Accidental challenge. Accidental opportunity. Accidental Learning.

Around mid-last year when we were all trapped at home, I ended up watching a documentary about Tony Robbins on Netflix called  “I am not your guru “.

And by the end of the documentary, I wanted to attend his workshop, for what? I don’t know.  But I just wanted to.

The other day while I was lethargically procrastinating everything and watching YouTube, an ad popped up, with Tony.

It said something about a challenge, “own your future challenge.”

And the ad did its job. I clicked on the link and I registered myself.

Little did my disciplined little mind know that my sleep schedule was going to go haywire  then onwards.

The sessions began at 11:30 pm and ended around 2:30- 3ish.

But oh god! It was so worth it!

This time it was for five days and we also ended up having a bonus day in the end. 

My entire childhood , people said knowledge was power.

But Tony denies it. 

Because ‘knowledge’ is  only potential power whereas ‘execution’ is the real power.

When Tony began talking, it seemed as if he was an imposter, just paraphrasing and synthesising a bunch of books that even I had read.

But it’s what he did after, that made me want to attend day 2 of this challenge.

When I saw his documentary I thought it was dumb that he made his students jump and dance.

Man, I was wrong!

And this was probably the first time I was happy about being wrong.

Because with him I jumped and danced and trust me, it was like intoxication; a trance. It set the tone and gave us all the motivation required to learn from the other speakers.

Over the 6 days, there were such amazing speakers that  all of them had made  an impact.

And here are my favourite learnings from the 6 days:

It was all about the self-education industry and how this is one of the most booming industries in the world.

Even though I didn’t have any intentions of getting into this industry , I did learn a lot and these learnings could be applied to anything in general.

So I thought why not share my learnings with you.

The basic economic problem today is that there are insufficient resources. But when it comes to the self-education industry each one of us has an unlimited supply of what people need and want.

And that unlimited supply is our journey. Our experiences. Our failures and how we overcome them.

But what matters at the end of the day is what you choose to do with these experiences. 

It matters how you turn your mess into your message.

Because somewhere somebody is starting in a place you have already been in.

The self-education industry is the bridge builder – 

You went through a slump, you were in a pit and you got out of it. Now if you are in the self-education industry then you are building a bridge for other people to go through it smoothly.

Without falling into the pit that you fell into.

The messy middle – Jenna Kutcher 

We had Jenna come up, who is a mom and a marketing entrepreneur.

She taught me the importance of mess.

I know it sounds dumb and a little cinematic, but hear me out okay… when we put up transformations online, be it any transformation we show the before and the after but we never show the middle. 

Because it’s messy.

But it’s no magic right, we don’t have clear skin, perfect bodies, and six-packs overnight.

It took time, it tested our patience, we wanted to give up.

But we didn’t and it is so important to show that messy middle, it might not inspire a thousand people, but even if it impacts one, your job is done.

The Dot – Dean Graziosi 

The dot is your market, your niche.

Say you want to write a book about the Stanislavsky method of acting.

There are seven billion people in the world, you are not writing to all of them. You are writing to the people who want to learn to act.

You are not writing to everyone who wants to learn acting, you are writing to the people who want to know the methods of acting.

You are not writing to everyone who wants to learn the methods of acting, you are writing to people who want to learn the Stanislavsky method of acting.

And that is your dot.

When you have your dot clear then, confidence comes by itself.

Selling or giving? – Dean Graziosi 

Dean says when you love something so much that you want others to experience it, you will never look at it as selling ever again.

You are solving/preventing a problem for them no matter how big or small it is. 

Let’s say you are selling a moisturizer – you are preventing people from dry skin.

Let’s say you are selling a lint roller – you are solving the problem of having lint on their clothes.

So selling is a service and not something to be ashamed of.

The quickest way to sell – 3 steps.

Dean says and now I think I’m starting to believe , that these three steps can sell about anything.

  1. Hook – This is used to instantly grab your target’s attention. The quickest way to do this is by living inside your prospective client’s head. Answer these questions before you approach them :
  •     What is their biggest fear ?
  •     What is their biggest goal ?
  •     Your ideal client is you a few years ago . So what would you have said to your younger self that would have instantly grabbed their attention.

2. Your story – This I think is the easiest part. But instead of giving your whole life away simply narrate a scene of your life.

GIVE YOUR CUSTOMER AN ANECDOTE. ( I promise anecdotes never go wrong )

The simplest way to do it is – I was this , this was my problem , and this is how I overcame it.

3. Irresistible offer – This is the most important part!

Give them your hook, then your story, and give them an offer they can’t deny. This can ideally be your call to action.

Ex : I was this , this was my problem , this is how I overcame it, and here is my contact info in case you want to learn from me.

Think about it now , if you are the customer would you buy it if they sold it to you this way ?

Flex pastedGraphic.png – social media strategy – Glo Atanmo 

Glo is a Travel blogger with over 250K people in her community.

And here’s how she built that insanely amazing community.

F – Find your voice and find a platform for it , it could be anything , a YouTube , podcast, or a blog.

L – Learn a new skill. Having more skills than what you are required to have will help in differentiating you from your competition. It will make you an irreplaceable asset. 

E – Enter a community. There is always so much to take away from a community , it will give you content and credibility.\

X – Experiment. Experiment for a hundred days , anything that can be done for a hundred days , can create a huge impact.

Ex : #hundreddaysofhappiness , #hundreddaysofsweat 

In fact, a few days ago , I started my own experiment.

It’s called a hundred days of sunsets. Because almost every day we’ve been staring at one screen or another so I thought just for a couple of minutes at least why not go watch the sunset.

The six days that I spent listening and understanding what these speakers are saying have been a few of the most educative days for me , so much to learn , so much to take away.

Now as Dean Graziosi says , the most important part is implementation and I’m going to go do that now.

Fate vs Free will

You opened the link and started reading this blog – is it because of fate or free will?

You are now thinking about it – is it fate or is it free will?

But what is fate?

Fate as google suggests is – things outside of a person’s control, predetermined by a supernatural power.

And free will is the capacity to choose what to do and what not to.

Freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.

There are people who believe that another force decides what they do or what they don’t.

So much so that they think the responsibility for things always lies outside of themselves.

They believe that their entire life is dependent on people around them ( parents , friends , family , school , government & God)

And there are other kind of people who truly believe in free will, they believe that everything around them can change if they want it to. And that they can achieve anything and everything by just exercising their will.

They believe that their parents , friends , family , school , government all come under their will.

And when I had this question of what is more powerful, is it fate or is it free will? I couldn’t answer it.

I don’t know if I can answer it even now.

It is chaos and confusion I don’t know if my fate makes me feel that way or my free will- but here’s what I found.

Rationally free will’s principle says that: An action is free only if the agent – that is , the person doing the thing could have done otherwise. – so truly free will requires options.

And determinism by contrast doesn’t allow options. It says that every event is caused by a previous event. A person could have never done anything apart from what he/she already did.

Now even after reading that I couldn’t figure it out.

Because I do believe that every event is caused by a previous event but at the same time I also do believe that I am one person who thinks that everything and anything is under my will.

So what is it that governs our life?

And finally a person from the YouTube channel ‘school of life’ had made this really interesting comparison:

“We are like dogs , a dog who is tied to a leash and this leash is tied to an unpredictable cart.

The leash is long enough to give me a degree of lever but not long enough to let me wander wherever I want.”

So I realised , maybe my life is a combination of both , in fact a perfect combination – I don’t know which one is greater , but do I have to ?