Experts: How to Make Your Dent in the Universe

In a now-famous pitch to someone he wanted to bring on board Apple in the early days, Steve Jobs said, “We are inventing the future….Come down here and make a dent in the universe.”

A fairly gargantuan vision, but because he held it tenaciously and with his characteristic bravado, he did it.

Imagine holding yourself to the same standard. How would you make a dent in the Universe? What would it take?

When we look through history, it seems that these kinds of leaps happen only once or twice a century. But our history was set in categorically slower times. We are now spinning through space at accelerated speed and universe-denting originality is happening more and more frequently. Who were we before the internet just twenty years ago? Before Google just 10 years ago? Before Facebook just 7 years ago? We have all  been changed forever by these dents–in a very short period of time.

Is it possible that, because our globe is spinning through a time warp, such originality can happen every month?

How about for every person? Can we all make dents?

A Different Kind of Reality Check

Do you even want to, or are you content to change the world one person at a time? That’s cool. To each his own. However, Jobs would have snapped something nasty at you and sent you on your way for aiming too low; he only worked with those who wanted to bend time.  But I’m not the nasty sort—so I will just suggest that perhaps you’re selling yourself short, falling asleep at the wheel your Soul gave you once upon a time.

If you are in the business of imparting knowledge, shifting thinking, altering behavior, healing bodies—and you do not use the powers vested in you to the extent of their potential, you’re seriously messed up. (Sorry, was channeling Jobs there for a minute.) But it is definitely time for a reality-distortion check.

Steve (I’ll be writing more about this another day) was known to live inside what his employees dubbed a “reality distortion field,” where no laws of physics, or any other laws for that matter, applied. He believed everything was possible without exception, things that did not exist in the known universe yet, and ignored all signs of impossibility.

Personally, I attribute the dent he made to this one character trait. So, it stands to reason that you want to adapt it, too, in order to spin your wheel as it was designed to be spun.

Deciding (for that’s all Jobs did) that everything is possible, and knowing that your wisdom and knowledge is there to make a dent in the universe and not the cushions of your desk chair—or why else even be here–the question is, how to do it?

The Strategy for Making This Kind of Impact

So, you don’t sell a tangible product like Apple; you sell intangible ideas. Therefore, your one-of-a-kind art is not (primarily) found in design and usability as Jobs was so fastidious about perfecting. Your art is in what you say. And it must cut a path. It must be different. This world is saturated with content; saturated with coaches, consultants, healers and therapists. You will only survive if what you say rises above them all. 

And the design you must shape with meticulous care is a story. Stories captivate the imagination the way perfectly sculpted designs captivate the visual sense. But in your case, we’re not talking about your story, or the story of your company/business, or the story of your clientele—the kinds of stories you’re being told to develop.

As an expert, you must offer a Teaching Story. An artfully formed narrative that teaches what no one else is teaching. This is the ultimate in education-based marketing.

To do this, you must first know your market—really, really well.  When Jobs’ mentor, Mike Markkula, aligned with the original motley crew, he wrote a one-page paper entitled, “The Apple Marketing Philosophy,” that emphasized just three points that went on to define the company forever. The first was empathy—“an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer.” He wrote, “We will understand their needs better than any other company.”

What followed? A dent in the universe. Your teaching story will reflect your understanding of your market better than any one else. Even better than they understand themselves. (Channeling Steve again.)

And your teaching story will go one better. It will wrap your market into an emotionally tight tribal community, where powerful unity and affinity exists among like-minds.

Then, the drama of the story begins. It quietly discusses what they always believed to be true; what they have always accepted as true–in society, their industry, culture, or thinking. And just as they’re relaxing into the reminder of this natural order of things, your teaching story slams into suspense, surprising them with the fact that this truth is out-dated, decrepit, and ineffectual. It suspends them there, as any good chase scene does, detailing the problems with the prevailing paradigm, sinking them deeper and deeper into the dire outcome of staying in the reality they’ve adapted for so long.

Then, in gallops the knight in shining armor to save them: your vision of a “new paradigm,” with a brand new landscape, a brand new solution. (This is your one-of-a-kind brand identity.) And it includes a vision for them as a tribe—the legacy they, as like-minded peers, are here to unfold together.

This is when you peel away from the pack of ordinary experts; away from your “good enough” mentality and acceptable bank account—and become a bona fide Inspired Thought Leader, with content worthy of a TED talk; worthy of cutting a path in the publishing field…worthy of making a dent in the universe.

Why? Because in your Teaching Story, you are “inventing the future”!

Does that seem impossible?

Then press the button on your reality distortion field and step in–quickly!

Everything is possible.

And why else even be here if you–with something to teach–aren’t going to dent the universe?

All of this is especially possible if you reach out to me. This is what I do. I develop Inspired Thought Leaders who have one-of-a-kind Teaching Stories that cut a path through the nonsense and noise. Bold, creative, thought-provoking, paradigm-breaking stories so their market respects them, loves them and buys them.

It’s Time to Grab That Wheel, Look Out On the Future and Know You Can Invent It!

Read how I do this with experts by clicking here, and then reach out to me at the bottom of that page. We’ll get on a call and start inventing the future!

 

Freedom to Lead Series 9: Freedom to Rise

(Sigh. YouTube clearly scans a video and chooses the worst placeholder it possibly can.)

This 10-day video series honors our Independence Day here in the States–July 4; honors the determination our forefathers had to be free by looking at the freedoms entrepreneurial thought leaders must claim in order to be successful in business and in changing the world.

In this next-to-last 9th video, we look at one word that will give you everything you need to rise to the top and far above the crowd.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJPeZmtQKpc[/youtube]

Freedom to Lead Series 2: Freedom from Business Development Overload!

This 10-day video series honors Independence Day in the States-July 4th–and the determination our forefathers had to be free–by looking at the freedoms entrepreneurial Thought Leaders must claim in order to be successful in business and in changing the world.

In this second video, we look at a freedom a great many start-up Thought Leader entrepreneurs need–the freedom from too much advice!

[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxqVZ1xIRNI[/youtube]

Introduction of New Ebook: Why Being Invisible In Business Hurts Your *Psyche*

Here is the next excerpt from “One of a Kind: The Powerhouse Strategy for Standing Out and Leading the Way with Your Business.” I’m releasing the ebook next week on an inteview call I’m doing with Therese Skelly. Definitely get on that here so you can hear me share with her how to get a truly one-of-a-kind business identity!

INTRODUCTION

If you are on this planet to serve the people on it through your business, you must succeed. You were not graced with the calling, talent and skill that you have just to fade into the background, unrecognized.

Yet, as you’ve heard countless times, talent and skill do not equate to business success. So many follow their passions only to end up sharing the very best of themselves with only a tiny circle of friends and family. They end up giving up and packing up because they cannot support themselves.

But then something far, far, far worse ensues. They end up living a life “unused.”

“This is the true joy in life: the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature…I want to be thoroughly used up when I die…” –-George Bernard Shaw

To be used up, I believe, is what every one of us wants. Not being so may be the only cause of our depression, the only thing that truly ages us.

You must be thoroughly used up when you die. And if your purpose is linked to your business, you must get your business right. But so many don’t take the time to understand all that is involved. This book isn’t designed to give an overview of all of the elements essential in building a successful business—there are plenty of those out there. This book is here to impress upon you one single thing:if you are not different in the marketplace, you will die with your song still in you.

The pain of blending in is a primal one, and will affect you on deep levels.

How does it feel when you get a blank stare or a look of confusion when you talk about your business? Or when only a few people sign up for your tele-call or seminar? How does it feel when people unsubscribe, or you go days and weeks without a single opt-in? What happens in you when, one after another, prospects slip out of your net?

I’ve seen it. A part of you is thrust back to high school, to the popular guy who never so much as sent you a glance; to the day you were passed over for the team; to all the parties where you hung back against the wall, unnoticed…and to all the times since, when friends, colleagues and even your own family haven’t recognized your value.

IT HURTS.

When your business isn’t special, it’s much too easy to start to think that you aren’t, and your confidence suffers a mighty blow that can too often be fatal to your business and your mission.

There is nothing more painful than not being worthy of someone’s attention. And in business, nothing more deadly than not being worthy of someone’s money.

When you can fill in this sentence, everything will change for you: “My business is the only one you will ever find that ____.”

When you can master this, the pain you’ve felt every time a prospect has rejected you will be replaced by a confidence that surpasses all understanding.

Being the “only one”–not just in your field, but period–is the game-changer.

Being “the only one who____” changes you from the inside out.

It heals the primal pain of going unseen.

It removes the pain of not fulfilling your life’s mission.

It assures you that you will be “used up.”

And it is the answer to most of your business problems:

  • Your vague and fuzzy articulation about what you do
  • Disinterested prospects in your 1-to-1 sales conversations
  • Poor attendance on tele-calls and other speaking events
  • The uphill battle to get clients
  • Low opt-ins on your website

Being provocatively unlike everyone else is the direct route to making money and to bending ears so that you change the world (which you’re here to do, by the way.)

So decide right now that you will put your attention on this. Very few other business efforts will matter if this isn’t right. To thrive–in business and in your own heart–you cannot spend one more minute in oblivion.

You would think this was obvious, but just take a look around at most service-based businesses: you could line them up and not one would stand out. You may notice shades of differences here and there, but overall, nothing would raise your brow in intrigue. Almost instantly, your brain would check out.

Why is this?

The Establishment

I can’t speak definitively, of course, but  after ten years of experience, I believe one answer is that there isn’t a clear enough definition of “what is different enough,” and so service entrepreneurs delude themselves into thinking they’re somehow making the grade….

You can read the rest next week when the book will be available.  Do listen in to my call with Therese, too, on May 5th. We’re bestest friends and it’s going to be a great interview! Check it out here.

How A New Program Drew 350 Registrations–the First Time Out

A client of mine, Teresa Aziam of The Aziam Center, led a telecall last night that interested 350 people in just a few days of promotion. She went to her list and asked two JV partners to promote for her—but out of the gate, with not a whole lot of promoting at all, this was a strong number.

Here’s what they were drawn to: There is a single formula that explains your lagging business success—and it’s the same (and only) formula you will ever need to get all the clients, sales, buzz and love you want!

That was the hook–and the essence of her “Teaching Story”—the story she unfolded on the call.

They may have been drawn to the title, too, but we didn’t measure that: Off-the-Charts: The Only Formula You Need for Breaking the Ceiling on Business and Life Success.

They stayed because—as one woman near the end of the call said, when asked how one of the exercises affected her, “I can’t even express it, it was so profound.”

 

This is Teresa’s “Portal Program,” as I call it–#3 on the diagram. It is the pre-event to her star-money-maker, Signature Program.

This diagram illustrates the strategic line-up of offerings I help my clients create. But it doesn’t just magically happen. Here’s how Teresa and I got to her “Teaching Story” hook above.

She came to me, knowing that her specialty was “mindset work.” First order of business is always determining target market.

 We went back and forth on that for a few sessions and finally she decided on “mom-preneurs” with kids under eight years of age. (I always have my clients, working with mothers, determine the age of their kids; it reveals yet another dimension of their problems/needs/desires that need to be addressed.)

The next order of business is determining that market’s “urgent problem.” I always say, “You must be urgently wanted (b/c you solve an urgent problem) or you will be an elective…and you can’t afford to be an elective.” So, we quickly determined that her market’s urgent problem (even though Teresa didn’t feel qualified at first to address it) was, “poor sales.”

“I don’t teach sales,” she said to me repeatedly, as she was trying to grasp that as her business future. She felt she wasn’t credible to solve that urgent need. (Can you relate? Then read on.)

“There are many solutions for someone, for example, who needs to lose weight,” I told her. “Someone can help nutritionally. Someone else can provide hypnosis treatment. Someone else, liposuction. Someone else, self-mastery techniques. The problem is the same, with many solutions. You can help that problem, as one of the solutions.”

That accomplished, we began to drill down into what she believed mom-preneurs needed to do to succeed. It wouldn’t be a sales technique, or strategy for attracting leads; it would be her answer, based on what she does well. After days of thrashing about in deep reflection (my questions tend to do that to people), she determined that above all, (that’s what I look for) her market needed to know their own self-worth to succeed. Without it, there can be no success.

And that began the very mysterious process that happens between me and a client in developing their Teaching Story. We sit on a see-saw, the two of us, and as she pushes off the ground in answer to a question of mine, it rolls down to me, and stimulates an idea, and back and forth we go, as my brain—always scanning for a Brain-Sticky concept—begins to think of what to teach to the market.

It’s completely non-linear and a process I cannot teach or I would make it a group program, but in no-time on that see-saw, keeping in mind a) her market; 2) what they most want; 3) what they need to know; 4) what she does best and 5) what they don’t know, I knew the hook: your sales are directly proportionate to your self perceived value. They will be low if your value of yourself (in any or all areas of life) is low; they will be high, if your self-perceived value is high. Teresa loved it because it was true. She said, “Yep. There is no exception. It can’t be any other way.”

I always test and test my clients’ convictions, and so I asked (as I’d asked it multiple ways before), “If they try any of the other solutions to boost their sales, will it work?” She was an emphatic, “No! This is THE answer!”

And so, I whipped the concept into a formula (which I don’t want to reveal here, for proprietary reasons, but you can go find out yourself!)

From there, I began to design the “arc” of the Teaching Story—how she would teach this to an audience. As you know, she gave it last night to a live audience, but even if she was never going to “be on stage” with it—having a Teaching Story Arc is a sweet, key way of developing an “idea” that no one else in the world has. No one else has the formula of her Teaching Story—and no one else has the teaching content we developed that teaches the formula, what do with it, and then presents a natural new problem to the audience.

Her Teaching Story was “urgently wanted” because it: addressed a nagging problem (low sales) with a irrefutably true concept (your sales are proportionate to your self-perceived value), spun in a unique way with a hook, (the formula), built with unique content (provocative exercises and data that taught the formula and the science behind it, in her case), delivered, using the unique curriculum design I’ve been teaching for years, which “teaches to the brain”—then resurrecting a new problem (how to effectively change self-perceived value forever to achieve off-the-charts sales and other business success), which is solved by the next event, the Signature Program.

And that is how 350 people came to register for the “only formula you need for breaking the ceiling on business and life success.” Congratulations, girl!! If you want to find out more about Teresa’s event, click here.

To do this work with me, email info (at) inspiredleadersacademy.com with “I want lots of people on my telecall, too!” in the subject line 🙂 or go read more at: www.inspiredleadersacademy.com/powerhousemethod2.

 

 

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