Month: June 2017

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

I was thinking about years ago and what I used to do on Saturdays. I remember for a long time, I didn’t go out on Friday nights, because Saturday was a big day. This weekend I’m going back to what I used to do. I’m just making some changes for this business.

People keep talking about Amazon buying Whole Foods. I don’t think people should be focusing on this story and should be focusing on their own business instead. I had a client who had a product that sold on Amazon’s platform for $28 or $29 in January this year. Now it is going for $21. That is a $7 drop in six months and the price isn’t going back up.

I don’t think you should focus your attention on companies like Amazon because it is a venture type business. It got startup money. It’s very speculative. For you to even try to do something like Amazon, you would need $5 to $10 million. For most people, that is not realistic.

_____

Let me tell you what I’m doing.

We’re having a show every day to teach people things they need in business. It’s going to be like the 30 Days to $2500 course. I will send out the time and other details to the email list. If you show up, you get the lesson free. You’ll have to pay for the recorded versions.

This is what’s going to happen. We’re going to do the training in the recorded version. Then I’m going to download it and make it really tight for training. There are going to be two additional modules in the recorded sessions. Then we are going to get a consistent time and start rockin’ and rollin’ every day with training. We’re going back to the basics.

We’re going to talk about some really different stuff going forward. It’s going to be geared from start to finish on starting a new business. Now I’m an internet dude but before this business, I was a weekend hustler. I had a physical location. I had to set things up. That’s why I didn’t go out on Friday nights.

We’re going to do this like 30 Days to $2500 on steroids. If you’re a small business person, you should be focusing on direct sales. What I mean is get as many sales as you can locally. That will give you the experience to make bigger sales.

In 2009, I started on YouTube. I sold on eBay and Amazon. I didn’t consider that good training for the stuff I do now. What was good training for the stuff I do now was the Saturday Hustle. I’m going to break it down for you.

On Friday nights, I would get ready and run my set of Craigslist ads. I would have one garage sale ad and all the furniture would be posted in the furniture section. I would also post automobile items in the auto section.

On Saturday morning after I picked up the signs, I would delete and refresh, delete and refresh to drive traffic to my ads. What I was training myself to do was to make a lot offers. As a small business owner, the more offers you make, the more money you will make.

The new course coming out is Digital Introductions. It teaches how to email, how to get in on the DMs and how to send a personal email, which is not the same thing as an email on a mailing list.

If you work on your business, you can have a small business like mine. You can win and not be that big. There are five to thirty person companies doing $5 to $100 million in business. Now, that doesn’t make you a millionaire, but you will be very comfortable. You can live a good life.

Let’s say you’ve got a $7 million company that is healthy and you enjoy good margins. You could pull $350K to a million dollars out to live on each year. That type of income affords you a great home in a great neighborhood in most locations, except for maybe New York or San Francisco.  If your kids need private school, you can easily afford to send them. You will be able to take three to six vacation a year. You’ve got the best healthcare.

_____

Let me give you the trajectory for all of my media companies. B School for Hustlers is for people who already have a business. Hustler’s Kung Fu is for beginners and provides important and truthful instruction about starting a business. In fact, I’m going to show you, not tell you. I’m in an office and will be making videos about the process.

One thing that really bothers me is how I get compared to other people online. That’s just insulting because a lot of those folks are lying. Instead of screaming and shouting, it looks a lot better when you are showing people what they need with real-life examples.

In B School for Hustlers, we’re going to go deep. That audience already has a business. They don’t need beginner information. I’ll get into topics like, how to get to $250K if you’re making $100K now. If you are a true business owner, you are interested.

I am developing infrastructure so I can go bigger, easier. We’ll be talking about that. Plus, there’s some more stuff that is coming.

One of the issues we have with hiring is related to the fact that what I do is so unusual. How many people do you know can say, “I know a YouTuber.” So, let’s say we do a show, right? Then we’ll have people come in to watch the show and we can explain that this is what we are hiring for. Until you see it, it is hard to understand because there are no jobs like it. It just seems implausible. Then we can conduct interviews with the people we like from that group.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

You want to build a business, but you have that big question you can’t answer. What kind of business should I start? All I know is that I don’t like this space I am currently in. I want to move to a new space. I want to be free. I want to break from the “9 to 5” rat race.

I’ve got some unpleasant news for you. If you don’t know what you want to do, it could take a year, five years or 10 years to figure it out. I know that’s not what you want to hear. You want easy, quick, fast solutions. You want this to happen now.

The thing is that the clock of life has been ticking for a long time. This is nothing new. You haven’t prepared yourself. You haven’t asked yourself these questions. You haven’t really put in the work to see what makes you tick. What makes your boat float?

You’ve got to figure that out. It’s a process. It’s part of the inner game. So many people are trying to get away from their inner game.

People say, “I don’t want to talk about that. Just give me a system. Give me a process so I can run and make that money, so I can be free.”

The problem with that thinking is, there are systems and processes, but none of them are cheap. The more effective they are, the more money they are going to cost you. If you are in a position where you are unhappy and things aren’t going well, you typically don’t have any money.

I have a question for you. Why should I invest in you when you don’t invest in yourself? That’s the problem. You are not investing in yourself. You’re not even trying to cut corners. You’re trying to cut straight across the grid. You don’t want to work too hard.

When you get on a path of discovery, you find other things. When I got in the storage auction business, in the beginning, I liked it and I did not like it. I remember one day I reached in a box and pulled out some soiled panties. I didn’t have gloves on. I questioned myself, “What the hell am I doing? I used to sell furniture and go to fancy showrooms. Now I’m rooting around in some boxes with some fucking soiled panties. What?”

But, I had a process. This is something that might help you. Whenever you want to do something, give yourself a timeframe and commit to it. Give yourself 30, 60 or 90 days, no matter what. That’s not a lot of time.

Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” The minute you get mental fatigue, you’re out. You’re checking out. So, you have to learn to make yourself commit for short periods of time.

When I first started doing YouTube, I hated it. I would tell myself with a heavy sigh, I’ve got to make these damn videos. I didn’t like doing it. It was intimidating. It felt weird. It was awkward. I was committed to a 2-year plan.

I sat down and wrote up 200 concepts for videos. I started knocking them out. If you go back to the earlier videos of 2009, you’ll see black bars on the side of the videos because I didn’t have the right camera. I leave those videos up there as a sign of progress and growth.

You will grow passionate about things you become good at. I’m going to use something that many of you are not going to like. When you first started fucking, chances are you weren’t that good. You probably messed up and felt awkward. Maybe you didn’t want to expose your body. Maybe you were self-conscious. There were all these things. But, did you stop fucking? No. You worked it out.

If you really start examining the question, “What can I become good at?” versus “What is out there for me to get into and not work too hard?” your life will make more sense. That is the mindset that is killing most of you. You’ve got to put forth the effort.

A really good friend of mine told me if I was serious about my business, I’d be working 24/7. I had to sit down and go, “Damn. That’s right.” It’s true, because I wasn’t. I was working hard for 8 to 12 hours a day. Many of you out there are working that already. If that is not getting you what you want, what does that mean?

There was this article about people in Africa saying that people’s “5 to 9“side business was more important than their “9 to 5.” That’s how you have to think about your business. But, first you have to figure out what business you want to start.

First you have to experiment with some different ideas. You are going to have to try a lot of shit. How do I know this? I was where you are. Years ago, this friend of mine gave me the book, What Color Is Your Parachute. It didn’t get me there.

You may have the problem that I have. It’s called too much talent. I’m not being facetious. When you have the ability to do a lot of things, it hampers your decision-making ability, because you have too many options. In the process of building and discovering yourself, you have to experiment. You have to try new things and take risks. Sometimes you have to go places you’ve never been before.

Knowing the answer to, what business should I start is not easy. It’s a profile question. Who are you? Where do you come from? What is your skill set? How much money do you have to invest? What is your five-year plan? What is your 10-year plan? Do you want to get married? Are you married? All of this stuff comes into play. So many people approach life with linear thinking.

There’s plenty of opportunity out here. When you have value to offer the consumer it becomes easier to answer the question, what business should I start. As long as you are operating on potential or assumptions, you will be perpetually frustrated.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

Did you wake up this morning running? I’m talking about mentally running over the list of things you need to do in your day. I had a sales mentor once and he used to drive us crazy. At the time, I didn’t understand it. But, I understand it now. You have to create a sense of urgency in your life.

Essentially, we all have only 24 hours in a day. There are people who make their hours more effective than others do. Why? They have a sense of purpose.  

If you’re not raring to go in the morning with a list of things to do, you might be cheating yourself. If you’re not running towards your future and saying, “I have to get this stuff done,” then you aren’t going to be as successful as you could be. Having the job mindset that you are going to work from 8 to 6 and then you’re free for the day can be disabling to your success.

How do you create a sense of urgency? Number 1 – It goes back to goals. It always goes back to goal’s. When you have your goal list of things that you need to achieve and you also have a strategy and time table, it creates a sense of urgency.

For many of you, you don’t have a sense of urgency. You don’t have goals that create a sense of urgency. Instead, you have bills that create a sense of urgency. The mortgage is due on a certain date. The car payment is due on such and such a date. That’s your orientation for urgency.

Here’s another tip for hustlers. The last week of the month is a good time to get deals on Craigslist. People are flipping their stuff to pay rent. They have a serious sense of urgency. It’s a sense of urgency produced by adverse circumstances. I am not talking about creating that type of urgency. I’m talking about an urgency related to wanting some things so bad that they wake you up at night.

You’re creating your life. You’re creating your lifestyle. You’re doing certain things because your future is so exciting and you can’t wait to get there. That type of energy creates this sense of urgency and purpose and activity.

That’s what you have to do to be successful. Urgency gives you a certain adrenaline rush. Sometimes I have to crank mine down because it gets a little crazy. With a sense of urgency, you can move mountains.

I’ll give you a really good example of having a sense of urgency. I found it in an article on Facebook. It was about this guy who taught himself to learn very well and fast and to retain it. He had a student in one of his classes who said she needed to learn to read really, really fast.

The reason she wanted to learn to read fast was because her mother had cancer and the treatments were not working. So, she learned to read really fast to gain as much alternative medicine information as possible so she could help her mother. It worked. She had a sense of urgency for a worthy purpose.

Essentially, you have to understand what elements in your life help you create a sense of urgency for your business, your personal development and your fitness. You’ve got to figure out what these things are for you. Everyone is going to be different.

That’s the reason a lot of people like cookie cutter solutions. The problem with this is how can you have cookie cutter solutions for everyone when everyone is an individual. Everyone is different.

If you’re not getting that passion or energy in your fuel tank, it may be because the things you are chasing don’t trigger your sense of urgency. You’ve got to figure out what will trigger your motivation. One of the exercises I suggest is for you to take a personal day and simply be by yourself.

Figure out what you want to do. When you are working, or immersed in your business, you have a lot of noise. Sometimes, when you get into a different environment, you can think. Finding your answer may be as simple as going out and getting a nice hotel room for a day to escape your environment.

I’m in my office right now. When I come in here, it’s time to work. It’s time to make something happen. It’s time to make a video. Set your environment up so that it will trigger a response to get your engine started.

Seriously, rent a hotel room and go in there and think about what you are doing why you are doing it. A lot of folks never asked themselves this important question. For some, when they ask the question, they’ll tell themselves something that sounds acceptable. They’ll lie. They’ll say something like, “I’m doing it for the family, when they never spend any time with their family.

Urgency is really close to action. They are like kissing. If you have a sense of urgency, it will provoke you into action. It will push you to action. You have to pull back from living inside your skull so you can take action.

For me, walking helps me come up with ideas. Every time I go walking, I come up with ideas, video topics, book topics or something. When I walk, stuff starts bubbling up. You may need to take a drive to get your mental juices flowing. You might need to go to the gym. Other people get extremely inspired when they go to the beach. You’ve got to figure out what is your MOJO.

Your MOJO is like your BFF saying, “Let’s get this life. Let’s get this money. Let’s get this happiness.” Recently, since I started the Hustler Mindset Project, I’ve learned a lot about myself. When you take action, you learn unexpected things.

The other thing about taking action that you have to expect is that sometimes when you run, you will trip and fall. I’m not going to sit here and say it’s going to be a wonderful journey. You are going to trip and fall at times and bust your lip. You will be embarrassed.

If the thoughts and fears of being embarrassed are holding you back, understand I’ve been embarrassed. I’ve done some dumb stuff. I’ve made a total ass of myself on YouTube. When that happens, I asked myself, what did I learn. Then I don’t do it again.

Your sense of urgency needs to be focused on things that make you better and happy. Those things need to give you more freedom and put more money in your pocket. If your sense of urgency isn’t focused on those four things, then why are you doing it?

Sometimes it is a habit. We all have janky counterproductive habits at times. You have to remind yourself that the habit will not serve you well. I had one. I used to be a TV zombie. Many of us seek external solutions for internal problems. You must solve the internal problems internally.

You must put together your life plan, then you put together your business plan. When you are doing this, it is important to ask yourself what makes you smile. That’s “your thing.” When you own “your thing” you can create energy that normally doesn’t exist.

You need a sense of urgency to get yourself where you want, otherwise you are just marking time.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

We’ve had some challenges hiring people and it’s been interesting. This is some of the stuff gurus will not tell you. Because everybody online has a course that makes it seem like it’s so easy. Let me introduce you to Verlyncia. She’s been here and she’s had some trials and tribulations. She’s going to talk about it. With that, I’ll turn it over to her.

______

I haven’t been in a Human Resources role for about ten years. It has been a little different here hiring for a small company. We’ve been using Craigslist to rally all of our candidates. Coming from New York, If you look on Craigslist, there are a lot of good jobs. People don’t want to use recruiters because they cost a lot of money. In New York, you have to pay a headhunter to find a decent person or use referrals.

Usually the first two days, you get a heavy response on Craigslist. Typically, you can expect 100 to 200 responses over a two-day period. That’s enough candidates for you to find one good applicant, fingers crossed.

But Atlanta is a little different. If you’ve ever seen the job section in Atlanta’s Craigslist, typically it’s made up of administrative assistant and executive assistant positions. So, when I first came down here I took a step back after contracting in New York. I was working with a headhunter here and Creative Circle to get gigs. So, I had two people working on my behalf to get gigs.

Then I looked on Craigslist because that’s what people do up North. I was looking at the ads and thought all of these things look flat out sketchy. But, I figured if I was looking at it, that other people were looking at it as well.

So, we decided to do the whole hiring process through Craigslist. We put up an ad to see what kind of candidates would come through. One of the main problems we had was people just didn’t show up. I don’t get it.

The few people we did get in were super underqualified and probably didn’t pay attention to the ad or the requirements. They just weren’t qualified. We got a lucky random person who actually works with us now. She oversees ecommerce. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if my prayers went up to God or something. When she walked in the door, I said, “Thank you God” under my breath. It just happened to be a perfect fit.

Then we decided to hire the next position. After reviewing our ad, I decided to add some details to it. The original ad didn’t have enough details.

I believe you have to tell people exactly what you want. Tell people what the position is and what it entails. You also have to explain what they’ll get in return if they decide to join us. Transparency is important.

What we didn’t do the second time that we will do this time coming up, is we didn’t put minimal qualifications. We need to have at least two to three years’ experience. We don’t have the time to train people. We’re not looking for rock starts, but we’re not looking for a fresh person just out of the womb.

We have several openings. All of the positions need to come into the office between 9 to 5. Due to quality control and some of the issues we’ve had with freelancers, we just feel more comfortable having people onsite.

________

Glendon adds his comments.

One of the reasons we’re doing this video is because there’s so much stuff out there where people don’t really tell you the truth about running a business. Everybody that I am talking to that runs a business is going through the same thing we are. I have a friend who is a recruiter and friends who own a car wash and another that owns a real estate agency. I also have a buddy with a PR firm. I asked my friends, “What’s going on?” They all said the same thing. “This is the environment we are operating in.”

People say things like just go out and grab somebody and it will work out. That’s not realistic. People can be broke and choosy.

Tomorrow we’re going to start Digital Introductions. You can’t buy anything, but you have to get on the email list. I’m going to send out something real nice to everybody on the email list.

Verlyncia has been working her ass off hiring people. Hiring is not easy. It’s really not. I’ll just put that out there.

_________

Verlyncia adds comments

I’ve been hiring for maybe the last month now. Once we hired people, I was working on my own tasks and helping out with their work. Everybody’s still fairly new. For the next round of interviews, I’m probably going to use Skype. That way, you’re not waiting on someone to possibly show up. You’re not wasting anyone’s time. If you’re filtering out people, you can get that done in the first interview via the phone or Skype.

We’ve just hired people and we’ve already had a staff meeting. We already had a mediation session. It was very clear when we hired people that they need to come in to the office on Monday through Friday from 9 to 5. People acted like they were down for it and now they want to work from home. I reminded them, “You know that wasn’t the deal.” People say things like, “I thought you could cut me some slack.”

__________

Glendon adds comments

Question: How has hiring changed since you’ve been in business?

Answer: My definition of a Yard Bird in 2000 was someone who would come late, but they would work. They were someone with a little attitude, but they would work. Today my definition of Yard Bird is people who get on the phone and tell you they are coming for an interview and then they don’t show up. When you call them, they won’t answer the phone. This is something new. This is crazy.

Tomorrow we’re going to start selling Digital Introductions. We’re going to make this all sexy. We’re going step by step.

We’re going to use two cameras and do live training. If you want the recorded version, you have to pay for it. It’s going to be like, 30 Days to $2500. Digital Introductions is going to teach you how to sell and market. It’s invaluable.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

So many people are selling out, which means the market is huge. Art makes money. Many people devalue it because any kid can pull out a piece of paper and some crayons to draw something to put on the refrigerator. Because people devalue art, many artists devalue their own artwork. It’s kind of nuts, but it’s common.

I call it the creep of devaluation. You get people who can do something but because it’s not commonly accepted or thought of to be really cool or similar to what others are doing, some don’t pay attention to it. You hear comments like, “This isn’t art. It’s not really a way to make a living. This isn’t what you should be doing. This isn’t a job for a grown person.”

Essentially, what you can do to set your inner artist on fire is to get over yourself. What makes an artist produce is discipline. Artists often treat the process like it is so esoteric. They treat making money like it’s a bad thing. There is no nobility in poverty.

If you want to create something that is very artsy-fartsy, go for it. If your talent allows you to do something that makes money, you do that and also you do the artsy-fartsy projects you enjoy. You do both.

I write some really creepy books. There is some stuff I’m working on right now that I don’t even know if it’s going to go. But I am not Boo Boo the Fool saying, “Yes, the world’s going to want that.” I know I like it. I’ve enjoyed writing it. I’m having fun, but I know the storage auction book is going to pay the bills, or the Craigslist or the YouTube book. You see where I’m going with this? I like writing crazy stuff and dreaming things up. But the reality is you’re an adult and you have an obligation to support yourself. You need money.

There are many brilliant artists that can be brilliant business people but because mentally they believe there’s something wrong with business or money, they suffer financially. They believe if they get rich, they’ve sold out. They act like money cheapens their soul.

Where does this type of thinking come from? There is this notion that life should be fair. I take my cues from the animal kingdom. When I was little I used to watch Jacques Cousteau explore nautical life and watch the Animal Kingdom. In Animal Kingdom, you’d watch this lioness chase down the antelopes. If the antelope was eating its Wheaties, it would outrun the lion. But, if he the antelope stumbled, he became dinner. That is the real world.

I am a firm believer that you deserve what you kill. You get to keep what you kill. You deserve what you earn. This entitlement notion we’ve got where people feel like they should have great lives just because they are breathing is really a falsehood. This all creeps into the mindset of an artist.

Many artists just want to make art. They don’t want to get caught up in the business side. It is so hard for them to grasp the business aspects. What they don’t understand is that when you grasp the business side, you can gain more time to put into your art.

Let’s just talk about me. Say I wrote the novels that I’m working on part-time. I wouldn’t be talking to you. I would not have the time to make videos. I would be frustrated as an artist.

 

This is the thing that gets to you as an artist, whether you are a writer, a singer, you make jewelry or clothing. If no one is reading or listening to your shit or buying it, then you get depressed. You asked yourself, “What am I doing this for?”

Sometimes artists are lucky and they put out work that the public loves. Not everyone is that lucky or talented. Other artists will have to go out into society and ask what they want, then write the book or make the art based on the public’s appetite.

I was fortunate when I started with YouTube. I knew that people would like storage auctions. I knew they would because it is like a modern-day treasure hunt. It wasn’t my first choice though. I wanted to write a book first.

Being in the storage auction business made me a realist. It made me understand that you’ve got to sell to succeed. It was a process of determination to figure out the best price. You had to sell it in the appropriate place to get the most money. Everything doesn’t sell the same way in the same place. There are certain things that work on YouTube but they don’t work on Facebook. Other items sell on Twitter, but not on Facebook or YouTube.

In nature, there is disparity. There’s resource disparity. There is intellectual disparity. Still, many people think life should be fair. I am not caught up in the fairness argument. If we live in a system of inefficiencies, then I can take advantage of these inefficiencies and put myself where I want to be in terms of wealth and freedom. You can do the same thing.

Many are trying to crank down the system and make it fair for everybody. It is really an exercise in futility. There are many people who are perfectly happy not doing shit with their life. There are many people happy just getting by. If that’s what they want and they’re not a burden on society, have at it.

With artists, even urban artists, many gravitate toward the “poor thing.” When I joined my writer’s group like four years ago, I noticed if you wrote fast and sold a lot, you were considered a hack. They believed there was some merit in actually cutting your wrist and bleeding on the page.

The money is not coming until you clear the poverty mindset out of your head. Many artists don’ think they deserve money. They hope someone will just show up and see how magnificent their work is and give them money. If they did a little marketing, a lot of artists could support themselves.

Tribalism will make people do things that just don’t make financial sense because they don’t want to disappoint the tribe. They act like they’re betraying the tribe by being successful. There is this common belief that artists should be poor.

If you want to be an artist, make room for your art. If an hour a day is all you can do, your stuff will get done. You’ll start to develop a collection. This is all about determination.

Once you make more money, you’ll have more time to experiment. Everything is not going to be a home run. Sometimes you’re going to strike out. Other times you’re going to get base hits. That’s why I put out so much of my art. Hustling is my art.

If you are an artist, you can make an incredible amount of money on the Internet. It’s just going to keep growing. Understand that everybody is not online yet. There’s so much potential.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

What do I mean by this title, How Your Vision of Success Keeps You Broke? Let me break it down for you. If your vision of success is filled with things that do not make your heart beat with joy, it can certainly prevent the success you claim you want.

If you want to be successful, you must make sure that your vision for success is in direct agreement with your core values. There are people who have big houses and that is not part of their core values, and they are miserable. They have rooms they don’t even go in because they’re living someone else’s vision of success.

When you make a conscious choice to live a life of design, one of conception versus one of happenstance, you start to develop a certain filter. The filter is a wonderful thing. I live in an affluent neighborhood and I’ve noticed that there are some folks who have not renovated their home. A lot of these houses were built in the 50s and 60s. I see people in this neighborhood who drive older cars and put their money elsewhere.

If you haven’t explored your core values, you could be living a life that is a big façade. You look great. You look wonderful. Your friends envy you and want “that life.” But, you go home and cry yourself to sleep. There are people living like that.

Another way your vision of success can keep you broke is because it is totally unrealistic. Let’s give you an example. Say you’re a 56-year-old woman and you want to meet a fine financially stable dude to get pregnant and have kids. It is scientifically possible, but the chances of it being likely are slim to none.

When you build your vision of success on false steps, there’s no surprise if you crash and burn. Part of having an accurate vision of success is knowing what makes you tick. You have to know what makes you get up in the morning with a smile on your face ready for the day. It is crucial that you know that stuff before you build your vision of success. If you don’t, you’re using the dreams of others. You might be hijacking someone else’s vision of success because you’re too lazy to create your own.

People rationalize, “Well that’s good enough for Tim.” Yet Tim defined his vision of success and he’s happy as a pig with a mouthful of peaches. You have hijacked Tim’s vision of success and you’re miserable because you stole it. It’s not yours. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t build it. You didn’t make it happen.

You have to define your vision of success on your own terms based on your core values. If you don’t, you’re going to run into a hardware and software incompatibility which is also called a crash. If your internal core values do not match up well with what you are externally trying to obtain, you will be sad and miserable. When the sadness reaches a certain point, you will get rid of it by choice or you’ll do something to fuck it up.

This is why we see people who purportedly have it all and they’re on drugs, they’re drinking. They are doing all of this self-destructive stuff. The reason is because they are living a life out of alignment.

Another way your vision of success can jack up your life, is if you really don’t give a shit about yourself. You are doing things for the adulation and the praise of others versus seriously doing the hard work to figure out what you care about. What’s your thing? Everyone has a different dream. Everyone has a different set of skills sets, gifts and personality traits.

There are too many people who are following someone, who is following someone, who is following someone. This was in Earl Nightingale’s book, Lead the Field. It’s called following the follower who is following the follower. If they were actually following the leader, it wouldn’t be so bad.

There are so many things you can do if you get on the path of self-discovery and exploration. When you adopt other people’s vision of success, you’re robbing yourself of some of the most powerful gifts you have because your gifts are not designed to be used for other people’s visions of success. That’s why you are where you are. That’s why things are going where they’re going. You just don’t seem to understand. You asked yourself, “How do I get out of this place?”

I’m going to tell you. You stop what you’re doing. Take a deep breath. Start to ask yourself, “What makes me happy?” You know what makes you happy. What fills up your happy tank? If it’s not something that is socially widespread and desirable, so fucking what. Have the courage to be yourself.

I have a saying. One of the hardest things in life to do is to have the courage to be yourself. Many people are just not that brave. Think about it.

Everybody’s not chasing money. Everybody’s not chasing fame. I’m not suggesting being Boo Boo the Fool and living in a mud hut. What I am saying is if you tap into your gifts and do the work you do well, sharing it with other people; you may have more money than you’ll ever need in your life. This is preferable to this other fabricated, contrived, commercially packaged idea of what success should be.

Many people think happiness is something that comes from external sources. Happiness is internally generated. It’s an inside job. You have to make yourself happy and then you can share your happiness with other people.

If you are depending on other people to make you happy, then you are a slave to the whims of other people. You’ve entrusted your joy to someone else. How can you be pissed off if they mishandle it?

Living your life and chasing your vision of life may disappoint some people. You are making them reflect on their own choices. When someone is judging you, they are also judging themselves. They may not realize it, but that’s where the judgement comes from.

I have found out that living your life for other people can be a very disappointing explanation into personal and emotional chaos. It’s been my experience when I did it at as a young person. Think about it.

Even if you have kids, you can still make the choice to live a life of design and purpose. There’s no age limit. Don’t limit yourself.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

Do not open up a physical store. Don’t do it. Is that clear? I understand you have a dream. I understand the romantic aspects of opening up a store.

This is the thing. I’d had three different storefronts. It’s an incredible amount of work. To run a store. It’s like having a child that never grows up. You have to have resources to hire people before it makes a profit because otherwise you will wear yourself out.

Here are some parameters for you. If you’re going to open up a store, you need to have $30K somewhere. Are you still with me? You need to have a minimum of $30K after you’ve leased the space. You need $30K left over after you’ve bought inventory. The reason you need so much cash on hand is because as soon as you open up, the money clock is going to start ticking really, really loud.

The first of the month will come so quickly. Whether your store makes money or not, you’ve got to pay rent. You’ve got to pay the power bill. You may have to pay for trash. You may have to pay something like a HOA fee for the maintenance. If you get a yellow page ad or an online ad, that’s a monthly fee.

Before you know it, you’re burning $5K to $20K to $30K a month before you make your first dollar. So, if you’re going to do it, those are some parameters. You need money to rent the space, money for inventory and then an extra $30 left for operations.

You are going to have to hire people. Now this is a truism. This is the reason so many people are in love with the “solopreneur” lifestyle. The average entrepreneur starts to fall apart when their team grows to more than three or four people.

Most people can handle two to three employees. When you’ve got five employees, you’ve got to create schedules and SOPs. There’s a lot more to deal with. Managing people is a job within itself on top of running a business. So, wrap your head around that.

You are not going to grow without a plan for growth. It’s not going to happen. You can have that store for the next 20 years and still be prodding along without making much progress. You must have a written plan for growth.

This is why you’ve got to have a plan for growth. Getting rich and making money can be a byproduct of growth. It can also be a recipe for bankruptcy. It depends on how you grow. It’s the reason you need to be well capitalized when you open up a store. You have no choice. When we had our store, the worst months were June, July and January; and to some extent February. Then when people got their tax refund, they started spending again.

Online, it never stops. I remember making $10K to $20K the day after Christmas, in one day. Our months were really slow in the summer in the physical store, but online it never slowed down. In the summer, we switched product categories and we were busy.

If you’re going to grow something worth selling later on, you’re going to have to learn how to hire people. The most people I ever had working for me was 15. It was interesting. I did it for a few years.

You’re going to have to put on your management hat. People fall in love with “being the boss” at first. Okay. That shit doesn’t mean anything. You are the responsible one. That’s who you are. You have many bosses even though you own a business. You have to make the adjustment. You will not grow a visible business without carbon based life forms. Notice I said “grow”.

You can stay in business the next 20 years by yourself, but let me give you a good example. When I exited the storage auction business because of health problems that my partner and I were experiencing, we had employees. The problem was we didn’t have anyone that could replace us. That was the critical flaw.

Target is really good at running stores and they have closed a lot of stores in the past year or so. They’re gone and they know what they’re doing and they’re well capitalized. They just did the math and realized it wasn’t working.

Walmart is having to reorganize. They gambled wrong and Amazon is a bigger company than they are now. So, don’t play the physical store game unless you have a serious game plan. Don’t do it.

I never bought stuff off the streets. It’s too damn risky. I didn’t know if it was hot. If the shit’s hot, you’re in trouble. You didn’t commit the crime, but depending on the District Attorney and how they look at it, you could be in hot water.

If you do it once, nothing is going to happen to you. But if your name comes up 15 or 20 times associated with hot goods, they’re coming for you. That’s something that could happen and you have very little control over it. When people sell you hot stuff, you don’t know the origins of it.

Let’s review. From the top; cost, capitalization and employees are the reasons you should not open up a store. Forget about it.  I told a client not to open a store and they went ahead and did it. He ended up admitting I was right when I told him not to do it. He said, “I should have never opened up that store.” You make less than your employees, especially in the first two years.

You might be struggling like crazy. So, don’t do it. It could ruin your life.

Let’s talk about my experience. We did not start off with a store. We were doing garage sales. Then we moved to the flea market. We had extremely low overhead for the first two years.

Then we opened the store. I thought we’d get a lot of traffic because it was on a busy highway. Nope. The road was slanted, so when people were driving, they couldn’t see the store. It was like we were invisible. No one was coming in. It got to the point that we stopped going into the store except for the weekends or to meet Craigslist customers. We were using Amazon money, eBay money and Craigslist earnings to pay rent on a store we weren’t really using much.

We closed the store and went straight to the warehouse. That first three months, we made the most we’d ever made in the business because we were streamlined. We were in one place and we had a plan. That’s why I’m telling you – don’t open a store.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

 

 

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

The first thing you need to know about making money is it’s all mental. That is one of the truest things I’ve ever said. One of the things I’ve noticed is there is a lot of chatter. It’s part of that entitlement mentality. You hear people say with a heavy sign, “Damn. The good days are gone. I can’t get that $1 unit and make $2000 on it anymore.”

No. The good days are not gone. What’s messed up is your expectations. You expect this to be easy. When it’s not easy, then people are quick to claim they were tricked. They were led astray. They say they were lied to.

No. That’s not true. No one lied to you. Understand. There’s still opportunity out there. Money is everywhere. It’s a matter of you reformatting that mental space of yours to actually accept the situation the way it is versus the way that you want it to be, which is easy.

It never was easy. It’s very easy to get caught up in a home run mentality. You expect to buy one unit and make $10K, $20K, $30K or $40K and you’re set. It doesn’t work that way.

I have bought many garbage units. I have bought many units that were horrible. You have to pay your dues and a lot of people don’t want to. They feel cheated because it’s not easy. If that’s your mentality, you’re never going to win. You’re never going to make it.

I want to address an email that I got that was about my book. You know what. Don’t buy my book. Stop bitching about the price because I’ll go down the list. You have blown more money chasing a chick you never got a chance to fuck than what you spent on my book. You wasted more on clothes you’ve worn once or never at all and it’s still hanging in your closet. You’ve wasted more money piddling around on the weekend, yet a book that teaches you how to make money is supposed to only cost “X” amount.

Now understand. There’s a lesson coming here. If that is your mentality, you’re already blind to the things that are out there. You only see what is that small box right in front of you.

Money is everywhere. You can make money on Craigslist without spending a dime. Is it easy? No. It takes time, effort and consistency. But people don’t want to do that. I sell on Craigslist and there has been chatter that things aren’t moving. I’ve been selling stuff on Craigslist the last two years and until I took a break. I was selling something every week.

The more you list, the more you have to sell and the more you will sell. There are people out there with 6 items posted and they keep posting them and nothing happens. They are disillusioned. You must increase your scale.

The question becomes about whether you can recognize what money is. There have been times I have bought units and the money was right in front and they’d say, “Hey, you’re crazy for buying that.” You have to have a certain knowledgebase. You need to educate yourself.

I’m going to say this as gently as I can. If you send me a question like where can I find the units or how do I get in the business, I’m going to point you to the free playlist because 99.9% of those questions are in the free playlist. All you have to do is watch. The only cost is your time.

The reason I’m being such an ass in this video is because you’ve got to stop being so damn lazy. That is killing you. It’s not going to be easy.

The world is reverting back to the way it used to be…”survival of the fittest.” That’s where we are. If your life isn’t moving the way you want or things are not panning out, you really have to check your fitness level. It’s not going to get any easier.

If your economy is not moving, you’re doing something wrong. Take ownership of your economy. That’s right. It’s your economy to create. You need to promise yourself that you are going out and making some money today. Then you need to go out the next day and set a goal to make more money.

Then you start defining it. This week, I’m going to make $500. The next week I’m going to make $600. One of the things about creating goals is you can’t go from $500 to $10,000 a month. You can go from $500 to $600. Then, you can go from $600 to $700. There’s a certain realistic progression. If you continue to progress, you’ll get to $10,000.

These are very exciting times. There’s a lot of stuff going on. There’s plenty of meat and fat on the bone. Storage auctions, picking, flea markets and the resale market is on fire. I get emails every day about goals that are good, but the timelines are ridiculously compressed. It ain’t happening players, if you don’t have the time or experience yet.

Understand, money is everywhere. Open your mind. Stop saying things like, “I can’t.” “It’s too hard.” “It wasn’t in the cards. ”That’s loser mentality.

If you are a Christian, I am about to say something that you’re going to consider blasphemy. That excuse that people make about “God didn’t want me to have it,” doesn’t work for me. I believe in God. The God I believe in is about abundance. This is not some prosperity ministry. The excuse that some people use about God not wanting you to have it reminds me of an old joke.

The joke goes like this. This guy was sitting on the roof as the water was rising. A guy comes by on a leg and says, “Hop on.” The guy on the roof answers, “No. I’m waiting on Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.” Then the water rises a little bit more. A guy comes by in a boat and says, “Hop in.” The guy on the roof answers him. “No. I’m waiting on Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.” Later, the water is up to his neck and a helicopter hovers overhead and drops him a rope to rescue him. They say, “Climb in.” The guy on the roof says, “No. I’m waiting on Jesus Christ, My Lord and Savior.” As you know, the guy perished. He drowned.

When he gets to the Pearly Gates, he asks St. Peter, “How come Jesus didn’t send me some help?” Then Jesus peaks around the gate and says, “I sent you a guy on a log, a guy in a boat and a helicopter. What else did you want?”

Realize that God has sent you stuff that you’re not even checking for because you’re over here looking at something else.  I’m telling you, you have to open your mind. Just say it. Money is everywhere. When you tell yourself that there are opportunities everywhere, you will start to see it. As long as your mind is closed, you’re going to miss opportunities.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

The best time to start a business is now. There are many people who are waiting for the right time or the perfect moment to start a business. I don’t know about that because the thing is you could be missing an opportunity by waiting for the perfect time that may or may not ever come.

So, the perfect time to start a business is now. Let’s get to the meat of the question. What is the best time to make money? What I am understanding people really want to know from this question is “What is the best time to leave and start making money as fast as possible?”

There is no such time because when you are doing your thing and you’re making money and building a business; it is a process. That is one of the biggest things you have to do. You have to get your process going.

Number 1 – As you’re building your business, you have to think of how you are going to grow your business.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re Alan Average and you’re married to Amy Average. You both have an average job and you both want to start a business. The problem is when I say business, you’re thinking of a mature business. When is the best time to start that business? You’re thinking of the business that is paying the bills, making you “The Man” or “The Woman.” That’s the mature business.

You can start the business tonight. Take out a sheet of paper and a pen and begin planning. Then after you begin planning, you start to execute. The mature business that is spinning off cash is a lot different than a new business that’s a baby. It’s just like a kid. You don’t expect a two-year-old to drive a car. But many people expect a two-year-old business to support them.

When people asked about the best time to start a business, that’s not the real question. The question should be, when is the best time to groom a business. Go out there and get your first customer tomorrow and your business is started.

You know you have to grow the business. You have to market the business. You have to build the business. That’s the real conversation, because the best time is now, right now. Wake up in the morning and go get it.

I was at a convention and a guy told me, you are nobody if you don’t have a business card. That’s the old economy. It isn’t like that anymore. In certain industries, you still need business cards. That’s just reality. But the deal is you can deal a lot without a business card. It’s about personality. It’s about hustle. It’s about building something.

Okay, Alan and Amy, you’re going to start a physical products business. So, what’s your first step. Who is your market? That’s your first step. Many think the first step is selecting the product. No. The first step is deciding on the marketplace. There are many marketplaces. There are teenage marketplaces There are female marketplaces. There are male marketplaces. There’s the online marketplace. There’s the international marketplace. Where are you going to be? What are you going to do?

That’s the first question. Get your pen and paper and start doing research. If you spend a week just researching your marketplace, you will be ahead of the game. This is what happens. There are people who literally spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an idea or a concept with no marketplace research at all. They start doing marketplace research after the product is developed. At that point, it could be too late.

I do a lot of testing and that drives people crazy. Sometimes, I don’t know what the hell my customers want. I’ll asked and they’ll say, “I want this.” Then I’ll create it and they’ll say, “I don’t really want that.”

In business, so many things happen. When I was starting out and looking for answers, I didn’t really find what I was looking for; so, I created it. That’s what you can do.

You can create a solution to a problem you have. Many businesses were started this way. More than likely if it is a problem for you, it’s a problem for someone else. The question to ask should be, “Is the business scalable?”

Let’s go back to the physical product. You’ve already found the marketplace. You found a group of people you feel appreciates your product. How do you communicate with them?

This is what I see. This is what I feel. We’re getting to a place where you will have to do content marketing because people are becoming oblivious to advertising.

Essentially, you have to figure out who your customer is and how to get in front of them. Then once you do, you have to figure out the price points. What price point is going to work for that marketplace? That’s how you start a business. It’s not rocket science. It’s all about execution.

Some things to consider are answers to the following questions. How are you going to reach the marketplace? How are you going to talk to that market? How are you going to get them to trust you? All of these questions are very relevant.

Once you get your execution down, then you will get feedback to learn what works in your marketplace. You don’t have to be a household name to get rich. There are many people who make millions of dollars because they serve their marketplace well.

I’m challenging you to make this a year to remember. Put pen to paper and come up with a plan. Understand, every family definitely needs a family business. If you’re serious about your future, you need to start hustling now.

Now if you want to, you can quit your job and go into your business. The best time to quit your job for your business is when your job is costing you money.

I challenge you. You’ve heard the message. Tonight, figure out what marketplace you can serve and get busy.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!

If you don’t want to read it, you can watch this video.

One of the reasons that so many people are not successful and don’t have the life that they want is because they are looking for someone to make it easy for them. I call it sheep theory. It’s called conventional theory.

This is what you should do. You hear so many messages in our society about how everyone should chart their own way. You hear you should conform or you should not conform. People tell you, you should be different, but don’t be too different. Fuck that noise.

I have eschewed conventional thinking for many years because it didn’t work for me. It kept me in a certain place that I didn’t like. There were many people who were using conventional thinking in terms of this YouTube channel.

I’ve heard it before. “Don’t curse.” I’ve also heard people say, “Don’t tell people how hard the storage auction business is. They’ll find out. Don’t tell them.”

I also received other advice that I rejected. You can’t be all things to all people. It’s just not possible. I gave up a long time ago. The level of happiness I have experienced since that point has been crazy over the top.

The meat of the video with sheep theory is there are a lot of bad things happening. I don’t care if I came to your house and bitch slapped you in the head and strung you up by your toes and then cursed you out, that is nothing compared to what the current economic meltdown is going to do to you, your family, your American way of living and the lifestyle of your offspring. We’re in for a totally different lifestyle.

The price of everything is going up. The price of necessities is going up. Anything that is a “want” shows prices stabilizing or declining. That’s where we are in the world and a lot of people aren’t paying attention because they are sheep.

One day the sheep are going to wake up and not notice that they are shivering because their wool has been shaved off and someone else is using it. They’re not going to notice they are on a conveyor belt. Then when their nostrils fill with the smell of blood from their fellow sheep, they will tell themselves, it’s not so bad. But, when they are strung up and see the butcher come up to their throat with the knife to cut their throat, they realize that it I that bad.

That’s what’s happening. Nothing I can say and nothing I can do is going to be as bad as what’s happening economically to your lifestyle right now. I want you to think about the people you know who are well educated and struggling. I put out the video about the education myth and how the recent recession exposed the education myth.

When you look at the numbers, it’s like college educated people are more employable and their unemployment levels are lower, it’s true. But when you pull back the curtain, you have a large number of college educated people who are working at Starbucks. I’m not criticizing Starbucks. A job is a job. But, if you have a degree that costs $60K or $80K and you’re working at Starbucks, you’re behind the eight ball.

Essentially what I’m saying is, yes college graduates are employed. The problem is they aren’t employed in jobs that pay a decent wage. People are discouraged from looking behind the curtain as it relates to those pricey degrees.

Sheep theory is about sheep grazing in the meadow. They keep giving you grass. You keep munching on the grass, but you never look up. By the time you do look up, it’s too late. I hear all of this stuff about being really harsh and saying you’re lazy as fuck and that’s why you’re not successful, but some of you need to hear that.

The reality is there are many of you who are very talented. There are many of you who can contribute to society and do great things. But, because you have subscribed to sheep theory and conventional thinking, you don’t really look at the way the world is. The world is a cold, cold bitch. Life is harsh. Life is not a happy ending all the time.

If you are sheep, you are part of a growing number of people who are disposable. I’m going to let that marinade for a minute. You’re disposable and you don’t contribute anything to society.

At some point, someone is going to punch your ticket. At some point, all these social programs are going to take a big hit. It’s going to happen. The money is not there. If you have no purpose and if you don’t contribute, you’re in a world of fucking trouble.

One of the things I look at on YouTube is the number of college graduates and people who have been out of school a few years who are all saying the same thing about college. There was this one guy, an Asian dude who says he feels cheated. He said it’s a scam. There are more and more videos like his that are popping up.

Make yourself indispensable to society. Become a contributor, because what’s going to happen in the next few years is going to be pivotal in your life for the next 20 or 40 years. We’re in this big, big digital revolution.

Everything’s moving toward information and how you handle it, and how you learn and train. That is what our society is becoming. You need to embrace technology with gusto. Technology is going to be a way of life. If you are one of those people who are staunchly unwilling to adopt technology, you are going to the head of the sheep line.

So, how does one stop being a sheep? Number 1 – Look at your life and be extremely harsh on the bad decisions you’ve made. As long as you blame it on other people or circumstances, you’ll never solve that problem.

There’s a saying that the level of thinking that created the problem is not going to be the same level of thinking that will solve the problem. So, pull your head out of your ass and get real. Become 100% real.

Change your mentality. Change your life. Change your results. That’s what you have to do to stop being a sheep.

If you like this, be sure to get on my email list for updates to live streams and special offers. Subscribe today!