Podcast 008: How to Achieve Success: Success Secrets and Techniques

transcription

Sean 

Hi, my name is Sean, and I am a successful addict.

Menprovement Podcast 

Ready to take your life to the next level? Then you’re in the right place. Get all the information you need to improve everything and live life like a pro. This is the Men’s Progress podcast with Sean Russell.

Sean 

What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the Men’s Profession podcast. I’m your host, Sean Russell, a self-improvement enthusiast who is obsessed with taking his life to the next level. And I created this podcast to help myself and men from all around the world do just that. Today, I have a very incredible episode for you that I recorded a few days ago with the CEO and owner of addictedtosuccess.com, Joel Brown. I’ve been a big fan of Joel for a while, and I love what he does. And I love his approach to success. So I got him on here to talk with him about his strategies for success while I input all the things that I have learned while studying successful people for the last year to two years. So altogether, this show is jam-packed with awesome information and applicable tips that you can go out and start using today to accelerate whatever you’re doing. For the first 10 minutes, we talk about his background, where he came from, and how he built his website into what it is. So if you’re interested in learning how to build a website and getting it to over 3 million users a month in only three years, you’re going to really like that section because Joel dishes out some of his best information, and I input some of that based on what I learned through making menprovement.com. Then we talk for about 40 minutes, which is one of the best talks that I’ve ever had on the show so far, about success. And I think that you’re going to get a lot out of it. So definitely stick around for this episode till the end and enjoy it. Because this is definitely one of my favorite interviews, and it’s almost borderline life-changing. So without further ado, we’ll jump right into the interview. This is Joel Brown from addictedtosuccess.com. What’s up, Joel? How are you doing, man?

Joel’s introduction

Joel Brown

Hey, it’s all good. Thanks, Sean. Thanks for having me on the show. Absolutely. Man,

Sean 

I’m really excited to have you on here because I am personally, I would say, addicted to success. It’s funny. And I’m more addicted to learning about success and the science of success. I think every night I’m watching and listening to new YouTube videos from speakers like Wayne Dyer and other people to get ideas that I haven’t heard yet on how I can accelerate my own success. So having you on here is a pleasure. And I really appreciate you coming on.

Joel Brown 

You know, thank you so much for having me on board. And, you know, people like Wayne Dyer, and, you know, there’s so much advice out there on YouTube. So there’s no reason you can’t learn more about success. There’s so much at our fingertips now. So, um, yeah, you’re taking advantage of it. So you’re doing good. Good. Anya.

Sean 

Yeah, man, absolutely. I want you to know that I 100% believe that success is a skill. You know, obviously, there are so many things that you can do that other people aren’t doing. And the more you learn and the more you do it, the more it becomes a habit. And then you just become, you know, successful by nature. And that’s what I kind of want to kickstart for people listening today who may or may not be happy with their lives or happy with their jobs, and they just really don’t know where to start. I want to give you guys a complete foundation on where to start to get success like Joel has, and, you know, beyond the kind of journey that I am on while learning. So why don’t you tell us, Joel? You know, you’re a blogger and entrepreneur; that’s all I really know. How would you describe yourself as a professional?

I’d say I’m more of a life enthusiast, to be honest. Like, I’m very passionate about helping other people to be able to, you know, lay down on fire to live life on their own terms, to experience freedom, you know, freedom as I have. I feel that you know, a lot of people want success. They just don’t know how to go about it, or they just don’t know what’s out there. So I kind of feel like it’s my purpose to expose new opportunities and really show people where the vehicles are that are able to get them to, you know, the end goal or to their freedom or to their bigger project or bigger vision that they have.

Sean 

Yeah, man, that’s a beautiful life enthusiast. I like that. I may. I may have to steal that from you at some point. Yeah, I’m the same way I would consider myself a self-improvement enthusiast, trying to open up new areas for people to improve their lives. So I get you on that, man, and speed on before Yeah. How’d you get started with Addiction to Success.com? You know, start from the beginning.

Yes, so I actually used to work in a sales job in our corporation to sell Fiber Internet connections out in Perth. In Western Australia, where we actually had a workshop—this would have been probably around three and a half years ago—we had a workshop with Jordan Belfort, who is the Wolf of Wall Street. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him or seen the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. And

Sean 

I have a man. Yeah, movie, that’s all.

So it was based on him, who was originally from Wall Street. And you know, he had a pretty crazy life. He is a great salesman; you can’t take that away from him. He’s very good at what he does. And he actually goes in—he actually coaches a lot of Fortune 500 companies—and shows them how to improve their sales, teaches them how to communicate better, builds connections, builds rapport, and develops, you know, new networks. So, for me, I was at a point in my life where I didn’t really know too much about what I wanted to do. I knew that I loved to read, you know, Tony Robbins, T. Harv, Eker, Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump’s books, and so on. So I was really interested in success. And well, the idea of success and entrepreneurship And when we had this workshop with Jordan, he sat us down and talked about having a bigger vision. So basically, writing down our vision, you know, for each day, each week, each month, and each year, is how we’re going to get to that end goal, or that bigger vision. And, yeah, he kind of opened my mind up to thinking in a new way, not just with little goals here and there. Because our goals, when you say kind of setting goals, are like small achievements, he’s thinking more on a bigger scale. And, yeah, he kind of made me open my mind up a lot, asked me what I’m passionate about, and got me to kind of dig a lot deeper. And, yeah, that’s where I kind of birthed the idea of being addicted to success. And I think originally, to be honest, I was motivated a lot more by the idea of making money online. And, you know, I was able to achieve that within the first year and a half. I was able to leave my day job. But um, I’ve definitely matured and grown with it as the blog has grown as a website’s grown. You know, I have a lot of people now that contact me and say that I’ve inspired them to leave their dead-end job or, you know, I’ve inspired them to start up a new company, and now that million-dollar company, you know, people in third-world countries that are now finding ways to make extra income to be able to support their families and things like that. So I started to realize that it was a lot bigger than myself. And it’s a lot more than just making money. So, yeah, that’s where we are today. And now I’m actually making a pretty strong, wise, pretty strong commitment to be able to, by 2017, set free more than 100 people from their day jobs and to be able to create a way that they can have a freedom-living lifestyle and have more impact in the world. Yeah, so

Sean 

I actually saw that on Facebook, and I was going to ask you about that. What? What are you doing? What is that?

Yes. So basically, I aligned myself with anything that I believe is a strong enough residual income model and also helps others. So I mean, with, you know, being addicted to success, you know, I coach people on how to make money online. But we also keep an aspect of, you know, what are you doing each day to help others? Because he needs to be inspiring, others need to be giving back in some way. also, dabble in the network marketing industry as well. What’s funny is that a lot of people have a common misconception about it, and they say, Oh, pyramid scheme, and this and that. Pyramid Schemes aren’t around anymore. A lot of people say that they’re either ignorant or have heard it from somebody who’s generations older than them. So the network marketing industry has definitely developed, you know, over time, and there are a lot of great companies out there that are allowing people to make awesome residual incomes and to be able to share things with others to help, you know, others in the economy, but you just need to find the right company. And I have looked into a lot of the different compensation plans, worked out what works for people, and introduced them to better options. So for me, it’s really, like I said, exposing great opportunities to people and showing them a vehicle and how they can actually achieve success.

Measuring your success by impact

Sean 

Indeed, that is very cool. And I want to jump back because I like how you said that initially, you started this for money, and then you kind of shifted to realizing that it’s a lot bigger than yourself. And I think you probably achieve success in the long run because you switch to really wanting to change the world and help people. And I was the same way when I started improvement.com, just about a year ago. It was because I was working as a mechanical engineer, and I hated it. And my drive was essentially to build an online income so I could do whatever I wanted. But now I’m really in love.  I love the emails I get from people. And I’ve learned along the way that no matter what you’re doing if you’re interested in starting a website or whatever you’re doing, if you’re focusing solely on making money, it makes it so much harder. But if you’re focusing on providing value to people, and you could find a way to provide true value to people, the money is just going to flow to you effortlessly.

Yeah, yeah, well, this is a way to look at it, right? If you measure your success by money, you’re never going to be happy. Yeah. But if you’re measuring it by impact or by how many people you’re inspiring or helping, it’s like an endless thing, but it has a lot more return. It really does. I know that money can get you a lot of things. But at the end of the day, we’re all trying to achieve some form of happiness. And if you’re contributing and you feel like you have some sort of value that you can give to the world, that’s like true currency right there.

Sean 

Yeah, absolutely. I 100% agree with that. So I think a lot of people who may find this episode or listen to this episode may be interested in hearing how you built Addiction to Success into such a great blog. So before we jump into all the success techniques and how to kickstart that in your life, we’ll go through for 10 minutes how you built your website to be such a powerhouse that it is today. So, I mean, I know what it’s like to get started, and it could be slow. How was it at the beginning? How long did it take before you started getting, you know, serious traffic, like 1000 visitors a day?

Yeah, so I’d say 1000 visitors a day? I probably hit that at the two-month mark. Yeah, no, thank you, man. Thank you; I worked my ass off, though. I knew that I needed to have content on my site, and I knew that I needed to be posting two or three posts a day consistently. And just keep hammering it out for at least the first month or two. So that way, I had enough content, because the thing is, you can’t go and promote your website, you know, a week in with only like 10 articles. Because you know how some people come, they might like to have the articles, so they’ll have a quick look around. But if you don’t have a wide enough selection, they’ll leave your site and then never come back. So I understood that you know, you need to have a good amount of content first. So that way, when people come, they stick around and stay a little bit longer. They’ll check out more articles, so there’s a higher chance they’re going to share your articles. And yeah, I think that’s the key. Like, I know a lot of people that say, Hey, Joe, you know, check out my blog. I’m trying to, but I don’t know why I’m not getting traffic. I’m like, You’ve got five articles, dude. Yeah, you know, this is not going to get you too far. So yeah, I think some people just think that they can have it easy or that it’s going to happen quickly. And that’s just how it is. There are no real shortcuts to success.

How to market your content before promoting it

Sean 

Yeah, there’s an end, especially with blogging. I like how you said that. You wanted it to be pretty much filled with content before you promoted it. And I think that’s smart. Before you send it out to the world, you don’t want to send it out to people and then have their eyes go to your site. And it’s a shitty design; there are three posts. I had the same dilemma, but on a much bigger scale, because I really want men’s proof to be kind of like a hub with a men’s website directory and, you know, just linking out everywhere. So I don’t, and I still don’t think my site is where it’s going to be. So I’m almost reluctant to market it until it is that, so I kind of killed myself on the back end. And I’m not, you know; I kind of get lost on the front end. But I agree with that. It’s a fantastic tip. And I’m amazed at how many social media followers you have, particularly on Facebook. I think it’s 222,000 right now, and I struggle with getting this; I probably get about five to 10 a day. I think men as a whole aren’t really interested in social media as much. But how do you get such a big following on social media?

What are you doing at the moment? What’s your number?

Sean 

6000 and something like 1518, I believe?

Yep. All right, look, it’ll start picking up, like the more you have, the more chances are that it’s going to double and triple the number of followers that come through every day. The reason being is that there’s a lot of online, which I guess is from reshares. So you have people that love success, love, motivation, and inspiration. They like your page, then they see a quote or an article that you put up, and they share that, which then goes out to their audience, which you think is not all, but a lot of the people that they have in their friend lists will be pretty like-minded to them. So that way, it brings more people back to being addicted to success. So, I guess at the end of the day, it’s about encouraging sharing and encouraging engagement. So at the start, I really was on top of my community, asking them, Hey, do you mind sharing this with your friends? If you really love this article, please share it. You’ve got to be upfront; you’ve got to be asking people for those kinds of favors. You’re giving people valuable content for free, right? So ask for something in return. Reciprocity—that’s just how it works, right? You don’t have to do it all the time. There’s an elegant way to do it. But it’s just kind of like teaching your community that, like, it’d be cool if they could support you and share that out. And that’s how you grow over a stretch of time; you’re going to see a pretty substantial amount of growth.

Sean 

Yeah, that’s really cool. So you didn’t do any crazy advertising or anything? You just, essentially, reached out to your viewers and asked them to share, which is something I definitely don’t do.

Yeah, I’ve never done Facebook advertising before, but I’m addicted to success. Never. Yeah, you don’t need it, so go that route. Yeah.

Sean 

Yeah, that’s, that’s,  interesting. It’s definitely something to think about. And I think you mentioned before that it took you about a year and a half before you could quit your day job. Was there ever a time between them where you were like, I don’t know if this is going to work, and you felt like stepping away from it?

No, I mean, I didn’t hate my day job. My boss was great. My manager was great. I did kind of look around the room and see a lot of people that have been there for like 1520 years, and they only have, like, maybe a salary that was 10% or 20%. More than one. I kind of looked and thought, Man, I can’t settle for this. But for me, it was more like I could see other people achieving success online. You know, that guy called Yarrow Stark? There’s also John Chow. Pete Cashmore, from Mashable, was a huge inspiration to me. Guy was young, like me, at the time when I started, and he has, you know, pulled in 20 million views a month, 30 million, and I think they’re probably double that now. So for me, if I see somebody else has been able to achieve it, there’s no excuse, and there’s no reason why you can’t either. And that’s what’s kind of been ingrained in me from a young age. That’s just how it is. And I think, you know, I was raised by good parents who supported me in anything I wanted to do and told me that, you know, if that person can achieve that success, you can do that, too; you can probably even do better, you know, so I think that’s a huge thing. And you’ve got to believe it; you seriously have to believe it. And when you do, it becomes a part of you, and that’s when you can achieve massive success.

Sean 

Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree. That was part of what drove me to get into the online world. And just because I’ve always been a follower of, you know, your site and a lot of other sites, And, you know, I saw how much money people were making and how successful they were. And I knew that if I could go out there and create something unique and do it right, I could definitely emulate it. And one of the things that I’m getting into now is content marketing. You know, creating epic content is great, and that’s probably the best thing you can do. But if no one sees it, it’s kind of a waste. What do you do in terms of, you know, getting your articles out there?

Building a community around your business

For me, it’s more about promoting it through social media channels. And also, I popped back out to my mailing list. So I never used to be big on my mailing list. But as it’s grown, I’ve actually seen that it can be super effective, especially with return visits, and you have, like, all you really need is like 10,000 really loyal fans. Yeah, I was actually interviewing a guy by name a couple days ago, and he was telling me this too, like he runs a successful blog. And he sells digital products and things like that. And he just said, like, if you’ve got those 10,000 really loyal fans, that’s all you really need to have, like, a fairly sustainable income and even to be able to provide great value because those people are going to share that with other people too. So I think that’s something that you need to focus on: building a community feel around your website, your blog, your video channel, whatever you’re doing, so that people, you know, know that they can support you and that you’re going to be putting out good-quality content. And you know, they want to be there with you and share that as well.

Sean 

Yeah, great advice, man. And I guess to inspire some people who are listening and thinking about starting a blog, you’ve been around for three years, pretty much. Yeah, three and a half years now. I know you do a bunch of stuff, but how much is being addicted to success worth right now? How much is it making? Essentially,

So it’s been valued at over a million dollars, so I’ve been offered 1,000,001 point 2 million, or, you know, by about three different people now, and I actually turned it down. So for me, I turned that off because I feel that there’s a lot more room to grow. And I have a lot in store for my addiction to success. So that’s a value, making over six figures going for multiple six figures, even seven figures, you know, down the road. So there’s a lot that’s possible. And you’re about to see us step everything out to a whole new level with our addiction to success.

Sean 

That’s incredible, man. So you turned me down? I understand that. I mean, what’s a million dollars when you’re making six figures? Every year, a million dollars are not going to last in this world that we live in.

Yeah, looking at it, I can’t lie. Like it was really tempting. To be honest, I even had thoughts of doing it. But yeah, I’m lucky to have my fiance; it’s like, Baby, you know, this is your baby. This is what you created. This is like, you know, all those dreams, those visions, everything that you’ve had for it. You can, like, breathe life into that, and that can happen. And you know, it’s good to have someone who sees it from an outside perspective as well, because you can kind of get distracted by the shiny things and the glitz and glamour. So yeah, I’m happy that, you know, she reminded me of that. And also, I started to save a lot more. Yeah, it’s, but like you said, you know, a million dollars. I don’t know, like in Australia, you could get a house like this considered to be pretty good. But it’s not like a top-notch house in a great location. And then, you know, once you bought that, that’s it. You know, you could have stopped on groundwork grounds or

Sean 

Yeah, no, I mean, you could definitely live off, you know, retiring to Thailand or something for the rest of your life. We want to do that. Yeah. I get bored. Yeah, exactly. And plus, like you said, it’s your baby. It’s you. I think it probably defines you by now; obviously, it’s a part of you to sell it just for her money, and you probably feel a little bit empty after that. But all right, that’s awesome, man, and congratulations on your success. I hope to be in the same spot in two years.

I’m sure you will.

Sean 

So let’s jump into the main topic and talk about success and how people can achieve it. How would you define success?

So my definition of success is to live life on your own terms. You know, it’s funny that when I interviewed a lot of people, I asked this question: What does success mean to you? Everyone has a different answer, which is subjective, right? At the end of the day, everyone sees it in a different way. It depends on what your needs are. It depends on what you want to experience in your life and how experienced you really are. For some people, it’s a lot of money. For some people, it’s to live comfortably. Tony Robbins says it in the best way possible, or in a way that really resonates with me because I’ve been trying to say it this way. But I’m just going to use Tony’s way of saying it. And it’s basically when you can live your life with the most amount of pleasure with the smallest amount of pain possible, like success. Because we’re always going to have pain that’s always going to be there. In some sense. It’ll happen at some point in your life; you have your ups and your downs. But it’s like living with as much consistent pleasure as you can in your life and also being able to share that with others and encourage that in others.

How do you define success?

Sean 

Yeah, absolutely. I think for me, I would lean towards, when I think about it, being essentially contemptuous of your life and happy with what you’ve created. And it might have nothing to do with money at all, you know, but just whatever your goals are, whatever you want, just being at that level of fulfillment in your life to me Yes. So yeah, it’s not about money. And it could be about money for some people. And it’s subjective, and you can have small successes, different things, and total success. But that’s cool, man. And it’s

impact as well, right? You know, at the end of the day, if you’ve got the money to be able to change thousands of people’s lives in, say, an African village or in Southeast Asia and build an orphanage and things like that, I mean, that’s like success.

Sean 

Yeah, do you? Do you ever plan on doing stuff like that?

100% Yes. Yeah, my fiance and I are working on something. For our long-term vision. We’re planning, so I don’t want to put too much out there. But um, yeah, we want to have a massive impact in a specific area of the world. So we’re working on that. That’s our big vision.

Sean 

Yeah, man, I have that big vision as well, like giving back tenfold, enjoying my life as much as I can, and not feeling guilty about enjoying the pleasures of life while there are, you know, terrible things going on in other countries, but then giving back, and there’s no, you know, like I love the saying that, you know, a sick doctor is good to know one. So I think it is important to take care of yourself, and the happier and more successful you are, the more you can give back and help people, so don’t feel guilty about your success. Yep, you got it, man. Yeah, use it as fuel. So, if you were addicted to success, God forbid, the internet kind of went down and got wiped off the face of the earth. If you had to start from scratch, what would be your first course of action?

I’ll go to the network marketing industry, to be honest. I’ll do that because I know how many people can actually help. And I love the whole idea of leadership; I’m reading John C. Maxwell’s book at the moment called The Five Levels of Leadership. And I find that when you’re in that role of, you know, helping others, showing others opportunities, helping to develop teams, and things like that, you’re a leader. You have to step up as a leader, otherwise, you’re not going to perform, not going to perform. And I like the idea that, you know, it’s challenging for me. And I also know that there’s a way that you can actually achieve success quite quickly. And, you know, you can have a lot of impact on people’s lives. So, just like I said, it depends on the company. There’s a lot out there. But yeah, find something that’s going to be able to work and create, you know, a great impact in the world.

Sean 

Yeah. And what would you suggest to the millions of guys out there who, you know, may be working a corporate job and be a little bit unfulfilled, but they just don’t know what they want to do with their lives?

Yeah, I’d say, you know, read up on a lot of material in a way that’s like, start studying areas that you’re passionate about, start researching, and try to understand, like, what opportunities are out there because, as I said earlier, everybody wants success; they just don’t know how to kind of get it. So you need to find the sites like Addict to Success, you need to listen to me improve, and you need to listen to podcasts where people are talking about certain industries that you may have an interest in. So that way, you know what to kind of expect, because I think that a lot of people can float a lot in life or give something a shot. And it’s not what they expected. So they pull out on a lot of people, men that have like, this is the common misconception that you can only have one passion in your life. And it’s not true. Like you can have multiple passions, I have multiple passions. I used to work in the music industry; I used to love music. I left the industry, but I still work in sales. I don’t love that anymore. You know, I’m working online. So yeah, I think, um, at the end of the day, you really need to go out there and listen to some of the people that have kind of paved the way or have been in our situation. And then, when you do decide that, yes, this is something that I feel that I can definitely achieve, 100% commit to it.

How to find your passion

Sean 

Yeah, definitely. And when you do find what you’re passionate about and what you really think you want to do, I think it’s really important. I was telling this to my friend yesterday; he’s working a great job in New York City. But he’s just not happy. And he doesn’t know where he wants to go. I told him that the most important thing that he can do right now is figure out where you want to go. Because if you’re living your life without a GPS coordinate set in your mental navigation, that’s how you end up, you know, 30 years old, and you’re like, How did I get here? So what I would tell people is that the first step is to really find your passion; as you said, maybe go out there, listen to people talking about it, go on websites, and then define what you like and who you want to be. I would write down in a couple of paragraphs the exact version of yourself that you would like to be in five years. I think setting that first goal is just the catalyst for everything else.

That’s right. Yeah. And I think the thing is, as with a lot of people, I get them to sit down, right? I get them to write out, What are your top three core values in your life? Like wisdom, wealth, and compassion, what are your kinds of values? Like, what do you hold close to you? What do you feel you want people to see you as, what are you like? What are you happy about in your life? What are your greatest achievements? What are some weaknesses you have that you can definitely work on and improve on in the next six to 12 months? It really is, and the thing is, a lot of people have never written that there are a lot of people who don’t know who they are. And the thing is, if you want to master the art of, let’s say, communication, working with other people, or having success in industries, at the end of the day, once you learn who you are, we’re all a lot of humans who are pretty much all the same, right? We’re just on different levels. But if you can understand yourself as much as you can, that’s when you can easily understand others, and the world has to work in your favor. So really, it all comes from personal development and self-growth? Yeah, it really does every day on personal development, like I’m or I’m still listening to the audio, like even Tony Robbins men like T. Harv Eker, those guys are still listening to other speakers, they’ve still got audio tapes playing in their cars, and they’re continuously learning new things. Yeah,

Sean 

I, that’s, that’s my life, essentially. And I love that because I’m exactly the same way. It’s just that there’s always stuff you can learn. It’s fascinating to me how I’ll think I’ll learn something for months and months, and then I’ll find something else. And I’d be like, Wow, you know, this just expands on it. And the more you immerse yourself in it, the more it just becomes a part of you. So yeah, that’s right. That’s cool that you say that. You know, those guys, I still listen to all the people and everything and podcasts because I’m the same way. It’s interesting. And goal-setting. You spoke earlier about Jordan Belfort saying, you know, don’t just set goals, but set a vision. And I really liked that. Yeah,

Yeah, for me, it’s, um, I have a whiteboard; I write everything down on my whiteboard. And it’s there; I can see it every day. I can see what’s going on. I set reminders in my phone, you know, to keep me on track with what I’m doing. And what I do is actually have on my whiteboard two sections that are split in half, and one section, which is short-term vision, is things that I can achieve within the next three to six months. And then I’ve got the long-term vision, which is either in the next year or like five years. And that’s the big vision right there. But it all leads up to that big vision. If you’re just running for the next five years, trying to hit that big vision, you’re probably going to find that you’re not going to be too happy with everything like you need to have small achievements along the way, and you need to celebrate those achievements. Don’t go out and get, you know, maggot-like drunk, you know, and go crazy and whatever. Just, you know, do a little happy dance, Do whatever you need to do a pronounce it,.to appreciate the fact that you’ve achieved this smaller, short-term vision of success. It makes the journey so much better because, at the end of the day, it is about the journey.

The importance of morning routines

Sean 

Yes, that’s fantastic, man. It’s funny that I also have a whiteboard on my wall with pretty much the exact same thing that I just described as my January source goals for next year. And then I’ve got a piece of paper where I’ve filled it up with the person that I, you know, see myself as, and I’ve got my 2016 goals on a piece of paper, and I read it every day. And it’s an affirmation, essentially. But I find that so powerful. That’s fun. Awesome. I’m a big advocate of your morning routine. Because I think, as Drew Canole says, It’s like how you start your day is how you start your life. Do you have a special morning routine that you do every day?

Yeah, well, at the moment, I’m actually staying out in Manhattan Beach, LA, in California. And we’re only like a street back from the beach right now. So every morning, my fiance and I go out to the beach, we kind of sit down, and we read, you know, maybe a chapter of a book. And then we either meditate on the beach for like 20 minutes, do Transcendental Meditation, or TM meditation, and either do that on the beach or go back to the house and meditate there. And then what I do is go over everything, like what I’m doing for the day, my tasks, and everything. And then I make sure that I have, you know, my vitamins, my supplements, my shakes, whatever I need to put into my body to nourish it. And yeah, just drink lots of water and get into the day. I might even go to the gym as well. You know, go to the gym, get that exercise and the whole, you know, get your blood pumping and the activities going, and then come in, and that way I don’t have anything else that’s kind of like leisurely or exercise to think about, and I can get straight to business.

Sean 

Haha, that’s cool, dude. I love that. That’s funny. And that’s cool that your fiance sits there and does meditation with you because I also meditate every morning, but most people I know, women and girls, would be like, What the hell are you talking about meditation? You know, like, I’ll find that one, you know, but um, yeah, it’s crazy.

Like, I’m very lucky to have some, like, she got me into meditation. So I wouldn’t be doing it without her. So yeah, it’s

Sean 

powerful stuff. But yeah, I’m through my study of successful people, and like listening to pretty much everyone I listened to, they all said the same thing: that they have a morning routine like that they meditate and do this stuff. And when people, you know, average guys, are not happy in their lives, there’s a huge chance that they’re not doing any of these things. That’s been one of the biggest things that’s changed. My life was waking up every morning and, like you said, having a huge glass of water immediately. I do. I’ll do alternate nostril breathing for five minutes. And then I’ll actually do an NLP pattern braking technique that I learned, which, like, eliminates negative thoughts and, like, just clears your head for the day. I’ll talk about that in another podcast. And then

it’s awesome. I studied with Richard Bandler in London for, like, a week. Couple of years back. Yeah, he’s the co-founder of NLP. And yeah, it’s very interesting and very powerful stuff if you know how to do it properly, that’s for sure.

How to create a morning meditation routine

Sean 

Yeah, definitely. Man. I mean, I had an anxiety disorder. And I used these NLP techniques to pretty much cure myself. So now I use them to just eliminate any negative thoughts that you can have in life, like fuses and anything like that. Yeah. And then I meditate. And then I start my day, and it just makes all the difference in the world. I think. Don’t wake up and look at your emails. Five minutes after waking. It’s toxic. Yeah. Yeah. To learn, you know, we’ll talk more about how to do meditation and all that and other podcasts. But I definitely think you should think about, and everyone listening should think about, you know, finding what you like to do in the morning, what works for you, what works for Joel and me; you’re different. And then just incorporate a morning routine and stick to it for 30 days, because that’s how long it takes to pretty much create a habit that eventually just becomes something you have to do, and it will really help. So I liked that mask. Cool. Do you do visualization or anything else differently?

I think, unconsciously, I’m constantly visualizing things. I’m a very visual type of person anyway. So, throughout the day, I visualized ideas or concepts or whatever, right, like, I visualized a lot already. I know that some people who aren’t so visual need to kind of set that time aside to focus on visualizing. Yeah, I think it just kind of comes naturally to me. So

Sean 

Yeah, it’s cool. Yeah, it’s definitely powerful. Yeah, I tried to do it. Every day. It’s one of those things that’s easy to forget about. But like I said, just talking about this makes it easy to say, but I want to be able to explain it to people. So I think one of the upcoming podcasts we’ll do will just talk about meditation, visualization, and a whole bunch of other exercises and techniques that you can learn and use, so you don’t have to feel kind of in the dark about them. Do you believe in the law of attraction?

If you’re talking about the secret, I think—I mean, what are you talking about? Kind of like the secret, right?

Sean 

I believe the Secret, Yeah, it’s pretty much coined from the movie, the secret, but it goes, you know, a lot deeper than just the movie. It’s not like in a mystical way, like, if I just picture this, it’s going to, you know, just appear, but kind of in a way, like, Do you believe in the laws of the universe and things that you know, that what you think you become

here for? I mean, yeah, yes. What do you think you’d become? Because what you think is what you put into action. And it’s also about the people that you surround yourself with; that’s a huge thing. I kind of don’t agree with it on upset. And the reason is that I feel that a lot of the guys that are interviewed on that show are easy for them to say that they were attracted into their lives because they have achieved success. Whereas, let’s say, some kid that’s walking along the street that ends up being involved in some sort of drive-by and gets shut down or something like de manifest that I’ve already made That’s why I’m a little bit Yeah, that’s why I’m not 100% there. I know some of the guys that are involved in it. You know, you got Jack Campers; you got John Assaraf. And I like that those guys are super successful. They’re great at what they do. They’re amazing individuals. But I just can’t 100% align myself with that. The whole vision and the message. But I know that, um, yeah, if you’re surrounding yourself with good people, you’re also kind of, let’s say, putting it out there that this is what you want. Yeah, we’re all run on energy. And we all run on vibes. And people can read very well unconsciously, like without even knowing it, they can read off each other. So yeah, if you’re like, You know, I’m going to be a positive person, and I’m going to do this; I want to meet positive people, blah, your energy levels are going to change. That’s just how it works; neurologically, that’s going to happen for you. You’re going to start moving with more and more Ocean, you’re going to start being more of a positive individual, and you’re going to attract more positive people in your life because people attract like-minded people. It’s just going to be like that. Yeah, I’m not going to attract somebody who is, like, super depressed and hates life or is so negative, not because that’s not me. I don’t want to live my life like that. So I’m probably not going to attract someone like that into my life. So yes, it is, to a certain extent, very important to actually be conscious of what you want in your life and then put that out there in the way of, like, how you act, what you think about, and who you align yourself with.

Sean 

Yeah, man, not yet. I 100% agree with that. It’s definitely taboo in the negative sense when Yeah, as you said, these freak accidents happening to people, like, did they, you know, create their own reality? I don’t agree with that. And it’s tough; it’s tough to even think about, but I almost swear by it at times, in the sense that what you think about attracts into your life. And like, I know, I have people I know who are very negative, and all they do is complain, and they complain, and that’s what they get back all the time. And for me, I tried to eliminate it. If you can eliminate all your negative thoughts, and you can truly believe that you’re going to achieve your goal, I think that’s where the law of attraction can be very powerful, in the sense that you hold that feeling of belief like that you’re going to succeed, and that’s all you think about, you don’t let doubt into your minds. I think it’s definitely going to help and, as you said, attract that kind of stuff into your life.

How to shape your beliefs

And at a scientific level, I know that at any given time in your life, your brain has been bombarded by 128 billion bits of sensory information from the outside world, but your brain actually only has the ability to take in 128 bits at a time. So I truly believe that it’s, you know, I know guys on the site that they write all the time, Oh, women will never, you know, you can’t approach women. They’re horrible people. They’re horrible people. And I tell them, Well, it’s because you think this that you and your brain also have a tendency to focus in on what you believe and to affirm and confirm your beliefs; it just naturally will always do that. It will confirm your beliefs, and because it can only take in such a small amount of everything that’s going around you, you’re going to focus on what you believe. And you’re going to see that when there could be other information out there, that will give you the total opposite effect. So I totally believe that you should shape your beliefs. Yeah, be positive, sir. And you know that you’re a beautiful person who can do anything, and you’re going to start finding that in your life because your brain will enforce your beliefs. So I believe in it in a universal and technical sense. But yeah, it has. Add some things, like you said, where it’s not just cut and dry. But it can’t hurt to think positively. Right. And it can’t hurt. That’s wise, I believe. So why not?

Yeah, I had to be apt to go a little controversial with that one. Sorry, man.

Sean 

Is it really good that you brought that up? Because I always think about that when I watch these lectures and tapes. And when people say that, you know, people who get sick, they somehow attract it into their lives. And, like, I know, my mother was sick. And it’s like, I’m not going to sit here and believe that my mom attracted that into her life, you know? So, yeah, but she’s okay now. Fine.

Yeah, there are a lot of factors that can be taken into account at the end of the day. That’s true. Very true.

Sean 

Okay. Yeah. So is there anything else that you would say you do differently than the next guy?

that I do differently? I think I really want to think about it. I mean, you know, everyone’s different, right? For me, I feel that I compete with myself a lot. Like, look at the kind of thing I’m doing each day. I’m like, How can I do better? I am, in a sense, addicted to success. I’m always trying to outdo myself. And the thing is, it’s not about outdoing somebody else. Because we have no control over the outside of ourselves. We have no control over competition; we’re only competing with ourselves at the end of the day. So for me, I have this thing where I’m always challenging myself and myself, improving myself, and learning more. Am I giving back? Am I having the impact, and so on and so on? Another thing as well is that when I believe that somebody is passing on a great opportunity or that they’re passing on or making an awesome change in their life, I can’t come to the fact that they’re just giving in on that, and I’ve even told them as well. I’m like, you know, I’m not going to kind of give up on you because I know that you’re this close and this is going to be a positive thing. So for me, I know that a lot of people do this when they talk with someone that I follow up with a lot. For me, I like to follow up and make sure that I’m the person who made the right decision. I think a lot of people don’t do that; it kind of comes from the sense of like sales as well, when I used to work in sales. I think that even in online sales if you’re trying to sell digital products or whatever, most people will usually buy on the first exposure. Then it kind of goes up after that. So the second exposure, like 6% of people, and the third exposure, 12%, end up being like 80% of people who will buy something, buy into something, or accept something after the seventh exposure. So the saw Yeah, for me, I like that. When you look at that, it’s like Key, it’s good. This is why it’s good to be consistent with things, especially when you believe in them. And with me, it transcends into something like what I do with being addicted to success; I was consistent with it because I believed that it was good knowledge that could be shared with others and that it was going to inspire other people, even when I was getting 1000 views. And now, you know, it’s like 20 million to 30 million views a month, or 2 million to 3 million views in 2020 to 30 million views a year. I knew that was because I needed to be consistent. And that’s what goes for you, man; you’ve got to be consistent, be consistent with your podcast, be consistent with your content on your blog, and so on and so on. So yeah, just understanding that you need to be consistent A lot of people don’t understand that.

Baby steps will take you to the top

Sean 

Yeah, man, one of my favorite quotes is Baby steps will take you to the top of Mount Everest as long as you keep taking them.

Yeah, that’s right. You got it. And I love that. Yeah,

Sean 

being consistent. I’m pretty religious about that as well. And yeah, just take a step every day toward your goal. Even if it’s really small, just stay one step ahead and keep building those steps up. Cool, man. So did you ever have any mentors when you were starting up?

I’m normally not when I’m starting out. My mentors were the books I was reading. The interviews I’ve listened to That was really my mentor. I have a mentor now who is a great guy. His name is David Wood. He basically trains coaches. He owns a private island with Jack Canfield, and he owns shopping centers. And he’s only in real estate, and he trains a lot of people around the world. He’s kind of like, the next generation is Tony Robbins. He’s a great guy; he’s from Canada. And yeah, he really took me under his wing. And he showed me the steps to present myself on stage. You know, I had my first keynote in Malaysia and Mindvalley, and I was almost talking in front of like 300 people, and, you know, he showed me a great template, a great way to present others, and it really helped me, and he’s always been a big supporter of me, and he loves what I do and is addicted to success. And we’re working very closely, you know, in the near future on things. And yeah, it’s cool when you have someone that really believes in you and sees, you know, greatness in you and tells you that, because I think some people do see greatness in you, but they don’t tell you. Oh, that’s why it’s important for you to do that to others; you should tell others that you see greatness in them; you should, you know, you never know who you’re inspiring. That’s why you need to, like, watch what you’re doing and make sure you’re doing the right thing. And, um, you never know who you’re inspiring.

Sean 

Yeah. And that also goes back to, you know, a sense of what the Law of Attraction is like if you see greatness and beauty and everything around you, You know, that’s what you’re going to get back.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, keep an open mind and an open heart.

Sean 

Right. Yeah, you made the point that I wanted to bring up about mentors right away, which is that, like, You’re the same with me, in that when I was starting out, it was still pretty much in the middle of starting out. My mentors are the podcast, which I’m listening to like you were one of my mentors, and you didn’t even know it. You can have all these mentors now because of technology at your fingertips. Everyone talks about how important mentors are, but it’s hard to find one. But you can have a mentor simply by putting YouTube on and finding one, and I think that’s really cool. Another concept that I love is the concept of the long game, which a lot of people don’t know about. Are you familiar with this phrase?

To be honest, I’m not sure what the long game is.

Sean 

Well, watch the video that a friend of mine actually sent me; he was one of the contributors to some improvements, and it was all about Leonardo da Vinci and how he, you know, is now known as a genius and essentially a brilliant man. But that’s really all people talk about, and what people don’t talk about is the 10 years of failure that he had, the achievements that he achieved, and the fact that he went through his apprenticeship, per se. And then it goes in and talks about, you know, all these famous people like Mary Curry and all these famous physicists and neurosurgeons, and it talks about how they were interns for like four years and no one even knew their names. And for six years, they got rejected from this and rejected from that. And but all people know is that, wow, these people are incredibly successful; like Vinici, no one knows all the failures, that, and all the stuff that he went through. And it’s easy. When people talk about success in the media and things, nobody talks about the long game and the five to 10 years, like the two to 10 years that people went through, busting their asses to get where they are. So a lot of people have unrealistic expectations. And they do stuff for three to four months, but they don’t achieve success, and they just want to quit.

Yeah, no, this is the thing where they see the glory but don’t see the story. Yeah, let’s see all the great things that happened with it and see, like, how that person really got there. It’s like that whole overnight success thing. Like it took me 20 years to have overnight success. Yeah,

Be prepared to play the long game

Sean 

That’s exactly what the long game is. Yeah. So I think it’s an awesome thing to have a grasp on whatever you’re starting in, be prepared to play the long game. And be prepared to give one to three years as an apprenticeship of just learning and growing. Before you’re that successful. You know, before you’re where Joel is, because it doesn’t happen overnight. And you must do it consistently every day while also playing the long game. I love that phrase. And there’s a great video, and I’ll link to it in the show notes that I’m talking about. And it just really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff. Because we’re programmed to want things now, with text messaging and the internet, we want something, and we want it right now. Doesn’t work. Yeah, with success? Not usually. And if it does, it’s usually short-lived, like get-rich-quick schemes and stuff.

Yeah, you got it. You got it. That’s right.

Sean 

So we’re pretty much wrapping it up here. What are your thoughts on failure?

Those are failures, or I love failure. Yeah, the more you fail, the more you win.

Sean 

absolutely failed.

It’s funny because someone asked me not long ago, and I think it was in another podcast or another interview. And they’ll ask me, like, How many times have you failed? And actually, sat there for a living? And I’m like, You know what? You know, before you asked me that question, I thought that maybe I would fail once or twice. But if I had to actually sit down and think about it, I would probably fail hundreds and hundreds of times. It’s just that I don’t look at the failures as failures. I look at him as a teacher. I look at him, as you know, for little reminders that, okay, nothing’s perfect in this world. And I love the hurdles. Because I know that if I can get over this hurdle, I’m going to outrun that net, and the other person who just decided to give up would be that much ahead of someone else. You know, so So yeah, I love it. Man. I love failures. You’ve got to do it right. It makes you a bigger, better, stronger person; you know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and so on and so on. So yeah, embrace the failures, man, and turn them into our, you know, lessons that one day you’re going to talk about?

Sean 

Definitely, dude, absolutely, do not fear failure. Don’t be afraid to fail. Because that’s where you learn everything. I love that. And, you know, this isn’t my first website. My first website sucked and failed. But you know, I learned about WordPress. I learned everything I needed to know to start fresh. You know, start a good website. Was it addicted to success?

No, actually, I started a website called stadiummusic.net. And I was all into hip-hop. And I used to sell mixtapes and CDs of, like, all my favorite hip-hop artists. And I had, like, exclusive hip-hop tracks because I used to work at a radio station and I used to play exclusive music, and yeah, that’s what I try. I was selling mixtapes, but what I was doing was that I was in Australia and ordering them from America. And then they’d arrive in Australia, and then I’d get an order, and I’d have to send it back out to America. I was like 14 years old, and I was like, I just didn’t get how you can actually, you know, maybe have it sent from the location or America to an American. I was just trying to work it all out by myself. That’s impressive.

The importance of starting with a plan

Sean 

You were 14 years old when you did that. I was probably climbing a tree somewhere.

Which was funny, right? When I look at that, I’m like, Damn, if I kept that domain name going, imagine how huge that site would be now.

Joel Brown

Yeah, I’ll be fine just developing it into something. But you know what, man, that’s how it is. That’s life, right? You have to have those little experiments. I think, you know, when you look at a lot of successful people in life, like Elon Musk, Albert Einstein, and, you know, Richard Branson, these guys are passionately curious. That’s all they are. They’re passionately curious people. And you just can’t stop them from wanting to learn something new, wanting to step out and go into that, like a voyage into another industry or another area. And that’s why they’re so successful; they’ve had thousands of failures, but they’ve also had hundreds of successes. And that’s the price that you pay at the end of the day if you want to be successful. Yeah, I

Sean 

I saw an interesting infographic that, um, you know, showed, like, the top five entrepreneurs who are self-made and how many businesses they actually had before they had their main one now, and it was like 15 to 30 businesses each. You know, I just think that’s one of the best success tips that I know. And I think it’s most important to, you know, start somewhere, because you could have a great idea and want to do something, and if you think about it and think about it and think about it, and six months go by, you could have started a tiny website or anything, and just start somewhere, start learning, start contacting people who have done it. And that first website and that first venture is pretty much likely to fail. That’s just how it works. And through that, you’re going to learn, but if you never start and you never have that first failure, these first couple of failures, you’ll never get to what really hits it for you.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m getting closer and closer to that feeling of warmth, or even the belief of, Look, man, ready, fire, aim. Not Ready, aim, fire ready, fire aim, and just get out there and do it. Yeah, yeah, most things that you’re scared of or think, Oh, I don’t know if it’s going to work, You’ve just got to give it a shot, man. Give it a shot. Put it out there and see how you go. And do it, like quickly go out and do it. If it’s going to work, it’s going to work, right? Get good at improvising. I think that’s something that a lot of successful people do: they get really good at improvising and running off the cuff. So if something happens, they know how to solve it or move in a way that’s a great solution for whatever is thrown at them. So that’s definitely a skill that you want to acquire as you climb the success ladder.

Sean 

Yeah, I was going to ask you, What do you think is the main thing holding most guys back? And to me? I think that’s definitely one of them. Yeah, he’s got it. Is there anything else you need? Do you think?

What’s holding most people back are the annoying negative thoughts in the back of their minds. It’s that thing saying, You know, you can’t achieve this. No, that’s not for you. You’ve never tried that before; your mind is always going to try and resort back to the comfortable zone, or the comfort area. There’s a thing called a razz, like the reticular activating system. And there’s a wicked video you can watch on YouTube; I can’t remember the actual name of it, but type in Ras-like rats, and they talk about the amygdala and all the other things. And basically, it’s like when a guy’s about to make a decision, he starts denying it. His mind tries to take over, the Raz takes over and tries to basically deny him of having, you know, a nice car or being able to travel with somebody in his day job, and things like that. And your mind automatically tries to do that and put you back in your comfort zone.

Sean 

Yes, I will definitely investigate that, man. And I’ll link to it in the show notes. Because I love that. And yeah, the NLP technique that I use for disrupting negative thoughts is all about the amygdala, because the amygdala is what controls fear. And is what sends negative thoughts and the people’s thoughts. And if you can learn to break them and not consciously accept them, That’s what this technique does. And like I said, I’m going to speak more about it later. But yeah, I’m really interested in reading about that. Right. Is that right?

Yeah, definitely share that video. It’s awesome. Yeah, well.

Sean 

Alright, before we wrap up, what’s your favorite quote?

Oh, man, one of my favorite quotes is not from a particular person. I’ve just heard it before. And it really resonated with me. It’s never an excuse. Always wake up with a smile, knowing that today you’re going to have fun accomplishing what others are too afraid to do. And that’s pretty much how I try to live my life every single day.

Sean 

is man; it’s beautiful. And if you had one last piece of advice for any men listening to improve their lives and achieve success in the long run, what would it be?

Yeah, you’re right, dude, life is short. So at the end of the day, you know, don’t give up on a dream. Just because you think it’s going to take so long and it’s going to be hard to accomplish it like that, that time is going to pass you by. So commit to something there; find your passion and commit to it; and run and run and run until your friggin face melts and your feet fall off. Do that, because that’s what it takes sometimes to achieve success.

Sean 

That is incredible, man. Thank you, dude. This has been an incredible show. I had a great time. I hope you guys enjoyed listening to it and that you could see everything that we talked about here and all the links to videos and stuff at provement.com/mpp 008 You could check out JoelAddictedToSuccess.com. And is there anything else you want people to know about where they can find you?

False. I’m simply addicted to success.com, where you can find everything. We’ve also got a Facebook-like box on the right-hand sidebar. So like that. You can even type in Joel Brown in my life on Facebook, and you’ll find me there. If you want to add me there or like my fan page, That’s pretty much it. Man. I’m kind of trying to get out there quite a lot more, doing a lot more podcasts, interviewing a lot of people myself, you know, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, millionaires, successful people, spiritual people, neuroscientists, and so on and so on. So, yeah, keep an eye out for the new podcast and everything else that we’re putting out as well.

Sean 

Yeah, man, I’ll definitely subscribe to that. You know, you’re awesome, and you’ve got a very velvety voice for the podcast. So

That’s good to hear. Thank you.

Sean 

Um, alright, so I guess we’ll wrap it up there. You know, I hope you guys got a lot out of this and went out there to crush it and succeed. Thanks, guys.

Menprovement Podcast 

Thanks for listening to the Men’s Progress podcast with Sean Russell. Get more episodes, more tips, and download our free self-improvement ebooks at www.menprovement.com.