life satisfaction

4 Tactics Successful People Use to Get More Life Satisfaction

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“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

This week, I’m officially going to be launching my second eBook entitled 3 Steps to Leveling Up in Manhood.

Why?

Well, for one it’s supplemental info for the most visited post on the New Inceptions blog.

This post is entitled Stages of Manhood: Are You Unfinished? and I just don’t think it’s as deep as it could be.

Two, I’ll admit that there are plenty of coaches out there that help men level up. That said, I think that my story is almost as simple as you can get in making the journey. The way I found Maria is like how most guys go into a store. Go in, find exactly what you want, and get out.

And three, while I could have focused on a resource that isn’t gender specific, I’m a heterosexual guy and to be quite frank, I think that guys have a better chance of successfully learning and teaching this kind of information with and to other men.

If you want to find out more about the resource – it will be up by next week for sure.

In the meantime, I thought I’d put some extra information here that I thought relates very well – to both sexes.

So here we go…

1. Know what’s Important in Life

Many people today (myself included) were told as we were growing up by marketing companies that we need things. The more we saw the ad, the more we probably wanted whatever they were advertising (or at least knew about it). The higher this want was, the more likely we are to buy something – whether we need it or not.

In last week’s post, I briefly talked about Shopping and “Retail Therapy” as a way for people to get a rush.

But, like any beginnings of an addiction, this high is very short lived. And naturally we’ll want more and more of it. Eventually, if it goes unchecked, this addiction can cause us problems in the rest of our life.

So, to deal with this problem, many people believe that the way to solve it is to outearn the problem. This makes a little sense. But is pretty difficult to actually do.

It’s the Relationships, Not the Things

Interestingly, if a person is used to buying themselves into debt at one level, the chances of them changing at a higher income is highly unlikely. Simple truth is that the higher the income a person has, the more they’re probably going to spend on stuff they don’t need.

Whether you’re buying things for yourself or others, this rush always occurs when we’re buying something.

What we really should focus on is what is going to stick with us long term. And what I’ve come to find out is that solid relationships with those that we choose to be in our lives is really the makeup of who we are – not the things.

So if you’re going to spend money, spend money in a way that is investing in yourself and the relationships with others – but not so much that you make yourself poor in the process. We wouldn’t want to be an enabler. (If you are curious about that topic, here’s a resource.)

2. Be Self-Aware of Who You Are And What You Want from Life

Ok, so we learned that money shouldn’t be the total focus in life. And you’ve heard numerous times on the AoL Podcast that being financially wealthy doesn’t measure one’s success.

So if we’re not living to produce money (which, let’s face it, many people do in today’s world), what are we living for?

To find the answer for this question, we need to dig down deep into ourselves. We need to be more authentic – not just to people around us but to ourselves. This is the only way that we’ll be able to find our strengths. When we know what our strengths are, our passion will find us. As we hone our strengths, we start finding our purpose in the world.

I have come to find out that most of us would be much happier if we spent our time living to better ourselves, our lives, and the lives around us. True, having money might be a part of that, but being wealthy is what I really am talking about – and not just monetarily wealthy. I mean the whole shooting match.

The truth of the matter is this: the more compassion we have for ourselves and others (notice I didn’t say just ourselves), the happier of a life we’re going to have. You gotta learn how to give yourself a break when it’s needed, but also know when you need to persevere forward in your journey.

As we go on this journey, we’ll have more and more to add to our life stories. And I’d imagine that you’d probably want your life story to be a best-seller (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this)… so don’t live the same life as everyone else.

3. Demonstrate Passion and Perseverance for Long-Term Goals

One of the reasons why many of us fail to live our passions, besides working for a paycheck, is that we’re not entirely sure of ourselves when it comes to making long-term goals and decisions. Outside of formal education, most of us have never have really made a long-term goal and stuck with it. So that’s why you could look at your scholastic history as a model of how to do long term goal setting and planning.

Now, here’s a problem. The thing is that formal education never asks us what we want to be when we grow up. They just program us to be a cog in the big plan of society. I’m sure like me, you’ve probably at one point asked yourself “Why do I care what x and y are when 3x + 4y = 35”?

You don’t care, that’s the thing. Formal education teaches most of us what to learn and think so you’ll be a good soldier.

That being the case, we can learn to set goals for ourselves by modeling their process – just not the topics that are taught.

Use Familiar Time Frames to Cut Up Large Goals

So what does that mean? Well, for one, you might want to cut your stretches of time into weeks, 6 weeks, semesters, years, etc. And to be truly honest, don’t expect anything great to take less than a year to get off the ground. Those of us who went to college know that there is a big difference between being a high school senior and a college freshman. (Same could be said about moving from junior high to high school, but many of us can’t remember that far back! Haha.)

So you’re going to have to let yourself have some time in getting acclimated to your surroundings anytime you start something new.

Also, don’t forget about getting things done in a day. Don’t try to get a ton of stuff done, but instead, focus on one to three things that you know you can get done. If you have time afterwards, work on some of that other stuff then.

If you have a bad day, don’t worry about it. Everyone does, and in the grand scheme of things, one bad day isn’t going to ruin your life’s plan. In fact, it might give it a good mini-story.

4. Embrace a Growth Mindset

You know, I’ve always learned and read things just for the heck of it. I used to love finding out about new science related stuff, and filling my head with random facts. In fact, that’s still one of the ways that I spend free time here and there. I’m a reddit addict during my idle time.

In the grand scheme of things, there’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, you being able to be curious is what is going to help you be of service to other people. The more you can learn about various topics related to your strengths and skill set, the more valuable you become to others.

On top of developing your strengths and skills, you also want to be able to develop your social skills. In college, we always talked about how a graduate’s first job is going to be obtained from the skills they have and their GPA.

After they’ve been in the marketplace for a while, their people skills become increasingly more important. There’s two reasons for this. One is because the skill set they developed at college, tend to become outdated within a few years (especially those in STEM related fields) and two, as they get older they’ll be expected to lead more teams.

So that’s why soft skills are so important. Funny enough, this is why the department I got my Masters from at Purdue existed in the first place. The Organizational Leadership and Supervision was in the School of Technology!

Case Study:

Just a note as we’re looking to check out here, here’s a post from Dane Maxwell (known for starting The Foundation) that I believe embodies everything that I’ve discussed here today.

After reading the post, we should be able to see that he hits all 4 of these ways of having a more satisfying life.

  1. He Knows What’s Important in Life
  2. He Knows Who he is and What he Wants from Life
  3. He’s been able to Plan and Achieve Long Term Goals
  4. And, he’s been able to Embrace a Growth Mindset

If your goal in life is to be happy and satisfied with who you are and what you do, then I believe that you could learn a lot from studying Dane and his continuing journey.

Action Steps:

This week, if you haven’t already, I want you to start doing some soul searching. Think about not only what’s important in life, but what you want from it. Also, based on what you know about yourself, think about how you might just get there. You might find out that happiness is actually closer than you think.

Also, if you’re nowhere close to your ideal life, start trying to find and get to know people that might be connected to individuals who are. Start investing in those relationships and helping each other get to where you both want to be in life. Start becoming a Linchpin.

Further Study on this Topic:

Wanting to know more about this topic? Here’s a two more resources:

6 Questions to Ask Yourself to Get the Most Out of Life

 

Tony Robbins: The Day I Became Wealthy

take control of your life

7 Ways to Stop Being a Victim and Take Control of Your Life

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A video from this past winter of Gary Vee’s got me thinking. The world is full of victims. And really, much of the direction of the country as a whole is going because of how many people in their lives that they are a victim – more to the point – a victim of their circumstance. Here’s that video:

Just this past weekend, I had the opportunity to sit down with a friend of mine from the Muncie area. As we were talking, he made it clear that he felt that his place in life made it hard for him to progress in life. Having a disability from a past job and not feeling like he could be retrained to do something else due to his age, he seemed adrift in his career. Just bobbing up and down in the sea of life and letting whatever currents that be take him with them.

I asked him, “if you had an ideal life, what would it look like?”. He said “You know, I haven’t really thought about that because it seems like it would be too far out of reach.”

I then asked him, “How do you think that the Olympic athletes are there doing their thing? Do you think they thought that being there was out of reach?”

His response was, “No. But they had people that helped them get there. They knew the right people.”

“Interesting.”, I replied. The conversation continued after that for a bit… but I could tell that I got his mind spinning a bit.

Formal Education Can be a Waste of Time

Now, if you’re not familiar with the Muncie, Indiana area – it used to be full of manufacturing jobs. However, since those jobs have all but left the country, there are many people who are still displaced and trying to figure out what to do with their lives. (A bi-product of this loss of jobs has been the rise of drug use in the area – including, but not limited to, meth.)

When I worked at Ivy Tech for a few years, my students were mainly a mixture of kids just out of high school and these displaced individuals. I’m glad that they were there. Whether they were there because they got some money from the state to be there (school loans that might later hurt them) or they actually realized that education IS a way to move forward. I loved these adult learners – but I hated that I wasn’t getting the opportunity to teach them important things that would help them actually move forward in their lives.

Seriously. How is Algebra going to help them? They need a whole reworking of how they see the world. Not the knowledge of how to find the equation of a line drawn on a grid!

Even when I first went to college, I was hoping that it would teach me skills that I would actually be able to apply to having a successful life. Instead all I was taught was code, equations, and facts. While it applied to me getting a job, it never applied to real life.

When I graduated, I pretty much had the same perspective on life that I did when I entered. I just had a higher vocabulary. (Which, funny enough, ostracized me from everyday folks outside out of academia. Later, when I did start teaching at Ivy Tech, I had to become more relatable and adjust my speaking patterns again.)

I can attribute my new perspective on the world as starting during my active years in LTD. That was the first time in my life that I had positive and successful people around me. I learned from them how to start learning how to live a better life myself. And the biggest thing that I learned was that I needed to adjust my own victim perspective. (Soon, with the passing of my mom, I also realized that the mindset of a victim can actually kill. She had several things wearing on her at the time and anytime I hear people stuck in life with little options, I really feel their pain. It usually brings me back to what she was going through.)

7 Steps to Retaking Control of Your Life

So, how did having these people in LTD specifically help me get out of having a victim mindset? Well, you’re in luck. I’m going to share you a list of steps that I can look back on and see what I did to start getting to point where I am today.

Become aware and realize when you’re playing the victim card.

Like any other “normal” behavior, blaming others for your misfortunes can become a habit and even an addiction. Like any other addiction, we need to be able to admit that we need to make a change in our own life before we can actually do it.

Realize why you actually do it.

  • You might want attention and validation. You can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out. On the other hand, it may not last for that long as people get tired of it.
  • You don’t have to take risks. When you feel like a victim you tend to not take action and then you don’t have to risk for example rejection or failure.
  • You don’t have to take the sometimes heavy responsibility. Taking responsibility for your own life can be hard work, you have to make difficult decisions and it is just heavy sometimes. In the short term it can feel like the easier choice to not take personal responsibility.
  • It makes you feel right. When you feel like the victim and like everyone else – or just someone else – is wrong and you are right then that can lead to pleasurable feelings.
  • As with any other bad habit (or addiction), being aware of what you’re actually doing is will give you the ability to start thinking about those actions rationally. It’s when you’re aware of your actual choice that you can start thinking about taking different actions.

It’s Ok to Not Be a Victim

Anytime we think about doing something different in our life, we always wonder what others in our life are going to think. If you’re a gamer, you’re going to wonder what your gaming buddies are going to think. If you’re an alcoholic, you’re going to wonder what your buddies at the bar are going to think. The list goes on.

Also realize that you’re going to struggle with it yourself. You may have spent hours each week with thinking and talking about how wrong things have gone for you in life. Or how people have wronged you and how you could get some revenge or triumph over them. This whole new thinking process is going to be new to you. It’s going to be tough, but in the end it’ll be worth it to be free.

Now you have to fill your life with new thinking that may feel uncomfortable because it is not so intimately familiar as the victim thinking you have been engaging in for years.

Take Responsibility for your Life.

Stop waiting on other people’s approval to live your life. As much as you might think growing up, you’re not your parents, and they’re not you.

Growing up, if we’ve had good parents, they’ve programmed into us that we’re capable of doing anything with our lives. However, over time we might start feeling that we’re not living to their standards. (I know that’s something that I’ve struggled with in the past.)

From this, we start developing self-esteem issues. We start believing that we’re totally capable of living a good life, but for whatever reason, it’s not happening.
We might lash out on other people, we might drown ourselves in other types of addictions to avoid the pain that we’re feeling.

This damages other vital parts of our lives: relationships, ambitions, and other achievements. Obviously, this isn’t a good thing.

Until we take take responsibility for our own lives, this pain of ours continues. If anything goes wrong in life, take responsibility for it – unless your life is literally threatened then you should probably blame the other guy. 😉

(Side note: Also forget what other people say if you’re having issues there. You don’t need to be part of a group that disrepects you as a person.)

Have Gratitude for What you do Have.

I can almost guarantee you that you’re probably upset about where you’re at in life – with something. You might have thought that you were going to be farther in life than you currently are. Maybe you thought you’d be married by now. Maybe you want to have kids and you don’t yet. Maybe you actually have a successful business now, but you don’t own the Jets yet (looking at you, Gary. 😉 )

The truth is that there’s a thing called “The Missing Tile Syndrome”. We all have it and need to deal with it regularly. The best way to deal with it is to appreciate that all the other tiles in our lives are in place. That maybe we have a loving family and that we have a good job to pay the rent or mortgage. Or that we can travel anywhere in the world that we want to at any time.

Having a journal can help immensely with this step.

Forgive Those who Trespass Against You.

At this point, you’re starting to realize that you’re not perfect. That’s great! But you also have to give others the benefit of the doubt too. The truth of the matter is that no one has time to worry about your life more than they worry about their own. So they’re going to piss you off from time to time because they’re just trying to do their thing.

Forgive those that cut you off in traffic. They might be having a really bad day. Forgive those that cut in line at the fair or Disney World – they might actually have a VIP pass. (Is that an actual thing?)

The point being is that you bring on this negative energy onto yourself when you have these feelings. You want positive energy and forgiving does that. Start thinking about other people’s perspective when they seemingly are picking on you. (Unless again if your life is ACTUALLY threatened… then you might want to go into self preservation mode.)

Turn your focus outward and help someone out.

There’s a saying, “People don’t care about what you know until they know that you care”. But the problem is that people really don’t know who you are (because why would you have ever shown them the real you?) or they don’t know you’re trying to make a change to be a better person.

Action speak more than words. So if you’re true intent is to ultimately feel that you’re not a victim, there’s nothing more that will show this than actually being of service to other people.

Really, when you’re known as being a server and later a servant leader, that’s when you really know you’re no longer a victim – you’re a victor.

Sometimes You’ll Need to Give Yourself a Break.

Sometimes you’re going to have relapses in your feelings about yourself and your new decisions. It’s part of what makes us human. In entrepreneurship, it’s called the entrepreneur emotion rollercoaster.

Sometimes you’re going to love what you do. Sometimes you’re going to wonder if it’s worth your trouble.

When I’m on the bottom of this rollercoaster, I’ll remind myself that I’ve done the work to come to this point and realize that this is who I am and no one can take that from me.

In your instance, you might simply need to realize that it’s not about being perfect. It’s about being happy. Sometimes other people are going to crap on you on rainy days. Just remember that they’ll get theirs and there’s nothing you should do to speed that process up because you’ll look bad in the process (again, unless it’s about actually surviving… then take them out or escape. We don’t want anyone suffering from Stockholm Syndrome).

Action Steps:

Below, I’d love to hear from you! Let me know how these work out for you if you get a chance to use them in your life too. Or maybe you’ve gone through a similar process? Let me know if I left anything out!

skill hack

AoL 047: How to Skill Hack and Stay Engaged In Your Creative Work with Stephen Robinson

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On the show today, 2 friends and a host share what it’s really like learning for a living. That’s right, I said LEARN for a living.

What does mean? Well, I’m glad you asked!

Ginger joins me again in this one and we talk with one of her friends that she’s met in her travels – Stephen Robinson.

Stephen is founder of 52Skillz, a YouTube channel in where he discovers, learns, and shares a new skill weekly.

With so many “leading learners” out there, there’s a lot of conversation in how to do it.

While Stephen has had plenty of inspiration, he wants to make sure he does it his own way. He does it by one-upping people that are already out there.

So, is it as easy as it sounds? Or, as we ask him in the chat: How do you stay engaged and up-to-date in your work?

The answer, and the story of where 52Skillz came from is what we lay out for you today on the show.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How Stephen chose his major in college 10:42
  • How to not get your business lost in the ether of the internet. 14:37
  • Where the idea for 52 Skillz came from. 17:00
  • Does Stephen feel he was inspired by Tim Ferriss? 19:46
  • Does he feel like there’s any favorite skills that he’s learned? 21:53
  • Where he would recommend that people start if they wanted to start learning skills quickly. 29:02
  • How Stephen has a constant flow of content coming for his YouTube channel. 33:13
  • Does he do his own video production? 36:08
  • How he has the ability to work on a passion project while at the same pay the bills. 40:58
  • What’s a strategy that Stephen would recommend to transfer to do something they love? 44:34
  • How does Steven stay engaged in his work? 48:17
  • How he got ready for his TEDx talk 58:33
  • What is Stephen’s thoughts on having deadlines? 1:00:22
  • What’s Stephen looking forward to in the near future? 1:03:24
  • 3 Favorite Influencers 1:07:00
  • 3 Truths to share with others 1:07:18
  • What’s the message he’d put on social media? 1:08:42
  • What’s one thing that he used to believe but doesn’t anymore? 1:09:38
  • … and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Ginger comes through on her promise in learning to juggle!!:

Stephen’s TEDx Talk:

How He Prepped for his TEDx Talk:

Zephan Blaxberg Interview of Stephen:

Alexis Hillyard’s “Stump Kitchen” Crossover:

My Favorite Video of 52 Skillz:

 

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

 

ashley zahabian interview

Ashley Zahabian: Getting Through Difficult Times and Busting the Myth of Overnight Success (AoL 044)

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When it comes to success, many times we think that people are lucky and that success just happens. Even this past week with the launch of Pokemon Go, we’ve seen something take very little time to become really well known – even by those of us who have put very little time into it if none at all.

However, just like the creator of Pokemon, our guest Ashley Zahabian would tell you that there is no such thing as overnight success. In fact, when it comes to her story, she’s been on the public speaking path for several years already – which is saying a lot for a 21 year old!

In this session, Ginger and I dive into Ashley’s path and find out how an overnight success story is made. Join in as we discuss how she went from living a caged life to a charged one, what she has planned for the next few years, and how she stays consistent in her work.

If you’ve seen this gal on stage, Facebook or YouTube, this is a backstage pass that should give you hope in reaching for your goals and dreams!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • Why the struggles she’s had over the last several years have helped her become an “overnight” success. 10:39
  • What she’s been able to implement into her entrepreneurial career from what she learned in college. 15:34
  • Ashley’s take on Mr. Wonderful blowing up on Maneesh Sethi on Shark Tank 19:09
  • Why she thinks it’s important to work with your passion. 21:00
  • How she belives that she was able to move from living a Caged life to a Charged life 27:22
  • The feeling of what it was like to become an honest person. 23:34
  • The first thing someone can do to step into a Charged life. 28:37
  • How Ashley stays consistent in her work week. 34:38
  • What gave Ashley the idea to start doing her video series. 38:47
  • Why she doesn’t worry about using clips from movies in her videos on YouTube. 40:45
  • How long Ashley has been doing speaking engagements. 42:10
  • What she would recommend for people to do if they wanted their first speaking gig. 43:34
  • What she imagines that the next 5 years of her career look like. 48:19
  • Three truths that she would share with others. 51:25
  • Three of her favorite influencers in her life. 52:02
  • If she could have high school consume certain information, what would she prescribe. 52:41
  • What she would tell the 13 year old version of herself. 56:50
  • …and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS (Update – 5.16.2017):

Hey guys! Thanks for looking for the show note extras for Ashley’s interview. Unfortunately, a lot of her earlier stuff has been taken down. So I’ve gone and added a few other videos for you to enjoy of Ashley at work… including her TEDx talk!

Ashley’s Interview on Addicted 2 Success TV:

Ashley on her Experiences at the Feliciano School of Business:

Believe in Yourself (An Early Speech by Ashley):

Ashley is officially a TEDx presenter!

Ashley on the I Am the Average Podcast:

Ashley Zahabian interview

 

 

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

dustin stout

AoL 043: How to Place Your Knowledge on Auto-Pilot and Get Paid Repeatedly For It with Dustin W. Stout

/by

People start businesses for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes that reason is that they see a need in the world that they can respond to. Others, like me, start a business because we see it in the future as a means to create a lifestyle that we want.

The same can be said about this session’s guest, Dustin W. Stout.

Dustin, like many other entrepreneurs, stumbled into business. And over time, he became really good at being a consultant and helping other people with his skills. However, this was active time that he was putting in and it was taking away from time that he could be spending with his young family.

In this session, we find out more about where he came from, how he became well known in social media, and also why he basically changed his business to focus on building SaaS products.

If you’re currently a freelancer or doing work that requires you to put in a ton of active work from project to project, perhaps Dustin’s story will give you some insight in how you can build a business that gives you more freedom.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • Why Dustin believes that performers do so well in the digital marketing space. 4:59
  • How he got started as a youth pastor after being a performing arts major. 6:11
  • How he stumbled into his first business. 9:45
  • How Dustin first met Michael Hyatt and was compelled to build his platform. 13:27
  • What his first blog was about. 18:15
  • What made his blog take off. 22:05
  • How Dustin created his first community online. 23:51
  • How he got his first paying client. 26:09
  • What the process is like to get recognized by Social Media Examiner as someone that knows that they’re talking about. 30:37
  • Where Dustin got the idea to start in the plugin / SaaS world. 32:37
  • What Social Warfare is all about. 35:37
  • Freedoms that Dustin has through his business versus the life he’d have if he went the actor route. 35:41
  • Would he ever consider going back to the acting world? 40:47
  • Three teachers that has catapulted him to where he is today. 44:01
  • Three truths that he’d share with others. 46:29
  • If he was to put in ad into the world, what would it be? 48:22
  • What he would say to his 20 year old self. 52:09
  • When he thinks of success, who is the person he thinks of and why? 53:23
  • What are some steps to “be like Dustin”? 55:06
  • …and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

More about Social Warfare:

>

 

Dustin discussing Google Plus with Lauren Francesca on why you might want to check it out:

Dustin with Thomas E. Hanna on how to use images with your content:

An example of why Dustin chose to build a SaaS business like Social Warfare:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

AoL 042: A Journey in Internet Marketing on MySpace through Facebook LIVE with Alessandra Colaci

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Are you embracing technology the way you should? Like really? No one likes change. Heck, I KNOW I don’t. But sometimes we got to do it.

Today’s guest, Alessandra Colaci, is someone that has not only embraced changed, but she’s gone out of her way to show other people how it can be useful for them. It’s like she relishes in it.

In this session, we talk about her background in being a successful entrepreneur in the big days of MySpace (before Facebook became so popular!) and what she’s doing these days after she realized that she had to create another business!

It’s a great episode for all of us to remember that success can come, go, and come again as quickly as technology changes.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • What major she went for when she knew that she wanted to build an interactive experience online. 7:27
  • Where her interesting in Internet Marketing came from. 7:56
  • What inspired her to build Blingy Blob and where the name came from. 10:45
  • How Alessandra was introduced to entrepreneurship. 14:34
  • What lead to her success with Blingy Blob? 17:16
  • How early social media websites including MySpace lead to people learning technical skills. 20:21
  • How Alessandra has been able to keep an interest in developing her online business skillset. 24:02
  • Why she decided to close the doors on Blingy Blob even though she had great success with it. 26:59
  • Why she transitioned from consulting to starting her new endeavour, Influence Buzz 31:31
  • Her thoughts about not waiting for opportunity but making your own. 35:52
  • Why she thinks that today’s live streaming apps will actually go mainstream versus Justin.tv and Ustream. 38:10
  • How you balance actually being a Creator of quality work vs creating behind the scenes snippets. 41:30
  • Ideas in how people can use LIVE platforms to build audiences. 45:47
  • What she uses to project any feed she wants into Facebook LIVE. 49:30
  • How she finds out cutting news to share with her audience. 50:26
  • What she’s excited about in the future of Influence Buzz 55:11
  • 3 things she wants people to remember her by after hearing her on the show. 57:23
  • 3 truths that she wants other people to know 59:10
  • Her ad into the world… 1:00:19
  • What she would say to her 22 year old self 1:01:29
  • When she thinks of the word success, who comes to mind and why? 1:02:46
  • …and MUCH more!

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Alessandra does an interview with Deborah Deras:

Original Blab recordings of the We Mean Business Show with Allie McAdam

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How to Use Wirecast in Facebook LIVE:

How to patch better sound into your LIVE streaming feeds via Mihkel Teemant:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

DIY Business Site

Getting Started on the Web (Part 2): Basics of Setting Up WordPress for your DIY Business Site

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In the last post, we looked at some of the options that are out there in building your own business site.

Just as a recap, there are those that are fairly simple to use but still require you to know how to actually use the editors in them when you’re in.

Wix, Squarespace, and Kajabi are some of the most common “easy to use” site makers out there. However, all of them come at a price that is above what you’d pay for simple hosting and a WordPress install.

Kajabi, being the most expensive, comes with all the bells and whistles that you’d have to add on elsewhere.

Wix is free to start from, but you have to add parts that cost a premium to do certain things. (Collecting emails for an example.)

Squarespace, I haven’t personally used, but it’s almost three times as much as I pay at Hostgator for my plan. And knowing that I could easily throw up a theme (additional software that makes a WordPress install look nice) that I only have to buy once, then it just didn’t make sense to me to use.

The Basics of Hosting:

When it comes to installing a WordPress based site, there’s a few things you need to do before actually installing it.

Find and subscribe to a Host:
First and foremost, our first step is to figure out who you want to be your host. I use Hostgator, Pat Flynn is well known for using BlueHost, and others use other providers.

The plan I get with Hostgator is the Baby Plan. It has most of the stuff we need. (Be sure to go through my affiliate link so you can save on your subscription if you go with Hostgator.)

Essentially a host does a couple of things that we’re interested in:

Holds your site’s contents (including WordPress and your creative content).
The actual local address of your site. (You point your domain name here.)
Where to find any email addresses associated with your domain name.

Once you get access to your new host, you should have some sort of dashboard in the back to utilize your new subscription with. For now, most things in there won’t be of too much interest to us. However, I wanted to get you a video that shows a little bit more about what Hostgator uses as their dashboard. It’s called cPanel.

Setup Your Domain:

Your domain is the name of your site. For example, my site’s domain is newinceptions.com. I registered it originally at GoDaddy. They’re known for cheap domain registration – but not necessarily hosting (even though they provide it).
GoDaddy isn’t the only domain register I’d suggest. While GoDaddy has good first year registration prices, NameCheap is another place you can get cheap domains and they’ll continue to be relatively inexpensive after your first year.

Also, another thing they give for free is the ability to block the name and location of the person who registers the site. This is something that you have to pay additional for on GoDaddy and other domain registries. This is a big selling point if you want to keep your privacy.

Once you register with whomever you choose (there’s others out there too!), you’ll have to give your register the nameserver’s addresses. Usually there are two in your cpanel (if you go with Hostgator, it will be on your bottom left near the bottom – they’ll look something like nsXXXX.hostgator.com and nsYYYY.hostgator.com.)

Here’s a video that will get you started in this section.

Setting Up Your Professional Email:

It’s simple to say why this is important. What’s the point of having a website if you’re email is [email protected] or something similar? Wouldn’t it be better to be [email protected]? 

Most hosts will allow you to host your own domain based email on your share of the server. What they fail to tell you is that whenever you are checking emails, you’re usually using up what’s called a “Process”. With my service from Hostgator, there are 25 processes that I can use. Each open email account will use up to 4 of these processes. Why? It’s a little detailed.

However, there are other providers out there that you can get your email hosted with. All you have to do is prove you own your site and then tell the host that you want to get your email from that secondary email host. There’s different ways of doing that, so I won’t drop into that too much here.

However, there’s two big players in this department: Google and Zoho.

Google everyone knows and trusts (to an extent anyway!). When you get your professional email with them, then you can use it to login into other Google applications such as Google Docs, and Google Calendar.

However, there’s a price to pay for Google. I believe it’s like 5 or 10 bucks each month. Plus additional fee for other emails you get.

At one point Google was free. When they started charging, Zoho got in the act to host business emails. They host up to 10 for your domain for free. Each email address can save 5 gigs of data on their account. (As a hack, I tend to backup all my emails on a secondary Gmail account.)

Both work similarly. So, unless you only want to have one address for everything, then I’d go with Zoho for your business email and use Google for your personal email, apps, calendar and possibly a backup account.

Here’s one video that should help you figure this process out.

WordPress Ins and Outs:

Initial Setup:

Each host will be different when it comes to setting up WordPress. Some you can install with a few clicks. Others will be a little more manual.

Hostgator again comes through here in that it makes it relatively easy to setup. There’s a Quick install feature that takes about 5 clicks and 6 fill in the blanks to finish. (The linked video is a bit old – but should do the trick.) It will send you an email when it’s done installing and you’ll be ready for the next step.

Inside WordPress (the Backend):

Once you have WordPress installed, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the Dashboard. You can typically reach the dashboard by going to yoursite.com/wp-admin. You’ll have to supply a login and a password. This should be in the email you get once the install is done.

You’ll notice several tabs. Two that I want to bring to mind right now are Appearance and Plugins.

The Appearance tab is where you’ll find your themes. There are free ones available through this tab, and others that you’ll have to buy at sites like Themeforest. Mine is called Enfold. There are plenty of other choices. You just need to search around and see what fits your site’s needs. For example, another one I use is Gameplan for the America Multi-Sport site.

My biggest recommendation with themes is to make sure it’s responsive (most new ones are) and that it is built around an editor. Enfold has it’s own native one, while Gameplan uses a 3rd party solution. Having a theme built around an editor will make it easier for you to work on your future site.

Also, when you have a premium theme installed, more than likely it will also add another tab. Make sure you click on that tab and explore everything that’s in there. There will be plenty of options and things for you to go through and modify.

(Note: If you go with Enfold, you can actually import a demonstration site and modify it to how you like it. Otherwise, you’ll have to start with scratch. But this is no different at this point from if you had used Squarespace, Wix, or Kajabi.)

Here’s a video that shows more of the backend of WordPress with Enfold being enabled as the theme.

The Plugins tab is next on the list. When you are done installing your basic theme, you’ll want to start turning some things on that will protect and optimize your site. This is where you’ll do that. A few plugins that I always use on all of my sites is Akizmet, a firewall plugin (like Wordfence), and a cache “optimizer” (like WP Super Cache). Also, be sure to install a backup plugin like UpdraftPlus so if you’re ever hacked or lose access to your site, you can install it elsewhere.

You can continue to add free and premium plugins to your heart’s content to do different jobs in your site and outside of your site. Some will only be on the backend (like I’ve mentioned already), others will be on the front end. Those plugins might show contact forms, social media buttons, or image rotators. (The end user will see these plugins working – but hopefully won’t realize it.)

The next two tabs that I want to call attention to are Pages and Posts.

The pages tab will take you to all the pages that your site has. One of those pages is the Homepage – the page you see when you first access your site. Other pages then can be linked off of this page to discuss everything you want to. Typical ones you might find in the online business world include “About”, “Contact”, “Resources”, and “Blog”.

Speaking of blogs, the post tab comes into play here. Each post is sort of like a page, but they’re not part of the main skeleton of your site. If you think of posts as limbs and branches of a tree, then your leaves are the posts. Posts can consist of all kinds of media. They can be text based, photo based, or even be where you find someone’s podcast. Right now you’re looking at a post as you read this. (Is that an example of being meta?)

 

Outside WordPress (the Frontend):

Ok. So now that we have ourselves somewhat familiar with the inside, let’s look at what everyone else is going to be looking at.

This is where it’s important to get an idea of what it is that you want to create. So from here, I’d suggest finding three sites that look like something that you’d want to have. That way you know what to design.

If you’re using Enfold (or another theme) and already created a demo site – then really all you should be doing is tailoring smaller details with your native editor. (This is what I’d recommend doing, by the way. :))

However, if you didn’t use a demo site to start with, then you’ll be starting from scratch. Again, look at other sites that you like. Start with with your homepage and start playing with your editor and start creating some pages!. In Enfold, it’s called Avaya Layout Builder.

Here’s a video in how you can use it.

Note: Before I forget, you might notice that there’s a section on the right that is static. On my site, for example, I have a Facebook section, some social media buttons, and a place to subscribe to the Newsletter. These are called Widgets. You can find these as a sub selection of the Appearance Tab. For more information on Widgets – feel free to check out this video.

A trick that I do is have two tabs open. One side views the frontend of the page you’re working on, and the other is looking at the backend. Work on the backend, hit preview. Opens up another tab. Do you like what you did? Hit Update. Then check your work again on the original frontend page to make sure that the change actually took hold.

Here’s a video to show you what widgets and sidebars are all about.

Once done with that, check out this video on how widgets work in Enfold. 

Wrap Up and Action Steps:

I know that this is a ton of info to throw at you. But really, it’s barely touching the surface. I just wanted to put something up that might get some of you going on your websites.

I do hope to get a course up that will go more in depth into this in the future. But for a quick start, I thought I’d go ahead and get you all started at least in the right direction if a lack of a site has been keeping you back.

If you get stuck, remember what I said in the first one. Make YouTube your friend! If you have a question, search for it on Google or, better yet, find it on YouTube. Tons of tutorials there.

If you can’t find or don’t understand the answer you find, you know how to get ahold of me!