The OpenWorld Podcast: Live Without Limits

"Ships do not sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them." — Freeman Fung Our guest today is Freeman Fung, an international author, speaker, and Mindvalley certified coach who is on a mission to help people adapt in our modern, globalized world. Originally from Hong Kong, Freeman’s life was transformed at age 19 when he left home solo to live in Europe and began a decade-long journey of living, studying, and working in over 30 countries. He is a TEDx speaker, a Shaolin martial artist, a biohacker, and a dedicated lucid dreamer (or "oneironaut") who uses the depths of the mind as a territory for personal growth. We both met in Japan recently where we both spoke at Colive Fukuoka.  In his book, "Travel to Transform," he provides a map for shifting from a local (which he describes as ego-centric) to a "world-centric" mindset, raising our self-awareness and metacognition, by using travel as the ultimate fast-track for personal mastery. Notable Quotes "Global citizenship is not a result; it’s a mindset. It’s a way of seeing, a way of thinking, a way of living—at work or play, travelling or not travelling." "I am not what happens to me; I am who I choose to become." "The world is what we think it is, but there is a world beyond our thinking."

Today I have the pleasure of hosting an insightful interview with my friend and entrepreneur coach, George Katsiouras, as he reveals helpful strategies for us to break through mental barriers and achieve better performance and growth in our lives. One of the characteristics of the most successful and effective people is their speed of implementation. The most effective entrepreneurs have found a way to come to peace with their internal dialogue and reduce their internal resistance so that it doesn’t interfere with their performance. In the interview George shared several helpful ideas and metaphors to help us “reframe” our mindsets and better understand our growth as an individual and an entrepreneur. He explains why we trap ourselves with expectations, and how to feel more optimistic about our lives, standards, and qualities so that we are better equipped to handle the daily challenges that come with the entrepreneur life. He helps us to reassess our measuring stick of success in a way that empowers us and makes us less outcome-oriented. This interview offers an illuminating perspective into George’s system, the Effortless Action Protocol (E.A.P) and we discuss practical techniques to reframe your thinking and how they can translate to real world results. Learn how George has helped entrepreneurs worldwide double their income, secure dream clients, and 10x their productivity. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a competitive edge and transform your mindset!

Join me in welcoming Christian Petersen (@chrisbuildsbrands) to the podcast! A lifelong traveler who has lived in Australia, Bali, Thailand, and Spain, Christian has become a trusted expert for creators and entrepreneurs who want to show up confidently on camera. With a blend of global experience, storytelling insight and on-camera performance coaching, he helps founders communicate with authenticity and turn their presence into a powerful marketing asset. If you're ready to strengthen your brand and show up more boldly online, then you're going to love this interview. More specifically, we discuss the best ways to work on your business rather than in it, and turn your passion into income. Chris is an expert at helping coaches and creators to turn their personal brand and social media into a sales machine, and he teaches us how to do it! He also shares his technical expertise with us to make your processes more efficient, so you can focus on scaling and growth rather than just putting out fires.

Welcome to another exciting episode of the OpenWorld podcast! We are back again with fresh new content for our you. In this episode, I'm joined by my friend Jonathan, AI futurist and founder of the Collective, a private AI mastermind for seven and eight figure entrepreneurs. Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur himself with over 30 ventures under his belt in technology, education, and e-commerce, with a unique vision for accelerating growth. As the owner of a Public Company, Co-Founder of an AI Startup, and the visionary mind behind A.I., WEB3, & Exponential Tech Lab, he has crafted four million-dollar brands spanning three different industries. His strategic prowess has led to three successful exits, and some notable clients in his portfolio include Audi, Maserati, NOKIA, and other industry giants. He has also worked with politicians, the Secretary of Defense of Mexico, and Fortune 500 companies. In the fast-evolving Digital Age, Jonathan believes in using patterns, social factors, and technology to reap not only monetary rewards but also to support humanity and the world of tomorrow. His mantra is clear: “Creating value out of nothing.” In this exclusive interview, we will discuss: – Strategies for Explosive Growth: Learn firsthand from Jonathan’s track record of creating and scaling million-dollar brands– Global Business Expansion: Understand the intricacies of taking a company to a global scale and successful exits– Clientele Management: Gain insights into client relations and management by delving into Jonathan’s experiences with renowned names like Audi, Maserati, NOKIA, and more.– Multi-Industry Mastery: Explore the dynamics of working across technology, education, and e-commerce sectors.Navigating Political and Fortune 500 Arenas: Hear about Jonathan’s experiences collaborating with political figures and Fortune 500 companies. Understand the strategies for thriving in high-stakes, influential environments.– Business Innovation: Discover strategies to leverage AI, WEB3, and exponential technologies to stay at the forefront of business innovation. Hope you enjoy the interview and thanks for listening! :)

In the last episode, we discussed an important concept in stoicism and how to reprogram the way that we look at failure and our relationship with failure. In this podcast let's learn how to program ourselves for massive success. In order for us to enjoy massive growth and massive success in our careers and in our lives, we have to first develop the capacity within us for massive success. It has to become our natural state of being. We have to normalize it. Anything that you think is impossible, difficult, challenging, needs to become normalized. It needs to become your normal state of being. When you program yourself at a higher level, it can't help but become your natural state of being and all of the success that you want will follow. As far as I know, there are at least four ways I know to program ourselves for massive success and abundance. Words, pictures, feelings, and kindness. Words There are reasons that I listen to guided meditations and affirmations on YouTube. The words that you tell yourself that you program into your mind, are the most important building block for creating the day and ultimately the life that you want. There is simply nothing more powerful. And you have to think about this motivation, this programming as something part of your daily routine just like showering and drinking your morning coffee or tea. If you were a high performance athlete, such as an Olympic athlete, you don't have the luxury of having mediocre thoughts, if you want to win a medal for your country. You can't just go and say I'm just going to give it my best. I'm just happy to be able to compete. You can say that, but if you want to perform your best, and have the best chance of winning, you have to program yourself with the most empowering thoughts possible. And we should do exactly the same, every morning when we wake up we should program ourselves with the most powerful thoughts, the most powerful affirmations so that we are on the level of an Olympic athlete. Muhammad Ali used to tell himself every day, “I am the greatest,” long before he ever was, and then went on to become the greatest. We don't need to compete in professional sports. But we do need to build this capacity for greatness, and we need to make it normal and familiar to us. This is one of the best ways that we do it.  Pictures Using visualization and creating mental pictures and mental movies is another way to expand our capacity for more success and abundance. Can you start to imagine yourself as being the ultra successful, super fulfilled and satisfied person that you see yourself in the future at this very moment? Is it possible to recreate that feeling of success and let it fill your body right now. Just take a minute and imagine everything. Imagine that your business has reached levels of success that you could not even expect. Imagine how you will celebrate. What will you do to celebrate your success? Can you go out and start to celebrate that success now? Can you do the activities that give you that feeling of success? Money visualization The next visualization involves money. I want you to imagine your money worth. However you think of it. It could be your bank balance, it could be your assets, it could be your monthly or annual income.  Whatever it is, imagine that you're looking at that number. Then imagine that it's 50% more than it is right now. Then imagine that it's twice as much as it is right now. Then keep going. Five times, 10 times. Imagine that you reached your destination. Think of everything around you, think of how you feel. Can you feel that way now? Do this, and it will increase your capacity. Visualize energy The last visualization exercise involves energy. Are you holding on to any energy that you don't want? Did someone give you energy which you don't want to hold on to anymore? Holding on to this negative energy is like carrying a backpack full of rocks. I want you to take all of that energy and just put it into a big ball. It can be any color that you want to imagine. And then I want you to just release it, like a balloon. Watch as it just slowly fades away into the distance. Now do the same with all of your fears. These also do not belong to you. So take them all and put them into a ball of energy, a different color than before. Then just release it, and watch it slowly fade away. All of that negative energy and fear from others, of that some external factor forced onto you, no longer belongs to you. It no longer has any influence on you, or any power to weigh you down. Feelings There's a story related by Ken Honda where he talks about when he was walking in the park with Wahei Takeda, Japanese billionaire. Ken was trying to pick his brain to understand the characteristics that make up billionaires. Wahei told him to just take a moment to pause and notice all of the abundance around them. The singing of the birds, the abundance of trees, the magnificence of the sunlight sparkling on the lake. The important lesson, is that there is already abundance everywhere. Chances are, that we are not appreciating the things that we already have to the extent that we could be. When I drink my cup of coffee in the morning, I get the same feeling like a millionaire as I might if I bought something 100,000x more expensive. And that cup of coffee will taste the exact same whether I'm a billionaire or just an average person. In his book, Honda says that "the more you appreciate, the more things appreciate." The more that we appreciate all of the abundance around us, the more capacity we create in our minds to create more abundance. "The more you appreciate, the more things appreciate." Kindness Our brains are chronically in "threat mode." This is a byproduct of outdated evolution. We are naturally fearful creatures, because in the past the most cautious of our human race survived and passed on its genes. This is a problem, because when we start to view our work as a burden, or we start to feel threatened by potential leads or our clients, then we start to run away from what we need to do. We need to run towards challenges. We need to run towards our to-do list, towards our emails, towards putting ourselves"out there." So what I like to do, is to practice daily kindness, daily helping, daily giving value. If I am talking to potential prospects and leads, I will start with brand new ones, and I will perform a helpful gesture or an act of kindness for them as a warm-up before I take on more important sales calls and appointments. This is really powerful, because it takes me out of the threat mode. It breaks down my internal resistance, and the guard of others. It makes me less defensive when I communicate to people, and it programs me to have the capacity for abundance. Einstein told us that the most important question in life is: "Is the universe a friendly place? Because your answer determines whether you build bridges, or you build walls."

Amor Fati – the antidote to anxiety and procrastination Amor fati is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "love of fate" or "love of one's fate". It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good or, at the very least, necessary. You need to have the mindset that it is impossible to fail. You need to be able to see what other people call failures as stepping stones to get you to success. Let me ask you a question. If you publish a post then it only gets one likes, how do you feel? If you publish the post and it got a thousand likes, how would you feel? Similarly, if you ran a promotion and it gets one sign up, how do you feel? If you run a promotion and it gets 10,000 signups how do you feel? Is it possible that you can feel the same regardless of whether you get results poor results far your expectations or amazing results that far exceed them? When you become indifferent to the outcome, you have tremendous Jedi level power. Why? Because you can get up every day and grind in ways that people who are emotionally attached cannot. If you had a bad day, if you had a failure, it's so easy to wake up the next day and charge ahead and get right back at it again. Whether something good or bad happens, can you be able to see it as a positive? Can you look at your past experiences to see things that you consider bad, and try to consider how something good might have actually come from it? There's a story of an old Taoist farmer that I want to share with you. On his farm he had one horse. One day, the gate was left open and the horse ran away. All of his friends said, such bad luck! He just replied, "Maybe. We'll see." Then suddenly, the horse came back a few days ago with three more wild mares. His friends once again said, “such good luck!” Again he replied, "Maybe. We'll see." As his son was breaking in one of the wild horses, it threw him from his saddle and he broke his leg. Once more his neighbors came over and said, “such bad luck!” He replied, "Maybe. We'll see.” The next day, military officials from the government came to the town to conscript young men for service in the military. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. Shortly after, almost all of the young men who were drafted perished in a great battle. Once again, the neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out and told him “such good luck.” “Maybe,” said the farmer. The winds of fortune are always in flux. We need to arrive at a state of mind where chance does not affect us. Life does not always give us what we want, it gives us what we need. Nothing is good or bad, it simply is.

Today I want to tell you about a very simple exercise that only takes a few minutes. And you can do this anytime that you feel yourself full of doubt about whether you're going to do something, whenever you feel like you're facing something that's impossible.  I'm going to teach you how to make that not only feel less impossible but how to make it's fulfillment inevitable. It's actually very simple: where the body goes, the mind follows. So imagine that there's three types of statements that you could make. One is a true statement like "the sun will rise tomorrow." You know that pretty close to 100% that it is a true statement. It is inevitable. Another one might be a maybe statement, like "I will work out tomorrow." And then the third one is something that would be completely untrue, like "the sun will explode tomorrow." So what do you do next is that whenever you come up with these kinds of statements you want to observe and see where you experience that thought in your body. For each person that can be something different. When I make a true statement, like "the sun will rise tomorrow," I feel that in my chest. It is very close to my heart. That's where my convictions are stored in my body. That is where I feel my truth. A maybe statement like "I will meet my friend for lunch tomorrow," is something that I feel is kind of up in the clouds. It's kind of at the tip of my head, it's kind of a question mark. Then let's take a statement which I know is impossible, like "the sun will sink into a black hole this week." Or, "will be hit by an asteroid tomorrow." It seems kind of farcical and nonsensical and I sort of feel it like in the tips of my limbs, the tips of my toes. So what you do, is whenever you have a statement or a thought which you feel like it's not likely to happen, you can move it from one part of your body to another part of your body. So for example, you can take statements that you think would never happen and start to believe that "well, maybe that could happen." "There might be a possibility that that could happen." Or you can take the statements that are maybe, and move those from up into the clouds to the center where it becomes a conviction. And so, through an exercise like this, you can notice where thoughts are stored in your body, and if it's not serving you you can move it somewhere else. In this way, what you think is very hard, or difficult, or very challenging or even impossible, you can put it somewhere where it becomes inevitable. By the same token, you can reject thoughts and beliefs that you don't wish to have and push them towards a different location so that they feel less true. Remember that visualization is more potent when followed up by action, so the next thing to do is simple. Come up with the immediate step that you're going to take today to physically act upon this impulse.

"Until You Make The Unconscious Conscious It Will Direct Your Life And You'll Call It Fate" -- Carl Jung In some of my recent posts on social media, I have talked about the importance of listening to your intuition and following it throughout your life. In today’s episode I want to share a couple of the best ways to develop your intuition and listen to your inner voice and how to use it for creative problem solving. This is one of the simplest and most effective ways to develop your intuition and to really understand it and shape it. The human brain has five brainwave states, these are: beta, alpha, theta, delta, and gamma. We spend most of our waking lives in the first state, which is the beta state. But most of our lives are actually directed by the deeper states of consciousness, and very few of us realize it. When we wake up from sleep, for the first 20 minutes our brains are in an alpha state. This is called "the doorway to the subconscious." I've always found the most fascinating insights immediately after waking up. My mind is suddenly full of all kinds of thoughts that I would never have consciously ever imagined during waking hours. And so one of the ways that you build up the muscles in your alpha brain state is to use what's called the alpha countdown exercise. Basically, within the first 20 minutes of waking you just count down backwards from 100 to 1. And what this does, is it trains you to operate within your alpha brain state. If you practice this everyday for a few months, you will start to gain a greater awareness and understanding of your subconscious. A couple of other techniques which I like to use involve journaling and guided meditation. I use guided meditation to program my subconscious mind with the thoughts and direction that I want it to have, both before going to bed at night and after waking up. Journaling before and after waking is great as well. When you write down your to-do list before going to bed, your subconscious mind will go to work on ways to solve tomorrow's tasks and problems while you sleep. Likewise, you can listen to guided meditations twenty minutes before and after sleeping so that you can program the thoughts and beliefs that you want to internalize. Finally, I find that much of my best writing comes immediately after waking up in the morning (or in the middle of the night). Most of the profound insights come from the alpha brainstate, before I start getting into the beta state and performing a whole bunch of routine daily mundane tasks. So when you wake up, whether you have dreams or not, observe the thoughts that you have when you wake up and find a way to record them. You don't always have to write, sometimes I just open my phone and talk and transcribe everything that my subconscious mind is telling me.

I have many friends lately that have been telling me that they are disappointed with themselves because of expectations that they have set that they feel like they are not living up to. And I think that the solution is very simple. There's something that's better than expectations. What's better than expectations is intuition. It always knows what you have to do. It always knows the next thing that you have to do. I like to think of it like going up a dark staircase. You can't really see 10 or 20 steps ahead of you, yet that is what everyone tries to do. You can only see maybe the first step, the next step, maybe the next two steps, maybe the next three steps and those are exactly the steps that you need to take. So if you listen to your intuition it's much easier than trying to meet these expectations which you don't even know how to get to in the first place and trying to jump 20 steps ahead when you have no clue. You just end up falling on your face and of course you are going to be disappointed. Another analogy that I like to make is that living well is like a form of sailing. You let the natural energy take you, you let the winds energy carry you. This is much easier than rowing and trying to use all your strength and all your energy and all your willpower. That might take you short distances but it can't carry you across the entire ocean.  It burns energy very inefficiently. it's much easier to just let things flow, follow your intuition because it already knows the next thing that you have to do.

As a marketer and an entrepreneur, programming myself with the right thoughts is something that I find essential to do everyday. Like working out the body, it's also important to train the mind. We take showers everyday, it's considered normal. But how many of us actively have systems in place to motivate ourselves and program the right thoughts and attitudes every single day? The first and easiest step is to practice some type of active meditation. This is not meditation as most people think of it, where they have to set aside time by themselves and clear their mind. It's about setting an intention and using the gears in your mind to propel you forward your intention. It's not about clearing your mind but setting it in the path that you wanted to go. For this, I highly recommend starting with some guided meditations. It's very simple, when you are getting ready for your day or having breakfast, you can listen to simple 20 minute audios that program you to be successful at anything that you choose to do. You can find many great guided meditations just from YouTube. You can easily search for and find guided meditations from some of the following creators: Dare to do Motivation, Marisa Peer, Paul, McKenna, Bob Proctor, Michael Sealey, etc. The power of listening to these audios everyday is that rather than leaving your mind to its own devices, you start it on the course that will give you the best results. You program it to reject disempowering thoughts and replace them with more empowering thoughts and beliefs. And this is especially important when it comes to creating the unshakable foundation that you need to grow your business. To successfully promote your product, it is also essential to integrate these types of beliefs: At the deeper state you can repeat the following beneficial statements: "My increasing mental consciousness is for serving humanity better." "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better and better." "Positive thoughts bring me benefits and advantages that I desire." These are the three beneficial statements from the Silva meditation system. In addition to these, you can also program the following beliefs: "My job is to serve and give value. I will make the effort to help someone, whenever possible, every single day." Now I know that there are some people who may be rolling their eyes at all of this. But my question to you is: when you try and take the required steps out of your comfort zone and the moment of truth comes, are you prepared to face the potential hostility without missing a step? Even just the thought of promoting a product and encountering hostility can stop a lot of people from even trying! Even just dealing with the clients that you already have can be nerve-rattling! And yes, I do speak from experience. That is why what I'm teaching right now is so incredibly important.  If you have a purpose, if your mission is to help bring abundance and be a positive influence on everyone around you, doors will open for you where they may once have been shut.

For those of you who have been following me for a while you know I've done a lot of experiments about productivity to see how I can basically become a better version of myself. I want to accomplish more and just feel like I'm achieving something everyday and making the most of my time. Here on the blog, I've shared my experiments with different productivity hacks like polyphasic sleep as well as how I engineer my environment for peak productivity. One year when I wrote five or six e-books I did all of my writing on the Bangkok SkyTrain because for whatever reason I was in the zone, and without internet I had very little distractions. I just got my laptop out and started typing. What I want to share this time around are some of my revelations that I've uncovered within the last year or so.  Since the Covid era began, I've spent the time here in Vietnam which is a beautiful country and has a great cost of living so it's a very nice place to wait out a pandemic. However, last year Saigon began to go into a lockdown and I got out just before it was too late. I packed all my things and got on my motorcycle and drove up the coast, eventually ending up in a mountain city called Da Lat.  The lockdown in Saigon lasted about 4 months and it was extremely severe. But where I was up in the mountains, I was prospering. The cost of living was very low, my expenses were only around 13 USD today, including my room and all of my meals (and I eat a lot). I spent the time focusing on healing what needed to be healed, growing where I needed growth, listening to guided meditations every morning and taking courses from masterclass and mindvalley. Because life in the mountains was relatively simple and peaceful it gave me the space I needed to grow and to heal. Oftentimes I would rest early after sunset, sometimes in bed about 8:00 p.m. and waking up around 4 or 5:00 in the morning. This was a great exercise in simplifying my life, simplifying my routines, and also simplifying my diet. Basically I got into a routine where I didn't eat anything in the mornings and usually had my first meal in the early afternoon around 2:00 p.m., and ate everything within a 5 to 6 hour window.  It was incredibly convenient because in Da Lat, you could eat at an all you can eat vegetarian buffet for only 25,000 vnd (which is about $1 USD). And what I have found, is that during that stretch from 5:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., I have no issues at all with energy and productivity. If you have ever studied my work before, then you know that I'm all about managing energy, rather than managing time. And fasting seems to be, bar none, the best way that I can have my mind and body on board with what I want to do for the day, and operate at full steam without any sort of resistance or a fatigue.  Conversely, I always find myself very tired after I eat a meal and I don't want to do any work anymore. It's like my willpower is sapped. And all I want to do is rest. So on certain days when I want to take a nap, I will try and plan my naps after eating a big meal. People often ask me, since I wrote the book "Hack Sleep" and created a video course called The Sleep Hacking Masterclass whether I am sleeping better nowadays. But I think it's actually the wrong question. The issues that I have never really disappeared, but my capacity to manage my day in a way that suits me best has become greatly enhanced since I studied the content needed to write the book. It's about managing my energy and my body so that it does what I need it to get done. And this is really, really important for me particularly because I don't like to leave anything half finished. When I start something, it is very important for me to complete it.  I'm not interested in earning a participation medal for a good effort. If I say I want to do something, whether to myself or to someone else, it is absolutely essential that I do what I say. In any case, there's all kinds of literature about the benefits on the fasting online, from burning fat to extending lifespan. I don't need to get into all of the details on here, I just want it to share my own experiences and related in a way that's easy for the layman to understand, implement and benefit from in their own life.

We are hardwired to withdraw into a scarcity mindset because we think it protects us. By withdrawing into a figurative “shell,” we believe that we retreat into safety. Thousands of years ago, this was the case. This was how we survived. If you were kicked out of the tribe, more than likely you perished. And today we tend to continue adhering to this evolutionary mindset. We run away from things that make us feel uncomfortable. We run away from our emails. We run away from our to-do list. We stick with what is comfortable and resist doing things that can bring change. This can be a huge handicap when it comes to making the right decisions that lead us to abundance and wealth creation. Poor decisions caused by “turtling” behavior lead to long periods of hemming and hawing, frustration, and delay. In short, ineptitude. This mindset paralyzes so that we act dead, trapped in a non-generative retreat from living. When we hold onto a scarcity mindset, we doubt genuine opportunities. In general, we lack confidence of overall success. And worse still, it causes us to sabotage ourselves. But here’s the reality of the situation: The entrepreneurs who have experienced meteoric success have a huge “reality distortion field.” Richard Branson, who has undertaken numerous death-defying stunts throughout his lifetime, is an example. Elon Musk is another. They aren’t so blindly optimistic that they don’t realize potential risks, but their mindset more than compensates for any potential stumbling blocks. Musk, incredibly, is certain that what we experience as reality is nothing more than a sort of virtual simulation created by a more advanced life form. He recently insisted that our odds of living in “base reality” are less than 1 in 1,000,000,000. Is it any wonder, then, that his goals (and the expectations he sets for himself and those around him) seem outlandish and far-fetched when compared to our own? He literally believes he’s living in an altered reality than the one you or I take for granted. One where he can play by a different set of rules, one where things like failure and rejection are moot, one where he can dare to push the limit of reality. I believe there’s enormous power in deliberately calibrating our subjective view of reality in a way that empowers us to the utmost. Through the lens of mindfulness and introspection, we can adjust our subjective reality and thus what we’re able to accomplish. It starts with setting unrealistic goals. If your current goals don’t cause you to well up with excitement, then it’s time to go back to the drawing board. Embrace ideas and actions that challenge your preconceived notion of reality. Be flexible and fluid of thought. Question everything, including your own habits and beliefs. When presented with a new way of looking or doing things, try it out immediately and test the results in an objective fashion. Never become complacent in your routines or attitudes; when you do, it’s time to pause, take a step back, and reflect.

The world is full of critical people. They destroy dreams, both their own and others, by using words like "can't" and "won't." Choose instead to be a creator. Give things and people a chance. See the potential. See things as better than they are. Look for good in others. View events and situations through a positive filter. Always give value and abundance. And don't let the small thinking of some other people pollute your thinking. It's not lonely at the top, it's crowded at the bottom. Remember, that the most important words that you can ever speak are the ones that you speak to yourself. Your mind does what it thinks that you want. So tell it what you want. Feed it fuel for your intention. And remember to quickly forgive yourself whenever you’ve made a mistake. You were simply trying your best in that moment. Never use critical words of self-defeating thoughts, like calling yourself an “idiot.” Just say something else, like “You were so silly.” As Bruce Lee said: “Words cast spells. That’s why it’s called spelling.” Your words become energy and your energy influences how you shape each day. Cover art courtesy of freepik.com

Is there a possibility that the worst thing that you can imagine happening could actually be the best thing? Your life is going to be long and one of the only ways to not be dragged down into bitterness and live a happy life is to develop resilience. Anything you think might seem bad in the moment, can and often does turn out to have positive effects in the long-term. Anytime that you feel that you're going through something that is the worst thing that could ever happen, ask yourself is there a chance that this could be the best thing that could ever happen?  Maybe you don't see it today but one week, one month, or one year in the future, you might see things differently. There is a well-known Chinese proverb about a horse who ran away from a farmer. As it was his only horse, his neighbors sighed and said “What terrible luck.” But the farmer shrugged and said “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.” A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.” Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.” A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.” The moral of this story, is, of course, that no event, in and of itself, can truly be judged as good or bad, lucky or unlucky, fortunate or unfortunate, but that only time will tell the whole story.  Heroes are born in hard times and adversity shapes us and makes us stronger.   Life doesn’t always give you what you want, it gives you what you need. Like a child who wants cake, he is given vegetables instead. Suffering only begins at the very moment you label something “bad.” But just think: could the “bad” things somehow lead to something good? Is there any way an event you considered “terrible,” could actually be the best thing that ever happened to you? Can you MAKE it the best thing that ever happened to you? Cover art courtesy of freepik.com

Welcome to another exciting episode of the OpenWorld podcast! After a long hiatus, I'm excited to kick off a new season with you all. We have great things in store! Today we bring you a value-packed episode from a friend, nomad, and entrepreneur that I truly admire. His name is Drew Taylor and he's one of the most industrious digital nomads that I know. The founder of Digital Nomad University, Drew is always sharing valuable resources about new ventures and income streams that he's tinkering with and enjoying success on. His blog (and Facebook group) is full of useful content covering everything from travel hacking and affiliate marketing to effective lead generation techniques to get customers. Drew started out with a meat-grinder job doing phone sales, an opportunity he took up just because it was available. But with entrepreneur's DNA, it didn't take him long to branch out on his own. Since then, he's tried everything from online freight shipping to social media marketing to blogging and investing. Today, he is the proud owner of about 7 or 8 different sources of income. During the interview, we talk about all of this and a lot more. In particular, I was curious to ask Drew how he discovers profitable business opportunities, launches them, and monetizes them in short order. I've observed him do this in a number of different capacities and noticed that he has an uncanny knack for it. We talk a bit about our philosophies to life and business and how it guides everything we are doing, the resources that have helped us along the way, and much more. A common characteristic that Drew and I share (and that I notice among many people who are having success today) is that we are both doers. If we see a fork in the road, we take it. When we see a promising opportunity in front of us, we take a chance on it. I've noticed that 90% of people don't think or act this way -- when they see an opportunity, they delay, they think it over, they pause and wait... and perhaps six months or one year go by and still haven't taken any action. Towards the end of the interview we also talk about what I call our own "universal basic income" that we've both set up where we use AI Forex trading software to create a hands-off passive income stream. I'm hoping this interview inspires and empowers you to take decisive action as you move down your ideal path in life! Resources and Links• Drew's blog, Facebook group, and Instagram• The AI Forex software that Drew and I are using to extract recurring income from the markets.

Welcome to another episode of the OpenWorld podcast! Our guest, Vin Clancy, was living on welfare and benefits 3 years ago, until he received a check for $250,000 for one of his ideas. He used the growth hacking techniques he was learning to get millions of visitors to websites he created and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment, and got into the Techstars accelerator. He made over $165,000 with his previous growth hacking book launch, “Secret Sauce,” and was previously on the OpenWorld podcast during the launch of that book in episode #90. Since then, he's changed his name from "Vincent Dignan" to "Vin Clancy." And with his new book, “Ace the Game,” he raised $10,000 in his first hour. This will be a fun chat between two deliquents who are living far outside of the conventional norms, having a bunch of fun, and running profitable businesses at the same time. Interestingly enough, Vin is also an expat based in Los Angeles, while I'm an expat based in Asia. So if you wanna learn some “hints” on how to do the same, and create freedom and leverage in your life, by having a profitable business that you don’t slave over, I know you will love this discussion. Vin starts out the interview by stressing the most important metric of growth hacking: you want sales. Indeed, this is perhaps the most important metric of business in general, and the reason why I no longer track things like website visits. Vin then shares his system for brand building -- which is perhaps the most important long-term business growth strategy. Because here's the secret: once you have established a platform and a respected brand, you no longer have to work so hard. It's the key to having customers and prospects rushing to work with you, instead of struggling to hard-sell cold prospects. Vin is one of the best self-promoters on the planet.  To streamline the process of building a powerful brand, Vin shares his hacks to content marketing and making sure that he's everywhere his prospects can find him. It's a strategy that I've also written about (you may have read about it in our newsletter), but Vin takes it further than perhaps anyone I've seen. Throughout the rest of the discussion, Vin shares juicy hacks and tips for creating powerful marketing videos, high-converting landing pages, Facebook ads, market research, influencer marketing, and more. We also talk about creating upsells, subscriptions, and memberships to fully monetize and lifetime value. I also ask Vin to share his views about the future of marketing, along with the hot little tool he's bullish on which few people know about and isn't competitive yet. This excellent chat with one of the world's leading growth hackers is definitely one you do not want to miss! Aaaand if you enjoy this episode, please be a friend and leave a review on iTunes :)

If you love travel and pursuing your passions, you’ll love this episode! Back in 2016, Celinne Da Costa took a huge leap of faith: she left her unfulfilling corporate life in New York City behind to design the life she wanted from scratch. Growing up as an Italian-Brazilian in the United States, she never subscribed to the idea of the American Dream. Instead she yearned for a lifestyle that allowed her to travel, write, and share meaningful experiences with others. Packing her carry-on, she got on a one-way plane to Europe, and spent close to a year putting her fate into the hands of people–mostly strangers–around the world, and had an astonishing +70 hosts in +20 countries across five continents. Her accommodations have ranged from a tiny hut in a small rural Nepalese village to a penthouse in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her hunger for meeting and befriending locals wherever she goes have taken her on all sorts of adventures, including: meeting locals at a Myanmar monastery who showed her a secret cave where a monk has been meditating for 40 years, meeting a Tasmanian man at a meditation retreat in Nepal for 30 minutes and visiting him in Tasmania six months later, jumping on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle in Indonesia and spending the afternoon learning about the ancient art of Javanese puppet-making. Her biggest adventure of all, however, has been rediscovering what it truly means to be human. She shares this in her book “The Art of Being Human.” During the podcast, Celinne shares her story pursuing the typical "American Dream." Like many of us, she became disillusioned, realizing that she the dream being sold to her was simply buying a product, and that she needed to look inside herself for true happiness. We talk about how we have worked to create our identities, and the trappings of the ego. Celinne shared some remarkable insights about her daily rituals, and how she lives by pursuing three things that set her soul on fire each and every day. She also shared some things which are new to me, such as the "Tibetan rites" that she follows for her wellness, and how she creates a powerful mindset to help her win at work.

In this episode of the podcast I have the pleasure of welcoming my friend and fellow nomad extraordinaire, Doug Crowe. Doug is the chief instigator behind Real Best Seller and helps regular business people to create books and profitable businesses with their book as an anchor. An avid traveler, 

Doug travels around the world and seems to be in a new country almost every week. He recently brought his mother with him on an unforgettable voyage to Antarctica. We had a chance to hang out in Bangkok recently, where we rode bicycles around the old neighborhoods and floating markets, and had a fantastic time. As a veteran of the publishing industry, Doug possesses a wealth of knowledge and experience for what it takes to help people become bestselling authors. As an entrepreneur he earns $20k per project, which is aspirational and enviable (to give you an idea, I've never sold a one-off service for more than $3.5k, so you can tell there's a lot we can learn from him about high-ticket selling). Doug also offers a done-for-you social media marketing service and has a lot of “hacks” to share, so I was very curious to pick his brain about his unique strategies for generating leads and traffic. Doug got his start in real estate investing, and over twenty years became very successful. However in 2008, the real estate market crashed and he lost everything. Sixteen foreclosures. A painful divorce. Loss of his home, career, and self esteem. He had to start all over again from square one. He wrote his first book, but wasn't successful. He did however learn from successful personalities such as Robert Kiyosaki and Loral Langemeier about how to become an "entrepreneurial author," a writer who is able to get full leverage and monetization from their book and brand. In this podcast, Doug and I had a brilliant conversation about building your personal brand and platform, and building mutually beneficial high-value relationships with successful people and clients. We discuss strategies for content marketing and reaching markets with your message, the art of high-ticket selling, prospecting online, why "getting the short end of the stick" can help you be super successful, Doug's "newsjacking" technique, and much more! Hope you enjoy this interview with Doug and I! And please become a friend of the show and leave us a review on iTunes :)

On today's podcast we're speaking with Kim and Ryan Desmond who run CodingNomads, which teaches intensive software development courses around the world. When I first read about Kim and Ryan's business, I really thought they had taken the tough route - after all, setting up an onsite technical training camp in Bali or Thailand cannot be easy, right? However, Ryan's expertise with in-demand coding skills, Kim's chops in marketing, and the couple's combined dream to help people worldwide learn skills that can change their lives for the better drove them down this road. As you will hear, it has been extremely rewarding. They ran their first 3 international training courses in 2017, which went even better than hoped for. Students say that learning to code abroad actually helps them focus in on learning fast, whilst getting to experience the digital nomad lifestyle. It also creates a real family feel amongst the cohort, with many keeping in touch and helping each other after the course. Beyond CodingNomads, Kim and Ryan have particular insight on what it's like to start an international business as a couple, what they love about being digital nomads, and advice for those looking to take the travel leap. I am really looking forward to chatting with Ryan and Kim, and hearing more about how they've turned their skills and passions into their dream digital nomad jobs.

In this episode, we've flipped the tables and I'm the one being interviewed by my friend and new OpenWorld podcast co-host, Lloyd Hester. Sometime ago, Lloyd and I connected on Facebook and connected instantly as fellow entrepreneurs, global nomads, and kindred spirits. Both of us were the archetypal "square peg in the round hole" growing up; we really didn't fit in with traditional education and a traditional career path. Despite natural gifts, we always seemed to be the troublemakers, the ones who seemed to be destined for failure (or at least a life well outside of the traditional path to success). In this discussion I share with Lloyd the formative stages of my years of starting out in business as a young adult (starting at 23) and how I progressed into the entrepreneur I am today. We talk about all of the lessons I learnt along the way (most at a high cost!). For example, the first internet marketing program I spent set me back $3,500 -- which I couldn't afford, so I paid in installments and hustled as hard as I could for the rest. We talk about keys to productivity and effectiveness, building successful online businesses and products, and my long-term strategy for success. I also share my "black box advantage" that I've been using in my current main revenue-generating business which gives me the biggest competitive advantage. We talk about "grey hat" marketing strategies and how you can leverage technology to reach more people. I also share my process for creating efficient systems to unlock freedom in your business and life, and a bunch more! This was a very fun chat and an in-depth discussion, thank you for your continued patronage of our podcast and hope you enjoy!