Eric Nagel

Eric Nagel

CTO, PHP Programmer, Affiliate Marketer & IT Consultant

Eric Thomas Keynote at Affiliate Summit West 2012

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Eric Thomas The Secret To Success
Eric Thomas The Secret To Success
Eric Thomas was one of the keynote speakers at Affiliate Summit West 2012 in Las Vegas, NV. I was pumped to get to see him speak in person, as I’ve previously only seen him on YouTube and listened to his MP3 albums from iTunes.

ET took the stage while Fame or Juliet‘s Dreams of Reality played. Here’s the video of the keynote, and my notes

  • Excited for 2012
  • We all have an opportunity for success
    • Backstory
      • ET was born when his mother was 17; she was kicked out of the house
      • It’s not how you start, but how you finish
      • High school dropout, homeless on the streets of Detroit, but write a book
      • First one to go to college in his family
        • Took 12 years to get a 4-year degree
      • Dissertation away from completing PhD
    • Hold on it may not happen in the time you think its going to happen, but it will happen.
      • But if you quit, it will never happen
  • What does success mean for you?
    • Showing images of “success” (cars, nice houses, etc).
    • Success starts with a vision
  • Information changes situations
  • Story about his daughter making the basketball team
    • She made the B Team
      • Good, Michael Jordan didn’t make the A Team
      • On the B Team, you’re going to stay hungry and stay thirsty until you make the A Team
  • As a homeless teenager, he was given vision
    • Sight vs. vision
    • Start every day with vision with where you want to be and what you want to do
    • His circumstance was being homeless, but his vision wasn’t
  • Plant the seed
    • You’re not planting a seed, you’re planting a tree
  • What do you need to know (to be, to have what you want), that you don’t know right now?
  • Dr. Ben Carson Gifted Hands
    • From Detroit, became doctor
    • Do not have a victims mentality
    • Why he wears a Detroit Tigers hat on the cover of his book
  • Thought our friends are also in this business (Affiliate Marketing) not really, but I do have some friends who I work with regularly
  • Use what you got, to get what you want
    • Story about ET fitting in during class
      • Had to change his clothing, sit at the front of the class, maintain eye contact with the teacher, smile & agree / nod with the teacher. Finally, read the teachers books and ask the teacher about what he wrote.
  • Failure is not an option
    • Odd that he used a demotivational poster from despair.com
  • The show up rule: You can pretend that you care, but you can’t pretend that you’re there.
  • Dream Session
    • Take 5, 10, 15 minutes, close your eyes, and see yourself living your goal, then get back to work and make it happen.
  • Sight is for people who work in the present have vision!
  • For every minute you think about failure, spend that long in a dream session
  • Work vs. Wishing
    • Finishing his book took only 3 months.
    • Again referenced Affiliate Summit as a company, where we all worked. Small trip-ups like this distracted me from the message
  • Positioning vs. Pouting
    • Star Trek: Beam me up, Scotty
      • You have to be in the right place
    • When you position yourself properly, stuff happens! Opportunities present themselves!
    • “You want the finest things, but you’re not willing to work for them”
    • You don’t get out of life what you want, you get out of life what you earned!
  • Change vs. Chatter
  • Don’t just talk make the changes
  • Earn vs. Want
  • Guru story
    • You need to want success as bad as you want to breathe
  • You need to know what you want

Positioning vs. Pouting spoke right to me. If you’re sitting around your house, working by yourself, and not interacting with others, you won’t be as successful as if you were networking (online and offline) and working with others. There’s a lot of times (A LOT) that I just don’t want to go places. I don’t like crowds, I don’t like loud places, and I don’t like dealing with idiots. But when I put up with the crowds and loud parties, and filter through the idiots, there are smart people out there that I can help, and who can in turn help me.

Many people have said this was one of the best keynotes from Affiliate Summit, up there with the likes of Gary V. He also brought a few audience members to tear up a bit, which is a testimonial for how powerful of a speaker Eric is.

It was great to hang out with Eric during lunch that day, and I hope to get to hear him speak live again someday.

If you enjoyed ET’s keynote, go back and watch those by Gary V, Cory Booker, Jim Kukral and Peter Shankman (Karma at 26:00).

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