About three weeks ago I had the good fortunate to be invited as a VIP guest by Eben Pagan to attend (for free) his $1,997 5-day workshop called “Advanced Learning And Teaching Technologies” which he co-led with his mentor Wyatt Woodsmall.  I, of course, was delighted by the invitation and attended the event.  It was my first time at Eben’s live training so it was exciting to be in the middle of all the action, besides meeting new people and making friends.

What I didn’t expect though, was to have a real “life-transforming” event… and I’d been to no less than 35 seminars/workshops over the last 5 years!

** The Frustration That Was Just a Tip Of The Iceberg

Over the past 2 months or so I’d been puzzled by my inability to get past my mental block of not wanting to pursue Pay-Per-Click as a marketing method for my business.  And the real frustration was the fact that I didn’t know the root of this strange “fear” of PPC.  The frustration was so severe that I had multiple conversations with my friend Jim Yaghi (the PPC expert for Magnetic Sponsoring), both online and in person, to figure out what the heck was wrong with me.  And then I wrote an essay of a personal e-mail to Ferny about this unusual challenge that I faced and sought his opinion and advice.

At the end of those conversations, a few good points were brought to light that I hadn’t exactly realized before…. But the interesting thing was that this newfound knowledge about myself was just scratching the surface of a bigger challenge, and in some ways I sunk even lower into the downward spiral.

** Perfect Timing. Eben’s invitation

Then Eben’s invitation came to my inbox.  His event was exactly 4 days after my conversation with Ferny and Jim so it couldn’t have come at a better time!

The event’s teaching was based on the principles of NLP (Neuro-linguistic  Programming), a branch of applied psychology, and since I had had no experience with such discipline I felt uneasy yet excited about the workshop going into the event.

If I could summarize the whole experience with one sentence… it was basically a VERY public 5-day psycho-analysis with 120+ strangers!

On day 3, my mind was so overloaded with new information on top of my own conscious attempt to share real thoughts without exposing too much of my own vulnerability (it was hard to do) that I had to remove myself from the workshop after only a couple of hours so I could BREATHE. I fell short of racing out of the conference room in a blind panic. NO KIDDING.

** A 22-minute, VERY public psycho-analysis

On day 4, Eben invited two random attendees to share what they learned so far at the event.  Now, being the type of event it was… anytime we shared our thoughts we were basically subjecting ourselves to be psycho-analyzed by Eben or Wyatt in front of the class… revealing our deepest fears and frustrations and vulnerabilities; so you could probably imagine that not too many hands went up.

I raised my hand and kept it way up as the others who initially had their hand up at my side of the room put their hands down before Eben could turn his head.  Since I was the only one left who had the determination to receive some real mental beating I went up to the microphone.

Eben’s conversation with the first guy finished in about 4 minutes, so I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.  However, Eben decided to do something different with me on the spot… He picked another student to come up to the other microphone to interact and analyze me instead of doing it himself.  And long story short, Eben eventually took over as things didn’t’ go as well as he planned (remember, these students were not skilled in this type of analysis). We started going back and forth with questions, answers and analysis.  It was actually one of the most illuminating experiences I’ve ever had.

During that exchange, Eben helped me discovered that I had built an unusually powerful “mind prison” that was keeping me from advancing to a new level of success and leadership.  And the fact that I left the workshop in Day 3 was actually a big breakthrough.  Why?  Because it was something I had never done in a seminar before!

Over the last 5 years in network marketing and Internet marketing, I had attended no less than 35 seminars and workshops, including ones that were blatant pitch-fests (you know… those “workshops” where every speaker was a live, human-version of their hypey sales letters)… and I had NEVER left in the middle of a session in any of those events!

This mind prison I had built in my head was one that said “to be a good student, I MUST sit through the entire class, listen to everything the teacher/instructor has to say, take notes, and apply that knowledge… or else I wouldn’t be a good student.”  So for years, that was what I did.

Upon listening to my explanation of my beliefs, Eben asked “Are you saying that you feel like you exercised freedom?”

And as soon as those words left his mouth, I thought to myself… “YES, that’s it!  I can choose!”

After that intense 22-minute exchange (my lips started trembling about 5 minutes into it), I took a long time with myself to reflect on what had transpired and how I planned to change my behavior to make a real difference in my own life and others’.

** What did I learn?

Learning = Behavior Change (not information acquisition)

In hindsight, I attribute my early success in growing a large network marketing organization to this mind prison.  It allowed me to build my business to a profitable level almost with brute force using only belly-to-belly marketing and the telephone. But it had its limitations and was not duplicable.  And this mind prison actually indirectly caused my recent frustration with PPC.

As online marketers, we’ve learned that there are many different methods to market our businesses to generate more traffic and profit.  As I studied various courses such as MLM Traffic Formula and Attraction Marketing Formula, my mind prison automatically instructed me to learn EVERY traffic method taught in those courses and become good at it, even if I didn’t like it.  PPC happened to this one method that I didn’t particularly care for.

As a leader trained in the belly-to-belly world, I felt the right way to market online would be one where I could constantly be in communication with my audience.  Forum posts, articles, videos, blogs, Facebook, Squidoo, e-mails all allow me to achieve that.  But Google Adwords is just a piece of software, life-less… and as Jim and other PPC experts recommend that to be a good PPC marketer one has to monitor the campaigns daily, or even several times a day.  But this mind prison that wanted me to be a “good student” actually back-fired and almost paralyzed me and my marketing!  This idea that I wasn’t pursuing and perfecting PPC marketing had been haunting me for almost TWO YEARS, and although I was moving along with my other marketing efforts with some success, it certainly wasn’t anywhere near where it could have been had I had this exchange with Eben earlier!

Getting a little deeper into the issue, I traced the root of my mind prison all the way back to how I was brought up and the school systems under which I developed as a person… I recognize that my parents and their parents had always focused on academics and succeeding in school, and most educational systems encouraged mechanical memorization of information for the most part and demanded the student to excel at every subject possible; hence avoiding disapproval from my parents and teachers had always been one heck of a mind-prison to be caged in.  I’m glad and grateful that I now have this conscious realization about myself and how I operate.  I am now clear on how I can combat against it and eventually remove it from within myself. 30 years of that conditioning on the subconscious level is a challenge, but I’m sure I can do it.

** What can YOU do?

What is your mind-prison?  Is it holding you back from accomplishing your goals or living a fuller life?  I was fortunate to reach this level of understanding of myself through the inducement of a master in Eben Pagan; however, all of us can do this type of discovery on our own.  One of the best and simplest ways to explore what your mind prison might be is to build a mind-map.  If you have not heard of a mind-map, just head over to YouTube and do a search for mind-mapping.   You’ll find some very helpful videos.

I believe what I experienced was not a unique case, although our mind prisons are most likely not the same.  The difference between those that move on to live better lives and those that stay stuck in life is that some people are willing to look into their own eyes in the mirror to reflect and change their behaviors, where other people are not.  It is critically important that we assess our own strengths and weaknesses and develop a blue-print for our own success.  Are you game?

Jerry

P.S. Eben has this to say about the experience and this article -