by Maxwell Murray
Monday Motivation: Be a Revolutionary
When you’re a Revolutionary: You can be a fashion designer, musician, youtuber, podcast host, author, video editor, and CEO at the same time because you start with purpose.
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A peak inside of my journey - thoughts, stories, and lessons.
by Maxwell Murray
F*ck Wednesdays: Part 2
A year ago, I wrote a blog post entitled “F*ck Wednesdays”. At the time of the post, I had bad habits and was not consistent at all. I think that it is important to pick and choose battles to take on throughout the week that can keep you going. For the past year, my battle has been against Wednesday’s and I have been kicking it’s a**.  On the topic of Consistency: I interviewed over 50 people in the past year and the common denominator in most of the interviews was the importance of Consistency. A few things that have helped me become the disciplined and consistent person that I have always dreamed of are: Waking up at the same time every day Going to the gym Really, it is having a set Morning Routine. A morning routine is a consistent task that you can complete every single day. It gives you time to work on yourself before worrying about anything or anyone else. The same way basketball players have a free throw routine, a morning routine for creators and entrepreneurs is truly a game changer. Book Recommendation: The 5am Club by Robin Sharma Here is a video on how this book has impacted my life.   An entrepreneur that I have been watching a lot lately is Bedros Keuilian. He has an incredibly powerful message that we can all benefit from. Check out episode 1 of his latest podcast. You will not regret it.   Brand Update: I am naming my dress shirt brand: Maxwell Murray. Name Reveal Developing a Collection My Plan / Muslin Follow along for the sample reveal at the end of the week!  Have a great rest of your week! Â
by Maxwell Murray
Monday Motivation: The Next Step
“Everyone must choose 1 of 2 pains: The pain of discipline or The pain of regret.” When I started my journey as an entrepreneur, I was undisciplined and inconsistent. I worked when I felt like it, went to the gym when I felt like it, and relaxed when I felt like it. At the time, I was an immature kid with big dreams and no execution. My roommate was the most disciplined person that I knew. He would handle his business regardless of how he felt and I looked up to him because of that. He inspired me to take that next step by forcing me to come to the gym with him. Throughout the next year, going to the gym completely revolutionized my life. It became a keystone habit that changed all of my other habits. Over the next year and a half, I launched 3 businesses, started documenting my life on social media, and became the person that I always wanted to be. Yesterday, when I went to the gym with him for the first time since last summer, I was the disciplined and consistent person that I always dreamed of. Dreams are delusion without Sacrifice. Sacrifice starts with: Building Good Habits Removing Addictions Practicing Delayed Gratification Most importantly: Showing up for yourself, regardless of how you feel. Remember: “The top 5% do, what 95% of people won’t do.” - Robin Sharma  I want to continue this talk about sacrifice in a business context. In business, I have learned that it is better to do the things you don’t want to do, than the things that you do want to do. Let me explain: Things I want to do: Marketing: Recording and Posting Content Sales Calls: Trying to close new clients Build Products: Creating Cool Sh*t Playing Offense: Attacking the market Things I do not want to do: Marketing: Editing Videos Sales: Prospecting and Dm’ing 50+ people / day Finance: Budgeting to make sure we have runway to stay alive Playing Defense: Putting out fires and solving problems The things at the top are results from the things at the bottom. When planning out my calendar, the actions at the bottom will get me to where I need to go. Not the fun and pretty things at the top.  Podcast Rec: Alex Hormozi on The Diary of a CEO The Diary of a CEO hosted by Steven Bartlett is one of my favorite podcasts in the world. Steven is a successful black entrepreneur that took his social media marketing agency public at $500+ million. He has had great guests recently from Richard Branson to Cole Sprouse. Today, he aired an episode with Alex Hormozi. Hormozi is a successful entrepreneur that has been all over my social media feed for the past year. He gives extremely digestible business advice based on what he has done and accomplished in the past. If you are building any time of service business, his book $100m Offers is absolutely life changing. He presented an equation to provide your customers the most value possible. Here is a video of me explaining the value equation: Watch $100m Offers by Alex Hormozi Brand Update: Yesterday, I revealed the final sample for my dress shirts. Here is the video: Watch Next, I have to put in my full production order. I recently purchased 180 yards of the featherwale corduroy fabric that I am using. I still need to buy 1,100 buttons (each shirt requires 11 buttons) and then we are good to go. A few recent developments: Branding Moodboard Fit Sample Corrections Revealing My Brand Name I hope you all have a great week! “Top producers make it a habit to do the high-value activities that average ones don’t feel like doing - even when they, too, don’t feel like doing them.” - Robin Sharma
by Maxwell Murray
Self-Awareness
I watched one of Gary Vee's posts and he talked about pointing your thumb instead of your pointer finger. When you take whatever is going on in the world around you and assess your circumstances, before anything else, point your thumb. I was nominated a team captain for my junior year basketball season. The year before I started on varsity but was really limited in what I could do on the court and as a 15 year old, didn't really have an ability to speak up to my older teammates. My junior year was the first time in high school where it was really my team. I think that one important thing to always know is that you practice how you play. During this season in practice, I was extremely immature. I would talk excessive amounts of trash, slap a teammate after hitting a 3 in his face, and conduct myself in an erratic manner. As a result of that my teammates did the same exact thing. Joked around in practice, left early after practice, and flat out didn't take excellence very seriously. We failed that year as a team and our season actually ended with me sprinting for a late close out and chipping the shooter, sending him to the line for game winning free throws. The next season, I was locked tf in. I set the tone by sacrificing my numbers for the better of the team. Junior year I averaged 9.4ppg and with two new transfers, I knew that I would have to be way more of a facilitator. Each time we ran sprints, I was first or second. I would run next to the big men and force them to keep up. We took every practice seriously and stayed hours after practice to keep shooting and working out. As a leader, I became a lion and our teams culture resembled that. One game we were playing the second worst team in the county. It was kinda far out and none of us were excited to play since we had a huge game later that week. I remember turning up the aux and clapping crazy. Everyone followed, we hit the court and were screaming during warmups. It intimidated the living shit out of the other team. First play we ran a backdoor for a lob and I threw it up and bang! We beat them by 40. My team went 19-2 that year and even though we lost early in the playoffs, I felt like my team resembled my drive and personality. I was willing to die on that. Running a company is a big switch up for me. There isn't practice and there isn't any real games. I felt like for a little while as a team, we were going through the motions. My team has my friends in it and I remember even sipping on a beer during one of our meetings. I am obsessed with FITS and trying to get it off the ground. However, I felt like myself and my team wasn't performing the way I thought we should. Instead of pointing the finger, I pointed the thumb. It made me think about junior year and how I was acting in practice. One thing about me is that I would rather die than fail. In order to get to the next level, I had to show my team that they are lead by a lion and not a sheep. I started waking up at 6am every single day. Making numerous instagram, blog posts, tweets, youtube videos, tik toks. I obsessed over building product and finally took the create idea and made it into a reality. I realized that as the CEO nobody is going to work more than me. Therefore, I have to set the bar so fucking high that people are sprinting and jumping to touch it. Self-awareness is everything. You have got to understand why you didn't perform the way you wanted to. Instead of looking around and waiting for other shit to happen, you have got to set the mf tone every single day. What am I doing wrong? What can I do better? I remember when we first started, everybody wanted to know exactly what their role was. I gave them titles and explained what I wanted out of them. However, I didn't write it down. Therefore, there is way too much room for interpretation. People may be stepping on other people's toes, or might not know what they should do on a daily basis. Instead of blaming them for that, I realized that it was completely my fault. I wrote down full job descriptions with one common goal, list of expectations, metrics, their process, and an example of their daily week. I feel like in order to accomplish anything, it takes you understanding that you came up short. I set out a 3 part strategy for our business. In order to succeed we have to do x,y, and z. However, I can't say that and expect other people to come up and execute. I need to incorporate all aspects of x,y, and z into my life and show how its done. Shane texted me yesterday and said "If I can't believe this is the way 100% then I need to change what I'm doing". Life is about self-awareness and execution. Everything is in your control and in order to get to that next level you have to carry yourself to that standard.