Those that have followed this blog may have noticed a long lapse between posts, especially last year. I was going through another period of redefining myself. Even more so, I was going through a time of being paralyzed by fear.

Fear kept me from moving forward. I had days of just staring at my computer screen unable to write. I let the blog lapse. I hardly ever posted on Facebook. I let a lot of what I built just whither away.

Then at some point, I realized that I had to move forward and do so immediately, or lose not only all I built and done, but lose myself. I think that last year had some of my darkest moments.

What turned me around was a journal I started to keep. In every entry, I looked at the day and found things to be grateful for. I ended every entry with “Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!” Within weeks of starting the journal, new business and new business opportunities started pouring in. I moved forward in spite of the fear. The fear was as great, but I moved through it much like one would move through a wall of smoke. Even though I couldn’t see what was on the other side of that wall, I walked through it, and it did nothing to restrain me. Just like smoke, the fear blinded me, but had no power to hinder forward movement. The only thing that had restrained me was my own mind, my own thoughts, my own imagination.

On the other side of the wall, all that I had feared blew away. It never existed, except in my mind. I learned a great lesson in fearlessness. It is not the absence of fear. Instead, fearlessness is the refusal to allow fear dominion, it is the removal of its power. For me fearlessness is the reclaiming of my power.

Fearlessness is an action. It is something I do when I feel fearful that conquers fear.

’til next time,

Woody

It is so easy to fall into the quagmire of a dry spell. Much like quicksand, they suck you in and immobilize you. As you get deeper into them, they smother your drive, your ambition, and and ability to move in ANY direction. I speak here from experience. I’ve been in and out of dry spells for the past year. Each time, I have broken free by choosing to embrace an inner quality that I will name below. Before sharing how I’ve broken free, let me tell you how I’ve managed to get stuck.

My cycle looks like this. I’ve managed to get unstuck. Out of fear of getting stuck again, I push myself harder than I pushed the time before. Up earlier, to bed later, work, work, work. That may have served me well when I was in my 20s. I’m now in my mid-50s. Eventually, I have pushed myself into burnout. At this stage, my body forces me to rest by getting sick. I lose all that momentum. Once I start to give myself the rest, I realize how much I need it, and do very little for one week, two weeks and then some. Then I see how far behind I am, and I get overwhelmed. Overwhelm takes over and I’m sinking, sinking, sinking.

One of the most powerful elements of the quicksand is fear. As I sink, I become more fearful. My fear quickens my descent. I’m now spiraling down faster and faster.

There is only one way out, and it can best illustrated with the scene where Bart and his friend have run a railroad handcar to the end of the tracks–right into a pool of quicksand. Through supreme effort, the pair pull themselves out.

The only way to end a dry spell is action. And no inner quality better serves you than FEARLESSNESS. Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. Nor do you have to force yourself to not fear. That isn’t possible. Fearlessness is the moving in spite of fear. It is action in the face of fear. To draw on another movie: in “Indian Jones and the Last Crusade,” the hero has to step off a cliff into nothingness: a “leap of faith.” He cannot see the mirror-finished bridge because it is reflecting the rocks, and therefore is invisible to Indy at the step off point. He steps, and then he can see, but not before.

That is how it is for me when I move forward in spite of fear. After the action—not before—I am able to see my way clear. It always works out. The only way it cannot work out is if I never take action.

So how do I stay out of the quagmire? I’ve learned a few lessons:
1) I cannot get down on myself for getting into the quagmire in the first place. The voice of self-condemnation is the siren call of the quicksand. It keeps me from taking risks. Without risk, there is no growth.

2) I cannot ignore the needs of my body. I need rest. By pushing myself so hard, what I am really doing is acting in fear of getting stuck. So I’m looking behind me, not ahead of me. If I move forward in an effort to avoid mistakes, then I’m focusing on past failure, rather than on crafting my future success.

3) Gratefulness. I have chosen to be grateful that I’m moving. This gives me joy in every forward step. My joy fortifies me.

I am sure that you can think of more than these three. If you do, please share them. Also, please share your stories of overcoming inertia.

’til next time,

Woody

Take a look at your website’s home page. What is it’s message? Do you talk about you? If you are a massage therapist, do you talk about the different modalities of massage you do? Do you explain your techniques? How detailed is your explanation of your services? Chances are, your site speaks mostly of the features of your services. A visitor wants to know about the benefits.

Most people visit a site to find something of value to themselves. We live in a “What’s in it for me?” kind of world. Let me illustrate this for you. If someone goes to a hardware store looking for a drill bit, what is he buying? He is NOT buying a drill bit, he is buying a hole. When someone books a massage, they are not looking for a particular technique, they are looking for what that technique will do for them.

Your website’s home page needs to reflect the benefits of what you do, not what you do to give that benefit. Imagine your website as a newspaper. The most interesting and important stories are on the first page. Actually, they are not JUST on the first page, they are above the horizontal crease that divides the top of the page from the bottom. Your website also has a ‘crease.’ In the world of web design, the important stuff is put ‘above the fold’ on a website’s home page. This ‘fold’ is the bottom of the window before someone would start to scroll down.

Therefore, it is important to put above the fold, all the benefits of your services. You can share the features elsewhere in your site. But when someone first shows up, make sure that the first thing they see are all the reasons why your services will meet their needs. There is one more thing to keep in mind when you speak about meeting people’s needs. Many times, the need is not all that obvious. There are four basic needs: Financial, Emotional, Physical and Spiritual. It is very possible for your service to meet each of these needs. Using massage as an example: someone with back pain might not be able to work to her fullest potential, and therefore is not earning as much as she could. She might be depressed because of the pain. While the physical need is obvious, for some, massage might meet a spiritual need because of the meditative quality of a session.

Think outside the box when you write about the benefits of your services. Make sure that what appears above the fold is written from the visitor’s perspective. What is in it for them? The visitor wants to know about benefits, not features.

In this series, we’ve spoken about your website’s purpose, how to implement that purpose, and your site’s message. Next, we are going to talk about your website’s appearance.

’til next time,

Woody

The essence of what I’ve been talking about in these past few posts is that it’s crucial that you get something from a visitor to your site. Most professionals build a website that is a billboard or a brochure. They hope that someone reading will call and make an appointment. But think about how you respond to billboards, brochures and advertisements. You probably give them a glance and move on. They rarely move you to action.

Michael Port, in “Book Yourself Solid,” talks about having an ‘always have something to invite them to’ offer. What this translates to on a website is having something of high perceived value that you are offering in exchange for a name and email address. This can be a special report or ebook that you are offering for free to anyone who signs up for it. Let’s say that your specialty is the relief of back pain using massage. You could write a comprehensive guide to back pain, along with the soft-tissue causes. You can explain why your techniques are effective for soft-tissue chronic pain. All someone has to do to get this report is leave their name and email address.

That’s the offer. Now let’s talk about the opt-in. The visitor has to leave the information in a form that is on your page. Better yet, this form, along with the offer for the report is on every page. If you look to the right on this page, there is the blue box with an offer. That is an opt-in box. A lot of people have some kind of contact form on their site that just sends them an email with the contacts information. This is not the best way to go about getting an opt-in.

The best way is to have an email service. The box to the right will put the contact information into my list at AWeber. They note the source of the opt-in, the ip address, date, and a lot of other information that verifies that this was voluntary on the person’s part. Then they send a confirmation email, which has a link that must be clicked. This way, I am meeting Federal guidelines when I get someone’s information. If you are looking to build a good-sized list, you will want to use a similar service.

The nice thing about AWeber or most email services is that they will provide you with all the tools for email marketing. They will generate the HTML code for a an opt-in box that you can put on your website and even your Facebook business page. They also provide the tools you need to create newsletters and send out to all the people on your list. You can also set up ‘autoresponders,’ which are a series of emails that go out in a predetermined interval to your list. My 7-part mini e-course is an example of an autoresponder.

Once you have the contact information of a visitor, you can start engaging them in conversation. It takes 7 or 8 exposures to your message before someone is inclined to buy. This is why a one-time visit to your site is not all that effective. But with a email marketing, you are able to reach the same person repeatedly. Now your site has become a marketing tool.

If you’ve noticed, up to now, I only spoke about some mechanics of your site: your phone number, your email and your offer. I haven’t spoken about the content of your site. My next post is going to be about your home page, and its message.

’til next time,
Woody

As I mentioned in my last post, the purpose of a website is to start a conversation. I pointed out that a conversation is a two-way street. So if someone comes to your site, looks around and leaves, you’ve lost out on an opportunity for conversation. So how do you get a conversation out of a visitor to your site? You offer something of value. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s first explore a very important question: What do you want someone to do when they come to your site?

In fact, you need to ask three questions of every page on your site: 1) Who do you want to come to your page; 2) What do you want them to do when they get there; and 3) How are you going to get them to do it? Let’s look at questions 2 & 3. Look at any page on your site. What do you want someone to do when they to your site. Let’s say you want them to call for an appointment. Do you have your phone number on the page? Or if you want them to book an appointment, do you have an online booking button? If you want to get their email address so that you can start a conversation with them, do you have an opt-in box?

You need to know what you want a visitor to do, and you must make it easy, if not compelling for the visitor to do it. I’ve seen many sites where I had to hunt for contact information. I’ve seen many sites where I COULDN’T FIND IT! Don’t let that be your site.

So let’s say you do want the visitor to leave an email, so that you can start sending your newsletter. How do you ask for it? What do you offer in return? Remember, most people are not just jumping out of their skins to sign up for one more newsletter to clutter their email in box. But, if you have something to offer of high perceived value, you’ve increased the likelihood of getting that email.

Next post, I’m going to talk about what to offer, and how to offer it. In the meantime, look at each page of your website with this checklist. Does it have:

1. Your phone number
2. Your email
3. An opt-in

If each page doesn’t have the first two, take care of that as soon as possible. If you’re unsure about an opt-in, don’t worry, that will be the topic of my next post.

’til next time,

Woody

Every business owner knows that having a website is important and necessary. So here is a question for you: what is the the purpose of your website? The usual answer is so people can get information about your business, and know how to contact you. That is only partially true. Yes, a website is a virtual brochure. People landing on your site, if they choose to stick around, will learn about you. They may even contact you. But most sites leave all this to chance.

What would your site look like if your purpose for it was to start a conversation? Your first answer might be that it would look the same. So let me ask you another question: how can you have a conversation with someone who shows up on your site, reads it, and then leaves? You don’t know the person was there. A conversation, by definition, is two-way.

This concept exposes the most common error people have with their websites. They are like billboards posted on a side street. Only those people who have a reason to go on that street are going to see the billboard. Once they do see the billboard, they either read it or not. Once they read it, they MIGHT do something about it. When was the last time a billboard moved you to action?

Advertising is the least effective means of marketing, yet most small businesses use their websites as a very passive form of advertising. Unless you are highly ranked on the search engines, only those people looking for your website will find it. If you have a high ranking, then your site will bring in new traffic and new clients. But even with higher rankings, how do you know the person showed up? Remember, the purpose of your site is to have a conversation. How can you have that conversation? That will be the topic of my next post.

‘Til next time,
Woody

NOTE: I originally wrote this in August of last year and posted it on my other blog, “Fascial Voice.”

We hear so often the term, “centering”. I think that most people now know that they need to be “centered”, but so few know what this means. Perhaps the best way to explain for deeper understanding is to describe to you the times that you are not centered.

When you are thinking about what to do next, you are not centered. When you are replaying past events, you are not centered.

It is in the center that we just are. As Baba Ram Das said, just “be here now”. John Barnes teaches, when you are off this center, the center of the “now”, that you are having an out of body experience. How many of us live in the “now”? Let me describe what it is like to be in the “now.”

Imagine you are a master craftsman. Perhaps a coppersmith, or a shoemaker, or a leather-worker, or a stone carver, a dentist, a surgeon, an artist. But for this exercise, I’m going to say coppersmith.

Over breakfast, you cleanse from your mind the day before and all thoughts of managing the business. Then your ritual begins: you put the dishes and cups in the sink, almost as a way of physically putting the mundane in its place. You turn precisely and walk toward the basement door. Each step narrows your focus to the now. You stop in front of the door and reach for your apron. Reaching out for it is like a priest reaching for his vestments.

To you, the apron is holy, for you need it to approach your holiest of holies: the crucible. Each step toward your holy dungeon further quiets your thoughts. Your focus turns inward to holy of holies that we all have within: that part of our mind that speaks in pictures. You see your task for the day. It is a simple hammered copper vase. You have made hundreds like it, but each is different in ways only you know or could detect. You remember each one, for each one was part of your journey to mastery. Each piece of copper speaks to you, especially those pieces you have forged.

You run through your skills, and paint a pathway to bring to substance that which you just envisioned. There starts a voice within, one spoken with thoughts which we then speak to ourselves, a voice that gives us the next step. We then can work for hours, oblivious to the time, oblivious to the world, as we do first this, then that–hearing the instructions one by one.

We all have experienced this place. A place of total concentration. A place where only the minutiae exist. A place of doing only one thing at a time, and being focused on just that one task. A place where yesterday and tomorrow, and even the next minute do not exist. It is almost a dreamlike state, and if someone were to intrude abruptly, something within shatters in the same way a dream bursts and disappears like soap bubble.

This is the place, the ONLY place that a master craftsman works. But that craftsman can be the master of any craft–my above list is just a few. My craft is healing. I don’t heal, but my touch tells the client how to heal herself. When I find the center, all that exists is the point of contact. I reach into my client to find the restrictions. She, centered, is able to let me in. I am in the now, and all that I feel, am aware of, is the fascia I feel, and what it feels like. Then, from that sacred place within, I see the pictures of my task. I then hear in thoughts, not spoken words, the instructions to myself of what to do. It is a steady stream. This place has been called, “intuition”, the right brain, our higher self. This place is the center.

We all have it. It talks to us in different ways depending on what level of energy we have been functioning in. When we are in victim mode, level one, we call this inner voice our conscience. When we are in higher levels, it is our intuition, and at level seven, it is our genius mind, or what Brian Tracy calls our “Super Conscious Mind”.

You might say, “I’ve never experienced that, I have no profession or craft”. But I beg to differ with you. You also enter that place whenever you are totally engaged in your task. You get there while cooking, gardening, building a birdhouse, working on a scrapbook, or knitting. It is the place of the craftsman, the place of mastery–and anything we do with our hands can take us there. It is the place of centering.

In my last post, I asked that you share your incredible stories. Since writing the post, I read something that has inspired me to take this a few steps further. We all have incredible stories of how our work dramatically impacted the life of one of our clients. For example, I have a story of how 50 minutes of bodywork enabled a woman who was unable to move her arms above shoulder height, who had not been able to dress or bathe herself in almost 2 years, was suddenly able to raise her arms completely over her head. Some of you have already posted your stories.

Why are these stories so important? Individually, they are nice anecdotes. But if we put enough of these stories together, we have a powerful tool for educating the public about the value of what we do. We are not in the business of making people just feel good. We are not in the business of just reducing the stress of others. We are in the business of changing lives!

I encourage massage therapists, acupuncturists, reiki practitioners, health coaches, yoga instructors—in fact anyone who practices any form of holistic heath care—to share your story! If the general population of California knew of what we could do, then AB 1822 would never have been proposed. The more educated the public is about what we do, the more the public will be turning to us for wellness care. This is the key to turning the tide in health care: LETTING THE PUBLIC KNOW!

Please post your stories here as comments to this blog or join “My Incredible Healing Story” on Facebook and post your story there.
Thank you,

Woody

If I were to ask you what you did for a living, you might tell me that you massage people, or that you do myofascial release, or that you are an acupuncturist or a health coach. Then, if I were to ask what you do, you might tell me that you work knots out of muscles, stick needles into people, that you put hands on people and release their fascial restrictions. If I were to ask again what you do, you might say, “I already told you!” My response would yes, but then again, you really haven’t. At least not in terms that your target market would understand.

People relate to stories. What is the single greatest result you have ever gotten? What I would like you to do here is think of the person. Think about the treatment(s). What were you feeling? What was the person feeling? What was the client like before you worked on him or her? What was the person’s reaction to the result? How did you feel when you got this result?

Now, I would like you to write it out as a story. Be detailed. Focus on feelings. Focus on the excitement over the result. Focus on the state of the person when you first started doing the work. Write out a paragraph on what happened. Build suspense and emotion into your story.

The next time someone asks you what you do, tell this story. You’ll be surprised at how interested your listener will be. One more thing: you have been having a sales conversation!

One more thing, please share your story. I would love to read it–just leave it behind as a comment to this blog. Thank you.

’til next time,

Woody

What is fulfillment? Is it a goal? Is it the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Is it the reward at the end of a long journey? Can we attain it?

As long as we see fulfillment as a goal, we will never know it. We can’t grasp it, but we can have it. We can’t seek it, but we can have it at will. It is not obtainable, but it can be possessed.

I know that this all sounds confusing, so let me explain. Fulfillment is a state of being. It is something we either are, or are not. It is something that flows from within. When we look for it outside of ourselves, it alludes us. We can only know fulfillment in the moment, in the now. Fulfillment is a choice. We choose to be fulfilled, and we are. Contentment is the doorway, and gratitude is the key.

‘Til next time,

Woody