Podcasts about 'kay

"Başkomser Nevzat deyince akla aşkların en güzeli gelir, Evgenia gelir, Türk Sanat Müziği gelir ama mutlaka Müzeyyen Senar gelir." diye anlatıyor Ahmet Ümit... NTVRadyo Bayram özel programında Başkomser Nevzat'ın sevdiği, kitaplarında yer eden şarkıları çalıyor. Kavim Müzeyyen Senar - Kimseye Etmem Şikayet Müzeyyen Senar - Ağlarım Ben Halime İstanbul Hatırası Zeki Müren - Yine Bir Sızı Var İçimde Beyoğlu'nun En Güzel Abisi Zeki Müren - Rüzgar Söylüyor Kırlangıç Çığlığı Müzeyyen Senar - Bir İhtimal Daha Var Safiye Ayla - Batan Gün Kana Benziyor Müzeyyen Senar - Fikrimin İnce Gülü En son ramanı 'Kayıp Tanrılar Ülkesi'nden bir pasajla veda ediyor... Herkese iyi dinlemeler.

Author Adam Kay's best selling book “This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor” gave readers a unique insight into the life of a medical professional and was the bestselling narrative non-fiction title of the decade. Adam Kay joined Mark on Friday's edition of The Hard Shoulder to talk about his new book  'Kay’s Anatomy: A Complete (and Completely Disgusting) Guide to the Human Body'. Can the human body be demystified for children and adults alike?

This week Ryan spoke to bestselling author Adam Kay on his new book 'Kay’s Anatomy'; Mary Noonan on finding hope after the tragic death of her daughter Eimear; Stephen Fry on his latest Greek odyssey; And historian Donal Fallon on the Irish origins of Halloween.

This week Ryan spoke to bestselling author Adam Kay on his new book 'Kay’s Anatomy'; Mary Noonan on finding hope after the tragic death of her daughter Eimear; Stephen Fry on his latest Greek odyssey; And historian Donal Fallon on the Irish origins of Halloween.

Nüfusu sıfıra inmiş hayalet şehirleri anlattığımız ''Kayıp Şehirler'' serimizin ilk konuğu Pripyat şehri. Elli bin nüfusu ile refah içinde yaşarken bir günde hayatı kaçık bir uykuya çeviren Pripyat ve Çernobil kazasının hikayesini dinlemek için buyrun bölüme!Bölüm notları ve daha fazlası için WWW.HKBUPODCAST.COMSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/hkbupodcast)

It wasn't supposed to end like this, but it did. This is the final episode of the season and the final episode of Oxtoby Revolution! In this episode Nat & D-M discuss: Lockdown activities and how we've kept in touch with different issues affecting the women's game Rich's thoughts on the season Our 'top ten' Bristol City WFC events, off and on the pitch, for the 19/20 season. Other Things mentioned: The Football Collective https://footballcollective.org.uk and especially https://footballcollective.org.uk/2020/05/04/50-years-since-corinthian-nomads-versus-dundalk-ladies-england-v-ireland/ Women's Football Weekly Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/7I0bKjJYFalrEimtyutg2o 'Covid-19: Reflections on threat and uncertainty for the future of elite women’s football in England' - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23750472.2020.1766377 Apologies to Katie Whyatt for calling you 'Kay'! Thanks to Annie Gardiner for theme music, to Shahan for the amazing edit! Thanks for listening! Vixens 'til we die! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bcvixencast/message

FREE DOWNLOADSDatenightconversations.comMarriageprayerchallenge.comparentingprayerchallenge.com “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” - Ephesians 4:1 How do I become more selfless in my marriage?What are some Tips for consistency in communication within marriage to build intimacy?How do we live for God together...my husband never really been to church Etc?How do you work through disagreements on hobbies? IE motorcycles?How do you keep chasing dreams God's call you to, when your spouse is in a totally negative place?Do you still struggle with trusting your husband? Speaking about p 0rn and how can you battle thoughts?What is your number one advice to couples struggling?READ TRANSCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna answer some questions from the community about not seeing eye-to-eye in marriage. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life-- Love-- And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God-- Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. This is gonna be a Q&A episode where we polled our community and we got a buncha questions about a specific topic, which is not seeing eye-to-eye, and we're gonna answer those in a bit. But first, before we get into that, Jennifer, is there anything new going on in your life? Is there anything you wanna chat with me about? [Jennifer] I love chatting with you. Something that I wanted to share, that's been on my heart for our listeners, is just something that I been doing intentionally with a girlfriend of mine and that is discipleship and it's going really well, we meet bi-weekly. And the reason that I wanted to bring it up is because I think so often we can go about our days and our times and our schedules and just focus on what is at hand and what we need to do and sometimes we forget about discipleship or mentorship or how we impact other peoples' lives. And I just think it's really important for us to consider, you know, who's that older, more mature Christian in our life that we can glean from? So, someone we can be spending time with that will fill us up that will maybe speak truth into our life or see something that isn't going the way it should be and call it out in us or maybe we can go to them for a question. And then, who's that person who is younger than you that you can reach out to and have an impact in their life? You know, be that person for them. Toward God. Yeah. Encouraging them. Yeah. So, I just, I'm bringing it up because it's been going so well in my personal life that I just thought, "Man, if they're not thinking about this, "I want them to be thinking about this." [Aaron] Well, and it's a, we've talked about this in past episodes, about the necessity of community and walking with each other and our ministries in other people's lives. Yeah. [Aaron] Just the importance of we're not autonomous creatures, we're part of a body, and God's given us gifts that must be used to glorify Him and to mutually build up the Church and to encourage each other and to bless each other, so. [Jennifer] And sometimes our flesh can get in the way, you know, those insecurities where we go, "Oh, it'd be really nice to spend time with that person." But then we answer for them, right? We go, "Oh, they're too busy." Or, "They can't." Or, "I don't know"-- You're really good at this, aren't you? "I don't know what to say." Answering for people. Answering for people, yeah. And you've drawn me out of this. But my encouragement to that person is don't answer for that person but surrender to God, pray about your desire to build that relationship up, and then have the courage to just ask. And if they say, "I can't at this time," receive it and say, "Okay," and pray about, maybe, who else you can engage with in that way. But chances are, they're gonna be thrilled to hear from you. [Aaron] Yeah, I've been through something very similar. Not necessarily, I don't have a scheduled meeting with a single person each week or every other week, but I've been trying to intentionally meet regularly with all the men from our fellowship. Mainly to get to know them more, to get into deeper relationship with them, to be encouraged by them. But also to, yeah, disciple. And we're called to make disciples, we're called to walk with each other and sharpen each other, as iron sharpens iron. If we're not doing that and we're just kind of going about our day and, yeah, we see 'em at church on Sundays and then we leave and we have dinners every once in awhile, but if there's no intentional, like, "'Kay, I actually want to be in this person's life, "lifting them up to the Father, "and I want someone in my life doing that for me," we're kind of missing out on a huge part of what it means to be a believer, so. That's a great encouragement for everyone listening. Yeah. So, before we get into the questions, we wanna tell everyone about our free things that we have to offer you guys. We've made a bunch of resources now that I feel like they keep compiling, like, we're making more and more. 'Cause we get an idea and then we're like, "Okay, "let's make it and let's give it to everyone," so. [Jennifer] And I gotta admit, I'm the one that pushes for the new ones because I want you guys who have already been through, maybe, some of the ones that we've been offering to jump into the new one, which, the newest one we just launched is the Parenting Prayer Challenge, which, oh my gosh, I'm so excited about. [Aaron] Yeah, it's a totally free email challenge and essentially, we send you an email every day for 31 days giving you a prayer prompt for a specific area of your child's life, either your son or your daughter, and it's a reminder every day. [Jennifer] And it doesn't matter what age your kids are because it could be for your infant all the way up to your adult-- Your kids that are out of the house. Children, yeah. [Aaron] And you can get that at parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word. It's totally free, you should go sign up today if you haven't. And just a quick note on the other ones, we have a free download called Date Night Conversations. It's a list of 52 conversation starters. You can get that at datenightconversations.com, one word. And then the last one is Marriage Prayer Challenge. It's similar to the Parenting Prayer Challenge, but it's for your marriage. Prayer's best. [Aaron] Yeah, you can sign up to pray for your wife or you can sign up to pray for your husband and we send you a prompt every day for 31 days. So, get those, those are completely free. [Jennifer] All right, so we are moving on to today's topic, which, we're doing a Q&A. We already polled the community from social media. We usually do this on Instagram, so if you're not already following, be sure to follow @marriageaftergod. You can also follow me @unveiledwife for some more wife encouragement and then @husbandrevolution for more husband stuff. [Aaron] And we'd love for you to be following us on Instagram so that you can see the behind the scenes stuff in our life. When we do the polls, we'd love for you to participate in those. We look at all those questions that you guys give us. [Jennifer] So, what we do is we poll you guys, we ask you to submit your questions, and then we use those to order these Q&As. [Aaron] Sometimes the questions are not all in the same category, but if we find enough in a category, we're like, "Oh, that's what we're gonna talk about." And so, we try and answer those. And we also always wanna start with: we don't have all the answers. Yeah. That's a funny way to start out a Q&A. We don't. We know this. [Aaron] We will answer to the best of our abilities, we will answer based off of things we've experienced and, as always, we're gonna try and, to the best of our abilities, point back to scripture. We don't always do that well either, but that's our heart because we know that the Word of God is the Word of God; it's perfect and we know that everything that we order our life by should be ordered by it. And so, we try, to the best of our ability, to do that, so. [Jennifer] So, today's kind of overarching topic is not seeing eye-to-eye in your marriage, which can play out in a lotta different ways, but I would also label this as disunity. So, this idea of not being unified-- [Aaron] Right, not on the same page. [Jennifer] Not on the same page in marriage. [Aaron] Which is that, the analogy of not seeing eye-to-eye, that we're unbalanced, you know, one's higher, one's lower, and so you're not seeing in the same space. And so, you have the, unity is a huge thing for marriage. And I'm sure that many marriages don't even struggle with this, right? Like, this is a unique issue in-- [Jennifer] I'm gonna correct Aaron, I'm gonna correct that. [Aaron] We're not gonna see eye-to-eye on this. [Jennifer] I think every marriage encounters this. Yeah. A lot, actually. Every human relationship. Yeah. [Aaron] In the history of human relationships. [Jennifer] Because we're all different heights. [Aaron] Like, it started in the Garden of Eden. You look at Adam and Eve. Come on, guys. [Aaron] Eve was like, "Oh, it does look good to eat." And Adam's like, "All right." No, just checkin'. [Aaron] And just, from the very beginning, not seeing eye-to-eye. But that's what we're gonna talk about today. There's quite a few questions, so why don't you start off reading some scripture? Okay. So, we're gonna dig into Ephesians 4 and starting in Verse 1, it says this: "I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, "urge you to walk in a manner worthy of "the calling to which you have been called, "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, "bearing with one another in love, "eager to maintain the unity of "the spirit in the bond of peace." And if, for some reason, you hear that verse right now and you're like, "You guys have shared "that verse so many times on this podcast"-- A couple. I'm not gonna apologize. The more we say that verse and the more you hear it and the more we live according to it, we will experience this, right babe? [Aaron] Well, and it's essentially Biblical meditation. We're repeating it, we're chewing on it, we're gonna say it over and over again because it's true. [Jennifer] And we're gonna see how it applies to our life and, you know, what we are-- [Aaron] Well, and it's a good tone to start with, to set the mood for this conversation, because no matter where you're at in your marriage, you could be thinking, like, "My husband "just thinks this certain way "and I'm not gonna get on that page with him." Or, "My wife just doesn't understand," fill in the blank. If we're eager to maintain unity with our bride-- Maintenance. With our spouse. [Aaron] That's gonna be the place that we start from, not a, "They need to change because I'm not gonna change." It's a, "What needs to change so that "we're on the same page?" And maintain is, that's a constantly occurring, that's not a, "Okay, we got on the same page "and now we're fine for the rest of our lives." This is a consistent-- Oh, we gotta realign-- Checking. Oh, we gotta do it again. Yeah. Oh, let's do it again. Let's continue to be this way, yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah, so I couldn't help but start out, also, obviously, God's Word is the priority and first and foremost, but I also wanted to start out sharing a little bit from Marriage After God because we've-- Book plug! Written a book for you and if you haven't gotten it yet, we want to urge you to get it, but this is from page 56 in Marriage After God and it talks about this idea of oneness, okay? You know, in Genesis, it talks about two becoming one flesh and so, we though it'd be great to elaborate on this in Marriage After God and so-- [Aaron] Okay, so I'm actually gonna read this section. Jennifer's actually a little outta breath, being pregnant and all-- He's saving me! [Aaron] So, it says this, it's on page 56: "One flesh does not mean two "independent individuals sometimes acting as one, "neither does it mean two individuals "negotiating a workable schedule where they "inhabit the same space but leave each other alone. "One flesh is a picture of unity, a joining together, "a growing together, where parts of each are woven together "in a way that there is no noticeable seam. "Oneness is one of the greatest ways "we show the world the true gospel." [Jennifer] So, what you're saying is it's powerful. Yeah. Our oneness in marriage. Did we write this? Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, the idea of oneness it's not our idea, it's a Biblical idea, we pulled that from the Bible directly. And it's, again, the reason why I wanna talk about this and we always go back to it is because our marriage represents something more than just our marriage. It's a symbol that God created to represent Christ and the Church and the relationship between the two, that we are no longer separate, we're no longer nomads, we actually are part of Christ, we are one with Christ, the same way my wife and I are one. But when we walk in disunity, when we walk in brokenness and we're not seeing eye-to-eye, we're against each other where actually-- [Jennifer] Or even apathy where it's like, "I know we're off, I know we're"-- "And I don't care." "Not seeing eye-to-eye "and I don't care." Yeah. That's so dangerous. It's not the symbol that God intends it to be, so we're walking in opposition to God's way when we walk that way, so-- So, it's good to maintain that, you know, what you were talking about earlier, it's good to-- Maintain, yeah. Have priority in our marriage to focus on unity. [Aaron] So, question one, from the community, it says, "How do I become more selfless in my marriage? "I wanna please my spouse." Okay, first of all, this is just an outstanding question. I love that someone is even admitting that they want this because so often, our flesh gets in the way, our selfish nature gets in the way of even admitting this. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause we're selfish. Yup. Naturally, without the Spirit workin' in us. I guess I would first say, this was specifically from a wife to a husband but I said spouse because it goes both ways, and the short answer and the practical answer is: serve the other person. Yeah. Right? The antidote to selfishness is service, you know? The antidote to wanting my feet washed is washing someone's feet. You know, you look at the picture of Christ and what he did for his disciples. And so, I guess, I just had a conversation with a brother from church, we were talkin' about meeting with people, and I brought up this idea of how, if you look at anything in life, how does anything grow? You feed it. Like a tree: you water it, you nurture it, you feed it, you prune it, and it grows. If I want my muscles to grow, I have to work them out, I have to use them, I have to feed them with the right nutrients, and I have to do the correct thing for them to work. I can't just sit back, wish they grew, desire them to grow, desire these things to happen, but do nothing. Children, right? You want them to grow-- You gotta feed 'em, it's like-- No. Oh, that's not-- But more than that, you can't just sit back and just let them have at it in the world, you gotta-- Yeah. Teach them and-- [Aaron] They can't be left to their own devices, they have to be guided and teached and disciplined and corrected-- Taught. And talked to and taught. You said teached. [Aaron] Teached. Oh, did I really? Yeah. Okay. So, in the same way, to become more selfless or, on the flip side, less selfish, you have to practice and work out that muscle. Yeah. So, an example in our marriage: we all go through these seasons where I want physical intimacy and maybe Jennifer can't give it to me. Like, we're pregnant right now, so this is a natural thing that happens, but times that we're not pregnant, maybe she's tired or whatever. And in my selfish flesh, I want something physical. But the selfless, spiritual-driven decision would be like, "Okay, I'm using that as a trigger, "I'm recognizing I want something. "I bet my wife wants something, too." And so, I tried, and I didn't do this every time, I don't do this all the time, but it's something I tried practicing is, "I'm gonna go and try and"-- [Jennifer] Give me the thing that it is you want. So, if it's a foot massage or-- Yeah, I want something-- Physical touch. [Aaron] Physical but I'm gonna go and say, "Hey, can I give you a massage?" And she wasn't even expecting it. Yeah. And that, it wasn't to manipulate, it was purely like, "I know I want something and right now, I'm just, "I know she probably can't give it or isn't interested "and it would be very selfish for me to "try and make her feel bad about it "or try and get something without her desiring it as well." So, I go and serve her. And so, that was one example, is practicing that muscle of service. Which, again, I'm not tryna make myself sound great. [Jennifer] So, I think the word that keeps coming to my mind as you're talking, Aaron, is the word initiation. And we have to be initiators, we have to be people who are willing to start first and not let our selfishness get in the way of that. And so, that would be my answer to this question, is: be an initiator. But even, prior to that, I would say we have to be people who are willing to get into God's Word and know it and let it transform us. And how does that happen? When we recognize our selfishness and we repent of it. Mm hm. Right? Because without repenting of your own selfishness when you see it flare up, you're never gonna change. You're always gonna be a selfish person. [Aaron] Which, repentance literally means to change your mind about. So, thinking you deserve something and therefore you're not gonna give something because if you're not getting what you deserve, why would you give what someone else doesn't deserve, right? And two scriptures come to mind when I think about this, a way of thinking about how to know when to give, to be selfless. I think of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others "as you would have them do unto you." And that's kind of a trigger, is any time I'm desiring something, it's probably a safe bet that the other person in my life, my wife, also is desiring something, right? And so, if I take that as a trigger, like, "Oh, I want, I'm trying, my flesh wants something "or my heart wants something." I can say, like, "Oh, I can go give this to my wife. "The thing that I want, I can give to her." But it's gonna be different, it may not be the exact thing I want, but. Let's say I want time to myself. It's probably possible that you want time to yourself. So, I can go be like, "Hey, "would you want to go out tonight?" Or, "Is there anyone you want to get together with?" Or, "Do you just need to go take a bath?" Yeah. Like, I can think that way. And so, I think of that loving your neighbor as yourself or doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, it's just thinking about the things that you want and then flipping it and saying, "How can I give the thing that I want to someone else?" The second verse that comes to mind is in Luke and it's about lending to people and it says this, it's Luke 6:34 through 36, it says, and this is Jesus talking: "And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, "what credit is that to you? "Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. "But love your enemies and do good and lend. "Expect nothing in return. "Your reward will be great "and you will be sons of the most high, "for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. "Be merciful even as your Father is merciful." And this is kind of not directly talking about selfishness but it's this idea of lending without this expectation. Like, give without saying, "I'm giving to you "only if I'm guaranteed you're gonna return it to me." That's true selflessness. So, that's what it's saying, is God's even kind to the ungrateful and evil, he's patient with them, let's the rain fall on them as well and gives them crops. That's what this idea's talking about. You know, so we should be merciful, so. [Jennifer] You know, I was gonna ask you a question in conjunction to this question and that is: when people, when a couple, when they're not seeing eye-to-eye or there's disunity in the marriage, usually they don't want to serve each other, right, and so there's that that they're combating. And my question was gonna be: how do you do that, how do you serve each other, how do you love each other amidst that disunity? But I feel like you just answered it in that scripture. [Aaron] Well, it's giving, so, and we always go back to this, I have this quote I say all the time: we can't let our obedience be contingent on our spouse's actions. Like, "Well, you're not loving me "the way I wanna be loved or deserve to be loved, "therefore I'm not gonna respect you." It doesn't work that way. The only person we have control over is ourselves. So, the only person we have to worry who's being obedient, yes, I'm concerned if my wife's being obedient to the Lord, but for me, the only person I can actually control, in the Spirit that God's given me, is myself. And so, even if my spouse isn't walking the way I want them to or doing what I want them to, I can still choose to walk in righteousness, I can still choose to walk in love and be graceful and merciful and patient and kind and loving, right, on my side. That's really good. So, even when there is disunity, even when you're not seeing eye-to-eye on a specific thing in your marriage, you can still love unconditionally. Right, exactly. Cool. Okay, so let's move on to number two. "How do we live for God together? "My husband never really has been "to church or anything like that, so." [Aaron] Okay, and again, this would go back to you have a wife that's not, doesn't go to church with you, isn't a believer, and the husband is a believer or vice versa in the situation. [Jennifer] So, how do you live for God together when one person isn't already living for God? [Aaron] Again, I go back to you can't control the other person. You can't make someone live for God that doesn't wanna live for God. [Jennifer] Basically, this is a not seeing eye-to-eye on a spiritual level. [Aaron] Yeah, on the greatest level, I would imagine. But you, the Bible gives instruction to the wife on how she can walk in a certain way that can totally spiritually influence her husband. You see that with the husband, the husband can walk a certain way that will influence his wife. [Jennifer] Regardless, any person who is following Christ and Christ is living inside of them has an impact in this world. Yeah. Bottom line. [Aaron] And if your spouse, as the Bible says, is willing to stay with you, even if they don't love God, if they're not walking with God, and they're staying with you and you love God, think about the thousands and thousands of hours that that person who doesn't know God is gonna be around God because of you. Like, it's not like you walk up to a stranger on the street and they had a split second that you got to preach the gospel to them. Like, this person's living in the gospel daily. It's going have effect. Mm hm. [Aaron] So, I would say there's no answer on how you can walk together with God if the other person doesn't want to, but you can walk with God for your spouse and in front of your spouse and toward your spouse. [Jennifer] And I would say your greatest desire, before even living for God together, is: how can I get my spouse to live for God? And so, being prayerful for their salvation and being prayerful that they have a growing desire to serve God. Nonstop. [Jennifer] That's a foundational thing that needs to happen. One more note on this. So, me and you, we got married, and from the beginning, wanted to serve God together. Yeah. Right? Essentially, what this wife is desiring, for her and her husband, we were there. But even in the middle of two believers who love God, loved each other, and wanted to serve God together, we were often not on the same page spiritually, we were often at odds with each other in how we wanted to serve God, in our own sins. So, even in the midst of what you might be desiring, of that perfect, like, we're both chasing God together, you still have to walk in your own faith, uprightly, with God for your spouse because they're going to fail you at times, they're not going to be on the same page with you. And that's something that we experienced. Yeah. So, we were on the other spectrum of wanting to do it together but still felt chaotic sometimes. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I would say, after all these years of continually growing in our personal relationship with God, that is what has brought us closer together and has driven that desire to continue to serve Him together. And so, I would say to live for God means that you know Him and so, a good starting place, well, we already talked prayer and praying for salvation, but, is knowing God, getting in His Word, going through resources like Husband After God or Wife After God. [Aaron] Yeah, our marriage devotionals. [Jennifer] Yeah, which you can get and maybe you'll start it and maybe your spouse won't. Maybe you'll be halfway through and it's still sitting untouched for your spouse. Maybe you'll be finished with it for months and finally they pick it up. I don't know how God orchestrates all of that, all I know is I've heard plenty of stories where a couple has the resource and they start going through it and it draws their hearts closer to God, so. And that's just one resource out of so many out there. [Aaron] Okay, so question number three. We have a lotta questions, so we'll see if we can get through 'em. It says, "What are some tips for consistency "and communication within marriage to build intimacy? "i.e. You may not be in an agreement on a topic, "so how do you communicate through it?" [Jennifer] Gosh, I wanna say don't go into it super inflamed and heated. But that's the best way. You go in at a hundred. No, but sometimes you just feel that intense about it and so, whatta you do, Aaron, when you have that intense of an emotion about a topic or about something that you need to navigate with your spouse? I mean, practically, being quiet, starting with silence. I think of that scripture that says, "Be slow to speak and quick to listen and quick to hear." 'Cause often, to be honest, most of the communication issues in marriage is misunderstanding. Because you, as a emotional creatures, God's made you more emotional, you're gonna say something with emotional words and I'm gonna interpret that a hundred different ways and none of the ways I interpret it are how you feel, right? And men being logical creatures, and that doesn't mean women are illogical, it's just hearing something and it's not what you meant and it's not what you're saying and I'm hearing it a certain way and I'm putting it through my own filters and that's what happens, so. Being slower to just jump at the person and be like, "Oh, you said this and that hurt me." But actually hearing and listening and being slower to saying stuff because once the words leave our lips, they're gone and they're-- Yeah, but we're also held accountable to them, right? I think something that I've learned in our own marriage, Aaron, is the way that I can have self control in coming to you with my emotions and still be respectful but still communicate them to you and let you know, "Hey, when this happened, I felt this way." And so, I'm not yelling at you, I'm not out of control, I'm not making you feel little, I'm just explaining this is what happened and this is how it made me feel. And I think it's important for couples, like you said, to be slow to speak and quick to listen so that we hear each other. I think hearing each other is so important. [Aaron] Yeah, and then, and we always bring this up, is: what is your intention? Is your intention to win, is it to defeat your spouse? [Jennifer] Well, the goal should be unity, right? Right. But that has to be a conscious decision, like, "Am I mad right now and I wanna destroy you "or do I actually want there to be peace?" And not just apathy, like, "I just don't wanna deal with it "so let's not talk about it anymore," but, "Am I fighting for something and it's chaotic "or is this something that I even need to be fighting about? "Is this even matter, what I'm frustrated about "or what we're miscommunicating about?" But recognizing that the whole purpose, at the end of it, is that we're unified, we're reconciled, we are one again, we're in intimacy, you know? [Jennifer] Well, and intimacy means to be known. It's not just a physical intimacy, although that's how you're known physically, it means to be known. And the way that we make ourselves known is we are vulnerable, we are transparent, we are real. And so, we're not hiding anything, we're not keeping things from each other, but we're also not disrespectfully just throwing it all out there. There's this self control that comes with it and a safe place where we know we can communicate back and forth and that's what builds intimacy in marriage. That's what makes me feel known, that's what makes you feel known. [Aaron] Yeah, so knowing your end result, which is, it should be humbleness, because God wants his people to be humble, and it should be reconciliation. So, that deals with 99% of our arguments from day to day. It's very rare that we're having arguments over real big things, it's always the little things. And then, what happens is you get all those little things, when the big things do come up, you're gonna be infinitely better at dealing with that with your spouse 'cause you know that you're on the same team. [Jennifer] A good little side note tip would be to start out and use sentences with I instead of you. So, you're not pointing the finger here, you're actually opening your hand and saying, "I want you to know who I am." [Aaron] Mm hm, yeah, that's good, that was a good tip. So, here's a good one. Everyone's gonna have some level of issue. [Jennifer] What's the first thing that pops into your mind when we say this question? [Aaron] How do you work through disagreements on hobbies? And the example that was given is motorcycles and it's probably very personal to that person. Yeah. But women have, this actually could be a wife's hobby. But any hobby at all, hobby's essentially the extracurricular, it's, "I have this passion "outside of my home or outside of my work or"-- [Jennifer] Which, I know you'll generally answer, but I just have to say, when I saw this question come through, I think there would be a disagreement on something like the example they gave, motorcycles-- Motorcycles, right. [Jennifer] Because it's dangerous, right, and so, we also have to address that aspect of, maybe, what this question means, but why don't you kick it off? [Aaron] I would, on the hobbies side of things, regardless of what the hobby is, because there's so many different levels of ability. There could be a wife that is into skydiving with their husband and most people would be like, "No way," but they're like, "No, this is totally fun." So, I'm not gonna just pick on any specific hobby 'cause that doesn't matter, for the most part. I'm sure there's hobbies that are absolutely like, "Well, that's sin, you shouldn't be doing that." [Jennifer] And then there are safer ones, like quilting. [Aaron] And then there could be totally benign ones that mean nothing and it's like, "Well, what's the big deal? "This is not a sin that I'm doing this." The questions should always be wrapped up in wisdom. Can you afford it? If your wife or your husband's not in agreement with it, that should be immediately a red flag because you're not in unity and it's not just a, "That person needs to change how they think about my hobby," because what if God put an insight or a discernment in your spouse? Because remember, you guys are on the same team, regardless of if you feel like you're in a team or not, and your spouse has a reason for having an issue with it. Now, that spouse, as you guys communicate about the hobby, humbly, it could, you could find out that the spouse just has, like your wife, has some sort of disposition from a childhood about the thing you're doing. So, it has nothing to do with anything else other than they just feel uncomfortable. [Jennifer] But if that's the case, is it worth it to listen and hear? Absolutely. Yeah. [Aaron] But what I'm saying is they could, through the conversation, be like, "You know what? "I am being irrational and it's not that big of a deal." Or-- The point is that they're talking about it. Yeah. Or it comes to this side of, "Well, "I just can't get behind it." And then at that point, are you gonna say, "Well, then get outta here 'cause I'm gonna keep doin' it"? And then essentially, you're choosing a hobby over your spouse. Well, on the flip side to this, the spouse that's in disagreement with that spouse's hobby, what's your heart posture and reasoning? Because are you just against it because you don't like them spending time alone from you? Are you just against it because you don't like what they like? So, I feel like the biggest part of this question, and it's for both spouses in the marriage, is: what are the motivations of your heart? On both sides. And are you communicating that to each other? [Aaron] Right, and usually, if you're defensive about something, if you're trying to defend and protect your hobby, that usually is rooted in something and you gotta immediately start asking yourself, "Why am I trying to protect this so much? "Why does this thing mean so much to me?" Because you could be using that hobby as a surrogate for your marriage. Like, "I get more fulfillment out of this thing "than I do out of my marriage or my kids." [Jennifer] Like an escape or something, yeah. [Aaron] And if that's the case, that's dangerous and that's called an idol. You should be careful with that. So, I think, any, there should be nothing in our life, not a single hobby should have any sort of weight against our family, against our ministry, against our marriage, against our responsibilities at our work, with our kids, none of that. Anything, it doesn't matter what the hobby is, it shouldn't be off the table for a negotiation. It should be something that you should humbly be willing to release, if necessary. And the necessity could be your wife or your husband just is like, "I don't like it." And to be honest, even if they're irrational, they are one with you. And if you're gonna just say, "I disagree with you, "you're irrational, I'm gonna keep doing it," you've just literally, how are you ever gonna be intimate, on any level, with a person that you said, "I don't care what you say, I'm doing it anyway"? You just can't. So, I would just put a warning in anyone's life, and this goes for the husbands and the wives, if there's anything in their life, a book club, a quilting club, a hobby of, like, you name it, everyone that's listening is probably thinking, "Oh, I have this hobby." [Jennifer] "I know what my thing is," yeah. [Aaron] And my job right now is not to say hobbies are bad 'cause you can totally have a healthy hobby, maybe it's something that you do with your family, maybe that it's something that you do by yourself, and you have total control over it and it doesn't get in the way of your responsibilities and your family totally feels taken care of and loved and that you're present-- [Jennifer] And they actually enjoy participating in it with you. [Aaron] Yeah, there's lots of things. But at the same time, if you have any level of, "I'm not lettin' this thing go "and no one's gonna stop me," that's a wrong heart. And whatever that thing is that you're into has got some sorta hold of you that you need to deal with. Yeah. So, I wanna share two things. One of them just kinda popped into my heart and I can't push it away for some reason and that is: if you, the individual, have some sort of hobby and you've been feeling convicted in your own heart because of timing, finances, lack of-- How often you're doin' it. [Jennifer] Yeah, whatever the thing is, please please please please please don't push that feeling off and just wait for your spouse to come and share their disagreement with you about it. Be a mature, Christian person, yield to the Holy Spirit-- Who's speaking to you. And say, "God, what are you trying to tell me "and how can I surrender this to you?" If that means give it up 100%, are you willing to do that? I just felt like I had to say that. The other thing is more personal, but I just wanted to share an encouragement. I didn't want it to all sound negative. But Aaron, you have been so good at, first, learning who I am, I don't wanna say studying me, but over time together, you know me pretty well and you know the things that fuel me, as a person, like writing and painting and crafting, and you encourage me in it. Now, there have been times in our marriage where we've been so strapped, it's like, "You can't spend that money on that, "you know, whatever that thing is." But there's also been, often, there's been times where you know that I've been going, going, going and you look at me and go, "I think you "just need to go to a coffee shop and write. "You just need to go do this thing with your girlfriends. "You just need to," and you're a supporter and an advocate for giving me space and time to be fueled by the things that interest me and I just had to say that because I think that, as a husband and wife, we have an incredible position and opportunity to support one another in the things that do fuel us, the things, the hobbies that we're interested in. And you've been really good at that, so I just wanted to say thank you but also use it as a testimony for those listening that they can be that way in marriage, it just requires communication. Yeah. That was good, thank you, I wasn't expecting that. Okay, why don't you read question number five? [Jennifer] How do you keep chasing dreams God's called you to when your spouse is in a totally negative place? So, I'm imagining this is a season, not just a day but not always like this, but they're just in a negative place and how are you supposed to keep moving forward with those dreams that you, maybe, were chasing together or were hoping to chase together? [Aaron] This, it sounds more personal, it sounds like this person, whoever it is, feels like God's called them to something specific. Oh, like individually. Yeah. And they're spouse is in another place. Okay. Either emotionally or mentally or maybe they hate their job and the other spouse is trying to pursue a ministry of some sort or-- Okay. [Aaron] The question itself tells me that the initial, the way the question's worded tells me that they're missing out on the first calling. The marriage? The marriage. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's what I was thinking. [Aaron] We have a responsibility, we're told to love our neighbor as ourself. And I always say, "Who's your closest neighbor?" Yeah. It's your spouse. And then your kids and then your actual neighbors and then your fellowship. And it's not like you neglect the others for the first, but you don't go out of order. I don't neglect my wife, when she needs me the most, to go serve someone else. That's out of order. Well, and here's what I think about that, is: if, let's say it is individual and one of the spouses is pursuing ministry or whatever they feel God has called them to do or maybe it's that they had a specific calling as a couple and that person's in a negative place now and they're not doing that anymore. How effective would either one of them be in any of those situations if they're not unified in their marriage? Not very effective at all. Well, and here's, this is actually the sad part, is they actually could be effective. But they're not effective where it counts. You know, we have children at home, we have our marriage to take care of, and it's not just to have a happy marriage, it's that we have a powerful marriage and that we, like, if I can't minister, we say this in our book Marriage After God quite a bit, actually, if I can't minister to my spouse, what right do I have to go and minister to someone else? I don't want to minister to you, you're in a negative place, but I'm gonna go try and minister other people that are in a negative place. There's something backwards with that. And I also understand that you could be, have already in this mode and you see God moving and God's using you and then your spouse, your husband, your wife, is going through something. And you're like, "Well, do I have to put everything "on hold because this thing's happening?" Yes. Is it totally possible that God brought them to that place and then is asking them to postpone it or wait until-- Absolutely. Something else happens? That could be part of it, right, just as an encouragement. [Aaron] Yeah, I'll get, I don't have the specific scripture on this, but Jesus, when Jesus talked to the Pharisees, you know, we all have a negative connotation of the Pharisees, right? But the Pharisees were God's people and they were the priests in line, they were the ones that were to teach the law to everyone, right? But Jesus, the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees was not just that they were Pharisees. The reason they get a bad rap is because of how they acted. They acted holy and they did the thing that they believed God was calling them to do without doing the things that they should have been doing. [Jennifer] The very specific things that He-- [Aaron] Yeah, He gives this example and He says, "You take advantage of your parents. "You say, "The things that I would "give to you, I give to God instead."" And that's exactly, that's what this question sounds like to me. "God's calling me to this thing over here "but my spouse is holding me back." And I feel like Jesus would say the exact same thing to that person: "Okay, you wanna do what I want you to do, but you're "neglecting the thing I've already told you to do. "I've told you to honor your husband "or submit to your husband." Or, "I've told you to love your wife "as Christ loves the Church. "And yet, you don't wanna do that thing 'cause "they're holding you back from my call in your life? "My call in your life is that also." And so, in another place, Jesus tells to the Pharisees, he says, "You tithe your mint and your cumin "and yet you neglect the weightier things of the law." He says, "You should, the weightier things "are justice and love and mercy." And he says, "And you don't do those things when you "shoulda done those things and the other ones." So, I just go back to this idea of if there's something going on, let's say you have a spouse that gets injured and you no longer can go do the things that you usually do and the ministry that you had and now you have to focus on your spouse. Does that change that you're doing ministry? No. No, you just have changed your energies to a place that the energies need to be right now. If your spouse is in an emotional place, broken, they lost a family member, they're depressed, they're going through things, do you just leave them behind because they're getting in the way of the true ministry? No, if it says the good shepherd was willing to leave the 99 for the one, the one is your spouse. You don't, you leave the 99 that God can take care of because it's God and it's His sheep and His ministry, and you can minister to the one that God's given you. And minister and wash and take care of. And that should never be neglected. I just, we can't do that, I can't tell someone, "Yeah." Well, first of all, we like to use words like, "God told me to," and "God's shown me," and "God's given me" as if that's a trump card. "You can't tell me I'm not supposed to "do this thing because God called me to it." But you know what I can tell you? I know what the Word of God says and if you're not doing the things that the Word of God says, it doesn't matter what you believe, you're wrong. And I'm not trying to be harsh but I am trying to be harsh because many, many families have fallen apart because of this very thing. "No, I'm doing what God wants me to do "and you need to be left behind." [Jennifer] They forsake what He said in His Word. [Aaron] Yeah, and another quote in the book, I said-- In what book? In Marriage After God, yeah. I said, "Don't sacrifice your marriage "on the altar of, quote unquote, ministry." Like, "Oh, I'm doing ministry over here, "so my wife has to deal with it. "She's not gonna ever see me, she has no idea if I love her. "She gets the last bits of my energies "rather than getting the best of my energies "and being the thing that energizes me to do more ministry." It's so much more fruitful to do it the other way than leave them behind. And I just, I think that's my answer. [Jennifer] I think you've covered it really well. So well that I think we should move on to number six. Do you wanna read that one? [Aaron] Yeah, it's about me. Do you, Jennifer, struggle with trusting me? [Jennifer] Do I struggle with trusting you? [Aaron] Specifically speaking about porn, how can you battle thoughts, like the-- [Jennifer] So, I just have to say, I feel like we need to record a whole 'nother episode on this topic altogether because-- [Aaron] We've already done one but-- I know. We should probably do another one. Well, I have received, really, lately, a lot of wives messaging me about this very topic, about trust and rebuilding trust after finding out that your spouse has sinned against you, sinned, especially with pornography, and so, that just needs to happen, but it's not gonna happen this season, so I'm just gonna have to plant that seed and say, "Stay tuned." But just to answer this question, up front, for you guys. I don't struggle to trust you anymore, Aaron. Why? [Jennifer] I think it's because we've worked so hard on building that trust back up and it absolutely takes time. And because, in the beginning, there were times that I did struggle with doubt and fear, especially times that I know you were left alone while I was out running an errand or something like that. And you know what it required is humility and communication. Because I had to be willing to say, "Hey, I'm thinking about you right now and I just, "I don't want you to fall into temptation. "Just be strong, I'll be back at this time." Or when I got back, I would ask you, "Hey, how've you been?" And the more times that we had encounters where you continued to stay pure, it built that trust up in my heart. [Aaron] And then, specifically, along that journey, what did I do, anytime I did choose to get back into pornography? You told me and you repented and you shared with me your own frustrations over the struggle of sin that you had, but you owned it and you were real with me and-- [Aaron] And no matter how little the offense was. [Jennifer] No, and I knew that you struggled with shame and guilt and I knew it was hard for you to tell me. And you learned how to give me a place to respond when I was emotional over it because it makes, I mean, just thinking-- Without trying to control your response. Yeah, 'cause it just, it made me broken knowing that those things took place and I felt a lotta things and I thought a lotta thoughts. But I would say that the humility of you coming to me or me coming to you and the reconciliation process was so important. And when I say reconciliation, I mean we talked about it. Even if it took two and a half hours, we talked about it. We prayed for each other and we tried to affirm each other that we were gonna move forward. Right. And the, some of the, just the practical things is: first of all, it does take time and you should never expect your spouse to just flip a switch and be like, "Well, I'm gonna trust you again." 'Cause that's actually not even Biblical. It does take time to build trust. Now, forgiveness immediately is Biblical, but that doesn't mean immediately, "Oh, we're back to where we were." No, there's been broken trust and it takes time, it takes repetitive purity, right? And then, the other practical is: I made a commitment to tell you, to let you know. And here's the thing, is: the offenses, although they changed in size, relatively, the thing I did, I still confessed it to you and you were able to see the true repentance in me. And so, it's not like it was the same each time, it was less and less and less. But my continuing to come to you and say, "Hey, I made this choice. "Yeah, it was a split second, "but I chose it and I feel shameful about it "and I wanna repent to you because this is not who I am "and it's not who I wanna be and so, I need to tell you." 'Cause I've learned, through the Word of God and through experience, that the confession and repentance is one of the ways that God's given us to kill our flesh. My flesh hates it, it wants to hide in the darkness and keep its, it wants, my flesh wants to not be known because it feels icky and I don't wanna be seen for what I truly am. So, the being consistent and telling you the truth and not just waiting 'til you found out but actually coming forth and saying, "Hey, I made a bad choice." And calling it what it is, a choice, not minimizing it, not justifying it. Those kinds of things helped you trust that I was actually changing. And that I love you and that I don't wanna be that person and that I'm willing to tell you because I want you to know, for my sake, so that I can heal and change and repent and be repented of that sin. [Jennifer] Yeah, I appreciate you sharing all of that and the second part of this question is: how can you battle those thoughts? And I just am thinking back to all of the stuff that I used to struggle with because the sin that you chose to partake in were like seeds planted in my mind and heart for the temptation to feel insecure or unloved and fall into those traps where your mind is just going wildly crazy with the worst kinds of thoughts about you and of our relationship. And I would say that being vulnerable with those and still being willing to be in an intimate place with you where I can say, "Because you did this, I feel this way," or, "I'm thinking these things," and revealing those types of thoughts to you helped me battle them. Because I gave you the opportunity to affirm me and say, "No no no no no, I know I chose that "and I'm so sorry, but that's not who you are. "You don't have to be insecure because of what I did." And there was this back and forth of understanding each other that I think was really valuable. Right. And again, another thing that, for the spouse that has dealt with this and is dealing with it, the mistrust is a natural consequence for a sin. Yeah. Right? And so, we have to recognize that. And so, another thing that builds trust, from the offender's side, is, 'cause what happens is: I've confessed, we've dealt with that event, and then you are leaving somewhere and it's a time when you know I would, usually, in the past-- [Jennifer] You mean I flared up with anxiety inside my whole being? Well, but, no, if you say something like, "Hey"-- Oh. "I wanna encourage you to stay pure while I'm gone." The not truly repentant person would say, "Babe, babe, we already dealt with that, you don't need to bring that up." Oh, getting defensive-- Like, "C'mon, you don't trust me?" No, I should be totally humble and willing to be like, "You're right, thank you for reminding me "and be praying for me and I'm gonna let you know "if I feel tempted and I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna." Instead of being defensive and prideful, I'm gonna be humble and realize that it's totally natural for my wife to not trust me and she's gonna learn trust by how I receive her care for me in that moment. You reminding me, like, "Hey, don't go to that thing." Me receiving that is a trustworthy action, right? Yeah. Another way that I battled thoughts of mistrust was I asked a lot of questions. So, if I ever felt uneasy about a situation or discerning. You know, maybe I woke up from a dream or something where it was like I couldn't shake it, I asked. Or you just feel it. Like, "Hey, something's off." Yeah, I asked you. I asked, "Have you been struggling?" And so, I think that when we recognize that we're battling thoughts, you can't just keep battling them, you can't just keep, you're just gonna be wrestling the whole time, right? And so, being able to open up and share with your spouse the types of thoughts that you're having and also go to God and say, "God, these are "the types of thoughts that I'm having," and finding scriptures that would help fight those thoughts for you and-- [Aaron] Well, and also be praying and asking God to transform your own heart, asking God to transform your spouse's heart. To purify your marriage. Yeah, to use you both for His work and for His kingdom. [Jennifer] See, I told you that this was gonna be a big topic. I feel like we just-- There's a lot, there's a lot more, yeah. [Jennifer] We need to be able to do another episode on that. Yeah. All right, so the last question, it's kind of a bigger, blanket one. It'd be: What is your number one advice to couples who are currently struggling with this eye-to-eye thing? They're not on the same page, they feel at odds with each other. [Jennifer] Well, I will say this: one of the most powerful, impactful, incredible ways that God got ahold of our hearts, Aaron, and made change and transformation in our lives and our marriage was entering into mature, Christian, Biblical community and being transparent with people who we allowed to speak into our lives and say-- "You're off base, bro." But sometimes we didn't even see that we were off on that whole eye-to-eye thing and we got called out for it and so, like, bickering or whatever the thing was. And I just remember how, and even still to this day, it's been such a huge part of our testimony, is being in Biblical community and how being a part of the body, and I don't mean like a one day a week type thing, I mean immersed in it where you know you can text that person, call that person, meet them on the fly for dinner to gain wisdom, to ask advice, to cry about, to praise for, you know, all the things. [Aaron] So, the bit of advice I would give that goes in align with being a community, and it kind of, it's, I talked about it quite a bit in this episode, is humbleness. And in Luke 14:11, he says, "For everyone "who exalts himself will be humbled "and he who humbles himself will be exalted." And all through Proverbs, it talks about this idea of the humble will be lifted up and the haughty are God's opposed. To receive anything from community, you have to be humbled and willing to hear. Like, "Hey, I think you are being a bonehead, Aaron." Like, "Oh, you're right, I agree. "I didn't realize that, I need to change in that area, "I need to go apologize to my wife." So, that humbleness, and even outside of community, in your marriage, if you're in a difficult place, there's something miraculously, spiritually powerful about humbleness. All of these fights we get in, all of the eye-to-eye issues, it's all because they're not seeing our eyes, they're not on our page, which is pridefulness. When we could be like, "Maybe I need to be on their page." [Jennifer] Or humility would point your spouse's eyes up to God and say, "No, look at Him." Right. [Jennifer] "Don't look at me in this, look at Him." [Aaron] Or recognizing you're wrong or maybe don't know or don't have the answer or need to sit back and say, "You know what? "I'm just gonna, I'm gonna let you have this one because, "I mean, I know I've been wrong in the past anyways." It's not a false humility, it's true humbleness, recognizing who you serve, you serve God. And so, in community, which was the number one thing that we believe totally transformed our life, but it also took us, in community, being willing to listen and hear and receive, which takes humbleness. And time. And time, yeah. So, that would be my bit of advice, is: man, humbleness is gonna go infinitely farther than any level of selfishness or pride. [Jennifer] So, the next time, it could be today, tomorrow, next week-- [Aaron] It's gonna be right after this episode, probably. [Jennifer] If you are finding yourself in a place where you're not seeing eye-to-eye with your spouse, remember humility. Absolutely. Remember to pray. Remember to go to God and say, "God, what is it that you want? "'Cause I don't want to get in "the way of what you're doing." Yeah, "How can my response and actions "and attitude right now glorify you?" And that, man, it changes everything 'cause you're like, "Oh. "Yelling and throwing a dish at the wall "is not gonna glorify God right now." Or, "Telling my spouse that they don't know anything "or that they're wrong, those might not glorify God." [Jennifer] Well, that wraps us up for this episode of having answered your guys' questions. Thank you again so much for being there and submitting those questions when we called out for them. Yeah, appreciate it. And, again, if you wanna participate in a Q&A episode, all you need to do is follow @marriageaftergod on Instagram and wait for the next time we poll for 'em. And then you can submit your question and we try and get through as many as we can with the time that we have. And if we ever do an episode where you're like, "I know my question would've fit in there," and maybe we didn't get to it, just message us and let us know. But we just love hearing from you guys and we love participating in this way where we get to kind of answer your questions or at least try. [Aaron] So, as usual, we end every episode with prayer. So Jennifer, why don't you pray for us? [Jennifer] Dear God, thank you so much for marriage. Thank you for our spouses and thank you for the opportunity that we get every day to walk this life with each other. We pray for humility to be a priority in our lives, that we would walk humbly before each other, that we would be motivated by how you're moving in our lives individually and in our marriages. God, we thank you for our marriages and we just pray for unity. We pray that, even in times where we don't see eye-to-eye or we have disagreements or there's conflict, that you would remain at the center of our marriage and that we can submit our hearts to you. God, we pray that we would be one with each other, that we would pursue oneness in our marriage and support each other in that way. And God, we pray that these situations that come up in marriage where we don't see eye-to-eye would be an opportunity where we can learn from each other, where we can grow to understand each other, where we can experience intimacy. No matter what, we pray that your will would be done and that you would be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So, thanks for joining us on this week's episode. We love y'all, we thank you for being a part of the Marriage After God community. And we just wanna invite you, if you have not yet, would you leave us a review? We love your reviews, they help the podcast get reach, and new people find it because of your reviews. So, if you wanna leave us a star rating and a text review, we'd love that. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Boom, what's going on, everyone? Steve Larsen from Sales Funnel Radio.   I am excited for this episode. Well, to be honest, I'm actually freaked out. This is my 2019 goal.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million-dollar business.   The real question is: how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   Join me and follow along as I learn, apply, and share marketing strategies to grow my online business using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up everyone?   Hey, so every single year I do this, and it's the scariest thing I do every single year. This is my fifth year in a row of doing this.   If you wanna see the past goals I've made year by year, you actually can find them on the youtube channel. You go to salesfunnelradio.tv,  and it'll take you to the actual youtube channel. If you want to check it out there - you can see the playlist of my previous years' goals.   Well, every single year I do this. And I remember the first time I ever did this. I was in this place of desperation. I was going into the army. In fact, you can see I have a shaved head. There's almost no fat on my body for some of those videos in there.   I remember sitting back and just thinking, “I'm tired.” guys. I'm tired of not having what I wanna have. I need to start doing things that are more drastic. And that's kind of what I was going through in my head at that time.   So I grabbed my computer, and I literally had traded funnels for the computer I was using. Actually no, not at that time. I don't even know that I really knew what a funnel was when I made that first video.   When I think back about it. I was taking a lot of traffic courses. Yeah, okay, that's what it was! Wait a second, so at the time what was going on, I was probably at business try, let's see, that was around number eight or nine, maybe ten.   I was a traffic driver for Paul Mitchell.  I’d had my first thousand dollar day, and it blew my mind. I was like "Holy Crap!" I was working with another guy at the time, we split the check, but still, $500 in a single day for me, I had never done that. And I was super blown away, guys. That was nuts. Absolutely insane for me.   We were living on a grand a month, basically, I believe. Something like that, anyways. It was hardly any money. And I was tired of it.   We’d been married for three years by that time and I was sick of being poor.   You can actually hear me in the very first thing say that: "I'm tired of being poor. "I'm tired of not having the things I'd like to have. "I'm tired of not having a lifestyle."   And honestly the biggest internal reason? I was tired of feeling like I couldn't provide for my family. I was sick of all of it.   I was like, I need to start doing bigger things. I need to start doing big, drastic things in my life that are the big disruptive activities that literally catapult me to new levels.   So the new goal that I made, the huge big goal that I made that very first video, five years ago, again you can see it, and you can see the progression year by year, which is crazy. I never thought I was starting a thing by doing this. But you can see, the big goal, I wanted to just do an extra thousand dollars a month.   I was like, “If I could just do,” and I didn't know how. I was like , “If I could just do a thousand dollars a month that would radically transform our lives.”   ...I mean, we would eat a little bit better. We would eat more. We could actually eat in general. I was just sick of it. I gotta be honest with you guys.   Looking back on what's happened in the last five years, first of all, is ridiculous. I didn't really figure out the game for the first two years doing these videos.   Then two years ago I was like, “Oh snap, the pattern's everywhere”... and then this last year, I decided to actually test the pattern, and I left my job. Scary, scary, scary stuff.   But when I think about it and the things that have propelled me, I actually wrote this on my window. It says Play Angry. I'm not an angry guy, but when I remember back to what life was like before I started doing this stuff…   I worked my face off, guys. I worked so freaking hard. I know the reason why stuff has happened really well in the last, especially two years. It's 'cause I worked really freakin' hard.   I only took two days for Christmas, and that's not necessarily a badge of honor. I actually wanna change that, and that's part of what I want to talk about for my goal for this upcoming year, but I work hard. I work really hard. I just get after it.   Nine times out of ten, I have no idea what the plan totally is. I'm just taking action. I'm just doing stuff.   So as I look back at the things that have really kept me moving forward, like, “Yes, there's this strategy, that strategy... Remember to do this before that...” That's great, and it's helpful.   But 80% of it is just me remembering the crap that I was going through and what life was like without having known or doing the things that I'm doing now - which sucked. I mean, “Oh my gosh, life was hard.”   ...So I'm excited for this. I'm not gonna lie, I'm actually nervous about this. I hate posting these videos. It's one of the reasons I do it: I hate it. It freaks me out. I don't want to tell you all my goal.   I don't wanna account for every previous year every single January. I hate New Year's resolutions, I think they're stupid. Why am I gonna do that once a year?   At the end of every single month I think through the goal, what I'm doing next month, I make sure that all the things and activities I'm doing are heading me to that target more closely. I'm not doing that once a year, that's stupid. So, anyway, I guess an effort for me to accept a little more of that resolution thing is to do this.   If you guys have never seen me do one of these episodes, or declare my goal publicly - what I do is I account for the last year.   It's not to throw mud in anyone's face. It literally is so you can go back and watch:   Year #1: Here’s Stephen when he had no money and was completely broke.   Year #2:  Still broke. He still hasn’t figured it out.   Year #3: Still broke, but it’s a lot more breakeven.   Year #4: Wow, lotta cash coming. Oh, my gosh.   Year #5: Stephen left his job... Holy smokes, why? What did he learn?   I'm trying to be super freakishly transparent in a way that’s not that popular anymore. It's not me saying, "Woe is me. Look how weak and vulnerable I am." No, no, no, no. Not at all. That’s NOT the point.   I'm trying to do is document everything I'm doing on the way so that you can see my journey.   Being broke was one of the most painful things I've ever been through in my life. And it almost had nothing to do with the money. It had everything to do with my feelings of inability. It wrecked my brain, guys.   It sucked, I don't want to feel like that. That's something that I'm really afraid of. I'm open to talk about that...   So I worked my face off, and after applying a few of these patterns, things really started to work. And then things really started working.   Anyway, so at the beginning of this I always go through and account for last year, and then tell you what my goal is going to be this next year, fiscally.   There's really only two, maybe three goals that I ever set. EVER. Anyway, so I'm gonna go through the fiscal goal for this upcoming year, and then my plan to get it. Which I'm really pumped about.   There's something that I, this episode is a little bit different than the previous ones that I've done where I just kind of say the goal. I want to tell you what I'm trying to do and... there's a gap, guys. There's a hole…   Literally two days ago, I realized that it was starting to appear in me. And I think I know how to fix it, but I'm freaked out about this one area, and I'm gonna solve it. It's just been really challenging.   So anyways, I'm excited about this though…   'Kay, so here it is, okay?   # January 1st, 2018, I left my job. And just to be clear, I had NO team. I had NO additional revenue at all. I had absolutely zero. I didn't have a product. I wasn't running any funnels, I didn't have a script.   Guys, I left with nothing.   I'm actually shocked how much hate mail I got by leaving ClickFunnels. Which is stupid, by the way. That's my choice, no one else's.   But when I left ClickFunnels, the reason I did it was because I had been coaching so many people in the Two Comma Club coaching program at ClickFunnels, that I started seeing these patterns of what was making somebody successful and what wasn't.   There were these holes and these gaps. And I was learning how to do is fill in those holes. Regardless of the product, the price point, or the industry that anyone was in, I was able to go through and figure out, "oh my gosh, this is how you fix it!"   I’d create my own framework and drop it in front of them, and BOOM!   I helped create a lot of millionaires in that program. Literally. A lot of hundred-thousandaires, which is still really good, and tons of people made money for the first time in their life on the internet.   I started getting better and better, and better, and better, better.   I'd already been doing the Two Comma Club coaching program for over a year at least, probably almost a year and a half by the time I left ClickFunnels.   So there were two reasons why I left ClickFunnels:   Number one:  I just knew in my bones I'm an entrepreneur. I just know that, and I'm trying to be more true to myself. I'm trying to find me. And I know that I'm an entrepreneur.   So the longer I stayed at ClickFunnels, regardless of how amazing it is over there and regardless of how dumb it looked for me to leave, and how cushy and amazing and plush and secure that job was... it wasn't me. So I left.   I had to grow some balls and just do it.   So number one, I had to get out of there.   That was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life. Okay, literally. And it still hurts. It’s hard that I only live like three miles away from ClickFunnels, 'Cause I just wanna go in sometimes, and be like "What's up? You all are awesome! Hey, can I just hang out for a bit?"   I tried really hard not to be that kid that just won't leave. You know what I mean?   So I just didn't show up for the first three months. 'Cause I didn't want to be like "What's up guys, how you doing? Hey, remember I said I left, but I'm not leaving. How are ya?  So I left... and really made sure I left.   Number Two: The second reason was that I’d become very confident in the frameworks I was producing. When I was coaching, I knew that if people just did it, they would make money - eventually.   There might be some in-between things that they need to fix, which usually had to do with their personality and NOT my framework. But eventually, it would work.   A lot of good marketers do this, guys. You gotta think about this, right? I started asking myself the question…   I remember this was June 2017, and I started asking myself the question: “What is something huge, like really big, like the biggest thing I can think to have to go through to prove that I know this stuff?”   Straight up, I don't know, what's the word, prowess.  I was trying to, not as a "look at me," but it was to prove to myself and others that I wasn't just building funnels in the corner.   I knew there was more. I knew there was more. And I knew that my frameworks worked. So I started asking myself the question: “What's something that's so big that it would be hard for people to not notice me?” You know what I mean?   Again, it's not like an out of a "look at me!" mentality. But it represented so much - because of all the crap I had gone through. And all the stuff that had gone on in my life up until that point.   I was like, “I need a crucible.”There needs to be this big event. What's the craziest thing I could fathom going through to prove to myself that I could do it? Almost like going full circle and healing parts of me that weren't healed about what I had gone through. You know what I mean?   ...And then especially, “How can I prove to myself that what I am teaching?” I know it works!   If I go to the gym and I'm like "Hey, I wanna lose weight," I will never hire someone who's overweight, right? I don't want to be a hypocrite and be the guy who's teaching stuff that he hasn't done…   And that really got in my head, and it started giving me a complex. I knew that what I was teaching worked because I was seeing other people do it. But I hadn't done it. And to me that's freaking blasphemy. It's like, it's so stupid.   I'm never gonna hire somebody who's broke to teach me how to make money...   I follow the principle of the guy who has the biggest cheese. Sausage number one man. Right, who's the guy, who's the lady, who's the person out there who has done it so much, right, and they can teach it so well because they are speaking from experience?   I wanted to be that kind of person. I wanted to prove that my frameworks work.   So I thought to myself, "Self, what if you left your job with no assets, no income, no funnel?”  Like, this is freaking extreme! I know it is. And I'm not recommending that anybody do that.   For me, and where I was, that was the right answer.  I was like "That's insane." And I went back and forth for a few months like, "Are you kidding? That's stupid, dude! Why would you do that? You're gonna leave?" And like, “Yeah, but it's the ultimate, it does work."   How do I know?   Because I jumped out of a moving airplane with no parachute and built it on the way down.   Again, scary, risky, risky like crazy. That's risky.   And so anyways, I'm super proud. I obviously wish I had made more this year. Who doesn't wish that? But I'm really proud that it worked. And that I knew the frameworks and the models and the formulas to make the game work so well that I could do that.   And again, not like a beat on the chest, “Look how great I am!” But you see what I'm saying?   It was really important for me to prove to myself that I could do that, and for whatever reason, me and my personal development and growth needed that.   So anyways, what I'm gonna do really fast is I wanna walk through what happened last year,  what I'm gonna do next year, and how I'm gonna do it.   ...And then there's something that's kind of freaking me out a little bit and I'm trying to figure out how to solve it. And I think I have the answer but I'm not quite sure.   Anyways, let me pull in my whiteboard here. My trusty whiteboard. Okay, check this out. Here it is. Let me just make sure there's no glare. Let me look over here at the camera. Alright…   So last year from January 1st to December 29th at 9pm mountain time... (I held off a little bit to record this episode 'cause I was trying to flet December end out)... I did $850,000. Well, $850,353, and 87 cents - which is cool.   Last year, if you watched the video for 2018's goal, I was like "I'm gonna go make a million bucks." And like, I saw that and I was like, “Crap!” You know. I was like, “Yeah! No!” Like, “Yes! No!” Superbad. I was like, “NO!” … because of THAT.   So I'm super stoked, I did 850 grand out of the gate:   No team No funnel No product No system   The only thing I had been doing was publishing = big lesson in that.   I had done 100 episodes of Sales Funnel Radio at the exact date that I left ClickFunnels, I believe. The show hadn't even done 100,000 downloads when I left ClickFunnels; we're now at 250,000 downloads of Sales Funnel Radio. Last I checked, but it's growing by almost 2,000 a day now. Which is awesome. So that's cool, right? That's me accounting, being totally open and really vulnerable.   When I left ClickFunnels, I followed my own formula and made 200 grand really fast out of the gate. And then, I got freaked out, guys.   January and February what happened was, there was a lot of cash that came in. And I’d built funnels for revenue, but I hadn't built systems for a business. So I was the business. And it was hell, I'm not gonna lie, guys. It was so nuts.   March came around, which was Funnel Hacking Live, and I turned off pretty much every revenue stream because I was like, "Shut it down, shut it down! I need to go set up this stuff.  I gotta go put these things together.”   So I started putting together all these systems and all this stuff like, support. And then Coulton moved down. And I started putting all these people together because I couldn't handle the speed that the revenue was coming in.   I couldn't fulfill fast enough which is scary because the people were like "Oh, it's a scam!" And “It's not a scam, I just can't keep up.”   Trey Lewellen went through a similar thing when he sold that many flashlights. You know what I mean? Crazy, crazy, crazy.   So I slowed everything down…  and a lot of March and April was a lot of more biz building which was exciting, but it freaked me out, guys. I was trying to keep it cool but man, I was so scared because there wasn't a lot of revenue coming in.   At the beginning where it was like 40, 50, 60 grand a month, somewhere like that, it was like like 10, 15 grand, and I was like "We're gonna die in a gutter. Maybe this was a stupid mistake!" You know, "What have I done?"   So, I was so scared, but I knew the process and I just kept true to it and kept blocking out the noise. And when I turned everything back on, we were back up to 50 grand, 70 grand, and then, five months in a row of hundred, hundred, hundred.  I was like, “Holy Crap!”   Last month in December we didn't hit the hundred. It's funny man, people go on holidays and everything just kind of shut down. It was totally a slow season, I didn't know that. But I'm so stoked though.   And then what also happened, is we were pulling in so much money there that again, I had to stop things and slow things down.   A lot of December for me has been business building and systems building. So I've been building these things that’ll make it so that I can move faster in 2019.   So here's the sting, guys. Here's the sting…   I did 850 grand, collected. Check this out. Man, I was so pissed off when I saw this.   I was just quickly running through my accounts receivable,and we're getting another big chunk of cash again either today or tomorrow. Okay.   Check this out:   Collected = $850,000. To Collect, (meaning the business is there, we're just collecting it still) = $156,000   Man, that's a million dollars!   That's six grand over a million bucks. No, no, no no no!   I was so mad when I saw that. I ran downstairs to my wife and I was like "Look,  that + that  = that’s over a million! What! Like why didn’t I set up more systems?”   Anyway, it was super cool, BUT like, a massive slap in the face.   When I tell you guys the market will always tell you what to do - it just did! I was like "No!" The market's saying: “Stephen, you don't have the systems in place yet to collect enough of the money upfront in some areas of things that you provide.”   There's some really high-end stuff that I go and I do. I just get so excited about doing the thing I didn't have everything set up  - which is stupid.   ...but how would I have known unless I looked. Unless I listened to the market. Unless I was willing to fail... you know what I mean?   So was it a failure? “No, but Yeah.”   By the numbers, yeah. Was it really? No.   Did I do something really risky? Yeah. Did it work? Barely. You know what I mean?   So I'm excited guys, I can't describe to you the feeling of accomplishment that I have with this.   If you guys have been following me at all, I mean there's been many, many moments where, I'm not gonna lie, a little man-tear happened, okay. It flexed on the way out so it's still manly, it's cool.   ...But there was a little bit of a tear there and I was like "Man, you're crazy, Stephen. In fact, you killed Stephen. You're Steve now." A lot of you guys are asking me what you can call me; you can call me, whatever....   But anyway, this journey, this year has been of insane growth in many areas. I've learned:   What did work   What didn't work   Where I should tweak stuff   Where I need to go next   I know what to go build next.   ...And I know, because of pain. I couldn't have foreseen some of the things that I need to go fix, which is why I needed to leave ClickFunnels. You see what I'm saying?   I would NOT have known, "Hey look, when you move into this area watch out for this and this and that."   I wanna be the ultimate litmus test for what I'm teaching people.   So, risky? Totally. oh my gosh, yeah, yeah. Not that risky though, because of what I do and what I did. Don't compare yourself to me if you're like "I'm NOT willing to leave my job."  Yeah, then don't. I'm not telling you to, okay? But what I'm so stoked about was, “That would've been a million dollars. No! Dang it!”   ...Because I, technically, have two businesses, I didn't get a Two Comma Club award this year for my stuff, but both of them, we got the stuff to make 'em work really well, you know? It's freaking close.   Anyway, so I'm being open with you guys about what happened, and what didn't.   I’m trying to be the ultimate guinea pig on a lot of the stuff and test guru's material out.   And Russell Brunson's is the closest material that I've ever found where it's like ready out of the box, you know? It's not that way for other guru's stuff.   I want to be long-term. I want to have the reputation like that for my material. Not like, "Yeah, when you go to that person's stuff, it's great and it's really helpful, but you still need X, Y, and Z to actually use it."   I don't want that. I don't want that. That's why I made OfferMind and I made that event because it was me going through and showing the framework.   I have a very framework, systems-focused brain. And I love going in and pulling those things out and showing:   Look, this is how I did it   This is when it worked   This is when it didn't work.   ...and being that kind of person.   So anyways, going forward, my goal for next year - which is scaring the crap out of me. Which solves half my problem I'm gonna get to in just a moment here. My goal for next year, though?   If you watch the pattern, a lot of what I've done for these goals is the first year was $1,000 a month. Then it was $3,000 a month. Then I think is was $5,000 and then $10,000.   This last year was a million bucks - which is $82,000 a month.   This year, though…   Man, I'm telling you guys, I don't totally know all of the path on how to get there, but I see enough of it that I think it's gonna work. It’s scaring me to death. Ready? Here we go. You can see that, right? Yeah, okay. Four million dollars.   I've tripled the goal almost every time.   And that's where I've gone from one to three, you know. Then this to that. Four million, though, that's the goal! Gosh dang it, that's really freaky to say to you guys.   I know the systems that are gonna be in place. I gotta have more of them. A lot of what I need to set up in order to actually make that happen.   I gotta have a better phone sales system. I'm noticing that that's a big issue of mine. I don't have that many closers. And there's not much of a system and a script set up for that stuff.   This year for me has been a lot about the methodology I use and I teach that you need to enter into and design a new ocean with a single product.   Once the idea has been proven then you go and you can develop all the things inside of the value ladder to go explode it and expand it and actually plant your stake there.   Okay, so for this year…   I’ve  accidentally kind of become the category king in two different categories. One of them was purposeful; the other was completely accidental.   The business I lead with, my major, major passion, is Offer Creation. Just since OfferMind, collectively, those who attended, they've made hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. A lot of money.   I know this stuff works.   It's NOT one person is just killing it, that's a lot of people. And a lot of people who have never made money ever.   I continually get a lot of people that are like, "Man, I made my first 10 grand ever. 10, 30, 30, 30!" And I'm like, "Yeah! What's up?”   Pretty sure you guys made more money collectively than I did - which is awesome and I've very proud about that, actually.   I made more money doing the thing than teaching the thing. That's also very important to me as well. I focused on that a lot of this year.   So what I'm pumped about, you guys, is that I have gone in and I've developed these two businesses.   I have a front end business and I have a back end business:   #1: I teach offers, and I help people create their offers. I build off a lot of 'em, and a lot of people are in need for that. That's one of the major missing loops I was seeing in what I was coaching in the Two Comma Club coaching program.   And so I was like, “I'm gonna go be the offer guy.” And because of Russell Brunson and Myron Golden and Alex Charfen, and a lot of guys that I was being super vulnerable and open with…   They were like "Stephen, dude, you geek out about offers more than anybody we've ever seen in our entire life; go be that guy. There isn't a guy for that. Go be that guy."  I was like, sweet. So I'm the offer guy.   I've proved out the idea into that market.   How did I do that? By OfferMind.   Now that I've got that, I have a product up here. There's actually gonna be a second one up at the top. And then there's a whole bunch of cool front ends.   So on top of all these, proving the idea in front of the market, that's a lot of what this year was about. It's not so much about cashing out. It was about me proving out the systems and the things that I was teaching -  that they work.   If you look at Alex Hormozi, Brandon and Kaelin Poulin. If you look at, a lot of those people that blew up and made 10 million really quick, it's because the year prior, they actually went in and proved out their systems. And then scaled hard with a sales closer team and a phone team, which is what I'm gonna do.   A lot more sales positions, a lot more money up front scenarios, so I don't have this happen again.   The very one at the bottom says: An Assistant. I don't even have an assistant. It's literally two of us that are full time. I have two content teams  and now, we're building an internal funnel-building team. Which is really exciting.   For me to increase my speed, I cannot be the only one building my funnels anymore.   So anyways, guys whatwhat I'm trying to say when I'm teaching you guys right here is like, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that fail at this part of it. This is where they die.   They will remain the solopreneur; they cannot build the team.   They don't know how to scale, they don't know how to put the systems in place. I am excited to crack that code. I will will win at it, and I'm really, really pumped about that.   Now the thing that's freaking me out, just so you guys know: major growth in my life has come from scenarios that I don't know how to solve but walk forward anyway.   I didn't know how to build a funnel the first time I told someone I'd build one. Was it lying? No, because I knew it was possible, and I knew I'd figure it out. So I youtubed like crazy, you guys.   I remember the first time I asked ClickFunnel support how to change background color inside the editor. Okay, seriously, you guys are way further ahead than I was when I started, okay?   I got to the Funnel Hacking Live event the first time with no money. I had to bootstrap my way there. That's a crazy move. That's a big bold move.   I created the original Two Comma Coaching Program and ran the FHAT Event, which is crazy. A lot of successful people came from that event. For me to say yes to that was a scary thing.   I had to replace Russell Brunson on stage for three straight days, That freaked the crap out of me. Yeah, I was excited but I was scared to be totally honest with you.   Leaving my job! WHAT? Okay, that's nuts.   And so what I've noticed is that I suck at willingly manifesting personal growth. I'm not good at it. Almost no one really is. 'Cause when we start feeling pain the natural inclination and all of our justifications say "Back off, Stephen, why you gonna feel that pain?"   What propels me forward, and what I've been trying to figure out is what the next absolutely freaky goal is? What’s the experience?   I have a hard time willing those kind of experiences into my life, anyone does.   Like, basic training. Man, I couldn't get out of that. Right, I couldn't get out of, and I did those things for that reason.   I did door to door sales because it scared the crap out of me, and I knew I'd learn like crazy in the middle of that environment.   I'm trying to find the next environment. You see what I'm saying?   My  goal is four million dollars. I know I'm gonna hit that. It's a goal, it's scary 'cause I've never hit it, but I know I'm going to. I know that this next year I'll probably have at least three Two Comma Club Awards.   ...cause I got a lot of products that are in the hopper and they're all gonna tie together and reference each other, it's gonna be awesome.   BUT the thing that I'm trying to figure out is: How can I architect freaky big things and environments I can't get out of? And I don't know how else to do that except for a big goal that feels freaky to me that I've never done before.   And is it bigger than other people's? No. Some peoples are bigger than mine, I totally get that. But I'm on a journey and a comparison of me versus me. And to me, that scares the crap out of me.   I gotta build crap I've never built. I gotta build stuff I've never done. And I gotta push forward that way.   Anyways, what I'm saying is, the thing that I'm trying to figure out... Guys, this sounds so opposite. Completely opposite than what a rational individual would do.   I did not have an option when I left ClickFunnels, other than to make money work through funnels - because my back was against the wall, and I knew that. And that's one of the reasons I was doing it.   I could learn at a really slow pace by studying others, which is good to do for a while. I could learn at a really slow pace by consuming tons of content, which is really good to do for a while, until you're trying to figure out what you want to do   BUT, then, I don't know another way except burning the boats.I voluntarily try to find ways to put my back against the wall and cut all options out.   For the last five, six years there's been a lot of scenarios like that. Bam, bam, bam.   I'm 30 years old, I don't want there to be too much comfort in what I do. My goal could freak me out, but I know I'm gonna hit it. I know I'm gonna hit it. So, what can I orchestrate in my life to make it where I don't have an option but to move forward?   ...And that's the thing I've been trying to solve and it's really been freaking me out. I don't know how to solve that right yet. Because I don't wanna get comfy.   I'm not saying I'm not gonna go experience and have fun times doing a few things, you know what I mean? I'm gonna enjoy life, and I am a happy guy, but when it comes to personal growth and business and moving forward, frankly, I want to be big. And I know that…   Hopefully you guys know what you want? Don't be apologetic about it.   ...But how can I orchestrate the next ridiculous scenario in my life where I don't have an option? Where I will figure it out, out of desperation.   Which sounds crazy. Almost a masochist, I promise I'm not. But you see what I'm saying?   I have never learned more about myself than in those scenarios. I've never learned to love me more than in those scenarios. I've never learned to fill in the blanks faster, with more aggression, applied aggression, good aggression, right, than in those scenarios.   So like, man, I left the job, right? And everyone talks about that, and okay, done.   I'm trying to figure out what the next freaky thing is? And I can't.   I think there's a combination of some physical aspect, so I've been saying like, “Man, sometime I'm gonna try and choke out Russell Brunson in jiu jitsu.” Which is freaking scary 'cause that dude's like, all-American killer. That's cool, but my back's not against the wall.   There's no scenario yet where my back's against the wall. My back's not against the wall yet for this years goal, which freaks me out.   Most entrepreneurs just glide into the night when they hit some kind of a phase like this and I don't wanna be that way.   That's the real thing. That actually freaks me out more than the four million. I know how to hit that. I know the processes and the systems. I know exactly what I'm building. I'm almost done with my high-ticket thing that I've been building and putting together, and it's so awesome and there's nothing like it, and it comes from this perspective that has been very unique for me - because not many people do the stupid move I did by leaving my job.   Which is ultimately awesome, but you know what I mean?   Anyway, I'm really pumped about it, but I know I'm gonna hit that goal. I know exactly what my products are gonna be in my value ladder. I've got people building that stuff for me now.   My internal funnel-building team that I dream-lined out; I've already approached them, and they already said yes. Now I'm just gonna run through the process of it.   I'm gonna treat it just like I do my content team, so I'm gonna babysit it the first few funnel-builds to really document the system, and then keep moving forward. You know what I mean?   But like besides that, where's my next level of:  "Oh crap Stephen, can you do this” coming from? And that, my friends, has been one of the greatest accellerents to anything that I've done ever.   So I'm really pumped about it, but also scared to death 'cause I don't actually know the answers yet. I'll figure it out, and I'm gonna keep looking for it. It's exciting, exciting stuff. So anyways guys, that's my goal. I collected $850,000   I still have $156,000 too collect   I'm gonna do four million this next year.   Honestly ,I feel like I'll do four million this next year running at the pace that I am, but anyway. I know I think at least we'll do three; four is the stretch. Which again, freaks me out, but I see where to go for it. I'm pumped about it.   Watch how I'm launching my stuff moving forward to watch how I'm doing that. It's a balance between what I'm doing publicly and behind the scenes in my actual company. It's this next piece, though: How can I orchestrate a little bit more fear for me personally?   To be freaked out for the sake of: let's put your back against the wall and see what you're made of, Larsen? You know what I mean?   Anyway, so I'm psyched about this, guys. Thanks so much for sticking with me. It's a little bit of a longer episode, but I just want you to know that's my goal.   I challenge each one of you guys to post your goal publicly.   It’ll freak you out; it usually scares people. And a lot of the audience that is following you, that you might not even know about, even if you don't feel like you have a following, someone's watching you, they'll follow up with you. A lot of you guys did with me. They were like, "Stephen, you gotta hit the goal, man!" I'm like "I know, and I think I'm going to!" And I thought I was, and then I didn't freaking collect on some of it - “Dang it. Dang it man! Gosh!”   Anyway, whatever…   Thanks for following the journey. Appreciate it.   Again:   I challenge all of you guys to go in and post your goal, whether on the comments of this post or somewhere, but get open and real with what you want. Get unapologetic about it, and move forward. Because no one wants what you want more than you do. Stop waiting for permission.   Alright guys, see you later, bye!   Aw, yeah!  Hey, obviously a funnel's already dead if you can't even get anyone to opt in, right?   So I spent four hours teaching an audience how to get high opt-ins; when they work, when they don't work. If you want access to that members area where you can watch those replays, just go to freeoptincourse.com to create your free members account now.  

[00:00] Hi, I'm Connie Sokol, a national speaker, bestselling author, program founder and Mother of seven and loving it. I'm reaching and teaching 1 million listeners to live a purposeful, organized, and joyful life. You can too. So let's go. [00:16] Welcome back to Balance Redefined. It's Connie Sokol and today I have a major vulnerability and live rant to share. Okay, I don't usually share these kinds of experiences, but today this one is literally one of those for the books that I just think how in the world that that happened to me. 'kay. So let me explain what happened. So I have a dear friend who we kind of touch base now and then and I love what she does. She's always helping women and she's just so upbeat and so wonderful and just kind of in a lower limelight way, she doesn't like, you know, parade it around and stuff, but she's got a very active blog and she's just wonderful. [00:55] Anyway she's just a great lady. And I happened to see on this, um, it was either a post was that post or newsletter thing. Anyway, I click to it, but it said, hey, I was featured in this magazine. I couldn't even believe it and or this online article, and it was about spotlighting women who really crushed it in 2018 and I was like, yes, she is finally getting her Kudos. Not that she needed them, not that she was looking for them, but I was so happy and I wanted to read more about it and I was so excited for her, but thinking maybe we should go do lunch and I can like take her lunch. Okay, so little side note here before I share what happened next. You know, if you know anything about me and you've listened to any of my podcasts, you know that I love good women, I love them, they do amazing things and I am, my whole life's work is helping women and families, helping them to find their purpose and fulfill it. [01:43] Helping them to get those organization systems in their life so they can actually spend more time doing the things they want to do. Getting that joy woven in and through and around their lives while they're doing it. Being the one that's, you know, massaging their shoulders and telling them you're doing awesome and you got this and you're amazing. And helping them to hold up a beautiful mirror and say, can you see the good that you are doing? Okay, this is me. Okay. Like I've actually been told I am a woman's cheerleader. Okay. Breathless proving. I just want you to know like this is the thing, it's clearly official with even like a pseudo title that I love to celebrate fabulous women. Have I established that clearly enough? Okay, so this does not diminish me at all when I am celebrating such said women. Okay, so back to this little online articles. [02:25] So I start reading this article and I'm smiling, I'm filled with joy and buttercups and then it hits me. It is by woman number five to have like 20 women they're spotlighting by woman. Number five, I start feeling this wave of Yuck, like I was in fact a total complete loser. Like not just your usual. Wow, they're amazing. And I'm not, not that, but it was this overwhelming your're so in caps lame. You don't know what you're doing. You don't even know tech at all. And by the way, what did you do in 2018 like these thoughts, I cannot express to you how strongly, how clearly they were playing in my mind and they felt so real. You know those moments where like in one instant you went from feeling healthy and disciplined and spiritually in tune and loving and wow, let's rock this day. Let's rock this year to suddenly like, where's my ritter chocolate bar? [03:22] Were, did I stash those Christmas cookies? You know what I'm saying? Like really it was night and day and I started going to this, well who needs a workout? And Yeah, you know, I could be sleeping this year, so who needs this? Oh, it was terrible. I cannot even express the reality of this feeling. It was so strong and yeah. Okay. So I have these kinds of feelings, not to this depth, but I have these kinds of feelings, you know about every three months when we're rolling out a new project, like we're rolling out a new program and I'm all like, you know, hyperventilating, all the different details that have to be taken care of him. He could sure this is just so, and it was, you know, it's all those, those feelings of the potential. What if people don't really think it's worth it and it's worthwhile. [04:02] Even though I have all the stats to prove and the Beta testing and all that, you know that idiosyncrasy kind of low self esteem thing that you kind of go through in this little cyclical process, man, say that five times fast. But you know how you can go through those kind of cycles and, and you kind of, it's expected and you go, okay, I know what this is. It's like that neighborhood stray dog that annoys the tar out of you, but it comes around every couple of weeks and you're like, ah. And then you go, you know what, okay, I'm just going to give them a little bone thing and then he'll go and he'll go off to the next neighbors, make the rounds and he'll be back in three weeks. Okay, it's fine. So with kind of like that, but no, this time it was really, really strong. [04:38] So I just want you to know it was, it was one of those crazy moments that I'm just like, I don't even know what I can do with this. I don't know what to do with it. And I was only just becoming aware that I was feeling this and that wasn't real because then the next thought that came, thankfully this next thought kind of came through and pierced that dark cloud and it gave me this thought of, "yes, let us look at what you did this last year, shall we?" And it was the soft, sweet kind of thought and then like a ticker tape going right through my mind. I start seeing super fast, all the things that I had done in this last year. Okay, let me just give you, this is not like, Whoa, listen to me. I'm telling you for a point, so stay with me. [05:19] Okay, so while raising four children at home, 'kay in three different schools, mind you and getting another one ready for other things, for future endeavors, right? Keeping my focus on family first, which is a huge job right there. 'kay. In the business side, I rebranded my entire business new website pictures. Do you know the choreography for trying to do pictures alone and do them in just one hour? Yeah. Do new systems and set up. I created an Interfaith Women's Conference with, they said it wouldn't even work and we had 600 attendees. Then we even did a mini conference followup version, so it was more intimate and that sold out and created a nonprofit organization from it because it was unbelievably wonderful and then an incredible board of amazing women, diverse, successful, incredible women from our community and then created a lifelong dream of my 12 week online program. [06:10] Started a new podcast and hired a new amazing core team for my business and company. Okay. That's just on the business side. [06:17] Okay, so let's see about the personal side, shall we? Yeah, Hashtag who you call him a loser. Okay. So successfully helped my children flourish through post divorce with some coping skills that were incredible and useful with beautiful experiences doing their homework and life help and the Mama, I'm right here for you love and keeping it together personally during all of this. Okay. Most days. And then helped my daughter graduate from high school with honors. 'Kay. Honestly, she did most of the work, but I was there for those tiers and moments. Okay. I'm just saying secure scholarships and then get college acceptance to her top three schools. Right. Helped her create and then fulfill this Nanning experience in France, which was incredible. And then helped her prepare for a church mission call, which she wanted to do and she received at to France Leone. [07:05] Okay. Can have to go pick her up afterwards yet did I mentioned that, but did I mention during all of these things? I also put meals on a table four nights a week, maybe five 'kay because there's the weekend we have to do Costa Vida, sorry, and no salesy thing. Through endless errands, dance competitions, reading in the classroom at all. Do I make my point? And in the midst of this successfully dealt with being evacuated from our home for the number one fire in the nation and handled it all without chocolate or binge watching anything. Okay. People, there has to be some kind of an award for this. All right? And then wrapping it all up, took my children to serve at a child's hope orphanage in Mexico. Even driving there and back as a single mom, 10 to 15 hours each way and working all things to make it a beautiful life changing experience despite occasional complaints. [07:57] Okay, I ask you, does that sound like I did nothing in 2018 hmm? Now this is not about, oh, who can top who and how much can I do in a year? I'm talking about this little voice that we allow in our heads as women. I want to remind you that I share this for one reason and one reason only. That in that soul debilitating moment of loser feeling, I literally believed I had done nothing of value this past year. What the, hey, how is it possible that especially that I teach women coping skills for this stuff, that I could let this happen. I got sucked in people. I got sucked into the less than Vortex Oh, how did I let that happen? And guess what? It took less than five minutes. Yeah. After all that I did in 2018 all that goes behind those sentences. You know what I'm talking about? [08:56] I still let that happen to me in less than five minutes. What? Ooh, did I come back like a fighting Xena warrior. I'm telling you once I realized it, and you know when you get that moment where you're like, oh no, you did not. You didn't. Not Today, because I was like, that's it. I am not going to go into that whole vortex of, oh, she's so much better than me and I don't do anything. Oh, my life is is nothing. And where's the chips? Right? Which is what we end up doing. So my point today is ladies not, oh, just don't go into the vortex. No, no, no. My point is be prepared for it because it will come, it will come. And that was my downfall is that I thought in my pride, I thought, Hey, I've been teaching this for 20 years and I have my moments. [09:46] I have my little soft moment and I have those really downtimes now and then, but you know, I get back up and I know what's coming, uh, did not even see this blindsided. So I want you to know that even if you're the most amazing woman on the planet, which you likely are, you are going to have those sneaky unsuspecting moments that hit you like a ton of chocolate bricks. And you will feel less than a loser. Like, why bother? What I do doesn't matter. Everyone else has it together kind of feeling right? And it's going to seem so real. So do not get sucked in. How? Ma of course you know what's going to come. I'm going to give you some tips. That's right because I had to use them myself so they worked and so I'm going to share them because that's my go to motto. [10:28] If I do something and it works, I'm going to share it because I want to see what worked for you because I'm gonna sure try it one of these days cause mine's not going to work next time maybe. All right, so try some of these. [10:37] Number one, stop doing what you're doing. Do whatever it is. I was on the social media thing. I was on the online magazine that I was reading. Just stop it. Then say shout, stomp out loud. I am a daughter of God. Now if you have other divine influence or the universe or other divine feeling as you know, I always say just insert it. I am loved and I am of infinite worth. And then if it feels real good, you can add so back off. Right. Cause that helps too. That's number one. Does do that. Number one. And what that does is tell that little voice and whatever influence is trying to bother you, it just tells it ach ach ach not today. [11:15] No, I'm aware. I know what's going on and know the number two go back to truth, go back to truth. What you know to be true. Pray from your gut to God or whoever it is that you feel is that divine influence. Read scriptures, talk with a wise friend, do whatever it takes for you to get to a truthful place and see that feeling, that feeling of going back to truth will already start giving you that happy, peaceful place. That not that competitive feeling, not that discouragement any of those competitiveness, discouragement, doubt. And I'm in competitiveness in a, in a way that makes you feel like I'm going to rip their eyes off because I better than are I am totally a winner and they're a loser. When that kind of competitive, no, that is not what we want. So go back to truth. [12:00] Number three. List what you have done and who you have become. This is not about proving your value. Do not mistake what I am doing here. This is not listing it off and checking in and saying, Oh look, I did 10 beautiful things this last year so I have value and worth. No, this is to do what is one of the most frequent commandments in scripture, which is, you know, this one, remember there's ask and then there's remember, remember, why does he ask us to remember? Because we forget and in that five minutes, I forgot a whole 12 months worth. Okay. As a mother of seven, that's not too hard to believe, but I did. I forgot. Can you imagine? Yeah, you probably can, right? You're done there. If you've had children's especially, but we're to remember, we're to remember who we are and what we've experienced and what we are yet to do to fulfill our personal purpose, to help others that fill their personal purpose. [12:55] So as we remember, we get back to that truth. We remember that truth. We'd soak in that truth. We, it's delicious too. As we chew on that truth and it becomes a part of us because we know that that is the truth. When I was able to list those things out, I could feel in my soul and no, this is actually what is true, not the first voice that was in my head. Okay. [13:16] Number four, express gratitude. Okay. You're probably going, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. If I read one more thing and listen on one more thing that says gratitude. Yeah, but guess what? It works. Yeah. It's here to stay. Just start. No rhyme or reason or you've got to have some cool little thing or app or you got to have something that's, you know, I do three or things are 22 things in one minute or whatever. [13:36] No, just express gratitude for the people or the experiences or things. Things are wonderful. Hilarides, mundanity of life, whatever it is that comes to your mind kind of stuff. It doesn't matter. This makes all the difference. And I did that too. I did that and I was able to start doing gratitude. And you know what? And the beautiful thing, and you'll see this when you go through these moments and you use these tips and tactics, you fight back. Then you start putting it into your life all the time and it's like, Ooh, this is a twofer. This is a bonus. Okay, I'm so glad this happened because now I remembered how important it was for me to do my gratitude minutes, not just every day, but throughout the day. So now I'm doing in the morning, I'm doing the afternoon, I'm doing the evening. So now I'm not just waiting till night for me to do my gratitude journal. [14:22] I am having a focus, concentrated moments of gratitude throughout the day and I got to tell you, it is fabulous and not inconsequentially. I have not had one more of those moments of the voices in my head attacking me since I've been doing that. So I gotta tell ya it works. [14:40] And number five, do a really, really long podcast or her really long ranty kind of post and you will feel much better. All right? Hopefully you will be able to feel and know from I shared that you can handle when this happens. You can go to the edge of that Vortex, but you don't have to get sucked in. You might be there before you realize it, but you don't have to get sucked in. And I think it's fantastic that we can do something about it. So I want you to know that. Now I want to leave you with one final thought to rule them all because this is so important. [15:11] As I was sitting there and thinking of these things, these other thoughts led up to this one final thought, but the thoughts that started coming to me where, oh my gosh, you know what? All women are doing so amazingly. Really, even when we go, oh, you know, she's not doing great, or I wasn't doing great last year, but I'm doing better now even when we don't think we're doing great. We are. We get up, we breathe and we keep our kids alive, right? I mean there's an award for that somewhere, I'm sure too. So I just want you to know you are doing what matters most and you are valued. You are a woman of incredible divine, an infinite worth. You must remember this, every single bit of drool of diapers of dishes and that drama that you deal with matters and it makes your family and this world a better place. [16:00] I promise you never ever doubt that. And just because society or a family member or neighbor makes you feel that your family and this world doesn't really do anything or that you're not very helpful or that you're not amazing as you should be, or you don't get a thousand likes, you don't get a million subscribers or that you, you don't do things that are of value, do not get sucked in because you can with your wisdom and your steadiness and your focus on truth. You can move forward each day and with love, with laughter and with light. You can do this with those focuses and those drivers and you can ignore the rest. So all of these thoughts were coming to me and then it culminated in one thought, one big Mama thought. That's right. One thought to rule them all and it was this; Do Good. [16:54] That's it. Go about doing good and whatever the outcome is. And that's different for everyone. Rejoice in it, delight in it. And if one day that involves creating a new program and the next day it involves taking a nap with a preschooler, then rejoice, have joy. It means that you have discovered the thing that matters most. And just because it may mean one day you discovered the meaning of life and the next day you've just discovered the missing shoe. It doesn't matter. It means that you still know what matters most and you're experiencing it today. You know that whatever you do really, truly, honestly does matter. And I want you to keep that in your soul so that the next time that sneaky other little influence comes prowling around to make you miserable, you stand like that Xena warrior, and you know for yourself what is true and what is not, and make it known that you know. [17:47] Okay, so just as recap, Do Good. Don't get sucked in. Focus on truth. Share your experience and stand like a Xena warrior. All right? [17:58] People back to life as we know it with a joyful vengeance. And remember, if you want more of this good juicy stuff, please click on another podcast or take one of my free masterclasses, they're free. Just hop on there and get more of these juicy life hacks. I want to see you even happier and more organized and feeling that joy and that purpose. Even if you're the most stellar, organized and purposeful - PURPOSEFUL person on the planet. I just want you to know I've got even more for you to enjoy because that is my joy. So I hope you got something great out today. If you did, please comment below something that's a takeaway for you. I would love to hear it and know it and then if you have something you want to share, the others could learn from, please post it below. [18:42] If you want more information on Masterclass, #yes or just go to conniesokil.com and you can find it out there and if you want, you can always go on social media. I've got lots of posts, I've got lots of resources and articles and things and insights and wonderful people just to share with and discussed up. And it's just so great. So go on any major social media, Connie Sokol and you will find me. I would love, love, love to connect with you. And as I mentioned, if you want more great stuff than just click on another podcast and get more Balance Redefined. [19:14] Hi, I'm Connie Sokol and thanks for listening today to balance redefined. Don't forget to rate and subscribe and if you liked it, get even more life shifting. Learning with my best selling books on Amazon from humorous to core content, seasonal to spiritual life hacking nonfiction to fun romance fiction. I have a book for just what you need. So go to Amazon, search Connie Sokol, and check out the show notes for the direct link to guide you there.

Boom, what's going on everyone. It's Steve Larsen - This is Sales Funnel Radio...   And today we're gonna talk about how to acquire a mass of qualified customers.   I've spent the last four years learning from the most brilliant marketers today. And now I've left my nine to five to take the plunge and build my million dollar business.   The real question is, how will I do it without VC funding or debt, completely from scratch? This podcast is here to give you the answer.   Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share marketing strategies to grow my online business. Using only today's best internet sales funnels.   My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Sales Funnel Radio.   What's up, guys? Hey, today, I'm actually going to toss in another recording from the Science of Selling Online Facebook group.   I was reading from a book, showing them strategies from these various books.   Not only how to acquire a mass of qualified customers, but when to acquire them.  At what stage in your business it's important to do so and when is it not.   When's the best time to actually go try and get a huge amount of customers? There is a time to do that and a time not to.   You might be thinking, "Stephen that's stupid, why would you not just want tons of customers?"   There's a lot of reasons why you should and why you shouldn't do that.   In this episode, I'm actually gonna cut straight over to a Facebook live, but watch carefully because I'm using the very same strategy inside my business right now.   I've created the main product for my business, so now that it's there, what front ends do I create to amass a huge list of qualified buyers, not just random people?   Anyways hope you enjoy this, we'll cut over to the episode now. Talk to you guys later, bye...   What's up. How's it going, everybody? Hope everyone is doing fantastic! I need to be asleep right now but... you know, some nights I just can't get relaxed.   Yes, I wear glasses. I've had glasses and contacts since second grade. My eyes are terrible.   I barely made it into the army - my eyes are so bad that I'm only a few points away from not being allowed to join... like isn't that funny?   So anyway, yes I'm wearing my glasses right now. And I have been jumping on my tramp right there and listening to music and thinking a lot.   I don't know why, but every once in a while, I just get in these zones where I just walk around, and I can tell that to everyone I kinda seem like a zombie - you know what I mean?  My head's just spinning going through tons and tons of scenarios; it's fun. I absolutely love it. It’s like a Beautiful Mind, "vroo, vroo" all over the place.   I wanted to share a lesson with you guys real quick - because it's actually something that I'm doing right now. It's something that I taught a solid six-seven months ago. And it's interesting; what's happened.   *REPLYING TO FB COMMENTS* “What's up guys, how's it going Ross? "Like your glasses, the real you." "Yeah, yeah, right. I cannot wait to get LASIK...   I was at the eye doctor a little while ago, and he told me that I have clinically large eyeballs. I was like, "Oh. It's not like I can do anything about it. Thanks for making me self-conscious for the rest of my life!"   I want to share with you guys something that you need to understand.   We talk all the time about going at the core of the value ladder, right! That is the place where you start your products.   You start your business at the core of the actual value ladder. The reason why is because everything else kind of spiders out from there. What I want to do is - I want to tell you why. I wanna tell you why everything spiders away from the core of the value ladder... it doesn't have to do with creating the back ends.   The market's gonna tell you what to do, all that because yes, yes, yes, yes, but another big reason has to do with one of the principals from the book, Ready, Fire, Aim.   I was flying back home from speaking at an event in January, and I ended up doing a few Facebook lives in the airport, and one of them was about this very principal right here. It has more to do with the way the cash actually moves inside of the business.   A little while ago, a customer was frustrated, and she came up to me, and she said "Hey, do I really need to go create products? Do I really need to go make..." Anyway, she was being whiny.   And what I said to her was "Look, a customer is purchased regardless. You will buy a customer whether or not you want to. There's a cost to it."   Most of the time when we think of average cart value and cost to acquire,  those are the only two numbers that we really care about in a marketing funnel.   However, cost to acquire we typically always assume means money. It actually can mean time as well.   So what I want to do real quick is, I want to talk real fast about the realities of what it actually means to acquire a customer. And when it's best to go and... Let me step back.   There's a thought; I keep trying to get it out for you guys, so you understand what I'm trying to go for...   Somebody was probing me, they're like "Stephen, why has your funnel not hit passed a million bucks already?" And I said, "It's because it's not scalable yet." And they're like, "What do you mean?"   There is a podcast episode coming out about this soon. I "out-revenued" the systems in my business. Does that make sense? My revenue was growing faster than the business.   This has happened multiple times; I would build a freaking awesome funnel, then we put it out there, we'd launch it:   Day #1: They're excited. They're like, "Oh my gosh, this is so cool. Look at all these sales coming in!"   Day #2: They're like, "Wow, that's a lot of sales!"   Day #3: They're like, "Turn it off, turn it off, you're going to bankrupt us!"   I remember the first time that ever happened to me, it was well before I ever worked for ClickFunnels. And this company, I almost bankrupted them.   And I was like, "What? That doesn't make any sense?  I've never met anyone ever who wants fewer sales!" I didn't understand what happened until later on when I was working for ClickFunnels.   I was sitting next to Russell, doing all this stuff. He and I were building a funnel for FiberFix, and the exact same thing happened. We basically, two and a half, 3x-ed their revenue in a couple days. It was like "BAM!" Really fast. Same story:   Day #1: "Wow!"   Day #2: "Whoa!"   Day #3: "Stop, turn it off, or you were gonna bankrupt us!"   I was like that's so weird. And I don't know why but until that time.... I mean, I knew that funnels weren't businesses. A funnel is NOT a business, right? Funnels are not businesses. A funnel is a way to sell stuff, right?   I am a master at the funnel building side, however, I know I'm not a master at the building the business side. I've had to learn that stuff as I go along - because my revenue was outpacing my business.   So let's go back. Let's think about this; when we think about "cost to acquire," there are multiple costs to acquire:   #1: There's a cost to acquire as far as money goes.   #2: There's a cost to acquire as far as time goes.   If you're not willing to pay ads to acquire a customer, you're gonna pay with your time, right?   I'll go do that with my podcasts, right? That's one way I'm purchasing a customer with my time.   I don't like doing methods where I have to do the same strategy over and over and over again; meaning, I'm not good as the guy who's like gonna spend time doing the same pitch to tons of people. I'd rather do the pitch one time, and automate it through a funnel to leverage my time that way.   #3: There's also a cost to acquire as far as your business goes and the stress that causes on the actual structure that you've built.   If you don't have a structure  - if every single support ticket is different - If you handle a support ticket differently every single time...   If you handle a customer complaint differently each time...   If every time somebody purchases from you, it's a different scenario every single time...   YOU'RE GONNA DIE!   That's part of the stuff that I was running into the first three months of this year.   I was selling, selling, selling, selling, selling.   I did over 200 grand real fast, bam, real quick.  I was kinda the sole operator, and everything slowed down. I was like,"What's happening? Holy crap, a lot more people still want this thing, how come I can't push it forward even harder? How come I can't... "   I had to step back.   And while I'm a funnels guy, I needed to become a business systems guy too.   And so what I've been doing a lot lately; I’ve been setting up systems that allow my funnel and my revenue to become scalable.   We're just about hitting that point right now.   We just tested this SLO, it's doing really well. It's converted, last I checked,  around 15%, which is great. That's great for a self-liquidating offer for a webinar. It's good enough anyway - at least to take the edge off. It's going good, going really, really well.   What I wanna do real quick is I want to, first of all, put my glasses on, 'cause I really can't see you guys. My vision is that bad. What I wanna do real quick though, is I wanna read to you why this happens.   I'm at this phase right now... I wanna show you guys one thing real quick here. I do not regret building it the way I have. I don't believe you're an entrepreneur if you don't go actually create something of value.   Like, alright there are business owners, and then there are entrepreneurs. They're not necessarily the same thing.   A business owner comes out of college, "Hey, I'm gonna go build a business." They get VC funding to fund the structure that they're putting together. Rather than go create value first to make money to build the structure. Right?   I believe an entrepreneur goes and makes value. They get paid for it, and then they use that cash to build the system to let them go sell more. That's what I've been doing.   And so, what I'm trying to get at here, what I'm trying to share with you and show, is this phase that I'm entering. I'm really excited.   There are a lot of phases all over the place, but the ones I'm talking about today are:   #1: Does the market even want what I'm freaking selling? Do they want it?   Answer: "Yes" I'm making cash from it. We don't even have ads running right now, and there's still sales - which is awesome. It means it's selling by word of mouth which means there are ravenous buyers and ravenous evangelists. Which is awesome.     So is it selling?  "Yes." Is the market telling me they want it? Yes, they are. Okay. Next phase...   #2: Let's turn it up. Boom! "Oh my gosh, my business structure can't handle it."   Too many support tickets   Too many things coming in   I'm the sole operator, "Oh my gosh, I am drowning." I'm now working "in" the business instead of "on it."     I need to turn down my revenue and turn up my systems.     Does that make sense? 'Cause that's what I've been doing. But now that I'm about to enter this other phase, and it's part of the reason why I'm doing Affiliate Outrage.   I wanna share with you why I'm steering the ship the way that I am.   Is this cool? First of all, I hope this is cool? That's what I mean when I invited you guys to this group... "the deep dark secrets of Stephen's mind."   This is the stuff that just rocks through my brain. And I'm just connection, connection, connection...   I'm linking together several different books right now, and what I wanna do is read a section here to you guys from Ready, Fire, Aim, and tell you why I'm doing what I'm doing:   Anyway, you guys ready? Here come the glasses. I think my vision is like negative 6.5 or something like that. I mean it's REALLY bad. I think it's 7.5 was like the army cut off, and I barely made it. I cannot wait to get LASIK. I will be a life changing event. I mean, I'm serious, I'm so blind.   My hand is in focus finally, when it's about right here. Barely, isn't that nuts? Anyway, I'm actually quite blind. And no it's not because of all the computer screens. I started when I was in second grade.   This is a section, this is a chapter here from Ready, Fire, Aim. This is on page 118. Fantastic book! If you've not read it, I recommend it completely.   The first section is dedicated to the systems on the marketing side and even on the business side that you need to put in place to go from zero to a million.   The second part of the book is one to ten million.   The next part of the book is ten to a hundred million or fifty million - and then goes beyond that.   I've only read the first part, 'cause that's all I care about with this funnel right now. And while I have a 2 Comma Club award, it was with Russell, and I want my own. So that's why I'm documenting my journey along the way.   Check this out, pg 118, this is how I read books, and this is the reason why it takes me like three months to read a book if I'm being active about it.   Alright, so here it is.  Check this out. Right, where my thumb is”   "So although your primary focus should always be on customer service, your quantifiable goal at this stage of an entrepreneur should be to acquire as fast as possible what we call a critical mass of qualified customers.   The number of loyal customers you need in order to make all or most all of your subsequent selling transactions profitable."   English, what does that mean?   Let me read it again real quick, and then we're gonna dive into this.   "Although your primary focus should be customer service, you need to acquire as fast as possible a critical mass of qualified customers.   The number of people in order to make all of your transactions profitable."   Let me keep going here.   "Once you have a good number of qualified customers, you'll be in a really good position where almost every new product you come out with will be successful because so many of your existing customers will buy it."   Does this make sense? Follow me here. Let me keep going, one more part here.   "You need to understand the dynamics of generating long-term profits through the development of large circulation, low-cost products, sold at a loss on marketing by upselling high-end products to this larger base."   This is a lotta crap, right, this is a lotta crap. Follow me though. Now, let's go through and let's read my squiggles.   Let me flip this around here again, real quick. Here's my squiggles...   If you think about this, what this is saying is:   #1:  Acquire as many customers as fast as you can. As fast as possible acquire a critical mass of qualified customers.   #2:  Once you have a lot of them; every single subsequent transaction will be profitable because so many of the existing customers will buy your upsells. That's saying use freaking funnels.   #3:  The way to do that is by producing large circulation, low-cost products that you sell at a loss.   Does Russell Brunson actually make that much money by selling his book alone? No, he doesn't. What actually makes it profitable? All the upsells in the back.   Here, let me go full circle. Follow me here ...   Think about where I am in my business. I know the market wants my product.   I've actually completely shifted who I'm selling to.   Just recently, in the last two weeks, I realized I'm selling to the wrong person. So I'm redoing a lot of stuff, I'm changing the vernacular, I'm changing ads, I'm changing a lot of stuff, and I'm readjusting and realigning for the right person. "Oh, my gosh, you were here all along."   Markets are discovered, they're not created. New markets, blue oceans, purple oceans are discovered.   You don't set out and go, "I'm gonna create a brand new niche." It doesn't exist! How can you measure it? You discover niches.   I have been discovering this new niche because I'm actively selling inside of it, and the market is telling me how to move.   Now that I know that the market wants me to sell it, that product, and I'm like, "oh my gosh, my revenue is outpacing my actual business." so I stopped for a while and fixed the business, and now I'm turning the ads back on. The engines are turning back on again.   What I'm really doing now is exactly what Ready, Fire, Aim is teaching. Which is I am creating low cost, low price, high circulation products. Does that make sense? Those are the qualifiers.   When you figure out the core of the business, which is what I've done now, the core of the actual business that you have, your role, right,   I've gotta a sweet back end product that we're gonna go create here soon, I want my own event. I think it'd be super cool, and I really think it can help a lotta people. So that'd be a lotta fun. The cool back-end product for me is events and consulting.   Front-end though, low cost, low priced. So they're low cost to you, they're low priced to the consumer, but they are high circulation.   Do you guys know that when somebody buys a book, on average, it gets passed around up to nine times? Nine times! So when you sell a book to somebody, there's a high potential that it actually gets read by nine people.   That's the reason why we sell so many books. It's the reason why we do so many FREE + shipping things. So the FREE + shipping CDs, info, information, right? Little knick-knacks here and there, funnel graffiti - stuff like that.   It's not to make money, it is to acquire a critical mass of qualified customers. Precisely what Ready, Fire, Aim is talking about. Does that make sense?   But the problem is is that most people, before they know what the core of the business is, they start with low cost, low price, high circulation products. That's why I don't usually recommend going into things like e-com right out the get-go.   You can do e-com by bundling it with info, and then suddenly you're margins go really high again.   So if I now have a critical mass of qualified customers, they're buying everything... The second "yes" is easy, once the first “yes” happens - they're buying a lot of my subsequent products - everything you're coming out with your existing customer base is buying it.   A low price, low cost to acquire equals a big customer base for your back-end products. Those are the three categories though. Low cost, low price, high circulation potential. That's really what you're going for at those phases.   If I go and I create a critical mass of qualified customers in the middle of my value ladder...   I was drawing a value ladder; I was on an airplane, listening to dubstep,  there was caffeine in my system, and I was at 30,000 feet, which usually is when I have all these epiphanies. I need to take more flights ;-)   I have a critical mass of qualified customers right there in the middle, so I was looking at this, and I was looking at some of my different numbers. And what I figured out is that for me to hit a thousand buyers at $1,000, right, that's a million bucks, I was working backward...   If I have a 15% close rate on live webinars, let's say that's high though, right? I would need to spend somewhere around $166,000 to make a million.   Now, my product is worth way more than $1,000. So what I'm doing is I am actually gonna double the price of it, I'm really excited.   Actually, no, no, no. It's a different product I'm doubling.   I'm gonna raise it $500. And it's because one of the issues that I've been finding is as I narrow it down on what it is I'm actually doing is selling to the wrong person. And the wrong person was coming to me.   They would say things like, "What's a funnel?" And I was like "Psh.. oh my gosh, I am probably not your guy to start out with if you don't know what a funnel is, right? Go read some books, go read Dotcom Secrets, Expert Secrets and then come back to me." In fact, that's my recommendation to everyone. Go read:   Launch   Dotcom Secrets   Expert Secrets   Ready, Fire, Aim,   These are my go-to books always. They're always on my shelf. Actually they're not on my shelf, they're all around the room, 'cause I reference them so much.   Trying to remember what the others are? I just reorganized everything, which means I can't find anything anymore. You guys know what I'm talking about? Anyway, Ask, that's an awesome book.   *STEPHEN ANSWERING FB COMMENTS*   "Terran, yes. Yep, I am referring to that. MLM Hacks, that's my main webinar right now.   I have a second insanely awesome product I just finished building it today. Oh my gosh. Right, 'cause not everyone's an MLM. And I totally get it. And if you don't wanna be, and I still have sick funnels for you. So how do I go serve you guys then? So anyway, so I'm super pumped about it."   So that's the whole lesson... 'cause I know one of the things that happens to a lot of entrepreneurs is what I'm talking about right now.   They're going out, and they're saying things like, "I'm selling like crazy and then all of a sudden, the sales kinda seem like they slowed down."   #1: You probably have ad fatigue.   #2:  Did you just sell to your hot market, and the warm really isn't that attracted to it?   And I had to figure out a little bit who my real customer was. But then I voluntarily slowed my revenue down. Hard. Hawd, HAWD.   Way back, I turned it off - I didn't slow it down - I turned it off. It's been off for a while. And it's because I'm doing this massive overhaul.   Here check it out. Alright, check this out. Wrong side, okay, this side of the whiteboard right here. Right, I've been redoing all that. It's a freaking huge funnel now. I didn't start that way. You don't need to start that way. But this is what I've been building.   I've just finished the SLO, it's converting like crazy, it's doing fantastic.   Next I'll be building out a product launch funnel inside the replay sequence.   Then I'll be going in like this awesome, insanely amazing success path, it's 30 days, it's 30 videos showing them after they buy, how to be successful with their purchase.   Very key, it's not enough to just sell 'em, you gotta show 'em how to use it and be successful with it, or you're dead in the water. And so, that's how we do it.   When I realized like, "Oh my gosh, it's all working," then finally I was like okay, this makes total sense for me to go and let's try and acquire as fast as possible even more qualified customers and buyers. And so what I've been doing.   That's one of the major reasons, (cat's outta the bag), for Affiliate Outrage. Now there's nothing paid in there, upfront. But it leads to paid things.   All it's doing is widening the net - and it's being really, really open. It's teaching anyone how to be an affiliate for any product.   “You guys want the rest of the strategy? ♪ Yeah ♪ Everyone say... ♪ Yeah ♪ You gotta give me the... ♪ Yeah ♪ Like that.”   Everyone was making fun of me on the 2 Comma Club coaching stage, 'cause I guess I do a lot of sound effects. I didn't know that.   You guys ready for it? 'Kay, check this out, alright. If you listen to my podcast, you know that the only two things on my calendar. The only things on my calendar are events and launch dates.   I've got Affiliate Outrage; then I've laced together like six different campaigns that I've seen make that really fast, usually.   Who's got my money, hey, Love Grant Cardone. ♪ Who's got my money ♪ So anyway, I laced together six different campaigns and I'm going one by one by one through all of them. So just watch carefully to what I'm doing here because now that I know the market wants what I'm selling, "oh baby, now we get to open the freaking floodgates."   I feel like the other thing that happens too; a lot of the times in this community, people spend so much time building the funnel. That's just the first piece of the pie. Next, you get to go do a lotta cool things like Dream 100 stuff.   We've been reaching out to massive people, and they've been reaching out back. And excited to promote it.   *FACEBOOK COMMENTS*   "What do you think of Sam Oven's 20 million dollar webinar funnel?"   "I think it's awesome, and I think it's proving the exact point I'm talking about, Kenny. When you actually know what the heck you're selling, ] when we actually know, then man, stop messing with the funnel and start figuring out cool ways to just put traffic into that thing. And that's what these campaigns are. Campaigns are not ads."   Anyway, so how about that for a rant? That was a late night rant. I was jamming out, I have a playlist called Pre-Stage, it's my pump up mix.   That's the lesson tonight, guys. Go figure out how - after you know the core after the market actually said that they want what you're selling - go figure out little tiny things that bring in the low cost to you, low price for them, high circulation potential. And then just open up those floodgates.   Honestly, is super fun. It's the reason why we have so many awesome front-ends at Clickfunnels.   *FACEBOOK COMMENTS*   "What do you say to someone who is getting great front end conversions but leads are not buying? Referring to affiliate.”   “What do I say to that? Terran, that's a great question, great question. If you look in Dot Com Secrets... I don't think the funnel is complete. If you look on page, I think it's 93, I don't remember, I'm not gonna take the time.   Anyways, one of the seven phases of a funnel is, it sounds like you're qualifying the subscriber, which you need to, but you also need to qualify the buyer. That's the very next step.   That's step number four of the seven steps, I think. And so, sounds like an incomplete funnel.   So it's not to say that lead funnels are not complete funnels, but if you're trying to make sure there's an up, like they're actual... If you know you're gonna lead them to something that's expensive in the back, or even buy something later on, the funnel isn't done, in my mind, until there's cash in your pocket.   So that might mean that the funnel goes offline. That might mean the funnel goes on the phone. That might mean going and saying 'Hey, we gotta meet in person, or come to an event.'   So the lead might be captured on the internet, but you might be capturing and actually closing and actually getting cash in your pocket, offline or different places. I know there's different scenarios for that. But you're talking about affiliate marketing. So what do I say to someone who's getting great front end conversions?   What usually is happening is some confusion. There's a disconnect... Here's the story:   John Parks was talking to this guy...  he was critiquing his ads, and this guy had great conversions on his ads, and all these people were clicking on this ad. But no one was buying. And this guy goes to John Parks,  (who is Russell's traffic guy), and says "Hey, can you look at my numbers, look at my ad, what's going on here?"   John was like "Wow, you're getting a lot of clicks on this thing, how come nobody's buying?"   And he goes in, and he starts looking at the numbers, the conversions, and he had like a 15% click-through rate on that ad, that Facebook ad. And John was like, "Whoa, like that's really high."   Then he looked at the numbers for the next page, and there were no conversions on that page. There were no purchases at all. And he's like, "What's going on here?" He hadn't looked at the ad yet, when he looked at the ad, he knew why immediately!   The ad was a picture of this incredibly sensual woman just dripping sensuality.  And sure enough, it's guys that have been clicking on the ad.   He clicks on the ad and goes to the next page, and the very next thing people see on this ad is this middle-aged, overweight white guy saying, "Hey do you wanna opt-in for X, Y, and Z?"   That's not why they were clicking on your ad, buddy. Like right! So weird example right? But that's typically in some form what's usually going on.   There's some disparity between what's actually going on from the ad, and to the actual page.   One of the things that I like to do is to make the headline on the ad the exact same as the headline on the page they'll see. That way there's not a new concept that they have to accept. And it brings them straight on in.   *NEW QUESTION*   "If we are building webinars, three things to focus on?"   "Yep, only thing you should focus on, and only worry about ever, for a long time, is just your story, the actual sales message itself. Don't worry about anything else.   Once you know people are trying to give you money, then put together an actual offer. And then once you have a story, or sales message, I call them one in the same, you've got a sweet offer, then go obsess about the funnel.   I mean there's a reason why I haven't gone in depth on thing yet at all. Like my funnel is limping along on one leg. It's broken. My funnel's broken, I know it's broken. And I haven't cared.   It's like trying to fix a leak all the way down a pipe when there's actually a leak further upstream on that pipe. Does that make sense?   It doesn't matter you fixed that other leak, you gotta go fix the one in the beginning, right?   I don't know if that makes any sense at all. But like, anyway, that's how I think of it that way."   *NEW FB COMMENT*   "Thanks for all the value."   "Love the geek out over this. Awesome stuff. "   Anyways, hey guys, hope that was helpful to you. I'm sorry that was a long Facebook Live there. Actually I'm not sorry, that's freaking awesome! I'm gonna download that.   Anyway, so hopefully that's helpful to you though.   So just recap from the book real quick here, real fast, all you're gonna try and do is   #1: "Acquire a critical mass of customers."   The existing customers buy every subsequent product you ever come out with which is why you just acquire as fast as you can.   #2:  You're gonna make low cost, low price, high circulation products, which is why I am doing things like Affiliate Outrage.   We got a ton of front ends that I'm gonna come out with here shortly. Salesfunnelbroker.com as it currently is, like oh my gosh, it needs to be completely different.   salesfunnelradio.com, oh baby!  I've built so many funnels for so many other people, it's fun to like turn back around and finally do my own for a while.   Awesome guys, talk to you later, have a good night.   If you like this, please let me know. Keep inviting your friends to this page. I am trying to pull over people who like really freaking love why funnels work and who really geek out about this stuff.   Alright guys, talk to you later. Go crush it.   Ah yeah! Hey, wish you could geek out with other real funnel builders, and even ask questions while I build funnels live?   Uh-oh, wish granted.   Watch and learn funnel building as I document my process in my funnel strategy group. It's free, just go to thescienceofselling.online and join now.

Donald Trump ve Kim Jong-un buluştu. 'Başka kim kimle buluşsun?'. İstanbul Valisinden 'okul bahçelerine otopark'a ilişkin açıklama. 'Okul bahçeleri ne olarak kullanılsın?' 'Fransa'da yıkılacak evde 600 altın para bulundu' haberi ve canlandırılması. 'Kayın