A Successful Expert But Still Not Feeling Your Big Purpose? Reason #2

I’d like to round-out this discussion with the other reason you may not be feeling a BIG
PURPOSE—though you’re successful. You may not be utilizing your skills and
talents
for a far-reach aspiration: both yours and your markets’.

When I launched my 2nd business,
Inspired Leadership Training, in 2006,
I was teaching an incredible public
speaking program, Secrets of Impact
and Influence
, based on the latest
brain research in learning. What was
I helping people do, initially? For a
long time, it was “get more clients” by
using public speaking as a marketing
tool. Then, for an equally long time, 
I was helping them to “be the best
presenter in their field”—because this program really delivers that. Then, I was helping
them be responsible experts, raising their standards so they were teaching with
unparalleled excellence—a requirement, in my book, for giving paid presentations,
seminars, trainings, etc. 

But the problem was, these skills and talent of mine, which were able to produce these
promises, were not connecting to a part of me that was alive and well outside of my
business: a part that was becoming aware of and studying global human potential.
I was watching the central institutions of our world collapse around us, and the rising
up of populations demanding freedom and human rights. I knew that this activity was
going to reach a climax—and that leaders with great wisdom would start coming out of
the woodwork, as if suddenly “activated” or called to their purpose. And I knew my
market—a subset of coaches, consultants, authors and speakers–were those up-and-
coming leaders.

Despite this, I was still promoting SII around more practical goals: getting more
business and being one of the best presenters/teachers. Yet, the fact was, this
particular public speaking model was tailor-made for the leaders
.
 For
those who would be called to serve in the global human potential movement. Indeed,
that’s why I had gravitated to learning neuroscience and applying it to public speaking
in the first place!! I had known it could move mountains and mount movements—but
I wasn’t talking about that in my promotion of the course, and not even in the course,
with those seated before me!

My skills and talents were not taking my market far enough, And they were
not taking me far enough into things that mattered most to me. Finally, just a few
months ago, I leapt off the cliff and made it clear that everything I do is specifically
designed for those who want to change the world—who want to be true, inspired leaders.
Not every coach, consultant, speaker or author wants my skills to take them there
they’re more attracted to my older, more pragmatic promises–but so many do! Many
are being “called” to bigger stages every single day and the higher calling of my
skills and talents
(that extend beyond public speaking, by the way) is reaching
out to them
.

So, if you’re not feeling your Big Purpose, look at how far you are taking your followers
with your skills and talents. Where could you take them that’s bigger, higher, grander,
more meaningful—more inspirational?

If you’re one of the called—if you know you are an inspired leader—Big
Purpose known or unknown—it is your time to lead. Be sure to experience
my call Thursday, Feb. 23: A Time to Lead: Do You Dare?

10 Years in Business–Tip #62: Are You Building Your Business Around Your Favorite Style?

In my special report, What I Know For Sure: Lessons Learned in 10 Years of Business, I list 75 topic areas that I have bumped into over ten years. And every day in October, I will randomly choose one of the 75 and expound on it. So here’s today’s:

TIP #62 It is essential that you build your business model around how you want to spend your days. You’re working for yourself, not for someone else! You don’t have to be miserable. Do your work the way you like to do it. Be in front of the computer, if that’s how you like to spend your days. Be on the phone, coaching. Get out and teach and speak. Write. But spend it the way you want to spend it.

This is another one of those tips that can be glossed over because you think you are spending your day doing what you love. You love your niche and you love your target market. But are you spending the hours in the processes you love the most? Or are you spending them the way you’ve been told you “should”?

At some point, you need to take stock: are you coaching when you should really just be writing because that’s what you love and it’s where you want your future to go? (A past client of mine just had this aha-moment recently). Are you giving seminars to groups when you really just want to do one-on-one consulting or coaching? Are you giving keynotes, when you really want to be creating changes, which means more time with your audiences than keynotes ever provide? Are you coaching when deep-down you know you’re a teacher? Are you poring over the internet to get clients–engaging with social media–when you really need to be in-person with people?

Are you making choices out of a presumption of what you should do, rather than what you love to do?
It is essential that you build your business, (which means your days) around your favorite things to do.

I’m celebrating 10 years in business all through October with these blog posts, a party/call on Monday, October 10th–and special invitations to take my programs and get my products at deep discounts. Today’s offer: work with me privately. This RARELY happens. Go see the 3 business-building options I’m offering here.

What’s Your Business’s “Brand Concept”?

The service entrepreneurs I work with—coaches, healers
nutritionists, consultants, therapists–love to perform their
services, but they also love to inform: so they speak
or give seminars. But often, what they’re speaking about
has no “through-line.” I just had coffee with a wonderful
new friend last week, who reminded me of this term.

 A “through-line” is a theater term that means, “the
theme that runs through the plot of a film or other
dramatic work.” I would say it’s fitting to consider
businesses “dramatic work,” and so we want a “theme
that runs through the plot of our businesses.” And when
we’re giving a seminar or even a single presentation,
we want to ensure that it is inside of the through-line,
promoting that theme, reinforcing it, growing it. But
again, too many presentations and seminars are “isolated
incidences” that have no roots to a larger theme.

I am one week into my intensive program, 12 Sentences:
Ultimate Business Creation and Articulation
, and the
participants are soon going to be considering their
business’s theme, so that everything they do—from
the articles they write to the opt-in gifts they offer to
their blog content…to the presentations they give—
runs through the “spine” (another word for through-
line)
of their business.

Next week, I’m going to be launching my first CD set!
SO excited about that! And as you will see in the videos
I’ll be releasing about it next Tuesday, one of the many
things I did with two financial coaches was help them
develop their “teaching concept” for the free seminar
they would be giving to attract more clients. By teaching
concept, I mean  the main premise of that signature
program
. This teaching concept soon became their
“brand concept”—the premise or idea they were putting
forth not just in their free signature program, but the
premise or idea that supported their business and that
they would teach everywhere.

This teaching concept would be threaded through
the free report, ebook or video training for their opt-in;
it would be what they’d teach about in their articles,
and emphasize in their blog posts. It would be the subject
of radio interviews, local promotions and even a book,
should they choose to write one. I began referring to this
as their “brand concept.” The teaching concept “theme
running through the plot of their business.” It was created
as we developed the teaching premise of their signature
program, and then bloomed into the brand concept of their
entire business.

So, how do you know if you have a “brand concept”—or
even a teaching concept for your presentations? Well, let’s
start at the very beginning. Ask yourself this first, “Does
my presentation have a through-line, a theme that runs
through the plot of my business, or is it a tactical device,
a one-time talk I’m just ‘throwing together,’ with no strategic
roots”?

Next, “If I were to have a signature program—a free or
even paid event that people know me for—what is the
single concept I would teach in it?” (We won’t even consider
right now if it’s Brain-Sticky or not. Just consider the single
idea you would teach.)

And from there, ask yourself, “Could I teach this every-
where, in all of my marketing pieces, and feel that I was
teaching the most salient information out of everything
I could teach?” In other words, is this single idea the most
important and interesting I could put forth?

These are some ideas to get you started. But be sure to
register above in Blog Telecalls, for this week’s free
call at 1pm Thursday Oct. 7,
where we’ll discuss this idea,
and I’ll share with you my signature program teaching concepts.

And stay tuned for the release of my 8-CD set next week,
the first in my Eavesdropping Series: How to Get Clients
with a Signature Program that Sells AND Transforms
!

Are Your Presentations Moving with the Times?

For the next few weeks, I’m focusing my posts on public speaking
because it’s key to changing the world. Today, I want to send you
over to an eye-opening video on YouTube that has, on the surface,
nothing to do with speaking–and yet nothing we do in any part of
our lives is exempt from the message contained in this video. 

The video tell us “We are living in exponential times“–and it
then proceeds to make its point: in 2006, there were 2.7 billion
Google searchs. Two years later, there were 31 billion!! Did you
read that right? In 1984 there were 1,000 internet devices. In
’92, there were 1 million. In ’08–1 trillion. Exponential times.

A company in Japan is testing a fiber optic cable that can send 
14 trillion bits of information per second down a single strand
of fiber…this is equal to 210 millon phone calls per second.

Ever heard for an exabyte? It’s (4 x10 ^19). Equal to 1 billion
gigabytes.
It looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. The
video estimated that in ’08, 4 exabytes of unique information
would be generated. More than in the previous 5,000 years.

We are living in exponential times. The world is humming at 
frequencies never known before. Obsolescence is occuring some-
where every second. With this mind-boggling upsurge in speed,
our brains are being rewired; we are thinking differently and 
learning differently. The brain is plastic; it changes and grows
and the way we integrated information twenty years ago in
high school doesn’t apply. And it doesn’t apply for those we’re
teaching and coaching.

Are your current attempts at knowledge-transfer (ie. your pre-
sentations) humming as fast as the rest of the world? Are they
provocative enough to capture the attention of minds fractured
by constant stumuli? Are they as new as the latest App? Are
the ideas you’re presenting “escaping the wannabees” and gener-
ating exponential growth?

Maybe those are high standards for a single presentation. But
I’m not one to wrap myself up in cozy excuses and I bet you
aren’t either.  I believe if we are worth our salt as leaders and as
conveyors of information, we must measure the quality of our
content against the pace of the world–and that of course, begins 
with the big-picture question, Is my business keeping up with
the breath-stealing acceleration of the times we’re in? If not,
what must I do? If so, how do I ensure my presentations do the
same?

I teach a “new paradigm”
of audience leadership–
but this video got me
asking the question,
How can it be even
newer
? How can I speed
up what I’m teaching to
meet the frequency of the
world’s vibration?

I’m giving a free 90-minute teleclass on the “old paradigm” of
public speaking, and its replacement: the new paradigm based on
the latest brain research. I’m sending you away to watch the
YouTube video–but before you go, I invite you to sign up for the
teleclass on April 7th. It’s provocative and will shift how you think
about speaking in public You can read all about it here.

Then go check out the video I’ve talked about today, Did You Know?

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