THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE STARTING AN ONLINE BUSINESS

I’ll like to wrap up this series by looking at the 5-6 factors which are the MOST important when starting an online business. I’ll admit if you have NO experience it can be tough, however this is NOT the case anymore because you have so many guidelines you can follow along the way to help you out. For example, if you do a quick search online, you’ll be able to find almost any type of information you need to help you along the way.

It’s awesome what search engines can provide you if your completely lost about your entire process. With that said, let’s look at the following today:

• Learn from Mistakes
• Think Bottom-Line
• Always Test and Tweak
• Be Creative
• Feedback Matters
• Know When to Stop

Just like if you’re a human your going to make mistakes, and you just have to learn from them right? The same can be applied to your business because you are going to make mistakes along the way. You’re just starting out and NO matter how many guidelines you have it’s going to be hard to get everything right the first time around. However, you’ve only failed if you continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. You have to understand why you made certain mistakes, and find ways to correct them going forward because if you don’t the following will happen.

First, you’ll keep pushing yourself down because continued mistakes are bad for business. Secondly, your leaving yourself open for your competition to catch up with you. When you make mistakes, you’ll slow down your progress and allow for your competition to catch up. Next, these mistakes if made over and over again can cost you enormous money going forward. This monetary loss can come in the form of customers or even bottom-line profits.

If you see yourself make a mistake just go back and understand why it was made. You’ll also want to analyse what was the result of your mistake so you can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Here’s the cool thing,

A mistake can be a blessing in disguise because it can teach you a lot about your business. However, the only way you will prosper from these mistakes is if you don’t do them again.

Think Bottom-Line

Here’s one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life I simply didn’t think bottom-line with every decision I made. You have to understand when you start a business online that you are trying to grow customer base, and make money right? It’s important you keep this focus so you don’t stir off track. If you start thinking about other aspects, then you might forget what the main purpose is of your business. In the end, your business is around to make money, and if anyone tells you something different they simply don’t understand economics. I know when you first start out, you’ll have so many things on your mind so forgetting your bottom line happens easily. However, if you can train yourself to think about bottom-line or write on in big letters on your desk, it’ll be much easier to focus on all the time. Next,

Since your trying to reach your bottom-line, you want to make sure you don’t forget about others things which are important i.e. product quality, content, customers, etc.

Testing Makes Perfect

As your business grows you’ll be introducing different channels to your model. For example, you might start to focus on other services, products or even content writing strategies, and it’s important to test what’s resonating with your audience. Keep in mind, the channels which are NOT resonating must be eliminated from your model because it can cost you enormous money to keep them in the loop. This is another reason why you have to keep testing because a bad product can do you more harm then increase your bottom line.

Now the question becomes: How can you test and tweak what’s working? Here’s what I recommend.

• Have a budget ready for testing and tweaking because you’ll need money to find out what’s working. It just like testing different marketing channels because this task will be impossible without having the right cash flow.
• If you are creating a list, it’s important to split test opt-in forms. Remember that every serious blogger will tell you the money is in the list which will help increase the bottom-line.
• Breakdown what’s important to your company because this should be your focus going forward.

In the end, here’s what’s important to me which I think will apply to you too. I look at how the products and services I’m offering help my customers. They are the MOST important commodity to achieve success in any business.

Be Creative

Whenever you are trying different things, you want to be creative in your approach. Apple’s slogan is Think Different, and this can apply to your business too. For example, one of the things I kept doing when starting out was copying my competition. It’s true you can learn a lot from your competition, but if you are NOT doing things differently you will have a hard time getting a competitive edge on them.

I believe it’s very important to be creative and think of ways to be different compared to your competition. This will help you stand out, and even build traction with your audience going forward.

Feedback Matters

Above I have mentioned several times how important your customers are to your success. It was a huge mistake that I didn’t get customer feedback more quickly because I kept making fundamental mistakes over and over again. By simply getting feedback I was able to improve things like my website, products and services. Remember that if your customers build your business, then they have the power to destroy your business. The only way to avoid this is by asking for feedback from them each time they make a purchase. This doesn’t have to be a difficult task because you can do one or both of the following when starting out.

First, you can send them an automatic message when they make an online purchase. This message will include a link to a form which will get feedback from them. Simply create an auto-responder sequence to send a message to customers who have purchased a product or service from you. Next,

If you have manpower, then you can shoot them a quick call to ask them a series of questions on how you can improve their experience. Make sure your questions are direct, and when answered they provide the value you need to improve your products and/or services.

Know When to Stop

The point of every business is to make money, and if you find after months of struggle that you fail to make a profit then you might have to stop what your doing. At this point, you have a few ways to approach this situation. First, you can adjust your strategy to see if it helps product the results you are looking for, or completely shut down the business because you don’t have any other backup plan. Whatever you decide to do it’s important you stay focused and understand the decision you are making will impact your business. For example,

Adding new products or adjusting your strategy may require more of an investment, employees, etc. If you close down your business, then you’ll have to seek employment somewhere else which can be tough for you to do. When I first started a company around 10 years ago it was doing very well in the beginning. This lasted for about 3 years, and then I started to lose enormous money. My emotional attachment with my company forced me to hold on, and I had lost all my money throwing it back into a business model which was NOT producing any results. Here’s the point I’m making

You are in business to make money, and if you feel your business is NOT doing this then it’s time to throw in the towel. DO NOT have an emotional attachment to your business because this will make it much harder for you to pull the plug.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed my series on- Important Things to Consider When Starting an Online Business. I’ll admit I started my business at a time where information was very scarce, and I needed to learn much of it on my own. However, many of you are lucky because you have online resources available which were NOT available to me when I needed them. If you do a quick search online, you’ll be able to find enormous resources to guide you through the entire process. However, here’s the secret when searching online:

First, you have to be as targeted as possible when starting out. Make sure each search you perform is highly targeted so you get the right results back. There is no point looking for information which doesn’t reflect your end goal right? Next,

When you find the handful of blogs you know are relevant to your bottom-line, I would go through them all looking for ways I can network with the blogger. Remember what I said within this series Outreach can build enormous momentum to your quickly. You’re using other peoples traffic by directing them to your blog through value provided within the content you have written. Here’s something funny,

I’m surprised at the amount of people who still fail at providing value through outreach and guest blogging.

We covered enormous information on how to get started, and implement the following strategies. It’s time to go back, and read over the content so you’ll have an easier time applying it into your blogging. I suggest all of you should make quick notes on each element discussed and create a spread-sheet to easily follow what has been implemented. This way when it comes time to analyse what is working, and what not, you’ll be able to follow through easily.

FIVE WAYS TO REFRESH YOUR RELATIONSHIP

A relationship is like a delicate rose bush. If you care for it, it will bloom year after year with unsurpassed beauty. If you don't, you might end up with a dull, lifeless entity that is struggling to survive. Below are five ideas to keep your relationship in bloom for years to come. If you are single, read these tips with an eye on what you will want to do in a long-term relationship. If you are in a relationship, pick one or two of the five ideas and integrate them into your relationship now. You will be amazed at how many nice feelings you can create quickly by taking a few simple steps. 1. Make time for your relationship week after week. Take time for each other every single week. For most couples, it is a good idea to have a standing date night. Communicate to your friends, kids, everyone, that this night is reserved especially for the two of you. Keep the date every week, no matter what. Make it your priority. 2. Do fun, pleasurable things together. Sharing fun and pleasure fosters intimacy. Intimacy is what relationships are all about. Share good meals, share play time, share jokes and funny movies, share outdoor activities. What matters most is that the activity is fun and pleasurable for each of you. 3. Do long-term activities as a couple. Do something long-term together. Learn about investments, take dance lessons, refinish the furniture, reach your fitness goals. Do some long-term activity that will enrich and interest each of you, together. By doing this you will stay connected to each other and foster common ground in the relationship. Make sure that this is above and beyond child rearing. 4. Resolve conflict quickly. It is hard to say you are sorry in the heat of an argument. In some ways it is easier to have a fight and go into your separate corners. But unresolved conflict, or conflict that lingers, fosters long-term hurt and resentment. It's ok to disagree. But it's important to find a resolution quickly. 5. Keep the romance alive. In a long-term relationship, romance is not something that happens automatically most of the time. Everyday pressures and time constraints have a tendency to rob us of spontaneity. Romance needs to be consciously created. Remember that romance will keep your relationship fresh and exciting and will keep the two of you close. Take turns creating romance intentionally.   -  by Rinatta Paries

13 INSTAGRAM TIPS FROM LEADING EXPERTS

Instagram, one of the most successful and interactive social media platforms, is an outstanding marketing and brand-building tool. Its large, active user base offers an excellent opportunity for companies to create a viable customer base.

Instagram is highly competitive, however, with millions of registered business accounts. Therefore, you need to be aware of the right marketing strategies to place your company in people’s eyes and make sales to get favorable results in such a competitive climate.

In this article, you will learn thirteen Instagram marketing tips proposed by leading experts and entrepreneurs with which you can use to grow your business.

Be Strategic With Your Bio Link

Instagram is merely fun and spontaneous for personal use. But, according to Jim Belosic, CEO of ShortStack, if you want to use it as a marketing tool, you have to be a bit more calculating with the tool.

Companies that do extremely well on Instagram schedule their posts well in advance (like Nordstrom, Starbucks, Nike, and others). You can still grow a significant presence on Instagram whether you are a smaller brand or a one-person show.

However, it’s not just businesses and brands that need to focus on their social media marketing efforts and branding, it’s all organizations of all types. To see how this can be best accomplished, take a look at the visual below from the ME to WE organization on Instagram.

Not only did we highlight their use of a social profile link, but also their brand logo and username as well. These other areas will be referenced later on, but are pointed out now to give a clear visual on how a great Instagram profile should look.

Tip: Use your bio link to connect to a landing page that includes the same posts you placed on Instagram that allows you to collect leads, promote your eCommerce site, gain blog subscribers, collect giveaway entries, etc.

Cross-Promote Your Partners

Whenever you can, cross-promote! According to Lisa Karl, partner and founder of Savvy Digital Company, the trend on Instagram is to share love, so to speak, by tagging others or even openly supporting other businesses, products, and services.

The results are threefold: greater visibility for those concerned, increased followers (who tag the companies during visits), and increased local business traffic and sales.

Take Advantage of Trending Hashtags

Users can now find posts linked to trending hashtags using Instagram’s Explore function. According to Jim Tobin, the president of Ignite Social Media and the author of Earn It, if these trending tags are essential to your brand, include them in timely posts to help discovery.

Instagram also introduced the ability to search via emoji on the subject of search. Therefore, if emojis make sense for your brand strategy, make sure you think about how they can be a fantastic channel-appropriate way to communicate what ad copy can’t and how they can help in discovery.

The great thing about using hashtags on IG, is that you can create your own, or pick any that are currently being used or trending. And through the use of the search box, this is extremely easy.

In the example below, you can see how #getresults would likely relate with working out and being motivated. If you or your brand have something related to fitness or health, it’s a great hashtag to include in your updates.

Track Traffic with a Customized Link Shortener

As a marketer, it’s crucial to know how your Instagram account drives traffic and leads back to your website. Sadly, when users visit your website from their mobile Instagram account, Google Analytics can’t track this traffic accurately.

Use a personalized bit.ly link (or a link from another shortener) specifically for the URL in your Instagram bio to track accurate click rates. With that, you can check your bit.ly data to know how many clicks are sent to your website via your Instagram account.

And as highlighted at the beginning of the article in the screenshot of the WE to ME (WE Charity) social profile, they are using a Linktree URL page and shortener as their profile link.

According to Jenn Herman, a social media trainer, writer, and Instagram advocate, you should create a separate bit.ly link each time you adjust the link for a new landing page, campaign, or default page to continuously track active traffic leads.

Drive Instagram Users into Your Marketing Funnel

Most brands need to engage in follow-up marketing on Instagram, but it’s only one step in the overall marketing Asking for it is one of the easiest ways to catch email from your followers.

Share a picture, add a caption and a call to action, attractive and compelling enough to get users to click the link in funnel. Consider identifying ways to collect your followers’ emails to drive your users down the funnel further. your bio to download an ebook or subscribe to your newsletter.

According to Ross Simmonds, founder of Foundation Marketing, Hustle & Grind, and Crate, if the customer takes this action, you will have the capacity to communicate with them on a one-to-one basis and take the connection to the next level.

Tip: Create a dedicated landing page tailored specifically for this purpose.

Mix Videos and Photos

According to Sarah Quinn, a copywriter for content marketing agency Wyzowl, her hottest Instagram marketing trick is to mix up her posting strategy by including images and videos.

Bringing all of these elements and content types together is ideal for big name brands that want to appeal to the needs of their users. ESPN is a perfect example of a brand that is loading their IG stream with images, quotes, videos and more.

It’s a powerful tool used to engage fans, grow followers, and drive traffic, considering that a video can produce three times more inbound links than written posts. As marketers, you know that Instagram is about visual storytelling, but you can bring your story to life with a video. Leverage Sponsored Ads According to Stuart Elleray, social media manager for Coca-Cola GB and Fanta GB, one of the hottest marketing tips for Instagram right now will be to look for access to the ever-growing paid feature on the website. Instagram sponsored ads are becoming a regular occurrence on Instagram users’ timelines, whether it’s one ad or multiple ads using the carousel feature. This is offering brands a whole new dimension to reach their audience. Before, only individuals following the account could see photo updates, but now, brands can advertise them to everyone within their target audience. Direct Users to Your Most Valuable Content Although Instagram now gives advertisers the option to add clickable links to their carousel posts, URLs in photo descriptions are still not clickable. Thankfully, there’s a way to get around this so that marketers can steer followers to their most valuable content. According to Bryden McGrath, senior social media coordinator at Precor, you can use the link portion of your Instagram account’s bio. You may choose to guide users to a permanent page such as your website’s homepage or blog. But linking to your most recent material, whether it’s an essay, blog post, or promotion, is an even better choice. Shoot Square According to Peg Fitzpatrick, speaker, social media strategist, and co-author of The Art of Social Media, the richness of your Instagram feed is as good as the quality of your images. So starting with high-quality images makes your Instagram marketing more effective. Shooting square images is one of the easiest ways to save time and compose better photos for Instagram. This is in the settings of many digital cameras and smartphones, so it’s straightforward to do. This helps you save time on cropping and guarantees that no later cropping of the picture’s critical elements. Tip: Taking photos inside the Instagram app can be restricting. But you can use the SmugMug team’s Camera Awesome on iPhone (also available for Android users). Use Sponsored Posts According to Richard Lazazzera, a content manager at Shopify and founder of A Better Lemonade Stand, the number one Instagram strategy for getting massive exposure and creating a large audience is to find major Instagram accounts that are already catering to your demographic and pay for sponsored posts. The reality is that tens of thousands of Instagram accounts are built solely to sell featured shout-outs to businesses and brands. Many times, in a range of niches such as health, fitness, cars, sports, fashion, nutrition, and many others, one person runs multiple accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers. If you find one that targets and follows your ideal audience, Instagram will show you “similar accounts. If there’s an email address in the profile, you’ll know these accounts allow paid sponsored content. It will usually say something such as “For Business Inquiries.” Tip: If you choose to work with a particular account, make sure that you check their previous posts to see what form or style of images get the most engagement, and remember this when designing your ad image and copy. Develop an Editorial Calendar According to Christian Karasiewicz, Social Business Manager at IBM and founder of Social Chefs, to transition from a laptop to using a mobile device for posting new content, he suggests making an editorial calendar. To schedule your Instagram updates, you use your editorial calendar once. All you need to do is curate and post your content to Instagram. Batch content is great because it saves time. You can choose to add these tasks to your list of tasks, post them from the native Instagram app, or use some of the available scheduling tools. The great thing about using this method is that you’ll be able to scale it up to meet your business’s demands as your business grows and you use Instagram more. Make Graphics Share-worthy According to Poppie Pack, a senior designer and social media manager at Canva, combining photos with captions is an efficient way of reaching the audience. He said they combine striking graphics with a piece of shareable material, such as an inspirational quote or a practical design tip, for Canva’s #dailydesigntips. Tip: Complete the picture with a comprehensive caption and relevant hashtags, and the whole combination results in a persuasive post filled with nuggets of information. Partner with Instagram Influencers According to Kate Talbot, content marketing manager for Revfluence, you need to find influencers inside your particular vertical who will highlight your products in a fun and creative way. All verticals, including fashion, beauty, health and wellbeing, home decor, food, and more, are represented by more than 40,000 Instagram influencers. Modern-day celebrities are Instagram influencers and produce high-quality digital content. They have a broad base of followers and are trusted with their views on the latest goods and trends. Align your brand with the right influencers, and you can boost brand recognition and the reach of followers. Tip: If you choose to work with an influencer, Ensure the Instagram post of the influencer contains your brand’s handle. The influencer can either tag your brand name in a photo or copy. Ask the influencer also to include some necessary calls to action. Shop Now or Learn More on our Website are traditional calls to action in Instagram marketing.  Final Thoughts There’s no better way than to be involved on Instagram to step up your business game. The site is continually making updates, so people and organizations can get more out of it. Plus, apart from Instagram itself, there are strategies to improve organization, interaction, and exposure. Explore these tools and tips and see the ones that work best for you and your business.

TREND #5: THE RISE OF UBER-SHORT VIDEO

I’m talking TikTok (up to 60 seconds), FB Stories (up to 20 seconds), Instagram Stories (up to 15 seconds) & Instagram stories, and Instagram Reels (15 or 30 seconds).

I’ve been saying for years that we’re now in an Attention Economy where those who can get and keep attention win.

$69.7 billion dollars a year are invested in ads on Facebook and Instagram alone because those platforms have a captured a huge percentage of the world’s attention.

And short form video is one way to get a LOT more attention.

The short format means that you have precisely 1 second to stop viewers in their tracks (as they’re swiping through stories) and hook them in — usually through gestures, movement, costume, appearance, action, location, things that move faster than language…

With the end goal of follows and shares.

However these uber-short videos are usually forgotten as soon as they’re shared… and even the most virally shared videos like Ocean Spray Guy are gone within a few days.

In October, Ocean Spray Guy posted a short video of himself skateboarding on Tiktok, drinking Ocean Spray cranberry juice and vibing to Fleetwood Mac. It got millions of views and shares… 

Fleetwood Mac made their own video remake of it.

And the Ocean Spray company gave him a free truck, filled with their product. But when you look at Google Trends, a few days later the attention was almost gone…

So the way to use short format videos is not to hope for a viral hit — since virality is notoriously difficult to manufacture — but to use the short format to maintain contact with your existing audience while growing that audience through shares.

It’s well known that there’s a psychological tendency to form social relationships with people who are physically close to us… and I believe that consistent communication through things like short form video creates this sense of physical closeness even in a virtual relationship. And that builds the know, like and trust factor that leads to sales. 

TREND #4: THE DEATH OF THE DABBLER

With more opportunity and more competition, it’s not enough just to play the game. You have to play the game to win.

With so much competition and the challenge in finding your audience online, you have to double down and go all in if you’re going to succeed and take a spot on the bench as a real player.

Because the middle is dropping out, it’s easy to stay stuck at the starting gate, especially if you’re not 100% in.

If you’re not fully aligned and on your mark, you won’t make it on the bench.

So on the one hand the old guard is stepping down and new spots are opening up, and on the other hand it’s becoming harder to grab those spots unless you specialize (Trend #2) and develop real internet marketing savvy (Trend #4).

The internet used to be the place where a “newbie” could become “internet famous” literally overnight. And while that’s DEFINITELY still possible… it now takes real commitment and chops to build an audience and grow your business online.

There is no silver bullet. You have to put in the time, learn proven strategies to succeed (or as I like to say, be the scientist in the experiment lab of your business) and go all in.

TREND #3: THE DECLINING "INTERNET MIDDLE CLASS."

As often happens when markets get more crowded and more sophisticated, some people win and some people lose. Because with more opportunity, comes more competition.

And competition has never been fiercer on all the major online platforms — especially Google, Facebook and Instagram.

Ask anyone who runs a Facebook ad agency and they’ll tell you that it’s getting harder and harder to get a significant return on ad spend (ROAS). I often tell my students that they need to be prepared to blow at least $10K on Facebook ads (if not a whole lot more) before they see any real return.

The same goes for getting listed on the first page of Google or getting views, clicks and comments on social media…

While it IS still possible, it’s harder and harder to “get lucky” on talent and charisma alone. You have to develop a highly specialized skill set and give each platform what its specific algorithm wants.

Which means that, with some notable exceptions, the businesses and individuals with deeper pockets, deeper connections or deeper marketing chops are winning the internet… and the middle is dropping out.

The big players are either getting bigger or stepping off the field as savvy new competitors leap onto the bench to take their place. So don’t despair — if you’re reading this article — you still have the opportunity to get on the bench if you’re willing to learn the skills you need to succeed online — not just through talent and charisma, but through smarts and savvy.

TREND #2: ULTRA-DIVERSIFICATION

With previously offline events — and even entire industries — going online, many people have access to opportunities and experiences that they couldn’t participate in before.

That means work and business is going even more global and audiences are becoming more diversified.

While our year long Momentum program has always had a global participant base with students from England, France, Germany, Australia and Japan, we now have students participating from further flung countries like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Macedonia.

The internet has always promised a global audience, but that promise is being realized in a way that has never been done before. Local options are largely disappearing and customers are going online to find new options. That means that new global markets are opening up and expanding our customer bases.

That also means there’s an opportunity for greater specialization — for new players to step into vacancies in the market and serve audiences better (or differently) than they were currently being served.

For example, Momentum student, Candas Ifama Barnes was asked by Deaf Access Solutions to deliver a virtual workshop on “Voice Interpreting in a Virtual Setting” and a full 45% of the participants filled out an interest form to take the next steps with her after.

And she posted this on Facebook: “I’m excited because this workshop confirmed for me an extra special sauce I bring to what I’m teaching. Over 90% of the certified members of my profession are white and most are women. Black, Latina/o/x, Asian and Indigenous interpreters have been routinely disregarded, disrespected and dishonoured. The treatment is not unlike what we know has happened to people who are not white in basically every profession.

After many years of being sick and tired of hearing excuses about why it’s been this way, I set out on a conscious mission to make a difference and it’s happening. We have a long way to go but I am more convinced than ever.

Today I got further confirmation about why we must increase the numbers of qualified and excellent Interpreters of Colour. It MUST happen so Deaf and hard of hearing people of colour can tell their stories and have unfettered access to whatever they desire.”

This is an example of Ultra-Diversification at work. It’s long been said that the internet is the great equalizer, but now that the established order is giving way, there are more and more opportunities for new voices to emerge and people to choose exactly who they want to do business with.

Circumstances are causing many people to lose their livelihood and become online entrepreneurs for the first time, there’s a HUGE need (and opportunity) to niche down, specialize, differentiate, claim your “one thing” and turn up the dial on your self-expression so you can be heard above the noise of billions of people clamouring to be heard online.

No matter who you are and what you do, there’s an audience for you.

But — and this is a HUGE BUT — in many ways, it’s becoming more challenging to find that audience.

STEPS TO DETECT AND STOP SECRET SELF-SABOTAGE

It's a little known - yet much denied fact - that people treat you the way you secretly ask to be treated.  Your unspoken request that determines how others behave toward you is extended to - and received by - everyone you meet. What is your invisible inner life?  It's the way you actually feel - as opposed to the way you're trying to appear - when meeting any person or event. In other words, your invisible inner life is your real inner condition.  It's this state of internal affairs that communicates with others long before any words are exchanged.  These silent signals from your inner self are what a person receives first upon meeting you.  The reading of them determines from that point forward, the basis of your relationship.  This unseen dialogue that goes on behind the scenes whenever two people meet is commonly understood as "sizing one another up." But here's the point of this introduction.  We're often led to act against ourselves by an undetected weakness that goes before us - trying to pass itself off to others - as strength. This is secret self-sabotage. It sinks us in our personal and business relationships as surely as a torpedo wrecks the ship it strikes. Any person you feel the need to control or dominate - so that he or she will treat you as you "think" you should be treated - will always be in control of you and treat you accordingly.  Why? Because anyone from whom you want something, psychologically speaking, is always in secret command of you. It would never dawn on any person to want to be more powerful or superior to someone else unless there was some psychic character within him or her that secretly felt itself to be weaker or lesser than that other individual. Any action we take to appear strong before another person is actually read by that person as a weakness.  If you doubt this finding, review the past interactions and results of your own relationships.  The general rule of thumb is that the more you demand or crave the respect of others, the less likely you are to receive it.  So it makes no sense to try and change the way others treat you by learning calculated behaviours or attitude techniques in order to appear in charge.  Stop trying to be strong.  Instead, start catching yourself about to act from weakness.  Don't be too surprised by this unusual instruction.  A brief examination reveals its wisdom.   Following are ten examples of where you may be secretly sabotaging yourself while wrongly assuming you're strengthening your position with others. 1. Fawning before people to win their favour. 2. Expressing contrived concern for someone's well being. 3. Making small talk to smooth out the edges. 4. Hanging onto someone's every word. 5. Looking for someone's approval. 6. Asking if someone is angry with you. 7. Fishing for a kind word. 8. Trying to impress someone. 9. Gossiping. 10. Explaining yourself to others. The next time you feel yourself about to give in to any of the above behaviours, give yourself a quick and simple internal test.  This test will help you check for and cancel any undetected weakness that's about to make you sabotage yourself. Here's what to do: Run a pressure check. Here's how: Come wide awake and run a quick inner scan within yourself to see if that remark you're about to make, or the answer you're about to give without having been asked for it, is something you really want to do. Are you about to speak because you're afraid of some as yet undisclosed consequence if you don't? Your awareness of any pressure building within you is proof that it's some form of fear - and not you - that wants to do the explaining, fawning, impressing, blabbing, or whatever the self-sabotaging act the inner pressure is pushing you to commit. Each time you feel this pressurized urge to give yourself away, silently but solidly refuse to release this pressure by giving in to its demands.   It may help you to succeed sooner if you know that fear has no voice unless it tricks you into giving it one.   So stay silent.  Your conscious silence stops self-sabotage. - By Guy Finley

PLANNING: DEFINITELY REQUIRED

Planning isn’t sexy or exciting. But what I’ve learned in my many years around the sun is that if you want to reach goals, level up, and have the life you dream of:

• you must be resilient
• you must embrace the pivot
• you must be consistent with a plan

That sounds like a tall order so let’s break it down a little bit.

First, Let’s Talk About You

How well do you bounce forward (instead of back) when you experience change? Sometimes we accelerate with change, and sometimes it knocks us flat on our backsides. What makes those experiences different? Why don’t we pivot consistently? Resilience is your ability to bounce forward (instead of back), to take life head on, and to make the most of pivots in life- to find opportunity in the obstacles. So, to answer those questions, the reason we don’t pivot consistently is because we lack resilience- and a huge part of resilience is having a plan.

Putting Your Foot Down

I recently chatted with Sam Glover, recovered attorney, author, and Founder of Lawyerist. Sometimes, putting your foot down means you walk from a law career and sometimes it means you stop accepting less than you’re worth in other situations. But either way, part of resilience is just deciding that you’ve reached a point where you can no longer accept the status quo and you’ve been called to make a change.

Initiating A Pivot

Putting your foot down also means you will most likely be initiating a pivot in your life. And that pivot, if you want it to be sustainable and successful, needs a plan. It’s important to take a moment and decide what you want next (not the next 10-years… take it one baby step at a time!) That alone will highlight or open paths to get you to that next stop on your journey. For Sam, this meant closing a successful practice in search of a life more fulfilled and aligned with his own values, which happened to be Lawyerist, something he had been building on the side for several years.

If you have no idea what your next step is, you very well might miss the path.

“I showed up in law school without a clear reason for being there. I didn’t have a mission. I didn’t have a grand thing I wanted to do. And this stayed with me the entire time I practiced. My firm went through several iterations until I eventually shut the doors. I didn’t have a plan.” -Sam Glover

Pivoting In Purpose

The plan can be your enemy because there needs to be a foundational start point, a purpose or higher calling. It is so difficult to get up every single day and pour into something that’s lacking a heart-based higher purpose. When you pivot in your purpose, you will find that the planning side of things is much easier because you aren’t only relying on your head to guide you- you also have your heart.

Taking Action

Making a plan will make you more resilient. This might be the pivot you are missing. Imagine your next step and then list 3 ways you might get there. If you don’t change anything, the same things will keep happening. You’ll still feel the same anxiety or the stress or the fatigue. I used to dread Sundays because they were the thing that led to Mondays. That would still be true if I hadn’t made my own pivots into my purpose. One of the questions Sam answers most often is how to gracefully and safely get out of doing work that doesn’t feel good but provides security. Which really confirms for me that the need for this information on purpose and pivoting and resilience is so timely and necessary.

TOP PLACES TO START TURNING YOUR LIFE AROUND

Sometimes the changes we would like to make in our lives are so far-reaching that the mere thought of them overwhelms us. We become frozen with fear and are unable to make a start. Remember, though, that one thing leads to another. If you start to change just one area of your life,  the next will be easier, and then the next and the next. Here are ten possible places to start:

 

1. You as a person.
What do you like about yourself? Not like? How can you change it?  (Hint, if you're not sure what needs to be changed, take a look at what you try to keep hidden from others.)

 

2. Your thinking.
Your unconscious takes orders from the programming you give it. Do you limit yourself? Talk negatively to yourself? Find all the reasons why not? Instead, become self-aware so that you catch your negative self-messages and refuse them. Then turn them around and make them into positives.

 

3. Attitude.
This is often an outward manifestation of our thinking. It is what others see. Would you want to be on the receiving end of what you offer to the rest of the world? If not, why should other people? Perhaps, instead of waiting for the world to change, you could try making the first move.

 

4. Associates.
Who do you spend your time with? Are they people you are proud to know? Do you justify your choice of friends by praising how non-judgmental they are, when actually they just have no standards? Are they people you would be glad to see your family or your work associates spend time with? If not, what are you getting out of the relationships? Is it time for a change?

 

5. Spare time.
How do you spend it? Does it enrich you or numb you? Do you use it to contribute or to consume? When did you last do something just because doing it made you feel joyous, proud, excited, and just plain GOOD?

 

6. Work.
Are you proud of what you do? Do you enjoy it? Or do you dread going to work and spend the weekdays counting the time to the next weekend?

 

7. Surroundings.
Do your surroundings make you smile when you walk into a room? Do they reflect how good you feel about yourself? Have you added flowers, frills, colors, or whatever lifts your spirit when you look at it? Or are you surrounded by piles and stacks of stuff just waiting to be sorted, folded or put away? How much energy does just thinking about this stuff take from you every day?

 

8. Eating habits.
Do you use food to contribute to your health and wellness or to numb yourself? Have you tried keeping a food diary for just one week? Anyone who reads, or watches TV has to know by now what is good for us. How can we disrespect ourselves by not making good use of that knowledge?

 

9. Exercise.
Ditto. Do you put more effort into maintaining your car or other transportation than into maintaining your body? We don't have to run a marathon or win an Olympic gold in order to work at maintaining the machine that we expect to carry us throughout our lives. There are so many ways to keep fit today that anyone can find something they can do, even if it is just(!) running up and down stairs instead of using the elevator.

 

10. Consumption.
As we look at the fragility of the earth, and the limited sources of what we consume, are we doing the best we can for what our grandchildren will inherit? Or are we selfishly choosing to make our own temporary convenience more important than the quality of future lives?

- by Diana Robinson 
 

TREND #2: ULTRA-DIVERSIFICATION.

With previously offline events — and even entire industries — going online, many people have access to opportunities and experiences that they couldn’t participate in before.

That means work and business is going even more global and audiences are becoming more diversified.

While our year long Momentum program has always had a global participant base with students from England, France, Germany, Australia and Japan, we now have students participating from further flung countries like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Macedonia.

The internet has always promised a global audience, but that promise is being realized in a way that has never been done before. Local options are largely disappearing and customers are going online to find new options. That means that new global markets are opening up and expanding our customer bases.

That also means there’s an opportunity for greater specialization — for new players to step into vacancies in the market and serve audiences better (or differently) than they were currently being served.

For example, my Momentum student, Candas Ifama Barnes was asked by Deaf Access Solutions to deliver a virtual workshop on “Voice Interpreting in a Virtual Setting” and a full 45% of the participants filled out an interest form to take the next steps with her after.

And she posted this on Facebook: “I’m excited because this workshop confirmed for me an extra special sauce I bring to what I’m teaching. Over 90% of the certified members of my profession are white and most are women. Black, Latina/o/x, Asian and Indigenous interpreters have been routinely disregarded, disrespected and dishonoured. The treatment is not unlike what we know has happened to people who are not white in basically every profession.

After many years of being sick and tired of hearing excuses about why it’s been this way, I set out on a conscious mission to make a difference and it’s happening. We have a long way to go but I am more convinced than ever.

Today I got further confirmation about why we must increase the numbers of qualified and excellent Interpreters of Colour. It MUST happen so Deaf and hard of hearing people of colour can tell their stories and have unfettered access to whatever they desire.”

This is an example of Ultra-Diversification at work. It’s long been said that the internet is the great equalizer, but now that the established order is giving way, there are more and more opportunities for new voices to emerge and people to choose exactly who they want to do business with.

Circumstances are causing many people to lose their livelihood and become online entrepreneurs for the first time, there’s a HUGE need (and opportunity) to niche down, specialize, differentiate, claim your “one thing” and turn up the dial on your self-expression so you can be heard above the noise of billions of people clamouring to be heard online.

No matter who you are and what you do, there’s an audience for you.

But — and this is a HUGE BUT — in many ways, it’s becoming more challenging to find that audience.