Podcasts about okay again

Pamela Hillman knows what it means to be sexually abused, used, betrayed, raped, prostituted and a contract placed on her life from the mafia. Men in her own family system held her hostage to sexual abuse under the threat of death. She was in prison to drugs for more than 35 years through a cocaine addiction and a victim to sexual abuse. Drug dealing led to jail and ultimately prison for 18 months. But that is not the end of the story. Stay tuned to listen to this inspiring story of redemption and incredible forgiveness. Guys, welcome to this week's podcast. Well, I've got a treat for you this week. You know back in 2015, I had been single for several years and just thought that my life was going to be a life of singleness for the rest of my life. And, as it turned out, I ended up going to a movie preview from a friend of mine who produced a movie called Captive. That movie was about a drug addict woman who was taken captive in her apartment in North Atlanta. And, she read the Purpose Driven Life to him and that saved her life. He had already killed three people that day. And, but I was introduced to someone at that movie preview and her name was Pamela and Pamela. And I got to know her from that time and I heard her story and one thing led to the next and we were engaged not long after that. And so today you're going to hear an incredible story of Pamela that had a difficult childhood and that childhood led her into a lot of difficult places. You know, many of us have had difficult pasts but forgiveness is a key point on whether we're going to move past that difficulty. There are people that have betrayed us, used us, abused us, and so what do we do with that? And so, Pamela has a story of forgiveness. Her story is unlike anybody that I know. And so this week we are featuring a talk she recently gave at our church here in North Atlanta in Dawsonville, Georgia -- Christ fellowship. And this talk is an extraordinary talk on redemption and forgiveness. So I hope that you'll benefit from what she has to say and we'll see you at the end. God bless Pastor: I've grown to love a couple of them. And now a part of the our fellowship. I discovered Os Hillman years ago, nearly two decades ago. I think he is one of the most prolific authors. I would encourage you to research Os and to go to TGIFBookstore.com and buy everything that you have read. But Os is not speaking tonight. His wife Pamela is speaking to us tonight. I got to know her and we had lunch one time with Karen, my wife to discover her story. As I said this morning, every speaker at the North Georgia revival, and we had felt a particular leading to bring her before you. I sense the presence of God so strongly. When I invited her, I knew what would happen in this evening. There will be breakthrough tonight. There will be breakthrough tonight in people's lives. How many of you would like to have breakthrough in your life, your family? You don't need to pull out your phone and I want you to share the link of the North Georgia revival because you're going to want to have the story coming into the advices of people that you love. Christ fellowship awesome is our Facebook page. And you can go there right now, Chrysler shift Austin, he'll find the lightning if you will. And share. Are you going to download the orange? Add the ISN app. It's Supernatural app. Download it. And we are being broadcast all over the world. So I want you to make sure that you share the link. Christ fellowship Dawson. So without any further ado, I want to introduce this video clip on Pamela Hillman. She will come right after the short video. So are you ready for breakthrough? inside of you? The breakthrough is inside of you. It's one decision away. You have to make a choice. So let's get ready. Okay, awesome. So I have to tell you about my grandmother. I had a praying grandmother. And if you have a praying grandmother that is the key to your life ,it's important to pray for your children. She played the piano for the church for 65 years. She would cook for the pastors. They came to the home and this one jolly old pastor evens everybody puts his hand on me and he says, “You’re special. She's going to do great things for God. The enemy heard that. The enemy heard that this one here is special. We're all special in God's family. We're all special. When this seed is planted, that was an impartation. I didn't know it at the time, but the enemy came into steal that seed, and it was through my dad. So I was outside playing and there was this little puppy. So I bring this dog home and I said, “Dad, can I have this puppy?” I'm five years old. My mom and my sister aren't home. He said, “Come upstairs with me. You can have the puppy.” I had taken a nap with my dad before. I don't think anything about this. I go upstairs, lay down, and then something happens. So I go running out of the room, go downstairs, and my puppy was gone. The seed was planted. I can get what I want by going on upstairs. The enemy came in right after the impartation. We are in a battle, you have to know these tactics of the devil. Okay? So by the age of five it was my dad then my uncle then it was my godfather and the godfather was the worst and he had continued on. I was told that I would be killed if I said anything. Actually after I did tell my mom, she didn't believe me when he was with my dad. And then my sister started having my sister. Then she finally threw my dad at God. I thought I caused that. I caused my dad to have to leave and I wasn't going to have a daddy anymore. Watch carefully. It's a trauma that the enemy brings in. So I was choked, raped, ran over and shot at. I knew Jesus was praying through my grandmother. I accepted Jesus as a child. I didn't know what that was. I mean, she took me to her Bible study, but I didn't really know what that was. But He was with me. When I was shot. I was sitting in a chair. It made a complete circle around me. The chair had holes in it. The picture of my, my head was shattered. I knew, I knew, I know my grandmother was praying for me. There was an angel in front of me and do it. I'm going to run it out of the room. Oh my liver. I was in so many car accidents. I was in a body cast. I was mauled in this body, and in a wheelchair for a long time. They said I wouldn't walk again. I mean, I'm running today. However, I did cocaine for 35 years. That destroyed my liver. I destroyed my liver three times. I was in the hospital one time when I was on the dying ward with cancer patients and I didn't even know it. I said, “Why am I on this ward?” And they said, “You're dying.” I said, “Well, can I get another liver?” “No, you don't have enough time. You have about six months.” So, you know, I got involved in dealing large amounts through this Colombian mafia guy. One time I kicked his door and so he put a hit out on me. It was stupid. This is a Columbia mafia guy and it doesn't matter what you do when that happens. But somebody that worked for him contacted me. I was at a lowpoint in my life. I didn't care and so I went to him expected to be killed. I always carried a gun and I just said, you know, do whatever. I can't live with this anymore. I was sleeping with a gun under my pillow and showering with a gun and I just can't live like that. I'm here to reconcile something, okay? Or just do it! So I got tired of running and did this for 35 years. I was on such destruction. Everything that I did that I turned to it was the same guy with a different face. I concluded it was always everybody else's fault. It was dad's fault. It was my mom's fault for not watching over me. Right? It's always somebody else's fault. So we blame others for our situations. What words you're listening to? We must remake our brains. Demons are going into your soul and you're speaking to them throughout your life. You've got to be careful about your words. They have power. They really have so much power in any, that's the enemy's tactic. He wants us to play the game. It's all the combinations that you can't get out of it. You're in this confrontation within, and I'm going to tell you about the confrontation here shortly. And so I have this big house. I had the hummer and all the vehicles. I was dealing drugs and with drugs comes prostitution. I was miserable. I had 1800 stamp collecting books, a gun collection, vehicles and a big house and I was miserable. That did not make me happy. I would be sitting on the bed or sitting on the sofa and I would have my Bible open next to me in my lap. I had to have a crack pipe, a line of cocaine, you know, and I was watching TBN while taking drugs. People ask, why are you watching that when you're doing drugs. “I'm never going to get out of this if I don’t watch Christian programming. I knew Jesus and I know he was the only one that could get to me. So I was like, if you want to hear it, go to another room. I'm not turning it off, you know? So that was my point of surrender. I was praying. I said I don't care if you put me in an institution or jail. But I didn't know he was going to do it quite this way this time. So my point of surrender was to go to prison. Oh my gosh. When you really surrender and you're asking God to get you out, that is when I get pulled over by the cops. They don't find anything, but I go to the bathroom. And then the Lord spoke to me and he said, “I thought you wanted this to be over.” And I said to do. And he said, “Well tell him about the drugs in the car in the backseat of the police car.” He was taking me to jail for violations of probation. So it was my choice. That was my decision. I had to, no matter what the consequences were, say, “I'm ready.” I went out there and I told the officer I put drugs in the back of your car. He in this inflamed red face, you said, I already knew that and they tried to get me 20 years and I'm like kicking and screaming and say, no thank God. It wasn't for me. It wasn't just for me, it was me, but it wasn't just for me because when I was there, like I said, my 20 years, because I got five years, God can raise me with five to three and I spent 18 months, that 18 is my number now. My birthday is December 18 and you can go into the prison 18 months and I got out November 18. Okay. My point of surrender wasn't prison and I was trying to get all this stuff and I've been to treatment before. I knew that was just a short my time. And then I said, I'm using, use me in here heaters longer. She gave me more because he was speaking to me. He told me, he said, this is your college campus. I brought him here to train and equip you for what I have prepared for you. I said, Hey, this is my first mission field. I started this class for women. They want to change so bad. They were so angry. They saw me happy all the time. I was like, Oh, everyone's skipping and happy. They said, how can you be happy? You're in prison. It is so prevalent and people are like, this is the age and this is what the enemy is doing is it's adoption. Okay, and he's got to be mindful of this and I'm like figuring out what is causing me to go back to this. When I would relapse and go back to the drug, it was the because of many insecurities from a lot of the wounds that hadn't been addressed from the sleeping with a guy and then going back to drugs because of the pain. So I'm studying all these books and the Holy spirit spoke to me in my room. He said, the only thing that will change your mindset is the word of God, memorize it. This is the only way. My other book is and it will be done. My story will be out in spring. But anyways, so the journal book was about this size. I started from the very beginning of it. And I went through the book to the theory and theory first ever memorized to the theory. If you are intentional, if you want to have a change, you've got to do it on purpose. You got get up and make that decision and say, okay, I've got to do this for my own self to change. I was sitting on the toilet, I'm get a picture of a toilet paper roll. And the Holy Spirit says the center represents Jesus. The Holy Spirit fills you. The inside of the white of the toilet paper is our soul. What are we going to do with all of this garbage? It's the world and self putting in the shame, the guilt, the condemnation, the jealousy, all the anger. What are we going to do with it? It's the sanctification process of tearing off the sheet purposefully to do it.I said some people have a lot more stuff. He said the Lord spoke and he said, Hey, I want you to write down every name of everybody who was wronged you. I didn't remember some of the names because I've been raped. I didn't know their names and started praying in the spirit over them because my printer was, that was my, he said just put your hands on the paper. Greatest fear. Cause I know Holy spirit since I was 26 so that was core to my sanctification. I've been in the segregation process since I tried to commit suicide when I was 26. So anyway I reviewed all the names on the paper and began praying in the spirit over them and something happened in me. And he taught me to put my name at the end. He gave me this analogy. Look in the mirror and quote scriptures to say who I am. He says, I am the word of God and you gotta do it on purpose. This is all on purpose y'all. You got to be intentional about your process of sanctification, okay? You already said you got to use this. There's a process. My heavenly father will do the same to you if each of you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart. Okay, I can do it from my heart. I saw Holy Spirit work through me and for you. Okay? Again, had a lot of sickness. I had a lot of stuff going on in my body, handed over to the torturers evil one. Where is there unforgiveness? He's a torturer. We've got to release it. Writing on the piece of paper. How did you forgive all these people? And myself took me a long time for a couple of weeks. I just, I got to tell you what Greg did. So many I saw on a piece of paper, and I'm going to tell you this is the story towards the end, but at least they're on the phone. My soul, they were in my soul. It was great. I started praying for their salvation, for their healing, for their minds to get right. Do that. And I'll tell you the story in just a bit. Okay. So when I get out, I'm going to tell you this 100%. So when I get out of prison in 2010, my son who was here with me, praise God, he's getting bad taste today. And yeah, um, God has reconciled us. But, um, so I went in to get life insurance because I'm thinking I need to go take out the life. So I go and I guess they'd have to go to the doctor they call me. This nurse calls me and she says, I thought you might want to know about this. Yes. And I'm thinking I knew somebody right. And she said, well, you are one of 1% of the Americans with 100%. And she said, there's only 1% of Americans that have 100% of the people, all of that garbage for me. Didn't matter how long I was in there, I told them these women were coming up to me after my class, the daughters of science class, and they were saying, you don't know what it's like. This happened to me and that happened to me. I did this and that. And I'm like, I liked it dad. Maybe not to that extreme, but that happened to me. I can relate. I can relate to all these. I know why I had to go to all of these things. So they're stable. Well, the Lord taught me to pray scripture. He says in Genesis one 26 that created in his right and he also says in Isaiah 55:11 so shall my word be those forth from my mouth. Please. What are you sending out of your mouth? So I created these workbooks and I was like, okay, I was on this module or changed and um, Oh, it's great. It's on identity, everything but Google change. I need an acronym, maybe more in the morning habits around new bro every day. Good. So it's rewiring your brain every bit of it. Every day, every night when you sleep, you're rewiring your brain. Something can rewire your brain to the neck. Okay? You've got to pay attention. Don't get up in the morning. Oh my gosh. I get out of here and go on the table. God's given me so many dreams. I had one dream. We're in my day room and I fell asleep. I don't ever fall asleep this morning I did. And the Bible starts breathing. I heard decoding the Bible, then Os walks in ourday room, door opens and wakes me up. I know you weren't expecting part of the condemnation that was so deep in my soul were things that happened with him. If I allow it to happen because I wasn't the mother that he deserved and that, that just, it's still, you know, it still has a place. It's not a wound anymore, but it's a low place dead and he's done okay. For 20 something years, I never really pray this, but when so many would ask me about my mom, I would say she lives in an apartment. We've lived in an apartment all my life, you know, and she's ever had a house. I'm going to buy my mom a house one day. And I know, I knew. I didn't know. I never knew how it's going to happen, but I kept saying it, the power, they are so critical. Y'all did know that I was going to buy out six months after I got out of prison, the guy's dead. So my dad had got reconciled with my dad, while I was in prison and he was writing and he had dementia and he started it just really bad. So I sit down, I'm going to come take care of you. I'm going to come live with you. And he got so bad that, uh, they contacted me and said, he's in hospice and he's not gonna make it. You're not going to get Amazon. Well, it did. I prayed, I prayed. He says, God, I got to see my dad more time, please. So we've got an inverse. He got steam on Saturday and it was just [inaudible] seven. He was already dead in this chair. His eyes are all [inaudible] six or four. It's horrible. But when I got to and I got to tell him I forgive him and he started crying, he was waiting for me any time the next day. So I know the power of forgiveness when I was given a say and that $65,000 center and I knew what I was going to do with it. I bought my mom a house. It's a freezer other than the $70,000. We got it for $62,000. It's actually in the workbooks about my story. But all these stories are the power of our words. You know, you've got to speak the word. And I was praying for my child and got to take me into a mountain for a year. And then Jesus, you know, he's my Lord Satan. I didn't know he was my husband. When I brought him home, God multiply. I didn't so these are some other women. This is our Daughters of Zion for women. Can God use your time wisely? We have this is where she is anointed. Y'all okay. Go to the website, download this, this career shift because I went to my room and I said, what you heard the request they needed for your sheet. And so I was actually, I was leaning over somebody in the prison and never on her badge over her bed. She was in a whole rhythmic accident. Only some people were killed. She was on a Tuesday it off outside detail. Okay. In the whole ban for the women. And some of the women did die, some of their arms and legs, but she saw this bright light in the band and she was in a bubble and nothing happened. I was praying there were women and then she had this beautiful, it was like, they said, well, we'll pray over mornings or after she was sick and they made us all get out. But let me tell you, we never [inaudible], we never get to come together. We got to see each other name the next day in the cafeteria. And the Lord orchestrated that because she said the Devens choked her every time she got on her knees, she couldn't. She stayed so many countless women just led them to me too. He always had me in his, well, the Lord at the ministry is to borrow ministries but life changers legacies and he says those among you, you shall raise up the foundations. I feel so blessed to be in this search. I am so blessed and I know the annoyances. I am so honored to be you. Okay? It's not just the people in prison, they're the bridge bridges, your neighbor, the person you're sitting next to. We all have a condition or something. Okay. And we need to be praying one another, loving each other through it. Not judging because the Lord has taken me through a lot of courses and it's all preparation for the women to know, to be prepared to be geared at the training. And I have a brand team. I have a lot of Gaston and family team over here. I'm thankful for my team here and my family. Yes. So in my recent ordination is a chapel and now the Lord told me to become a number of deans for his forum, for his people. So through the different workshops, different counseling classes, everything that I've been in training for the last 10 years. So it's been nine years. I've created this workbook series and it's to go back home to the person. So each woman, we're this presence. So if you want to be a mentor, we do accept as well. This is the thing, I wanted to go into the dorm with them. We had security issues and different people. It was just purpose. So I waited on the Lord, prayed into it, all my experiences or I don't just like the dog. It's important that I tell him the moment when I go into the person, I say, this is just good. Boom, it's an important place. We got to know we weren't in that dark place because he is in the secret police. Right? So this one box came out of my story, my certifications. And I do have a lot of other people's material. And here I've got a couple of bosses pieces and we provide everything that is necessary for the psychotherapy. It's all therapeutic interventions, meaning the psychotherapy, the [inaudible] model, the cognitive, behavioral, everything. There are all kinds of programs. Like you said, they don't have Jesus. They're only a little stepping stone. So each woman, we provide a mentor for them to walk alongside. So the mentor gets a workbook as well. [inaudible] aged, soar. Both are getting the yelling. Yes. We rely on mentors and partnerships. Let me say anything or everything. We go to a national prayer breakfast and I've been on a 30 day fast and this was day 35 and I hadn't had chocolate. And I said, [inaudible] go upstairs. And I told him I was almost [inaudible] you sure you want to get back on top? We walked around the corner, we walk up the stairs. And um, did you take the video? Nope. Um, so every time I saw Michael Lindale on the TV with my pillow, I said, let him know how great his pillow is. So little did I know going upstairs to get my chocolate. You telling him about my story and that is, you're not going to see a picture of me. [ wow. It was horrible. So if you'll play that video. Thank you. I first met Pamela Hillman at the national prayer breakfast. We share stories of drug addiction and finding freedom through Jesus Christ. I realized that it was a divine appointment by God. He had brought us together to help others who struggle with drug addiction. Since then, I've learned all about Pamela's amazing one-on-one mentoring program for those in prison and those coming out of prison. This mentoring program is one of the best like they receive. And that's why I chose the partner with Pamela and Life Changers Legacy. I'm endorsee that I saved reprogram and I encourage you to support this life changing ministry as well. This is one of the best ministries ever. So, as we do have more workbooks, but it's really easy to just, um, he's using his workbooks in his Lindale recovery network. He's opening in January in Minnesota, so there and they had stacks and stacks of books in their room that this licensed counselor she had gone through and she says, that's awesome. So you visited me in person? Yeah. This is the community thing. So many people were like, I don't want to hear them. Neither do I, but the Lord made this program so easy. It is all done. Any video visit, you don't even have dementia. Somebody inside the prison, you do it to your computer and it's 30 minutes to an hour when it's so simple, isn't it? I've had to reserve him. I was wondering if you give me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you visited me and you did it to your community then, okay, how many times are we doing any of these? Are you stopping or are you saying they're just going to buy drugs? So I did, but I gave him a dollar. I give him $5 because I trust that person. It is my duty. It is their choice. And God knows my anointed dollar isn't going into their hands. It is going to infuse their [inaudible]. If I come up to you and I to say, Hey, how are you today? Because you might, she might make something like he does and he's working through me and I purposely do that every day. Everything you did. So now I'm going to tell you about that. Their biggest forgiving moment. I told you about the letters that I made. All people, right? Mostly guys, well, prostitution, business, drug, business, all of it. Um, I had a, uh, my, the business I had was a lot of wealthy men. They flew in from other States too. And um, I was just one year. But anyway, this one guy, uh, he was just need people. Uh, I, I was at this party, this place and um, and he was ugly. He to people. And, uh, he was very wealthy man, but in all the women were genuine and he wanted me and I said, no, there's no amount of money that you ever offer me because you know, I didn't like his attitude, how he treated people. And I still had a heart for people. Even though I was in sin, my soul wasn't affected. I didn't know how to get out of that. These women in prison, we have to beat the other hands if we want them to change. If we want our societies to change, 90%, 90%, are we going to do something about it? So there's one guy, he says, I'll have you, I'm going to get you. I didn't really think much about it. And um, so I go to this person's house. I had this guy who's like a big brother and he was kind of, my bodyguard went everywhere with me. And so I go to this, this house I was invited to and um, I wake up and nobody's there and I'm in a puddle and he's, you know, my big brother guy. And when I left and got in touch with him, he called me and he says, I'll help you get in. I'm going to help you get it. We're going to talk is, and I was like, what happened? What happened? And he said, he came in, you and the other room, he came in at eight, you go water money. And um, six other guys walked in behind him and they pushed everyone out of the room. And I said, yeah, I want to get in there. You know, that wasn't my soul, that violation, that trauma. I held that and I had hatred it because of that. I lived in that and I didn't drink for that man, but the Holy spirit on that piece of paper when I was in prison and I was praying over it, the Lord gave me a vision of this man as the man who was being raped repeatedly. We don't know what all of these people that are creating all these offenses, we don't really know what's happened in their soul and their life. We've got to back up and say, okay, Sarah, what happened to them? You know, this is not just about us. So I saw that and I started weeping for him. I started to bring for his soul and I get out. It was about three months later, I met a store and this man walks in front of me and when he said, thought you out, you know the whole memory, everything flashed for me and I froze. But he started crying and he said, I've come to Jesus and I have to ask your forgiveness. It was like to hear y'all. I don't know it. I don't know. Prayer of putting my hands on that paper and none of them, his name people. Okay, think about it. How many words have pierced hearts of our families and we're carrying our souls ready to release. Is it time? It's time y'all. You can't move forward and like this was your ride for the breakthrough. It's up to you. Yeah. This was my biggest challenge. It was the self forgiveness because of my children. Hers too though. I come with them so much, but he's [inaudible]. I've had four boys, four different men. I gave up one for adoption at birth, having ever seen another one. I chose to sign him over and say she was old. 13 months. [inaudible] his life. I'm wanting to have him to have a good life and I didn't trust myself and that was 20 something years ago. I know we won't be back because I was weeping in the prison. And I said, Lord, tell him that my children took her forgiveness and the Lord. I said, Lord, speak to me randomly of the word to Jeremiah 31 60 says, refrain your voice for me. Says a lot of stuff. And then at the very end it says, your children shall return to their own orders. I'm trusting my father. I'm trusting. Most importantly, I want them to know. I want them to know Jesus wherever they want. That's the most important border. So you know we can live in this invisible prison of I forgiveness and has sickness, have headaches, have different diseases and anger, anger. I had rejection issues. I had so many issues in the past 25 years. Billboard is just toilet paper sheets off it is my cheese. It's my decision and it's your decision. It's up to you to release the forgiveness, the unforgiveness and receive his forgiveness. It's so hard to do. Active your will. Faith is the activating force, what we believe. What do you believe? What is your belief? That's really the question. You keeping the unforgiveness or somebody that offended you. You're staying in a prison, you're not doing anything. But watch what happens when you step forward and you say, I release it to you. I really see your forgiveness. I can't do it anymore. And it does that to you. It says [inaudible], I've had so many new tools in my life and I know it's the cause of decision. It's because of making it on purpose, doing things every day. Give me the time that I was going to give up the baby for adoption. Christmas three years old and um, I wasn't getting Chell. Some were Brown and I didn't want him to go through a bad wife. I didn't want both of them to go through a bad wife. And so I made that decision. But while I was in prayer, all of a sudden the walls I've been through for hours, over and over, but the wall opened up. All of a sudden this pass everywhere, little sparks everywhere. I rolled my eyes cause I thought, I've just been crying too, right? But something led me to look to the left. There was a huge, huge one, waves bigger than a door. There was a veil on the face. I couldn't make out if it was male or female, but it didn't matter. This is liquid piece that I knew I was making the right decision. I knew that I needed to give him up there. There've been so many times I've seen it, a spirit realm. I've seen evil. I wasn't on drugs. I've seen a man transform right before my eyes into it to an Eagle spirit. So many people that are carrying the unforgiveness, it as a spirit, it is a spirit. Don't let it overtake you. Tell me it won't be able to shoot every aspect of your life. I invite you. Anyone here that has any unforgiveness, stand out. Bring it to the Lord. prayer ripped in the walls. There are more Holy spirit. All those places. Oh, there's two places. All those words say you have no more rights. There's more than one person name. You said fill those places right now. Overflowing joy. Freedom out of your soul. Don't listen to the enemy when he comes back and reminds you, don't listen to it. It's out of your soul. Say Jesus, I trust you. [inaudible] forgive me. [inaudible] when someone [inaudible] give me your, give me your, let me know what they're going through. Let me pray for them. Help me remember that I rely on you. Holy spirit. Every part of my life, I am free. Say it. You have free. Don't listen to the enemy, okay? If the Lord you are afraid to release, you just said it comes off. It reminds you where the person even comes back to mg, step back and say, no, that's been released for fame. Keep reminding yourself. Laura says, we got to remind yourself. Remind yourself, no release for me saying that's a lie. I'm not receiving that. And you'd get a worn out and not receive things, okay? Because the enemy's gonna walk through people. He gets to people he works through people. See, I'm not receiving those words. When they told me , where is it? I said, I don't receive those words. I never see those words because in the hospital with this disease, but they never told me it was up diagnosis. And so I said, no, it tells me I'm healed. And it's like, Oh, you're one of these Jesus freaks. And I said, no, no. I had Jesus long before I came to prison, three Skype. And so Joseph, before I had to take blood work before I got out, every time I've wanted, I said, I don't receive their scores. I don't receive it. So this day I'm about to get out and they take the blood work. The doctor opens in the fall and he says, something's wrong. I said, no, nothing's wrong. It's three orders, another test, and they come back. It's the same thing. And he says, looks like you're Jesus. Do you know why God made you? Do you know your purpose? Did you know there is a book in heaven with your name on it? OS Hillman has created an informative called out to discover why God made you. That will help you discover the answers to these and more questions about purpose calling and God's will for your life. This downloadable resource is yours free by going to www.mypurposedownload.com that's www.mypurposeDownload.com.

On the seventh entry of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, graciously shares ten pieces of advice regarding changing your mindset to stop settling in your career. We have to stop doubting that we're good enough for the jobs that we ultimately desire!Find out more about Latesha on the BCC website or connect with her through her socials! LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBCheck out Latesha's YouTube channel!BCC's socials: LinkedIn, IG, Twitter, FBTRANSCRIPTLatesha: What's up, everyone? Welcome to The Link Up with Latesha. I am your host, Latesha Byrd, and this podcast is for young professionals that need some real deal advice, tips, and resources to navigate corporate America and dominate their career. If you're looking to upgrade your brand, get the knowledge you need to level up professionally for your future, you're in the right place. I'm here with Living Corporate, and today we're talking about changing your mindset to stop settling in your career. If you all have been listening to the previous episodes, you know that I am a career coach. I've worked with hundreds of professionals over the past few years, just helping them identify what their dream careers are and how to actually go out and secure them, and one thing that I have realized over the course of being a coach is that a lot of us really struggle with changing our mindset around what we deserve and knowing what we truly deserve and not settling in our career. If you are settling in your career and you know it, this podcast is for you. There's a few tips that I have on how I want you all to think about what your life would look like if you were actually doing something that you truly loved. The main thing that you'll hear when you tell someone that you are looking for a new job is "All right, you've got to get your resume together, make sure you get your LinkedIn together, and go and reach out to these recruiters," right? Like, that's the advice we typically hear, but no one truly talks about your mindset and being mentally prepared to actually think about looking for a new job, going about the job search, thinking about and putting energy and effort and time into figuring out what it is you want to do. Then on top of that you have to go and talk to people, you've got to apply to these jobs, sit around and wait for interviews. I mean, it is a whole thing. It's not just as easy as "Boom, get my resume done. Boom, get my LinkedIn done." Right? And one thing that I've heard a lot of people say recently, and my clients have said this before--and they know I will always get on you if you say this--"I'm hoping this job will give me a chance." If you've ever said that before, this is for you. I want you to change your mindset around that. You have so much more control over your career than you give yourself credit for. So instead of asking yourself or telling yourself "I hope this job will give me a chance," ask yourself "Do I want to give them a chance?" Okay? Again, you went to school for your degree, your Master's degree. You have the qualifications. You have skills. You have experience. No one can take that away from you, you know? It is yours, and we have to stop doubting that we're good enough for this career that we ultimately desire. We are quick to talk ourselves out of applying to jobs if we don't meet all of the requirements. You know, we talk ourselves out of things that we deserve, and we spend over a third of our lives at work. So we have to make sure that we are operating at our highest, highest power. This I have seen more with women, and it has been, you know, statistically proven that women will actually not apply to positions--or I will say they are less likely to apply to positions if they don't meet all of the requirements, where as men are more inclined to apply to positions, whether they meet, you know, 50% or 60% of them. So again, just know that you have so much more control over your career than you're giving yourself credit for. So I just have ten tips that will help you with just changing your mindset. One is know that this whole thing is bigger than you. I ended up leaving corporate to--and I was a recruiter--but I ended up leaving to focus on, you know, leading and growing my career consulting agency, because I realized that I could make much more of an impact if I were out, you know, doing this on my own than being held back by that position that I was in. I thought about who would not be helped or who would not be impacted if I didn't take that leap of faith. So just know that, you know, your career, what you are set to do, is so much bigger than you. It is also about the lives that you will change, you know, the difference that you will make. So ask yourself. If staying in that role that you feel is holding you back won't get you to actually make that difference that you are meant to do. The other thing as well is if you are, you know, a parent, or if you have children, if you have people that are looking up to you and looking to you for guidance and looking to you for support, are you--by not doing something that you love in your career, is that affecting how you operate at home as a wife, as a husband, as a mother or father? So just know that if you are actually doing something that you love, that will--and your professional life is going well--that may in turn create a more advantageous lifestyle, personal lifestyle, and will allow you to show up and show up for others much more differently and also healthier. Number two. I hear this a lot. "I don't know what my passion is." Right? And so that one thing might keep you a little bit stagnant. Just know that a lot of us don't really figure it out until later in life. Don't beat yourself up about not knowing your passion, but think about the things that you daydream about. Think about the things that you do outside of work, you know? Think about where your mind goes, and start paying attention to your thinking patterns at work. Where do you see yourself really being in your zone, you know? What do your coworkers always compliment you on for doing a great job at, you know? What do your family and friends come to you for for help? Even outside of work. You may not know what your passion is just yet, but that doesn't mean that it's not out there. It just hasn't yet been discovered, but we are still, you know, growing, even throughout our 20s, throughout our 30s, so your passion may change over time. But don't let that hold you back from settling in your career. Number three - envision the life that you want. What would your ideal day look like if you were doing something that you loved? You know, we don't allow ourselves the opportunities to dream anymore, you know? Dreaming was something we did as children I guess, right? And then we graduate and start working, and corporate America just beats us down and--[laughs]--we kind of forget to dream and just get excited about our future and our career. So this is something that I have all of my clients do is write a vision statement down. Envision that life that you want. What would be your ideal day? This is going to sound a little cheesy, but visualization exercises are great. Close your eyes. Think about who you would be with, what you would be doing, who you would be working with. Who would you be doing it for, right? And really push yourself to get out of your comfort zone as you're thinking about this, and write down what you see. I had a career coach that I had been working with, and we recently got reconnected earlier this year, and he actually asked me to do this while were on the phone. And I kind of laughed and was like, "What? I'm not closing my eyes and dreaming. What are you talking about?" He was like, "Girl, just do it." [laughs] So it kind of took me a few seconds to get into it, but then, as I started to really allow myself to dream, I saw myself speaking in front of hundreds of thousands of people internationally and, you know, to be honest, that's something that I've always wanted, but because I haven't really dreamed, I've been so stuck in the just day-to-day of the work and just trying to run the business, you know? I haven't really dreamed about what I want for my life, you know, a year or months down the road. And ever since I envisioned that, one I've been more intentional about, you know, getting speaking opportunities, and I'm starting to get so much more nowadays. So visualize that. Write it down, okay? Number four. Write down what you want in your next job. This is something that I have all of my clients do as well. I call it your career values. Just do [?] a list of what you want in your next job. What type of benefits do you want? Do you want a flex schedule? Do you want to work remote? Do you want to travel 50% of the time? Do you want to lead a team? You know, do you want to--if you don't want to lead a team, do you want to be a sole contributor, you know? But write down what you want in your next job. That will allow you to make sure that you're asking the right questions and you're being very intentional about the companies, the jobs that you're focused on, but think about what you really want, you know? If you are just applying to jobs that you think, you know, "Well, I meet the qualifications. Let me just apply without really taking into consideration if that job is right for [me]," that may allow you to settle again. So think about what it is that you want. I have all of my clients do this, and they all kind of struggle with it, you know, at first, because no one really asks you, like, "What is it that you want," you know? So I love to hear what are some of those things that you come up with, and if you can get that list up to 30 or 40, that would be awesome. Number five: practice bragging out loud and get confident in that. Men do this all of the time, [laughs] particularly white men. So practice bragging out loud, but first do an inventory. Do an inventory of all of your accomplishments over your career. You know, start tracking that, you know, every single week or every single month throughout your career. I call it a brag sheet. And if you ever start doubting your greatness or who you are and what you deserve, you can always go back and reference that brag sheet. That will allow you to just increase your confidence so that you know, "Look, I did all of this stuff right here. I'm definitely much, much deserving of my dream job." Think about the barriers that are holding you back. This is number six. Think about the barriers that are holding you back, and when I say holding you back I mean holding you back from going after your next job, going after your dream job, that's holding you back and keeping you in that position of settling, keeping you stagnant. I will hear this from my clients [?]. "They promised me a promotion six months down the road, twelve months down the road." Just think about what you could be missing out on, what you could have already gotten, if you were to step out and try something new, a new role. Let's say--it's September now, right, and you're waiting on a bonus in December. If that bonus is $5,000, I promise you when you are going after your next job, negotiate. Tell them, "Hey, I really want to work here. However, my current job is giving me a bonus. I'm expecting to receive it in December. It's $5,000. What can we all do here to compensate for this bonus that I will be missing out on?" Right? Problem solved. So write down what those barriers are, and if you can write down those barriers, you can start to identify some solutions. Number seven: practice doing some things out of your comfort zone unrelated to your career. And sometimes I'll just tell my clients like, "Hey, just drive a different way home from work. Go to a new restaurant. Go to a new park. Try a new hobby." You know? "Go to a meet-up." Do something out of your comfort zone so that you can get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Another thing you can do is get clear on another area of your life. Maybe it's finances, you know? Getting clear on your finances, getting in control of that. Maybe you're needing to clean up your space, your living space. What are those other areas of life not tied to professional goals where you could use some organization, you could use some control? And that may help you to kind of clear your mind when it comes to your career. Number eight: communicate what you want and what you're looking for when you're networking. Think about your career values, as you're going to write down, and just know that, and tell people, like, "This is the type of job that I want. I want to be able to travel. I need a remote environment. I need a flex schedule." Right? Like, just be bold and state your needs. Be clear and specific. And the other thing that I would say here too is if you don't know what you want, you're closer to figuring out what you do want. Number nine: know that doing it with fear is better than not doing it at all. You don't want to live with regrets in your career, and if you have been regretting, you know, staying in this job for so long and not looking at something new, then do it afraid. Number ten is the last thing here. It's work with a career coach that focuses on mindset. Now that I have been coaching for quite some time, I have added a mindset component into my program because I'm realizing that we have to get our mindsets all the way together first, because that is essentially the thing that will keep us stagnant and settling. So, you know, work with a coach. Shameless plug. [laughs] But you do need to really think about your mindset, knowing that you deserve it. We all doubt ourselves. I have clients that earn well over six figures. They have Master's degrees. They have Ph.Ds in this and that, and they still struggle with this doubt, with impostor syndrome, with feeling like they're settling. So you need someone that's gonna help to pull that out of you and help you to step into your greatness. So I hope this was helpful. Feel free to reach out to me. I would love to hear feedback on this. And if you are going to take any of these tips, if you try 'em out, you know, just let me know. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter @Latesha_Byrd, L-A-T-E-S-H-A underscore Byrd. So hit me up. I would love to hear how it goes. So that is all that I have for today, so thank you all for listening, and I will see you next time.

Click above to listen in iTunes... Little did I know (or notice), but very subtle moves by my awesome parents helped to cultivate an entrepreneurial environment… Welcome to the first episode of me totally on my own not working for anybody else. I'm very excited to be here. Man, I've been dreaming about this for six years. My name is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host Steve Larsen. What's up everyone? Holy crap. I woke up this morning and I thought to myself, "Self, holy smokes. You really did this." Oh my gosh. Then I got up and I lifted and got ready for the day and I'm here. I'm ready to rock. This is going to be fun stuff. What do you do when you have that clean of a slate? It's been a lot of fun though already. I'm excited for this though, I've been dreaming about being on my own, owning my own business, being my own entrepreneur, I've been dreaming about this for probably six years. Really though it's been since like the middle of high school, so I don't know like 15 or 20 years, something like that. So, I'm excited for what this means. I'm excited for what it's going to require me to do and grow as an individual. I understand that I know that there's things I just don't know. There's stuff that I don't even know that I don't know and I'm excited to go find those things out. I know it'll cause some bruises and cuts and tears, every once in a while I'll get a bloody eye. You know what I mean? I know that. I understand that. It's so funny how many people have reached out and been like, "You're an idiot. Oh my gosh!" There's tons of people who are like, "You can do it. Oh my gosh!" It's been cool to have both sides of it, 'cause to me it means that I'm doing the right thing. So, when there's that much polarity with it, it's kind of like, you know, if you've offended nobody by noon you're not marketing hard enough. I feel like it's the same thing for you as an individual. If nobody's nay saying what you're doing, you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. You know what I mean? Anyway. So, I'm excited. I've got my first product launch, well, it's not my first one. I've done a lot of them but it's my first one solo on Thursday, and excited for it and I've been planning this product for a long time. I've tested it and it's been working like crazy and I've got honestly really two beta groups that I've been doing it with for the last while and it's been killing it. So, I'm finally ready to go public with it, which I'm very excited about. A lot of people have asked, you know, "How do you feel like you're ready? How do you feel like you're set to do this?" I know there's a lot of people, you guys are listening and you A, might either be hoping to one day get out there and do something on your own, you're dreaming about it and there's something keeping you back or you feel like you're not ready or whatever it is. Then the other side is I know a lot of guys who listen are actually by yourself and you actually have been by yourself for a while and that's awesome, I'm pleased to have you as well as a listener. I understand we got both sides of the coin here and both sides of the coin as far as how people feel. It's funny that people like reach out and tell you their opinion about what you're about to do with your own life, you know what I mean? Just expect that. Just expect that especially as you start publishing. Like if nobody has been doing that to you, you probably haven't been telling enough people and there's something weird that happens when you get really clear about what you want and you start moving forward. People start reaching out all over the place. Number one to say yay or nay, but then number two when you get that clear and you start going out saying, "Hey, this is what I want or don't want" it's funny how stuff kind of just starts to fall in place if you're actually serious about it and you're actually moving on it and you're not waiting for other peoples' blessing to move forward. You know what I mean? Stuff just will move forward with you, if you are. So, anyway. That's the deepness of this one. But I was thinking about just how I got raised and things like that and there's a great question that I got from a listener that I'm actually going to toss in right now. I thought it was the perfect question for what it was that's actually been on my mind, 'cause there are a few things that I did as an early kid that I can look back now and be like, "Oh my gosh, there's a few things that look, this helped me be prepared. This helped me get in the correct mindset where I could go do this." I understand, guys I'm only 29 years old and I understand there's other people who have been far more successful than me by this age and a lot of people who have been far less successful by this age. I think one of the keys is just to quit watching other people. Who freaking cares! I don't care. It's my life, it's where I am in my spot and I'm in competition with myself. Over and over and over again in Two Comma Club Coaching or any coaching in general that I do, side clients, you know, all over the place, one of the biggest things I see over and over and over again where get fumbled up, is it's good to look at other people, right? We tell people, we teach people, look go funnel hack this guy. Go funnel hack this person, this business, this over here. Copy them, model them, go through figure out what is it they actually did, how did they prove that that offer worked? How do they prove that they're attractive character works to that kind of audience, right? But also, please understand that your actual progress in this, right, should not be compared to another individual. Your actual value as an individual cannot be compared. "Oh well they did this by the time they were this age. They did this by the time they were this age." If you're doing that as far as competition, okay that's great but understand that I've seen a lot of people get crippled by it. Because what they do is they get out there and they start saying things like, "Oh, I must be doing it wrong. I'm never going to make it because I was never Russel's right hand funnel builder." You know what I mean? That's kind of what they do and they come out and they said, I've heard that a lot lately, it's like, oh my gosh, I wasn't planning to be, I wasn't even trying to be in that role for a while. I was just already in motion, they saw that, and they picked me up. You know what I mean? So, go get in motion. Go do stuff. Be in motion. Don't wait for approval from anybody else. You'll never get anything done. You'll get things done at a very slow rate 'cause you got to get second opinions on all this stuff. It doesn't work that way. Okay? You got to be willing to frankly give people the finger a little bit, which is something I don't do. Just move on. Like whatever, this is what I'm doing. Get out of my way. This is what I'm going to go do, and then you go do it. I don't know. Maybe I want to SoapBox right now but I'm certainly feeling excited and a little bit euphoric about this whole thing. Obviously there will be rough spots and everyone tries to remind me of that, duh. I get it. But there's also going to be a lot of freaking kick-butt stuff and I've got six mega selling opportunities this next month alone that I've pre-set up to help the jump as I leave. I mean, my goals are huge. I know that. It's going to be great. Do the same thing though in your life. Whatever it is that you're doing, the funnel that you're trying to put together right now. I was looking at a post the other day and the post was saying, "How many funnels are you going to build this next year in 2018?" I was like, "That is a rough question. Ouch. Who cares how many?" Focus on just one. Just do one. If you do one really good it'll change your whole life. It doesn't matter how many. I have no idea how many funnels I've actually built. I always tell people that it's like 300 but it's way beyond that. There was a single project that was 86 funnels two times. Okay? 86 funnels in two different times on a single project. I did it in like three or four days. Another one where it was supposed to be 330, I only ended up getting like 90 of them done but that was in two days. There was another one, like when we built Anthony DiClementi's that was 12 funnels. That was over the span of not that much time. So, it's in reality way past 300. I have no idea. But you know what's funny, is I can look back at the 12 that are killing it. Don't worry about the number of funnels. I know there's a strategy out there where you try and build a funnel a week, that's okay but you end up getting micro focused or hyper focused I should say, hyper focused on just the funnel that you're trying to get done and not actually making sure the thing converts and you're making money from it. There is so much mental capacity that is required just to get one kick-butt funnel out the door. Who cares about number two til you get number one done. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter. Stop caring how many funnel it is. Stop caring about, "I'm going to go get this done, this done, this done, this done." Well, then you're not going to get any of them done well. Okay? Do less better. Do less better. That's one of my favorite... I don't think he actually said that but it's a lesson that I got from him and I wrote it down. Do less better. It's all about saying no to more things than yes to a bunch of stuff. Say no to like everything. Okay? I do. It's the reason I don't funnel build for other people anymore. The kinds of people I want to funnel build for are like massive companies, huge companies. I would love to build funnels for huge, huge companies because I know with complete confidence that in a few tweaks I can totally change the revenue coming in to them. I could either take away their cost to acquire customers or we could go expand how much each one of them is giving them. I want to go build for massive, massive companies. So, I say no to like everybody else. I got tons more asks this last week and I get it. That's awesome, that's exciting, and quite honestly I'll probably do you know, some kind of event in the future where people can come in and I'll help them get their funnels out the door that they've been sitting on for a while. I would love to do that kind of stuff. I want to be involved with that kind of stuff, but the amount of mental mojo that it takes to get one of them, one awesome one out the door is huge. So, don't worry about number two, number three, number fifteen. Don't worry about number 12 til you have number 11 done. Number two, don't give a crap about number two until number one is kicking butt. You know what I mean? Anyway. So, as you think through the goals, whatever you're trying to do in 2018 whether or not you set goals and new years resolutions all that stuff, I'm off my high and mighty horse now. Let's get to the question from our listener, which I'm super excited about. Steph Brown: Hey Steve! This is Steph Brown. On your podcast you have given a few stories about how some events in your life growing up helped you on your journey to become an entrepreneur. I'm a mom of three young kids so far, and my question for you is how can my husband and I help to build a solid foundation for our kids so they would be ready to start their own businesses? What are some things your parents did well, what do you wish they would have done? What do you plan on doing with your own kids to help jump start their journey if they decide to become entrepreneurs? Thank you. Steve Larsen: Hey Steph Brown, fantastic question. Absolutely love the question. I have a four year old and a two year old right now and my wife is pregnant and expecting in June. I've had those same questions, the same kinds of things and it's made me very be introspective lately as I kind of look back and I think through oh my gosh, what are the three things that my wife and I should be doing? What are the things that my parents did? What are the things that I liked, what are the things I didn't like? Which is what each generation does building on the next. You know? You should look back and figure out what you liked that your parents did or didn't do and go build from it. Say I'm going to do this but not that. So, I totally get it. I'm not telling you how to parent but I totally get it though. In my mind that's how progress happens anyway. One of things my parents did is my dad grew up on a farm and he knew how to work and he wanted me to know how to work. So, he taught me how. I remember literally every single Saturday as a kid we would go do yard work. It pissed me off. I was so mad about it just week, after week, after week. People would be like, "Yay it's the weekend!" I'd be like, "Crap, I'm going to be picking weeds in the garden for six hours tomorrow." Which is not a joke. We would do that. We'd sit down and be like, "Oh my gosh." By the time I was eight years old I was mowing our lawn and I was mowing neighbors lawns and had my own little business. So, I was eight years old and I was going around. I think I was eight when I started doing it for other people, I was really young though. I learned how to ask people for money. I learned how to talk to people, 'cause it's not like they walked over with me to the neighbors and asked with me. It was like, okay, let me know what they say. I would walk over there by myself, scared out of my mind and I would go talk for myself, negotiate for myself as a very young kid. That was invaluable. I had no idea how much that would add to my life, later on down the line. As we continued to grow up though, we would do things like paper routes. My parents were not like ... We were far from poor. We were not wealthy though either. We had more than enough, we were middle class, very taken care of. It was awesome. My dad was an executive at IBM. He ran his own couple businesses for a while. He's a rockstar. He taught me how to learn. He taught me how to work. What I noticed they would do is they would set up these little scenarios for me to learn, these scenarios for me to own the projects. I think they understood, 'cause I'm the oldest of six kids, and they understood that my personality requires that I have ownership in stuff and it's been that way my whole life. So, when someone else would stand up and tell me what to do it took me a long time to be willing to understand that they're not trying to boss me around, sometimes they are my boss or sometimes they ... You know what I mean, so from a young age they understood quickly that I needed to have ownership in things. So, I'm excited to do that for my kids 'cause I've been thinking through what kind of cool projects I could give them where it's like, "Hey, children I want this outcome" and I give no instruction on how to get it done. Right? I love the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People when he's talking about his kids taking care of their lawn and their grass was brown 'cause the kids were still learning how to do stuff. There was trash all over. It was disgusting. People were like, "Why don't you just do it on your own and make it look nice?" His response was, "Because I'm raising kids not growing grass." Right? This is not meant to be a parenting show or anything like that but I'm looking back though, identifying the things that it was. There was a summer where ... My dad worked from home actually. He had a home office. I grew up in Littleton, Colorado, which is a suburb of Denver. Skied like crazy growing up and very outdoorsy. I backpacked my face off all over the mountains. Anyway, really enjoyed it. Lots of fun. There was a summer though that my dad was like, "Hey, children" and I was the oldest so mostly he was talking at me. He said, "Stephen come on in." I went and I sat down in his office and a lot of times it was almost like an interview when I was sitting with him, and I sat down with him and he's like, "I want to make you the yard manager." I was like, "Okay, what does that mean?" I had been mowing lawns and doing the trimming and weeding and all that stuff for some time but he's like, "I want to make you the yard manager." What he did, and this was one of the best lessons I ever had in my entire childhood ever, okay? I can't wait to do it with my kids. It's one of the reasons we bought the house that we did so that there's a yard, so that there's projects that need to be done. I am not trying to hire a maid. I am not trying to hire a yard guy. I have two little yard people right now that are in training, my two little kids. A third one on the way. That's how I'm looking at it because I expect them to work. I don't care how much money I make, they will have no idea that ... Anyway, I'm very firm on that. I know people who are like, "Let's give you a better life than I had." Yeah, okay, but I'm trying to teach you how to fish. I'm not trying to give you fish. So, what my dad did though is he sat down and he goes, "I want to make you the yard manager." What he did was he's like, "Here you go Stephen, I'm going to give you a budget. Every single week I'll give you a certain amount of money and you will go hire out your siblings for specific tasks and at the end of the week send me an invoice and I'll pay you and then you take whatever was over on the top." Now, that might sound funny to you but it was one of the coolest things I ever did. He gave me no other instruction. Right? He gave me nothing else and I was like, "Well how much money?" He's like, "Well you come up with the amount. Let me know how much it is." I was like, "Crap." That was one of the things that he was very, very good at is whenever I had a question this was one of the best things he ever did with me, he always asked me what I thought before he ever told me what he thought. I would have to go come up with the answer on my own. Do a Google search or ask friends, talk to people. Try and figure out what's the answer that I think it is and then I would take it to him and check it with him. He did that for tons of stuff. Totally pissed me off for a lot of my childhood but was one of the best ways that I learned how to solve problems on my own or at least take a stab at them. Then I'd go check them with now, the market. You know? Or now, a guru or a mentor or a friend or something like that. You know what I mean? So, what I did though is my dad said, "Okay, go figure out the amount." So. What I did is I literally wrote a contract. I sat down with my siblings and I interviewed them and I hired them to like okay, I'm hiring you younger brother of mine to mow the lawn. They would be applying for the position because it paid $11 a week, something like that. Trimming was $6 a week and weeding around the garden, weeding around the sides of the house it depends where you were 'cause the weeds were different depending on what part of the yard you were in and how crappy of an experience it was. Fertilizing was twice a season and aerating was this amount and I foresee these expenses and I foresee this. I had to come up with a plan. I think I was like 14 when I did that, 15, something like that. I can't remember how old but I was in my middle teens and I had already been running kind of a side business doing this stuff for other neighbors. I had a paper route. I was extremely active. I was actively trying to make money as often as I could as a kid. I was that kid that was like, "What can we sell to the other kids on the street in the neighborhood so that we can make money?" They'd go buy cases of soda and we'd sneak onto a gold course and we'd go sell it for a little bit more. We would take backpacks, we'd put backpacks on, put our swimsuits on and we'd go dive, which is totally disgusting. We'd go dive into the ponds at the golf course and get all the golf balls off the bottom. We'd clean them up and go sell them back to golfers. That's the kind of kid I was. I was always trying to sell stuff. I never realized that business was the thing that I was doing. I always thought entrepreneurship was like this nasty thing where you try and make as much money as you want. You know what I mean? I was totally wrong. It was totally false belief. I don't really know where I picked that up but I had to break that eventually. But anyway, so that's what I did though. So, my siblings would go out and I ran it like a business. That's what my dad was trying to get me to do. He's like, "Look, it's your thing. How do you want to run it?" He's like, "It's not on me anymore." He transferred all the ownership to me and he said, "Do it how you want to but here's the outcome I want. I want the grass looking good." That was it. So, I had to learn how to do sprinkler monitoring, you know, the systems. I had to learn how to do all this stuff and hire people out and at the end of the week my siblings were going be like, "Okay. Pay up." I'd be like, "Crap. I don't have the money." So, I'd go ask my dad and be like, "Dad can I get the money?" He'd be like, "Yeah, just write up an invoice." I didn't know what an invoice freaking was. He didn't tell me. He's like go look it up. So, I went and I looked it up and I made up what I thought was an invoice and I sent it over to him and he was like, "Okay sounds good." Before we even started with this I would send over an estimation of what I thought the weekly cost would be and be like, "Okay, think you could pull it off for that amount?" If an employee of mine, a sibling of mine, if an employee of mine didn't do their task that week I had to pick up the slack. I had to go do the job and I wouldn't pay them, I'd keep the portion for my own. So, I'd keep a management fee for myself to keep it all going and then my siblings would do all this other work on the side. Interesting experience. I mean, absolutely amazing. I totally took to it. I had full ownership over it. I took full ownership of it and I loved it. It was a great experience and it taught me management. It taught me delegation. It taught me that no job was below me. You know what I mean? I learned how to work my face off through that thing alone, and later on I was like hand digging trenches for sprinkler lines and putting up ... Like, I later on was insulating on my own and dry walling, patching and painting our whole garage on my own. You know what I mean? It taught me how to learn and work and solve the problem directly in front of me so that I didn't lean on another person to get it done. "That sounds hard". It's like, "No, what would you do first? What would be the first step?" "Well I'd probably do this. Then I'd do this, then I'd do that." Then I'd go check it, the whole system I was thinking of with another person but I didn't wait to start. It wasn't contingent on somebody else. It's totally this problem solving mentality that my parents instilled in me and that's kind of what I'm doing also. It might be weird to do it for a four and two year old but sometimes my little kid, like yesterday I can't remember what she asked me but she asked me something, I said, "I don't know, what do you think?" Obviously I had an opinion but that's not why I did it. That super helped me like crazy. Yeah, that yard manager thing was killer. That was absolutely amazing and obviously if you don't have a yard or whatever, or you have yard people, you can fire them or I'm sure there's other ways you can instill that or do that. That was amazing and that experience taught me a ton. I had side businesses my entire childhood growing up. For me to say, "This is the first time I've ever launched a business on my own" that's not true at all. I'm 29, I've been doing this for probably 21 years now. Have they all been very successful? No. Most of them haven't but I know what doesn't work and I know more of what does, and I know how to launch stuff. I know how to put plans together and I know how to manage and orchestrate people and put them all together and things like that. That's really what that taught me how to do, was how to orchestrate. How to delegate. How to not be the only person. My dad just, hey, here's the outcome I want and here's maybe a few pointers but after, I'd go try and find out the answer on my own. You know what I mean? That was ridiculously valuable. The other thing they did with me is they always fed me, clothed me, paid for school field trips, all that kind of stuff but any entertainment on my own, I mean, I paid for my own car insurance as soon as I started driving. My own gas, any movies I wanted to go to. You know, we'd get clothes at the beginning of each semester or before school would start again but after that though if I wanted anything extra I was really on my own. I'd go figure out how to do it. That was awesome. That was awesome to do it that way, because I got out of the mentality at a very early age, "Oh, I can't afford that" and I started getting into the mentality at a very early age, "Man I really want that cool cork gun" I remember thinking that and I totally saved up and I got one and I figured out how to get creative. I sold all sorts of crap to make money in order to go get toys. I did that a lot, tons growing up. Tons of times. Anyway. It taught me how to problem solve like crazy and keep me in good stress. Anyway. I am a huge advocate of good stress. Obviously there's distress and if i can tell that my little ones are entering a state of distress it's time to cut it out and time to intervene for me. I'm not telling anyone how to parent, please know I'm not a parenting expert, but that's when I would intervene though. That's when I do intervene, when I can tell they're entering a state of distress where the stress is no longer a growing and enabling style stress. You know? Like going to the gym. It's a bad kind of stress. It's the stress that's destructive. It's going to kill confidence. I don't want to kill confidence. I want them to have confidence to be problem solvers on their own, that they'll be self sufficient adults and they know how to do things on their own. I think particularly my mom wishes that I wasn't such an individual so that we would chat more and maybe ask more questions to her and stuff like that but they raised me to be a very self sustaining individual and to solve my own problems. It's not that they won't help, it's not that I can't chat, it's not that ... But it is primarily squarely, all of life, everything that I am, everything that I'm doing, everything that I'm being is on my shoulders and that was instilled in me at a very young age. I appreciate that. There were times where it sucked and there were times were it was not ... Oh man, but I carried that. While I wasn't very book smart in school at first I did learn how to learn and ended up getting almost straight A's throughout the remainder of college afterward because of the confidence they helped instill inside of me. Does that make sense? Anyway. It's interesting, as I'll hire people out or VA's or whatever, it's not that I can sit back and be like, "Oh, that's the kind of childhood you had" but I can sit back and go like, "Wow, you have very little confidence in your abilities." Sometimes I'm a little bit withdrawn on what I am able to do also for fear of looking like I'm being giddy, and I hate that in the internet marketing world. It drives me crazy. I'm not about to go take pictures of me laying across cars and crap. It's just not my personality. I would rather ... Anyway. It's funny 'cause I can tell though, there was a time when I was trying to hire ... You guys will meet her here soon 'cause I want to interview her, she's a rockstar of an ads driver, Facebook ads driver. I don't want to learn how to do Facebook ads. It's not a peak I'm going for. So, what I've been doing is finding these rockstar people and I went, and I've talked about this before, but just to recap I went and I created this cool contest and whoever was able to drive the most converting traffic to one of my pages, that's who I hired to be my Facebook ads person forever. Just because it was a competition, one person backed out. I was like, "Cool." So, then there was only two left. This is after I vetted out a huge list of lots of people. Then I went and I talked to the remaining two and I was like, "Okay, person A and person B this is the competition. Okay, I'm going to give you guys each $500. Whoever can drive the most converting traffic, you now have a job." I put a little pressure and there's nothing wrong with that, and it was awesome. Viva la Capitalism okay? That's what I'm all about. They were both pumped that it was a competition but the second I could tell was not going to be self sustaining. The kinds of questions that were coming from person B were questions that I didn't know the answer to, I don't know Facebook ads. I'm like wait a second, "You tell me what's best. I'm hiring you." It's the same thing that my dad would do with me. That's exactly what I said. It was interesting. I was like, "Huh, I can tell this person's going to be more of a liability on my time." I was like, "I don't know. You go do it. That's your job. That's why I'm hiring you." It's not on my shoulders, it's on yours. I'm paying you to figure that out. "Well what about this, this, this, this, this?" I was like, "I have no idea what even half of you just said 'cause I'm not trying to learn Facebook ads. I'm trying to be the best at funnel building, what you do with a customer afterwards. Offer creation. That's what I'm trying to be the best in the world at." You know? So, I got rid of person B because person A was just executing. Person B was asking a billion followup questions before they even got started. I was like, "Ugh." But anyway, that's part of it. So, anyways. This has been a long episode. I hope that's okay. They've all kind of been a little bit long lately. It's funny though how much ... It ticked me off like crazy that a lot of times it wouldn't be like, "Well here's the answer" and sometimes it would be. But a lot of times it was, "What do you think Stephen?" I'd be like, "Just tell me the answer! I don't want to go think! Don't do that. Don't make me think." But it taught me how to problem solve at a very young age, how to take responsibility. Anyway. So, you asked the question what I wished they would have done, which is a great question. While all those other things were awesome, I have incredible immense respect for my parents. I have absolutely zero bad feelings about the way I was raised. I'm completely thankful for both the good and the bad, the hard and the good. Everything that happened, both amazing and rough, for the way I was raised and I feel like that's powerful for each adult to eventually come to terms with. If you're okay with that. Man, this is like deep crap. This is not like a normal funnel episode. I am excited to make this change though. I had a very, and this is probably going to shock a lot of people, I was extremely shy as a kid. I'm not just saying that. Out of the 600 people in my senior graduating high school class, 600 people, I was rated and voted as the nicest kid. You know when they're giving like the most likely to do this, the most likely to do that, I was voted the nicest kid award out of 600 people. Nicest kid. It shocked the crap out of me, because in my head I was not that way. I was a little rage machine I just didn't know how to deal with it. But I had a huge fear of other people, I had a massive fear of adults. I was very shy. I'm excited to help instill greater confidence in my children. You'll notice that I love Setema Gali, I think that is his last name. He says something all the time, he's like, "Confidence is for kids." As an adult, especially as an attractive character you have to mean and exude absolute certainty, absolute certainty the evolved version of confidence. Okay? Again, no regrets. Nothing else. But I am looking forward to helping my kids have more confidence and help them be able to make ... I'm trying to figure out how to say that. But yeah, I think that'd be it. I just don't want my kids to be shy, and if they are that's fine. I'm not trying to change them or whatever, you know, but that would have been very nice. I had a fear of speaking, which is funny 'cause that's what I do all the time now. Stage, podcast, all over the place. But I had a huge fear of speaking and so eventually I had to face that fear on my own and I started doing things like door-to-door sales, musicals, stage presentations, things like that in high school at a very young age so I could get around that 'cause I started learning that about myself. But anyway. That's it. Long episode answering that question. Thank you very much Steph Brown for that. Shout out to you and thanks for ... If anyone else wants to get a question on here I do love hearing what it is that you guys have questions on and they often bring up kind of cool topics kind of like this one. Anyway. If you wanted to go to SalesFunnelRadio.com and there's a green button down on the bottom right and if you click that button you can record a voicemail to me straight off your browser. It won't take you anywhere else or anything and it automatically emails that over to me, the voice file and everything so I can toss it right in the episode. Obviously I kind of vet through them. Start with the phrase, "Hey Steve" and then ask your question in 30 seconds or less and that's how we do it. Alright guys. Hope you guys are doing great. That was some serious massive introspection. It was kind of a long one, I apologize. But great question though. There was a lot in my childhood that had to do with what I'm doing now and thanks for bringing that up and making me realize all that. That was helpful. Thanks Steph. Guys, thanks everyone else for listening. Go crush your 2018. I had a special episode coming out next, which I'm very, very pumped about. The next few are going to be really awesome. Alright guys, talk to you later. Bye! Thanks for listening to Sales funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

Steve Larsen: Hey, what's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. So here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us bleed and cheat, and only bug family members and friends? You want to grow a profitable home business? How do we recruit a players into our downlines and create extra incomes, and still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. Hi you guys doing? Super glad to be here. I feel like it's been a while since I've published. Really, it's only been a week, but super excited to be able to get this out. It is definitely cold here. We've had a lot of ... Anyway, it's been really, really chilly here in Boise Idaho. That's where we live right now. My wife and I are both from Denver. Now, it's funny because last year there was a ton of snow here comparative to how much they usually get, but compared to Denver, where my wife and I were from, it was nothing. Everyone was calling it snowmagedon, and all the stuff, and there's barely any inches of snow on the ground, and we're like ... Anyway. There was a five foot snow storm once growing up. Anyway, been all over the place. Been lots of fun. Well, as such, it's been very lively here in the Larsen home because I believe since it's been so cold, a little bit of wildlife has been trying to move in. So we've had some mice, which is totally disgusting, and I've never had to deal with that problem ever. It's been very lively with my little four year old and two year old, and we've been running around. Anyway, I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, but it's been fun, and I've enjoyed being able to go and just spend more time with the family. You know what I mean? I hope you guys do too. Hey, I wanted to touch on something here that I think is one of the major reasons why stereotypically MLMers have a hard time recruiting. Okay? Now, someone asked me this question yesterday actually. Asking, "How do I get my people ... How do I just even get like the base team, the core team, the team of people that I wish that I had to go run my MLM with me?" And I was thinking about the answer to that question, and I was thinking about how I've done it. Guys, just in the last week alone I've recruited 20 people. All through automated systems, or at least, so far right now, they're all on the phase where they've been automatically filtered. I should call it that, and they've applied to join my downline. I told you guys about that. that system that I have running, and it does amazingly well, and it's very, very exciting and I think it does so well because I always tell everyone in my downline when they join, to get all my systems because obviously I want them to be successful because of course, it makes me successful also. So why would I not? Right? It's gone really, really well. I've actually enjoyed going through just tons, I mean, awesome stuff with this team that I have, and it just ... Rock stars. I mean, guys the quality of individual, and I'm not comparing people ... I feel bad. Please don't think that I'm judging people at all, right? But there are certain times in a person's life where they're going to be better at business than others, right? If they have the actual time to focus on a business. If they want to do it, rather than me trying to convince them. If I have to convince somebody to join my downline, they're the wrong person already. Okay? Now, I was super sad, a person that I know, that I've come close with decided that they did not want to join, and I was like, "Gosh." I was actually hurt by that because I just have so much respect for this individual, and I was very, very sad about that actually, and I'm sure you guy's have all been there as well because I knew that that person would be successful with it, if they just wanted to be coachable or trainable with it. Gosh, it stung. It did sting. But if you have to convince somebody to join your downline, you shouldn't want them anyways. Okay? What are you going to do? Are you going to put a cattle prod behind their back the entire way, and force them to do all the things it takes? No. It takes a very motivated individual to be successful in anything, but especially in MLM. Anyway, interesting stuff, right? so I was thinking about this person's question. "Hey, how do I get these people, right? How do I find more awesome rock stars? How do I find rock stars?" And that's honestly ... I was really excited she asked that because it's the entire ... That's all that my chorus that's coming out in January, January fourth, that's the date. January fourth. That's all my course teaches. It's how do you find and recruit rock stars on autopilot? Right? How do you actually get those kinds of people to come to you? A lot of people treat the MLM game as if they're hunters. They track and they trap, and they ensnare, and they grab, and they hold, and they strangle, and they get people, and those are the actions that define what they do to go recruit people. That's the wrong way. You're not going to get ... you think you're really going to go get an A playing team like that? No. You have to flip the table. You got to flip the cards. It's a totally different game. It's not like you're playing the wrong hand, you're playing the wrong game. Okay? I mean, it's like anything else, right? It's all about becoming attractive. It's all about creating offers in a way that makes people come to you, right? What I really wanted to point out in this episode is that ... Okay, this is one of the biggest lessons I've learned. When I was sitting on my couch like four years ago now, almost four years now actually, almost exactly, I realized that I had been going about MLM all wrong, and that I was doing the hunting method. Right? I was a hunter, right? And I was hunting and I was saying ... I was tracking, and tracking, and ensnaring, and trying to ... What are the three magic phrases I can say to get somebody to join my downline at any time. That kind of garbage that you see all the time inside the ML Ministry from other educators and stuff. I think it's garbage. It's dumb. Are you kidding me? Are you really going to force somebody into success? It doesn't work. I mean, the amount of effort that's with it, it is not passive income. Oh, my gosh. It is not passive income. All right. 20 people recruited in the last week, and they're all for recruiting, doing crazy stuff also. That's nuts. That's nuts. I didn't beg any of them to join. They are motivate. They're fired up. They're killing it on their own. Why? How did that happen? It's part of what I realized when I was sitting on my couch, 2:00 AM in the morning four years ago. It was freezing. It was a winter time, and I was reading this ebook and I realized that I was doing it all wrong. Then I realized that I needed to create value, okay? I learned, and I don't remember if it was from what I was reading or what, but what I learned is that in some way shape or form you're going to purchase your customers. Okay? Understand that. You're going to buy them somehow, whether you're going to buy them through ads. So, some money or you're going to spend time creating relationships. Right? So, time or some other value piece that you put out there to get them to come to you. The time, value, or money. I mean, something like that. You're going to spend something in order to get attention. Okay? If you think that you're not going to, you're kidding yourself. So think through. Like, "Okay, how can I actually start being successful in this MLM game?" Right, and I'm excited to go through and teach you those kinds of things. That's exactly what I've created and put together, and I'm excited to show you what I've done in order to do that, and that's what the Secret MLM Hacks course is all about coming up, and I think I just spoke in a huge circle right there. But, I'm excited for you guys to go through that because it teaches ... Start thinking that with your MLM. Okay. What's my plan? Am I going to buy my customer? Meaning, am I going to spend money on ads? Whether it's on Facebook, or YouTube, or I don't know, wherever. Am I going to buy my customer through my time? Now, it's going to be hard, especially in the beginning phases of an MLM, to not spend time. Right? You should spend time mentoring, creating leaders, creating ... I'm not trying to ever take the networking out of the network marketing. Does that make sense? I'm not trying to take the personal touch out of this game. That's not how this works. It does require a little bit of personal finesse with each other. Obviously, you have to develop as an individual, which is trust for anything, so I don't have to point that out. Or am I going to put pieces of value out there. Now, I chose that third one. I chose number three. I want to put pieces of value out there that create relationships, so that people see what I can offer, and I don't have to spend so much time on the front end recruiting people. I can focus on training the ones that are actually joining. Does that make sense? That's how I struck ... I did that on purpose. I structured it in a way to do that. So what I did, is I went and I found the top people who were in the industry, and I found a lot of the content pieces that they had put out there, and I figured ... I was like, "Okay, I see what this guy's doing, but I actually think I could recreate that, and better." So that's what I did. I married up several different concepts and things like that from different gurus that were out there, and I re filmed it, and I put it out there for free, and the response was insane. I could not believe how many people were messaging me. the weirdest thing happened. I put it out there out on the open web for free, I was just trying to help solve problems, and then one day somebody messaged me and they said, "Hey, what's your downline? I just want to join it. If this is the kind of thing that you're doing." It was something like that. If that's the kind of stuff that you're doing or if that's the kind of systems you have or whatever. Like, I really want to be apart of it. And I was like, "What?" It took me back, but then that started going faster, and faster, and faster, and people started joining, and people started coming in like hotcakes and bringing their friends in because suddenly I was answering some big questions for them. That was my whole value ad. I was just trying to answer legitimate questions. I was trying to actually be very, very valuable. Stuff that they should have paid for, I was giving away for free. Right? That's one of the ways that I created the relationships with it. So that's all I wanted to say. When you think through your MLM, when you think through the business opportunity you have, ask yourself, what is my upline telling me to do right now? Are they trying to have me buy my customers through money? Do they want me to spend money on ads? Through my time, which is what most of them do, or by putting value out there that solve actual problems, which most of them don't teach that. Start thinking through, like ... and it's fine. If you want to do it some other ways, I'm not telling you not to do it, but I am telling you that there are other ways, and start thinking through what legitimate problems you can solve in the marketplace. What are those problems? What can you actually go solve? I'm not telling ... It does not have to take a lot of your time. You could actually just go and record little content pieces. I'm sure you have a phone. There's a mic feature on your phone most likely, right? There's probably a camera, and you flip that camera sideways, you answer some questions, start publishing, and putting stuff out there, pretty soon you're going to start finding like minded people who want to do what your doing. Who see the issues that you see. Who see the problems. I guarantee you it's the reason why you're still following me. What is this, episode 40, 41, something like that? You're still following me because you're resonating with the things that I'm talking about, right? You are literally walking through the very thing that I'm describing right now. Okay? I want you to think about how? How did Steve Larsen do that to me? What are the beliefs that I had ahead of time about his thing that I've realized are wrong? Hm? I want you to do that. I want you to start thinking through like, "Hey, what are the beliefs that people are having when I go and start talking to people about my opportunity?" Are they saying, "Oh, it's a scam." Or, "Oh, it's a pyramid scheme." Or, "Oh, that's a ..." whatever it is, those top concerns. Right? They're going to give you a lot of surface level concerns. It's your job to look a little bit deeper. Find the core, real reasons why they're saying what they're saying. Maybe they failed an MLM before. Maybe they wish they could be in it, and they just don't know what to say, or maybe they wish they could be in it, but they're afraid of how their family or friends will look at them. Right? Or maybe they want to be in one, they're looking for something. They just don't really understand what a comp plan really is, or how it works, or how they actually get paid, or how I'm going to make money? Whatever it is that you get passion about solving, solve it for free, put it out there, and I guarantee you ... Maybe I'm not allowed to guarantee, but ... Insert legal disclaimer here. But you're going to get people to come to you, and they're going to come and it's going to resonate with them, and they're going to say, "Oh, my gosh. Yes, thank you. I get it. I see what you're doing. What's your opportunity, right? And whoosh, Oh, my gosh. You just flipped the tables. Why?" Because you contributed to a relationship before asking for a sale. That's why. You got to do that. If you don't do it, if you don't contribute to a relationship before asking for the sale, that's like asking for someone to marry you on the very first date. Let alone maybe you didn't even go on a date, you're just walking up to strangers. You wouldn't do that. That's ridiculous. So how come we're not creating relationships before we're asking for sales? I understand it's one of the easiest reasons why. You can just go straight to friends and family because you have relationships with them already, but it's scary to do so. Again, not telling you not to do it, but if you feel confident that it's not going to mess anything up or be weird or whatever, okay, totally fine, but understand that you need to contribute to a relationship. You've got to solve problems. You've got to have a little bit of likeability or whatever it is. Sorry, likeability or whatever it is. Attractability somehow, or perhaps a little bit of attraction to you because what you're doing is you're developing trust with that individual through your content. Okay? If I have a hard time knowing what kind of episode I want to put out there, I don't publish. I want this to solve actual problems for you that you should be paying for. Okay? Whether or not you join my MLM, totally fine with that. This is not a pitch fest. I'm not here to talk about that, okay? I want purpose. If I even tell you the name of the one I'm in, it will kill the goose. So I'm never going to tell you the MLM I'm in. That's why it works so well because it follows rule number one, my rule number one, which is they come to me. Okay? Oh, my gosh. When you do that and when you teach your downline to do that, huge problems get resolved. Stereotypical to the industry kind of problems get resolved because now I'm not tracking and trapping, right? I'm attracting. I'm solving legitimate issues without ever asking for the sale. Now, some sales personnel will probably tell you that I'm being ridiculous. I get it. I know. You're right. I probably could be a little but more aggressive in certain areas with it, but I've learned over experience that I'd rather do it this way and get a little bit fewer recruits, but really high quality ones. Does that make sense? So I want you to start thinking through that. I want you to start thinking ... Because this is one of the biggest secrets to true duplication. If you can teach people how to do what I'm doing right now, which is what I teach my downline to do, it starts to actually duplicate for real because now they're going and solving other people's legitimate issues as well. And you know what? Let's say I get someone who's like, "Ah, Steven. I wish I had a podcast, but I just can't get myself to do it." You know how much ... Everyone talks about MLM, how it's business opportunity wrapped on a personal development course, right? MLM is a lot of personal development. Well, that's not just MLM. That's all business in general. I've had more personal development through the active entrepreneurship and business than any personal development course out there ever. Right? So I get excited when someone say, "Gah, Steven, I don't know if I can create lead gen stuff. Steven, I don't know if I can create X,Y,Z. Ah, I'm nervous about this or whatever." I get pumped about it because I know now what to work on with them. I know where to move with them. I see a person in action. I see a person with desire, okay? That's one of the biggest issues with old MLM models. You're trying to go get people to buy something who had no desire at all in the first place to do it. That was one of the reasons why I stopped doing door-to-door sales. It's not that it wasn't great. I was good at it. But I realized, wait a minute. I'm waking up every single day trying to convince people who were not planning to spend money to spend money. Who are not planning ... Not that it's not possible. I did it. I was good at it. I was a telemarketer too. I was really good at that, but instead I wanted to flip the switch. I wanted to be able to change the game. Where I could put stuff out, and start having them find me. Okay? Again, I know. I could probably be a little more aggressive and pull people and be like, "Hey, this is my thing and I'm going to close you," and I'm still solving problems, but I just ... It's not worth it to me. So I don't it that way, and whatever your MLM is start thinking through how you can do that, and how you can apply it to your thing. How you can apply it. What can you do to start flipping the tables? If you're having a hard time recruiting people, take what I'm going ... Okay. Please raise your hand right now and say, "Steven, I will be coachable for this next sentence." Okay? All right. Here it is. If you're having a hard time recruiting people, you're probably not valuable enough yet. Now, I don't mean as an individual. I don't mean as you as a person. I'm sure you're an amazing individual, and that's not what I'm ... I'm not saying that you're the bane of the existence of the planet. That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that you're not valuable enough yet. Meaning, you have not solved enough problems for another person or you've not created enough of a relationship, or you have not gone out and actually shown genuine interest in the other person, and they can tell that you're looking at them like a number. Okay? That's where the game will fail. Learn how to become valuable. That is worth more than any check that you could write yourself. Learn how to become valuable in the marketplace and it will serve you forever. Anyways, that's all I got for you guys. Okay? Anyway, I ... You buy your customers somehow. Don't expect not to. You won't get anybody. So somehow you buy leads, whether it's your time, your money, or your value, and figure out which one you want to do and then marry it. Get good at it. It's just like anything else. You'll suck at first, and that's fine. Just like anything else, and you'll get on the bike again, and you'll fall and you'll scrape your knee, and you'll get bloodied up a little bit as you do it, and that's fine. It's part of the journey, and it's part of the purification that comes with entrepreneurship, which is amazing. It is so fun. It's my favorite part of the whole thing. One of them anyway, but anyway, that's pretty much it. That's all I got for you. Figure out how you're actually going to buy, quote-unquote, buy your customers. Money, time, or value, and get to it. You will see how funny ... You'll know when you hit it because you'll have struck a pain point and people are going to come flooding to you. That's exactly when I knew that I had struck it directly on the pain points that people were feeling, and I knew that I could go help them. Anyways, that's it. All right, guys. Have a good one. Talk to you later. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback for me. Do you have a question that you want answered live on the show? Go to secretmlmhacksradio.com to submit your question, and download your free MLM master's pack.

Welcome to episode 372 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. I'm really excited for today's episode because I know it's one that only the truest of action takers is going to listen to. Thank you for listening to this because I know it means that you are somebody who is going to get it done. We're talking about LinkedIn today and LinkedIn is by far the least amusing social media network. However, it's also hugely valuable for pretty much everybody so we're going to talk about that a little bit today and I'm going to give you some tips on how to use it to score some business. Especially for those of you who are B2B but if you are not B2B, maybe you are business to consumer, there's still relevance because I'm guessing some part of your business could work B2B. A great example of this is health coaches who work with, let's say, new moms. You're fairly business to consumer. You don't have to be a business owner to be a new mom or to need a health coach. Getting not necessarily physically back but your diet and feeling really good. Anyways, that's business to consumer. However, a B2B component could be you handle a wellness trainings in corporate businesses or you want media exposure. You want to get on things like the Today Show. Guess where you can build those relationships? That's right, people. LinkedIn. So I'm pretty excited because, again, this is going to be something that's universally helpful for the people who take action. Now before we jump in I do want to remind you, Hit the Mic Backstage is the sponsor of this here Hit the Mic podcast because it is the place to be, the best place to be, to stay up to date with all things social media, email, content marketing. That's why I need you to join me backstage this month because there is a brand new training inside of Hit the Mic Backstage that expands on exactly what we're talking about today. It digs in on some of the LinkedIn strategies. In fact, one of the things we do in that training is I actually jump in on my computer and we go through your profile so you can do a self-guided profile review. Even better, you want to take it a step further? Go through that, make the changes, then submit it in the private community for me to take a look at, give you feedback where we can make adjustments and where you're just doing a super awesome job. All right? All right. Join us. HittheMicBackstage.com. Again, the place to be. I love, love, love, love, love inviting you and people like you to join me backstage because it's the next step for this show. All right? All right. Let's jump in. Number one, this is the place where they're thinking about business when they're there. Communicate with them with that in mind. We run into clients all the time who are pretty strictly B to B and they're talking about Facebook. I go, "Not necessarily." You know, Facebook might not be the best option for you if you're B to B. Now if you're a B2B and you're working with online entrepreneurs then, yeah, Facebook still does have some pretty good pull. However, there's still some quality to be had on LinkedIn and quite frankly with a lot smaller time investment. Pay attention to that but also pay attention to the language differences. When I'm looking at writing content for LinkedIn I'm thinking about a slightly more professional tone. Now if you've spent any time listening to this podcast before you know my professional tone is unique. Right? I'm me. I have my voice and that's my primary objective. Professionalism in the traditional sense has never been my primary objective. Connection has been. With that said, there is going to be a direct connection to that B2B pain point when I'm writing LinkedIn content. Pay attention to that voice because that's what they're thinking about when they're consuming that content. That's the mindset they're in. The additional benefits of them being in that mindset is you're not going to have to write copy that's competing with cat videos. You are not going to have to write copy that's competing with baby photos. That's valuable. That's something very, very cool to consider and probably why it takes a smaller time investment. Number two, the thing I want you to do is I want you to establish your expertise early and often. That's going to mean doing sort of this profile touch-up stuff that we covered in the video training inside of Backstage. It's also going to mean providing content in this space that's relevant to this audience. A great way to do that is to publish your platform. Now if you don't know what that is yet, don't walk, run, to join us Backstage. Essentially what it is is a blogging platform right on LinkedIn so we can actually write content. The best news is it doesn't have to be brand new, unique, never before seen content. It just needs to be valuable. A lot of what we do is we actually repurpose the podcast transcript into guest posts that drive traffic back to my site and the podcast episode in its entirety. That's a really great way to look at this content. If you do have written blog content you're writing right now, though, take one tip, take one section of that blog post, expand on it a little bit on LinkedIn and, again, point traffic back for more information on your website. We're using this as a tool to establish expertise on the site because we are giving value on LinkedIn Publisher. We're giving value right there. You could get something from that and never leave LinkedIn. That's an important difference between LinkedIn Publisher posts and a status update. You're going to get the value right there. However, if you want more, you want to dive deeper, you can do that by going to the site. That's going to give us really qualified traffic back to our site. That's going to be people who are ready to take the next step. That's, again, super valuable. The third thing I want to touch on because this is a LinkedIn episode and I want to keep it brief for you because I know none of the people who listen to this show have ever told me LinkedIn is their favorite network. I'm assuming the same is true for you. Number three, give it some of your time. Don't post and run. Give it the same investment of your energy as you would the other networks. You would never post and run on Facebook. You'd go back, you'd check the comments. You'd engage with other people's content. You would spend some time networking in your groups. Now I will be the first to admit a lot of LinkedIn groups, total crap. Total crap. Find the good ones. Sift through. Just like Facebook, you have to sift through some crap to find the good stuff. It's just part of it, all right? But do that networking work. This, just like any other tool, is a social network. Now the socialization is a little bit different. It's a little more networking party versus dinner with friends. That doesn't mean it can't be a happy hour networking party, right? It doesn't mean it can't be fun. It doesn't mean it can't be relaxed. It doesn't mean that you skip out on the engaging. This is not throwing your business card to people and running away. This is staying in the room, giving it a little bit of your time investment. With that said, you also need to give it time in the sense that doesn't say, "All right. Stacey totally sold me on LinkedIn. I'm going to do this. I'm going to stay in the room. I'm going to do the work. I'm going to show up" and then do this for a week and go, "Well, I didn't get any new business so clearly LinkedIn doesn't work for me." Seriously? Like, that's not enough time. You need to really test this over the long haul and you need to be looking at your site numbers. You need to be looking at the quality of relationship building you're doing. The connections you currently have, are they your target? Are they who you want to be talking to? If they're not, well, then I would expect it to be working. You need to build a network that is relevant. All right? Give it some time. On both sides. A time investment day to day or week to week. Also, some real quality testing time with real quality connections. Okay? Again, to take this a step further, and this is one I really do encourage you to take a step further, join us Backstage. Hit the Mic Backstage dot com. The brand new training that went up this month was exactly this using LinkedIn to build your business B to B or to get B to B business. Take the time to join us and watch that training and implement it. Remember, Hit the Mic Backstage is no long-term commitment. You can cancel absolutely any time. If this sounds relevant to you and you want to jump in and you want to take that training and then you're out? That's not a problem. I encourage you to take the time to join us, actually watch the training, and actually implement what you learn because that's where you're going to see results. Okay? With that said, I will see you next week. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Get Your Facebook Ads Strategy to Re-Engage Your Audience Facebook Ads Policies Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

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