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3 Reasons Why Every Millennial Should Lead By Example

Yesterday, on the Brussels’ metro, my sister Mary and I talked about what leadership means to her. My sister is from the states, but she’s living in Belgium for the next three years studying at a world-famous circus school. She spends her life training 10 hours a day, practicing handstands, and juggling hula-hoops with her feet. For Mary, leaving her life in Chicago to move across the world was a price she was willing to pay to pursue a path she feels destined to take.

Since leaving the U.S., dozens of people in Mary’s community have reached out to tell her that she’s been an inspiration to them. Incidentally, Mary created a ripple effect for others to take action in pursuing their passions in their own lives.

Mary says leadership is “being a living embodiment of the work you feel called to do, even if the vehicle to get there hasn’t been created. That means recognizing that you have the power to say how your life goes. Even if it seems uncertain or scary, you keep going.”

For the first time, being a leader is no longer optional. Success is no longer guaranteed by following the traditional system. Instead, for the millennial generation, success comes by choosing yourself first and by choosing to create meaningful relationships.

One example of this is Gerard Adams, the cofounder of Elite Daily, an online news publication for millennials. Gerard decided to turn his 19-year-old intern into the CEO of the company and, together, and with his two other cofounders, they grew Elite Daily to a site with 80 million monthly readers in just three years. Last year, Daily Mail acquired it for $50 million.

Listen to this week’s podcast episode where Gerard shares the secret behind how he did it.

Gerard says, “Leaders create leaders.” He believes we all have a story to tell, we all have something to offer each other and something to help each other grow. His mission is to help others cultivate their passion and motivate their spirit.

He has spent the last 12 months committed to this mission. He’s traveled the globe in search of today’s leaders so that he can share their stories with the world. By showcasing examples of leaders leading people, he believes others will turn around and lead in their own life too. Gerard is sharing the first of these stories in his web video series, “Leaders Create Leaders,” which launches tomorrow.

Gerard believes this generation can and will be the best generation of all time. If you want to own your own business, launch an app, travel, become an artist, you can starting today. Millennials are a generation of entrepreneurs whether you are working for yourself or a company. The way he sees it is “every entrepreneur has their moment when they go from being an admirer to a leader.” Making that transition is vital in navigating the world today.

Here are three reasons leadership is the most important skill you can master:

Reason #1: Your Success Depends on It. We are no longer rewarded for following the system. In today’s working world, you must learn to think for yourself. By taking initiative, you can become an entrepreneur of your life. In fact, you must. As Gerard says, it is “0% luck, 100% hustle.” The model is changing; you will thrive only when you cultivate the ability to step outside that past prescriptive model for a life and business. Success is the reward for those with the ability to recognize that there is no longer a set route — you create it.

Reason #2: We Live in a Relationship Economy. People are the new currency. “Return on Relationship” or ROR has become the new ROI. In order to achieve success, you must learn how to cultivate relationships and empower the people around you. The key to empowering others is to first lead by example. Learn the 5 Ways To Profit From Growing Your Personal Network and hone the skills that you might not yet..

Reason #3 The World Needs You. In 2016, we are faced with global problems with an urgency like never before. With 7 billion people on the planet, the earth’s resources are under immense strain. For the first time in history, a small group of everyday leaders can make a difference in the lives of billions of people. Mastering how to lead is crucial now. Will you become a leader among them?

To win a free 1 hour consulting session with Gerard Adams to take a deep dive into your vision, strategy, and mindset subscribe to the podcast here and then enter to win by following this link. Gerard has made this offer exclusively to Unconventional Life readers and listeners.

This Article was originally published on Forbes.

February 28, 2018
What Digital Nomads Know That You Don’t (Yet)

It’s 9:26 p.m and I’m just getting started on work today. I’ve spent the last 48 hours skiing in 2 feet of deep powder. It’s like Christmas on a Tuesday.

For the past few days, I have been anticipating the snow storm, reorganizing my schedule and plans around its arrival. No need to call in sick or take off work, prioritizing a strong internet connection and securing my friend’s condo for a few nights, was all that was in order.

This is what my life looks like. I work from my computer wherever and whenever I have wifi. I choose to be on the move constantly, travelling to as many places and experiencing as many things as I can. A few weeks ago, I was hiking a glacier in Iceland. Today, I was skiing in Colorado. In a few days, I’ll board a plane to see my sister in Belgium.

I’m a digital nomad, or as Vice refers to it, “a certain breed of travelers who have given up permanent homes for the chance to see the world, constantly on the move…in the age of remote employees, full-time freelancers, and entire industries that take place not in an office but on the internet, they’ve found a way to do it without sacrificing regular income.”

Digital nomads are redefining what making a living looks like. You no longer have to sacrifice personal happiness for a paycheck, or wait to travel until after you’ve retired. New digital nomads are popping up daily, like Shannon O’Donnell, National Geographic’s Traveler Of The Year and Founder of the blog A Little Adrift.

Shannon left her life in Los Angeles in 2008 with a one-way ticket to Australia.

Listen to Shannon’s podcast episode where she shares her story, detailing how to get paid to travel the world.

When Shannon left for Australia, she hadn’t been planning or saving money in preparation. It was a spur-of-the moment decision. She had a little money set aside, a part-time online freelancing gig, and an idea to start a blog to chronicle her journey.

Seven years, a thriving blog, and 55 countries later and she is still going.

Every day, through online community, Shannon lives her dream of telling stories. Through Grassroots Volunteering — a sister site she started as a way to connect travelers to local causes and communities — she gives a voice to the people and cultures she immerses herself in that often remain silent in the media.

Shannon shares, “What differentiates me from many round the world and gap-year travelers is that I worked the entire time. In the past seven years, I have only truly taken two long breaks from my SEO consulting work, my freelance online work, and the weekly upkeep on my blog.”

For Shannon, and for so many other digital nomads, there is no separation between life and work. Instead of planning a “vacation,” work becomes an extension of your self-expression. There is no difference between working at home in an office or working out of a coffee shop in Mexico.

As Software Recruiter, Nicole Tucker says, “If you’re a pro and you’re holding to your deadlines you can probably do it from anywhere.”

If creating your own schedule, working from anywhere around the world, and harmonizing work and play sound appealing, consider these tips for a nomadic existence:

Money is about experiences, not material things

Many people stress over the amount of money in their bank account. Whether your number is $500 or $5,000,000, it may never seem like enough. There will never be a “right time” to take that trip or vacation you’ve been wanting. Instead of buying a new TV or a new car, take yourself or your family on an experience that you can forever look back on. Money is a tool, you get to decide how to use it.

Honor the path you’re on, not someone else’s path

The work you do, the life your build, it should only look like the version of your life you want to live. Some digital nomads start from scratch on new, mobile career paths, others are able to tap into skills they honed in college. There is no “right” way to work as a digital nomad, only the way that works for you and your goals. As Shannon says, “what would it look like if you could create [your vision] from the ground up?”

You don’t have to sacrifice money for happiness

We have an unprecedented ability to craft our lives — the availability of internet access around the world means that we can find a way to balance those big goals in life with the need to earn an income as well. Don’t wait to read another blog post like the the “20 Brutally Honest Things Women Turning 40 Want All Women In Their 30s To Know” to regret not traveling or delaying your own happiness.

Opportunities exist everywhere

Shannon’s secret was to remain open to each new opportunity and not be stuck in the planning. “If you are only working towards this one idea you envisioned for the future then you miss all these other tiny pathways that may create something even bigger.” Part of that path is taking in lessons and information from everyone you meet. Whether you identify as a digital nomad, aspire to be one, or think the group of us is crazy, there are lessons to learn from every person and story.

If you want to win a free copy of Shannon’s book “The Volunteer Traveler’s Handbook” subscribe to the podcast here then enter to win by following this link. Shannon has made this offer exclusively to Unconventional Life readers and listeners.

This article was originally published on Forbes.

February 28, 2018
The Magic Formula Behind Going Viral On Reddit

Have you ever wondered why a photo of a cat or video of a dancing baby goes viral on the internet for no apparent reason? You may be at work, on Facebook, or talking with a friend when someone drops the line, “Hey, you gotta see this video.” Next thing you know, you and everyone you know are stopped dead in their tracks to watch its magnificent glory, only to leave you moments later wondering what just happened.

That kind of video is everywhere. No matter how hard you try, you can’t escape it. If you are like me, you may assume that these videos blow up by accident. That there is no magic formula for producing “viral” content.

Brian Swichkow, Adweek’s “reddit marketing expert,” thinks otherwise.

Brian built his business, Ghost Influence, an online community driving 7 million pageviews a day on Reddit, by cracking the formula behind how viral happens. His community, composed of people like you and me, is able to go into any market in any niche and make content go “viral.” According to Scott Stratten, the president of Un-Marketing, a “viral” moment happens when you achieve a “greater reach than your own. Viral isn’t a number, viral is simply going farther than you can reach.”

Some of his past wins include: making a girl on Tinder world-famous by generating 25 million impressions to her profile picture in 72 hours, creating an online app where users register to receive the most “absurd email to give in a bar”, generating 11,000 pageviews and 564 signups in the first 30 minutes, and building his ex-fiancé’s dog a YouTube channel with 6,800 subscribers and 3.8M views.

I caught up with Brian on this week’s podcast episode here, where he shares all of the details on how viral happens:

Brian’s journey started in 2013 when he decided to run eerily targeted facebook ads to prank his roommate… for three weeks. Every few days his roommate would log in and see an ad revealing intimate details that only someone like a girlfriend or his roommate would know. After his roommate was understandable super freaked out, Brian ran one last ad saying, “Ever feel like your roommate is creating Facebook ads targeted to a niche of just you?”

Notably one of the best pranks ever. After sharing the story with people, Brian decided to write this article as his first blog post to document the whole thing and posted it to Reddit. Seventy-two hours later it had garnered 450,000 views.

Not only was it a great story but it was also great content. Brian carefully dissected piece by piece how he did it so, if you are a marketer, like me, you could learn about Facebook ads from reading what he did, while being super entertained.

When I asked Brian his secret, he shared, “the key is to execute something unnecessarily well. You have to be committed to the joke or whatever you are doing. When I launched my ex-fiance’s dog’s YouTube channel, I never broke character once. Every time someone would comment I would respond only as the dog. When you do this, people pay attention and that is what makes you stand out.”

Since launching the facebook prank article Brian has become obsessed with learning how Reddit works and how viral happens. He has found that “the key is to better understand what communities deem to be of value and how you can be the one to create or deliver that to them. It’s a bit like language immersion. By breaking down the structure of the platform and the psychology of the message in an accessible manner you will quickly become fluent.”

Want Brian’s formula for making viral happen? Here’s how:

Step 1: Curate or Create Valuable Content

Reddit is a community platform where people follow topics that anyone can relate to. Unlike brand platforms like Facebook or Twitter, where someone subscribes to see all of your content, on Reddit if you don’t add relevant value to the conversation happening in the community (aka subreddit) you won’t get any traction.

Step 2: Speak The Native Language

Reddit is composed of over 9,000 communities (called ‘subreddits’) with each subreddit having its own dialect inside the community. Think about talking to people on the East coast versus the South. If you don’t say words like “soda or pop” you will seem like an outsider and create a barrier.

Step 3: Give Before You Receive

Think about Reddit like a relationship. You need to nurture it and let it grow before you ask for favor after favor. On Reddit before you share a post, make sure you are commenting, sharing your opinion, and adding value to the community before expecting something back in return.

Step 4: Don’t Do A Hit & Run

The most traction on Reddit comes from engaging in the comments and discussion happening after you post. It would be a tragedy to get the entire formula right, post in the right subreddit with the right language and then not engage with the people talking about it. You will leave thousands of potential views and traction on the table.

Step 5: Enjoy Your Rewards

Collect the traffic rewards from following the above framework that you can use over and over again to blow up content time and again.

If you want to win a free 1 hour consulting session with Brian ($1000 value) listen to the podcast for details. Then enter to win here. Brian has made this offer exclusively to Unconventional Life readers and listeners.

February 28, 2018
How One Cofounder Launched AcroYoga And Why She Walked Away From Her Global Success
“The moment where you accidentally start a global movement at 1 a.m. in a San Francisco loft.” That’s what you’ll hear when Jenny Sauer-Klein tells you how she cofounded AcroYoga back in 2003.

Jenny met her cofounder Jason Nemer, an elite gymnast with an extensive background in circus training, at a party and instantly bonded over their shared passion of movement. She was only 25 and at the time, and taught yoga and circus arts at after-school programs in Oakland, CA. Less than a month later, the pair launched AcroYoga.

AcroYoga is a dynamic practice that fuses acrobatics with yoga and healing arts. It involves carefully synchronized movements between partners and cultivates trust, connection and playfulness. Practitioners span across six continents, totalling in the millions worldwide.

(I recently interviewed Jenny for my podcast, Unconventional Life. Listen to Jenny’s podcast episode here.):

When you ask Jenny about the beginning of AcroYoga, she’ll tell you that she never expected it to turn into a global movement and business. The first few years weren’t easy. As Jenny shares,“It wasn’t an intellectual discovery. It was a very active, in the world, making money as we went discovery of exploring what this thing is.”

And, she didn’t go all in at first. She kept side jobs and maintained steady cash flow until she was mentally ready. For her, it was a process to see, feel, and believe that a movement was possible and that she had to be the one to usher it into the world.

Flash forward to 2012.
The risk paid off. From the outside it seemed like Jenny had made it. AcroYoga had spread to several continents, hundreds of teachers had been certified in the practice, and practitioners were numbering in the hundreds of thousands. But from the inside perspective, Jenny wasn’t happy.

She found herself tired of the lifestyle, constant travel, and the work it took to catalyze communities around the world and then coming home only to feel really alone. She would wonder, “Where are the people who aren’t my students? Who are just my friends?” She then realized she wanted more. She wanted to build a life with someone and to get the essence of AcroYoga (“trust, connection, playfulness”) out to a different group of people, like those in companies and organizations.

When Jenny realized she wasn’t 100% committed to her business, like she had been before, she knew in order for AcroYoga to stay healthy and the community and the company to thrive, she had to walk away.

To let go of her role and status, her identity that was wrapped into everything she had built, proved to be the hardest decision she’s had to make. And in the process of selling her half of the business to her co-founder, she learned to trust she could leverage all the connections, life experiences, and what she had discovered over the last 10 years into something new.

What she realized was, “To see something through a complete life cycle—from ideation, to birth, to growth, to sustaining, and then to let it go… is incredibly powerful and empowering as a businessperson. I feel like I have so much more to offer, and it’s given me immense freedom in terms of not being identified with the form that is coming through me.”

Jenny has shown that belief to be true over and over again in her latest work, Play on Purpose, which helps new teams to accelerate creativity and collaboration through playful games and exercises. This initiative lets her provide strategic learning and development to companies and organizations, in playful, embodied engaging ways, proving that training doesn’t have to be dry and boring to be truly effective.

Jenny’s story is instructive for millennials who worry that their early success may box them in for the future. The takeaways?
1. If you can do it once, you can do it again. As an entrepreneur, you get to make it up as you go along.
2. Don’t be attached to the form of expression that is coming through you. Finding “your thing” requires experimentation, tweaking and tuning the dial, playing with the knobs of happiness, and not being afraid to make adjustments, even if that means letting go. Sometimes that sweet spot will last for 10 years or sometimes it will be a few months before it is time to adjust again.
3. Your creations never dies, it just transmutes and transforms into the next thing. You never lose the life experience that you gained from trying something, or the connections you make, all of that stays with you and you leverage that into the next, and the next, and the next project. Just go for it
4. Trust your own creative well, it will never run dry. Find the balance between offering and listening. Putting something out and not only paying attention to how it is received but also how you feel in the doing of it. You will feel it when it is right, trust in that feeling and let it guide you in your decision making.
If you want to win a free copy of Jenny’s course “Rock Your Workshop” ($500 value) that takes you through the process of designing interactive events in 7 days listen to the podcast for details. Then enter to win here. Jenny has made this offer exclusively to Unconventional Life readers and listeners.
This article originally appeared on Forbes.com.
February 28, 2018
How One Millennial Started The ‘Facebook Of Cannabis’ And Got Invited To Richard Branson’s Island

It’s not every day that Richard Branson invites you to his private island.

Especially after you were almost kicked out of an emerging tech competition for promoting your new “Facebook of Cannabis.” When cannabis companies weren’t even allowed in part of the competition.

Meet Isaac Dietrich and Stewart Fortier, two mid-20-something entrepreneurs that set out to change the world through tech–one pot smoker at a time. The pair met in high school and rejoined after Fortier finished college, where he majored in economics and religious studies. Dietrich skipped college while honing his skills on political campaigns, such as Virginia state Senator Jeff McWaters and Congressman Scott Rigell, and tech startups in the Hampton Roads, Virginia area.

One night in April 2013 Dietrich was smoking in a friend’ apartment and and thought to himself, “What if we could create a safe space to post photos of ourselves right now?

A few weeks later, Dietrich shared the idea with Fortier, who had been teaching himself software development on the side. The two began working on the project in their spare time at night and on weekends. Eventually, Dietrich convinced him to leave his prestigious job in Washington D.C. to go all-in.

Thus, MassRoots was born. MassRoots is a social network to share cannabis-related photos, stories, and articles. With over 725,000 active users on their app since they launched in 2013, MassRoots is the world’s largest and fastest-growing community for cannabis enthusiasts.

Listen to Fortier’s podcast episode:

Their startup boasts a handful of private backers, such as Doug Leighton, one of the cannabis industry’s most active investors, and Shmuel Tennenhaus, former VP of Marketing at Big Fish Games accreditation in top news publications, and aims to be the first cannabis technology stock traded on the Nasdaq.

If you ask Dietrich and Stewart Fortier, they’re creating a movement.

Sir Richard Branson also seems to think so. Here’s how it happened.

Last month, MassRoots was announced a top 10 finalist in the Extreme Tech Challenge. This competition, which awards innovation and big ideas, grants the top three startups an opportunity to pitch to Branson himself and other exclusive investors at Branson’s own private Necker Island. MassRoots secured a top 10 spot and was invited to Vegas to pitch at Consumer Electronic Show (CES).

Hearing a cannabis company made the top 10, several event sponsors like Dell Computers went into an uproar. Dell said in a statement to Bloomberg, “Our goal with programs like this is to provide computers to influencers who create positive impact through technology. In this instance, we declined to participate because one of the companies in the contest did not meet our criteria.”

Soon after hearing the news Dietrich received a call from one of the event organizers. Dietrich retells: “I had no idea what was going to happen next, and if we were going to be allowed to present at CES because of it.”

However, the Extreme Tech Challenge refused to give into the regressive thinking of sponsors like Dell and allowed MassRoots to compete. After all the companies presented, the judges announced the Top 3 and MassRoots didn’t make the cut.

Insert Branson.

Moments later a video appeared of Sir Richard Branson himself, inviting all the top 10 companies to stop by Necker Island and meet him personally. “Be prepared to kite-surf and jump off my favorite cliff,” said the billionaire. Both Dietrich and Fortier were speechless. In one moment they thought it was all over. In the next, an opportunity of a lifetime. This is what five minutes in the life of a millennial entrepreneur looks like.

Their story teaches us three principles to follow when paving your own non-traditional path to success:

1. You are the exception to the rule, always

Even though Dietrich and Fortier didn’t make it into the top three, they still got the coveted invite to Necker Island and became the only cannabis company to present on the main stage of CES… ever. When you believe in yourself, and what you are doing, other people will get on board. The lesson? Doors will open where they were once closed

2. Success in 2016 is not linear

Traditional definitions of success used to come only after taking the right steps, in the right order. Go to college; get a degree; get a good job; have a good life. For Dietrich and Fortier, success came when they took the “wrong” steps in the “wrong” order — like entering a tech competition that prohibited their industry in the semi-finals. The lesson? Be daring. Break rules.

3. Your biggest supporter may not be your first

Create a vision, embody that vision, and allow it to evolve. If you find fundamental disagreements with one of your backers like how Dell did with MassRoots, that’s a good sign. It means you now have the space to bring on another supporter than can fully get behind you and your vision like Branson. The lesson? The right people will find you. Those that are not in alignment with you or your vision will naturally remove themselves. You don’t need 100 fans you just need one.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

February 28, 2018