According to ADP Research Institute’s recent global workforce view for 2022, seven in every ten employees have seriously considered a major career change this year. 

Also 53% would accept a cut in pay if they could improve their work-life balance. And 50% would take a pay cut if it guaranteed they’d maintain control & flexibility over their lives (even if their total work hours didn’t change). 

Anyhoo. 

What did all of these people have in common? 

Everyone wanted more than their lives had become, did they not? Clearly their existing situations were no longer acceptable, right? We want more than the status quo, don't we? 

We want something else. Something better. We deserve…

Freedom

We began to realize what Bold Molders have known for decades – increasing our impact works best when built on the foundation of financial independence.

Because, let’s face it…

Freedom (which we’ll define as the ability to influence our outcomes, affect the timely changes we want, and control our fates) is fundamental to our human experience, is it not?

And,

It took me almost a year to connect the dots backwards & identify the X-Factor ingredient I’d accidentally added that made my list so much more responsive.

Months of digging deep… pulling ideas apart… putting them back together… until I truly understood things from the inside out…

And by mid 2003 I'd finally cracked the code: Now I could confidently (and intentionally) recreate the same X-Factor results again in the future. I’m happy to report, I’ve successfully applied this process to build true fan bases across a crapload —a technical term— of different industries (it was 34 when my ego let me stop counting). 

Oh, and, by the way, I’m also proud to tell ya that in the almost 26 years I’ve been building businesses online, it’s made well into 9 figures (warning: don’t do the math if big numbers or big business scares you).

(So, yeah, definitely not a fluke!)

Anyhoo…

Here’s why any of this might matter to YOU:

Over the years, I’ve improved, streamlined, and refined this X-Factor into what I now call “The A2A Influence Building Process.”

And, as a way to build relationship (and to help you by actually helping), I'd like to gift you a ten part email series that walks you through the entire A2A process so you can build your own base of True Fans.

Plus, you’ll discover how to reach your 1,000 True Fans tipping point without having to build an audience of millions, or hundreds of thousands, or even needing tens of thousands of followers.

“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

~Dorothy

Who knew 2020 would change the world forever? 

Nobody foresaw the full repercussions or the load of new challenges and questions we’d face, did they?

Our safety was threatened in previously unimaginable ways, was it not? The snow globe that was our work and home lives didn’t just get shaken up… 

…they took a hammer to our protective bubble and shattered it, right? 

It was impossible to ever return to “normal,” wasn’t it?

With no clear boundaries between our personal and professional lives, home became work, and work became home (HT to Zig Ziggler who said it best with, “You ain’t never nowhere.”)

Remote working and homeschooling turned us all into teachers and entrepreneurs regardless if we were capable, wanted to, or had the natural aptitude or strengths to figure it out.

Work-life balance and self-care? Yeah right! Unless you’re a billionaire, it’s nutt’n but an unachievable fantasy.

Add this to all that: 

“While money is not absolutely essential to your experience, to most people, money and freedom are synonymous. And since an intense awareness of your right to be free is at the very core of that which you are, it then follows that your relationship with money is one of the most important subjects of your life experience.”

~ Abraham-Hicks

The uncertainty about how much we could continue doing remotely, meeting the demands of homeschooling, the stress of living in constant fear, and anxiety of having to decide which bills to pay (and which to skip), made us face an ugly truth. Because, 

Not only had we become “disposable” (along with our self worth, unappreciated contributions and being respected as human beings), but to make matters worse…

Now it forced us to look at the big, important questions we wanted to avoid like,

“Is this really all there is to my life?”

Suddenly, we couldn’t ignore the fact that we weren’t making the impact on the world we knew we were supposed to!

So, how did we deal?

We doubled down. 

Relying on resilience, drive & motivation until there was nothing left in our energy banks, we used sheer grit and force to “make things happen.” 

We decided to take control back by starting new businesses and side-hustles. Which led to “The Great Resignation” (and “The Great Regret” when most of them didn't work out as hoped).

In the US alone, nearly 48 million “quits” happened in 2021, with almost 26 million in the first half of 2022. And it’s still accelerating: Since June 2021, here in the states, we’ve averaged over 4 million resignations per month! 

All said and told, 106 million times people decided to fire their existing bosses & jobs. And new US business registrations shot up to 12.7 million (an “extra” 4 million more new fresh-starts compared to previous years). Yet that doesn’t even account for how many more wanted to make that change and just couldn't bring themselves to step over the edge into the unknown? 

What would you guess? Double? Triple, or maybe even quadruple the millions who did decide to go for it?

Maybe you were one of those people?

Looking for more from life? More meaning. More fun. More happiness. More spiritual AND material wealth. More respect, significance, and pride in how (and what) you do to earn a living? To know you matter? That you ARE worthy? 

To find the freedom you want (rather than more fruitless seeking that only leaves you feeling empty)?

You know, the freedom to choose how you spend your time. The freedom to choose who you allow in your life (and who you don’t). The freedom to make a real impact on the world around you.

It’s no wonder so many decided to set out on their own to start a business, is it? 

Because, after all, if we make enough money, doesn’t that mean we’ll be able to just buy our freedom? That’s what drove me (Joshua) to become a millionaire. Maybe I was alone in that belief, but I don’t think so. 

Problem is that’s a red-herring (wrapped in a paradox)!

You can’t ever make enough money to buy freedom, peace of mind, or happiness UNLESS you already feel free, peaceful & happy as you make your money. You might make a ton of money, as I did, but it’ll never be enough to fix the emptiness or stop the pain. And, in fact, you might find it adds to the void (and sense of dread), making it even bigger.

At least that was my experience.

And, millions of people who changed their minds and created “The Great Regret,” seems to indicate my experience was far from unique.

According to a recent Harris Poll for USA Today, about 1 in every 5 people who quit during the so-called “Great Resignation” admitted to regretting it. Millions of peeps who set off on their own, found out the hard way it didn't suit them. 

Maybe they were missing the structure that comes with a clearly defined job and accountability to a boss? 

Maybe they didn’t know all the “extra” work it would take to turn their skills into a profitable business? 

Maybe it was because they had no idea they’d traded a 9-5 job for a 24/7 job? 

Those who stuck it out struggled to gather an audience because they discovered there’s a big difference between being skilled at producing a result and getting their message in front of the right people who want their offer. 

Some burned through their nest egg trying to get paid ads to work for them…

Some bought into the “flavor of the day” tactics out there telling them they had to become a social media influencer with millions of followers before they’d get any traction…

Some wrote article after article, and post after post trying to dial in that organic traffic…

And, while each of those tactics can work, what good is having an email list of hundreds of thousands if they don't care what you have to say?!

What you really need are true fans.

Have you heard about Kevin Kelly, and his 1,000 True Fans principle? Maybe you became familiar with his ideas from Tim Ferriss’ Tools of Titans book, but it has been around since 2008. 

The essence of it is that an individual can have a solid income based on having just one thousand true fans. 

True fans are those who buy everything you produce and go out of their way to do so. Yes, they know, like, and trust you…

And more importantly…

True fans RESPECT you, and your opinions. They look to you first as an expert authority and won’t make a move without it meeting your stamp of approval.

Kevin does the math to show you exactly how 1,000 true fans is all it takes to generate a six-figure income. Year in. Year out. When it comes to your business,

1,000 true fans is your freedom tipping point!

However, there’s a problem… 

As great as Kelly’s work is (and how many respected experts endorse it), how do you put it into action yourself? How do you find your 1,000 true fans? 

Because, here’s the thing: I’ve not seen anybody talk about a specific process you can use that transforms complete strangers into true fans... 

How do you build enough rapport with someone who knows nothing about you, what you can do for them, and who (after being burnt one too many times) are naturally going to be suspicious of you & your motives?

Most theories break at implementation, don’t they?

Now, while my ego would love you to believe I’m a genius for figuring out this duplicatable formula for building your first 1,000 true fans (without having to sift & sort through 500,000 to a million semi-fans like most have to do to find enough true fans)...

…the truth is, I stumbled onto it by accident. 

And, to make matters worse, it took me almost 5 years to recognize it could be leveraged intentionally!

Let me explain. 

Way back in 1997 I wrote, self published and printed 10,000 copies of my first book. 

Go big or go home, right? Problem was, I did all that before having a way to sell them (or even knew if anyone would buy it, let alone wanna read it). 

Just to put things into perspective for you, this was years before Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube! And even Google was still a group of idealistic Stanford students (adverse to making money) trying to figure out how to catalog the entire internet with a bunch of PCs. 

Shoot, AOL and 56K dial-up modems were cutting edge tech back then! 

Oh, I almost forgot. In 1997 “safe & secure” encrypted transactions hadn’t been invented yet. Which meant almost everyone was scared to use a website or email for anything other than a glorified business card that they were skeptical of. They certainly didn’t imagine in their wildest dreams ever buying anything online. 

Yes, those were dark times. ;-)

Onward. 

Anyway, there I was staring at crates of books parked in the garage where the cars should be, wondering how to make this internet thingy work? 

All my research turned up one approach I could model that might work to build my business online. And in the process of adopting & adapting that business model, I accidentally added an X-Factor. A “secret” ingredient with unintended consequences that went undiscovered until 2002. It was catnip for true fans. 

Happy Accident Becomes Systematic Certainty

Fast forward 5 years.

Sitting in the back of a hotel seminar room, I was about to get a peek at the power of having true fans.

By then my first fledgling online business had sold out the entire 10,000 print run copies, was still selling daily as a downloadable ebook, and I had acquired a list of a little over 32,000 free email newsletter subscribers.

The seminar was one of those very high priced training programs… a 3 day bootcamp designed to give the 50+ attendees the blueprint to building their own Internet business like the main trainer had done. I was invited as a guest because by then, using my first business as the prototype, we built several other successful online businesses for myself and a small handful of clients. 

In fact, Shawn, the bootcamp leader, was one of my clients. I built the system that was generating an average of $80,000 per week in gross revenues.

Even by today’s standards, this training program was ahead of its time. That’s because besides just teaching the attendees what to do, at my urging, Shawn made sure they got to see the implementation happen in real time while they were there. No theory. Just success or failure in the real world because Shawn dared to work transparently, without a net.

To kick off day one, Shawn decided to demonstrate one of the foundational principles of every online business:

The power of having a list of free opt-in subscribers that gave you permission to communicate with them via email. 

Now, Shawn’s list of email subscribers was over a half a million people strong… which made for a great training when he switched from his powerpoint presentation to the live projection of him logging into his system, sending an email, and got us all addicted to clicking the magic “refresh” button to see the results stack up over the remainder of the 3 days.

Shawn wasn’t done. Not. By. A. Longshot.

You see, he decided to crank the excitement up a few notches. He put me on the spot, and told everyone I was going to email my list of 32K subscribers about the same offer he just did, and we’d all get to see who’d win based on the real time results.

His 500,000 person email list against my tiny 32,000? In what universe was that a fair fight?

Well, since the cat is already outta the bag by how I started this story, I won’t keep you in suspense. Turns out I was right about it not being a fair fight… 

But I was wrong about who’d win the head-to-head.

Because when Shawn clicked the refresh button for the final time at the end of the 3 days, his email produced $600.00, and my total was a little over $7,500.00! 

Exact same product. Using the same marketing system. And same timing. The only thing different was our lists.

Apparently, not all lists were created equal.

Although it was the birth of what I would come to refer to as the X-Factor, in another 6 years this would be the same thing Kevin Kelly published his 1,000 True Fans manifesto about in 2008.

While there’s no way to know for sure how many of the 32,000 free subscribers were true fans, I can say based on results, it was way north of 1,000. 

Concerned that it might be a fluke, 3 weeks later I emailed the list again and did $103,844.00 in sales. 

Nope. It wasn’t a one-off, lucky break. In fact, after that experience opened my eyes to new possibilities, that same small list averaged about $20K a month in extra “side” income, consistently, for years.

Obviously, there was something different in the way people on my list responded to my emails. 

The trouble was, I didn't consciously know what it was. 

Which meant, until I figured it out, I couldn’t be sure I could do it again from scratch. How could I intentionally design it in, and leverage it for all my future business building activities? 

Maybe you’re like me and can’t rest until you close your open loops? Well, I became obsessed. No rest until I figured out the exact root cause of my accidental breakthrough… AND how I could duplicate the same results by design (not default).

[SIDEBAR]

Because I couldn’t read until 6th grade (apparently due to learning disabilities that went undiagnosed until I was almost 20), I was forced at an early age to alter the way I learn and develop new skills.  

As a result, I literally can’t learn anything until & unless I can wrap my arms around the entire big picture. Because that’s the only way I seem to be able to break down all of the pieces into small, bite-sized, easy to understand principles and procedures to implement. 

Now, while it does take me much longer to learn new things compared to most… once I do learn it, I’ve mastered it on a very deep level few ever will. And, out of this deep mastery, one of my “superpowers” seems to be breaking even the most complicated subjects down into systems, processes and methods. 

Which makes for the rare “expert” who can also teach others how to DO the “voodoo” they do automatically. So you can actually leverage what you learn & produce the results you’re looking for (rather than collecting more info that doesn’t seem to fit your needs). 

Because as you’ve likely experienced yourself, simply learning the magic trick does NOT guarantee you’ll be able to perform it, does it? Unfortunately, learning more new stuff is less than 20% of consistently creating the desired results you want, with the predictable certainty you need. Period.

Now, in the spirit of full transparent disclosure…

You are experiencing this process right now. I’m using the exact A2A techniques here because I’m building my list of true fans for Bold Molders. Yup, from scratch.

See, after you consume, digest and apply the insights you’ll gain from these 10 email sessions, I’m betting you'll want to stick around, hear more and stay connected. And at some point, maybe you’ll come to proudly call yourself a Bold Molder fan and raise your hand to enroll in one (or all) of our paid programs. 

:-D 

Fear not, however. Because, surprise, there’s nothing to buy at the end of this series.

All we ask is that you give each email lesson the same focus & attention you would as if you paid a few hundred for them (and you were determined to get a 10x R.O.I. from the series).

Deal?

Great. Then, the next step is yours.

If you want to come on this A2A adventure into building your own 1,000 True fans, click (tap) the orange button below, and tell us your best email address to send your lessons to.

P.S. 

Obviously, it’s up to you to decide when (or even, if) you wanna go deeper…

And until you make the choice to enroll, there will be no pressure or push to spend any money with us. We're firm believers in serving our audience well before money changes hands.

Why? 

Well, besides making great business sense…

As you probably caught on by now, focusing on cultivating beneficial relationships serving people BEFORE any money changes hands is far from a new idea, right?

It has been around as long as we've been forming tribes and family groups, has it not?

What has changed since 2020?

It’s that the noise of all those “quick fixes” has been cranked up to maximum volume because of all the uncertainty we’re still feeling today. 

And the kicker? 

It is that using those hacks, exploits, and loopholes just sets us up to compound the uncertainty and lack of control we feel. When will it stop working? Then what? What if I can’t find another short term fix? What changes am I not seeing yet that will knock the wind out of me again?

Why not escape that “race to the bottom?”

Instead, why not use your time, money, and energy developing the evergreen skills of building strong relationships to serve your audience, and...

...then giving them opportunities to enroll when they say it's the right time for them?

Food for thought.

See ya in your inbox,

Joshua —Happy Accident Leverage— Shafran