I’m Accepting Dan Miller’s 6 Month Content Consumption Challenge

In Dan Miller’s 48 Days On-Demand Radio Show (or podcast), he issued a challenge that if someone would listen to or read 30 minutes of positive, skill-sharpening, mindset shifting content a day, that that someone would double income in 6 months.

Well, I’ve been listening to and reading such content for some time (nearly 5 years now). In some ways, I’m an addict.

What I’ve learned, though, is that merely listening isn’t enough.

Don’t get me wrong. Consuming content is huge and it has been ridiculously helpful to me in so many ways. I know I’m more positive, hopeful, and even more effective in work and many relationships.

I Accept Mr. Miller’s Challenge – With a Twist

But I’m going to accept this challenge from the revenue and income perspective. Just listening to content that will help one be more productive in sales or marketing or building a business doesn’t make one great in building a business or marketing or sales.

This fact hit home to me today when my sweet daughter announced she wanted a horse. I went through a couple subtle financial reasons why we can’t go grab a horse at the present time. And then I said that perhaps we should start with riding lessons.

Her response: “I know how to ride a horse.”

My response: “When did you ride a horse?”

Her response: “I haven’t ridden a horse, but I learned how to do it on Fetch with Ruff Ruffman.”

The moral of the story: Just consuming content (in her case a very positive, educational kids’ show) doesn’t make one an expert (an equestrian, again, in my daughter’s case).

It takes much more than head knowledge and even repeated reminders of what to do. While I accept the challenge (although I’ve been listening for nearly 10X the time that Dan encourages), I feel compelled that I add some additional requirements.

My Counter Proposal – How I Will Take on This Challenge

Here is how I plan to approach this challenge:

1. Listen to or read 30 minutes of content a day starting September 1, 2014
2. Select one action item a day from the reading or audio content (or video)
3. Implement that one action
4. Write about what I consumed, the action I selected, how I implemented it, and the results – whatever the results might look like.
5. My goal is to keep this up until March 1, 2015
6. I’m giving myself the option to take a break on Sundays from the whole action selection, implementation, and writing thing. But I’ll still give it a shot – consumption, I’m sure, will still take place.

What Content Will I Consider Worthy?

Quite honestly, I don’t have a reading list picked out, and I’m not going to be uptight about what I select.

The first two books I’m conquering (due to the fact that I’m actually reading them right now and need to finish before I move on):

1. Duct Tape Selling by John Jantsch
2. Overcoming Fake Talk by John R. Stoker

I will continue to listen to the podcasts that I’ve been listening to. I assume that my podcast listening will take up at least 30 minutes a day due to Atlanta area drive time.

If you happen upon this blog post and have suggestions for books that don’t just contain good ideas, but that are highly actionable, please feel free to drop a few suggestions in the comments. I’ll consider them.

Mr. Dan Miller… if you have a top 3-5 books you’d suggest, please drop them in the comments. I’d be honored!

Why ‘Sales Experiment’?

I am in sales and have a side marketing project or two, so most of my efforts will be in sales and learning how to create value for folks. Hopefully, the old Zig Ziglar mantra ‘You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want’ will hold true.

In addition, selling is big with Mr. Miller. And I agree. We are all, constantly, selling. In other words, we are all trying to help create value for someone else or for a group of someone elses. (Or we’re smarmy and trying to convince someone to do something whether it’s in their best interest or not).

As a matter of fact, I was telling a friend that now that I’m older, I think every person would be better served to serve two years in the military and then sell for 5 years prior to going to college. Something tells me our country would be much more awesomer (grammar misstep intended) if we were to enforce such requirements.

Also, I already owned ‘salesexperiment.com’ and felt it was a really good URL to tackle this… experiment.

I do intend on having clear monthly experiments or projects that will fall well within the purpose of Dan Miller’s challenge. The URL is as good as any.

How to Judge My Results

I’m a family man who holds things like income close to the vest and work in a relatively conservative environment. I’m no Pat Flynn or John Lee Dumas. I can’t be overly transparent at this point in my career around my current income situation. Let’s pretend, though, that I’m at 25 Challenge Points. I need to get to 50 Challenge Points. We’ll let you know how things go.

It won’t kill you one way or the other if I make it. Mr. Miller has been informed of my goal. You don’t need to know. Pick your own goal and work your tail off. That’s the only number that matters. Go for it. Let’s kick each others’ butts until we accomplish what we want to….no NEED… to accomplish.

Thanks for Reading!

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