just enough” income to get by. You know, the bloggers or designers or consultants who scrape by every month with a few projects that meet their location independent or frugal living needs and are cool with that.

It may be the fact that I come from the music business background, and the hip-hop limelight (in high school I was chanting Bling-Bling and had more ice on my wrist than in a cooler on the beach), but I like stuff. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I wrote before about wanting to drive a 6 figure car while helping the homeless. It’s possible if you set up systems and value your inner beliefs.

I work with a great group of young entrepreneurs and musicians who do not understand they are entrepreneurs yet. All of them have dreams and ambitions to be in a better place tomorrow than they are today. More customers or more fans. Bigger house, more support for their kids or family. More value in their life and impacting more people. I honestly do not know one real person that is saying, let’ dump all my stuff and live like a minimalist. Or my dream is to have just enough. We dream big, so why live small.

Less Stuff Doesn’t Make You a Minimalist

Clearing your room and getting rid of some clothes so you can bounce around from town to town in a suitcase or 2 doesn’t make you a minimalist if you life is still cluttered. If you are constantly working on projects, staying up through all hours of the night going through research or numbers, digging through your bank statements to keep the lights on and having issues with your loved ones - that’s not a minimalist lifestyle.

I found a FAQ about minimalism that stated:

Minimalism is a way of eschewing the non-essential in order to focus on what’s truly important, what gives our lives meaning, what gives us joy and value.

Where’s the joy and value in struggling? Leo’s got a book deal and a publishing empire. He can afford not to worry, let other people edit his sites, write and manage his daily tasks and get rid of things that stand in his way. I can’t. You probably can’t either.

Your Values | What’s Truly Important

Many people do not know what is truly important to them. They know the essentials. Paying bills, eating food, getting rest, possibly exercising and breathing. But what is really important?

This is where values come into play. Your values guide you decision making and create healthy beliefs. In essence your values create the powers that allow you to grow, choose paths and see the importance of the life in front of you.

When you define your values, you have something to fall back on instead of jumping into a fad because it looks cool or seems like something to do today. This can include starting a business that doesn’t align with your values, working with partners that do not meet your values or riding a trend by the heels of a great pitch.

Now you can start to see what’s truly important. For me, its being true to myself, my family and my friends. Having a stable and fruitful lifestyle and enjoying my days and nights like I have nothing to lose. At a high level, that’s what important to me.

The Ford Contour

I mean no offense to anyone pushing an old Ford Contour. For the first time in my life I am rocking a new car (well I got it new at least). The title of the post is a play from Kanye’s verse in Run This Town by Jay-Z, Rhianna and Mr. West. Love him or hate him, the verse makes a lot of damn sense:

This is a fast life, we are on a crash course

What you think I rap for to push a f’ing Rav 4

We put a lot of time and effort into our posts, building our brands and moving towards our goals and exit strategies. So why are you aiming so damn low? For those looking to live location independent, get to the 4 hour work week, have your own company or whatever goal you think you want - stop striving for just enough.

• Strive for, “holy shit I made some money providing some awesome value this month.”
• Strive for, “man I met an awesome partner that is going to leverage my services 10 fold.”
• Shoot for, “instead of making everyone a custom website, let’s make a template, market the pants off of it, make some support videos and start working on the next one - AND CHARGE FOR IT.”
• Aim high like “this month I am going to go all out and develop the plan that will pay of my CC’s next month not next year and then I’m going to do everything in my power to do THAT”

Compare Apples to Apples

The difference between Thesis and your template is not that it’s SEO friendly or that much better (although it is good), its that they leveraged bloggers with a huge audience, made the template user friendly,made the people that used the theme promote it for them and then create a PAYING community around it! Now they can scale and not hope they get a client this week to pay the bills.

The difference between a six figure launch and a hundred dollar launch is not that their product or ideas are better than yours, its that they worked harder to sell it, going to conferences and planning the marketing behind the launch. They built a list of frenzied buyers. They listened to what their audience wanted before making the product. They got affiliates that cared about the product, tested it and learned something from it before they told their audience about it.

Personally, I am not building an audience to have cool subscriber numbers. I’m doing it to build an army of friends, allies, enemies and customers. When I needed help promoting the Rock Star Course last month I had a small army help me pay my bills on a test product. I also had built enough trust that people would spend $97 to hang out with me and 2 of my friends for 4 Mondays at the start of Monday Night Football, in the midst of midterms and in an economic recession.

Now we have gone back to the drawing board and are recruiting a stronger army, packing more value, building a larger community and helping more people and I’ll be damned if it just makes it. It is going to “Crush it.”

I’m not in this to push a Ford Contour. If I wanted that I’d stay at a 9-5, make my 30-40 g’s and eat my Captain Crunch. That’s not my M-O.

What To Do Now

You know I love to give you takeaways and I love that people actually do the stuff at the end of my posts. I love the emails and comments and let’s keep the firing burning.

Today it’s all about the WHY. Why are you spending (or wasting) your time blogging? Why are you building that company? Why are you giving away value for free? Why are you changing your life because some blogger on another continent told you to? Why are you replying to people like Gary Vee on Twitter?

Then it’s the WHAT. What are your values? What do you wish to accomplish by doing the task you are doing right now? What decisions can I make right this second to change the situation I am in - or continue to be in?

Let’s chat.

-Greg Rollett

P.S. If you are looking for answers, want some guidance and love being around peers that kick ass and take action, join us in the new Under 30 Rock Star Series.