Misfit Nation! Welcome to the Misfit Entrepreneur 2018 year in review where each year I attempt to boil down all of the incredible, useful information, strategies, and tips that our guests have given on the show into less than one hour for you…with a few surprises thrown in.

It’s impossible for me to go over every single best piece of advice from these amazing people and that is why I urge you to take some time and go through the Misfit Archives to see which episodes resonate most with you. In doing this episode, my goal is to spur ideas – to give you a lightning strike that propels you down a path of action to better improve yourself, your life, and your business or career in 2019!

But, before listening, I want to tell you something. I want to say “Thank YOU.” Thank you for listening. Thank you for your support of the show and thank you for sharing our message. Without you and the amazing feedback members of this audience give me every week, it would not be half of what it is. Because of you, in just over a year, this show has reached hundreds of thousands of people in over 70 countries. I am truly humbled and in awe OF what we’ve done together and I am excited about having an even bigger impact with your help in 2019.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did creating it for you!

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Marcus Aurelius Anderson. Marcus is best-selling Author, TedX speaker, Entrepreneur, and coach who is best known for teaching people how to harness the gift of adversity.

I have had the chance to meet and spend time with Marcus and I was blown away at his insight about life, business, and how to maximize potential.

And the story of how Marcus came to be who he is and teach what he does is one of the most powerful that I have ever heard and I know that you will learn a tremendous amount from him.

www.MarcusAureliusAnderson.com

Marcus started out going to chiropractor school, was married, and following the typical life path. All at once, he got a divorce and lost a strong male role model in his uncle who was a special forces veteran. This caused Marcus to re-evaluate his life and do something he had always wanted to do deep down, join the special forces.

The only problem the cutoff age was 35 and Marcus was older than that. But the recruiter spoke with him and saw his passion- and how good of shape he was in, so he signed a release to allow him to join.

After the first two weeks of training, he could see that he could do it physically and new his mentality would carry him through. He got placed with the 10th Mountain group.

He was having these symptoms that he was writing off to just the hard work he was doing, but in reality he had a C5 nerve root that was compressed in his spine and the disc exploded while he was sleeping leaving him waking up paralyzed from the neck down in his barrack bunk.

He was bedridden, divorced, and had nothing.

It was at this low point where everything started for him.

To come back from things, Marcus had to be operated on and he flatlined on the operating table twice during the operation. After the surgery, they didn’t expect him to walk unless he could in just a few days or he wouldn’t ever walk. Days turned into weeks, then week’s to months. He was bedridden for 3 months and was full of anger.

How did you recover?

• The realization that the anger was not helping him
• Being angry at himself, his circumstance and everyone around him was holding him back and not letting him be able to move forward.
• He looked for something to offsite the anger. For him that was gratitude. He took himself out of the equation and asked “Where is the opportunity in this adversity?”

At the 11 min mark, Marcus talks about the realization and understanding of what would have happened had he been deployed with his team and his injury happened and how that gave him a very positive perspective and helped motivate him. In fact, he sees the whole experience as making him lucky.

It was once he saw his adversity as a gift and found joy in his realization, he began to get feeling back in his fingers and toes.

After a year of physical therapy, Marcus was able to walk again.

Besides learning how use your mind and bend adversity to your will, what is the most important thing you learned about yourself and the human spirit?

• The human spirit, body, and mind is much stronger than we give it credit for.
• We are only as strong as the adversity we overcome, but most people never push themselves in any of those capacities and stay comfortable, so they never learn what they are capable of…
• We have to learn to stop our mind from shutting us down when we reach the unknown in our lives.
• We must ask and expect more from ourselves.

How does someone push themselves to grow to their next level?

• It is difficult for us to push ourselves, we need help either in the form of others to push us or having a coach or trainer.
• Adversity is an adversary and fuel for finding out what you are made of in overcoming it.
• Pushing slightly past a limit is a little victory and every time you do, you grow. The little victories matter and we must discipline ourselves to seek them and relish in them.
• Seek micro-adversities
• Find the gratitude and joy in it all

Can you expand on how people can put habits in their lives to push them and stretch them over their adversities?

• Create micro-adversities. For example, Marcus fasts twice per week to work on his willpower and control.
• At the end of the day, look back on your day and ask what adversities you ran into and what the opportunity is in them. Self-reflect while you brush your teeth.
• Push yourself to where you hear the little voice in your head want to quit…and then talk yourself through and power through it. Each time you do it, it gets easier.
• Use your fear to push you.

How does someone get “unstuck?”

• Challenge your beliefs and ways of thinking
• Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own – Bruce Lee
• Seek wisdom for yourself and challenge yourself to execute in some way on it.
• Go out and find ways to be uncomfortable.
• The things you are avoiding are what will grow you and help you get unstuck.
• Taking some sort of action at all will make a difference vs. not doing anything.

What do you see that consistently holds people back from reaching their potential?

• People are held back by their belief systems and their self-worth
• What you believe about yourself and your value directly impacts your potential and ability to get to their next level.
• People ask themselves, “What should I be allowed to do this? Or Why am I better than others in my area of value?
• They should be asking “Why the hell not me?” There are so many people out there that are not good at what they are doing, but have the audacity to fall on their face over and over again and end up succeeding where others give up.
• If you are going slow enough that you can control, you are not going fast enough. If everything is easy, you are not asking enough from yourself.

How do you teach people to train and program their mind to become who they are meant to be?

• Using the Adversity Scale where 10 is the worst thing you’ve ever been through and 1 is heaven on earth.
• At some point, you’ve reached a 10 in your life
• You need to ask yourself about your 10’s and put it in perspective, is it really that hard or that bad? Could you push yourself even further?
• Most people operate in a zone 2-4 on the scale
• If you look at the value you deliver and how it can solve problems on the scale, you can re-evaluate the value for what it really provides and thus the worth of you for delivering it
• Focus on “quality” value. High standards for everything.

At the 31 min mark, Marcus explains what the “Inner Warrior” is and what it means…

• It means having a mission, a set of objectives to accomplish
• It is the indomitable spirit to be great and succeed on the different missions in your life from your work to your family, relationships, etc.
• The mission is inevitable, it’s not if, but when, but more importantly for you, it’s how well and what level it is accomplished at.
• Focus – If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority
  • There are 3 things that derail people:
  • They don’t have urgency
  • They don’t have a goal or objective worthy of pushing them forward They don’t have even idea of what they want to do
• Solving those 3 issues helps you to move forward
• It is about doing all the right things that allow you to be in the right place at the right time

What are some topics from your book, the Gift of Adversity, that you don’t usually talk about, but feel are important?

• No matter how successful you get, there is still struggle, there is still adversity
• It’s not supposed to be easy. Adversity is the indicator of things being worth doing or not.
• Parkinson’s law is important to understand. The law states that the amount of time you have to get something done is the amount of time you will take – when in fact, you don’t have to take that time. If you have 2 weeks to get something done, you don’t have to take 2 weeks, it may be done in one day. This helps you to move exponentially faster on your objectives.

At the 44 min mark, Marcus gives his 3 steps to help someone in their entrepreneurial journey...

1. Know exactly what your goals and objectives are.
2. Ask yourself repeatedly if what you are doing in the moment is helping you reach those goals or holding you back?
3. If what you are doing is not helping your reach your goals and objectives, how can you course correct to put your energy and effort into something that is?

Best Quote: “The body doesn’t tell the mind what to do, the mind tells the body what to do…”

Marcus's Misfit 3:

1. Urgency – you don’t need more time, you need a deadline.
2. Have tunnel vision and focus on your mission or objective.
3. Work to be present in everything you do – beware multi-tasking.

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Chris Krimitsos. For many, Chris needs no introduction as the founder of the Podfest Multimedia expo, the world’s premier conference for all things podcasting and new media.

Chris is also the founder of the Tampa Bay Business Owners organization, CK Media Productions, and is a speaker and consultant. But, more than anything Chris is a master at creating and facilitating successful events. He’s has facilitated over 2000 successful events and recently started a podcast focused on helping people learn the secrets to creating and putting on great events. It’s called the Conference Cashflow Podcast.

I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with Chris and I am amazed how our philosophies and principles are so similar – so there is a lot we can talk on today, but I want to focus first on what you can learn from Chris about how to put on a great, successful event.

www.Podfest.us

www.chriskrimitsos.com

Chris grew up in New York and had a lot of inspiration from his uncles. They came as immigrants with nothing in their pockets. They worked hard, got into the restaurant industry, and were very successful. He would learn from them and started his first business at 13 years old selling candy. He was serial entrepreneur ever since. He moved to Florida in the mid 2000’s and invested in real estate. He was fortunate to have exited before the crash.

Chris then got into production and produced two live TV shows. After some success, he started a group known as the Tampa Bay Business Owners. After growing it substantially, he sold it. He then started Podfest and is now its 6th year.

Why should people consider doing events as part of their business strategy?

• There is something about today’s day and age that life events can do that things like social media cannot.
• Coming together with people of the same interests is something people crave.
• It is also a great way to drive business and create income.

Putting on over 2000 events – what would you say are the critical elements someone needs to have to create successful event?

• You need an audience that is hungry for the information.
• You must be very specific about you are teaching and the topic of the event.
• If you can’t describe in 4-5 bullet points what they will walk away with, the there is an issue.
• The best speakers are not always professional ones, but great subject matter experts.
• Make sure to have early bird pricing and then raise your rate as you get closer to the event.
• Never set up more chairs than you have tickets sold.

At the 10 min mark, Chris gives two case study examples on how to pick speakers and find the right ones.

• Make sure you speaker is relatable to your audience. You cannot have a disconnect with your audience and your speaker.
• You always want to have someone that is a step ahead of your audience, but not 4-5 steps ahead.

Talk to us about the size event, what do people need to know?

• Starting out smaller is good and “big” when you are starting out is 20 or so people.
• You can do meetups 1x a month and then once a year do a larger event of 100 or more.
• Look what is happening in the local area, see if there is a need that is being underserved, and then create your event to serve it.
• You have to watch your expenses closely.
• Don’t go “free.” At minimum, have a contribution amount of $10 or so and make it optional.
• You want to have value on what you are doing. You can then graduate to fee based.
• Once you establish a following, then you can do larger events at $50 to $100 to attend and so on.

How do you promote and get people to come to an event?

• For local events, the simplest way is to make sure you have the city name in your title of your event.
• There are 3 very simple ways to get traffic:
  • Setup a Meetup Page which you can invite people to.
  • Sell your tickets on Evenbrite and use their marketing expertise.
  • Setup a Facebook event page and spend $50-100 targeting people in the local area.

Best secrets to make an event memorable?

• People show up for the education, but they come back for the collaboration.
• Make sure to leave room and breaks for people to connect and collaborate. Create an experience.
• For local Meetups, 1x a month is a good cadence with special workshops that are a premium.

Are there any big “don’ts” for events?

• Be very careful not to overpay with hotels and watch your food and beverage minimums
• If you can get the room for the value of the room and not do food and beverage, if you don’t need it.
• Make sure the hotel is right for your needs. Smaller hotels will charge just for the room and it will cost a couple of hundred dollars for the day

If someone would like to speak at an event, what should they do?

• A lot of promotors these days that work with millennials don’t want to be approached by a representative – they want to be contacted by the speaker themselves.
• Promotors are doing the best they can to fulfill their audience needs, so make sure you know what the audience is looking for.
• If you do get selected – make sure your presentation is beautiful and clear with more pictures, so people can see it and understand it.
• Make sure you give the audience what they are looking for, not just what you want to share.

What are your feelings on the current state of podcasting and what does the future hold over the next few years?

• Podcasting has really just started growing.
• 30% of the US is using podcasting, but are not “powerusers.”
• A lot more money is coming into the space to advertise and fund content.
• We will see growth like we haven’t seen before…

Any specific things people should watch and follow in podcasting?

• Podcasting is on demand audio that is searchable through the internet.
• It can be SEO and content rich.
• You can use podcasts for some many things – ways to market your business, fill a need, focus on a very small niche.
• Don’t look at it as an interview show, look at it as searchable content.

What are some critical habits that you believe all entrepreneurs should practice in today’s world?

• Being present in the moment.
• Using time effectively – focus and not waste it.
• Be very conscious to remove all time-wasting distractions from your work life that you can.

What is your best advice for an entrepreneur starting out?

• Design a future that is worth living into.
• Spend time visualizing that future.
• Make sure your why is big enough that the how become irrelevant.

At the 33 min mark, Chris talks about how to manifest your future and your why…

• Burn your “why” into your brain by visualizing what it is you are going to live into. What you intently focus on will become reality.
• Visualize while in motion if you can.
• Your why centers around the reason you are doing what you do – know what achieving your success looks like and how you celebrate it. This is really celebrating your why.
• If your why is strong – you will break through any issues with the how.
• Where do you want to go? What does it look like? Taste like? Smell like? Sound like? Etc. Go that deep…

Best Quote: "Design a future that is worth living into..."

Chris's Misfit 3:

1. Keep your feet on the ground and your eyes on the stars

2. Make sure you have a future that is worth living into

3. Monitor your self-talk and how you are programming your brain

Hello Misfit Nation! Welcome to another edition of "Lessons for Hannah!" In November of 2016, we introduced a new format that we are putting alongside our regular episodes called “Lessons for Hannah.” Hannah is my daughter and one of the main inspirations for the Misfit Entrepreneur. I wanted to have a place where she could go and learn from her daddy and his Misfit friends throughout her life….even after I am gone. If you haven’t listened to the first episode of "Lessons for Hannah," I urge you to as it gives some more background and tells the amazing story of how Hannah came to be in our lives.

"Lessons for Hannah" are short, very useful, and sometimes comical lessons, that I have learned which I want to share with you and give to Hannah to help in your lives. Because I want Hannah to have these for her life, I’m going to speak as though I am talking directly to her. These episodes are a lot of fun and if you think there is a lesson that we should include in these episodes, please don’t hesitate to send it over to us at support@misfitentrepreneur.com. We’d love to share it.

This week’s Lesson for Hannah

I want to talk to you about faith. Faith in god, faith in yourself, and faith in the goodness of others. If you look up faith in the dictionary, you get several different definitions, but the overarching meaning is to believe in something or have confidence in something without necessarily having the proof that it is yet true.

Faith is essential to success in life. Many times, the things we manifest in our minds or the dreams we have are not yet true. We can see them in our imagination so vividly, but yet, they do not exist. It is faith that keeps up going to make them a reality. Now, there are different kinds of faith as I mentioned at the beginning of this message. The first, and I believe most important one, is faith in god. You’ve heard me talk before about the miracle that any of us are even alive. In fact, the chances are 10 to the 2.5 millionth power or about as close to impossible as you can get. Taking that a step further than even the chances of you being alive is the even smaller chance that you were meant to be with your mother and I. When I think about this and think about all the amazing things we get to experience in our lives and the divine works that go into it, it is easy for me to have faith in God.

I know deep within in my soul that there is a creator and that I am blessed by them beyond belief – not because of the accomplishments we’ve had in life and the things we are able to afford and do (although those are incredible blessings too), but because I have you, your mother, our family, and our friends. God has given us a great book of life to live and equipped us with the abilities to write it. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that because of my faith in God things will turn out in the best way they are supposed to, in good times and in bad.

Aside from creating your own faith in God, you must have faith in yourself. You are more capable than you will ever know. I feel one of the most tragic traits of human beings is the incredible ability for many of us NOT to live up to our true potential. We make excuses for it or let things get in the way of our dreams, but the truth is many of us don’t have the faith in ourselves to truly go after what we know we are capable of. It goes beyond fear of failure to more of a fear of what happens if we succeed? Because we know, if we succeed, that we will need and want to continue to operate at those levels and beyond. We know that it would mean holding ourselves to a much higher standard. And it also means that people will judge us more based on actions and/or inaction and this can paralyze people and hold them back from achieving greatness. This is why you must develop faith in yourself to go beyond these things. An undeniable faith in the ability to reach your potential, dreams, goals, and aspirations is what has propelled us throughout time.

Along the way, there are some that just do not back down. Their faith in themselves creates the burning desire, an un-extinguishable flame to achieve greatness. History is riddled with examples of this for us, from Jesus Christ to the founders who wrote the Declaration of Independence and then mustered their faith to fight until they made the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident” ring throughout the world, to the soldiers who landed on the beaches of Normandy and defeated the most evil empire ever in the Nazi regime, to completing the “impossible task” of landing a man on the moon. Behind it all was faith. You too are capable of greatness when you have faith in God combined with an undeniable faith in yourself.

Lastly, have faith in the goodness of others. In the world we live in with media all around us coming from all directions this Is hard. It’s hard mainly because the majority of things reported or shared on a large scale are negative or divisive. I’m here to tell you that that is not reality. The reality is every day, almost 8 billion people, get up and are looking to better their lives with their families. The overwhelming majority of people are good and know right from wrong. And every day, there are far more acts of goodness and greatness than there are of negativity or wrongdoing. Those things just don’t grab attention as much as the shock of something terrible. Let me give you an example to put this in perspective. Every day, there are well over 100,000 plane flights taking place all over the world. Pilots encounter all sorts of things when they fly, many of which the passengers never even know. In fact, every day pilots all over the world, make decisions that save their passengers lives and prevent a disaster – but you never hear about that. You hear about maybe one flight per year or every other year that was a tragedy and it is plastered all over the news for days. Think about that – one flight out of millions upon millions – when all the while heroes are saving others.

It is the same with people. Heroes are all around us. We are heroes in some way, if not every day, probably every week. Have faith in people. Have faith in the goodness of the human spirit and understand that while there will be failings of it and bad things will happen – there is a lot more good in this world than there is bad.

Hannah, I could go on this topic for hours and hopefully, if you mother and I have done our job somewhat well, you already have these faiths instilled in you. Embrace them, make them yours and use them to help you in reaching your full potential in your spiritual life, your contribution to the world, and with your fellow man. Remember, faith backed by committed action can achieve great things.

I love you,

Daddy

Best Quote: “Faith is essential to success in life. Many times, the things we manifest in our minds or the dreams we have are not yet true. We can see them in our imagination so vividly, but yet, they do not exist. It is faith that keeps up going to make them a reality."

Misfit 3:

1. Faith is essential to success in life.
2. Aside from creating your own faith in God, you must have faith in yourself. You are more capable than you will ever know. We are heroes in some way, if not every day, probably every week.
3. Have faith in people. Have faith in the goodness of the human spirit and understand that while there will be failings of it and bad things will happen – there is a lot more good in this world than there is bad.