2020 is going to be BIG. But how can we fully start-up, scale-up and challenge ourselves in the New Year if we haven’t learned from the previous year? In today’s episode, Rob shares with you 10 of the biggest, hardest and most challenging lessons learned in 2019 and how it has helped him and his businesses prepare for the year ahead. Discover top lessons, trends, and insights from the Disruptive Entrepreneur himself. If you’re looking to grow your business this year, listen to this episode first.   KEY TAKEAWAYS  10 Big, Unusual, Surprising, Challenging & Hard Lessons Learned in 2019 to Prepare us to go Big in 2020.  Be careful what you wish for. You should wish for big things to happen in your life, but you should also note that as you do that, do not stay idle, have a strategic plan of how you are going to achieve those big things that you are wishing for. When planning your goals or when planning your year or whatever you want to achieve, you should also plan the challenges you are going to have. So it's like goal setting and fear setting. Goal setting is setting the goals, the fear setting is what will the challenges be? What difficulties might there be? What do we need to plan and prepare for in advance? What could blindside us?  With your biggest highs, comes your biggest challenges. With your biggest highs, not only can but comes your biggest challenges, your biggest lows, so you need to be ready for what you can't be ready for. Prepare and plan for the unexpected. Be ready for what you can't be ready for and be prepared for what blindside you. You never know what that is, but at least be ready for it, whatever it will be.  Stay patient. They say it takes 10 years to be an overnight success. I'm not sure if it takes that long anymore, but you certainly have to be patient. Do not be distracted by people who are achieving big things, you will also be one of them in a very short time.  You can also always outsource and leverage more. What happens is when you get to a certain level of outsourcing and leveraging certain levels of admin, then all you do is take on more, and then you have a high level of responsibility and then you get busy and overwhelmed again, but then you can take on the next level of outsourcing like a marketing manager or someone in sales and then an operations manager and then an MD, and then a CEO, and you become chairman and there's always another level of leverage and outsourcing. So what you find is you outsource stuff, you liberate your time and you think I'm done, but then you either get bored and you distracted and you need more because you need that important feeding, or you want to grow.   Every entrepreneur struggles with letting go. It doesn’t matter what level you're at, hiring staff, scaling, getting management in, selling your business, getting help on your brand, developing property projects, media and TV and PR, every entrepreneur even billionaires, they have challenges letting go.  You have to ask for help. So many people are struggling alone. They don't have mentors, coaches, they've not done a therapist, they don't talk to people, they're not in the right peer group, it's your responsibility, you can't sit there alone wishing for people to come and save you and support you, you've got to go and find those circles, you've got to get to the networking events, you've got to get in the right property Facebook groups, you've got to take me up on the one to one calls when I do them, you've got to come to the progressive events, you've got to get in the right network and the right circles, have the millionaires locally and take them out for lunch and dinner  People. Probably the greatest gift of life is the people that you meet, the experiences you have with people. Our victories are much better when we get to share them and your challenges are much better when you get to have help and share those with other people too. You learn a lot from them, you get inspired by them, you get energy from them. And also, it's really important to hang around with people in your peer group, to hang around with people above you, mentors, successful people, and more experienced in the niche you want to be successful in, but also hang around with people who are less experienced than you that you can help.  Realism, the upsides and downsides. Set big but realistic goals that you can be able to achieve. When you set unrealistic goals, you’ll be smacked on the face when life gives you some cold hard realities and difficulties and challenges.  What you think you know about people. Stop judging people, stop assuming what you think they think, and start listening and asking. You don't know people until you ask. You do not know what they mean until you ask.   Lessons from my therapy. You don't get therapy because you are messed up, some needs need to be met, you need to talk deep enough because some of these things are not addressed by the coach or mentor you have. Get a therapist and do not fear that people will judge you. This helps a lot. You will learn way more about yourself doing therapy than you will in many other areas.  BEST MOMENTS  “When planning your goals or when planning your year or whatever you want to achieve, you should also plan the challenges you are going to have.”  “You can't wish for one without the other.”  “Be specific enough with what you wish for and what you plan for.”  “Things break when you go big, staff leave, systems break, merchant providers break.”  “The bigger you go, the bigger the challenges go.”  “It’s really important to be inspired by those who are ahead of you but don't feel like you're not worthy. Be motivated by competition, but don't get distracted by them. Be clear on your vision, your mission, your values, your goals, your journey, your direction, where you're going and stay patient.”  “If you don't ask for help, you don't get it.”  “Don’t buy into these limitations that other people impose upon you, if it's humanly possible, you can do it and break those limitations.”  “The better you know yourself, the better you're equipped with the pursuit that you're on with not worrying about what people will judge you on or criticize you for.”  “If you don't risk anything, you risk everything.”  [Business, mindset, entrepreneur, disruptors] VALUABLE RESOURCES https://robmoore.com/ bit.ly/Robsupporter   https://robmoore.com/podbooks  rob.team ABOUT THE HOST Rob Moore is an author of 9 business books, 5 UK bestsellers, holds 3 world records for public speaking, entrepreneur, property investor, and property educator. Author of the global bestseller “Life Leverage” Host of UK’s No.1 business podcast “Disruptors” “If you don't risk anything, you risk everything” CONTACT METHOD Rob’s official website: https://robmoore.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robmooreprogressive/?ref=br_rs LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robmoore1979 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLtKal0qTf3klDUr7JS_L9Q  disruptive, disruptors, entreprenuer, business, social media, marketing, money, growth, scale, scale up, risk, property: http://www.robmoore.com