Transcription

Hey, hey. Welcome to the show. I hope you’re having a great day. Today, we’ve got another great guest on the show. I always love bringing guests from all walks of life within the health space onto the show to highlight different ideas and ways to approach life and business.

Today’s guest is a great example of that. Her name is Maya Fiennes. We’re going to be talking about how Maya has held kundalini yoga retreats throughout the world and has become one of the most sought-after kundalini yoga sutras.

She’s heavily endorsed by people like Deepak Chopra, amongst many others, and we’re going to have a cool conversation about leaning into intention, being a bit more free-spirited, and not being obsessed with structure and numbers. Not that everyone has to abide by those rules, but I think it’s a refreshing approach to living life and business in some way, shape or form.

If you’re in the business of bringing people together, or if you want to do more retreats, or if you want to approach your business in a less stressful manner, you’ll get a lot out of this podcast. If you want to learn more about Maya, you can do so over at mayafiennes.com. You can check out what Deepak Chopra and others have to say about her.

But in the meantime, let’s welcome Maya to the show and let’s get into it. Maya Fiennes, welcome to The Healthpreneur Podcast. How’s it going?

Maya:              Hello. Very good. Excellent, in fact.

Yuri:                That’s nice.

I’m excited to have you here because we connected several months ago, and we had a great conversation. I think you were rushing off somewhere around the world to do another one of your retreats. Can you give our listeners a sense of the business model that you operate and what you do around the world?

 

The evolution of Maya’s business from only in-person to nearly all digital

Maya:              I travel the world teaching kundalini yoga. I have retreats. I have made lots of DVDs. I’ve written a book, which is now translated in eight languages. For 10 years, I’ve been very analog, as you would say. I would travel. I would be there for every workshop, retreat, and teacher training course. Then, about two years ago, I switched into more digital, because I thought the DVDs and all that must be coming to the end.

So many people are just doing digital, especially younger generations and the millennials. So, I switched the whole thing into digital, which was a process and quite shaky, to be honest. At the beginning, I thought, “Oh my God. I’m not actually appearing anywhere.” For six to eight months, I wasn’t going out there. I was just filming and creating the content.

I created lots of content and we put everything on the website. Still, I think people are used to me, and they want my energy.

At the end, in this kind of business, people come to retreats to get your energy. As a teacher, you transmit that energy and change people’s lives. By even just talking to them, there is certain energy that you give to people and that’s what they want. The digital was a little bit shaky to start, but it’s getting better and better.

I want to get more, even though I understand that we should do both. You need to appear in the times when you’re not there because you cannot be there all the time. So, you have the support of the digital — videos, DVDs, and all this material that you want to show, even online teacher training courses.

I created something for kunda dance. It’s my new project; my new passion. It’s a movement. Some people are comparing it to Zumba. They think it’s going to be the conscious Zumba. It combines yoga and tai chi, there’s moves, we shout mantras, we dance, and it’s really exhilarating.

The music is written in very high frequencies and healing modalities. At the end, people feel joyful. I presented it on online, so people can take the course online. Everything is recorded.

I have the video — how to do it, what to do, and each position. I gave them the manual. It’s three or four hours of material. They learn it and film themselves doing it. Then they send it to me, so I can approve it and tell them what they need to pay attention to. So, that’s in the pipeline, but we haven’t released it yet.

 

Combining online products with in-person retreats and travel

Yuri:                Nice. That’s cool. Let me ask you this: You’re in Mexico, and you’re going to Greece. You do this stuff all over the world. How do you fill these retreats? And how many people typically show up?

Maya:              Right. So, that’s why I said the digital world cannot be the only outlet. You must appear and you must have both. You have clients who just go for digital and clients who just want to see you in person. At the beginning, when I was transitioning, because I was not appearing much it was digital.

But the digital awareness takes a long time to create on social media. So, because it was shaky I would have not full retreats. In the beginning, I would have 15-20 people at my retreats.

The numbers would still work out at the end, because I’d break even or make a little bit more. But of course, the idea was to have 40-50 people, and I used to have that. Transferring them to digital, which took me some time, was a little bit shaky.

But now we’re getting there, especially with the awareness of this kunda dance that I’ve been teaching. Lots of people have interest because it’s an easy goal. People can learn it in one hour. The whole class is one hour of this kunda dance. You learn how to do it.

That’s why people go for it, because it’s almost like a mini teacher training course. Usually, people are already into fitness or yoga, so it’s easier for them. But yes, the filling of the retreat is still a bit of a problem, to be honest.

It’s so much on the go, and you can just get lost in this whole soup. Before the digital world became more active, the few of us yogis traveling the world would be recognized and everybody knew about us. But now, we’re lost in a sea of many people. That’s what I’ve been noticing.

Yuri:                Interesting. So why do you go to Europe? Why do you go all around the world instead of having retreats in Los Angeles, for instance? Are there specific reasons for those locations?

Maya:              Yes, because my clients are mostly European. I am from Europe. I lived in London for many years, so people knew me from many different angles because I changed my profession often. I reinvented myself many times. I was first known as a concert pianist, then I had a band, then I had a fashion company, then I end up as yogi.

Everything I’ve learned came together under one umbrella of this yoga wellness business. Even modeling, walking on a catwalk, doing makeup, and appearing on camera, is still used now when I’m filming and doing my videos.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. It’s all part of the journey, right? It’s one chapter after another.

Maya:              My book was released in London first, then Germany. I constantly go back to Norway. They can’t get enough. I have hundreds of people there in workshops. I usually do two-day workshops there, and it becomes a tour, like a musician, you know?

I make up a schedule and tour. If I’m in Europe, then I’ll go to Germany, Norway, London, and a few other countries. Then I end up in Greece, because I’m from there. I’m from Macedonia. It feels very comfortable for me to be there in June, usually for the teacher training courses.

 

Maya’s retreat model, how she operates, and how she serves her clients

Yuri:                That’s awesome. How do the retreats look? Are they a one-day event or two days? How does that all look for the participant?

Maya:              I like the retreats for seven days, because you can see the transformation happening from day one to day seven. I can absolutely see it in their faces, and that makes me joyful. I love seeing the transformation and creating that. With seven days, you have enough time to transform and have that journey.

Seven days is enough to get that transformation. Now, I have two-day workshops, because one day is not enough. When I travel like that, people get a lot out of a full two-day workshop.

It depends on what time I have and how it is scheduled. Let’s say I’m doing a retreat after my teacher training in Greece, then I’m doing another retreat in another Greek island for seven days. That will be a journey through the chakras, so we go one day on each chakra.

You get that whole clearing.

Yuri:                That sounds like a great way to experience the world. You get to travel to great places. You get to have fun and teach others. That’s a nice business.

So, for everyone listening, you can create the business of your dreams, right? You don’t have to follow the mold and sit behind a computer. You can do what you want to do. And with that said, Maya, what advice would you give to someone who might be thinking about doing live workshops or live retreats?

Knowing what you know now, what are some mistakes, things that you could help other people avoid, or things they can consider to help them with their live events?

Maya:              I have learned from my mistakes. When things happen is when I don’t think about it too much. I put it out there, and I’m not thinking of not filling it up. I’m only thinking, “I’m going,” and that’s it. That’s my result.

I go with full passion, without thinking about the numbers. As soon as you start caring about numbers like, “How many people? How many people to break even?” Oh my God. When you start doing that, you spoil the whole process. The best thing is just to work with passion, love what you do, put it out there, and just expect it to happen.

That’s it. No is not in our vocabulary.

It happened. That’s it, and you just go with it. And yes, sometimes, maybe it won’t. Sometimes maybe it won’t fill up. But really, when I start dissecting and going back, it did not happen those times because my passion was not there, I wasn’t into it, or I wasn’t into that place.

All those negative-thinking emotions relate to it. As soon as you’re flowing, you go into it, and you love, it’s like, “Oh my God. I can’t wait for Greece. I love Greece, and I know Greece.” I completely put my whole energy in. I’m already planning. I’m already there in my head. I’m already packed to go in June.

It’s all about your energy and how you use it. That’s how I’ve been doing business. I’ve never put business plans on this and that. Somehow, I’m not a business person. I only went with passion, enthusiasm, and willingness. In the end, I uplift, energize, and bring joy to the world and that’s my way.

Yuri:                That’s awesome.

There are opposite thoughts. On one side, you put the intention out there and disconnect from the outcome. On the other side of the spectrum, you must know your numbers, track everything, and push, push, push. Grind it out, and fill it up. Everyone has their own way that works for them, but I agree that when you’re in that flow and state of energy; when you feel as though it’s already happened and you embody it, that’s when all the magic happens.

I think a lot of resistance happens for people because, number one, they set an intention. Then they don’t believe that it’s going to happen. They have self-doubt, then start doing things to over-control the process. They don’t have faith that it’s going to unfold like they want it to.

It’s cool that you brought that up.

 

Maya:              It’s trusting the process. Trust is even more than faith. Just trust. That’s it.

Yuri:                How does someone develop that? Is it something you’ve always had, or something that’s unfolded for you over time?

 

Yoga, mantra, breathing, and meditation for focus and trust

Maya:              No, I’m still struggling with it. I even put a tattoo on my wrist that says, “Trust.”

I was in London a few months ago, and I said, “I want to see it all the time because I have to remind myself to trust,” and it works. I have developed that through yoga, all these practices, food, and diet, as you know.

We are all on a journey to be the best versions of ourselves. We all have different tools to get there. For me, the best tools have been the discipline of doing yoga, using mantras, and practicing the breathing process.

There are a few elements. The breathing is very important. The mantra, for me, works because I’m a musician, so I can associate with that. I create mantras. I sing mantras. So, for me, mantras are always in my head. Every time I need to chill out or know I’m in that shaky and doubtful state, I bring back the mantra. I trust and I remind myself that it’s okay.

It’s just getting to flow. But the biggest and easiest way I get into the flow, is playing piano. I just sit on the piano bench and am completely immersed with the music I play.

When you play a piece, whether it’s for a few minutes or an hour, you are completely immersed in that. It’s an active meditation. You just play the music. There’s nothing else that exists. I remember when I was doing concerts, I would be in a complete bubble for two hours. I don’t know how did they went.

It’s like that. I don’t hear anyone or anything. I was in a specific space and time. I don’t know what to call it, but it was the most amazing meditation because that’s what was happening. You’re completely one with it, and you’re in that flow completely, one with the music.

When you’re one with that whole process, no matter what you’re doing, that’s when the magic happens. For me, it’s when I’m relaxing, meditating, and coming back to trust.

Yuri:                I agree with that. I did my pilot’s license several years ago. When I was learning how to fly, at least when you’re not doing long distances, you can’t think about other things. You can’t be distracted. For me, it was a great escape from what I was doing on a day-to-day basis. It gave me an hour to be solely focused on flying the plane.

It was an active meditation for me. I felt so blissed when I was up there and when I came down. It was terrific.

I found meditation to be extremely helpful. I’m sure a lot of people listening to this meditate. If you don’t, I strongly recommend it. It quiets the mind to such a level that you get to tap into that infinite intelligence. Your nervous system is brought down to such a relaxed state that you can get so much more done.

A couple days ago, I was doing some work at Starbucks. I was there for two hours, and I thought, “Wow. It seems like I’ve been here forever.” Time just stopped, and I was so chill because I was listening to a very specific frequency of meditative music while I was working. It was a cool experience.

I’ve tried to make meditation a regular daily practice because I know that my brain goes a thousand miles a minute. I always think, “I can do this, this, this, and this. Go, go, go.” If I don’t slow down, it feels like I’m always rushing, and that’s not a good feeling to have.

Maya:              For many people, just saying meditate gets an, “Oh my God,” like you just said a curse word. It’s not easy for anybody to just quieten down. It’s the most difficult thing. We do yoga to make ourselves flexible enough to sit in that meditation position. I started that with a discipline, but you open the door to meditation through mantra.

That’s why I highly recommend mantra. It keeps you busy. You keep repeating the same word. You’re stimulating 84 reflex points in the mouth. You’re hitting the hypothalamus, pineal gland, and pituitary gland. Everything works completely as one to get every cell of the body in oneness and that neutral state of mind. It’s so much easier after you finish the mantra for one minute. Then, you can do it for five minutes, for seven minutes, for eleven minutes. We have specific timing.

After that, you just sit immediately. You’re in that flow. You get into the meditation so much easier. That’s what I recommend to people. If you have a very busy mind, try with mantra first, because you keep busy, but just with exact words.

It’s good, sacred words, so your body understands. I started like that. Now, I don’t have to sit and meditate. Everything else becomes meditation. I walk and I’m in a meditative state. I constantly apply mantra or am in that flow. Try to find that in everyday life.

That’s the ultimate. That’s why I called my book “Yoga for Real Life”. It’s taking yoga off the mat and into real life, because it’s so easy to just keep sitting and doing it on a yoga mat.

If you translate that meditation into everything you’re doing in life, I think that’s the ultimate.

Yuri:                I agree with that. That’s awesome. How do you come up with a mantra? I know there’s a lot of people that do transcendental meditation and that’s based on having a mantra as well. Can you just say any word? Or does it have to be a specific type of word?

Maya:              No. I teach kundalini yoga and we have specific mantras. They’re few and simple like: Sa, ta, na, ma.

You keep pushing the fingers, each finger to the thumb, and that sends electrical impulses in the brain and recharges it. It’s great for balancing the hormones. It charges up, specifically, the pituitary and pineal gland.

There are specific things to say, and how you say them stimulates the glands and gets the endocrine system going. That’s what you need. But we have very simple mantras, like ra, ma, da, sa for healing, so you invite that into your life. It depends on what you need, and I estimate.

I have developed an estimate program. In 20 minutes, I’ll ask people to do one specific move from each chakra and specific breath and that will tell me everything about that person.

It becomes like a psychic. People say, “You’re like a doctor.” I say, “Well, I can see what’s going on because I ask you certain things that tell me what’s going on.” People are surprised. Then, I know what mantra to give them. If they have a specific problem, there’s certain mantras for it. That’s why I filmed all these mantras for people. If they have stress or depression, I tell them what to do to hit specific glands.

Yuri:                That’s cool. When you feel overwhelmed, unfocused, or off-track, what questions do you ask yourself? What mantras do you say to yourself to get back on track and back into that zen-like flow?

Maya:              I have my specific mantra to come back to that wisdom: Wahe, guru, guru, the teacher from darkness to light who will help us. I invite my own guru, my own teacher within me.

You have it. That’s the guru we are calling. It’s our own self. To see where this fear is coming from, I sit with it and I invite fear in front of my face. I’m not imagining, I’m visualizing. I say, “Okay, come, face me. I want to face you. What’s up? What’s going on? Where is this coming from? Why?” I talk to it, as weird as that is.

But, it’s just facing the fears. I spend three weeks on my own before or during the Christmas and New Year season on a little island in the Bahamas to face every emotion that comes up. I don’t even meditate or use mantra, because even that was an escape from facing all these emotions.

Sometimes, you can use that to escape, rather than dealing with it. So, I know all the tricks. I’ve been through all sorts of processes and journeys and I realized at the end to just face it, and not many people want to do that. Nobody wants to do that. And rightfully so, because it’s not easy.

 

Getting back into flow and keeping the human connection in business

Yuri:                Totally. Speaking of facing your fears, what is your favorite failure from a business perspective, let’s say, that has later set you up for success?

Maya:              I feel discouraged when my retreat doesn’t get filled, and that happened a couple of times, as I said, when I was transitioning.

I was wondering and questioning, what am I doing right? And what am I doing wrong? Why? Why is this happening? Obviously, my energy was not there or I was not sure myself, so there was a doubt. I think that’s what was happening because I was in that transition. All I knew was to be there with the people. That’s the analog way I was talking about, and I did well with that for 10 years.

For two years, I was transitioning and it was shaky. People didn’t know I was still on the radar. They forgot me when I transitioned. I needed the time on my own. I needed the time to create the content. How do you win them back? How do you bring them back? It requires lots of energy and work.

I think that was a discouraging moment. Then, I started to work even harder to understand the digital world, because I was resisting it.

I resisted it for many years. I kept saying, “I’m not the generation for that.” But the world is running that way that you must accept it. I wouldn’t even have Facebook. I wouldn’t have Instagram. All that you see now, my social media, has only been built in the last two years.

I didn’t have anything. I don’t know how I did those retreats just from people knowing me and seeing me from one workshop to another.

Yuri:                Newspaper ads. The Yellow Pages. It’s cool though. I think a lot of people can relate to that whether it’s the current internet and all the social stuff or the things that are going to be coming down the pipeline, whether it’s 3D printing or AI. There’s always going to be resistance. There’s always going to be people who say, “I don’t want this to be the way it is.”

Maya:              I had more resistance than others. I refused. I don’t want to get completely into that world. I think people are losing connection and communication. It’s a problem because it’s all texting and all digital. I just don’t know. I’m still resisting it, I guess, but I’m getting better with it.

Yuri:                I don’t know if this is true, but they said that Facebook was purposely designed to be addictive, and it hits our dopamine receptors in very specific ways.

 Maya:              Yeah. I’m worried for kids. I have young adults, 11, 19 and 21-years-old daughters, and they’re constantly on it. Ugh.

Yuri:                It’s a tricky world to navigate. I personally made the decision to not have Facebook or Instagram on my phone. I don’t have email on my phone because I know, for me, if it’s on my phone, it’s like having chocolates sitting on the counter in the kitchen. I’m going to crush it every day of the week, right?

I know I don’t have enough discipline to not to jump in there and go down that rabbit hole.

For me, and I think for a lot of other people, too, just using the technology instead of having it use you is an important thing. For me, it goes back to yoga and meditation; when I feel more centered and relaxed, there’s less of a tendency to jump into that.

Maya:              It’s all discipline and building it in your body so your cells understand and know. Some people take shorter, some people longer, but building that discipline.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                Yeah, totally. Maya, this has been a lot of fun. Are you read for The Rapid Five?

It’s five rapid-fire questions. Whatever comes top of mind is probably the right answer. So here we go. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Maya:              Can I be very blunt? Sweets.

I like sugar. Oh, my God. I grew up in a country that is full of sugar. That’s how I grew up. Can you imagine? In Macedonia, it was all about sugar.

It’s considered a third-world country, so we were given all the scruffy stuff, the worst of the world ended up with us. There were greasy things, baked things, sugar, and pastries. I had to be disciplined to turn that around.

Yuri:                Good for you.

Cool. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Maya:              Uplifting, energizing, and inspiring people, and willingness. I say yes to everything constantly. It’s my spirit, my personality.

Yuri:                That’s great. Good for you. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Maya:              I’m very good at creating content. I’m very good on camera, and I know my moves.

Yuri:                Nice, nice. “I know my moves.” That’s a good one.

Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Maya:              I listened to your advice. I used to do one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar with warm water and a little bit of lemon. Now, I added the green stuff that you talked about.

Yuri:                It’s all about the greens!

Finally, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

Maya:              When I let go and let God.

Yuri:                That’s a good one. There we have it, guys and gals. Maya Fiennes, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Before we finish off, what is the best place for people to follow your work online and maybe even attend one of your retreats?

Maya:              My website. Mayafiennes.com.

Yuri:                Check it out. She’s up to some great stuff. She’s very uplifting and inspiring, just a ball of energy. And Maya, once again, thanks so much for joining us today.

Maya:              Thank you.

 

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Yuri’s Take

I hope you enjoyed that one. I enjoyed having that great conversation with Maya. She’s a bundle of energy and joy, has a great heart, and is doing great things in our world.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe to the podcast over on iTunes. Just hit the little purple button that says Subscribe. Second, if you want to leave us a rating or a review, that would be awesome. That helps this podcast get in front of more people.

Let’s be very honest, guys. When you listen to a podcast and the host asks you for a rating or a review, it’s not because it makes them feel good. It’s because the more ratings and reviews a podcast has, the more visibility it gets.

I do appreciate the ratings and reviews, because the more ratings and reviews we have, the more people can see this podcast and listen to it, and ultimately, we can serve more people. I just wanted to be cool and transparent and honest with you about all that.

But, you’re a smart person. You probably knew that already. If you would like our help in getting a breakthrough in your business and want to get to the next level, then let’s grab a time to talk. We offer a Result Accelerator call. It’s 45 minutes long and totally free.

The whole goal of the call is to serve you. It’s not a sales pitch. That’s just not the way we approach business. The specific goal of the call is to help you get clear and focused on what is going to make a difference in your business.

We want to help you attract more clients predictably, convert those clients without feeling salesy, and deliver an amazing result for them on the backend with one-on-one coaching. Thus, you’ll make more income, enjoy more freedom and simplicity in your business, and have a lot more clarity in a world that is littered with overwhelm and a thousand things people say you should be doing.

So, if any of that resonates with you, then grab a spot today over at healthpreneurgroup.com/book, and we would love to chat with you if you meet our criteria that we lay out on that page.

So, that is all for today. Once again, thank you so much for joining me. It’s been a pleasure bringing this to you. Continue to get out there and share your awesomeness. Be great, do great, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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Transcription

Welcome to the show, guys. Hope you’re doing awesome. I’m doing well, thank you for asking! I’ve got a great guest on our show today. Her name is Laura Schoenfeld. Let me tell you a little bit about her.

Laura is a registered dietician trained in functional medical nutrition therapy. She specializes in women’s health, hormonal balance, and recovering from stress-related conditions. She draws from a variety of sources to form her philosophy on nutrition including ancestral diets, principles of biochemistry, current research, and clinical practice.

She started off working with Chris Kresser as he built his online business, and she’ll share a little bit about that journey. Nonetheless, I think you’ll enjoy this conversation because Laura is going to share some cool things about how to give your clients exactly what they want.

There are a few more things that we’ll touch on, but one of the premises of the show is that, a lot of times, we put stuff out there that we think is cool and we have a tough time attracting clients. We’re so focused on our thing instead of the result that the client is after.

This episode will give you some food for thought and some different perspectives on how to approach the market in a way where people will care about what the heck it is you’re offering.

Without any further ado, let’s welcome Laura onto the show. Laura Schoenfeld, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How are you?

Laura:             Good! Thanks for having me, Yuri.

Yuri:                You’re very welcome. We’ve given a bit of your introduction before jumping in, but can you give our listeners a better sense of what your business model currently looks like?

Give them a sense of how that looks for you.

 

Laura’s background and how she formed the business she has now

Laura:             I would say most of my business comes from working with one on one clients.

I’ve been doing that since 2014, right out of grad school. I’m a registered dietician, so I do mostly nutrition, but also do lifestyle coaching; so exercise, stress management, supplements, and all the stuff that goes along with lifestyle. Most of my income right now comes from the one on one.

I have a couple of group programs that I run intermittently, and I’m working on doing some ever greening of those products. Also, I’m working on building a membership platform. My hope is that in the next couple of years, I’ll start to transition more to the group-type of atmosphere with some one on one clients. I want to reach a broader audience and not have to rely on booking one on one clients for my business.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. It’s interesting you say that because one of the biggest challenges that we come up against with the people that we serve is transitioning away from one on one to group coaching. It’s not scalable and they feel burnt out. It feels like the natural evolution of how a lot of people want to take their practice, whether that’s in person or virtual.

How did you get into this space in the first place?

Laura:             Back in 2012, I was hired as a content manager for Chris Kresser. I assume you know him.

Yuri:                Yeah. He’s awesome.

Laura:             I feel like everybody knows him. I started off working for him and helping with his blog. I got to see the behind the scenes of running a business, and that was back when Chris had five people max on his team. I was doing all the emails and helping put the content on the blog. I feel like so much has changed because his business is so different now.

I got to learn what it looked like to create content, marketing, emails, and how to construct that. I could see what Chris was doing to build his audience while I was in grad school. I was learning the nuts and bolts of nutrition in grad school while also getting to learn the nuts and bolts of a business working for Chris.

By the time I graduated, I knew right off the bat that I wanted to have that type of business; maybe not as big as Chris’s business, but the style of business where you have the blog, a podcast, and put content out to attract clients to the business. That was pretty much my game plan from day one. I started a blog even before I opened my doors as a nutritionist, so I had people waiting to work with me by the time I had my dietetics degree.

It was a great learning experience, and learning from one of the best was a big blessing. For the last four years, like you said, I love working with people, the interaction, and talking to individuals, but it’s not scalable. I only have so many hours in the week, and everyone that I work with requires a lot of attention and engagement. I don’t have unlimited energy to engage with everyone at the level that I want to.

I’ve been looking at other entrepreneurs and seeing how they’ve built a larger platform that can reach more people. That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out in the last year or so.

Yuri:                Awesome. That’s cool. Either we scale our business or we clone ourselves. I don’t know if cloning of humans is there yet, but maybe down the road.

 

Outsourcing and distinguishing what your clients know and want

Laura:             Yeah, and I’m a huge control freak, which is not great when you’re trying to run a business. It’s hard to build a team when you feel you would do it better. But, you can’t do everything, so I’ve tried to loosen up the reins and hire people to help with things. Even just hiring another RD to work under me, there’s the concern that they don’t recommend what I recommend, or not doing as good of a job?

That’s where I feel like building the platform makes me more comfortable because I’ll still have control over the content.

Yuri:                Let’s talk about that for a second. This is an area that a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to. If you’re the head of your company, the personality, whatever you want to call it, you have a very particular way of doing things. You’ve had a process for which you help people, you’ve had a process to get stuff done. The challenge is that, a lot of times, we expect what we do at the same level, 100%. Part of the challenge is being okay with 80%.

People listening might be solopreneurs or doing one on ones. Maybe they’re spending an hour a day on Canva, putting in another graphic or whatever. What are some of the initial things that you have had to get off your plate that someone else could take on, so that you could focus more of your energy on what’s most important for you?

Laura:             A colleague and I were doing a podcast for several years, and we recently turned it off because it was sucking time and wasn’t giving us the investment return that we were looking for.

But when we were doing the podcast, we hired someone to do the audio editing, posting, and publishing. That was probably the first hire we made. That saved a lot of time. Even audio editing can take an hour or two per episode. So, if you can hire that out, it’s amazing because then you can put more content out.

I’ve also hired people to help with the actual writing on my blog and research. Some of the stuff that I put out, needs research on new topics or more research to support the recommendations. Just being able to have that stuff more deeply researched is helpful. Having a content editor/research assistant is helpful.

Right now, I’m working on integrating a VA to help me with email management, so I just learned of this customer service email system called Help Scout that seems to be working well. It would help me bring on someone to go through my email and make sure that I’m assigned the emails that are important. Then, they deal with the ones that aren’t important because, as many people know, email can be an insane time-suck.

Also, setting boundaries around things like email, and not checking it at certain times of the day, or promising my clients that I’ll get back to them within two business days, not within two hours, or something like that. Those kinds of things have freed up a lot of time.

I also have a content strategist that I’ve hired who is helping me figure out the nitty gritty details of my ideal client avatar like what they are looking for and what kind of services I could create for a group platform. She’s one of my former clients so it helps to ask, “Well, you tell me what you’d be looking for because you’re one of my clients.”

I think when you’re an expert and you’re in that expert mode all the time, it’s easy to forget what people need help with. Especially when you work with complicated clients, you get into deep, detailed work, and forget that some people don’t even know what an ounce of protein looks like or something simple like that. As an expert, you just take for granted that people know.

Having people to help identify the needs of the clients and the needs of a larger base of clients that would be missed while in that expert mindset has been helpful, too. Sometimes I take for granted that people understand certain details

Yuri:                That’s awesome. That’s such a good point. because I see this maybe more so in the health space than anywhere else: We go to school for so long, we acknowledge this knowledge and wisdom, and then we think everyone know this stuff.

I was in Morocco a couple weeks ago. My dad’s Moroccan, and we took our kids. Everyone speaks Arabic. It’s like we speak Arabic, but the rest of the people we serve speak English, right? They have no idea what we’re talking about, and we have to dumb things down to that level.

A great advantage is that you’ve dealt with people one on one. When you bring that online, I think the unfair advantage for us health experts and entrepreneurs in this space is that you’ve been in the trenches, getting deep with people to find their fears, frustrations, desires, and pain points. In most other industries, they use surveys to figure that out.

We have this in person and we have to get back to that. If we spend more time in our prospective clients’ shoes, it sets us up for success. I say this first and foremost because I spent a long time putting stuff out there that I thought was cool, but no one else did. I learned the hard way that I should just listen to what people are going through and do more of that.

If you were to teach a business course at nutrition school – God forbid there be a business course in a school for nutrition – what are one or two tips you would give future RDs coming out of the programs to get their business off the ground?

 

Why it’s critical to be yourself and build your niche around that

Laura:             It’s funny that you laugh about the business side of nutrition because we didn’t learn anything about running a business. I ended up doing Marie Forleo’s business program when I first graduated because, even with learning from Chris, I still needed more structure.

Having come from working with Chris Kresser, I still struggle with the mindset of, “I can help everybody.” This is something we learn in nutrition programs as well. We learn every single different condition that you could think of, how to work with that person, what labs to look at, and what nutrition guidelines to give that condition. I think a lot of dietitians, and I’m assuming other nutrition students, too, come out not knowing what specific population they want to work with.

They’re afraid that if they niche too specifically, they’ll limit their client base.

When I first started, I was willing to take anybody with any condition. It’s not that I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t failing at helping people. But from a marketing and expertise perspective, it’s difficult to get consistent clients if you don’t have some level of niche, whether that’s gender, a specific health condition, a certain type of athlete, or something like that. If you don’t already have a decent base and audience when you first graduate, it’s going to be hard to get clients if you’re not niching.

The other issue if you’re not niching is trying to learn protocols and recommendations for every single unique case that you come across. The more you can narrow it down to a specific health topic, the more you can get deep knowledge around that topic. Then, the people that find you for that topic get even better help because you’ve done so much research on that topic. I think the niching thing and the ideal customer avatar piece is most important and, it’s funny, every time I do a business program, making sure that you know your avatar is always number one.

I still struggle with that because I’m in the mindset of helping anybody. I don’t want to get too specific. But it makes a huge difference with not only marketing, but also your ability as a practitioner.

Yuri:                Totally. I’m just going to throw a mic drop on that. If you’re listening to this, that’s where everything starts.

Laura:             I know, and it sounds so basic.

Yuri:                That’s the problem. It’s not sexy, it’s just tactics. I want to piggyback on a few things you mentioned.

Imagine being a pro athlete. Most people start off by trying a couple different sports. Eventually they figure out and decide to master one sport. You can’t be a pro in two, let alone three, different sports. You must narrow down to one.

There are two other important things that I’ve recognized while defining this. One, it helps you stand out in this very crowded marketplace. If you’re coming out as a dietitian, you easily become a commodity, but if you start to narrow down, niche, and say, “Listen, I’m the expert for these types of people with this problem,” you start to stand out.

Second, we talked about scaling and moving from one on one to a group with one specific focus. With groups, it’s easy to put together a very specific protocol that everyone follows. Then, you can scale that. But when we’re dealing with diabetes, heart disease, and all kinds of other conditions, you’re juggling a thousand different balls at the same time. What Laura just said about narrowing down your niche market, should be done before you do anything else in your business. Otherwise, everything else is just going to go off the rails.

So, Laura, thank you so much for mentioning that.

Laura:             I’m preaching to myself because as I work through the process of developing a membership program, I still need to figure out who I’m creating this for.

I’d say it’s an ongoing process because you don’t just pick one and do that for the rest of your life. You might branch out or add a second one, but you can’t do it all, so you have to start somewhere.

The second piece of advice that I would give has helped with my business over the last couple years. It’s to let yourself be yourself with your marketing and social media. Show yourself as part of the brand. Maybe that’s not appropriate if somebody’s got a group brand that isn’t their face, but for me, I have a business that is my name as the brand, so if that’s the plan you have, let yourself be yourself, take a stand on things you believe in, and don’t be afraid to show up in a way that might be a little controversial. Show your personality in the work that you do and in your message.

As an example, I am a Christian and that’s something that, in the health sphere, is not the most popular thing. It’s not horrible, but it’s not exactly super-cool to be Christian in the health world. There’s been this level of fear like, “What if I turn people off or do a faith-based post and people think I’m a hardcore Christian so they unfollow me because they think I’m annoying?” There was the fear at first that there would be backlash because my business got started in the paleo ancestral health sphere, which is obviously not usually Christian and based on evolution.

I was a little worried about that, but I thought, “You know what? I think it’s important for me to share my full belief system because it does impact what I do as an entrepreneur. It impacts my recommendations. It impacts my philosophy on health. Honestly, I feel like that has been a huge benefit to my business because I get people who come to me because they say, “Oh, I’m interested in working with you because you’re Christian.”

I’m not saying that you should use religion. It could be something else like, “I’m a power lifter so I take power lifting clients,” or something like that. The niche thing doesn’t only have to be about health conditions, either. Whatever your personality, passions, and things that shape your mindset and belief system in the world is good to share with people because you’ll find other people who agree with you. Then they’ll be raving fans. That has taken my business to the next level; from being another paleo dietitian to the Christian paleo dietitian. It just gets even more attractive to the right people.

Yuri:                That’s so true. You have to say, “This is who I am.” It’ll repel some people and it’ll attract the right people. It’s like a boomerang, right? You put it out and you’ll attract right back to you the types of people you want to work with. You mentioned earlier that sometimes we’re fearful of putting ourselves out there in an authentic way. We feel we’re going to turn people away and narrow down too deeply. But that’s exactly what we want to do, right?

That’s how you exactly attract the right people to work with. A lot of times, people end up attracting clients that they can’t stand because they’re not being themselves, so they’re attracting the wrong people into their business in the first place, so that’s awesome advice.

 Laura:             People tend to be afraid of turning people off or away because, especially when you’re starting a business, you don’t want to turn anybody away. But honestly, that was probably the biggest mistake I made starting my business. I didn’t have any boundaries for who I was taking on as a client or who I was agreeing to work with, and the more people you work with that are not your ideal clients, the more exhausting the work is.

If 90% of your clients are the exact ideal clients that you’d like to work with, your work week is a lot easier because you don’t get up and dread who you’re about to talk to. I think it’s good for psychological health, for your own sake. The stronger of a stance you take on things, the more that the people who agree with you will be drawn to you. They’ll be willing to pay more money to work with you because they know that you’re on their same wavelength.

Yuri:                100%. Just for reassurance, I know several people in the health space who are crushing it, and they’re very faith-based. They’re very open about that. It doesn’t matter if you’re Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or whatever, just be yourself. Yes, people are going to be turned off, but who cares?

When I go on vacation, I don’t really “vacation,” digital-free. I mean, I do, but sometimes I’m happy to work from a nice destination and people say, “What are you doing working?” But it’s not work for me. I love what I do. But it’d be very different if I was dreading the people that I was serving.

Listeners, make that conscious decision to be yourself and attract the right people. Everything stems from there and becomes a lot more enjoyable.

What do you think is one of the biggest mistakes that you’ve made in your business up until now? And what have you learned from that lesson or that mistake?

Laura:             It’s along the lines of what we’ve been talking about, where I was refusing to niche for a long time. It didn’t kill my business or anything. I mean, I was lucky to have a level of audience right off the bat in the beginning, so it’s not like I was floundering on that. It’s just that the less clarity you have about the kind of people you want to work with, the more you end up working with people that aren’t the right fit.

It’s not that they’re bad people, it’s just that if it’s not a good fit, it takes so much more energy to work with that person than someone who is a good fit. You don’t attract as many people if you’re not niching. Again, I’m preaching to myself because I’m still working on this and working on getting clarity about who my niche is, how detailed I want it to be, and all that good stuff.

There was a long period that I was just a generalist, and I think I would’ve gotten a lot more business advancement in a lot shorter period of time if I had done the work to do the niching in the first place.

The second issue was another thing we talked about, which was doing the solopreneur thing for a long time. Finally, this year I said, “You know what, I’m going to start building my team and get a lot of this stuff automated so I can focus on the more important high-level work that I need to do.” It’s been helpful to loosen up the reins and let other people do the work that I could do but don’t need to.

Letting that stuff go and trusting that another person could do it has been an important thing, and I think I took too long to get to that place.

 

Training and coaching and the balance between investment and benefit

Yuri:                Sure. I want to talk about investing in self/business.

What’s one of the best investments you’ve made – whether it’s money, time, education, etc. – to help you get to where you are now?

Laura:             I’ve done a decent amount of business coaching. The Marie Forleo program was helpful. She’s the one that does B School, and that was my first entry to business coaching. It was funny because back then I thought, “Oh my gosh, $2,000. That’s a lot of money to spend on business.” Now I say, “Oh, $2,000. That’s normal. Everyone charges $2,000.”

It gave me basic starting point information. I have worked with some business coaches in the past. The challenge for me is balancing paying, putting some skin in the game, and taking it seriously with paying too much money and not seeing the return on that investment or getting overwhelmed with the content.

I start to shut down, so I’ve had to be a little bit more thoughtful about the business programs I join. If it’s too much money, too hardcore, or too intense, and I don’t have the bandwidth to implement, then I just think, “Oh my gosh, this is terrible. I can’t do this.”

I’ve found that a lot of these little group courses have been helpful. I just signed up for Stu McLaren’s TRIBE course for helping build a membership. I’ve seen you, Yuri, on some of his marketing.

Yuri:                I know. Stu’s a good buddy of mine. We did a case study together.

Laura:             There’s chunks of practical information. It’s not obviously cheap; it’s not $100 or something, but it’s a low enough cost that I don’t feel a dark cloud of anxiety over my head about making the money back. And the bite-size information is helpful.

Honestly, being a student in these courses has been an education in learning how to break information down for my students. One of the issues that I used to struggle with more in the past – not so much anymore – was just dumping a lot of information on people.

My thought was, “They’re paying for this. I need to make sure they get a lot of value, so I’m just going to give them everything all at once.” I wasn’t doing the coaching piece where I picked the information they need to start with and build on that.

By going through these courses, not only do I get to learn actual strategy, but I get to see what is a good course. What does that look like? How do they drip it out? What do they do with videos or handouts? What makes this valuable to me?

Then, I can apply that to the work that I’m doing and say, “Okay, if I’m trying to solve x problem, what bite size chunks do I need or how can I use their structure? Oh, they did videos. Maybe I could do videos about my topic.”

It’s a combination learning experience. I think all entrepreneurs should be doing some coaching or business program to not only learn themselves, but also to experience the customer side of the equation. If we’re not acting as a customer for other higher ticket items, then it’s going to be hard for us to understand what other people are willing to pay for with our business.

 

Investing in coaching programs to learning and attract the right clients

Yuri:                That’s good. It’s true. One of the best ways to learn is to be a student of other programs or other coaching programs. Obviously, there’s some that are better than others. What Stu’s done on TRIBE is a tremendous example of how to drip content out in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you.

Again, especially in the health space, one of the things we’ve noticed is that so many people are focused more on the information than the transformation.

If we say, “I spent 1,000 hours developing this course.” No one cares about that. And I say that because I spent 1,000 developing one of my courses years ago and, sadly, no one cares about that. It’s about the problem they want solved. Focus on that. If you’re adding something in, is it moving them closer to their goal, or is it a distraction?

Is it just overwhelming them with more stuff? I think it’s a good process to think about. I believe we’re in a day in age where product matters, product meaning the deliverable you’re offering and thinking through. If you create something magical, marketing becomes a whole lot easier.

One more question on this. What do you say to someone who is either starting out or looking to grow their business and they’re reluctant to invest in themselves?

I ask this because when I started my business, I decided I was going to do it on my own. I didn’t need any help. I was smart enough. I could figure it out. Three years later, I said, “You know what? Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought I was.” I eventually invested in my first coach who was $18,000, and that was more than I had made online in the previous two years.

I tell people that most of the investments that I make are above my pay grade and they make me feel uncomfortable, but that’s the only way that I know I’m moving in the right direction. What do you say to that?

Laura:             I think the amount you’re willing to spend will change over time, so don’t think that the first thing you have to buy must be $18,000. The first thing I bought was $2,000 and that felt uncomfortable at the time. It should be a level of discomfort that’s like, “Okay, this is something I’m going to take seriously,” because if there’s not enough of an investment, you won’t take it seriously. Then, you won’t get the results. I think people get better results when they invest more money into the work that they’re doing with a coach or with a program.

Honestly, I’ve just found over the last couple years that it’s easier to sell to potential clients if I’m also spending money on my own self-development, because basically you’re trying to convince someone that spending money on themselves is worth doing. If you’re not doing that yourself because you don’t think it’s worth it, then why should they think it’s worth it, right?

I do business coaching stuff. I have been working with a personal strength and conditioning coach for about three years now to work on my own fitness. It’s one of these things where I say, “Yeah, I don’t technically need a coach for that.” I could go to the gym by myself, but I see the value in outsourcing that. I get better results. I’m more committed. My entire day is structured around that workout session. I make sure I eat enough. I make sure I sleep well the night before.

It has this ripple effect in my life where it’s not that my coach is telling me anything about how to eat or sleep or anything like that, but I’m taking it seriously because I’m investing money in it and I want it to be worthwhile. I think just being willing to spend money on your own self-development makes you more legitimate when trying to get other people to spend money on self-development.

Also, the amount of time you save learning from an expert on a certain topic is invaluable. With online business, there are so many different things that you could do, so many different directions you could take, so many different trial and error experiences you’d have to go through to figure out what’s going to work.

Find an expert that you trust, and obviously do your due diligence and don’t just sign up for every single different coaching program that’s pitched to you. Make sure you feel like the person knows what they’re talking about. If it’s a one on one coach, get some testimonials or see some examples of their work. The amount of time you save for money you spend working with a coach…I can pretty much guarantee it’s going to pay out in the end.

It may not pay out within the first month or the first year that you do it, but I am confident that if you pick a good coach to work with, you’ll see that return on your investment very quickly. It may even be something that you see a return on within the first couple months of the investment. I think if you’re comfortable, it shouldn’t be so expensive that you feel like you’re going to have to take out a second mortgage on your house to afford it, but it should be expensive enough that you feel a little nervous doing it. Those slight nerves when you’re going to sign up is not a bad thing, it’s actually a good thing.

Yuri:                Great advice. It’s so true.

Listeners, if you’re coaching people, whether online or in person, and you run into the situation where people say, “You know what? I think I’m just going to do this on my own for a bit, figure things out, and then I’ll come back to you,” I’d like you to look in the mirror.

If you’re not working with a coach because you think you can figure things out, you’re going to attract the same people into your business. Be the client you want to attract. If you want people to invest in you or in themselves, you must invest in you and yourself. If you’re not, it’s incongruent and you’re simply going to hit a wall every single time.

 

The Rapid Five

I don’t know if it’s an energetic thing, but it just happens. Awesome advice Laura. You ready for The Rapid Five?

Laura:             No, but you can go for it.

Yuri:                Laura has no idea what these questions are so let’s jump into it.

Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

 Laura:             Worrying about what other people think of me.

There’s a double edge to that sword, where I’m empathetic, want people to be happy, and want to take care of people, but sometimes it turns into being afraid to speak my mind or do what I want to do because I’m worried what my mom, friends, or some Joe Schmoe on Instagram is going to say. That’s been a bit of a barrier to get past in my business.

Yuri:                Sure. That’s understandable. Number two, what’s your biggest strength?

Laura:             I would say the other edge of that sword is my empathy for people, my compassion. I care a lot about the people I work with, and I’m very committed to doing what I can to help them. If part of what I do is send them to someone else, I feel like my clients can tell that I do honestly care about them and their results, so my empathy tends to be one of my best strengths.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. I’ll let you and our listeners know, I believe empathy is the secret sauce to success in business because if you don’t have that, you have no way of relating to the people you’re serving. It’s a good strength to have.

Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

 Laura:             I would say I’ve gotten a lot better at selling.

So, doing free consults and getting people to book packages. I’ve been trying to hone in on my skills with that. It used to be a lot harder in the past, and I was very afraid of it. I didn’t like selling. Now, I’ve gotten to a place where I feel good about my skills when it comes to pitching my services in a way that’s successful.

That’s an important skill to have as a business owner, being able to sell your services and look at it as I’m not just taking money from someone, I’m doing an exchange of value. It’s been a big mental shift that I’ve gone through in the last year or so.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. It’s also challenging when you say your biggest weakness is the fear of what other people think of you, right? Selling is on the opposite end of the spectrum, right? A lot of people don’t want to be too pushy or ask for money because they might say no.

I tell people entrepreneurship is the ultimate spiritual journey. It’s the ultimate way to grow as a person because you must go through all this internal junk and say, “Alright, let’s just make this happen.” I’m sure you’ve recognized that it’s a great growth curve to go through.

Laura:             Yeah. It’s made me be okay with rejection, but it’s also taught me that if I believe I can help a person, then it’s not a bad thing for them to pay me money to help them. It’s just getting that negative connotation out of the money exchange piece, because I’m happy to pay for services. Every time my strength and conditioning coach says, “Do you want to re-up your package?” I say, “Yeah.”

It doesn’t even cross my mind if I should keep doing what I’m doing. I know that if I’m working with the right person, shouldn’t be this horrible experience for them to pay me money. It’s something they’re happy to do. It’s been a big mental shift to say, “I’m just helping them and if they don’t want to do it, it’s fine.”

That doesn’t say anything about me or my skills, but it is my job to prepare them and to ready them to make that commitment, and that’s something that I’ve taken into the sales process.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Good for you.

Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Laura:             I do a Christian gratitude journal by Ben Greenfield.

Yuri:                Ben’s a good friend of mine.

Laura:             You have a lot of friends, don’t you?

Yuri:                I pretty much know everyone in this space, yeah. I’ve been around for a while.

Laura:             Yeah, I’m friendly with Ben and his wife. He released his Christian gratitude journal, which is the Christian version of The Five Minute journal, I would say. I have that next to my bed and I make sure I do that before getting ready for the day, on weekdays at least.

Weekends I feel a little bit less structured.

Yuri:                Awesome. And finally, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

Laura:             When I finish the day and I feel satisfied with the work I did.

Yuri:                Wicked. I love it. Laura, thank you so much for being with us on the show. This has been a great interview. I’ve enjoyed our time together. What is the best place for our listeners to check you out online, follow your work, and inquire about your services?

Laura:             My home base is lauraschoenfeldrd.com. If you want to see the blogs that I’m putting out or the programs or the services that I offer, all of that is found there. As far as getting to know me more as a person, I like Instagram.

I don’t know what it is about Instagram, but I’ve latched on to that one as my social media of choice. I try to share little personal anecdotes, things that I’m doing, and things that I’m learning in my own life. That’s where you can get to know me more as a person. A lot of what’s on my website is health information. Those would be the two best places to find me.

Yuri:                Awesome. Laura, thank you once again for being with us. It’s always great to connect with people doing awesome stuff in our space and I want to express my gratitude and appreciation for you and the work that you’re doing to serve your clients and pay it forward to making this world a healthier place. Thank you so much.

Laura:             Thanks for having me, Yuri.

Yuri:                You’re welcome.

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Yuri’s Take

Alright, I hope you enjoyed that bad boy. One of the things I wanted to touch on from our interview was how Laura talked about not being afraid to be controversial and taking a stand for what you believe.

I need you to understand this because if you play plain vanilla with your business and the way you put yourself out on the marketplace, you’re going to have a tough time standing out. If, like Laura, you’re a registered dietitian, there are hundreds of thousands of registered dietitians across North America and the world. How do you stand out from every single one of them?

If you’re a trainer, doctor, chiropractor, it doesn’t matter. Whoever it is you are what you do, it’s not your information. It’s not the information you provide that’s going to be valuable to people. They can get information from anyone. It’s how you present it. It’s how you approach working with your clients. It’s your philosophy, and that’s why I often say, “Don’t just share what you know. Share what you believe because when you share what you believe, you’re going to attract and repel people to and away from your business.”

That is golden because you only want people who believe or agree with what you’re doing to be in your tribe.

For example, I don’t believe that it’s a smart business plan for most entrepreneurs to be selling low end information products. The only caveat to that is if you have a huge list, a huge following, and you know how to drive massive amounts of traffic and make it profitable. Otherwise, if you want to create transformation for people, if you want to help them go from where they are to where they want to be, it’s going to come from some type of hand holding coaching program.

I’m not talking, “Hey, here’s a course. Go do it on your own.” It’s a done-with-you type of model, where it’s not necessarily one on one, but it’s done in a group with higher price points. You’re selectively choosing the people you work with and that is it. Premium pricing. Premium clients. Premium results. That’s what I believe in.

That’s what Healthpreneur is built upon, and because of that, we don’t offer any $7 e-books, or any of that nonsense. We have a workshop, our mastermind, and Healthpreneur Live, which is our annual event. That’s it. And, obviously, our podcast, which is completely free. So, if you don’t like the podcast, please email us and we’ll refund you.

But that’s the key. You must take a stance for what you believe in, whether it’s your position on a specific diet or the way people approach life or whatever you believe in. Share that overtly. Let people know what you stand for and stand against. That’s how you’re going to attract the right people into your business. That is how you’re going to stand out. That’s how you’re going to grow and enjoy the process a lot more.

If you want help with this stuff and want to attract clients more effectively, enroll them without feeling salesy, and deliver amazing results, we can help you.

We can do so in the form of a 45-minute free call. This is our opportunity to jump on the phone together and figure out exactly those three things. We’ll figure out where you are, where you want to go, and where you’re stuck, so we can get you clarity on how to approach those elements of your business and you can move forward with more ease. If that sounds good to you, head on over to healthtrainergroup.com/book to book your call today.

Again, it’s totally free. If you’re wondering if this is going to be a sales pitch, it’s not. In fact, we don’t even invite a lot of the people we speak with to work with us at a higher level. If you are interested in that we can tell you more about that at the end of the call. But again, for us, we must make sure that it’s a good fit as well.

The call is all about you. It’s all about being of service and that’s it. It’s all about helping you move forward with a lot more clarity. Sound good? Thank you once again for joining me on the show today and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. If you have, subscribe to the podcast Healthpreneur Podcast on iTunes, and leave a rating or review if you’d like. On that note, I bid you farewell, and hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Continue to get out there, be great, do great, and I will see you in our next episode.

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Transcription

Today I want to share with you the number one fear that sabotages your business, and you’re probably not even aware of it.

 

My story of when I sucked at sales

I want to start off by sharing a story with you about when I was a personal trainer. This is back in my early 20s. I was working as a personal trainer while going to school to get a practical application for what I was learning in class. I quickly realized that I enjoyed helping people, but I also realized that I sucked at selling.

I could take somebody through an amazing workout, but when I would sit with them to sell a package, I didn’t have the confidence, the certainty, or the wherewithal to simply say, “Listen, you have to do this.”

I struggled even though I was fairly busy. I wasn’t getting paid what I felt I was worth, I felt overworked, and that wasn’t a good place to be. It took me a long time to recognize this, even when I came online in 2006, because it still persisted. Even to this day it lingers a little bit and shows its ugly face.

I want to share this one fear, and I guarantee that it is holding you back as well. I believe it’s the number one fear that is sabotaging almost everybody’s business.

 

The fear of being disliked and the value of persistence

It’s the fear of being disliked.

We have neural programming that says we are part of a tribe. The way our brains work is that we’re part of an ancestral tribe, and if we don’t jive with the tribe, then we’ll be ostracized. That’s the conditioning that our primitive brain has been coded with.

When we fast-forward to 2018 and the current day and age, when we do things that are potentially going to upset other people or have them dislike us, there is an underlying primitive fear that we’ll be ostracized from the tribe, metaphorically speaking. Oftentimes, we’re not even aware of this, and I think it holds us back from pushing when we need to push.

It holds us back from asking important questions and having difficult conversations because we don’t want to upset other people, step on other people’s toes, or — God forbid — have them say no or, “I don’t like this person because they’re a little bit too pushy.”

That’s one way of looking at it.

But what I realized over time is that when I look at successful people — and I talk about this all the time — they have this ability to persist no matter what, to the point that it’s almost annoying. When you have discussions with successful people, one of the things that they look for in the people that they work with is persistence.

I remember having a conversation with somebody a long time ago who has now built a $100 million a year business — probably even more — and he talked about how when people would email him, he would never respond to the first email. I thought that was interesting.

Most people would perceive that as, “Oh God, he doesn’t like me, why wouldn’t he respond to my email? I don’t want to step on his toes or force the issue.” And they would stop.

But he said, “I don’t respond to the first email because I want to see what they’re made of. Are they going to follow up? Are they going to persist? Are they going to get creative and try to get in touch no matter what?” This is how he lived his business life. He would send somebody an email to introduce himself for whatever reason, and would send numerous emails afterwards, before getting a response.

It sounds easy to do in theory, but when we’re typing the email or about to pick up the phone to make that call, that little voice inside of our head says, “Don’t do it. What if they get pissed off? What if they don’t like you?” I’m not going to say it takes a certain type of person, because I believe this can be developed, but we must be aware of it.

Are we scared of being disliked, or is what we’re doing so important that this person needs to know about it, so we must get in touch with them? If we shift our mindset around this, it helps.

 

Overcoming the fear of being disliked and shifting your mindset

Instead of focusing on being disliked, which puts the focus on us from a very egotistical standpoint when we’re fearful and stressed, we should focus outside of ourselves. If we focus on the person or the people that we can serve, now it’s about them. Fear dissolves, because it’s not about what they think of us, it’s about, “How can I be of service to them and transform their life? My offer, what I’m selling, will, without a shadow of a doubt, make this person’s life infinitely better.” By not following up, not asking the difficult questions, or not asking for the sale, you’re doing them a disservice.

If the person says no, they’re saying no to the opportunity, not necessarily to you as a person.

In some cases, maybe it’s you as a person, but you know what, what are you going to do with that? You can’t change who you are, but that’s just the way you are. Some people are going to naturally gravitate towards you, some people won’t. But it’s important to look at any situation we’re in, and just shift our perspective to consider, “Am I focusing on myself? What am I scared of, what are my insecurities, and instead can I come at this from a place of service?”

Think, “Hey, maybe that email went to their spam. Maybe I just missed this opportunity because I thought they weren’t going to respond, but they only just saw the email because it was in their spam box, and I should follow up to ask if they received my email.

 

All you can do is be you, but you need to share your offer and impact

It’s important to have that persistence and not worry about being disliked. Regina Brett said, “What other people think of you is none of your business.” You can’t change the way people think about you. You can only do you, you can only be you, you can only go out there and do your thing, and if people don’t like that, who cares? Move on to the next person, because there are millions and millions of people who need what you offer.

Are you going to help all millions of people? Probably not, but even if you tapped into 1% or 5% of them, that is a huge number of people that you’ll impact at a deeper level.

 

How to build the muscle to overthrow your fear

Here are a couple tips to build this muscle:

One, practice making more asks. Don’t be beige, don’t be plain vanilla, don’t try to please everyone. Take your stance, polarize, and practice making more asks.

“Would you like this?” “Can I send this to you?” “Did you get my email?”

Follow up with people, and ask. Even if it’s small, practice building that muscle.

Second, the more no’s you get, the closer you are to getting a yes. There’s an old-school saying when it comes to sales that for every 10 no’s, you’ll get a yes, so just keep getting noes. I don’t necessarily like getting a lot of no’s. Nobody does. But remember that we’re always at the cusp of a breakthrough, and if we give up, we don’t get that breakthrough.

So, even though shit hits the fan, or you get those no’s over and over, or your Facebook ad account gets shut down, or whatever it might be, figure out a way to keep on going. Never allow that roadblock to stand in your way.

Finally, it’s important to share more of what you believe than what you know. I know this is a little bit off on a tangent here, but if you are posting stuff via email, social media, or video podcast, I think it’s important to share your Kool-Aid, as I call it, so people buy into your philosophy. That way, when you do make those asks — whether it’s to join a program, attend an event, or whatever it is — they buy into you because they believe what you stand for.

That’s extremely powerful yet overlooked when people try to grow their businesses.

So, those are some of the ways to help you overcome that fear of being disliked, so you can build that muscle and belief in yourself that what you’re doing matters and what you offer will help people. It’s your duty to continue moving forward.

So, on that note, I hope this message finds you well. Remember, if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, you can do so on iTunes. If you’ve enjoyed this show, as well as any of the other episodes, be sure to leave us a rating or review on the show. That would be greatly appreciated. I hope you have an amazing day. Stay tuned for more awesome interviews coming your way this Wednesday and Friday, and I will talk to you then.

Transcription

Hey guys, how’s it going? Welcome back to the show. Today we’re speaking with Sylvia Favela who is a Pilates practitioner and business coach to Pilates entrepreneurs.

She’s the founder and CEO of Pilates Biz Academy and the author of several online programs that have transformed the lives of thousands of customers around the world. I’m excited to have her on the show because I like bringing guests to you that are sometimes a bit out of the norm.

We have a variety of listeners from trainers to not-for-profit doctors to chiropractors. Some have their own practice online or offline. Some have their own courses online and are working with clients around the world. There’s all sorts of stuff.

I love highlighting new and exciting people. I’ve known Sylvia for several years, so she’s not new, but I expose new entrepreneurs in the sense of showing you what they’re doing and how you can extract some of the wisdom from their journey.

Sylvia helps Pilates studios become more successful. And whether you have a Pilates studio or not doesn’t matter, because we are going to be sharing one of the most important traits you can develop in your business if you want to be successful. It doesn’t matter if you have an offline clinic, a brick and mortar practice, if you’re coaching clients, or if you’re selling information, products or supplements.  This one secret we’re going to share with you that Sylvia has found to be the most impactful in her business will help you, too.

So, without any further ado, let’s welcome Sylvia Favela to the show. Sylvia, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How’s it going?

Sylvia:                   Doing great. Thank you for having me.

Yuri:                      You’re very welcome. We saw each other a little while ago at Craig Ballantyne‘s event in San Diego, and that was the first time we’d seen each other in years. It was nice to catch up in person briefly, and it’s nice to have you on the show to have a chance to get a little bit deeper. For the listeners who don’t know much about you, can you give everyone a better sense of what your business model looks like?

 

Sylvia’s background and her entrepreneurial journey

Sylvia:                   Of course. I’m in the Pilates industry. I started in the Pilates industry about a decade and a half ago.

I started building my own studios and having boutique and group-style studios, then moved on to having online programs and coaching. I saw that there was still, 10-15 years later, a missing gap in the industry: Pilates professionals are struggling to keep their businesses open and don’t know what to do with marketing and strategies.

So, it’s something that I’ve learned and I’ve put together different programs in mentorship for Pilates professionals. I’ve evolved from being in the trenches, with people, and guiding them, to where I am right now where I help professionals. I still do help my clients worldwide. I just provide great service and help people in general.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. It’s so cool to see how many niches within the health space there are, right? It’s terrific. Most of us know that marketing is the weakest link in most people’s – especially in the health biz – businesses. What, in your experience, are the most common things you come up against with the business owners you help?

 

What certifications don’t teach you

Sylvia:                   They just don’t know. That’s what it is.

There are so many certifications nowadays for Pilates professionals. And there are so many franchises opening up for Pilates. Back when I started, back in 2003, 2004, none of that existed. There are certification programs, but nowhere does it show you how to get clients and create that like and trust factor. There’s nothing there.

When I talk to professionals, they love Pilates. They want to teach it. They have that passion and that enthusiasm to teach it; however, they just don’t how to get that client, pull them in, and take them from a prospect to an actual paying client on a monthly recurring plan.

That’s the struggle; just trying to teach them how to build your business. Having the passion is amazing, but if you don’t have that business sense or the marketing and strategies, that passion is going to get burnt out very quickly because you don’t have the knowledge and the know how to continue and stay in business for the long haul.

Yuri:                      Totally. We live in certification nation, I think, in the health and fitness space.

No offense to anyone who’s done certifications. I think it’s great to build up your skillset. But at some level, I don’t know if people are thinking that having more numbers or letters behind their name is somehow validating or will allow more people to find them magically. I’m not too sure.

My personal philosophy is if they spent as much time and money on learning how to market and grow their business as they did on the certifications, I don’t think I’d have a job, to be honest with you. Not that I have a job, but as much as probably exists.

Sylvia:                   Right. I think about that, too. Why is it that it’s so much easier for someone to go through a certification? Maybe they think, “I’m going to go through a Pilates back training for back and spine and articulation.” However, if you don’t know how to use that to add value and increase your membership base, then it’s broken.

Perhaps they’re thinking that it’s easier to just sit there through certification class and say, “Okay, I learned this,” rather than learning marketing and strategies, putting yourself out there, and doing sales. That’s intimidating. And that’s challenging and scary. Most people don’t like doing anything that’s out of their comfort zone, so I think that’s another reason why.

It’s like saying, “Okay, I’ll just do another certification,” because it makes you feel that you’ve done something to grow your business. It’s not because you stay within that comfort zone.

 

Effective sales techniques and the importance of courage

Yuri:                      Yeah, I agree. That’s a good point. For Pilates instructors or health business owners who have a fear of the word “no,” which is probably why a lot of people don’t like selling, what advice do you give them? What does that conversation look like?

Sylvia:                   When somebody is sitting in front of them and saying no, as a Pilates practitioner, it’s our duty to keep peeling back that onion. There’s a reason why they’re saying no. And if you haven’t dug deep enough then the answer’s always going to be no. It’s knowing that they’re there and they’re in front of you for a reason.

They need your service. Get used to the word no, because that’s an automatic. We’re wired to say no right away. So just expect that you’re going to get that no, and ask how to turn that into a yes because you know that they need your service. It’s having that mental rewiring and shift when you have that prospect sitting in front of you.

So, that’s how I guide them.

Yuri:                      What are some of the most common objections that a Pilates business owner might encounter if they’re trying to acquire new clients?

Sylvia:                   The cost. It’s, “Oh gosh, your rates are too expensive.”

Yuri:                      How do you help them overcome that? It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, that’s always going to be the number one objection.

Sylvia:                   That’s the number one challenge. I’d say, “Mrs. Jones, $350 a month is too much for you monthly. Let me ask you, what is it that you’re paying right now with your trips to Starbucks and eating out? How many days a week do you eat out?” It’s breaking it down in that sense to see where they’re at and how much their spending.

Some people come in for Pilates because their doctor told them to for an injury. Present that injury and ask, “How much is it costing you to be off work because you have this back issue?” Or, “Because you can’t go up and down the stairs?” Hit those pain points to see what it costs to not do something about it.

Yuri:                      Nice. So surfacing that pain and comparing it to stuff like apples to oranges. Like, “Hey, how much did you spend on your latest iPhone?”

Sylvia:                   Exactly.

Yuri:                      How’s that working for you?

Sylvia:                   Exactly. It’s in the reframing and positioning. And you want to listen. You want to listen to the prospect. That’s the one important thing that I tell all my coaching clients: to listen to what people are telling you because, you know, people tend to talk too much. And sometimes you talk yourself out of a sale because you don’t know when to zip it and just stay quiet.

Yuri:                      I think being able to master, let’s call it an enrollment conversation, is one of the most powerful skillsets anyone can develop because this applies to your kids.

Or enrolling someone in a bigger future for themselves and I think it’s a great personal development tool to overcome your own fears and ask better questions instead of speaking all the time. For anyone who’s out there just scared of selling, just do more of it. And do it with the right frameworks that can help you.

When you develop that confidence, it’s amazing what can happen. The way I look at it is that, if you have something that can transform a person’s life, it’s your duty to make them realize that. And if you’re not, you’re doing a massive disservice to them.

 

Sylvia:                   I couldn’t agree more. When I first started selling, oh God, it wasn’t normal for me. It was a scary thing to do. It was very scary, but the more I did it, the more I got comfortable with it. When you sit there in front of somebody or you’re talking to them over the phone, it’s that confidence when you know you can give the results they’re looking for – that transformation – because I know what my service can provide you.

Do more of what scares you. And I know that’s so cliché to say, it is. But the more you do it, you’re going to get better at it. Your confidence is going to go up. And it’s just like working out or when you’re eating better. Anything in life. And parenting too. I have a 14-year-old teenager now and I must be consistent and just listen. That is the biggest thing. Listening and not talking so much.

Yuri:                      Yeah, that’s great advice. I love how you talked about confidence, which is 100% true because you may think, “I need the confidence before I start selling,” but the only way to get confidence is to start selling and building the confidence.

Sylvia:                   Exactly. It’s funny because people try look and say, “Okay, what are the steps I need to do to build confidence?” You just need to do it.

You just need to do it. You just need to get out there. You just need to talk to people. Talk to a perfect stranger. If you’re having a coffee or are at the grocery store, just say, “Hi, how are you?” Just start talking to people and getting out of your comfort zone.

People that know me well know that I’m quiet. I’m a quiet person, but I will go out there, talk to you, and put myself in that environment. If not, I’m not doing anything to serve and help people transform their lives. Because I’m quiet, I must put myself in that position. I must get out of my own personal way so that I can help people.

Yuri:                      Yeah. One of the frameworks I learned from one of my coaches, Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, is a very cool framework you can use with your clients. It’s the Four C’s: Commitment, courage, confidence, and capability.

Whether someone wants to lose weight or better their business, that’s the confidence and capability side. They’ve made the commitment to doing that. But what most people don’t realize is that they must go through courage. They must cross the bridge to get to the confidence. You can’t have confidence without having the courage to get there. It’s like saying, “I want to lose 20 pounds, but I don’t want to work out.” Well, good luck with that, right?

Sylvia:                   It’s so true. You must take that step and it’s a scary step. Just have the courage to say, “I can do this.”

You may fall flat on your face because it’s going to happen, but you get up and you just keep going. You just keep going and that’s the biggest thing. That’s one of the struggles when talking to Pilates professionals and studio owners. They had a bad day and lost two clients. Dust yourself off. You can do this. Just have that courage to get back up and keep going.

Yuri:                      Yeah, totally. Watch some Game of Thrones and remember, this father was beheaded, so we live in a pretty good time.

 

Truly connecting with your clients and prospective clients by being you

Sylvia:                   Exactly. And you know what, we live in a great time. When I first started my studio back in 2004, there wasn’t Instagram. Facebook was barely a thing. It was My Space and Google ads. We live in such a technological world where we can jump on Facebook, do a Facebook Live, and make that connection.

It’s a great world right now where we can connect with people. And that’s what people want; they want to connect with you as a person to do business with you.

Yuri:                      Absolutely. I want to bring up one of the things you mentioned a few minutes ago, which was that you have a service that can make a difference in someone’s life. And going back to having that confidence. What I’ve noticed is that if someone doesn’t have 100% delusional confidence that their thing will work for someone, they should look in the mirror and say, “How do I make this even better?”

Is this something you find with Pilates instructors where they’re lacking the certainty that their classes or approach will help their clients? Where do you find people stand on that?

Sylvia:                   They do get discouraged and they feel that they’re not good enough. They have self-doubt because they have a boutique studio or they’re teaching out of their home, and down the street a Pilates franchise opened.

They start to think, “How am I going to be better than them? How am I going to provide a better service than them?” And my response to them is, “Because it’s you and nobody can be you. You, your service which you provide in your connection to your client, that franchise down the street is not you. So, that is the difference.”

So, just be you and try not to be the people down the street. People will gravitate towards you and your message. So just stand in that message and be who you are while providing that service and people will come to you. I don’t like to say this, but don’t be fake. You’ll attract the people that resonate with you.

This is from my personal experience of trying different ways of marketing my business myself. When I came back to me being me, providing the service that I know, and the connection I make to my clients, my business just boomed.

In this world, everybody wants to be Instagram famous. There’s nothing wrong with that, but just be you. Pilates instructors got into Pilates because we love this method and we know what it can do. Everybody got into it for some reason; either they were ill or some way, somehow Pilates just resonated with them. I tell them, “Just keep doing that.”

Yuri:                      Awesome. So, if you started in a completely new market today, let’s say yoga, what’s the first thing you would do to grow your business?

Sylvia:                   Can I just say this one more thing? It’s funny because people in town say, “Well you have to love yoga.” Pilates does borrow a lot of the thoughts of yoga, but yoga for me is just a little slow.

It’s hard for me to slow down because my brain just goes 100 miles an hour. And I’m sure you can relate as an entrepreneur. It’s hard to quiet everything and focus on that one thing. But if I were to start in a brand-new space like yoga, the first thing I would do is provide value.

I’d go out there and provide a class or a session. I’d just be of service and give. Just give. That’s how I built my business; giving without expecting anything in return because I knew when I provided that value and gave them a great class, experience, and my all, they’d want to stay with me.

Yuri:                      Awesome. Good advice. Very selfish of you, but great advice.

Sylvia:                   I know. People would argue, “Sylvia, that’s probably not the way to go.” But that’s how I’ve built my businesses. The more value you give, the more you keep people for the long haul. I’ve had clients that have been with me for a decade for that reason.

Yuri:                      That’s wicked.

You mentioned that your mind races at 1,000 miles a minute because you’ve got all kinds of things going on. I think everyone listening can relate to that. It’s called being an entrepreneur. It’s funny because we just had a parent teacher meeting just yesterday with my son’s teacher. He’s in grade one.

His teacher was a little bit concerned because he can’t sit still and focus for a prolonged period. I told them, “Listen, he’s my son. I was the same way when I was his age and I think I turned out pretty well.” We tell our kids not to worry too much about fitting into the mold and fitting into the box. You can’t do that if that’s not your thing.

I think us creative types can resonate with that. How do you stay focused despite the tendency to want to do all sorts of different things?

 

The struggle to stay focused and how to stay on track

Sylvia:                   When I follow that little shiny object, something will happen and I will fall flat on my face until I get brought right back to my purpose. I learned that if I fall, if I get diverted to something else that’s not my calling or purpose, I get punched in the face.

I look at the top three things that I need to do for my business and I stay on track. I’ve done it multiple times and I don’t want to fall flat on my face anymore, so I stay on track and just keep with my purpose. As creative types, we have to keep going back to why are we doing what we’re doing, where we started, and why. We should stay within that.

It’s interesting that you said that about your son. My son is 14, a freshman in high school, and is so very opposite of me because he’s a golfer. He can zero in on what he needs to do and quiet his mind. And that’s why he loves going out on the golf course. It’s fascinating to me because I ask him, “How is it that you can hit that ball once, you go up, you’re on the fairway, and you can hit it again and not think about what you just did?” He responds, “I can do it because I know the shot I need to make and I just focus in on that.”

He quiets everything else. I’m amazed because I tell him I was not like that, especially in school. It was very hard for me to focus on one thing, and it’s interesting to be a parent of somebody who can zone in on one thing.

Yuri:                      Totally. That’s awesome.

If you’re speaking with a Pilates instructor, business owner, or anyone else in this space and they’re following a business model or track that they feel is right for them, but then they go on the internet and find the latest product launch going on, how do you advise that person to help them understand that the track they’re on is the right track versus jumping into something else?

Sylvia:                   It’s interesting that you said that because I had a conversation with one of my clients for that exact same thing. I told her not to reinvent the wheel and to follow what’s been done and proven.

There are so many things out there that are shiny and new that will deter you from your path and what you’re doing right now. I know what it is right now. It’s hard because you’re doing the things that aren’t glamorous like late hours and putting in work over the weekend. But you must get over those hurdles to get to where you want to be. Even if you’re looking at a brand-new product, you still must put in the work.

It may be great and nice and promise you rainbows and gold at the end, but you still must do that work. So just stay on course with what you’re doing. Do that and follow somebody who has done the work, been in the trenches, and done the trial and error, and just keep going through. You don’t want to start from the beginning because you veered off your path.

Yuri:                      That’s good advice. Sometimes, if I veer off into something new, I wonder if it’s entertaining or distracting. Is there an actual reason for what I’m doing? A lot of times I’m just bored.

A lot of times, I ask this out of habit: “What’s new and exciting?” Nothing really, it’s the same old, same old. That should be the right answer for most of us.

Sylvia:                   I was talking to Robby Blanchard and I said, “What’s new with you?” And it was the same thing; no drama, no nothing. It’s almost as if we look for chaos; like, “How can we disrupt what’s happening?”

We shouldn’t be looking for the chaos. We should just keep doing what we are doing because it’s working. That distraction soothes that, “What’s new?” But then, a day later, you realize, “I shouldn’t have done that. That just veered me off,” right?

Yuri:                      Totally. I just had this weird thing come into my mind. It’s like cheating on your spouse. It’s like, “Let’s go sleep around with all sorts of people because it’s fun and exciting,” maybe. And then you go back home and you’re like, “What the hell did I just do?”

 Sylvia:                   It’s that gratification in that moment, but for what?

It’s not worth it. It’s certainly not worth putting in the work for the long haul over that moment of gratification.

We could talk about this for a long time because it’s so easy to want to get distracted.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                      Yup, absolutely. Sylvia, this has been good. Are you ready for the Rapid Five?

Sylvia:                   Go for it. I’m ready.

Yuri:                      Here we go. Number one is, what is your biggest weakness?

Sylvia:                   Getting out in front of people. It’s hard being in public.

Yuri:                      Sure. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Sylvia:                   Building relationships. I’m very intuitive. I can build a relationship within five minutes with somebody.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Sylvia:                   Building deep relationships. Building strong relationships that I’ve grown over time by just giving.

 Yuri:                      I like that. Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Sylvia:                   I write in a journal.

Yuri:                      Cool. Finally, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

Sylvia:                   I get messages from clients that I inspire them and that they want to have that courage.

Yuri:                      There you go. That’s great. Awesome stuff, Sylvia. Thank you so much for sharing that. This has been a lot of fun. It’s been a great conversation. Before we finish off, where is the best place for our listeners to find out what you’re up to and follow your work online?

Sylvia:                   Thank you. They can find me on Instagram @sylvialfit or they can find me at PilatesBizAcademy.com.

Yuri:                      Wicked. Sylvia, once again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be with us and share your candid lessons and acumen from what you’ve been doing over the past couple years. It was great to catch up and I want to acknowledge you for all the awesome work that you’re doing in the world for the clients you serve.

Thank you so much for showing up and just being awesome.

Sylvia:                   Thank you so much, Yuri. I appreciate you having me.

Yuri:                      Yup.

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Yuri’s Take

Listeners, let me ask you this, are you afraid of sharing when you ask a perspective client to work with you? If you’re a human, you probably said yes. Listen, we all don’t like being rejected. Nobody does. But as we talked about in this episode and many episodes before this one, too, is that you must develop thick skin. You must understand that what you offer is going to transform your client or prospective client’s life.

If they don’t act and enroll, not only are you letting them down, but they are going to continue to suffer. It’s not about being pushy or salesy; I would rather you err on the side of being slightly more assertive than passive. And everyone has a different sales style. You don’t have to mimic how somebody else sells or enrolls people. You must find your own style and find what works for you.

Yes, there are frameworks that you should follow. We have a great framework for our calls that make them very service-oriented. If you haven’t experienced our resulted accelerated call, first and foremost, it’s to accelerate your business and learn how to attract more clients, convert them without being salesy, and deliver an amazing result. Be sure to book a call today.

If you’re serious about your business and you want to get faster results with more certainty, more clarity, and less frustration, this call will make a big difference for you. It’s totally free. It’s 45 minutes for you specifically. It’s not a sales pitch. It’s about helping you in your business. Book at healthpreneurgroup.com/book.

If you want us to help you deploy some of the stuff we talk about, we can certainly talk about that towards the end of the call, but there’s no high-pressure sales tactics here. Okay? The whole goal of the call is getting to the truth. The truth of what matters to you. And that’s the key.

Understand that selling is not evil. Selling is necessary. In this podcast, I am selling you. I’m selling an idea. I’m selling a philosophy. I’m selling something I want you to believe in. There’s a lot of undertones in this podcast selling the fact that yes, you can build a successful business and believe in yourself.

I’m selling you the fact that you must learn how to sell if you want to be successful in business. I’m selling you on the fact that you don’t have to sell information products and build out a huge content marketing platform to be successful in business.

I’m selling you on what I believe. So, understand that we’re always selling. We’re either selling ourselves, we’re selling an idea, or we’re selling a product or service for an outcome or result for the people we can serve. We must be okay with that. Firmly believe that what you are doing for people is worth it because if you don’t, you need to go back to the drawing board and sharpen the ax.

Bring what you bring to the marketplace with the conviction, certainty, and confidence that if someone works with you, their life will be transformed exponentially.

That’s the belief I have when we work with people in our health business accelerator workshop. It’s the belief I have when we work with people in our Luminaries Mastermind, and it’s not delusional. We’ve built the programs to produce results.

If you’re not confident in what you’re selling, you must make what you’re selling even better. Then, you need to build up your self-worth, your self-belief, and whatever else you need to do. Listen to Rocky music ahead of time. Get yourself in the right state and understand that it’s not about selling. It’s about serving. And the right people will step up and want to work with you at that point.

We spend a lot of time talking about this in our workshops because it’s very important. If you want to go deeper on this stuff, just book a call with us. We can help you through this process. Again, it’s healthpreneurgroup.com/book.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the interview. If you haven’t subscribed to the show, be sure to do so on iTunes. Give it a thumb up, and a review would be awesome. That is all for today. Thank you once again for being with me, and taking the time to give us your attention. I appreciate that.

Continue to go out there. Be yourself. Be awesome. Continue to be great, do great, and I’ll see you in our next episode.

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Transcription

This is episode 109, and today we’ve got another treat for you. We’ve had some amazing guests in the last couple of weeks. We’ve had some amazing guest in the last couple of months since we started this podcast, more than 108 episodes ago.

Today, I’m speaking with my good pal Samantha Skelly, and this is going to be a real treat because Samantha and I have a great conversation about philosophy, business, premium pricing, delivering an amazing result for clients, and transforming people, not just informing them.

She’s gone through an amazing journey herself, which she’ll share with us in this interview, but I want to give you a little bit of a background as to who she is before we invite her on.

Samantha Skelly is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, bestselling author, and emotional eating expert. As the founder of Hungry for Happiness, a movement to empower women to overcome their disordered eating and body image issues, Samantha revolutionized the weight loss industry by examining the individual and underlying causes of eating disorders. She has shared her mission on international platforms with appearances on Global TV, Shaw, NBC, and CBC, which are some of the biggest networks in Canada.

In 2013, Samantha was awarded Top 24 under 24, and in 2014 she was named a finalist for best emerging entrepreneur by small business in British Columbia. Samantha continues to spread her message and transform the lives of thousands of people through her program, motivational speaking engagements, Hungry for Happiness podcast, and so much more.

I’m excited to have her on the show. She’s a real treat, and she’s also a fellow Canadian who defected to the States. It’s all good because, if you’re listening and you’re American, you have way better weather than we do, so I understand that. She’s awesome, and I think you’ll get a lot of value out of this.

This is one of those deep episodes like we had with Shannon Graham. It’s going to have you rethink how you run your business, and I think you’ll have some cool epiphanies. So, without any further ado, let’s welcome Samantha Skelly onto the show.

Samantha, what’s up? Welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast.

Samantha:                 Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.

Yuri:                How are you doing?

Samantha:                 I’m great. I rocked out an early morning yoga class, I’m drinking some coffee… Life is good, dude. Life is good.

Yuri:                That’s awesome, cool. So, I’m excited to chat with you today, because you’re doing some amazing stuff in your business. Let’s go deep into some of the things you guys have been doing to bring your audience together in a deeper way, and how that’s impacted your business. Before we get into that, can you give us a sense of how you got here in the first place? What’s been the journey for you? What’s the story? How’d you get here?

 

Samantha’s own journey that lead her to create Hungry for Happiness

Samantha:                 Definitely. When I was younger, I was a dancer and a child actress, so my entire life I thought I wanted to be an actress. I didn’t have any other idea of what I wanted to do, I just wanted to be an actress. I started that quite young. When I wasn’t in front of a camera, I was on a stage. My whole life was performance-based.

I was young and had a lot of rejection, because I didn’t book roles and things like that. I metabolized that, but I didn’t logically realize how much of an effect it had on my emotions, my emotionality, my sense of self-worth, and things like that. So, when I turned 18 years old, I said, “You know what? Screw this. Screw this acting thing. I’m not doing this. This isn’t for me.”

I packed up everything I owned and I moved to Australia. I told my parents, “University is not for me. That’s not what I’m doing. I am going to go create my education through traveling.”

I got big into fitness. When I moved to Australia I felt I lost my significance because I was no longer a dancer or actress. So, I began to diet. That was my thing. I thought, “I’m just going to find my significance through the way that my body looks.” When I was 18, that was the beginning of a time I call my diet depression, where I was on over 50 diets in less than four years. I struggled with food and my body and had no idea how to eat like a normal person. It was a journey.

I moved to London and started my first company, which was a personal training company. It was like Fitness on the Go in the states, where you go to people’s houses and train them in their houses or parks. It’s mobile. That was my first company, and when I was doing that I felt so out of alignment. I couldn’t get my shit together, eat properly, and feel good about myself, yet I was in the industry of trying to help people be happy and healthy. It was not working for me. There was something out of alignment.

I quit fitness, sold my business, and moved back to Vancouver to figure out what was going on. I thought, “Why do I feel like this? Why can’t I use food for health and hunger? Why am I always using it for emotional reasons? Why am I always trying to manipulate my weight?” It was a three-year journey of rediscovering who I was and what needed to heal. After I saw what I was struggling with, and what my clients were struggling with, I just wanted to revolutionize the weight loss industry.

I want people to understand that there’s such an emotional component to this whole thing, and the reason why we can’t lose weight so often is not because we’re doing the wrong thing, it’s because we’re not addressing the core driving force.”

That was the birth of Hungry for Happiness. I started pro bono coaching. I thought, “I’m just going to help people.” I had no idea. At that point I wanted to be a real estate agent. I had no idea that I was going to build this huge company, but I started doing pro bono coaching. Then I saw that I was helping people with this. I started doing group coaching, and it’s just grown from there.

Over the last three and a half to four years it’s been built to what it is today, which is quite a big business. It’s fun. That’s the story of Hungry for Happiness.

Yuri:                That’s great. It’s such a great name, too, Hungry for Happiness.

Samantha:                 Thank you. I wish I could say I found it and it was me. I was out for brunch with some girlfriends and I said, “I’ve got this idea. Hunger for Peace…I don’t know,” and then my girlfriend, Brooke, said, “Hungry for Happiness,” and it was amazing!

Yuri:                That’s good.

Samantha:                 Thank you.

 

Fear and courage and letting both exist

Yuri:                So, in this journey of your business, what were one or two big inflection points where you said, “Holy Shit. I don’t know, this is a bit out of my comfort zone?” What were one or two of those pivotal moments? What were some of the fears or the mindset around them, and how did you get through it?

Samantha:                 I feel like that’s just a daily occurrence. I feel my life is always a full-time wedgie; it’s always uncomfortable, painful, and I’m always scared. I’ve had to change my relationship to the sensation of fear. It doesn’t mean stop; it just means that there’s something to move and breathe through.

One big moment that comes to mind is the first-ever live event that I did in front of 200 people. I had to be on stage speaking to people and delivering content for eight hours two days straight. It was insane. That was a big moment for me. I was shitting my pants for three months up to it, and it was scary.

A second thing was when I first started our Hungry for Happiness certification program to certify other people to do what we do. I thought, “Oh my gosh, can I do this? Is this possible? Can I make little Samantha Skelly’s? Is this real? Is this happening?” That was a moment where I thought, “Holy shit, this is really coming together.” It’s been so beautiful to see that program unfold, but it was scary when I first started it.

Yuri:                It’s funny, too, because I think that if you’re going to be an entrepreneur you must be comfortable with fear. Dan Sullivan, one of my coaches for years, has a saying, “Fear is wetting your pants. Courage is what you do with wet pants.”

Samantha:                 I love that.

Yuri:                That’s so good, because we all piss our pants.

It doesn’t matter if you’re starting off in business or you’ve been successful. There are levels of fear that you must be able to push through, and it’s sad when you see the potential that someone has and they let their fear stand in the way of their dream. You know that they’re not going to get through that without the right type of coaching or guidance.

It’s cool to see how you’re able to navigate that and impact a lot of lives in the process.

Samantha:                 Yeah, it’s so interesting. I get this question quite often: “Hey, Sam, how are you fearless?” They have no idea the shit-storm that’s happening in my body right now. There’s no such thing as fearless as far as I’m concerned, but what can exist is fear and courage simultaneously. It’s not one or the other.

If we choose to have fear hijack our entire system, we’re not going to move, but if we’re feeling fearful we can say, “Okay, where in my body can I access courage right now? If I was to feel a little bit courageous right now, where do I feel that?”

Just allow both to be there. If we try to fight our fear and pretend it’s not there, it’s just going to bite us in the ass. With so many of the entrepreneurs I mentor, I say, “Dude, it’s 80% mindset.” So much of it is getting out of your own way, having the clear vision of the outcome you want, and setting that intention. This is not my saying, but I love this: “When your intention is clear, your obstacles disappear, and that includes your fear.”

 

Tribe-building through intimacy, connection, and existing relationships

Yuri:                Very true. Let’s talk about tribe building and the good stuff you guys have spent a lot of time building in your business. What did things look like before? What made you conclude that you needed to do more of this? How has that all worked since then?

Samantha:                 Great question. Building tribe within businesses is one of my favorite things. I want people to feel a very specific thing when they interact with our content, videos, and live events. For the first couple of years of business, my focus was on, “What are we? What’s our specialty? Where are we finding ourselves in the market?”

Over the last year and a bit, my big focus was, “How can I create more intimacy and more connection?” In a world of so much automation and online stuff, we’re creating connection and intimacy, especially with our brand, Hungry for Happiness. Women come to us because they’re feeling awful about themselves. They’re struggling with binge eating, emotional eating, eating disorders, and body image issues. We would be doing ourselves a massive disservice if we didn’t intentionally create ways in which they can feel supported and loved.

For instance, our tribe is called The Phoenixes. A Phoenix is a being that obtains new life from rising from the ashes. When people interact with our brand they say, “Oh, you’re a Phoenix,” because that’s what you’re doing and your journey. People who go through our program, which is called The Society, are called activators. They activate other people.

By giving people purpose for what they’re doing and how they’re being, they feel good and want to spread that message. They want to say, “Oh, my God, I went through this journey, and this is who I became through that, and I want this for you.” They get excited by sharing their journey.

The more we share stories online, and the more people see themselves in others so it’s not just me and my story, but how people discover themselves through other people’s stories, I think that’s such a powerful thing.

We’re growing very quickly, and my biggest fear is losing that intimacy and connection. The biggest thing I’ve been working on this year has been maintaining the intimacy and connection in my organization as we scale to a multi-million-dollar company. That’s been an interesting challenge, but we’ve put things in place and changed our business model to allow for more of that. It’s been great, but it’s been a lot to think about.

Touch points are so important. I’m the face of the brand, if you will, so people will resonate with my book, my podcast, or whatever, and then they’ll join. Then, our sales team will have a discovery call. It’s so simple, but I’ll send them a quick video when people join saying, “Hey, Melissa, thank you so much for joining. I’m so grateful that blah, blah, blah, blah. Your coach is going to be Cheryl this round.”

People go nuts over that video and it takes me no time at all. They realize that, “This person actually cares that I’m here and that I’ve trusted them with our money.” We do. We do care so much, and it’s such a big deal for someone to pay us to help them with an emotional challenge that they’ve been challenged with their whole life. It’s such an honor for us to be able to do that.

It’s the ability to create intimacy and then creating more intimacy and connection with the people who are already your clients. This is a mistake I see young entrepreneurs, new entrepreneurs, make constantly. They are way more concerned about getting new business in the door than they are about nurturing their existing business.

I see this all the time. This is an analogy I created and I think it’s good: Say you go to a dinner party and you sit down at the dinner party and the food is served. You have your glass of wine, and the host is on their phone calling other people to come to the dinner party when you’re already there.

It’s like, “Fuck you, man. I’ve given up my night to come here and I’ve sacrificed, whatever,” it’s that feeling of not being appreciated. That’s something we need to be mindful of in our organizations. Yes, new business is important, but don’t forget about the people who are already in your arena.

Yuri:                It’s so true. And the dinner party analogy could be extended to, “Well, there’s not even enough chairs at the table for new people, so why are you inviting more people in the first place?”

That’s an issue, too, with coaching as you scale. Yes, you can enroll more people, but do you have people on the back end to deliver? You must balance things out properly.

There are a couple of things I want to touch on here. Number one is that it costs way less to keep an existing customer, or re-market to an existing customer or client, than it does to acquire a new one. So why not just love the heck out of your clients? It’s just so much better. It’s just such a better way of doing business.

I also want to touch on, in terms of building tribe, community, or whatever you want to call it, the importance of having a common shared language. You mention the Phoenix, activators, and society, so you’re using these words that only people in your tribe would know. Thus, you create that us versus them right away, not in a bad way, but in a good way that makes them feel part of something special.

That’s some cool stuff. That’s good.

Samantha:                 Totally. Religion does this well, right?

Yuri:                In a great way. How dare you.

Samantha:                 They’re great at it.

 

Knowing what you stand for and what you stand against

What do you stand for but, also, what do you stand against? This is something that I resisted doing and implementing, because I said, “I’m a lover, not a fighter,” but it’s important to understand as a brand, as a tribe, what am I standing against? Well, I’m standing against restrictive dieting. I’m standing against putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds with short-term solutions. I’m standing against shaming our way to happiness. I’m standing against shaming our way to try and be skinny.

That’s what we’re standing against, and it’s so true. I feel it so viscerally in my body, and I know the women that I’m speaking to have spent 30, 40 years in the diet-binge cycle, so they get what I’m talking about, and they decide, “Yes. Screw that. I don’t want to do that anymore.” It’s just a win-win.

Yuri:                It’s huge. You must use this stuff. In the solo rounds, if you’ve been listening to the podcast, I talk a lot about stuff I stand for and against, like selling low-price products, spending all your time with social media, all that nonsense is stuff we stand against.

Getting premium-priced clients, group coaching, working with people closely at a high level, those are the things we believe in. Either you resonate with that, or you don’t, but that’s one of the key things you must be doing in your business, because otherwise you become a commodity.

Stand out and differentiate yourself; do that and make it part of your messaging and communication. Also, your tribe will drink the Cool Aid, too. They can easily share that message with others so it’s awesome. Great advice for sure.

Samantha:                 I just want to quickly touch on that. I agree with you, and I so appreciate that. I totally fucked up this year. When I first started, it was all a high-end boutique. Our lowest priced product was $3,000. Our highest price product was $12,000. Shannon Graham was my coach.

Yuri:                He’s speaking at Healthpreneur Live. He’s going to bring the thunder.

Samantha:                 Oh my god, he’s totally going to bring the thunder. I love him so much. He changed the game for me in so many ways, but I won’t get into that. He’s always been of that mindset. I loved that about him. I hired a coach this year, who is great as well, but his advice to me was, “Sam, you have to have a lower price product. You have to get people to know you.”

He said, “Do something for $497, just to get it out there.” I felt so shitty about it. I didn’t want people’s first feeling of my brand to be this fucking six-week automated course that I know won’t help them.

I went against my intuition. I rarely do that, and I was kicking myself for it, but I thought, “I hired this guy. I’m paying him a lot of money. He, obviously, knows best. I’m just going to go with it.” I did it and it was such a disaster. I’ve never had so many client complaints about a program. The quality of the people who are willing to buy for $497 versus a $3,000 is completely different.

It’s not fun. It wasn’t fun serving them, so I took it off the market. It was 30% of our entire business, and I was like, “See ya,” literally overnight. My team thought I was crazy. I said, “No, no, no, you guys. This is going to be the best thing for us. I promise you.”

It’s a “pay what you can” now, for people who cannot afford $3,000, because I get that. They pay me anything that they want and they can have it. They just can’t email me with any complaints.

Yuri:                Totally. It’s so true. Guys, you must get this. There are two ways you can build your business. There’s the old way, which is with lead magnets, tripwire, $47 upsells, blah, blah, blah. I lived in that world for way too long.

Samantha:                 Oh, it makes me throw up.

 Yuri:                Here’s the thing you must be realistic about. If you’re going to build that business, you need massive volume. If you’ve got a million people on your email list, or you can drive traffic, left, right, and center, no problem, go for it. But also remember, you’re only skimming the surface of people.

Like you said, why give people Band-Aids when there’s bullet wounds, right? Don’t give tips where transformation is needed, and you cannot transform someone for 47 bucks, or even $497. The 3K program, just so I’m clear, is for the average consumer on the relationship with food side?

Samantha:                 Yeah, that’s right. So, it’s called The Society. It’s a six-month group couching program and, it’s the program that addresses why you’re using food as a drug.

Yuri:                Okay, so one of the biggest concerns that people have is, ” can understand if you’re charging more for a program that is ROI based, but will people pay me that kind of money for the intangible of better health?”

What do you say to that?

Better health/life equals better business; invest in yourself

Samantha:                 Right. So, I’d say, “What is it costing you to binge eat and hate your body every single day? What is it costing you to be addicted to your own suffering? What is it costing you to constantly obsess over it? If you did not deal with this problem, what’s available to you?”

You can make all the money in the world when you’re feeling great about yourself, but if you’re feeling addicted to your own suffering you’re not going to ask for more money, go date those people, ask for a promotion, live the life that you want to, or start that business, because you’re just so consumed with the struggle.

It’s truly about communicating to people that there is another option. You can choose differently and, yes, you’ve been so comfortable living in misery, but that’s not how we’re designed to live. It’s truly about them communicating the pain and us saying, “Okay, what is it costing you to stay stuck?”

Yuri:                Here’s the other thing I like to get people to think about: What’s the worst thing that can happen? If you lost $3,000 would your life be over? If you feel that that’s a big investment for you as a consumer, what’s the worst thing that can possibly happen?

Get people to live in that. They realize it’s not that bad. I’ll still have my house. Everything will be the same. I might have to work a little bit harder for a bit, but it’s all good. The thing, guys, is if you’re coaching at any level, whether it’s fitness coaching, health coaching, anything, you have to understand that you can’t even put a price on the stuff you’re doing, Samantha, with people’s health.

You can’t put a price on that, and that’s why it’s tough to price it, right? How do you put a price on saving someone from decades, years, and every single day of dealing with that?

Samantha:                 Absolutely. My health and vitality is my currency. The healthier I am, and the more tuned in I am, the more money I make. People pay for my energy. If I’m stuck in my own shit-storm I can’t serve or be who I want to be.

Not a lot of people agree with me with this point, but I offer a money-back guarantee on everything that I do. If someone gets to the end of that sixth month and say, “My life wasn’t radically changed and I didn’t end binge eating.” I’ll say, “Alright, cool, I’m going to give you your money back.” I know some people do that and some people don’t. A lot of people don’t agree with me and think it’s crazy, but I’m so happy to say I think it’s happened once.

Yuri:                The reason I love premium prices is because, number one, from a business perspective it just makes sense. But that’s not even the most important thing. The most important thing is that you become obsessively focused on producing the most amazing outcome for your clients.

It’s tough to do that for 100 bucks. How do you serve people? It’s just, again, going back to mindset and working through that fear. For you, did you have issues when you first brought this program to market? Was there self-doubt, or self-worth stuff where you thought, “Will people pay me for this? Am I worth this?”

Did you go through that and, if so, how did you navigate that?

Samantha:                 Oh, yeah. I went through that hard. When I was working with Shannon, it was challenging because I didn’t have the evidence that I was creating transformation. That was the difficult part. What I leveraged was, “I’m paying Shannon X amount per month, which is a ridiculous amount of money. If I’m investing that in myself, of course people are going to pay for my knowledge.”

I leveraged the fact that if I invested in myself, why would people not invest in me? I believe we can’t ask for more money than we’re willing to invest. I energetically would not feel great about charging someone more money than I’m investing in myself, as a coach, as a leader.

I got to leverage the fact that I was already doing the work and working with someone, and I’d spent hundreds of thousands of dollars between all the personal development that I’ve done over the course of my life. Of course, people are going to pay for that.

For the people listening, be honest with yourself: Are you doing the work?

I know I’m only going to be as effective to the point where I’m investing in myself. The moment that stops, or I stop investing in myself, it’s game over. I know that in my body. I feel like I’m not being fair right now.

Yuri:                How can you expect people to invest in you if you’re not investing in yourself?

Samantha:                 Right. It’s doesn’t make sense.

Yuri:                Be the client you want to attract.

Samantha:                 Right. I love that. That’s something I learned when I first started out: Am I being who I’m expecting to attract? If not, let’s clean that up, because I’m not going to attract the people that I want to attract if I’m not being that.

It’s been so interesting. It continually fascinates me how the more I up my game, the more I refine my craft, the more I work on my gifts, the better clients I attract constantly. I don’t know, that’s up to the cosmos. I don’t know why that is, but it’s a beautiful thing. It’s an amazing thing.

Yuri:                Listeners, if you’re having a tough time enrolling clients or you’re attracting the wrong people, you should look in the mirror and ask yourself, “If people aren’t willing to invest in me is it because I think I know all the stuff and I don’t have my own coach?”

If you’re a coach, how can you not have a coach? You’re basically saying you don’t value coaching. To be a good coach; you have to be a great client.

Samantha:                 Yes, absolutely. It’s so important.

Yuri:                Speaking of Shannon Graham, episode 107 is with him and it’s called “The Interview That Will Change Your Life,”because it was one of the most amazing interviews. This one is very close, because these are concepts that, I believe, are fundamental questions that we have to ask ourselves in business.

How do we want to build our tribe, how do we want to build our brand, our philosophy, our pricing, and the types of clients we want to attract? This is the stuff that is extremely important for us to think about, not “Alright, should I be split testing the blue button, or the red button?”

Samantha:                 Oh, my god.

Yuri:                Please, let’s stop the madness.

Samantha:                 Oh, I love you so much.

Oh, my gosh. It makes me want to throw up. I hate internet marketing so much it makes me so upset. Even the word tripwire… do I want to tripwire someone who I want to help? What!

Yuri:                Doesn’t a tripwire detonate a bomb, explosion, or something?

Samantha:                 I don’t even know, but it doesn’t sound great.

Let’s just love people, get intimate with people, and let’s just actually care. I know the people listening to this podcast and the people who have gotten into health and wellness in the first place did because you actually give a shit. Don’t get caught up in the whole internet marketing stuff because, I promise you, you’ll be able to make all the money in the world when you do it from the right place; a place of love, not fear.

Yuri:                The nice thing is that when you do build a business around truly serving people at that higher level, you don’t need to worry about having upsell funnels. I think the breaking point for me was about three and a half years ago when we had a cookbook launch. We were split testing nine different upsell flows, each upsell flow had four upsells, and I said, “What the hell are we doing to increase the average cart value from $20 to $22? This is insane.”

Samantha:                 Yeah, it’s so interesting. For me personally, I get so heady with that stuff. I get into scarcity with it, and I energetically don’t feel good about it, whereas I could stand in front of anyone on the frigging planet and go, “Yo, this program is three grand and I promise you it will change your life.” End of story.

I feel so good about doing that, and it feels so in alignment that, yeah, I don’t want to screw around with anything less than that.

Yuri:                Totally. The internet is great but I think the big opportunity moving forward, as you’ve alluded to, is this human-to-human connection. Guys, conversions are going to come from conversations, so when you get on the phone with someone, or if you speak with someone in person, that’s where you’re going to enroll the best clients. That’s where you are going to impact people at a deep level.

Getting back to the old way of doing business, which is, “Hey, I’m a human, you’re a human, let’s have a conversation,” that’s where it’s at. That’s the big opportunity, and people are going to crave that. They already are craving that the more technologically down that rabbit hole we go.

Samantha:                 Yeah, I think one of the biggest things I learned from Shannon was simplicity. It’s so simple. It’s, “How simple can I make this?”

To your point, humans are craving connection. Get on the phone. People want to know that you care.

The saying goes something like, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

And it’s so true. How can we create this felt sense of, “Wow, this person actually cares about me whether I’m going to give them money or not. They’ve taken the time to really ask me questions, get to know what keeps me up at night, get to know like my relationship with my husband and why we’re not having sex, because I feel horrible in my body.”

That is the stuff that matters.

It’s amazing how many people we get on the phone with and they say to us, “I’ve never told anybody this. I’ve never told anybody that I struggled with food until right now.” What you create in that moment through those conversations is so profound and so beautiful, and whether they do business with you or not, you’ve changed their life and that’s an amazing thing.

Yuri:                Totally. Yeah, we’ve had conversations with people on the phone where they’ve started crying. We’re not trying to make people cry, but the promise and truth you are getting to in these conversations make people a better human. Asking questions and going deeper with people is fulfilling; it’s good for you and it’s good for them.

 

The Rapid Five

Anyways, this has been a lot of fun, Samantha. Before we finish off, we got to move into the Rapid Five. Are you ready?

Samantha:                 I love these questions.

Yuri:                Here we go. Whatever comes top of mind is probably the right answer. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Samantha:                 I’m not patient at all.

Yuri:                Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Samantha:                 Relationships.

Yuri:                Awesome. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Samantha:                 Building my team, putting the right people in the right seats, empowering them, and giving them full autonomy over their department.

Yuri:                Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Samantha:                 Drink a big glass of water with lemon.

Yuri:                Finally, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

 Samantha:                 I feel peace in my body.

Yuri:                Awesome. Well, there we go guys, Samantha Skelly, Hungry for Happiness.

Thank you so much for being with us, Samantha. Tell our listeners what you guys have going on and where they can learn more about it and all the awesome stuff you guys do.

Samantha:                 Basically everything’s on hungryforhappiness.com, so whether you’re listening to this and you struggle with food, and The Society feels like it would be fun for you, or if you are wanting to support women and men who struggle with disordered eating and body image issues, and the certification is something that excites you, everything’s on the site.

I’m very active on Instagram, so if you want to send me a message or want more information, just shoot me a DM on Instagram and I’d be happy to support you there.

Yuri:                Awesome. Well, Samantha, once again thanks so much for joining us. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for the amazing work you continue to do in serving people with their eating issues and other experts in our space who want to serve others in doing what you do. It’s tremendous.

Thank you for doing everything you do and being with us.

Samantha:                 I appreciate that so much. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Yuri:                You’re welcome.

 

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Yuri’s Take

Are you feeling as pumped as I am after that interview? I hope you are, because I had a lot of fun. That was a great conversation, and Samantha is just terrific. She’s going to be joining us at Healthpreneur Live in Scottsdale this September. She’ll be leading a breakout session on how to build your tribe, which is very fitting considering our discussion here.

I don’t know if we have any spots left at Healthpreneur Live, because this bad boy sold out quickly, but we might have a couple spots. If you want to join us and be surrounded by 150 amazing health entrepreneurs, coaches, and practitioners who are all doing big things in their businesses to grow, expand, build, and create deeper change for their clients and make a lot more money and enjoy more freedom in the process, this is the event of the industry that you must attend.

It’s not one of those mega-conferences with thousands of people where you feel like a number. This is limited to 150 people. It’s by application only, and that’s why I’m inviting you right now. So, if you fit our criteria, go over to healthpreneuergroup.com/live. Learn more about what we have going on, see the lineup – it’s absolutely phenomenal – and if you want to be surrounded by some of the greatest people in our space to inspire you, uplift you, and keep you going, then fill in an application today. Obviously, you’ll get to hang out with me and Samantha.

Again, I don’t know exactly how many spots we have left, but it’s worth a shot. If you want to join us for three amazing days that will transform your business and life, there’s no better opportunity than Healthpreneur Live.

I want to thank you for joining us. Again, if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, please do so today. Just hit the little subscribe button on your iPhone over at iTunes and that will make sure you get all these awesome episodes every single week. So, thank you once again for taking the time and for your attention. I hope this episode has found you well. Continue to get out there, be great, do great, and I’ll see you in our next episode.

 

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Transcription

Welcome to today’s solo episode.

I think there’s a problem in the internet marketing space these days. I think there’s a problem with business in general. I think there’s a problem with the way online marketing is done in 2018.

What is that problem?

Let’s dive into this. Let’s dive into the reality of where we are in this world, the state of business, and the state of building something online today. I believe this is something that we all must answer for ourselves: What’s more important, fame or fortune?

 

The confusion of fame and fortune; social media traps

I bring this up is because a lot of people confuse the two, and it’s challenging not to do so. When we look at things like Instagram, Facebook, or social media in general, we see the highlight reel of someone’s life. And if you’re constantly putting those inputs into your mind, we believe that is what we need to be doing at a subconscious level. We believe that somehow these people are internet famous.

The belief that we must do this is a very dangerous trap to fall into. And we’ve all fallen into it. I’ve fallen into it, and I’m sure you have, too. I don’t think anyone is immune from this, but it’s important to have some context and perspective to step back and look at what you’re doing in your business.

Ask, “Am I doing this to look cool? Or is it making me money and serving my clients?” I think we can marry the two.

I think having celebrity influence and authority helps with the success of your business, but I also want to let you know that you don’t necessarily have to become a celebrity to have a successful business. It’s the other way around.

I’m going to share personal anecdotes from my life. I’m not going to mention the specific people because I want to keep them anonymous for the sake of this conversation. But when you look at people on Instagram, the people you probably have on your feed, a lot of them I know personally, and a lot of them I don’t. I’m not going to pretend that I know everyone, but I do know people who have hundreds of thousands, or millions of followers on Instagram.

 

Fame doesn’t usually come before fortune

Let’s just talk about Instagram for a second.

What I’ve recognized is that the clear majority of them did not build their business using Instagram. They used Instagram at some point to leverage and accelerate what they were doing, but had already built their income through other means.

Maybe they were running webinars. Maybe they were running Facebook ads. Maybe they were speaking on stage. But it’s important to recognize that – and this is not always the case – there are people who have used Instagram to build their following and business, but I say it’s important for us to focus on building our income first then our influence.

If we get that reversed, and we focus on doing the things that are going to build influence, we lose sight of what’s important, and what’s important is being able to put food on your table, right? It’s being able to pay yourself, your team members, and live the life you want to live.

If we think that posting pictures on Instagram is going to help us do that, then we’re wrong quite often. Instagram can be used very strategically and at a benefit, but you must do it properly; as a secondary mechanism or activity in your business.

Now let’s broaden that by saying social media organically. I’m not talking about paid traffic here, just organic posting on social media like taking pictures in cool cars or on airplanes. If we think that people are going to look at that, and assume we’re successful and living the life they want to live by posting these types of pictures, maybe that’s true, maybe not.

But why do we feel we must do that?

Proper way to leverage social media vs. just wasting time

What I’m noticing now is that everyone is posting polished pictures on Instagram, and it’s getting to the point where it’s so scripted. It’s not even real and authentic anymore. It’s the highlight reel, and now Instagram stories have taken off in the last year and a half or so, because that’s more of the realness of the people that we’re following.

It’s not to say that we can’t post pictures of ourselves online, right? That’s not what I’m saying here. But I think it’s important to be aware of what we’re doing because, at the end of the day, if your business does not have a reliable system for generating clients and cash flow, then you’re toast, right?

 

Focus on what matters and have your machine running first

You must have a turnkey, predictable way for generating cash in your business and delivering an amazing result for your clients. If you don’t have that, and you think posting a little bit here and there is the way to do it, then that’s what I call spraying and praying marketing. You can have a little bit of spraying and praying in your business, if you want. You can create content.

I’ve got this podcast. We started a YouTube channel a couple months ago, which I’ll talk about in another podcast episode. We’re doing some things that are less predictable and more organic, but the only reason we’re doing that is because we have a machine, our Perfect Client Pipeline, that was built as the core of our business that drives everything we do for the most part.

I’d say 90% of our revenue comes from that.

It’s important to have that built out before going off on tangents, focusing on looking cool and successful, and posting all kinds of pictures. That’s all fine and good, but in my experience, a lot of people don’t love spending most of their time on social media. They feel like they have to because if they don’t, they’ll miss the boat.

This is something that I’ve struggled and had challenges with. I’m going to share in one of the upcoming solo rounds about some of the stuff we’re doing with social media because of these internal dialogues and discussions that we’ve had to move our business to the next level. But I’ll save that for one of the future episodes.

 

Being rich vs. looking rich and taking a proven path that’ll work

I want to leave you with this: Look at your business. Are you doing things to appear famous? Or are you doing things that move the needle forward? Do you want to be rich, or just look rich?

That’s a big distinction, and they don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. But you do have to make that conscious decision and be aware of what you’re doing. If what you’re doing is not producing the results you want, then you have to stop doing it, assuming you’ve been doing it for a while and it’s not giving you what you want.

Maybe it’s time to change directions, yet sometimes, if you’re not getting the results you want, sometimes you must stay the course. That’s one of those conundrums where yes, persistence and consistency are the key to success, but sometimes if it doesn’t work you must try something else.

Well, that’s a longer discussion. But at the end of the day, if you know you’re following a process that works, you should just tweak it. We give our clients with our Health Business Accelerator a process, our Perfect Client Pipeline. We help build it out and our whole goal is to help them 2X their ROI within four months or less of starting the workshop.  We tell them the process works. It has built our entire business from the ground up, and it’s helped a lot of our clients do the same.

We know this works every single time, but will it work for you?

The answer to that depends. It depends on if you are going to give up. It depends on if you are going to keep going when you don’t get the results you want right away.

It’s like cracking the combination of a safe. You’re trying to find the right combination, but what’s the number? What’s the second number? Sometimes we’re one or two numbers off, but if we keep dialing that in, we’ll hear that click and the vault will open. And when the vault opens, that is when miracles happen in your business. But we can’t get the vault open if we give up too soon.

Following the right path for you, then keep going. If you’re doing a bunch of stuff that you think is going to work but you’re not too sure, then get some guidance coaching to move you in the right direction so that you got more clarity and a proven game plan.

If this makes sense to you and you want to focus on building your fortune instead of your fame, or build your fame as a byproduct of all the cool stuff you’re doing for your clients, then we’d love to help you.

Here’s what I’d like you to do right now: If you haven’t done so already, book a call with us today. We’ll spend 45 minutes together, and we’ll get super-clear on where you are, where you want to go, and what’s holding you back from moving to that next level. I guarantee that this will be 45 extremely well-spent minutes focusing on your business, not in the trenches in your business.

If that’s an interest and you want our help, then we’d love to chat with you. All you have to do to book a call with us at healthpreneurgroup.com/book. On that page, you’ll see more information about the criteria that we look for, and if you meet that criteria we would love to chat with you.

That is all for today. I hope this episode finds you well. Again, if you have been enjoying the podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave a rating or review on iTunes. I hope you have an amazing one.

Again, focus on what matters, not what you think people care about, because that’s a very quick road to despair, discouragements, and an unfulfilled business. With that happy note, I hope that you fair well, and have an amazing day.

Transcription

No offense to the other interviews that we’ve had on the show, but today might be the most impactful one. I’m serious.

My good buddy Shannon Graham is going to be one of our speakers at Healthpreneur Live this year in Scottsdale on September 20-23rd. If you want to join us, it’s by application/invitation only. I don’t know if we’ll have spots left by the time you’re listening to this. If you want to join us, head on over to Healthpreneurgroup.com/live to learn more about the event.

If you want to connect with 150 amazing coaches, practitioners, and influencers in the health and fitness space, this is the event to attend. It’s not about being massive in scale; we scale by going deeper, not wider. We help you connect to those people that matter most to you and your business.

Anyways, this interview is a game changer. Listen to it. Listen to it again. Listen to it and rewind.

This one interview could potentially change the trajectory of your business. It may very well change the way you look at how you lead moving forward. I love speaking to Shannon. We’re very much on the same page. He’s a big thinker, very articulate, and he has a great way of framing things. He is the founder of the Legacy Program.

He’ll talk a little bit about what that is. But essentially, he works with very visionary, high-achieving entrepreneurs and helps them lead and create a legacy in their life. He’s helped multiple clients achieve seven figure earnings with extremely simple boutique high impact coaching. If you’re ever worried about how to price your coaching, listen to what Shannon has done for his business. You’ll fall off your chair when you hear how much he charges for coaching with him for one year.

But it’s all good because he brings the goods and creates the change for his clients. And that’s what matters most. I’m not going to spoil the surprise. You’ll hear exactly how much he charges for a year of coaching with him and it might open your horizons to what’s possible.

So, sit tight and bookmark this interview. This conversation is a big deal. It’s probably my favorite conversation I’ve had in this entire podcast to date. And you’ll see why in just a few moments.

Without any further ado, let’s welcome Shannon Graham to the show. Shannon, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How’s it going, brother?

 Shannon:                             Oh man, it’s going great. Thanks, man.

Yuri:                      Awesome. We were just in a ten-minute discussion about what we’re about to talk about, then I decided to stop and hit record. Now we’ll continue because I think you guys will get some value out of this.

Shannon and I are talking about this great book he has and how it’s flying in the face of convention in a world where we see a lot of grind and hustle, working 20 hours a day, and working yourself into the ground to get ahead. You basically present an alternative to that, which I’ll let you talk about and we can just go off that.

So, go ahead! Talk about this new form of leadership, what it entails, and why it can serve people.

 

The new era of leadership and the definition of an expanded leader

Shannon:                             Sure. What I call “The new era of leadership,” has two major pillars. The first is leadership in a way that I would call a total or expanded leader. That means a leader that does not sacrifice their health, happiness, or family to create some level of commercial success. That’s a slap in the face of how it’s done currently. Even the most notable leaders right now still don’t even fall into that category.

Yuri:                      Well, let’s name a few of those. I can’t even think of one or two leaders who have the whole thing figured out, in terms of health, relationships, and all that stuff.

Who are a couple people that may not be the best idols to worship?

Shannon:                             Elon is a great example. I love Elon. I love his passion. I love his drive. And he is notorious for not being great to his employees. He admittedly is on his cell phone most of the time that he’s with his kids.

Steve Jobs is very similar. He was admittedly not great to his employees. In his last days, he regretted not spending more time with his children. His health was a challenge near the end; which maybe was avoidable, maybe not. But you can only imagine this very detrimental kind of model. So, Elon and Steve Jobs are great examples of victims to this model of people who say, “To dent the universe, this vision is so important that I’m going to sacrifice basically everything to achieve it.”

This perpetuates the toxic idea that it’s good to sacrifice some of the things that are the most important to the human experience. And, you and I can go an entire episode on this topic alone, but it pre-supposes that the only way to achieve massive commercial and universal denting success is by sacrificing all those things.

That’s funny to me because Elon is not a stupid guy. And Steve Jobs is not a stupid guy. It’s almost baffling that people who are so smart and so innovative can’t see the big picture and can’t think to themselves, “Wouldn’t the universal impact that I’m creating be better if I was really happy, fulfilled, nurtured, and with amazing relationships and health? Wouldn’t it be better? There must be a way to do it. It can’t be impossible.”

These guys are known for doing the impossible, so it’s silly if you ask me. That’s the first pillar. It’s a slap in the face to human potential to think that the only way to dent the universe is by sacrificing all these things that are important to the human experience.

Part two is that the grind and hustle focuses on a person’s ability to be a mule, a work horse. That’s great, but we’ve moved into an era where it’s our magic that is most important.

And we’re starting to see that.

Some of the biggest companies in the world grew to heightened status in a very short amount of time. Of course, there was some grind and hustle involved, but if you pay attention and look closely under the microscope, there is magic. More than anything, what I want for this new era of leadership is for people to embrace their magic, which is essentially by asking, “How do I create the most value with the least effort?”

For example, a mule gets paid for its time, but a magician gets paid for their magic. They don’t get paid for their time. If you could turn lead into gold, and you come over to my house, bring lead, and I say abracadabra and I turn it into gold, it didn’t take much time, but it’s worth a lot of money. That’s valuable.

 

The magic, the gift, and the biggest impact from the least effort

Yuri:                      A discussion a lot of people have that fits here is that the idea is more valuable than the execution.

I think what you’re talking about is the magic, the idea, and execution has become commoditized. We can get almost anything done by anyone else, but the only thing we can’t delegate is the magic, the idea, that we come up with.

Shannon:                             Right. I fundamentally believe that you can either have a gift or you are a gift. And if you are a gift, that means the absolute value that you bring to the world is you, your gift. It’s not your time. If you’re someone who is a gift, your time is practically irrelevant.

There is a woman, a guru, from India. Her name is Amman. She’s known as the hugging guru. She is so saturated into the essence of love that she will have people line up for longer than a mile just to hug her. That’s all she does.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome.

Shannon:                             She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t give lectures. She doesn’t do seminars or trainings or teachings. Maybe she does do those things, I’m not sure, but what she’s known for at the highest level is purely hugging people. She’s so saturated into her magic that when she hugs people, their shame, unworthiness, and sadness literally melts away.

Yuri:                      That’s radical.

Shannon:                             It’s amazing. I believe that people who are leaders are also a gift. Regardless of their ideas, that’s what makes them a gift. Their idea creating power.

The challenge is that they get fooled into thinking they have a gift. They think their idea is the gift rather than them, so that becomes the fundamental disconnect.

Yuri:                      So they’re the golden goose. What’s magical isn’t just the eggs they’re laying.

Shannon:                             That’s right. They laid a golden egg, and now all the praise, attention, and focus is on the egg rather than themselves.

Yuri:                      I want to give a great example of this. It’s something I see over and over again, especially because we help so many entrepreneurs in the health space specifically. But, this can translate into any industry.

So, why do webinars work for some people and not others? Why does the product launch formula work for some people more than others? Why do Facebook ads work for some people more than others?

What I’ve recognized is that the magic is in the magic. It’s in the little nuances, right?

You could do PLF; one video, two videos, three videos, a sales video, but why isn’t it working for you? Well, there are the things that people don’t see. It’s everything beneath the surface, the little nuances, the magic of what you’re talking about. It’s the thinking. It’s the idea that gives birth to something unique that people haven’t seen before or disrupts something they’re aware of.

That’s where the big breakthroughs happen.

I can’t remember who said this or if I heard it somewhere else. He said, “You cannot innovate and hustle at the same time.”

That’s such a great statement because if you’re hustling, then you don’t have time to disconnect and create space, think, and give genesis to that type of idea.

Shannon:                             That’s right. I’m so glad you brought that up. Ultimately, what I am ushering in is an era of peak potential human beings. And again, it connects to the same idea. I believe it’s silly that we think the greatest asset we must create in our lives is hustle. We’ve been doing that forever.

Yuri:                      It’s archaic.

Shannon:                             It’s archaic. And let me ask you this: What is the peak of human potential?

Yuri:                      I don’t even know if I can answer that, honestly.

Shannon:                             No one can answer that. That’s the point. That’s why I love that question. But let’s go a little deeper. Can we pre-suppose that the peak of human potential is far beyond how we show up and exist today?

Yuri:                      Yeah, for sure.

Shannon:                             Absolutely. Then let’s chase it. Let’s find out how far we can go. That’s what I want. That’s what I’m after. I want to push the limits of everything. We’ve done hustle to death. We know we can hustle. We’ve proven it. Okay, case closed. Let’s move on.

Let’s see how far we can go with our magic now. Let’s see how far we can go with the biggest impact coming from the least effort. Right?

Let’s do that. That is my current fascination. That is the focus of my twilight mania at this point.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. That’s good. Everyone listening is in the health and wellness industry, you know, entrepreneurs building practices or online businesses who’ve come from a health background. From a point of integrity, you can’t operate a business in any way other than what you’re describing.

If we’re telling our clients and patients who have burned themselves out to slow down, take some time for themselves, schedule workouts, and take care of their body, yet we’re not doing that ourselves, we’re operating without integrity.

This is such an important message, especially for this audience.

Shannon:                             100 percent. Think about it. If you’re a leader, what do most leaders want to do? They want to help the world in some way with a product or a service, bottom line. Well, that’s great, and if the person that’s at the fundamental core of that, which is the leader, isn’t having that experience themselves, then what they can bring to the world, at best, is a shadow.

Even if on the outside it seems like they’re denting the universe in a beautiful way, if they are leaving themselves out, then they don’t know what they’re talking about. They have no idea.

Maybe they are bringing something amazing to the universe. If so, then it’s still just a shadow of what it could be had they been a steward of this new model where they were truly complete, truly overflowing in these areas of health, relationships, and fulfillment.

Just imagine what the impact would look like when that’s the case.

Yuri:                      Yeah. I’ll give you a personal example from the past year or more.

I don’t know if you knew this, but our health and fitness business was built with the old model, which was a lot of platform building, content, and just stuff. That was initially how we got success, and then I started teaching that to other entrepreneurs in our space. One of the things I recognized very quickly was that it was taking a very long time for people to see results from that method.

I asked myself, “Am I being of service to these individuals by showing them this model?” The reality was no. It’s actually a disservice to give someone a model that is not going to help them achieve the result that they want anytime soon. I looked at myself wondered what it was that we’re doing with Healthpreneur to build the business.

It was a very different model. It wasn’t based on building a huge content platform. It was very direct. It was working closely with people at premium prices, cutting to the chase, and getting the results for us as well as our clients in a much faster way.

Now, that’s the model we teach because number one, there’s less grind and hustle. It’s a faster path to the desired outcome. And everyone wins. The client wins. The entrepreneur wins. But it all started with the question: “Am I, first and foremost, being a dutiful servant to those I want to serve in a way that’s valuable for them?”

Shannon:                             That’s right. It’s amazing that you say that. I feel like you and I are cut from the same cloth.

I have a formula for exactly what you’re talking about and it’s called, “The Highest Probability of the Deepest Impact.”

You can wake up in the morning and if you have product or a service, there’s a million ways that you can bring it to the world these days. But, there are probably very few ways you can bring it to the world with the highest probability of the deepest impact.

Maybe I’m a dreamer and maybe I’m naïve, I don’t care, but imagine if most people that had products and services led from a place of, “I care so much about the end user that I’m only going to bring this to the marketplace in a way that the end user has the highest probability of the deepest impact.

Yuri:                      Exactly.

Shannon:                             Holy shit.

Yuri:                      This is the biggest epiphany. This is what my past year and a half has been all about. I spoke about this at our big event, Healthpreneur Live. I said, “A lot of people are confusing impact for importance.”

They’re chasing influence instead of doing what matters which is, from a business perspective, building income. And to build income, you must impact people; not at a superficial level, but at a deep level.

I believe that the future resides, from a business perspective, in what we’re doing by working with people in a way that deeply impacts their business and lives. It impacts much more so than putting out free contents on the internet, which is fine, but if that’s the primary focus of what you do, you’re not going to have the impact or fulfillment that you want. I believe that.

Shannon:                             100 percent. Now, I agree with everything you just said, and I would take it even a step further.

Yuri:                      Bring it.

 

The legacy you leave behind, your lasting impact, and subtraction

Shannon:                             Legacy.

You and I both know the backend data on pretty much all this stuff. We both know that of people who consume any type of online product, program, or anything like that, over 90 percent do not get any long term, deep results.

So, you must ask yourself: At the end of your life, on your death bed, do you want your legacy to be that 90 percent of the people during the lifetime of your business did not get the result that they entrusted you so desperately to help them create? Is that a beautiful legacy? Absolutely not.

That’s repulsive, in my opinion.

That’s not something that I would desire to be anywhere near. So, highest probability of deep impact keeps my blinders on and keeps me on the straight and narrow path of being an excellent guardian and steward to the people that I want to serve the most. If that means I serve “less” people at the end of the day, good.

I’d rather go a million inches deep with a few people than an inch deep with a million people.

Yuri:                      Totally. Our whole brand is built on skill by going deeper not wider.

I think we’re seeing the impact of this in the marketplace. People selling digital products, even courses, are having a much tougher time than they were two or three years ago, and definitely compared to ten years ago when I first started.

I think there’s a reason for that. Getting the impact out of a $47.00 e-book is just not going to happen. Plus, most of that information is free online. That means there’s a huge opportunity to take all that overwhelming information that’s out there for free and help someone implement it in their life and create change.

I tell people all the time that if you have expertise, if you have a way to serve people, there has never been a better time to do what you do best and create that legacy for yourself, the people you serve, and build a great income in the process.

Shannon:                             Totally. Let me go on a little rant here for a second.

For those of you listening, this will be absolute gold. We live in the information age. We have more information at our disposal than ever before and it’s so easy to access any level of information that you want, practically for free. Your information is not valuable. Period.

The most valuable asset in this day and age, mark my words, is subtraction.

Subtraction.

Remove all the things that are in the way of their health, their success, of their “blank”. That is the key. We all have access to tons of information. I think we’re so overwhelmed that we can’t be successful. It’s not the fact that we don’t have the information. The information’s there.

You can find on YouTube videos on, literally, just about anything these days that are high quality and content rich. We’re talking about Facebook ads and webinars, but you can learn anything these days.

There’s a kid in Africa who lost his arm to a land mine, and just by using electronic parts from the village, he used YouTube videos to build a robotic arm for himself.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. Wow.

Shannon:                             Fully functional. Fully functional robotic arm for himself. Like, what? Right?

Yuri:                      That’s impressive.

Shannon:                             Subtraction. Remove all the overwhelm. Remove all the things that are in the way. That’s what people need the most. Transformation, in my world, is a subtractive process, not an additive one.

Yuri:                      Totally. Couldn’t agree more. Let’s talk about how we can do that. I’ll share what I’ve done, personally. I’ve removed all social apps off my phone. I have no Instagram, no Facebook, no Twitter. And the reason for that is because I was sitting on the toilet with my phone just wasting time and I asked myself, “Am I consuming or creating right now?”

I made the decision that if I’m not actively creating something, there’s no point in me actively or passively going through my news feed. It’s not adding value to my life. I’m not adding value to anyone else’s life. If anything, I feel worse about myself.

I said, you know what? I’m going to get rid of this. It’s not moving the needle for my business anyways. I don’t enjoy it. So, that’s one of the things that I’ve done.

What about for you? What’s subtraction look like for you?

 

Creating magic, innovating magic, and the pricing that aligns with it

Shannon:                             Well, here’s where addition matters for me. I’ll say it like that.

In my world, there are only two things that matter. Creating magic and innovating magic.

Yuri:                      What’s the difference for you between those two?

Shannon:                             Well, let’s say that you hire me to turn your lead into silver.

Even still, if I had the ability to turn lead into silver, that’s a valuable service, I don’t care who you are. If you could come to my house and bring a truckload of lead and I could wave my hand over it and say abracadabra and it turned into silver, that would be valuable.

But if I took the time and had space, if I wasn’t hustling and grinding, if I had the time and space to innovate my own alchemy so that I could take my ability to turn lead into silver and upgrade it to my ability to turn lead into gold, gold is worth significantly more than silver at this point. Do you see?

Yuri:                      Yes.

Shannon:                             Now I’ve upgraded myself. I’ve upgraded my value, my magic. Now, instead of saying to the world, “Hey bring me your lead and I’ll give you some silver”, I can say, “Hey world, bring me your lead and I’ll give you some gold.”

Same service. Takes me the same amount of time. It’s my own personal alchemy that has improved. Right? So, it’s not about adding more stuff. It’s not bring your lead to me and I’ll turn it into silver and I’ll also show you how to make a webinar. I’m not adding things. I’m keeping the number of things the same, but I am creating addition in the richness of the magic, aka my ability to produce deep and rich results.

This is where the blinders come on. It forces me to metaphorically tie my hands behind my back and not go into a state of inadequacy by thinking that if I’m going to charge more, than I need to add more stuff. No. Let’s stay focused and take my ability to create magic to the next level. That’s what’s most valuable.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. It’s going deeper with what you’re already doing. You just created more awesomeness, so just keep digging that well. Awesome.

Shannon:                             I see that as the fundamental challenge with most people who want to scale. They think that since they can turn lead into silver, they should perpetuate that to as many people as possible. The challenge is they never stop to give themselves time and space to iterate and innovate that ability so that they can bring even more value to the market place.

They just continue to add that same service repeatedly when they have the potential to bring an even more valuable service to the world, had they given themselves the time and space to create it.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome.

This has been an amazing conversation. I know a lot of our listeners are coaches and they’re doing one on one or group coaching. One of the things that I preach is the importance of premium pricing, because, number one, you show up in a much bigger way for your clients. Your clients show up in a big way for themselves. Everyone wins.

How do you approach pricing when it comes to this?

If you want to create that kind of magic upon magic to the point where you can command and feel confident about the pricing for your program or result, how do you get someone to learn the importance of charging more for their product?

Shannon:                             First, I sell them on the idea that their time is not valuable at all. I sell them on the idea that they are a gift and their magic is what’s most valuable. And if they were given the opportunity to work with someone who wanted and expected them to play and bring their magic at the highest level, what would that look like? Would it make sense to charge a lot of money for that?

Of course, because in the coaching world, your value is directly tied to how much value you can create.

So, if you can create a lot of value, then you can command a lot of money. I always push people to dig deep in themselves to discover their magic, not their hustle. Not their time.

But rather, “What’s your magic and how do we extract and innovate it? How do we discover that you can turn lead into silver, then innovate it and make it even more rich so that you can charge even more for it?

I’ll just use myself in full transparency. I used to charge for my knowledge and experience because I realized that those were valuable to people. They would come to me and they would work with me because I had valuable knowledge and experience. It helped them cut their learning curve at least in half, and help them be profitable, simplify everything, and it was great.

But I was unfulfilled. And the simple reason was because my gift, my genius, had a lot to do with my creativity and my imagination.

So, when clients were coming to me and asking questions that I knew the answers to, it didn’t require me to be that magician. So, I made a deal with myself a couple years ago that, from then on, I would only work with clients who asked questions I didn’t know the answers to.

In fact, I only work with clients where the answers don’t yet exist, so we must create the answers. I’ll give you an example. In full transparency, I currently charge $150,000 per year per client for 12 months.

Yuri:                      Love it.

 

Giving more when you are in financial overflow and serving “IRL”

Shannon:                             And the reason is exactly what we’re talking about.

That price point requires me to show up in my fullness, in the highest level of my gift and my magic. And it attracts to me the clients who want to play at that level. That expect me to play that way. It’s beautiful synergy.

They come to me with questions that are literally impossible. By our magic combined, we create solutions. For example, a guy from New Zealand came to me and said, “I want to raise the GDP of New Zealand by raising the GDC,” which is the gross domestic confidence. How do we raise the confidence of the people of this nation, so much so that it impacts the GDP? In New Zealand, they have this tall poppy thing around self-confidence, like, “Who am I to have a big idea? Who am I to want to change the world?” That mindset is a total plague in that country.

We came up with this idea to show the people of New Zealand that the impossible is possible. And we found an inventor who had invented a rapid public transportation system. Because he had this self-limiting belief, his invention wasn’t going anywhere. So, this guy from New Zealand worked with him on his mindset, confidence, and ability to communicate value, and he got invited to India to pitch this idea to the Prime Minister of Transportation.

And they said yes. They rewrote the entire transportation policy to include that technology.

Yuri:                      Wow.

Shannon:                             Zero emission and carbon neutral, it’s amazing technology. And now they are green lighting that technology in India. That one deal was worth 20 percent of the bilateral trade between New Zealand and India.

I tell that story because it’s inspiring, but also because that story couldn’t have come any other way than charging at that level and playing at that level.

Yuri:                      I agree. Absolutely. What do you tell coaches who are comparing themselves to the industry norm? The ones who think, “Everyone else is charging $100 an hour, these people would never pay me for that.”

Shannon:                             I would say you’re right. Simple as that. You’re right.

If you are paying attention to what everyone else is doing, then of course. If most coaches are getting paid, let’s say, $100.00 an hour, the people who are paying them that are obviously not going to pay you $3000.00 an hour. It’s like thinking, “Everyone’s selling Hondas, so I want to sell Ferraris. No one who’s buying a Honda is going to buy a Ferrari.”

You’re right, of course.

It means that you get to play a different game. Tesla entered the market with a little, over-glamorized go cart that they charged $100,000 for right out of the gates. That’s amazing. But it’s because they knew their value and they knew how they wanted to show up.

Bugatti’s the same way. They charge over $1,000,000 for their cars. They didn’t compare. They didn’t say, “What is everyone else doing?” They said, “What do we want to do?” We know that there’s a pocket of people, less than one percent, but they exist. So, let’s create something for them.

Yuri:                      I’ve never been on an airplane where business or first class was empty.

Shannon:                             Nope. Never.

Yuri:                      For the Brotherhood trip, we were in Puerto Mita, Mexico’s Four Seasons Hotel. There are villas there. There’s three classes; rooms that go for $1500 a night, thankfully we had a group rate which wasn’t that much, residences that start at $15,000 a night, and residences that people live in all year long that start at $6,000,000 a year.

Now, the Four Seasons isn’t hurting for business.

And just as there are people who will stay at the Four Seasons, there will be many more who stay at Motel 8.

My thinking is, well, it’s your choice. Who do you want to serve? What game do you want to play?

I think it comes down to just deciding and backing it up with being the best version of yourself to deliver.

Shannon:                             Yes. And there’s two parts to this. I would go so far as to say that if you showed up as the best version of yourself, then the value that you would be able to create in the marketplace would truly be suitable for people who would pay premium prices.

Yuri:                      Absolutely.

Shannon:                             Period. The second side of the coin is, that sounds all well and good but what if we all decided to just serve the one percent? What about the people who can’t afford us, how do we help them? What do we do about that? Do we just leave them by the wayside?

The answer is no. I have created a life and business that revolves around helping the people that can afford me at a high level, so financially I’m put in a state of overflow so I don’t have to figure out how to monetize helping the people that can’t afford me.

Yuri:                      Totally.

Shannon:                             I was asked several times last year to speak at events. I’ve done free 90-day challenges that were hugely impactful and valuable for people. I’m able to show up in a way where I can just give because I’m in overflow. People try to figure out how to serve the rest of the market when they have not gotten themselves into financial overflow yet, and it becomes a challenge because they’re trying to get blood out of a stone and it totally throws off the vibration and dynamic of the exchange.

Yuri:                      Absolutely. I agree with that 100 percent. One of the things I’ve recognized, especially in the health space, is that we want to help people who don’t want what we have. They don’t want our help.

For instance, if someone’s 300 pounds, we know they need to lose weight, but we all know they’re not likely going to do the stuff they need to do to lose the weight. You know that if they’re not going to the gym and not eating well, it’s like trying to move a boulder uphill. Instead of playing in the world of wants, serve people who get what it is you’re offering in the first place. It just becomes so much more enjoyable and a lot easier to work with those people at a higher level.

But as you said, there’s no nobility in being poor. You can’t serve yourself. You can’t serve anyone else. And again, it comes down to a decision. It’s about serving these people at a high level and being the best self. Then, as you just mentioned, you can give back in other ways to those who can’t play with you at the highest level yet.

Shannon:                             Totally.

And then you don’t have to figure out how to make money from it. That’s the beautiful part. You can just show up and serve and you can be in total overflow. If you want to monetize it and figure that out, that’s great, but you don’t have to.

It’s beautiful because you don’t pigeonhole yourself into working only with elite people. No. I work with elite people and then serve everyone.

It doesn’t have to be one dimensional. It doesn’t have to be either/or.

Yuri:                      It’s a lot tougher to climb the mountain helping a lot of people for $10 or $50 a piece and having to deal with scale and volume, which becomes a nightmare. So, it’s either you’re doing that, or you just work with a much smaller number of people who are paying you a premium price to transform your life.

Shannon:                             Well, again, let’s put that under the microscope. Scale and volume require a lot of time. If you’re putting so much time into scale and volume, then what you’re not putting so much time into is highest probability of deep impact, by default.

It becomes a challenging game purely because you’ve gotten away from the magic. The game becomes easy when the magic is embraced and you can just show up powerfully and create magic –  and get paid wildly well to do it.

Yuri:                      I couldn’t agree more.

A couple years ago I recognized our health and fitness business was largely built on scale and volume. It was low impact, high volume. It got to the point where I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt very unfulfilled. Sure, I was “helping” people, but were they transforming their lives? I don’t think so.

There’s this thing that happens to you that has happened to a lot of people in the health and fitness space, and probably other industries too, as they’ve come online. They’ve had to learn how to become an internet marketer.

Initially, they’re an amazing technician. They have a magical power to do nutrition work, healing, or whatever it is and, suddenly, they must learn how to write sales copy. And funnels. And creating products, and a couple years later they’re looking back, thinking, “What the hell am I doing? I’m spending most of my time split/testing funnels and all I want to do is teach, coach, and serve people.”

Shannon:                             And help people. That’s right. It’s amazing. You know, I think of it like this: Some people who change the world the most interacted with very few people in their lifetime.

Mother Teresa, for example. She showed up in person to hospitals and places where people were sick and dying. She hugged them, fed them, and showed them compassion. In her lifetime, do you think she did that with millions of people? Of course not. It’s just not possible.

But she did it with a small handful of people and she goes down in history as someone who changed the world the most.

Again, that’s about death. She didn’t write an e-book about how to be compassionate, get it out to 4,000,000 people, and 90 percent didn’t open the damn thing.

She showed up in person and she brought that magic at the highest level.

She doesn’t go down in history as someone who did that with a lot of people but it’s how powerfully she did it, which makes her legendary. I think we forget that. I think we get so attached to the idea of helping people where scale means quantity. Really, scale means debt.

Yuri:                      Absolutely. Guys, this is such an important discussion we’re having here. This is the type of conversation that completely transforms the trajectory of your business. These are the types of questions and insights that come from brilliant minds like Shannon’s, especially having gone through the ups and downs of life and business.

Hopefully we’re imparting some wisdom about the big opportunity. I believe, Shannon, that the opportunity moving forward is in H to H, human to human. The more high-tech we get, the more high touch people are going to want at a deep craving level.

We’re already seeing that 14 year olds. I think 14-16-year-old girls in the states had the highest rated suicide in North America. I wonder why. Maybe it’s because they’re on their phone all the time, even when they’re together.

Shannon:                             100 percent.

Yuri:                      Let’s create an experience for people where we truly connect with them and impact their lives at a level of magnitude that can never be commoditized or compared to anything else.

That, especially if you enjoy interacting and serving people, will feel so much more fulfilling – even if you don’t have the 100,000 followers on Instagram. Who cares about that.

Shannon:                             You bring up a great point that I want to drive home with these guys that are listening. If you have a business of helping people, find a way to include, what I call, “I R L”. Those are going to be the three most important letters moving forward into the future. “In Real Life”.

I don’t care if you do one on one coaching or group coaching, it doesn’t matter. Figure out a way to include “In Real Life” into what you offer and you will be a god. Everyone’s trying to figure out how to do the opposite. But the interesting thing is that what everybody wants IS the In Real Life. Right?

If you had asked our grandparents back in the day, “Hey, let’s go to the desert where there’s no food, there’s no water, there are dust storms, and you’ll be coughing’ up sand for a week. Let’s go for about five to seven days, hang out, be naked, and dance around. Does that sound like a good idea?”

They’d say, “Heck no! Why would I do that?”

Yuri:                      Yeah.

Shannon:                             And now, Burning Man attracts 70,000 people that come from all over the world to have that experience. Why? The average Burning Man experience costs, I think, somewhere between three to five thousand dollars at the low end.

Why? Why would you subject yourself to that? There’s one simple reason: In Real Life. Human connection is an absolute necessity and people will travel far and wide and cough up dust for a week just to have it.

Yuri:                      I couldn’t agree more.

Shannon:                             So figure out how to put that into your business and you will thrive.

Yuri:                      Absolutely. Great advice. Guys, like I’ve said, the best way to build your online business is to spend more time offline.

Shannon, dude, this has been awesome. We could probably do this all day long and I’m sure our listeners would love it. But I think for the sake of both of our times, let’s bring it to a close. Before we do, I’ve got five rapid fire questions for you. You game for those?

Shannon:                             Get it.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                      Alright buddy. So, what is your biggest weakness?

Shannon:                             Probably my own self-doubt.

Yuri:                      Just that alone is a very valuable insight. Here you are charging $150,000.00 a year, yet your biggest weakness is self-doubt. Just let that sink in for a second. Number two, your biggest strength?

Shannon:                             My unrelenting belief in what’s possible.

Yuri:                      Awesome. Good. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Shannon:                             Communicating value.

Yuri:                      Nice. Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Shannon:                             I go for a walk.

Yuri:                      And finally, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

Shannon:                             The people that I work with are being successful.

Yuri:                      Excellent. Well there we have it guys. Mr. Shannon Graham. Buddy, thank you so much for being with us. This has been an amazing conversation. I have no doubts you guys will be downloading this and rewinding it and re listening to it. It’s the type of conversation that I hope you turn back to time and time again because there’s been so many golden nuggets in this conversation.

Shannon, thank you so much for showing up, for being you, for bringing the magic, and obviously for everything you do in the world for the select few people who get to work with you so you can impact their lives. It’s just amazing to see you in action, so thank you so much for being here and being with us.

Shannon:                             Yeah. Thank you, Yuri. It’s been my honor to be here today.

Yuri:                      Awesome. Thanks so much, buddy. Where’s the best place for everyone to follow you online and check out your recent book?

Shannon:                             Shannongraham.com.

Yuri:                      Very simple. There we go. We’ll make it easy for you. The book is called “Expand” and it’s awesome. If you enjoyed what Shannon’s all about, you’ll love the book as well. Thank you so much guys for tuning in. Shannon, thank you and we’ll talk to you soon.

Shannon:                             Awesome. Thanks.

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Yuri’s Take

The real deal, right? It’s so good to speak with someone who gets it and hopefully this has resonated with you at a deep level. This is the future of business, guys. This is the way forward. Everything that’s been done, up until now is great, but if you want to move forward with impact and create the life and business you want, this is the way to do it.

So please listen to this episode again. Ten times if you must, to let this sink in. What Shannon’s talking about is what I live with Healthpreneur and what we do, day in and day out. It’s the whole philosophy of our entire business. If you would like to go deep down this rabbit hole and build your business around a similar philosophy, then let’s start off by giving you some great training: The 7-Figure Health Business Blueprint.

I’m going to walk you through exactly how to do it. Grab that training for free over at healthpreneurgroup.com/training. Not only will that training be immensely beneficial to you, but I’m also going to give you a roadmap to help you track the best clients and convert them without feeling salesy, and how to deliver an amazing result for them.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this interview. I know it’s been one of my favorites to date. As I said before, Shannon Graham will be speaking at Healthpreneur Live this September 20 – 23 in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona. If you want to join us, head on over to healthpreneurgroup.com/live.  Submit your application because this is an invitation by application only event. If we’ve got spots left, we would love to have you join us.

That’s all for today, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. Remember to continue to go out there, be great, do great, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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Transcription

Hey guys, welcome to the show. Today we’re speaking to Dr. Akil Palanisamy about how to build a thriving offline practice and online platform, and how both have fed each other in his world.

I’m fascinated by how practitioners use the internet to build a practice and then leverage it to build an online platform. That’s what Dr. Akil has done.

Let me give a little bit of a background as to who he is, in case you’re unfamiliar with him. He’s a medical doctor that is trained as an integrated medicine physician, and the author of “The Paleovedic Diet: A Complete Program to Burn Fat, Increase Energy, and Reverse Disease”. He blends his Western medical training with functional medicine and Ayurveda, the traditional medicine of India.

He also studied biochemistry at Harvard University, received his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed his residency at Stanford University. He completed a fellowship in integrated medicine with Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona and is certified by The Center of Mind, Body, Medicine at Georgetown University. He sees patients at the Sutter Health Center for Healing in San Francisco, where he also serves as a physician-director for community education. And Dr. Akil has been a consultant with the Medical Board of California for many years.

He is a dynamic and highly sought after speaker who has spoken on numerous stages at numerous conferences around the world and he has a popular blog featuring numerous online classes over at doctorakil.com.

As you can tell, he’s a very well-accomplished individual. Very well-researched and experienced, but he’s not just a doctor. He’s a smart business builder as well, and a smart entrepreneur. He’s going to share some cool stories in this interview.

Without any further ado, let’s bring Dr. Akil on to the show. Akil, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast. How are you?

Akil:                       Doing great, how are you, Yuri?

Yuri:                      I’m doing very well, thank you very much. It’s great to have you on the show. I’ve heard lots of great things about you. Unfortunately, we’ve never met in person. Hopefully we can change that soon, but for our listeners, can you give everyone a rundown of what your business model currently looks like?

 

Akil’s business model and how he balances his on and offline work

Akil:                       Sure. I’m a physician and I do integrated medicine in my practice here in San Francisco. My clinic is called Institute for Health and Healing. My main business, outside of the clinical side in terms of seeing patients, is in education. That was started a couple of years ago with my book called “The Paleovedic Diet,” where I talked about combining Paleo and Ayurveda which had never been done before.

I got a lot of flack from both the Paleo and Ayurvedic communities for trying to put those together.

Yuri:                      How dare you.

Akil:                       Exactly, right? Basically, from there I’ve taken that nutritional approach to start classes and online webinars with the book and educational events, just helping to get the word out about health and wellness. It’s very similar to what you’re doing but with a focus more on integrated and holistic medicine.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome, good for you. So, you’ve been in this space for a while. What have you seen as some of the trends or transitions from where things used to be in the integrated and functional space?

Akil:                       Within healthcare, changes happen very slowly, so that’s something very different from what you see in eCommerce in the online world.

It’s been very slow to be accepted in terms of a holistic and more integrated approach. One thing I have seen grow a lot in the last few years is a type of medicine called functional medicine. This looks at the function of different organ systems through specialized lab testing. The unique thing about this is that it involves a lot of regular blood work, urine tests, saliva tests, and stool tests, but it just goes above and beyond what a regular conventional physician would do. There’s a lot of data involved.

That appeals to a lot of people. It’s not just talking about energy or feelings, it’s measuring your gut bacteria, measuring your hormones, and looking at optimizing your vitamin and mineral status. That aspect of integrated medicine has exploded.

I practice functional medicine and helping educate and spreading awareness about that has been exciting.

Yuri:                      Yeah, I bet. That’s awesome. With all the stuff that you do now, do you still see patients in person while building up the online platform? What does a typical week look like for you in terms of where your time is split and what you’re focused on?

Akil:                       It’s straightforward. I’m in the clinic three days a week, so about 60% of the time, seeing patients directly. Then the other 40% of the time I’m focused on writing, doing research, doing webinars, recording videos and building up the online platform.

Yuri:                      Nice. We’ve got a lot of listeners who are either doctors or functional medical practitioners, so it’s always interesting to see what people’s different set-ups are like. Since you’ve come online, what are the initial challenges that you faced as you went from a conventional practice offline to now starting to build your presence online?

 

The challenges when moving online; Akil’s organic process and philosophical shift

Akil:                       Well one big thing was just a lack of training or guides about how to do this. That’s why I think it’s great that you’ve put together this podcast and all the resources that you have. There was no real guidebook or step-by-step direction. I was just making it up as I went along and learning about SEO, how to build up on social media, and slowly creating content of value to put out there.

One challenge was just not knowing the best way to do things and learning by trial and error. That was quite slow in terms of building up gradually. Now people have so many more resources, sources of knowledge, and education where they can gain those insights and use those to grow their business faster.

In my case, it was a very slow process initially. That was frustrating because I wanted to expand and scale right away, but it takes time when you’re doing it very organically and slowly.

Yuri:                      I’m right there with you. It took forever to crack the code, if you will.

Unfortunately, in health coaching schools, medical, or integrated education, no one’s teaching the business marketing things that are important. If you can’t get people to know about you and work with you, you can’t serve them.

It continues to be a big gap in the marketplace. But with that said, you’ve obviously had some great strides online. What have you found to be the most pivotal or impactful endeavor? What’s the one big thing that stands out for you when it comes to the online side of your business?

Akil:                       The pivotal moment was not a specific technique but more of a philosophical change.

It was when I started to focus less on the numbers in terms of how many visitors we were getting, how many followers, et cetera, and those kinds of metrics. I started focusing within, thinking, “Am I putting forth my authentic self every day?” And I think that changed how I viewed the business and it also transformed the content that I put forth. I was more willing to share more of myself and reveal more of my personal story through the different media.

Just asking that question made a difference in terms of my approach to the whole business. That came from a place of being with my authentic self and wanting to put forth something of value every day. I focused on useful information that I thought would be helpful to the maximum number of people. That focus was the key because then, later, the success came in terms of followers and revenue and website growth.

I think focusing on the value and authenticity of the content was the turning point for me.

 

Distraction and comparison; the double-edged sword of social media

Yuri:                      And it’s so valuable, too, because it’s very easy.

How do you stay free from of distraction and comparison in a day and age where everyone’s on social and comparing themselves to other people in their space?

When you do that, I find that you lose who you truly are. You end up trying to be a combination of different people and you’re not showing up as your true self, which hurts your position in the marketplace because you’re not you.

What advice do you give people who are going through that right now and are comparing and trying to be someone they aren’t?

Akil:                       I think there will always be people who are more successful than you, have more followers, have a bigger website, or are making more money online. One realization is that that’s always going to be the case and that’s okay.

You don’t have to compare yourself and be the number one in every category and feel bad if you’re not doing as well as somebody else. At the end of the day, you just want to be doing your best and taking the initiative to create something that is unique for you. Each of us has that capacity to do something that no one else has done, do something in a new way, or be creative and express that part from within.

What helped me was being less active on social media, in terms of following other sites and reading what other people are doing and staying up to date. I limit my time on social media a little bit in terms of what I read. It’s helpful because I didn’t realize how much time was getting taken up by that. Cutting back a little bit helped me focus on myself and realize that it’s okay, because there’s always going to be somebody doing more and doing better. If I’m doing my best, happy, and being true to myself in terms of what I put forth of value, then that’s the most important thing.

Yuri:                      Yeah, that’s a great perspective. It’s so true because it becomes very overwhelming. I don’t have Facebook or Instagram on my phone anymore and it’s so freeing. It’s the best. If you’re listening, I highly recommend it.

Akil:                       What about Twitter? Do you still have Twitter?

Yuri:                      I don’t think I’ve used Twitter in seven years. I have an account but I haven’t done anything on it. Do you use it at all?

Akil:                       I do. I’ve heard that it helps to delete the social media apps from your phone. I haven’t done that yet, but I’m toying with the possibility.

Yuri:                      One of the things I recognize is, “Am I going on social to create or consume?” And I’m not going on Instagram several times a day to post. I’m just, by habit, scrolling through the feed and it’s not a very productive use of my time or best input for my brain.

It wasn’t serving me and my business and the people I want to serve, so I stopped bothering. We have ways that we publish content on Instagram, but I don’t need to have constant inundation of selfies and whatever else that’s not uplifting my day on my phone.

Akil:                       There was an interesting study where they asked people in their 20s, “How many times a day do you check your phone?” They estimated 20 or 30 times, but when they measured it, it was closer to 65. They underestimated by half what they were doing because it’s so unconscious and automatic.

Like you said, most of the time it’s not a productive use of time. In teenagers, too much social media use has been linked with anxiety, depression, and other issues. It’s a double-edged sword; we must realize that there’s a right way and a wrong way to use this technology. To use it smartly is important.

Yuri:                      A follow-up on what you said about teens, apparently, the highest suicide rate in the US is girls around 14 years old, which is very sad and unfortunate. I think when people are so disconnected, they’re hurting at a deep level.

Before we started recording this, you mentioned that you had a beverage company. I certainly didn’t know that and I’m sure a lot of other people don’t know as well.

Do you have a favorite failure that has later set you up for success? Was part of that failure part of this beverage company, or is there something else?

 

Akil’s beverage company and what he learned about growth and connection

Akil:                       I think that was one of the biggest failures I’ve learned from.

It was an Ayurvedic beverage company. In my practice, I use herbs from Ayurveda, which is the traditional medicine from India. I often see people get dramatically better even without medications or drugs.

I had the desire to bring that to more people and started making this beverage with herbs, spices, and fruits at home and started giving it to patients and a few people. It was getting good feedback and people were encouraging me to bottle and sell it.

So about ten years ago, I launched an Ayurvedic beverage company. It was called Ayu Drinks and I had no experience whatsoever in the beverage space. I had no MBA, no degree in business, nothing but a real desire to share this product with people. Step by step we started producing it and moving it out of my kitchen to a bottling facility. We got it organically certified and started getting it into stores and farmer’s markets.

The great thing about farmer’s markets is that we would do demos and talk to people directly, give samples, and get feedback. It was a big lesson to just talk directly to the consumer every day and figure out what their opinions and needs are. That was something I took away from that.

Eventually we expanded to about 300 stores in California, New York, and the East Coast. We started growing too quickly. At the time, I thought growing for the sake of growth was great, but now I realize that it was one of the reasons why that failed. We just spread ourselves too thin.

We were in all these stores where we didn’t have the support in terms of demos or publicity to educate people about the product and have them try samples, which is a big part of beverage sales. It’s just getting people to drink the product.

Eventually, it became harder to sustain all the different stores we were in. I realized that we had come too far, but you can’t scale back once you’re in that mode. We decided to shut things down.

I learned that daily interaction with the people consuming your product is so valuable. Take that to heart. It’s something I’ve applied in future businesses. Also, growing for the sake of growth is not necessarily a good thing. Think about the pace of your predictions and definitely have goals and metrics that you want to hit at 6 months, a year, or 5 years.

It’s important to realize that growth isn’t always a good thing, and you want to be thoughtful about whether you’re growing at a sustainable pace. It may make sense to grow now or maybe not; maybe you want to focus on consolidating, building up your content, or certain other things.

Don’t necessarily just strive for growth. Even though that failed, I did have a sense of satisfaction from having pursued it and tried it. And there’s still people today who ask me, “When are you bringing back Ayu Drinks?” We have no plans, but just taking a chance, producing it, and getting it out there was very fulfilling.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. I want to touch on what you mentioned about growing for the sake of growing, which I think is a natural tendency for most entrepreneurs. If a million dollars is great, then 10 million must be better and then 100 million must be better than that. And this is one of the biggest epiphanies a lot of entrepreneurs have when they’ve had some degree of success. They ask: “I’m okay at 2 million, why do I have to go to 20?”

What was your realization about that process? Was there a moment where you thought, “Why am I even doing this? What’s the point of all this?” What did that process look like for you and what was the big take away from all that? How have you applied that to what you’re doing now?

Akil:                       Within the beverage space, it’s mostly driven by distributors who pick up your product and distribute it to different stores. We were excited about signing up as many distributors as possible but later we realized that we hadn’t thought out a strategy in doing so.

Several these distributors ended up having overlapping territories and started selling the products in the same store and having a competition. They got upset with us for having put too many people in the same territory. The lesson was to have a thought-out plan; in terms of the markets you’re going to go after and how to not have overlap. Carefully chose who you’re partnering with for each area.

That doesn’t translate directly into online sales but I think what I’ve taken from that is to be very careful about who I’m partnering with. If I’m partnering with somebody to publicize an online course or something like that, each partner must bring value and spread the word to a different set of people.

There’s a wide range of different populations and segments that you can target. I learned to be thoughtful about partnerships and to create a plan for hitting as many different groups of people as possible. That has been the takeaway.

Yuri:                      That’s great.

On the flip side of that, what’s one of the best investments you’ve ever made in terms of monetary expense, time, or education?

 

Mentorship as the best investment he’s ever made and how to stay focused

Akil:                       That’s a good question. In integrated medicine, mentors are valuable and the most important thing. There aren’t that many of them because the number of MDs that incorporate a holistic approach is still small overall.

About ten years ago, I invested in this fellowship in integrated medicine with Andrew Weil, who’s at the University of Arizona. He was one of my idols growing up and when I was a student in medical school. The opportunity came to study with him directly and spend a couple of years with him learning in Tucson.

Even though it was certainly very expensive and time-consuming, looking back, that was one of the best investments I’ve made. It was a great experience to get insights from him directly. He’s such a great teacher and shares himself with his students in that program. It also gave me a good foundation in holistic integrated medicine.

We never got that training in medical school so I had to go out of my way, on my own, to seek that out. I think that has been one of the most valuable investments that I’ve made.

Yuri:                      That’s wicked. Almost everyone that we’ve had on the show shares the importance of investing in a mentor. And there’s a big difference between investing and getting free help. I think you must pay-to-play because there’s a level of commitment there that’s unparalleled.

If you were to speak with someone – like a new health coach or practitioner – who doesn’t have the resources to invest in a coach or mentor (even though it’s one of the most important things they could do to accelerate their progress), what would you say to them?

Akil:                       Right now there are so many mentors who have shared their stories, both in books and online. Seek out those people and communities. I’m a big believer in networking and attending events and conferences where you don’t have to invest a lot of money but you meet a lot of like-minded people.

You might get inspired by people who are further along in the field and more experienced, like some of the speakers. I don’t think it must take a lot of resources. In the beginning, start out by networking and reading some inspirational stories about people who have succeeded in the field. That’s a good place to start.

Yuri:                      Awesome advice. I forgot to mention to you that I have this ritual called The Rapid Five, which are five rapid-fire questions I ask everyone at the end of the show. I’m going to get to those in a second.

But before I do, when you feel overwhelmed, unfocused, scattered or off-track, what questions do you ask yourself to get back on track and focused?

Akil:                       For me that can happen frequently because I have a lot going on right now. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and scattered. Sitting down for five minutes to do some yoga is something that I find settles my mind. I remind myself why am I doing everything that I’m doing.

Thinking about my family, my wife, and my daughter motivates me to do the things I’m doing, and remembering that always helps with focusing the mind. Simple, deep breaths, a few stretches, gets you into the body and out of that tailspin in the mind.

That’s a good way to get grounded and refocused again.

Yuri:                      I find myself doing that as well. When I find that I’m racing through the day I put on the brakes, have a seat, and do some deep breathing. Man, it makes a huge difference. That’s awesome advice.

 

The Rapid Five

Akil, are you ready for The Rapid Five, now that I have forewarned you about them?

Akil:                       Yes, sounds good.

Yuri:                      . Okay, so it’s five rapid-fire questions, and whatever comes to mind is probably the right answer. With that said, number one: What is your biggest weakness?

Akil:                       My biggest weakness is that I’m a peace-loving person by nature. Sometimes that translates into avoiding conflict. I always work on communicating and not being afraid to disagree or have conflict, and I make sure I’m not going with that tendency I have too much.

Yuri:                      Sure. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Akil:                       My biggest strength is having a vision for the long term and translating that into the day-to-day practical steps that are required. Since I’ve been working on projects for almost 30 years now, I feel like I’ve gotten more skilled at that.

Yuri:                      Awesome. That’s a good skill to have. And speaking of skills, that leads us to our next question which is, what’s one skill you become dangerously good at to grow your business online or in-person?

Akil:                       One, connecting with people is still what I do every day, whether it’s connecting with people I’m sitting across from in clinic every week or people I’m talking to on videos. I think that just being able to make a meaningful human-to-human connection is important.

Number two, understanding what is of value to that person, and giving them some of that in as concise a way as possible.

Yuri:                      Awesome, number four: What do you do first thing in the morning?

Akil:                       I have a big glass of warm water with some lemon juice. On good days, I follow that up with about ten minutes or so of sitting meditation before I begin the rest of the day.

Yuri:                      Excellent. I like how you said “on good days.”

Akil:                       Exactly. That’s the ideal.

Yuri:                      I can relate to that one. Finally, complete this sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

Akil:                       When every morning I’m thrilled to be getting out of bed and excited about what the day will bring me.

Yuri:                      Great answer. There we go guys, Dr. Akil Palanisamy. Thank you so much. What is the best place for our listeners to follow your work online and stay in touch with you?

 Akil:                       The best place would be my website doctorakil.com. That has the links to all my social media and the website is where my online course is. Everything starts there.

Yuri:                      Awesome. Great stuff. Dr. Akil, thank you so much for joining us today, this has been a lot of fun. It’s always a pleasure to connect with great minds and people who are doing great stuff in this space.

Thank you so much for being with us and doing the work that you do because it makes a difference in a lot of people’s lives.

Akil:                       My pleasure Yuri, thanks so much for having me on and same to you as well. I’ve heard all the amazing work that you’re doing, so thanks for being such an inspiration to so many people.

Yuri:                      Thank you.

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Yuri’s Take

I loved a couple things about our conversation.

Here’s this medical doctor who’s got a deep-seeded entrepreneurial spirit, trying one company, doing that, then venturing off to other things. That’s cool and exciting because I believe that if you’re a medical doctor or someone who’s in a clinic, you still must take it upon yourself to make things happen.

I believe entrepreneurs are like the tectonic plates under the Earth’s crust. We make the world go around and make everything happen. We shift the continents and we make the economy what it is, starting at the grassroots level all the way up to bigger organizations. If you think about it, every huge Fortune 500 company you can think of was once a one or two person show.

One, two, or a few people slowly but surely built up their vision over time, and maybe they lost their way along the way. I’m not too sure. But that’s why I love entrepreneurship, because you can take an idea that in your head, something that is intangible, and turn it into the visible to make people’s lives better.

Whether you’re a doctor, health coach, or someone who has expertise in health who has a great idea to serve people, get it out there. Bring it to market. Make sure it’s something that’s highly desirable and helpful, and follow that path. There’s nothing better than having your own business, there’s nothing better than being able to live life on your terms.

But be very realistic about the fact that having your own business comes with a lot of ups and downs.

You’re taking on more risk than the people who work for you. That’s why they work for you. If you don’t enjoy that, if you’re not realistic about the fact that you’ll have to go through a lot of personal growth and a lot of ups and downs, then maybe you’re better off working for someone else.

But if you still have that entrepreneurial desire, that spirit inside of you that says, “You know what? I can’t listen to a boss and I can’t take directions. I need to do my own thing.” You know what? You’re in the right place.

I want to thank you very much for joining me today.

First and foremost, if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, you can do so today on iTunes. Just subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast. There are lots of great episodes coming your way.

Secondly, if you want the smarter, newer, quicker way to build a high 6 or 7 figure online health coaching business, then I invite you to join one of my online free trainings called The 7 Figure Health Business Blueprint.

In it, I’ll show you exactly how to do that. One of the biggest problems people come to us is, “I don’t know how to attract my ideal clients predictably. I’m relying on word-of-mouth referrals, manual prospecting, and I’ve put flyers in different clinics.” That’s not a way to build a business.

In this training, you’ll discover our perfect client pipeline, how we operate it, and how you can too in your business. You’ll start to predictably attract the best clients into your business so that even when you’re out walking your dog, traveling, or sleeping, your marketing is automated so people are benefiting from your knowledge, wisdom, and processes. They’ll go through this pipeline without your involvement.

If that’s something of interest to you, I would strongly recommend you jump in to that free online training today. Why wait? It’s top of mind right now. If you’re driving, pull over, whip out your laptop, and have a look.

Just kidding!

But honestly, if you’re thinking that things right now aren’t as great as you want them to be, whether you’re just starting off, you’re scaling your business, or you want that little extra tweak to get to the next level, I promise you it will be the best 75 minutes you’ve spent on your business.

So, check it out today! Thank you again for joining me on this podcast. It’s been a lot of fun bringing this to you. Have an amazing day. Continue to get out there, be great, and do great. I’ll see you in our next episode.

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Transcription

Hey, guys! Today, we’re going to look at the one common trait of million dollar coaches and health entrepreneurs.

After having been in business for 13 years and having coached hundreds of others to greater success in theirs, it’s very easy for me to predict somebody’s success.

I can have a conversation with someone and quickly know if they’re going to make it based on what they say they want to do. One of the biggest traits is the one I’m going to reveal to you.

 

My journey in trying to figure everything out on my own

A big epiphany I had was when I started my business online back in 2006. I thought I was too cool for school. I thought I was smart enough to figure it out on my own. I may have shared this with you before, but I spent three years taking bits from here and there and trying to piece it together myself.

That didn’t work out because I made less money than the poverty cut-off and what I was doing was unsustainable.

It simply wasn’t going to continue to fulfill me. I was working 36 hours a day and not making the income I wanted. I had no freedom.

I made the decision at the end of 2009 to do one really important thing. I’m going to share with you what that is in just a second.

 

Why some people will never get ahead: Psychology vs. Strategy

Let me fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. One of our coaches had a call with a lady who was very much like I was back in the day. She had less than $1,000 in the bank. She had been in business for a short time, which is a red flag.

Second, she got to the point where she said, “You know what? I’m think I’m going to figure this out on my own. Thank you for telling me about how you guys can help me. If I had the money, I would, but I think, for now, I’m going to try to figure things out on my own. I’ve learned some stuff from here and there, and I’m going to bring it altogether.”

When I hear that, it brings back flashbacks to struggle, frustration, and a lot of lost time and money because that’s exactly what happened to me. I see that happen to people all the time.

Because she had less than $1,000 and a few thousand dollars in credit card debt, it limited her from the realization that she needed to attend our workshop and get help building out her business. The reality is that she’s got less than $1,000 in the bank, so do you think that what she’s doing is working?

Do you think that what she’s about to do is going to help? No, it’s not, because it’s not about the strategy. It’s about the psychology, and psychology or mindset is very important and is tough to teach.

 

Bypassing trial and error, accelerating results, and being coachable

The one common trait of million dollar coaches and entrepreneurs is coachability.

We could throw in other traits, like persistence and all that stuff, but coachability is extremely important. If you’re not coachable, then you’re simply telling yourself and the universe that you’re smart enough to figure things out on your own.

Maybe you are maybe you aren’t, but let me give you two scenarios.

Our goal as the leader of our businesses is to focus on two questions: What do I want, and why is that important? The what and the why. Those are the only two questions we want to spend time on.

The problem though, especially when you have a business and are a solopreneur, is that you ask the questions, “I know what I want. I know why I want that. How do I do that? How do I create that?” Thus, begins the unraveling of a years-long journey to figure this out.

You see, instead of asking “How do I do this,” smart entrepreneurs ask, “Who can help me do this?”

That bypasses trial and error. Why go through your own trial and error when you can piggyback on years of someone else’s? That’s what coaching allows you to do. When we ask, “Who can help me, or “Who can do this for me,” we’re essentially seeking help to accelerate our results and bypass the learning curve.

Trying to figure it out on your own could take you years, if ever. The individual we had the call with basically said, “I’m going to figure out how to do this myself.” That’s a very sad proposition because she’s going to be no further ahead a year from now than she is now.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, Yuri, that’s a little bit harsh. Maybe she will be,” but I’m telling you, when you have these conversations with people, there are things you pick up on. After you’ve done this a long time you’ll know right away if someone will be in a better place this time next year.

 

Be the client you want to attract; if you want to coach others, get coached

Let me give you some contrast to that. One of our clients who was in a very similar position did whatever it took to engage our help because she knew that she did not want to reinvent the wheel. She knew that she didn’t want to spend years trying to figure it out on her own. She knew that we were the right fit to help her, and we knew that she was the right fit for us, too.

Here’s what she did: She set up a new corporation after our call. She didn’t have a business credit card or account, and she gave me her personal credit card as collateral to say, “I’m in. I’m doing this. I’m going to give you my personal credit card. You don’t have to charge it, but if this doesn’t go through, you can.”

She gave me her credit card as collateral while she took a few days setting up her LLC and getting her new business credit card. Then she ran the payment on her business credit card a couple of days later.

That’s what it takes. That is being coachable. That is knowing that you can’t do this on your own, and you will do whatever it takes to get the right help to make it happen. That’s the difference between someone who will succeed in business and someone who will struggle for the rest of their life. I say this with all due respect.

If you’re listening to this and you’re in that former situation where, “I don’t have the money to do this. I’m a couple thousand dollars in debt,” I don’t give a shit. If you’re happy where you are, that’s fine. I’m going to give you tough love here because there’s no sense in sugar-coating the situation. I’m here to give you the reality check.

It’s like taking your car to the mechanic for a flat tire, and your mechanic says, “You know what? It’s actually not that bad. It’s not that flat. I can only see the rim touching the surface on this side.” No, no, no. Let’s cut to the chase. If your tire is flat, you’re screwed. You must get a new tire. If you don’t, your car’s not going to run properly.

 

Take the leap: Others will invest in you if you invest in yourself

It’s the same thing here. If you don’t think that hiring a coach is worth your time or money, then here’s another reality check. If you’re asking people to invest in you, that’s never going to happen because there’s incongruence at an energetic level. You’re asking people to invest in coaching with you, yet you’re not coaching with anyone else.

How does that even make sense? Be the client you want to attract. If you want clients to happily enroll with you, happily enroll with your own coach, even if it’s above your means.

When I made that pivotal decision at the end of 2009, I was sitting at Starbucks planning out my next year. I said, “Listen, something has to change. What I’ve been doing up until now hasn’t worked.” The decision I made was to hire a coach, join a mastermind, and attend a few live events.

I said, “I need to get away from my computer, and I need help. I need to find the right help.” I set that intention, and the exact things that I was looking for showed up in the first quarter of the following year.

I found a coach and joined his mastermind. I didn’t have the money to pay for it, to be honest. $18,000, was more money than I had made the previous year in my online business, to give you some context.

I gave my credit card number over the phone, and I remember feeling a pit in my stomach. But I knew and I’ve always known that I do whatever I need to do to make it work. That’s just the type of person I am, and that’s the only reason why I’m in a position now to even share this with you.

You must have the fortitude and the belief in yourself that, no matter what, you will find a way. If you don’t have the money, you will find the money. If you don’t know how you’re going to attract clients, you’ll find a way to attract clients, and obviously with the right coaching, that can be done a lot more seamlessly.

That’s the big trait of million dollar coaches. They’re coachable. How can you be a coach if you’re not coachable? That just doesn’t make sense to me.

I hope this message resonates with you.

If you did not attend Healthpreneur Live last year, you missed out on amazing event; however, one of the things I shared from stage was the journey of investments that I made over the past 10-plus years. I showed that every single time I invested in a coach, mastermind, or live event, it led to something even more amazing.

I’ve invested over a half a million dollars in coaching, masterminds, and events. I don’t say that to brag, I say that because I’m seriously committed to growing. The more I grow, the more I can give. I can give to my clients, I can give to my team, and I can give to you.

If I don’t grow, I’m screwed. In life, you’re either growing or you’re dying. There’s no stagnation, so you’re either up, or you’re going down, and it’s your choice. You don’t have to be in school to learn. Never let school get in the way of your education, as Mark Twain said. It’s all about continually growing and learning.

Yes, you can listen to podcasts. Yes, you can listen to audiobooks. You can watch YouTube videos until the end of time, but there’s a different level of commitment that comes when you put money into a coaching program and you have somebody to hold you accountable.

As soon as you put that down, there’s a whole new level of accountability and commitment that comes with that. When you pay, you pay attention.

It doesn’t matter to me if you work with me as your coach or anyone else. Get a coach, and pay for one because that ability to be coachable is huge. Remember this: Don’t expect others to invest in you if you don’t invest in yourself.

That is my tough love for today.

If you’ve enjoyed this, give it a thumb up or share your feedback as a review on iTunes. If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, please do on iTunes.

If you want to book a call with our team to get serious about what you want to do in your business, then we have some spots available this week. We brought on a few new coaches to take on some of these calls because we get so many of them during the week and I can’t do them all myself.

The call is only for people who are health entrepreneurs, coaches, and practitioners – people listening to this podcast – who are serious about growing their business.

We can help you create some massive improvements. If you already have an existing business, we can make a couple small tweaks that will make some big differences.

If you’re starting out, and you’re just starting to build up your client base, we can certainly support you as well, but the whole goal of this result accelerator call is to give you clarity on what you should and should not be doing. Our goal is to help you focus on where you are, where you want to go, and how to overcome the obstacles that are standing in your way.

If that sounds valuable to you, which I hope it does, then head on over to book a call now.

Go to healthpreneurgroup.com/book, and you can book a call right from that page.

Warning: If you’re looking to pick our brains, kick some tires around, or just see what this is all about, it’s probably not the right fit. If you’re serious about moving forward with your business and getting a game plan to help you do so, this is a better fit for you.

Just so you know, this is not a sales pitch. It’s not a sales call in disguise. It’s a 45-minute call that is all about you. If you sit in any of our team meetings, you’d know how obsessed I am about service, not necessarily selling. If you’re a right fit to work with us, we’ll talk about that toward the end of the call. If not, that’s totally fine. You’ll leave the call with a great game plan in your hands.

We look forward to chatting with you. Once again, thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode, and I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday.

Transcription

Hey guys, how’s it going? We are talking with Vince Luciani today, who is an amazing and remarkable individual. He has an interesting business where he helps athletes figure out their bigger why. He gets beyond the field, the rink, or the ice, and helps transform their lives beyond their sport.

Because of that, they can bring so much more back to their sport. You might be asking, “Okay, well what does this have to do with my health or fitness business?” Well, it has everything to do with it as you will find out in our conversation.

As a leader of your clients and team, there are some fundamental things that you’ll discover out of this conversation that will help you take what you’re doing to the next level.

I’m going to tell you a bit more about Vince Luciani.

He’s the founder of The Legacy Coaching, a former university athlete, and has coached in the CFL, the Canadian Football League, with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and in the NCAA with Ohio University Bobcats.

Through his coaching experiences and completing his master’s in coaching education, he noticed an opportunity to create a more holistic approach to developing the whole athlete. He has produced a one of a kind program that now has thousands of athletes from all levels through the journey of self-discovery.

He believes that self-awareness is the foundation for fulfillment, within and without sport.

Without any further ado, I’m excited to bring Vince Luciani onto the Healthpreneur Podcast. Hey Vince and welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast! How’s it going?

Vince:             Good how are you doing?

Yuri:                I’m doing great, man! I’m happy to feature another awesome Canadian on the show here. It’s part of my mission to highlight awesome health entrepreneurs who also happen to live in Canada.

I’m excited to chat, because you’ve come highly recommended from a mutual friend of ours. For our listeners who are not quite familiar with you or your business, can you give everyone a rundown of what your business model looks like so we have a bit of context for the conversation?

 

Vince’s company and mission to help athletes reclaim their identity

Vince:             My business is The Legacy Coaching. I’ve narrowed it down to mental training for life in sport. What I do is help athletes understand who they are beyond what they do.

That comes in the form of individual coaching, group coaching, and speaking.

Yuri:                That’s great. I was a former professional soccer player, and I’ve worked with athletes for a long time. They’re a different breed of people in their level of commitment and motivation. How do you get athletes to some level of awareness beyond just being an athlete?

One of the things that I struggled with for a while after I finished playing soccer was that I still identified myself as a soccer player. It took me awhile to shift my self-image.

How do you go about doing that with athletes?

Vince:             The big thing is not treating sport and life as two different things, and using the vehicle of sport to allow them to look inwards. It’s asking, “What are the things that are coming out of you through sport that are natural or that you enjoy?” Then basically, “What are those things?” Then, say it’s the transition out of the sport, so “What does that look like elsewhere?”

The introspective questions focus on the sport: “Who are you for your teammates?” Or, “Who are you for your coaches? Who are you in the locker room on your campus?”

We go deep, but labeling those things. A big part of this is getting athletes to stand for something, because when you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. When you define your own identity, you won’t be defined by the identity that’s been put on you.

The first exercise I do with everybody is asking, “Who are you?” It’s so funny, because 90% of athletes say, “I’m a football player,” or “I’m a basketball player.”

That’s when you start to go deeper. I’ll ask, “Take away all the labels. Take away everything you have in your life that’s been placed on you. What are you left with?” It is hard, but the thing is that I know every athlete has these thoughts, even if it’s once every two weeks. They ask themselves, “If I didn’t have this, what would I be doing?” Or, “What else can I offer?”

My big thing is that if you take away sport, what would they be doing? It’s just getting in that mindset. I don’t want people to think that I pull athletes out of the sport and I get them to focus just on the stuff outside.

I want athletes to master themselves as human beings so they realize that they as an athlete, is just a fraction of who they are.

 

Happiness, awareness, fulfillment, and Vince’s own journey to self-discovery

Yuri:                That’s awesome.

What are some of the benefits that you’ve seen come out of this? You probably foster better leaders within their life and team sports, if they’re in a team sport. What types of outcomes come because of this type of work for those athletes?

Vince:             It’s non-tangible, like mental clarity. What I hear a lot is, “I’m so much more aware.” I believe that self-awareness is the foundation to fulfillment, whether it’s within or without sport. Once you’re aware of your behaviors, patterns, or triggers, you’re able to have control of it. You can move forward on your own path.

I often hear, “When I’m on the ice I feel so much more clear now. I feel like I’m focused. I’m not worried about anything.” It’s funny, this could be an opportunity for me. I could be better at this, but I don’t care about the outcomes because I know that takes care of itself.

I focus more so on that fulfillment, happiness, clarity, and awareness. I can’t control the outcomes because the athletes control those. I know I can help guide them towards that awareness and that fulfillment.

Yuri:                Nice. I see this as a very valuable process for anyone. The worst question I don’t think anyone likes answering, especially in the entrepreneurial space is, “What do you do?”

Especially if you have an online business or coaching business, the answer to that question is never a true reflection of who you are. Someone might say, “I’m a lawyer,” and that’s just as you mentioned, we’re more than just what we do or play.

I can see this as being very valuable for anyone who puts a label on themselves. I think it’s a very valuable service that you’re offering. How did you get into doing this? Was there a moment in your life where you realized, “Holy cow, this is what I need to be doing?” Was there something you went through that prompted you into this space?

 

Vince:             Yeah, it was a funny series of events. I played sports my whole life, and then played five years at Laurier on the football team. I had a lot of injuries, and that pushed me towards coaching. I coached on the sideline; I’d be up on the box on game day charting plays and looking at the game from a different perspective.

When I finished at Laurier, I got hired on with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on the CFL to be an offensive assistant.

It was a pretty big jump going from coaching high school and youth football in the off-season to going to the pros. I was excited and it was awesome. I coached a year there.

Then I went down to GA, to be a graduate assistant at Ohio University with their football team. During that time, I got my master’s in coaching education. This whole time I thought I was going to be a sports coach.

There was something that stuck out to me when I was getting my master’s down there. My professor said, “Just because things have been done a certain way, doesn’t mean that’s the right way.” That’s when I thought, “Wow, so I’m able to have an opinion on taking a lap before practice?”

Vince:             I spent two years down there. It was a great experience. I had some ups and downs. I was forced to come home because I ruptured my patella tendon playing pickup basketball. In that moment, I realized that I wasn’t in the right place.

There were just certain things that were happening and I just didn’t feel it. I was away from my family, I didn’t always feel good about myself, and I just wasn’t in the right place.

I limped my way into a Lululemon three months post-surgery, and asked if they were hiring. They said, “You’re a guy and you want to work here?” This was three or four years ago. I got hired within a week of the group interview.

The first week, my manager sat me down and asked, “Vince, who are you?” I said, “I’m a football coach.” She said, “No, that’s what you do. Who are you?” It was like a weight lifted off of me. I broke down in tears in the coffee shop because I realized that for my entire life, I allowed my sport to define me.

When she asked me that question, she just allowed me to go, “Whoa, who am I?” That started my journey of self-discovery, and I tell people that it’s never-ending. You’re always looking.

Vince:             I realized that I had allowed my sport to define me. For the next two years, I started learning lessons. I’d go to retreats, leadership conferences, and talk to people. Every time I would learn a lesson I thought, “Why did I not learn this as an athlete?”

It would’ve been so much more powerful if I did. Think of the amount of lessons you learn in that soccer game that somebody who doesn’t play sports won’t experience. Think of how powerful these life lessons could be if we incorporated them into that game or that practice.

I started learning all these things, and things just started happening. I started meeting certain people, and they’d say, “Hey, you should start a business, you have something here.” Then it just happened. I created my own curriculum and started testing it on the teenagers I was working with.

They were getting great results from it, and the parents said, “Wow, he’s so much more calm on the field now. I’m noticing that he’s not overreacting to penalties and what not.” I was feeling good about it and wanted to work with kids, but because it’s such a unique thing, parents aren’t very open to it.

I started working with the professional athletes that I knew. I started getting connected with Olympians, NFL, CFL, and NBA athletes, I was giving out free sessions to get feedback on it.

I selfishly wanted feedback so I could improve it for the kids, but the athletes said, “Whoa, I need this, do you have more of this? Can I hire you?” That’s how it happened.

And here I am. I don’t know where I am right now, but it’s growing to a point where I have my core curriculum, I feel good about it, and I created it based on my life experiences. I want to empower as many athletes to define their own lives, therefore defining their own legacy.

 

Attracting clients organically, honing in on your specialty, and letting go

Yuri:                That’s great. You’re doing this with athletes, but I’m just thinking that there’s so much to transfer to the world of entrepreneurship as well. So many people define themselves as entrepreneurs, business owners, health coaches, whatever it is. That “Who are you?” question is a deep abyss for most of us.

There’s a lot of value in what you’re doing beyond just for athletes. Just having people ask these questions and go deep on this stuff is great.

Let’s talk about the business side of things for a second. How do you now attract clients into your world? This is a unique way of working with athletes, and maybe a lot of them are not even aware that there’s a need for this in the first place. How do you get in front of them? How do you attract them into your world? How do you get them to understand the value that this provides?

Vince:             That’s a good question, because I went through a big transition last year with those moments where I was selling myself.

I don’t ever want to do that, because I want it to be organic, like my experience was of learning who I was. I didn’t want force someone and say, “Hey, you’re not an athlete, this is who you are.” And you’re right, people don’t know until they get a taste of it.

I attract clients through organic conversation. I meet with people and focus on the process of what I do. I maximize my conversations, whether it’s in a podcast, video blog, or whatever.  I’m giving people a scope into my brain, what I’m thinking, and what my opinions are on these things.

I attract open-minded people because my offering is so unique.

I work with the people who are attracted to what I do, have those thoughts, or introduce themselves as what they do. Those are the things that lead people into a conversation with me. I’m not very good with the business stuff, but what I’ve learned is that when I maximize, am present, tell my story, and tell what I do, it connects me and leads the business.

I had a session the other day with a woman probably two months after I met her. I met her when I was in a facility, looked at her, and said, “Excuse me, don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like I want to hug you right now.” She was just a nice woman with positive energy. So, I gave her a hug, she gave a good hug, and that was it.

She knew the guy that I was working with. She showed up to my session, and now she wants me to work with her team. I want people to understand that if you just be yourself, you do attract the outcomes that you’re striving for. Being yourself is obviously different for everybody, and that’s why it’s so important to define who you are, and define who you are in all these moments.

I think that what attracts my business is honestly just being myself. I don’t ever want to read from a script, or put on a mask or anything. I just want to be me. I’m sure that’s a terrible answer to the entrepreneurs listening.

 

Social media pitfalls, the need for real human connection, and love

Yuri:                No, it’s a very valuable lesson. What I’ve noticed, especially in the online business health space, is that a lot of people in our space love doing what they do.

They love coaching, teaching, and serving their clients. But they end up falling into this trap of feeling they must become a marketer and set up funnels, write sales copy, do stuff to get the word out, and all that just makes them miserable.

What they want is to speak to people, connect with them, and serve them. To allow them to do that or not, is an important question, but I think when you’re living your truth, and doing what you love to do, everything else flows from that.

Word of mouth happens a lot more easily and you’re more fulfilled and happy doing what you love to do. I think it’s an important message for our listeners to take away.

Vince:             Absolutely. My good friend Dave Ogle runs Dose Coaching out of Vancouver. He’s a phenomenal guy. He told me, “When you open up all the tools out of a Swiss Army Knife, it becomes useless.”

It’s the same thing I’ve learned with coaching. The more I focus on promoting myself on Instagram or Facebook, the less I focus on improving myself as a coach for the people who are right in front of me. I’m not saying don’t touch Facebook and Instagram, but the whole idea is to make sure that you’re honing in on what makes you, you, and what makes you great.

Yuri:                That’s great. In your journey, whether in business or otherwise, do you have a favorite failure, learning experience, or whatever you want to call it, that has later set you up for success?

Vince:             Oh man, there’s been a bunch.

In business, one of my first keynote speaking gigs was to 150 guys. I had a great presentation lined up, but they came in intoxicated and I didn’t know. I didn’t know based on the timing of the presentation. I was supposed to speak for about 25 minutes, and about 5 minutes in, I realized that only three people were looking at me.

It was the most heartbreaking moment I’ve had as a speaker, and it was funny because in that moment it was exactly what I preach in terms of, “You are not what you do.” I took it so personally. I thought, “These guys don’t like me, they don’t like what I’m talking about,” but it was just that the circumstances were not ideal.

I took it very personally, and what I realized was, number one, I won’t do that again. It just wasn’t a good fit. Number two, I should make my product so simple that even if they are intoxicated they could still focus and connect with the story or something.

It was one of those lessons. I took that really hard, especially because it was in the early stages. That hurt me, but then I started to detach from it. That’s not me, that’s just what I do.

Yuri:                Yeah, I can only imagine. That’s not a lot of fun. I had an experience that was, maybe not similar but, a couple months ago I was invited to speak at an event in Aspen. There were supposed to be 350 attendees and I thought, “This is going to be great. This is the perfect audience for my content and topic.” I was on the main stage in a beautiful room, and I get to the talk, and there’s five people.

What’s worse is the MC introduces me in the worst possible way, with no edification or anything. He said, “Alright guys, we’re going to learn about some stuff, here’s Yuri.” It was the worst possible introduction.

It’s never fun when you experience it, but you just make the most of it and learn as you go through life, as with anything else. When you look at what you’ve done with your business, and working with athletes and seeing what they’re going through, what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs entering the real world?

As you’ve started your business from the background in education and coaching, what advice would you give based on your experience? What advice should they ignore?

Vince:             I would say focus on yourself. You’re going to get advice from so many people, and so many people will want to ride your coat-tails, pick your brain, and tell you what to do or not do in your business. Take the time to write down what’s important in your life.

Fulfillment before success. For me, that’s very important. There are a lot of people who give me advice who believe in financial success before fulfillment.

That may resonate with somebody, and it may not. Get clear on what you want. Why are you doing this is number one, because our purpose lies within the business that we’ve started. Ask what you want for the world and the people who are going to come in and out of your company. Who is going to be your client, and who is going to be tied with your business?

That’s the whole point of this. When I wake up, I’m not thinking, “How much money am I going to make today?” I’m thinking, “How am I going to positively shift the culture of athletics?” For me, it makes my job easier, not to say that it was difficult by any means.

I’m focusing on the bigger picture. People get caught up in wanting to be a millionaire or wanting to be like someone else.

That’s great, but be yourself. When I ask an athlete, “Are you creative?” the number one answer, 80% of the time, is something like, “I didn’t do well in art.” I can empathize with him because I felt the exact same way. We’re taught that creativity only comes in the form of art when we’re young.

But really, all these things – success, fulfillment, happiness – have millions of definitions. Get clear on your definition of these words.

Yuri:                That’s good advice. It’s a tricky world to navigate with distractions and comparisons to what other people are doing. What types of questions can people ask themselves to get more clarity on who they are at a deeper level?

 Vince:             The big one is “Who are you?” Start with removing the labels of what you left when you take everything away. What naturally pours out of you in every single moment of your life? What’s your purpose? There’s different ways to define someone’s own purpose, and if they want to talk to me, I’ll help them. What do you want to see for the world? What shifts do you want to see in the world?

Then, “How does what you’re doing right now tie into that?”

That’s such a big one. Beyond that it’s, “What do you want? What do you want in your life?” What I’ve realized for myself is, if I listen to everybody around me, I want more, more, more. I must get the podcast, I must set this up, and I must post all these videos, and I must make this amount of money.

If I stop, think, and listen to myself, I want a very simple life. Something I’m doing now in Hamilton, is I bought these signs that say, “Free hugs.” I just sit on the corner and give out free hugs.

Yuri:                That’s awesome.

 Vince:             I would rather do that then make X number of dollars grinding away at something. It’s so funny because we think we know what we want, but if you take an hour, sit down with a blank piece of paper, and start listing the things that you want, you’ll start to gain clarity. You’ll say, “Oh, yeah I didn’t think about that.” Give yourself the time and the space.

Yuri:                I did the hug thing back in university. We did it in the subway for entire day. We just started giving hugs to people, and they said, “What the hell’s going on here?” It was amazing, because I think at the root of a lot of people’s desires is this need for connection.

I think we’re more disconnected than ever, especially because of technology, social media and stuff, which is ironic. There’s a big, big craving in our soul for human to human connection, so that’s awesome that you’re doing that.

Vince:             About connection, something I’ve been playing with lately is the disconnection with social media. I believe truth leads to connection, and we only empathize with truth.

Empathy is the strongest form of human connection, and what I find in social media is that when you cover up the truth, there’s nothing to connect to.

That’s what I find in this entrepreneurial world sometimes. I see a lot of inauthentic approaches, exchanges, and communications. I just don’t connect with it, and that’s why something as raw as a sign for free hugs breaks down every barrier.

 Yuri:                Totally. My friend Jayson Gaignard, another Canadian, is a smart guy and runs a great event called Mastermind Talks. He says, “Relationships are built at the speed of vulnerability.”

Vince:             I just met him a couple weeks ago.

 Yuri:                There’s so much fluff, BS, and shiny highlight reels. At the very minimum it makes people feel worse about their own life. It’s not truthful, because what you’re posting on social is just a small fraction of what’s going on in your life.

It’s just a very superficial experience that a lot of people are living. So, it’s good to inject some hugs into people’s lives.

Vince:             Another thing is that you’re either going closer to love or you’re going further away from it.

Yuri:                Totally. So, you’ve obviously done a lot of work on yourself and this whole journey. What are three books, if books have been a part of your process, that have most impacted your life?

Vince:             “Winning Every Day” by Lou Holtz, “Uncommon” by Tony Dungy, and Eckhart Tolle’s, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose”. The first two were just getting me started, but I’d say Eckhart Tolle’s would be number one. The Alchemist was good as well.

Yuri:                Totally. Books might give you one idea, one insight, that might pivot the way you think about something. You just never know, so it’s cool.

If you had everything you’ve ever done wiped away, and there was nothing left but just you, what one message would you leave this world?

Vince:             It all comes down to love. Everything we do in life is for love. I think of the journey of an athlete: From the moment you put your jersey on to the moment you take it off, you get attention, recognition, and acknowledgement. When you leave the sport, I don’t believe that you lose a sense of yourself, I believe you just lose the vehicle that you once knew how to access love.

When everyone starts to understand that everyone is on the same journey towards seeking love, it increases empathy towards others.

You realize it looks different. That guys revving his engine at the red light is trying to get attention, but for me, it may look different. I’m posting something on social media to get attention. We judge each other, not realizing we’re all seeking the same thing.

 Yuri:                That’s very true. That’s good man, deep stuff. It’s such an uncommon stereotypical combination here, a former football player talking about seeking love. You don’t put those two in the same sentence very often.

Vince, I want to thank you so much for doing the work that you do, and showing up in the way that you show up, because I think that not only do athletes need this in sport, but I think everyone needs to hear this message. This is such an important, practical way of approaching life in a way that’s much more honest.

I’ve recognized over the years that when entrepreneurs have been doing their thing for a long time, they get to a point where they start to question a lot of things. Like, “Why am I doing this? What’s really important?” What I’ve recognized, especially with people who love serving others, and we’re not talking about people who are selling widgets on Amazon necessarily, but people who are coaching, teaching, and serving is that they’ve built businesses that they feel disconnected from, and they’ve gotten away from what they love doing.

I think it’s cool and refreshing to see people like yourself who can facilitate a conversation that can help athletes, or anyone else, get back to the roots and approach life with who they truly are. That’s where it all stems from, and happiness and fulfillment comes because of that.

I want to thank you for sharing all that. It’s been valuable for me, and I’m sure it’s been extremely valuable for our listeners.

Vince:             Thank you, I appreciate that.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                Before we finish off, are you ready for the Rapid Five?

Vince:             What if I said no?

Yuri:                Well then we’d do them anyways.

 Vince:             Yeah, let’s do it.

Yuri:                Okay, so five questions. Whatever comes to top of mind is the right answer, so here we go. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Vince:             Number one, I don’t like that word, I like opportunity. For me, I would say consistency.

Yuri:                Cool. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Vince:             The ability to love.

Yuri:                Nice. Number three, what’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Vince:             Asking good questions.

Yuri:                Nice. Number four, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Vince:             This is so interesting. This is where consistency comes in. I wake up, I go into the bathroom, I look myself in the mirror, and I point to myself and say, “You’re my best friend.”

Yuri:                Nice. I love it! That’s a lot better than saying, “You’re worthless, you’re no good. You failed again.”

Vince:             Exacly, and that’s the point. Fill it up with something good.

Yuri:                Totally. Number five, complete the sentence: I know I’m being successful when…

Vince:             I love myself.

Yuri:                Awesome. Vince this has been a pleasure.

Hopefully our listeners have gotten a lot of value out of this, and if you’re a human with a heart I think you probably did. How can people learn more about you and follow you online?

Vince:             The best way is to follow my videos, quotes and stuff on Instagram @TheLegacyCoaching. Facebook is The Legacy Coaching, and my website is thelegacycoaching.com.

Yuri:                Very clean and simple, The Legacy Coaching pretty much everywhere. Vince, thank you once again for taking the time to join us today on the Healtpreneur Podcast, it’s been a pleasure. Just keep up the amazing work, man.

Vince:             Thanks for having me, this means a lot to me.

Yuri:                You’re welcome.

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Yuri’s Take

I hope you enjoyed that interview, it was a lot of fun. It’s always great to connect with people in the world of sport and athletes, because I believe there’s a huge connection between athletes and entrepreneurs. There’s just something special there, and I’ve even seen this in my business and life.

People who get into business for themselves, who were once high level athletes, tend to do very well. There’s a reason for that; there’s this mindset that they have that just never goes away. It just serves them in so many areas of life.

I hope you enjoyed this and got some good value out of this conversation. If you have, then head on over to iTunes, give it a thumb up, and give us a rating if you’d like. If you have it on your phone, just click the purple subscribe button to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming episodes that we’ve got coming your way. We have many, many more that you will not want to miss.

Let me just give you a little rundown of what is coming your way. Next week, I’m going to be sharing with you the one common trait of million dollar coaches. There’s one thing they all have in common, and I’m going to share exactly what that is with you.

On Wednesday, we’ll be speaking with Akil Palanisamy, whose based out of San Francisco Berkeley. He’s doing both online and offline practice. Then, on Friday, you’ll hear arguably one of the best interviews you’ll ever listen to with Shannon Graham. That’s just a taste of what’s to come.

We’ve got some amazing guests coming in the pipes, like Samantha Skelly from Hungry for Happiness, Laura Schoenfeld, Maya Fiennes, Marti Greenberg, and Andrea Nakayama. With such great guests coming down the pipeline, be sure to subscribe today so you don’t miss out.

Also, if you would like our help to accelerate your business, specifically with attracting more clients predictably, converting more of those clients without it feeling salesy, and delivering an amazing result for those clients, without one on one coaching, then we’d be happy to help you.

We do so through a free 45-minute call, called the result accelerator call. If you’d like to book one to speak with myself or one of our result coaches, you can do so today over at healthprenergroup.com/book.

That’ll take you over to the page, and from there you can see if you fit our criteria. If you do, then you can pick a time and date over the next couple days that’ll work best for you. This call is all about you, and will help you breakthrough in your respective businesses. It’ll give you a lot more clarity about what you should be focusing on, and maybe what you can put by the wayside.

If that would be of value to you, then why not? We’ve helped thousands and thousands of people in this process, and I have no doubt this will help you as well. We look forward to chatting with you very shortly. In the meantime, thanks so much for joining me on the show today. Get out there, share your awesomeness, be great, do great, and I look forward to speaking with you on Monday.

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Follow Vince Luciani at:

https://www.thelegacycoaching.com/

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