Miguel Borges Turned His Deafness Into His Biggest Business Advantage

Miguel Borges opened by telling the room a fact built to make them uncomfortable. Right now, with an implant processor and a hearing aid, he can hear every word in the building. Take both off, and he hears nothing at all. Not muffled. Nothing. He called it a disability, then immediately told the room something else was just as true.

Ten years before that stage, Borges had founded an association that helped dying people find peace with their own deaths. He’d trained others to do it. He’d been trained to do it himself. So when he learned the surgery meant to fix his hearing carried a real risk of ending everything else too, he didn’t spiral. He reached for the one skill he actually had.

What do you do when the thing you’re most afraid of turns out to be the opportunity?

Borges was scared to die on that operating table, genuinely scared, so he did what he’d spent a decade teaching other people to do. He worked through every technique he knew for dying at peace. He said goodbye, inside his own heart, to everyone he loved, because he couldn’t say it out loud to them without giving away what he was actually preparing for. Then his surgery got delayed five hours.

A five-hour delay before a surgery like that should make a person more anxious, not less. Borges got calmer. He’d already made his peace, so the extra waiting cost him nothing. That’s the whole shape of how he processes adversity, and he names it out loud the moment he describes learning he’d go fully deaf.

my first thought was, wow, wow, there’s an opportunity, isn’t it?

Not a beat of self-pity, at least not one he shares from the stage. An opportunity, before he’d even had the surgery that would take his hearing for good.

What happens when you train for something before you actually need it?

Borges played a short video from the stage, and in it the same mechanism shows up in three completely different places in his life. The first is a job. For three years during university he applied for positions he didn’t actually want, and his friends told him he’d lost his mind for wasting the effort. He wasn’t chasing those jobs. He was training, testing, and adjusting, using interviews he didn’t care about to get ready for the one he did. When the job he actually wanted finally opened, he applied against more than 2,000 other candidates. He got first place.

The second place is video. He heard a fellow marketer mention, almost in passing, that shooting videos was the way to get traction. Borges didn’t sit with the idea and think about it. He started shooting ten, fifteen, twenty a day. That habit built into more than 900 videos, over 750,000 views, and more than 1,200 followers he calls organic, meaning people now find their way into his business without ever landing on his list first. He boosts the videos for one cent a click.

The third place is his own hearing. When Borges asked his doctors how quickly a person could realistically expect to hear again after his kind of surgery, the answer was twelve weeks, maximum. He ran the identical drill on himself: train, test, measure, adjust, then do it again the next day.

• More than two thousand competing applicants, reduced to training reps for a job he actually wanted.
• One offhand comment from another speaker, reduced to twenty videos a day until the numbers stopped being small.
• A twelve-week medical timeline, reduced to nine through the same repeated cycle of train, test, and measure.

Three different problems, decades apart in some cases, and one repeated process running underneath all of them. Borges never waits for the “right” answer on the first attempt. He runs it, checks the result, adjusts, and runs it again, fast enough that the adjusting itself becomes the actual skill he’s built.

What do you do with frustration that refuses to go away?

Borges also talked about the ordinary sting of a blog that wasn’t converting, the frustration of writing and posting and getting nothing back for it. He traced that particular feeling to university, where a professor once failed him in mathematics, a subject he loved, by two cents on the grading scale. Two cents. He didn’t let it go quietly. He went on to write five books and three thousand exercises, solved and explained in full detail, the first resource of its kind ever published in his country.

His point isn’t that frustration is something to manage or wait out. As he puts it, “Frustration drags you down. But you can use it.” It’s energy either way. Left alone, it drags you down. Redirected, it’s the same energy that gets five books written.

What’s the one thing you’re actually willing to change tonight?

Borges closed by turning the whole method on the smallest scale of all: his own daily habits. He used to be late constantly, the kind of late that becomes a personality trait. He decided to change exactly one thing about it. Now the people who know him will tell you he’s the first one in any room. On the morning of his own session, he was out of bed at three, in the venue before eight, running his material one more time while most of the building was still asleep.

Then he asked the room to do to themselves what he’d just described doing to himself. Pick one thing. One fear, one habit, one excuse, nothing more. Write it down in a single word. On his count of three, say it out loud and let it go, the same way he let go of the fear that used to run his mornings, and the deafness he now calls the best thing that ever happened to him.

The full session goes further than what’s above, including the video Borges played from the stage. Watch it in full, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

Please help me welcome to the stage, Mr. Miguel Borges. Thank you. You're welcome.

You kill it. Well, good night. Nah, feels good like here. Feel at home.

Well, right now you might already know that if I take off my implant processor and if I take off my hearing aid, I'm completely deaf. I won't hear a word that you're saying. That's a challenge. Might be a disability, right?

Or not. When I, for the first time, I realized that I'm going to be full deaf, my first thought, my first thought was, wow, wow, there's an opportunity, isn't it? Okay. I was scared to death about my surgery.

And ten years ago, I founded an association to help dying people. And I was so scared to die during the surgery. And then suddenly I realized, well, that might be my opportunity to put into practice all I learned about my own death. Because I teach, I was teaching people to die in peace.

I was trained to die in peace. So that was my opportunity. The university gave me that opportunity to train my own death. So I got prepared.

I did every single thing, every single technique I need to use to prepare to die. I said goodbye to all the ones I loved within my heart, because I couldn't spoke with them about that. But I said goodbye to everyone. And my surgery delayed five hours.

What would be the normal reaction? Getting up. Getting more anxious. Imagine I was getting more relaxed, more comfortable, because I was already ready to die.

Let me show you this quick video. It's very short. I hope you'll find it powerful. For sure it's packed with love.

Moon, let's do it. During my course, let me beg you, do not quit. During my course, let me beg you, do not quit. During my course, let me beg you, do not quit.

During my course, let me beg you, do not quit. Do not clap before I end, please. Just feel it. Be with me.

Bear with me till the end. For three years during my university course, for three years I was applying for jobs, for positions I didn't want. And my friends were calling me, this guy is crazy! Why are you applying for jobs you don't want?

I'm crazy, I'm not. You know what, OK. You know what? I was training, testing and measuring what we all do.

I was training, testing and measuring. And you know what? Why? Because I want to train enough for the job I wanted.

And you know what? The result, I applied for the job and among more than 2,000, I got the first place. You know what? Please.

Bear with me. Just feel. Don't clap. You know what?

What's your first place? What's your niche? Tonight you're going to decide what's your niche. And you're going to be the first one.

The number one in your niche. No matter what the niche is. Taking notes. You know what?

Today I can write as fast as you speak. You know what? As fast as you speak. For 30 years I train.

For 30 years I train. Right now I can write as fast as you speak. How long are you willing to train to fulfill your objective? How long are you willing to blog daily?

How long are you willing to train videos? One day I heard Tracy Walker. Thank you, Tracy Walker. By the way.

Thank you, Aaron. Thank you, Silvio. Serena. Rui.

Melissa. Mark. Thank you, Empower. Thank you, Gabriela, my wife.

Sarah. Simone. Danielle. My son.

Thank you, you all. You know? One day I listened to Tracy Walker. She said, if you are a video or do videos.

I said, gosh. That's it. I'm going to do videos. I started doing 10, 15, 20 a day.

What happened? Right now I have more than 900 videos on my YouTube. I have more than 750,000 visualizations. And I have more than 1,200, 1,200 followers.

Organic followers. Right now I have people jumping into my business without even being in my list. I boost the videos for one cent per click. How much are you prepared to boost your videos?

To boost your blog? To boost whatever challenge you have? To boost your life? I was scared to death to die.

I get rid of that. I died. No, I didn't. I was reborn.

Because I'm a new one. I killed my deafnesses. What are your deafnesses? What are you afraid of?

What are your fears? I killed all those. I have no fear. Right now I have no fear.

By the way, I love you. I love being here. And I'm honored to be here. Thank you, Bonnie.

And you know what? You know what? I was really, really, really challenged about my frustration of not getting results with my blog. You know one thing?

One day a guy failed me on mathematics. I loved mathematics. And one day in university I was failed for two cents. For two cents.

Long story short. Long story short. I wrote five books. Three thousand exercises.

Solved and explained in detail for the first time ever in my country. Boom. What did I do? What have I done with this bad energy?

Frustration drags you down. But you can use it. Because it's an energy. So you can be grateful.

Use that energy. And reverse it. And use it. So my challenge for you is next time you have a challenge.

Next time you feel frustrated because you're blogging and you're not getting results. Next time you feel frustrated because you're not getting conversions. Use that energy. Reverse the energy.

And use it. With your power within. My biggest challenge. My biggest challenge, please.

My biggest challenge was my deafness. So if it was my biggest challenge it was my biggest opportunity. Right? What have I done?

What did I do? I just asked. How quick can one start hearing again? How quick?

And they told me. Well, maximum. Maximum 12 weeks. Oh yeah?

12 weeks. Let's do that faster. So I went. Well, once again.

I trained. I test. I measured. Train.

Test. And measure. What are the objectives you want to overcome? What are the fears you want to get rid of?

What was the result of that persistency? The result. It's very simple. Instead of 12 weeks I made it in 9 weeks.

From 0 to 100% hearing. About consistency. About persistency. Doing whatever it takes.

From knowing nothing. From not knowing anything about internet marketing, marketing whatsoever. Not even knowing about what the link is. I went from 0 to 600 leads per day.

Like that. How? Doing my work. My challenge for you right now.

Decide about one thing you want to change in your life. One little teeny thing. I was always late. Always late.

Always late. Always late. And now everyone who knows me I'm always the first one. Today can you imagine who was the first one in this room?

I was. I get out of the bed at 3 a.m. in the morning. 3.30.

Sorry. I did my homework. I was here before 8 a.m. in the morning.

Feeling you all preparing myself to do my best to inspire you. You know what? You know what? I'm proud of you.

Because right now you're gonna decide one little thing. One. And you're gonna write down with one word one little thing that you want to change. One little fear you want to get rid of.

One little challenge. No matter what. I'll give you some time. When I count to three you're gonna say now.

And once you say now you're gonna get rid once and for all. Doing whatever it takes. Never ever have that fear. Overcome whatever you wrote down.

Are you ready? One. Two. Three.

Now! One. Two. Three.

Now! One. Two. Three.

Now! Thank you. So, I'm done for now. I'll see you next time.

And now it's an honor. Marina, you can put it. Now it's an honor to present the next speaker. I beg you to open your heart.

I beg you to open your soul. To get inspired. The next speaker will give you power. Next speaker we show you will show you what's love about.

The next speaker will show you the power of loving your team. That next speaker will give you the vision so you can take it to love your team more than you ever imagined. He was broke. Double broke.

He was an M&A fighter. A broke fighter. Ex-fighter. He was a ex-sales rep.

Cell phone sales rep. Broke. Sales rep. So double broke.

You know? Right now let me introduce you a guy that came from double broke to number one on leaderboards and multi six figure. So help me come up on stage Paul Gardiner and Keena Raleigh.