This past year, born out of an international pandemic, I launched my first ever location independent business. It has been a dream of mine since before I can remember, and now finally, at the age of 48, after careers in dance, real estate, event planning, and start-ups, I have done it. For the first time in my life I have truly aligned my passions, my talents, my skills, and my values, and poured them into a business that allows me to have a positive impact on peoples’ lives. And I can do that from anywhere in the world as long as I am connected to the Internet. 

But we all know that starting a business isn’t easy. In the beginning, as you are building, it feels like you are pushing a boulder up a hill. Some days you make very little progress. Other days it feels like there are too many obstacles. Then there are glorious days, where the ground seems to level out, even just for that day, and you make enough progress to keep you going. 

As I continue to push my...

Have you had an online course brewing in your brain for some time now? If you are overwhelmed with the idea of actually going from idea to product, start with Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. Breaking down a big task such as creating an online course really is the key to achieving your goal. I have broken the process down into 10 steps, from idea to execution including the very important part of sales and marketing your course. 

In part 3 you will learn about some of those steps, post content creation, that are super important to the success of your online course. After all, what is the point of having one if users all over the world don't get to benefit from it!

Step 7 to Creating an Online Course - Pricing and Beta Testing

What are you going to charge? Checking out the competition is a great way to start as you are trying to pinpoint a price point. What are other people charging? How do their courses compare with yours in terms of what they are offering and promising? Who is...

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about how to get started in the process of creating your first online course. At this point in the process, you should have at least a first draft of your course content planned out. This includes a general outline broken down into modules each having their own title and content. 

Now it is time to think about how you will deliver your content to your audience. What platform will you use, what medium you will use to deliver the content, and what supplemental materials will be available to your clients to help them master your course or topic.

Step 4 to Creating an Online Course - Creating Supplemental Material

Oftentimes there are supplemental materials to go along with a course. These come in a variety of different forms:

• Worksheets 
• PDFs 
• Printables
• Templates
• Workbooks
• eBooks
• Audio files
• Journals

These materials can be supplementary reading or a way for people to do assignments between modules and put some of what you have been...

To be completely transparent I am writing this just after having binge watched The Queen's Gambit (which was excellent btw), and I'm writing about clearing distractions and obstacles so that you can get down to business and meet your goals. Funny, right? Maybe I haven't totally mastered the subject. But meet me where I am, and I'll meet you where you are, deal? 

It is the Saturday after Thanksgiving in the middle of a pandemic, and we are basically in lockdown again. So a day of laziness was kind of called for. Allowing yourself to take a moment to do those things is not the problem. Allowing those moments to overtake your life, is. 

After a short errand I walked back into the house and saw my unmade bed with the remote control and the TV was still silently streaming Netflix previews. It all looked so tempting, but I really wanted to get some work done and anyway, the series was over so I couldn't hang out with Beth and the gang anymore even if I wanted to. I thought about...

You are swimming in the ocean and you look towards the horizon to see what the next wave looks like. 

Oh shit.

That wave is BIG!

You immediately get that wave of panic running through your body and you start to think of your options. You sense danger so your first instinct is to run away. But trying to swim towards shore at this moment would mean that you get caught in the break, thrown about, and washed up onto shore. Um, no. Been there, done that. 

On this particular day I was at Twin Lakes beach in Santa Cruz. It’s a great swimming spot and I was with my parents, siblings, and our kids. What an awesome day full of family, sun, and surf. You really can’t beat that.

It doesn’t happen that often. We all live in separate places (my sister moved to Siberia!) so a day like this is golden. I am one of five kids and four of us (plus our parents and kids) were at the beach that day.

My older brother and sister and I were in the water enjoying the last hurrah...

You have something in mind that you want to accomplish. Let’s face it--you probably have a ton of things in mind that you want to accomplish. But when you choose that one thing to focus on, what is the one way to ensure that you will get there? Of course, you set goals! 

Goal setting is definitely a key part of the success equation, but how you set those goals will really determine whether you reach your goal or whether it gets stuck in idea mode.

This comes up in many of my coaching sessions. The secret to setting goals, which will help you move the needle, is to set small, bite sized ones. 

Specific and measurable goals that are also realistic.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

You’ve always wanted to write that book. A very successful published writer once told me that there is only one thing you need to do in order to be a writer. You guessed it...WRITE!!! Many of us aspiring writers consistently struggle to do just that. But let’s say you have a...

There is a time to learn, and there is a time to shut it all off and create.

 

That is where I am right now. I am physically dizzy with all of the information that I have been consuming over the past few months.

 

Dizzy and overwhelmed.

 

It is normal to have these feelings, especially in the context of building a new business, where other emotions such as fear of failure and of not being good enough live. The emotions are normal, and everybody from your neighbor, to your mother, to the most successful people on the planet experience them. It actually makes me feel better knowing that. The question is not whether you have moments of self doubt or not. Because we all do. The question is what do you do with it? What do you do after the feeling?

The thoughts and actions that follow that moment of self doubt are what matters.

 

It determines whether you make progress in the next year or stay where you are...stuck. And what would you prefer at the end of that...

Coaching has a pretty specific structure that is designed to help you, as the client, to level up in some way. It could be in any area of your life depending on where you want to focus whether that is career or business, relationships, health and wellness, spirituality, or your finances just to name a few. The idea is, you pick a topic, and you and your coach dive in.

Throughout the session you will explore that topic, gain new insights and perspectives, and come up with an action plan that will help you stay on track. So how can you maximize the time with your coach and ensure that you walk away in a better place than when you started?

Here are a few ways to set yourself up for a successful coaching session:

Be specific with your agenda or topic that you choose to discuss with your coach. 

Most coaches will ask you ahead of time to select an agenda, or what you want to focus on during the session. Some coaches will ask you to send them your agenda the day before the session....

Did you know that according to psychology there are only two main motivations that cause us to make decisions in life? Those are:

1. To avoid pain
2. To seek pleasure

That’s it; it’s either one or the other.

They are not talking, necessarily, about physical pain and pleasure, but more importantly about psychological pain and pleasure. The stronger instinct of the two is avoiding pain, so that is the driving force behind most of your decisions; especially when there is any possible life change involved.

So what types of decisions are we talking about here? And what type of pain is it that we are avoiding by making these decisions?

For example, you are unhappy at your job but the idea of looking for a new job sounds overwhelming. Overwhelm is pain so you stay in your uncomfortable comfort zone at your unsatisfying job. 

Or you want to get more sales in your business but that means putting yourself out there which makes you uncomfortable just thinking about it. Discomfort...

Sometimes identifying what is wrong is easier than finding what is right. I have spent the past fifteen to twenty years feeling that things weren’t right in terms of my career, but also not knowing how to fix it. That’s a long time to feel like what you are doing is out of alignment with who you are, and it does eventually take a toll.

I went through the motions. I even enjoyed what I was doing at times. After all, I had some pretty cool jobs (dance teacher, Realtor, event planner, etc.). But all the while I still had that feeling that something wasn’t right. I have had conversations with friends and family over the years about what my dreams were, but it felt like just that...a dream. I never managed to make it feel real. I never believed that it really would be. I lacked the confidence for that and I blamed myself for past decisions that got me where I was. I didn’t yet realize that I was doomed with that type of thinking. That what I was putting out there...