The first time I met Mila, her tiny six-month-old fingers were wrapped firmly around Adela Seally’s cheek. Seally, Mila’s nanny, just smiled and let the baby cling to her. It was clear from that moment that their bond was special. For the better part of six years, Seally has been an integral part of this family in New Rochelle, New York, first caring for Mila’s older sister, Ava, and now Mila herself.
An early mentor of mine used to say, “You can shear a sheep for a lifetime, but you can only skin it once.” This idea has been the foundation of nearly every business I’ve built, from fitness and software to what I do now.
We’ve all heard it: “Do you want fries with that?” It’s McDonald’s most famous line, but it’s also a masterclass in business. Once you have an initial offer that gets customers in the door and cash in your hand, you’ve won half the battle. If you’ve done it right, you might even be profitable. But the real goal is to maximize what you earn in the short term. The answer is simple: you need to make more money from each transaction.
Getting eyeballs on your product is one thing; turning them into paying customers is another challenge entirely, especially when you're just getting your off the ground. The key is to build a bridge from casual interest to a financial transaction, and one of the most effective ways to do that is with what you might call "Attraction Offers."
I once walked up to a car rental counter to pick up a vehicle I’d reserved for $19 a day. I handed my ID to the smiling agent, who quickly told me, “Hmm. It looks like we don’t have the car you reserved. We have an equivalent, but… you’re a big guy. Would you prefer a roomier pick-up truck instead?”
It seems to be a fundamental part of being human: we find real happiness when we’re working toward something that gives us a sense of purpose and growth. After a period of personal realignment, where you’ve hopefully cleared away old limiting beliefs, a new world of possibilities opens up. The big question becomes, what do you do with that freedom? How will you find that sense of fulfillment?
The idea of love feels timeless. While the English word is only about 800 years old, the concept itself is woven into the history of nearly every culture, from the ancient Greeks to the Persians. It’s a cornerstone of every major religion and seems to have been with us since the dawn of civilization. Love is the force that brings us together, giving us strength in hard times and rallying us toward something bigger than ourselves. It’s the classic theme in stories passed down through generations: good versus evil, love versus hate. Maybe these ideas resonate so deeply because we all feel those opposing forces within ourselves.
For most of my life, if you’d asked me what peace of mind looked like, I probably would have pictured something cliché, like meditating on a Tibetan mountaintop with the Dalai Lama. I never imagined I’d find it so much closer to home, thanks to a cognitive neuroscientist named David Vago.
There’s a simple four-letter word that has torpedoed more great ideas and paralyzed more ambitious people than anything else in history. That word is fear.