You Are Probably Not Being Proactive Enough

I've been working directly with an 8-figure entrepreneur for over 6 months.

And one of the biggest things I realized is there are different levels of proactiveness.

Being proactive means taking action and not waiting around.

But after spending time with Noah Kagan, I now realize there's another level to it.

Photo by Trent Erwin

Example 1

Let's say you want to start a side hustle — in this case, a cookie business.

Instead of watching Netflix, you spend the weekend baking cookies, posting pictures of them on your social media accounts, and asking people if they want to buy some.

Three of your friends buy them, and you make $18 bucks. Niceee!

Personally, I would think that's pretty proactive.

Noah, on the other hand, would probably think you are not being proactive enough.

Being proactive to him, means DMing people one by one, calling up friends on the phone, and knocking on your neighbor's doors to see if they would be interested to buy.

If you think I'm exaggerating, go read how Noah made $1000 starting a jerky business in 24 hours.

Example 2

We started a SharkTank for side hustlers on Noah’s YouTube channel.

One of the teams is working on a really cool idea.

They make coffee creamer with supplements that help people focus better.

The team of two did a soft launch on Facebook and got 50 pre-orders in 5 days. This part is great because they got a lot of validation for their product before spending a ton of money manufacturing it.

After the 50 pre-orders, the coffee creamer team got in touch with a manufacturer to make their products. And it would take around 3 to 4 months to have initial samples made.

In my mind, this team was being pretty proactive. They quickly got their ideas validated, and now they working with a manufacturer to fulfill the initial orders. What else is there to do?

But as you might have guessed, Noah didn't think the team was being proactive enough. He thinks waiting around for 3 to 4 months is not a good use of their time, and he recommends that they mix some ingredients up, test the product more, and make it even better.

Here's a dialogue from the video — edited for brevity.

Noah: Duuude. Can't you just make some creamer sh*t?

The team: We did that, but it's like packaging and all that. What were we going to do? Put it in little Ziploc bags?

Noah: Yeahhhh. Or just have people come over to taste test it. Go and get more validation instead of waiting 3 months to see how things turn out.

Conclusion

There's a big theme with Noah and many other successful people he interviewed on his podcast. They don't wait for life to happen to them, they go and make things happen.

For most people, including myself, when we think we are being proactive, there's a good chance that there are more things we can do to make our dreams a reality.

---

If you haven’t already, subscribe below to get my BEST updates.

Thanks for reading!

-George 🐙