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E104: The Ultimate Guide For Impatient Entrepreneurs Hungry For Success With Pia Silva

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Pia Silva is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author. As a weekly Forbes contributor who writes about branding for small businesses, she has spoken at a host of entrepreneurial organizations including the Million Dollar Women Summit and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses.

 

Quotes To Remember:

“Put yourself into a category of ONE.”

“I’m trying to avoid working with anyone who isn’t gonna be a perfect client.”

“Start saying ‘no’ to everyone outside your needs.”
“If you just own your process, that’s the easiest way to say ‘no’ to everybody else.”

“Every new client you work with has the potential to give you more experience in your area of expertise.”

“Every client has the potential to either add or subtract from that big picture goal.”

“As long you’re very clear on the steps needed to get there, you can get any work-life balance you want.”

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to delegate tasks to your employees
  • How to charge a premium price
  • Selling vs. Anti-Selling Mindsets
  • How to say “no” to clients
  • Balancing clients, growing your brand and others
  • Achieving work-life balance

 

Key Links From The Show:

Pia’s Site

Badass Your Brand BONUS!

 

Recommended Books:

Badass Your Brand by Pia Silva

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

 

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

Please consider supporting Breakthrough Success on Patreon. I publish five episodes per week which I carefully prepare for, and I choose to not run ads in my podcast to enhance the listener experience.

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

How To Be An Entrepreneur While Still In College

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As an entrepreneur on the college schedule, I often get questions about how I manage my time. How do I go to classes, do homework, run, and run a business while keeping everything together.

I’m going to be very honest. You need to make sacrifices, but not as many as you think. You will need to cut back on TV and other activities. No matter how good the business school is, you’ll need to self-educate yourself how to become a successful entrepreneur.

You’ll need to read more books, listen to more audiobooks and podcast episodes, and if you watch videos, they need to be educational.

Yes, it’s a big change, but you don’t need to sacrifice your social life. I play pool for several hours each week. I run which serves as fitness and interacting with my teammates. I don’t head over to the library and only emerge when there’s five minutes until the next class.

In fact, I never go to the library (Note: if you dorm, go to the library. Instead of the library, I go home after my classes and commit hours of that time towards my work. If you dorm, you don’t have that option).

 

The Weekend Is Your Treasure

Some college students party every weekend. A day spent partying is two days wasted. One day for the party and the other day for the recovery.

The college entrepreneurs who take their work seriously don’t have time for that. Weekends present hours of uninterrupted time for work. Sure, there may be some homework in between, but the weekends are your time.

Since you’ll have to do it when you graduate, you might as well use this time now to move your business forward. If you’re reading this and are still in college, don’t wait until you get out. About half of the people who remark on my productivity also wish they were doing the same things when they were my age.

 

Team Up For Classes

If you skip all of your classes to pursue entrepreneurship, you might as well drop out. College is very expensive, and you either choose one or do both.

To make the workload easier, quickly make a new friend in each class you’re in. Ideally, get friendly with people who are in multiple classes.

 

 

That way, when you need help with the homework or want to know if there was homework, you can ask someone who will help you. When the test comes, you have a study partner.

Two heads are better than one, and it will cut down the workload for you and your friend. If you know no one in the class, get friendly with at least one person. That person may know other people in the class.

 

Have The Long-Term Vision

This is the big dream that keeps you up at night. When you finally nod off, you’re dreaming about this big dream.

Some people set long-term vision goals of becoming a millionaire, being a bestselling author, and impacting many people in a big way. What are your goals for five years, 10 years, and beyond?

Get specific. Don’t say you want to be a millionaire. Say that you want $1,145,284.53 in your savings account in five years. The more specific, the better.

 

Set Micro Visions Along The Way

Long-term visions aren’t guarantees. They don’t magically happen a few years out of college. Micro visions get you clear on the work you need to do first.

Micro visions allow you to lay out what you need to do this week and month to achieve your annual objectives. Just like anyone else, I set New Year’s resolutions. I get most of them accomplished because I set micro visions that I use as stepping stones towards my resolutions.

If I want to get 150,000 Twitter followers in one year, then in the first month, I want to gain at least 15,000 followers. I know at that rate, I’ll surpass my goal. I’d rather start ahead than behind because that gives me a better chance of finishing ahead.

Micro visions get you clear on the actions you can take now on your way towards long-term goals. All that’s left at this point is to do the work.

 

Self-Educate

I briefly mentioned it before, but I need to mention it again. You don’t need to read 10-30 books every month like I do. However, you need to self-educate yourself whether it be through written content, audio, or videos.

One power tip for reading books is that once you’ve read enough books, you need to choose five books that you’ll read every day. You won’t read these books from cover to cover. Rather, you’ll read different sections of each book even if you just read 2-3 pages in each book.

Daily immersion in the books that had the biggest impact on you will keep you in the right frame of mind. I read five books for two minutes each to start my morning. It’s a great way to kickstart my mindset.

 

A Few Other Things

Some people need straight As. While I intentionally aim higher because that will boost my GPA, I just need straight Bs to maintain my desired 3.00 GPA. I typically end up with a 3.20–3.30 GPA every semester. You should aim for a respectable GPA, but you don’t need a 4.0 especially when you’re putting in the extra work as an entrepreneur.

Find creative ways to make ordinary time productive. Daymond John meets with people when he eats. While driving, you can create a podcast episode or listen to an audiobook. Think of how you can turn any moment into productive time.

Don’t let your battery drop to zero. If you feel like you’re running on fumes, you won’t be running for long. No, Red Bull is not the answer. Don’t trick yourself or your body.

 

In Conclusion

Chances are if you made it to the end, you either want to be a college entrepreneur or tell a college student about this. Maybe you’re a professor who wants to share these teachings with your students.

This is my basic ideology for being a college entrepreneur. It’s how I get my homework and business work done.

What were your thoughts on my approach to being a college entrepreneur? Do you have any tips for college students who want to pursue the entrepreneurial bug? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

E103: Fearvana Lets You Turn Fears Into Health, Wealth, and Happiness With Akshay Nanavati

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Akshay Nanavati is a Marine veteran, speaker, author, adventurer, and entrepreneur dedicated to helping others turn their fear into their greatest ally so they can accomplish their biggest goals and dreams. He is also the author of Fearvana: The Revolutionary Science of How To Turn Fear Into Health, Wealth, and Happiness which received much praise including from the Dalai Lama who said the book inspires us to look beyond our own agonizing experiences and find the positive side of our fears.  

 

Quotes To Remember:

“Everything worthwhile was a result of stress, fear and anxiety.”

“It’s the demonization of the emotions that cause us more problems, not the emotions themselves.”

“Having a strong enough why is essential.”

“You need fear to grow. You need risk to advance, to evolve into something new. And with risk comes fear.”

“Be with the fear. Be present to it. Acknowledge it. Accept that it’s there.”

“The greatest things in life are challenging.”

“Progress is not the elimination of new problems, it’s the creation of new problems.”

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to get out of problematic situations
  • Learn how to use fear, stress, and anxiety to your advantage
  • Applying fearvana to achieve your goals
  • How to find bliss as you utilize the fearvana concept
  • Jumping over barriers to achieving your goals
  • How to not let instant gratification derail you from your bigger goals

 

Key Links From The Show:

Akshay’s Site

Todoist

 

Recommended Books:

Fearvana: The Revolutionary Science of How To Turn Fear Into Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Akshay Nanavati

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Zero to One by Peter Thiel

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by K. Anders Ericsson

The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal

 

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

Please consider supporting Breakthrough Success on Patreon. I publish five episodes per week which I carefully prepare for, and I choose to not run ads in my podcast to enhance the listener experience.

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

E100: Podcasting Is The Greatest Opportunity For Growing Your Audience With Dan Franks

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[podcast src=”https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6268170/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/0d9cf2/” height=”90″ width=”100%” placement=”top” theme=”custom”]Dan Franks is a CPA, entrepreneur, and podcaster. He’s been heavily involved in the podcast space since 2013. He started Podcast Movement, the world’s largest conference for podcasters, organized the first ever podcaster conference at sea, and even co-hosted two podcasts of his own.

 

Quotes To Remember:

“That last push is what made it a success.”

“It’s not wrong to let people know what is going on.”

“Ending a podcast is not the end of the world.”

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to be a solution to a problem
  • Ways to get more podcast listeners
  • Utilizing Reddit and Facebook for your podcast
  • Learn how to increase your revenue
  • Lone hosting vs. Co-hosting a podcast

 

Key Links From The Show:

Dan’s Site

Entrepreneur Showdown with Dan Franks and Joe Cassandra

Reddit

Patreon

 

Recommended Books:

The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson

Productivity Planner by Intelligent Change

Why I Wake Up Before 5 am

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If most people are up a little after 5 am, you wonder why they went to bed so late. The moon is out and it still takes several hours for the sun to rise.

A little more than a month ago, I decided to embrace this concept and see what would happen. Would I crash later in the day? Would I get anything accomplished or just struggle to come up with ideas? Would I boost my productivity?

I now know the answers to all of those questions. I recommend everyone give this a try at least once to see how it affects them, but I’ll share what I learned.

Long Bookend

When I’m with my family and friends, I want to be as attentive to them as possible. However, I also have to get a massive amount of work done each day. If I feel like the day is too easy, I’ll add more work to it to make it more difficult.

Yes, I do take some days off each month, but when I’m working, I’m laser focused.

The best time to work is during the bookends of the day. That means before everyone’s awake or after everyone else has called it a day. Some people can stay productive during both bookends in the same day. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t work.

Instead of being productive during both bookends, I add a lot of time to the initial bookend so I can get to bed early.

I had no problem with making the shift because I was getting up at 5:30 am beforehand. However, I didn’t do any work during this time. I ate food and got ready for a run.

For some people, it’s a bigger shift than others, but you can wake up 15-30 minutes earlier each day to ease into it.

No Weight

After my first year of college, I noticed two things:

  1. More time than high school
  2. After getting home, I didn’t feel like doing much work. The later it got, the more I wanted to kick back and relax.

#1 doesn’t matter for this example but #2 is important. No matter how much you love your work, there are some days when you just feel fried. For me, that was happening too often since I had just finished my last classes of the day.

At that point, my willpower is lower and it’s a greater fight to keep working. I initially got around this issue by scheduling all of my podcast interviews at this time. I scheduled interviews for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I have the most free time on those days and didn’t see myself doing as much work when I got home.

When you tell someone you’ll meet with them at a specific time, you’re accountable. It forces me to interview guests for the show and do what I love. After the interviews, I would just kick back and relax.

That doesn’t happen anymore. When I wrap up my interviews, there are only two possible destinations:

  • The kitchen—before 7 pm
  • My bed—7 pm or later

If I eat anything, I’ll read for an hour so I have time to digest and stay away from the blue light of my devices. I set my alarm on my iPhone several hours in advance.

Now here’s the important thing to get from all of that. I’m no longer fighting to be productive. After interviews and classes, I’m not fighting to get that extra minute. That’s when my day is over. Instead of kicking back and relaxing, I’m snoozing until 5 am or earlier. Someday I want to wake up at 2 am and see how that works.

When I wake up as early as I do, there’s no fight to be productive. I’m just productive. The day hasn’t started yet. My willpower is refreshed and ready to roll.

My productivity craters in the evening, so I skip the evening and go right to the very early morning. Cock-a-doodle-doo.

I Don’t Need To Strengthen My Willpower

I’m not here to boast that my willpower is perfect. During my first year of college, I had to summon up quite the willpower to get my work done after a string of classes.

I think too many people are fixated on strengthening their willpower. They want to fight for that extra minute even though their body tells them, “Go to bed.”

I may look like someone with a lot of willpower because of all of the work I produce. The love for my work is there, but I don’t rely on my willpower to get me through the day.

Willpower is inconsistent and based on uncontrollable events. If you get a bad break in the middle of the day, you may let that bad break ruin the rest of your day. Anyone can have a strong willpower when everything goes their way.

It’s more difficult to maintain the willpower when bad things happen.

While all of this is true, it leads to the incorrect conclusion that we need to strengthen our willpowers to boost our productivity. The conclusion is understanding the ebbs and flows of willpower.

When you wake up, your willpower is at its peak. Nothing crazy has happened yet, and you may feel great as you think about what you’ll be doing. If I’m working and everyone else is asleep, I can’t hear about anything bad happening, and nothing bad will happen to me.

Anytime I’m writing a blog post at 5:15 am, my bliss is at its peak. I expand that peak by waking up earlier. I know there is a chance of something going wrong and sinking my willpower by the end of the day.

I hope for the best, but the worst can happen. I’d rather try to recover and then go to sleep than try to recover, fight for some extra minutes (or hours), and then go to sleep.

In Conclusion

Every day, I’m up well before the sun shines. I’m pursuing the work I love at the start of the day. This sets a positive tone for the rest of the day where I can actively pursue my work.

As the day gets later and my willpower is waning, I don’t need to worry as much as I did before. That just means I can sleep earlier and then wake up earlier.

I’m continuing to refine my process, but I’ll be waking up this early for a long time. What are your thoughts on waking up super early in the day? Do you have any tactics for getting into a deeper sleep or waking up at this time of day? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

 

3 Reasons Your Blog Isn’t As Successful As You’d Like

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The only blog growth stories we hear are the ones where the blogger went from zero visitors to over 100,000 visitors within a timeframe. These success stories dominate what we read, but there are more stories of bloggers not growing their audiences and feeling stuck.

You don’t hear much about these stories because they’re not on Page 1 of Google’s search results.

You might be in that situation right now. You’re producing valuable content but don’t see the traffic returns you’re hoping for.

The success of any content brand is based on your ability to drive traffic and conversions. All of the tactics for growing your content brand go back to these two principles.

So why do most blogs struggle? Why do most people feel stuck and not like they’re hitting their traffic goals. In this blog post, you’ll learn three key reasons this is the case.

 

#1: Not Enough Content Marketing

Most people follow what Brian Dean refers to as a “Publish and Pray” approach. These people create great content, put it on the web, and that’s it. At the most, a random tweet promotes the new piece of content.

If we want people to take the time to engage with our content, then we must take the time to effectively share that piece of content with our audiences. Before you publish your next blog post, plan out how you’ll promote it.

List all of your social networks on a piece of paper and how often you’ll promote the blog post when it goes live. One picture on Instagram, four tweets, one Facebook post, and one Pinterest pin are some of the options. And don’t forget about your email list.

When you come out with a new piece of content, approach from all touch points. However, the way you promote the content when you publish has the same importance as the post-publish plan.

How do you promote a blog post you wrote three months ago? For me, I frequently tweet my older content and pin it on Pinterest. Right now, those are my two major social networks for promoting evergreen content.

However, I also make it a point to link to my older content in my newer content. When my new content racks up visitors from all of the promotion I’m doing, some of those visitors will trickle to the older blog post that I mention in the newer blog post.

A lack of content marketing is often the main reason why content creators don’t get the traffic numbers they’re aiming for.

 

#2: You Don’t Leverage In-Content Relationship Building

While this is technically content marketing, it deserves it’s own section. That’s how important in-content relationship building is.

This is more than just responding to your visitors’ comments. This is mentioning people in your content and letting them know that you mentioned them.

This one strategy alone is amazing for building relationships, and some of these people may decide to share your content.

Even if they don’t share, they read your content and know who you are. Have a lot of relationships like that, and a lot of surprising opportunities and visibility can come your way in the long-term.

Force yourself to mention at least three people in each blog post you write. That includes outbound links as you can tell someone that you mentioned their content within your content.

When I publish a blog post, part of the marketing is reaching out to all of the people I mentioned. I’ve formed healthy relationships from this one tactic. The results have included social shares and guest appearances on my podcast.

Relationships are key in any niche you’re in. The most connected people in your niche are still looking for ways to get more connected and meet more people. In-Content Relationship Building allows you to do that.

 

#3: You’re Not Putting In Enough Time

What you put in determines what you get out. For some people, it’s not putting in enough time in the right areas.

I recently learned that when people say they never have enough time, that just means they aren’t using enough of their current time properly. If I go for a long stretch without doing any work (i.e. over an hour), I will also feel like I don’t have enough time in a day to get everything done.

You have enough time. The question is how are you using your time. Are you using at least an hour of your day to promote your content? Are you focusing on the right tasks or focusing on necessary but small impact tasks that can be delegated?

If you are not achieving the results you want, it always goes back to how you are using your time. Even if you think you’re using every minute to the best of its ability, you’re doing something wrong if you’re not achieving the results you want to achieve.

The first two tactics hold true for most people, but sometimes we need to take a deeper look at our work ethics and everything we do to find the answers we seek.

 

In Conclusion

Just because you may not be hitting your goals now doesn’t mean the script always has to read that way. Taking a deeper look at what you’re doing and continuing to self-educate yourself will help you in any area.

For blog traffic specifically, it comes down to consistently creating high value content and then promoting that content to your audience. Once you figure out what works best for you, it all comes down to how much time and effort you put in towards your goals.

Chances are you put in time and effort already, but even if you feel like you’re putting in a lot, chances are you need to put in even more.

What are your thoughts on these reasons most bloggers feel stuck? Do you have any tactics for overcoming stagnant traffic growth? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.