SNM031: If You Could Go Back In Time

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If you could go back in time, what would you teach your younger self on today's episode? Today's episode is brought to you by thrive themes, blazingly fast WordPress templates and plug ins built to get more traffic, more subscribers, more clients and more customers to you. To find out how thrive themes can turn your blogger Web site into a money making work of art, go to serve no master dot com Backslash Drive Themes Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now then you've come to the right place. Welcome to serve no master podcast where you learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host. When I was 28 I began my master's program in teaching. The first day of class is one of the other students was talking to me, another teacher. Most of the people on my program were high school teachers from around the world who came to this program, got their masters and went back to teaching at the high school level. That was something that didn't interest me out of my class of 30 people. A year later, I was the only one teaching at the university level. Everyone else had gone back teaching high school while I was teaching graduate postgraduate courses at high level universities. The beginning of that course, one of my friends turned to me and said, If you want to build a business, if you want to make money, you're on the wrong course. I'm not sure why you're on this course. You don't belong here. You should go to the office right now and ask them to switch you to the N B A course. That's where you belong. I laughed it off and didn't think anything of it. A year and 1/2 later, I had my master's. My dissertation was published and I'd left that industry behind forever. I'll never go back to teaching in the school ever again. I'll never go back to teaching at a university ever again. The thought of teaching a classroom where someone else's control of me impossible. It's my nightmare now, I would never go back to that during that time, and shortly thereafter, I began to privately tutor through. One of the university's eventually began teaching at someone who was on MBA course. The sky was running a multibillion dollar company in his home country in Eastern Europe. His company was one of the largest companies in the world that was owned by him and his siblings that formed something and build something huge in a very small country. And I asked him, Why are you getting M B? A when you were already running a massively successful business and he turned to me and said, I don't know. It just seemed like it might be a good idea. Why take a course to learn what you're already doing? Very interesting that he was taking an MBA course that he didn't need, and I was taking the one I shouldn't be taking. Perhaps if I could go back in time, I would take his spot in that MBA course, and we could have altered a little bit of history. He told me that he couldn't imagine me continue as a teacher for much longer. He could see within me a hunger and a desire for so much more and a desire to run a company and the financial successful and grow and grow and grow again. I laughed him off and said, No, this is what I love doing. I love what I'm doing. I don't want to change. Nearly 10 years later, looking back, it's amazing how two different people had foresight and wisdom and offered me a really deep insight into where I should take my life. And I reacted way too slowly. I missed a couple of opportunities. Now, when I think about going back in time, when I think about how I would change my past, I have to think about where I am right now and do I want to change my present? But there are lessons for my past. I wish that could go back and teach myself to give myself a better chance of success. And these are the things that if I could go back in time, I would teach myself if you go back one year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, what would you go back and teach yourself? What were those opportunities? You missed those moments. Those lessons you learned the hard way. Those are the most important lessons to share with your audience. Whatever you're writing about, whatever you're teaching about, whatever your lessons are going to be about, that's what you want to share with your audience. Whatever experiences you could wish, you go back and give yourself. That's really the gold, the things I share with you now or some of the most important things that I wish I taught myself back then. You're perfect audiences, the younger version of you. That's who really needs to hear your important message. I've thought about going and getting an MBA several times over the last few years. I don't really know how to run a business. I didn't learn school. I didn't learn all those structural things. I'm very much self taught, and I wonder if having experience and really been through a business development program, I would be in a different position. I'd be much more financially successful. I know how to create products that people want to buy. I know howto build great revenue streams, but I wonder sometimes if there's infrastructure pieces they don't really know about that I would know if I got to this course is so sometimes I look, I wanted Thio improve my resume. I wanted to improve the quality of my teaching right writings, and I've looked at a couple of programmes, postgraduate programs last for years. I thought about going in getting an advanced degree or doctorate in psychology to improve the sell through of my books. If I could say Dr Jonathan Green, more people would buy my material. It's interesting because I've never thought about being a doctor and thinking I would learn new things or that would change the quality when a teacher and change the material would simply change the response rate. Later on, I began to think about getting an MBA and how that would open up some doors. In between. I thought about getting an M F A A, which is a master of fine arts. I thought about the path to becoming an author. I've always wanted to be a successful author, and I did so much research. I read every block post every article. All these stories about how to succeed is an author, and they all start with you have taken Emma Fae to prove you have to get a master. Find out you have to get this post graduate degree in writing to prove you're good enough for people to even listen to you. Then you write, and you hope that having an M f A A will give you a chance to get your articles or your short stories in the magazines, or you're really hoping a little more credential would give you the opportunity to move forward with writing. Even with an M F A. Nothing is guaranteed. So you spend tens of thousands of dollars in Year two of your life getting this degree with a class taught by someone who never succeeded as a writer in the hopes that you could get put into the cycle where you deal with an agent and hopefully agent picks you up. Then hopefully you can get enough attention from ah, publishing house or small publisher or something. When you look at the writers you like or any of the writers you know, you probably haven't read a book written by someone with an M f A in your entire life. All of this advice of this entire path that I got interested in looking back now I'm so glad it and go down that path. As you know, I'm not a big believer in traditional education, but I do sometimes look at these things. I like practical education. I could see the value in an MBA, something that teaches you how to run a business in a very practical way. I know that a lot of what they teach on many MBA courses isn't that, but something that was practical in infrastructure, I would think, is very valuable. And for a while I was in negotiations to start becoming, ah, short term CEO consultant. It's not really what I want to be doing, but it was something I dabble was about two years ago. I was in negotiations with you cos I did a little bit of experimentation. It would involve a lot of traveling whoever the company was based, staying there for six months to two years, rebuilding the entire company, cutting costs, raising profits, re selling the company with my partners and then moving on to the next company, something I looked into and having MBA again would have helped me with that process. It would have helped people to respect me. A lot of it's about perception on all the value in an MBA is telling other people you haven't these experiences, these thoughts that I have. Looking back, I don't really think they would change things that much. I'm glad I never got an M f. I'm glad that I never did other things. I don't know if the n b A would have made everything different, very happy with my life. Could my life be better? It's possible there are some important lessons in life that we can learn from our mistakes and when the most import lessons is to accept our past. For the past year, too, my father has been talking about how he regrets where I went to college. I probably made the wrong decision. I'm not really sure if I made the best decision about where I went to college. I chose the school where I got the best offer as far as a scholarship as faras financial help. That's really what drove my decision, and one of the other schools I could have gone to would've been a large state school, not in my home state that was just filled with a lot more beautiful women and cool people. It would have been a much more perhaps a better, socially conducive environment. We're taking me down a different direction and he was going around talking about Mom, saying all we should have talked him into going to a different school. When I look at my life, I have two amazing kids. I live on the paradise on the beach. If I went to a different college, my kids would be gone. They would disappear. They wouldn't have existed. He went back to the future, faded them away. I might have had more fun in college. I have a friend who is very similar to me. The college I didn't go to. We were going for the same scholarship and he got it. I didn't. I look at his life and I don't want to trade. My life is a lot better. He's actually back teaching at my old high school, so the circle has completed itself. I don't want to be teaching at my old high school. I don't wanna go back in that circle. I'm sure he's very happy with his life and he took his right path and I took my right path. But I don't want to trade living paradise on the beach. Tow teaching in my old high school? No, thanks. I'm not switching back. There are a few important lessons that I've learned building my business over the last six years. Better, really important. And then I want to share with you because they are going to help you change and grow your business in the right way. And the first lesson that I learned is that growth disappears. You will run into projects that are very, very successful, sometimes successful, very quickly, and you get convinced that you're a genius. This happens to most people in online marketing. This happened to me, and this happened to lots of people around me. I've mentioned a few previous episodes. I knew a guy who was doing $1000 a day with his very first idea on Facebook. 21 years old, very, very young, tried 90 on Facebook and was immediately making $2000 a day. The only thing he ever tried the only project ever work on. And then Facebook shut down his page and closed the loophole that was running his business. They changed their in Trier structure. It's business is gone. I for a long time ran a specific type of S E o business. And when I wanted to travel, I had to shut down that business. The growth disappeared. Amazon change some of their algorithms, and I would have had to spend a lot more time than it wanted to really rebuilding that business. I would have had been personally working on technology, personally working on a lot of S E o changes and really working hard, investing a lot more of my time and really, really working to rebuild that business. And rather than do all that, I shut everything down. And now, of course, you know, if you go through my local consulting millionaire course if you go through and listen to the previous episode where I talk about building Estelle business, being a local consultant, how quickly you can make money, You know, I no longer Amon s e l expert. I know how to hire the right person and do arbitrage. But at the time, I didn't know what to do. So when I ran into a wall, I didn't know the right person to hire to take over that business. Fortunately, when that happened, I'd already shifted into product creation had already shifted in another market. So the business that shut down was a very small part of what I was working on because I've moved into a new area. When you have that first success, don't assume that it's permanent. There is an element of luck, and there isn't moment of change ability to this market. And sometimes we think we've built the business when really we built our first product, our first idea, and we haven't transitioned to new business yet. If you watch those investment TV shows that you know I love to watch. Oftentimes someone shows there product, their invention, their creation. It talks a little about their sales and then people they want an investment from. Tell them you have a product out of business, yet growth will come and go. Projects will go up and down. Be prepared for that. Don't assume if you make $10,000 this month, you automatically make $10,000 next month without any work. That assumption is what kills so many people that burns so bright very quickly. It happens to actors, athletes, musicians, most professional athletes. They make it through high school. They make it through college on amazing scholarships, playing Division one football, and then they get drafted an NFL. They think they're gonna be there for 20 or 30 years. The average NFL careers only three years. Nobody thinks they're going to be one of those guys who gets cut after only 12 or three years. So they spend. They spend with the assumption that the growth will continue forever. The second lesson that if I could go back to myself six years ago, I would teach myself and that I want to teach you right now is to love your list. I didn't always have the great appreciation, the great love and the great response to my list. I didn't always reply to every e mail that people sent me. I was too busy living the high life. I started making money way too fast and I didn't cultivate the relationships. I don't have the tribe mindset that I have right now. I've matured in my approach to business, in my approach to my customers and a church to my list and the lessons I've learned as I've matured is the importance of a long term relationship. The importance of giving value the importance of responded to every e mail. People get the respondents up really setting up a strong support structure so people contact your support. Whether you have an email address for support or you have help desk set up, you really work to take care of people as fast as you can. It's very important people on your list. When you become large, you have a large following. Have a list of 5 10 20,000 people or even Maur. You can send a single email, make hundreds or thousands of dollars, and it's amazing and magical. And it feels so unreal that sometimes you stop taking the people on that list seriously, and you're tempted to mail offers that you don't really believe in. It's a dangerous temptation, and you don't want to fall down that path. If you break that trust, break that relationship. It may be impossible to ever, ever repair your reputation, your relationship, your connection with that list with those people so treating him with love and respect from the beginning. I teach that because I learned how important that is the hard way the third lesson that I would go back in time and teach myself is to control your spend. Making money is not very hard for me. I am a very, very good rainmaker. What I need to make more money, I find a way to do it. Part of it is that I'll do whatever it takes to take care of my family, take care myself, make my bills, have a great natural instinct for seeing financial opportunity. And part of it is I have a great deal of experience in this industry and even working myself. For a long time. I've been through unsuccessful projects and successful one, so now I can see the difference when I encounter them. I've had years where I made huge amounts of money, but the net shrank because I didn't control my spent. It's not about your gross everyone I talked to. Even now, when you ask them how big it was, a project, how much money the project make? How much money do you make? They always talk about the gross, and sometimes we'll talk about a number and they made 15% of the number. They're telling me we get so excited about the biggest number we can name the biggest number we can attach ourselves to. This is what I made before taxes. What good is that to? How much money did you actually get to keep? That's the real number. Controlling what you spend controlling your business outs is the key. Two. Big success as you grow, you're gonna run into moments were attempted to hire on high ticket stab by the most expensive software. Go for the best of the best. I've dabbled. I've been down that path. I've paid 2 $300 a month for website hosting, and you have all of these things the top of the line, everything that starts costing more and more. You develop this overhead, you don't pay attention, and suddenly you're paying $10,000 a month to your staff and you're working harder just to maintain them. And when things slow down or when they don't perform and it hurts your business because they're not doing their jobs well enough and you have to terminate them and the relationship you're left there with less money than before you look back, wondering I pay this person 10 $20,000 I got nothing for it. Hiring people to fast growing too fast, not paying attention to controlling your money. Controlling your spend is far more important than controlling your income. Growing income is really easy once you start to understand the things I share with you once you actually implement the lessons I've given you. If you start writing blood post and work really hard, if you're serious about it, you could start making $100 an hour within the next six weeks. If you worked full time 40 hours a week, you could get yourself up to $4000 a week. And your temptation that point is to begin hiring other people or outsourcing yourself are diversifying a little bit too fast. Always be sure that anything you invest your money in is worth more or gives back more than your spending. That's very, very important. Control your spend when you raise your overhead when you raise the cost of running your business. When you buy more expensive mailing software, more expensive shopping CART software, more expensive technology, things that have a monthly fee. All of those bills start to weigh on you because now the 1st $1000 you make every month isn't yours anymore than the 1st 2000 in the 1st 5000 control. Your spend from the beginning learned that lesson and you'll find it a lot user to grow. The final lesson that I would go back and teach myself that I want to teach you today is to build a business focus on building or riel business infrastructure. The things I'm building now, that way I approach Amazon. The way I approach the products I create is very different than what I was creating 567 years ago. For a while, I created products that were very powerful, but I could only sell them for three or six months. They were in very changing markets and I would have to constantly come up with a new product every two months. I would have to create a new training course to stay ahead of the curve. It's fun and exciting to be in cutting edge sectors to be in things that are very wild and very exciting. But you have to fight really, really hard to stay ahead of the curve, and if you slip or get distracted or run at a time or fall one step behind what some of the other people are doing in technology what younger people are doing. It's very hard to stay on top of your game when you build a business. When you build a real infrastructure, when you have products that are evergreen, when you focus on longevity, you create something very different. Some people approach Amazon, my favorite place to sell products without seriousness. They put out really cheap books. They tried to create a book for $25 get it list on Amazon and sells many copies as they can before the bad reviews come in and People Rise is a terrible book. That's the business bottle to keep putting out bad books as fast as you can. There's no longevity and that eventually Amazon figures out who you are, what you're doing, and they ban your account. Amazon. When they ban you, you're done. They can find you if you jump to another account. If you try to open a business again, if you try to open a new account in your wife, your husband's name, they often catch you. They track your I P. They track your location they track your address, they'll notice if similar books start popping up under a new account name that happens to have the same home address. Or that happens to be the same computer. Remember Amazon Plants, cookies? Amazon tracks your I P. All of those things that modern technology allows websites to dio means you'll get caught. You can burn out your entire relationship by not treating like a business. I work so hard to make my books as good as I can. I just yesterday I got an email from someone pointing out five or six typos they found and serve No master. I immediately went fixed both versions of the book, the paperback book has been down for 24 hours while they change the printer. I immediately changed both versions of the book The Kindle version. Emilie updated, but it took me a few hours to do both of these things. I want the best version possible. Anytime someone in moves me about a typo, I merely want to fix it and change. I want my stuff to constantly better, Better, better, even if it's one type of go back and I want to fix it, that's the mindset of a business building a business infrastructure, thinking about where your business is gonna be. 125 10 years. This is why I'm not a big teacher off building your business and other people's platforms. You could do very well and make a large business with a cool Facebook fan page. But you don't own your business. It's not a business because someone else has the ability to shut you down. Facebook decides they don't like what you're teaching. They don't like your politics. They don't like one of the pictures someone posted on your wall. They could just delete your account. Nothing you can do. You don't actually on your business. This happens to people and they're not ready for it. And as with building a business, the one thing that I would add into that is controlling your traffic. Three or four years ago, all of my friends got into Facebook advertising, buying pay traffic from Facebook. I never had an interest in that. I could go back. I would change what I was doing and really master paid traffic. These days I do a lot of pay traffic on some other platforms when you control your traffic and you're paying for traffic, and you build an infrastructure where you can buy a customer for a dollar and sell them enough products to make $2. You get offended $10 a day make 20 $100. They make 200 a $1,000,000 a day and make two million. That's a really, really powerful business. That's the one other lesson that go back and teach myself to really focus on developing growing pay traffic. Even now, several of my businesses pay traffic is very big part of it. I didn't learn it back then, but I am learning now have added it to my business, and it's made a huge difference to my infrastructure, taking more and more control of my own destiny. These are some of the lessons that I would teach myself if I could go back in time. I had to learn them the hard way. But now you don't thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe, so you never miss another episode. We'll be back next Tuesday with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race head over to serve. No master dot com forward slash podcasts Now for your chance to win a free copy of Jonathan's bestseller Serve No, master. All you have to do is leave a five star review of this podcast. See you Tuesday. Thank you for listening to the serve. No, master.