www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtc2rIBtVvA

Here’s a glimpse at part of my list…

Personal Accomplishments:

• 2 incredible kids (Zak & Zoe)
• Freedom to work at home to see the kids grow up, take them to school any day or go on their field trips or special events without worrying about it.
• Married to an encouraging, supportive and flexible wife. (Thanks Missy!)
• Millionaire before the age of 31
• “Officially” a pro beach volleyball player

Impact:

• Helped raise over $500,000.00 for Virgin Unite to start a Young Entrepreneurship program in the U.S.
• Directly donated another $500,000.00+ to charities including Caring House Foundation, Tony Hawk Foundation, Village Enterprise Fund, etc.
• Helped thousands of people get their own Internet business and improve their lives and financial situation.

Adventure:

• #144 to go into Space with Virgin Galactic
• Ran with the Bulls in Spain
• Baja racing 3x
• PlayersRun Road Rally dressed as Elvis
• HALO Skydive
• Scuba diving between tectonic plates in Iceland
• Celebrity hockey game with NHL Pros and Gordie Howe
• Rafting the Gauley River
• Bungee 440 feet in New Zealand
• Drove a Lambo 200mph+ (in a green speedo)

Business Accomplishments:

• “Real” book ‘Moonlighting on the Internet’ published by Entrepreneur Press in 3^rd printing
• Sold out the Underground® Seminar weeks early (for the last 5 years)
• Have over 5 different products that have eclipsed $1,000,000 in gross sales.
• Run two sold-out, high-level MasterMind groups
• Spent time with and interviewed Sir Richard Branson, Jesse James, Tony Hawk, John Paul DeJoria, Frank McKinney, Chip Conley, Carl Banks, etc.
• Appeared or featured in INC, Business 2.0, Fox Business News, Portfolio.com, TIME, Entrepreneur, Outside’s GO magazine, American Way, TechCrunch,  USA Today, Denver Business Journal, Boston Globe, Millionaire Blue Prints, Forbes.com, LA Times, Financial Times, Portfolio.com, etc.
• Set the biggest goal of my life of getting 1,000,000 young entrepreneurs (aged 13-23) to start their own businesses by 2020.

Your Own List

Side note: I would strongly suggest you compile your own “Best of the decade” list of how far you’ve come. I’ve also been a big fan of using the power of gratitude but I heard this another way from Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach. He has a theory of people being disappointed because they cannot reach their “ideal”.

Dan gives the example of the horizon. We all know it’s silly to think we can ever reach the horizon because it keeps moving as we move closer to it. Same with an “ideal”. We feel despondent and maybe even depressed in our greatest victories if we attempt to measure them up to our ultimate ideals. But the people who are happiest are the ones of take stock of where they are today (Point B) than when they started (Point A). And we can all look back and gain that confidence and awe of how far we’ve come.

Okay fair warning, this is going to be quite a long post but I promise it’ll be filled with some serious insights for you. (In fact, I think there will be so many prominent and buried lessons here that I’m willing to put up a little bit of a prize for the best ‘lesson detectives’ – more details at the end of the post.)

To set the stage, Jan 1, 2000 when this decade started, I was in a 1-bedroom apartment and was engaged to Missy. I didn’t have a website and I barely had an email address.

That same month was when I got an idea at 3 o’clock in the morning and woke Missy up to tell her about InstantSalesLetters.com. (She wasn’t happy!) And then I did what most people probably wouldn’t: I hopped out of bed, registered the domain and got to work on it. By February 2000, with about $1,500 invested, I made my first $29.95 sale. It was one of the most amazing feelings in the world to take an idea and have it turn into cash. And the sales kept coming – about $1,800 the first month…then $3,400…then approx. $7,800.00 and roughly $9,400.00 the fourth month out of the gate. I was on track to hit six-figures with my very first site – and that’s when things really started exploding.

As people started hearing about my success, I was invited to speak at my first Online marketing conference and I started helping others take their interests, passions, hobbies, etc. and create online oil wells.

The unusual way to ‘stumble’ onto success…

There’s a profound theory I heard from R. Buckminster Fuller that says your true success is found perpendicular along the path to your original perceived goal.  Instant Sales Letters is a perfect example because my original end goal was to sell it for $500k to Stamps.com or someone like that. But on my way to building up that site – I had so many people ask me how I started making money so quickly that I began teaching. And that teaching became part of my “accidental” success path for the last 8 years, opening up one door after another. I would never have got on that track unless I was moving towards the original goal.  And it’s the same thing today – the next chapter in my life is with my Maverick Business Adventures® and Maverick Business Insider companies – which wouldn’t have been formed without the contacts, connections and success delivered from my Internet business.

Starting with the Fundamentals

It’s easy to look back and see my somewhat meteoric rise with Instant Sales Letters and laud it as being an “overnight success”. Not exactly true. Before this decade started I had been preparing and studying direct response fundamentals, inner success laws and psychology.

One of my biggest mentors is Earl Nightingale. He passed away several years ago but you can and need to get everything he recorded at Nightingale.com.  He has a program called “Lead The Field” and “The Strangest Secret”. I learned from Earl Nightingale that if you want to be an expert, you spend an hour a day reading or studying on whatever subject that you’re interested in for 3 years. Or if you want to world-class expert you ready or study for 1-hour a day for 5 years.

So I said, “Well, what would happen if I read for two or three hours a day?”

I just started learning as much as I possibly could around these subjects.  Let’s cover a few here since I really believe the fundamentals never change.

When I first really started this blog I created a series of posts around the 9 ‘inner secrets’ to success. Those are worth re-visiting:

Inner Success Secret #1: Cheerful Expectancy

Inner Success Secret #2: Set your Plan

Inner Success Secret #3: Do One Proactive Thing a Day

Inner Success Secret #4: Deliver Exceptional Value

Inner Success Secret #5: Build on Your Successes

Inner Success Secret #6: Decision

Inner Success Secret #7: Continual Learning

Inner Success Secret #8: Gratitude

Inner Success Secret #9: Giving

Direct response

I would have to say figuring out and learning about direct response has been one of the biggest paradigm shifts for me. Since we’re heading down memory lane, I have to take the story back well beyond this decade to the bi-centennial.

My family is from Russia and immigrated to the U.S. in 1976. My Dad came over with $256 in his pocket for me, my Mom and my Grandmother. Just a year and half later, my Dad started his own company repairing (and then later selling) medical equipment.

I grew up working in the business starting with telemarketing latex gloves at age 14, and then even selling medical equipment to docs in person at age 16 when I got my license. At the time, I thought this totally sucked! My friends were living at the beach having a great time and I was spending my summers pedaling X-ray film and EKG machines. You can definitely look back and see significant turning points in your life, and one of my mine came when a doctor client of mine, Dr. Nathan Wei, gave me a Jay Abraham tape that turned on “the lights” about direct response marketing. I was about 18 or 19 at the time and I basically devoured it.

I loved the fact that I didn’t have to deal with rejection anymore in person and the incredible leverage of ‘knocking’ on tends of thousands of doors and only speaking to interested people. It was endlessly fascinating to me to realize you could write something in an ad or letter (now a website) and have people open up their wallets or raise their hands.

From Jay Abraham I learned to think broadly about how to leverage businesses. From there I found Ted Nicholas. Ted Nicholas is a true gentleman in the direct response world and I found his teachings just as he was transitioning out of his newsletter. I ended up buying all the back issues and previous products. (Actually I remember about 1 or 2 years later writing a note to Ted about our shared immigrant background and how much his teachings had meant to me – Ted responded back to me personally from Switzerland.)

At the same time I was studying Ted, I got a direct mail piece from some guy named “Dan Kennedy”. Dan truly changed my life. He is probably one of 3 people I credit with helping me achieve financial independence at such a young age. I went on to pay a small fortune for his manuals, books, audios, seminars and personal guidance.

I continued learning from direct marketing and copywriting masters who came before me; people like Gary Halbert, John Caples, David Ogilvy, Bob Stone and Joe Sugarman. (BTW – Joe is our business icon guest for the next Maverick Baja adventure.) From there I might find a random reference to someone in a manual or book and immediately look them up, which lead to more influences and original sources. I loved digging through the past to the beginning of mail order since those guys had to truly persuade people without the benefit of instant ordering via phone, fax, online, etc. Their customers had to slog to the post office to place their order. Greats like Claude Hopkins, John E. Kennedy and Maxwell Sackheim. And then I went back even further to find obscure (and extremely rare texts) like “Printed Salesmanship” by Robert Ruxton.

Obviously there is a long history of direct response, but if you boil it all down it comes to:

• An offer (ideally with a deadline)
• A way to respond/call to action (fax, phone, online, etc)
• Measurement of response

A basic example is one I told to a dentist friend of mine. I explained to him a little bit about direct response marketing while playing volleyball together in Turks & Caicos. I told him to mail his patients with an offer; in his case it was raw materials for crowns. The cost had gone up significantly and he would have to raise his price. Because he valued his patients he would give them a window to get any crowns or dental work done at the old price until X date. They had to bring the letter in to get the special. That’s it, pretty basic. And that worked spectacularly, creating his best month ever.

With the web – nearly everything can be measured and quick test results achieved. That’s part of what makes this one of the most incredible times to be around. I definitely believe a true direct response fundamental is a key to understanding the Web. I got my chops by writing ads for my dad’s business, attempting to sell medical equipment that we only previously sold face-to-face and toes-to-toes. My dad would look at the ads I created and say, “Who’s going to read all that?” I had to persuade him to let me try it and see what happened. Quite frankly, it was a revolution in the way we could sell because we had now expanded our reach nation-wide and I only spoke to doctors who were extremely interested in a product (for a demo) or who actually whipped out their credit cards to buy. Here’s one of my original ads:

Understanding Marketing Psychology

And then the next fundamental I stress deals with psychology. I was a marketing major and got my B.S. from the University of Maryland (a top 25 business school when I graduated), but I always say I didn’t learn much in college except partying. All my real marketing insights and knowledge came from self-study and trying things myself. In fact, if I had to do it all over again I probably would be a psychology major. To me, it’s fascinating what motivates people to take action or buy.

One of my first exposures to how powerful this could be was a book written by a professor at Arizona State University, Dr. Robert Cialdini. His book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” is definitely a top 10 book for me. I’ve read this book at least 9 times and continue to find amazing insights each time I do. Joe Sugarman also has a great book on psychology called “Triggers” where he has a slightly different take.

I uploaded a special presentation for you on the 11 Hidden Psychological Hot Buttons to Create Maximum Sales for you. (Please use this material and information ethically!)

The final thing I’ll mention about fundamentals came after meeting one of my entrepreneurial heroes, Sir Richard Branson. I was so inspired that on the plane ride home I started jotting down a list of “rules” and got to 34. I called it “34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs” and it received a ton of excitement. And then it became been the catalyst for a lot of things, including a print book by the same title.

“Maverick Entrepreneurial Philosophy” of Make More, Have More Fun and Give More!

I realized this blog post was going to be a really, really long post so I’m breaking this up into several days – plus a lot of people suggested I put into a PDF. So good news – at the end of this series, I’ll bundle it all up into a neat little PDF with a bow. (Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or provide your email address in the upper right-hand corner to be notified when each new section is up on the blog.)

* Update: We just completed the PDF of all 5 parts. Download it here *

Part 2 will start where a lot of people believe they need the most help in these interconnecting circles… Make More

Now even if you don’t celebrate “The 4th of July” like we do in the U.S., this is still  the perfect chance to think about your independence. And for just that reason, you’ve got to check out this new video I just released…

‘7 Keys to Achieving Your Personal Freedom as a Maverick Entrepreneur”

This brand spanking new video is all about the 7 essential keys to getting to your Independence Day (and beyond). I’ve used these 7 principals to create financial freedom. Plus, as an added bonus there’s some serious behind-the-scenes footage inside my house that nearly nobody else has ever seen. Let me know what you think by coming back here and posting a comment.

Plus on the same page you can see the finalists in last weeks contest all about ‘freedom’.  There are some really incredible submissions and these are the 5 winners. Good stuff! Click here to watch it all!

Side note: With the current state of what’s going on in the world – I believe this message of freedom is even more important (on so many levels). So check it out and if you like it please help spread the ideas.

With Independence Day (July 4th) right around the corner – I had a brainstorm last night to give something fun a try.

So here goes…

I’m opening up a video contest all about ‘freedom’….

Personally, I believe the single biggest reason when you boil it all down for entrepreneurs to start anything is that word ‘Freedom’. Financial freedom, entrepreneurial freedom or whatever freedom you want.

So I’d like you to SHOW what FREEDOM means to you!

I’ll mention the cool prizes in a minute but for now here are the simple rules. Or as Secret Agent Oso on the Disney channel says there are “3 Special Steps” to be part of this. (Umm…If you don’t get that reference that means you don’t have pre-school kids)

Step 1: Create a 3-minute video (max) about what freedom means to you and incorporate a creative mention of MaverickBusinessInsider.com in some way shape or form.

Step 2: Upload the video to YouTube.com and include one of these 4 title choices:

• “Freedom – What it Means to me” or
• “Financial Freedom – What it means to me” or
• “Independence – What it means to me” or
• “Entrepreneurship – The Ultimate Freedom”

Step 3: Email the link in to support@maverickbusinessinsider with the subject line ‘freedom contest’

That’s it.

We got a short fuse on this sucker because I want to get the top videos together for Independence day. So your deadline
is Monday, 6/29 @ 12pm (EST) I repeat the deadline is Monday, June 29th  at 12 noon EST.

Okay now for the prizes in line with our make more, have more fun and give more theme – take a peek:

First Prize: My Ultimate ‘At-Home’ Internet Copywriting Workshop Course (true value at $1475 – on sale @ultimatecopywritingworkshop.com) + 6 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + a fun (and slightly goofy)
patriotic hat +$100 Kiva.org microfinance gift card.

First prize in our freedom contest

2nd Prize: 6 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + a fun (and slightly less goofy) patriotic hat  +$50 Kiva.org  microfinance gift card.

3rd Prize: 3 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + a different patriotic hat +$25 Kiva.org  microfinance gift
card.

4th Prize: 3 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + freedom ducks. (What the hell are freedom ducks? You’ll
have to see if you win!)

5th Prize: 3 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter

(Note: If you are already a Maverick Business Insider subscriber we will simply extend your subscription if you are the winner. And if you’re not – what are you waiting for? It’s our least expensive newsletter filled with information on how make more money, have more fun and give more back!)

But here’s something else you win…

* FREE PUBLICITY *

Once we pick the 10 finalists – we’ll ask our list to vote on winners – then the final 5 winners will be featured to over 100,000 subscribers online. Pretty cool, right?

So fire up your Flip camera, webcam…or even the ole’ BetaMax but get your entry in before Monday’s deadline (June 29 at
12 pm EST). Leave a quick comment if you’re in.

Just a quick background on the meds. I had a new type of procedure yesterday on my right knee. The doctor sucked stem cells out of my back, added some secret sauce, and then injected them into my knee cartilage. Kinda cool. The doctor who supervised had both his knees done and he told me he jogs again. I blew out both my ACLs playing beach volleyball and Ice Hockey. I still play but it really bothers me. So hopefully this will re-grow the cartilage and I’ll be like the bionic man. (As a side note – the nurse filmed part of the procedure and I might even post it up online. I was kidding around we should auction off some of the bloody rags on eBay. Okay maybe not a great idea – remember I’m on meds)

Okay back to the point I wanted to throw out there and it’s around this question…

Do you have to want (and obtain) material things first to then turn your attention to more meaningful endeavors?

I found an interesting picture of me from 5th grade on Facebook today and it sorta started this chain of thoughts. Take a look – I’m the 2nd from the left on the bottom row.

My family is from Russia and immigrated to the U.S. in 1976. My Dad came over with $256 in his pocket for me, my Mom and my Grandmother. Just a year and half later, my Dad started his own company repairing (and then later selling) medical equipment. Even 8 years later times were still pretty lean as you can see from the knee patches and goofy shoes. Actually, I don’t think I had a pair of normal sneakers until 7th grade. (And yes, I definitely got made fun of constantly for that!)

It wasn’t until years later that my Dad’s company really started growing and blossomed into a multi-million dollar enterprise that things changed. I grew up working in the business starting with telemarketing latex gloves at age 14 and then even selling medical equipment to docs in person at age 16 when I got my license. It’s interesting how things come full circle because a doctor client of mine, Dr. Wei, gave me a Jay Abraham tape that turned on “the lights” about direct response marketing. And it was Dr. Wei who performed my knee surgery yesterday.

Like a lot of kids, I grew up fantasying about exotic cars with posters of Porsches and Ferraris on my wall. I remember for my Bar Mitzvah calling my parents up to light my final candle and I said something like, “I’d like to call up my parents who have given me everything I’ve ever wanted…except a Porsche.”

Back in 1998 I was just starting to get my entrepreneurial juices going and I attended a Brian Tracy 1-day seminar. He told everyone there to write down the 10 most important goals in our lives at the time.  Mine centered mostly around things or dollar amounts. I couldn’t find the notebook but it was something like:

•    Make $20,000/month in my own business
•    Drive a Mercedes SLK
•    Own a townhouse
•    Rolex watch, etc

One-by-one I knocked those all out without looking at the list everyday or taping it to my forehead or whatever “secret” I was supposed to use. (Actually I missed one goal – the Mercedes SLK. I actually got a much better SL55 AMG model). It was mostly the things that kept increasing on my goal list. A bigger house, a nicer car, nice trips, nicer watch, etc. until there really wasn’t much left that I really wanted.

Yes, I still love my Aston Martin but I quickly realized it was ‘just’ a car.

Quick side story: Actually, that really hit home to me spending time with my friend, Corey Rudl, before his untimely death. He had a new Lamborghini and we went off to the local smoothie place in La Jolla. Corey forgot he left his smoothie on the armrest and as he accelerated out of the parking out it spilled all over the interior of his car. He just sorta laughed and didn’t freak out like I might have. Previously, I never let anyone eat in my AMG or drink anything but water – but now I really don’t mind. In fact, I’m pretty lax with the car and have let a bunch of my friends drive it. (And I’ll let you drive it too if you want too if you’re the winner of a pretty cool contest for Underground® 5 attendees with the ultimate 007 day.)

So at some point you pretty much got all the toys you really need and then what’s left? To me, it boils down to experiences and relationships.  (Yes, there are still some ‘things’ I want like a beach house and maybe a private jet share – but not too much else.)

Maybe that’s why during the past few years that I’ve really gotten clear on the ‘Maverick Philosophy’ of Making more money, having more fun and giving more back! (Somebody the other day told me this is called a Venn diagram – nifty.) In fact, one of my big goal for 2020 involves getting 1,000,000 entrepreneurs to join this ‘movement’ that’s part of  Maverick Business Insider.

But I’ve been thinking lately – do you need to get the material things first before you can appreciate the other parts?

I’ll admit it. I really, really wanted my Mercedes AMG roadster. It drove me to create products and services to pay for it – but after the initial thrill wore off – there wasn’t much substance. The anticipation and journey was the best part.

Do you need the Rolex on your wrist before you realize it doesn’t really tell time very well? I used to wear my Rolex as a symbol of my success and new found wealth but I haven’t touched it in years. Today I have a nicer watch but it’s not a name most people would recognize. But maybe getting the ‘reward’ proved to myself I had arrived and could move on to bigger challenges and opportunities.

Some of the material wants really drove me in the beginning – however I still understood the underlying natural laws (like delivering 10x – 100x in value) would help me get the ‘thing’ I wanted. Now I’m much more focused on the bigger picture described in the diagram above. Personally I felt like I had to go through that phase to come out the other end (but maybe not everyone has to).

The unusual way to ‘stumble’ onto success…

There’s a profound theory I heard from R. Buckminster Fuller that says your true success is found perpendicular along the path to your original perceived goal.  For example, when I first started InstantSalesLetters.com back in 2000 – my end goal was to sell it for $500k to Stamps.com or someone like that. But on my way to building up that site – I had so many people ask me how I started making money so quickly that I began teaching. And that teaching became part of my success course for the last 8 years opening up one door after another. I would never have got on that track unless I was moving towards the original goal.  Same thing today, my next course is with my Maverick Business Adventures® and Maverick Business Insider companies – which wouldn’t have been formed without the contacts and connections made with my Internet business.

I’ve love to hear from people who have ‘made it’ (so to speak) and those who are still striving. Can you create a ‘rich’ life without getting the material things first that many of us (me included) initially wanted? I know some people are not motivated by material things and that’s great too. But I find an issue with some of those same people that believe making money is wrong or immoral. Somehow by being poor is more honorable. Umm…Bullshit.

I bet I’ll also get responses saying the happiest and ‘richest’ people are actually the poorest dollar-wise. Or money doesn’t buy you happiness.

Whatever.

I’ve said it before, I think money only amplifies who you are and what resources you have available to you.  If you’re a jackass before you had money – you’ll be an even bigger jackass. However, if you’re a generous and giving person – you now have more to give, etc.

I believe you can have it all…the complete package of profits, passion and purpose – but which road gets you there?

With the elections going on in the U.S. tomorrow – the big idea behind the Maverick Manifesto is FREEDOM!

Freedom to write your own ticket regardless of what’s going on with the crazy economy, the next person in the White House or any external factor!

Here are a few things I covered:

• How to truly really create a Work/Life balance that actually works!
• Figuring out the right questions to ask so you get back the answers you need.
• What you really need to know in order to work once and get paid over and over and over again.
• Why you’ll never say “I can’t afford this” ever again…write your own rules for paying for what you want.
• How to make sure you turn up the ‘FUN quotient’ in your life and not get burnt out! (Plus: Exactly how to shatter the biggest excuse to waiting for more money to have fun!)
• Easy ways to bring fun into other people’s lives who you care about – and create real meaningful experiences.
• The painless rule to “automatically” giving back now instead of waiting & lots more!

Check it out and I would love to hear your comments.

I’m looking for some thoughtful insights and you don’t even need to agree with me – but I’m interested in the conversation that arises here. 

And in other exciting news – it’s Zoe 1st Birthday on Sunday so we’re getting ready around here for a crazy horde of hopped-up-on-too-much-sugar-kids to swarm our house! Wish me luck! (BTW – I’m thinking we’re going to do a sale on her actual birthday for a day or two – so keep your eyes peeled if I decide to.)

* Update: I decided to do it. It’s a 48-hour sale. Here’s the link *

========================

July 4th for Americans is a chance to celebrate our independence. Trust me, I’m not going to get on a soapbox and start waving the flag – but I do think it’s important no matter what country you live in to really think about that word “independence” and its meaning for you.

My father reminded me that July 3, 1976 was his “Independence day” since that’s the date my family came over to the United States from Russia. (Pretty cool since it was right before the bi-centennial celebration.)

For me, my independence day was on July 1, 1999.

That’s the date I left my father’s business to work on my own. It was by far one of the hardest decisions of my life. You see, I had worked for my dad since I was 12 and he thought I was going to take over the company. I had that same thought as well until I got the “bug”. In fact, my wife, Missy, and I were talking about this recently. She was talking about how when she met me 11 years ago, I had only one thought: “how to grow my father’s business”. I would stay late working on new ads and marketing pieces. I was in early calling my accounts trying to make sales, etc. etc.

Now I had been studying direct marketing, and results were really paying off for my dad’s business. (Actually they still use a lot of the ads I wrote in 1998 because they still work today.) But with every ad I wrote I was getting more and more aggravated. Not because the ads weren’t producing sales – they were – but because of the grief and politics I had to deal with. Everybody seemed to be an advertising expert even though they’ve never studied or read anything on the subject. People mistakenly believe that if they wouldn’t “read all that copy” then nobody will. Or if the ad is “ugly” and has no pictures or pretty graphics it won’t work.

Complete and total crap.

For every ad I wrote I had to fight to get it out there. I got sick of it and decided I would create my own product so I could write ads for myself. My first product was to help dermatologists who wanted new cosmetic patients. It was a big kit (manual, tapes, reports, diskette, etc) based around some marketing consulting I was doing on the side for some of my customers.

I ran my first ad in April 1998 in Dermatologic Surgery magazine. I got 10 responses so I sent them the 20-page sales letter I’d written selling this $900 kit. Not one order.

I waited…

Sent out a 2nd notice to those 10 respondents.

Nothing…

Then I sent a 3rd notice telling them the expiration date to get all the free bonuses was only 10 days away. Finally on the very last day of the expiration date I got one order over the fax machine.

Yipeee!!

I still remember that doctor’s name in Flushing, NY. What an incredible feeling. That was the start of my independence. I realized I now had the power to chart my course as I wanted. That first sale. That’s one of the greatest feelings in the world – when something you’ve created is sold. It took me a little over a year after that first order to realize I wanted my freedom and I finally quit on July 1, 1999. Maybe it’s the new confidence you get when you realize you’ve created something that people want and are willing to exchange money for. That first sale is usually the hardest (but also the most rewarding).

It’s wonderful when I help turn on that light in people. I’ve seen it first-hand working my Apprentices and seeing them launch their products. How amazed they are by the money pouring from around the globe. I love it!

So when will your independence day be?

If you’ve already achieved it – I bet you can remember it perfectly. Sometimes the bleakest times that we believe are terrible actually turn into a perfect opportunity.

Take my good friend, Jim Edwards, for example. His independence day came because he got fired. To him that wasn’t a blessing at first but as he looks back on it – it’s the best thing that ever happened.

I remember the conversation we had right after it happened. I was drinking a Maker’s Mark & Ginger and Jim was having a beer. We were talking about different projects he could try and pursue and do now. We were throwing around some ideas and we came up with “33 Days to Online Profits“. It was right there during that call that we outlined each of the days and moved forward from there. And “33 Days” has been a tremendous six-figure income earner for both of us and it hasn’t stopped yet.

So what can you do to achieve your independence?

I’ll give you a couple things to take to heart. I can’t remember the author who said this but he said, “If you show me what a man does in his spare time I’ll show you the type of man he’ll become.” What are doing with your spare time?

- Watching TV or reading?

- Napping or practicing your copywriting?

- Yakking to your friends or studying direct marketing?

It all comes down to the choices we make every single day.

In fact, you shouldn’t let one day go by without making sure you are taking at least one proactive step towards your own independence. Just because the thought of you doing what you want when you want may seem so far away – don’t let that stop you from taking those baby steps each and every day. That’s one of my rules and I hope you’ll
adopt it.

What else?

Learn to be different. The truth is you need to become extraordinary to achieve extraordinary results. You can’t be like everyone else (and why would you want to). That means doing the things other don’t (or won’t) do. That also means NOT listening to their advice (unless they are doing what you want to do). Frankly, if you simply did the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing you’d turn out okay.

Why? If only 5% of people are truly successful and the 95% are the mediocre majority – doesn’t that mean the majority is wrong? Don’t engage in their thinking. Don’t follow their lead. Don’t adhere to the same values and standards the “95-percenters” do.

Two people who really helped me clarify my thinking on this was Earl Nightingale and also Dan Kennedy.

Please don’t get me wrong – in no way am I trying to be elitist. I’m not. But it is tremendously important to go through your day with your eyes wide open. The truth is most of your friends (right now) probably don’t want you to change and succeed. That would imply that they are losers. That would mean they are failures. Nobody is going to propel you to succeed except yourself.

So get on it and proclaim your own Independence Day starting, as Neil Diamond sings, “T-O-D-A-Y!”

*

Quick side note: My buddy, John Reese, just released some very cool videos for his upcoming Traffic Secrets 2.0 release. Check it out – he’s giving up some good info to expand your thinking about generating traffic to your sites. It’s yours without jumping through hoops or giving up your email.

Have a great 4th of July!

Perhaps a little voice inside your head might be whispering (or shouting) about all the reasons you can’t do this kind of fun stuff your life. Fact is, it’s these excuses that will sap the spirit and energy out of your life. It’s too easy for all of us to simply believe we’ll ‘get around to it’ or ‘someday’ we’ll have more fun but one excuse or another comes up. Try these on for size…

• I don’t have time to do this stuff

When I hear people say I don’t have time for something really means that item is not a priority for them. Quite simply, the excuse of “I don’t have time” is commonly accepted but if you stop and think about it we all have the same 24 hours in a day. It’s up to you to decide what is a priority. And if a priority is living a full, rich life with incredible experiences and adventures – then you’ll create the time and schedule items from you BIG Life List.

Think about where you might be spending time now and make the conscious decision if that’s what you want to do or would you rather be doing something from your big list. Or what are you doing now that you could pay someone else to do? I don’t cut my own lawn, clean my house, wash my car, drop-off my dry cleaning, buy stamps or a dozen other simple activities. Why? Because I know I can easily pay someone to do this and it frees me up to either create additional revenue streams or enjoy my life.

• I can’t leave my business long enough to do this

A close cousin to ‘not having enough time’ is believing you can’t get away from your business long enough to knock off any of the fun items on your list. You can get a lot done in just a few days and your company will not fall apart with you. If you cannot leave your office for a few days without things getting off-track you have some serious system issues that need to be worked on. (Leaving will actually expose them to you.) Most times if people are left to fend for themselves without the “big boss” approving everything – most things will still get done correctly. Maybe not quite the way you would do it but the end result would be close enough and you’d have the freedom to enjoy your life.

In fact, I think freedom is the operative keyword for entrepreneurs and unless we exercise that freedom by stepping away from the office it slowly collapses. And we become nothing more than highly-paid servants to our businesses.

You might believe you’re indispensable but nearly everyone (including you) is replaceable. It’s important to step back and see if you are truly operating on activities in your business that are core competencies and unique abilities where you excel.

You’ve probably heard of the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule. It states that approximately 20% of your activities produce 80% of the results. Conversely 80% of your activities create 20% of the results. So if you focus on the critical few activities that produce 80% of the results – this will free up your time to do even more outside of work.

• My <friends/family/dog> will think I’m crazy

So what? Maybe they will – but who cares? My wife and her family think I’m pretty nuts – but I don’t mind. I realized I’m wired differently and that’s ok. Typically, my wife, Missy, won’t come with on my adventures and that’s fine because she has a different idea of vacations than I do. We do things apart and we do things together.

Now on the other hand my step-mother is a huge worrier and doesn’t want to know when I go jump out of airplanes or when I go Baja racing. She’s ok if I tell her after the fact – when I’m home safe and sound. And that’s fine too.

The only thing that’s not fine are the people who attempt to reel you in because they know better or think they’re helping. They might say, “Don’t you care about your family?” or “Aren’t you getting too old for this kind of thing?” or my favorite, “You can’t always get what you want.”

These negative people are simply replaying the tapes spinning in their heads. They can keep their boring and dull existence – I’d rather create the kind of memories that last forever and give me something more interesting to talk about then the local football team or the weather.

I’ve always been a fan of lists and I know many other successful people share this notion. What better list can you create than a list for your most memorable and exciting life? I call this my “BIG Life List”. This is pretty easy and encompasses everything I want to do, have or become before I die.

Now the hard part is sitting down and just jotting down the list but before you get there let me start with my own list.

Right here on this blog, I have a running list of the experiences I want to achieve (as you can see on the right) but my personal BIG list extends beyond what I’ve posted. Here are a few examples from my list (aside from what you see on the right):

Do:

• Host Saturday Night Live
• Fly my own plane
• Stand up comedy at a club
• Dance the Haka with the All Blacks in New Zealand
• Taste a 100+ year old Bordeaux
• Dance all night in Ibiza
• Leave $10,000,000+ to meaningful charities in my lifetime

Have:

• Own a fully restored MGA
• Name engraved on Stanley Cup as an owner of the Washington Capitals (Ted, I’m in. Ugh what a heartbreaking loss this year in the playoffs)
• Create my own liquor brand
• Create a charitable foundation to educate young entrepreneurs
• My own vineyard and produce award-winning wines

Be:

• A semi-professional beach volleyball player
• Financially independent
• Part of an IPO as an insider
• In the Olympics
• NY-Times Best-selling Author
• Live to be a vibrant and healthy 127-year old

Most of my own BIG List is centered around “DO” but that’s just me personally. Yours is unique to you. Right now my list spans 97 items and it keeps growing. I believe in one afternoon you could get at least 25-50 items on your own list. The first few are easy but then you really have to dig into what would make you happy? What excited you as a kid?

What have you always wanted to do?

What have you always wanted to be?

What have you always wanted to see?

What have you always wanted to have?

Just don’t get bogged down in what other people will think. Don’t put something on your list that doesn’t excite you or put it there because you think you’re supposed to. Hey – if you don’t want to save the whales – screw ‘em. Don’t put it on your list.

Keep thinking without putting conditions & restrictions on your list. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s dumb or couldn’t really happen or think others will laugh at you. So what? Go with your heart and just get it down. There’s no harm in writing it down even if it doesn’t happen – that’s how some of my improbably ones have been accomplished that I’ll tell you about in a moment as we move on to how you start having fun and checking off items…

How do you get your big list completed?

1. Write it down. Yes, writing it down is the first step and I absolutely guarantee you if you did nothing else but write 50-100 items in your BIG List you’d be surprised at how many actually got done after 1 year without you ever looking at them again. I don’t look at my Big list everyday – it’s not that necessary but I do certain things to make sure I can check them off.

Fact is, as I was writing this post I went back over my own list again and was amazed to see that 2 things on my list were in the process of getting accomplished in the next 3 weeks (as of this writing). One was kiteboarding at Necker Island and at the same time lunch with Sir Richard Branson. I’m heading to Necker Island in a few weeks and I’ll definitely try kiteboarding on the island – plus I’ll be there with Richard for several days so lunch is inevitable. Pretty cool!

Just the mere fact of writing it down and releasing it into the Universe gives you an advantage that circumstances might be set into motion to start conspiring to work for you. (Hey, that’s my belief anyway!)

Quick example, I’ve previously written down I wanted to be a semi-pro beach volleyball player. I really didn’t think it would happen but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to write it down. Well, now I’d technically be considered Pro. You can check out the details back on this post.

In that same vein – here’s another one…Do I really think I’ll be in the Olympics? I dunno. Probably not – but there’s a tiny shot. Who knows? My publicist mentioned to me the other day he was friends with the former publicist for the U.S. Bobsled & Skeleton Federation. I don’t know how many people are waiting in line to go 80mph headfirst down an icy track so who knows if I’d get a tryout. Maybe – maybe not. But if I didn’t throw it out there to the Universe and right it down I know I wouldn’t hear the faint knocking on the door of opportunity.

2. Schedule it. This is where a lot of people fall down. It sounds a bit too rigid but for busy entrepreneurs unless you schedule your fun (most of the time) it won’t happen. It sounds a bit counter intuitive doesn’t it? Fun should be spontaneous and free? Well guess what? If you stick to your typical schedule – it’ll never happen because your work will keep expanding to the allotted time you give it. You can always do one more work item and your inbox is never going to be empty.

Think about your vacation for a moment. That’s scheduled and it happens precisely because it is scheduled. The more fun you schedule into your life – the more you’ll get. Or what about when you were a kid – most of us had mandatory fun built into our days with recess, right?

Why isn’t there recess for entrepreneurs?

Now you probably won’t go and play dodge ball this afternoon but you can have your own recess if do something about it yourself. Some of my favorite memories have been things I’ve gone out and not waited for them to fall into my lap.

This might sound a little ‘type A’ (which I’m definitely not) but you have to put fun activities on your calendar or else your fun & entertainment by default becomes vegging in front of the TV or working more. Of course, it’s great to be spontaneous but unless you are completely free of responsibilities you’ll need to make plans. And making plans could be as simple as inviting friends over for a night of games or as wild as running with the bulls in Spain.

Side note: This is one of the many reasons I started Maverick Business Adventures to create that ‘forced’ and scheduled ‘recess’ for entrepreneurs.

3. Recruit Others. It’s tough to get everything on your BIG list done yourself (especially if you’ve really stretched). That’s why it’s important to share with others, who can help you, what’s on your ultimate life list.

But there’s a caveat here. I’d be selective of who I share with. You don’t want a negative, dream-stealing vampire to suck their fangs into your life list. But when you find positive, excited individuals ask them what’s on their “to do” list for life and see if you don’t have a resource or a step in the right direction you can give them. And those same successful people have their own connections and people they know that might get you where you want to be.

Okay so here’s your homework assignment this weekend. Sit down and start your own Ultimate Big Life List and schedule at least 2 items on there. Will you do it?

* Resource for you *

I’ve found a great resource to help you create cool memories for people you care about. It’s called Cloud9Living and it’s an awesome spot to search for experiences around the country (U.S. only at this point.). Everything from thrilling adventures to one-of-a-kind learning events. Even if you don’t know exactly what to get someone – you can pick-up a gift certificate. I gave Cloud9 Gift certs to some of my team members and top affiliates. They have a really cool presentation box that’s worth buying just to see what they do.

I’ve worked out a special deal for InternetLifestyle.com blog readers. Make sure you put in ‘SILVER09′ at check-out for free shipping on any gift certificates you purchase.

He’s got a bit of an adventurous spirit that’s been squashed somewhat by my stepmother, Adela. She’ll say, “Joseph, don’t be stupid. Only Yanik can do such stupid things.” Or, “You’re not a young man anymore.” Of course she means well but she’s got to be the biggest worrier on the planet.

Seriously. If Missy and I don’t answer our phones she automatically thinks the worst. Or if I call and don’t leave a message – she checks caller ID and wants to know what’s wrong. I don’t get it – but whatever.

So anytime the subject of flying lessons came up – Adela would promptly shut it down. Fine.

I was reading a book the other day by Phil Keoghan called “No Opportunity Wasted”. Phil and I must share a little bit of the same DNA because the guy is a pretty amazing adventurer and his book is designed to get people to get off their butts and go experience life to the fullest. (You might recognize Phil because he’s the host of the Amazing Race TV show.)

One chapter in there presented the question about what dreams could you make come true for someone else you care about. I immediately thought of my Dad and got to work on my plan to ambush him. I told him I needed a ride to the private air park on Saturday because Missy couldn’t take me and then I made up some excuse about not being able to leave my car there for a week. I said I was flying private to Vegas for my Mastermind meeting.

One of my hockey teammates owns a Cirrus 4-seater jet and one of my other hockey teammates is a pilot so the trap was set. I could tell he was a little annoyed for having to pick me up at my house and drive me over there. We pull up to the tiny airplane and Joe asks me, “Are you sure you’re going to be ok in this to Vegas?”

And I turn right around with a big smile and tell him, “Actually hopefully you’ll be ok in there.”

I don’t think it quite registered and then I told him this was his first flying lesson for his birthday (which was the next day). He kinda stood there for a moment wavering and deciding whether he should follow his heart or do what his wife would want him to. It took about 5 seconds and said, “Let’s go.”

Even though Missy told me I shouldn’t get in the plane with him I thought better of it and jumped into the backseat. I was a tiny bit worried because Joe couldn’t hear Brian (the pilot) in his headset telling him to NOT touch the pedals. Yikes! But he got the headsets figured out and Brian even let him take off and land (with his help of course).

Here are a couple pics and video of him flying:

Once we landed, Joe gave me a hug and told me what a surprise it was and thanked me repeatability for making it happen. My step-mother, Adela, had been calling his phone several times and trying to track him down and he got a bit of an earful from her (and so did I). But I wouldn’t have changed a thing.That element of surprise and letting people experience their dreams was so rewarding.It’s well worth setting something like this up for someone you care about.I think you’ll be amazed at the response and how it makes you feel. Personally, I get incredible joy and a sense of accomplishment when I knock things off my own “Big List” but this was a different feeling helping my Dad get one of his done.

* Update *

I’ve found a great resource to help you create cool memories for people you care about. It’s called Cloud9Living and it’s an awesome spot to search for experiences around the country (U.S. only at this point.). Everything from thrilling adventures to one-of-a-kind learning events. Even if you don’t know exactly what to get someone – you can pick-up a gift certificate. I gave Cloud9 Gift certs to some of my team members and top affiliates. They have a really cool presentation box that’s worth buying just to see what they do.

I’ve worked out a special deal for InternetLifestyle.com blog readers. Make sure you put in ‘SILVER09′ at check-out for free shipping on any gift certificates you purchase.

–

I did fly to Vegas the next day just not on my buddy’s plane…

I was there for about a week for the final meeting of my MasterMind groups I run. Plus, each year we also do an optional adventure activity and this time was an F-1 racing day at the Vegas Speedway. We had about 24 of us come out from the MasterMind members plus a few of my Internet buddies like Jeff Mulligan and Brad Fallon came out. And I brought the winner of the affiliate contest of the ‘Brain-in-a-Box’ launch, Chris Zavadowski out as one of his prizes.

We did 24 laps in a 600 hp Indy-style open wheel race car.

It was pretty awesome except for the weather on the track was brutal. It was probably 20 degrees colder than it should have been and nobody brought gloves or anything else warm. My hands were numb by the time I hit pit road. I’m going to blame my numb hands on the following video:

I hit 155.99 mph as my top speed and Ryan Deiss beat me by .01 mph – I couldn’t believe it. We had a good time screwing around with people and changing their speed because the gals working could enter in any speed we wanted. For Mulligan I gave him an 89.3 mph top speed and he just shook his head in disbelief when he got out of the car. He actually hit 159 and Brad Fallon just inched him out by a few tenths.

I’ll have lots of cool updates for you guys because I’m up in New York for the Virgin Galactic unveiling of SpaceShip Two. Missy and I have got a party tonight with the other ‘astronauts’ and Richard Branson. And then next week I’m off on the premiere Maverick Business Adventures trip. So lots to report back on soon. Stay tuned….