How To Deal With Uncertainty

I’m Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, a podcast 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, then this podcast is for you. I also invite you to attend a free workshop at Igor.ac where I’m teaching how I made $21,779.45 cents in affiliate commissions by sending just 481 clicks to my affiliate link in one day. I’m also explaining why I walked away from ClickBank and I don’t promote ClickBank offers anymore as well as the five things I look for in the perfect affiliate offer. I’m even going to show you the one page website that I used to make over half a million dollars in affiliate commissions this year and I’ll even drive you to attend this workshop by giving you a $497 value course that shows you how to cherry pick high converting affiliate offers for your next affiliate promotion.

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Welcome back to another edition of the List Building Lifestyle with your host, Igor Kheifets. Back in 1998 when I was just a kid who lived in Ukraine, we have to remember, just to put things into some context, we were a Jewish family in a predominantly non-Jewish area where some people knew we were Jews and other people did not, but it wasn’t something we necessarily wanted people to know. And if you know anything about post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine, when it comes to being Jewish, it’s really bad. I mean, I don’t want to say it’s as bad as being black, for example, back in the 1950s or ’60s because we didn’t get beat up for that just because we’re Jewish, but many doors were closed and many people kind of try to trip you over because you are Jewish.

And so for example in school, there was one kid that was very like very annoying and really wanted to get on my case and try to beat me up one time. So, always got in trouble until eventually I’d beat the living crap out of him to a point where he complained to his mom and his mom approached my mom and be like, “So why did your son beat up my kid?” And to which my mom was like, “Well, why did your kid call my son at kike? He deserves to get beaten up.” You know? So that was the conversation. And so that’s the time I grew up in, and then I remember in 1998 there were elections. It was the election year and the president Kuchma was running up against some other guy. And so Kuchma was friendly to the Jews. He didn’t really get in the way, but the other guy, he wasn’t.

He was an antisemite and I remember my mom watching the news and she was scared. Her face was just pale and white. Really whiter than usual, you know? And I was like, “Mom, what’s wrong?” And she says, “Don’t you understand? This person hates people like us.” And I was like, “People like us, what kind of people like us?” And so, “The Jews. The Jews.” So my mom was really scared and thankfully Kuchma won, so she was good for a couple more years, but then we immigrated to Israel where I actually ended up getting beaten up because I was Russian. Because in Israel, even though I was Jewish, I was still an outsider because I didn’t speak the language. And basically I got beat up for a totally different… Same reason, but for a different ethnicity, if you will.

So back in Ukraine, I was a Jew who lived in Ukraine. In Israel, I was a Ukrainian who just happens to live in Israel. But point being is that this other point, me getting beat up, not the point. The point being is that my mom was really scared of change. So was my dad because my dad had a long army career. He graduated the Suvorov Military Academy in Moscow, then ended up getting transferred to Ukraine where I was born and my brother was born. And same thing happened. Well, in the army you kind of, you know, they send you places, but it’s always safe because you know that the army is taking care of you. And so my dad eventually had to leave the army because the Soviet Union fell apart and just everyone was just stealing things right, left, front, and center.

So it was like a time of uncertainty. That era, the post-Soviet, the breakdown. Remember if you remember, there were big fights in Moscow. There were tanks on the streets. So this conditions you without even knowing it to sort of expect change to be a bad thing. And so having gone through as much, really a difficult change in my life with my parents as we had. Naturally, I grew up and by the age of 18 I hated change. I absolutely hated change. I was afraid of everything that was different. However, somehow I was also more afraid of staying where I was. And so I had to initiate change myself eventually by basically being scared of how things would look like if I didn’t change them and start an online business and take on a whole other journey where quite frankly, change is a requirement, a requirement to not only survive, but to thrive and eventually develop this character and then build these habits of change making. The habits of embracing change is a good thing.

However, the first five years in online marketing were really, really stressful because there’s always major changes. I don’t care what industry you’re in, there’s very few industries where there is no major changes happening. And if we’re driving traffic, Google AdWords, SEO, Facebook ads, solo ads, inboxing, email marketing, there’s always changes occurring and things just can’t be the same way every single year. Now, for example, there used to be a time where I coach people how to build solo ads businesses and all I had to do is show them where to get the leads, how to write the emails and which email autoresponder to sign up. Now unfortunately it’s not the case anymore. You can’t just sign up with an autoresponder and inbox right away. You actually have to go through quite a few things and quite a few steps to get that email into the inbox.

It became much, much harder, which resulted in wiping out about 90% of solo ad sellers. Only the handful of them who were able to adapt survived and that’s very few. We’re talking maybe 10 people out of about 500 and that’s like nothing. That’s really, really nothing. So why am I bringing this up? What is this all about? It’s really about change and recognizing that change is a good thing when you are not only being proactive about it and initiating, but even if you are just responding to it a lot of times it’s powerful to recognize and I think Les Brown was the first to say that. It’s either him or Shawn Stevenson who recently passed away. I don’t know. I really don’t remember who was that, but let’s just give credit to both of them.

They say life happens for us, not to us, and this is a really nice way to say that whatever change comes your way can be a great thing if you let it be a great thing. If you use it as a road sign on your way to success, kind of pointing you in the right direction. A perfect example of that was when I lost my 100,000 subscriber AWeber account. That was my prized account, the one that was delivering the most clicks and that account was making me at the very least $3,000 each and every single day. It was probably the easiest money I’ve ever made in my life because all I had to do at the time was get someone to pay me for a solo ad and commit to say anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 clicks. They will pay for it upfront and all I had to do is just send out an email and make sure that this person gets the click.

Well, imagine what happens to a father and a husband and the person who’s got a team of, you know, a team of people working basically with him and relying on him for their paychecks every month. Imagine what happens when you lose your biggest source of income. Your biggest asset just gone overnight. Get an email, “Hey, we have noticed some funny activity in your account. We don’t want you as a customer anymore. We shut you down. Goodbye.” It doesn’t matter that you’ve been with them for eight years. It doesn’t matter that you have this giant account. It doesn’t matter if you’ve played by the rules and they saw one mistake and they did not let you go fix it. Does not matter. They just take it away.

Yo, it’s Igor. If you’re loving the content, hop on over to listbuildinglifestyleshow.com for more free training and a free transcript of this episode. Oh, and I’d really appreciate if you logged into iTunes and rated the show. It really helps. Thanks.

So when that happens, I responded immaturely. So what I’ve done was I kind of shut down. I did not know what to do and I basically sort of just kind of checked out, if you will. And I remember that day I was so upset and so angry, I decided to go on a run, which really helps when bad things happen by the way. Just go on a run or a walk is a good idea to get some fresh air. And so I went on a run and I ran the most I’ve ever ran in one attempt, if you will, [inaudible] seven kilometers.

I’m not a runner. I’m a very bad runner. Most people listening to this podcast, even those of you guys who are 50 plus or 60 plus, you can probably outrun me, I assure you. But that day I was so emotionally charged that I ran for about seven kilometers and I remember exactly why because I timed myself too. I was actually timing myself just to make it interesting and to take my mind off of AWeber. For the next three days though, I really did not… I was unable to figure out a better solution. Sure I could import my list and everything, but it’s like we’re talking about a big account. You can’t just kind of go to another autoresponder and say, “Hey, I got 100,000 leads.” It just doesn’t work like that. You have to be gradual about it.

So all while having a queue of orders about two month long for traffic, okay? [inaudible] just nuts. And so most of what I’ve done, most of what I’ve done in those three days besides curling up into a fetus position and crying, most of other things that I’ve done, I was… I journaled. I journaled a lot and what I’ve done was I was trying to convince myself that this is a good thing. And I’m really happy that I’ve done this by the way because what happened was eventually it led Dennis to build something that ended up completely changing the trajectory of the company. It transformed the way we were getting clicks, we developed a new traffic source altogether, which we didn’t have before. And all in all, it just set us on a better trajectory and we went from making, I think at the time, roughly I want to say maybe 50,000 gross a month to going all the way up to about a 200, 250 gross per month within a span of a couple of years.

And that was great. I mean, if you think about it, that thing, the AWeber shutting me down became this stepping stone to success. And I don’t want to sound like a cliche, but it really was a great thing that happened to the company and to me personally because it taught me all these lessons. Now looking back, I now realize that I could have made it into a bad thing. Right? It’s not automatic that you will automatically have a bad thing lead you into a good thing. No, not at all. It took a while. It took a while to first have accept it and it took a while more to figure out what’s the best direction to move forward.

And it’s only by accepting it for what it is, kind of stripping all the drama and all the bullshit and all the emotional baggage behind it. Just, okay so the fact is we lost this account. So what can we do next? And then you could just brainstorm a list of solutions, and then you also have a list of 10 reasons why this is a good thing, right? Because the why part of it is really important. I didn’t do it at the time, like whenever things would happened to me, I would only try and figure out a solution for the next thing, for the next challenge, but at some point I started doing the whole reason why or the 10 reasons why this is good or 10 reasons why this is bad. And it really helps you stick through it. It really helps you commit to the outcome and really stick to the outcome, even if it’s getting difficult because you have all these reasons why you need to succeed.

A great example to that strategy in action actually was when I was finally ready to move from Israel to a different country and that’s an idea I’ve had for years. However, I would never commit to it. And so then I met Tom Beal at a seminar where we spoke together and I shared it with him and he said, “You know, it’s really not that big of an issue if you sit down and list 100 reasons. Just make a list of 100 reasons why you need to move.” And it’s a big challenge and I tend to thrive on challenges. So I said, “You know what? Okay, challenge accepted.” So on my way back, I think the seminar was in Orlando or Fort Lauderdale.

So on my way back I went ahead and I list… I think I’ve done 68 reasons. And then I’ve completed the list [inaudible] over the course of the next two weeks because I got distracted at home. But I still have it, the 100 reasons why I need to move and these reasons we’re ranging, starting with the business reasons, going to the family reasons. It just didn’t matter the context for the reason as much as the fact that I now had a list of 100 of them that I needed to move. And the moment I completed that list, we reached out to a lawyer, we spoke to a lawyer, we got the paperwork going, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And eventually within a couple of years, because that process took some time, we were finally able to cross the border.

Point being is that, again, the reasons helped. Having a list of reasons why helped, but the most important thing, again, the most important thing is I grew up in a world where change was bad. If there was a change coming up, it was probably a violent change. There was probably a war… You know, right around the corner or the the currency devaluating. And so people lose their entire fortunes overnight. Any form of change would usually be scary and the more my parents got older, the more I could tell, they actually resist change down to their core about everything. About the food they eat, about the people they hang out with, about their beliefs about, I don’t know, health and leisure and success, everything, everything. They are just so adamant, especially my mom. She’s very, very adamant about things.

But if you would like to succeed in life and in business, then you better be ready to embrace the change, even though most of the time you will find it very, very difficult. Now, don’t get me wrong, there has to be a balance here too. Not all change is equally great. But what I am referring to are those big moments where that change is inevitable, where life sort of pushes you into a situation where you have to make a decision and you’re basically deciding between two, what it seems like at the time, between two really bad decisions. Because if given the chance to go back and keep things as they are, to keep the status quo, you’d probably do that.

So if you find yourself in that situation trying to determine whether to take the path A or path B and you find both of these paths really scary and not necessarily paths that you want to be on in the first place, know that choosing one of these directions is a good thing for you as long as you can make it into a good thing. It’s just you can’t see it now until you make the first step or the 10th or that 100th step on that journey. That’s how life works. So, that concludes another episode of the List Building Lifestyle. I’m your host, Igor Kheifets, and until next time we chat, have a good one.

Thank you for listening to the List Building Lifestyle. Get access to previous episodes, the transcription of today’s show, as well as other exclusive content at listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, don’t forget to claim your free seat at the workshop I’m hosting this week where I show the two step system that made me the top affiliate for people like Matt Bacak, John Crestani, Richard Legg, Michael Cheney, and many, many others. In fact, on this workshop I’m going to show you the exact approach I take whenever I promote an affiliate offer, the exact offers I promote, as well as how I was able to make over half a million dollars in commissions using my small list of just 18,000 people, promoting a weird type of product that almost no one else promotes. All that is yours at Igor.ac. So go ahead, claim your seat right now, and I’ll see you there.