Do You Ever Doubt Yourself? I Do Too…

Do you ever doubt yourself?

When I ask this question at live events, the hands usually go up pretty quickly.

Just the other day, I was talking to a friend of mine, and I asked him how his business plans were going. He actually said a surprising thing: “I haven’t been putting too much effort into it, because I believe if I did put in a lot of effort, I still wouldn’t be successful anyways.” And I thought, “Wow, you can even stop yourself before you even begin.”

Another thing that stops people, especially in this industry, is “guru-itis”. It’s where you look to the person, perhaps on stage, or that’s written a book, or is behind a camera, and you think to yourself… “What they’ve done isn’t achievable for me.”

A word of advice here, don’t compare yourself to where someone is now, but compare yourself to where they started.

What you DON’T need before you start

When we started, we didn’t have a whole bunch of confidence.

I didn’t have a clear mission, vision, values.

And I wasn’t born rich. I didn’t have a silver spoon in my mouth. In fact I actually came on a boat from Vietnam.

Perhaps like you are right now, I read all the books thinking late at night, “Is this possible for me?” I watched the YouTube videos with hope. I went to the seminars with hope. I did trial and error with a lot of frustration trying to figure it out myself.

And I’d really hate to think that you wouldn’t even try to build something yourself because you had an unrealistic expectation of us having a “smooth-sailing ride”. Because that definitely isn’t the case.

So in this video I’d like to step outside of my comfort zone and share with you my personal story so that it can inspire you, even if you’ve got a bumpy ride right about now.

Finding The Courage To Follow Your Dreams

If you were with me roughly 12 years ago, you would have found yourself working in IT. I went to the University of Technology Sydney, and I was working in IT at the same time. 

However I felt that there was something missing. I would read a lot of personal development books, and they always used to say the same thing. Do what you love, do what you love. And I used to think to myself “But really? I mean, how can you turn your back on a stable income? And what else would I do?”

That was until a friend lent me this book called “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. To cut a long story short, I read that book. It made sense. I decided to drop out of my current job. Drop out of my IT career, despite thinking what would my mum say, I decided to do what I loved.

And in the book, he said “If you want to start a business, the most important skill is sales.” So, I actually got a job selling Anthony Robbins seminars. And I was in business development for Universal Events as well, and a few other personal development companies.

That’s When I First Met Benjamin J. Harvey

I remember walking to work one day on a Monday morning in 2009, and I really, really didn’t wanna go to work or face the week ahead. And I remember calling up Ben and saying “Hey Ben, do you remember all of those talks we had while we were in the States working together at the same company? Do you want to have a formal sit down conversation to see if there’s a possibility that we could work together?”

What To Do When The Going Gets Tough

At first I went part time, and after while, I decided to quit completely. It was a whole new world. It was fun and exciting being in business for yourself, making your own decisions, working the hours that you wanted to. We had a lot of challenges to overcome. There’s a lot of trial and error. And the first year went by really quickly.

But the second year is when things started to get a little bit tougher. It’s kind of like that part in business or in a gym membership where the excitement dies, but you still don’t have any results yet. I was finding myself working about 50 hours a week not knowing what was actually going to happen, and comparing myself to friends that were in their corporate jobs making $100,000+ a year, and here I am working from my bedroom (also known as my home office) thinking “Did I make the wrong or right decision?”

We had a lot of tough events. We didn’t really have our products down pat, we didn’t really have our presenting from stage and our marketing down pat as well, and I remember one event at the Wesley Center that almost broke me.

We had about 200 people in the room, which is phenomenal, but at the end of the night only two people signed up.

Now, it’s not about the money entirely, but obviously, if you want to keep your business going you need that substance called money. I remember we packed up the event. I was really disappointed. I couldn’t hide it from my face, and Ben dropped me off at my place. I was kind of leaning up against the light pole, and we were really silent. Nothing was really being said, but in my mind I was thinking to myself, “Can I really do this?”

And for the first time, I started to not only doubt myself, but doubt Ben my business partner. I just remember looking at him thinking, “I don’t know if this guy has what it takes.” I didn’t want to be the pessimist, so in my mind I thought to myself, “One more time. I’ll give this one more go and an event, but if we’re going to give it one more go, I’m going to have to try something totally different.”

The Big Breakthrough…

I decided to drop my ego and stop thinking I knew it all because I’d worked for all these companies and Anthony Robbins, and I started actually buying other peoples’ products to do with marketing, and I started voraciously consuming this stuff. I bought Break My Fall’s 5:04 program, Armand Morin’s Fast Facebook Ads training, Frank Kern’s Mass Control, Product Launch Formula by Jeff Walker. And I thought to myself, “If I learn not one thing, but if I learn one recipe, a set of steps that’s predictable that can get a result every time, then it’ll be worth it.”

And things started to really pick up from that point onwards. In 2013, we were awarded the BRW Fast Startersaward, in 2015 a Fast 100 award just because I had a repeatable set of systems that I learned from other people.

To this day, I still can’t believe it.

But I understand both sides now: what it’s like to be really frustrated with your marketing, and what it’s like to see it predictable and bankable every month.

I’d love to share what I’ve learned over the years, which is my seven different marketing funnels. The most predictable sequence of steps that you can use instantly to get a result in your own business.

Remember, you don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it started.

So if you want to see me go through live examples on stage, learn how to use Facebook Ads the right way and get a 500% return on your marketing, then simply grab a ticket to my FREE 1-Day event called “Marketing Your Message” below…