Primoz Bozic

The BEST email I got in a while (and what I loved about it)

I just got an awesome email from one of my readers earlier today that I want to share with you guys (as it’s a GREAT example of the first email you can send to an influencer that you want to start building a relationship with).

The email’s subject line said “What I learned from your guide”, which immediately stands out from the other emails and makes me want to open it (of course I want to find out what one of my readers learned about my guide :)).

This is what the email said:

I loved the email so much that I immediately shared it with my Insider’s Club students, and it was so good that I wrote this email to share it with you as well.

Here’s what I loved about the email:

1. It’s short, to the point, and really nicely formatted.

This email is the perfect length (about 10-15 lines of text). The formatting makes it ultra-easy to skim (there’s no long wall of text that is hard to read), which makes it a lot more likely for me to read through it.

I also love that the “headlines” in bold stand out (“The biggest takeaways I’ve got from your guide and started implementing already”, and “What I love about your emails and blog posts”).

Are those things that I want to learn more about? Absolutely! I want to learn how my content helps my readers (because this makes me feel like I’m making a difference in their lives), and I love hearing what my readers love about my content (because this makes it easy for me to create more content they’ll love).

2. The reader shares very specific takeaways from my content.

Notice how this isn’t just another generic “your content is amazing, I loved it!” email (while I appreciate those emails, they are not really helpful or memorable).

The reader shares very specific takeaways from my guide and things that she loves about my writing, which makes it easy for me to create better content for my readers (for example, I can use more specific examples in my guides and emails).

3. She not only shares her takeaways, she says she’s already implementing them.

This is what really makes this email stand out. Most of the emails that I get with specific takeaways from my content don’t mention the implementation, which at the end of the day is what matters most.

I love when my readers share their takeaways with me, but if they share how they implement them (or how they have already started implementing them), that stands out from all of the people that just consume materials but don’t do anything with them.

4. She doesn’t ask for anything in return.

A lot of the emails that I get ask for something. An introduction, a guest post opportunity, an affiliate partnership, answers to the questions…

While I used to respond to all of those emails in the past, nowadays I can’t respond to every single one, and say yes to every request, because some of them just might not be right for my business at the time.

The emails I do respond to with requests are usually the ones from the people I already know I can trust, because they’ve added value to me.

I love this email because it’s 100% a value add. There’s no ask. It really feels like the reader loves my content and wants to drop by and tell me how much she loved it, without wanting anything in return, which makes it even easier for me to respond to it.

What most people miss when writing an email like this (that prevents them from building lasting relationships with influencers)

Overall, I would give this email a 10/10. It’s perfect, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

It’s not the first email like this I got though, and with some of the people who sent me an email like this in the past I became friends. With most of them, I never really connected past the initial email though.

Writing an email like this is a great way to start building a relationship with someone you admire, no matter how much more successful than you they are.

Making the initial connection is just one part of building a lasting, authentic relationship though.

The biggest mistake that people make is that after sending an email like this, they don’t continue to build the relationship.

They go radio silent, and I might never hear from them again.

I could see that they have great intentions. I could see that they put in a lot of work and thought into the email. But if they don’t follow up with me in a few weeks, the email almost “goes to waste” as they’ll slowly drift away from my memory.

The solution? After sending an email like this, follow up!

For example, you could send another email 1-2 weeks later where you reference the last email and:

Share how you implemented the advice, and the results you got with it.
Ask a 1-sentence question that popped up to you while trying to implement the advice.
Add more value by mentioning additional takeaways from another email that you receive from the influencer in the meanwhile.

Ok, enough talk. It’s time to take some action.

I challenge you to take the script below and send out an email to an influencer you admire (whose content you love) TODAY:

[INTRODUCTION] Share 1-2 sentences about yourself (1-2 lines)

[VALUE ADD] Share a headline and 1-3 bullets with key takeaways from a piece of content that you loved (3-4 lines)

[VALUE ADD #2] Share another headline and 1-3 bullets with how you’re going to implement their advice, the results you already got from implementing their advice, or what you loved about the piece of content the most.

[CONCLUSION] Add a quick thank you note at the end and avoid making any requests (1-2 lines).

The easiest way to do this is just to reply to the email that they use to send you their email newsletter. So go ahead, test out the email today (or even better, right now) :).

Good luck!

P.S. If you want to learn more about how to add value to influencers you admire and build genuine, lasting relationships with them, check out my FREE 84-page epic guide on adding value to influencers and surrounding yourself with more people like you.

Download your free guide

-Primoz

What to do when you’re having a REALLY shitty day

By Primoz Bozic 6 Comments

It’s 3am in the morning and I’m wide awake. Not because I’d be a super early riser or say up really late… but because my sleep schedule is slightly messed up right now.

It might have something to do with staying up until 4am yesterday to help a coworker with a presentation, and trying to go to bed at 11pm next day… whoops.

It’s funny, because nobody sees this. Everyone thinks “well Primoz, you can work at any time, from anywhere… so you can take a lot of breaks, have plenty of time off, sleep as much as you want, have a good routine…”, and in theory that’s true. A lot of it is true in practice as well.

But when you’re working with a company where most of your team is in US, and the rest is all over the world, and you’re in Europe… it gets messy. I might need to do a webinar on one night at 3am, and attend a meeting on Friday at 9pm. 7pm meetings are standard.

Working on weekends happens as well when you want to run a live coaching class that works well with audiences from US and Europe and you don’t want to do a call in the middle of their work day.

You see, a lot of people think that being a successful entrepreneur or working remotely is all flowers and roses, expensive dinners and traveling the world while sleeping fancy hotels.

Primoz Bozic — Everyone shows off the awesome moments in their lives… I do too.

It’s what you might think when you follow successful entrepreneurs on instagram, facebook, or read their blog posts. Everyone wants to share their positive moments to inspire others, show it can be possible, etc. — and that’s fine. You’ll see that I do it as well, if you check out my instagram.

But the reality is that there’s a whole other side of entrepreneurship and being great that people don’t see, and not many people talk about.

What does it look like? Well, let’s just say it’s a crazy rollercoaster. There’s a lot of really awesome days and moments, and there’s a lot of really shitty ones as well. That’s why most people give up on their businesses early on, because they just can’t deal with it. It’s hard.

I love rollercoasters... maybe that's why I love this lifestyle as well? — I love rollercoasters… maybe that’s why I love this lifestyle as well?

“But Primoz, the more successful you get, the better you are at dealing with it, and the easier it gets, right?”

It’s funny… it actually gets harder, way harder.

Why? Well, as you become more successful, you’ll learn how to take on even bigger challenges, push yourself outside of your comfort zone, and raise the stakes. In essence, you’ll fail more, and more often. I will say you’ll get better at being used to it / dealing with it, so it won’t hurt you as much as it would when you were just starting out. It does get harder though.

Here, I’ll give you an example.

If you’re working at a regular 9-5 job where you’ve been in the same position for the last 5 years, do similar work every day, know exactly how to do it… and then spend the evenings hanging out with friends and watching TV, how much will you really put yourself outside of your comfort zone? How many new challenges will you take on?

Not many. You’ll have a pretty predictable day, some of them will be good, others won’t. Chances are you’ll either really enjoy or really hate your job. There won’t be as much of a roller coaster.

If you’re super ambitious and are hustling at your job or at your business, chances are that every day and every week will bring on a new challenge, and chances are you’ll suck at it. Therefore, more unpredictable shitty (AND awesome) moments.

Here’s a personal example from one of my recent trips to NYC:

AWESOME MOMENT: I had an awesome experience speaking at a conference, and the audience loved my speech.
SHITTY MOMENT: At the same time, I realized that my social skills are really shitty and that I can be really awkward in in-person conversations with people that I don’t know, especially when I’m tired. And I realized that because I’m becoming more known and people expect more from me, that’s not ok any more (shit, I can’t imagine how celebrities feel…). Any mistake that you make gets amplified.
AWESOME MOMENT: I spent 2 hours talking to one of the best mental toughness coaches in the world 1-on-1, and it was mind-blowing.
SHITTY MOMENT: Next day, I had to leave a mastermind meeting early because there was a work emergency that I had to take care of.
AWESOME MOMENT: I grabbed a 1-on-1 lunch with my mentor for the first time, and it was awesome (we only did coffee before). Weird as it might sound, this was a big milestone for me.
SHITTY MOMENT: Wifi was really shitty in our AirBnB in NYC, so I rented a room (through Breather) in NYC to do my weekly coaching call there. When I came there, I realized I couldn’t get in because the app I needed wasn’t available in my country (wtf Google Play, are you serious?). I managed to somehow get in by getting a security guard to help me, only to realize that the battery on my laptop was low. I had my charger with me, but forgot the converter from the EU to US plug. And of course there wasn’t any of those in the room I rented. In the end I made things work by doing the call from my phone, but let’s just say it was very stressful.
…

Ups and downs like this happen daily. I’ll have a student that is crushing it and getting amazing result, and another one I’ll need to talk to at 1am because they’re really struggling with their mental barriers.

Being an entrepreneur is a lot of work. This year, until my vacation in August, I haven’t had a single vacation day. I was either working or traveling (and when I travel, I usually work as well). I worked a lot of weekends, even though I didn’t technically “need” to be working. But there was stuff that needed to get done, and I wasn’t about to not do it.

Because I push myself very hard and always want to do more and more and more, I’m on the edge of burnout a lot. I’m not proud of it, and I know I should take it a bit easier sometimes. And yet, I feel like it’s the right thing to do…

You see, throughout the last few years, I’ve studied two groups of people:

People who are “successful”, who do better than most people. Think about people who follow through with their ideas and manage to build successful businesses. People who are in top 5% of a certain sport. People who always get the promotions and massive raises in their jobs. etc.
People who are the best at what they do. Steve Jobs, LeBron James, Christiano Ronaldo, and others.

It took a while for me to really understand what separates these groups of people, and what it takes to become successful, and what it takes to become the best.

There’s something I noticed that totally surprised me.

I noticed that the game constantly changes. It takes a totally different skillset and approach to become successful, than it does to become the best. And to become the best, I believe that you need both skillsets. Ok, that sounds a little bit abstract, so… let me explain.

Here’s the mistake that I think people make: they study and model the people who are the best before they become successful.

For a long time, I laughed at the people who read the book from Steve Jobs when it came out. Because I saw these people talk a big talk, get inspired… then give up after 2 days, until they found another inspirational story. They never made it. They thought they could work 17 hours per day and become successful because that’s one thing they read in the book, and then then they collapsed the next day. Whoops.

didn't want to read this book because everyone was reading it when I came out, and I wanted to be different. — didn’t want to read this book because everyone was reading it when I came out, and I wanted to be different.

And for a long time, I actually avoided reading biographies like that, because most of them were contradictory with what the personal development books talked about (you should work smarter, not harder, etc.).

And since those books worked really well for me and helped me build multiple successful online businesses, I just kept following the advice from there.

Then, after a while, I realized that I already knew most of the stuff from the books I’ve read, and I was doing great. I had my routines down, a lot of recovery, worked smart, connected with the right people… I did everything right. And it worked.

But over the last year, I realized there was more to it through conversations with some of my mentors (Kim and Christina… thank you.). There was another level that I had to reach. And most importantly, I realized that there was another level that I wanted to reach. Being moderately successful wasn’t good enough any more. I realized that I wanted to become the best at something.

And that realization scared me. It scared me so much I actively ran away from it for a while.

Why?

Because I didn’t believe I could do it.

You see, before in my life, I was either mediocre or moderately successful at things.

In primary school, I won all of the maths championships at my school (which felt great), but I was like #100 on the national level. My dad was #1 in maths competitions when he was a kid, and I could never live up to that. I felt I just wasn’t smart enough. And I didn’t understand all the maths concepts other kids did.
I was better at chess than most people. Yet, when I started competing, I realized I wasn’t that great at it after all.
I was mediocre at sports that I trained for a while, like badminton and breakdance. Yeah, I was better than an average joe, but when I started competing, I never really made it anywhere.

And the list goes on and on. It was always the same mix of mediocrity and being moderately good, but far from the best.

That’s why it took me a while to get out of the “I can be good, but I can’t be great” mindset. But I did it.

And once I did, my whole world changed. It became a game of “I know I can do this, all I need to do is find out how.”.

And this big, impossible vision of becoming a person that impacts millions of lives like Steve Jobs started to become possible.

So how will I do it? By doing what I do well — studying people who are the best, understanding what they have in common, then implementing the hell out of it.

In other words, I have acquired the skillset that allowed me to become successful in business. Now I can keep using that skillset and acquire a new skillset that I will use with my existing skillset to allow me to become the best.

And one of the things I’ve noticed (that helps me deal with shitty days) is that the best people show up every day, and do what it takes to succeed. And they sacrifice a lot to be able to do it.

I study and model the people who are the best at what they do, like Rich Froning.

For example, arguably the best CrossFitter in the world, Rich Froning, does 5-6 workouts when he’s preparing for the competitions. Every single day. Which goes against all rules of recovery. But ultimately, it’s what allows him to be the best. He shows up and does more than the rest. And it works for him.

Now here’s the deal: if you were just starting out with crossfit and wanted to just model Rich’s workouts, you would probably get seriously injured immediately. But if you took a few months to get good at it, learn the ins and outs etc. and THEN progressively start pushing the envelope more and more, and pushed yourself further and further with each day, you would become great at it.

It was the same wit Rich — he didn’t start with 5-6 workouts per day and he doesn’t do that many all year long, only when he’s preparing for a competition. He actually started with one workout per day. Then he slowly added a second one. When he saw he could handle it, he added another one, etc… He also didn’t sacrifice other parts of his life when he was just doing 1 workout per day. Now he probably sacrifices a lot more.

In the end, the lesson here is to show up, and give it your all every single day. 110%. Which can help you push through shitty days.

“Duh Primoz, you didn’t know that you just need to show up every day and do more than all the other people?!?”

Of course I’ve heard this before. Everyone has. It’s in so many motivational speeches out there. But KNOWING and INTERNALIZING or DOING IT CONSISTENTLY are different things.

Can you honestly say for yourself that you do whatever it takes to succeed and make things happen? I know that for a long time, I couldn’t. I knew I had more energy in the tank that I couldn’t use. Now I know how to do it without burning myself out completely.

Now I understand that yes, working smart is important, recovery is important, etc… but I also know that sometimes you do actually need to work all day or all week, and sacrifice certain parts of your life if you want to be great.

I had to first become great at creating habits, routines, understanding burnout, working smart, etc. so that when I try to model people who are the best, I wouldn’t collapse and give up.

Going back to sacrifices… I’ll admit that right now, my life isn’t really balanced. It usually involves:

Working… a lot. Weekdays, weekends, etc. It often feels like I work all day long.
Working out — I usually do at least 5-6 workouts per week, mostly with a personal trainer. This is what helps me feel good throughout the day. My nutrition is also on point, which helps.
Sleeping — This is another priority of mine, so I do get 8-9 hours of sleep on most nights (it’s a bit harder when traveling). Apart from nights like this when I’m still writing this e-mail at 4:56am…
Hanging out with friends — I do what I can to meet up with my friends 1x/week and play some board games, card games or old video games. It helps me recover.
Hanging out with family — I go and visit my parents roughly once every 1-2 weeks, that’s about it. I would have liked to do more of this, but it’s hard for me to do it. Finding the time for my family is something I’m not that great at.
Hanging out with my girlfriend — Well, we live together, so that makes things easier… But we spend a lot less quality time together than I’d like to, usually because I’m just drained from all the work so we just go out for lunch or watch some TV series. Another thing I want to work on.

“But this seems pretty balanced to me…”

Yeah, if you look at it like this, it does seem balanced. But when you know that out of the time I’m awake, I spend maybe an hour or two of “quality” time with my girlfriend, and the rest is either working or working out, it doesn’t really feel like it’s balanced.

It feels more like I’m working all the time (and hey, it’s because I LOVE working and because I want to be the best at what I do). I know that I “should” spend more time to recover, but luckily the systems that I have set up allow me to stay on 80-100% of my game most of the time.

At the end of the day, I’m making massive progress in my work and business, and I’m making incredible progress at the gym as well (I went from 0 to deadlifting 440lbs/200kg in a year). I had hired a personal trianer to help me reach my goals, this is the personal trainer I use. I’m sacrificing a lot of the time I could spend with my family, friends and girlfriend in order to be able to do that though.

You can check out my 200kg/440lb deadlift here.

It seems like it all works out — as long as I take a few days off when I really need them, surround myself with the right people, and give 110% whenever I work or work out, the progress is insane.

So, what does all of this have to do with shitty days?

Well, the solution to dealing with shitty days (from my experience) isn’t really a tactic like writing down the bad things that happened to you or meditating for an hour. It’s a long-term process of developing a mindset that you get better at (that most people don’t see or won’t talk about). In other words, you don’t use a magical solution to deal with shitty days. You learn how to do it over time.

To make it easier to really see how this mentality works, here’s an entry from my fitness accountability group about a really shitty day, and how I handled it:

How I overcame a really shitty workout yesterday.

If I break it down to a framework in which you could think about it, it comes down to something like this:

Acknowledge and anticipate that shitty days and moments will happen, and that the more of them will happen the more successful you become. Become OK with that [I know that shitty workouts will happen].
Go into every day with the mentality of “I’m going to show up and be successful no matter what.” [I go into every workout with that mentality]
When shit hits the fan, work through it. No BS excuses. Embrace the suck, fail, learn, improve. Keep moving. [I keep going on every workout until I give it 110%]

~~That’s it for today! It’s 5:20am and I’m going to try and get back to sleep.~~ It’s actually 5:56am since I wanted to include some photos and format it nicely… SLEEP!

-Primoz

P.S. Want to learn more about what I do to make massive progress in my business, despite having my fair share of shitty days? Check out my free 21-page on how I became a star student in multiple online business courses.

How to Find 10 Hours per Week to Work on Your Side Business

By Primoz Bozic 17 Comments

When I first started working on my side business, I had a full time job as a programmer, I was studying at the university, and I had a girlfriend as well. I know how HARD it can be to actually find the time and energy for your side business.

That’s why I’m SO EXCITED to have a friend and a long time client of mine, Charles Bordet from Become a Top Performer, write a post on my blog about this exact topic.

Charles has made amazing progress over the last few years – he went from being stuck in a PhD, feeling burned out and without energy, to finding tens of hours each week to work on things that were important to him – including his side business.

Charles, take it away!

***

Last year, when I started to work on building a side business, I didn’t realize is was that much work.

As something “on the side”, I thought it would be easy to find 5 to 10 hours every week to occasionally work on it.

But it wasn’t easy. I was working on a PhD, had a part-time job and was involved in several other important projects. Because of this very busy schedule, finding these 5-10 hours was a big challenge without some sort of agenda management software.

I quickly realized that the strategy “Work when I feel like it” working. My business would never be successful this way.

I needed to make a conscious effort to work on it consistently.

My first approach was to take the habit of working on it every day for 1 to 2 hours. When I was back home after work, I took a few minutes to relax, but not more, and sat down before my computer to work. Even when I didn’t feel like it.

At least, this was what it should have been, theoretically. In practice, it was often very different.

I had the time, that wasn’t the problem. Usually, I spent hours watching Netflix or browsing Facebook in the evenings. I could do less of that and get the time I needed to work on my business.

But, some days, the 15-minute break to relax I took transformed into a break that lasted the entire evening. It was hard to force myself to work when I didn’t feel like it, simply because, well, I didn’t feel like it.

My willpower supply was very low because I used it during my work. If I usually watched Netflix, there is a good reason for that. I was exhausted from my work, my body and my mind wanted to rest.

Even watching the videos of the online business course I was taking was hard. After 10 minutes, I felt distracted and started something else at the same time. It was very hard to stay focused.

After a hard day at work, which one is more compelling?

When I was doing research around my business idea, I caught myself endlessly browsing the internet without finding anything relevant. I always ended up visiting websites that were clearly not related to my business.

From there, I felt discouraged, it was already late, so I surrendered and opened Netflix. Hopefully, I would do better the next day.

I tried hard. Some days I was very productive, that was encouraging, but most days were simply a waste of time.

I could have kept going the same thing over and over, hoping that it would get better, or change the way I was working.

Fortunately for me, I chose the second option.

When are you feeling fresh and motivated to work on your side business?

The main problem that prevented me to work in the evening was that my energy and willpower supplies were empty. This made it very hard to stay focused, motivated and to be creative.

So, when do I have a lot of energy? In the morning, of course! After a good night of sleep, and before spending all my resources during my job or academic research.

But I didn’t have time in the morning. If I wanted to have 1 or 2 hours to work on my business, I would have to get up between 5 and 6 am.

That was SO early to me!

When I tried to do it the first time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I just turned off the alarm clock and went back to sleep.

I know that some people are getting up that early every day, because they start work very early, or they have a long commute, but they have no choice. Here, I had to willingly get up at 5 am.

Nobody was forcing me. It was much easier to go back to sleep.

At night, before sleeping, I thought about all the reasons that I had to get up early. They all made sense, it was a rationally good decision.

But in the morning, when I tried to explain that to my half-awaken brain, it didn’t make that much sense. The will of going back to sleep was too strong.

Another problem I had is that if I need to get up at 5 am AND get 8 hours of sleep, then I also need to go to bed at 9 pm. That is very early. Most of us wouldn’t even consider it.

I remember of a time when going to bed before midnight wasn’t even an option. Much have changed since, fortunately.

Do you feel ready to sleep at 9 pm? Well, me neither. I’m the kind of guy who can feel asleep in less than 5 minutes, but it took me a long time when I tried to sleep that early. That wasn’t a good experience at all!

Usually, at this time, I was watching series, playing video games, or chatting with friends on the internet. I was supposed to stop my activity, tell my friends I had to go to sleep, even if I didn’t want to.

Again, it was hard to force myself to do that. Series are too addictive. Most of the time I just forgot to go to sleep.

The problem wasn’t even that I didn’t want to sleep, it was that I forgot it. I didn’t feel tired enough and I was absorbed in the activity I was doing.

Finally, sometimes I get out with my friends and come back late. I told myself I had to be serious and wake up at 5 am the next day.

Sure. Of course you know what happened. I slept in, I felt guilty, and no work was done on my business this day.

Sometimes I succeeded though. I crawled out of my bed, reached my desk, turned my computer on and tried to do what I had to do.

But, what was I supposed to do by the way? My ideas weren’t very clear. I needed time to get this cloud out of my head. I had trouble to get clarity of what needed to get done.

I thought that working in the morning was better because I would be fresher and more energized. Was I wrong?

I wasn’t. But I was doing it all wrong.

It was a real struggle. I thought I wasn’t a night owl because I wasn’t able to work at night. And I thought I wasn’t an early riser either, considering all the difficulties I had.

Fortunately, I figured out how to make it work. It took me time. Not days, not weeks, but months. I tested different approaches, realized some experiences, and created systems to make every morning a success.

What if You Could Work Every Morning For 2 Hours on Your Side Business?

Today, getting up at 5 am every morning and working on my business has become a habit. My neighbor below even came to ask me to walk more softly in the morning. That’s when I knew it was a consistent habit.

I want to share with you how I transformed these past failures into a successful system so that YOU can do it as well. You will have absolutely NO excuse for not working on your side business consistently for at least 5 hours a week, even if you have a family and a full-time job.

My system is very personal and adapted to my own habits and schedule. It won’t necessarily work for you, but I will show you how you can gradually build your own system adapted specifically for you.

Also, my system is not something fixed. It was different last month. It will be different next month. Actually, I am experimenting right now with something a little bit different with what I’ll describe.

Life is constantly changing, so you simply adapt your habits and improve them with time. What’s important is that these changes are small. The hardest part is to have the basic system established. Then, you can tweak it from time to time to improve it.

At first, I took baby steps to get up just a little bit earlier. It was easy, and it worked. On the opposite, when I tried to wake up 2 hours earlier at once, it was hard, and it didn’t work.

If I had tried to directly implement the system that I am going to show you, I would’ve failed miserably. It is too complex and with too many new habits to take. Change happens slowly.

The key is to start really small, very easy, and to improve with time.

For example, don’t try to get up 2 hours earlier like I did at first. Try to get up 15 minutes earlier. It’s easy. 15 minutes aren’t a lot to work on your side business, but that’s a start, and you’re moving in the right direction. Next week, you’ll try 30 minutes, and so on.

Hopefully, my system will inspire you to create your own. Don’t feel that you should do exactly the same things as me and expect the same results. We’re different, and I’ll show you how to create your own system.

How to Guarantee You Will Get 8 Hours of Sleep Every Night

As I told you earlier, I struggled a lot to force myself to consistently go to sleep early.

This changed when I started to have an evening routine. The goal of this routine was to insure that I go to sleep at the right time, without me not wanting to or forgetting about it.

My phone is set up to ring at 6 pm to trigger the evening routine. When this happens, I stop working and I forbid myself to work more. I know that if I keep working, I will certainly mess up my sleep schedule.

This rule is very important to me. It also prevent me from getting burned out when I work too late for too many days in a row. At first I’m excited to work a lot, and after a few days I feel exhausted and need days to recover.

This is the first item of the evening routine. Stop working. I actually reboot my computer, so that I have a fresh new session, without all the tabs or files related to work still open.

The second step is to get up, put my shoes on, and go out for a walk. I’m usually still working at home at this time (I’m not always working by the way, but it is often the case), and since I’m at home, I don’t have a commute.

A lot of people hate their commute. But when you don’t have one, there is nothing that separates work and home. I need this separation, so I created it, by just going for a 20-minute walk.

A relaxed walk in a nice neighborhood

I enjoy walking, this is really good for me. It is relaxing. I let my mind wander. In a way, as I have rebooted my computer, I’m also rebooting my mind.

Once I7m back home, I put my orange glasses on. Ok, this is definitely not for everyone. Only for the weirdos like me, and preferably if you’re living alone.

These glasses are made specifically to block the blue light. The problem with blue light (from computer screens etc.) is that it interferes with your melatonin production, which is the hormone that regulate sleep and wake cycles. I won’t go into very deep details, but basically, it’s good for my sleep. A less weird option is the use of f.lux, but this is much less effective.

Not only is it good for my sleep, but the action of putting these glasses and seeing everything in orange also give more strength to the separation between “work” and “home”, because I literally see things differently.

The last action of my evening routine is to clean up my apartment for 15 minutes. Having a clean place is very important to me because when my apartment is messed up, I feel less good, my mind is cluttered by the mess and I lose my focus when I’m trying to work.

By including cleaning in my evening routine, I make sure this is done every day.

After that, I’m free to enjoy my evening by doing anything I want. Because of the routine, I never forget to go to sleep. This is very powerful.

Again, this is something very personal and that’s constantly changing. Eric Conley has a very different evening routine, and he does it right before sleeping (while I’m doing it at the end of my workday), but the principle and the objective are the same.

Here is a summary of my evening routine:

Reboot my computer.
Go for a walk.
Put orange glasses on.
Clean for 15 minutes.
Do whatever I want until I go to sleep.

How to Virtually Guarantee Every Morning Will Be the Most Productive Time of Your Day, Even If You’re Not a Morning Person

The radio automatically turns on at 5 am and wakes me up. What do I do?

I haven’t really found a way to be very energized every morning. Sometimes I am eager to work, and other times I just want to sleep more.

A few years ago, I couldn’t even consider going to sleep before midnight and always got up late. I clearly didn’t consider myself as a morning person.

Today, it’s very rare that I go to sleep after midnight and I now consider myself as a morning person. But I had no predisposition for that, I struggled to become a morning person.

This is not something that is fixed for life. If you don’t consider yourself like a morning person, it doesn’t mean you will never be. But it takes efforts to change.

The way I found to be consistently productive every morning, whatever my mood is, is to have an exciting morning routine that’s awaiting me.

Every morning, I repeat the same things, in the same order, so that I can expect to get the same results, which is a successful and productive morning.

Actually, pretty much everyone already has a morning routine. We naturally do the same things over and over in the morning. The difference here is that instead of stumbling upon a routine, I created mine. And I made sure it is exciting and leads me to success.

At first, after getting up, I turn the lights on (very important) and go to the toilet to pee. Then I weigh, every morning, because I like to have data. Later in the morning, I will enter the data point into a spreadsheet.

Now comes the first very important item of the routine: breakfast.

Every morning I do the same thing. I brew my coffee in a French press and prepare an omelette with bacon, tomato, cheese, and basil, plus a couple of toasts. I love it!

Who can resist, seriously?

This is a big breakfast high in protein that sustains me for hours! I need this because I get up very early and donÌt want to feel hungry at 9 am.

It takes me 20 to 25 minutes to prepare it though. That’s why, for a few months, I tried to do ham, egg & cheese muffins. I could prepare them days in advance and simply warm them up in 1 minute.

Very simple and can be prepared days in advance!

But after a while, I missed my omelette, so I went back to it.

Then, I check my emails while eating my breakfast. This is the only time of the day I check emails. I’m using BatchedInbox, which is a pretty cool tool that delivers my emails every day at 5 am only. It means that if you send me an email at 6 am, I will receive it the next day at 5 am. I’m not bothered by emails during the day.

After that, bathroom time, where I read for 10 minutes, take a shower, brush my teeth and dress up.

I’m also ready for work, but I now need exciting and powerful activities to put myself in the right mindset. These activities build the momentum that makes every morning a productive morning.

The first activity is to go for a walk. Did I say I love walking? It’s even better in the morning than in the evening. The streets are very calm, the sun is rising, the birds are singing! It’s really cool. This is a very beautiful way to start the day.

Yep, even in Winter, that’s a lot of fun!

When I’m back, I write in a journal about anything that I have in my mind. It can be about my struggles, my genius ideas, my successes, anything that I’d like to write about.

This gives me the opportunity to practice my writing every day, even if it’s only 100 to 200 words. It also tells a lot about what I’m focusing on at that moment.

I can later go back and read what I was writing 3 months earlier, what I was thinking about at that time, what were my preoccupations, etc.

It allows me to take a step back and see the improvements I’ve done. Or, on the opposite, it can also help to see that I haven’t made as much progress as I’d have liked to, even if I felt busy. Realizing this is essential and particularly hard to do when we’re busy all day long.

Finally, last but not least, I write my goals. It helps me to increase my focus and gives me the inspiration to kickstart the day.

I’m now ready to work and have roughly two hours for my side business before I need to go to work.

This routine ensures that I’m fully energized and inspired to work on my side business every morning, whether I was initially feeling tired or already excited. Quick summary:

Get up.
Toilet + Weigh.
Prepare breakfast.
Eat breakfast + Manage emails.
Toilet + Reading. Shower. Brush teeth.
Walk outside.
Journal.
Write goals.
Ready to work

It might sounds a lot. And that’s actually a lot. It takes me almost 1h30 to do all of this. It wasn’t like that the first time I tried to implement a morning routine. And If I had tried, I would’ve failed, simply because this is a too big change.

Instead, I recommend starting very easy. Consider what you’re already doing as a starting point, and from there make small adjustments from time to time.

For instance, if you want to try meditation, add a 5-minute meditation in the morning. That’s really easy to do.

Then, you may realize you don’t enjoy meditation that much (I tried meditation for 2 months before stopping for this exact reason, and replacing it with walking), then stop doing it. It’s as simple as that.

After a while, you will have a much better morning routine that you love doing every day.

Step-by-Step Guide to Get Started

Do you feel overwhelmed? That’s normal. I just described the system that I built in months. I don’t expect (nor recommend) you to do the same things tomorrow. First because it will very probably lead you to failure, and also because this is not adapted to you.

Instead, I prepared a step-by-step guide so that you have NO excuse to get started.

Step 1: Where are you right now?

Assess your current situation by answering to these questions:

When are you usually going to sleep?
When are you usually getting up in the morning?
How much time do you need to be ready in the morning?
How many hours do you need to sleep?

Example: I’m usually going to sleep around 11 pm, getting up at 7 am and takes 30 minutes to get prepared. I think I need 8 hours of sleep.

Step 2: Where do you want to be?

Describe what would be the ideal morning so that you have time to work on your side business:

When do you need to go to sleep?
When do you need to get up in the morning?
How much time do you want to work on your side business?

Example: I want to go to sleep at 10 pm, so that I get up at 6 am and have 1 hour to work on my side business.

Step 3: Create a very basic system.

The morning routine is that as important as the evening routine. I noticed that usually, people struggle to consistently go to sleep earlier. That’s why I recommend you keep doing the same thing as usual in the morning.

Instead, create a basic evening routine that contains the following items:

The time when your alarm will ring to trigger the evening routine.
A relaxing activity that you enjoy doing.

Example: Since I want to go to sleep at 10 pm, I will set up my alarm at 9 pm. My relaxing activity is taking a warm bath with a very good book.

Tip: If your computer is a distraction that prevents you to go to sleep, schedule it to automatically shutdown at a certain hour.

Step 4: Improve your system gradually.

Stick to the basic system for a while to get used to it. Naturally, you will want to improve it by trying different activities, different timings, and so on.

If you’re happy with it the way it is, don’t force anything. It means it’s working, so keep doing it and don’t break it.

But if you’re like me, you will want to make a lot of changes very often, because you like experimenting and testing. Be careful with that because it’s easy to break the system when you do too many changes at once. Restrain yourself to one change at a time.

What if I can’t get up in the morning?

When I first tried to get up very early in the morning, it didn’t work at all. That’s why I want to add this extra section with a few tips that will help you to NOT fall back asleep after waking up.

Have a gradual approach

Try to get up 15 minutes earlier the first week. It will be much easier.

Then, the week after, do 30 minutes earlier, and so on.

That’s how I did it the first time I wanted to get up very early. Yes, it took me a month to get up one hour earlier. So what? I succeed. Long term changes aren’t made in one day.

Make it harder to fall back asleep

Put your alarm clock far from your bed, so that you have to get up to turn it off.

Some alarm clock propose you to solve a small problem, walk a few steps, or do an addition, before it turns off. Give it a try if you struggle a lot.

What If You Want More Than 10 Hours Per Week?

Getting 2 hours to work on your side business every morning is really good. It means 10 hours per week if you’re doing it consistently every weekday.

But what if you want more? More time for your side business. More free time every day.

Because even during the day I had a lot of work to do, between with PhD, my part-time job and my other academic projects, I developed systems that helped me save more than 4 hours every day!

I used these hours to get progress faster on my projects, but also to have more free time and spend it hanging out with my friends.

I share these systems in my ebook Get An Extra Hour Every Day. It will help you to save at least one hour a day, but probably more, like it had for me. With just one extra hour, you can:

Go out with your partner, forget about business, and don’t worry about ANYTHING.
Send extra pitches to the websites you want to contribute on but never find the time to.
Make progress quicker on your business and increase your income.

If you liked this article, you’ll love my ebook Get An Extra Hour Every Day!

What Jeff Bezos, LeBron James, and Arianna Huffington Have in Common

By Primoz Bozic 26 Comments

If you could incorporate the common thread between Jeff, LeBron and Arianna that guarantees success, would you do it? Of course you would (but almost nobody does).

All three are the absolute best at what they do, but what is the ONE thing that ties them together?

Do they work 24/7/365 to stay ahead of the competition?
Did they have a personal coach that pushed them at the top?
Do they possess more “passion” towards their craft than anyone else?

The answer is no, no and no.

We need to dig deeper.

Of course Jeff, LeBron and Arianna have an undying hustle. But hard work alone is just your ticket to the dance — you’ve still got to get the girl.

And each of these three built their empires through a collection of personal mentors and coaches. In fact, their first comment whenever receiving praise is to give gratitude towards those that helped them along the way. But many people have coaches / mentors — this doesn’t guarantee success.

Lastly, following your passion is horrible advice. Jeff, LeBron and Arianna have a constant yearning to be the best in their field — but so do all of their competitors.
So if it’s not 24/7/365 hustle, personal coaches or passion, what is it?

The (Not-So-Sexy) Secret to Success

What ties Jeff, LeBron and Arianna together in their success is bland and boring — but absolutely essential.

The common element between them is the age-old (often ignored) advice of getting a good night’s rest. That’s right, all three of them prioritize sleep, especially when their best performance is required.

In today’s post I’ve invited my friend, Eric Conley, to debunk the fallacy of high-profile CEOs and athletes burning the ‘midnight oil’ to get ahead. He’ll dig into the habits of Jeff, LeBron and Arianna and how they propelled their careers to achieve true mastery. And perhaps most importantly, he will teach you the secret to unlocking your hidden potential (note, it’s not simply getting enough sleep).

Eric — take it away.

Cutting Sleep May Bring Success, but at a Cost

Ranjan Das is by all accounts an overachiever.

As the CEO and Managing Director of SAP for the India Subcontinent he led all the market-facing functions. His responsibilities included crafting the go-to-market strategy, driving customer satisfaction and managing the profit and loss for all revenue-generating functions[1].

His relentless work ethic provided him the reputation of driving SAP India’s business ahead of its rivals in the country[2].

In addition to his success at work, Ranjan was a health freak — he ate perfectly, worked out daily and ran marathons to satisfy his competitive spirit. His ambition to succeed trumped everything. He even refrained from bad habits like drinking and smoking with little bongs.

So why is it, at the ripe age of 42 Ranjan died from massive cardiac arrest?

The 4-Hour Sleep Myth

In today’s culture a lack of sleep is a form of braggery. We often associate sleep deprivation with success or superhuman abilities.

Candidly, I used to be in awe of people who are uber successful who claim to get by on 4-5 hours of sleep.

But stories like Ranjan’s are becoming more and more frequent.

If you haven’t guessed already, Ranjan’s death is cited towards his sleep (or lack thereof) habits.

He boasted he “only needed 4 hours of sleep”. Sadly, his position on sleep became a vicious downward spiral — each time he was quoted on his late night routine he was applauded from peers and rewarded with continued success, eventually becoming a leader in the juggernaut company that is SAP.

To Ranjan, the fallacy of less sleep equaling success led to an early death, despite his reputation of being a “health freak”.

What’s unfortunate for Ranjan is that the consequences of sleep deprivation (including his death) were overshadowed by the lifelong societal and career praise he received.

Keep this in mind the next time you overhear a co-worker boast that “she was up all night” to complete a project. Her decision to do so caused WAY more harm than good.

How Jeff Bezos, LeBron James and Arianna Huffington Use Sleep to Catapult their Success

Jeff Bezos

Amazon.com rivals Wal-Mart as a store, Apple as a device maker, and IBM as a data services provider. Founded just 20 years ago and with revenue expected to hit $90 billion this year, Jeff Bezos is the posterboy for self-made success[3].

Yet night after night he dedicates 8 hours towards sleep.

This is quite admirable, considering the ruthless pursuit by Bezos into making Amazon an e-commerce powerhouse.

“I’m more alert and I think more clearly” as a result, Mr. Bezos says. “I just feel so much better all day long if I’ve had eight hours.”[4]

The key lesson here is to prioritize clarity and focus to achieve your best work over being fatigued, but busy, with directionless tasks.

LeBron James

And when athletes combine sleep with nutrition and exercise their results skyrocket.

Consider the following:

Tennis players get a 42% boost in hitting accuracy
Sleep improves split-second decision making ability by 4.3%
Football players drop 0.1 off their 40-yard dash times by sleeping more

And most impressive, a 20-30 minute power nap improves alertness by 100%[5].

The advantages received from increased sleep can be the difference maker for professional athletes.

That’s why LeBron James, arguably the best basketball player, repeatedly gets 12 hours of sleep a day.

At just 30 year’s old, LeBron is in his 12th NBA season and has accumulated 34,332 career regular season minutes (14 among all active players)[6]. Sleep — perhaps more than anything else — is the reason he is able to perform at an MVP level everytime he steps on the basketball court.

Arianna Huffington

As the President and Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington leads a busy life.

So much so that in 2007, Arianna passed out from sheer exhaustion. She broke her cheekbone on her desk and got five stitches under her right eye[7].

This was her wake up call — no pun intended.

Since the incident, she gave a TEDWoman Talk, “How to Succeed? More Sleep” which has received nearly 3 million views.

In her speech, she negates the boasting, one-manupship of sleep deprivation stating:

“..f you try to make a breakfast date, and you say, “How about eight o’clock?” they’re likely to tell you, “Eight o’clock is too late for me, but that’s okay, I can get a game of tennis in and do a few conference calls and meet you at eight.” And they think that means that they are so incredibly busy and productive, but the truth is they’re not, because we, at the moment, have had brilliant leaders in business, in finance, in politics making terrible decisions. So a high I.Q. does not mean that you’re a good leader, because the essence of leadership is being able to see the iceberg before it hits the Titanic. Ad we’ve had far too many icebergs hitting our Titanics.”

Huffington admits that by making sleep a priority she’s had to say “no” to good opportunities — but the benefit of doing so is profound.

Unlike her former zombie-self, she is able to focus on the critical business decisions she makes at HuffPo AND have energy for family time and playing with her kids.

In her own words, “As I got more rest, I could work and come home — and become the human jungle gym again”[8].

If Arianna, one of Forbes most influential women for 2014, allows adequate sleep in her life, couldn’t you?

How Sleep Unleashes Your Inner Genius

I recently went on a week-long trip back home to Ohio. While staying there, my little sister was kind enough to let my fiance and I sleep in her full-size bed — a little snug, but much better than the couch.

And let me tell you, I went WAY beyond my normal sleep routine. Night-after-night I slept for at least 10 hours and woke up whenever I wanted to.

My body quickly adapted with the late to sleep / late to rise routine almost overnight. What’s odd is that I found myself tired in the afternoon — even though I slept in.

Not only did I have less energy during this interim period, but I also shortened my days:

Normal Routine

Rise n’ Shine: 5 AM

Bedtime: 10 PM

Total Waking Hours: 17

Ohio Routine

Rise n’ Shine: 9 AM

Bedtime: 11 PM

Total Waking Hours: 14

Did I miss my alarm clock while in Ohio? Absolutely not.

And I didn’t go back home to be productive — I came to relax and enjoy time with my family.

But during this time I realized just how valuable my *normal* routine is. I make sleep a priority and turn off all electronics, including my work iPhone, by 9 PM — no excuses.
To the contrary, when I was in Ohio I stayed up late to watch movies that I’d already seen multiple times.

This reminds me of the advice I found on Reddit:

“If you wouldn’t wake up early to do it, you probably shouldn’t stay up late to do it.”
The moral of the story: It’s 100% acceptable (and encouraged) to stay up late every once in a while. But if you continually watch late night TV or have your eyes glued to your iPad you need to ask yourself, “Would I wake up to catch the next episode of The Walking Dead or scroll through Kim Kardashian’s latest Instagram pictures?

And although the intent behind this question is to keep you mindful of your priorities (i.e. sleep) we know that knowledge without action is useless.

With that, I’ll share with you my personal, advanced Stop and Snooze Routine to ensure you wake up with creative energy to complete your life’s work.

Stop and Snooze Routine

The Stop and Snooze routine begins with a simple, but profound idea — an evening alarm on your alarm clock.

You are probably using your alarm clock to wake you up in the morning, but you haven’t considered using your alarm to help you get to sleep.

Setting up your evening alarm is easy — just work backwards from the time you wake up.
For example, if you want to have seven hours of sleep (recommended minimum) and need to be awake by 6 AM, then you’d need to fall asleep by 11 PM the night before. To be asleep by 11 PM, you’ll need to set your evening alarm to 10 PM to trigger your Stop and Snooze Routine an hour before sleep.

A Day in the Life

Ninety percent of the time, I’m asleep by 10 PM during the week. I get at least seven hours of sleep before I wake up at 5 AM for CrossFit.

To help me get to sleep by 10 PM, I have my evening alarm clock prompt me to begin my nightly routine at 9 PM:

Pack gym bag with office clothes
Set workout clothes and shoes out in the living room
Have boiled eggs (peeled), oatmeal with blueberries and a protein shake ready in the fridge
Drink Sleepy Time tea
Read until I fall asleep

As mundane as this routine might seem, I get excited anticipating my 9 PM alarm. Even if I’m working on my laptop, I know that when 9 PM comes around, it’ll be time to quit. The rest of the evening is “my time,” and I get to cap it off with reading — something I always claimed to “never have time for.”

And when my 5 AM alarm goes off, I’m out of my bed and out the door in less than 15 minutes because I had set everything up for myself, leaving me with zero excuses to miss a workout.

What’s more is that when I workout in the morning I virtually guarantee myself to have a great day. I’ve been compiling notes in my Five-Minute Journal for months and there is a definite correlation between CrossFit in the morning and increased productivity / happiness for the day.

Action Steps

Determine what time you want to wake up in the morning. Count backwards the number of hours you wish to sleep plus one and set your alarm (i.e. wake up at 5 AM while getting 7 hours of sleep requires a 10 PM snooze time and 9 PM evening alarm).
When your evening alarm (i.e. 9 PM) goes off, begin taking care of all the items you would normally put off till morning and get them done now. This includes picking out your clothes for tomorrow and setting out your breakfast items (dishes and preparing your food) and shouldn’t take longer than 15 minutes. Even as someone who preaches good sleep habits, I’m never motivated first thing in the morning. Why fight against yourself in the morning when you can get your morning tasks out of the way at night?
After spending 15 minutes getting your things ready for the morning, it is now “your” time. Enjoy it reading, meditating, taking a warm shower, talking to your spouse — whatever! This is your guilt-free time, and you can choose to do whatever you like, just make sure the lights are out by 10 PM (or whatever time allows you to get the hours of sleep you need).

How YOU Can Fall Asleep in Minutes

We’ve seen how poor sleep habits (allegedly) brought a high-profile CEO to an early death, even though he was considered a “health freak.” Unfortunately, this story will be forgotten. The culture we live in praises sleep and believes it is required to get to the next level.

Luckily we have three of the most influential people on the planet to model after — Jeff Bezos, LeBron James and Arianna Huffington. All three of them sleep MORE than the average person and attribute their success to a good night’s rest.

It’s time to stop making excuses. Let’s use sleep to launch our own success and get started right away by using my advanced Stop and Snooze Routine.

And if you’re trying to go to bed earlier, but find yourself tossing and turning for hours on end, download my FREE e-book How to Fall Asleep in Minutes.

This book will help you:

Stop worrying about the endless list of thoughts racing through your head so you can fall asleep quickly.
Avoid the snooze button in the morning and wake up at 6 AM to get hours of work done while your competition is still asleep.
Have consistently high energy while others struggle with the afternoon slump.

Sleep is a force multiplier for everything in your life, and will effectively double the results for all of your work and health goals.

When you’re ready, download my e-book How to Fall Asleep in Minutes and get started today.

What to say to family and friends who don’t support you

By Primoz Bozic 4 Comments

I was driving home from my office, my palms were sweating and I just wanted this day to be over. In about 20 minutes, I was going to tell my parents that I’ve decided to quit university and become a full-time coach for professional poker players.

Ugh.

This was one of the most nerve-wrecking moments in my life. I was sure that my parents would get extremely angry with me and throw me on the street.

My mother always wanted me to finish the University, and with just 4 exams to go I knew she would beg to “just finish the last bit”. Still, I knew I was old enough to start making my own decisions and act the way I feel is right for me.

What she didn’t know was how much I hated it there and how unfulfilled I felt by doing something just to make others happy. I knew exactly what I wanted to be doing in my life, and programming, listening to boring lectures and taking exams that provided no value to my life was a torture.

I was even more afraid of my father. He has a PhD in Archaeology and is one of the best people in the field. He’s even taught a few classes at the university. I knew that education meant a lot to him, but I just couldn’t see it work for me.

Of course I was nervous about breaking the news of quitting university, but I was even more nervous about talking with my parents about what I did for a living now – coaching professional poker players on productivity.

What comes to your mind when you hear the world “professional poker players”?

Well, my parents are not the types of people that would think that poker is a legitimate way to earn money.

Quite the contrary, they thought about degenerate gamblers connected with drugs and mafia that would most likely kidnap and kill me if something went wrong. I would need a lot of luck to convince them otherwise…

I took a deep breath and entered the apartment.

“Mom, dad, we need to talk. Come into the living room please. You will want to sit down for this.”

When they came into the room, they were super worried – I mean, who wouldn’t be if someone dragged you into a room, told you to sit down and that you need to talk…

“Listen, I need to tell you something. I won’t be attending the university any more.”

The dead silence filled the room. My mother was speechless and looked at me with disappointed eyes. Then she started to cry.

My father managed to stay a bit more composed and asked me why I decided to do that and what I’m going to do if I’m not going to be going to university any more. Well, at least he didn’t start screaming at me, so that was good.

Over 15 very dreadful minutes I explained why decided to quit university, what I’m going to do instead and my exact plan for the next 9 months.

After I finished talking, my mother kept repeating the same thing: “I really think you should finish your studies. You are so close.”

My father on the other hand, surprisingly, said to me: “If that’s what you decided to do, that’s fine with me. I know that the educational system isn’t what it used to be and that it won’t help you with your current goals. I hope you manage to succeed in what you decide to do.”

Now I was speechless.

This happened over a year and a half ago, and it was a major turning point for me. After this conversation, I put all of my time and energy into growing my business and starting an independent lifestyle. It wasn’t easy, but it was exciting, liberating and unforgettable. I finally started living my ideal life. I managed to build a poker productivity coaching business and later on moved to working with freelancers, consultants and executives – and now I devote most of my time to Skyrocket Your Productivity.

Before I was able to break the news to my parents, I had to secretly work on my business from an office.

Before this conversation, I worked secretly from an office that I rented with a few poker players so I could record videos and have coachings and webinars in there (I couldn’t do this at home because we have very thin walls at home and I didn’t want anyone to find out about my poker productivity coaching business.)

I would be away all day long. I attended the minimum possible amount of classes at the university, and since my office was 5 minutes away, I could spend all of my days there, pretending I was at university / out with friends. I loved staying in the office, but all of the time I’ve spent at the university was just killing me. It didn’t align with my values and my vision, and I would be more drained after a 1-hour lecture than an 8-hour work day that I actually enjoyed.

This went on for more than 6 months before I managed to build up the courage to finally start living my own life. The main reasons why I didn’t have the courage is because I didn’t know what to say to my parents in the first place and because I was afraid that my business might fail and I would end up living on the streets.

Then, one evening after I came to the office, I was just so sick of the university (they wanted me to create a boring business plan for a fictional project that just made no sense when I already had a profitable business) that I decided to end my misery once and for all. I reached out to one of my mentors at the time and ased him for advice. With that and a little bit of research, I finally managed to prepare my speech. I drove home and broke the news.

I know that you might have friends and family members that don’t support you in your ideal lifestyle. I know that your situation isn’t the same as mine. Maybe you want to create a side-business and your wife thinks it’s too risky. Maybe you want to change your job and your friends aren’t too excited about it.

I want to share a framework with you that helped me go through this difficult conversation that you can use to talk to your friends and family members and get them on your side.

Here are the most important things that I did:

#1 – I showed honest appreciation.

I started off by telling them how much I appreciated all of the help and support thwy’ve given me in the past. I mentioned specific examples of what I was especially grateful for.

This put them in a better mood and helped me slowly transition to my decision, so I didn’t shock them immediately.

#2 – I didn’t make my decision about me. I made it about something bigger than me.

I didn’t just say “oh I hate university, I don’t want to go there any more”. Instead I explained that this just isn’t in line with my vision and that if I kept doing what I was doing now, I would be very unhappy and also wouldn’t be able to spread my ideas to other people who might benefit from them.

I talked about 3 specific case studies of how I helped my clients and showed them the letters from the readers of my content that benefited from my advie. I wanted to show them that I’m making a positive change in the world and that I wanted to do more of it instead of just writing outdated computer programs that wouldn’t transform any lives.

#3 – I knew exactly what I was going to do over the next 3, 6, 9 months.

I didn’t just say “oh I want to have my own business”. I already had a business that was bringing in decent revenue and I shared with them a specific plan that I carved out for the next 3, 6 and 9 months.

This showed them that I was well prepared and that this wasn’t just some random idea that I would give up on tomorrow. They felt way more comfortable with my idea once they saw that it’s actually well thought-out.

#4 – I had a back up plan with a time constraint.

I went beyond just a plan for my business, I created a back up plan as well. I said that if my business didn’t work out, I will go back to university the next year (in 9 months) and finished my studies.

This made it easier for them to accept my decision because it wasn’t a final decision and they could still see a way out. They also didn’t have to be so afraid that I would end up homeless on the streets any more.

#5 – I asked for advice

In the end, I asked them for advice. “What would you do if you were me?” They pointed out to me that I should create an emergency fund for myself and take care of my finances. This made them feel important and they really appreciated me reaching out to them for advice.

I’ve used a version of this framework over the next few months when I broke the news off to my friends and other people I knew. Most of them tried to convince me to not quit university at first, but by the time I explained my plans to them and asked them for advice, most of them were ok with it and some were even supportive.

FRAMEWORK: What to say to family and friends who don’t support you

You can use a similar framework when talking to friends and family members that don’t support you in your ideas:

#1 – Show honest appreciation
#2 – Make your ideas bigger than you (include the positive change you will make in the world)
#3 – Have a written-out plan for your idea
#4 – Have a back-up plan with a time constraint
#5 – Ask for advice (“What would you do if you were me?”)

Want more?

Derek Halpern from Social Triggers made a great video on what to say to your friends and family that don’t support you that I’ve found really useful in refining my default responses as well, and I would highly recommend you to watch the video if you are struggling with this issue.

Watch Derek’s video – it helped me improve my framework for talking to friends and family members that don’t support me.Don’t be afraid to test this framework out in real life – you might need to tweak it a little bit for it to fit your situation, but IT WORKS.

Do you have any friends or colleagues who want to work on their business ideas but are frustrated because they gets no support from the people around them? Share this article with them – they will LOVE you for it!

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-Primoz