Relentless – Part II

Since yesterday when I first wrote the blog post about being relentless this thought has been going on in my mind continuously all through the night that all marketing success at one point comes down to being relentless in your pursuit. You can read the post.

That does not mean there are no other attributes – like if you are running in the wrong direction then obviously you will reach the wrong place but assuming you have the right direction then if you have to reach your destination you need to be e consistently relentlessly going after your target destination to be able to reach there

After the post I looked around to see which other authors had sold more than a million books and try to identify what all they were doing to achieve those numbers. One author who comes to mind is Russell Brunson. He’s written 3 books and has this relentless effort to ensure he’s in front of the right influencers who read his books, interviewed him and their audiences bought his books.

If I look at sales, one of the greatest sales guys I have had the chance to read about was the late Chet Holmes. He had a methodology which he used to call the Dream 100. His idea was very simple. He would first identify the Top 100 (notional number) that he wanted to do business with.

Then he would relentlessly every alternate day send a bulky packet with information and next day give a call. In one case as per him , where he had listed 167 companies in his list of dream companies , he was able to get all of them as customers within about an year.

At the end of the day, the consistent focus of daily activities is what helps these companies execute.

Again as I said earlier this does not mean that you don’t need a good product or service. It does not mean that you don’t need to differentiate your offerings. It does not mean that you have a faulty strategy. These are table stakes.

If you have all the above and then you execute relentlessly that’s when you succeed. If you have all the above and do things in an episodic way then you will fail.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Good Karma

compounding, Habits, Human Brain

I had been to South Korea alone in the mid-90s. At that time I did not know Korean and when I landed at the airport in Seoul, there were hardly any signs in English. I had to go to a town about 40 miles away. There was only one person at the tourist information center who knew English.

When I showed her the address of the location, she walked me to the bus which would take me in that direction, informed the bus driver about me not knowing English and where he needed to drop me so that I could move forward to my destination. I had absolutely no clue what was transpiring between them but I just had the faith that I would be fine.

After about an hour’s journey, the driver after dropping all the passengers drove on the wrong side of the road to stop in front of a cab. Then he got down, spoke to the driver of the cab and transferred my luggage into the cab and the cab driver took me to the hotel. And none of these people knew English but I reached my hotel completely safe. I won’t meet those people again but I still remember this incident which happened more than 20 years back. I still hope and wish all of them well after so many years.

I have had many such experiences in my life, some which I have shared with you earlier also. The reason I share is that universe has a unique way of giving back when you do good for someone. My father used to say – give and the universe will give back to you multiple times over.

You can call it by many names – it could be called good karma or tithing or plain and simple charity also.

I have been talking about investing (not saving) a portion of your money even before the pay gets into your hands and then let the magic of compounding work for you.

A useful habit to get good karma, is to ensure you donate a certain portion of your income before you get the salary in your hand.

Donating money and seeing someone become happy because of your contribution has a major psychological impact. I get a very happy feeling for the next few days, it seems like the world is such a wonderful place to live in.

Especially with all the negativity around us, whether it is Covid or it is the political messes or the inability to get vaccination moving systematically in countries – by giving to charity you tend to feel the world is still a decent place.

One of the key things, if you follow my blog regularly – you would notice is that I lay a lot of stress on spreading positivity. The world has a lot of reason to feel negative. If with my personal experiences, where the world has been of so much help, I can make one person less depressed or one person get a reason to get a smile then it would have served the purpose of this post.

Till next time.

Carpe Diem!!!

Freedom of time

Affirmative action, compounding, Financial Independence, Habits

I have been crying hoarse over the last two-three years about getting financial freedom. How compounding can help you achieve your targets for financial freedom. I have also stressed the difference between financial freedom and becoming rich.

Financial issues are the biggest sources of tension in most people’s lives second only to health. If you are not sure of your financial situation, you cannot think of other things. The biggest lament of most people is “I don’t have the time”

However once you have a situation where you can be free from the pressures of finance, then you can start thinking of how you can make your life better.

Life becomes better when you are able to devote time with your family, go on family vacations, take time out to take care of your health . In all these things the common factor is Time.

While money can be replenished, time is one commodity which cannot be replenished. But when you are under pressures of finance, you don’t think in terms of the perishability of time and life happens and passes you by.

I still remember as if it was yesterday I was 35 and then suddenly I was past 45. Those were the most strenuous years of my life with respect to my financial situation and they just passed away with me trying to balance my accounts everyday.

If I had created my safety net the way I suggest to all the young folks through my writings, I would not have had to face those pressures. Once you have financial pressures your health also fails faster and its an avalanche effect.

So don’t worry even if you start small, let the magic of compounding of work for you so that you reach financial freedom faster, which help you get the freedom of time. Once you have the freedom of time there’s nothing which can stop you. The opportunities are endless.

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!

Mind Control – Part II

Affirmative action, Breathing, Habits, Human Brain, Yoga

I was thinking on this topic since the time I posted yesterday on the comment “how can I stop my mind from wandering”

While I wish, I had a silver bullet answer, I don’t.

However there are some more things which help put my mind in better state to get into flow. In yesterday’s post I already suggested you watch a video on YouTube of Ilovemarketing episode on the 50 minute focus finder. Its one of the best methods of getting the mind cleared and then fully in flow. Earlier to that I have spoken about breathing and yoga.

Another thing which I have found very useful when I am doing any activity which requires intense focus is to play Mozart and Beethoven symphonies. Those have a massive impact on my ability to concentrate when I am trying to do a job which requires immense brain power. In addition I use a paper and pencil to put my thoughts down on paper as they come.

The brain is like the CPU of the computer, it typically is working at a speed which is more than a 1000 times faster than the input-output devices connected to it . If you leave the mind idle even for a milli second, it will like to wander and think of multiple thoughts.

In the life of an average person a typical waking day of 16 hours has about 57000 seconds. You brain has massive compute ability, which means it typically processes tasks very fast and then till it gets the next task, it wanders. Potentially your brain could be wandering 50000 times in a day hoping from one thought to another.

To keep the brain engaged you should use multiple sensory organs (the input-output devices of your body).

If I am reading a book – especially a non-fiction book – then my mind tends to wander. So what I do is I use my fingers to scan through the pages diagonally. Since my eyes follow my finger, two sensory organs are involved and the mind wanders less, in addition I play Mozart and Beethoven symphonies and my ears also get involved resulting in much higher concentration levels.

Why not try these two ideas in addition to what I had mentioned about watching the video by Dean Jackson and doing yoga.

Let me know your feedback and do let me know if there are other methods you have found useful and share it with us.

Till next time

Carpe Diem!!!