How To Create Financial Growth By Being Your Fearless Self

By Noam Kostucki

Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken”.

The only thing that no one can ever beat you at is ‘being you’. Others can be amazing copycats but there is only one original you and no one can compete with that.

I started my corporate career as a skills trainer, teaching marketing strategies, sales techniques and methods that influence buying decisions. I moved to helping entrepreneurs and businesses, by consulting and designing websites and creating customer acquisition campaigns for my clients.

Despite getting great results, it wasn’t the best use of my time and my clients’ money. We were expending a lot of effort, when I could see another, more efficient path.

I noticed that successful people figure out strategic and tactical solutions to their problems, and what my clients really needed to achieve their goals was someone to help them go deeper and focus on the internal blocks that are stopping them from taking the right actions. With one-on-one coaching I have helped many clients, company Founders, Investors, Creators and Artists, to overcome these blocks and move forward to create massive success.

Client Example 1

One of my clients, Patryk needed to raise $250,000 to make a documentary. When we talked, in the three months prior, he was not able to raise any money at all. During our conversation, I identified the mental block that was stopping him from taking action to achieve this goal.

I recommended he change his approach from asking for $1,000 to $5,000 from potential investors, to asking for $250,000. It sounded counter intuitive and his first reaction was, “If people don’t want to give me $1,000, it makes no sense to ask them for $250,000.”

I encouraged him to trust the process and go ahead and ask for $250,000 and he agreed. A few weeks later I received an email thanking me because with the strategy I recommended, he had raised his first $130,000, from only two people.

After four months I heard from him again as he had not been able to raise any money since we last spoke. We began one-on-one coaching and after only eight weeks, Patryk had raised a total of $750,000.

We made three critical upgrades:

1. We aligned his documentary 100% with his personality and the essence of who he is.
2. We redesigned his offers to be an outrageous extension of his personality.
3. We worked on his mindset, approach to situations and communication skills.

Client Example 2

When I worked with Esther on her TED Talk, which became one of the ’30 most viewed’ TED Talks of all time, we focused her talk on the idea, ‘what you are most scared to say and how to say it in the most honest and loving way’.

This strategy involved having Esther focus on the core of who she is and being herself in an outrageous and loving way.

The best strategies are not always clear right away, they are not always what you would expect should be done, and they are sometimes, not even logical.

Every time I start a new venture, people tell me, “You’re crazy,” “This makes no business sense” or “How the fuck do you think this is ever going to work?”

Every time, I do the same thing and bypass logic by focusing my attention on creating a deep internal alignment. When you create something that’s truly aligned with who you are at the core, you end up with a product or service that sells itself.

By doing what’s logical and expected, you can only get results that are logical and expected. If you want extraordinary results, you must do something extraordinary.

Be YOU In Business 3-Step Formula

1. Who Are You?

How are you unique and different?

What is it about you that makes you, “YOU”?

When you find the core of who you are, growth happens naturally. This first part of the process becomes apparent with introspection and self-awareness, through meditation, deep conversations, personal reflection, active exploration and research.

Recently, I spoke with one of my closest friends about her job at a bank. Even though she is great at her job, if she were to leave, her employer would find someone else, to do what she does. They will find someone who gives equivalent results, because what she does at her job is replaceable.

Now she is looking for what it is that only she can do, that which makes her unique and different from everyone else.

When you know yourself deeply, everything else flows in a natural way. The sun doesn’t try hard to shine light and warmth. It doesn’t put forth effort to make the planets revolve around it. If the sun weren’t a warm shining light, with planets revolving around it, it wouldn’t be the sun it would be something else.

Trees don’t struggle to be trees. They convert carbon dioxide to oxygen because that’s what trees are about. In the same way, there is something about you that is unique to you. There is something about how you think and who you are that is effortless and natural to you.

“The only thing that no one can ever beat you at is ‘being you’.” #TheGrowthHackingBook #GrowthHackingMovement #GrowthHackingDay

2. How Do You Add Value?

Once you discover who you are, the next step is to translate your being into the value you give to others. The idea is to exchange something of high value to your clients, for something that is of low value to you. Through trial and error, quick iteration, feedback from customers and market research you will find the perfect high value offer for your clients, that costs you little to create, and is an extension of the real you.

What product or service can you create that’s a representation of you, one that is intrinsically you?

What can you offer to your clients that gives much more value to them, than it costs to create?

3. How Do You Sustain Growth?

Growth hacking implies an ability to sustain growth. The problem businesses have as they grow, is maintaining the quality of their products and services. What built their initial success becomes their downfall. Focusing on growth hacking without a growth strategy is more harmful than helpful.

The idea of creating something that has infinite growth is a misconception that can kill the soul of a business, product or service.

The important question is: How much growth can you sustain while keeping heart, soul and uniqueness in your business?

Apple Computers has continued to create new products and services that carry the essence of its Founder, Steve Jobs. What was created often didn’t make sense, like computers without floppy disks, and laptops without CD and DVD players and yet they have become standards in the industry. Other computer companies copied Apple because they created something outrageous from a place of love that was an extension of its Founder. In that sense Apple continues to reinvent itself by creating products and services that sell themselves.

I’ve applied these strategies when working with clients as well as in growing my own business. As a result, I’ve been invited to speak at Harvard University about entrepreneurship; my first book, You Are Your Brand , became required reading at the Fashion Institute of Technology; and my third book, Seek To Keep: How to Find the Best Mentors and Keep Them , was featured in the Stanford Technology Venture Program.