“Do you realize that I have failed at everything I have ever tried?” I asked my wife.
It was 2019, and we were once again trying to figure out how we were going to pay the bills. While she was working her butt off in property management bringing in 2/3 of our income, my work as a magazine publisher was continuing to fall short of expectations.
In 1998, I joined Vector Marketing selling Cutco, and failed to make money. Failed to make my game store profitable. Car sales. Financial advising. Insurance sales. Print sales. More car sales. Startup marketing manager. And finally magazine publishing. Fail. Fail. Fail.
All failed to make anywhere near what I should have been able to make.
I did pretty well selling Volkswagens in 2013 until I got fired (a story for another day).
1998 to 2019, an unbroken string of financial failures.
What changed?
When the Pandemic hit in 2020, and took my magazine publishing business from struggling to untenable, I found myself in a position where continuing would mean learning a whole new business model from scratch. The company was building it from the ground up, and I’d be figuring it out with them.
If I’m going to have to figure it out, I might as well figure out my own thing and see where it takes me.
That fateful decision, fully consumated when I quit BVM in October of 2020, would change everything.
I had failed because I had tried to follow the “safe” course. I tried to follow the “proper” course.
In actuality, I was following the misaligned course. I was following someone else’s safe and proper course.
Dan Mangena talks about the importance of alignment in his MoneyDNA workshop. Many other coaches talk about it as well.
Even once I decided to become an entrepreneur, I was still trying to follow other people’s playbooks. I tried to become a coach because it’s what I saw other people doing.
I tried to create courses, funnels, and all the other strategies I saw other people following.
It was only in November of 2021 when Phil Pelucha said something that would change my professional trajectory that I discovered where I would find alignment.
I understood the basic marketing concept and how to get people into a funnel, community, audience, etc. The thing is that this doesn’t work without the engine of some kind of offer. It doesn’t matter if the whole world loves you if there’s no way for them to pay you. You’ll be a much beloved Uber driver, as I was in 2021. I was trying to find that offer, that product that contained the value I could offer.
“You know, Michael, some people get paid to make introductions,” Phil said.
He explained that some charge a retainer. Some charge per intro. Some get commissions.
The clouds parted. The angels sang. I knew what I could offer the world that had value!
This would become my Networking Concierge program in which I charge a relatively modest retainer for my clients to go onto the White Board of Clients where they would be introduced to the best and most ideal of the dozens of people I meet every week. This program became a six-figure business in six months.
What happened? I found my superpower! I found the unique form of greatness I could share with the world.
My ADHD led me to have difficulty getting a normal job. It made it hard to focus in the way needed to be successful in sales.
It also led me be seeking new experiences, new people, new connections, new knowledge.
Following my own path, I met over 2,000 entrepreneurs in a year. I learned all kinds of things about the world of business.
The same ADHD that caused all those failures, also led to my greatest success once I embraced the superpower side of it.
This is why I’m launching the Neurodiversity Superpowers Podcast.
What would have happened if I’d learned my ADHD contained superpowers and how to master them 20 years ago? What would my life be like today?
I can’t go back in time, but maybe I can share what I, and many others, have learned with those coming up behind us.
The podcast celebrates the stories of people who have found their neurodiverse superpowers with the mission of helping more people find their own superpowers and achieving success now rather than 20 years from now.
Sound interesting? Take a listen!
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