Podcasts about so lisa

Thanks to my wife Meg, I got to connect with another spiritual badass Lindsey E Garner, creator of Standing in Front of Strangers Naked Tune in to find out how you too can find practical ways to bring spirituality into everything you do! Transcript below is machine generated Unknown Speaker 0:00 Yeah, Brandon Handley 0:01 all right. Bye 4321 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on today with a special friend Lindsey. she say she was saved Lindsay Unknown Speaker 0:13 he car? Yeah. Brandon Handley 0:15 Because I said, it is very important. It's very important so that people can pull you out of the crowds of Lindsey Gardner. Right. And so Lindsay is actually, you know, pretty good friend of mags for those of you that know me, you know, then you probably know, Megan's a good chance you already know, Lindsay. And then, um, you know, so let's talk about Lindsay and her standing naked in front of strangers blog. I'm just gonna do I'm gonna read Liz gonna read your about me here off of your, your blog posts, and then you can make a decision whether or not you want to keep that going forward. Okay. My entire life, I felt like an outsider feeling like I saw things a little different than most of the people around me. A few years ago, I started to be okay with that, I started to strip off the layers that I've been carrying around for the decades and show up a whole lot more authentically, I started writing to free up some space in my brain for forward movement. First out, people liked what I had to say. So I kept reading. I don't feel super tied to labels of mom, wife, soldier, Yogi, although these are all titles I've hold held. But I'm so much more connected to the idea that each of us is on a little trip to figure out our own purpose. And this is a part of mine. And I hope you'll join me so thanks for being on. And thanks for your thanks for agreeing to be on is this how many podcasts Have you been on? Lindsey Garner 1:38 Zero? Now one? Brandon Handley 1:40 Oh, this is this is this is your first Well, you're welcome. Like I told you, before we got on, you know, it's it's a it's cool to get all in because a you've learned it, you don't go up in flames. Right? Like and you can do it like there's nothing to it. Other than just kind of showing up and being yourself. So welcome. Lindsey Garner 2:00 Thanks. That's my favorite thing to do. So, you know, why not? Brandon Handley 2:04 For the you've listened to a couple of podcasts. And thanks for thanks for being a listener. So you probably know how I open these up right with the idea that that we are word vessels for source. God, whatever, whatever you feel like calling it and you're on today, because you have a message that is going to reach somebody is yours that can only be delivered through you. Right? What is that message today? Lindsey Garner 2:34 I actually did like a little meditation before we started just to transition from one part of my life into this. And I think what I kept kind of landing on is like, yeah, I'm not I'm not some, like giant published author had a little piece of like imposter syndrome as far as like, I don't know, what do I have to say? Right? Um, but it kept then it was like, okay, maybe I say one thing, that one person out there takes and is like, yeah, I'm not alone. I'm not feeling these thoughts or, or living in a space that I am totally on my own. And, and so that's, that's how I'm coming into this. And I think there's something to be said, for living that way. Like maybe you smile at someone, you take a second and you smile at someone, you just don't know the impact that that has in their day. So the more that we just live in a way that really feels like we're honoring ourselves, the ripples are pretty big. Brandon Handley 3:41 Nice, I mean, just kind of just owning who you are. And I hate to say just right, so owning who you are, and that that's actually very powerful. So owning who you are, and owning that you have the power to change someone's life with your smile. Lindsey Garner 3:57 Yeah, you do. Like it's crazy. You really can I, I work, I manage a retail store that's like my full time gig a lot. And I've learned, I never thought it would be in retail and I actually quite like it. But I've learned so much the impact that you can have just on on, like, allowing space for someone to actually show up and not being tanned and like how are you doing today? And then them just saying great. Oh, okay, great. Like it's this script we run through, you know, but rather actually like stopping and saying, No, like, actually, how are you doing today? And it's okay to not be okay. And you can say that even to somebody selling a yoga pants like it's fine. And the cool things that have opened up for me through that. I mean, I can't count them. It's phenomenal. Unknown Speaker 4:51 What's one Lindsey Garner 4:55 I think it's the relinquishment of ego. Yeah, I mean, you never get rid of it right? It's always there. Well, yeah. Brandon Handley 5:03 How's that? So yeah, I mean, how's that showing up for you? Right? Like, really question of ego through your work at retail. I mean, I guess I would take a step further though, because not everybody that works in retail is able to let go of the script. Right. Not everybody that works in retails okay with relinquishing ego. And I can tell you, I mean, even in years past is working like as a bartender, or, you know, being that customer facing person. And somebody is being an asshole. Like, I am really hesitant to relinquish ego, I'm like, No, you're being an asshole. Right? You know, so. So walk me through your process of that was clearly before my ascension. Unknown Speaker 5:55 I'm basically transcended as well. Right? I Brandon Handley 5:58 mean, that'll never ever happen again in my life. But the deal is new. So how are you? How are you doing that? Because I think that's, that's really the impact of this podcast, right? The impact of this podcast is, yeah, your spiritual. But how are you applying it in your daily life? So that, you know, you're not? You're not? I'm physical Lindsey over here. And I'm metaphysical Lindsay over here and understanding like, and together like, you know, you meet in the middle somewhere. So that's how you meet yourself in the middle. Lindsey Garner 6:32 Yeah, I think, um, I mean, meditation, meditation is like, changed my whole life. And I can't pinpoint it to like one style, or one time that I practice, it really is more of an evolving thing. And I can talk more about that. But what it gives me Is this like ability to put a little bubble around myself, right and like, hold in and recognize what's my emotions? My thoughts my feelings? versus like, what's Karen from Kansas that comes in my store is pissy we don't have a size four pair of shorts, like that's actually has nothing Brandon Handley 7:14 Kansas should know. First of all. Oh, no. So so it's funny, though. So you mentioned though, the, the idea of no one set meditation I To me, it would be almost like, Oh, no, your, your, your favorite herbal tea that day? Right. Like, there's all kinds of like, one day, you're like, I need I need to calm down. Okay, Karen, meditation, right. And sometimes I need sometimes I need hyped up, you know, Lindsey, sometimes I need, you know, whatever. But it gives sounds like what you're saying those that gives you the opportunity to go in and create that energetic bubble, right, what you want, who do you want to be in these next few moments? Right, that you get to create that? Is that what you're saying? Lindsey Garner 8:03 Answer remember, that, that? We don't have any idea what that other person's life looks like? Like, I don't I have no idea. 99% of the time, I'm gonna guess it has nothing to do with those shorts. Doesn't it has to do with a lot more, some deep seated stuff, right? And whereas I used to take that on and and, and I mean, I would take these people's shit home with me. I'm like, What am I doing? Like, why do I care so deeply about someone's reaction to foster requiring masks in our store or something like that? I am in Florida. So I mean, you know, the week you are out here, it's like thing, but um, well. Brandon Handley 8:50 How did you, you know, talk to what's the process of going from, you know, taking that home every day to learning to let that go. And did that happen overnight? Or did it take you some time? Lindsey Garner 9:03 No, probably years. Ah, I actually started to because I worked for a company and sells yoga pants. We have a lot of yoga. We do a lot of yoga. It's how we used to like really market our business. And so I got back it up. I got out of the army. I was in the army for about 12 years. Yeah, the army there was no no real like, like industry down where we moved. My husband got stationed in Florida. This is not where we've chosen it came down here. There's no industry that was related to my background. So I'm like, I tried to stay home. I'm not a stay at home mom. Like I just, I was making my own seasalt I yeah, my husband come home and was like, Hi. Unknown Speaker 9:46 Hey, Unknown Speaker 9:47 it's me. It's not to me. Brandon Handley 9:52 I mean, I would like to know how you made your seesaw. Lindsey Garner 9:58 The Golf Got it. I No kidding. Yeah, that's serious. Unknown Speaker 10:05 You can buy it's pretty cheap. There's no fun in that. Brandon Handley 10:08 I'm sure there's no fun. There's no fun in that, right? You can buy all kinds of things. But you're over here you'd like a teaspoon of salt. You're like, Lindsey Garner 10:16 six hours. So great. Everybody gets a little grain Unknown Speaker 10:22 sparingly. Brandon Handley 10:23 Why are you using all the salt? Lindsey Garner 10:27 I'm serious. Okay, Unknown Speaker 10:28 I get it. I get it. I get it. No, Lindsey Garner 10:30 I just got a part time job at this store. And it turns out I really liked it. The company was really cool. And it got me into yoga. I'd never done yoga. I had never been around it. I always thought it was like this, like, woo Wee thing. Yeah, so I started that and it was mostly a physical practice it and little by little I kind of came to understand. I'm a reader. I'm a learner, I am always I am probably always have like five books by my nightstand and like three audio books and two podcasts going all the time. And I just started reading a little bit more on where yoga really came from, and the true intent of yoga and little by little kind of got out of my physical practice of actual like Asana, moving my body through it, and much more connected to the meditation aspect and the the grounding principles of yoga and the eight limbs. And so I, from there just kind of started learning, all kinds of things about meditation. And we are really fortunate in our area. prudence burns here, because she has that veto song Dear Prudence, to doubt her. So that's her, she lives here. Brandon Handley 11:52 I don't know. I don't know that I recall the song Come and get a cup of water. Lindsey Garner 11:55 When it's actually about when the Beatles were at a yoga retreat in India. And there was a woman who sat in a room and meditated for hours and hours, and they were like, come out, prudence come out. That's her. And she's actually one of the leading teachers and she is a Sanskrit translator, translator, interpreter. I Brandon Handley 12:19 don't know. She can she can do. She can do Sanskrit. Lindsey Garner 12:22 Yeah. So she's here. And I met her and she shared about Transcendental Meditation with me. So I went through that training. And that was really my first go at meditation. I really had never done anything. Do you know Brandon Handley 12:36 how much I've watched? Yeah, a little bit. So how is TM different than some other meditation forms of meditation? Lindsey Garner 12:44 mantra base to so you're assigned a mantra, go through the training or sign a mantra, and then it's 20 minutes twice a day. It's pretty structured. pretty strict. It's very structured. And the guidance is like, that's what you do. And there's a lot of rules around it worked for me to start, but I'm kind of I'm kind of like an inner inner what, what are, Brandon Handley 13:06 what are some of those rules? Right, and what was your mantra? Um, Lindsey Garner 13:10 so everybody has their unique point and I'm super suspicious, so are like super superstitious. And so I am not going to tell you my, my own journey because I am worried. Brandon Handley 13:21 Are you not allowed to? Park you down is like a nonconformist. Lindsey Garner 13:34 Yeah, thank you, um, but it's like, okay, you meditate 20 minutes twice a day, you don't want to do it a certain amount of time before bed. You don't want to ever do it like laying down unless you're sick. There's just a lot of it, where I'm like, it just became inaccessible to me. And it became hard for me to consistently practice it. And took some really great things from it. And then from there, just kind of started reading about mindfulness. And then know that a lot of guided meditations are so accessible now. I mean, you can pull up the meditation app, and there's like, 40 to open them up. And in that for those 42 apps. There's 1000s. So just started playing around with that. And then I went to I just finished a training but my husband was sick. You know about that. My husband got really sick last year. And throughout the course of that had a lot of really specific. Like, really like a lot of trauma. I hate that word. And I don't know why I hate that word. But I do a lot of really specific traumas that happened. I saw him Unknown Speaker 14:50 do it throughout that through that throughout that ordeal. Lindsey Garner 14:52 Yeah, he almost died a couple times. It was pretty hard and I lost my ability to drop into meditation really quickly. And it got so frustrating to me where I was like, this is a tool that I have that I need more than ever, and I can't get into it and didn't know why. And I reached out to a friend and she was like, hey, I've actually been doing some studying on trauma based meditation and how like, in times where you are really hyper focused on these events that have created this stir up in your brain, meditation can actually be really damaging if you're not, you know, guided or led in the right way, or you're not aware of that trauma. And so I started reading a little bit about that, and and then I just actually went to a training on feta healing, which was awesome, super awesome. But Brandon Handley 15:49 you owe me like, more links or something on that. And here's the you know, what's funny, those right, you know, army 12 years, getting involved with yoga, and then be like, Oh, this is all Whoo, to being. I just finished my data healing. And I'd like to know, I'd also like to know more about the trauma, meditation. Um, because you're right. When you when you this happened to me, mine was in no way shape, or form, you know, as severe as, you know, kind of what you were going through. But I was going through a space. Unknown Speaker 16:27 And I couldn't I Brandon Handley 16:30 couldn't I couldn't get out of it. Right. Yeah. And I know all this stuff. And I'm really, really good at it, right. But there was something just and it wasn't even big, but it was just enough. Where I was so focused on it, and I couldn't I couldn't get the fuck out of my own way. Lindsey Garner 16:46 Yeah, it turns out that's like, why happens? You just you get, all you do when you get quiet for meditation is you just replay that? Unknown Speaker 16:56 Like, oh, Lindsey Garner 16:58 what am I doing over here? You know, and I don't know a whole lot about it. But I have just kind of started digging in and reading some books and learning about it. But even just Unknown Speaker 17:11 just like Lindsey Garner 17:12 somebody else, again, like somebody else saying, like, hey, it's okay. Like, dude, forgive yourself. Brandon Handley 17:20 Yeah. Yeah, no, it's 100% 100% when somebody else can share the human condition. And lets you know that you're not alone. And that, I think that that's something that you do with your, your blog, right? You did two things with your blog that that come to my mind. If you don't mind, like me shower, like kind of some some quick thoughts on that. Right. Um, one is, I'm a Bob Proctor fan. The dude the dude, like, wise, and you know, I don't know if there's some sales gimmicks, and I'm afraid to give them money, but like everything he says, is legit. And, and one of his one of the things that he recommends, or he talks about something that he practices is, whenever he's got a problem, or whenever he's going through something, he writes it down on it, he gets it out of his head, and on a piece of paper, out of his head and onto a piece of paper. And then he'll go through it, he'll read it. And I'll ask themselves, did I get it all out? Right? I think it's, I think it's a kind of a Karthik thing, where, and at the same time, you can look at it, it's like talking to somebody almost right. And you and I can talk about the you know, any problems that we're having. And sometimes when it comes out of your mouth, you like, was not as big as I thought that it was, like that was a pretty big inside my head, it was huge. But once it got out here to this face, I was able to kind of see it in a different light in a different way. So I think that that's one thing that you do with your blog, right? Sounds like it kind of started from a space where you needed to get the shit out of your head. Lindsey Garner 18:53 Yeah, I was reading it if I was real. Brandon Handley 18:57 And so you're getting readers, and people do like it. And I think that they like it because you're just being honest, sincere and letting them know and I'm not even trying to lead by example or anything again, just sharing who you are and what you're going through in, in a non sugar coated kind of way. And yeah, people get to see that Lindsey Garner 19:21 really hate that sugar coating thing that hate it, I think. Yeah, I don't know. I really, it's like my pet peeve when you know, somebody ain't okay. And they're like, not, everything's great. Or like, this is why I'm posting on social media is what I'm sharing with the world. And then Meanwhile, it's like a dumpster fire and you're like, maybe if you just share the dumpster fire a little bit. You can have somebody be like, Oh my god, I'm actually in this dumpster too. And I know the way out. It's Brandon Handley 19:52 right over here. Yeah, no, that's Yeah, that's fair. But let's let's let's play it in reverse because I also know that you're you're A big fan of some manifestation and a little bit of LA. Right. So then what happened? You know, how does that work in that space for you? Right? So if I focus on my problem, and I talk more about it, am I attracting more of it? Or am I learning at all? I mean, you know, I mean, Lindsey Garner 20:17 yeah, I think about that damn, Esther Hicks Get out of my head. You don't know me? I do. Think about it. Do you think a lot of it comes from the intention in it? Right? I don't sit in my shed, I write it. And that is that is that catharsis of like, okay, I read it, I give it out. I read it. And then it's done. I'm not coming back. I'm not not saying it. And I think that's part of it. And this is like, for every human being out there. There's something for them to do that allows them to do that. For me. It's writing, right? You know, for some people it might be running, I don't know, gross, but to each their own. I can't imagine feeling better. Mentally. After a long run. I've usually I'm like, oh my god. Everything hurts. But Brandon Handley 21:07 yeah, me. Lindsey Garner 21:09 Cooking, like cooking can be therapeutic for people you could have great, Brandon Handley 21:13 yeah. So for me, it took me a while to kind of get around to it and understand it. But when I'm cooking in the kitchen, I'm creating something. That's an act of creation. And Unknown Speaker 21:27 it feels wonderful, Unknown Speaker 21:28 right? And you're serious, Brandon Handley 21:30 right? You get to share and then and then if somebody doesn't need it, or if they use too much seesaw, I get pissed, but Lindsey Garner 21:36 you made your own. Brandon Handley 21:38 But but the deal is it's like and you start to let go of that too. Right? You must see your you know, somebody who's getting pissed because you know, size for shorts aren't down. It's it's like you're not doing it, you're just getting over the reaction to what you've done or created. Right? Whereas the process, you know, Meg and I had this conversation not too long ago, she's like, I hate the process. I was like, well, the process is pretty cool. You just haven't kind of experienced it yet. Right? You haven't experienced like this, this this thing where you morphed through the process? Yeah. Right. And then like, because there's really nothing else you can say to it, other than it's the process of creation process. So yeah, and when you go through creating something with purpose, and 10, and love, then doesn't really matter what the outcome is, unless it's murder. And then there's then we got to talk, but I can't you know, Lindsey Garner 22:35 love course, maybe I don't know. I feel like she's watched a documentary about some shows Brandon Handley 22:40 you seen one or two on them? For sure. For sure. So let's me let's talk about what's your process. Ben. Right, let's talk about if you were to, if you were to guide somebody through it right now. And I see on your site, just as talk to me, like what somebody can reach out to you for? And you know, what would you guide through somebody through in a process oriented way? Lindsey Garner 23:02 I'm trying to think I think the last person, or probably the by get the most feedback about is anytime that I talk about my relationship with my body. I don't want to make a sweeping statement like this is something that women experience differently than men because I think men experience the same sort of, like discomfort in their own skin, or pressures from society or whatever. But this has been a big journey of mine. And I yeah, I mean, growing up. My mom is something special. She did her best. I believe that we don't have a great relationship now. And a lot of that comes from me becoming a parent. And seeing Oh, wait, woof. That was maybe not an okay thing. I remember she told me I was maybe 30. I mean, I had done some shit in my life. And she said, the proudest I've ever been, is when you decided to lose weight when you were a teenager. And I'm like, wow, like, I want to combat had a kid I graduated degrees and have a successful career. And I was like, Whoa, there it is. So it's just something that was ever present in my life. And that constant need to look a certain way to show up a certain way for everyone else, because I thought that's what was needed to be and so I get a lot of women after I write about that, specifically, that will reach out and say like, okay, like, What do I do? Like, how did you get there? How did you get to the point where it's not that I don't care? I mean, I definitely care what I look like, but I don't attach so much meaning and expectation to it anymore. I Who was it? It was on your podcast, and they call it a meat suit. Who was that? Brandon Handley 24:57 That was this funny Christian. It was Yeah, he's He's really good. Lindsey Garner 25:04 I really do like, as I've learned to meditate, and as I've learned to get a connection with the divine through meditation, I realized like, this is not it. Brandon Handley 25:14 This is funny. I would, I would love to say that this is a smaller part of who we are. Unknown Speaker 25:24 Yeah, Brandon Handley 25:24 that's right. Yeah. Like, I mean, like, I mean, if we infant festival, right, especially if we consider ourselves, I don't know, in connection to the universe, right? Or as the universe, depending on how you kind of want to want to go about it. You know, yeah, Krishna said that, you know, other people that have said that plenty of times as neville goddard talks about being in the meatsuit Alan Watts will talk about being meatsuit. It's not. He says, It is funny, but it's, it's true. Right? These are just, this is just something that we're wearing right now. Right? Yeah. So Lindsey Garner 26:00 beautiful. Like what is attractive to, like other people like what is attracted to me a guy that I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm super attracted that guy. Another person is like, what? Right? So subjective, that I think like, it comes from meditation. And I always comes back to that that like, because I started there. And then I realized, Oh, wait, actually, I'm this ball of light. And I'm connected to the divine all the time. And like, I don't want to talk shit about the divine right? Why am I talking shit about myself? Unknown Speaker 26:35 all the time? Yeah. Lindsey Garner 26:37 And then I just became like, I didn't want to have small talk anymore. And I noticed this, so many women around me, the majority of the conversations were grounded around what their kids were doing with their husbands are doing in their bodies. Brandon Handley 26:52 Would you say that? That's just because they're, they're afraid of who they really are? Yeah. How would you help somebody get through that? Lindsey Garner 27:03 Yeah. I, um, Brandon Handley 27:08 I mean, like, right, right. Like, I mean, so it will even flip back to you. So you think that you're divine? Right. And you're connected to the divine? Yes, you so somebody else said they are divine, and they're connected to the divine, and they still have some larger conversations. Lindsey Garner 27:24 Well, I have them unabashedly. And what I have noticed is that when I have them, that is uncomfortable at first. And then it becomes an okay thing. I mean, I do this and I do this. At my store, I have about 30 people that work for me and they love hate me. Because I make these conversations a thing. Like if I come into the break room, and we're talking about trying to lose weight, so our size look less fat, I like awkwardly change the topic to What are you reading? What's a book you're reading? Let's talk about it? Or do you want to hear about what I manifested last year, like I unabashedly just, I just think we're playing small, and I will call people out on it. And I think sometimes it's just that destruction that's needed. And then it's like, again, it's like a ripple effect. I do it. And I see other people do it, little by little, and that's, like, greatest success of my whole life is when I come in, and we're talking about big things. Brandon Handley 28:24 That's great, right? Because then you can see that you're having some influence, right? Or, you know, you're manifesting that right? for yourself, right? Like, like, you know, so you're able to kind of see this future state where you walk into an office and a break room, and everybody's talking about cool shit instead of chubby thighs. Right? I mean, you know, just to kind of lay it out there like that. So, it's what makes it so easy for you to, to, to, you know, feel like you're living this kind of greater life and to be able to look at somebody else and say that, hey, you could be living a greater life or, you know, stop playing small. Right? And I bring that up, because I recall being It was a few years ago, I was in a dad, dad bloggers convention, because that was my space at the time. But I was asking these guys is like, you know, what's the feel like for you to step into your greatness and I meant it, right? Like, yeah, and they shied away from accepting anything that looked like greatness and kind of hurt my heart. Yeah, it's like, Wow, man, like you're a great person, and like, you're doing something awesome. But you don't even see it for yourself. Right. So how do you how do you know how do you step into your greatness and how you help and other stuff There's Lindsey Garner 30:02 number one like expectations, you gotta let them ships go, which I say is like, it's so easy. I would say this, like, I basically have mastered this. No, I totally not that just so you know. But I have learned so much around really pushing expectations, not not just at work in my life in my marriage, like, so much. Just because I want an outcome from someone or I see something in someone, I don't have an ability to impact their path. I don't touch it, and on my you know, like a marble, your marble hits, and then it goes another direction or pool ball or whatever. But who am I to know what their journey looks like? And how many awesome things could come from them effing things up. And I mean, that's part of it. You know, my last year of my life has been really, truly transformative. My husband and I have been through a shit ton. And I have watched him really come into his own. And he was on the phone. He had surgery yesterday, he had one more heart surgery yesterday. And he couldn't be on our marriage. Can we have marriage counseling every week? It's like, we don't miss it. Even if we feel really good. We're like, Nope, still doing it. And I was sitting in my marriage counseling, and my counselor and I were talking and I was saying how, how hard it is to be a caregiver for someone for this long. And I was like, man, there's things about my husband, that I really miss, you know, from a year ago, like, physically that he could do, or just like experiences we could have when he is truly healthy. And he was like, but what's come of it. And I thought I thought about it, I was like, this person that's here, now is so, so much more grounded in like, what's truly important. He's learning about the things that we're talking about it now. And like, we're able to have actual real conversation where we show up as ourselves instead of this, like surface shit. And I'm like, you know what, actually, right? Like, that's what matters, not the, you know, he does assess, take naps, like that's really he's in the hospital for a year, you don't come out of that in three months. So it's cool. I didn't deal with that. Because there's all this and we had to go through all that shit. For that to happen, he probably wouldn't have if he if he hadn't almost died as many times as he did, or we hadn't had any of the issues that we had, we wouldn't be here. And so that has given me the perspective to know that like, hey, Karen, I see you, we don't have your shorts. I'm sorry, that is pissed you off. I was just gonna be kind to you anyway, maybe it impacts you. Maybe it doesn't. Brandon Handley 32:58 Because it goes to the whole idea of you know, treating others as you know, we can love thy neighbor isn't love thy neighbor, them, you know, you love the neighbor as yourself. Because, you know, in essence, and at least in our conversation in our world, they are. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, you're not getting it. And I say this so that, you know, for the person out there that is struggling to deal with the people that are paying their ass or whatever, with a couple things, right? I mean, however that person is, that's kind of a reflection of who we are. Right? And then the idea of you get what you give, so no, kill them with kindness, right? And maybe, maybe take that person out of the equation and put yourself in an equation, right? Like, you know what, I'm just gonna, you're me. I love you. Yeah, you know, I Lindsey Garner 33:55 mean, oh, I just had a thought that. Okay, I don't share this a lot. So I'm going to share it and this is what I do. So my husband cheated on me. We had infidelity in our relationship. And here it is, like, this girl that he cheated on me this was a manifestation of every single insecurity that I had. She was the complete opposite of me. And in my deepest shit, it made me super insecure and like I'm not good enough. I'm, I don't look a certain way. I don't add a lot on Instagram posting selfies. It's just not who I am. no judgement, live your life, but it's not. And I was like, Oh my God, is this what he wants? And then I I mean, it clicked for me one day and I was like, holy shit. She is everything that I am holding on to as my own insecurity and I put that shit in my path. And I'm not you know, I'm not here to say that. There's not any like, Oh, it was me that I did that. No, I Unknown Speaker 35:00 mean, but but I mean, Brandon Handley 35:02 so you're taking ownership of it and one way or another, right. And, and it was really interesting. I saw jack Canfield, you know, Chicken Soup for the Soul guy. He said, just just for a moment, if you can own 100% of it, by all of it, then own it, right. But if you just own 99% of it, then there's a problem, right? But here, and what you've done is you've said, you know, you're looking at this other person, those are all the vibes that you were sending out, you were like, creating this thing yourself. And you focused on it long enough with enough emotion with enough intensity to you know, kind of create your own bullshit. Gollum, whatever her name was. Lindsey Garner 35:52 100% Yeah. Right. And, and, and crazy, like, exactly it in my head. Brandon Handley 36:00 Right. And and, and the thing is, there's a lot of power in that then no, so Okay. dial in the wrong fucking thing. So now, now you're like, Alright, well, you know, here's what I would change about that going forward. Right? And and, you know, you mentioned Esther Hicks. Right. So you're an abraham hicks fan? Unknown Speaker 36:23 Yeah. Brandon Handley 36:25 The her whole principle is like, you know, the relationships that you've had in the past, right? The idea that I don't want somebody this moves, I don't want somebody does this. I don't want somebody does that, and yada, yada, and all sudden that person shows up. Right? Right. It was funny, because a meg and I had dinner last week, we were talking about the relationships that my mom had, as I was growing up, you know, her, my dad was abusive, right? And so she got us out of that before me and before it ever earned for me. But almost every guy that I recall, her being in a relationship later in life with was abusive. So just makes me think, and I'm sure that, you know, she tunes into this one that she probably say no, but and I don't know, but like, you know, the whole idea of, I don't want somebody that abuses me, I don't want somebody to treat me like this. I don't want somebody treats me. And instead of instead of saying, This is what I do want. And and I always, you know, I have Meg do it at dinner. I was like, you know, do you pull out your Google phone, you know, pull up Google put in there, type in no red balloons, right? What's gonna come up black and red balloons everywhere? I mean, it because, you know, so our minds operate in the same way. So I mean, you know, which is something you're familiar with. One of the things that you did, though, throughout, you know, kind of this whole ordeal with your husband being this way, you you manifest some pretty crazy shit. Right? Let's talk about that. Like, let's talk about how you, you know, you focused on what you mean, Tell, tell us how you manifested that stuff. And you did it and kind of squirt water and some pretty cool things to talk about. Lindsey Garner 38:06 He? Well, so we're both veterans, and he's 100% disabled. So most of his health care goes to the VA. When he first got sick, that was what we were doing. We were going through the VA and the VA denied him care, he kept getting sicker, kept getting sicker, they couldn't really figure it out. And we had to just kind of start and think, Okay, you know what, we got to go somewhere else like this isn't gonna work. And so I recently did the The first thing anybody says with me, it's like all call your congressman call your congressman. So we did all that, right. We're like, Okay, here we go. Like, let's do this. I don't know anything about politics. But let me get started. I'm not very political. Um, so went that route, and I was on a walk one day, all my, all my best shit comes in, I'm walking that damn feral dog. And I love my dog, but he's a mess. So we take a lot of walks, because he needs a lot. And we're walking. And I was like, there has to be a place where he can get everything that he needs, mental, spiritual, physical. All of this, like it's got to be a place. And that for me, I'm, I am a big believer in feeling how things feel in your body. And I do feel like that sounds right. There it is. And so instead of going to the VA, my first thing is I call my sister, my sister's a doctor, and I'm like, maybe, you know, is this a thing like and she started giving me a couple places I could look and I just kept meditating on that. I was like, we're gonna find a place that is going to be all encompassing, is going to follow him through to the end because the VA said, No, you we're gonna send you to a nursing home. And my sister was like, he will die in that nursing home. He will not go out. It and during COVID he would have gone by himself, I wouldn't have been able to be there. Unknown Speaker 40:06 Yeah, and sure enough, Lindsey Garner 40:08 people reached out for Mass General and said, Hey, we can take him on not only can we take him on, we can pay for pay for what the insurance doesn't cover. And I was like, What? And then a friend of his created a GoFundMe, and it blew up and gave us enough to cover my travel costs to go back and forth and to pay for me to take time off work to be there. And I mean, I, Brandon Handley 40:32 I want to I want to throw out there too, like, I mean, you also have a family and it's not just you and your husband. Like, I think Unknown Speaker 40:39 a teenage daughter Brandon Handley 40:41 right so so you know, you got all that going on. And and it's enough to you talked about, you know, being being a caregiver for this long period of time, and I chuckled to myself is like you know, for better for worse, but like, I mean, for like a half hour or a day maybe right? But you've got this you've got this whole year going on. And what I'm hearing yourself say those like you know, when you're when you're walking into golf is walks you you're kind of tossing these questions to the universe, like you know, what we're, you know, you know, feel and then you talk about feeling it and and one thing that I think is a male and and the United States Anyways, we're taught not to feel a whole lot, right. But you know, dawns on me really like feeling really is you know, your thoughts and emotions, you know, your head and your heart coming together as one and doing kind of like a purposeful way. And sounds to me like you were feeling your way forward in a way that felt best. I hate to say like, follow your bliss, or when I say I'll say follow your hunches. Are you familiar with Florence? scovel Shinn, huh? Yes, this is my jam, right? But you know, hunches or your house or heaven or something like that, again, it's one of her things, right? So you're following your hunches and you're focused on the possible and then this just started happening? Lindsey Garner 42:01 Yeah, it does. And my marriage counselor, anytime there was like a hiccup in our marriage, he's like, Oh, there you go. You're fast. manifester. What we think you out and I'm like, yeah, damn it. Yeah, that's true. Um, yeah. And I don't know like, you can say like, I could see right now like, I want to be a NASA or at NASA thing that thing anymore. I want to be an astronaut. That sounds really cool. Doesn't land for me. It doesn't I don't get excited about it. I feel that and if I say on the other hand, like, I want to live in campgrounds one day because I love campground people. I love the lack of boundaries that exists in campgrounds. Brandon Handley 42:48 nightmare. Lindsey Garner 42:52 We've talked about it. I'm like, no, it's great. Everybody like comes over eats your dinner. You they come into your house. They're like, Can I see your camper? And you're like, yeah, oh, yeah, you Brandon Handley 43:02 get rid of the airstream. I'm so jealous. Lindsey Garner 43:05 though nobody bought for keeping it. And me and Zach in RV can Unknown Speaker 43:09 rent them out, by the way, right? You can rent them right? Lindsey Garner 43:12 Well, I just don't have time to manage it. I like Brandon Handley 43:15 I'll send you a link later. But you don't have to do the management this kind of like an Airbnb forum. Unknown Speaker 43:21 Yeah. Okay. Unknown Speaker 43:23 Great. Anyways, I Lindsey Garner 43:24 mean, we're gonna keep it for our road trip this summer. So Lisa, my 15 year old daughter and two dogs are taking this little Airstream. We're going, Brandon Handley 43:33 Yeah, I love it. So standing naked in front of strangers, your blog, people should be going and checking it out. They're going to find more of kind of what we're talking about here. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. And it's going to be kind of like, we're speed dating, right? We're seriously right now. And woo Wayne. So why are so many people depressed? Lindsey Garner 44:00 Don't think they're connected to who they are? think they're connected what they think everyone wants them to be? feel like they're faking it a lot faking It's exhausting. Brandon Handley 44:12 When you stay connected to who you are, like, what does that mean to you? Lindsey Garner 44:18 Things showing up as what you think others expect of you instead of in a way that honors like why you know, you've been put here everyone has a purpose Everyone has their own path and like the more that we get connected to that and show up in that way. Brandon Handley 44:37 So you would you would tell somebody to kind of try and fight figure out what the purpose is to start lean into it and that would lead them to kind of who they are. Lindsey Garner 44:44 Yeah, and that doesn't mean this like giant sexy thing. Like for me, I freakin love running a retail store, right? I used to think it needed to be this like, huge thing. I really get joy out of selling yoga pants. I love it. Brandon Handley 44:56 And that's awesome, right? And I think that that can be And it's been tough for me to find that so tough for me to find that right? If I'm not doing if I'm not doing something a little heavier, right? Because if if, you know, going back to, if I feel like I'm in a room with people talking about stubby thighs, I don't feel like I'm living my best life. Right? And so so like, how do you how do you get out of that? And there's it sounds to me, like you found ways to focus on what you're bringing into your life and to these people through the work that you do. That is driving your purpose and satisfaction, and it doesn't have to be doesn't have to be your shelter changing the world, right? So someone's world, Lindsey Garner 45:40 yeah, in my own little universe. And I think that that's the way that's the most accessible to everyone like it. I think sometimes, this idea of like our purpose, we make it this big thing. And then it seems so far that we don't even take a step towards it. But like, if I can come into my store, say something kind to someone, they all say all of a sudden feel more comfortable in their skin, or they then repeat that that's change, and you've made it in your own little microcosm, right. Brandon Handley 46:08 But it's also micro, right, you go back to the idea of stepping into your greatness. And sometimes that's like, 1000 baby steps to get there. Yes, right. So these small, you're right, like if we try to put this overarching sense of purpose, where it's like this huge fuckin vision, right? Like, you know. And instead we say, you know, I think it's okay to say that. This is my purpose for right now. Yeah. Are people out there? There are people out there who believe your purpose doesn't change. Right. Um, but I think that there are instances of you know, about this purpose revision. Lindsey Garner 46:52 I can tell you right now, 19 year old Lindsey that I don't know what my Yeah, I don't think it was the same. Right? Right. Talk about it. Brandon Handley 47:01 Let's let's do you know, I love the idea that you you feel like you can connect with the divine at will that you are divine. That to me, would indicate that you've got an idea on kind of what heaven is and how to get there. Lindsey Garner 47:18 afraid of death anymore, either, which is cool. Like I live recklessly, but I'm not afraid of death anymore. Because I just don't view it. Like, I have a different relationship with planes of existence in time, you know that. I just don't do it the same. Also meditation can we just all get the shit out of our head that you need to be sitting on a pillow with like, incense burning, and essential oils and mala, like, my best meditations in my car. I'm on lunch break. Brandon Handley 47:49 I'm so glad to say I was doing it yesterday, like in the car. Like I was, like, you know what, and it was very comfortable. I had like my own jams going. Also sound therapy because like, I can turn that off. I can turn the volume up and says like, I can set like theta waves in the car, right? And I'm sitting in a theta situation. So yeah, what is heaven right to you, and how would you get there? Lindsey Garner 48:15 I think it's actually like, getting into a place. Where, okay, I'm going to describe this because my husband, I talk about this all the time. So we have two dogs. We have three dogs, but with an English bulldog. She's 11 she's kind of an asshole. She's grumpy. She bites people. Then we have Bojangles He's my dog. And he lives his life. Just like so fully. He's so excited to see you. He is so curious and just in joy all the time. And I feel like shorty, that's the grumpy asshole. She's on her like, first life Bojangles be like on his 77th he's had time to be like, Oh, don't do that. Now, okay. And you learn and you learn and you learn and I honestly, I think that it's it's an ability to have what we would consider to be like, a life. That is that where you're like, man, I am in this and I am Yeah, there's hard things but like it's okay. And you move through it. I really I think it's more than that. And I don't really think we have a concept of it. I think there's a way I could describe it. But I think it's like an ultimate sense of peace enjoy. Brandon Handley 49:33 Yeah, I mean, so it sounds to me that you're kind of living your life as it is and finding those moments of connection. Yeah, would be to you a little bit like having and yeah, are you are you saying then that new could have heaven here on earth and not like Belinda Carlisle song but slightly different. Lindsey Garner 49:58 Oh, way to go. Good work, Belinda Carlisle. Yeah, I do think that, uh, now I want to sing it, but I don't want that I don't want that immortalized in the podcast. My teenage daughter would be like, what are you doing? I am mortified. Although right. Brandon Handley 50:19 Now, that's perfect. And I agree, I think that, um, I think that it is, and I think that it hasn't closed. But I think that, you know, kind of, the more that you meditate, the more that you focus on it, the more that you make that your intent and your purpose to find in your life, you know, by pop in, you know, heavens, in my Google search engine, it's a good chance that we'll find it right, at least I can dig, I don't know how many, how many O's I'm gonna have to go through to find the one that I like. But, you know, if we put that into our search engines, then we have an opportunity to find it. So, so grateful, again, for you for free to pop on. I've enjoyed getting to know you a little bit more. Enjoy, you know, thank you for the conversations that we get to have online and thanks for the conversations that you have with with Meg, I know that you get to act as a as a translator, for what I'm saying. It's true, because once he gets to translate what it is I'm saying the mag normal language. And it's a challenge, right? Because I'm so immersed in it right and and, you know, as the idea of you become what you eat, right? And if all you're taking in is this content, that's all I can come out. And we get to I get to a point and I know that I'm not the best with it, but I sometimes I do forget, you know where I came from like this is I've always been connected to source. Unknown Speaker 51:53 No. Brandon Handley 51:55 No. The other day when you're being asshole you weren't connected? You're totally not. Lindsey Garner 52:00 Yeah, I really honest part of why I write is because I am terrible at communicating my husband. And if you got it helps a lot. He's like, Brandon Handley 52:09 I mean, that's why we have 90% of our conversations on Facebook, right? Like, that's where we catch up. She'll come in and she'll come in and let me know something's going on. But yeah, I read that, like, two hours ago, we're all caught up like, I'm on your feed from but so so again, very grateful for you coming on today. I'm glad that we got the chance to have this conversation. Where should I send people to go hang out with you? which defines Lindsey Garner 52:33 Yeah, go read my blog. I think that's a good way and then yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's a baby blog, because they do it very much on the side and I would love one day to make that thing that is bigger and then I can do on a larger scale. So yeah, go and tell me what you want me to say and start a conversation I hate small talk. So yeah, just like drop some really awkward awesome deep shit in there my best day Brandon Handley 53:00 when somebody so you've also got the chat function there, you know, outside of some deep shifts that you want some people to drop their what you know, what are some other things that somebody might feel reach out to you for? Lindsey Garner 53:15 Anything that I read connects you in? You're like, man, how did you do that? I'm not here to tell you like this was easy. It took me like 10 years to figure this shit out. But I can be a partner and a sounding board and nothing annoys me more than an advice giver. So I will not give you advice but there is face always face to just be where you are. And then maybe sometimes like a gentle nudge, be like okay, you've been where you are a little too long time. Let's do this. Unknown Speaker 53:41 Like right after you get the fuck out. Lindsey Garner 53:43 Yeah, sir. I know a way. Unknown Speaker 53:47 Right? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, thank Unknown Speaker 53:51 you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

This episode will welcome Lisa from Arizona. When Lisa discovered in 2017 that she was being abducted by Greys every single night, she freaked out. Her world was turned upside down and felt scared to death and vulnerable. Most abductees like Lisa hide in the shadows and suffer in silence. But she has found tools that work to fight back and wants to share them, but not many people will admit to others that they are abductees and hardly any will admit to having negative ET experiences. So Lisa will be sharing her ET/Military encounters and some of her techniques she has used over the years.More information on this episode on the podcast website:https://ufochroniclespodcast.com/ep-105-abducted-furious/Lisa O'Hara website:https://www.lisaoharaonline.com/Email: lohara@protonmail.com Want to share your encounter on the show? Email: UFOChronicles@gmail.comPodcast Merchandise:www.ufochroniclespodcast.com/shop-2/ Help Support UFO CHRONICLES Podcast by becoming a Patron:www.patreon.com/UFOChroniclespodcastor tip and support as a one-off donationhttps://ko-fi.com/ufochroniclespodcastWe have partnered with Advertise Cast to handle our advertising/sponsorship requests. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please click the link below to get started.https://www.advertisecast.com/UFOChroniclesPodcastThank you for listening!Please leave a review if you enjoy the show, and everyone that leaves a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts will get a shout-out on the following show.

This episode will welcome Lisa from Arizona. When Lisa discovered in 2017 that she was being abducted by Greys every single night, she freaked out. Her world was turned upside down and felt scared to death and vulnerable. Most abductees like Lisa hide in the shadows and suffer in silence. But she has found tools that work to fight back and wants to share them, but not many people will admit to others that they are abductees and hardly any will admit to having negative ET experiences. So Lisa will be sharing her ET/Military encounters and some of her techniques she has used over the years.More information on this episode on the podcast website:https://ufochroniclespodcast.com/ep-105-abducted-furious/Lisa O'Hara website:https://www.lisaoharaonline.com/Email: lohara@protonmail.com Want to share your encounter on the show? Email: UFOChronicles@gmail.comPodcast Merchandise:www.ufochroniclespodcast.com/shop-2/ Help Support UFO CHRONICLES Podcast by becoming a Patron:www.patreon.com/UFOChroniclespodcastor tip and support as a one-off donationhttps://ko-fi.com/ufochroniclespodcastWe have partnered with Advertise Cast to handle our advertising/sponsorship requests. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please click the link below to get started.https://www.advertisecast.com/UFOChroniclesPodcastThank you for listening!Please leave a review if you enjoy the show, and everyone that leaves a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts will get a shout-out on the following show.

Paul Casey: Too many priorities means you have no priorities, because then you're making everything a priority. Speaker 2: Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington, it is the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. Welcome to the TCI podcast, where local leadership and self-leadership expert Paul Casey interviews local CEOs, entrepreneurs, and non-profit executives to hear how they lead themselves and their teams, so we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey of Growing Forward Services, coaching and equipping individuals and teams to spark breakthrough success. Paul Casey: It's a great day to grow forward. Thanks for joining me for today's episode with Lisa Godwin. Lisa is the Women and Children's Shelter director of the Tri-City Union Gospel Mission, and author and speaker. And I asked her what a fun fact about her was, and she started riffing on Hallmark Christmas movies. Lisa, tell us more. Lisa Godwin: Yes, so I absolutely love Christmas, and so I love that time of year, but I also love watching Hallmark Christmas movies. So, I have t-shirts that say, "This is my Hallmark Christmas movie watching t-shirt." Paul Casey: No. Lisa Godwin: I also have socks that I wear, yes I do. And ultimately, someday, I would like to be in a Hallmark Christmas movie in the background. I don't want to be up in the front, but I want to be an extra, where I can sip coffee, or do some ice skating, or something fun like that. Paul Casey: Bucket list item. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: Lisa, don't you know that they're all the same plot, every single one of them? Lisa Godwin: But they're so happy, every one of them is happy. Paul Casey: There's going to be a communication problem, and there's going to be a snowfall, and they get back together. Okay, all right, we got a good laugh before we came on the air. All right, we'll dive in after checking with our Tri-City influencer sponsor. Speaker 4: It's easy to delay answering uncomfortable questions like, "What happens to my assets and my loved ones when I die?" So it's no surprise that nearly 50% of Americans don't have a will, and even fewer have an estate plan. Many disabled clients worry that they don't have enough assets to set up an estate plan. But there are important options available to ensure that you have a voice in your medical and financial decision-making, even if your health takes a turn for the worst. Estate planning gives you a voice when your health deteriorates, or after you're gone. Maren Miller Bam, attorney at law, is currently providing free consultations. To find out more about estate planning, or to book an appointment, call Marin at (206) 485-4066, or visit Salus, that's S-A-L-U-S-law.com today. Paul Casey: Thank you for your support of leadership development in the Tri-Cities. So Lisa, we got to meet each other like 10 years ago, you were a development director in an organization that I used to be in, and we connected there, and I felt like kindred spirit there. It's like, we get to talk leadership, and we both had a passion to make an influence on the world. We've all gone to different jobs since then, two or three of them>. Lisa Godwin: Yes, yes. Paul Casey: And reconnected, and just so excited for what you're doing over there at the Union Gospel Mission, so thanks for being here today. Lisa Godwin: Thank you. Paul Casey: Tell our Tri-City influencers a little bit of your career highlights that led you to your current position. Lisa Godwin: Yes, so there have been a lot of career highlights, but I have to say that it's actually the low lights that brought me to my position right now at the Union Gospel Mission. So I work with women who are down and out, who are at sometimes the worst time in their life, and so as much as I'm so very thankful for the position as executive director, I was Leadership Tri-Cities also WSU Woman of Distinction, and a couple other things. And those were awesome, and I was so excited about that, but it was the low times in my life that taught me the lessons that I can take with me to lead the shelter, not just lead my staff, but lead the women who they themselves can become leaders once they are out of their trauma and difficulty. Paul Casey: So why do you love what you do? Lisa Godwin: I love what I do because every day I get to encourage, empower, disciple, mentor, teach, come alongside of women who do not know their worth or value yet, and I get to help them see that. I get to help them see the diamond in the rough. I get to help them see their strengths, not their weaknesses. Their weaknesses are usually what they're focused on, and it actually ends up becoming their identity. And I get to teach them that that is not their identity, that they can grow their strengths, and we get to help them find their strengths. Paul Casey: What a fantastic mission that you get to be a part of. So along your journey you made different career moves, you said some lowlights probably led to some of those. How did you decide when to make a move, maybe from one of those organizations to another, from one position to another? Lisa Godwin: Yeah, so I have to be honest, I have a relationship with the Lord, and so the main thing is prayer. I spend a lot of time in prayer and meditation and reading, and that guides and a lot of what I do. Also, situations that may come up within that position that I am in helps me evaluate if I'm best used in that position, or if maybe it's time to move on and let someone else take over from where I've brought it to. So I think there's a lot of parts and pieces that go in from moving to different positions, but ultimately, I just want to be used in an organization where I can serve them. And once that's not happening anymore, then maybe it's time for me to move on. Paul Casey: So Lisa, staying in one’s strength zone at work can multiply your influence. So how do you add the most value at the Union Gospel Mission? Lisa Godwin: Absolutely, so I believe that due to my life experiences, and the things that God has allowed me to go through, I realized that transparency is critical to coming alongside of the women at the shelter, to coming alongside of my staff, that it provides trust, and they trust, whether it's staff or the women at the shelter, they're going to trust me if I'm transparent with them. And so they're going to share with me, they're not going to hide things from me, and that's where there's growth, because now I can come alongside of them and they trust me, and I can help them, and assist them, teach them, mentor them, and encourage. Paul Casey: Transparency is so huge. I think I've said once on the podcast, Patrick Lencioni wrote a book called Getting Naked, which has nothing to do with nudity, by the way, it has all to do with transparency and vulnerability and leadership and how that builds trust, and just lowers those barriers. He said it was his least sold book, and probably because of the title, it's a little too catchy. But yeah, I totally agree with you on that. In fact, you are now a published author, you wrote a book, and really the whole core value of the book is around transparency, isn't it? Lisa Godwin: It absolutely is. It basically is struggles that I have gone through, that I have lived through, have come out on the other end, and I can basically come alongside another woman through the words in my book to encourage them. It was written specifically to a woman who is hurting, whether that's a woman in a shelter, or anyone else, but someone who's going through a really hard time and needs to have answers to the pain that she's going through, this book will provide some of those answers. I'm extremely transparent, you're going to see the struggles that I've gone through, the personal struggles, and some people say it's pretty raw. But I'm okay with that because it's proven already to be extremely successful and has brought women out of certain pain elements that they've been going through in their life. Paul Casey: Wow. I remember, I was sitting in Barracuda Coffee with you several years ago and you're like, "I want to write a book." You did it. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: You wrote the book, years later. And Tri-City Influencer listeners, many of you have a book in you, and it takes a lot of discipline to write it, but I would say, go for it, get some words on paper. And we'll just take that quick aside, how did you write the book? Did you do it in one big chunk? Did you write X number of words a day? Lisa Godwin: It was pretty cool how it all came about. Yes, I've wanted to write this for, and had in my heart for about 15 years. Had dinner with a friend about two and a half years ago and I said, "Oh, how I would love to reach more than just the woman at the shelter with a message that I've been sharing with them, and a book would do that, it would open the doors to touching more hearts and lives." And she said, "Well, why don't you just write letters, why doesn't each chapter be a letter to the women who are hurting?" And I said, "Oh my goodness, that is the answer, that is what I'm going to do." So I had the answer, I knew what I was going to do, I sat down, it took me a month to write it, which is crazy, and then found a publisher within a few months, and was off and running. Paul Casey: So exciting. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: So you said you were pretty raw in there, and transparent. So leaders have to be self-aware of their weaknesses, so you can be a little raw and transparent with us really quick. What's your favorite "way to sabotage yourself"? Lisa Godwin: Oh my goodness. Fear, for sure. Paul Casey: Fear. Lisa Godwin: There was no question. And whether it's fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the risk that I might need to take, fear in general. Yeah, so I've had to create some ways to deal with that fear and really to black that out. Paul Casey: False evidence appearing real, right? That's what FEAR stands for? Lisa Godwin: Yes, it is. Paul Casey: So you said you've had to come up with some ways, if someone is struggling with fear listening today, what would you say to them? Lisa Godwin: I would say fear is a liar. I would say we make things way bigger than they are, and just focus on the truth. Paul Casey: Courage. Lisa Godwin: Yes, yep. Paul Casey: Well, rarely do we achieve our highest potential by ourselves. So who keeps you accountable? Who keeps you energized to getting your professional and personal goals accomplished? Lisa Godwin: Absolutely my husband. He is my biggest fan, my biggest supporter, and I would hope that he would feel the same way about me. But he is always there to encourage, to speak the truth when I need it. I have to say my family as well, my children. But then there's an element that the women at the shelter hold me accountable. So they're really good at being able to see right through you. And so I have to be on my game, I have to be real. They're going to know if I'm not speaking the truth, and something's going on. So they hold me accountable to me being the best leader and the best mentor that I can be, and I love that. Paul Casey: Very cool. All right, let's get Scott on the line right now and ask him the same question. No, just kidding. Lisa Godwin: Exactly. Paul Casey: No, it's great to have family members be that inner circle keeping you energized and accountable. But using your people, I'll use the word using there, but using your people to be that gauge for, am I bringing my best, my authentic self? I think that's really classic. So replenishment of energy keeps a leader at the top of their game, how do you manage stress? Lisa Godwin: So other than the Hallmark Christmas movies, I enjoy camping. My husband and I have recently gotten into camping, and we have a trailer. I also like kayaking. I just enjoy that being out in the river, just the quietness, being able to just think, or not think, and just have a little exercise, it's just wonderful. So it gets me out of my element of thinking and having to process things. Paul Casey: I was reading just the other day that just being in the forest is a stress reducer and a depression buster. Isn't that amazing? There's something about the, the chemicals that the trees are exuding. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: That literally just being in there reduces, so we have to get more time in the forest. Lisa Godwin: Absolutely. Paul Casey: In Tri-Cities it's probably Russian olives, but I love the idea of kayaking and exercising and camping, to be out there in God's nature. Well, before we head into our next question on people development, let's shout out to our sponsor. Speaker 4: Located in The Parkway, you'll find motivation, new friends, and your new coworking space at Fuse. Whether you're a student just starting out, or a seasoned professional, come discover all the reasons to love coworking at Fuse. Come co-work at Fuse for free on Fridays in February. Enjoy free coffee or tea, Wi-Fi, printing, conference rooms, and more, and bring a friend. Fuse is where individuals and small teams come together in a thoughtfully designed, resource rich environment to get work done and grow their ideas. Comprised of professionals from varying disciplines and backgrounds, Fuse is built for hardworking, fun loving humans. Learn more about us at Fusespc.com, or stop by 723 The Parkway in Richland Washington. Paul Casey: So Lisa, people development, crucial for leadership, the people you surround yourself with. So if you could clone the ideal employee for the mission, what traits would that person have? Lisa Godwin: So when I'm looking to hire a supervisor, or a staff member, I am always looking for someone who is teachable. At the shelter it's a beast of its own. So every day is different, and every situation is different, so they need to be able to be teachable, no matter how many degrees they have behind their name. And also humility. Humility is so important. Humility to be able to accept responsibility for mistakes that you've made. I do not ever expect perfection, and I make that very clear. I expect if you've made a mistake, own it, let's own our mistakes, and then let's learn from them. And they know that about me, and I live that out. I do the same thing; I'm going to own my mistake. Also honesty. Just be honest with me. If there's a problem, tell me. If you've done something, tell me. I'd much rather have you be honest with me then me finding out a different way. Paul Casey: What would you say are some signs of not being teachable, of not being humble? I don't know if you can pick that up in an interview, maybe you can, but just when you think of, you also inherit employees, a lot of our listeners have inherited employees. What are some of those telltale signs of not being coachable, teachable, and humble? Lisa Godwin: Yeah, I really feel like it's when someone's consistently making excuses for things that they've done, there's just not an owning. When you can own your mistakes, there's humility there. When you can speak your mistakes, and not just think it but speak it, that you own it, that you are going to do something about it, there's power in that. And so if I can hear somebody acknowledge that they've made mistakes, that they've grown from it, and that they're willing to grow, to me that's an indication that they're probably humble, they're probably willing to be teachable, and there'll be a good staff member. Paul Casey: That's a good indicator in a hiring process. I was talking in our last podcast about how we have to do these scenarios in our interviews probably more often than the standard questions to listen for just that, those little ways that people, so what was the biggest mistake you've made in your last job, and how did you deal with it? Listening for the, I screwed up, but I grew from that. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: And what happens when a leader does own their mistake? What's the effect on the culture, the staff? Lisa Godwin: Oh, I think it's extremely healthy. I think it creates an atmosphere of, it actually promotes creativity, because people don't have fear anymore of holding back. They can be creative, they can potentially be used for their strengths, and they're not going to fear what their boss is going to say to them, or do to them. There's the transparency, when a leader is transparent that's going to trickle down to the staff and they're going to be transparent, and you're going to see success because nobody's going to be fearing making a mistake, if that makes sense. Paul Casey: That is so good. I've heard of organizations have the best mistake award to normalize mistakes. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: To say, you took a risk, it didn't work. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: We're not beating you up over it, we're actually going to give you an award because you did your best, you tried, it didn't work. There's actually one global giant that shoots off a cannon at their headquarters when someone has a learning opportunity. Lisa Godwin: Wow. Paul Casey: So as soon as everyone hears the big boom they're like, 'Somebody screwed up, and they learned from that." Lisa Godwin: Yes, that is great. Paul Casey: Well, I've had people tell me, "So Paul, I want to think more strategically in leadership, I don't think that's one of my natural gifts." What advice would you give to how to look at the big picture? You've been a leader in several organizations, how do you get that long-term impact? Lisa Godwin: So from my perspective, I really see goal setting, every year on an annual basis, as being pretty critical to the success of that organization over the next year. One, it communicates to everyone the mission that you're on for that year, so all your staff are on the same page. And then I also think having each individual staff member under the leader, they also need to have their goals set. So everybody knows what's going on, everybody knows the direction that they're going in, and their effort can all be in that direction, versus having questions and not knowing, and then nobody does anything because there's no goals. Lisa Godwin: So goal setting on an annual basis, I think is critical. Also evaluating, I think it's really important to evaluate your policies and your procedures on a yearly basis as well. Things change, I know they do at the organization I'm at right now, and things change from year to year. We've got COVID, the pandemic, we've got all of these things happening in our world that are changing on a daily basis, and we have to adapt to those changes. And so on a yearly basis, just looking at those policies, looking at those procedures, making tweaks, making changes so that you can more effectively serve, or do whatever your mission is. Paul Casey: So good, evaluate your policies and procedures. I would even say job descriptions could be added to that. Lisa Godwin: Yes, and best practices. Paul Casey: Best practices, yeah. Because things creep in from the side, and one day you wake up and you're like, "I'm not doing anything that's in this document that says what I'm supposed to be doing." Lisa Godwin: Yes, exactly Paul Casey: How do you do that annual goal setting process? Do you have a process that you work through? Lisa Godwin: As director I am part of, obviously, all of the directors at the shelter. Paul Casey: Yep. Lisa Godwin: So yes, every January we go through the process of looking at five different categories. So as director of the shelter I would look at my volunteers, what are my goals for the year for volunteers? What are my goals for donations and potential donors? What are my goals for my staff, in terms of training? What are my personal goals in terms of growth opportunities, trainings that I want to go to? And then anything else, any other category that may serve your business or organization. So we really put it into different categories, and then have maybe three to four or five goals in each category that are attainable, goals that at the end of the year, we can look back and see that we've accomplished this, and it's moved the organization forward in a long-term way. Paul Casey: Yeah, listeners, you may want to rewind that for those categories, especially if you're in nonprofit leadership, because those are great. And for any business that you're in, put them in categories that helps you think through how to improve in that one area, make them attainable. I would also add, make them a stretch too, right? Lisa Godwin: Sure, sure. Paul Casey: So that they can't just be done, I was reading in a book yesterday that says, "Don't pick goals that can be done just by business as usual." Lisa Godwin: That's good, yep. Paul Casey: Because sometimes we shoot small, and we're just like, "Oh, okay, I'm going to write this goal down because I know we're going to achieve it. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: Just by the normal way of doing things, but instead stretch a little bit, challenge yourself. Still attainable, but it's going to take some work because real change does require a real work. Lisa Godwin: Yes, and risk. So thanks for the counseling on the fear. Paul Casey: Yes. So yeah, so goals are one of the ways to bring the vision down onto the tarmac, as I like to say, that the day to day, so how else can leaders, what are small acts of leadership that if they're done daily, make a positive difference in the lives of the teams and the constituents? Lisa Godwin: So good communication I think is pretty critical as well on a day-to-day basis. If I'm communicating as a leader to my staff, what that individual is doing correct, or what they are missing, I can align them on a daily basis, or a weekly basis, whatever that looks like, depending on how large your organization is, but I can keep up on that. Versus waiting until the yearly meeting and having to throw a ton of information on them that they can't really go back and fix, but that I can fix along the way. Lisa Godwin: And so good communication with them on what they're doing right and wrong, but then also communication about what's happening with the organization, so they are keyed into what they need to be doing as well. And they need to be communicating with me as well, so it goes both ways. I do a one-to-one with my staff, with all of my staff, we meet twice a month one-to-one. The first meeting I hold the agenda, and we go through the items that I want to go through. The second one I allow them to. So I'm training them as well in their leadership potential by having them come to the meeting and communicate with me. So I'm trying to train them, also, to do the same thing. Paul Casey: Wow, that really freshens up the one-to-one process. I know some of our listeners really know that they should do one to ones with their people, and there might be a little bit of a hesitation because it's like, "I don't know what should go on that agenda," so I really liked that of the one, one of them is your agenda, one is theirs. I also heard of leader's doing half and half of an hour, where half of it is [inaudible 00:24:51] . What kinds of questions do you ask, what else is on that agenda when you're leading the one to one? Lisa Godwin: Well I first ask, do you have any questions of me? Is there anything going on that you need to know from me? I like to give them praise. I will always give them praise, and then we'll work through any of the issues that I see that I might need to tone up a little bit. But the questions I might be asking them may surround any issues that have gone on over the last couple weeks, any questions they might have about policies and procedures, and yeah, just good communication, letting them know what's going on. Paul Casey: Yeah, that real-time feedback is so important, as opposed to the annual performance review. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: Which of course is great as well. I'm trying to work with companies to move them to quarterly reviews so it is doing exactly what you say, giving more real-time feedback so you can align, and so you can praise. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: Both of those are so critical. Well, if one of our TCI listeners asked you what two to three books, besides yours, of course, that they must read in order to grow their leadership skills, where would you point them? Lisa Godwin: So I have to say, I would point them to the Bible. Truly though, you are going to find so many leadership styles, how they handle things, insecurities, how they handle their insecurities. You really do get a good view of different leaders within the Bible. Also, I really do like the leadership challenge, that's been really helpful, and there's a newer one that's focused towards women, per se, but I really like it, and it could be practical for anybody, and it's Get Out of Your Head by Jenny Allen. A lot of times we live in our head and we need to get those thoughts out, and as leaders, getting them on paper and then communicating them effectively is important. Paul Casey: Yeah, Leadership Challenge, a classic, our local leadership Tri-Cities program. By the way, what class were you? Which best class ever where you? Lisa Godwin: I was class 20, thank you. Paul Casey: Well, second best class ever. Okay. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: But yes, the Leadership Challenge is sort of the textbook for that, five principles, or practices of leadership, in their model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and the heart one, encourage the heart. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: Yes, nailed those, so that is a classic that I would definitely say is in my top five leadership reads ever. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: And the name of your book is, we didn't say that earlier. Lisa Godwin: That's okay, it's Dear _____, There's Hope on the Other Side. Paul Casey: Okay, awesome. Lisa Godwin: Thank you. Paul Casey: All right finally, what advice would you give to new leaders, or anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining more influence? Lisa Godwin: The biggest thing that I've learned is not to think that I've arrived, not to think that I know everything, be willing to learn, be willing to grow and understand that there's other people that may know more about a certain topic than you do, based on their life experience or things that they've been educated on. And so when you put up walls to listening, or to only be speaking and not listening, you're really shooting yourself in the foot because you're not able to grow. And so I would encourage you, and this is, again, something else from the Bible, "Be quick to listen and slow to speak," and that in and of itself is super powerful as a leader, because when you're listening, you're going to learn so much that can grow you. Paul Casey: Two ears, one mouth. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: It's probably for a reason. Lisa Godwin: Exactly. Paul Casey: And really what you're describing is having a beginner's mentality. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: By going into situations not as a know it all, it's sort of like when your teenager goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, mom." Lisa Godwin: Exactly, yes. Paul Casey: And you're just like, "Yeah, that means you don't really get it." Lisa Godwin: Yeah. Paul Casey: But as leaders, always going in with that beginner's mindset is really rich for the curiosity of learning something new, in a situation. Lisa Godwin: Yeah. And then surrounding yourself. When you do have weaknesses, surround yourself with people who have their strength as your weakness, and so you can play into each other's strengths and weaknesses. Paul Casey: That is so good, whether that's your friendships, mentors, coaches, colleagues, when you're hiring, that all plays into balancing yourself out. Lisa Godwin: Yes. Paul Casey: Well, Lisa, how can our listeners best connect with you? Lisa Godwin: Absolutely. So they can connect with me via email, and my personal email is Lisa.Godwin@mail.com. And eventually I will have a website up, I'm starting a nonprofit called Endless Hope, and my website will be EndlessHopelg.com. So check that out, and yeah, let me know if you have any questions. Paul Casey: Very inspirational. Well, thanks again for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a great place and keep leading well. Lisa Godwin: Thank you. Paul Casey: Let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend. Got certified last year to present the DISC behavioral assessment, DISC stands for dominant, influential, steadiness, and correctness, and you are a blend of all four of those, but you usually default back to one or two of those. So for $60 each, I can get you the link for that to take the DISC survey, would love to debrief it with you, debrief it with your leadership team, or do a retreat for your entire organization or team so that you can gain the most about how you're wired, and how to pick out these qualities in your customers and in your team so that you can custom communicate to them that is most honorable. So hit me up for the DISC behavioral assessment, and we'll help you with your self-awareness. Paul Casey: Again, this is Paul Casey, I want to thank my guests, Lisa Godwin from the Tri-Cities Union Gospel Mission for being here today on the Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast. We want to thank our TCI sponsor and invite you to support them. We appreciate you making this possible so we can collaborate to help inspire leaders in our community. Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road to help you make a difference in your circle of influence, Bobby Unser, a race car driver said, "Success is where preparation and opportunity meet." Until next time, KGF, keep going forward. Speaker 2: Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams, so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul in your leadership development, connect with him at growingforward@paulcasey.org for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growing your life, or your team forward. Speaker 2: Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity to your crazy schedule and getting your priorities done every day by offering you his free Control My Calendar Checklist, go to ww.takebackmycalendar.com for that productivity tool, or open a text message 50 72000 and type the word growing. Paul Casey: Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast was recorded at Fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of Safe Strategies.

Lisa Corrado: lisacorrado.comTranscript:This is Changing the Rules, a podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dunster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.KC Dempster  0:11  Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Changing the Rules. I'm KC Dempster. And I'm here in wonderful, downtown Woodbury, New Jersey at the Wildfire Podcast studios. And we are ready to have a fantastic podcast with you. You know, Changing the Rules is about taking control of your life, and deciding what works for you and what doesn't work for you. And our guest today has done that in the most amazing fashion more than once.Ray Loewe  0:43  Yeah. And she really changed the rules. And she is one of these luckiest people in the world who have personally redesigned their lives and then are living them under their terms.KC Dempster  0:56  That's correct.Ray Loewe  0:57  That is Lisa Corrado. to a tee. I believe. So good morning, Lisa, welcome to Changing the Rules.  Lisa Corrado  1:07  Good morning. I'm excited to be here. And I'm glad I get to be in the luckiest people in the world club now.Ray Loewe  1:14  Well, I think you've always been there. I you know, and and it's interesting, and this is a good time to comment on this is there are some people who go who become the luckiest people in the world, and then they kind of fall out of it at times. And that's one of the reasons that we're here. It's it's kind of KC hates this word. It's like a rope of hope,  towards bringing people back in. And I think that, you know, when we get into your journey, you're going to show people that you kind of done this multiple times in your life. And I think you said it's something like on a 13 year cycle.Lisa Corrado  1:51  You seem to I don't know if I'm like a cicada. But yes, I seem to 13 year cycle for for big changes. So Alright,Ray Loewe  2:02  interesting. What's the let's let's skip the mundane. Let's start with the exciting. So a while ago, you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I did. So tell us a little bit about this.Lisa Corrado  2:16  So we, I would say when my husband was 58 or 59. He said, Do you know what I want to do for my 60th birthday? And I said no. And he said, I want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I said, that's great, honey. That's terrific. Because I knew nothing about it. And I said, Give me a little information and get back to me. And when I learned that it was one of the you know, one of the Seven Summits, the highest peak in Africa. It was like a scary, dangerous thing. I said, oh, we're not doing that. I'll take you out to dinner instead.KC Dempster  2:55  Talk about mundane.Lisa Corrado  2:57  Yeah. And what actually happened was we, we he embarked upon a campaign that I joined in on to learn more about it. And as I did, I got really, really excited. I was so excited to see the possibility of actually doing this thing that he wanted to do and that I became excited about. So we did some a lot of research. We spoke with a lot of people. And then we said, okay, we're gonna do this. And it's one of the greatest journeys of our lives. No question.Ray Loewe  3:30  And you managed to do this right on his birthday, didn't you? Yes,Lisa Corrado  3:35  yes. So somehow it worked out that our climb wound up with summiting on his 60th birthday, and there is nothing was that we had, when you climb Mount Kilimanjaro, if you're doing it with a reputable trekking company, you have a lot of people with you, to help keep you safe to carry things, all that stuff. And this group, this crew, this amazing crew that we worked with, sang Happy birthday, it's so unbelievable. We have a video of that, and we play it all the time because it's you can't help but smile when you see this. It's just really something else.KC Dempster  4:14  It's the memory of a lifetime. Yeah,Ray Loewe  4:17  I don't think that just happened. I think that was part of Lisa's plan. And we're gonna get into that planning stuff in a little bit, right? Yes. Okay. So so you climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and I know you're an active traveler and you have all kinds of plans to do some other things. So is there anything that's that spawned this or is just this just a natural part of who Lisa is.Lisa Corrado  4:44  We have always liked to travel but we had kind of a catalytic event happen that really spawned even more travel. So in 2010, I was diagnosed with non Hodgkins lymphoma. And I went through many months of chemotherapy. And then I went through about a year of recovery. And my husband, Fred will call him Fred, because that's his name. Fred. Fred said, when we when you are done with this, we're, he said, I want to do something special and want to give you like your own Eat, Pray Love experience. And that's the Elizabeth Gilbert book where she took a year off, went to Italy, India and Indonesia. And he said, You know, I want to figure out something like that. And from there, we realized, boy, we've really dodged a bullet here. And there's no time to waste. Let's get out into that world. So since then we owe our big thing is travel. That's what we spend our money on. And it's all we talk about it seems we're always planning the next trip, even as we're on a trip. And we've done some truly remarkable things. I mean, Kilimanjaro was great. Last year, we did, we were in Peru, and we did the Salkantay Pass, which was about 15,000 feet. So Kilimanjaro is over 19,000 so Salkantay Pass is over 15,000 feet. So that was a nice big hiking trip, that we have plans to go to Patagonia. Next year.Ray Loewe  6:25  Cool. Okay, so we've established you as an adventurer. Okay, now, how the heck did you get from computers to there?Lisa Corrado  6:38  Well, so I know what you're referring to by so my undergrad is in computers. And my first my corporate job was, which was 13 years was working as a director of project management for a technical division of a marketing research company. And I, you know, loved the work, but I didn't, I didn't feel fulfilled, I didn't feel like what I did actually mattered in the scheme of things. So I did a great job with my clients, I had big consumer packaged goods, clients who sold products like soda, and beer and cigarettes and things like that. And I didn't have their passion for their products. So it, it began to really weigh on me, absolutely weighed on me every single day at work. And don't get me wrong, I had a great corporate life, I had a great salary, I had a beautiful office with a water view. I had somebody who watered my plants, I had somebody who fixed my printer, you know, I had all the things that you're supposed to want to have. And I was so miserable, because I didn't feel like I was making any kind of difference. And it became like, I started to become sick from it. I had a stomach ache every day, I lay on that lay on the floor of that really beautiful office with my door shot looked up at the window, the ceiling and I thought there's got to be a better way than this. Like this can't be, this can't be right. So I spent some time trying to figure out well, if I'm not going to do this, what am I going to do? And I just did a simple exercise where I walked around my house and tried to figure out okay, what do I really love to do? How do I spend my time when I'm not at work? And I got really clear on a few things. One, I have a book addiction problem. I had just tons of books all over the place. And I also noticed I bought a lot of books about nutrition. So I thought, well, that's interesting. And I started to explore a couple of different career paths, looking into being a librarian, and being a nutritionist, and honestly, it came down to the availability of the graduate school program, nutrition, nutrition won out because I love them both. So I you know, as I was still in corporate, I went to grad school on the weekends and got a master's in nutrition. And then you would think, the then all of a sudden, I'm in my new business being a nutritionist, but actually, I was really afraid to leave my corporate job. Because I think I might have mentioned the money, the plant water, you know, and all of these great things and of course, security. So, so I, I waited. And while I was waiting, I got a flyer in the mail about a culinary school in Manhattan. And I'd always love to cook and it never occurred to me that I could go to culinary school until I got this letter. And I thought, Uh huh. That's what I'm going to do. So I went to culinary school, also on the weekends. And I knew that in the course of that I would figure out how do I pair this with nutrition? Because they made sense to me. I knew they went hand in hand, but I didn't know exactly what kind of job I was going to create and While I was in culinary school, I learned about the concept of a personal chef. And I said, that's it. There we go. So I finished my coursework work, had to quit my job so that I could do the practical work. I had to work in a restaurant for several months before I could graduate. And then I just hung up my shingle, and I was a nutritionist, a personal chef, I was a nutritionist for 13 years, I was a personal chef for probably about five of those. And I absolutely loved it. absolutely loved creating this.Ray Loewe  10:32  Okay, so this is why we consider you one of the luckiest people in the world right here. Because when you look at your story, you took into account what was important to you and what you love to do, and you acted on them. And you were willing to put the high paying plant watered, office in the corner, the window view over the water kind of a thing at risk, and step out. And I think it takes a lot of guts to do this. So what were some of your thoughts as you went through this?Lisa Corrado  11:08  Um, well, once I got over the initial fear, because there was quite a bit of fear. I mean, all joking aside, I really was afraid of leaving the security because I didn't know anybody who had I thought I didn't know anybody who had done it. And my family thought I was insane. Except for my husband. My husband was like, we got this, you know, so I left my office, my corporate job on a Wednesday, Thursday morning, I woke up and I was like, Did we lose the house? Fred said, No, no, we didn't we still have a house. So we're good. But I was I was really afraid. And I had a lot of people around like my grandparents were alive at that time. And they just couldn't fathom, you know, making this leap. And my, my parents are supportive. My dad always said, you know, it's really important to do what you love. And I also realized a few years into my switch. So when I worked as a personal chef, I would, I was in the kitchen all day, and I was cooking all day, and I played the radio, I listened to jazz, you know, I just really, really enjoyed it. And I realized that when I was a little girl, my grandparents took me to visit friends of theirs who ran a bed and breakfast. And I, I really, I remember standing in the doorway of the kitchen of this bed and breakfast. And this couple is listening to opera on the radio. And they are, you know, cooking for their guests. And they're having fun. And I remember thinking like, Oh my gosh, I want my day to feel like this. Like, this is how I want to feel when I'm at work. And it was really my first example of somebody who did a job that wasn't a nine to five job. And I must have just tucked that away because it wasn't a conscious thought until, you know, one day and at the same doing the dishes, looking out the window, listening to my radio, making some food and I thought, oh my goodness, I'm doing exactly that. I'm doing exactly what I said, I've created a day that I absolutely love.Ray Loewe  13:11  Can we repeat that again? I want to like my day.Lisa Corrado  13:16  I want to like my day.Ray Loewe  13:18  Yeah. Because this is a message that a whole lot of people I think think about and don't act on it. And if you know, somewhere, you know, the name of our show is Changing the Rules, you know, well, if you want to change rules somewhere, sooner or later, you got to change. Right. Okay. And and I think this this bit about making the change when it was time to change. I think this bit a little bit about following what was kind of fascinating and motivating for you is really an important message. If you want to be one of the luckiest people in the world. This is what you have to be willing to do. Right? I mean, if the corporate job is great then stay in the corporate job, that's okay. Right. But but so you were a chef, for 13 years.Lisa Corrado  14:11  I did the personal chef worked for I think about five when the economy tanked in 2008. Suddenly, people didn't have the budget to for a luxury item, like having someone come in and cook for them. Which was fine. At that point. It's a very physical job. I started started culinary school when I was I think in my late 30s. It's really young person's job, like you need to start. You need to be 18 when you're starting out so but I loved it and I was ready to switch and focus solely so there was even a shift in that because then I thought I have an opportunity to focus solely on the nutrition. And I you know, I did that for 13 years until it was time for me to make another change.Ray Loewe  14:54  Okay, so so one of the comments that you kind of made to me during our Pre interview is, and this is kind of a precursor to where you're going is a lot of people said to you that you showed us the pathway out?Lisa Corrado  15:13  Uh huh. Yes. So when, after I left corporate, which, you know, was just such a wacky thing to do, I didn't know anybody else who had left to do something completely different. meeting some of my co workers. Sometime afterwards, one of them said, You showed us that you could leave, you showed us that we could leave and do something different. And since then, I've reconnected with coworkers who have gone on to do completely different things. There's one of my co workers, he and his wife owned a bed and breakfast in Massachusetts, someone else became a police officer, which was very different than what we did. You know? And that's just a couple of the people who have said, Oh, yeah, I guess we can do something else. So maybe you just need a little permission, you know, I find this with my clients, sometimes you just need a little permission to do the thing you want to do. And you maybe need to see an example of somebody else doing it so that you can feel a little more confidence yourself.KC Dempster  16:13  Yeah, I've always felt that we were sort of dealt a bill of goods by the Puritans and their, their ethic, which was, you weren't supposed to be happy if you were happy than meant you were doing something sinful. That's why so many people, I think, stay in jobs that they hate, because they feel like well, but you know, it's my work ethic. It's the, you know, I have to do this. And that's not necessarily the case. And I think it's, it's very hard for us, but we do need to learn how to let that go. If we're forcing ourselves to continue in something that's not making us happy.Ray Loewe  16:47  Well, this is why we have coaches around. Okay, so enter the next 13 year segue here, Lisa. And I have no idea where we're gonna go with the next 13 year segue. But we won't worry about that one yet. So, so enter this one, and what happened? And where are we and what are we doing?Lisa Corrado  17:08  So once I wrapped up my 13 year cycle, as a nutritionist, I realized that what I really loved about that work was helping people create change in their lives. I really love the coaching aspect of it, I wound up wrapping up my nutrition practice, because I was working with people who had very serious illnesses, and I got burned out, it became too much for me to handle. So like I've done with all of my changes, I realized there's something there things about that I loved, I can do something else with it. So I took that component of really connecting with people meeting people where they are helping them really understand, you know, what, what do you want your life to be like what you know, and I work specifically with women business owners, how do you want your business to be how do you want to be as the business owner, and let's help you get there. So. So it takes what I loved about my past jobs, and allows me to work with a different population and in a slightly different way. And the kind of, you know, so what I'm my, and I always tell my clients, I don't have an agenda for you, my agenda is your agenda. But my agenda really is to help them create the change that they want to create, and help them see that there's, there's probably even more possible than they're thinking. So I tried to help them think even bigger than they're thinking for themselves, because I can look at them and say, you can do this, I can see how you can do this. You just need the confidence and the permission. And, you know, the the mindset to do it.Ray Loewe  18:45  You know, I think there are a couple things that you've shown here. You know, number one, you had this great job that everybody would love to have, except you. Okay. And then like the 13 year locust you have found at the end of a period of time that you weren't as happy as you wanted to be. And you went out and searched for the next thing. And then built on that, because you built from the culinary thing to the coaching business that you're now in. And I want to go back to one statement that you make again, because I think the business plan that you offer, everybody is I want to like my day. And what a great place to be.Lisa Corrado  19:26  Yes, yes. And I, I might I think I told you when I first left corporate and I worked with SCORE, which is an amazing free organization to help you know, fledgling business owners. They said you have to come up with a business plan and I said great, I'm on it and the business plan I came back with was literally I want to like my day and they looked at me like I was nuts. You're gonna need a lot more here and I said, No, no, I don't need a lot more. I just need that. I've had a lot more What I want is to like my day Yeah. And that's, that's been my core business plan for since 2003. Since I left corporate, that it always comes back to that if I don't like my day, I'm doing it wrong, and it's time to make a change.Ray Loewe  20:13  Okay, unfortunately, we are near the end of our time, and I want to hit a couple of things that are on your website. You had a couple of quotes that are on there. I'm going to start them and you're going to finish them, hopefully, right. Well, if not, you know, we'll go we'll work through it. But But when you walk up to opportunities door, don't knock.Lisa Corrado  20:34  Kick that bitch in and introduce yourself.KC Dempster  20:36  I Love it.Ray Loewe  20:41  Yeah, absolutely. And, and this reflects your coaching style, and this reflects what people really have to be willing to do here. Okay, so it's not hell yes. If it's not, hell, yes.Lisa Corrado  20:54  It's a no, it's not a hell yes. It's a no. swearing on my website, apparently, clearly.KC Dempster  21:04  But it just means you're passionate about it.Lisa Corrado  21:07  And I think it really speaks to, like you really have to, or I believe that we all have the opportunity to really love what we do. And if we don't love it, then do something different. Because there's so many things that we can do. So that's why I say if it's not a hell, yes, then don't waste your time with it.Ray Loewe  21:29  And well, we waste our time, because we're learning I think, you know, we all go through this process of trying to figure out what we want to be, but I think that the thing that that differentiates, differentiates you is that you weren't afraid to, to do the research and then take action. Okay. So So, we're going to come back. Well, let me let me Let's do another quote here. Alice Cooper.KC Dempster  21:53  My favorite one, the one from Alice Cooper.Lisa Corrado  21:57  Oh, the Alice Cooper quote, yes. Never let a wake up call go to voicemail.KC Dempster  22:03  I just think that is stunning. You know, of course, it's dated to because?Lisa Corrado  22:12  Well, we still have voicemail Yeah, weKC Dempster  22:14  do. But I just I just think that that is a motto. It's a motto to live by? Mm hmm.Lisa Corrado  22:24  Yeah. And I said, that's what we did. When when I was diagnosed with cancer. My husband and I both circled the wagons and we're like, boy, the What a great wake up call. What a great opportunity to really just throw ourselves out into what we want to do.Ray Loewe  22:40  Yeah, well, let's not hope everybody has to get cancer to get a wake up call. And, you know, let's let's kind of end this with with Lisa Corrado. And what is your email, or not your email but your website so that people can find you and we'll list this in our podcast note.Lisa Corrado  23:02  My website is Lisacorrado.com. And my last name is spelled c o r r a d as in dog. Oh.Ray Loewe  23:13  And And besides, it's not hell, yes. Then it's No. And besides, when you walk into opportunities, opportunities door don't knock kick the darn thing in. Okay. And last would never wake up. Never let a wake up call go to voicemail. And the most important thing is, I want to like my day. So Lisa, thanks for being one of the luckiest people in the world. You know, you're part of the club, whether you like it or not now,Lisa Corrado  23:45  I'm so happy aboutRay Loewe  23:46  that. And thanks so much for being with us. And we're gonna get you on to one of our cocktail or coffee hour sometimes so that people who listen to this have an opportunity to meet you, but we'll talk about that going forward. And have a great day up in Connecticut and thanks so much for being with us and where we go next, KC.KC Dempster  24:06  Well, given that tomorrow, St. Patty's Day I don't knowRay Loewe  24:09  The bars are open.KC Dempster  24:13  We have a wonderful podcast coming up next week with guess what an Irish girl. And so tune in again, because we've got so much wisdom for you from herRay Loewe  24:22  and say goodbye, Lisa,Lisa Corrado  24:25  very much for having me. I really appreciate it and goodbye.KC Dempster  24:29  Bye bye, Lisa. Thanks,Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules a podcast designed to help you live your life the way you want and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us next week for our next exciting topic on Changing the Rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world. 

Defining Your Message With Lisa McLeod Focus on what you really need Are you being caught in a trap of spending heaps of marketing and getting no traction? We’ve got Lisa McLeod here from Selling with Noble Purpose and she's going to talk about how to make sure that you have a clear cut and defined message. So Lisa, what are some of the main blunders when people start marketing and trying to sell in a new business? What are the things you think they need to focus on?  Focus on these three areas Elizabeth: There are three main things that get in peoples’ way. The first thing is, what they think it means to sell. This is over-describing what they do. Secondly is their expertise. Most people start a business because there are some customers out there who are not getting their needs met. What gets in their way when they are trying to sell is that they are too deep in their expertise. Lastly, they don’t have clarity and purpose. They think their purpose is to sell, but the purpose is to make a difference to your customers. This should be the center of your marketing message and not your product. How do you make a difference to customers? What is your impact?  I’ve definitely fallen into the trap of doing that previously. I’m an engineer who thinks very much in detail. I was in a spot where I knew I had a great product, but I thought, what if I have the cure for cancer but I don’t have the voice and clear message to tell everyone about it. Do you have an example of seeing businesses that highlight what they do instead of why they do it? You need a clear voice Elizabeth: That's right. What they do versus why they do it. Let’s say with the cure for cancer, the fact whether it's injectable or it's a pill, all we care about is the cure for cancer. We need to think this way as sellers. We had an IT company we were working with and it's an American based company. They do IT services and you can outsource all your IT to them. So when I started working on it, we said, what impact do you have on customers? One guy in the room stood up and said, we help small businesses be more successful. That’s what happens when you have that clarity of purpose.  Every time you interact with a customer, that's what you're trying to do, is to help them be more successful. And if you're a business owner one of your challenges is getting your people to have the right behaviors with customers. Absolutely. We changed our marketing messages around after addressing the question of what are we actually doing? We've redefined the message of what we do in business and what we do for people's lives to challenge their operations through creating kindhearted personal relationships driven by cutting edge advancement. We changed our marketing message and said we guarantee your uptime and if you go down, we pay you. The message is very clear, we guarantee that your business will run perfectly with technology and we're happy enough to put our money where our mouth is. Elizabeth:  The exercise you have done is really important. Finding your why can be easy if you have a small business with a handful of employees, but if you go to a mid-size business, you need to be explicit. Why? Because you want a competitive differentiation.  Even if what you are selling is not unique you’ve got to show that you do your business differently. Second, you need an emotional engagement with your people. You have to drive emotional engagement with your team to motivate them to try new innovation. As a leader, you have to articulate the impact you have on customers and make that the north star of the business. Differentiation is Key As your business becomes bigger, the message shouldn’t get watered out. What is the differentiator between copycat-like businesses such as McDonalds and Hungry Jacks?  Elizabeth: You’ve got two key ways to differentiate yourself. Number one is your product, and number two is the experience of doing business with you. I was running the session for a group of leaders and we were talking about this. McDonalds and Hungry Jacks can’t be differentiated from each other. What interests me during the session is, I asked who stands out among these organisations? There is an east coast of America company called Chick Fil-A and a west coast company called In-N-Out Burger. I thought people were going to come to blows arguing about which one is better. The reality is, is the food better at either one of these fast food chains? The place of true differentiation is the experience that you were creating for your customers.  Don’t change your business only in response to your competitors If you've got a business and you're trying to try and work out how to make sure that you are targeting your audience appropriately and being separate from your competitors, what's the best way to do that? Elizabeth: If response to your competitors is the basis of what you're doing for your business, you are not going to create a differentiated experience. If you want to create true differentiation and be clear with your message, you need to find your purpose in the way you do it. You have to answer these three questions:    How do we make a difference to our customers?  How do we do it differently in the competition?  What do we love about what we're doing?    When you answer these questions, this creates the story of your business and that's the story you go out to the market with. Talk to your customers and get honest feedback I always say the best way to find out how you make a difference to your customers is to ask them, would that be fair?  Elizabeth: Totally. If people are buying your products or renewing their contracts with you, this means that you are doing something as simple as creating a great experience. Or maybe helping them to be more successful because as an IT company, you are doing all their back up IT. Company owners can sleep at night knowing that you take care of the technical side of their business. It’s not just about the product but the impact you are making on your customers.   Find out the “why” We've had a customer who had to leave and so I asked them, what could we have done differently? So if you're selling something that's not very much a commodity and not like a burger, like an IT service, How do you make sure that you understand your competitors? How do you make sure that you know them well enough to know that you're doing the right thing and you're definitely doing it differently to the competition?   Elizabeth: Instead of asking your customers why did you buy from us, instead, how did working with us impact you? They can say, you were cheaper, you were the first one here or you had more widgets, but what matters is to know the impact you have on them. This is how you will differentiate your business in the competition.  One of the products we sell was by far the cheapest in the industry, it is selling us as the hook to get you in the door. It is not a high-profit product. It is up to think about possibly what if their current provider isn't doing what they meant to be doing and starting to dive in to see how we are different from their current provider. In B2B, target businesses you are excited about  Elizabeth: I once asked the customer, “why did you pick us”? They said, we picked you because we could tell that you were really excited about our business. And so I started saying that we only go for businesses we're really excited about. You have to be specific on what you sell and make sure you have a lens on it.  It’s the frame of mind. When you are excited that rubs off on other people. Once you have purpose in business, what's then the connection to profit? Elizabeth: Companies with a purpose bigger than money outperform their competition by over three hundred and fifty percent. People that sell with purpose, whose purpose is to improve life for customers, outsell people focused on targets and quotas. And this is important if you're in any kind of a sales function or if you're a leader in the business, the reason why is flip it. Who would you rather have calling on you? Someone whose purpose is to help you or someone who's just trying to close you? It shows up in every aspect of the business because you've got to have really clear systems and processes just to be a successful business.  But you will not be a differentiated business which is the most profitable business, you will not be differentiated unless you have clarity about how you and your team make a difference to customers if you're just sort of running your business in that transactional way. Profit is the test of your validity.The purpose of a business is to improve life for customers. Profit tells you whether you're doing it or not. Create a tribe of true believers So you're focusing on the right information. A good example is Apple. What they're selling is the experience of selling the support. They're selling a beautifully crafted product. Their message is clear.   Elizabeth: That's right. Steve Jobs was very famous. He had a conversation with John Sculley and he was trying to persuade John Sculley, who was the CEO of Pepsi, to come to work for him. And as the CEO of Apple with the great excitement and honor, I got to interview John Sculley a couple of weeks ago for a piece I did for Forbes. And he said, I remember Steve Jobs saying you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or you want to change the world?  Apple is a good example. And you might be listening to this and you might sell ice cream or concrete, but there is innovation in every space. And the reason Apple has innovated, the reason the customer experience is amazing. The reason the products, they're always on the cutting edge, the reason they look beautiful, the reason that out of the box experience is great is because they're not selling technology. They're selling making a difference to you. They're selling you on having a beautiful experience. And that's where everyone's eyes are pointed to. And where that comes from is the language of the leader.You point the team and if you point your team towards revenue targets.You'll only be mediocre if you point your team toward something bigger and then use those commonplace metrics as a way to measure your progress. You'll create what I call the tribe of true believers, which is definitely what the people at Apple are also places. So I understand that you've got a special code that we can copy for any of the listeners now? Elizabeth: Yeah. So if you want to buy the book, you can enter your receipt number, which I love. But if you don't, just for your listeners, just enter the code BBF and you'll get the assessment. There's no reason why people can't jump across it and get that happening. I'm going to ask you a question. It's probably going to be an easy one to answer, but we ask most of our guests, what's your favorite book? Check out Selling With Noble Purpose Elizabeth: So my latest book is Selling With Noble Purpose. I will tell you a book that has influenced me greatly, which is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning. And there's a connection between that and the work that I do. Some people don't think a man searches for meaning is about finding something to tether yourself to during challenging times. And he was a victim of the Nazi concentration camps. The thing that I realised in reading that book years ago was people need to tether themselves to something bigger than themselves and that that was the key to surviving a challenging time. While my circumstances are not as dramatic, there's a story in selling with noble purpose about when my husband and I lost a business and I had to dig deep and find a way to come back from bankruptcy. Selling With Noble Purpose is a lot of how I did it. I'm not comparing myself to Viktor Frankl. I'm saying I was inspired by him and I thought about him a lot. I thought about what I didn't know ten years ago when I was having to come back from the recession, but I realised in hindsight that tethering yourself to helping your customers vs tethering yourself to your revenue number, that will give you the tenacity to prevail.  That's good advice. I know that I found that a long time ago that I love helping people with technology. But what I really love doing is making a difference in their lives. And the book that changed my life is the Go-giver by Bob Burg. He's changed my mindset about business and how people hold your information.   Elizabeth: There is now reviewed data that says that everything that you've just described about helping others and putting them first results in you. Winning your market, having more profitable business and enjoying your life a lot more. Living for something bigger than yourself. Hopefully that means you're leaving a legacy behind or you have set a good example. If anyone is looking to better their business and make sure that you are selling with noble purpose, you can jump across sellingwithnoblepurpose.com and jump onto the assessment. Otherwise, stay good and stay healthy out there. 

Join in the conversation as we host Elyse Archer of She Sells this week on Spiritual Dope. Connect with Elyse over at: https://elysearcher.com/ Also, Elyse, mentioned the book The Diamond Cutter, check it out below: Brandon Handley 0:00 321 Hey there spiritual dope. Brandon Handley here. The voice of a generation as we know, Mays was self self indulge every once in a while and I'm on with a quite somebody quite special Elise Archer. And I'm just gonna, I'm gonna let her do the bio for herself in a second here. But before I do that, like Elise is the reason I do a podcast. Right? Before I met Elise, I'd never listened to a podcast, or I was like, fuck podcasts. Like, that's not for me. And when I when I met Elise, Alicia, we're doing your podcast with Greg and, Mark. Good. Morning. Yeah. And, you know, and then you know, we're connecting at some of the networking events. And then I eventually hired you as my coach. And then when we got through the coach, it was for sales coaching, we got midway through the coaching. And I was like, This is more like, I'm getting life coach than sales coach. And and it's okay, because it's transferable, but like, as like, Well, you know, what, at least what we've been working on, like, it's been the sales, but I really want to do this, like podcasts, and I was fully expecting you to be like, eyes on the prize brand and focus on what you said you were gonna focus on and you got it. And instead of doing that, instead of doing that, you're like, well, how can I help you? Right, and you connect them with some other people. And that moment that that was like a life changing moment for me. So thank you for that. And I'm gonna let you do your own little brief intro. Like Elise, what do you all about? And share a little bit of that? And then we'll get it going. Elyse Archer 1:36 Oh, my gosh, I love that. Yeah, it's it's so cool, just to see what you've created in a short amount of time and to see the evolution of it as well. So yeah, thank you so much. I was just thinking before cutting on his podcast, this is so much fun for me, because I do most of the podcast interviews I do or straight business sales, personal branding. And so this is pushing my limits, because this is actually the stuff I care about, like this is, this is the real, I feel like everything I do in the sales and business world is kind of the Trojan horse to try to like, talk to people about spirituality and help them just develop and grow personally. So this is so much fun. Okay, so with that about me, I'm a new mom. So I've got a little boy, he's six months old. And that's so much fun. Yeah, yeah, it's the best. I love it. I didn't know how I was gonna feel elevated. I Unknown Speaker 2:24 know. Elyse Archer 2:26 My gosh, No, I know. And he's kind of he's past that, like the blob stage now. So he's doing things which was, but especially for my husband, Jason, I think it's more fun for him now that he can interact. And, yeah, I'm a business owner. So I do a couple different things. I'm a founding team member of a company called brandbuilders group or a personal brand, strategy firm. And then I also recently launched another brand that I'm running called T cells. And it's a it's basically sales, training and mentoring for women who want to break through six figures and learn to sell in a way that feels really authentic to them. And we can, you know, take this conversation wherever you want it to go. But that's a lot of my background is coming from corporate sales and seeing, you know, sales and business strategies celebrated that, frankly, made me feel like crud when I implemented them, because they either kind of blurred the lines of integrity, or were all about Push, push, push, hustle, and I did it, I did what I was taught, and I financially, I did pretty well. But it was really, really detrimental to not just my mental health, my physical health too. And so a lot of my own journey has been about I would say, reconnecting with myself, like how I'm actually wired, how I was innately designed and learning to trust myself, trust my instincts, trust my body, trust my intuition. And, and I'm really lit up now about helping everyone do that. But specifically, I my brand really is catering to women, because I think so much of what we're taught, just growing up is like, we, you know, our bodies look wrong, or they're not the way they should be, or they're for other people's pleasure. And it's just, it's really disempowering. And so, I'm so passionate about helping myself reconnect with my power and then helping other women reconnect with their power as well. So that's, that's a little sliver of what I'm all about. Brandon Handley 4:15 Just a tidbit. Unknown Speaker 4:16 Yeah. Just a little bit. Brandon Handley 4:18 I love it. I love it, you know. And again, you know, when we connected, it was just, I think it was a, it was just an interesting journey. You You and I are connection, right? And just kind of how that how that all? We'll call it manifested. And let's start off with the first question that so we have all day to talk. So usually like to start us off with, you talked about connecting with your power always align it with like source, right? So the idea is that source speaks through us to speak to somebody else, right, you kind of get this divine inspiration to share something with somebody else. So the deal is there's somebody listening to this podcast today that needs you to kind of ignite them to connect them to their power through a message. And what does that message to that person today? At least? Elyse Archer 5:08 I love that question. I mean, the biggest thing that shows up for me is to trust yourself. That's like I said, that's so much of what I feel inspired to share with this brand. And like I mentioned before, a lot of my journey, especially in my teens, and 20s, were, it was it was not trusting myself, and whether that was not not being proud of my body. And I struggled with an eating disorder for 17 years, or feeling like something was just off with, like a client situation or something I was being told to do at work. All the way to, you know, when we got pregnant for the first time, a couple years ago, I went into sheer panic, that I was like, I just, I felt like I was going to lose the pregnancy. And I went into sheer panic about it. Sure enough, we miscarried. And I learned in that moment, I didn't trust my body. And it's been so interesting, this journey of learning to I think a lot of times we have to like kind of be brought to our knees to be able to be open to whatever that that message is that we're meant to receive, and then carry forth into the world for other people. And that was it for me. But then even talking with my mom about it, a lot of her own experience, too, was she didn't trust her body. And I think a lot of this stuff goes back generationally. So you know that, whatever that thing is that you feel like you want to do, but you can't do or you have this intuition to do something or you're like that logically doesn't make sense. If I could encourage someone to listen to it, and trust that it doesn't have to make sense for anyone other than you and to kind of stop looking outside of yourself. Even I promise, I'll be quiet in a second. So you can respond or ask your next question. But I think about the coach I'm working with right now like this was I just did a pretty big financial investment to work with a new coach. And I knew that it was going to trigger all of my scarcity mindset that I was part of me was still clinging on to I knew it. And sure enough, a couple of weeks in it did. And I knew in my core, my intuition this whole time that it was the right move. But logically, it would not be anything that my dad would have told me to do, it would have been anything that a lot of even business mentors, who I look up to would tell me to do and I was on a call with her a couple weeks ago, and I said, I found myself going into panic about making the wrong decision. She was like, when do you find yourself going into panic about that. And I said, usually I'm reading, it's when I'm reading like a business book, or I'm listening to financial management training from somebody else. And she was like, stop it, cut it off for the next three weeks, no consumption of any of that stuff. And I cut it off, and I feel so at peace. So it's not that we want to not learn and educate ourselves and challenge our thinking. But I think at the end of the day, you know, your best path for you. And you have to trust that everything that you're doing and when you act on those instincts, it's always unfolding for the greater good and for your greater good. So sometimes just putting those blinders on and trusting that you know, what you need to do, is the most powerful thing you can do. So that would be my message. Brandon Handley 8:14 After keeping it short. Unknown Speaker 8:15 I'm gonna be all day Brandon Handley 8:20 I kid I kid I love it. I love it all like and one of the parts where you brought it to know you had to kind of come to your knees right to just kind of accept your your intuition piece for a lot of people would you consider that? You? d a fearful, dark night of the soul for you? Would you consider that a moment of a or maybe like even a dark night of the soul? Whatever, right? And then and then, you know, there's the idea I love I love what you're saying there with with your coach, because I bet you it's almost like it's almost like a deprivation for you knowing how much you consume to improve or be better or find another technique or whatever, right? Like Hmm, I have to cut all that off. Right like so you probably feel a little bit like a junkie having to withdraw from that at least look and I know this from my own experience, right? I'm like, I'm like What do you mean? Don't Don't do it all like right now. Elyse Archer 9:16 So it was in that did one thing I'll just add to that is like, she really kind of pushed me with that cuz she was I was like, but I love learning and learning is good. And I love reading. She was like, that's your comfort zone. She said, study yourself for three weeks. Just study yourself. Whoa, this is so uncomfortable. But that's right. That's what we need. Brandon Handley 9:33 Well, that's tough, too. Right. So jumping in there and studying yourself. And what I'll throw in there though, too, is like, so it's very, I'm still going through this book again. Right? Like, are you ready to succeed? I can't remember if I saw I might have sent you one too. I can't recall if I did. I think I sent you have a kid's book that isn't yours. Yeah, I Elyse Archer 9:50 don't I'm not familiar with this book. So Brandon Handley 9:52 this is Sreekumar Rao. This is actually by way of Elise Archer at some point. It was back in the day when we were doing the coaching There was a guy that I looked up Sreekumar Rao on like, you know, you are hardwired for happiness, right? And turned out like, you almost cried, watching his little story or whatever. And I was like, Alright, well, I gotta get his book, got his book, yada yada went through it. But one of the pieces in here it's just really talks about there's two pieces in here that you're saying that resonate with me. And one is like, talking about putting all that effort in, right? Like I gotta do I gotta do I got consumed content consume content, you were finding like each time you like power, something that didn't correlate with how you were feeling or doing it was like, it was like, striking the wrong chord. Right? Quite literally. It's like, you're like that is that is out of that is that's out of tune with who I am. Oh, my God, I need to make an adjustment because this person, you wrote this book, he's an authority. Right? He Unknown Speaker 10:48 knows. Oh, my gosh, I Brandon Handley 10:50 shouldn't Holy shit. Did I do the wrong thing? Right. So that that's one piece, right? is to not let the wrong thought in your head. Right? It's better. It's like better like like literally cut yourself like with a razor. He says in this book, this came from like a Swami. Right? It's better to cut yourself like a razor than to let the wrong thought into your head. Hmm. Right. which I know sounds to me. Like, you know, that's that's kind of what was happening to you. Like, you know, you're you're on your path. But you're like, you like this guy's awesome. I love 98% of what he does. But this piece right here is just like a BB in my mind, right? breaking all my shit. And thank you so much. Right? And then and then the other piece is like, we're trying to do it so fast. Right? We're trying to we're trying to do is we want it so bad. We're trying to do it so fast. There's another story in this book where he talks about the idea of, you know, if you try to do it so fast, and with so much energy, it's actually gonna take twice as long. So it sounds like your coach sounds really similar to what your coach is saying is they stop taking all this like outside influence and jam in all this into your cranium. Study yourself, trust yourself. And that's what you're saying to is like, kind of trust yourself and believe in yourself and kind of tune out all the other shit. Elyse Archer 12:01 Yeah, well, that's so interesting what you said about if you try to like, push and force it into it so fast, it'll take twice as long. It's interesting. I hadn't thought about it like that. But because it's counterintuitive. It makes a heck of a lot of sense. Because you're kind of going up river versus letting yourself flow and stuff, right? Brandon Handley 12:18 Yeah. here's, here's how, like, I've visualized it more recently. And this is like, this year, right? Imagine, like, you feel like you're literally putting all the thought energy or whatever things, right? If we're putting all this energy into this place, right? Then nothing can get in. So if we create space for something to come in, right, if we back up for a second, and let it come to us, then it comes to us, right? Because otherwise we're blocking it. We're like, I've got to put everything into this spiritual energy, right? Like, I've got to put all of my, you know, essence energy into this thing. And I want it so bad. If it doesn't, we've got all these things caught up with it. And instead of like, I do really want it I want it really bad, but like, I want it and kind of like, the way I like flowers and, you know, gardens and stuff where if I go and I plan it, you know, there's that whole other thing to where, like, you know, if you plant something you don't keep pulling it up, right? And check into the roots and be like, you plan it. Come back up. Yes, it does what it's supposed to do. Yeah, it'll do anyways. And those are some thoughts that are like, you know, coming on mine is I'm hearing your story, right? I'm hearing like your coaching unfold. So thanks for letting me ramble on Elyse Archer 13:26 I love this. This is no I feel like I'm getting a good like a spiritual lesson from you. And this this is awesome Brandon Handley 13:31 was so that was so here's the other thing, right? Like Elise guys is I went through like my quote unquote, like a call, quote, unquote, because nobody can like point a finger and say, Hey, that was an awakening experience. But remember, if you don't remember that time, I called you up. I Unknown Speaker 13:43 was like, Oh, yes, Brandon Handley 13:44 I went through some shit. I don't know what it is. And it's like an awakening experience. So Lisa's been again, guys that's, you know, just want to share our relationship with the people that are listening, right, and how this kind of all came together. You came to me as like a sales coach. But what ends up happening was all this inner work that I hadn't done before for personal growth, and it manifested into culminated into like kind of an awakening experience. Right. And from there, we still maintained and again, that was another thing where you were like, Well tell me more about that, like, because you're just as excited as I was for that, too. So I think that that's says a lot about kind of who you are and what you accept in your life. So I do want to hear like, you know, how you talked about helping people find themselves spiritually through your own process. And I'd like to hear how you're doing that. Because what happened with me might not have been intentional. And and, you know, how do you feel like you're doing it intentionally right now? Unknown Speaker 14:43 Oh, wow. Elyse Archer 14:45 Yeah, gosh, I don't so I don't have like an intentional method to it. I think it's more me think about that cuz I want to actually, I want to, I want to think about what the right or just what the true answer is for me there. I think I think for me, a lot of my own journey has been around overcoming a lot of feelings of unworthiness and worthlessness. And I think a lot of that is conditioned, that's part of why a lot of the, like the clients I work with are in a business environment in a business setting. And so a lot of times they'll come for, you know, I want to make more money, or I want to grow my personal brand and presence and just through that process, usually what comes up is, are there tactical, pragmatic things that they can do to do that? Absolutely. But also, and I think the more important thing is we dig into just limiting beliefs that are showing up for them around, you know, I want to make this amount of money, but even the word want means you don't have it, right. So it especially the women, I work with those, those cut, you hear more than their story. And they talk about feeling unworthy or scared to show up or scared to speak up. And it doesn't matter how good your website is, or how good your sales process is, if you have that limiting view of yourself, you're only going to be able to operate within a box that's like this big right? And get results that are about that big. So I really like I said, I don't have a set processes, something I'm kind of like working on developing on right now. Because I do want to be able to take people through a more like a more intentional process. For me, it's typically kind of intuitive with my clients. But that's usually what I'm listening for when I hear my clients talk is, what are they actually saying about themselves. I was on a call with a potential client the other day. And the first thing she said when she got on our call was she said, Oh, you know, I'm just sitting here procrastinating, like I always do. And she's a woman who wants to break through six figures this year in her business, and she's a go getter. And she you can tell like she's you know, she's an aggressive goal getter. But the first thing I said was, whatever you describe you prescribed, right. So if you're sitting there saying, I'm procrastinating, like I always do, you're going to continue to procrastinate on accomplishing your goals on making your sales calls on whatever it is. So I just I think because so much of my own journey involves poor self talk poor or poor self image, I can hear it, and I can see it and other people. And then that's what I try to pull out. Because usually we're just we're not even aware of it. It's so ingrained in how we think and how we talk. And most of the people around us usually use disempowering language and thoughts. And so it's kind of just part of our society. But once you realize, once you're aware of it, you can't unknow it. Right. And so I care so much now for myself about how I feel and how I speak about myself. And I try to get my clients to that same level of self awareness. Because the tactical stuff is like 5% of the actual process, the 95% of it is how you think and what you believe you deserve. So I don't know if that answered the question. Like I said, there's not a real thought out process. It's super intuitive for me, but that's, um, that's that's kind of how I do it Brandon Handley 18:01 a little bit. I mean, it sounds like there is right, so the process is to kind of just identify where they are, right? You know, are they saying something that, you know, you've been able to get look as, I don't think it's any different than being a doctor, right? Kind of, when, when you first start off, you're like, maybe I shouldn't amputate that leg, I don't know. But I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and cut that one off, you're doing the same thing with like somebody limiting beliefs, right? Or identifying it. And over time, over time, like you become skilled enough to be like, Oh, that's this. That's this. That's this. That's this just because of your exposure, experience. And then your own way of working with people in that space, seeing what works. A lot of these things that you're using a lot of the tools that you're using, I'm guessing, aren't brand new, right? These are tools that have been around for quite some time that have had success for years and years and years. It's just how do you how do you share those tools with these people? So what would be like one thing that you help? Like, when you identify like a limiting belief within somebody else? Right? How do you how do you identify that for somebody to get them past that? Yeah, well, I Elyse Archer 19:07 think the first thing is just reflecting it back to them. So that's part of where there is value in having a coach a mentor, just somebody who can hear how you talk. And and actually help help you become aware and almost be a mirror for Do you realize you just said that? Because like I said, oftentimes, our language is so it is it is so subconscious, we don't even realize we're saying it. So it's like, hey, do you realize you just said that? And then oftentimes people don't even realize it's a problem. They're like, well, so you know, so what? So what did I said that and I think so for some people, they're already really into law of attraction and, and positive self talk, but for a lot of people I work with, they're not familiar with, with what that means, and how it how it impacts them. So we talked about, you know, whatever you're saying you're giving a command to your subconscious to create this thing in your life. And so we start to look at what's a new and better and different way you could say that The other thing that has been really profoundly transformational for me in my life and that I recommend for a lot of my clients is Joe dispenza his meditations like I am, I'm guessing you follow Him, and I'm such a fan of his work. But every single morning, I'm doing those meditations. And I asked my clients to do the same, and it helps you start to feel the feelings of abundance, genius. Courage, right? All those things that, that we want to embody. And so I get all my clients doing that, as long as they're open to it, and that is pretty darn transformational as well. Brandon Handley 20:40 Now, 100%, right, yeah, Joe dispenza is great. He's one, there's one that I listened not not even. Not even a meditation, but he's got like a 10 minute piece that like I listened to all the time. It's just, it just reminds me like not to look at like, not to look at my social media first thing in the day not to, you know, to retune yourself, right, like to retune your your whole, you know, your whole experience? Do you live life on your terms? Not according to what kind of everybody else is already doing? And that's why I enjoy him and that. So meditation, getting them to connect with the meditations? Or where did you find that to be kind of like the game changer? a game changer for you? Hmm. Elyse Archer 21:24 You know, it's so I've been meditating off and on for probably five years, probably, well, I really longer than that, but like, actually really going for it for about five years. But I would say it's, I kind of, I would do it for a while, and then I'd get off of it. Because it was like, you know, I'm still I still was in the mindset of i, this time would be so much better spent if I was sending emails or creating the social media posts. So I was still in that mindset. And really, I would say, it's, it's honestly been more in the past few months that it's kicked in, for me how critically important it is. Where, even though I think I had done a fair amount of work on releasing anxiety, and like I mentioned, like not trusting myself and stuff. So I'd gotten to a pretty good place about 12 months ago, but I still would have almost this low grade anxiety running all the time in the background, especially on Sunday nights, looking at the week ahead of like, Oh, you know, I've just I've still got all this stuff that's been done that I thought I was gonna try to get done this weekend, did I just piled too much on my plate, and then I would kind of beat myself up about just not being, you know, good enough. And I Gosh, if I was better, I could have gotten this done. So it was this habit in this perpetual like cycle that my body was almost addicted to the feeling and the anxiety. And some time, I think sometimes we just have a moment. And for me, I just had a moment, I was like, doing it this way, has gotten me this result. I've been feeling this low grade anxiety for years for most of my life. What if I didn't have to feel that way? What if that wasn't the reality for everybody? What if I was what if it was just a decision that I was going to feel differently. And that's when I started really doubling down into a lot of Joe's work, and into just studying, you know, the different energy centers of the body and how to get them in coherence. And I will say, I mean, it's a very short time as of the recording of this interview, but for about a week now, I've had really consistent checks up brain heart coherence, where you just you feel like in the flow all the time, no matter what. I had that for about a week, and it's been so transformational. Like, I'm not afraid of anything that's coming, I'm not anxious, I'm at peace, I'm present. With the people I'm talking to. I'm excited. I'm not triggered by stuff the way I was. And it's just it's a totally different, I was able to get there like a little bit before and I could get there and kind of keep it for a while during my meditations. But then something would happen in life, and it would trigger me or throw me off and I'd have to like work to get back. And it's been really darn consistent. For like I said, about seven days. And I think it's it was just a decision of, I can have this all the time if I want. And so now i'm i'm showing up on that meditation, that was some ferocity my friend cuz he's like, Oh, this is good, how much? How much better could it get? Brandon Handley 24:19 You show it to meditation be like, I'm gonna take this bitch down. Yes. So so that's great. So there's, there's a word that I use in tandem kind of with, with with, with what you're talking about there. And that's the word numinous. Right? Like where you've got this connection to source and it's just effervescent. And it sounds like that's been your week, right? Nothing can derail that, right? There's nothing stronger than it and there's no worry, you've given yourself some trust, you've given yourself some grace. And there's a it's just such a great feeling, right? Like how did happen and where's and it's always been available. Right, that's the thing like to you're like, well, all I had to do was make a decision to make this a conscious choice. Elyse Archer 25:06 That was it. Yeah, that and it's and it's not like nothing has happened, like, I got a mega tax bill I wasn't expecting because of a miscommunication with my accountant. And in the past that would have that would have thrown me, you know, and this I was like, okay, like, I, you know, I am being honest, it threw me for a couple minutes. And then I just like I'm snapping back into it, because nothing is worth sacrificing this level of vibration and awareness and feeling nothing. So we're just going to do it and move on. Yeah, Brandon Handley 25:37 yeah, no, absolutely. 100%. Right. So I thought I definitely talked about this in my process, too, right? To where you make the decision, right, literally, like, so I created that, you know, this thing called the divine framework, right, the first piece of the first piece of this puzzle that you just talked about, is to make the decision. Yes. Right. Like, this is it? This is I'm going for it. Right. But the one thing that, you know, you talked about, like kind of this belief system, you talked about the boxes right and and discover on uncovering kind of like the those limitations, right? Those self imposed limitations. It's kind of like this whole mindset thing. This is just how spirituality has kind of shown itself for me, right? Like I did the I did the coaching with you awesome stuff. Great stuff went through like law of attraction, right? And I was like, well, this is this is all kind of stuff that I'm putting out there. What if I shake it back and understand that this is a benevolent universe? And that it probably wants things more for me than I actually want for me. What can you show me? Right? And how can I take who I am eternally spirit, like spiritual DNA is perfect, right? I mean, we all have, we all share the same spiritual DNA. But I went from having a human mindset with all these worldly things that we know how to use, right. And, to your point, I've made it this far with this human mindset with this human capability. As like, what happens if I choose divinity? What happens in right? What happens if I'm connected to source at all time? And if I accept that source is everything, right? Who, you know, what am I capable of then? Right? And so that's just fucking blew the lid off it. I'm like, you know, and that's, that's that again, just another choice to make right then. And so you can take a look at spirituality and the, you know, you can call it maybe it's Christ consciousness, I don't know, right to decide, like, Hey, listen, this is this is Buddhist consciousness, I make this decision to do what you did, to say. I'm just gonna stay connected to this ship, because I feel real good. I don't have to drink to get here. I don't have to get high to get here. All I have to do is show up and decide to be here. It can't be that easy lease. Elyse Archer 27:56 It's it. It is literally it is a decision. I mean, that's it. That's been a huge lesson for me in the past 12 months that I think we could be scared to make that whatever the decision is. Whether it's a decision to show up differently, a decision to to move right a decision to, for me invest in this, this high level coach. One other thing that happened for me a couple months ago is I made it not I guess it was more a month ago, I made a decision to spend more money than I knew where it was going to come from to work with this particular woman. So I felt very intuitively guided to do it. And I remember going through the fear and I like I said yes to her verbally. And then I like kind of shrugged back for a week and I vacillated It was like, Oh, this is a bad idea. It's not it's not responsible. It's not smart. And I reached the point. And I think you saw my video I did on Instagram about this. But I was just thinking about why am I not moving forward on this. And it was the fear of the unknown. It was the fear of making a bad decision in the unknown. And, but what it reminded me of was, when I was in my late 20s, I was in a just a, I was in a marriage that was really toxic. And I was so scared to leave because I was afraid of the judgment of being young and being divorced. And my family put a lot of money into the wedding and we were only I mean I knew before I got married to him I shouldn't have but at this point where I reached kind of the turning point we were like 1214 months in I was so scared to do it because of the fear of judgment and what was going to be on the other side would I ever find someone who was actually a good fit for me all that stuff. And I just reached a point where I said it can't be worse than this you know so let's let's pull the trigger and do it and so I I asked for the divorce and six months to the day that I did. I met Jason who's my husband I knew within minutes that he was going to be my husband. very inconvenient by the way in North Carolina. You've got to be separated for a year so we were still tech Are you gonna you remembered for a year for you to get remarried. Brandon Handley 29:58 For the for the guys out there. They listen, they're gonna probably, they're gonna want to know, what can somebody do in a couple minutes to make some money? Unknown Speaker 30:07 Right? I Elyse Archer 30:08 know, I know. Yeah, they are. He just showed up and I was like that, you know, you hear about you know it when you know it, you know it I've never had that experience before. But I, I knew him. I knew that I was meant to be with him. So that's a whole nother story, because then I had to proceed to chase him and date him and all of that stuff. It was a frustrating courtship, I will say, but here we are. So Unknown Speaker 30:29 if I had to do one, that one, I won that one. Yeah. Elyse Archer 30:33 But if I had not left that situation that I was so scared to leave, I would not have met him. And we would not have our son jack now. And that just puts things into perspective for me. And I think everyone can relate to something in their life where they've been so scared to make a move, because they didn't know what was on the other side. But think about what happened in your life is a result of what you have now that you wouldn't have had if you hadn't stepped out in faith. And for me, that was like, this is it. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen on the other side of this, but I know, I can trust my intuition that's leading me to do this. And I know something really good is gonna unfold, even if it's not what I'm expecting. So it's kind of that surrender, like, Alright, I'm along for the ride. Brandon Handley 31:16 That's it. I mean, that's it. 100% right. You know, it's, it's following your intuition. And kind of, you know, trusting it. And for you, you know, that's seems to be working fairly well. Seems like, hey, look, what I love, too, is like, you know, listen, no matter how much of this work you've been doing on yourself, I've been doing myself, anybody out there has been doing it themselves. years, right. You're still catching yourself, like beating yourself up? Right? You're still catching yourself. Like, you know, there are moments where everything's not fucking perfect. And that's okay. Like, and I think that, I think that that that can be a challenge too. Because to accept that right to to be able to say, this, this moment, right here is not ideal for me. But that's still going to show up no matter how much work you do. And I think that that's important for people to hear and understand. Because they put themselves in into, oh, I shouldn't be feeling this way I shouldn't, then they beat themselves up for feeling that way at all. Like you're saying, like, I shouldn't be doing this way. And, and and I should be you should I've done it differently. And all these other things. And I've had another guy that had on and I know well, you called it he has the acronym, acronym Tina, right? There is no alternative. However you did it, right. There's no alternative to what's already been done. Right? The only alternative mate would be like your perspective on that, like, as you move forward, you'd be like, you know what, you can look back and be like, you know, what, in my mind, at that time, this is what I thought was going on. But now if I look back, it's a totally different scenario. your perspective on what happened may be different. But the actual event, there's no changing it. Right? That's your your way past it. Right. Yeah. But you know, so how would I mean, a dress that though right, especially for you know, you again, being a coach, having gone through, like all this work, and still finding, you know, yourself kind of having those challenging moments? Do you accept those for yourself? Or do you beat yourself up for having those and then, you know, how do you get through it? What do you do from there? Elyse Archer 33:28 Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. I, so I do accept myself for having those. And I used to beat myself up a lot over it. And I think a lot of that is just we see people, whether it's our parents, or like, for me, I saw I like, I love my mom dearly, but I saw her do that my whole childhood growing up. So I that's how I operated for a long time. So now with those moments, I am so conscious of how I talk to myself, because I realized if I beat myself up, I'm only perpetuating the negative emotion negative feeling, I'm just going to attract more of that back into my life. So yeah, I mean, even yesterday, I had an introduction to like, a big time, big time, big time podcast to go on. And I had been like, really psyched up. Unknown Speaker 34:11 You know, we've been talking for a while. Unknown Speaker 34:14 See, it's always working. Elyse Archer 34:18 So I had this. So this was like, you know, like, top 100. Like, it was a big it was a just in terms of audience a big show. And so I got myself kind of psyched up for it. And I get on the call with the woman I'd been introduced to who is kind of like the gatekeeper and she was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. If there's a misunderstanding. You know, he's booked up for a whole year like I just really wanted to get to know you. You seem like a cool chicken. It was like, in that moment, I felt I felt disappointment. And then I gave myself like two seconds to feel it. I was like, okay, nothing is worth feeling that nothing is worth perpetuating that. So let me instead flip this and focus on how can I show up for her in this moment because I genuinely believe everything is always working out. For me, and if this is not the thing that's meant to be right now it means there's something even better down the road. So cool. So let's have fun with this. And let's like, show up and have fun. And then who knows what will happen in the future. But I think it's that an attachment to like things being so perfect that for myself, for a lot of people, right, I think a lot of women I work with everyone, we can get kind of caught up in perfectionism, and things have to turn out the way we thought they would. But when you can be kind of unattached and just more attached to like, feeling good and having fun and showing up in the moment. It's, it's a heck of a lot more enjoyable. And you end up Brandon Handley 35:35 Yeah, listen, you could find yourself on spiritual dope, too, right? Unknown Speaker 35:40 I love it. Brandon Handley 35:41 But the deal is to have right like, I mean, that is, you know, the dude, you're talking about that seven days of being connected. That is, that's the spiritual high, right? That's, that's the, that's what the spiritual dope is. That's the hits. You know, when you got that meditation, and you've got that meditation buzz of man, I was just so connected, I was so aligned, I was so detached from, I don't want to say worldly things. But I was so detached from all all the activity and things that I felt like we were talking earlier, like, oh, maybe I gotta go make another pose. Maybe I got to go do this, maybe I got I got, I've got 10 minutes, I can squeeze in like five posts, maybe I can I am in and check for emails, right. And instead of being like, like, your coach is saying, Go study your fucking self for a minute. Right? Like, you're pretty special. Right? recognize that? You know, I think more recently, you know, some of the meditations that I'll do would be like, how far can you visualize yourself out? Right? And I'd be like, oh, infinite, right? The edges of the universe? Yes. But then more recently, I was like, well, inside is just as infinite to like, how deep Can I go into myself, and it's infinite. So it's infinite internally as much. So like, that was there's been like a new rocking revelation, right? Like, where you just kind of you go internally, and you just hang out with yourself. And you see that, like, you know, you are 100% connected to source at all times. And it's like, you're saying, it's a choice to say, I'm connected in this moment, to the person to the lady that was on the call, or title for my own shit. And I could I could show up and be there for her, or be tied up my own shit. And again, you're like, I'm gonna take this moment, be there for her. And be open for the intuition, the inspiration, what's coming out of this that is meant to be like your best. Elyse Archer 37:35 Yes. I don't want to add something to what you said about just studying the depth of ourselves. So one of my girlfriends, her sister, passive cancer a couple years ago, and they were super close, super, super close. And I wouldn't talk about this on most any podcasts. I'll talk about it here because I feel like you'll get it. So she her sister passed. And then a mutual friend of theirs, called my friend out of the blue a couple months later, and she was she was like, I don't know, I just feel like I have to call you. And we needed to reconnect. And this, this woman also channels and connects with people on the other side. And suddenly, while they were talking, my friend's sister Lauren started coming through her and say, like, really literally reconnecting with my friend and what Lauren was saying, was, she said, You have no idea how big we are. She said now that I'm on the other side now that I can see it. She said, imagine like zoom out look at your house. Imagine you're looking at it from above. You see the house and then zoom out to the block and the street and then your city and then the world and then the universe. She said you're so much bigger. She said we are so much bigger than we know. She said I can't wait for you to see this and know this. But she was just like, it's you should have this this one on your podcast, I can introduce you because it's powerful. It's so powerful. But that perspective from the other side of are so much bigger than we can even fathom. Have Brandon Handley 38:59 you connected yourself to that yet? Um, have you had that experience for yourself? Unknown Speaker 39:04 No. Have you I want to Oh, can can you tell me about Brandon Handley 39:07 it? Because I mean, it's you can't right that's the whole Yeah, you can't that's the whole like, mystery school mysticism. translate that thing now? I did do I did do one good podcast on it where I'm not sure if you've done breathwork yet. Unknown Speaker 39:23 A little bit not Brandon Handley 39:24 not a ton, but a little bit. It's like it's it's it's like, cracked out. Meditation. When done when done well, like when you when you nail you'll know when you nail it because you'll come out of it. Like, what the fuck just happened? And can I get more of that all the time? Anytime? And the answer is yes. Right. Which is also powerful because that's just like, like I said, meditation force multiplied and add connections and scenes, that you know, in those moments, that that's the That's just like a knowing, right? Like, it can't be anything other than that and and more back to what you were saying before is it doesn't you don't need an external validation for that type of thing. You know this as truth. Right and and so, yes, right and that's the that's the question all right and and you know, I had similar experience to where this actually so to Elise has meant guys just again so lease is a lease is actually responsible in part for spiritual dope as well I don't know if I told you that or not it was the interview without What was her name last one you got me in contact with the spiritual Unknown Speaker 40:41 Oh, Regina Yeah, Brandon Handley 40:43 so I interviewed Regina for the prosperity practice which in its own right was fucking awesome. I did love it and actually enjoyed it. But I also realized that I was I was kind of, you know, trying to sell the people what they wanted, but then give them what they need. And finally, I was just like, you know what bucket like your friend, right? Like, a much bigger, you know, spirituality, right? our spirits are much bigger than our bodies and it's self evident. There's like, you know, recordings of it with just even just with your resonance, right? You talked about also like the mind, mind heart coherence, experience that often, right? And that's through meditation, but again, like through a number of things, once you recognize how to connect that and resonate that piece, and then you're like, oh, like, like, all the time like it just like, it's so great. Anyway, so yeah, so I interviewed her. And I was like, Why? Why am I holding back? kind of the best part of me? The best part of like, what I believe, right? Because here was this, you know, here was this, you know, ex lawyer fucking doing it. Right? And I was like, why am I waiting? Right? For who? Who, who? And then this came all the way back from my first podcast. So anyway, so first podcast was like, who gives me the authority to do this, right? I do. You do. You give yourself the authority to be you, right? You know, to go out and do the things that you know, that you can do that you're capable of that you're called to do, right? And that's what you're doing now I get to be a witness to seeing you punch through like each layer of that shit, right. And that's what's been fun for me to kind of watch you too, because we've had I feel like kind of similar experiences in that way be like, like, this is all shit. I'm out of here. This is better, but and it's not even leveling up. Right? It's just finding yourself in a different space because even even to a different level of awareness to what already is. Right? It's just and goes back to your belief system be like, how When do I get to the side? Like, there's more? Well, there's a whole universe that is currently yours at your disposal. How do you want to use it? Right? Do you want to use it if you if you again, if you want to use your human self have fun with that. Right? And you've experienced that? What do you want to do with your Divine Self? What do you want to do with your universal self? Like what other kind of mindset Can you put yourself into and there's again, that's unlimited to Unknown Speaker 43:16 this is so good. Oh my god. Yes, Brandon Handley 43:20 yes. Yes. So again, guys, it was Elise who connected me with Regina and then when I connected with Regina, my wife had a friend who was medium as well on channel with me so it was combination of my wife whose childhood friend who she connects me with my grandfather like my closest you know, kind of Anthony in my life and and doing it with Gina and like, it was like the the medium wrote like a coming out letter of like, mediumship, right, like to her family, like I'm coming out of the closet medium type thing. So I was like, I was like, You know what, fuck it I'm coming out of the closet like spirituality and we're just we're just gonna go do it and ever since Sinhalese blown up blown blown. I mean, just the doors been blown off the people I've connected with, you know, I just interviewed my man here. I released you know, and and that, that was no following intuition. There was a 215 phone number, which is a Philadelphia area phone number. I was like, You're fucking up here. I'm calling. And I just called. I was like, I was like, I was like, Listen, I was like, I got like, you know, his pm and she was awesome. knew where she lived. We had this great conversation. I was like, I just got to let you know I love this book. I've gone through it like four or five times I leave groups on it, yada yada. Would he be open to being on the podcast and she goes, You know what he normally he hates them. But let me see what I can do. That's so cool. But again, so thank you like this is kind of like a trivia tool, a lease podcast. A lot of a lot, a lot of things because it's been a lot of fun and without your support. You know, in part, of course, like us, all other all other people that have been a part of the journey, but you've been a big part about it. So I thought I'd share that with you. Elyse Archer 45:11 Thank you. Thank you. Well, any audience? Yeah. And I think to just to see kind of how you've, you've taken every step of your evolution and turn it into something that's good for other people. And I think that's really cool. Because I do think back to when we were first working together, and it was like, how do we sell more of these? Brandon Handley 45:32 things? Right. But that goes back to what you were saying, like how, you know, there was like, you know, you were selling stuff, and you were doing it where like, there was like integrity issues. And it's like, yeah, you could sell something. Yeah. Maybe you could overcome some objections. Yeah, you maybe get this person to do this thing. But like, in the end, at what cost to you? And who? Elyse Archer 45:50 Yes, exactly, exactly. Like, what is it actually all about? Yeah. Brandon Handley 45:55 Well, so how do you I mean, I think that leads into a really good piece. So So how do you do it now where you've got it all tied together, that you feel aligned with what you're doing. Elyse Archer 46:04 Um, I just really listened to what, what my body says about what whether it's working with a particular client, whether it's launching a program, and I don't fault myself for changing my mind, either, like I launched something new with the rollout of my new brand that was actually it was based on what a shaman who I follow what he does, or just like a $10, weekly, I drop in, he goes a healing temple. And it's so much I was like, Oh, we should have that for sales, that would be so much fun. So I did like a $10 weekly drop in sales training. And it's been, it's been fun, but it's like the numbers started off really high. And then they kind of dwindled with the number of women who were coming every week. And I used to go into panic about that. And now it's like, oh, cool, I'm being divinely guided to transform this into something else. So I'm transforming it into something slightly different a monthly membership, and women are signing up for that really fast. So it's like, just knowing that it doesn't have to be perfect. But if I take the, I listen to what I'm being told to do, I take the action, I'm not attached to it being that way forever. And then I just kind of keep receiving that guidance. And that's how I've launched my programs. That's how I choose which clients to work with. That's how I chose my brand colors. Like all of it, it's just all the Brandon Handley 47:21 colors, by the way. Don't go gold, white, and red, which are which are all pretty cool. Yeah, I like that too. Like you talked about, like, you know, being able to change like kind of like your your and and, you know, in the business world or be ready to pivot, pivot, pivot. But being able to pivot, right, being able to adjust on the fly is something that I think a lot of people have a challenge with, too. How do you help them to overcome that, like, be like, Oh, I made this decision to do this thing. And I was told to commit. And, man, if I, if I just stick with it, persistence, and yada, yada, yada. So how do you help somebody that's stuck in that space? Elyse Archer 48:01 Yeah, cash. And it's tough to write because we hear self discipline and persistence. And there's a lot of value. There's a lot of value to those attributes, in a lot of ways, but I think sometimes we get, you know, you hear like sunk cost theory in business. So I've put so much time and energy into this. And we can hold on to something just because of that, just because we already invested a lot of money or a lot of time. And even in our core, if we know it's no longer the right thing. So again, it comes down to intuition. And so if I'm working with the client, we kind of we look at, okay, if you were, if you were starting this today, would you do the same thing? Like if you were starting from scratch? Would you do the same thing? If the answer is yes, then it's okay. You probably just need to keep going at it for longer. Like it's just, it's keep showing up, keep doing it know that just like you said, with the flower when you plant it, it's gonna take a hot minute sometimes, and that's okay. But if you're being honest, and you wouldn't do it again, the same way today, or you wouldn't run this program today, or you wouldn't. I mean, this is a big one, but you wouldn't marry this person today. Right? Like, then I'm not counseling people and relationships. So take that for what it's worth, but you kind of look at, okay, are you attached to this just because you've put so much time and energy into it? Or are you attached to it, because it's actually what you're meant to be doing. And it just needs a little more time to mature or grow or terminate. Brandon Handley 49:23 I love that. I love being associated. Again, you know, I'm a big fan of the word grace these days. So give yourself a little grace and let you kind of, you know, let that let that life energy just go ahead and propagate the way that it's supposed to. Right. And I love though, to that you're saying you know, if you started today, would you still do this? Right? Because again, we we put all this energy into the sunk cost thing even like, well, the Titanic sinks, it's sunk, right? Like I mean, fucking let it go. Right? They jump off the boat because it is sunk costs, and it hasn't accelerated you or gotten you to where you think you should be by Now and if you were to, you know, kind of continue that trajectory, it's down at this point, right? I love it. I love it. So, what, um, you know, let's what is a, you know, a hit of spiritual dope for you like, you know what, you know, meditation, I mean, having, you know, maybe looking at your son, you know, what is what is something that, um, that's just your pure hit a spiritual dope. Elyse Archer 50:24 I mean, it's totally hanging out with my son jack now like that's just to see see the pureness of a little kid and to see how they just just their wholeness and their appearances, and his unfiltered laughter is so much fun. I absolutely love that. And then I think the other thing is just when I can show up and give or do something for somebody else that has nothing to do with me. And that's actually, when I found myself a couple months ago, like going through some of that Panic of like, Oh, my God, am I doing making the wrong decision or the wrong choice? That's part of how I would shift out of it is I would be like, What can I do for somebody else right now to get my head out of my ass and focus on what really matters. And that always, to me, that always helps. It's that quick shift. It's like, What can I do for someone else, whether it's write a comment on their social media, whether it's had a client who wants to book club, I was like, I'm gonna join my clients book club right now. And that's gonna make him feel good when he looks in his inbox and sees that he's got a new member. So just stuff like that. Right? It's, it's always kind of getting our focus off of ourselves. Brandon Handley 51:31 I love this. I mean, it doesn't have to be complex, right? You can go out there and kind of give of yourself and support somebody else in small meaningful ways. And you're gonna feel better about yourself. Hmm, Elyse Archer 51:42 yeah. Well, and it's the whole Have you read the diamond cutter? Unknown Speaker 51:46 No, I have not, oh, this Unknown Speaker 51:48 will be a good one. I Unknown Speaker 51:49 think you'll be into this. Elyse Archer 51:50 So the principle behind it is whatever you want for yourself, help someone else get it. So I've got my, my mastermind partner. She's also going for seven figures in her business right now. So one of the things that I've done and I told her I was like, This is not entirely altruistic that I want to help you do this. Like, I'm really curious energetically how this works for me. Brandon Handley 52:11 It's interesting, though, at least, right? Like, when I started fatherhood, for the rest of us, it wasn't for the pure reasons. Right? It really wasn't and I can look back and I can say that right? I'm like, you know, I did this for all the wrong reasons. But I was doing the right things, even if it was for the right reasons, for all reasons. Yeah. And that kind of tilted the whatever right into into always say like, I'm like the Grinch my heart grew to sizes too large or whatever, right? Like it went from being like, you know, this thing to write. So I think that you and I think you know, are you know, when you collect new Java Roman back in the day, I remember him going into, you know, talking about that, right being like, what happens if you do the right things with like, the wrong reasons. Now, I would say and wrong reasons is really kind of hard. You can't really say it's for the wrong reasons. You're really trying to do it for the benefit. Yes, of you. And of them, but like, you know, that kind of shakes off. Just Just for I mean, my experience has been that kind of shakes off like initially, it's kind of like, I'm doing it mostly for me a little bit. You still feel okay, I'm doing it for like, you know, at least I'm not, you know, at least I'm not calling you an asshole, right? Like, you know, merger. Nobody's a jerk. I'm doing all these things. And eventually, that it's just kind of like rust away until like, this purity situation happens where like, that's just becomes who you are. Right? So there's really nothing wrong with like, trying on different clothes until you find the pair that fits. Elyse Archer 53:38 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's you always know because it's the energy or doing something and like, how do you feel while you're doing it? If you feel secretly like, with this, this friend of mine, who I'm helping, I'm just kinda like consulting and helping her for helping her hit seven figures in her business this year. It's like, the energy that I feel around it when I do it. If I felt jealousy or if I felt scarcity or like, I should be spending the time on my own stuff. exactly what you're talking about, right, like doing it for the wrong reasons. But I think it's it's, you can tell when you feel like whole excited, fulfilled, relaxed while you're doing it. It's really different. Unknown Speaker 54:13 You are at ease. Yes, Brandon Handley 54:15 you're at ease and the things are easy. They're simple. They're fulfilling. Yeah, right. All right. Super awesome. As always to catch up with you. Unfortunately, we can't stay on all day. So where can we send people to go find more Elise Archer, Elyse Archer 54:33 thank you so much for having me. Elise. archer.com has all the things and then on all social media. I'm at Elise Archer. So with love, love, love to connect. I've got a podcast, she sells radio so people can check that out. It's like sales with a healthy dose of spirituality. Brandon Handley 54:49 Now, who would you say your ideal client is Elise? Unknown Speaker 54:53 Hmm. Elyse Archer 54:55 It's often a younger me. And I'm not saying that in an egotistical way. It's just I can really help them. A woman because I know Unknown Speaker 55:00 what's going on. Elyse Archer 55:02 So it's typically going to be a woman who is either a business owner or she's in sales, she's looking to break through her first six figures. And it's like, something's not quite clicked there. But she's ready. And she's probably a little bit turned off by a lot of what she's being taught from either corporate sales training or from the book she's reading and it just doesn't quite feel right to her and she's like, could I reach my goals in a way that actually feels really good to me and other people and I love helping that type of woman so that's my ideal client. Brandon Handley 55:32 awesome guys. Go check out Lisa's especially, you know, if you meet that description, I can promise you that, uh, you know, it'll work out for you. Right? guarantee that, you know, to go through some of the coaching or some of the programs that Elise has offered, they will be valuable to you. Unknown Speaker 55:48 Thank you, my friend. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Take The Path of Least Resistance To Save Time At Work One of the best things that happen when you are aligned with your natural talents is that work ceases to feel like "work." This is that sweet spot where you accomplish your tasks feel like you're in a state of flow. This is when things on your to-do list energize you, rather than drain you. Since the work is easier and the results are more excellent, you save time and precious energy at work. It's totally different on the flip side when you work out of your weaknesses. You feel this inner resistance, which can lead to self-doubt and early exhaustion. As your energy dips, you feel like you have nothing to give. Which is not the truth, because you have it in you all along. Here at Lead Through Strengths, we want you to drive towards what you want to have more of, such as work that gives a sense of meaning, while managing all other tasks at hand.  The more you use your strengths, the more you're able to offer your best to the world. But how exactly do you get more of what you want when your plate is already full of soul-sucking tasks, and for which you think there are no takers either?  Certainly, you don’t have to get stuck in this situation for long. So, listen up as Lisa Cummings and TyAnn Osborn put together and share great insights that will help you build a career centered on strengths that you love. Here's their conversation. Lisa: You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings and you know, I'm always telling you, it's hard to find something more energizing than using your natural talents every day at work. Well, something that's just about as energizing is when I get to hang out with my other host here in the room TyAnn Osborn. Today, the topic is, you know, stuff that happens at work, that is, a little weird or awkward "things that make you go, hmm." And that thing…. it's a ridiculous call back to Arsenio Hall. It was way back. No really, it's those things that make you go hmmmm because you can't figure out how to quit making work feel so hard. TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: What if that thing is, “Hey, Ty, why is my manager keep giving me all the tasks that I hate? Hmm.” TyAnn: I think it's because they hate you. Lisa: (eyes widen) Hmmm. TyAnn: No, they don't hate you. That's what we're going to talk about today.  Lisa: But this is a real thing.  TyAnn: This does happen. This happens all the time. Lisa: I actually have an uncle who said from his corporate experience (shout out to Alan) he said that if you are doing a task that you can't stand, but you're the one who does it the best in the office, he's like, “Well, the next time they need to get that thing done, who are they going to come to to get the thing done? You, the one who did it the best.”  TyAnn: Right.  Doing A Great Job? Best If It’s On Tasks That You Love Lisa: So I do think this can happen because people get known for things that they don't even like, but they haven't worked on their career brand.  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: They haven't talked to their manager about what they do like or hope for more of in their development. And I think that is one of the reasons you can be really good at something that you don't like. You're masterful because you keep getting it assigned to you. TyAnn: Absolutely. This happens all the time. This has happened to you and me. This happens to our corporate clients all the time and in a very innocuous way. There's no diabolical plot behind this. And especially when you're more junior in your career, where you might not feel like you can say, “I don't really want to do this, or, I don't really like this.”  And so, here's what happens: Oftentimes, when you're smart, you can do a lot of things, and do it in a very proficient way. And actually, your product can be pretty good. And then guess what, because you did a pretty good job at that, next time, they have that horrible spreadsheet that needs to be done — “You did a pretty good job so you're gonna get known as the horrible spreadsheet fixer.” Lisa: And you don't want to be the one... I mean, if you're a hard worker...  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: ...yet you don't want to be the whiner, complainer...  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: The purpose of this episode isn't to say, we're going to empower you to go tell your leaders all of the things that you just don't like.  TyAnn: Yeah, don't don't do that. That’s not the takeaway from this section at all. That's a career-limiting move by the way.  Lisa: High-risk conversation.  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: It would be less risky to figure out a way to describe the stuff you do want more of that you would like to grow into. TyAnn: Yeah. So Lisa's got a great term that she uses about career crafting. She calls it "job shaping." So we're going to talk to you about how to lean your job more toward the things that you do like, and how maybe to get away from some of these legacy things, that kind of seems stuck to your shoe that you can't quite shake.  Lisa: Oooh, that's a good way to say it.  TyAnn: Or how to, how to avoid that thing you don't like. So, we'll give you some tips both ways. So how to lean more toward the stuff you want, and how to get out of this position of some stuff that you don't like.  Lisa: Yeah. And I mean, I think the simplest concept for the gum on your shoe, (that's a good one), is like, it starts to fade away from assignments if you continue to get known for the things that you *do* enjoy.  TyAnn: Right. Lisa: I call this concept, “don't expect your managers to be mind readers." Because it's easy to think, “They should know that that's a horrible thing, the horrible spreadsheet task, like they should know, I hate that. Why do the give the junk tasks to me? Yes, I might save time because it can turn into a mundane brainless task, but that's now how I want to save time at work.”  TyAnn: How would they know? And what do you...  Lisa: You call it something else, don't you? What do you call it? TyAnn: I call it "the psychic method doesn't work." Even though we might try to prove this over and over? Yeah, so and here's the deal, too. We see the world through our own eyes, because that's the lenses we were given, right. And we tend to think, "everything I hate, everyone else hates." Or the opposite: "everything I like everyone else likes."  But that's not how the world works. And certainly in the strengths world we find there's all kinds of different things. So just because you like something or dislike something, somebody else has a completely different set of likes and dislikes. So if you secretly hate that thing you're working on, and you don't ever say anything, guess what? How would anybody know that? Especially if you keep doing a really good job at it. And the other factor is that if you're working in your weakness zone, it's not going to be as intuitive. It's going to take you longer. The way to save time at work is to spend more of your time in your strengths zone. Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: And you never say anything. And then they're like, “Hey, Lisa, good job on that spreadsheet.” You're like, “Okay, thanks.” Lisa: Hey thanks. Hey, I'm a hard worker. And I keep getting more of this stuff that I don't like. It feels soul-sucking and time consuming. TyAnn: And think about this. What if you have a lot of Achiever and Responsibility in your top themes?  Lisa: I had it. I had a client, example, recently where she led through Responsibility. And she was on a big global project, all people in all time zones, and she thought it was really important to get people synched-up that someone would capture the initial conversation. This is basically a note taking thing.  TyAnn: Ahh Lisa: So she asked, “Who would like to volunteer?”  TyAnn: Okay, usually the answer is going to be, “no one.”  Lisa: That is pretty much what happened. Podcasts don't go well with me demonstrating the long cricket-silence she got in the meeting. But that's what happened. She asked, and all she heard was crickets. TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: *no answer, *no answer.  TyAnn: She probably felt like she had to do it.  Lisa: She did. She leads through Responsibility. She can't let a ball drop. She was like, “I'll take it.” So she takes it. And she said she found herself time after time after time taking it and she was new to the company and new to the role and six months in, she said — “Do you know my career brand here is I'm the team secretary?” Oh, and she feels like it was that one decision that led to the next one, to the next one, to the next one. And now that's how they see her. So now work feels slow and clunky. She drudges through it. She's dying to save time at work because she's bogged down in tasks she hates. TyAnn: And now for her branding exercise, she has to undo all of that, which is a, you know, a much more difficult spin.  Lisa: Our career-memories are long.  TyAnn: Yeah. So that's going to be a whole ball of work just to undo just to get her back to neutral. Because then we have to replace all that with something else. Lisa: Mm hmm. Yeah.  TyAnn: I mean, it can be done but that's just a harder way to go.  Lisa: I think that's actually a good one for the example of what you were talking about. Like there's the how, how do you unwind from what you don't like and then build into what you do like? Now if you imagine this person walking around declaring: “By the way, I don't like note-taking.”  “By the way, I’m not a secretary.”  “By the way, that's not really what I want. I'm, I'm so much more.”  "By the way, I'm actually trying to save time at work and be efficient here!" That would not go well. That would be awkward, whiny and bizarre.  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: But if instead, she starts really knocking it out on these other three things that are a big deal (the ones that are in her strengths-zone), then over time, it doesn't take that much time. She gets known for other (good) things and the draining things fade away into a distant memory.  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: And that is a path that is much more doable. And I like to give clients a script that is like a starting place for a career conversation with their manager. For example: “I just listened to this podcast episode and it got me thinking about what I would love the most to grow into next in my role. And so it made me think...I'd love to have more projects that require a person to create momentum on the team. I'd love it if you'd consider me next time a big change management effort comes up. (To TyAnn), give me another talent theme that she has besides Responsibility.  TyAnn: Okay, let's say she also has, um, Communication.  Lisa: Okay, so she also leads through Communication. And the team's doing a project where they need to roll it out to a bunch of end-users who aren't really going to love it. And it's going to take some real change management effort.  TyAnn: What clients don't always love what you have to roll out? Sometimes there's change management?  Lisa: And imagine how many people wouldn't like that? You know, I have to go out and convince a bunch of other people to do a thing, like most people go, “I don't want to do the dog and pony show. I just want to make the great thing.”  And then if you build it, they will come, right? No, you need people who lead through Communication, who can spark momentum and get other people excited about it, and communicate the benefits of it and get out there and spread the message and recruit other messengers. This kind of stuff that would be really fun to her would be loathsome to other people. TyAnn: Absolutely.  Lisa:  So if she comes around now and says, “I just listened to this podcast. It got me thinking about things I'd like to grow into. I know we have this problem right ahead of us. If you see a part of that project, where I could contribute my Communication talent theme to to be the spark of momentum, I would love to help with that. So I just want to put it out there. If you see this opportunity, I hope you'll think of me.”  TyAnn: Absolutely.  Lisa: Any manager would love to hear that.  TyAnn: They're probably, “Oh my gosh, thank you so much because I was cringing inside thinking how are we going to get all the engineers on board, or whatever it is. And hey, now that you've been working, you know, Pan Global, you've been, you know, all these people in all these different regions. You know, we can really tap into that.”  So what she didn't do was go around and whine about it. So I would say from personal experience, not the best approach. So she didn't put on her t-shirt, “Here's all the things I hate about my job.” Again, not the best approach. And she didn't go to her manager with an ultimatum, “If you don't give me this I'm gonna fight.” You know, be, “I'm gonna quit” or whatever. That's not also good.  What she did do is offer up something that she would like to be known for, she would like to lean into. And even in this case, she might not be saying “I have all this experience in this area.’ It sounded like she was saying, “I would like to get experienced in this.” And now she's getting assigned work she loves. Those lovable tasks feel like they save time at work because they do - they're easier. They're your space to get in flow. Lisa: Yeah.  Sharing Your ‘Trash And Treasure’ List To The Team Could Fast-Track A Career You Love TyAnn: So that means I'm going to be great at it. First, right out of the box, I might need to partner up with someone to try to offload some of the trash-tasks. But it's a great way for her to lean into something as opposed to just leading with, here's what I hate about my job, which would be great. Here's what's funny: because here's this task now that she loathes, but there is someone else out there, I promise you, who would love the opportunity to do the thing that she hates. This is what's so hard for us. Remember, everything that we hate, we think everyone else hates too.  But there's someone else out there who maybe you know, funny enough, maybe they also have Communication, but theirs show up in a written form. Maybe they are not the extroverted person out there, in terms of extroverted catalytic change. Maybe they are, you know, they are more introverted. They like the details, they want to keep everybody abreast through this great written form.  It could be all kinds of things. But there's somebody else out there who would love this. And so a great, you know, really well-functioning team is able to talk about these things. You've got this great trash-to-treasure team activity, where again, it takes a little bit of vulnerability, but we can say, here are the top three things I love, or I'm looking forward to. Here are the things that I'm kind of ready to pass on to somebody else. Lisa: I mean, look at that, like we, we love talking with each other. And we don't get to the actionable takeaway this fast usually. This is, this is great. That thing that you just described, where if you share it as a team….  Here's an example the other day. A guy goes, (I introduced trash and treasure sort of things, like, what are some things that you really enjoy?), and he said, “I really like escalation calls."  TyAnn: Which is funny, because a lot of other people are like, “Oh, my God, I would hate that.”  Lisa: They thought he added in the wrong column. And then and you know, you just get a lot of that. “Why? Why?”  TyAnn: Why?  Lisa: “What are you talking about?” Like, “surely he wrote that on the wrong side.” And he's like — “I, I am a deep subject-matter expert. I love when there's a big challenge. It's gotten.... I don't love that customer services are flustered, but he's like, “I love that it's been too big and hairy for anyone to figure out, and I can come in and I know when they talk to me, it is over. Their frustration is done.” He said, “It's so satisfying to know that there is no escalation after me. It is always solved.”  TyAnn: Wow.  Lisa: And that thing just made him feel so alive. And instantly, in that moment, people are like, “Can I give you mine? Can I give you mine? Can I give you mine?” And he is like, “In fact, yes. If other things can get off my plate, yes, I would love it if my day were filled with that.”  Imagine. He feels more productive doing escalation calls. He didn't study a time management book. He didn't even have to apply the Getting Things Done (GTD) method. He saved time at work because he loved it and that is a responsibility that lights him on fire. TyAnn: That's brilliant.  Lisa: Now, it's not always that clean and easy. I mean, you can't just be like, “Yes, let me give you my worst tasks ever.” For many on the team, that's their worst well ever. But it works. There are moments.  TyAnn: I love that like that. I love that. Or if we could find, usually there's somebody on the team who maybe highly Analytical or they have whatever skill, like the Excel skills, or the Microsoft Project skills. They love, you know, a good Gantt chart or whatever. Usually, there's somebody who, that’s their jam.  And someone else wants to poke their eye out if that's what they have to do. So wouldn't it be great if you could just shift a little bit so that, you know, “Hey, maybe I can't just unload this task? Maybe I'm still responsible for it but hey, Lisa, can I go to lunch with you? And you could just give this thing a once over and you know, make sure I'm on the right path?”  You know, and you're probably like, “That's awesome. Yes!” And I'll say I’ll buy your lunch. And you're like, “You don't even have to do that, I'm excited to help.”  Lisa: Mmmm.  TyAnn: I'm like, “Why would you be excited to help about this loathsome project?” But so you know, those kinds of things are easy ways you can ease into it, even if it's not possible for me to be like here at least. So you take it up.  Lisa: And I think you're bringing up a nuance that's important is that you don't just want your manager, the person you report to, to be the only one who knows what you want to grow into. Now, your teammates know new things about, you and you know things about them.  Maybe then you share with the leader like, “Oh, wow, he was so helpful to me in this way.” And now he's getting known for the thing that he likes.  TyAnn: Right. Lisa: And he's getting more of it. And it really does have this virtuous..  TyAnn: ...virtuous cycle — my favorite thing about Significance, right. Uhhmm, share with each other, what is the thing you love best about your job because, in the words of my friend, Lisa, notice what works to get more of what works. And so if I don't know what works for you, I can't ever help you get more of that.  Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: And I can't ever point out because if I keep pointing out your spreadsheet looks really good, and you're like, “Oh my god, I hate that thing. I am going to go to my grave and have that spreadsheet etched on my tombstone.” And you never want to say, “Ah, I'd really like to do this other thing.” So again, coming back to the idea that your manager doesn’t automatically know what you want, and the psychic method doesn't work, and it doesn't work for your teammates, either.  This is where I think being vulnerable, having that psychological safety, and I think also having that concept of, “just because I don't say, just because I don't love something doesn't mean I'm saying, “I hate this. I'm not going to do it.” Or, “I'm going to do it poorly.” Because again, I don't get to run my unicorn work. I don't only get to do the things I want to do all day long. I'm going to approach my work and always do everything with as much integrity as I can. But there are some things I would like to do more of, and probably have more of an act to do. Attract Opportunities By Striking A Conversation About Your ‘How’ Skills Lisa: Yay. Good luck on that, Ty. And don't make your take away, the refusal of the job...  TyAnn: Don't do that.  Lisa: ...or the excuse to get out of work or...  TyAnn: Don't do that. But as you know, as we tell children, you got to use your words. So you've got to put it out there. Whether you call it the secret, or the universe, or using your words, you've got to put out there what you're hoping to do more of.  Lisa: Oh, and you have to first decide what you want more of. If you're going to save time at work by doing work that puts you in flow, you have to reflect enough to know what responsibilities put you in the flow state.  TyAnn: Yeah. Lisa: Strengths, reading the book StrengthsFinder, doing the CliftonStrengths assessment, these are all helpful things if you've never even thought of, “Oh, it's not just that I would like more of this skill,  TyAnn: Right. Lisa: … but also, how I interact with people. Or like, in the Communication example, that was more of a ‘how’, not a ‘what’ skill thing” and...  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: ...like, “Oh, I like to build momentum. Aha, I can ask my manager for things that require momentum building, that's not something that they've probably ever thought of using, as an assignment criteria.” And now they have a whole new realm of things to offer you instead of like that one specific job that you were hoping to move into next.  TyAnn: I think that's actually a really good point because if you just look at, you know, let me find the magic job title, well, I'll just tell you, that's going to be a long hard search. Because that often doesn't exist. But these “how” skills exist in a lot of places that you might not even realize, right? But that's where you can, the more you put out there what you want, the more other people will start to help you and say — “You know, there's actually the thing you didn't even know, but they could use you on that project team.” Like I didn't even know that was a thing.  And then, you know. But again, if you just sit there at your cube, or now you know, at your home office, hoping that the magical assignment comes your way and bluebirds into your, to your window, you're going to be sitting there a long time. So you can, you can have a little bit more control in your life when you do the right thing(?)  Lisa: Yeah. So if we bring this all together, I would say one action is, you want to have a conversation with the person that you report to.  TyAnn: Absolutely.  Lisa: And and try to find a way to express, “Here's this thing I would love to grow into. And I would love it, if you would think of me next time you're considering assignments that relate to x, and if you use those “how” skills.  TyAnn: Absolutely. And by the way, it's perfectly legitimate feedback for your manager to say, “Okay, I hear you saying that, but you know what, you don't have any of those skills today.” That might happen. And then you can have a conversation about, “Okay, how might I be positioned to get those skills? What would a path look like for that?”  Lisa : Yeah.  TyAnn: That is completely legitimate.  Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: Or for you to look up in the organization somewhere, and then just go talk to someone and say, “how did you get here?” How, and, you know, that's what, I kind of interview internal people all the time. Have, you know, and just have kind of an informational one-on-one. By the way, people love to talk about themselves, little tip, and people will meet with you all day long, for 30 minutes, just to tell you their story.  And so that's where real growth happens. So I love that. So talk to your manager. Again, second method doesn't work there. So that's the first tip, communication.  Lisa: I'd say, volunteering the talent out. So let's say for example, you lead through Learner and Input. And now your company is implementing Microsoft Teams, but no one knows how to use it, and they're resisting it. And you're like, “we're gonna have to get down with this program, because it's going to be the way of the world. Microsoft is embedded in everything we do, we need to figure it out.”  And so you decide, “I'm going to turn on my Learner and Input. I'm going to find all the cool features and things that could make life easier for teammates and then I'm going to share it with teammates. So then you get an opportunity to get known for what you want more of because you've decided, “I'm going to do it anyway. I can tell it we'll have to figure it out. I'm going to turn on my Learner and Input which would be fun for me because those are in my top five. And then I'm going to use those, volunteer them out beyond myself to help the team." By virtue of volunteering it out, you can see where using the talent makes you feel more productive and efficient. It's an experimenting process. It is a process, yet the compounding effect can save you a lot of time at work over the course of months or years. In fact, the job itself can be totally different as a byproduct of these experiments. If the team does StrengthsFinder as a team thing, then they know the words Learner and Input and you're able to say, “Okay, you know, Learner and Input. I nerded out on this. So I thought you might find this helpful, here are all the things that I've picked up.” And you give them the tip sheet. TyAnn: I love that. I mean, that's so cool. You've made yourself the super user. You've... and it's not just about you, you've created, you know, you've positioned yourself in a way of service to other people.  So by the way, anytime you're helpful to other people, they tend to want to come back to you to get more help, which is great, because you've, you know, you're killing kind of two birds with one stone, this is great. They're gonna be like, - “Oh, that you did such a great job that last time we had this thing. Now we've got to have this. You know, we're gonna put this in Slack. Nobody here knows anything about it. Can you help us with that?”  And yeah, you would be the person. So I love that. It's volunteering your talent, not again, sitting at your desk quietly with your head down, waiting for someone to come tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, Lisa, I know you're a high Learner Input. So I was thinking maybe here's an opportunity, you could, you could do.”  That, that's rarely going to happen. It's rarely going to happen. So you have to really keep your eye on the landscape and think, “How could I apply my top themes to what's going on here?” So...  Lisa: Those are big.  TyAnn: I know. Lisa: Okay. I have a third one, which would be, listen for what people kvetch and complain about.  TyAnn: Hmm.  Lisa: Not to join it?  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: Again, more career limiting.  TyAnn: Yeah, don't do that.  Lisa: But if you listen, you can hear like when Ty was explaining the spreadsheet with doing the VLOOKUPs. She was good at them but when she remembers this role that she had where she had to spend all day in the spreadsheet doing Vlookups, her nose crinkles up when she says “Vlookup” like there's an uhm!  TyAnn: Yeah, there's a physical response when you don't like something. You're basically or even your body might hunch down a little bit.  Lisa: Yeah. So watch for that because let's say I were the teammate, I lead through Analytical and Deliberative and I love slicing and dicing data and living in Excel put me in Excel all day long as my favorite job, when I see her react that way, if I'm listening to other people's responses, both tuning in...  TyAnn: Yeah,  Lisa: ...even just to watch, but I'm watching, “Oh, saw your reaction in the Vlookup there.”  TyAnn: ‘Saw the nose crinkle.  Lisa: “Not your BFF, huh?” She's like, “NO!” And then I go, “Ah, I start to get ideas. I could, I could take that on for you. And maybe you could swap something out with me. Or maybe I could give you a shortcut template or something like that, where I'm just volunteering it out.”  She's thinking, yeah Vlookups are slow and cumbersome and awful. Meanwhile you're thinking that Vlookups are such a great way to save time at work and get really efficient. But beyond watch for things you could swap with others. And when you see others kvetching and complaining, you're often able to see — “Oh, that thing that I like, not everybody likes that.”  “Oh, that thing that I'm good at, not everyone else is good at it.”  TyAnn: Right. I think that's huge. And just thinking about that person with a spreadsheet, you know, maybe there's a meeting they have to go to every week where they have to report out on that spreadsheet. And that meeting causes them no end of angst. They get the pit in the tummy feeling, they get the flop sweat, they go in and even though they know it front and back, they can't communicate that to save their lives.  Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: And it's miserable for everybody. And you're like, “I could talk to those people cold.”  Lisa: That is perfect.  TyAnn: You're like, “How about I, you do the back end, I'll do the front end and together we are the Ty and Lisa show? Only if it was the two of us. There really wouldn't be a back end, we would only be to the front.  Lisa: We’re going, “To the back. To the back. To the front. To the front.” It would be stuck — a skipping record. “To the front. To the front. To the front”  TyAnn: We need to have a team. We would need Deena a lot with this, to help, to help round us out. Um, yeah. So again, the psychic method doesn't work. So you got to have that, those conversations, and I think that will really serve me well.  Lisa: Yeah. So let us know, how did your conversation go? How did you bring it up?  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: And when you were thinking of the talents that you're trying to lead into, how did you phrase it with your manager. This is a scripting thing that I find a lot of people get stuck on. And that's why I like to give that thing where it's like, - “Hey, I've been thinking about what I want to grow into next.” Or even using this podcast because at least it's less awkward to say, “Hey, I was listening to this podcast. I was trying to learn more about being awesome at work," you know, in something that makes you sound like you're continuing to grow.  TyAnn: Right?  Lisa: “I've been putting a lot of thought into this and it gave me this idea.” And then you can offer it out.  TyAnn: And then let us know and we'll talk about it. Let us know if you tried it and it doesn't work either. We'll come up with something else for you. There's more than one way here.  Lisa: We can have the failure recapture. “Okay, here's a scripting idea that doesn't work. Don't try this because this goes back into that high-risk category that sits right along what...  TyAnn: Lisa and I laugh about this because we have tried a whole bunch of things that haven't worked before. So we, you know, we can, we're right there with you on that. We can help prevent you from having those same experiences.  Lisa: Yes. And although my stint in HR was very, very short, yours was much more significant. And the time that we got to spend with leaders saying, “All right, fire me.” Like, “We’re doing the roleplay. It's going to be an awkward conversation. I am now the person.” And then getting them to go through….  Scripting things out is tough. And there are so many hard conversations in the workplace. So even these when you're, you're trying to talk about yourself without sounding braggadocious.  TyAnn: Right. Lisa:  That's tough too.  TyAnn: Right?  Lisa: And it's not even awkward, and you're not telling someone they're about to… TyAnn: Right. Lisa: ...lose their job or be on a performance improvement plan. It's just simply like, “how do I describe something that I might be good at without sounding like an arrogant jerk?  TyAnn: Like a braggy jerk. So it's fine. We, again, it feels a little uncomfortable, because we don't have these conversations all the time. So that's where you're just, you know, you can get a little index card and just literally write this out. And then kind of practice in a mirror saying this. You can practice with a friend. You can call a spirit guide to help you out.  And the more you do it, the easier it will become. And again, we're not trying at all for you to say, “here's the list of things I'm not going to do.” This is just how can you lean your career, how can you steer it a little bit more toward the things that bring you energy, and a little bit less towards the soul sucker parts of the job.  Lisa: Yeah. And if you do decide that you want to do this as a team exercise, where you're talking about it and you want a facilitator, Ty would be a great one for this. She can come into your organization and walk you through that trash and treasure exercise. She's great at helping you figure out what fills you up - even a personal branding exercise for each person on the team. We have one where you walk away with three words that describe how you would love to be known and describe how you want to show up in the organization so that you can actually take the time to reflect because it's hard to carve the time out, and then your teammates can know how you want to be known, and your manager. TyAnn: That's a cool exercise too, by the way. People feel really good about that.  Lisa: Yeah. And it feels so good to hear them about each other.  TyAnn: Yeah. Very affirming. Lisa: And it takes away that...  TyAnn: Very affirming. I love that one.  Lisa: Yeah because you're not being awkward or arrogant when some facilitators ask you to do the exercise.  TyAnn: Yeah, absolutely.  Lisa: Yeah. TyAnn: So give us a ring. Let us know what works for you and if you need help on this process. Lisa: All right. With that, we will see you next time. Bye for now. More Relevant Resources To Support Your Strengths-Focused Career Growth The previous discussion on strengths as easy buttons for better performance truly supports today’s episode. You turn on your "easy buttons" when you go for tasks or projects that you find enjoyable and energizing. This leads to a better and well-recognized performance at work. But going more for these tasks that you love also means ensuring you don’t end up sounding braggy. Not all people around you might respond well to it. Here’s Lead Through Strengths Facilitator Strother Gaines sharing tips on how to not sound arrogant when building a career around your strengths, so you can review your script before you talk to others about yourself. If you’re a team manager, you can help and guide your team members realize their full potential in whatever roles they express to lean more into by assessing their top strengths, along with their trash and treasure list. Revisit Lisa’s interview with Adam Seaman to pick up more tips.

It's blustery outside and Sam may have forgotten her name?! Lisa is prepped if the power goes out and of course Sam is taking her chances! Sam has the Popeye chicken sandwich sweats she is obsessed with them!! They ladies are not a political podcast but you can't ignore what's going on. So Lisa shares her thoughts via Kelly Ripa and wonders do we care as deeply as Mericans. Sam thinks we are influenced by our friends to the south. Lisa heard a rumor that a second impeachment keeps Trump from running for office again. Fake News? The ladies would prefer we don't become copycat Canada and also think it's a sorry not sorry situation. Lisa is America obsessed and your politics keeps her up late at night! Sam is convinced Drew Barrymore listens to the podcast because she copied our phrase!! Can you say copyright infringement?! There is some weird talk about giving inanimate objects nicknames and helping out the turtles?! Lisa has a curious mind so of course she has questions about dish rags, picking a favorite color and peach cobbler. Sam can't believe there is going to be a revival of Sex In The City with out a Samantha and is curious if Lisa would dip her toe in an ice bath. Hey, it's a thing! Lisa is more interested in pancake and waffle charcuterie boards, FB Tuesday's chicken balls, Rod Stewart, yankee candles, Martha Stewart, Lemon groove pop tarts, cornflakes, bikes, poprocks, a new Keurig, throw pillows, cocoa pebbles ice cream, Gorillas with COVID, shopping carts with magnifying glasses and Nicole Kidman vs Kristen Wigg. Sam shares a few things you should know like leggings can give you ringworm and they aren't too worn as work pants! Also anyone who enjoys a good swear word needs to watch The History of Swear words on Netflix, so f@!#ing hilarious!! The ladies end as always with their weekly I shake my heads which everyone can relate to! It's just a bit of ridiculous chatter but it might just make you laugh! If you love what you hear you can support the podcast by following the links below! Podlink: https://pod.link/1232121527 (pod.link/ismh) Podbean: https://patron.podbean.com/ismhead Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/ishakemyhead You can also find us on: Twitter www.twitter.com/i_shakemyhead  Instagram www.instagram.com/ishakemyhead Buy our merchandise at www.ishakemyhead.threadless.com We are proud to be a part of these networks:  www.podfixnetwork.com

Cart abandonment skyrockets this time of year. So Lisa on our Customer Success team suggested tweaking one small thing in this brand's abandoned cart email series. In just 30 days, it helped them save $29,000 in revenue. Over the 9 months prior, it was $41,000 total. Here's what they did to drive such a big lift.

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Thirty One - Lisa Woodruff - Organizing and ADHD Part Part   In this episode, I continue my interview with Lisa Woodruff of Organize365. On the podcast, Lisa talks about her early years with dyslexia and her incredible career helping people get organized. We discuss her books on organizing and ADHD   https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Affects-Home-Organization-Understanding/dp/B07212S4Z9/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-2 and her new book on mastery paper organization https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Solution-What-Shred-Taking-ebook/dp/B081M7P9C5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1 We also talk about the impact that her home organization program had made on my home and life! To connect with Lisa and to find out all about her incredible home organization program and products go to https://organize365.com.    Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they’ll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: @forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai       Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world.   episodes, because I knew we could talk a lot and she has so many wonderful stories and things for us all to learn. So Lisa, why don't you introduce yourself to my audience again?    Lisa Woodruff  1:14   Sure. I'm Lisa Woodruff. I am the founder and creator of organized 365 out of Cincinnati, Ohio. We help women get their home and paper organized in one year with functional systems that work. I have authored a couple of books, one being how ADHD affects home organization. And my next book will be out August 4, called the paper solution.   Betsy Furler  1:35   Awesome. So we left off last time after you told my favorite story about your kitchen counters and how not being able to put your groceries on your kitchen counters ultimately led to the organization and 365 business organized 365 sorry, and business and so I wanted to start off this episode. talking a little bit about how you think the COVID stay at home safe at home and order mandate. You know, suggestion if you're in Texas   Lisa Woodruff  2:14   Anyway, let's say you're in.   Betsy Furler  2:16   Yes. And how that has affected people with especially people with ADHD but all different types of neuro diversity as far as home organization, whatever you want to talk about about it.   Lisa Woodruff  2:29   Yeah, you know, it's so interesting. I, when we first got the stay at home order, I'm in the state of Ohio. So we were one of the very first states to shut down. Our governor was very proactive, and we were very positive about that in the beginning, but as Americans, you know, like our independence over time, we weren't as excited about it. I initially thought Yay, everybody's getting sent home. Yay. This is my super bowl like put me in coach. Everybody can get organized and I totally did not anticipate how mentally exhausted It would be for us to lose all of our habits, our structures, our routines, and to be constantly mentally trying to reorient our selves to what the new normal is. I mean, like, of all the words that we have in 2020, like new normal, he thought that was going to be for the stay at home order, and then you thought that was going to be for working from home, and then you thought it was going to be for racism, and then you thought it was going to be for politics. And it just seems like we're getting whiplash. Every other week. There's a new normal every single week. And as we've opened up, all these different ways of looking at everything that we took for granted or had routines and habits in place for almost all of our routines and habits are gone, almost all of them are gone. And if you don't realize that your life is a series of the habits that you have created over time, and if you didn't purposely create them, then they just happened like too much social media time or whatever too much Netflix time or if you purposely created them, even if you purposely created them with a morning routine and affirmations and going to the gym, a lot of those even positive routines that you had in place just got thrown out the window and taken away in the blink of an eye while you're trying to make sure you still have income coming in, and you'd have enough toilet paper and oh my gosh, now I can't grocery shop where I used to grocery shop. And my cousin was telling me, she's down in Cincinnati in the city. And when she would go to the store, they were only allowed to get to milk items. Like you could get milk and cheese but then you couldn't also get butter. So I was like, Are you serious? Like that didn't happen 20 miles north where I am in Cincinnati. And so it was just constant survival like we got thrown back to we need to have the basics. We need food, we need toilet paper, we need money we need we need rent and some of us are still in those basic areas. And I just want everyone to take a deep breath and recognize that this has not stopped like the amount of change that has come to your brain has not stopped And I have been more exhausted in the last three or four months than ever. Greg and I go to bed so early, and we sleep in and we take naps. And still we are just mentally exhausted. And I know that when you sleep, I don't know who said this. But I know it's true when you sleep. Your brain makes order of the day, like literally your little cells like detox inside of your brain when you're sleeping. And the file folders of all the paper of information, your brain gets put in little file folders in your brain tries to organize what you've done during the day. And there's so much change and so little routine that your brains are just exhausted trying to figure out how to get money, get food. We don't have this. We always said, Oh, if I got sent home for an extended period of time, there are all these projects I would want to work on. I would say just a small percentage of us or even to that point yet.   Betsy Furler  5:52   Yeah, it's been really interesting. I know I've been I found it very interesting on how I have I handled this it's been hard really, really hard. Being home with everybody in the family 100% Sure. And I like I said earlier I kind of are on the other episode. I have a tendency when I'm under stress either to get super disorganized, or like ridiculously over organized. And when this first happened, I did too. I did one of my crazy things when I get super stressed as I get, I start inventory things and I don't inventory at any other time. But I enjoyed all of our food. Like, member because remember back in March, when Ohio shut down, I was like, Oh, no, Texas is shutting down. I'm better get I better get it together. Remember, back then we didn't know we knew there was a toilet paper shortage already. We didn't know what the rights was going to be like, where are we even going to go the grocery store where they're going to close the grocery stores now. Right and I inventories I have this inventory I mean it's like seven pages of everything and what shelf it's on So, like Eric will say, you know, I don't think we have Italian dressing I'm like yes we do. It's on the second shelf from the top and the pantry.   Lisa Woodruff  7:15   I did the same thing I went to the grocery store and everyone should know I don't cook like as soon as you listen to one episode of my podcast, you'll know that I don't cook. So I went to the store I bought beans and rice, like literally black beans and bags of rice. And not that I would even know how to cook this. And I said to myself, well this seems like a beans and rice moment I was ever gonna have beans or rice. This is when I would have it. Just so you know. My favorite restaurant called verse fast food never shut down. So I continue to drive there and get my onion rings. They were masks it was fine. And we continue to get takeout or Greg cooked and then the other ridiculous thing that I do every time something like this happens I did it when my dad died. I did it in 2008. As I like to think that I'm going to grow a vegetable garden, like I don't even cook but I think I'm going to grow a vegetable garden. This time instead of just starting a vegetable garden outside because it's March in Ohio, I bought one of those awesome hydroponic tower gardens like that you see at Epcot for $1,000. I made four salads I had $250 salads because like after I had like four salads I'm like I'm done with this and the whole thing died and whatever. But yeah, we just we go to this survival instinct, but yet we're not survivalists. So we do it in a weird way.   Betsy Furler  8:30   What when, when Henry had his autoimmune encephalitis and it was really really severe. Um, and my audience on is Henry's been been medically fragile his whole life but the autoimmune encephalitis was like a whole new thing and very, like awful. And you know what I did? I inventoried all my clothes. I took photos of all of them. I remember that every I don't plan it planning. It's so it's just oh my goodness. I just want   Lisa Woodruff  8:59   Can you can Troy What are you in control?   Unknown Speaker  9:01   Oh, yeah.   Betsy Furler  9:05   Yeah, so what are you in control of So, um, so I do think though, that having a system like organized 365 has helped me through this pandemic too, because I have had moments where I've decluttered and I've lost 20 pounds.   Lisa Woodruff  9:22   I don't think I told you that I'm saying you look fabulous, Betsy. Congratulations.   Betsy Furler  9:27   Thank you. So I've, I've had to spend I've gained it. No, just kidding. I have spent so much time outside because it's in the house. It's like where do you go? Well, it's safe to walk around outside. So anyway, I am so now I've gone through all my clothes again, because you know, none of them fit me anymore, which is a really fun problem to have. But I also started realizing that my structure like you were saying all our structures have changed so much. So my structure the whole way. I structured my De was totally blown up. And we all have a tendency to do is you know, then I end up wasting a lot of time because I'm not in my regular routine. And the other thing that I found that was very hard for me and I actually, I've never been diagnosed with ADHD or any of us. But I realized when I was stuck at a computer all day, every day and in one room and in my house instead of moving around the world, like I did before, I had a lot of trouble paying attention and attention. My attention was poor. And I started again, how do we get so antsy just sitting I ended up buying a standing desk also and that helps a little but, you know, really had to take breaks to like actually do physical exercise. And I also walk every day at lunch as well because I just like I feel that pent up energy that I never even recognized before. Me too. Yeah, it's, it's amazing how you know, just that change in structure can can just throw you for a loop.   Unknown Speaker  11:16   Go ahead.   Lisa Woodruff  11:16   Yeah, I used to be able to like, I'm one of those weird people because I do not have ADHD. I've been tested ever. It's like yesterday, I'm like, No, I don't I actually, I can literally sit at index from 8am to 8pm. And just get up for bathroom breaks and coffee and, you know, lunch, I can do that. And I can sustain my attention. During that time. I have worked over the last eight years to expand my focus. It used to be only until 11 and then 12, and then one and now I could do a full 12 hours. As soon as the pandemic hit, I was exhausted by 11am I couldn't make it past 11 so I was like, okay, and each week I just tried to get you know, another half hour and now I could do a full day again, but it took me all this time for months to get back to where my energy level was the way it used to be, my focus was the way it used to be. And still, it's not all the way there. I mean, I'm still going to bed at eight or nine o'clock at night. And we used to go to bed at 10 and 11 all the time. So our brains really have been affected. Like, this is such a huge change on so many levels that we just don't have the focus and the energy and the attention that we had before.   Betsy Furler  12:24   Well, and I know now I get by 430 in the afternoon, I'm like done, like I and and I've never stopped working that early before. And you know, today I have a couple of calls. I have a call at five have a call at six I have a call at 730 and it's like, oh,   Unknown Speaker  12:43   my nap   Betsy Furler  12:44   challenge. Yeah. And because I you know, but it's not always a bad thing to because I think getting off the hamster wheel has really made me realize what I really want to be doing with my life and working till six every day in it.   Lisa Woodruff  13:01   Yeah, but have you found what you want to replace it with that that's kind of my thing. It's almost like we all went off coffee simultaneously. So our productivity would like I didn't stop drinking coffee, but you know what I mean, like that extra jolt of productivity or packing more in. And then a lot of things got taken off of our list, like commuting or taking kids places like, but I don't. I'm not doing as much as I used to, but I'm more exhausted than I used to be. Although I haven't found like, Okay, and now I have time to take a college class or read a book or, like I haven't found that I filled in that time with anything that was always on my to do list. I'm just kind of in the messy middle. I think.   Betsy Furler  13:40   I've been walking and that's what that's how I started running. And because I've walked so I mean, I'm walking like nine miles a day. And yeah, it's extreme. This is why so much weight. And I started I actually started running not because I necessarily wanted to run, but I started thinking, you know, I really like getting this much movement in. And when life goes back to whatever normal it is, again, I'm not gonna have enough time, like am I gonna have time to walk nine miles a really long time. So, so I was like, I need to pick up the pace. And so that meant learning to run. And so I started running and the other thing that we've been doing is we so you know, as you know, and I don't know if my listeners know this yet, but I am not a cook either. And one thing we've been doing is we totally aren't we source our food totally differently now. So we buy our meat from restaurants because here in Texas restaurants are allowed to sell uncooked food now. So we make all our meat from restaurants and then we get a farm box every week and produce and then we look at the produce and then I google because I'm really good at like figuring out recipe like what recipes we should make. I just I'm not good at the actual Making of the food but I can coordinate the effort. So I you know, Google, you know, spaghetti squash and chicken or whatever or yesterday it was eggplant and butternut squash what can we make with that? And I come up with recipes print them out for because he wants them printed and he has not paperless and yeah, he makes them but the so that has taken more time but then kind of like in the long run it's like you know, we used to go out to eat all the time. Yeah. And going out actually took so much more time than looking everything from scratch every meal from scratch, but we have like really shifted our time in that way. And then the other thing which is I don't know if it's good, bad or indifferent, but we just watch a movie every night together. Yeah to weave in. We never did that before. My husband does have ADHD and it doesn't really like movies like he really has never been interested in watching movies except for like, maybe once every couple of like, like a couple of times a month, we might do like a family movie night. But now every nights fam every night family dinner every night family movie night.   Unknown Speaker  16:16   And so that's been fun.   Lisa Woodruff  16:19   Yeah, Greg and I have always called our date night like from eight to 10. Like, we'll watch TV shows or movies or whatever. And that's something we have kept consistent. What I love about what you're sharing is for those of us who still have jobs, our work has not changed. And for those that don't have jobs, I mean, you're in the process of a job search or you're figuring out if you're going to take off some time or whatever. So the work bucket has stayed consistent through all of this the worry about it, the doing of it, the the taking care of the work, but the play in the social buckets got emptied out and aren't necessarily getting filled up. And so that's kind of what I've been talking through with my organize 365 it And since we focus on the home, is that, you know, school school still happened. It just happened at home. And it was messy for sure. for teachers, for parents, for students, for everyone. It was very discombobulated and hard, but school still happened. But kids social got taken away and kids play other than Xbox kind of gotten taken away. And so as we go through this global pandemic, which doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon, and we focus so much on our work, whether that's work or school, or volunteering, or however you spent the majority of your weekday, what you were doing, how do we replace our social and our play at home, in a positive way, and, and, and with that, like I like puzzles, some people like reading, your play, whatever it is you like to do for play. It's not just that I want time to do puzzles. We like novelty in our play. So you don't want to read the same book every single night. You want to have a variety of books, if you like puzzles, you like a variety of puzzles, you don't want to do the same puzzle over and over again. If you like cooking you, great a plant and squash so that's challenging. So I can, you know, have some creative outlet and my cooking and how do we focus on our social and our play while we are safe at home?   Betsy Furler  18:16   Right? Yeah. And I and also our, you know, I was thinking the other day about my kind of my circle of people that I interact with. And my circle was huge before. It's still huge on a on a virtual basis, right. But the people that I saw in person every week was a really big, wide spread, very diverse group of people from different parts of my life and everything. And now my circle of people that I see in person is very, very small. And we have a neighbor, family that's a neighbor who we have quarantine with the whole time. So we have them and they have two little boys and then I have one of my college friends who's quarantined with her husband that I see periodically in person, the six feet apart, but you know, I have been to her in her home and stuff. And then my husband has one friend who I also have seen so I mean, it's like, gone from, you know, hundreds of people to like, I counted it up and I think total even with, you know, when you look at Okay, well, what about the people that they see on a regular basis? It was like 30 people   Lisa Woodruff  19:34   which is good for Coronavirus. Good have You bet. You have a lot of words. You have a lot of words for those poor 12 people.   Betsy Furler  19:45   And they have a lot of words too. And one of the things that I've done is I've started talking on the phone and I say I'm talking on the phone like it's 1985 and yeah, I even called you.   Lisa Woodruff  19:55   Yeah, no, I think I think if you think about the the summers of the 80s or the 50s if you're older, like think about what you used to do in the summer in the 80s or whenever you were a teenager and your parents wouldn't take you anywhere that's that's Coronavirus, summer for you that's Coronavirus living and yet using your phone as a phone not as a computer   Betsy Furler  20:18   that we bought a hammock and a Stan for our backyard. And we live in Houston Texas, so it's super super hot and humid but I'm like I don't care gotta be outside. So I lay out that are laying out this summer for the first time. You know, in the last 30 years layout talk on the phone with my girlfriends. I talked to somebody for two and a half hours on the phone yesterday.   Lisa Woodruff  20:41   When am I good? Isn't it great though, isn't it just fun to connect with people again?   Betsy Furler  20:46   It's been so much fun and I you know I've done a lot of zoom meetings but I'm pretty zoom fatigued where I really just am happier talking to people on the phone and just, you know, I miss my long cord whereas dragging her all over the house. And, but you know, it's it otherwise that's been that's been really great for me. And I would say that is I my two things are walking and talking on the phone.   Unknown Speaker  21:14   That's my outlet.   Unknown Speaker  21:16   Yeah. Do you think you'll keep those things going forward?   Betsy Furler  21:19   I think that, um, because I've kind of combined the walking with the phone talking. So one of my friends and she frequently virtually walks with me in the morning. And I talked to her on the phone as I'm walking. And then another friend virtually walks with me in the evening. And so I think I hopefully, hopefully we will keep that I definitely have connected us to do this.   Lisa Woodruff  21:44   Now I'm remembering this is like four years ago when I had a treadmill and tried to use it once you remember that. And so we would voxer back and forth and we would walk on our treadmills and I didn't do it for very many days. I wasn't a good partner.   Betsy Furler  21:57   You warned me ahead of time that you're a terrible account. Ability size. So   Lisa Woodruff  22:02   I Yeah, actually cooking exercise. I'm not your expert, that's for sure.   Betsy Furler  22:07   Yeah. So but yeah, that's, I mean, that's been it's been wonderful and I really do I you know, also, I set up calls with my pledge sisters from my sorority. And then also a multigenerational call for my sorority and my sorority is only local and are very small college. And those that has been great I have made, I'll have to say even though my physical sphere of people is so small now, I have made a lot of friends virtually, or and in and deepened friendships, virtually, with people that I've known forever. And I've also networked a lot. And I've discovered that from a business standpoint, networking has in some ways been a lot easier, because you can actually get people on the phone that you never get on the phone before. But you know what I miss is being in hotels and traveling   Lisa Woodruff  23:04   yeah I miss the traveling as well kept the book tour got cancelled?   Unknown Speaker  23:10   No   Lisa Woodruff  23:13   I threw myself a three hour pity party and then I moved on.   Unknown Speaker  23:16   Yes, yes.   Lisa Woodruff  23:18   But yeah I do love travel I you know, I've spent my whole life being a stay at home mom working from home mom and creating this business to to the point where I'm able to travel and meet people and do conferences and then the world closed. So that's a bummer.   Betsy Furler  23:33   And I do believe that conferences on zoom are nowhere near the same as conferences in person. Because I go to conferences to meet people and talk to them. I don't go to conference to listen.   Lisa Woodruff  23:48   Totally, but I just did mine this weekend. And we were gonna have like 80 people come to our conference in the summer. And when we moved it to virtual I think we had like five people cancel and then we have We maxed out at 150. We sold out before our sellout date. But how I did it was I did it on zoom, of course, because like, what else are you going to do? But I did my talks, but then we broke people out into groups of 10 in zoom rooms by where they live. And then we had a certified organizer in every single group, at least one certified organizer, and every single group. So you literally sat at a table, you're in a breakout room with people from your city or within, you know, 100 miles of where you live. So I did the talks, and then you went to your table and people loved it. And then I sent a whole box of surprises. So you know, every hour or so you were opening up something that went along with a touch that also reached a love language and it was a really, really fun experience. So I would have rather have had it in person. But there were a lot of people who said they wouldn't have never been able to come in person because they're a full time caretaker for their parents or for their child to a special needs are this one. their child just started having seizures the week before the conference and none of them would have been able to come if I had had it in person.   Betsy Furler  25:02   True. And of course, she figured out a super creative way to make it. Make it. So there was that networking piece? Yes, I don't write them all off.   Lisa Woodruff  25:10   But I think conference. No, I mean, we are going to have to be creative about delivering the experience in a different way during this pandemic season however long it is. I wanted to have my conference in person because I feel there's so much value in meeting in person and I want to physically give you a hug, and that's what and get a picture and that's what everybody wanted. But once I realized that that was not allowed, then I allowed my brain to think okay, well, if it's not allowed, do we still need an embrace conference? Is there still reason for women who are trying to make their house a home to come together? Yeah, that's still true. Okay. Well, if that's still true, then then how can we deliver that experience? Just like, okay, I cannot travel the United States and do my book tour. Am I still releasing my book on August 4? Yes, do I still have have parties? Yes. Do people still want to get assigned bookplate and be able to celebrate with me from wherever they are? Yes. Okay, well, then how am I going to do that? And so now it's about how do i do we still want to have the experience? Yes. Are we allowed to do it the way we want it to? No. Okay, then how are we going to do it? And I'll come up with a way.   Betsy Furler  26:18   Right, right. And one of the fun things that Eric and I did during the stay at home time is he ordered he has a year ago he went to France with two of his best friends and they on an oyster tour, and so they're all really into oysters, and we all eat oysters a lot. And what he did was he had oysters delivered to them. And so each other couple and then us, they he, you know, had ordered these oysters and had them delivered. And then one of the other guys came up with a wine list and we all had the wine we all had the same wine. And then we got on zoom and we had an oyster happy hour. Have fun with all three couples. So two of us are here in Houston. But we were at our own homes, of course. And then the other couple was in New York City. And so it was, but it was like super, it wasn't like a regular zoom call, which it did give me hope for zoom calls, because it was very conversational. I mean, it was just like, we were all sitting around the table together. So if we interrupted each other when that big of a deal and our kids were walking in and out, and animals walking in and out, just like it would have been if we were in person. Yeah. So I think there is, we have so much technology now that I think there is a way to do this. It's just we all have to think creatively. And sometimes, I'm like, you know, occasionally, not very often because I am like, the biggest optimist on the face of the earth. But occasionally, I'm just like, I don't want to do it that way. I want to hug somebody.   Lisa Woodruff  27:53   Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard to constantly you know, you and I are both both very big outside of the box. thinkers. So for people who are not that way, like they are just like, Are you kidding me? Like, why does everything have to be thought through? So for those of us that love to think this way, we're even tired. Like, it's just hard to think about how to. And as I was thinking about this summer I remember in April, I counseled the people in the 100 day program as a book. You're gonna want to pool get a pool. I know, I know your spouse doesn't want you to kill the grass within aboveground pool, tell them they can grow back next year, get one. And within a week, they did sell out on Amazon and everywhere people like thank you for telling us before they sold out because I was thinking ahead to the summer and you know, having kids at home and how are you going to entertain kids at home and try to work and all that. And just recently, I started thinking about the fall and the holidays and in Ohio, it's going to be snowing and you can't be outside and this is going to get a little harder and I was like oh boy. If you like to think outside of the box and creatively, you're going to get a workout this year as we continue to go through the seasons and get more frustrated at the fact that we don't have as much choice as we thought we did.   Betsy Furler  29:03   Right? And, you know, that's a good point as as the seasons change, especially for you people who have seasons that's going to be a big problem here. Yes.   Lisa Woodruff  29:12   You have variations of hot,   Unknown Speaker  29:14   right? Yeah, it's just hot and then it gets a little Yeah, then it's just warm in the in the fall and winter. Autumn.   Betsy Furler  29:24   But for you were there, you know, it may be snow and you may not be able to play outside all day every day.   Lisa Woodruff  29:31   Yeah, unending snow days are really not as fun as they sound.   Betsy Furler  29:36   I can't even imagine. Yeah, exactly. So being able to get outside is my sanity. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I do think it takes people like us who do think outside the box to really be willing to share what we're thinking about with other people. They may not listen but you know, some some of them will And the ideas are how to go forward without losing your mind.   Lisa Woodruff  30:03   Yeah, I can only I remember when the pandemic first started, I was only able to think one week out, I could not even think about what the summer would be like. And then as it got closer, I was able to see towards the end of summer. You know, I noticed when kids were sent home that the hardest thing about schooling from home was that parents didn't have the time, or the desire to be doing the schooling and they were stressed as well. Teachers had a hard time communicating with students and teachers and they were actually working till midnight, just answering parents emails, students that had multiple teachers, there's just so much miscommunication. And it wasn't until the middle of June that I was talking to organized 365 team because we didn't know what was going to happen in the fall. At the time of this recording. We're just at the last days in June here and it just has come down that you're going to probably have a choice. probably have a choice if you send your kids to school or if you keep them at home and then if it gets bad they'll all end up going home and what I said to the organizers, 365 team was like, Look, there needs to be some organization around school. It doesn't matter if they're homeschooled their schooling from home, they're at school wherever they are. Kids need to take ownership of their assignments and their long range and short term assignments, and they need to put them in a planner that they understand. So we scrambled and we have created a planner, we have a planner for elementary middle schoolers and a different planner for high school and college age kids. And then I'm going to create videos that go with these planners that specifically tell kids how to organize and how schools usually do it is every year your teacher imposes the organization of their specific class on you if you're switching classes or the teacher you know if you're in grade school, young grade school because they start switching classes pretty young. And so every year a student has to learn the organizational traits of the teacher. Our planner is different. Once you learn this planner and how to record your long term and short term assignments. You buy the same planner year after After a year, and then we show you how to set up one two inch binder with five slash pockets in it to organize all your classes in one binder. And this is how I taught my kids. When they went back into public and Catholic schools after being in the learning disability school, they could not keep up with all of the organizational management systems that each individual teacher had. They had one binder, and their teachers assignments went in that book. And there's always one teacher that wants you to have the journal that gets turned in or whatever. But then that's just a one off from a system that you can use year after year after year. And if you have ADHD, if you have learning disabilities, like learning other people's organizational systems year after year, like no joke, it would take Joey eight weeks to figure out the organizational structure that all of his different teachers wanted and to go from class to class and this is in ninth grade. By then he was so far behind in the education part of learning that he never caught up that year.   Betsy Furler  32:55   Hmm. Well, winner it's so when is that coming out? I'm super excited about that. Yeah,   Lisa Woodruff  33:00   so those planners we're going to start selling in the week of July 13. You need to be in our kids program first. So our kids program is $297. If you are not in the 100 day program, if you are in the 100 day program, the kids program is $99. And the kids program is for kids. Well, it's really birth through 25. So it's divided into modules. If you have kids that are under the age of five, I teach you how to organize the nursery, the playroom, the the preschool area, kids start into the program around the age of seven. It's called learn and all kids learn how to organize their bedroom which I call your mini apartment. And then as they hit 16 they go into launch and launch teaches you about how to organize food and money and to move into your own space after your bedroom whether that's an apartment or dorm room or condo, and you could stay in the kids program until you have buy a house or have children so if you never buy a house or have children like you don't even need the 100 day program is everything you need will be inside of the kids program.   Betsy Furler  34:00   That's awesome. Yeah, that is I think going forward I know Sam school so Sam is going into 11th grade Can you believe it? Yeah. So private Catholic high school boys school and they're looking at three options one would be everybody on campus full time. Option two would be they would go to campus two days a week you know they would have kids we go two days and a half would go the other two and then or all online and and online was super rough for him. And he actually really organized kid and it doesn't have learning disabilities as a little bit of a vision issue. But it was so hard for him to get Montt wrap his mind around those assignments, and write in full You know, when you're, when you're when you have the structure. I think it goes back to what you were talking about earlier is we've lost all the structure we had before and the kids are the same way, it's like, they're when they have the structure of, I get up I you know, eat breakfast, I drive to school, I get a class, you know, ABCD eat lunch, do this, I see the teacher face to face that reminds me that I have to do something. When we lose all our structure, we lose all of our external cues as well.   Lisa Woodruff  35:20   It's like, throwing papers at kids versus giving them in files in a filing cabinet. It's like you just keep throwing papers at them. It's just, I mean, I'm supporting if people want to do school, but if it was me and my kids aren't this age anymore, if it was me, I'd be taking a homeschooling year. It's very easy to homeschool every state has their own homeschool rules. Ohio is very liberal in the homeschool rules. There's not a lot of requirements. And I would just be like, Hey, we are living through times that they will be talking about centuries from now. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have a journal and I want you to research the difference between state and federal law and for those of you in Texas, it's the 49 states, Texas law and federal law says you got to have your own thing. You're the only state that is legally allowed to secede from the union. And why is that? And how did that happen? And where did that come from? And what is the history of racism in America? And how how can the Supreme Court say these things? I mean, we are living through history in so many ways. Like if you want to do math, study the stock market, how in the world can the stock market continue to go up when unemployment is like astronomic levels? Like why does the stock market not match? Kind of there's so many questions to be genuinely explored and learned about that. You could rabbit trail and research for ever and your kids would be so interested in what they're learning like, Look around you. What do you what do you want to learn about viruses? Do you want to learn about growing gardens? What do you want to learn about and just do it home school for you   Betsy Furler  36:54   forget the whole thing. I can't wait to see the statistics of what happens because I think I think exactly the same thing. It's like, if we're going to homeschool, then do it. Right away. We want it homeschooled and organize it in the way we wanted done and have one teacher instead of eight teachers who happens to live in your house with you so you can actually communicate with them on a, you know,   Lisa Woodruff  37:18   hourly pay the worst that can happen. I mean, seriously, what is the worst that can happen? Any college here is going to take your child because they're dying for college students. Like how could taking a gap year be negative at this time? Like I just don't even see how it could possibly be a negative?   Betsy Furler  37:36   It's true. I mean, I think Sam Yeah, he's a he's in a prime spot to get into college and a couple of years, right because of all of that. Well, I we probably should go because now we're going over time with two episodes. So Lisa, tell, please tell my audience how they can get in touch with you again. After So, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.   Lisa Woodruff  38:00   I have a podcast organized 365 so if you like these kinds of conversations, I just talked to myself over there often but I also interview people over there. So that's organized 365 I unpack big ideas and then I try to give you step by step ways of then implementing those in your house or just taking the next step. And then the book the paper solution will be out everywhere that you buy books, audiobooks, ebooks, it'll be available on August 4.   Betsy Furler  38:26   Awesome, well thank you again for being on for two episodes and and audience please follow Lisa and listen to her podcasts, you've really got to give it a chance because it is really entertaining as well as informative. And also please follow my podcast subscribe rate, review all of those things on whether they're pot whatever podcast platform you listen to for all abilities, the podcast on and if you want to find out more about what I do professionally with consulting and providing workplaces Accommodations through my software, please go to www dot for all abilities calm. Have a great day and I'll talk to you all soon. Thanks, Betsy. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks so much for listening to the for all abilities podcast. This is Betsy Furler, your host and I really appreciate your time listening to the podcast. And please subscribe on any podcast app that you're listening to us on. If you'd like to know more about what we do in our software that helps employer support their employees with ADHD dyslexia, learning differences in autism, please go to www dot for all abilities.com You can also follow us on Instagram. And you can follow me on LinkedIn at Betsy Furler episode Frank, you are le or have a great day and we will see you soon.

As we look at the landscape of marketing, a big question is “How do we make that transition to where our audience knows we are more engaged, more in tune with where they need us to be so we can serve them better than ever before?" Now, I read an article "The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Marketing (+Examples)" that came out yesterday on WPForms by Lisa Gennaro. I think that's how you pronounce her last name. So Lisa, my apologies if I somehow messed up the pronunciation of your last name. But it's an amazing article talking about conversational marketing. And this has been a concept that's been around for a couple years now that's really started to gain traction, because picture this idea of you are at a dinner table or at a party, a Thanksgiving dinner, or you're at a cocktail hour and you're talking with different people, and then they ask you three or four questions in a row and they don't give you a chance to respond. They just start talking, talking, talking, or they ask you a question and they give you just an explanation, all things concerned about that topic or about that idea. Then, you're going, "Well, wait a second. You didn't take the time to listen for my response. You just want to give me this information. You just want to give me all these amazing details and stories. That all could be great and interesting, but you didn't listen. You didn't pay attention to what I wanted to share with you about what's important to me to actually answer the question that you asked me in the first place." So it would be rude to interrupt with them giving you that answer and saying, "Oh, you do have interest in this. Well, let me tell you about this opportunity, about this trip." And you're going, "Well, wait a second." It seems like it's rushed. It seems like there's just this flow of information coming out and it doesn't really feel like a conversation. It would be a weird dinner party, right? It'd be a weird cocktail hour. And that's why there's this shift that's happening on the conversational marketing side, out of a more traditional inbound marketing. Think about traditional inbound marketing. Your traditional inbound marketing has where it's inbound, is typically blog articles, podcasts. It's all very content-based. It's giving great content out there. And it's amazing that content marketing is out there and it's giving people the answers they're looking for through the search engines, through Google. They're saying, "I'm looking for a podcast that talks about this," "I'm looking for a website that answers this question," or whatnot. And on the inbound side of things, it's saying people are inbound into your website based on what they found on Google or other search engines, through smart home devices, Alexa, Siri, whatever it might be. They're coming to your website and they want to know, "You have what I think is the answer to, but I want to know if this is the right answer, not just for this question, but for my question." (Transcript continues) ----- Being an expert doesn't mean you automatically have an audience, especially with so much noise in the digital marketing space. You need to break through the noise and establish your message as a rising thought leader in your industry. Jon Cook has worked with over 1,100 coaches and consultants and 800 speakers to make their messages remarkably clear and compelling to the right audience, and today he wants to help you. If you want greater clarity and even better results with your message, visit workwithjoncook.com.

Learn more about Verona CollectionSupport the show and get on monthly mentorship calls with Fabian. Join here.Full Transcript:F Geyrhalter:Welcome to the show, Lisa.L Vogl:Thank you for having me.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. So it's Ramadan and that's a huge, huge deal for you and many others, so thank you especially for being here. This is a pretty big deal for you.L Vogl:Thank you. Yeah, even when I think we scheduled, I completely forgot it was going to be Ramadan. We fast from sunrise to sunset. It's considered the most blessed month in Islam, so it's a very special time.F Geyrhalter:I hope you're going to keep your energy throughout the next 20 or so minutes.L Vogl:Hopefully it will pass. You're getting used to it. The very first couple of days of fasting, it's caffeine withdrawal because I'm a coffee addict, then you get used to it, so just normal for me now.F Geyrhalter:Perfect. We also had to, we moved it around a couple of times and now we ended on a Friday afternoon when we record this out of my little home studio, as is the new norm now.L Vogl:Tell me about it. I mean like these major business meetings and then like kids in the background knocking on the door, so it's a new norm for everybody, unfortunately.F Geyrhalter:That's right. You're a mom of two, right? So that might happen throughout the podcast too that we have extra guest.L Vogl:They're not here at the moment so I got a moment of peace and quiet. We're very lucky, otherwise it would be very loud in the background, but yes, I'm a single mother of two boys.F Geyrhalter:Thank you for sharing the peace and quiet time with us. We do appreciate it. So Lisa, you were born in Michigan, with a German name though which is interesting, and you are an award winning international fashion photographer, yet today, you run your five year old fashion brand Verona Collection which is the first modest fashion brands to be launched, featured, and sold in an American department store, Macy's to be exact, but now you're also available in ASOS. What does modest mean, many people would ask, and so for one, I know that your brand is specialized in hijabs and is catering to the Muslims. Tell us, how did your transformation to Islam and this subsequent business come about? Because there's first, your personal transformation, and then you saw a need I'm pretty sure that you fulfilled.L Vogl:Yeah. That is like such a long answer and then kind of goes across of maybe 10 years of my life because you are correct, the idea of American German, of course, and most American Germans aren't born Muslim. Most, just like I was. I was born a Christian, so I grew up in a Christian family, but I found Islam and I discovered Islam, over the course of 10 years I should say because I lived in Morocco for a little bit when I was... I took some time off of college and traveled, but that's not when I discovered Islam. I discovered it later on, and when I converted to Islam, I found a need for modest clothing. It was just so difficult because I then changed my entire wardrobe to adhere to the hijab and when I went out to go shopping for new clothing, to cover down to my wrist, to cover down to my ankle, it was really difficult, and so I found a need for millions of Muslims in America and around the world. There were plenty smaller brands catering but nothing that was really this massive hijab brand that provided modest clothing. So myself and my partner, we discovered that this is a huge need, let's come together and let's launch Verona. We branded it towards marketing towards Muslim women, right? But it's also a need for many other people that want to dress modestly but not necessarily for a religious purpose.F Geyrhalter:I think it is so fascinating. I mean I don't know where I read about you because you had a pretty good press run the last couple of years, but I read about you and I was like, "I have to have her on the show because it is so smart," and for me, it's always so important to find a niche and to find something that caters to a really small audience, and that audience like in your case could be huge.L Vogl:It's really not a small audience, like the modest fashion industry. The great thing about this market is it's a niche and it's not this broad niche, right? But there's so much opportunity. The modest fashion market is expected to be worth $500 billion in just another year or two, so we're on the right path and there's a huge need for it.F Geyrhalter:How would you describe modest fashion?L Vogl:This question comes up a lot because modesty, even within the Muslim community, is a very broad term because everybody has a different definition of modesty and the last thing I want to do as a brand or even personally is try to dictate everybody else's modesty level, right? Because I think that that's a personal choice and that's something that we like to scream loud and proud that listen, we are not forcing the hijab, we are not forcing to take it off, we want this to be an option and a choice for our customers. So for me personally, I wear baggy clothes, I don't wear tight fitting clothes, but I still wear pants sometimes and a long top. I just prefer to wear like long dresses more because I feel more comfortable, but there's a lot of other women that modesty, maybe not even adhering to Islamic standards and show the arms but wearing necessary clothing. So everybody has a different definition of it and I certainly don't want to dictate what my definition is, if that makes sense.F Geyrhalter:It totally makes sense, and you have a pretty big product line now, right? How many products do you have?L Vogl:Right now, we're going through major transition, but in the good way, and just unfortunately, the COVID-19 kind of delayed the process a little bit more. We're in a massive relaunch where we're going to be launching a lot of new products because we took a step back and said, "Hey, we really have to focus on a few other things," and we were in the midst of doing a relaunch. It's just going to be pushed back about a month or two, but we do offer, as soon as the relaunch, it's going to be occurring, we offer so many products that's going to be mainly long dresses, because those are the most difficult products to find, long tops. You might find like a long sleeve top in the store but it goes to like three quarters of a length on the arm and that doesn't adhere to Islamic standards. So yes, there's modest clothing available, but then it doesn't fit a hijabi need. So then we'll offer long sleeve tops, we'll offer pants that are baggier, even swimwear we offer, but it's covered for a hijabi's need. You have your hijab and then from top to bottom, and then of course the most staple pieces to hijab. So we offered like three to 400 different products of hijab.F Geyrhalter:That's unbelievable. That's amazing. Let's go back a little bit to which must've been one of your pivotal moments. How did you get your foot into Macy's?L Vogl:When we first launched, I had a goal, myself and Alaa, and we have a third business partner, his name is Hassan the UK, when Alaa and I launched, we decided we really want to get to be the first hijab brand in American department stores, so I was researching, researching, and the biggest thing that I took away was we have to be successful on our own before we approach anybody, right? I read you had to sell 10,000 units before they even look at you. We did that. We did that within my first year. Then I started approaching department stores and it was very difficult to get in, so then I discovered the workshop at Macy's and I was thinking this is a really unique way of getting in the door but through a different route. In the workshop at Macy's is a women in minority workshop and there were, I'm not allowed to say the numbers, but the acceptance rate into the workshop at Macy's, it's harder than Harvard, and we got accepted as the top 20. So we had our interview with them and then from there, we were like one of 11 that got chosen, and we went to New York and we worked through the program. While we were in the middle of the program, we had an opportunity to sell right in Herald Square, their flagship store in front of all of the Macy's buyers, including the CEO, and we had one day to market that we were going to be there selling and it was like hijabi overload took over Macy's. So they thought firsthand really that this was not just us providing numbers on a piece of paper and that's telling them that this is a need. They saw firsthand how much of a need this was right here in America.F Geyrhalter:That is so cool. So talking about which, before my interviews, I always go on a major Google search about my guest, which is actually something I greatly enjoy. Nothing to worry about.L Vogl:No, it's okay. I'm pretty clean so there isn't going to be too much that...F Geyrhalter:But amongst the many interesting things, I found this one floating around about you and I so loved it. You were named one of 17 Muslim women who made America great again by the Huffington Post, and I mean the irony of using that copy line is just so great, but congratulations on that. One would assume that the current president of the United States would have had a major negative effect on your brand as hate crimes have been on the rise. Is it actually the opposite and your brand strives given its message of inclusion?L Vogl:I think that when you have this negative messaging out there piece, I believe most people are genuinely good people and they don't want to attach themselves to that type of hate, and so I believe when a message of love comes in front, people are going to attach them to that. I genuinely believe that most people don't want to hate and don't want to attach themselves to that type of thinking. That's why I believe like our messaging will trump anything... That's a little ironic.F Geyrhalter:I like it.L Vogl:Doing these at work, but I believe that the messaging of love and inclusion and inclusivity will always win.F Geyrhalter:I love that.L Vogl:I believe I have a lot of supporters.F Geyrhalter:Let's hope that is how life works.L Vogl:Unfortunately, the reality is there is people that think like that, and I've experienced myself personally and many people I know have experienced it as well, but it's not going to stop me from pushing out the message of inclusion.F Geyrhalter:Totally. How was the reaction in this store when your line was first, in a regular Macy's store and regular shoppers were suddenly exposed to something they're not used to?L Vogl:We launched online first and then we launched in store, the first install was in Dearborn. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Dearborn, Michigan, but it is the highest concentration of Muslims in America, so the community in Dearborn is already very used to the Muslim community, so we really didn't get much hate as far as that, but we did get a lot of backlash when it went public online because it went very public. Like we were on Fox News twice, and CNN covered us and we definitely did receive quite the bit of hate messages, unfortunately.F Geyrhalter:Once you get in Fox News, that's-L Vogl:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:Enough about politics.L Vogl:I'm not even speaking politics, I'm just telling you the network.F Geyrhalter:I am. So tell us a little bit about that the name Verona. Because authenticity and empowerment are both so important to you, Verona means origin and truth, right? Is that where it came from or is there a different story?L Vogl:It actually doesn't even go that deep. When I thought about it, one was that just from a business aspect, that I needed a name that was easy to read, easy to spell, easy to remember and very crisp and clean when you put out the logo. So that's on the business end of things, but on the other side, one, my favorite fashion originates from Italy, so it's an Italian name, and then another point of it was that we always attached Islamic things and Muslim attire to the Middle East, but being a Muslim is not an ethnicity, it's not a race, it's not a region, it's a religion that was most diverse religion in the entire world, and so a Muslim can be Italian, a Muslim can have western origins and we just don't think of it like that. So this brand is obviously for everybody, we want to be inclusive, but it is targeting the Muslim community within western countries, so the name just fit for us.F Geyrhalter:I like it because it's also your personal story in a way which it encompasses, which is great. Branding for many means the perfect logo and the stunning website, and while this is extremely helpful and very important for a lot of brands, for me, the foundation and the pinnacle of branding is that perfect positioning, and we talked about it a little bit because you carved out a wonderful niche for yourself that you can own and personally and empathetically and authentically nurture with your audience. What does branding mean to you now that you have half a decade of brand building experience?L Vogl:Branding is messaging. It is messaging. It's what are you standing for as a brand and what are you telling your customer, and these are conversations that we've had within our company more seriously, and we've had very strong conversations. We need to not be afraid to be loud and proud of being Muslim, and so it's the messaging that we're putting out there. That to me is the biggest strength in branding.F Geyrhalter:I love that because so many people forget that. I see a lot of brands where it's really not about the branding part of it, it's really about that boldness and the authenticity, and that alone is enough for a brand, for any company to turn into a brand, right? Meaning there are tons of followers, people love it, people start talking about it, word of mouth, et cetera, et cetera. That's really, really good.L Vogl:If a brand tries to play middle ground in everything, they're going to hit nobody. A brand needs to not be afraid to like be loud and outspoken about who they are and what they believe in, and that's what's going to speak to your customer base. That's my biggest point is that when you're trying to create your company, people just try to serve everybody and that doesn't work, and they try to market to everybody. That doesn't work. You have to really be specific with who you are, what you believe in, what your core values are and how you speak to your customers.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely agree. If you speak to everyone, no one will listen, right? Listening is so important for a brand. Talking about listening, how did you in the beginning do your product research? Did you have focus groups? Obviously, you're in a community, so you have them at your fingertips. How did you use any data in the beginning or how did you start the entire production of it?L Vogl:The great thing about when I launched Verona with Alaa is that I had already been working within the modest fashion industry for years and it was like an industry that barely existed in US, and so I was already learning from companies that I worked with. I had been flown to like Dubai to do photo shoots for companies over there. I worked with companies in Saudi Arabia, they would send us products, and then I also am very involved in the community here in the US, like very involved, and in organizations left, right, and center, and I had already known all of the modest fashion bloggers so I was up to date with a lot of the trends and still up to date with them. The biggest thing as far as when we launch, we were the customer, and still are, but we also are getting firsthand knowledge from fashion bloggers, from companies and what they're releasing and we just try to stay ahead of the game. So when we launched, we already had a very good handle as to what was needed and what would sell out, and we sold out. When we first launched, we sold out of our products in a week and a half.F Geyrhalter:That's amazing. It's not like you're the only one doing it, right? You do have actual competitors.L Vogl:We do, yeah, and I know many of them personally, and there's great brands out there.F Geyrhalter:Which is good. It's healthy to have competitors. It's a good thing.L Vogl:Yeah. From like a religious standpoint, being a Muslim, I believe that God has enough blessings to give to everybody, so I don't see competition as this negative thing with people too. I'm very competitive by nature, right? But I also get excited when other people win. I don't ever want to be a brand that's not supportive of other, especially women owned brands. I'm like crossing for them, so I'm somebody that wants to see them succeed as well.F Geyrhalter:I had more women on this podcast than guys so far, than male.L Vogl:Bravo to you.F Geyrhalter:It's pretty amazing because in the beginning, there were a lot of guy founders and I started to be very aware of that and I'm like, "I really need to seek out female founders," and now, it's totally not like that. I don't seek out anyone, I just seek out great brands and sometimes I don't even know who the founder is and if they're male or female or whatever, right? But it is so, so nice to talk to so many amazing female founders. Many of them are single mothers and have kids, and life is difficult as it is, right? But to have that strength to create these brands and to be able to still connect with your audience and to keep pushing forward with new product and new ideas, bravo. It's really amazing and I'm so thrilled to be able to have people like you on the show.L Vogl:Thank you. My pleasure.F Geyrhalter:It provides me with a lot of joy too, but let's flip this around from the positive to the negative. Was there any brand fail that you went through where in the beginning, you did something too fast or you did something and just suddenly you realized, and I asked not to put you on the spot but for others to learn. Was there anything that you felt like you just massively messed up from a brand perspective and you learned from it and you would want others to learn from it too?L Vogl:When we got our foot in the door with Macy's and then ASOS, there is an element of you can grow too fast, and so I think it's okay to say "I am not ready to take on this opportunity. We need to make sure that we have our rock solid base in place before we take on another major contract." That's the biggest learning and hiccup that we had as a company is that we grew too fast. Then we started, our online platform suffered because when we entered into Macy's and ASOS and we didn't have the financial capital to back everything so much because these orders are not cheap and you have to process the orders and then they pay 90 days later or whatever their terms are, so in dealing with these major department stores, you have to make sure that you have the financial resources to take on such a big contract. When we did that, our online platform suffered, and that's why we are in the midst of doing this massive relaunch. That's one, it's just an advice for anybody else. It's okay to say no to opportunities if you are not ready.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. I hear that over and over too because saying yes is so exciting as a new brand, right?. I mean it's like that's all you want. Any opportunity is a great opportunity because you had no opportunity in the very beginning and then suddenly it's... I mean with you, it seems like things have been progressing very, very quickly from the get go, but for a lot of others, that's not the case. Talking about, you know net 90 orders and all of that, how does COVID-19 affect you as a brand right now?L Vogl:It affected us massively and I'm not going to beat around the bush because I'm not somebody that likes to just paint these rosy pictures when people are seven, I like to keep it real 100%. We have factories in Turkey that had to shut down for a moment and I had products ready to be shipped and then all of a sudden, this happened. I think the biggest thing as a business owner is you have to learn to roll with the punches and just get creative when problems occur, because if you think running a business is going to be rosy 24/7, then you are setting yourself up for failure. This is just something things that we had to learn how to navigate and that's what we're doing. Things are opening back up and we're going to be having some shipments coming soon and we're excited for what's to come.F Geyrhalter:That's great. I'm glad you're hanging in there. You mentioned that you have some of your product manufactured in Turkey. How important is it for you as a brand where you actually have your product manufactured? Because it seems like a very logical place for you to do that.L Vogl:We really like to make sure that we're working with ethical factories no matter where we're working, because obviously we're not going to be a brand that's out promoting, X, Y, and Z and then do the opposite behind closed doors. Ethics is very ingrained point to us, whether it's behind closed doors or whether it's the messaging that we're putting out there.F Geyrhalter:Does your messaging change? Do you change your messaging with ASOS for instance, which ASOS and Macy's are so different, right? Like the type of person that goes to those kinds of places and that supports those kinds of brands. Do you change it ever so slightly or do you really have your rule book and you just go with it?L Vogl:We feel like when we launched, we did tone it down a little bit and that's why we've been having some meetings just saying we can not run away from who we are, we need to be loud and proud being that we're in your face Muslim, and that's okay. That does not mean we're excluding everybody, it's just saying that we are proud to be who we are. In the next coming months, we're going to be more outspoken about that yes, we are a Muslim run brand by Muslim women, and so going back to our roots with our relaunch. I would say it got toned down a little bit, but we're reviving that.F Geyrhalter:More power to you. That's great. I love to hear that. That's definitely the direction to go. If you could describe your brand, and this is funny because I usually send my guests a couple of notes prior so that they can look at a couple of questions and familiarize themselves a little bit with it. I think that's something that everyone should know and everyone knows because that's just professional courtesy, but you immediately said "I'm not going to read those," and I think it says so much about your authenticity and just like, "No, I'm just going to either answer them well or not answer them or whatever." One of the questions is about your brand DNA, and I give my founder guests a little bit of a heads up because I really try to figure out, if you can describe your brand in one word, right? One word, what would it be?L Vogl:Now I'm regretting that I didn't think of this.F Geyrhalter:No, I'll give you a little bit of time to think. It's like you would think of Coca Cola and it might be happiness, you would think of Everlane and it might be transparency, and I mean there are so many words that have already been floating around.L Vogl:Then we'll talk about it in a sense of exactly how I said I don't want to know questions before an interview because I want to keep it real. That's the one thing I always say, so I would say genuine. That's going to be my answer. Because to me, whether it's being a person, whether I'm doing an interview, whether it's my business, whether it's the advocacy work that I do, I always want to be authentic and real. So genuine is the word I would go with.F Geyrhalter:There you go, you have it. That is Verona Collection's brand DNA from now on. This is what you would have to tell your employees in the next meeting.L Vogl:Exactly.F Geyrhalter:If you could do it all over again, what are some lessons that you learned or one lesson that you learned of brand advice that you could give other founders as a takeaway?L Vogl:A brand advise or just company advice? I think if we're going back to branding, I feel like you have to really know who you are and know your customer base. That's the most important and the most obvious answer. I feel like people jump into this because I have great business idea but then they don't truly know the customer, and so that's the most important thing because you have to learn how to speak to your customer, where they're shopping, what kind of advertising to go towards, so it's really about knowing your customer and who they are and what their needs are.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Listeners who fell in love with your brand, now that we're coming slowly to a close here, where can they find you on or offline?L Vogl:As far as Instagram and Facebook, it's just VeronaCollection, one word. Our website is the verona-collection.com, and then me personally, my Instagram is lisamvogl, V-O-G-L. No E. That's my personal Instagram.F Geyrhalter:Perfect. Listen Lisa, this was really, really delightful. I love the story, I love what you're doing, but most importantly, I love how you're doing it.L Vogl:Thank you.F Geyrhalter:Thank you for the time. Maybe we give you back a little bit more quiet time today, which I'm sure you-L Vogl:Back to emails and calls. Work never ends.F Geyrhalter:There you go. Hang in there. With COVID-19, stay safe and stay successful and stay in touch.L Vogl:Thank you so much.

The Importance of Collaboration | C-Level What makes things good isn't just people it is people building off of each other, because a bunch of like-minded people are only going to get so far. What really pushes breakthrough thinking and innovation and creativity is building off what you bring versus what I know and adding and adding and adding and that's when the great ideas come. So today on C-Level I'm excited to have Lisa Fey as she is a TEDx speaker author and consultant and today we're gonna be talking about working together and collaboration. So Lisa welcome. - Oh it's great to be here. -So I'm really big on everybody's journey. I know a little bit about yours. Tell our audience how did you get into all this? How did you start? Where did you come from? That type stuff. - Well I'm a small-town girl from a farm community of about eight hundred. No wait, you don't want me to go that far back... I think it is relevant to my story. I mean, I am from a small town in North Carolina. I went to the University of North Carolina, talked my way into a job with NBC Sports. Ultimately talked my way into a job at the Coca-Cola company where I ended up spending 30-years. 10-years in sales, 10 in marketing and 10 in training and development and living all over the country and teaching sales training globally. When I had the opportunity to take the next step I decided to go out and become a professional speaker. But you know that's kind of a weird thing to tell people you do. What I really do is I help people in organizations that have identified that poor communication is a challenge to their business. #ChrisDeBlasio #CLevel #Agency850

Are you ready to hear my favorite interview that I’ve done to date? I had the privilege of interviewing Lisa Collum, creator and CEO of Top Score Writing and let me just say, you do not want to miss this interview. Lisa is a true writing rockstar, but more importantly, she knows how to run a business like a CEO teacher! 15 years ago, Lisa Collum was working at a Title One school and became frustrated watching countless students fail or struggle with writing on standardized tests. There simply wasn't a curriculum available that focused on her real writing skills, which ultimately hurt the students and teachers. So Lisa studied the Common Core areas that students struggled with the most and developed a curriculum all on her own. In less than a year, Lisa was able to turn her class around from nearly all failing to achieving a 100% pass rate. Lisa was able to do that with class after class, regardless of how much the students had struggled in the past. Soon, every teacher in the school was demanding Lisa's curriculum and Top Score Writing was born. Top Score Writing has since grown to include full teacher curriculums for grades second through 12th as well as student workbooks, digital curriculum, scoring, and training. Today,Top Score Writing remains the only proven system that makes teaching writing easier, students learning faster, and is proven to achieve a 70% increase in writing test scores on average.    In this episode, you will learn: How Lisa started her business  What Top Score Writing has grown into today Lisa’s favorite way to market her business and how you can do this too Lisa’s best piece of advice for teachers just getting started out in their business   Links Mentioned:  Connect with Lisa: @lisacollumceo Instagram: @topscorewriting Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TopScoreWritingInc/ Website: www.topscorewriting.com DOWNLOAD MY 10 STEP GUIDE TO SELLING YOUR TEACHING RESOURCES HERE! CEO TEACHER® RESOURCES: Check out my CEO Teacher® Amazon Books HERE! JOIN OUR COMMUNITIES: The CEO Teacher® Facebook Group Connect with Kayse on Instagram ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Tag me @kaysemorris on Instagram and tell me what you are listening to! SUBSCRIBE AND REVIEW I don’t want you to miss a thing! Be the first to know when a new episode is available by subscribing in iTunes HERE! If you would like to support The CEO Teacher® podcast, a review would mean so much. By leaving a review, you are helping fellow CEO teachers find this podcast and start building a life they love. To leave a review in iTunes, click HERE and scroll down to Ratings and Reviews. Click “Write a Review” and share with me how this podcast is changing your business!

Lisa Hollinshead found herself in lockdown in Spain with four generations of her family - including her 89-year-old grandmother and her three-year-old son. After arriving home to self-isolation for two weeks she realised just how much impact the coronavirus pandemic was having on single parents and the elderly. So Lisa decided to do something about it.Together with volunteers across the globe she put together an app in three weeks. It's called One Another. Lisa tells us how it works.

Sasha Say's – Website during lockdown Real Radio: Time to talk Geopark, as usual. But not quite as usual because we're doing this remotely, of course, being in lockdown. Joined by Geoeducator Sasha from home. How are you, Sasha? Geoeducator: Hi. Yeah, good thank you. How you Dan? Real Radio: Doing okay. Now, what we've got basically at this situation at the moment obviously can't really get out and about and explore the Geopark. But you can do it online, can't you? Geoeducator: That's right. Yes. So Lisa and I are both working from home during this period. So what we've decided to do is we're gonna really concentrate on developing the website with resources for people to use from home. So the number one focus at the moment is just getting up and running a kids page. So on there we'll have things like word searches, colouring in - with descriptions of the different things that they're colouring so that there's an educational element to that as well relating back to the Geopark. And we're just asking people to email us or jump on to Facebook and just let us know what you would like to see on the website for the kids page. Because obviously, you know, I'm well aware that there's so much out there and parents are getting bombarded with so much via Facebook at the moment of various activities for children to do while we're in lockdown. So we don't want to be adding to that. We want to be able to offer a resource that's very usable for people. So if we can just get some feedback, then we can make sure that we are meeting the needs of what people are actually after at the moment. So that will be really great. Real Radio: Good stuff. Okay. So what's the website address again? Geoeducator: Okay, so our website is Whitestonegeopark.nz or you can email me directly at geoeducator@whitestonegeopark.nz. And we'd just love to hear from you. And in addition to the children's page that we're doing, we're also updating a lot of our other resources online. So we're going to be working through a lot of the Geosites and just putting more information out there about what people will be able to see later on once things get back a bit to normal. In the meantime, people can just get on the Website and maybe get a bit more understanding of exactly what the Geopark is. Real Radio: Thanks, Sasha. We'll leave you to it and we'll catch up again next week. Geoeducator: That's great Dan. Take care.

Victoria: Hey everyone, it’s Sensei Victoria Whitfield here, your journey partner in business, welcoming you back to episode 111 of the Journeypreneur Podcast. This is your source for channeled holistic stress management techniques, guidance, inspiration and motivation to stay on your path to rapid financial ascension and massive impact as a conscious entrepreneur. The title of today’s podcast episode is Reinventing Yourself. I am so excited to get to introduce you to my Goddess friend Lisa Marie Grantham - welcome to the podcast Goddess! (Both giggles) Lisa: Thank You so much, my love! I am so happy to be here, in this space with you. Thank you for inviting me. (giggles) Victoria: My pleasure (giggles) and you can find Lisa and everyone at GoddessLifestyleplan.com - So Lisa, this may be the very first time someone is meeting you or hearing about you, and so I love to lead with this question of not just what do you do but what are the 3 things that you are known for, could you tell us? Lisa: Absolutely. Well I guess my title is a Success and Business Coach for magical women. I am very attracted to the woo-woo, but not just the super woo-woo. I really really love working with woo-woo women that are ambitious because that’s me. I think that sometimes that’s a little bit of sub-niche because, you know, woo-woo could be really floaty and may be even a little bit of a journey of discovering. I don’t like to just be one of those people who are dabbling around, interested in metaphysics. I myself was interested in crystals, nature, spirit and all the magical things, and, I have always been ambitious my whole adult life. I have always wanted to grow, be more healed, more powerful, more wise - more all the things! And that’s who I love working with. Let's talk about it! - Are you blocking your next business breakthrough? Take the assessment at http://www.victoriawhitfield.com/quiz to find out, and apply for a Breakthrough Call with me!

Bobby ruined every single romantic moment Lisa Connelly had with Marty Puccio. He was always hanging around, saying cruel things and being physically abusive towards anyone that challenged him. So Lisa, Marty and Lisa's best friend, Ali Willis, recruited four more teenagers and together they all set about ridding the world of Bobby Kent for good.

Liz and Lisa had a fight before high school graduation that could have ended their friendship. In a nutshell: Liz did something Lisa didn't agree with. So Lisa took it upon herself to inform the person who was affected by Liz's choice. The result? A complete and total sh*t storm and a scarlet letter added to Liza's varsity jacket. Decades later, Liz and Lisa are grateful their seventeen-year-old selves didn't blow up their friendship. (They are also damn thankful that they are not idiot teenagers anymore!) But now, as parents of their own teens, Liz & Lisa hope their experiences—both good and bad—will help nudge their kids in the right direction. Liz & Lisa want to hear from you! Email Liz@lizandlisa.com and put PODCAST in the subject line.

Lisa, also known as "Neatfreak McKinney," grew up in beautiful Idaho as the oldest of seven children. Her mom is also a neat freak. (She had to be in order to stay sane in a house with nine people.) So Lisa learned early on that work always comes before play. It was one of the best things her parents ever taught her. She has always loved taking care of, decorating, and organizing her own home. And when her daughter left for college in 2006, she was heartbroken. Her life as she had known it was forever changed. In her sadness, her sweet friends all encouraged her to start her own business, using her gift of home organization. Which is how "Neat Freak" was born! When you tune in to today's episode, you will hear how Lisa developed her professional organizing business, how she recommends prioritizing your time, and (my personal favorite) why unplugging is SO important for our mental health. Lisa is relatable, realistic, and she is also leading the charge with #realorganizersoninstagram - be sure to go follow! Neither Lisa or I would ever want you to think we have it all together (we don't)! We are just like you, working to prioritize and plan our days as effectively as we can, while also navigating all of the endless hurdles along the way. For all of the show notes + links click below on the "episode webpage." 

Happy Hannukah! On today's episode, we welcome Rabbi Emerita Laura Geller to discuss her incredible book, Getting Good at Getting Older - she was the third member of our panel from a recent Sunday Morning at the Braid event and her insights were not to be missed! So Lisa and Maureen sat down with Rabbi [...]

Happy Hannukah! On today's episode, we welcome Rabbi Emerita Laura Geller to discuss her incredible book, Getting Good at Getting Older - she was the third member of our panel from a recent Sunday Morning at the Braid event and her insights were not to be missed! So Lisa and Maureen sat down with Rabbi [...]

Lisa Baden on internal conflict of the overwhelming desire to be first to report, and the discipline to verify before: So I had to confirm it and I was like chomping at the bit. We're calling M Dot. We're calling Transportation. We're calling the police. Well finally we got confirmation. Yes. A tar truck just turned over and that was hours of cleanup. I mean hours but so although I would love to be first, I desire accuracy more. Lisa Baden, Traffic Reporter and Radio Personality, with host Andy Ockershausen in-studio interview Andy Ockershausen: This is Our Town. It's Andy Ockershausen and what an absolute treasure and pleasure it is for Janice and I to welcome a very, very famous person in our life and a life of broadcasting. Miss Lisa Baden. Lisa Baden: Aw. Thank you. Andy Ockershausen: Lisa, you know to see you in the flesh after all these years of watching you on camera, because I grew up in the business as you know and to see what you had you matured and all the good things you had done. I had the opportunity to hear I traffic reporter in Chicago and a policemen riding around in a helicopter. And I thought that would be a great idea. And it came back and with our program director we started, we got a policeman out of the DC police department, a sergeant, in the traffic division and put him in a helicopter. We paid for the helicopter. The city provided the cop and we did airborne traffic in like 1962 or 63 can you believe that? Lisa Baden: Really? Andy Ockershausen: That is many years ago. It's 55 years ago. We were doing it and it started the whole traffic war because after we did it, Captain Dan came along. Lisa Baden: That's right. Andy Ockershausen: You remember Captain... On Captain Dan Lisa Baden: Captain Dan. Sure. He landed his helicopter at my elementary school. And I'll never forget it. Andy Ockershausen: Was he great? Janice Iacona Ockershausen: That was the beginning of your career. You said that's what I want to be when I grow up. Andy Ockershausen: Well, he originally was in a helicopter and then we had him in a fixed wing, he had his own airplane. But we always believe Lisa, when we could afford it traffic and how important it is. And you've epitomized the importance. You did yours, your big stick here at WMAL WTOP. I mean, the call letters are magic. So Lisa, we're so happy to have you live and in color. Lisa Baden: Thank you. It's an honor to be here. Really is. Andy Ockershausen: Well, you grew up in the business and you've been at it a long time and the changes you have incurred are unbelievable to me. And I'm a native born raised or maybe you're not raised, but it's certainly a native. The city is exploded now. I hate to go out and traffic cause there's traffic everywhere. On Evolution of Traffic Reporting in Our Town Lisa Baden: Yes, it is everywhere. It's a matter of fact. The thing I hate the most about my job is what pays my mortgage. And that's the traffic. It's just crazy. Andy Ockershausen: And there's no drive time. We had a drive time in radio, it was between seven and nine when it was really...and no, no, now it's between five and 10 now. Lisa Baden: Right. Andy Ockershausen: Or more. And you've seen it. Lisa Baden: That's true. As a matter of fact, I was the first overnight traffic reporter in Washington, DC and that was for WMAL. Because they had the forethought. Thinking wait a minute we're missing the boat here. Because not everybody works nine to five. And there's a lot of people who work overnight shifts, in the government and everything. And it was amazing. So they started with overnight and I remember doing that for WMAL years and years... Andy Ockershausen: Was Bill Mayhugh still here? Was that what you were doing? Lisa Baden: Yes. Absolutely. Andy Ockershausen: Because when Bill first started, I found out through the grapevine, his popularity was with the military because there's so many people work all night in a greater Washington area.

Lisa Farmer had finally got her dream job as a headteacher. Soon after getting the job she discovered she was pregnant. Lisa and her husband were elated but she thought people expected her to step down from her new role. With no intention of stepping down Lisa began looking into flexible working options. She was looking for a co-headteacher to share the role with. But this was over a decade ago, before more case studies were available. So Lisa had to learn through trial and error... We also hear from lead teacher - and founder of The Maternity Teacher Paternity Teacher Project - Emma Sheppard, and the co-founders of the Shared Headship Network: Amy Brookes, Catriona Jenkins, Hannah Turbet and Lucy O'Healan. To get access the podcast before anyone else and extra goodies, sign up to the newsletter. In this week's Lisa, Emma Sheppard and the Shared Headship Network share the research and evidence that underpin their missions, the books that have influenced their careers and the treasure troves of advice they share. Join the conversation. Follow all our guests LisaFarmer321, maternityCPD, SharedHeadship and host NiallAlcock. See you there or via the newsletter. 

Today on the show, we have Lisa Johnson. Lisa is an expert in passive income. We're going to be exploring a lot of different ways to create passive income, myths about passive income, and Lisa's journey from working really hard, being overstretched and burnt out, to now being able to have a multiple six-figure business based mostly on passive income.  Something I'd definitely like to have in my own life, if I'm being honest. So with that, let's hand it over to Lisa. Lisa Johnson, welcome to The Story Engine Podcast.   What You Will Learn On This Episode Passive Income Know Your Audience Use Facebook Ads To Build Your Audience Not To Sell To Identify And Organize Your Audience Into Low, Medium and High Tier Clients ...and check out what a mini-coaching sessions looks like   Links and Resources Mentioned in this Episode https://www.facebook.com/lisajohnsoncoaching https://www.instagram.com/lisajohnsoncoaching https://bit.ly/fab5percent     Transcription Kyle Gray: Hello, and welcome to the Story Engine Podcast. My name is Kyle Gray, and today on the show, we have Lisa Johnson. Lisa is an expert in passive income, and we're going to be exploring a lot of different ways to create passive income, a lot of common myths about passive income, and Lisa's journey from not making any passive income and working really hard, being overstretched and burnt out, to now being able to have a multiple six-figure business based mostly on passive income. Something I'd definitely like to have in my own life, if I'm being honest. So with that, let's hand it over to Lisa. Lisa Johnson, welcome to The Story Engine Podcast.   Lisa Johnson: Thanks for having me.   Kyle Gray: Lisa, I'm really excited to chat with you today. It's a topic that we have not discussed on this show yet, at least not directly. It's passive income and there's lots of different areas that I want to explore with you on this. First, I want to introduce you properly to the audience. Can you tell me about a time in your life that has defined you to who you are, what you care about, and maybe even a little bit about what you're talking about today?   Lisa Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. There are a couple of times, but one time stands out, and it was when I was a child. At the age of 16, I had a bully at my school, holding a knife to my throat while about 20 or 30 children and my classmates, stood around egging her on, so to speak, to do something. And, it followed years of bullying because I was born into a very humble household. I lived on a council estate in England, which is like welfare. I think you call it welfare in the U.S. and I managed to get a kind of scholarship to a very prestigious, private boarding school. It became very obvious at the age of 11 that I was very different to the people that were there.   Lisa Johnson: They had these lovely cars and they were going on lovely holidays, and I had secondhand clothes and I had tickets to get free school meals and that kind of thing, and so bullying started from then. And then, by the time I was 16, that happened and even after that, that was like a defining moment where I didn't believe in myself anymore because of that happening to me. And from then, I was then bullied in the workplace, too, and there was a time when I decided I either wanted to give up or I was going to do exactly what I wanted to do in life and show everybody that I could be a success. And that defining moment is what brings me here. So, I now in the last two and a half years, have gone from £30,000 in debt to, having over half a million pounds in income, in revenue, from 90% passive income. And I'm a massive believer that so many people can get more freedom in their lives by having passive and semi-passive income stream. And so, what I do is I help people to do exactly that.   Kyle Gray: Wow. Okay, so first question, now that you have all of this passive income, you no longer have to deal with any more people to bully you-   Lisa Johnson: That's not true.   Kyle Gray: Have you isolated?   Kyle Gray: Just like, "I've got the passive income, I'm staying home! Don't need to deal with any of you!"   Lisa Johnson: No. And I think that what I didn't realize when I came into this online world was that it's even worse online. But it's easier to deal with, when you believe in yourself more and you know who you are, and your self-esteem is where it should be rather than when you're a child, it's difficult. And about seven years ago, when I had twins and I was, even then, being bullied in the workplace, I had twin boys, and just decided that this was my chance to get out of that and do what I always wanted to do, to make a difference and to lead an extraordinary life. I didn't want a 9-5 life, and so, I took the opportunity to go and do that.   Lisa Johnson: And I'm not saying it was easy. It wasn't easy, those first few years of struggle in my first business, which was a wedding planning business, but it set me up, knowing all of that, all of the things that can go wrong, all of the mistakes I made, it completely set me up. And during that time, I was bullied so many times online. There were so many times when, people wouldn't like that I was visible, what I was putting out there. And, by friends, by people I knew, but also by people that I had no idea who they were, they were just other coaches. But, it's made me stronger and I've learned to deal with it, but also, I can now help others deal with it. And, I'm a partner in a bullying charity called BulliesOut where I help lots of adults who are being bullied online deal with it better.   Kyle Gray: Wow. That is such a challenging thing, and it's amazing how creative some people can be to do bullying, yeah. It's a very kind thing to contribute back to and turn around, because I think it's also really misunderstood and underestimated, the effects that it can have on somebody.   Lisa Johnson: Absolutely. I see so many people who, they were bullied when they were younger, and they're expected to just get over it when they're an adult, but actually for years, if there's a group a teenage girls, walking down a road, I would cross the road. Even when I was in my 30s.   Kyle Gray: Wow.   Lisa Johnson: So, it has a huge effect.   Kyle Gray: Mm-hmm (affirmative). But, like you said, this in some ways was an inspiration and an impetus that eventually got you here to this current world, where you are doing very well for yourself on passive income. And, I want to explore a little bit of that now. Can you tell me, just give me your definition of passive income, and then maybe follow up with a couple of common, either misunderstandings about what passive income is, or misconceptions about it.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah, sure. So, I believe the easiest way to explain passive income is no longer trading time for money. I think that what we do mainly, especially in the online workspace, is we trade time for money. We do something, we get paid for it. We do something else, we get paid for it. And I think that, the biggest myth out there on passive income, is that it's passive and it's because of the word passive income. We expect that we do nothing and we make money, that's a fairytale, it doesn't exist. However, what it does mean is that you can do a lot of work upfront, and it is a lot of work, right at the beginning, to then, make money over and over again without doing any more work. So, for instance, I have courses out there that I did at the beginning, two years ago, that I'm still making six figures every few months from now. So, to me the definition is just no longer trading time for money.   Kyle Gray: Perfect. So you mentioned courses. What are a couple of the other common types of income that maybe you have or you commonly see as promising avenues for it?   Lisa Johnson: One of the biggest and I guess this would be semi-passive income, and, I should probably explain what that means. When something's semi-passive, you're still doing a small amount of work, but nowhere near the amount of work that you would need to do normally to make that amount of money. So, as an example, I have another course out there which goes over ten months. It's already written, because it's gone out six or seven times already, so the work's already written, the presentation's already written, but once a month, I will go in and deliver it live. So, rather than a do-it-yourself model, I will deliver it live and answer questions. So, for one hour every month over ten months, therefore ten hours, I will make between £150,000 and £200,000.   Kyle Gray: Nice.   Lisa Johnson: And normally, you wouldn't be able to make that amount of money in ten hours. So, it's not completely passive because you're still having to do something, you're still having to go in and deliver once a month. So, that's semi-passive, whereas you can have courses that are completely passive, they just go off and do it on their own. So, some other semi-passive income streams are things like memberships. Completely passive would be an e-book. Affiliate marketing, would be semi passive, where you're selling somebody else's, product to your audience.   Kyle Gray: Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Lisa Johnson: Things like, comparison websites, or even, stocks and bonds, is not a good one too, I wouldn't say go out and do that to everybody because it's something you need a lot of knowledge in. But that's passive. If we get right down to the basics of it renting out a spare room is passive income.   Kyle Gray: I like that. And I like that you've really encompassed the full breadth of it. And you've also shown us kind of a philosophy to have around it and a way to look at income, that may be different than many people have considered before. I have a couple of passive income streams. I've got three books, which have been creating passive revenue on Amazon, the books itself, It's not a life changing amount of income. But, it is like every even a small stream of passive income to something that's well welcomed. I've done, affiliate marketing as well, which, depending on what you sell, some of it can be really nice. And some of it, you have to sell quite a lot of.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah.   Kyle Gray: sometimes with software, selling software, email automation, landing pages, Click Funnels out there is like the ultimate affiliate marketing masters.    Lisa Johnson: There are people that have an entire web page, if you take somebody like, who's a big coach out there, Amy Porterfield, she has an entire web page on her website, saying, these are the things I use and would recommend. And literally every time someone clicks on that, she's going to make money.   Kyle Gray: There's a lot of people with those, it's a nice thing, I've seen it with Pat Flynn, has his tools Lyft for podcasters. That's an excellent one for people who have a lot of content. This is a great, if you have a lot of traffic going through your site. And, there are people interested in a skill and what you're doing and how you're doing it. Yeah, that can be in a very, very promising stream. Or, even if you're a part of an agency or doing services for people, and you need to get them to sign up for something. If you're in a marketing service, then, you might need to get people to sign up for an email marketing platform. And you can provide avenues for passive income.   Kyle Gray: Or if you're writing books, recommending tools and having maybe a recommended tools download. I like the way you looked at, doing a workshop or somethings that aren't... I wouldn't ask commonly associate those with passive income. But you've got a unique approach to how you're working those.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah, so if I find do things like workshops. Well, to be honest with you, if I do things like anything, courses, workshops, whatever, my biggest tip would be to sell fast. So I've never written a course. And then sold it, I've only ever put something out there, seeing if people wanted to buy it, got the money from it, and then created it as I went along, especially the first time. So that's the first thing that people say, "How can you do that?" But actually I think it's a much smarter way of working rather than if people that I see spending six months getting these really polished videos.   Lisa Johnson: And, they're really slick and amazing, but no one wants to buy the product. So first of all, don't create first. The second, with things like workshops, you can have hundreds of people on a workshop if you do it online. So, it's trading time for money, the fast time, but then you can put it out there, time and time again. So the next time it's going out there, you're just making money from doing nothing.   Kyle Gray: Yeah. Okay. So, I have two questions, and now they're battling, in my head. I want to hear about, how you get people into these workshops every month.   Lisa Johnson: Okay, do you mean it's part of my membership? Or how I start creating passive income, right from there?   Kyle Gray: I guess I understand now, the workshops you're giving every month, is that part of a membership?   Lisa Johnson: That's part of a membership,    Kyle Gray: I see.   Lisa Johnson: So people pay me 49 pounds a month to be part of, a membership I have called the Get Shit Done society. And, in that membership, I have a guest come in every month to give a workshop to the people there. So, I make about 200,000 a year from doing that. But I don't do anything, because it's the guest speakers that are coming in and doing the work. I'm just getting my VA to book them.   Kyle Gray: Awesome.   Lisa Johnson: So it's still semi passive, because I still go into the Facebook group and answer questions every now and again. And, and pop in every now and again. But it's a lot more money than you would normally get doing something like that.   Kyle Gray: Okay, so now I remembered my first question. Can you tell me about a time when you tried to pre sell a course. And then you failed, and maybe what you did and what happened because I think a lot of people hearing this, or I've done this myself, when you try and pre sell something or when you're winding up for it, it's scary, because people might not buy it, and that keeps people from maybe even putting themselves out there and taking that risk, because it's actually, easy to make a really polished video and invest in that and feel like you're doing something, it's scary to just get it out there and face it and try and make an offer.   Lisa Johnson: Absolutely. And we've all done it, we've all put something out there that hasn't worked. And I think that's absolutely fine to do that. Because you learn along the way, I've put courses out there where all I had to do was come up with the content, make a sales page, and put it out and launch it out there to my audience. And if it doesn't work, I figured out why it hasn't worked. And it's normally, it's the way to things, that the audience doesn't want it. It isn't what the audience problem is, you're not providing the right solution for them. Or, if you haven't launched properly. And, I have a system that I use that, very early on, when I started making passive income, it was only a year into my business. I started realizing very quickly that actually, I have the time to be, coaching people one to one all the time.   Lisa Johnson: Because I'm going to hit an income ceiling. If I hit this income ceiling, then what am I going to do? I going to make more money. How will I do it? So I started looking at different passive income streams. And, I realized that every time I did it, and I was successful, and every time I showed a client how to do it, and they were successful, I was following a kind of formula. And I have written that into a system, to teach people and it's called the cash system. And, it basically starts with, first of all, knowing who your client is. Because if you know who your client is, you're going to know what they want. So you'll never make mistake again, of putting something out there, that your audience doesn't want. So, this is for client, like know everything about them, just like you would in any other area of your business, you'd know your avatar or whatever you want to call them your ideal client.   Lisa Johnson: And, then once you know who that client is, you can then grow, an audience of exactly those people, using a sales funnel, just like we've all been taught how to use the sales funnel. So, you can build this email list or Facebook group of your ideal clients, you then nurture that ideal client, until you're ready to sell to them. And then when you sell to them, it's about how you launch. And I'm a big believer in doing proper six to eight week, launches, that can all be prepared in advance, and you can launch the same way over and over again. So it's not taking your time again. Try and keep things lean, and then keeping the client happy, so that you retain them in a membership, or re market to them with another course. And that's kind of my system.   Kyle Gray: That makes a lot of sense. And, in your own personal journey. It kind of sounds like, if I were imagining, like I'm trying to visualize a graph in my head, and there's one line, that's the passive income line and the one line, that's the Active Time for money consulting coaching line, and it seems like, the active line started out high, the passive line was low. And they started slowly, like the path of one started slowly going up and active started slowly go down. And so, as this is happening, you were using coaching, and you are using a lot of these things, which aren't necessarily bad things, they're great ways to create your cash flow. And then you use this cash flow, you use your businesses, and you use the money that you're earning from coaching, to invest into these other passive assets, and so that you can dial back the coaching over time as well.   Lisa Johnson: Absolutely. And at the beginning, you don't have a lot of money to do that. Yeah, it's very difficult when you're kind of just getting started, and you're having your first one to one clients to put money into Facebook ads, for example. And Facebook ads, are needed. When it comes to having a big audience. And, I say big, my audience is tiny compared to most people's audiences, I have about 5000 people in my audience, but it took Facebook ads to get them. And then it's on you to nurture them. You can only go so far with Facebook ads. But I remember that at the beginning, I was doing really well with one to one clients. But another reason why I wanted to do passive, is because they were all asking me the same questions over and over again.   Lisa Johnson: And I'm sitting there thinking, I've just had this conversation four times with four different people, how to work out who your ideal client is, how to get over your money mindset. And so, it was smarter for me to say, "Well, why don't I put this into a program and tell them all at the same time." And then I'm only saying it once.   Kyle Gray: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I like it. And it's a journey of, like you were saying, but it's also kind of, your passive income. And I'm almost repeating what you're saying as a factor of how well you understand your customer. And you understand your customer through the process of coaching, and services. And, getting your hands dirty and making mistakes, but also creating a lot of success along the way, until you start to see the patterns and what they're doing.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah, and things that happened to you too, because, my ideal client is a version of me. So, I can look at the mistakes I made and the things I wish I'd known at the beginning, and put that into something that will help others. But also, once you've grown an audience, maybe we say, I've got an audience I don't want to give them, ask them. Right there, right there. Just ask them, "What do you want? What are your problems?" And then make a solution, is as simple as that. Some people like to complicate business, and it isn't complicated.   Kyle Gray: If there were a couple of your favorite questions that you would ask your audience that deliver surprising insights, what would those be?   Lisa Johnson: I ask very regularly. If somebody could give you one thing that would make your business work. What do you think that would be? I also ask things like, if somebody gave you 500 pounds right now or 1000 pounds, what would you spend that money on. And then, if they come back, and they will say, "SEO, I'd spend it on SEO." Then instead of spending 1000 pounds, I can give them something for 50 pounds, that will tell them how to fill an SEO. Because, you can do it cheaper if you have volume, so if I'm going to have 500 people, pay me, 50 pounds to give a workshop on SEO, they don't need to spend 1000 pounds or 500 pounds each, to do that.   Kyle Gray: No.   Lisa Johnson: It's just a way of working smarter instead of harder. And if I'm honest about it, in the first year or a year and a half, I was just working harder and harder and harder. I'm feeling burnt out, I was not spending time with the kids, I'd left the nine to five to work six till 11. And, I was just a bit like this can't be it, this is not the extraordinary life I wanted. I wanted to travel. And I now travel with my twins for about six months of a year, off and on. And once you have passive income, you can do that. And, if you get ill, your business isn't going to stop. If you want to go on holiday, your business isn't going to stop, if you just don't want to work for two weeks, your business isn't going to stop.   Kyle Gray: That is nice. So Lisa, on this journey, you worked really hard, you, took a lot of risks, and you made a lot of investments. And, I always feel that in people's stories, there's always a moment of making a big investment that, at the time feels scary, you kind of feel it in your stomach, and you're like feeling really vulnerable, and you make the investment but then like, it pays off in big and unexpected ways. And you start moving forward. Do you have a story like that?   Lisa Johnson: I have the opposite.   Kyle Gray: Really?   Lisa Johnson: Yes. So, I know people always say that, that hasn't happened to me. What happened to me, the first two big investments I made, those investments where you think, "What am I doing?" Was, 27,000 pound for Facebook Ads Manager, for three months, that delivered nothing, I got no return on investment at all. And so I was scared of Facebook ads for a while. And the second one, was I gave 30,000 pounds, to a coach that was basically a con artist. It seems ridiculous to say this, but it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Because it made me realize really early on, what values mattered to me, being a coach, I was going to be like and it's really helped me to be successful, knowing those things.   Lisa Johnson: So in one way, yes. And do my due diligence around, when I now buy something, I didn't do my due diligence at the beginning, I handed over 27,000 pounds to a Facebook person because they were everywhere. And, they looked like they were working with some really good people. But I didn't speak to anybody. I didn't quiz them. I just handed over the money. Those two lessons, with that coach, and that Facebook Ads manager, have made me really smart in business.   Kyle Gray: Wow. He's like the best worst coach.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah, exactly.   Kyle Gray: It would be like, a Zen master who like is just a jerk.    Lisa Johnson: A mistress, it was a woman.   Kyle Gray: Oh, mistress.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah.   Kyle Gray: Is that masterers. Oh, my gosh.    Lisa Johnson: Yeah. I kind of want to get across to people, it's okay, if you make these ridiculous mistakes, it doesn't mean that you stop. And you'll be really wary of doing things. And since that day, I've invested 150,000 in different coaches and courses to learn everything that I need to learn and to be supported by people, strategy and mindset wise. And if I'd have let her stop me, that wouldn't have happened. So I think it's really important that when you make mistakes, you don't worry about it, you just carry on, and you learn something from them, because then it will still help you.   Kyle Gray: Beautiful lot. That is an excellent way to bring all of that together. And, you mentioned you were afraid of Facebook ads. But now currently, you've grown your audience with Facebook ads. And so, you've learned something in between these two points and, something has changed. Can you tell me a little bit about your philosophy with ads or, how you see ads now, that you're handling them you yourself.   Lisa Johnson: I'm still, at this in between stage with ads. So, the first time I grew an audience, it took me six months to get around 1500 people in a Facebook group. And I did it completely organically, which was great because I spent no money. And then I put a course out to them. And I made 60,000 pounds. The second time, I decided I wanted to do it quicker. So I was going to use Facebook ads. So I paid 2000 pounds per month, for three months in Facebook ads to grow the same amount of people, I put a course out there and I made the same amount of money. So, it was just quicker. That's all, it didn't give me more people. It was just quicker. And then, interestingly enough, I've been using Facebook ads since then. And this year, very early this year, I did a launch. And, I've always used Facebook ads, and I did a launch and I couldn't use ads, because the word passive, was suddenly blocked by Facebook, you weren't allowed to use it.   Lisa Johnson: And my course is called passion for passive. So there was no way of getting around it. And as I changed the whole thing. So I just said, You know what, I do it with no ads, I'm just going to launch with no ads. And I made 130,000. So I made all that I had the other time. So then that kind of taught that actually, for me, my philosophy on using ads, is to use ads to get people into your world. So use Facebook ads, like on a monthly regular basis with a sales funnel or with a nurturer sequence to get people into a group or onto your email list. Because then when you launch, you don't need to use lots of Facebook ad money to launch because the people are already there, they've already been nurtured by you and you can sell to them.   Kyle Gray: Oh that sounds good.   Lisa Johnson: That's now, my philosophy on doing it, rather than chucking, 10,000. In every time I launch.   Kyle Gray: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you've got a community that you can continue to reach and create content for. I think that's really thoughtful.   Lisa Johnson: Most of my community will buy time and time again. So although, I remember looking at Facebook ad costs and thinking well hold on a minute, my entry level product is 49 pounds a month, and it's costing me four pounds to get each lead that I can sell the entry level product to. You've always got to remember the lifetime value of a client. So most of my clients, the average spends 14,000, they start at 49 pounds, but then they do other things. So, it's always worth remembering that even though Facebook ads consuming and costly, if you have a number of different products, it's still worth it.   Kyle Gray: So, right now, I would be interested to hear what you think of this, in my own personal business. I've put together a large audience around this podcast and around my books and around this following. And then I have an agency, where I'm teaching people how to do great presentations. I'm mostly working with a specific niche audience. But I get a lot of those people from traveling to conferences and workshops and either facilitating those or teaching at them, or being present, but it's a lot of handshaking.    Lisa Johnson: Relationship building.   Kyle Gray: Yeah, yeah. But I've kind of felt that, the audience and my kind of online following, which is around the same size, has been kind of a resource that I haven't really connected with. Yeah.   Lisa Johnson: Okay.   Kyle Gray: And, they're interested in the same kinds of content. My books are all around storytelling, content marketing, and presentation. So I'm still in the same area. But yeah, I guess I haven't put together my own lower ticket products.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah.   Kyle Gray: Yeah, and I haven't been as successful in having kind of launches around those, but I'm able to be at a place and make relationships and find high end clients    Lisa Johnson: But you do actually have this audience of low end clients that you're not promoting anything for, you're leaving money on the table, because not everybody can afford, the high ticket.   Kyle Gray: Yeah.   Lisa Johnson: So, they can afford even the mid tier ticket, if you still have fans that want to buy something from you, and you're not giving them anything to buy that's leaving money on the table. So, I would be saying to you, "Okay, the audience that you have now, what do you think they want from you? What do you think they want to learn from you?"   Kyle Gray: There's a couple of things. I get a lot of questions around setting up my podcast and how I run this show, or how I do some of my video podcast episodes, which I've just released a couple of those, or, I get a lot of interest in writing books since I've written them. And I've also been ghostwriting for a couple of people as well. So, there's a couple of those. And then, I've been working, I've been getting a lot of people, interested in speaking and presentations, speaking on stage and on webinars. And so, those are a lot of the areas that I have expertise in.    Lisa Johnson: But there's so much, to do with them. There's so much with that. I mean, just from first thoughts, I'd be thinking, "There are so many people that want to know how to do a podcast." I was one of them, I just paid someone to do it for me. But if there was a membership for people that wanted to do podcast, get more listeners, all the things that you know, I'd be setting up a membership for them, first off. Where you just go in and teach once a month or twice a month or whatever. And there's maybe a little course in there as well. Speaking, I'll do a workshop on and monetize that workshop once and then monetize it as a tripwire on my funnel. And then, when it comes to things like writing a book, that's a brilliant course.    Kyle Gray: Oh my gosh, I have two dead course   Lisa Johnson: It doesn't need to be. All it needs to do, is get them the results they want. And they'll still pay you for it. So, if you can do a six step, this is what you need to do to write your book and some accountability there. Then, you could sell that, and it's just about how you launch it, you've already got an audience.   Kyle Gray: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's true. And, recently, I brought on a really, really talented team. And so we have much more horsepower too, and mind power to coordinate a more interesting launch. And so, I'm excited. We've been doing a lot of good client work recently. And I think we've been really coming together building great sales pages and presentations and all these things. And now I'm excited because I think it's finally time to, direct that energy inward.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah.   Kyle Gray: Yeah, at least create. One big goal is to create a passively generation system. So, an automated webinar, and attracting people with Facebook ads too. If nothing else, get client calls.   Lisa Johnson: If you are going to do that, then you may as well have a set out at the end of it to something small that's passive, write an Ebook on the equipment you need when starting a podcast.   Kyle Gray: Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Lisa Johnson: And just sell that. You may as well have a trick, why? Because, when people buy from you once, even if it's a small amount, they're much more likely to buy from you again, with a bigger amount.   Kyle Gray: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I could have dozens of, simple courses that-   Kyle Gray: I like creating or I try to create smaller things, these days, that are just easy, and like a short result that makes a lot of sense.   Kyle Gray: My old courses were a big. They weren't the biggest, but they were like five or six hours of content.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah.   Kyle Gray: And I like having them really focused, I tried to write my new book, Selling With Story, I set out to be like this is going to be a short book, 100 pages. It's just going to be the essentials. And I couldn't do it. It turned into a long book, or, I don't know, there's like 220 or something pages.    Lisa Johnson: Longer than you wanted.   Kyle Gray: Longer than I set out to write. Yeah.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah. And just make sure that, the smartest thing to do, is just to put a poll, to your audience, and, give them choices and say, "If I was going to teach you this, this, this and this, what are you most interested in?" And just create the one they want. Not the one you want to give them.   Kyle Gray: Sounds good. Yeah, we were actually, just planning on doing a poll to the audience. So yeah, yeah, we're going to be asking that soon. I'll reach out to you and let them know.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah.   Kyle Gray: I bet it'll be funny, it might be just your instincts.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah, you never know. And, I've had, really wrong instincts, where I've said, "I know what they want, they want this." And actually, then I put that out there and nobody's bought it. And they want something that I haven't even thought of, that's much more basic. So, I've put things out before about how to make passive income, and what they actually want, are the stage there at that time is, how to just grow the Facebook group. That's all they need, just, how do we grow this audience. And so then I've created that for them. And it's so brilliantly.   Kyle Gray: That's funny. Since I work with, a lot of functional medicine, kind of practitioners, chiropractors, those types of people, who are very, very smart at what they do, but, often, how they talk, and they talk in terms of protocols. And, they think about how they're going to do something, but they always miss the point of what the person actually wants and needs to hear. And so it's one of the best things that I do is always reminding them about the basic things. But it's funny because whatever you become an expert in, you get these blind spots.   Lisa Johnson: You do.   Kyle Gray: And I feel like you need to be working with, I think brilliant people outside of yourself. And always, as we've kind of come back to time and time again, in this interview, have a real pulse on your audience.   Lisa Johnson: Yeah, it's really good advice to have people around you that can kind of help you with those blind spots. Really good advice.   Kyle Gray: Well, Lisa, we have explored quite a lot today, and I've had so much fun talking to you.   Lisa Johnson: Me too.   Kyle Gray: Do you have any closing thoughts? And after that, let us know where we can engage with you more.   Lisa Johnson: Sure. The biggest thing that I would say, if you're thinking about making passive income, just start growing your audience, even if you don't know what your passive income is going to be, if you know who you want to help, who your audience is going to be, just start growing them. You don't have to have it all figured out yet. But the longer you take wasting, not growing an audience, you're going to have to do that later on. So just start with that, and take it step by step. And, if you want to hang out where I hang out, I have a Facebook group called, The Fabulous 5%. And I'm on there every day just having chats about passive income.   Kyle Gray: Lisa, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you again for sharing your wisdom with us on The Story Engine Podcast.   Lisa Johnson: Thanks for having me.   Kyle Gray: Thanks for listening to the Story Engine Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes and resources mentioned on this episode and every other episode at thestoryengine.co. If you're looking to learn more about how to use storytelling to grow your business, then check out my new book, Selling With Story: How to Use Storytelling to Become an Authority, Boost Sales, and Win the Hearts and Minds of Your Audience. This book will equip you with actionable strategies and templates to help you share your unique value and build trust in presentations, sales, and conversations, both online and offline. Learn more at sellingwithstory.co. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.

This week we've got one lucky listener Lisa, who's having both of her property investment related questions answered. First of all, Lisa wants to know if she should manage her new buy to let property herself or whether she should be working with a lettings agent? She already has one property in the south that's fully managed by a lettings agent, so she's wanting to know if she should stick with that for her second investment property or just give it a go herself. Whilst Lisa's second property is in Manchester and she lives locally, Rob B doesn't feel that she should self-manage just because she lives nearby. It's completely Lisa's decision but Rob's happy to chip in with his reasoning from a personal perspective. Secondly, Lisa is looking at buying another flat this year and has her eye on Manchester and Liverpool. However, she's noticed a lot of properties on the market waiting to be rented out. So Lisa wants to know if The Robs have any advice on what she should prepare herself for, and what she can do to rent out her property quickly. Can Rob D provide some reassurance and a firm reason where there are so many properties on the market in two large (and very popular) city centres? Of course he can. Tune in to find out! Do you have a buy to let or property investment related question for Rob & Rob? You could feature on the next episode by giving us a call on 013 808 00035 and leaving a message with your name and question (normal UK call rates apply). Or if you prefer, click here to leave a recording via your computer instead. The next question on Ask Rob & Rob could be yours. Have you joined us over on the Property Hub Forum yet? Our online community is friendly, informative, and the members are waiting to welcome you with open arms. So get yourself over and introduce yourself. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi everybody, I'm Brian Clapp Director of Content for WorkinSports.com and this is the Work in Sports podcast…Coming up this week – very excited to have Lisa Bregman, Seattle Seahawks Director of Marketing on the show coming up Wednesday. We are set to conduct our interview later this afternoon, and if all goes according to plan, and it should, Lisa will be Wednesday's guest.Just to show you all I practice what I preach – I met Lisa at the Sports Industry Networking Conference, SINC, about 5 years ago. At that time she was the LA Galaxy's Manager of Digital and Social Media, and we struck up a conversation. I didn't have the podcast at the time, so I wasn't working the angles for guests, it was just a chance to meet someone in the industry who was interesting.  We've stayed in touch over the years, and just last month I thought – Lisa, of course, she'd be a great guest!I don't like the word networking… I prefer relationship building, but whatever you call it, it matters and it works. She needed to get the Seahawks approval for the interview, and I'm telling you, if we hadn't met before and built up a contact, I doubt she would have bothered having to run through the steps of getting PR approval. Busy people in high-pressure roles don't tend to look for ways to add more to their plate unless it's worth it.So Lisa on Wednesday… it'll be awesome, she's great.Now, a little behind the scenes of the podcast. I never know what I'm going to talk about Monday morning. I really try to shut off work over the weekend, so I'm not brainstorming ideas. I'm not thinking about relevant sports industry questions while I'm at my kid's soccer game… I'm thinking about my kid's soccer game.Not to sound preachy but, be present in your moments people.I start my day Monday morning and look for inspiration – what am I feeling, what are people asking, where is the conversation going.I checked our private facebook group – again if you are not a member of that group what is wrong with you? 1,251 people all focused in on networking and asking sports career focused questions and helping each other out..plus many of our past guests are active in the group,  like Chris Valente Director of Sales for Fenway Sports Management, he literally posted something this weekend when group member Shawn Stewart posted a question asking if anyone had heard of SponsorUnited a company he was interviewing with.Think about that a second – you ask “Just had a phone interview for a Virtual Sponsorship Intern position for the LA Chargers with SponsorUnited. Has anyone heard anything about this company? Wish me luck!”And the Director of Sales for Fenway Sports Management responds:“They are revolutionizing the way teams get data on sponsorships. We (The Red Sox) bought their product. Great company”Um, hello! Where the hell else does that happen! So join the group already – search for the Work in Sports podcast in Facebook, answer a few easy questions, and I'll let you in.If you say something nice about me, I'll let you in even faster. Flattery works people, don't think it doesn't.Anyway, I bring this up, because checking our private facebook group I see this incredible question from Marlon Vigan,“Do you think an advanced degree works against you in getting a job in sports? I already work for teams on a part-time/game day basis, but looking for advancement within. Any suggestions/advice???”This question had 26 comments and clearly sparked some important conversation – so it seems like a great place to start today's podcast, right?Marlon! My man let's talk advance degrees.First I want to start with a message for everyone – you have to pursue a master's with a specific intention. A Master's, especially in sports, is not a delay tactic. I hear this all the time, “I'm about to graduate, don't know what I want to do, so I'm going to go get my master's while I figure it out”BUZZERWrong answer, this does not work in sports.In the business world,

GUEST BIO: Lisa is a software tester who enjoys sharing her experiences and learning from others.  She is also the co-author of “More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team” and “Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Agile Testers and Agile Teams”.  And in 2012 Lisa was voted the most influential agile testing professional person. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Phil’s guest on today’s show is Lisa Crispin. She has spent much of her career working within the testing sphere. Today, she is also an author, public speaker and trainer. Lisa is the co-author of several books including Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Agile Testers and Agile Teams. In 2012, she was voted as the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person. She is currently working with mabl who specialize in automated regression testing services. KEY TAKEAWAYS: (1.02) – So Lisa, can you expand on that brief introduction and tell us a little bit more about yourself? Lisa explains that she has been involved in the industry for a long time, so has seen a lot of change. She is currently working with mabl out of Boston, a start-up that provides an innovative automated testing service. But, Lisa does a lot of other things too. For example, with Janet Gregory she has written books and put together a video course. Lisa also said that she likes to spend her free time looking after her donkeys, who are still adapting to the move from Colorado to Vermont. (2.12) – Phil asks Lisa for a unique IT career tip. Lisa’s biggest tip is to ask questions. It helps you to learn and lets others know that you like to learn. It also helps the person answering the questions to think. As a tester that is 2nd nature for Lisa, but she knows this is not the case for everyone. (3.04) – Phil comments that a lot of people who are new to the industry are concerned about asking questions because they are afraid that it shows a lack of knowledge. Do you see that often? Lisa says yes people want to come across as confident and accentuate what they know. But, as a tester you have to ask questions. Doing that is the only way to uncover the unknown unknowns. That only happens when you ask the right questions. Lisa explains that testers have to be big picture people. They have to keep the end user in mind at all times, which their role as tester allows them to do because they are not focused on the code. (4.07) – Lisa is asked to share her worst career moment by Phil. Lisa explains that some years ago a company tracked her down, told her they were admirers of her work and offered her a job. She was flattered and intrigued, but still did her due diligence, after which she accepted the job. But, on the first day they did something that was not in line with her values. She knew immediately she had made a mistake, but pushed that feeling aside and carried on working with them. Within 6 months she ended up leaving and, fortunately, going back to her old job. (6.02) – Phil asks Lisa what would she do differently now. Lisa said there were no warning signs before she started the job, but, now she would listen to her gut. She would pause and ask herself why she felt that way. Often your subconscious is telling you something important, so it is best to pay attention to those feelings. If she had done that, she would have left that unsuitable job straight away. (6.35) – Phil asks Lisa what her best career moment was. Lisa starts by sharing the fact that helping people is something she loves, so being able to do that is a big plus, for her. She was also lucky enough to spend many years working for a company that valued, respected and trusted their IT team. The team was great they really gelled. Importantly, the IT team was involved in many business decisions and they had significant input into what tools they developed for the firm. (9.00) – Phil asks what excites Lisa about the future for the IT industry. As a tester Lisa can see the need and benefits of using machine learning for testing. So, that excites her and she is currently learning as much as she can about it. AI has the potential to take on the burden of much of the boring tedious work, which frees up our time to do more with our brains and intuition. (10.24) – What drew you to a career in IT, Lisa? Basically, it was the fact that she needed a job and wanted to move to Austin. She saw an advert for programmer trainees, took the aptitude test. They wanted people with business knowledge to work on accounting and payroll systems. Knowledge Lisa had because she had formally worked a government job. (11.22) – What is the best career advice you’ve ever received? Lisa says that came from one of her line managers. He explained that a good leader makes sure people know what they and their team are contributing. She feels that this is part of the reason she has had such a successful career. The role of testers is not well understood and what they contribute can easily be overlooked. It is important tok how to get around that issue so that you and your team are properly recognized and rewarded. Phil agrees, he has also noticed that it is hard for testers to demonstrate their contribution. (13.01) – If you were to start your IT career again, now, what would you do? Lisa says she would actually stick with testing and helping others. (13.32) – Phil asks Lisa what career objectives she is currently focusing on. She believes that she has a great future as a testing advocate. The way she likes to work and her experience means that she is able to reach out to both the testers and the people who use their services and draw them together. She has a deep understanding of both worlds and is a good connector. Lisa also enjoys helping people to learn, so that will be one of her focuses. So, she will carry on with her blog and public speaking. (14.41) – What is the non-technical skill that has helped you the most in your IT career? Lisa thinks it is probably her leadership skills. From an early stage she knew she wanted to manage. So, Lisa has always worked to hone those skills. Interestingly, she pointed out that you can be a leader regardless of what your title is. You just need to be willing to be a change agent and show the way to make things better. (15.44) – Phil asks Lisa to share a final piece of career advice. Be brave and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Lisa is a shy person, so often has to do things that make her feel a little uneasy. So, she works within her comfort zone for a while to build up the energy she needs while working outside of her comfort zone, so that she can get important things done. She also points out that you need to overcome your fear of asking for help. After all, not asking for help when you need it can easily lead to a disaster. BEST MOMENTS:  (2.37) LISA – “My biggest tip is going to be to ask questions, you know, learn and show that you'd like to learn and learn what you need to learn about.” (5.58) LISA – “"We all learn from failure. There's no real failure, right? Just learning moments." (10.06) LISA – “I think AI just has a lot of potential to help us put more of the boring, tedious repetitive work on two machines, and free up our time to use our human brains and senses and intuition.” (11.36) LISA – “An important part of leadership is making sure that people know what you contributed, and what your team contributed, you had to make that visible.” CONTACT LISA CRISPIN: Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisacrispin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-crispin-88420a/ Website: https://www.lisacrispin.com

Can a made-for-tv movie about a broken marriage have polyamorous content in it?  Joreth reviews this Judith Light film to see if there is any polyamory in a low-budget, '80s flick. The Netflix summary reads: "Judith Light stars in this sexy made-for-TV drama about a married woman who discovers that her husband of 23 years has been unfaithful. Just as she finds passionate love in another man's arms and prepares to divorce her husband, he suddenly has a stroke and becomes physically incapacitated. Will she move back in with her husband and take care of him ... even though she may risk losing her new lover?" When a movie arrives in my mailbox, I don't always remember if I put it in my queue because it was on a poly list somewhere or because Netflix recommended it to me as "similar" to the poly movies I just added to my queue. Judging by the summary, I assumed this was one of the latter types of "poly" movies. I sat down with this movie with the lowest of expectations, prepared to hate it for yet another cheating drama that would probably end with some kind of choice being made, and possibly even a choice I would think was toxic or foolish. I couldn't have been more wrong. And I love it when I'm wrong about things like this. First of all, the Netflix summary gets the order of events wrong, which is partially why I had such low expectations. Lisa is married to Eric, a charismatic, charming film maker who hasn't made a film in 7 years and spends his time gambling with the money he steals from his wife and fucking his secretary. We are introduced to this plot by meeting a loan shark's thug who has come to intimidate Lisa at work in the very first scene. Eric is the kind of guy I loathe - an idealistic dreamer who has absolutely no connection to reality and thinks his charm entitles him to break the rules and treat everyone around him like shit. But he's charming, and a lot of women find themselves in love with charming users like this. And once you're in love, it becomes all too easy to overlook, to excuse, and to rationalize, until you are trapped - held hostage by your own emotions. But Lisa finds her spine and prepares to leave now that both of her children are out of the house and in college. Except that the day she actually gets the courage to leave, she gets a call from her daughter saying that her husband has had a stroke. So Lisa returns home to care for her husband. What I really like about how the writer treated this situation is that he made no secret of the resentment that Lisa feels at being trapped again, by her love and her responsibility to Eric. She moves back home to care for him, but she is also excrutiatingly honest when she tells him that their marriage is over and she is only there because her conscience won't let her abandon a dying man who is also the father of her children. I found this to be a bold, courageous choice in storytelling because it is not socially acceptable to be "mean" to someone who is sick and/or dying. Being struck with a crippling illness doesn't erase that person's past as a jerk, and it doesn't necessarily change them, automatically, into a nice person either. It might be inconvenient timing, but leaving someone or disliking someone who has had a near-fatal incident doesn't necessarily make that person a bad person. And that's a really bitter pill for some people to swallow. The rest of the movie follows Lisa as she attempts to recover from the financial ruin her husband has put her into with his gambling while now being financially responsible for his medical care, and two people with a painful history learning to live together with a debilitating and life-threatening illness. Now for the poly stuff. Enter Art, the mechanic who takes pity on Lisa when her car breaks down and she tries to work out a payment plan because she can't afford to pay the bill. Art starts doing stuff around the house for her to make her life a little easier. And in the process, he falls in love. I won't give away the ending or the details, but what transpires is a very touching story of a woman who learns to fall back in love with her husband while discovering love with someone new. And, even more touching is the story of a man who loves his wife but who is ultimately selfish and is then forced to re-evaluate his priorities and deal with the fact that she loves another man. This is also the very touching story of a man who falls in love with a married woman, who shows us what true love is - the desire to see another person happy and to facilitate that happiness, whatever it means. If she still loves her husband, then her husband must be kept around and must be honored as the man she loves. I think this is a good example of the kinds of situations that people can relate to - a bridge between the poly and mono worlds. It's not really a poly analogue because she flat out says that she is in love with two men. We see the tension between the metamours, we see the disapproval of the children and the neighbors, we see the resentment of being held back, and the loving amazement when poly works well. It's just a story told within the framework of a situation that non-polys might be able to sympathize with ... a setup that puts a monogamous person in a very difficult position where things are no longer black and white. What do you do when your husband & father of your children is an asshole but you still love him? What do you do when you are trapped in a marriage that is over but love finds your doorstep anyway? What do you do when you are financially strapped and alone and someone offers no-strings-attached help simply because he thinks you could use it? What do you do when you fall in love with someone you are not supposed to love? This was one of those poly-ish type movies - a situation that lives on the fuzzy borders of what is and is not polyamory. But the tone of the movie, the scenes between the metamours, the complexity of emotion, the selfless version of love, all make me feel that this movie fits quite squarely into the polyamory category in spite of any debate over which configurations really "count". I recommend this movie, both for the poly-ish movie list and to watch.

Podcast Summary: Consumers continue to increase their digital footprints and more personalization, but at the same time less invasion into their privacy. In this podcast we will dive into how organizations can maintain the consumer's privacy while still utilizing personalization in marketing tactics. Resources: Blog: https://blog.dieboldnixdorf.com/personalization-vs-privacy-balancing-act-retailers/#.W0Zc-NJKjIU DN website: www.dieboldnixdorf.com COMMERCE NOW website: www.commercenow.libsyn.com Transcription: Introduction: Amy:                                     00:16                     Hello, and welcome to Commerce Now, your source for fintech conversations, along with emerging trends in the banking and retail industries. I'm your host, Amy Lombardo. Amy:                                     00:25                     In today's topic we'll discuss how consumers continue to increase their digital footprints, and demand more personalization, but the same time, less invasion into their privacy. In this podcast we'll dive into how organizations can maintain the consumer's privacy, while still utilizing personalization in marketing tactics. Amy:                                     00:46                     Today, I'm joined by two members of Diebold Nixdorf's Legal and Compliance department: Lisa Radigan, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, and Stefan Limbacher, Global Data Privacy Officer. Each will share their input and perspective on this relevant and timely topic: Personalization Versus Privacy. Amy:                                     01:05                     So thanks for joining me today, Lisa and Stefan. Stefan:                                 01:09                     Thank you for having us. Lisa:                                       01:09                     Thank you, Amy, it's great to be here. SECTION 1 –WHAT DOES GDPR STAND FOR? / WHAT IS GDPR? Amy:                                     01:11                     Okay, so, let's jump into the conversation. Let's start at the highest level what GDPR stands for. There's so much buzz, whether your business is B2B or B2C around balancing that right level of data gathering with then the data privacy. So look at any recent news coverage you see, or even check your own personal email and you can't avoid all the privacy policies or opt-ins that are hitting your inbox. Amy:                                     01:35                     So, Lisa, can you tell me what exactly is GDPR? Lisa:                                       01:38                     So, GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation. It's an EU law that really is designed to harmonize a number of EU laws that has existed for quite some time. And to provide a standard across, EU countries, that gives consumers and anyone who has any kind of personal data some additional protections around how that data is used. So it's really just a, a universal framework to provide some consistency. But it will of course impact all companies who end up touching personal data that goes through the EU in any way. Amy:                                     02:22                     Okay. And we see the news, we hear the buzz that consumers are uneasy about the means that marketers are using to acquire information about them. So it's important to know what material they're willing to provide to get these personalized communications. Amy:                                     02:38                     So with that said, why do you think consumers are more willing to share information with certain organizations over others? Stefan:                                 02:46                     Data is being regarded as the oil of our age. So, people will become more and more aware of its value. And I think the key thing is to create an environment where people are confident that their privacy is being protected. If you create an environment like that, then, people will be more willing to share private information. And it will be easier for business to gather information required for them. Stefan:                                 03:18                     So I think this is a target that can be achieved by these new laws, these new privacy laws which are popping up all over the globe at the moment. Amy:                                     03:29                     Okay, thank you. So, the GDPR was effective May 25th of this year in Europe. How do you feel the GDPR is effecting the balance between personalization and privacy here in the US? Lisa:                                       03:43                     So, it's interesting you say it was effective on May 25th, that's partially accurate, it's actually been in place since April of 2016, but it will be applicable starting on May 25th in Europe, which basically means starting on May 25th, companies really need to be fully ready for all of the different ways in which GDPR will be applicable to them. Lisa:                                       04:08                     So at Diebold Nixdorf, we actually kicked off our program to get GDPR ready about two years ago, because there's really quite a lot of work that we've been doing and that a number of companies are doing and will continue to do to make sure that we're compliant with GDPR. Lisa:                                       04:26                     GDPR will impact the US because lots of data from the US flows through Europe, or into Europe somehow. And so really it's becoming just the gold standard on how companies deal with and manage data that crosses their systems. You know, the world is a small place anymore, and lots and lots of other countries around the world, including, frankly, in the US, are adopting similar rules, similar regulations to what the principles of the GDPR require. Lisa:                                       05:03                     For instance we're really taking the view that the GDPR while applicable in Europe, we really view it as the standard that we will use globally and you know, I think lots of companies will end up doing the same, because the flow of data simply is difficult to stop at the borders of Europe. Amy:                                     05:24                     Got it. So you said that from your opinion this could become the global standard. So do you see it cascading to other areas of the world? Stefan:                                 05:33                     Yes, actually, I think it's happening right now. So if you look into what's going on in Latin America, and in Asia Pac-Pacific, there, currently is legislation being drafted that picks up on a lot of issues that are dealt with in the GDPR. And, I think this is a process that will be even accelerated by incidents like, Cambridge Analytica. So, data privacy is on people's minds and as you said rightfully in the beginning, you know, people are bombarded with emails around this, and, yeah, I think the sensitivity is at a peak at the moment. Stefan:                                 06:15                     Global legislation that is coming into place is picking up on GDPR and that is also one of the reasons why Diebold Nixdorf has chosen GDPR to be its gold standard for its global data privacy program. SECTION 2: HOW COULD GDPR AFFECT BANKS AND RETAILERS? Amy:                                     06:37                     Okay, got it. So, let's switch gears and talk a little on how GDPR effects banks and retailers. So we talked about earlier how organizations should have in effect a robust data privacy approach. So what is the policy if there is a security breach under the GDPR? Lisa:                                       07:00                     Under the GDPR there are lots of rules around what you need to do around data breaches. There's the so-called 72-Hour Rule, which basically means you have to inform data protection authorities or potentially even some data subjects if it's a potentially relevant incident that's occurred. Lisa:                                       07:23                     Data breach notification rules have been around for quite some time, both in Europe and in the US. Lots of US states have these obligations where companies are required to notify when a breach occurs. Lots of companies, including ours, have now established formal breach notification policies to make sure that if a breach occurs that it's escalated appropriately within the organization and is dealt with quickly so that we can adhere to these really quite stringent notification laws. Amy:                                     08:05                     Okay. So let's talk a little bit about how businesses actually compile the data on a consumer. Are there best practices to get the most information out of a consumer but without offending them? Stefan could you comment on that? Stefan:                                 08:23                     There are a couple of principles that you need to adhere to. So, the general principle of data privacy is that you're not allowed to process it unless you have a legal reason to do so. For example: Consent or contracts or compliance with a legal obligation or legitimate interest, so you need to be aware what is your legal basis. That is key. Stefan:                                 08:57                     We’re analyzing every instance where we are touching personal data and we're determining what is our legal basis.  Secondly you need to consider the principle of the data privacy by design. So, that means that you may only process the data which is absolutely required for your goal, and you can't collect any useless information. So you have to focus on what you really need, and what, what fits your purpose. Stefan:                                 09:31                     As a fair point, you need to delete data which is no longer required and you need to have in place an eraser or data erasure process that ensures that you're not accumulating data which is no longer required. So, coming back to your question, it's the wrong question, "How can I collect as much data as possible?" That is actually already not in line with the spirit of data privacy. You should ask, "What actually do I need?" And only limit yourself to that data which is actually required for your purpose. Stefan:                                 10:10                     I think when you do that you'll have a different experience yourself processing the data. And if you convey that to your, customers and if your customers can feel that and this is your prime directive when you process data, then I think they will be more willing to give you the data that you actually require. Lisa:                                       10:33                     And if I can just jump in quickly on, on this point, too ... I think in terms of best practices for how can companies really deal with and manage data and personal information that they're coming across? I think the key, really, to any compliance program, and certainly to anything around data privacy is to make sure that your program is not static and it needs to continue to evolve and continue to grow and change as the business changes, as the needs of particular data changes. Lisa:                                       11:05                     And I think the GDPR is really quite focused on that, to make sure that you're collecting data for a specific purpose and you're using it for that purpose and you're really evaluating, "Okay, why do we need this? Is there a better or more efficient way to get it? Should we be deleting it at different times?" It really forces companies to think hard about their programs and not just to have it be, you know, "We've put in a policy and it sits on a shelf and nobody's touched it for years." Lisa:                                       11:39                     You have to really engage in the topic and it has to be sort of top of mind for people as we continue to go forward. I think Stefan's absolutely right; data is (Laughs) by far going to be kind of the oil of our age. And making sure that we're taking care of it appropriately is really one of the things that GDPR is concerned with. Amy:                                     12:04                     Okay. I actually wanted to drill into something that you had mentioned, Stefan. But is there a way you could give me an example of what a legal obligation is? So you had mentioned that you can collect the data if it's part of a legal obligation. Can you share an example of that? Stefan:                                 12:23                     So for example, if you’re an employee of a company, the company is collecting your data that is in connection with fulfilling its contract with you. So it can make payments, for example, to you. Once you're terminated or once that labor agreement was terminated, you no longer have that, contractual obligation to have the data. Actually you would then need to delete the data. Stefan:                                 12:50                     There is in many countries a legal obligation to keep data on your employees for a certain amount of years. So, the authorities can check that proper tax payments have been made, and Social Security payments have been made. So there are sometimes legal obligations to keep data. Amy:                                     13:11                     Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for that. Amy:                                     13:14                     So Lisa, as we've discussed, consumers continue to use new forms of technology, and they have this overarching expectations of organizations. So, one for the business to better understand them as individuals, but then also to protect their privacy. So can you tell us a little bit about what are some steps organizations can take in regards to the personalization aspect? Is there a way to strike that perfect balance? Lisa:                                       13:43                     Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at kind of the goals of personalization and privacy it seems like they could be potentially contradictory, but really the key to companies managing and handling their data that they receive from their customers appropriately is to make sure that the consumer or the customer are really in the driver's seat. That the consumer knows the data that's being given to the company. That they have control over how that data is used. They give really, an informed consent around, how that data will continue to be used in the future, and that they know where that data is going. Lisa:                                       14:29                     We really think that data privacy is going to ultimately drive quite a lot of innovation around this. I think if you go back, you know, three, four, five years ago, the goal was really just gather as much data as you possibly can about people, or gather as many people's data as you can and try to then send out marketing materials or whatever you're going to use that data for. I think going forward the focus will need to be certainly on making sure that you have the right data from the right people, which ultimately will then allow you to really target people who may want to actually use your products or purchase your products. Lisa:                                       15:11                     So, I think it's ultimately going to drive quite a lot of innovation. Hopefully that will be innovation that's beneficial not only for the company who's collecting the data, but ultimately for the consumer as well to make the ways in which they're engaging with an organization much more, productive and meaningful to the end consumer. Amy:                                     15:38                     Yep, and that makes total sense in this age of innovation and technology advancements and we're in a world where digital engagement is really paramount to the day-to-day operations of global organizations. So Stefan, do you see that the GDPR and any future mandates could affect the digital ecosystem? Stefan:                                 15:59                     Let me take an example: So at the moment, you're getting all these emails from companies making you aware that you need to opt-in to receive future information from companies. The marketing guys of those companies, they will hate this, because, the information you're sending out, the newsletters you're sending out, they will lose a lot of reach when you're asking for an opt-in from consumers. Stefan:                                 16:29                     But in the end when you do that you will focus on those consumers that are actually interested in receiving your email, because they actively said, "Yes, I want to get this information. This information is useful for me." And, I think in the end you, you might lose 80% of addressees of your newsletters, but in the end you can focus on those 20% for which the information is actually relevant and that I am actually going to use the information. Stefan:                                 17:02                     So, I think the businesses will need to learn that data privacy is not about the amount, it's not about the size of your database, it's about the quality. And also, when you're developing products it is really focusing how can I achieve the most with the least amount of personal related data. Amy:                                     17:27                     You're so right, Stefan, because I am one of those marketing guys or gals, I should say, that has a challenge here, and has to figure out how do we find that balance. And, you're right, the people that want to engage with you, they will be okay with selecting that opt-in, because obviously they find value in what you are providing to them. Lisa:                                       17:50                     Its gonna be a painful process for sure, and I think we're already starting to see that. But I think ultimately at the end of the day, you're going to be connecting in much more meaningful ways. Both from a company perspective and from and end consumer perspective. Amy:                                     18:05                     Exactly. And that touches the whole concept of connected commerce providing these personalized and meaningful touchpoints in a way that a consumer wants to engage. Amy:                                     18:15                     Okay, so do we feel that consumers could become fearful of technology that requires personal data sharing? Lisa, what do you think on that? Lisa:                                       18:26                     I think certainly, that's an increasing threat. I think it's something that everybody thinks about when they, you engage with companies that collect personal data. I mean, we've seen in the news, Cambridge Analytica, and similar-type, organizations that are using and leverage personal data in a way that maybe people didn't know about, didn't understand. It allows for targeting of consumers in a way that people don't understand. Lisa:                                       18:58                     I think also, continuing to educate consumers and to make consumers feel comfortable through transparency really, on how their data is actually being used will ultimately, hopefully (Laughs) eliminate some of those fears. That’s what various privacy initiatives like GDPR, like a number of state and federal laws in the US, and a number of laws around the world are really aiming to get at. Lisa:                                       19:32                     It’s not about, you know, sort of everybody crawling back under a rock and reverting to, (Laughs) paper. Uh, everybody understands and acknowledges that we live in a digital and a connected world, and there's a need to exchange data. But with that, there's really a need to make sure that people have knowledge and understand how that data is being used, and how that data is being shared. So, I think there's certainly fear that's out there and you can open any newspaper and see how some of that fear is manifesting itself. Lisa:                                       20:12                     But, as we kind of continue to move forward and more of these data privacy laws are enacted around the world, I think it's driving that level of transparency that will kind of put power back in the hands of consumers and allow companies who need to use that data to use it in a much more meaningful and effective way for their own customers. Stefan:                                 20:38                     I think that there's a basic suspicion, it's also because it shows that people are getting more aware of the importance and the incident around Cambridge Analytica clearly shows where that can go wrong, and there can be really some impact. Stefan:                                 20:55                     There was a time, like, 10 years ago, when people said that we are actually living in a post-data privacy era, because people were publishing everything on Facebook. And were shameless with their uttermost secrets. And I'm seeing a shift now, and, and perhaps there is also a kind of overreaction there. But I totally agree with what, what Lisa said, I think education, getting an awareness, and you know, being suspicious is good. But if you have the means to reach a protection which is useful for you as a consumer then, I think there is also a benefit there. Lisa:                                       21:39                     And you're talking to two lawyers, so we're suspicious by nature. Amy:                                     21:42                     (Laughs) Right? Lisa:                                       21:42                     (Laughs) Amy:                                     21:46                     Okay, for my last question, can we close with: What are some tips you can offer organizations to help them comply with GDPR? I'd love to hear really what you both think to close out the topic. Stefan:                                 21:59                     Of course this is very, um, highly valuable IP, which we come by (Laughs) ... Amy:                                     21:59                     (Laughs) Lisa:                                       22:03                     (Laughs) Stefan:                                 22:03                     You need to be on a very high level, otherwise we would need to charge. Amy:                                     22:08                     Right (Laughs) ... Stefan:                                 22:09                     I think the first thing is you need to be aware of your role if you're a data controller. What this actually means for you. What that means for your organization and for the infrastructure you're using. Lisa, what would you like to add? Lisa:                                       22:29                     Yeah, I mean, I think what's going to be key as we continue to go forward and we move beyond May 25th, you know, lots of companies have really been working towards this get compliant with GDPR by May 25th, and it's become this date that everybody kind of thinks about and knows about. Um, and as we continue to move forward, what I think is going to be important is making sure that you're staying vigilant around data privacy, and that your program continues to evolve and change and that you're kind of constantly looking at, "Okay, what is the data that we're processing? How are we processing it? How are we informing people? Do we have the right level of consent? Do we need to, to look at this again?" Lisa:                                       23:17                     And that continuous process of risk assessment I think is going to be critical as we continue to move forward. Again we've really moved light years past the days when we can just sort of say, "Yeah, we have a privacy notice, and, um, we don't have a great handle on how we manage things. But we've got a privacy policy, so all is good." I think we have to continue to, to look at and monitor both as a company for our internal employees, as well as companies that touch consumer data in any way, or, just their basic customer data. Making sure that we're really continuing to evaluate that and how we use it is going to continue to be critical as we move forward. Amy:                                     24:01                     Okay, great. Stefan:                                 24:04                     Also I think it's also important to understand that data privacy has got a purpose on its own. So, if you just see it like that, and you just check boxes, then it's really just a waste of time and paper. I think data privacy is a tool to serve your customers in a better way. It’s a tool to get aligned with your suppliers for example, to serve your customers in a better way and that way, I think its teamwork. Stefan:                                 24:33                     And, um, I think if you embrace it as a chance to create a better customer experience then there will be a real benefit. Exit/Closing: Amy:                                     24:46                     Got it. Well on that point we can end the discussion today. Thanks to Lisa and Stefan for being here. And to our listeners for joining this episode of Commerce Now. Amy:                                     24:57                     To find out more about Personalization Versus Privacy, go to DieboldNixdorf.com, or click on the link in the podcast show notes. Until next time, keep checking back on iTunes for new topics on Commerce Now.  

Carl: Hello everyone, Carl Quested here, thanks for tuning in for another episode of The Real Agent Podcast. This week’s episode I’m joined by Lisa B., Lisa has been around the real estate industry for let’s just say many years - and has a lot of experience -  from being an agent through to a principal, and now she’s a coach and mentor. Her current business is The Real Estate Hotline where she provides ad hoc and I guess emergency advice and assistance for Agents, Principals and everyone involved in the real estate industry. A really great episode here. I love Lisa’s approach to business and life so I hope you get as much out this episode as I have. As always please leave us some feedback. And enjoy the episode. Carl: Lisa thanks for joining us. Lisa: Yay! Hi! Thanks Carl, thanks for having me. Carl: That’s okay. Now we were chatting a bit before the start. So we’ve got to try and pick up on some of the gold we talked about, because there was some fantastic, fantastic information shared in there. Lisa: Sure. Carl: So Lisa tell me when did your real estate journey begin? Lisa: Oh God. Well I’m 49 now Carl, so it’s a long long time ago, when I was in my early 20’s. So when I started, I did the licensing course full time for one year – that was before I went into real estate.  That was when I said,  I’m burning all my bridges, I’m going into real estate and I have to make it work.  This is going to happen!   I door knocked lots of real estate offices to try to get a job and I ended up working for an office where I said look “Just pay me part time and I’ll work full time” just so I could prove myself. And I ended up doing that.  On the first day in the office I sold a house and it started from there.. Then I went full time. That’s how I started in a real estate office, and then after about 18 months the guy who owned the business, his wife passed away suddenly, she had a brain aneurism.  Very sad.. Carl: Oh wow. Lisa: And because she passed away,  he came in and asked me did I want to buy the office. And I’d only been in real estate 18 months.  I didn’t really know what I was doing as far as owning an office - I was only in my early 20’s,  -  23 or 24, and I was like….  ‘Yeah sure, why not, Yeah, what could go wrong?’. And I bought the business and that’s where I started my journey. I just love it. Once I think real estate is in your blood it’s very hard to do anything else. It is just something, that I’m so passionate about, I absolutely love it. Carl: And so at the age of 23, 24, taking over a real estate business, I mean, it’s very different I think today because obviously taking over a real estate business can literally just be taking over database right? You can literally pick up a computer and you can run it from home. I know there are different models and stuff like that. But back then, you had to have an office, right? You had to have a retail presence, you had to have windows displays and everything like that, so it must have been a pretty big undertaking. Lisa: Oh it was. And yes the things that can go wrong, went wrong. We had a property manager who was taking money. I’d had all the books checked. I’d gone through everything with the solicitor. And one day the property manager had a day off and then she had the next day off… and then it was just all these phone calls about money going missing and all that sort of thing. And I just didn’t know what to do. And I called a real estate agent that was close by,  I rang him and said  ‘ What do I do?’ Oh God, he helped me out so much. Gerard Payne. Oh my God he helped me out so much. And I was like ‘What the hell have I done?’.  But it was scary back then. You had the physical office that you had to pay rent, had to do all these things. The over heads were so big, newspaper advertising and it was hard - but it was easy. Carl: Yes. Lisa: Back then everybody did the same thing, It was like you had newspaper advertising, your for sale signs, letter box drops, door knocks - that was really it.   That was the focus of your business.  So it was hard work getting out there,  but it was easy because everybody was doing the same thing and there were no distractions. Where as now, I kind of feel sorry for the agents that are starting out, because there are so many shiny objects to chase. Social media, and this and that, and this and that. Door knocking. What the hell do I do first? It is a lot more complicated and I think a lot of the agents have to get back to the basics. To start with the basics, of door knocking, building your database, getting your brand known and all those sort of things. Just start with that and don’t chase every shiny object that comes along. Carl: I think, Yeah. It is very interesting, isn’t it? Because whilst the game has changed, the rules have essentially stayed the same right? Because people buy from people. So the ways in which you make those connections might be more intricate, because now you’ve got social media, you’ve got video marketing,  but if you can get in front of people, like door knocking….. if you can get in touch with people over the phone……. Lisa: Yes. Carl: You are making that connection  ---  so as long as that connection is being made. Lisa: Yes. Carl: Use the ones that you’re most familiar with, use the ones that work for you that kind of get traction straight away. Lisa: Yes. That’s right, we now live in a world where people can like, know and trust you even before they meet you - which is crazy.  People can look at you online and look at your website or follow you on Facebook and go ‘hey you know what -  they follow South Sydney, you know the best football team’ that sort of thing. They can like you for who you follow or they like you because they relate to you in some way, and it can make life a lot easier because of that as well, but I think if you’re new in real estate and you don’t have a database, you haven’t got warm calls to make  - you’ve got to start with the cold calls. Carl: Yes definitely. And I think you’re absolutely right. We still see so many agents getting their profile picture with their arms folded across their chest and yet their profile talks about honesty, integrity and trust.  They’re all the same things that every other agent is talking about.  When what someone is looking for is exactly what you say, you know, what footy teams they follow? What charitable organisations do they support? What are they about as a person, because you know in today’s society that’s what we’re looking for, we’re looking for that sort of, I guess a matching personality that says…… Lisa: The commonality.   Carl:  Yes. This is someone that I gel with, yes, they’re good at their job but I also like them as a person. And that is very different to how I think, maybe things in the past have been. Lisa: I know your personality Carl! You know what I mean?  It’s like, you get to know someone’s personality from being on Facebook, you get to know their sense of humour and all that sort of thing. And you think..  I really like this person and that’s what’s happening out there now.   Which I didn’t have that when I started in real estate, so in lots of ways.... it’s become easier as long as you focus on the right things.   Building your profile, your online profile, your brand and doing some video marketing and building up your online resume…  and that’s what I think a lot of people think… they think they don’t need to focus that much time on it..   It’s like if you don’t get on page one of Google, well you know who is? Realestate.com.au, domain.com.au, openagent.com.au, whichagent.com.au All of those are on page one, and if you’re not, they are intercepting your client, I call them the interceptors now. They’re intercepting your clients before they get to you.  Because a person goes to sell a house or buy a house, and they will type in houses for sale in a suburb and guess who comes up? All those interceptors, they’re taking away real estate agents potential clients -   so agents need to be on page one of Google.  You need to work on your online profile so that they’re not intercepting your clients. Carl: Yeah totally. I think, you know those websites that you mentioned, I mean real estate agents  are the middlemen in the process of selling property, where now what’s happening is REA and those other groups  are becoming middle men in the process of an agent meeting a client. Lisa: Yes. Carl: You know. It’s adding more friction to a process that should have less friction in it. It’s interesting to see how the web space is changing I think and moulding. It’s good to see more and more agents becoming aware of how to use the tools but I think there’s still quite a long way to go. Lisa: Yes, there’s still a long way to go. I mean I started with video marketing back in, Oh God, 7 or 8 years ago, it was new back then.   It was… nobody did it. So it’s like it’s starting to become a lot more of the norm but…... it’s something…... video marketing changes your life, like it really does.   When you do it correctly, it’s something that people can really feel that commonality with you straight away. You don’t even have to be in front of the camera, and it might just be video testimonials as well. So there are so many, so many tools there, that people can use, that can really just help them so much, in so many ways.  Whether it’s to get them on to page one of Google or building their brand and building their profile and getting that ‘like, know and trust’ factor from people. Carl: So in terms of your business right now, so you’ve evolved from being the agent, being principal and now you are sort of a more coaching and mentoring capacity. Lisa: Yes. Carl: So talk to us about Real Estate Hotline and what that does for agents? Lisa: Yes, sure. I mean I’ve owned lots of different offices. I’ve owned an independent under my own name, I’ve owned franchises and I’ve owned my own brand name.   Over my long time in real estate. I’ve done lots of different things.   So I’ve got a lots of different perspectives. I was a Jenman Approved Office, don’t hold that against me. Lol  So I’ve done a lot of things.   When  I get into something like real estate,  I want to know all facets of it. I’ve done auctions, I’ve done open houses, I’ve done vendor paid advertising, I’ve done the exact opposite of all of that.   I’ve done all sort of different things, so I can get perspectives. And so that’s what I can offer people with The Real Estate Hotline,.... years and years of perspective. Different things that  people ring up about on the hotline….. And some people prefer to email, Facebook messenger or they call…. Whatever they like..  so it’s not just strictly calls.   You know some of my clients are principals that just feel alone.  They just need somebody to talk to, their spouse says not to talk about work when they’re at home,.  They can’t talk about things to staff members - ( some of that is about confidentiality within their office, and some because they don’t want to feel they don’t know what they are talking about as well.) Carl: Of course. Lisa: It’s kind of a lifeline for real estate, a helpline, whatever. A hotline that you can talk about anything, so people will talk about staff problems, talk about the competition with different things that the competition are doing. Or whether it’s just getting a sale or listing together (I don’t mean ‘JUST’ getting a listing or sale together  - that’s everything in a real estate business) but whether it’s holding hands through a situation.   Some I have had say..  ‘I can’t do this anymore, I just can’t do real estate anymore!’ It’s like wait, stop. Take a breath kind of thing. I cheer them on when they get results. Cheer them on from the sidelines.  We might look at ads and copy, newsletters. Or it might be just grammar checks or things like that. With my clients I follow them on social media and it might just be that I see they spelt something wrong. So I would quickly message them and say.. change this or change that, just to make sure their brands are protected as well. It might be about planning meetings, It might be just how to be happy in real estate, about the balance. I’ve done a lot of Tony Robbins in my life as well since 1994. I’ve done everyone of his programs, I don’t know how many times, a gazillion times. And I have really live by his philosophies. And I’m an Accredited Life Coach, and an Accredited NLP Master Practitioner, so I’ve been doing coaching a long time - since 2003. And it’s all the same stuff that I use on myself.   At date with destiny, with Tony Robbins, he gets you do something which is called your primary question. So it’s a question that you ask yourself everyday and before you make decisions. You ask this primary question, and sometimes they are really destructive questions. It might be ‘Is that my fault?’  or things like that  - so it’s all things that I go through with my coaching clients as well.  To sort of know how your mind works, and why you’re thinking the way you’re thinking. So in my diary, I‘ve got my primary question that I want to ask myself at the front of my diary. I’ve got my values and my rules. So what’s important to me?   What’s my values, to make sure that I don’t drift off. That I’m congruent with who I am and what I want to do. And my identity because sometimes your identity can become a bit jaded with certain things in life.   If I’m a top salesperson and then I have a few bad months, then I don’t feel like I’m the top sales person anymore. So all these different tools and techniques - I absolutely live by and if ever I start to feel off -  I know exactly where I need to go. It’s like being a mechanic and knowing exactly which screw to turn, or whatever…  you know what I mean? That’s what the hotline does as well, people are going through different things and I can kind of tune in and see, see what’s really going on. As well as just as a practical real estate advice. So I just love it Carl, It’s something that... everyday it’s so different. It’s different but the same as I said to you - people will say things like ‘Oh this and this and this just happened’ and in my head I think..   ‘Yeah that happened to me 25 years ago’. Carl: (laughing). Lisa: There’s nothing really knew that I see, it’s all the same but it’s new to them. It’s just understanding where people are coming from. And I guess because of my long career in real estate, I can really understand how people feel too. Like discount agents, things like that…. you know, they’ve been around since the day dot.. It is just about getting better. It’s making sure that you’re prepared, it’s just doing all the right things. Yeah, everything that you can to win that listing. Carl: I think it’s such a valuable service because people underestimate I think, how lonely a real estate role can be, because….. there’s the Facebook persona I like to call it, where you know, you can only really post, I mean….. it’s the same with the kids,  anyone who’s got kids, very rarely do you post a picture of your kid screaming.    Lisa: (laughing). Carl: Right? You post the one where they’re all smiling and happy. You know, sitting down looking angelic. Lisa: True. Carl: But the reality is very different to that. And I think real estate is pretty much the same. I saw a guy a few weeks back, he posted in one of the real estate groups that he was having a rough time, wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue his career in real estate. Lisa: Yes. Carl: And he got flogged for it. You know, for sort of for being open and trying to share that. Lisa: (hmmm) Carl: Yeah, and you know it was a case of everyone sort of came back, and sort of you know said you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to fix that. And you know, you’re not trying hard enough and all this kind of stuff. Lisa: Wow. If that’s same guy, I actually gave him my online course. I’ve got an online course that real estate agents buy, it’s a 10 week online course. If that’s the same guy I ended up giving him my course. I private messaged him and gave him the course. I just felt sorry for him. I understood exactly the way he felt and you’re right, people don’t understand!  People go.., ‘oh you do this, do that, do this’. Yes, it’s sad when you are trying to reach out and you’re getting slammed for it. Carl: Yeah and it’s exactly that, that you know the isolating feeling of, if you’re not posting a new listing everyday and you’re not posting pictures of form 6’s, you’re not posting happy update videos all the time like other real estate agents. You start to sort of feel more and more isolated because you’re going, I’ve only got 2 new listing this month or I’ve got that property that’s been hanging around for ages, and everyone else seems to be selling them in 4 days. Lisa: Yes. Carl: You know. I think the need for an outlet, sort of an impartial person is so important - because like you say, you can’t talk to your staff necessarily and say, you know. ‘I’m feeling really low right now’, and you don’t want to take that home and burden your partner with it. You want to be able to chat with somebody independently and I guess that’s exactly what a coach or mentor is there to do -  to listen and provide constructive direction to help you to course correct. Lisa: Exactly. And it’s not everybody wants to be top producer. Some people just want to make a living. Some people really just want that balance, they just want to be able to sell 3 or 4 homes a month and have time off with their kids.. and that’s really important to them. So it’s working through to get that balance, it might be you know, Tony Robbins has got a life wheel - the life wheel -  it helps you to work out where you are spending most of your time and just improving a little bit, improving on 1 or 2 areas.. Only improving 5% everyday on certain things that you need to do - but it is lonely being a business owner - it is lonely and you can’t say to your friends or to your staff ‘oh God, I made no money this month’ or whatever. Whereas with me they can say ‘I really, need to make some money and I need to do this, I need to get some listings and some sales. Okay let’s focus, what are we going to do first, where are you now exactly’. So it is, it’s a lonely thing being a business owner, it’s a lonely time. And being in sales,  I know when I started in real estate I used to ring a guy Win Abel his name was,  he worked at Bevans in Wollongong and I’d ring him and say I’ve got a buyer on a house,  what do I now? (this was when I first started)  He’d say… ‘Oh okay, well get them to make an offer or do this.. Or do that.  I had no clue. Carl: Yes. Lisa: When I first started, my first week in real estate, I thought what do I do?  Because.... you don’t want to feel silly either asking your principal or asking someone else, .. or if you are a thousand dollars apart or something on a deal. What else can you do to get this sale together?  If you feel that you’ve tried everything…. well maybe you haven’t tried everything.   Maybe there’s a few other things that we can do. So yes, I just like being there for people. It’s what I love to do. Help people and as I’ve said  -  I’ve got a lot of different perspectives and I’ve written books etc. So if people want to write a book or people want to set up podcast, we do that or anything that help build a profile.  We might look at their online profile. Most times people say..  ‘I just don’t know what to do now’. So okay I do a report on their online profile. And say okay well…. this is what you’ve got to do and you’ve got to include this and take that photo away and just help them with their branding as well. Because a lot of agents are great salespeople, they’re great belly to belly - but as far as working on their business, they are not good.   They don’t want to do it either.. it’s like ‘oh I don’t want to do it, I just want somebody else to do that’. So it’s just helping them to be able to work not only in their business, as well as on their business. Carl: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s very hard as well because I think a lot of agents probably look at the coaching industry and I sort of use that term loosely.. The coach, the wider coaching industry  and you know they’ve got people wanting to charge you know $5,000 a month, $10,000 a month for their you know, for their coaching, one on one coaching and things like that and I think it sort of naturally turns them off. I don’t know if you’re happy to talk about the pricing you charge on the podcast but…. Lisa: Yes sure.   My coaching is just $99/week, $400/month and that’s access whenever they need it. A lot of it is just a 5 minute phone call or a 5 minute email or something like that. For $100 a week, you’re getting my experience, my knowledge and accountability too.   Some people use the hotline for accountability.  So it’s sending in your results once a month to go,  this is what I’m committed to doing and this is what I’ve actually done. Carl: Yes. Lisa: It’s like when you’re sending it to somebody, it’s like ‘Oh God! I’ve got to do this’. You know what I mean? Carl: Yes. Lisa: A girlfriend and I are going to lose 4 kilos in the next month or so right? So we’re sending photos of our scales every morning. Just accountability. Carl: Yes. Lisa: To send it to somebody else, I’m thinking. Grrrrr it’s the same as it was yesterday. I better do something. And that’s the same with the accountability of the sales person to say…. if they have only door knocked 5 houses and made no phone calls, they’ve done no flyers, they’ve done absolutely nothing for the week…. then it’s not surprising that they’ve got no listings and no sales. And so you’ve got to do the actions - so it’s really looking at the accountability of the actions first and to be able to get a numbers…. so the accountability is a big thing as well. Carl: And so Lisa in terms of who you work best with. Like, do you sort of find, is there a sort of a type of agent that you are able to assist the best in terms of where they are in their career or income wise or anything like that. Lisa: No. Just people that are open to it. Some people are just so much in their own world, they’re not open to coaching so people that just want to learn. Carl: Yes. Lisa: I mean I’ve got people who have just started out in sales. I’ve got people that are principals. I’ve got people that are making really good incomes and selling a lot. And I’ve people that are just wanting to get their results up - so it’s so different, but it’s got to be people whereby we gel together well too. There’s some people that obviously wouldn’t suit me. And I wouldn’t suit them. As long as people are open to learning and open to discussion - because I’m not here to say ‘Oh I think you should do this, I think you should do that, or you’ve got to do this’. It’s talking through what they are comfortable with.    Some people are not comfortable phone prospecting, and some people hate it. So then, let’s find a way to get somebody else do it  -  like your services Carl or whatever. Or it might be they’ve got to build a database a different way. It’s working out what those people, what their strengths are – what they like to do - if they don’t like it they’re not going to do it. Carl: I think that’s really key isn’t it..  there is certainly a lot of practitioners and coaches and mentors out there. Which, they really sort of do push one specific angle and say this is how you have to do it. And I think the problem with that is, it’s kind of like trying to make everyone the same. Like you say, work in different ways. We have clients that hate doing telemarketing like you said so they use us to do it.   We have others that say ‘You know what? Telemarketing – I’m not doing it full stop’.  And they find other ways to generate business, we have people that you know that are purely online. They don’t do any print media. They don’t do any of that kind of stuff. Just purely online so it’s refreshing I think that you don’t come in and say this is the way that you have to do it. You’re more to sort of guide them on their chosen path. Lisa: Yes, I mean. People, if they don’t believe in it,  then they’re not going do it. I always like to say.. you know how some people say that trainers and coaches just train and coach because they can’t do. And it’s like, I’ve done so much in my career and I’m still doing it. So I kind of like it when people ask me or say that statement to me..  because from having so many different perspectives and all that sort of thing… I remember the first time I went out door knocking – I was so scared, I was so scared. And I was like, you know what -  I’m just going to do one, if I’m still alive - I can say that I’ve done it, so I did one. Then the next day I did two, then the next day I did three. And I got to actually like it. It’s just really kind of getting people to just…. sometimes they have to get out of their comfort zone and have to do things that they hate to do-  things that they don’t like to do, but it’s kind of working with the people on what they are prepared to do. Carl: Goes back to what you said, what was it you said, the principle question? Lisa: The primary question. Carl: The primary question. Lisa: Yes. Yes. Okay. Carl: Understanding, that yes, you’ve got to do this. It’s not very comfortable but if it aligns with your primary question, or what your ultimate why is, then obviously it’s going to help you get the result you need to achieve. Lisa: That’s right. It’s your purpose, your outcomes and all those sort of things. Why you’re doing this. I just love real estate Carl. It’s just such an amazing profession. And it’s something that the sky’s the limit on income. The flexibility, the things that you learn. Growth. It is quite addictive. It’s kind of you can fill all of your needs and I guess I just like to help people through those tough times as well. Whether it’s just holding their hand or cheering them on. That’s my role now and I just love it. Carl: So let’s dig a bit deeper if we can, let’s say we’ve got somebody listening to the podcast right now - who is like that person I mentioned on Facebook -  they are feeling isolated and a bit broken and considering throwing in the towel. What would be some of the initial steps -  that you’ll get them to review - either about themselves or their career?  That you know, do from this podcast and actually maybe take stock, what would be the first step you’d get them to evaluate? Lisa: Well they’ve got to look at whether they like where they are working. That can be a big thing as well, people that are working in offices that hate the environment.   Say... they don’t like their principal. So……  Are they happy where they are?  That’s a big thing and I think when you’re looking at joining a real estate office it’s got to be a fit. There’s got to be a team fit with the principal in the office and I guess the way they do things as well. If you don’t believe in a certain way of operating you know, make sure your environments right first. I think that’s a huge thing. Getting your own mind right, something that I always suggest is certain rituals in the morning. So it might be get up at the certain time and you go on the treadmill, or you go for a run or you go for a walk, you listen to good things. You listen to Tony Robbins or you listen to any of the sales trainers or Wayne Dyer or somebody like that - whatever your thing is to listen to, have the good stuff going in. There’s too many horrible things in the news and we hear all these horrible things, get your mind right early in the morning. Write out your goals. I had my goals on my phone for a while and it’s just not the same as writing them down - goals - typing it in rather than writing it in your journal you just don’t get the same feeling. When you write them down, there’s just something about it, it just makes different pathways with your brain and your hand doing it. That you actually feel it and you get excited and I don’t feel you get excited writing it down to an app. I have an app which I still use sometimes it’s called “wonderlist”. I still make lists on there, but it’s not the same emotion that I get from actually writing down my goals and when I started in Real Estate I used to write down every day -  I make so much money in Real Estate. I bring in $30000/month from real estate  That was just after I started in Real Estate, (1994 – when our average selling fee was $5000).   It was something that I would write out 50 times every single day -  just to get that embedded in my brain. That you start to believe it - you can do it. Because you’ve got to have the belief in yourself. If you don’t believe that your going do it, if you’ve got money blocks or you’ve got something like that - you need to work on it. And that’s something writing things out or affirmations and listening to good things, you know…. Listening to Tony Robbins or whoever as I’ve said you choose…., that’s a big thing. And I think the next thing is to have a farm area that you’re going to make your home. Think everybody’s going to know me in this area. Get one listing and then everyone around you knows you from that one listing. You’ll do ‘just listed’ everywhere, doorknocking, and open house everywhere and then a ‘just sold’ everywhere. And then you list another one and then up the road, and it’s like all around there. So you’re just all over your farm area - that people can’t help but know you. And have that goal that I’m going to take over this area. This is my patch, and nobody’s getting in here. And get upset when another agent lists one in there. Get angry because that should have been yours. Carl: Yes. Lisa: And I mean, it’s okay to get angry with yourself. Just don’t do it all the time. Learn from it. That’s the thing I think, really just make sure where you’re working, that you’re happy. Get your mind right in the morning. And make sure that you know your outcomes and your goals and that sort of thing. And then get out there, have your area and do it. Carl: And I think a few fall for that trap – the old trap of thinking that you’ve got a bad farm area. So you see a lot of agents do this.  They work an area for the best part of three weeks and go, it’s just a terrible farm area and try move on to next one and the next one. They don’t build up any consistency. A big part of being a real estate agent is showing your consistency. Again, there’s so many different ways of getting listings. But you look at someone like Chris Gilmore who letterbox drops 50 weeks every year,  to every homeowner - whether they want to see his flyers or not, that’s consistency, you know. Lisa: Yes. Carl: You know what to expect from Chris.  50 weeks every year, you’re going to get a flyer in your letterbox, you start to appreciate that consistency and if Chris was one that was  like ‘I don’t like this suburb anymore, I’m going to try a different suburb’, and kept on moving around. People wouldn’t list with him because he wouldn’t have the consistency. Lisa: No. They’ve got to know you. They’ve got to hear from you and it’s a like a letterbox drop,  a phone call, and a door knock and a whatever. And also I’ve got to say with the farm area,  make sure that there are enough sales in there that turn over, that it’s not like a small patch that you pick and there’s one house a year. (Laughing). Carl: Yes. Lisa: So, it’s got to be enough properties with enough sales. And you know, people say it’s different in my area and really it’s not. Some areas are different in rural or something like that. Where it’s a bit harder to door knock because it’s an acre in between properties or something. You know, that is different. But your normal residential areas are pretty much the same.  These people are living in those houses are either landlords or they are potential sellers. And I think too, one thing that I always focused on, with everything that was going on, with other offices making listings and sales outside of my office. It was like I only have to win the person that I’m with now. I’ve got a listing presentation today - that’s all I need to focus on. So I need to win that person. I would make a listing appointment for tomorrow  - I only need to win that person. You get one a day or you get one every couple of days, you’re laughing and try for one result a day, Whether it’s a listing, a sale or a house that’s too dear that needs a price adjustment.  Get the price adjustment .  Be honest with the sellers, that if they need to….they’ve got to be told, don’t step around the hard conversation. Carl: Yes. Lisa: You know, aim for result a day. It’s loving the one that you’re with and conquering the one that you’re with.  Conquering the one you’re with as in win them over. Carl: Not sort of focusing on the next, 3-6 months or whatever, you know. Give that person. I mean, we always talk about presence, about being present for that meeting, it’s about being switched on, and listening to that person and understanding what their goals are for the property. Not focusing on what you know is going to be happening pre the listing meeting, because I think a lot of people, start to spend it before they have made it. Lisa: Yes. Carl: A lot of them start thinking they have won the business before they have even signed it up.  They’re already thinking about what they’re going to do with income before they have won the listing. Lisa: Yes. For sure, actually there’s a lady Lois Buckett, she owns a real estate office at Lennox Head. And I did an interview with her the other day. And she said that vendors can smell commission breath a mile away. Carl:  (Laughing). Lisa: Right? And I thought what a great line. I haven’t heard that before. But, you know, if you’re going to listing presentations and you’re not winning them. Check in on your energy because if you’re coming across as desperate, you’re not going to get the listing. You’ve got to actually be the opposite. If you go in there desperate, you want that sale, you want that listing. They’re going to smell it a mile away.  They smell desperation a mile away. You’ve got to act the opposite. That you’re there. You’re present. You want their business BUT… You don’t need it, BUT..  you want it, you know what I mean. And that’s the difference between a lot of people I think really, winning the listing or repelling. Carl: Energy is very important. I think you know, I can’t recall if it’s Tony Robbins or Tim Ferriss that said, ‘If you can’t spare 15 minutes for meditation, then really you need at least 3 hours’. Lisa: Yes. Exactly. Carl: I think it’s so true, that salespeople will go into those listing presentation, they’re frazzled. They’re rushed. Maybe they’re running late, they’re thinking what they are going to do next. And you’re absolutely right - the person can sense that, they are not their priority number one in that time frame. Lisa: No, or the boss is saying, you better list three by the end of the month or you haven’t got your job anymore. That’s the other thing. Carl: Yes. And the pressure is too much. Lisa:  Yes. The pressure of results and that’s when you’ve got to come back and go, I just need to not have that commission breath, that desperation – and it’s really going in with helping the person. You’re there to help them sell and these are the things that you can do....    To get them sold for the best price with the least amount of time.  Which is what the sellers ultimately want. Carl: Well, Lisa I really appreciate your time in coming on the show. I think, what you’re offering as I said offline,  is a fantastic service and I think at the price point where if a lot of people are too scared to employ a coach or get someone on their side. Every person so far that I’ve interviewed, that has been successful also said the same thing.   To get a coach, have a mentor. To have somebody, to have a sounding board. The fact that they can have somebody with your depth of experience for you know. much much less than it would be for a ‘normal’ coach. I think it is a fantastic service to offer. Lisa: Yes, exactly. I wish I would have had it when I started in real estate. I really do. Just everything, from sales, the procedure to everything. So yes. Carl: Where can we find out more, do you do a discovery call that people who want to sign up can have.. or what’s the process? Lisa: No, not normally.. They just go to my website.   www.TheRealEstateHotline.com.au and then when they join up – (But… I’m happy to do a call if anybody wants to ring me up anytime if they’re considering joining - that’s fine). But if they know they want to join, then they just join.   There’s a form that they fill in, it’s like a discovery form for me – and it tells me everything, where they are now -  where they want to get to -  all that sort of thing  - then we just go from there -  after I receive their form back, then I ring them and see exactly where they are, where we go from now kind of thing. So yes, if anybody wants to ring me, they can ring me anytime. Carl: Perfect. Now you’re very active on Facebook. ‘Let’s talk about Real Estate’ has been growing, and has a great active user base as well. I spend a lot of time in there myself. And so, If you’re not part of that https://www.facebook.com/groups/Letstalkaboutrealestate/  or just look it up on your phone. I will include links to Lisa’s website and to the facebook group as well. So Lisa thanks once again for coming on, I really appreciate it. Lisa: Thanks, Carl. I appreciate it too. Carl can be contact here https://agentmail.com.au/contact-us/    

The Real Estate Hotline Lisa B From The Real Estate Hotline - Interview with Dr Geraldine Teggelove - Live Radio Show -  Uploaded to Let’s talk about real estate with Lisa B - itunes podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to Geraldine Teggelove live, yes I am Geraldine and I am so looking forward to sharing some more fabulous information and hints and tips and anything else that may help you to become a published author and enjoy the process.   Yes.. Over the last few weeks I've been chatting with some wonderful and highly successful authors I might say, and asking them to share with us all their secrets around writing and publishing.   Believe me, if you haven’t had a chance to listen to the previous shows in this series called publishing 101 and you're thinking about writing a book, then may I urge you to do so.  Because if you want to step out with your published book in hand, the information that you get from these gorgeous ladies, is just amazing. So woohoo.   Just imagine how you will feel when your book becomes a reality.    Now obviously there are ways of doing this that will be perfect for you.  Often though it's figuring out what this perfect way looks like and it's by listening to others that we can actually make informed choices and decisions and the authors that I’m chatting with during this series are sharing the most fantastic information, believe me.  And being totally open and honest and sharing with us what worked and what didn't and to me it only makes sense that if we are going to go to all the effort of writing and publishing our unique book, then we need to gather as much of this information as we possibly can before we start the process.   So everyone…. I'm so excited because my guest today is the highly successful author Lisa B, now let me tell you a little bit about this wonderful lady.   Lisa is a coach on demand, she's a speaker, trainer and serial entrepreneur who has owned numerous businesses since 1995. Lisa is also a mum so she knows and understands the pressure that today's world places on women,and their relationships both at work and in their day to day lives.  Now Lisa's had a varied career combining her two passions.   Yes two.  One is her long career in real estate and the other is her passion that she studied simultaneously and lived through, which is the topic of masculine and feminine energy - which is really big in today's world.  She’s written a number of books and has created online products, so might I suggest that we are in for a fabulous show today.   So without further ado as they say.. Welcome Lisa! Thank you very much, I'm so happy to be here.  This is a topic I love speaking about - books and products and business - so... thank you so much for having me. Oh it is my pleasure Lisa and you are sitting in sunny Brisbane, is that right? On the Gold Coast and it is sunny -  it's 13 degrees - we're not used to that here - I'm cold! My goodness Lisa I feel so sorry for you when we’re sitting in 6 degrees here. Oh I know..  2 days ago it was 20 something,  so it's a shock to our system - but we only get the cold weather for about 6 weeks or so, we are very lucky. That's great yes, well we'll just kind of suffer on.  Look it’s where we choose to live so we have to put up with the consequences don't we. Exactly. We have got so many things to talk to you about today and I hope you're ready for it and you've had your Weet-Bix for breakfast. I have so many questions for you. I hope you don't mind. No, no I'm ready!   Like you said I really want to share what has really worked for me but also what hasn't, because I did so much research before I published my books and so many things were conflicting and sometimes you really don't know what the right thing is to do.  So I really want to share my experiences both good and also what I learnt. That is just fantastic.  That Lisa, is exactly what I want to hear because yes what might be right for some, may not be right for others.  But I know today you are going to get the most amazing gems from Lisa that you can take with you.  When you're contemplating all this, you can make informed decisions. So Lisa could you start by sharing with our listeners some of the books that you've published, a little bit about those, so that we can get an idea of where you're coming from please. Sure, for  sure.  The first book that I was in was a compilation book.  My background is real estate.   So that was a compilation book that somebody else put together that I was invited to join, so that was with other successful real estate agents. That was a really good base and it gave me a good understanding of what being an author was like - also just seeing your name on the front cover of a book was such a great feeling.  Like..  I've finally got a book!    So that was called Real Estate Millionaire and I thought once I did that,  I really want a book in my own name now.   I actually wrote a book 10 years prior and that was about masculine and feminine energy and that's called Banish the Bitch and Bring out the Babe. I love the title Lisa - It says it all. Thank you.  It does!  It does!  I was very fortunate to have a lot to do with Tony Robbins and I joined his Platinum Partners program which was a very intimate program of only 50 people and we travelled the world with him for a year.  I think I spent 145 days of the year travelling, going to his seminars and it was amazing and that's where I was introduced to the topic of masculine and feminine energy.  It really made me question everything about ME,  because I was so business focused - I had my real estate office - I had 10 staff and I was only focused on work and nothing else - that was it and I really sort of understood how I was in my masculine energy and I couldn't switch off -  I didn't have any balance and I thought if I kept this going the way that I was,  I would end up having a heart attack.   So I really investigated that and lived through that and I wrote my book as I was making my transition if you like,  from learning about masculine energy -  to how to tap back into my feminine energy and how to have balance in my life again.   So that was something... and that's what writing a book does as well,  when you're writing down words and you think this is going to be published and other people are going to read these words - it has to be right.   You just can't make off handed statements.  You write a sentence then you say - actually is that right?   You know... it gets you to really question things and to learn so much more about yourself and other people…  and to ask questions. It really is part of the healing process isn't it? Oh it is, it is.  When I went to publish that book, I bought probably 10 books on self publishing because I thought I really want to self publish.  I really want to learn how to do this and I bought all these books and it just looked too hard.  So.. I put the book away for 10 years because it just looked too hard!   Seriously I just thought I don't even know where to go with this, I just don’t know what to do with this. It's too hard!   So I mean these days, it’s so much easier - you can upload it yourself online.  You can have ‘print on demand’ and all those sorts of things but I was overwhelmed and I think that's what help me being in the compilation book, seeing that it isn't as hard as what we can make it out to be.  That was kind of a blockage and that's something I would like to say to everyone listening…  If you have got a book, just do it.   Don't wait like I did for 10 years and put it aside... and it was only that somebody went to another Tony Robbins seminar and started talking about masculine and feminine energy and I said I actually wrote a book on that.  They said well I'd love to read it.  I said ok,  i will dig it up and I started reading it and I thought -  this is really good! I love it.   And then that inspired me to get it out there again and so you know, I'm really glad that they made those comments otherwise it would still be in the back of my computer somewhere. And probably the great part about it a topic like that is Lisa -  is that truth is truth - it doesn't matter what time we live in,  there is still that masculine and feminine energy. Absolutely, absolutely and as I said,  I was so focused and so ‘in my head’ about everything that I didn't let anyone in at all about anything.. It was awful and so yes it was really understanding  the balance and to understand that I can switch off, and you know,  be present where I am.. So that was a really an amazing realisation for me and I went to get books on the subject and I couldn't find anything that would help me.  That's why I knew I had to write my book, because there was nothing out there for me that would teach me what I needed to know - so that was my biggest drive,   to teach other women about this and get my message out there. Fantastic Lisa and that book went really well didn't it. Oh yes, yes fantastic!   Better than I thought and I can go into that more a little bit later if you like. Yes I'd love that. It went better than I thought and I probably should have done other things with it which I can go into later. The next book that I did was a book for my son actually, and that was a book where my mother actually wrote the book - (his grandmother)  so I did a book for them together.    I’ll let you in on a little secret,  Lisa is absolutely brilliant at marketing and shortly we will have a discussion around Lisa's way of publishing and I'm sure what she’ll share will be absolutely helpful and wonderful for you. I'm sure you can already tell that Lisa certainly has the experience and the know how to help you overcome any obstacles that you might have standing between you and writing your own book.   Lisa I'd love to hear about how you wrote a book with your son and then you had another book I think didn't you? Yes yes Let's hear about those My mother wrote a book for my nieces and nephews about 25 years ago and when she died about 12 years ago, on her deathbed I promised her that I would publish her book for her.  Then when I published my book Banish the Bitch and Bring out the Babe, my son asked if he could write a book too.   I thought that's a great idea and I thought I've got just the right book for him, so we did my mum’s poem.  My son contributed to the pictures,  he was with me with the design process and all that sort of thing, so now he has a published book with my mum.   So now he can call himself a published author at 9 years old. Timothy John and The Big Green Dinosaur. Wow what an experience!   It's great because if he says to me, mum, I want to buy this….. I say well how many books have you sold?   Go out there and sell some books.   So I'm trying to teach him as a business as well, that he can make money whenever he wants to.  He’s got a product there, he's got a website and he can do the marketing on YouTube, he can do whatever he likes.  I've loved teaching him about business at the same time, which has been great and it’s a legacy.   He never got to meet his grandparents so that's something now that connects him with his grandmother and it makes me nearly cry every time I think about it,  but it's something lovely for them to have together. Then the next book is one that I'm just about to launch -  that's called Secret Agents and that book is about online marketing which as you said before I just love marketing and that's what I'm really really good at.  It’s something that comes naturally to me in lots of ways,  but it's something that I've also studied a lot as well.  So Secret Agents is going to be launched very soon and that particular book is going to be more a lead in to my business which is the hotline business, which is the coach on demand business.  So I coach real estate agents on demand, they can ring me or email me if they've got objections or anything like that,  in the real estate field and I help them through those objections.  So this book is more like a lead in to my other business - it's not like something I'm going to actively want to make the book a business in itself, which I can go into later -  it's not my main business - so the book leads customers to my main business. And I think that's a great way of looking at your book because you know, being able to use that book as your business card, or calling card and as lisa said… as a lead into the other part of your business - it gives you so much credibility - so that's fabulous  - but Lisa we will going to that a little later,  but before we get to your marketing which I can't wait to hear myself because when they were handing out marketing skills Lisa,  I think they missed me in the line up most definitely.   I can help you. Good!! So I'd love to hear from you though before we get to that,  a little bit about your own personal experiences in the world of publishing and what worked and what didn't, so perhaps if we start there. Sure, I don't have any sort of negative experiences with publishing, I’ve really just got learnings.  I've got things that I've thought oh wow,  I probably should have done that a little bit different but that's the way you learn.  Or listening to others who have done what you want to do.   Having a book is just such an amazing achievement and it's something that you look back and you think wow,  I've got this book and people acknowledge you for that and I think it's something that I’d love to see everybody write a book.  Everybody's got a story, whether it’s about their work, their business, their life.   I just think it's such an amazing thing to do, but I have only ever self published and that's only because... I'm probably not lazy,  I wouldn't say lazy,  but probably impatient is what I would call myself, because if you want to get your book published,  that involves….., if I was going to get a book published - I would get an agent, I would get somebody who was going to go in and fight for me to publish and all that sort of thing,  but I was too impatient because I just wanted to get it out there and I wanted to get onto the next thing.    I'm with you there Lisa, definitely with you on that one.   And the other thing is that you don't know if your book is going to be successful - you really don't and it's not until you've actually published it or you get people to read it and you get proper feedback that you think ohhhhh  this probably would have went well with the publisher -  you know they say writing a book is like a comedian who tells a joke and and has to wait two years to see if it's funny. It's like writing a book - you write a book and you've got to wait all this time to see if anybody likes it.   That's something that you don't know until you get it out there,  so probably if I wasn't so impatient, I would have loved to have got an agent for Banish The Bitch.  I would have really focused on that,  but I didn't really want to make the time to do that. I wish I could have, for people out there that have got a great book,  you know it,  you believe it,  people have read it and loved it,  it's worth taking the time to do that..  I was just too impatient to get out there. A lot really depends Lisa and I'm not sure if you think like this too Lisa, it depends on what you want for your book.  Do you want your book to be standalone and successful or do you want it to be part of a bigger picture?   And that was my next thing, with Banish I would have taken the time, if I would have been more patient, that’s something I would have done,  But for my next book Secret Agents, no.. I don't have any intention of wanting to get that with a publisher.   It’s a lead in to my business,  which is something - a business card,  it's my introduction, it’s my values, it’s my information that when real estate agents read it, they're going to want to know more.  And then I've got my online course, I've got my coaching and all of those other things that I've got and can provide and help them with.   That is my lead in,  so it's really two types of books and two different things - it's completely different. Yes understand completely -  and so I guess you followed your own rules and all that sort of thing as you went through it. Yes and all my marketing all that sort of thing, and some of the things that didn't work for me was…  do you know fiverr,  so when I first went to do my book I got a mockup cover on fivver and it was hideous and I persisted. It was hideous, hideous, hideous.. I just didn’t like any of them, and I thought this is ridiculous and I ended up getting a professional to do the book cover, which your book cover is everything.   And also, so  is the internal of your book.   I went to do it on fivver and it was just like a bad word document - You want to prevent your book as lovely as you can and my books I'm just so proud of how the lady I ended up getting has presented my book.  It's just beautiful - you open up the book and it's just lovely.. so much more attractive than a word document and that's what I would have had if I'd of gone with the fiverr option.    I'm sure there are good ones out there on fiverr, but I just think don't skimp on the quality of your book and don’t skimp on the cover and the layout  - it's got to be good and it's got to be attractive.   And you're representing you.  This is really representing you in the world of business and in the professional world, so I completely understand Lisa,  If you pick up something,  you want it to really be a reflection of you - so most definitely. Absolutely, then the other things that I learnt was about publishing the books itself, so I've got my books on Ingram Sparks which is print on demand, so you can order your books in bulk, you can order 100 copies or 500 copies - or you can go on and order one copy. It’s print on demand - so that was something I preferred to have control of.   There are some people that publish books and they can get a really cheap price say in China or something and they can get them at  a couple of dollars a book and it's a lot cheaper but you have to buy in bulk.   So you might have to get 1000 books and they're in your bedroom until you sell them or get rid of them.   You might get a cheaper deal at the time, but the problem happens when you need to change something.  I've changed my book already -  soooo many times.  I've put a sentence in that I've thought no…..,  I want to take that one out or change it. I've got the capability and the control of doing that with the way that I've got it now on Ingram Sparks and Amazon.   If there's something I want to change I can.   For example if I want to change the cover I can.   I can change whatever I want  -  I don't think oh I can't… I've got a thousand books in my back bedroom that are now wrong.   It's something that you can change, you can adjust you can add to it and I found that it's a lot better for me.  Even though it might cost more, you've got more control. Yes and look I know having a bit to do with publishing houses and things for me that was the defining moment that I wanted this book to be me,  not just fitting into a certain genre that the publishing house decided would be best.    So I totally see where you are coming from Lisa,  to be able to have that control to do with your book what you want to do.. You can change things up and change things around  - is wonderful. Lisa and I'll give you a little time to think about this -  I'd really like to know about Marketing - because so many marketing companies out there offer you the world and then end up giving you nothing basically.  Being honest here…  so really interested to hear from the best in the business about how to go about marketing.   If you have just joined us,  this is the 5th show in this series called publishing 101 and today international best selling author Lisa B is sharing her expertise with us and what fabulous information it is. I think I mentioned on last weeks show, I would have given anything to have had other authors tell me what worked and what didn't before I stepped into the publishing arena.   Now if you've found this information extremely helpful,  and you would like to and if you'd like to listen to the complete series, you can download them for free from iTunes.  Just search Geraldine Teggelove Live podcast or you can go to www.toginet.com to listen and download from my show page. You can also find them on my website at www.geraldineteggelove.com.au - so lots of places you can go, where you can go back and listen to what certain authors have told you.  Now Lisa,  we've got some big things to get into here but so i don't forget,  because I get carried away here on these interviews sometimes - I'd love to know Lisa where we can actually find your books and where we can find you - have you got particular places that you could give to us.   Sure there's my website which is www.lisab.com.au - That's not a hard one except for the .au on the end  - everyone  - in Australia we have dot com dot au.   And a good one to follow me on his Instagram as well,  because people that are looking to market their book - I'm just about to launch a new book say in the next week or two - It will be beneficial for your listeners to see what I do there and how I go about marketing on Instagram.   I find Instagram really good and I'll explain what I do with that but my Instagram account is lisab_ therealestatehotline_   That would be where they can get some real life book marketing examples from.    Fantastic Lisa,  that sounds wonderful and I will put that on my show page and on my website everyone so,  if you haven't got your pen handy you'll be able to find them - and the website is an easy one -  www.lisab.com.au   So Lisa let's get into the whole marketing side of things and how you went about all of that. Ok well I repurpose everything.  So, everything I do,  I think of another way that I can put it out there.  Whether it's a blog post,  whether it's a video..  whatever it is... if I've got one piece of content I look for where I can put that - on 10 different avenues.  Or where  I can use that one piece of content 10 times.  So that's what I'm always looking at.   I just don't do one thing and then put it away -  it’s how can i compile it.  If I do a video, then I'll do a compilation video - I'm getting a little bit of head of myself but it's using all of the avenues for you.  So I have a podcast, so I can have all of my content on the podcast - so I'm speaking to people or if I'm doing interviews or I'm just doing a tutorial or something -  I've got the podcast.  From from that podcast,  I can do a transcript of it, which becomes a blog post, which becomes a post on my social media channels -  so for one thing and one podcast -  I'm looking for how I can put that in many different ways.   So with the podcast,  I always also do a video. So one podcast I've now got into 4 different mediums and then on all of the different things put onto Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,  Instagram, my website,  YouTube… everything!! So the podcast is one where it's a great thing to repurpose into many different ways so that's one thing is a podcast… so then obviously you've got the book which your marketing.. and telling people you've got the book… and putting photos everywhere of your book and create a hype on Facebook about your book coming up…You know getting interaction and asking people what cover looks best A, B or C?   Getting people interested in and knowing that your book is coming out, so that's a good thing as well and as I said your blog - so you’re promoting yourself through your blog,  your promoting your book through your blog,  whichever way you want to do that…  you've got the blog,  you've got the videos so YouTube - YouTube videos.   Can I interrupt there please Lisa, so when you say your YouTube videos, are you talking about the book or are you explaining what the books about… what are you doing there? Anything.  Anything. As I said, from the podcast I make a video.  It could be tutorials it could be anything. It could be something you've mentioned in the book, it could be information, it could be advertisements for the book, it could be…. geez I've got so many different kinds of videos.  A friend of mine wrote a song and so now I have a song that is my ‘books song’ so now I've got a dedicated song for my book  - a theme song.   So that's one of my videos as well and then you've got your website which is where you are promoting your book all through your website - so you've got… and with your book, you can have your opt in on your website,  you can have either a free audiobook as an opt-in, so that you’re collecting your list..  so there's lots of things you can do,  or you can offer say two or three three chapters of your book as an opt-in -  so again you're collecting a list of people that you can then market too if they haven't bought your book -  you can market to them about different things or if you're up selling to something else.  Then say Instagram, you've got photos and memes and things like that but you can do,  because it's not always about just promoting your book - you don't want to be going out there - my book,  my book,  my book, my book - people are going to get sick of you an unsubscribe -  so it's all about giving information and giving content and showing them who you are - and getting the like know and trust factor from people - is a massive thing as well so it's not always about the book -  it's also about other things that you're doing that they can relate to - it's about teaching them something.   And it is a lot about creating that trust isn't it, because people these days want to be able to trust you before they will buy from you or connect to you. Big time.   Big time.  Because with the online world, you don't know who's genuine and who’s not - it's an awful thing to say but who is really doing what they say they're doing? If you're following someone and sometimes I follow someone for 12 months before I really think - these people are somebody that I want to learn from and I want to buy their product - it might take you that long to really build that trust of somebody - so you know I think it's important to show people who you are and what your beliefs are as well as your products. And then social media is just amazing for promoting your book from Facebook,  LinkedIn,  Twitter, Instagram…  I try not to go to spread myself too thin on those mediums because otherwise you can be a master of none. I was going to say do you follow the the advice of sticking to one or two big time and really see what works for you which one works best for you is that what you do Lisa? Yes definitely,  I find Facebook really works for me.  I have Facebook groups and they are fantastic - they're like private real estate groups which I just love!  The are very interactive and I get a lot of comments and questions and that's amazing.  I really love that and just my personal Facebook page as well.   I have a lot of real estate agents that I connect with there because my main focus is real estate with my business,  so my personal Facebook page is something that gives me a lot of clients. People get to see what you’re like and relate to you and things like that -  LinkedIn I don't use a lot even though I do have a lot of followers and I do get a lot of business from there, I don't post a lot on there. I have got my profile on there and i’ve got a lot about myself which people then will look up.  Linkedin is like a resume-  I treat Linkedin a little bit like a resume - but if you are doing  business-to-business a lot of people do really love LinkedIn.  Twitter I don't do a lot but what I put on my Facebook business page goes automatically on to Twitter - so I've got a presence on there but it's not something that I focus on.  Instagram I love.   I absolutely love Instagram and I do get a lot of business from Instagram as well - so my two favorites are Facebook and Instagram and that's what works for me. And if they'd stop changing all the algorithms Lisa,  it would make it a lot easier wouldn't it. I know and that's why Instagram is great now, so get in and use it before they do change of the algorithms again.  Because Facebook -  I had a Facebook page which went really well and I got a lot of interaction and then one day it just switched off - it was like Facebook unless you were buying ads - it just went off and so then I started a group - a Facebook group which is really working for me.   So you're testing out things to see what is going to work best for you,  is that right Lisa? Yes for sure. I found because my market and my clients are real estate agents and  we talk about problems that we've had in real estate with clients, or getting deals together or whatever it maybe, so it needed to be in a group - because they're not going to share something like that on a public page. So if you're dealing with something where people and not going to want to share publicly,  then maybe a group might be a better option and that's what I found.  I tried really hard with my pages to get interaction and I was thinking why isn't this going as well as what I thought.. and then it clicked.  It’s really something you have to test.  The groups work for me for a lot better.  You can discuss what they're comfortable with and what they’re comfortable sharing. Keep an eye on what’s working and what doesn't - if it doesn't work,  there’s got to be a reason. Lisa if you have some more information about marketing, that would be fantastic. I mean to say what would life be like if we didn't have books to read.  I don't know about you or Lisa but for me I'm sure I couldn't survive. It just wouldn't happen, all that wonderful information, inspiration and everything else that I couldn't lay my hands on and the learnings that would never take place.  I really just don't want to think about it. I'm sure you'll agree Lisa wouldn't you.   Oh for sure. As they say it's like a University on Wheels for audio books -  that's my university on Wheels - my books.  I find Audible just amazing.  Being busy I want to read and I don't get the time to read a physical book,  so for me the audible books are just amazing and when I do get the chance to sit down and read a book I just love it.   I mean there's nothing like reading a physical book. So have you turned your book into an audible book yet Lisa? Yes, I haven't done audible only because apparently Australians we're not allowed to have audible yet,  so it's something that I've looked into having someone else read it out for me on audible - it has to be an American citizen with an American bank account - so I've actually read my book out and I've got it as an audio, but I've just got it on my website, housed on my website. So on my website people can opt in to get my audiobook free.  That's my lead ins.  So I haven't done it perfect but it's like,  I'm not going to let perfect get in the way of getting it done.  I just wanted to have my audiobook there and it's there and I'll look at upgrading that later and whatever..  it was just something I wanted to have there if people are busy and they can't read a physical book. And that's why I love podcasting because you can listen to it no matter where you are. You can be driving along in the car and I travel some fairly big distances and it's just so fabulous to have it so everyone remember Lisa has told you a number of times you can go to her website and opt in to listen to her book.  So I think  I'll be doing that as well. It's such a fabulous offer Lisa, Well in saying that, my book is all about how to position yourself as the expert -  now it is tailored to real estate agents but it really is for any business.  So anybody listening to this will actually get a lot out of that book because it's marketing 101 - it's everything from social media to video marketing to…  it's everything marketing-  the book is actually marketing. Lisa I'm just stunned, you are offering this for free on your website and that was going to be one of my questions…  is your book, you know what you’re offering… can we kind of transpose that into any other business that we might be running and obviously we can. I read a book about 25 years ago and it was called benchmarking and it was a book about how business strategies.   It was looking at businesses similar to your own and looking at what they're doing and looking at what you're doing and can you put any of the procedures into your business?   That was something I did,  I was in real estate and I looked at a travel agent and I thought it's kind of a little bit similar..  not really but kind of and I looked at some of the procedures they did and it really made me look at my business and business models in general so that was my first experience of really looking at business models and that was something when I study Internet marketing and I spent a fortune on online courses.  The best online marketers and read books and did everything with the vision of how can I apply this into real estate - so I watch what Frank Kern did with his clients and thought how can a real estate agent do this with their clients?  How can a real estate agent do what they're doing.. to make it successful and so I had a real estate office at the time and so I did all of those things.  I did the free books I did video marketing.  Everything the online marketers were doing that was successful and put it into my real estate office and then real estate agents started ringing me and asking me… how do I do this and how do I do that and why did you do this?   So then I thought wow, I've got to create an online product, I've got to write a book.  There's a market here because people don't know how to do this. I’ve sort of taken it for granted in lots of ways but I've also learnt it.  So...  I put all the information into a step by step process.   My book is actually a checklist - it's got boxes that you can check off -  you can say yes I've done this or you can come back and do it later.   It explains what to do,  it explains why you need to do it and as I said you can check it off.    So it really is everything I know about marketing - and you can put that into your own business as far as taking it and running with it - so then you can say you have your book - think how do I then take that and cross it over into my business and that's a question we should always be asking. If a business is successful what can I do to make my business just as successful as theirs?   That is just fantastic Lisa and I understand completely, to be able to take all that information and put into your own business - regardless of what business you're in. There will definitely be 90% of what Lisa is explaining and teaching you in her book that you can bring into your own business.   So my suggestion is that you go to www.lisab.com.au and have a look at that book.   Now Lisa time is just ticking down. Geraldine - It's gone so quick! Time just goes so quick when girls get together to chat. I was just going to say….. some of the things that I would like to say to people is that as I said….  I waited 10 years to publish my book and I just can't believe that I put it away for that long and did nothing with it,  so I would  just like to say, get it back out if you put a book away - get it back out have a look at it -  make some changes, adjust and whatever -  if you haven't written a book a big tip that I can give is Google Drive/ Google Docs -  that's how I've written all of my books - I've just got my Google App - opened a Google document on my phone it's also synced with my phone and my computer.   Then I came up with my title - I've got  my title page on my Google Docs then  I separated each into chapters -  chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3,  Chapter 4.  I worked out kind of the flow of the book of what I wanted to say -  The introduction,  the different lead ins of how your book is going to be organised.  Then each chapter you write those headings at the front of the chapter and then wherever you are.  you can start to write your book.   My son does karate and for 5 hours a week while  he's at karate and I'm watching him, I get onto my phone or computer and start writing my book - while I'm watching my son do karate.  Or while I’m waiting for an appointment or if someone's 10 minute late.  I will just go in and write my book.   You don't get writer's block that way,  you're actually organising as you go and the great thing about Google Docs is that you can talk into it and do speech to text.  So you can press a button and you can just talk and the book writes for you.  Google Docs writes it for you, so you don't even have to type it in.   Technology is just amazing isn't it, so many things that we can do, so there's no excuse really is what you're saying. Another little tip that you can do, is once you have a podcast you can play that podcast back into your Google Docs and it can transcribe it for you.  You might have to make a few little changes but you can do your own transcripts.  Does that make sense? Yes It is so fantastic because otherwise what you have to do is listen to a bit of the recording,  stop and then listen to a bit more - you just play the audio into your Google Docs and it types it all out - and you have your transcript. So… just create a Google Docs and start writing - you might see something else that gives you inspiration,  something that you can write about, or a link to a website that somebody tells you about that is similar to your book -  put it in that document.  Put everything in that document and then you can go back and research - it's such a great way of doing it. I just absolutely love Google Docs.   I do everything on Google Docs. Everything is so easy to find -  you can put photos,  videos and all sorts of different things in there and it's your book!!  It's your focus when you log on! And I love the idea that you can do all that when you're out and about and because a lot of the time you're inspired when you're out and about - ideas come to us at the most inconvenient times so we can actually go in, or even just record those ideas on your phone.  I quite often do that too, just press record on my phone and I'm chatting away and people just think you're on the phone so that's ok. Now Lisa,  it's time for us to finish the show.  We are counting down here.   So Lisa I wanted thank you so much for being with us today.  It has just been fantastic and so much information in such a short amount of time.  I really appreciate your time,  effort and energy for being here so thank you. It just went so quick I can't believe it! Time Goes fast when you're having fun. Everybody you can visit Geraldine Teggelove Live for the recording of this week's show and we’ll be getting it out there so you won't miss it. I'm the meantime,  a million blessings of Peace, Love and wonderful success. Bye for now by Lisa. Dr Geraldine Teggelove - website Dr Geraldine Teggelove - radio interviews

This Episode’s Focus on Strengths This month’s episode features Gary Ware, whose mission is to help people “energize their work.” If you find that your job is sometimes humdrum, and that your team’s ability to create new, innovative ideas is stifled, then this is the episode for you. Gary provides practical tools (and cool examples) you can use to get creative juices flowing. And, there’s even a bonus – tips to improve your interviewing skills. You can use those tips on both sides of the proverbial interviewing table. To give you a hint about Gary's essence, here’s his favorite quote by Plato. He lives his life by it: “You learn more about a person in an hour of play, than a lifetime of conversation.”   What You’ll Learn Practical tools to improve creativity and problem solving at work: Use this lesson from Improv: be in the moment and be fully present. If you're not fully engaged, your ability to contribute to a proposed idea will be limited. Gary and Lisa both practice the concept of "soft focus" that comes from improvisation. In practicing soft focus, you're fully tuned into what's going on in the room. Rather than thinking about what you're going to say next, you're fully there with the intention to listen and soak in what's going on around you. Use the words “Yes, and…” instead of cutting off someone’s idea with a "Yes, but." Make an effort to see where the idea takes you as a group, and don't deviate from a concept until it’s fully played out. Ideas are different from execution, yet often people squash ideas by thinking about impractical execution details as ideas get launched. This is why you hear "Yes, but" so often in meetings. The challenge is that ideas need space. When a team member thinks his idea will get slammed, he won't bother throwing it out. And his idea might just be the one that inspires his teammate's genius breakthrough that would have come 7 ideas down the line. Notice what works. When you keep going, and when you get stuck, that’s where you get the amazing stuff! Spend time debriefing as a team. Talk about what brings out your biggest ideas. Talk about what makes you feel your best. Share moments of success because noticing what works will help you get more of what works. Accepting and considering ideas, no matter how crazy, will lead you to innovation and creative breakthrough moments. Allow yourselves to get stuck so that you can get to the breakthrough. Don't disregard them.  Take the word “but…” out of your vocabulary entirely. That’s just another way of saying no. It's a way of disregarding a person’s contribution, which may inhibit them from speaking up when they have their next incredible idea. Many leaders and team members think they're being practical when they pick ideas apart. On the surface it feels like a way to quickly cull and make decisions. Yet actually, it creates a situation where people don't want to speak until they have a great idea. Find your openness. Enter creative sessions with a sense of curiosity and possibility. If needed, tell everyone that this meeting isn't about making a decision. Tell them it's about coming up with ideas. If needed, create a silly mantra like "thank you for that idea" that everyone says in unison after every idea. Rather than commenting on an idea, you simply thank them, accept the submission and keep moving to the next idea. That way, you're not categorizing ideas as good and bad, you're simply generating the list of ideas. Step into their shoes. Remember that we all see things through different lenses. Try to see ideas and concepts as others do. Consider that their perspectives, assumptions, and experiences are leading them to show up with a unique perspective. Using this mental practice is great for team building because it asks you to consider how someone else might view a project or problem.   Bonus tools to help you during an interview: If you are thrown off during an interview, compose yourself and be real. If you don’t know an answer, be honest. They’ll know when you're flustered, and making up an answer is not a good option. Hiring managers want to know who you are. They want to know how you work. With all things being equal, people are going to hire those they like, so be your true self. Your resume tells them what you've done. That's easy enough to read, so use the interview to show the who and how. Have some stories about yourself ready. Use these stories to highlight your strengths. Lisa recommends coming up with one example for each of your Top 5 StrengthsFinder talent themes. Since your natural talents are more about how you work than what you do, they make for great behavioral interview answers. For example, if you have a story about how you used your Includer talent to bring success to a high-stress project, you can use that example for many common behavioral interview questions, such as "tell me about a time when you overcame a challenging situation" or "tell me about a time when you dealt with a difficult person." If you're a hiring manager, try the Monkey Wrench Game that Gary and Lisa demonstrate during the episode. This is a tool you can use in an interview to see how someone thinks on the fly. And like the Plato quote above, you can tell a lot about a candidate through their play.   If you manage a team, try the activities that Gary and Lisa demonstrated in a team meeting. These Improv exercises are a fun way to do a five minute team building exercise at the beginning of your next team meeting. They're a great way to set the tone for a creative, collaborative conversation.   Yes, And Interview (San Antonio Zoo Interview was the example in the episode) Objective: Hold a 1x1 conversation between two people at a time with no pre-planned expertise or interview questions. Time: 10 min. This could take 30 min or an hour if you have a large team. Be sure to set the stage so people know they should try to keep their answers to 1 minute or less. An average-size team will be finished in 10 minutes + instruction time. Purpose: Get your team in the moment and fully present so that they "Yes, And" their way to a full conversation. The purpose is to generate collaboration, ideation, support, creativity, and of course...fun. Preparation: Bring a pad of sticky notes. Get two volunteers. One person will be the interviewer, and one will be the first interviewee. The interviewer will be the same person during the entire game. This person should be a good communicator who will enjoy being part of the exercise the entire time. The interviewee will change after each question, so each team member will take a turn. Tell the team that you'll be building on a conversation (a mock expert interview) as you go person by person. Encourage them to call back to each other's references. Ask them to try to transition into their response seamlessly, as if it is one conversation. Do a quick demo so they get the idea before you get started. How to do it with your team: Ask each person to write one noun on one sticky note and one verb on a second sticky note. When people are finished, have them put those on a wall or in the middle of the table where everyone can see. This is your pile of inspiration words. Get your interviewer to pick one of the words. That person starts the interview with, "thanks for coming in to share your expertise on [word]" - then the interviewer continues by asking a relevant question about that word. The interviewee answers and then says, "I think you should also talk to my friend [teammate's name] he/she is an expert when it comes to [word]." Then the interviewer asks the new person a question about that word. The interview continues until all teammates have answered a question. Key: this needs to feel like one conversation. That's where the Yes, And comes into play. Try to transition into their response seamlessly, as if it is one conversation. On a flip chart or whiteboard, write, "I think you should also talk to my friend [teammate's name] he/she is an expert when it comes to [word]" - this will help them remember how to generate the handoff from one interviewee to the next. Debrief the experience: Ask how that exercise mimicked things that happen at work on a regular day. Ask what it felt like when the transitions were natural and tied together. Ask what it felt like when someone abruptly moved to the next topic in the interview. Note: the lesson you're drawing out is what it feels like when you use "Yes, And" to collaborate and build on each other's ideas. It's to talk about what it feels like when you show up as a fully present participant who accepts what "is" and moves forward from there. If you have a team with a lot of emotional baggage or a habit of squashing infant ideas, this would be a great exercise.   Monkey Wrench Story (this was the ranch story from the episode) Objective: Hold a conversation in pairs where the storyteller flexes the story based on random words inserted by the randomizer. Time: 3 min + instruction time. Purpose: Get your team out of an over-analyzing mode; practice full presence; have fun; practice adaptability and innovation; experience change with no luxury of planning. Preparation: Get a timer. You can likely use the stopwatch feature on your phone. Have everyone pair up. One person will be the storyteller (this is the role Lisa played in the example in the episode). One person will be the randomizer (this is the role Gary played).  Ask them to decide who will play which role for their 3 minute story. Do a quick demo so they get the idea before you get started. How to do it with your team: Tell the storytellers that their job is to tell a story that begins with "once upon a time...", to try to create some excitement in the middle, and to bring it to a close in a relatively short period of time. Tell the randomizers, in advance, to think of 5 unrelated words. Have them write them on a piece of paper that only they can see. Tell them that their job is to insert those words randomly in the middle of a sentence (not the end) while the storyteller is talking. The storyteller's job is to accept the word and smoothly weave it into the story. Tell them how you will call them back together. All pairs will be talking at once, so the room might get loud. Tell them how to know it's time to cut off their story if it hasn't finished when you call time. Key: this needs to feel like one story. That's where the Yes, And comes into play. They're practicing the idea of changing direction quickly, and not being able to plan their responses. Debrief the experience: Start off by hearing a couple of the interesting story topics they covered. Ask who wants to do a 15 second story synopsis. It's fun hearing that one group talked about aliens inventing a revolutionary code that will forever change software development, whereas another group talked about hardcover books being distributed by orphaned dolphins who swam with the books on their fins. Ask how that exercise mimicked things that happen at work. Ask what it felt like to the storytellers when they had to shift the story into an unexpected direction. Ask what it felt like to the randomizer to hear where the story goes versus where they expected. Ask what was difficult; ask what was easy. Note: the lesson you're drawing out is what it feels like when you're fully present--when you come without assumptions or expectations about what's next. And you get to experience what it's like being fully in the moment. It's not to show that future thinking or learning from past failures is bad. Of course, if you know us at Lead Through Strengths, you'll know we love the talents of Futuristic, Context, and Strategic. Instead, this is to get people to also experience what it feels like to be fully present in the moment and to support ideas in a different way. If you have a team with a lot of competing priorities and distractions, this would be a great one. Using these tools and techniques helps teams create and innovate, while allowing all people to feel valued and appreciated.   Resources of the Episode To connect with Gary, check out his website, and follow him on twitter.   Subscribe To subscribe and review, here are your links for listening in iTunes and Stitcher Radio. You can also stream any episode right from the website. Subscribing is a great way to never miss an episode. Let the app notify you each week when the latest episode gets published.   StrengthsFinder Mini-Course For Managers If you’re a people-manager and you want to sharpen your strengths based support, come join our mini-course. We don’t charge for this because we want to help you keep the StrengthsFinder momentum going. Teams who receive strengths feedback have 8.9% greater profitability. Yowza! Sounds like a great reason to join. Source:  Asplund, J., & Blacksmith, N. “Strengthening Your Company’s Performance.” Gallup Business Journal. Read the full conversation: Lisa Cummings: Today you'll get some serious depth on the concept of energizing your work. Your guest host a show called Breakthrough Cocktail. He helps teams get out of their funk, through improvisation and through play. Now, if that sounds just a little bit too much like a boondoggle of a work day for you, hey, listen through anyway, All right, because improv has helped me become such a better player at work and beyond the distressing and beyond the fun that it brings you, there are real productivity benefits to this stuff. It helps you think on your feet. Lisa Cummings: It helps you innovate and you learn a ton about your teammates. By being in Improv games, you get to simulate your decision making responses. You simulate the default ways that you act in different situations. Yet you do it in a way that is accepting of each other's ideas and building instead of stripping down, basically you give huge support to each other. Yes, even to the people who annoy you and it shows you a whole new way to value them and what they bring to the team. So, Gary Ware, thank you for bringing us some productivity boosting fun and games today. So why don't you get us started by telling us your perspective on play at work. Gary Ware: Yeah. I actually have a quote that summarizes that and it's from Plato and it says you learn more about a person in an hour of play than a lifetime of conversation. Like Lisa, I totally agreed. I got hooked on during Improv because it was something, there was something about it. Yeah, you can do these icebreaker games, but it was just something about Improv and just letting yourself go back and play and discovery that it was like I was transformed back to when I was five in kindergarten on the, on the playground, just doing silly things and there was no care in the world. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, I know that you've said you love being goofy and I love being goofy too, so it certainly feeds that part. Yeah, just the play and not planning what to say. I'm very much like that. I plan a few steps ahead. I want to be careful about what I say and it, it's the opposite of that and not being seven steps ahead. So really just being in the moment, being fully present. It's just so cool. I could go on, I could gush. Gary Ware: Yeah, I know. Exactly. And it's just a new way of thinking. So Lisa, question for you. So you got into Improv and it sort of transformed your life. Can you talk about a few other areas of, of how just Improv this impacted you? Lisa Cummings: The “yes, and” part has been huge for me. So anybody who's listening who's not familiar with “yes, and” it's, it's kind of a basic tenants that you're going to support what's going on in a scene or in a moment and build on it rather than cutting it off or saying no to what's happening. And so putting yourself in that mindset of you're in the scene or at work, you're at work and then going with what is happening and then making the best of it, building on it and making it better as a completely new way. It shifted me in many ways like down to the basics of trying to get “but” out of my vernacular, unless you're talking about a literal butt on a body, it's “the yes, and” or I'll say yet I won't say, but if I'm being conscious of it because it does, it changes the way you actually think and put things together and it, it just changes your frame of mind. So that's been a huge one for me in life. How about for you? Gary Ware: It causes me to think of other possibilities. You're right when you are saying “yes, and" you are agreeing 120 percent with someone and you're building on that and everything's a possibility because I know we're so quick to say “no” for whatever reason. It could be that you're just scared or you really think that you have an idea that is stellar and you're not listened to and sometimes it's just all about; let’s support what's already out there Lisa Cummings: And it teaches you about yourself in a way that you. I understand more about your assumptions. So, I'm remembering back to a recent class and so I'm an Improv and you're in this scene. Work with a person and they're doing something and so as the recipient or you're, you're up there with them listening and trying to understand what they're doing through their actions. The guy who was up there with me he was being a cook in his mind and so he was chopping something with a knife and what I saw was a guy working in his wood shop and as a perfect example of “yes, and” because I started commenting on what he was making in his wood shop and it was after the scene we were debriefing when he said, I was actually starting as a chef. It turned in a completely different direction and just imagine if we weren't in front of an audience, it was in the class, but if we're in front of an audience and he's like, hey dummy, I'm not in a wood shop. Lisa Cummings: I'm in a chef. Hello. Can you not see my knife? Would have ruined the whole thing. He just went with it and then there's something human and real that happens too because you see his face, he's shifting gears. He's recalibrating, okay, now I'm going to shop and what am I holding and what I was seeing him like with a rasp or something and it's just for me, that's very insightful when you think about it. Applied to work because you see the world through your eyes and you have no idea where they're coming from and you can assume yet getting in and saying yes and going with what's happening really helps you understand. You come from a place of curiosity, come from a place of openness and then you start to see, oh yeah, there are different people who see things differently. And my way is not the only way to go about the world. Gary Ware: I totally agree. And myself coming from a very creative background and working in the agency world by saying, yes, it opens up in endless possibilities for innovation because I know far too often, if you're in a brainstorming session and again, everyone wants to get their ideas heard and like every time we deny someone's idea. And we throw someone else’s idea out. If you start over again and, but just by throwing all egos aside and just supporting what is out there and just agreeing 110 percent and just not, you know, exploring that until it's completely done. And then, before we move onto any new concepts, you will get awesome ideas. And another example of- this was something how we brought one of the tenants of Improv “yes, and” into the brainstorming scenario so when we would brainstorm, it would be uber focused, brainstorm, so it would be on one concept, but we could not explore outside of that concept until we explored everything about that concept. And so no one can throw any new ideas into the mix until everything from the very first idea has been explored and it makes you think… in the beginning, you get all the obvious things out. But then that's where the magic happens is we can't move on because that's typically what happens. You get all the obvious stuff and then you get stuck and then you move onto something else and then you have to start over. But You keep going and then that's where you get those breakthrough moments. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, those are great. It's kind of like, oh, for anybody reading, if you're really into this stuff, it's convergent and divergent thinking. And the typical brainstorm, people are always talking about, oh, blue sky, you know, think about anything wacky out there and you do come up with good ideas there and that's more of the divergent. But if you create the constraint and you say, all right, we're living inside of this limitation. What can we come with? Insight of the limitation, the ideas I see come up are better when you're limiting yourself, constraining yourself, because then you can get real wacky with how to make it unique and those are the most fun to me. But versus the wide-open universe of ideas you could come up with. Gary Ware: Yeah, exactly. Sometimes we need limitations and constraints to come up with amazing ideas. And I know for my own improv experiences, sometimes those limitations are the format of the game. You know, this specific game has, has specific rules and specific limitations. But aside from that, you're free to completely explore and do whatever you want. And like what you mentioned earlier, you are not by yourself. You're with someone that is supporting you and we see things through different lenses and by just supporting whatever's out there and building on it, it's magic. It is magic. Yeah. And so I thought maybe we can kick things off by playing a little game. One of the simplest games is, ““yes, and””, and maybe we can just start with, since this is a career focused and, and whatnot, maybe we can do a yes and gain where maybe it's an interview focus game, but we're going to just keep saying “yes and” we're going to build on something and see where we go. Okay, cool. Lisa, would you like to be the interviewer and I will be the interviewee. Lisa Cummings: Yes. I would love to. And I would love to know what job you would like to interview for. Gary Ware: I would like to interview for a trainer at the zoo. Okay. Lisa Cummings: Gary, it's great to have you in here. Tell me about the wackiest animal experience you've had at the zoo so far or in your animal life. Gary Ware: I have to say the most wacky experience that I ever had was when I worked in Africa and I was tracking rhinos through the safari. Lisa Cummings: You know, I've always wanted to do a safari in Africa, and I know it's a little off what you might expect an interview topic to be about, but can you tell me what you learned while you were tracking rhino and what, what the purpose was? What were you out there after? Gary Ware: Yeah. What I learned is that rhinos, they travel in packs and that reminds me of family and the importance of having a good support system and I can bring those, you know, that experience here to this zoo, the San Antonio Zoo, and I can apply that to any aspect of our training facility. Lisa Cummings: That's great. I love the lessons you can apply. I'm wondering, so rhinos, they seem kind of scary. Were there ever moments when you were just… Yeah, they scared the bejesus out of you or were you pretty confident the whole time? How did you handle fears being out like that in some risky environment? Gary Ware: Yes, they did. Right? Those are scary beast and I'm not going to lie. I was quite scared; there was one time when we were trying to identify if this was a specific heard that we have tagged, and I had to go into the pack where a mother was nursing with some of her young and just like any mother, if you're going to approach her children, she's going to get defensive. I personally thought she was going to charge me, but I noticed the warning signs and I stayed very clear. And one thing that you have to know about rhinos is that if you, if you don't show fear and you show dominance, they will immediately back down. Lisa Cummings: Wow. And how did you show dominance to a rhino? Gary Ware: Well, I think the best way to show dominance to a rhino is to appear like you are a male rhino. So that requires you to get into this position and, start stomping your feet. It is quite the site. And I did that very successfully. Lisa Cummings: Have you ever stomped your feet like that in a work environment? Gary Ware: Actually, sometimes you have to show dominance in a work environment, and so yes, that I can relate to multiple times when, if I'm in a situation where I'm being bullied, sometimes you just have to stomp your feet and you know, show that you mean business, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to always do that. Lisa Cummings: Well, tell me about a time when you had to show you meant business. Gary Ware: Well, I'm a little ashamed about this, but there was a time when I worked for the San Diego Zoo and I thought I was up for a raise. I had to say, Hey, I, am and doing a super job and I felt like I am due for a raise. Would you please reevaluate me? And I was very firm yet not overbearing. And that was the last time I had to really show that I meant business. Lisa Cummings: Now, if you had to show you meant business to end this interview and show me that you wanted the job, what would you do right here? Gary Ware: Well, I would make sure that I have, a power stance and a power stance means that my feet are shoulder width apart. I am leaning in which is more of a position of power and I will make direct eye contact and I would have more of a deeper voice and I would say I am the best candidate for this position. You should hire me because no one else is going to bring their experience like myself Lisa Cummings: "And, scene" Lisa Cummings: So now if we go out of character and debriefed that some things that were really cool to me is for the listeners out there, it's kind of cool to show “yes, and” and Improv stuff doesn't have to be about being funny. It's about going with what's going on and having been a recruiter and hiring manager as I watched and listened to your answers and thinking about how you just rolled with it, it didn't matter what I threw out you, they were not typical interview questions. I don't know if there are typical zoo interview questions is a different environment, but it was interesting. You probably think you're going to get it. It told me about your strengths and weaknesses. Tell me about your background. We ended up talking about rhinos and power stances and I think that's a really cool thing. Sometimes when I interview people I see, oh, they're off script. Lisa Cummings: What am I going to do? I used to ask a question of people about what, is the last thing you did that you found really fun? And people were like a fun. It surprised people so much and know people have fun. They just was not a work question. So it really threw people and that's something I looked for in interviews is, will they be able to roll with the punches and sometimes the punches are weird questions and sometimes it's, giving you the insight, especially the “Tell me about a time when”, I mean, that's a very technical, it's called behavioral interviewing and it's beautiful as a candidate because you get to tell stories and stories, bring emotion into the picture and make things memorable until they're so great for you as a candidate. But a lot of people resist them. So I thought that showed all sorts of cool things. How about you Gary Ware: Agreed. And another thing to note, especially being on both sides of the table, being someone that is interviewing and being interviewed yourself, you're right, you do not know what's going to be out there. However, if someone throws you for a loop, all you have to do is just take a deep breath, pause, because you don't have to answer right away, compose yourself and just be yourself. Be Real at the end of the day, they're hiring a human. And if you don't know the answer, you know, feel free to, you know, just be honest and just be real. And, you're right stories are, that is the, in my opinion, the Trojan horse of an interview because if you can talk about story, you sometimes get off tangent and they stopped interviewing you and you're having a conversation and when you're having a conversation, now you're getting real and now you're getting to the heart of why we want to interview. So when we want to find out what they're about. Lisa Cummings: Yeah, and you're getting to the “what makes people pick people”. I mean if you think about, if you talked to people the way you talk to your friends, you're not formal and stiff. You think about what you do when you sit around and relax, you know, cocktails, right? Breakthrough cocktail. So when I sit around on the patio with my friends, what do we do? We sit around and tell each other stories. When you talk to people like you talk to people you like, you tell stories, so do that with your employer. Give them the chance to see the you behind the kind of robotic curtain that people put up in interviews and let them like you and people hire people. They like all things being equal. If your resume looks about the same, that's what got you in the door. The thing that gets you hired over the final couple of candidates, it's the interpersonal stuff and that the stories are such a great way to go with that. So embrace behavioral interviews; they are awesome. Gary Ware: I totally agree. And as a way to prepare within Improv, you can't really prepare. We run through games, but as a way to prepare, I tell all of my people that I mentor have some stories like about yourself, whether it's, you know, what was the last time you felt yourself in a scary situation? You know, how do you have fun, you know, and anytime I come across a really good story that I could use in any situation I sort of just jot down and actually that reminds me of one other game that I would like to play the team, Lisa, if you would like to be so brave and it's called the Monkey Wrench game. I don't know if there's a technical term. So a Lisa, if you would be brave to be the person on this one. I asked them to tell me a story about anything. It's just telling your story, but I'm going to throw out random words and then you have to just take that word and immediately add it to your story. Lisa Cummings: Okay. Love it. Gary Ware: Cool. So to get you started, maybe just tell me a story about a time when someone had fun since we were talking about. Lisa Cummings: Once upon a time there was a man who had no fun in his life and he went on a quest to have fun training.(Gary Ware suggests the word ‘tractor’) So he showed up at his friend's farm and said, you know, I've lived in the city my whole life and I want to learn to drive a tractor. In fact I want to operate the backhoe because I think it will be so much fun. So his friend got him out and he started tooling around with all of those knobs and sticks and he started thinking, wow, this is not as fun as I thought. Gary Ware suggests the word ‘plank’) I want to do something else on the farm I want to... So his friend said, I think you'd have more fun if you walk the plank. And the guy said, oh, what do you mean walk the plank? I thought you walk the plank when you were like getting off to buy haters or something. Lisa Cummings: And so Joe said, no, no, no, no, no. Walking the plank here is great. So we take them out to the pool and stands them out on the diving board, puts a blindfold on him and asks him to jump. So he jumps in the pool and (Gary Ware suggests the word ‘sunset’) so we jumped in the pool and started treading water and Joe said, you know, here's the thing, you've walked the plank, you've done the best cannon ball we've seen in like four years. The next part of fun is whether you can tread water until sunset and do some of that synchronized dancing to the beat of the music on the radio. So we started listening to the songs and moving his body to the sounds of the songs and he felt like a synchronized swimmer in the Olympics. (Gary Ware suggests the word ‘glasses’) So his friend said, you're brilliant. I mean if, if only you had that swimming cap that was pink, you would look great. So let's get out of the pool and finish up the night by having an old fashion and clinking our glasses because today was a breakthrough for fun. Gary Ware: Yay. "And, scene". How it was that? Thank you for being a Guinea pig. Lisa Cummings: That was a cool game. Yeah, I really liked it. I've done the game where you do story building where you do like once upon a time and you started off and then you just cut yourself, you edit yourself and the next person has to build on the story and let it roll. So I really, I really liked it, I'm pivoting because your mind's going in one direction and then you have to jump over to the side and make it something totally different. So I thought it was pretty fun. Gary Ware: Great. Yeah. And I have to say the story became even more creative because with this and I do a lot of people that I mentor with is to get them out of their head and be ready for anything. And now you created a story that you never would've thought you would've went there and I had no idea. And yeah, sometimes again, in interviews and on the workplace, you think you know where things are going and then you get thrown a monkey wrench, you know, pivot and adjust. Lisa Cummings: And sadly for this episode, things have to pivot to the close so we have to do more of this though, is so good. Thanks for the monkey wrench game and the interview game, Gary. I mean this has been quite the strengths jam, so I know a lot of readers can learn from this advice you gave on telling stories during interviews, whether the interviewer or the interview, my favorite action to out of this whole conversation is to practice at least one “yes, and” every day and then you'll notice how much you say but as well and just watch what it does for your influence, for your listening and for your trust on the team. That one tiny word, yes instead of but, can change the whole dynamic on your team. And then for that monkey wrench game, try that with your group at work. Lisa Cummings: It's such a fun team builder and it's really good for getting in that creative mindset when you need to or for exercising your adaptability muscle if you have to deal with a lot of change and it's even a way to practice that. “yes, and” concept because it builds on other people's ideas, even if that's not where you were planning to take the conversation. Now I know all of you listeners want to check out more from Gary. You can find him at breakthroughplay.com.

Sammy’s Mission is a health and wellness center dedicated to helping pets and their humans find the root cause to what is ailing them so that health and well-being can return. Lisa LaMendola has been a remarkably gifted and highly renowned medium for the last 30 years.  Mediumship is more than talking to your dead relatives, that’s only part of it.  In truth, mediumship is the ability to talk to souls…all souls.  So Lisa has taken her remarkable gifts and channeled them into a way to help humans and pets receive incredible insight into their health and wellness needs.  Through Medical Mediumship (the ability to see inside the body and talk to the soul) and Naturopathy (the relation to the physical body and its environment, using what is naturally found upon the earth to heal), working with open minded people (including doctors and veterinarians), Lisa is able to give you the answers and direction you need to heal the root cause of the problem.  Instead of putting a bandage on you and/or your pet’s health, Lisa will find the root cause in order to give you specific answers and find solutions to end the suffering. Most of Lisa’s clients find her when they have exhausted all other ways to find answers.  When they are ready to do whatever it is necessary to heal the wounds, they will seek out her help to find the answers no one else could give, which often confirms the gut instinct of the client.  However Lisa doesn’t stop there!  She continues by connecting to your spirit to find out why this happened and what you need to do to fix it, physically and emotionally.  By utilizing her vast experience (professional and personal), continued in depth research, and gifts as a medical medium, Lisa shows you how to help yourself; and in turn you help others. Lisa also does this for your pet!  Remember, your pet is an energetic sponge taking in all your negative energy and that of those around you.  This is something they have agreed to do ~ be your mirror; and in doing so they can get sick themselves.  The good news is our pets are much more open to changes than we are, and readily accept that which will give them the health and wellness they need.  It can be as simple as a diet change or going to the vet and explaining what Lisa has seen, or as complex as emotional and training between you and your pet (what Lisa calls The Partnership).  We have found that many veterinarians are very open to animal communication as it helps them narrow down what your pet needs from them, and Lisa offers the ability to be on the phone with you and your vet at your next visit so you don’t have to go it alone. So whether it is your health and well-being, or that of your pet, Sammy’s Mission is here to assist you in whatever way possible to find the answers you’ve been looking for.  Be sure to check out the website (www.sammysmission.com) to learn more about us and schedule your session for better health and wellness! DISCLAIMER: We at Sammy’s Mission (Lisa LaMendola) will never tell you to not listen to your doctor or vet, nor will we ever tell you to do something that contradicts them or stop taking something they have prescribed for you.  Instead we are here to work with you or your pet and your health care provider so that true healing can happen and a better life can be lived. CONTACT INFORMATION: Sammy’s Mission, LLC Ann Arbor, Michigan www.sammysmission.com sammysmission@gmail.com 561-319-7730 (phone/text)

What if you could expand your business by putting yourself in a box and reaching more people? It may sound like science fiction, but in many ways, Lisa has found a way to do this very thing! It comes as no surprise that a professional organizer and productivity nut would find many unique ways to reach more people without spending more time to do it. On the Podcast 00:54 - 9 Businesses with One Thing in Common04:03 - Becoming a Pro06:12 - There are a Million Ways to Monetize!08:16 - Lisa in a Box!10:29 - 3 Keys to Lisa's Success13:22 - Think Outside the Box with Outsourcing19:12 - Validation as Mamapreneurs21:17 - Organization for Mamapreneurs23:55 - The Sunday Basket25:40 - How Blogging Brings Clarity30:54 - A Simple Method for Efficient Blogging35:19 - Paying for Emails?40:45 - Bloggers can Sell on Etsy too!42:20 - Lisa's App47:01 - Lisa's Awesome Mom Moment Press play on the podcast player below to hear Lisa's best organization tips and to learn how she helps more people in less time with her business, Organize365. 9 Businesses with One Thing in Common Lisa comes from a long line of entrepreneurs. Her great-grandmother went to college well before that was the norm for women and ultimately owned her own floral shop! Her dad's side of the family had a similar bent towards owning their own businesses. There was never any question that Lisa would go to college, but she knew that in the end she'd be an entrepreneur. Lisa viewed college not as a way to get her ideal job (she could create that all on her own!) but to get her MRS. degree. Yep, she knows it's not politically correct and confesses that she should have come of age in the fifties! Lisa was a teacher before she had kids, but she also did direct sales. Once her children came along, she quit her teaching but continued on with direct sales. She then added tutoring, cleaning houses, and scrapbooking to her list of entrepreneurial endeavors! Lisa's business ventures got so crazy that at one point she had 9 schedule C's on her tax return! (My head is spinning just thinking about it!) Finally, in 2012 after a really rough time period for her immediate and extended family, Lisa sat down to think about what she really wanted to do. She knew she was great at sales, but the question was, what did she want to sell? Where did her gifts and passions lie? Lisa found the common thread in all of her business pursuits: organization! She got her teaching job because her co-teacher was so disorganized they needed Lisa to come in and organize the classroom. She then went on to organize the whole school! Lisa's scrapbooking business was so productive for her and her clients because she helped them get organized first. Lisa even wrote an e-book on direct sales called: How to Organize the Business of Direct Sales. She had it! Lisa starting a professional organizing business and launched her website Organize365 in January of 2012. Becoming a Pro Lisa knew she was good at teaching and coaching, so she used that skill to create great content on her blog that would help others. Even though she was passionate about helping others get organized, Lisa still hadn't realized she was "expert enough" to call herself a professional and get clients. Instead, she was making money by doing direct sales and hosting parties for organizational supplies. Lisa's house parties were huge, and she couldn't figure out why so many people wanted to attend just to buy some plastic bins! Her friend said, "Everyone wants to know what a professional organizer has to say!" It finally dawned on Lisa that she was a pro at this, and she'd better start acting like it. In April of 2012 Lisa started doing professional organizing full-time and her business was profitable right away. In January of 2013, Lisa added her first team member to her in-home organizing team. In the Fall of 2013, she hired another person to work in her business, and she's hired several other team members since then. There are a Million Ways to Monetize! It's easy to look at other bloggers and think that replicating their business model will work for us. This isn't always the case! We each have different strengths, different tools at our disposal, and a different audience we're serving. Lisa quickly grew her in-person organization business, but she wanted to monetize her blog too. She saw lots of bloggers making money from couponing, advertising, and working with brands. She tried these methods a bit, but they didn't seem to work well for Lisa's audience or her skill set. She realized that she's better as a teacher, so she created more e-books to sell. In 2012, Lisa wrote 10 steps to organize paper. Next, she wrote an e-book about her Sunday basket. Then Lisa got the rights back to her first published book called the ABC's of the Bible. Continuing with her model of teaching, Lisa added a podcast just over a year ago.(In true Lisa-style, she couldn't have just one, Lisa has 3! Successful Direct Sales, Organize365, and Professional Organizer's Think Tank.) And finally, Lisa maintained her skill at direct sales, but she took a different, more modern approach. Rather than host home parties and assembling teams of sales people, Lisa used these great companies as affiliates on her blog. Lisa in a Box! If you're a great teacher or coach, I bet some of your clients have wished they could package you up in a box, order you online, and have you right there with them! Well, Lisa has done just that with her first physical product! It's called Get All Your Papers Organized in One Weekend.  Lisa combines the knowledge you need to get started, the motivation in the form of her walking you through each step via audio CD, and the tools needed shipped right to you. There are quick-start guides so you don't have to read the full e-books if you don't want to, 3 sets of slash pockets and 2 ONE clips (both of these are a big part of Lisa's organizational system, so you don't have to hunt them down at the store), Sunday planning printables, and Organize 365 printables. Could you come up with a way to help your long-distance customers by packaging yourself in a box? I bet you could! 3 Keys to Lisa's Success Lisa points to 3 key strategies that help her grow her business and keep it profitable. Create a team! Lisa has several great team members who work for her. One person edits everything Lisa does. (She confessed that she can't spell and doesn't understand the rules of grammar!) Then Lisa hired someone to take over her Pinterest account. Can you believe that Lisa hasn't pinned a single thing from her account that has over 20,000 followers? Lisa hired someone to do all of that for her! Lisa also has someone who does everything for her podcast. She'll sit down and record 5 episodes in two hours, then send them off to Amanda who edits and does everything else! Find your money-maker. For Lisa, being a professional organizer has been the most profitable endeavor, and she was able to make money quickly. That one profitable branch of her business can easily fund everything else she's done Whatever you focus on expands! You can't focus on 10 things at once, so you'll have to pick which aspects of your business you want to grow the most. Right now she's focusing on her paper organizing kit, so of course, that's what's making the most money right now.Lisa focuses on one big thing each month and then four smaller things. For example, next week Lisa is focused on getting her products into the Amazon store and figuring out shipping. Next week, she'll work on her 31 organizing videos for October. She's uploading them directly to Facebook each day to see if she can grow her Facebook following from 7,000 to 20,000 fans. In November, Lisa won't focus on Facebook as much. She likes to go really deep on a tiny thing and then analyze things a few months later to see what aspects of her business are worth the continued investment. (Lisa's strategy for managing her time and new business ventures sounds so similar to Rachel Coley's. Sarah and I both agree that it's a great approach, and we use it for our business too! We can't do it all.. as much as we'd like to!) Think Outside the Box with Outsourcing Lisa highly recommends the book, Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker. In the book, Chris tells readers to make 3 lists. Write down the things you hate doing. (This could be cutting the grass, cleaning your house, or editing your blog posts.) Write down the things you're struggling to do on your own. (Perhaps building your website or designing your logo.) Write down the things you feel, as a business owner, that you shouldn't be doing on a day-to-day basis. (Chris says this list is the most important! It could be editing your photos or posting on social media. Maybe it's shipping your orders out the door. Even if you enjoy doing these things, your time may be better spent elsewhere to grow your business.) Lisa is a productivity nut! She wants to squeeze an extra task out of the hour and an extra minute out of every hour! Lisa says that mompreneurs often miss important things they can outsource that would give them more time for their business. She has a list of 10 household tasks you can outsource. You might feel guilty about this at first, but you have to think outside the box. If you outsource cleaning your house for $60-120 a week, you'd save yourself 5 hours a week of work. So Lisa looks at it this way: can she make at least $120 in that 5 hours of extra time? The answer for her is an absolute yes because she can work with a home organization client for $300 during that time. Ask yourself, "How much does it cost me to do that task, and how much does it cost someone else to do that task?" Another creative outsourcing solution: Lisa says, "don't outsource your parenting," but she does recommend getting help with the kids when they're little. Lisa used to hire a nanny on Wednesdays from 8 AM to 6 PM. Lisa was able to get 10 hours of productive, quiet work time for just $120. That was totally worth it! And in 10 hours of dedicated time, Lisa was able to plow through a ton of work versus working every naptime for 1.5 hours each day and feeling like you're not getting anywhere. If you don't have any funds for a sitter, consider swapping with a friend. You take her kids one day a week, and she takes yours on another. Then, you both get dedicated work time, and your kids have fun with their friends! How to make the most of your work time: Lisa recommends creating a work basket. As you think of tasks to do for your business, write them down and put them in your work basket. If you think of something to tell your business partner, just write it down and put it in the basket. Emails you have to respond to? Put them in the work basket! Then, when you've got your dedicated chunk of time, you know just what to tackle without getting sidetracked or distracted. You can plow through those little to-do's much faster than you realize when they're all in one place waiting for you. Validation as Mamapreneurs Another important mental aspect of having a dedicated time to work is that it gives your job some validation. It's earned a place on your calendar. You've made room for it. It's not just a casual gig anymore. Sarah and I had our own esoteric discussion here about validation as Mamapreneurs. When Sarah filled out the paperwork for her daughter's orthodontist appointment, she put homemaker as her occupation. But she thought to herself today, "I should put self-employed!" I agree, and I laughed and confessed that I've put "self-employed" on every bit of paperwork I get the moment we decided to launch our podcast! It often takes quite a while (and maybe it will never happen!) for others to recognize your home business as valid, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't recognize it as such. (It's valid, brilliant business mom! We believe in you!) Organization for Mamapreneurs Lisa says it's so important for Mamapreneurs to write down their biggest goal for the week, and then no more than 3 top goals for each day for the home and for their business. She's created a free printable for you to try to organize those top tasks as well as get your week organized each Sunday! When you start planning your top goals, you'll realize that email and social media don't often make the list, but without a plan, those tasks easily creep into the first place spot each day. Lisa also blocks off one work day each week to spend 6-8 hours on something that will grow her business to another level. So, for example, getting her products on Amazon, or creating new videos or a new product. The Sunday Basket Lisa's main method for organizing paper involves something called, "The Sunday Basket. It's a basket, box or bag that you keep on your kitchen counter. Every bit of paper that you receive, along with other simple to-do's goes into this basket. For example, a bill that doesn't need to be paid right that second, paperwork from the kids' school, an item to return to Walmart. On Sunday after the kids are in bed, take out every single thing, touch it and ask, "can this wait until next Sunday or does it need to be done this week?" Everything that must be done that week should have a plan for action. In this way, all of your paperwork and to-do's are in one, manageable place, and you only tackle the things that need to be tackled, without forgetting anything along the way. How Blogging Brings Clarity Once you start blogging regularly, you'll quickly realize that it can clarify what you're good at and what your readers respond to. Lisa quickly realized that she was constantly talking about organizing paperwork, and her audience really responded. A bonus of this is that Lisa ranks really high in Google for terms related to organizing paper because no one talks about it! People discuss going paperless or they simply pretend all that paper doesn't exist. Lisa has dug deep when it comes to organizing paper. Here's what she recommends: Gather up every piece of paper from your whole house. The papers on your nightstand. Your kids' art work, receipts...everything! Put it all into a laundry basket (or two!) Lisa says that people generally start with 2 full laundry baskets and by week 6-8 of organizing their paper they get their Sunday Basket down to a manageable size. Tackle a new paper challenge with Lisa each week. She'll walk you through all the different items you'll find in your basket: what to do with cash, projects, receipts, and more. Keep going. Lisa gets that no one wants to do paper! It's hard for her to get clients to do it even when she's standing right there with them! But if you can get a handle on the kitchen counter paperwork, you'll feel like Supermom! It's worth it!   A Simple Method for Efficient Blogging When Lisa started blogging in January of 2012, all she knew was that she needed to be consistent, she needed to have a niche, and she needed to create content. She came up with the idea of a series in order to be consistent and help others get organized right along with her. The challenge is called: 40 Weeks, One Whole House. Lisa divided her house into 40 zones, and she tackled a different zone each week. The next year, Lisa did the challenge with her readers again, but this time she hired a professional photographer to take better photos of her work. The year after that, Lisa did the 40-week challenge again but this time she added a podcast so her readers could hear her talking as though she was right there with them helping them organize their homes.Lisa says it takes going through the challenge about 3 times to really make your home look great! Sarah and I both LOVED this genius strategy of creating awesome, helpful content but just adding a bit more each year. Lisa says there are only so many ways you can organize a laundry room. So rather than write 16 fluffy blog posts on the topic, she writes one killer post that motivates her readers to take action.Is there an insanely helpful series you can create for your readers and then repeat on your blog, year-after-year? Paying for Emails? This year, Lisa decided to offer her 40-week challenge as an email auto-responder series as an added help for her readers. The problem was, she was using Mailchimp, and when she received new participants, they could start at week 1, but they couldn't skip ahead and join the whole group of challengers if they wanted to.Lisa decided to switch to InfusionSoft which offers both options for a new subscriber. Then, no matter where someone signed up, everyone will be back at week 1 together the next Fall. Because Infusionsoft is quite expensive, Lisa knew she had to justify this expense. She charges a one-time fee of $40 for the 40-week email series. Once you pay for the series, you'll get it forever until you unsubscribe.Lisa knew if she could sell just 5-10 of these email subscriptions each month, that would pay for Infusionsoft. She's more than met that goal! She's not getting hundreds of sales, but the people who do sign up really love it. Everything they need for each week's challenge is all in one place, and they just click the link in their inbox. Bloggers can Sell on Etsy too! Lisa's not a handmade maven, but she does have a lot of digital products (and a physical one now too!) that she wanted to sell all in one place. Lisa decided to open an Etsy shop as the hub for her products.Her shop, Organize365, has been open since May of 2014 and she's had over 700 sales to date. Some of Lisa's products cost over $90 too! If you're a blogger struggling to create a beautiful storefront for your products, consider opening an Etsy shop and linking right to it from your blog. It's so easy to get started, and Etsy makes the shopper experience a bit more user-friendly and streamlined than many of the cheaper apps you could use on your own site. If you're a coach or expert in a given field, Etsy can be the perfect place to make more passive income. Lisa took all of her coaching and teaching knowledge and turned it into digital products. Not everyone can afford to use her as a coach, and not everyone lives close enough to have Lisa organize their home in person, but with digital products and Etsy, Lisa can serve her audience in more ways. Lisa's App Lisa is always looking for ways to better serve her audience and make life easier for them. In the Spring of 2015, she decided to have an app developed for her 40-week organizing challenge. Lisa paid $2,000 for the app and pays $50/month for hosting. Her app is available for both android and ios. Inside the app, Lisa's challengers can find the podcast and blog post related to that week's challenge without searching and without being distracted by all the other content on her site. The coolest thing about this app? Lisa can send out push notifications whenever she wants! She can tell people, "hey it's week four, tell me if you're going to sell or donate your items this week!" Their app will show a red circle to let them know there's something new to see. From the app, Lisa's challengers can link straight into her Facebook group and chat with each other. LIsa says, "it's so hard to organize your house by yourself. The community aspect really helps." How's the app going? Lisa says she has about 3,000 users right now, and they're equally split between android and ios. She's still not sure if the app itself will be a revenue generator or not. At this point, she doesn't charge for it. Right now, the app is just serving her current audience better and allowing her to connect with them in a new way. Lisa believes that all of the 3,000 users were people who were already on her email list or listening to her podcast. They haven't found her organically at this point, but the app has only been out for 6 weeks. We can't wait to see how the app continues to grow and serve her audience! What a cool idea! Lisa's Awesome Mom Moment When your teenage son respects what you do, you know you're on the right track! Tune in to hear what Lisa's son told her recently! Stay in Touch with Lisa! Lisa has created a special page just for Brilliant Business Moms Listeners. It has the Sunday basket printables to help you organize your week and a checklist for anyone interested in becoming a professional organizer.Head to Organize365.com/brilliant Other links mentioned in the episode:  Our super secret freebies page for our email subscribers.