5 Big Success Lessons You Wish Someone Told You Sooner

Igor: Hi, my name is Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, the only podcast
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Welcome back to another edition of the List Building Lifestyle with your host,
Igor Kheifets. Couple weeks ago, I attended a Perfect Life workshop in Toronto. My
good friend Craig Ballantyne hosts these workshops several times a year. That
morning, I woke up at 5:30 AM, skipped breakfast, and set out to beat the morning
traffic. 40 minutes later, I parked under the famous Nathan Phillips Square, you
know, the one where it says “Toronto” in big letters that you can literally walk
around. The workshop wasn’t set to begin for another couple of hours, so I got
some work done out of a Tim Hortons nearby.

Around 9:00 AM, I entered the Sheraton Hotel and made my way to the Oak Room where
the workshop was taking place. I introduced myself to the other attendees, then
few moments later Craig kicked off the procedures. During this intimate event, I
shared the room with six other people. We were all much alike. We wanted to sell
more of our products while working less and enjoy life more. At first, it seemed
like another goal-setting event where people discuss what they like to achieve,
and why like to move away from their present life and how they plan to do it. I’ve
been to a few of these before, and quite a few of my cult meetings were like that
as well. I told you that story when I was a part of a cult down in Florida, so
really reminded me of that, only they also used to involved fairy dust bullshit
thinking and some group hugs. That was the only difference.

This workshop was really really serious, and everyone who attended really took
things to a whole new level as far as their attitude towards their goals and their
fears and frustrations, which is actually the part I really really liked, because
as humans we tend to sort of push down on our fears and frustrations, and we don’t
take life seriously until something bad happens, and then we take it too
seriously, so when it’s actually too late. So I really really enjoyed that part of
the process. So while it reminded me a little bit of my experience back in the
cult days, when I was a member of that cult in Florida, it’s called Self
Discovery, it turned out to be nothing like that. By the end of the day, I walked
out with some massive paradigm shifts that helped me overcome several hardcore
psychological blocks I’ve had for years, and I’d like to share these mind-blowing
insights with you on this episode.

But first a quick disclaimer: these insights felt like game changers, and they are
game changers to me because they’re my insights. I’ve sat in the room and
concluded these things for myself. I clearly saw how they applied in my life. They
won’t feel the same to you, they may even seem like common sense, and that’s an
insight in itself, because what we often confuse for commonsense advice, usually
is the best advice anyone can ever give us. We tend to fall for this, I don’t
know, fallacy of looking for the next shiny object and so on and so forth, but the
reality of it is that there is no shiny object, there is no magic tricks, there is
no silver bullets and shortcuts. There’s only hardcore, proper, commonsense
advice. These are the five insights I took away from the workshop. Now, these are
just five. There were more insights, and I probably internalized more of them, but
when I sat down to articulate what I learned, these five stood out for me, and I
felt that these five insights will also be of the most value to you, my listener.

So, let’s begin with the first one: the environment matters. So, just like I just
said, that a lot of times we get the same advice that seems like common sense,
advice we may have heard before, advice we may have gotten in the past and then
chose to ignore, or maybe even some things that we learned along the way ourselves
and that now seem like common sense to us. Even though that was the case in many
instances during that workshop for me, because I didn’t walk out of that workshop
with anything new. There were no new insights, there was nothing new for me to
learn as far as my business or my personal life. All of it was something that I’ve
already known. Still, the environment in which I relearned these insights was so
impactful, it had so much impact, that I ended up finally internalizing these
secrets and these insights. In other words, I am a classic case of someone who
hears the same advice over and over and over again, and it only hits much much
much later, or in the certain type of environment.

So what I learned during this workshop is that in order for the information to hit
me really really well, it either needs to come to me from a book by an author I
really really really respect, such as, I don’t know, Dan Kennedy or John Carlton,
or it needs to be delivered to me through a personalized experience, live in the
room. In other words, I can recall more insights I picked up going to seminars and
being in attendance, being in the crowd, or observing things in a face-to-face
sort of nature when I had a conversation with somebody with a similar business,
than I ever picked up from books.

Now don’t get me wrong, books are still my favorite way of getting insights, of
learning new things, but often, again I’m guilty of this just as much as anyone
else, often I read a book and I understand the advice that the book is giving me,
but I choose to either brush it off or not internalize it for some reason or
another. Or, in some instances, I recognize the value of the advice in the book,
however at the same time I struggle to incorporate it in my life, because I don’t
feel as accountable. It doesn’t feel to me that way, I don’t feel accountable to
incorporate it, and I just kinda forget about it. So that was a huge lesson for
me, the environment in which the lessons was delivered really really matters, and
it had a profound impact on the quality of my life ever since.

Now the other thing I learned was that the goals and the challenges were primarily
the same for all of us. In other words, all the people in the room, although we
were on different levels in our business, and I can fairly estimate that I was one
of the two most successful people in the room if it comes to measuring by monetary
achievements, then still, the goals and the challenges were almost exactly the
same. In other words, at this point in my business, I’ve experienced almost the
same problems that people experience when their business is, say, one fifth or one
third of the size of mine. Which got me thinking that it’s a really great reminder
for us when we write copy or we talk to a prospect, and when we think that they
are different, the reality is they’re not different at all. What they long for,
what they desire, what they’re afraid of oftentimes is the same things that we’re
either longing for right now, and afraid of right now, or that we used to want and
that we used to be afraid of.

So something to keep in mind when you’re trying to build your, say, ideal customer
avatar or when you’re trying to connect with a peer who you perceive to be more
influential or more successful: remember that at the end of the day, their goals
and your goals are very much alike, and you can strike that chord and get that
connection going by simply voicing your own feelings and your own goals and
challenges, and immediately they will resonate with them. It happened to me with
another attendee at the event. His name is Jay, he runs the Inner Changemaker
podcast, and Jay got his start only couple years ago, and even then the problems
he is experiencing right now in his business are very similar to mine, although
some of the challenges that he’s experiencing, I solved, and vice versa. Still, we
found so much alike in each other that we ended up partnering up on a project that
we’re working on right now. And again, mostly, in my opinion, because we shared
this experience of understanding each other now.

Now, the third insight is, we knew how to solve each other’s problems because many
of us solved each other’s problems in the past. So I’ll give an example. One of
the biggest problems I stumbled into the last 12 months or so was writing a book.
Now, not the mere act of writing it, because I can write, and I know I write well,
and I can produce content. I can pretty much speak out a book, which is exactly
what I’ve done, by hiring a ghostwriting service, basically, a while back, and I
have the manuscript, but I never ended up publishing the book. And so in the
attendance, there were six people, two of whom had a book published, and one of
them is only just at the beginning of his career, which is a very promising career
as a copywriter. And when I voiced my concern about not publishing, not committing
to publishing that book, immediately I got very simple, very down-to-earth, very
logical and easy-to-follow advice on how to get that book published.

And now it’s been a couple weeks since the event took place. The book is being
finalized by the editor, then I know exactly the steps I need to take to actually
publish it, and of course if you’d like a copy of this book, you should definitely
be on my list, so go to IgorSoloAds.com and make sure you’re on my list. Just sign
up on the website, it’s free, or just go to ListBuildingLifestyleShow.com right
now, and at the top you’ll see an opt-in form. Just make sure you’re on that list,
because if you’re not on it, you may not get a heads-up about the book in the next
couple weeks.

So my point is that, they knew how to solve my problem. Now, the opposite was true
as well. Several people in the audience experience problems I’ve solved in the
past. For example, the same person who published a book had an issue with raising
their prices, which to me is not an issue at all. In fact, it’s as simple as
raising your fucking prices. That’s exactly what I told them, and I gave them my
take on it by explaining how I was afraid to raise my prices, and now I am the
most expensive solo ad provider in the industry, and I’m proud of that. I wear
that hat proudly, because I deliver great traffic, I deliver great service, and I
deserve to get paid well for that. And people are happily paying that because they
want quality over cheapness, you know what I mean? There’s plenty solo ad provides
who charge you 20, 30, 50 cents a click, but they never deliver the quality of
traffic or the service that we deliver, because we’re able to charge a higher
price and create a better experience, get better leads, and so on and so forth.

So overall, you just build a much better business and get much better clients, and
create a much better experience for your clients by raising your prices. Again,
there’s many examples out there. Thing Bentley, think Disney, think the Four
Seasons hotel. Think all these things and you see that people are continuously
investing money with these services because they appreciate it and they want it.
In fact, the companies that thrive and grow throughout the years are those
companies … Oh, I got a reminder, okay, cool … are those companies, and not
the companies that try to save and cut prices. I mean, take a look at Walmart.
Walmart has been in trouble for a really long time. Why? Because they always cut
the prices. And again, I really don’t understand how they’re able to build these
gigantic businesses having absolutely no margin whatsoever. Anyway, so that was
another insight where the people in the room, no matter their level compared to
mine, they know how to solve the problems I was trying to solve at the time in my
business and vice versa.

Now, the fourth insight that I’ve got from the event was one of the hardest
things, for me, was to clearly and specifically explain what I want. Now, going
in, I knew that that was a problem, but I always sort of pushed it back, and I
thought, “Okay, as long as I know approximately where I wanna end up, I’ll be
fine,” but not having a clear idea of where I want to be a month from now, a week
from now, a year from now, really what it does is it prevents me from staying
focused on the daily actions I must take to end up where I want to be.

In other words, if I know specifically that my goal is to lose 10 pounds, you bet
your ass that I will wake up every morning knowing exactly what I need to do,
because I’ll have a clear goal in my mind. But if my goal is to sort of get back
in shape, it’s not specific enough. I may or may not try to cut sugar out of my
diet. I may or may not sign up to the gym. But again, there will be no specificity
of action, and there will be no clarity of daily outcome, which will then prevent
me from achieving my goal because the result of a goal that you achieve in a year
is still the result of your daily actions. It’s just they happen over a longer
period of time.

So, going to this event, what Craig really forced us to do, he forced us to get
super fucking specific about what we want, how we want it to happen, what kinda
plan we must execute in order to get there. And for each and every one of us it
was a different thing, but most of us, besides one person, really struggled with
what they wanted to achieve. In other words, there was one guy, his name is Joe,
he knew exactly what he wanted. He knew the house, the actual address of the house
he wanted to buy, he knew the car he wanted, he knew the experience, he knew …
like, he would breaking down for you by the minute of his day-to-day life exactly
what he wanted, and he was on his way. I’m sure that if I check in with him in a
year, he’ll probably own that house.

For me, it wasn’t that simple. I had a few things in my personal life that I knew
I really wanted, however at the same time there were many things that were still
abstract, and I was afraid to commit. Same thing for other attendees. We all
struggled to clearly state what we wanted, to clearly identify what is it that
will make us happier, what is it that we want to achieve in our businesses and in
our personal lives? So that was a huge lesson. If right now you’re struggling with
that, right now if you don’t have a clear outcome that you’re working towards,
that is something for you to think about. Maybe it’s worth for you to attend one
of these Perfect Life workshops, and towards the end of this episode, I will give
you more information on how to do that.

My point is that unless you know exactly what you want, you are not likely to
achieve it, which is why I’m now forcing all of my coaching clients and anyone I
come in contact with or any project I begin with any [JD 00:15:38] partners, I
always start with that ideal outcome in mind. Start with the end in mind is one of
the biggest secrets towards achieving your goals.

And last but not least, we were all afraid, and we were all wrong. Now what I mean
by that, basically I was afraid to launch my book. I thought it’s this incredible
feat that only the worthy of us, the god-like of us are supposed to do. I thought
that you needed to be like a super human to do that. And at the same time, in the
same room, I was sharing the room with people who did publish a book, and their
books are pretty good, because at this point I read both of them and they’re
actually pretty good, but in addition to that, they were afraid of things that I
overcame a long time ago.

Like this person who had a book published but was concerned about raising their
prices, that’s a problem I solved a long time ago. Or another person who was
afraid to outsource part of his business to free up more time so he can get more
clients through some guerrilla marketing techniques. He didn’t want to put down
another $3,000-5,000 a month in salaries because that was a big cash outlay that
he wasn’t willing to bear, but at the same time I was looking at it and I didn’t
even see it that way. For me, and I had to overcome this challenge a while back,
for me that extra $3-5k that I was spending on this salary or couple of salaries,
that created the room for me in terms of time and attention and mental capacity to
create an income stream that brought me $15,000 or $10,000 or $20,000 a month.

Now again, so to me it’s all a matter of “Okay, I need to buy more time and more
freedom by spending $5,000 month, so how do I create an extra $10,000, how do I
create an extra $15,000 to cover for that?” And that was the game, and so I
figured it out, and today I employ, well I think 12 or 15 people at this point,
because there’s some freelancers as well and they come and go, but at this point
there’s over 10 people that get salaries every month from Igor Solo Ads, and
that’s a huge responsibility, that’s a huge cash outlay, however at the same time
it gives me the freedom and the capacity to create and to enjoy my life and to not
lose my sanity.

So what I’m trying to say is that while that person was afraid of outsourcing,
while this other guy was afraid of doubling his prices, and someone like me is
afraid of publishing their first book, we’re all afraid, but at the same time,
we’re all wrong. Because the moment we get closer to that challenge, the moment
that we start tackling the challenge, it’s not scary at all. It’s really not that
scary. There’s just simple action steps that you must follow and stick to in order
to overcome it, and then all of a sudden, once you’ve made your way to the other
side of that bridge, you look back and you’re like, “What was I afraid of? I
really don’t understand, how come it took me five years to commit to this one
action if it was this simple?”

Now, the challenge with that philosophy is that it’s only once we cross the bridge
we’re able to identify this fear that’s just an illusion, just a mirage, but at
the same time the moment we hit up against the next challenge, we feel exactly the
same way. We feel still that, now this challenge is gonna be different. This
challenge is gonna be really really big. This challenge is gonna be more than we
can perhaps try and overcome. But again, every single time for me in my life, both
personal and professional, every single time the challenges were not that big.
There are a few exceptions when we’re talking about massive, massive, massive
goals, like perhaps going from zero to your first million, right? That’s quite a
challenge, but that’s a long-term goal. We’re talking about goals that are under
30 days, usually whatever you’re afraid of is really not something you should be
afraid of at all, and you only recognize it once you overcome the challenge, so
it’s kinda ironic, and it’s sort of counter-intuitive, but something for you to
keep in mind, and maybe you should listen to this part of the episode every time
you find yourself really scared shitless of the next goal on your calendar or your
agenda.

So, it’s been a few weeks now since I attended the workshop, and you’re probably
wondering if I stuck to any of the goals I set, both personal and professional.
Well, I’m not gonna disclose my personal goals on this podcast, because I don’t
think the world needs to know, however my business goal, which is my primary goal,
was to launch my book in 30 days, and I’ve had the manuscript sitting on my hard
drive for six month, like I said because I hired a ghost publisher or a ghost
editor, ghostwriter to help me launch it, but he did such a lousy job that I just
gave up. And I paid the guy like five grand, it was a total waste of time and
money.

So I finally, finally after this workshop, I mustered up the courage and contacted
all the published authors I know and asked them to refer me to an editor. Okay,
this was the first step, the first step that was missing after such a long, long
break. So I reached out to about eight people, I asked them to give me names and
emails and/or phone numbers for editors they would recommend that can help me edit
my book. And then after sorting through half a dozen editors, I finally found one,
and he’s currently working on the manuscript, and I should be getting it back in a
few days. Next step is to get it self-published and I can’t tell the future yet,
but I feel I’m on my way to successfully publishing my book two weeks from today.

So that pretty much covers today’s episode and if you would like to attend Craig’s
workshops, which I highly recommend, the Perfect Life workshop, it’s an expensive
investment, okay. You really have to be willing to invest in yourself, because
it’s several thousand dollars, plus you have to probably travel somewhere to get
to it, but it happens both in Canada and the states. Still, if you would like more
information on Craig’s workshop, what you can do is you can drop us a line at
[email protected], and I’ll hook you up directly to Craig, who will give you
more information, and you can decide whether or not it’s a good fit for you. My
honest recommendation, regardless of where you are in your life, if you’re really
determined to hit the next level but you’ve been stuck, is that this workshop is
definitely for you.

So, this concludes another episode of The List Building Lifestyle. This is Igor,
thank you so much for tuning in, and until next time we’re chatting, have a good
[inaudible 00:22:34].

Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle. Make sure to subscribe on
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conversion tactic we share on the show might double your list and double your
business. Download the transcript of today’s episode and all future episodes at
listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. And don’t forget to claim your complimentary copy
of The Wealthy List Builders Survival Guide at
listbuildinglifestyleshow.com/survival. This is Igor Kheifets, and until next time
we talk, have a good one.