How to Master Your course and Start Making Money in Half the Time While Avoiding Frustration, Burnout, and Failure.

I put this guide together because I see a common issue with new entrepreneurs, and this issue stops many people before they even begin. 

I just gotten over the fear I felt when investing in myself at this level. As I started to go thru the training, I treated it as a Netflix binge session. At that time, if you woulda asked me how my study was going...I woulda said that things are "fine, I guess"

But, As I was watching some of the videos, I realized that some of the stuff I needed to do wasn't as easy as I thought they’d be. I then noticed that I started to feel that dreaded feeling we all feel....

Overwhelm!

Next thing I know, that little bit of overwhelm became a big problem! I stopped logging into the back office...and I just blamed it on my busy schedule and a lack of energy at the end of the workday.

I would surely get back to it tomorrow, right? Maybe not tomorrow, but this weekend for sure!

At this point, maybe you can see a pattern? This is the point where so many people quit because people start to feel alone.

They are ashamed they invested in a program, but can’t "figure it out" or finish it.

They then start to lie and say "this stuff doesn’t work!" or "this program is okay, but what I really need is that program over there!

 it seems much easier!" Some sadly make the mistake thinking they were not cut out for the business model.

You can get your full copy of the book here:

Anyway, no matter what vehicle you use to make your money, you will need to take a course or learn from a program.

Most of these courses will be online, but a few will be in-person. Those that are in person normally happen over a weekend and are so jam-packed with info, you won't have time to do anything else but learn.

Granted, many times that’s like trying to take a drink of water from a firehose! The point is, you won't have trouble staying focused and motivated to go through the material…because you are forced to!

But most courses will be either in video form, a live webinar form or maybe even from a book.

As a student, all of these methods of teaching can be approached the same way.

After seeing what others have done and what I've done to get success, I can say this is the best way to use these online courses to get the most pluck for your buck. Meaning, you will get the most out of them when you apply what many successful people have done.

I'm not saying this is the only way to approach these “learn on your own pace” courses, but this has worked for me and many others.

At the end of the day, do what you want; just do something to get you results!

What you must understand is that there are steps to knowledge:

It's not enough to understand things on an intellectual level, you must also have an emotional level of understanding for it to make you take action.

You know the knowledge is still at an intellectual level (aka, “know about it” level) when you say things like, "Yeah, I get that, but it doesn't apply to me”

or 

“This is good information, but I’m not at a place where this is useful".

When going through the steps, steps one through three are pretty self-explanatory.

This is where you will focus most of your efforts early on in your career.

Learn it from the course, implement it (as in do what the course tells you to do), then experience the results.

Did you do it properly?

Did it work as you expected? 

Could you have done it better?

Next is become proficient in it.

That means you are constantly applying and experiencing the results while making little adjustments and tweaks and trying it again.

This is where most people fail…they don’t actually do this step.

They figure they can start applying info after the finish the course…

but they never finish the course, so they never get to apply anything!

After a while, you will have enough information to teach it to someone else.

Not only does teaching help you verify you know a subject, but it also helps you to see the subject from a variety of angles as you try to explain it to someone else.

At this point, you can try to sell your knowledge or make more money from the skill you have learned.

Once you do this, you are now at a stage where you can master the information and may even get to a world class level.

Once you are there, you can expand upon it by trying new things, adding your take on it, and experimenting.

What kind of learner are you?

Most training you get will be in video form. T

he video will probably have a mix of a “talking head” (meaning a presenter is talking to you) and a PowerPoint presentation to show you the material.

If you are a visual learner, then videos are great!

You can clearly see the information that's being presented with the graphs and figures that a video can show.

If you are an audio learner, videos are just okay, and you can get the audio of the videos and make them into mp3s to listen to them in your car or in your headphones.

If the video is heavy on visual content to make a point, using the audio only is less than ideal.

However, you can supplement your education with audiobooks and podcasts on the same subject.

Now, if you are a kinesthetic learner, meaning you learn best by doing, then you will have to start applying things right away for the information to stick.

This can be tricky just for the fact that you have no idea how to implement what you’ve learned before you finish the video. However, you should be able to get your brain working, so make sure you take good notes on what you watch, and you will see what you can take action on as soon as you are ready.

With that said, doing all three will be the most effective for you to learn the material.

No matter your learning style, you will have to start with the video. As you watch, take notes.

Once the video is over, start to apply the lesson...no matter how small.

Then, take the audio of the video (it's often included, but sometimes you can get it converted to an mp3) and start to re-listen to the information when you can.

This can take the place of an audiobook or podcast as you commute or when have some time to listen to the information.

If the video is heavy on visual content to make a point, using the audio only is less than ideal.

However, you can supplement your education with audiobooks and podcasts on the same subject.

Now, if you are a kinesthetic learner, meaning you learn best by doing, then you will have to start applying things right away for the information to stick.

This can be tricky just for the fact that you have no idea how to implement what you’ve learned before you finish the video. However, you should be able to get your brain working, so make sure you take good notes on what you watch, and you will see what you can take action on as soon as you are ready.

With that said, doing all three will be the most effective for you to learn the material.

No matter your learning style, you will have to start with the video. As you watch, take notes.

Once the video is over, start to apply the lesson...no matter how small.

Then, take the audio of the video (it's often included, but sometimes you can get it converted to an mp3) and start to re-listen to the information when you can.

This can take the place of an audiobook or podcast as you commute or when have some time to listen to the information.

A note on watching videos

Remember, this aint Netflix! You can't binge watch your training videos and expect to retain any information, even if you are a visual learner.

You have to watch the videos with intent. You can't just passively watch them as you browse social media on your phone, or are otherwise distracted.

As you watch, you must take notes on the information presented.

Not just the information, but time stamps of when certain info is presented, so you can go back to it later.

Some courses will have this done for you already so in those cases you won’t need to note the time stamp, but you will still want to take notes.

The notes you want should be handwritten.

This may sound like a lot of work, but let's be real, you are watching a video and writing shit down...how hard is that, really??

Don't forget, you used to do it all the time as a student in school...the only difference is that the lecturer isn't a live person in front of you being ignored because you are trying to make a date with one of your cute classmates.

You must take notes because when there's so much good info, you can feel a bit overwhelmed.

That feeling of being overwhelmed can be a detriment as we discussed in the intro.

Why?

Because an overwhelmed mind does NOT take action!

Too much information leads to analysis paralysis.

Taking notes helps you to digest the information in real time, and knowing you have taken good notes helps you to relax because you don't feel the need to memorize everything.

The key is to take some information, process it, act on it, and see the results.

Refine yourself. Then you can get more information and repeat the process.

Don't forget, in school you learned more info with less breaks, and you did okay, right?

You may not have gotten a 4.0 GPA, but I'm assuming you graduated.

Part of the reason was because you learned the skill of note-taking.

Note-taking is a vital skill for three reasons:

Now think about it, when was the last time you watched a training video?

Did you take notes?

If not, how much info did you retain?

How much of that info can you recall now?

You see what I’m sayin'?

It doesn't matter if you are reading, watching video, or listening to a podcast...handwritten notes are key for retention!

Now, here's where you can take it up several levels to really speed up mastery:

Before going to bed, go over the notes quickly so your subconscious can really absorb the info.

This can take the place of the nightly reading you will start doing.

This is really how you start to kill it in your business, because this info becomes a part of you, and that means it's only natural to start to EXECUTE ON THE INFORMATION!

Something you may want to experiment with is typing your handwritten notes into a large document for easy searching later, in the same manner you would transcribe your notes from the little notebook you will start to carry around.

After you watch the video for the first time and take notes, now you can watch it again with less attention, and no further notes need to be taken.

At this point feel free to watch them on a train, watch them on the plane.

Watch them on your phone, watch them when you are at home!

Dr. Seuss rhyming aside, the more you watch the video (or just listen to it), the more the content gets ingrained in you.

This is important for the identity change you learned about earlier.

Repetition

We often learn best with repetition. It doesn't matter if you are learning a physical skill or a mental one, the more you can see the information or do the task, the better you will learn it.

This is where the saying “practice makes perfect” comes from.
When you watch videos over and over again, you will often find little things you didn't notice on previous viewings.

You will also start to absorb the information on a deeper level that really builds your confidence in your new skill. While it’s easy to understand this logically, I never really felt the urge to do this until recently.

Normally, at the end of the week, I would download fresh podcast episodes to listen to for the following week.

However, one week I got too lazy to switch out the podcasts. Because of that, I just keep listening to the same pool of podcast episodes and audio course lessons over and over.

Then, just like a song I would learn from the radio, I was able to retain a lot of the facts and actionable items that I never could before.

It just goes to show that a 1 time viewing or listening does not allow you to truly learn anything.

What you can do to make it easy to get that repetition is to get the mp3 version of the video so you can listen to it in your car or while you workout. (or any time you would normally listen to music)

Some places have the audio version ready to download, and when you see that, download them! If your program doesn’t have the audio version available (and they are unwilling to make it available) you can create the mp3 from the video. 

Homework assignments and quizzes

It's not enough to watch a video, you gotta make sure you understand the material.

Some courses will give you homework assignments to help you learn a bit better.

Others will do a quick multiple-choice quiz to see if you understood it.

Often these assignments aren’t much, and you won't always have to turn them in.

With that said, you should still do them!

They are there for a reason, so don't get lazy and skip out on this!

You invested good money to learn a skill, why not do all you can to get a good return on your investment?

If the program you are learning from does not have homework assignments or quizzes, then you should try to make your own. In most cases this just means implementing what you learned, but depending on the material, you may have to sit and think about how you can do some sort of drill or exercise to help you practice.

 
For example, in a course about high ticket closing, you may have learned about how voice tonality can totally change the way a message comes across.

Implementing this right away isn't feasible, because you don't want to risk losing a customer by trying out something new without any practice.

So, you may create your own homework assignment to practice saying a phrase in different ways to help you to understand the information on a deeper level and to practice the skill at the same time.

When you are confused on how to practice something, like your writing skills, often times, you can simply copy a good written piece.

When I was learning copywriting, I was told to just find some good ad copy and “copy it.” Not for plagiarism, but for practice.

With that exercise, I was able to deeply understand what makes good ad copy better than simply reading it. Even though I was able to recognize why the ad copy was good, it wasn't until I started to copy good ad copy word for word that I was able to understand how I could mimic its power when I needed to create something original.

This ties into the repetition you learned about earlier… it's the same concept of trying to imitate your favorite athlete or performer to learn how to master something.

Quizzes are the same, except there's no need to write out an actual quiz.

You can go back through your notes and see if you know what new vocabulary is or if you can explain key concepts and ideas.

Going through the information like that is enough to count as a quiz.

Be honest with yourself if you “fail” your own quiz.

That's just a sign you may need to watch the video again right away or take better notes.

Both quizzes and homework assignments are there to help you master the material and start making money faster!

Putting it into action and how to work

There's not much to say about this. Just start to take the one thing you learned from the day/lesion and start applying it right away.

It doesn’t matter if that action is something that took you 30 seconds to do.

Do something each day to get you closer to your goal.

The thing you can will come from the homework assignments, or just implement the main point of the video or module.

When it's time to actually put in work, either learning or implementing, you need to have a bit of structure. What works well is The Pomodoro Technique.

 According to Wikipedia, this is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s.

The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks.

I've used this technique in my software engineering as well as my physical training, and it works well.

Granted, I had no idea this way of doing things had a name, but I guess there's nothing new under the sun.

Anyway, you need to have focus time before you begin this, so again, no distractions.

This makes sure your work intervals are full of great concentration. Once you get to your small break, you can relax again and be distracted all you want.

The best breaks are when you are doing the opposite of your intense work.

For example, if you are sitting at a desk and staring at a computer screen for the work period, the best break is to get up and do something physical, like take a walk or a run.

Watching a YouTube video is not a good method (even though I do this all the time) because it won’t allow you to fully recover, which will lead to more procrastination.

The work interval can be between 25 and 50 minutes, depending on what you are doing.

Studies have shown we can concentrate intensely for about 15 to 20 minutes and after that, our concentration levels start to drop.

Now, if you are in a flow state, you can bypass these human limits, but in general this is how we work best.

The rule of thumb is for each 25 minutes of work, you get a three to five-minute break. Once you are done you get back to work, and you repeat this for a few rotations.

In my experience, the longer I go through this, the longer the breaks have to be.

This can mean watching a video in your course, taking a break, and then going on to apply what you learned.

Then take a break.

The way you need to implement what you learned will dictate if you need to keep going with the implementation, or start a new video.

If the video is short, watch enough related videos to fill up the 25-minute work interval.

Don’t think the training you got is all you need. Sure, it may be the bulk of the info you will learn from when you are first starting out, but it can never be 100% of your information.

You would never think you could get a college degree in any subject from one book, so why would this be any different? 

It’s an easy trap to fall into, but you will need to get outside sources to fill in gaps of info and to get a second opinion.

At first, you won’t be aware of any holes in your knowledge, so it's fine to focus on the program or course material.

During that period, the outside info may just be a way to learn a topic better. Perhaps what you find explains things better for you than what your program does.

After a while you will be able to see where your gaps of knowledge are because you won’t have the results you want, but you will see you have made progress and you are learning.

Use that momentum to keep going and keep learning. You may not need to invest in a whole new course, but maybe a book on a sub topic is fine.

For example, if you are learning how to do digital marketing, after a while you may realize you have a lot of knowledge on how to place an ad on Facebook…but you realize your ad copy writing skills suck.

 The course in question may have a section on copywriting, but it wasn't enough, so this is when you can dive deeper into copywriting by buying books and maybe a course specific to copywriting.

The supplemental information doesn’t have to be about sub topics, either.

Going back to the digital marketing example, perhaps the course you bought was really good at the basics, but now that you have improved, you need more advanced training.

This is when a book, another course, or finding podcasts on the digital marketing is needed.

The key here is to not get trapped into one way of thinking about a topic or subject.

You will see others may teach similar things and it will feel good to know you have the basics down, but how person A teaches a subject could be different than how person B does.

That info difference could be the difference between making millions or not.

Scheduling time each day will help you stay on track and build momentum.

Squeeze in true focus time each day so you can watch the training videos without distractions.

This detail is important because splitting your attention or thinking you can multitask is a mistake.

When you change what you are focusing on, your brain has a “context switch.”

The context switch takes around 10-15 minutes to complete.

That means during this time, you are getting very little work done because your brain is trying to adjust.

It’s like your mobile phone, and it needs to shut down a bunch of apps to free up memory before it can run the new app.

This is why multitasking is a myth!

Nobody can truly do 2 things at once with the same attention to detail as if they did the tasks 1 at a time.

The context switch even happens when you change your visual focus too.

For example, if turn your gaze from a computer screen to a sheet of paper, you will go through a small context switch. However, in that case, the penalty is much smaller, but it's still a factor.

To help you start with great focus, give yourself five minutes before starting to calm your mind with some visualizations, or anything else to relax and to get rid of any distractions you may be thinking about.

Within the visualization, be grateful for the opportunity to learn something new that will help you become rich.

Not only did you have the ability to invest in the program, but you are thankful to be able to retain the information and apply it right away.

When you focus on gratitude like this, fear, distraction and your benchwarmer-self move out of the way, leaving you a clear path to take in some information.

What really helps with this is blocking out time in your calendar.

 Don't just try to remember it. Schedule it or put alarms and reminders on your phone.

This further helps you get rid of all distractions because people know you are not to be disturbed, and you will also have no excuse not to go through some training material at the assigned time.

If possible, go into your environment of success, aka your bat cave or hidden lair, so you won't be bothered by those random “emergencies” people seem to only have when you need alone time.

Tell your spouse and kids not to bother you.

Hell, put a red light outside of your lair the way they have in a recording studio to let people know not to bother you when this light is on, unless it’s a TRUE emergency.

There is no emergency that someone else can’t handle, so don’t fall for anyone’s tricks to get you to stop…you aint Superman who needs to save everyone!

Also, put your phone on silent, turn off all notifications on your computer, and start learning!

These tips should help you truly master any material you are trying to learn.

This is an area where the 97% stumble...they don't truly take time to learn.

If they watch the training at all, they just rush through it and haphazardly try to apply it without any true understanding.

When this half-assed approach fails, they assume the program doesn't work or is some sort of scam.

Sometimes, they realize they are the problem, and feel they just don't have it in them to learn the material.

I hope you see how that's false, and these new-age study skills will show you how you are no different from the people who make lots of money from these investments.

With this information, you are ready to start building your empire!

The beautiful thing…if you start taking action in pieces the way I show you in this guide, by the time you get to the end of your training, you could be making money!

How many people make money a soon as they finish a course? (how many actually finish a course?? Lol)

Be different, take action, make money.

Here’s the thing…there's a lot of information in this guide.

The problem you may be having isn't getting more information (you may have too much information already) but it’s probably knowing which information will actually be useful to you!

How do you know what things you should ignore, and what you should apply right now?

How do you know when you are ready to take action?

And more importantly, how do you know you are doing things right?

Sure, you can take the long road with trial and error, frustration and fatigue…or you can do what the top entrepreneurs do…. get a coach. It’s the secret that the wealthy have that the poor don’t know.

The wealthy aren’t just born with the knowledge they have, and they don’t just somehow learn it on accident.

Most people don’t start wealthy, but they know how to invest their money into the one thing that will always give a positive ROI (Return on Investment) and that’s investing in themselves.

Right now, you already did that…if you are reading this, you already invested in a course to teach you a high-income skill or a business model.

You are doing a lil bit more by reading this guide and hopefully applying what you learned.

But that’s still small potatoes! If you keep playing small, the most you can hope for is small returns. Its time to go big and get someone on your side to hold you accountable, make sure you are seeing the big picture, but can also show you how to do the things you are struggling with.

This is the secret to my success, so I know the impact that having a coach or mentor can have.

If you are ready to stop messing around and to accelerate your growth and more importantly your earning potential,

then I want you to click this link right now and book a call with me.