• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Primoz Bozic

Helping online entrepreneurs build a 7-figure online business

  • BLOG
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Primoz Bozic Blog

When should you give up on your online business idea?

By Primoz Bozic 1 Comment

How long do you think you should spend on your online business idea before moving on to the next one?

1 month?

3 months?

6 months?

The answer might surprise you.

I used to think that I needed to spend at least 3 months on a business idea before “throwing it away” and moving on to the next one.

To really make sure I did my research properly, that I understood the problems that my audience was struggling with, come up with amazing solutions, and so on and so on.

And this worked great when my business actually ended up being profitable… But not so great when they weren’t.

What a failed product launch taught me about validating business ideas

For example, last year I spent months working on my online program called “Insider’s Club”.

I did some (thought not enough) research, I wrote a long sales page, a sales sequence with 10 emails…

And then my product launch completely flopped.

I expected to get around 25-50 sales for the product, and I ended up getting 4 sales for it.

I was crushed for two weeks. I felt like a failure. I didn’t even want to talk about the program with anyone because of how embarrassed I felt about it.

I could make a list of things that went wrong there.

I didn’t do enough research. I messed up the positioning. I went against my instincts and changed the program name last minute to something that I didn’t really resonate with.

At the time I felt like those were the mistakes that I’ve made, and I said to myself I’d never repeat them again.

But overtime, I realized that while those were definitely the mistake I’ve made, there was an even bigger mistake that could have helped me avoid all of that work and disappointment.

The biggest mistake I made by far was not validating my product idea before going into a full-on product launch.

Because I had the “all or nothing” mentality when it came to product launches, I thought I needed to either do a huge product launch or don’t do it at all.

What I didn’t think of is doing a small beta test BEFORE spending months on developing a product and doing a big launch around it.

If I did that, I would have been able to see if there was something there far earlier in the process, and saved myself months of work that I could spend working on something else.

So I made a commitment to myself that every time I would want to launch a new online product, I would find a way to test if it’s profitable before spending months on it.

And because I didn’t want to spend so much time working on things that weren’t profitable, I gave myself a rule:

If I wanted to work on a new online product or service idea, I would have to make money with it within 1-2 weeks and make 529 savings plan.

If I got a huge response with a ton of interest (and paying clients), I would keep working on the idea because I knew it would be a huge success.

If I got no response or just a very small response (1 or 2 sales), I would stop actively pursuing the idea and move forward to the next one.

Since then, I’ve been implementing this system in my business, and it’s helped me completely change the way in which I run it.

What a GREAT business idea looks like

Let’s look at some examples of how this works in action.

I sent out a quick email to my email subscribers a few weeks ago:

It was for a beta course called “Your First Sale”, which helps online entrepreneurs make their first sales with their online business.

To try and validate this idea, I just wrote one email to my subscribers that had an application form attached to it:

Over the next few days, I got 39 applications for the beta course. I sent out the invitations for the beta course to a part of those (that were the right fit for it), and ended up getting 12 sales of the program, which was good enough to move forward with the idea.

I essentially went from the idea for this course to making the first sale with it with one email, one survey, and a few follow up emails.

No sales pages. No long email funnels. Not even a polished table of contents.

I knew there was something there.

What a business idea without potential looks like

Now let’s compare this to an email I sent out just a few days ago, about “Ultimate Guide Reviews”:

This time, the idea was to offer my readers a service where I would review their Ultimate Guides and give them feedback on them to make them 10x better.

With this beta test, I wanted to keep the process even simpler.

At the end of the email, I asked the people that were interested to just respond to my email.

I actually got a lot of responses to the email, from a lot of people that I felt would be a great fit for the service.

I was really excited, because I really loved this idea myself and I really hoped it would work.

But as I sent out the emails with more details and payment links to them, this is what happened:

Dead silence.

I waited a day. No sales, no responses to my email.

Two days. Same thing.

Three days. I received a few emails from my readers explaining why they wouldn’t take part in this beta test.

At first, this sucked.

I was disappointed because I really wanted this to work and I knew how valuable it would be for the people that took part in it, but they didn’t see it.

What to do if your business idea flops

At this point, I had two options:

I could keep pushing forward with the idea. I could try and figure out why they didn’t buy, change my service, and try to make it work. The downside of this is that I could very easily spend months working on something that there just isn’t a huge demand for.

Or, I could conclude the experiment and move on to the next idea with more potential (or focus on other parts of my business that I knew would help me grow it).

Now that I know better, I went with option #2.

Sure, if someone actually does end up buying the service, I’ll do an awesome job helping them out. But if not, I won’t spend time thinking about it, worrying about it, or being disappointed about it.

As one of my mentors Ramit Sethi likes to say, this wasn’t a failure. It was a test.

Sometimes no matter how much YOU want the idea to work out, if your potential customers aren’t willing to pay for it, it’s just not a good idea.

It’s happened to me before, and it will happen to me in the future. It’s happened to my mentors and friends. And it’ll probably happen to you too.

Now here’s the good news:

Just because one of your ideas doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean that you have to move to a completely different business idea.

You might just need to slightly tweak it to make it work.

For example, I know that Ultimate Guides overall are a great business idea for me.

I’ve had plenty of 1on1 coaching clients for creating Ultimate Guides, and I’ve also got plenty of students in my Ultimate Guide System course.

It’s just that the specific idea of Ultimate Guide Reviews didn’t work out, which is totally cool.

So your business idea could still be VERY profitable, but you might just need to slightly tweak it to make it work.

Now let’s get back to the question from the beginning of this email…

“When should you give up on your business idea?”

From my experience (and seeing what others do as well), I’ve noticed that when you have great business ideas, like the ones listed at https://onlinemoneypage.com, you should be able to make money with it and validate it within 1-2 weeks.

That’s how quickly I got my first few coaching clients for 1on1 coaching for Ultimate Guides.

That’s how quickly I got 12 sales for Your First Sale Beta.

That’s how quickly one of the Ultimate Guide System students got their first 2 sales, without even asking for them:

That’s how quickly one of my Your First Sale Beta students got their first sale with their business idea:

That’s how quickly a lot of other people validated their business ideas (when I asked on my Facebook wall if I knew anyone who validated their business ideas in 2-4 weeks):

It really is that simple.

If you have a great business idea, you’ll be able to make money with it in 1-2 weeks.

And if you aren’t able to do that… It’s probably time to move on.

There’s really no point in spending 1,3 or 6 months on “making your idea work”. It’s unlikely that you’ll just wake up and your idea will become a huge success overnight.

If your idea is great, people will be super enthusiastic about it. They’ll want to work with you, even if you haven’t even started looking for clients. And if you start looking for them, you’ll have no problem getting them.

When you have a great idea, you know it. You see it. You feel it. And people will be EXCITED to pay for it.

So if you’ve spent more than 2 weeks working on your idea and you’re not seeing or feeling this… If you’re frustrated, burned out or overwhelmed… Or if you just aren’t seeing the results you want to be seeing with it, it might be time to move on to the next idea.

Notice how I say “move on”, and not “give up” on it.

Some people take pride in “pushing through it” and “never giving up”, which I think are great qualities to have, but are also sometimes misinterpreted.

Never giving up doesn’t mean that you should keep working on something that isn’t working out.

It means that you should keep changing parts of your business idea or testing different ideas until you find one that gets an amazing response, without giving up on your online business.

So you’re not giving up on your business by letting go of your existing idea. You’re just letting go of what’s not working, so you can spend the time working on something that will work (and completely transform your business).

Because when you do find a business idea that you love, you’ll have no problem making your first few sales with it. Your business will grow faster than expected. It’ll be come way more fun. And you’ll know that if you can get the first few sales, you can get a lot more of them.

How to find your next business idea

So if you’re ready to let go of your current idea and switch to the next one, here are a few ways in which you can do that:

  • You can pursue the same business idea, but test a different service or a product (remember how my 1on1 coaching and online course on Ultimate Guides were a huge success, but the Ultimate Guide Reviews wasn’t).
  • You can pursue the same business idea, but switch your target audience, the problem you’re trying to solve for them, or the result you’re helping them achieve (if your idea is social skills, you could try social skills for entrepreneurs, talking to strangers, turning your coworkers into your best friends, etc.).
  • You can choose a completely different business idea (I went from talking about productivity to teaching people how to create Ultimate Guides… And this idea feels 10x better than the last one).

At the end of the day, nobody will remember the business ideas that you let go of a year from now. But they will remember the ones that end up working for you.

Now here’s a caveat:

In order to know if your idea is good or not, you HAVE to test it.

You can’t just do research online and take endless notes.

You need to go out into the world and let people know what you’re doing. You need to actually offer people the opportunity to work with you (like I’m offering my beta courses and coaching programs).

Because if you never give the people the opportunity to work with you or let them know what you’re working on, they can never work with you, and you won’t magically make your first sale with your idea.

And in the worst case, you’ll put yourself out there and nobody will buy (which happens, even to me), which might not feel great in the moment, but will at least allow you to move on without GUESSING if the idea is good or not.

How to see if your business idea is profitable or not in 1-2 weeks

If I can share one piece of advice with you, it’s to test your ideas as quickly as possible.

Give yourself 1-2 weeks to test your business idea and see if there’s something there. Go all out on it. Put yourself and your idea out into the world. Let people know about it. Try to get some paying customers. Read from here to know how to increase your customer focus.

If the response from your audience is great, keep working on it. If not, switch the idea up a bit or move on to the next idea that you want to work on.

So instead of spending 3 months an idea that won’t work out (like I did in the past), you’ll be able to KNOW if your ideas will work out or not, and spend more time working on things that work, and you won’t waste your time on things that don’t.

Who knows, your amazing business idea might just be 1 or 2 ideas away (or it might be an idea that you’ve been thinking of testing, but you never did).

We cover the whole process in Your First Sale Beta in more detail, but here’s the general framework that you can use to do that:

  • Pick a business idea that you want to test
  • Test your idea for 1-2 weeks
  • Your main goal within the next 1-2 weeks is to get 1-3 sales with it
  • If you hit the goal, keep working on your idea
  • If not, don’t be ashamed to move to the next one

It’s really that simple. You don’t need to spend weeks researching your idea, collecting 30 pages of research notes or to talk to 50 people about your idea.

All you need to do is put your idea out there, see if people love it, and if they don’t, tweak it / keep changing it until they do.

ONCE you get your first 1-3 paying clients and you know that your idea is a success, you can go on and do some more detailed research, build an email list, create a polished online course and all that good stuff – but before you do that, find a great idea that people are willing to pay for first :).

BONUS: How I got 278,958+ website visitors, 6,150+ email subscribers and made $300k+ in revenue

Ok, so you know how to find a great business idea… But what’s next?

  • What’s the best way to get tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors to your website?
  • How can you build an email list of 1,000+ email subscribers?
  • And how do you turn your email subscribers into raving fans and paying customers?

Let me share with you the secret strategy (that nobody else teaches) that I used to get 278,958+ website visitors, 6,150+ email subscribers and made $300k+ in revenue.

I’ll let you in on my secret 100% FREE – all you gotta do is leave your name and email below :).

Enjoy!

-Primoz

The Ultimate Review of Derek Halpern’s Sales Page That Converts

By Primoz Bozic 6 Comments

Derek Halpern's Sales Page That Converts Review
DISCLAIMER: Derek didn’t ask me to write this review. I also don’t make a cent from writing this review (you won’t find any affiliate links in here). It’s my brutally honest review of his course that I decided to write on my own.

Welcome to the 7,600+ word Ultimate Review of Derek Halpern’s Sales Page That Converts!

I’m Primoz – I’ve ran an online business successfully for the last 6 years, and a few weeks ago I used Derek Halpern’s Sales Page That Converts to write a $36,318 sales page in under two weeks (more on that later).

I wrote the most detailed review of Sales Page That Converts online and I really tried to cover every single aspect of it – from how I liked the course, what I didn’t like about it, my results with it, to how long it will take you to go through it and whether you should join it or not.

As this is a pretty long review, I created a table of content for it below, so you can just skip to the part that you’re most interested in:

1. Who is Derek Halpern?
2. “What is Sales Page That Converts?”
3. How Sales Page That Converts works
3.1. The weekly lessons
3.2. The step-by-step worksheets
3.3. Additional resources
3.4. 90-day Email Access to Sales Page Coaches
4. Why I joined Sales Page That Converts
5. My results from using Sales Page That Converts: A $36,381 product launch
6. What it was like to write a sales page using Sales Page That Converts
6.1. Module 1: The research
6.2. Module 2: This is where the real work begins
6.3. Module 3: Where it all came together
6.4. Module 4: The finishing touches
7. My 3 biggest lessons from Sales Page That Converts
7.1. Lesson #1: Sales pages are assembled, not written
7.2. Lesson #2: Pick just ONE audience for your sales page to make everything 100x easier
7.3. Lesson #3: Editing is a 3-step process (and it’s easier than I thought)
8. How my life and business is different after going through Sales Page That Converts
9. How long does it take to go through Sales Page That Converts?
10. My biggest challenges with Sales Page That Converts (and how I overcame them)
10.1. Challenge #1: Not knowing if my writing is good or not
10.2. Challenge #2: I had to “kill my baby” multiple times
10.3. Challenge #3: Writing got REALLY tough towards the end
11. Who do I think Sales Page That Converts is right for?
12. My honest opinion about Sales Page That Converts
12.1. What I loved about Sales Page That Converts
12.2. What I think could be improved about Sales Page That Converts
12.3. Would I recommend you to join Sales Page That Converts?
13. The secrets behind how I successfully created a $36,318 sales page using Sales Page That Converts in under two weeks

Now let’s dive in!

1. Who is Derek Halpern?

I’ve first heard of Derek Halpern from Social Triggers when I was preparing for a conference called Behaviorcon that my mentor Ramit Sethi hosted back in 2013:

Behaviorcon
Derek was one of the speakers at the conference, and as a part of preparation for the conference I listened to the podcast interview that Derek and Ramit did together about How to Charge 100x More Than Your Competition.

As I listened to the interview, I remember thinking to myself “wow, this guy is hilarious, knows what he’s talking about and he obviously does a ton of hard work that most people don’t”. I was excited to hear him speak at the conference.

A few weeks later, I did. His speech was the last speech of the conference, and in my eyes it was one of the best if not the best speech at the event.

It was entertaining.

It was packed with value.

It was done in plain english language that everyone could understand.

I loved it. All of it.

You could see that hours and hours of work and rehearsals went into the speech and it was mindblowing how Derek was able to take complicated concepts and explain them in a fun way with real life examples that you could understand and start using right away.

There was one specific technique that I remember from Derek that I’m using in almost every email I write to my email list (if you pay close attention, you’ll notice that I even use it in this very post).

It was the “Before-After-Bridge” technique for writing in a more persuasive way.

The idea behind it was that you shouldn’t try to persuade people by telling them that they’re wrong and you’re right – and desperately trying to prove them.

Instead, you can use the following framework:

  • BEFORE: First, you can share a story of a problem that your audience is experiencing right now, about how you faced that problem in the past.
  • AFTER: Then, you can share a story about how life is different now that you’ve overcome that problem.
  • BRIDGE: In the end, you “bridge the gap” with the solution that helped you get from BEFORE to AFTER. This can be your product or a service, or simply a technique that you used that you’re sharing for free.

This one technique helped me with writing better emails, sales pages, and even helping out my friends in a couple of situations where I could see they needed help (like looking for a better job or starting their own business on the side).

It gave me a framework that I can use whenever I want to teach a lesson. It’s simple, and it works.

Over the next few years, I followed Derek’s advice mostly by reading his emails and watching his hilarious Youtube videos like this one:

Derek Halpern Youtube
You can check out the above video through this link
I knew that Derek also created paid online courses like Blog That Converts (and later Yes Engines and 7 Figure Courses), but I never decided to join them because I already joined Zero to Launch from Ramit Sethi (read my brutally honest review of Zero to Launch here) and didn’t feel a huge need to learn more about blogging or creating online courses.

That didn’t mean I didn’t WANT to join his courses.

No, I’m not one of those cheap people who say “I’ll just read your free materials, why would I pay for a course?!”. I knew how valuable online courses can be, I knew that Derek likely creates amazing ones, and it was just a matter of time until I joined one.

Well, here we are. 3.5 years after hearing about Derek and seeing him speak at a conference, I bought and tested his my first course from him – Sales Page That Converts.

And it was so good I decided to write this review about it.

2. “What is Sales Page That Converts?”

Derek Halpern's Sales Page That Converts
Lern More About Sales Page That Converts
I think the name is pretty self-explanatory here. Sales Page That Converts is a course on creating sales pages (duh!) that will help you create sales pages that will help you convert more of your readers into paying customers.

It’s a 4-week course that covers:

  • WEEK 1: The research that you need to do in order to write a high-converting sales page, the target audience(s) for your sales page and your positioning for the sales page.
  • WEEK 2: How to write the “hook” of your sales page and create an ultra-compelling “what to expect” section for your product or service. Plus how to write a persuasive guarantee.
  • WEEK 3: How to write everything that’s missing (testimonials, product introduction, your big promise, etc.) – AND how to “assemble” all of your writing into a compelling sales page.
  • WEEK 4: How to edit and refine your sales page, what to do if it doesn’t convert well, plus a few advanced strategies like creating an FAQ section for your sales page.

So yeah, pretty much everything that goes into writing a sales page for your product or a service.

3. How Sales Page That Converts works

Sales Page That Converts consists of a few key parts:

  • 1. Weekly lessons
  • 2. Step-by-step worksheets
  • 3. Additional resources
  • 4. 90-day email access to Sales Page Coaches

Let’s look over all of them in detail:

3.1. The weekly lessons

Each week, there’s 4-5 videos that guide you through each important set of building a high-converting sales page:

Sales Page That Converts Module
The videos are solid. I love that Derek uses examples from companies that we all know:

Example from Sales Page That Converts
As well as examples from his own sales pages (which show that he practices what he preaches):

Sales Page That Converts Example
Because he uses so many examples and explains EVERYTHING in plain English, it’s hard NOT to understand what he’s teaching you. And I love that.

There’s plenty of online courses that leave a lot of room for “imagination” – but really just get their users stuck, not knowing what they should do next.

Sales Page That Converts isn’t one of those courses.

In 95% of the course, you’ll know EXACTLY what to do next (and I’ll talk about the 5% when you might get a little bit lost shortly).

3.2. The step-by-step worksheets

Derek achieves that by providing some of the most detailed and straightforward worksheets together with the course:

Sales Page That Converts Worksheet
In some courses, worksheets are just “supplementary materials”. That’s not the case with Sales Page That Converts.

The worksheets from the course might just be the BEST part of this course.

Some of the worksheets are 20+ pages long, and they cover EVERYTHING You need to know to successfully create, assemble and refine your own sales page.

They reiterate on the concepts from the course and give you specific action steps to put the ideas into action:

Sales Page That Converts Worksheet
As well as provide specific examples along the way that make it even easier for you to “get it”:

Sales Page That Converts Worksheet

3.3. Additional resources

Together with the worksheets, you’ll also get access to “additional resources” together with each module:

Sales Page That Converts Additional Resources
These include things like:

  • Videos with responses to common questions you might have (like “How do I price my product or a service”, “How do I overcome writer’s block” or “How long should my sales page be”).
  • PDFs with additional examples for writing compelling headlines, bullets, hooks, etc.
  • HTML templates for your sales page (so you don’t need to design one yourself)

Here’s a snapshot from the “27 bullet point formulas” PDF:

Sales Page That Converts Additional Resources
I like that there’s a lot of additional resources like this included in the course, so that if you get stuck you can take a look at them and get un-stuck.

I don’t think you NEED to go through all of them (it can be overwhelming to do that), but when you need them they’re there.

I personally didn’t use many of them as I’ve found the weekly lessons and worksheets more than good enough, but in the future I might take a look at them when I’m writing my next stales page.

3.4. 90-day Email Access to Sales Page Coaches

Together with Sales Page That Converts, you also get 90-days access to dedicated Sales Page Coaches (1 month for the duration of the course + 2 extra months after that).

The coaching is supposed to work via email and look something like this (per the Sales Page That Converts Sales Page).

You send a question to a coach via email:

Sales Page That Converts Coaching
And the coach will respond with specific answers and recommendations to your question:

Sales Page That Converts Coaching
I haven’t personally used this feature, and here’s why:

  • I didn’t feel a huge NEED to use coaching (as I’m not a beginner and I didn’t get stuck during the course all that much, plus the course is so good on it’s own that I don’t think that you necessarily need coaching together with it)
  • As I was writing my sales page in the middle of the launch, I wanted to get feedback (1) from people I could trust (I had no idea who the “Sales Page Coaches” were), and (2) in the fastest possible way, so I reached out to my network instead.
  • The idea of “email coaching” felt “meh” to me. It didn’t make much sense for me to use email coaching when I can just jump on a call with a professional copywriter who I already know.

Having said all of that, I probably have a lot more experience with writing sales pages than the typical student and I didn’t really have any basic questions – so if you’re working on launching your first product or a service and need to write a sales page for it, this would be perfect for you.

4. Why I joined Sales Page That Converts

I didn’t join Sales Page That Converts because I would have NO idea how to write a high-converting Sales Page.

When I joined the course a few months ago, I’ve already built a successful online business and launched multiple successful online products, and even had 5-figure product launches using the Zero to Launch Course.

In Zero to Launch, I’ve learned the basics of writing compelling sales pages, and that was “good enough” for a long time.

However, this January I decided that I’m going to launch my first $1,000 product, Ultimate Guide System.

Because this was the first $1,000 product that I was launching, I wanted to make sure I get EVERYTHING right.

If I was to develop the best online course in the world on creating Ultimate Guides, I needed an amazing sales page to resemble that and help me bring the right customers into my program.

While I knew about the basics of creating a sales page, that just wasn’t enough to do that.

I wanted to stop guessing what goes where, and if my introduction to the sales page was good enough or not.

I needed a system.

A system that would help me understand how to write the perfect sales page, step by step, and eliminates all the guesswork in the process.

Most importantly, I wanted to also understand the WHY behind each part of a successful sales page. I didn’t want to just put one together without knowing how to write better and better sales pages in the future.

I joined Sales Page That Converts because I felt like it would help me accomplish all of that.

There was finally a step-by-step system on creating a high-converting sales page from someone I admired, and there was no way I was going to miss out on it.

5. My results from using Sales Page That Converts: A $36,381 product launch

As I’ve mentioned before, I used Sales Page That Converts to write the sales page for my Ultimate Guide System product launch.

I ended up writing a 12,688 word sales page in a matter of weeks:

The Sales Page I Created Using Sales Page That Converts
I launched Ultimate Guide System for the first time to a semi-warm list of 6,000 email subscribers.

I sold 34 copies of it, and together with payment plans that boosted the revenues to $36,381, and made it my biggest launch to date:

Sales Page That Converts Results
I was aiming to reach around $30k with this launch, which would make it a 0.5% list-to-sale conversion rate, but by getting 34 sales I actually hit a 0.56% list-to-sale conversion rate.

For launching a $1k product for the first time without major testimonials or case studies, this was a huge success for me.

The sales page definitely contributed a lot to the success of the launch, and a lot of people messaged me that they loved it.

Even Derek thought I did a good job when I sent it to him (but also let me know there’s room for improvement later):

Sales Page That Converts Derek
The reference to “I officially hate my life” goes to the final stretches of getting the sales page finished on time…

So let’s talk about that now :).

6. What it was like to write a sales page using Sales Page That Converts

I bought Sales Page That Converts in the beginning stages of planning my product launch, and actually didn’t go through it until a month after I purchased it.

During this time, all 4 modules of the course opened up, which was a great thing for me since I work on my business full time and wanted to speed through the course, rather than waiting for the additional modules to open up.

6.1. Module 1: The research

Sales Page That Converts Module 1
The Module 1 of Sales Page That Converts was a lot of what I expected.

I had to do the research to have the foundation of a high-converting sales page, and then use the research to define my target audience(s) for my sales page, and the positioning.

The research part came pretty easy to me as that’s what I’ve already been doing for the last few months, so I already had an Evernote doc full of notes that I used to work through this module.

Using my research notes, I defined 3 specific audiences for my sales page, although I later ended up cutting 2 of them and focusing specifically on ONE audience (more on that in a second).

I also created the positioning for the product – who it was for, how it would help them, and how it was different from the competitors.

Derek calls this “the core promise”, which is the ultimate result that your product brings to your audience, and “the big difference”, which makes your product different from anything else out there.

So far so good. I breezed through the first module in a matter of days, and moved on to actually writing my sales page.

6.2. Module 2: This is where the real work begins

Sales Page That Converts Module 2
After I finished the research and had a general idea of my positioning and target audiences, we talked about “Universal Desires”.

More specifically, how to connect your sales page to the universal desires like making more money or looking good naked.

I LOVED this part, and it might have been one of my favourite parts of Sales Page That Converts.

I heard the theory of universal desires many times in the past, but nobody has shown me how to use it in my sales page (and other content I write) like Derek did.

Derek’s advice helped me get crystal clear on what my audience actually wanted, and helped me talk to my audience about the things that they deeply cared about, which made the whole sales page a lot more compelling.

Again, I loved how Derek broke down the concept of universal desires into a step-by-step process that you can use. No more guesswork or “how do I do this exactly” :).

Once I finished connecting my sales page to universal desires, it was time to do some real work.

The next step was to write the “what to expect” section of my sales page, which is more or less an early version of a Table of Contents for my product.

The “what to expect” section included everything that my audience would get access to with my course.

As you can imagine, writing out EVERYTHING that a 10-week online course would include was A LOT of work.

It wasn’t hard or complicated or confusing work.

It was just working through the research notes and organising them into one epic table of contents (this is just 2 of the 10 weeks from the course):

Sales Page That Converts What to Expect Section
This section alone was 4,400+ words long before it was edited, so you can get an idea of how much work it was.

I even double checked with Derek to make sure I wasn’t doing something wrong, and he confirmed that this part is a “monstrous amount of work”:

Sales Page That Converts Derek
It took days to write this whole section, and it wasn’t fun. I’m not the type of person that loves working through research notes for hours and organizing them, but it had to be done.

Once the “what to expect” section was finished, I felt relieved.

I loved that I had a HUGE chunk of my sales page (which turned out to be 1/3 of my whole sales page) already written, and it definitely felt good to move to the next steps by already having something written (rather than starting to write a page from scratch).

One extra step I took here was to test my “what to expect” section with my target audience, to see how they liked it.

The response that I got was really good, with a lot of comments like these:

Sales Page That Converts Feedback
So I felt confident in moving forward with my sales page.

Next, it was time to write “the lead”, or the first section of my sales page.

This section helps you grab the attention of your audience, and it’s the first “creative” part of writing a sales page.

I wrote a few different versions of the lead based on what we covered in the course.

Here’s the first version:

Sales Page That Converts Lead
The second version:

Sales Page That Converts Lead
The third version:

Sales Page That Converts Lead
As you can see, I’ve had a lot of different versions of the lead, and I wanted to figure out which works best (and how to further improve it).

To do that, I sent out the different versions of leads to my existing coaching clients and potential clients for my course, and asked them for feedback on it.

As I did that, I made some progress and things began to get clearer and clearer.

Still, something didn’t quite feel right. I didn’t have the amazing lead I was hoping for yet.

One Friday afternoon, I decided to jump on a call with a potential client of mine to help me nail down my lead.

We looked over the lead together and then worked on making it better.

After two hours, I finally had enough data to write the lead that I was really happy with:

Sales Page That Converts Lead
And this lead ended up being very similar to the final version of the lead that I published on my sales page:

Sales Page That Converts Lead
I have to say that this was one of the more challenging parts of writing the sales page, but it wasn’t challenging in the same way as the “what to expect” section that was pretty straightforward and a ton of work.

With this section, I needed to get creative and find a narrative that would “hook” my audience, so I spent another few days to get it right.

Once I was finally happy with it, I moved onwards to the last part of Module 2 – the “persuasive guarantee”.

Compared to writing the table of contents and the lead for the sales page, this was a walk in the park.

Derek did a great job explaining different kinds of guarantees and helped me create my own unique guarantee that would be perfect for my product and my audience.

I had a great guarantee written in less than half an hour:

Sales Page That Converts Guarantee
And I was finished with Module 2.

By this point, my sales page already had a compelling “what to expect” section, “the lead” that would hook my audience, and the “persuasive guarantee” that would remove the risk from buying my product and help me generate more sales.

It was time to move on to Module 3.

6.3. Module 3: Where it all came together

Sales Page That Converts Module 3
Module 3 was where it all started to make sense.

First, Derek talked about “the 5 building blocks of a sales page that converts”, where he explained all the elements that go into a high-converting sales page.

Then, it was time to actually write all of the “building blocks” of the sales page: “your big and believable promise”, “undeniable proof & product introduction” and “your irresistible offer”.

Some of these were a lot easier to write than others.

The product introduction, the irresistible offer and the undeniable proof sections were fairly straightforward to me.

The “big and believable promise” was another story though.

This part was all about taking “the lead” (which I already had written from Module 2) and building it out into a compelling narrative that would get my audience hooked at the beginning of my sales page and have them read all the way through it.

I’ve spent the whole weekend (writing and rewriting from when I woke up until I went to sleep) working on this part, and asked my friends for a lot of feedback and help to make sure I got it right.

There were numerous times when I wrote something that I felt was good, but in the end just didn’t flow well – so I threw it all away and started from scratch.

Still, slowly but surely, with every “shitty” version of my sales page, I was closer and closer to having a good version of one.

After a few days of writing and rewriting like crazy, I finally had the building blocks that were “good enough” to assemble into a sales page.

I watched Derek’s video on “How to assemble your sales page”, and combined all of the blocks into something that began to resemble a finish sales page.

6.4. Module 4: The finishing touches

Sales Page That Converts Module 4
With the sales page written, the only thing left to do was to edit and refine it. I felt like I was finally close to the finish line.

In the last module, Derek shared with us his 3-step editing process, which I loved.

It was a pretty straightforward process, and turned this big black box of “editing” into a straightforward process, which was just a matter of doing the work.

This part was pretty easy, but I will admit that I managed to overcomplicate it a little bit.

For whatever reason I decided to make sure every single sentence on my sales page was really short, which took a whole day to do, only to find out that my sales page now sounded a bit robotic.

I had to back and undo some of the edits I just did, which was a painful and annoying process, but a good lesson for the future.

Other than that small hiccup, I breezed through the editing process and my sales page already looked like something I was happy to share with my audience.

The only thing I did after the editing was to write the last section of the sales page (that Derek talks about in the “advanced sales page tactics” video). I chose just one of the tactics he shared, “the wake up call”:

Sales Page That Converts Wake Up Call
This was the last missing piece of the puzzle, and my sales page was finally finished and ready to launch.

Overall, I felt that the course was incredibly well made (which is why I wrote this review). It was super straightforward and hard to “mess up”. Even though I had a few minor hiccups that prolonged the process of writing the sales page for a few days, it’s still the best course on creating sales pages that I’ve ever seen, and I’m excited to use the framework from it in the future.

7. My 3 biggest lessons from Sales Page That Converts

I took a ton out of Sales Page That Converts, and just after one product launch, the course has already paid for itself multiple times over.

I learned a lot of great things from the course, and today I want to share my top 3 lessons from it with you.

7.1. Lesson #1: Sales pages are assembled, not written

I’m a huge systems and processes person.

When I see something that’s broken down into a step-by-step process, I immediately “get it”.

When I see something that’s not broken down into a step-by-step process yet, I try to do it myself (this is true for a lot of the things I share on my blog).

When I see something that’s not broken down into a step-by-step process that I don’t understand, I get frustrated.

The latter was my experience with writing sales pages in the past.

I was always frustrated because no online expert that I followed ever took the time to break down the sales page writing process into small, actionable steps – and explained WHY we are doing each of the steps.

So when Derek shared in Module 3 that sales pages are “assembled, not written”, I thought to myself “FINALLY!”.

This was one of the most valuable aspects of the course for me.

Now I no longer need to dread writing a sales page and think about whether I’m doing it right or not, because all I need to do is write all the different parts of a sales page, assemble them into a compelling sales page, make sure it makes sense, then edit it.

Whenever I want to write a new sales page in the future, I won’t need to worry about whether I’m “doing it right”. I can just go through the process and KNOW that my sales page will likely convert very well.

7.2. Lesson #2: Pick just ONE audience for your sales page to make everything 100x easier

When I originally went through the Module 1 of Sales Page That Converts, I outlined 3 different audiences for my course:

  • AUDIENCE #1: Online Business Owners Who Want To Grow Their List To Be Able to Launch Their First Product / Service: Starting out in their online business (0-500 subscribers), want to someday launch an online product or a service
  • AUDIENCE #2: Online Business Owners Who Have Already Launched Their First Product OR Service And Want To Sell More Of It: Have a moderately successful business, 1,000-5,000 email subscribers, launched their first product, want to grow it AND establish themselves as an authority in their niche.
  • AUDIENCE #3: Have Successfully Sold An Online Product / Service For Years, Have a Large Following, Want to Attract Even More High Quality Customers Into Their Funnels: Have a wildly product or a service that already sells well, or multiple ones, want to drive a lot more traffic to it, get more customers, typically through one of the team members.

But as I’ve started working on my sales page, I soon realized that I was making my life a lot harder than I thought it would be.

It felt impossible to write an engaging opening of the sales page that would be compelling to ALL of these audiences that wasn’t completely generalized (this is why I got stuck for a few days in module 3).

Something that would appeal to someone who doesn’t have an online product to sell yet wouldn’t appeal to someone who already has an established 6-figure business.

I reached out to Derek to talk to him about my issue, and his response was simple but incredibly eye opening:

Sales Page That Converts Derek
Of course Derek was 100% right. There were a ton more potential buyers on my email list that had less than 1,000 email subscribers than people who had very well established businesses.

I decided that 95% of my sales page would be geared towards that ONE audience (Audience #1), and everything instantly became so much easier. I no longer had to please everyone, I just had to connect with the one audience that was the most likely to buy my product.

The only part where I mentioned the 3 different audiences was in the “Who is my course right for?” section:

Sales Page That Converts Is This Right For Me
And my assumptions were confirmed at the end of the launch. Most of the people that joined my course were in the beginning stages of their online business, and I got a few advanced students in the course as well.

7.3. Lesson #3: Editing is a 3-step process (and it’s easier than I thought).

In the past, I never really understood how “editing” a sales page was supposed to work or help me get more sales.

I was never a huge fan of spending hours and hours on making the sentences flow just a little bit nicer – because I didn’t think it would make a difference in sales at the end of the day – so I never spent much time on it.

I loved that Derek broke down the editing process into 3 clear steps – and that what I thought was editing was actually just one small part of it.

The other two parts of the editing were something I never thought of myself, and made my sales page so much better.

Also, instead of endlessly editing my sales page, all I needed to do was read through my sales page 3 times and ask myself the questions that Derek told us to ask ourselves – and the editing was done.

I felt like a lot of the course was similar to this experience. So many things that were confusing to me in the past became simple and crystal clear once I went through it.

8. How my life and business is different after going through Sales Page That Converts

As I’ve mentioned before, just writing one sales page and doing one product launch has made Sales Page That Converts worth the investment multiple times over.

But I know that the $36,381 that I earned from that product launch was just the beginning.

Now that I have a sales page that converts well, I can reuse it and improve it with my future product launches, and I’m not even doubting that this sales page will help me make multiple six figures over the next few years. It’s just a matter of driving more traffic to it.

Not only do I have one high-converting sales page, I also know EXACTLY what to do to write my next sales page in half the time using the framework that I’ve learned from Derek.

Most importantly, I feel confident that I can write more high-converting sales pages in the future – whether they’re sales pages for $200 products, $1,000 products or $3,000 products.

I’ve learned the SKILL of writing high converting sales pages, so I know exactly what to do with each new product I create in the future to make sure it brings in plenty of new paying customers.

9. How long does it take to go through Sales Page That Converts?

It took me 2 weeks to go through the whole course – from starting the course to having a live sales page.

This was for a 12,688 word sales page for a $1,000, 10-week product (and you probably don’t need to write such a long sales page if you’re not selling such an extensive product).

I didn’t work on my sales page ALL the time, especially in the first week – as I was also working on sales emails, finishing my Ultimate Guide Checklist that I used as a part of the launch, and the day-to-day emails and client work.

It was during the last week or so when I spent most of my days writing, and only on the last weekend before the launch I really “buckled down” and worked all day long, from waking up to going to sleep.

I’m pretty confident that if you go through the course, even if you have just 1-2 hours a day to work on your business, you can have the sales page finished within a month or so (which is as long as the course lasts).

Especially if you’re selling a lower priced product, your sales page won’t be as extensive and as complicated as mine, and you’ll be able to move through all parts of it a lot faster.

10. My biggest challenges with Sales Page That Converts (and how I overcame them)

As you would expect with every online course that you take, there were some parts that were challenging where I got a bit stuck.

10.1. Challenge #1: Not knowing if my writing is good or not

The first thing that happened pretty quickly was not knowing if my building blocks (the table of contents, the lead, etc.) were compelling enough.

I also had a few situations where I wrote a few different leads and headlines and didn’t quite know which one was right.

The way I worked through that was by asking for feedback on my writing, rather than being stuck in my head.

I messaged some of my 1on1 clients on Facebook:

Sales Page That Converts Feedback
I asked a potential client to review my sales page and got amazing feedback:

Sales Page That Converts Feedback
And I even asked my Facebook friends for feedback on some of my headlines:

Sales Page That Converts Feedback
This was probably the most important thing that I did to make sure my sales page was REALLY good.

Asking for feedback helped me see which parts of the sales page were good and which needed work, and also get some ideas when I got stuck and didn’t quite know what to do next.

10.2. Challenge #2: I had to “kill my baby” multiple times.

I’m known for writing pretty long content (you’ve probably figured that out by now, since we’re 5,500+ words into this review), which is great for creating Ultimate Guides and EPIC sales and engagement emails…

But it’s not so great for writing a compelling sales page.

With a sales page, you really need to keep the attention of your readers from start to finish, and you don’t want to bore them or lose them along the way.

This became an issue when I wrote the “common myths” section of my sales page:

Sales Page That Converts Myths
I originally made this section almost as long as 3 blog posts (for the 3 myths that I talked about). When I had it reviewed by my potential clients I could see that they were losing attention there a lot, so I decided to cut about 2/3 of what I wrote, and everything started to look a lot better.

There’s this concept that Derek talks about in the course about “not being afraid to kill your baby”, which means that you have to be ok with throwing away the work that you’ve already written.

I had to do this multiple times during the course and while it didn’t feel good to delete what I was just writing for 4 hours, it was the right thing to do – and slowly but surely I started writing less and less shitty stuff and more and more good stuff.

I have a feeling that this will keep happening in the future sales pages that I’ll write, so I might as well get used to it sooner rather than later :).

10.3. Challenge #3: Writing got REALLY tough towards the end

The first week of working on my sales page was relatively easy as I also worked on writing engagement emails, adding value to my audience, and I had a lot of client work to take care of.

During the second week, I spent 90% of my days just working on my sales page, and that’s when it got really tough.

There’s only so much time I could spend writing high quality content each day, and after a certain time I started to develop brain fog and it was hard to get anything really great on paper.

But when it was 6pm, and I’ve just deleted most of what I’ve written that day, the last thing I wanted to do was to stop working and feel like I’ve accomplished nothing all day long.

I also didn’t want to spend another 3 weeks writing a sales page. I knew I was close, but I needed to get it right, and not just publish a sub-par sales page.

That’s why, for the last few days, I decided to “push through it” and keep writing even when I was completely drained (which I don’t usually do unless I have a tight deadline coming up).

I knew I wouldn’t write anything GREAT in those last few hours, but I also knew that I didn’t want to wake up next morning feeling like I’m starting from scratch.

I buckled down and kept writing – some of the writing was good, and some was not so good.

Then, next morning when I woke up fresh, I at least felt like I had something to work with, rather than starting at a blank page.

I could spend 30 minutes working through what I wrote last evening, make it a lot better, and move on.

This helped me keep the momentum and finish the sales page without feeling frustrated by the lack of progress.

It was tough, but at the end of the day well worth it, and it probably helped me write the sales page at least a few days to a week earlier.

11. Who do I think Sales Page That Converts is right for?

I think Sales Page That Converts is an incredibly valuable course, and anyone that uses sales pages to sell their products or services can greatly benefit from it.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never written a sales page before or if you’ve written a handful of them (like I did), you’ll be able to improve your existing sales pages and write even better converting sales pages for all the future products and services that you create.

One thing that I didn’t mention yet (but is super cool) is that Derek does a REALLY good job of helping you create 3 distinct types of sales pages in the course:

  • Sales pages for online informational products (like online courses)
  • Sales pages for services (like freelance work or coaching)
  • Sales pages for products (like software products or even physical ones)

The way Derek does that is by providing examples throughout the course for EACH of these different types of sales pages, both in videos (here he talks about an example of selling a bag on Kickstarter):

Sales Page That Converts Physical Product Example
As well as worksheets (here’s an example of including a “product demo” for physical products on your sales page):

Sales Page That Converts Physical Product Example
Even though the sales page that I wrote was for an online course, I know that I can use it in the future to write a compelling sales page for a high-end coaching program.

And so can you – it doesn’t matter what you’re selling – if you use or want to use sales pages to sell more of your products or services, then Sales Page That Converts is perfect for you.

12. My honest opinion about Sales Page That Converts

Below are my final thoughts about the course after going through it.

12.1. What I loved about Sales Page That Converts

I loved that Sales Page That Converts is a step-by-step SYSTEM that you can use to write high-converting sales pages.

If you follow the system step by step, it’s pretty damn hard to write a sales page that will NOT convert well if you have a great product or a service that you’re or planning on selling.

I also love that the course eliminates all the guesswork through the incredibly detailed step-by-step worksheets that are filled with examples that make it impossible for you to misunderstand the course materials.

That’s different from some copywriting courses out there that technically teach you how to write better copy, but don’t really teach you how to write a sales page from start to finish (which can be really frustrating).

I also love that the course WORKS (as I’ve tested it and successfully created a sales page that brought in $36,381 during the first launch of a new product).

12.2. What I think could be improved about Sales Page That Converts

There’s definitely a handful of things that could be better about the course, although these are minor details that can easily be fixed / aren’t that important to your success.

First, I think that there could be a community for the course. I’m sure a lot of people are working through Sales Page That Converts but there’s no real way of connecting with other students (that I know of), which kind of sucks.

If you’re the type of person that likes to be supported and hand-held through the whole process of creating a sales page, you can still take advantage of the “sales page coaches” feature (and let me know how it goes if you do!), so you should still be taken care of – but I would still love to see a community in there some day.

The second thing which could be better was if there was an explanation of how to write a sales page that appeals well to multiple different audiences (like I wanted to originally). I know there’s a way of doing that and I’ve seen Derek do it in the past, but I also understand it’s an advanced strategy that might be overwhelming for most people. It would still be cool to learn more about it in the future though.

The last part I thought could be executed better was the “sales page templates” feature.

Together with Sales Page That Converts, you can get access to different templates for different kinds of sales pages, that look something like this (this is just a quick snapshot):

Sales Page That Converts Templates
I LOVED the idea of sales page templates, and they looked really nicely designed.

Unfortunately, the templates seemed pretty hard to edit (as you would have to manually copy paste each part of your sales page in there using a coding program), and the instructions for use were very quick (there was a 5-minute video explaining how to use them, but that’s about it).

This means that if you’re not very tech savvy, you would spend a lot of time figuring out how to actually host the sales page on your website, which is not ideal, and could easily be fixed with a few extra tutorials on how to do that, which I hope will be implemented in the future version of the course.

Because I didn’t feel like manually copy pasting a 12,000+ word sales page into the template, I didn’t end up using this feature, although if you had a shorter sales page or a lot of time on your hands, this could still work for you well.

Overall the downsides of the program are really minor, and they could all be resolved in the future with a little bit of extra effort, and they don’t make the course any worse – I’ve found it incredibly valuable despite these small areas of potential improvement.

12.3. Would I recommend you to join Sales Page That Converts?

The answer to this is a wholehearted YES.

I would definitely recommend anyone who wants to create high converting sales pages for their product or service to join Sales Page That Converts.

By writing a really great sales page, you’ll be driving more sales to your business for years to come, and the course will pay for itself multiple times.

It’s a no brainer.

If you’re interested in joining Sales Page That Converts, you can learn more about it here.

Again, there’s no affiliate links in this post and I don’t earn a cent by writing this review – I just wrote it because I think it’s an awesome course that more people should know about :).

13. The secrets behind how I successfully created a $36,318 sales page using Sales Page That Converts in under two weeks

One last thing before you go.

With Derek’s Sales Page That Converts, you will get all the knowledge that you need to create a high converting sales page.

But at the end of the day, YOU are still the person who will need to put in the work.

There’re some students who take courses like this but never follow through, and then there’s others who breeze through them and implement them in their business in a matter of WEEKS (and I was one of them).

So what separates the successful students from less successful ones?

I figured it out FOR you.

Over the last few years, I have coached 800+ of online business course students, and I’ve talked to many other success stories and star students from online courses like Sales Page That Converts.

I realized that there are 8 key strategies that star students use that others don’t. These strategies can be learned by anyone (hundreds of my readers have already successfully used them to make faster progress in their businesses), and you can use them to go through Sales Page That Converts in half the time as well.

These are also the exact strategies that I used to go through Sales Page That Converts in under two weeks and write my $36,381 sales page.

I combined all of these strategies into a step-by-step system that you can use to become a star student in Sales Page That Converts.

I have put this 8-step system into a 21-page Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Star Student in Online Business Courses, and I want to give this guide to you for FREE, so you can go through Sales Page That Converts in half the time:

How to become a star student in online business courses
If you want to go through Sales Page That Converts in half the time and learn about the secrets that star students in online business courses use to breeze through online courses, you can get your free guide through the link below (and I know that you’ll love it).

Just click the button below, and you will get the guide delivered to your inbox!

Get my FREE 21-Page Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Star Student in Online Business Courses!
P.S. If you have any questions at all about Sales Page That Converts, leave a comment below – I’d be happy to answer any question you might have in the comments section :).

-Primoz

How I learned to look really f*cking good (and saved my relationship)

By Primoz Bozic Leave a Comment

How I learned to look really f*cking good

Over the past few years, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with developing my personal style.

When I was in high school and college, I had NO IDEA what dressing nicely looks like and why it mattered (which might explain why I was single for a long time). I would basically wear whatever clothes my mother bought me, and if I was lucky I would get a nice shirt or a pair of socks for Christmas.

I had no idea about what clothes to wear, how to make them fit well, why fit is even important, what kind of colors to wear… Nothing.

Dressing up in some jeans and a short sleeved shirt was more or less the pinnacle of my style (although I managed to somehow ruin that by doing awkward poses like these…).

img1

As I started my own business, I realized that looking good might actually bring me more business opportunities (here’s a great article on that topic from Neil Patel).

This was the first time I went on a mission to learn how to dress better.

Naturally, I went to the more expensive stores, looked for the nice custom hang tags with string made from quality textiles, bought a few big brand items and tried to get styling tips from the stylist in the stores. I essentially asked “what would look good on me?” and they’d bring me a bunch of expensive clothes.

For example, here’s a photo of me that you might have seen from my Business Insider feature – I bought this blazer on sale, and the only reason why I bought it was because it was from Hugo Boss and it was orange on the inside (yes, my thought process was amazing…).

img2

I don’t think I looked bad in that blazer, but the problem was that it was made of a weird fabric and I couldn’t really use it on a day to day basis. The blazer was too hot to wear in the warmer months, and in the colder months it was too cold to walk around in it.

The end result? I ended up wearing it about 3 or 4 times and then burying it in my closet where all it did was collected dust.

Shortly after I spent thousands of dollars on new clothes from expensive brands, I decided that just wearing nice clothes wasn’t enough. I wanted to look good naked as well. I started going to the gym and eating healthier, and soon all of my pricey clothes were way too big and didn’t fit me any more.

Whoops. I’ve just spent thousands of dollars on something I’ll never be able to use again.

As that happened, I decided it wasn’t worth buying nice clothes if I’m going to lose more weight, and somehow I also got the idea that now that I had a six pack, I didn’t really NEED to wear nice clothes, and that I could look good in anything.

And because I never actually learned HOW to dress better (not that I didn’t want to, but the generic style advice all over the internet wasn’t really that helpful), I literally decided I could wear ANYTHING…

That is how this happened:

img3

Yup, for whatever reason I thought it would be a good idea to fill my wardrobe with pink and neon green clothes (not pictured, thank god). No good excuse for that. And my girlfriend absolutely HATED my neon green t-shirts and was begging me to get rid of them.

A few weeks later, my style (thankfully) took a turn for the better.

One of my friends, Peter Nguyen reached out to me via a Facebook message and offered to help me with improving my style for a piece of content he was working on.

Peter runs a site called The Essential Man where he helps guys look really f*cking good:

img4

Since I knew that Peter knew what he was deciding I decided to give it a shot. We had a brief conversation where he shared a few wardrobe tips with me and helped me get started with building a new wardrobe that would fit my body shape and contain clothes that I could wear every day and look great in them.

After our call, I went on to stalk Peter a bit on his website and stumbled upon his free 2016 Fall Style Guide:

img5

This single piece of content was the best piece of content with men’s style advice I’ve ever read. It was incredibly organized and detailed, and it was written in a language that I (and not just the style fanatics) could understand.

As soon as I started reading the guide, I couldn’t stop.

I read until the end of it in one sitting. If before reading the guide I had a vague idea of what my fall and winter wardrobe should look like, after reading the guide I knew EXACTLY what to do next.

I knew which clothing items to buy first. What to pay attention to while shopping. What NOT to buy. What the price points of the items that I wanted to buy should be. And even the exact brands that were Peter’s favorites. It really felt like he thought of everything as he was writing the guide, and that he really understood where I was and what my struggles and concerns were.

Shortly after I finished reading the guide, I went on a shopping spree and bought most of the items that he recommended in the guide. For the first time ever, I knew what I was looking for in the store, and the shopping experience became so much more fun and effortless.

I ended up with a wardrobe that I actually liked, that fit me well, and that I looked great in. And I’ve never looked back. Now I can look good if I’m just going on a casual date…

unnamed

If I’m exploring NYC & DC in the winter…

img6

Or if I’m doing a photoshoot for my new website:

img7

Dressing better not only helps me look better in photos that I post on my website and Instagram and allow me to look more professional at the events and meet ups at the events, it also allows me to FEEL better on a day to day basis.

There’s just something about dressing up nicely that allows me to be more confident in what I have to say and be more productive when I sit down to work.

And best of all, now my girlfriend doesn’t have to dump me for wearing neon green t-shirts. It’s a win-win.

I can honestly say that Peter’s free guide has been one of the best and most impactful pieces of content I’ve ever read.

And it was just ONE of many outstanding pieces of content that he has created over time.

He also wrote…

  • The Essential Guide to Surviving Hot Weather with Style
  • The Ultimate Guide to Buying a Leather Jacket
  • A Beginner’s Guide: 16 Essential Style Tips For Guys Who Want to Dress Better

And all of those are as good as the Fall Style Guide that I first read.

Because his guides are so remarkably good, I don’t even bother with looking elsewhere for style advice. I know that if I have a question about style, Peter has either already covered it in one of his guides, in his Essential Wardrobe course, or I can shoot him a quick email and get a great response.

Over the past few months, Peter has become my go-to expert for style advice.

I open and read every single one of his blog posts and emails, because I know that when Peter writes something it’ll be GOOD.

And because I know how good his content is, I’ve happily shared it on my social media in the past (and I’m even writing this email about it), even though he never asked me to:

img8

If you’ve enjoyed Peter’s story (or content), and might want to create something like this yourself, then I have great news for you.

I’ll talk about how to create content that’s “really f*cking good” (as Peter would say) over the next few weeks, and I’m excited to share some of the best tips for creating epic content with you that I’ve never shared before.

Tips that will help YOU create outstanding content for your audience that will absolutely blow them away, make their lives better and bring in more high quality traffic, email subscribers and sales for your business. And help you become the go-to expert in your niche.

Just like Peter has changed my life to the better with his content, I’ll show you how you can do the same with your audience.

To help you do that, I created an epic, 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide checklist where I share with you the exact process I use for creating epic guides that can help you get started with creating epic content for your audience.

ultimate guide checklist cover (1)

Here’s what’s included in the 13,000+ word Ultimate Guide Checklist:

  • The biggest mistakes people make when creating Ultimate Guides (and how to avoid them)
  • 9 Ways in which you can use Ultimate Guides to grow your online business (whether you’re an established business owner or just starting out)
  • My never-before-seen checklist for creating Ultimate Guides (with real life examples and secrets I’ve discovered over 5+ years of creating them)

To download your free copy of the Ultimate Guide Checklist, simply leave your name and email address below and I’ll send it to you within a few minutes!

-Primoz

2017: The year of making a bigger IMPACT

By Primoz Bozic 4 Comments

This year I’ve spent the holidays in the US for the first time, and it was an amazing experience. My girlfriend and I went to Washington, DC for a few days where we hung out, ate a lot of great food and partied together.

Then we took a train to NYC where we spent more time catching up with our friends, lifting, shopping, and of course, eating.

Because I often take these amazing trips and I always wanted to share with others what they look like, I’ve recorded the whole trip with my camera and created a vlog that you guys can look at:

Check out my vlog from the NYE trip to DC & NYC!

It’s really been fun to capture some of the great moments from the trip, create some memories to look at in the future, and just do something new, fun and exciting (I’ve never made or edited a vlog like this).

I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Now let’s talk about 2017.

Every year I like to set a theme for myself that allows me to stay focused on the one thing that matters most for me at the time.

This year, that one thing is IMPACT.

This means that everything that I do will be related to having more impact in the world, and helping YOU positively impact more lives.

Why IMPACT?

A lot of people say that they want to make a difference in this world. To make it better. To change peoples’ lives.

And I think most of us already make a difference to some extent. Whether it’s helping a friend or family member out when they need your help, or writing a blog post online, you’re already doing something to make this world a better place.

But for me, just helping a few people, or even a few thousand people isn’t enough. My goal is to impact tens of millions of people all over the world, and to become one of the top influencers in the world.

I’m not talking about just having a blog, doing some coaching and creating online products. Yes, I’m going to do all of those things, but ultimately I want to do more than that.

When I think of making a world-wide impact, I think of celebrities.

People like Oprah. People like Arnold Schwarzenegger. People like Will Smith.

Who DOESN’T know this guy??

More or less everyone knows these people. And when they say something, a lot of people listen to what they have to say, whether they agree with them or not.

These people literally have the power to change the world and make it a better place, and if they have a great story or a message that they want to share, tens or even hundreds of people can hear that message.

That’s what I want to be able to do someday. To be in a position where I can share my lessons and my message with hundreds of millions of people all over the world. Because I know that doing that can make their lives better.

I’ve already experienced a glimpse of this myself…

Over the last few years, I’ve made a name for myself in a few small online communities.

  • In my first successful business, I wrote an epic productivity guide for online poker players that was viewed by over 222,000 people and translated into 7 languages.
  • Later, I was featured in Business Insider where more than 104,000 people saw my story, and I even got featured in the Slovenian newspapers afterwards.
  • I’ve spoken at multiple conferences in front of 200-500 people where I got to share the online business lessons that I’ve learned with them.

Speaking on stage at Ramit Sethi’s Forefront conference in NYC

And of course, then there’s you guys. I love writing blog posts like this to thousands of you guys all over the world and be a part of your journeys in building and growing your online businesses.

I love getting to know you through my email list, chatting with you through my private mastermind group, and even spending the New Year with some of you in person.

Ultimately, that’s what running an online business is about for me. Making a difference. Making your lives better and hearing about how I’ve helped you in the past.

Knowing that I’m not just working in a 9-5 job in a cubicle any more on a computer software program, feeling like I’m wasting my life in front of a computer screen. Meeting and helping people like me, who believe in me, and care about the same things as I do.

Over the past few years, I went from being stuck in a cubicle to running my own location-independent business, traveling the world and hanging out with people like me.

Even though I lived in Slovenia without rich parents, connections, or a college degree (that everyone made fun of in high school).

Even though all of the odds seemed against me, I could make a meaningful difference in many peoples’ lives.

And if I could do that, you can too.

You can spread your message and your story with thousands or even millions of people all over the world. And I’m sooo excited to support you in your journey!

Regardless of whether you’re just getting started in creating your online business or if you already have a profitable online business, I’ll help you make a bigger impact in the world this year through the new content I create for you.

So let’s make 2017 an EPIC and IMPACTFUL year together.

And before you go, make sure to sign up here… because that’s where all the magic happens (I share my best content and free epic guides that will help you make a bigger impact only with my email subscribers).

-Primoz

An EPIC new direction for my online business (can you tell I’m excited?)

By Primoz Bozic Leave a Comment

December 16th was my last day of working with Ramit Sethi at IWT as the Accelerator online business coach. It’s been an absolutely incredible two years of working with 800+ of his best Zero to Launch and Call to Action students and teaching them how to build and grow their own online businesses.

I’ll write more about that experience shortly in an epic post, but today I wanted to let you know about what’s coming next for me (and what you can expect to learn from me in 2017).

Now that I’ve stopped doing online business coaching, I’m going to go back to running my own online business at skyrocketyourproductivity.com full time.

It’s a scary thing to do, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m a little bit nervous about it.

In many ways, it’s easier to just work with someone else and show up for the weekly coaching calls and meetings than to work on your own business with no-one to kick you in the ass (although I know that’s not entirely true as I have a ton of AMAZING friends that I know will love being a part of my new journey).

On the other hand, I’m SO ready to do this, and I’m beyond excited for a new chapter of my own business, because it means that I can do whatever I want to do, write about whatever I want to write about, and work with the ambitious entrepreneurs who I’ve been dying to give more attention to :).

I’ve learned a TON about running an online business by working with Ramit behind the scenes, and I know that doing that was a once in a lifetime opportunity to refine my business skills and create something HUGE that will positively impact lives of millions of people.

So without further ado, let’s talk about what’s coming next!

The #1 theme for my online business in 2017

I’ve spent the last few months thinking hard about what I wanted to do next. I’ve had a lot of moments where I either wasn’t sure what to do next, and also moments when I wanted to do EVERYTHING at once.

What became clearer and clearer to me was that I wanted to talk about the following three topics:

#1 – Being a top performer

One of the things that I love doing the most is talking about being a top performer, and talking to other top performers about it.

Over the last few years, I’ve realized that being a top performer isn’t just about being productive and proactive and getting sh*t done.

There’s so much more about it than that that no-one really talks about, and there’s a lot of challenges that come up as you “become a top performer” that nobody addresses.

That’s why I’m in the process of writing my Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Top Performer (that a lot of you already know about), which is going to be EPIC, and I can’t wait to finish – but this won’t be the main theme of my online business for the next year.

What I WILL do is write the Ultimate Guide, send out a few emails about it now and then, and record a few videos for my YouTube channel where I’ll answer some of the questions that you guys send me as responses to my emails. I’m also planning on recording a few vlogs during my travels just for the fun of it :).


To stay up to date with my new videos, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel

#2 – How to get the most out of conferences

I’ve launched my Insider’s Club course in August, and worked with a few really incredible individuals to help them prepare for a conference that they were attending.

They were so happy with the course that they recorded a testimonial for the course right after the event!


You can check out the full video here!
Going through the live training with my students made me realize that I can help A LOT more people with getting the most out of the conferences that they attend, so I’m planning on relaunching the new and improved course on attending conferences some time in Q2 of 2017.

And before that, The Ultimate Guide to Attending Conferences will be written… :).

#3 – Creating EPIC guides

As you might have noticed by following me over the last few months / years, I spend a lot of time in my business creating really EPIC guides.

Here’s just a few guides I’ve written for my site in the past (that you can get access to for FREE via the links below):

  • The Ultimate Guide to Creating Bulletproof Habits: This guide will show you how to create ANY habit and actually make it stick.
  • The Quick Guide to Surrounding Yourself with Successful People: This guide will give you the exact strategies and scripts you need to connect and build relationships with influencers and other people like you.
  • The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Star Student in Online Business Courses: In this guide, I share the exact strategies that star students in online business courses use to grow their businesses 10x faster than everyone else.

I’ve realized that creating EPIC content is something that I absolutely love doing, and they’ve brought in tens of thousands of views and thousands of e-mail subscribers for my business, plus I know you guys love these guides so I’m planning on creating more of them in the near future.

I also realized that I LOVE working with other up-and-coming entrepreneurs and helping them create their own epic guides. It’s also something that not a lot of people talk about. There’s courses on copywriting, but nobody really teaches you how to create really epic content.

As I’ve talked about this idea with my friends and mentors, the response was over the top. I talked to a friend about this idea, and he decided to hire me on the spot to help him create his epic guide. I also got a guest post opportunity from an expert in my niche and an interview opportunity with a major influencer in my niche just by letting them know about what I wanted to work on.

That’s why I decided to make this the main theme of my business for next year. It’s clear that there’s a lot of people who want to learn about it, that I’m good at it and that I love doing it, so it was a natural next step for me.

What’s coming up over the next 3 months

Now that you know WHAT I’ll be doing, I also wanted to take you behind the scenes of HOW I’ll do it over the next few months.

#1 – I’ll be writing some EPIC content on creating EPIC guides

Right now I’m working on The Ultimate Epic Guide Checklist where I’ll share the high level strategy that I use to create my epic guides from start to finish. This is the #1 question I’ve been getting when I had conversations with people about creating epic guides, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

#2 – I’m taking a few 1on1 coaching clients for creating EPIC guides

If you’re planning on creating an epic guide for your business over the holidays or in 2017, I’d love to help you do it.

Right now I have a few more slots open for 1on1 coaching (2 are already taken) with online business owners who have a few thousand email subscribers and want to use the epic guides to bring in more traffic, email subscribers and sales for their business.

If you’re interested in working with me 1on1 on creating your ultimate guide from start to finish (and making sure it’s a success), you can apply for a call with me via this application.

If it looks like a good fit we’ll jump on a call where we’ll talk about how I can best help you and see if it’s a good fit. If it is, we could get started as soon as this / next week so you can get the most out of the holidays.

#3 – I’ll be launching a group training program on creating epic guides in January of 2017.

Since I can only take so many 1on1 clients and I want to share my process for creating epic guides with a lot more people than that, I’ll also be launching a group training on creating epic guides from start to finish.

I’ll share more details about the group training in January (and I’ll also be sending you a TON of strategies and tactics on creating epic guides before that), so stay tuned :).

If you KNOW you want to be a part of that group training, you can pre-enroll into it with an early bird offer that I have right now. If you’d like to pre-enroll into my group training on creating epic guides, you can apply for a call with me via this application.

Again, if it looks like a good fit, you’ll be able to pre-enroll into the course and snag a few free calls with me before the course officially beings (so you don’t have to wait until January to get started).

That’s how the next 3 months will look like for me. I’m so excited to work together with more of you, and I’m even more excited to start talking and writing more about creating epic content. It’s one of those things that I could talk about for HOURS, and now I get to share what I know with thousands of people like you!

Want to learn more about creating epic guides (and all those other cool things I mentioned)? Get started by signing up to my email updates where I’ll tell you all about it (plus I’ll send you three of my favorite free EPIC guides as a gift).

Chat soon!

-Primoz

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

By Primoz Bozic 1 Comment

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:

email-primoz-bozic

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

Shitty Day

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
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.
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.
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:

  1. 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].
  2. 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]
  3. 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.

netflixztlAfter 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.

2014-08-20 16.50.31A 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:

  1. Reboot my computer.
  2. Go for a walk.
  3. Put orange glasses on.
  4. Clean for 15 minutes.
  5. 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!

2015-05-05 08.08.14Who 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.

2015-03-14 16.22.41Very 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.

2014-11-17 19.42.48Yep, 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:

  1. Get up.
  2. Toilet + Weigh.
  3. Prepare breakfast.
  4. Eat breakfast + Manage emails.
  5. Toilet + Reading. Shower. Brush teeth.
  6. Walk outside.
  7. Journal.
  8. Write goals.
  9. 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).

Jeff Bezos LeBron James The Future of Employment: Arianna Huffington

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:

  1. Pack gym bag with office clothes
  2. Set workout clothes and shoes out in the living room
  3. Have boiled eggs (peeled), oatmeal with blueberries and a protein shake ready in the fridge
  4. Drink Sleepy Time tea
  5. 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

  1. 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).
  2. 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?
  3. 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!

Want more systems and frameworks like this that will help you build a successful business and skyrocket your career? Sign up to my newsletter below to get more frameworks delivered to your inbox and get instant access to my Free 22-Page Guide to Creating Bulletproof Habits.

-Primoz

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 7
  • Page 8
  • Page 9
  • Page 10
  • Go to Next Page »

Copyright © 2025 · Primoz Bozic