Designing a Life You Don’t Need a Vacation From With Craig Ballantyne

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best selling book, The List Building Lifestyle Confessions of an Email Millionaire at www.igorsbook.com
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[0:52] Igor Kheifets

Welcome back to The ListBuilding Lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets, and today I’m hosting one of my mentors, Craig Valentine, the author of “The Perfect Day Formula”, who just came out with a brand new book that’s called “The Dark Side of Discipline”. And this is another eye-opening book, at least for me personally, about productivity and how to achieve more in less time with less effort by focusing on what’s really important. Craig, welcome to The ListBuilding Lifestyle.

[01:23] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Oh, this is going to be so much fun to catch up!

[01:25] Igor Kheifets

Yeah, I should say, welcome back to The ListBuilding Lifestyle. And guys, if you’re listening, I highly recommend listening to the previous episode where I’ve interviewed Craig. It’s been a couple of years, and I can’t remember entirely what it was about, but I’m pretty sure it was.

[01:41] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

It would have been 2019, so whatever episodes, those worth, you know, people have to go back.

[1:47] Igor Kheifets

I think it was about copy, or how prolific you were, because.

[01:51] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Probably some of The Perfect Day Formula in the morning routine stuff and getting things done, because I’ve been sending emails out nearly every single day for nearly 25 years. And I’m a list building lifestyle fanatic as well, and it works. But you have to carve out the time and make the time to do it right.

[02:13] Igor Kheifets

Absolutely! And some people call you, I believe, when I was introduced to you, my mentor at the time, Tom Beal, mentioned that the most disciplined man in the world, or that was.

[02:24] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Well, yeah, I mean, people started calling me that. It’s all really about productivity, right? And, you know, “oh, so if you’re productive, you must be disciplined!” And, I’m not like David Goggins, who’s a famous American guy who runs ultra marathons and his hardcore and stuff like that. I’m disciplined about what really matters, which is a totally different approach to discipline than what most people think. And my method prevents you from going down rabbit holes and putting a whole bunch of energy into stuff that doesn’t matter.

[02:55] Igor Kheifets

So, I think it’s a good place to start! What is your definition of discipline and how do people tend to sort of misinterpret or misplace what discipline truly is?

[03:08] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Yeah, it’s a great question! And so, our definition of discipline is something that most people have never heard before. It is “putting a level 10 effort into your level 10 problems”. Everybody in life, if you’re breathing, you have a level 10 problem. It could be in your marriage, it could be in your business, could be around your business partner relationship, it could be around your health, could be around your finances, everybody has a big problem! And, once you get rid of one problem, the next problem pops up.

But most people in life because the big problem is so hard, it’s so scary, it takes a while for it to be fixed, that most people, they just don’t even bother trying to put a lot of effort into it. Some people put no effort into it. And of course, when they don’t do that, that big problem eventually blows up, and can destroy aspects of your life.

So, we realized, me and my co-author Daniel Woodrum, we realized that unless someone is putting a level 10 effort into their level 10 problem, they’re really just pursuing perverse forms of procrastination. So, on a light and easy level, I’ll give you an example here; a lot of people have probably said to you, they say this to me all the time, I want to write a book or I want to start an email list, great! That’s something very important, but if you look at what they do with their time, they’re reading a book a week, or they’re reading a whole bunch of email newsletters on how to start an email newsletter.

And those things are good, but it’s getting in the way of the great, right? The level 10 problem is writing the book or starting the email newsletter. The Level Five problem is reading a book a week, or learning about starting an email newsletter, that’s not the important stuff! You have to do the really hard work, but it’s easier to consume information and gather more information, so people put all their effort and time there, but that just shows that they’re undisciplined, because that big, ugly elephant in the room is not going to be solved, that problem is not going to be solved until they put the level 10 effort into it.

[05:06]
And then there’s an even worse level. So, you and I were chatting just before we started about you didn’t know that these discipline challenges existed. And (yeah) there’s a few people like you, a couple of my mentors, like I have no idea what you’re talking about here, because I gave them copies of the book. Now, unfortunately, 99% of the population knows what I’m talking about, and that is, there’s workout twice a day programs, there’s reading a book a week, challenges, there’s cold plunge challenges, there’s 100 push ups in 100 days, is a very popular challenge that a lot of men get into, and all of these things are just entertainment, really, because they don’t solve your big problem in life, but people are pursuing those.

And I had a friend, a very close friend of mine. I was at his wedding, I watched him and his wife raise three children, an amazing family! They had it all! They had a beautiful house in Toronto, where you and I both lived for a while, and I thought everything was perfect for the guy. And then I saw him, there was a popular challenge on the internet, and he saw it, and he started going after it and performing it. And it takes multiple hours per day to do all the activities on the list. And I was looking back, because he was posting all of this on social media, and I’m like, I already know you’re busy! I already know you have three kids! I already know your business consumes too much time, according to your wife, where are you getting three hours per day or four hours per day to put into this challenge? And sure enough, he wasn’t taking it from the business, he was taking it from his family. And he did the challenge once, and a whole bunch of people on the internet gave him a pat on the back, people that he didn’t know. And then he did it again, and he got pats on the back from people on the internet. And then his wife walked out with the kids, and because I knew the person, it broke my heart.

Because I’ve been to their house, so I’ve been to special family events, all of these things. And now to see your marriage! You’re a family man! I’m a family man! We do everything for our kids, and now you get to see your kids once every two weeks, because you were chasing something on the internet and validation from other people. And that broke my heart, and that’s why I had to write the book.

And that’s the mistake that people make in discipline, is they open this thing up this phone, and, sharing that, I’m showing my phone to you right now, for people that are listening. And you open up, a lot of people open up their Instagram and on the “Explore” page, today there’s a guy with a 10 million views on his ice bath, or there’s another guy with 5 million views on his workout challenge, and this, that and the other thing, and they’re like, Well, I want to get those views, I want to get that attention, I want to get those dopamine hits! So, I’m going to go and do that.

And they deviate from what’s really, truly, what matters, their “North Star”, that if they, you came to one of my workshops, we spent time on creating a vision for your life. Most people don’t do that, and so they’re very reactive, and that means they just go and pursue whatever is the trend of the moment, and that’s what destroys you, and that’s what I’m here to get on my soapbox and yell about and say, “Please, folks, figure out what matters and focus on that”.

[08:10] Igor Kheifets

So, what I’m hearing you say, I mean, one of the things I’m hearing you say is that discipline is not necessarily waking up at 5am and going to the gym for three hours and coming back and just building, putting in 16 hours a day into your business and forming the whole hustle culture, etc. Discipline is more strategic. It’s being more selective about what really matters, and perhaps paying attention to what sort of payoff you’re really looking for.

[08:46] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

It absolutely is! So, on the internet, there’s a trend Igor, where people say, “oh, I do hard things”. And people will say, “I took a 32nd cold shower, I do hard things!” Or, “I work out twice a day, I do hard things!”, “I could plunge, I do hard things!”, “I do ultra marathons, I do . . hard things!”. People always say they’re doing hard things. But the hardest thing of all, for the majority of people, is to take out their earbuds, or whatever they’re called, air pods! Stop having inputs, not listen to an audio book, not listen to a podcast, sit at a desk or sit out in nature, and think! The hardest thing for people to do is to think (Yes) right? (Yes) and they won’t do it. And because they won’t do that, they don’t have an orientation, they don’t have a direction in life.

And if you don’t have an orientation and a direction in life that you’ve thought about where you want to get to, then, any direction will be fine, as that character in Alice in Wonderland says. And so, the next thing you know, they’re off. It’s not that they don’t have energy, it’s not that they don’t have ambition, it’s not that they don’t want to achieve great things. They’re wild horses! They will just exhaust themselves pursuing things, and they do that because they don’t know what they’re actually really supposed to be going for. And again, that is heartbreaking!

Because if you think of, you’ve probably seen people, I’ve seen people, we’ve been around the block here. We’re not new to online business. We’ve seen people come in and you know that they’re smart, and you know that they’re ambitious, and you know that they have energy, they have the work ethic, but because they can’t resist the shiny object, they haven’t done the thinking, they haven’t built filters into which to make their decisions that, they were on a good path, they might have been one of your best success students, and then, oh! Then they saw something on some other funnel, and now they’re down that path. And then after about three months on that, they were down on another path. And then they became a real estate agent. And then, it’s like, oh my gosh, man! You’re never going to get ahead with that kind of bouncing around.

And so, the hardest thing of all is to do the thinking. And the cool thing is, once you’ve done the thinking, a couple hours of really good, strategic thinking is, it’s not like you have to do this every week, you just have to figure out what really matters to you. And the analogy that I would use, that hopefully everybody can understand, is, when we were kids, we all read some book where there was a treasure map, right? And there was an X that marks a spot, and we all saw those little dotted lines on the treasure map, that took you from where you were, kind of like being in the mall, you are here and to where you want to get to. And most people are going through life without that treasure map. And because they don’t know where the x is, they don’t even know what the x is, they don’t know what their treasure is, therefore they can’t put together a path to get there. And again, they are very reactionary to what they see other people doing, and they chase other people’s goals and dreams, and that’s one of the least disciplined things you can do.

[11:47] Igor Kheifets

I agree with you, back to when I mentioned Tom Beal, who I mentored under, for several years, and that was like a huge experience. One thing he taught me, which I admit, I don’t do as often as I should, is he taught me to schedule thinking time into my calendar as if it’s an appointment or a meeting or a zoom call (Yes) or anything else. Just schedule time with yourself to think!

Because in a day to day scenario, unfortunately, you have things, you have current situations, people, the things you gotta do your business, etc, that just squeezes the thinking right out of your schedule. So, unless you schedule it, it doesn’t happen. And preferably you can schedule it first thing in the morning, which is the advice, obviously, from “The Perfect Day Formula”, the other let’s call it “productivity book”, but I probably put in more of an achievement and life strategy book than just productivity (Sure) where.

[12:45] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

So, yeah, so I mean, that’s a great point, and let me add to that. One of the things that I did in writing “The Perfect Day Formula”, was I read a great book called “daily Rituals”, and it was by this guy named Mason curry, and he had hundreds of profiles of very successful people from history, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, composers like Tchaikovsky. And if you looked at their daily routine, it was generally, what they did was they worked on the hardest stuff in the morning, they composed, they wrote chapters for their books, and then at 12 o’clock they went for two or three hour walks in nature. And listen, this is not a coincidence! There’s a reason that they’re doing that, and it’s because, whether they were consuming information in the morning, putting all of their notes together, and then they would put some outcomes, writing or composing. In the afternoon, their brain was free in nature to really connect the dots.

And this is what I actually encourage with my clients, as we have this phrase in our business called “White space”. So, we coach busy entrepreneurs, and we say, you need more white space in your brain. You need more white space on your calendar. ( I know exactly what you mean) Yeah, because you’ve probably seen somebody’s calendar, right? And it looks like a unicorn ate a bag of Skittles and then vomited into a blender. And, there’s 19 different colors, and there’s not a single sliver of white space. Everybody has all of their time given to other people, given to meetings, given to stuff. And it’s like, “man, you need some time there, to sit back and think!”

And so, we say, let’s, what we do is we help people cut meetings. We were very ruthless with getting people to say “No” to things, etc. So, they build more white space on the calendar for exactly what Tom taught you. And there’s two very famous entrepreneurs, well, I mean, I wouldn’t say they’re very famous entrepreneurs, but they’re billionaires. One guy’s name, I think Keith Cunningham is a billionaire, not 100% sure, but Keith Cunningham teaches business mastery with Tony Robbins. And Keith Cunningham has a book called “The Road Less Stupid”. Have you read that?

[14:52] Igor Kheifets

No, but I have been in the room with him, and I think he told the premise that he teaches in the book.

[15:00] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Right! So, “Keith Cunningham Schedules Thinking Time”, and he does it in a recliner with a leather notebook. And it’s two to three hours, two to three times per week, is what he recommends. And then there’s another guy named Richard Coke, who, I’m not Richard Coke or Richard Cock, whatever the name is.

[15:17] Igor Kheifets

He’s “The 80/20” guy. (He’s the 80/20 guy, correct!) He’s my absolute most, like, this past year, I read like five of his books. (Star principle, that’s a good one) Oh, my God! “Star Principle”, “Simplify”, “The Unreasonable Success and how to Achieve It”, “The 80/20 Daily” absolute, I made my 12 year old daughter read “The 80/20 Daily”. I swear, this guy knows how to take this body of information and analyze it and basically extract the two most essential drops of wisdom from it, like incredible ability to convey ideas, just!

[15:57] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Yeah. So, earlier this year, he had a seminar that a couple of my clients went to. It was Portugal (Yeah) $30,000 for two days and was sold out with, like, 50 or 100 people. Like, how many people can do a $30,000 day seminar in this day and age, and have it sold out! And a couple of my clients, one of my clients, has sold a business for $100 million to PayPal, and this was his second or third Richard Koch seminar. So anyways, Richard Coke, what he does is he has a fish pond, and he goes and does his thinking beside the fish pond. And I’m not sure if it was, I came up with this phrase, or I think I saw somebody else call him this: He’s the patron saint of the lazy entrepreneur. And it’s not really a lazy entrepreneur, because again, thinking is the hardest work of all.

But what Richard preaches is that the majority of stuff that you do, the 8020 principle, is that 20% of your efforts generate 80% of your results, which means that 80% of your time is spent on things that are generally not worth your time. And, he’s like 80/20 your business, 80/20 your life. And then 80/20 that 80/20! Because, if you do that, then 4% of your activities, of your relationships, of your business work, of your ads, of your emails, 4% generate 64% of the outcomes that you’re after. And then you can think, “Ah, man, I need to spend more time on that 4%!” You need to raise that 4% and you need to be ruthless about the stuff that belongs in that 80% or that 96% that isn’t generating you a massive return, that isn’t leverageable. And you get rid of that, you cut that.

And in this day and age, it’s easier than ever to do some automation, delegation and elimination to buy back your time. But, those two guys have the same approaches that Tom taught you, and it is very key, because, again, most people don’t think enough. And the last thing I’ll say on this is that we highly recommend to our coaching clients to walk in nature. Because, if you think of the classic, Sir Isaac Newton, an apple falling on his head, where did he discover gravity? Was he hunched over a desk? No! If the legend is true, he was in a park, he was sitting there, like in a park, under an apple tree, and the guy invents gravity, or discovers gravity, that’s a lesson there! Your brain does think differently. If you’ve ever had a good idea in the shower, it’s because your brain thinks differently when you’re in the shower compared to when you’re at your work desk, when you’re out in nature, compared to at your desk. So, if you’re stuck on a problem at your desk, get outside.

[18:35] Yeah, I agree. And a funny thing, there’s a great TV series, by Neil deGrasse Dyson, where at least he’s narrating that series. (Okay) And there’s an episode about Newton, and they tell his whole childhood story. And turns out that since he was a kid, he was actually living in a big house, and he was either adopted, or there was a stepmom or a stepdad, or some sort of thing like that. So, he spent a lot of time outside. He did not like to stay indoors. And so, gravity wasn’t the first outside discovery. He actually discovered the way the light breaks through the glass. And so, he was able to think about the different, what do you call them, rangers or the scholar prism? (Yeah, the spectrum) And that’s when he was much younger. (Wow, that’s fascinating!) Yeah! So, he was able to observe nature from a totally different perspective.

Regarding, so Keith Cunningham really impressed me, but more so as an entertainer, (Okay!) incredible storyteller! Richard cock, I really regret not going to that seminar, I was literally over the button! And be like, should I go? I was already in Bulgaria, so it’s a four hour flight. Anyway! I regret not going. And next time he’s putting something together, I’m definitely in, because, his insights! Couple of times, I was driving from Bulgaria to Romania, and then another time from Bulgaria to Moldova. And these are quite long drives, like eight hours, twelve hours. So, during those drives, I listened to some of his books, man, it just blew me away the way he’s able to conceptualize things and really see through the noise, if you will.

[20:35] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

That’s exactly it. Most of our lives are noise, So, there’s a phrase, noise versus signal. What’s the actual signal out there, and what is noise? So, for somebody listening to this, how does this work in a list building business, is you’ve got a lot of data, and in this world, we’re drowning in data, but inside the data, there really are diamonds! And it’s figuring out, is it open rate? Is it open rate plus click through? Is it open rate on a certain day, plus click through? Like, what is it? Is that 80/20 where it’s like, Listen, I need to show up, regularly, but my money makers are sending an email on a Thursday with a strong call to action, because, that’s the day that my readers are in the buying mode, and as long as I put a huge amount of effort into that amazing email on on Thursday and making a great offer, my business is going to be more successful, and I’ll actually be able to work less, or I’ll be able to come up with more products and courses or whatever it is to sell those people. It’s finding the signal inside the noise! And, back to our original premise of what we’re talking about here today is everybody’s distracted by the noise.

And so, in the book, I use this in “The Dark Side Discipline” book. I made this. It’s not a joke, it’s serious, but it sounds like a bit of a joke. I say that Charlie Munger, who was Warren Buffett’s business partner, who passed away last, 2023 I think he passed away. Charlie Munger passed away at 99.9 years old. And I say that he was the world’s most disciplined man. And if you ever looked at Charlie Munger, if you ever saw a picture of him, he’s this old, pasty white guy who, he actually looks like he has an exercise a day in his life, and he proudly proclaimed that he as soon as he was out of the army at 18, he didn’t exercise a day in his life. But he actually didn’t, but he lived in 99.9, he became a billionaire, he had everything that men wanted, money, power and respect, and yet he would not do a single one of these things that people on the internet are saying, is disciplined.

Instead, he just sat there and he read, and he had the discipline to say “No”, he had the discipline to say “No” to all these deals. Like, imagine how many deals came across Charlie and Warren’s plate all the time! And they, even Warren, had a rule, or a suggested rule. They said, “Imagine you can only make 10 investments in your life!” Like, that’s how they operate. And so, they just sat there and sat there until the sweetest deal came across, where there’s no way I can’t make a billion dollars off this.

And that’s what they did. And so, that’s why I called Charlie “the world’s most disciplined man”, because Charlie figured out the race that he had to run. Here’s my finish line. It’s over here, and everybody else’s finish line is the other way, and they’re all running, the crowd’s are running in the opposite direction. And I know how tempting it is to follow the crowd, but I know what matters to me, I know what I want my life to look like, I know what my values are. I will not compromise that, and I’m going to go in the absolute.

Imagine running the Toronto marathon in the opposite direction of everybody else. People would think you’re a lunatic! And that’s how it goes in life too, when you do something different. And you and I both have lived differently, but we are much more satisfied by it and productive and successful because we have not followed the crowd.

[23:55] Igor Kheifets

Yeah, I agree with you. And in fact, as soon as you decide to go against the grain, your immediate circle, your family, your friends, they will judge you, they will voice their opinion about how stupid you are. It absolutely does happen, and you have to have the ability to just tell them, “Look, okay, I hear you, but I’m going to do it anyway!”

[24:21] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Do you have brothers and sisters?

[24:23] Igor Kheifets

Yes, I have an older brother.

[24:26] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

So, I have an older sister and she’s visiting right now. She’s from Toronto, lives in Toronto, like I said, she lives in downtown Toronto, which you and I can’t fathom, in this day and age. And she’s the exact opposite of me in many ways, in values and stuff like that, and I was just saying to my wife: “I can’t understand how she and I can be so completely different!” Like, she thought we were crazy from moving to Mexico, to have kids and crazy we’re going to homeschool our kids. She thought it was crazy this and that, and she just thinks we’re crazy, and it’s just amazing, like we’re brother and sister, but we’re so different!

[25:01] Igor Kheifets

Yeah! Same, me and my brother, we’re like, we share both the mother and the father, so we’re full brother and same household, same culture, couldn’t be more different! (Yeah, it’s fascinating, man!) And it’s really hard! It’s really hard, for me, personally, to maintain that relationship, to a point where, once I moved to Canada, I kind of gave up. (where does he stay, in Israel or in?) Yeah, he’s in Israel and it’s very difficult for him to understand, but it’s okay (sure!) like he lives his life, I live my life, everyone’s happy, and that’s good! (Yeah)

I want to go back to something you mentioned, which I think is an important thing, an important point. I don’t remember if it was brought up in the book, but you mentioned that today you can automate a lot of stuff, with software and different things, and now there’s AI agents that can, like, execute on a level that a human can execute. But from what I’m seeing, especially the people who really deal with the automations and deal with the AI and build all the different software, I see them busier than ever, spending more hours than ever at the computer trying to figure things out, and really just, the equivalent of a mad scientist with like, stacks of books and papers!

As soon as ChatGPT came out, a couple of years ago, within a month, I realized what was happening to me. I was going into one rabbit hole after another, realizing, man, this thing’s supposed to save me time, but I’m putting way more time in this, instead of doing things that really matter! So, what’s your experience with this and your clients, of course, and have you found a way to maybe minimize this, or have you found an efficient way to use technology, because a lot of people use technology just for the sake of using technology, like they get really excited about the tool (yeah) without really having a truly productive way to use that tool.

[27:13] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Yeah, man, it’s a great question. And so, I knew I was going to ask you, I’m like, “oh, man, Igor is cutting edge”. I was going to ask you before or after the podcast what you guys were doing, so here’s my take on it: The analogy is, a couple 100 years ago, there was a gold rush in California, and all these people moved out to California to try and find the gold. Now, the early adopters, they got the gold, and then everybody else didn’t get the gold, but, people got rich. And who were the people that got rich? The people that sold the shovels. So, the shovel sellers were the people that got rich in the “gold rush”, not the people who went buying the shovels and looking for the gold.

And I think that there’s something very analogous here in AI, And I’m an investor in a few AI companies. Fortunately, I have a really good investment advisor that got me in early on some of these things. I don’t personally use AI that much, I used it the other day to come up with a name for a program, and it was very cool! Let me tell you exactly what I did. So, I said to the ChatGPT, I said, “Imagine you’re Alex Hormozi”, so again, it immediately knows and downloads all of Alex’s content into its brain. And I said, “you’re coming up with a name for a program that’s blah blah blah, it’s similar to this one by blah blah blah, so make sure that it doesn’t sound like his program name. And here’s how our program is different”.

So, I wrote, like, a pretty good thing. And then, after it gave me back a bunch of information. It was funny, because it was like, here comes Alex romozi, all NO BS and the best guy on the internet, it was really funny how it teed him up. And then after that, I said, “Okay, now Russell Brunson has entered the room, how would he make Alex’s things better?” And then I went and added Tony Robbins, and I added Ravi abuvala, this scaling with systems guy, and then I added bad Rose Cooley, and I added a couple more people, and I got all these ideas. And from those ideas, I filtered down to five, and right now my team is having a meeting to pick the name from the five that I got, so I found it useful that way. But honestly, the number of times that I’ve used ChatGPT personally, is probably under 10.

Now, here’s the other story that I’ll tell. So, 100 plus years ago, Henry Ford was building the Ford automobile company, and he got interrogated, either by the press or in a court of law or something, I forgot what it was about. And they said, “Listen, Mr. Ford, you’re not an accountant, you’re not this, you’re not that, what gives you the credentials to run this company?” And he said, “Well, just on my desk, I have a button that if I need an accountant, I hit the accountant button, if I need this, I hit the other button”, and it’s the same sort of thing!

On our team, I have people who do the rabbit holes on AI and, so if I need something created, like, “Hey, make me this image!”. The other day, somebody made a picture, our AI guy, his name is Galel. Galel made this picture of Elon Musk reading my book. And, I mean, I didn’t use it, because I was like, this is way too real! I don’t want to try and imply endorsement from Elon Musk, but, I guess, I could have fooled my mom with it, for sure.

[30:35] Igor Kheifets

Dude, you want to hear a crazy story? So, about a year ago, an AI came out. It already existed, but they kind of improved it. I think it was either ElevenLabs or HeyGen. So, HeyGen is the one that can take your video avatar and develop (yeah) very good stuff! So, anyway, my assistant, it’s not really my assistant, she’s more like my content person. (sure) She handles most of the content right now. She’s gotten very good with AI, and I basically sent her an ad that I shot with my phone, just holding my phone like this with my book. So, holding the phone, holding the book, be like, “Hey, this is Igor! Grab my book, go to this website”. And then, she came back in like 10 minutes with the exact same video, but this time I am selling the book in French with my lips in perfect sync! (Yeah) And then I took that, and I just forwarded it to my wife, she’s like, “Oh! When did you learn French?” (Wow!) She couldn’t tell!

[31:40] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

So, there’s a dark side to that for sure, which is, my wife and I stopped posting pictures of our kids on Instagram. (Oh, that’s good!) and social media and, like, it’s a double edged sword! That type of content, like me posting happy family pictures, would actually help my business, because people come to us, because they want to spend more time with their families, but, we just won’t! We won’t post their faces on the internet or Instagram anymore, because I don’t know what somebody’s going to do with that stuff, because of what you just described.

But, on the positive side, I have people on my team -to answer your original question- whom when I need something, I just say, “I need a picture of this and this”. And great, I get back, and it’s like, “Oh, that’s really awesome!” Or, I might suggest some small changes to it. And it’s not perfect! AI doesn’t understand everything, but in a year from now, it’s going to be exponentially better.

So, that’s my take on it, is, do I need to be in there, physically doing it? No, I know that people have spent a lot of time on it. And I think, here’s one of the most important things that people need to understand, is that if you don’t spend enough time in white space coming up with big, contrarian, eye-catching ideas, like, if you don’t have a big idea, you can run your general crappy ideas through AI, every single which way, but they’re always going to be generic, crappy ideas! And it doesn’t matter! You won’t be able to have a Grand Slam offer, you won’t have a $100 million offer, if you don’t do that heavy lifting. And I don’t think AI is capable of doing that right now.

So, I see a lot of people putting a lot of time into like, “oh! I created a 30 day content plan”. Yeah, but your content is generic crap that I have seen. Like, there’s not a single unique thought in your content, and so therefore, you’re going to post in 30 days from now, your follower count might increase by 100, and so what? AI didn’t do anything for you, other than disappoint you! Because I’ve seen this happen time and time again, that people think that, if they, Like for example, there’s a friend of mine, Ryan McGinn, does the TikTok and Instagram for Grant Cardone, and people that have millions and millions of followers. And a lot of people go and hire Ryan, thinking that if I film with Ryan and do it Ryan style, that therefore I’ll get the same results. But the problem is, again, they’re running generic, crappy con, like they don’t have any unique ideas! So, Ryan’s not a magician! Like, he can make the cuts and everything, and he can get you to answer with your opinion. But if your opinion is generic and your stuff is generic, there’s no amount of lipstick you can put on that pig that is going to make it attractive!

The reason why Grant has massive followings, it’s not just because of the volume of content, it’s because he says stuff that it’s very controversial. There’s some very unique valuable stuff in there. There’s some horrible stuff in there, but there’s some unique valuable stuff in there. And he has original thoughts. And so, AI won’t have the original thought. It is a cumulation of all the knowledge that exists, but it’s not an original thought. And so, AI can only get you so far with generic.

[35:09] Igor Kheifets

I agree, and it tends to sort of like, water it down even more every time you try to stop it. So, you mentioned that as far as tools go, when you need something done, you got a guy on your team, just a player? For someone in your position, you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve built a customer base, you’ve owned companies, you’ve sold companies, sure! What about one man, one woman show, who just so happens to be up and coming in the age of AI, which is again, a very exciting time! Like, so many great things right now that you could do when we started! So, what would be your advice to them, as far as guarding or putting guard rails, maybe, against getting sucked into that stuff? Because just like you explained, like, I have this one really close friend. We used to be students, now as close friends. And we do a couple of projects together. And, I see this with him all the time, and pointing it out doesn’t really help. Like I see him spend 45 minutes trying to come up with one image, using AI, and I’m thinking, Damn man, you could have written several money-making emails in that time!

[36:23] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

So, listen, it’s just the mini version of what you described, right? You said you have this content person, and this content person, in 10 minutes, went and did the thing, because they’re more of an expert in it. And so, you live in Eastern Europe, and I have a friend of mine from Latvia whose entire business is digital marketing recruitment, from outside of the US, for USA businesses. He found me a media buyer from Rio de Janeiro for 40% less than what it would cost to get a media buyer in the United States. But, The media buyer had spent the last five years working for the biggest american-based coaching, media-buying company. So, it’s just an arbitrage! So, there’s an arbitrage here!

Like, think of how many kids in Bulgaria alone, not to mention all of Europe, all of Eastern Europe, all of Russia, wherever! How many people are hungry and looking to figure out AI? And they’re on Upwork, they’re on five fiver (Yeah) they’re on these sites. There’s a company that I use in America called assistantly.com and “Assistantly” sources from the Philippines. And we started with a virtual assistant, then we moved to an outbound DM setter. Then we moved to an outbound call person from the Philippines, working nine to five eastern standard time, so overnight in the Philippines. Better follows instructions, learns better than any of the american talent we’ve ever had, for that position. And now, we have a full time sales person from the Philippines working nine to five Eastern Standard Time, overnight. She has a career in sales. She’s closing High Ticket Sales of $20,000 and she follows instructions better, she learned the script faster, she asks for more help, she’s more detailed in her reports than any of the north american talent we’ve had in the last five years.

So, the bottom line here is, it doesn’t matter where you are, but there is somebody out there, they’re young, they’re ambitious, and wherever you are, you have the arbitrage of your dollars, go a lot further for that person in their country. And so, there’s somebody out there willing to work at $10 US to be your AI person who is just as good, if not better, than an American or Western Europe AI person. In this day and age, there’s nothing stopping you from living like a billionaire. This is one of my little shticks that I do YouTube videos on, Igor, live like a billionaire in this day and age. So, like in the 1990s, what did a billionaire have? Obviously, a private jet! But other than that, they had a private chef, they had a driver, they had a housekeeper, they had a gardener, they had blah, blah, blah.

In this day and age, your gardener, like, we have a person from taskrabbit.com, come into our house to build all the IKEA stuff, right? Like, I’ve never built another thing from IKEA. They come in, they’re in, they’re out, boom! It’s like 25 bucks an hour. You can get meal prep. So, there’s companies out there that will ship meals to your house. You can have somebody come into your house or cook at their house and do the groceries for like, 700 bucks a week, which seems like a lot, but it saves my clients 15 hours a week.

I never drive anywhere, I uber everywhere! So, I uber in the back. And if my drive from where I live in Vancouver to downtown Vancouver is like 20 minutes, and then, find parking, if I go down and back, that’s an hour, I could have been in the car, driving, or I could be in the back of the car, messaging, doing coaching, selling, writing an email, making money, just like a billionaire did in the 90s! And when it comes to AI, when it comes to very junior copywriting, when it comes to website design, when it comes to customer service, there’s people all around the world that I can get, like, there’s no limitation! That’s what I’m trying to get at here, that even if you’re just starting, there’s no limitation for you finding somebody to do the work that you shouldn’t be doing.

[40:36] Igor Kheifets

I guess, the biggest shift that somebody like that would have to make is what I struggled with for a long time, is just to let go. Because, for the longest time, I’ve had the trouble of letting go of these responsibilities, and I insisted on doing them myself, and in reality, I really shouldn’t have!

[40:54] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

No! So, here’s a couple of takes on this. Number one, Steve Jobs had a great quote: “We don’t hire great people and tell them what to do. We hire great people so they tell us what to do”. You’re doing a lot of things in your business, everybody listening to this, you’re doing a lot! You’re doing the email copywriting, you might be doing some tech stuff, you might be doing some sales stuff! But, are you actually the best at that? In most cases, you’re probably not. You can go and hire somebody who’s better than you to do it, and this is very important when it comes to the $10 an hour task, like editing your own videos and stuff like that, or even doing bookkeeping.

So, somebody listening right now, who does their own bookkeeping or video editing, all right, you do your own bookkeeping and video editing for your business. If I hired you to do that in my business, how long would you last? If I hired you at nine in the morning, would you make it to lunch? Probably not! I’d fire you because you suck! You suck at those things. And here’s the thing, you suck at things, and you’re doing it for the most important business in the world to you, which is your own! So, think of how damaging it is to your business that you are editing your own videos, that you are doing your own bookkeeping, and then, when you’re doing those things, you can’t be doing the $1,000 an hour tasks. You cannot simultaneously be editing videos and writing sales letters or emails that will make you a chunk of change! So, you’re robbing yourself. So, you gotta get those perspectives!

And then, here’s the kicker, here’s the final one: And so, if you are a religious person, what did God put you here on this earth to do, edit videos? No! Like, no offense to people who had videos! There’s people who were put here on this earth to edit videos, they love it! They’re highly talented at it. But, if you’re listening to The ListBuilding Lifestyle, that’s not what you were put here to do. You were put here because you have some idea, and you want to share it with the world, and you want to build an email list and live a life of freedom, and you want to use this email list and communicate value to them, so that you solve people’s problems. That’s what you were put here to do if you were listening to this podcast!

So, the god universe, whatever your higher power is, you were put here to do that, and whenever you do something like bookkeeping or editing your own videos, you’re disrespecting god, you’re disrespecting the universe, you’re disrespecting the higher power! Because you’re doing things. It’s no different than you getting drunk and being hungover and not being able to work the next day. That’s disrespectful too to the higher power! But when you’re doing these things, these $10 an hour tasks, it’s the same thing! So, what were you put here to do, and then just do that?

[43:26] Igor Kheifets

Yeah, this is a powerful message! I wish we had more time, because you mentioned it’s like getting drunk. And I know you speak a lot about your challenges with alcohol (sure) but unfortunately, we are coming up on time, so the next few minutes, can you please share with us a little bit more about the book? Where can we get the book? Is there a website? Should we go on Amazon? Like?

[43:48] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

Yeah, Amazon is fine! We’re really trying to get the Amazon book sales up as high as possible. You can also go to darksideofdiscipline.com and that might just redirect it to Amazon, or it might give you some extra bonus goodies too. Inside the book, there are the effortless discipline systems, the middle section of the book. So, if you have any bad habits, like I once did, “the effortless discipline systems” will show you how to get rid of bad habits and how to build good habits and how to get connected with the community so that you are always following through. And that might be one of the most important aspects of the book that meet in the middle of it.

So, go and get that book, ebook, audiobook, paperback, hard copy, they’re all available, and it really is my life’s work, because I was once broke, struggling, introverted, socially anxious, binge drinker, didn’t want to be any of those things, and I’m no longer any of those things because of the effortless discipline systems. So, get it there, darksideofdiscipline.com, or Amazon. And if you have any follow up questions, hit me up on Instagram at realcraigballantyne, I will answer and get back to you.

[44:46] Igor Kheifets

Awesome. So, if you want to get the book and you should get the book, go to darksideofdiscipline.com. Also, you can hit Craig up on Instagram at realcraigballantyne? (yeah) Yes, nailed it. Awesome. And if you want to help out, then you can just go to Amazon, search for “The Dark Side of Discipline” to help the Amazon book count up. I actually did this for a friend earlier today, believe it or not (yeah) Cool! So, we’re about done here. Before we let you go, any sort of parting wisdom, anything that we haven’t mentioned yet?

[45:27] The guest, Craig Ballantyne

I think what’s most important for people to understand is some real high level philosophical advice to end on, is: “listen, money and stuff is great, but at the end of your life, what really is going to matter to you is people and experiences. So, designing your life for that, and if you’re on, listening to the show, you’re already thinking this way, but designing your life for people and experiences and freedom, time freedom and financial freedom, that’s what matters most, and then that will help you identify what really matters, so that you stay on a straight line to success and don’t get distracted. So, think about that, do that hard thing of thinking, and you’ll be successful!

[46:01] Igor Kheifets

All right! Well, that’s a great note to end the episode as ever! So, Craig, thank you so much for being back on the show. Hope to see you back again, and until next time, Chao, have a good one!

[46:15]
Thank you for listening to The List Building Lifestyle, get access to the previous episodes, transcript of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at www.listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also remember to claim your free copy of my best selling book at www.igorsbook.com. It explains how I made millions with list buildings starting from scratch, plus I’ll give you $3,000 worth of free bonuses, including my best landing page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints. Go to www.igorsbook.com, now to claim your free package!