The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster

Awesome Inc Team

Awesome Inc Team,

November 17, 2022

If you don’t know who Darren Hardy is, you’re missing out. He’s a successful entrepreneur and author. His writing often takes me on a wild ride. This past summer, I read Hardy’s book The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster and was recharged to bring more effort to areas of work and duty in life. 

My three takeaways:

  1. Your #1 Job is to Sell
    Frankly, it gets old hearing people complain about sales. Most often, it comes from someone’s poor experience of dealing with an amateur or someone who is still learning a skill set in communicating what service or offering they provide to a potential customer.

Hardy reiterates few sales-focused points throughout the book: 

  • “Sales is filling a customer’s perceived need, not your need to sell something.”
  • “Stop selling. Help more.”
  • “Do you connect to your customers by asking questions and genuinely listening to the answers?”

Every company revolves around sales, whether you make the best dang burrito bowl, oat milk latte, personal training sessions, or software development package -  those are all services/products that are sold for their value.

Darren reminded me to own it. Nobody else can own it for me. 

Group of Startup Founders and Entrepreneurs Celebrate a Win

2. Conquer Fear

Darren shares lots of examples of how people are frozen by fear. I laughed to myself as I read them, thinking of how I’ve been frozen in the past before making phone calls to financial supporters I don’t have a strong relationship with or reaching out to the VIPs in our network that are hard to get ahold of. His words reminded me that fears are often not lions or burning buildings - they’re usually a phone call or face-to-face conversation with a direct question or ask.

He points out a handful of brain hacks to get over your fear (and the battle within your mind):

  • Get Real → Ask yourself, “If I do this, am I going to die?”
  • If the answer is no, then I conjured up the fear in my own mind
  • It’s the Fear of FEAR that I Fear → It’s the anticipation of something I am worried about
  • Twenty of Seconds of Courage → That amount of time is just enough for you brain to be rational
  • Habituate Yourself to Fear → Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
  • Making Fear and Failure Fun → Recognize and accept that fear and failing aren’t bad; get addicted to taking action and learning

Students gather at a technology leadership event to learn app development

3. Know Your Vitals

This was the most important takeaway from the book for me.

Darren shares Warren Buffett’s three-step method for prioritizing your most important behaviors:

  • Write down all your priorities.
  • Narrow it down to the top three.
  • Throw the rest of the list away

I laugh when I read that. How simple. Darren points out success is not big and daunting, but so daily.

The main points of checking vitals - identify what is crucial for your success, measure your activity, invest your time, rinse and repeat. What are your three (to five) main priorities that move your business, marriage, health journey, financial goals, dating life forward?

Do them. Be consistent. Set new goals as you cross old ones off.


One of my non-book takeaways was simply, put into practice what I just read. It is too easy (for me and maybe you) to read something, agree (or disagree) with it, nod your head and say, “Yep, that was good (or bad)” and then move on to the next thing and let the time you spent investing in personal growth go out the window. The key to your success is massive failure. Now, go make a mess!