Video Blog

In 2018, I partnered with Defy Ventures to spend a weekend mentoring inmates (or EIT’s – “Entrepreneurs in Training”) at the Pelican Bay Super Max state prison in California…

Defy takes entrepreneurs into prisons around the country to mentor these EITs on how to transform their hustle into biz ventures (because believe it or not, many of them have real business acumen – they were just channeling it into illegal activities).

Over the course of that weekend, something happened that taught me a really valuable lesson on how to help FREE people from the Prison of their minds…

You see, I made a promise to myself before I boarded my plane that I would show up OPEN-HEARTED and OPEN-MINDED and to not see the EITs as “convicts”.

And it’s very EASY to see THAT version of them. Because the whole context of the environment is “look at this person who has done terrible things and look at where they ended up”.

So my commitment going in was to NOT see the full face tattoos, to NOT see the STORY of what they did or who they WERE, and instead focus on the NEXT version of them instead of the EX version of them…

And it reminded me how important it is to do this with EVERYONE I work with…

Because our clients and prospects will always come to us with deeply ingrained, permanent and pervasive stories about their limitations, about who they are, have been or always will be.

But when we choose to SEE and SPEAK ONLY to the GREATEST version of them, then THEY start seeing what’s possible for the NEXT version of themselves too. This is TRUE FREEDOM: the ability to see that the past has passed and to fully step into a reinvented FUTURE!

This goes for ourselves as well, because it can be so easy for us to buy into our own stories – thinking that our past automatically dictates our future – and it simply isn’t true…

Take a moment right now, choose someone in your world (a client, a prospect, a friend or family member or, of course, even yourself) and commit, just for today (#JFT) to only see and speak to the NEXT version instead of the EX version of them! It is the greatest gift you can give them!

I can’t believe it has been a YEAR since I attended an event in LA where Rainn Wilson (Founder of SoulPancake and “Dwight” from “The Office”) was on stage interviewing Terry Crews (aka “Sergeant Jeffords” on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and the “pec flex” guy from the Old Spice commercials)…

They were talking about some pretty heavy subjects and at one point, Crews said something that really resonated with me…

It was: “CREATIVITY is the opposite of COMPETITION.”

Why do I feel so compelled to share it with you – especially now as we are not only finishing up the YEAR but an entire DECADE?

Because looking back over 2019 (and if you are like a lot of us, EVERY year in this last decade), you may see that you beat yourself up or beat yourself down based on what OTHER people were doing…

Your body isn’t fit enough…your business isn’t big enough…your expertise isn’t happening fast enough…

ALL of this enoughness talk that LITERALLY can’t exist unless our mind has a construct that something different (or as the brain will normally label it – “better”) exists!

And the reason I’m sharing this is because I want 2020 to be the best year ever!

For you that may mean hitting some major goal or milestone in your wealth, health and or relationships but honestly, the OUTCOME you are seeking is not what I care about.

What I care about is that you see yourself for the incredible human you are – the unique path you are on, the timeline that is unfolding exactly as it should be and for you to see nothing but possibilities for this next decade.  THAT energy is what I want you to feel because I know the OUTCOMES are just a natural byproduct of living in the DIRECTION of those feelings.

Instead of competing or comparing, when instead, we’re 100 percent in CREATIVITY – heads down, taking aligned, purposeful action – we don’t even SEE anyone else. It’s like we are wearing horse blinders in the best possible way!

When I’m in CREATIVITY, I don’t compare my program, my offering, or my impact to ANYONE else. When I’m OUT of creativity, on the other hand, I am also out of SERVICE…

And being OF SERVICE – really making a contribution to the world – is what makes me feel like LIFE…

See, there’s a great passage by one of my fav spiritual teachers, Sadhguru, that reads: “Whether someone else is doing better or worse than you is NOT the point. The POINT is that you feel like LIFE”…

So anytime you feel like you are starting to COMPARE yourself to or COMPETE with someone else, ask yourself if that feels CREATIVE or CONSTRICTIVE; like SERVICE or EGO; like LIFE or LIFE-LESS…

And if it’s any of those latter words, ask yourself “how can I shift GENTLY and LOVINGLY into 5% more CREATIVITY? What ACTION can I take that will make me feel like LIFE?”

I want to wish you and your family the absolute BEST holiday season and New Year and I am SO grateful that you continue to be in my world and allow me to be in yours!

I love you and I’ll see you next decade!

A few months ago I was interviewed by my buddy Mordechai Wiener who was documenting stories about major weight loss…

Afterwards, he asked me to send him some “hero” pictures and luckily, I had JUST done a photo shoot…

But he didn’t want THOSE pictures. Instead, he wanted pictures from BEFORE I lost all the weight…

What!? How are THOSE my hero pics?

And that’s when he went on to explain that THAT guy—the FAT guy—is the one who decided that something needed to change. THAT guy is the one who committed to TRANSFORMING his life. And who I am today wouldn’t EXIST if THAT guy hadn’t decided to make the changes that he made…

Wow… 🤯

I had NEVER thought of myself as a “hero” in my LOWEST moments, but he was RIGHT, it was in THOSE moments that I had made the decision to change.

And this was such a POWERFUL thing for me to realize, because not only did I see the hero in ME, but I started seeing the hero in EVERYONE I work with…

EVERY SINGLE PERSON who applies to work with me—whether for 1:1 coaching or for my biz accelerator program—or who joins my private FB group and really engages with what I share and puts it into practice… they are ALL f*cking heroes…

Not AFTER they do the thing that they say they want to do, not AFTER they’ve overcome some challenge or they’ve created something MASSIVE in the world, but RIGHT NOW, because they have chosen NOW—despite any belief or disbelief they may have in themselves or in what’s possible—to at least EXPLORE what the future could look like for them…

And the same is also true for every person YOU talk to…

So please…don’t DOWNPLAY or DISCOUNT what you’ve done in the world that makes you a hero RIGHT NOW. And when you’re talking to prospective clients, practice seeing the SUPERHERO that’s in front of you.

 

 

Coaches frequently ask me: “How do I know what to CHARGE?” And while it’s part art, part science, here are THREE factors that make it MUCH easier to figure out what to charge…

1) Your fees MUST match your OVERALL financial GOALS!

Whether you want to make $1M or $100k a year, you must be sure that your fee can realistically FULFILL your financial objectives. If you aren’t making enough money to sustain yourself, you won’t be in business for long…

Get clear on your financial goals, look at your offerings and then consider how many of EACH you would need to sell in order to support that goal.

2) Your fees should have you EXCITED to show up!

Even if your fees fulfill your goals, if the amount of work you are doing to make that happen doesn’t also EXCITE you to show up for your clients, then it may be time to tweak your pricing…

If you set a low price from a place of SCARCITY then you may end up feeling resentful later on – so make sure YOU are LIT UP by your fee!

There IS one CAVEAT, ESPECIALLY if you are just starting out…

And that caveat is… it also depends on where you are in your business! If you are JUST STARTING OUT your goal should be to get EXPERIENCE, to FILL your calendar, to be SERVING people and HONING your craft, and to have INCOME coming in the door…

So while you can absolutely choose to wait for the PERFECT CLIENT at the PERFECT PRICE, just know that there’s a TRADE OFF and you MAY be waiting a while and not making any money in the meantime…

You can also do the flip side and say, “I don’t care WHAT I charge, I just want to get CLIENTS.” And you’ll probably get a lot of experience and your confidence will grow quickly but it also means that you may not always be super lit up about showing up… .
There’s always a trade off. The question is, which trade off are you willing to fall in LINE with as you are building your experience, your testimonials, and your confidence!

3) Your fees are NOT a reflection of YOUR value

No, the VALUE is a REFLECTION of your client’s POSSIBILITIES. Your PRICE is simply the way that THEY check-in and get into ALIGNMENT with their own EXCITEMENT (or FEARS, which is ok too) around them…

Your job is to help your clients look within to see if DOING this work is VALUABLE enough for THEM that investing in themselves is a NO-BRAINER…

THEY should be convincing YOU of the value of your services, NOT the OTHER way around…#NoMoConvincing

If THEY say it’s too expensive, it DOESN’T mean your services aren’t valuable ENOUGH. It just means that the COST of INACTION is still less than the UPSIDE of INVESTING and is an opening to help them find CLARITY on what they REALLY want!

I was on a call with a client recently and they were feeling paralyzed trying to navigate UNCERTAINTY in their business…

So I asked them if she OWNED an UMBRELLA. (Funny enough, she didn’t)…

So THEN I asked her, “if you NEEDED one, do you know where you could FIND one?” And of course she said YES and that there was a store just down the street that sells them…

See, I’ve noticed that A LOT of the people who are on the fence about signing up for my business accelerator program or making any other seemingly BIG decisions in their lives, struggle with the SAME worries around navigating UNCERTAINTY…

Needing CERTAINTY before you take ACTION is like walking around with an umbrella EVERY DAY just IN CASE it rains…

Imagine going out EVERY DAY—rain or shine—and lugging around an umbrella just because it COULD or it MIGHT rain…

You WOULDN’T because if it UNEXPECTEDLY started raining while you were out, you would find an umbrella somewhere, stand under an awning, or pop into a coffee shop—and even if you did get wet, it wouldn’t KILL you and you know how to get DRY again…

THIS is one of the most POWERFUL things we can get about life—that we don’t NEED to have CERTAINTY in order to take ACTION…

When we KNOW, that no matter what happens in our lives it is all figure-out-able, that very few things can really HURT us, that there is NOTHING we have BEEN through that we haven’t GOTTEN through, and that our CREATIVITY and RESOURCEFULNESS will always be MORE POWERFUL than our CIRCUMSTANCES…

Then we STOP LEAKING our creative energy into worrying about the FUTURE and we can instead show up to what we want to CREATE with more PLAY, more ENTHUSIASM, and less STRESS!

Sometimes we have students in our Competition-Proof Business Academy who are AGAINST using social media to grow their biz because they only want to do in-person coaching, LIVE events or focus on speaking on stages!

SO I want to share with YOU what I share with THEM about why creating content ONLINE is valuable EVEN IF you have no desire to have an “online biz”!

1. It Helps You Get SUPER Clear On Your Message!

Doing Facebook Lives, IG Stories, writing captions or blog posts online will help you get REALLY clear on what you do and how you help. Then, when you are out meeting people OR sitting down to craft a keynote speech or workshop, you will feel SO much more confident about what you are sharing!

2. It STRENGTHENS people’s experience of you AFTER meeting you offline!

I’ve been hired for private coaching and speaking by people who met me at an event and then started following me online. My online content gave them a way to reduce their fear of the unknown of who I am and what I do. Online content is a LIVING, BREATHING business card – one that ACTUALLY provides value!

3. It shortens the “Sales Cycle”!

When you have online content, it GREATLY reduces the time it takes to build rapport with prospective clients. By the time I get on the phone with them, they already feel an INTIMACY with me that allows us to dive right into the good stuff instead of spending time trying to get them comfortable enough to open up…

4. It can be REPURPOSED like CRAZY!

You may not see the power of ONLINE content but most CAN see the value of OFFLINE content – books, keynote speeches, etc. ONLINE content can be the foundation for ALL of those! My book “Prison Break” is almost entirely a collection of blog posts that I ended up combining together! Several of my speeches and trainings started off as Facebook lives on subjects that I combined to form a cohesive OFFLINE training. HOLY EFFICIENCY!

Being a REAL “value creator” in the world is so important both ONLINE and OFFLINE in order to cut through the noise and have the opportunity to serve people!

Raise your hand if you’d like to be more visible — on video or on stage — but feel like you’re just not CONFIDENT enough, ENGAGING enough, or CHARISMATIC enough…

Now keep your hand raised if you’ve ever had an AMAZING trip somewhere, a GREAT dining experience, or saw a movie that you really LOVED and it was EASY (and even FUN) to tell someone else ALL about it…

I’m willing to bet that you STILL have your hand up!

How do I KNOW this?

Because NO ONE has EVER hired me to help them feel more CONFIDENT, more ENGAGING, or more CHARISMATIC when talking about their favorite vacay, or the day their son was born or when they watched a viral video that changed their life.

Why? Because those things ACTIVATE our NATURAL excitement and enthusiasm to share and recreate that experience with others!

This is a HUGE part of how I’m able to be so compelling when I speak and teach – and YOU already have access to those qualities as well!

When YOU are LIT UP about your message, your lens on the world and what you see as possible for those who join in on the movement, then you CAN’T HELP but be EXCITED when you talk about it!

A key skill for those who are COMPELLING speakers is that they have TAPPED INTO and AMPLIFIED what they are MOST LIT UP about (regardless of ego or uncertainty of how it will be received) and are ALLOWING that to flow THROUGH them in SERVICE of others!

AND when you are LIT UP about your message, then what seems NATURAL for THEM becomes NATURAL for YOU!

You can be a “STAR” no matter how “outgoing” or “confident” you are – it only requires that you CHOOSE to come FROM a place of enthusiasm for what you are sharing!

MY CHALLENGE TO YOU: Tap into the most vivid memory you have of your favorite vacation or most proud moment and go film yourself (just for you) talking about that experience with all of the AUTHENTIC enthusiasm you had when you were ACTUALLY IN IT! You may shock yourself at just how accessible that CHARISMATIC part of you is when you are TAPPED IN and TURNED ON!

When I was in Bali recently, I was riding scooters a lot. And let me just say…it’s SCARY AF.

Everything there related to driving—lines on the road, street signs, speed limits, etc.— all seem more like SUGGESTIONS than actual LAWS…

So what ends up happening is that there are all of these scooters and cars going around and EVERYONE is HONKING…

But unlike in the U.S. where people honk their horn as a way of basically saying “F$#@ off,” in BALI people honk the horn just so that you KNOW that they are THERE; so you know they are coming up behind you or around a corner, so that you can make any necessary adjustments for your well-being.

So while there are horns honking like MAD, NOBODY is UPSET!

And it made me realize that there is a FUNDAMENTAL difference between how people in the U.S. use the TOOL of a car horn versus how people in Bali use it, and how the same can be said for how we use the TOOL of our MINDS…

See, just like the horn, at any given moment your mind can either be an ASSET or an A * * HOLE…

You can either use your MIND and THOUGHTS to SCOLD yourself, to BEAT yourself up, and to tell yourself that you’re not doing enough, not smart enough, not made for this, etc. that is essentially you flipping yourself the bird 24/7…

OR (thank GOODNESS there is an alternative to THAT hot mess of a way of living!)…

You can USE your mind as a TOOL that says “Hey, do you notice what’s going on here? Do you see the opportunity for you to question that thought? Do you see how this may not be a question of your WORTHINESS but rather a question of your WILLINGNESS? Do you realize that you may be a bit confused or stuck in your ego right now instead of being of service?”

Your MIND can be USED to intentionally CREATE (instead of DESTROY) your experience of life!

So if you hear the blaring HORN of your MIND at some point today, allow it to be a gentle reminder and a call to re-center instead of a judgment on your character or an assassin of your experience!

I was watching a documentary recently about an iconic photo taken by an astronaut during the Apollo 8 lunar mission. This was the FIRST manned mission to orbit the moon and the photo shows the moon in the foreground and Earth in the distance—a perspective of Earth no one had seen before…

At one point, the astronauts talked about this phenomenon called the OVERVIEW EFFECT, where viewing the Earth from that vantage point instantly has them see just how tiny it is, which in turn has them realize just how insignificant THEY are.

They didn’t feel hopeless or worthless from this realization, but rather they felt LIBERATED in seeing that, “Wow, these things that I worry SO MUCH about, that I feel so much pressure to DO and ACHIEVE, really aren’t THAT significant”.

Which got me thinking of MY “go-to” coaching methodology—to LIGHTEN people up and RELAX them into RELEASING the SIGNIFICANCE they attach to what they are creating.

When we DETACH from the SIGNIFICANCE and the IDENTITY that we assign to DOING or CREATING something, then instead of WASTING our energy WORRYING about what it will mean about us if we “fail”, we can take that creative energy and CHANNEL it into what we actually WANT to CREATE.

Not because it will make us “SIGNIFICANT” or because it will FINALLY satisfy our EGO, but simply because we CAN – so why WOULDN’T we?

Or as I like to say to my clients when they are playing with this RELEASE of SIGNIFICANCE – we can do ‘THE THING’ simply because it’s “Friday”.

So no matter what you are trying to create in your life or business right now, if it feels heavy or stressful, here is what I invite you to do…

1st, ZOOM WAY OUT to see just how TINY whatever it is you are worrying about is in the grand scheme and THEN ask yourself, “How would I approach this PROJECT if I made it 5% LESS about ME and MY Significance?”

Without all that SELF-IMPOSED pressure, you may be surprised at JUST how MOTIVATED you INSTANTLY feel!

If you’ve ever had a general idea for a piece of content but had NO CLUE how to take it from a crumb to a full loaf of bread, then I’ve got a SIMPLE framework to help you FULLY BAKE your idea AND make sure it’s valuable!

1. FIRST, Ask yourself, “WHERE has this occurred in my OWN life?”

People don’t want the “SAGE on the STAGE”; someone who looks like they have it ALL figured out, NEVER gets stressed and who poops diamonds! What they WANT is someone they can ACTUALLY EFFIN’ RELATE to! So start creating the piece from your OWN experiences!

2. THEN, ask yourself, “How is MY experience of life DIFFERENT when I become BETTER at this “thing?”

In step 1, you showed that this isn’t a THEORETICAL post but something you have worked on in your own life. Now it’s time to help your audience see how YOUR life (or biz, or health or relationships, etc.) is BETTER since YOU started practicing what you are getting ready to preach…

3. NEXT, Ask your audience, “Where has this shown up in YOUR life?”

This is SO IMPORTANT! It’s where your audience realizes that YOUR story is THEIRS too! They will start to REALLY connect to what you’re sharing AND see how THEIR life could be positively affected by what you are teaching.

4. THEN, Give them ONE TIP so they can start PRACTICING for themselves!

Everything you’ve done up to this point has lowered people’s resistance so they are more OPEN to your teachings. Now, give them ONE really USEABLE and ACTIONABLE tip to help THEM play with this concept in their lives.

5. FINALLY, Have a “Call To Action” (CTA)

We can NAIL steps 1-4, but if we aren’t inviting people to be a part of the CONVERSATION, they’re less likely to do anything with what they learned! Asking them to commit to a particular action, to share their insights, or comment with their own experience creates more CONNECTION and increases the likelihood they will take ACTION on what you shared!

Save this post and let me know if this was helpful!