FreeYouNow.com

Starting a Veggie Garden

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It’s been almost two years since I’ve written a Blog post here at FreeYouNow.com.

I’ve been primarily focused on working on my tabletop gaming business and that hasn’t really left me with a lot of time to do any blogging.

However, today I decided to write a post on here about a new project I’m going to be embarking on – starting a veggie garden.

To be honest, I don’t really know why I’m being so inspired to start a veggie garden this spring, as I have more than enough on my plate right now with my businesses, but for whatever reason I’m just super excited to start a garden.

I’ve been doing a lot of research in the past week or so on various possible setups for a veggie garden in my back yard.

In the past I’ve setup a hydroponic setup for growing vegetables, which was on-track and doing well until one day a power outage/spike broke my lighting timer in my grow tent and at that time I was also super busy with work and I didn’t check on my plants for a few days and of course since they had no light at all for a few days they all died.

It was a mistake on my part, trusting a digital timer which up to that point had been working flawlessly, compounded by my busy schedule and me not checking in on my system for a few days.

One day I may go back and give hydroponics another try, but for now I’m really inspired to setup a garden outside where I’ll have a lot more room to grow veggies and also where the sun will rise every morning and not be dependent on a digital timer. 🙂

I’m still very much in the research and planning phases of this project, but I’m a huge believer in diving in and getting started with SOMETHING when excited about a new project, so as a starting point I’m starting with two things:

1) Starting Off Seedlings

The first thing I did is I picked up a Jiffy Pro Greenhouse starter kit for starting off seedlings.

I still had a bunch of seeds from my hydroponic garden so I picked 9 different types of seeds and did four “pods” for each type of veggie:

  • Cauliflower
  • Zucchini
  • Radishes
  • Caesar Lettuce
  • Mixed Greens
  • Green Onions
  • Red Peppers
  • Cucumbers
  • Beets

Now, I know I still have to go back and research each of those veggies and I’m not even sure if any of them will sprout as the seeds are a few years old, but I figured I’d get something started and see how it goes.

I got the seedlings all setup now, sitting on a warming mat, so hopefully within the next week or so we’ll see something happen.

2) Getting Cedar for a Raised Bed Setup

I decided to go with a raised bed setup for my garden.

There are a few reasons for this, but primarily it was a decision between building a fenced off area for my garden that the dogs won’t trample over, or building raised beds which are tall enough for the dogs not to get into.

If I was to build a fence and fence in a portion of my yard and dedicate it to a veggie garden, then I would just use small raised garden boxes that are 8′ x 4′ by 6″ tall.

However, I decided to instead build 8′ x 4′ x 24″ tall raised beds which hopefully won’t require me to have a fence, but which later on could easily be split apart into the smaller 8′ x 4′ x 6″ tall beds if I do end up building a fence.

So I’m just going to start with the taller raised beds and then I can always break them down into smaller pieces later if needbe.

For my first prototype for the box I picked up a bunch of 2×6 x8′ red cedar planks as well as a few 4×4 x8′ for the corner pieces.

For the actual box design, I’m thinking of doing something like this:

If you guys would like to see progress updates on this project, leave a comment and let me know and I’ll try to do some updates as I go along with the project.

-Paul

How Being Motivated Can Make You Fat

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About a month ago I decided to start focusing on losing weight and getting in better shape – AGAIN.

I’ve started the journey of losing weight and getting fit more times than I can remember, and I’ve actually had a lot of success with losing weight.

Losing weight is easy.

The challenge is that gaining it back is even easier.

Years ago, my primary focus and obsession with weight loss and fitness was figuring out what is the best, fastest and safest way to lose unwanted excess fat on the body and how to put on lean muscle mass.

Because I focused on that, I figured it out and I know exactly what to do and what not to do in order for me to lose weight.

However, this time around, I’m focusing on something different.

I’ve now been a lot more focused and obsessed with learning how to get fit, lose weight and KEEP it off after I lose it, and I’ve learned some very interesting things about that.

Here’s what I did first…

Discovering How Fit People Stay Motivated Long Term

In the past, whenever I would make the decision to lose weight, I would be highly motivated to produce results – and quickly.

I would either do a weight loss competition with one of my friends, or just make the decision to put energy, time and focus into losing weight.

And I would do it.  I’d lose the weight I wanted to lose and hit my goals.

Each time I would start highly motivated to lose the weight, however as time would go on my motivation levels would drop.

By the time I was hitting my target weight loss goal, usually my motivation was pretty low at that point…

… so after I hit my goals I would stop doing the things I was doing, and I would go back to eating unhealthy again…

… and the interesting thing I noticed was that when you’re in great shape, and you start eating unhealthy again, you actually don’t gain weight right away…

In some cases I would eat unhealthy foods for weeks or even a few months without gaining much weight, because my body was still in great shape and my higher set metabolism would just burn away any excess food.

Also, my appetite for unhealthy foods wouldn’t be that great – at first…

… but as I would start eating crappy food again, the addiction would start up again and slowly I would eat healthy foods less frequently and start eating unhealthy foods more frequently.

And then a few months later I would start to gain the weight back, but there was usually something else I was focused on in my life outside of health and fitness which held my attention and motivation.

Eating healthy and being fit was not a priority at all, and so I would start to gain the weight back.

And then of course a year or two later I’d be right back where I started, or even a bit heavier and wondering how the heck this happened and why didn’t I STICK with it!?

So this time around, when I decided to go on this journey I started thinking that what I need to figure out is how to stay highly motivated to be healthy and fit not just for a short period of time, but for a LONG time – like forever!

You see, I know when I’m highly motivated to do so, I can lose weight and get fit, but when my motivation goes down, I start gaining it all back.

So my thinking was that if I could JUST figure out how to stay motivated long term, I could keep the weight off forever.

So I started doing research, reading health and fitness and bodybuilding forums, reading articles, and seeking advice from various people who have transformed their bodies long term on how they stay motivated long term.

Surprisingly, what I discovered was kind of interesting…

Virtually NOBODY could answer that question.

NOBODY could tell how the heck they stay motivated to be fit and healthy for more than just a short period of time.

After a while I started thinking maybe people just don’t know what keeps them highly motivated to be fit and healthy long term because they don’t think about it, so if I can just figure out what questions to ask them I could figure out what’s going on in their heads and understand their motivations better.

After a few weeks of searching, I was honestly no further ahead than when I started.

I still had no idea how the heck these people keep their motivations high to eat healthy, work out and stay fit for long periods of time.

I was frustrated, because I couldn’t believe it was this hard to find an answer to seemingly such an easy question – “How do these fit people stay motivated long term!?”

Then during one of my sessions with my Retrofit coaches, I mentioned this and they recommended I look into the work of BJ Fogg.

BJ Fogg does lectures at Stanford and his area of expertise is understanding motivation.

The Truth Behind Motivation

After looking into BJ Fogg and after watching some of his lectures, I realized that the reason I wasn’t able to find the answer to my question on how to keep my motivation high for staying healthy and fit long term is because there is no answer!

Meaning, what BJ Fogg discovered is that it is impossible for people to stay highly motivated about something forever.  In fact he discovered that motivation is a VERY short-lived phenomenon in humans.

Our motivation levels are always going UP and DOWN like a roller-coaster, on a daily or weekly bases, and sometimes our motivation levels can even change throughout the day!

Here’s BJ Fogg’s lecture on this where he explains this phenomenon, why we are like that and what to do about it:

I absolutely LOVED this lecture.

It totally explained to me why I’ve failed to keep the weight off in the past.

You see, in the past, whenever I would decide to lose weight, my motivation levels would always be through the roof.

I’d be excited, I’d be pumped up, and I’d usually enter into some kind of competition with one of my friends to see who can hit their weight loss targets etc., so my motivation levels would be ultra high.

While my motivation levels were ultra high, I would find activities and action steps that I could take in order to produce results – fast!

In BJ Fogg’s motivation wave graph, these activities and actions would belong under the “Hard to Do” and “Requiring High Motivation” section of the graph.

Now, because my motivation was ultra high, the fact that those activities were hard to do didn’t matter, because when your motivation is high, things that are hard to do aren’t so hard to do!

And, typically when you do things that are hard to do, they usually produce results very quickly, which then fuels motivation even more, which in turn makes it easier to keep doing those hard to do things.

HOWEVER, once I would hit my goal, or I would finish a competition with my friends, my motivation levels would usually drop down – just a bit.

Not all the way down to zero, but they would drop from “Ultra High” to like “Medium”.  On a scale of 1-10, they might drop from 9 or 10, down to like 5 or 6.

This usually happened because I would get motivated by something else in my life.  Meaning, once I hit my fitness goal, I would move onto something else in another area of my life, such as manifesting a new car or increasing my income or something along those lines.

So then, while my motivation to do that OTHER thing would go up to like 9 or 10 out of 10, my motivation to eat healthy and be fit would drop down to 5 or 6.

The challenge with that was that ALL the activities and structure I put in place for eating healthy and staying fit while I was at level 9 or 10 were all HARD to do and required a lot of energy  or time to accomplish.  I guess you could say that those activities were a 9 or 10 out of 10 on the “easy or hard to do scale”.

So what happens when your motivation drops to 5 and the activities you are trying to do are at a difficulty score of 9 or 10?  Nothing!

You don’t do them!

Instead, what you do is you start eating crappy, and you start to skip workouts, and then you feel guilty for doing so, and you try find a way to get your motivation high up again.

Of course that doesn’t work, because you can’t fake motivation.  If you’re already highly motivated to be focusing on something else and that thing is already taking up all your energy, time, focus and attention, you can’t also be highly motivated to stick to a diet or fitness plan at the same time.

There’s only so much energy, time, focus and attention we all have in a day, and if you’ve already decided to invest that into something else you’re excited about, there just isn’t enough to also focus on a healthy diet and fitness plan which requires a high level of motivation.

So what’s the solution?

Creating a Variable Motivation Plan of Attack

Once we realize that motivation is not something we can fake or manufacture if it isn’t already there, the solution to how to deal with that is actually not that complicated.

The solution is to simply create a plan of attack which MATCHES your current level of motivation in any given moment.

Meaning, what we need to do is we need to create a plan of attack which moves us forward when our motivation levels are HIGH, but also continues to move us forward when our motivation levels are LOW – and everything in between.

For example, way back in 2009 I did a program called P90X.  Some of you probably heard about it.

When I started the program, my motivation was super high, and I had the time, money and energy to invest into it.

So when it came time to invest the 60-90 minutes to do the workouts, and maybe another 15-30 mins before / after the workouts, and the energy and will power to keep pushing through these insane workouts – it was no problem for me – because my motivation was high.

But 60 days later, when I had to shift my focus on my business, my motivation dropped a bit and I stopped doing the workouts and went from doing P90X every day to doing NOTHING.

This is because I had absolutely no plan in place as to what to do when my motivation goes down.

This is because when our motivation is high, we think that our motivation will ALWAYS be high – forever – so who the heck wants to plan for low-motivation situations when we are living in a fantasy that says that our motivation will never go down.

We think “No man, I’m done with being fat.  I want to be fit, I’m pumped up, I’m committed, and I’m never giving up!!!”

Yeah, right.  That’s a fantasy.

That might be our motivation in the beginning, but there will come a time when that motivation goes down – for any number of reasons.

The only solution is to have a plan in place which ASSUMES that at some point your motivation goes down, and it already gives you an exact plan of attack that you can easily accomplish even if your motivation is super low.

For example, right now my motivation to get fit and to lose weight is very high.  So for me to bang out a 60-90 minute workout today wouldn’t be that hard.

HOWEVER, I’ve already been working with my Retrofit coaches and we have a plan of attack in place where I have a 5 minute workout already in place, ready for me to implement on days when my motivation is low.

I have a printed out sheet which tells me EXACTLY what exercises I can do on that day, which only take 5 mins or less.

That is actually what we started with – an exercise program which is easy to implement and easy to build a habit with.

On the diet side of things, I’m doing the same thing.

I have a plan of action for what to eat while my motivation levels are high, but also what small changes I can implement when my motivation drops.

In other words, I have a plan in place which encompasses all the motivation levels from Ultra High to Low.

Now, it’s very important to realize that I am not saying that the solution to losing weight and getting fit is some 5 minute workout program…

Why Making Things Too Easy Isn’t The Solution

When people skim over this stuff and don’t take the time to actually understand what BJ Fogg’s research reveals, there is a tendency for people to try to oversimplify a complex subject like this.

I want to be very clear with this.

I am *NOT* saying that the long term solution to losing weight and staying fit is to create a 5 minute workout for yourself, or some super easy dietary change to follow.

Creating a 5 minute workout plan, or having a plan to make a super easy dietary change are examples of activities that a person would do when their motivation levels are LOW – for whatever reason.

However, they are NOT examples of activities you would do when your motivation levels are MEDIUM or HIGH.

Meaning, it’s not just as simple as saying “Oh okay, I get it.  So what you’re saying is that I should just create a simple workout like to do 10 pushups per day and just do that forever, and I’ll be in the best shape of my life, right?”

NO!

See, the challenge is that doing activities that are TOO EASY as compared to your current motivation level will not work either.

Reason being is that if your motivation is high, when you don’t match that high level of motivation with higher difficulty level activities, you essentially dissipate that motivation and produce very little results with it and that doesn’t feel good either.

Meaning, if you’re pumped up, excited to get fit, and ready to do a 60 – 90 minute workout, then THAT is what you should be doing!  Not a 5 minute workout.

Make sense?

Because if you are pumped up and excited to do that, but then you stop yourself and think “Well, I want to do a good solid workout, but I think that I should start slow, so maybe I’ll just do a 5 minute workout today, and then maybe a 6 minute workout tomorrow and build it up from there…” that will kill your motivation levels instantly!

What BJ Fogg talks about in his lecture is that when your motivation levels are high, you need to apply that motivation to taking action at that level, and there are a whole bunch of different things that you can do while motivation is high.

Also, besides applying that motivation to doing something that is harder to do – diet or fitness wise – another thing you can do with a high level of motivation is to do things that  might be hard to do in the short term, but which will make it easier to produce results when motivation is low.

For example, let’s say that currently the only place I can work out is at a local gym which is 20mins away, but I have a room in my house that I could transform into a home gym, but it would take a lot of work to clean it out, set it up as a gym, and to buy the equipment to make it into a gym.

That process of transforming a spare room into a gym might be a good example of a HIGH difficulty level activity, AND it can also be a good example of an activity that – if completed – could make it easier to work out when motivation is LOW.

So if my motivation was Ultra High, for example, that might be a good time to utilize that motivation and to apply it into cleaning out a spare room, going out and buying gym equipment and setting up a gym.  This way, on days when motivation is low it will be easier to do a 5 minute workout in THAT room, instead of having to drive 20 mins to go to a gym.

That’s just one example.

Other things we may choose to do when motivation is high is to go grocery shopping for healthy meals, or to pre-plans meals, or to even pre-cook some meals ahead of time.  Or we might go and buy some gym equipment, or some new clothes, or some new shoes or sign-up for some kind of class.

Again, these are just examples, you have to figure out what would work for you.

The point, however, is simply to just be aware of what your current level of motivation is, and then to take action based on that level.

Don’t do LESS than you’re motivated to do just because someone told you that it’s best to “start slow” or they told you to not “overdo it”.

If you do that, you’ll get bored, you’ll get mad for not producing results quicker, and you’ll just give up on the whole program.

Match your CURRENT level of motivation to the activity levels which will move you towards your goals.

And don’t feel bad or guilty for not doing MORE, if your motivation levels are lower than what would be required to do some activity.

Just match your activity levels to your current level of Motivation.

That’s what I’m doing now, and it’s working out really well for me.

I started my new program on June 1st, and on some days I’ve had more time, energy and motivation to do more so that is what I did.

On other days my schedule was so busy with my businesses, that I had to fall back on my “easy” activities that still move me forward like doing a 5 minute workout before going to bed when I was really tired.

I was so tired that I didn’t even want to do that workout, but because it was only 5 minutes though, and it was already pre-planned for me and I didn’t have to think about WHAT I needed to do, I just did it.

Only took 5mins and I felt great! 🙂

If you’ve been struggling to lose weight and get fit, or more importantly to KEEP the weight off and to stay fit, I highly recommend looking into this concept and the research/lectures on motivation from BJ Fogg.

Then, once you understand the concepts, focus on creating a plan that assumes that some days your motivation will be HIGH and some days it will be LOW – and have a plan in place for the entire spectrum of motivation levels, not just one or the other.

-Paul

P.s. Incidentally, if you haven’t already realized, this entire concept of matching activity to current motivation levels can be applied to EVER area of your life, not just fitness and health.  I’m just using health and fitness as an example, but it applies to everything.  Now that I’ve learned this simple but powerful concept I’m starting to implement it into other areas of my life as well and I recommend you try it out yourself as well.

Where I’ve Been Hiding the Last 7 Months and The Future of FreeYouNow.com

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Those of you who used to follow my blog – FreeYouNow.com – and maybe some of it’s previous incarnations might have been wondering where I’ve been for the past 7 months or so.

My last blog post was from October last year, and then I kind of disappeared.

I originally started blogging way back in April 2006, when there were much fewer blogs around and people didn’t live on Facebook and smart phones weren’t even around yet.

I really enjoyed blogging as both a kind of personal journal and as a way I could give back to the world.  The three main things I blogged about were entrepreneurship/making money online, personal development and fitness.

About five years ago now I also started offering one-on-one coaching and helping people to become entrepreneurs and to make money online for those who could afford my help one-on-one, and my Blog was my outlet to also offer some of that help and advice for new entrepreneurs for free.

At the beginning of 2015 I decided to really step things up and to put most of my one-on-one coaching on hold in order to instead offer and reveal a lot of the strategies and secrets I learned as an entrepreneur and personal development nut over 20+ years, totally free on my blog and YouTube channel.

I wrote hundreds of blog posts and released dozens of free videos.

By October, however, I had come to the realization that even though most people criticize coaches and mentors for not offering any of their advice for free to those who can’t afford to pay for coaching / mentoring, VERY FEW people out there actually value and utilize that advice, when offered to them for free.

This became even more apparent to me on multiple occasions when I was asked for advice on certain questions from someone who was a paid coaching client, and I had already answered that exact same question not even a week prior to that on my Blog.

Even when I would send them a link to a blog or video I recorded which answered their question exactly, they didn’t read it or watch the video – they would rather pay me and have me re-answer it or re-explain it to them on the phone and only then they would value the advice and take action on it.

I also started looking at the track records of my students who I had previously mentored one-on-one, and had now shifted over to giving them an abundance of awesome content, totally free on my blog, and it was completely obvious that they weren’t putting any of that advice into action.

This was one of the primary reasons I decided to put my blogging on hold, as the amount of time and energy I was putting into it was incredibly disproportionate to the amount of value people were actually willing to take from that content.

What I decided to test out and re-focus my energy towards was a different strategy.

Instead of trying to teach people what to do, how and why to do it, I decided to just start applying what I know works as an entrepreneur into starting and building a totally brand new business, part time.

The new business I started is in the tabletop gaming niche, a hobby that I’m becoming very passionate about, and so I re-launched an old blog I had called TabletopGamer.com and also launched a new ecommerce store at TabletopGamerStore.com.

I figured that by applying what I know about personal development, entrepreneurship and marketing to an actual project, I could teach people to be successful using a strategy that Abraham/Hicks beautifully summarized in this quote:

“Teach through the clarity of your example.” ~  Abraham/Hicks

Meaning, instead of trying to TELL people what to do and how to do it, instead I’ve been simply focusing on SHOWING them what I’m doing and using that as a tool to stretch their imagination, their beliefs and to hopefully inspire them to do something similar in their lives as well.

Shifting my focus to teaching in this way has had a HUGE shift on my life.

It is SO much easier to just go out there and DO what I know how to do, and to just produce results myself and then have my example be the teacher instead of me trying to teach what to do and how to do it.

Of course in hindsight this makes total sense.

Our world is becoming more and more inundated with an over-abundance of information, and so people are paying attention less and less to information until you show results, and even then they derive more inspiration from just watching you DO something, than from you teaching them what you’re doing.

So that is what I’ve been mainly focusing on.

My Tabletop Gamer business has taken off to a great start, generating sales almost immediately after I started applying some of my ninja marketing strategies and in February of this year I launched my first ever Kickstarter campaign for a new line of tabletop terrain I had designed.

It was a small, very specialized project which I had only expected to sell about $1000 – $1500 worth of terrain through, but I was very excited to see the campaign hit over $17,000 in orders in 30 days.

The project did so well that I am actually still in the process of producing all the tabletop terrain to fill all the orders that came in right now as I write this post.

So for anyone looking for an example and some inspiration for making money online with your own business, just follow along with my TabletopGamer.com blog and see what I’m up to there and then just apply it to whatever niche you’re passionate about.

Which now brings me to this Blog, and why I decided to write THIS blog post today.

The Future of FreeYouNow.com

With my tabletop business being there for anyone who wants inspiration or an example of how to build an online business part time, I’ve been thinking about what direction I want to take this blog.

What I’ve decided to do is to re-focus the direction of FreeYouNow.com to be more of a personal development and fitness blog.

I’ve just recently started a new weight loss and fitness plan, and this gives me the perfect opportunity to once again teach through the clarity of my example, by sharing the successes and failures I experience on my path towards getting fit and healthy.

I’ve already been learning some awesome new things that I’ve never talked about or shared in blog posts or videos before, which I’m hoping to share in future blog posts and to mainly focus on just going through my journey towards health and fitness and maybe hopefully inspiring someone else to take on that same journey in their lives as well.

So stay tuned, I’ll be blogging about my new fitness and health journey very soon.

Paul

How to Engage Your Inner Storyteller to Make Your Dreams Come True

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Inside your mind lives a storyteller.

This storyteller can either be a HUGE asset to helping your dreams come true, or it can be a HUGE demotivating force in your life.

We all have one of these little storytellers inside our minds.  The only difference is that some people’s inner storytellers inspire, motivate and encourage them to do great things and achieve their dreams in life, while others have an inner storyteller that demotivates, distracts and destroys their dreams.

Let me explain.

About two months ago I connected to a dream I once had for building a business in the tabletop gaming niche.

About ten years ago I walked into a gaming store and saw a display case with some painted tabletop miniatures and was completely mesmerized by how awesome they looked.

Shortly after that my wife bought me a starter set to paint, and I was hooked.

Since that day I’ve dreamed of building some sort of business in this niche market, and have been doing research on and off for years.

Back in 2011 I started a blog called TabletopGamer.com, and my first idea was to start an online store selling Warhammer miniatures from Games Workshop, who is the biggest name in tabletop gaming.

Unfortunately around that same time Games Workshop changed their policies, effectively completely shutting down all relationships with any online retailers of their products.

They made the decision to only sell their products on their own website, and at physical local gaming shops who are not allowed to sell any of their products online either.

Around the same time, one of my other businesses went through a rapid expansion so I had to put my TabletopGamer.com website / project on hold, while I focused on my growing business.

It is now four years later, and I’ve re-launched my TabletopGamer.com blog a few months ago, and this time around I have a dream of creating my own line of tabletop products.

So how does the “inner storyteller” relate to this?

Well, when I was trying to make the decision to get into the business of producing and marketing products in the tabletop gaming niche, I did a tonne of research trying to find a line of products that I would enjoy creating and selling, and which would also be useful and wanted in the marketplace.

Once I had an idea of the types of products I wanted to create I had to figure out how I would go about designing and manufacturing those products.

In order to get setup with the resources I needed to get into designing, manufacturing and selling those products I had to setup a workshop for myself to be able to do it in.

I chose to setup the workshop at home, and that required me to do some renovations on a workshop that I have in my home that I haven’t used since I moved here eight years ago.

For the workshop to work for my needs it needed to be completely gutted to the bare bones framing and re-built from scratch with new insulation, drywall, etc.

I knew that doing a reno like that wasn’t going to be easy, but I was excited to make this project work.

This is when I really started to notice my “Inner Storyteller” coming to my aid.

Essentially I broke down the project into individual steps and one of the first steps was to clean out the workshop room, and to get it ready to be gutted.

When I thought about doing this first step, my inner storyteller started saying things like “Well, once you get that room cleaned up, the rest of the stuff will be easy…”

So I got the room cleaned out and then I sat down to plan the next step.

The next step involved ripping apart and completely gutting the room, which required ordering a garbage bin, taking down an old workbench that was in the workshop, and ripping down all the walls, ceiling and insulation etc.

Again, my inner storyteller starting saying things like “Well, once you get that room gutted, and all the garbage and stuff out, the rest of the project should be pretty easy…”

So, with the help of my friend Jabeel and a few other family members that came out to help with the project, I started gutting the room.

It wasn’t an easy job, but we got it done and I noticed something interesting…

… when we finished doing that step, I noticed that a few of us would say something like “Well, that wasn’t easy, but at least now the hard part is done….”

Again that was our inner storyteller talking.

So then I started on the next part of the project which involved clearing out a whole bunch of other garbage I had laying around my property from previous renovations and landscaping work I did over the last eight years.

I had ordered a huge 40 yard garbage bin, so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to get that garbage off my property while I had the bin there.

So for the next week or so I spent time hauling garbage from around my property into the garbage bin.

I live on acreage, so there was quite a bit of landscaping garbage that had piled up over the years from things like some old wooden fencing that I took down a few years ago, a bathroom reno we did a few years ago etc.

All in all we filled up the entire bin full of reno garbage, yard waste and landscaping garbage.  The total weight on it was 3 tonnes!

That was NOT easy, physically speaking… hauling that much garbage into that bin.

But here’s the interesting thing…

… once we completed that step and the garbage bin got picked up and taken away, we once again said “Well, that wasn’t easy, but at least the hard part is done now….”

🙂

Starting to notice a pattern?   AGAIN our inside storyteller told us a story.

The story it was telling us was “Hey, the hard work is done…everything from now on will be easier, so just keep going…”

The project required MANY more steps to get my new workshop fully renovated.

At each step in the process the interesting thing is that my inner storyteller kept telling me “Ohp, well… the hard part is now done…keep going…”

I noticed this and realized that this inner storyteller has been inside my head all of my life – TELLING STORIES!

I say “STORIES” because what it tells me is neither true, nor a lie.  It’s actually both truth and fiction, intermixed into one… which is why I like calling it a story.

YOU have an inside storyteller inside your head as well.

We all do.

Since I’ve become aware of this little inside storyteller, I’ve started to really pay attention to what other people say and it has become really clear to me that each of us has a different storyteller.

Some people have a storyteller that tells them things which motivate and inspire them, and other people have storytellers which demotivate them or cast doubt in their minds.

See, nothing our inner storytellers tell us is actually true.  It’s just a story.

That story can HELP us to make our dreams come true, or it can HURT us by creating doubt and demotivating us.

The truth is that none of the things my inner storyteller was telling me was the truth.

Meaning, when I was working on the first step in my project of clearing out the stuff inside my old workshop, when I completed that step my inner storyteller told me “The hard part is done.”

This helped me to stay motivated and to tackle the next step.

But was it really true?

Was the “hard part” really done?

Not really… the hard part hadn’t even begun.

Hauling 3 tonnes of garbage into a bin was harder work than cleaning out the workshop.

And when that part was done, my inner storyteller again said “oh well, the hard part is done.”

Was that true?

No, not really…

In the grand scheme of building an online business there will be a LOT of steps, challenges and situations I will have to go through before my business becomes successful.

Even though I’ve already put in a LOT of work to get this project off the ground, in the overall scheme of things I’m just getting started…

… so the truth is that the “hard part” is NOT done.  It’s not even close to being done.

I’ve built businesses from scratch to millions of dollars in sales numerous times in the past, so I know how much work it takes.

BUT… here’s my point…

The whole time, as I’m working on the current step I’m working on, my inner storyteller is keeping me motivated by telling me these little stories, saying things inside my head like “oh well, at least the hard part is done….”

You have an inner storyteller inside your head as well… and it’s telling you stories ALL THE TIME about everything.

I’ve been really paying attention to this with other people as well as with myself and it’s really fascinating how we all tell ourselves stories.

You see, as we go through life, we are almost always acting and thinking based on incomplete information.

Our senses only allow us to perceive less than 1% of what is really going on in “reality”, and the rest we fill in with our inner storytellers.

Yesterday, for example, was the Canadian federal election and I was trying to decide what time would be best for me to go and vote.

My inner storyteller said “Go around 2pm.  Around that time it’ll be the least busy with the people who went to vote at lunch time already gone, and the people who come after 3pm not there yet.”

So I went and voted around 2:30pm and it wasn’t busy at all.

But was that REALLY the least busy time in the day to go vote?  I have no idea.

My wife’s story teller told her “Go first thing in the morning…” so she went and voted first thing in the morning.

Was that the best time to vote?  Who knows.

We all go throughout our lives mostly living in a reality where we perceive only 1% of what is really real, and the other 99% we make up as a STORY inside our heads.

When some people look at a potential business model, and they see no competition they think “Oh man, there’s no competition!  This is awesome.  I’m going to make a lot of money!!!”

Others think “There’s no competition, which means nobody is doing this, which means there’s no money to be made here.”

When some people see a young man driving a Ferrari they think “Wow, that guy must be really smart!  Probably an entrepreneur.” while others instantly think “Must be nice to have rich parents…” while others yet think “Must be a drug dealer.”

The truth is we have no idea HOW that young man is able to afford that car.  It could be a rental for all we know.  We have no idea, but we make up these STORIES inside our heads, and then we convince ourselves that they are true… because it “makes sense”.

But in reality, we are all going around telling ourselves STORIES which are not really true… at the very least they’re inaccurate.

We all do this.

We can’t really ever know what is really true, nor would it be practical to live our lives trying to know the truth about everything, all the time.

We use these stories inside our heads as shortcuts, to navigate the reality we live in.

When we walk into a BestBuy store and we see a young guy or girl wearing dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie walking towards us, we think “Oh, they must work here…”

Why?  Because most people who work at BestBuy dress that way.  But that doesn’t mean it’s true.

I was once at a BestBuy wearing a shirt and tie, looking to buy something, and a woman walked up and starting asking me all these questions about some product they had.

I quickly realized she made the assumption that I worked there – LOL.

HER inner storyteller told her a story.

Our inner storytellers are always telling us stories, and most often they’re not even really true.

So the real question is this…

If our inner storytellers are going to be telling us stories, all of our lives, and those stories are not going to be completely accurate no matter what we do, how can we use this to our advantage?

Well, we can start to PROGRAM our storytellers to tell us stories that INSPIRE and MOTIVATE us towards our dreams.

When I had to do my workshop renovation, and my inner storyteller said to me “Well, at least the hard part is done…”  it was telling me a story.

That story inspired and motivated me to keep moving forward.

Other people have story tellers which in the same situation would tell them “Man, that was hard work…and it could get even harder…what if this doesn’t work out?!”

And that type of story will create doubt and demotivate them from moving forward.

Start paying attention to your inner storyteller.  What’s it telling you?

Is it saying something that will inspire and motivate you, or is it casting doubt and demotivating you?

Either way it’s just a story.

Either way it’s not going to be 100% accurate.

However, one story will help you to reach for your dreams and to make them come true, while the other story will destroy your dreams.

It’s your choice.

This storyteller works for you.  It’s inside YOUR mind.  You have FULL control over it

You just have to become aware of it first, and then start to make choices where the only stories you listen to are those that are motivating you towards your dreams.

Pay attention to people who have already achieved what you want to achieve.  What kind of stories do they tell themselves?

You’ll notice that people who make their dreams come true, and who achieve great things in their lives are masters at telling stories…

Not to the world, but masters at telling stories inside their heads.

They’ve engaged their inner storyteller to be a force of positive, motivational, inspiration power for them, while those who fail use the same inner storyteller as a force for creating inner doubt, inner conflict and inner demotivation.

I’ve been using my inner storyteller to keep me motivated, and now my workshop is done, and I’ve just finished putting together my first prototype terrain piece for the tabletop miniature gaming.

It’s a little house / hut, designed from scratch and laser cut from 3mm MDF, which will be part of a whole village set I’m working on for 28mm miniature wargaming games which are set in medieval times.

Here’s a picture of my prototype:

wargaming terrainIt even features a little outhouse. 🙂

I’m very happy with how quickly I’ve been able to get my workshop done and to finally get my prototypes produced.

It would have never happened if my inner story teller was a “Negative Nelly” always casting doubt and demotivating me from moving forward when things get tough.

What’s your “inner story” teller doing for you?

How to Market Yourself Online as an Introverted Life Coach

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Life coaching is a rapidly growing industry, and one of the biggest challenges that most new life coaches have is not knowing how to build their initial client base and how to market their new coaching business.

This challenge is often compounded when the life coach has an introverted personality type.

I know because I am an introvert and when I first started coaching and mentoring about five years ago I didn’t really know how to go about finding clients out there in the “real world”.

Most of the life coaches that I studied with and even used myself were extroverted people, so the way that they went about finding clients was not something I found enjoyable doing.

They actually ENJOY talking to strangers, mingling at parties, striking up conversations in line-ups at the grocery stores, and can get names and phone numbers from prospective clients SO EASILY.

That method of prospecting for clients is just NOT what I enjoy doing.

I tried pretending like I am an extrovert once in my life for a few months when trying to build a business in my early 20’s, and I overcame my fears of talking to people but I never learned to like it, and I sucked at, and produced horrible results doing it because I wasn’t being myself.

So when I wanted to get some life coaching clients for my business 5 years ago I decided to turn to my skills as an Internet Marketer to help me get clients instead of trying to pretend to be an extrovert.

It worked MUCH better. 🙂

How to Get Life Coaching Clients as an Introvert

The good news is that it is NOT hard to build up a coaching client base as an introvert *IF* you approach it from the proper perspective.

There are some mindset shifts that may be required for some people, and there are some strategies that need to be followed.

The first thing we need to look at is our beliefs around sales and marketing.

Selling as an Introvert

Unfortunately the majority of people have at some point in their lives had a BAD experience with at least one really bad, annoying sales person.

Some sales person out there acts like a complete jerk and a pushy a-hole, and it usually ruins our perspective on what SALES really is.

SELLING is nothing more than helping a potential client to find a solution to a problem they are trying to solve.

Last week I had a tree fall on our power lines here at my house and my wife and I were stuck without power.

2015-09-07_23-57-34[1]

We called and left messages with a number of different tree cutting companies, trying to find someone who would be willing to come out and to cut down the tree that fell as well as a few others which were hanging over our power lines due to a wind-storm.

We had a problem.  Our problem was that we were without power because of this situation.  The solution we were looking for was to have some trees cut as quickly as possible.

One company called us back, and listened to what problem we were dealing with, and offered to send out a crew to solve this problem for us.

We inquired about pricing as well, and then asked them to come out as quickly as possible.

The crew came out, cut down the trees and we were able to have our power restored the following day.

The person who we spoke to on the phone SOLD us on their services.

It wasn’t the annoying / jerk-type salesmanship that most people associate with “sales people”… it was just a simple, pleasant conversation and we were HAPPY to purchase their services.

In fact you could say that we didn’t feel like we were SOLD at all…

… yet we were.

See, that’s the truth about sales…

… when SALES is done properly, it doesn’t feel at all like you’re being sold… it feels like you are BUYING something on your own volition.

That’s what GOOD SALESMANSHIP is all about.  It’s about helping someone solve a problem and to provide them with everything they need in terms of information and circumstances to be able to BUY from you.

BAD SALESMANSHIP is when a person feels pressured, rushed, annoyed, coerced or “tricked” into buying something they don’t even want to buy.

Unfortunately when most people think of the word “SALES” their mind only thinks of “BAD SALESMANSHIP”, because when we are serviced by someone who is a skilled sales person, it doesn’t feel like we are SOLD at all, so we don’t even think of that as sales in those situations.

As a life coach, you’re going to have to learn proper salesmanship techniques to be able to properly SELL people your service and to do it in such a way that the client doesn’t even feel like they were sold at all.

We accomplish this NOT by trickery or coercion or some sort of “hypnosis” or “mind control”.

We accomplish this by learning to get to know WHO your clients are, and WHAT their problems are, and then DEMONSTRATING to them how our coaching services can help them overcome those problems.

In essence, we become problem solvers, because that is really what sales is.

Sales = problem solving.

So if that is what sales is, then what is marketing?

Marketing as an Introvert

Marketing is the process of making yourself, your business and your brand attractive to your ideal client.

Through the process of marketing we attract our ideal clients to us, and we repel clients that are NOT our target market away from us so that we don’t waste our time or theirs.

The most effective way to market yourself as an introverted life coach is to setup a website and a Blog that’s optimized for marketing yourself, your business and your brand.

Setting up an optimized website / blog used to be fairly complex and somewhat expensive.

I’ve built websites for people and companies that range from $5,000 to over $1 Million.

Fortunately, as a life coach you won’t have to spend anywhere near that amount to get setup with a proper website.

For example, the platform I run this website / blog on is called Kalatu and it’s a highly optimized marketing platform with a price tag of less than $50/month and NO additional SETUP fees!

In fact you can get started for just $25/month.

It only takes about 10 – 15 minutes to get your site setup, and there are training videos and support who can help you if you ever get stuck with any technical details.

Click here if you’d like to setup your Kalatu site now.

Once you have your website / blog setup, you’re going to need to setup a few key pages on your site which will act as MAGNETS for attracting the right type of clients to you.

I’ll dive into the exact setup and structure of these pages in a future blog post, but here are the basic pages you’ll need to setup.

  • Home Page – Your website’s home page should offer a first impression that’s in alignment with who you are as a life coach and people should be able to see and feel YOUR energy on your home page.
  • Services Page – Your website should have a services page where you outline the services you offer as a life coach and the rates you charge as well as a way for them to click a button to purchase your services.
  • Testimonials Page – A testimonials page is one of the most important pages on your website.  People want to see social proof that your coaching works and has produced results for others.  Even if you start out with just ONE testimonial, make sure you have a testimonials page.
  • Blog Page – Your website should have a Blog attached to it which will be the magnet that goes out there and helps you to attract the right type of clients to your business.  Luckily, Kalatu is built on the world-famous WordPress framework which is the world’s most successful blogging platform, so by using Kalatu you’re getting the best of both words – the power of WordPress for blogging, combined with the marketing optimization and support features built into Kalatu.
  • About Me Page – Your website should feature an “About Me” page where you dive into more detail about yourself, who you are, what you’re about, etc.  You may want to include your certifications here, and use this space to differentiate yourself from other coaches in your market.  People buy life coaching services from people they LIKE, so your About Me page is going to be one of your most important pages for helping people to get to know you and to like you.
  • Contact Me Page – Your website should also have a contact page where you make it easy for people to reach you either by phone or email or Facebook or Skype or some type of channel of communication.  I’ve visited many websites where I’ve tried to contact the service provider to ask a question before buying their services and there was no easy way to contact them!  This made it frustrating to do business with them, and people don’t like doing business with people who frustrate them. 🙂  Luckily, Kalatu makes it super easy to setup a “Contact Me” page automatically.

These are the basic pages you will want to have on your website which will help you to market and sell clients.

Now you might be asking yourself HOW does a website help you market and sell your potential clients, right?

It’s actually pretty simple…

Once you have your Kalatu site setup, you’re going to start BLOGGING with the very specific intention of solving your target market’s problems.

For example, if you’re a life coach who specializes in relationship coaching, you’re going to write blog posts which offer help and guidance to people who are struggling with relationship issues.

Each blog post will address and solve one specific challenge your clients may be struggling with.

Obviously not all problems can be solved by sharing information in a blog post.  After all, as a life coach you know that there are many tools and techniques that can be involved in helping someone overcome something in their life.  It’s NOT just about the information…

… however, by SHARING your wisdom with people in your blog posts, even if you only help them with the challenge they’re facing by 5% or 10%, they will begin to TRUST you and that will help you to attract the perfect client to you.

The more blog posts you write, the more problems you solve, the more people will start to trust you.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that by blogging you’re going to be “giving away all your secrets”.

There are an infinite number of specific challenges and problems you can blog about, and no matter how many specific things you help people solve with your FREE blog content, your target clients will always find something else to come to you for.

So as you continue to write blog posts, those blog posts will act as one of your marketing channels that draws people TO your website.

As people visit your website to find the solution to their specific challenge, they will also see your other pages listed like “About Me” and “Services” etc. and some of them may decide to hire you as a life coach to help them with a specific challenge they’re facing.

So your Blog posts basically start to act as a MARKETING CHANNEL, a stream of leads that get attracted to your website, and your WEBSITE acts as the “SALES ENGINE” which converts those prospects into customers without you having to SELL them anything yourself.

Think of it like this…

BLOG POSTS = MARKETING ENGINE which drives targeted leads to your website… and…

YOUR WEBSITE = SALES ENGINE which converts casual website visitors into customers who PAY you for your services…

… and this is all done WITHOUT you having to go out there and do any “extroverted” stuff like wondering around malls talking to strangers or without having to try to hard-sell anyone on your services on the phone. 🙂

🙂

🙂

When I setup my website properly and started writing blog posts which help people to solve their very specific problems, I began to create a following of visitors who began reading my content on a regular basis and SOME of those people needed life coaching help so they went to my services page and they ordered life coaching services from me.

I didn’t have to go out there and FIND them…they found ME!

I also didn’t have to go out there and try to HARD SELL anyone on anything… Those who wanted my services just showed up and bought them through my website.

As simple as all of this may sound, there are some pitfalls I have seen some people fall into when trying to implement this strategy.

Here are some of these pitfalls…

What Doesn’t Work

The basic strategy I outlined above absolutely works for marketing yourself as a life coach even if you’re introverted.

Of course it also works for extroverted people as well, but most extroverted people will be too busy wondering around malls or going to events and parties mingling and talking to people to implement this strategy so it’s primarily introverted people who will really enjoy this.

However, this strategy does NOT work if you fall into the following traps…

Trap #1 – Trying to be “SALESY” online.

I’ve seen some introverted people trying to all of a sudden become a “salesy” type personality because they think that is the only way that they can build a business.

For example, some of the behavior I’ve seen people engaging in is setting up their website and then jumping on Facebook and SPAMMING everyone they know with private messages and a link to their website saying “Check out my services!!!”.

Another thing I’ve seen people do is try “infiltrating” certain groups on Facebook or LinkedIn or other social media sites and SPAMMING their website on there…

Essentially the real world equivalent of this would be like if you went to the mall and ran around with a megaphone screaming “I’M A LIFE COACH.  BUY MY STUFF!!! BUY MY STUFF!!!!”

You wouldn’t do that in real life, so DON’T do it online!

Trap #2 – Being an “Undercutter”

Another trap I’ve seen a LOT of introverted people fall into is the line of thinking that goes something like this…

“I don’t know how to sell.  I don’t know how to market myself properly.  I’m too lazy to learn either of these… BUT I KNOW!!! I’ll just offer my services for 10% – 20% cheaper than everyone else, and I’ll get a TONNE of clients!!!”

The “Undercutter” goes out and undercuts everyone in the industry, attacking other people’s clients with lower pricing.

If someone is charging $250 for a 1 hour life coaching session, they’ll offer their clients life coaching for $199 per hour.

If someone is charging $150 per hour, they’ll offer that person’s clients coaching for $99 per hour etc.

Now I’m not saying that you can’t set your prices at a lower rate when you’re first starting out, but what I’m saying is that you should set your prices based on who your target market is, what you’re helping them with, what the market is willing to pay and the value you provide them, not by just choosing a number that’s lower than your competitor and attacking their client base with that.

Go out there and get YOUR OWN clients, based on your perfect client profile and set your prices according to your own factors, not based on a discounted rate off of what someone else charges.

Trap #3 – Being a “Freebie” Dealer

Another trap I’ve seen many introverts fall into is offering WAY too many freebies with their services.

This usually happens when the introverted person hasn’t made the decision to learn how to properly do marketing and sales, and so they have no idea how to get ANY clients at all.

They can’t get anyone to BUY their services, even at discounted pricing, so instead they start giving away freebies in an effort to make themselves feel better.

The challenge with this approach is that in most cases the people who come to you looking for freebies will not be your target market, they’ll be people who don’t value coaching or your help, but who are just looking for some “entertainment”.

They’ll take you up on the offer for “free coaching” either out of obligation or as a form of amusement, which is NOT what you became a life coach for.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t start your business off by doing some free coaching sessions to get some practice.  I’m not saying that.

What I’m saying is that you should limit your freebie sessions to getting your experience and after 5 or 10 sessions you should no longer be offering anything for free.  Your services are VALUABLE, and you DESERVE to get paid for them!

This includes “exchanges”.  If someone wants to exchange services with you, get them to PAY you for your life coaching session and then PAY them for whatever service you’re exchanging.

This will help you establish the habit of PAYING and GETTING PAID in your mind.

For example, if I was exchanging a 1 hour life coaching session with someone for an energy healing session, I would ask them to PAY me for the coaching session, and then I would PAY them for the energy healing session.

Even if it’s the same money that moves from one person to the other, and then back to the first person again, your MIND will see it as you getting paid for your services and it will help you to BUILD your confidence in yourself and your services, instead of tearing it down.

Any time you give away your services your telling your mind “My services are worthless”… and any time you get PAID for your services you’re telling your mind “My services are valuable.”

That is how you have to see the situation.

Trap #4 – Wasting Time on “Technical” Issues

I’ve been a computer programmer since I was a little kid…which is over 25 years ago.

I had a computer before most people had one in their home.

I used to be the chief technology officer of a publicly traded company and was in charge of building a website with a multi-million dollar budget.

I have a dozen programming languages under my belt, but you know what?………

…. I don’t waste my time being a “techie” anymore, instead I outsource that by using the Kalatu platform to run my Blog…

Why?

Because I don’t want to waste my time on “Technical” issues…

The Kalatu team runs my Website / Blog software for me and they take care of all the technical issues related to running it.

They take care of the hosting…

They take care of my WordPress platform setup…

They take care of keeping my WordPress updated and secure…

They take care of keeping my WordPress plugins installed, updated and secure…

They take care of backing up my website…

They take care of any support questions I may have…

They take care of all the technical issues that most people waste their time on trying to run their own website!

I *COULD* do all of those things myself… I’m trained and experienced as a computer geek / programmer / techie, but I don’t waste my time on that stuff…

… that is why it boggles my mind when I see people who are NOT techies trying to setup their own websites from scratch, trying to save a few dollars a month…

It’s a dumb way to spend your time in my opinion.

It’s like that time I bought this “Sushi Making Kit” and tried making my own Sushi!

BAD IDEA!

It turned out looking like a BLOB of overcooked mushy rice in a soggy overstuffed seaweed pocket and tasted horrible.

It did NOT look like this…

This is why I’m such a big advocate for using the Kalatu platform for your website / blog.

Kalatu takes care of all the technical issues of running your website, so that you can focus on what you SHOULD be focusing on which is COACHING and MARKETING / SELLING your coaching!

( Click here to learn more about Kalatu )

Final Words

Most introverted people I know have a LOT to say…

They are INTELLIGENT and AMAZING people, who really shine when they combine their innate gifts and abilities with a communication platform like a website / blog.

The reason for this is because a website / blog gives the introverted person a VOICE and a medium to communicate their message in a calm setting where the introverted mind can do it’s best work without feeling rushed or pressured to say the next word because of fear of being interrupted by someone else.

If you’re an introvert, I HIGHLY recommend setting up a website / blog for yourself and learning how to use it as a marketing / sales tool that does the selling and marketing work for you on your behalf.

Get yourself setup with a platform like Kalatu and then just focus on creating content aimed at helping your target market solve their biggest challenges and concerns.

When you become known and your brand becomes known as a person who is GIVING and who solves people’s problems, you won’t believe how easy it becomes to attract customers to your life coaching business.

P.s.  Once you get your Kalatu site setup by clicking on this link now, shoot me an email or message me on Facebook and I’ll pop by your site and offer you some tips for how to tweak your Kalatu to be an even more effective platform for your coaching business.