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

October 20, 2015 by Paul Leave a Comment

Inside your mind lives a storyteller.

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

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

Let me explain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again that was our inner storyteller talking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But here’s the interesting thing…

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

🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

YOU have an inside storyteller inside your head as well.

We all do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But was it really true?

Was the “hard part” really done?

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

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

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

Was that true?

No, not really…

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

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

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

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

BUT… here’s my point…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Was that the best time to vote? Who knows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We all do this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

HER inner storyteller told her a story.

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

So the real question is this…

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

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

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

That story inspired and motivated me to keep moving forward.

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

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

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

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

Either way it’s just a story.

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

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

It’s your choice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s a picture of my prototype:

It even features a little outhouse. 🙂

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

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

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

How to Market Yourself Online as an Introverted Life Coach

September 7, 2015 by Paul Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It worked MUCH better. 🙂

How to Get Life Coaching Clients as an Introvert

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

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

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

Selling as an Introvert

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… yet we were.

See, that’s the truth about sales…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sales = problem solving.

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

Marketing as an Introvert

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s actually pretty simple…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think of it like this…

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

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

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

🙂

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

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

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

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

Here are some of these pitfalls…

What Doesn’t Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trap #2 – Being an “Undercutter”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trap #3 – Being a “Freebie” Dealer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is how you have to see the situation.

Trap #4 – Wasting Time on “Technical” Issues

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

They take care of the hosting…

They take care of my WordPress platform setup…

They take care of keeping my WordPress updated and secure…

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

They take care of backing up my website…

They take care of any support questions I may have…

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

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

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

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

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

BAD IDEA!

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

It did NOT look like this…

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

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

( Click here to learn more about Kalatu )

Final Words

Most introverted people I know have a LOT to say…

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Stop Manifesting Needless Struggle in Your Life

August 21, 2015 by Paul 10 Comments

One of the sneakiest little “mind viruses” that MANY people suffer from is the addiction to manifesting needless struggle in their lives.

To some degree we all suffer from this.

Some people more than others.

I know I’ve done this to myself many times in the past, and it wasn’t until I became aware of what I was doing to myself that I finally stopped manifesting this pointless, needless need for struggle.

Let me explain what I mean by this.

Have you ever been at a party with a bunch of friends you haven’t seen for a while, just catching up on what’s new with people, and someone asks someone about a trip they went on recently…

… and then that person says something along the lines of “Oh-ma-Gawd, did you hear what happened to us?!” …

… and then they proceed to tell a tale that sounds a little bit like this…

“Okay, so you won’t believe what happened. Here we were, on our first trip to Mexico. It all started when on our way to the airport George realized that he had forgotten his passport, and we were already half way to the airport, so we had to turn around and head all the way back.

But then, as we’re heading back home, we catch a flat tire so we have to pull over to change the tire – right? And THEN, we realize that the spare tire in the back is FLAT as well!

So then, we start freaking out, and then George starts flagging down cars as they’re driving by, to see if we could catch a ride with someone, while I’m on the phone trying to reach anyone to see if someone could help us out – but nobody was available because everyone was at work.

So then George finally flags down this car and the guy agrees to give him a ride home and back for $50! So he catches a ride with this guy, goes home, grabs his passport, and also the spare tire from MY car which was parked in the drive way.

He heads back TO the car, where I’m waiting for him, with all these people staring at us on the side of the road. I was so embarrassed!

Then, George gets dropped off, we throw the spare on the car, and we proceed to the airport, but now instead of being 3 hours early for our flight, we’ve got 15 minutes before the flight leaves…”

… and as they’re telling you this story about their trip, the craziness continues!

All kinds of weird shit manifests, like the plane loses a wheel, the luggage gets lost, security requests a strip search, some lady at the airport spills her coffee on their luggage, aliens invade earth, World War III begins…

… and 45 minutes later the story finally ends with the people surviving the ordeal and making it home in one piece…

Have you ever heard one of these stories?

Have you ever TOLD one of these stories to people?

Do you know what I’m talking about?

For some people, every DAY is one of these crazy stories where all kinds of weird shit happens to them that is just totally out of this world, and in the end they always end up victorious!

They emerge as the HERO of the day, not letting life take them down!

And each time this happens, they LOVE telling everyone their newest “STORY”.

You want to know my latest story?

I’ll tell you.

I went out for dinner with my wife today. We went to a restaurant, had a nice meal, then went to the mall where I found the exact shirts I was looking for and got a $20 discount without asking for it.

Then on the way home I realized I had to get gas, found a gas station really easily, got gas at a good price, and stopped for ice cream at Menchies and it was delicious.

The End!

THAT is how life SHOULD BE – simple, and in the effortless FLOW of the Universe.

THOSE are the stories you should be telling, and THOSE are the stories you should be applauding…

… not all the stories of STRUGGLE and “Oh Ma Gawd you won’t believe ALL the things that went wrong for me today” type of stories.

The more stories of struggle you tell everyone, the MORE struggle you manifest in your life.

The reason why is because you’re addicted to the feeling of being this self-created HERO in your stories of struggle.

You manifest all kinds of stupid unnecessary shit in your life, just so that you can find crazy ways to overcome it, and so that later you can tell everyone who’s willing to listen what a HERO you are for overcoming that crap.

We’ve all done it.

I know I’ve done it in the past.

Once I became aware of this, however, I started to realize that I don’t NEED that anymore.

I don’t NEED to be this “Hero” who first manifested a bunch of stupid shit, just so that later he could overcome it and “save the day” in my own life.

It’s SO MUCH more fun living life in the flow of ease and simplicity and without the need for constant struggle.

Pause for a moment and think about the last time you got together with some friends at a party or some get-together.

Was there someone there who told a story of great struggle and how they overcame it?

BINGO! That’s the example I’m referring to!

Maybe it was even YOU!

If you were the one telling your story of recent struggle, guess what you were doing while telling the story?

You were sending a message out to the Universe basically saying “Universe, I want you to send me MORE of this struggle that I recently had. I want you to send me more and more struggle so that I can find ways to overcome it and so that I can keep telling these crazy stories to my friends and so that I can keep looking like a HERO in front of them. Send more struggle! Send more struggle!”

THAT is what you’re communicating to the Universe.

And by the Law of Attraction THAT is exactly what you’re going to manifest more of…. because its the LAW!

You cannot be telling your stories of struggle and woe, and swimming around in that vibration of struggle in your imagination as you tell the story, and NOT manifest more struggle.

You also can’t be listening to people tell their stories of struggle and engrossing yourself in their stories without attracting a little bit more struggle into your life as well.

This is why it’s important to try to stay away from that kind of drama and struggle.

It’s totally fine to listen to someone’s INSPIRING story where they share some initial struggles they may have gone through in their life when that same story is then filled with 90% – 95% POSITIVE and INSPIRING things that happened to them after that.

A story like that will HELP you in your life because while you’re listening to it, you’ll be engrossing yourself in the vibration of INSPIRATION and POSITIVITY 90% – 95% of the time.

But if the stories you’re listening to and telling people are 90% – 95% filled with nothing but struggle, you’re just going to manifest MORE of that struggle in your life.

Try this…

… try going on a “Struggle Story Fast” for 90 days…

… for the next 90 days, make a commitment to yourself to NOT LISTEN to people telling you stories of struggle…

… the minute you hear someone start telling you a story of struggle, about the crazy weird stuff that happened to them recently, just interrupt them and find a way to get out of that situation…

… and also, for the next 90 days don’t TELL any stories of struggle yourself either…

Crazy stuff MAY happen to you. You may go through some struggles that you manifested. And that’s okay.

But you don’t need to TELL stories about it afterwards.

Just get through it, write about it in your journal if you want to, but then don’t tell anyone else about your struggles.

Stop trying to impress people with your stories of struggles and how you are this HERO who overcomes all the odds.

YOU’RE the one manifesting the struggle in your life because we all manifest 100% of everything in our reality, so all struggle is self-manifested.

So if that’s true, what kind of HERO do you really think you’re convincing people that you are by telling your stories of struggle?

Everyone you THINK you’re impressing with your HERO stories is just thinking “You manifested that yourself in your life you idiot!” … so they’re not impressed anyways.

Just for the next 90 days, don’t tell any stories like these.

Instead, start telling stories of EASE and SIMPLICITY and manifesting FLOW in your life.

Tell those stories to yourself, and if anyone asks you how things are going, tell them your stories of ease.

Most likely they probably won’t be too interested, as most people PREFER to listen to stories of “weird shit” and “drama” and “holy crap you won’t believe what happened to me”, but that’s okay…

… you don’t need your life to be a source of drama like that…

If you want drama, go see a movie or something. 🙂

Try this out for 90 days and notice how things in your life start to shift.

You may start to notice very quickly that things start to flow for you much more easily and with more simplicity.

It really is magical if that is what you CHOOSE to CREATE in your life.

My Mindset Hack Which Solidified My Commitment to Blogging Long Term

August 18, 2015 by Paul 7 Comments

As someone who has been blogging for over 9 years now, one of the things that has fascinated me for a long time is trying to understand the seemingly endless motivation I and many others have for blogging.

I know I didn’t start out having this motivation when I first started blogging.

It’s a mindset that I cultivated inside my mind which now allows me to blog consistently for long periods of time, without giving up, while so many other people quit.

So what is this mindset?

What set of beliefs do I have inside my mind which allow me to continue blogging and to be committed to it for so long?

After searching for an answer to this for quite some time, I think one of the PRIMARY beliefs and mindsets that I have related to my blogs is one of LEGACY.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

When I speak with most people who are starting a Blog, their mindset and thinking focuses mostly on what blogging can do for them today, tomorrow or the next day.

Meaning, their thinking is very short term and they think about Blogging in terms of “If I invest my time and energy writing this blog post, what do I get out of it now?”

Nothing wrong with that line of thinking, and I think that was as well…

…however, there’s also another mindset that I have about Blogging that goes far beyond that.

When I write my Blog posts, I also think about how my Blog post might be able to help someone today, tomorrow, a week, a month, a year or even 500 years from now.

I believe that we’ve reached a point in our civilization where everything we publicly publish on the Internet gets recorded and stored forever.

Therefore, when I write a Blog post I see it as a complete possibility that someone even 500 years from now may be reading a Blog post I write today or a video that I produce, no different from how today we read the works of authors who wrote things hundreds of years ago.

In fact, since my spiritual beliefs are that who we really are is an everlasting Soul and because I believe in re-incarnation, it’s entirely possible that perhaps one day I may be drawn to read my own Blog posts in another incarnation!

At the very least I can see the possibility of at least some of the content that I produce on my Blog outliving me and having a positive impact on someone even after I’m no longer here.

Just the same way that a person like Bruce Lee left his legacy of films, interviews, philosophies and his martial art – Jeet Kune Do – for generations to consume and be inspired by, I believe every one of us has the ability to create content as Bloggers or Video Bloggers and leave our own legacy with it.

For me Blogging is a passion and it’s a way I generate income for myself and my family, but it’s also something I look at as a way to leave a piece of myself as a legacy for future generations.

I find it inspiring to visualize someone today, or a month from now, or 1 year from now or 50 years from now or 100 years from now reading one of my Blog posts, or watching one of my videos and getting value from it.

I think it is because I have essentially programmed my mind to believe THAT scenario as an entirely realistic possibility, that I find the motivation to keep Blogging while so many other people quit.

The reason being is that the way I look at it is even if I write a Blog post today, and it doesn’t generate any income for me today or tomorrow or it doesn’t get a lot of comments or responses, or even if Google doesn’t rank it well in their search engine – it doesn’t really matter, because I know that if I put positive intention and energy into it, my Blog post WILL help someone somewhere at some point in time.

If not today, maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or 500 years from now.

I have that faith because I’ve conditioned my mind to believe that, and that belief helps me to continue to Blog and to ENJOY the process of Blogging. 🙂

What about you?

Have you found something that inspired you to continue Blogging long term?

If so, what is it?

3 Reasons Blogging is Better For Lightworkers Than Posting on Facebook

August 14, 2015 by Paul Leave a Comment

One of the more common reasons that people say that they don’t want to start a Blog is because they say they don’t have the time.

We all have busy schedules and lives, and I totally understand the time commitment required to blog on a regular basis.

However, I often find that the very people who say that they don’t have time to Blog, are constantly posting and sharing pictures, videos, and writing multiple-paragraph posts on Facebook.

This is especially true for Lightworkers – people who have a desire to positively impact our planet.

Most Lightworkers I meet have a message inside them, and they desire to share that message with as many people as possible to impact their lives in a positive way.

A Blog is an awesome outlet for that with many benefits.

Most Lightworkers who don’t have a Blog though, will often put in a lot of time posting positive things on Facebook and sharing them with people.

They feel that deep desire to share and help people, and they try to use Facebook as a platform for that.

Here’s why that is NOT a good idea, and why starting a Blog is MUCH better.

#1 – Blog Posts Can Grab Attention Better

The truth is that when someone posts a paragraph or multiple-paragraphs of text on Facebook as their status update, trying to share a positive message with people, most people will simply ignore and scroll right past that status update.

People on Facebook are more and more becoming conditioned to just keep scrolling and scrolling and to quickly look at pictures, or perhaps a video that grabs their attention, but any amount of text beyond a few words usually gets ignored.

If you take your message and convert it into a Blog post (just like this one), and you share that blog post on Facebook, there is a much higher chance that someone on Facebook will actually read it because you can write a headline which grabs someone’s attention and include a picture as well.

Once someone reads the headline and sees the picture you posted with your Blog post, if they are interested in reading it, they will click through to you Blog and read the actual article ON your Blog where they are much less likely to get distracted by Facebook.

This means that the hard work you put into sharing your positive message is much more likely to be seen by your Facebook friends, simply by taking the content you were already going to be creating for Facebook and making a Blog post out of it.

#2 – Facebook Posts Have a VERY Short Lifespan

When you write a post on Facebook, not only is a very tiny percentage of your audience actually exposed to it, but also that message has a VERY short lifespan.

A Facebook message is usually posted, and shows up in some of your friend’s timelines, and sometimes just a few minutes later it disappears forever.

Of course people can go to your Facebook profile page and scroll through your posts to try to find an older post you posted, but very few people actually do that.

The majority of people on Facebook can barely keep up with their own Facebook wall, so they’ll usually never bother trying to dig through your posts to see if they find something interesting.

The truth is that once you post something on Facebook, it has a very short and limited lifespan, and then that message is gone.

Contrast that with writing a Blog post.

Once you write and publish a Blog post, which only takes a few extra minutes as compared to posting the same content on Facebook, that Blog post can live on the Internet forever!

For example, this Blog post and the hundreds of posts I’ve written on this Blog are indexed into the Google search engine and can potentially be found by people at any time, any day, anywhere in the world.

I have people visiting my Blog and reading Blog posts that I had written months or years ago.

Every Blog post that I write has the potential to positively influence someone at any time, anywhere in the world.

In fact, since there are a lot of Internet archives sites which store public date from the Internet, it’s entirely possible that people might still be reading my Blog posts hundreds of years from now.

Imagine writing a positive Blog posts and having your great, great, great, great grandchildren reading it a few hundred years from now.

How cool would it be if YOU could read stuff that was written a few hundred years ago by one of your ancestors?

That’s entirely possible with Blogging today, but I really doubt anything you write on Facebook will survive that long since it’s hard to even find something that was posted on Facebook a few days ago!

#3 – Blog Post are Indexed by Google and Searchable Beyond Your Friends List

When you write a Blog post, Google will index your Blog post and it’s possible for people all around the planet to find your content.

So if you share something positive, it’s possible for ANYONE on the planet to benefit from that message.

When you post a post on Facebook, only a small group of people are exposed that message for a short period of time and then it disappears.

As a Lightworker, any time and energy you put into sharing a positive message in a Blog post can help an exponentially higher number of people than posting the same message on Facebook.

As an example, here’s a map of the world showing which countries in the world have had people visit my Blog.

Any country in blue has had some visitors to my Blog. As you can see, besides a few countries I’ve had visitors from almost every country on the planet!

And this is just since the beginning of this year.

Your content simply won’t get that kind of exposure from your Facebook post updates unless you have a massive Fan page setup with tens of thousands of followers.

There are just a few of the reasons why Blogging is so much better than posting to your Facebook wall.

I’m not saying that every Facebook update post is worthy of a Blog post, but from what I’ve seen from people who are Lightworkers, a LOT of the stuff that they write on their wall could easily be turned into a Blog post with just a little bit more effort and produce a LOT more benefit for the world AND to the person writing the content.

If you’d like to get started as a Blogger using the ultra-easy and highly-effective blogging platform – Kalatu – click here to get started.