Podcasts about learn find

Today we will continue with Off-Amazon PPC and Amazon Attribution with Hai Mag and it's marketing value to your business.  Amazon Advertising is a mixed blessing at the best of times. On the one hand - pull the lever and the traffic comes (most of the time anyway!). On the other - not only does it cost a good % of your revenue - but the price keeps going up for ads! Now add in a recession - and what should we be doing to grow our Amazon PL businesses? To discuss this and more, Hai Mag from Eva joins us. With many large PL clients using their service to manage Amazon PPC, they have the inside track on the data! What You'll Learn Find out how to increase your profits from 5% to 20%! How to maximize your profit from pricing. Discover the things that improve profit, such as using reimbursements Resources Get Your Reimbursement Repricing and Stock Management Free PPC Audit + Account Audit + Market Share Analysis

Today we will continue with Off-Amazon PPC and Amazon Attribution with Hai Mag and it's marketing value to your business.  Amazon Advertising is a mixed blessing at the best of times. On the one hand - pull the lever and the traffic comes (most of the time anyway!). On the other - not only does it cost a good % of your revenue - but the price keeps going up for ads! Now add in a recession - and what should we be doing to grow our Amazon PL businesses? To discuss this and more, Hai Mag from Eva joins us. With many large PL clients using their service to manage Amazon PPC, they have the inside track on the data! What You'll Learn Find out how to increase your profits from 5% to 20%! How to maximize your profit from pricing. Discover the things that improve profit, such as using reimbursements Resources Get Your Reimbursement Repricing and Stock Management Free PPC Audit + Account Audit + Market Share Analysis

Amazon sellers obsess about how to get their own ecommerce site. There are excellent reasons why you'd want your own DTC (direct to consumer site) Amazon IS a nightmare at times. With Amazon Account Suspension, listing suspension and intellectual property violations all significant risks, it's a wise move for risk diversification. And with Amazon ads costs going up all the time, it seems like it might even make financial sense. However. once you're off Amazon you're confronted with another challenge: How on earth do I get quality traffic to my site? And how do I get enough of it to make a real business? So many Amazon sellers have a Shopify or woocommerce site that does almost nothing. Others pay so much for traffic in paid ads that they can't make a profit. Most serious DTC owners know that SEO has to be the backbone of traffic. But how do we actually go about SEO in a way that works? Today we talk with Farzad Rashidi of Respona on exactly how to get that precious Google organic traffic in a way that's doable for busy entrepreneurs. What You'll Learn Find out what's the buzz all about with Respona The backstory of Farzad and how marketing paved way with Respona The value of Paid Ads Understanding the ins and out of Cold Out Reach Maximizing value with Cold Outreach Freebies Get your free "Recipe Book" for Outreach Traffic Tactics at www.amazingfba.com/backlink Your free demo with Farzad himself at https://respona.com  

Amazon sellers obsess about how to get their own ecommerce site. There are excellent reasons why you'd want your own DTC (direct to consumer site) Amazon IS a nightmare at times. With Amazon Account Suspension, listing suspension and intellectual property violations all significant risks, it's a wise move for risk diversification. And with Amazon ads costs going up all the time, it seems like it might even make financial sense. However. once you're off Amazon you're confronted with another challenge: How on earth do I get quality traffic to my site? And how do I get enough of it to make a real business? So many Amazon sellers have a Shopify or woocommerce site that does almost nothing. Others pay so much for traffic in paid ads that they can't make a profit. Most serious DTC owners know that SEO has to be the backbone of traffic. But how do we actually go about SEO in a way that works? Today we talk with Farzad Rashidi of Respona on exactly how to get that precious Google organic traffic in a way that's doable for busy entrepreneurs. What You'll Learn Find out what's the buzz all about with Respona The backstory of Farzad and how marketing paved way with Respona The value of Paid Ads Understanding the ins and out of Cold Out Reach Maximizing value with Cold Outreach Freebies Get your free "Recipe Book" for Outreach Traffic Tactics at www.amazingfba.com/backlink Your free demo with Farzad himself at https://respona.com  

Learn: Find out more about Jeannie's on-site and remote training, speaking, and workshops to help you create an amazing experience that keeps your customers coming back again and again: https://experienceinvestigators.com/Listen: To Jeannie's podcast Crack the Customer Code: http://www.crackthecustomercode.com/Follow Jeannie: on Twitter and LinkedInFollow Aprimo: on Twitter and LinkedInSubscribe: www.aprimo.com/studios/cheat-codes/Leave us a review!Want to be a guest or have feedback for our team? Let us know!Learn more about Aprimo

It's time to talk about MONEY! Who better to talk about money and financial intelligence than the one and only Mamma Rita Money, herself. We are so excited to chat with Rita Boccuzzi about financial intelligence and how she cracked the code on the money mystery. With over 13 years of experience in financial services, Rita is armed with the wisdom and knowledge to help others. As a child she learned about saving from her parents. From age 18 to 33, she saved and received her first financial hit as the market reset, which resulted in the loss of half of her savings! As she began to rebuild, Rita was hit with another major situation: CANCER. While she was able to fight the cancer in her body, she wasn't prepared for the cancer of her finances. Once again, her finances were drained, and she had to start from scratch—again. From there, Rita was on a mission. Her mission and purpose is to educate 1 million families over the next five years on the mysteries of money and personal finance. She starts all of her educational resources and consultations with awareness and knowledge before building from there. She has helped many people, including other cancer survivors manage their money and turn hard situations into triumphs. Things to Learn:Find out how to never lose money. Learn about the word formula for moneyDiscover how to develop your own money plan. Rita shares about money accumulation pathway systems. Learn how to use your core values to evaluate potential partnershipsRita explains the R.O.D. of business. Follow Mamma Rita “Money” Boccuzzi on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.Email her and check out her websites for Mamma Rita Money and Financial Resetting. Set up an appointment for a consultation session here. Follow our host Lara Shmoisman on social media: Instagram: @laraschmoismanFacebook: @LaraSchmoismanLinkedIn: @laraschmoismanTwitter: @LaraSchmoismanGo back to the homepage. Support the show (http://www.laraschmoisman.com)

Pastor Scharf preaches from Matthew 11:25-30 on July 19, 2020. At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Jesus issued an invitation to come to Him and find rest. But between coming to Him and the actual finding the rest that Jesus offers lies more invitations from Christ that lead us to the rest He promises for our souls.

Jesus issued an invitation to come to Him and find rest. But between coming to Him and the actual finding the rest that Jesus offers lies more invitations from Christ that lead us to the rest He promises for our souls.

If you want to make real and lasting change in your work environment, you have to start from a place of clarity about your actual situation. You have to understand where you are at relative to your company's mission and what things are in your control to change for better outcomes. This week, author and speaker David Burkus shares ideas for finding what your team will fight for, and understanding the stakes that show why that fight is necessary. “There is a bad future that will happen and a good future that will happen, and we're actually in control of that based on how seriously we take it,” Burkus says. Oftentimes, companies talk about the idea of purpose, instead of a fight. While purpose focuses on something positive that teams can work together to create, a fight demonstrates the stakes and gives teams the challenge they need for bonding and motivation. It's a rallying cry, he says, that brings together every member of the group in service of something greater. What You'll Learn: Find something for your team to rally around Move from accepting a purpose to understanding the stakes Choose to change Find the connections that lead to opportunity Start from a place of clarity Order David's new audiobook, Pick a Fight, here. Grab Jake's new book,Compete Every Day: The Not-So-Secret Secret to Winning Your Work & Life at Book.CompeteEveryDay.com

If you want to make real and lasting change in your work environment, you have to start from a place of clarity about your actual situation. You have to understand where you are at relative to your company’s mission and what things are in your control to change for better outcomes. This week, author and speaker David Burkus shares ideas for finding what your team will fight for, and understanding the stakes that show why that fight is necessary. “There is a bad future that will happen and a good future that will happen, and we’re actually in control of that based on how seriously we take it,” Burkus says. Oftentimes, companies talk about the idea of purpose, instead of a fight. While purpose focuses on something positive that teams can work together to create, a fight demonstrates the stakes and gives teams the challenge they need for bonding and motivation. It’s a rallying cry, he says, that brings together every member of the group in service of something greater. What You’ll Learn: Find something for your team to rally around Move from accepting a purpose to understanding the stakes Choose to change Find the connections that lead to opportunity Start from a place of clarity Order David's new audiobook, Pick a Fight, here.   Grab Jake's new book,Compete Every Day: The Not-So-Secret Secret to Winning Your Work & Life at Book.CompeteEveryDay.com

We all have a responsibility to ourselves and others. It's up to us to put our best foot forward and do what we can to live good lives, both internally and externally. This week, legendary sports agent Leigh Steinberg shares stories of resilience and responsibility and talks about how to use the power and esteem of sports to make change in the world. Steinberg says it's important to maintain a sense of hope for the future, and to strive for self-awareness. It can be challenging to look past your current situation and recognize what you have to offer. Likewise, it can be easy to forget the ability you have to make a difference. But by being authentic as you walk through life and never forgetting to feel appreciation for what you have, you can live a life guided by your values and help others along the way. What You'll Learn: Find hope in difficult times Work on building self-awareness Be transparent and authentic See players and people holistically Always have a sense of appreciation Connect with Leigh & his team at steinbergsports.com. Support the show by using code PODCAST for 15% off any order at CompeteEveryDay.com.

We all have a responsibility to ourselves and others. It’s up to us to put our best foot forward and do what we can to live good lives, both internally and externally. This week, legendary sports agent Leigh Steinberg shares stories of resilience and responsibility and talks about how to use the power and esteem of sports to make change in the world. Steinberg says it’s important to maintain a sense of hope for the future, and to strive for self-awareness. It can be challenging to look past your current situation and recognize what you have to offer. Likewise, it can be easy to forget the ability you have to make a difference. But by being authentic as you walk through life and never forgetting to feel appreciation for what you have, you can live a life guided by your values and help others along the way. What You’ll Learn: Find hope in difficult times Work on building self-awareness Be transparent and authentic See players and people holistically Always have a sense of appreciation Connect with Leigh & his team at steinbergsports.com. Support the show by using code PODCAST for 15% off any order at CompeteEveryDay.com.

Free traffic and what you need to be thinking about instead of rank: SEO Keys in 2018. In this episode of the Garlic Marketing Show, we listen how Sam McRoberts has helped some of the biggest brands in the world, as well as small companies. He specifically focuses on SEO audits/strategies and beyond rank, he helps you to create a plan that gets traffic that converts. He highlights the Google’s Ranking Factors in 2018, mobile searches, as well as tips to help stop people from worrying about rank. What You’ll Learn: Find the keywords driving the most traffic What RankBrain is and why you need to understand His one ninja trick that can double your traffic in a few months (without writing more content)  Connect with Samuel: Free Access to Sams “SEO Simplified Course”  for the first ten people to click this link.  SEO Simplified Course After that you can get half off by clicking this link SEO Simplified Course 50% Vudumarketing.com Links and Resources: Iangarlic.com/plan Garlicface.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Speaker: Michele Mather No need to quit your day job to have a passion project on the side. Want to tap your creativity, create more connection, or identify a volunteer gig? Kickstart the process with Michele Mather, CPC, and walk away with an outline to guide you. Cosponsored by Portland Community College, these free programs help you develop and increase your professional skills. Recorded Live at Central Library: January 25, 2018

SHOW NOTES Paul Geiger helps businesspeople communicate clearly, overcome their fear of public speaking and promote themselves and their ideas with effective speech techniques. He is currently a Senior Associate Instructor at New York Speech Coaching in New York City. Paul uses his training, his experience and, more importantly, his intuition to figure out the key action steps that work for each individual client. Paul is also an accomplished actor, voiceover artist, and on-camera host. His new book, Better Business Speech: Techniques and Shortcuts for Public Speaking at Work, provides readers with the tools necessary to make lasting changes that will enhance speaking skills in all facets of business life.  Listen and Learn: Find the three reasons that drive your brand How to create trust with your audience when public speaking Why you need a branding phase How to give speeches with eloquent delivery Discover how to calm your nerves when public speaking TO FIND PAUL ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PAUL, CLICK HERE.

130 - Tim Wambach's Journey of 1000 miles   Today's episode is about Tim's journey of 1000 miles (literally) for his non-for-profit organization: Keep on Keeping on Foundation   Find out how Tim worked with Tony Robbins' running coach to be his guide on this 1000 mile run Learn Find out Tim's goal of 30 miles per day for 40 days Discover how Tim's setbacks with his running journey helped him in his outlook in life Find out the mental game that Tim's mindset about having to run 30 miles per day Hear how Tim planned his day so that he set himself up for success everyday Find out how Tim leveraged technology for his run that helped him to keep his head in the game Learn Tim's mantra that he used every single day Hear the three things that Tim learned as a result of running his 1,000 miles Find out what a goal killer is, watch out for this one Find out the sayings that helped Tim and are now some key sayings that have so much impact on his life (bet you will benefit from these wise words)   Congrats on your amazing accomplishment Tim, you are one of a kind.  Much respect.   Patty also gives a quick update on her work with Create Buzz, her consultancy business with partner Pamela Herrmann.   For more about Create Buzz, Mile High Mastermind Event     Links:   Connect with Tim's Non for Profit on Facebook   Tim's Keep on Keeping on Foundation

This Episode’s Focus on Strengths In this episode, Lisa has a fun conversation with Melissa Dinwiddie. Melissa is a multi-talented, creative person who lights up your day with her voice and enthusiasm! She helps her clients to use their strengths to get their mojo back when they feel like their innovation gene has left the building. You’ll find lots of ideas to spark your creative mojo in this episode. Plus, you’ll hear about her “Passion Pluralite” life, as she calls it, so listen in. You’ll walk away with a newly formed opinion of what’s possible for a multi-passionate person. It’s inspiring to see someone who wouldn’t settle for “one thing” or one activity driving her entire career path. As she’s working with her clients, Melissa always keeps in mind her Top 5 Talent Themes from the Clifton StrengthsFinder: Connectedness, Achiever, Input, Futuristic, and Positivity. You’ll hear why this combination of Talents makes Melissa one of the most knowledgeable, multi-talented, creative people you will ever meet.   What You’ll Learn Find your unique you. Melissa Dinwiddie is a multi-talented woman who has many different interests. She knows a lot about a lot of things. She always took for granted that she had so many interests, until she had a conversation with a client that led to a life-altering Ah Ha moment. In that moment, she realized that she had a unique gift, and that her Connectedness and Positivity Strengths made her a natural at consulting and collaborating with others. This led to her career working with clients to improve their creativity – which leads to innovation, increased profitability, and achievement. Use your Strengths. Connectedness and Positivity also enable her to look for meaning and connection all around her. She is always using that information to figure out how she can help her clients. Always say “Yes, and…” Improv class, which is one of Melissa’s newer hobbies, taught her to always say “Yes, and…” instead of “Yes, but…” because when you say it, you keep thing going and growing. This approach generates more new ideas, and allows for more creativity. Saying “but” is really just another way of saying no. It shuts down creativity. It leaves your team with more potential conflict and stifled creativity. Adding many ideas to the big mosh-pit brings forth more possibilities, and will empower your team members. When people are scared that they’re gonna be cut down, they become afraid to speak up (and you might be missing the best idea yet). Understand your Strengths…to overcome them. This might sound counter-intuitive, yet Melissa gives a great example when speaking about her Achiever Talent Theme. In the past, her need to achieve kept her stuck in self-perfection. By understanding how the Achiever Strength has the possibility to (counter intuitively) limit her ability to finish projects, she has developed self-compassion. She now considers herself to be a “recovering perfectionist”. So, if you tend to be a perfectionist at work, remember, everything doesn’t always have to be perfect; sometimes it just needs to get done. Give yourself a break! Lisa adds that the Achiever Talent Theme in its pure form is all about completing tasks and getting to the finish line. She hypothesizes that Melissa’s other StrengthsFinder Talents may be playing into her perfectionist tendencies too. While her Achiever wants to get things done, her Input will want to keep sponging up learning and insights that broaden her view of the project. Speaking of opening up possibilities, her Futuristic Talent will keep her in constant “what-if” mode. The fascination and vision of what can be can also keep you in rework mode. And her Connectedness Talent could have event played into her perfectionist tendencies because she sees connections and wants to share them with other people. Imagine when she’s creating courses and wants to keep tinkering so that every person with every perspective can get what they need. Ahhh, feeding your talents can be so energizing. And, sometimes, they can derail your progress if you’re not keeping an eye on the outcomes you set out to achieve. Schedule sandbox time every day. Our modern lives are super-busy, and often jam-packed with activities and projects every single day (even the weekends). Melissa suggests you spend 15 minutes every day relaxing, like you used to do as a kid. Play in the sandbox, doodle on paper, or go for a walk – whatever floats your boat. She’s proven that just that short amount of downtime can rejuvenate your creativity, and you will have a much easier time coming up with new ideas or finishing projects you’ve neglected. So schedule a short break time every day, and see what happens. Finding your “true passion” takes practice. People often ask career coaches and StrengthsFinder consultants how they can find their “true passions”. Melissa has an answer for them: Go out and try different things. She cites the example of learning to dance, another recent hobby. It took her 3 – 4 years of different types of dancing to figure out that she loves salsa and Argentine tango. In the work environment, you may be in a role you don’t love. Maybe you even hate your job. Look at the tasks your perform, and pay attention to what you actually do enjoy. Then find ways to get more of them added to your job responsibilities. If you stick with it, you’ll end up happier, more successful, and your business will be more profitable. Remember, knowing your Strengths and understanding them can have a huge impact on your personal and professional lives. So go out there and create.   Resources of the Episode To connect with Melissa and grab some creativity resources, check out her website. You can also connect with her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Ready to live a full-color life? Melissa’s Live Creative Now podcast is filled with practical tips and inspiration on creativity and creative productivity. Feeding your creative hungers is one of the fastest ways to happiness, joy, and self-fulfillment. Not only will you feel more alive, it’s how you will change the world!   Subscribe To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from the website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.   StrengthsFinder Mini-Course For Managers If you’re a people-manager and you want to sharpen your strengths based support, come join our monthly mini-course. We don’t charge for this because we want to help you keep the StrengthsFinder momentum going. Teams who receive strengths feedback have 8.9% greater profitability. Yowza! Sounds like a great reason to join. Source:  Asplund, J., & Blacksmith, N. “Strengthening Your Company’s Performance.” Gallup Business Journal.   Go Live Your Talents Remember, using your strengths every day at work makes you a stronger performer. Go claim your talents and share them with the world! Read the full conversation: Lisa: Today, this show is all about using your natural talents to unleash your creative side at work. Your guest is so super interesting. She's actually dedicated her career to instigating creativity around the world. She works with teams to help them get their Mojo back when they feel like their innovation gene has left the building. She might even change your mind today about how very important play is at work. And speaking of play on the literal side, your guest plays the Ukulele and even brings that into her work world. So get ready. You're about to see how your creative expression can help you offer your value to the world. So Melissa Dinwiddie, welcome to the show. Melissa: Wow. Thanks Lisa. That was like the greatest intro ever. Lisa: It could have only been better if I had primed you for it so that you could have your Ukulele ready to play a little tune. Right. So, okay. You know, this show, it's all about exploring strengths from every angle. We're getting a unique angle of creativity today and we're bringing in strengths to that. So when you mentioned to me that when you first considered your top five StrengthsFinder talents that the one called Input was interesting to you because at first you didn't see that as something special and you. So tell us more about how that went down for you. In your mind, how did you open yourself up to the idea that it could actually be a superpower that you were overlooking? Melissa: I was doing a trade with a woman who was, at the time, my yoga teacher and she's also a life coach and so she was trading coaching. She was giving me some coaching and I was creating a website for her. It was maybe the third time that she had asked me about how to do something inside of a WordPress website, upload an image or create a new page or something, and I was showing her. And then she said, well, what if I want to do, you know, x, Y, z? And I said, oh, well there's three different plugins that I know of for that. And she looked at me and she said, how do you know all this stuff? And I said, I don’t know, I just, I made my own website a number of times so I know this stuff. And she's like, I think you don't appreciate how that, you knowing all this stuff, like that's not normal, that's normal in a really cool, really cool way. Melissa: Like you could, you could do consulting and you know, Blah Blah Blah. And it, it was that moment that made me realize, wow, this is something that's unusual about me in a good way. And it made me flash back to a moment, years earlier, this would have been back in the late 90’s, mid 90’s when I had started doing calligraphy, which became a huge passion of mine and that ultimately turned into a career. But at this point I was still a relatively new calligrapher and I was at a workshop and it was one of the first workshops I had been to with this calligraphy guild that I had joined. And somebody asked about a tool called an automatic pen. Well, what is an automatic pen and how is that different from, you know, this other kind of pen? Well, I, when I got into calligraphy, I had taken, like I'd ordered all the, there were two big stores that had, at the time, this was really before the Internet took off, so they had these paper catalogs. So of course I had ordered these paper catalogs and that was my bedtime reading. I would go to bed and pour through these catalogs and read all the details about every single tool and every single book. And so I just knew all this stuff. And so here I was, I'd been doing calligraphy for, you know, less than a year or something, and I was spouting off “well and automatic pen is its way and it works in this way and the way it's different from quick pan is blah blah”. And I remember the people looking at me like, are you an alien? Like they just didn't know you've been, I've been doing calligraphy for eight years and you just started, eight months ago, how do you know all this stuff? Melissa: And I, didn't realize that that was, I didn't have a word for it. I was just who I was. So I didn't realize that it was unique or unusual or a particular strength. And it just was this quirky thing about me that I didn't even realize was quirky. So yeah, that, was probably of my StrengthsFinder strengths. That was probably the first one that I went, oh yeah, that I can totally see as a strength because the things that I'm passionate about, I dive in and I learn everything that I can about them because that's what I do and then it nothing makes me happier than sharing that knowledge with other people, so it's a natural for consulting. Lisa: So cool. I love when I have clients with Input. It is so much fun to hear because they love going deep and gathering all the information and learning about a topic and then really directing it to what they're into, whether it's a hobby or work and then sharing it and it becomes such a collaboration strength too because you can add so much value because you realize, oh, not everyone does that. I mean, if I know if I got into calligraphy, I would flip through and look at the pretty pens and that's about it. I didn't know anything about any specs. Melissa: Right, right. Yeah, it, it definitely comes in really handy. The other one, I'm number five for me is Positivity and that one I recognized right away and people are always telling me, Oh my God, you have so much energy and you're such a cheerleader, you know, and that's just my personality. I hadn't really thought of that as a particular strength either, but I see it like I use that every day and the work that I do with clients and the groups that I lead that, that I am always essentially cheering people on. I mean not with like pompoms or something, but you know, I always have a positive spin on things and that it's not pollyannaish. It's just, it's just how I am. I think actually that's quite related to my top strength of Connectedness, which I mean I read that and when that's a strength, what? Lisa: That one always surprises people. They go, Huh, I would never think of that one. Melissa: Never would have thought of it. But I think that really ties in with my Positivity that this sort of outlook of always finding meaning and connection and you know, there's always this sense that everyone and everything is connected and I'm not like a religious person, but I'm it definitely infuses kind of everything I do Lisa: Well, knowing a little bit more about you and how you bring play into your work and how you’re an improviser, that's a high Positivity. It just makes complete sense because there's a fun-loving elements of it. It's finding the good times and things like if you're going to be here on the planet, go have a good time while you're at it, why not? And that tends to be one of the outlooks of people with high Positivity. So when I saw that and then knew that you were into play and Improv, I thought, oh well, it's just so perfect. Melissa: Yeah. And of course the sort of core piece of Improv is to say “yes, and”. Lisa: Yes, please say more about that. How that has shown up at work for you? Because most of the corporate people I work with are completely unfamiliar with Improv. Maybe you can talk about how that looks for people in a meeting or how that looks for people in either supporting each other's ideas versus squashing it if they gave it a “yeah, but.” Melissa: That got really clear for me when I think it was like my first Improv class, I've been doing improv for about three years now and although I've been improvising, interestingly enough, I've been drawn to improvisational creative forms for a really long time. For example, I got into salsa dancing and Argentine tango and those are purely improvisational dance forms. They are based on a vocabulary of movement and each social dance has its own vocabulary of movement, but within that vocabulary it is 100 percent improv and then when I got into music, the music that I was drawn to was jazz, which is an enormous umbrella that covers so many different styles of music within it, but the one thing that is a consistent among all of them is that there have improvisational elements, so it's really not that big of a surprise that I would end up doing improv. Melissa: Now I can connect that all together. My very first improv class, there was an exercise where a group of us were sitting up on the little stage area. We were supposed to pretend that we were in a meeting creating, we're talking about creating some, I don't know, some random object that we made up on the spot and about how to market it, I think. And so the first part of the exercise was that whenever anybody says something, let's, you know, let's throw a big party with confetti and invite the whole town or you know, whatever it was we were supposed to respond with, “yes, but,” and then add something. Right. So we did that for a while and then we stopped, and we replayed the same scene essentially. But this time whenever somebody gave an idea, the response was to be “yes, and”, and what was so interesting was when we did the “yes but” or “well, but” it would turn into just squashing, squashing just that: No, no, no, no, no. And it stopped everything where when the exercise was “yes, and” it became this like crazy mashup and it just kept growing and growing and growing and growing. And when you bring that “yes, and” to say a meeting where you're generating ideas or something and if you can respond to somebody else from that space of “yes, and” it opens up so many possibilities, you know, there's time later where you can refine things and cut things out and look at the, you know, the reality of our budget is limited to x or whatever. But to generate ideas, you have to be in that space of “yes, and”, and people don't like to put an idea out there if they know that there's a chance that it's going to be cut down. Right. Nobody likes that. That feels terrible. So that's a really important place to bring that Improv scale of “Yes, and”. Lisa: I love the example too, of how you used it and actually had the contrast of the “yes, but” or the “well, but” with the “yes, and in the same situation because right, it just stops all the momentum and turns everything. And it's kind of like the eeyore moment. Melissa: Totally. Yeah. And “yes, but” is really another way of saying “no” Lisa: it true. Another thing that you're getting me thinking about reflecting on a work day and how you can have these breakthroughs and also sparked me to think about something you mentioned about your Achiever talent, how when now when you look back on a work day, you can kind of see that when you're fueled up, it's because you've achieved something and felt productive and that you feel frustrated when you're not. What does that process look like for you? And just exploring them and seeing how they show up. Melissa: That one for me, in some ways it feels like as a liability as much as a strength only because, my history is being way too much of a perfectionist. I mean, I am now a card carrying him perfectionist, which means a recovering perfectionist. It's the same thing, which means basically that I treat myself with self-compassion. I was so stuck in perfectionism. I mean my Achiever strength was, you know, so blown out of proportion, there was no balance to it. There was nothing, nothing connected with the Achiever that you know, just sort of say it's okay. You get to be a human being, you get to be human. What ended up happening was, I mean, I call myself an artist. I had a career, a business. I still have a business and our business primarily making Jewish marriage contract. It's basically a side business these days. It used to be my main business and for about a decade while I was making my living from my art, I didn't create anything for myself purely for play, except once a year I would go on a retreat with my calligraphy guild and then I would do some things for myself, but the whole rest of the year, all the other 360 days of the year, the only art I ever created was to other people's specifications and partly or a big chunk of that was because I was so trapped in perfectionist paralysis that anything that I would create, I would think, well that's not good enough. That's crap. And so it became so painful to try to do anything that I just didn't do it. But I was in such denial about it that I told myself, you know, I bought into the story, I created this story that it was because I just didn't have time and it wasn't until February 1st 2011 when I was actually interviewing an artist for my first online course that I created called the thriving artists project and this particular artist mentors other artists who want to have fine art, you know, professional fine art gallery, exhibiting art careers. Melissa: And they get stuck in resistance as anybody else on the planet. Surprisingly enough. And so this artist that I was interviewing would tell her mentees, if you can't put 15 minutes a day into your art, you're making an excuse. And she was just talking about what she told her mentees. But in that moment, I was so nailed. She was, she was talking to me. She didn't realize she was talking to me, but she was saying to me, and by the time I got off that phone call first I got very defensive inside. But then I realized, oh my God, she is right. For the past decade I have been making an excuse because of fear, and so that day, and it was February 1st 2011, I committed to putting 15 minutes a day into making time for the joy of creative sandbox time that you talk about. Lisa: Is that your creative sandbox time? Melissa: Absolutely. That is. I didn't have that terminology at that point, but yeah, that's, that's my creative sandbox time. That is my playtime where in fact, in order to get myself into that head space where I could put even just 15 minutes into making art, I had to set up a bunch of sorts of ground rules for myself and it started off with maybe four or five. You know, it's all about the process. It's not the product let go of the outcome. When you get to the place where, you know, it's not done yet, it needs something, but you're not sure what and you're afraid to try anything because you might ruin it. One of my rules was go ahead and ruin it. And over a period of a two or three years that expanded into 10 rules for the creative sandbox. It's now what I call my creative sandbox manifesto. Melissa: And the sandbox image was because I realized at one point that I wasn't taking time to do art. I'd started making some art, but the art that I was making, I stopped after a while, a couple of weeks into it or something, I just wasn't getting to my art table anymore and I couldn't figure out why because I wanted so badly to get back to making art. And one day I was looking at the table and I realized, oh my God, the art that I'm making right now has nothing different from when I'm working for a client. So it feels like work to me. It was very meticulous. It was very design-y. There was nothing improvisational about, there was nothing playful about it. It was the opposite of play. And I realized it was like this light bulb went off over my head and that's when I thought I need to play. Melissa: I need to be like my little four-year-old nephew playing in a sandbox, making messes, thinking, oh, what would happen if I poured water on this? What would happen if I did this? That's the headspace that I needed to be in. And so that's, what I develop those, those rules to help me get into that headspace. Lisa: It's so cool. And the boy, I mean, you know that in the corporate world this is such a thing for people because you have this push-pull and your mind whether or not someone's specific talent is Achiever. People have a drive to get stuff done is push for the next thing, but then you know you need white space. You have to explicitly sometimes not manage yourself to a goal or you burn yourself out. And there's this internal fight thing and you even sparked for me a thought that takes it beyond the moment to moment push-pull, but even the overall career stress that people put themselves under when they think of finding their passion or finding their calling. Lisa: And I, think I remember you talking about callings as an elusive thing and that it's normal to resist them and refuse the call, that sort of thing. And I'd love to hear… you just got me sparked on that idea to what's your take on work as a calling and what do you do for those people who are beating themselves up over the fact that they feel like they don't have one? Melissa: Oh my God. So that makes me think about a conversation that I had a number of years ago with a woman in my synagogue and I was talking about this stuff was pretty new to me then I was like, wow, I'm discovering this new direction for my life or I'm helping people get connected to their creative side, which for most of us has been, you know, got quashed down pretty early, including me. Melissa: I mean a lot of people get quashed down at age five or six or something was like age 13 when I stopped making art. But for most of us that that gets really squashed and you know, so I was finding my passion again and our passion number 17 or whatever. So I figured out that I have a lot of them and this woman said, well, what do you do if you don't, if you don't have a passion. And I was stumped. I did not know how to answer her question. And it was only later when I was reading an article by somebody who I think she calls herself like the passion mentor or something, I can't remember, but she was writing about how, you know, passions, we have this idea that you're going to have this Eureka moment. You're going to open a door and boom. Melissa: Yeah, that's my passion, I found it. And the reality is, even though I spent, I can't tell you how many times I've told the story of various passions I've had in my life: dance, calligraphy, getting back to social dancing, writing, improv, music. So many different passions. And the story has always been, oh, you know, then I discovered this and that became my next passion. But that's not really what happened. Really, what happened was with dance, I was too scared to try dancing as a little kid. I had some movement classes when I was like four. And then I had friends who were in ballet, but I had this image of the mean ballet teacher with the big stick who would like hit you if you don't do things right or. So I never took any dance classes. And then in I think my freshman year in high school, some friends of mine, we got together, and we took a class at a community center. Melissa: We thought it was going to be, you know, mtv kind of how to dance to Madonna's material girl or something, you know, like the music video kind of dance. And it was actually, it was a modern dance class, which I didn't realize was much more classical style. And we were like, wow, this is lame. So I didn't, you know, I ended that class and forgot about it. So finally, you know, years later after, you know, first thinking about dance, I took a class at this local dance school and that's the moment where I went, oh my God, I want to do this every day. But it was, you know, three or four years of, tipping my toe into different kinds of dance before I discovered that dance school and Bingo had my Eureka moment. Every passionate I've ever had has been like that. Melissa: You have some kind of interest in something enough to try it. And you know, maybe the first time it doesn't do anything for you. But for some reason you go back to it at some point again and maybe the next time you find something new in that and eventually you know, you try it a little more and then it starts to develop a little more meaning for you. And then you dive in a little bit deeper and it's the sort of back and forth thing and it happens, you know, much more organically. It's much more like, you know, there are people out there in the world who feel like they had this instant, you know, love at first sight moment with their spouse or their partner. Right? But most people, it didn't actually happen that way with me, my husband, it took me two and a half years to see him as a contender and, he's like best match I could ever imagine for myself. Melissa: And that's what it's like with, with our passions for activities or pursuits. Lisa: What a good metaphor because it is like, I mean I can see the relationship metaphor so strongly that you meet somebody and then you think, hey, I actually enjoyed my time there, or I feel better when that person enters the room. Then when they leave the room and then you think, well, I'm going to hang out with that person some more, and it's the same with responsibilities and tasks in the work that you do. You can say, oh, that things kind of neat. I've never done it. I'm going to hang out with that thing a little bit more. And then you start exploring all the offshoots of it and it's so much like that at work and people for whatever reason, feel like there should be the Eureka moment you talked about and not the process of experimenting and going, okay, that thing's cool. I'm going to follow that path and all of the arms and legs that it has, and then you find that one thing that's super awesome and really fuels you up and I don't know why it's like that, but it does make me sad because a lot of people beat themselves up because they haven't found “the calling” or “the passion” and I know you use that term passion, plural light and looking at the plural like we have. We love a lot of things. Yeah, you have a lot of hobbies. You have a lot of interests, so let yourself feel that way about your work as well and go explore them. Maybe we can end with that exploration combined with how you explore your creative energy through your doodles because I think that's so fascinating and people will dig finding their own version of what you do with your doodling. Will you share about that? Melissa: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what I know about myself is that if I don't get a little bit, at least a little bit of time in the creative sandbox every day, my day doesn't go as well. It just, it makes me happy. It feeds me, it nourishes me. I also know that, uh, the thing I do first is the thing that gets done. So if I want to make sure that I get something into my day, it works best if I get it in first thing. I was not making, not making time for my creative play and realized I have to do it like before I even get out of bed. So I figured out, well, you know, I can bring a sketchbook and a pen, have it on my bedside table and then I can draw first thing in the morning. And so I set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes and I doodle first thing in the morning and I intentionally call it doodling because I want to be in that space of Improv. Melissa: That space of being in the creative sandbox like a four-year-old playing in the sand so that it's all about exploration and following my curiosity and not about trying to make something perfect or even good. And so it's just been an incredible self-growth experience to do this for the past, well, it's really since the start of the year, so it's been three months that I've been doing this. Every day I spend, you know, 15 or 20 minutes usually with a pen and some paper and a sketchbook, just doodling. It's like a spiritual, a spiritual practice because you learn so much about yourself. You know? Just today, there was a page where I had started something and I got really frustrated with it weeks back because I could see that it was going to require all this meticulous work that I just didn't want to invest in. It was going to drive me straight into that perfectionist place, which I don't like. I don't want to be in. And I came back to it today and thought, oh well I don't have to look at it that way I could come at it from a creative sandbox mindset and not worry about if these lines are perfectly rounded or whatever. And I was able to come back to that piece that I had totally rejected and really enjoy it and learn something and kind of expand my ability to break down those perfectionist walls from this one little doodle. So I highly recommended it. And it doesn't have to be pen and paper. I mean, you could do it with sound, you could do it with movement. You can do it with, you know, they're just so many ways that you can express yourself in, the equivalent of a doodle. Lisa: And I even do my white space. It's not quite my creative sandbox, but just my white space to clear my brain. My office is at home and in the woods and I take walks with the dogs and I just insert them in the middle of the day to give myself that moment. To not be distracted, to not be listening to shows. To not be learning, to not be in a meeting and it clears, it clears the space in a different way. And I'm the uber efficient. I mean I get so caught up that I'll listen to podcasts while I'm in the shower just because I want every moment to be so productive. And so it's that moment where I go, no, I'm just breathing, I'm listening to the wind listening to the birds and just let it rest for a minute. And then I get all these strokes of brilliance in that time and the sandbox time and the white space time. Lisa: I hope for everyone reading that this gives you some inspiration to bring that creativity back into your work day. To try yes, and if that's not something that's been part of your vocabulary, that you give that, some, just give that some air go, try that. It's easy to implement at work. Just show up and say “yes, and”, and your next set of meetings and don't squash an idea even if the squash comes to your mind, let it ride, let it ride and do that later. And let the ideas and the big breakthroughs happen. So thank you everyone for reading this Lead Through Strengths today. Melissa, this has been great. The readers are going to want to check you out. You have a show to tell them about, tell us how they can find you and your doodle delicious life. Melissa: Oh sure. Well, my website is Melissadinwitty.com.com, but that's hard to spell so you can also get to the exact same place livingacreativelife.com and my podcast is livecreativenow, which you can find there are. You can go to live creativenow.com, which will take you there as well. Lisa: Thank you. And we'll put all of that in the show notes so you guys can find it super easily and we'll get you her twitter and Instagram and Facebook links as well. So guys, remember using your strengths makes you a stronger performer at work. If you're always focused on fixing your weaknesses, always stuck in that perfectionist zone she's been talking about today then you're choosing the path of most resistance and you can choose instead to claim your talents and share them with the world.