Igor Uncut

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
anywhere in the world. If you would like to get rich by building a large email list
while helping people, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to attend a free web
class I’m conducting this week to find out how I built a list of four-million-three-
hundred-thirty-one thousand-six-hundred-and-fifty-six email subscribers at a profit.
Secure your free seat at Igor.cx. Attend this free workshop to discover an easy
way to get 50 to 500 new email leads per day on complete autopilot without losing
tons of money. Just go to Igor.cx to attend this free web class. And now, once again
it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

Welcome back to another episode of the List Building Lifestyle, with your host,
Igor Kheifets. It’s been a decade since I decided to fire my boss using online
marketing, and it’s been eight years since I went online full-time. Now, to this
day, I still have no idea how to introduce myself to people who don’t know me, and
when they ask me, “Igor, what do you do?” Because, you see, there is a few
challenges with that. First, I don’t wanna lie. I don’t wanna tell people I’m a
doctor, or come up with some other lame excuse why I drive a nice car and live in
a nice house, and I don’t want any more to tell them I’m an internet marketer,
because, to them, it sounds like voodoo magic, and they think that if I’m an
internet marketer, then I just will market anything that they will give me.

For example, I was just invited to this networking even there in Toronto. It was a
nice event. It was on a rooftop. There was a great barbecue, great food, nice
people, and most people there were service providers. You know, asset managers,
real estate agents, insurance agents, tax advisers, and still like that. When
anyone asked me what do I do, and I told them I’m an internet marketer, the first
thing they assumed is that I want to market their product. They would immediately
start asking me questions, how can I help them to sell their services, how can I
help them get more clients, stuff like that, and they were shocked when I didn’t
bother trying to recruit them as my customer. In fact, I told a bunch of them. I
said, “Yeah, I’m not looking for clients.” They’re like, “What do you mean, you’re
not looking for clients? You’re always looking for clients.” “No. I don’t need
clients. I’m my own client. I’m my own best client.” They’re like, “What do you
mean, you’re your own client?”

I go on to explain to them that, since I have this amazing skillset of getting
targeted eyeballs to websites, and able to convert those eyeballs into subscribers
and customers, the best thing I figured I could do is just to promote myself. As a
result, I built my own company, have multiple streams of income, have the freedom
to enjoy life on my own terms, and yada, yada, yada, yada. It just goes to show
you how it’s really hard. The life of an internet marketer is really, really
difficult and lonely sometimes because we spend most of our time alone, in front
of our computers. Sure, we get to connect with like-minded people over the
internet, and there’s a whole community of people like us, and that’s awesome. But
other than that, and in real life, it’s really, really difficult. It’s really,
really lonely.

For example, when I arrived here in Canada, one of my students, who has actually
turned into one of my best friends now, he lives here, and when he discovered I’m
coming, he was very excited. As soon as I came, a routine was established where I
sit down for a coffee with him nearly every other day. We started hanging out
more, and one of the reasons for that is because both of us feel very lonely in
this really busy world, where people don’t get marketing. There is very few people
in this world with whom I can sit down and have a conversation about promoting
online information products, or doing affiliate marketing, or business
opportunities, or traffic generation, or list buildings, or subject lines and
headlines. There’s very few people that you can physically sit down with, and have
that sort of conversation, and really have a good time, because most people don’t
get that.

Most people, to this day, I don’t care how professional they are, I don’t care how
successful they are, I don’t care where they live, most people have no idea what
you’re talking about if you mention things like list building, or email marketing,
or copywriting, or ads, et cetera. Most people, their vision of what online
marketing is pretty much starts and ends with Facebook. That’s all they know. They
just know social media and Facebook ads. That’s all they know. They cannot go
beyond that. Their mind cannot comprehend things beyond these two things, and
therefore it creates for a very lonely path to success, if you will.

Now, of course, that’s a downside, but at the same time, it’s also an upside,
because there’s very few people who are really, really good at this skillset,
right, the online marketing skillset. What this tells you is that if you get
really good at it, you will build a thriving career, you’ll have many clients
paying you big amounts of money to market their businesses. In fact, what I’m
seeing here, ever since arriving to Canada, is a huge opportunity at marketing
offline businesses and managing their marketing for them for a hefty monthly
retainer. I’m seeing people here try to get customers the old fashioned way. To
this day, they have no idea what a funnel is. I mean, if you try to explain to
them what a webinar is, there is no way they can understand it. It’s like they’re
stuck 20 years behind. It’s like they’re back in the 1990s, where the only way to
get customers was by referral or something.

If you’re an online marketer, and you wanna make some quick money, the easiest
thing I think you can do is to just approach offline businesses and say, “I’ll
manage your social media,” or, “I’ll manage your ads. I’ll manage your funnels.
I’ll manage whatever,” because while the big companies here, like banks and fast
food chains, while they do try to market online and on mobile, like they’ll try to
get an app going, and they’ll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars coding that,
or they’ll have a website, and maybe they’ll run some contests or something, their
marketing sucks big time. There’s very few hardcore, direct response ads that are
really geared toward that particular, specific customer, for that particular type
of business, that I’ve seen since arriving here, and I’ve been here for a few
months now.

On one hand, again, this is just vast opportunity. There’s money hidden in plain
site for anyone who understands marketing, and the only reason for you not to be
making money right now as an online marketer is only because you’re not self-aware
enough, or maybe you’re too lazy. That’s the only reason. Everything else is just
acquirable, right? But also, with that said, I mean, how come people suck at
marketing, because marketing really makes the world go round. If there was no
marketing, if there were no people like us, who specialize at influence, and at
moving people from a state of a slothful, nearly dead sort of entity, to a fired
up action taker, right, if it wasn’t for people like us, the economy would tank a
long time ago, because the economy depends on money exchanging hands.

That’s what the economy is about. It’s all about having money go from one hand to
another all the time. If the money would come to the hands of one person, who
would then refuse to give it away to other people for any reason, like exchange of
value or just charity, the economy would not survive. The entire world would
pretty much tank, because it really depends on the movement of finances from one
pocket to another, which is, on one hand, is a great thing. On the other hand,
it’s really challenging, because most people have the scarcity mindset about
money. They don’t wanna give it away. They work really hard to get it, so they
fight to keep it, and they will do anything to prevent from spending it. They’ll
really go to great length to do that.

It’s a lonely road. It’s a lonely road for an entrepreneur. It’s a lonely journey
for an internet marketer, and when you choose this career path, when you choose
this way to make money or to achieve your life’s passion, to help people, get
ready for that. Get ready for being misunderstood as a marketer. Get ready to be
misunderstood on pretty much every single level. I’ll give you another example.
I’ve been to a birthday party a couple of weeks back, and I got talking with a
lady who’s now a family friend, and she works part-time as a teacher. She’s got
this classic, blue collar, middle class mindset, where you need a job, you have a
good job, and you will be able to pay your bills, and if you wanna buy something,
you get it on financing, yada, yada, yada.

She started complaining about how she wants a new car, and it’s been five years
since she changed her car, but the car she wants, the monthly payment on that is a
little bit high for her. I started an argument, saying how we have become the
slaves of our stuff. How we spend most of the time obsessing about how to make
more money so we can spend more money, or we obsess about how we don’t make
enough, and then we invest all our time to figure out how to spend less or spend
it in a smart way. The bulk of our life becomes pondering on these things, rather
than pondering on the things that really matter. Our relationships, our health,
our thriving as a society, personal fulfillment, and so on and so forth. Life
really just becomes all about finances, and keeping your head above water, and
getting as much as possible from it, rather than just, again, living life the way
it was meant to be lived, in my humble, accurate opinion.

Anyway, I started this argument with her, and she starts to protect this North
American lifestyle, where people pretty much finance everything, and they work
really hard, around the clock, they hustle to pay off their mortgages, to pay off
their cars, and then they take on new mortgages and new cars, and hustle even
harder, and then they have kids, and then they have to combine the hustle with
parenting, and then they want their kids to succeed, so they have to choose the
right schools and extracurricular activities, and et cetera, right?

It just becomes this giant, super long, disastrous rat race that steals your joy,
steals your life. It just becomes like a life suck more than anything. I really
don’t consider people who live that lifestyle to have a life. I really believe
that people who live in this rat race don’t have life figured out. I believe life
is not about waking up in the morning, and hustling really hard to pay off your
car, or to pay off your house. That’s why I was always averse to taking on
financing or any kind of mortgages or anything like that. That’s why, for my
parents, I purchased their home for them, in cash, for that particular reason. I
didn’t wanna get on any debt.

For the same reason, any car that I’ve ever bought, I bought it in cash, for the
same reason that I was never fond of that kind of lifestyle, even when I started
my life. I was fortunate enough to read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad early
on, and it kind of put me on the right path, but for people like my friend, that’s
the lifestyle.

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.

That’s the life they wanna live, that’s the life they know how to live, and what
really pissed me off in that conversation was that she protected that lifestyle,
and she said, “Look, life isn’t long enough for you to make enough money to be
able to afford the things you really want.” Now, I didn’t bother to explain to her
that, no, you’re actually wrong. Life is long enough for you to earn as much money
as you want, to be able to afford the things that you want, because there’s people
out there who do make a shit ton of money, and are able to afford $4 million
boats, and $50 million homes, and drive nice cars worth a million or more, and I
see these people all around me, everywhere here in Canada.

Just when I went to this networking event, I walked out of the building when it
was over. There was a Lamborghini parked next to the building. Probably somebody
arrived in a Lamborghini. I crossed the street, I sat in my car, and I went home,
but the fact of the matter is there are people out there who make as much money as
they wanna be making, for one reason or another, and what really upset about this
whole conversation with my friend is that rather than asking herself how can I
earn more money, what can I do to earn more money, she simply settled and said,
“You know what? Because that’s the way I live my life right now, that means that’s
how my life is supposed to be, and just because my friends live their lives
exactly the same way, with very little difference, some make a little bit more,
some make a little bit less, but for the most part, that’s the life they live,
that’s the way you live your life.”

Well, I disagree. I believe that’s a very narrow-minded way to think about life,
and I believe that you can create the kind of lifestyle you wanna create, because
I know I’ve created that for myself. Yes, there’s some sacrifices, but not to a
point where you sacrifice your entire lifestyle, and you settle for this kind of
mediocrity. This is the one thing that I really hate when people do, is when they
settle for being mediocre, or less than mediocre. I respect people who strive to
be extraordinary. They don’t necessarily need to be extraordinary, they don’t
necessarily need to achieve that extraordinary result, but if they deliberately,
and very, very aggressively strive to be extraordinary in at least one area of
their life, that’s enough for me to say, “That’s a person that I respect and
admire, and that’s the person I wanna be friends with.”

Because the people who settle for mediocrity on every level of their life, and the
people who make up excuses as to why their life is mediocre, and they blame
external factors for it, and they don’t do anything about these factors, those are
the people. Those are the people who do not deserve my respect. That is how I feel
about it.

I’ll give you an example. I’ve had plenty of limitations in my life. I came out of
a very poor family of immigrants in a new country, where I really didn’t take on
the language as well as my peers did. I had trouble with Hebrew, and even after I
founded my business, which in and of itself was a miracle, because I did it out of
my home in Israel, out of my bedroom in Israel, and I dominated a global market,
right, which, in a big way, of course, the technology is one of the reasons, but
let’s face it. My English, my influence, my authority in this marketplace, it’s
not a given. I had to work really hard to get it, and I had to overcome
circumstance limitation to get it.

I did that, but even then, I encountered limitations that kept me from my full
potential, and I did something about it, right? I overcame these limitations, and
every time I encounter a challenge, there is the first couple of hours or maybe
couple of days where I’m in a fetal position on the floor, crying about it, but
then I get my shit together, and I ask myself, okay, how do I solve this
challenge? Do I need to talk to somebody who had a similar challenge who can help
me? Do I need to read a book about it? Do I need to just try and do it, and then
figure out on the way, because there is no resource I can study about it. There is
no tool I can use, and that’s the attitude that has served me so far, and allowed
me to continuously improve my life, and become a better person in every area and
aspect of my life.

I demand the same from the people around me, especially my loved ones and my
friends, and it even got a point where I had to leave relationships. I had to cut
relationships both with family members and with best friends from the past, as a
result of realizing that I am aggressively moving forward, and my friends and
family are not. As a result of just simply understanding that we’re made of
different material. When I realized that, and I let go of the people who
subscribed to mediocrity, I felt first it was painful, of course, because there’s
the whole dilemma, like am I being an asshole about it? Am I letting my personal
success blind me?

But then this feeling passes very quickly, and you realize that’s the best thing
to do, because these are usually the people who hold you back, because you are the
average income of the five closest people to you. If you’re constantly hanging
around mediocre people, guess what? You are mediocrity, and if you’re fine with
that, then awesome, and you know what? If you’re fine with mediocrity, if you’re
fine with being mediocre, I don’t think you’d be listening to this podcast, and if
you are, then I would highly advise you to not listen to this podcast. In fact, if
you are subscribing to mediocrity right now, if you don’t feel there’s anything
wrong with being mediocre, then this podcast is not for you. You will not find
value here. You and subscribe to completely different set of beliefs.

But if you’re somebody who strives to realize their full potential, and they don’t
need a monetary reason to wake up in the morning and aggressively march towards
their goals, even though you may choose finances as the scorecard for your
progress, this is the place for you to be, because I subscribe to that belief. The
financial element of my life is a scorecard. If my business produces $200,000 this
month or half a million, right, it’s not gonna change my lifestyle. It’s not gonna
change the kind of person I am. It’s not gonna influence my relationship in any
way, shape or form. It’s actually not gonna change anything about my life, but I
am striving to increase my revenue month to month because that’s the scorecard,
and that’s what keeps me going. That’s the game I’m playing. That’s the field
where I’m realizing my true potential.

Many people don’t realize this, but one of the ways to be truly happy is to find
something you love to do. Now, when people say that, the idea that they usually
mean is find something you enjoy, something you’re passionate about, and your
passion will never fail. On one hand, that’s true, but it’s only partially true,
because even if you’re passionate about something, oftentimes you lose that
passion very quickly if things don’t go well, or if you’re not super obsessed
about it. But you see, there’s one thing that most successful people, most happy
people are obsessed about. It’s continuous improvement, and what they do is they
usually find one field where they can continuously improve. Their job, occupation,
profession, skillset, or their passion project is usually a playing ground. It’s
like a training ground for their continuous improvement, and the development of
their personal and professional skillsets. That’s when they truly derive
satisfaction and personal happiness.

It’s when they get to improve themselves, day to day, month to week, week to week,
year to year. They can look back and say, “Okay, I used to be able to do this. Now
I’m able to do that,” and this gap is what provides them with true, long-lasting,
meaningful satisfaction about what they do and who they are. Again, not because of
that particular skillset in that particular field, but more so about the fact that
they’re able to continuously apply themselves, and improve themselves, and their
own life and the lives of the people around them, as a result of continuously
striving to excel. This is something that most people don’t get. A lot of people
get online, for example, because they just wanna make a quick buck, and then one
of the reasons why they don’t succeed is because this industry requires continuous
and religious self-improvement, you know?

Mike Dillard, I think, said that when he started network marketing, which is very
similar to what we do. Any kind of marketing is similar. When he started, he said
that that business was a brutal mirror of your flaws. In other words, in your
business, based on the results you’re getting, you can clearly tell which areas of
your personality and skillset need work, and there’s only two things you can do
about it. Either you can accept the fact that you suck at it, and you sort of do
nothing about it, or you accept that you suck at it for a few minutes, and then
you ask yourself, “How can I get better?” And then you go and get better at it, or
you work with professionals who help you do that.

If you wanna excel professionally, if you wanna excel in your life, you wanna have
personal satisfaction, it is my belief that you have to find the field, not
necessarily that you’re passionate about, but more so a field that allows you the
freedom of continuous improvement. Something that creates a training ground for
unlimited opportunity to improve your skillset and improve yourself as a human
being. As soon as you find that, you will not only find personal satisfaction, but
you will also find amazing financial success, to a point where you don’t have to
have a job, you won’t need a boss, and you won’t need for anyone else in your life
to call the shots.

You will become the big kahuna. You will the master of your own time and of your
own actions, and all because you have subscribed to that belief that continuous
improvement in one particular area of your life is what I would consider, in a big
way, one of the meanings of life. I think that’s a really cool, philosophical
point to end this podcast episode. Thank you so much for turning on. This is Igor
Kheifets, and 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.