What’s the difference between someone who goes to college only to become an employee who will never master their time or be free and someone who starts out on the same path but then pivots towards freedom (financial and personal) to become one of the world’s leading authorities in their field? Igor interviews Anik Singal, the author of the ESCAPE book on how to become free in spite of your present circumstances.
How To Escape From Employee To Entrepreneur With Anik Singal
Igor Kheifets: I'm Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, a podcast
for those who want to build a large profitable email list and make six figures from
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Welcome back to another of the List Building Lifestyle with your host Igor Kheifets.
Imagine two young men graduating from college and going out there to take on life.
One of these young men is dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur and the other
settled for being an employee. What is the core difference? How come one of them
will forever let someone else dictate their life, dictate their decisions?
They will never be the master of their own time and they will never be the master
of their destiny, while another will eventually become successful regardless of
the tools that they have, the finances they possess or the challenges they're
going to encounter. More than that, let me pose a different question, what is the
key difference between two people that start out in the exact same spot, having
the exact same tools, the exact same knowledge, access to the exact same mentors
and having the exact same dreams and goals and then if you check in about 12
months later, one of these people is successful and the other is a failure.
They will remain that way for as long as we keep following them because even if
the successful person loses it all, they'll still recover very, very quickly.
We've seen it time and time again. My special guest today is Mr. Anik Singal, a
good friend of mine, and somebody who I've been following as a mentor and as a
teacher since I started online about 10 years ago.
In fact, one of Anik's products called The Launch Tree set me up for success by
introducing me to concepts such as upselling, cross-selling, and really getting me
to understand what a business needs to run like and what a hardcore kick ass sales
funnel needs to look like, which then became the foundation to my success. Today
we're celebrating Anik's release of a brand new book called The eScape book where
he spent a lot of time, money, effort, blood, sweat and tears on finding out what
are the core differences in behavior between the people who are successful online
and people who are not.
What are the key distinctions in the way people think, in what they say and what
they do that guarantees that the person will become a success regardless of their
background, previous experience, knowledge, skillset, resources and yada, yada,
yada, so on and so forth. If you're interested in finding out exactly what makes a
successful online entrepreneur, there is no one better to tell you more about that
than my friend Anik Singal. Anik, thank you so much and welcome to the List
Building Lifestyle.
Anik Singal: Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute honor and a
pleasure. Let's do this. I'm excited to talk about this topic because I think
it'll make a key difference, a big difference in everyone who's listening.
Igor Kheifets: Yes, absolutely. I love how passionate you are about it. You really
didn't have to do what you've done with the book. This is where I want to really
start. I mean you went ahead and you researched exactly what makes the difference
between successful online marketers and unsuccessful ones even though many of us
start in the exact same boat if you will. We all start clueless. We all start not
knowing what this information marketing space is. We have very little knowledge or
understanding about the way internet works, and we have zero marketing experience
when we get started.
Yet there's a handful of us, people like you, people like me, who succeed in spite
of having these challenges and these crazy turmoils along the way. While there's
people out there who have everything that they would ever need to succeed and yet
they still fail. Before we get into the details about that, do you mind sharing
exactly what inspired you to write this book?
Anik Singal: No, absolutely. I love to. Listen, everything I'm about to tell you
today is an absolute true story. This is how I got inspired to write this book.
About three years ago, we had a student that came into our mix and they came down.
They spent a lot of money to get personal mentoring and teaching and coaching. I
just loved this student. I thought that they were going to be a radical success
story. I put a lot of resources, a lot of things I don't typically do on a regular
basis. I had the bet on them. If I was in the casinos, I would have bet on them. I
really thought they would make it.
Just within a course of a few weeks started to realize it wasn't going the way
that it should have. In the end, if you look a few months down the road, they were
not successful. They were actually a handful. They were a total mess and they
quit. At the same time, it just so happens to be we had a student engage with us
around the same time as this student, but they didn't come in for the on site
coaching or any of that. They bought one of our programs and I happen to learn
about them through one of our Facebook groups.
You know what? In the same time, that few months, that person went on, started
their first business, was super successful, quit their job, already making six
figures. It was incredible. You would think I'd be super happy, but I wasn't. I
was really bummed out. I actually literally couldn't sleep at night for a few
weeks because I kept thinking what the heck. I don't understand. Now I've taught
over 250,000 students in the last 15 years of my life. Okay? All over the world.
These are 250,000 people who've paid me. Not like free on my email list. They've
paid me for learning how to do online marketing. What drove me nuts was why don't
I have 250,000 success stories?
You know why? There's a far majority of people who make this commitment, who put
money down, who really agree to doing this, why do they have access to the same
resources as the rest of everybody, but yet a certain percentage of them go on to
become radical successes, in some cases even more successful than I am, whereas a
large portion of them do not. That really drove me crazy. I was thinking about it
and the reason it drove me crazy was I kept telling myself, "If I can solve this,
if I can uncover the reason, I can fix it. I can solve it. I can create value. I
can help all these people."
That was what led me into a journey of research, of interviewing, of talking to
... I talked to my most successful students. I talked to my most unsuccessful
students. I looked at my personal journey, my personal story as an entrepreneur,
and then of course, I went to the books. I started studying the top entrepreneurs
in the world. Before you know it, I was amazed to see that there was a trend. I
saw an actual trend emerge of characteristics, behavior patterns that were
appearing in the successful ones and that either weren't appearing or were
appearing very differently in the unsuccessful ones.
I got excited because about a year and a half ago, I was like, "I think I got." I
started writing this book because I wanted to put what I learned into a book so
that people could be empowered with it.
Igor Kheifets: Wow. What you're saying is you had a student that you were
basically investing a lot of resources, knowledge. You gave them your "best
secrets." You know? Just to paraphrase the sales letters we often write and
create. Yet they were not successful and then you had someone who barely got any
attention from you if at all. You didn't even know they existed until after they
become successful and announced that in the Facebook group. Bam. Right? They
become success. This sparks this question that then drives you to figure out
exactly what makes someone else a success.
For years, I've posed the same question ever since I started coaching people and I
couldn't tell the difference. There were people I would just tell them one thing
or something or give them one video tutorial and they would take it and run with
it. Then there were people that were paying me literally tens of thousands of
dollar that I spent FaceTime with, that we got on the phone the everyday, and
nothing. I am curious. Okay? Now I'm curious. What is the difference, Anik?
Anik Singal: Yeah. Well, thanks for asking. You're absolutely right. You know
what? I have to go back and tell a little bit of ... We'll start like once upon a
time type of story to really understand the difference. It starts with the
definition of entrepreneur. Literally people have been defining an entrepreneur
incorrectly now for I think decades and decades. An entrepreneur in many minds, in
the many untrained minds, is somebody ... It's defined by what they do, right? An
entrepreneur launches their own business. That's literally what Webster says. This
is a definition. It's defining an entrepreneur by what they do.
One of the key discoveries I had was an entrepreneur is least defined by what they
do and most defined by who they are. Now that might sound very hocus pocus and
high level. I'm going to get to the specifics, but trust me right now. An
entrepreneur doesn't just own their own business. They literally think different,
act different, behave different. They eat different. They walk different. They
sleep different. Everything about who they are they is different and that is
actually what allows them to be successful.
Because here's the thing, as we go through the formula, as we go through what we
call the four stages of entrepreneurship, right, inside this book, we're going to
learn that an entrepreneur is not trained ... We're not taught to be
entrepreneurs. Now I'm not going to sit on this interview and rip on the
educational system and talk about all the conspiracy theories. That's not what
this is about. Our systems that train us from the time we're born to when we
become adults were created to serve a human society and they have done so and they
have done so very well. We've excelled and we've accelerated as a human society.
The problem is over the last two decades, we have accelerated at a pace greater
than any other time in history as a society, as our technical evolutions. Just
look at the internet. Look at how we communicate with each other. Everything has
changed. The system hasn't yet caught up to adapt to that. What's happening is we
are all being trained and taught to be a certain way. We are then utilizing those
tools and those assets to try to become an entrepreneur. It's basically like
trying to hammer a nail with a screwdriver. That's what we're trying to do and
that's the main reason we're failing.
In these four stages is where I discovered exactly what it is that it takes. I'll
tell you right now. If you're listening to this, even if you are a successful
entrepreneur or if you're a successful online marketer, even if you're not a
successful online marketer, I'm telling you this right now, there's a lot of
evolution that you can have. You do need to decode. I say this specifically. You
need to decode and then recode. It's not your fault. It's no one's fault. It's
just that we've bee taught to be and behave and act very differently. If you want,
I can go into the four stages. I think that'll lead to a lot of the aha moments
for everybody.
Igor Kheifets: Well, keep in mind, we have limited time, so-
Anik Singal: Sure.
Igor Kheifets: ... I think we can tease them with a couple of stages because at
the end of the day, guys, if you're listening right now, I really want you to
understand that you need this book. Okay? We're going to be giving you a free copy
of the book later towards the end of the episode and we're not going to be
revealing everything. Okay? You're going to go and read about it, but yeah,
definitely Anik, tell us. Just at least give us a couple of tidbits, a couple of
direction points, what exactly is the difference between somebody who's able to
decode and recode themselves versus somebody who can't.
Anik Singal: Sure. Okay. I want everybody to just imagine this logo, the eSCAPE
logo. Okay? It's a little E and all capital letters S-C-A-P-E. Okay? There's a
little arrow that goes from the little E to the big E and that basically means
going from employee to entrepreneur. There are four stages in the process of doing
it. We're going to give a real quick crash course on all four. Now in the book, I
go over five specific characteristics for each of the stages. You actually have a
chance to evaluate yourself, test yourself, score yourself, and then learn how to
improve on each of the five within the four, but we're going to go over the four.
The first is S, self. Here's the best explanation I can give you of self. Imagine
being a baseball player. Damn good one. Okay? 15 years. You've been MVP. You've
played for the pro leagues. You're an awesome, awesome baseball player. One
morning you wake up and decide, "You know what? I'm a great athlete? So you know
what I'm going to do? I want to play football."
Igor Kheifets: 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.
Anik Singal: It's not going to work, right? That's how we are. We are in a system.
A lot of people save money. They're very successful at their careers. One day they
just wake up and say, "You know what? I've been really successful. I've got the
money finally saved away. I'm going to start a business." That's not how it works.
Listen, the self is the most important part. It's the base of the triangle. You've
got to learn to think and act differently. You've been coded in a different
direction. You've got to literally make decisions differently. All right? You've
not been taught to do any of this.
We go over five characteristics in the S phase that will help you master decode
and recode who you are so that you can actually evolve as an entrepreneur. The
second stage is C, catapult. Now catapult is really the same as creating momentum.
What if I was to tell you there's actually laws of physics, Newton's Laws of
Physics, apply to success and succeeding as an online marketer? For example,
imagine a car that is at a complete standstill. Okay? You put it in neutral and
you need to push it. You need to get it moving. It's going to take four, five
people pushing with their all their might just to get the car to start moving.
But once that car is moving, the tires are rolling, one person behind the car
could keep it going. Momentum is not something we're taught to create. Why? We're
taught do as you're told, right? We go to a job. We don't think about the big
picture. We don't think about the big goals. We're told our boss tells us, "Do
this. Do this. Do this. Do this." We are micro task driven, but we're not told to
take big goals and break them down and own those goals and then drive forward from
there. That's the big issue with internet marketing as well, with online
marketing. "I want to be a millionaire." Well, great. Have you even made $100,000
yet?
Most people don't want to answer that question. You go make a hundred first. Then
you make a thousand. Then you make $10,000. Then you make $100,000. Then you make
a million. You got to get that momentum going. Once you have momentum, everything
else becomes so much easier, but we're not taught that. We give you five
characteristics in the book to help you evolve that, to help you build that, and
to help you evaluate yourself on that. All right. Let's go to the third stage, A,
authority. Now I want you to imagine right now, you walk into an elementary school
anywhere in the world. Okay? Third grade. Four grade. How many kids are going to
be in that class?
Probably about 30, 40, 50. It's going to be in that 30 to 50 range. This is
internationally. I've tested it. It's the same everywhere. Let's say 40 kids. How
many kids are you going to have that are class leader? One. That means 39 children
are not getting an opportunity to learn leadership, to learn authority. Well,
listen, as a successful entrepreneur, you dang well better be able to inspire
people. You have to be able to get people to rally behind you. Now I'm not asking
you to be an inspirational leader in front of 40,000 people creating a revolution,
but you got to be able to inspire your team, your vendors, your partners, your
customers.
We never learn that, but it is something that can be learned. It's just that the
extroverted kids in class always take up all the opportunities while the majority
just never get a chance to step up. This is something that again five
characteristics specific in the A stage where we really teach you how to fine tune
and hone that skill. You don't have to be brilliant at it. You don't have to give
big speeches and lectures, but you do need to be able to lead and inspire. Last
but not least, the final frontier, stage four, the toughest one, but the most
influential, most impactful one, which is P for people.
Listen, we are taught horrible things about communication, relationships and
people throughout our upbringing. First of all, most people go around being the
same way. A lot of people literally engage in every communication with every
person the same way. That's a challenge. That's a problem. Entrepreneurs don't ...
Entrepreneurs are like chameleons. I can talk to one person and evolve into
someone that would relate to them and immediately two minutes later I'll be
talking to another person and evolve and change into what would be ... I'm
individualistic when it comes to relationships. I don't believe in negative
people.
I don't kick negative people out of my life. I take ownership of those
relationships and turn them positive, right? There's a lot of teachings that we've
had from the personal development industry that are totally incorrect and we go
over them in the P stage. Five characteristics to help you evolve and master this
final frontier and then last of course, is when you make it to entrepreneurial
success or when you make it as an online marketer.
Now I'm telling you right now, you can have the best system in your hands, you can
have the best software in your hands, you can have the best training, the best
coach, but if you don't have these four stages down, you will be building a house
of cards at best. It will come collapsing down. I did. Mine came collapsing down
left me $1.7 million in debt. When I mastered these four though and came back, now
I'm kicking butt. It would be nearly impossible to stop me because I've got the
core characteristics down.
Igor Kheifets: Awesome. I wrote down four. It's self, catapult, authority, and
people, right?
Anik Singal: Yup. Self, catapult, authority, and people. Yes.
Igor Kheifets: I particularly like the last two to be honest with you. The
authority, right, because I can totally relate to the fact that I was never given
an opportunity to be a leader in my school growing up, although I really, really
wanted to. Like I've had it in me. I never settle for being a follower, but I was
always kind of kicked into that position and couldn't find my way out there. The
last one of course, I love what you said about relationships where you said you
take ownership of the bad relationships in your life and you turn them positive.
Anik Singal: Yeah, absolutely. Listen, here's the thing, you go to a personal
development seminar, they literally say, you can see the speaker on stage, "Anyone
who's negative in your life, kick them out. Remove them." Well, let me give you an
example. When I was first starting my business and basically not paying attention
to college, my father was really negative. Okay. When I was launching this
beautiful learn center facility that I'm currently sitting in that we built for
entrepreneurs, 26,000 square feet, it cost me $3.5 million. My mother was
negative.
My now wife, back then she was my girlfriend, when I told her I'm $1.7 million in
debt and I'm starting another business to come back, she was negative. Most people
that are negative in your life are that because they care and love you. They're
trying to protect you. Their negativity is simply a reflection of them not
understanding what it is you're trying to do. They can't see themselves doing it,
so they want to protect you from it. That's most of the time. You're going to find
that only about 3% of the people in your life are actually what I call toxic.
Toxic people are literally their goal is to bring you down.
Those people need to be kicked out. No problem. But most negative people are
probably the ones that are the closest to you that love you the most. You have to
learn to perceive their negativity for what it truly is and take control of that
relationship. You treat everyone differently. If something triggers someone to
become a negative person, don't give them that trigger. Communicate with them
differently about different things, but allow them to be a positive influence in
your life. This is literally one of the core things I've seen every successful
entrepreneur master.
We teach you how to do it. You literally can get exercises and you get
instructions on how to do that in this book.
Igor Kheifets: Wow. Anik, let me ask you something, as an author, what was the
part of the book that you worked on that you feel the most proud of?
Anik Singal: I got to tell you, it was definitely stage three and four, which you
brought up. It made me smile because ... I'll tell you why. It's probably a little
bit selfish, but it's just because these are the two stages that I'm currently in
the most, right? As I build and scale my companies, I mean I have six businesses
online collectively doing over $35 million in revenue. Next year we're projecting
to cross probably 60, if not maybe $70 million between all the companies together.
That's a lot. That gives me access to a heck of a lot of team members, a lot of
ideas, a lot of execution, a lot of failures, a lot of obstacles, a lot of
challenges.
I've getting all of it. I'm telling you right now that this is where I'm making
the biggest impact is by honing in, fine tuning my ability to lead, my ability to
inspire, my ability to lead by example, which is stage three. Then last but not
least, man, right now the biggest evolution I'm having in my life is the people
that I'm bringing in. Whether it be in my personal life, my professional life, I
am so aware of what influences I'm bringing into my life. The better I get at this
by the way, the wealthier I'm getting. I would say if I had to pick just one, P.
Stage four was where I really put my heart and soul where I felt like this is the
one that once people get to it, it will make the deepest impact in someone's life
for the rest of their life.
Igor Kheifets: Awesome. I'm really dying to put this book into as many hands as I
can. The good news is that guys, you can have The eSCAPE Book for free. Anik is
actually going to ship it to your doorstep for free and all you have to do is just
to igorsoloads.com/anik, A-N-I-K, all right, and you'll get a free copy of The
eSCAPE Book where you're going to learn the four stages. You have the
entrepreneurial journey of how to go from employee to entrepreneur, and you're
going to find out what are the key differences that make the distinction for the
people who are always successful.
Just like you've heard Anik build a huge business, lost it all, was $7 million in
debt, build it back up, and now he's making five times as much money as he was in
debt, right? $35 million a year. Crazy, crazy growth. Exponential growth actually.
If you're one of those people listening right now, if you're one of those who's
always struggling, if you've been going from product to product and not
succeeding, if you've tried method after method, this is a book for you for sure.
You can have it for free, which is really, really cool. Thank you, Anik, for that.
Guys, you need to go to ...
Anik Singal: Hey, Igor. I just ...
Igor Kheifets: Sure.
Anik Singal: Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to clarify
something for everybody that the book is absolutely free, but there is a tiny
shipping and handling that we ask everyone to kind of cover. It's just a little
bit of you showing your skin in the game. To be honest with you, if you're
international, if you're outside the United States, we actually have to spend way
more on shipping than what we ask you to cover. Right now we're just asking you to
cover a tiny $7.97 for the shipping. Any cost above that, it's on me. I pay for
it. Again go to igorsoloads.com/anik. We running out of copies though. Our first
print is literally ... We don't have many left.
Igor Kheifets: Yeah. You've been all over the place. Guys, if you want to grab a
free copy of the new book, The eSCAPE Book, you need to go to
igorsoloads.com/anik. Cover the small shipping and handling fee and I can totally,
well, confirm regarding the whole international stuff because we got somethings
that are going out to our VIP members. Wow. International is just in the way. Not
only it takes two weeks to get there, but it's also costing three times as much.
It's just crazy.
Anik Singal: Yeah. Anyone who's international, just FYI, yes, you will have to
wait two to three for the book to reach you. I have no control over that. There's
nothing I can do. But here's the cool thing, when you cover that tiny shipping and
handling cost, we give you instant online access to the entire book at no cost.
Right now you could be reading in the next 30 seconds. You can start reading it
online in our interactive digital classroom and then in the meantime, the book is
being shipped to you and it'll reach you very soon.
Igor Kheifets: All right. All of you book lovers, all of you success lovers, all
of you who are dying to find that path to success, go to igorsoloads.com/anik.
Grab a free copy of The eSCAPE Book. Anik, thank you so much for spending some
time with us here, Thank you so much for educating us about your new book and
about what makes the difference between successful people and those who are not
quite successful. We wish you all the best and we hope that this becomes an
internationally renowned bestseller.
Anik Singal: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute honor and a pleasure to be
here. Congratulations to everybody for following Igor by the way. What a great
service he does to this whole community, so thank you for what you do. To
everybody, I just always leave off by saying listen, when life pushes you, stand
straight, smile, and push it the heck back. Go to igorsoloads.com/anik, A-N-I-K,
and grab your free copy of this book. I can't wait to ship it to you. I can't wait
to get your feedback, and I can't wait for it to impact and change your life.
Igor Kheifets: You've heard him folks. This is Igor and Anik. Until next time we
chat, have a good one.
Thank you for tuning in to the the List Building Lifestyle. Get access to previous
episodes, the transcript of today's show, and exclusive content at our website at
listbuildinglifestyleshow.com. Also, don't forget to claim your free seat at the
traffic workshop I'm conducting this week where I'm showing how I built a list of
four-million-three-hundred-thirty-one-thousand-six-hundred-and-fifty-six email
subscribers without losing money. And how my clients are pulling anywhere from 50
to 500 new leads per day on their list at a profit without any list-building
experience. Just go to Igor.cx to claim your free seat now.
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