Goals

How To Master A Skill Without Paying A Single Penny

August 12, 2015 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

skill mastery

Which new skill have you been trying to learn lately? Whether you want to bake cookies the right way or get more Twitter followers, the web has made it possible for us to learn any skill that we want to learn.

With free information available on YouTube and the countless blogs on the web, we don’t have any excuses. The information is hidden in front of us, but with Google, finding the needle in the haystack isn’t as challenging as it was before.

While it is possible to learn a new skill quicker with the appropriate book or training course, it is possible to learn a new skill for free. I learned everything I know about social media without spending a penny. Now I primarily buy books and training courses about social media to expand upon my knowledge.

When I want to learn a new skill fast, and for the price of zero, I use this process:

Step #1: Research

The first step is where Google truly shines, and it also highlights the difference between our current era and life without the internet—a life that is foreign to me (how the heck did people go to the library every day in the winter for their information?).

When I want to learn something new, I will search the appropriate phrase into Google. Right now, I am mastering the art of podcasting free of charge. I will not buy a book or training course until I am already successful with my podcast and ready to expand upon my knowledge.

After I type in the search phrase (in this case, “podcasting tips”), I click on all of the links on the first two pages of Google. Then, I read the articles.

Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, you should also watch five YouTube videos related to the skill that you are trying to master. Several skills require visual learning in addition to reading articles on the web.

Step #2: Copy and Paste (Yes You Read That Right)

Who knew that advice we have always shunned can actually help us learn new skills? I have a document on my computer with numerous podcasting tips from the experts. However, I am never going to include the document in one of my books or put it on my blog. I especially wouldn’t claim ownership of the document. That would be plagiarism.

The reason why so many people forget what they learn on the web is because they look at the information once. Although some people unintentionally stumble across the same article twice, most people will only read an article once and only go back when they have forgotten what the article said (but remembered the value).

When I read articles on the web about podcasting, I copy and paste all of the best tips that I didn’t know before into the document. It currently has over 1,000 words and several pictures. Instead of going back to the articles I looked at earlier, I just go back to the document. All of the information is in one place.

I never copy and paste links to actual articles on the web since I don’t want to go back to them. However, I will copy and paste links to YouTube videos and identify the important times of the video down to the seconds.

Step #3: Apply

No matter how much knowledge you absorb, you won’t remember it forever (unless you have a perfect memory). You don’t want your knowledge of a particular skill to wither away. The copy and paste technique (yes, I just called it a technique) allows you to remember knowledge. Just look back at the document and you’ll remember.

However, just because you remember knowledge does not mean that knowledge is serving you. If I never started my own podcast show, then the knowledge I obtained about podcasting is meaningless. That knowledge won’t help me reach the next level.

The next step was start my own podcast. Just like anything we start, starting is initially scary, but with practice, we become comfortable. Comfort in your area of expertise allows you to expand upon your knowledge easily produce high value work.

Step #4: Write A Blog Post About The Skill

Guess what you’ll be seeing from me in the near future? That’s right, an in-depth blog post all about making a podcast become successful. I will use the document I mentioned earlier for inspiration just as people use articles on the web for inspiration for their blog posts (both approaches lead to the same result).

Obviously, the blog post won’t involve any copying and pasting. Instead, I am going to describe podcasting in my own words based on the information I have obtained and lessons I have learned from analyzing other podcasts.

You can’t say you have mastered a new skill until you can successfully describe the process of mastering that new skill in your own words. Then, at that point, you must consistently practice the skill.

Step #5: Shoot A Video About The Skill

The great thing about writing a blog post is that you get to pause and look for information to double-check your facts. If you were having a conversation with someone about your skill, those options don’t exist (they technically do exist, but how awkward would it be to have a long pause or say, “Let me just make sure with a Google search that what I said was right”).

You can put a skill’s mastery into your own words with a blog post, but shooting a comprehensive video about your skill puts you on another level. Now, you can effortlessly talk about your skill. Take a look at the most successful people in any industry and listen to their interviews. Nearly all of them are able to effortlessly talk about mastering a particular skill as if these people started learning the skill since they could walk.

It may take a few videos to effortlessly talk about the skill you are trying to master. Practice will allow you to become better.

In Conclusion

The web has eliminated our excuses by providing us with enough information to master any new skill. What skill are you trying to master? Do you think the web has enough information for anyone to master any skill? Sound off in the comments section below.

The 6 Step Strategy To Accomplishing Any Goal

August 10, 2015 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

How To Accomplish Goals

How often do you accomplish your goals? The answer varies from person to person, but each person agrees that they want to accomplish their goals. When asked why they don’t accomplish all of their goals, people often reference distractions from the outside world. However, we all have 24 hours in a day and our fair share of distractions. What allows some people to get their goals accomplished while other people in the same setting have difficulty?

The answer is their approach to goal achievement. The way you approach anything in life determines how efficiently you will perform that activity. A successful approach to goal achievement can be embodied in a six step strategy.

Step #1: Identify A Specific Goal

Step #1 may sound like an obvious step, but not everyone identifies a specific goal. Many people have a vague idea of what they want to accomplish, but vague is not specific. Instead of saying you want more blog traffic, ask yourself how many visitors you want to get by the end of the year. Do you want 10,000 blog visitors every month by the end of the year? How about 100,000?

While the specific goal you set for yourself must be realistic, the goals must also require a leap of faith out of the comfort zone. If you think you can possibly accomplish a goal by going all-in, then you most likely chose a realistic goal that will take you out of your comfort zone.

Step #2: Make It A Priority

When some people accomplish the first step for one goal, they like to perform the same step several times and create multiple goals. Although it is okay to have multiple goals, each goal takes up time. Think about it this way: 90% of the time, it is easier to accomplish one task in one day than it is to accomplish 20 tasks in one day.

If you have one primary goal that you know is more important than the other goals, then make that goal your priority. You can only have ONE priority, so choose wisely. That ONE priority must get at least 50% of your attention throughout the day.

Step #3: Plan Out Your Approach

The next step is to plan out your approach. How are you going to accomplish your priority, and how will you respond to the distractions around you? This summer could have easily been stressful for me because (as always) I wanted to do so much but knew I had a limited amount of time. I wanted to finish writing one book early so I could market it and create an advanced training course unlike anything I have launched before.

The stress quickly evaporated when I created a plan that brought to full clarity what I was trying to accomplish with my two products. I also created a list of all of the things that distracted me from my main priorities (they were not my priorities at the same time. When I finished the book, I moved onto the training course). Once I created the list, I devised several solutions which made it possible for me to achieve my goals in the summer.

Planning out my approach saved me from stress because I removed the fog around me. I discovered how I would accomplish my priorities by the end of the summer. The days of guessing were over.

Step #4: Implement That Plan

Step #4 also sounds like an obvious step, but the ease of implementation depends on what your plan is. If your plan is highly detailed, then you have a better idea of what you must do every day. It took me almost an hour to craft my plan for the summer, and the plan barely took up an entire page in my notebook. Regardless, I gained more clarity than ever before which made implementing the plan easier.

Step #5: Make Changes Along The Way

Just because you set a course of action for yourself does not mean you can’t digress from that course of action. If you find a better opportunity or think of a better product idea, it is entirely okay to shift your focus or make some room for other things in your plan.

However, I heed one warning. Don’t get attracted to shiny objects. It is easy to look at a new trend and think, “Well, if I get involved in that trend and really work on it, then sure enough I am going to make it big.” The problem with this thinking is that most people don’t make it big by following one trend. Even worse, this thinking results in trend chasers—people who constantly go back and forth between trends without establishing an authority on any niche.

It is important to make changes along the way, but you must also ask yourself how these changes affect you, your plan, and your brand.

Step #6: Keep Your Eyes On The Prize As You Do The Work

I always keep my eyes on the main prize. When I wrote my book, I always thought about it reaching the hands/tablets of thousands of people around the world. When I did videos for my training course, I always thought about it becoming a massive success.

Why does keeping your eyes on the main prize help you accomplish your plan? The vision gives you more motivation and allows you to realize what you are chasing after. Each time you implement a part of your plan, you are getting closer to that big prize. Let the joy of obtaining the big prize empower you as you accomplish your goals.

In Conclusion

Accomplishing your goals requires a plan and an effective strategy. Once your accomplish your goals with a plan and an effective strategy, replicate the entire process for your future goals so goal achievement becomes a habit.

Which steps of goal achievement have you been implementing? Which steps do you plan on making a part of your goal achievement? Which step do you think is the most important? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The 3 Steps To Accomplishing Any Goal

September 12, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Goals

One of the most important traits of successful people in the ability to accomplish goals. Unfortunately, goal accomplishment is also a trait that most people lack. For most people, expectations get created, but they never get reached. The reason many people do not accomplish their goals is because they never take the time to set themselves up for success.

Before doing anything else, these people need to identify their goals. That is the first step, and believe it or not, it is a step that many people do not think about, or they do it wrong. First off, your goals need to be clear. If you want to make more money online, you can make $0.05 and have a fulfilled goal. Instead, be specific. How much money do you want to make, and when do you want to achieve this goal?

After that, you need to create the framework you will use to accomplish the goal. This second step is all about planning. You need to identify what days you are going to work on your goals as well as what you will do on those days.

The third and final step, by far the most important, is implementation. Without applying the third step, then the other first two steps were in vain. If you create a plan but never implement it, then what really was the point?

By accomplishing goals with this three step formula, you will increase the likelihood of you accomplishing your goals. What are your thoughts on the list, and how do you do with accomplishing your own goals? Please share your thoughts below.

Working Smarter and Faster VS Working Harder

August 20, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Work Smarter

Most people work hard. They put in all of their dedication into something and hope for the best. These people constantly do the same things every day and never bother to explore out of the norm.

Few people work smarter and faster. These people are able to get the same tasks done every day. Working hard is manually scheduling 80 tweets with HootSuite. Working smarter and faster is getting HootSuite Pro and scheduling 80 tweets with just 4 clicks with HootSuite’s bulk scheduler.

It’s great to work hard because there is dedication involved, but how can you get the same result in less time? Working smarter and faster will allow you to find more things to work hard at and ultimately be more productive.

The First Step To Accomplishing Your Biggest Dreams

August 17, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Dream Big

Starting is the first step. It’s the one we often ignore, but at the same time, it is the most important step. I could have written a longer blog post on why starting is the first step, but leaving everyone with the simple message of starting is more powerful.

Your thoughts, ideas, and dreams only happen when you take the leap and decide to start. What are you waiting for?

16 Ways To Build A Big Social Media Audience From A 16 Year Old

August 16, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Growing a social media audience and getting the best out of that audience is so easy that a 16 year old can do it (that would be me). In a span of less than 3 years, I have been able to get over 100,000 Twitter followers, over 14,000 Pinterest followers, over 10,000 Vine followers, and I’m working on Instagram and Facebook. My audiences continue to grow as the days go by, but many people wonder how I was able to get to this point. I decided to come up with 16 different methods you can use to build your social media audience (that has nothing to do with my age. That just happened to be the number I pulled out of my head).

Focus most of your time on one social network. If you master one of the social networks and sort of know the other ones, you are going to do very well with the social network that you successfully mastered. I decided to master Twitter because it is a social network of simplicity, and now that I know Twitter Domination by heart, I have been able to continue dominating Twitter while growing my presence on other social networks.
Use the big player social networks. Even if you have no plans on using a Facebook or YouTube account, create them. When you master one of the social networks, you need to learn how to master a second social network. It’s the whole idea of being bilingual is better than only knowing one language while being trilingual is way better than being bilingual. Creating the accounts now and tinkering around with them will allow you to be prepared to master them later.
Post on them all often. It is important to post on all of your social networks at least once every week. That indicates to all of your audiences that you are active, and being active is one of the crucial steps towards allowing your content to spread on those social networks.
Interact with your audience. Interacting with your audience will allow you to build stronger connections with the people in your audience. You want to be well acquainted with as many people in your social media audiences as possible. My recommendation is to look at your notifications three times each day to see if you can interact with any of your followers.
Post motivational quotes. No matter what niche you are in, motivational quotes hands down never fail at increasing engagement. Motivational tweets are more likely to get retweeted and motivational pins are more likely to get repinned.
Post articles on your social networks. Posting articles is a great way to provide informative content that your followers would enjoy.
Post valuable content. Valuable content is the kind of content that your targeted followers would like. You can’t satisfy everyone with your social media strategy (you can’t even do that in life. Shocker!) so it is more important for you to focus on satisfying your targeted audience.
Post pictures. Social media posts with pictures get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. We are a visual generation that needs to see everything in pictures. That’s why movies are more popular than books.
Grow your presence on all of your social networks. On the social network you are trying to master, you need to build a powerful presence. However, you should also be growing a bigger presence on your other social networks. Even if you are only gaining five followers every week on a social network you are not focusing on, that is still growing.
Find patterns. Some rules for one social network will apply to another social network. That means if you become successful at one social network, it becomes easier to be successful at other social networks. Here are some of the universal laws of all social networks that I was able to find.
Be an expert in your niche. People follow the experts, not the people who have no idea what they are talking about. Telling people that you are an expert in your bio is a great start, but you need to prove to people that you are an expert with valuable social media posts and a professional picture.
Be humorous. Whenever you can, mix in some humor with your other social media posts. There are numerous examples of content going viral because it was humorous.
Be creative. If your content is creative, then it will gather attention. Creative content is the type of content that the average person could not think of. There is a difference between valuable content and creative content, but if you mix the two together into one social media post, your content is going to spread faster.
Host a giveaway. Giveaways allow you to easily bring in more followers. Some people will follow you just for the giveaway. The only problem associated with the giveaway is that once the giveaway ends, many people unfollow the host of the giveaway. Esurance is a brilliant example of this. If you want people to continue following you after the giveaway, tell everyone that you will be hosting another giveaway three months later.
Interconnect your social networks together. That does not mean connecting your Twitter and Facebook accounts together so all of your tweets end up on Facebook. Linking those two accounts together is not even a good idea to begin with. I am talking about promoting each of your social networks and their posts on your other social networks. If you have a YouTube video, promote it on Facebook. In your YouTube video’s description, have a link to your Facebook Page. Here’s a more in depth analysis of how this strategy works.
Be patient. Don’t you wish certain things could happen faster? Unfortunately, when it comes to growing a social media audience, fast is not a part of the vocabulary. You are not going to get 100,000 followers in one day. You will most likely reach that milestone years after you create the social media account. However, by sticking with it and learning new techniques along the way, you will be able to dramatically grow your following.

Those are the 16 ways to grow your social media audience. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional methods on growing a social media audience? Please share your thoughts and advice below.