How I Built a Million-Dollar Mindset

have you ever stopped to think about why so many people are trading in their 9-to-5 grind for the world of entrepreneurship? I’m not just talking about making money here—though let’s be real, who doesn’t love having more cash flow? No, it’s deeper than that. It’s about freedom. The freedom to wake up when you want, work where you want, and build a life on your terms.

But here’s the thing: freedom doesn’t happen by accident. If you’re serious about building your own business or taking control of your life, productivity is the name of the game. You’ve got to learn how to get more done in less time, cut out the distractions, and focus on what truly matters. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about working harder—it’s about working smarter.

Now, if you’ve been thinking about dipping your toes into this entrepreneurial thing but aren’t sure where to start—or maybe you’ve started but feel like you’re stuck spinning your wheels, this is exactly what we’re diving into today. We’re going to talk about how to eliminate the noise, and start building the life you’ve always wanted. And, if that sounds good to you, then you’re definitely gonna wanna stick around!

01:08

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
Get the free book plus $3,000 bonus package that includes my best capture page templates, email swipe files and traffic blueprints, visit www.igorsbook.com for details, And now it’s time to claim your List Building Lifestyle!

01:54

Based on how I study, based on how I listen to, my income, my relationship quality, my health, they all change! right? So, I have to be careful what I believe, who I listen to, or it’s also who you hang out with, by the way, the more you hang out with people who are, for example, like, if you’re going to be making a million dollars a year. You got to be hanging out with people who make a million dollars a year. You can’t be hanging out with people who make up, you know, 50 grand a year and expect to increase your, it’s just not going to happen! Which is why, oftentimes, you know, you will eventually have to kind of change your circle if you want to move up in life.

02:38
It happened to me without me intending to. Actually, I had my best friend at the time just stop talking to me altogether, because he felt that I went nuts, like I was crazy, because I kept talking about making money, starting a business, and he wanted to go to school to become an engineer. That was the path, right! We actually both were on this path to just, I got lucky. I really feel I got lucky! And I got exposed to guys like Robert Kiyosaki, Dale Carnegie, Brian Tracy, Schafer, like a bunch of guys, Dan Kennedy, obviously, who completely changed the way I looked at the world.

Look, I’m not gonna say he’s miserable. Maybe he’s not! I haven’t spoken in many years, but just looking at his Facebook page, I mean, he’s living the exact life that he was aiming for, and that I realized was a complete disaster for me. It’s like working a dead-end job. He’s got, what, maybe one vacation every other year.

Now he’s probably not making minimum wage, but he’s probably really struggling, because he lives in Israel, and Israel’s cost of living has tripled in the last couple of years.

03:55

So first and foremost, the book, “The Perfect Day Formula”, which you actually have to read, if you want to be productive. You’re really into productivity. “The Perfect Day Formula” by Craig Valentine, a fellow Canadian, good friend of mine, absolute must! A really short book, like you read it in an hour, you’re going to be done with it! But it’s to the point, no fluff, very little water, and just gives you exactly what you need! Like, if you just take that book as a manual for productivity and you just start executing what it says, you’re going to become 3 times, 5 times, 10 times more productive than you are right now.

04:39
The other author or the other book that I would recommend when it comes to productivity is Cal Newport and the book called “Deep Work”. Now, the idea behind the book is very simple, cut distractions! That’s what you got to do, you got to cut distractions. And the distraction is anything that isn’t actually work!

So, I could guess or estimate that for most of you, I’d say for 9 out of 10 of you listening, the distraction is social media. Scrolling through social media, watching videos, going on Tiktok. You know, chatting with friends and family on Facebook, etc, is definitely going to be a distraction

Checking your email all the time. That’s for you and me together! Checking your email every 20 seconds, you have to cut it out, or at least minimize it. If you can’t stop checking it, then at least have scheduled intervals on when you check it, meaning, you know, set an alarm clock at 11AM to check your email, you know, 1PM, check your email. So to do it in a more structured way, rather than doing a more sporadic way!

Your phone, you gotta get rid of your phone! If you’re working on your business and you wanna be productive, leave the phone in another room. It’s eating up your mental bandwidth. It’s killing your productivity. It’s making you more miserable. You gotta get rid of the phone!

So, Cal Newport, basically the biggest message from Cal Newport’s word for me, was how much time I was spending on non-trackable activities that were robbing me of my personal productivity, my personal power. And the biggest thing was social media. As soon as I read that book, I got off social media. I just couldn’t continue to be honest with myself and tell myself that I want to be productive and head over to social media! I couldn’t! So I got off social media. I stopped updating my Facebook. I stopped, you know, I don’t have an Instagram account. I don’t go there anymore! I just don’t!

The days when I find myself on social media are usually bad days. So, the days when I feel like crap, days when I procrastinate about eating that frog, those are the days when all of a sudden I end up with social media. So social media and productivity are like mutually exclusive concepts. You can’t be on social media and be productive unless you use social media specifically to sell something. Like, if you’re a mortgage broker and you talk to your clients on social media, or you manage a Facebook group, that’s okay, that’s productivity.

But even that, can be done within a very narrow time frame of 10 to 15 minutes per day, maybe 10 to 15 minutes, you know, in the morning and 10 to 15 the evening, you don’t need to be there 24/7, you certainly do not need to check your social media first thing in the morning. You certainly do not need to check your social media while you’re out with your friends having coffee. You certainly do not need to check your social media before bed, while in bed. You should not do that, because it’s not productive. It’s really not!

08:19

Now, the other tremendous, just absolutely tremendous influence on my productivity, personal and professional, but also in many other areas of my life, is of course, Dan Kennedy. He’s got a couple of amazing books about that. He’s got a guide to personal productivity. He’s got a book on managing actually, the book is called “No B.S. Ruthless Management of People and Profits”, So it’s basically a book on managing your team.

So for most of you, it’s not really relevant right now, but you know, in that book he also shares lots of personal productivity things. For instance, you know, one of the first things he shares in that book is all about time-vampires. It’s the people who, if you work in an office, will pop into your office for, like, a quick question or something like that, and they will pop in unannounced.

Now, this is true for you, even if you don’t have to be working in an office for this. Like, it could be just a relative friend who just decides to call you. Right? And it needs your attention, or messages you with some kind of an agenda that they have that isn’t your agenda right now. So, it’s kind of not important right now for you. It doesn’t get you closer to your goals. So, you know, he encourages. He basically talks in book about, like, one of the concepts that he got rid of, The whole Open Door Policy, where he would not allow people to knock on his door and interrupt him, and as a result, he gets a lot more done. And if someone interrupts them, the first thing he says is, “Can this wait until 4pm?” Now, nine times out of 10 it can. And so he said, “Okay, well, come back at 4pm”. Now, by 4pm he’s already done all this most important work, so it would be terrible for him to invest the time to have that 15 minute meeting.

I follow the exact same routine, when it comes to any kind of meeting, any kind of phone call, I try to push it as far into the day as I can, because the further in the day the phone call is, I’m talking non-work related, not important for my personal productivity kind of call. Now, the further in the day it is, the higher the chance that I’ve already done all of my most important work. So, even if I talk to that person, then it doesn’t matter, I’ve already completed all the most important stuff!

11:09
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!