At Team Infinite Man we talk a lot about freedom - social freedom, spiritual freedom, etc.
Today's topic relates to a mentality you have to have if you're trying to make progress in ANY aspect of life, and that is to commit to your goals 100%. Our friend and Infinite Man Summit 2018 speaker Jeff Berwick shares his story about what it's like to commit 100% and what happens if we don't...
I'd show up at every conference. I would do anything. I would do everything. If you're going to do anything it has to be 100%. It can't be anything less than 100%, not even 99%. I've tried to do things less than 100% and every time it fails. But if you put your full focus on something you can almost always succeed in my opinion. But you have to have 100% focus!
So with the Dollar Vigilante I would go to conferences. I said okay I'm going to go to every investment conference and talk and that's going to help grow our brand and help people find out about it. Everyone said I was nuts. How can you call yourself an anarchist? Everyone thinks those are people that throw bombs. I'm like yeah but that's not what it is and I'm going to make sure people understand that. (NOTE: Jeff has Social Freedom - he didn't care what other people might think, even if it made him look bad to the people that don't understand)
But I've never publicly spoken before so for my very first speech I wrote the whole thing on an iPad. The crowd knew who I was because I had done my internet company but they were like what? He is an anarchist now? He's telling people how to invest and destroy the central banks now? Put him on at 7:30 in the morning (a very crappy time slot). So I walk in to the venue. I'm groggy. Everyone in the audience is like I can't believe I'm here at 7:30 in the morning this guy better be good! And I walk up on stage with my iPad and just put my head down and mumble through the whole speech without looking up once. When I was done after 45 minutes there was hardly anyone left in the audience.There's a few people just shaking their heads with the look on their face that said "why"?And I said to myself, I can't do that to people ever again!
I was supposed to speak at another conference the next week and I'm like, I have to do something! How do you speak? So I looked online for a speech coach and she was in the city I was in. I said I need help right now. She said okay but I'm busy I'll meet you right before your next talk. I said okay whatever I need help! So it's an hour before my talk and she goes okay how do you do it? So I put my head down and start reading the speech. She says "Stop. You know what you're talking about right?" I said yeah I think so. So she says, "So why don't you just say it?" And I said because you're supposed to read it aren't you? She says, "No you don't have to read it." I said what about Barack Obama and those guys? They just read off the teleprompter. And she said, "Yeah but those guys are shills, real people just talk" So I walk up and I look at the audience and I think all these poor people, and I get ready to start reading my speech...Instead, I decided to just put it down and just started talking. And it went well, it didn't go great, it was not the best speech I've ever given but it was fine and that's how I learned.
And within a couple years my brand is now the fastest growing financial newsletter in the world. Everywhere I go around the world people come up to talk to me about the Dollar Vigilante. So it's really grown and it's because I put my entire focus into it. It's all I've done for the last five years and I work everyday. And that's another thing I want to mention...For people out there who want to do something, to build something, to be an entrepreneur if you're going to do it, do it one hundred percent! From the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to sleep, 7 days a week, 100%!