March 17, 2025 • 28 mins
Zig Ziglar changed my life when I was just 18 years old, and decades later, his wisdom continues to shape my approach to business and life. After borrowing a set of his cassette tapes from my girlfriend's entrepreneurial father, I became captivated by Zig's unique ability to distill complex success principles into actionable wisdom that resonates across generations.
What makes Ziglar's teachings particularly valuable for online entrepreneurs is their perfect balance of simplicity and profound truth. Whether you're launching a dropshipping store, building a content business, or creating digital products, these five principles cut through the noise and address the core challenges that prevent most side hustlers from achieving their goals.
The first principle—"you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great"—liberates us from the paralysis of perfectionism. Too many aspiring entrepreneurs remain permanently stuck in the planning phase, waiting for the perfect moment that never arrives. The second principle reveals the secret to sustainable success: "you can have everything in life you want if you'll just help enough other people get what they want." When you shift your focus from what you can get to what you can give, your business transforms from a self-serving venture into a vehicle for meaningful impact.
Ziglar's third teaching reminds us that "it's your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude." I've witnessed this repeatedly throughout my career—the most successful people aren't necessarily the most naturally talented, but rather those with resilience and a growth mindset. The fourth principle offers freedom from the weight of past mistakes: "failure is an event, not a person." By separating setbacks from your identity, you can extract valuable learning without crushing your confidence. Finally, Ziglar's observation that "motivation doesn't last—neither does bathing, that's why it's recommended daily" underscores the importance of intentionally maintaining your mindset.
What principle resonates most with your entrepreneurial journey right now? Share this episode with someone who needs these timeless insights, and join me next week as we explore practical AI applications for podcast creators and online business owners.
Resolutions off the rails? You’re not alone. But there’s still time to turn things around. The ALIGN Productivity Challenge is a proven system to help you achieve your goals in just 90 days—no fluff, no overwhelm. Head to AlignProductivity.com and start your comeback today.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Episode 273.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing
Podcast, I'm going to tell youall about my life journey with
Zig Ziglar and the five mostimportant things that Zig taught
us that will impact your sidehustle journey.
All this and more on the LateNight Internet Marketing Podcast
.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast and
now broadcasting late at nightfrom a little studio in the big
state of Texas, your host, markMason.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hey, hey, hey, how is everyone doing?
I am your host, mark Mason,coming to you from the little
studio in Dallas, texas, wherewe talk about side hustling with
online business and all thestuff that that entails.
I'm excited to be with youtoday to talk to you about
really one of my childhoodheroes which sounds kind of
(01:12):
weird Zig Ziglar.
So if you don't know, zigZiglar?
Zig is clearly one of the mostfamous, most popular, most
well-known and most belovedmotivational speakers of all
time.
He's been gone for years now,but the work that he did over
(01:32):
the course of his lifetime liveson long past Zig.
And I tell you it's amazing tome how some of the simple but
incredibly fundamentally truethings that Zig had to say have
impacted my life since I was 18years old.
(01:53):
When I was 18, I was a highschool kid.
Actually, I was involved inhigh school debate.
It's way cooler than it sounds,but I was big into high school
debate and I was dating afantastic girl who I cared about
.
You know, at 18 years old, Iwas head over heels in love with
this girl and her dad was anentrepreneur.
(02:14):
I didn't even really understandwhat that meant.
I understood that he owned abusiness.
But my dad had worked his wayup in corporate America and I
didn't really understand thisidea of being a business owner.
But as it turned out this smallbusiness owner it turned out he
owned a pool chemical treatmentcompany business where he went
(02:36):
in and installed these bigchemical treatment systems in
commercial pools.
That guy trained his salesforce using Zig Ziglar's stuff
and one of the very popular ZigZiglar programs at the time was
called Secrets of Closing theSale.
So one time I borrowed a set ofZig Ziglar tapes and, yes, there
(03:00):
was no audible.
At this time there was nodigital media.
If you wanted to listen to abook on tape, you listened to it
on cassette tapes down here inTexas about making sure that
those didn't get too hot.
And I listened to those tapesover and over again, so
(03:31):
impressed by Zig and hismannerisms and the things that
he had to say about sales andhow to achieve sales goals and
really how to achieve life goalsin general.
And so I started listening toZig and basically I listened to
every piece of content that ZigZiglar ever produced.
(03:52):
Years later I actually ran intoZig in a gym one time.
I was in an executive gym downat Baylor University Medical
Center.
I ran into him super nice guy.
I've met the people that arerunning his company today all
very cool.
Zig has had a big impact, notonly on my life in general and
(04:14):
my corporate career and how Itreat people and how I do things
and achieve goals, but I thinkwhat Zig had to say is
especially applicable to peoplewho are trying to build a
business online, and so I wantedto curate for you what I
believe are the five mostimportant lessons that Zig
leaves for us that apply toonline entrepreneurship, and the
(04:39):
very first one is one that Isee plaguing online
entrepreneurs.
It's probably plaguing you, andthat is Zig says you don't have
to be great to start, but youhave to start to be great.
There's just no way that youcan do anything unless you get
started, and the truth is that alot of aspiring entrepreneurs
(05:03):
that say they want to have theirown business, they want to
build a side hustle, they wantto work for themselves, they
want to help people, whatever itis, a lot of us are waiting for
the perfect moment to start.
This is one of those treethings, right, the best time to
plant a tree clearly was 20years ago.
(05:23):
We're not going to be able togo back and do that.
So the second best time isright now, today.
But a lot of us we fear when itcomes to business.
We fear failure or we have alack of experience or we feel
like we're not ready, and thatkeeps us stuck.
But what Zig tells us is thatyou don't need to be great to
start.
(05:43):
You don't need to haveeverything figured out.
So my recommendation and mycall to action to you is to
start before you're ready andactually embrace the
imperfection, because when youfirst start out, no one's paying
attention to you anyway.
So go ahead, get the mistakesout of the way early, before you
have a million followers thatare gonna point all that out to
(06:06):
you.
Get going, whatever it is.
If you're opening an onlinestore doing drop shipping, okay.
So maybe you mess up the firstcouple of orders, maybe you lose
$100 the first month, that'sokay, just because you don't
have everything figured out.
If you don't start, there's noway you'll ever build anything.
Focus on your actions and stayaway from overdoing the analysis
(06:29):
because, as Zig tells us, youdon't have to be great to start,
but you must start in order tobe great.
Now, the second thing that Zigtells us is that and this is my
personal favorite you'll find iton my website, you'll find it
on the back of my business cards, and I really believe this is
(06:49):
one of the fundamental truths oflife.
So, if you only take one ofthese five to heart and you only
carry one with you for the restof the month or the year or,
like me, for the rest of yourlife here it is, it's number two
you can have everything in lifeyou want if you'll just help
enough other people get whatthey want.
See, the problem is, I see alot of entrepreneurs focused on
(07:12):
what they can get from whatthey're about to do.
They're worried about the money, they're worried about
followers or sales, and reallythe whole trick is to focus on
what they can give to people,what they can do for people, how
they can help people, and thisapplies whether you're an
entrepreneur or a manager incorporate America, or you're an
(07:34):
individual contributor on a team, or you're a husband in a
relationship or a wife or a kidin a household.
Really, if you spend a bunch ofyour time focused on how you can
help the people around you,there's going to be a lot of
good things that happen fromthat.
One of the simple ones is justreciprocity.
(07:58):
People will reward you for thatbehavior and, even though
that's not the reason you shoulddo it, one of the things that
happens when you help people isthey want to help you.
The other thing that I findthat happens besides this
reciprocity thing, or a karmathing, is that when you get that
satisfaction and dopamine hitfrom helping other people and
seeing their success and getfulfilled that way, if you make
(08:22):
that part of what fills you up,that gives you the energy you
need to push forward.
When you get people things thatthey want, they focus on
helping you and sometimes theyreward you with those little
green pieces of paper, thosecertificates of appreciation
that we call dollars, and youcan build businesses around that
(08:43):
.
So my call to action for you onthis second one is focus on
serving your audience.
If it's a drop shipping store,it's those customers.
On serving your audience.
If it's a drop shipping store,it's those customers.
If it's a podcast like this,it's the people that listen.
Your 1,000 true fans Help themsolve their real problems and
your success will be a byproductof those solutions and as part
(09:07):
of that process, you'll buildtrust and relationships and that
will result in selling and allthe good things that you think
you want to do.
But what I know you really wantto do is to help all the people
you can help.
You can have everything in lifeyou want if you'll just help
enough.
Other people get what they want.
(09:27):
Now the third thing that I thinkis super important that Zig
leaves us with is talking abouthow it's your attitude, not your
aptitude, that determines youraltitude.
Let me give that to you againit's your attitude, not your
aptitude, that determines youraltitude.
I see this all the time incorporate America.
(09:48):
The smartest person in the room, the guy with the highest
aptitude, is not always and infact, often is not the person
who makes the project successful, and this is definitely true in
online business.
It's really the attitude.
It's a can-do attitude.
It's a positive attitude.
It's an attitude that doesn'taccept failure when bad things
(10:11):
happen.
It's a person who asks thequestion what does this thing
that just happened make possible?
It's a person with a successattitude, and I'm not talking
about blind, positive mentalattitude.
I'm just talking about a biason things that happen, on things
that are said to you, onoutcomes that you get, that
(10:33):
tends to see the opportunities,that tends to be positive, that
tends to expect success ratherthan failure.
Those things that willdetermine your altitude.
The height of your success willbe determined by that attitude
that you have.
Really, too many entrepreneursnow believe that they need to be
(10:54):
naturally talented to besuccessful, but the truth is
that your mindset and yourability to manifest perseverance
right, that attitude gives youthe ability to persevere.
That matters much more than rawskill.
After all, if you want skill,we can build skill right.
We can learn how to do things.
(11:15):
We can take classes andtraining and get coaching.
Really, it's the attitude andthe perseverance that comes from
that that makes these thingspossible.
Some of the biggest names inbusiness weren't the most
talented.
They didn't have success Atfirst.
The attitude, one that I talkabout all the time is Thomas
(11:36):
Edison.
He had 10,000 failed attemptsbefore inventing the light bulb
and you say, okay, yeah, butthat's Thomas Edison, he's a
famous inventor.
Well, my good friend, pat Flynn, he almost quit multiple times
and I mean, look at the guy now.
He's got multiple six and sevenfigure businesses all over the
(11:57):
place in various fields.
All because, I believe, of theway Pat approaches problems, the
way he thinks about things, andalso Pat is a big believer in
helping other people, which isthe thing we talked about before
, about helping as many peopleas you can.
Pat puts these things togetherand has amazing success.
(12:17):
So I know this is true.
So my action items for you areto adopt that growth mindset.
This may be a learned skill foryou.
When something happens to you,ask what that initially negative
event makes possible, what goodcan come out of it, and learn
whatever skills you need.
Don't worry about the skills.
Worry about the mindset.
Be resilient and consistent.
(12:40):
That resiliency and consistencywill beat raw talent every time
.
I've seen it thousands of timesin my career, both in corporate
America and in online.
It's people withstick-to-itiveness that really
can make a difference, and ifyou're one of those people, that
can be you, and you know thisis not just true for you.
(13:02):
If you surround yourself withpeople like that, with
like-minded people, you'll riseto that level of engagement and
perseverance, because that'swhat the people around you
expect and that's the examplethat they're setting for you.
So if you've got people aroundyou that are negative or prone
(13:24):
to quitting, get rid of them,and I don't mean in a mean way,
just intentionally spend moretime with the people that are
lifting you up, because thosepeople with good attitudes, just
like you.
It's your attitude, not youraptitude, that determines your
altitude.
And you know, related to thisand I alluded to it in this last
(13:46):
point in point number three,for point number four, zig used
to always say look, failure isjust an event, it's not a person
.
Yesterday ended last night.
Many entrepreneurs, theyinternalize failure.
Something goes wrong.
They take the setbackpersonally.
That's totally the wrongattitude, because the truth is,
(14:09):
failure is just data.
You know what I call failure.
Failure is learning and as atrained engineer, I know this.
I might run 30 experiments toget the right answer right.
29 of them are failures.
But the one experiment that Irun that is successful may turn
my 80% profitable process into a90% profitable process that
(14:36):
results in tens of millions orhundreds of millions of dollars
in revenue, all on the strengthof 29 consecutive failures.
Right, you know, failure isjust this thing that happens,
it's an event and it's in thepast.
By definition, failure thathappened to you is in the past
and you need to leave it behind.
(14:57):
Walt Disney was fired forlacking imagination.
Can you imagine that he had afailure, and his failure was
that he was fired and,ridiculously, the reason they
gave was that he lackedimagination.
But he put that behind them andbuilt an empire that we now
know as Disney Oprah.
(15:17):
This is great.
Someone told Oprah she wasn'tfit for television and she went
on to become a media icon.
Every failed launch or productfailure that you have, every
campaign that you start an adcampaign that doesn't work,
that's a learning opportunity soyou can get that out of the way
and get to what works.
(15:37):
So my call to action for youhere is to always build the
habit, the muscle memory, ofreframing failure as learning.
Own those failures, but notpersonally.
Own them as a thing that youdid, that you learned from, and
don't get your self-esteem andself-worth tangled up in those
(16:00):
results.
Those don't define you.
You have goals and you want toachieve those goals, but your
self-esteem and self-worth can'tbe tied up in a product launch.
It just doesn't make any sense.
What you want to do instead isuse your failures as stepping
stones on your path to success,because failure is an event, not
(16:21):
a person.
And yesterday ended last night.
I love Zig so much.
All right, so the fifth one foryou today and the last one
today.
People often say Zig used to saythat motivation doesn't last,
and to that Zig would say well,neither does bathing, and that's
why it's recommended daily.
(16:43):
So you know, the problem ismotivation fades over time.
You may be really motivated bylistening to this podcast
episode I hope you are butmotivation fades and you can't
rely on motivation alone todrive your business.
What you need are systems andhabits which we've talked about
(17:04):
on many other podcast episodesthat help you stay consistent in
your actions.
And then you need to reapplymotivations.
You know, in the seven habitsof highly successful people,
stephen Covey talks about theseventh habit, which is
sharpening the saw, and to thisI ask what are you doing to help
(17:27):
stay motivated, to stayconsistent, to keep your mind in
the right place?
What are you doingintentionally to do that?
Maybe what you're doing islistening to the late night
internet marketing podcast.
If that's you, man, I love youfor that and I would love to
hear your story.
But that's what you need to bedoing is constantly surrounding
yourself with and fillingyourself up with a little dose
(17:50):
of daily or weekly or monthlymotivation, because motivation
doesn't last.
Zig tells us that Develop thosesuccessful habits, because
motivation follows your actions,and you may wish to do
something that you probablythink is silly, like daily
affirmations or journaling orvisualization to help you stay
(18:12):
focused.
Look, it doesn't matter whatyou decide to do, just be
intentional about the thingsthat you do to keep your mind
moving in the right direction,and build systems around that.
I think it's really could be assimple as setting a recurring
appointment on your calendar togo find a podcast episode once a
(18:34):
week or once a month that youcan listen to.
That's mostly about stuffs likethat.
So what are we talking abouthere?
What's the recap?
Well, the recap is Zig was agenius of a man, and he left me
personally with five things thatI think can dramatically impact
your business.
Number one you don't have to begreat to start, but you do have
(18:59):
to start to be great, and thecall to action for you is to get
started.
Number two you can haveabsolutely everything you want
in life if you'll just helpenough other people get what
they want, and my call to actionto you is focus on your
customers and the people thatyou're trying to serve.
Be a servant leader.
(19:21):
The rest of it will take careof itself.
Number three it's your attitude,not your aptitude, that
determines your altitude.
Focus on your attitude, do thework that you need to do to get
your mind right and make surethat you're the person that
expects success and is alwaysdrifting in that positive
(19:43):
direction.
And related to that.
Number four failure is just anevent.
It's not a person.
You are not failure and, by theway, yesterday ended last night
.
Failure is in the past and mycall to action to you is to
focus on what those failuresmake possible, use them for
learning and focus on the futureand move forward.
(20:05):
And finally, number five peoplesay that motivation doesn't
last.
Neither does bathing, andthat's why we recommend it every
day.
I recommend that you listen tothe late night internet
marketing podcast every time itcomes out, because I'm going to
give you a little dose ofmotivation every time.
(20:27):
Hey, look, if you enjoyed thispodcast and you think that you
have friends that need to hearthese five things from my buddy,
zig, who I personally met in asweaty gym about 20 years ago, I
want you to send the link tothat person and tell them hey,
(20:47):
this Mark Mason guy, he listenedto Zig and he's got some things
that I think will help you Bethat person.
Be that person that's helpingother people get what they want
by spreading this kind ofinformation.
That's applicable to everybody.
It's applicable to stay-at-homedads that are struggling
(21:07):
cooking pasta.
It's applicable to corporateexecutives.
It's applicable to sidehustlers like me and you.
It's applicable to those secondgrade teachers that are really
having a hard time getting itdone towards the end of the
school year.
If you've got a friend that youthink this podcast will help
send it to them, and you cansend them the link.
(21:29):
It's latenightimcom forward,slash 273.
I'd really appreciate that Ifyou did that.
It would make my heart happy.
And until next week, I hope youreally spend some time thinking
about what Zig has to say.
I mean, I think this is reallyimportant stuff and it can
really make a difference in yourlife, and that's why I shared
(21:52):
it with you today.
Ciao.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You can do it right when it's late at night.
You've been listening to theLate Night Internet Marketing
Podcast.
Be sure to visit LNIMpodcastcomtoday to leave feedback for
Mark, download special bonuscontent, access the show notes
and more.
See you there.
Until then, go and make somegreat progress on your internet
(22:17):
business one night at a time.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Hey.
So if you're new around here,this is the after show part of
the show where I just talk aboutwhatever I want, because I have
your attention and that's funfor me.
If you know if you gotsomething else to do, I'll see
you later, but if you want tostick around, I wanted to tell
you this funny thing thathappened to me.
So I use AI a lot, particularlychat GPT, but I use a lot of AI
platforms.
(22:51):
My day job involves AIdeployment and manufacturing
environments and for customersolutions, and I use it in my
business extensively.
Next week, we'll be talkingabout some of the automations
that I use for this very podcasta lot of stuff in my life
involving AI.
In fact, I use it so much.
My family was making fun of meand, as some of you know, I'm
(23:14):
also working on niche websitesfrom time to time, and recently
my son and I have been workingon CPA marketing, or performance
marketing, where you drivetraffic to affiliate offers in
order to make a commission.
We use Google Ads for that.
I'm teaching him how to do thatand he's trying to build a
business that he can runsuccessfully in college.
(23:35):
He leaves to go to college inthe fall, and so I was talking
to chat GPT literally usingvoice to text to communicate
with chat GPT and I was askingit to help me with niche
identification in a particularwebsite that we're building.
And it asked me what sub nicheI wanted to focus on and it
(23:57):
listed, gave me some options andit asked me if I wanted to
focus down niche down because itknows, apparently, that the
riches are in the niches or didI want to take a broad approach,
and I respond.
I responded like this I saidfirst let's talk about SEO
configurations of the blog,because at this point I was
(24:20):
building a blog and give me agood SEO title tag and a good
SEO description for the blog,along with a list of keywords
for the SEO keyword tag, which,for those of you that are
keeping score at home, seokeyword tags don't actually mean
anything anymore, but I alwaysfill them out anyway.
So I'm just, you know, goingthrough the motions of literally
(24:42):
installing a blog and I'mgetting chat GPT at two in the
morning to help me figure thisstuff out.
So I don't have to think.
And the problem was in thespeech to text translation.
It misunderstood SEO as SCO.
(25:02):
So instead of Sierra Echo Oscar, it got Sierra, charlie, oscar,
and it typed that out.
Chatgpt ingests this.
So I said first, let's talkabout SCO.
That's what I typed.
And ChatGPT sees this and itsays awesome, let's configure
(25:23):
the SEO parentheses.
I know you meant that, but nowI kind of want to build a super
cool optimization plugin.
Chat GPT told a joke.
It made fun of the fact that Imeant SEO and typed SEO and
injected humor into its response.
(25:44):
I think that's remarkable.
I mean, that's something Iwould have said to you if you
had misspoken and said SEO overand over again.
That is just crazy.
And I'm going to tell you whatthis AI stuff that we're using.
It's the worst it's ever goingto be.
It's the dumbest it's evergoing to be.
It's the most useless that it'sever going to be in the history
(26:09):
of mankind going forward.
And already I just continue tobe amazed at the sophistication
and nuance that the AI solutionsthat we have now are able to
deliver.
Super crazy world.
What an amazing time to bealive, ciao.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
Episode 273.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
This week on the Late Night Internet Marketing
Podcast, I'm going to tell youall about my life journey with
Zig Ziglar and the five mostimportant things that Zig taught
us that will impact your sidehustle journey.
All this and more on the LateNight Internet Marketing Podcast
.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
The Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast and
now broadcasting late at nightfrom a little studio in the big
state of Texas, your host, markMason.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Hey, hey, hey, how is everyone doing?
I am your host, mark Mason,coming to you from the little
studio in Dallas, texas, wherewe talk about side hustling with
online business and all thestuff that that entails.
I'm excited to be with youtoday to talk to you about
really one of my childhoodheroes which sounds kind of
(01:12):
weird Zig Ziglar.
So if you don't know, zigZiglar?
Zig is clearly one of the mostfamous, most popular, most
well-known and most belovedmotivational speakers of all
time.
He's been gone for years now,but the work that he did over
(01:32):
the course of his lifetime liveson long past Zig.
And I tell you it's amazing tome how some of the simple but
incredibly fundamentally truethings that Zig had to say have
impacted my life since I was 18years old.
(01:53):
When I was 18, I was a highschool kid.
Actually, I was involved inhigh school debate.
It's way cooler than it sounds,but I was big into high school
debate and I was dating afantastic girl who I cared about
.
You know, at 18 years old, Iwas head over heels in love with
this girl and her dad was anentrepreneur.
(02:14):
I didn't even really understandwhat that meant.
I understood that he owned abusiness.
But my dad had worked his wayup in corporate America and I
didn't really understand thisidea of being a business owner.
But as it turned out this smallbusiness owner it turned out he
owned a pool chemical treatmentcompany business where he went
(02:36):
in and installed these bigchemical treatment systems in
commercial pools.
That guy trained his salesforce using Zig Ziglar's stuff
and one of the very popular ZigZiglar programs at the time was
called Secrets of Closing theSale.
So one time I borrowed a set ofZig Ziglar tapes and, yes, there
(03:00):
was no audible.
At this time there was nodigital media.
If you wanted to listen to abook on tape, you listened to it
on cassette tapes down here inTexas about making sure that
those didn't get too hot.
And I listened to those tapesover and over again, so
(03:31):
impressed by Zig and hismannerisms and the things that
he had to say about sales andhow to achieve sales goals and
really how to achieve life goalsin general.
And so I started listening toZig and basically I listened to
every piece of content that ZigZiglar ever produced.
(03:52):
Years later I actually ran intoZig in a gym one time.
I was in an executive gym downat Baylor University Medical
Center.
I ran into him super nice guy.
I've met the people that arerunning his company today all
very cool.
Zig has had a big impact, notonly on my life in general and
(04:14):
my corporate career and how Itreat people and how I do things
and achieve goals, but I thinkwhat Zig had to say is
especially applicable to peoplewho are trying to build a
business online, and so I wantedto curate for you what I
believe are the five mostimportant lessons that Zig
leaves for us that apply toonline entrepreneurship, and the
(04:39):
very first one is one that Isee plaguing online
entrepreneurs.
It's probably plaguing you, andthat is Zig says you don't have
to be great to start, but youhave to start to be great.
There's just no way that youcan do anything unless you get
started, and the truth is that alot of aspiring entrepreneurs
(05:03):
that say they want to have theirown business, they want to
build a side hustle, they wantto work for themselves, they
want to help people, whatever itis, a lot of us are waiting for
the perfect moment to start.
This is one of those treethings, right, the best time to
plant a tree clearly was 20years ago.
(05:23):
We're not going to be able togo back and do that.
So the second best time isright now, today.
But a lot of us we fear when itcomes to business.
We fear failure or we have alack of experience or we feel
like we're not ready, and thatkeeps us stuck.
But what Zig tells us is thatyou don't need to be great to
start.
(05:43):
You don't need to haveeverything figured out.
So my recommendation and mycall to action to you is to
start before you're ready andactually embrace the
imperfection, because when youfirst start out, no one's paying
attention to you anyway.
So go ahead, get the mistakesout of the way early, before you
have a million followers thatare gonna point all that out to
(06:06):
you.
Get going, whatever it is.
If you're opening an onlinestore doing drop shipping, okay.
So maybe you mess up the firstcouple of orders, maybe you lose
$100 the first month, that'sokay, just because you don't
have everything figured out.
If you don't start, there's noway you'll ever build anything.
Focus on your actions and stayaway from overdoing the analysis
(06:29):
because, as Zig tells us, youdon't have to be great to start,
but you must start in order tobe great.
Now, the second thing that Zigtells us is that and this is my
personal favorite you'll find iton my website, you'll find it
on the back of my business cards, and I really believe this is
(06:49):
one of the fundamental truths oflife.
So, if you only take one ofthese five to heart and you only
carry one with you for the restof the month or the year or,
like me, for the rest of yourlife here it is, it's number two
you can have everything in lifeyou want if you'll just help
enough other people get whatthey want.
See, the problem is, I see alot of entrepreneurs focused on
(07:12):
what they can get from whatthey're about to do.
They're worried about the money, they're worried about
followers or sales, and reallythe whole trick is to focus on
what they can give to people,what they can do for people, how
they can help people, and thisapplies whether you're an
entrepreneur or a manager incorporate America, or you're an
(07:34):
individual contributor on a team, or you're a husband in a
relationship or a wife or a kidin a household.
Really, if you spend a bunch ofyour time focused on how you can
help the people around you,there's going to be a lot of
good things that happen fromthat.
One of the simple ones is justreciprocity.
(07:58):
People will reward you for thatbehavior and, even though
that's not the reason you shoulddo it, one of the things that
happens when you help people isthey want to help you.
The other thing that I findthat happens besides this
reciprocity thing, or a karmathing, is that when you get that
satisfaction and dopamine hitfrom helping other people and
seeing their success and getfulfilled that way, if you make
(08:22):
that part of what fills you up,that gives you the energy you
need to push forward.
When you get people things thatthey want, they focus on
helping you and sometimes theyreward you with those little
green pieces of paper, thosecertificates of appreciation
that we call dollars, and youcan build businesses around that
(08:43):
.
So my call to action for you onthis second one is focus on
serving your audience.
If it's a drop shipping store,it's those customers.
On serving your audience.
If it's a drop shipping store,it's those customers.
If it's a podcast like this,it's the people that listen.
Your 1,000 true fans Help themsolve their real problems and
your success will be a byproductof those solutions and as part
(09:07):
of that process, you'll buildtrust and relationships and that
will result in selling and allthe good things that you think
you want to do.
But what I know you really wantto do is to help all the people
you can help.
You can have everything in lifeyou want if you'll just help
enough.
Other people get what they want.
(09:27):
Now the third thing that I thinkis super important that Zig
leaves us with is talking abouthow it's your attitude, not your
aptitude, that determines youraltitude.
Let me give that to you againit's your attitude, not your
aptitude, that determines youraltitude.
I see this all the time incorporate America.
(09:48):
The smartest person in the room, the guy with the highest
aptitude, is not always and infact, often is not the person
who makes the project successful, and this is definitely true in
online business.
It's really the attitude.
It's a can-do attitude.
It's a positive attitude.
It's an attitude that doesn'taccept failure when bad things
(10:11):
happen.
It's a person who asks thequestion what does this thing
that just happened make possible?
It's a person with a successattitude, and I'm not talking
about blind, positive mentalattitude.
I'm just talking about a biason things that happen, on things
that are said to you, onoutcomes that you get, that
(10:33):
tends to see the opportunities,that tends to be positive, that
tends to expect success ratherthan failure.
Those things that willdetermine your altitude.
The height of your success willbe determined by that attitude
that you have.
Really, too many entrepreneursnow believe that they need to be
(10:54):
naturally talented to besuccessful, but the truth is
that your mindset and yourability to manifest perseverance
right, that attitude gives youthe ability to persevere.
That matters much more than rawskill.
After all, if you want skill,we can build skill right.
We can learn how to do things.
(11:15):
We can take classes andtraining and get coaching.
Really, it's the attitude andthe perseverance that comes from
that that makes these thingspossible.
Some of the biggest names inbusiness weren't the most
talented.
They didn't have success Atfirst.
The attitude, one that I talkabout all the time is Thomas
(11:36):
Edison.
He had 10,000 failed attemptsbefore inventing the light bulb
and you say, okay, yeah, butthat's Thomas Edison, he's a
famous inventor.
Well, my good friend, pat Flynn, he almost quit multiple times
and I mean, look at the guy now.
He's got multiple six and sevenfigure businesses all over the
(11:57):
place in various fields.
All because, I believe, of theway Pat approaches problems, the
way he thinks about things, andalso Pat is a big believer in
helping other people, which isthe thing we talked about before
, about helping as many peopleas you can.
Pat puts these things togetherand has amazing success.
(12:17):
So I know this is true.
So my action items for you areto adopt that growth mindset.
This may be a learned skill foryou.
When something happens to you,ask what that initially negative
event makes possible, what goodcan come out of it, and learn
whatever skills you need.
Don't worry about the skills.
Worry about the mindset.
Be resilient and consistent.
(12:40):
That resiliency and consistencywill beat raw talent every time
.
I've seen it thousands of timesin my career, both in corporate
America and in online.
It's people withstick-to-itiveness that really
can make a difference, and ifyou're one of those people, that
can be you, and you know thisis not just true for you.
(13:02):
If you surround yourself withpeople like that, with
like-minded people, you'll riseto that level of engagement and
perseverance, because that'swhat the people around you
expect and that's the examplethat they're setting for you.
So if you've got people aroundyou that are negative or prone
(13:24):
to quitting, get rid of them,and I don't mean in a mean way,
just intentionally spend moretime with the people that are
lifting you up, because thosepeople with good attitudes, just
like you.
It's your attitude, not youraptitude, that determines your
altitude.
And you know, related to thisand I alluded to it in this last
(13:46):
point in point number three,for point number four, zig used
to always say look, failure isjust an event, it's not a person
.
Yesterday ended last night.
Many entrepreneurs, theyinternalize failure.
Something goes wrong.
They take the setbackpersonally.
That's totally the wrongattitude, because the truth is,
(14:09):
failure is just data.
You know what I call failure.
Failure is learning and as atrained engineer, I know this.
I might run 30 experiments toget the right answer right.
29 of them are failures.
But the one experiment that Irun that is successful may turn
my 80% profitable process into a90% profitable process that
(14:36):
results in tens of millions orhundreds of millions of dollars
in revenue, all on the strengthof 29 consecutive failures.
Right, you know, failure isjust this thing that happens,
it's an event and it's in thepast.
By definition, failure thathappened to you is in the past
and you need to leave it behind.
(14:57):
Walt Disney was fired forlacking imagination.
Can you imagine that he had afailure, and his failure was
that he was fired and,ridiculously, the reason they
gave was that he lackedimagination.
But he put that behind them andbuilt an empire that we now
know as Disney Oprah.
(15:17):
This is great.
Someone told Oprah she wasn'tfit for television and she went
on to become a media icon.
Every failed launch or productfailure that you have, every
campaign that you start an adcampaign that doesn't work,
that's a learning opportunity soyou can get that out of the way
and get to what works.
(15:37):
So my call to action for youhere is to always build the
habit, the muscle memory, ofreframing failure as learning.
Own those failures, but notpersonally.
Own them as a thing that youdid, that you learned from, and
don't get your self-esteem andself-worth tangled up in those
(16:00):
results.
Those don't define you.
You have goals and you want toachieve those goals, but your
self-esteem and self-worth can'tbe tied up in a product launch.
It just doesn't make any sense.
What you want to do instead isuse your failures as stepping
stones on your path to success,because failure is an event, not
(16:21):
a person.
And yesterday ended last night.
I love Zig so much.
All right, so the fifth one foryou today and the last one
today.
People often say Zig used to saythat motivation doesn't last,
and to that Zig would say well,neither does bathing, and that's
why it's recommended daily.
(16:43):
So you know, the problem ismotivation fades over time.
You may be really motivated bylistening to this podcast
episode I hope you are butmotivation fades and you can't
rely on motivation alone todrive your business.
What you need are systems andhabits which we've talked about
(17:04):
on many other podcast episodesthat help you stay consistent in
your actions.
And then you need to reapplymotivations.
You know, in the seven habitsof highly successful people,
stephen Covey talks about theseventh habit, which is
sharpening the saw, and to thisI ask what are you doing to help
(17:27):
stay motivated, to stayconsistent, to keep your mind in
the right place?
What are you doingintentionally to do that?
Maybe what you're doing islistening to the late night
internet marketing podcast.
If that's you, man, I love youfor that and I would love to
hear your story.
But that's what you need to bedoing is constantly surrounding
yourself with and fillingyourself up with a little dose
(17:50):
of daily or weekly or monthlymotivation, because motivation
doesn't last.
Zig tells us that Develop thosesuccessful habits, because
motivation follows your actions,and you may wish to do
something that you probablythink is silly, like daily
affirmations or journaling orvisualization to help you stay
(18:12):
focused.
Look, it doesn't matter whatyou decide to do, just be
intentional about the thingsthat you do to keep your mind
moving in the right direction,and build systems around that.
I think it's really could be assimple as setting a recurring
appointment on your calendar togo find a podcast episode once a
(18:34):
week or once a month that youcan listen to.
That's mostly about stuffs likethat.
So what are we talking abouthere?
What's the recap?
Well, the recap is Zig was agenius of a man, and he left me
personally with five things thatI think can dramatically impact
your business.
Number one you don't have to begreat to start, but you do have
(18:59):
to start to be great, and thecall to action for you is to get
started.
Number two you can haveabsolutely everything you want
in life if you'll just helpenough other people get what
they want, and my call to actionto you is focus on your
customers and the people thatyou're trying to serve.
Be a servant leader.
(19:21):
The rest of it will take careof itself.
Number three it's your attitude,not your aptitude, that
determines your altitude.
Focus on your attitude, do thework that you need to do to get
your mind right and make surethat you're the person that
expects success and is alwaysdrifting in that positive
(19:43):
direction.
And related to that.
Number four failure is just anevent.
It's not a person.
You are not failure and, by theway, yesterday ended last night
.
Failure is in the past and mycall to action to you is to
focus on what those failuresmake possible, use them for
learning and focus on the futureand move forward.
(20:05):
And finally, number five peoplesay that motivation doesn't
last.
Neither does bathing, andthat's why we recommend it every
day.
I recommend that you listen tothe late night internet
marketing podcast every time itcomes out, because I'm going to
give you a little dose ofmotivation every time.
(20:27):
Hey, look, if you enjoyed thispodcast and you think that you
have friends that need to hearthese five things from my buddy,
zig, who I personally met in asweaty gym about 20 years ago, I
want you to send the link tothat person and tell them hey,
(20:47):
this Mark Mason guy, he listenedto Zig and he's got some things
that I think will help you Bethat person.
Be that person that's helpingother people get what they want
by spreading this kind ofinformation.
That's applicable to everybody.
It's applicable to stay-at-homedads that are struggling
(21:07):
cooking pasta.
It's applicable to corporateexecutives.
It's applicable to sidehustlers like me and you.
It's applicable to those secondgrade teachers that are really
having a hard time getting itdone towards the end of the
school year.
If you've got a friend that youthink this podcast will help
send it to them, and you cansend them the link.
(21:29):
It's latenightimcom forward,slash 273.
I'd really appreciate that Ifyou did that.
It would make my heart happy.
And until next week, I hope youreally spend some time thinking
about what Zig has to say.
I mean, I think this is reallyimportant stuff and it can
really make a difference in yourlife, and that's why I shared
(21:52):
it with you today.
Ciao.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
You can do it right when it's late at night.
You've been listening to theLate Night Internet Marketing
Podcast.
Be sure to visit LNIMpodcastcomtoday to leave feedback for
Mark, download special bonuscontent, access the show notes
and more.
See you there.
Until then, go and make somegreat progress on your internet
(22:17):
business one night at a time.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Hey.
So if you're new around here,this is the after show part of
the show where I just talk aboutwhatever I want, because I have
your attention and that's funfor me.
If you know if you gotsomething else to do, I'll see
you later, but if you want tostick around, I wanted to tell
you this funny thing thathappened to me.
So I use AI a lot, particularlychat GPT, but I use a lot of AI
platforms.
(22:51):
My day job involves AIdeployment and manufacturing
environments and for customersolutions, and I use it in my
business extensively.
Next week, we'll be talkingabout some of the automations
that I use for this very podcasta lot of stuff in my life
involving AI.
In fact, I use it so much.
My family was making fun of meand, as some of you know, I'm
(23:14):
also working on niche websitesfrom time to time, and recently
my son and I have been workingon CPA marketing, or performance
marketing, where you drivetraffic to affiliate offers in
order to make a commission.
We use Google Ads for that.
I'm teaching him how to do thatand he's trying to build a
business that he can runsuccessfully in college.
(23:35):
He leaves to go to college inthe fall, and so I was talking
to chat GPT literally usingvoice to text to communicate
with chat GPT and I was askingit to help me with niche
identification in a particularwebsite that we're building.
And it asked me what sub nicheI wanted to focus on and it
(23:57):
listed, gave me some options andit asked me if I wanted to
focus down niche down because itknows, apparently, that the
riches are in the niches or didI want to take a broad approach,
and I respond.
I responded like this I saidfirst let's talk about SEO
configurations of the blog,because at this point I was
(24:20):
building a blog and give me agood SEO title tag and a good
SEO description for the blog,along with a list of keywords
for the SEO keyword tag, which,for those of you that are
keeping score at home, seokeyword tags don't actually mean
anything anymore, but I alwaysfill them out anyway.
So I'm just, you know, goingthrough the motions of literally
(24:42):
installing a blog and I'mgetting chat GPT at two in the
morning to help me figure thisstuff out.
So I don't have to think.
And the problem was in thespeech to text translation.
It misunderstood SEO as SCO.
(25:02):
So instead of Sierra Echo Oscar, it got Sierra, charlie, oscar,
and it typed that out.
Chatgpt ingests this.
So I said first, let's talkabout SCO.
That's what I typed.
And ChatGPT sees this and itsays awesome, let's configure
(25:23):
the SEO parentheses.
I know you meant that, but nowI kind of want to build a super
cool optimization plugin.
Chat GPT told a joke.
It made fun of the fact that Imeant SEO and typed SEO and
injected humor into its response.
(25:44):
I think that's remarkable.
I mean, that's something Iwould have said to you if you
had misspoken and said SEO overand over again.
That is just crazy.
And I'm going to tell you whatthis AI stuff that we're using.
It's the worst it's ever goingto be.
It's the dumbest it's evergoing to be.
It's the most useless that it'sever going to be in the history
(26:09):
of mankind going forward.
And already I just continue tobe amazed at the sophistication
and nuance that the AI solutionsthat we have now are able to
deliver.
Super crazy world.
What an amazing time to bealive, ciao.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Late Night Internet Marketing.
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