In this post, I want to share a conversation I had with Chris Burres, co-founder of SES Research Industries.
We talk about Carbon 60 (also known as ESS60) and some of the benefits associated with it. Some of them seem a bit “too good to be true,” which guides our conversation towards how to sell something that seems too good to be true.
Watch the interview
Chris shares how sometimes you can fall into an opportunity or pivot into something that looks completely different than your business plan outlined.
In this week’s post, I share an interview with Owais Qureshi, Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Cue, a branding agency based out of Houston, Texas.
We talk about how Owais was initially going down the medical route path and found that his heart just wasn’t in it. He preferred creating pitch decks and working on creative projects.
He initially started taking on some freelance work just to help pay some bills while going through school. It wasn’t until later that he realized he could focus on it full time and make it his career.
Be sure to check out the video and listen to the podcast so you can hear our full conversation!
You can reach out to Owais and learn more about Cue at thevisualcue.com .
Let’s face it. To get to the ultimate level, no matter what it is you do, you have to be competent and confident with your presentation and communication skills.
You might be able to get away with getting clients through online ads and sales funnels, but if you really want to be a big brand or entrepreneur, chances are you’ve got to get comfortable with being in front of crowds.
Watch the video
Long story short, communication is important. How you say something is arguably more important than what you say.
If there was a single thing of highest importance, it would be to focus on your tonality (vocal variety). Some people can be so monotone and BORING (I’ve been guilty of this).
What NOT to do
I found a video I made for a college class… it’s pretty cringe-worthy. Watch my YouTube video or listen to the podcast to get a feel for it.
I was trying to do a deep voice, was extremely monotone, and quite frankly I’m pretty embarrassed that the video even exists. However, I’m willing to share it so that you can learn what NOT to do.
Listen to how I currently speak when compared to that video.
Tips to Improve Communication
I found a few top articles on Google that shared tips on how to improve communication.
Use Your Optimal Pitch for a Healthy, Powerful Voice
Make Your Voice More Expressive and Interesting
Use pitch inflection (raising the tone of a word or phrase in terms of the musical scale)
Practice Exercises for Precise and Crisp Articulation
Whatever you say will sound more intelligent and elegant if your diction is good—if your speech is crisp and articulate.
Example: Say the word “Government” (did you pronounce the first “n”?)
www.TheAccidentalCommunicator.com says that tonality is really what matters. A celebrity voice coach, Roger Love, shares the opinion that tonality controls up to 40% of whether or not a person who is listening to you will believe what you are saying. The key: don’t speak in a monotone voice.
Listen to the podcast
Transfer Energy!
It takes more work to transfer energy through audio alone as opposed to in video or in person. To get somebody excited requires some passion behind the message.
You could have the most important or interesting topic ever, but if you present it in a way that does not engage or excite your audience, they will not retain that information.
You probably know this for yourself. Anytime you click on a YouTube video or start a podcast that has fuzzy audio or where the speaker is super dry, you probably exit out, right? Exactly. So make sure you are not speaking in a way that would bore others to death.
Practice Makes Perfect
As always, practice makes perfect. Record yourself speaking into a microphone or even the Voice Memo app on your iPhone if you have one. Better yet, throw a camera up in front of you and record yourself speaking.
How do you look? How do you sound? We all have room for improvement, but as you do this more and more often, you’ll be able to perfect the way you communicate and present yourself to others via video, audio, or in person.
The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule), states that 20% of our actions account for 80% of the results.
I heard a few different stories when looking up Pareto’s Principle. One story says that Pareto found that 80% of his healthy pea pods were made from 20% of his plants.
In another article, I heard that Pareto noticed how 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the people.
Watch the video
This is how the “80/20 rule” came about. Pareto realized that this same ratio applied to several things in life.
The vital few vs. the trivial many
This principle essentially shows that we need to focus on the “vital few” instead of the “trivial many.”
In today’s world it’s so easy to be overwhelmed with information overload. There really is an endless amount of content to consume. If you head over to YouTube to watch the Joe Rogan Experience, you may be a bit overwhelmed when you see multiple interviews well over 2 or 3 hours in length.
One hack I use especially when watching YouTube content from a creator a channel I enjoy is to sort by “most viewed.” This allows you to identify what most people have viewed, as the videos are likely very valuable and have been shared online.
When it comes to picking new books to read, I check Amazon book reviews to make sure it’s going to be worth the time. Time is money, and I’d hate to waste 3 or 5 hours reading a 2 or 3 star rated book.
Listen to the podcast
Focus on the 20% that truly matters
Make sure to get focused, laser focused, on the 20% that truly matters. We all have huge goal lists or to-do lists. Chances are that many things on those lists don’t really need to be done. Perhaps the smaller things on our list are things we added to distract us from the large, important ones.
Sometimes we don’t want to do what we know we need to do: prospecting, lead generating, cold calling. We know we need to do things to generate business or move the needle. But sometimes we push them off very creatively.
Key Takeaways
So remember that 20% of what we do accounts for 80% of the results. Be maniacal about that focus… say no to anything that distracts from what is truly important.
Daily Motivation
“Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.” – Josh billings
Actionable Steps
Evaluate your goal list, to-do list, or planner. Circle the top few key things that you know you must do. Perhaps even number all of your goals in order of priority, with 1 being most important.
Then start chipping away in order of importance. You can even spend an hour on priority #1, then take a break from that to work on priority #2, then go back to finish #1. Often times, we create mini tasks for ourselves that are not really important to distract us from the hard goals we want to avoid (creative avoidance).
So set your priorities, and start taking action on them today!
Are you really ready to become your own boss? In this interview, I had the chance to pick Henry’s brain and get tons of helpful tips for entrepreneurs who are wondering if they are really ready.
Check out the video
Ultimately, to be ready you have to be three things: Ready, willing, and able.
Listen to the podcast
Are you mentally and emotionally ready?
A good question to start with is are you mentally and financially ready? There’s a big difference between being afraid of embarrassment and being truly afraid of the financial implications on you and your family if you fail.
Are you WILLING to put in the time and effort?
Starting a business isn’t easy. It’s going to take a lot of time. This means that sometimes, sacrifices have to be made. You’ll be building your business while others are at happy hour. That’s just how it goes.
Are you ABLE to afford the time, money and energy?
Henry shares that the most common reason that businesses fail is that they run out of cash. Maybe you need to keep your day job while building your side business.
Health is a huge part of a business. If you are not in good health or something is seriously ailing you, it will be more difficult to put the time and focus into your business necessary.
In this post, I want to share an interview I was featured on. A new friend of mine, Schuyler Diehm, runs the Early Risers Podcast, for which I am grateful to have been a part of.
I talk about my story so far, how I was caught in a corporate role I wasn’t growing in, then quit that job to pursue an invention idea, and how I underestimated the time and money necessary to bring a product to market.
I struggled to bring that to life and after several months of making no money, I had to figure something out.
That’s how I landed in real estate, and I came across real estate wholesaling, which I’ve now done for the past year.
We all get ourselves into things we aren’t 100% sure about. I think it’s important to set big goals for ourselves, make these statements public through means like social media to hold ourselves accountable, and then give it our absolute best shot.
Make sure to listen to the full interview and watch the video which summarizes some of what we talk about!
Watch the video
Listen to the podcast
Key Takeaways
Don’t be afraid to “take the leap.” When you say you are going to do something, stay committed. Stick to your word.
Face your fears.
Sometimes life can humble us when we get too cocky. I thought I was smart, had a good cushion of savings, etc. and it resulted in me taking some huge risks and losses. Stay humble, but stay hungry. Take risks. You’ll take some losses, but there will also be some wins.
Stay consistent… when you feel like the needle isn’t moving, don’t give up. My podcast is a perfect example. For months I had a few downloads. Then it jumped to around 400 in a month. Within a year, I was hitting 20k downloads a month! All organically.
Remember to stay FOCUSED. Do not fall victim to shiny object syndrome.
Daily Motivation
“Less dreaming, more doing.” – Chris Bello
Actionable Steps
Get very focused and figure out what it is you want to accomplish. Break those big goals down to figure out what you need to work on today, this week, and this month to move closer to those.
Align yourself with people in places you want to be in and start chipping away. It’s a long game. Most “overnight successes” are not overnight at all and take years to come to fruition.
With that said, go take massive, focused, action today.
Today’s guest needs no introduction, as he’s grown his social media reach astronomically and is very well known in the entrepreneur space.
Watch the video interview:
Listen to the podcast episode:
Dan Lok, the King of High-Ticket Sales, joins me on today’s episode.
In this interview, Dan shares:
His background and story – specifically, how his father went bankrupt and he was forced to become self-reliant
A challenge he faced early on when losing money to a con-artist
How you should congratulate clients once they purchase a product or service (“congratulate; don’t thank”)
How you should tell prospects that it’s okay for them to say “no” if they think it’s not a good fit
Dan’s closing line: “What would you like to do?”
How Dan hires without reviewing any resumes
His new book, Unlock It – how to evolve to significance
Dan has a new book coming out, Unlock It, which you can pre-order today by visiting www.theunlockitbook.com . In the interview, he says that yes, wealth and success are great. But he is now focused on significance as well, which he dives into in Unlock It.
It’s pretty easy to find Dan online. You can connect to him and find all of his social media accounts by visiting his main website, www.DanLok.com .
Key Takeaways:
Never give up. Dan faced lots of set backs such as his father’s bankruptcy and falling for the con-artist partnership. But he kept on going.
Remember what Dan says about clients once a purchase is made. “Congratulate, don’t thank.”
The close begins the minute you start talking to a prospect.
It’s okay to tell others that they can say “no” if it’s not a good fit. This lowers their guard.
Try out the closing line “what would you like to do?”
Daily Motivation:
“I failed at 13 businesses before having my first success. Once you succeed, nobody cares about your failures.” – Dan Lok
Actionable steps
Head over to theunlockitbook.com and pre-order your copy of the book. Make sure to send Dan some love on social media and let him know I sent you.
Keep your head up if you’re hitting tough times. We all struggle and hit failures every now and then. Never, ever give up!
I keep seeing a Tony Robbins ad lately where he says something along the lines of “the strongest predictor of success is hunger.”
Watch the video
And no, he doesn’t the feeling of when you haven’t had lunch yet. In this post, hunger is defined as the drive and motivation to succeed and dominate in all areas of life.
So…are you really hungry? If so, how hungry?
How bad do you want it?
Once we start to hit higher levels of success, it can become easier to be happy with the status quo and with “good enough.”
Learning how to maintain (or better yet, increase) hunger, is key to continuing to succeed and grow.
Hunger eliminates failure as an option. There is no Plan B.
Hunger drives improvement. “Good enough” isn’t good enough. When you’re hungry, you constantly push to improve.
Hunger fuels solutions. Hunger results in a solutions focus. You either find a way or make one.
Hunger is a driver. You don’t need to be micromanaged when you’re hungry. You’re self-motivated.
Hunger opens eyes. The hungry stay open to new opportunities and ideas. They find windows of opportunity to capitalize on when the complacent overlook them.
Key takeaways
Review and refer to the points in today’s post to make sure they really stick. Realize that you must force yourself to stay hungry. This gets more difficult as things get better for us.
Remember that comfort is the enemy of growth, just like “good” is the enemy of great.
Daily motivation
“The best way to keep your hunger is to get around where it’s better and things will hit you. Who you spend time with is who you become.” – Tony Robbins
Actionable steps
Think of your #1 “Why.” Is it powerful?
Is it enough to get you out of bed every morning? On rainy days? On cold, dark, depressing days? If not, it’s time to get a bigger why.
Remember what Tony Robbins says on hunger.
Who you spend time with is who you become. If you are around complacent, average people, change the people you associate with.
Get with hungry and motivated people that will force you to continue to push yourself past your perceived limits.
I feel like brain
never stops thinking. I constantly have ideas, things I want to implement,
landing pages I want to improve, videos I want to make, and so on. It seriously
is non-stop. And it’s been that way for a few years now.
Chances are, you can relate. Once I read my first self-help book, then the next, I started ordering more books while reading 3 simultaneously. I became a fiend for growth and learning.
Watch the video
I subscribed to a dozen podcasts and started drowning myself in information that I found so interesting and relatable.
Listen to the podcast
I was grabbing coffee
a week before this trip with a new friend I made in Houston. He explained this
same phenomenon and told me that he is a “filler.” What he meant by this is
that he constantly fills free time with productive things.
I resonated with that
so deeply! It’s legitimately difficult for me to just sit down and enjoy a TV
show. I always feel like there’s something productive I could be working on
simultaneously, like jotting notes down for my next podcast.
I’ve realized this is
a bit extreme, so I’ve started to make time to take a step back, disconnect,
and relax a little bit every now and then.
Stop and smell the
roses
We’ve all heard the
phrase “stop and smell the roses.” But really. We need to stop and enjoy the
little things in life instead of constantly trying to be productive or do the
next thing.
Life is a journey, not
a destination. If we don’t pay attention, we could miss it.
In Brendon Burchard’s
book, High Performance Habits, Brendon mentions that we should set a timer for
45 minutes or so. Once our butts hit a chair, we should set a timer.
Once it goes off, we
should walk around, stretch, get some water, etc. for 5 minutes.
This helps us reset.
Brendon also says we should take a few deep breaths. Inhale intention; exhale
tension.
Use this as a time to
release any stress, reset, and make sure that the next activity you’re about to
work on is the right one.
So many people come at
life from a reactive approach. They open up their emails immediately in the
morning and then start responding to every “urgent” email or
“emergency.”
This can result in you
spending an entire day fighting fires that weren’t really even important. This
happened in my corporate job basically all the time and it was so
frustrating.
Now, when I set these timers and take breaks, I can calm down. If I’m stressing about something or not being as productive as I want to be on a certain task, I have a chance to reflect on what’s working, and what I should try to do on the next task.
Calm the mind through
meditation
While taking breaks
throughout the day and reflecting on how everything is going is helpful,
sometimes it helps to straight up meditate.
I never used to
meditate before. And I’m still not a super intense meditator. But I can see the
value and power of just emptying your mind of everything.
Sometimes I get a
workout in during lunch time to break up the day, escape from working and
answering emails for a bit, and get some alone time.
If I’ve already gotten
a good few workouts in that week, I’ll still go to the gym, but in the exercise
room, I’ll go and do a guided meditation on YouTube for 15 or 20 minutes. If
you’re a beginner, I suggest taking this route.
It can be challenging
keeping your mind clear of distractions and worry if you are just listening to
meditation music alone. When you have someone telling you what to think about
and focus on, it can definitely help.
I have found that
after meditating, I feel renewed and refreshed. I am ready to conquer the
second half of the day and even take on challenges I may have been avoiding in
the morning.
So really. Just try
it. Experiment with a few different videos and speakers and find a few that you
enjoy. Eventually, you can ease off the guided ones and just do your own thing,
focusing on letting go of stress, tension, and negative energy.
Let go of things you
can’t control
Entrepreneurs and hard
workers in general love control. They want to be steering the ship at all
times.
Sometimes, however,
there are things that are legitimately outside of our control. Things like the
economy tanking or terror attacks or anything like that are difficult to
influence on an individual level. We can’t try to play the superhero and take
on all that stress and responsibility.
There’s a lot of
things that are kind of outside of our control. We can all do our little part
to try to improve the world. Like recycling, or donating time or money to help
the homeless, and all that good stuff. But bad things unfortunately will still
happen in the world from time to time.
Tragedies, like it or not, will affect us all at some point or another. Life is beautiful with endless opportunities, but if we are honest, we obviously know it comes with an expiration date for all of us.
It’s important to “let go” of things we have no control over. But there’s a fine line here. Don’t go playing the victim saying you can’t change something. As individuals, we absolutely have the power to make a difference and to matter in this world.
But you know what I mean. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and don’t stress about every little thing in life.
Do what you can and
remain calm throughout
At the end of the day,
do whatever you can do control your life and positively change things on all
fronts.
But remain calm
throughout everything, even through the bumpy roller coaster drops that we
don’t see coming.
The way we can handle whatever life throws at us is by staying rational. Before we emotionally react to something immediately, we can take a step back, take a few deep breaths, and even meditate.
This will let us approach the situation reasonably and logically instead of throwing gasoline on a fire by going purely off of emotions.
Some of us are more
emotional than others, and emotions make us human. We can’t all be 99% logic
like Spock from Star Trek. So I get it. Cry it out when you lose someone or a
pet. But appreciate the good times, and don’t let the tough times hold you down
for too long.
Key Takeaways
Take some time to
reset and refocus several times a day. If you are a “filler” and fill up all
your blank calendar space with productive things, remember to plan for some
breaks and relaxation time in there as well.
Hustle is great but
burnout is not.
Remember that we can’t control 100% all the time. Life will throw some curveballs our way. The best way to handle that is to take time to reflect, meditate, and then react logically instead of letting emotions drive.
High emotions in tough
situations combined with quick, sporadic actions can lead to us saying or doing
things that we later regret.
Daily Motivation
Time you enjoy wasting
is not wasted time.
Actionable Steps
Ask yourself the
question “Am I a filler?” If not, great! But if you are, make sure to fill some
time for breaks.
Consider setting a
timer for a certain length of time (I do 45 minutes) and then stretching,
walking around, getting water, for a few minutes.
Inhale intention,
exhale tension.
If you still haven’t tried meditating, try it today. Even if it’s just 5 minutes in your car before you go back to work from lunch, or 5 minutes in the morning. It seriously makes a difference and forces you to slow things down.
I’m writing this post from my hotel room in Bali, Indonesia. I’m here on a two-week vacation with the girlfriend. But no excuses. I’m setting aside time to bring you another value-packed post.
Today we are talking about how to find your passion… and how to find a way to monetize that or make it what you do for a living.
Watch the video
What do you love to do? Like really love to do? Think of something you could do for hours, for free, every single week for the rest of your life.
Do you have something in mind? Is that something you are thinking of what you do for “work” and to earn a living?
Listen to the podcast
If not, it’s basically a hobby. And that’s cool. We all have things we love to do and do them without getting paid to do them.
Some of us like to read more than anything. Others like to work out. Still others love to travel. The list goes on. I love all of those things!
But so many of us do things we are not passionate about for work to earn a living so that we can afford to do those things we love to do.
A few of you might be freaking out. What if nothing came to mind when I asked you what thing you could do every day for the rest of your life?
Or what if you see no way you can make a living doing that thing you love right now?
Well, take it one step at a time.
Set aside time to brainstorm things you’re interested in
If you can’t identify a passion of a moment’s notice, you should really set aside some thinking time to write a few bullet points down and identify what truly makes you happy.
I actually did this for myself recently. I was considering creating a new niche website on something I’m passionate about.
I may have mentioned in a previous episode that I’ve played the drums since I was in 5th grade. However, in the last few years, I’ve played much less as I’m more interested in reading, listening to podcasts, and finding real estate deals.
It was actually kind of a sad activity for me. I was spinning my wheels for hours and days trying to figure out what the heck I care enough about that I could write and talk about it for free and forever.
I thought about doing a drum blog. But like I just said, I’m not that into drums anymore. I thought about making a travel site. But I don’t want to commit to being a full time nomad and constantly producing content about it.
I was so frustrated. I literally had “passion crisis.” I couldn’t find anything I care enough about to write or talk about!
Then it dawned on me. I AM doing what I love already. Sure, I don’t have a niche travel blog about Couchsurfing in Europe. I don’t have a podcast about how to groom your sugar glider.
But I’m posting podcast episodes and blog topics on everything from productivity to events I’ve attended. And that’s okay. Because I love that.
And it’s clear that I love it, because it’s something I’ve been doing consistently and for free for well over a year now. Obviously, the goal is to monetize it eventually and turn this passion project into something that can perhaps one day be my main gig.
So with all that being said, what is it that YOU love to do? Once you find that, you’ll notice that you are able to spend countless hours grinding away and it doesn’t feel like a drag.
When you do what you love, you enter “flow” state
When you find that thing that you truly love, you find you can enter a “flow” state and the time just flies by. That thing for me USED to be drums. But now it’s self-development and creating helpful content.
Finding your passion can be a challenge for some of us. There’s so many tempting things in life that we think we are passionate about. But when it comes to starting a blog or podcast and trying to stay consistent with posting, we find we maybe aren’t so passionate about it because we want to quit on week 3.
How can you monetize your passion?
Once you do identify that true passion, I challenge you to think of how to monetize that. You hear the phrase “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
It makes so much sense. If you can do something that you enjoy doing for hours, nonstop, what if you could find a way to make that your living? What if that was your day job?
Think of people who have successfully “life hacked” their passion. Sara Blakely with Spanx. Tony Hawk with skateboarding. And even Tony Robbins on self-development.
They found a way to turn their passion into their life’s work.
I think that’s where we all ultimately need to work towards. A life that we don’t need vacation from.
As I sit here in my hotel room admiring the beautiful view and excited to explore the island, I’m doing what I love!
Taking time out of my trip to record my thoughts and put them out into the world doesn’t feel like work. It’s something I genuinely love (and feel obligated) to share.
That, my friends, is passion.
If I can show my audience that I am pursuing my dreams, passions, and interests, it might inspire some of you to do something you’ve been wanting to do but have been putting off.
Go on that vacation. Apply to that new job. Create a podcast on mini pigs. Work towards the life you want, one step at a time. And eventually, you will build it.
But also remember that things do change. People change. I’m no longer a huge drummer. I don’t have a goal to go on a world tour. So my passions have shifted.
Keep this in mind as you go through life. You might have wanted something as a kid that you just aren’t interested in anymore. If you’ve always dreamed of becoming a doctor, and now you’re not feeling it, don’t do it.
Even more importantly, if your parents have a dream for you that IS NOT YOUR DREAM, don’t do it.
You will hate your life. You won’t be happy. You will ultimately burn out because you won’t be interested enough in it to do it even when things get tough.
Key takeaways
Take time to identify a few things you truly are passionate about. If you already know what that thing (or those things) are, have you found a way to monetize that or make that your main thing?
Start small. This is where I’m at as well. I’m growing my audience, putting free content out into the world, and I haven’t really tried to push any monetization strategies hard.
Once I add enough value and identify the right product or service that fits my audience’s needs, I plan to find some revenue streams that way.
But remember that it’s not a race. Fortunately, when you are doing something you truly love, it’s really not about the money (although like I said earlier, finding a way to make money doing something you love is the goal).
Daily motivation
“Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Actionable steps
Identify 5 of your top passions. Write them down. Now circle the top 3. Again, this may be difficult and can take some time.
Write down how you can take the next step with each of these passions. Which one is your ultimate favorite that you could see yourself blogging, vlogging, or podcasting about for free for at least a year?
That is the thing focus on.
If you know the thing already, work hard at letting others know you’re passionate about it.
Post about it all the time. Create content. Hang out with people who are also into that thing. Become a master at that craft. And you’ll find that monetizing it and making a living from it is not so far far-fetched after all.
