KGCI: Real Estate on Air - The 5 Pillars of Success to Increase Sales Through Social Media

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

What is going on and welcome back to another episode of The Power of Progression. I'm super excited for you guys to meet my guest today. His name is Craig Valentine. Craig once suffered from massive anxiety and now has put processes in place that he was able to overcome them and live a super high performing life. He is an author of the Perfect Day Formula in Turbulance Training. He's also a contributor to Men's Health magazine for over two decades. His books, videos, and amazing coaching programs have transformed the lives of over 7 million people.

And that's physically, financially, mentally, and emotionally has been doing it the last two decades. Today, he teaches high-performing entrepreneurs to increase their income and make more time in their personal lives using the same five pillars of success that allowed him to overcome those crippling anxiety attacks and transform his life. And my man Craig is here to now transform yours. Craig, what's going on, my brother? Oh, this is going to be amazing. Thanks so much. Absolutely, man. It is my pleasure.

I'm so excited to have you on. You know, it all started with getting your emails. And I was like, what, this guy's got some good stuff. It was the morning emails. I'm like, got it. I got to dive a little bit deeper. And from there, I just, the content you push out on social media is by far some of the best value out there. right like it's your life which is what we need to switch it up with but i'm talking you're dropping

bombs on them like if they're actually listening and not going to the next story you're giving content to transform lives you know like you said financially emotionally everything yeah and we're trying to do that in the main feed too just get people really good content so you know they go there real quick get a hit and keep on coming back for more yeah that's it man i love that so I gave a little brief description of kind of who you are, your accolades. I do want to start from the beginning if you don't mind and kind of chat about the story behind the glory, right? And the anxiety attacks. A lot of us suffer from it, some major, some not major. I think a lot of people honestly, Craig, suffer from it and don't realize it. And as soon as they feel that anxiety, they just kind of

stop doing what they know they should be doing to be successful or to live that life they want to live. So tell me a little bit about, you know, you growing up, when did the anxiety hit? And let's kind of start there. Yeah, sure. So I grew up in Canada. I grew up on a farm. We didn't have a lot of money. So I had that scarcity mindset, which really hurt me for a long time. And, you know, my parents would just have been happy if I was an accountant. I remember I went and got a kinesiology degree, exercise science. My mom just wanted me to get a job as an accountant, you know, because she didn't know what I was going to end up doing. And fortunately, I stumbled into writing for Men's Health magazine in the year 2000. And that gave me the critical credibility to grow my

fitness information product business where I sold programs like P90X for many, many years. And then in 2006, the business was taking off. Everything was great. I was in the best shape of my life. And I had those anxiety attacks. And so it doesn't matter. It's not like you only have anxiety attacks if, you know, things are going bad or if you're unhealthy. No, you can have anxiety attacks at any time in your life. You know, a lot of people are predispy. exposed to it, but there's a lot of social media comparison that causes stress and anxiety. There's so much stress in our lives, you know, for our children, for our parents, you know, we're taking care of both. All this stuff can really, really eat away at people and cause those

anxiety attacks. It happens to 40 million Americans, and it's my mission to help people overcome it. Man, I love that. And did you get put on medication? Like, were you diagnosed with anxiety and then someone tried to give you some pills? Did you decide to- medication. Awesome. Now, were you diagnosed where someone tried to give you and you just said, I'm going to find another way? Or you just decided you're going to find another way than what some people go to? Yeah, I would just never take pills. Yeah. I think that's, you know, a big problem. People, if they get diagnosed with it, they think that that pill is what's going to help them. And I'm a big believer in you. You know, I mean, I suffer from addiction. So I'm not going to go back to

that, but not only that, you know, my wife struggled very, very bad with anxiety. And I saw what happens from previous relationships when someone has bad anxiety and they don't take their medicine, right? And it's just this really bad effect. So I wanted to help her. And I had no idea about anxiety because it was always coded with a pill from the past relationship. So I was able to truly see what she was going through. Now I suffer from it day in and day out, you know, here and there, but able to control it. But I'm so curious about people that are listening that are on, you know, a certain pill to help it or feel anxiety, don't know what to do about it.

What are the processes that initially you took? And I want to talk about like what it grew into. Yeah, certainly. So what I started was basically I was turning over every rock that could possibly help me. And what I realized was is that there was a lot of physical things that you can do almost immediately to change it. So if you try some yoga, some. meditation. I did this thing called Kigong, which is standing meditation. I also did Tai Chi. All of

this stuff helps you to breathe better. And breathing better is a key in order to help you calm yourself down. So a lot of people, we're hunched over computers. We're breathing, short, shallow breast from our upper chest. We're stressed. That only makes it worse. So you got to sit back, open yourself up, big breath in through your nose, fill up your belly like a Buddha breath and slowly exhale. And you have to that multiple times. And if you do that for a couple of minutes, you'll feel the weight of the world go off your shoulders. So that will really help with minimal anxiety. If you have really bad anxiety attacks, it's not going to fix it right away. But it's something that you definitely need in the recovery period. So I didn't need pills, but there are some people with severe anxiety

that may need medication to help them get away from that really bad space. Now, I wasn't in that bad space. Well, I was in a bad space, but it wasn't so bad where I was ready to do that. I mean, I had something that felt like a six-week heart attack, but I still wasn't ready to go the medication route. And I did a whole bunch of things. And I went to the emergency room a couple of times. And when they told me there was nothing physically wrong with me, that was a game changer for me because then I realized it just meant there was some changes I had to meet, needed to make in my life, in my lifestyle. So it would help me overcome it. And then that's what I did. And I fought it off for a long long time, but I was able to. And now I don't fear it at all. It hasn't come back. And the last time I

ever, you know, had it try and fight its way into my life was early 2007. So, you know, we're looking at a dozen years now. And I consume more caffeine than now than ever. And I don't have any problem with it. Back then, I barely consumed any because it would really trigger me. So when you have all these tools in place, and I actually wrote a new book about it called Unstoppable and just hit the Wall Street Journal bestsellers list last week. And I lay out everything in that book that helps people overcome anxiety. That's awesome. So guys, if you're listening and you're struggling with anxiety, go pick up his book and he'll give you everywhere you can go get it at the end. But go pick up his book, you know, be resourceful, right? And I think that's the big thing here. Now, what about

those people that, you know, they have anxiety, right? But it's a little bit higher of a level. Do you have any process for them? And what do you think are some major triggers? Do you think, one being, them being feeling overwhelmed? Do you think that's a big trigger? Sure, for sure. So if you have really bad anxiety, it starts with your doctor. Go to your doctor first. Get the medical test. I mean, I had chest x-ray. I had a heart rate monitor for 24 hours. I had these things that allowed them to check out my cardiovascular system and make sure that it wasn't something in there. And when they found out that there wasn't something in my cardiovascular system. Then it was really up to me to make the changes, which was, one, stop being so overwhelmed.

I was working too much. I was going out a lot in the big city of Toronto. I was 29 years old. And so I needed to switch that up. I needed to stop doing that. I need to stop drinking. I need to stop then trying to use caffeine the next day to overcome the tiredness I had from the night before.

And so when I cleaned myself up, I mean, it wasn't that bad. It was like five and a half days a week. I was a really good boy. And then I would drink Friday and Saturday night. But it wasn't like I was drinking every day. And so I just needed to cut that back. I needed to kind of grow up essentially. And then put in place some habits like the breathing that I talked about.

But I had six-pack abs. I mean, it wasn't like I was overweight. I was in the best shape of my life when I had those anxiety attacks. So exercise will help. Diet will help. Breathing will help. Sleeping will help. They're all components of it.

but none of them will totally fix it on its own. So you have to do those physical things. Then you just have to get outside of your own head. Most people hold things in. They hold in their stress, their fear, their anxiety, and they kind of, you know, smush it down. But the more you smush it down, it's like putting a lid on a pot that is boiling and boiling and boiling and boiling.

All of a sudden, it's going to blow. The more that you push it down, the bigger the explosion. So you have to talk. You have to talk to a therapist. You have to talk to your doctor. You have to talk to a friend. You have to talk to family members. You have to do journaling. You have to do all this stuff that gets the clutter out of your head. And that'll be a big component of it as well. And you know what? I mean,

I'm glad we're talking about this because I think it is something that a lot of people struggle with. So thank you so much for the input. And guys, Craig has been through it, right? So to take his knowledge and actually put it to use. You know, we don't want anybody suffering from something like anxiety. If there's answers out there. And like he said, go to a doctor, ask people. Don't be embarrassed of it. I mean, this is the time and place now where, like, being vulnerable and authentic is probably the sexiest thing out there, right? Like, do it and, you know, be able to create that life you've always wanted because if you have anxiety, you and I both know it's very hard to.

Now, let's talk about that. You talk about the five pillars. Yep. Right. Do you mind and kind of explain to my audience? What are those five pillars that you've put in place and you coach others to do? Yeah. So I had the five pillars that I found through my weight loss transformation contest and my fitness

business. And I found that the people that went through the contest and lost a lot of weight and had amazing results over 12 weeks, they had these five things. And if they didn't have these five, they would drop out. So the first one is better planning and preparation than ever before. That means, you know, setting up your meal plans, setting up your workout plans. For anxiety, what that means is also making sure that you stay out of trouble to eliminate the things that are triggers on you and to live according to the healthy habits that I talk about in my book. So that does take better planning and preparation than ever before because if you were doing good enough planning before, you wouldn't have this problem. Obviously, you need to do better work.

You need to eliminate temptations, eliminate distractions, and make it easier for you to do the right thing. Now, the second thing is professional accountability. This is your coach in life. This is a person that you have some formal relationship with where you make a promise to them and you, you deliver. Like if you say, okay, listen, I'm not going to drink and, you know, I'm not going to hit the snooze button. And I'm going to have you hold me accountable to this. Great. Great. You don't want to let that person down.

You have to. So you must be around like-minded, positive people. And this is like when you go to a boot camp, right? You go to a fitness boot camp. You're in there with other people that share the same goals as you that are supporting one another. And at the end, you have that real community feel. Now, you might not go to a fitness boot camp, but you might go to an online forum. You might go to meetup groups about overcoming anxiety.

You might just go and get social support from your friends or family. You might have a list of people that you can call when you're feeling down. I know that I did back in the day. Then, oh, one other thing about the professional accountability is you can have like a yoga instructor or a meditation instructor, someone that you formally pay money to. and you have to show up to the sessions. That's the accountability. And then you'll get the instruction, the coaching to improve your life.

Now, the fourth pillar after better planning and preparation, professional accountability and positive social support is a meaningful incentive. In the weight loss world, most people who stuck with the programs, their meaningful incentive was, you know, not the new pair of jeans. It was not winning the money in my contest, but it was doing something for their children, you know, being around in 20. 20 years so they could see the kids graduate or so that they could see the kids get married or if they could see their grandkids. And most people would go to the doctor and the doctor would say, listen, if you don't make changes, that's not going to happen. So that's a meaningful incentive. When you have anxiety, the meaningful incentive is like just simply to get rid of it because if you've never had it, you don't know how bad it can be. And you'll just do anything to get rid of it,

which is why a lot of people take medication because it can be very debilitating. It can stop you from doing a lot of things and medication is the path of least resistance. I'm not saying it's the easy way out. I'm saying it's the path of least resistance. And sometimes that's what you need to get the ball rolling so that you can get into these other recovery methods that I talk about. Then finally, the fifth thing is the big deadline. Now, it's tough to say there's a big deadline when you're working in anxiety. There is in my weight loss transformation contest. It's a 90-day program. You have to lose the weight by this time. for me, fortunately, there was a big deadline in my personal life when I had the anxiety. I had a big product launch coming up in my business.

And I didn't want the business anxiety to mix with my personal anxiety and I wouldn't have been able to control it. So I knew that I had that product launch coming up in like 60 or 90 days and I was doing everything I possibly could to get rid of the anxiety. So that's why I wasn't waiting around. But again, with anxiety, same with the meaningful incentive. You don't really need a deadline to get working on it. You know, it really just is super powerful.

You know, the anxiety is such a bad, bad thing to go through that it will get you going. But for other people, it doesn't matter what kind of change you want to make in your life, the deadline gets you going. It keeps you going through tough times. And it makes you go faster to the finish line as you use that deadline to power you on. I love it. Yeah. I mean, it's all about taking action, right?

In implementation versus information. You talked about positive people in these five pillars. People are struggling with separating themselves from their friends or family or having that conversation with that family member, man. It's like they're your sister, right? They're your brother. They're your mother. And how do you, how do you set boundaries?

Do you have any best practices for these guys to set boundaries to separate themselves from these negative people so they could allow a space in their life for someone positive or just not be dragged down from a negativity? of their quote unquote friends or family. Because I think a lot of us struggled with that to where our closest people throughout our whole life are kind of negative. And it's hard to make that separation without just, you know, because you don't want to cut them off completely, right?

So any best practices to set those boundaries? Well, listen, you don't have to cut them off completely, but you just don't spend a lot time with them. I mean, this is a very adult decision. If someone was punching you in the face every time you went and saw them, would you still go around them and say, oh, you know, I don't want to cut them out completely? you darn well would cut them out completely. And so if they're negative and causing you severe anxiety and stress,

you have to cut them out completely. You have to. You have no other option until you get healthy again. If they're forced, you know, if you were an alcoholic and you were going around and all your brothers and sisters drank and the next thing you know you were on a seven-day bender,

you darn well have to cut these people out of your life. And so it's okay to cut people out of your life for a time until everybody gets healthier. But if you're saying, well, you know, I was anxiety free for six days, but we got to go over to moms for dinner and I'm going to have anxiety for the next seven days. That just doesn't make any rational sense. And so you have to make an adult decision here to remove the cause of the anxiety. And there's, you know, like that's an extreme level. If somebody stresses you out, then you need to have adult conversations

with people. I had adult conversations with everybody in my life when there was stress and anxiety. and that's how one of the ways that you overcome it. I think people are scared to have the conversation because they're so tied to the outcome versus having it, right? Like they're scared of how that person is going to react versus having it. I mean, like, that's what if they were in the position of, you know, one of their friends came to them and said, oh, you know, every time I go over to my mom's house,

I get super stressed out, like the person would go, well, don't go over to your mom's house so much. Like, it's very easy to give that type of advice when you're emotionally detached for it. So just think like when you give people advice, think about what's the best advice for you with that emotional detachment. But you got to take care of yourself here. Yeah, absolutely. You got to fill your cup up first before you give to anybody else.

And that's what I kind of want to break into the four most important hours of your day, I believe, to when you wake up, two before you go to sleep. You don't have to get into your actual routine, but I've gotten your emails. I watch your stuff and I want my audience to kind of hear. What are some things to help you become a peak performer, a top performer, life and all equities. What are some things that are non-negotiables that people should be putting in their first two hours before or two hours when I wake up or two hours before they go to sleep? Well, I think in the morning, most people waste their time with all these morning routines

and it's the first form of procrastination. They got yoga, meditation, interpretive dance and gratitude journal and all these things. And it's a two-hour morning routine. Listen, that does not work. So I tell people to get up and go to work right away on something very important in their life that that is you know it's like if you're in credit card debt and you're like oh you know I'll get to it tonight no you don't get to it tonight you wake up and you sit down at your kitchen table and you figure out how to get out of credit card debt before you do anything else and if you do that every single day you'll get out of credit card debt faster than if you try to do it at some other point during the day same with if you want to write a book or you want

to become a better salesperson or you want to do anything in life if you want to exercise If you want to make exercise a habit, don't try and fit it in later on during the day if it's not a habit right now. You've got to do the hardest thing, first thing in the morning, which nobody wants to hear. And nobody else is telling people that because nobody, again, nobody wants to hear it. But if you do this, if you give me 15 minutes first thing in the morning focusing on your number one thing in life, you will be far more successful in three months, six months, 12 months from now. So that's, I grew up on a farm. And that's what we did. We woke up and we went to work.

You know, like cows don't take a day off. So all these people who have to do like 19 things, you know, in order to get their energy levels up, listen, if that's not working for you, you got to change it. So that's what I highly recommend. And other than that, then you earn the right after you've done some work. You've earned the right to do some stuff that calms you down, that, you know, that gets you some meditation, yoga, walk outside, journaling, whatever it is. You can do that. But, and then you can get on with your day. So personally, I just get up and I work for an hour and a half and then I do some meditation and then I go into my day.

So that's my morning routine. And then in the evening, I just shut all the electronics down an hour before bed. I read, I talk to friends, whatever it is. Just stay off the electronics and I fall asleep like boom. That's all. Yeah, people have the problem disconnecting from the electronics. I think that's a big reason why the morning isn't going as planned. Right.

They're on their phone or checking their Facebook. They're watching that drama. they're watching the news. Everybody, everybody should stop watching the news. 100%. The biggest waste of time. Football is actually a bigger waste of time. But, you know, like stop watching the news.

Just stop. And nothing will change in your life. Yeah. I've actually, nothing will get worse in your life and everything will get better. Yeah. And I stop watching. Darren Hardy told me stop watching news many, many years ago, changed my life.

And recently about a year ago, I cut off drama TV. Like, you know, like the CSIs, criminalized. We become cultured and conditioned to where like we loved watching it. But then I realized if I'm not going to put myself in a situation for drama that's, you know, on Facebook or friends or family, why am I intentionally doing it watching TV? Because they're very smart and they do things intentionally to bring you in and make you feel like you're part of that situation, right?

Yeah, listen, there's three areas in, you know, American culture. where you have the smartest minds working to make you addicted to things. One is in snack foods. So you have the smartest minds in food science working at Doritos to make you addicted to them. You have the smartest minds in Hollywood working to make you addicted to television shows. And then you have the smartest minds in Silicon Valley making you addicted to your phone. And I mean, you wake up every single day and you're fighting those people. So you have to build in rules so that you're not playing their game because it's,

If you're playing their game, you're screwed. No amount of willpower is going to beat that. You have to have rules and systems that keep you out of that stuff. And so when you stop watching that stuff, when you stop getting involved in all that junk, I mean, listen, everybody loves the phrase, you know, nobody ever sat on their deathbed and wish they spent more time at the office. Okay, maybe, maybe not. But I don't think anybody will ever sit on their deathbed and go, man, I'm so proud of all the TV I watched.

Like, who's going to say that? People are going to go, man, you know what, I probably should have done more with my life than watched, you know, all 17 seasons of the office and, and all these other shows. Yeah. So, like, just look at it that way and realize there's so much more you can do with your life than watch every single new hot show that comes out on HBO. You know, people are just complaining about time. That's the, like, number one thing people complain about it.

They don't have enough time. They don't have enough time. And as you're saying, it's just like, add up the 17 seasons of Graves Anatomy. that you've watched. Like, tell me you don't have enough time now, right? Like, it's insane. It is nuts. And I don't care if you DVR. Okay, now it's 43 minutes. But I watch it on my own time. Yeah, great. I binge watched it on a weekend. Yeah. Okay. It's even worse. And they're complaining on Monday about work. And on Saturday and Sunday, they're binge watching TV and drinking, right? But the worst thing is that it robs the entrepreneurs. It robs the high performers, you know.

And again, these people have a formula for making you want to binge watch these shows. And they are incredibly entertaining shows. They're well-written shows. These people have done a great job. But, you know, all the high performers that are listening to this have been in that situation where it's like, I went to watch one. And the next thing you know, we watch four episodes. And then the next day, you know, I missed, I had a sales presentation and it wasn't

at my best. And, you know, so I'm ranting and Raven here about not watching TV, but it's because of that. It's because you are missing. on being your absolute best during the work week. Listen, if you want to do that Friday night and then maybe take it easy on Saturday or watch some stuff on Saturday night, cool. Peace out, you know. Go and enjoy yourself.

But if you've got that big presentation tomorrow and you don't treat yourself like a professional athlete, you're missing out. You've got to be thinking about food, about hydration, about sleep, about being totally prepared like a professional athlete. athlete is totally prepared for the Super Bowl. When you go in and do that $10 million, $5 million, $20 million presentation that can make or break your career. And so that's the kind of thinking that I want people to get into. There's a time in place for recovery. There's a time in place like you're not always going to be in playoff mode, but you've got to be in the right

mode at the right time to be a high performer in life. I love it. It's so funny. I don't believe any coincidence. And we actually had a conversation this morning about this, me and a friend about because I told you before we started, all these speaking engagements coming up, right? And I got a big one, you know, I'll be keynote in ET is going to open 3,000 people. It's going to be an amazing event. But for speaking engagements,

in a matter of less than 30 days, and it's like I need to be on point the three to four weeks prior. Like I'm talking eating right, sleeping right, consuming the right stuff. So intentional to be able to maximize that one hour opportunity. And I think people, People aren't realizing that what they do today, it will help them maximize their output tomorrow.

Yeah, but you also, and I talk about this a lot with my coaching clients and in my articles, you have to be an operator when you are on this. And I use operator in the way that like a Navy SEAL would use an operator, right? So a Navy SEAL does all the preparation that you talked about. But also when they go on the mission, the objective of the mission is most important. And they stay on track. So a lot of people, I've had clients who do a lot of speaking and they'll go and do a seminar and then, oh, they'll see all these buddies. And it's like, okay, we're going to go out. And the next thing you know, they're out two hours later than normal. They consume food and drink that makes them unwell. And the next thing you know, they come home and they've caught a cold or something. And so they're, you know, their quality time at home with their family suffers. And so I use the phrase, be an operator. When you go, like, like, I'm pretty crazy. So I will like wipe everything down when I'm on an airplane. You know, I'm washing my hands all the time because that's how you get a cold, right?

And you can't afford to get a cold in the next 23 or 30 days on your four city tour. You have to be an operator. You have to make sure that you're not running late to the airport so you're not stressed. You have to make sure that you have the right clothes. You have the right snacks. You have all the water that you need because you're going to be like you said you're going to Denver. Man, you're going to dry out.

In Vegas. Yeah, I lived in Denver for 18 months. Man, my skin was so dry because I came from. from Toronto where I wasn't used to it. And so it's just like you have to be ready for all of these things. You have to be ready for like delayed flights. Like how are you going to operate when the flight is delayed and you have to be somewhere? Are you going to be prepared to make the flight change?

All that stuff. You have to be an operator about it. And when you are though, you're going to get through this. There's going to be bumps on the road, but you're going to come through. You're going to crush every one of those presentations. And people are going to go, man, I don't know how you did it because, you know, I just went to one of these things. and I was exhausted.

But here you are. You went to four. You did a 10 out of 10 at each one. And it's because of the planning and preparation. Pillar number one that got you. I love that, man. And as you said, I grabbed this.

So my, I'm very airborne, brother. Oh, there you go, my man. Yeah. I make sure I have plenty of airborne before I get on the flights. I take it even when I have a layover.

So I'll take on the first flight, take it on a second flight, wipe it down. And I'm a total agreeance. They talk about smart minds and doing things intentionally. I've been seeing a lot of, post on your Instagram about you helping tons of people on on Instagram create clients. So I have a lot of people that are listening to us that are business owners, some coaches,

some, you know, maybe real estate brokers. I mean, all different industries. You're very smart. I noticed with being strategic on Instagram, but then you're showing others how to do it in order to capture some revenue from it or any kind of tips and tricks. You know, I mean, without giving away the whole house on what people could be doing to increase their revenue through a platform like Instagram? Yeah, I mean, what I'm going to say goes for any social media,

it goes for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Instagram is my weapon of choice. And there's three parts to the social media money machine. It goes like this. So you're going to have your main feed. So Instagram is very clear. Facebook, it's tougher because, you know, Zuckerberg screwed up Facebook and you can't really get your content out to people.

But it does work on LinkedIn as well. And it works on YouTube. But YouTube is slightly different because it does. doesn't have the third component of the three steps of this money machine. So you have content on your main feed that fits these three criteria. It has to be purposeful. It has to move people towards doing business with you. It has to be shareable. So it has to be really good content that other people are going to tell their friends to go and check out. I do a lot of listicles. I do a lot of high content videos so that people will share it. And then finally, after it is

purposeful and shareable, it has to be valuable as well. So obviously, if it's valuable, it'll be shareable. So when you post something, like, listen, it's really cool that you went to like a 49ers game and you were with your mom. You can post that in your stories and in your other stuff, but don't post it on your main feed because your clients don't care. Your potential clients just are not interested in that. You're not going to get a lot of likes. You're not going to get a lot of engagement. It's nice. It's nice for family, but it's not for your business. I don't use social media. I use business media.

That's how I look at every single platform. I'm not on there to see what my friends are up to. If I want to know what my friends are up to, I will contact them another way. So I only use all of these platforms as business stuff. So once you have your main feed down with purposeful, shareable, valuable content, now you can build a following. I only started on Instagram on February 15th. So actually two years tomorrow will be my anniversary on a two-year anniversary on Instagram.

you know, when we're doing this call on Valentine's Day, not Valentine's Day, but Valentine's Day. And so I've only been on there for two years and I have over 37,000 followers, all organic, nothing bought, nothing paid for, all organic followers by posting really great content, really great content that is shared and organically having other people through being on podcasts like this or just posting great stuff. I have other people with big followings tell their followers to go and follow me. So that's how you grow your following organically without paying and you can grow it consistently and still quite rapidly. Then from there, the second part is getting people into watching your stories. Now, there's obviously no stories on LinkedIn. There are stories on Facebook and there's

no stories on YouTube. So you really don't consider this for YouTube and LinkedIn. But you get people into the stories. And here's the biggest revelation I had, which was just over a year and a half ago, was that Instagram stories, and if anybody doesn't know what Instagram story is, if you go to Instagram, you see the main feed of all the people you follow. And then at the top, there's these pictures of people. And sometimes there's a red circle around them. That means they've made what's called an Instagram story, where they put stuff that will disappear in 24 hours. That's where the picture of you and your mom at the football game. That's where that goes. Okay. That's where funny pictures and stuff like that goes. But more importantly, what I discovered was that Instagram

stories are the new email. So everybody knows how to use email marketing, right? We write a really good catchy headline that, you know, has curiosity that gets people to open it. Then we get people into reading a like an opening paragraph that kind of was like, oh, that's interesting, maybe some personal details. And then we talk and we teach something and we use social proof. And then we finish off having given value, we've earned the right to make a call to action in our emails. So that's the formula I used in email marketing to sell $10 million worth of fitness programs over the years. And it's the same formula that I applied to Instagram stories.

Because in order to watch an Instagram story, what do people have to do? They have to actively seek out your story. They have to click on it. They have to be in stories. And so that means, or at least I consider it, that they've, opted in. They've opted into my story. They've opted into my Instagram email, quote, unquote. Now, I take all the things that worked in email, curiosity, teaching, personality, social proof, and a call to action. And I put those in about a minute long story, sometimes a little longer,

sometimes a little shorter. And I make a call to action. So just, hey, listen, you know, so here's an example. You know, I did one the other day. I was talking about my friend C-dos. Hey, And you see those C-dos behind me because I was at my friend's house, you know, there's probably $40,000 worth of C-dos right there. They get used maybe two to three times per year because my friend is so busy. My friend is so busy. He's built himself a paycheck prison. He's got golden handcuffs on because he's probably like you, right?

You started this business. You wanted freedom. But here's the thing. You've built a high-paying job, not a business. And, man, man, we got to get you free from that because if you don't work today, you don't get paid. And that's not a business. That's a job. So listen, we're going to get you out of the paycheck prison. We're going to release you from these golden hand tuffs by putting more structure into your life and into your business. We're going to help you scale and put the

systems in place so that other people are doing the work and that you're doing the strategy so that you have a real, true business. Now, if that was helpful, listen, here's what I've got. I have a coaching program where I work with people one day in person and then for the next 12 months. Now, the thing is, I only have a small number of spaces. So send me a direct message down below. And that's what you do on Instagram or Facebook stories. Send me a direct message down below. Or if sometimes I could run this video to LinkedIn and just say in the comments below,

or send me a private message here on LinkedIn or here on Facebook. Or if I was doing this on YouTube, I'd say click the link below and go to my website, fill up the application to work with me. But I basically say I give the call to action. Here's because the call to action at the end. is three steps. You tell them what they get, how to get it, and why they need to get it now. So what, I have a coaching program, how to get it, send me a direct message down below if you're interested and why you need to do it now. But listen, there's only five spots left. You know,

I only have five people come to a workshop. I got a workshop here. I got a couple in Germany and London, England this summer. I have them in Toronto and I have them out in L.A. But I only have five spots at each. So send me a direct message down below. This is going on to 37,000 people. and so these spots are going to fill up quickly. So that's what we do. That's the same as I would write an email that's the same as that. And so I'm just transferring my email marketing skills over to Instagram stories, over to Facebook stories, over to LinkedIn videos, over to YouTube videos,

all using that same model and message. And then we get people into the third component of the money machine, which is the direct message. And we want to use what's called a pinball direct message system, which means we're not going to write long message. in the direct message. We're going to people to say, hey, I'm interested in your coaching. And then we pinball back and we say,

tell me more about your business. And they'll say this, this and this. Oh, what are the biggest obstacles that you're, you know, frustrated with right now? And then they'll write back. And then we go back and forth pinballing until we get to a position where we can either say, okay, you need to jump on a phone call with my program director or listen, you're ready to sign up.

Here's the link. And that's what we do. Those are the three things. And you can use that in LinkedIn. You can't really use it on. YouTube, not fully, but you can kind of use it sort of, and you can use it on Facebook. But you don't just need a coaching program. I have clients that use Instagram stories to sell diamond rings, to sell houses, to sell

workout programs, to sell supplements, all of this stuff. It works. It's just selling. And so that's, I love this stuff and I can talk about this stuff all day long. I'm so excited about it because I've made over a million dollars doing this. And over half of that, I didn't have to get the phone on the phone with someone. somebody to sell them a $10,000 coaching program. So it's changed my life in the last two.

I started, I made my first sale in April of 2017. So about two months after I was on Instagram, I figured this out. I just dropped so much bombs of value. That is insane. And the small little distinction that you just dropped on me, honestly, man, what light bulb went off was I use this as business media, not social media.

Like legit, that right there. When you filter that thought in your mind before a post, it changes the post. It changes the concept. It changes the context behind it. Not so much I'm sorry. It changes your relationship with your phone as well that, you know, I'm not going on there. I'm not going to look at what my friends are doing. I mean, a lot of my friends know I don't follow them on social media and some of them give me a hard time about it or I mute, I mute their stories. I mute everything so I don't see it. And and they find out and they're like, they're a little bit hurt. And I go, listen, I like you as a friend. I just don't have time to, like, I have a lot of friends. I don't have time to follow all of my friends on social media. Because if I did that, then I wouldn't have time to write my books and to, you know, come up with these ideas for these courses and stuff. But, you know, with the business media, John, is I look at like, you know, back in the day when you and I were growing up, there was Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC. And so I look at, you know, Lincoln is my ABC. that I control.

Fox is my Facebook that or Facebook is my Fox that I control and Instagram is my ABC that I control and then you know whatever I've left out is my NBC. So I control these business media these channels and I'm controlling them. I'm putting information out and yeah I'll interact with my viewers but I'm not going

and seeking entertainment on social media. Yeah you don't get sucked into and vampying your time when you look at it that way. Because again, every single day that you and I wake up and everybody watching or listening to this, you are going to war against 150 PhDs from MIT that work at Instagram. Now, it's amazing that there's only like 150 PhDs that work in Instagram. They only have that many engineers for that big of a business. But do you really think you're going to outsmart 150 guys with PhD, guys and gals, of course, with PhDs? No,

you're going to lose that battle every single time if you play by their rules. And I remember, the first time I was checking out stories like way back in the day. I looked in and then I looked up and 20 minutes had gone by and I was like, whoa, I'm never at first. I'm never letting that happen again to me, but I am going to use that to my advantage. And I'm going to use it as business media. I understand what Instagram has done here. I understand a lot of people use it. and I don't want people to waste their time on it, which is why I only put valuable content up. But understanding the facts and the reality, that is how I will use this platform to grow my business.

You use a platform. You don't allow to use you. Insane. Guys, if you're not taking notes, I don't know what you're doing because this is absolute gold with, especially the social media piece of it, man. We get sucked into it and, you know, we have to use it for us, not, you know, let it use us. So, actually, we're the platform, right? I don't even think, you know, Instagram's not the platform.

We as humans, we are the platform. And I don't do you. Look at that quote. That's going to go viral, man. Hey, do you know Joe Polish? Yes. Yeah, actually a buddy of mine is in his mastermind. Yeah.

So I've known Joe for over like 12 years now and I was in his program as well. And so I want to give him credit because he said, use social media, but don't let social media be used on you. And I think that's a great way of looking at it. I changed it a little bit to I don't use social media. I use business media. And that's another way of looking at it. But just take control of social media in your life. Don't let social media control you.

And you'll be free and clear and you'll have more time for what matters. And if that means watching a Netflix show per night that you want to use that found time for, by all means, or if you want to actually read a book or whatever, just don't let your life be consumed by it. Use it, though. Use it to your advantage. it's a pillar of business it's not a pillar of being social right like oh man that's awesome that's that is awesome all right so i know we're wrapping up on time here but before we go i always ask my guest i mean you like i said you dropped bomb at the bomb at the bomb yeah we went from like anxiety to instagram that was

like it's a lot of nuggets in there man it's a few different inspections of people so but before we we wrap this thing up i want you to be able to give them three actionable things. You're ready to give a bunch, but three actionable things in any equity of life, any equity that they could go and they can implement immediately after this episode and be better today than they were yesterday. So I got my pen and paper ready. Hopefully they do as well. What are the three things that you can give them to take action on? Yeah, I'm going to focus it all on what I call the end of day cutoff routine. There's three parts to it. First of all, you do a brain dump. So this could happen at five o'clock, you know, you under your workday or maybe right before dinner, right after dinner.

Not too close to bed though. And you take a piece of paper and you write down all the things in your head. Like, I got to get out of all the errands I have to run, all the major projects you got to get done, all the people that I got to contact, it's brain dump it. It's like taking a, it's like as if somebody had poured a jigsaw puzzle, you know, box into your head during the course of the day and you're all cluttered up. Now we're taking all those pieces and just spreading them out over the table. Oh, we're going to feel so much better.

Great. So that's step one. Step two is to then organize that into a priority to do list. So you put the two or three most important tasks at the top. You know your MIT's if you want to call it that. So you, GSD on your MIT the next morning, you get stuff done on it. And then you're like, oh, yeah, I've got these errands to run. And yeah, I got to contact these people. But here are the most important things. And this other stuff, you know what? Maybe this just doesn't have to get done. This doesn't have to get done. I can delegate this. This is a waste of time. I'm just going to stop doing it. Great. So now we've done two things. Brain dump priority to do list. Third thing is then we do what I call process planning. We make the path smoother. So for me as a writer, if I write down, you know, my number one priority is write chapter two. Well, great. I can wake up the next morning. I go to my computer and there's a blank screen and all of a sudden I got writer's block.

But if I come up with five bullet points, all of a sudden, writing 1,500 words on a blank screen that was really hard, becomes a whole lot easier to write 300 words for each of the five bullet points. I've made the path smoother. Much like if somebody wants to exercise first thing in the morning, if they wake up and their exercise clothes are in another room, it's tough, tough to get out of bed. But if you put your exercise clothes right beside the bed and you're running shoes right there, there's no excuses and it's easier to get into it. So that's what I recommend people do. Brain dump, priority to do list, because if you're doing your to do list in the morning, you're already too late. You've got to do it the night before. And then you plan to make it easier.

And the next thing you know, man, you crush that morning work. Even if you only did 90 minutes, you'll be so far ahead of the game that competition can't catch up. Who, man, that process planning is going to be a game changer for me personally. I do it in some areas. I don't do it in all areas. And like you said, it's so much easier. Rules and systems. It's better planning and preparation than ever before.

Yeah. Rules and systems, man. And thank you so much. up and on here today. I truly, truly appreciate it. Before we go, tell everybody where they could find you, what you have coming up. Tell them about your book. Tell me about your programs. Go ahead, man. Unleash it. All right. So hit me up on Instagram at Real Craig Ballantyne. I'd love to talk more about this. I mean, that was 15 minutes of my course. I go on for hours because there's, there's nuggets about each one of these things that help make you better at it. I just had a client

send me a message today. He sold a $4,500 program. You know, he 10xed his and investment overnight with one sale from what I did. So Instagram, Real Craig Ballantine. And then my brand new book, Wall Street Journal bestseller, called Unstoppable, How to Get Through Hell, overcome anxiety and dominate in business and in life. This is like coaching in a book about how to plan out your business, how to physically overcome any symptoms of anxiety, stress as well. So make sure you go and grab that book. You can either get it on Amazon or at be unstoppable book.com. man i just once once again i'm so honored to have you on and and and the value that you drop will change lives it will change the way people look at social media platforms and guys

he's right like you need to go follow him because once you see the content he pushes out it's going to be hard not to want to work with him and and me personally that's exactly how i feel so so you guys go creep on him make sure you follow him go buy his book um you know look at his content and a few other things. Make sure you guys go ahead and subscribe, like, wherever you guys' platform you're watching us on. Make sure you subscribe or like to it so you can make sure that it pops up

in the new episode airs. Number two is write a review. Write a review about something Craig said that resonated or something that's going to change the game for you and definitely put that into the review. And then third but not least, I just want you to be able to take the information and create some kind of implementation,

take massive, aggressive, empowering action on the stuff he said and share this thing out to somebody that you think could truly benefit from anything, Craig's saying somebody suffering from anxiety. Somebody has a business and doesn't know how to utilize Instagram to their benefit. Make sure you guys do that. Reach out to me at Real John Marone. John Marone.com. Any questions you guys have? You know, I personally answer all my IG messages. I know Craig is on point with that as well. So guys, go follow Craig. Make sure you guys implement the stuff that he went over today and make sure you guys keep creating the ultimate version of you