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People have varying definitions of joy. Some tend to look for material things to guarantee such joy and associate it with happiness. While only a few go beyond these external things to find the true meaning of joy. However, with the society that people live in – people succumb more to superficial things in defining joy and bridge such ideas to happiness. But the real question is, how do we seek joy in this world fully dictated with material things in defining life's beauty?
Erin Mac joins the podcast to talk about joy. Specifically, how you could recognize your experience and learn to strategize it to a positive experience regardless of outside influences. As someone who's built her company 20 years ago, Erin shares more how money can't provide the real meaning of joy, and it won’t help if you only rely on external things. In this episode, she shares how one can start finding oneself and get on that journey.
Impenetrable JoyImpenetrable joy is the experience that you no longer have to be at the mercy of or beholden to people or circumstances to dictate as to whether you're having a good day or a bad day, or for that matter, a good life or a bad life. You're no longer on the roller coaster ride of emotions, like when someone says something or something happens, and all of a sudden, our mood switches, and we start going south. When you recognize that you are responsible for your experiences and learn how to change them into the experiences you want, then create a penetrable joy, which is internal. It's not based on something that's going on externally.
It's recognizing that some things are going on behind the scenes that we are often unaware of, and when we can get awareness of them, we can begin to unpack what's going on. Not so much on why it happened, what were the circumstances or the things that led to the experience, but more just in the proactive state of how can I change that experience?
Joy vs HappinessThe difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is based on external things. It's a brand-new car, but it's short-lived and is based on an external thing. Joy is an internal experience that you can create throughout each day. However, the idea of happiness that we've been taught in our society and many other societies is based on external things. But the real joy is the kind of joy available now, regardless of what's going on out here. The internal experiences, the one that's meaningful and has a purpose. And that's what we're after. But people don't know it because we don't make these distinctions.
Sufficiency and ExcessWe have this idea of sufficiency and excess. It's like, what is going to be enough for me? Is it enough to have a nice home, to have shelter, to have access to food and water? Is it enough to have those things to have deep, meaningful relationships with people and purpose and meaning in your life? Or do I need to subscribe to what society would have you believe?
If that's the case, why are multimillionaires or billionaire clients also miserable despite having all the money? It's because of that happiness thing they were pursuing. Because it's the journey inside that has meaning and purpose. It's not the exterior nor the external things.
Journey of GrowthPeople are essentially here for growth. As humans like to evolve as human beings. And when we can align with that idea, then we find purpose and meaning in our life. Hence, the way to begin the growth journey is to recognize that you do not have purpose and meaning. And sometimes, that comes in the form of a crisis. Like recognizing that if you keep doing the same things repeatedly, you will have the same...
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With the constant demand of time in a fast-paced world, automation took the stage of varied industries. From marketing, management, support, and more, human intervention was less needed, and technology became essential. Hence, businesses delve more into implementing automation, especially when industries shift to virtual set-ups.
Samantha Porter Fox of Samantha Porter Enterprises helps businesses automate their marketing and sales systems. Her whirlwind journey began as a professional organizer in 1997. After ten years, she started to help clients organize their digital files and go paperless. From there, she went to marketing and started a web business design after college. Years later, she joined Chris Davis’ automation program. Now, she joins the podcast to talk about automation. Specifically, mistakes people make when they start getting into the automation process and how they should overcome them.
Beginner’s MistakesOne of the biggest mistakes is that people immediately jump into the technology tool itself without any strategy. In the end, they feel disgruntled. It would have been a great tool if you had started with a strategy on how you need to use it and knowing your end goal. It is like how easier it is to see problems beforehand when you’re doing it on paper first or mapping it out first. However, since many business owners aren’t tech-savvy, they get easily overwhelmed with the options. It’s like spending money without using it for your advantage and end up becoming a collector of all this software.
Document the ProcessKeeping everything in your head on how to do things will keep it trapped in there. It’s easy to blow things up if it becomes complicated. But if you write it down, you can streamline a lot of things. Remember, you can’t scale your business if you’re the only one who knows what’s going on in your business. Document your process! It doesn’t have to be fancy. You can write or record and let someone else transcribe it into a document. It will help you pivot things up when need be.
Getting StartedStart at the place closest to the money. For example, if it is a process that you generate money and you are doing it manually, like a coach manually booking people. It can be a start to document the steps like what do you send out to the people? What information do you need? And find a tool that will automate that. Another place that’s easy to automate is social media. There are a plethora of social media dashboards you can use to start to automate that process. Like Facebook, you can start automating your posting with native Facebook and schedule stuff ahead of time. If you want to automate your content to drive awareness to you quickly, that would be a quick thing you could do to get started.
Things People AutomatePeople want to save time, but some apps don't allow the usage of third-party tools, for you can be penalized for that. However, you can take advantage of a lot of stuff right from your phone and schedule or create content in advance. Also, most booking software has integrations with email management software like MailChimp or Active Campaign. You can have it set where it sends information once something is booked and send out these sets of emails. These are the types of things people can automate.
Identify your NeedsOne major thing is to sit down and think about your goal for your business. What area is the most important for you to automate right now to put you on the path to reaching that goal? Once you do that and have the vision and the goal, that's where the strategy starts. Don't look at every other business out there. Because what works for one business may not necessarily work for yours, or you may not even need that. And don't get...
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People find it very difficult to manage their energy. Especially if the energy comes from considering one’s food intake, hydration, exercise, sleep, and etc. It almost feels as if the difficulty comes not with the lack of focus or time. But the lack of habit to condition ourselves into doing so. Looking into these areas would actually lead to a good energy flow, as well as making us more productive in the process.
Chelsea Stegman has an undergrad degree at Miami University of Ohio. Got her dietetic internship in Louisiana, and worked with the worst diabetes, and kidney dialysis. Afterward, she became a dietitian, moved to Cincinnati, and worked in a health club for three years. Now, she’s in downtown Chicago, worked in another health club, finished her master's, and started her own virtual business. She now joins the podcast to talk about energy management. Specifically, about managing nutrition, how to decrease burnout, increase energy, productivity, and performance.
Managing your nutritionManaging nutrition often depends on the person but the most realistic way for you to start, with priorities in general, is finding that needle mover that moves all these other habits. Health-wise, it's focusing on exercise, and a lot of nutrition habits, water intake, and eating frequency. But a big priority with most people that leads to all these other things is managing blood sugar throughout the day and looking at macronutrients’ meal timing. And that can also help with productivity and reducing brain fog throughout the day.
The Blood Sugar and DietYou don't have to look at blood sugar, or blood values consistently. It's really what makes up your meals. Starting off the day with adequate protein, non-starchy vegetables, a complex carbohydrate, healthy fat, or overall a well-balanced meal. Also, looking into the components of each meal throughout your day, and ensuring that you are eating or snacking to just keep that blood sugar stable. So, you don’t ride the blood sugar roller coaster. And symptomatically we can feel it, we feel the cravings, we feel the brain fog, the energy dips, and rises and everything that comes with it. Hence, what people should look at is what they are eating and noticing that link between a lot of those symptoms. Also, we kind of life in a world of extremes, there are some components that do help with brain health, people with actual disorders, such as epilepsy. It can be beneficial for the general population. Not advised for that, just making more of a well-rounded approach. Because carbs can support brain health, muscle development, and so many other things. So just making sure we have all those components to keep it stable, and not just go into the extreme forms of dieting. All is right.
Cortisol and EnergyIt is your stress hormone, it takes a diurnal rhythm, that spikes in the morning then slowly taper off throughout the day. And has an inverse relationship to melatonin. For instance, at night, when cortisol is supposed to be low, melatonin is supposed to be high. But some people could have that imbalance if their cortisol is high. A lot of people with productivity energy levels throughout the day performance, like at work or at the gym, are looking more into those cortisol levels and how they're managed. Also, it has a very close relationship with blood sugar too. Managing blood sugar can help manage that cortisol throughout the day. If blood sugar is super low, your cortisol spikes and vice versa. Also, you can tell symptomatically if you're tired and wired throughout the day. Your brains keep on going but...
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As everything comes online, sometimes we could not eradicate the overwhelming pressure. We constantly work and speed things up. And we often forget to take a short pause or break. Then we either forget things altogether or leave things in a mess. Hence, burning out ourselves too in the process.
Jimmy Claire is a motivational speaker and an autism advocate. He joins the podcast to talk about different time management tools and tips. Specifically, the tools he used to help improve his work-life balance.
Block SchedulingOne of the biggest things that helps a lot is block scheduling. And not like block scheduling and Google Calendar. It’s a different tool called Time Tune for Android. It helps you to block your time. It's useful because it helps you stay on track of each task on a day without overwhelming your calendar. It helps you to stay away from burnout, and information overload. Because sometimes too much information could shut you down. But with Time Tune, it can tell you that there's two hours’ time remaining, and you can find two hours of time that you didn't even know that you had.
Stack BrowserWhat process are the most unfriendly tools to use and keep your most important websites at hand possible? Yes, you can have bookmarks, but then you can also have search functionality. Eventually, a bookmark bar is also going to fill up or you start scrolling down and say, “Now where do I put this website?” It's like a shell kind of game where that person puts the ball underneath it and mixes it all around and everything. So, there is this tool called things browser stack or stack browser. It lets you bookmark all the important web pages that you use on a daily basis. It keeps them all in one spot, and it syncs across your devices, from Windows and Linux and an Apple.
An All-in-One ToolThe notion is basically an all-in-one app that can do pretty much everything. You can store files, has databases like spreadsheets, and it condenses everything in just one box. So even if the text is long, it just makes the box bigger. And it doesn't overlap with another box or another row or column. It’s literally the best tool.
Browser ExtensionOne of the other tools that you will find helpful is called station. It is a web browser extension and helps you find all the files that you need in different places that you put them in. And if you might say, “Okay, well, why can’t I just use my browsing history?” Yes, you can but if you want to have everything just a click away - you can use Station. It used to be an all-in-one app, but their goal was not to become a web browser, it was to help people find stuff. So, they kind of rebranded their tool and made it into a web extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. It's helpful because sometimes there are so many places where we store stuff, and we can't find it all nor do we really want to go to that service area, a lot of times.
Blocking out DistractionsOne of the things you can use is called a Dragon. It's a Pomodoro timer app, it's free, and it syncs with your to-do list. If you are a person who likes everything digitally and has it on all your devices wherever you go and need them. Like if you forgot to upload up the night before on your computer, then you should be able to go on your phone, get it from the web browser, like the cloud storage. And instead of logging into every system.
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Jim Rohn said, "You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
The amount of information we can get from people is astounding, and most of it is pretty useless. If you want to accelerate your learning, you need to surround yourself with the right people. The people who will help you accelerate the ladder of success and not failure. It might seem pretty intense but not impossible. And all you have to do is to get started!
Geoff Woods was a former medical sales representative. In 2015, he started The Mentee Podcast because he wants to start a business that will deliver a massive impact on society. Later, he joined Gary and Jay in building the company around The One Thing. Now, he joins the podcast to talk about The One Thing. Specifically, how The One Thing can be the simple truth behind extraordinary results.
Take the First StepIt's mind-blowing to see someone be able to pull off something amazing and seemingly effortless. But it can be hard to imagine it for yourself because we're so used to "Well, he is a movie star" or "He is a famous actor." But just because you don't see the clear path on how to go from where you are to where you want to be, doesn't mean that you can't take the first step.
Enjoy the ClimbYou need to learn to focus less on the destination and more on the journey. You hate it when you're in the middle of it but miss it when it's gone. So, enjoy the climb because that is where the value is. Stop focusing on the destination that you want and start celebrating the journey.
Time Over MoneyWhich is more valuable, time or money? Time for sure! We're in the business of time and it's our most valuable resource. But most people spend time and do not invest it. We don't hold our time to the same standard we hold our dollars. But anything that we want in our life happens over time. You look at somebody who's built wealth, they built it over time. You look at somebody who's in shape they got there over time, you look at great marriages and relationships, they were developed over time. The key is over time.
The Domino EffectThe path to getting everything you want in life personally and professionally starts by getting one thing at a time. Back in 2009, there was a group out of the Netherlands Wieder Domino productions, they broke the world record for Domino falls, they lined up 4.5 million dominoes. But the most amazing part was that when the leader of that group knocked the first one down, how much effort did that take? It's almost effortless. If you were that leader, you would have just unleashed 94,000 joules of energy. Put that into context, if you were to do 545 consecutive push-ups, that's how much energy you would release. So, think about it, the flick of a finger, that one subtle action could create a massive reaction. Small actions can unleash massive reactions. And if you graph this out, it's that hockey stick growth where it feels like you're moving forward not making much progress and suddenly, boom, it's just exponential. This is the shape of success.
The Seven CirclesThe seven circles are the seven most important areas of your life. And you only need one area to focus on. However, this is hard for people because they feel like they want to focus on all of them. But again, the path to getting everything you want starts by getting one thing at a time. Think big, go small, trust the dominoes will fall, start by picking one circle. It could be a circle that...
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I grew up in the era when the original NES came out. I could often be found spending my free time playing video games.
As a family, we would often have competitions on games like Tetris or Klax, but I also spent a good deal of time playing role playing games like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. These games required a lot of solving puzzles, planning, and strategizing.
We would have some family collaboration with these games, too - mostly with my mom and grandma. We would often pause the game to make notes on clues from talking with different characters, draw rudimentary maps, list where certain items could be found or bought, and so on. I often found myself looking over this array of information before and after playing so I could strategize my next course of action.
Similarly, we sometimes need to hit the pause button in life to figure things out.
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People often find information about productivity helpful but fail to put it into practice. It is why we hope to filter through mere information processing and help you dive into the actual process!
Jim Woods comes on the podcast to talk about productivity and what comes with it. Specifically, we’ll look at why rest is a big part of productivity. One of the things that people need to address when it comes to productivity is not about time or task management but about their energy and how energy plays a big part of rest!
The Role of HustleRest is important to keep you going, but it is not often discussed since people focus more on the hustle, grind, and being more productive. But obviously, rest is important since it keeps people going and keeps things sustainable, but it's completely different for the young ones. It is why context also matters when we talk about rest. On the other hand, sleep becomes the first thing that comes to mind when people talk about rest, but other people might also have other ideas.
Managing Your EnergyManaging your energy is different for each individual. Still, people can manage their energy by avoiding putting everything on a calendar, knowing their patterns, and understanding their tendencies. There are also many tools people can choose from when they want to know more about their personality like the enneagram or the Myers Briggs. But the best way could be having a huge mindset.
Know YourselfBeing honest with yourself and learning to say NO to things is a good start to set some boundaries to keep your focus on things that matter. People always think they have too much responsibility and end up getting burned out. Hence, it would be good to start being honest with yourself on these things, or finding an outlet to talk to is also a good start. You have to know when you have enough and set some boundaries for yourself. Try to learn new things, and paying attention to your patterns will keep you on track.
Healthy Diet and ExerciseDon't take your frustrations on a coffee pot. Don't keep on drinking coffee and avoid junk foods, especially at certain parts of the day. How you eat affects how you feel, and your energy levels for food can affect your body in different ways. Also, doing some physical activity like playing basketball or standing using a standing desk will help bring rest, even though it requires physical exertion. It may seem counterintuitive, but doing something physical may rest your mind a little bit instead of being in a more awkward position, which will add extra stress and tension and then make you feel more tired.
Make Rest Like A HabitResting your energy should be a daily thing like water. It should become a good habit, but people often tend to forget things that work well. When one doesn't do it constantly, it kind of derails. And you are back to square one! A good foundation is to start with things that excite you, like how Jim started using an Alpha Neo Smart typing device. Doing things that excite you is huge and ends up making things work well. Hence, resting as a habit will help prepare you for something bigger. It can be like a day-to-day project like drinking enough water to help prepare yourself for something bigger.
Restart YourselfFigure out what works well for you to get something out of rest. Moderate screen time activities to give yourself more free room. Restart yourself, have some accountability and some form of boundary. And even if rest is
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Productivity could be defined as accomplishing more with less.
But this is an oversimplification of what productivity is and what goes into making it work.
Here are the 4 Pillars of Productivity:
Time ManagementTask ManagementEnergy ManagementSelf Management
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David Hanscom has an entertainment company that provides DJs, photo booths and more for weddings and corporate events. David has also been featured on television, radio programs, industry magazines, as well as selecting the headlining talent at events such as Super Bowl XXXIX.
Getting StartedDavid started podcasting and creation online content because it was a natural extension of what he likes to do. He likes to talk, and he also loves to hear people's stories. He also loves to hear about the successes people have and how they accomplish those things.
While we all face different struggles and challenges in life, when we engage in conversation, we learn more about each other. We can see that the challenges a DJ has are not very different from the challenges of a restaurant who suddenly has to cut their capacity of guests by half or down to 25%.
One of the things that David always wanted to do was to find a way to give back to the industry. He says a lot of amazing people mentored him and guided him especially in the early years. Even now, he still looks to these people for help and guidance.
The Benefit Of Doing Live ShowsDavid says that sometimes when you do a podcast, it feels like being on a one-way street. Occasionally, you'll get comments on your podcast or somebody might reach out to you, but the communication is not instant. That’s one of the clear benefits of doing a live show. You can have direct interaction without delay. And that is quite powerful. Another one of the really cool benefits is having a different guest every week. That created a drive in me to keep going out and finding new, interesting people to bring on board.
And number two, I think it's helped me to, understand the importance of kind of this symbiotic relationship where one person is not doing all the talking all the time and make it more of a communication and less of a presentation, if
The Power of PivotingHistorically, we have seen big companies that have gone out of business because they did not pivot. For example, Blockbuster went out because they did not change their business model when Netflix came along. A modern business needs to be able to pivot and adapt to the wants and needs of the customers.
David has stayed relevant within his industry because of pivoting. Through content creation, David has been able to educate people and to engage in healthy conversations on a regular basis. Podcasting and live streaming has given him the opportunity to start laying the foundation and planting the seeds for the future. This concept is the same as if you were making investments. It's not always a direct line from making a podcast to money in your pocket. Rather, it's more of cultivating those relationships and being able to make those connections.
There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend you listen to it. You can connect with David at his website or on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Thanks so much for listening to the Podcast Experiment and for being a part of this community. Special thanks to Richard for being a guest.
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Mark Herschberg is the author of The Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. In this episode Mark shares his approach for podcasting and how he used podcasts as a way to build an audience for his upcoming book.
The Importance of Podcasts
When Mark started writing his book he first reached out to his friend, Dorie Clark. Dorie has written a number of bestselling business books. She said, podcasts, podcasts, podcasts.
If you think about when some big celebrity comes out and they've got a new movie, what do they do? They go on the late night talk show circuits. Podcasts are the standard for authors. Mark approached it very systematically and created a list of over 500 podcasts from the topics in his book.
In the career toolkit, he covers 10 different skills. There's a chapter on networking, a chapter on negotiations, a chapter on leadership. So he had 10 different topics to choose from and then he just looked for top podcasts on each specific topic. And from there he looked on websites.
Marketing on Podcasts
Mark says that he thinks no podcast opportunity is bad. Think of it as follows. If you're doing traditional marketing, you’re likely using Facebook or Google. then you're paying a CPC cost per click. Only a few people might click out of a thousand. But when you're doing a podcast, even if that podcast only has 10 people listening to an episode, you have 10 people who are actively engaged with your content.
That audience is actively listening to you. They hear about your book, your service, or your product. And it's going to register far more than just some ad that popped up in the corner of their screen. So even when there seems to be a tiny number of listeners for the investment of time, you're going to get just much more attention and much more engagement.
Networking Through Podcasting
Mark says that most people think about networking in a very transactional way. They think I need a job, so I have to go network. However, networking is relationship building. And so when you go out and network, don't think of it as I have to go network today to get a job. Build relationships with people so that down the road, when you need a job or something else, then you can reach out to your network.
You're going to want to build that relationship over time. The way you think about doing that is by asking a few questions. What do we have in common? What might be of interest to this person as well as myself? Once you figure that out, you want to do some exploration to understand what is important to this other person. Then you can talk about topics of interest or find activities or common interests for both of you.
There is even more information included in this insightful episode. I highly recommend listening to the entire episode. If you would like to learn more about Mark, you can visit his website here.
If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone you think would also benefit.
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Richard Haiduck is a former life sciences executive and mentor, and is the author of the book, Shifting Gears. In this episode, We will talk about how we can utilize podcasting to help grow our business as well as how you can be a great podcast host and guest.
Go Where Your Audience GoesIt is important to hang out wherever your audience hangs out. That’s a great way to meet them and interact with them. For example, Richard is a part of several Facebook groups for retirees or baby boomers. There are about a dozen different groups focused on this demographic and focused on the topic of what you do during retirement.
He is very active in those groups. Richard is also a guest blogger on websites that have about 200,000 subscribers. Using these opportunities, Richard’s content is broadly distributed.
The Book Writing ProcessRichard says that he interviewed about 75 retirees which gave him approximately 800 pages of transcript. He has a half a dozen interviews about someone who had a spiritual experience and shared about it at a deep emotional level. There are others that are about physical conditioning. There was one individual who ran his 19th marathon and almost did it. And he almost collapsed over the finish line.
Others interviews focused on business, leadership and social impact. Others were about volunteering for organizations. Through the process, Richard was able to cover a lot of different stories and share a variety of perspectives.
Promotion through PodcastingRichard says that he views all promotion is good promotion. So the more different things he can do, the better. He doesn't want to be known as just the Facebook guy or just the LinkedIn guy or just the podcast guy. Rather, he wants to have content available in multiple places simultaneously. It’s important to have a diverse content mix so people can find your content in a variety of ways.
A friend of Richard’s told him to get involved in podcasting. She told him that you just show up, and you tell them what you want to tell them. They take care of everything. She recommended he try it out. So a few months before his book launched, Richard started sending out requests to various podcasters. He also used some organizations that provide leads such as Poddit.
The more podcasts you do, the more practice you get with storytelling. Podcasting is a learning experience. There is even more information included in this insightful episode about reaching your audience, writing a book and promoting a book. I highly recommend you listen to it. You can pick up Richard’s new book, Shifting Gears, here on Amazon. Thanks so much for listening to Podcast Experiment and for being a part of this community. Special thanks to Richard for being a guest.
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Matt Norman is President & CEO of Norman & Associates as well as the author of the book “Four Patterns Of Healthy People”. In addition, Matt’s coaching and facilitation has helped Fortune 100 corporations, nonprofits and entrepreneurial firms to transform the way they engage employees and clients. Today’s episode of Success Road focuses on how to be more healthy.
Matt’s StoryMatt realized we all develop ways of thinking and behaving as an adaption to our environment. And every day we repeat those thoughts and behaviors in order to succeed and maybe even survive in our environment. And one day, it's likely that we realize that those ways of thinking and behaving no longer serve us, well, we realize we're stuck. And so because of that, we have a decision to make, whether we'll remain stuck, or self confront and grow. And because of that, Matt wrote the book, to help people grow into healthier patterns. In addition, the book focuses on how successful people think, relate with others, view themselves and make choices about how they operate.
The Four PatternsThe first pattern is our thought patterns, which is how we think. Then our relationship patterns, which are how we view ourselves. Our relationship patterns are the third, which are our ego patterns. Then fourth is our operating patterns, which is really about the choices we make and about how we engage with our environment.
A good example is with energy. When we're tired, it's hard to have healthy thought patterns. It's harder to relate well with others, as we become less patient. And we also become more self protective, more focused on our own needs, which is when the ego comes into play. So simple things like getting enough sleep, from an operating pattern standpoint can really fuel the other patterns.
The Importance Of SleepMatt mentioned that the Stanford University's sleep Center has produced really interesting research showing that for about 99.5% of the population. This organization says we need to have at least seven hours of sleep on an ongoing basis in order to function properly. In fact, they recommend between seven and nine hours of quality sleep. So a key part of sleep is just making a commitment to get that amount of sleep.
You also have to start asking ourselves how we can optimize the quality of our sleep or ability to go to sleep. Studies show that screens activate parts of our brains and make it harder to enter into REM sleep or just shut down our thoughts. Food and alcohol consumption affect our sleep. So it is important to not eat or drink anything but water before bed. Stretching, for example, or having a nightly routine is really important.
Your body builds circadian rhythms. For example, if one day, you’re waking up at 7am, another day, we're waking up at 5am and then another day at 10am. Your body just doesn't know quite what to do with it. We've all had the experience of going to another timezone where it's hard to fall asleep or wake up at certain times. Keep in mind that circadian rhythms are really a thing.
When Do You Have The Most Energy?There are certainly people that tend to be morning people. There are people that are night owls. And then there are people that have the most energy in the middle of the day. We must know what kind of person we are, so that we can do our most vigilant activities or most thought intensive activities during our most productive time period.
Next StepsWe dive deeper in this podcast into the topic of self-awareness as well as how to have more mental energy. I...
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Emilie Aries is the CEO of Bossed Up, an author, a speaker, and also the host of the Bossed Up Podcast. We discuss pivoting during times of crisis, using a podcast as part of your marketing mix, having an advertiser on your podcast and also the unexpected opportunities that can come your way from podcasting.
Insights From Emilie’s StoryEmilie started as a professional advocate for political campaigns and elections, where she became good at advocating for other people. However, one day realized how hard it is, especially as a woman, to advocate unapologetically on your own behalf. She started Bossed Up where her company has created coaching programs, leadership accelerators, in person training programs. She now works with companies who believe in gender equality to really help further develop their women leaders.
Pivoting During CrisisThe Bossed Up business model was based primarily on live events and workshops. So during 2020 they had to change their business model. All of Emilie’s in-person speaking contracts evaporated. All of the Bossed Up events we had planned for across the country went away and her company had to scrap everything.
Emilie realized that her company had to figure their own way out of these problems. She started to ask questions such as: “How can we offer these services online?” The answer to this question led to the creation of new online offerings. On the whole, Emilies says her business is actually going to be stronger because of Covid-19 forcing rapid innovation into the digital space.
Using A Podcast To Market A BusinessEmily was originally recruited by a very big podcasting network called HowStuffWorks. She was offered the position as host for a major podcast. Then the podcasting network was sold and she found herself out of a job. However, by that point, she already had fallen in love with the medium.
At that time, podcasting really wasn't used for marketing. She decided to create her own podcast: Bossed Up. She thought it was an opportunity to be generous and to serve others well. For anyone who wanted more content or services, she would sell products and services to those individuals.
Creating a Podcast For Marketing PurposesEmilie views using podcasting as marketing as a compromise between her artistic desires and her business requirements. Emilie has a marketing director Kirby. Together they look at the calendar as it relates to their sales goals. When creating the new podcasts, Emilie and Kirby ask, “What kinds of episodes would attract that client? How can we create fun, interesting, informative and high value episodes that also happen to attract the client we're looking for?”
Once they come to a conclusion, then that's the topic that we hammer home for a couple of weeks. There are some exceptions. For example, something might happen in the news that calls for our attention, we kind of stop the presses and focus on those current topics.
Finding Advertisers For Your PodcastEmilie works with an advertising agency, because she is not a full time podcaster. Her role is that of CEO. An advertising agency does the work for her. Emilie admits that she is not sure if it's worth the time. It takes time to research brands and to figure out if they're a great partner for the show. Then they have to read the copy that they send over and then record it, edit it, upload it, and insert it into the podcast. And for all of this work, Emilie says that the company does not make much money.
Finding Opportunities Through PodcastsEmilie got
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Sarah St. John is an entrepreneur, podcaster, author, animal lover, and world traveler. Her goal is to show people how to launch and manage an online business on a budget. https://www.thesarahstjohn.com/about/
Sarah’s Story
Sarah started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2008. She decided that she wanted to work for herself and realized that she liked taking photos of architectural landscapes and animals. She didn't like taking photos of people. But that's where the money was, so was doing portraits and weddings. Over time, she decided to do something online. She tried different things like drop shipping, affiliate, marketing, and all these different things. But it was in the process of trying these different things, she discovered many free or affordable tools and resources that can help you run a business on a budget.
Sarah got the idea to write a book called FrugalPreneur, where she would talk about the different types of online businesses and how you can run them affordably. She decided to start a short-term podcast to coincide with the book.
Sarah realized she was getting more traction leverage from the podcast than the book. So she kept doing podcasts and like just basically fell in love with the medium and the connections I was making.
As she kept podcasting, other people told her that she is pretty good at it. She figured why not get paid to do it for other people? That was the moment Sarah decided to launch a podcast production agency.
Using Giveaways Strategically
Every month Sarah does a new giveaway on her podcast. Most often, the prize is a book that her audience would enjoy. She uses the same url each month, thesarahstjohn.com/giveaway and uses a free tool called King Sumo for the giveaway.
Sarah shares that it is important to giveaway something that's relevant to your audience. For example, if you were to give away an iPhone, well, everyone is going to want that. But as soon as the giveaway is over, like probably 99% of the people who signed up for the prize are going to drop off. So it really helps to giveaway something that your audience would actually like.
What Podcast Production Looks Like
A lot of people might want to start a podcast, or they're thinking about starting a podcast. But many people may find it overwhelming due to technology and the post-production. So when Sarah is working with clients, the client records their podcast episode and then sends it to her. Sarah then does the editing, producing and the mixing.
She then uses a service called Chartable To track podcast statistics. This service gives more information than most other podcast services and then each month she sends a report to each client.
Why Podcasting Is Important For Business
Podcasting is great because it's a way to get your content out there. And Google transcribes podcasts now. So even if you're searching for something in Google, it's a possibility that a podcast might show up. Of course, every podcast directory is a search engine too. In addition, podcasting has a shareability or viral aspect to it, because people will actually share podcast episodes.
When you interview guests or being a guest on someone else’s podcast, you're getting access to that person's audience and you can cross promote. You're reaching people you wouldn't otherwise. Sarah also says that she thinks podcasting is only going to continue to grow and get bigger. In the same way every business needs a website, Sarah says that every
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Jason Osbourn is a LinkedIn coach and consultant with an incredible story. In this episode, he shares how he was involved in a plane crash and how he used that as a catalyst to help him change his life.
Jason’s StoryJason started his first business when he was 20 years old. He sold window coverings. After Jason was involved in a plane crash, Jason decided that he still wanted to go into business. However, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do.
Once he recovered, he started some different things. He transitioned into coaching and a few years later, he moved to Ireland. He realized that he wanted to start an online business where he could do business anywhere in the world, doing something that he loves doing. Jason studied as a life coach, and took a course for that. Within 18 months, he built up an email list of about 9000 people and was coaching people in 13 countries.
A Simple, Powerful ToolJason shared that his most useful tool is a daily journal daily log where he tracks the different things he wants to achieve in his life. His daily log has three sections to it. The first section tracks his daily habits. He tracks health. He tracks finances, LinkedIn and some personal development areas.
And a lot of times people say that it takes 30 days to build to create a habit. But a habit doesn't really form until it becomes second nature. That’s when it is an ingrained habit. Another powerful way to stay on track is to have three clear priorities for the day. Jason does his in the evening. When he knows his top two or three priorities are for the next day, he doesn’t have to think about it in the morning.
A Common ChallengeJason shared how he thinks we often create unrealistic expectations around things in our life. Whenever people start something they often think about all of the positives that are possible. We start thinking about the lifestyle we want. How this opportunity is going to give you money or freedom.
We rarely consider the negatives. We don't think of these things from the beginning. And so we go into a situation infatuated with all the positives. The reality is, as soon as you start doing something new, there is going to be challenges.
A Final WordWe also spoke about the importance of finding the right customers and how to scale your business during this episode. I encourage you to listen to the podcast in its entirety.
If you would like to download the first four chapters of the book Rethink Social Media by clicking here. If you want to connect with Jason personally, you can find him on LinkedIn here.
Thanks to Jason for being a guest on Success Road.
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Lori Olinsky is the author of children’s books such as Being Small (Isn’t So Bad After All) and The Toothfairy’s Tummy Ache. In this episode, she shares the catalyst for her becoming an author and what it is has been like writing several books.
Inspiration to Write a Children’s BookLori always wanted to write a children's book, but she never had the inspiration to do so. She shared that she remembered sitting at coffee shops and just trying to think of a subject and nothing ever hit her. One day when Lori’s daughter was three years old, she came home from school crying. And it turns out, her preschool teachers were redecorating the classroom, and they hung a growth chart in the classroom.
Her daughter was the shortest in the class, all her friends were at the top and the middle of the chart, and she was all the way at the bottom. It was the first time that they realized she was different from them, they would call her names like “Shorty” and “Peanut” and other names that made her feel really upset. Lori’s daughter even went through a phase where she didn't want to go to school. Lori would always tell her all the great things that small kids can do, because she is only 5’1” tall. However, whatever Lori said never resonated with her. So she just went on Amazon and I typed in books about short kids. Nothing came up.
That was Lori’s “aha moment.” She decided that she was going to write this book. And she is going to write it for her daughter and for any parents that are in a similar situation.
The book is called Being Small (Isn't So Bad After All.) It's literally a rhyming picture book about this story of a little girl who doesn't want to go to school because she's the shortest in class.
How Writing One Book Led To Writing OthersLori says she is thankful for the negative experience her daughter went through because it gave her the confidence to write a book. She realized that she can write more books. Her second book is called The Toothfairy’s Tummy Ache. It's another rhyming lesson based picture book. The background for that book is Lori struggled with teaching her daughters how to be honest. Lori and her spouse noticed her kids were sneaking candy up into your room and things like that.
She wanted to teach my girls a lesson on how to be honest. Lori realized who better to do that than the Tooth Fairy? That is someone they look up to and love. And so this book is about a little girl who lies and puts a piece of popcorn under her pillow. Then the story is about what happens to the Tooth Fairy and what happens when we believe a lie.
Connecting With LoriIf you would like to connect with Lori, you can visit loriolinskyauthor.com. Her books are available there as well as on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also connect with Lori on Facebook and Instagram. Lori says that she loves talking to people hearing about their experience and reading my books, I love seeing pictures. Lori also mentions a preview of sorts about her third book which is very different from her other books in this podcast episode, so I encourage you to listen to the full episode.
Thanks to Lori for being a guest on Success Road. I really enjoyed speaking with her, and I’m very excited about the positive impact her books
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Joschka Strakerjahn is the founder of the Launch Your Challenge Podcast and has built a successful business using launches. In this episode, he shares how you too can create a challenge.
Joschka’s StoryCOVID-19 changed everything for Joschka. Over the course of a few days, every one of his clients was gone. He went from running a successful business to having no business at all.
A year or so before Joschka lost his work, he discovered challenges. He saw an ad for a challenge. Joscka signed up, and soon was fascinated with how fast he turned from a complete stranger into a fan. And then he realized the potential of a challenge for businesses to grow and scale.
Starting A ChallengeIn March of 2020, Joschka decided to do a challenge of his own, using paid ads. In just three weeks, he had 4,500 people sign up. That response completely blew him away, and it sold him on doing challenges as a way to create a business.
When Joschka started doing his challenge, he did not have a real online presence. He just has a very simple website, but he didn’t use it very much. He got all of his clients through personal connections. But for his challenge, he got all 4,500 people for his challenge through paid ads on Facebook and Instagram. So don’t overlook the power of paid advertising.
Challenges Faced And Lessons LearnedWhen creating a challenge, the first decision is whether it will be a free challenge or a paid challenge. When you run a free challenge, you can run it with a Facebook group. If it is a paid challenge, you need to create a sales funnel of sorts with a landing page. But it can be very simple.
Joschka says that one of his first mistakes was that he actually had nothing to offer the participants of the first challenge. To avoid this mistake, it is important to go to the offer first, then work backwards from there. If you already have an existing business, you want to base the challenge around a specific need your business already serves. This approach will help you create the right call to action.
Another common challenge is in how to structure the lessons you give to challenge attendees. Joschka shares that he learned you want to structure the lessons in a simple way that serves the needs of the attendees. In most cases, you don’t want to have lessons any longer than 20 minutes.
When challenges are executed properly, you can actually create an entire business based on challenges. You can promote the challenge for three weeks and then on the fourth week do some lessons and at the end of the week, you get more customers. Joschka shared with this flexibility and the use of ads, you can even run multiple challenges at once.
Joscka also expands more on all of these concepts and more in this podcast. I highly recommend you listen to the full episode for more details. In addition, you can connect with him on his website or you can join his Facebook Group.
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I love watching superhero movies. Take the original Avengers movie, for example. You have a conflict that starts when Loki shows up, takes the Tesseract, and starts his plan to take over the world. SHIELD assembles the Avengers for the first time to find and take down Loki. Loki is captured, but soon the SHIELD flying base is attacked, the Hulk goes crazy, Loki escapes, and it looks like the Avengers are defeated.
That’s the point where they step back and regroup to figure out how to make it work now that new variables are introduced.
So what’s the situation that we have here?
There’s a dream to assemble a team of superheroes to save the world. The problem is that these heroes, for the most part, have never worked together before and each one has his own idea of how everything should go. And then there’s a disruption that shakes up everything.
So, they’re at this point of regrouping before they can go back out to face Loki again.
Of course, this is the overall scenario of most superhero movies. But it is also the story of many entrepreneurs as they start and grow their business.
You have a plan to save the world - or at least serve it. You start to assemble a team. As you start to figure things out, then something disrupts the business.
Then it comes time to take a step back and regroup.
That’s where I’ve found myself.
As you’re well aware of, the pandemic and wide-spread shut downs across the country and world have impacted almost every small business. For a long time, I thought that I was doing well with little-to-no impact on my business. But then I lost a couple clients back in the fall - this may have been due to the pandemic, but I’m not entirely sure.
But let me rewind quickly:
Back in January 2019, I left my full-time job to work on growing my business. It had been a side-gig since 2015, slowly growing. It wasn’t enough to live on yet, but I had several potential opportunities that I was hoping would pan out. Some of them did, but most of them did not.
I also made this decision to leave my job with little discussion with my wife. But after I did it anyway, my wife and I laid out a plan and gave 6-12 months to get the business making the money it needed to.
Well, by the summer of 2019, the business had seen some growth - not to where we wanted it to be, but it was showing some good promise.
By the beginning of 2020, the business finances had gotten better and I had a plan to try to get some new clients. The plan, though, was dependent on going to a live event and to utilize networking to get new clients. We all know what happened to live events in 2020, but the first event happened right before everything shut down. The problem was that I am introverted by nature and terrible at networking. I had a few conversations with people I already knew and met a few people, but few that were potential clients.
From there, a couple of other podcast editors and I started a mastermind group and met almost every Friday. From those meetings, I started to develop a plan to delegate more of the day-to-day responsibilities and focus on networking and lead generation. I developed a new, higher end offer and did some work to update the copy on my website. I used a VA to help me reach out to all my connections on Linkedin, but I connected with very few potential clients.
And that’s where I found myself in the fall of 2020. So as I looked at the down-turn in my income and the lack of growth, I was also reminded about the 6-12 month timeframe my wife and I had set. I had a lot of hopes and dreams of growing the business, but only had 50% of the income we planned for.
So after several difficult conversations, we decided that I needed to step back. I’m going back to my previous job, which is a box factory and has only grown throughout 2020, so it will provide a stable income. I’m scaling back my business and focusing just on podcast...
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Today’s episode of Success Road features Lydia Lee. Lydia is the founder of Screw The Cubicle, a movement to inspire people to break free from the shackles of conventional work. Lydia works with talented professionals who want to repurpose their skills towards a more meaningful career.
Lydia’s Story Of Becoming A Business OwnerLydia did not plan on changing careers. In 2012, she experienced a really bad health scare during a business trip in Russia. She had a nervous breakdown and wasn’t able to leave her hotel room for several days. It was during this time that she realized that she wanted more freedom and balance in her life. She did not like bureaucracy and politics. At first, she repackaged herself as a consultant, and her previous employer was her first client. This kind of business is what Lydia calls a low-hanging fruit transition business. Her current business, Screw The Cubicle, was kind of a bit of an accident. It was a blog that she started when she was struggling with her job. And it was also sort of a resource and a place that she would send her mother, friends, and colleagues. Now, seven years later, this is her primary business and is something that she absolutely enjoys.
Common Challenges For Potential Business OwnersLydia says that many people know what they want to do for a business, but they often get tripped up when they ask, ”What’s the next step?” Often the moment someone starts to think too much into the future, the brain starts to imagine all sorts of consequences for quitting their day job.
Another issue is that as humans we want to belong. We want to be liked. So when someone switches careers, after having been in a different career for 15-20 years, and it is common to have your identity tied to your career. So, in many cases, the first challenge is a shift of identity when you pursue something different.
The second obstacle is that it can be hard to imagine other ways to use your skills. Because we are busy living our lives, it's really hard to kind of step out of our own bodies, and observe. We need perspective. We are too close to the situation. It’s hard to think of new opportunities and to be creative when you are focused on the status quo.
Some Common Self Sabotaging HabitsAs you know, we live in a modern digital age. Rarely do we need more information. If anything, we often have too much information. In many cases, the bigger obstacle is getting out of our own way. That sounds sort of simpler, but I think that is actually a great place to take that reflection.
While there are many benefits to technology, it can often become a distraction. When we're about to make a life change, a lot of times we find ourselves browsing online or scrolling, as we look for inspiration. But that inspiration can quickly turn into comparison as we look at other people's lives or other people's businesses. Online, we often put our best profile out there. We're never talking about bad days on Instagram. It is really easy to feel like a loser when we compare ourselves to others.
Lydia also expands more on these concepts and shares why it is so important to not compare our beginnings with someone else’s progress. I highly recommend you listen to the full episode for more details. In addition, you can connect with Lydia on her website. Lydia offers some resources that will help you if you want to start or business or if you just feel unsatisfied in your career.
Thanks so much for listening to Success Road, and special thanks to Lydia for being a guest.
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Today’s episode of Success Road features Sean Rosensteel. Sean is an entrepreneur, speaker and the author of The School Of Intentional Living. This episode focuses on the importance of priorities, boundaries, structure and more.
Sean’s Personal StorySean says that he grew up with a very conventional idea of success. He believed that success was tied to big homes, fast cars, and fancy toys. That was his focus throughout my teenage years. And for most of my twenties and I pursued that conventional definition of success in a negligent way. It led to his bankruptcy, which happened when he was 28 years old, just one month before his wedding.
That was a real wake up call because for the first time he took a little inventory and recognized how unintentionally he had been living. He realized that his financial bankruptcy was actually the least of my concerns. Sean says that he was physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and relationally bankrupt.
Sean realized that he needed to start living intentionally as he was about to get married. He had to make some serious changes in his life.
The Most Important ThingMany people don't know what they want in life. Sean mentioned that he did some little research on the word priorities. The word is actually singular. The word is priority, not priorities. In the 1960s, people started using that as the plural term priorities. But the idea behind the word priority was a singular focus.
To know what it is that we want, we have to set some boundaries and understand the frameworks that work in our life. Sean started to give himself letter grades in the different areas of his life. The letter grades serve as a reminder. Instead of viewing something as 7/10, it is a C. If one part of your life has a D, it is clear that area needs improvement.
Moving Past RoadblocksSean says that his father taught me that complexity is the enemy of success, and he fully bought into that concept. In Sean’s book he talks about lockers. In school, that's that place students place their things. In the real world, lockers could be as simple as a filing cabinet. Inside there could be folders or tabs used to dedicate as space to the areas of life that matter.
But a locker doesn’t hold everything that you need. Sean uses a backpack. He stores his laptop, the book he’s reading, a tablet, water, snacks, and chargers in his backpack. But he takes this concept even further with the work he does on his computer. He considers his phone and project management app to serve as a digital backpack of sorts.
Freedom Through StructureSean shares that the main struggle we all face is one of distraction. And when you have structure in your life, you can best handle distraction. When Sean structured out his calendar and scheduled out his priorities, he found freedom. For example, he schedules family time. Every day, from Monday through Friday from about 5:30 PM until 8:30 PM is uninterrupted family time. He is with his family physically and mentally. His phone goes on do not disturb mode. It is essential to create an environment that supports your success.
Sean expands more on these concepts and shares some practical ways to detail with distraction and also manage your expectations. I highly recommend you listen to the full episode for more details. In addition, you can pick up Sean’s book, The School Of Intentional Living on Amazon or on his personal website.
Thanks so much for...
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