I don’t own one of those jars, and you shouldn’t either. Instead, I want to share with you something that a millionaire shared with me. He taught me this secret, and it’s one of the reasons, if not the ONLY reason, that I am so financially successful.
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Favors are a Muscle
Favors are not a finite resource. You can do favors until the cows come home, and you’ll never run out. If you switch to the muscle mindset, something cool happens. You become free.
Instead of worrying about favors and tracking numbers all the time, you just do as many favors as humanly possible. You put all of this positive energy into the world, and it comes back tenfold. The more favors you do, the stronger that muscle becomes. People who see favors this way tend to cling together. When you switch to the muscle mindset, you will naturally fit in with the elites wherever you go.
This is how I broke through with my business. I am not an island of a man. I work and interact with people every single day. I just do it digitally. People ask me for favors and introductions all the time, and I do it. Everyone knows that if they ask me for something I’ll do everything in my power to help them. This is a strength, not a weakness. They don’t have to worry that I’ll hit their phones a few weeks later demanding an equivalent favor. How do you even measure the value of favors? Even worse, some people will run away from the relationship when they realize they can’t “pay back” the value of a favor. I have had people disappear from my life like ghosts because I did something nice for them. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.
I don’t remember who I have done a favor for. I don’t waste the mental bandwidth. I just help the people around me, and they return the favor. This is a great way to feel free. You no longer have to track the energy that you put into the world or the return. This is one of the reasons being my friend is awesome. I’ll always help you out without expecting anything in return.
The mindset is not that I gave a favor to that guy or to that gal. I think about each favor as something I put out into the universe. It’s kind of how I view the concept of karma. I put favors out into the world and then the world sends favors back. I don’t have to track the favors I have done for any one individual.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Some jerks are going to take advantage. That’s true. Some people are just value vampires. They take as many favors as they can get before you notice. I encounter one of these vampires now and then. It takes me a while to notice that someone is a garbage human being. They ask for a ton of favors and then when I ask for something small in return they say no. When that happens I just cut them out of my life, let the people around me know that the individual is a value vampire, and then I move on. They get socially ostracized, and that’s the end of it.
I don’t think about it or worry about it. Their bad behavior determines their fate, but I’m not going to let it affect mine.
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The Secret of the Elite
Truly elite people congregate with each other, and they dwell in a place where favors are the norm. The secret to connecting with someone who has something you desire follows a simple formula.
As humans, we all seek value. First, we seek the necessities - air, water, food, and a place to sleep tonight. Once those higher order needs are met, we focus on immediate value. If you’re thinking about buying a new car, you’ll notice that brand everywhere around you. How are those cars running, what do the drivers look like on the road? You’re thinking about it; you’re seeking that value. When you are trying to find a good school for your kids, whenever you hear people talking about schools, your ears perk up.
The moment you sign up your child for school, those conversations become unimportant again. You made the decision, so you no longer think about schools.
When you want to connect with someone who is further up the mountain, the biggest mistake you can make is offering value in an area where they are already strong. Offering a dollar to a billionaire has no meaning. You have given him something in an area where he is already strong. What you want to do instead is find out his passion and desires. Find out what he LIKES to talk about.
I know an online marketer who makes a lot of money. He is very successful, and everybody comes up to him all the time looking for advice. I met him before I made my first dollar online and had no idea what I was doing, but I never talked to him about work. Instead, I found out that he has a passion for amateur archeology. He goes on a dig every summer. It’s his real passion. He makes money to support his family and fund his archeology habit. He always has a fossil in his pocket. Whenever I see him, that’s what we talk about. Instead of following everyone else’s path I follow my own. I found out what he’d rather be talking about. And it’s fine by me. I think it’s really interesting.
Every time I meet someone on my level I find out what they are into, and what they are seeking. I give them the value they are seeking through introductions, and I connect with them by talking about the stuff they love.
Let me try another example. Where I live, everybody surfs. That’s the reason most people come here. Most of these guys have been surfing for decades. I only started last year. I never have anyone to hang with because they always leave me behind. Then these same guys want business advice. Why would I want to invest time in someone that focuses solely on their needs?
When a guy hangs with me and surfs at my level, even though I’m not very good, that builds up goodwill. If that guy asks for advice, I’m much happier giving it. Because I like spending time with him. He met me at my need level. It’s not something that I do consciously. I only just realized it as I was writing this chapter.
Everyone here is a great surfer, so they all use short boards. I am early stages and still need to ride a monster. It’s hard to find longboards on my island. In fact, it took me six months to find mine, and I had to get it mailed to me from another island. The shipping cost about half as much as the board. If you were to approach me and mention that you can get longboards to me, that would capture my attention. I would be interested in that because it’s a challenge in my life right now.
When you want to connect with someone who is at the top of the mountain; you don’t focus on their strengths. That’s what everyone else does, and it never works. Focus on your strengths and their desires. This concept is vital because we are going to build on your strengths and knowledge to create your online business.
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The Ultimate Value
A single motivation drives all human behavior – the desire for good feelings. People want to enjoy life. Think about how much of our time is spent working towards having good feelings. All the money you spend on parties, cocktails, movies and music fits into this category. We spend money on those things because they make us feel good.
The only reason we work is to make enough money to pay for our leisure activities. The people who do love to work, love work for a reason! They get good feelings from their craft. I feel that way about my work, but I didn’t always. I have had jobs I hated, and my only motivation was making enough money to buy the things I wanted.
If you can give people good feelings, they will want to spend a lot of time with you.
Think about the people you like to spend the most time with. How do they make you feel? We all want to be around that one person who is the life of the party. Their energy is infectious. The reason that we like them so much is that they give us good feelings. And we LIKE feeling good. It’s our primary motivation.
The secret to being the life of the party is to be without intent. If you try to be the life of the party just to make people like you, it will never work. There is a simple strategy to do this correctly.
First, you want to focus internally. You want to make yourself feel good. Be energetic and have fun because it makes you feel good. Then those around you will get pulled into your good time. And they will like being around you.
Your focus is having so much fun that other people can’t resist joining in with you. That’s the
real secret to popularity and happiness.
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Go to Where the People Are
There are two ways to get ahead in business and work.
The method most people practice is to get to work early, stay late, lock yourself in your office, avoid human communication and let your work speak for itself. This is a GREAT strategy if you want to spend your life as a drone. If you have no desire for a management position at work. If you aren’t interested in anything other than minor pay raises and meaningless promotions.
But if you want to be in charge of people and make the big money, you have to go with the second strategy.
You put in the hours at work, but you take the time to make connections with your coworkers. You find out about their friends and families. You spend time outside of work with them. You make them trust and depend on you. They LIKE you.
It’s a fact of life; popularity leads to success in business.
Sometimes you can spend weeks or months building up the groundwork, and it all comes down to one conversation with a superior. Because you’ve spent the time to developing your social skills and social network in the office, more opportunities will come your way.
If you aren’t going to where your coworkers and industry insiders are hanging out, how are you ever going to meet them? You need to start developing commonalities with the people around you. Find out where they like to hang out, what they like to do and what they like to talk about.
I hate football. But when my co-workers were into football, I started watching it. It gave me something to talk to them about at work. Go to social functions. Head out for drinks after work. I did a lot of this when I was working for other companies, and it paid off in so many ways.
It’s a lot easier for a supervisor to give you a promotion when your coworkers don’t hate you and won’t be bitter about it.
Every industry has tons of conferences, and in the world of startups and entrepreneurs, these events are CRUCIAL. If you think building a social network is important when you work for a big company, it’s life or death when you are a company of one.
Remember, you can always move around between different companies in your industry. I’m not saying to actively look for a new job at conferences, but these connections are going to be imperative when your boss downsizes you, or there is a corporate restructure. It is better to have a social network that you don’t need, than to need one you don’t have.
I used to go to conferences ALL the time. It’s how I built my business, and it’s how I make connections. You can also join forums and connect with people on LinkedIn and Facebook. I have some industry friends who do all their networking online. They build up a reputation, and everyone likes what they have to say online.
If you never go out with people from work, you will never build real relationships.
I got into Internet marketing and working online because I wanted more freedom. I wanted to travel the world and have total control of my schedule. I started working for myself, so I could live the dream and work from home, but I didn’t start making money until I started going to events and making connections and building up a social circle of people who are trying to grow in the same way.
If you don’t build relationships with people, then they won’t want to do business with you. When people like you, trust you and consider you a friend they will do AMAZING things for you to help you grow your business.
Just going to events isn’t enough of course. You have to do it in the RIGHT way.
Whether you are working for yourself or an organization, you can use your social networking skills to get ahead and succeed.
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Project the Right Identity
When you introduce me to your friend, you already know who your friend is. You know why you are friends with them. You know what makes them cool, awesome or interesting. You should know the same information about yourself.
Now that I’m well known at the events I attend, I have my circle of business friends and partners. My plan is to invest my time with them and build those relationships with them. If you walk up to me, I’m only going to give you a few minutes of my time. That’s how most people are who have a lot going on.
The people you want to connect with the most are only going to give you a few minutes of their time. Not because they think they are better than you, but they just don’t know you, and they want to see their friends. You need to be able to demonstrate that you are worth their time in just a few minutes or less.
There are two main reasons people want to talk to you at a conference; either you are fun or you can make them a lot of money. And the truth is that even if you can make them money, they still probably won’t be interested right away.
I’ve never successfully pitched a business idea to someone the moment I met them. I see people try it all the time, and I hate it. The only time I let people get away with pitching an idea right away is if they already have a big reputation in the industry. So don’t do that.
You want to focus on being fun and bringing value. Start thinking about what makes you unique. Are you funny? Do you play an instrument? We are all unique in different ways.
Focus on sharing your value without becoming pretentious. I have met people who have one interesting thing about them that I want to learn about. Sometimes they have a technical skill that I’m interested in or a product that I promoted.
I can remember one time when I tried to talk to a guy who had made a Wordpress theme I liked. The guy did not like me and was extremely unpleasant. He avoided answering my questions. I was interested in doing a big promotion for his product and seeing how our businesses could interact.
My company makes almost twenty times as much money as his does, and I could have helped him grow massively. But he was more focused on being a jerk instead of being friendly to me. I haven’t heard anyone mention one of his products in over two years. So don’t get too full of yourself, you never really know who you are talking to.
They might just mention you in a book some day.
Take the time to think about what makes you unique, special and interesting. At my first event, I met a guy who was a former professional baseball player. He’d only played in six games, but I thought that was cool. His career in baseball had totally fizzled out, but when people found out about his past, they thought it was great.
You never know who you are going to meet when you are at conferences and events. Some of the most unassuming people you meet might have the most going on. Guys who have their lives together don’t spend all their time showing off. They let their work speak for itself.
You don’t have to act flashy or try to be the master networker. Just be yourself and have fun and people will be drawn to you.
When you meet each person, just focus on bringing the fun into the conversation first. That will give you enough time to talk about business stuff later. And then they will know you and have invested time in you so they will be more interested.
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Strengths and Weaknesses
I am excellent at some things and atrocious at other things.
When I first got into online marketing, I was really good at getting websites to appear at the top of Google search results. I ran a little business that would help local businesses get Google rankings and therefore more customers. It’s how I made a living, and I’d often share tips and tricks with people who would ask me for advice about how to do this themselves. I used to give away knowledge about getting more customers to give value to people.
I have other skills as well. I’m superb at writing and can write more than two thousand words an hour. It takes most people a week to write what I can in just one hour. I can put together in two days what takes most people a month. I’ve written almost this entire book in less time than you could imagine. All while running my company and taking the time to swim in my pool at my villa and practice guitar and get ocean time.
I’m also talented at putting teams together, forming alliances an
d creating products.
Those are my top strengths. There are TONS of areas where I struggle. There are a lot of areas that I just haven’t delved into yet. When I meet people at events, I keep my eyes peeled for people who ARE good at those things that I’m not.
A lot of people that I meet at events want to pretend that they are awesome at everything. It takes a martial artist a lifetime to master one weapon, so when someone says they are a master at every single way to make money online, I know it’s impossible. I have friends who are experts at Facebook and friends who are experts at Google and friends who are experts at designing sales processes, but I don’t know anyone who is an expert at everything.
It’s one of the secrets to the upper circles of networking. We can tell when someone is pretending that they have something going on, and the biggest tell is when they act like they are good at everything.
Don’t act like you don't know anything and don’t act like you are good at everything. You want to demonstrate your value without coming across as a liar. That will massively boost your performance at events.
Even if you stop reading this book right now, you will see an increase in your networking results with what you just learned here.
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Serve No Master: How to Escape the 9-5, Start up an Online Business, Fire Your Boss and Become a Lifestyle Entrepreneur or Digital Nomad Page 7