A (0:00)

Hey, this is Sharon Truvada. Welcome back to the Business School Podcast. And I want to show you how I made $2 million in two weeks. Now, yes, I know that sounds crazy, but the crazier part is I spent, I don't know, three months hiding and doing unproductive work, making dashboards that look cool, funnels and zapier and software, and pretending to be productive but not working any harder. By the way, I made the $2 million in two weeks by following what I now call the four laws of winning. And today, I'm going to show you how I discovered them, what these exact four laws are, and why they're free to use. And then don't even take a lot of effort. I'm going to break it all down for you step by step, starting right now.

B (0:43)

One thing is for certain, just because it's tried and true doesn't mean it's working right now. So the big question is this. Where can you learn what is working right now? The strategies, the tactics, the psychology, and.

A (0:57)

The exact how to. How to grow your business, how to.

B (1:02)

Blow up your personal brand and supercharge your personal growth. That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Sharan Srivatha, and welcome to Business School.

A (1:19)

So tell me if you've ever done something like this so I can will never forget this time where I had this entire plan where I built funnels and I think I downloaded like three different funnel software. I integrated them and then I built these dashboards and they looked really cool. And then I had the fancy zapier and it didn't connect with a couple of things. So I actually did make.com, and then I actually got really good at all of this. I got really good at apify and my API game is Ninja S Tier right now. All of it at the end looked super good, by the way. I would come up at the end of the day and be like, man, I was really busy today. I built a lot of stuff. I felt pretty smart, but I really didn't do much. Like, I. Deep down, I knew that I was avoiding the thing that actually mattered to actually sell a bunch of stuff. And I want to tell you the truth, I want to give you the kicker, which is when I finally blocked two mornings and I realized that I just needed to make some calls and get some sales in the door, I gave myself a 25 call limit. So I sent it. I said, I want to make 25 calls a day. And then you will not believe this. 25 calls a day in our modern world, you know, that people don't actually answer the phone and all of that. In two weeks, I closed, I'm not joking, over $2 million worth of deals, right? Two weeks after wasting like 3ish months building all my fancy funnels, trying to send traffic to it, buy ads to it, that's when I realized something, that winning isn't about grinding harder. And I'm not telling you that you should go make calls. That is not what this is about. I'm not telling you that you should make content. That is not what this is about. It's about following a few laws. Laws that I kind of wrote down that almost quietly decide whether you're moving forward or you're just kind of spinning where you are. And today I want to share the four laws of winning with you. Here is law number one, and I call this the spotlight law. And here's what I mean. So there is something called the illusion of progress, which is exactly what I took you through. You have a bunch of projects, 10, 15 projects you have done. Maybe you just started it. It feels like you are in momentum, feels like you're making progress. It feels like you're actually doing something with it. Honestly, busy is broke, right? Think about that. Busy is broke. And broke is just a state of affairs, right? So the question I started asking myself that I still use today is this. If I repeated this day for the next 90 days, would I be closer or farther away from my goals? Think about that for a second. Just look at your calendar right now. You can actually hit pause or think about your calendar from yesterday. If you just took all day yesterday and you Repeat it yesterday 90 times, like that's the only thing that you did. Whatever you did yesterday, you did for 90 days in a row, would you be closer or farther away from your goals? That's actually a really good diagnostic. And so a lot of times what I like to do is I look at my to do list, look at the projects that I'm working on, and I say to myself, okay, if I only did this thing every day for the next 90 days, would I be closer or farther away from my goals? Right? And that allows you to know the thing that you're actually doing, allows you to have the spotlight work for you. And I call this the. By the way, if you're a computer scientist, you know why I'm calling it this? I call this the recursive success diagnostic. And so I like naming things because it allows my mind to, like, capture things. If you're a computer scientist, you know the idea of recursion. But essentially recursion just means that you do the one thing over and over that you run the same protocol until you hit the thing and it circuit breaks. And to me, like, that was a gut check. So I remember, like, back then, my whiteboard was packed with ideas. I. I forced myself to do this one thing. To cross out nine out of the 10, to cross out as many as I can, to, like, remove the sticky not. And only the one thing that survived that list was 25 phone calls. So out of the so many ideas that I wrote down, the only thing that survives at that point in my life now I don't have to make 25 sales calls today. That's not what my day is built around, but that's what it was built around then. And so that physical act of me drawing the red lines through the other, like, not now ideas told my brain that this is the only game that I need to play right now. So my, my question for you is this. Do you have the courage to do that? Do you have the courage to say to you probably have your project written down somewhere or there in your head? Do you have the ability to run this recursive test on your head, which is, if I did the same thing for the next 90 days, would I win? Right? And it's actually, I'll give you something really simple. If you wanted. Were wanting to lose weight and you ate a burger, a fry and milkshakes today, and you said, if you were to repeat this day every day for the next 90 days, would you hit your losing weight goal? I will tell you right now, no, you're not going to. It doesn't matter what else you do. Unless it's insane, you're not going to. Right? And so the job for us is to figure out if it works in a compounding way, then it survives that spotlight, then it's worth the time. I really want to tell you this. The progress isn't the 10 things half done half. It's the one thing done all the way knowing that you're gonna crush it. Progress is in 10 things half done. That's actually pretty good. Progress isn't 10 things half done. It's doing the one thing done all the way, right? That's law number one, which is the spotlight law. Here's law number two. And it's the first domino. And you know what the first domino actually is. So every morning you've got one domino that makes everything else easier to knock down. Most People start with email, but email is. What is email? Email is just somebody else's to do list for you. You're starting your day on their agenda, not on yours. I will also tell you a really bad first domino is when you wake up in the morning and you hit snooze. Hitting snooze. Essentially, you tell your day that you made a promise to yourself that you're going to get up at whatever time 5am and then you hit snooze. And you knew that every alarm was 17 minutes long and you knew that you can do it four times. And you do math in your head and then you wake up at 6:17. Like you should just set the alarm for 6:17, because that first domino is really important. And then I realized for myself, the reason about this whole email thing is the first domino, when I made the spotlight law was this. I was avoiding these 25 sales calls. The reason I avoided them wasn't laziness. By the way, most people are not lazy. They know that the things that they have to do. It's not laziness. It was some kind of trepidation or some kind of concern. It was some kind of fear or some kind of hesitation. And I'll tell you when I realized this. This was many years ago. And I realized it one day when I was at the pool with my son. My son Neil was two years old then. He's like a teenager now, and he was 2. And he never, just never wanted to swim. Like, he'd want to play, like in the shallow area, but he never wanted to swim. It kind of made no sense for me. And so, because I know that kids love pools, I love pools. So I thought that maybe he just wasn't good at swimming. So what I did was I just got him really comfortable in the water. I got him really comfortable swimming. I got him really comfortable being safe. I threw him in, threw him out, made sure he was totally safe doing it. And once it happened, he wanted to swim all the time. Well, here's a big lesson though. That's when it hit me. He didn't hate swimming. He just hated being uncomfortable. He just hated having this hesitation, this fear, this trepidation of what would happen if he was, you know, stuck in the water. And once that friction had dropped, once that hesitation had dropped, once that concern was dropped, the fear disappeared and he was all in. He wanted to go, even have fun. This is even for having fun, let alone the work overall. And I think the same thing with my calls. I'll tell you what happened? When I dug in, when I kind of thought about it, I realized that there were probably a handful of questions that I was a little scared that prospects may ask me, may throw at me, and the ones that I didn't know how to answer, that would not be fun, it would make me look dumb. And that tiny uncertainty, that tiny trepidation, made me avoid doing the whole thing. And I guarantee you, all of us are like that. Did you know the number one reason that people don't go to the gym is because they don't really know exactly what to do when they go to the gym? So if you actually had a plan that you printed out before you went to the gym, not on a iPad or whatever, like, or your phone, if you just had a plan that you printed out before you went to the gym, you would actually do that thing and you would go to the gym more because you knew exactly what to do. This is why a lot of times, you know, before you go on vacation, you make a list of the 10 things you need to do before you go on vacation, and you bang out that list. Because you're not feared, you're not afraid. You have no hesitation, you have no trepidation because you know exactly how to do and what to do. So here's what I did, right? I sat down, I wrote every possible question that I could get asked on a sales call, and I just scripted all my answers. Then I just memorized them. Literally, I just memorized them. And once I had all of those lines kind of like in my back pocket, in my memory, my fear just went away. I knew that I could get by because I knew I'd already thought to the answers to all of these questions. So that domino of doing those 25 sales calls before I even touched my email was not scary anymore. It was just 25 calls on a sticky note that I could just cross off. And that was super helpful. So if there's something that you're not doing, it's. You don't need accountability. You don't need to check in on your friends. You don't need to get on a zoom call or have everybody else do it and be muted. You don't need to, like, take a picture. You don't need to, like, log it in a notebook. You don't need to do any of that. I just think you need to know that you're really good at it and have it at the first domino, do the thing before you do anything else. So my question for you is, if you're avoiding Just avoiding something. Just ask yourself, like, is there something in here that I don't like to do? Is I don't enjoy doing? Am I unsure of? And if you can just pinpoint the situation or the scenario or the technique or the method or the thing that actually makes you nervous or, or concerned, you just have to like, figure that thing out, Just solve that thing, script that answer, rehearse that thing. And that way that your fear just will shrink until there are no surprises left. And when there are no surprises left, it becomes easy. It becomes as easy as driving. It becomes as easy as making a phone call. It becomes as easy as sending a text message. It becomes as easy as scrolling on Instagram. Fear isn't about the whole activity. It's usually like one or two simple unknowns. You just gotta kind of name them, script them, and kill them if you will, right? Because your future self, your future success depends on that. That is the law number two, which is the first domino. Here's law number three. And I think you'll appreciate this, call this the Promise loop. And I, by the way, I like to name these things for myself because I don't forget them that way. And so the third law of winning is the Promise Loop. Think of it like the credit score with yourself. Because every promise you keep, your score goes up. Everyone you break, your score goes down. So when my score was low, I just didn't believe me anymore when I said, I'll read tonight. No, he didn't read, I'll work out tomorrow. No, he didn't work out. And once you stop believing your own commitments, I'm sorry, it's game over. Because you just make more commitments to yourself. You say you're going to wake up at 5am and you hit snooze. And then your nervous system, your mind, your body, everybody knows that you're not going to wake up, you're not going to show up, you're not, you're going to skip the gym. By the way, I will tell you this. There's a great James Clear quote I read. He said, when you skip working out one day, it's just a skip, it's just a miss. When you, when you skip working out two days, it's the start of a new habit. And I thought that was like, super thoughtful. So that's why they always say, you know, you know, it's okay to suck, but it's not okay to skip. Don't skip twice. So what I realized that was, if I could, the way for me to build the promises Back with myself was just starting small. So I just restarted a bunch of tiny things. And by the way, you don't have to go and remake promises with yourself and all the big stuff. The promise is just a muscle. Like you can get promises on small stuff. And I'll give you a very simple way to make promises. I make a promise to myself saying, hey. I said, that's why I do a lot of alarms. Sometimes they get carried away doing email or slack messages or being on social media, whatever. I'll give you this craziest hack that I do, which I think will be really helpful to you. I go, I set a timer for 15 minutes on my phone and only then do I start looking at social media. I never open social media without starting a timer on my phone. I never open my email without starting a timer on my phone. Literally, if I'm at my desk, I, I, I tell, I, I do a voice command and I say, hey, start the timer on my phone. And it's 10 minutes long and it just does it. And then when the timer goes off, I'm done doing my thing and I just keep my promise to myself. The easiest way for you to win is just start a timer and do the thing. Because now you have the accountability with yourself and you're, you know that you start to keep your promises to yourself. So for me, I just started small. I started tiny. I told myself, you know, I'm gonna drink a glass of water after brushing my teeth. I the two things together. I brush my teeth every day. I drink a glass of water right after I did it. Right. It was just, there was no excuses or the micro promise was so small that it just rebuilt my promise loop, which is really good by the way. This exact same thing happened when I committed to running the 5am Club. If you're not on the 5am Club, go to 5amclub.net it is a the number one call for our for at 5am Pacific Time specific time. So you east coast people are like 8am Eastern time. It's five minutes at 5am Seven days a week, 365 days a year. It's a chance for you to like listen to a quick message. You don't have to do anything. You just, you just dial into the call. There's no password or anything like that. And once you get on, you hear a message for three to five minutes and you're done. And that's your espresso shot for your, for your day, if you will. And I realized that when I committed to running the 5am Club. Every single day, thousands of people were showing up. And missing wasn't even a thought for me because my promise loop was so strong. Right? So you gotta tie a promise. What I found in is to tie a promise to something that you already do. So I already used to brush my teeth, so I would just automatically drink water. I always, whenever I lock my phone, I just write a journal entry. Or whenever you turn off the coffee maker, you draft one email, like, for me. I'll. I'll tell you my favorite promise loop that I set up for myself, which was every time I got to work and I parked in the parking lot, I, I. Every time I parked my car, I would post a story. So I just realized that now it just become that every time I pull into the garage and I park my car, I post a story. Anytime I just turn off my car. Before I get out of my car, I post a story. And when I say I post a story, I post a story on Instagram or whatever. But. So I just realized that I don't have to make. I don't make time to go posting stories. Whenever I am, Whenever I just finish parking my car, I post a story. The crazy part of this is I found one a couple days where, like, I didn't drive or I was not. I was traveling and I didn't park my car. I just didn't post any stories. And that's okay because you just realize you tie something to the thing that you already do, and then you have this co, you know, kind of tight habit, if you will, which works really well. My point is, if you don't trust your own promises, your brain stops investing in you. It's actually pretty good. I'll tell that again. If you don't trust your own promises, your brain stops investing in you. Once your brain sees you make these micro promises, it starts believing you again. So if you don't trust your own promises, your brain stops believing in you. The main thing here is every promise you keep yourself, your score goes up. Every one you break, it tanks. So keep your credit score high with yourself. All right? Here's my law number four, my fourth law of winning. You'll actually like this one. It's my favorite one. It's called the leprechaun test. By the way, I am a. I am an Indian leprechaun. I am a lucky joker. Like, I am one of the luckiest people you'll ever meet. Lucky things happen to me all the time. I. If when people say right place, right time, I'm the definition of right place, right time. Everything that I do, I'm lucky at. I am super lucky to have an amazing wife, amazing parents, amazing childhood, amazing children, amazing work, amazing friends, amazing family. I am just super lucky. Do crazy things happen to me? Sure. But am I super lucky? Yes. But you want to reverse engineer how luck works. I love. I also, like in. When I'm in interviews, I just ask people straight up. I'm like, hey, are you a lucky person? They'll be like, what do you mean? I'm like, do you get lucky? When was the last time you got lucky? I just ask all the time. I love, like, I. I like. I love lucky people. I am a lucky person. But I want to tell you this, how this leprechaun test works. Imagine luck as a little leprechaun with a pot of gold, right? This little leprechaun guy has got options. Who's he gonna hand the gold out to? You can be sure that he's not handing the gold out to the lazy guy scolding Instagram. He's not. That's not. Not the one waiting for a miracle, right? He's going to pick the one putting in the unreasonable effort. He's going to pick the one that's stacking in the wins. He's going to pick the one that's working their face off. He's going to pick the one that's making the sacrifices. He's going to pick the one making it obvious that he's ready for the break. So I run the leprechaun test every Sunday night on my life. I write down the three lucky breaks I have already had. Then I ask, if the leprechaun was watching me this week, would he want me to hand. Want to hand me the gold? It's really simple, right? He's gonna pick the one putting in the unreasonable effort. He's gonna pick the one stacking all the wins. He's gonna pick the one working his face off. He's gonna pick the one making sacrifices. My question is, if the leprechaun was watching me this week, would he want to hand me the gold? And the question flips a lot from I hope I get lucky to how do I make luck pick me? How do I make luck, Lady Luck, pick me? Leprechaun, Joker guy, pick me. So I just have this one thing where I say, I decide on one unreasonable effort this week that would make the leprechaun proud to hand me the pot of gold. You should do the same thing. What is One unreasonable effort that you can put in this week that would make the leprechaun so proud, that would hand you the pot of gold. Now you're like, well, Sharon, I don't believe in you stuff. I'm sorry, I'm super lucky. I'm like a walking Indian leprechaun. Like, I'm going to hand you some luck. I am. If I am the epitome of luck, you can get lucky too, is of getting, looking out at everyone else saying, hey, man, he got the girl, he got the money, he got the jet, he got the company, he won the lottery. You know, he got the six pack abs. What is something where. What is something where you're going to put in the unreasonable effort? You're going to attack the tiny wins. You're going to make do the extra work. You're going to work your face off, you're going to make the sacrifices. What is that? Where the leprechaun is watching you and he says, I want to hand this pot of gold to him. Essentially what it means is that luck doesn't fall in your lap. The leprechaun only pays it out to the ones who already prepare like crazy. Because how you prepare shows just how much you care. Right? And I'm sharing all this with you because when I finally made all those calls, I unknowingly followed all four of these laws of winning. I put the spotlight on one thing, which is like, oh my gosh, I should probably just make these calls. I knocked down the first domino every morning. I. I rebuilt my promise loop because I said I'm going to actually make these commitments. And I made the. I did the commitments. I land this, ran this leper contest. So my effort made me totally attractive to whatever gold I was going to get, right? And here's what's insanely awesome. Once you start living by these laws, once you know that these laws can be hacked in your favor, you stop saying I need motivation. You stop saying I need accountability. You stop paying for accountability. Like, paying for accountability. Are you serious? Like, why would you do that? That just means you don't have enough responsibility. That just means you're not committed. That's all it is. You just have to hack. Like, think about the leprechaun test. What can you do that is so unreasonable that the leprechaun wants to hand you the pot of gold Instead, you just prove to yourself that I am the kind of person who keeps his promises and tips the dominoes and attracts the luck and makes the leprechaun Work in my favor. That's how you win. That was two weeks. That was $2 million just in two weeks. And more importantly, I tell you that that was a system that I could trust for the rest of my life. So now I have these little four laws of winning. Law number one is the spotlight law, which is do that one thing and ask yourself, if you did that same thing for 90 days, would it work in your favor? Law number two is the first domino, which is how can you actually get that thing done? And you're probably not doing it because you're afraid of something else. Law number three is the promise loop, which is, you got to keep your promises to yourself. So start small and build that credit score back up for yourself. And law number four is the leprechaun test, which is the leprechaun's not giving the lazy guy scrolling Instagram a pot of gold. How can you make luck pick you? How can you make the leprechaun so proud to hand you the pot of gold? Those are the four laws of winning. Hey, by the way, if you like this, do me a favor. Can you screenshot this and just post it on social media and tag me if you. If you think that other people should listen to it, share it up. But just screenshot it and tag me. It lets me know that you like this and I can make more like this for you. So please screenshot this episode right now. Take a picture or whatever. Tag me wherever you are on social. That way I know you liked it and I can make more like this for you.