If you know me then you know how much I emphasize the power of attention.
You need it for business, sales, survival, and more. But it all depends on your own ability to produce it.
My journey of conquering the game of attention is a roller coaster, from going through bankruptcy to starting my own Amazon business.
So what brought me to this marketing career path of capturing attention?
It begins with coming from a background of no professional education whatsoever.
It also comes from a pretty dark background of getting into trouble with drugs, but it also involves a path of not going through the traditional system.
And then one of the most important moments of my life… meeting a great woman, marrying her, starting a family, getting a job, and then fast-forwarding to the 2007-2008 economic collapse…
Necessity Level
We essentially lost everything, and there’s nothing like a necessity level for an individual.
There’s nothing like being motivated because you have no choice, but to survive.
And I think that’s a very powerful thing for someone to experience.
There’s a person that I worked with in the past, an amazing guy, his name is Daymond John.
He’s the founder of FUBU and one of the co-hosts of a show called Shark Tank.
He wrote a book called The Power of Broke, which is a great title because it really does resonate and indicates the fact that people who grow up in an environment full of wealth, full of survival, and full of life, they’re not missing out on anything.
They get everything that they need, and it’s a different challenge to raise kids like that.
I’m trying, working hard at it, coming from a background where I had nothing and had to look my wife in the eyes and tell her “Baby, I don’t have money to buy diapers.”
To be in that position, you never forget something like that.
I remember how it felt as if it was yesterday, that period in which I had no choice but to survive because I have little people to depend on.
That was one thing that drove me towards finding something, and I cannot tell you that I had a desire or a passion for impact like I do right now.
Creating Impact
I’m into creating impact by helping a lot of people.
That’s what really drives me: people improving their businesses and their lives through my content, services, etc.
But it didn’t start like that, it started off because I was broke and I didn’t have any money.
So I had to look for something and that led me towards a path of discovery of what I can do, especially me coming from outside the system with no marketing degree, no career to speak for–nothing.
I asked myself, “What can I do?” and I made sure it was legal too because I refused to do anything illegal.
So I straightened up my life, no more drugs, no more nothing, and I stayed on a straight path, even though I was still broke.
Opportunities
I continued doing things the right way, and that’s what got me on track to look for opportunities.
And here’s the reality, people that look for opportunities will eventually find them, that’s an absolute fact.
Some people will give up and may even succumb to pressure or outside forces, but anybody that keeps on looking for opportunities will eventually find them.
I tried something, I failed, tried another thing, failed again, got a job, failed, and I kept on looking until I found something that I felt I could develop a skill for.
And I went deep into that, and that was where my superpower of attention was born.
If you look at the name of my company which I started in 2015, it stands for Attention Grabbing Media, AGM Marketing.
I became obsessed with that subject once I realized that the name of the game was attention, I knew I was going to be able to do well.
But I also knew if I didn’t have attention, I was gonna struggle.
Once I realized that, it opened up the door to expand as a family and we started doing well.
And I was then put in front of more opportunities and I prepared myself for those opportunities.
And I got “lucky” because I was able to capitalize on these opportunities that were presented.
Getting “Lucky”
Things like Amazon were a part of this particular “lucky” wave.
I got really lucky there because I had a friend that was working with me, his name is Ernesto, and actually still my business partner today.
But he was trying to survive also, as he sold bed sheets on the streets. Literally put a tent up in different corners of abandoned spots like gas stations, and drove throughout different cities.
And he was putting them out on a table and selling them for $20-$30 bucks making a profit–all consignment.
I said, “I think there’s an opportunity here Neto” (that’s his nickname).
Then I said, “I think we should get this line of bedsheets and put it on Amazon.”
So we had someone create a logo for us, and slapped it on top of the bed sheets we were selling and started selling them on Amazon.
Six months later on Amazon, as I was learning the game and becoming a good marketer myself and understanding opportunities, we were doing $600,000 in sales a month.
And it was amazing, so I rode that opportunity wave.
I did not create Amazon, I did not create an opportunity, I found an opportunity and I jumped on top of it.
Mastering Attention
So a lot of other things happened along the way, and while that was happening, I connected with my father and we started creating another company called Natural Slim, a high 8 figure a year company.
We started creating content in 2012 for it, and the business took off a few years later, but it was built on the back of my father’s content, making him a social media superstar, and capturing the attention of millions of people across the world.
And little by little, I mastered the ability of attention, but now I can probably tell you that I know more about the subject of marketing than I do than most people out there graduating with their marketing degrees.
There’s incredible opportunities out there for you to grab, if you simply decide to look, but it does start with a necessity level.
It starts with a necessity level to survive because you have people that depend on you and you feel responsibility over these people.
And when you have that necessity level, that really pushes you to extremes because you won’t sleep well until you’re able to deliver survival for these people that are important in your life.
That’s very powerful, and that was the turning point right there in which I realized that I had to do something about it.
