How to conquer fear and take control of your life

via I Will Teach You To Be Rich:

When I started blogging, this is what my blog looked like:

IWT circa 2004. I am the best web designer ever.

I actually had 2 years of posts on one page — no “Next Page” button or anything — because I didn’t know how to set up archives. And if I’m honest, the writing wasn’t great.

So every day, I would sit in my dorm room and write, thinking the same things ANYONE thinks when they’re trying something new:

• “Is anyone going go to read this?” (For the first 6 months, the answer was NO. See for yourself. Go read the comments from August-December 2004. There are almost zero.)


• “Ugh, is this really worth the time?”


• “I’m never going to get as much traffic as [other bigger blog]”

The code word I used in my head was UNFAIR. It’s unfair that my site doesn’t get as much traffic. It’s unfair that that big blogger isn’t linking to me. It’s unfair that I have such interesting ideas, but nobody is listening.

Waa…

Now I look back and it all seems so ridiculous. Some of my early blog posts really were horrible. A lot of those bigger sites WERE better than mine.

But at least I got started. And over time, I got much better.

The key here is focusing on what you can control.

I couldn’t do anything about those other sites, but I could work on writing every single week for mine.

By the way, focusing on what you can control isn’t just about starting a blog.

It’s easy to complain about the economy, but have you started investing even $50/month? (Like this guy, who’s going to hate his life in 15 years.)

Anyone can complain about the inequity of our education system, but have you checked out a book from the library to improve your business skills? Or emailed someone to take them out to coffee?

When I talk to my successful friends, the truth is they almost never started with a grand vision of the future or a huge reservoir of self confidence. They did their homework, but most importantly, they just got started.

This idea — that you should focus on the things you can control, and let the other things go — is one of the central beliefs I learned from my mentors. One of the things I love doing is inviting them from all over the world to share their own “Success Triggers” — and then recording these never-before-seen insights on video for you.

Today, I want to introduce you to Kris Carr.

Kris is the New York Times bestselling author of “Crazy Sexy Kitchen” and “Crazy Sexy Diet.” She’s created programs and guides for Crazy Sexy Wellness, the company she founded — which helps people by motivating them, sharing resources, and leading them to a better, healthier life.

Yet only a few years ago, Kris had no idea she’d be a wellness expert and entrepreneur.

After being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, she decided to focus on changing things she could control — and went from knowing almost nothing about business or wellness to creating an amazing life (and a successful business) for herself in circumstances that would paralyze most people.

If you want to learn more about how you can use Kris’s system to take control and focus on what matters, click here for a preview of her in-depth video session. You’ll also discover some of her secrets to achieve mastery in your career and personal life, regain control after feeling overwhelmed, and boost your productivity and energy.

Click here to learn how Kris focused on what she could control — and quickly went from overwhelmed and unsure to world-famous expert.

How to conquer fear and take control of your life is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

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Personal Finance, behavior change, miscellaneous

I took great pleasure in saying NO

via I Will Teach You To Be Rich:

A weird thing happened over the last 8 weeks. I started getting scattered messages from people who couldn’t subscribe to my email list, no matter how many times they tried.

After I got more than 10 emails, I decided it wasn’t PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard), and I had an IWT analyst look into it.

We discovered a minor bug: If someone unsubscribes, then later tries to rejoin, they can’t.

Analyst: “Should we prioritize fixing this?”

If you’re curious how I responded, this email exchange should give you a taste:

My response, 9 minutes later:

LOVE IT!! PURE JUSTICE!! You unsubscribed, now you want back in? You can wait outside in the cold and I’ll let you back in when I’m good and ready.

I’m not being punitive (that’s a lie, that’s exactly what I’m doing…and I love it). But I also think there’s a deeper lesson here:

Could I fix this technical issue? Of course. But I told my tech team to prioritize this ABSOLUTELY LAST since these people are not my target market. They already demonstrated that my material isn’t a good fit for them. In other words, I can’t appeal to everyone, so I have to pick my battles.

You can’t please everyone.

Like I told you in Tuesday’s post, I had some interior decorator ask me if I really had any credentials to teach personal finance. Why do I care about defending myself to her? I have bigger fish to fry.

Underlying this is our tendency to be PEOPLE PLEASERS.

I could have launched into some grand old defense of why my material is different than other people, and how many millions of readers have benefited…but why?

People pleasing manifests in subtle ways. For example, how many times have you said, “Sure, I’ll do that…it can’t hurt.”

And two weeks later, you have to go to some dumb party/event you committed to, which you actually don’t want to go to, and you hate yourself. It can’t hurt. Actually, it can!! There’s nothing wrong with helping other people, but when you start saying “yes” to things that are distracting and drain you of energy, you can’t make the maximum impact on the world.

The path to unapologetic mastery is FILLED with these day-to-day choices.

For example, I get emails from people saying, “Ramit, what’s the best checking account to use?” I ignore them, because hey dude who claims he’s been reading me for 3 years, if you can’t pick up my $10 book where I literally list the best accounts, why would I reply to you? Then 2 weeks later I get an angry email cursing me out and saying, “It would only take you 3 seconds to reply.” Yes, it would. Times 600 email requests/day. Times my mental anguish of responding to people who make me want to shiv my eye with a chopstick.

Too many choices = puke

The question to ask is, who have you consciously decided you WON’T dignify with your limited attention?

We started off the year talking about Unapologetic Mastery. That sounds like a good tagline…but when it comes down to making the day-to-day choices to get there, it’s easy to get crippled by TOO MANY CHOICES.

But if you want big change, you have to tackle a small number of BIG WINS.

Yesterday, I got a TON of emails from people who said, “I really want to start this business, but I have a lot of student debt and my job doesn’t pay me enough at all.” The answer is, get a better job, get financially stable, THEN tackle the business idea!

You can’t change the world if you’re worried about your bills every month.

When you’re financially stable and growing, you can do nice things for others (and for yourself). In other words, once you have a Big Win — like becoming financially stable — you can let that success “bleed” into other areas of life.

For example. once you’re earning more, you can buy back your time — like I do with a chef and someone who cleans my apartment — or even buy results, like with a personal trainer.

To live a rich life this year, we’re not going to tackle everything. We’re going to tackle ONE BIG WIN at a time.

Learning how to crochet, or visiting another country, can be on your to-do list — but just like I de-prioritized that weirdo’s request above, you also have to say NO to doing everything at once. This year, mastery starts with doing one thing, and doing it extraordinarily well.

So I’m going to make it easy for you:

This year, what would make more of an impact: mastering closet organization…or finding a new job that makes you excited to wake up every day?

I want you to really dig deep about what goals are going to get your BIG WIN this year. A good framework is, “If I succeeded at this ONE thing, would my success ‘bleed’ into other areas?”

GOOD EXAMPLE: “If I lost 15lbs and was able to fit into my high-school jeans, I’d feel more attractive and have more energy to spend on time with my significant other.”

BAD EXAMPLE: “I want to learn to speak Spanish because…well it would be cool.”

Don’t be that guy setting goals that sound good, but are doomed for failure. (Btw, I was guilty of that as recently as last year. My misery is your salvation.)

Another good framework is to look ahead to December 31, 2014. If you could be sitting on a beach (that’s right, you earned enough to fly there with a SO, and if you don’t have one, just tell me and I’ll send someone attractive to hang with you), looking back, what would be your 1 BIG WIN?

That’s what we’re going to pursue.

But you can’t do this from the sidelines.

I follow a bunch of fitness people and at the beginning of the year, when they posted “30-day challenges,” they were getting hundreds of comments per post. Now, just 9 days later, the number of comments has dropped to a trickle. Most people can’t even follow through for 9 days.

But if you want to make unapologetic mastery a WINNABLE RESULT, not just a tagline, join my free email list and I’ll send you material that will challenge, confound, and enlighten you.

The choice is yours.

Yes, I’m ready to make 2014 the Year of Unapologetic Mastery

Name:

Email:

100% privacy. No games, no B.S., no spam.

I took great pleasure in saying NO is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

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Personal Finance, behavior change, earn more money, miscellaneous, personal finance

The productivity system I built to stay in touch with people

via I Will Teach You To Be Rich:

I love crazy nutcases who email me 5,000 times/day asking, “HEY RAMIT. WHAT SYSTEM DO YOU USE FOR STAYING IN TOUCH WITH PEOPLE??” As if some software is going to do all the work for them.

I built a really simple system for staying in touch with people in different cities. It uses a magical tool called “email.” I like it because it’s easy and it works with less than 5 minutes/month of maintenance.

Here’s how it works:

Here’s a closer look

What you’ll notice:

• When I find out where someone lives, like a real creep, I just type “L” then the city, and Gmail auto-tags it. Takes less than 2 seconds


• When I visit Austin, or Hong Kong, or LA, I go to the tag, look at all the people, and decide who I want to meet


• I use Rapportive so I can automatically learn more about them in less than 2 seconds. A side benefit is you can see if they’re attractive or not. Oops, did I write that to this email list of over 200,000 people??


• Sometimes, I’m only “internet friends” with them…but being in someone’s city (“Hi, I’ll be in town for 3 days”) is an awesome way to meet people in person

Why I’m telling you this

This is the Year of Unapologetic Mastery. When you look at someone who’s a master at their craft, you’ll notice that they’ve always built routines for the ordinary parts of life, so they can focus on what they’re best at.

For example, Steve Jobs wore turtlenecks every day so he didn’t have to worry about clothes. And professional athletes stock their fridges with vegetables and lean protein so they don’t have to decide between cake and celery.

These “micro systems” take a tiny amount of time to create, but you reap the rewards forever.

Very rarely does someone say “I’m going to improve myself” and the clouds part, the angels sing, and the heavens award you magical and unending willpower. Success is a series of small, systematic steps towards becoming better every day. And when others give up, you keep going.

Notice in the example above, we all have a friend who’s amazing at keeping in touch with everyone. In the past, it would’ve been easy to say, “Wow, I wonder how he does it” or even imply that he was a better person because he kept in touch with everyone.

Now you know. He just used a small system and improved it day by day.

I’ve been building these systems year after year — to earn more, find a dream job, improve social skills, become more focused — and I want to give them to you so you can live a rich life. This year, we’ll improve ourselves from the inside out (including yesterday, where we learned the psychological frameworks to stop feeling guilty).

Leave a comment below. What’s one thing I could help you with? Don’t just say “starting a business,” tell me the specifics, like, “Ramit, I have 3 ideas but I’m not sure how to tell which one will work. How would I know?”

I read every response personally, and I’ll let you know if I can help in tomorrow’s post.

By the way, I’ve mentioned that this year is about unapologetic mastery, and one of my core requirements is expecting you to take action in exchange for the strategies, frameworks, and tactics I provide.

I’ll be moving the next couple of messages to my private email list. If you’re not already subscribed, my goal is to make my free material better than anyone else’s paid stuff. Join the list, free, and see what I mean.

Join my FREE email list

Name:

Email:

100% privacy. No games, no B.S., no spam.

(If you can’t see the subscribe box above, click here.)

The productivity system I built to stay in touch with people is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

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Personal Finance, miscellaneous, productivity

The best IWT posts of 2013

via I Will Teach You To Be Rich:

Back in January, I wrote that 2013 was the year of taking control.

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, but this year I gave myself two things to change:

1. Have difficult conversations earlier


2. See a movie alone (I hate doing anything alone, especially eating or seeing a movie)

Result: SUCCESS. I saw a movie alone, even though it took me until November, and I’m slowly getting better at having tough conversations without letting them fester for 32 years.

Together, this year we took control of our finances, our careers, and our behavior.

Here are the best posts of 2013!

• 
  

  We broke down myths and conventional advice from so-called “experts” and exposed:

  
  
  
  
  • 
    

    The worst mistake in trying to earn more…

    
    
  
  
  • 
    

    The surprising myth about investing in real estate

    
    
  
  
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    Why starting a business doesn’t have to be “risky”

    
    
  
  
  • 
    

    Why good ideas and “smarts” only take you so far

    
    
  
  
  
  

• 
  

  Instead, we focused on what ACTUALLY works:

  
  
  
  
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    Building a network (with word-for-word scripts)

    
    
  
  
  • 
    

    Testing to figure out what works vs. a complete waste of time

    
    
  
  
  • 
    

    The subtle nonverbal mistakes that could cost you the job, date, promotion, etc.

    
    
  
  
  
  

• 
  

  We faced up to our fears:

  
  
  
  
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    Being disrespected at work

    
    
  
  
  • 
    

    Making the leap … and failing

    
    
  
  
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    Dealing with our harshest critics

    
    
  
  
  
  

• 
  

  And I shared some behind-the-scenes thoughts:

  
  
  
  
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    My (funny) prediction about my future kids

    
    
  
  
  • 
    

    Life lessons from nearly a decade at IWT

    
    
  
  
  • 
    

    A peek inside my email

    
    
  
  
  
  

There are hundreds of emails I wrote that I never release here. If you’re curious, you can join 200,000+ other people on my private email list.

Thanks for reading and being the best community anywhere.

And I can’t wait to share even more with you in 2014. Here’s a hint: I’ll be releasing material on my #1-requested topic from the last 5 years.

By the way, what was your biggest insight of this year? And what’s one thing you want me to share next year?

The best IWT posts of 2013 is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

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Personal Finance, miscellaneous, popular posts

3 things I’m reading

via I Will Teach You To Be Rich:

Quick post. I wanted to share 3 quick tidbits that I thought you’d enjoy today. Nothing to sell. Just some of my favorite things I’ve stumbled across recently.

1. The trouble with snooze buttons. How many times do you hit the snooze button in the morning? Here’s the science behind why we do it and how “just 10 more minutes” actually makes us feel more tired.

2. What’s your secret that could literally ruin your life if it came out? These are awesome/horrifying/fascinating. Perfect for Christmas

3. The merchants of average. Every time I get an email with someone telling me, “Ramit, I like your stuff but please don’t curse” or “Ramit, please don’t insult your readers…you can be a lot nicer,” I think of this post. The world wants us to be vanilla, and the world pushes us to be average. How can you use this in the new year?

And here are a couple in-depth interviews I did recently to check out:

1. New interview with Jay Abraham: One of my mentors is Jay Abraham, a true legend who understands business and marketing better than almost anyone else. (Last year, I flew from NYC to Los Angeles, once/month for 15 months, just to get 45 minutes with him each month.) He interviewed me on his radio show, and I thought you might like to hear it. If you’re thinking about starting a business, we dig into the psychology behind it.

2. Just-released interview with Pat Flynn: I talked to Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income Podcast about the psychology of pricing, marketing, and dealing with negative people.

If you want to read more, check out my newsletter, where I post my best material (that’s never published publicly).

Join 200,000+ other readers here.

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Personal Finance, miscellaneous