Unconventional Life – Podcast, Blog, Live Events

Author: Jules Schroeder

  • Ep65: Imposter Syndrome: Why You’re Successful But Still Not Satisfied

    Ep65: Imposter Syndrome: Why You’re Successful But Still Not Satisfied

    When I was eighteen, I started my first six-figure business. I had always fantasized about being a successful entrepreneur. However, when that day came and I had the external proof that I had “made it,” I didn’t feel successful at all.

    I felt like an imposter—that I didn’t deserve it, and that someone else could have done it better.

    Imposter syndrome is not uncommon. Seventy percent of high achieving millennials identify feeling this way. As if we have something to prove to ourselves, to our peers, and to our parents.

    It’s no wonder only 1 in 3 Millennials say they’re very happy. With most of us stuck on the perpetual treadmill of pursuit, we never get the fulfillment we really want out of life.

    So how can we actually find fulfillment?

    One man appears to know the answer. His sold-out international events are drawing thousands worldwide to the conversation of deeper fulfillment and purpose.

    Meet Connor Beaton, the founder and CEO of Man Talks, a live-events movement to evolve men and women through authenticity, community, purpose, and accountability. Since Beaton launched Man Talks nearly one year ago, it’s grown to accommodate over 30 cities across the US and Canada.

    I interviewed Beaton on the latest episode of the Unconventional Life Podcast about his thoughts about finding fulfillment.

    Beaton says the key to feeling fulfilled is to approach your life from a broader, wholesome perspective. If professional success is your sole focus, the other departments of your life—like relationships and personal development—will suffer.

    When you commit to giving each department of your life the equal attention it deserves, you will truly begin to thrive.

    Below, Beaton shares how you can combat imposture syndrome and put this approach into practice:

    Surround Yourself With People Who Elevate You

    It’s an unfortunate reality that many people don’t have close friends they can depend on. Over half of all men in a relationships study said they have two or fewer people they can talk to about serious matters, while one in eight said they have none.

    Feeling closely connected to the people in your life is a huge factor in fulfillment. Social isolation is closely linked to depression, while interconnectedness is shown to increase happiness.

    Beaton breaks down three kinds of friends you can have—those who look up to you, those who stand beside you, and those who will call you forward into the person you want to become. The latter is the most important kind, yet also the rarest.

    Aim to surround yourself with people who are going to hold you accountable to things you want to accomplish, who will call you out when you aren’t in integrity, and who will challenge you to grow. You’ll find that as you and your friends evolve together, you’ll feel a deeper sense of purpose and community.

  • Ep64: The Art Of Speaking On Video: How To Increase Your Impact By Mastering This One Skill

    Ep64: The Art Of Speaking On Video: How To Increase Your Impact By Mastering This One Skill

    If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a minute of video’s worth 1.8 million, estimates Forrester researcher Dr. James McQuivey.

    He’s speaking to the dramatic power of video in today’s age—with its ability to transmit infinitely more, dynamic, and fluid information per second than photo and text, video is becoming the gold standard for content today.

    Between Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, 23 Billion videos are watched each day. Facebook posts with video get the highest engagement, with two-thirds of Millennials preferring to watch a video over reading text.

    By 2019, video content is projected to make up 80% of all global Internet traffic.

    Shifting to video as a primary mode of communication is no longer an option—it’s a must.

    If you’re a business owner or aspiring entrepreneur, leveraging video can help you spread the word about your business and ultimately gain more clients and sales. Sharing videos about your product or service can be an extremely effective marketing tactic, with 77% of consumers saying they’ve been convinced to buy a product after watching a video.

    Incase you’re camera shy, I’ve consulted an expert about how you can be the most effective in crafting and delivering a message worth spreading.

    Meet Cloe Shasha, a content and program producer for TED who works on speaker research, talk development, and TED’s newest audio series with Audible, Sincerely X. She’s also a contributor for the newly released book 3 Billion Under 30, which profiles influential Millennials who are changing the world.

    On the Unconventional Life Podcast this week, Shasha provides insight into public speaking based on her experience with developing speakers’ talks at TED. She shares tips on how to think about what to speak about and how to share it with confidence and impact.

    Learn From The Best

    If you have little formal speaking experience, Shasha says the quickest way to become an expert is to watch and listen to skilled public speakers. One of her biggest role models is former President Obama.

    Watch TED talks and other kinds of speeches, paying attention to things like body language, hand gestures, eye contact, intonations, and pauses. So much of communication is nonverbal, so it’s important to be aware of how you’re holding your entire body and what this is conveying to your audience.

    Tell A Story

    Our brains are much more engaged by storytelling than a list of facts. We remember stories easier because our brains can’t distinguish between an experience we’re hearing about and one that is actually happening.

    Create an unforgettable experience for your listeners by telling a story. The best stories evoke emotion and the five senses to create a visceral experience. “What will people remember about your talk?” Shasha says. In addition to remembering the main idea of the talk, she also has seen that “people will remember the visceral things.”

  • Ep63: 3 Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs to Advance Their Career in 2017

    Ep63: 3 Skills Every Entrepreneur Needs to Advance Their Career in 2017

    There’s a big difference between being busy and being effective.

    For most of my early entrepreneurial journey I often found myself spending hours at my computer only to look at the clock mid-afternoon to realize I hadn’t really accomplished anything.

    It turns out this is a common thing for entrepreneurs—entrepreneurs work 63% longer than the average employee, working an average of 52 hours a week.

    If you feel like you are always working but not advancing in your career one successful entrepreneur has a solution. He says there’s three skills he mastered to build his business to 7-figures in annual revenue in just two years. If you can master these skills, you’ll be able to put an end to “busyness” and advance your career in a fraction of the time.

    Meet John Lee Dumas, founder of the daily business podcast for entrepreneurs “Entrepreneur on Fire,” which gets 1.2 Million monthly listens and generates 7-figures in yearly revenue. Entrepreneur on Fire has featured distinguished guests like Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Tim Ferris, and was awarded ‘Best of iTunes.’

    This week on Unconventional Life, Dumas shares the three skills every entrepreneur should master to advance their careers in 2017.

    Dumas says he can relate to feeling challenged in the early days of his entrepreneurial journey. When he first launched Entrepreneur on Fire, he had no experience with podcasting and had been told by his mentors it was a bad idea.

    Though the odds were stacked against him, he saw a need for daily content for entrepreneurs and wanted to fulfill that need. “I wanted more content, fresh content every single day waiting for me and I didn’t understand why it didn’t exist so I decided to be the change I wanted to see in the world,” says Dumas.

    Roughly four years later, Entrepreneur on Fire has become one of the most listened to and valued podcasts by entrepreneurs. Dumas has released over 1,500 episodes, which collectively have over 43 Million listens.

    Dumas accredits his success to three key skills—productivity, discipline, and focus. He says these skills are the horsepower behind execution and separate those who follow through from those who don’t.

    In mastering these skills, you can be sure you’ll be able to conquer anything in your path. Below, Dumas shares his tips to master productivity, discipline and focus.

    1. Operate In Your Genius. Being productive is effortless when you enjoy what you do and you’re good at it. Dumas calls this your “zone of genius.” You can uncover your zone of genius with a simple 5-day exercise. Draw a line down the center of a blank piece of paper and label the left side, “things I enjoy,” and the right side, “things I’m good at.” For ten minutes each day, write down as much as you can on each side. Repeat the exercise for five days in a row.

    2. Own Your Strengths. “We have way more weaknesses than we have strengths,” Dumas says. “The problem is people spend their time on all those weaknesses trying to be ok at something they’re crappy at. Nobody wants ok, you might as well stay crappy.” Forget your weaknesses; identify what your natural strengths are and work on developing them to a level of mastery. You’ll work your “discipline” and “focus” muscles in the process.

    3. Outsource. You can free up a tremendous amount of time and energy with outsourcing. Check yourself by calculating your “hourly wage,” or the amount of money you make divided by the hours you work. If your hourly wage isn’t what you want it to be, consider hiring someone to do simple things like website maintenance or responding to emails that aren’t an effective use of your time.

    4. Put The Blinders On. Those who try to do too many things at once rarely get anything done. Select one project you want to see to completion and make it the sole object of your focus until it is complete. Eliminate distractors and execute your project with laser-like focus for maximum productivity.

    5. Plan. Your goals can feel overwhelming and unattainable when you don’t have a concrete plan of action to achieve them. Determine what your goals are and create a realistic plan with daily action steps that will take you to your goal. In creating your plan, make sure your roadmap is guaranteed to work. You don’t want to waste your energy doing things that don’t produce results. Your plan should give you confidence and peace of mind that every single day you are making progress and are certain to arrive at your goal.

    6. Stick To A Routine. Routines are a great way to establish structure and hold yourself accountable to your best work. Dumas says he starts every day with running, meditation, and journaling to put himself in the frame of mind he needs to be successful. Maybe your daily routine involves coffee and rejuvenating breaks. Design a framework that will enable you to do your best, day in and day out. For even greater structure, check out Dumas’ Mastery Journal designed to guide you to productivity, discipline and focus in 100 days.

    Enjoyed this post? Check out more of my tools to create a life by your own design.

    This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

  • Ep62: How This Kindergarten Teacher Leveraged His Side-Hustle To Become a Pro BASE Jumper For RedBull

    Ep62: How This Kindergarten Teacher Leveraged His Side-Hustle To Become a Pro BASE Jumper For RedBull

    At 30 years old, Jokke Sommer‘s zeal for life is contagious. Each day, he risks his life to do what he loves and lives like it’s his last—literally.

    Sommer is a professional BASE jumper, one of the few thousand brave souls on the planet who attempt the most dangerous sport known to man, with approximately one death every 500-1,000 jumps.

    If you don’t know what BASE jumping is, it involves squeezing into a skin-tight, full-body nylon wingsuit and gliding over the jagged edge of a mountain at 160 MPH.

    Sommer has been responsible for making basejumping popular on youtube and is one of the best flyers in the world, sponsored by GoPro and RedBull, whose daredevil feats have earned him millions of video views and hundreds of thousands of followers across social media.

    Unlike most extreme sportists, Sommer doesn’t have a lifetime of experience in his craft. In fact, just years ago, he used to be a Kindergarten teacher and base-jumped whenever he could make time.

    This week on Unconventional Life, I interviewed Sommer about how to make your side-hustle your full-time job.

    Growing up in Son, Norway, Sommer says he always had a taste for life’s greatest thrills. He was fascinated with all things that could fly and dreamed of flying one day.

    Though he graduated college with a degree in graphic design, Sommer became a Kindergarten teacher because of the flexibility and the lifestyle it afforded him. As a teacher’s assistant, he was able to take days or weeks off at a time to go BASE jumping.

    “That was always the number one thing for me… not getting a job that paid big money but getting a job that was flexible,” Sommer says.

    Sommer started BASE jumping as a side hobby, a “getaway from the office.” He never anticipated it would one day become a fruitful source of income. In fact, he lived a very lean lifestyle just to be able to afford the equipment—at times sleeping out of his car or camping in tents.

    Sommer got his big break when he decided to post a video to YouTube of one of his jumps. The video went viral and sparked the inspiration for a YouTube series called Dream Lines, which follows Sommer on his exhilarating flights down the mountain.

    Some millions of video views later, Sommer began getting sponsorships from big-name brands like RedBull and GoPro. Soon after he quit his job teaching and was getting paid to BASE jump and travel to the world’s most exotic jumping sites.

    Below, Sommer shares practical advice for how to make your side-hustle your full-time job.

    Success Is Not Always Obvious

    The income from BASE jumping enabled Sommer to quit his job as a Kindergarten teacher and pursue flying full-time. “I guess I got rewarded by actually daring to chase something that’s not an obvious success. It was not something that I knew was going to go well,” Sommer says.

    Though Sommer’s success is an anomaly, his story is relatable. How many of us feel like we have a yearning to do something more with our lives, to take bigger risks and experience more of what life has to offer?

    Though your side hustle may not seem promising, if you love it and do it well, stick with it. When you’re the best at what you do, it doesn’t matter what it is—people will pay attention, and attention is today’s most valuable online currency.

    Prioritize Freedom Whenever Possible

    Sommer says to chase what you love because in it you will feel free. Let your drive be living life on your own terms, free of being told what to do or how to spend your time.

    “It is scary to jump off a cliff but to me it’s way scarier to not be free. To be told every day you have to do this, you have to do that, is way scarier than possibly dying young,” Sommer says.

    Be Willing To Take Risks

    The trade we make between giving life our all and playing it safe may actually be keeping us from a life well spent in the long run. Be willing to take risks—share the time you spend in the office with an activity that makes you feel alive and like you are fully tapping into life’s well of joy and enthusiasm.

    “This concept of living life on the edge, you grab life in a different way. Every day you’re always excited and happy and then it’s gone. People ask me, ‘aren’t you afraid of dying young?’ No—I’m already 500 years old. In order to do all the things I’ve done before I was thirty the average person would have to live to be 500,” Sommer says.

    Sommer shares more about taking risks in his chapter of the upcoming book, 3 Billion Under 30.

    Enjoyed this post? Check out more of my tools to live life by your own design.

    This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

  • Ep61: Feeling Unproductive at Work? Here’s Why

    Ep61: Feeling Unproductive at Work? Here’s Why

    With the average Millennial consuming nearly 18 hours worth of media content daily, it’s no surprise Millennials struggle with unproductivity and difficulty focusing at work.

    In 2017, the digital stratosphere is expanding at a quantum rate, and it’s cluttering our lives and workspaces.

    If you’re feeling unproductive, chances are you’re experiencing information overload. I’m talking about the mindless scrolling through social feeds and the bottomless consumption of content our generation is addicted to.

    It’s a fact that the human brain can only handle so much information—when it exceeds capacity, the prefrontal cortex shuts down and leads to impaired focus that sabotages work efforts.

    As a general rule of thumb, the more you try to do, the less you’ll accomplish. If you truly want to be more productive, the solution isn’t to do more… it’s to do less.

    That’s the foundation of the million-dollar practice one New York City consultant has built. Meet Omar Hassam, founder of Success Accelerators, a brand-building agency for Millennials that generates on-demand revenue surges using simple strategies. In just 90 days, Hassam skyrocketed one client’s revenue to $1 Million.

    This week on Unconventional Life, I interviewed Hassam about clearing distraction and maximizing productivity.

    Below, Hassam shares his counterintuitive method to accelerate success by doing less: