Perry Marshall: 2 Ways People Cripple Their Own Success

There are 2 ways that people sabotage their business:

1) Shelf Help. People buy courses, get coached, go to conferences, do absolutely nothing. The trouble with that is obvious.

2) “I’m not going to eat any more meat until I’ve finished all my vegetables.” This happens a lot. This story will explain what I mean:

When I was a b-r-a-n-d n-e-w marketer, wet behind the ears, I bought a couple of items from Dan Kennedy. A few months later he was promoting some sort of conference. He asked his newsletter subscribers: “If you’re not coming, why not???” He offered some kind of prize for the best answer.

Clever market research on customer objections.

I faxed him back and said, “I haven’t implemented all the stuff in your Magnetic Marketing System yet, so it makes no sense to spend even more money on education right now.”

I poked and prodded along. It took almost 2 years before I got myself to a live event, i.e. a “real” marketing seminar.

The IMMERSION experience – being with other marketing maniacs 18 hours a day – transformed everything I had *already* learned from black and white to color. It was an unbelievable experience.

Suddenly I caught a vision of where I needed to take my business – a vision I could have *never* caught at home, had I stayed on the “ration the information until you’ve applied everything” route.

I flew back to Chicago and created “DeviceNet Boot Camp” which became the #1 training workshop in my industry. I would have never gotten that idea from the course I already owned.

I started doing magazine publicity and direct mail. I got savvier about my employer’s website. We grew the company and sold it for $18 million, 2 years later.

You know what? I STILL did not and have not applied every possible thing I got in that Magnetic Marketing System 14 years ago.

But it doesn’t matter. Because from that point forward, my approach to learning has always been:

“PILE IT ON, BABY.”

I do not deny myself the opportunity to learn something new and important just because I didn’t do everything I learned yesterday.

Why punish yourself? You DO implement things. Honestly, if you only implement the best 10% – and the rest goes into your vast vault of “You never know when you might need this” – then not only does your game plan constantly adjust to the very best and latest intelligence available, you always have a backup plan too.

That’s 80/20 thinking applied to education. The “apply 100%” model is deadly.

One more thing: If I invest in education with a mentor and their advice really pays off – then I know there’s more where that came from. I buy everything they’ve got.

If you are in motion, if you’re not just sitting on your butt sucking your thumb…. if you’re doing stuff and not just sticking courses on the shelf, then please:

PILE IT ON, BABY. Stop starving yourself. Dig into that steak and enjoy it.