SPI 685: Commit First: The Leap to 7 Figures with Sagi Shrieber

SPI 685: Commit First: The Leap to 7 Figures with Sagi Shrieber

Sagi Shrieber: So you have the actions which are equal to or smaller than the ambitions, and you have the results which are equal to or smaller than the actions. Most people in life have low ambitions. And, therefore, they take mediocre action. And, therefore, they have mediocre to low results. Therefore, they have low self-esteem. That’s why I don’t believe in like the status quo in terms of confidence. It’s either you’re on your way up or on your way down usually. So most people are not getting the results they want because they don’t have the high enough ambitions.

Pat Flynn: You know, I love bringing people back on the show who’ve been on before, especially if I’ve been following their journey all along the way. And today we’re speaking with a great friend of mine, and a previous guest, and a previous student of mine. Sagi Shrieber, who is the host of the Commit First podcast, he’s now an app developer, and since the last time he’s been on the show, so much transformation has happened.

Not just as a result of, you know, the circumstances in the world, but mostly the circumstances happening inside of his head. And today we’re talking about mental fitness and grit and, and moving forward. And we’re gonna talk about how he’s now built a seven figure business and he’s come a very, very long way.

I’m quite proud of Sagi and everything that we’re gonna be talking about today, and he offers a lot of advice and he talks about family and a lot of the stuff that he’s getting his wife involved with. It’s just gonna be a really great, not just ketchup, but just understanding of the timeline of success because it can take time.

I think a lot of us today, especially, we want results now, and Sagi is somebody who has been so persistent and so just understanding that he knew success was coming, he just had to find the path to get there. And not only that, I just wanna commend him here for just putting himself in the rooms where he knows he can learn.

You know, he became a student of mine and our accelerator a long time ago, and then he moved on to different mentors and people who can help shift his mindset to get to the point where he could find success himself, and that all happens from within. So here he is, Sagi Shrieber. This is session 685, the Smart Passive Income Podcast.

Let’s catch up with him. Here we go.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he puts ice in his hot Americano because it’s a little too hot for him. Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Sagi, welcome back to the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Thanks for being here, man.

Sagi Shrieber: Thanks so much for inviting me, man. It’s such an honor.

Pat Flynn: You know, I’m excited because the last meeting you were on the show was hundreds of episodes ago, and of course a lot can happen in a relatively short period of time, but you and I just were able to meet in San Diego not too long ago, catch up over coffee. And after I heard exactly what you had done since the last time we chatted and since you’ve been in my accelerator group, I mean, you’ve done some amazing things, but before we get to that, just how are you, how’s the family? Everything good over where you’re at?

Sagi Shrieber: Yeah, man. You know, besides everything that’s happening in Israel, which is a craziness right now, but definitely all good. Family’s good. Thank you so much.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. So tell us where you’re at in your business now. The last minute you were on the show, you were still a little bit in the figuring it out stage. I mean, you had gotten out of debt, which was really great, and you were trying to look for ways to, to build an online business.

And you had an agency, you were doing some stuff at a local university and you seemed to be sort of, you know, spread out across many different projects. Where are you at now? What is, what does the business look like for you now?

Sagi Shrieber: Yeah, man, so first of all, yeah, a lot of, A lot has happened since we last met, since I’ve been an accelerator.

And I think just to give kinda like an update where I’m at, right. And now, I have Contrast UX, which is my UI, UX design agency. That’s the main business that I’ve built and it’s bringing in most of the income. I am still teaching design. I have Israel’s largest design blog, still running online courses, and also another physical course, kind like a bootcamp for ui ux. To anybody who doesn’t know, that’s application design for startups. And besides that, I have an app out in the App Store. Basically, I have Commit First, which is my podcast and the platform about mental fitness and wellbeing that I’m taking into a tech route, meaning I started designing and developing apps in the space. Now we have the first app called Affirmations & Co, which is out on the app store and it’s an app for affirmations and anything written content, you know, inspiration. And that’s pretty much where I’m at right now. It’s like a developing commit first and on the tech route, the first app is out in the app store. More apps are coming and yeah, father of three.

Pat Flynn: That’s awesome. The last time you and I chatted a long time ago, you had a mindset that was very driven, ruthless is even a word that you often used, but you took a 180 turn as far as your confidence, talk about where you started to gain confidence in your business because that was something that you, you had definitely lacked before.

Sagi Shrieber: Oh man, definitely. So maybe, maybe we should kind of like rewind and kind of say like, how did I even meet you? Right. Because I think it’s, it’s so important. Not a lot of people listen to episode 326. I mean, a lot of people listen, but people right now, I don’t know, like you can go back to 326 and listen to that, but, I’m an entrepreneur from Israel, and when I was just starting out my business, it didn’t really succeed and I went into debt and I couldn’t monetize.

And I was a father of two back then, and I, it was just like so stressful. And I remember those days where, because you know, if I’ve done it right now and we’re talking again for a second time, I need everybody to understand I’m just a regular person. You know, like everybody can do it, right? And so when I was in debt, and thinking of my next, kinda like the next credit card bill that’s coming and how I’m gonna even feed my family in a month from that period.

That was about 2017, completely broke. Anonymous entrepreneur from Israel. I. How did I get to meet Pat Flynn? So that’s, I think what I wanna kind, like talk about. It’s, it’s, it’s a bit of what we talked about in the last episode, but I just built on top of that and the confidence came from actually doing reps and, you know, experiencing more obstacles in business.

And I think that’s what a lot of people, maybe they don’t have the patience and they don’t have the grit to, you know, to go through those experiences. But overall, entrepreneurship is a spiritual journey. And once you start doing, like playing in the game of business, you also need to play that game of, I would say, mental fitness, mental toughness.

You can call whatever you want, but you have to learn how to go through the journey right in, in a proper way. So that’s maybe what, you know, I can, I can talk about, maybe give some tips about here just based on my fans.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, I mean, let’s talk about that. I know that you very much value mentorship in in your work, and you are always continually looking to find new people to get inspired by.

I’m curious if we could go back in time and talk about kind of how you reached out to me and how we started working together. That would be great.

Sagi Shrieber: Yeah. Awesome. So here’s the thing, like, I’m gonna put it very simply, like the way I see business right now, at least at this point, is the same way I started it, back like five years ago when I met you or before I met you. And it’s based off of three things. One is vision. Two is action. And three is direction. So vision, action, direction. And that’s kinda like what guides me. It’s how I started. So let’s talk about vision. So when I was totally broke in debt and I didn’t really know how I’m gonna monetize next month, so I, I said I don’t, I have no other choice.

I’ve read this book by this guy, an entrepreneur from the US who experienced kind of setbacks in his business and didn’t really succeed. And so I actually called him up. Like I, I reached out to him via Facebook. He said, you know, I can coach you. So I flew him in from the US with thousands of dollars I didn’t have back then, but it was the first time I, I witnessed direction.

So I flew him up from the US and he said, Sagi, what’s your vision? And we sat down in this like office in Tel Aviv. This guy’s walking around the table and I’m like sitting on a table, like with my hands on my face. I’m like, oh my God, what have I done? I paid so much, so much money for this coach and how is he gonna help me?

And he is like, Sagi, what’s your vision? And I’m like, vision. I mean, what do you mean? And he is like, where do you want to be in two years and in six months from now? So we first did the two year thing, and we wrote down kind of like a vague vision for two years. Where do I want to be in two years if all goes great because it can get a lot done in two years.

And then we wrote six months and the six month one. I wrote down a lot of things that was very kinda like if anybody wants to read about the smart goals method, it was kinda like based on that meaning like it was bound in time, six month and it had very concrete, practical goals to achieve that you can actually measure that it at the end of the six month, my coach back then Calvin would’ve come to me and would’ve said, Hey Sagi, have you achieved those goals?

And I would’ve said yes or no. Very simply. And then so. I wrote down a couple of things. One was, I’m going to achieve X amount of money. It was about like 14 K a month. Like if in six months from now I actually have done, like, have made 14 K in revenue, just 14, nothing more than that. It’s all I need in six month from now, not, not next month.

Then I’m very happy. Then second thing I wrote down is I’m going to launch a community and I’m gonna help other entrepreneurs do the same. Which are struggling like I’m right now. And then the third thing I wrote, and I have no idea where that came from. I wrote down, I’m gonna appear on a podcast to tell my story.

And I wrote down in parenthesis two names I wrote down, either Pat Flynn or JLD. Those are two names I wrote down because I was following you guys. John Lee Dumas. Yep. So I wrote the, obviously I wrote down like the time I’m gonna spend with my family and everything like that, which I started implementing the next day.

The next month I, in that same month, I closed a new client and have done some workshops and have actually got to 14 K within a month. I was like, holy. Like it was, it was crazy. I was like, okay, well what if I can make do twice that, like, it was like I, I put a number, it was 100,000 Israeli shackles, which wasn’t an amount I’ve never seen anybody in my family make before in a month.

And for me it was like, I’ve never made anything close to that. But I wrote it down and I wrote myself a check and I put it in the fridge and, and it, it was for the first of the first 2019, that six month, kind of like worse, that six month ended and. I remember just like working, I worked very hard.

Obviously that was the part of action and I had my coach there direction. I actually hired even another coach along the way and they really, really helped me. And then, so the vision was clear. I took action and I was with direction. All sounds good so far. Then the crazy thing, when you have those three in place, things start to manifest kind of so.

That check that I wrote myself, it was on the fridge. And at the second of the first, 2nd of January, 2018, my wife’s kinda going over the accounting software in the living room. I’m in the kitchen fixing, fixing myself something to eat. And she calls me up and she’s like, Sagi I think we have a problem with your accounting software.

It says you made over 100,000 Israeli shackles, which is equivalent back then of like about 28 to 30 K. And I’m like, No, it can’t be. So I all of a sudden like remembered the check because I forgot completely about the check. It was covered with magnets and all. Kinda like I, I find the check, I snatch it from the fridge, I run through the living room, I put the check against the computer screen and I see like 100K Israeli shackles in revenue in in December, 2017. Like, wow, it manifested. It’s just amazing. It’s unbelievable. So one of the things that I did is kinda like I bought myself a present, which is flying out to the 10X conference in Las Vegas by Grand Cardone, Calvin, my coach told me, Hey, there’s like social media marketing world, Pat’s going to stick there.

And I’m like, Okay. If Pat’s there, I’m gonna be there. Gets me closer to my vision. Again, taking action based on my vision of a very clear, intentional, right? I get to San Diego, basically, after the 10X conference, we drove to San Diego and I get to like the night before the conference, and we hear that you’re hosting a meetup in WeWork, downtown San Diego.

And I’m like, okay, Pat’s hosting a meetup. Now, for me, the thing that I was saying to myself is like, If I meet you in the hallway, man, like I’ll be just very happy just to shake your hand. Like that would be kinda like I, I did my part and so I went to WeWork, you know, took the elevator to the third floor that night.

By the way, there was no tickets when I wanted to, to sign up for the meetup, they’re like, no, tickets sold out. Eventually someone was in jetlag from the group at Social Media Marketing World and they gave up their ticket and I snatched. I was like, me just give, give it to me. I’ll buy it from you. And so I got to the meet up.

Like 15 minutes in line. I don’t know if you know this story, like as in, in much detail, but waiting in line. And I was like 15 minutes just waiting in line just to get the name badge. I’m like, it was the, the place was packed, the whole floor was packed. I get to that floor, it’s divided into two. One part is for networking full of people and the other part is kind of like more formed in a queue, kind of in, in a line.

And I’m saying, okay, that means Pat is here probably so. I go and stand in line and I kind like, I count the people. I like, follow the people with my finger. Like, where is this line going? It’s like, it’s a never ending line. And it’s like, I, I count the people and count the people and at the end of the line, all of a sudden I see Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn. I’m like, oh, you know, I’m fanboying like, you know, and, and again, an anonymous entrepreneur from Israel. I followed you for like a couple years back then, and I was like, all of a sudden it hit me. Like all these people are shaking your hand and asking for selfies and saying how much you contributed to their lives, and I’m just there.

What’s gonna make me special? You know, like what’s gonna actually make you remember me or help us connect, you know? And I don’t remember exactly what I told you in full detail, but pretty much I remember it was kind of like, first of all, I acknowledged you and I thanked you for the value that you gave me.

And I think that was the first thing. I did not ask you for a selfie. I was like, Hey man, like. First of all, and I waited like 30 minutes at nine by the way. I was like hey man, thank you so much for, for everything that you brought to my life. And I told you like, I wanna contribute back in any way I can.

The way I know how to do it is by design, because I was a designer for like, I, back then, it was like 13 years of of design. I was the first designer at Fiverr, actual company. I had my own startup. It got acquired by Similarweb. I think you knew like Fiverr. I saw when I said Fiverr, I saw your eyes lit up because you knew Fiverr.

Right, so you kind like, that’s where I think it connected just a bit. Kind of like you, you kind of acknowledged kinda like rapport was built in a second, I guess, and then I said, I wanna help you, like, you know, any design that you want, just tell me and I’ll, I’ll design it, you know, any homepage and landing page.

Like, I, I wanna help you, like just pure value. And then you gave me your, your email and then we kind of like parted ways. And then I was like, I, I walked off and I’m like, oh my God, I just met Pat and we connected and, and he gave me his email and then like all of a sudden I’m like seeing another line.

And I’m, I’m counting the people on that line. I’m with my finger and like following the line, like, where does this line lead to? Who else is here? And at the end of that line, all of a sudden I see JLD, the two people that I wrote down on a piece of paper six months before that, just a bit more like seven months before that was, were now in front of my eyes in the same room.

It was just unbelievable. It was exciting, you know, manifestation, you know, just happened. And, then, you can call miracles, like there’s other ways of like, you know, calling it. Then I went up to JLD, I went in line and I, I kind of the same. I told him like, Hey man, like you brought me so much value. If you need any help with any design, lemme know.

A couple weeks later, fast forward, you launched the mastermind and I applied and I, I remember we didn’t get an answer for a couple weeks and we only got one email from Jess saying, Hey guys, you know, we’re, we were packed with applications, probably not gonna have any room in this mastermind. Like for, for most of the people are just going very with a small bunch.

And I wrote to you and I followed up and I was like, Pat, remember me? The Israeli designer. Like and I kind of followed up a couple of times and then you wrote me back one day. It was a couple weeks after that you wrote me back after a couple follow ups, you’re like, Hey man, you’re in. I want you to know that you’re in the mastermind, like you and that your follow-ups helped, something like that. The same week, JLD emails me back and says, Hey, let’s talk about my homepage. I want you to design the top part of the homepage. So kinda like it, it just happened and, and then the first thing he said on the call was like, Hey Sagi, your story’s awesome. Let’s get you on the podcast that I didn’t ask for it.

You just said it. And first kind of get to know you call. And there I was, was booked to be on the SPI podcast. That’s kind of like the story of the beginning of how it all started. Yeah. It was just an amazing ride since then.

Pat Flynn: That’s so cool. You manifested the results. Now a lot of people might hear that and you know, we understand the importance of like a vision board even they’re teaching that at my kid’s school now and, and that’s really amazing.

But vision is one thing, taking action on that vision can be very difficult, and especially if you have limiting beliefs or you start telling yourself stories about why this can’t happen. How were you talking to yourself through the action taking and all those self doubts that w that were coming in?

What self-doubts did arise and how did you get through them?

Sagi Shrieber: Right. I mean, I had so many self-doubts and I remember coming to San Diego for the first mastermind event. And, and everybody was there. Like everybody I married, I thought I was the only one outside the US and everybody was such on a high level, and I felt like I was kind of like I was the small guy like I was, I was like, like that, the less successful guy in the room and I enjoyed that, but I also knew that I had a way to go. Like I remember that. I was the most confused. I was the most scattered and through all my life, people told me, Sagi, you’re a creative entrepreneur. You’re all over the place. You gotta pick something up until this day, they keep telling me that.

But I keep now, at least I know and I have the confidence that I know what I’m doing and that my creative endeavors, that I’m doing a couple things at once, it’s kind of what keeps me going, and some people just can do one thing and can be really, really good at it, and then they can skip to the next thing and they cannot skip until they finish this one thing properly or get to some specific point or success in that one thing.

Some people are wired that way. I’m wired where I have a lot of balls in the air, and that’s how I like how I like being. And if I have just one thing at a time, I’m bored. I just can’t really do one thing and I learn to be okay with that. That’s the first thing, like accepting who I am as a creative design like entrepreneur.

I just found more evidence of people like me that are very, very successful. At the beginning, I thought I was irresponsible. That’s kind of how people a lot of times framed it when they told me about that. But it took me time to understand, okay, just, just, it’s just me. And I can actually go against that one thing mentality.

Like it’s, it doesn’t have to be everyone. It’s not for everyone. And some people are exactly like me and very successful. I just had on my podcast commit, first I had, I just interviewed Erwin McManus. Do you know this guy? Erwin McManus. So he wrote, like, he just says, an amazing book, by the way, called The Genius of Jesus.

I’m don’t myself, you know, I don’t wanna promote him too much, but obviously, but he’s amazing and he’s a, he has a lot, he has a creative, which has a lot of projects going on. Super successful, super inspiring guy. And I was like, okay, so I can be that. That’s one thing that, that one part of like, kinda like accepting who I was, but the other part was also working on my character.

And working on your character needs to be an intentional process that you have to go through and choose to go through. I think as, as, as an entrepreneur, like that’s what I learned. I actually, I. Wasn’t, it wasn’t the talk of the town when we were at the Mastermind, everybody was talking strategies. It was kinda like known for everybody that that’s what you should do.

But I wasn’t like, you know, I was just and, and I remember just after the mastermind I experienced a, a huge setback. A huge setback. And we’re talking about confidence and setback that cost me, again, everything I had, I lost all the money I made. And then kind of like the, the risk now was getting into a debt of like, again, like five figures in debt again, like, and, and quickly just in a month not to talk about.

Now I had a lot of, because I already had the business and operations to pay for and expenses, so that meant I also have to dig my way out of the hole. But also the hole is getting dug deeper. Without me even doing anything. And so that was a very stressful situation and I had to launch something quick.

And I remember back then I had a coach like always, and he told me about this one thing I had to launch. I remember, like I’m talking about phone calls from the banks. I tried to launch this thing, it completely flopped. I put all my, all I had into it. I lost all my clients on purpose design clients to work on that one thing.

And it flopped and I get, I worked on it for like two months, put everything I had into it and my confidence was at the bottom because I was on such a roll in 2018, 2019 for me, just held a huge crash at the beginning of the year, which actually also cost me flying out to the second event of our mastermind.

If you remember, like I had to, I couldn’t fly. You had to zoom in.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. What was going on at the time exactly, how did you get into that much debt? I understand there’s expenses for the business and stuff, but you had put all your eggs into this one basket, right? And then it, it just flopped.

So what, what are the lessons you learned there?

Sagi Shrieber: Lessons I learned was, One is like I had a vision, and again, I keep working on this six month vision. One of the six month vision for the end of 2018 was to have no design clients at that point and to only work on that one launch. And lo and behold, they kind of manifested without me even like, intentionally doing anything.

It’s like the clients just, you know, one startup closed and another startup, you know, this like was acquired and all the sounded like I’m, you know, I’m without any clients and, and then I started the year and I was like, okay, I’m doing this launch of, of this program that I’m launching. It was just like, I’m gonna go all in on it.

And I ran a webinar and studied all the strategies, and I was, you know, full of confidence because I was on a roll in 2018. I felt invincible. I’m like, you know, I’m in the mastermind with Pat Flynn. I’m, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m flying. A couple times a year to the US for conferences and, and masterminds in a villas on San Diego Beach.

Like, that’s me now. Right? King of the Hill. I’m, I’m spending time with my wife. I’m, I’m acquiring like all my goals are like, you know, set and being manifested. Everything’s like, I’m on a roll here. I got this. And then I launched first webinar. Some people showed up about like 200 people. Zero people bought my program.

Zero. And then I was like, okay, okay, that, you know, that that wasn’t good. Launched another webinar two weeks from then completely flopped again. Nobody bought my program. Nobody, not even one. And I’m like, I redid the offer. Everything is like, was supposed to be the perfect offer. Nothing. And so I said, okay, I have zero design clients.

I have all these, I have team members. Now I’m paying for like all the operation and the business. No money is coming in and I, you know, I need a salary, but I don’t have a salary. Now, I had didn’t end one for like two months. So first of all, you know, I learned the lesson the hard way, like kind of it was me on my cash cashflow.

I couldn’t take that risk at that time in a way. But you know what, sometimes in entrepreneurship you burn the bridges and you, and you take some risks. I tried to do that. I’m not, I’m not feeling bad about doing it. The thing that I did learn though, is when I had to come back and when I had to take responsibility and save the business, because at that point I, again, you’re saying like you, you thought you had all success, then everything comes crashing down. And that was my, one of my biggest lessons because when you’re low at that point and you already thought you made it, and you passed a very, very hard point before, which was my story in episode 326 and what I just told you about and, and you’re, you’re hitting that again, on such a deep level, and getting phone calls from the bank, and again, you’re like, you don’t know how you’re gonna monetize next month and like what you’re going to do. I felt so bad I didn’t wanna get up in the morning, like I really, like, I, I wanted to stay in bed. I didn’t really want to do anything. I was like, kind of, it was kind like, you know, entrepreneurship, depression for a sec, like really bad.

And I remember talking to my coach and saying, I cannot launch this thing. I have an, an idea to launch something for my Israeli community. It’s a program that’s called Freelancers Raising Prices. It’s gonna be helping freelancer designers kind of like raise their prices and, and earn more. And I’m like, okay, but I have no confidence in launching right now.

What is this flops? If this flops, I’m completely screwed. And it was such a pressure. And my coach told me one thing, which I’ll never forget. He said, Sagi, you know, I just, you have to detach from the results. Just go ahead lunch. Aim high. Take massive action, launch this thing, but you have to detach from the results.

And I told him what, like, man, I, how can I detach from the results? It’s like, this is what’s gonna either like, make me or break me. And he is like, you gotta do it. Just trust me. And I remember the lesson I learned, I, I did it. I really, it was really, really hard, but I tried to focus as less as, as I could in the result only on the process.

And I launched it. It was a complete success. And I also got another design client, and it saved my business. It took me about a couple months to rebuild my, my business and my cashflow to a proper point. But I did it. And also, there’s two things that happened then. One is the insight, and two is the actual thing that I learned as a hack for lack of clarity of vision, which I think can help people probably listening to this.

So let’s talk about the insight. So the confidence, right? If we’re thinking about confidence in general. Let’s think about how we measure ourselves, right? Because we measure ourselves usually by the results, like usually as entrepreneurs, right? We either succeeded with a launch or didn’t. Okay? So what are the results made of?

Pat Flynn: It’s made up of a combination of the numbers that we see coming in, a gut feeling, the ability to wake up and be proud of the work that you’re doing or not. And then also feedback from others that you’re working with as well.

Sagi Shrieber: Right. So it was a couple of things in, in generally, like how are the results made, by what?

But, but the results are made by our, by a, the action that you take. Yes, exactly. So results are made by the actions. Now everybody, if you can imagine for a second, kinda like four squares connected with lines. Okay. So we have the bottom right is the results. Now let’s connect it up to the top right. Top right is actions.

So actions connected with align to results, actions, drive results. Awesome. What drives actions?

Pat Flynn: Those are plans, goals.

Sagi Shrieber: Yeah. Right. So our ambitions, so like, so now you can connect the upper left one with a line to the actions on the upper right. So first one, we have our ambitions. They’re connected directly to our actions.

Because whatever we wanna do, we carry out and do it with actions and we get or don’t get results, right, so that’s connected to the bottom right. Now, what are the results connected to? What do the results lead to? Confidence. Right. Okay. So we got ambitions lead to actions that lead to results that lead to confidence and the confidence of self-esteem leads back to the ambitions.

So, for instance, we wanted to launch a program, okay? That was our ambition. We knew we had a financial goal, whatever, like we just wanted to launch it properly, took massive action, launched it. Then probably we, we made it. Success results, people signed up, leads back to our confidence. Okay? Next thing we’re gonna do, we’re gonna have a bigger launch like next time.

Now it links back to our ambitions. Now ambitions grow. Now we have a bigger launch. We do it again. We are on a roll. Great. We do it again. We’re on a roll. Awesome. So here’s the trick though. The ambitions, which is the first thing, will always be bigger than the actions. Always. You never take action more than your ambitions, so it can never be like, the actions would always be smaller than ambitions.

Now the results would either be equal to or smaller than the actions. It’ll never be bigger than the actions unless it’s a flop like, or in a good way, like it’s a miracle happening, whatever, right? Basically. So you have the actions which are equal to or smaller than the ambitions, and you have the results which are equal to or smaller than the actions. Most people in life, that’s the thing to kind of notice most people in life have low ambitions and therefore they take mediocre action and therefore they have mediocre to low results. Therefore, they have low self-esteem connected back in a very, you know that, that’s why I don’t believe in like the status quo in terms of confidence.

It’s either you’re on your way up or on your way down usually. So most people are not getting the results they want because they don’t have the high enough ambitions. Now, I, if you’re having high ambitions and some people are on a roll on the way up, exactly like I was in 2018, I was on a roll. I was launching things, I was succeeding.

I was like, you know, on top of the hill. I was in a good loop on the way up. But then one time I launched, I had high ambitions. I took massive actions, but then boom, results didn’t happen. Like nothing. Right, now, it, you can say it’s based upon my actions, but it’s not only like results can, can basically are, there’s so many external environmental things that can affect the results.

For instance, COVID, right? For instance, a lot of things that are happening in the world right now, recession hits or whatever, so you can have high ambitions, massive actions, but then results won’t come, and then your confidence drops. And for me, that was the big thing. So a lot of people are on a great role until they, their results are hit and confidence drops.

It leads to depression, it leads to suicidal rates. It leads to a like terrible things that entrepreneurs have to go through, especially how any high achiever, right. So here’s the hack, and that’s already told it like my, my coaches told me. So he just detached from the results. Just put it aside. That’s the complete hack.

Instead of connecting all those four take results, put it out. Just take it out and now connect your actions directly to your confidence. Now, if you aim high, take your actions and drive your confidence from your actions. That was one of the main hacks and insights that I got as an entrepreneur. Since then, that’s how I roll.

I don’t take, you know, results in common, can’t sometimes. Right. And, and I might fall again. We all might fall. Circumstances, right? Right now I’m a UI/UX design agency. The recession hit a lot of startups canceled on me right now, completely transparent. And AI tools are threatening to replace all of my designers right now.

I dunno what will happen in six months. I have no idea. Everything can go crazy, but I know one thing. I’m not driving my confidence from the results. I’m driving my confidence from my actions. Did I have high ambitions? Did I have a vision? Did I write down my vision and did I think, and become obsessed with by that vision?

And then did I take him as action? The, the massive action that I take is like, you know, it’s on me to wake up in the morning, take that action, and it’s a, it’s a, it’s kinda like there’s this physical fitness, which is important cuz we need to operate under the today, but it’s also the mental fitness part.

And then the confidence is I can only drive it from my actions if I didn’t take enough actions, it’s also. In art to kind of learn to not beat yourself up and, right. To kind of stay, always stay kind of humble and, and be humble. Be okay. It’s okay to be humbled, you know, and to learn and then to go back to your ambitions and say, okay, it’s a part of the process.

And, you know, just me now not decreasing from my own confidence because of the actions that I didn’t take, you know, is, is an action by itself is something, it’s a statement that I’m saying so, This is the hack.

Pat Flynn: So you’re not ignoring results altogether, you’re just removing it from its influence on the confidence, right?

So the confidence then can continue to keep people ambitious or keep you ambitious, even if the results are poor. You can still be ambitious in the relaunch or the way you reframe something for the next time, right. I really like that because sometimes we feel like if we do a poor job, and I, I, I say this as well and, and I teach this.

When you don’t get the results you want, you can still be excited about that result because you can learn from it, right? You can understand, well, why didn’t that work so that you’re one step closer to it actually working. Right? The fact that you took a step is more important than the fact that that than if you didn’t do anything at all.

So I, I really like that. You had mentioned, as we finish up here, mental fitness quite often. What do you do to work out mentally, if you will?

Sagi Shrieber: Right. So I, I’m gonna, I wanna talk about that, but I also promised one more thing, which is like, the thing that I did for lack of clarity of vision. Is that Okay if I go back to that for a second?

Pat Flynn: Sure. Yeah.

Sagi Shrieber: The reason is because in conferences I met a lot of people like me at the beginning, which lacked clarity of vision and like, I don’t know what I wanna do in six months. I don’t know where I want to be. And I just came back from conference in September, personal development conference. So many people were in that loop.

So when you don’t have a vision, specific vision that you can say, I wanna be there in six months. The only thing you can do, which is a great thing, is write down on your vision to have a vision. And that’s the hack. So the thing you have to do is say, and that’s what I did with myself, like back after I, I, I built this business and I, I knew I don’t wanna just keep doing those launches in my Israeli blog and not based my whole business off of that.

But anyway, this is what saves me now. And in six months, I don’t know where I wanna be right now. I’m confused. So I just said in six months from now, I’m taking the time, six months to just get clarity on my vision. So in six months from now, I’m gonna have clarity of vision. That was my vision item for six months.

And it actually happened, it manifested. And, and that’s where I got the idea for like commit first and everything and, and taking that pivot into what I’m doing now back then, not the tech route, but coming first route.

Pat Flynn: So right. With the app and, yeah, that’s great. So I love that. Just if you don’t know what the plan is, plan to make a plan.

Yeah. Right. And I think there was a quote, it’s a, a proverb was like, vision without action is a nightmare, or no is a dream. So if you have a vision but you don’t take action on it, that’s a dream. Right? Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is a nightmare. You doing something without knowing where it’s going or why.

Right. That that’s like even worse. So the importance of vision is really clear here. And so you found this vision and then you’ve brought in some tools to help you along the way. One of them being, like you said, mental fitness. So I mean to say it once and have the confidence today makes sense, but tomorrow we might feel different.

The next week we might feel different. We might try to again, question ourselves, how do you stay focused and strong mentally as you develop these plans and, and then execute on ’em?

Sagi Shrieber: And thank you for asking because you know, I think such an important thing nowadays for people, like everybody, we’re all like surrounded, like bombarded with negativity.

Like negativity is everywhere. It’s in the news. It’s former friends. It’s like everything. We like social media, like we have the recession going and, and prices are rising, interest rates are rising. We have AI tools taking over our jobs. Here in Israel, we have like actual an, an actual like dictatorship waiting to happen by the government.

It’s like terrible. We’re actually protesting on the streets nowadays. Like it’s the wars in Ukraine, wars all over the world. Like, I don’t think we as humans were made or designed to handle this amount of stress and negativity, but we have to now, and our kids have to, and we have to teach them and we have to teach ourselves how to do it.

And even before that, it was hard. But now it’s actually a mission that we all have to, I think have, is to achieve not only physical fitness and to be strong for our families and for our, for our loved ones, but also mental fitness to be strong mentally, because we’re gonna have bad days and I still have bad days, you know?

And like the other week I lost a big client. I’m like, you know, this, this sucks. Really, really sucks in this period of time. So you can walk around and kind of a, a, again, like, but you have to understand how to make sure that you’re vibrating. Overall raising your frequency and vibrating on a higher rate most of the time.

And that’s, that comes to two things. One is doing everything regarding, I, a lot of people are talking about the, the gym. They go to the gym a couple times a week. And then what about the spiritual gym? So I like to call it the spiritual gym. My mentor also also kind of calls it like that. It’s a way for us to understand that we also have to hit the spiritual gym every once in a while.

That means meditating. That means doing actual things like, you know, reading personal growth books and surrounding ourself by positivity. Prayers. Do you have religion? Are you connected to God or to the universe, or whatever you want. Like, are you spiritually practicing anything if not, I really suggest everybody would, I’m not saying to be religious or to do anything this or that.

I’m a Jew. I love my, my connection to spirituality on, on the religious sense, by the way, to like God in the past year or so, actually it came from my Christian friends, but it doesn’t matter what your religion is. Be spiritual. Understand it’s a spiritual journey. There’s something bigger than us. It’s not only us in this shell right here and our energy, we’re all connected by energy and, therefore, we have to make sure that this energy is happening for us and working for us in the proper way. If we are always in a bad mode, it’s what we attract and bad things will come our way. And I think you told me that Pat, when I interviewed on my podcast, and I’ve done it ever since you told me a, a hack to stop any bad day, he told me when you have a bad day, then at the beginning of the day when it first bad thing hits the fan, you have to say, it’s gonna be an amazing day. Right. To stop the sequence of bad events. If you’re, if we’re not like going into attracting more bad events, that will happen. It’ll become a bad day, as we say.

It’s gonna be happen, be a bad day.

Pat Flynn: So right. I mean, the, the, the idea is like, you know, when you get outta bed on the, on the wrong side and you might stub your toe and then, you know, the door lock breaks or something on your way out, immediately you start thinking this is gonna be a bad day. And those two events, yeah, maybe coincidentally, they all kind of happen within a very short period of time, but that doesn’t mean the rest of your day has to be like that either.

But if you believe it’s a bad day, then you’re gonna actually confirmation bias, look for things that confirm that that thing is true, and thus you’re gonna attract more awareness to those things that normally probably wouldn’t even be an issue, but now are just kind of helping you spiral down that, that dark hole.

So the idea is to kind of interrupt that pattern. You know, it’s like a domino. You can just put your hand, like if a domino, a set of dominoes are falling, you just put your hand somewhere and then stop it. And then everything else is still standing. And that’s kind of what you have to do. But you have to be conscious of that cuz a lot of times we work in a more automated fashion in, in our, in our own autopilot.

And then the day ends and you’re like, that was the worst day ever. Like, and then the one day might turn into a bad week, which might turn into a bad year. And and you don’t want to go down there.

Sagi Shrieber: Yeah. I mean, and, and that’s the micro, right? That’s only a day. But it’s only, it goes the same for the macro.

If we’re, if we’re hanging around letting this negativity that comes our way kind of influence us, we really have to guard our, our soul. We really have to, from everything that’s going, and that’s my mission right now. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. But I think going back to, like we said, a couple practical things like meditating, practicing positivity and saying, it’s gonna be great. Everything’s gonna be okay. Like, and even if we, sometimes we, we have a bad day, we have actually a really bad experience. Something really bad happens. Let that feeling sink in. Be mindful of it, you know, and, and just you being mindful of that feeling and where sits in the body kind of releases that energy. But that’s also, again, learning more and more tools to do that. There’s endless tools, endless books about it. And one more thing that is very, very important, crucial, I think is like to build your character. The mindset that you want to build is by just you working on yourself.

Everybody’s talking about the metaverse and stuff like that. Nobody’s talking enough, but about the inner verse. And we really have to build that inner verse, and that’s what I really believe, and it’s so practical, think about this, meaning it’s like, we can work on ourselves and external things will start being attracted to us.

And that’s what I learned like from the last couple of years. And that’s where my confidence, a lot of my confidence comes from. It’s like I know that every time I have something kind of that I feel like I. I’m getting in a funk. I’m just gonna work on myself more. I’m gonna double down on working on myself, which I keep working on, and, and external results kind of start coming.

And one of the things that I’m doing right now for the second time is a challenge called 75 Hard. Did we talk about that?

Pat Flynn: You and I spoke about it in the car. Yeah.

Sagi Shrieber: Yeah. So I started it again for a second time. It was a game changer the first time.

Pat Flynn: If you guys wanna just, can you explain for everybody what that is, just real quick?

Sagi Shrieber: Sure. Yeah. It’s a challenge. It’s, it’s a kinda like, they call it a mental fit, not a mental fitness, but a mental toughness program. I call it mental fitness program. It’s by an entrepreneur called Andy Frisella who is an amazing entrepreneur kind of tough. So if you guys like, you know, the toughness, but it doesn’t have to be connected to that.

So just take 75 hard as a challenge. It’s a challenge for doing some a couple of things for 75 consecutive days, the things are, you have to do two workouts a day, each 1 45 minutes. One has to be outside, no matter the weather. And then they ha, they can’t be connected. They have to be kinda like separate by ours, apart from each other.

It’s like two workouts a day. You have to drink one gallon of water, which is a lot of water to drink if you’re not used to drinking. That means you have to pee a lot. That that becomes a problem in a lot of time. And then you have to read 10 pages of some kind of personal development book a day, and you have to follow a diet that you choose. Set. You can set any goals you want. Do you wanna increase mass or do you wanna lose weight? You can do whatever you want, but just take a diet that works for you and go on that diet. No cheat meals for 75 days. No cheat meals at all. No eating junk, nothing and no alcohol. And there’s one more thing you have to take one selfie a day.

One progress pick a day. And the reason that is, it’s because I thought at the beginning it was for the progress. That’s why, you know, for to see the progress over time. And a lot of people do this kinda like stop motions or before and after kind of picks. I have that too. It’s pretty cool. But the main thing about it, that’s why I understood from the first time I’ve done it, is I felt twice on that photo in the, in the first challenge I tried.

So when you fall on one of those items, any one of the items I mentioned that you have to do every single day, you have to go back to day one. Meaning did you work out 40 minutes instead of 45? Did you read nine pages or did if you fell on any of those, forgot to read it. You fell asleep reading cuz you’re too tired.

That’s it. You go back to day one and you have to do the 75. Now if you stop and quit in the middle of that challenge, It messes with you, with your mind forever, for your whole life. You’re gonna, you’re gonna be like, I’m, I didn’t complete 75 hard, so you have to go back to day one. And so I fell on day 25 at the first challenge with that selfie, and then I had to go back to day one.

And I remember calling up Calvin back then. I was, he was already a friend of mine and, and I’m like, Calvin, Man, I’m quitting. I, you know, I’ve done, I’ve been in the army, man, I, I know what this is. I’m working for this challenge. Instead of working on my business, it’s not working. Come on. It’s like, you know, it’s like I have to do all these workouts, all these things, and it’s a freaking selfie man.

Like, you know what? I’m done. I’m not. And he and Kel told me, Hey, Sagi, did you ever find yourself in your business or in your life where you’ve done all the good, big things, but you forgot this one small thing that messed you up? And I was like, oh, oh man. And he said, you see like 75 hard is a reflection of your life and business. And that’s why I went to back to day one. I got to day 45, fell again on the selfie. I just couldn’t believe it. But then I didn’t even take even one day off. I went back to day one, completed it. So I think it’s, it’s an amazing game changer for confidence. And because when you say you’re gonna do things, usually we say we’re gonna do things, we’re gonna start that book, we’re gonna start that podcast, we’re gonna, we’re gonna do something and then we don’t do it.

We say we’re gonna do it or don’t do it. So in 75 hard you have this, these things you have to do, you can’t go left or right. You can’t custom tailor, make it fit your lifestyle. People do it with kids, people do it when they’re pregnant, like people do it in many different ages and and situations in life.

And so you have to do it 75 days, no excuses. And when you do it every day, day after day after day, at the beginning, you’re sore and you’re complaining about it and you’re like, oh my God, that, but you start seeing that you show up more energetic, more excited, more vibrant to anything, any debut that you have going on to any business meeting, sales meeting, like anything.

And at the end of those 75 days, you feel so much better. It’s a game changer in building your character. And that’s the main thing about it. You built your mental fitness. It was kind of like a very great boot camp for your mental fitness, and I think that’s why I recommended a lot of people to do this challenge.

So in this challenge, I started just a week ago. I told my wife. Day before, honey, let’s order takeaway. I’m doing 75 hard again, tons, some negativity here in Israel and everything like, and all, and like, everything’s like too much. I, I need to do this for me. And she’s like, okay. We ordered takeaway, drink wine.

Next morning I come up to her and I’m like, all right, I’m starting. And she’s like, Oh, by the way, what do you have to do in this challenge? I told her and she’s like, you know what, I’ll join you. So now my wife joined me and she’s doing 75 hard with me. That’s cool. Like, she’s really, really fun.

Pat Flynn: That’s awesome, man.

Well, thank you for giving us some insight and a, and a look at how you and and your mind work, because I’ve noticed a radical change in, in you from a confidence perspective. And of course as a result of that, also the business is, is taking off. I think you said that you had your first seven figure year this past year.

Is that true?

Sagi Shrieber: Yeah. First seven figure.

Pat Flynn: Thanks man. Super proud of you. Keep up the great work. Thank you again. Where can people go to follow you and, and see your work and just anything you wanna shout out, lemme know.

Sagi Shrieber: Sure. Thank you. Yeah. First of all, I haven’t told anything about my app, which is out there. If it’s okay, I’ll just share a word about it.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Real quick. And we’ll obviously link to it in, in this show notes.

Sagi Shrieber: So it’s called Affirmations and Co. And the power of affirmations. I think a lot of people know it’s positive statements that we say to ourselves, but it’s not only affirmations in this app, it’s a social platform where you can follow each other.

So if you download the app, you just go to the app store, get informations, and go, and you can follow me and actually see my own affirmations and build on top of that. Get ideas for your informations completely free. And the thing about it is there’s a power not only in the written word, which is I think, a great thing that for all of us to kind of keep, I keep my prayers there.

I keep my gratitude lists, I keep my vision and goals there now. And also, the thing about it, it reminds you, it sends you push notifications. So with all the negativity out in the world, right? That attacks you from all over the place. You get notifications, you can get like 14 notifications a day from yourself, which is, I think, just game changing.

And I have my widget on my iPhone, so I love this app. I use it all the time. I built it for myself and now it’s out there in the app store so you guys can get it. So affirmations and co. One. The second thing is my podcast. Commit First can definitely check out the podcast. And I interview successful entrepreneurs like you.

Pat, you have to come again. Podcast, it’s been a while. It’d be fun. And Instagram, which is @SagiShrieber and just like search for me and Instagram hit me up, let me know you got value from this podcast.

Pat Flynn: Thank you man. I appreciate you, Sagi. Always a pleasure.

And looking forward to catching up again soon.

Sagi Shrieber: Definitely. Thank you so much. Take care bud.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoy that interview with Sagi. He mentioned a lot of links there and his app, Affirmations & Co. I got a, a preview of it when we had lunch together not too long ago, and it’s a, it’s a beautiful app, especially if you understand the power of affirmations and if you don’t, you should try them.

I had done a lot of that during my Miracle Morning routine and all those kinds of things and, and it is very powerful and to have a way to organize that and everything from your prayers and your gratitude and all those kinds of things in one spot sounds really amazing. You should check it out again, Affirmations & Co in the App store as well as his podcast, Commit First, which you should just check out right now.

He interviews a lot of great people and allows them to unveil their story as well. And again, it all kind of comes down to mental fitness and the training that’s required. And as we’ve heard here before, you’ve gotta be a disaster before you become the masters. So thank you, Sagi. I appreciate you.

Thank you for listening, and I appreciate you as well. If you want to go to check out the links and everything we mentioned and the resources here today, all you have to do is go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/session685. Again, SmartPassiveIncome.com/session685. Thank you so much. Take care, and I’ll see you the next one. Peace.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Our senior producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media, and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!