Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that’s me) shares one way to achieve a breakthrough at work — and build a career or company you love.
Today’s edition is sponsored by Vanta — the all-in-one trust management platform. Details at the end of the newsletter.
You want to reach the “next level,” but you’re not sure how.
What’s the next level for you? Maybe it’s a promotion. Or charging higher prices. Or becoming more in-demand.
You’re wondering: Why can’t I get there? What else do I need to do!?
Today, I’ll give you an answer — but it’s going to sound strange: You must do the thing you stopped doing.
This was a recent revelation for me, and it’s been an absolute game-changer.
I’ll show you how it works — but first, here’s how I’ve been using it myself:
How I got successfully lazy
See that photo? It’s from my first-ever paid keynote in 2017. They offered $5,000 and I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I rehearsed every day for weeks, including the night before my talk — and again the next morning.
The talk went well. Over the years, I got more work — bigger clients, larger fees. I’ve done Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, and more. (You can book me here!) But as this happened, my behavior shifted:
I started practicing less. In fact, I kinda stopped practicing at all.
Why? This will sound obnoxious, but I saw it as a perk of success. I thought: “Professional speakers don’t need to practice. They just know their material!”
But also, if I’m being honest, that led to some sloppiness. I wasn’t always delivering at 100%. My timing might be a little off. Or I’d stumble on a transition. Or I’d forget a joke.
Recently, I started asking myself: What will get me to the next level of speaking? I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, but I know there’s more room to grow.
So I decided to make two changes…
How I stepped it up
First, I developed a lot of new material, which I hadn’t done since 2022. It took me a few months — workshopping, practicing, refining. It was hard but valuable.
Then I made a promise to myself: I am going to rehearse before every talk.
I developed a routine. When I travel for a keynote, I now block out time for my rehearsal — either the night before I speak, or the morning of. I perform the full thing in my hotel room, running through my slides on a laptop, while I time myself as if I’m on stage.
I don’t care if I delivered the same talk a week prior. I still rehearse. And I am grateful every single time.
I know my material — but still, I stumble on every rehearsal! There are always a few moments where I’m rusty, or where I improvise something that fails. Then I pause, reflect, and try it again.
It’s like I’m finding all the errors that I would have made on stage — but that I can now avoid. As a result, I show up more confident. My material is sharper. And I am honoring my client, who paid good money for me to be excellent for their audience. They deserve the rehearsed version of me.
We can’t forget what got us here
Here’s what I’ve come to realize: As we become better at what we do, we sometimes take the fundamentals of our work less seriously.
We might think: I don’t need to prepare. Or I don’t need to study. Or I don’t need that class, or that lesson, or that help.
But… what if we’re wrong? What if we’re standing atop a shaky foundation, because we’re not nurturing the lowest levels underneath us?
Right now, ask yourself: “What did I used to do, that I stopped doing?”
Maybe the answer is…
- “I used to look at what my competitors do, but now I’m not paying attention.”
- “I used to meet new people in my industry, but now I just stick to my network.”
- “I used to research my potential customers, but now I just wing it on sales calls.”
- “I used to set aside time for big thinking, but now I just act on what’s urgent.”
Now ask yourself: “What would happen if I started doing those things again?”
As we grow in our careers, we start to believe that growth comes from newness — as if we’re all living in The Legend of Zelda, and there are magical unlocks just waiting to be discovered.
But advancement doesn’t really work that way. It isn’t only about acquisition of the new. It’s really about collecting and maintaining — keeping your fundamentals strong and then building on them.
How seriously do you want it?
I used to think: “The sign of a pro is not having to practice anymore.”
But now I think: “The sign of a pro is taking my work extremely seriously.”
That’s really what I’m suggesting here. By returning to the things we thought we’d graduated from, we are showing ourselves — and in our results, showing others! — that we take this seriously. That we still do the grunt work. That we’ll do whatever it takes.
For you, that might mean spending more time in the details, or in networking, or in learning. For me, it means practicing. I mean, NBA players still practice before every game! If that’s how they stay at an elite level, I should expect the same for me.
If we want to grow, we must grow methodically. It isn’t about sprinting to a finish line, or achieving the “next level” like a video game. It’s about building a foundation, brick by brick, and making sure that it’s all sturdy, all important, and that nothing is overlooked, so that we can confidently stand on top.
That’s how to do one thing better.
The all-in-one trust management platform
As a startup founder, finding product-market fit is your top priority. But landing bigger customers requires SOC 2 or ISO 27001 compliance—a time-consuming process that pulls you away from building and shipping.
That’s where Vanta comes in.
Join over 9,000 companies, including hundreds of Y Combinator-backed startups like Supabase, Newfront, and Fern who streamline compliance with Vanta’s automation and trusted network of security experts.
Start with the SOC 2 compliance checklist, which breaks down the process into clear steps—so you can spend less time on compliance and more time growing your business.
*sponsored
