Escaping Mediocrity

Here’s the link: http://www.irresistiblepresence.com!

What’s a Launch Day without Bonuses?!

To get this party started in a most UNMediocre way, I have TWO launch bonuses to offer for your consideration:

Bonus #1 – Everyone who registers for Creating Irresistible Presence Live in the first 24 hours (that means the deadline is Wednesday, June 23 at 1 pm EST) will receive a one-hour, one-on-one, personal pre-event prep coaching session with yours truly. We will preview some of the event material and design your personal event plan to make sure you get the very most from your Creating Irresistible Presence experience. Value: $250

Bonus #2 – Everyone who registers between now and Tuesday, June 29 will be invited to a special group coaching call a few weeks before the event. During this call, I will walk you through my secret formula for making the most of live events and show you how to prepare ahead of time so that you get exactly what you want from the event once you are on the ground.  Value: $150

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ok- to continue our discussion about sales pages…….

I’ve been doing a TON of research on sales pages. Good ones, bad ones, elements that work, verbiage that sucks, etc.  And if I’ve learned anything, it is this:

Though we complain about sales pages, we do want someone to help us make a buying decision. And it isn’t so much the length of the sales page that makes or breaks that deal. It is what the page contains.

- Is it warm?
- Is it full of the same old bs?
- Does it respect and even love – the reader to an infinite degree?
- Does it have personality?
- Does it further the relationship (assuming there is a relationship in place?)
- Is it just a cookie cutter of lots of other sales pages?
- Is the information presented in a way that works for a variety of intake styles?
- Does it convert? (Because it can be an awesome looking/reading page but if it isn’t making sales, all it is is interesting reading.)

These are just some of the questions that have come up in the many discussions I’ve been having about sales pages.

I’ve also come across some that defy the odds and it get oh-so-right. For your learning pleasure, I will share them:

Well, the first one, I can’t show you because he took it down after his amazing 24 hours. BUT, I can show you Jonathan Field’s breakdown of Chris Guillebeau’s Empire Builder’s Kit Sales Page. You will learn a LOT: http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/empire-building-kit-behind-the-launch/

ElizabethPW’s sales page for Build Your Tribe: http://elizabethpottsweinstein.com/buildyourtribe/

Catherine Caine’s Awesome Fear Wrangling course: http://www.beawesomeonline.com/awesome-courses/awesome-fear-wrangling

Pace and Kyeli Smith’s World-Changing Writing: http://worldchangingwriting.com/

Charlie Gilkey’s and Jonathan Meade’s Dojo Guide: http://thedojoguide.com/

None of these are sales pages for I am working on – a live event. Sadly most of these a still lame-o. But after the Ustream Tribe meeting last night (mark your calendar for Tuesday’s at 8:30 pm EST), I have some ideas. But chances are, it will LOOK like a sales page (I’m done trying to figure out how do something amazing and clever).

Will you like it? Will it speak to you? Will it convert?

That remains to be seen…..

Now, in your comments I would love to hear about what you think makes a sales page work and if you have examples, that would be great too.

Here’s to being awesome!

(P.S. My newest 30 Day Series will start on July 1. Sign up for 30 Days to Irresistible Presence here: http://bit.ly/irresistiblepresence

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[Update: The firm I talk about below and I have moved forward. The project at hand is far more important than personal differences. As always, there two sides to every coin and I feel certain that I share in the responsibility of how this thing played out. Apologies have been made an accepted - and now it is time to move on. ~S.]

Last night I go yelled at over the phone. And I mean the I-had-to-pull-the-phone-away-from-my-ear kind of yelled at.

What is particularly interesting about this is that a) I was being yelled at by the head of an outfit that my husband and I have paid to significant amount of money to help us with something pretty major and 2) I was being yelled at because I had the audacity to express frustration and my feelings about a lack of partnership.

Oh – and the person yelling told ME to calm down.

Here’s the thing about this. Aside from the fact that I truly hate being yelled at (it makes me feel like a little kid who has done something terribly wrong), I think the firm in question totally lost sight of the fact the we are clients. We get to be frustrated. And yelling about how we don’t “understand” that we are partners doesn’t make those feelings any different.

Because I do try to turn most anything into a teachable something, here is what I am taking away from this experience:

1. If someone is paying you money for something – especially if it is a significant amount of money TO THEM – they are a client. They deserve to be treated as clients.

2. Telling clients that their feelings are wrong, making them feel wrong, and generally talking down to them is never a good move.

3. Hiding behind “policies and procedures” to deflect honest customer dissatisfaction is cowardly.

4. If you have forced your client to be their own advocate and agreed to their requests, it is totally out of bounds to bottle up resentment about it and dump it on them later.

5. Being able to put yourself in the shoes of your client and really see things through their eyes is the heart of amazing customer service.

6. Though the natural knee-jerk reaction to hearing something unflattering is to be defensive, I’ve never seen that create a happy ending.

7. Accepting 0% responsibility in a heated client situation isn’t going to create a happy ending either.

8. Most client dissatisfaction can be defused by sincere interest in their pain and discomfort.

9. Though you may know more than your client about the details of a situation, don’t make them feel unintelligent.

10. Yelling at a client is always always always a bad idea.

I don’t know. Maybe I expect too much in this legalistic, CYA world we now seem to reside in. And stellar customer service is a rare exception in a world where mediocre is the accepted norm.

What say you? What are your best client relations/customer service suggestions? Oh – and here’s the test: before you suggest them for others, make sure you are willing to deliver them yourself.

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Ok – so I posted zip, nada, nothing on Tuesday. And I do have a very good reason, sort of. I was in an intense in-person coaching session with my mentor Andrea Lee.

Of course I could have planned ahead and posted something or scheduled a guest blogger, but about a million things happened at once in the the days before I boarded my plane, so I really didn’t even think about it.  #OneofthemanywaysIamlame

I was also VERY late getting a promised guest post to @ElizabethPW. She loves me anyway and I did finally get it to her but again #anotherwayIfeellame.

And i was supposed to announce the winner of Delivering Happiness on Monday. And I haven’t. #yetanotherwayIamlame

And now here I sit knowing that I really should be creating something brilliant to say to make up for the fact that I haven’t posted anything all week. And……nothing is coming.

That isn’t exactly true. My mind is awhirl with all of the ideas and discussions from my coaching sessions this week, but my thoughts about it all are still forming into something articulate. They need more time to marinate before I can put them into words.

So, instead of forcing myself to write something that won’t be very good, I’ve decided to let myself off the hook. That way I don’t struggle to write a post and you don’t struggle to read it.

However, I will leave you with a question to ponder. You don’t have to answer it in the comments unless you feel moved to.

Ready?

When describing your business and your life, what do you wish you were able to say about them?

Answer that, and you’ve begun making the map for your own escape from mediocrity.

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I love naps. I can think of nothing more decadent and more re-charging that catching a snooze in the middle of the day. On the weekends our entire schedule is built around the whole house taking at least a one hour nap each day. It’s serious business around here.

And, at the request of @WarrenWhitlock, I am going to share with you a) why I believe naps are critical and b) some of my best tips for getting the most from your nap time.

So first, why do I thinks naps are so crucial?

1) We live in a rush-rush-rush, over-stimulating, sleep-deprived world. In fact we kind of glorify how fast we can do something and how little sleep we did it on. This is physically and emotionally unsustainable. Your body will rebel. You will get sick. You will run out of steam. You will b e an emotional mess. It’s just a matter of time.

2) We MUST give ourselves the gift of re-charging. Even if we love what we do, we can’t push ourselves on a indefinite adrenline-fed frenzy. Our brains, that organ we depend on to produce our brilliant work, simply cannot fire on all cylinders without rest. It’s like asking your body to run a marathon while eating one meal a day.

3) Our brains and our subconscious produce fascinating ideas and connections when they are at rest but not in full REM sleep. (REM sleep produces great stuff too – it’s just a different kind of great stuff.)

There are tons of really good reasons for taking a nap. And the media has caught on because I’ve seen articles and shows everywhere talking about how sleep-deprived culture really needs to take another look at napping.  In the comments I hope you will leave your best reason for napping – that will be fun to read!!

So, we know rest and re-charge is critical but lots of people say “I just can’t nap!”. Sometimes napping involves actually sleep occurring and sometimes it is just a chance for our brains to rest, dance around a flit from topic to topic. The point is that we set aside a time (about 20 minutes to start) and a place (more on that in a minute) to let ourselves sink into resting.

Here are some of my best ideas for for creating a naptastic nap.

1) Cool, semi dark room. Even in the winter I like to have a slow fan going. In the summer, a fan makes the covers feel that much better.

2) Your favorite pillow. You have one – I know you do. So make sure it is your napping pillow.

3) A blanket. No need to unmake the bed (assuming you made it), but covers are critical.

4) Take off your shoes, belt – anything that feels constraining. You can’t get comfy if you can’t wiggle your toes.

5) Turn off your cell phone and unplug the house phone. Trust me. Nothing will happen that you can’t handle 20 minutes from now.

6) It goes without saying that you are napping in a different room from your laptop, right?

7) Set your alarm. this will keep you from stressing out about oversleeping if you do actually fall asleep.  Again 20-45 minutes is about as long as a nap should last. Any longer and you may have trouble shaking the cobwebs out of your brain for the rest of the day.

Then again, I learned a lot about napping from a great boss I had in Washington, D.C. After lunch each day, he told me to hold his calls, he closed his office door, and laid down on the floor for 45 minutes falling fast asleep. Find what works for you.

So I am anxious to know your thoughts about napping. Do you nap? Do you resist napping? Do you have nips for creating a great nap environment?!  Please share – you know that is my favorite part.

Photo:

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By Guest Blogger: Todd Herman

“In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway american dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin out over the line”
~ ‘Born To Run’ by Bruce Springsteen

Ahhh… every time I hear that ‘little diddy’ by Springsteen, it always takes me back to cruising down the highway with my high school buddies, Bill and Jeff. Windows down, music blasting and the feeling of freedom on our way to a Sunday baseball game.

No matter where I am or what I’m doing, when I hear that song, the feeling washes over me like I’m actually there… it never fails.

The mind is a marvelous storage house of these experiences. It’s amazing how one tiny little sensory input (ie good ol Springsteen) – links a truly vast array of emotions, sights, sounds, and smells together in a cataclysmic flash. Only to be triggered again and again, by the same sensory input years and years later.

I’m sure you’ve had the same experience. Whether it’s the smell of lemonade taking you back to some lazy day at the lake… Or, the tone in your Moms voice immediately creates a cascade of negative emotions because of some event in your past… Or, a specific way someone might touch your shoulder – instantly making you feel better, because it’s the same way your dad used to grab your shoulders when you were hurt or feeling down.

We all have these little triggers… You, Me, and Oprah.

Now, I’m going to tell you a little secret. You can INTENTIONALLY create positive triggers for yourself.

It’s the same thing I train professional and Olympic athletes to do, in order to trigger ‘The Zone or Flow State’. (You know… that place where we got completely lost in our activity and produce amazing results… yeah… that place.)

Instead of keeping the proverbial ‘cat – IN – the bag’ – I’ll let you in on the process.

Okay… so here we go, I’m going to run through an exact scenario I just used with a young up and coming golfer trying to break onto the PGA Tour.

Background:

Jeff, was struggling with his bunker play. Every time he stepped into a sand-trap he’d get a tense and anxious feeling in his stomach. His palms would sweat and he’d immediately start to think about what he DIDN’T want to happen (never a good strategy ).

Step 1:

Develop a new trigger for every time he feels the squishy sensation of sand under his shoes – so he feels calm and confident. (Why calm and confident? Because I asked him. How would you like to feel when you enter a bunker? Now, the same goes for you if you’re following along… if you’d like to create a new trigger for some activity you avoid or procrastinate on. Ask yourself, how would I like to feel when I’m faced with that activity?)

Step 2:

I asked Jeff (we were standing on the course by a sand-trap btw) – can you imagine a time or an activity that causes you to feel all warm inside, especially in your stomach, and you get the feeling of calm confidence?

It took him a while to recall an exact experience, but he finally said yeah… “Every time I think of going fishing.”

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Key Point:

Now that I have him ‘thinking’ about it… I want him to go deeper, to the feeling part of that experience and really get emotionally engaged in that memory, because that’s where the sub-conscious will create deep, strong bonds and links to what you’re currently doing.

So, I simply ask him to describe that to me… what is he feeling, what’s that like to be out on the boat or the dock? etc.
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Step 3:

With Jeff holding that strong positive emotion and feeling inside of him I asked him to step into the trap and set-up for the ball that’s sitting in the trap.

(What I’m trying to do is link that feeling to the sensation of sand beneath his feet.)

Step 4:

I told Jeff to step back out of the trap and tell me more about fishing. What his best day was on the water… What’s he thinking about when he’s heading out to fish (incidentally – nothing. He’s just lost in the process of it all and enjoying himself. Which is key to reaching the zone or flow state – no expectations of outcomes.).

We followed the same process of Step 3 and Step 4. Constantly anchoring this positive emotion to the feeling of sand under his feet. (In reality, we did this about 25 times – until he naturally felt calm and confident without any thoughts or feelings of failure.)

Jeff ended up practicing this drill for a week, 10 minutes a day on his own to ensure we were impressing a new cascade of natural emotions and feelings whenever he entered the bunker. VERY KEY!

The idea that you can invest a small amount of time one day to get everlasting change is naive and silly. You’re battling against months and sometimes years of conditioning. Repetition is key! But, the rewards are phenomenal.

Key Insight:

Too many times people give far too much weight to their internal responses to thoughts about their capabilities. Remember, emotions are a biological response to some sort of idea you just thought of… and depending on whether that idea or thought was linked in your brain to a positive or negative emotion from your past – THAT’s the feeling you’re going to get.

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER YOU CAN OR CAN’T DO IT! It’s just how that idea was stored… unfortunately it was tossed in the ‘I’m sucky at that bin’. (Yes, that’s a technical term!)

So let’s remove it from the wrong storage bin and gently place it in the, ‘How freakin’ awesome am I bin’.

Oh, btw… Jeff has now turned into a bunker-lovin’ machine because his results have dramatically changed. Not because he spent hours working on his sand-trap skills… but because he went to work on the root of the problem.

Bonus Audio Tip!

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Todd Herman is a Peak Performance Coach to Professional and Olympic athletes. He’s also worked with Hollywood actors and business professionals on the inner game of success. But more importantly he loves Root Beer and probably needs counseling! You can find out more at: http://thepeakathlete.com or http://thechampionchallenge.com

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By Dr. Mollie Marti

Business is mainly about relationships.  If you are here reading this blog, you likely went into business in response to a burning desire to help others make a positive impact in this world.

Here’s the catch-22: you make your presence more public as a way of helping more people…and then more people begin asking for help!

How can you grow through the greater and greater demands on your time while maintaining your desired happy and healthy lifestyle?

Here are a few perspectives that may help you support your priorities in the midst of business growth:

1. Accept that you simply do not have enough hours in the day to share a piece of yourself with anyone and everyone who wants you.  A business built on time with you is not scalable.  The brutality of this truth does not make it any less of a reality. You may not like it. But if you fight with this reality, you will lose every time. To make a bigger impact, you must prioritize and get really good at saying ‘no’ to requests (while saying a bigger YES to you!).
2. My golden rule: do not leave anyone worse off than when you found them. I distinctly remember the ‘aha’ moment I had when sitting in a law school lecture and the professor said that the basis of our tort system was to make the injured party as whole as possible.  I thought, “well, isn’t that a minimum level of every human interaction? Going forward, I am consciously bringing this choice to all of my
   relationships!” Seek to shower kindness on others while embracing no less than a rule of Do No Harm. If you hurt someone, make amends.
3. With an inherent inability to show all of those we love how much we love them and to help those who deserve our help, there is no room to give time and energy to takers.  If someone is making your life worse and it is clear that they don’t have your best interests in mind, move on (but see #5 before you do!).
4. Adopt a daily gratitude ritual of giving thanks for all the people who have nourished you over time.  Hold them in your thoughts and bless them. Parents. Family. Teachers.  Friends. Clergy. Significant others. Perhaps even those who have hurt you … and made you more of who you are today. Consider using 5 minutes each day to contact at least one person who comes to mind and express your gratitude for how they have helped you become a better person.
5. It’s a common (and I believe extremely foolish) mistake to move on from close relationships too quickly. In today’s world, people seem more inclined to walk away from a relationship than to walk away from their television set or computer. Commitments matter. Investing in those you love and who love you reaps rich rewards. Learning how to best connect and communicate is time well spent.  There are several great resources for better connecting to your partner or kids – one I strongly recommend is Dr. Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages.
6. Take a look in the mirror. What are you bringing to your relationships?  Social media, with its openness and live time interaction, can fool you into thinking that relationships are quick and easy.  The truth remains that relationships take time and effort.  You must invest in them.  Examine what you want others to do for you…and then ask the better question, “What can I do today to bring value to this other person?”
7. My life’s greatest mentor frequently reminded me as a young professional, “Friendship is a two-way street.” This is true of business relationships as well.  In both life and business, pay more attention to those who show they care. Give them special treatment and opportunities for time with you.  This will nourish you as you nourish them.
8. Finally, love yourself. You simply cannot give away what you don’t have.  Invest in making yourself whole and then creating more to share with others.  Consciously design your best life. When you know your personal definition of success and you make smart daily choices to keep your fuel tank full, you are capable of leading a massive caravan of like-minded travelers who enthusiastically want to share this journey of life with you.

I look forward to hearing your feedback – and your best ideas for serving others in a bigger way while leveraging your time and energy.

About Guest Blogger Dr. Mollie Marti

Dr. Mollie Marti, founder of BestLifeDesign.com and coach to elite performers around the globe, pulls out all the stops to help you live a high impact life. This mom/psychologist/professor/lawyer/entrepreneur/author (…the list goes on) is smart enough not to play alone. She hangs with some of the world’s top thought leaders, from Mariel Hemingway to NY Times bestselling authors Daniel Pink and Bob Burg and her team is coming together to offer a powerful (and free!) Best Life Design TeleSummit. Grab your seat at this escaping mediocrity experience before they’re gone: http://bestlifedesign.com.

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Today I am guest posting for MOMeo Magazine’s 30 Day Momentum Challenge.  You can read my 5 Emergency Steps for Getting Unstuck post and join the conversation here: http://ow.ly/1e12l

See you there!

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Seriously  – I do. See, I sit and think about all the people in the Escaping Mediocrity tribe ALL the time. And with 2010 fast approaching, I find that I want to know each of you even better than I already do.

So, I’ve decided to do two things to help make that happen:

1) I put together a four question open-ended survey so you can talk to me a little longer than you usually do in the comments.

2) I thought it would be fun to actually TALK to you on the phone for 15 minutes. At the bottom of the survey, you’ll see a place to put your name, email and phone number so that I can get with you to schedule a time to talk.

You all are so fascinating and I cannot WAIT to strengthen our relationship!

Just click here to go to the survey:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XV8BTNQ

YAY! Can’t WAIT!!

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As an early surprise birthday gift, I got to see the movie Invictus last night starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela.

The movie is absolutely worth seeing and I highly recommend it.

My birthday gift to you is a poem Nelson Mandela shared with the captain of the beleaguered South African rugby team.  It is the poem that saw him through the darkest days of his twenty-five year imprisonment.

Escaping mediocrity and burning ships and playing to win, while exciting, will necessarily bring with it a few dark moments. Print this poem out and keep it in plain view so it will be there when you need it.

I already have.

Invictus by William Earnest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

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