Podcasts about advice don

   With host retail coach Wendy Batten   https://wendybatten.com/podcast-intro/   In This Episode:  Can couples successfully run a retail shop together? Absolutely! From a flash of inspiration on a trip to London to creating a beloved community hub in Thomasville, Georgia; Amy and Chris Hart join me on the Creative Shop Talk Podcast to share how passion, teamwork, and a little bit of "what's our widget?" can turn your entrepreneurial dreams into reality. Amy and Chris own The Hare and the Hart, a boutique inspired by the couple's time in the Cotswolds. They describe the shop as “English at heart with a Southern sensibility and a French twist.” Amy is an active member of the Retailer's Inner Circle and has been in the Level Up Mastermind for almost 5 years running. This episode is packed with tips for independent retailers, especially those working together as a couple. From finding your niche, connecting with your community, and navigating the ups and downs of retail life together, Amy and Chris are an inspiration to all aspiring retail shop owners. Takeaways for Retail Shop Owners: Finding your "widget": Identify your unique product (like Amy's Toile designs) Involving family: Amy and Chris have incredibly talented family members who showcase unique products in their shop.   Defining Roles: The importance of defining roles and communicating them clearly.    Build your community: Make it a point to connect with members of your community. Featuring local artisans in your shop is a good way to do that. Overcoming challenges: Amy and Chris know when their slow season is and have come up with ways to draw customers in and also keep their minds right knowing things do pick up.   Chris's Advice : "Don't give up your dream to somebody else.”  Listen in for more thoughts on what Chris and Amy could have done differently if they could rewind 7 years. “Don't give up your dream to somebody else.” -Chris Hart Need more? Join me and our supportive community of retailers in my Retailer's Inner Circle! There is so much to love about the Inner Circle: access to countless masterclasses on everything from inventory management to money matters, a supportive community of like-minded retailers to bounce ideas off of, a monthly playbook to track your progress and help you plan your events and promotions, and so much more. Check it out HERE.   Not ready to join but want to purchase the stand-alone Foot Traffic Made Simple masterclass? You can purchase it on demand HERE.   About Amy and Chris: Sweethearts since college, Amy and Chris Hart chose Thomasville, Georgia, as their adopted hometown in 2018 after many adventures. The Hare & The Hart is their shop in the beautiful, historic downtown, offering gifts and goods that are English at heart with a Southern sensibility & a French twist. They adore celebrating the beauty of the places people love, embellishing the spaces surrounding them, and sharing in the extraordinary joy of the everyday. Their family takes part by designing collections, including Amy's Toile of Thomasville. They are pleased to carry local artisans, along with those discovered on and inspired by their travels. Amy and Chris continue their adventures in a wibbly, wobbly 1850s house just blocks from the shop with their Labrador named Rugby.   Related podcasts we think you'll like:  Episode 78: Learning to Level Up with Amy Hart Episode 127: Level Up Mastermind Q+A: Invest in Yourself Episode 256: Retailers in the Wild: Elevate Your Retail Shop Using These Observations From My Time in New Zealand About your host, Wendy Batten In case we haven't met yet, I'm Wendy, a small business coach and founder of the Retailer's Inner Circle, where I help other independent shop owners learn how to gain the right business skillsets to see more profits, paychecks, and joy as they navigate running their retail business.  Through online classes, business coaching programs, speaking, and a top-ranked podcast, I've helped hundreds of retailers around the globe reclaim their dream and see the success they want from their beautiful shops. My signature private coaching community, The Retailer's Inner Circle, has helped retailers around the world build their retail business skill sets and confidence.  I am proud to have been featured in several major publications, including my own business column in What Women Create magazine. I have been privileged to be a guest on top-ranked podcasts and sought-after as a guest speaker and teacher for several brands, associations, and communities that are passionate about the success of independent retailers. When I'm not coaching, you will find me either DIYing and renovating my very imperfect old crooked cottage by the sea in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Lunenburg, NS, or blogging about our travel and RVing adventures and the weird fun things we get up to in our coastal village. I'd love to invite you to check out one of my free resources for real retailers at https://wendybatten.com/free-resources/    For more support from Wendy   Retailer's Inner Circle - Join Wendy inside the best retailer's community Free resources for shop owners   Hang out and connect with Wendy on IG    All of Wendy's programs and services for shop owners can be found HERE.  Subscribe & Review on iTunes Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you're not, I'd love you to consider it. Subscribing means you won't miss an episode! Click here to subscribe to iTunes! If you want to be more of a rockstar, I'd love it if you could leave a review over on iTunes as well.  Those reviews help other retailers find my podcast and they're also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. So grateful for you! Thank you!

Advice:Don't try to control your bf/gf.

Healing Through Motorcycling with Joseph

On today's MJ Morning Show: MJ's experience on the bridge Car dealer car jacking customer... We took calls. Morons in the news Crocs banned at some schools Denzel bit off part of his tongue? Michelle loves Uncrustables Friday's egg test, also, MJ nailed the time of kickoff Philly's celebration/damage after the game Advice: Don't go to bed angry Tom Cruise's face Is this the end of the penny? We took calls. Vince Neil's plane crashed Kid Rock walks off stage at a birthday party Airline passenger had a wifi hotspot named 'there's a bomb on the flight' New segment: "Boo Hoo" or "Screw You"... We took calls. This is the dirtiest article of clothing Egg prices at Trader Joe's and Costco Proposed ordinance in St. Pete Beach has some bothered, protest planned (6pm) Great Clips location trashed by parolee Kanye news Michael Bolton cancelled concert due to brain cancer Are Taylor and Travis doomed to break up? Harrison Ford... Why is he still making commercials with a net worth of around $300 million?

Daniel Shaw - Footwear Innovator | Building Iconic Brands and Projects from Brooklyn to Vietnam Empowering Businesses with 25+ Years of Industry Expertise. Sponsor The Jason Cavness Experience is sponsored by CavnessHR. CavnessHR provides HR to companies with 49 or fewer people. CavnessHR provides a tech platform that automates HR while providing access to a dedicated HR Business Partner. www.CavnessHR.com Go to www.thejasoncavnessexperience.com for the podcast on your favorite platforms Powered By Earth VC is on a mission to unf@#k the earth. They are doing this by supporting breakthrough scientific research, empowering outlier founders to build enduring climate businesses and investing in high-growth startups that decarbonize the world. Earth VC empowers founders who are Ambitious, Breakthrough and are Committed Earth VC invests in the pre seed to Series A round. If you think you might be a match reach out to them at rebuild@earth.vc Daniel's Bio My journey in the fashion industry began in 1992 with Walkerwear in New York City. Over the years, I gained invaluable experience working with renowned brands such as Maurice Malone, P-H-A-T Farm, and others before launching my own brand, Pure Players, in the late 90s and early 2000s. I went on to establish 1020 Blues and secured licensing deals with major companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Remy Martin, and Nayak. I also developed TRPL, a brand deeply connected to the hip-hop scene, collaborating with many prominent rappers. My career has taken me across the globe, including eight years in China. Where I focused on footwear and clothing manufacturing. For the past four years, I've been based in Vietnam, where we're expanding our operations. We're planning to open facilities and freestanding retail shops that not only offer apparel but also contribute to re-gentrifying local neighborhoods. Our most recent and exciting venture is the launch of Soul Alley, a brand that embodies the fusion of cultures and the spirit of innovation that has driven my career.  We talked about the following and other items Early Career in Fashion and Business Transition to Asia and Business Expansion Life in Vietnam and Business Insights Challenges and Opportunities in the Footwear Industry Cultural Exchange and Business Strategies Reflections on Hip Hop and Cultural Influence Future of Business and Technology Factory Visit and Production Challenges Global Fashion Trends and IP Theft Design Process and Market Dynamics Sustainability and Textile Waste Affordability and Market Strategy Opening a Factory in Vietnam Quality Control and Market Trust Finding Customers and Building a Brand Innovation and Manufacturing Personal Growth and Influence Future of Vietnam and Personal Goals Travel and Luggage Preferences Cultural Awareness and Social Responsibility Personal Reflections and Social Observations Daily Routine and Efficiency Advice  Daniel's Social Media Daniel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielshaw-footwearspecialist/ Daniel's Advice Don't ever let anybody tell you you can't do something. I'm using myself as a guinea pig to that, because I came from Brooklyn. Grew up in the 90s. I lived in Vietnam, China, Korea, several other places and countries.  If you asked 100 people, they would have told you that this wasn't supposed to happen. So the journey, the destination is unknown. The journey is fucking dope. I'm staying on it, rocking it until the wheels fall off. You know, life is good. Life is good.

Welcome to this transformative episode with Dr. Chonta Haynes. Are you tired of living in the shadow of your past trauma and poverty mindset? Do you feel like you're stuck in a cycle of negativity and lack, unable to break free from the limitations that hold you back? In this powerful video, we'll explore the secrets to overcoming past trauma and poverty thinking, and reveal the steps you can take to break free from the chains that bind you. From letting go of emotional baggage to reprogramming your mind for success, we'll cover it all. Get ready to shatter the glass ceiling and unlock your full potential. Break free from the past and start living the life you deserve! Breaking Up With Broke Course : https://chontahaynes.com/offers/os3oJ69h Show Notes: 00:00-00:35 - Introduction: Breaking free from past traumas and poverty mindset. 00:35-01:10 - The importance of living an abundant life on earth, not just in eternity (John 10:10). 01:10-02:00 - Dr. Chonta shares a story about a woman's limiting beliefs regarding finances. 02:00-03:00 - The impact of negative past messages about finances and the importance of confronting them. 03:00-03:35 - Scripture from 3rd John 2: Prosperity and health as part of God's plan. 03:35-04:10 - Challenge: Breaking free from past traumas and poverty mindset today. 04:10-05:00 - Discussing the cultural mindset of working for minimal wage and not getting ahead. 05:00-06:00 - The importance of questioning beliefs passed down from previous generations. 06:00-06:40 - Story of a woman cutting the end off a ham and how inherited actions may not serve us. 06:40-07:30 - Advice: Don't learn finances from those who are struggling financially. 07:30-08:10 - Dr. Chonta encourages a deep dive into questioning beliefs around money. 08:10-09:10 - Working through the root causes of limiting beliefs with the '7 levels deep' technique. 09:10-10:00 - Realizing the power of your "why" to drive change and overcome obstacles. 10:00-11:00 - Overcoming scams and external challenges that affect financial well-being. 11:00-Conclusion - Final thoughts on breaking up with the broke mindset and embracing abundance. Connect with Dr. Chonta Haynes: Website: chontahaynes.com YouTube: Chonta Haynes Facebook: Chonta Haynes Linktree: ChontaHaynes

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes. The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Notes: The Pete and Leona story - What will people say about you at your funeral? "They changed my life and the lives of my entire family." Tough love out of 100% care for you. Be tough AND supportive. Don't lower your standards. High standards. High support. 10 to 25 - Find the right trigger for motivation. Find out what they care about. They need meaning and significance. They want status and earned respect. Are children less afraid of their parents now than they used to be? Dan Gilbert calls this the "illusion of moral decline." It's been happening for 75 years. The Parental Nagging Study - A common tactic adults use to get teens to “pay attention.” Research shows that nagging triggers the emotional part of a teen's brain, shutting down their ability to think logically. They're not ignoring you on purpose—they're simply wired to tune out. A better way? Speak calmly and neutrally to engage the part of their brain that handles planning and decision-making. This opens the door to real conversation. Satya Nadella's Model, Coach, Care philosophy at Microsoft. This is the opposite of Jack Welch's rank and yank style at GE. Remember, the stack ranking methodology limited innovation and stopped people from taking any type of risk. We want to model the right behavior, coach others, and ensure they know we care for them so they feel the support they need to take risks, sometimes fail, get back up, and work to innovate. Theory X = Rank and yank. It stifled innovation for fear of failure and getting fired. Theory Y = No stack rankings. Built on connecting leaders with their people. Still high standards and demanding. Followed the "Model, Coach, Care" methodology. This is what's happening today at Microsoft. Be a place where people want to work. The Mentor's Dilemma - Stef Okamoto - honest, direct, and supportive. The "mentor's dilemma" refers to the challenge of balancing honest, critical feedback to young people while still maintaining their motivation and self-esteem, as this age group can be particularly sensitive to perceived criticism and may easily feel discouraged or disrespected if not approached carefully; essentially, it's the struggle between pushing someone to improve and potentially damaging their confidence by being too harsh. The mentor mindset: A mentor mindset can be adopted by using practices such as validating young people's perspectives, asking them questions, and holding them to high standards. Questioning – Kate, a mom of two who lives in Chicago, whose oldest son was a sophomore came home one night from a party drunk and high. Kate responded with a combination of yelling and prosecuting… She instigated an interrogation and not a two-way conversation. Instead of interrogating, get curious. They had a reason for what they did. Figure out why. What's your plan? Ask questions to get them to own their thinking and share it with you. Advice - Don't accept some perceived path. Be reliable, show up, do the work, and ask for more work. Add surplus value. Whatever you're being paid, focus on delivering 10x more value. Find a way to do that and your employer will beg to give you a raise and promote you.

In this episode, we dive deep into the incredible journey of a top salesperson who went from closing zero deals in his first few months to becoming the number one salesperson at his company. Learn how he navigated the challenges of the 2008 recession, the strategies he used to turn things around, and his insights on the current state of sales and marketing.Chapters:00:00 - Introduction02:15 - The Early Struggles in Sales08:30 - Turning Point: Becoming the Top Salesperson14:45 - The Power of Being Different20:10 - Launching Bravado AI25:50 - Authentic Marketing Strategies31:40 - The Current State of Sales38:00 - Final Thoughts and Advice

Let's welcome Laura Bower to the show! I met Laura through 12x12 and other's I knew in her debut group, PBSOAR24. It was so much fun talking with her about growing the seeds of stories and all the joy there is to find in the kidlit world! Some Highlights: The power within words. Finding her way into children's writing from the back of a Cheerio box. The peace of writing outside of our homes (and to do lists). Finding friends in the writing world. The joy in connecting with others through stories. Carving space for a writing practice in the time you have. Final Words of Advice: Don't rush. Links Mentioned

Meet Sharon Cho, a two-time breast cancer survivor and head of the dessert table at The Rose's Annual Shrimp Boil. Sharon has been a part of the Shrimp Boil since 1998, baking countless delectable treats like her bestselling pineapple upside-down cakes to raise money for Rose patients. During this conversation, Sharon emphasizes the life-saving importance of getting regular mammograms and not delaying them. Her personal experience illustrates how early detection can make all the difference. Sharon knows exactly why all women need to prioritize their breast health. If you'd like to help uninsured patients access the breast care they need, and enjoy a sweet treat, purchase your ticket to Shrimp Boil today. Make sure to get to the dessert table early though, Sharon's famous cakes are the first to go every year! Get involved by purchasing tickets or tables. Donate auction items or become an event sponsor. With an 80s theme, this year's Shrimp Boil on June 22nd promises a totally awesome time for a great cause. Learn more at therose.org/shrimpboil. Key Questions Answered 1.) What is The Shrimp Boil and how does it raise funds for mammograms and support for uninsured women? 2.) How long has Sharon Cho has been involved with the Shrimp Boil? 3.) What kinds of desserts can attendees of The Shrimp Boil look forward to buying at this year's event? Chapters 00:00 Introduction: Sharon Cho and the Shrimp Boil 03:09 The Importance of Mammograms 05:04 The Shrimp Boil's Expensive Cake 10:25 Pineapple Upside-Down Cakes: A Bestseller 16:38 Advice: Don't Wait, Get MammogramsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SummarySuccessful integrations are required to achieve the full value of any acquisition. Most know that the odds are stacked against the acquirer from the start - so how does one move the odds in their favor? How should a SaaS leadership team plan and execute an integration process with an acquired team of less than 100 people and the acquirer is less than 1,000 (roughly)? This is a large company buying a much smaller company and the assumption is the buyer is a first-time acquier. Deal economics certainly impact acquired founder and employee sentiment, but how the actual people integration is run has an outsized impact on realizing the full value of M&A.In this episode of In/organic, we welcome Mohammed M. Baloch, Head of Integrations at Gainsight, a SaaS company backed by Vista Private Equity. During the discussion, Mohammed describes the key elements of a successful integration plan. He also lays out the key players, roles, and profiles of talent who can support an integration, even if they have never done the work before. We also discuss the role of an integration consultant (which is a must) and how to contemplate their role in the integration process.TakeawaysPeople integration is a critical aspect of post-merger integration and should be given equal importance as the economic goals of the acquisition.When selecting an integration lead, look for someone who is well-networked, has a strategic mindset, and possesses strong project management skills.Consider outsourcing integration if you don't have a dedicated integration team, and look for a partner who is flexible, experienced, and familiar with your industry.Start integration planning as soon as the LOI is signed, and define a clear North Star that outlines the goals and criteria for success in the acquisition.Clear communication and a formal onboarding process are vital for successful people integration.Consider having acquired employees interview for their jobs to ensure cultural fit and mutual alignment.Highlights00:00 Introduction02:22 Mohammed Baloch's Background and Gainsight04:01 Setting the Stage06:08 Key Players in the Integration Process9:56 Selecting an Integration Lead11:40 Considerations for Outsourcing Integration16:15 Defining the North Star18:40 Enabling Sales Teams for Cross-Selling19:49 Debate on Tiger Team vs. Full-Team Format25:36 Ensuring Success in People Integration 29:52 Interviewing Acquired Employees for Their Jobs31:22 Advice: Don't Wait, Start Integration PlanningConnect with Christian & In/organic PodcastChristian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hassold/In/organic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inorganic-podcastIn/organic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InorganicPodcast/featuredConnect with Mohammad Baloch on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mmbaloch/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Word of Advice: Don't marry Ji-Won's husband. ... Maddie, Elle and Christina have a lot of thoughts about Marry My Husband. Were they hooked on the first 11 episodes? Yes. Were they frustrated with episodes 11 - 16? Also, yes. .... The ladies talk about how Min-Hwan and Su-Min stole the show and how they were team "first villians" when Ji-Hyeok's ex-fiance entered the picture. (Why, just why?). They are still bitter that Ji-Hyeok pushed Ji-Won OUT OF HIS HOUSE right after they kissed and felt like it was hard for him to redeem himself after that. They discuss how the story shifted in a direction that didn't seem necessary, how Ji-Won's character drastically changed, and how this show could have been 12 episodes. Period. ... Best part? When BTS was in involved in a big reveal. (Can you guess who was most excited about this part??) ... If this is your first time listening to YA GIRL, welcome!!! We are so so so happy you are here! .... HEY HEY come and chat with the girls on Instagram! @yagirl_kdramapod (https://www.instagram.com/yagirl_kdramapod?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr) ..... ... Finally, jump on YA GIRL'S Discord!! It's where all the friends of YA GIRL'S KDrama Podcast gather and talk about hot Korean men. You really don't wanna miss it. https://discord.gg/qkrUGAWVnG

Advice: Don't eat alone. Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash.

Rock has some do’s and don’ts if you plan on attending your work Holiday Party. Hang out with Rock as he tells some hilarious and embarrassing Holiday Party stories. Over/Under on getting a new job at this time of year, going down the YouTube hole and Rock’s changing habits for listening to Podcasts and a […] The post Rock’s Advice Don’t Preparty Before Your Work Christmas Party! appeared first on Radio Influence.

Rock has some do's and don'ts if you plan on attending your work Holiday Party. Hang out with Rock as he tells some hilarious and embarrassing Holiday Party stories. Over/Under on getting a new job at this time of year, going down the YouTube hole and Rock's changing habits for listening to Podcasts and a […] The post Rock's Advice Don't Preparty Before Your Work Christmas Party! appeared first on Radio Influence.

Advice: Don't Go Near an Aqueduct

Finding your authentic voice is important for any entrepreneur, but especially so when it comes to creating content. And that's why Nicole Kepic, a popular copywriter who helps coaches and course creators elevate their sales pages, has been able to separate herself from the pack. As a seasoned pro who for years worked in the corporate sector, helping market some of the biggest household brands, she was able to seamlessly convert her side hustle as a freelance content provider into a full-time business. It starts, she tells Host Dori Stewart on this episode of Teacher Turned Entrepreneur, with knowing your client's goals and defining the message in a catchy, relatable style. “You just have to know your own personality and skill set,” says Nicole, who encourages new writers or those of us with writer's block to keep it natural. She also recommends ditching the self-judgment and limiting beliefs. You'll learn some great tips for identifying the audience you want to serve and brainstorming the kind of compelling copy that attracts eyeballs and closes deals – without ever coming off as a hard sell. Is it magic? Nope. Says Nicole: “You can be really friendly and conversational and still be professional and trusted.” Your writing roadmap starts here! If you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Turned Entrepreneur, click here to hear past shows and leave comments! KEY TAKEAWAYS:· That's just what you did: How Nicole started out as a 9-to-5 copywriter on a traditional corporate path … until what started as a modest side hustle became much more!· What if the clients don't come? How Nicole overcame the initial fears and self-doubt that entrepreneurs commonly experience when first starting out. · Defining and differentiating herself has been key to Nicole's success. · Word of Advice: Don't try to be all things to all people. Scaling down and focusing your offerings will make your portfolio sharper and business easier to manage.· The importance of narrowing your offerings, enabling repeatable processes that are time- and sanity-savers.· Advice for Entrepreneurs with Writer's Block:o Go easy on yourself. You're probably better than you think!o Keep it natural and write the way you speak.o Try to be relatable and conversational with your message.· Is writing your superpower? Nicole has tips for wordsmiths looking to start a business:o Keep it clean, crisp and clear.o Don't let flowery or clever writing interfere with getting your point across.· Getting ready to work with a copywriter? Here's how to prep:o Get clear on your audience, who you're serving and the service you wish to provide.o Define the message you want to communicate so it doesn't get watered down or lost in translation.· How she stands out: Nicole's long experience with well-known brands is a big asset, but it's her friendly, approachable writing style that truly distinguishes her from the pack. · Want to retain clients? Make the user experience seamless and enjoyable!· Are You An Introvert? Nicole is, and she has surprised herself with a writing style that is light, fun and low-key – but still gets serious sales results!

The O'Leary Review Podcast Episode 18 Guest: Wesley Schlemmer   Show notes available: https://briandoleary.substack.com/p/taking-the-orange-pill-w-bitcoin?sd=pf   Fountain.FM Listen and support us at the same time over at Fountain.FM We talk more about Fountain in the show!   Wesley Schlemmer – Quick Bio Wesley Schlemmer is a 26-year-old Chemical and Biological Engineer turned Bitcoin leader and educator. Wesley is a born and raised “Florida man” working to make America Florida. website: https://bitcoinbay.live/   Tom Woods School of Life https://tomschooloflife.com/   Tom Woods 100 One of the goals of this program is to get at least 100 people within the Tom Woods orbit on the podcast. “Tom's orbit” is loosely defined, but we have less than 90 to go now! WhoIsInTheTomWoodsWorld.com — A page with all the #TomWoods100 conversations.   Universities mentioned Tufts Boston College – the world's foremost university   “Crypto” The fall of FTX The Collapse of FTX: What Went Wrong with the Crypto Exchange? (Investopedia) Price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies CoinGecko – Cryptocurrency prices, charts, and crypto market cap   Bitcoin – Swallowing the “Orange Pill” A discussion that touches on the various “pills” one can take in today's crazy world: https://briandoleary.substack.com/p/revisiting-the-matrix-podcast-ep#details As far as I understand it all, being “orange-pilled” means that bitcoin informs nearly everything in one's life. Resource page: “Bitcoin - Taking the Orange Pill”   Buying your “coin” Bisq — buy and sell bitcoin privately and securely. No registration required. (bisq.network)   Storing your coin – “wallets” “Wallets don't store your bitcoin, they store your keys!” Sparrow Wallet — financial self sovereignty. “Despite being a wallet suitable for advanced users, Sparrow is not difficult to use.” Muun — self-custodial wallet for bitcoin and lightning (muun.com) “Everyone should download an easy-to-use bitcoin wallet like Muun.” Advice: Don't share your bitcoin keys anywhere. Keep them safe in a literal safe. “You are your own bank in bitcoin” - Wesley Schlemmer Seed Signer – Next level bitcoin security   Lightning Network Lightning Network — scalable, instant bitcoin/blockchain transactions   Mempool Mempool.space — “mempool and blockchain explorer for the Bitcoin community, focusing on the transaction fee market and multi-layer ecosystem, completely self-hosted without any trusted third-parties.”   Podcasts mentioned The Peter Schiff Show The Tom Woods Show The Bitcoin Standard Podcast (Saifedean Ammous)   Fountain.FM Listen and support us at the same time over at Fountain.FM “Fountain is the only place where listeners and podcasters get rewarded for the value they provide for others.” Fountain is powered by the Bitcoin Lightning Network, “the payment system which allows us to transact with other people or businesses around the world using Bitcoin - the world's first and leading cryptocurrency.”   Saifedean Ammous Saifedean.com Links to The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous at briandoleary.com/bitcoin -        Probably the best “starter book” out there if you want to get the background on bitcoin, but it is also advanced reading for those who are unfamiliar with any of the economics behind bitcoin and fiat currencies. -        The Bitcoin Standard comes highly recommended by The O'Leary Review.   Satoshi Nakamoto Does it really matter who he is or what he is? Satoshi Nakamoto Institute   Crypto Cloaks CryptoCloaks LLC was born from the love of 3D printing and the idea of Bitcoin.   Monero Monero is a private, decentralized cryptocurrency that keeps your finances confidential and secure. Monero is not bitcoin. “It's a whole separate blockchain.”   Wesley's Links Bitcoin Bay Bitcoin Bay Guides and Resources   O'Leary Digital Having problems with getting that podcast off the ground? Trouble coming up with an idea on what to blog about? Have no clue what equipment or services to use? We will help you. If you have 30 minutes, so do we. Book a time to talk about it at OLearyDigital.com.     Go to BrianDOLeary.com for more information.  

Ethan is the one who paced Melody the last half of Deadhorse 50 (if you listened to that episode you'll know who we are talking about!) She learned that he is 17-years-old and that he has finished multiple ultras, including several 100 mile races! Listen to this episode to learn how Ethan got into ultras at such a young age and how he navigates school and teenage-life as a new ultrarunner!Episode Takeaways:-Don't go consistently hard. Remember to take breaks!-"Be consistently good rather than occasionally great" -Nick BareEthan's Advice:-Don't let big runs scare you-Prepare well and FULL SEND______________________________________________________________________________________________Related Episodes:Learning Discipline and Mental Toughness from my 50 Mile Race with Melody | S3E17 _____________________________________________________________________________________________Contact Ethan on Instagram: @sophisticated_suffering_____________________________________________________________________________________________Links:~~~~~Leave us a review!~~~~~Click here to leave a review on appleClick here to rate us on SpotifyPrivate coaching/personalized workout plans to become a hardcore runner!: @pinetreerunningUtah real-estate agent who helps runners find a home near running trails: Jacob Bateman | Exit Realty Affinity | Bountiful, UT Real Estate | 385-314-1016 (ihouseelite.com)Self-Defense Course for runners: Run Without Fear | Melody Bateman's School (teachable.com)Our Instagram page: Melody and Jacob Bateman (@trailto100) • Instagram photos and videosJoin our beginner trail running community on Facebook: Trail to 100 | Facebook

Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/383 Presented By: Yellowstone Teton, Range Meal Bars, Zoe Angling Group, FishHound Expeditions Sponsors: https://wetflyswing.com/sponsors Joshua and Caleb Simmons from Dads on the Fly Podcast are here to share what their podcast is all about. We dig into some of their most interesting episodes and break down some of the best tips on being an angler dad. How can you influence your kids to be on the water without forcing them to? Listen to this episode to find out! Show Notes with Joshua and Caleb Simmons 05:25 - Caleb is a Pastor at their local church. Joshua is an 8th-grade schoolteacher. 14:10 - Dads on the Fly is about 3 things: fly fishing, fatherhood, and faith 16:10 - On this day DOTF already has 64 episodes published. 17:54 - Number 1 tip: Have enough snacks for the kids. 18:30 - Joshua talks about one of their guest who NC Wildlife Magazine coined as "The Man of a Thousand Streams." Listen to Part 1 here then Part 2 here. 20:00 - Tip: Manage expectations. When you take your kids fishing, the goal is not to catch fish. The goal is to spend time together with your kids.  25:50 - Tom Rosenbauer was on their podcast in episode 59.  26:00 - One of their biggest episodes was with David Coggins, episode 38.  29:20 - They had Wade Blevins on their podcast - a guy whose dad created the fly called One Bug that is rumored to catch everything. 31:50 - Tip: Don't pressure your kids into being on the water. 34:00 - Joshua tells us about this guy who emailed them about being reassured after listening to their podcast. That message stuck with Josh and made him realize that they're not going to quit doing the podcast.  37:00 - They also had Tim Cammisa on. Tim was here a couple of times too. 40:30 - In 2023, they are hosting their first Dads-Son retreat weekend in their backyard. (Sons aged 8-14yrs old only for now). Check out their website to learn more. 48:30 - Caleb mentions some fly shops around the area in Western NC. 51:30 - Caleb is the tech guy who does most of the production and Joshua brings in most of the guests and does most of the talking on the show. 1:02:45 - Advice: Don't let perfection get in the way of progress. 1:03:45 - They typically listen to Sturgill Simpson on the road. Show Notes: https://wetflyswing.com/383

NTD News Today—11/10/20221 Colorado U.S. House Race Too Close to Call2 Ballot Counting Continues in Nevada Races3 GOP Candidates Laxalt and Lombardo Leading4 Arizona Results Could Take Until Friday5 Deceased Pennsylvania State Rep. Reelected6 Mail-in Ballots Propel Fetterman to Victory7 Biden on Midterms: Dems Had 'A Strong Night'8 Analysis: What Do the Midterm Results Mean?9 Pelosi's Future as Top Democrat in the House10 Republican Candidates Received Democrat Money in Primaries11 Culture's Impact on the Youth Vote12 Martin: Left Focusing on Stories and Feelings13 Youth Fed Utopian 'Lies' for Their Vote14 Martin's Advice: Don't Get Deep Into Ideology15 Hundreds of Flights Canceled Due to Weather16 U.S. Tests Extreme Weather Satellite Launch17 SC Lawmakers Can't Agree on Abortion Ban18 Md: Couple Accused of Espionage Sentenced19 FL: TSA Finds Gun Hidden in Raw Chicken20 Railroad Unions Push Back Possible Strike Date21 Listeria Outbreak Linked to Deli Meats22 Latin American Countries Releasing Prisoners23 Biden to Draw ‘Red Lines' With China's Xi24 Germany Blocks Chinese Stake in 2 Chipmakers25 N.Korean Missile is Soviet-Era Says S.Korea26 Ex-S. Korea Leader to Abandon Kim's Dogs27 Russia's Kherson Retreat Worries Ukrainians28 Ukrainian Villages Brace for Winter29 Romania Holds Drills With Nato Allies30 Travel Chaos in Paris as Metro Workers Strike31 First-time Strike for British Nurses32 Precious Antiques Shown at Paris Art Fair33 Notre-Dame Window Restoration Underway34 Italy: 'Extraordinary' Ancient Statues Found35 Australian Brewery Produces Sustainable Beer36 Better Brain Health for Students and Seniors37 U.S. World Cup Team Prepares for Qatar38 Skateboarding - From a Plane!

Mari Anne Snow is a remote work/distributed team leadership expert with over 20 years of experience helping organizations operationalize work processes that maximize productivity within remote /distributed teams. Her two companies Sophaya and the Remote Nation Institute (RNI) provide operational support and specialized professional development training for employers with dispersed, remote, or hybrid teams and flexible workplace programs.Topics discussed in this episode:Leadership Principle:    Work with a plan, but with an eye on the future.Habits: Daily reflectionSense of humorFlexibility and agilityGreen Flags:Can you stay curious?  You can't know everything. If you're going to make it, accept your own skillset and bring it to the table. Confidence even though you don't know everything.Are you open to learning?Advice:   Don't get overwhelmed by all the things you need to learnThere are more universal themes than we care to admit. Adopt a global perspective - everyone is a friend you haven't metWhere to find Mari Anne:LinkedIn: Mari Anne SnowWebsite:  SophayaWebsite:  The Remote Nation InstituteWebsite:  Remote NationBecome an Intentional Optimist!All my links 30 Minute Free ConsultationLeave a rating and review!Apple: just scroll to the bottom, choose a rating and write a review.Podchaser (Android): you can go to this link here and leave a rating and review! https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/intentional-optimists-unconven-1406762 Noom: A Mindful Way to Eat Learn how to intentionally challenge your mindset in order to take control of your health.Skillshare: Spark your creativity. Get 40% Off Annual MembershipDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

John Shaw entered the ultra-running world after back-to-back car accidents that ALL, coincidentally, happened in the same year. In this episode, he shares the trick for coming back after injury. He also shares what motivates him to keep moving forward and how YOU can keep becoming better every day, despite hardship. Some Golden Quotes:-"If you lost today, do better tomorrow"-"My 'why' became greater than my pain"-"pay the price today to pay any price tomorrow" John's Advice:-Don't give up on your dreams-A bad day does not have to mean a bad month-STICK TO IT-Work on the process-Become the kind of person you want to become______________________________________________________________________________________________________Related Episodes:Our first interview with Josh Bryant - Season 2 Episode 3: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ft1baf9N0CWOPb1gy3F0j?si=7552ca5eb58e4e09Derek Fletcher's interview - Season 3 Episode 4:https://open.spotify.com/episode/4G65bWerIPDeF4yCMdBQeg?si=a875d31fc8bc41be ______________________________________________________________________________________________________Links:John Shaw's Information:Instagram: @johnshaw7.62Strava: John Shaw75 Hard Challenge: 75 Day Hard Challenge: Everything You Need To Know | CrossropeIron Cowboy: Watch Iron Cowboy The Story of the 50-50-50 Online | Vimeo On Demand on VimeoPrivate coaching/personalized workout plans for beginner trail and ultra-runners: Melody Bateman (@pinetreerunning) • Instagram photos and videosUtah real-estate agent who helps runners find a home near running trails: Jacob Bateman | Exit Realty Affinity | Bountiful, UT Real Estate | 385-314-1016 (ihouseelite.com)Teton Hammock Company: Best Camping Hammock | Camping Hammock Tarp - Teton Hammock (tetonhammocks.com)Self-Defense Course for runners: Run Without Fear | Melody Bateman's School (teachable.com)Our Instagram page: Melody and Jacob Bateman (@trailto100) • Instagram photos and videos Join our beginner trail running community on Facebook: Trail to 100 | Facebook 

Here is the subreddit used in today's podcast: https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/ Don't forget you can check out all things casual at: https://linktr.ee/Casual_Empire Also you can email me at: mentalhealthcasual@gmail.com In today's podcast we talk about male and female dynamics as well as the importance of understanding when something is an addiction or just a recreational activiity.

Marriage is something we love to talk about, because it truly does help foster kids, and adoptive kids, and your bio kids to feel like they are in a safe and healthy home. The things that make marriages awesome are great communication and even great community! We are happy to have been able to host a Marriage Shower for Cate and Josh this week, and that's what prompted this episode. We start with why we have showers and gatherings, then we get into the advice that was shared at the shower. Chapters: 0:00 - Intro  1:13 - Today's Topic – Marriage 10:42 - Bits of Wisdom Shared at Wedding Shower 18:40 - Our Sponsor – Showit! 19:00 - More Marriage Wisdom 28:48 - Good Word Of The Day!!!   Marriage: Marriage is something we love to talk about, because it truly does help foster kids, and adoptive kids, and your bio kids to feel like they are in a safe and healthy home. The things that make marriages awesome are great communication and even great community! We are happy to have been able to host a Marriage Shower for Cate and Josh this week, and that's what prompted this episode. We start with why we have showers and gatherings, then we get into the advice that was shared at the shower. The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker “This book will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference, dinner party, and backyard barbecue—and how you host and attend them.” Advice: Don't think you are competing or deserve something for serving your spouse. You are on the same team, not keeping score of stuff that doesn't exist, so set your spouse up for success. Have grace.  Envisioning your spouse in the other team's jersey is not healthy. Referenced Outward Mindset again, by the Arbinger Institute. Very important to have a healthy mindset in marriage! Surround yourself with great community in every season that will point you to Jesus. Desperate need for Jesus to make your marriage work - humility is necessary. And ask for help. Steadiness, and pointing others to truth. Be a safe place to confess things to each other and confess everything to each other. When you feel like things are coasting, that's when things fall apart. Communicate frustrations so they don't pile up. God created us with emotions. Part of emotion is connection. Learn how to understand what emotions are happening helps build intimacy. Untangling Emotions is a good book.  Allow yourself to go to bed angry. Think of marriage as a team sport- be willing to shift to cover. Go to bed at the same time- it's hard to have sex in different rooms. Decide roles (who is in charge of finances), decide how you will communicate about money.   Of course, since this is a wedding shower, we talked about sex: Communicate desires and drives ahead of time.  And “tiredness is the enemy of sex”, which is a good word from Grandma Watson Good Word of the Day: Say what you mean. 'It's fine', is never fine. – From Cate and Josh's Wedding Shower Connect with us! Fostering Voices on Instagram You can also email us!  We would LOVE it if you would SUBSCRIBE  AND please leave us a review on iTunes! This helps others to find our podcast so we can share these voices from the foster care and adoption community with more people! If you want to see how to leave a review, check out this handy little video! Good word of the day:  “It's fine” is never fine. Establish common communication habits. Say what you mean. Truth and love in communication. 

Read my new book, The Pursuit Of Excellence https://bit.ly/excellencehawk Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Text Hawk to 66866 for "Mindful Monday" Jim Levine has been a literary agent for more than 30 years. Some of his agency's clients include Ray Dalio, Scott Galloway, Jay Shetty, Gillian Flynn (author of Gone Girl), Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft), Tom Brady, & Giselle Bundchen among others… He also is my book agent and he brokered the deals for my book deals for both Welcome To Management AND The Pursuit of Excellence with McGraw-Hill. Notes: Early in my podcasting career, I asked all authors I recorded who the best book agent was... And many of them said, Jim Levine. "Being an agent is a continuing liberal arts education, it's an opportunity to engage with experts and thought leaders in a wide variety of fields and help shape their work to reach the broadest possible audience.” Jim has written and published 7 books and over 100 articles for professional magazines… He's won awards for his work as a writer. He's the founding director of The Fatherhood Project – A 20-year long foundation-supported initiative to increase men's involvement in childrearing in all segments of society. Jim takes us inside the process from book proposal, selling to a publisher, and ultimately getting the book published. "Being an agent is so much more than just selling the book. The relationship is so much more intimate. You have to care." Building a company and a culture of growth... The best book proposals he's read: The Master Algorithm -- Pedro Domingos Welcome To Management Smartcuts by Shane Snow Jim has spent most of his career putting together ideas, people, and money; identifying, nurturing, and marketing talent; and creating projects that make a difference. Jim graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude from Amherst College, winning Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright, and Ford Foundation Fellowships. He holds two advanced degrees in English Literature from UC Berkeley, where he specialized in Shakespeare and modern literary criticism, and a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he specialized in child development and social policy. Advice: Don't think about a job, think about skills you have and challenges you could take on… The WHO is really important - Who you work for... Be a perpetual learner Follow your curiosity Have a wide range of interests What Jim looks for when hiring – Pat Lencioni's humble, hungry, and smart – It's about helping people solve problems.

THE COUPLECAST, Love & Culture EP 21 [Timestamps Below] 2:22 Should You Have S*X when You DON'T WANT to? 8:55 Is it Cool To GHOSTWRITE For GROUP Mate? 12:03 Are their Any New FEMALE Rappers NOT inspired by Nicki Minaj? 15:51 How did Nicki gain such a BIG GAY following? 19:44 How Can Women know the Difference Between a LEADER & a NARCISSIST? 29:22 ADVICE: Don't Have TRADITIONAL EXPECTATIONS If You Aren't Traditional, Yourself! 34:20 Is 50 CENT The Most Successful Rapper In HOLLYWOOD?!! 39:33 SIGNS You May Be Getting FINESSED!!! 46:41 Message To Fans... SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL Love & Culture Playlist: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtxXyAjFtEmQ5IGNWfOHada5JO0qFtfiq Love & Culture TIK TOK: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRYJ183L/ Follow The Afrikan Jawn: https://instagram.com/theafrikanjawn Follow G-HOLY: https://instagram.com/gholy.tv Link To EVERYTHING: https://linktr.ee/gholy.tv AUDIO: https://anchor.fm/loveandculture #powerbook2season2 #nickiminaj #relationships --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loveandculture/support

Here is the subreddit used in this podcast: https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/ Don't forget you can check out all things casual at: https://linktr.ee/Casual_Empire Also you can email me at: mentalhealthcasual@gmail.com In this episode, we talk about dealing with someone with dementia who told you to never come back, as well as when a sibling won't take their first steps into adulthood.

This episode of Success Fundamentals features Joel Berg, CEO at Hunger Free America. An advocacy to end hunger at home set Joel on a nationwide tour of their different sites. It was an opportunity to lobby for change to show the reality of the problem.He describes what hunger in America looks like today, a stark contrast to the fact that obesity rates are also highest in America. He talks about the need for a social movement to create lasting change especially since hunger in America is an unnecessary problem.He mentions the responsibility of people in power to join the fight and how disruptive philanthropy helps causes like his. Joel also clarifies that he is not against wealth accumulation. He only wishes that everyone who makes it to the top will bring along the people that got them there in the first place. HIGHLIGHTS01:50 Social justice activism set the tone for Joel's advocacy09:14 Nationwide work in lobbying: Hunger is an unnecessary problem in the US14:52 Hunger in America: Obesity and malnutrition are two sides of the same coin20:51 Pro hunger forces have much to gain with ongoing hunger 26:16 A social movement to make healthier food available and convenient 30:48 Conversations with people who are hard to convince36:03 Be the next billionaire but bring the people that brought you there40:50 Disruptive philanthropy supports the fight to end hunger in America46:00 Advice: Don't start your own nonprofit group, support existing ones instead51:45 Connect with Joel and Hunger Free AmericaQUOTES07:56 "The idea that people can't eat is just so appalling to me. And as I said, it ties together the racial justice issues I care about because the largest number of people in America who are hungry are white, but there's no question that people of color, because of systemic structural racism are more likely to be hungry."09:43  "I thought I was capable of running a national nonprofit group, but the bias a non-profit to get this government so great, no national group would hire me to run it."13:37 "What really upsets me, really outrages me are things that are totally unnecessary, that are totally within our control. Hunger in America's totally unnecessary. It's totally in our control."21:11 "The forces that are lobbying against paying their workers enough to feed their family, they're pro hunger. The forces that are for cutting rather than expanding federal nutrition assistance programs, they're pro hunger. And the politicians that vote that way, let's be very, very clear, they're pro hunger."26:59 "How do we get our political system to do that? We do it by building the political movement to do it and make sure that the people most impacted are in leadership roles of it."You can connect with Joel through the links below.LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-berg-53a7194/Website - https://www.hungerfreeamerica.org/Email - jberg@hungerfreeamerica.orgFollow Success Fundamentals on the following links below: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4XCvuwxnFi5_7C6Ncm12xQLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/success-fundamentals™Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/successfundamentalspodcastInstagram: https://instagram.com/successfundamentalspodcast

On this week's episode, Chatrice and Luis welcome Jaime of Jota Reads, an Instagram Book Club, to talk dating and relationships as found in books! Before the main topic, our hosts catch up. Since last time, Chatrice is being superhost, on site for work, and celebration National Boyfriend Day; while Luis is a busy bee, being on the virtual speaking circuit, and finding time to breathe during a busy time. Before getting to the main topic, Jaime talks to Courting in Color and our hosts about Jota Reads including what is the word “jota” and its history as well as what is the importance of starting an online book club centered on queer joy. Our hosts and Jaime talk good relationship advice from romance novels, respond to an article about applicable relationship advice from romance novels, and to wrap up book recomendations from Jaime and our hosts! Time Stamp:0:19 - Hello and Welcome Back0:56 - Hosts check in: Chatrice is on site at work, hosting on Airbnb again5:28 - Question for the season: what holiday are we celebrating this week? October 3 - National Boyfriend Day; October 11- National Coming Out Day; October 11 - Indigenous Peoples' Day 6:35 - Chatrice celebrations National Boyfriend Day in style10:51 - Shout Out for the Culture: Lil Nas X's “MONTERO” album; Adele's comeback and new album (named “30” perhaps?)14:24 - Guest: Jaime of Jota Reads and guest introductions16:40 - Whitness of bear community; affirming of body space, not affirming of people of color 17:35 - What is the dating scene in Jaime's hometown?19:08 - Current dating/relationship s tatus of Jaime22:03 - What is Jota Reads? 26:18 - What is jota? The history of the word “jota”29:05 - Main Topic: what can books teach us about dating and courting? 29:19 - Research on the main topic: article - “Good Relationship Advice from Romance Novels” by Maya Rodale (Bustle, May 2015) 31:07 - Advice: Believe in Hate at First Sight34:40 - connection to Netflix's Bridgerton 36:48 - “What is my tresh hold of what can I disagree on?” - Luis38:08 - Advice: Don't Fall for the “Right” Guy41:19 - Jaime talks about important value in dating as part of being the right guy 42:17 - “You can't marry a man you just met” - Elsa to Anna in “Frozen”43:25 - Conversation on green flags in relationship in addition to red flags43:55 - Advice: Be Totally Unrealistic47:31 - “Everybody's fairytale is different, you get to define yours” - Jaime48:50 - Striving for the queer chicano fairy tale49:10 - Are there books that come to mind that have taught us lessons about dating and relationships?49:29 - Books from Jaime about queer love: “The Rain God” by Arturo Islas; “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secret of the Univere” by Benjamin Alire Sáenz54:29 - Books from Chatrice with lessons about dating and relationship: “How to Fail at Flirting” by Denise Williams56:05 - Juxtaposition of reading black voices in the space of romance as opposed to white voices like in “The Baby Sitters Club”58:11 - Who writes books about romance, dating, and relationship?59:24 - Luis Book Recommendation: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune1:00:18 - Consuming media and representation in media 1:01:24 - Close Out: Where can people find Jaime? Follow @JotaReads on Instagram!Notes:“Good Relationship Advice from Romance Novels” by Maya Rodale - https://www.bustle.com/articles/79598-9-relationship-lessons-i-learned-from-romance-novels-because-these-books-actually-teach-you-real-life-advice@JotaReads on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jotareads/ Website: courtingincolor.com / Email: CourtNColor@gmail.com / Instagram: @CourtNColorDon't forget to subscribe, rate, and review!

Have you ever wondered what it must feel like to be a world record holder? It may seem like their experiences are so different from yours, but you'll be surprised with how alike they are to you. They may share the same hobbies or be in the same industry as you before they made their record. Or they may have faced the same struggles you're currently confronting. No matter where they come from, great people are still people, just like you. Today, ex-Special Forces soldier, security specialist, and record-breaking adventurer Dean Stott joins us. He shares his experiences, from his military background to his Pan-American Highway cycling adventure. His is an inspiring story of pushing the limits and redefining the meaning of ‘adventurer'. Just like everyone journeying through life, he has also faced challenges on the way to the finish line. After listening to the episode, you may gain the motivation to try something you've never done before. If you're thinking of one day achieving a world record or if you want to know the meaning of being an adventurer, this episode is for you.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year's time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, your goals and your lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or are wanting to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa's Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, a NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that is capable of boosting the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements that are of highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combat the effects of aging, while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:  Find inspiration as Dean shows us the meaning of adventurer. Realise your similarities in experiences with a world record holder. Gain insight into how long-distance cycling is both a physical and mental feat.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio.  Listen to other Pushing the Limits Episodes: #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #192: Mental Resilience and Endurance: A Journey Across the Ocean with Laura Penhaul Connect with Dean: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   Relentless by Dean Stott   The Black Country Buddhas Podcast Episode #55: Dean Stott- Human Performance, World Records And The Unrelenting Pursuit Of Excellence!  13 Hours (2016)  Heads Together UK Windy TV    Episode Highlights  [04:53] Dean's Background Dean's father was a tracksuit soldier or the football manager and coach in the army.  Dean was an active child growing up.   While he was never forced to go into the military, he ended up joining anyway. [09:00] The Fruits of Dean's Military Training Dean's time in the military helped him put on some muscle and gain height and weight. He didn't feel pressure to choose a department because he wasn't aware of how difficult each option would be. Dean ended up in the SBS (Special Boat Service) as he was more comfortable with water. He learned that rehearsing over and over helps you prepare for different scenarios.  Dean's training also prepared him to expect things to never go according to plan. He was taught how to react and plan for the best outcomes. [16:57] Dean's Turning Point Unfortunately, Dean had an accident while on an aircraft jump during pre-deployment training. Luckily, he landed successfully. However, he tore numerous supporting muscles, particularly in his knee. He couldn't even run 100 meters due to these injuries. Dean left the military. After retiring, he experienced an identity crisis. Dean's wife, Alana, was also pregnant. So, he was under a large amount of mental pressure. Alana helped him during this challenging period.  [22:35] Experience in the Security Industry With his training from the Special Forces, Dean went on to the security industry. He carried out projects for the British and Canadian embassies. Dean bought weapons and communication tools to sell to his clients. Additionally, he also made and sold evacuation plans to oil and gas companies. Ad-hoc security projects were a better option for Dean as he didn't want to join organisations. He helped in the aftermath of the Benghazi assassination of the then American ambassador. With his safe houses and contacts, he was able to transport people from Benghazi to Tripoli.  Despite the numerous tribal and ideality differences between these two places, Dean helped people safely reach their destinations. He did this by communicating respectfully and humbly with the locals. [31:33] The Effect of Fear The media largely contributes to the world's perception of high-risk places.  Dean is fully aware of the threats present in his job. But he learns to appreciate and look at another perspective.  Despite terrorist threats and danger, these high-risk cities have hospitable people and lovely surroundings.  [37:03] Looking for the Meaning of ‘Adventurer' Dean became fixated on working to gain money. Then, he realised he was losing physical and mental wellness. Before turning 40, Dean experienced a midlife crisis. He wanted to leave a legacy. And so he chose to break a world record on cycling.  Dean chose to cycle from South Argentina to North Alaska via the Pan-American Highway, the longest road in the world. To beat the record of 117 days, Dean's goal needed to cover the distance in 110. So, he trained to cycle in different weather conditions and altitudes. Dean cycled for Heads Up, the mental health campaign of Prince Harry, Prince William, and Kate. He set a target of  ₤1,000,000. [48:11] Preparation Phase As Dean was doing his research for cycling, he also spoke to previous record holders. He asked them questions that he learned from his experiences in Special Forces debriefings.  Dean learned that the previous record holders experienced issues in South and Central America, the second half of the challenge. [49:27] Dean's Journey Across South and Central America  Dean decided to start in the south first to get all the issues out of the way. His adventure began in Southern Argentina. He became physically and mentally stronger after four weeks on the road. Most of the time, Dean would also go beyond his daily-set kilometres and hours.  He divided his milestones into countries, cities, and days. He also divided his days among four stages. With smaller and more manageable milestones, Dean didn't feel overwhelmed. He instead felt like he was training, nothing more. Dean looked forward to small rewards after each milestone. These motivated him to move and be better the next day. [55:47] Dean's Trip Across North America By this time, Dean learned that he was invited to Prince Harry's wedding. This meant he had to finish the challenge in 102 days.  So, he cycled at night.  Dean also saw a post of a recent world breaker, saying he'll break a record within 100 days.  Dean's family was also at the end to greet him; this thought motivated him. So, Dean cycled for 22 hours every day, even at -18 degrees, to beat the record.  [1:01:50] The Cycling World Record Dean's adventure lasted for 99 days. He spent ninety-four days cycling and five days on logistics.  He averaged 147 miles a day with a speed of 16.8 miles per hour. Dean also lost 12 kilos. Most importantly, he raised $1.2 million, or  ₤900,000, through corporate donors and sponsors.  He was even able to attend the royal wedding.  [1:03:19] Events Following Dean's Adventure  Dean experienced two highs in a week and felt a depression phase after. Dean did a Q&A with Prince Harry shortly after returning to talk about the amount they raised. It's weird for your family to go on with their everyday lives while you're still riding the highs of your success.  Dean feels lucky because his family is involved in his activities. So, they can be with him throughout his journey.  Anyone can do a world record when they have the luxury to just focus on their craft and immediate goals. Mortgages, physical health, and family responsibilities may get in the way of those goals. [1:08:44] What Lies Ahead for Dean His next goal is to kayak from Rwanda to Egypt, which is a 4,280 mile-long feat. This time, he will raise awareness on issues such as human trafficking, modern slavery, and pollution.  This new feat will also promote African people and their beautiful and natural environment. Kayaking is more skill-involved since he'll be encountering wild animals and overcoming water currents and waterfalls. Listen to the episodes about the specifics of Dan's preparations. [1:14:54] Final Thoughts and Advice Don't compare yourselves to other people, especially on social media.  Anticipation is worse than participation. Start with small steps and progress from there.    7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘If someone disagrees, “I didn't think you're gonna do it”. The best way to prove them wrong is actually physically doing it.' ‘You can't control the uncontrollables, you know, as long as you have a plan. One thing I saw, really take from the military is that meticulous planning and detail that goes into it.' ‘What I really took from the military is that unrelenting pursuit of excellence, trying to be the best you can be.' ‘The world's very quick to tarnish certain societies with one brush because of what they've seen on TV.' ‘Before you get, sort yourself out, you know, we'll sit down, and we'll ask three questions: “What worked? What didn't work? And if you're going to do it again, what would you do differently?”' ‘And then it was just, look at the next two hours. Look at the next stage. I didn't look at the afternoon, didn't look at the next day. And before you've done it, you've done a day, you've done a week, you've done a world record.' ‘Don't worry about what other people are doing. Just focus on yourself. You know, I always say anticipation is worse than participation.'   About Dean Dean Stott is a former member of the British Special Forces, where he travelled to dangerous places for 16 years. After an accident, he was forced to find other ways to use his time and skills. With his experiences in the Special Forces, Dean is now a world-leading security consultant and avid adventurer. Indeed, Dean redefines the meaning of adventurer in everything that he does. He has set the world record, cycling the entire 14,000 km Pan-American Highway in less than 100 days. Apart from these successes, Dean is also a motivational speaker who helps others overcome fear and adapt to change. His positive mindset and wide range of skills also enable him to work with brands and charities. He also incorporates advocacies into his adventures, with his most recent world record supporting mental health. Check out his website if you want to know more about Dean and his next adventure. You can also reach him through other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.   Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can understand the meaning of being an ‘adventurer' and go on their own adventures. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential. With your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Welcome back everybody. Lisa Tamati here, your host. Fabulous to have you with me again for another crazy episode of Pushing the Limits. Before we get underway with today's guests who I know you're going to find very, very exciting and interesting, just a reminder, to check out our epigenetics program, our flagship program that we do. One of our main programs besides our online run training system, where we look at your genes and how to optimise your life, your nutrition, your food, your exercise, all aspects of your life, including your social, your career, what parts of your mind you use the most, your dominant hormones, all this information is now able to be accessed and we can identify the lifestyle changes and the interventions that we can make to optimise your life. So if you want to hit know a little bit more about that program, head on over to lisatamati.com, hit the work with us button and you'll see our Peak Epigenetics program, go and check that out.  I also like to remind you about my new supplement, NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide. A bloody long name I know, but it's about longevity and anti-ageing. There is a ton of science that has gone into the research into NMN and as a precursor for NAD, which is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. I've had a couple of podcast episodes with Dr. Elena Seranova. I'd love you to go and check those out. She is the founder of the company and I'm importing it now into New Zealand, Australia and down the center of the world. So if you want to check out that anti-ageing and longevity supplement, I spent months trying to get it so make sure if you're down in the world and you want top quality, independently certified, scientists-backed supplement that really does what it says on the label, then check it out. Go to www.nmnbio.nz, nmnbio.nz, and find out all about it.  Right. Today's guest is oh he's a bit of a legend. Dean Stott is his name. He's a ex-Special Forces soldier, he was in the special boat service, British Army's where he came from originally. And he spent 16 years going into the most dangerous places on the planet and doing his job as a frogman. That's his nickname on his website. Even, as The Frogman. He is the author of a book called Relentless. Go figure, we've both got books called Relentless. I think we knew that we were going to get along. He's a motivational speaker. He's also a world record holder. Most recently he cycled the entire Pan-American highway. What are we talking- what is it, 14,000 miles or something ridiculous. And he did it in under 100 days. He's an absolute legend. And he had to get it done in time to get to Harry and Megan's winning. So he was desperate to get it done under 100 days. It's a really interesting story. This is a guy who's lived life on the edge in every which way you can possibly imagine. So I'm really looking forward to sharing his insights and his story with you now. Right, over to the show with Dean Stott.  Well, hi everyone and welcome back to Pushing the Limits. Your host Lisa Tamati here, sitting in New Zealand and ready for a fantastic interview today. I have a bit of a hard ask with me. I think it's a bit hard to describe this man, what he's done. I have Dean Stott with me. Dean, welcome to the show. It's fantastic to hear you. Yeah, you're sitting in Orange County? Dean Stott: I say, yeah moved to move to Orange County in California six months ago, actually in the middle of the pandemic. Just took advantage of the world pause, and just changed scenery. Lisa: Just change the scenery. Right, Dean we're gonna have a really interesting conversation because when I discovered you actually through another friend's podcast, My Home Vitality, shout out to Sean and everyone over there. And I realised that we had the same title of our books, was your one right?  Dean: Yeah.  Lisa: My one's been smaller. I thought, you, ‘This guy's probably right up my alley'. So you are known as the frogman, you've been in this Special Forces, Special Boat Services. You have also become an expeditionary athlete and adventurer and, in many years. But I want to go back a little bit, and it's starting to, were you always this determined and crazy and head through the wall type of person? And tell us a little bit about your background for starters. Dean: Yeah, so I don't know whether I was on reflection, you look back and think maybe I was slightly, you know, you touched when I was in the military, my father was in the military. And I grew up surrounded by that, in that environment, but was never forced upon me to continue any sort of tradition and things like that. My father was the army football manager and coach. So he was very sports-oriented, what we would call a tracksuit soldier. He very much that, you know, his career was based on his sport and abilities. So there was that competitive drive anyway, that I had from my father. My parents split up when I was a young age. And when I was about eight years old, I moved away with my mother for a couple of years. My father then got custody of me and my sisters, we went back to live with my dad, so I only had the single parent, and we just went everywhere with him. And it was all with the military and all these sporting events. I wasn't, you know, the children of today, with technology, you know, when we were younger, as you will know, we know you weren't allowed in the house unless it was absolutely raining.  So we had some natural physical robustness. And by, I joined the military, I approached my father and told him my intentions of joining the military, when I was 17. And he, he told me, I'd last two minutes. I don't know whether that was reverse psychology for me to push harder and prove him wrong. And, but I was about 65 kilos, and five-foot-seven, so I wasn't, you know, the figure, the man that I am today. And, but when I did join the military, I then went through training and things. And I didn't have aspirations of being Special Forces or commandos or anything like that. And I didn't, I wasn't really aware about the structure of the military anyway, because it was just sport. That's all I've seen where my dad, I hadn't seen the bigger picture. So then when I pass basic training. It's only 10 weeks long, you know, you then get a little bit of confidence in your abilities. And then you started in a short period of time, by the age of 20, or 21 actually, I was a para-commando diver and a PTA, done every arduous force within the military. But I'd grown so quick over those two or three years, and I will be about 85 kilos, now. I'm five-foot-eleven. So I was getting confident in my own abilities. And I was also growing into the individual that I was today. And I mean, once you pass a certain threshold, or pass a course, you then sort of look at, ‘Well, what's next?' You know, I wasn't the best on the courses, but I just gave it my 100%. And then you sort of, your career then starts channelling in one direction, you then those before you or your peers, the mentors are all going Special Forces. And then it's like, the next question is, ‘Why not? Let's have a crack.' Lisa: Yeah, that it takes a special type of person to be able to, like, I grew up in a family with lots of stories, like my dad was only in the military for a short time, but he was a firefighter. And so, you know, my husband's a firefighter, my dad's a firefighter, my brother's a firefighter, we're a firefighter family. And when I was a girl, when I was a little girl, we couldn't, I couldn't grow up to be a firefighter. It wasn't, it wasn't you know, unfortunately. Thank God, you can now. And, you know, if my dad had had his way, I would have been a firefighter, I would have been an SAS soldier, I would have been like, because he was a hard ass And he wanted all of that for me. And, you know, unfortunately, society sort of stopped some of the things. So I ended up doing it in other ways that I could do it. But wasn't there a lot of pressure? Did you feel like you had to live, you know, your dad saying that to you? Was it sad and just a thing? Or did that really bite with you that, ‘Hey, I'm going to prove you wrong,' you know what I'm going for?  Dean: Yeah, I think for me, it was. And we'll talk about other stories in my career, and it seems to be a common theme. I know, I fought. There's no point in arguing my father, you know, and or anyone, if someone disagrees, ‘I don't think you're gonna do it'. The best way to prove them wrong is actually basically doing it. Yeah. And then you don't even need to say anything. You just need to just leave that pause. And so I think for him, I don't know. I think it was a throwaway comment, you know, the fact I still talk about it now. And you know, a lot of people say to me, would you say that to your son? So of course, you know, I mean, I and, but for me it was that drive. Now, my father we talked about, you know, he really, he was sport oriented, actually when I joined Military I got sent to Germany to play football as well, because they knew I was Dave Stott's son.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dean: And see, after a year of being there, I said, ‘No, I don't want to follow the same footsteps as my father, I want to carve my own path.' And that's when I then went, commando, para and things. So I was going a different path from my father, he wasn't a para commando and things like that. So for me, it was like, this was new territory to me. I wasn't really put under pressure from him. I know a lot of guys who I served with, you know, from a young age, from young boys, all they ever wanted to be was a Royal Marine, or a para, they wanted to be SAS and things. I didn't, I wasn't, there was something that I didn't– Lisa: You weren't conditioned. Dean: Look, I wasn't even aware of it. That was why. So when I approached these courses, I didn't put myself under that self-induced pressure with some of these guys– guys and girls do. And I think that helped in a way. I sort of approached it in a, you know, it is what. It is not being naive, it's not what was involved walk in the park. But, you know, I was aware how difficult it was. But it wasn't the be-all or end-all. You know, some guys who did it, don't achieve the grades or, or the standards, and then they're broken. That's all their life. And I think it's actually too much pressure on themselves. So sort of going into these situations, you just need to be a bit open-minded. Lisa: And what was the training like to go into the Special Forces and to know what you do? What is it like to go through– because we see the stuff on the telly, and you know, everybody knows about how hard ass all that type of training is. And what do you need? What did you get out of it? What was the experience like for you to do those extreme sort of courses? Dean: Well for me, it's very much a grown-up course. You know, the way that then, you've got this stuff on TV, where you have the perception it's hard-ass and everyone's swearing and shouting here. And it is night and day from that, you know. I understand with TV, there's a fine line between authenticity and entertainment. Actually, if you film selections, it's actually quite boring. You know, these guys just get told where they got to go. And they just do it. So, and that's what I liked about the course is that the fact that you're– you all grow– you're all treated as grown-ups. There was no shouting, and they just told you what to do. They didn't need to shout, the selection was that hard in itself, that they didn't need to put that additional pressure on you. So I did what I can. And in fact, they gave you some sort of independence. To think on your own. I was fortunate to be an instructor on the commando course and also the senior dive instructor. So I've seen it from an instructor's perspective. And on those sort of courses, you do give the students some motivation and inspiration as well.  But on this one, you don't get anything. Yes, you get the reverse when you go to the jungle, and they tell you about how you're not doing well. And you know, just give up now and save six months of your life and things out. But again, I got that reverse psychology as a young boy telling me I couldn't do it. So yeah. And for me, I didn't go– you're– I was from, I came from the army. So I, the normal traditional route was especially SAS. I went SBS. I was one of the first army guys to do that. And that was because I'd spent eight years with three commando brigades, Brigade Iraqi force and I was a senior dive instructor. So water, I was more comfortable in water. So the special boat service was that natural transition for me. So they say when you go on selection, be the gray man, you know, just don't don't stand out and bring attention to yourself and things. I'll be the gray man for about two minutes. Because they will react, they'll scream my name out. And that's why I was going this way and not the traditional, right? Lisa: Because you came from the wrong place. Dean: Yeah, although I didn't put myself under my own self-induced pressure. I had that sort of hovering above my head. But again, once you– if you're confident in your abilities, and there's a fine line between confidence and arrogance at that age. I was a 28 year old sergeant. And I spent seven years in Brigade Iraqi. I've seen those who've gone before me and I knew that I was just as good as then. And you sort of know that they're going to play these mind games and when they come, as long as you identify when they come in and just deflect it.  Lisa: Yeah. Has it really helped you in everything that you've done since like, what are some of the key learnings that you take away from doing such arduous, tough, scary stuff? Dean: Um, I think, you know, you can't control the uncontrollables you know, as long as you have a plan. One thing I saw, really take from the military is that meticulous planning and detail that goes into it. And the fact that we rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse. You know, we do that over and over and over again. You know, I've been guest speaking alongside some, like, some of the England rugby players. They talk about the World Cup, now that how they repeat an exercise, until they get 1% better. You know, we'll rehearse, rehearse all these different scenarios. And, but ours is a bit of a different situation. You know, if we get it wrong or pause or hesitate, you know, we don't lose five points in a row, we lose lives. Guys, people will get killed.  So yeah, so there's that which what I really took from the military is that unrelenting pursuit of excellence, trying to be the best you can be. But also, as well as the planning, and that we talked about that, we'll probably talk about it later when we talk about the bike ride, is the fact that not– nothing always goes to plan. Plan is the best plan in the world, you know, and things never go to plan. And don't worry about that. And that's what I liked about the Special Forces is there were a lot of, ‘Well, if you don't go as planned, you just react to the situation that's in front of you.' And a good friend of mine told me a quote, ‘You can't be experienced without experiences'. And that's what I got from the military. The military, a lot of these big corporates around will, would love to try and replicate the scenarios or, or conditions that these people have been in, but you just can't. And that's the great thing about the military. They put you in some high octane environments, in difficult positions, difficult environments, and having to make difficult decisions. But you learn from that, you know, my decision, when was the wrong decision? You know, when you have to make? Yeah, you just reflect back on what worked and what didn't work. Lisa: Wow. So you were in the military for, I think it was 16 years, was it, or something?  Dean: Yes, yes. Yeah.  Lisa: And so it was a big chunk of your life. And then and then what happened? Tell us about the accident. Dean: Yeah. So I joined, I joined a special forces in the height of the war on terror. So I was the pinnacle of my career, everything was going really well. I was doing what these children nowaday plays Call of Duty. That was my lifestyle, day in day out. And we're just about to get pre-deployment training to go back out to Afghanistan again, and we're out training in Oman. And I was doing what's called a HAHO jumps, it's a high altitude, high opening jump. So unlike freefall, where you're free aligned, you're actually still connected to the aircraft. You exit the aircraft at 15,000 feet. And you do that, because that's the limits of oxygen. Any higher and you need oxygen. You open the aircraft and the parachute will open– pull open straight away. And when you travel up to 50 kilometers, or 30 minutes in the air to the target area. So I've done–  no– we've done hundreds of these jumps before, I think it's about the third or fourth jump in a day.  And I just exit the aircraft as I normally did, no different from any time before. But this time, when I look, there was something wrong and my leg was actually caught in the line above my head. So I was trying to clear my leg in time before the parachute opened and potentially rip my leg off. But I couldn't clear it in time. The parachute opened, pulled my leg up over my head and the right. Thankfully made my foot released. And otherwise wouldn't be here having this conversation. But straight away I knew there was a problem. The pain was so severe that I was vomiting and because of how thin the air was, I was drifting in and out of consciousness. But no one else in the team knew there was a situation so I wasn't going to come over to net and tell them that I had a sore leg. So I managed to stay with the team, assess where the other parachutes were coming in against the wind.  And my first challenge was to land it because if I didn't land it correctly, you know, on one leg, you know potentially, you could damage your good leg. So, but I did. It was a great, great landing, landed one-legged. And fortunately, the damage sustained on the exit show in my career. As I tore my ACL, my MCL, my lateral meniscus, my hamstring, my calf and my quadriceps, so all these supporting muscles–  Lisa: Just got ripped. Dean: Yeah, just got ripped. But you know, in the ideal world you would go straight back to UK and you start physio, you just start working on it. But it was the same time as the Icelandic volcano which grounded all aircraft. I was there for about nearly five weeks just thrown in a hotel with painkillers.  Lisa: Are you kidding. So that was it.  Dean: Yeah, yeah, I sort of missed that, and then got back to UK. I remember I made it back to UK, got sent home for six weeks and leaves. We're now talking about 11, 12 week period from the injury. Then they lost my MRI scans. It was just a spiral of failure in the medical system there. And so yeah, so I left. But all I've ever known, it's 16 years. Military, even as a young child growing up. So I didn't have, I didn't look beyond the military. For me, I was a lifer. That was me. Lisa: Wow. So how did that, apart from the gun to the physical injury, but how did that affect you mentally? Like you suddenly– you're at the top of your game, you've been training for this forever, you're doing your job. And then all of a sudden, you're out of the game. And you're completely sidelined. What happened to you mentally from that side? Dean: My wife will tell you a different– Lisa: You didn't get divorce. So that's good. Dean: But the one of the things I scored an identity crisis. Well, it is whether you believe in the military, whether you're a professional sports person, or whether you're just someone who works in an organisation or a team, but I've been– I've gone from working in a tight-knit unit, having a role and having a purpose, knowing what I was doing for the next two years, to like, ‘Where do I now fit in society? What was my role and purpose?' But I got to where I got to, because of my physical robustness. That had now been taken away from me as well. I couldn't even run 100 meters without my leg being in pain. So I had that going on in the background. Also, to add to the pressure, my wife was eight months pregnant. So also wondering whether there is going to be any work there. How am I going to support my family? And thankfully, for me, my wife is very entrepreneurial. You know, you hear horror stories of men and women when they leave the military, about that transition can be quite turbulent. Mine was quite smooth. You know, the military, like your mother and father, you know, they clothe you, they feed you, they pay you on time. You don't even know what, who provides the water or what to eat. You've just got a job to do.  But when we leave, we're not aware of who we need to speak to in the council's or the state. There. So my wife was a bank manager for three sons and their banks in Aberdeen. So the stuff that I would normally be worried about, she was, ‘Yeah, I've got all that.' And she sent my first security company on a Blackberry watching TV, you know, done the right paperwork. So when, so whatever I was going through a hard time having to talk personally, you know, thankfully, wasn't that bad, because my wife had sort of–  Lisa: Yeah, she's awesome.  Dean: But yeah, I just had, you know, talking to the security industry, the pressure of trying to, if there's any work. And I was very fortunate. Within 48 hours I was asked if I can go out to Libya, which I know you're familiar with, to help set up the different project restart the British Embassy during the Arab Spring. And so that's what I did. So wow, look at me, I had work straight away. And I was out in Benghazi, helping sell that project. Lisa: Can you tell us a little bit about that story? Because that sounds like a bit of a movie. Dean: You know– familiar I did– when I left, I wanted to find a niche within the security industry. I didn't want to go to Afghanistan and Iraq and do the hostile action, because I've sort of done that, you know, I've done that bit. And you know, I was very lucky to survive. So why would you take another risk? And I looked at the security industry, and actually, a lot of my friends from the special boat service. They were,  they had their maritimes companies who are dealing with the Pirates of the east coast of Africa. So I didn't want to be competing with them either. My wife's from Aberdeen, so I moved back to Scotland with her. It's the only gas capital of Europe. So where is all this trouble? So I was looking into more in the corporate clothes protection sort of industry, that's where my head was focused.  But when I got to Libya, I soon identified that Libyans didn't want another Libyan, another Afghan or Iraq once Gaddafi had fallen, they wanted to take control. But also these larger security companies, the big five, now sort of like dominate the industry. They were charging crisis management in evacuation plans, when actually we just scraped the surface, there was nothing in place. So I flew home, my wife gave birth to our daughter, Molly. And I said, ‘Look, I have a plan. Do you mind if I take our savings out of the bank?' And that's what I did. And I went back into Libya, there was a huge proliferation of weapons at this point. It's actually ammunition was difficult to get hold of, weapons are not a problem.  So I bought 30 weapons off the black market, and I buried them between Tunis and Egypt and buried them with communications equipment money, and just designed my own evacuation plan, spent a month in the desert. These in design. And I mean, I sold them to a couple of the oil and gas companies on a retainer and just just sat on them. Then the security industry. You know, for me, I didn't want to work for an organisation and be on rotation and things like that. I took a gamble and it was very ad hoc. So each time I got a phone call was a different job. So you know, for example, we did London Olympics. And then next thing you're taking the UAE royal family superyacht from Barcelona to Maldives, and you're training the Kurdish Special Forces in Erbil.  Lisa: Wow! Fascinating! Dean: It's very diverse. When you tell people in the security industry, I mean, they think you're a doorman from the local nightclub. Lisa: Surely not. Dean: I'd like to help people as well. And I'm for me, but what it what it was good for me was– is I was seeing– some of these countries that I've been to anyway with the military, but seeing all the cultures and seeing how things, not from a military perspective, because it was almost a little bit blinkered, there, you know. Lisa: Yes. Like you say, your head, your role. Dean: You know, it's understanding more the politics, the demographics and things like that. So I just come back from the London Olympics. I was in Benghazi. And in the evening, the American ambassador got killed. And they made it into a film called 13 Hours. Lisa: Yes, that's what I thought, it sounds very familiar, I'm sure. Dean: I know, I always say, ‘Right place, right time' or ‘Wrong place, wrong time'. And I was there in Benghazi. And I was asked by a German oil company if I could get some of their German engineers from Benghazi to Tripoli. So I had safe houses in the desert. And that's what I did over the three days. I took them back out. And then two years later, I was in Brazil, covering the World Cup. Lisa: You're just like… You just got them out through a hole and you do that like going to the supermarket. Dean: There's no real, no threat to them, no direct threat to them. the only issue I had with that one, you know, we could have– I had drivers from Benghazi, who took us out initially. The problem in Libya, you have 167 tribes. And this is where there's real issues. Because, I mean, you have, you know, those in the East in Benghazi, don't like those in the West in Tripoli. You know, the politics are in Tripoli, the oils are in the East. And so it's understanding that as well. And that's why, so we did it over three days, and the reason we did that is, I was actually, I had the drivers from Benghazi in the safe house. And now that will, ‘You know, Mr. Dean, we can go on because Tripoli is only, you know, it's not far, 300 kilometers'. But they didn't realise I had drivers coming in from Tripoli. Lisa: And you didn't want them to–. Dean: And I didn't want the drivers to compromise us when we go in. So I woke up that morning that we were setting off and the drivers that arrived from Tripoli, the drivers and Benghazi in there. They all had their guns out.  Lisa: Oh, my God.  Dean: I say I mean, I mean, they're worried they weren't gonna get paid. I said, ‘No, you're paid. I just can't take you to Tripoli.' And so it's just understanding that sort, rather than just driving as fast as you could to Tripoli and potentially running into issues along the way. And so yes, that was a success. And two years later, I was in Brazil covering the World Cup. And we now had the Tripoli war, which is a civil war between the militias and the government. And I think that's just ended now. And I got a phone call from the Canadian Embassy saying that they'd been stuck in Tripoli. And so they had 18 military within an area close protection team with them, but they weren't allowed to leave the city. So they'd never seen the coastal road out and didn't really have eyes on. So in the days leading up to that, the British Embassy got shot at every checkpoint between Tripoli and the Tunis border. So I went out with my fixer, and just spoke to the tribal elders in those regions at war and everywhere else. And it was actually just showing them courtesy and respect. Just let us know who we are, when we will come in, we were no threat. And again, it's that understanding the politics and the demographics, which was a success to that. And yeah, we got 18 military in four different maps safely back to back to Tunis. Lisa: Wow. Dean: But you know, I've never like they said in Hollywood, I never needed to dig up any of the weapons. They're still there. It's more of an intelligence-led security thing. But I came home from that trip and my normal procedure would be to wash my kit, repack my bag and everything else, and then get ready for the next phone call. Yeah, one of my shirts was covered in blood. But I've been doing first aid and RTA. And I said to my wife, ‘Can we get the blood out of the shirt?' And she said ‘Yes, but I'm more concerned why there's blood in there'. Totally what I just got yourself is like a throwaway comment. Yeah, you see, this was the second time in my life, I realised the pin dropped. There was something more mentally, I was just five years now from the military and I was trying to match the adrenaline rush that I had been, without coming to terms with the fact that I'd left and I didn't have that support network. If something had gone wrong, my friends were gonna come in and parachute for me. And so something had to change. And my daughter was young, and my wife now is, you know, she had a very successful property development business. And she said, ‘Look, this was actually all about communication'. She thought I wanted to go away. And I thought she needed me to go away. Lisa: Yeah, yeah. Because you've been used to that sort of setup for so long. Dean: Yeah. And I've just been disconnected from society. I just thought that was the norm. You know, I was going to Somalia on my own. Yeah. Just doing– Lisa: Were you not like, like most people listen to this, I mean, it's such a foreign world for the average person who's never been exposed to any of this. And I've never been anything military. I've been in some tricky situations, and self-caused, gone into shit places which I wasn't really for or shouldn't have been in. But for most people, this is a terrifying thought to even go to some of these places, let alone to do the job that you do. Did you never have a fear of like, do you not have the normal fear responses that most people have? Dean: I think I do. I think the problem that we have in today's society is TV, is media. You know, it's very, you know, dramatised about these places. These places they go. I use Somalia as an example. I'll go there on my own and have a walk from the airport to the hotel, I won't– because that's where the business is. That's where I think things are happening. And then I've been, you know, yes, there's bad places and things go on. But it's no different from any city, you know. Yes, there's a bit of a terrorist threat and things. But I've been sent on a mission, south of Mogadishu, and in some of the most beautiful waters. I see parts of the country that people don't see. Now, I'm not naive to think there is no threat at all. You know, the success of a lot of my projects is having the right fixers and local influence. The world's very quick to tarnish certain societies with one brush because of what they've seen on TV. For me, they're the most hospitable people. You know, the Canadian Embassy, the KCA Deutag and a few others, they wouldn't have been successful if it wasn't for the locals. Lisa: The local people. Yeah.  Dean: And I think that's where somebody's security companies or individuals who think they can just come in with weapons and guys like me, very arrogant, they think they're going to do, to get away with it. And, and it's just showing respect, and humility. And that's my approach to it. So I am obviously conscious there is there is a friend, you know, I have friends who–  Lisa: And you can handle yourself there as well.  Dean: –things that, but yeah, I think that as long as–  Lisa: Yeah, I know what you'd be like when you go to some of these places, you have these preconceived ideas. And some of the places I've been to, like Niger. I went to Niger and you know, Niger, I don't even know how to say it properly, Niger. Never got that right. That was one place where I landed there. And we were doing a 333k race through there. And I didn't like go, ‘Holy shit, this place is pretty damn scary'. And you know, you're running across the desert on your own, and there was a lot of military, sort of oil problems. Chinese doing exploration in the desert against the wishes of the tribal people. So there was lots of military convoys coming through with all the arms and things. And you're a little girl running across the frickin' desert on your own. It's pretty, pretty hairy moments here where you think you can just disappear, you know. But generally speaking, most of the places that you go to where you think are gonna be terrifying, aren't that terrifying. And the people are pretty amazing, too. And you've got to be aware of yourself and, you know. Dean: Yeah. Having the responsibility, you know, those sort of places as well if they're running an event like that, and, you know, these countries want, you know, it's all about tourism and try and promote and put the country in a good light, you know, they'll do this. Yeah. Lisa: This one was a bit out there, though. Like this was a French Foreign Legion guy who was running it. He didn't give a shit about anything except making money, right? We went into it naively. These particular ones thinking it was gonna be like the marathon on Saturdays or something. You know what I mean? And it wasn't. It was like 17 runners, nothing was organised. It was like, we ran out of water, we ran out of food, we, you know, I ended up getting food poisoning on top of it all. So that was a really– that's when I realised that most of the races are really super well run, but then there are the cowboys out there. And, you know, we were in their very hands really, you know, and we were lucky to get out the other side on that one. But so how do you like, for your wife? What's it like having your husband off doing God knows what, and having to keep the, you know, the business going, and the life going, and that fear of you being away?  Dean: Yeah. And I'm very fortunate. I've got a, my wife is part of the business anyway, the scoop is anyway, so she would always be doing intelligence bits anyway. So having her being part of that helps. Yeah. Well, rather, you just go in, and she's not knowing what's going on. Yeah. I mean, a part of that. And when we talk about the bike ride, you know, she was the campaign director that so–  Lisa: Sounds amazing.  Dean: –but gets involved in everything. Because then it's very easy to explain why you're doing something or why you're going away because, yeah, the full picture. But no, very, very fortunate to have an understanding– and she, you know, Alana's got a book coming out soon as she talks about why she fell in love with me, because I showed a world that she hadn't seen before. I mean, I was very, we had very similar mindsets, and like, achieve whatever goals you want. So for her to then say, ‘I couldn't do something,' or you know, would go against, you know, what she believes in, and why we got into it. So obviously, now I'm a bit older and we've got kids and obviously I need to be a bit you know, she needs a little bit more. Yeah. Lisa: She sounds like an amazing lady. I'll have to get her on. Dean: Yeah, yeah, she is. She's got a cracking story herself. Lisa: Yeah, she sounds like it. So I want to transition now into going into life after this chapter of your life, if you like, in becoming this professional adventurer. Because in what you're doing now, what you've got coming up, and the whole world record that you have. Tell us about that. Dean: Yeah, so we actually stem from coming back from that Canadian Embassy job. You know, something had to change. In chapter 16 in the book, it's called ‘Dead or Divorce', so that's the stage we're talking about. Obviously, it's been five years since my leaving the military. I've sort of neglected my own sort of physical and mental well-being. I've been so fixated on work and bringing in money, and I take like a TRX with me around, just throw it in the suitcase. And I haven't done any sort of cardiovascular stuff. My injured leg like now was two kilos lighter than my good leg, which is an awful wastage.  So I just that's when for Alana said, “Come do property development.' And that's what I did. I hung up my security boots and just bought a pushbike of farmers, and just cycled to and from the office. There's only about eight miles there and eight miles back. You know, nothing big but straightaway being physically active again, you know, I felt like there was a big, big weight off my shoulders, and that's what I did. I cycled to and from the office. But you can imagine my story, you know, sat in these architects and planners meet.  So it's about a month for my 40th birthday. So I was getting a midlife crisis around. What have I done with my life? I'm going to have a legacy and things. So I said, well, ‘I've always fancied doing a world record.' And Alana said, ‘Well, what in?' And I said, ‘Well, cycling is good, because it's not impacted– well, you need to consider my knee injury.' And something that wasn't the knee injury wasn't going to compromise it.  So I said, ‘Well, what about cycling?' And you know, being in Scotland, I was thinking maybe Aberdeen to Glasgow or something. And my wife then found the world's longest road, which runs in southern Argentina to northern Alaska. So for the listeners, it's probably equivalent to say it's the equivalent of cycling from London to Sydney. Yeah, 30,000 miles.  Lisa: And then another.  Dean: Yeah. Because of the curvature of the earth. So having only cycled 20 miles, this is what I did: I applied for the world record in it. We had looked at Cairo to Cape Town. But I–  majority of my security work was in Africa. So I'd be in those days anyway. So for me, I wanted to, as part of the challenge, I wanted to see places that I am–  someplace that I hadn't been to before and also because of where you started, and when you're finishing, you're going through all different temperatures and climates and things like that. And so Guinness came back. And the world record when I apply for it was 125 days. Six weeks later when it came back, and said you were successful with the application. And we've been beaten by eight days, the new world record was 117 days.  So that was my target. And my wife and I do a lot charity work. We have been doing since I met her really and, you know, do a lot of stuff with the military. You know, it's part of a special boat service, ambassador for Scotland. Legion, which is the oldest military charity in the UK. But I'm gonna name drop now massively. So Prince Harry and I are good friends, and we've known each other.  Lisa:  Is he though? Dean: Yeah. And as you've seen. And I've been friends about 14 years, met each other on a community training course. And, you know, he'd come to some of my events; I've been to some of his events. You know, I– in Mozambique, Tanzania had an intelligence fusion sale, which would identify smuggling routes for the ivory, you know, which I could then relay back to him. So he's doing a lot of stuff in the background. So I rang him up, and I said, ‘Look, I'm gonna cycle, the world's longest road, you know, what campaigns should we do it for?' And this is back in 2016. So him and his brother and Kate, were just about to launch a mental health campaign called Heads Together in 2017. And he said, would I do it for that campaign? And I said, ‘Yes, of course'. So I now have the challenge of the campaign. And in the end, I set a target of a million pounds.  Lisa: Wow, that's a big-ass target! Dean: For me it had to be the enormity of the challenge to reflect how much you're trying to raise. You know, you couldn't– you know, you can't go– can't say I'm going to raise a million pounds and run the London Marathon because it just doesn't add up. The size of the challenge and the size of the ask here, you know, was balanced. And also to add to that I'd never cycled before as well, which is even more of a– Lisa: Mental.  Dean: Yes, yeah. So I did a train for a year, you can imagine what it is like trying to get sponsorship at the beginning. Lisa: What the hell! Dean: I will perform, break a record, and we'll record and raise a million pounds in mental health and a lot of them thought had mental health problems themselves. Lisa: But you had a track record of what you've done? I mean, I would have taken you seriously, as far as the– Dean:  A lot of people say to me, ‘How do you get sponsorship?' You know, I got– and it was just, it was the right messaging at the right time. You know, the Heads Together campaign is launched in the UK, and it's very much the topic of conversation. So a lot of these big corporates wanted to get behind.  Lisa: Wonderful. Yep, yeah.  Dean: So it was the right message at the right time. And, yeah, I got a great sponsor. And, you know, that was only about two months before setting off. You know, I funded it, funded 50,000 of my own money up until that. I had to believe in it Lisa: And put something on the line?  Dean: Yep. Yeah. So. So that's what I did. Yeah, I mean, I set off on the first of February 2018, the– when I was doing all the early stages when I was doing the planning, and I'd never cycled with I just took a military set of orders, put it on there and just crossed out ammunition. And then as I started learning about saving, I then introduced that into the plan. But there's things that, you know, there are things that are out of my control, like natural disasters, coups, third party influence. So the world record was 117 days, but I was aiming for 110. And it wasn't– I was going to beat it by a week.  Lisa: You're in that buffer. Dean: Yeah that buffer. The buffer, the fudge they call it. Encounter that is eating into the fudge and not your challenge. So that's why, where I set off aiming for 110 days. You know, I was very fortunate to, being in the military and worked in the desert, the Arctic, and the jungle, and things that I've never done on the bike. I had to then simulate those situations. So the Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest non popular desert in the world. It's 47 degrees. What I decided to do so, I went out to Dubai and did two weeks heat training in Dubai. The altitude in Ecuador, of cycling. You know, the biggest climbs in Tour de France ranges in 21, 23 kilometers, minus 67 kilometers and sea level to four and a half thousand meters. So I had to train altitude. So I know that on the day of the event, you know, you do 8 to 10 hours on the bike.  Lisa: Altitude. Yeah.  Dean: So, yeah, I did that. And there's a famous bike ride in the UK called Land's End to John O'Groats. Lisa: Yes, I know that one.  Dean: Yeah, so I did that twice. I never mean to sound arrogant, but for me, it was a training ride and actually it's training ride because the challenge was 15 Land's End to John O'Groats back to back. So if I couldn't do one, how was I going to do 15? Lisa: Yes. It's funny how your perception changes, the bigger your current goal that you're going for, the other stuff becomes small, but what I've learned too is that it goes the other way as well. When you stop doing the big stuff, your horizon comes back in pretty quickly. And then you know, it can be gone the other way. Dean: You can never replicate what you're going to do with some of the ultra marathons, you won't go run the exact distance.  Lisa: No, no, you're running near it.  Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on here. It's been a public service free for everybody. And we want to keep it that way. But to do that we need like minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on www.patron.lisatamati.com. That's P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com. We have two Patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com. And thanks very much for joining us. Dean: Yeah, what I got from doing those Land's End to John O'Groats, you know, I did about nine days, is the fact that the first four or five days are always whether you're at your peak, or wherever you're below peak is always going to be hard and then by the end of the first week, your body then knows what you're asking of it. Lisa: I found that like too, when I did– because I ran through New Zealand, and I did you know, 2250ks in 42 days, which I was aiming for 33 days, but I had again, I didn't add in the fudge, did I? And I got slower and slower and more injuries and so on. So it took me a bit longer than I was planning. But at the two-week point was when I was at that absolute, like I don't know how to take the next step point, you know. And somehow I had to drop the kilometers a little bit, but then I was able to– my body actually got better from that point on. And I would never have believed if I hadn't lived through it. I thought I was like, absolutely, I don't know the how I'm going to take the next step to then actually the end of the 42 days being like, ‘I could carry on now'. You know, it was quite a phenomenal thing to go through. And I've heard other expeditions that athletes go through the same sort of thing that it bottoms out at the worst point. I've got a couple of mates who ran across the Sahara, and I mean, right, right across the Sahara, 7,000 kilometers. And they said the same thing that they you know, two weeks, and they were thought, you know, ‘We're about to die here. We're not gonna make it.' And then it's sort of you know, and you have the ups and downs. But if you can push through that mentally, that point you seem to come through it. Dean: Yeah, you do. I think, you know, for me, I set off from sort of going back slightly when I was doing my research, I, you know, was reading books and magazines learning about cycling. You know, it evolved so much since I was a young boy in a BMX, and I wasn't getting the information I really wanted. So I spoke to the previous record holders, and they're very open, which was great, really, they're very receptive. but they– you know, one of the things we do in the military, especially in the special forces is, it's like a hot debrief. So when, as soon as you've done a job or operation, you come. Before you get, sort yourself out, you know, we'll sit down, and we'll ask three questions: ‘What worked? What didn't work? And if you're going to do it again, what would you do differently?' So I just asked that question to the previous record holders, and all their issues were in South and Central America: bureaucracy, the borders, languages, first to the base. So they all started in North America, and it was the second half of the challenge which had the issues, right. So I turned on its head, start in the south and get those issues out the way early. So one thing I was quite proud of–  just because everyone did it that way didn't mean it was the right way.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dean: But yeah, but I set off from Southern Argentina in the first week, you know, relentless winds, it was like 40 mile an hour, approximate speed. I've never known anything like it. But once that had–  I had targets each day, you know what I had to hit each day and I was hitting those targets. I think by the end of the first week, I was 39 miles behind target, but my target is still a week ahead of the world record, right? Yeah, yeah. The weather sort of changed for the better and now the winds have abated. I got through Peru, I got tailwind all the way through Peru. That's 2500 kilometers of tailwind. We did you know, I crashed the bike in Chile, I got food poisoning in Peru, you know, coming out with issues and, you know, got to Ecuador, got the big climb-ins. But before they're gone on the challenge, I've never done more than 150 miles on the road, on the road. I've done 10 hours on a turbo trainer, but never done more than 150 miles. By the week four when I was in Peru, anything less than 150 miles wasn't enough for me. I was physically and mentally stronger as I went. I started at 90 kilos. I was too big.  Lisa: Yeah, but I but you needed it.  Dean: Yeah, but I knew from my time in the military that special forces selection six months long, you don't start day 1 100%. You carry that timber and weight, and then that will shed and you'll get fit. And that's what I did. And you know, when I finished I weighed 78 kilos. Almost 12 kilos. And you know you have to– it's almost like a polar expedition, you're losing weight from the start. So you just need to try and try and keep it on. But I got to Cartagena on day 48 on March 21. That took 10 days off the previous world record for South America. But that wasn't the world record. And a lot of people called me said, ‘Oh,' they said, ‘The pressure's off.' I said, ‘That's not world record. Call it Brucie bonus. That was a Brucie bonus or a marker to aim for rather than looking at the full challenge. As you know, you don't look at the– Right down into– Lisa: You get overwhelmed pretty quick. Dean: What do you do on the flight? So I

Here is the link to the subreddit used in this podcast: https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/ Don't forget you can check out all things casual at: https://linktr.ee/Casual_Empire Also you can email me at: mentalhealthcasual@gmail.com In this episode, we try our hand at giving advice, by talking about dads who cheated on moms and what the kids should do and much more!

Former Suite Owner, now Salon Stylist, Philanthropist, and Awesome Human: Keturah Kennedy of Washington, DC Weighs the Pros & Cons of the SALON LIVE vs SUITE LIFE. Takeaways: 1)SALON PERKS: Team, Collaboration, Support Staff, No rent, Good Place to Build Clientele 2) SUITE PERKS: Freedom of Schedule, NO BOSS, Work-Drama Free! Control! 3) ADVICE: Don't go straight to a suite from school, the Salon is not for everyone, make sure you have your "book" and DO YOUR RESEARCH before making ANY move!

I used to go to school with Jessica. At Harvard, we met often between parties, travels and class breaks. But this time, we met to talk about life and business. Jessica is the Founder and CEO of Bonny, the only deliciously clean and sustainably packaged fibre supplements brand on the market. On her second start-up, Jessica has many learning points to share with us on her journey leaving corporate life and setting up 2 start-ups. Moments of change Jessica gets asked about her move out of corporate life a lot - people thinking about jumping out, people on the fence, everyone wanting to know what the right time is to make the move. For her, she was working already within the industry, so that allowed her to meet lots of entrepreneurs. In some way, being close to this world helped her lose the fear, even if she also had lots of questions. She reminds us: "There is never a right time to start a business" Jessica started to look for her first business while still at her prior job and came across an opportunity to set up something already backed by VC money, a luxury not many entrepreneurs have. That was Olika, where she spent 4 years as CEO of Olika, a design-forward brand reinventing hand-sanitiser. But they were ahead of the pandemic and Jessica exited in 2019. In business, timing is everything. Soul Searching meets pandemic "Entrepreneurship is an all-encompassing brain activity". When leaving, Jessica wanted to take time off.  She was soul searching and doing freelance consulting work - but when the pandemic hit she found herself unemployed and jobs dried up. She went through a period of learning and started attending all possible webinars, ensuring she kept her knowledge fresh. At the same time, she started working on her health and nutrition. She had exercised all her life but not really thought about her food or combined the 2. In fact, as she says, "she would exercise to eat". As she was tracking her calories and fibre intake, she realized it was super important but also VERY hard to get enough fibre. That's when the entrepreneur hat came back in. And Bonny was created. Launching Bonny during a pandemic Jessica had her product idea, it was time to get it off the ground. She reached out to manufacturers and had to launch the business in a whole different way. She had a factory tour over Facetime and all contacts had to be virtual. The physicality was a big difference, especially when people are also taking a bet on you as a new product business. Packaging was another challenge. Jessica was committed to fully sustainable packaging - plastic-free. But when the labels and packaging got put together, the labelling would not stick!! That is what you get by not being able to test and play with the paper in advance. Who would have thought something would not stick! Entrepreneur moments. First vs. second business There were more differences the second time around - and not all pandemic related. When launching Bonny, Jessica had then a track record as an entrepreneur, and people responded easier to her emails and calls. After all, she had launched a business and achieved traction before. That was key to get credibility with manufacturers in a period where many people were trying to get e-commerce businesses going.  Another key change was that Jessica chose not to go multi-channel on Bonny. For her first brand, she was everywhere from Target to Moms and Pops shops. However, for this product, Jessica decided to focus exclusively on the e-commerce channel, selling direct and making her website the best it can be. Whilst she knows she will go multi-channel in the future, right now she wants to control the story and keep people engaged at trybonny.com. Entrepreneur wisdom "Patient is a well-learnt virtue" When we talked about advice to entrepreneurs, Jessica was quick to react! She wishes she had known how long things can take, usually, beyond the worse expectations. Through this process, she constantly reminded herself that this journey was a marathon, not a sprint. She brought me back to Pridhee's episode, telling me how it was so important to just celebrate the small wins! This has definitely been a constant with the entrepreneurs I met. Whatever the wins mean to you, you need to celebrate those small moments because the speed of want is faster in entrepreneurship and can be even harder to come by. "It is serious but not that serious" That is Jessica's other piece of advice. Make sure you enjoy what you are doing because, at the end of the day, it is a journey and an experience. So it is important to try and enjoy and also have fun while you are on it. Life through covid Jessica stayed in New York through the pandemic and can attest to the fact that NY apartments are not geared to lockdown. It was through these times that she started devoting time to her health and fitness, and to taking care of herself. She focused on using time as wisely as possible, she engaged in lots of learning and she also focused on herself. It was important to recognise that time is precious and this period of life was about enduring time in a different way. As part of her journey, Jessica also started meditating, which helped ground her and centre herself. And naturally, nutrition played a huge role in this (and led her to create Bonny). A central part of her journey through Covid-19 was friends and family. It is important to have "a bench circle" of people with whom you can be your real self. These will also be the same people that will give you a safe space to communicate the good, not so good, and the bad days. Verbalizing is an important part of this. When Jessica realized the lockdown was not going to be 2 weeks but rather 12 to 18 months, there were no doubt some tough times. And in those times, it was ok to be able to say: "I am having a rough day today" Looking forward A post-pandemic environment opens up a lot of opportunities for Bonny. In her prior brand, Jessica had attended trade shows and had customers test the product. Now, all she has are virtual reviews. Taste is very subjective, so she is looking forward to getting out there and getting real-life customer feedback and sampling the product so she can continue to create and enhance flavours. Oh, and naturally she is very keen to meet her suppliers and to have moments of personal connection with her team, that she has built entirely remotely. As a hope or prediction, she expects the focus on health and nutrition to continue so she will be keen to continue to be part of this movement and get the word out! Before we go... Advice: Don't sweat it, pick something you like. 2020 Challenge: Being unemployed during the pandemic. And she knows her 4-walls a little too well. 2020 Lesson: It's time, use it as wisely as you can. 2021 Book: Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes, Richard A. Clarke 2021 Word: Hope Connect with us Meet Jessica on Linkedin  Get Bonny (US only) and follow them on Instagram Join our free community online and on Facebook Follow me on Linkedin, Instagram or Twitter Produced by Alice Stansfield

It’s one thing to know you’re sedentary, but it’s another thing altogether when your Apple Watch tells you that you’ve only taken 900 steps today. Data can be a huge motivator for change — but not by itself. You need to get the right data in front of the right people to get things moving. In this episode of Conquering Chaos, I interview Brian Piotrowski, Vice President & General Manager - Pipeline & Industrial Materials at CMC Materials, about using data during change management. What we talked about: - Strategy and tips for making data mean something - Change management should focus on people and culture - Advice: Don’t track more than 10 data points - Decision making processes based on fact vs. emotion Keep connected with Conquering Chaos at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website. Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Conquering Chaos: A Show for Manufacturing Leaders in your favorite podcast player.

I met Amy a few months back via a common friend. John thought we would like to meet each other and find common interests. He did not explain much. But he was not wrong. Amy has launched a business dedicated to women empowerment - Fem-Foundry. I am passionate about women empowerment. It seemed like a good fit. So today, I decided to bring Amy to the podcast to bring light to our common passion. Why do we need Fem-Foundry? First, it may help you to know what it is. Fem-Foundry is a digital media platform exclusively dedicated to women. A space for women to be without fear of judgement, a platform for women to be what they wanted to be, to connect and collaborate, to express themselves freely, to learn and develop. The platform is not about competing with each other, but rather about collaborating. It is a space for every woman, whether you are 25 or 65. Women can choose their topics and they come from around the globe. One can find the more practical money courses or the more new-age spectrum on "how to manifest". Putting women in a box One of the things Amy really wanted to avoid was the tendency we have to put women in a box. The mother. The working-mum. The career trailblazer. The entrepreneur. The wife. The daughter. Fem-Foundry avoids bucketing women and gives them a space where they can choose what to be. One day you may go into a career "room", another day into a wellness one, or parenting, or money issues. You are not defined by any of them. Releasing right? So maybe there are very ambitious career-driven people on the platform, but there are also those that don't want to pursue it. And this is a place for both. "I personally think putting women in boxes is reductive and I think it stifles progress towards a more equal society" Amy Williams Building Role Models "74% of women globally don't feel like they have a positive female role model" Whilst there are a lot of mentoring programs, people are not always comfortable asking "silly questions". So Amy wanted to have leaders that people could easily reach out to. They are called the Foundry Leaders. Leaders may be smaller or larger influencers, and many you will know because they are someone influential in a specific community, not because they have millions of Instagram followers. They each matter according to interest areas, have a story behind them and are within arm's reach for people to ask their questions and connect to. Role models are a key problem for women advancement, so I am curious to see how it develops as a key part of the platform. Not on my watch As we discussed the women stats that have assaulted us during this pandemic, Amy mentioned she read about how the pandemic may have pushed women back by 20 years. Her immediate reaction was "not on my watch". That is why Fem-Foundry's timing is now. Whilst we thought we had done great advances in the opportunities that women were getting, the pandemic has brought a harsh reality forward. Women are dropping the workforce more rapidly. Many of them had more precarious jobs that did not hold "working from home". Others had to revert to be carers as the other part was often making more money. Many side-entrepreneurs had to leave their businesses behind to care for the children under home-schooling. The effects are still being felt. Fix the crown "Be the woman that fixes the other women's crown, without telling the world it was crooked" It is great to talk about women platforms, but sometimes, we must admit women are not the nicest to each other. So I am curious about how Fem-Foundry can establish a different culture. Amy is very focused on this fundamental concept of working together and being better together. It tries to teach women about the importance of operating in this way across any vertical. About how adjusting someone else's crown we eventually get a boost to ourselves. Having done this podcast featuring women leaders around the world, that is definitely something that I am trying to do. And I have certainly been learning from each woman that I have "visited" on this journey. Launching in the middle of the "waves" Amy launched the beta version of this new business in the second week of March 2020 as Female Tribes. Talk about timing! Naturally, the investment money that was on the way never made it there. It all got very challenging. However, the pandemic brought to light the importance of having a platform like this. "I have always been resilient, but this has really tested my resilient in every possible way" Amy Williams As they re-launched as Fem-Foundry in August, they benefited from everyone being online, but no-one was really into an app that promised to improve their lives. There was no time for that! Finally, this changed in December and since then the platform has been achieving solid organic growth. According to Amy, it is like a light was switched on! A country girl in the city For the first lockdown, Amy was in London and did struggle to find space. However, the lockdown allowed her to have no FOMO as she just worked through and put in the hours to launch her business. She has now moved to the countryside and space has boosted her creativity and severely helped her mental health. First thing in the morning she now gets the dogs out and does a morning meditation. Morning daily habits have been key to help lift her up. And we found out we both accepted to now like Yoga... Amy had her share of highs and lows in 2020. Trying to fundraise for a business during a global pandemic, when you so deeply believe in what you are doing can really feel disheartening. And as the platform starts to get traction, now the days have more highs as people join the platform and the conversations get more engaging. Not, it's onwards and upwards to lift up women. Better together. Before we go… 2020 Advice: Don't be impatient. Be easier on yourself! 2020 Lesson: To be grateful 2020 Challenge: Being a female trying to raise in a global pandemic. And trying to launch a business. Word for 2021: Optimistic Connect with us Meet Amy on Linkedin and follow Fem-Foundry on Instagram Join the Fem-Foundry platform Join our Make Space for Growth free community online and on Facebook Follow me on Linkedin, Instagram or Twitter Produced by Alice Stansfield Disclosure: I am now an angel investor in Fem-Foundry

When should we use Person Accounts? Are they the best fit for your organization? A Salesforce 2020 Marketing Champion, 5x Salesforce Certified Ohana Member, Speaker, Tampa Bay B2B Marketers Pardot Community Group Leader, Pardot Solutions Architect at DemandGen, Ben LaMothe, delves into all things Person Accounts.   Takeaways Ben LaMothe’s favorite Pardot Life Hack: Engagement Studio is a platform that is able to create complex automations. It is more than a tool to send emails with. A Person Account is designed for a specific individual rather than a company profile. It works well for educational organizations and nonprofits, but can be used for additional B2C industries and when needed, B2B.  Keep in mind that once you turn on Person Accounts you can not turn it off in Pardot, so consider the effects it will have on your org or consult with an expert prior to enablement. When it comes to campaign influence Person Accounts can be added as contact roles on opportunities.  Consider having Person Accounts if the relationship you have with a contact would require distinction and nontraditional account fields added. Advice: Don’t be afraid to ask questions and reach out.   Useful Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benlamothe/ DemandGen: https://www.demandgen.com MarCloud Consulting Person Accounts resource: https://marcloudconsulting.com/pardot-training/person-accounts-in-pardot   Shout Outs 49:08 Tom Ryan 49:49 Lucy Mazalon 50:03 Paul Fischer 50:06 Kristina Alexandra 50:25 James Campbell 54:21 Sara McNamara 54:36 Lara Black 54:39 Stephen Stouffer 55:36 Mike Creuzer    Social #MarketingChampions #PersonAccounts #TrailblazerTalk #Salesforce #Pardot #SalesforceCertified #PardotLifeHackers #SalesforceOhana   Ways to Tune In iTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pardot-life-hacks/id1476702195 Spotify - https://podcasters.spotify.com/podcast/3gTNQj4WnIPN0awdA8Qpan Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cheshire-impact/pardot-life-hacks?refid=stpr iHeart Radio - https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-pardot-life-hacks-48758528/ Google Play - https://playmusic.app.goo.gl/?ibi=com.google.PlayMusic&isi=691797987&ius=googleplaymusic&apn=com.google.android.music&link=https://play.google.com/music/m/Izjdvuefegnmrmlradp2l7rnqvm?t%3DPardot_Life_Hacks%26pcampaignid%3DMKT-na-all-co-pr-mu-pod-16 YouTube - https://youtu.be/pc-PoCN6qRQ

My Dad's ADVICE: "Don't Wait too Long" and BONUS track: You Don't Need to Change your BODY, Just Your MindsetToday Suzanne Anderson shares with us her dad's powerful advice. You don't ever know how long you have with someone you love and sometimes when they pass you learn their greatest lesson for you. Suzanne shares her deep personal story about her dad.BONUS: Elaine Turso a retired boudoir photographer, shares with us her advice to everyone about self-acceptance.Be sure to get on our email list, so you don't miss a show. You can also email us at retreattopeacellc@gmail.com You will be notified of healing workshops and summits.And join our Facebook community "Retreat to Peace", to be part of our virtual summit with past speakers coming up soon. https://www.facebook.com/RetreattoPeaceLearn more about Catherine here: retreattopeace.net

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

Neil's Advice: Don't Be a Yenta / Hockey Talk / Neil Goes to the Doctor / TV Shills / Dustin Hoffman is Not Dead / Old People (Lots and Lots of Hockey Talk on this Show) **Audio Repaired** see link ---->

We welcome Jon Harmon, chairman of McGuireWoods. Amid the George Floyd protests, Jon penned a WSJ opinion piece titled: “My Father’s Advice: Don’t Hate, Don’t Hide, Don’t be a Victim.” Jon shares his story with us as a fellow brother in Christ.

Hi folks, This is one from the 864 show I did back in 2018 that you probably haven't heard so releasing it now on 1% Better. Hope you enjoy. Details of the conversation below:Cynthia Johnson is an American entrepreneur, marketing professional, SEO specialist, columnist and public speaker. She is a co-founder of Ipseity Media and previously served as the director of brand development of American Addiction Centers (AAC). She is currently member of the Forbes Agency Council and advisory board for the Millennium Alliance. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, Cynthia was one of the 10 Personal Branding Experts to Follow, in 2017 Her work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Forbes, Huffington Post, TIME, and several other industry specific publications. Below is a summary of the questions and topics we cover in this 15 minute podcast.Q1 30secs – What stands out the most?•Entrepreneurship portion – learning so much from this Q2 1mins – Born with or learned? •It’s an energy that you develop and be exposed to Q3 2mins – First venture? •Suspended for selling coolade Q4 3mins – Starting young? Less fear? •Yes and no – you get in trouble for this – maybe there is something wrong! •For Cynthia, it was more interesting and learned more Q5 4mins – A big mistake? •Get the ego out of the way! •Have the moments when things are not going your way – you get the ego out!•Arriving to a presentation not prepared for CFOs Q6 6mins – Teaching to be better prepared? •Know who you’re audience are? Q7 7mins – Public speaking? •Not fear – perform much better in front of 2000 people than 2!•When others do what you do and have the same view •Knowing the material is key – you can learn faster when you are presenting something new Q8 9mins – Prioritize work? •Focus on the short term goals? •Long term goals – break them down in much smaller chunks •Making sure you’re doing things for other people – look at these points of value add •Balance time with being useful to self and others Q9 11mins – Chasing people – what was the turning point? •Speaking at a conference – that she attended before •Someone mentioned •A girl can stand up there and look pretty – but we need good content •Slide deck that stood out and became the most downloaded Q10 13mins – A favourite phrase? •Sit back and be objective – the only way you’ll get to the next level is find out what other people think of you•Poe’s LAW Q11 14mins – Advice? •Don’t quit, ask for the time off! Get in touch with Cynthia via:Twitter - @CynthiaLive or @bellviyincwww.CynthiaLive.comwww.BellIvy.com

Hi folks, This is one from the 864 show I did back in 2018 that you probably haven't heard so releasing it now on 1% Better. Hope you enjoy. Details of the conversation below:Cynthia Johnson is an American entrepreneur, marketing professional, SEO specialist, columnist and public speaker. She is a co-founder of Ipseity Media and previously served as the director of brand development of American Addiction Centers (AAC). She is currently member of the Forbes Agency Council and advisory board for the Millennium Alliance. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, Cynthia was one of the 10 Personal Branding Experts to Follow, in 2017 Her work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Forbes, Huffington Post, TIME, and several other industry specific publications. Below is a summary of the questions and topics we cover in this 15 minute podcast.Q1 30secs – What stands out the most?•Entrepreneurship portion – learning so much from this Q2 1mins – Born with or learned? •It’s an energy that you develop and be exposed to Q3 2mins – First venture? •Suspended for selling coolade Q4 3mins – Starting young? Less fear? •Yes and no – you get in trouble for this – maybe there is something wrong! •For Cynthia, it was more interesting and learned more Q5 4mins – A big mistake? •Get the ego out of the way! •Have the moments when things are not going your way – you get the ego out!•Arriving to a presentation not prepared for CFOs Q6 6mins – Teaching to be better prepared? •Know who you’re audience are? Q7 7mins – Public speaking? •Not fear – perform much better in front of 2000 people than 2!•When others do what you do and have the same view •Knowing the material is key – you can learn faster when you are presenting something new Q8 9mins – Prioritize work? •Focus on the short term goals? •Long term goals – break them down in much smaller chunks •Making sure you’re doing things for other people – look at these points of value add •Balance time with being useful to self and others Q9 11mins – Chasing people – what was the turning point? •Speaking at a conference – that she attended before •Someone mentioned •A girl can stand up there and look pretty – but we need good content •Slide deck that stood out and became the most downloaded Q10 13mins – A favourite phrase? •Sit back and be objective – the only way you’ll get to the next level is find out what other people think of you•Poe’s LAW Q11 14mins – Advice? •Don’t quit, ask for the time off! Get in touch with Cynthia via:Twitter - @CynthiaLive or @bellviyincwww.CynthiaLive.comwww.BellIvy.com

Today, my guest, Brooke Riley, and I are talking about how to grow a seven-figure business by listening to your audience. And for Brooke, that audience has been on Facebook. We talk about whether Facebook is really dead. Is it still possible to grow an audience on Facebook and actually get your content seen?  Brooke has grown her blog, Refabbed into a large DIY blog, coaching business, and online boutique in 4 years, mostly through her Facebook page, which currently has around 500K followers. Many people in our industry would tell you not to expend any efforts on Facebook; that it's a complete waste of time unless you want to “pay to play” through Facebook ads.  And while it's true that the algorithms aren't favoring bloggers or businesses the same way they used to, if you go into it with a specific strategy and you focus on engagement, you absolutely can build a community on Facebook and use it to grow your business.  Today's guest on the podcast, Brooke Riley, shares with us how she did it, and why Facebook was a great decision for her business. She also talks about how she has expanded her business from just a blog, and she shares her tips for folks just getting started.  Before we jump into our discussion though, I have to say that I have been having loads of fun over in my Facebook group.  I am in there all the time, chatting, going live, and helping you build your business. And the group is full of other bloggers, encouraging each other and answering questions.  If you haven't joined us yet, what are you waiting for? Come on over today and introduce yourself. We're all waiting on you! My guest, Brooke Riley, has grown her blog, Refabbed into a large DIY blog, coaching business, and online boutique in 4 years, mostly through her Facebook page, which currently has around 500K followers. Brooke has invested in her followers and built relationships with them, and now she has an audience that knows and trusts her.  Starting a Blog Even if You Don't Know What a Blog Is Brooke began her blog as a way to document and share the projects she was completing around the fixer-upper home she and her husband had purchased in western Kentucky.  At the time, Brooke admits, she wasn't even sure exactly what a blog was.  Even though Brooke was spending time creating content for her blog, and building relationships with her readers, email list subscribers, and social media followers, her pageviews weren't growing as quickly as she wanted. She knew she needed pageviews for ad income.  And income was definitely her goal from the beginning. She didn't know what types of income were typical for bloggers, but helping to provide for her family was her goal from day one. Over time, Brooke got to know her audience well enough that she was no longer 100% dependent on ad revenue. She began to experiment with affiliates and figuring out other ways to monetize. She learned what her audience really wanted from her, and that led to other streams of income. Creating Connections with Your Audience From the beginning, Brooke wrote her blog with the intention of being vulnerable and honest.  She wanted her audience to know her personally and she wanted to get to know them. Her vulnerability allowed her audience to connect with her on an intimate level.  When Brooke placed calls to action in her posts and emails, she worded them in a way that her audience would want to answer.  She also took time to respond to their replies in a way that made them feel validated and want to respond again.  Connecting with Your Audience on Facebook to Grow a Seven-Figure Business It's one of the most popular things to say right now... that Facebook is dead for bloggers and online business owners. But Brooke hasn't found that to be the case at all.  From the time she started her blog, Brooke focused on her Facebook page. Facebook was where she saw the most interaction and the most engagement with her audience.  Her page grew slowly, but she kept putting in the time and sharing with her followers there. After two years of working her page, Brooke realized that she wasn't connecting with her audience on FB the way she wanted to. And it was because even though she put out a ton of great content for them, they never saw her. They read her voice in her content, but her face wasn't something they experienced.  So, she began doing live videos on Facebook to build that connection with her audience.  Planning  a Facebook Strategy After a couple of years at this live video thing, you would suspect that Brooke has a special strategy that she uses to get as many people as possible watching.  Surely she plans out her live videos and lets her audience know exactly what day and time they will be, right? Nope.  Sometimes, she doesn't even know what she's going to talk about until 5 minutes before she gets on there. Brooke says it is important to know that you don't have to follow rules that somebody else has set. You need to do what works for you and what works for your community.  When Brooke first started going live, she would go live once every two weeks or so, but now she goes live once or twice a week.  Brooke aims to post at least 4 times per day on her Facebook page. It's not the end of the world if she doesn't get 4 posts up, but she does try to keep it active by posting regularly.   Brooke posts things that are relevant to her audience, from her blog or other creators her audience enjoys.  Brooke knows her audience well enough that she has been able to build other revenue streams and businesses based on their wants and needs.  Creating an Online Clothing Boutique One of these additional businesses is an online boutique for her female audience that is just about to hit 7 figures in revenue.  I realize that not everybody would think to start an online boutique, so I asked Brooke to share why she started it and how she knew it would work for her audience. She shared with me that she was getting so many questions about her appearance (her hair, clothes, and makeup), that she realized she could build an additional stream of income based on that interest. Brooke was doing all of the affiliate marketing she could based on her readers' requests, but it didn't take long to figure out that she was onto something.  She knew she needed to capitalize on the passion she felt for her style and her audience's love of it, so she decided to start a boutique selling the things she liked and then share those products with her audience.  Creating a Coaching Business A coaching business is something Brooke never dreamed she would do.  Brooke has a passion for teaching others how to do things. She enjoys showing her audience how to do the crafts she loves, how to dress in a way that they can express their true personalities, and even how to build an online business.  She totally didn't see herself as a teacher, however, she kept getting questions about Facebook, growing your audience, and making money online.  Her audience wanted to learn from her and they continued asking her to teach them. Even if you think you aren't the best at something or you don't really know how to teach it to someone else, you have a unique voice that others can appreciate and want to learn from.  Building a Team Brooke and her husband were the only ones running the business for the first 3+ years. For the first 9 months, Brooke still had a full-time job!  It's only been a little over a year ago that she hired her first employee.  Brooke eventually realized that she could not grow the business any larger without having outside help. There is only so much one person can do before they need outside help. Currently, Brooke has a full-time assistant whose sole responsibility is to work with her on the blog. Her husband, Brandon, came home full-time in May of 2019, and he works mostly on the boutique.  The boutique has a store manager and an additional full-time employee, as well as a part-time employee whom Brooke says is pretty close to full-time.  Brooke also hires outside contractors to handle things like Pinterest, etc.  What About Her Instagram Strategy?  Instagram is the hottest social media platform on the block for most online entrepreneurs right now.  Everyone is trying to grow their IG following and engage with their people over there, but until this past summer, Brooke had not focused on her Instagram.  Now that Brooke is spending more time on the site, her account is growing quickly.  Brooke likes that she can share even more behind-the-scenes stuff about her life with her Instagram stories. This allows her to continue to build that intimate relationship with her audience.  Advice: Don't Be Afraid to Break the Rules Brooke says that if she looks back on where she thought her blog would go and where it has gone, those two things would not be in the same neighborhood.  Running a business is not always something you can plan for. You can't predict the opportunities you may be presented with or where your path might take you. Sometimes you see a need that you can fill and your business is born from that.  Brooke strongly recommends that you hold your ideas loosely and not worry about “following all the rules” that other people set up. That's a great way to lose the fun of running your business. Trying to keep up with what everybody else tells you to do can cause you to lose that initial passion that inspired you to start your business.  Okay, I don't know about you, but isn't it just amazing how Brooke has been able to build such a huge community relatively quickly? Four years may not seem quick when you're in the middle of it, but she took her blog from zero to multiple businesses and over 7 figures in just 4 years. I find that incredible!  And she did it by being true to herself and authentic. She shared the things that she loved and took her audience along for the ride. Her audience relates to her and that allows her to serve them with content and products! So, right now, click over and join my Facebook group if you haven't already so that we can talk more about this episode. I want to hear what your takeaways are and I'll be sharing mine. Read the transcript for “How to Grow a Seven Figure Business by Listening to Your Audience”   TIMESTAMP Intro 3:00 Brooke Starts a Blog 6:14 Starting a Blog...Even if You Don' Know What a Blog Is 7:45 Creating Connections with Your People 9:45 Connecting with Your Audience on Facebook 15:12 Planning a Facebook Strategy 20:05 Growing Additional Businesses  25:12 Building a Team  29:40 What About Instagram? 32:14 Don't Be Afraid to Break the Rules           TOP 4 TAKEAWAYS  When starting a business, have a goal. Even if it changes, your goals will keep you passionate while you build your audience. Find ways to build intimate connections with your audience, like live video. Get to know your audience so well that you can develop products they will want to buy. Don't be afraid to hire help; one person can only do so much. When you hire people, you can grow even more.    Imagine a world where growing your social media followers and email list was easy… It can be with MiloTree! Try the MiloTree pop-up app on your blog for 30 days risk-free! Let your MiloTree pop-ups help you get to that next level by turning your visitors into email subscribers and social media followers on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. Sign up today! Install your MiloTree pop-ups on your site in under two minutes. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!  

You work hard and deserve the chance to enjoy your retirement to the fullest. No one wants to reach that next chapter with regrets on how you invested and planned along the way. Make the right decisions now and you won’t have that worry in retirement, and we’ll give you advice to rid your portfolio of regrets.On this episode:1:31 – In the News: Health insurance is a major issue in the upcoming 2020 election and every candidate has an idea of how they want to handle. What does Phil think about healthcare?2:38 – We have to get the payment of the services back in the hand of the person using it.3:55 – Let’s move to our main topic this week: retiring without regret.4:31 – Advice: Don’t make sudden decisions.6:03 – Outside of the market, this advice also applies to life decisions as well as investing.7:25 – Social Security is an area where there could be big consequences for making the wrong decision.8:44 – Advice: Don’t jump into investments you don’t understand.10:16 – If you are a speculative person, how much can you ‘gamble’ with?11:39 – Does Phil see many clients that like taking the risk or are people more conservative?12:56 – Advice: Know what retirement means to you.13:29 – Advice: Work with a professional.16:27 – Mailbag Question: Most of my 401k is invested in company stock. Is that bad?20:05 – Getting to Know Phil: What’s your favorite movie genre?Get the full show notes and additional resources here: https://philstaxhacks.com/podcast/ep-14-how-to-live-a-retirement-without-regret/ 

Leadership Lesson Podcast: Season 2 Episode 24 - Prayer and Ministry Pastor Daniel talks with his dad, Joe Williams, pastor of Calvary Chapel, Tacoma, Washington, about prayer and the ministry. Pastor Joe shares his story of how God called him into the ministry, encouraging us that “God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (1 Corinthians 1:27). How has prayer affected and changed him throughout his 37 years as a pastor? This is one man’s journey of prayer and faith throughout his ministry, one step at time, one miracle at a time. “We’ve seen the faithfulness of God.” QUOTES:  “Be flexible, be open. God knows what He is doing.” -Joe Williams “Your faith grows as you see God move.” -Joe Williams “Just because God is silent does not mean He is not working. God works everything out in His own time.” -Joe Williams “You get experience by doing it. You have to move forward if you’re going to see God move.” -Joe Williams “You never really need faith when thing are going right. You need faith when things are going wrong.” -Joe Williams “Be faithful where God has put you and you will see the hand of the Lord.” -Joe Williams “Ministry is not easy. Ministry is work. You have to be a prayer warrior.” -Joe Williams One Piece of Advice | Don’t Leave Your Family Behind Rodney Wilkinson, Gospel Fellowship Church in Boynton Beach, FL, shares his one piece of advice: Don’t leave your family behind. From his own experience growing up the son of a preacher where the family was not a priority, Rodney knows this well. Make your family a priority. Remember that Jesus is the Shepherd of the church “Create balance in your schedule. If you’re overworking, here’s what you’re probably not trusting, that Jesus is the Shepherd of the church anyway. He’s the one that does the work.” -Rodney Wilkinson “Don’t honor people at the church and come home and dishonor your family. Take care of the home and let ministry flood out of your house.” -Rodney Wilkinson “Take care of your home. Love your spouse. Do whatever it takes.” -Rodney Wilkinson LINKS:  Contact Daniel: daniel@eeleaders.com Leadership Lessons/One Piece of Advice/Blog/Recommended Books: eeleaders.com

What to do when you get sick on the road? Destination: National Parks: USA and Canada, Mistake: Getting a hair cut in Hong Kong  Tip: Go where the locals go.   What do I do when I am sick while traveling?   Today’s Independent Destination: National Parks, USA Why? Because they are not to be missed. Our national heritage. Why our country is so special. You will love America more after visiting. Dr. Travelbest shares her trip to the National Parks in the West.   What are the fees to get a Senior Pass to the National Parks?   $80 lifetime pass, plus a $10 handling fee. ... Please note that the price of the lifetime Senior Pass increased to $80 on August 28, 2017. For U.S. citizens or permanent residents age 62 or over. May be obtained in person at a federal recreation site or through the mail using the application form.   The National Parks are such a great value for us independent travelers. If you are over 62, you can get a lifetime pass. Five free days in 2019, entrance only!   In Canada, you can also get an annual pass, and that can save you a lot of time in line, too. We bought a family pass last year in Banff, which was also good for other National parks in Canada. This is the Canadian Rockies. We visited the Banff Spring Hotel and had a wonderful experience. Lake Louise Ski Resort was a “bucket list” place for me.  We stayed outside the park. A single park pass gets you to all national parks, national historic sites and national marine conservation areas operated by Parks Canada. The Discovery Pass provides unlimited admission for a full year at over 80 Parks Canada places that typically charge a daily entrance fee. Visit the Parks Canada Passes and Permits website. Advice: Don’t get a haircut in Hong Kong.  Go to where the locals go. It may be a bar, a café, the local library or church. Find out what the local people do in their daily lives. You don’t always need to visit the “touristy” places, just to say you were there. Consider your personal needs, desires and interests. Connect with Mary Beth: Website Drmarytravelbest.com Mary Beth on Twitter Dr. Mary Travelbest Twitter Dr. Mary Travelbest Facebook Page Dr. Mary Travelbest Facebook Group Dr. Mary Travelbest Instagram Leave a Review: Did you like this episode? Please leave an honest review on iTunes with your feedback! Also, please subscribe to the Go Solo Live podcast on iTunes, to get notified when a new episode gets released. I appreciate your listening to this week’s show. And tune in next week for another great show. Connect with Jennifer Transformviatravel.com Transform via Travel on Facebook @GoSoloLive on Twitter Email: Jennifer@TransformviaTravel.com

Leadership Lesson Season 2 Episode 15 - The Ways of the Cross Pastor Daniel talks with Josiah Graves, Calvary Chapel, Deerfield Beach, FL about the ways of the cross and how that relates to ministry. How do we share the paradox of the cross, that it is good? And why is it important for us as leaders to continually be looking at the ways of God’s kingdom as we do ministry? Part of it is to make it a daily practice to preach the cross to each other, in the way we live our lives, in our conversations, in the things we do. It is not something we attain, but we are constantly aligning ourselves with God,  What are some practical ways you can do this in your daily life? What are the blessings of the ways of the cross? “When you understand the cross, that Jesus saved me, that I’m the chief among sinners, I’m that fool…it changes how we speak.” QUOTES:  “The ways of the cross, the ways of the kingdom, are a paradox. They are different from the ways our flesh would say to go.” - Daniel Williams “A lot of our job is just trying to keep the cross at the center of everything we do, keep it the focus, the foundation, the goal—everything.” - Josiah Graves “Our hearts are prone to move from the cross.” - Josiah Graves “We want to do ministry flowing from the Spirit, and the Spirit bringing us to back Jesus.” - Josiah Graves “It starts with us. We want to lead out of a place of brokenness and also of power. That goes back to the paradox of the cross.” - Josiah Graves “Be Spirit-dependent, look to the Word, and let God give the increase.” - Josiah Graves One Piece of Advice | Don’t Give Up Cody King, pastor at Redemption Calvary outside Denver, Colorado, shares his advice from Galatians 6:9, And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap a harvest if we do not lose heart. The whole point behind this is just don’t give up. There are seasons of planting and seasons of harvest, and they are not the same season. Lifelong faithfulness is what it’s all about. It’s going to get hard. Trust Jesus and just don’t quit. “We tend to overestimate what we can do in the short-term and underestimate what we can do in the long-term.” -Cody King “If you really want to see God use you in the ministry He’s called you to in the context He’s given you…then you need to think long-term, long view.” -Cody King “There’s a real enemy who hates you. And he wants to get you to quit.” -Cody King LINKS:  Contact Daniel: daniel@eeleaders.com Leadership Lessons/One Piece of Advice/Blog/Recommended Books: eeleaders.com

Joining the Woodpreneur Podcast today is Craig Geddis of the Boston Based Franchise, Monster Tree Company. Starting in the business at 16, Craig instantly fell in love and worked for years up in trees. As time passed and he grew older, thoughts about what 65 would look like up in a tree started passing through his mind. While he was passionate about the work, he knew that he needed to divert his career path in order to prepare for the future. It was at this point in his life that Craig decided to attend college for Forestry. While attending, he worked with Bartlett Tree Service in Arborist sales and continued to foster his passion for trees. In time, he knew he had the know-how and education to step out on his own, and he now works as the “tree guy” for one of the 26 Monster Tree Company franchise locations within the U.S. Show Highlights: Passionate about trees and what they do, Craig says that he finds “nothing as awe-inspiring or as beautiful as that first green in the spring when the trees are pushing out their new leaves.”Craig grew his Arborist expertise by working with Bartlett Tree Service and attending college for forestry.Monster Tree was started in the last decade and is already in 26 states Educating The Public: To many, the concept of an Arborist is a new idea and they are unaware of the difference between a true tree surgeon and a lumberjack. While there is a time and place for the lumberjack, there is also a need for the Arborist and the “life-saving” services that they offer trees. Craig's Advice: “Don't be afraid to ask for advice or call someone when you don't know the answer.”If you're looking to network and get your business name heard, consider sponsoring a little league team or donating trees to a local park. Contact Craig Geddis www.whymonster.com/south-shore@monstertreeservicesouthshore781.733.6429 Follow us on Instagram!! @acresoftimber Want more?? Join our private Facebook Group and get access to our FREE marketing hacks course for Woodpreneurs! - CLICK HERE TO JOIN Listen to more episodes at www.acresoftimber.com @acresoftimber Read our Free Instagram Report:" Tools for how to turn leads into sales, grow your following, and easily create engaging content." Are you ready to scale your woodworking, flooring, or tree service business? Click HERE to schedule your Free strategy session with Steve, founder of Acres of Timber DID YOU LIKE THE SHOW? iTunes SUBSCRIBE HERE! Join The Wood Entrepreneurs Networking & Mentoring Facebook Group Like us on Instagram: @acresoftimber Website :: Facebook :: Insta SHOW SPONSORS: Granberg International Granberg International is a US-Based, family owned and operated business, with a 60-year commitment to providing its customers worldwide with the highest quality chainsaw mill and accessories in the industry.Granberg's completely mobile and compact Alaskan Mill makes it possible to mill your logs ANYWHERE.Creators of the alaskan mill. You can learn and read more about what other users are saying about the alaskan mill @ www.alaskanmill.com   Copyright © 2018 Acres of Timber  

  If you are a new leader, I will tell you, be yourself. Be your best self. Bring your excitement. Bring your enthusiasm. Love your job. Make sure you know what you're doing. Tell everyone what you're doing, and everything will sort itself out. – Neil Pasricha   Hi everyone! In today's episode, we talk about how to get back up when life knocks you down. This is the episode where we learn practical strategies about failure. We often talk about success, about over-achievement, disruption, innovation, but we rarely talk enough about when life really kicks us in the gut and how to get back up and keep moving.   Our amazing guest today is Neil Pasricha. Neil is a New York Times Best-Selling Author of The Happiness Equation, The Book of Awesome, and he's got a new book coming out called Back to Awesome, where he talks all about failure – what do we do with it, how do we become more resilient to move forward in our lives.   Neil is currently the director of the Institute of Global Happiness. He has a popular TED talk with over 3 million views. He has an amazing podcast called 3 Books with Neil Pasricha, which won an award as one of Apple's Best of 2018 Podcasts.   Neil is an all-around great guy, a down-to-earth human, and I'm really excited for all of you to listen in.         A Benign Envy You, as the leader, have to be the most excited person in the room. People can only match your level of vision, your level of enthusiasm, your level of commitment. Whatever you show them that you are willing to do, that is setting a high bar that people can aspire to and it creates inside them a benign envy. There's two kinds of envy. One is called malicious envy – that's the negative envy, something like jealousy. The other is called benign envy, which is actually something that we all want. It means that you're surrounded by someone you consider a role model, and it improves your own behavior and your own drive. Find your small pond One of the things I do whenever I'm going through failure or through a loss is I find small ponds. What does that mean? When I was at Harvard Business School, I was lucky enough to have lunch with the dean one day, the retired dean of HBS. He was like, “How's school going?” I'm like, “Bad. I'm stressed, school's really hard, I'm up late every night studying, and all the big, fancy companies are coming to campus… Not only are we supposed to do homework every night, but we're also supposed to have beer with people we don't know and apply for these jobs that we probably won't get…” You know what the dean said to me? He's like, “Oh man, that's terrible. Well why don't you just leave the beach?” “What beach? What are you talking about?” “Well right now you're standing on the edge of the beach, like there's a fence. If you look inside the beach, there's like 10 bathing beauties, but there's a thousand people like you outside the fence. The odds of you landing one…are super small.” “So what am I supposed to do?” “Leave the beach. Go find the broken companies, the bankrupt companies, the companies going through a hard time…If you can call them up, if you can work your way inside, if you can take a lower level position, then you will get unbelievable opportunities, because you'll be working something in there. You will be given a lot of responsibility, promoted, taken seriously in meetings, and they will want to hear from you and your learning will vastly accelerate.” So I did that. Neil's Advice “Don't take advice.” That would be my advice. Often when we're asking for advice, we're really looking for an alibi. We're looking to confirm something we already have inside ourselves. That's why some resonate, some do not. When it's resonating with you, it's something you already believe. The people you're asking are telling you the thing you want them to tell you, because you have something inside yourself. You can look at the most common advice of all – it all contradicts. ”Actions speak louder the words” OR “The pen is mightier than the sword” – which one is it? Is it “The early bird catches the worm,” or is it “good things come to those who wait”? Which one is it? You can't find objectively true advice that applies in any case. Links and Resources Connect with Neil: LinkedIn | Facebook http://neil.blog/ https://globalhappiness.org/ How to Get Back Up by Neil Pasricha The Happiness Equation by Neil Pasricha The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha 3 Books with Neil Pasricha Neil's TED Talk: The 3 A's of Awesome The One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Forest App

Today I'm interviewing Meredith Marsh, YouTuber and creator of the blog, VidProMom. In this episode, we explore how to win with YouTube! We talk about ways to monetize your channel, how much you can really make with YouTube ads, down and dirty tricks to creating video on the fly, what metrics matter most on the platform, how often to publish, and so much more! If you are new to YouTube, or an old-time YouTuber, there are a lot of great tips in this episode. Resources: VidProMom MiloTree Video Pursuit Podcast Fiverr Adobe Premier Rush Lumafusion InShot iMovie Filmora Transcript - How to WIN with YouTube with Meredith Marsh Host 0:03 Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian Leslie 0:11 Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today, we are talking all things YouTube. And as I confess, I am a little intimidated by YouTube. So I love my guest today. Her name is Meredith Marsh, and she blogs at a site called VidProMom. Of course, she has a YouTube channel with close to, I think, 30,000 subscribers. She also has a podcast called the Video Pursuit Podcast. But she really breaks it down -- you'll hear what is important, what's not important, what works on YouTube, and really how to think about it. So without further ado, here is the episode. So Meredith, welcome to the show. Meredith Marsh 0:59 Thank you so much for having me on. Jillian Leslie 1:01 I'm excited because, to be honest, YouTube is something I'm a little afraid of. Meredith Marsh 1:07 I hear that a lot. Jillian Leslie 1:08 Do you? Meredith Marsh 1:09 Yes, I do all the time. Jillian Leslie 1:11 Okay. So can you share your background, and how you got interested in YouTube, and how you've built your business with YouTube? How to start a career in teaching YouTube Meredith Marsh 1:17 Sure. So I used to be a freelance web designer. Out of college, I just decided that's what I was going to do, so that's kind of what I did. I taught myself like WordPress development and stuff like that. And I did that for about five years. And then in 2013, I had an opportunity to take a full-time job kind of managing web design and social media stuff in like a local company. So I gave up my freelance business, took a full-time job. And I was there for about a year before I was like, you know, I think I kind of like working for myself. So I really enjoyed the job itself. I enjoyed the people I worked with, but I missed the freedom. And so I had been kind of thinking I don't really want to go back to web design, just like straight up working with clients, but obviously, I had web design skills and I really liked creating content. So I thought maybe I should just start a blog and turn that into my business. Jillian Leslie 2:28 Did you know what it would be? Meredith Marsh 2:29 No. I noodled around ideas for like a year and a half trying to find like a niche or an idea or a topic that I felt like I was passionate enough about, that I wasn't going to get bored in a year. Because at that point, I kind of felt like I was really good at having ideas and then getting bored with them after I started them. And I was like, I'm done with that, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to find something I can really be passionate about and stick with it. So at the time, my kids were small. I have two little girls, they were like 7 and 4 or something. So I'm working a full-time job, I've got these two little kids. My husband was working crazy hours. And I felt like if there is a way that I could come up with a topic for a blog that related to us spending more time together or being more intentional about having family adventures and kind of capturing those moments. I just felt like if I could just knit all that stuff together, that would be great. But, I mean, that makes it sound like, "Oh, of course. Yeah, that's a no-brainer." But really, I was not connecting the puzzle pieces in my head at that point. I was just kind of like very abstract thinking about what a blog would look like and what those topics would be. Jillian Leslie 3:56 And what year was this? Meredith Marsh 3:57 This was late 2013. Jillian Leslie 4:03 Okay. Starting a YouTube channel about GoPro Meredith Marsh 4:06 And randomly one day, it was probably like Cyber Monday of that year, I decided to buy a GoPro camera. And I was like, "You know what, we're going to buy this camera and we're going to go on family adventures and just fun everyday stuff." We're not very adventurous people but if we like go for a hike or something, we can capture it on video, and we could make family movies, and that would be a really fun family sort of hobby. And so I bought the camera. I opened it up and it just so happened that we had like a foot of snow on a Saturday morning and I sent my kids out. Jillian Leslie 4:42 Where are you located? Meredith Marsh 4:44 I live in upstate New York. Okay, so it was early December. I sent them out with the GoPro and I created this video of them just playing in the snow and then decorating Christmas cookies with their grandmother. And I put this video together, and I was like, "Wow! This is actually kind of priceless." And I feel like I need to teach other people how to do this, too. Jillian Leslie 5:08 Did you have experience like editing footage? I know you're creative, I bet your artistic... Meredith Marsh 5:17 I want to say no, I didn't really have experience but I had played around with iMovie before. And I put together like a slideshow of still images for my grandmother's memorial service. That was the first time that I created something that was essentially a video even though it was still photos that I created something that people watched. I kind of liked that like, "Wow! That's kind of interesting to see it on a big screen." And seeing people's reactions to it was kind of fun. And then when I created this family video, seeing my kids' reactions to it was was also fun. And I thought, I think I could probably teach other people how to do this. Using keyword research to find a niche on YouTube And that's when all of the puzzle pieces started connecting. And I started doing some keyword research. I'm kind of a nerd. And so I dove right into keyword research to see like are there tutorials on this, are there video editing tutorials. And what I found was pretty much everything online that has to do with video or video cameras or video editing is geared toward professional people. And so I kind of just dove in to how can I teach regular everyday people -- moms and dads, families -- how to create videos, how to use a GoPro, how to edit the videos and things like that. And so I started blogging and it just sort of made sense to me that I should create videos for YouTube. Because if I'm going to create a tutorial on how to edit a video... Jillian Leslie 6:54 Right now. Meredith Marsh 6:55 Like, who's gonna read that? Jillian Leslie 6:56 Right. It gets very meta. Meredith Marsh 6:58 Yeah. It needs to be a video, right? And so I saw YouTube as a place to kind of house those videos. And then as soon as I started publishing a video every week along with a blog post, people just started subscribing and commenting and saying, "Well, can you do a video on on this? And can you do something on this and that?" And it's just where my community and my audience was growing, was on YouTube, at which was a total surprise for me because I wasn't a YouTube user really up until that point. Jillian Leslie 7:36 Okay. And how quickly did you see it connect? Did you go, "Ooh, this is working?" When you know your YouTube channel is getting traction Meredith Marsh 7:47 I would say about six weeks or so. Jillian Leslie 7:49 Okay. Meredith Marsh 7:50 Because I was getting views. I mean, I didn't look at the views at first because I didn't realize that was like... it sounds so silly now. I didn't realize at the time that YouTube was like a platform that people grow businesses on. Jillian Leslie 8:05 Right. Meredith Marsh 8:07 It really was just a place to house the videos I was creating. And one day just logged in, I was like, "Oh," there's like people watching these videos that I published and there's comments. And like, I can't remember. I think it was maybe four or five-ish months I had about 1,000 subscribers, which I thought was funny because just a few months before that, I didn't know that there was this thing called subscribing. Jillian Leslie 8:37 Wow. Meredith Marsh 8:38 So it just kind of grew. And like it was probably about six to nine months before I realized that I wasn't just a blogger with a YouTube channel. I was really a YouTube creator with a blog. And I just kept going kind of full steam with both platforms. And because just my community and my audience just kept growing over on YouTube. And it's turned into, like, I call it my powerhouse platform. I think all bloggers probably have at least one platform that's like their big platform for them. Jillian Leslie 9:16 Yup. Meredith Marsh 9:17 And for me, it's YouTube. Jillian Leslie 9:19 That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay. And then how have you seen it evolve? So you started off by creating content for moms and dads, right, to say "Hey, this is an easy way to take your video that we all take and do something with it," right? Meredith Marsh 9:38 Yeah, exactly. Jillian Leslie 9:40 Because I don't know about... like I just have video on my phone and then it gets onto my computer. And then I probably never look at it. Meredith Marsh 9:47 Right. That's exactly... Jillian Leslie 9:49 How did you then start to evolve that? Or is that still who your main audience is? Meredith Marsh 9:57 That is my core audience of my blog and my YouTube channel. And I would say about a year and a half ago, I had other bloggers that were contacting me or messaging me and saying, "Hey, how do you do this whole YouTube thing? Is this something I should do? How do I get started?" How to teach about YouTube in a podcast And so just this year, I launched the Video Pursuit Podcast. So that's a separate audience from my, you know, from my core blog and YouTube audience. And so I started that as a way to connect with other bloggers and content creators and help them get started or get serious about YouTube, so that they can use it to expand the reach. Jillian Leslie 10:40 So you interview other YouTubers or other bloggers who have a big YouTube presence. Meredith Marsh 10:48 I mostly use it more as a teaching platform. So it's usually just me or I'll bring on a co-host and we'll talk about specific topics. Jillian Leslie 10:59 About YouTube for bloggers, or for people who want to use this as a business platform. Meredith Marsh 11:07 Well, for example, I just had someone on, we talked about Pinterest. And so we didn't really talk. We really didn't talk about video stuff at all. We talked about Pinterest, and Tailwind and some of the new features of Tailwind. And so, it's really a resource for bloggers and content creators. And I might talk about anything that has to do with blogging and creating content, but there's a definite spin on it with video and YouTube. Jillian Leslie 11:40 Got it. Okay. And so here is my question, which is, well, let's start with you. How do you then monetize and how do you use YouTube to monetize for your own business? How to monetize a business on YouTube Meredith Marsh 11:56 Yeah. So I monetize my YouTube in pretty much the same way that I monetize my blog, which is through ad revenue and affiliate revenue, sponsorship deals, brand deals, things like that, and lead generation. Jillian Leslie 12:16 What do you mean by lead generation? Meredith Marsh 12:18 I have a couple of digital courses on editing videos. So, you know, I'm using it to grow my email list and things like that. Jillian Leslie 12:28 Sell to those email subscribers. Meredith Marsh 12:31 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Jillian Leslie 12:33 Yeah. Okay. So could we walk through then all of those different ways? Meredith Marsh 12:38 Sure. Jillian Leslie 12:38 Okay, so let's start with ads. Monetizing YouTube with ads Meredith Marsh 12:41 Yeah. So YouTube is owned by Google, so Google has their AdSense ad platform, and that's how you would earn ad revenue on YouTube. And recently this year, YouTube changed the minimum requirements to be a part of their ad program. So you have to have, I think, 1000 subscribers. And I think it's 4000 hours or minutes of watch time in the past 12 months or something. You basically have to be an active channel in order to earn ad revenue. And it's not meant to keep new creators out. It's really meant to keep people from stealing viral videos, and then setting up a YouTube channel, and immediately being able to monetize those videos. Jillian Leslie 13:40 Interesting. Okay. Meredith Marsh 13:43 And so the ad revenue on YouTube is, I mean, it's a lot like a blog where it kind of depends on your niche a little bit and what as far as how much you would make. So, you know, it's a supply and demand thing with ads. And so some niches might make more, some might make less. But yeah, ad revenue is something that if you hear some YouTubers will say, "Oh, don't focus on ad revenue, it's not reliable," or it's not this, or it's not that it has been reliable for me. It continues to grow as my channel grows and my views grow, and it's definitely one of my stronger revenue streams. Jillian Leslie 14:28 Okay. Because, again, I too have heard like, "No, you're not going to make a lot of money on YouTube in ads," that that is not going to be the way that you are going to, you know, buy that new car. Meredith Marsh 14:40 Right. I think it's, yeah, it's about perspective, I think, because I think as bloggers, we sort of know that we have all these revenue streams available to us where. I mean, I hope that as bloggers, we know that we have multiple streams that we can dip into and focus on. And for people who just focus on YouTube like an actual YouTuber or YouTube creator, they don't know about like how do you work with a brand, how do you get a sponsorship deal, what is affiliate revenue. Like, they don't know about those things. So they tend to focus on "Well, if I create videos and I'll get ad revenue," and they realize if you're brand new to the platform, unless you're somehow getting copious amounts of watch time on your videos, you're not going to have that ad revenue because you have to have the views and the watch time to get the ad revenue. Jillian Leslie 15:42 But I've even read that those huge YouTubers who have millions of subscribers, those people are not making their money on ad revenue. Meredith Marsh 15:51 Right. It's possible that they're not. Can you make a lot of money with YouTube ads? Jillian Leslie 15:54 Okay. So you wouldn't say to somebody "Go start a YouTube channel because you're going to make butt-loads of money with that." Meredith Marsh 16:03 Right. Yeah. I wouldn't lead with that, no. Jillian Leslie 16:05 Okay. And like, for example, do you make more money with ad revenue on your blog or ad revenue from YouTube? Meredith Marsh 16:13 Right now, YouTube is ahead by a little bit. But it's been pretty much neck and neck for me. Jillian Leslie 16:20 Now, what is nice about that is you have two passive income streams. Meredith Marsh 16:23 Yes. Yeah, exactly. The value of multiple passive income streams as a creator Jillian Leslie 16:25 And, you know, you take like, not a ton, but you keep finding these passive income streams, you add them together, it can become substantial. Meredith Marsh 16:34 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Jillian Leslie 16:35 Okay, so ad revenue is the first thing. Then the second piece, what would you layer in next? Making affiliate revenue on YouTube Meredith Marsh 16:43 Affiliate revenue. A lot of people don't realize you can do this on YouTube. You can put your affiliate links in your YouTube description. Just like you would in your blog, you have to disclose that it's an affiliate link and you might earn money if, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, the disclosure that you have to have. But you can put those in your YouTube description. So what I like to tell people is look at the products that you use every day that you recommend to your readers every day, and you could come up with four or five different video ideas around that one product. Because you could do a review, you could do a, you know, alternatives to this product. You could do top five uses of this product, right? There's all these different things you could talk about around this one product and use those videos to drive affiliate revenue. Jillian Leslie 17:46 Now, I have a couple questions. One, I've heard that if you put a link in like an affiliate link and somebody clicks on it and drag those off the platform, that YouTube doesn't like that. Does driving people to a link off YouTube hurt your channel? Meredith Marsh 17:59 That is true. YouTube doesn't like people leaving their platform just like every other, you know, social platform. So there's always a trade off, right? So if someone clicks off and goes to Amazon and they make a purchase, and you make, you know, five bucks or something, then that might be worth it to you in your channel to have had somebody click off. And so there's a balancing act there. If you were going to build your entire YouTube strategy around people clicking off the platform to make affiliate purchases, that probably wouldn't be the best/strongest strategy, but if you weave in those affiliate style videos every once in a while, especially this time of year and during the holidays, then it can work out really well for you. Jillian Leslie 18:56 So would you say that you would not make all your videos affiliate videos? Meredith Marsh 19:02 Yeah, I probably wouldn't. It depends on your niche and what you want to do with your channel. It really does depend. If you can get people, if you can get your viewers to watch your entire video before they click off, then you'll be in a much better position with YouTube, if that makes sense. So if you can get people to come back, then you're, you're golden. So I like to get people onto my email list and use my email list to send people to make affiliate purchases. That way, they're on my email list. Now, when I publish a new video, I can email them and say, "Hey, here's this new video I think you would enjoy." Now I'm bringing in more views. So I got them to click off that one time. Using YouTube to grow your list Jillian Leslie 19:54 To join your list. Meredith Marsh 19:55 Yeah, but I'm sending them back so many more times now. I wish I had a statistic on like for every person I send off of YouTube, you know, I get them back 5 more times or 10 more times or something. But yet the YouTube algorithm will see people clicking off, but they see also people coming to YouTube through your content, and they'll reward you for that. Jillian Leslie 20:24 So how do you send them off to join your list? Meredith Marsh 20:28 There's a couple different ways. So you can put a link to, if you have an email opt-in landing page or something, you can link to that in your description. You can also tell people in your video that "Hey, I have a great cheat sheet for you." And I usually like to say, "When you're done watching this video, you can head down and grab the link in the description," just to make them kind of like "hold your horses, watch the video" and at the end, you can remind them again, "Don't forget, I have a link to this special cheat sheet for you." Also, YouTube has something called "cards" which are like you you can create a link that would pop up on your video at a certain point, you get to decide when. And it could be a link off YouTube to your opt-in page or it could be a link to another video. Or it could be a link to, I think, like another channel or something or another playlist. And so you could use that to send people off to your opt-in. You can also use the end screen element. So like you have 20 seconds at the end of your video that you can send people different places, and one of those places could be to your email opt-in. Jillian Leslie 21:53 And how successful has that strategy been for you? Meredith Marsh 21:59 Over time... I don't have any data on that. I should look that up, actually. What I did was in April 2017, I did 30 days of GoPros. So I set out to publish one video every day for 30 days. It ended up taking me six months to do the 30 videos. But what I did was I created a GoPro cheat sheet, a GoPro settings cheat sheet, put that on just a one-page PDF. So I have this 30-day series and so the first video in that series is me talking about this series and telling people where they can get the cheat sheet. And so in video number two, I'm doing the content and then saying, "By the way, I have this great cheat sheet for you. You can head back to video #1 to grab it." And so if somebody finds video #15 randomly through search or recommended video, and they've never heard of me before and they don't know about the series, then they watch the video and they hear me say, "I have a great cheat sheet for you. You can go back to video number one to find it." And they click on the card or the end screen element, or they click the link in the description. And now they're going back to video #1. So now they have the link to the cheat sheet to the opt-in page. Now they also know this is a series, so now they can start there at video #1, watch the whole series. And that month in April, I had 500 new people on my list just for that one GoPro settings cheat sheet opt-in. Jillian Leslie 23:49 Wow. And every video you would say, "Hey, if you're liking this, go back to episode one." Meredith Marsh 23:54 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Jillian Leslie 23:56 That was brilliant! Meredith Marsh 23:57 Yeah. Thank you. Jillian Leslie 23:59 That was really smart. But I like how so many things were communicated in that without a lot of explanation. Meredith Marsh 24:05 Right. Exactly. How to grow your YouTube subscribers with your MiloTree YouTube pop-up Jillian Leslie 24:08 "Did you know that you could grow your YouTube subscribers with your MiloTree pop-up? In fact, if you go to Meredith's blog at VidProMom.com, you will see it in action because she is using the MiloTree YouTube pop-up to increase her subscribers. Head to... I invite you to go to MiloTree.com to set up your own pop-ups to grow YouTube, or Facebook, or Instagram, or Pinterest or your email list. You can set it up and get it up on your site in under three minutes. And if you sign up now, you get your first 30 days free and you get access to my weekly newsletters." And now back to the show. Before we go on to other different ways to monetize, I just wanted to stop and ask you what are the metrics that YouTube cares about the most. Like, you keep mentioning watch time. Meredith Marsh 25:14 Yeah. YouTube wants people to keep watching videos and never leave YouTube. Jillian Leslie 25:22 Like my daughter, by the way. Meredith Marsh 25:24 Yeah, my kids too. So for example, in your videos, if you're going to create videos, you want people to stay on your video for as long as possible, you know, until the very end would be the goal. But very few people watch to the very end.And so if you can get more than 50% viewer retention on your videos...To the end. Well, yeah, if you can have at least 50% of the people that start a video finish the video, then YouTube will start to see that as, okay, people are interested in this -- it's helpful or it's useful, or it's entertaining, or whatever it is, and they'll recommend it to more people. Because if YouTube feels like this is working, people are watching this, then they're going to want to recommend your video over someone else's video that doesn't have as good or as high of a viewer retention. Jillian Leslie 26:31 Okay. So what is watch time? What is watch time on YouTube and why is it important? Meredith Marsh 26:34 Watch time is the amount of time view a viewer would spend watching your videos. So, yeah, basically the amount of time, like the actual number of minutes. Jillian Leslie 26:50 Okay. And what is the ideal? I've heard this, you know, change over time that you want your videos to be at least 10 minutes. Is that true? Meredith Marsh 27:02 I think different people say different things. So like, for me, personally, I don't set a target. I mean, I try to make my videos more than three minutes. But if they're more than 15 minutes, it's just for me, personally, I'm like, "Okay, this is taking forever to edit. I need to do something different here." So I don't give myself like a hard... like it's got to be 10 minutes no more, no less. Because it's more important to me that I keep people interested in watching that video and not getting bored or distracted and clicking off. I would focus on the retention, keeping people on your video. I'd focus on that before I would start looking at, you know, have they watched for 10 minutes or 5 minutes. Jillian Leslie 27:54 And you can see all of this in your analytics. Meredith Marsh 27:57 Yeah, the analytics for YouTube is very, very detailed. It can be very overwhelming because it is so detailed. Jillian Leslie 28:03 Like Google Analytics, yeah. Meredith Marsh 28:04 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 28:04 Same company. Meredith Marsh 28:05 Yeah, it is very detailed. One of the nice things about it is, I feel like with Google Analytics, they're just like dumping data on you. And whereas with YouTube Analytics, it's sort of displaying the data in a way that is giving you clues about what it cares about, what YouTube cares about. So it will tell you like here's your watch time over the last 28 days, here are your subscribers, here's this, here's that. And it's essentially telling you what it cares about the most. And over the years, it's changed a little bit. Jillian Leslie 28:48 So what are you looking at when you go to your analytics? Meredith Marsh 28:52 When I go to my analytics, the first thing I usually look at is what's my subscriber number. Jillian Leslie 29:01 Okay. Meredith Marsh 29:02 Has it gone up or down? And it's actually kind of funny because it's very steady for me. I usually gain subscribers -- everyone gains and loses, but I don't ever have like a spike in subscribers or like a big loss. So I don't know why that's always the first thing I look at. Because it's pretty much always just like, yup, more subscribers... Jillian Leslie 29:26 And how many subscribers do you have? Meredith Marsh 29:28 I just rolled over 28,000. Jillian Leslie 29:30 Nice. Meredith Marsh 29:32 So I don't know if there's a big celebration at 30. Jillian Leslie 29:36 That's nice. I feel happy every time I roll over another thousand. I'm like, "Yes! Still going." Okay, so you look at subscriber numbers. Then what do you look at? What YouTube analytics should you care about? Meredith Marsh 29:46 Watch time is the next thing. For me, like, I look at subscribers, but YouTube doesn't really care about your subscribers. They care about watch time and views. And then I also look at my revenue, which the revenue is a little bit like it goes up, it goes down, you don't really know why it might have.. it usually doesn't have anything to do with your content. It has to do with the supply and demand of the ads. Jillian Leslie 30:15 Of the ads. So can you share like around for, say, close to 30,000 subscriber what that would entail in terms of revenue? Meredith Marsh 30:26 My revenue right now in the last 28 days is $430. And that's usually about where it is. Sometimes it's up closer to 500, but it really depends. Jillian Leslie 30:41 Got it. Okay. So you can see how if you have 3 million followers, how that number would grow. Meredith Marsh 30:51 Right. You would think so, yes. Although I have friends that have a lot more subscribers than me who make the same as me or less. Jillian Leslie 31:02 Interesting. Meredith Marsh 31:03 Yeah, but they're in a different niche. They're talking about different things. So the people that are watching their videos have different interests, so therefore, they're going to be served different ads. Jillian Leslie 31:13 Right. Meredith Marsh 31:14 I have a very consumer-focused audience. This is just me taking a guess, but I think that my ad revenue is probably fairly good for the amount of watch time that I get because my viewers are consumers, and Google knows that. Google knows everything. And so, that's just kind of my data. Jillian Leslie 31:44 And typically buying high-end products -- cameras, things like that. Meredith Marsh 31:48 Right. Yeah. Jillian Leslie 31:50 Okay. So let's go back to other ways to monetize. So we talked about ads, we talked about affiliates, we talked about driving people off to sign up for your list. So now, let's say working with brands, which is one that lots of YouTubers, that's how they monetize. Now, do you work with brands? Working with brands as a YouTuber Meredith Marsh 32:15 I do work with brands occasionally. And I have never had a brand ask me for just a blog post. It's always a video. And so when I go and I price out how much should I charge for a blog post versus a video, it's like double for the video. So I'm always basically pitching back to them you're going to get a video and blog post and social shares. And without having the video as a deliverable, I don't think I don't even think doing sponsorship would even be worth it. Jillian Leslie 32:59 Interesting. Yeah. Meredith Marsh 33:00 Yeah. Because they want to be in front of my exact audience. Jillian Leslie 33:08 So what kind of company would you work with? Like GoPro? Meredith Marsh 33:12 I have not worked with GoPro on a sponsored deal but I'm part of the GoPro family kind of like their influencer family. So they just put out a new camera in September. Yeah, September. And so they sent me the new camera so I can do an unboxing and a review and all that kind of stuff. So I don't ask them for money because I just want them to keep sending me new products. Jillian Leslie 33:41 New cameras. I totally get it. Meredith Marsh 33:43 I'm happy with my relationship with GoPro in that regard. This year, I worked with Adobe on some tutorials for using Adobe Premiere Elements, which is their consumer-level editing platform. I've worked with other brands like GoPro accessories or just different video editing software and stuff like that. Jillian Leslie 34:12 Got it. Okay. And do you ever reach out to brands? Meredith Marsh 34:17 I do. Jillian Leslie 34:18 "Hey, I've got this cool YouTube channel. Here's my audience." That kind of thing. Meredith Marsh 34:22 Yeah, I do reach out to brands and it's kind of a hit-or-miss with them. And sometimes they're like, "Okay, cool." And other times they're like, "Nah, not interested." Jillian Leslie 34:34 Right. And now, you also sell courses? Meredith Marsh 34:38 I do, yes. Jillian Leslie 34:40 And so how are you using YouTube to drive those sales? Meredith Marsh 34:45 Yeah, so I have a couple of video editing courses. One of them is very focused on Adobe Premiere Elements. So if I'm creating a video like a tutorial on Premiere Elements, and I'm getting people on to my email list because I gave them a cheat sheet, now I know that they're interested in learning Premier Elements. So they're an ideal candidate to be a customer. And so that's kind of how I'm using YouTube in that regard for for my courses. Jillian Leslie 35:21 Got it. And so if you sell that, then people get access to those videos, whereas they're not just up on your channel. Selling a course as a YouTuber Meredith Marsh 35:31 Right. Yeah, the courses are additional videos, they're not just YouTube videos. So they're more in depth more... you know, like I mentioned with YouTube videos, I'm trying to keep people on my video. So I'm keeping it kind of moving fairly quickly. I like to say I like my videos to be snappy and not boring because I don't want them to click off. But that's not necessarily the best way to learn. You want to sit down and actually learn the program, you need a little bit of a slower pace. And so that's what I have inside the courses. What is a playlist on YouTube? Jillian Leslie 36:08 That makes a lot of sense. Can we talk just briefly about playlists, what a playlist is, and do you recommend them? And how do you think about playlists? Meredith Marsh 36:17 Yeah, playlists are great. I like to think of a playlist in terms of it's almost like setting categories like you would on your blog. So similar, you know, related topics could be under one playlist. You can have your video in more than one playlist. And then what I like to do is on the homepage of my YouTube channel, you can customize your homepage, and I put my playlist there so that it's almost like I have one row is, you know, GoPro tutorials. one row is Premier Elements tutorials, and they're categorized and they're in playlists. And so the playlist themselves can actually come up and help you with your SEO because it's just another opportunity for you to put in your keywords and your topics. Jillian Leslie 37:13 Oh, interesting. Okay. Because I feel like all I have right now on our MiloTree YouTube channel are a bunch of my podcast interviews, but I haven't even organized them and I barely have put cover images on them, so I feel like I have a lot of work to do to optimize that with keywords, with everything. Meredith Marsh 37:34 Yeah, yeah. Jillian Leslie 37:36 In fact, I was just on Fiverr yesterday looking for somebody who could man it, like set it up for SEO and things like that. Okay. Here is the, I think, million dollar question. Meredith Marsh 37:51 Oh, boy. How to find the time to make videos as a blogger? Jillian Leslie 37:53 Ready? It's not that hard for you, but it's hard for us as bloggers. In fact, I was just talking to our MiloTree community manager, Paula Rollo, just before I got on this call. And I said, "What would you want to ask? I'm talking to a YouTube expert. What would you want to ask?" And she said, "How to deal with the fact that making videos takes a lot of time." And she's like, you know, "I feel like I've started and I've stopped doing YouTube. And I never know if I should keep going, like, I'm almost going to break through, but it just takes so much time to create content." Meredith Marsh 38:38 That is a fantastic question, which I would answer with another question. How much time do you bloggers put into creating their written content? Because when you think about the amount of time you're researching your topics, and then you're writing and you're creating your Pinterest images, sometimes you're creating loads and loads of Pinterest images for each blog post. You're scheduling your Instagram and your Pinterest, you're already spending lots and lots of time on a piece of content. And so you're really more than halfway there of creating a video because you've already done the research. If you've written the post, you've essentially written what could be a script or an outline for you. And so you're already more than halfway there. And the video part takes some time to get used to and learn but there is no one right way to create a video. And if you use your cell phone, that's perfect. And if you use your fancy camera, that's perfect, too. If you can create a video that doesn't need to be edited, that's outstanding. And if you create a video that does need to be edited, that's great, too. And so, just start wherever you're at. But I think bloggers in particular are really primed to be excellent YouTube creators because you already have so much content, you've already done more than half the work compared to any random person off the street that wakes up today and wants to be a YouTuber. They don't really know about creating content. They're just thinking "I want to be a YouTuber." Jillian Leslie 40:28 Right. Exactly. They don't know what SEO is, they don't know what keywords are. They don't know how to build an audience. Meredith Marsh 40:36 Right, yeah. So I can't argue with the fact that it takes time to create video content, but it takes time to create all of the content that I create. We're spending that time somewhere. And YouTube has just such great organic search components and things that that's where I like to spend my time. How to make YouTube videos in the easiest way possible? Jillian Leslie 41:00 Okay. So let's say I decide I'm going to start making video and I want to do it in the most down and dirty way, but where my content looks good relatively, you know, and so I'm going to use my phone. And let's say I have like a little tripod and I'm going to do a craft or something. Would you recommend that I try and just do it in one shot so I don't have to edit? What are some tricks to help me speed up this process? Meredith Marsh 41:34 If you are going to do a craft with your phone, I would use your phone to shoot your hands creating the craft and then when you're done creating it and you've shot that part, you can do a voiceover and explain what you've done, essentially. And then you can just shoot a little intro with your face on camera saying like, "Hey, this is so and so. And I'm creating a craft called such and such for, you know, for a Christmas craft for kids," or whatever it is and then have a little outro. You would then just have to put those pieces together and you can edit those on your phone. Jillian Leslie 42:18 Okay. And do you recommend I edit stuff on my... what is the easiest way to edit video? Meredith Marsh 42:24 Easiest way? Well, I would say the easiest way would be on your phone. That'd be the easiest and quickest. Jillian Leslie 42:30 Really? And what what am I using? Meredith Marsh 42:32 Oh boy, there's lots of options. Adobe just came out with their Premier Rush, which is an app for your phone or your iPad, but they also have it for your desktop so that everything you create on mobile is also going to be there when you open up on your desktop. So that's an interesting one, they just came out with that recently. There's also Lumafusion -- is a really, really good editing app for your phone. It's very robust, but it's still pretty simple. Jillian Leslie 43:08 I've never even heard of that. Meredith Marsh 43:10 That's a good one. I like that one a lot. Let's see. There's one called the InShot that I know a lot of people use for Instagram. There's Adobe Clip. I'm looking at my phone right now. Filmora has a mobile app. There's also iMovie for iPad and phones. So it's really just a matter of taking, you know, if you have five separate clips, an intro, an outro and a middle, you know, it's just a matter of putting them together. Advice: Don't over-edit your YouTube videos Jillian Leslie 43:49 Wow! Well, now speak to this, which is I think that as bloggers we're perfectionists. Like I find with my podcast, for example, I could spend days editing out "um's" and the phone ringing and all of that stuff. And so how do you deal with that with video so that you're not just overly editing everything? Meredith Marsh 44:17 Wow. That is such a good question. You know, done is better than perfect. Jillian Leslie 44:27 I love that, yeah. Meredith Marsh 44:28 I don't think in reality, nobody expects perfection from most people. I mean, I have trained my audience that you don't expect perfection from me at all. You expect me to show up and be useful and helpful and deliver the content that you came looking for, but certainly not perfection. And you just just have to publish and keep going. You can always improve. But if you don't publish, right, then you have nothing to improve. Right? Jillian Leslie 45:05 Right. I like that. I do, I agree. You know, it's that scary thing of putting yourself out there. And, you know, especially with video because I think that we feel more exposed. Meredith Marsh 45:20 Yeah, for sure. Jillian Leslie 45:25 And there's a vulnerability to it. Advice: Have bright light for shooting video Meredith Marsh 45:27 Yeah. One of my favorite tips for people who feel like "I can't do videos because I don't like the way I look on camera" is just make sure you have lots of great lighting, which means you could just stand in front of a window or be in your car. Because when you have not very much lighting, that's when all of your least favorite features will like be predominant. Especially I feel like for women who might have skin imperfections or wrinkle or something, light can just magically make those things disappear. Jillian Leslie 46:06 That is a great tip. Meredith Marsh 46:07 Yeah. Really, really just light it up. Jillian Leslie 46:11 Okay, one more question, which is, do I need to publish a video every week at a specific time? Do I need to? People talk about this, you train your audience to know that on Tuesdays at 9:00 there'll be a new video. Is that true? Consistency on YouTube -- Do you need to be? Meredith Marsh 46:29 I am going to say yes, it's good to be consistent. But, I mean, at the same time, if somebody said, "Well, I can't publish every week," I would say then publish every two weeks. Don't let consistency keep you from publishing once even a month, if that's all you can do. It's not like if you can't be consistent, you might as well not do it. That's not a piece at all. But it is good to be consistent and try to do once a week and try to do the same day, same time, if you can. And a really good way to do that is to just prepare four or five videos over the course of like a weekend and you have those videos ready to go. And maybe all they need is just to be edited and published versus actually creating a whole video every week. That gets really tiring really greatly. Jillian Leslie 47:27 Right. So like batch them. Meredith Marsh 47:29 Yeah, batching is really good, especially when you're first starting. It's really good. Jillian Leslie 47:33 And is it that Google wants you to be consistent or is it really that your audience knows, "Oh, it's Tuesday, there's going to be a new video." Meredith Marsh 47:42 Yeah, I think it's your audience. And I don't necessarily know that people are like looking at their watch, you know, like, "Oh, okay, it's 1:00 on a Wednesday. I know that Meredith is going to be here right now." Jillian Leslie 47:53 Right, right. Meredith Marsh 47:54 But it's that you're there when they when they do open up YouTube and they're expecting you and it's familiar to them. And, you know, they've just become used to seeing your face in a new video every week or every two weeks or whatever. Jillian Leslie 48:12 Oh, wow. Meredith, I have learned so much from you. Meredith Marsh 48:15 I'm so glad. Jillian Leslie 48:16 And you know what you've done? You have made video seem a little less scary. Meredith Marsh 48:22 Good. That's excellent. Jillian Leslie 48:24 The whole idea of editing video on my phone. Do you have a bunch of tutorials on that? Meredith Marsh 48:31 I don't have a bunch. I do have one on my, funnily enough, it's not even on my YouTube channel. It's on my IGTV channel. I have been on editing vertical videos in Lumafusion which teaches you how to use that. Back when IGTV first came out, people didn't know like, how do I even create a vertical video for IGTV? So I created that and I put it on IGTV. But mostly for me personally, I'm using my desktop to edit. Because I'm not in the editing apps a whole bunch. I haven't created tutorials on them yet. What are your thoughts on IGTV? Jillian Leslie 49:10 Got it. Okay. And tell me what are your thoughts about IGTV? Meredith Marsh 49:15 I don't have any thoughts on it really. I very rarely watch anybody's IGTV. I don't even really know that they're even there. I don't pay attention to it. I don't know, it's too early to tell, I think. Jillian Leslie 49:29 Right. it's too early to tell. Meredith Marsh 49:31 Yeah. Jillian Leslie 49:31 Well, Meredith, honestly, please tell people how they can reach out to you see your videos. Meredith Marsh 49:37 Yeah, so my podcast is the Video Pursuit Podcast, so you can find that at VidProMom.com/podcast or you can just search for it in your favorite podcast player. I do have a Facebook group called Video for Bloggers and Content Creators, and that's where I run my five-day challenges -- five days to a polished and profitable YouTube presence. And have a good community going there as well. So that's the Video for Bloggers and Content Creators Facebook group. Jillian Leslie 50:07 Oh, Meredith. Well, honestly, thank you so much for being on the show. Meredith Marsh 50:11 Thank you for having me. Jillian Leslie 50:13 Get MiloTree to grow YouTube and Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook and your email list and remember, get your first 30 days free. I welcome you to join the family. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

So you want to run your own business? Great! Don’t let fear keep you from getting started.  In fact, you should get comfortable being UN-comfortable! In this episode, learn the five critical behaviors used by successful business leaders to stand out in the marketplace. Subscribe:      Apple     |     Google     |     Spotify     |     Stitcher     |     iHeart Get yours Questions & Answered in our monthly Q&A episode.  Send yours to: questions@buyblackpodcast.com Sponsors Mike D’s BBQ – My good friend, Mike De Los Santos makes some of The World’s Best Barbeque Sauce!  Don’t just take my word for it. Check out the growing list of awards Mike’s sauces and rubs are racking up! Get your Labor Day grill on point with The Best BBQ Sauce in North Carolina, 2017! Visit https://buyblackpodcast.com/bbq to Make Your Order Now! Use the code BUYBLACK to get FREE SHIPPING and an EXCLUSIVE GIFT with your purchase! Throw Some D’s On It! Show your support for Buy Black Podcast! Become a Patron and gain Exclusive Access to behind-the-scenes and original content! PLUS get a shoutout on our new monthly Ask the Experts Q&A Episode! https://buyblackpodcast.com/patreon Voices of Black Business Show Notes **Click any timestamp to jump directly to that point in the episode. Today’s Voice of Black Business: Five Critical Behaviors of Successful Business Leaders w/ Chevan Baker Chevan’s #1 Piece of Advice: Don’t second guess yourself! You can accomplish anything! [03:10] Interview begins [04:00] The Tech Blog & The Senior Project [13:30] The Value of Evergreen Content [21:50] Back from Break Five Critical Behaviors of Successful Business Leaders [22:10] Build genuine relationships and strong networks Always carry business cards and give them out generously Work on your elevator pitch...always be ready to talk about your business Shoot your shot!   Always be open and receptive to the moment - go where the people are Be genuinely curious Don’t be afraid of the challenge Be a real leader - to control your path you must make the key decisions [31:40] Control the path you walk.  Take ownership of your destiny Look at yourself as a CEO Present yourself on purpose...all the time.  Even down to the way you answer your phone The only failed opportunity is a missed opportunity.  Be prepared for the moment and step into it [35:40] Take advantage of every opportunity that is presented to you [47:10] The Cold Shower Theory [40:50] Get Comfortable Being UN-Comfortable We are biased toward our own ideas People will also tell you what you want to hear...don’t believe them Pay attention to the data Pay attention to what customers actually DO when they visit your site or walk through your door Use https://trends.google.com to see what people are searching for… [55:10] Google Trends Search Term Analysis Use Case Example [48:30] Watch and Listen to Your Audience - Really Listen to Learn What They Want Connect with Chevan Who is Chevan Baker: www.chevanbaker.com Web & Mobile App Development: www.1place4tech.com Social Comedians Content & Branding: www.somethingtolaughat.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/chevanbaker LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/chevan-baker-ba555955 Email: chevan.baker@chevanbaker.com Buy Black Podcast Exclusive Black Business Resources! How to Register a New Business in Your State Black Business Directories…Directory! 200+ Business Building Resource Websites Link Library Productivity Apps for Entrepreneurs Join the Voices of Black Business Download the Buy Black Podcast App: iPhone/iPad      |     Android Join our Facebook Group: Buy Black Podcast Community Follow me @buyblackpodcast :       Facebook      |     Twitter      |     Instagram Send Feedback to: gerald@buyblackpodcast.com Apply to be featured on the show: https://buyblackpodcast.com/podcast-guest Want to become a show sponsor? Subscribe:      Apple     |     Google     |     Spotify     |     Stitcher     |     iHeart

EE Leaders | Leadership Lessons Season 1: Episode 14 - From Faith to Faith In this week’s episode, Pastor Daniel talks about having faith in different seasons of life and ministry, how important it is for us as church leaders to trust God no matter what is going on at any given time. “It is from faith to faith that we are to live, to walk by faith and not by sight.” This type of faith is cultivated. It grows and changes. What may have taken a huge step of faith in our life three years ago may not be the same today. God grows our faith step by step. What is faith and why is it important for us as ministry leaders? “Faith is trust in someone or something. Our salvation comes by faith. We are saved by grace through faith. We trust that God has the power to do this.” In Chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews, we are given great examples of faith and this definition: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) One of the temptations of having the gift of leadership is to begin to trust in our own abilities rather than trusting in God. But we need to constantly remind ourselves, through prayer and intentional reliance upon Him, that God Himself is the source of our plans and any success we may have. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:3) How can you cultivate your faith today? What is God telling you to do that requires faith? Daniel gives four reasons why faith is important in this and every season of life. You don’t want to miss it. You will be encouraged. In this week’s One Piece of Advice, Ben Courson, founder and director of Hope Generation, shares his advice about how to cultivate our faith by taking risks in ministry. ___ One Piece of Advice | Don’t Be Afraid to Take Risks Pastor Ben Courson, Medford, Oregon shares his advice based on Proverbs 14:14—Where no oxen are, the trough is clean. But much increase comes by the strength of an ox. Ben describes this as a farmer who is proud of his pristine barn when, in reality, he has no animals. What is the point in having a clean barn if there is no produce? “I would rather have a messy, pig stye, productive life than a pristine, problem-free, pointless life.” Sometimes we think the purpose of our lives is to to keep our lives clean, to never take any risks. But the truth is, every failure and mess you learn from is a step toward the victory. “God turns massive messes into messages for the masses.” Many famously successful people have a long track record of failures: Reggie Jackson, Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln…they didn’t let their failures keep them from pushing headlong into life. “We might fail, but God’s love never fails—that’s what counts. Don’t be afraid to take risks. You might have a messy barn, but at least you’re going to have some produce! It ain’t about how high you climb, it’s about how high you bounce back when you hit bottom.” You can follow Ben and his ministry, Hope Generation, at bencourson.com ___ Quotes “Seasons were given to us by God. They’re for a reason. Without change, without seasons, we can become stagnant and just take for granted the season we are in.” -Daniel Williams “We need to cultivate our faith. We need to exercise our faith to get stronger like a muscle, and we need to continue to put on more weight and to continue to walk by faith, one step after another.” -Daniel Williams “As Christians our faith is based on God’s word, based on what He is telling us. He asks us to listen to His voice, to understand who He is, and to base our lives off of who He says He is and the promises that He tells us to walk in.” -Daniel Williams “We will be blessed when we trust in Jesus and His word.” -Daniel Williams “You are the mission of Jesus…He puts us in situations to build our faith. He is sovereign. He is good.” -Daniel Williams ___ Contact Daniel: daniel@eeleaders.com Leadership Lessons/One Piece of Advice/Blog/Recommended Books: eeleaders.com

If you own a Small Business, it's bound to happen: a long-time employee drops a bomb by telling you they are leaving to take a position at another company. How you react can have a dramatic impact both inside and outside your business. Your actions will send a message to both your employees' and your customers. Join Dave Hamilton and Shannon Jean for this episode of the Small Business Show where they discuss their methods for handling a surprise departure of a key employee. Listen in for tips about not taking things personally, how to gauge the short and long-term impact, managing the timing of the employee's departure, and why your customers are more concerned about who's staying vs. who's leaving. After the show, stop by the Small Business Support Group to share your story and join the discussion! Chapters/Timestamps: 00:00:00 Small Business Show #182 for Wednesday, August 1, 2018 00:01:37 Carr Fire 00:02:13 “Poor Me” is the wrong attitude 00:04:37 Surprise, I quit! 00:07:18 First question: Why? Can I control this? Do I want to? 00:09:24 Advice: Don't take it personally! 00:12:48 Second question: What's the short-term impact 00:14:35 Do they leave immediately? Do they continue to benefit your business? 00:23:01 Do you counter-offer? 00:27:42 Be authentic to be positive People don't care about who left. They care about who *is* left. 00:32:49 Avoid comfort. Stay on edge. 00:35:14 Let us know your story! feedback@businessshow.co 00:35:44 Loyalty defined. Differently. 00:39:32 A symphony of action! “I don't need time. I need a deadline.” 00:40:27 SBS 182

Today I'm doing my first two-on-one interview with Cara Newhart and C.J. Oldenkamp, founders of My Haute Society, a community for bloggers, and are both bloggers in their own right. We talk about how to start a blog with your friend. We delve into balancing a shared business and a personal blog, plus how they dealt with the growing pains of working together in a new venture. Cara and C.J. are Instagram pros and share their Instagram strategies. You'll want to learn this!   Resources: My Haute Society Everyday Chiffon Never Skip Brunch Catch My Party MiloTree Canva Planoly Transcript: How to Start a Blog with Your Friend with Cara Newhart and C.J. Oldenkamp Host:[00:00:03] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today I have two guests. I have Cara and C.J. from My Haute Society. So guys, welcome to the show. C.J. : [00:00:25] Thank you. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here today. Jillian: [00:00:29] This is my first time with two guests so this is like all new, and you guys are so much fun. So I'm super psyched you're here and we just did a recording where I'm going to be on their podcast. And so now we're going to do it where you guys are on mine. Jillian: [00:00:48] So explain My Haute Society. What is Haute Society? Cara: [00:00:52] Yes. We are a community for bloggers and influencers. We are based online but we have a lot of in person events and workshops and then we have a ton of different resources like guides and workbooks and E-courses to help you grow your following, build your blog, and learn how to monetize your influence. Jillian: [00:01:12] Now you guys are both entrepreneurs, bloggers that kind of thing. Do you mind sharing your stories and then how you guys have hooked up? C.J. : [00:01:21] Yeah, so I'll go first. This is C.J. and I run my own personal blog, Everyday Chiffon, which is a fashion, travel, lifestyle blog and I'm just a new mama to be. I'm also really having a lot of fun kind of adding that family orientation part into my blog. Starting a lifestyle blog with a love of fashion C.J. : [00:01:41] But I started in corporate, right when I first moved out to Denver, right after graduating college and I was kind of the first of my friends to do so. C.J. : [00:01:52] I used to take the random mirror selfies, and as much as I don't love this I did that. I did random weird selfies of like my corporate outfits and everything, just because I was kind of the first of my friends to be in there and I had a girlfriend that recommended I start a blog. C.J. : [00:02:13] Being a very non techie side, I didn't know what a blog technically was. So I just kind of went ahead and started an Instagram page. How a blog evolves C.J. : [00:02:22] And I just had a separate place to kind of post my outfits and give inspiration to some of the girls that were just entering corporate, or thinking about entering corporate. And then it's just really evolved into this blog and a brand that I've kind of run with. C.J. :  [00:02:37] It didn't even start as Everyday Chiffon. It was like Professionista or something that I cringe at. But it was just something super random and a place for me to be inspirational with my fashion. C.J. : [00:02:49] I've always loved fashion my entire life. It's been something I have such funny pictures of me as a kid like dressing up multiple outfits. So it really just evolved into something that I had no idea could be a business. C.J. :  [00:03:03] I didn't know about blogging and now I've really brought in like the biggest thing for me and my blog that's made it a part of my soul and from me is my positivity post. C.J. : [00:03:13] And that's been like the main thing that I like to push on through everything if you look at my page I'm always smiling, I'm always laughing, and I really try and bring happiness as a mindset, it's kind of like my blog motto. C.J. : [00:03:26] So that's like a big big thing for me that's made it more like a space for me to connect with people alongside of connecting through fashion and through my travels and through everything else like lifestyle. C.J. :  [00:03:37] But that's been like the portion that's kind of a part of everything that I do. So that's really taken off and really evolved and really helped me make Everyday Chiffon what it is today. Jillian: [00:03:49] And they're super cute photos of you pregnant. C.J. :  [00:03:52] Oh thank you, it's been crazy getting used to these curves. But I'm having fun dressing them up. Jillian: [00:04:00] Are you more of like tight pregnancy maternity clothes or more of the loose maternity clothes? C.J. :  [00:04:07] You know I'm finding I really thought it because I'm a big Boho kind of dresser and so I love Free People and those types of brands, and I would have thought that I would have gone towards wearing a lot of Free People but with these added curves that I've never had before. I've always been very flat up top. I've always been pretty tiny. C.J. :  [00:04:27] I found that some of the bigger looser clothes kind of make me feel bigger and make me feel less sexy or as into like myself as I normally and so I've actually leaned towards wearing tighter clothes just because I can show that like yes I'm pregnant, I'm not just eating a pizza over and over again. Jillian: [00:04:51] Well you look adorable. C.J. : [00:04:54] I feel lucky to be pregnant during the summer so I don't have to wear tons of like jeans and sweaters I can just kind of be in dresses most of my life. Jillian: [00:05:05] Kara what about you? Cara: [00:05:07] Yeah, so I started out in corporate as well. I always kind of had a blog on the side, like it started in college with an art blog and then I did like a DIY blog, and then I kind of got into having my own online boutique so I designed different leggings and t shirts and stuff with my artwork. Starting a blog because brands were reaching out Cara: [00:05:27] Then I started to have brands reach out to me and offer to like put their products on my blog because I was blogging as part of my boutique. And at that point I didn't really know what blogging was or what influencers were. So I was like, "This is weird like this is my business. Why would I want to promote your product?" Cara: [00:05:44] So now looking back like they probably just thought I was a fashion blogger because I was featuring different people I was like styling my t shirts and showing different looks so they were just reaching out. Cara: [00:05:55] It's like a brand wanting to work with a blogger. But I was like a business and didn't even know what the whole world was so then I kind of decided like hey, maybe I should have an outlet where I could do this. And then I could say yes to these collaborations because they were like products I liked and brands I was interested in working with. Cara: [00:06:13] So I started a fashion blog and it's called Never Skip Brunch. I like love brunch. I always said I love snacks and sleeping. It's kind of a joke. Cara: [00:06:29] I just recently rebranded at the beginning of this year. And it's called Brighter Bold, and it's basically like a movement towards helping women to turn up the volume on their inner voice and kind of find their boldness. Cara: [00:06:44] And so I've kind of expanded out of fashion and now I have like recipes and some DIY projects. And it's a little more lifestyle oriented. So that's been really fun. Cara: [00:06:53] And that decision was kind of just because I realized this is what my audience wanted, like they liked fashion but they kind of wanted a little more in on my lifestyle, and all the little projects that I constantly had going on. So that's been really fun. Jillian: [00:07:08] That's cool. OK so how do you guys then monetize separately and then I guess together? Monetizing blogs through sponsored content, affiliates, and membership Cara: [00:07:19] Yeah. So for our own blogs. We both do like brand collaborations and then affiliate links. I would say for me personally brand collaborations are probably my primary source of income. I do have some affiliate links from people shopping products that I recommend, and all of that stuff but I primarily work with brands. C.J. : [00:07:39] Mine is kind of the same wa,y working with brands through sponsored or ad posts definitely like the biggest thing that I found. C.J. : [00:07:48] I know my affiliate links have definitely started to take off now this past six months, as I've been able to grow more of a connection with my following so I'm definitely seeing more growth there than I have before. C.J. : [00:08:00] But I would definitely still say that like sponsored and you know ads are working with specific brands and trying to kind of grow that long term relationship has been the biggest benefit for me on my personal blog. C.J. : [00:08:13] And with My Haute Society we have so many different ways of monetizing still through affiliate links and then obviously jumping a lot into products and resources that we give out to bloggers, that's like the biggest thing we want to be is obviously a resource. C.J. : [00:08:29] So creating those and being able to help through that has been helpful for us as a business as we try and grow and everything like that. Cara: [00:08:38] Yes I think our biggest thing is like our monthly membership which is just nine bucks a month and you get access to all of our courses all of our guides and then like monthly events whether that's like happy hours or meet ups. And then you get workshops. Cara: [00:08:55] And then you get our big Ecourses are super discounted so that it's kind of amazing. Working on your blog as a team Jillian: [00:09:01] How do you guys... Because my husband and I we run Catch My Party and MiloTree together but those are really different businesses. But again we do it as a team. Now you guys have your own separate businesses. Then you have this together. So how do you manage that? C.J. :  [00:09:20] It's been a lot of learning, to be honest. We started in September of 2017. We hit the ground running. We both were super excited about what we were doing that we just kind of ran with it. It was exhausting. C.J. : [00:09:37] We found a lot of times you know we were trying to work on our own blogs and we had to take away from something so we didn't focus as much on our own blogs as we wanted to. C.J. : [00:09:50] But we just like really couldn't because we just had too much going on in the holiday season and so the beginning of January and the end of December were a huge kind of sit back and take it all in and see where we really want to push our focus to what was most important in growing My Haute Society. And what was most important for like mental health. C.J. : [00:10:11] Because obviously if you look at our blogs, both of them are huge focusing on you know mental health and really being the best person you can be. And so stretching ourselves so thin was the opposite of what we were trying to put out through My Haute Society. So it was a huge moment. C.J. : [00:10:28] We had, I wouldn't say arguments, but we had you know really deep conversations of trying to figure out what was going to be best for both of us because Cara has a little girl and a husband, and I have a husband and had just found out I was pregnant. C.J. : [00:10:42] So it was like we had totally different lives and entirely different things we had to push our emotions into, aside from even just having our personal blogs. So we really did have to re-evaluate what was going on and to make it work. The importance of content calendars for bloggers C.J. : [00:10:57] I think the things you see for every blogger is that content calendars are huge. And we really had to figure out what to do and then when we kind of figured out a strict schedule of like who was doing what. C.J. : [00:11:11] I run all of the social, and deal with our Monday blogger moments, and then Cara does a lot of like the podcast edits as well as like some of the main resource or blog posts that we do and then we do like a little side by side of everything else. C.J. : [00:11:26] So once we really honed in and figure that out we've been able to streamline a lot of things and been able to have certain days where we specifically work on My Haute Society and then have certain days we're basically just working on our own blogs or living our own lives. Cara: [00:11:48] Yeah it's funny because like a lot of people that go into business together have years and years of a friendship or a relationship to kind of go off of. So they already really know the other person. The importance of defined roles as bloggers Cara: [00:12:02] And for us, we were really new friends when we decided to start. Yeah we had to learn who each other was like what our strengths and weaknesses were and kind of how we work together. Cara: [00:12:17] And then also kind of develop the business and define our roles and all of that all at once. So it was definitely a process but I think it was something we needed to go through to be able to be where we are now, where we're kind of like more efficient and we have a system and have more clear communication. Cara: [00:12:35] Like at first you know I would be building the website and putting out all these guides and I'm used to just working with myself and going rogue and like cranking things out. C.J. : [00:12:44] I'm like an over communicator. So I was like "Why are you leaving me in the dark?" type thing and she's just not really like that. So it was kind of me having to learn to pull things out of her as well as you know her just having to learn to like communicate better. C.J. : [00:13:01] So I think that's a good way of putting that though because we did just kind of fall into it, and the benefit of this is that we both tend to jump into change really well in our own personal lives. And I think that made it possible for us to do it. It was just kind of learning how to do it together. Jillian: [00:13:19] Wow what it is like. I mean it's a relationship, it's like a marriage in many ways. Cara: [00:13:25] So I call it business marriage. Jillian: [00:13:30] It's like how people have like a work spouse or you know like a work husband or a work wife you guys are each other's wives. That's terrific. Jillian: [00:13:41] How many hours a week are you guys working and how much of that time, this is if you can quantify it, would you say is working on each of your businesses and then together? Managing your time as a blogger C.J. : [00:13:52] I know I kind of laughed at this question because my answer is all the time. Some weeks are better organized than others but right now with doing a move and you know moving states and doing all this. C.J. : [00:14:09] We've had to be a little bit more scheduled out than normal because like my weekends are completely packed with packing or something like that or going to parties. But I mean as a social influencers I think anyone listening that does that can know that it isn't all the time thing. C.J. : [00:14:26] Like even if you're an entrepreneur and not just a social influencer even if you're not working on something on your web site for instance, I post twice a day on my Instagram almost every day so that's work in itself. C.J. : [00:14:38] You're waking up Saturday morning or Sunday morning and still having to post and then engage with people and then you might like to have brunch and kind of hang out with your husband or take some time off Saturday or Sunday. C.J. : [00:14:47] But then there's other Sundays right up until 11:30 doing something for My Haute Society for Monday, or something so I don't know. I mean it's really hard for me to know. Cara may have a better answer but it's really all over the place. C.J. : [00:15:01] Most of the days during the week are really well scheduled out because we have certain things for our personal blogs and certain things from My Haute Society that go live on specific days. So it's a lot easier to allocate those things out. C.J. : [00:15:13] But the weekend is totally a crapshoot. Sometimes I'm free and living my life, sometimes I'm like doing two hours of shooting and then writing posts and everything like that so it's just really up in the air. Cara: [00:15:26] Yeah it's also weird because it doesn't feel like work. To have to say, "I'm working these hours and these hours I'm free, like it's all just kind of living life and doing what I like doing alongside of the other stuff. Cara: [00:15:40] So if I had to put a number on it, nap time is definitely my go get it time. My daughter is almost 2 and she sleeps for a solid two and a half hours still which like I don't know how long that's going to last. Cara: [00:15:54] That's like my go time and I just knock everything out and then I'm kind of a night owl. So if there's stuff outside of that that I really need to do, I can stay up all night doing it and I love that. I'm at my best at like 12am. C.J. : [00:16:16] Now with being pregnant, for me, I've found that I'll stay up later but then I don't have the energy to get up like I usually did at 7:00 a.m. and kind of started doing things. C.J. : [00:16:26] I'm taking my mornings you know maybe catch up on my phone but like I have to eat breakfast. I have to do certain things, I have to stretch, like all these new things I didn't have to do before is becoming this additive into my days. C.J. : [00:16:42] So I'm learning to schedule around that, but that's like the huge benefit of not having to go to a 9 to 5 job. You can do mornings where sometimes I'll get up at 7:30am and be doing e-mails by 8:00 a.m. you know getting through things. C.J. : [00:16:55] And then other mornings I start working at 9:15am but I might take an hour to work out and then be working until like 8:30pm or something. So it's just kind of all over the place. Which I love because it doesn't stress you out as much because you can do it whenever you want to make time. Jillian: [00:17:11] Right, the funniest thing that I would say is trying to educate your family, like your parents, about what you do. Because we will go on vacation and visit my parents and to explain that the internet doesn't shut down, you know, that you can't put a like "We're on vacation and come back in a week." It just doesn't work that way. Jillian: [00:17:40] They're like, "You work all the time!" and I'm like, well, kind of. C.J. : [00:17:44] It's like what my dad said when we went to Europe. I was obviously making travel blogs and everything through it and taking images, or my husband would be like behind me with the camera and stuff. And my dad's like, "This world is just so different these days." C.J. : [00:18:00] You know you laugh and he's a super successful businessman so I can get where he looks at it but now that he's starting to learn the success you get from it's just connecting the dots and seeing the success just for being different. C.J. : [00:18:15] But then it's funny because he's like, "You're always on your phone" and I'm like, "Well, if you got paid money to be on your phone maybe you would do it too." C.J. : [00:18:25] My siblings are trained now when we are planning vacations or over holidays, they'll be like, "oOh we could go here, that would be really good place to take blog pictures." I'm like "Now you get it." Ways of using Instagram as a blogger to grow your business Jillian: [00:18:36] Can we talk about social media? You guys are very active on Instagram. It sounds like Instagram is your jam. Can you share a little bit about how you use it? What do you think the best ways are to connect on it. Like what do you love about Instagram? Cara: [00:18:56] Yes. I think it's kind of like the current go-to platform for influencers just because that's where a lot of brands want to collaborate with you, because it's the hot platform so that's probably why it's our go-to. Cara: [00:19:12] And C.J. probably has a lot of really good tips for you as far as how to really engage with your followers and connect. She's kind of always full of amazing pointers and I'm like, "Why didn't I know that?" C.J. : [00:19:26] Well the biggest thing with Instagram, because I run My Haute Society's and mine as well, and it is really just truly engagement which can be absolutely exhausting to be honest. I think trying to be on there all the time is what's hard for a lot of people. C.J. : [00:19:42] But I think building the most important thing like the one tip I can give with it is, we love our IG Lives on My Haute Society and sometimes there won't be 30 people on there every single time we do it or anything like that. C.J. : [00:19:58] We do a playback and just having that live and making that connection of being real with your followers is the biggest thing people are looking for on Instagram these days. C.J. : [00:20:07] They do love to see your perfectly curated feed. I don't think that's going away anywhere time any time soon because people love beautiful images and they love placing themselves in places that they haven't been and beautiful scenes that they've never been into. So I think people love that. C.J. : [00:20:20] But being through your Stories I think is the easiest way like IG lives and stories because people are yearning for that connection through real life. And once I started like really doing that, aside from still engaging and consistency and posting is a huge thing. C.J. : [00:20:39] I know a ton of people want to take like a week or two off and you need to understand that that's going to hurt your engagement. I think that's like a big thing but really just being consistent with doing Stories and connecting your face to people not just putting your curated image in your story or random things. C.J. : [00:20:56] That is what people want to see, they want to know what you're doing, they want to know your side of yourself that's not perfect. They want to know what you're eating. C.J. : [00:21:04] I think just things like that really makes people want to follow and connect with you and stay around, at least that's what I've found through My Haute Society and my own blog. C.J. : [00:21:14] It's just being consistent with posting engaging and really being active on my stories even though I might not look gorgeous in the morning or still just get used to kind of being on there and people love it. They love the realness is what I have found. Jillian: [00:21:29] So you're posting two images a day on your feed and how often are you popping in to do Stories? C.J. : [00:21:39] You know, some days are different than others, if I have a super busy day wanting to get multiple posts done I won't be on there as often and just because I need to focus like on any other kind of business. C.J. : [00:21:50] But most days I can do 10 to 15+ stories depending on what's going on. Yesterday, I went through my morning moisturizer routine because my face has been insane with this pregnancy. Hormones are on fleek at an all time high and so I kind of just went through some of the products I was using. And some like the face masks I just received from a different brand and I mean that alone was probably 10 to 15 stories right there. C.J. : [00:22:19] And then like I go through sometimes what I'm eating, because being pregnant people are really curious and that kind of started connecting with all these new moms to be. How you eat and everything and so even something like that. C.J. : [00:22:32] And then if I put on an outfit I'll do like what I'm doing that day and the like tonight I have like a blogger event so I'll be kind of storying throughout that whole thing. So it really just depends. C.J. : [00:22:43] But I try and pop on there as much as I can. Some people really focus on creating the perfect story. And it can take them a long time to get it out there. I just kind of go with it throw it up there and it is what it is. C.J. : [00:22:58] And then I found it to be really easy to just do a Story of like here's my breakfast and then I'm typing away at my post five minutes later, it's not like a 30 minute thing to get a few stories up for me. C.J. : [00:23:11] I'm a very real person so I just have turned my stories into like literally what I'm doing. Jillian: [00:23:17] Cara what about you? How often are you posting on your feed and what about your Stories? Cara: [00:23:23] So I post like once a day on my feed. I don't do weekends and occasionally I just take a string of random days off if I just don't feel like doing it. Cara: [00:23:32] I'm not as outgoing as CJ. So like all the engaging stuff drains me. It's not something that energizes me. So I love engaging with my followers, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I have to mentally prepare. Cara: [00:23:50] If I'm not in the mood to like really connect with people. I don't want to post because I don't want to be just throwing up a piece of content that's something to be looked at, I want it to be engaging and kind of like a starting point for those conversations. Cara: [00:24:05] Sometimes I just take a few days off and recharge and so I think it can go either way. And then Stories, so I kind of like creating graphics. I still do a bunch of different ones of things I'm doing. I do sneak peeks of, like I just re-did my powder bath, so I did like a little sneak peek video about that. Cara: [00:24:29] But I also like to do graphics little videos or moving things or like swipe ups that tell people there's a new post on the blog. So I try to involve my real life and what I'm doing but I would say it's a little bit more of graphic design type stuff because that's what I really enjoy doing. Jillian: [00:24:48] OK so given that you guys have been at this for a while. What is the one piece of advice you wish somebody had told you when you guys were both just starting out. ADVICE: Create a brand around yourself as a blogger C.J. : [00:25:03] For me personally I didn't know the blogging world existed. So I just kind of wish that I had known that was even a big thing and known it was like this business that people were really trying to do curated photos for. C.J. : [00:25:19] I guess I wish I would have known and would have been told to create a brand around yourself before just pushing content out. I was just posting, I was enjoying it and everything, but I would still have that same stress that I do today. But I didn't have like a why or brand behind it. C.J. : [00:25:37] So I think knowing your "why" and really creating what your brand is and who you are behind your brand is the most important thing to do before starting out. C.J. : [00:25:47] Because without that you're just going to go on a circle of posting things and trying to figure out what you want out of it. Each post in changing things up and if you keep changing things up it's going to be extremely hard to grow a following. C.J. : [00:26:01] Instead of knowing your "why" and knowing your brand and running with that and then you're down the road you know if you want to add something or take something away you can play with that because you've had this connection. C.J. : [00:26:11] But without knowing that, that's a huge thing. I wish I would have because not knowing the blogging world and then not knowing my brand. It took me twice as long to get to a following that other people can get to maybe in six months just because I had no idea what I was doing and what was behind what I was posting. Jillian: [00:26:32] Interesting. OK so really having a point of view. C.J. : [00:26:35] Totally and knowing what you want people to get from your content instead of just like ,"Here's my outfit," which is great but like what do you what do you hope they get, and how does it help them? C.J. : [00:26:46] And so without that it took me a while and then once I started figuring that out that's when I really became Everyday Chiffon and what I wanted from it and was able to play around with things and became fun instead of what the heck am I gonna do. Jillian: [00:27:00] And what about you? Cara: [00:27:03] So I would say, I wish I knew the importance and value of community which sounds funny but as an introvert I really didn't know how valuable it was to really have people to surround yourself with and support you and bounce ideas off of. Cara: [00:27:20] And I am kind of a competitive person just naturally, so in my mind for a while, community and success were kind of mutually exclusive. It was like I had to go do it on my own and be successful. Cara: [00:27:36] But really what I've learned through the whole process of what goes into My Haute Society and our community, is that community is a competitive strategy. To be successful you need others to support you and help you along the way. ADVICE: Don't compare yourself to other bloggers Cara: [00:27:52] And then kind of a second piece of that is not comparing yourself, realizing that the community means that you can look at other people's success and you can celebrate with them and be excited, but that success for them isn't what successes look like for you. Cara: [00:28:08] So trying to achieve that by looking like what they're doing is going to be really unfulfilling and it's going to lead to burnout and you're not going to find your best way of doing things in your best type of success unless you really dig in and define that phrase like that. Jillian: [00:28:26] I like that. I think that the same themes keep coming through my interviews on The Blogger Genius which is, it is about helping each other grow. Jillian: [00:28:40] And it is also about working hard not to compare yourself, like those are two themes, because when you work together all of a sudden the Internet can feel really small. Jillian: [00:28:51] Like the internet consists of the six other people that I work with and we all kind of help each other grow. But it's really hard not to compare yourself to these people and you lose sight of the scale at which you work. You know that the Internet is a very big place. Jillian: [00:29:10] So what is the one tool that you guys use that you couldn't live without? Blogger tools you can't live without C.J. : [00:29:20] This one is really hard to choose one tool. I can let Cara talk more about Canva. We both love love love Canva for our personal blogs with creating like Pinterest images and that kind of stuff. But I don't think she could live without Canva for My Haute Society. C.J. : [00:29:35] And then for me for My Haute Society and still my personal blogs I couldn't live without Planoly or Social Pilot. They're kind of different apps totally but like, they do some of the same things are scheduling for social media. C.J. : [00:29:57] Planoly really lets you help see your feed. And like for My Haute Society with running my own social media I have been in the great habit of planning every caption and every photo out Monday morning or Sunday night and have that on auto post so I can still go on there and engage with everyone. But it's more about like when I want to do that instead of having to have a specific high point to do it as well as my own blog. C.J. : [00:30:23] So planning for my own while I don't do auto piloting but I am able to kind of like figure out my feed from there which really helps my weeks go by a lot easier if I've already had like an image and a caption kind of ready. C.J. : [00:30:36] And then Social Pilot is huge because we try and reach people on LinkedIn, Twitter like the Denver blogger page, our My Haute Society page. Then we also have our own personal ones hooked up to that. And so as a business you know Cara can go ahead and create these super cute things on Canva like videos and everything and these really cute graphics. C.J. : [00:30:55] And then I'll just go in there being the community person and make a really fun caption for it and then I'll actually go ahead and schedule everything out for like weeks and months and that's sort consistently posting on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. C.J. : [00:31:11] Every single day if not you know two or three times a day with different things so all of our things are constantly being pushed out there without us having to do a ton of work and people can continue to see us as a resource. C.J. : [00:31:25] So those would be the two that like I cannot live without with social media just because with how much scheduling it goes and behind two different platforms it's huge to be able to have things to be scheduled now and really only use an hour or two out of my Mondays to kind of get it all set. And then just have to poke around and fix things as I go. Jillian: [00:31:44] OK so how about you Cara? Cara: [00:31:50] Oh yeah Canva is my number one. I can do all the design in Photoshop and InDesign but Canva is just so easy. We have templates set up where we make, for example Pinterest images for every single blog post so that at the bottom there's like a couple images that people can pin to save the post. Cara: [00:32:11] So having templates set up for those or I also use them a lot to make Instagram stories like swipe ups or little like moving video gifs so just having like a template and then I make a bunch of different copies and move stuff around and they're so easy. It's amazing. Cara: [00:32:29] I have it for my personal blog where my fonts are uploaded and my colors are uploaded so that I could use my actual like font. That is my branding and everything is ready to go. Jillian: [00:32:45] How can people connect with you? How can they learn more about My Haute Society and also your individual sites? C.J. : [00:32:58] We're all over social. As My Haute Society so like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter Instagram. Cara: [00:33:08] And Haute means like classy fashionable. That's kind of why we chose that name. Cara: [00:33:14] I like thought it was "hot" for the longest time, even when we named it that. Staring at me I thought CJ was just saying Haute because she's from like the Midwest. Like that's how you say it yeah. Yeah. Cara: [00:33:28] And then our website is My Haute Society.com and we have like a ton of blog, posts that's where you can find our podcast. Cara: [00:33:35] All our resources if you're interested in like looking into membership you can just go to like MyHauteSociety.com/join and learn all about that. Cara: [00:33:44] And then my own blog is NeverSkipBrunch.com. C.J. : [00:34:01] And then mine is Everyday Chiffon, and for chiffon I get asked out a lot and it's like a type of material. My favorite one that I found I wear the most. That's why I named it that. C.J. : [00:34:12] But I am all over everything as well Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook probably more that I don't even know that I'm still on somewhere. And that is EverydayChiffon.com for my website. Jillian: [00:34:27] Cara and C.J., thank you guys so much for being on the show. Get more Instagram followers fast and free with MiloTree! Jillian: [00:34:37] Are you trying to grow your social media followers and e-mail subscribers? Well if you've got two minutes I've got a product for you. It's MiloTree. Jillian: [00:34:46] MiloTree is a smart pop up slider. You install on your site and it pops up and asks visitors to follow you on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:35:01] It takes two minutes to install. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code and it's Google friendly on mobile and desktop so we know where your traffic is coming from. Jillian: [00:35:14] We show a Google friendly pop up on desktop and a smaller Google friendly pop up on mobile. Check it out. Sign up today and get your first 30 days free. Sign up for MiloTree now and get your first 30 DAYS FREE!

Kenai is truly one of a kind.  With only a handful of people in the world diagnosed with 7Q deletion, he is paving the way and proving doctors wrong.  His parents, Kassy and Darren, share what a joy he’s been to their family and how they are helping him grow and learn. Differently-Abled Uncertainty Even though Kenai was born five weeks early and weighed only three pounds, his parents had no reason to believe he would be anything but typical.  However, when he was less than 24 hours old, a nurse told his mom Kassy that there was something wrong with her baby.   Kassy said “..by day five of life they told us it was a deletion on the seventh chromosome, there are about 34 reported cases that are similar but not exact to his.”  Having a diagnosis so rare meant doctors had to guess what would happen next with Kenai. Google Isn’t Your Friend “They didn’t really know what he would do; if he’d smile or anything..he was so tiny when we got his diagnosis.  I googled it and all of the results were bad. All of the cases were bad and scary and it took me a while to just breathe and not try to search who he would be, and just watch him develop. That was kind of a hard hump to get over.” Diagnosis Brings Mixed Reactions from Family When Kassy and Darren told their families about Kenai’s diagnosis they received a variety of reactions.  Darren said, “My family is kind of dramatic. When we first brought the news to them a lot of them were really taken back and automatically sent things into worse case scenarios...maybe they were scared for us but we never felt that way.” “Their initial reactions would be ‘I’m so sorry’ and I just had to say ‘Don’t say sorry, we’re still excited and we still just had a baby and we still love him so much.’” recalled Kassy. Words of Advice: Don’t Use Google “Do not Google anything ever.  Don’t take your doctor's word for it because they don’t know everything, they can predict all they want but no one’s going to tell you what your baby is going to do until your baby tell you what they are capable of.  You just need to wait, it’s hard to accept but you need to trust the process and trust your journey.” This is what Kassy had to say when asked to share some advice for parents. Darren added, “Positivity is a big deal for us.  You really attract what you think about, that’s why I’ve commented so much about him being this positive entity in our home.  There’s a lot of positive stuff that can come from this, I would just say concentrate and focus 100% on all of the positive things and build off that.”

Welcome to episode 009 of the Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Kate Ahl founder of Simple Pin Media. In this episode, we discuss how to grow Pinterest now -- what's working today and what's not. We also discuss the value of niching down in your business, how to create growth by staying focused, and the importance of not chasing other people's success, but finding your own. Resources: Simple Pin Media Simple Pin Pinterest Strategy Group Visual Marketing Certification Course MiloTree Transcript - Latest Pinterest Tips To Grow Your Account Host: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here's your host, Jillian Leslie. Jillian: [00:00:10] Hi, welcome to the show today. My guest is Kate Ahl, who is the mastermind behind Simple Pin Media. So welcome to the show, Kate. Kate: [00:00:21] Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited about your podcast. Jillian: [00:00:25] Thank you. And I'm inspired by you because I've been a big fan of yours for so long, and I've been on your podcast twice. Kate: [00:00:32] Yes, you have. They're both great conversation. Jillian: [00:00:36] And the thing that we both share is love of Pinterest. Kate: [00:00:40] Yeah it's true. Jillian: [00:00:42] So what I want to start with is a) - How you discovered Pinterest. And b) - how you built a whole business around it. Discovering Pinterest Kate: [00:00:52] Yes. So the first time I discovered Pinterest was actually at a good friend's house, and it was just after Pinterest started late 2009 early 2010, and she had made these really amazing outdoor candles chandelier-type-things with like mason jars and pallets. And we live in Portland, so that kind of all comes together even more perfectly. Kate: [00:01:17] I said, Where did you get all these ideas? This is crazy. And she's like, Well it's this new site called Pinterest. And I remember standing at her kitchen and we were looking at the computer or iPad, I can't remember at the time, and I was like I don't. But this is a great solution to bookmarking, because you would bookmark everything on your computer and try to save it for later, and that didn't feel like this cohesive place. But Pinterest didn't look like what it looks like now. At that time it was really confusing, like you couldn't figure out who you're following, and you had to have an invite. So. I said, Can you send me an invite? And it took like forever. It took like six weeks. And so my other friends were talking about Pinterest, and like what is it and how is it going to work> And so I got the invite and I created an account. I don't even know where that account is actually, I should try to dig and find it. But I loved it. I loved the sheer fact that I could organize content. Kate: [00:02:20] But I should also say I was really still confused by it, like the user experience in the beginning was not easy. Like you couldn't really figure out like, Who is this person I'm engaging with and what's their stuff. Kate: [00:02:33] They wanted you to follow artists and it didn't seem like it matched me quite yet. So I did take a step back from it for a little bit. Well during that time too, I started working with a friend who had a blog and she was feeling like it was growing pretty significantly. It was 2010 which means we we're still like mid-recession and she did deals, couponing for a living, which was going crazy during that time because people needed to save money. So she asked me to come on and do Facebook marketing for her initially, which I did and I loved. And then she asked me to come on to her blog to do a lot of affiliate marketing, blog management, kind of jack of all trades and that slowly merged into Pinterest, and what I ended up doing was that Pinterest account essentially became my personal Pinterest account. I was falling in love with Pinterest. Falling in love with her content too at the same time, but also falling in love with just using Pinterest in general, and so we really didn't know how to market on there. It was more, we had heard of people getting traffic and this was probably bringing us up to like 2010ish. And she discovered a Pinterest course. Turning Pinterest into a business Kate: [00:03:49] And she's like I took this Pinterest course to talk about naming your boards no longer cutesy names, like really thinking business. And we spent like three or four hours in her living room. It was spring of 2012 and really looked at what were we going to do with Pinterest, right? So we got the strategy. We're just playing around with it for a good full year. And then 2013 probably like November 2013, is when Facebook changed their algorithm pretty significantly. It was like the first big Facebook Armageddon where business pages weren't getting seen as a deal blogger. That's how you got most of your click throughs and affiliate sales, and everybody took a huge hit. Kate: [00:04:42] The question was like, We've never seen that before and we didn't really know what to do with it. Everybody's getting this amazing traffic. So we looked and said you know, maybe we need to do something different and at that same time, personally we were going through still the downturn of the economy. And my husband couldn't find a job and his unemployment had run out. And so at that same time the unemployment was running out and Facebook was changing their algorithm, she had said to me, the friend I was working for she said, Well why don't you try managing people's Pinterest accounts?And I thought she was nuts and I literally remember sitting at the kitchen table watching her say this and thinking I don't even know how you would do that. I was just on her account all the time. So I thought I can't be on someone's account all the time. Kate: [00:05:36] This is crazy. But she said just research everything you can do. Start Googling and see what's happening out there. We knew from this previous Pinterest course, that there was at least some idea of Pinterest for business. But yet there wasn't a lot of conversation about it. Kate: [00:05:52] I found one other Pinterest course that I joined. I found a small Facebook group of women just getting together to strategize about Pinterest. And I discovered ViralTag in the beginning as a scheduling service to use because there really wasn't anything out there, and I said I'll test with yours over two months. This was November-December. And then we sat at the beach one weekend and created a couple of different packages. I bought Simple Pin Media as a domain and thought, Here we go. Let's try this. And so she asked two of her friends to be beta clients. Jillian: [00:06:34] That is terrific. And how many clients do you have now? Kate: [00:06:38] A hundred and one. Jillian: [00:06:39] Wow. So you manage 101 clients' Pinterest pages. Kate: [00:06:46] Yes we do. We definitely have a big team. Jillian: [00:06:48] And how many people on your team? Kate: [00:06:50] 30. Kate: [00:06:51] Oh my goodness. Wow. And do you manage other social media accounts like Instagram or anything else? Kate: [00:06:59] No we've thought a little bit about Instagram. I have to say that that been in my thoughts, potentially on the road map. But it would be something along the lines of taking the model of Simple Pin and either franchising it or duplicating that model underneath different socials. Advice: The benefits of niching down Jillian: [00:07:24] This is a piece of advice that I continue to give which is the internet is a really big place and that you can grow a really successful business by niching down, by being the Pinterest experts. That you don't have to be the Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube expert. That actually by knowing your niche so well, you could really grow. Jillian: [00:07:52] People think oh, and then I need to move into this area and this area, and I'm like, if you go deep, not that many other people will do it. So you can own that space. And so when I think of Pinterest and I think Pinterest marketers, you're the person I call. Kate: [00:08:14] Thank you. Jillian: [00:08:15] Because I'm not thinking, oh I want a general social media marketer. I'm like, ooh, were noticing something with our Pinterest accounts. I'm going to check in with Kate and see if she's seeing the same thing. Kate: [00:08:27] Hmm yeah it doesn't make it easy for anybody who is thinking of doing any business. I will definitely say that niching down allows you to immerse yourself so deeply in a certain platform, that that's all you study. And I've found it feeling overwhelming. And that's why we haven't gone into Instagram because if you're dealing with two different animals, like one drives traffic and one drives engagement and there aretwo different methods of using it, and you can't apply a one size fits all social strategy to all social platforms. So absolutely it will just drive you into the ground. I don't want to be driven into the ground. Jillian: [00:09:10] Like another piece of advice I give is figure out what your goals are for your business, and pick the social media platform that a) - speaks to your audience, where your audience already is, and b) - which delivers what you're looking for. And yes you should own your name on every platform but to think that you need to be on every platform actively is... You will drive yourself insane. Kate: [00:09:40] Yes I have felt that. So for me socially as far as Simple Pin, my first focus was just Pinterest that's where I put my content. That's where I spent my time. That was my big drive and I did focus a little bit on Facebook, and building a really strong Facebook group. The group was more important to me than the page. And since then, I've just I have a social media manager who does all my stuff for me, because I don't want to keep up with Facebook I don't want to keep up with Instagram, right. I just want to interact with people. Jillian: [00:10:11] I will definitely say you are one of the top Pinterest experts, but Pinterest is always changing. So it's not like you ever own Pinterest. I'm always amazed at how often these social networks are changing. Kate: [00:10:34] All the time. Jillian: [00:10:34] So you know Pinterest today, but then you've got a keep on it and then you get to tell me what I need to do, because again it's not like oh I've mastered it. Oh no. They'll pull the rug out from under you. Advice: The moment you become unteachable or unwilling to learn is the moment your business dies Kate: [00:10:48] And I've always heard and heeded this advice, that the moment you become unteachable or unwilling to learn is the moment your business dies. The term expert is really tough for me to digest. And mostly because it's hard, it's just hard to see it that way and semantics right, like you could say thought leader, and I might wrap my brain around that a little bit better, but I think the thing is that even I as a person who studies Pinterest, teaches Pinterest, is only in Pinterest. I still have days where I will email some colleagues and say. There's not a trick I'm missing. Right. I'm not missing something and they know to expect it. You know, every six or eight months for me, because I just go... it's that moment of insecurity to go, did I miss something? Have I not learned this? And I appreciate people in my life who are willing to accept those questions from me in a way that says no, Kate you're fine. Like keep doing what you're doing. Jillian: [00:11:59] Absolutely. And again I like that idea of, if you have an online business you have to stay nimble. You have to stay hungry because you're absolutely right. You can't rest on your laurels like when you're talking about 2012, let's say Pinterest in 2012. That's not that long ago. And yet in the world of the Internet that's a really long time ago. Jillian: [00:12:25] So I will say that for us, for Catch My Party, or our first business, we stumbled into Pinterest. What I was doing was using it as a way to save content from Catch My Party, so that I could write blog posts, right, because my husband who's the technical part of our partnership, I kept saying to him build me somewhere I could have a clipboard or something. And he never built it. So then I discovered Pinterest. I was like oh I could just do it here. And then what I weirdly found was we were getting traffic. It was like weird we didn't plan on it. It was really just for my own personal use. And then we said to ourselves really early, which was good. This is driving us traffic and we're not even trying we need to try. And Pinterest now, of course, is our biggest traffic driver and the way we monetize with Catch My Party is traffic. So that's why we've then built MiloTree for example, or pop-up, because we recognize we need to grow Pinterest so we doubled down on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:13:33] So it's why I read whatever you write, because Pinterest matters to us in a huge way. And so it is about finding that area where you can build your business, finding the social networks that support that. And then being willing to learn as much as you possibly can about that platform, or whatever that thing is whether you're selling courses whether, you're selling products, whether you're creating stuff for Etsy, whatever it is. Jillian: [00:14:02] The more you know just the more you have to leverage. Advice: If you spread yourself super wide, you become less efficient and less productive Kate: [00:14:11] Yeah definitely. Fully agree and I think there's that feeling too of spreading super wide because we want to make sure we're covering it all. But yet when we spread super wide, we become less efficient or less productive. And we're only skimming the surface of everything instead of going to focus here, and that's hard in our online world and you and I have talked about this before. Because we are being pulled in so many different directions, kind of like with the dangling carrot of like, if you go here you can make money, if you get here and you are constantly in this push pull. And I was saying this to you before we started. I can't listen to podcast anymore about marketing unless I need the specific tool, because it's almost it's information overload for me, and it feels like dangling carrots in my face when I have this big team of people saying especially my leadership team, saying, we need you to do this or we need you to lead this, and lead us in this direction. And firm up these processes. That's where I got to continue to focus back my time, because that's where my business is and that's hard because there's a little bit of like the FOMO. Jillian: [00:15:28] Yeah. Kate: [00:15:29] Like, yeah I couldn't miss out on this tip, and yes my business is going to go down, and then you realize your business is going to go down the tubes if you spend all your day listening to podcasts and never implementing. Jillian: [00:15:41] Absolutely. And I am a big believer in just doing at least one thing a day. One thing a day to move your business forward and then to give yourself credit for achieving that goal. And I agree with you about stepping away. I've mentioned this previously, that I've really stepped away personally in Facebook. I know that's now kind of in the news, but I took a Facebook break personally. I noticed how much better I felt. Yes. And I know that's like, you know, I work in the world of social media. Advice: Don't fall for the FOMO trap Jillian: [00:16:18] But it's about figuring out that I don't have to be where everybody is and I don't have to follow that thing were, Oh my god everybody's making a ton of money here. I need to be there. It's a good lesson. Digging deep and figuring out who you are, what you want, what you want to grow, why you're doing this like those deeper questions, because you could spend your life going from trend to trend to trend. Kate: [00:16:48] Yeah yes you could. And you would drive yourself into the ground. Jillian: [00:16:52] And by the way. You won't be successful. Kate: [00:16:56] Yep I agree. It is hard in our world to have laser focus. But I would say like that is the place where you can find out the most about your business. That's where you can grow the most. And I agree with you I'm not on Facebook anymore very much, except to look at my group, right. That's where I get the greatest value from. Jillian: [00:17:20] Will you tell everybody what your group is? Kate: [00:17:23] So it's a Simple Pin Pinterest Strategy Group and it's just a group to talk about Pinterest we don't even do group board threads because we find that it kind of muddies the waters of the group. Jillian: [00:17:35] And what is a group board thread just so people know? Kate: [00:17:38] So there are specific Facebook groups on Pinterest group boards, so what it means is you can go into these Facebook groups, and you can look at what group boards on Pinterest people have available for you to join, and submit your content to that. So there's this one it's called Pinterest Group Boards. it's a fantastic group just dedicated to that, and I love it because again it's just dedicated to one thing. So knowing that that was happening over there I decided to really create a culture in our Facebook group that was just about Pinterest. So if you are experiencing a glitch, you could go there, ask a question and someone who would answer if you were frustrated or if you had a joy to share, or whatever it was in relation to Pinterest marketing. I wanted this to be the place where that conversation could happen without drama. It's the big thing for me. Yet without being solicited to get other members, without feeling like you were asking a dumb question, that there are no dumb questions. We want every single question there is and we want this to be the hub where you go to get up to date information on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:18:49] The thing I have to say, I love that you are popping in with updates and what's new. Like if I get in my feed, if I see that you have been on, talking about something I know to listen. Like I will stop what I'm doing and listen to you. Kate: [00:19:08] Thank you so much for the support, that means a lot. Because you know when you're on the other side of the computer, you never know what people are responding to. Jillian: [00:19:16] I have to say again, because you are my expert. So if you're talking, I'm listening. Kate: [00:19:22] I love it. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Most up-to-date Pinterest tips Jillian: [00:19:24] Okay, so so let's do this. Let's talk about Pinterest, just because you are the expert. And if I say group boards, give me your like 30 second thing on should people be focusing on group boards. And group boards again or where a bunch of people can share to a board, and the hope is that you can get your content in front of people that aren't necessarily following you. Kate: [00:19:53] Yes, that's correct. Group boards Jillian: [00:19:54] So that we can give some value to the listeners. Like group boards. Should people be finding group boards? Joining group boards? Kate: [00:20:02] Yeah, I think they're a valuable part of a bigger strategy on Pinterest with marketing, but I always tell people to keep it about only 30 percent, because what can happen is that you chase the idea of getting other people's followers to see your pins, ny joining group boards. And then you forget that you have your own followers, and they're following your personal boards, and they want to see what you're pinning. Kate: [00:20:26] So I tell people if they're going to do group boards, I always have them join group boards that fit their niche. Jillian: [00:20:32] Got it. Kate: [00:20:33] And that the content on there is something you would want your people to see. It's nothing sketchy, or just super general, or even not appealing. It has to have a specific title that is a very strong keyword on Pinterest so I don't want it to be like "Best Blogger Recipes. Jillian: [00:20:51] Or "Awesome Pins." Kate: [00:20:53] Exactly. I'd rather have it be something like "Instant Pot Soup Recipes." That means on the board is only Instant Pot soup recipes and if you have that content, that's a great place for you to put it. Not just for followers, but for the search factor, that when people search that title of Instant Pot soup recipes, Pinterest will see that that's a place where there's a lot of content on that topic being shared. So there's that, and then also joining with people you know is really important as well, and sharing from that group board especially if you have relationships, is also super important too. Pins per day Jillian: [00:21:30] Great okay. Now in terms of success on Pinterest. How many pin per day do you recommend somebody pin? Kate: [00:21:39] I have thought about this a lot actually, in the last couple of months. I have a data analyst who's going through a bunch of our data of the last four years, and analyzing a lot of this based on a number of pins per day. And one thing that's really interesting to us is our baseline package is ten pins, then we do a midline package of 20 pins and then 30 pins per day. Kate: [00:22:01] And the reason we started that in 2014, was because Pinterest was based on a chronological feed. So the more pins, the more you got seen in the feed. Well now that we've moved on to image and search based, what we realized is that the number of pins per day isn't as relevant as your keywords and board descriptions, or images and how much they capture the pinners attention. So I'm less likely to tell people it's a certain number of pins per day, and I'm more likely to ask them, what do your images look like? Because you can slap up 50 pins of crappy images, and not end up getting return. Or you could have ten amazing images and drive tons more traffic, and we find that with some rare clients lately, that those who really have had head down focus, they know their avatar. They have really strong keywords, like three to four pillar keywords that they really focus in on, and that that is increased engagement and it's increased their page views over time with just 10 pins a day. Text overlays on Pinterest images Jillian: [00:23:08] That's terrific. OK. Text overlays on the images or not? Kate: [00:23:15] Yes I really like them and I like them especially because Pinterest feels a little bit like billboard advertising. Jillian: [00:23:23] Yes, that's a good way to describe it. Kate: [00:23:25] Like you're coming by and what's going to catch their attention? Kate: [00:23:27] So I always tell people before they go into creating text overlays on their images for their own business. Do two things. One, start paying attention to billboards as you're driving. And just really pay attention to the patterns that you see and, two, go on to Pinterest on your phone. Try not to do this on desktop, and see what catches you. Scroll by and save it all to a secret board. And then you can see, what is it that stands out to me and why? And chances are it's going to be very "call to action" type statements. Something that could even be a provocative statement or a question. And then also really really bright colors. That's another thing to add if you're dealing with recipes or any type of food. I've seen a couple of things worked well which is showcasing the ingredients in the pin image somewhere, because then I can look at five o'clock if I'm ready to do dinner, and I can see that I have everything in your image. I'm much more likely to click, and make that meal. Jillian: [00:24:30] Ooh, I like that. Kate: [00:24:30] Or you can really tell me if it's easy, if it's healthy, if it's five ingredients. People on Pinterest love numbers. You're going to do something like twenty five cruise tips. That is amazing. Or you're going to do five ingredient brownies. Those do so well. And making that number pop too in a different color is really good too. Jillian: [00:24:54] That's awesome. Hashtags on Pinterest Kate: [00:24:54] Okay. Hashtags. Hashtags is new. So Pinterest released the use of hashtags in August of this last year, 2017. And that was a big surprise to us all. In fact, it felt a little bit like whiplash. What did you do? Because they were very dead set on it since the beginning. We don't use hashtags. We don't use hashtags. So they released it. And what they did with it was they created what's called the hashtag feed. So that means when you pin something to Pinterest with a hashtag, it goes into this hashtag feed that's run chronologically. So it's very wise for you as a business owner to create your own branded hashtag. So for me, I have the hashtag Simple Pin Podcasts. So when anybody clicks on Simple Pin Podcast, it goes to all of my pins. Then in addition, Pinterest is set up to do 20 hashtags on a description. But I would not go that many yet. I would just do about four to five and then, make it pretty specific. We're not like Instagram here so I would do something like "instant pot" or "instant pot soup" or "easy dinner." So not just "recipe." You don't want to go that route. And then, you don't want to go back and update your pins. That's one thing that's gonna be a waste of time because it's only done when a new pin enters the platform. So if you update with hashtags on your pins, it's not going to automatically funnel over into the chronological feed. It just stays where it is. Jillian: [00:26:33] Right. Right. Kate: [00:26:34] So the only update I would tell people to do is on your top 10 pins that are driving traffic to your site from Pinterest. I would go into your Pinterest description or wherever you want to have Pinterest pull the description from, and I would add hashtags there because people are already sharing once they get to your sites, so that does put the new pins that they're sharing on your behalf into the chronological feed. Jillian: [00:27:01] I love this. I'm like taking copious notes right now. Okay, video on Pinterest. Video on Pinterest Kate: [00:27:08] Video is also new as of this last summer. The only way that you can get access to their native video player is if you run a promoted pin ad, and it's based on views. I have not tested it yet. From what I've heard from other people, it's a little bit expensive. And video, it is being used by the big brands. So if you wanted to throw some money behind it, I would definitely. If you're a food blogger, I would go that route for sure and just set it up or have somebody set it up for you. But beyond that, video's on Pinterest that are just uploaded by YouTube are still a little bit of a speed bump, like people don't quite interact with them yet. Jillian: [00:27:51] Yes. Do you think - Again, as we're talking about niche-ing and that different niches are different, that Pinterest has really wanted to break into video but people have talked to me about it, and said, it makes me uncomfortable to watch video on Pinterest. I want to just be scrolling. It breaks the good vibes. Kate: [00:28:14] Yes, it does. It feels intrusive. Jillian: [00:28:16] Yes. Kate: [00:28:17] Yeah. I would say that's because - So we look at the Big Three which is Pinterest, YouTube and Google, and YouTube owns the space on video. So we are all conditioned that if we want a video, we go to YouTube, right? If we want a quick cooking video that just happens upon our stream, we will tolerate those on Facebook. Kate: [00:28:39] But the best path for video as it relates to Pinterest is still to create that solid pin image and lead them to your site or lead them to YouTube. We have seen some people doing that, and that works fine as long as the pinner knows on the image that they're going to a video. Yeah, if you - you can't interrupt their flow. If we're shocked into something or just it jars us a little bit, then we just were like "What? Where am I? What is going on?" But if you have a pin image with that little play button in the middle, people are more apt to try to push the play button because that's what we're conditioned to do. And then when they get over there, they find what they've expected which is a video. So that's really - I don't know. It'll be interesting to see what Pinterest does in the next year with video but I don't think we're quite there yet where the masses are ready to consume it. Promoted Pins Jillian: [00:29:37] Yes. Okay. One last Pinterest expert question, promoted pins. Who are those good for? Kate: [00:29:46] I think everybody. I definitely would say that promoted pins are continually getting better and better and better as they go along. I believe that an organic strategy is really, really good combined with a promoted pin strategy and that when you do a promoted Pin, you need to have a goal in mind. So we're doing a bunch of promoted pin campaign testing. We're building a promoted pins team like a services team here in Simple Pin. And so we're running a bunch of tests and my goal, because I'm going to use my account as a guinea pig, my goal is email sign ups. I want as many people on my email list is possible because I love talking to them in my email. It's my favorite thing to do. And it's the way that I can hook them in and continue to teach them and then hook them into my Facebook group. I'm not as concerned about course sales or promoting my services because those are two things that take a little bit of time to warm up. So my goal is always, okay, I have this amazing post there, and I'll say it's not an amazing post but it's gotten an amazing amount of traffic from Pinterest, about how to clean up Pinterest boards and it has an opt-in on it. That's the one I'm promoting because I'm getting so much traffic to it that I want to take my promoted pin and give it another 10 to 20 percent boost, just to see how it performs. Jillian: [00:31:10] So then you're sending that pin to a landing page where people can sign up? Kate: [00:31:15] No, it has the landing page built within the post. Jillian: [00:31:18] Okay, so it sends it to a post and then, they read the post and there is a sign up. Kate: [00:31:23] Exactly, it has a good conversion rate on it already. It's about 50 percent. Jillian: [00:31:29] That's terrific. Kate: [00:31:31] Yeah, so we're really trying to funnel as many people towards that. Jillian: [00:31:34] Got it. Okay, because we were experimenting with some promoted pins for MiloTree and what I found was when I just promoted like "Hey, grow your social following especially Pinterest" because again, the idea is I want to advertise on Pinterest that this can help your Pinterest. It was working okay but when I promoted a pin that was an article that was like "How to grow your Pinterest. Here are our top tricks and tips", that did much better by getting people to click when it was "I'm going to give you free content here. Here it is", or which did much better than "Hey, here's just an ad for us. Kate: [00:32:26] Yeah, I would agree. People need to be warmed up for sure. Jillian: [00:32:30] Yep, they need to trust you, and they need to see that there's real value there. Kate: [00:32:35] We have run ads to the landing page just for my Pinterest planner and that's like our big main opt-in. And we found that that hasn't actually converted as well as sending them to the podcast where I talk about it and they can get warmed up. Jillian: [00:32:53] Interesting. Okay. This is the thing I would say: When you do ads, test. Try things and you have to be willing to lose money. That's painful, super painful but it is true that you have to think about the fact that it's like paying for a course that you put some money behind stuff to see how it performs. And then, you try to learn as fast as possible. What is a KPI - key performance indicator? Kate: [00:33:32] Yes exactly. You try to catch up before you lose too much which is not much. It's a good idea. Yeah we were talking about a podcast I just recorded is about KPIs, key performance indicators. Jillian: [00:33:44] Can you just explain what a KPI is? Kate: [00:33:46] Yeah, so a KPI is just that key performance indicator and for Pinterest, the common KPI is our followers, sessions and then saves but we wanted to take it a step further and look. Do we actually know when a user is coming to your site from Pinterest? How much is that user worth or how much is that post making? So we could either want more traffic and spend more time doing that or we could spend some time really being strategic about where people are clicking, and what's making us the most money and try to optimize that. Kate: [00:34:26] And then once we know the cost of a click, then we could put money behind it. And we'd actually know how much we're spending on an ad, that the illustration that my guest gave was you could put a 20-dollar bill into an ATM and get out a 40-dollar bill or you could put in - That's not the best analogy but you could put in two to three cents and get back a dollar. We'd stand there all day, right? Even though it feels painful to lose 50 cents for a lead, they're worth down the line. But if we don't know that, that makes it harder. That's another element of Pinterest marketing that I think is easily forgotten. Because we are caught up in follower's sessions and saves. But a follower or a session doesn't mean anything to us if we don't know the value. Jillian: [00:35:16] Right. If you're not making money from it or you don't know how much because the idea is that you want to figure out where I can spend a dollar but I'm making a dollar fifty. And you know what? If that's the case, then you want to put as much money as you possibly can into that because you will be making money. And that's what I call finding that flywheel where you put money in, but you're getting more money out. And so those are, you know, but there can be a situation where you're putting money in and maybe you're putting in a dollar. So it doesn't feel that bad. But the truth is that it's cost two dollars for a sale even though you're like "Well, I'm just losing a dollar." You know, it's ultimately not making you money. Kate: [00:36:06] Right. Yeah, and it's hard to face some of those numbers. I mean, I will say sitting down and doing a cost analysis of my post sounds like I want to poke my eyeballs out. But once you know it, then you're more empowered to make better decisions than if you didn't know it. So it's kind of like "Do I want to bury my head in the sand or do I really want to know the numbers exactly?" Jillian: [00:36:31] Exactly. And one thing that I think happens with social media is when you get new followers, it feels good. But when you're running a business, it's not about that kind of hit of dopamine. It's about making money, and those can be very different things. Kate: [00:36:55] Yes, drastically. Jillian: [00:36:57] So I know a bunch of people who put a lot of emphasis on Instagram to grow their followers and when I say "Well, why are you growing your followers?" They don't really have a good answer. Kate: [00:37:07] Right. Because that's just the thing we've been taught to do. Jillian: [00:37:09] Exactly. So first of all, I just have to thank you because you have been so supportive of MiloTree. And you really, like way at the beginning, you put us on the map. So I just have to tell you that. Jillian: [00:37:25] And then, what I want to ask you is if you had one piece of advice for people who are starting out, and this can relate to Pinterest or not, what would it be? And maybe something you wish you knew when you were starting. Advice: Don't chase after other people's success Kate: [00:37:44] Well, I think I might have the same answer for both but a slightly different bent. And I think it would be "don't chase other people's successes." Jillian: [00:37:58] I love it. Kate: [00:37:59] Because on Pinterest, I hear it over and over again and that so-and-so has this many sessions or pageviews, so-and-so has this many followers and I want that. And when we go after that, we're distracted away from who our person is, and we're distracted away from our avatar and our focus and our vision. And the same can go for growing a business. I found, for me, probably about, I think it was two and a half years into my business, that I was reading emails from another person who was teaching Pinterest, and listening to a couple of podcasts and when I would do that, it would distract me away from what I was doing and specifically because I am a services based business. Kate: [00:38:48] My main focus is not my courses and their main focus was their courses. And so I felt this kind of push and pull away from "I'm services based and I'm gonna focus on these clients but yeah, all these people are making so much money doing courses and I want to go there," and I finally have this moment, that comparison is the thief of joy, right? So I can't chase their success. I don't have their email list, and I don't have their wiring, and I don't have their personality so I have me and me as a person who does really well in a services-based environment, who does really well with clients and loves that part of it and I have been able to scale it pretty aggressively. And I naturally fit into it, and that is okay. And so I think that would be the biggest piece of advice: "Don't chase other people's success. Chase your own because you are unique, and you have your own strengths and gifts and talents and personality." And I'm not somebody else and their take on Pinterest. I'm not going to focus on certain things and there's certain things I will and will not teach on, and that's fine. Other people are going to teach on those things. But sometimes, it's not for me and I have to be okay with that instead of trying to be all things to all people who want all types of Pinterest marketing. I'm not going to be the expert for somebody who wants a different type of philosophy with Pinterest, and I've finally come to the place where I can say "That's okay." Jillian: [00:40:24] I love it. I completely agree. It's like you have your own special sauce. We all do. And it's how do you figure out what that is and typically, I would say it's two. For me, it's two things. One, does this feel good? Do I leave this happier than when I started? So for example, for me, I'm really enjoying podcasting in a way that I didn't even know I would. So it's like "Ooh, that feels good. I want to continue" and then the other side is "are people responding in a positive way? Are people liking what I'm doing, liking what I'm selling..." So that there's this kind of feedback loop and I feel like if you can find your own feedback loop where people like what you do and you like what you're doing, that is kind of your sweet spot. Kate: [00:41:17] Right. Yeah. Agreed. Jillian: [00:41:19] So now, what about your business are you most excited about? Kate: [00:41:24] I am really excited about a new step that we're taking to teach people how to be a Pinterest account specialist and are certified in a Simple Pin Method. Jillian: [00:41:35] So explain what that is. Kate: [00:41:36] So here at Simple Pin, we do services for Pinterest account management and I have 30 team members that I've trained to be Pinterest account specialists, so I realized that teaching and training how to do this specific skill comes very naturally to me. So we realized we could take that and transfer into helping other people find work at home jobs to be Pinterest account specialists if they needed to supplement their income, or they need to find a full time income. So we took the methods that I've used, the systems that I've had and we created a whole course training as to how you can be a Pinterest account specialist being trained in our method. So we would endorse you as a provider, kind of similar to how like, I don't know, Dave Ramsey has this great method that he does with budgeting, so he endorses people to be like endorse local providers. So that would kind of be similar as to what we're doing is training people on how to do this, and how to grow their Pinterest account specialist business. Jillian: [00:42:40] Oh wow. So if you're a person and you love Pinterest and you want to make money, kind of delving in and then helping others, this is an awesome way to do it. Kate: [00:42:51] Yeah. And there was not anything like that when I was around when I was starting. There was nothing. Jillian: [00:42:56] Well, I have an assistant, and she does all of our Pinterest. And I think it is one of the - like it's her happy place because she gets to go onto Pinterest and find beautiful pins and pin our content. And I really think that when I was explaining that part of the job, I think that she's like "Oh my God. You're going to pay me to hang out on Pinterest all day?" Kate: [00:43:20] Yeah, exactly. That's what most of my account specialists say. They're like "People don't understand what I do. But I love it." Because many of them, they are young moms and they get to stay at home and do this during nap time or in the evening or they have kids who are at school or they even don't have kids, summer in college. I mean, there's a lot of things that they love about it and the freedom to be able to do it whenever it works for them and they're on Pinterest. Jillian: [00:43:45] Exactly. See, I find Pinterest very different than when I'm on Facebook. Pinterest to me is like, and I'd still get this even all these years later, just this feeling of like "Oh, filled with possibilities." Kate: [00:44:00] Pretty, pretty things. Jillian: [00:44:03] You know? It puts me in my happy place. Like "look at all this food." It just makes me happy. Kate: [00:44:10] Me too. Jillian: [00:44:11] So, okay, will you share how people can learn about you, learn more about your services, whatever, you know, so people can connect with you? How Simple Pin Media works Kate: [00:44:21] Yeah. So first of all, Simple Pin is kind of broken up into two parts. One is the services side. So if you are somebody that you've a business blog or you're corporate, whatever it is and you want to just take Pinterest management off your plate, take that chore away, that's what we primarily specialize in, and you can find more about that at simplepinmedia.com. And you can see, there's a services menu at the top and we also offer a variety of onetime services as well, and we do teach and train teams how to do that as well. So if you have a virtual assistant that you still want to do your Pinterest management but you need more support, we'd do that as well. And then there's the DIY side. So I had the Simple Pin Podcast. Jillian: [00:45:03] Which is terrific. Kate: [00:45:05] Thank you. There is I think where one episode I recorded, episode 89 today, so there's quite a bit of information and we try to keep it. The goal is to give you information to make you not feel overwhelmed because there's a lot of things out there that can feel very heady or tricky, or whatever it might be, and we try to stay away from that and just give you the most up to date information as it relates to how they're currently working on the platform. So we have that, and as with the blog too, and you can also find at simplepinmedia.com a free Pinterest planner, a year round planner, that I did in conjunction with TailWind. We partnered together to create one this year. And that has a month by month of what to pin, what to promote, content, planning ideas, tips for the month as it relates to Pinterest and then monthly action items that you can take to keep your business moving forward. Jillian: [00:45:59] Kate, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Kate: [00:46:03] You're so welcome. Jillian: [00:46:05] If you're trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterestm plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree. It is the smart pop-up you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Jillian: [00:46:27] Just a couple of things: It's super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It's Google friendly on mobile so you don't have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It's lightning fast. It won't slow your sight down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once. So check it out, milotree.com. We also offer your first 30 days free!

  Tim Young of Small Farm Nation joins the show to discuss business, marketing, and farming. Tim is one of those guys who left a successful corporate career to farm full time. After successfully building that business, he's made yet another transition that more closely reflected his family's life goals. Today, he's a homestead food producer who teaches farmers about business and marketing. Here is a sampling of the tidbits in this show: Why people fall short of what Joel Salatin has achieved? What does scale and efficiency look like? Don’t romanticize small. Romanticize what small is and small is handcrafted. Marketing is intimidating. The point of marketing is to lower the cost of selling. There are many different parts to marketing, but they all have a common goal. Every farm needs to have a brand. Marketing is an afterthought for many people. Are you running a farm as a business or a hobby? You are an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs burn their bridges behind them. Lose that day job. Working through the side hustles of an agrarian life. We admire the farmers who are entrepreneurs. Tim’s take on the ideal customer and why it’s not his focus. Get your message out and share your passion. Tim was selling trust on his farm. Farmers as marketers have a chance to be much more positive about their message. Tim takes us inside the Small Farm Nation Academy. Conversion ratios are not just for feed; your website has one too. And other website optimizations. Does podcasting work for local farms? Favorite resource: Canva. Favorite books: Omnivore’s Dilemma. Soil Health by Sir Albert Howard. Old books, pre-industrial agriculture. Advice: “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.” Stay in Touch: Tim Young's Small Farm Nation Academy and Podcast. Subscribe to the Pastured Poultry Talk: iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher

A fantastic conversation chock full of great valuable insights and advice from the wonderful Jeff Hoffman, who has started and run several companies, including being a co-founder of Priceline.com (among others). If you listen to one interview on the Entrepreneur Hot Seat, this is it. Highlights include: How Jeff got into Yale but couldn't afford it so he started a software company Started his first company because he had a big goal Most successful entrepreneurs are not motivated by money - they are driven by something more important than money Before you ask someone else for money for your business, see if you can earn it Why Jeff left his big corporate job after college Jeff didn't like the company he worked for so he designed his own company Entrepreneurs don't just complain. They analyze a problem and research ways to fix it It is so important to surround yourself with people smarter than you who know how to do things Don't kid yourself. No matter how smarter you are, you need people smarter than you Why Jeff felt disappointed after selling his company for millions of dollars When you are not motivated by money, you don't worry about it as much Jeff is more motivated by challenge and building things There is no “they” - it's you! Your success is someone else's miracle There is no shame in making money - the shame is making it and not using it to help other people Why Jeff started creating quarterly projects to help people in the community Jeff had one failed company when he thought people would want to buy clothing online Jeff was part of Walker Digital that spun off several companies including Priceline.com How Jeff applied entrepreneurial skills to launching media companies The importance of studying successful people. Why are some people mroe successful than others? Most successful people have a broad curiosity and their funnel takes in more info Jeff's “Info Sponging” technique How Jeff defines success: Any person that loves their life the way they and wouldn't change anything about their past What things will you need to have done with your life when you look back one day? The importance of spending time with people not like yourself in order to learn more The shame in life is not in failing, it is in not trying The Legacy Challenge: What would people say about you if you died today? What do you wish People would say about you? Advice: Don't believe your career and life have to be separate things I "have" to go to work vs. I "get" to go to work Links: http://www.entrepreneurhotseat.com (www.Entrepreneurhotseat.com) http://www.andystorch.com (Andy Storch Coaching) If you are interested in coaching or have feedback or questions on the podcast, feel free to send me an email: andy@andystorch.com

A fantastic conversation chock full of great valuable insights and advice from the wonderful Jeff Hoffman, who has started and run several companies, including being a co-founder of Priceline.com (among others). If you listen to one interview on the Entrepreneur Hot Seat, this is it. Highlights include: How Jeff got into Yale but couldn’t afford it so he started a software company Started his first company because he had a big goal Most successful entrepreneurs are not motivated by money - they are driven by something more important than money Before you ask someone else for money for your business, see if you can earn it Why Jeff left his big corporate job after college Jeff didn't like the company he worked for so he designed his own company Entrepreneurs don’t just complain. They analyze a problem and research ways to fix it It is so important to surround yourself with people smarter than you who know how to do things Don’t kid yourself. No matter how smarter you are, you need people smarter than you Why Jeff felt disappointed after selling his company for millions of dollars When you are not motivated by money, you don’t worry about it as much Jeff is more motivated by challenge and building things There is no “they” - it’s you! Your success is someone else’s miracle There is no shame in making money - the shame is making it and not using it to help other people Why Jeff started creating quarterly projects to help people in the community Jeff had one failed company when he thought people would want to buy clothing online Jeff was part of Walker Digital that spun off several companies including Priceline.com How Jeff applied entrepreneurial skills to launching media companies The importance of studying successful people. Why are some people mroe successful than others? Most successful people have a broad curiosity and their funnel takes in more info Jeff’s “Info Sponging” technique How Jeff defines success: Any person that loves their life the way they and wouldn’t change anything about their past What things will you need to have done with your life when you look back one day? The importance of spending time with people not like yourself in order to learn more The shame in life is not in failing, it is in not trying The Legacy Challenge: What would people say about you if you died today? What do you wish People would say about you? Advice: Don’t believe your career and life have to be separate things I "have" to go to work vs. I "get" to go to work Links: www.Entrepreneurhotseat.com Andy Storch Coaching If you are interested in coaching or have feedback or questions on the podcast, feel free to send me an email: andy@andystorch.com

"We like to approach the developer when the hotel is still a hole in the ground."   Mantra: “Get better, not bigger” Marketing: Specialize in post construction cleanup as a lead-in product to the ongoing housecleaning service Growth: Keep a list of 200 hotels in development at any given time.  20-30 are potential clients. Stress Reduction: Having a strong management team trained to make decisions as if it affects their pocketbook directly. Advice: “Don’t get to fixated on your own success.” For More Information Visit Our Site: http://ajaxunion.com

In this episode we have Brian Smith, founder of the UGG Australia brand. Graduating in 1978 as a chartered accountant in Australia, Brian came to America looking for the next big opportunity to bring back to Australia. While studying at the UCLA Graduate School of Management he noticed there was no sheep skin footwear in the U.S. With only $500 in capital he imported boot samples and over the next 17 years built the UGG Australia brand into a multi-million dollar international enterprise. He sold it in 1995 and the brand has continued to grow to exceed a billion dollars in annual sales for the past three years. When you decide to jump in, you don’t know everything. Why should you? There are a lot of things Brian didn’t know that would have stopped him had he known. But once you have jumped in and started these then just become obstacles you have to overcome, they don’t become road blocks that stop you from moving. You can’t give birth to adults. Every business started with someone conceiving the idea and then giving birth. The birth of UGG was buying six pairs of samples. But then every business goes through infancy and just lays there and every once in awhile you get a giggle out of it but you keep feeding it and changing the diapers and eventually it will start toddling. The business is getting articles or blog posts and customers are writing reviews and you are getting orders. Then it moves into youth, orders are coming in and production is good. If it’s a really good business it will hit the teen years. You want to be at every party in town. It’s a stupid dangerous phase for a business because it’s tempting to do all these big adult things you aren’t ready for. But eventually you get through that and it becomes a mature adult of a business. You have to figure out what it is your market wants and then design your advertising to make them want to be in the picture. Find out who your target is and in a small way give them credibility so they know your product is what they are looking for. Nearly always your most disappointing disappointments will become your greatest blessings. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live every day happily as a tadpole. There is nothing you can do to accelerate time, it just has to pass. The key word here is happily. You might as well get on to something you like doing while you’re waiting for the big thing to happen. Advice Don’t move out of your day job until you are forced to do it because the new business demands your time. Try to find out what you can do better than everybody else and do it. Once you start out and really focus on something you will become an expert very quickly. It doesn’t matter what the product or service is, once you become an expert the money will start flowing. If you are going to be an expert on something, it better be something you like. If you are on the brink of becoming an entrepreneur, you’re about to be born. Just jump in, whatever you have conceived give birth to it. Take the first step but don’t mortgage your life for it. Start small and enjoy the ride because it’s going to be a fun one. Contacting Brian Website: www.briansmithspeaker.com Email: brian@briansmithspeaker Brian does a small amount of coaching. He won’t coach someone unless he is sure he can help. You can buy the book on the website or on Amazon.

When a boy is molested at 8 years old and discovers pornography a few weeks later, he is at a high risk for living a dysfunctional and sinful life.  David Zailer was a victim of molestation which led him to drug addiction and eventually performing in pornography films.  This is a powerful story of how David found God at age 40 and launched Operation Integrity, an organization dedicated to helping people find resources for recovery.   “I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations.  At first I didn’t think of it as a gift and begged God to remove it.  Three times I did that and then he told me My grace is enough; it’s all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.  Once I heard that, I was glad and let it happen.” - 2 Corinthians 12   David grew up going to church for 3 to 4 weeks and eventually Gave up asking God for help. Biggest Weakness - Unbelief and Fear.  David grew up fearful, but ignored his feelings.   Biggest Strength - David is not afraid to tell the truth. Dark Time - For the first 40 years of his life David could not remember a time of being happy.  His family kept many secrets, primarily his Dad’s and he learned later in life that someone who keeps secrets can not have intimacy.  David was diagnosed as mentally retarded as a child and lived like that’s who he was.   At age 8 David was molested.  2 weeks later he found his Dad’s pornography collection and began an addiction that lasted 40 years. From being addicted to pornography, David started going to strip clubs where he discovered drugs and then the pornography industry.  Soon he was performing in porn and he was using the money for drugs. As a society we’ve compartmentalized sexuality to a point that it’s now a drug.  Women are actually catching up to men’s addiction to porn. When people are in pain because of trauma, they seek to medicate with an addiction.   Making peace with the dark time is what opens the door for God to walk through. David was caught and arrested for drug possession 3 times in one week and faced years in prison.  He was spending $500 per day on cocaine and heroine. David said to God “Help me or I will die”.  He heard a voice say, “OK David, now I can go to work.” Advice - Don’t solve your problems on your own.  Don’t be embarrassed to express weakness.  Find like minded people to talk with about your truth. David’s Books “When Lost Men Come Home” and “Our Journey Home”   For past shows and to learn more about the God's Men of Influence community, check us out atwww.godsmenofinfluence.org Join us on Facebook for our daily devotionals and updates and please like our page www.facebook.com/GodsMenOfInfluence      Help us spread the Word and please rate our show on itunes and leave comments for us. Tell us what insights you took from this episode.

After his second divorce, Mike Parker was broke and without hope.  He didn’t have enough money to provide Christmas for his boys and he spent all his time on the road trying to spend time with his daughter.  Friends and faith were the things that Mike needed to hold onto.   “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds,because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” - James 1:2-4   Mike sees himself as a dad first and a man who struggles with his faith, but is always trying to understand it. Biggest Weakness - His desire to control things.  Mike has trouble letting go of resentment.   Biggest Strength - Belief in Jesus.  Mike loves discovering that people believe in God, ministering and finding fellowship. Dark Time - Mike became a bad husband when he started struggling financially.  He lost his job in Palm Springs and was exhausted all the time driving to see his daughter from his first marriage.  Mike fell out of love with his second wife and began drinking a lot and cheating.  Soon his wife filed for a restraining order and he had to leave his home within a week.  Mike set up bunk beds in his dark 2 bedroom apt for his sons and after saying goodnight snuck back into their room and cried for 3 hours. Ego caused Mike to stop caring about his wife.  He took everything for granted and when his job started going south he began blaming and became selfish.  He has yet to earn the faith and trust of his ex-wife, but he still resents the way she’s treating him. Many times during this dark period Mike didn’t think God was in his life and began asking what faith really means. Mike has turned his anger at being away from his kids to gratitude at the time he spends with them. Advice - Don’t be an island unto yourself, because you can’t do it alone.  Small men’s groups are essential. Recommended Book - “Raising A Modern Day Knight.” - Robert Lewis God’s Men of Influence - Reaching out when it’s not easy, because you never know who you will touch.   For past shows and to learn more about the God's Men of Influence community, check us out atwww.godsmenofinfluence.org Join us on Facebook for our daily devotionals and updates and please like our page www.facebook.com/GodsMenOfInfluence       Help us spread the Word and please rate our show on itunes and leave comments for us. Tell us what insights you took from this episode.

Pride makes it very difficult to be a great leader as a husband, father, business owner and Christian, but it is always there.  The enemy wants us to be prideful and put ourselves before God.  On this episode, Dino’s guest Tony Alesandra professes that he must always remember that God is in charge and he must lead his community by the example of service not words.  Take a listen to Tony’s very personal and inspirational walk with God.   “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” - Proverbs 3:5   Tony needs reminders that God is there and on his side.  He feels “stuck on stupid” when he walks alone, so he now creates a very personal walk with God. Biggest Weakness - There are times when he backslides and thinks only of himself.  In those moments he has to remind himself that God’s in charge.  Pride and ego build when things are going well and then you crash. Biggest Strength - Leading by example.  Tony tries very hard to let his walk speak louder than his words. There is no need to judge anyone.  Only God is perfect. Dark Time - When Tony went to college he forgot that God was there for him and spent those years focusing on himself and what he wanted. At age 27 his friend moved in and they began doing bible study in the morning. A-ha moment - When Tony began asking God to help him find his wife she appeared and they married 3 months after beginning their relationship.  He then knew he had to re-commit to God.  They’ve been married for 22 years. Advice - Don’t put your ego first.  Serve the person you’re with as well as the relationship. Transition from Catholicism to Christianity was ego because he went from a rigid to fluid relationship with God. Be bold and ask God into your life.  Also, become part of a great church that suits you. God’s Men of Influence - Be a man of God in the workplace so that you may lead. Tony is a member of Capo Beach Church. Tony was baptized as a baby and again at age 31. The closer Tony gets to God, the more he realizes he’s still far away. Best advice given - Rick Warren “Choose to Grow from it instead of Go from it”.  Leaders don’t run. Recommended Book - “Jesus Calling” - Sarah Young Favorite Charity - Boystown tony@ins-solutions.com   For past shows and to learn more about the God's Men of Influence community, check us out atwww.godsmenofinfluence.org Join us on Facebook for our daily devotionals and updates and please like our page www.facebook.com/GodsMenOfInfluence     Help us spread the Word and please rate our show on itunes and leave comments for us. Tell us what insights you took from this episode.

Kelly Fidel, CEO of No Glass Ceiling™, has developed the “winning formula”; taking her own insider secrets and strategies used in the boardroom to create a “level playing field” for entrepreneurs to profit wildly. Kelly candidly shares what works, what doesn't and how to harness lucrative NEW Profit Channels. The End Goal? PLAY A BIGGER GAME & PROFIT WILDLY! "Every woman deserves to live her own life without a permission slip." - Kelly Fidel Inspiration: Kelly had a great career and worked in fortune 100 boardrooms, but was often seeing people struggling for no reason. It always stuck with her that there was really no reason for that to happen. She later built and sold a few companies and realized that this could really make money and started out on her own. Challenge: About 20 years ago is when Kelly really had the idea for No Glass Ceiling. Her mother really pushed her to go for it and start things. Life was happening and one day she reached for her cell phone and collided with a tree at 50 miles per hour. She had to relearn how to walk and talk and live her life. Kelly later learned, in four months, what was normally an 18 month experience, Kelly became more clear on what was an acceptable compromise and what she would NEVER again sacrifice. Passion: Winning Football Games! - Growing the membership at No Glass Ceiling to help people move the dial in the business. You may not be able to have it all, but you can have what you want. Kelly has a vision for the next five years of maintaining an Exit Strategy. Allowing her to use her business as a platform to keep things running for the future and providing support for the market. Advice: Don't worry about being clear on the purpose or strategy. Growth starts with what the outcome target is. Reverse engineer your years so that you know what you can create. Entrepreneurs Resource: Kelly ran seven figure businesses on PayPal, Aweber and LeadPages. Now what she uses WordPress with WishList Member™ and that goes into two cart systems; 1 Shopping Cart and PayPal Pro. Zapier is a magic tool that integrates with everything. Trello (project management tools) and my library card. The Library provides free access to databases that you would have to pay thousands of dollars for in any other format. Blogs, Books & Podcasts: TED Talks - A Fabulous way to learn, Kelly is a self-proclaimed TED Freak. The Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki - what's fascinating is that anything to do with crowd source or funding can be discovered here. Break Out! - Joel Osteen Oprah Though Kelly admits she prefers the 'old' Oprah to the 'new' Oprah. Selling to Big Companies - Jill Konrath Well, anything by Jill is a wonder. Jill is the Godmother of selling to corporate clients and big ticket sales. Kelly loves any leadership style books. But what bothers her is that a large number of the books are all writen by and for men. Looking Back: Kelly says, "Go have lunch with Katherine Hepburn while she was still alive, she was a person just like you. It's okay to be afraid, JUMP. God keeps good records, he has your back and nothing bad is going to happen. Interview Links: Learn more about Kelly by visiting her at No Glass Ceiling. Click Here to Subscribe in iTunes Follow us via Stitcher Listen in via RSS Ready to unleash YOUR Purpose? Sign up for our free weekly The Online Biz Workshop @ TheOnlineBizWebinar ________________________ The post #32 Kelly Fidel appeared first on .

    John Lee Dumas is the founder and the host of Entrepreneur on Fire. It is a top ranked business podcast, named “Best in iTunes” in 2013, that generates 450,000 unique downloads a month. On his show, he interviews inspiring and successful entrepreneurs 7 days a week. Inspiration: At the time John started his show, there had never been a podcast that interviewed an inspiring successful entrepreneur every day of the week. He knew there was a void that needed to be filled, and thus Entrepreneur on Fire was conceived. Challenge:  While seeking advice from others before the launch of the show, John was told countless times that a daily podcast would simply not work. Hearing that discouraging message from his mentors, he felt paralyzed with fear. He had to muster up the courage, put “blinders” on, and push through the resistance to get the podcast released... after delaying the launch date three times. Passion: John is super passionate about serving his amazing community. He loves listening to their needs and giving them exactly what they want.   Out of this love of serving his audience, another passion of John's arose - “Webinar on Fire;” it is a step-by-step program on how to create, present, and convert webinars.  Advice: Don't let fear stop you from doing great things. EVERYBODY feels fear, but only successful people push through to the end. Get a Mentor. It is much easier to accomplish your goals with the guidance of someone who's been there before. The two most powerful words that will shuttle you to success: Just Start. Doing little things every single day to get closer to your goal will have massive results down the line. Always be in the position to take advantage of the next opportunity. Entrepreneurs Resource: WorkFlowy is a simple, but powerful to-do list tool. Schedule Once is a great tool for scheduling appointments with other people. Google tools for most of your business needs: Google Docs, Google Drive, Gmail. Blogs, Books & Podcasts: The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness by Jeff Olson  The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy  Ask Pat Podcast Conversioncast The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks Looking Back:  If John could go back in time, he would tell his younger self to stop stalling and launch his business sooner. By delaying his podcast launch five weeks, he pushed his progress back five weeks; John sees this now as a $100,00 dollar mistake. If he could wave a magic wand and change one thing, he would have taken his own advice and just started without over-thinking it. Interview Links: John on Google+ John's LinkedIn page Click Here to Subscribe in iTunes Follow us via Stitcher Listen in via RSS If you like the show do me a BIG favor and leave a rating and review on iTunes and Share this episode with others by clicking the Social Links on the left. Thanks for listening!   Ready to unleash YOUR Purpose? Sign up for our free weekly Unleash! Workshop @ TheBreakthroughAcademy ________________________ [saf] The post Ep #12: Taking the Leap with John Lee Dumas appeared first on .