Personal Mastery

How To Get Better Sleep Quality With An Entrepreneur’s Lifestyle

March 5, 2020 by Dan Lok

If you’re always wondering how to get better sleep, you’re not alone. Sleep is crucial for performance. Do you struggle to get enough sleep due to your hectic schedule as an entrepreneur, but lack of sleep affects your productivity? For most business owners, a good night’s sleep is something they can only hope for.

I know entrepreneurs have a very busy schedule. If you are an entrepreneur, I am sure you make various sacrifices for the sake of your business, on a daily basis.

Especially when you’re just starting out in your business, you want to take on everything, right? You might not even ignore personal relationships with friends and family. And you might be sacrificing your sleep to build your business.

I know the strong desire to succeed and the confidence to take on challenges is a rush like no other. Many entrepreneurs might even think that skipping sleep is an unspoken requirement for success. Some may think that it’s all part of their entrepreneurial journey which will lead to eventual heroic success.

But that is far from the truth. Lack of proper rest and sleep can have some serious consequences. It has a direct correlation with your health and mental well being.

If you keep losing sleep, eventually, there will come a point where you will feel the drastic effects. It is well-known that exhaustion can lead to a significant dip in your performance.

These dips in performances and deprivation of rest could lead to burnout and serious mental health and physical health concerns. And what will happen when your health is adversely affected? Well, your business will suffer, and so will your relationships.

The business you sacrificed everything for – even your sleep – will start to fail. Lack of sleep is counterproductive in the long run. Hence, sleep deprivation is foiling your chances of becoming successful even if you may not realize it yet.

The Temptation of Sacrificing Sleep

You may have heard that several famous figures in history favored sleeping less. Instead of wanting to get better sleep, they wanted more time to work on things that mattered to them. They favored time over sleep.

Famous inventor Nikola Tesla survived on only 1.5 – 2 hours of sleep per night. Benjamin Franklin slept only 5 hours per night.

Even in recent times, you will find several successful people who have reported that they sleep very little. Here’s a list of 19 barely-sleeping, successful people.

Jack Dorsey reported sleeping only 4- 6 hours when he started Twitter. Donald Trump credits his success to sleeping only three to four hours each night.

Marissa Mayer, when working for Google, slept 4 hours a night so that she can work 130-hours a week. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook wakes up at 3:45 a.m. to get a head start on the 700-800 emails he receives a day.

In 2011, a new elite group known as The Sleepless Elite was identified by The WSJ. These are the 1% to 3% of the population who live happily on just a few hours of sleep per night.

These are people born with the Thatcher Gene, a genetic mutation, where the person requires less sleep to function normally. While the rest of us require 7-8 hours of sleep, they can work with a lot less.

It’s unknown if any of the famous figures have this gene or not. If you go by the statistics alone, it’s highly likely you don’t have it. Psychiatrists believe that out of 100 people who claim they need only 5-6 hours of sleep, only 5 are right.

So, it might seem tempting to replicate these successful people’s habits to replicate their success. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth, as we will see in the next section.

The Effects of Low-Quality Sleep

Research shows that insufficient sleep leads to a slowing of response speed, and increased variability in performance. It particularly affects alertness, attention and vigilance levels.

How to Get Better Sleep Quality as an Entrepreneur

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 35% of American professionals aren’t getting the recommended 7 hours of sleep. While this sleep recommendation may vary from person to person, it is a step in the right direction.

Good sleep will set you up for success from the moment you open your eyes. A well-rested mind and body are better equipped to tackle each day.

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn. – Mahatma Gandhi

It can be hard to put your rest at a high priority, especially with all the work. But, it will be worth it in the long run. In fact, your body, mind and your business will thank you for it. Here are 7 helpful tips that can help you get better sleep quality.

1. Avoid Drinking Too Much Coffee

According to Zagat’s National Coffee Survey results, Americans drink an average of 2.1 cups of coffee per day. What’s worse is that consumption is shown to increase with age.

As an entrepreneur, it is tempting to go for multiple cups of coffee to stay awake and alert. In fact, for many of you, coffee might be an indispensable part of your daily routine.

You might rely on it for the much-needed boost of energy in the morning. Sometimes, even after the mid-afternoon dip in energy. For some entrepreneurs, it might even be a preferred productivity tool.

But it should come as no surprise that too much coffee could be responsible for keeping you up at night. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine’s study, found that consuming caffeine six hours before bed still impacted sleep.

You see, when caffeine doesn’t metabolize properly, it can keep you awake long after it’s been consumed. Hence, you should avoid consuming caffeine at least seven hours before bed, to prevent negative effects on your sleep.

As a best practice, keep it to 1-2 cups a day and give yourself that caffeine-free window of 7 hours. Slowly but surely, you will start to get better sleep quality.

2. Avoid Sugary Foods (Especially Before Bed)

Nighttime hunger pangs are quite common. It’s quite natural to go for something sweet such as a candy bar as it’s comforting. But if you’re eating high sugar foods before bed, you’re setting yourself up for a sugar rush.

It will take longer for you to get to sleep as you will toss and turn longer than you should be. In fact, the more sugar that you eat during the day, the more often you’re going to wake up while sleeping.

The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Essentially, the sugar in your system can even pull you out of deep sleep. What’s worse is that this will make you feel exhausted the next day.

You see, if you want to get better sleep, your blood sugar level needs to be steady throughout the day. This will also keep your energy level even, during the day, helping you stick to a normal sleep schedule.

So avoid foods that contain simple carbs and refined sugar. Instead, eat foods rich in good fats and protein such as crushed almonds in a warm glass of milk. You could even go for some hard-boiled eggs.

3. Avoid Sleep Inducing Substances

I know some entrepreneurs prefer taking pills to sleep. Some choose alcohol or other such sleep-inducing substances. I strongly advise against the consumption of such substances that greatly disrupt your brain’s natural sleep process.

You see, anything that interferes with the brain’s natural sleep process has dire consequences for the quality of your sleep. For long-term benefits, you have to practice falling asleep naturally and reduce your dependence upon sedatives.

The best way to stop is to gradually reduce the dose with the guidance of a doctor. Professional medical care will reduce your dependence, step-by-step and help with any withdrawal symptoms, as well. You could also opt for psychological or therapeutic support for optimal benefits to get better sleep.

4. Keep Your Devices Away

You might find it tempting to check your emails before sleeping, but that’s where you catch the dreaded blue light. Blue light is emitted from each device we use on a daily basis.

Harvard’s study recommends avoiding looking at bright screens beginning two to three hours before bed. If that seems too hard to implement, strive to give yourself at least an hour’s time of no device usage. This will give your body enough time to adjust and get ready for a night of sleep.

The study even suggests exposing yourself to lots of bright light during the day. This can also enable you to get better sleep at night.

Furthermore, reading emails right before bed can have two major implications. If you hear some good news, you’ll start processing ideas to implement the next day. If you get some bad news, you’ll start stressing out about it. Either way, you are going to lose sleep.

So, keep your device on silent mode or just turn it off. Instead, the best use of this hour is to give yourself time to unwind and decompress.

5. Decompress Before Bed

A high level of stress interferes with your ability to sleep. As an entrepreneur, your life has plenty of stress to go around. If you don’t deal with that stress properly via relaxation and mental processing, it’ll prevent you from getting sleep.

After a hard day’s work and before you go to bed, here’s your chance to unwind a little. Why would you want that? Well, transitioning directly from business to bed doesn’t work if you want to get better sleep. Both are two very different zones and your subconscious mind needs time and space to switch between the two.

Since you’ve put your device away, you could read a book. In fact, reading a book is one of the most powerful habits of self-made millionaires.

Alternatively, you could listen to some music, spend some time with your family or just use this time to reflect on your day. Whatever you choose to do, the main goal is spending time on your own, in a relaxed state.

Furthermore, you should start dimming the lights during this time, too. This routine will take some practice, but once you do it regularly, it will help you get better sleep.

6. Create a Sleep-Friendly Environment

Your sleep time is precious and the quality of your sleep will determine your output for the next day. So, you need to create a quiet and peaceful environment that can instantly help you get better sleep.

I have seen entrepreneurs sleeping on sofas or even their work desks. That may work for some people, but I would suggest investing in a comfortable mattress and pillow. With the plethora of sleep-friendly options in the market today, it shouldn’t be too hard to find the right one.

Furthermore, shut off all noises by wearing earplugs when sleeping. If you have the habit of listening to something while sleeping, listen to white noise or nature sounds.

Also, it’s best to have dark curtains (such as black-out curtains) installed in your bedroom to ensure you sleep in complete darkness. Alternatively, you can also consider sleeping with a nice, comfortable eye mask.

Why do you need complete darkness? You see, our brains are hard-wired into associating darkness with sleep. The brain produces more melatonin (the hormone controlling our sleep cycles) when it senses an absence of light.

Furthermore, you could use natural essential oils that can help you get into a more relaxed state. These oils can be applied to your skin topically or dispersed in the air with the help of a diffuser.

7. Be Prepared for Sleep Epiphanies

Does your brain come alive at night? I know mine does. In general, I know as an entrepreneur, you have multiple thoughts and ideas running at the same time. It could be about what you should be doing to make your business better, right? Hence, it is natural to have bedtime epiphanies.

Your subconscious mind will keep thinking and adding tasks to your mental to-do list. What’s more, these might be some of the best ideas you’ve ever had, coming to you at bedtime.

What tends to happen is that you feel afraid you will forget these ideas and hence keep thinking about them. A simple solution is to keep a notebook beside your bed.

When you can’t sleep because of a good idea, just write it down. Make sure everything noteworthy is in the notebook. This trick will reduce anxiety and help you get better sleep.

Adopt the Right Habits to Boost Productivity

It’s quite clear that sleep deprivation has you performing at a fraction of your full potential. Hence, I always advise preparing for a marathon rather than a sprint. Both have their time and place in an entrepreneur’s life but always focus on long-term victories over short-term gains.

I know that as an entrepreneur, you want to get as much work done in a day, as possible. But sacrificing sleep for the sake of getting more work done is not sustainable. Instead, if you get better sleep, you will become more productive and accomplish more in less time.

In the beginning, you may think that reducing 2 hours of sleep gives you 2 additional hours to work. But eventually. the negative effects on your performance will cancel out any productivity gains you might incidentally see.

You don’t have to sacrifice a proper night’s sleep to build your business. Instead, improve your day’s processes to increase your productivity.

You’ll succeed when you have your time, resources, and mind working together for a better output.

If you want to improve your productivity, I’ve put together a training for you. This video training teaches 3 powerful ways to operate like a millionaire. These productivity habits give you more control over your daily routine.

Once you are in more control of your day, you will get more done in less time. This will give your more room to take breaks and get to sleep earlier. As a result, you will benefit your health and your business, in the long-run.

Moreover, more control over your day means that you will be able to spend more time with your family too. Grab this Millionaire Productivity Secrets Video Training to start seizing your day without sacrificing your sleep and health.

Create Generational Wealth With Dan Pena’s In-Depth Strategies

February 26, 2020 by Dan Lok

Have you heard the term generational wealth before? My mentor Dan Pena teaches and instructs others to generate exactly that. So, what exactly is generational wealth?

Generational wealth is a form of huge fortunes that usually take 20-25 years to create. We are talking about huge sums of money, here. Normally, the generations of an entire family line have to work together to achieve such a great fortune.

The reason why it’s called generational wealth, is because it takes generations to build it up. It’s old money.

Dan Pena is known as “The Trillion Dollar Man”. He acquired huge riches in his life. So, to learn from him is extremely valuable, as he has walked the walk. At his castle seminars, he would teach his mentees how to achieve generational wealth in 3-7 years, instead of 20-25 years. This is extremely valuable knowledge, so of course I attended his seminar.

I visited one of Dan Pena’s seminars back in 2003. That was a huge turning point in my life, and in my pursuit of financial success. Dan Pena has been my mentor ever since, and I would often visit him at his castle.

So now, what are Den Pena’s in-depth strategies for creating generational wealth? Let’s start with who Dan Pena is, and why we should all listen to his advice.

Who Is Dan Pena?

Dan Pena is often referred to as the “Trillion Dollar Man”. He has many impressive achievements, and owns a castle in Scotland.

Getting Dan Pena to be your mentor isn’t easy. You can’t just call him on the phone and book an appointment. Like most wealthy people, he is guarding his time.

When I found out about Dan Pena, I was very young and very broke. I had nothing much to offer, but I knew I wanted to be mentored by him. So I called his secretary and asked for an appointment. Of course, she told me off. But I didn’t give up. For days and weeks, I would call Dan Pena’s secretary every day. My persistence worked. Dan Pena picked up the phone and told me to come to his castle for one of his seminars.

That was the next challenge. I was pretty broke at that time and getting tickets for the flight from Canada to Scotland was a challenge for me, and a major financial risk. But I did it anyway. Today, I am incredibly grateful for everything I learned from him. Let’s just say it was worth the money to fly out to his seminar.

Many of the things that I’m teaching my students today, I learned from Dan Pena back then. Things like, “Consistency is key” or “Smell the leather” are expressions I picked up from Dan Pena.

Dan Pena’s Way To Generational Wealth: The “Quantum Leap Advantage” (QLA)

So, what exactly does Dan Pena teach his mentees about generational wealth?

His system is called the Quantum Leap Advantage, or QLA for short. QLA isn’t for everyone. To learn the system of QLA, it would be best if you were already earning 6 or 7 figures. It’s not a strategy meant for broke beginners. Now, why is that?

First of all, if you want to learn QLA from Dan Pena live, you have to be able to pay for your tickets to his seminars. They come with a price tag. You can also learn QLA via Dan Pena’s YouTube videos. If you do that, there is one catch, however. To accumulate and hold generational wealth you need to first have the mindset of a wealthy person. For many of you, this requires a significant mindset shift.

When you spend a week at Dan Pena’s fancy castle for his seminar, your outlook on wealth changes. I remember the first one or two days at the seminar, I felt kind of uncomfortable and out of place. There was a bell to ring, so the waiter would come and get you food and drinks. I was young, broke, and not used to any of these luxuries. But after a day or two, I thought to myself, This is actually kind of awesome.

You see, even if the QLA strategies are on YouTube for free, only very few people can implement or use these strategies. For generational wealth, you have to be comfortable with wealth. If you never earned 6-figures in your life, then you are probably not ready. Focus on increasing your income first.

How Does QLA Work?

Through his teachings, Dan Pena has created millionaires and billionaires.

The foundation of the QLA method is this: It’s a commercial debt-based business model. You never use your own money. Instead, you borrow money from commercial banks. With that money, you acquire businesses in lucrative sectors. Hot sectors such as healthcare and telecommunication. You grow the business and sell it again. That is the basic concept behind generating generational wealth.

Now, this sounds easier than it’s done. If it would be easy, everyone would do it.

If you do everything right, then achieving generational wealth will take you about 3 years. If you make some mistakes along the line, it will take up to seven years. But that’s still infinitely faster than the usual 20-25 years.

Create Generational Wealth by Changing Your Mindset

Before you can acquire any amount of wealth, you have to adjust your mindset. Most people, don’t grow up in rich environments. Rather, they grow up with a mindset of poor people. If they can’t escape from that mindset, they will stay poor. They have to adjust from a poor person mindset to a wealthy person mindset.

Dan Pena often calls the current generation “snowflakes”. Why? Because they melt under pressure. Most people nowadays have “safe spaces” where they shelter themselves from the world. But, the snowflake mindset doesn’t help you to achieve generational wealth.

To become wealthy, you have to get used to people saying “No” to you. Dan Pena and I still get a lot of “No”s. My High-Ticket Closers, when they sell on the phone, have to get used to rejection. The right mindset is that every “No” you get, means you’re getting that much closer to a “Yes”.

As a wealthy person, you are committed to your results, even if it’s challenging, and the odds are against you. The QLA seminar visitors come from all kinds of backgrounds and all walks of life. That is proof that everyone can become wealthy if they are determined and willing to make the sacrifices that come with wealth.

Your Self-Esteem Needs Some Work

The participants for Dan Pena’s seminars are getting younger and younger. His current “poster child” is a young man who came to him at the age of 17. All he had was a 15-speed bicycle. Now he is 21 and flying his own private jet.

Dan Pena often noticed that almost all of his seminar attendants had low self-esteem. To create generational wealth, they first have to start to believe in themselves. If you are the first aspiring millionaire or billionaire in your family, chances are that others don’t believe in you. So, it’s even more important that you believe in yourself and have that self-confidence to be a trail blazer despite your family’s history of being poor.

This ties back in with your mindset and how comfortable you are with getting rejected. Dan Pena himself also started out as a salesman, so he understands rejection, cold calling, and the numbers game.

The thing is, when you follow the Quantum Leap Advantage method you aren’t selling a product. Selling a product is easy. But essentially, you are selling yourself. Getting rejected when you sell yourself is twice as tough. That’s why you need unshakable certainty and high self-esteem.

How Have You Been Programmed?

Another important factor when it comes to generational wealth is the programming from your parents, peers, and people around you. Dan Pena believes that parents program their kids for a certain type of thinking from a young age.

Dan Pena himself had a rough childhood and even ended up in jail at some point in his life. Only after he changed his program did he get to generational wealth. When Den Pena started to make fortunes, his father said, “Please tell me it isn’t drugs”. He made so much money that everybody assumed it was something illegal.

That’s also a form of programming many of us have to hear every day. In a poor people mindset, it seems impossible to make a lot of money legally. They immediately assume you did something illegal.

To get to the core of your program, ask yourself, how is your program working out for you? What stories are telling yourself? How do you justify your failures? What excuses are you making? When you are very honest with yourself you probably have to admit that your program isn’t making you successful.

That’s why it’s so important to have a mentor. A mentor who practices what he preaches can help you to change your program. They have been where you once were and show you how to overcome it.

Smell The Leather

I teach this concept to all of my students, but I actually learned it from Dan Pena. Smelling the leather is a powerful tool to expand your comfort zone and get used to wealth.

What is it about? Smelling the leather means to tap into the world of the rich, even if you can’t afford it yet. Get a taste for the luxuries you can’t yet afford.

For example, when I wanted to buy a certain car, I would go to different dealerships and test drive the car. I got so used to it, it really felt like the car already belonged to me. When I would walk on the streets with my friends and my dream car would drive by, I would tell them “Look, that’s my car.”

Or when I wanted to buy a Bentley but still had to wait, I first bought the license plate. The license plate would remind me every day of my goal to buy the Bentley.

If you want to live like the rich or get a taste for it, go to fancy hotel lobbies and do your work there. Visit the neighborhood where you want to live and have dinner there frequently. Expose yourself to the lifestyle you want to have. This practice will motivate you to take action.

Smell the leather. I learned that concept from Dan Pena. If you want to adopt a wealthy mindset, it’s the perfect strategy.

Tough Love

Another one of Dan Pena’s core principles for generational wealth is tough love. If you watch Dan Pena on YouTube or attend his life seminar you will see that he isn’t exactly a soft guy. He knows that to become wealthy, you have to go through hardships and he tells you so unfiltered. That the “No BS” mentality you will need to accomplish generational wealth.

Generational Wealth Doesn’t Come Easy

When you want generational wealth, you have to be aware of this crucial factor:

Wealth doesn’t come for free. Most people don’t become rich because they aren’t ready to make the sacrifices to get there. Click To Tweet

In that sense, generating wealth is very similar to losing weight. What do you have to do to lose weight? You have to put in the work and exercise. Still, so many people in North America are overweight. Why? Because they aren’t ready to make the sacrifice that comes with losing weight – sacrifices such as spending time in the gym or holding back from eating too much.

Most people see the glamour of rich people’s lives and want that. But they don’t see the blood, sweat, and tears that got us there. When you want to get really rich, there are many sacrifices you have to make. People, opportunities and mindsets you have to say no to.

Getting wealthy typically involves constant work, even when you don’t feel like it.

Absolute High Performance

To create generational wealth – or any kind of wealth really – you have to be a high performer. You can’t get rich and make excuses at the same time.

You have to be committed to your results and stay consistent. As Den Pena likes to say: “High-performance people are all they can be all the time.” That means they are always like that. Not just when they feel like it. It’s a part of who they are. Peak performance is ingrained in their daily routine.

Den Pena is an absolute high performer because he doesn’t know fear. He is never afraid, because of his life experiences and the discipline he learned in the military.

What Gets Measured, Gets Accomplished

Dan Pena believes that what gets measured, gets accomplished. When you visit one of his seminars, you’ll notice that in the months after, he will follow up with you and see how you are doing. He sees it as his responsibility to keep you on your path of making generational wealth.

Your Emotional Bank Account

Most people are aware of their financial bank accounts. But, there is actually another account to pay attention to: Your emotional bank account.

Your emotional bank account is probably even more important than your financial one. The emotional bank account determines how well you react if something doesn’t go your way. How you take it when your back is against the wall and you have to perform.

Are you emotionally strong? How about emotionally intelligent, emotionally stable, resilient and able to bounce back?

When your emotional bank account is in check, your financial bank account will follow. So, you are creating generational wealth with and through yourself and your own personal strength.

Why QLA Works

Now as you can see, the strategies for creating generational wealth are mostly intangible. It’s not about how rich you are already and which investment gimmicks you are using. It’s about working on yourself so you are actually ready for fortune.

Still, there are some more methodological approaches to QLA that make it so successful.

They way QLA works, you are getting yourself in a position where there is no competition. Most people wouldn’t do it.

Generational wealth gets created by a series of transactions. It’s not just one business you sell, you have to do it over and over again. It’s also about paying attention to current interest rates and checking which sectors are hot right now. For example, healthcare is lucrative right now. As Dan Pena said himself, “My generation doesn’t want to die.” So, there is a lot of money in the health sector.

7 Steps To Mega-Success

When you visit Den Pena’s website, you’ll see that the QLA method follows 7 steps.

Step 1 is the foundation. It discusses how to overcome obstacles, how to get the right mindset and so much more.

Step 2 is about clarifying your vision, to make sure you are crystal clear on what you want.

Step 3 is focusing on perception.

Step 4 deals with creating your dream team.

Step 5 is about the Quantum Leap Action Plan. Remember QLA works without any of your own money.

Step 6 explains why you should pay yourself first.

And finally, step 7 talks about your exit strategy.

The whole purpose of Dan Pena’s teachings is to show you how to become mega-successful. Most of the time, it’s by doing the opposite of what conventional wisdom tells you to do. Very often, conventional wisdom and traditional teachings are wrong.

Ready to Unlock Your Wealth?

Perhaps you are only just starting out as an aspiring millionaire. Maybe you aren’t sure if the concept of generational wealth is too advanced for you.

I believe that you have the potential inside of you to achieve your dreams. It’s possible that so far, you’ve been programmed in a way that gave you poor self-esteem. You’ve been following conventional wisdom that has kept you poor. But all wealthy people – even Dan Pena or myself – we weren’t born fortunate and rich.

In my early twenties, I was broke and in serious debt. When Den Pena invited me to his castle, I wasn’t sure if I would make it, because of the cost of the plane ticket.

We all have to learn to unlock our inner potential first.

My new best selling book Unlock It is exactly about that. All I learned in the last 20 years of being in business, the hardships I overcame and the lessons I learned – I divulged it all in this book.

So, if creating great wealth is your goal but you don’t know where to start, then Unlock It might be of interest to you. It’s not a regular book, either. It offers space for you to take notes and reflect. You can read it in one go or find the chapters that discuss current life situations you are facing. It’s a book full of answers. What would it mean to you to unlock your potential? Check out my book right here.

The Trillion Dollar Man, Daniel Pena, Talks About The Complete QLA Library

February 23, 2020 by Dan Lok

If you’re familiar with my work, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about, Daniel Pena, also famously known as The Trillion Dollar Man. Maybe you’ve seen him in one of my YouTube videos or remember reading about him on my blog.

If you don’t already know, he is the second mentor that entered my life and he has been my mentor for over 10 years. And back when I was in my twenties, it was through his castle seminar mentorship program called the Quantum Leap Advantage (QLA) that helped me bring my business to the next level.

At the time, when he invited me to attend the seminar at the Guthrie Castle, I couldn’t believe it. It was an opportunity of a lifetime for me to learn from Daniel Pena in person. There was no doubt in my mind to take advantage of that moment. But I was reluctant. There was one problem holding me back.

The Decision That Changed The Course of My Life Forever

The price of the seminar. At the time, it cost me a LOT to attend the seminar and I didn’t have that kind of money just sitting around. I was broke and still had $150,000 debt to carry.

So what do most people do in that kind of situation? Yes, they come up with all the reasons why they shouldn’t go. And that exactly what I did. I threw myself into my own mental BS. Questioning whether or not I should go.

But, if I was being honest with myself, deep down I knew I had to attend the seminar. It didn’t matter that I was scared or worried. Because I knew that if I said “no” to this opportunity, it would be the end of our relationship. And I would deeply regret my decision if I made the wrong choice because of my fear. So I knew at that moment, I had to be resourceful. I had to find a way to make it work. And I did.

Today, looking back, it was one of the best decisions I made in my entire life. And because of it, I am now at a stage in my life where I can make an impact and help change the lives of today’s younger generation.

So my mentor, Daniel Pena, gave me permission to release the same program that once cost me several thousand dollars to attend absolutely free for you to use on my YouTube channel. And if that wasn’t enough, he has also released his own complete library of the QLA products on his website and his YouTube channel.

Why is Daniel Pena Giving Away All of His QLA Products for Free?

His answer is very simple. He wants to eliminate every excuse you have to not succeed. Because let’s face it, you and I both know, most people only know how to talk about success but they have no proof to show for it.

That’s why in the personal development and success industry space, a lot of what you see, not all, but a lot of what you see online are all just a big pile of garbage. It’s just like what Hitler proved. As Daniel Pena says, “if you say something that’s wrong and lie a lie evil enough, loud enough, and enough times, people will believe you.”

This is one of the main reasons why he is so confident in the QLA Methodology. Because he created it based on real success. And he continues to improve it based on success. It’s not something he believes to be true or thinks is true. It’s all built on the foundation of a proven track record he has produced for himself as well as for his mentees and devotees.

In the last four or five years, Daniel Pena has produced teenage multimillionaires, like Josh Kim, that are now flying around in their own private jets. He has helped one of his mentees Klaus Kleinfield produce the largest deal in recorded history – the $500 billion mega-city called NEOM. And apart from these two examples, he has many more success stories to prove that the QLA methodology works.

Today, Daniel Pena spends two-thirds of his time teaching for free at universities all around the world because he realized the most promising way to influence the future is by influencing the younger generation.

What is The Quantum Leap Advantage Actually About?

This may not be the first time you’ve heard of the QLA Methodology. You may have heard about it in one of my YouTube videos, in Daniel Pena’s many YouTube videos, or even on his website dedicated to this topic. But even while watching those videos, you might have a pretty good idea about what QLA is about, but it’s not entirely clear. So let me share with you my thoughts on what QLA really is.

From a personal development perspective, it is about acquiring the right mindset for success. It’s about building the self-esteem of a high performer. It’s about how messed up we are by society and by our parents.

From a business perspective, the QLA Methodology is about buying revenue instead of creating revenue. So you do that by acquiring and buying a company or multiple companies. And leveraging the bank by using the bank’s money instead of your own money. That’s essentially what Daniel Pena’s QLA Methodology is all about. But overall, to me, QLA is simply a way of thinking and it is a way of life. However, keep in mind…

The QLA Methodology Is NOT For Everyone.

In fact, it’s for a very small percentage of people that have the right skills, the right mindset, and they have what it takes to make QLA work. So you need to know how to buy, negotiate, close, deal with people, talk to the bank, and run a business.

If you want to make QLA work for you these are some of the many skills you need to know to be successful. You see, it’s a very high-level entrepreneurship. And the concept behind the QLA Methodology is far from starting a regular online business. It’s on a completely different level.

Daniel Pena’s QLA Methodology is The Gateway to Generational Wealth

Throughout the 7-day Guthrie Castle seminar, you’ll find many different people from different countries and from all walks of life buying companies for 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, or even 100 million dollar deals. From my knowledge, learning how to close these types of deals are not taught anywhere else except at the Guthrie Castle.

And by making deals of this magnitude you can create what Daniel Pena refers to as generational wealth. So we are talking about wealth in terms of tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. Wealth that would normally take 20 to 25 years to create. But with the QLA Methodology, the goal is to create generational wealth within 3 to 7 years.

Over the years, Daniel Pena has worked to refine QLA to a process made up of systems that can help people, like yourself, create generational wealth in a shorter period of time. According to him, if you follow QLA perfectly it would take you about 3 years but most don’t get it perfect. Five to seven years if you’re good. And eight to ten years if you really don’t know what you’re doing.

But that’s the perspective I want to give you if you want to learn more about the QLA Methodology or if you want to attend the Guthrie Castle seminar yourself.

However keep in mind, a large percentage of people who have attended the castle seminar in the past have actually dropped out and didn’t make it in two to three months. They gave up. And many of those that didn’t succeed had these four mental obstacles standing in their way.

1. You Were Programmed For Poverty, Not Success

Even with the abundance of information, you can access on the internet about Daniel Pena and with all the time he spends teaching university students. Most people do not appreciate all the priceless value and knowledge they’re getting for free.

And a big reason is because most people are not programmed for high-performance or success. A majority of society is actually programmed for poverty.

Unless you were born into a high-performance family like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs, you were not taught to be a high-performer. In fact, today we live in what Daniel Pena calls a Snowflake Generation. These are people who melt under pressure.

They don’t have the self-esteem to become a high-performer because of all the bad programming they’ve received their entire life. When life gets tough and they can’t handle it, they feel the need to scurry back into their safe zone – a place where they can release their stress. But in reality, that method doesn’t help you. Because in life there are no safe zones.

In life, you have to suffer if you want to grow into someone successful. You see, everything you could ever want lies outside of your comfort zone. So to get there you need to stretch your comfort by learning how to be uncomfortable.

When it comes to applying the QLA Method, let’s say you are 25 years old. It’ll be much harder for you to execute the system because you have to unlearn all the bad mental programming you received from your parents.

It’s not impossible but it’ll be harder because you’ll be swimming in a lot of your own mental BS. However, if your desire is strong enough, then chances are you will do whatever it takes to produce results.

2. People Who Pretend To Be Successful Never Achieve Any Level Of Success

Many people who dropped out of the castle seminar had this false belief about how much they wanted to achieve success. They say they have a desire to be successful but their words never match their actions. They come in with this mindset of I don’t know how to do something.

Well, what you’re given at the seminar and through the QLA Methodology is the “how-to” or the process you need to succeed. But as soon as people find out that it’s hard. Or they hit their first obstacle and meet a little bit of resistance, they want to quit. That’s when they know they don’t have the real desire to achieve success as they had originally thought.

Daniel Pena once said that even if you attend the 7-day castle seminar and you got one thing out of it: Okay, I don’t think this is for me. Then it’s perfectly fine. Because now you know what it takes to achieve a high level of success. Now there’s no room for you to make any excuses:

I don’t know how to do it.
No one taught me.
I didn’t have any guidance.
I didn’t have enough resources.

So you see, most people pretend they want to be successful. But it isn’t until they realize the tough choices they need to make or as Daniel calls it the “pay price to action,” that they find out it’s not what they thought.

In the wise words of Daniel Pena, the difference between the high-performance people and the rest of society is where “measurable expectations are demanded not asked.” The reason my mentor and I achieved success in our life and can enjoy our material luxuries is because we wanted it more than anything else. Our desire was stronger than everyone else. And that’s what it takes.

3. Tough Love is What You Need But May Not Like

For a big portion of people that don’t succeed in life or don’t have what it takes to succeed, they’ve lived a “bubble-wrapped life” as Daniel calls it. It simply means they were raised by their parents to be weak and soft-minded.

In life, you and I encounter all sorts of problems and challenges. But why do some of us make it out alive and others don’t? Why do some of us handle problems successfully and others don’t? What makes this difference in people?

According to Daniel Pena, it’s because most of us were not taught to be tough-minded and overcome problems that are bound to happen in life. Today, as Daniel goes to teach at universities all around the world. Many of the students believe his message is not politically correct. But Daniel believes political correctness is a manifestation of lack of self-esteem. It’s just a way to hide behind their weakness.

Today people have less self-esteem than ever before. And people make the mistake of thinking that love on its own is enough to make a change and produce results. But it’s not. Even for Daniel Pena’s own three kids, he doesn’t expect love from them, even though it may be good. He would much rather prefer to have their respect.

Because respect is timeless and it’s something you can pass on from one generation to the next. You can see this is evident all throughout history as well. Love always seems to come and go, sometimes very easily.

But earning someone’s respect is much harder to come by. The definition of respect itself is the feeling of deep admiration for someone because of their abilities, qualities, or achievements. And most people are not proud of their abilities, qualities, or achievements because they’ve lived a mediocre life.

4. A Work-Life Balance Does Not Exist

If you take a look at all the high-performers today like Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and the late Steve Jobs, what do you notice?

They do not hang out or chill as Daniel calls it. You will not find them going to the World Cup, the Super Bowl, or the World Series. They just don’t go. Why?

Because they are constantly working all the time. They work on New Year’s Eve. They work on Christmas Day. And every year it’s the same routine. But understand that it’s not “work” to them and they don’t see it that way. Their work is an integral part of their life. There is no separation. It’s part of their enjoyment and obsession. The reason is because they are thinking about their work and their business all the time – 24/7.

One the biggest struggles for the snowflake generation is they believe in a work-life balance that does not exist. There is no work-life balance. And Jack Welch said it best, “There are work-life choices and they have consequences.”

You have to make the choice to achieve success. When you have an unbreakable will to pursue your dreams, then you will take the necessary actions to make it happen. But there is no shortcut. It’s a long, dangerous path full of pitfalls and traps. So if you don’t have the confidence, self-esteem, tough-mindedness, and skillsets to endure the journey. Chances are, you will not make it to the top.

How Will You Transform Your Mistakes Into Seeds For Wealth, Success, and Significance?

You see, one of the main differences I didn’t discuss above that separates successful high-performers from the rest of society is their execution. It’s their ability to take action even when it’s hard.

It’s their conviction to do whatever it takes even in the face of fear. They don’t make excuses. And they don’t whine and complain. They just take immediate action. Because as you may know, action drives out thought.

At the time before I decided to attend the castle seminar, like many people, I was scared. But I knew that it would cost me more not to take action. Maybe you’re facing this same dilemma. Your ego and insecurities may be getting in the way of your success. But if you are ready to make a change and you want to learn how you can unlock the door to reach your full potential, then click here to order my new book, Unlock It.

Develop A Powerful Personal Brand With These 3 Secrets

February 14, 2020 by Dan Lok Leave a Comment

To develop a powerful personal brand can be a daunting task, as many entrepreneurs and small business owners struggle with developing a brand for themselves. But branding is not only for companies, it defines who you are. Like everything else, your personal brand is unique.

What is a personal brand and why is it important?

A personal brand is a perception in someone’s mind. As I said earlier, when someone calls out your name, what would be their response? The truth is, you can determine what you want people to think and say about you.

Developing a brand is about taking control of your image, and that reflects who you are in many aspects. When someone calls out your name, it should give them an honest impression of your talents, values, and beliefs.

Developing a powerful personal brand is crucial for entrepreneurs and small business owners. In fact, it’s important for everyone. Because our personal brand will not only boost our business – it helps drive them to success.

For example, what makes you different? What are you known for? This means, what are your values? Are your values aligned with your mission and beliefs? And what kind of impression do you want to leave behind for the world?

You are your brand, no matter what your current job is. Click To Tweet

Branding is like a mental game. It acts as a magnet that pulls the matching pair together. So, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you must develop a powerful personal brand.

If you don’t develop a powerful personal brand, it makes you no different than others in regards to your profession.

The more you present yourself to the world, the higher your brand gains its credibility and recognition. So how do you develop a powerful personal brand? In this article, I will share 3 of my secrets to develop a powerful personal brand.

1. Brand Around Your Talents, Values, And Beliefs.

People like to know the story around why you did it and what makes you do it. It can be because of a certain talent you have or a strong belief of a product that you’ve created. Either way, people are drawn into a combination of vulnerability and enthusiasm. Your beliefs are what drives your core values.

Everyone looks at your watch and it represents who you are, your values and your personal style. – Kobe Bryant

When I say value, it isn’t based upon your position at your company. Rather it’s based on what you can bring to the marketplace. What is the unique talent that you do exceptionally well that others can’t? When you establish your own target audience in your niche market. You’ll be able to develop a unique talent around your niche. So, why do you have to do this?

Because with your own target audience, it helps you narrow down your potential customers. Clients won’t just walk up to your doorstep. You need to put yourself out there and when you understand your audiences, it is easier to create value based on their problems.

But before you do that, ask yourself these questions. This is where you begin.

Am I perceived as I want to be?
How strong is my reputation in my industry?
What does my brand reflect most on my personality? My ability?
What makes me unique?
Does my website/blog reflect my brand?
Does my social media channel reflect my brand?

Asking yourself these questions is where you begin developing a powerful personal brand. Choose what you want to be known for and focus on being the best at it. If you’re looking to be a successful entrepreneur, being the best at what you do sets you apart from your competition.

2. Develop A Powerful Signature Style

As I said in the beginning, branding is like a mental game. It’s like a magnet that pulls a matching pair together. So, when you develop a powerful personal brand, you need to stand out. Because being average makes you similar to everyone else and this is where you take control in developing what people think and say about you.

When you think about a signature style, it can be varied. It can either make or break a personal brand. So, be careful when you decide on your style. If you can develop this well, it can be powerful and make you instantly recognizable. Think about your favorite brands. What makes them unique? This is crucial to know because your brand allows self-expression through your personality to the marketplace.

You can visualize your style with these guides. But remember to be consistent with your style.

Logos
Trademarks
Signs
Core visual elements
How you dress

Think of it this way, if you have a different color logo on your signs and your blog. People will find it hard to understand what you do. So, being consistent with your style is a surefire to success.

Apart from that, develop your unique dress code. As I said earlier, you are in control of what people think and say about you. You want people to remember you for the right reasons. My mentees associate me with my red suit and my Bentley. Steve Jobs always dressed exactly the same and Obama only wears either a blue or a gray suit.

My point here is, these may be their signature style. But when you call out their names, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Steve Jobs – Apple products. Dan Lok – Red suit and Bentley. On top of that, a powerful personal brand gives you an advantage in your professional and personal life.

3. Create An Impression With An Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch allows you to earn someone’s conversation. It is never an opportunity to close a deal. However, it’s an opportunity to get people’s attention. It acts as a quick introduction and with a short, snappy explanation, it explains how you can help your customers.

So, where and when should you use your elevator pitch? You can leave an impression with an elevator pitch during a networking event, warm calls or conferences. You also use an elevator pitch with job interviews. Especially when someone asks you this question, “Tell me about yourself” or “What do you do?”

Instead of convincing someone to hire you, earn 30 seconds of conversation. Click To Tweet

A compelling short stunning elevator pitch will uplift your value. Which means, people will instantly remember who you are. But never forget that when people who listen to your pitch, the first thing they think about is “Does that bring me value?” or “What’s in it for me?” Therefore, when you develop a powerful personal brand, it’s crucial to understand your audiences.

For example, at a networking event. Someone prompts an attention-grabbing question saying, “Isn’t it a daunting task to develop a personal brand for yourself?” And you answer, “ Yes, but you know what will make it less daunting? The founder of my company constantly creates educational content. They created a video training that cost less than a cup of coffee a day. And if you spend 30 days on coffee, you could discover the secrets to develop a powerful personal brand without feeling daunting.”

Or if someone asks, what do you do?. You can say, “I help companies scale their business by exponentially increasing their conversion rates.” While different types of questions have different impressions, it should also be memorable and punchy.

What Should You Be Doing To Maintain Your Personal Branding?

Now that you’ve developed a powerful personal brand. What should you be doing to maintain your brand? Yes, it’s time to gain visibility. This is where you’re letting your audience know you exist.

To gain visibility requires multiple processes. For example, creating a well-strategized plan across your social media platform. In order to establish a strong foundation, you need to be active in a couple of things.

Here’s how you can market your brand through different channels.

Client Referrals
Direct Mail
Networking
Joint ventures
Seminars
Public Relations
Warm Calling (if you have a product or service)
Internet (Social media platforms)

Don’t get overwhelmed by the number of platforms. To begin with, you can start with one. Decide which is your best channel according to your target audience. Now, let me give you an idea of what I do to promote and maintain my personal brand.

Here’s what I do to maintain my personal brand. And this is strictly on personal branding.

Give one interview per week. 52 interviews a year which includes TV, Radio, Podcast or print.
Conduct one interview per week with successful entrepreneurs.
Create and upload 200+ videos per year on YouTube.
Publish at least one new book per year.
Give away a minimum of 3,000 books a year.
Deliver at least 20 presentation or speeches a year.

Ensuring your brand is personalized, creates compelling and convincing content. Write valuable and educational content to your audience. You need to put value to the marketplace. Why? Because your brand and value is a self-expression through your personality. So, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, position yourself by being the best at what you do.

Why Entrepreneurs Fail At Developing A Personal Brand

As I said in the beginning, many entrepreneurs struggle to develop a powerful personal brand. So, whether it’s personal or business life, it defines who you are. In order to be successful in any business, having a powerful brand is crucial because branding elevates your success exponentially.

Developing a powerful personal brand right is crucial for success. Click To Tweet

Of course, it’s not an overnight success. You can’t get the world to know who you are in a day. But if you’re consistent, it’s a surefire to success. It takes time and effort to understand and learn how to develop a powerful personal brand effectively.

Here’s why entrepreneurs fail at developing a personal brand.

They Don’t Fully Believe In Themselves.

If you don’t believe in yourself, certainly, nobody will. If you want to develop a powerful personal brand, you must be clear and certain about who you are and what you can offer to the marketplace. Again, your value is on what you can bring to the marketplace. But keep this in mind, there’s a difference between confidence and arrogance. If you set yourself with confidence, you’ll overcome hurdles with grace.

No Strategy

Everything you do reflects on your brand. Therefore, having a good strategy is important in every area of business. If you want to stand out and be remembered. You need to put in the extra effort as it won’t magically appear for you. Think and plan out a couple of strategies before you execute. But don’t be afraid to fail. I failed in 13 businesses before i became a self-made millionaire.

How you do anything is how you do everything – Dan Lok

Unsure What Is Personal Branding

Don’t get confused between professional and personal branding, because they are very different. Personal brand is a perception in someone’s mind. It is how people perceive you would be. Remember the first question you ask yourself? Am I perceived as I want to be? Talking to people and asking for honest opinions is the best way to do this.

They’re Inconsistent With Their Content On Social Media

Have a narrow focus on your topics with your social media channels. When you’re consistent, it’s easier to recognize a voice. To ensure a powerful brand is achieved, you have to demonstrate consistency across your communication.

Never Leverage On Social Media Platforms

In 2018, an estimate of 1.8 billion people worldwide purchased goods online. And during the same year, global e-retail sales amounted to 2.8 trillion U.S. dollars. It’s projected to grow up to 4.8 trillion U.S. dollars by 2021. So, can you imagine the number of people purchasing a product through social media platforms? It’s significantly high. So, leveraging social media might be the key to your success.

Not Investing In Themselves To Learn

I’ve seen many entrepreneurs make plenty of excuses. Such as, I’m too old to expose myself in social media. I’m not young enough to learn new things anymore. Well, let me tell you this. If you want to develop a powerful personal brand, you need to have a shift in mindset. The process of gradually developing into the person you wish to be is crucial. When you get constructive criticism, you can use that to grow. Regardless of how long it takes, your brand will grow much more quickly.

If you want to grow your business, investing in yourself to learn new technology is essential. Unless you have the confidence to learn through my free 200+ video content. Engaging a mentor and gaining their secrets will bring you success quicker.

Want To Develop A Powerful Personal Brand?

Making a name for yourself can be tough and frustrating. As I said in the beginning, it can be a daunting task. It requires time, effort and consistency. When you see other leaders making a name for themselves, you wonder, how did they have it all figured out? When you want to develop a powerful personal brand, you have to understand the most important aspect, which is trust.

A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. – Seth Godin

Whether it’s for personal or business. If they aren’t any trust, you’re not likely to achieve a personal brand for yourself. That’s why I told my team to prepare a special training video that consists of my secrets. Discover the secrets of my personal branding here.

Back in my early days, when I was in high school, I was the invisible kid. No one wanted to talk to me and people didn’t think I could succeed in business. But now that I’m a business magnate, Internet celebrity and global educator with students and fans around the world, people want to know how I developed such a reputation.

In today’s world of technology, opportunities for growth are more than before. So, to develop a powerful personal brand, be sure to stay focused and the brand stays with you.

A personal brand is nothing more than your personal reputation. If you want to create a powerful reputation for yourself, create a compelling elevator pitch and develop the perception you want your audience to think and say about you. That drives your core values with the beliefs you have.

And, if you’re a serious influencer, entrepreneur, and expert earning over $300,000 in revenue and want to take your business to the next level, read below. If you are an influencer and entrepreneur who wants to:

Scale their business to 7-figures and beyond using social media.
Generate a predictable and sustainable return on investment every month.
Build a 7-figure business that runs with or without them.

High-Ticket Influencer is the answer.

Are You Working Too Much Or Feel Stuck In Business Stagnation?

February 11, 2020 by Dan Lok

Do you feel like you’re working too much, and you feel burnt out or stuck in a rut? According to Gallup’s 2017 study, approximately two-thirds of U.S. employees feel disengaged at their workplace. If only 33% of employees feel engaged at work, that’s unfortunate. Something has to be done about this problem. So, are you working too much and feeling stuck?

When an employee leaves the company they work for, they’re often leaving their awful managers or their horrible bosses– not the job itself. So, when managers make a lot of unnecessary rules, the company might need to rethink some things. Unnecessarily strict rules drive employees crazy. But what does this have to do with working too much and feeling stuck at work?

As a business owner, nothing is more frustrating than feeling stuck. You know you have to grow your business, but you don’t know where to fix things, and that’s frustrating. If you’re an employee, you might leave the company and search to work with a different manager.

At one point or another, people make a change and seek out better opportunities. While some choose to stay and remain stuck – it's your choice to stay in your circumstances. Click To Tweet

While some choose to stay and remain stuck, due to fear of change or fear of failure, those people are making the wrong choice. Furthermore, dissatisfied employees can affect the company in a negative way. Because of their lack of motivation, they don’t perform well.

Having the negativity of these employees spreading around the workplace creates a toxic work environment for everyone. It will affect the entire department and disrupt the company’s bottom line. With that said, as a business owner, you need to understand the reasons for your employee’s dissatisfaction. When you understand the reasons, you can come up with a solution that does not only create a healthy work culture, but also leads to growth in your revenue.

Key Reasons For Feeling Stuck

You’re working too much expecting a positive growth, yet you feel stuck. That’s common among entrepreneurs. You might feel overwhelmed with your current business model, or extremely busy and stressed. You’re ready to progress to the next level of your business but you’re uncertain of what step you need to take.

When you’re stuck in business, often the issue that you think is the issue, may not be the actual issue. Click To Tweet

For example, perhaps you place a high expectation on your predicted monthly revenue due to false promises from your prospects who claim to be interested in a purchase. You keep getting false hope from your prospects when they say things like, “I really want to buy it, I’ll call you back shortly.” But they never do call back, or they say, “Hmmm, this is interesting, can you send me more information?” But you’ll never hear from them even after sending more information or following up several times.

Does this frustrate you? I understand how you feel.

You’ve worked way too hard to just throw everything down the drain just because you feel stuck in your business. You’ve put too much effort into something that you think it will bring you somewhere. Especially for those that are waiting for career advancement. expecting to be promoted, or have started their own business with high hopes of self-made success.

If you’ve received false hope from your prospects, those are called sales objections, and they can be handled with proper training.

But before I go any further, I want you to watch this video about “When you’re stuck in life”

Is Your Awareness Low?

There’s a quote from Albert Einstein that goes like this: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” This means, your awareness right now may be low, and you’re trying to solve problems only using what you know. And you keep trying to get unstuck with only what you know, and that’s why it doesn’t work.

As I said in the above video, there are a few different types of people who are most likely to experience this problem:

- People who are dumb
- People who don’t know they are dumb
- Some know they’re dumb

And, people who are dumb but think they’re smart

The last type of person I listed, the person who is dumb but thinks he or she is smart, is the most dangerous of them all. By having awareness, it’ll help you solve your problems. How? If you gain more knowledge, you’ll gain a new perspective, and you’ll have multiple choices and insightful information. When you step outside the box, you’ll see a bigger picture.

With more knowledge and training, not only will you be able to solve your problems, but you might also break free from your current unsatisfactory circumstances.

So, think about this if you feel overwhelmed with work. Are you working too much as an employee or a freelancer? Let’s say you’re an employee: How long have you been feeling this way? Do you sit around and mope when you get home from work? Are you experiencing that awful stuck-in-a-rut feeling, or a feeling of emptiness? How has this impacted you and your family?

You’re probably thinking about all the possible ways to change your current circumstances. And what exactly are you doing about it? What’s the difference between saying you will do it but not taking any action? End of the day, you’re still not taking any action to solve your problems.

Acquiring more knowledge might be the solution to you feeling stuck. Click To Tweet

So, if you’re already good at what you’re doing, acquiring more knowledge and training might be exactly what you need to get unstuck.

Now, let’s see what the reasons are behind you feeling stuck inside.

Working Too Much and Being Underpaid

One of the biggest reasons someone feels that they’re working too much is being underpaid for the work they’re doing. If you’re an employee, are you being underpaid right now? I’m not going to ask you if you feel stuck inside. And if you’re reading this article now, I know you’re looking for a way out. So, stay with me.

Now, while being underpaid. It’s obvious you have to stretch your wallet further to cope with the cost of living. Can you imagine the number of things you have to pay by the end of the month? Health insurance, mortgage, food, utilities and it’s all constantly rising. And some of you might also get a side hustle just to have an additional Income.

Most people have told me they'd need a raise of at least $6,000 dollars to live comfortably. Click To Tweet

Don’t you feel that the value you provide is worth much more money? Are you being paid fairly? Many employees are underpaid, which is why so many employees feel they’ve been overworked and undervalued.

But then again, these four words: “I’m working too much” are very broad. It depends on what exactly you’re doing, what your goals are, what you want to achieve and for who you’re working too much for. So, if you’re a freelancer. With the value, you provide to the marketplace. Working too much is not an issue if you’re aware of your awareness.

Also, acquiring a certain set of skills could help you solve your problems faster. However, for a business owner, they may feel underpaid if they don’t understand their prospects. Why? Because they may be selling their product to the wrong people. Knowing your audience is crucial if you want to grow your business.

Do you prefer selling a product of $5,000 to 1 prospect or $500 to 10 prospects? So, if you believe in your product. And it’s offering value to the marketplace. Don’t be afraid to ask for big money. Does that make sense?

So, being aware of your awareness and who you’re working with too much for, determines how you feel.

However, if you’re an employee and feeling stuck, you probably feel that you are working too much, and you probably don’t enjoy your work, either.

No Career Advancement

Imagine that you’re expecting a promotion. If that is the case, perhaps you’re working too much for a reason. It’s probably to show your boss that you have the capabilities for that position. But I want you to think about this.

Are you earning the additional income so you can spend more time with your family? If you are, how long have you been waiting for that moment? Will it ever come?

You see, a lack of career advancement is one of the reasons for employee dissatisfaction. An employee who feels stuck in their job position usually feels less motivation. When an employer includes them in their long-term plan, they’ll feel appreciated. But when you’ve been waiting for too long, not being valued and underpaid, you’ll eventually move on.

According to Forbes, there’s a global study that revealed, 79% of people who quit their jobs cite a lack of appreciation. That’s why it’s important to develop education and knowledge. That means, to acquire a profound skill that could possibly help you ear 6-7+ figures of income. May it be a skill you can use remotely to earn over $10,000 per month.

Develop higher skills, elite training, and more knowledge to start earning a 6-figure income. Click To Tweet

Take Control of Your Life

Let’s imagine you’ve acquired a certain set of high-income skills and now you’re in control of your life, your time and your business. How will that impact you? And if you have a family, you could finally spend more time with them or go on a family vacation. Because you have been working too much, you never had the chance to have decent family time. But now you can. How will that make you feel?

I’ve mentored over 4,900+ students from all over the world. Business owners, corporate professionals, influencers, other coaches, consultants, and freelancers. They’ve discovered the secret method I used from getting out of a 9 to 5 job to scaling my coaching business. I went from zero to $1,000,000 a month in less than 8 months.

So, what am I talking about? Well, I’ll get into that shortly.

Lack of Interest

First of all, you should always be prepared for the future and not wait for a crisis. Even if you lack interest in what you’re doing, smart professionals keep a foot in both worlds. So, what do I mean by that? It means you can be an employee and an entrepreneur at the same time. Having said that, you should find something that you’re interested in.

Now, let’s get into some steps to help you get back on track. You’ll have better vision, clarity and a step-by-step solution to move forward.

Once you know how to work hard, you need to know how to work smart. Click To Tweet

Identify Where Your Roadblocks Are

Working too much can lead to emotional negativity and that can lead you to feel stuck inside. While your mind can be cluttered and unclear, it’s important to identify your ‘why’ and begin a plan. This means you need to strategize, and move forward making these decisions quickly.

Evaluate your market or audience, with specificity and clarity on your niche.
Are you spending enough on your marketing initiatives to reach your ideal target prospects?
Public speaking, social media, and networking are important for branding.
Engage a mentor to help you instead of being a lone wolf. Self-Improvement requires investment in yourself.

Dealing With Your Lower-Self

Many people are likely to get stuck in their momentary lapse of judgment. Especially when they’re at the moment before the miracle. Why? Because, before the moment of going into the next stage of your business, oftentimes it creates self-doubts. So, recognizing and dealing with your lower-self is important to keep your ego away.

Having the right mindset gives you freedom. Because once you’ve recognized your awareness with the right mindset. You’ll have brilliant thoughts and make empowered choices.

The thing with moving forward is, it’ll make you feel uncomfortable. Because you have to leave your comfort zone, and that makes a huge change in your personal and business life. So, don’t let your lower-self take control over your achievements.

Instead of waiting for the right time and making thousands of excuses. Constantly and consciously think about your high-self. For example, subconsciously train your mind by telling yourself “I want to be rich!”. “I can do this!”,“ I’m going to win and will not give up!”

Make Decisions That Keep Values and Visions Aligned

Before you make any decision, ask yourself if the decision you’re making is aligned with your values, your goals, and your big-picture vision. Will your decision move you closer to your goals and closer to success?

Practice quick-action thinking. It is a very good practice in your day-to-day life. Let’s take this article as an example. As you scroll through, you might have done some thinking before you made the decision to read it.

Perhaps you’re working too hard and looking for a way out by talking to a mentor. Or maybe you’re just surfing the internet to acquire more knowledge to figure out your way out. All you know is, you’re feeling stuck and you need help.

I’ve developed a guide on how you can use our system and strategies to grow your business. Especially if you’re in the coaching business as well. It is an interactive guide and it’s called the High-Ticket Influencer Program.

In this interactive guide, I’ll show you how our strategies can be used for scaling your coaching business. But before I get into it, let me share some questions you might need to ask yourself. By asking yourself these questions, it can help you move forward and get unstuck:

- I am stuck because . . . ?
- I want to achieve my goal by (write a specific date)
- To move forward, i need to have a millionaire mindset.
- Am I working too much? So, what am I going to do about it?
- I want to make “X” Dollars as my daily income goal (D.I.G)

Once you succeed, nobody cares about your failures. Click To Tweet

What you do for you is not as important as how you do it. As a high achiever, being good at what you do is another way to ensure career satisfaction. This means you want to become so good at your skill, you’ve positioned yourself as an expert.

Take Control of Your Time and Get Unstuck

Despite getting stuck and working too much, the main thing to avoid is feeling trapped. By having the right mindset and taking concrete positive steps in the right direction, you can start diminishing negative vibes in your workplace.

One of my mentors once told me this: “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.”

Now, why am I sharing this with you? Because the people you choose as friends will have a significant impact on your mindset and behavior.

As I said in the beginning, smart people make a change for better opportunities. But if you choose to stay and remain stuck, it’s also your decision. I know it’s not easy to leave your comfort zone. Achieving a significant shift in mindset might be the solution for you. So, think about how this change will impact you and your family’s life.

As promised, let me tell you what you’ll discover inside this insightful High-Ticket Influencer Program. In the program, you’ll discover how to:

- - Maximize your “Personal Media Platform” (P.M.P.) and NEVER have to chase clients or get on the phone with unqualified prospects again.
  - Create irresistible offers that will allow you to have the highest impact on every client.
  - Get yourself out of the small “day-to-day” minutiae and finally get your business to work for you.

You see, there are many small actions you can take to achieve quick results that could change your life. And these small changes also prove to yourself that, with the decisions you make, you can be successful. You need to shift your mindset. So, if you think you’re working too much and it’s time to take charge of your time, discover how you can take control of your time.

If you want to discover the systems and strategies to grow your business, especially if you have a coaching business or a business that relies on social media, simply register yourself for my program. Request your personal copy of my closely-guarded secrets. You’ll discover the methods I used to scale my coaching business from zero to $1 million per month in less than 8 months.

However, if you prefer leveraging the advice on my free YouTube videos, you can click on the link below to subscribe to my YouTube channel. My team and I produce daily educational videos for free, and you can leverage my knowledge to your own advantage.

Click here to subscribe to my free YouTube channel right now!

How to Succeed In Business As An Introverted Entrepreneur

February 6, 2020 by Dan Lok

Most people agree that being an extrovert is very helpful when running your own business. It’s usually not difficult to make connections and to build relationships with clients. But what do you do if you are an introverted entrepreneur?

To know if you’re an introvert or extrovert, take this quiz.

Have you ever considered how your personality affects your professional success? Are anxiety and shyness standing in the way of maximizing your potential?

You might find the world of entrepreneurship overwhelming. It requires a lot more interactions with others than you may be comfortable. Perhaps you tend to prefer isolation and working alone. Running a business as an introvert can truly be overwhelming. But are you aware of the advantages of being an introverted entrepreneur?

In this article, we will share with you some of the secrets of succeeding in business as an introverted entrepreneur.

Understanding introversion

Introverts usually enjoy thinking, reading, writing. They get their energy from these introverted activities. Extroverts, however, thrive in larger social activities. Thinking is collective discussion; reading is discussing with others, and writing is sharing with others. Extroverts like to be out and about, socializing, and feeding off the energy of others.

Now that’s a very literal and archaic way to look at it.

Today, we know that there are many levels of introversion. Moreover, most people are neither fully extroverted nor fully introverted. We find ourselves somewhere in between and at times, leaning into one side or another.

Many people, especially entrepreneurs, are inherent introverts but tend to adapt. Over time, they develop more balanced personalities. They become ambiverts and exhibit extroversion and introversion.

Perhaps you scroll down entrepreneurs’ social media accounts, seduced by the images of success on luxury. You may even be thinking, “That could never be me – I am too much in my own head.”

But you are very wrong. You are never too introverted to succeed in business – in fact, you may even have certain advantages.

In order to unlock those potentials, you need to first reflect on what you think a leader should be. Can you be one? Why not? You need to envision yourself as a leader – and then, locate the tools and resources you need to thrive.

To do this, you have to identify your power. Then, use the right tools to turn introversion into a powerful advantage.

And the last thing you should do as an introverted entrepreneur is to try to “overcome” your personality. We cannot outgrow ourselves: we can only become better versions of who we have always been.

If you want to see the aspects of being a natural introvert as unique tools for business success, then read on.

Choose your industry wisely

People like J.K. Rowling, Bill Gates, and Steven Spielberg have one thing in common: introversion. Understanding your personality is actually key to success. It is also necessary for the crucial first step: choosing your industry.

Whatever it is you choose to do, you need to have a passion for. However, passion alone is not enough. To reach the peak of our potentials, we need to seek out an environment that will welcome and nourish us.

Forcing yourself to fit in is going to hold you back and could be a source of anxiety and depression.

The first question you need to ask yourself is what kind of work makes me happy? Once you have an idea of what this might be, you will be able to search for your ideal industry.

But identifying the type of work that makes you happy is not enough. You need to also consider how you want to be working – that is, choose your work environment.

Perhaps you prefer quiet, isolated work environments. You may thrive working from home, which is not the case for many people these days.

Online work is just one of the opportunities for you to pursue. As an entrepreneur, working online means less in-person interaction. You can disconnect at your leisure and recharge as needed. You no longer have to feel anxious about turning inward, overthinking what to say, or silence on a regular basis.

In fact, choosing an industry with an anchor online may allow you to excel. This is why most of Dan Lok’s best copywriting students are introverts – they prefer to work alone and in isolation.

Another common thing is looking into studio work. There are many industries out there – such as music production, curation, or design – that may be perfect for introverts.

Now, your success in the chosen industry depends on maximizing your potential. To do so – you must know where your strengths lie.

Play on your strengths

As an introvert, you likely prioritize time alone and self-reflection. This means you have a deeper sense of self and value self-knowledge.

This is crucial because without self-knowledge, you cannot know your natural strengths. Without playing on those strengths, you are not going to reach the height of your potential. You need to know what your power is, to lead. What are your most important strengths?

You may not even be aware that some of the most successful people you know of are introverts. And you know some of their stories because they are unusual and against the grain. They found their unique strengths and unlocked their true potentials.

You may be asking – how do I know if I have the potential to unlock?

Chances are, you have already been pursuing your strengths – perhaps only quietly and in private. For example, many introverts tend to be dreamers and to place a lot of value on imagination. Their minds are natural storytellers. These introverts tend to have an affinity for writing. They often seek out industries where they can hone their skill – such as copywriting.

This is also why introverts tend to be natural innovators.

They choose to stand apart from society and try something entirely new. But that does not mean they stand alone. They usually seek out like-minded people to be their partners.

Find an extroverted partner

Innovation is always a fusion of some kind. Most times, “the best of two kinds” is joined to create something larger and exciting. It is important to have like-minded people close, but it is crucial that they have a different approach.

Put simply – a balance of introversion and extroversion is key to business success.

Your strengths should be complementary. If you thrive in quiet and isolation, you might want to partner up with someone who enjoys teamwork.

One of the best examples of what happens when this balance is struck may be right under our noses: Apple. Steve Wozniak (an introvert) and Steve Jobs (an extrovert), brought their personalities together and created Apple. Steve Jobs was in charge of marketing. Wozniak focused primarily on product development. One’s extroversion and the other’s introversion made them strong beyond measure.

You and your partner need to not only make use of your own strengths but to also know when to play on the other’s. You will inspire each other to grow and unlock your higher potential.

Once you build trust with your partner, you will want to work together to build a strong network. You will each have to locate and make use of your own unique resources.

Connect to other introverts in your industry

If you find an extroverted partner, you may think that they will be the ones doing most of the outreach and building connections. This thinking may be your downfall.

What you want to do is build a network on your own end. Reach out to other introverted entrepreneurs in your industry.

If you are first starting out, you may be thinking there aren’t many introverts in your industry – wrong. It is less likely you will meet them at social gatherings and see much on their social media. And this is how you know you want to reach out.

The more you’re out of your comfort zone, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more you grow. Click To Tweet

Be confident that using your natural approach is the best way to go. You do not need to try to outspeak somebody else. Chances are, you are a natural listener and a keen observer. This means your approach will appeal to another such individual.

You will be able to make spontaneous connections with other introverts. This is usually because neither of you seeks out external affirmation. This is important in business. It means you are less likely to base your relationships on the competition. Because of this, you each will be able to see the benefits of a friendship without getting into each other’s way. Connections with other introverts will feel natural. They will also inspire and push you.

These connections will also likely be less exhausting. Being an introverted entrepreneur among extroverts can be draining. It is important for introverts to have time for themselves.

Take time to recharge

Have you ever heard the term introvert hangover? Your feeling the need for a time-out from social environments is a very real thing. It is a consequence of social overstimulation.

Your body and mind may be telling you they’ve had enough, and that you need to retreat into yourself to recharge. But being an entrepreneur, you probably often try to “power through” and satisfy other demands before taking time off.

You may not know that recharging actually works. Your mind may be trying to tell you it needs to process information in solitude. Once you got rid of your ‘introvert hangover,’ you will go back to work with a fresh attitude and new ideas, so you are actually gaining and not losing steam.

Down-time does not have to be dull. You may choose to watch educational movies, write in your journal or meditate. You could also learn more about the power of silence and how to amplify your strengths.

Taking the time to recharge means allowing achievements to set in. It also means unlocking more potential. Click To Tweet

As you unwind and reflect, you may also choose to hone your skills.

One skill all introverts should hone

The ability to seal the deal is what makes a good entrepreneur. As an introvert, you are likely able to reach people on a more personal level. simply because you are a listener. And this is invaluable when it comes to closing. To make sure you can unlock your full potential – you should make sure your closing skills are strong.

For many introverts in business, closing is already a strength – you just need to keep nurturing yours. Dan Lok is also an introvert, which is why he put together The Perfect Closing Script. This is like a cheat sheet that you can just keep in front of you during your next sales conversation and allow yourself to thrive in your chosen industry.

Think of this script as a secret weapon for introverts. The more you practice, the more useful a weapon it becomes.

Updated November 4, 2020.