Chris Farrell went from being a radio presenter to earning a million dollars in a day with an online course. In this episode of the Knowledge Industry Podcast he tells Mark Egan how he mastered teaching online and how he can now travel and work from anywhere. Listen here or read the transcript below.
To get free access to the book mentioned by Chris during the podcast go to http://www.projectreinventyourself.com/mark
To learn more about communicating and monetising your expertise go to MarkEganVideo.com
Transcript:
00:00
Coming up on the knowledge industry podcast,
chris farrell 00:02
I was actually proud, but I knew nothing about this business. And two years later, I had my first $1 million day. That was $1 million of sales within 24 hours. I remember clearly weirdly feeling a bit embarrassed. And I was thinking, why am I barest about this?
00:21
Do you sell online courses or run live workshops? Do you have expertise that can help people in life or business? Are you even running an online training Empire from your kitchen table? Then you’re part of the knowledge industry, a fast growing industry, that means that you can learn almost anything, and anyone can create a business around what’s between their ears. Welcome to the knowledge industry podcast with your host, Mark Egan.
mark egan 00:49
Hello, and welcome. I’m really pleased you’re here. Let me just briefly introduce myself. My name is Mark Egan, used to work for the BBC worked in broadcasting. And then when COVID-19 struck my business of training people in workshops and going in filming, creating social media content for brands, that was all completely wiped out overnight, I had a computer, a camera, and the internet. And I had to start effectively a brand new business. There are a few scary moments, but I managed to pull it off and now basically run a business from my spare bedroom. But what I realized is pretty much everybody has something of value to teach. And that’s why we’re seeing the growth of what I call the knowledge industry. throughout your life. Now you’ll constantly have to learn new things, pivot change directions, and online courses and workshops allow you to do that. Now today’s guest is chris farrell. And he went from being a radio presenter in the broadcasting industry to a very successful online educator. How did he do it? And what can you and I learn from it? So I’m joined by Chris Pharrell. Chris, how are you doing? Where are you in the world?
01:49
Mark, it’s such a treat to be invited here. Thank you so much. I’m very excited to be your guest here. I am currently in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, of all places, I just relocated from Los Angeles, and I’m here in the West Country and loving it, you know, the forester dean at all?
02:06
I don’t, but I’m sure you’ll invite me over after this. But that’s the reason I asked. The reason I asked Chris is because whenever I speak to you, so I’m in New York, now, I’m in Los Angeles. You know, that’s, that seems to be your life. But let’s, let’s take you back to that when you were in the real world. Before you got into the whole knowledge industry, you worked on radio, you know, like me, you’re in the broadcast industry. So tell me a bit about what you used to do, and how you’ve ended up moving across into kind of online education.
02:35
Okay, well, I guess everything kind of started, like, you know, maybe most of the listeners who have the knowledge industry with, with passions and interests that we had when we were kids, I remember being a kid, I loved storytellers, I loved my English teacher school, he was always a great orator, he rose engage pupils in his classes, how we would recount tales or even poetry, I seem to recall, obviously, at a very young age, I kind of had that thing seeded about good communicators. And I remember being about remember, clearly, I was 11 years old, and then the hearing of a local radio station in Essex, where I grew up. And I remember thinking, hang on, you can earn a living by talking, this sounds like the best job ever. So a very young age, I kind of had that seed sown, that if you can communicate well, obviously didn’t think of it as analytically as this as a kid. But if you could communicate well, you could earn a living. And so kind of long story short, I kind of decided that radio was the career for me. And I just enjoyed people that were entertaining and engaging, and would invoke curiosity when you listen to them on air. And like a lot of people in any industry really, you kind of you learn your trade kind of issue like away from let’s call it the spotlight for want of a better word. And I did this for four or five years at various radio stations around the country. I then got asked by heart, which is the seal is the biggest radio as she’s known as the biggest radio network in the UK to come to London to do their mid morning show. And so I then presented the mid morning show in London for about 20 years. Only Rick Ross, I recently got it was 15 years ago. So leaving to go and live in America and totally like you’ve done mark in your career, and I suspect many listeners have the knowledge industry have either done in their career or are thinking about doing right now. And if so, we love the fact that you’re here. I completely pivoted and moved away from broadcasting into the into the online world. So that’s kind of where
04:28
and what was the What was the reason for that? I mean, because you know, you got a successful career. You know, you’re doing the mid morning show on Hart you know, playing lighthouse family, Robbie Williams, whatever you were doing, you know, was it was it because you moved location that you kind of decided to reinvent yourself?
04:45
I’ve there’s two reasons really. First one is maybe a little bit more practical, and that is I moved to America. I just got married and moved to America. And I didn’t know any body anything about America so I had to start to earn a living If I remember clearly thinking, I’ve got six months savings, and after that I’m at zero. So it’s like I needs to come up with something, I need to kind of start something and make something work. I also had always enjoyed people that tried new things, I had a stat the other day mark, they said that one in two people are going to be doing a different job in two years from now. I think it’s very prevalent at the moment with everything that’s going on the world, you know, we are in an industry, we are in an environment where we can take what we know and and completely pivot and completely maneuver like you’ve done into completely different line of work. So I always admired people that had done this entrepreneurs, I guess, the Richard Branson’s of the world that have taken something new and gone off on a different trajectory. Plus, I had a practical thing and thinking, well, I’ve only got six months worth of savings before I run out of money. So it was then that I started looking, I guess, like a lot of your listeners have done just looking at this whole online thing. And back then this is 2006 2005. You know, the web was relatively new. It was still it’s funny to think that this was even time even buying stuff online. You remember that feeling? It was like you were a little bit nervous about clicking the buy button? Of course, now we do. You thought you make maybe never see that money again, you know, exactly thing. Am I really going to get this. Of course, obviously, that’s now totally changed. So I was kind of in that spot of thinking, well, I I’m intrigued at this whole online thing. I know that money can be made, I don’t quite understand it. In fact, I mean, I’ve often talked about the fact and this really is not an exaggeration, I could use Google, I could use word I could search the internet. And that was it. I knew nothing about online marketing, creating a product, making money, creating content, getting out there, building a tribe, engaging with your tribe, building a list, monetizing all that sort of good stuff. So I actually had that luxury, if you like of ignorance and starting from ground zero. But understanding that this web was a game changer. It’s the new industrial revolution. So I just really threw myself I’ve always been pretty good at learning, I’ve always been quiet doesn’t really faze me that I get quite excited about it. So I’m just going to immerse myself in this business. And if we think about it, think about anything, if you and I now were having a conversation about I don’t know, learning how to speak Spanish, or how to play the guitar or how to code, we would know that that is a skill that we would have to learn. And the irony is that having an online businesses, a successful online business is exactly the same. All it is is a skill, that therefore by the very definition of what a skill is, can be learned. And so that kind of gave me quite a bit of confidence thinking this is something that I can learn. So I just need to sit down and do some due diligence, learn. And I remember getting up at four o’clock in the morning, and hustling and learning about building a website and getting people to visit the websites then getting people to opt in and then engaging with those people that have opted in. Ironically, again, now things are 1000 times easier, you can build websites with the view, you know, within 10 minutes, really with some great services that are out there.
08:00
But that’s kind of where I started. But there must have been some moments there, though. Because a lot of people have tried, you know, to put up an online course and therefore there must be moments everything actually my money’s running out, actually show this is gonna work.
08:13
Yeah. Well, for some reason, I organically understood the importance of having a tribe. In other words, the importance of having some people that you can communicate with and if you think about any successful business, they already have people like I mean, apples, obviously, you know, the creme de la creme, but anytime they release anything, they already have a tribe of people that they can tweet, they can email they can they can communicate to about what this thing is that they’re about to do. That makes it 1000 times easier than trying to find continually find new customers all the time. So I worked really hard mark and first six months, I’ve actually not worrying too much about making money. But instead of wanting to build a list of people that I could engage with the kind of comes back a guest to my English lessons when I was a kid, you never get that second chance to make a first impression. My teacher in English classes was engaging to us pupils. So I thought if I can create a relationship with people, if people can sign up to my list and think I kind of like this English guy, he kind of just sounds like the guy next door is not trying to sell something straightaway. Again, as I’ve just said, we never get that second chance to make that first impression. So I saw a real opportunity just to kind of be myself online, build a list of people. And there’s a saying that if you’re good to your list, in other words, if you communicate with them, if you maybe share some things that you are learning in an easy to understand manner, we can come onto that simplicity of doing this in a few moments time. But when the time comes, what let me back up if you’re good to your list, when the time comes for you to recommend a product or service to your list, they will be good back to you. So I really understood as indeed in any relationship in any friendship that is given take, isn’t it, you listen, you you speak you communicate. And so I was I understood the importance of creating a tribe. People that I could communicate with, that I could engage with, when the time came when I had something to present to them would offer to them, I think
10:12
that you’re gonna say the thing that you’re offering to them, presumably, you will kind of figuring stuff out, mastering it, and then being able to teach other people to do the same thing was that kind of band started
10:24
exactly what it was. That’s exactly exactly to the nail what it was, I would spend, I get up a few mornings at four o’clock in the morning, spend a few mornings learning something, and anything doesn’t take that long to learn if you if you really focus, and I was focused on learning anything, okay? Okay. All right, I get it. Now, I’ll do it a few more times. Okay, I’ve sort of get it to a few more times, right? I sort of understand this now. And then you’re right, then I would teach it, they say the best way to understand something is to teach it. And it’s absolutely true. Because that’s another thing and you’re very good at this, it is one thing to note something. I’m sure many listening right now to the knowledge industry might be thinking the same, but it’s one thing to know something. But it’s a completely different thing, to be able to explain that thing in an easy to understand and an engaging manner. And I don’t know whether it’s being English, I don’t know whether it’s that I’m certainly not the quickest person I, I personally, when I learned something, I need to have it broken down. I need to be explained step by step. Here’s what we’re doing. step one, step two, step three. Most people by the way, don’t do that. They’re too quick. They use terms that they assume people understand. And I’m, I’ve always been very confident say, look, hey, I don’t understand what you mean, I need this to be explained this to me, like I’m a five year old. That’s how I need to understand stuff. And I’m, I have no shame or embarrassment, admitting that. And so when I had stuff broken down, and when I really understood it, only then could I articulate it back to other people in an easy to understand manner. And that kind of became ironically my kind of, if you like, unique selling point, the fact that I would break down seemingly complex things, and explain them in an easy to understand manner. And just doing that,
12:00
do you think that do you think that do you think that came though, from your broadcast background? You know, were there things that you are taking from your past to actually think, weirdly enough, this really applies to online education.
12:13
It’s, it’s so I love the fact you’ve asked that because, at first I didn’t even think about the radio thing. And the presenting an online I thought they were too you know, hey, I’ve done radio, I loved it now do something completely different. But the more I got into this online world, the more I realized there’s so many parallels between the two. And it all comes down to one thing, it org, any success comes down to one thing, and it’s the ability to be able to communicate something, simply be able to communicate something effectively. Yes, there’s tactics, there’s webinars, there’s automated things. But that’s all kind of, you know, tactical stuff that you can hang on on top of all of this. Well, let’s break it down to brass tacks. You know, we’re all busy these days, listeners right now, to this podcast, you might be in your car, you might be in your kitchen, you might be on your treadmill, but we’ve one thing we never have enough of his time, everybody’s busy. So we have to, we have to be conscious that we have to communicate things succinctly. And to answer your question, Mark, I think that the reason that the broadcasting helps effectively, particularly when you’re doing excuse me, entertainment is often you are told, you know, you have Chris, you’ve got four minutes until the news is a 10 isn’t next, or you’ve got a guest, and you’ve got time for one more question. So you have to get good at brevity. And there’s an interesting thing about the online world, because anybody really now can do something online. Most people are unaware of being concise with their language. Most people. Let’s talk let’s talk about podcasting. doing what you’re doing. Most people think that they can, they can interview somebody, but most people can’t. Because most people don’t listen, there’s a lot of sub subliminal things going on. They’re wanting to ask a smart question. So they sound smart for the listeners. And they’re not really listening to what somebody is saying. and engaging a real danger of that will be there will be no smart questions. I guess it all comes down to talking to people rather than than at people. And so on the radio, this is sorry, this is a bit of a long winded way of answering question. But you asked, you know, did the radio help the online? Absolutely, because I learned how to communicate effectively, and simplify things. And I find that most people would like to learn like that. Most it’s easy to feel, isn’t it as if everybody else if you ever felt this everybody has got it dialed in. And I’m sort of like, I feel a bit embarrassed. I don’t really understand it. I know, as I’m sure you do. But most of the like the names, if you like in the online world, you know, they’re all buddies of mine. I’ve hung out with loads of them at Thanksgiving at parties at the houses and done events around the world. And everybody’s the same, they’re bumbling through, they’re not really sure about certain things as I remember a huge, huge breakthrough moment was one of the provision mentioned to me. So I went by the name that everybody will know. And we were having a conversation and I thought to be successful in the online world hasn’t any any business. You had to have every component of that dialed in, you know, track Big email marketing, pay per click advertising all these various components, webinars, and all of these are separate, you know, huge things on their own. And this guy was said to me said, I don’t know anything about that. And I was like, wait, what he has not got the first idea. And that to me with such kind of as almost gave me permission to think, you know, imperfect action, we don’t have to nail everything. I love that book, ready fire aim. You know, in particular, when it comes to the knowledge industry, if you’ve got a bit of knowledge about something, we talked about this a few moments time, let’s just get something out there quickly. Let’s make it perfect. Later, take imperfect action. Because that really is the key. And it sounds a bit cliche, but that really is the key to having success. And, and most
15:44
to drop you there. But but you can, you know, I mean, that’s how you got started, you were, you know, learning things, putting it out there and taking imperfect action, like you were saying, you know, putting stuff out there, what worked, what didn’t work? What was the point like if you know, just to get across to people, how you went from kind of nothing to success? What was the point where you thought, actually, you know, I think I’ve cracked this sort of online education thing, you know, what was the moment where you thought, yeah, I figured this out? That’s brilliant
16:12
question. Well, probably too. And I hope you don’t mind. But I’m going to use financial successes, because that’s, that’s obvious. Not everything. But of course, it’s usually important. And it’s, it’s also quite easy to, to, you know, you can see a tangible number in a bank account, let’s say it’s, it’s quite easy, therefore, to see something. And one of them was I started in line on 2008. This is how I was, I was actually proud, but I knew nothing about this business. And two years later, I had my first $1 million day, that was $1 million of sales within 24 hours, creating a product, selling it. And all it actually made 3.2 million over over the week. But within that week, there was a 24 hour period of $1 million in sales. And when I achieved that, after two years of starting, that was clearly one of those moments where I was thinking, gosh, but here’s the thing with that mark, even that if if we kind of like put it under the microscope, and actually kind of look tactically at how that was achievable. That is essentially exactly what we are talking about. And all I did all in inverted commas was built a list of people engaged with that list over a few months without selling them anything, getting them to know like, and trust me, and, and then started to see this thing that was releasing in the summer is all about affiliate marketing. That was going to be $2,000. And $1 million in sales is only 500 people buying. Now if you’ve got a list of a 10,000 or so, which is relatively easy to do within a few months, and you only need to make 500 of those, or only convert 500 of those into into sales. Suddenly, my point here is I don’t want this to sound like something that’s absolutely inconceivable a million dollars in 20 browsers no way I could do anything like that, well, let’s just let’s zoom out a little bit, if you are building a list, and if you are engaging with that, and if you can convert 500 out of you know, 10,000 What’s that? Is that a 5% conversion? I think it is, which is easily doable, suddenly these numbers become achievable. But the only reason any of that could have happened is is because I was doing what you’re very good at, which is this communication, which is allowing people to know like, and trust me in the first place. So that that $1 million day was mean, it changed everything for me. And not only financial made a difference, but can really put me on the map, then I was asked to speak at events and stuff like that. But the second thing was I also had a membership site back in the day. And I use the same kind of business model, and the membership site was only was it 27 or 37. I think it started off at 27. But yeah, sorry, it was $37 a month to join my membership site. And the reason I did it quite a low price point was because again, the numbers, you only need 27 paying customers paying you $37 a month to make $1,000 extra a month. And for me that was mind blowing. I was like thinking hang on 27 people essentially equals $1,000 a month. Now I always like to very quickly clarify, we will obviously never want to judge I never judge anybody just as a, you know, a credit card number which a lot of people do. These are real people with hopes and dreams and fears and aspirations just like all of us. But if we remember that, and then back to what really, you know, is your new passion. If we communicate that effectively, then suddenly the numbers become quite quite scary because you can get 27 people buying something that’s $37 every month, the next month, it’s it’s you know, it’s double that it’s 54 suddenly, that’s, you know, obviously 2000 then it becomes compounding. So now you got this residual income, this recurring income, which is great business model. So this thing that I did where I had a million dollars a day, that was that was a launch and obviously that was good. But I’ve never, but I don’t believe lunches are a business, I think they’re more of a bonus, you know, it’s not something you can do every day. So it’s a nice little kind of maybe once or twice a year, I mean, it’s still obviously very nice once or twice a year. But as a business, you need to have something that’s a little bit more got a little bit more legs and a little bit more stable, like a solid, sturdy table. And that’s by having something like, in my case, a membership site, this a low price point, low barrier to entry, where I can be in there everyday engaging and creating new staff and sharing and maybe spending half an hour in a Facebook group answering questions, allowing people to know like, and trust you. So that’s essentially to answer the question, they were the kind of the two things that made me think, gosh, there’s something in this whole online thing,
20:42
I have to say, you know, that 27 by 37 thing, because, you know, like, you know, my story with COVID, my business of you know, video production and going delivering training and speaking all over the world, just wiped out immediately. And actually, you know, I was able to pivot completely to online. And I got quite a few sort of messages from people a little bit baffled by, you know, some of the things I’d said or posted. But again, it’s it because it can scale, you don’t need lots and lots of people to buy an online course for it to be a useful income. And right now, with a lot of people struggling, you know, I think a lot of people don’t have that awareness that actually, you would not need to have a huge audience have a very expensive course, to actually make something that would pay your rent or your mortgage for the month. And you know, when you had those, you know, million dollar days, I love the way you just throw it in there, you know, you know, the million dollar days, you know, you know how it is? Oh, God. No, no, I’m joking. You must have had people who, you know, even I though some of the things I’ve put out, like marketing videos, people from my past industries have sent me direct messages like, well, what the hell’s happened to you? Because it’s almost like a different world, you know, kind of, you know, from broadcasting and it’s like you’ve defected or something, you know, that you must have had like that little niggling thing in your head of people thinking, you know, this kind of making money online thing. It’s all some kind of sleazy, weird industry, did you get any kind of negative feedback from your previous life?
22:20
I love that question.
22:21
I remember clearly weirdly feeling a bit embarrassed. And I was thinking, why am I embarrassed about this? Why what is triggering the fact that I’m kind of creating this whole new thing, and I am a little bit embarrassed about it. And I don’t know whether that was more. I don’t know whether it was more honestly kind of a Catholic upbringing in light kind of issues with you know, with money really, and kind of needing to to allow my my mindset about money to slightly change. But I certainly did at first, but, but the way I got around, it was, I mean, I was always good at this anyway. But I was old, I would only ever talk about anything that I had actually done myself. And if I promoted other products, which wasn’t that rare, but I do it now. And again, I had this thing where I would only ever promote anything, if either AI knew the person that created the product, or B I actually used it myself. So I kind of said to myself, and again, I’m not just saying this to say the right thing, but I kind of said to myself, I’m not going to talk about anything, or teach anything or share anything that I genuinely could look somebody in the eyes if I was having a coffee and a talk about so yeah, that that’s great that that’s good. And that kind of made me feel like well, I kind of believe in what I’m doing. I do enjoy it. And so that kind of allowed me to sort of overcome that those feelings. But yes, I did have those at first. And I think anybody does, I think there’s a slight element of thinking, people are going to kind of, you know, laugh at me if I fail, or they’re gonna think what’s the what’s crisc trying to do. But that’s why doing anything new. I’ve always believed that the number one skill, all of us need to embrace his courage. And when it comes to starting up a new business, you know, we all suffer from, we’ve all got issues, whether it’s like imposter syndrome, or anxiety or depression or stuff that nobody really wants to talk about these days, particularly the online world, particularly in the social media world. You know, our lives are literally filtered, not just metaphorically, but literally filtered as well. So I think there’s this real kind of gaping hole at the moment just for vulnerability and realness and saying, Hey, you know, I’m kind of struggling a little bit here if you like, but I’m going to do this thing or the same people very, very quickly. Look at people like I don’t know, David Goggins. I’ve just read his book. And Russell Brand even is a very good example is in Jordan Peterson, they will talk about this this vulnerability, how everybody is going through something. And so therefore, if I think we kind of acknowledge that people are very smart these days, people are very savvy. We all know those kind of slick marketers, or we just don’t get a good feeling when we we listen to them. Those days are kind of over the knowledge industry these days is about sharing something that you know about. Sharing your vulnerabilities, letting people get to know you a little bit, share a little bit about your story. It wasn’t Anthony Robbins that once said that said, a core fundamental drive of all of us is to belong to something, it doesn’t matter if it’s a scout group or a football team or a yoga club, we want to feel like we belong to something. And so therefore my point is, if online, we can very quickly do this, people can very quickly feel as if they belong to your tribe. That’s how we start to create relationships. And
25:28
you’re jumping. You’re jumping out of my next question here, we’re
25:34
coming up on the knowledge industry podcast,
25:36
how am I now at the end of the day, incrementally, a little bit better than I was this morning, when it comes to growing my business? If you can’t answer that you’ve wasted your day. So we want to get into a habit every day thinking, right? This is baby steps. This is imperfect action. But
25:55
don’t forget, if you’ve got any questions, comments, or suggestions, join the knowledge industry group on Facebook. If you want to learn more about using video to educate, connect and build rapport with your audience, go to mark Egan video.com. If somebody’s listening to this, and they’re thinking, like, wow, okay, that my million dollar days, I quite like that 27 by 37 thing, you know, I really, that could make my life a hell of a lot easier. Sure. And we all know that this industry is growing and growing and growing and growing. You know, if there’s anything COVID has taught us, it’s that we constantly need to learn new things and be flexible, and you know, life is changing. And these kind of micro niche courses are often our bridge from getting through a problem or learning something quickly, we need to know even if it’s, you know, immediately how do we use zoom? How do you make a presentation on zoom? Oh, there’s a little course for that somewhere. So if somebody is now convinced they’re thinking, you know, actually, I really, you know, I know stuff. I’ve, whether it’s been a parent, or yoga or journalism, something that you think I actually want to teach this, but I want it to be sustainable. That’s why it’s good knowledge industry, this podcast, is because it’s one thing, having the knowledge, another thing, being able to teach it and another thing actually being able to make it sustainable financially. What would be your advice going from, you know, broadcast industry, into the point where you’re able to travel the world live where you want, you know, you’ve got a laptop, you have a business? What would be your advice to somebody who’s at the very beginning of this journey? It seems kind of overwhelming, what would you say?
27:26
I would say two things. Firstly, and most importantly, is that you do not have to be an expert, you do not have to be perfect. We all feel as if we’d love to do something like this, but who’s going to listen to me, I don’t really know enough, you know, I’m not, I’m not that great, an orator. I’m not that great communicator, I remember once speaking to a member, her name is Natalie was the name. And she said to me, she said, Chris, who would care about me, I’m a mum, I’m divorced, I’ve got three kids who would who would even care about my story. And I said, The very fact that you are a mum, your divorce, you’ve got three kids suddenly makes you hugely relatable to a huge contingent of society. So you don’t have to be perfect. To get started, you don’t have to feel that you’re an expert in a particular subject matter, you have to know something, just a small amount. And if you don’t, I know that talked about this a few minutes as well. A lot of people are thinking why I don’t actually know what I would do. And that’s often not talked about. So let’s come back to that. Because I think that’s a very important thing to illustrate and communicate. If someone’s listening and thinking, I’d love to have an online income a lot around a few 1000 extra month, but I don’t even know, I don’t even know what I teach about. So we’ll come back to that. But my two takeaways from your question mark are, you don’t have to be perfect. I saw I forgotten your question. Now. You
28:39
said somebody beginning and I know you hinted at building a tribe. But yeah, somebody feels kind of overwhelmed where, you know, what would you do? If you’re sitting down? You’ve got you. You’re in the coffee coffee shop? They said, Look, yes, Chris, can I pick your brains? What would you do?
28:56
I would say, the most important thing you can do is get good at having daily habits. And by that I mean, this I have this habit in front of me all the time, I think of my daily log here, where I track habits and routines and things that I do every day. And I’m trying to think that the easiest way to explain this, my answer would be every day. You want to go to bed that day. And ask yourself honestly, what you now know that you didn’t know when you woke up this morning. incremental growth, you know, how can you be I think Jordan Peterson talks about this, funnily enough, how can you be it sounds a little bit cliched, but it is true. That’s why cliches are cliches because they’re based in truth. How am I now at the end of the day, incrementally, a little bit better than I was this morning when it comes to growing my business. If you can’t answer that you’ve wasted your day. So we want to get into a habit everyday of thinking right? This His baby steps, this is imperfect action, I’m going to incrementally grow, even if it’s point 1% every day, and I’m going to do something I’m going to chip away at learning this whole knowledge industry. As you said, Mark, there’s, there’s now tools out there things like kajabi, for example, that allow you to have everything in one place where you can essentially make money by selling information. So that would be a great place to start. Once we get comfortable by thinking, Okay, I’m gonna have incremental growth, I’m going to make baby steps every day. What am I therefore going to make incremental growth on? What am I going to make baby steps on maybe, let’s say learning something such as, let’s say kajabi, learning an online tool that gives you a real tangible, actionable focus thing, you’re thinking great. For the next two weeks, I’m going to learn this thing. And then every day, when you go to be thinking, what did I actually learn today, she’ll learn actually how simple it is just create a very simple, one page website, how I can use their templates and how I can populate them with my own content. I feel really good about that. I didn’t even know that 24 hours ago. And that’s just going to compound The next day, you’re going to be excited. And that excitement and that growth, I know you’ve experienced that I’ve experienced that. It’s quite incredible, how intoxicating and how captivating that is. It kind of keeps pushing you forward. But I would say we need to be you know, discipline is the key to success. Again, it sounds a little bit contrived, but it’s true. We need to be disciplined. We need to genuinely say to ourselves, this is why I have this thing called daily logs I keep mentioning every day at the end of every day I write down what was I wrote my three victories of the day. If when if we if we can’t answer these questions, then we’re really faking ourselves out. This is something that we’d like to do. But we can’t really be bothered. And we’ll have a coffee. And we will just you know, we look at Facebook for a few minutes or scroll through Instagram. Look, don’t waste time. appetit is one of my favorite kind of gurus, if you want he was a stoic 2000 years ago, he said, when you’re going to stop to procrastinate, you’ll no longer a child, and yet you waste time when you’re going to realize what you can become. And it’s all through just taking daily small focus action. We’ve heard it 1000 times, but most people don’t do it. And that’s because we let our mind roll out Dave, that’s, that’s a challenge.
32:11
So in that sense, it’s having kind of a structure a plan. You know, if you don’t schedule things, things that happen, and also assessing, looking back and thinking, what did I learn? So when you’re trying to figure out what I can teach other people, you can actually look back and say, This is the journey I’ve been on Oh, I know that for I love to do this. So and that can give you ideas for things that you can help other people with. Now I’m going to hold you to could you sit to remind you as somebody listening to this, and they’re like, Oh, yeah, that’s all right. But you know, I don’t have any particular certificate that says I can do anything or, you know, maybe I’ve raised children. But you know, that’s not something I can teach. Is it? What what, how do people figure out what kinds of things they could teach?
32:51
Well, firstly, the biggest seller online is information. So as you alluded to earlier, you, you can, people will buy information about anything. So information is the biggest seller online, so don’t think that there’s going to be nobody wanting to buy what it is just look@lynda.com and Udemy, and people having independent courses. But if you’re thinking which I did as well, you know, who’s gonna want to learn from me, I don’t really know anything about anything in particular, a really good way to frame what you could possibly create a course about or get into the knowledge industry about is, is ask yourself, what have you struggled with yourself in your life? What is it that you have had to overcome? What have you found that has been a hurdle or a setback or a challenge or an obstacle or something that you actually had had a challenge with? Because if you can really identify that, and we’ve all got stuff like that, we’ve all got stuff like that, if you can look at yourself thinking yeah, I kind of I was battling with that, or procrastination or limiting beliefs or whatever. That is a huge clue about what you should be doing. You should be helping people that have gone through exactly what it is that you’ve gone through. Because your truth, when you talk about that, it’s just going to shine through, you’re going to find it effortless to communicate about this subject matter because you’re really speaking from a deep vulnerability place of having been there yourself. And that is what we talked about early Martin, that is what’s going to connect people to us. If you’re listening right now and you thinking I’d love to have an online business. I don’t really know what to talk about. Ask yourself, what have you battled with? What have you overcome in your life? What challenges have you gone gone through? That is the exact thing that you should be exploring, creating a course about or helping others because that is your purpose? If you are unaware what your purpose could be, when I finally understood that it was like, wow, that makes so much sense. And ironically, through helping others you’re not helping yourself as well.
34:46
Because I think what people often don’t understand is the range of things people are making courses on. That could be absolutely micro, you know, it could be you know, you’re buying a property in Spain. You know, here’s some kind of advice because we just did it. Three months ago, to parenting to get marketing, you know, all sorts of things. So getting close to the end here, just when your thoughts on you know, right now, people can do like you and I do. You’ve got an internet connection, a laptop, and a webcam, you have a business now potentially a using the knowledge between your ears. Where do you like, you know, in big picture style? Where How big do you think this industry is going to become? And if somebody is thinking, Okay, how do I make sure I kind of ride that wave? What would you say?
35:41
I’d say we’ve only just really started, which is an incredibly exciting place to be. I feel that more people’s we talked about earlier, more people are more comfortable than ever before. We’re paying for stuff online, more people obviously accessing stuff through through their mobiles as well. This is going to be one of those industries that if you if you don’t get involved, you are just gonna get left behind. So you clearly just listen to this podcast, there’s a there’s something deep inside you. There’s a little spot, there’s some that’s kind of being triggered. And you you kind of know, and I remember this, I started a line in 2000. Was it six or eight hoes forget now so long ago, it was 2008. But anyway, but for like what I don’t, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this to you mark. What I have mentioned often not through intentionally is that I thought about this for 10 years. I remember clearly like in the early 2000s thinking about the online thing and taking you know, 810 years before I actually executed and kind of pulled the trigger. So to answer your question, anybody that’s just thinking about now, there’s never been a better time reminds me that saying, you know, when is the best time to plant a tree. The best time is 30 years ago, when is the second time best time to plant a tree? It’s right now, we all know how quickly Time goes, I would advise you if you’re interested in looking at having a little thing online that can eventually earn you a nice little residual income. Just start to get comfortable with thinking, Okay, I just need to commit to a bit of time might just be half an hour a day where if I get up earlier, I’m just going to study and I’m going to learn and I’m going to educate myself, because our learning equals our earnings. So if we do what we always done, we’re going to get what we’ve always got. Most people want their life to change particularly financially, but they don’t do anything differently. Well, we all know that quote from Einstein about insanity. Obviously, if we want to do something, if we want to make a change, clearly we need to do something that’s that’s different to what we’re doing right now, that very thing that you could do that’s a little bit different could be from tomorrow thinking, you know what, I’m going to stop procrastinating, and I am actually going to take action on this. It’s been sitting inside me for a while I know there’s something here, I’m going to look at that that website that mark spoke about, I’m gonna follow mark or me online and just start that journey of identifying how the knowledge industry is something that I can be part of, and just get good at. committing to this for half an hour every day, rearrange your schedule, get up early, before the kids, immerse yourself in learning something about this industry every day, do what I do, keep a daily log write down what you learn every day, just within a few weeks, you’ll find Gosh, I didn’t even know this two weeks ago. And I feel more confident to really explore this business even further.
38:14
You know, I always listen back to the podcast after the recording and try and pick out like a nice quote. But at the beginning. And I think just that last minute I could get about could take about 54 very quotable sentences. So thanks for that made my editing much more difficult. Now, obviously, just to finish up, you’re at the point now where, like I said, you, you’ve got the time to work from anywhere. You’re following other passions, you know, you’re writing comedy script, you’re doing all sorts of things, you know, helping young people get in a better financial education. I mean, just very briefly, where are you at now? What are you working on at the moment?
38:55
I appreciate you asking that. I’m really at the point now where I’m just wanting to be so. So conscious of what I spend my time doing. I don’t want to there’s a beautiful book called The five regrets of the dying. Have you have you read that book or heard of that book? No, no, it’s a lovely cheerful title, isn’t it? But it’s so it’s
39:15
the one with with nurses who work in hospitals or something that exists? Yes, I do remember Yes. No, actually, yeah, is it?
39:21
So essentially, it’s about this nurse called bronnie ware. And she looked after people that were dying, what palliative care essentially. But anyway, the point is she worked with hundreds or worked with hundreds of people that were literally going to be dying, and they kind of at their deathbed, and the weeks before him would share like their number one or their regrets. And she wrote a blog post about it that became so popular got turned into a book. And the kind of the number one regret we kind of all know this kind of intuitively was the number one regret was I just regret having not done something earlier in my life, really because of fear. And I think if we’re smart just even if you’re listening to this podcast right now. We can learn from people like this we can circumnavigate 3040 years and say, Look, we’ve all got fear. We all think we’re not good enough. We all don’t like how we look, we’ve all got insecurity, we’ve all got issues and what doesn’t help us a social media world, we feel as if nobody else has these challenges. But we’re the only ones therefore they we keep them varied even more. But you know, we’re all going through something. Everybody’s going through something. We’re all flawed. We’re all human. And that’s fine. That’s absolutely fine. So to answer your question, what I, what I now want to do is I don’t want to waste time I don’t want to not do stuff because of fear. Again, fears. Jim Carrey talks about fear he gives us great talk about fee. So fear is always gonna play a part of your life, a lot of people think they want to get rid of fear, you’re always going to have fear. And that’s okay. The key is to kind of continually live and manage it and kind of just kind of keep it at bay and, and almost embrace stuff that would make you a little bit fearful, whether it’s making videos or podcasts or online courses, it’s easy to say, I can’t do that. Do we really want to be that person for our kids? Do we really want to be that person that thinks I’m too scared to do it? So I’m not going to do it? Do we really want to be like Ronnie were says in the book, one of those people on their deathbed that regrets having not done something because of fear. So to answer your question, I’m kind of at the stage now, where I’m exploring other things like writing comedy. I teach kids how to be financially smart as well. And these things I’m genuinely really passionate and excited about, I don’t really want to waste time anymore. with people with things. You and I are working on a fun project, as well as talk about maybe talk about it down the road, but that excites me hugely as well. So I’m kind of just like wanting to do three or four things that I’m really, genuinely excited about. So that’s kind of where my head is at right now.
41:40
You know, listening to you speak, you’re a great communicator, great storyteller, you know, you can actually have a great career in radio, if you think about just leave that thought with you think? Yeah, you could, you could probably good I can. I’m gonna explore that. Thank you. Now, I actually couldn’t hear I mean, Chris, obviously, is well read and has achieved a lot. So I’m sure if somebody listening to this will think Well, actually, I want to find out more about this chris farrell chat, any particular place they should head to? Well,
42:10
I have a little free gift I’ve written called something I wrote, it’s called reinvents. And it’s, it’s kind of similar to what we’re talking about. And it’s about, I’m a huge believer that we’ve all got chapters or areas of our life that we kind of like to like to reinvent and whether it’s you know, get better financially, or health or spiritually or emotionally or business wise, or relationships, or contribution or whatever. So I’ve written a little thing about how to reinvent and it’s free gift. And if you go to project, reinvent yourself.com bit of a long name, admittedly, Ford slash mark, I’d love to offer you this gift for free. So that’s project reinvent yourself.com forward slash mark, and it’s gonna take you 30 minute read, but it’s a great little read. And quickly story, if you actually wrote the book myself, funnily enough, because for years of studying personal development, which I’ve been doing since I was 20, I’ve got so many books and binders and stuff all over the place, I thought I wanted to have one place where the bits that really resonate with me the most that really impacted me and helped me in my life all in one place. So if I want to dip into if I’m feeling a bit down or a bit lost any time, I kind of dip into this might, if you like, my ultimate cheat sheet for life. And everything is in one place, I kind of wrote reinvent for myself, and then give to a few friends and had had wonderful feedback. So I’m thinking of kind of putting it out there. So anyway, that’s the reason behind that project, reinvent yourself.com forward slash mark. And that would be the best place for us to, to hang out and stay in touch. You know, he
43:43
said it only 30 minutes I think you’re gonna do that’s how long will it take to type the URL? But you mean actually. It’s pretty catchy. I got entity really mastered this online marketing malarkey. Let’s see if somebody like Chris has completely incompetent URLs can make it was that URL again? Yeah, exactly. So project reinvented yourself. That sounds a bit. Yeah. I mean, I need to leave any.com forward slash mark. But yeah. But yeah. First of all, thanks for sharing your sort of your story, your expertise, your knowledge. And I think, like I said, there’s certain things that’ll stand up for different people. Some people will be like, wow, million dollar day, that’s amazing. Other people might be more attracted by the fact that you know, up against a wall, you found a way to kind of make a living other people might be attracted by the idea that Yeah, I’ve got something to share. Why am I not sharing it? This could be really useful to other people. But I think all in all the messages that you have knowledge that has value, and that can allow you to be sort of financially better off give you more freedom to do other things. Or maybe just actually, you know, pay But towards something that is more aligned to actually what you enjoy doing rather than maybe what your normal work or job is. So, some great learnings in there. Thanks as always, Chris, and maybe at some point in the sort of not too distant future, we’ll have you back on and maybe go deeper on some of these things because I’ve got a whole kind of ream of questions that I would love to ask you. Just to kind of respect your time but maybe get you back on another time. But thanks very much, Chris. And I look forward to meeting with you when all these lockdowns finish. I can’t wait. Thanks. Thank
45:31
you, Mark. Thanks, everyone, for checking out this episode of the knowledge industry. Appreciate your time, Speak to you soon.
45:37
Don’t forget to join the knowledge industry group on Facebook. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a good review. And if you want to connect head to http://www.markeganvideo.com