Podcast appearances and mentions of chris cree

Do you struggle knowing your purpose and calling in life?  Tune into this transformation episode to learn practical insights and actionable steps, along with personal stories to encourage your journey.  Chris Cree of New CREEations ministries and I have a live discussion on how we need to have a kingdom mindset in order to understand our purpose and calling. We share three key purposes we must know first before we will understand our calling. To have a personal, intimate relationship with Father God, Jesus and Holy Spirit. To be conformed into the image of Christ To be His ambassador; to mature and express His love, life and light. We are to steward what we have been given.   **My new book is coming soon. Message me at Lori@LoriKSnyder.com if you are interested in getting on my mailing list to be the first to hear all about it.   Watch Chris' other great interviews on His YouTube channel: Kingdom Mindsets. https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomMindsets or his website: https://newcreeations.org   Key Scriptures 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Colossians 3:17, 23-24, Colossians 1:13, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 3:20, Genesis 1:26   Other episodes with Chris Cree: Ep. 111 Better Than Miracles with Chris Cree  Ep. 104 Unlocking the Power of the Kingdom of God in Your Life Ep. 98 The Power of Hope to Overcome Disappointment and Discouragement   Ep.87 Soul Health: Key to Thriving Ep. 70 Heart Connection With God. Guidance And Tips To Grow In Your Faith  Ep. 64 How To Receive The Emotional Desires of Your Heart   

Miracles, signs, and wonders. We all want to see these kinds of things God can do for us, But what if there is something even better than the experiencing the supernatural?   In today's episode, "Better Than Miracles," Lori K. Snyder and Chris Cree of New CREEations Ministries discuss the importance of why seeking God's face over His hand offers not just a deeper relationship with the Lord but is the pathway for a life of greater purpose, joy, and unwavering faith.  We dive into aligning your identity with God's truth and embracing a life filled with supernatural experiences that often result in beautifully ordinary ways.    This episode is about stepping into a faith that partners with God's grace through bold imagination, hope, and a relentless pursuit of His presence. Join us as we learn to activate our faith and prioritize an intimate relationship with God, allowing His supernatural power to work through us in everyday life.   We will not experience all God's purpose and all He has planned for us without a deep, close relationship with Him.   We equip and inspire you with our insights of God's Word and personal experiences, so you can practically apply these in your own life today.  Psalm 103:7 “He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel." John 14:6  John 17:3 Ephesians 3:20  Matthew 6:33 Luke 17:12-17 Be sure to check out Chris' other great interviews on His YouTube channel: Kingdom Mindsets. https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomMindsets We have several other podcast episodes: Ep. 104 Unlocking the Power of the Kingdom of God in Your Life  https://loriksnyder.com/unlocking-the-power-of-the-kingdom-of-god-in-your-life/ Ep. 98 The Power of Hope to Overcome Disappointment and Discouragement https://loriksnyder.com/the-power-of-hope-to-overcome-disappointment-and-discouragement/   Ep.87 Soul Health: Key to Thriving  https://loriksnyder.com/soul-health-key-to-thriving/ Ep. 80 Wait on the Lord  https://loriksnyder.com/wait-on-the-lord-receive-strength-courage-and-faith-in-difficult-times-with-chris-cree/ Ep. 70 Heart Connection With God. Guidance And Tips To Grow In Your Faith https://loriksnyder.com/heart-connection-with-god-guidance-tips-to-grow-in-your-faith/ Ep. 64 How To Receive The Emotional Desires of Your Heart https://loriksnyder.com/how-to-receive-the-emotional-desires-of-your-heart/

Welcome to the Created To Thrive Podcast, the podcast designed to help you deepen your relationship with God, cultivate healthy mindsets and emotions, and step into your God-given potential.  **FREE Training: How To Experience God's Best For You + More Free Resources: https://loriksnyder.com/resources/   Welcome to the Created To Thrive Podcast, the podcast designed to help you deepen your relationship with God, cultivate healthy mindsets and emotions, and unlock your God-given potential.    In today's episode 104, “Unlocking the Power of the Kingdom of God in Your Life”, we will be discussing the Kingdom of God, and how you can practically experience God's will for you right now. I have found that the kingdom of God is a topic most people haven't been taught on and so don't understand very well. We want to empower you with understanding some basics today.   Out of all the things the Apostle Paul could have used to characterize the kingdom of God, he chose righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Many people would most like have put faith, authority, power, miracles, being holy, and other things in that list.  But Paul boiled it down to having a right standing with God that produces peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  The kingdom of God isn't about keeping rules and regulations; it's about relationship with God the Father and Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.    Discovering the transformative power of the Kingdom of God can bring profound changes to your life. It's not just a spiritual concept, but a tangible reality that can unlock a multitude of blessings and opportunities. The Kingdom of God is not just a distant concept or an abstract idea; it is a reality that can be unlocked and experienced in your everyday life. It is a realm where God's reign and rule bring forth abundant blessings, peace, joy, and purpose.   Join Chris Cree of New CREEations Ministries and I as we discuss the role of the Holy Spirit in our faith journey, and how partnering with Him can transform our minds, renew our soul, and guide us in every aspect of life. My life was dramatically transformed when I started learning the truths about how God's kingdom operates and how its God's will for me to experience it here on the earth. I had to learn how to rest in God's love for me as His Daughter.  Kingdom Mindsets.   Learn more about & support New CREEations Ministries: https://newcreeations.org   Connect with Lori K. Snyder: https://loriksnyder.com/ or on Facebook or Instagram @LoriKaySnyder   Today's Topic: Understanding the Kingdom of God - Emphasis on the transformative power of understanding the Kingdom of God - Encouragement to explore and embrace God's love, righteousness, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in daily life. - Importance of intimate relationship with God as intended in Genesis - Releasing God's kingdom through a renewed mind - Reference to Romans 12:2 on transforming the mind to know God's will Topic: The Holy Spirit and God's Kingdom - Importance of understanding the different aspects of the godhead - Quoting Hosea 4:6: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" - Comparison of the godhead to the three parts of a human being: spirit, soul, body - Importance of understanding God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit - Holy Spirit living within individuals - Abiding in union with God and waiting for His kingdom to come - Releasing love and prayers in everyday life, becoming carriers of God's presence - Cooperating and partnering with the Holy Spirit - Role of the Holy Spirit as the spirit of truth, comforter, helper, teacher, and advocate - Sharing personal experiences of relying on the Holy Spirit for guidance and wisdom - Acknowledging the Holy Spirit's presence and its impact on faith and communication Topic: Transformative Encounter with God - Previous distorted view of God as a police officer waiting to punish - Marriage in a state of dysfunction and contemplating divorce - Seeking a deep connection with God and significance in life - Rediscovery of God's unconditional love and the sacrifice of Jesus - Developing a relationship with the Holy Spirit and experiencing faith renewal - Healing of body and soul, saving of the marriage #CreatedToThrivePodcast #KingdomOfGod #BiblicalTruths #Righteousness #GodsLove #HolySpirit   *Learn more about Chris & support New CREEations Ministries: https://newcreeations.org Watch more of his Kingdom Mindset videos: https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomMindsets where he has a live teaching every Tuesday at 12:00PM EST.   Connect with Lori: Website: https://loriksnyder.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lori.snyder.1610 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lorikaysnyder/   **Other episodes to listen to with Chris or Lisa Cree: Ep. 98 The Power of Hope to Overcome Disappointment and Discouragement with Chris Cree  Ep. 90 |  Experiencing the Unconditional Love of Our Heavenly Father with Lisa Cree Ep. 64 “How To Receive The Desires of Your Heart with Chris Cree”  

If you're in a time of transition and looking for clarity and direction, this episode is for you.   Welcome to the Created To Thrive podcast, where we give you tools and insights to help you thrive during every season of life, not just survive or go through the motions. Today, we are talking about how to navigate change and transition well into your new season or in a time of uncertainty. This is one topic I specialize in.  **Grab your Free guide: 10 Steps to Navigating Change and Life Transitions! Get clarity and direction today! https://loriksnyder.com/resources/   As the new school year begins, many of us find ourselves facing transitions of our own. Some of you are sending your first child off to college, others may be empty nesters now as all of your children head off to college. It's a time of mixed emotions, and we may be feeling uncertain about what our next steps should be.   I want to walk along side you, to guide you through these transitions, to give you strategies to thrive. Whether you're adjusting to new schools, changing jobs, relocating to a new city or state, or simply finding yourself in a pause, I want to share some wisdom and insights that will provide you with practical tools and a fresh perspective on navigating change. I will also have a free download for you, to go deeper in the steps to have a successful transitions. Go to Loriksnyder.com/resources for a free download of actionable steps and wisdom to help you grow.   In today's episode, titled "Navigating Change and Life Transitions:  Insights and Tools to Trust God to Thrive,” I am sharing a portion of when I was a guest on my good friends' Dr.'s Cathy and Tim Taig's former podcast, called Faith & Family Frontier. This was recorded a year and half ago. Cathy Taig was just on episode 100, where we talked about birthing hope.    Let's dive deep into the process of trusting God and walking by faith. Get ready to be inspired, encouraged, and equipped to embrace the next chapter of your life with confidence and purpose.   This episode is sponsored by the Taig Team, and Dr. Cathy Taig's new book, called “Birth Right: Discovering God's Best For Your Birth Experience” If you are either wanting to get pregnant, are expecting, or know someone who is, then go to taigteam.com, that's Taig team. Com to get your copy today, as well as grab a few others to give away as gifts. Dr. Cathy shares her journey of overcoming many years of infertility and miscarriage, as well as helping countless women be empowered to give their baby the best birthing experience.  — the power of faith, the transformation that comes with deepening one's relationship with God, and the abundance of life that is possible through these transitions.   Here are the  top three key takeaways from the conversation:   1️⃣ Embrace change and be flexible: Change is inevitable, and rolling with the punches is crucial. Adapting to new situations and being open to different opportunities can lead to incredible growth and experiences.   2️⃣ Trust in God's guidance: Sometimes, God calls us to make unconventional decisions that might not align with our plans. Trusting in His plan and following His lead can lead to blessings and transformation beyond our wildest dreams.   3️⃣ Navigating transitions takes time and maturity: Transitioning to new phases of life requires patience and a willingness to learn and grow. It's a journey that can lead to discovering new depths of faith and purpose.   As a thank you for being a loyal listener to this Created To Thrive Podcast, I have a free download for you, to give you insight and actionable steps to help you embrace change, trust God, and transition into this new season successfully. Go to Loriksnyder.com/resources   If you have been listening to this podcast for any length of time, would you please leave me a review of apple podcast, or share a screenshot of this podcast on social media and tag me @lorikaysnyder?  This would help me know that these episode are helping you. Also, if you have a topic or question that you would like me to address in future episodes, please email me at lori@loriksnyder.com or DM me on social media. I want to ensure I am having guests and topics that matter most to you.   Thank you all, for being a loyal listener to this podcast, and sharing it with your friends and family who want inspiration and tools to thrive in every area of their life! Please continue to share, and message me with any questions you have about your faith, mindsets, emotions, and heart healing. I would love to address your questions or concerns on future episodes!   **Listen to these other episodes on transition: Ep. 48 "Four Fears That Hold You Back & The Answer To Overcome Them" Ep. 47 "Four Keys to Help You Transition Well and Embrace Change" Ep. 80 Waiting on the Lord with Chris Cree

Welcome back to the Created To Thrive Podcast, where we unpack the abundant life that God has designed for each of us. I'm your host, Lori K. Snyder, and today we have a powerful episode lined up for you.   We're diving deep into the power of hope and how it can transform our lives like never before. You see, hope is more than just wishful thinking or empty optimism. It's a confident expectation of future good, anchored in the unfailing promises of God.   Life can be full of disappointments and challenges that make it hard to hold on to hope. You might have been told to not get your hopes up about a situation.  It's easy to feel overwhelmed and lose sight of the promises that God has for us. Without hope, we may feel stuck, lost, and unable to find the strength to trust God and move forward in faith.    As a resiliency coach and Bible teacher, I guide individuals in bouncing back from setbacks and finding hope and faith in the midst of trials.  I know first hand the battle of feeling hopeless, and I was recently a guest on my friend Chris Cree's live broadcast called Two for Tuesday, where I share some of my journey and we teach on the power of hope. I didn't want you, my listeners to miss out, so today I'm sharing some of this episode.     We will unpack the depth of what true hope means, understand the negative impacts of hopelessness, and why we need to abound in hope to see God's promises fulfilled and have stronger faith. We will share practical strategies and personal insights on how we can cultivate, nurture, and sustain hope in our daily lives.    If you want to strengthen your faith, you can listen to more of Chris's live Two for Tuesday broadcasts where he has amazing guest who teach God's Word to help you grow. I will have that link in the show notes. I also want to encourage you to make sure you are subscribed to this Created To Thrive podcast, where we equip and empower you to live a life of purpose and fulfillment.    My friends, whether you're going through a difficult season, experiencing loss or disappointment, or simply seeking to deepen your faith, this episode is for you. This episode will help you understand how faith, hope and love are foundations for a thriving live.   So grab a cup of coffee, find a comfortable spot, and get ready to be inspired, encouraged, and empowered as we explore the importance of hope in our lives and how we can confidently anchor our hope in the unwavering goodness of our Heavenly Father. You don't want to miss this. Stay tuned for our conversation with Chris Cree.  Connect with Chris Cree: Learn more about & support New CREEations Ministries: https://newcreeations.org Connect with Lori: https://loriksnyder.com Key scriptures:, 1 Corinthians 13:13, Hebrews 11:1, Proverbs 13:12, Romans 15:13, Hebrews 6:19 Discussion points: - Importance of learning to grieve for growth - The physical and emotional sickness caused by deferred hope - Desires of the heart for security, love, and connection - Acknowledging the necessity of these desires for well-being - Lack of desires leading to sickness or depression- Managing expectations and disappointments - Seeking solace and encouragement from God in challenging times - Acknowledgment that Christians are not immune to troubles and hardships - Belief that God will use everything for their good - Importance of redirecting focus to Jesus and seeking guidance from Him - Psalm 37:4 and the promise of desires fulfilled when delighting in the Lord - Core desires for feeling safe and secure - God as the rock of refuge and source of trust and security - The metaphorical tree of life representing a sense of meaningfulness and satisfaction - Fulfilling desires to feel alive and energized - Admiral Stockdale's observation about surviving captivity and unrealistic expectations - Importance of maintaining hope while facing the reality of the present - Finding hope in the truth, even without faith yet - Holding on to hope and not giving up, knowing God's word is true - Receiving promises through faith and patience - Connection between hope and faith, pulling it from the spiritual into the natural - Understanding the impact of hope deferred and the narratives we tell ourselves - The power of Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life - Romans 15:13 and the filling of believers with joy, peace, and hope through the Holy Spirit - Reference to Psalm 42 and David's encouragement to have hope in God - Emphasizing love as the foundation of life and receiving God's love - Love as the foundation, hope built upon love, and faith built upon hope - Seeing through the eyes of love and having hope based on God's promises - Understanding Bible hope as confident expectation of future good.  

Today, I am sharing a recent live teaching I just had with my friend Chris Cree, of New CREEations Ministries. Chris is the host of a weelky Kingdom Mindsets broadcast called “Two For Tuesday, and I have been honored to be his regular guest. I didn't want you to miss out on our important conversation, so I'm sharing that with you today.   It's titled “How Soul Health is Key to Thriving”   We discuss  •Why soul health is so crucial for individuals seeking to thrive in all areas of life •What are soul wounds and how do we heal from them   •How can we experience God's power working in us to have a thriving soul Get ready to uncover valuable insights, practical tips, inspiring stories and Scriptures that will empower you on your own journey to have a thriving soul.    Connect with Chris Cree and find his resources at https://newcreeations.org   **Listen to two other popular episodes with Chris Cree are: Ep. 64 How To Receive The Desires of Your Heart with Chris Cree Ep. 51 Three Crucial Aspects of Knowing God Intimately & Relating To The Trinity   ***FREE Bible Training: How To Live In God's Best For You! LoriKsnyder.com/free-training/   Understand what God has made available to you through Jesus' obedience and finished work. Questions: contact me  lori@loriksnyder.com IG: @lorikaysnyder   FB: @lorikaysnyder  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorikaysnyder/

Waiting is never easy, especially today in our instant gratification society.  Whether it's a relationship, financial or health issue, or just a transition.   It can be difficult to wait on God, especially when we feel like we have no control over our circumstances.  We often want our problem fixed right now, instead of going through the process of waiting.    Typically, we often act in one of two ways while waiting on a promise from God.  1. We try to jump ahead of God and make things happen ourselves, not wanting to wait on His timing or plan. 2. Do nothing and wait passively for God to do something.   I recently was a guest on Kingdom Mindset's Two For Tuesday, which is a live teaching hosted by my friend, Chris Cree of New CREEations Ministries. We had great discussion on what does waiting on the Lord mean and why is it important we have a different attitude about waiting. I want to share that with you today. It's a practical teaching on Psalm 27:13-14 with some other supporting scriptures, to help you get a better understanding of what waiting means and practically looks like in our own life. Connect with Chris Cree and find his videos and resources at https://newcreeations.org   Connect with Lori Snyder for resources or work with her personally in discovering what your heart needs to thrive: loriksnyder.com  Waiting upon and trusting God go hand-in-hand. God wants a heart connection with you, to fill you, not fix you  Listen now as we teach how God will give us the strength and courage to face whatever comes our way while also providing peace during times of uncertainty.  *Please share this with a friend who needs encouragement and be sure to follow this podcast and subscribe to Chris Cree's videos. Scriptures (NKJV): Psalm 27:13-14  Hebrews 4:16 Romans 8:28    Two other episodes with Chris Cree: Ep. 70: How To Connect With God From Your Heart. Guidance & Tips With Chris Cree. Ep. 64: How To Receive The Emotional Desires Of Your Heart with Chris Cree  

How do we love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength? (The greatest commandment) How are each of these areas different? What does it mean to be still and know God? (Psalm 46:10)   Often we focus on the intellectual part of our relationship with God, doing activities such as Bible reading, prayer, and attending church from the head rather than from the heart. However, loving God is actually a response to Him first loving us. Join me and my friend Chris Cree, who is the host of Two For Tuesdays, as we share the importance of connecting with God from the heart to experience a truly meaningful relationship with Him.   Chris Cree and his wife Lisa are the founders of New CREEations Ministries. Connect with Chris Cree and find his resources at https://newcreeations.org for all of Chris' books, videos and teachings.   I am passionate about helping others experience a deeper relationship with Jesus, unlock their full potential, and thrive in all aspects of life. **Want help processing your difficult emotions? I am a certified Resiliency Coach and can help. Let's have a FREE connection chat to discuss how I might be able to help you thrive.  Email me with the words: “THRIVE CALL” at Lori@loriksnyder.com or DM me on Instagram @lorikaysnyder or Facebook @lorikaysnyder -> My Gift to you: FREE Training: How To Live In God's Best For You! LoriKsnyder.com/free-training/   Understand what God has made available to you through Jesus' obedience and finished work.  

God wants to connect with us in a deep and authentic way, to reveal His love and heal our brokenness, so we can experience His freedom, joy and peace! Our soul needs to prosper so we can experience a thriving life. (3John 1:2) Once a month, I am a guest on my friend Chris Cree of NewCREEations Ministries show called Two For Tuesday, where he does a live teaching/discussion. This is that recording, where we discuss how we can receive the emotional desires of our heart.   I also recently conducted an impromptu coaching session for Chris, where he experienced God giving him some unknown emotional desires. In the coaching session, we were able to uncover some limiting beliefs and unhealthy coping strategies in order for Chris to breakthrough to a new level. Chris, like many had been taught if he wanted something, or enjoyed it, that's it his flesh and not of God. He was also taught to devalue his emotions. Yet the Bible talks about when we delight ourselves in God, He gives us the desires of our hearts. (Psalm 37:4)   God is a heart God. We are to love Him with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength.   We are spirit, soul and body. Spiritual growth and emotional wellness go hand-in-hand. Emotional healing and wholeness should be a regular part of our Christian lifestyle.   Connect with Chris Cree to hear his weekly Two For Tuesday live Bible teachings and find all of his resources at https://newcreeations.org *A popular episodes with Chris Cree to listen to: Giving God Your “Yes” To Discover Your Purpose With New CREEations Ministries   Are you ready to breakthrough and experience spiritual wisdom and emotional wellness? To determine if my Thriving Coaching Program is right for you, contact me for a free breakthrough call. https://loriksnyder.com/work-with-me/   Other helpful episodes to listen to: Ep. 60 Is Your Soul Prospering? Why Emotional Wellness Is Critical To Our Health, Relationships and Life! 54 How To Experience Emotional Wellness with Lisa Pinney  

Do you struggle with obedience? Is it difficult surrendering to God?   I invite you into a faithfulness mindset shift.  Faithfulness is living from the inside-out, where your heart is involved, and it's transformative. Obedience doesn't mean God has our heart and won't transform us. Obedience trains us to follow God's Word, but we can obey but not love. Often, obedience can be of performance & a punishment-based relationship vs. God's loving kindness and faithfulness.   Our greatest command is to love God with all that we are and to love others as ourself. God wants our heart. We are to be conformed into the image of Christ. He is called Faithful and True! (Revelation 19:11) Jesus said people would know that we are His disciples by our love.(John 13:35) Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22-23) When I surrender to Love, I will take steps of obedience and faith. Love is my motive to be faithful to God, and then practice it.   In the Old Covenant obedience was crucial because it determined whether God's people received blessing or curses. (1 Samuel 15:22) In the New Covenant, faithfulness comes to the forefront. Hebrews 11 is known as the “Hall of Faith” not obedience. As New Covenant Believers of Jesus Christ, we are already blessed based upon Jesus' obedience and performance. God has already blessed us Ephesians 1  2 Peter 1:2-4   In this episode, I share a live discussion I had with my friend, Chris Cree of New CREEations Ministries. We discuss a Kingdom Mindset about the difference between faithfulness and obedience and why faithfulness is so important.   Please subscribe to this podcast and share this with your friends! Leave a review as well on Apple Podcast. Connect with Chris Cree and find his resources at https://newcreeations.org Connect with Lori: lori@loriksnyder.com IG: https://www.instagram.com/lorikaysnyder/ FB:https://www.facebook.com/lorikaysnyder LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorikaysnyder/ FREE Bible Training: How To Live In God's Best For You! LoriKsnyder.com/free-training/   Understand what God has made available to you through Jesus' obedience and finished work.

For too many years, I did all of the Christian disciplines: read the Bible, prayed, went to church and serve faithfully…but had no clue how to relate to God on an intimate level. I certainly didn't know about the role of the Holy Spirit in my life. I knew “about” God, but not as a loving Father!   One day, in 2006, I heard "a benediction” at the end of a bible radio show, and my ears and eyes were opened. It was 2 Corinthians 13:14 in the Message translation:  “The amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”    I realized I didn't know God in this way, yet I desired for a more meaningful relationship with Him. This began a journey of discovery for me, to understand how to relate to all three persons of the Godhead/Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.   In today's episode, I share a recent live teaching I did with my good friend, Chris Cree, of New CREEations Ministries, and we discuss some great insights and the importance of how God wants to relate to us. Key take-aways: •Grace & Truth came through Jesus Christ. We dive into the Greek meaning of “grace” and how understanding grace changes everything. •We must receive the love of Father God. Faith works through love and we must take time to get rooted and grounded in His love for us in order to love others well. (Ephesians 3:14-20) •What fellowship or communion with the Holy Spirit looks like. **** As my gift to you, I am offering a FREE workshop that will help you in your journey of knowing God more intimately and experiencing the life He desires you to live—His Best! I want to help you remove lies, receive Truth, and release who your were created to be—His representative here on earth! It's time to live in His fullness and thrive! This will be a live training this Wednesday night at 8PM Eastern, via Zoom September 7th. No worries if you can't make it live. I will send you the recording so you won't miss out on anything. I am not only going to teach but also have some activations where you can easily hear from God for yourself. Here's the LINK. Contact me: LoriKSnyder.com  lori@loriksnyder.com Message me on IG of FB @lorikaysnyder.   *Connect with Chris Cree and find his resources at https://newcreeations.org Previous podcast episodes with Chris Cree: •Bonus: Receiving God's Love For You - A Key To Transformation with Chris Cree •Giving God Your “Yes” To Discover Your Purpose With New CREEations Ministries •How To Let God's Peace Rule Your Heart with Chris Cree  

Our greatest need is to love and be loved. We first need to receive God's unconditional love for us, before we can truly love others well. God is Love.   In this bonus episode, Chris Cree and Lori Snyder discuss God's love and its role in transforming our lives. Lori will share the key to enhancing our ability to believe, trust, and unlock your faith to activate God's promises.   Another episode that would be helpful is Episode 40 "The Goodness of God".   • Want to experience a deeper relationship with God, grow in your understanding of your true value and identity in Christ, and live empowered? For 1-1 Mentoring, Email Lori@loriksnyder.com .   • Grab my FREE Guide to Hearing God With Confidence or scriptures on your identity in Christ: https://loriksnyder.com/resources/   Live Youtube video teaching of this episode: https://youtu.be/f0dSfjQU1wc   Connect with Chris Cree and his ministry: https://newcreeations.org  

Want to experience more joy in your life? In this episode, I share a live teaching and discussion with my friend, Chris Cree, of New CREEations Ministries. We discuss how we can practically experience God's love, joy and peace on a regular basis. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit…God's abiding presence. Joy sustains you and gives confidence to move forward in faith, despite your circumstances. We discuss how the joy of the Lord is your strength, and how Jesus instructed us to abide in His love and that He would give us unending joy.  Key Scriptures: Proverbs 13:12 Psalm 16:11 John 15:9-11 Nehemiah 8:10 Hebrews 12:2 Romans 14:17   Watch the live broadcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBVUU7vJgyY&t=569s • Connect with Lori on Facebook & IG: @lorikaysnyder Support our ministry and podcast with a tax deductible donation HERE.  • Connect with Chris Cree: https://newcreeations.org Facebook: @Chris Cree  @newCREEations

Do you desire to experience God's peace on a regular basis and be led by Holy Spirit?    Do you want His peace to help you make decisions with confidence?   In today's episode, I share a recent live broadcast with host Chris Cree of New CREEations Ministries, where we discussed these such things as: •What is God's peace. •How peace is a fruit of the Spirit and is also a way God directs our steps.  •How God's Grace and Peace work together. •How Joy & Peace are connected. •How to “let the peace of God rule in your heart….” (Colossians 3:15)   We share a  practical process of how you can be led by God's peace to make difficult decisions with confidence and joy.   Watch our live video recording: https://youtu.be/WU_UY2fUstk This episode was a continuation of previous live discussions on how “The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”     Chris Cree is a Bible teacher and author of several books that will help you grow deeper in your identity and authority in Christ, and experience the life God intends for you. Learn more about his ministry at https://newcreeations.org •Connect with him on socials: @ChrisCree @NewCREEations   •Connect with me: https://loriksnyder.com FB & IG @lorikaysnyder https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWn_XJAe3pqx3DonZyFZRLg

Turmoil and upheaval make us question our faith. It's easy to get caught up in the chaos of things happening around us. It makes us shortsighted. Worse, it can reach a point where we box ourselves into the belief that the world revolves around us. We lose faith because we think we're alone in our struggles. But that is far from the reality God has planned for us. He created us to succeed and thrive. And only when we put in our pure and absolute trust can we find our meaning of faith. In this episode, Tim delves into faith as the second foundational principle to success. He explains how these principles are instrumental to the main character of his book. He then shares how the podcast listeners define faith from their perspectives. We'll also get a glimpse of the book's definition of faith and how we can learn from it. Finally, Tim shares a heartwarming glorification his wife did for him that reinforced his faith in humanity. If you want to redefine the meaning of faith and success in your life, tune in to this episode!  Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Discover why love comes before faith. Define the meaning of faith. Understand that there is a bigger picture — the world doesn't revolve around a single person. Resources Check out the following Seek Go Create Podcast episodes: https://seekgocreate.com/love-a-foundational-principle-to-success/ (Love: A First Foundational Principle to Success)  https://seekgocreate.com/from-ministry-worker-to-international-businesswoman-mixing-faith-business-with-katie-hornor/ (From Ministry Worker to International Businesswoman: Mixing Faith & Business with Katie Hornor) https://seekgocreate.com/is-god-really-in-control-qa-with-chris-cree/ (Is God Really in Control | Q&A with Chris Cree)  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blue-jeans-christian/id1479595405 (The Blue Jeans Christian Podcast by Kevin Brownlee) https://www.amazon.com/Your-Glorious-Endeavor-pleasing-acceptably/dp/1949572617 (Your Glorious Endeavor) by Kevin Brownlee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-JIfjNnnMA (Indiana Jones - Leap of Faith clip) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ziglar-show/id192820274 (The Ziglar Show) with Kevin Miller https://positivelyjoy.com/religion/s-2-ep-32-podcasters-join-me-to-talk-about-the-controversial-super-bowl-jeep-ad/ (POSITIVELY JOY Podcast S2 Ep32: Podcasters talk about Jeep's ad: "In the Middle" with Tim Winders and David Weaver) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-rut-podcast/id1037132270 (Beyond the Rut Podcast by Jerry Duggan) Subscribe to our https://seekgocreate.com/ (website) and other https://seekgocreate.com/platforms/?et_fb=1&PageSpeed=off (platforms) to get resources from our guests and updates on our latest giveaways and episodes. Download Chapter 1 of https://seekgocreate.ck.page/40fc313e8a (Coach: A Story of Success Redefined) for free! https://seekgocreate.com/the-second-foundational-principle-to-success-the-meaning-of-faith/ (Episode Details) Enjoy the Podcast? Seek Go Create is for anyone seeking excellence, moving towards success, or creating something new. We share topics, stories, and conversations that allow us to rethink how we live, work, and lead. If you were inspired and educated by this episode, feel free to subscribe to us onhttps://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5jYXB0aXZhdGUuZm0vc2Vlay1nby1jcmVhdGUv ( Google Podcasts),https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/seek-go-create/id1481874131 ( Apple Podcasts), orhttps://open.spotify.com/show/4pnLpMwK6gGeTJvXvVam5z ( Spotify) so that you never miss another episode. Also, share this episode or what you've learned today on your favorite social media platform. Love to give us 5 stars? If you do, we'd love a review from you. By leaving a review, you can help us reach more people who want to discover the meaning of faith. Connect with the SeekGoCreate Network! For updates and more episodes, visit...

Join Andrew Wommack and special guests every weekday for our Charis Daily Live Bible Study! Interact with dynamic speakers in real-time and gain a deeper understanding of the scriptures as they answer your questions. Tune in every day to hear from different speakers as they share from God's Word. The instructors will not only include Andrew Wommack and Charis Woodland Park staff but also our stateside and international directors. You'll witness miracles happen right there, wherever you're listening!

Join Andrew Wommack and special guests every weekday for our Charis Daily Live Bible Study! Interact with dynamic speakers in real-time and gain a deeper understanding of the scriptures as they answer your questions. Tune in every day to hear from different speakers as they share from God's Word. The instructors will not only include Andrew Wommack and Charis Woodland Park staff but also our stateside and international directors. You'll witness miracles happen right there, wherever you're listening!

Join Andrew Wommack and special guests every weekday for our Charis Daily Live Bible Study! Interact with dynamic speakers in real-time and gain a deeper understanding of the scriptures as they answer your questions. Tune in every day to hear from different speakers as they share from God's Word. The instructors will not only include Andrew Wommack and Charis Woodland Park staff but also our stateside and international directors. You'll witness miracles happen right there, wherever you're listening!

Join Andrew Wommack and special guests every weekday for our Charis Daily Live Bible Study! Interact with dynamic speakers in real-time and gain a deeper understanding of the scriptures as they answer your questions. Tune in every day to hear from different speakers as they share from God's Word. The instructors will not only include Andrew Wommack and Charis Woodland Park staff but also our stateside and international directors. You'll witness miracles happen right there, wherever you're listening!

Join Andrew Wommack and special guests every weekday for our Charis Daily Live Bible Study! Interact with dynamic speakers in real-time and gain a deeper understanding of the scriptures as they answer your questions. Tune in every day to hear from different speakers as they share from God's Word. The instructors will not only include Andrew Wommack and Charis Woodland Park staff but also our stateside and international directors. You'll witness miracles happen right there, wherever you're listening!

Your free classical podcast this month is Phoenix by Chris Cree Brown, played by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey.

Politics, relationships, money, weather, disasters, sickness, religion...Is God really in control of all these areas? In his latest book, Sovereignty of God: Is God Really in Control?, our guest Chris Cree tackles this controversial and confusing topic. Host Tim Winders questions Chris about this issue and many more including money, alcoholism and addiction, church and business. Chris and his wife Lisa live in Scotland as missionaries and are currently directors of a Bible School in Dumfries. Learn more about our guest: https://newcreeations.org/ Sovereignty of God: Is God Really in Control? - Book Rejecting Mammon: How to See Results From Your Giving - Book Connect with Chris at: Facebook - https://facebook.com/ChrisCree Twitter - https://twitter.com/ChrisCree Do you like the show? Please subscribe, rate, review, and share! Connect with the SeekGoCreate Network: SeekGoCreate.com SeekGoCreate Facebook SeekGoCreate Instagram SeekGoCreate LinkedIn SeekGoCreate Twitter The SeekGoCreate Podcast is a team effort: JK Winders - Creative Director, Producer Dulce Irving - Operations Director Hunter Irving - Web Design, Online Presence Tim Winders - Host, Content Creation --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/seekgocreate/message

Pope Boniface shone where his predecessor failed. He was a successful apocrisiary, an influential pope, and was able to achieve something that several previous popes could not. In his episode, we'll revisit the Ecumenical Patriarch controversy, re-reform papal election protocol, and call out 'Roman extraction'.   (And thank you to Chris Cree for the Popeslap!)

On this week s episode, we re joined by Jason Schuller, a designer and maker of things for the web. His MO is always focusing on elegant simplicity, endlessly being inspired by awesome creative people, and relentlessly learning by making mistakes. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why 201,344 website owners trust StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins. Launch your new site today! In this episode Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke, and Jason Schuller discuss: The creative career of Jason Schuller Launching Press75 The decision behind the sale of Press75 The allure of side projects Prioritizing family in business decisions Creating Work/Life balance Listen to StudioPress FM below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Follow Jason on Twitter Visit Jason’s Website Plasso Follow Jason on Instagram Follow Jason on Dribbble Follow Jason on Medium The Transcript The Creative Entrepreneur: Living the Dream Voiceover: Rainmaker FM. StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform. Lauren Mancke: On this week’s episode, we are joined by Jason Schuller to discuss being a creative entrepreneur and living the dream. Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone, welcome to StudioPress FM. I am your host, Brian Gardner. Today I’m joined as usual, with my co-host, the Vice President of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke. Lauren Mancke: Glad to be back this week again, everyone. Thank you for joining us as we continue our series on talking to members and experts of the design community. Brian Gardner: Today we have the pleasure — are joined by Jason Schuller, a designer and maker of things for the web. His MO is always focusing on elegant simplicity, endlessly being inspired by awesome creative people, and relentlessly learning by making mistakes. On top of that, Jason is a personal friend of ours, and we’re very fortunate to have him on the show. Jason, welcome. Jason Schuller: Hey, thanks guys for having me. It’s good to talk to you again. Brian Gardner: Yeah, for sure. We always like to kick off the show by asking the same question, to some degree: Who is Jason Schuller, and what is your backstory? Jason Schuller: It’s funny, I feel like “who I am” is a lifelong journey at this point. I’m 40 and still don’t know who I am. I was born just south of Seattle, out in the country, and grew up loving the outdoors. Snowboarding, mountain biking, things like that. I had a pretty typical childhood that way, here in the Pacific Northwest. I still enjoy all those things. Just love being out here and being creative out in nature. That’s me. Brian Gardner: Give us a little background then, from where you started — at least from a design and being a creative — because you weren’t always that way. As you evolved through your career it leaned that way and then you became a full-blown entrepreneur. The Creative Career of Jason Schuller Jason Schuller: The first time I realized I wanted to be a creative person … I think it’s always in you. We all know, to a certain extent, that’s in you just growing up. But I think the first time I actually realized it was in high school. I took a drafting class, and with those tools and being the perfectionist that I am — just being able to realize the design of a house and draft it out and see something I’ve made come to life. I think that was the first time I realized I wanted to do something along those lines. I always struggled in school. I’m dyslexic. I have a hard time reading books. I have a hard time with traditional learning. So drafting and becoming an architect was a struggle for me, because I wasn’t able to get through those required courses to realize that dream. That was the start and the end of wanting to be a creative person at that time. Lauren Mancke: I actually have a few dyslexic people in my family, and my dad was always concerned about that when I was growing up. I never really had an issue with that, but I can imagine that would be difficult. At what point in your career did you have creative jobs? Did you start in a normal job environment, or did you always have creative jobs? Jason Schuller: I got married really young, at the age of 23, so I was kind of forced to find a job. Because, of course, you got to pay the bills and you got to move out of your parents’ place when you get married. It’s probably a good thing. I found a job at the Boeing company here in Seattle as a technical writer, and that obviously doesn’t really get the creative juices flowing. I think it was at that time when the web really started to take off. I didn’t have any traditional training or education in web design or development, but I had an interest in it. What I started doing while I was working at Boeing was just finding websites, downloading the source code, and playing around and making things my own. Reverse engineering and learning that way. I think that’s when I really started to catch on to what you could do with the web and how I could apply my own creativity to building things for the web. Brian Gardner: So you and I and Cory Miller — another friend of ours at iThemes who we had on the show a few weeks ago — we all had this same sort of story. Where we were at our day jobs, relatively non-involved with WordPress or development or design or whatever, and we just — maybe out of lack of interest or being bored — tinkered around with WordPress and code and whatnot. You were at Boeing, I was at an architectural firm, and Cory was working in marketing at a church or something like that. Let’s talk about the beginning of your WordPress “career,” because it practically coincided with mine and Cory’s. It’s great to look back on those early days when we all had day jobs and were freelancing to start out our businesses. What stands out to you the most back then and what was the funniest part of what we did as WordPress was really beginning to evolve into something more than just a blogging platform? Jason Schuller: Just like you guys, like you said, I was working at Boeing still when I got into WordPress. Every organizational website at the Boeing company is probably still maintained using Static HTML. I was looking for a solution to that, because it seemed like a dated process for creating and maintaining websites — using Static HTML. I was poking around with Joomla, as I’m sure you did too, and WordPress came around. I immediately was drawn to it because of its simplicity. I was able to take all the website templates that Boeing had created and turn them into themes for WordPress really quickly and put together, essentially, a platform for maintaining organizational websites in the company. That’s when I really was drawn to WordPress and the potential for creating things for WordPress. That’s what spurred me into actually leaving the company, seeing that I could do much more than what I was doing. Start going off into a freelance career. I didn’t expect to sell themes at that time. I think in doing that process — leaving the company, starting doing freelance work — that’s when I saw what you guys were doing with premium themes and starting to sell themes. I think was specifically you, Brian, and Aidi with his premium news theme that he had. That’s what really got me interested in WordPress themes and potentially branching out into that market. What stands out the most was how easy it was to build a following within WordPress just getting off the ground. I went from working at the Boeing company, leaving, and within two months having a pretty strong following already in the WordPress community simply by blogging and sharing what I was learning at the time. That really stands out to me the most early in those days, is how easy it was to build that audience and that following. I think the funnest part — to follow up on that question — was meeting people like you, Brian, and Cory and Aidi, and just sharing the fun in what we were doing. Making things, designing and creating themes, releasing them, and having thousands of people consume them. That was just such an exciting time. It’s something that I had never experienced before — I’m sure you hadn’t either — sharing that camaraderie with my supposed competitors, which didn’t seem like competitors at all. I think that was the funnest part. Launching Press75 Lauren Mancke: Walk us a little bit back through the process of creating Press75. You touched on getting started with WordPress. At that time … you started in 2008, is that correct? Jason Schuller: Yeah, I got started in 2008. Lauren Mancke: Brian, you had the Revolution theme going then, but that was before you rebranded to StudioPress, right? Brian Gardner: That’s for sure. Lauren Mancke: Walk us back through the process of creating the company. You mentioned creating a following. Share with us a little bit about what made you stand out among other theme makers out there. Jason Schuller: Sure, my start in WordPress — I actually launched a blog called WPelements. I think that’s how you came to know me, through a plugin I released. Brian Gardner: Oh, the Feature Content Gallery. Lauren Mancke: I remember that plugin. Brian Gardner: Love it or hate it. Jason Schuller: Oh my god. Again, I was just blogging through WPelements, building that following. People were downloading plugins I was making and it surprised me, because I’m not a developer by trade. I’m not a designer by trade. I was just learning and putting things out there — broken or not — and people were following along. That was just the state of what WordPress was back then. It was growing so rapidly and there was such a growing community around it, it was that easy to build that audience. But again, noticing what Brian was doing, what Aidi was doing, and what Cory was doing with the premium themes, it lead me to believe that with this following I had now I could do the same thing. I think what stood me apart was finding my own niche doing something that I enjoyed doing, which was video. There weren’t too many video themes back then in 2008, so I took a stab at releasing a video-centric theme where you can embed videos and have it displayed in a nice grid. My first theme I put out there on WP Elements for $5 and it sold … it was a crazy number of copies within a couple hours. I remember going for a walk with my wife and our dog and coming back and checking the computer to see if I had sold anything, and it was something like 200 copies had been sold or something like that for $5 a piece. That’s when I realized that this could be something. It spurred me to, over the next couple months, releasing a couple more themes and then eventually building Press75 and creating a dedicated theme shop out of Press75. Brian Gardner: That’s the creative entrepreneurial dream. They say “make money while you sleep” is the big dream. You want to do that while you’re at the beach, taking a walk, or while you’re sleeping. I know when I first started selling Revolution back in the day, it was that. My favorite part of the day was when I would wake up and go to my day job and know that by then I had already made $600 or something like that. It’s part addictive, it’s part inspiring, and it’s part, “can I keep this going?” Obviously you get to that point where you have to decide, “Should I actually leave my established day job as a young, married-type of person?” We had a kid at the time, so even more so. Thankfully, Shelly had a job, and a good job at that, so it was a little bit easier for me to take off. But I think we all as entrepreneurs get to that point where we’re not sure if we should jump or not. I remember, I think it was Chris Cree or somebody told me way back then that they had been doing stuff for themselves for seven or eight years and they just haven’t looked back. When I heard that I was like, “I don’t want to not be at that spot.” Jason Schuller: Right, and I think now you can look back and say the same thing if somebody asked you. Brian Gardner: For sure. Jason Schuller: Literally, I’ve been on my own for almost nine years now, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. I can’t imagine going back to work for a company like Boeing and being in that process of a daily grind. It’s so foreign to me now. I can’t even think of going back. When anybody asks me, “Should I do it?” I always say, “Yeah, do it.” I think where we got lucky is that we did it and it worked the first time. It doesn’t always work the first time for a lot of people. Brian Gardner: All right, let’s take a quick break for an advertisement here, because at StudioPress FM, that’s how we roll. Minimalism plus warmth, a winning combination, Gallery Pro is a theme that features your gorgeous galleries and pages in a minimalist style that features stunning typography. You can make Gallery Pro your own with options for a styled portfolio, multiple column classes, a flexible front page, and full color customization. Find out more on Gallery Pro, head over to StudioPress.com/Themes. Brian and Jason s backstory Brian Gardner: All right, we’re back. Now, as I alluded to earlier, you and I created our businesses around the same time. In fact, what many folks don’t know and they’re not aware of, is that at one point you and I actually formed a partnership for a brief period, which ended not too long after it started. Now, I want us to talk about why that partnership failed. I guess failed is a harsh word, because it obviously wasn’t terrible — we’re still friends and you’re on the show and whatnot. But let’s revisit why we decided it was better to part ways, because I think a lot of people might to relate to that and it speaks to the styles of being different types of entrepreneurs. Jason Schuller: It might be different for you, actually, but for me, I think we are a lot alike in a lot of ways. I think that might have been our biggest problem as partners. We both wanted to do our own thing. We both wanted to lead the charge in what we were doing. I think when you have two partners that are so much alike in that way, it leads to problems. I know for certain the reason my marriage works so well is because my wife and I are completely different people. We balance each other out. And I think that’s true for business partnerships as well. When you have strengths and weaknesses and your partner can balance out those strengths and weaknesses with their own, I think that’s what leads to good partnerships. We were both getting started. We saw the potential, and it was just really good that we recognized so early on in our partnership — because it was only a couple months — that we wanted different things. We were able to split ways before it got dirty and go back to doing our own things. And it worked out for both of us. I’m really happy with how that panned out. I don’t regret having a partnership with you at all. I learned lessons from that, and that’s important as well. Brian Gardner: I guess it’s overdramatic because I used the word fail . I wouldn’t call it a fail. Like we said, it dissolved for very good reasons. Like you said, when you have two like-minded people, it’s tough. We just both wanted to create and do that part of it, and then no one was left to do the administrative or the marketing side of it, because all we want to do is create and move forward. I think that the lesson here is you don’t always have to work with other people. Sometimes there are great fits and there are good marriages. I know that when I merged into Copyblogger — the five of us — that was a situation where everybody brought something unique to the table and it has worked out. Our situation is sometimes when … I wouldn’t even say that the situation came between two friends, because it didn’t. We parted amicably. You did your thing. Because you had stuff you wanted to work on, and maybe it was slightly different than the direction I wanted to go. I think we both split and still continued our success, and that was good. Jason Schuller: I really see that as the beginning of me really branching out and being successful with Press75. I saw it as the beginning, not the end, for sure. It was a good experience for me. Lauren Mancke: At the time, I was curious what had happened there. I think, Brian, you had mentioned to me about this. You were using his plugin on your themes and then something happened, and I never heard what happened. So that’s fun, to hear the backstory after all these years. Brian Gardner: I was a little bit skittish back then in what I should and shouldn’t share with the public and people. It’s different than it is now. Even when Revolution — StudioPress rebranded from Revolution because of a cease and desist letter, and I got squirrelly because I was new to this. I did a lot of, “Well, it was the best thing, the great decision.” I didn’t do a lot of backstories because back then I was less into transparency and authenticity than I am now. Now I think I’m more that way because I want other people to learn from the stuff that I’ve gone through. Back then it was all new and I didn’t have any real knowledge to share other than, “This is weird, so let’s not talk about it.” Jason Schuller: Right. I think I was the same way. You get full of yourself a little bit. You definitely don’t want to share those lessons because you’re not — it’s not apparently clear what the lesson is back then when you’re going through it. It takes sometimes a couple of years to look back, reflect, and realize who you were back then and how you want to be now. The Decision Behind the Sale of Press75 Lauren Mancke: Let’s continue in that vein, Jason. What are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve faced with your company, Press75? I know we had a chance to talk at Circles Conference about some of the reasons you decided to sell it, and you’ve also shared with some others about your frustrations with WordPress in general. Can you give our listeners a bit of a behind the scenes on the decision to sell? And did any of the frustrations you’ve had with WordPress affect that decision? Jason Schuller: Yeah. There’s a couple of factors that went into me wanting to sell Press75. I think the biggest challenge, first of all, of running Press75, was trying to stay true to myself and not giving in to the appeal of doing everything that everybody else was doing at the time. I think that was my biggest struggle. I built Press75 on my own style and my own way of doing things, and that’s what made it so popular. I fell into that trap after a while of noticing what everybody else was doing and wanting to do the same thing. Wanting to grow it beyond what it was. That was one of my biggest struggles. The second side to that is the direction WordPress was taking after a while. I think it was around 2010-2011 that WordPress really started to get, in my eyes anyways, pretty bloated compared to what it was in previous years. It was this perfect, simple, content management system that was easy to build themes for, and it became this massive CMS for doing pretty much anything you wanted to do with it. With that came the responsibility in creating themes that people wanted. What people wanted was basically all the functionality that WordPress provided, plus all the functionality that every plugin available for WordPress provided. That’s where I started to disconnect a little bit. I wanted to continue doing my own thing, which is minimalist, simple design, and it wasn’t jiving with what the market wanted at the time, which was everything under the sun. That’s what really led me to go down the path of looking for a new owner for Press75 and wanting to do something different. Brian Gardner: We had Cory on the show, as I mentioned earlier. He and I and Lauren discussed something very important and something that still is under-discussed, I think, in the entrepreneurial space, and that’s all about mental health. Specifically, how it pertains to being an entrepreneur. Now, after selling Press75 during the summer of 2014, I know you went through a pretty rough time trying to process the end of that and what would be next. You went through a period of time … To whatever extent you feel comfortable, can you just talk about that a little bit? What went through your head and some of the emotions and things that were going on after the sale and before you started the next few projects? Jason Schuller: Sure. Yeah, that was definitely a depressing couple of years for a lot of reasons. I think, primarily, when you’re in that game of building something and it’s successful — it’s the first thing you’ve done and it became a success really quickly — you have this attitude that everything you do in the future is going to be successful just like the previous thing. I kind of had that attitude getting out of Press75, thinking that whatever I did next was going to take off and be successful. It just wasn’t the case. That was a big lesson for me to learn. But with that came a lot of depression. I can definitely say that I was the most depressed in my life — from the standpoint of my professional career — than I’ve ever been. But it was twofold, because in my personal life, my little girl had just been born in 2013. Personally, I was on a high. Professionally, I was on a low. Those two were just clashing in the middle all the time, because I had this great need to provide for my family, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Learning that lesson that maybe I’m not as special as I thought I was and that not everything I create is going to be instantly a success. Looking back on that, it was extremely important for me to go through that period of a reality check almost, and realize that creating successful businesses takes more work than you actually might think. It’s going to be harder the next time around, even though I have had a previous success. That’s where I am today. And that’s when I started opening up to new opportunities of maybe joining a team or working under the umbrella of another company and seeing what that opportunity has in store for me. That’s when I joined up with Drew Wilson and Plasso. I feel like I’ve grown so much more since doing that. It was an important step for me to take. The Allure of Side Projects Lauren Mancke: You’ve also been working on a number of projects like Droplets and Pickle and Atmospheric. Can you talk a little bit about those and what made you decided to do each one of those? Jason Schuller: I think Brian can relate to side projects and wanting to do everything that pops into your head. Maybe I get a little bit less focused than Brian in that way. It’s one of the things I enjoy most, is doing side projects. But it’s also a big drawback for me as well, because it distracts me from doing the things that I should be doing. I take on these side projects. I want to see something come to life and I put it out there. Then as soon as it’s out there, I lose interest. The process of building them, giving it my all and making something work, I think that’s really a healthy thing. But putting it out there and just letting it just go stale, that’s not so healthy. I’ve been trying to learn for myself and my own sanity to focus on important things and not give in to doing everything that pops into my head. Side projects — they’re kind of a double-edged sword for me. Brian Gardner: I for sure relate to the whole, “Have an idea, carry it out, and launch it” type of thing. I’ve had to be very specific with what I do as a “completely outside of the scope of my job” thing. I’ve only got one thing that I do there. But from a creative standpoint or from a design standpoint, I get inspirations left and right all the time. I’m always in my own head thinking, “Ah, I’ve got this great idea.” Even if it’s an idea of something I would do as a true side project, I try to channel it away and say, “That’s not the right time to actually pursue a actual side project,” but conceptually take what you’re envisioning and wrap that into something that then can become a theme that we sell on StudioPress. Some of the things that I’ve done lately have been the ideas or creative endeavors that I wished to live out, but just dial back the execution part and say “Okay, well at least I’ve put forth some time and effort and energy into something that a) is part of my job, and then b) something that hundreds or thousands of people can benefit from and they do.” Jason Schuller: I’m starting to do that same thing. It feels good to be able to refocus that energy in a different way that makes it available right away under what you’re supposed to be doing. Again, I’m working under Plasso right now and designing and making things for Plasso, so every time I have an idea I’ve been exactly doing what you’re saying, rechanneling that energy into something that maybe could work for Plasso. That seems to be panning out for me, because I can use that energy still and not let it go away. Prioritizing Family in Business Decisions Brian Gardner: We talked about some of the stuff you did at Boeing. That worked its way into WordPress and Press75. Then you sold that and you’ve had some of these fun side projects. Some have and haven’t been included or involved with WordPress. And then you’re doing work with Plasso. But there’s more to you than that, though. I know that because I’m a friend of yours, but also because I follow your Instagram feed, which is a total window into the world outside of Jason as the guy who sits in front of a computer and does design and software and creativity stuff. From the conversations you and I have had over the years, I know that the definition of life for you far exceeds running a business and being a successful entrepreneur. I can think of two things — or shall I say two people — that matter to you more than anything. I’m guessing I’m right here. Jason Schuller: Oh yeah, absolutely. The ability to be home with my family, my wife and my daughter, and be with them more than I actually work has been the biggest gift of my life. Again, I can’t imagine going back to working for that company eight hours a day and not seeing my daughter. Only seeing her in mornings and at night. It’s not anything I can even fathom at this point. This experience is something I’ll cherish forever. It’s actually my biggest motivator in life to keep doing what I do. To be creative, to keep pushing, and to keep learning and growing and stay relevant, so that I can maintain that lifestyle that I like so much now at this point. Because I want to maintain being able to spend as much time with my family as I can. Brian Gardner: We talked to Brian and Jennifer Bourn a few weeks back about maintaining a work/life balance, because they spend a lot of time with their kids traveling and doing things like that. From my perspective from the outside, even though I know that personally you were going through some rough times, to see you post pictures or to talk about — even in the context of a sentence — just saying, “This is my dream. This is my world. Spending time with my daughter and watching her grow up.” From my perspective as a dad, it’s awesome. It’s great to see. And it’s also convicting, because sometimes I don’t feel like I have that much of a conviction to be that intentional about spending time with Zach and Shelly and stuff like that. I’m around a lot. I’m here all day when he’s here. I send him off to school. I’m home when he gets home. But it’s a lesson and a great motivator, like you said, to maintain that. Because once you have that … Of course, things will change as she gets older. Because he’s 12 now and he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore sometimes, and I’m like, “Okay.” Then you think, “A few more years, he’s going to be out of high school.” I look at Shelly and I’m like, “What are we going to be doing all day long now?” There’s that to consider. But you still have plenty of time left with her. Creating Work/Life Balance Jason Schuller: I look back at those couple of years where I was super depressed from a professional standpoint but just living the high life from personal standpoint … I don’t know, I just have to believe that maybe that’s way it was supposed to be. For me to be there 100 percent for my kid those first couple of years that she was growing up and becoming a person, I think that that was such a special time. I reflect and think of it that way, instead of, “Oh, I was just super depressed all the time from a professional standpoint.” I look back at it — at those pictures, all those videos, and all of those trips that we took together — and remember it that way, as the time I got to spend with my daughter growing up. Brian Gardner: Let’s talk to Lauren. Lauren, how do you feel about the fact that you’ve been able to spend a couple years with Fox? Now you’ve got two more coming, and I don’t know if being home will actually be a good thing for you or not with all the distractions and whatnot. Lauren Mancke: I actually was going to chime in. I think that’s one of the things I bonded with Jason over when we first met, was that family-first mentality. We discussed making business decisions based on that. Putting your family first and creating a work/life balance that gives you the opportunity to be home with your children. I think it’s really important. I heard, Jason, that you’ve got a pretty sweet setup for working from home. Brian’s actually mentioned it on another episode. I haven’t been able to set up my super sweet office yet, but I’ve got schemes and I’ve got visions. What is your favorite part of working remotely and working from home? Jason Schuller: I think you have to make a creative space for yourself. Something that inspires you every day. Somewhere you want to actually sit and spend a good amount of time in, so that you can let those creative juices flow. For me it was building this office. It’s literally just a little room on top of my separated garage. I built it in 2009, I designed it myself. My father in-law and I built it together from the ground up. Now it’s just that space I get to go to every single day and enjoy the view from my office and just be creative. It’s quiet and it’s peaceful. I think it’s really important for us when we work at home to have that space that you can go to and feel that way and just work. Brian Gardner: See, I don’t think I have that. Mine’s called Starbucks. I just rent that space, $6 a day. My office isn’t anything special. I’ve actually had — I still probably won’t do this, because it just would cost too much and it would be silly — but I had this vision of designing the office that I have into a Starbucks. I have a friend of mine who his friend is actually one of the guys who architects and engineers the refurbishment of Starbucks. I was actually going to hire him and say, “Come into my room and do Starbucks stuff.” I was going to put a little live-edged countertop. Put in the floor and some lighting. Really try to emulate a Starbucks. Then I just realized that was probably money not well spent. But I do, I see the pictures of your office. It overlooks the lake there, and you’re always posting pictures of the mountains. “Then I took a quick drive up to go mountain biking.” There are people in this world — you are one of them, Jeff Sheldon is another — who I really have envy over their lifestyle and their ability to connect in places that I don’t live near. So good for you, that you get to have that type of space. Jason Schuller: Yeah, man, I really love living here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I’m sure there are plenty of better places to live than Seattle, but I grew up here. I love it. I love being connected to the mountains and nature in general, and being able to do that pretty much within 20 minutes of my place. It’s super important for me to maintain. So yeah, I love it. Brian Gardner: As we wrap this up, we asked Bill Kenney a few weeks ago — from Focus Lab — the same question. I want to do the same with you, because I got a feeling it might be a little bit different answer. I think it’s really important for our listeners to get different points of view, so here it goes: If you had a chance to speak to a group of young designers or creatives and your presentation was limited to five minutes, what would you say to them? Jason Schuller: Wow. That’s a loaded question. Just drawing from my own experience, I think the most important thing, for me anyways, is moving forward. Is not to forget who I am and what I do, because that’s what lead me down a bad path when I was doing Press75, was paying too much attention to what everybody else was doing and trying to emulate that. When I really sat back and did my own thing and did it in my own way, that’s when I was most successful. That’s the most important point for me. Also, making yourself a little uncomfortable at times. I got really comfortable during those years of building WordPress themes. Living that life for a couple years really didn’t challenge me all that much. I’ve noticed this last year of working for Plasso — being with a team and being challenged on a level that I’ve never been challenged before — I’ve grown so much as a person. As a creative person, as a designer, and as a developer. I don’t think I would be where I am now without that continual challenge. I think getting yourself uncomfortable is also a big lesson that you need to keep in mind as you move forward. Brian Gardner: That’s a great answer. Lauren Mancke: That is a great answer. Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap this thing up? Jason Schuller: No, man, I can’t think of anything. It’s been a pleasure talking to you guys, and I wish I could chat with you more often. Brian Gardner: We can make that happen. Whether it’s on the show or not. Jason Schuller: I miss those WordCamps. I’m not in that WordPress scene anymore, but that was the best part of those WordCamps, coming together. Skipping all the presentations and sitting in those halls and chatting with guys like you. People that were doing the same thing. Brian Gardner: I will say this, Circles Conference, for me, has become the new WordCamp thing. I realized I’m more of a creative than I am a WordPress guy, even though I create WordPress products. I love WordPress and I’m so thankful for what it’s done for my life, but I realized my hardcore passion is about creativity. I will say, there was an empty spot in my heart this past year because both of you guys left me. We had the luxury of being together both — all three of us, actually — last year, and I missed both of you there this year. Hopefully next year maybe we can try it again. Jason Schuller: Oh yeah, I’ll be there next year for sure. Lauren Mancke: I won’t be pregnant. Jason Schuller: But you’ll have three kids running around. Lauren Mancke: Yeah. Brian Gardner: Will’s a soldier, he can handle it, right? Lauren Mancke: He’s got this. Brian Gardner: Well, Jason, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for being a good friend to us at StudioPress — to Lauren and I — and we look forward to seeing what you come up with next. Jason Schuller: Thank you.

On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Rebecca Gill of Web Savvy Marketing. She is a WordPress developer, an SEO consultant, and a general business consultant. She s an active member of the WordPress community, participating as a WordCamp speaker, podcast guest, and SEO educator. Her company, Web Savvy Marketing, was founded in 2009 and is a creative agency based in Southeastern Michigan. They work with clients across the globe who range from bloggers and small businesses to large enterprises and universities. The Web Savvy online store offers more than 20 professionally designed Genesis themes ideal for businesses, marketers, educational institutions, and bloggers. In this 39-minute episode Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke, and Rebecca Gill discuss: The accidental entrepreneur Empowerment in training others A holistic approach to SEO How to avoid risky black hat tactics The 3 most important elements of SEO Long-term SEO strategies Listen to StudioPress FM below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Follow Rebecca on Twitter RebeccaGill.com Web Savvy Marketing Web Savvy Marketing Themes SEO Consulting DIY SEO Courses SEO Bootcamp The Transcript A Beginner’s Guide to SEO that Works Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit, and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer, but for now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us. Attendee 1: For me, it s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference, for me, is the being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to the people who are here for the first time, people who ve been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference, for, me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily and seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps me pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree. One of the biggest reasons we host the conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers — people like you — more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It s really fun. I think it s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it s a single-track conference where you don t get distracted by, Which sessions should I go to? Am I missing something?” Attendee 6: The training and everything — the speakers have been awesome — but I think the coolest aspect, for me, has been connecting with both people who are putting it on and then other attendees. Jerod Morris: That s it for now. There is a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit. I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/summit. That s Rainmaker.FM/summit. Voiceover: StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder, Brian Gardner, and VP of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke, share their expertise on web design, strategy and building an online platform. Lauren Mancke: On today s episode, we are talking search engine optimization with Rebeca Gill of Web Savvy Marketing. We ll cover this topic from all angles, so listen in. Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone, welcome to StudioPress FM. I am your host, Brian Gardner. I m joined, as usual, with the VP of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke. We are very excited about the show because right now we are starting a new series where we are talking to members and experts, mind you, of the Genesis Community. Lauren, what do you think about that? Lauren Mancke: Very excited to have everyone on. Brian Gardner: We could probably go 30 or 40 episodes deep easily with people that I want to talk to. We ll break them up into little compartments. But it s going to definitely be fun for us. Today we’re joined by Rebecca Gill of Web Savvy Marketing. Rebecca is a WordPress developer, an SEO consultant, and a general business consultant as well. She s an active member of the WordPress community with a variety of participation as WordCamp speaker, podcast guest, and SEO educator. Her company, Web Savvy Marketing, was founded in 2009 and is a creative agency based in Southeastern Michigan. They work with clients across the globe who range from bloggers and small businesses to large enterprises and universities. The Web Savvy online store offers more than 20 professionally designed Genesis themes, ideal for businesses, marketers, educational institutions, and bloggers. Rebecca, it s our pleasure to welcome you to the show. How are you? Rebecca Gill: I m great. Thanks so much for having me here. Brian Gardner: Yeah, it s funny. When I sat down to think of the people who I wanted to have on the show there were a few names that instantly popped up, and yours was one of them. I was kind of hoping at some point, and maybe … I know down the road we have another series that I m going to talk to Chris Cree who worked with you very closely and just recently left. We ll be able to tackle both sides of your business where he also was involved. Let s kick this off. I ve known you for a number of years. You’ve been around the WordPress space for some time. Walk us through the early years of how you got started as an online entrepreneur and how you created Web Savvy? The Accidental Entrepreneur Rebecca Gill: I didn t set out to be an entrepreneur. I was at a small company and I was their VP of Marketing. I was with them for about 10 years in total. The company dynamic shifted and it was evident that I really needed to leave, but it was the heart of the recession and there were no jobs in the Detroit area. The situation in the company got so bad that I was so distraught and distracted from it I actually mixed up my medication, put myself on the ER for eight hours, and ended up on the couch for a week recovering. It was at that point my husband and I were like, You know what? It doesn t matter what s going on with the economy, you need to leave It just it was affecting our personal life more than we could tolerate, so I quit. I was going to go into SEO consulting and I started to do that. I actually had some initial success, but I quickly realized that the companies I was working with didn t have access to their websites. Everything was in HTML and nobody could actually go in and make implementations of my SEO recommendations. I went back to my experience with Joomla and WordPress and started to work on web development. That was just a means to be able to get the SEO out there that I needed to for the small businesses. I quickly fell in love with the WordPress community and dove in. We started creating custom themes and development, and then when Genesis came out we jumped on the Genesis bandwagon and it s been a great ride ever since. Brian Gardner: It s funny how many stories start with, “How I became an entrepreneur online more out of need than want.” Not many people have the luxury of saying, I just think I m going to wake up and one day I m going to start this. It s really, “I got fired,” or “I had to leave my job,” or, “My husband lost a job and so I had to basically figure out how to make money online.” It sounds like your story is somewhat that way. Sometimes it s also health-related and things like that. thank you for sharing that. It s encouraging to other people to hear how that type of thing gets started. Rebecca Gill: I always joke that I m the accidental entrepreneur. My husband jokes that I can usually slip and fall but I always end up smelling like roses at the end, and I think this is a good example of that. Lauren Mancke: Running a small business isn t always easy, what are some of the things that you struggle with? Rebecca Gill: I think, for me, my biggest struggle is a mental struggle, because I now have an agency and I hadn t planned in having an agency. I spend a lot of time on operations and worrying about payroll and receivables and things like that, checking on projects. That s all things that I don t like. I would rather be doing SEO consulting and training and marketing and sales, because that s really what makes me happy. I think if I were to say what is my struggle, that s the biggest struggle. That I don t get to focus on what I really want to focus on and where I know I m really good. I have to focus on these other things. That can be a mental challenge that you just have to overcome and push through daily. Brian Gardner: For me in StudioPress back in the day — I think at the core that all comes down to that struggle and how it affects us mentally. It’s sometimes related to our inabilities to let go off control. When we as independent people start something and do it all on our own, obviously it comes to a point where we need to scale and get bigger. With that comes the pain of doing things that we don t want to do. For me it was support — as much as I love working with people, it just got to a point where I couldn t work 85 hours a week. You have to entrust people — as you have, and have done successfully. Start to grow the company and entrust those responsibilities to other people so that you don t become a nut case. That s what I had to do. You know what I mean? Rebecca Gill: That s so true. Brian Gardner: Genesis — let s go right into this because you were one of the big, popular, most known Genesis agencies, along with Brian and Jennifer Bourn. Talk us through how Genesis came into your picture. Rebecca Gill: I actually tried the beta version of it. When it didn t have trial themes. I created a website that is still out there today, that is using that original version. That was me going in –that was still when it was me hacking themes and customizing myself, which I shouldn t be doing. I m not allowed to do that anymore. I had a familiarity with it, but then Chris Cree, who you mentioned earlier — when you came out with the real Genesis framework and the trial themes, he said, We need to start using this. He explained to me how we can have a base trial theme of the things that I like and we can use that as our box that we are going to play in. We started with it and I quickly found that it was just such a good path for us. Not only do you all produce really good code and a great framework for us to work within, it creates a box for my team where we have a set of best practices and standards. We’re all beating at the same drum. I think that from agency owner’s perspective that s really invaluable to me. Plus, I just know that my clients — somebody has got their back besides me. If I get hit by a train — or whatever reason Web Savvy goes away — I know they have you and they ve got the Genesis community that can pick right up where we left off. That makes me really happy. We made that decision early on, jointly with me and Chris. We ve never strayed from it and I ve never regretted it. Brian Gardner: That s music to our ears, right, Lauren? Lauren Mancke: Definitely. Rebecca Gill: I m a Genesis cheerleader, I can t help it. Brian Gardner: We like those. Empowerment in Training Others Lauren Mancke: Aside from the general services you offer. I heard you ve gotten recently into training. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Rebecca Gill: I ve actually been doing group training since 1995. First it was an operational training. My first job out of college I was an Operations Manager. Then, when I worked for the ERP Software Company, I was doing training for the user base. I d go onsite for five days and walk people through the setup of the system and talk about everything from bill of materials and manufacturing production lines through the general ledger and accounting. That s been in my blood. I haven t done it for years because I ve been so busy building up the agency, just with the daily to-dos. We ve got a really good project manager now who manages all of our custom developments. That s freed me up so that I could go back to training and start really using my SEO education and sharing that. The reason I ve been doing it is because, from an SEO standpoint, it s a lot of labor. There is only so much of me to go around and I only have so many hours in the week. I don t want to be working those 85 hours that Brian mentioned. I ve been starting to do more and more training — both in the course and then with the boot camp — so we can really spread that education and empower people. Let them have that education so they can have a long-term path. Honestly, I love it. It s like Chris creating the support forum, he loves that and I love training. You just empower people and you make them happy. The light bulb goes off and they are thrilled with that. Then you know that you ve given them a foundation that they’re taking forward with them. Brian Gardner: When I started StudioPress, training was definitely not something on my radar. Only because — like I said earlier — I was so busy trying to keep up with the creation, the ideas. This even was before Genesis, back in the days of Revolution. I was just creating the product and micro-training in the sense of writing tutorials and things like that. For me it never clicked, there was never that, Hey, you should do paid training. That s basically a way to scale your time because you can create something and then charge for it and then build that out. Not until StudioPress merged into Copyblogger did I really understand. Back then, Teaching Sells was our big training thing. I realized very quickly that there was a lot of opportunity, just in general, across the Internet space for training. You see places like Lynda.com and stuff like that now. It seems like everyone’s doing training. That s interesting. On your website, you have a dedicated section to SEO consulting. As you mentioned, you like to teach, you like to do SEO, and folks can hire you to do SEO consultant. In fact, I just recommended you within the Genesis Facebook group. Someone asked about SEO. They lost their SEO person. I don t know if they contacted you or not, hopefully they did. Let s talk about what got you interested in SEO. From a web standpoint, from a design and development it’s less appealing. It s that almost taboo word where people are too afraid to even mess with it because they’re not sure what it is or how to do it. It s easy to make something pretty and put it online, but as I ve always said, a well-designed website without traffic is a well-designed website without traffic. Talk to us about SEO and how that came into your life from an important standpoint, and just a little bit about the consulting that you do. Rebecca Gill: My background with SEO was at my prior job where I was the head of marketing. We didn t have a big marketing budget, and I taught myself SEO because I was in the marketing department. I competed against people like SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle — really large organizations that had teams of marketing people and teams of SEO people. I quickly learned that that team environment was very fragmented and they didn t have a good structure. If I could just learn and apply I could beat them and get on page one. I grew the sales that we brought in from the Internet — it became our lead source and the majority of our sales. We grew the company 400% in two years. When you are selling a $100,000 product, that s a lot, that s a huge shift. To me that was empowerment. I really fell in love with SEO then, because I realized how much control you have over things and how much good you can do when you just work hard and do the right thing in the right path. That really got me set. I had SEO on our website for a while but then I pulled it back because I didn t have time to do it. I was so busy with custom work that I didn t have time to work on the projects. Again, bringing Mary back on with project management — it’s freed some of my time up so that I can do consulting projects with people. Now we do a mix of both. From an SEO project standpoint, I will work through the project with you — keyword research, sitemapping, down to optimizing your content. We also do customized boot camps on-site for SEO, blogging, and social media. Now we ve got the courses that we re offering at diyseocourses.com, as well as the seobootcamp.com, which is our new in-person training in a group setting in Dallas. We ve evolved it, and it s really my effort of trying to help as many people as I can and teach them the right way to do things. I don t want to everything for everybody because I don t think that that s good for them long term, but I want to teach and I want to train. That s the heart of our SEO. Even when we’re doing a project with somebody, I m not going to just do everything for you. I m educating you along the way with best practices and the right way to do things, so when I m gone you can take that forward and continue on your path and have good success. Brian Gardner: That s like the whole “teach a man to fish and he eats forever” type of thing. The Facebook group — when someone says, I lost my SEO, if they’re not taught good SEO or at the very least, the fundamentals of what the person that hired them to do has done, then they feel completely lost. Like this person probably says, Oh my gosh, my person fell off the radar,” or they closed their business or whatever, “What will I do? The services that you offer — it s great that you teach them at least the basics. That way, if something would happen to you, God forbid, they don t feel completely in the dark. They can at least take that and try to apply it towards the stuff that they produce there in the future. Rebecca Gill: One of the questions that I ask people — it s an onboarding question when I first get an inquiry in about SEO — I always ask them, “Have you hired an SEO consultant in the past and what did they do for you?” You would be surprised at how many people have hired somebody and it s not just one, it s two or four or five at different stages through their business, but they have no idea what the SEO company did. They don t know what they were doing behind the scenes, if they were doing anything. Every time I hear that — and it s like 80% of the time I get that response — it makes me sick to my stomach. That s like the guy in Facebook. He may not even know what his SEO person was doing, if they were doing anything. It s tainted the SEO industry and the consultants. There’s a lot of really good SEO consultants, but there’s a lot of less aboveground people that are really doing high-quality work, telling their client what they are doing, and showing them what they are doing and educating along the way, which is the way it really should be. Lauren Mancke: That s true, that there’s a lot of stereotypes in the SEO world. You say on your website that you have a more holistic approach. What does that mean? A Holistic Approach to SEO Rebecca Gill: For us, I m not going to just do for you. We’re going to take you in the process from start to finish and you’re going to learn along the way. Whether I m doing a consulting project, whether you’re taking my course — which is 8 hours and, I think, 65 lessons — or whether you are doing our boot camp. Holistic, to me, is we first start with your target market, we define who that is and who you are selling to, and what are their pain points and what solution you offer. That kind of information. We look at your competitors. You do research. From that research, now you ve got some data that you can start to plan and start to strategize. Then as you work through that, now it s under education. Then you look at analysis to see what worked and what didn t work. You go back and you rinse and you repeat. That s about keyword research and sitemapping and investigating competitors, auditing your content in your existing site, down to writing the really good content that s going to be good for the user and optimizing it. Then, off page, link building and things like that. Unfortunately, a lot of old-school SEO consultants still focus on link building. That s their primary focus because they can control that themselves and they don t need the client involved. They can do it all on their own, so they say, That s what you’re paying me for. That s the wrong approach in today s world of Google and Bing. You have to have holistic. You have to have the user, the website visitor at the forefront of your objectives and goals to make sure that they’re happy. Because if they’re happy, that makes the search engines happy, and the search engines will reward you with more traffic. When I say holistic, it s a full circle from start to finish. With, again, education along the way, because I want people empowered. Brian Gardner: Before I get to my next question, I want to go back. You ve said these phrases a couple of times now, and I want our listeners to understand. You said, keyword research and sitemapping in particular. Let s do a quick definition of a what each of those are just to give them an idea, for those who don t know. Rebecca Gill: A lot of people, when you talk to them they will write a piece of content and throw it up in the web, which is great. I wrote the rant I had the other day about SEO, but before I actually posted that I did some keyword research to see what phrases would relate to that so I could utilize that within the post and optimize it. That s one form of keyword research, and that s the shortest version. The other version is really doing a full plan to say, “What is a phrase or multiple phrases that people might search to reach my site or my blog?” What are they searching for, whether it s their pain points or it s solutions or it s people — going through analysis. You start with a seed list. You generate your seed list. You come up with all of your potential possibilities that you think. Then you look at your competitors and you learn from them. You do things like you look at Google auto-suggest and related searches and you add that. Now you go to keyword tools to see what volumes and what other variations you can have. Then you look at that and you compare that to your existing site and what your future content may hold. You start mapping one keyword or phrase to a particular piece of content. That s the sitemapping part. That part is not a quick process. It takes weeks to do it if you are doing it right, because it s data, it s analysis, and it s research. That s the part everybody skips. They just go and they jump to content, and they may or may not have a keyword for the content. Or, worse yet — and I hear this from mid-market companies, which is a dagger through my heart — they say, We look at the website as a whole. Our website is optimized for X, Y and Z. But they never actually assign it to content. What the problem with that is, is when you’re doing that you’re asking the search engines to decide which piece of content is the best one for a given phrase. That s the wrong approach. Keep a simple form, don t make them think. Make it easy for the search engines to find the exact right page or post or product for a given phrase. There is no question if they know this piece of content on your website is the best piece of content for this phrase. That s the whole purpose of keyword research and sitemapping, is to do that. Once you get yourself into that process you ll never leave it, because you ll realize it just makes common sense. You’re doing what s right for the visitor as well as the search engines and it helps you win in the end. Brian Gardner: Not only does it make common sense, it s probably something that bears fruit, too. I think the way you explained SEO probably resembles to some degree the idea of — and this is a great time for us to talk about it because the Olympics are going on — it sounds like SEO … There is a lot of training in a lot of endurance in things like that where you have to do the right steps. You can t just hop off a couch and run. You have to eat well. You have to sleep well. You have to train well. To some degree, it sounds like you can cut corners in SEO but then you just won t run as far and things like that. Rebecca Gill: Correct, and it s short-lived. The one problem that I see all the time on people s website is you ask them and they say, My focus keyword is X, Y, and Z.” You say, Okay, tell me what piece of content on your website is reflective of that. They either give you 10 or they have no idea. That s the same problem with the search engines. They are not going to know either. If you do and it s short term — you’re trying to build a long-term plan for yourself, your visitors, and the search engines. The more research and planning you put into that and more due diligence at the front of the process, the more results you have and the longer your results are going to sustain. There are still people sitting on page one of Google for highly competitive phrases that I helped optimize eight years ago. That s because they did it the right way and they had the planning before the actual execution. Brian Gardner: House built on solid rock versus house built on sand? Rebecca Gill: Yes. It s hard to get people to do that because they want to rush ahead. They want to see that end fruit and they want to just plow ahead. It’s like, No, no, no. You’re pulling the reins back and not letting them do it. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got to lock them in a cage and say, No we’re not doing that. Lauren Mancke: I had a client one time ask us to call Google. They wanted us to call them and get them on the front page. Rebecca Gill: Isn t that funny? There is consultants that promise that. That say, I know Google, I know exactly what the algorithm is. That s BS, you don t. You don t know people at Google. Just because Matt Cutts may have tweeted you five years ago doesn t mean you know people. You surely don t know the algorithms. You may suspect elements of the algorithms and what factors are, and you may have learned something through trial-and-error, but you don t know precisely every single algorithm, and you’re supposed to because the search engines don t want you to. The 3 Most Important Elements of SEO Lauren Mancke: For people that are a little bit overwhelmed when it comes to SEO — they hear the phrase and they are just like, I don t even know where to begin. Can you break it down into the three most important elements of SEO? Rebecca Gill: My three most important would be keyword research, sitemapping, and then high-quality content. Granted, there is a lot that falls underneath each of those, but those are the buckets. I ve structured my online course to have that. You start with basics, then you go to keyword research, the next segment is sitemapping, the next segment is content, and then you have the gravy that is the offsite stuff. If you skip those three blocks you are going to never succeed. Because the offsite activity that people want to do is pointing to a bunch of garbage that s gobbledygook that the search engines can t understand. The offsite that you’re doing will never help unless you ve got that core foundation set. Brian Gardner: We talked about keyword research, and you also mentioned how you got your clients on page one of Google eight years ago. It reminds me back to eight years ago — remember the shoe money days and all of that stuff? I want to be very specific , keyword research is not the same thing as keyword stuffing, which is something that back in the day — people don t even know what that is anymore because it s so archaic in a sense. This was back when Google actually cared about the keywords that you would put into the post meta that would show up in the source heading. Google finally said, People are obviously stuffing keywords by trying to cram them in and make every other word ‘jewelry,’ ‘diamonds,’ and stuff like that, to try to whatever. Even back in the day — Rebecca and Lauren, you guys probably both remember — I think I even tried this at one point, where at the bottom of your page you would write a bunch of keywords and then change the font color to white so no one would see it. Google finally got smart enough to realize that that would — and they would then penalize you. There was actually a non-benefit to doing something like that. It reminds of all of the black hat tactics that would be used by either people who didn t know any better or people who were just following like sheep the people who said, Hey, this black hat stuff works. How to Avoid Risky Black Hat Tactics Brian Gardner: You, Rebecca, you’re stand up. You certainly prefer to keep your hat white. What are the points of establishing a I guess this goes along with the three most important elements of SEO that we just talked about. The encouragement to do it the right way. To keep your hat white, which is what s called white hat SEO, which basically means you are just doing it the right way. You are not trying to trick the system. I m assuming you are an advocate of that and you would encourage anyone who is trying to really invest in SEO to do that, right? Rebecca Gill: Yes. First, your point of the hidden keywords at the bottom and the meta keywords in the source code stuffed with just a bunch of words — I still encounter that every single week with prospects or clients. You called it old school. You know it s old school, I know it s old school, but people still do it today. There’s still that philosophy that that s what works, but it doesn t. If you break down white hat SEO to this: to be successful in search you have to make the search engines happy. Let s take Google, for example. What is their goal? Their goal is to make money. They are a for-profit company. They sell ads, they have other products, but that s their goal. The only way they’re going to do that is if they keep people happy. People come to the search engines, they search for something, they get good results that take them to a good website or blog that answers their question. If you veer off from that and you don t pay attention to the actual user and the visitor to your website and keeping them happy, you are not going to be successful with the search engines because you are not helping them be successful. That s white hat. It s focusing on your visitor. Writing content for the visitor. Making sure that it s fast, it got great performance, it s designed well so it s easier to read and the site flows. Keeping that visitor happy will make the search engines happy, because that visitor will come back to the search engines and use them again. White hat is focusing on that. That s your primary goal. When you start to look at any of the cheats — any time you start to want to manipulate the search engines with quick link building or hiding that text or keyword stuffing or having five pages of the same content with just slightly varied keyword-focused phrases — none of that s going to work. That s all black hat, and the search engines are way too smart for that today. They’re putting more emphasis on bounce rates and click-through rates. That tells us that they are moving even further ahead with a focus on the user experience. Brian Gardner: One thing we didn t talk about with black hat SEO is — I m sure you ve encountered this too — some of these SEO consultants that we ll call black hat, not only are they trying to trick Google and the search engines into stuff that benefits the client. They actually go — I don t even know if it s a blacker SEO or blacker hat SEO, where they would actually go in and try to manipulate the results so that it benefits them as the SEO consultant. In other words, they are stuffing these words at the bottom of the page that may link to their website, which is even worse than trying to do it for the client. They are actually trying to mooch off of that themselves. That s just definitely not a thing that should be happening. It s obviously something that when folks hire SEO consultants like you they really should find someone that they can trust, find someone that has been referred to by them as a successful, holistic, white hat SEO type of consultant. Even if that means pay the extra money, because you do go get what you pay for at times. Let s shift this a little bit away from the technicalities of SEO. For our listeners, who many of which are just starting out on the web. Maybe we call them the DIY-types where they are just trying to get online and just start. They’re not ready yet to hire an SEO consultant in all of that. You believe that great SEO begins well before the website goes live, right? Which means you have to plan before you even just launch? Rebecca Gill: Yes. If we’re doing a custom development project with a small urban market company, for example, and the project includes both SEO and design and then the buildout in WordPress, we don t even start design until we work first on SEO. Going through research, planning and sitemapping and talking about their website personas and mapping the paths for the website that the users are going to take. Then, after we go through all of that, now is when we actually start the design process with the graphic designer. After the things are built out and content is going in, we come back and optimize again, but that design phase doesn t even start yet. I think that that s a mistake that a lot of people make. They look for a theme that makes them happy as opposed to saying, What do I need? What does my visitor need? What kind of content do I need to display? What visitor paths do they have? Then looking for a theme that matches that. They jump ahead. So you get those questions from people and email all the time, and I m sure you guys do too is, “What theme should I pick?” I don t know what theme you should pick. I don t know enough about your content and your personas and your visitor flows and your paths and your objectives to be able to pick a theme for you. That s a process. It should be a process. I think that those are the steps that you need to do before a launch, as opposed to launching a pretty site and then adding in SEO after the fact. That s the wrong path and it creates extra work and a lot of delays and a lot of frustration. Lauren Mancke: I definitely agree with the content-first mentality when it comes to design. I run into that issue all the time with people of stressing how we need to go through the content first because they think that that s just an afterthought, which is definitely not the case. What are some other common mistakes you see businesses and bloggers making? Long-term SEO Strategies Rebecca Gill: I think a big one with SEO is expecting immediate results. It doesn t happen. Can you get immediate results within a week or two for a long tail keyword? Yes. Can you get it for something that s competitive with 20,000 searches per month? No. That s going to take time to work up and build and you have to be really focused. I encourage people to have a couple of those, three to five of those high value phrases and know that it s going to take time to build up. That s definitely one mistake. Skipping the research and the planning phase is a huge mistake as well because, like I said, people want to jump ahead and they’re eager. That s just the wrong way to go. I think the last one, I would say, is outsourcing everything. Don t outsource everything, educate yourself. Read high-quality blogs. Take an online course. Educate yourself on the process and then hire someone to help you execute that. In that way, you are knowledgeable, you know who you’re hiring and whether or not they have a good approach to SEO and whether they are solid. That way you ll have success today and success five years from now. Like I said, eight years from now they are still sitting on Google, even though they may not even be doing anything. Brian Gardner: Dictionary Brian jumping back in. You mentioned a phrase that I want to go over because this is huge. I think another one of the mistakes is people focus on these keyword phrases that are just too broad. You brought up the term “long tail search.” I know what means and I ve gone into my own analytics and seen the effect of long tail search. It s changed the way I — whether it s on StudioPress or the Copyblogger stuff that I write or even my own blog — I try to change how I m trying to write and which words I m trying to write for because I see the benefit of long tail search. Can you explain to our listeners what long tail search is? Rebecca Gill: Sure. When you look at the keywords, you ve got really broad, which in our case would be design. You could be designing anything. You could be designing diapers, or a car, or a website, it s too broad. Now you go into the next category which is more focused, which is website design. Much more focused, although that is still kind of broad because it could be website design in Joomla or Drupal or small business or enterprise. Now go a little bit more focused, which is WordPress website design. Now, from a service page that s a great keyword, because it is your target market, it s what you do. It s going to drive conversions when they actually hit the website. A long tail, which would be more usually focused on a blogpost, could be a problem that someone is having and it could relate to a plugin for a specific function. That s a long tail search. It s very precise, it s very focused. Those are much easier to win on and have success with than something that s very broad like design or web design. What people usually forget is you don t want design. You don t want web design because a lot of those aren t going to convert. You want specific to what you do so the traffic you are getting is precisely focused on your offering and how you can help them. That s really going after that long tail and making sure that you’re providing very focused value to your visitors. That s what leads to success with conversions. Brian Gardner: Not that I particularly care for conversions, especially with this blogpost that I wrote. But an example of the difference between a broad term and more of a long tail search term is a post on my blog where I wrote about my experience buying a MacBook Pro — how I returned my thirteen inch MacBook Air for a Mac Book Pro with retina display. I certainly don t get traffic when people type in “MacBook Pro.” I get a ton of traffic when people search derivatives of how much does a MacBook Pro weigh, which is a much longer term. I will get zero hits. In fact, I probably won t even be on the first 100 pages of Google for something as generic as “MacBook Pro.” But when you write something, and again, there was no intention here. I had no intention of trying to capture traffic or do anything with it. It was just to share a story. When you write something that s a little bit more — maybe answers a question. When you think of writing something, write out in your mind, “What would people Google for?” When you type in, “How much does a MacBook Pro weigh?” I come out, I think I m number one in Google. I might even be in the snippet that shows up at the very top now for that particular question. Start to think about that when you write your content, unless your site is extremely authoritative and gets a lot of Google juice. You may have to bank on the fact that the long tail search type of thing will bring more traffic in the long run. Rebecca Gill: It really adds up. People always want to go after that high volume, that 20,000 searches a month. Guess what? You end up sitting on page 100 in Google and no one ever sees you. Even if you’re on page 3 people rarely see you. But if you take 10 long tail phrases that each have 50 searches per month, that adds up quickly. Now, not only do you have 500 visitors coming, they are very targeted to what you do. It s in your benefit to focus on the long tail. It s easier for you. It converts better. It s easier to win. And it overall will make everybody happy. Brian Gardner: Rebecca, you mentioned a little bit earlier in passing, SEO boot camp. It s something that you just recently that came out with. I m going to do a direct pitch for our audience. I have a question: Have you ever wondered why your online marketing efforts haven t been successful? Learn the right way to do SEO with Rebecca from Web Savvy Marketing, along with other friends of ours, Carrie Dils who will be on a future episode, as well as Coy Miller of iThemes, who is a friend of mine and also will be on a future episode here at StudioPress FM. Jumpstart your website by attending their SEO boot camp conference on January 11th through 13th, 2017 in Dallas, Texas. If you want more information on that you can check it out at seobootcamp.com. If you like what you heard on today’s show, you can find more episodes of StudioPress FM at — you guessed it — StudioPress.FM. You can also help Lauren and I hit the main stage by subscribing to our show on iTunes. It s a great way to never ever miss an episode. Thanks for listening, and we ll see you next week.

Working on new information to rescue Albert, Jim, Gladys, and Lt. Carmichael are unaware of Albert’s captors plans for them and the fact that Jim’s car can be set to self destruct. Jim Nolan, Private Eye was created by Mike Murphy and Arlene Osborne. Starring our regular cast: Russell Gold as Jim Nolan, Joyce Bender as Gladys Nolan, Brian Bedard as Lt. Walter Carmichael, Tracy Hall as Trudy Williams, and Katie Dehnart as the Narrator. Guest starring in this episode: Cindy Swanson as Rachel Llewellyn, Chris Cree as Deanna Llewellyn, Capt. John Tadrzak as Albert Nolan Ray Saltrelli as Ben Timilty, and Joe Stofko as Colonel Cutler. “Father’s Day – Part 2” was written by Mike Murphy. Jim Nolan, Private Eye Theme: Composed and performed by Vivian Doskow. Please visit her web site to listen to more of her wonderful music. Producer: Capt. John Tadrzak Assistant Producer: Mike Murphy Mixer: Jon Specht Script Editor: Arlene Osborne Webmaster: April Sadowski We would also like to thank Capt. John Tadrzak of Misfits Audio for airing this show. Mike Murphy, the author of this story, gratefully acknowledges the continued help of Arlene Osborne in the betterment of his scripts. This production is for […]

Created by Mike Murphy and Arlene Osborne Written & Associate Produced by Mike Murphy Script Edited by Arlene Osborne Mixed by Jon Specht Produced by Capt. John Tadrzak Misfits Audio’s 1970s Boston-based detective series returns. In this short piece, we hope to jog your memory about the first part of JIM NOLAN’s “Father’s Day” audio. I would NOT miss the upcoming second part on Monday! Capt. John Regular Cast Members: Russell Gold as Jim Nolan, Joyce Bender as Gladys Nolan, Brian Bedard as Lt. Walter Carmichael, Tracy Hall as Trudy Williams, and Katie Dehnart as the Narrator. Guest starring in this episode was: Wendy Tremont King as Mrs. Williams, Joe Stofko as Colonel Cutler, Wendy Tremont King as Hannah Llewellyn, Cindy Swanson as Rachel Llewellyn, and Chris Cree as Deanna Llewellyn. This production is for enjoyment purposes only. This is an original production by Misfits Audio. 2011 Jim Nolan, Private Eye Theme: Composed and performed by Vivian Doskow. Please visit her web site to listen to more of her wonderful music.

Created by Mike Murphy and Arlene Osborne Written & Associate Produced by Mike Murphy Script Edited by Arlene Osborne Mixed by Jon Specht Produced by Capt. John Tadrzak Misfits Audio’s 1970’s Boston-based detective series returns. In this first part of a two-part episode, the emergence of new clues makes Jim, Gladys, and Lt. Carmichael hopeful for a reunion with Albert. However, Albert’s captors have other plans. Regular Cast Members: Russell Gold as Jim Nolan, Joyce Bender as Gladys Nolan, Brian Bedard as Lt. Walter Carmichael, Tracy Hall as Trudy Williams, and Katie Dehnart as the Narrator. Guest Stars: WENDY TREMONT KING as Mrs. Williams, MICHAEL LIEBMANN as Eric Stanton, H KEITH LYONS as Young Albert Nolan, RAY SALTRELLI as Mr. Stanton, VICTOR GATES as the Guard, WENDY TREMONT KING as Hannah Llewellyn, RAY SALTRELLI as Ben Timilty, CHRIS CREE as Dr. Louise Harkins, JOE STOFKO as Colonel Cutler, CINDY SWANSON as Rachel Llewellyn, and CHRIS CREE as Deanna Llewellyn. Jim Nolan, Private Eye Theme: Composed and performed by Vivian Doskow. Please visit her web site to listen to more of her wonderful music.

Social Media Consultant and Professional Navigator: in Planes, Ships, and on the Web - Creating Success as part of the Living Web. On Course. In Conversation.My name is Chris Cree and I'm just a regular guy. I'm a former Naval Officer and have over 10 years experience post Navy in the business world.Much of my career has been in operations. and most of that has been in the maritime industry. So I know how to get things done, and make things happen. As an operations guy I understand how important it is for your business to get the most from its resources and spend money as efficiently as possible.I started my first blog in September of 2005, which in blogging terms means I've been doing this a while. To help you put that into perspective, in Sept 05, Technorati (the popular blog tracking service) was tracking about 16 million blogs. As of this writing they are tracking about 60 million, and that number is growing by about 175,000 blogs every day.As your business blogging consultant I see my job is to help you successfully integrate blogging into your overall business strategy. Blogging is my thing and I'm passionate about it because I understand how tremendously beneficial it can be to your businesses profitability.I don't see blogging as a complete replacement for a well balanced, multi-faceted marketing strategy. But as far as efficient use of resources and bang for your marketing buck goes, I know that when implemented properly blogging has the potential to become the single most powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal.

Social Media Consultant and Professional Navigator: in Planes, Ships, and on the Web - Creating Success as part of the Living Web. On Course. In Conversation.My name is Chris Cree and I'm just a regular guy. I'm a former Naval Officer and have over 10 years experience post Navy in the business world.Much of my career has been in operations. and most of that has been in the maritime industry. So I know how to get things done, and make things happen. As an operations guy I understand how important it is for your business to get the most from its resources and spend money as efficiently as possible.I started my first blog in September of 2005, which in blogging terms means I've been doing this a while. To help you put that into perspective, in Sept 05, Technorati (the popular blog tracking service) was tracking about 16 million blogs. As of this writing they are tracking about 60 million, and that number is growing by about 175,000 blogs every day.As your business blogging consultant I see my job is to help you successfully integrate blogging into your overall business strategy. Blogging is my thing and I'm passionate about it because I understand how tremendously beneficial it can be to your businesses profitability.I don't see blogging as a complete replacement for a well balanced, multi-faceted marketing strategy. But as far as efficient use of resources and bang for your marketing buck goes, I know that when implemented properly blogging has the potential to become the single most powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal.

Website monetization is a multi-million dollar problem that currently has no good solution. To shed some light on the problem and provide a possible solution, GodblogCon invited Marcus Goodyear and Chris Cree to interview GBC speaker Wade Tonkin, owner of Christian Affiliate Marketers. Be sure not to miss Wade’s interesting response to the question, “Is it wrong to want to monetize your Christian blog?” Do not miss out on your chance to talk with Wade and fellow Christians bloggers about the problems of website monetization, the coarsening of discourse online, and more. Register for GodblogCon!