What makes your superpower so valuable

What’s beautiful about your superpower is that it’s unique to you. Everybody’s path through life has uniquely prepared them to help others. All the things you’ve gone through, your insights, life hacks, the things you’ve been praised and rewarded for. Your passions, all of it, in fact, can be translated into a system that can deliver on a highly coveted transformational promise.

Once you identify your superpower, you’re golden.

The ability to generate the income and lifestyle you want is yours for the taking, with commitment and hustle backed by a plan.

But, you might be wondering, how does one generate life-changing income with these newfound powers?

Generating lucrative income from your superpower: A list

Below is a list of seven ways my clients earn substantial amounts of money on the side with their powers. (For some it’s a few hundred or over a thousand a month. A few others earn five figures a month).

Write a Calling Card Book

Why write a book? It’s a way to convey your expertise, to both distill your know-how and signal your expert status to the world. Most people understand what a book is, and it carries a prestige factor. This book is not your opus or memoir or a complicated textbook. It’s your system, your superpower distilled to its core essence.

Authors of books get invited to speak, to do radio, television, podcasts and more (More on these outlets below). You can even earn money from the book itself selling it directly to consumers, or through Amazon and other booksellers, although that’s not the primary way I recommend people monetize their expertise. Better to use at least one of your books as a lead magnet to attract your potential customers, and provide an accessible way for your tribe and potential clients to learn more about your approach to solving their pressing problems before committing to hire you as a coach, consultant, etc.

Want to read a book I’ve written to help others discover and monetize their know-how? Go here to get it free.

How to write your calling card book

If writing a book sounds like a daunting task, it doesn’t have to be. You can actually write the first draft of your book in a weekend, with templates and couple of tricks of the trade. Then spend two to three weeks to edit, polish and publish it. If you want to market it on Amazon, there’s a plan you can follow to get those initial reviews to jumpstart sales. While it’s nice to get reviews and sales, or even bestseller status in a category on Amazon, there are more creative and lucrative ways to sell your book at a premium price (far more than what you get for a book on Amazon or other sites). (And yes, you can even make money off “free” books).

The bottom line is, no matter what your superpower, writing a book can be a lucrative foundation for monetizing your expertise.

Want to learn more about writing your book, fast? Get my quick start guide.

Publish and market your website and blog

You need an online address where potential clients or customers can find you. If someone finds you on YouTube or on social media or hears you speak, how can they follow up to learn more about you? They might want to learn more about you before reaching out to contact you directly.

• There are five core pages you need on your website to establish your credibility and make high-end sales.
• Use your site to sell your other products and services directly from your site.
• You can even generate passive income from your website with sponsors, affiliate links or ads.

As you can see, having a website is an essential part of your superpower monetization toolkit.

Learn more about creating your own client-getting website.

Training – Teach a class (online or in person)

You can add exercises, recordings and/or video, resources and templates, live chat and office hours and turn your book into a class, using a platform like Teachable or Thinkific to host the course on your own website (where you can charge higher amounts).

Want to go less elaborate? Package break out your book into chapters, with accompanying audio, checklists, workbook and/or homework and put it all into a zip file and sell it as a home study course on platforms like Gumroad, or on your own website with download plugins like Easy Digital Downloads.

Alternatively, you can also offer your courses or a portion of them on course marketplaces like Udemy. The downside of Udemy is that course fees are capped; however, like Amazon, it can be a great way to generate leads and bring potential audience members to your offerings.

In person classes – Mass market or Premium

In your community, you can also offer in-person classes through university extension, adult education classes at high schools or, the Learning Annex. However, you can earn a lot more by turning your in-person class into a premium workshop experience, where participants walk away with major tasks accomplished, resources, networks and more (e.g. Build your lucrative website in a weekend; Develop your six-figure business plan, etc.).

Create a Coaching Program

Coaching is like taking your course to the next level. With coaching, you can charge higher prices to clients who want to work more closely with you. While 1 on 1 coaching is a possibility (and can be great when you are just starting out, in order to truly learn what your clients are going through, tailor your program and get deep results), it is limited to the hours available in a day (like consulting).

Group coaching is another model that many swear works even better than 1 on 1 because you can create a supportive, accountable community for your clients that serve as motivation and inspiration.

If you’re intimidated by coaching, know that it doesn’t have to be complicated either. You can set up a weekly call for a set number of weeks (e.g. the number of chapters in your book) where you’ll deliver a lesson and open it up to Q&A (aka “hot seat coaching). You can tailor each week’s lessons to what your clients want by just asking them what they need help with the most. You can make it more elaborate with webinars, lessons, transcripts, the ability to have clients submit work in progress and get feedback, a forum and a group, it’s totally up to you. What makes coaching effective is that your instruction is supplemented by feedback, accountability and other forms of support. Your client is still the one who has to make the effort and do the work, but you’re with them to offer support every step of the way.

Offer Consulting

Consulting is when you use your expertise and know-how to solve specific problems for clients. It’s more hands-on than coaching, where clients are doing it all themselves. With consulting, you are either providing specific services or offering your advice or guidance on processes. You can set up your consulting to be somewhat hands off, by structuring it so that you provide the instructions and your client or their staff does the work. The key to consulting (like coaching) is being targeted in what you offer.

Freelance or Offer Product-based Services

Freelancing is like outsourcing, where you are doing specific jobs for a client like an employee would. Usually, the client dictates the terms and you perform the job to their satisfaction. This is great if your superpower includes specialized technical or service-based skills like graphic design, editing, software programming, and the like. The key to lucrative freelancing, however, is to get out of trading your hours for dollars as soon as possible and charge flat rates for a specific package of services.

How to productize your services

Come up with systems (software, vendors, outsourcers) to provide those services so that when orders come in, you can fulfill them almost like clockwork, where you are, 24/7. Instead of each order being a custom job that needs a detailed bid, clients order from a preset menu or package of services that solve a specific need. The more you can take yourself directly out of your business and it can operate without you, the more valuable your service-based business will be.

Book Speaking Engagements

This is both a way to earn money and to generate leads for your other offers. Books lend themselves to other opportunities such as invitations to speak or provide the keynote at conferences and events, or for organizations. You can be proactive about booking speaking engagements by getting listed on speakers bureaus, submitting your speaker package (with talk title, summary of talk, bio, video clips — can be links to video online) to conference organizers or directly to companies. The more prepared you are, the more professional you look and the more likely you are to get booked. Organizations are always looking for speakers so another lucrative approach, especially when getting started, is to speak for free, then upsell your books and packages at the back of the room.

Promoting yourself online and offline

There are many ways to get the word out about your superpower. As mentioned earlier, books and public speaking serve a dual role of both generating leads and serving as potential sources of income.

You can offer a sample chapter or book synopsis as a giveaway on your site in exchange for an email address in order to build an audience who will get to know, like and trust you and understand how your superpower can help them solve painful, urgent problems or desires.

Your website is essential and putting out regular content to build an audience is part of having a website that attracts customers (vs a dead, neglected page on the web). Syndicate your website content to your emails, social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), turn it into videos for YouTube or quotes for Instagram or Pinterest.

Getting involved in online communities is another way to spread the word and demonstrate your expertise. You can join forums and Q&A sites like Quora and be helpful. Help others and if the rules allow, list your website, book, courses, etc in your profile or signature.

Be available for interviews with prodcasters, radio shows, print media, magazines and more. You can also be proactive in this arena by offering media outlets ideas for shows or columms. Everyone needs content!

The list goes on and on. The possibilities are really endless once you’ve figured out your superpower and distilled it into a package (book, course, training, coaching, talk, webinar, product, service, etc.).

Where most people get tripped up is in trying to do too many things at once, or getting too caught up in the minutae or perfection vs. getting things done and out there. For others it’s not knowing the details of what to do (how to publish a book, how to get it up for sale, how to structure a course, etc.) Being held accountable to your goals and staying on track is another area I find people need help with.

However, if you have a ton of time to research how to do all the steps I’ve outline above, you have here the blueprint for a successful, lucrative knowledge-based business.

On the other hand, if you want to push the easy button, and learn how you can do all of the above in the next 60 days, grab my free guide here.

The post 7 Ways to Monetize Your Superpower first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

The video above covers the first step in what Project Life Mastery calls “5 Must-Have Marketing Campaigns”. The video covers the first of these, which is traffic to a sales page.

What is Traffic?

Traffic means visitors, and it should mean highly targeted (interested) visitors to your offers, wherever they are on the web (either your own web-page or sales pages on 3rd party platforms like Amazon, Etsy, Gumroad, E-Junkie, Udemy, Teachable, Thinkific, and more).

What are the main sources of targeted traffic?

Paid sources of visitors include:

• Facebook ads
• Google Adwords
• Banner ads
• Solo ads (ads to the email lists of referral marketing or joint venture partners)
• Craigslist
• And many others

Unpaid sources of web visitors include:

• Organic visitors that discover your site because it is optimized for search engines such as Google and Bing
• Visitors who see your content on YouTube
• Social media visitors from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Pinterest
• Press Releases
• Guest posting
• Podcast interviews (either ones you host or getting interviewed by others)
• Forum posting
• Blog commenting
• And many more.

Where should you send your targeted traffic?

The goal is to send traffic to a page on the internet where they can discover more about your offer and eventually become a client.

The campaign described in the video is about attracting traffic to a sales page. This could be a product page or long form sales page. The video suggests sending traffic to a sales page.

I disagree with the idea of traffic directly to a sales page (and the video does walk this back a bit with a more nuanced breakdown of the type of traffic you should target).

I wouldn’t send cold traffic directly to a sales page.

What is cold traffic?

Cold traffic refers to people who don’t know you yet. The first time they’ve ever heard of you is through your ad or post on a forum, or an article on your site.

Who should you send directly to a sales page?

You can send what marketers refer to as “warm traffic” to a sales page. These include your existing customers, email list subscribers, group members or fans, people you know or who are referred to you by people they trust.

Should I ever target cold traffic?

Yes! Cold traffic is the flow of oxygen to your business. If you’re just starting out, it’s essential to have a process where people who don’t know you, come to know of you and your offers and eventually buy, if what you offer can truly help them.

You just need a process to convert cold to warm, getting them to know you. So you could send cold traffic to your content, or webinar so they get a sense of who you are and the value you provide. This doesn’t have to be a long sequence. Some systems, like Clients on Demand, show you how to convert cold traffic to high ticket buyers in less than 48 hours using webinars and Facebook ads. The key is having a killer, transformational offer and being able to close clients over the phone.

So you could send cold traffic to your content, or to a webinar so they get a sense of who you are and the value you provide. This doesn’t have to be a long sequence. Some systems, like Clients on Demand, show you how to convert cold traffic to high ticket buyers in less than 48 hours using webinars and Facebook ads. The key is having a killer, transformational offer and being able to close clients over the phone.

This doesn’t have to be a long sequence. Some systems, like Clients on Demand by Russ Ruffino, show you how to convert cold traffic to high ticket buyers in less than 48 hours using webinars and Facebook ads. No sales page needed! The key is having a killer, transformational offer and being able to close clients over the phone.

Why the focus on traffic is misguided.

There is an obsession online with “growing traffic.” If you just get enough visitors to your offers or product pages, you will make money. Just get more and more traffic. Thousands a day.

But is that what you really need to build a successful business?

What are you doing with that traffic? If all you have is low-priced products or programs (or you are using only advertising solutions like Google Adsense to monetize), then yes, you’ll need a ton of buyers before you make money. And given that only a small percentage who visit your pages will buy or click on your ads, then you need more traffic.

However, there is something else you can focus on, which will get you better, more targeted visitors and be able to sell your products and services at a premium, requiring less “traffic.”  There are people making six figures with lists of less than a thousand people. It’s totally possible if your product is transformational and delivers a highly valued outcome. And isn’t that what we want? We don’t want to put crap out there. When it comes to building a stress-free lifestyle of abundance, which model sounds like the better option?

So, if it isn’t traffic, what’s the one thing you REALLY need to build a successful business you can market online?

The advice in the video is sound, but if you don’t have an offer or product that is irresistible in its transformational promise, that really helps someone with an urgent pain or desire, that responds to what people are looking for, all the traffic and marketing in the world won’t help you.

If you’re still trying to figure out what your product or service should be, unsure or insecure about calling yourself an expert (although you are!), then the next step is to get clarity. Get clear on how exactly your life has prepared you as an expert to help people in a unique way. Discover your big idea that you can use to build a business around. Your big idea is a combination of your core magic, market needs, and unique positioning.

Three Simple Steps to Creating the Foundation for a Profitable Online Business

Want to learn the 3 simple steps to discovering your big idea?

Optin in below to get our blueprint to unleashing your expertise and creating stress-free abundance.

By signing up, you’ll also get valuable tips to help you increase your influence, impact, and income, by tapping into and monetizing your expertise.

The post Online Marketing 101: The One Thing You REALLY Need to Build a Lucrative Business first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

“Failure is your friend”

Have you heard a saying like that before?

How does hearing that make you feel?

Today, I was reading 5 Bucks a Day Revisited by Dennis Becker, the follow up to his original hit (that really launched his internet marketing career) 5 Bucks a Day. He has made a lot more than that, but there is a clever, simple premise behind the title that has changed the online fortunes of many who have heeded his words.

In the newer book, he spends a lot of time on the critical idea that if you change your perspective, you will see wealth in a whole lot of places, and that we all have something to teach, and you don’t need to buy any magic trainings and products and software to make money.

That said, if you want to know the secret formula for making money online, then here it is. The big secret that everyone is selling you on in the internet marketing space.

Basically, it’s a three-step process where you:
(1) figure out what you know that you could teach others
(2) create a product or service around it, and
(3) put your buy buttons out there.

And then you rinse and repeat.

It does mean work. Nothing is guaranteed. There are lots of little steps that go along with each of those three. And no matter whose teaching or system you follow, you’ve got to internalize it and experiment for yourself to really get it and make it work for who YOU are. And there’s the rub. The lack of a guarantee that keeps people from taking simple actions to achieve financial freedom.

The likelihood of failing the first time out is real, but the rewards are immense. Like no ceiling on your income big.

But if you never take the time to assess your life experience and figure out what you know (your expertise), and put yourself out there, you’ll be stuck in the same place. Supposedly safe from ‘failure,’ but actually falling further into it every day.

Today when I read that phrase about failure being your friend, I began to reflect on some of the significant failures I’ve experienced in life, and how they have propelled me forward.

Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Like the horrible experience I had with a boss and ensuing job loss that put me on the path to my doctorate. Likewise, every grant I didn’t get and journal article not accepted (both are the currency of academia) both (a) thickened my skin and (b) gave me the necessary experience to help my students weather the same storms and do better.

If I never experienced failiure, how would I help my sons overcome the setbacks they’re going to inevitably face in life?

Even more, every failure represented an attempt to put myself out there, and eventually, by continuing to try despite setbacks, I experienced successes. Triumphs that I would never have experienced if I never tried in the first place, or had given up.

And when it comes to your life and your legacy and your family, isn’t the “risk” (to your ego, your feelings, how others may see you or gossip about you) overwhelmingly more than worth it?

Here at Think Beyond Boundaries, we help you dig deep into your life experience and pull out the powerful knowledge that you possess and show you how you can create a powerful transformational promise and outcome that your future ideal clients will pay a lot of money for.

The deeper you dig into your life, the more amazed you’ll be at the many ways your life has uniquely prepared you to serve others.

But you can’t serve others (and earn life changing income) if you don’t put yourself out there.

Of course, putting yourself out there is a risk, in that you might not strike gold the first, second or third time.

But isn’t your dream worth it to keep trying, keep iterating, keep honing your voice until you click with the people who need to hear you? Who desperately need the knowledge, systems, experiences you can share? Isn’t the change you can make on the lives of others, or in your industry, worth the risk to your comfort level or feelings?

Aren’t you ready to embrace failure as a friend?

If you need some more inspiration, here’s a really good motivational “real talk” video by one of my marketing mentors, Sean Mize:

The post Failure is a good friend first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

Your path through life is your superpower. It has prepared you to help others in a unique way. When you recognize and embrace this and uncover your super power (what we call your core magic) and identify a transformational promise you can deliver, you open up a path to true abundance.

Last night, a show I love that airs on Netflix, Master of None, won an Emmy for best comedy writing. The show starts Aziz Ansari of Parks and Rec fame as Dev, and the nuance and touching portrayal of his family relationships, friendships and layered depiction portraying a son of immigrants is wonderfuly delicate and howlingly funny at the same time. I was surprised to learn the Emmy was a historic win, as the episode was co-written by one of his co-stars, Lena Waithe, who became the first African American woman to be nominated and to win a comedy writing Emmy. She gave an impassioned shout out to the “LGBQTIA community,” and her words at the stars in attendance both in tears and roaring their approval.

Her character is so wonderfully unique on the show, and I remember very much the episode that won, “Thanksgiving,” because it seemed so real (just like the endless days I spent with friends in my room as a kid). I also had a very multi-everything group of friends when growing up, across different states and different cities. That aspect is another thing I love about the show because it feels so familiar, like home (even though I didn’t have one “home”).

The episode was transcendent as it packed in so much, covering over ten years of holiday dinners in Denise’s home to explore themes of friendship and love, as Waithe’s character comes out to her family. I don’t want to say too much because the episode (and show) is so good. You should get Netflix and watch it. (What do you mean you don’t have Netflix yet?) It’s really beautiful (and the always brilliant and beautiful Angela Bassett plays Denise’s mom!)

In any case, the wonderful part of all this, which inspired today’s post, was Waithe’s acceptance speech at the Emmys. After giving the LGBTQIA shout out, she went on to say:

“I see each and every one of you. The things that make us different, those are our superpowers. Every day when you walk out the door, put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world because the world would not be as beautiful as it is without us in it. And to everybody out there who showed us so much love with this episode, thank you for embracing a little Indian boy from South Carolina and a little queer black girl from the South Side of Chicago. We appreciate it more than you could ever know.”

Embrace your superpowers and lift up the powers of others in the communities you serve.

The post What’s Your Superpower? first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

Risk taking as personal growth

Just doing the same mundane, usual tasks we always do will limit our potential and greatness as an individual, as we’ll never know whether we were capable of doing another task or occupation better, making better contributions to the world, and receiving the richest fulfillment from our work.

What is an expert?

It is said in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers that to become an expert at something, you need to spend a minimum of 10,000 hours (i.e. 1,250 days over a period of 10 years) of focus and practice on that topic.

By that definition, very few people will reach that status, which is another reason why you should not allow the criticism of a few people to deter you from trying something new. Odds are that those people are not “experts” themselves. In fact, most of the potential audience you would be reaching, especially when starting out, are beginners, not experts. Even knowing one extra step more than someone else, some piece of knowledge, some tip, some experience, can make you an expert to someone completely new.

Additionally, even “experts” by that definition do not know everything, as they can always learn something new about their field of study as well, something that you might know! So these facts should reassure you in your effort to try new challenges and activities in an effort to expand your skill set, increase your knowledge of yourself and your abilities, and find the greatness within you.

The hidden power of taking action

By trying new activities and tasks, you should get a better understanding of who you are as a person and what drives or inspires you to increase your effort to do the very best work that you can do.

• First, you should learn your strengths and weaknesses, what you do well and what you struggle with. This will give you a better indication of what you want to do to achieve your inner greatness.
• Second, you want to dig deep and uncover more about what inspires you to achieve greatness. What causes or goals do you want to achieve with your skill set that will drive you to go those extra steps to achieve them? This will also lead you to find out what you should be doing to achieve your inner greatness that will lead to a more fulfilling life and lead to greater contributions to the world.
• Third, you can deal with adversity and setbacks by trying new activities and challenges. Life is full of them. By taking on a new challenge or activity, you will learn the skills and attributes needed to handle the most challenging setbacks in life, such as those related to loss (the people we love, a job, or a home as we’ve seen so much of in recent tragedies and distruction caused by hurricanes and flooding).

A shortcut to leadership?

When you’re willing put yourself out there to try to do something new and don’t do it very well, you have to deal with the unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation of not doing something well when you normally do your usual tasks well.

This says much about your character and your willingness to improve your skill set and your effort to find your inner greatness, what you were truly meant to do to make the greatest positive contributions to this world. That is the kind of character that inspires others.

How greatness is cultivated (hint: it’s not from birth)

Also keep in mind that no one is born great; they have to work at it in order to bring out that greatness within them. While some people figure out what they are most capable of doing and like doing at a young age, many people don’t really figure out what they are best at and most like doing until they are older.

This is why many of us in our 40s, 50s, and even 60s change professions and embark on a new “path” in life, looking to find a happier, more satisfying way of life that brings more positive contributions to their world.

This is why it’s important to always expand your horizons and take on new tasks and activities, as you never know when one such project will open up your eyes to a new path in your life that can lead to greater sense of purpose  for you as well as lead to you making greater contributions to the world. It can lead to you finding your true inner greatness that is within you, just waiting to be discovered and utilized to the fullest extent possible.

How not to let fear get in the way: Stop focusing on yourself

Most people have the potential for greatness, but it is often difficult to find out what that greatness is and how it will manifest itself to where it makes the greatest contributions to our world. Often, this is due to limitations put on us by society or ourselves.

The banality of fear

It’s also due to our own fear of trying new activities and tasks, partly because we don’t like to do something unfamiliar to us out of fear of embarrassment of not doing it well, plus the fear of being ridiculed by others because we didn’t do that new task well.

In truth, when we allow ourselves to be bound to our lives out of fear and avoid trying new tasks/challenges, we are limiting our own greatness because we’ll never know where our true talents lie and where our greatest passions and interests are.

Sure, you may do your current job well enough to get a paycheck, support your family (just barely), and put a roof over your heads, but that job might not give you the emotional and mental satisfaction you really want out of life, plus it may not give you the opportunity to show the greatness you truly have within you, including the opportunity to make a change in someone else’s life.

The post Tips to Discovering Your Potential No One Talks About first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

Do you ever feel like this, like most of your failure is coming because you’ve hit a ceiling? You chose a career because you’re passionate about helping others. You do the hell out of your job. You are respected by peers and appreciated by supervisors.

BUT…at the end of the day, your bank account doesn’t reflect the value you bring to your workplace or to the world.

You’ve tried looking for other positions, but the grass isn’t geener. You’ve inched up the career ladder, sought raises and gotten most of what you’ve gone after.

STILL…you keep falling behind, much less making headway on your dreams for the kind of life you want to live.

The elusive search for the quick fix

And maybe, out of frustration, you keep trying different little things, things that probably mostly promise really fast results and then when you buy them, they don’t give you all the steps you need?

You are trying hard, buying different products, software, trainings (are you addicted?), reading this and that, learning more all the time – but you aren’t getting real results?

The problem with information

The thing is, the internet has become flooded with information.

Too much information.

And in order to cut through that flood of information you need . . . direction.

Clarity.

You need to know exactly what to do to get results, instead of trying something new each day, hoping you will stumble
on the answer because someone promised you instant riches if you get their 1-2-3 easy button system.

10-minute exercise to get perfect clarity

Here’s an exercise I think will give you some clarity, if you’ll seriously take the next ten minutes to do it:

Write out at least paragraph of exactly what your life would look like one year from now if you had a $100k online business:

What would your life look like?

How would that feel?

How would your life be better?

Now . . . for the second part of the exercise:

Write what your life will look like if you keep doing what you are doing, continuing to do the things that are NOT getting you to $100k:

If you keep stumbling around, buying lots of information, trying to do it on your own. What is your life going to look like?

Be serious, be honest, nobody has to see it.

So . . . what is the difference?

Do you want to keep doing what you are doing . . . or are you willing to make a change so that your life can be like you wrote in the first part of the exercise?

It’s your choice. And only you can make the choice.

Are you ready to make a change?

Optin below and learn the steps to get started financing your dreams.

The post How to Get Instant Clarity on Achieving Your Income Goals first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

In his book Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss examines the habits, strategies and philosophies of some of the most successful people on the planet, including startup entrepreneurs, celebrities, musicians, software engineers and athletes.

What is surprising looking through this excellent book, is just how many characteristics these great individuals have in common. So, how many commonalities are there between such a diverse cast of characters?

What Tim found among other things, is that almost all these successful interviewees had some kind of morning routine.

They all had a set series of habits that started their day. Looking online, it’s clear to see that many successful people encourage this practice.

What a successful morning routine looks like

So how do you go about coming up with a morning routine of your own and perhaps emulating some of their success?

1. Wake Up Earlier

One of the first crucial tips if you want to get more out of your day, is to wake up earlier. If you wake up early, then you’ll have more time to get yourself in the correct frame of mind before you launch yourself out into the open world. This is something a lot of people struggle with, but it can make a huge difference to your life if you can overcome the urge to hit snooze.

2.  Meditate/Journal

Once you’re up, one of the best things you can do is to engage in some form of self-reflection. The challenge for many of us is that as soon as our day starts, we’re forced to launch straight into responding to emails, dealing with complaints and generally being reactive. Start your day in a calm manner and reflect and you’ll be better able to handle this barrage.

3. Exercise

If you plan to exercise at the end of the day, then you will often find yourself too tired and strung out to do so. This is often the reality. Exercise before your day begins though and you’ll always know that you’ll always have that under your belt before you begin. This will also give you a boost in energy and an early win–both of which will help you to start your day right. If you don’t feel like working out, then doing some yoga or just some stretches can also work well.

4. Other Activities

If you time your wake up well and give yourself enough time before you need to leave the house/begin work, then this is also a good time to practice a hobby, do some reading or catch-up on the news. Anything you’d like to become a regular part of your day, add here!

My current morning routine

Currently, my morning routine is to get up before our two young sons wake up, i.e. before the hustle and bustle of getting everyone out the door. Usually, this is around 4:30-5 (as they wake up between 6:30 and 7am).

I first say my morning prayer affirmations, then stretch and do some strength exercises, next drink a glass of water, be sure to look outside (if it’s light), then get my most important tasks done.

For me, these involve writing, for both my professional life and business life. I try to get at least 30 minutes of research writing done for work, and then, for the business, write a daily article to subscribers of Think Beyond Boundaries (like this one). On days where I have time, i might work on product creation. But this isn’t always possible with the time I have in the morning.

Doing this routine helps me start the day on a positive note knowing I made progress and took care of the most important tasks that advance my career and business.

What about the rest of your day?

Although this article is about your morning routine, it’s also important to have a plan for what you will accomplish for the rest of the day. If you follow my training, you’ll have a daily plan for your business and know exactly what you should be working on each day.

For the kind of knowledge-based side business we advocate here, your primary daily activities are: Writing your list (daily email), creating products, and driving visitors to your platform either to sign up or to have a virtual (via a sales page) or live conversation (Skype or phone) with you to buy somehing from you or hire you. That’s it!

A brief (contrarian) note on productivity

Remember that time management and productivity are not about making a list of 20 things and doing them all. It’s having clear goals, broken down into months, weeks and daily tasks, and only prioritizing the things that get you closer to your goals. We’ll talk about productivity and tenacity in another post, but they are important traits of the successful (as is having a morning routine)!

If you like this kind of email, sign up below to get our free roadmap to steady and abundant cash flow and to get more helpful tips delivered right to your email inbox each day.

The post 4 Shortcuts to a Successful Morning Routine first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

Imagine embarking on a journey without knowing your ultimate destination. There’s a good chance you’d fail to get anywhere useful any time soon. Plus, you wouldn’t be using your gas very efficiently!

This is how many of us live our lives–just kind of drifting through it without having any real sense of purpose or destiny. However, if you can find your life’s purpose, then you’ll be able to take more control and set a course that will result in a better life for you and your family.

But how do you go about finding your life’s purpose? Your passion? Something that will make you leap out of bed each morning with enthusiasm and vigor?

Keep reading for some tips and advice that could help…

In my last post, I talked about why getting in tune with your life’s purpose can be so important, particularly for creating your own profitable knowledge business, which we promote here at Think Beyond Boundaries. A knowledge business is driven by the hard-won know how you’ve gained from the totality of your life experience and skills, driven by a passion to help others.

How is it possible to create a business from scratch in this way? Because your life has given you a unique perspective and prepared you to help people in a certain way.

It all starts with a real self-inventory

When I’m talking about purpose, on one hand, I’m talking about looking back at your life and owning your experiences, accomplishments, training, and skills. When you look over your life, what do you know so well that you could explain everything you know about it to someone else over a cup of coffee?

Whether it’s a software you know how to use or the ability to code, a way to lose weight or build muscle, a process for resolving conflicts, how you repaired a relationship, got into grad school, became a leader in your industry, how you manage to take your family on vacation every year, how to master a sport or hobby, and so forth.

In each area of life, you’ve accomplished something that someone else has yet to do, or has an interest in and no idea how to begin.

But…I’m no expert!

If you’re feeling some resistance around the idea of teaching others because of this word we use, called “expert”, don’t worry. It’s natural to feel what professionals call “imposter syndrome.” Even those of us with the credentials to teach in a university suffer from it (the awful feeling of being exposed or “found out”)! The feeling is internal and often tied to self-confidence or self-esteem, and that’s why starting with the self-inventory and recognizing the vast breadth and depth of your experience is key to this process.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

So, if the idea of recognizing your expertise and monetizing it doesn’t make you break a sweat, that’s wonderful! Maybe skip this paragraph and keep reading the section after this one.

But for those of you who struggle with owning our power and authority, let’s talk about some things to consider to help you get over the feeling of dread:

• Remember that expertise is not about credentials, it’s about results and outcomes–the value of what you’ve done.

You can have diplomas and certificates and degrees, but if you can’t help people get the outcomes they are looking for, you won’t be an expert for long. The credential can sometimes get you in the door with a client, or sometimes get you the interview for a job (or increase the likelihood), but you’ve still got to demonstrate you know your stuff more than the next woman.

• There is something much more powerful than credentials that you can tap into to demonstrate mastery and expertise, but that’s a topic (client attraction) for another day.
• Lastly, keep in mind is that expertise to a beginner is just someone who knows more than them about something they want to learn.
• Expertise to someone more advanced could be an area (that you happen to specialize in) that they do not yet know and want to learn.

Here’s a simple 3-step process to finding your purpose

So the first step is to just inventory all that you’ve done. We describe the self-inventory blueprint you can use in our free road map on using your passions and skills to create abundant cash flow.

The next step is to review your self-inventory and identify the areas and experiences you know so well that you could talk about it nonstop, for a while. In fact, maybe you already do and your family and friends, are like, “There she goes again,” whenever you bring up the topic. (Actually, that’s a hint that you’re on to something).

It can be good to ask your partner, older children, other family or friends how you’ve helped them or how they’ve seen you help others, and what they think are your strengths. In the road map to cash flow (which you can pick up for free for a limited time), I talk about a cool way you can crowdsource a list of your expert skills from your social network using LinkedIn.

So you know what you’ve done and what you’re good at, where do you from there?

There’s another side to this, which is what moves and inspires you to get out of bed in the morning.

Some of your training and skills may be in areas you are not especially passionate about. For example, you could be a whiz at using Excel, programming macros to make tasks easier, but the idea of building a business around teaching people how to use Excel (and there are many!) might make you ill, because you don’t have a passion for it even though you are great at it.

So, part 3 of this when looking over your life is thinking about which experiences and accomplishments and skills you are most proud of. What do you equate with joy? What has made you the happiest? Often when doing this exercise, in my training, you recall wonderful moments from your past that have been all but buried. And remember, we are not just talking about your work life. Work, school, home, play, etc, from as far back as you can remember.

What if you have more than one purpose in life?

Of course you do! That’s perfectly fine and expected. We are mult-faceted, complex beings with many motivations and drivers. In fact, your sense of purpose can change over time.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that their life’s purpose needs to be just one thing. You may, for instance, think it means you need to pick a career you want, or a hobby you’re passionate about.

Most of us have more sides to us than that however. What you should aim to do instead is to find common themes in your self-inventory. Find what it is about the things you love that makes them so important to you. If you can find these common themes, then you can often uncover a deeper, underlying motivation.

Other clarifying questions you should ask yourself include:

• Who are your heroes? What do your heroes have in common?
• What things do you enjoy doing? When was the last time you felt a real sense of purpose and of joy?
• What accomplishment or recognition most fills you with a sense of pride or satisfaction?
• What is it about your approach to life and your passions set you apart from others with the same or similar experiences or interests?

Using this information, you can now begin to create yourself a guideline or core ethics. This is the seed of your mission statement–a statement of intent and a way of branding yourself so that people better understand what you’re all about. It should be no more than two sentences long.

Writing your two-sentence mission statement

Here’s a template you could try on if you find it useful (replace the words in brackets with ones that are relevant to your life):

“I help [people or businesses you serve] overcome/accomplish [utlimate outcome]. I do this by given my clients/customers a proven solution/process/resource to make the transition from/to [core transformation that is needed].”

Be completely honest here and know that there are no wrong answers. Don’t force yourself into a mold or try and choose a mission that you think is appropriate. Instead, write a mission statement that is an honest and natural reflection of who you are.

Oh, and one more thing: don’t be afraid to change that mission statement over time. We are changing people and our goals and interests evolve with time. Loyalty to an older version of yourself that you’ve outgrown will only hold you back.

If you want more detail on how to link your self-inventory and mission statement to a proven business model, check out the free road map below.

The post The Ultimate Solution to Finding Your Life Purpose first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

Want a quick hack to improve your happiness, your drive, your attractiveness, your confidence and your success?

Then find your life’s purpose.

Discovering your life purpose can be hard work and it can be very elusive for some. But once you know what you’re all about, you’ll find that everything (including the kind of purpose-driven, profitable side business you want to pursue) comes easier and you are a more accomplished and successful individual almost overnight.

Why Knowing Your Purpose Changes Everything

So, why does finding your purpose makes such a gigantic difference–even in the way that others see you?

Discovering your life purpose means knowing what makes you tick, understanding your passion and knowing the mission that will best pull you out of bed in the mornings.

How discovering your life purpose makes a difference

Discovering this passion makes all the difference to you as a person because it gives you the enthusiasm and excitement for your projects and for your trajectory in life.
Have you ever met someone who is truly motivated and driven? Who is brimming with excitement for the subject they’re talking about?

These people are more animated; they are more expressive and they deeply engage whoever they are talking to, whether one one one or a huge audience. Someone who is truly passionate is infectious (in a good way!) They can make you excited about topics that otherwise might initially have no meaning to you.

Someone who is truly passionate is infectious (in a good way!) They can make you excited about topics that otherwise might initially have no meaning to you.

Why most people never discover their purpose

But most of us never get to that point. Most of us are too focused on the minutiae and frankly, daily survival. And this also negatively impacts on your happiness and on motivation. For example, when your goal is just to get a promotion in an unrewarding job, you will find that you’re much less motivated, much less excited and that you possibly even struggle to wake up in the mornings.

Moreover, we need growth in order to feel like we are moving forward and that our life has real meaning. When we stagnate, we begin to decline. When we are not moving forward, we become listless. Life loses its color and can seem pointless, which is a dangerous mental space to be in.

Plus, having purpose is critical for success. In order to be truly successful, you need to do your very best. You need to have drive and motivation and you need to wake up in the morning excited to start the day’s tasks.

How to discover your purpose and change the course of your life

In order to feel that way, you first need to find that purpose and then find ways to incorporate your true purpose into your life, doing what you love. Without that, you’ll only ever give a fraction of your full potential and as such, you’ll fall short of achieving your dreams.

I don’t want that to happen to you!

Use the form below to grab our free road map and learn how to discover the tremendous value buried in your life experience and how you can package it in ways to help others.

By doing so you’ll be able to create change, monetize your expertise, and finance your dreams.

The post Could this be the reason you haven’t been pursuing your dreams? first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.

And if there is a new field you’ve always wanted to try out and there’s an opportunity for you to do so given your life circumstances, then go for it! Maybe you suddenly have more time on your hands. Maybe you’ve learned about a new program that offers training or access to educational opportunities. Perhaps you are just fed up with the conditions or lack of options in your current field. Whatever your reason, if you are inspired to take action, then go for it.

The pros and cons of switching teams mid career

But, beware of the grass looking greener and all that…

You could invest the time and money to gain the skills to pursue a new career, but if you are doing it to escape what you don’t like (versus doing it because you’ve always wanted to) you might find the quirks and downsides of your new career are not much better than what you do now. Plus, you might have to start at entry level or mid career, versus the seniority you might have now, among other benefits. So, do your due diligence.

There is, however, another path that presents nearly unlimited opportunities. What’s that? You ask…

What’s a Knowledge Business?

I talk about a knowledge business as opposed to an information or infobusiness to distinguish between a business based on transforming lives based on your know-how vs dumping information on people. Information businesses are disappearing, because information is almost free. It’s everywhere, due to the ubiquity of the internet in every aspect of our lives. What people need is guidance based on hard-earned knowledge based on experience (yours), skills, research and your passion to make a difference in the lives of your target market.

They need to know what information to trust or not, what’s the best of the best in terms of all that’s out there, how to achieve real transformation to solve their problems for good or truly achieve what they want.

Rediscover Your Life Expertise

Based on the things you’re great at, the things you’ve overcome or accomplished, you have that knowledge to really help other people. No one has walked in your shoes, so your perspective on how to tackle challenges and solve problems is unique. And there are people out there who will vibe to your way of seeing the world. The truth is that your life has prepared you to help people in a certain way. Tapping into that core magic inside you is what creating a knowledge business is about.

Once you tap into the valuable knowledge you already possess and match it with the big, urgent problems plaguing people you want to help (often, folks just like you!) you’ve discovered the path to a new life (not just a career).

If you want to know how you can tap into the powerful and valuable knowledge buried inside you, grab our free roadmap below to creating steady and abundant cash flow.

The post Is it too late to start a second career? (The answer might surprise you) first appeared on Think Beyond Boundaries.