What do you need to change for 2011? What do a crazy pair of shoes have to do with your business? Watch the following video and find out…
Leadership
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Today I’m going to discuss 3 important words that can be used in parenting, leadership, business, or basically whatever profession you’re in, and they are…Information .. Action .. Results.
With the internet, smart phones, TV, radio, newspaper, gossip, etc. information is all around us. We are not in the industrial age anymore. Welcome to the INFORMATION AGE!! We can have access to information within seconds if we really want to find out something. Here’s the problem, how do you know that the information you get is valid? Once you get that information (right or wrong information) you will act upon that information. From your actions you will have results.
So your results of your actions stem from the information you receive. Here is a perfect example, my sister-in-law was in a town she was not very familiar with and she had to run to the store. She asked me how to get back to where I was from that store. I told her to turn left out of the parking lot to get back to where we are. Little did she know that she asked the wrong person! I need a GPS to find the bathroom in my own house! So it took my sister-in-law an hour to get back from a store that was only 15 minutes away.
You see, I gave her information (wrong information), she acted upon it, and got negative results. Let’s go a little deeper. What kind of information are you currently receiving about life, work, relationships, business, etc.? You will know what kind of information you are getting by first looking at your results. Are the results you are getting the results that you really want? What about the actions? Are you doing the right actions to get the results you really want? If you answer NO to both then that means you are not being fed the right information.
That’s what happened to me. I was not getting the right information even though I went to college and graduate school. What I learned in both institutions did not even come close for what I faced in the real world, at my real jobs. If you are a doctor, lawyer, physical therapist, or some kind of other specialty field then yeah, college and grad school will prepare you, but if you are a guy with a Sociology degree and a Masters in Health Care Administration like me then all your learning is going to come in the field OR by you taking the initiative to get the right information.
In any industry who makes the most money? Who has the biggest houses? The nicest cars? The great vacations? It’s the leaders! It’s the people who have taken the extra time to better themselves by seeking out to find the right information, acting on that information, and getting the results they want.
So with online marketing and blogging where do you get the right information? Well, if you want, you can start by checking out my blog posts. Even better join my mailing list to the right. Just enter your name and email address and you will start getting emails on how to properly set up your business on the internet and how to have the mindset of a leader!
The other thing you can do is check out Blogging For Beginners. That site will give you a ton of information on where to find the right information.
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Last blog post I was talking about how important Information, Action, Results were to leadership and building a powerful business. Today I’m going to give you some more words to live by, and those words are Define .. Learn .. Do. This is what happens to 95% of the people in this world…You go to school, get good grades, and when you are done with school you get a job. Now your boss at your job tells you what you are worth and pays you a salary accordingly.
This is totally backwards thinking, and what really happens is that you first LEARN (your job), then you DO (your job), and because your job only pays you a specific amount of money, that salary DEFINES your lifestyle. So no wonder people are in debt out the wazoo! They want better lifestyles that they can’t afford so they “finance” their lifestyle which brings them further in debt.
Leaders, the 5% thinkers in this world, do it the right way. First they DEFINE what they want, then they LEARN the proper steps they need to take in order to get what they want, and finally they go and DO what it takes to get to what they want.
Here is an example of what I’m talking about…You want to make more money to pay off some of your debt and live more comfortably (DEFINE) and you heard that the internet is one of the biggest trends out there that is currently making people money. So how are you going to ride this trend and benefit from it? You are going to study everything you can about Leadership, Internet Marketing, Web 2.0, and other tactics that I have spent hours upon hours studying to do the exact same (LEARN), and finally you go out and act upon your new found knowledge and actually start making some money (DO).
Keep this in mind, we are all the same from the neck down. It is from our neck up that makes us
different. It is the knowledge that we put in our brains that empower us to live lifestyles that we have
always dreamed of living. I encourage you to put some of that knowledge in your brain so you can be empowered to Define, Learn, and Do!
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Today I want to truly write a post from the heart. I have a ton of friends that I interact with on my blog and the social media sites that I frequent and I love the interaction that I have with every one of you. There is a lot of diversity and back grounds out there and I enjoy reading about you all and seeing where you really come from.
So why am I here? Good question. Actually it’s a question I have been asking myself for a while. Hey, I teach to be authentic with your posts and to be real, so I’m just being real. Many of you know that I’m a Christian and first and foremost I am here to serve God and honor Him.
1 Peter 5:2-3
2Just as shepherds watch over their sheep, you must watch over everyone God has placed in your care. Do it willingly in order to please God, and not simply because you think you must. Let it be something you want to do, instead of something you do merely to make money. 3Don’t be bossy to those people who are in your care, but set an example for them.
I honor God by helping people. It may be Biblically related it may not. I may help someone understand the real power of the cross or I may help someone understand the power of social media marketing. But in either case I’m doing it with a servant heart. I’m doing it because I like and want to help people. I want to make a difference in this world.
I’m here to be the best husband to my wife and father to my girls that I can possibly be. God has blessed me with a great family and being self employed I now have the luxury to even be more attentive to them than I did when I was working in Corporate America (except when we are doing a product launch!).
I’m here to be an educator of social media marketing and how to make money online. I love to do it and I enjoy doing it. I love making the connections, interacting with people online, and sharing the principles that have made me successful.
So here’s what I’m dealing with right now. What is my current call in ministry? Ministry is a huge part of my life. The Bible tells us to go out and share what God has done in our lives.
Matthew 28:19-20 19Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20and teach them to do everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.
Believe me, I have done a lot when it comes to ministry. I have started up ministries from scratch, I helped plant a church, I have lead Sunday school, I have preached to my congregation, I have preached to youth, I have organized youth camps, I have volunteered my time for various ministries, etc.
I have seen some amazing miracles come from people fully turning their lives over to God and understanding that they can’t do it on their own. There have been miracles in my life that have happened because I know God’s hand was on me and guiding me. There have been struggles I have been gone through that I the outcome was hopeless and I tried everything I could to fix the problem or issue on my own and failed miserably, but when I went to God’s Word and finally asked for His help the problems were fixed and the outcomes were positive.
Romans 8:28
28We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God—those whom he has called according to his plan.
My dilemma is what is my real calling? Why am I really here? I know I have one! I thought my calling was this one certain ministry but it has been one frustration after another and there are some battle scars that I have with that ministry.
There is another ministry that I am also involved with that I enjoy doing and I know I’m making a difference in those people’s lives.
So I need to spend some time deep in prayer seeking God to see what he wants me to do…bow out of the first one and just focus on the second or fight through both of them.
So why am I telling you all of this? Actually, I don’t know! This has been on my heart for a while and I just needed to express this. Maybe this post will somehow put some things into perspective for you, or maybe this post will just help me think things through better, but either or I know God is in control and whatever the outcome is I’m going to serve Him to the best of my ability.
My life does have a purpose and I am so happy I serve a living God that cares for me, has lifted me up when I needed him, has shared my joys, and knows everything about me.
Matthew 10:29-31
29-31″What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.
People ask me sometimes, “Mike, how do you know God is real?” You know because of the experiences you have with Him. You know because you see positive outcomes in situations that were so hopeless and so negative you can only know that it’s God that carried you through those situations. You know because there is a joy in your life that you just can’t explain. You know because you can feel His presence in your life. You know…because you just know. It’s hard to explain if you’re not a Christian. It’s like an extra sense or an extra feeling that you have. I guess that’s the most easiest way to explain it.
So how to end this post? Well, I’ve been thinking about that for the past 20 minutes! I guess what I’m going to do is like I said spend some time in prayer about my ministry calling and seek direction from God. If anyone has any good books they can suggest I would appreciate that too!
If you’re still reading this I hope my post has somehow helped you out as well. I am human, I am normal, and I do have struggles just like everyone else does. I just take my struggles to God trust in Him that He will work things out.
I do want to leave you with a video from one of my favorite bands, The David Crowder Band. I hope you enjoy this song as much as I enjoy it.
UPDATE
After spending some time with God in prayer I have decided to stay in both ministries and go in a different direction with one of the ministries that I have been focusing on. I’m looking forward to the doors that are going to be open with this ministry and to see lives changed because of it!
I’m reading a great book now called In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day. It’s about how to thrive and survive when opportunity roars. Many people like to run when they see “lions”…I like to chase ‘em and defeat ‘em!
If you are a home based business owner or an entrepreneur then you have probably ran into naysayers either
criticizing you, your product, or your business. You are always going to run into people that have something negative to say, however how you handle yourself in those situations is important to the growth of your business. Today we’re going to discuss how to respond to your current situation and what steps you need to take in order for you to continue on the path to success.
In any situation whether it’s good or bad there are three ways to respond. You can React, Respond, or Initiate.
Reacting doesn’t take any thought, because it’s purely emotion. Acting on emotion is not a very smart move. We see in the real world many people going to jail and doing time because they reacted. The bottom line is that reacting requires very little thought.
Responding takes a little more effort and a little more thought. Some responses are good while others involve more emotion than thought which could lead a situation going nowhere. Responses are all over the place; responses to emails, verbal, responses, video responses, responses in forums, etc. If you are going to do any kind of response than I think you will need sit down and really think about what you’re going to say before you respond.
Seth Godin said in this book Tribes, “Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that’s what leaders do. They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it. They cause the events that other have to react to they make change.”
Initiating is by far the best of the three. Let me explain how I took the initiative in my business and totally bypassed reacting and responding. When I first got into network marketing I was approached by an “old schooler” who closed me hard and I joined his organization. I brought some people into the organization but it was like my job in the corporate world, their marketing tactics just didn’t fit my personality. It wasn’t fun, I was driving all over the place going to different meetings and presentations, and I was wasting a lot of my hard earned money.
Around the same time I discovered online marketing. It was way different than what it is today, but it caught my eye and I wanted to learn as much as I could. I approached my upline and told him about this new world of marketing that I discovered. His response to me was, “That’s not how this organization does business. You need to stick to the system.”
Well I didn’t like the system, I wasn’t content, and I wanted more. So I left that company. I didn’t leave because of the money; I left because I wanted to learn as much as I could about online marketing. You see, when he told me that I couldn’t market outside of their sales system I could have reacted with my emotions and gave him a piece of my mind, and I could have responded appropriately after thinking and formulating my response, but I chose to initiate my several yearlong study of online marketing. In a sense I was initiating my future.
Fast forward about 7 years and now I am in a social media class that Jonathan Budd, Katie Freiling, and a few others were teaching. They taught me how to blog, market through social media sites, and actually get traffic. After the course I started I initiating. I got busy implementing every strategy and tactic that they threw at me and I started to get traffic to my blog (real traffic….not my parents just stopping by) and the leaders started to notice me.
From there things just took off. I got asked to be a leader in another class, and I met 5 other great guys who are now my business partners and we formed a company called Empowered Tribe where we teach people how to set up a social media tribe that will help them quickly their business up and running online. All off this happened because I chose not to settle, but chose to initiate.
One leader defined the term leadership as a planned assault on the status quo. In other words, don’t settle for what is, initiate for what will be. Each person initiates differently. Some people may initiate by just getting their blog up and running and finally taking control of that, while other people may initiate by developing their own product and / or course. Still some people may initiate by breaking off with their currently company and going a totally different direction. In any case, nothing will get done, no progress will happen, and no change will take place until you first take the lead and initiate.
Sometimes we don’t know how to initiate, where to begin or what to do. I would suggest that you look to leaders in the industry that you admire and see how you can emulate what they are doing. Sometimes you need to pay a mentor to help you get started and help get your thought process down on what you want to do and how to get you there. That is perfectly alright because all leaders have mentors. We just need to take the first step and initiate it!
Below are 6 steps to help you initiate your future:
1. Analyze your current situation and see if you are satisfied with where you are in your business.
2. If you are not satisfied think of where you want to be and what you want your business to look like. Visualize what you want your business to look like.
3. Write out some clear and measurable goals for your business. These goals need to be as clear and specific. For example, I want to master social media is not a very strong goal. A better goal may be, I want to have 10 opt-ins a day into my autoresponder in 6 months by implementing the 10 tactics Michael Feil teaches in his autoresonder class. Can you see that the second example is much better than the first because it is specific and gives a time period?
4. Now that you have your goals you need to set up your plan. Basically, what steps are you going to take to get to your goal? All this needs to be documented in a place you can go back and look at it again and again.
5. Now comes the initiate part. Start working your plan and making a change. Like I said before, often the initiate part starts with breaking off of something you are doing that is not getting you to where you want to be. It’s time to leave the status quo and start making things happen.
6. Once you start working your written plan you should now be able to see a change. Things are now taking off and you are making a difference with your actions and your plan. This would be a good time to ask a mentor to check out what you’re doing to make sure you’re on the right track. You may have to pay for this or if you know the right people it may not cost you anything. If you do have to pay this would be money well spent.
Initiating is a 6 step process and most of the time it won’t happen overnight. It will take time and it will take some work on your end, but if you’re not satisfied what how things are going it probably is time to start initiating change, especially if you want to be a leader in your industry.
I want to encourage you that no matter where you are today you can be successful. You are someone of value and of worth and you are important to this world. You can make great things happen, all you have to do is bypass reacting and responding, and just roll up your sleeves and start initiating. The future is wide open. Visualize what you want, then start initiating to make the change towards your dreams and goals.
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Welcome to Day 4 of the Empowered Tribe In San Diego. We had a great day today masterminding, meeting our friends and mentors Jonathan Budd, Katie Freiling, and Aaron Fortner, and just goofing off.
I have two videos for you today and I hope you enjoy them!
Katie Freiling, Me, Jonathan Budd
The Tribe
Empowered Tribe Enjoying The Pacific Beach!
Here’s the second part…
Regis Lebre, Me, Royler Gracie, Jonny Faria
Here is day 3 of the Empowered Tribe In San Diego. We spent the day masterminding in our condo. We only went out to eat and soak in the hot tub. We DID get a lot accomplished!
Again, this is only Day 3 of an 8 day masterminding experience with 5 guys that never met each other in person before but have been working very closely with each other on several business projects and have already started making money before they ever met!
Check out the video…
Here is Day 2 in San Diego. We spent 10 hours with Network Marketing sensation Raven Starre. Enjoy the Pic and Video’s below!
The Empowered Tribe With Raven Starre and Sage Hope…
Here is a brief summary on how the Empowered Tribe got started. This was taken during our lunch with Raven Starre and Sage Hope.
The masterminds of Empowered Tribe has never met in person before…until now! We have planned a week in San Diego, CA just to come meet each other face to face and work on our next big project together…all in one room! Unfortunately, Eric Goldstein, another one of our business partners couldn’t make it but we will be talking to him via Skype several times throughout the week!
I will be video documenting our trip throughout the week so make sure you come back and check out what we’re doing and have planned for you guys!
If you like what we’re doing please comment and retweet!
Live events are great! It gets people offline for a bit so you can meet each other face to face and interact
on a more personal level. Many people don’t realize that live events don’t just give them valuable information to help the person grow, but it actually helps their business grow. This is because the relationships and connections that you make at a live event can become very lucrative partnerships and joint ventures.
In this industry that we’re in many people go to live events but don’t really know how to get the most out of their experience there. I would like to give you some tips on what to do before, during, and after a live event.
1. Make a list of questions you want answered while you’re there. Before you go to the event you need to make a list of questions you want answered while you’re at the event. If you have questions about something specific you are working on or having trouble with then write down the questions you need answered and seek out those experts while you’re there.
2. Write down who you want to meet while you’re there and what you want to ask them. This is different from the above because the above questions are questions about your specific business and struggles you may be having with your business. If you know someone you admire or respect in the industry is going to be there write their name and some specific questions about their success like, “What’s the most 3 important things you did that got you to where you are today?” Or, “If you had to do it all over again what would you do different?”
3. Get on every speaker’s blog and see what they’re about before you go to the event. You may be going to an event with several speakers but you may only know one or two of them. Before you go to the event you will want to do some research on the speakers to see what they are doing and get a feel for what their niche is in the industry. A best place to do that is their blog. You can go there and see their “About Me” page and get some background information from them and then browse the rest of their blog to see what kind of content they are putting out. After you get to know them better from their blog they may be one of the people you want to meet and ask some questions to.
4. Find a live event buddy and hold each other accountable. This can be someone that comes with you to the event or it could be someone that you meet there. Many times at live events people are furiously taking notes and when they get home where do those notes go? On the bookshelf or in the drawer never to be seen again! Well, here’s a solution for that. Ask someone to be your event buddy so when the event is over you both can debrief before you part ways and tell each other what you learned and what you’re going to implement and what your actions steps are for when you get home. Then when you get home agree to meet on Skype of the phone once a week for a short meeting to see if you guys are completing your action items that you said you were going to do. This sometimes morphs into a partnership or a joint venture. So make sure you find a good buddy!
5. Craft your brand. When you go to a live event you need to brand yourself just like you want to brand yourself online. When you meet someone you want to tell them three things; 1. Who you are, 2. What you do, 3. Why you are here. For example, if I was going to a live event that will teach me how to blog I will say something like, “My name is Michael Feil and I am and I teach people how to market online through social media and tribe building principles. The reason why I am here is to gain more knowledge on how to get more traffic to my blog and meet other people in the industry.” So then people that might not be familiar with the tribe concept may start asking me, “What is a tribe?” Then we can start having a meaningful conversation instead of, “Where are you from?” Or, “Nice weather we’re having today!”
6. Get business cards made that has your information on the front and your brand on the back. So on the front of the card you will have your name address, email, phone, etc. Then on the back you can put your brand like we mentioned above. Or you can put the URL to your top three affiliate links. Or you can say something like, “Teaching people tribe building principles that will give them massive exposure. Call me for a FREE 30 minute consultation.” Remember the goal is not how many cards you give out but how many you get so YOU can follow up with them. If they don’t have a card write down their info so you can follow up with them.
7. Cross off each question as they get answered. Going back to point one, as you are at the live event and listening to the speaker many times he or she will answer your questions that you wrote down through their presentation. Whatever is left over you can then seek out the proper people to answer them.
8. Get the event early and stay late. Most likely you traveled far and paid a lot of money to come to the event so make the most out of it. Get to the event early and stay late if you can. By doing this you will have time to interact with some of the attendees there as well as a chance to speak with the speakers. Your time there is valuable there so make the most of it!
These are just eight of many different ways you can make the most out of a live event. The main goal there is learning but the value really comes by networking.
If you are interested in meeting some of the great industry leaders and peers that you see online every day, learning all the current principles on online monetization, networking, and coming to a really fun fundraiser with many surprises you will need to check out the event we are hosting. You can find all the details at http://TribeSyndicationRevolution.com
