(upbeat music) - Hey Cal, my name is Kobe Amponso. First off, I wanna say thank you for all the work you've been doing. It's been extremely powerful and impactful in my life, so I appreciate you for it, and I encourage you to keep going. My question is, I have a stock investing program, and the goal of my program is to really educate beginners on how to use leverage stock investing to increase their income potential.

And I'm finding that I'm getting to a point where I feel like I have to convince people to do something that would really benefit their lives. And normally it's people approaching me. And you know, part of the problem is that maybe I'm not doing as good of a job as connecting their problem to my solution.

That might be part of it. But the other side is that I'm spending all this time trying to convince people to join the program and I could be sharpening my sword and maybe even increasing my income potential, right? Learning never stops, so I'm sure you know that as well.

So is it better for me to continue trying to find a way to get to these customers in a better way, or do I just sharpen my sword, focus on myself, and then have them follow me afterwards? I do have a goal of becoming a hedge fund manager and I'm working towards that.

So that might be a route that I wanna take. So I just wanted to know your thoughts on that. - Well, Kobe, I am gonna lean towards your instinct here of focusing more on yourself and your performance and being so good that you can't be ignored. That's almost always gonna be the right approach in these situations.

Selling is important, right? You do have to sell if you're in any type of industry where you need to get clients. But if you're spending too much time selling, especially in something like this, I would be worried that that is a signal that's telling you that you need to go back to the woodshed or back to the sword sharpening stone.

So if what you're trying to sell here is leveraged stock investing, first of all, become richer. I mean, this is the irony of what you're selling. What's gonna make this appealing to people to buy is gonna be when you get to the situation where you don't need them to buy it.

And I know that sounds kind of circular, but if you're saying there's all the success you can have financially by doing leveraged stock buying, then people need to see that you're having a lot of success doing it, which will lower the pressure for you to do the selling because you'll be doing fine financially anyways.

That's gonna add more authenticity to what you're selling because you're producing something you believe in. You're not trying to push a lot of different students into it. You'll gravitate more students towards you in that situation. And then more generally, what I would say is keep in mind the concept from my book, "So Good They Can't Ignore You," which is the law of financial viability.

And this was an idea that I borrowed from the entrepreneur Derek Sivers, who said, "Money and people's willingness to give it to you "is a good neutral indicator of value." So how do you know, for example, if your course is good or not, how easily are people giving you money to take it?

And if it's a real struggle, think about that as being a real honest return. It's not there yet. I mean, maybe they're picking up, like, why is Kobe not more successful himself? Or there's something about the quality of the course, and it's a really important signal. So that's what I would say.

Sharpen your sword, to use your terminology. Get better at what you're doing. Hone your system. Have demonstrable results. Keep polishing and improving that course. Put the word out there. I mean, you want people to know it's there, but don't push super hard to sell it. What you wanna see is that relative signal of it's easier to get the people I'm getting.

More people are coming. With less effort, I'm hitting a mark that I used to have to really push to before. And that'll be your signal that this is getting better, that the course is getting to a place that maybe is worth having even more energy pushed into. (upbeat music)