I’ve been receiving emails like this for a while now.
I talk about Universe Fuel, Motivation, Direction, Purpose. But sometimes we really struggle to figure out what it is we want to do.
What’s my purpose? Why aren’t I motivated? What if I don’t want to change the world?
If you feel directionless, no motivation, unsure of yourself or scared to make a change. Read through these questions to gain a better view of what you should be spending time on.
I don’t know what I want to do
I don’t love eating brownies, but I do it for the good of the local baker’s economy
What this really boils down to, is a cycle or series of symptoms that shows a lack of direction.
- Getting up in the morning is hard.
- Sitting down at my desk and staring at a blank screen.
- Unmotivated to complete customer work.
- Feeling down about a lack of income or funds.
- Seeing motivated people and thinking “how do they do that all day?”
- Feeling like you have no energy or drive.
- Unable to focus on work.
- Pissed at customers and working too much on projects that don’t interest you.
- No growth or change in the business.
- Just not caring that much anymore.
I think a common misconception is that motivated and driven people love what they do every day.
We’ve been fed a bit of a lie that running our business means we can do what we love every day. I hate mowing my lawn or going for a run at 6am. But I like the results.
That’s the difference. People who seem motivated or driven, love RESULTS not the work.
However, I also engineer my business to do as many of the things that I do love.
Public speaking, creating videos and courses, interacting with people, helping people and making sales are all some of the things that I enjoy. If you don’t like any of those things, don’t worry too much.
I don’t love writing content. I do it because I know it benefits my business. I know that long term, my business will benefit much more from lots of written and video content. I love the idea of my content driving thousands of free clicks from all over the world.
But all these activities come from KNOWING that I want to help funnel builders sell more marketing funnels. It’s as clear as that.
How did I get to that clear vision? I answered the questions below.
If you couldn’t fail
What if you couldn’t fail? Just imagine for a bit. Keep it in your head or write it down.
What would you do, if you KNEW you couldn’t fail.
Be honest and don’t worry about the little voice in your head just yet (more on that later).
What would you do, what one thing would you do, if you knew you couldn’t fail?
When I answered this question, I realised that I wanted to run an event. A huge 5 day event with speakers, sponsors, stands and media coverage.
It would be business focused and designed for people to grow their business. If I knew that I couldn’t fail, I’d do that.
That’s a pretty strong indication that I should be working towards that.
What do I want to learn?
These next three questions are taken from Ramit Sethi’s excellent book Your Move: The Underdog’s Guide to Building Your Business.
Ask yourself what do YOU want to learn? There’s a huge misconception that what you do, your purpose and what you bring to the world, is something you’re already an expert it.
It’s as if we think that we can only help people and charge for it. Or we can only be motivated by stuff we already know.
The opposite is what’s really true.
Help other with what you want help with
What YOU want to learn is what you should help other with. If you know it all already, then of course you’re going to lack motivation.
Warren Buffet doesn’t stop learning about investing. Grant Cardone doesn’t stop learning about sales.
What do you want to continue to get better at? That’s a pretty good idea of what you should help people do.
Again, don’t listen to the voices. Any excuse you can think of, I’ve heard and it’s not a valid reason.
What would I learn if money was no issue?
For example, I’d want to learn how Eva Longoria could go out with me
Let’s scale up Ramit’s question and look at what you’d learn if money wasn’t an issue? Who would you speak to or learn from if money wasn’t a problem?
Are there coaches with $25000 programs that you’d love to try? What do they teach? What do they help people with?
Forget getting a return and forget paying the cost up front.
What is it that’s SO appealing to you, that’ money wouldn’t matter?
For example, I’d never be that bothered about learning how to make chocolate. I’d go to a class (and have done – thank you weight gain), but I wouldn’t travel to America to learn from a Chocolatier.
Sales training? Marketing automation? You bet I would. This is another strong indication that this is what YOU should be helping people with.
What problem would I pay almost anything to solve?
Final question. What problem would YOU pay someone to solve?
There are hundreds of examples of businesses that develop a solution to something THEY needed help with.
In fact, it’s more common than you think.
What do you want to learn?
HINT: IN CASE YOU’RE NOT PICKING UP ON THIS, AND I’M NOT BEING CLEAR ENOUGH. THIS MEAN YOUR IDEA OF DOING SOMETHING THAT MOTIVATES YOU, NEEDS TO BE SOMETHING YOU ARE ALSO INTERESTED IN.
IT’S NOT CHEATING TO LEARN SOMETHING YOU LOVE AND PASS IT ON. SPEAK TO ANY GREAT TEACHER AND THEY’LL TELL YOU THAT BY TEACHING OTHERS, YOU LEARN YOURSELF.
SO STOP THINKING YOU CAN’T HELP OTHERS BUILD EMAIL CAMPAIGNS BECAUSE YOU NEED IT DONE YOURSELF.
A friend of mine, Andy, owns a sport clothing company. He designed and had the clothes made because HE wanted to see it on the market. HE wanted to wear this stuff.
What do you want help with? What do you focus on at work? Probably a good idea to help others with it too.
Scratch your own itch
We call these questions, “scratching our own itch”. It’s about building software, platforms, templates, resources and processes that benefit us. Then passing it on.
It’s a simple model and means I can focus on what I want to bring to the market.
Adam at Betterproposals.io built his software for anyone to use, because he was using it.
What itch do you have and what do you want to solve?
Listening to the little voices.
“It’s very risky isn’t it?”
“You don’t know anything about marketing though.”
“I’ve been doing this loner than you and I have succeeded yet.”
I’ve heard every single helpful piece of advice in the book.
When I started my business, even people that loved me told me things like this. People I thought were supporting me.
“It’s hard work Mike, you don’t have any experience.”
“You’ve already failed once and it didn’t work. Don’t put yourself through that again.”
The problem is that we begin to internalise these voices. Any flash or hint of an idea for something you want to do or try, is quashed by your internal monologue.
That monologue is like a tape recorder. It’s picked up all the “advice” that people have given you over the years, and it’s playing it back to you.
We do it as a protective thing. It’s a safety net. The truth, is that anything that tells you, that you can’t do something, is wrong.
Simple as that.
Any time you don’t think you can do something, is someone ELSE’S voice telling you that on repeat.
When anyone says anything that detracts from your vision or ideas, what they’re actually telling you is “I couldn’t do that”. They’re only telling you what they think of themselves.
Even people that are supposed to love you, will tell you that you’re going to fail. But it’s only ever a reflection of what they think of themselves.
Honestly, it’s only ever a reflection of what they think, whatever they tel you. Don’t take it to heart, don’t listen to it and don’t remember it.
I don’t want to change the world
Personally, I don’t believe this is true. I believe that everyone can change the world. In fact, I believe that our obligation as human beings is to change the world.
You have LITERALLY one life. I’m even on board with a type of reincarnation, but it’s not enough to make me think I’ll get another shot.
The MASSIVE difference in my approach to changing the world, is your definition of the world.
I have absolutely no interest in finding a cure for cancer. There are smarter, more dedicated and more interested people to do that. I’d rather generate enormous sums of money and help fund that.
I do have plans for TV shows, talk shows, documentaries, movies, books, courses, software companies and public traded business. But I’m thinking small.
Some people think changing the world is moving to another PLANET.
But on another scale, some people want to change the world on a different scale. Dashrath Manjhi carved a passage through a mountain.
Manjhi started off his extraordinary task in 1960, after his wife was injured while trekking up the side of one of the rocky footpaths. To reach the nearest hospital, he had to travel around the mountains, some 70 kilometres.
I’ll probably never use this road. 99.9% of the world’s population will never use it. But that act absolutely changed the world. It changed the lives of anyone who uses it and helps people in their lives.
By being a passive and spectator in our own world and lives, we’re missing an opportunity to help people. I believe that our obligation as human beings is to change the world. Sometimes this just means helping people.
Sell Your Service probably isn’t going to become a world changing organisation in itself. But even helping 100 business sell more products, generate more income from marketing funnels and attract more customers would be a huge deal to me.
And I’m all in.
What do you want to help people do? Forget scale and size. What do you want to help people do?
