Transcription

Welcome to the show! This is episode 94 and today we are speaking with an amazing woman. This interview is special. I don’t even know how to do it justice by describing it in words. You just must experience it.

Debora is the founder of the Pain Free Living Program. She is an internationally known energy healer and pain release specialist, whose expertise is helping people rapidly remove the hidden root cause for chronic pain, depression, anxiety, trauma, struggles with weight, addictions, and more.

Clients go to her when nothing else has worked. As you’re going to see, she works with people on three different levels. It’s ethereal and esoteric. We can’t see what she does because she’s working in a field that is beyond what our eyes can see and sense.

But the transformations that she’s produced over the past 30 years has been phenomenal.

She’s going to describe part of what she does in this episode. And if you want to learn more about her work, I would suggest grabbing a copy of her book, “Why Do I Still Hurt? Rapid Relief for Chronic Pain, Depression, Anxiety, and More.”

This is not an episode about an alternative to Advil. Pain can also take the form of being stuck in your business. If you’re not getting the results that you want and you’ve set goals for years that haven’t come to fruition, this is going to be interesting information. We’re not always aware of what’s holding us back. We may not even know it exists in our subconscious, in our energy, and is preventing us from moving forward.

Debora’s going to show us how we can overcome that. So, without any further ado, let’s welcome Debora Wayne onto the Healthpreneur podcast.

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Debora Wayne, welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast. How are you?

Debora:                                Hi! Thank you. I am fantastic and very excited to be here with you today. Thanks for inviting me.

Yuri:                      You’re very welcome. I’m grateful to have you with us because you’re doing some amazing work in the health field, in a very important segment. I don’t even know if you want to call it a segment. You specialize in helping people be pain free, which from a marketing perspective, a lot of people understand that where there’s pain and urgency, you’re going to be a lot better off.

People who deal with pain want it resolved right away. You do this in a unique way. It’s not, “Here, take a pill and you’ll get better.” It’s not like you’re a representative for Advil.

Debora:                                No. The opposite.

Yuri:                      Talk to us about how you work with people that need your service and expertise, and how you got into it in the first place.

 

Debora’s beginnings and the 3 areas that need to be cleared to live pain free

Debora:                                Well, I work with people in a unique way. Over the years, I discovered that there are three distinct, exact areas that must be cleared. We must look at and resolve the pain in three exact areas if people want to live pain free.

So, I help people go through, find, and remove pain in the belief system, the ideas, and the thinking. That’s number one. I help people find and remove the pain in the emotions, which many people aren’t even aware is a huge factor that’s causing trouble in their lives; whether in their physical health, wallet, or waistline.

Third, which is probably the most unique factor that you’re referring to, is working in the energy field. This is the most exciting, 21st century tool. I believe it is the future of our healthcare. I help people clear the energy field, which rapidly releases pain of all types, trauma, unconscious belief systems, and emotion.

It brings it all up to the surface and helps people rapidly release it and learn how to experience being pain free.

I got into this 30 years ago.

I woke up one morning, and found myself at the bottom of my beautiful walk-in closet, in my beautiful four-bedroom home in Scottsdale, Arizona, with the beautiful mountains in the backyard, the beautiful BMW in the garage, the beautiful husband, all the money in the bank, and I couldn’t get off the closet floor. And I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t get dressed. I couldn’t go on one more day feeling the pain that I was feeling. And it made no sense.

Yuri, if you would have seen my life from the outside looking in, it looked perfect. And I faked it really well, so people didn’t know that I was dying inside. And I was in so much physical, mental, and emotional pain.

My hair was falling out. I had ulcers. My thyroid didn’t work and I had digestive issues. I had total insomnia. I had to drink until I passed out every night, just to get sleep. And you know that’s not quality sleep. I could barely eat. I had two emotions, anxiety or depression. That was it. And I was a mess.

The voices in my head never shut up. It was a critical committee day and night. I opened my eyes in the morning, and was filled with tension, stress, pain, and suffering. And none of it made sense.

So I just kept trying to fake it till I made it; getting on the horse and powering through like I was taught to do. But that day, I was done. I was really done. I just sat in my closet crying. I said, “If there’s a God, I need help.” Somehow, this odd, unusual sense of peace came over me.

It was not normal for me. I got up from the floor of that closet and walked over to the telephone. We had real telephones in those days. I called a professional and asked for help.

I was out of ideas, and out of being able to fake it. It looked and felt like the worst day of my life. But I was at a crossroads that was a complete turning point.

From that day forward, it’s been an amazing journey. I got help. I ended up reinventing my entire life, getting to know who I was, and getting back in alignment with my ideal blueprint. I went back to school and started hobbies like art classes, ceramics, and dancing. I learned to salsa.

I went back and got professional education. I discovered that I absolutely adored the whole world of counseling, psychology, and paranormal psychology. I started meditating again, and I had spiritual experiences that truly blew my mind. That’s what got me on the trail of what I called spiritual healing.

It led me all the way to today. And it just continues to unfold. It’s been an amazing journey that’s not over yet by any means, but it’s just been an amazing unfolding.

Yuri:                      It sounds like it. It’s amazing, because I’m very much in line with what you do. I’m a huge believer in energetic healing and cutting cords and all that stuff. Obviously, I’m just scratching the surface. I’m obviously talking to someone who knows this way more than I do.

Is this something you discovered? Or did you go further down the rabbit hole education-wise and allow these natural skills to flourish within you?

Is working energetically something that anyone can do, or is there an innate ability whose layers must be peeled to allow to come to the surface?

 

Her journey, discovering her inner universe, teaching, and activating others

Debora:                                It’s both. That’s a brilliant question.

For me, it unfolded organically. I did go way down that rabbit hole and prepared the soil, so to speak. My life became an inward journey. I did not live a normal life. I have not owned a television set in 33 years. I didn’t sit at home at night eating pizza and watching TV.

I meditated every day. I started practicing yoga. I became an artist, a visual artist. Sometimes I would spend all week alone in my art studio without speaking to another human being. Now, I’m not saying people should do this.

I’m just sharing how my journey unfolded. I became aware of this rich inner universe.

I prayed, I meditated, I asked the universe to please show me what the hell to do with my life. I was a mess. It was partly education, but I would say the deepest education came from learning to listen to, trust, and follow my intuition, my inner guidance. I didn’t take any courses in that.

As you and some of your listeners may know, if you do things like practice yoga, tai chi, meditation, and prayer, you become aware of subtle energy. It’s obvious. I was fascinated by that and became aware, inwardly, that this could be used for healing.

I had several profound experiences that showed me this. Then I just kept asking the universe to reveal more to me. I discovered Reiki. Years ago, Reiki was not a household word like it is today. People taught it, talked about it, and practiced it in little secret societies.

I got trained in Reiki, but there was something about it that never felt 100% for me. Or just right for me. I’m not saying it’s wrong or it didn’t work. People have relaxing and good experiences, but there was something about it that didn’t click for me 100%.

In 2006, I was teaching a yoga workshop with a friend of mine on Kona, in Hawaii. I said to the group, “Hey, if anyone wants a Reiki session, I’m happy to do it while we’re here.” I set up my table in a little garden area, went to do my first session, raised my hands to start, and literally heard an inner voice say, “You’re done with Reiki. Just stand there.”

It felt like someone turned on a fire hose of vibration that was pouring out of the palms of my hands. It was undeniable. It was an undeniable force that, for the first time, 100% of me knew it was not me. I was not manipulating this. This was not a technique. This was a higher power coming through me.

Every person I worked on over that 10-day workshop had profound healing. I had never seen that before with Reiki or other things. I had studied a lot of other techniques like tuning forks and holographic patterning, and kinesiology. I had never seen what I was witnessing.

Once again, I said, “Okay, universe. I’m in. I’m not going to hide this. This is profound.” I began a two-year process of working on as many people as I could. I testing it and watched, like a scientist, recording and writing notes. I did all this crazy geeky stuff.

But then, after a few years, I discovered that I’m able to activate other people. That everyone has this ability. I believe it’s dormant DNA. And this is the divine human that we are becoming. And everyone has this potential.

Debora is not special. Debora’s not God. Debora doesn’t have a gift. It’s an inner technology. And it’s our future.

Now, I’ve been training people for years. I have yet to have anyone not able to, although some people don’t want to. And some people aren’t confident right away. Everyone can do this and get results. It’s so exciting.

Yuri:                      That’s amazing. My wife is like what you described, especially in the past year, in terms of her un-earthing the capability to do this. She was on a cruise recently, and she felt that she was literally channeling someone else’s energy, someone who had passed away.

She was with the surviving spouse, and became overcome with emotion. It was crazy. She had no idea what happened, but knew her spouse had passed away. She’s opened herself up to be able to do that.

Debora:                                Wow, that’s beautiful.

Yuri:                      It’s profound.

 

Building and growing a successful virtual business around inner technology

I appreciate how you work with people in person to create those changes. How do you take that to build a virtual business and impart that same technology online?

Debora:                                That too has been a progression. I had a one-on-one, brick and mortar practice. Over the years, I started hearing myself, every day, all day, saying the same thing over and over.

Every person I worked with would say, “I can’t talk to anyone about this. They’ll all think I’m crazy.” I’d say, “Well, I’ve just heard that 20 times today, and all week long. So no, that is not true.” I began to realize that I needed to reach more people at once, and there had to be another way.

Now, I am not a tech wizard at all. I was the last person to get a smartphone. So, the whole online thing was super intimidating to me. I didn’t even know where to begin. I found an amazing woman who was a technology person, and I shared with her what I wanted to do.

She helped build the whole back end that’s necessary, and I went down another rabbit hole – that I’m still down – learning all these moving parts that are involved. I don’t think everyone must go as far down the rabbit hole as I’ve gone, but you need to get very clear on what you want and what your mission is.

I’m one of these people. It’s not a choice for me. When I have to do something, I have to do it, and nothing will get in my way.

My parents learned that growing up. They’d say, “Well, you better not say no, because she’s going to do it anyway.” And that’s how I am. If I have a mission, it’s a calling for me. This is not, “I have a little goal.” This is a calling.

I’m obsessed with it, really. I was excited to learn everything I could about how to make this thing reach a lot of people. I started testing it. I started out small.

It’s been the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. Now I’m able to reach hundreds of thousands of people in over 150 countries. It’s happened rather quickly, but I’ve been very focused and very clear.

The number one thing that people must do is work on their mindset and clear their own fear. You can have all the greatest strategy and tactics in the world, but if you haven’t cleared internally, none of this will happen. None of it will manifest.

I continue to do work on myself in that way too, and expand my comfort zone.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. I completely agree with you in that this is the future of medicine, the future of everything.

Vibration and all this stuff is huge.

 

Tapping into what you want and the obstacles that hider you from doing so

Let’s say a business owner, an entrepreneur, has a pain in the sense that they’re not seeing the results that they want. Or, they have fear. They don’t have enough. They don’t have enough money, enough followers, enough whatever.

What are some of the signs or symptoms that someone should tap into to understand that they’re not in alignment with what it is they say they want?

Debora:                                That’s a great question. You’re right. A lot of people want goals that are really other people’s goals. Or they’ve been taught they should want.

I would say to first get quiet. Spend some time asking yourself and feeling into the essence of this desire. There’s nothing wrong with having a goal. But it must be deeper. It must be heart, soul, and mind.

If you get quiet and ask yourself, “Why do I want this? What’s deeper down? What’s the essence of this? What do I think this will bring me?” You’ll keep whittling away at that ball of string. Ask yourself, “What’s my motivation here?”

A lot of times, the same goal can be motivated by love or by fear. And they’ll have completely different outcomes and a completely different energy. You will feel completely different on that journey. They can both look like, “Wow, look at that person. They’re just doing this amazing stuff.”

But if it’s motivated by fear, it’s a completely different experience. I’m not saying you can’t make a pile of money and do good in the world. But it’s not going to be the same for you. I personally feel the highest calling is motivated by love.

Love will propel you forward during the tough times, no matter how lofty your goal. Yuri, you know better than most that there are going to be tough times, ups and downs. If it’s just motivated by something superficial, you’ll just say, “Well, to hell with this. I’m done. I’m out.”

You have to know yourself, know what’s motivating you, and know your bigger why.

Yuri:                      This is so fascinating to me because you see people who have been on the same journey for years. They have cycles. I’m an example of this. I set goals 10 years ago that I look back at and think, “Why didn’t I achieve that?” Or I look back at my journals from a year or two ago, and think, “Well, I set this goal, and I was nowhere near it. What was going on there?”

How does someone like myself, for instance, get to the root of why that is? Let’s say that I wasn’t consistent with the action that needed to happen. Or was there something else at play?

You talk about getting quiet and feeling into it. How does someone who doesn’t have the experience to even know what that feels like even get started?

 

The healing journeys that Debora has seen with the Biofield Healing

Debora:                                First of all, it’s very difficult for people to do this by themselves. Part of the problem is our own mind, and we play hide and seek from ourselves, whether we admit it or not. We all do this. We have blind spots.

It’s very easy for me to see everybody else’s stuff, but not always my own. Getting a guide that knows what they’re doing can help you through. That’s my number one suggestion.

There are multi-faceted reasons why we can’t achieve what we want. And most of these will be hidden from view. Let’s face it, if you could figure it out on your own, you would. If you’re stuck in a pattern and looping around, you’ll hear yourself saying the same thing: “I wanted that, but I didn’t get that.”

There’s multi-layered reasoning, and it always ends up back to some fear. And most people are not that in touch with their fear. They don’t want to go into it, feel it, and muck around in there by themselves because it’s uncomfortable. And they’re afraid of what will happen.

That’s where, again, having someone by your side that isn’t afraid and will help you get to the other side is so valuable. You have to look at the three-fold path.

You must look at the mental; the beliefs that are in the way. Why you didn’t hit that goal is because you have ideas and emotions about it. You have energy about it that’s either flowing or not flowing.

I’m back to my three exact things. Look at the person’s belief systems, their thinking patterns about the goal. Find out what emotions they’ve stuffed, denied, suppressed, or repressed. Energetically, at least with the work I do, it’s very easy to find where the disturbances are in the energy field so I can help that person move forward more rapidly.

Some of this stuff comes way back from childhood, before the age of eight or nine, when we aren’t even conscious of what’s harming us or creating an imprint in our thinking. I work with people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, even 80s, and its mind boggling, but true, in almost every case. I work with younger people too, and see the same thing.

My point is that people will carry a pattern from childhood through their entire life and into their 60s, 70s, and 80s. They won’t realize that they’ve got somebody else’s belief system – from before they were eight years old – and they’ve adapted it truth when it wasn’t true. They’re still participating in that same belief system, and that’s what causing the problem.

I have to help people understand, see this, and wake up to the fact that they can change it. That’s why pain is a good thing, which sounds crazy. But if the pain is there, whether it’s a monetary pain, an issue with weight, or any kind of physical, mental, or emotional dis-ease, it will keep nagging at you because some part of you knows it shouldn’t be like this. And it will get worse, not better, until you listen and learn what message is in the pain.

There’s always a reason for it. And that Advil trick, it doesn’t work. All it does is bury it down deeper, and it doesn’t get to the root. It never heals anything. And that’s why people try everything and nothing changes. Because they’re just scratching the surface.

Yuri:                      There’s a lot of that in this world nowadays. It’s superficial, surface nonsense.

How long does it typically take to start seeing progression or healing?

Debora:                                It’s different with each person. I have literally seen many people transform in an hour or less. I have seen people with 30 years of fibromyalgia, for example, walk away completely pain free and never return in less than an hour.

Someone comes to mind. He had a rare eye disease. He had spent nine years going from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist, trying all these different protocols. They wanted to do surgery.

One of his eyes was almost closed completely. He couldn’t hold his head up. This was a young guy with his own financial business. He was a brilliant guy. And he had to stop driving. Imagine that.

His wife had to drive him to work every day. He had to stop running, which was his favorite exercise.

In the very first week of my Pain Free Living program, he had such an inner shift that that very night, his eye opened and he went running the next day. He started driving the next day. He has never looked back, no pun intended.

This kind of thing happens all the time. I found over the years that the average person will experience something right away, even if it’s sleeping better and through the night for the first time in years. That’s huge, because we know we need that deep rest for the body’s self-healing mechanism to kick in.

It can be subtle, like, “Wow, I just feel more peaceful, lighter, and I slept. Finally, I slept.” Or it could be in the range of stage four cancer, where now they’re reporting to me that it’s 82% and all the tumors are reduced.

Yuri:                      It’s amazing.

Debora:                                It’s very heavy duty. And everyone’s case is different. I won’t work with anyone who won’t commit to at least a month. It just sets them up for failure to say, “Well, I just want to test it out.” You have to recognize that you have a tricky mind.

I’ve seen people become completely pain free, or change their patterns, and call me in six months and say, “The pain is back. Why is it back?” One woman comes to mind. She had neuropathy. She had total numbness and tingling. She couldn’t feel a thing in her hands and feet.

I worked with her for a month. She started having results right away. She became completely pain free. After six months to a year, she called me and said, “The pain is back. What is going on? Why is it back?”

That’s when I went deeper with her. I started looking at the beliefs and the emotions, and discovered she was super angry. An employee of hers was stealing, and she never confronted the situation. She stuffed that anger inside hoping it would just go away, and it showed up as fiery burning and tingling in her hands and feet.

I see this all the time. The body is telling the story of the consciousness. The body tells the story of your life.

If you have somebody who’s skilled and can help you go deeper and figure this puzzle out, then do the energy work on top of it, it releases. Some people need to take action, do something, say something, and learn to speak up.

What I find with the bio-field healing immersion method that I practice is that it puts people in their power very rapidly. All this other stuff was learned. We learn to shut ourselves down. We learn to be silent. We learn not to confront things. We learn to hide out and be invisible, and that’s why we feel so bad.

But when all that learned and conditioned programming comes off your field, you’re right back in your power. I work with a ton of women who tell me they feel like a doormat; they’re being abused by their boss, husband, or whatever it is.

And after one session with me, they say, “I couldn’t believe what came out of my mouth. I went home and I stood up for myself in a loving way. I said no, that’s not okay. No, I’m not willing to do that.” They’re back in their power. Because that’s our natural state.

Yuri:                      Awesome. Debora, this has been interesting and super valuable. For our listeners, it’s a different type of interview, which is great. Before we get to the five rapid fire questions, I want to make sure that we provide a way for our listeners to go deeper with you or someone who has gone through your methodologies to work with.

What is the best way for people to learn more about this and about you, and maybe take the next steps?

Debora:                                Thank you. Go to BioFieldHealingInstitute.com. You can find me and all that we’re doing there. It’s fabulous. You can reach out to us. We have real human beings that will speak with or email you to answer your questions. There are lots of no-cost resources there, too.

YouTube videos, blogs, you name it, we’ve got it all there. I’d love to help in any way that I can.

Yuri:                      I project that a lot of people can resonate with what you’re talking about. At some level, everyone is stuck and dealing with some type of pain point in their life. What you guys are offering is tremendous in terms of this approach to healing, which is very needed and not very common practice in today’s life.

So, thank you, Debora, for taking the time to share this with us. It’s been awesome. I know we could talk about this for hours. But for the sake of time, are you ready for the rapid five questions?

 

The Rapid-Five

Debora:                                I’m nervous, but I’m ready.

Yuri:                      All right. Nothing to worry about here. It’s all good.

Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Debora:                                Impatience. I want what I want when I want it. And I want it now.

Yuri:                      I know! Why can’t that tomato plant grow yesterday? I just planted the seeds. That’s the human experience, right?

Number two, what’s your biggest strength?

Debora:                                My openness, my open mindedness, my willingness to learn and grow.

Yuri:                      Nice. And the fact that you’ve had no TV, which is always a good strength to have. You haven’t missed much in 30 some odd years, so you’ll be okay.

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

Debora:                                I’m dangerously good at really deep listening.

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

Debora:                                I drink hot water and do yoga or meditation.

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

Debora:                                I know I’m being successful when I am filled with gratitude and saying, “Thank you, God, for my life. Thank you. I’m just so happy to be me.”

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. Well, that sounds great, Debora. Thank you so much for being with us on the Healthpreneur Podcast. Debora, I just want to acknowledge and thank you for all the amazing work that you’re doing. I have no doubt that it’s touching countless people’s lives.

Debora:                                Thank you so much, I’m honored to be here. And you’re amazing, too! I’m just so grateful. Thank you.

 

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Yuri’s take

I know that was a different interview than a lot of the others we’ve had on the show. I want to bring you a holistic approach to living a great life and having a great business. For us entrepreneurs, let’s be honest, business and life are one in the same.

You can’t distinguish between the two of them, and that’s the beautiful thing. When you are an artist, when you are an entrepreneur like we are, there doesn’t have to be a delineation. When you love what you do, and your life and business are all part of the same puzzle, it’s tough to say, “Well, I only work 9:00 to 5:00 in this business and then it’s off time.”

It’s just not the reality. Be okay with that and understand that stuff in your personal life affects your business. And stuff in your business affects your personal life.

I don’t have a challenge for you today. I want to leave you with something to ponder and ask yourself. If you look at the goals that you set for yourself over the last year, two years, or five years – whatever timeline is pertinent to you – have you achieved them?

If you haven’t, be realistic about why.

A lot of times we set goals and intentions, and our actions are not congruent with that. We want to go north, but our actions are taking us east. We’re compromising our ability to move in the direction we want to go.

Think about the things that you’ve set goals or intentions for in your life or business that haven’t materialized. Think about one, brutally honest, surface reason for why it hasn’t been realized.

Ask yourself if you’re really committed to achieving this goal.

If the answer is yes, what is it going to take for you to no longer use that excuse or story to keep you from that goal? So I want to leave you with that today, and I hope it finds you well.

As always, before we finish off, I’ve got two calls to action. First and foremost, subscribe to the podcast. It means a lot to me. It obviously helps you as well, because we bring tons of amazing guests on the show.

For instance, on Friday, I’ve got my good buddy Dr. Josh Axe on the show. He’s going to be talking about how he grew one of the largest health brands in the world in just four years. If you don’t want to miss that episode, subscribe to the podcast. It’s awesome, as you can probably tell.

Second, if you haven’t grabbed your copy of Health Profit Secrets, I would recommend you do so today. You can grab the book for free – yes I’ve covered the cost of the book – I just ask that you meet me half way and cover a couple dollars in shipping. You’ve got to pay to play. If you don’t pay, you don’t pay attention.

So, spend a little less than a Starbucks latte, just to cover the shipping.

If you care about building a business that impacts more people’s lives and brings you more income and freedom to allow you to live the life you deserve, then there are four key things you have to have dialed in. And that’s exactly what I walk you through in this book. The best part is that it takes about an hour to read. It’s about 63 pages.

It’s not a behemoth, 700 page, Tim Ferriss book. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not what this is. This is a quick read, it’s actionable, and it’ll change the way you look at your business. It’ll give you a simple framework through which you can approach all of your business activities in a way that moves you forward.

Grab the book over at HealthpreneurBook.com.

That’s all for today, my friends. I want to thank you so much for taking the time and being with me. I appreciate your attention. It means a lot to me. Your work means a lot to other people. Continue to go out there and be great and do great. I will see you on Friday with Dr. Josh Axe.

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https://biofieldhealinginstitute.com/

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Transcription

Today I want to talk with you about one of the worst buying experiences I was subjected to a few months ago. I was in Morocco with my family for two and a half weeks, and something happened that made me realize a terrible way to sell and be sold.

This one selling strategy will skyrocket refunds and buyer’s remorse. So, don’t do it. There’s a big lesson here.

 

Story: The worst buying experience in Morocco

Let me share with you how it all went down. My dad’s Moroccan so we go back to his hometown. We go to Club Med which is an amazing way to travel if you’ve got kids. It’s honestly the only way we travel right now with our kids.

We use that as our home base and take day trips to the mountains, markets, and ocean. It’s awesome.

So, we went to the Plas Jemaa el-Fnaa which is the big square in Marrakesh. It’s very popular and a renowned destination that is well-known throughout the world. The big square had a terrorist bombing several years ago, so thankfully that didn’t happen again.

In the square, there are snake charmers and little monkeys dressed with outfits. It’s hilarious. It felt like being in a movie back in the day like Game of Thrones or Gladiator. There are the locals, food vendors, and they’re trying to sell you stuff. It’s cool.

They’re very pushy though, so you must be okay with that. If you’re not used to that it can be very uncomfortable. Since my dad’s Moroccan and his side of the family is Moroccan, I understand that culture. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s can make you feel a little bit uneasy.

Anyway, part of this big square branches off into souks. Souks are tiny, narrow, alleyways where there are little shops on both sides. Motorbikes and donkeys hauling stuff go through these alleyways and they’re only six to eight feet wide. It’s not a huge concourse like you get in a mall in North America, but it’s a cool experience.

You get local artisans and vendors of all sorts of stuff.

We went into a carpet store. We were interested in looking at the carpets, but we weren’t there to buy a rug. We have enough rugs. It was a huge place. Very deceiving from the outside. You move the curtain back and you’re in a palace of carpets, which was cool.

A guy introduces himself and begins small talking and offers us some mint tea, which is a national treasure in Morocco. Good mint tea. He brought us some mint tea and started rolling out all these carpets, saying, “This one here is a true Arabic rug. It took two women one year to create. Take your shoes off and walk on it.” At this point, our kids were rolling all over the carpet.

We thought, “Guys what are you doing?” They were going crazy and resting on the rugs. So, he pulls out another. The rugs were big, eight by ten foot rugs, all rolled up and standing. One by one he rolled them out. We’re in there for 30 minutes by this point.

 

The problems with reciprocity: Guilt, remorse, regret

We’re having Moroccan tea and seeing all these rugs, and he got to the point where he said, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do next. You tell me which ones you like, and which ones you don’t.” I had said, “Well, first, why don’t we talk about the prices. We’re not really looking to buy a rug.” He said, “Nah, don’t worry. You tell me what you like and what you don’t like, and we’ll talk about pricing later. If it’s too much, that’s okay. If not, whatever. It’s all good, right?”

I played along. I look at it as a consumer but also from the sales perspective. I’m very interested in how people influence others to buy. I find it fascinating. So, we pointed to the rugs and said “yes” or “no” in Arabic.

Finally, there were two or three rugs left. He said, “Okay, which one out of these do you like the most?” I said, “I like that one the most, but I’ll be very honest with you, I’m not looking to buy a rug.” He responded, “No, you tell me what you think this is worth.” I didn’t know what it was worth. I had no basis of comparison other than the rugs we bought back home, which aren’t the same because they aren’t handmade.

I asked, “How much do you sell it for?” He said it was $3,500 USD, which I thought was very reasonable considering it took a woman an entire year to do by hand. It was beautiful. He asked how much I’d pay for it.  I told him, “I don’t feel comfortable negotiating this because I would not want to disrespect the craftsmanship that went into creating this rug. I feel that your price is completely valid, but I don’t want to buy the rug. I don’t need a rug.”

We got into a bit of an altercation. He started getting pissed off because he’d spent all this time showing us the rugs and giving us mint tea. I kindof felt bad because I wanted to give back.

And that’s the thing.

The one selling strategy that will skyrocket refunds and buyer’s remorse is reciprocity. That might sound a bit counterintuitive because if you’ve read Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence,” he talks a lot about how reciprocity is an important influencer to make people do things. And it is.

But it does so in a way where you don’t feel good after the fact. You see, if I had purchased that rug, it would’ve been out of a feeling of necessity to repay him for what he had for us; the Moroccan mint tea, rolling out all the rugs, taking the time with us. That is not a good enough reason to make me go from, “I don’t need a rug” to, “Okay we’ll take this rug.”

I had that interesting epiphany during the process. He started explaining, “Listen, we can ship it to you. That’s not a problem.” He started showing me how they ship it in small little bags. “We FedEx it, we can get it there in a couple days.” He finished, “You tell me right now what is your best price.”

I said, “Listen, I really appreciate your time but I don’t think you’re understanding me. I don’t need to buy the rug. I don’t even want the rug. It’s beautiful, but I don’t want it. Does that make sense?” I felt bad because he was making me feel bad for not buying from him. I believe this is a very common practice in that culture; they show you and give you free touches and demonstrations so you feel like you owe it to them to buy.

 

Scarf story: Feeling like you owe something in return

When we left that vendor, we went a little bit further down to the souks. We came across an artisanal scarf maker. He was making cool silk and cotton scarves that were naturally dyed with crystals and minerals from the earth.

It was amazing to just look at the palette of colors. It looked like a painter’s palette. It would’ve been nice to look at them, see that they were cool, and take our time. But that’s not what happened.

As soon as we got there, the merchant came over and said, “Come on in, come on in!” So, we went into the store. That’s the first step of commitment, right? We were in the process now, in the lion’s den, if you will. He started putting some scarves around the kids. “Oh, so cute! This color’s great!” All that stuff. He was giving the experience of ownership, right?

He’s put a scarf around my mom, around me, around my wife Amy, and the kids. We thought they were nice but I also thought that I didn’t need a scarf. I enjoyed wearing the scarf, so why not? I decided to have a chat about it.

So talked to us about the colors. Remember, it’s not like we went up to him and asked him about this stuff. He sucked us in to his domain and then started making us feel like we owed him something by putting on the scarves and doing the whole demonstration.

So, out of curiosity, we asked the price of the scarves. He told us about $300 USD. That’s crazy. There was no way I’d pay that. If anything, the most I’d pay would be $100 USD for the two scarves, final offer. It was interesting to go through the process because not only did they high ball you right off the bat, but how low they were willing to go was quite shocking.

He started off at $300 and literally ended up at $50 dollars for a scarf. We walked away from that whole experience because it left a bad taste in my mouth. Why ruin a great opportunity to potentially buy something when you’re put in a pressured situation?

The other thing too was that there were no prices on anything. They tell you a price and you take it at face value. Then it’s all about negotiating, but again that’s the way it works in that culture.

 

Reciprocity used for evil versus offering true value and respecting the client

The lesson I walked away with was that yes, reciprocity is a nice way to start a relationship, but if it’s used for evil to make people feel bad and like they owe you business, that is a very wrong way of selling.

And if you don’t want people to refund your stuff – whether that’s cancelling your coaching or they enroll and feel like they made the worst decision the next day – do not do this. There’s a very big difference between that and how we operate, I believe.

 

Leading by service without heavy-duty reciprocity

When we get on the phone with people for our result accelerator call, we tell them that it’ll be the most valuable 45 minutes of their time. The goal of the call is to get to the truth and figure out if they are a good fit for us and we for them. If they need it now, we can serve them.

We say, “You owe it to yourself, assuming you’re serious about doing this now, to move to the next step.” In our 45 minutes together, we help them create some breakthroughs on the phone, we show them the exact plan, and explain what to do.

It’s a lot tougher to do on one’s own and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t even bother because it’ll take forever. Or, we can help. We show them that we’re giving an element of reciprocity. We’re showing, helping, leading through the process, but when push comes to shove and they say they can’t afford it or don’t have the time, that’s okay.

It’s about understanding that. Personally, when I’m speaking with someone and they tell me they need this and the reasons why, then they use excuses like, “I need to talk to my husband,” or whatever, that gets me a little bit upset. I’ll tell you why.

The way I see it is if I let them go, I let them down. I know I can’t enroll everyone and I know that everyone’s not ready now.

I had a call with a lady recently. Her sole objective to building a health coaching business was so that she could have freedom and time to spend with her son. Right now, she’s working nine to five and barely sees her son. That was her sole driving motivation.

At the end of the call, she committed and said she wanted to talk to her husband about it. The next day she sent me an email before a follow up call we had, and she said, “I don’t think this is in my budget right now. I don’t think this is right for me.” That made me sad because she needed our help more than we need her money.

But here’s the thing that upset me the most.

She knew she needed to do this. But because she didn’t make the right decision and she let her fear stand in the way of her dream, her son is not going to see his mom for who knows how long now. She’s going to be stuck exactly where she is.

That’s what upsets me. The idea here is that you want to lead with value. Lead by showing people you can help them by helping them. But in no way, shape, or form should you make them feel bad if they don’t do business with you. Some will, some won’t, so what next?

The right people will show up if you just serve them all and let the universe figure out the rest. I don’t believe in this hardcore, heavy duty reciprocity of because I do good for you, you owe me business. It isn’t a very smart way to do things.

If I bought that scarf at full price from that vendor, I would’ve felt pretty shitty afterwards. Especially if I later found a similar type of scarf somewhere else for one tenth of the price. But, that’s the way it goes sometimes in those businesses.

I strongly discourage you from running your business that way. I don’t think you do, but I just wanted to give you some context on that.

 

The Seven Figure Health Business Blueprint makes business feel good

Hopefully you found this helpful. If you want to find a way to seamlessly enroll your ideal clients without feeling pushy or salesy, helping them see the true path, and seeing if they’re a good fit for you and you for them, then I invite you to check out our Seven Figure Health Business Blueprint.

We’ll show you the quick and new way to build a high six or seven figure health coaching business. This is perfect for health coaches, experts, or practitioners who enjoy coaching people, but not in a one-on-one fashion. We’ll show you the smarter way to do things and how to do business with people in a way that feels good. Both for you and for them.

That’s over at healthpreneurgroup.com/training and that’s all for today.

Thank you so much for taking the time to join me once again. Hopefully these little anecdotes and stories have been meaningful to you. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast on iTunes. Let us know how we can serve you. That’s why I do this podcast.

That’s all for me today. We have an amazing interview with Debora Wayne this week. I did some deep work with her a couple of months ago. I think you’ll enjoy that. She’s an amazing healer and I look forward to bringing that to you on Wednesday.

On Friday, we’re speaking with Doctor Josh Axe who probably has the most popular online natural health site in the world. He’ll talk about how he built that bad boy up in about four years from zero to some ridiculous numbers.

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

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Transcription:

Hello and welcome back to the Healthpreneur Podcast. I hope you’re having an amazing week. It’s been a pretty good week for me, but every week finishes on a high note for me, to be honest with you.

Today I’m excited to bring to you an amazing person and entrepreneur in our space, Doctor Lori Shemek. You’ll enjoy this episode because Lori has an inspiring story about her journey. She’ll share that with us in just a few moments.

She’s also a best-selling author. She’s written a published book and a self-published book. We’ll talk a bit about how to know which one is right for you.

If you’re thinking about writing a book, should you be publishing it? Should you be self-publishing it? Lori is going to share her perspective, because she’s published a book with HarperCollins and she’s self-published a book. She’ll share the pros and cons of both, and some things that you need to keep in mind. If you’re thinking of writing a book, this will make a lot of sense.

Lori Shemek is a leading fat cell researcher and a recognized authority on inflammation and its role in weight loss, preventing disease, and optimizing health. That’s what her two books are on as well. One of them is called “How to Fight FATflammation,” and the other one is called “Fire-Up Your Fat Burn!”

She has been recognized as one of the top 16 health and fitness experts alongside Doctor Oz and many other amazing influencers. She’s a regular contributor to Fox News, a health expert for the ABC TV show, Good Morning Texas. She’s been featured on CNN, Fox News, Doctor Oz’s Best Life Magazine, Health, Shape, Woman’s Day, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, and numerous others.

Without any further ado, let’s welcome Dr. Lori Shemek onto the show, and let’s dig into it. All right, Lori, welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast. How is it going?

Lori:                It’s going great, Yuri, it’s so great to be here with you. Thank you for having me.

Yuri:                 Yes, it’s a pleasure to have you onboard. I’m always excited to speak with amazing people like you in our space who are doing great things and spreading the good word. It’s funny, I was thinking like we Healthpreneurs are kind of like the Messiahs, we’re just spreading the gospel, the good word, to as many people as possible.

 

Mainstream Media and Health

We were talking before we started recording this about how shows like The Doctors or Dr. Oz are mainstream now. It’s great that we have those shows because it’s made “alternative health,” or just “health awareness” much more mainstream.

But, I’m always amazed about how many people are still completely clueless about this stuff. Do you find that? Do you feel like you’re still climbing uphill as we try to share this message?

Lori:                Yes. It’s interesting. I just had an interaction with somebody on Facebook who believes that they’re doing the right research. They posted research that essentially did not have much to do with what my post was about, but it was in response to my post.

The mainstream shows like Dr. Oz or The Doctors are great in terms of motivating people to take better care of themselves and educates them as well. But, I find that we, the people out there spreading the healthy message, don’t get enough time to educate the proper way.

A lot of misinformation gets out there and a lot of people take it, they run with it, and there you go.

Yuri:                Yeah, that’s why it’s important for listeners to believe that it’s our responsibility to be better at business. If our business is more impactful, then we can get a message in front of more people. I don’t think many of us are going to be talking heads like Dr. Oz, where everything is taken care of and we can reach tens of millions of people like that.

We have to do the work. I’m excited to help others do that.

So you’ve written a few books, “How to Fight FATflammation,” and also, “Fire-Up Your Fat Burn!”  How did you write a book? How does someone go from, “I’ve got this knowledge,” to writing a book and getting it out there?

 

Lori’s “why” and how she combined psychology with nutrition

Lori:                Do you want me to start there or when I was a little girl?

Yuri:                 Whatever is most conducive to making sense of it all.

Lori:                 I’ll just start with why I do what I do. When I was a little girl, I grew up with a mother who was mostly ill with a constant stream of different health conditions. She had no support, no family, no husband, no money, and she was a single mother raising three young children, all on her own.

She was under enormous stress, and that combined with the health conditions resulted in me overseeing the family and taking care of things. My mother died at a very young age, 36, and left behind three young children with nowhere to go.

At her memorial service, I made it my mission, essentially, to help people. That’s what I wanted to do, because I saw how helpless my mother was, especially in her mindset. She felt like this was her lot in life, she had no choices, and that was it.

I firmly believe that what we say to ourselves and the thoughts we think have a huge impact, not just on our health, but in other areas such as business.

I went to school and became a family counselor. I had a side passion for nutrition and health. I wrote nutritional plans for my clients, and it was remarkable how my clients’ and their children’s health changed simply from changing their foods.

Years went on, and I decided to go back to school, get my degree in nutrition, and combine my background in psychology with my nutrition degree to help my clients have a better experience in terms of behavioral techniques, etc. I married the two, and created my own business.

And that’s why I do what I do now. That, over the years, led me down the road to writing these two books; my first, “Fire-Up Your Fat Burn!” and my last book, “How to Fight FATflammation.”

 

Lori’s books, how they’ve impacted her business, and the publishing process

Yuri:                Awesome. What did the process look like for you? Were these self-published or published? What did that whole thing look like?

Lori:                Yes. The first one was self-published. A lot of it was based on inflammation. My expertise is inflammation, as well. That book is a quick book to read if you need to get on the road to weight loss success right away.

My next book, “How to Fight FATflammation,” came out with HarperCollins. It was about inflammation and how inflamed fat cells are the core underlying cause of weight gain and core health, as you know. That book is about promoting optimal health and weight loss by reversing cellular inflammation.

Yuri:                Very cool. Did you find that the books contributed to your brand and business? Did they have a positive impact? How did that look like for you?

Lori:                It was a positive impact. When you have a book, you are seen as more credible in your knowledge. That is one. It bumped up my interview requests and speaking engagements. If I could recommend one thing for people to do, it’s to write a book.

If you have knowledge or expertise in one area, I highly recommend you do that. It helps you spread your message. Then, other people want to help you spread that message by inviting you on radio, TV, etc.

Yuri:                What advice would you give someone who wants to write a book? What do they need to consider when deciding to publish or self-publish? What are some things they might not even be aware of?

Lori:                Good question. Since I’ve done both, I can tell you that both have their benefits. If you get a good book deal, it’s a great advance. That’s a benefit. But, if it doesn’t sell well, then that’s not so great.

But, if you self-publish, you have the rights to the book. I can put “Fire-Up Your Fat Burn!” on sale, I can give it away, I can do whatever I want with it. With my HarperCollins book, they own the book. I can’t do that. I can’t do what I want to promote the book itself.

I can promote the book, which I do, but I can’t put it on sale. I can’t sell it in any way, shape or form, except on their platforms.

Yuri:                Did you enjoy working with them as a publisher? Did you find that they were somewhat with the times, or still a little bit archaic like some of the other publishing houses?

Lori:                They had their issues, for sure, but overall I enjoyed the whole process. It was a wonderful experience. But, in terms of marketing, I came in not knowing that you’re supposed to use part of your advance to market your book. They only do two months, and not that great.

I had no idea how to promote. I did the research and did what I could. Unfortunately, I learned how to do all that after the fact. My next book is going to be a whole different animal in terms of that.

I would say to be prepared to spend money on marketing and advertising your book. Make sure that you do pre-sale campaigns. Learn all those things before you even write the book.

Yuri:                It’s funny because the book, in some ways, is the least important part of the whole equation. Unless it’s an amazing outlier that everyone wants to share. You’re competing with so many other books in the space so you must get it above the noise.

Lori:                Right, that’s excellent. That’s what I didn’t know. I thought HarperCollins was going to take it and run with it.

Yuri:                Totally. That’s why we’re here and talking about this. Maybe there’s someone listening who is writing a book, or thinking of one, and realizing, “Oh, my God, maybe I should think of the marketing of it.” It does make a big difference.

Outside of the book, when you look at your journey over the past couple years, what’s one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in business? What did you learn from it, and how did you overcome it?

 

Narrowing your market, finding your clients, and addressing their pain point

Lori:                I had a business coach. My whole goal was to help my clients create optimal health. She said to me “Lori, people just don’t wake up in the morning and decide they want to create optimal health. You must address their pain points.” I thought about it and realized that all my clients are overweight.

That’s when I decided to shift over solely to weight loss. In effect, they are creating optimal health when they lose weight. They are reversing inflammation throughout the body and so much more. It was a win-win for me to do that, and for my clients as well.

That was the first stumbling block for me. I thought everybody wanted to create optimal health, but it didn’t come out that way. It’s about addressing people’s pain points, whatever your business.

Yuri:                That’s a good point. I talked about this briefly in the last episode. A lot of us health entrepreneurs are guilty of being idealists. We say, “This is what people need. This is the way it should be.” But a lot of times people just want to lose the weight, right?

We should meet them where they’re at, give them what they want, and then move them down a path where optimal health is just a byproduct of what they’re doing.

Lori:                Right. Absolutely. They’re so happy once they start feeling that optimized health. Their life changes. I know you know this.

Another one is finding clients. I still struggle with that to this day. I’m in the media a lot, but that doesn’t translate to a lot of clients.

That’s part of what I do. It comes and goes. My clients get better, they go away, and I find more. It’s a constant flow, if you will, in or out. What I love about what you offer, Yuri, is that you say, “Okay, you don’t have to base your business solely on clients. It’s more of a machine that you can use. You can go on vacation, still make money, and serve a lot more people that way.”

Yuri:                Thank you. I’ve noticed a huge change in the marketplace in the last 10, even five years ago. I talked about this at Healthpreneur Live. I think the biggest opportunity for businesses or entrepreneurs in any market right now is going back to the personal touch, like the one-on-one and the one-on-many.

Products are becoming so commoditized; whether it’s information, or even supplements in some cases. It’s having a balance of both. If you’re only providing a service, you’re missing out. If you’re only producing products, you’re missing out.

Just look at the lifestyle you want and building around that. If you still want to work with clients you can, but it’s on your schedule because you have other leveraged courses or products that are doing their thing as well.

But, I do think there has been a swing, a pendulum, in the market right now. There’s a huge opportunity for this personal connection. I think people will pay a premium for that type of service.

Lori:                Some people absolutely need that personal touch. They need the accountability of a live person as opposed to a program, for example. You lose double your weight loss if you write down your goals. That’s a form of accountability. But some people need to go beyond that, they need a human being.

Yuri:                They can lend themselves nicely to each other. It can start with the book, then people can ascend into working with you more closely.

Lori:                Right, exactly.

 

The road to optimal health

Yuri:                What motivates you to do what you do? What’s the driving force behind wanting to impact people and help them understand inflammation and help them lose weight? What’s the big driver there for you?

 Lori:                I want everyone to understand that they have control of their health. I’ve been so interested in nutrition and health since I was a little girl. My mother was in the nursing field, and she had tons of books on health and nutrition.

Even when I was a young child, I sat on the floor reading, perusing, and eating them all up. That has followed me throughout my life. I would say that my message and my mission, deep in my heart, is to help as many people as I can change their life for the better.

If we don’t have our health, what do we have, really? Not a quality life, that’s for sure.

 

Yuri:                That’s great. That’s why I love this space. Everyone is coming from such a genuine place of – in some way, shape, or form – their own suffering which they want to help others avoid. It’s awesome. I’m stoked for all the work that you’re doing.

Lori:                Thank you. The feeling is mutual, by the way.

 

Putting yourself out there and staying consistent

Yuri:                Thank you very much. What do you think is one important skill or trait that entrepreneurs must have for lasting success?

Lori:                Just one?

Yuri:                You can name a few, if you want.

Lori:                Number one, putting your introverted, shy self on the shelf. Take that step forward. Be brave and be more public about who you are. That’s important because that gets your message out there.

Believe me, if I can do it, anyone can do it. I was terrified to speak when I first started. It became, eventually, after the first couple times, fun to do. I never thought, in a million years, that I would love to do public speaking.

I just love it now. I never thought I’d be any good at it, and apparently, I am. The same goes for writing. I never liked to do a lot of writing when I was younger, and the last thing I thought was that I’d be writing for a living, in a sense.

Turns out that I ended up writing every day. I wrote two books, I write articles, blogs, etc. Even though you think that you may not be good at something, or you don’t like something, give it a try.

The next thing is to be consistent. That’s an important part of putting out your message, and creating a more successful business.

Yuri:                I agree with that for sure. The consistency thing is huge. Something I learned from a coaching session with one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, is that the world is very uncertain. They look to us for certainty. Part of that certainty comes from consistency.

It would be like watching a TV show, and saying, “What happened to Thursday nights at 8:00? It just disappeared?” It wouldn’t feel very reassuring to us. I think that the consistency component is massively important.

How does that show up for you? Does that mean consistent actions? Does it translate into the frequency or the publishing schedule you have for your content?

Lori:                Yes. It’s about making a concerted effort every day to do something that is going to put out content. In terms of videos, I just started doing Facebook Live videos. Again, consistently. That helps get your message out there as well.

As you know, Facebook loves videos. That’s another important component. But yes, writing, writing blogs, working on my new book, all those things are just parts of what I do in terms of consistency. Seeing clients, making sure that I’m out there in social media, my Twitter, and my Facebook accounts. Any account out there is important.

I’m not sure if you are familiar with Anchor Radio.

Yuri:                No.

 

A new podcasting platform called Anchor Radio

Lori:                If you’re not technology minded, as I am not, there’s a format called Anchor where you can create your own podcast from your phone. It publishes to iTunes and all other major platforms. You can have your podcast very easily. If you consider it, you won’t believe how easy it is. It’s a great vehicle.

Consistency is important if you have a podcast. I eventually will have a full-fledged podcast, but not right now. Those are just a few of the things that I find are very important to getting your message out.

Yuri:                Nice. That Anchor app could be very interesting for us. We’ve got a pretty good process with this podcast, but maybe it’s a click of a button, and half the stuff we’re doing is unnecessary.

It’s so cool how this stuff is available and just keeps coming out.

Lori:                Right. I believe, if you have a podcast, you can just send it to Anchor. I’m not sure because it’s a brand-new platform. The great thing about it is that people can leave comments, and you can reply to them. They call in to your station. It’s a great way to get little healthy bites out there.

Yuri:                Nice, very cool. I will check it out. Listeners, if you are aware of Anchor, awesome. If you’re not and you’re interested in doing a podcast, check it out.

I’m of big believer in mindset, and I think everything starts with mindset. What’s one limiting belief you’ve had to overcome on this entrepreneurial journey?

Lori:                I would say never believing that you ever should settle for less than what you can be. I think that’s important, because it’s about facing our fears and taking steps towards what we want in our business and for ourselves.

Like I said earlier, just leaving the scared, fearful person behind on the shelf, and just stepping out of your comfort zone.

I would also say to value yourself. You deserve to be happy. You deserve what you want in life. It’s just up to us to educate ourselves and know we have the power to do that.

Yuri:                Awesome. Good stuff, Lori, thank you so much for sharing that.

Lori:                You are so welcome.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                Are you ready for the Rapid Five?

Lori:                Okay.

Yuri:                All right. Five questions, and you have no idea what they are. Whatever comes top of mind is probably the right answer, because I believe intuition, or your gut, is right most of the time.

One, what is your biggest weakness?

Lori:                Staying motivated to get that content. Being consistent. Staying on top of myself to do it because of distractions.

Yuri:                Let me expand upon that for a second. Speaking from my own experience, it’s challenging to stay motivated when you don’t see the feedback or positive reinforcement from your action. At least for me. Is that something you’ve experienced?

Lori:                Exactly. Me, too.

Yuri:                How do you get through that?

Lori:                This is so funny. I always think I’m out there on Twitter or Facebook putting out little healthy bites. I think I’m just all by myself, putting this content out. Then, every so often, somebody will say, “You changed my life. You don’t know what kind of impact your book had on me,” or whatever.

I remember those, and that’s what drives and motivates me. There are many people out there who are listening to all of us. It’s our mission to help change their health.

Yuri:                Beautiful. Love it. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Lori:                I would say it is overcoming what I believe is scary. Being brave when I feel fearful.

Yuri:                That’s big. It’s a scary world as an entrepreneur sometimes. But it’s worth it.

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

Lori:                I would probably say social media. If not social media, then writing.

Yuri:                They tie in together beautifully, so it’s a good pairing.

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

Lori:                The first thing I do is say three things I’m grateful for. Right then and there, before I even move out of bed. That is the very first thing that I do in the morning. Then, I drink my water first, as soon as I rise, and go get some coffee.

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

Lori:                When I feel consistent, and am proud of the work I’m putting out.

Yuri:                Great. You should be, because you’re doing amazing things and transforming lives. Lori, thank you so much for being with us on the Healthpreneur Podcast. This has been a lot of fun. What’s the best place for our listeners to follow your work online?

Lori:                Thank you so much for having me, Yuri. They can find me at DrLoriShemek.com. I have all sorts of information on health, and a wealthy, healthy life. Also, you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and iTunes as “The Health Transformation Show!”

Yuri:                Awesome. Lori, thank you once again for being with us, for sharing your journey, for sharing your highs and lows, for just being awesome, for what you’re doing, and for serving as many people as possible to achieve their goals. Thank you so much for sharing.

Lori:                Thank you, Yuri. I feel the very same about you. I have so much gratitude for you.

Yuri:                Thank you very much.

 

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Yuri’s Take

All right, folks, that is all the time we have today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. No action steps from me today, I’m going to give you the weekend off from thinking. Enjoy whatever life throws your way, or whatever you throw life’s way.

Two calls to action:

One, please subscribe to the podcast. If you’re a first-time listener, welcome! If you’ve enjoyed this episode, we’ve got other amazing interviews and solo rounds that are geared towards inspiring you to move your business forward. What you do makes a difference.

You’re a health, fitness, or wellness entrepreneur, and what you do is very special. I’m here with this podcast to remind you of that consistently, and to remind you that the journey takes time. Overnight success is very, very rare.

You should be realistic with that, especially today, where all we see are the flashy highlight reels on social media. I want to bring to you the reality.

Be realistic about what is involved in building a business, because building a business and being an entrepreneur is tough.

But it’s highly rewarding.

It doesn’t have to be a struggle. You’re going to learn from other people, including myself, who have done some amazing things in their business to impact a lot of people’s lives. Now they live great lives instead of trading time for money and working themselves into the ground.

If that’s of interest to you, subscribe to the podcast. If you’ve already subscribed and you get all that, just fast forward what I just said.

Second, I’ve got an amazing book for you called “Health Profits Secrets.” It’s going to show you the four fundamental secrets to growing a successful business in the health and fitness space, specifically online. It also applies to any business offline as well.

If you want to discover that, and figure out where you score in those four key areas, you’ll actually get a score card inside the book, which will help you identify where your weaknesses are, how we can fill those gaps, and really move you forward to a much more profitable business.

You can grab the book for free over at Healthpreneurbook.com. That is all for today, my friends. Thank you so much for being with me. I appreciate your attention, I appreciate your loyalty, and I hope you have an amazing weekend. I will see you on Monday with another amazing solo round. For now, continue to be great, to do great, and I’ll talk to you then.

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Follow Dr. Lori Shemek At:

https://drlorishemek.com/

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Transcription

Hey guys, Yuri Elkaim here. Welcome to episode 91 of the Healthpreneur Podcast. We’re getting close to 100! We might have to do something special for that.

I hope you’re having a great week. Today, we are speaking with a great naturopathic doctor out of Toronto. Her name is Dr. Andra Campitelli. She is cool, as you’re going to find out in this interview.

Let me give you a bit of her background.

She’s a leading naturopath in the North American world. She’s a media expert and educator, and she divides her time between her Toronto-based practice and working extensively in the nutraceutical industry. She’s also a public speaker and travels the world giving amazing talks to many people on a variety of health topics.

She’s appeared on pretty much all the major media outlets in Canada; ones like the Marilyn Denis Show, CBC, CP24, and CTV News. She was also a guest expert on Mission Makeover season three, which is a reality show airing on the Lifetime network.

As you’re going to find out, Andra is a lifelong entrepreneur. That’s one of the big things that separates her from a lot of other practitioners in the space who might not have the degree of “success” that Andra’s enjoyed, because she understands the idea of building your own business. You can’t rely on people landing on your front door.

She’s going to share some of the things that she’s done to grow her practice and her brand. She’ll talk about how speaking has impacted her brand, her message, and how it has built her practice as well. We’ll also talk about one of her funny weaknesses, which I’ll keep as a surprise until we get there.

It’s going to be a lot of fun. I think you’ll get a lot of great insight out of this interview. If you’re a naturopathic doctor or a clinician, I think some of Andra’s insights into how she works with her clients can be extremely valuable as well. It’s a different take on meeting people where they’re at. Anyways, I’ll save that for the interview.

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

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Andra:                  I am great. Thanks so much for having me.

Yuri:                      You are very welcome. It’s great to have you here because I’m obsessed with having amazing conversations with remarkable entrepreneurs in our space, and you’re one of them. I’m really excited to have you here.

Andra:                  Thank you.

Yuri:                      For our listeners who may not know who you are, you’re a naturopathic doctor. How and why did you get into the profession of naturopathic medicine?

Andra:                  That’s a great question, and how I came around to this route is a longish story. I always knew that I wanted to be a doctor. That’s something I’ve known since childhood, since I was about eight years old. So, I always knew that that’s what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be in the healthcare field and help people as much as I could. Initially, I thought I wanted to be a medical doctor. I was all set to go, I wrote my MCAT, and right before I was about to apply, I met a naturopathic doctor. When I started speaking with her, I thought, “Oh my goodness, there’s a whole other field of medicine that practices exactly how I want to practice.”

I had my own health issues and I’d gone through the medical system and six years of misdiagnosis. I met a naturopath, she fixed me up within an hour, and that changed my entire life course. From that point forward I knew, “This is what I need to do.”

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. It’s unfortunate that people experience that. I was the same way. I was very inspired in my second year of university by one of my professors. He was the sport medicine doctor for the Toronto Raptors and I thought, “This guy’s amazing. I want to do this.” Then, a year later, I didn’t want to anymore.

I’m happy I didn’t go down the medical route, but I have the highest regard for NDs because what you do and are capable of doing is so tremendous and it’s touched my health in many ways for years. It’s such a great profession that hopefully continues to flourish and become more mainstream.

Andra:                  Thanks, I agree. I think the awareness is starting to grow. I think the best care is merging, so MD/ND. You can merge them all together, and I think more and more people are becoming aware that that is the best way for optimal healthcare. I think the profession is growing and people are becoming more aware of what we can offer.

 

How public speaking and connecting with others has benefited her business

Yuri:                      Totally. Talk to us about your business model. You do more than just the clinical stuff. What are the different elements that you offer to serve your audience and clients?

Andra:                  I do a few different things. One of my favorite things is public speaking. I’ve always loved that. I used to enter speech competitions in elementary school. I wanted to make sure that was something I could incorporate into my career.

I do love clinical practice and treating my patients one-on-one. Obviously, I love to do that, but I also enjoy the public speaking aspect, so I travel a fair bit. I speak frequently in the U.S. and I’m heading to Europe next week as well. I love educating on functional medicine and integrated medicine. That’s a huge aspect of what I do.

I like to write a lot so I have a lot of articles and e-books that I’ve written, so I like to try and educate in that sense. I love that one-on-one interaction, but I have a lot of diverse interests, so I want to make sure I dip my hand into all of them.

I also do a lot of product formulation, so a lot of supplements. I’ve launched my own supplement company. I like to make sure I have a few different things. It’s a well-rounded aspect of what I do.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. How has speaking impacted your business?

Andra:                  The speaking has been great for my business. It’s a great way to get my message out. I love what I do, so it’s grown awareness, my business, has built my practice, and has substantially increased my practice base. There have been a lot of business impacts from that, but it’s just something I love to do. It helps my business and fuels my personal need and passion as well, so it’s a dual function that way.

Yuri:                      Totally. I know a lot of our listeners in this space want to do more speaking. I think all of us health practitioners love teaching. How does somebody who’s a naturopathic doctor, or any other professional or expert in this space, start? How do they get into it and get to a point where they’re demanded to speak on different stages throughout the world?

 

The work it takes to launch a business

Andra:                  That’s a good question. It’s a lot of work. I mean, as everyone knows, being an entrepreneur is a lot of work. I remember when I first launched my business I used to sleep with my laptop, and I know that is not even remotely naturopathic. The last thing I did before bed was write articles, update whatever I needed to, and connect with people.

I would shut my laptop, go to sleep, wake up in the morning, and the first thing I would do was open my laptop while I was still in bed and keep working. The way I started was just connecting with people, talking with people, asking for help. I had a lot of friends in the health industry and I said, “Okay, this is what I want to do. Do you know anyone who has experience in this space?”

When you start asking questions, you learn how much people want to help you. People do want to help other people grow their business. They would say, “You know, I know this guy who’s worked in the supplement industry before. What you’re doing sounds interesting. I’ll hook you up and have a coffee.”

 

I would have coffee with people who had done it, and that was it. I just started booking meetings, meeting people, and asking questions. People were so open and willing to share and give guidance on what I could do and how to grow. That was how I started. Every day I was meeting someone new. I also joined health networking groups.

It’s definitely a lot of work, but that was essentially how I started. I had a lot of help and some great, lovely, kind people offered me a lot of advice which I will always appreciate. That was my journey in the very beginning.

 

Failure, being persistent, knowing your passion, and kindly protecting yourself

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. What was one piece of advice that made an impact in how you went about doing what you do?

Andra:                  The one piece of advice – and it sounds so cliché – but it was the thought around failure, which is that it’s never a failure. You just have to keep going and keep pushing. Everyone said, “Keep going, if you believe in what you’re doing. There are so many people who are going to tell you you’re crazy and what you’re doing isn’t going to work. Why are you working so hard?”

Again, as entrepreneurs, we work a lot. You miss family events. You miss going out with your friends. People don’t understand why you’re doing it. It was one of those things where I was advised to, “Just ignore the noise around you. If this is your passion and what you want to do, you just keep going.” That’s what I did. I just kept going.

For sure you get doors shut in your face. Just keep going. Keep pursuing and if this is what you want, if you get shot down five times, keep going until you succeed in making it happen.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome.

Andra:                  I had a lot of people supporting me and encouraging me to keep doing that. That was probably one of the biggest lessons I had from the very beginning, which was helpful for me.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. What do you say to someone who might not have the resilience that you have? What if they say, “Everyone’s saying no to me,” or, “This is not going to work.”

What words of encouragement would you give them?

Andra:                  I’ll ask, “What is your passion? What fulfills you and what makes you happy?” If it’s your passion and it fulfills you, then it won’t feel like work because you’re so driven by what you’re doing. Even if you’re getting shut down or you’re not quite succeeding the way you want to, you still have that drive because it’s something that comes from inside of you.

Something you’re passionate about versus trying to make a success out of something you don’t care all that much about – there’s a big difference. Just make sure you’re passionate about it and the drive will stay.

Yuri:                      That’s good advice. Right now, as you’ve gone on your journey building your practice and your speaking side of things, what’s one lesson you’ve had to learn the hard way?

Andra:                  Oh, I’ve had a lot of hard lessons. There is an aspect of having to protect yourself a little bit. When it comes to success, I believe you can succeed without stepping on other people, putting people down, or sabotaging other people. I do firmly believe you can be successful and kind and work with other people.

It’s not about beating somebody else. It’s about working with everyone in your field and helping to build them, not tearing them down. I think one of my bigger lessons is that you have to understand that some people will try and do that.

I’ve had some people who didn’t always have my best interests at heart. I still approach everything openly and everyone gets the benefit of the doubt. But I did learn that sometimes you do have to sign that dotted line before you move forward. Maybe it won’t work in your favor if you don’t do that, so things can end badly for you. People you trusted maybe weren’t as trustworthy as you once thought.

I learned to be more aware and protect myself, but kindly. I don’t need to be mean, but I still make sure as I move forward that I’m making the right choices so it doesn’t work against me later.

Yuri:                      That makes sense. If you were to start all over again, knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently in your business or in the building of it?

Andra:                  You know what, I have to say no. I love the process that I went through. Everyone’s got bad experiences. My first year out of school I started working for a clinic and it was just a disaster that did not work out well. But that fueled my business.

I’ve always been very entrepreneurial. Even when I was in school I was starting businesses on the side. I start working for this clinic, and I was there for about seven months. One day, I just thought, “Okay, this is done.” I launched my business in a month.

As much as I want to say that I could have avoided that one bad experience, to be honest, it fueled the start of my current business. Within one month I said, “Let’s do this. It’s time. I want to be happy, I want to be fulfilled. Let’s go.”

Yuri:                      That’s awesome.

Andra:                  That’s what prompted me to get started.

 

What sets apart a successful practitioner and how to brand-build in the space

Yuri:                      I went to UFT, graduated with 100 people in my class, and I was the only person to go the entrepreneurial route. Everyone else went into chiropractics, naturopathic medicine, or teaching. I’m sure it was very similar with your graduating class.

When you look at yourself or other “successful” naturopathic doctors who’ve broken the mold, what do you think are the differentiating factors between those who have done well in their practice or are getting their message out to more people, versus those that are stuck in the clinic working for someone else?

Andra:                  Our profession is really a business. You must know how to grow a business. The people I think have done quite well have created a brand for themselves, and they’ve turned it into more of an entrepreneurial pursuit than just a working in a clinic. It’s creating a brand, understanding the message that you’re trying to put out to people, and you’ve got to work for it.

People don’t realize how much work they have to put into it.

Yuri:                      That makes sense. What I love about naturopathic doctors as well as chiros is that it’s not an inbound type of practice. Doctors get patients referred to them all the time, but as a naturopath, you’re having to go out, fend for yourself, and acquire your clients for the most part.

Andra:                  Absolutely.

 

Public speaking to build your business

Yuri:                      That entrepreneurial spirit is definitely important. In terms of growing your presence and getting your message out, what are some of the things that have worked well from a marketing perspective for your business and brand?

Andra:                  For my brand the biggest thing is the public speaking. I still do a lot of articles and things like that, but I think it’s the public speaking. Just getting yourself and your message out there, even if it’s not public speaking but just connecting with people and networking. It’s not necessarily selling all the time, but just making people aware of what you do, who you are, that you’re there, and what you offer.

That’s all I did the first years of my business. Networking groups, lunches, and chatting with people grew my business because that’s how you make a presence and make yourself known in the space.

 

Plan C Hangover Cure and how Andra works with her clients to get them results

Yuri:                      Great advice. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have a supplement for a nutraceutical that helps with hangovers?

Andra:                  That’s correct. Yes I do.

Yuri:                      Tell us how that came about.

Andra:                  Plan C is the supplement company. It’s funny, I’ve always known, even from when I was in school, that I wanted to launch that.

Yuri:                      Was that based on heavy drinking experiences?

Andra:                  You know what the funny thing is? No!

I was in school for nine years. I was in the library way too much. I remember, after graduating, that’s when I actually thought, “Oh hey, I can go out on a Tuesday. Who knew?” That’s when I started to have a life again.

My parents were very social, and with my background and culture, the wine with food was a natural part of growing up. As you get older, even after one or two glasses of wine, you wake up the next day and say, “Oh my goodness.”

You can’t handle even a glass or two. I had patients who would come in and say, “My alcohol tolerance has gone down.” Or people who are going for a bachelorette or a bachelor party and will be drinking excessively, but still want to be functional the next day.

I was giving them random supplements to take to help with that. Some people will say to me, “Well, why don’t you tell them not to drink?” I could tell them that, but the whole point is to help people be healthy in their own life and in a way that works for them.

If they’re drinking to a point where it’s detrimental to their health, then I’ll tell them not to drink. But you know what? If they want to go out drinking for one night, that’s your choice. Go for it. I’m going to help you be functional the next day.

That’s how Plan C came about. Finally, since I was giving all this stuff to my patients and the number of patients who asked me for it was astronomical, I decided to make my own. That’s what I did.

 

Giving your clients what they need, not what you want

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. It’s so smart. So often, and I’ve been guilty of this in the past too, in the health profession we like to say, “This is what people need,” or, “This is what they should be doing.” But the reality is that people just want to drink.

Why not just meet them where they are and help them out a little bit? Obviously, we want to encourage them not to go excessive, but it’s just such a natural, easy, frictionless type of offer: “Hey guys, if you’re going to have a bender this weekend, use this.” They’ll be thankful for your understanding.

That just makes sense to me.

Andra:                  I agree with that and that’s the thing. Life is meant to be enjoyed, so if they’re going to enjoy it in that way, I’m not judging. If that’s what you want to do for your weekend, amazing. Let’s just get you back on track after that. I mean, you’ve got to live your life in a way that works for you.

Yuri:                      Yeah. From a patient perspective, when people come to see you, are they ready to give things up, or is there still a lot of resistance?

Andra:                  Some people are, and some people aren’t. I try to make it a funny and relaxed visit with my patients. I want to laugh with them and just make people comfortable. I’ll crack jokes like, “Alright, I’m going to take your dairy, but I’m going to leave your wine. Fair? Work with me.”

Or if they’re telling me that they love bread I’ll say, “You’re going to hate me at the end of this, because you know I’m going to take that out, right?” They’re like, “I know.”

I just try and make it fun. Some people are resistant, but most people that come in are there because they want to make a change. They want that help. So we just end up laughing about it. “Yeah, you’re going to be that person. You’re going to be that one making modifications on everything you eat in a restaurant. Just accept it, and you’re good.”

Then the resistance goes down a little bit. Some people will follow it, some people won’t, but at the end of the day if there’s at least a reduction or a small change, then that’s great.

Yuri:                      I’m sure they appreciate that as opposed thinking, “Oh my God, my naturopath is a Nazi and I can’t do anything.”

It’s more approachable, which I think a lot of people need.

Andra:                  I’ve had a lot of patients say that. They’re afraid to tell me that they drink. Or I’ll ask them about their diet and they say, “Oh, I eat terribly,” and they’re afraid to tell me.

I’ll say, “It’s fine. What is the one thing that you are not willing to give up?” Some people will say alcohol or whatever. I’ll say, “Okay, so if that’s your thing and you want to have wine every day, then you’re just going to have to accept that we have to make some other changes. We’ll make you healthy but not take away everything you love.” Because what’s the point in doing that?

You just work with them. And that seems to work with my patients.

Yuri:                      A cool pattern interrupt – I don’t know if anyone’s ever done this, but I certainly would if I had my own practice, just as a joke – would be to have a glass of wine and some breadsticks in your office as you’re doing a consult with people. They’ll say, “Is this for real? What’s going on here?”

Andra:                  Oh my goodness, I’m totally trying that out.

Yuri:                      You should, that would be awesome. Just have a closed-circuit camera capturing it. That would be funny.

Andra:                  That’s great.

 

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                      Alright, so this has been a lot of fun. Are you ready for the rapid five?

Andra:                  Yes, let’s do it.

Yuri:                      Alright. You’ve got no idea what the questions are. Our listeners do by this point. Whatever comes top of mind is probably the right answer. Here we go, number one. What is your biggest weakness?

Andra:                  Two things come to mind.

Yuri:                      Yeah, go for it.

Andra:                  The first is Sour Jujubes from Bulk Barn.

Yuri:                      Sour Jujubes. Nice.

Andra:                  That’s my biggest weakness. The second one is that I think I can take on anything, but then I crash. I rarely say no. I say, “Yeah, sure, I can do that. Of course, I can do that.” Then, by the end I’m like, “Why did I think I could do all these 900 things? It’s time to say no.”

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. Going back to the Sour Jujubes, are we talking Maynard’s?

Andra:                  No, so you can only get them at Bulk Barn. You can’t buy it as a package anywhere. It’s just at Bulk Barn. Every now and then, on a Friday, I stop by Bulk Barn and get a little bag of Sour Jujubes and a bottle of wine.

 Yuri:                      Nice.

Andra:                  That’s my little treat for myself.

Yuri:                      Very nice. What’s your biggest strength?

 Andra:                  That I have a strong, persistent personality. Not overbearing in any way, but if I what I want to accomplish something, I can accomplish it. In my head, I will accomplish it.

I’ll just keep going until I do it.

Yuri:                      One of the biggest commonalities with successful entrepreneurs we’ve spoken to is that persistence, that resilience, that never-giving-up attitude, because it’s so needed. It’s easy to say, “That’s not working, I’m going to fold up shop,” but that’s great.

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

Andra:                  That’s a good question. I would say, again, the public speaking aspect. Actually, I’m going to say two things: The public speaking, one, and the second thing is recognizing what other people need from me.

I can meet people where they’re at and read their energy very well. I know how to talk to someone so that we’re on the same page. I’ve become very good at that.

Yuri:                      That’s great.

Andra:                  I know how to navigate conversations, what to hold back, and when I should say something. That’s a skill that I think has worked very well for me up to this point.

Yuri:                      That’s wicked. That emotional intelligence and that degree of empathy is huge. That’s great. What do you do first thing in the morning?

Andra:                  Make myself a cup of coffee.

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

Andra:                  When I feel fulfilled and satisfied.

Yuri:                      Excellent. Well, there we go guys. Dr. Andra Campitelli, thank you so much for being with us on the Healthpreneur Podcast. Where’s the best place people can go to follow your work or even consult or inquire about your services?

Andra:                  You can find me online at DrAndiND.com, and you can find me at that same handle on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Thanks so much for having me. This was great.

Yuri:                      You are very welcome. Once again Andra, thank you so much for taking the time. This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate all the work you do to spread the message of health to serve the people that you work with and speak to, so thank you so much for doing what you do.

Andra:                  Oh, thanks. I appreciate that.

Yuri:                      You’re welcome.

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Yuri’s Take

I hope you’ve enjoyed that interview. One of the things I want to leave you with today is the idea of meeting people where they are at. If you’re serving patients or customers online or in any way, shape, or form – which I think we’re all doing – be realistic about the fact that we can’t force people to change. They can only come to us willing to change.

Andra’s Plan C recovery supplement is such a great idea because people are going to drink. So why don’t we just offer them something that’ll make it a little bit easier the next day? I’m probably the guiltiest of this out of anyone I know, but we tend to be optimistic and idealists.

We think this is the way the world should be. This is what people should be doing. This is what they should be eating. This is what they shouldn’t be doing. We try to force stuff onto them.

Oftentimes, when we’re met with resistance in that people don’t buy what we’re selling or offering, it’s because of that. We are trying to push stuff onto people that they have no interest in.

We want to find, as marketers here, that balance with giving people exactly what they want. Generally, that’s going to do a lot better than trying to force stuff on them that we think they need. Maybe you’re already doing this in a way. Maybe you’re someone like me who, when I was starting out, was creating things that I thought people wanted, but it was just my projection of what I thought they needed.

If you’re that type of person as well, I challenge you to think, “Am I offering stuff that people actually are dying to buy? The easiest way to tell is to just look at your sales. If people are banging down your door and they can’t get enough of whatever it is you’re selling, then what it is you’re selling is probably something they want.

Now, if you’re having a tough time generating sales, maybe what you’re offering is something people don’t want. I know that’s a bitter pill to swallow, but that’s the reality guys. I want to help you avoid a lot of the frustration that you don’t need to go through.

I’m not saying you must invent magic pills and do crazy stuff like that, but we want to find the happy medium between making it effortless, sexy, and attractive for people in terms of that thing that we’re offering them, and, at the same time, making it extremely beneficial for their health.

I’ll give you an example. In today’s day and age, in 2018, the big opportunity is the final 10 yards. What I mean by that is this: Several years ago, and even to this day, people were buying cookbooks left, right and center. I’m always amazed that people still buy cookbooks. You’ve got 10 cookbooks or 100 cookbooks and you still want to buy another one. That’s just the way it works, right?

In a cookbook, we give people the recipe, we tell them exactly how to make it, and that’s cool. We give them the meal plan; we give them all that stuff. But the big opportunity, the real sexy, no-brainer offer are the meal delivery services that deliver the finished product to your front door. That is where the opportunity lies.

Now I’m not saying you must develop that kind of company, but think about the friction it removes. The biggest problem we know is that people don’t want to take the time to make the food or go grocery shopping. A lot of people are willing to spend a little bit more money for the convenience of having it delivered right to their front door. That’s an example of what people want. What people need is to learn how to cook, but not everyone wants to do that.

I just want to leave you with that because that’s a big mindset shift. If you let it sink in, it can make a big difference in your business and your success.

That’s all for today’s episode. All the information you need from this episode is found on HealthpreneurGroup.com/podcast.

While you’re there, be sure to pick up a copy of Health Profit Secrets if you haven’t already. You’re going to discover the four underlying secrets that all successful businesses in the health space have in common. Very much like driving on a flat tire, if you’re missing one or more of these elements, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. This short, easy to consume book is 63 pages. It’ll take you less than an hour to get through.

It could be the most impactful information material that you consume when it comes to your business. I think it’ll make a big difference in your life, and the cool thing is I’ve covered the cost of the book for you, which means it’s free. Just meet me halfway and cover a couple bucks in shipping. Get that over at the blog or grab it at its own special website, HealthpreneurBook.com.

If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, what are you doing? Right? Come on. Get over there on iTunes, and subscribe today. You’re missing out on all the good stuff. We’ve interviewed so many amazing experts and there are so many more coming your way. Once again, I want to thank you for joining me. I’m Yuri Elkaim, signing off. Continue to be great, do great, and I’ll see you in our next episode.

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Follow Dr. Andra Campitelli At:

https://www.campitellihealth.com/

https://recouptheday.com/

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Free Healthpreneur Health Profit Secrets Book

 

Transcription

Hey guys, welcome to the Healthpreneur Podcast!

I’m back in Toronto. I took the family and ran away to warm, sunny Mexico. A couple of weeks ago, we had a bad ice storm over a three-day period. I don’t think anyone went outside. There were no cars on the road. I ordered a book on Amazon Prime for same day delivery, and book took three and a half days to arrive at my house because it was that bad.

We decided last minute to book a trip to Mexico and it was awesome. Warm weather and lots of tennis. We got to play in the sand on the beach and hang out with the kids, and didn’t worry about ice and snow. We had a great time, and we are back.

Today, we’re going to be talking about a slightly controversial topic. So, brace yourself. I’m going to talk about three business models that will bleed your business.

When I say bleed your business, I’m talking about sucking the time, energy, and money out of what you do. I’m not saying that they don’t work, because they can. I’m just telling you, from experience, that they will take forever to see results, and you’ll probably feel very frustrated in the process.

I would rather you not feel that way. That’s why I’m sharing this with you.

If you’ve got a successful business already, great. Keep doing what you’re doing. Please, don’t jump into this stuff if you don’t need to. If you’re just starting out, you’re probably discombobulated. You’re probably confused with the things you could be doing, and that’s a very dangerous place to be.

So, I’m going to highlight three business models that you’ve probably seen online that I don’t recommend you do. I’m not saying that they don’t work, I’m just saying that, for the most part, there are smarter, faster ways of growing a more impactful business that brings you more income as well.

 

Number one: Product launches, or launches in general.

Launching a product, coaching program, or whatever it is, is not the best course of action for most people. Now, I love Jeff Walker. What they’ve done with PLF is awesome. And some of my closest friends are doing amazing things with launches. Stu McLaren with Tribe and Todd Herman with the Ninety-Day Year are good friends of mine whose entire businesses are based around launches.

I’m not saying they’re not doing a good job, because they’re doing great. They’re earning millions of dollars in revenue and helping lots of people.

But you must remember this: They have large platforms. If you don’t have a large following, it’s not worth the time, effort, and money to do a launch. Let’s do the math. Let’s say you had 1,000 people on your list, and you do a whole launch sequence sent over the course of three videos.

You send your thousand people an e-mail. On average, being generous, let’s say the open rate is 20%. So, what’s 20% of a thousand? 200 people. So, let’s just say that 200 people open all the e-mails, and 50% of them, again being generous, click on the links to go watch the videos.

Now you’ve got 100 people watching all three content-based videos in your launch.

Each one of them gets the same 100 people going through the process. Let’s say, on the back end, you’re selling the typical $19.97 or $2,000 program. So, on average, the conversion rate in a launch is going to be higher than if you sent them directly to the sales page.

I’ll be very generous and say, out of 100 people who go through all your videos and watch your sales video afterwards, two of them are willing to spend $2,000 each. That gives you $4,000. Not too bad, right?

You know what? Let’s bump it up to five. Let’s say that out of 100 people, five people decide to buy the $2,000 program. That’s a five percent conversion rate. A little bit higher is typically seen in launches of that size. That’s $10,000.

Not a bad payday, right? Earnings per click is good. You’ve got 1,000 people on your list, you make $10,000. Not too bad at all.

But here’s the thing: Now you’re working with five people.

Remember, it’s not just about the $10,000. It was about the creation of the videos, the thinking about it, how you acquired your list in the first place, and sequencing it. All the logistics that go into a launch were for five clients.

With most launches, it’s done on your own program. So, you’re not even working with them closely. They’re just doing it as a course on their own. $10,000 is not too bad.

Let me give you an alternative. Follow our Perfect Client Pipeline, which is a Facebook ad, webinar, and strategy call, then you can enroll those same five clients in one tenth of the time without going through the whole rigmarole and hoops of creating all this PLF content, content videos, and launch sequence.

That’s the way I see it.

Launches are fine if you want to run that type of business model, but you need a huge following. And if you don’t have a following, then you need massive amounts of traffic from Facebook, most likely, and what’s going to happen with that traffic isn’t predictable.

You’ll let people drip through the funnel for two weeks and you won’t know what’ll happen at the end of that. For me, that doesn’t feel good. Another reason I don’t like launches is because it’s a very seasonal type of business. Let’s say you have two launches per year, two big paydays and that is it.

Now, if those paydays are five to ten million dollars, who cares if you only have two of them, right? That’s a good business. But for most people, having two paydays a year of five to $10,000 doesn’t make sense. I get more excited when, daily, we can bring in five to $10,000 in new clients who are enrolling in our workshops. That’s a lot more exciting to me.

The nice thing about having this every day, evergreen type of model is that it’s predictable. You have enough data and time to make small changes to improve things. With a launch, you don’t have enough time to think on your feet and move things around. If something doesn’t work, your whole launch is done.

When I say launches, let me also include summits. I’ve run and been part of summits. It’s essentially a launch. Everyone mails to their list, and you have 500 people as these experts telling everyone opposite things. It’s very confusing for the customer. Then, you can buy all the recordings for $97.00. It’s very predictable.

Again, there are some good summits out there. There are multiple seven-figure summits and businesses have been built on the back end of summits. I’m saying that, for the work that goes into that for the one-time bang, you’re much better off putting the same effort into an evergreen model that’s going to give you consistent results every single time, 365 days a year.

Would you agree?

We ran a summit called the Fat Loss Summit about four years ago. We interviewed 24 experts, so I spent 24 hours interviewing people on video. We turned those into audios, had cheat sheets and PDFs, had the whole core, and made all the joint venture partners to promote the damn thing. We did just over $100,000 grand, which isn’t chump change. We had some affiliates that did well.

But, for that same amount of revenue, we could have done something a whole lot simpler. After I did that summit, I told my team that I will never do another summit again. I’d rather invest my time and energy into something that is more predictable, sustainable, and evergreen.

That’s my opinion on launches and summits. I’m not saying they’re bad, I’m just saying that for most of us, it’s probably not the best first option as a business model.

 

Number two: The second business model that will bleed your business dry is content marketing.

You may be thinking, “Haven’t you built your entire business and your health business on content marketing?” Yes, that is a very good point. That is true. Yes, I did build my entire health and fitness business on the backbone of content marketing.

As of this recording, we have close to one million unique visitors per month to my blog at yurielkaim.com. That’s no small feat. I’m happy and proud about that.

I’m going to share exactly what we’re doing with that in a second.

I also have a YouTube channel that I don’t create videos for anymore. I’m done talking about health and fitness, to be honest with you. Even thought I haven’t produced any videos in about six months, our subscriber base continues to grow and grow.

Right now, we have 207,000 subscribers and it’s continuing to grow every single day even though I’m not shooting any more content. I’ve created over 900 videos since 2006, and they’re all amazing. Obviously, some are better than others, but they’re helping people. I don’t have to do more all the time.

With Healthpreneur, things are different. My only content strategy is my podcast.

And because I’ve freed up more of my time because of some of the stuff we’re doing, I’m starting a YouTube channel. I wasn’t going to do a YouTube for Healthpreneur, and I’ll tell you why. Out of the gates, I wasn’t doing anything big with content marketing.

First and foremost, I needed to dial in a predictable process that generates revenue every single day for our company. That’s our Perfect Client Pipeline. Every single day, we’ve got Facebook ads going to a webinar, and we’re enrolling people on the back end of our strategy calls. We’re delivering amazing value to clients in the process.

But I dialed that in.

I spent a lot of time and money, through trial and error, to figure that out. It’s not 100%, but very close to it. We’ve got a great process now. I don’t have to do many of the calls anymore. We’ve got a great team that supports us there.

Now I’ve freed up my time to say, ” I don’t have to do as much on that side now because it’s a system, a machine, doing its thing. So what do I really want to do?”

I thought to myself that I enjoy videoing, hence why I created 900 videos on my other YouTube channel. So now, I have the space and freedom to start talking a bit more on camera. We’re putting it up on YouTube and then we’re leveraging that on our blog. That feeds into the e-mails we send out.

So yes, content marketing is great. I think it’s a great way of building know, like, and trust with your audience, very much like this podcast does.

If you had to choose one channel, go with a podcast. But here’s the thing: A podcast is a three-year plus game plan. Do not expect anything from your podcast for the first three years. I’m serious.

People say don’t expect anything from a podcast for a year. I would stretch that to three years because I had a call with a new client who enrolled in our workshop and I asked him how he came across our stuff. He said that he listens to my podcast.

So, you can see it’s starting to gain traction.

To be honest, I don’t look at the numbers. This is how little emphasis I put on this podcast in terms of how I must make the numbers work. I don’t track the numbers on this. Initially, we wanted to know how many downloads we were getting. But now, I have no clue what’s going on.

Jackie on our team told me a couple weeks ago that we almost had 1,000 downloads in a week. That’s amazing because it started off at 50 downloads a week. We haven’t done any crazy promotions with this podcast. There’s no crazy circus-like tactics. It’s just getting great people on the show, sharing awesome content, and just organically letting it do its thing.

It’s like planting bamboo trees.

It takes seven years for bamboo to break the surface. If a farmer didn’t know that, they’d think it wasn’t growing and they’d give up. But as soon as the bamboo cracks through the surface, it skyrockets. It’s crazy.

That’s what can happen with a podcast. That can also happen with your blog or YouTube, but you must go into it understanding that you won’t see anything for the first couple of years. So, if you’re blogging and frustrated because you’re not getting any revenue from it, tough shit. Pardon my French, but that’s just the reality of the platform.

Build it and they will come does not exist online.

You can’t put up a blog post and expect people to see it. You can’t put up a blog post and share it on your Facebook page. Nobody sees organic stuff on Facebook anymore. No one sees anything unless you’re putting money behind it.

That’s the name of the game nowadays. You have to pay to play. If you want your stuff to be seen on Facebook, you have to be buying Facebook ads. If you’re starting from scratch and you don’t have a large platform on YouTube or a blog, I strongly recommend – unless you love doing that stuff – doing a podcast.

It’s an intimate experience. You might listen to this in your car, while you’re walking your dogs, or while you’re working out. It’s distraction-free, kind of. You can do other things while you’re doing this. If you’re on YouTube watching a video, you’re distracted by other things that you can click on. It’s not the same immersion type of experience.

And blogging, well, the average time on a site is about a minute and 21 seconds. So, what would you rather have? A 30-minutes podcast, or a minute and 21 second user experience on your blog?

Our blog has almost a million visitors. We’ve got a very specific process we use on our blog called “Teach to Sell”. We teach this in all our workshops, and not even from a blogging perspective. It’s just how to share content in a way that leads to sales while providing tons of value.

One of the cool things we do now with our blog is pick some of those people and send them Facebook ads. That’s the benefit of having a nice platform. You have an engaged audience. Our cost per conversion from Facebook ads targeting our website visitors is about a quarter of what we get through all our other audiences.

But I’m telling you, don’t worry about the content. Don’t even build the content until you’ve built a predictable pipeline to generate clients and revenue for your business.

You might be thinking, “But Yuri, how do I do that without content?”

It’s simple. Allow us to help you. We have a great process. If you want to learn more about it, check out our webinar healthpreneurgroup.com/training. Go through the webinar and you’ll see what we’re doing. If you want to go deeper, we can jump on the phone with you and walk you through the process. That’s what we do every single day.

I’m pleading, do not write another blog post or create another video until you have your pipeline dialed in. Nothing matters in your business if you’re not generating revenue. And there’s nothing more frustrating that writing a long blog post, thinking it’s amazing, then…silence. Crickets.

Let’s build your income, then your influence.

It took a long time to build up that blog and that YouTube channel. It took three to five years before we started seeing any traction. So, I don’t recommend you do that. It’s a back-burner activity.

Your sole focus needs to be on acquiring clients, delivering an amazing result for them, rinse and repeat, until you can step away because it can do its thing on its own. Then you can start thinking about adding some value and asking, “How am I going to do this? How am I going to put up some content?”

So, that’s the second way you’ll bleed your business dry.

To give you some context, we were spending $25,000 per month just on our blog’s editorial team. That was not including the rest of our team. Do you want to spend $25,000 a month just on your blog? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Down the road, once you got money to throw around, go for it. But now, even if you’re in the six-figure range and you want to go to seven figures, do things intelligently. Do not waste your time and money doing that stuff.

 

#3: Why spray and pray marketing doesn’t work

The third business model that will bleed your business dry is not even a business model. I call it spray and pray marketing.

It’s putting up a post on Facebook and hoping many people see it. Or posting some stuff on Instagram and expecting your followers to increase. It’s posting pictures of your butt or in front of a private jet so people think you’re successful, then hoping they’ll inquire about doing business with you or buying your stuff.

That’s not going to work.

Let me give you some context here. Instagram is great. I’ve got some friends that are doing very well on Instagram. They’re building their business DMing on Instagram.

I completely get that. One-on-one communication, human interaction, is terrific. Whether it’s on Facebook Messenger or Instagram, it’s all good.

But I can’t tell you how many people we’ve spoken to who’ve asked, “How do I monetize my audience?” That’s a very bad question to ask in the first place. How do I monetize people? It’s like asking, “How do I extract the juice out of people?” No. “How do I better serve them,” is a better question to start.

If you’re younger and millennial you might be into Instagram. You might be at Starbucks waiting in line and flipping through your fricking feed on Instagram instead of looking someone in the eye. I understand that. That’s the way the world’s going.

But the more that happens, the more people are going to be looking for interaction with other human beings. That’s why people love DMs and Instagram stories. If you want to do that, go for it. If you want to live a life like Gary Vaynerchuk and be glued to your phone, go for it.

You know what I’d rather do? I’d rather be present with my kids. I’d rather put my phone away when I’ve done my work, because I don’t need to rely on that to build my business. Why? Because I have my Perfect Client Pipeline running and I know that, even when I’m sleeping, on vacation, or when my phone doesn’t want to work with me – even though I don’t have Instagram or Facebook on my phone – we’re using both of those platforms to acquire clients every single day.

Organic reach is dead. Even if you have a huge social media following, you’ll probably see a dramatic decrease in organic reach.

A couple of months ago, Facebook announced that organic reach is now at two percent. So, if you have 100 people that follow you, two of them will see your organic post. An organic post is when you post something and you don’t put any money behind it.

So, if you have a new blog post, you want to let people know about it on Facebook, and you’ve got 10,000 followers, guess what? 200 of those followers will see that.

Isn’t that depressing?

You have to pay to play. And if you don’t know how to pay for your own clients or customers, you will lose in the long run. If you’re wasting your time, money and energy on ridiculous business models that are ineffective, take forever to see results, and you don’t understand, you’re not going to see the results you want to see.

That’s why I wanted to share these three business models in this episode. To save you from the insanity.

Again, the three are; launches and summits, content marketing, and organic social media. I’m not saying they don’t work, but there are smarter, faster, more effective ways to build the business you want, make the money you want, enjoy a lot more freedom, and help your clients at a deep level.

 

The online training that’ll grow your business

If you’re interested and have enjoyed this, then I thing you’ll enjoy our Seven Figure Health Business Blueprint. It’s the free online training that I mentioned earlier. Head on over to healthpreneurgroup.com/training.

Let me walk you through what we’re doing in our business. Let me show you our Perfect Client Pipeline and how you can deploy it in your business. You’ll attract clients who are going to pay you top dollar. You’ll help them transform their lives in a deeper way and free up more of your time, so you don’t have to get on the treadmill of never-ending content creation and waste all your time on social media.

Does that sound good to you? If so, head on over to the website. Join us today for our online training. You can enjoy it at your leisure. You can choose whatever time is best for you over the next couple of days.

For now, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. I want to thank you so much once again for taking the time to join me, and for being a loyal subscriber if you’ve been with me for a while. If you’re brand new, welcome.

Remember to subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast on iTunes. You can find us on SoundCloud as well, I think. I’m here to talk and share, and whatever happens, happens. I know that three years down the road, this podcast is going to be in a great place from a numbers and impact perspective. But it all starts at day zero with a long-term vision.

This podcast is a back-burner activity for our business. Everything we’re doing isn’t reliant on this podcast. I hope you don’t put yourself in that position. Thank you so much for being with me.

Continue to go out there and be great, do great, and I’ll see you in our next episode, which is with Dr. Andra Capitelli. She’ll talk about how to get yourself out there and stand out in a natural health space, which as you know, is very competitive. That’s coming on Wednesday. Have an awesome day, and I’ll see you soon.

Transcription

It’s Friday again. Welcome! I love bringing you new and exciting people that are doing cool things in various realms of the health and fitness industry. Today we are speaking with Daniele Hargenrader, who is the founder of Diabetes Dominator. Talk about a great name, right?

She is a best-selling author, nutritionist, certified health coach, certified personal trainer, and international keynote speaker. She guides people to think, eat, and move intuitively to achieve a quality of health and life they previously thought was unattainable. She does this through her proven six pillars of total health system, which cultivates the practices and powers of self-love, choice, and community.

Daniele is an amazing person. She’s the best-selling author of “Unleash Your Inner Diabetes Dominator,” which was the number one book in three separate diabetes and health categories. She’s run several successful online summits in the diabetes space. She’ll talk about her journey’s highs and lows and her interesting upbringing that got her into this. It’s perhaps like our own struggles that got us into the health space.

She’ll talk about the secret sauce that’s allowed her to move forward and achieve great success from when she started to where she is now. She is going to talk about lots of cool stuff, as we always do, but there’s also a lot of power in what she does. She’s focused on diabetes, and this is a great example of someone who’s carved out their niche and has dominated that space.

Lots of great wisdom and insights in this interview. So, without any further ado, let’s welcome Daniele Hargenrader onto the podcast and let’s have some fun.

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Daniele, welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast, how are you?

Daniele:                               I’m doing very well, thank you. I appreciate you having me on.

Yuri:                      Yes, it’s a pleasure to have you here. I’m always excited to speak with awesome people in our space. You have carved out a nice space in the diabetic niche. Why did you get into diabetes specifically?

 

Daniele’s background, history with diabetes, turnaround, and transition

Daniele:                               I’m going to start from the beginning.

I was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes in 1991. Back then, nobody had internet and there was no Google. Unfortunately, information that was given out back then was very bleak.

My parents were told, “Okay, your daughter has Type I Diabetes. Here’s your insulin. Here’s your glucometer, and good luck.” It was grim; there was lots of talk about complications and all these other things, but what wasn’t said was the truth. For me, that was where I began.

I was lucky to have a wonderful, loving family unit. It was just me, my mom, and my dad. They were very grounded and easygoing people, so whatever challenges came up were always met with, “We’re going to figure this out.”

I had that great support system. But what happened three years later was sudden and shocking: My father passed away the day after my twelfth birthday. It happened within about a week. He had a heart attack, went into the hospital to have a quadruple bypass surgery, and never made it out of the surgery.

Yuri:                      Wow.

Daniele:                               So to say that shook up our entire family would be an understatement. What that led to for me at twelve years old, hitting puberty, and diagnosed with Type I Diabetes, was a very serious clinical depression and binge eating addiction. I was over 200 pounds by the time I was thirteen. I spent the entirety of my teenage life, until I was almost 20, obese, hopeless, helpless, depressed, and just in a very bad place – and blaming diabetes for all of it.

That’s where the turnaround started. When I looked in the mirror at about 19 years old and saw the person looking back at me, I knew that person was not who I was. One thing I did know about myself, and I say this not in a bragging way, was that I knew I was smart.

I am grateful every day to my father for that. In first grade, with my first report card, he gave me five dollars for every A that I got, and nothing else for anything else. So, from six years old, I equated being smart with being lucrative.

I decided to learn my way out of this, and I went to school and I got my degree in nutrition science. I became a certified personal trainer. I did these things completely out of my comfort zone. None of this was natural to me, but I did it because I knew that was the way I was going to get well.

Through that journey, which I’m very much cutting short, I realized that through getting myself well – what I call going from obese to athlete, going from extremely unhappy and hopeless to happy every day, grateful to be alive, and just constantly living in a state of gratitude – I knew I could figure it out. What I figured out was that diabetes wasn’t to blame.

It was the choices I was making around my diabetes management, with what I had available to me. I was making poor choices, so I created many systems because I’m a scientific person. I like to be able to repeat things repeatedly.

So, throughout my journey, I realized that I had created systems that could help other people. It was impossible to ignore the internal draw to share what I learned with the rest of the diabetes community. I wanted to shorten other people’s time in that suffering range from what I had experienced.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. That’s why I love speaking to people like you. For the most part, it’s from our own health challenges that we want to help others, and it’s always coming from such a genuine place, which is awesome.

So, you had this experience. You had this drive to help others. How did you start? What did you start doing to get in front of the right people and start serving them?

Daniele:                               That’s a great question. I always tell people that health entrepreneurialism is incredible and fulfilling, but you must be driven and know that it’s going to take time to build your authenticity and be your true self. You must figure that out on the journey, because you’re not used to being in front of people and being vulnerable.

I went to personal training school, which is a five hundred hour in-person course in the gym. I learned anatomy and physiology, so when I finished that course, I became a personal trainer. I was not a personal trainer before that. I always tell people that before I went into this personal training school, I couldn’t do one single push up.

I want to tell people to go outside their comfort zone, because when I came out 6 months later, I could do so many more. It’s just a very quick turnaround with that.

I started personal training, then realizing I already had the nutrition degree, I started putting them together. Obviously, when people come to you for physical fitness things or challenges that they’re trying to overcome, you can’t not address the nutritional side.

I began using my nutrition degree with my personal training clients. My husband is my business and life partner, and I couldn’t ask for anyone better to be on my team. We do a lot of business training.

We believe heavily in coaching, because you need to learn from people who are already where you would like to be. In 2013, we went to a seminar called Experts Academy, put on by Brendon Burhcard. After that, we made the very difficult but concentrated decision to no longer do any in-person consulting, and we switched all the business that we did online.

I was already doing some online coaching, but it took a business model turnaround to only doing things online. Then, what I did was – and this is truly the thing that helped me the most – I began interviewing people on YouTube using Google hangouts. It was all free.

I would interview people who were in the diabetes space and thriving, whatever that means to you, living happy and healthy. I wanted to interview as many people as I could, because my goal was to find the patterns. I like to pull patterns out of things.

What’s the difference between these people from all ages, races, backgrounds, and types of diabetes? What’s the difference between the people who are living happy and healthy, and the people who are struggling?

I’ve interviewed over 100 people, but in that time, I could build authentic, meaningful relationships with the people that were in the community I wanted to serve. That was the biggest way I got myself in front of the people that I needed to be in front of. I built authentic relationships with the people who were already in that space.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. And you built tremendous amounts of value for the viewers watching the videos as well.

So, you started to get some momentum online, and as you said, it takes a while to build a sustainable business. What were some of the initial challenges that you faced, whether they were physical or internal; just from a mindset perspective, perhaps?

Daniele:                               You’re hitting on a lot of things that are important to me and I don’t get asked these things very often.

Yuri:                      That’s why I do what I do.

 

Public accountability and accountability partners

Daniele:                               This is great. I think everybody who does coaching of any sort understands that, unless you have a continuity program, which we’ve moved out of, you’re trading your hours for dollars. Sometimes, you don’t have anybody in the very beginning because you’re just starting out.

So, it’s the insecurity mindset of, “Okay am I going to make this work financially? Am I going to be able to keep myself driven in that direction?” People that do it understand that there are no bosses breathing down your neck, and you must set your own deadlines. I became good at setting my own deadlines by involving my audience. I would say things on social media, or announcing things on social media, that I hadn’t even created yet, but knew I was going to.

 Yuri:                      Super smart.

Daniele:                               Had I not put that time limit on myself, it would not have happened in the frame that I would’ve like it to. That was a challenge: keeping myself on task and being able to utilize the people who were depending on me, no matter how small it was in the beginning.

You know, it doesn’t matter. If there are five people waiting for you to put out an eBook, well then you better put that eBook out. You must get yourself some task.

I thought, “Can I keep doing this at home by myself?” And I don’t stay by myself. My husband works for the Department of Defense. He’s in internet information security, so he’s my tech guy of the best type, but he’s here. And he’s a project manager by profession, so it is helpful to have a husband who is a project manager as well.

But if you don’t have one, get yourself someone. Find someone or one of your friends that can check in on you once a week and ask you if you’ve completed a task. It’s very self-driven, and I think you must not just accept it, but embrace it. Love it.

Don’t get mad at the fact that you’re by yourself. This is a choice. A lot of people who are in this space that I talk to struggle with this.

Yuri:                      That’s such a good insight. For everyone listening, that whole notion of public accountability is awesome. If you have something that you want to release, post it on Facebook and people will hold you accountable to that. If you’ve publicly declared what you are going to do and you don’t fulfill that, then you’re incongruent with your word.

That’s a good piece of advice.

When you’re thinking, “Can I make this happen,” what were the action you took to get through those challenging times that made a difference in moving your business forward?

 

Mindfulness for entrepreneurial success, authenticity, and hustling for good

 Daniele:                               I have to be honest and say that I’m a very spiritual person. It’s funny even when I say it now, because I spent many years of my life being an atheist. For me, spiritual practices – you don’t have to call them that, but they are to me because I choose for them to be that – are things like daily journaling. You could do a gratitude journal and start by writing three things you’re grateful for and why. For me it just became a brain dump; every morning I wake up and write three pages in my journal.

I think the biggest hindrance that people have to that is that they think they have to do it a certain way for it to be “right” or “meaningful.” But sometimes it’s just, “I love my cats. I’m going to Zumba in an hour. I have to go to the supermarket.”

Sometimes it turns into something else and sometimes it doesn’t, but just the act of getting those thoughts outside of my head and on to a piece of paper opens a lot of space for me to think about the business things that I want to do. Otherwise, all those things are rattling around up there.

That has been one of the most helpful things for me in business; keeping my mind well. Mindfulness is a word we talk about, it’s a thing that people know about, but I try to always say to people that it’s a practice. Just like exercising. Just like brushing your teeth.

You should figure out whether that’s meditation for you, whether that’s journaling for you, whether that’s yoga, or whether that’s just going out into the woods or outside barefoot and grounding. You know, feeling the energy of the earth.

You don’t think of these things immediately as business advantages, ways to get better in your business relationships, or whatever you’re trying to do with your entrepreneurial life, but to me they are crucial. That’s how I stayed on track.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. A common thread that we’ve seen with a lot of the people that we’ve had on the show so far, is this element of spirituality or mindfulness. I would say almost everyone has a practice, whether it’s meditation, journaling, or something. I think that’s unique to the health space.

Obviously, there are a lot of entrepreneurs outside of health who are into this as well, but I think because we’re so aware of this stuff, and we preach this to our audience, it’s a lot easier for us to live this. That’s awesome advice.

Daniele:                               You have to lead by example. It’s the only you’re going to be authentic, I think.

You can’t say one thing and be doing something else. It doesn’t work.

Yuri:                      So, what’s your take on hustle?

Daniele:               Hustle? I think you’ve got to have it. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and not in the outskirts or the suburbs. In the city. So, I’ve lived in some rough neighborhoods, I’ve lived in some great neighborhoods, and the whole point is that no matter where I was, I was always hustling.

When I was nineteen and in college, I was a bartender. I was helping my other friend with her bus. I think that the mindset of hustle is just always trying to add value somewhere. When I was nineteen, I wasn’t focused on it being for the greater good. I was worried about it being for me. But now, I think if you’re hustling and you’re focusing on coming from a place of love, and that hustle benefiting a whole bunch of other people, it’s almost impossible not to hustle when you’re an entrepreneur.

This is just my opinion, but if you’re in that mindset and saying, “I need to give my gifts to the world in a way that’s going to benefit a whole bunch of people who may need this information,” you have to hustle. I don’t know if you can chill and relax and be an effective entrepreneur, at least in the beginning.

You can build up your business to a point where you have a whole team, which is where we’re headed now. Then you can start chilling more, but you still got to be hustling even when you’re chilling, I think.

Yuri:                      It’s tough for us entrepreneurs to chill.

We say, “Oh my god. I’ve got this idea. I want to do this,” and it’s been half an hour on the beach and we want to make it happen.

Do you think that taking more action is better than the quality of action, or do you think they lend themselves to each other?

Daniele:                               Well, no. Always quality over quantity. I say that for everything. Even when I was a personal trainer, I was telling people about exercise form. I would rather see someone do two fantastic push-ups than ten crappy ones where your hips are dipping down. I’d much rather the quality over the quantity.

That’s why it can get even more challenging when your life partner is your business partner. You’re both as passionate as the other one about making these things happen.

We’ve implemented a strategy that works very well, which is scheduling R&R every 90 days, just like we schedule our online summits or group coaching. Our R&R, our rest and relaxation time, is as crucial to our ability to be productive, valuable, and ourselves as anything else. That could be driving about an hour up to the mountains for a weekend or just going to the beach.

We’re lucky. In Philadelphia, you can drive an hour or two either way to go to the beach or the mountains. Or, we just stay in the house and force ourselves to chill. We rent a couple movies that we haven’t seen and don’t talk about business. We’ll catch each other. One of us will start saying something and the other will say, “Nope. Write it down. We’ll talk about it on Monday.” And we will.

I think it’s incredibly important to give yourself the R&R you need, so that you can be a valuable service instead of a harried or crazed one.

Yuri:                      I’m sure you’ve experienced that a lot of the breakthroughs come in those periods of chill.

Daniele:                               Oh yes.

Yuri:                      It’s not when you’re doing stuff. I remember one of the biggest breakthroughs I had in the last two years. I was sitting in an outdoor spa near a mountain close to Toronto. I was sitting in this hot pool and there it was! I just got the answer.

You can’t get that when you’re in the trenches.

Daniele:                               I totally agree. A lot of times when I’m sleeping on my R&R, I don’t want to do, but I’ll wake up, grab my phone, hit the voice record, and say something. It comes out like garbble in morning. But it does happen. I’ll pick out a few words and remember what it was.

 

The importance of a good accountant and the fear of “giving away” too much

Yuri:                      What’s a lesson that you had to learn the hard way? How can you help others avoid that mistake?

Daniele:                               Finding a competent accountant. If you are going to have a business that earns money, you need to have an accountant unless you are an accountant by trade. But I still don’t recommend that you do your own accounting. If that’s not your business, it’s going to take a lot of time away from it.

We tried recommendations from friends, but the reality is that we went through three accountants who were not what we needed and gave us advice that wasn’t so great. We ended up having to fix some things. Luckily, because we were new and this was a first-time thing, we could file certain papers.

My point is, do your research. Find an accountant recommendation from somebody who is far above where you want to be, and preferably in a similar business background. Just because somebody does accounting for certain types of businesses, they might not know the intricacies of health and wellness versus general contracting.

Do your research and interview them. Be sure you like their vibe and what they’re saying. I’d say that was probably the hardest lesson that we had to learn the hard way.

Yuri:                      That’s big. Initially, it’s not something you think of. I remember when I started my business as a sole proprietor, my accountant was the former partner of one of my clients. He was a former CRE, which is like the IRS in Canada. He ran an operation out of basement for cash.

The thing I realized after working with him for two years was that he had a risk averse employee type of mentality. He didn’t understand the intricacies of entrepreneurship and running a business, and the fact that I don’t intend on having less money when I’m 60 than I do now.

That was a huge shift, and I completely agree. You get to a point where you’re making money, but it’s not how much money you make, it’s how much money you keep. Having the right accountant can help that.

That’s good advice.

Daniele:                               If they’re not entrepreneurially focused and they don’t work with entrepreneurs, the likelihood of them guiding you in the direction that will best serve you and your business is unlikely. So, it’s on you. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way, but I hope that by listening to this, somebody doesn’t have to.

Yuri:                      Hopefully. That’s why we have this.

So, you started back in the day with the Google hangouts that you were putting up on YouTube, highlighting other people with diabetes and how they overcame it and succeeded with it. Other than the video stuff, what’s one marketing strategy that’s worked well for you that our listeners might be able to benefit from?

Daniele:                               I would say marketing strategy. Giving away highly valuable stuff for free. I know that’s 101, but I think that one of the biggest things that entrepreneurs get really scared about is giving away too much.

I don’t think that that’s possible. I mean, I guess it could be. But giving away things where people can immediately take action, so much so that even if they took action on just one of the things, they will notice a gigantic difference in their life. That could be an eBook or portion of an online course.

I created a six week online course, and sometimes, depending on certain giveaways we’ll promote, we’ve splintered that off into a smaller foundation course. It goes over a high-level overview, and it’s three hours’ worth of teaching and videos. Giving that away for free leads people into thinking what the rest of the course is about.

If they got so much from the first three videos, they can’t even imagine what they’re going to get from the rest of the course. So, it’s giving away more than you think you should.

Another thing that has been hugely helpful for me is collaboration. I’m a diabetes coach, meaning I do one-on-one coaching, group coaching, and have a system. Most of the people that I work with are also successful diabetes coaches. We do things together without the fear of taking each other’s clients or whatever that mentality is.

The magic of collaboration

The reality is that there are – I don’t even know the percentage – a million times more people with diabetes who need help from qualified, passionate experts than there are qualified, passionate experts. So, when you collaborate with other people who are doing that, you’re increasing visibility. Working with people who are doing the same thing as you are, doing it well, and doing it from the same place, that kind of collaboration creates magic.

I’ve found some of my best friends who, when I first started out, I would see their websites and think, “Oh man, I’ll never be able to get as good as so-and-so,” and now they’re one of my best friends and we do things together all the time.

The things you feel you need to keep real close to your vest because you’re afraid somebody’s going to steal it from you, living in that mindset, when it comes to business, is detrimental to business growth.

You must be willing to open up and be vulnerable. In the last 8-10 years, I’ve had two negative experiences where I’ve shared something with somebody and they went off with it. The thing is, I don’t care. I don’t say that in a flippant way. Some of these ideas were things that I wanted to be out in the world to help the community, and this person went ahead and brought it out to the world.

My name’s not on it, but it’s helping the world. That’s how I reconcile that. It’s there and it’s what I wanted. I told the universe I wanted this to be out there, and someone else took action on it and now it’s out there. That’s how I am, and I think that collaboration is key. Don’t be afraid of hanging out with other people who are doing the same thing as you.

Yuri:                      It’s very wise. I tell people all the time, the best way to build your online business is to spend more time offline. It’s connecting with people, because those relationships are invaluable. It’s one thing if you have an offline practice, a physical location people can walk by. But online, people aren’t walking by your website. It can be a lonely place unless you have the right people to support you. That’s really good advice.

 

The Rapid Five

Daniele, this has been awesome. Are you ready for the Rapid Five?

Daniele:                               Yes. I’m very excited about it. Let’s do it.

Yuri:                      So, you’ve got no idea what these questions are. Our listeners probably do if they’ve been listening for a couple episodes. Whatever comes top of mind is probably the right answer. Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Daniele:                               My biggest weakness is probably self-doubt. Honestly, I think I’m just like everyone else. I believe in my ability to figure anything out, but at the end of the day when I’m learning something new, I sometimes say, “Oh my goodness, I don’t know if I can do this.”

And I’m probably one of the most, I don’t want this to come off wrong, but masculine females. I’m very black and white. I’m very decisive. I’m very much, “Let’s get this done and let’s not cry about it.” I’ve realized through my entrepreneurial journey that sometimes you should just cry about it.

So sometimes I’ll journal and I’ll cry, boo hoo, then I’ll say, “Okay, just get back on task.” Self-doubt. It’s very short lived, but it never goes away.

Yuri:                      I don’t think anyone can relate to that. Number two, what is your biggest strength?

Daniele:                               My biggest strength is love. That’s the first thing that popped into my head, and that’s probably the truest truth that I have. I believe that I am love. And I know that might sound very woo woo and spiritual, but I do believe that I am here on this earth to spread love, whatever that means and whether it’s in the diabetes community or not. And not just love, but self-love.

We’re always talking about how the world needs more love, and it does. As much as it can get. And we’re saying we need to do this and we need to do that, and we do, but we starts with me, and we can’t control what anybody else is going to do.

The only things in this world that we can control are our own choices, so I choose to have a picture above my bed that says love, so the first thing I see in the morning is love. I wake up and I think love, because it’s the first thing I see.

I don’t care who you are, who you meet me with, or what attitude you meet me with. I’ll meet you with love. Even if you’re negative, I’ll meet you with love and then I’ll walk away. I lived in an angry and hateful state for most my teenage life and into my young twenties, and I can’t do that any longer. I am love. That is my biggest strength.

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. That’s not something that’s very easy to do, and there are a lot of people that live their whole lives in a state of anger, resentment, and hate. We need more people like you who have that ability, because it’s needed.

Daniele:                               I’m trying. I’m trying to make a love army. An army of love, not for war.

Yuri:                      Totally. Alright, number three. What’s one skill you’ve become dangerously good at to grow your business?

Daniele:                               Authentic networking. You could put me in front of any person – a janitor, or a CEO – it doesn’t matter. We will connect. I don’t do well talking about the weather or what color shoes you’re wearing. I pretty much meet people and get right into what they love or  what makes them passionate.

I’m dangerously good at making people feel comfortable, loved, and safe, so they’re willing to open up and share their own truth, whatever that may be.

Oftentimes, I’ll talk to new people that I’ve never spoken to before and they’ll say to me after five minutes, “I haven’t told anybody that before. I don’t know why I’m even saying this to you right now.” I’ll respond, “I do. It’s okay.”

Yuri:                      That’s awesome. That’s good though, because it’s completely needed. We live in a world that is so superficial right now. The sole surface. We’ve got all these friends on Facebook who we don’t even know, and we’re more concerned about how many likes a post got as opposed to going deeper with someone who’s right in front of us.

Daniele:                               Totally.

Yuri:                      That’s great. Number four. Well, you’ve already answered this. I was going to ask what you do first thing in the morning. Yours is journaling, right?

Daniele:                               Journaling, yeah. I also have a habit, and it’s because of the love, where I say whenever I open my eyes, “Thank you for this day.” At this point, it’s not a thought process. It just happens.

Of course, that was the practice, but being grateful the second I wake up literally changes my physiology. It changes my cellular functionality. It changes the way my brain waves are. It changes everything. The other thing is – and this is something that I’m known for in my space – I’m obsessive about hydration.

I always have a stainless steel water bottle by the side of my bed, so the first thing I do when I wake up is chug as much water as I comfortably can, which is usually about sixteen ounces. That’s how I start my day. I think water is the answer to so many health problems that people have, and they don’t realize the simplicity of what drinking enough water can fix. That’s the other thing that I do.

Yuri:                      But I don’t like the taste of water. Can’t I have, like, Coke or something?

Daniele:                               I’m a tough love person. I’d say, “Okay, you don’t like the taste of water. I get it. Throw some orange slices in there. Crush up some strawberries and put it in there. I don’t care what you do, put any fruit you want in there. Mint, cucumber. There’s no limit to the healthy things you can put in water to alter the taste. Or just hold your nose and chug it and know that you’re doing something really wonderful for yourself, and you deserve it.”

That’s also where people get hung up. They don’t want to do that thing because they don’t feel like they deserve it. It’s like, “Look, you deserve the water. Stop pretending you don’t like the taste of it. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t taste like anything. So…”

Yuri:                      Right. Exactly. Finally, complete the sentence. I know I’m being successful when…

Daniele:                               When I feel joyful and fulfilled. When I think about what I’ve done and I can say, “This is bringing me joy.” I feel fulfilled, and I feel like other people feel the same way.

Yuri:                      Very nice. There you go guys. Daniele Hargenrader on the show. Daniele, thank you so much for joining us. What is the best place for people to stay in touch with your or follow your work online?

Daniele:                               They can come over to diabetesdominator.com. That is my hub. You can find all my social media there. I have lots of free resources to download. Ebooks, meal plans, and all kinds of things like that.

Yuri:                      That’s a good URL. Very nice. Daniele, thank you so much. It’s been a great conversation. I know our listeners will get a lot of value out of this. Thank you for continuing to spread the love and for being you. I know it’s making a huge difference in a lot of people’s lives.

Daniele:                               Thanks so much. I appreciate it, and thank you for doing what you do and spreading the knowledge and love yourself.

Yuri:                      Thank you.

Daniele:                               We need it.

 

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Yuri’s take

I hope you thoroughly enjoyed that interview. It was a lot of fun speaking with Daniele and seeing how loving and compassionate she is. She’s open to connecting with people in a way that is not fluff, right? It’s not surface. It’s deep.

It’s cool to connect with people like Daniele because I believe it is needed in our world, which is, sadly, very superficial nowadays. We’re more focused on how many likes we have on Facebook than what the person in front of us is saying as we’re having dinner.

I’m always amazed when people go for dinner with their kids and the parents have the iPads ready to deploy so the kids can behave or become hypnotized at dinner so they don’t do crazy stuff. That’s just terrible. It’s such a poor way of parenting. I can’t say that I’m not judging, because I am judging by saying that, but if you’re a parent who has iPads given to their kids at dinner, I don’t know.

Anyways, that’s all for this episode. To be very honest with you, I’m way off-topic and off on tangents, but nonetheless, I hope you got some value out of this interview. Once again, it’s been a pleasure bringing this to you.

Two calls to action for you: Number one, if you’ve enjoyed this and you want to get more amazing episodes coming your way, subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast. This is episode 89. We’ve done 88 previous episodes. We’ve had a lot of amazing guests and some amazingly insightful solo sessions.

We’ve got some amazing guests coming your way in the coming weeks like Dr. Andrew Capitelli, Dr. Josh Axe, Lori Shemek, Debora Wayne, and many more to help you take your business to the next level. So subscribe to the Healthpreneur Podcast if you haven’t already.

Finally, if you haven’t picked up a copy of Health Profit Secrets, you can do so today. We’ve got a couple copies left in the warehouse so grab yours before they’re gone. That would suck because the book is free. It’s a physical book. I’m going to ship it to you.

You can read it in less than an hour, and it’s going to give you the four underlying, fundamental components that all successful businesses have in common. If you’re missing one of these, or one of them is sluggish, it’s like driving on a flat tire. Your business journey will be bumpy, noisy, and not a lot of fun. Let’s iron that out. I’m also going to give you a score card so you can score yourself in each of those four areas. Then, I’ll show you how to fill in the gaps so you can get to where you want to go. Cool?

You can grab the book for free over at healthpreneurbook.com.

With that said, I want to wish you a happy weekend. Today is my mom’s birthday, so Happy Birthday, mom! I love you very much. Thank you for all the support over the years. I guess we’re going to be celebrating tonight and this weekend, and I hope you guys have an amazing time this weekend. I’ll see you on Monday for a solo round. Continue to go out there and be great, do great, and I’ll talk to you then.

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https://diabetesdominator.com/
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