Unconventional Life – Podcast, Blog, Live Events

Category: Money

Will This App Disrupt The $160 Billion Ad Industry By Replacing Ads With Positive Messages?

We see advertisements everywhere. Whether we’re scrolling through social media, reading our favorite blogs, checking our email, online shopping, watching video content, or just surfing the web, we can’t escape them.

That’s because the advertising industry funnels a tremendous amount of energy into digital ads — over $160 billion in 2015.

Industry experts estimate that the average person is exposed to around 5,000 ads a day, which speaks volumes of the subconscious overload we experience to buy, buy, buy.

But what if every time you got a message to consume, you got a message to create instead?

That’s exactly the idea behind Intently, an innovative app that enables users to replace the ads they see on the internet with inspired content they choose.

I caught up with Intently founder, Micha Mikailian, on this week’s episode of Unconventional Life, “Hijacking Your Subconscious Mind For Maximum Productivity.”

Mikailian says the inspiration for Intently came from his frustration working in the ad industry. He ran a major ad agency for 12 years and was irritated by the deceptive and manipulative tactics businesses used to hook consumers.

Aware of how much time and attention internet users spent looking at ads, Mikailian reasoned the ad space could actually be repurposed for good.

With Intently, users can customize their internet experience with intentional messages aimed to inspire, motivate, and uplift them by downloading the Intently extension right to your browser.

“I saw this vision for Intently, I saw that my ads were now messages that were getting me prepped for my next meeting, and supporting me throughout my day and reminding me what my goals were,” Mikailian says.

Think of it like a digital vision board — except instead of putting it in your closet and forgetting about it, it follows you around the web so your goals stay fresh in mind. Wherever you would normally see an ad you will see your virtual vision board instead.

Studies confirm that actually seeing your goals can help you achieve them. One study demonstrated that people who keep images, photos or vision boards of their goals are twice as confident about achieving them than those who don’t — and 91% of those who are successful attribute it to having envisioned a plan to get there.

“It’s just priming your subconscious in terms of what you want to create in your life so by focusing on what you want to create and having an image of what that looks like you’re really setting yourself up naturally to take all the actions that are going to take you there,” Mikailian says.

For decades, advertisers have utilized a powerful technique called subliminal messaging, which targets the subconscious mind to motivate behavior without the subject’s awareness.

Being a veteran in the ad industry, Mikailian knew of this technique and decided to use it to actually benefit consumers. “I used the power of advertising — the same power of manipulation that advertisers use to get you to buy stuff — to reprogram a behavior in me, and in that moment it changed my experience of life,” Mikailian shares.Mikailian has used this reprogramming to transform the relationship with his mom, attract a great relationship partner, and shift recurring negative thought patterns.

Now, former ad consumers are empowered to design their own subliminal messages that will motivate behaviors they want. You’re in the driver’s seat to customize your browsing experience in a way that supports you.

If goal setting is important to you, you’ll first need to get clear on what exactly it is that you want. The more specific you are, the better. Instead of setting the goal of financial freedom, envision what you would do with the financial resources you want to have — what kind of lifestyle would you live? Would you travel, treat yourself to gourmet dinners, experience the city nightlife, or revamp your wardrobe and home?

Once you’re clear on your goal, the path to actualizing it involves affirming it in your mind through repetition. Write down your goal, assemble a collage of images and words that remind you of it, and stick it on your Intently to see it over and over again.

Can you imagine what might be possible for yourself if you were constantly reminded 5,000 times a day of the things you wanted to create, instead of the things that distract you?

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March 1, 2018
The Single Trait That Leads To Success, According To NBA Champion Ronny Turiaf

Success is unpredictable — there are very few things we can do, if it all, to guarantee it.

Whether you are trying to start your own business, training to run a marathon, or working on your own side hustle, life tends to throw things in our path that challenge us, provoke us, and test our commitment. Hardly anyone who’s reached the top will tell you that the road was easy, but they all have one thing in common: perseverance.

Take it from a former NBA champion, who weathered open heart surgery, financial hardship, and a host of other injuries, for the sake of pursuing his dream.

I’ve never met anyone quite as dedicated as Ronny Turiaf — he’s played basketball for the LA Lakers, Miami Heat, and the NY Knicks, to name a few. He’s also the founder of the Heart to Heart Foundation, which provides medical care for individuals who lack health insurance and can’t afford the care they need.

I spoke with Ronny about his inspiring journey on this week’s podcast episode, “The Single Habit That Leads to Quantum Success, According to NBA Champion Ronny Turiaf.”

Not many people are forced to choose between their life or their dream, and choose their dream. That was the position Ronny found himself in when he was about to be drafted for the LA Lakers in 2006, but was suddenly denied contract.

A medical examination revealed he would need to undergo open heart surgery, or never be able to play basketball again. To make matters worse, he didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t pay for the surgery.

Growing up in poverty, Ronny had always been motivated to play basketball with the hope of one day being able to provide for his family. Over the years he sacrificed birthday parties, family gatherings, and quality time in order to practice basketball.

The medical situation was devastating to Ronny — not only could he lose his life, but everything he had hoped for in training over the last eight years. Fortunately, others came to his aid to help Ronny finance the surgery, and he opted to go through with it.

The operation was successful, but it was Ronny’s perseverance and focus that really stood out.

He remembers saying: “You are going to have to kill me because I will make it back to the basketball court. There is no alternative.”

He could have succumbed to fear, and his journey would have ended right there. Instead, he summoned the courage to keep going and proceeded to shine in the NBA, making his childhood basketball dreams a reality and winning the NBA Championship in 2012 with the Miami Heat.

Through Ronny’s story we see that success is defined by the choice to persevere through the moments that test us. When we commit to overcome every obstacle life throws at us, we become unstoppable, and success is inevitable.

Consider applying the following tips to master the art of perseverance:

Listen to your inner voice to help you make crucial decisions.

When you find yourself at a fork in the road, check in with yourself and honor what your intuition or “gut feeling” is telling you. Sometimes, your own voice will say something different than what others say. Remember that you know yourself best and therefore have the best information set to determine what’s right for you. Regardless of what you do you will always make someone unhappy. Ronny says, “the only thing I can control is that it feels right in my belly, and that’s the only thing that can make me at peace and at ease with everything I do.”

Push through the pain by focusing on your goal.

Having a successful mindset involves accepting that it’s not always going to be easy. You will encounter trials that test how bad you want it. In the ten months leading up to winning the NBA championships in 2012 Ronny broke his hand twice. His advice? “Whether the storm.” When you find yourself in pain or challenged, remind yourself why it’s worth pushing through. Reaffirming your goal and the “why” behind your actions is the greatest fuel to empower you to keep going when it gets tough.

Apply the same drive to every aspect of your life.

It’s difficult to feel successful when you are only pursuing success in one aspect of your life. If your job is going great, but your health is another story, you’re bound to feel like a walking contradiction. To truly feel success from the inside out, you’ll need to apply the same drive you currently have in one area… to all areas. Ronny says, “I gave myself too much in one category and the others suffered. I asked myself, Ronny how can you find balance in all areas of your life? And yes, you are asking yourself to do something that is very difficult, but something that is worthy in your eyes, because I want to be great in everything that I do.”

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
Why This 29-Year-Old Left Her Desk Job To Prosecute War Crimes With Technology

Due to ongoing political turmoil and social unrest, the Middle East is not exactly everyone’s dream job destination right now.

Except for one daring woman, that is.

Sweet, polite, and just 29 years old, Raquel Vasquez Llorente doesn’t look like the kind of person you’d expect to see flying into military airports in the midst of war. But don’t let her appearance fool you — she packs a serious punch.

The lawyer and 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe honoree is an original team member behind the innovative app eyeWitness to Atrocities, developed by the International Bar Association (IBA), which aims to empower civilians to capture and report evidence of war crimes on their smartphones.

I caught up with Llorente about her taste for pursuing dangerous work on this week’s podcast episode, “Fueling Your Passion: When To Choose Anger Over Love w/ Raquel Vasquez Llorente”

Growing up in a tumultuous northern Spain during the 1990s, Llorente was exposed to the harsh face of reality from an early age. It was then that she developed an interest in civil violence and its implications for human justice and desired to pursue a law degree.

Her path to prosecute war crimes started out relatively peaceful, with a government internship at the National Commission of Energy in Spain checking algorithms for electricity prices. “It wasn’t something that kept me awake at night,” says Llorente.

It wasn’t until she ended up in Libya in 2013, at the start of their civil war, that she could see the impact of these crimes on civilians.

In that process, Llorente found that, “The things that drive me the most are things that make me really upset and angry. Impunity for war crimes really upsets me to my limits so I wanted to go into international justice and feel that upset all the time about the crimes that are being committed and going unpunished.”

Llorente’s anger became her fuel and instead of repressing it, she let that guide her forward. Ultimately, leading her to join as one of the first few team members of eyeWitness to Atrocities, where that fuel is used daily through channeling technology as a means for ending impunity for war crimes.

Since launching last year, eyeWitness users can download the app for free to their phones, to record, store, and send footage that can later be verified for use in media coverage or legal cases.

The app automatically records the GPS coordinates of where the image was captured and stores the image in a vault maintained by LexisNexis , the world’s largest electronic database for legal information and public records. It’s aiming to increase the number of successful prosecutions by eliminating the need for the person to show up in court especially if they are unwilling or unable to testify.

Through Llorente’s participation at eyeWitness, since joining in 2015 as a war crimes analyst, she is able to combine all of her passions into one form of self-expression- her love of law, love of being in the field, and love of seeing justice served.

Llorente says. “It is very important to love what you do, but almost more important that whatever you do or are trying to solve makes you upset and angry so you keep going. If love works then that’s fine and if it works better being upset then go there instead.”

It’s not every day a woman chooses to tackle the brutal offenses of war criminals through harnessing her anger. Yet, what a different world we might live in if expressing anger were not so uncommon.

How will you step up to create the kind of world you desire living in?

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
How To Increase Your Value So Your Clients Will Want To Pay You More Money

“How much should I charge?” Is one of the questions I frequently hear from those that are just starting out or have hit a plateau in their business. It is as if that one question in and of itself can hold you back from taking the next step. I have seen close friends and colleagues struggle over coming up with the “right answer” and as a result they decide on a number that is unsatisfying or just enough.

There are countless examples of talented creatives, coaches, service providers, and emerging thought leaders like 16-year-old Madison McGregor who is launching a movement to unite Generation Z, that deliver great value yet, at the end of each month, the dollar amount they take home doesn’t reflect the value they put out. According to Next Web, “66% of founders pay themselves less than $50,000 per year” of the 11,160 startups surveyed worldwide.

Figuring out what you are worth and how much value the services or products you have to offer can be difficult. It is a challenge of not wanting to charge too much for fear of facing rejection, yet not wanting to charge too little and be in a constant state of survival.

Lynan Saperstein, the founder of Experience Experts, a boutique company that helps clients in the tourism industry create more reach and profit, encounters this question of quantifying value daily.

Saperstein shares on this week’s podcast episode her process for determining what you are worth.

As Saperstein sees it, worth “has to do with how you value yourself, your personal growth, your spirituality journey, and your willingness to continue to learn and understand yourself.” She believes investing in yourself is like investing in your business. Being willing to spend the money upfront to develop the relationship with yourself, your interpersonal skills, and your mindset play essential roles in your business.

For Saperstein, it was jumping to take a Reiki training, with the last few dollars she had in her savings account, several years ago when she was transitioning out of a period of healing from a car accident and losing her job. She knew she just had to do it, even if it was scary and exciting.

“I just kept following my highest excitement. Whatever inspired me that got me lit up and turned on, I did. I did a coaching training, then a marketing training, then I got to see what I was really good at. When I started business coaching I was just a magnet, clients started flying at me and I got to choose who I wanted to work with”, according to Saperstein.

Once you realize that every aspect of your life is connected; the component parts function harmoniously rather than independently of one another. When you take a composite perspective of your life, the lines between work, recreation, relationships, health, spirituality and leisure begin to fade. You relationship to value then begins to change and you can thus have greater confidence to charge more for the services you provide.

As you expand your skillset, keep in mind that skills that might not seem directly applicable to the type of service you provide or the industry you work in can actually work in your favor and help you to stand out. Oftentimes, unexpected skills fulfill an unmet need and cause others to choose you above the competition. In turn, your business becomes more attractive and you can raise your price.

According to Saperstein, “By bringing marketing or some skill set that is desperately needed in an industry or marketplace you can charge a lot, they are so grateful for you, and you can get extremely ridiculous results with them and a massive return on their investment. Ultimately, that is all they want.”

When you have done the work on yourself upfront, the process for putting a price tag on your worth can actually be quite simple. If you find yourself stuck, consider these three things:

How much you should charge starts with how much you value yourself. By transforming the relationship you have to yourself you will find more confidence in communicating your value to someone else.
You are the only one that can offer what you do. There are no real competitors because you are going to do it your own way and certain clients are going to respond to you instead of someone else.
You can always ask.“What is this worth to you? How much is a client or sale worth to them. Would you be willing to make the investment of 1 person or 10 people with me?” Once you get one yes, it opens up a gateway for another.

This article was originally published on Forbes

February 28, 2018
5 Ways To Profit From Growing Your Personal Network

Over the last five years, my Dad has watched me attend one conference after another. New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chicago, and Philadelphia, just to name a few. I have spent thousands of dollars on travel, event tickets, and important dinners to meet with and learn from influential industry leaders. And no matter how excited I am about what I learned, or who I met, my Dad always asks me the same question: “How is that going to translate into cash?”

Every time he says it, I could almost shake him. How does he not get it? How does he not see the value of these relationships? Even though it seems obvious to me, I know my Dad is not alone in his thinking. Historically, the path to cash has been very linear. Each person or relationship is seen like a transaction, serving a very distinct and clear purpose. Today, however, we are living in a relationship economy.

Ted Rubin, an industry leader in social marketing strategy and brand evangelism, calls this currency “Return On Relationship” (ROR). “ROR is the value that is accrued by a person or brand due to nurturing a relationship, whereas ROI is simple dollars and cents. ROR is the value (both perceived and real) that will accrue over time through loyalty, recommendations and sharing.”

Growing and building a network of relationships is essential, which is why Network Under 40’s founder, Darrah Brustein, has built a lifestyle and company out of connecting people.

I recently caught up with Darrah on this week’s podcast episode where she shares how to turn connections into cash.

Darrah says, “I can track most things that have happened in my life — both personally and professionally — back to a relationship I’ve had with someone. Once I met a man at a networking event and he asked to interview me on his podcast about my kids books. Several months later, he randomly wrote about Network Under 40 in Inc. Magazine which generated global interest that facilitated our expansion. You never know how you can help someone, as well as the power of their connections and influence.”

Darrah is on a mission to redefine the way people think about the word “networking.” In her opinion, “networking has become synonymous with selfishness, when at its root, I believe it’s about selflessness.”

To thrive in this relationship economy you have to be willing to give more value upfront than you are trying to receive. That is why the best time to cultivate relationships is when you have nothing to take–only something to offer–so that when your time comes to ask, you don’t appear self-serving. Some of the best business returns end up being the most random and you never know which connections will cash in at which time.

Want to know how to get rich from your network? Follow these 5 principles to abide by:

People are Human Beings. Look at each person beyond their perceived transactional value. See them for who they are, the interests they have, the types of things they like and speak to that. Ask them about their kids, where they want to travel, or a favorite movie they saw recently, get personal!
Be Authentic. Cultivate relationships with those with whom you naturally connect — with no self-serving agenda. Don’t be afraid to be yourself, you will find people want to help you more when they get to know the real you.

Figure Out How To Add Value. The more value you can add the higher your social currency becomes. Listen to what people need and help be the one to connect the dots for them. Every person is missing a “piece” to their puzzle, figure out the piece and when you need something you won’t be forgotten.
Keep In Touch. Always send a LinkedIn invitation with a personalized note after you’ve met someone or an email. This is a simple way to keep track of their latest job updates, birthday and other important things they might share. You can also add them on Facebook or social media so when they post something you can easily “like” it and remain a presence in their life.
Get Clear On Your Goals. When you are clear on what you need or the “pieces” you are looking for people can know how to contribute to you. Without having this clarity most people will not know how to help you. You will be surprised by how many people are willing and are just looking to you for the next step.
If you want to win a free copy of Darrah’s book “Finance Whiz Kids” subscribe to the podcast here then enter to win by following this link. Darrah has made this offer exclusively to Unconventional Life readers and listeners.

February 28, 2018