Why You Need to Become a Local On-Air Contributor and How to Make it Happen

I'm Bill Corbett, professional speaker, author and television program producer and host. After nearly 20 years of traveling nationally and internationally, delivering presentations, I sat down and wrote the Amazon bestseller, FROM THE SOAPBOX TO THE STAGE: HOW TO USE YOUR PASSION TO START A SPEAKING BUSINESS. 

Get more help by listening to the GET PAID TO SPEAK PODCAST to help you use what you feel passionate about to inspire change in others.

There are so many incredible things you can begin doing immediately to help launch yourself as a speaker in your local area. One of those things is to become a local expert that television show producers can call on to appear on local news and magazine shows to help them fill airtime with quality programming that people want to watch. Becoming an on-air contributor is easy to do but takes time to develop yourself and some patience to make it work. In this episode I'm going to teach you how to do it and share some segments of my on-air interviews with local ABC and NBC affiliate stations. So, let's get started with, why you need to become a local on-air contributor and how to do it.

Television producers need content and subject matter experts that can provide that content.

All you have to do is find the producers and introduced yourself to them. Start by thinking of the people you can help, the people that will eventually be seated in your audience when you're speaking. Imagine them in your mind and imagine the problems they may be dealing with. Just think about who you can help because of what you know. Let's say you worked in HR and want to speak to HR professionals. What problems do they deal with. If you are a car dealer, I would imagine that you might have other car dealers in mind. What problems can you provide the answers for to help them sell more cars.

Once you have their contact information, send them your information as to who you are, what your expertise is and how they can contact you. Keep it brief, professional and concise. Then weekly, send them topic ideas they might interest them for a future segment. Keep an eye on national new or trends that you could offer advice on. 

Once you get noticed by local producers and they like you as a guest, they will begin calling you regularly for on-air opportunities.  When you are presenting something that ignites the passion in you, everything changes. The topic is delivered effectively, the audience is receptive and you as a speaker feel so complete and aligned with your self and your message. So figure out what your message is and start putting it together to change the lives of others. I want to hear what your ideas and questions are. Email me at Bill@billcorbett.com and let's connect. I'd love to hear from you. 

For more help with professional speaking, go to http:TheGetPaidToSpeakPodcast.com. Copyright 2022 Bill Corbett and The Get Paid To Speak Podcast. All Rights Reserved.

Content Marketing Part 4

Content Monetization

    

        This part of Guberti’s book will help us make money doing what we love to do. However, we all must remember that no tactic or strategy can help us make money if we don’t implement it.

            So, here comes a few ways to monetize or make some money off of our content.

             First, and the easiest one according to Guberti, is to write a book for our targeted audience. Guberti expresses over and over again in his book how writing a book really isn’t as hard as we collectively think it is. Then he goes on to give us strategies to write a book, like eliminating distractions, maybe doing a video transcription, or even hiring a ghostwriter if we genuinely believe that it is too hard to write a book ourselves.

            Next, Guberti gets into training courses as a way to monetize. He says that they are his most profitable venture. And he should know because he has created a bunch of them. He also mentions how a book and a training course go hand-in-hand. And then Guberti shares his sales funnel where he explains how his multiple products set at various prices that begin at $7 and go all the way up to $997 and even $1445 help him lead people through his sales funnel in a way that he can monetize what he does.

            In addition, Guberti really loves his virtual summits, so there is no way his book on content marketing secrets and this section on monetizing wasn’t going to include his secret weapon of virtual summits as a way to make money. Through his all-access pass, which goes as high as $297 during the summit, and then jumps to $997 after the summit has ended, Guberti makes some good money as he monetizes his content and the content of others, while also building those relationships with other influencers.

            Near the end of his book, Content Marketing Secrets Guberti makes a good argument on why all of us need to learn how to use affiliate marketing so we can monetize what we do. In this section of the book, he shares with us how affiliate marketing can also lead to joint ventures, which will also lead to exponentially increasing our revenue, and possibly lead to coaching, consulting and who knows what other paid services, too?

            So, to sum it up, there are a lot of ways to make money doing what we love to do, especially within our own content creation. And Marc Guberti may still be a young guy, but don’t let that fool you. He really does have a lot to say, and we’d be really wise to listen to him, and we’d be especially wise to listen to him on his Breakthrough Success Podcast where he shares his success secrets on a weekly basis. Also, we’d also be extremely wise to read his book, Content Marketing Secrets cover to cover and then implement some of his strategies.       

Dan Blanchard is a bestselling author, award-winning speaker, and educator who has written books on leadership, education and professional speaking. He has been featured on over 100 television and radio shows, as well as some of the world’s top podcasts. To find out more about Dan please visit his website: www.DanBlanchard.net

Content Marketing Part 3

Social Media Marketing

   

        Guberti, says, “Social media is the core platform brands use to increase their visibility and communicate with current customers. This tool can open the floodgates to traffic, opportunities, and sales.”

            Guberti also shares in his book, Content Marketing Secrets that he believes we should only work on one social media site at a time until we master it. And then once we have a first social media platform on auto-pilot, then we can work on mastering another one. We also need to keep in mind that our goal is to keep visitors on our social media sites for longer and longer periods of time.

            Of all the social media networks, Guberti believes that Twitter is the easiest and cheapest to master. Our Twitter strategies should be to interact with our audiences and provide them with content that they want. Through using these strategies, amazingly Guberti was able to have his first 100,000 Twitter followers before he graduated high school.

            He shares in this book that we need to follow people who will likely follow us back. Let’s not try to convert people to our niche. Let’s just follow people who have already been converted to whatever niche we are trying to play big in.

            How do we find these people that have already been converted? Well, we need to find someone who is prominent in our field who has a large following. And guess what? Once we find them, we’re also going to notice that they have already built up the audience that we are looking for. So, let’s start following some of the fans of our fellow influencers who have already converted them so they too can know we exist and follow us back. Then let’s make sure that we’re also interacting with our new-found social media friends, as well.

            Now let’s move over to Facebook, which is dominating the targeted advertising realm. Facebook’s ability to target our audience or at least a future audience is incredible, especially if we have the money to pay for Facebook Ads. However, if we don’t presently have the resources for targeted Facebook Ads, then we’re going to have to be strategic in how we use Facebook.

            Facebook Live is hot right now. And it’s a great place for us to start integrating ourselves into our audience or niche for free. Also, joining some Facebook Groups and interacting with other people that hang out there is awesome, too. And so is creating our own Facebook Group within our niche. Starting a group instantaneously gives us creditability in our field of expertise. In addition, we can also create Facebook Groups for Facebook users who have read our books and want a place to be engaged in with others who are discussing the ideas our books offer to them.

            Now moving on to Pinterest. The great thing about Pinterest is that we don’t need a lot of followers for Pinterest to be effective for us. Guberti had one of his pins pinned over 1000 times when he only had 500 followers. That’s engagement. And that’s real viral potential.

            One of the secrets with Pinterest is that we need to be active on that platform. And one way to be active on that platform is to invite contributors to pin pins to our boards. Another way is to use a tool called Virtual Tag, which can schedule our pins and set up an evergreen posting cycle tor us that pins the same pin to multiple boards in a continuous cycle.

            YouTube is another way to use social media marketing, and it’s great for SEO because Google owns YouTube, so of course, it favors YouTube in Google searches. Also, in today’s times, people like videos, so it only makes sense to take advantage of YouTube in our social media marketing efforts. The thing about YouTube is that we have to upload more videos than most of us presently are doing. We should be doing at least one video a week. And sadly, many of us are just too sporadic when it comes to uploading our videos to YouTube to promote our content in our social media marketing efforts.

            In addition, we also need to make compelling videos that talk directly to our niche. This isn’t as hard as it sounds, though. All we have to do is to dig back through our old content, and now we have a diamond field of precious old content that we can repurpose for YouTube, which by the way, Google loves. Using YouTube will boost our Google ranking, thus making it easier for people to find us and our life-changing content.

            Moving on the Instagram. Instagram is on fire right now. According to Guberti, they have 300 million daily active, engaged users who love the pictures and products they find on this site. So, it only makes sense to be active on Instagram in our social media marketing efforts. And let’s also make sure that we “like” hundreds of pictures related to our niche because thousands of potential targeted followers can come from these pictures.

            Also, let’s find someone on Instagram who has a large audience according to Guberti, and follow people who liked this influencer’s post. Then, let’s repeat this formula with another Instagram influencer.

            Finally, LinkedIn. Guberti believes that LinkedIn is the most underrated social media network on the web. And the first thing we need to do is to get more LinkedIn connections. And the best way to do this is to first and foremost send meaningful invites to the right people. Then we need to publish posts on LinkedIn every day, as well as engage with other posts. And let’s also make sure that we ask for endorsements and have a professional bio. And finally, let’s also utilize the right LinkedIn groups who are filled with professionals that are in our niche and may want to work with us in some capacity.

Dan Blanchard is a bestselling author, award-winning speaker, and educator who has written books on leadership, education and professional speaking. He has been featured on over 100 television and radio shows, as well as some of the world’s top podcasts. To find out more about Dan please visit his website: www.DanBlanchard.net

Content Marketing Secrets Part 2

Content Marketing

 If no one knows our content exists, then we can have the greatest content in the world, and it ain’t going to make one iota of difference because almost no one is going to see it. And that means almost no one is going to know it exists, or that we wrote it, or that we exist. What a waste, huh? So sad, isn’t it? 

          Guberti and I see eye to eye on this next strategy of content marketing, which is to build relationships. Guberti says in his book that if we aren’t working on developing at least one new meaningful relationship every day, then our content brand is stagnant at best. Besides relationships being fun, they are also one of the greatest opportunities available to us authors and speakers to share our message and our content.

            And if we can build relationships with influencers who can share our message and our content on a huge stage or scale, then we’ve hit the relationship jackpot. However, influencers have to guard their time and brand, and rightfully so. So we can’t just go ask them for a favor. Instead, we have to provide some value for them first according to Guberti. And one good way to do this is to help them get extra exposure by asking them to be a guest on our podcast if we have one. Or, asking them to be a guest blogger on our blog, if we have one.

            Another great way to add value to the influencers first while creating a great relationship with them is to invite them to participate in our virtual summits if we are brave enough and bold enough to actually try to put on a virtual summit and invite all of our new friends to it.

            I really like Guberti’s next tip in marketing our content, which is just simply to repurpose our content. Repurposing is the easiest way to be everywhere so we can catch a few influencers attention.

            Here’s a simple example of repurposing our content. We could create a video within our niche and put it on YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo. Then we could repurpose our video’s content by taking just the audio and turn it into a podcast episode. Next, we could transcribe either the video or audio and turn it into a blog post, which we can post all over our social media channels. Next, we could turn our post into a slide share. And then take we could take pictures from the post and/or slide share, and even create a few with quotes from the content to post on Pinterest and Instagram. You see, all these social media channels have different audiences so we can reach new people. However, they also all kind of feed into one another. Our content can flow through our various social media channels in unique ways. And by repurposing our content through these different social media channels, we certainly do look like we are everywhere doing everything.

            Also, let’s make sure that we are also collaborating with our audiences too because they could provide us with opportunities for guest appearances on television, radio, podcasts, blogs, and other media platforms. Our audience can also become our contributors helping us create a larger amount of content while adding their unique value to our platforms. They might even become so excited about working with us that they also go out and tell everyone they know about us.

            Guberti includes building our email list in content marketing because we actually own this piece of the virtual real estate world. Plus, through the powers of email, we show up in people’s inboxes. In Guberti’s book, Content Marketing Secrets, Guberti provides us with 50 tactics to grow our email list from creating a bunch of landing pages to creating Udemy Courses, leveraging our blogs, appearing on other people’s YouTube Channels, providing perks, publishing a kindle book, and a whole bunch more of tips just waiting to be explored and implemented.

Dan Blanchard is a bestselling author, award-winning speaker, and educator who has written books on leadership, education and professional speaking. He has been featured on over 100 television and radio shows, as well as some of the world’s top podcasts. To find out more about Dan please visit his website: www.DanBlanchard.net

Content Marketing Secrets Part 1

   

Marc Guberti is still very young, but he has many years of experience, and regardless of his age, he has written a very useful and very valuable book for all of us authors and speakers out there who are trying to make a difference through our content. Guberti’s book is a four-part book that begins with content creation and then goes into content marketing, which we all know is very important. Part-three of his book is social media marketing, and finally part-four brings along monetizing because if we don’t make any money, we can’t continue to do what we do.

 Content Creation

            Let’s now begin with content creation because it’s the lifeblood of content marketing. If we don’t have any content, then there’s nothing to market, nothing to monetize, and nothing to make a difference with.

            So, now that we know that we need content, the new question becomes how to find content, and then find it even quicker than we are currently doing. Also, we also have to make sure that our content is good content. And for content to be good, it needs to provide a legendary experience. And for it to give a legendary experience it has to either entertain, empower, or educate, or do some kind of combination of these three.

            So, how does one find content? Well, according to Guberti, in his book, Content Marketing Secrets it’s simple. All we need to do is just go back and look at our old content and figure out what we missed, or what needs to be explained more. We can also do the same kind of thing with other people’s content or blogs, too. What did they miss? What do they need to explain more? And voila! We now have material to develop.

            Another great way to find content is to look at the questions that people ask at the end or the bottom of the blogs that interest us. Anyone of these questions could be a future blog written by any one of us.

            Inspirational videos and podcasts can also have great material that we can expand upon to come up with some great new content of our own.

             Now, according to Guberti, it is possible to create great content quickly, but to do it, we’re going to have to get out of our own comfort zone and consciously make a mind-shift toward action rather than fear of being judged.

            Also, according to Guberti, most spectacular content and/or blogs have a recipe for success. First, they start with an attractive headline, then the first sentence entices readers to read the first paragraph, and then the first paragraph hooks readers to read the article. Next, great content or blogs have a body that is skimmable and ends with a call to action. The outstanding ones also have some form of media sprinkled throughout the article.

            Finally, to create content, the successful ones create an environment and a schedule that is conducive to rapid quality content creation. According to Guberti, one of his secrets for popping out a ton of content is getting the right nutrition to fuel his body so he can perform at high levels. Also, believe it or not, Guberti is a big believer in taking breaks and 20-minute power naps, as well as getting exercise. He feels the combination of all of these things really helps him pop out a lot of content. And looking at his work, I can’t disagree with him. He seems to have found a winning formula for really popping out the content.

                        Oh, and one last thing here. Guberti also believes it is a good idea to outsource to freelancers on the things that he doesn’t love to do. At a minimum, he thinks we should at least outsource the jobs that take the most amount of time.

Dan Blanchard is a bestselling author, award-winning speaker, and educator who has written books on leadership, education and professional speaking. He has been featured on over 100 television and radio shows, as well as some of the world’s top podcasts. To find out more about Dan please visit his website: www.DanBlanchard.net

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self! Part 5

Part Five- Methods of Self-Talk

   

         The 1^st method of self-talk is called silent self-talk. We do this one all the time and aren’t usually even aware of it according to Dr. Helmstetter. Within this method all we have to do is switch old negative self-talk with new positive self-talk. This is the easiest and most natural of all the techniques to use. It generally takes more awareness than effort to do this one. So, from now on let’s start to pay attention to everything that we are silently saying to ourselves. Then, let’s override any negative and recreate a positive force out of it. Let’s do this every chance we get and make our lives better through this simple method of silent self-talk.

            Our 2^nd method of self-talk is called sell-speak. Anything we say out loud, regardless of what it is or who it is to, is self-speak. It truly is a powerful force in our lives. So, let’s be more cognizant of what we saying out loud and replace any poorly chosen self-speak with better directions for our minds to operate on.

            Here’s a little self-improvement trick to help us all become more cognizant of our own self-speak. Let’s begin to pay attention to the self-speak that comes out of others’ mouths. Then, let’s also occasionally ask ourselves the introspective question of, “Do I sound like that? Do I say those kind of words when I speak out loud?” This simple little trick will greatly help us become more cognizant of what we say out loud.

            Third on the list of methods of self-talk is self-conversation. This is a cool and funny one all at the same time. Self-conversation gives us a chance to stop beating up on ourselves and to become a best friend to ourselves, like we’re supposed to be, by speaking our loud to ourselves. Basically, this is having a conversation our loud with ourselves about the best about ourselves. We can even act it out if that floats our boat and makes it stick better. This can be a lot of fun according to Dr. Helmstetter because it involves multiple sense, is very effective, and will get us some good laughs as people look at us like we’re crazy. If you’re not brave enough yet for this craziness of people looking at you all weird, then just do this method in the privacy of your shower each morning instead of out loud in some public place each day.

            Our 4^th method of self-talk is called self-write. I’m going to warn you up front that most people won’t do this very effective method of self-talk because it takes effort and time. It’s just like the self-conversation of self-talk that we’ve already mentioned above, except that we added one more step of writing it out every day. It involves another sense through writing as well as some slower deeper thinking. Again, it’s effective, but time consuming, so most won’t do it beyond the first few days, if they do it at all.

            Finally, the 5^th method of self-talk is called tape-talk. This takes the best of method four and lets us simplify it so that more of us will do it. We simply just do the self-write once and then audio record ourselves speaking it. Next, we just simply listen to it a few times a day. It’s simple and powerful positive programming. As a matter of fact, Dr. Helmstetter believes that he has never seen a better tool than tape-talk in all of his years of studying self-development. It’s like having our own personal coach by our side pulling the best out of us each day.

            In conclusion, the workings of the human brain are completely indifferent to our stations in life. And that’s another good thing for many of us. You see, this means that anyone of us can use self-talk and benefit from it. But, first, we need to pick up Dr. Helmstetters book of, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. Read it. Practice the principles. And use his tricks of the trade to help yourself succeed. Hint… Hint… there’s a bunch more secrets of success in his book just waiting for you to discover that I didn’t have room to share here in this article. Happy readings. And happy life!

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self! Part 4

Part Four- We Can Begin Right Now

   

         Let’s begin listening to everything we say about ourselves right now. Let’s erase what’s not working and replace it with what does work. Here’s the tricky part though. We need something to fill the void once we start erasing or we’ll just eventually fall back into that abyss of our old way of talking to ourselves and our old ways of behaving. We need to have a word-for-word vocabulary to replace the old with or our new and improved life won’t last.

            You see, wanting it is not enough. Deciding to do it is not enough either. According to Dr. Helmstetter, the human brain says, “Give me more. Give me the words. Give me the directions, the commands, the picture, the schedule and the results that you want. Then I will do it for you. Give me the words!”

            Dr. Helmstetter believes many times good self-improvement does fall short of self-talk because many of the self-improvement techniques out there are lacking some of the basic things that make up self-talk and make self-talk so powerful and enduring. These simple but powerfully effective things that self-talk has that many other self-improvement strategies lack is that self-talk is simple, easy to use, and it works.

            Now, don’t laugh yet at the simplicity of it all yet. Often, it is in the simplicity that the genius lies. Most self-improvement strategies can help us improve our lives for a while, but the bottom line is that if it isn’t simple, then eventually we’ll stop doing it. Next, if it’s not easy we’ll also stop doing it. For example, most of us probably don’t mind expending a few seconds of energy here and there for self-talk. But, how many of us will spend one hour every day improving ourselves? Not many. Lastly, it has to also work. If our thought patterns don’t change, something that self-talk does do, well then, we can keep on beating ourselves over the head with these other methods of self-improvement all we want, but sadly, they will eventually fail us because we still have the old crappy programming.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self! Part 3

Part Three- Self-Talk

     

       Self-talk is a practical way to live our lives by an active intent rather than a passive acceptance, according to Dr. Helmstetter. The beauty of self-talk is that it paints a new internal picture of ourselves as we would most like it to be… And that’s a good thing. Wouldn’t life would be so much better if we can get our self-talk to work for us instead of against us?

            There are different levels of self-talk. The most frequently used self-talk is negative acceptance. Basically, we say something negative about ourselves and then just blindly accept it as truth, whether it is or not. This kind of self-talk of negative acceptance lands us all the way down on the bottom at level one.

            Level two isn’t much better than level one. Level two is recognition and a need for change. We can recognize this level through such statements as: “I need to… I should… I ought to…” On the surface level, level two doesn’t look so bad, but here’s the problem with it. Level two starts off on the right foot with recognizing an areas that needs improvement, but where it falls down on the job is that it doesn’t offer a solution. Thus, it subconsciously becomes, “I wish I could… but I can’t…” So, instead of giving birth to accomplishment and what’s possible it creates guilt and acceptance of our own self-imagined inadequacies. This is a bad thing. So, let’s try not to do this one, okay?

            Next is level three of self-talk. Now, we’re getting somewhere. This is the first level of self-talk that actually works for us instead of against us, according to Dr. Helmstetter. Level three of self-talk is characterized by things like, “I never…” or “I no longer…” In level three we’re rephrasing old negatives and putting them behind us as we start in a new better direction. For example, if we’re smokers who want to quit, our lives will eventually change if we continuously and strongly say to ourselves, “I no longer smoke!”

            And the great thing is that it doesn’t even have to be true yet. We can actually start practicing this level three of self-talk saying we no longer smoke while we’re still smoking. According to Dr. Helmstetter, if we say that we no longer smoke often enough, and with enough intensity, our minds will begin to believe it and then smoking will lose its appeal and hold on us.

            Level four is the opposite of level one. This is the one we use least, but need the most. This is also the one that is most effective and gets us the best results. Here, we’re painting a whole new picture of ourselves of how we want it to be. This level of self-talk can usually be identified when people says, “I am…”

            Level four is positive self-talk that takes place in the present rather than the past or future. Level four is exciting and gives us energy to push forward in creating the new and betterinternal picture of ourselves for real.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self! Part 2

Part Two- Self-Management Sequence

    

        The number one thing that most influences our success or failures, and thus our quality of life is our own behaviors. Basically, our actions or what we do on a consistent basis is what makes us, or breaks us. I’m sure this is common sense and most of us already know this. However, I’m also pretty sure that most of us have also asked ourselves, at least occasionally, why we do not do the things that we know we should do. Well, my friend, according to Dr. Helmstetter, the answer to why we don’t do what we know we should do is because of our feelings.

            You see, our feelings act as a big life filter that all of our actions come out of. Basically, how we feel about something determines what we do and how we do it. If we feel positive about something we will behave in a more positive way with more positive energy, and thus eventually create more success for ourselves. So, now you’re probably asking if this is the secret, then can’t we just control our feelings and have everything we want. The answer isn’t quite that simple because there is something deeper in all of us that is influencing our feelings. And that thing influencing our feelings is our attitudes.

            Our attitudes are how we view life. A good attitude is essential because it will affect how we feel about something and what we do about it, and thus how successful we become. So, I guess now the next question from all you eager achievers out there is where our attitudes come from.

            Well, they come from our beliefs silly! Can you believe how simple this all sounds, yet we all struggle with creating that life that we want, don’t we? The funny thing about our beliefs though, is that they don’t even have to be true. Haven’t we all heard that old saying that if you believe you can, you can. And if you believe that you can’t, you can’t?

            You see, we believe what we were programmed to believe. And right or wrong, all that programming starts on the day that we are born. By the way, why does that nurse have to slap our behinds and make us cry on day one? From the very beginning we’re faced with one of Einstein’s ultimate questions of, “Is this a friendly or unfriendly universe that we all live in?” How we’re programmed and thus what we believe plays a big part in how we see Eistein’s question and what we do about it.

            Like it or not, that’s how the brain works. If we want to manage ourselves in a better way and change our results to better results, something we really can do anytime we choose to, it must first begin with self-talk according to Dr. Helmstetter.

            So, here’s the breakdown of our self-management sequence according to Dr. Helmstetter. First, we start with self-talk. Hopefully, it’s positive and not negative self-talk. That self-talk, true or not, programs our beliefs. And our beliefs, true or not, affect our attitudes. Next, our attitudes, good or bad, affect our feelings. And finally, our feelings, good or bad, drive our behaviors to become successful, unsuccessful, or somewhere in between. Note: many of us tend to land on the success scale pretty close to where our parents and friends landed too… Boy, that self-talk thing is pretty powerful, huh? 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

What to Say When You Talk to Your Self

   

        As much as 77% of what we say to ourselves may be working against us. And you know what’s even crazier than all of this negative self-talk? Deep down, every one of us innately knows that the world should be fair, and we should get our fair share; yet, we keep saying bad things to ourselves like, “I’m not good enough,” or “Who do I think I am to think I could get get?” when we talk to ourselves.

            You see, part of the problem is that the first 18 years of our lives we are told no 148,000 times by well-meaning people who were only trying to protect us and keep us safe. However, sadly, eventually after all this ‘no’ programming we too eventually join in this bombardment of our own dreams and what’s possible and began telling ourselves, “no”. Repetition sure is a convincing argument, isn’t it? Especially, when we are the ones saying it now, huh?

            Sadly, at this point of saying ‘no’ to ourselves, without realizing it, we begin constructing an invisible wall that stands between ourselves and our dreams, and what’s possible. Even though we can’t see that wall, that wall will remain standing tall and impenetrable for as long as our old programming remains within us. You see, we become the thoughts that are in our minds. And if those thoughts are… ‘no can do’… well, you already know the rest… I don’t even have to tell you…

            You want to know what the really sad thing is though? Someone else programmed us to think like that. And ironically, they were most likely the ones who were on our side and most likely just trying to help us too! Sad, isn’t it? We’ve all heard that saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? Life sure can be crazy and confusing!

            There is a silver lining in this dark ominous crazy life-cloud though. That lining is that there are many good self-help programs out there that can improve our lives. The bad thing though, according to Dr. Helmstetter most of them are lacking permanence, knowledge of the psychological process of the brain, and a new word-for-word programming for our minds. However, self-talk does have these three success elements. Thus, Dr. Helmstetter’s self-talk makes a lot of sense because it can paint a new and improved picture of ourselves in our own minds.

            Another good thing in the self-improvement world is that it makes no difference what happened to us in the past or how others programmed us for something less than success without our permission. Thankfully, we literally, can change just a little bit about ourselves in order to gain a whole lot of quality of life back. The little thing we have to deliberately change is what we let others say to us, what we say to ourselves, and what we think and even feel about ourselves. With just a little bit of work we can reprogram ourselves for a better life.

            We really can erase and replace all the less than excellent programming with excellent, life-fulfilling programming with self-talk. Hey, we talk to ourselves all day long anyways. There is just no getting around that. We’re going to do it regardless, so we might as well deliberately change the conversation going on in our own heads. Change the self-talk and change our lives for the better.

            Interestingly, the real obstacle here many times isn’t our subpar programming, but the fact that most of us don’t realize that we’ve let others program us, and now we’re reinforcing it on a daily basis. We have blindly jumped right on that same wave of negativity and have continually strenghened that negative programming from others by what we say to ourselves now.

            Thus, the invisible wall remains. However, we can crack that wall, weaken that wall, and then tear it down through our new and improved spoken words, unspoken thoughts, feelings, impressions, and physical responses. Hey, the former military man inside of me has always said that if you physically feel those butterflies in your stomach, then just command that squadron of butterflies to line up and fly in a wedge formation for you instead of against you.

            We really can do this! You see, Dr. Helmstetter says that the human brain will do anything possible we tell it to do, if we tell it often enough and strong enough. So, let’s get going on this! And let’s do it with some vigor.

            Hey, our subconscious mind is even working right now, day and night, to make sure that we become precisely the person we have unconsciously told ourselves to be. What kind of person have you told it to be? You see, here’s the deal, in order to live our best possible life, we are going to have to ditch the old habit of automatically believing the worst first, and the best last.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. Learn more about Dan at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Check out Dan’s teen leadership book at: http://tinyurl.com/glxzjaf

Hunch Part 3

Part Three: The Who, the What and the How

      

      This section of, Hunch by Bernadette Jiwa describes the stories of the people whose everyday insights informed the hunches that they later developed into breakthrough ideas. You see, our world has always been shaped by the most curious people who inhabit it. Academy-Award winning filmmaker James Cameron once said, “Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.” Thus, it would only make sense for us all to do everything in our power to develop it.

            Into the picture comes Carol Jones and Victor Pleshev with their ironing board cover in Australia. In a declining market where fewer couples are getting married, and fewer woman are taking the responsibility of all the domestic chores, Carol and Victor heard “NO!” over and over again in promoting their ironing board cover, However, their niche market of men who value their time and want ironing to be easier and quicker have become their ever-growing market in their little corner of the world.

            Next, in an English market town, Moyez solved the problem of low staff morale, overbooked doctors and slow patient response time by coming up with telephone triage. Who would have thought that just talking to some patients on the phone was enough for many patients? Through a simple little phone call the trained and qualified doctor could decide who has to come in and who doesn’t.

            Finally, Debbie Sterling from a small town in Rhode Island wanted to figure a way to get more girls interested in engineering. Her interest in engineering had been sparked by playing with her older brothers’ construction toys when she was a little girl. However, she knew the common little girl would quickly become bored if they were asked to play with their brother’s construction toys. So, she created a story about a girl engineer named GoldieBlox who went on adventures and solved problems by building simple machines. Through this she combined girls’ natural love of literature and stories with a construction and engineering theme. In 2014 GoldieBlox has won the People’s Choice Toy of the Year Award.

            The rest of Jiwa’s book, Hunch, shares more stories on people that have been innovative by using their imagination to solve problems. They were curious and wanted to find a better way. Jiwa also goes into little exercises that help us find our own imagination and curiosity while practicing how to be more innovative ourselves.

            In the end, it’s very important how we choose to pay attention to influences, what we imagine, and the things we have the foresight to create and ultimately who we become. What truly deserves to occupy the moments that will go from making up our minutes to influencing the impact of we make and the legacy we leave. Jiwa’s book was a quick easy read, I suggest you pick it up and give it a good go-through. You won’t be sorry. 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Hunch Part 2

Part Two: From Everyday Insights to Groundbreaking Ideas

     

       We used to trust our intuition to make important decisions in our lives. And to tell you the truth, some of us still do trust our intuition to makes important decisions, even in the business world. However, somehow it has become unfashionable to admit this, especially in the business world according to Jiwa.

            Just like our ancestors looked for subtle changes to inform their intuition in life and death situations, we too still partake in that kind of behavior in this modern world. We still look for, although, not always aware of it at the moment, but we’re still looking for subtle changes in our environment to help us make better decisions. It just so happens that most of these decisions are no longer life or death decisions. But don’t be fooled. This innate human ability to make those decision based on intuition is still there.

            Our intuition can help us not just get from point A to point B in a new way, but actually envision an entirely new point A and point B. It opens the door to us redefining where the problems end and the solutions begin. It helps us make new connections and forge different paths. And this is a good thing, because as humans we tend to see what we’re looking for. And through persistent effort we can improve our abilities to move from everyday insights to groundbreaking ideas. We all can choose to amplify these special human abilities or ignore them.

            You see, we all can be blinded by what we think we know and ignore all those beautiful little opportunities that are sitting right in front of us every day. And believe me, this does happen every day. People miss the obvious all the time because of what they think they know, and the inability to make the leap to what they might not know. Furthermore, sometimes being a big Fortune 500 Company, Ivy League educated, or having a big important name enslaves us to what we think we know, while the house wife or some guy in a garage is coming up with the next big thing.

            In the changing world of business and work, the skills that are becoming most prevalent are the same ones that make us better rounded, creative, collaborative, generous, and intuitive. With this in mind, it would be wise to develop these qualities in ourselves so that we can contribute to society and make a difference in both our own personal world and the larger world. 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Hunch Part 1

Part One: What’s Stopping You?

            Bernadette Jiwa begins her book, Hunch, with a quote from Anne Lamott where she says, “You get your intuition back when you make space for it”. Today we are surrounded by data that is supposed to make us smarter, but is it? It certainly doesn’t look like it’s making us wiser…You see we know a lot more than we think we know and data is only telling us part of the story and has the tendency to dampen our inherent and vital curiosity. You see, data and our human need for certainty is keeping us from developing our emotional intelligence and cultivating an imagination that could change this world for the better.

            You see, here’s the deal. We actually know more than we think we know. However our feelings of a lack of certainty, even though we can never be 100% certain about anything, is keeping us from acting. We just don’t like to ‘not know’. We don’t want to hear that sometimes the questions are even more important than the answers.

            According to Jiwa, scientific discoveries happen not through method or magic, but from being open to discovery by listening to one’s emotions and responding to intuition. Like a poet, the researcher, as well as the therapist, needs the ability to imagine what the truth might be. We need to let go of the need to have answers in order to be able to come up with the right questions.

      

      The ever-more important innovation is more complex than the simple ‘Aha’! Innovations come from prolonged practice of being curious, empathetic and imaginative. Too many of us are relying on IQ scores and the retention of knowledge. Too many of us also rely on ideas. However, ideas are nothing if they’re not adopted and used. Sometimes the big ideas don’t go anywhere right alongside all that knowledge. And sometimes the next big thing isn’t something that anyone, at its genesis, would have believed would have been the billion-dollar idea.

            Common big, but often false ideas, are often based on technology. However, sadly, technology is often hijacking our minds. Thus, we are noticing less and less and are missing more and more in our ever-increasing technological world. Frequently, we’re throwing away opportunities to think and reflect- to be the kind of person that actually can make things better for ourselves and everyone else in our circles as well.

Too often, distraction is the enemy of insight. Some research suggest that people are checking their phone up to 150 times a day. Often, we feel that we are close to something big and important, but yet, we still don’t make the space to do what it takes to immerse ourselves waist high and elbow deep in the things that cultivate our curiosity and imagination.

The truth is that we can do good work when we create an environment that allows us to do so. However, we have to change some of our behaviors and have a mind-shift that changes our priorities to things that matter and deserve our time. If we want to do something big, then we need to stop wasting our time on things that just aren’t that important.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

PRIMAL INTELLIGENCE

Part One: The Power of Emotional Intelligence

        

    The real magic of great leaders isn’t in what they do, but rather in how they do it. Understanding the emotional tones in the workplace is what separates the best leaders from the average leaders. The leaders who understand emotions are better able to build higher morale, more motivation and a deeper commitment among their workers, which creates better retention of talent and better results on the productivity side. All of these positive factors add up to positive profits.

            The bottom line is that followers are always looking to leaders for emotional support and empathy. When leaders drive out invisible toxic emotions and drive in positive emotions it is called resonance in this book. And when leaders drive emotions towards the negative it’s called dissonance. Everyone watches the boss. People take their cues from the boss. So the boss better be aware of the emotional tone that he or she is setting.

            People want to work with leaders who have some emotional intelligences and are able to exude upbeat feelings. Creating this positive upbeat atmosphere is how emotionally intelligent leaders are able to retain talented people.

            One of the oldest laws of psychology is that anything beyond a moderate level of anxiety and worry erodes mental abilities and makes us less emotionally intelligent. Thus, leaders who spread bad moods are bad for business because employees are likely to quit. And the ones who stay, can’t be at their best or even think at their best. So, once again poor emotional leaders are bad for business. But, you want to know what is good for business? Good mood spreaders who are emotionally intelligent leaders. They are good for business because of many reasons. However, here is just one of those reasons: every 1% increase in the service climate creates a 2% increase in revenue.

            We can no longer afford to believe that just because a very intelligent person was put into a leadership position that it will automatically make everything okay. Einstein once said, “We should take care not to make the intellect our God. It has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve.” Good intellect can serve. Good emotional intelligence can lead. Now imagine what the two of them can do together.

            There is no fixed formula for great leadership and it’s not innate. We aren’t born with it. That really is good news, and so is this next part too. The emotional intelligence necessary for great leadership can be learned. Furthermore, there is no one set path to great leadership. As the old maxim goes, there are many roads to Rome.

            However, if one hopes to become a great leader someday, studies have shown that it helps to have at least one competency from each of the four fundamental areas of emotional intelligence. These four domains consist of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

            Self-awareness consist of things like knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses. People who are self-aware have a ‘gut-sense’ to guide their decision-making process. They self-manage, which means they have self-control, have integrity, are flexible and are optimistic. These people are usually also self-starters, and achievers.

            Social awareness is having empathy or understanding the perspectives of others. It’s having the ability to read the currents and the politics of a particular situation and environment. As well as, recognizing and meeting customer needs.

            Relationship management is being able to motivate people with a compelling vision and then being able to persuade them to move forward and do it. It’s developing others. It’s resolving conflict. And it’s also being able to go in a new direction while maintaining friendships, and being a good team player.

            So as this book, Primal Leadership mentioned earlier, if you have at least one competency from each of the four domains of emotional intelligence you’re in a pretty good place to be a good leader someday.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.