John Basedow is back this week on the blog to drop some more knowledge. John is an incredibly successful entrepreneur with a wealth of knowledge. John, thanks again for taking some time to speak with me. Let’s dive right in.
I often hear successful entrepreneurs use the phrase “I don’t care what other people think” – what does this saying mean to you and how do you apply it to your entrepreneurial journey?
I believe this saying is often misconstrued but only by people who have negative reasons to do so. What this saying means to me is that I shouldn’t care what negative people think when they’re trying to put me down. When people give you advice for what you should do, ultimately you need to consider your own thoughts and instinct, which in my experience is rarely wrong. Obviously you can consider what others are saying, but don’t put too much weight on that. If you can train yourself to have this mindset, when the naysayers begin to direct things towards you, it’s like arrows on a shield.
What I have found is that most negative people are speaking out of their own fears, frustrations and failures and directing it towards you. They try to pull you down instead of using their time to further themselves or do something positive for themselves.
One way to counteract this issue is by placing a heavy emphasis on the person who is giving the advice. How does this look? I always say, don’t tell me what I should do until you show me what you can do. For example, if someone is giving me fitness advice but has never worked out a day in their life, I need to take what they are saying with a grain of salt.
The mind is our most powerful tool. In many physical situations, your mind tends to give out before your body. This concept can also be related to business and being an entrepreneur. Your mind can stop you from doing things that you are capable of doing. John, can you explain this concept and what you have done to counteract it?
The mind is a double edged sword. There is no more powerful entity then the mind. In fitness, the mind holds the tools to build the body. This same principle can be applied to our professional lives, especially as an entrepreneur.
When you become an entrepreneur you will have tons of your own ideas but also be receiving advice/ideas from other people. If you don’t learn how to control your mind, it can become your worst enemy. On the flip side, if you learn to harness the power of the mind and make it your biggest cheerleader, it can become your greatest tool to success.
I have learned over the years to kill the little voice in my head that says I can’t do something or I am not good enough. This is something that I practice and do on a daily basis. At this point I don’t even try to reason negative thoughts away, I just have a reflex that shuts them down immediately. Training my mind to react this way has been vital to my success.
John, what does “work-life balance” mean to you?
In a traditional sense, I am terrible at balancing my work and my life. However, I am a firm believer that if you enjoy your work, it becomes part of your life. From that standpoint, I feel like I have a perfect work-life balance because I love what I do.
I believe the term “work-life balance” came into being because people hated their jobs so much and were sacrificing 5 days a week to escape for 2.
The way that I achieve my balance is making sure I love what I do. At this point, there is no division between my work and my life. In fact, I don’t even take vacations anymore. I would go crazy sitting on a beach with nothing to do. When I travel for work, I usually spend an extra day in the city and that is more than enough for me.
There is an old saying that perfectly explains my work life balance – “love what you do and you will never work a day in your life”.
You have partnered with a company that created an app called Astro. Can you tell us a little bit more about this app and why people should get it?
I am very excited to be working with this app. I think it has the potential to revolutionize both the technology and fitness industries. It is the latest development in artificial intelligence.
This app will help you keep track of your nutrition goals, exercise goals, and the different preferences you have for each of those. It will essentially become your buddy to help you achieve those goals, keep track of everything throughout the day and give honest feedback of how you are doing.
It is an intelligent app so it knows what you need to meet your nutrition goals and your exercise goals and will alert you of things throughout the day.
People pay a lot of money to hire a fitness/nutrition coach. This app acts as your trainer/coach. The only difference is that it is available 24/7.
One thing it does very well is answering questions you have and if it cannot answer a specific question, it will send it to technical support and you will get an email back with the answer.
If you are interested in checking out the app, head over to their website. The app will also be available in the app store soon.
Conclusion
I hope this interview has been helpful. John is a very successful entrepreneur that we can all learn something from regardless of where we are in our professional journey. Here is a link to the last interview in case you missed it. Be sure to give him a follow on Facebook and Instagram. Talk to you next week!
