Graham Cochrane (00:02.486)
Most people think the loudest, busiest, most aggressive people win in business. But in my experience, the opposite is often true. Some of the most successful people that I know are surprisingly quiet. They're not chasing attention. They're not constantly hustling. And yet they consistently build wealth and earn massive respect. Why? Because they practice three habits that most people completely overlook.
And once you understand them, you will realize why quiet people often end up winning.
Graham Cochrane (01:45.4)
Sometimes I think it's a great idea to challenge the assumptions that we have about ourselves and about the world because we tend to operate off of scripts and narratives and stories that we either have concocted ourselves or we have borrowed from someone else, the people we see, the people we grew up with, and we never stop and ask, is this actually true or is there something that could be as true, if not more true than what I'm currently believing?
And there are so many of these narratives that affect the business world and entrepreneurs. And one of those is that to win in business, to make sales, to grow your business, to be successful, whatever your metrics are, you have to be aggressive. You have to be loud. Let's think about it. We are in an online age. Content is king. And so it is
How much content can you post and how loud can you be? And loud can be literally loud, like yelling at the camera, of like the way used car salesmen, you still yell at the TV with their commercials like, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. you can yell literally loud or who is posting the most? Who has the most flash in their videos? The loudest looking outfit, the loudest looking cars that you're standing in front of, the loudest.
looking lifestyle you're displaying so that you get people's attention so that you can sell them something or invite them to something or whatever it is you're trying to do. Now, we tend to assume that you have to be that way to win in business online. And it's just a continuation of what we've believed in the offline world for decades, which is you have to be aggressive.
To sell you have to close and obliterate objections. Even that word obliterate objections is a very aggressive term. And we tend to assume that extroverts are going to be really good at sales and business and introverts aren't. That confident people are going to be really good at business and sales but very sweet, subtle, meek, humble people aren't.
Graham Cochrane (04:03.241)
And so we either are that type of aggressive, outgoing, extroverted, confident person. And so we're like, hey, this is great. I can win in this. Or we aren't that person and we try to become that person so that we can win. And then we feel out of alignment with the way we're really wired if we aren't that by default, because I know I'm talking different groups of people here. Or those quiet, less aggressive, more introverted people tend to
quit before they start. They're like, I'm never gonna be good at this. I'm never going to win in business. I'm never going to be great at sales. I'm never gonna be super wealthy unless something crazy happens. And so they give up before they even start. And what I wanna share with you today is one of the most profound writings I've ever read, one of the most counterintuitive writings I've ever read that gives us a three step formula
for creating massive wealth and respect in the industry or whatever industry you're in. And I want you to lean in, if you are the person that feels quiet, introverted, meek, right? That's a word that we don't use very often, but meekness is not weakness, it's just a very tame, calm personality. If you feel like you're that person and you don't feel like you're gonna win, you're not winning a business and you're having to adapt and become something that isn't you,
This is for you. And then if you're one of those people that is loud, is confident, is out there doing it and you're burning out because newsflash, that kind of living doesn't last very long. That kind of pace is hard to run forever. And that's why you see people spark up and die out just as fast. And you wonder where those people went. If you're feeling that burnout, then this is for you as well. I'm not.
saying you have to change your personality, I just want to show you a better way to get the results you want in your pocketbook and in your business. So we're going to pull out an ancient text from the Apostle Paul in the book of 1 Thessalonians. He's writing a letter to a church in the city of Thessalonica. Thessaloniki as it's pronounced, I believe, in modern-day Greece. And he's speaking to a bunch of people who
Graham Cochrane (06:27.711)
are literally running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They are living a very parallel life to ours in modern day America and in the West, which is we are busy, we are stressed out, and he's trying to give them some instruction. Listen to what he says. I'm gonna read two verses. The first verse I'm gonna read is the three-part formula, and the second verse I'm gonna read are the results, and then we'll break it down.
and apply it to your business. Number one, he says in verse 11 of chapter four of first Thessalonians, make it your goal. Some translations say make it your ambition to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.
then people who are not believers, sometimes translated outsiders, will respect the way you live and you will not need to depend on others.
Okay, this is brilliant. This is why you gotta read the Bible slow. If you just read through this, you're like, I don't wanna be quiet, I don't know what you're talking about, I don't wanna work with my hands, like, what are we talking about? This is a formula for success in the most sustainable way I can possibly think. There's so much going on here. One of the applications of the interpretation for this specific passage has its own specific interpretation for the people of that time, but.
There's so many principles in scripture that even though there is one interpretation for the people he was writing it at, for all of us reading it, there are multiple applications and to miss those is to miss the richness of the text. So one of the applications is for the entrepreneur and business owner and here it is. Here's the formula. Step one is to calm your life. Calm. He says, make it your goal to live a quiet life.
Graham Cochrane (08:22.049)
Okay, the word quiet in the Greek passage there does not mean silent. It does not mean don't say anything. It does not mean don't post any content. It does not mean just keep to yourself completely. No, it means stillness. It means rest. It means not running. Literally one concordance lexicon, which is a Greek dictionary for the Bible says, not running hither and tither. Not running around like a chicken with your head cut off.
Now, how many of us does that describe? Busy, exhausted, running around like a crazy person? He's saying do the opposite. Make it your goal, make it your ambition to reject the chaos and the busyness and the hurry of our modern day. It was plaguing these Greek Christians 2,000 years ago when the Apostle Paul wrote this. Most people live in a state of constant hurry.
constant comparison and constant reaction.
Graham Cochrane (09:27.913)
You don't even have to leave your house to be in a hurry and to be riled up. All you gotta do is grab this little device in my hand, it's called a phone, crack it open, take a look at whatever the internet wants to give you. I don't care if it's the news, I don't care if it's your social media feed of choice. It's over. Your brain is already going a mile a minute about circumstances that you can't control, people that have nothing to do with you, and...
Probably your calendar reminding you all the crap you got to do. So he's saying, I'm not saying you don't have stuff to do. I'm just saying you need to make it your goal to quiet and calm yourself. You're too crazy. You're too busy. And you're busy up here. You can have a quiet calendar and still be in a hurry in your mind. I know because I've lived that life. I have a very quiet calendar.
And I would say the last couple of years, I was still very busy in my mind and I'm making it a practice to quiet my mind as well as my calendar. Now, Paul is not saying be lazy. He's not saying be disengaged. He's saying be calm and settled. And we know this because we interpret scripture with scripture. So the rest of the passage tells us what he means by quiet or what he doesn't mean by quiet. Right? So the calm person, this is so great, the calm person, think about it, thinks clearly.
Makes better decisions. Isn't pulled in 10 different directions. There's a great passage in Psalm 46 verse 10 where David writes, be still. Well, excuse me, he's writing for God, right? Because the Holy Spirit influenced and created scriptures. And so he's writing down what God tells him. Be still and know that I am God. Ruth Barton Haley has this beautiful book called Invitation to Silence and Solitude.
And in the book, she takes that passage and just paraphrases it, just saying, instead of be still and know, she just rewrites it as be still and the knowing will come. And the analogy she uses is a jar of river water, right? It's got a bunch of sediment in it. If you just scooped up some river water, a bunch of little dirt in it, and it's all shooken up and it's just like dirty looking water. If you set the jar down on a table and it's still long enough, the sediment
Graham Cochrane (11:50.808)
falls to the bottom and the water becomes clear. This is what Paul is saying. This is what you need to do. The most strategic thing you could do right now is nothing. Be still, let the sediment of your crazy life and business and family, and I have all of that, let it settle so that things become clear. So that you can actually
See your next step clearly. You can see opportunities for what they really are and what they really aren't clearly. Instead of making decisions out of fear or reaction or FOMO, you can make decisions out of alignment, out of a place of peace, out of a place of actually seeing clearly for the first time. This takes discipline to do this. But I think that's part of the point is a quiet life is a disciplined life.
The most successful entrepreneurs are not the ones running around doing hashtag all the things. That's easy. And that's not strategic. It's short-sighted, it's foolish. The most successful entrepreneurs I know know how to discipline themselves to sit long enough, to think long enough, to be calm long enough to accurately assess what they're feeling, what they're seeing.
what's happening in the marketplace, what opportunities are in front of them. Would you say your goal is to live a quiet life? Or would you say that functionally speaking, based off of the fruit of your life, what you see, not the intent in your heart, we all have good intentions, but it's the actions and the behavior of our life that gives us a way and tells us what we really believe. Does the fruit of your life, the behavior of your life, the calendar that you have reflect a quiet life?
or a crazy busy life. And if it reflects the crazy busy life, here's your invitation to a more strategic way of living and growing your business. It is to be calm. So calm your life is part one of the formula. The second thing he says to do is to mind your own business. So this is the second part of the formula is to concentrate on your lane. So you've calmed your life, now it's time to concentrate on your lane. How many of us
Graham Cochrane (14:13.407)
are just looking over the fence all day long at what she's doing in her business, what he's doing in his business. How many of us spend more time watching other people live their lives and run their businesses than thinking strategically about our own? This is one of the most countercultural commands in the Bible. See, most people spend their energy watching their competitors, critiquing others, and judging. Like, we judge hard. Can you believe she's doing that? Look at what he posted. I would never do that. What a waste of energy.
What a waste of energy. We watch competitors, we critique others, and then we do what is one of the dumbest things to do, and one of the hardest things for me to break is to compare ourselves with others. We're literally running our own race. They're running their own race. They're not related, but we still compare. It makes no sense. There's no benefit to it. It only brings harm. And even if we compare ourselves to someone that's doing worse than us, whatever that means, air quotes, and we feel better about ourselves for a moment,
That is at the expense of judging someone else. That's actually not good for our soul. It's like eating bread all day long thinking it's going to fill you up or eating potato chips all day long thinking it's going to fill you up. It only leaves you hungrier, so it doesn't satisfy. So instead of comparing, instead of running around doing all the things, Paul gives us a very simple but strategic strategy. Stay in your lane.
Stay in your assignment. Do you even know what your assignment is? I believe that if you're in the marketplace, your profit building machine is really your purpose making mission. Meaning your business isn't this compartmentalized thing over here that you do that makes money. Your business is an expression, an overflow of your
purpose in life, your mission in life. The Bible tells us, and I believe, and you don't have to be a Christian to probably arrive at this conclusion, that we are put on this earth to serve, to serve others. If you're a Christian, the Bible is pretty clear, serve God and then your neighbor, which is all the people you come in contact with. So the irony is the way you serve God is by serving your neighbor in the way he wants you to. So because God cares about people.
Graham Cochrane (16:40.523)
always has, always will. God cares about people, so he wants us to care for his people, and therefore it's in service to him. So whatever you're interested in, whatever you built your business around, whatever motivates you, whatever your passion is, whatever the thing is, the problem you want to solve in the world, the dreams you want to help people realize, the outcomes you want to create for your clients, that is a giant clue as to your mission and purpose in the world. And so it's an assignment. It's part of your assignment.
Just fill out and fulfill your assignment. Don't worry about my assignment or her assignment or their assignment. It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. Mind your own business. Some of us know more about other people's businesses than we know about our own. We don't know our own numbers. We don't know our own P &Ls. We don't know our own marketing strategy. We don't know our own conversion rates. We don't know our own clients and potential clients.
language they use and probably we don't know much about our own business, but we know a lot about other people's businesses and other strategies. What are we doing? Literally, we are distracted constantly.
so we never produce the fruit we wanna see in our lives. Distraction destroys productivity. So what I find is that people who build meaningful things in their lives and their businesses usually are the ones who ignore most of the noise. I'll give you an example. When I was building my first business, the recording revolution, I didn't have any noise to be distracted by because I didn't know anyone else was doing what I was doing, building online courses.
using YouTube to sell training on the back end. I didn't know anyone was doing that in 2010. I launched my YouTube channel in the fall of 2009, early January 2010. Launched my first course in April of 2010. Yeah, I've been doing this for 16 years. I had no one else to compare myself to, so it was a really sweet season for a couple of years. Then I started to notice that there were other people doing what I was doing, which was exciting to me.
Graham Cochrane (18:42.071)
and then I wanted to see what they were doing, how they were doing it, and then I started to follow them, get on their email lists, and then the comparison started to take over. And I found myself spending more time distracted by what he or she was doing than building my own thing. I literally had to unsubscribe from friends. I had a business partner at the time that I unsubscribed from his emails because I was just getting too jealous and getting too much comparison based off of what he was doing and new offers he was creating. I was like, I just need to literally put my head down and do my thing.
And that's the only way I've been able to generate the wealth I've been able to generate is ignoring my competitors. I don't know what they're doing or what they charge or why they're doing what they're doing. Ignoring the news, ignoring social media, ignoring entertainment. I'm not saying I'm not fun. We have fun. I love watching movies. I do keep up with certain things, but I don't spend a lot of time watching other people live their lives on TV, watching other people build their businesses on Instagram.
watching other people complain about how bad the world is on the news. I just don't have time for that crap. I want to build my own life. I've got my wife to take care of. I've got my two teenage daughters to love and provide for and to teach and to coach and to train up. I have my clients to serve. I have money to make so that I can give to my church and to the charities I support. I've got people whose businesses I want to serve so that they create more wealth for their clients and themselves and their families and the ripple effects thereof. I don't have time.
To mind everyone else's business, I need to mind my own business, stay in my lane, and keep my head down. And so do you. So, we wanna calm your life, and you wanna concentrate on your lane. Do you know what your lane is? And are you staying in it? And maybe this is a better question. What are the things that tend to pull you out of your lane? Like right now, what comes to mind? What are the things that pull you out of the right head space to build your business, to mind your own business? What are those things?
stop them, cut them out, put limits on them, do whatever you gotta do. I have a 15 minute timer on social media per day. I have a 15 minute limit and it shuts down all my social media apps after 15 minutes. So if I'm watching that guy doing the hard rock metal core song about PetSmart, whether it's Pets Mart, like a Mart for pets, or it's PetSmart, if I spend 15 minutes watching those guys reels, because they're hilarious, and then all of sudden my timer's up, I'm done for the day.
Graham Cochrane (21:05.761)
I'm like, what did I do? Right? That's it. That's all I got. Do whatever you have to do to protect your focus so you can mind your own business. Keep your hands in your head and your focus on your yard, on your vegetable garden. Don't look over the fence at my yard or my vegetable garden or my grass. Look at your yard. Tend to your garden. Does that make sense? Okay. And then number three, create with your hands. So calm your life.
Concentrate on your lane, create with your hands. Literally, Paul says, work with your hands. Now this isn't about manual labor versus mind labor. Literally the only work that existed back then was manual labor. This is 2000 years ago. This is about productive effort with what you already have. So what do you already have? Your hands. And as God tells Moses in Exodus 3, when he's complaining about, I don't know how to do the assignment you're giving me,
All God asks him is, what's in your hand? Right? God doesn't say, Moses, well, go get some training. Go get some leadership training with John Maxwell. Go brush up on your communication skills so you can go lead a million people out of Egypt and communicate with Pharaoh. No, he says, you have everything you need. What's in your hand? One of the greatest secrets to being successful in life is to stop looking at what you don't have and start leveraging what you do have.
Stop waiting until some mythical time in the future when you feel more ready and have more resources. It's not coming. You will never feel ready enough and you will never feel resourced enough to do the thing that you so desperately want to do but you're scared to do. These are all protective excuses so you don't have to try and fail. That's all they are. So stop waiting. Stop wishing things were different.
I wish the industry were different. I wish the economy were different. I wish my season of life were different. I wish I didn't have kids. I wish I did have kids. I wish I weren't married. I wish I were married. I wish I lived in a better city. I wish I had more access to mentors. I wish stop wishing. Wishing doesn't get anyone anything. It is literally wasted brain space. And then stop theorizing. Stop creating theories about what's going to happen, how it's not going to work. Every theory, I mean, literally.
Graham Cochrane (23:22.509)
Every thought we have about the future is made up. Do you ever think about that? This is something that Myron Goldin has said for years and it's always struck me. Every idea we have about the future is made up because nobody knows what the future holds. So you might as well make up a future that you like. Yet we're so quick to theorize doom and gloom. Oh, it's not gonna work. It's never gonna work. You can't make money online anymore. You can't do this. The economy's so bad. The war over here, the war over there.
The AI is taking away everything. The algorithm shifted. You know, while you're making those excuses and theorizing and complaining, someone who's not even as experienced or as talented as you is making a million dollars a year running the same play that I'm teaching you right now. Like, you can make up a theory about how the future is going to be bad, but you have no clue.
So why not make up a theory about how the future and more importantly your future, not the future, your future is gonna be amazing and this is gonna work because guess what? You still don't have a clue. You might be right, you might be wrong, so you might as well make up a future you want because none of us know what the future holds. So I'm gonna make up a future that I want and I'm gonna work towards that. So instead of waiting, instead of wishing, instead of theorizing about what could happen, what wouldn't happen, I'm gonna start producing and so should you. I'm gonna start getting to work. I wrote a book.
called the effortless business, right? Build a high income, low maintenance business in life. People think, you can't have an effortless business. I'm not saying a lazy business where you just sit around and do nothing. I still work, but I only work about five to 10 hours a week because it's leveraged, because I'm strategic, because I've figured out what works for me and in my season and the work I do doesn't feel like work. I'm doing it right now. This is fun for me. This does not feel like effort for me, right?
I've designed a business that flows with my personality, with my season of life, with my skill set, and it feels effortless. That's what we're talking about here. Just get to work on the thing that you want to do. Be productive with what you already have in your hands. I didn't have the resources I have now when I started. Like when people say, you can do that because you already have millions of dollars. No, that's how I got millions of dollars was just using what I had.
Graham Cochrane (25:44.558)
The connections I had, which were none, the business experience which I had, which was none, the money I had, which was none. I didn't have money to start a business. We were broke. We were on food stamps. I was unemployed. I used what I did have, $50 in my bank account to buy a domain and some economy hosting with GoDaddy so I could start a blog. YouTube was free. I got some little screen recording software to start recording my screen.
I just went for it. I did whatever I could and I improved and I reinvested whatever money I made into myself with coaching and books and mentorship into my business with tech and tools and traveling to conferences and networking and things that I needed. Slowly but surely, I built things up and that's the only way you can do anything. So when you calm your life, you're not running around, you're still, you're quiet, you're at peace, you're not stressed.
When you concentrate on your lane, you mind your own business, you ignore everybody else, you just do what's in front of you. You're not distracted, you get off your phone, you get off the news, you get off all of that, right? And then you create with your hands and with what's in your hand. Just start producing. Commit to the process, commit to the things you're gonna produce. You will find that inputs create outputs. Now we don't control the outputs.
I have no guarantee of how much money I'm gonna make every month, every year, but I control the inputs. I am committed to producing the inputs. I do this show every single week. I run my challenge every single month. I serve my clients powerfully. I invest in coaching. I invest in masterminds. I read books. So inputs, inputs, inputs create outputs. All of those things have led to me continuing to expand and grow and make more money and reach more people and have more fun.
you need to do the same. So use the skills, use the tools and the opportunities that are already in your hand.
Graham Cochrane (27:47.978)
If you look through the scriptures, you're going to see a bunch of normal people and you're going to see a pattern that God repeatedly multiplies what is worked, not what is wished for. James says, doers of the word, not just hearers only. Jesus honors and celebrates and
blesses the two servants in the parable of the talents in Matthew chapter 25 who go and do business until the master returns. They go and multiply what he gave them. They only have what he gave them. One makes more, the other makes less. It doesn't matter. They both took what they were given and multiplied it, and he condemns the one that did nothing with it. So people that wish something would change don't get supernatural help. People that work with what's in their hand get supernatural help.
That's the only explanation for any success I've had. Not my genius, not even my work ethic is God blessing me being willing to move in the direction He's called me to and start working with what's in my hand and let it multiply. So if we do these things, we make it our goal to live a quiet life. We mind our own business. We work with our hands. Here are the two outcomes, verse 12. He literally says,
Then if you do these things, right, it's an if then. Make it your goal to live a quiet life, mind your own business, work with your hands. If you do that, then this is what's gonna happen. Outsiders or people who are not believers will respect the way you live and you will not need to depend on others. What he's talking about here is fascinating. Two things, when you live this way, two results naturally follow. Number one, credibility. Notice what he says.
Outsiders, non-Christians, non-believers. He's speaking to a church. So in the context of this verse, he's speaking to a group of Christians. So when he's saying outsiders, people who are not in the church, non-believers, people who don't believe the same thing, these are people who would normally judge these Christians or respect these Christians. They'll respect these people. What he's saying is when you live your life like this, people who are not aligned with you, people who don't like you or follow you or
Graham Cochrane (30:06.229)
whatever, they could be just as neutral as I'm not about what he's about, I'm not in her industry, I'm not her follower or fan. That's neutral all the way to even your enemies, people who literally don't like you will respect you. Now why does this matter? Respect matters. Your reputation is what we're talking about here. Your brand is your reputation and your reputation is your brand. Now we can't
make everybody like us, that's not the goal of business. But what he's saying is it is a byproduct of living the quiet life, minding your business, working with your hands, as even your enemies, even outsiders will respect you. When I was running the recording revolution, this was a business where I was teaching musicians who just were home studio owners, they were hobbyists, they were people that just wanted to record their music at home on a budget, make it sound good. Most of my followers weren't professional musicians.
Although I have some Grammy award winning producers and artists that follow me that like my stuff, most of them were just people doing this for fun. And I made a great business. I had the largest channel at the time on YouTube, about 650,000 subscribers. was doing like $1.2 million a year in sales and had an email list of 500,000 people and just reaching a lot of people in that little niche and it was a lot of fun. Most people that I interacted with
liked me and were kind to me or at least didn't say anything. But there were a couple of people in the industry who were actual producers who were working on some pretty decent size projects and artists that did not like me. And they were irritated that I had so much success in the industry and had so much attention because I was so so called a nobody. And there was one time I had some fans reach out to me and say, Graham, did you see this Facebook thread?
about this guy that hates you. like, no, and I don't want to see it. Why did you tell me about this guy that doesn't like me? Well, there was a guy who was a producer who wasn't really, I would say, an A level producer, meaning he's not working with the Taylor Swift's and the Beyonce's of the world. He was working with people on the radio, people selling records, but they were like B level artists, but still real records. And there was some Facebook post or Reddit, I think it was Facebook, of like, why do people listen to this Graham Cochran guy?
Graham Cochrane (32:32.225)
He's a nobody. I've looked up his credits on all credits, like the bands that he's produced, the albums he's produced, I've never heard of these people. They're all indie artists. Why does so many people listen to him? And he was so irritated and pissed off at this, which is his own problem, by the way. It's insecurity, pride, it's ego. It happens, right? It happens to all of us. What was amazing was that there were a few people that were like, yeah, it sounds like he's just faking it or whatever. By the way, I never was faking anything, never have.
I never claimed to be anything I'm not. All I said was, I'm a home recording studio guy, I'm teaching home recording, and people liked it. I never said I had any famous artists, all my clients were indie artists. So it was all accurate. I never claimed to be anything I wasn't. But I had something that a lot of people didn't have, which was an ability to simplify the complex and teach it in a way that resonated with people. That's how my business grew. Okay, so you don't have to be credible or famous to grow your business. You just have to actually serve people. And that's what I've been doing for 16 years.
This guy couldn't stand it. So a couple other people like, yeah, who's this Graham guy? And then all of a sudden, all of my fans came out to defend me. That's expected. Fans will defend the people they're fans of. But what was not expected is there were a couple of people that posted, I don't really follow Graham, don't really know his stuff, but everything I've ever heard about him from anyone else in the industry is that he's a standup guy and he just serves people powerfully.
And I had never heard a single bad thing about it.
That was my favorite comment of all time because this was not a fan or a follower, but it was someone who's trying to diffuse an enemy by saying, I'm not saying I listen to his stuff. I'm not saying I like him. I don't even know really much of his stuff, but I had heard his name because he's very big in the industry and all I've ever heard is that he's a great guy, does great stuff and everybody has only had good things to say about him. This is the power of your reputation going before you. This is the power of a personal brand.
Graham Cochrane (34:31.435)
Your personal brand will either hurt you or harm you or harm you or help you, excuse me, and you want it to help you. So when you live this way that Paul's describing, quiet life, minding your own business, working with your hands, you will win the respect and create credibility in your industry and outside of your industry because people respect calm people. People respect focused people. People respect productive people.
I know loud aggressive people get attention and that I get it attention is very valuable. But you know what's more longer lasting than attention? Respect and people respect entrepreneurs who are calm and unfazed. People respect entrepreneurs who are focused on what they're building. And people respect productive people. Productivity producing
Creating something of value is the most noble human work you can do. And all other human beings see it and respect it. So it's not the loud people, it's not the frantic people, it's not the people chasing attention that get respect. They might get some attention, but they don't get respect. It's this growth or outgrowth, this respect comes from consistent, visible integrity. So let me ask you, are you an integrist? Meaning from the word integer or whole, are you the same?
high and closed doors as you are on social media? Are you focused on the work you are called to do? Are you focused on staying in your lane? Are you focused on quietly serving others? And are you consistent with that? I'm not just saying you had a good week, a good month. Can you put in that consistent, quiet, focused, productive effort for years? If so, you'll win people's respect. When you get people's respect, doors open.
doors open for you that you would never expect to open. And there are doors that you don't have to push down. People will invite you into rooms because you command respect. And it's really interesting to me that Paul is addressing this. He knows that the only way to make a difference in the world, whether it's just to serve people or to grow the church, is to win the respect of outsiders. You're not going to grow the church by being disrespected by outsiders. That's why this whole idea of
Graham Cochrane (36:56.989)
yelling at people and telling them they're gonna go to hell and all this kind of stuff. That never made any sense to me. That's like the worst thing you could do. But being a calm, focused, productive, integrist, honest, respectable, consistent servant to humanity, yeah, you'll win most people's respect on planet Earth no matter what their background, no matter what their beliefs.
And that's just good to have. I'd rather have the respect of people. I don't need you to believe what I believe or even like me, but your respect is going to open doors. And that's powerful. So you get respect. But then also you get cash flow. So you get credibility and you get cash flow. What are you talking about, Graham? Let's go back to verse 12. Then when you do these things, people who are not believers will respect the way you live, credibility, and you will not need to depend on others. He's talking about financial obligations. Literally, if you read
This whole book, he's kind of condemning in 1 and 2 Thessalonians needy Christians who literally are lazy, who literally are just sucking off the whatever of those around them. He's telling, and this is consistent with all of Paul's writings, by the way, is if you will not work, you should not eat. If you cannot provide for the needs of your family,
You, you are worse than an unbeliever, he says. He literally is one of the Paul's pet peeves. If you read the New Testament, and he wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, one of the apostle Paul's pet peeves is lazy people who will not make enough money for themselves. He does not want himself or anyone to be dependent on anyone. Paul himself, when he became a missionary and a church planner, also held a job or he was a business actually. He was a tent maker. So he would build
things and sell things. had a side business to provide for his own, so he wouldn't have to ask for money. But sometimes he did ask for money to raise money for other people, but he never needed to ask for money for himself. He was always provided for because he was willing to be independent financially. He's talking about financial independence and not in the sense of, you've got millions of dollars socked away and if you follow the 4 % rule, you'll never like, that kind of life didn't exist 2000 years ago. And I don't even think that's the goal today.
Graham Cochrane (39:23.661)
The goal today, I would rather have cash flow from a business that I own that's sustainable, that I can run for the rest of my life than millions of dollars sitting in an account, right? Because millions of dollars sitting in an account, which are nice, and I'm down for both, and I have both. But millions of dollars in an account, you have no control over it. You're subject to the market's whims or the investment's whims. I have more control over my business, and I like to stay...
engaged and doing works of service. And so since my business is tied to my purpose on my mission, I'm never going to retire. That doesn't make any sense. So he's talking about cash flow in the sense that if you're not dependent on anybody, you have economic dignity. I don't think there's very few people on this planet that I think truly want to be a leech. There are some people that they are like, yeah, I just want to just suck everyone's resources dry and never want to work. I get it. That's some people, but I don't think that's most people.
I believe if you're even in a place of poverty or a place of economic struggle, I believe most people want economic dignity. They want to be able to provide for themselves. This is really, really important. This is why I do believe in assisting those who need help while they need help, but not just giving them a fish, teaching them to fish so that they can go provide for themselves because that restores economic dignity to the human.
boost their confidence and makes them feel fully whole and fully human. Okay, this idea of just supporting people endlessly for no without helping them get off the support makes no sense. Right? So when you live quietly and you stay focused and you work diligently, three amazing things happen. You become stable. You become productive and you create value.
When you have stability and you can be productive and you can create value for others in the world, there's endless money to be made. Money comes when you, it's a response to value put out in the marketplace. So if you're following the laws of physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So when you put value into the marketplace, the equal and opposite reaction is money into your bank account. Okay?
Graham Cochrane (41:39.256)
So if you're not making enough money right now, it's because you're not putting enough value out into the world. It's as simple as that. And if you want to make even more money, put more value out to more people. So how valuable is the thing you're putting out there in the world and how many people is it touching? Okay? Those two levers tell you how much money you're gonna make. So that's why you can have school teachers who are putting out incredible value in the world, training up our next generation, but they make little money because they don't impact that many people.
What they do is valuable, so they get paid for it. It's not that it's not valuable, but they're not impacting as many people. But if that same teacher were to come online and teach what she knows to the internet, same value, touching more lives, she'll make more money. Right? That's how this works. So when you are quiet and you are minding your own business and you're focused and you are productively creating with what's in your hand, and you're putting value out there in the world and value to more and more people,
cash flow comes. When someone consistently creates value, cash flow follows. It's practical, it's predictable, not because money is the goal. It's just the applause to the value put out in the world. Value creates provision. There's no limits to, like there are no limits. Like money is not finite, it's infinite. Because value is not finite, it's infinite. There's infinite value I can create in the world that I can make infinite money.
And so the beautiful thing is every time I put out value in the world, it's providing for someone else and then they pay me and that provision comes back to provide for me. But the value and the money doesn't go away. Just like we built a house or I didn't build it. We hired builders to build our house almost five years ago. And so we built this house, this custom home, and I paid the builders for the house. So that money is gone. But is it?
No, it's not gone. I gave it to the stonemason and the drywall guys and the electricians and the plumbers and the, you know, the guy that did the driveway and the stucco guys and the guys that wired my speakers in the house and the carpet layers and the floor, painters, all of it. All that money went to them. So they got my money. But my house is still worth what I paid for it. It's actually worth a lot more than I paid for it. So the money is both in their pockets and in the house.
Graham Cochrane (44:09.217)
How fast, so now I've duplicated the money. Like literally, if the house didn't even go up in value, the moment, let's say you buy a million dollar home. The moment you give the million dollars to the builder, it's both with the builder and it's in the home. You've now created two million dollars just by putting value, your money into the marketplace. You see how this works? This is fascinating. It's all infinite. So the more value you can create, there's infinite money to be made.
See, Paul's point is simple. A quiet, focused, diligent life produces enough cash flow that you don't have to live dependent on other people. Imagine a life, isn't that the goal? That's the goal that I have for my daughters. I wanna teach you how to live in such a way that you have economic dignity, that you never have to live dependent on the government. That's not what the government's job is, is to provide for us. Never was. Dependent on the church, that's not the church's job to provide for us.
Both of those institutions can be a stopgap, a place of temporary help, but that's not their job is to always provide for us, right? Unless we work for the church or work for the government, then that's where we get our provision from. But my goal as a parent is to raise my daughters so that they aren't dependent financially on anyone. They can provide for themselves. They can provide for their families. They can give generously. They can stand on their own feet. This is what I want for you. Your goal should be able to provide for yourself. And if you have a family, provide for them.
and then have overflow so you can give to others. One of the most selfish things I've ever heard said is, I just want to make, I don't want to make too much money. I just want to make enough for myself and my family to be comfortable. Wait, what? How selfish are you? Do you really hate people that much that you only want to make enough money for yourself and your families that you're comfortable? This is one of the biggest lies of being humble.
and not being greedy, this whole narrative. No, no, no, you wanna make as much money as you possibly can while living this quiet, calm life. Why? Because you can give it away. You can give it away. There's no pressure to make it. I don't feel pressure to make money, but you wanna make more than you need.
Graham Cochrane (46:26.891)
because then you can be a blessing to other people. This is when the value you create in the marketplace of your business not only provides economic dignity for you, but now you can spin it off and provide economic dignity for others or help other people who are in a pinch get to the next step in their journey, right? It's so cool. So when you have cash flow from living this way, you can have more than enough cash flow to help others. So you're not scrambling. I don't have enough money. You're not borrowing constantly. I can't pay the bills.
You're not relying on someone else, your parents, your brother or sister, your ex, the government, your church. You're not relying on them long term, like short term. Yeah. Did I need short term help? A hundred percent. I will never not tell my story. I literally had my brother, my younger brother, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, my in-laws, my parents sending us grocery store gift cards and some money here and there to help us out. We were on food stamps for 18 months.
We needed help temporarily. But I was head down, working with my hands, minding my own business, quietly building my business. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was like, I have to get out of this situation. This is not long term living off of other people's help, it's short term. And that was an 18 month period of our life. We were broke. Wife, baby, mortgage broke. We needed help, embarrassing, shameful, but we built out of that. And now we have plenty of cash flow, economic dignity.
So the results, credibility, you get outsiders respecting the way you live and cash flow, you have enough provision to stand on your own feet. Now, please hear me. This is not what Paul is saying. He is not saying chase respect or chase money. And yet isn't that what most people are doing in this world? Most people are chasing respect and chasing money. They're doing anything they can do to get people to like them and respect them.
They're wearing clothes that aren't even theirs. They're driving cars that they don't own. They are filming themselves in private jets that they aren't even paying to fly. They're just getting on them for a photo shoot or a fake private jet. There's really a guy that literally has built a set that's a fake inside of a private jet for people to do photo shoots and video shoots on. They are trying to get logos attached to their name. They're trying to associate themselves. They're doing anything. They're chasing credibility and respect. Please like me. Please respect me.
Graham Cochrane (48:54.913)
and they are chasing the dollar, they are chasing money, they are posting, they are scrambling, they are hustling, they're trying to be in every single room, they're trying to do whatever they can to make money. That is not what Paul is telling us to do. See how upside down the kingdom of God is? He says, pursue a quiet, focused, diligent life and respecting cash flow will become the fruit of that life. You'll get cash flow, you'll get credibility as byproducts of
doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing. How wild is that? Quiet people win. Quiet, still, peaceful, focused, diligent people win. Credibility, respect, and cash flow. While everyone else is hustling, everyone else is chasing, you're quietly getting the two things that everybody is killing themselves for. I'm living proof of this. I help my clients do this.
This is why I wrote an entire book called The Effortless Business to show you there is a better way. There is a new way, which is the old way of having the respect and cash flow that you need and want in your life. You don't have to chase it. You don't have to chase clients. You don't have to chase attention. Just put your head down, stay in your lane, let the sediment of your busy, crazy life settle so that the
River water is clear and you know exactly what to do next and then get to work creating with what's in your hand. Remember, calm your life, concentrate on your lane and create with your hands and then the credibility and the cash flow will follow. If this episode blessed you or helped you, let me know in a comment below on YouTube or message me on Instagram at TheGrahamCockren if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and if you haven't yet.
Come pick up a copy of the Effortless Business. It's only available at effortlessbusiness.com. I'll link to it below in the description show notes. Grab your copy there exclusively at effortlessbusiness.com. It'll give you a blueprint for how to build a high income, low maintenance business and life. Thanks for watching and listening. Have a great rest of your week and I'll see you my friend on another episode real soon.
