The School of Self-Mastery: Business, Money, Life

Erin Hook Kelly is an online business manager and email strategist, that has traveled all over the online entrepreneur map, with a successful homestead blog and book about building a yurt in the mountains of Southwest VA, to business coaching, and now guiding online entrepreneurs past the big tech headaches that pop up with online businesses. Her biggest passion is digging through the many tech options out there, and sharing smart ways to simplify and streamline your online business. She has a second book coming out in early 2016, entitled “Don’t Let Your Pajamas Hold You Back: How to Rock Your First Online Business” and a podcast called, “Success Secrets for Entrepreneurs".

Erin is married to a kickass web developer, Mike, who keeps HER head from exploding from tech headaches, and they spend their off hours, accompanied by their two goofy dogs, exploring the beautiful nature trails in their new home state of WA.

She has several freebies to help you past tech headaches that we mentioned in this episode.

Freebie offers:

- Money While You Sleep: Creating a Product in Paypal

- Use LeadPages Like a Pro: an Action Guide

- Switching from Mailchimp to Active campaign

All available at erinhookkelly.com/freebies

Other Resources Mentioned:

Time Valuation Episode

9 Emails To A More Successful Launch

themiddlefingerproject.org

Coschedule - headline analyzer

Instead of setting a list of goals at the start of each year, I want to promote a new tradition: setting a one-word theme for the year. I got this idea from My One Word - Mike Ashcraft (myoneword.org). And it’s a powerful one.

You can remember one word throughout the year. It’s easy to think about and focus on just one theme. It’s also a lot easier to take action and make progress towards this one theme. Having one theme also makes it possible to set realistic follow up goals and milestones.

My one word theme for 2015 was BOLD.

Focusing on one word is so much easier, more powerful, and more rewarding than focusing on some arbitrary goal and because there is only one word, there is no struggle to make decisions on other goals.

You want to embody this word in everything that you do in the new year, it's your cornerstone.

Whenever you set goals or to-do's you can use this word as a guiding light or filter.

Having one theme allows you to laser focus on the one thing you need the most.

I also love the one word theme concept because a single word can be interpreted in several ways, thus I can always find a way to integrate the word into my day, without the heavy feeling of disappointment for not hitting a random goal.

How to Find Your Word

When you ask yourself, “What do I want this year to be about?” you may instantly and intuitively feel an answer pop out. If not, try answer the following questions on a piece of paper (instead of just thinking about it) and see what words emerge for you:

What does your ideal life look like? What do you want? What do you want to be doing? How do you want to feel?

Complete the sentence: I want to feel ____.

If you had to pick just one thing? What do you want the most?

Does the word feel good? There are no wrong answers. What you pick is personal and meaningful to you. If it feels good, go with it.

Got it?

Don’t continue until you have your word.

Use Your Word

Once you have your one-word, here are some thoughts on integrating and using the word into your life.

Expand on the Word

One word can have many meaning. Clarify what your word means to you.

Ask yourself the following question:

What does this mean to me?

Additionally, you can dive deeper into what this picture looks like for you, by answering the following question:

What does “a life of [insert word]” look/feel like?

When answering, write down each block of thought in bullet points, without editing. Keep writing until you have nothing else to say.

The more clear you can be in describing your picture, the easier it will be to further integrate the word into your decisions, goals and year.

Create Goals From Your Word

If you completed the above exercise on clarifying what the word means to you, you’ll notice that many of the items you wrote down can be converted into mini goals that contribute towards your one word.

Set short-term goals that will support your word, instead of a list of random goals that you think you should be doing.

Allow whatever answers to show up, and write them down without judging or editing.

One Goal at a Time

If you did the above exercise or creating goals based on your word, you will have a list of goals, you will get overwhelmed if you try to work on all of these at once.

Pick just one sub goal, and focus on that. Once the goal is reached or becomes a habit, you can move on to the next mini goal.

Be Kind to Yourself

A year is a long time. There will be days when you're not "insert word" and there will days when you totally rock it out. Through out the year, you will experience days where you feel like you are moving in the opposite direction of where you want to go. Be kind and patient with yourself and use your one word as a lighthouse to find your way again.

Would you share your one word for 2016 with me in the comments below?

Or post it over here in my FREE Facebook Community - Society of Self-Mastery.

Join me today on my 'Make More Sales' Masterclass here.

Dorie Clark is an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the author of Reinventing You (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013) and Stand Out (Portfolio/Penguin, 2015). A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, she is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, TIME, and Entrepreneur. Recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press, Inc., and Fortune, Clark is a marketing strategy consultant and speaker for clients including Google, Microsoft, Yale University, Fidelity, and the World Bank. You can download her free 42-page Stand Out Self-Assessment Workbook.

Too many people believe that if they keep their heads down and work hard, they'll be recognized on the merits of their work. But that's simply not true anymore. Dorie Clark provides a step-by-step guide to help you leverage your existing networks, attract new people to your cause, and, ultimately, build a community around your ideas.

Fortunately, you don't have to be a genius or a worldwide superstar to make an impact, and Dorie shares her process for that breakthrough idea, but having a breakthrough insight is only half the battle - so she also shares how to create a following for that idea as well.

Resources:

Stand Out Assessment Workbook

Stand Out

Reinventing You

Make More Sales Free Masterclass

Sticking to a budget is the biggest money challenge Americans said they face. The reason so many people find budgeting so difficult is because they’re approaching it the wrong way.

People usually cringe when you talk about budgets because they’re considered to be constrictive, the alternative, is a spending plan, which is about choice.

Here’s what you need to know about creating a spending plan that will lead you to a more secure financial future.

A budget feels like a diet to many people because it creates a sense of deprivation, however, a spending plan flips that idea and focuses on how you want to spend your money versus how you want to cut expenses.

If you’ve ever gone on a diet, then you know that you start craving food even more, same thing with budgeting. Your brain triggers a similar response to the idea of budgeting, which makes you want to spend even more.

A spending plan, on the other hand, is about spending, and understanding where you really want your money to go. It's based on your values and goals.

In this episode, I share simple steps to create a spending plan that is aligned with your values and priorities.

Join me this thursday for my make more sales masterclass - adriennedorison.com/makemoresales

Dr. Brad Klontz is a psychologist and a financial planner. He is a Partner and Executive Director of Financial Psychology & Behavioral Finance with Occidental Asset Management.

Dr Brad co-founded the Financial Psychology Institute, is an Associate Professor of Personal Financial Planning at Kansas State University, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a Former President of the Hawaii Psychological Association.

Dr. Brad has authored five books on the psychology of money, including Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders that Threaten Our Financial Healthy (Broadway Business, 2009).

His work with clients and research in financial psychology has been featured on ABC News’ 20/20, Good Morning America, and in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Kiplinger’s, Money Magazine, NPR and many other media outlets.

In this episode, Dr. Brad and I talk about:

• his research on money avoidance & ambivalence
• anti-wealth beliefs
• money Scripts
• The Psychology of Wealth
• spending plans vs a budget
• Dr. Brad’s money disorders (and mine!)
• and he shares his rescripting process for your money scripts

Resources:

www.YourMentalWealth.com - listeners are invited to take a free Money Disorder assessment - use the code: "mindovermoney"

Make More Sales Masterclass

Society of Self-Mastery - Free Facebook group

Jason is passionate about teaching the science, psychology and systems used by master influencers to maximize their impact on the Internet. He’s the author of Promoting Your Podcast in which he was the first to crack the code for topping the iTunes charts. In 2005, he co-founded Internet Business Mastery, the longest running podcast for online entrepreneurs.

Jason and I talk about why the world needs more self-made influencers, and how to become one!

6 ways to scale influence and income

1. raising/boosting your positioning (expertise)

2. grow your reach/more traffic/grow audience

3. get more conversions - audience to customer

4. create new value - new product/service - solve their problem

5. boost the lifetime value of a customer/lifetime impact of customer - repeat customers, retain people.

6. automate/streamline/systematize

Resources in this episode:

Daniel Pink - Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Human Knowledge Doubling Curve

The Dan Sullivan Question

www.jasonvanorden.com/scale

IMPACT facebook group

Podcast survey: adriennedorison.com/survey

12 Days of Giftaways - enter to win

Art of Charm interview

There is always a valuable lesson in something that pisses you off. Helps you understand what you stand for - and if nothing pisses you off - I guess you don't stand for much (chew on that).

This advice gets tossed around a lot in the business world "charge your worth."

Let me preface this conversation with - I fully believe in humans being paid well AND doing what they love. I do not love seeing people struggle to get by, or giving so much away for free that they can't pay the bills, hence why I teach a sales course as well. I equally do not love seeing people charge fees that could be considered extortion or not in line with the value of the service/product.

Why I think "charging what you're worth" is bullshit...

We see this "charge what you're worth" concept all over the place:

• You deserve to earn six figures!

• You work so hard, you deserve it!

• Don't listen to that, you're worth it!

• Raise your prices - you are worth so much more than that!

This sense of entitlement is fed to us that we deserve more than we're earning and that if we're not earning the way we desire, it's framed as evidence that we don't believe in our worth.

But this is where I call bullshit.

We are all worthy of having our needs met. All humans deserve that.

BUT we don't deserve whatever we want (that includes other humans' dollar bills y'all) just because we feel good about ourselves.

What we earn has nothing to do with our personal worth.

Attaching our personal worth to the value you provide with a product or service makes no logical sense and can lead to more pain than pleasure.

I think it can actually make us pretty neurotic since it only reinforces the idea that our worth as a human is, in any way, connected to the amount of money we should be charging. It has us look constantly at our own reflection and selves versus looking out into the world and the impact we have on others.

When you're hiring someone to do something for you - do you pay them for their value as a human or for the results they are able to provide to you?

The latter of course!

What if they do a shitty job? Does that have any reflection on their worth? What if they still think they're "worth it"? This isn't about their value as a human, it's about the value of service that you may or may not have received. THAT in itself is the only indicator of price.

No one person is worth any more than another...can we agree on that? Please.

Or for example, if you stop doing work that pays money are you worth less than you were when you did work that paid?

Or if you have no money (or worse are deep in debt) are you worth any less as a person who make millions?

The answer is NO.

It has nothing to do with our self-worth. So, how can we keep throwing around this "charge what you're worth" statement?!

What the hell does that even mean?! I bet it doesn't help you slap a price on your product or service either...probably feels pretty weird and ambiguous when someone tells you that.

It's also a DISEMPOWERING question that can lead down a slippery slope.

It calls into question something personal that goes beyond the actual value of your skill or service.

There's also a dangerous connotation that links price with love or acceptance -- "if you like me, you'll pay what I'm worth and if you don't, I must not be good enough." Eww.

Okay, so now what, right!? I blew your whole pricing strategy. Faccckkkk.

Here are some reasons it makes no sense:

1. Your work is not priceless. You are.

There’s really no way to quantify what “you’re worth” because you can’t measure the value of your life. However, skills, products, and services are definitely quantifiable. They're quantifiable because there's a going rate. And then there's also the option to increase or decrease those prices based on how you position the product/service in the marketplace.

2) You left out the customer.

There is no value without the customer. How much is a house worth if no one will buy it? The answer is nothing. It's worth nothing. So if someone doesn't buy your product/service it's worth nothing, but that doesn't mean that YOU are worth nothing. Your product/service has ZERO value until a customer is willing to pay for it.

Dave Gray states: “A company can’t create value on its own: value is only created through exchange. The customer must participate in defining and determining that value.”

Let me help.

Instead...separate what you do for people from what it means about YOU. In other words, take your ego out of this whole thang.

What you charge has absolutely zero donut holes to do with what you're worth as a human being and absolutely everything to do with the value people perceive they're getting in what you're offering. Period.

Understand the whole market. Understand there is no set price.

There’s no one set price for a cup of coffee. Go to the grocery store and pay the equivalent of 25 cents per cup. Go to McDonalds and pay a dollar. Go to Starbucks and pay three. Go to a local boutique coffee shop and happily pay seven.

It’s just as much about the entire experience, or current circumstances and urgency of your ideal client as it is about the actual coffee in the cup.

Your market is the same. Do you know what the bottom vs. top-of-the-line looks like and how much it costs? You need to understand both ends and where you want to fit in.

So instead of asking what "you're worth," the better question is...

What are the results of my product/service worth to my potential client?

Because believe it or not - this isn't about you - it's about the value of the product/service you provide and how your potential client perceives it.

Hence why it's SUPER important to understand your audiences pain points, their urgencies, their highest goals, AND the value & results that your offer provides.

So, stop charging what "you're worth" and start charging based on the value of the results to your potential client (even if this price is the same - there's a totally different energy and feeling when you detach it from self-worth).

So how can you address this in practical terms?

Determine what influences your price. From both YOUR side and the customer's side of the equation.

Price goes well beyond materials, overhead, labor, experience or even skills. Those are just factors from YOUR point of view.

But many other factors influence price from a customers’ point-of-view.

Think about:

• what the product/service means to them personally
• how urgent their problem is
• the experience you deliver
• what results the product/service promises,
• and how your customers perceive your business in relation to the rest of your competition

Determine what you need to change to create better results for your clients and better position in the market for your business, and then create a plan to make it happen!

And stop charging what you’re worth!

Join me in this FREE 'Make More Sales' Masterclass: www.adriennedorison.com/makemoresales

Jeff Sanders is a public speaker and author of the new book, The 5 AM Miracle: Dominate Your Day Before Breakfast. Jeff is also the host of the popular 5 AM Miracle Podcast. He is a 10-time marathon runner, personal development junkie, and passionate raw vegan. Jeff writes and speaks every week at JeffSanders.com.

In this episode, Jeff and I talk about:

• The miracle of 5:00 am -- why getting up early is awesome
• How night owls can become early risers
• The 5 AM Blueprint
• Forget annual goal setting: use the Quarter System
• Establish lasting anchor habits
• Design your ideal week, morning, and evening routines
• Equilibrium Zero: inbox zero, desktop zero, project management zero
• Going pro with advanced strategies: standing desk, productivity music, new vision boards, inversion

Jeff is giving away over $60 worth of free gifts for anyone who pre-orders the new book. You can learn more at 5ambook.com.

Resources in this episode:

Podcast survey: adriennedorison.com/survey

12 Days of Giftaways - enter to win

Art of Charm interview

5ambook.com

JeffSanders.com

Episode 97: How to start outsourcing more NOW

Believe it or not - money is not the most valuable resource - you can make more of that - it comes and goes - but time - that’s finite!

TIME IS OUR MOST VALUABLE ASSET

When to start outsourcing? Before you’re ready! I started too late in my opinion and wanted to do this episode because there is still a TON of stuff I need to continue outsourcing - and I really noticed that even more so during this trip.

Chris Ducker’s 3 Lists to Freedom

3 columns

1. all the things you HATE doing
2. all the things you CAN’T do (or struggle with)
3. all the things you SHOULDN’T be doing - BIGGY - superman syndrome (all the things we think we can do better - which keeps you stuck)

You can record videos to create Standard Operating Procedures for your staff members so that they’re doing it the way you want it done and vice versa.

More working ON your business, more FREEDOM and less working IN the business.

This could be general tasks for business, even things in your life that are taking up time that you don’t want or need to be doing.

Resources in this episode:

Chris Ducker's 3 Lists to Freedom

Upwork.com

12 Days of Giftaways

Art of Charm podcast - Self-Mastery Over Debt w/ Adrienne Dorison

Natalie Jill helps people across the globe reach their health, fitness, and business goals. Natalie left a very successful career in corporate America to follow her passion with health and fitness.

As a Licensed Master Sports Nutritionist and functional fitness trainer, Natalie leveraged the power of the internet and in a short amount of time she was able to help hundreds of thousands of people worldwide get in shape and be their best selves.

In the process, she created a globally recognized brand with almost a million social media followers worldwide and created an online business that has generated over 7-figures in revenue! Although many see Natalie Jill as a fitness and nutrition expert, she is increasingly garnering attention for her ability to help others create, define, and monetize their brand in the online space.

In health & fitness, or in business; Natalie brings out the BEST in everybody she works with and helps them GET RESULTS!

Resources from this episode:

Free workout calendar: www.Nataliejillfitness.com/workout-calendar

Free 10 recipes www.Nataliejillfitness.com/10free

Art of Charm Podcast - Self-Mastery Over Debt w/ Adrienne Dorison

12 Days of Giftaways