Why Jumping Between Opportunities Keeps You Stuck (Straight Line Theory)
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David Wood argues that most people trying to build a business are not actually failing, they are just never running in a straight line. They climb a mountain, go down a river, take some stairs, wind their way through a maze of tactics, and eventually end up right back where they started, no closer to the number they were chasing.
Where you are and where you want to be
David lays out the problem with two points: you, where you are right now, and WYWTB, where you want to be. He says WYWTB always has a financial goal attached to it, whether that is 10,000 a month, 20,000 a month, 40,000 a month, or something much smaller if you live somewhere with a lower cost of living and just want to get by. The number does not matter. What matters is whether there is a clear path connecting where you are to that number.
Most people, he says, do not have that path. Instead they wander.
The cycle of buying a new product every time the last one fails
David describes the pattern he sees over and over: someone decides they want to make 10,000 a month, so they get started. Rather than progressing in a straight line, they buy a product launch and start learning SEO. It does not work. They buy another product launch and start learning Facebook PPC. It does not work. They buy another one and learn to make their own products. It does not work. They join a network marketing company. It does not work. So they go back to the beginning and join something new, and they just keep doing that over and over and over again.
He says there is a hidden key to greatness that lets a person figure out exactly what they need to make $10,000 a month, and the rest of the talk is his attempt to get at that key by contrasting two formulas: the job and the business.
One guy giving you money versus lots of customers giving you money
David breaks down what he calls the job formula, JOB, which he says people like to call “just over broke,” though he admits some people genuinely do make a lot of money in jobs. In a job, one guy gives you money, and he gives you whatever he dictates he is going to give you. If the boss says fifteen dollars an hour, you have exactly one person giving you fifteen dollars an hour. His question: what happens if disaster strikes and that company goes under? “You got one guy giving you 15 bucks, right, now all of a sudden you’re getting nothing.”
The difference with a business, he says, is that instead of one boss writing your check, customers are giving you money, hopefully lots of them. If one customer can no longer pay, or loses their job, or goes broke, or in David’s own experience, if a customer dies, and he says he has had customers die and it makes him feel bad, the business does not collapse the way a job would, because if you have 20,000 or 30,000 customers, you still have the rest of them giving you money. “The only way for you to get money is for somebody to give it to you,” he says, and a business simply spreads that dependence across many people instead of one.
The four questions that replace jumping between opportunities
From there David gets to what he calls the straight line theory. The starting question is simple: how do you get money? People give it to you. There is no other way. From that single fact, he says the whole path to a goal like 10,000 a month comes down to four questions:
How do you get people to give you money? How do you get people to keep giving you money? How do you get them to give you as much money as possible? And how do you make sure they’re happy enough to where they continue to do it for the rest of your life?
He calls that combination the magical formula, the straight line replacement for the mountain-climbing, river-crossing, stair-descending cycle of buying one product launch after another and ending up back at the start.
Written up from the original recording. The full transcript is below.
Read the full transcript (4 min talk, 761 words)
Here's what we've got. We've got you, and this is where you are now, and we've got where you want to be. Where you want to be, w y w t b, all right. And where you want to be has a financial goal attached to it, whatever that is, you know, 10,000 a month, 20,000 a month, 40,000 a month, maybe thousand a month, that you could be in a country that has lower resources and maybe you just want to be able to get by, whatever it is, there's w y w t b, and then there's where you are right now.
Now here's what most people do. Most people, they climb a mountain, they go down a river, they go down, you know, some stairs, they figure out a path, and then they wind up right back where they started. Right, because they don't have a clear path from where they are to where they want to be. All right, they want to make 10,000 a month, so they get started, and rather than progressing in a straight line, what they do is they buy a product launch, start learning SEO, it doesn't work. They buy a product launch, they start learning Facebook PPC, it doesn't work. They buy a product launch, they learn to make their own products, it doesn't work. They join a network marketing company, it doesn't work. So they go back to the beginning, and then they join something new, and they just keep doing that over and over and over again.
Right now there's a hidden key to greatness here that allows you to figure out exactly what you need to make $10,000 a month. So if you want to make $10,000 a month, there's a couple ways to do this. Now there's a job formula, right, the j-o-b. Now a job formula, just over broke, is what we like to call it, but reality is some people do make a lot of money in jobs. I don't even know if you can see up there, the job formula is this: one guy gives you money, right, and he gives you whatever he dictates he's gonna give you. So in a job they'll say, well, I'm gonna pay you $15 an hour, and then you've got one person, one guy giving you $15 an hour. Now what happens, pray tell, if some disaster strikes and this company goes under? You got one guy giving you 15 bucks, right, now all of a sudden you're getting nothing.
So the reality is is that in a job a boss is giving you money, a corporation is giving you money, somebody is writing your check. Now in business, what's the difference between a business and a job? Well, here's the difference between a business and a job. A job, one guy gives you money, he dies, you're screwed. A business, hopefully, hopefully, customers are giving you money. So we've got you, right, customers, lots of customers are giving you money. Now what's the benefit of having a business versus a job? Well, the benefit of a business versus a job is, of course, if one of your customers die, and you hope they never do, but if you have 20,000 customers or 30,000 customers, I've had customers who have died, right, and I feel bad, right, but the reality is is that life happens, right? What happens if they all of a sudden can't pay you anymore, or if they go broke, or if they lose their job, right? Well hopefully you've still got 10,000 people giving you money, right, because remember the only way for you to get money is for somebody to give it to you.
So if your goal is 10,000 a month, you say, well, how do I get there? Obviously not a good way. So what's another way to get to your goals? The straight line theory. So what's the straight line theory? Straight line theory is this: how do you get money? People give it to you. Is there any other way? No. So then the question is, number one, how do you get people to give you money? Then number two, how do you get people to keep giving you money? And then number three, how do you get them to give you as much money as possible? And number four, how do you make sure they're happy enough to where they continue to do it for the rest of your life? And then that is the magical formula.