How I Turned Skepticism into an $86,000 Success Story

When I first started building my business, it wasn’t some overnight success story. It was messy, hard, and honestly, a little crazy. I was working two jobs just to keep things afloat. I was broke, borrowing from family, paying bills late, and taking on freelance gigs just to scrape together enough to reinvest in my business. And then there were the people around me, friends, family, even my girlfriend who didn’t believe in what I was doing. I was the guy everyone laughed at, the one “wasting his time” trying to make money online. And let’s not forget the language barrier. My English back then? Yeah, let’s just say it’s come a long way. But here’s the thing: every challenge, every doubt, every late-night shift and sideways glance, it all shaped me. If you’ve ever felt like the odds are stacked against you, or like nobody believes in what you’re trying to build, this episode is for you.

01:00
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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01:47
when I was starting the business, I worked two jobs. I worked a day shift job and a night shift, the graveyard shift job. And the way I managed to work on my business, was the second job, it was a security job, so I was able to sneak out with my laptop and work using a mobile internet that I purchased separately, and was paying separately about $100 a month, just so I could work remotely. Now, in addition, I had to get a laptop to do that, which I didn’t have. So, I sold my stationery PC, and I bought a laptop instead. So, that was a requirement as well. That was a big challenge!

Second challenge is I was broke. So, whatever I was making, I was like, my bills were paid as late as I could pay them without penalties. And I would, pretty much beg and borrow from every relative that I could think of, and I would invest every penny that I have back into my business. And I would take online jobs as well, like working as an assistant for somebody, writing somebody a set of emails for a one time payment, basically, you know, trading my hours for dollars as a freelancer in order to make a little bit of extra money, so I could invest it into my business.

Another challenge, now that we’re going to just talk about challenges, English! You would be able to tell now, I’m sure! And, a lot of people compliment me on my English, especially when I moved to Canada. They were like, “Oh, when did you arrive in Canada?” Was like, “well, a year ago”. It’s like, “really? Your English is amazing!” Yeah! So English was an issue. If you manage to look up any of my old videos that I put out, you’re going to notice, it’s a night and day difference! So, English is pure practice. It’s like daily practice, speaking, reading and writing. That was a big challenge.

Another challenge was that none of my friends and family, including my girlfriend, who at the time was my girlfriend, today, she’s my wife, nobody believed that I would succeed. Nobody understood what I was trying to do! And when I told people that I’m going to make money online, I was left out of every room and became part of every joke!

04:21
Now, of course, everything changed when I started driving an $86,000 car around the small town where I lived. So, all of a sudden, people started looking at me differently. Some of them thought that I’m a drug dealer. I remember I was getting coffee one day, and I arrived, and I would always park in front of the coffee shop, I was really proud of that car! And, as I’m walking in, a guy walks up, his name is Sammy, I used to work with Sammy at a factory that was making FedEx devices. And Sammy would always look down on me because he was older, a little bit older, he was, like, named 40 at the time, and I was a kid, and I didn’t want to work a day job. I knew at that time already I’m not going to be working a day job, it just made no sense to me! And so, he’s the opposite, he was the sort of guy that enjoyed the idea that he only needs to work x amount of hours per day and that he wasn’t doing anything important, but also did not have very many responsibilities, and he always managed to do the least amount of work possible without getting into trouble. That was like his attitude! How little work can I get away with today? So my boss doesn’t notice, and I think it’s a really low level approach to living your life.

So, one time I’m going into the coffee shop, Sammy comes out with a cup of coffee, and he sees me, and he says, “Hey, are you a drug dealer? Can I buy some drugs?” And I say, “What are you talking about, man?” He says, “Well, look at your car. How else did you make all that money, right?” Now, of course, he was joking. But, as my former boss used to say, “there’s a truth in every joke!” Because jokes are only half jokes, right? There’s also half truth.

06:23
So, people genuinely thought that I was either a drug dealer or some kind of criminal. Because how can you legally make so much money? And they had no idea, by the way, that I bought that car in cash. Actually walked into the dealership and I wrote a check for $86,000. That’s a lot of money! I mean, that’s a lot of money in the US, but that’s also a lot of money in Israel, insane amount of money, actually. In fact, back then, in my hometown where I lived, you could have bought two apartments for that kind of money

So -so where was this going?- Right, so friends and family, when I was trying to build this business, they didn’t believe, for a minute, they didn’t believe that I’m going to succeed in any way. And so, they made sure to make fun of me, they made sure to tell me about it, they made sure to try to talk me out of it. And the biggest thing, the two biggest things, in my opinion, that was the most difficult, was that my dad was a pretty big naysayer, and he really tried to get me to stop doing this, to get me to stop building this business, even though he was an entrepreneur at one point back in Ukraine. And the other really painful part was that my best friend from the Air Force Academy, he just cut me off completely. He wouldn’t pick up the phone, he wouldn’t come out to meet me, he wouldn’t communicate with me in any way. He literally just cut me off, like dumb, like I was dead!

08:01
So, these were just some of the challenges that I’ve dealt with. And I think it’s pretty common for people who become successful to have overcome a bunch of different challenges. I think anyone who believes that successful people become successful because they didn’t have challenges is ignorant. Every successful person has a ton of challenges to overcome. In fact, the bigger the success, the more challenges they had to overcome.

08:33
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!