Unpacking 'Adapt or Die'

Nedd Brockmann, a young 24 year old who completed the run from Perth to Bondi Beach in 46 days and raising millions for the homeless. A likeable Aussie with a flowing mullet and even more flowy banter. His succinct approaches to life during the presentation can be summarised as:

1. Be accountable. Tell someone about it so you hold yourself to that promise.

2. Believe in yourself and have confidence. Accept that there is only one you and no one else can take that individuality.

3. Don't put everything into what you have achieved. Emphasis on HAVE, it's in the past. Don't cling onto it, rather, live in the moment.

4. Have a routine that you stick to, rain, hail or shine. Discipline is the bridge between goal and accomplishment.

5. Keep reminding yourself why you started. If it's not a strong enough reason to keep going, it's time to re-evaluate. Intrinsic motivation will always outshine extrinsic (fame, money, status). What inspires you? Who inspires you?

Ethan Donati, the CEO of 'Million Dollar Funnels' presented next. His anecdotes were that he was a very quiet, introverted youth who found his passion. Donati was an excellent, engaging public speaker but admitted he still struggled with some social anxiety. I can understand this as I believe public speaking and social conversations are very different. As a teacher of a group class, I have no problems whether it is a 5 students or 50. However, put me in a nightclub and have to speak to random people amidst booming music, I would start faltering.

Anyway. Donati said we should spend a minimum of $1000 on social media marketing. This is no secret to success. He maintained constant engagement with the audience by addressing what was real. Most of us did not spend much money, if any, at all on social media marketing. Likes and followers mean nothing. You can buy this and get fake followers, views, likes and comments. He stressed social media marketing is about a clear process to revenue. Ultimately, that is why we use social media in a business setting: revenue. Much like a funnel, we should educate our target market. Not 'sales' them. Like a funnel, if more time is invested and spent into educating the market, they will naturally be more inclined to buy it willingly (bottom of funnel).

Donati kept up very easy to understand analogies. Greatness is separated by milliseconds. I can understand this as a martial artist. One millisecond of timing missed and you may get knocked out. He used Usain Bolt's sprints as an example. He would win by a 0.12 second gap and that would determine whether he got gold or silver.

We should have audacious (bold) goals each year. What is yours? Why haven't you achieved it yet? Donati was very real and direct. It's mostly due to fear which leads to procrastination, distractions, doubts and inhibitions. If you need inspiring words, don't do it. If you need words of encouragement, don't do it. I can understand this statement from a greater perspective. This can be misunderstood as discouraging for those who are really trying to break through discomfort. Maybe they are trying to lose weight? First day into the gym? What Donati means (I believe) is that to truly aim for the top of your chosen craft, it's a tough, grueling journey which ultimately must be taken by you, alone. If you need ongoing encouragement, you may not last the amount of time and consistency needed to even try to get there.

Marketing is effective communication. Simply put. Below are some concise but powerful and scalable tips Donati gave.

• Pre-framing: Before someone looks at your content, they must know it's worth their time.

• We bog down too much with irrelevant questions when we have a marketing task to do, which ultimately causes action paralysis. What time should I post? What's the font suggestion? How many times a week should I post? It's a saturated market! Should I change content between Facebook and Instagram? What about Linkedin? The algorithm?

• How well do people remember your brand? A super engaging ad can be unsuccessful if the brand is forgotten. Evian Water had the most viral ad of its time but it lost 25% market share because the product nor brand was displayed in a memorable manner.

• Aim for mass distribution. Save time. Athletes don't perform for one person. How can I spend 2 hours talking to 200 people rather than 1.

• Watch what they do, not what they say as often there is incongruency.

• Be relatable! Be real.

• There will always be tall poppy syndrome. It is inevitable. There will feedback which will make you doubt or think why did they say such a thing. Don't be fearful of these comments. Donati showcased some of his own hate comments he gets.

• Between quick result advertising (Google ads, Instagram...) and long term marketing (content creation, Youtube channel, blogging), Donati advocated for quick result advertising. Over and over. Paid ads will always kill organic marketing. Facebook and Instagram have the highest ROI, TikTok is the cheapest platform and gets visibility quick. Be seen everywhere.

• Word of mouth and referrals should be the cherry on top, not the main source of leads and sales. Relying on this creates comfort and a false sense of security. If we truly believe in our product, we have a duty to be seen.

• Do you have specialised knowledge that the average person doesn't know? You can teach that and market it. People rather learn from professional do-ers than professional teachers. Many teachers in university, for example business lecturers, have never ran a business themselves, Donati said. What's easy for you but hard for others? How can you explain this simply?

• The most profitable businesses are not always the best in what they do.

• Find a niche, it's impossible to target everyone.

• Focus on marketing to psychographics. How do people think? What are their values? What are they going through? What solutions do they want to find?

• Brand name isn't as important as you think. What you do is more important. Facebook changed its name to Meta. There was controversy but noone cared about a week.

• Hit the left brain testimonials (data driven) and right brain testimonials (emotions).

• Ask the right questions. Empowering questions give empowering answers.

'The Sales King', Aaron Sansoni presented next. Aside from his presentations on merges and acquisitions, his speech on dopamine was interesting to me. People microdose themselves on dopamine everyday through repetitions of 'next time I will do it' after ongoing failed decision making. One day I will go to the gym. One day I will get back into training. One day I will watch what I eat. One day I will stop stressing about work. One day the kids will grow up. We must commit and be prepared to endure what must be done when we decide to do something. We must act immediately. We must be comfortable with discomfort over time.

Sansoni explained that of the 2.2 million businesses registered in Australia, 65% of them are owned by Australians aged 50-70 years old. He said that a wealth tsunami is coming, as these 50-70 year old business owners don't have successors to take over. They are likely to sell their businesses and with basic supply and demand, there is plenty of opportunities to acquire these businesses. Buying a business has many pros over starting from scratch such as risk, outlays etc.

Graeme Holm presented next, CEO of Infinity and a funny man who self-sabotaged his weight a lot, gave out free champagne and swore profusively. All the speakers were engaging through their directness and transformational anecdotes. Both Sansoni and Holm had their sale pitches. And we were all eager and impatient for the man of the event, David Goggins.

Man, what a powerful speaker and more significantly, what a great guy. You could not hate on him. He was free-flowing, called people up onto stage with no hint of ulterior 'flashy' motives. Ethan Donati co-hosted this section of the event with Goggins but the gap between energy and commandment of raw power was enormous.

To summarise, and in the spirit of directness, some of my takeaways from Goggins:

• Feed your mind with crap, you will get crap

• Positive mind is not permanent. It's easily swayed. You have to keep feeding it positivity. You have to train this.

• We need strong beliefs that will stand the test of anything. The test of your friends or family liking you. You cannot just be 'the nice guy'.

• Don't negotiate with yourself.

• Don't be a slave to your feelings, they chop and change.

• The most important conversations are the ones you have with yourself. True belief comes from inside the mind. Teams fall apart. People leave you. Anything can happen. The only team you have till the end, is your own mind. Thus, we have to be our best self at the worst of times.

• Be a truth speaker. It's hard enough finding what is true and what isn't. The truth will help you address what really is the problem. Don't do yourself a disservice.

• Can you really perform to your best potential if you know there is a safety net? Can a warrior really go to battle knowing they will come back alive? Classic Goggins style! We have learnt to become excellent hiders. We need to see who we exactly are so life can truly go on. So we can go on.

• When you sell a bit of yourself, you have sold your soul. We have watered something down. This is something that is very difficult to recognise and takes a lot of unlearning and destruction of ego to see true clarity.

• Be present. Be in the moment when you speak to someone. This takes practice.

• Take it step by step. Take it day by day. Take it bit by bit.

All in all, as I write this, my hindsight tells me that a lot of what I have written has already been written, even by me in my past journals on this site. But we still don't practice it, we still slack off. And that's okay. We need affirmations, we need leaders to remind us. Most importantly, we need to come to these conclusions ourselves through our own lives and sufferings.