How To Set Yourself Up For Success On Amazon FBA.mp4
How To Set Yourself Up For Success On Amazon FBA
Tomer [00:00:00] What’s up, guys? Yesterday I had an interview with Mina Elias. We planned to talk about two topics about the Amazon FBA mindset that you need for success and also about PPC. Since Mina is a PPC expert, but we’re both very passionate about mindset and about the fundamentals. So we talked the entire call about mindset and what you need to set yourself up for success in Amazon or in anything else that you do in life.
Now make sure that you watch the entire video because this is something that will help you create those fundamentals for success. Sometimes people confuse and think that the how to create the listing, the technical stuff are the most important thing. But I think the opposite. I think that if you don’t have enough good enough base, you can really make it on Amazon or in any other competitive area in business or some other goals that you have in life.
Now, before we are moving into the video, make sure to subscribe to the channel. If you want to see more content like that and leave a comment, I subscribe so I can personally reply to your comments. And one more thing. Go to sourcing-monster.com and make sure that you subscribe to the newsletter because I share their tips and updates that I don’t share here. Now let’s start with a video and actually one more thing. I’m sorry and apologize because there was a glitch with the recording. So it’s not really shifting between the speaker. So you only see Mina Elias, but you can listen to it and still get all of this value. Let’s start.
In this video we have Mina Elias. Mina is a PPC expert and have his own Amazon brands in the supplements category. Thank you for being a guest here, Mina. Thank you for having me. At Monster Channel. Could you share a little about yourself, your background, how you started to sell on Amazon and what you’re currently focusing?
Mina [00:02:09] Yeah, sure. So my name is Mina Elias. I came to America 2011 to study chemical engineering and chemistry. I got my bachelor’s in 2014, worked in the industry. I was in new product development for surgical devices. I then moved on to chemical safety hazard and then project management and so on and so forth. I did a lot of stuff in the industry as an engineer, got my master’s in industrial engineering and then quickly realized that you’re pretty much I always felt like I was like a slave, you know, the lifestyle just was not what I wanted.
I mean, it was kind of like I didn’t know that there was another option, but it was very hard for me to believe, like, wow, like the next 30, 40 years, whatever, I’m going to live my life. I’m going to spend waking up, going to work, you know, working at this job and then barely getting like four weeks vacation a year. It was like, you know, this is like I needed to figure something out, right? And right around that time I was on vacation. It was in 2018. I was on vacation. And me and my dad, he brought up the topic of like, why don’t you start your own supplement company? And it came out of nowhere. It came out of like me kind of just looking into supplements and things like that for me to consume. And he was saying, you know, why don’t you do that? I said, you know, let me look into it.
I looked into it and then quickly realized, like, you know, when you did that calculation, the Alibaba calculation, obviously I did it differently. But, you know, you see it’s $2 and then you can sell it for 20. I said, okay, how much does all the raw ingredients cost there? $5. You can sell it for 25 or 30. It’s a no brainer, right? You can make a lot of money. So I called a few people said, how can I start a business? You know, can you do graphic design for me and things like that? And they, you know, they all helped me out. And quickly, I think within a couple of weeks I had my LLC done, I had my formulas done and I made a few samples of my electrolyte supplement.
So Hydrolyte, that’s what I’m known for, see right here. And so I was like, okay, cool. Let me test it on people. I tested on myself. It worked amazing. I was like, Maybe I’m biased like this. I went to the gym and I told my friends, Yo, I got this new secret supplement from a company. They won’t allow me to say the name or anything. Please try it. Let me know. They tried it. They said, Wow, man, this stuff is like really good. And I said, okay, cool. Like, amazing. Like, this is my stuff. And they like, you know, kind of made fun of me. They didn’t believe it. But then I was like, okay, I have something good going.
I announced my company on on Facebook and, you know, next thing you know, someone said, Hey, I’d like you to come and be like a, you know, a sponsor boost at an MMA event. So, you know how the MMA fights are. Like, there’s usually like CBD brands and stuff like that. So I showed up to the event. I got all ingredients from Amazon, I got the scoopers, the bags from Amazon. I got like labels from a printing company like, FedEx, for example, you know, put everything together. I even sealed like iron the bags shut with an iron on an ironing board. And then I went to the event, had 40 units, 25 of them sold. I had also like a big like a three gallon jug where I put the Hydrolyte and I flavored it and stuff like that.
And people were like, Wow, this stuff is so good. And you know, I sold 25 out of the 40 and it was all like drunk people and, you know, people up fights, you know how they are. They’re not athletes. They were all just like junkies. And so they kept asking me, where can I get the supplement? So I didn’t have a good answer. And I said, Is it going to be on Amazon soon? And that’s where it took me into the journey of, okay, like let’s figure out how to get this thing on Amazon. So dive down, you know, watch like 100 YouTube videos. I did some research and all this stuff and at the end of the day, I’m like, man, like, I really can’t figure this out.
Everyone on YouTube sounds like they’re a scammer. And I’m sure like a lot of the good guys now, you know, they’re not scammers. But back then it seemed like everyone on YouTube was a scammer. It was like, you know, I found this product in 30 days a want 100 million. I’m like, bro, come on. Like, I can see through this. This is bullshit. So anyways, I didn’t reach out to anyone. I called Amazon Seller Central and I said, Hey, like I want to sell supplements on your website. Like, can you tell me what to do?
And so they gave me literally gave me step-by-step instructions, which, you know, look. Back now, like, wow, that’s crazy. The Amazon seller Central actually talked to me, but they helped me do that. They helped me get ungated. I had like a person that I talked to every single time and, you know, I was good to go. And I was like, okay, I’m like, now I actually got to make the stuff. So I had this plan that I was going to buy everything in bulk and have my roommate. I’ll pay him money while I’m at my engineering job and he’s going to mix everything and pack it, which obviously is not a but I’m like, man, this is illegal. You know, people might get sick, but like really? I said, not really. Are people going to get sick? I mean, I’m making food at home every day. I’ve never gotten sick in the last ten years. So, I mean, I make supplements like no one’s going to get sick. It’s like I’m making food for myself.
So it was a lot of back and forth. I’m like, You know what? Let me just do it like a legit and scalable way. I contacted a bunch of companies and the prices were like an insane amount. MOQs were high, and then the company that was going to give me the bulk ingredients, I said, Can you do a mix? You have like all the ingredients anyways? They said, Yeah, we’ll do a mix for you. And it came out like the same price that if I was going to do it at home on my own, well, I said, okay, that’s definitely a win there. Started with 100 units. And then came my first mistake. I sent this guy bags and scoopers, and basically I never asked him to test anything. He made them, he sent them to Amazon and Amazon will put them in, putting them in the back, sending them to the customer. And 60 out of the 100 broke and exploded during shipping because the bag was just it was a bad the bag was bad. Like the packaging. Wow. Yeah. The actual bag that I bought, like the it was like a golden bag on Amazon. The corner had it was like a weak spot. So you just from here, like, this.
Tomer [00:08:33] Weight was, like, too much?
Mina [00:08:34] Yeah, you just. You just drop it, like, one foot and it explodes. So, you know, then I’m like, okay, I need to have a quality control or inspection in place or whatever. So, you know, it kept getting better and better from there. I was very aggressive with the PPC, so I remember I think a few days that maybe five days later I was spending $100 a day on Amazon PPC, but I was selling ten units a day between seven and ten units a day. And obviously I was very aggressive with the reviews. I was every single day I was, Hey, John, please, man, like, I’m going to give you $25. Can you or $20, can you buy Hydrolyte on Amazon and then leave me a review later.
Tomer [00:09:15] What year were you talking about, huh? What year was it like 2018?
Mina [00:09:22] It’s just 2018. So I was hounding these people hard and, you know, eventually started getting, you know, 20, 30, 40 reviews. My PPC is aggressively spending now. I’m looking, I’m like, wow, I’m not making any profit. Literally, like any money that I’m making is going back into inventory like and I had to obviously take some more money out of my bank account to pay for a few things. I messed up with the graphic design. I hired people from Fiverr, so made a lot of these mistakes. And then eventually I’m like, I need something better. A friend that reached out told me that she her sister worked for like a big, big company that does Amazon stuff. So I went to talk to her sister, she didn’t know much because she was managing like a massive $12 million account. It’s all CPG. So if you know CPG, you really don’t have to do much for CPG. So I was like, you know, how do you extract keywords in the search term report? And she’s like, I don’t know, like a company does that for us, you know, it’s like kind of like that, you know, she’s a nine advisor so.
Tomer [00:10:23] Big that everyone have their own role, kind of.
Mina [00:10:26] Yeah. And so she said, you know, who can really help you? There’s a conference coming up in March of 2019 and Earlybird pricing is only $300. And it’s actually Tinuiti that’s doing it. And, you know, Tinuiti. They used to be called CPC strategy. They had this conference called AD NYC and they’re like one of the biggest agencies in America. I think they’re the biggest one. They manage like Under Armour or Starkist Tuna, you know, One Bar, like Pampers, like massive, massive brands. And so I said, okay, like, let me think about it. And I’m like, Let me just bite the bullet. $300. I’m already like down, you know, like $1,000. But like and, you know, people now are like, oh, you only like spent $1,000 on the Amazon business. I’m like, Yeah, I started out with 500 and then maybe another 500, you know, like small steps.
So I bought the ticket and I went there and that day like changed my life because now I was fully surrounded by Amazon sellers and not just regular Amazon sellers like Amazon sellers who are like 9 to 5 employees of like massive companies, people who have like seven, eight, figure businesses. There was very few like people starting out, maybe like. There are four people that I met over there and the entire like, agency was there. I’m like, I can’t believe they flew out like 35 people or like three agencies, like hundreds of people. But I’m saying, like, they flew out like 30 people from like San Diego all the way to New York City for this event. But they like they’re a really good agency. They have amazing culture and like everyone there seems happy. So I spent every single second of the day literally like, imagine if you were in a room with all of like these Amazon, you know, experts every single second of the day. I’m asking question, question, question because you literally pages in my notebook pages and some guy would talk about listing optimization and I’d like take notes and then I go to him, Hey, man, you know this and like, you know, amazing talk, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have a few questions and I’ll ask a bunch of questions and then I would tell them, okay, who can I get my listing optimization done? How much do they cost? Okay, this person this much.
Then I would go around the entire conference asking every single person, who can I do my listing optimization with and how much did it cost you? And you know, basically, like I got every single resource, every single piece of information I could get from these people. And people were like, wow, man, like, you just you don’t, you don’t rest like I’m talking nonstop. One person after the next thing you know, I’m hungry, man, because, like, I needed to make this money. For me, I was in a position where failure was not an option. I was so depressed that my job I was waking up at 430 in the morning drive, going to the gym, driving to work 45 minutes, working 9 hours, driving 45 minutes back, going to MMA.
It was literally like I was like this, you know, I was getting like the life was getting like ruined out of me. And so I said, like, I need to do something. Like, I can’t keep doing this, you know? And so it was a very, very strong desire to quit my job. And I was reading, thinking grow rich at the time. And they said, you have to like say your goals out loud with a definitive amount, a date and how you were going to do it. And then the subconscious mind takes over. So I was saying every day, on the drive to work are saying by May 31st, 20, 2019, I will be making $5,000. That’s it. That’s the one.
Tomer [00:13:58] I read it every year. This is like my Bible.
Mina [00:14:01] So if you read this one, read the 15 laws of Success by him.
Tomer [00:14:06] I started. I started coming. Yeah.
Mina [00:14:07] It’s a long, long, long book. I’m reading that now. I think I’m like, halfway done, man. It is an insane book. It’s a very, very good book. So that takes like the thinking Grow Rich is just a small piece of the entire book. Yeah. So I kept saying, like, by May 31st, I’m going to quit my job, I’m going to be making $5,000 net profit per month. I’m going to buy selling Hydrolyte, like everything, you know.
And April 31st comes around and they fire me from my job because obviously, like at that point I didn’t care at all. And, you know, I was doing the bare minimum to get by, you know, just making sure everything was getting done. But, you know, the super high motivated me. I was no longer there. My full focus was on the business and I was like always thinking I was in the, you know, I’d go to the bathroom with my phone. I’m always like looking up Amazon, you know, just I eat, sleep, breathe Amazon like podcast on the way, YouTube videos on the way back every waking moment. I’m like listening to something related to Amazon and you know.
Tomer [00:15:12] You’re crazy. I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s funny because many, many points you mentioned are very, we’re very similar. I had the same kind of experience. I’ll explain it about after that.
Mina [00:15:23] Yeah. So, you know, pretty much April 31st, they fired me and I was making $4,000, I believe, a month on Amazon in profits. So at that point I’m like, okay, they did the hard decision for me. Let me just keep doing it. But I realized that obviously cashflow wise, it’s not going to be a smart idea. So I said, I packed up all my shit. I said, I hate Connecticut. I was in Connecticut. If you guys know Connecticut, it sucks.
I said, I hate Connecticut. Packed up all my shit. Literally put it in a car, in one car load, parked my car at church and then took a flight out to Egypt.
And I said, you know what? I’m going to go on an extended vacation work. Now that I can work from wherever I want in the world, I’m going to do it. So I spent three months in Egypt, a month in Dubai working. My bills were very low in Dubai. I was staying with friends. So, you know, I have a lot of friends in the house. The houses there. 3 bedroom for a 1500, 1800 a month? And like with Ocean View and everything, it’s like it’s much cheaper out there. So Egypt, I was spending like maybe $500 a month. Dubai, $1,000 in that month that I was there. So, you know, not much at all.
Obviously, Dubai, you can spend a lot more if you want to ball out and go get bottle service every day and do and drink 24 karat gold. But I was just like living like how I grew up, you know, we woke up, hit the gym, you know, worked on my business in the afternoon, went to a cafe, had like a mango smoothie or whatever. You know, simple life, everything is beautiful. I’m not, like a crazy spender like that. So by the time I came back, so I spent four months, came back to California. By then I came back to America and then, you know, took my car, shifted to California, flew out to California. By then I was making $10,000 a month in profits. And so then I was like, All right, I’m all set. Moved into Venice. Venice, California, now Marina del Rey, California, but been the best move of my life and, you know, just been working harder, harder at like 2021. I started it harder than like any year working on my business. And so I’m just picking up the momentum, you know, because now I’m like getting into the groove of everything.
Tomer [00:17:39] Yeah. Once you see the success, once you see what is possible, I think when you have the 4000 or the 10,000, it’s more exciting when you now, like made 40, 50, 70 profit a month and but it’s still early success. It’s addictive. It makes you like want to push more.
Mina [00:17:55] It’s like gambling, you know, when you win at the table, when you win like a hand and then you lose it, you’re like, oh, my. I got to.
Tomer [00:18:04] You remember that win. Yeah.
Mina [00:18:06] Yeah. You did it once. You won once. You’re like, I can win again. I did it once. And so that’s how it is. And you know, and another thing is, when I moved here to California, the biggest, biggest thing that took me from like here to here was because I said, I’m starting fresh. I’m only going to surround myself with other successful people. And man, I’m going to tell you, this is the number one so many people like telling me all like these are my day ones, my friends. I’m like, I understand. I didn’t say, you know, tell them to go die. I just said, you need to spend 95% of your time with the people who are above you that will raise you up. And then 5% of your time, even my mom and my dad, I can’t talk to them too long.
I call them every single day. I can’t talk to them too long because you start getting all of this like, you know, their thoughts and ideas. They’re not going to make me eight figures, you know, like I want to get people to get to that level. So even though I love them so much, I do everything for them, you know? It’s like.
Tomer [00:19:09] Just one moment because I have you.
Mina [00:19:12] Yeah, I got it. I got to stay surrounded by. By the right people. Yeah.
Tomer [00:19:17] Sorry to interrupt. I’m leaving the frame for like. But you mentioned something and I want to I took it for my vision board and that’s by Tony Robbins, a quote. You can’t see it here. But who you spend the time with is who you become. Change your life by consequently choosing to surround yourself with people with higher standards. So this is something. And in the previous, I think two videos ago, I interviewed Fernando Campos and he mentioned one thing that is like it’s just simple. You know what, success is simple.
People sometimes are making things complicated, but it’s very simple. It’s not easy to follow or do, but it’s simple in the essence of it. And he said, one of the biggest things that you can take to grow to seven or eight figures, just a network with the right people, be around those people. And second thing being, build a team so that I definitely like because our time is limited.
Mina [00:20:13] I hung out with Fernando the other day and he really helped me a lot with the whole team part. Yeah. And he because he’s here in California, too. But now he’s in Hawaii. But he helped me out a lot and he, you know, talk to me about the team. And man, people underestimate the power of the team. But when you have good employees and a good team, it’s insane the amount of stuff you can accomplish.
Tomer [00:20:36] Exactly. Because, you know, I better focus on exploring new things, growing the business, whether that like that did the things that I’m already doing more than two or three or four times I’m outsourcing. And I think like our time is limited and that’s the only way to grow. Yeah, that’s how the companies do.
Mina [00:20:54] And I’m also like glad that I didn’t fall into the, you know, sometimes I did. But there’s a lot of people that are all for the quick wins, you know, the quick and I was never like that. And a lot of people are like, wow, man, you know, you’re doing amazing with the hydrolyte branding. And it’s going to pay off because, you know, I just got mine. So I sponsored the gym, MMA gym, the one that I train at Black House MMA. And they’re doing videos and images for me. I’m all over the walls at the gym, in the cage, and I just got everyone on the team Under Armour shirts that say hydrolyte and then Black House.
And, you know, they’re like, you invest so much money in something that’s not a tangible return. Like you don’t put I don’t pay $200 for these shirts and get, you know, $200 in sales on my product. But I’ve been blessed to, like, be able to kind of not worry too much about the short, short term gain because I know with enough, I’m like a very consistent and, you know, very consistent person. So with my diet, with my training, with anything. So I know I’m just going to keep putting out this content, I’m going to keep putting out blogs, I’m going to.
Tomer [00:22:07] Results will come.
Mina [00:22:07] Grow. And eventually, it’s, you know, without a doubt, people are going to know me. And my goal is just to be known all over California. If everyone in California knows about Hydrolyte, then from there I’m good.
Tomer [00:22:21] Definitely. I think exactly the same. And it’s like the compound effect. There is the book, The Compound Effect. You know, if you want to achieve something big, you can just like you have to work consistently, just dedicated enough time every day to it and you can’t really see the results in a month or two. But you have to remember, you have to measure it in like year. That’s how I started. When I started to sell on Amazon, I told myself, I’m going to try it for a year. I’m not going to look at the results, but I’m going to put every day 3 hours because I had my day job and I couldn’t really like know whether it’s going to work or not.
But I know from previous experience that if I will measure it after a month or two, I might just quit. So I told to myself as a goal I am making as a present, I’m making $10,000 net profit by October 2018. I remember. And I’m going to put all this to work every day. I’m not going to quit. I’m not going to check if I made the 10,000 or not. I’m just going to commit to the process for a year. If it’s not going to work, I’m going to quit. If it’s going to work, perfect. Then it’s worked. I made it only by October. The last month I made 10,000 profit, which was 50K. Okay, you get.
Mina [00:23:33] You get exactly what you ask for, right?
Tomer [00:23:35] It’s amazing. And this year I made it like a different level times more and x and it’s it’s crazy. It’s working. It’s working. But you have to commit to the process. I don’t see the results now, but after a year which is not a lot of time. Yeah, it’s time a year. But you know, people spend years doing nothing.
Mina [00:23:54] So the alternative is that you’re going to spend 35 years working in a 9 to 5 year and then you want you’re going to cut my like the president of the last company I worked for was making $180,000 a month. You had 60, you had 55, 58, 60. When you reach the top, you’re going to be making 188. That’s nothing. You know.
Tomer [00:24:17] That’s nothing. And you you’re kind of with handcuffs on. You know, you can really live your life that you’re supposed to live. You know, I want to live the best life that I can really live. And if, you know, I don’t want to get to a 40 or 50 years old and have all this regret, you can’t really go back in time. You know, I don’t want to live and say, oh, maybe I could do better. Maybe I can have a better experience, maybe I could give better to my kids, maybe I could. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.
Mina [00:24:42] Yeah, that’s the one thing that I also, you know, always think about is I really want to be present. You know, when my kids are growing up, I eventually want to have kids. And, you know, I’m young now, but when I do, I want to be there the whole time. And I’m thinking, man, with a 9 to 5 job, if you think about it nowadays, you can’t tell your wife stay at home with the kids. It’s just I don’t even think it’s good. It’s not healthy for someone to stay home with the kids all the time.
So now you’re talking, you know, there’s going to be you’re going to have someone watching the kids or something. And then when are you going to see the kids? You’re going to come home from work. Are you going to go to MMA or are you going to spend some time with the kids or you’re going to spend some time and go to it’s like, you know, it’s a very like the way society is now. It’s just now with the work from home, I think things are getting a lot better because now you can stay home. But that’s one thing that I thought about is like, okay, let me see what’s my life right now and the way that it is right now, how is it going to be in the future? And it just looked like the worst life ever working. I mean, because my boss told me she brought me into the office. She said, do you see me? Do you see yourself in my position ten years from now? And I said, Of course I’m going to say, Yeah, of course, you know, because I do want to be the boss. But then I thought about it. I’m like, I’m going to have to come in before her or before everyone because she comes in early. I’m going to have to leave after everyone because I’ve got to make sure you know all this shit. I got to stay late when we’re closing the books every month and I’m like, well, what is this? What is this life? You know, this is not a life.
Tomer [00:26:12] It’s not worth it. But I had the same when I had that my day job, like from 9 to 7, pretty much every day. I would even if I had this like 30 minutes or an hour with my kids, with my two girls, I was exhausted, you know, and now we’re doing Amazon. Only I could take your like I pick it up from school at three and I have that flexibility. I go with her to a swimming class and then I come back. It’s okay after they go to sleep, I just work again. You know, I have that flexibility and that’s really amazing.
For example, like, you know, I had my birthday, really likes to take a week off and I really plan my next year goals and all of that. So I didn’t really work for a week on my Amazon business and that’s fine. Everything work like normal. Yeah. You know, once you reach, like you said that the 4000, then you set a goal for 10,000 and once you actually reach that goal, you can never go back to the same old thinking. You always you have that confidence, right? That you know that you can achieve anything. So, you know, it’s whether it’s Amazon or you do SEO, or whatever you do, you know, it’s all about like setting goals, being clear and really keep pushing. This is really amazing. I think we can talk about this topic for like forever. Yeah, forever. But I have I do have a couple of questions if it’s okay.
Mina [00:27:34] Yeah.
Tomer [00:27:35] I know you mentioned in you know, I saw your session with the with Isabel, I think on seller sessions and you talked about like that you wake up early and use technology to boost your productivity and energy levels. Maybe you can share a little bit about that because for my experience, working hard without really supporting it with high energy levels, it’s not going to work. It’s going to collapse after a month or two. I now I don’t do it anymore. But they used to wake when I had my day job at 4 a.m. and work on my business until 7 a.m. every day. People would look at me as crazy, but it’s not crazy because I had to. I went to bed at 830. There was no way. At first I went to bed at 11, but then after three or four, three or four weeks, I was collapsing. So I figured the only way for me to be energized is to go to bed early. But want to hear from you. What do you think about waking up early, how you make it up and how you use technology for that?
Mina [00:28:36] For sure. So there’s a few things that go into the first piece of technology is this it’s the Whoop W-H-O-O-P, and basically the Whoop really measures my heart rate and my heart rate variability and how much I sleep. I know a lot of people are familiar with the aura rings and stuff like that, but I think this is a little bit more technologically advanced in terms of overall performance.
So what I started doing is I started experimenting with all the factors that can improve my sleep because, you know, waking up in the morning, it’s not really just about waking up in the morning. It’s also about your sleep. So I sleep every day at 930, wake up at 530. I noticed a few factors affect my sleep and allow me to recover a lot better. First factor being going to bed consistently. Second factor being the temperature in the house. 66, I’ll tell you that. And so 66 while wearing a T-shirt. And my boxers that’s I found is the best after, you know, doing a lot of tests. No water. Yeah, no water. An hour and a half before bed, no food. 2 hours and a half before bed, preferably 3 hours. I have to let my phone go an hour and a half before bed. And what else? There’s a couple other things, but there’s a few, like in.
Tomer [00:29:50] A dark room.
Mina [00:29:51] Oh, yeah. The darkness. The darkness is definitely an important factor. And so after do. Oh, and not no exercise before bed. So at least 30 minutes to an hour before bed. No, don’t do it. Like no physical activity.
Tomer [00:30:07] And so again, falling sleep, like after a Brazilian jujitsu training, it’s just impossible.
Mina [00:30:14] We always used to be a big issue for me. Yeah, because, like, I’m all like intense, you know? And so after I figured these factors out and the consistent sleep and consistent time to sleep and all that stuff. Then, you know, my sleep became way, way better. Now my recovery is really good. Now I installed a few things to help me wake up. So I have a Google Nest home. The temperatures from 9 a.m., 9 p.m. to 5:15 a.m. is 66 degrees, which is perfect for sleeping at 5:15 a.m. it turns to 74 degrees. Now the heat allows me alone to naturally like, okay, now my body’s like getting uncomfortable under the covers, it’s getting warm, it’s working temperature and my body is now it’s trained, it knows 66 asleep, 74 is working, so it automatically switches that. So now 5:15, I’m already starting to get warmed up and I have smart plugs in all over my house.
So at 530 in the morning, the living room lights turn on the and the bedroom lights turn on. And then at the same time I have my phone with the alarm on the counter right here. So my room is like in there and I have to physically walk in the light. My room is light all the way to turn it off. And I don’t put it on this side of the counter. I put it in the back, now it’s here just because I’m working. And I also keep it here when I’m working to avoid distractions and, you know, forget about it. But I usually put it on the other side.
So now I’m like all the way in the kitchen and it’s like very inconvenient, you know? I unplug it and or I turn it off, and then I go all the way back and I’m like, okay, it’s hot. It’s not hot, but it’s warm. I don’t feel like working. And then, you know, I put my bed and everything, I make it, and now I’m up and ready and I’m doing my routine. So those are like the hacks to kind of get me out of bed. Then I have alarms with labels on my phone. So at 530, the label says rise and crush today, you know, which basically is like, you know, hypes me up to get up.
Then I have, you know, at 540 read my goals out loud. So you remember I’m going to be making 4000 the same thing. I got to read them out loud. I read them four or five times and then at 550, I believe I have to read my affirmations. So I have a list of things that I read out loud. And it’s like affirmations. It’s basically it’s people underestimate the power of words. That’s why I never say anything like, I’m tired, I’m burnt out, I’m busy. Nothing, nothing. It’s all, like, positive. I’m killing it, working hard, you know, I’m blessed. I have so many opportunities. That’s all I say. You know, I’m living my best life.
Tomer [00:33:03] Let me one more thing. Sometimes people with read their goals by. They read it like they have to you when you read it. I like to really close my eyes and like pray to God to the universe, whatever you believe in, but kind of really put attention to every word you say. It will increase the power of this because it tells your subconscious you want it so bad and then your day starts and every action that you do is aligned with this. Whatever you mentioned. Yeah, I really like thinking like. Like yourself and it’s amazing. Sorry. Go ahead.
Mina [00:33:39] Very powerful. And it’s very powerful to the point that you will notice that these things will start coming true with subconsciously because you’re training your subconscious mind. And the subconscious mind is like a whole other conversation, but it is incredibly powerful. And then from there, I go to the bathroom, do my skincare routine and wash up and all this stuff.
So I talked in that video about habit stacking. So basically habit stacking is find a habit that you do every single day consistently. And if you want a new habit stuck on a habit right on top of that you want to do and make it a very, very small amount. So two books that I recommend, Atomic Habits, that’s the one that talks about habit stacking and then Mini Habits. This is the best way for you if you want to start new habits, the best way to go about it and the way that it works is. I used to only brush my teeth, you know, wash my face, get this stuff out. Yeah, I did. And then I’m like, okay. My beard was like, never really like. Now it, like, looks clean, you know? And obviously I’m on podcast every single day or whatever, so I need to, like, always look clean so well.
But I did this way before I said, okay, let me start by adding one thing. I’m just going to shave that bottom part every single day. And since the line is there, I’m just going to top it up. It’s going to take 2 seconds. And so I started with the smallest. I didn’t go from zero to a 16 step, you know, a facial and skin care routine. No, I just added that one thing and I did it consistently, consistently, consistently. And now it gets added into your habits and you’re kind of your brain is using 0% effort or 0.01% effort to do it. And that’s what you have to worry about. Is that how much? Because when I first did it, my brain was using, let’s say, 50 or 60% effort to do it. But as you do it consistently, it goes down and down and down and now your brain has room for more. And so the next thing is I got the thing, and every time when I go to the barber, he sharpens up my beard and I just keep following the lines every morning. And so now my face started being always shaped up and the beard is good.
Tomer [00:35:49] Without too much effort.
Mina [00:35:50] I feel like a reminder every Sunday that I need to, you know, trim down the beard. So every Sunday I get an alarm, trim down the beard. Everything is like I treat everything like, almost like a job because humans are so prone for me at least I’m so, so prone to failure. And I’ll touch on another thing in a second. But anyways, I did the same thing with the skin care routine. It started with the scrub, then the toner, then this, then that, and slowly add it.
Now I have a full. I wake up, I don’t think I open my drawer. Everything is there in order. Shave, this, the first skin thing, the second skin thing, the third skin thing. Okay, done. And I walk out, you know, and it’s so easy, so simple because of my brain. It doesn’t require any effort to do it because I already built the habits one by one. And so the mini habit says, okay, for example, if you know, are here and you want to get here, like you want to do a one hour workout a day or you want to run five miles a day. Don’t do that because you’re never going to do it.
Tomer [00:36:54] So minute yeah.
Mina [00:36:55] Not start with the smallest thing that you’re like, no way that I can miss it. So for example, I like to do shadow boxing. It’s shadow boxing 100% improves your technique more than anything. And so for people who don’t know what shadow boxing is, it’s like pretending that you’re fighting but in the air, you know, because it allows your muscle memory and everything to improve. That was one of the biggest things I struggled because I was always saying, okay, I’m going to do six three minute rounds and I have their own timer. And I said, okay, no, I’m going to stack it to a habit, okay? And I’m going to do one three minute round. And so after before drinking my pre-workout, I would mix my pre-workout and then I would and I put a block of ice in the pre-workout and I would put the timer shadow box for 3 minutes. By then, the ice is melted, I can drink my pre-workout. And now I start another habit, which is after I drink my pre-workout, I sit down and I visualize. And so that was another habit that I wanted to add. And again, I wanted to do a full visualization. It wasn’t working. So I said, okay, I’m just going to visualize like 2 minutes or 3 minutes once I get the visualization every single day after my pre-workout. And once I get the shadowboxing 3 minutes every single day after my workout, then let’s make it two rounds, then let’s make it three rounds.
Then, you know, make the visualization longer and longer and so on. And so that is the way that I was able to people see me. They’re like, you know Mina you’re like a robot. You know, you’re doing a million things. I’m like, Dude, trust me, I, I wasn’t in college. I got out of college. Okay. Fat, chubby, drinking. Okay. I always worked out. I always did MMA. Like, I didn’t really do anything, like, intentionally. Everything was kind of like, okay, I do this, I do that, but and now it’s like I’m systematically and it takes zero effort for me. It takes zero effort for me to do this and this and this and this and this because I just built it into a consistent habit.
And then the other thing which I was talking about is the fatigue in your brain. This is another reason why a lot of people are struggling with the habits. I believe personally, because it happened to me. I’m having things that. Force you to make decisions. And I in a video, I talked about how I’m always wearing the same shirts. I also have no cookies, no snacks, no drinks, no nothing in the house that I have to walk to the kitchen and be like, No, I’m not going to do this. Nothing here where I’m like, Oh, no, I’m not going to do this, you know, because every single time I have to resist or make a decision, it lowers my brain capacity. And if you read the book Peak Performance, Elevate Your Game. They talked about judges and they said judges who granted like parole in the first portion of the day or after lunch. Massive difference. It was like 80% granted in the morning and then 80% rejected or 90% rejected in the in the evening because they got the decision fatigue.
They’re making decisions, decisions, decisions. Same with doctors. They found surgeons made mistakes in the evening way more than the ones in the morning because of the decision. So I eliminated all of the decisions making that I have to do same not same shirt. But I’ve got 12 Under Armour, 12 Gym Shark shirts, same shirts every single time. And then, you know, nothing in the house that requires me to make a decision. Everything is set up. And, you know, that’s also something very important. If you notice that you’re not able to add habits, you might be making too many decisions that you shouldn’t be making with kids.
I don’t know how it is with kids. I’m sorry. It must be hard, man. You know, you’ve got a kid and you know that this not that. Why? Why do babies come? You know, like things like that. I’m sure that that wears the person down. I’m not from here. I’m just talking from the general perspective. If you anywhere, you can eliminate a decision, do it now. Are your kids going to wear you down 100, going to bed at eight? Maybe you go to bed at eight and wake up at four and then you have like 3 hours when the kids are asleep that you can do things uninterrupted and without having that decision fatigue before the kids wake up. And now you got to like waste a lot of energy with them.
Tomer [00:41:04] You mentioned some. Can you hear me?
Mina [00:41:05] Yeah, I can hear you.
Tomer [00:41:06] I hear you can hear me. It’s like Mark Zuckerberg is also the same. You have the same shirts because he don’t want to think about it. You want to think about like the high important decisions that you have to make. And that’s why people recommend do your important tasks first. Because when you are tired, when you get like three or 4 p.m. and you have to do this important task, you’re so tired, you might postpone it, you might not really give it enough attention.
So that’s why I start first clear out all the important tasks, then I move on to the, you know, unimportant tasks. That’s where things that are not that important than changing the bottom line. I definitely agree. It’s like it’s like it’s like a battery. So your battery, just like every time you make a decision, your brain gets like the battery of this fatigue, you just get lower and lower. And yeah, I just it’s amaze me really, because you speak the same way as I speak.
People tell me, oh, how you do it. They’re like your robot, but they don’t really understand. It doesn’t really take a lot of effort. It’s once you have this right system and I was able to really focus and try to improve my productivity. Really, it’s ten or 12 theories. I constantly read books about it and try to improve it, and I was able to learn languages the same way. You mentioned just 5 minutes a day, but after five years now I know and like condition of two languages, I do like Spanish and French. I learn now Chinese. I want to travel to China and speak with them Chinese. So but it’s a lot of effort.
Mina [00:42:37] It’s amazing.
Tomer [00:42:38] Five, 10 minutes a day. It’s nothing. Anyone can do it, you know, but you do it for a couple of years, which no matter, like, doesn’t matter. You just your life continued.
Mina [00:42:48] The years are going to come. The years are passing anyways.
Tomer [00:42:51] Exactly. And then you find yourself with all of these new skills without really feeling that you are like working like crazy, it just easy because it’s small steps, you know, I have many more questions about PPC and some other stuff. But just, you know, we both passion about this like whole, you know, it’s the how to. But maybe one last question about this, because I strongly believe that success in Amazon or in anything, in any business or in your life reaching any goal depends on not really how to details like what to eat, how to create the listing, etc. It’s the mindset and you see it constantly. People that have strong base of productivity, of managing time or setting up goals, they will make it on Amazon or in anything else and those that just come and start even they are more passionate about it than wanted more. They fail. So what is one small tip or something you saw with successful sellers that you can recommend to new sellers before to work on? Focus on at the beginning before they start and keep pushing.
Mina [00:44:00] Yeah. So a few things I would say. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes and take the decisions much faster. I’ve seen so many people around me where I make the decision. Like, for example, I said, Let’s try launching 20 campaigns in one day, PPC campaigns. I have someone who would be like, Let’s think about it. Let’s ask this person that. I’m like, Guess what? I already did it. And it’s a day later and I already know what the answer is. So guess how much, how much faster I learned and I’m evolving versus this other guy way faster. So number one, always, always, always learn. Number two, understand that failing or, you know, failing, making mistakes is the fastest way to learn. And don’t be afraid to do it. And every single day look at, hey, what can I learn? What can I do? What action can I take? Because the other side of that action, there is going to be the answer. So, you know, don’t spend too much time contemplating. I so many people push like to later, and later, and later and listen, I know. Hey, is that a good idea if I pay $4,000 for that guy and he does like a PR campaign, I don’t know. Here’s $4,000. Guess what? In a month, I’m going to know the answer. Meanwhile, you will never know because you’re always going to keep thinking and waiting for someone else like me who did it and knows the answer. And guess what I might tell you? Yeah, I worked amazing. And then you go and try it and it works horrible because we have different products or I did it differently or I managed the, you know, so you need.
Tomer [00:45:37] To if that’s the.
Mina [00:45:38] Thing, the reason people I think advance much faster is that they get the experience from the failures. They’re failing faster. And I think definitely one of the things, you know, you do the jujitsu, you learn a move like whatever, move on plot or whatever. You you’re like, I don’t know, man, this is might not work. And guess what? You’ll never get good at it or you’re never be able to do it if you don’t go into the live rolling and do it and get and obviously you’re going to do it once and you’re going to get screwed and the guy is going to see it coming because you suck at it. You know that move and he’s going to catch you. And then you do it again and again and again until you get really good at it.
It’s the same thing with business is, you know, you’re never going to get good at something if you never just take the plunge and do it. So, you know, don’t see or take what you know in theory and all this stuff and keep it in theory, act on it and then learn from it. And the faster that you do that, the more experience that you’re going to get and the better, you know, skilled you are going to get. So that’s what I would say. And don’t be afraid of failing, because you know this from jiu jitsu, the only way you ever fail is when you quit. When you quit, you are 100% you failed. There is no even glimmer of hope. But as long as you never quit, you’ll never fail because there’s always going to be that chance that you’re going to succeed.
Tomer [00:47:00] For sure. For sure. This is this is what it’s all about, really. It’s the mindset, how you approach things. And I agree, I’m also like that I try a million things, things that from the beginning I said, I don’t think they’re going to work. And you know what? Those things that you don’t think are going to work, they’re going to surprise you and the other the other way. Like things that you’re so confident. Yeah, I’m like, for example, I thought that I’m going to get way better results if I’m going to outsource it all. Yeah, I’m softwares, but I do way better result and you know, I just give it a try but doesn’t matter.
The point is keep trying new things. Keep testing even things you think you’re 100% confident. I came from the world of like conversion rate optimization. I do marketing before I did Amazon and we would run tests all day long and test that we had so much confidence in. Would just like didn’t work. And the opposite. You never know how the audience will react, how the results will be, how the market accepts about your product. You have to try. I launched 2020 25 products. You know what, ten failed, which is a rate that they never had to before. But I’m okay from those then that it will fail so much and so much. I learned invaluable lessons. Anyway, we can talk again for hours. Yeah. Mina, it was really a pleasure having you here. I hope we can we will talk for sure about PPC in the future. Maybe you can tell people about your services, what you offer if they want to find you.
Mina [00:48:33] Yeah. So Mina Elias on facebook @egyptian_prescription_ Elias. You know, I have a PPC course is a very technical course. If you want to understand the ins and outs of PPC, it’s theppcuniversity.com. And then I have a it has a full hour free course on PPC, my YouTube channel, the PPC university also has a ton of free content. So go check those out and you know, reach out if you have any questions or if you’re interested more in this kind of stuff. Also, I have a big project coming up with Samer. It’s all about biohacking. But also we’re taking a product from zero all the way to, you know, launching on Kickstarter, on Amazon, ranking reviews, everything. We’re showing everything. We’re going to be fully transparent.
We also got sponsors like Getida, which is like the FBA reimbursement, Thrasio Billion Dollar Amazon acquisition company. Ping pong payments is like one of the best exchange rate companies. And basically they’re giving us money and we’re using all of that money to bring the best talent in every single field. And basically, like, have them consult our business, record the whole thing and give everyone that value.
So basically think about this like we have the budget to get all of the consultants that you wish you could and we’re showing it all. You know, in that series. The product is a natural coffee alternative. It’s right there with my biohacking because I love coffee. I think it’s very addicting. I know that it behaves the brain behaves like cocaine when you drink coffee just at a smaller level. So I wanted like a more natural alternative, gives you energy and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, that’s pretty much the next big project. Follow Samer Brax on YouTube and the Brax FBA Facebook group.
That’s where like we’re going to share everything and it’s going to be insane amount of knowledge. And I don’t do this for money. I make my money from supplements. So that’s my I want to be the king of supplements, you know, on Amazon and then off Amazon. It’s my passion. I don’t really do this, you know, I don’t really care too much to make money off of courses and all that kind of stuff. But we’re doing this because I really believe that it’s like our duty to add value to the community, because if we don’t, then someone else is taking other people’s money and doing a bad job. And that’s kind of like on us as well, because if you’re not if you’re doing nothing, you’re doing something. You know what I’m saying?
So if you see someone, you know, stealing from a woman and you don’t, you know, grab her or say, hey, hey, someone’s stealing from you, you’re equally as bad as the person who’s stealing the money. And that’s the way I feel, is that if I’m not adding value to the community, you know, and it’s also it all comes back, it’s karma. You know, I’m I believe in things like that and I believe in God. And I believe if you don’t help people or it’s your duty, you know, I feel so blessed. Like I live in this place. I live in Marina by the water. I feel so blessed. I also need to, you know, pass, pass on, you know, some of that to the people. So I’m using the abilities that God gave me to bring all of these, you know, amazing people and experts to share their knowledge. We’ll pay for it because we can afford it and because of the connections we have. So it’s going to be an amazing series.
Tomer [00:51:57] Yeah, for sure. Well said. And we share the same values. That’s why I opened my YouTube channel as well. I don’t really promote anything, but yeah, check these guys this Mina out, his course on Facebook you’re going to get total value like I got. And I’m sure many people here learned a lot and that’s what important to focus on the fundamentals before you try to achieve all these goals, make sure you work on yourself first. Anyway, Mina, thank you again. It was a pleasure. We’ll talk in the future. Thank you very much. Have a blessed day.
Related Reading: What is Amazon FBA: Complete Amazon FBA Guide in 2023