We set up this Facebook community during the corona time because smart people will become rich in a post slowdown phase, and everybody else may get hurt. To give you my example, I chose to change my career. I have a medical doctorate, and I decided to change my career in the post-2001 phase. In this post 9/11 phase, the markets were down, but I was able to build a good career for myself and gain from the upswings that happened after the slowdown. I was running a business in export consulting for manufacturing firms that washed out in the 2008 market crash.
Thankfully, I found a mentor who taught me very important secretes to succeed in a business. In the 2009-2011 phase, which was the post-crash phase, when the market finally reached an upswing, we were doubling the revenue startup every single year for those three years. So that was the base on which a lot of my financial success was built.
Learn
Now I’m going to talk about what skill set I recommend. What does learning mean? Obviously, whatever you have learned till now is great, but you will need to learn new things as you go along because the way the world is moving is faster than it has ever moved before. And newer things, conception or techniques, new technologies, new ideas, everything is turning around at a faster pace. So you need to increase your learning speed, and whatever you have learned till now, whatever your current experience is, will be an asset. But it may not be sufficient to take you forward.
Unlearn
And the second thing is you need to unlearn something that is irrelevant. I’ll give you my example. I was a medical degree holder from a very prestigious college. But when I first went to marketing, I used to feel very conscious because I was trying to sell something to people, and I was used to being called a doctor. I’d never gone out like this before. I’d never sold anybody anything. So, I was very conscious, but that was an attitude that I had to unlearn. At that point, the very important thing for me was to reach out to the maximum number of people with my message as fast as possible and get the sails out and learn the basics of sales and marketing. I chose sales and marketing because somebody told me that you would become prosperous through sales and marketing. So, I had to learn that. I had these mental barriers stopping me, and I had to get over them.
Re-learn
Then you’ll have to re-learn some things. You may have unlearned something, or they may not be relevant, but you need to re-learn. So, for example, last year, I was attending a webinar where somebody much younger than me, not only in age but also in terms of financial capability, and was just a starter. I attended his webinar, and he talked to the people in that webinar. He said the people of the future would need to build communities. Communities are going to be the prosperity driver of tomorrow. That message resonated with me because I’ve been doing different things in life till then. We’ve been very successful throughout, but I realized that I needed something. There was something I was missing in order to reach the next level. Based on all of my experienced till then, all of my successes and failures till then, that message struck home.
I have been building two startups back-to-back, which were later acquired by Silicon Valley mergers up to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees. Building a startup is difficult because you do not find employees; you do not find key skill sets to join you because they are very scared of joining a startup. So you need to build a community. You need to get people fired up about your idea. You need to keep them focused. You need to keep the team together.
So I had to re-learn this whole skill in the new world because now I was not building a startup where you pay people salaries. If you’re not paying somebody a salary, how do you ensure that they have joined your vision or cause? So, I had to re-learn that, and that skill has been handy to me in the last 15 months.
What is the methodology by which you quickly learn, unlearn and re-learn?
I’ll give you some quick tips. This is like the basics of doing things, but I guarantee you that even though they may look simple and basic if you follow them, your life will change. The first thing is, when learning anything, any particular skill, you need to learn, immediately implement or do, and then teach.
If you do these three things with every single piece of information that comes across you in quick succession, then that thing will become part of your new DNA. And it is your new DNA or mind muscle that’s going to take you ahead. You two need to learn new skills, do or Implement them for yourself in whatever shape or form, and then teach.
How do you teach, and what if nobody wants to learn from you?
You need to do something called video journaling. When you learn and then implement whatever results you get, just journal yourself at the end of every day. In the old times, people used to write journals, diaries. If you read any serious business book written by any entrepreneur, any successful person through the history of time or the last 80-100 years, you will realize that they always said you should journal. If you journal, your mind will become clearer. Over time, you’ll become more successful because the clarity of mind contributes to financial success.
The thing of the future is video journaling because not only will speaking into the camera build that mind-muscle. You’ll be more comfortable; you’ll be able to express your thoughts by your own mouth. So there is some element of affirmation also built into it, which is another major scale that all successful people teach. You can use these videos to publish them on Facebook, and the Facebook algorithm, which is a free servant, will go out and collect people who resonate with that video message, who resonate with your experience. They will become connected with you. Facebook group is free to set up and is free to maintain, and all you need to do is just keep it warm by putting out some videos every now and then.
If you don’t have anybody to teach, just video yourself, and all of this video content will be useful to you at some time. This is the single most important thing that will be useful to you if you are a corporate professional, independent professional, small business owner, regular person who’s just trying to learn aboutbusiness. Today’s biggest asset is your message’s personability, width, and depth. It’s not money; it’s not your previous experience. It’s not your connection; the single biggest thing is how you put your personality into the social networks and collect an audience around you, people who resonate with you. That’s the single biggest thing that will add to your prosperity.
How do you learn? And why do you learn?
The reason you learn is that when the market is good, you’re doing good. You think you’re doing great. So life is good. But there are huge opportunities in the market that you miss because the opportunities are large. Other people who understand those opportunities, whose brains are trained to identify opportunities for what they are worth, will maximize their value in the marketplace. You may not be a very competitive type, but good opportunities come once in 7-10 years. So if you get one and you latch onto one, you might as well maximize it. So your brain needs to be trained to maximize good opportunities in good markets.
In a bad market, what happens is that the smart people who face problems are able to find a solution for their problems much faster than other people, and they become much more immune. They become powerful. Their immunity and muscles become better than their competition. When the market upswings, the competition gets wiped away, and you remain the market leader.
Why should you learn in a good market, and why should you learn in a bad market?
Good Market
A lot of people who started with Facebook actually sold off their stock too early, and a lot of people who started with apple actually sold out their stock too early because they could not understand the depth of that opportunity. They retired as millionaires when they could have been billionaires.
Down Market
In a down market, smart companies get rich. In the 2008 crash, bigger banks whose balance sheets were stronger bought out all the smaller banks whose balance sheets were weaker, and they were unable to pay their bills because banks operate on leverage. And there was a lot of news in the papers that this is a conspiracy and the rich are getting richer. No, only the smart are getting richer. Many people were fired from their jobs and got rich after the upswing because they were ready. They were able to reposition themselves.
What is the format in which you should learn? Why should you train your brain constantly?
Because when things happen in front of you, your brain will interpret things in a proper fashion. What is the first thing you need? You need to read a lot of books. You need to read like a maniac. You need to play audio all the time like a maniac, and you need to attend events. Not only industry events that will teach you to become better but also go to your competitors’ events to learn what the marketplace is looking like. What are different people doing so you understand what is the lowest common denominator platform on which you need to operate?