guy had dumped me. And he said, ‘Okay, let's make a product on YouTube’. So I created it, and we launched it in September 2011 and made a good $400 000 in sales in 30 days at a $97 price point. Overnight I became the YouTube guy. That product went on to do a couple of million dollars in sales. And it spawned an entire business.
How did you even do that? Facebook, which you used to promote your products, had just started then.
Yeah, the way we did it was with a very simple model that you don't see a lot of people use today. My superpower, especially at the time, was teaching. I was just really good at teaching and making things simple and fun and easy to do. Lewis didn't really like teaching, but he was a super connector, which at the time I wasn't at all. He had all these powerful, influential friends and himself had a big audience. So he put me in front of his audience and then he started attracting these people as affiliates.
So you came right out of the gate with your first course with affiliates and the whole shebang.
Yeah. We used affiliates and joint-venture webinars and stuff like that. And we were doing three a day, I was finishing one and jumping straight onto the next. We used GoToWebinar and sent people to a checkout page. And that was it. It was still really simple. And it was amazing. Then I built several other products and coaching programs.
Was that week as exciting as when that guy in San Antonio bought the first bartending product?
That's a great question. They were just very different. The first one told me, this really is possible and you can do this. This one told me, you can live an extraordinary life and reach the top doing this. One was I can do this, the other showed me what was really possible when I did. So both were very exciting. But I think it's still more exciting to discover it's possible, because it wasn't always about the money. Money was one driver, but only to the extent that I didn't want to have to worry about getting a job.
Now you make millions, is the same level of excitement there?
You can see yourself getting desensitised. I think you can choose to hold on to as much gratitude and appreciation as possible. One of the things I talk about with my students and help my students with is what we call Launch Freefall. You've put all this time and effort into creating this program and everything around it, then you put it out there and it doesn't go the way you expected. The only expectation you should have is that it won't go the way you expected — that I can guarantee! So I'm desensitised to the ups and downs of the Launch Freefall. Everything is just always okay.
We do big launches today, $6 million launches with 150 affiliates and a team of 12. We're doing long days and 50 000 people are going through the launch. Things happen. Today I'm cool as a cucumber. It's just whatever, you know, it is what it is. I think that's just a beautiful place to find yourself — never being reactive or freaking out and emotionally all over the place. Because the way I look at a launch is it's like a Broadway stage performance. If you're too much in your head, or you're freaking out, you're affecting the performance and if you're affecting the performance, you're affecting sales. So every time I go into a launch I simply ask myself, what does my audience need from me today?
When you keep creating new goals, there's that excitement at every launch. Once you get past a place of is this possible? and can I do it? the only thing that really lasts, that will drive you over the long term, that isn't like a drug where the high wears off, is to find yourself in a place where the core motivator is service and impact. I know that sounds like a cliché. But when someone comes to you and says, I was on food stamps and now I just bought a home and my spouse has retired, because of what I've learned from you … well, that's a high that never wears off. It's something you can never get sick of. And that's all we do today, because I'm all about the long term. You'll always notice that about me — I don't follow trends, I don't get into what's hot and current, because trends come and go. To be in this industry as long as I have is rare and becoming rarer. Long-term people have a different strategy. That's kind of one of my secrets.
If you want to do something long term, then it has to be something that pulls you long term. Money won't do that. In fact, studies show that money is one of the weakest motivators. Once people have enough, then it doesn't drive them the same way. That's how it has been for me. We took our company from $3 million to $9.4 million in one year. I told people I was going to do that, and they laughed at me. And it was easy, it was so easy to do that. But I'll tell you this: nothing changed for me in terms of my lifestyle, my quality of life, my emotional state. Nothing at all changed there. It doesn't get any better.
As your skills grow, so will your rewards. One year I quadrupled my own revenue on my own — without any partnerships, and not working with Lewis — and took the business from about $280 000 to $1.2 million in revenue. That's a quantum leap in growth. People generally expect like 10 per cent a year, a little step. This is a rite of passage if you're a personal brand, influencer or course creator. People ask me, what was my secret? What did you do to quadruple your revenue in one year? Was it a new launch strategy? Was it more Facebook ads? It was one thing: I finally let go of the need to be liked.
So many people come into this industry and see everything through the lens of I hope they'll like me, I hope I say the right things, I hope I get engagement, I hope they give me compliments. People have no idea how little I care about others’ opinions of me. Even when someone says something nasty or bad, it's oil and water. It has zero effect on me.
How did you get to that level? I find that's what holds so many people back — when they go to launch and they're so worried about people's perceptions.
Well, for starters, you have to realise it requires a deep inquiry into your own life — you know, how much your life is being dimmed and dulled because of your need for other people's approval and good opinion. The reality is when you're born you're born alone. Even if you're a twin, or a quintuplet, you're born alone, it's down to you and your life. And when you die, you die alone. This is your life. No one else is experiencing your life but you. You are alive for only a very short time as it is, so really, day by day, you have a choice. Who or what am I living for? And when you realise that everyone is full of judgements and opinions, you recognise that the people who might be judging you today are just as afraid of being judged themselves. If you are afraid of being judged, or of what people will say or think, remember that they are just as afraid as you. And when you can come to that place on your own, you'll find it's a very, very powerful and dangerous place to be.
What did that shift in your thinking allow you to do with your marketing?
Everything I was — all of my messaging and content — had been filtered through the lens of Is this going to get them to like me? I would hesitate and water it down and double second-guess it. I was putting what I call a governor on it. A governor is a term used by auto mechanics for a device that throttles back the carburettor so it doesn't open full bore and burn out the engine. I was holding myself back from going pedal to the metal in my messaging and even my self-promotion. Oh, I don't want to come across as pushy, because then they won't like me. So I don't say anything. When none of that matters you open the floodgates and you're just unapologetically you.
Here's my thing. I don't care if you don't like it. If you like it, great — here's what to do. If you don't, that's great too. What that does is it encourages you to amplify your message, which becomes more powerful and reaches far more people.
So what shifted in the business? This is where people get all screwed up. And this is why I teach goal setting today, which is really fun because I have a whole different approach on goal setting. The goal should be to fulfil your purpose or dharma every day. Mine is to transform and empower change makers and entrepreneurs to be the best versions of themselves so they
