Joel Turner

I have been very interested in what great leaders think and why they think the way…

2011-11-30T19:02:37Z

I have been very interested in what great leaders think and why they think the way they do. Here is the initial post in a series where I will learn more about this.

Embedded Link

The Champion Mentality — Joel Turner
The Champion Mentality. November 8, 2011 By joelturner82 Leave a Comment. As I was sitting in the crowd during the opening keynote at Blog World 2011 Los Angeles I was awestruck. This was the first co…

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

The Champion Mentality

2011-11-09T00:30:24Z

As I was sitting in the crowd during the opening keynote at Blog World 2011 Los Angeles I was awestruck. This was the first conference that I had ever been to and it was overwhelming, in a good way. Seeing Peter Shankman speak so easily about rocking some of his ideas got everyone excited. Even though I felt the same excitement I started thinking, “why am I excited? What is he saying that is speaking to me? How is he saying it that speaks to me? What is his thought process to grow this idea or project?” This lead me to start thinking more about the people that we put on pedestals and why we put them there. Luckily I met some of the other speakers a little later after all of this had been going through my head. Talking to them was further research into these questions and the key thing I learned from it was to look at everyone and everything in a different way than I previously had.

There is a mentality that helps some people exceed where others fail. This is the champion mentality. It has been called many different things by many different leaders. Many leaders never could pinpoint what it is that made them a leader or why they did a certain something in a certain situation. I would like to find out more about this a encourage people to work on some these traits to become the best in their own lives.

Greatness

There are many different thought patterns and shifts that can take us all in very different directions. Some will help lead us to greatness, which is different for all of us based on our own rating metrics. Because of the thousands of different traits that each of us have we all can be great in so many different ways. My goal is to find some commonalities between the champions in each region and why a certain person is thought of as great.

When we label someone great or think that someone is successful, it is often because they make us feel that we are that way as well, or at the very least, we can achieve it. This feeling is what keeps the dream alive and the passion behind the dream is what makes it achievable. Many times we empathize in certain ways with champions and feel as though we are in their place in that moment and it makes us feel like a champion.

Pre Greatness

Have you ever felt like you were stuck in a rut while everyone around you is starting to have awesome things happen to them, ie. they got the job that you didn’t, they have friends when you don’t have friends, etc. Some people call it failure, mediocre, despair, why me?, unfair, or underwhelming. I like to call it Pre Greatness and I’ll tell you why.

After a crushing depression based on my own body’s chemicals added to some severe emotional situations that I had encountered I found myself spinning my wheels in a rut of blah. I still had some great moments and some bad moments but it wasn’t consistent or predicted.

I then developed the mentality for quite a while that everyone else got the things they wanted but I never got what I wanted. I wasn’t bitter about it but I definitely thought I was just unlucky or that I was being punished unfairly. Now I see things in a completely different way.

Now I see that everyone has greatness inside them and it’s up to them to find it and share it with others. That is why I call it Pre Greatness. The bottle just needs to be shaken up and opened to let the greatness out others.

Conclusion

We all have the a champion inside us. In order to let it out we need to be our life’s champion and lead ourselves to greatness. It’s important to keep looking at things in different ways so we can see where we are going and make sure that it is in the direction we are hoping to go.

Image source

Blog World Expo 2011 LA Day 1

2011-11-04T15:04:32Z

My wife (@DelysiaStyle) and I made it to the Blog World Expo in Los Angeles, California. So far it has been a great time. We attended the morning keynote speaker and have met a couple of great people already. I’ll put together a post of everything I digested (non food related) each day of the conference.

Peter Shankman

Peter Shankman was the keynote speaker on Thursday morning. He’s most known for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO). Here is a little more about him straight from his site:

Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you merge the power of pure creativity with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a dose of adventure, and make it work to your advantage.

An author, entrepreneur, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about Social Media, PR, marketing, advertising, and customer service.

His presentation/speech covered more of the marketing theory and how to get your head straight while existing. Even though most of what he was talking about was business related, he showed how these are great traits to develop in your personal life.

One of the main points that Peter talks about is how the game is still the same as it was in the early internet days. We have more tools and possibly more reach from those tools but the bottom line is: do what works. If your doing something that you find isn’t working, maybe nobody clicked on your “thoughtful” title, be sure to change or stop that thing. If you find something that does work, maybe your post resonated with your audience, keep doing that thing.

Another point is that you should always be available. This means on everything you put out there, make sure there is some way for someone to easily contact you about it. You never know what is going to take off and who is going to give you a call the next day to discuss the future.

If you want something you’ve never had, do something that you’ve never done.
~ Peter Shankman

The last point I want to share is do not give it up. If you truly believe in what you’re doing or you are passionate about it make sure you don’t give up, no matter how rough you feel or how tired you are. Always remember to follow your passions.

Mari Smith

Mari Smith - New Relationship Marketing

Today Suzanne and I met one of my favorite internet personalities. Mari Smith is a social media guru who has influenced me for the past couple of years. No matter how crazy things get in the digital world she is the breath of positivity. You can always count on her to get to the core of the Facebook updates or to find the cool tools to help reach out more. Mari’s has authored a couple of books, with her new one just being released. The book is “The New Relationship Marketing.” I just picked up today and I’m very excited to crack it open and learn about growing loyal networks through genuine relationships. This idea of relationship marketing isn’t new idea but so many businesses have started to lose touch with this. Mari Smith is definitely one to follow to learn to get back to the roots of talking to people. Her positivity and general love for people is exactly what we all need in order to listen to our clients, colleagues and even our nay sayers. Through listening and engaging we can reshape the businesses are run and we can create a win-win environment for both business and consumer.

Amber Nasland

Amber Naslund

Amber Nasland is a brilliant thinker in the social media realm. Her talk today was a rally cry to help form the social media foundation. The direction that this new media is going is completely up to us and it is changing the businesses and customers think and react. Amber equates the social media movers as wayfarers finding the trail through the fog of unknown. The time is now for every blogger to step up and get their hands dirty with every aspect of blogging. She is very well spoken and very intelligent. I look forward to reading more of her content as she is one the great strategists and emerging architects in this new media.

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan has been a blogging leader that I have followed for a couple of years. Some of his best strengths are his honesty, humor, and level head. At first I thought it would be tough to go up and talk to him since he sees thousands of people a month and I figured there wouldn’t be much engagement. I was way off. He is down to earth and very engaging. The amount that he remembers about the people he meets briefly is incredible. I was able to talk to him about many different aspects of blogging ethics and why to keep it all honest. I’m looking forward to talking some more about honest blogging and being transparent.

Conclusion

The biggest thing that I’ve learned from my first day at Blog World Expo is that everyone is human. We see all these amazing thought leaders across the web and it’s so easy to think that they are unreachable when it is the opposite. They all are excited to meet others and want to learn and help others around them. My advice for everyone on the web: find your industry leaders and reach out to them. If you’re not sure what to say, say hi and thank them for putting out great content. It goes a long way for you personally to know that it’s not us and them. It’s just us, learning and discussing all together.

Jimbo’s Naturally and the Magic Bag

2011-11-03T00:22:37Z

Fitness and nutrition are a big part of my life now and I’m always on the lookout for the real deal in nutritious food and food services. Jimbo’s Naturally is such a place. They are an incredible breath of fresh air in a crazy mix of bad food markets. Jimbo’s sells the highest quality organic (mostly local) and natural foods. They are strong supporters and members of the Non GMO Project. My wife and I have been vegan for a while now and have been very impressed with the huge selection of vegan foods in the deli and the bakery. They even have a bunch of raw vegan treats! Thank you Jimbo’s Naturally and all of the vendors!

Check out Jimbo’s Naturally online at:

Twitter – @jimbosnaturally
Facebook – Jimbo’s

The Giveaway

Recently my wife and I decided to fill out a card to win the amazing bag of goodies at the Escondido Jimbo’s. Today we got the call to tell us that won! The bag is incredible. It has such an array of top notch goodies. Here is a list of what we received in the bag:

O₂Cool Oxygen Water
Fig Food – Go Wheatberry Soup
Zico Mango Coconut Water
Dr. Bronner’s Castille Peppermint Soap
Boiron Sabadil (for allergy relief)
Equal Exchange Organic Black Tea
John Masters Zinc & Sage Shampoo
Mary’s Gone Crackers – Stick & Twigs
Angell Crisp – Organic Candy Bar
Jovial – Brown Rice Pasta
Annie’s – Cheddar Bunnies
Badger – Lavender & Orange Lip Balm
HealthForce Nutritionals – VitaMineral Earth
HealthForce Nutritionals – VitaMineral Green
HealthForce Nutritionals – Warrior Food
Ester-C – Vitamin C
PlantLife – Sore Muscle therapy
Solar Rain – Premium Drinking Water
Nika – Purified Water
Activate – Deionized Water
Metromint – Chocolatemint Water
Now Sports – Sport Bottle
MRM – Whey Protein
Non GMO Project – Cloth Bag
Jimbo’s Naturally – Cloth Bag
Smart Chicken – Cloth Bag

Reboot Your Life Part 2: Mentality

2011-10-14T22:20:53Z

In part 1 of this series we talked about gaining more energy. Energy is a crucial foundation for changing your mentality. You can do it without any extra energy but it will be harder.

The Little Nagging Voices

What do I mean by changing your mentality? All of us have a little voice that picks at us every once in a while. The voice that says “you’re not very good at talking to people” or “you can’t lose weight.” These voices eventually grow and become our voice without us even knowing it. I was caught in the saying, “I don’t really care about people. I don’t like talking to people.” The more I said it the more it became true. I really started disliking conversations, and not for any good reason, but because I had told myself that I did. Another thing I was telling myself and some others was, “I was just born big boned. I will always be big.” I was right! As long as that was in my mind I wasn’t budging at all. All that was thrown out the door in about two months. Not only did I believe that I didn’t have to be big anymore, I had the physical proof. It’s all about what you believe. Belief is a powerful force and when you mix it with a little tenacity (your new found energy should help here) you can achieve anything.

Turn the Voices Around

The solution is actually pretty simple. Think and speak positively about everything. If you notice that you’re not keeping in touch very well anymore, think and say to your friends, “I love talking to my friends. I am good at keeping in touch with everyone. I enjoy hearing what people have to say.” These kinds of thoughts will completely change your mind in just a couple of days. Be very aware of everything you say and see if you can turn it around and make it positive. There are plenty of negative things in life and when you start focusing on them all you find is more of them and that becomes your world. On the flip side, the more positive things you find and share, the more that will surround you and become your life.

Further Research and Resources

I recently was fortunate to attend a book signing by Mike Dooley who is a positive thinking coach. I didn’t really know much about him before I saw his presentation but now his words float around my head every day. Mike focuses on the power of positive thinking and what it can do for you in many different ways. He talks a lot about turning negative thoughts around and saying something positive in it’s place. One of my favorite stories he told was when he was dating a girl that liked silence as they sat together. He didn’t always feel comfortable with the silence so he would say something like, “boy am I tired” or “man, was today a long day.” He wasn’t actually tired and he didn’t know why that is what he picked to fill up the silent gap but that became a habit over the next couple of weeks. Gradually he felt more and more tired every day, even if he had a lot of coffee or plenty of sleep. Finally, one night as they were hanging out his girlfriend asked why he was always so tired and he had no idea. He took a couple of days to examine what in his life was making him so tired and became very obvious to him that it was from his own words. Once he made the mental change he was all sorts of energetic again. Check out Mike’s website about positive thinking.

Things to Keep in Mind

You can do it
You enjoy to do it
You are good at it
Share your positivity with your friends
Get out there and be positive!

Photo Credit

Reboot Your Life Part 1: Energy

2011-10-12T19:20:22Z

There are many reasons to reset your life. It could be that you feel stuck in your job. It may be that you feel like your stuck in a unhealthy rut and can’t seem to get out. Maybe nothing is wrong and you just want to strive to be better. No matter the reason for rebooting your own system, it’s very much worth it.

Energize the Brain

The first thing you’ll need in order to reboot is the energy to do it. Most often our energy is drained by the time we want to make changes and it seems nearly impossible to make the leap. In order to make the changes that are necessary you will have to want to change. Changes won’t happen if you are constantly fighting your self.

Digesting the Energy

Digestion is a big part of our energy levels. If you eat a meal of highly processed foods your body will have to work so much harder to break them down. Have you ever gone to lunch and ate a wonderful meal just to find yourself fighting a nap the whole afternoon? That would be all of your body’s energy going to your digestive system. The old expression, KISS (Keep it simple stupid), was banging in my head when I learned about this. I felt the energizing effects on the first day and no longer need coffee to keep myself going.

Smoothie Breakfast For the Win!

My suggestion is to start small and build up as you need. Instead of a complex and processed breakfast of bacon, eggs, cheese, pancakes, etc. try to eat much more simple foods like fruit and vegetables. Why not help your digestion even more by making fruit and vegetable smoothies in your blender. Switch out your normal breakfast with fruit and vegetable smoothies to energize your life. You can make any kind of smoothies by adding your favorite fruit and some water. If you replace your normal breakfast with these you will find many other positive changes as well as energy. You will feel cleaner, happier, and you will probably lose some weight.

Exercise That Body!

Exercise shouldn’t suck. Plain and simple. I’m not saying you shouldn’t push yourself. Instead of doing an exercise program that you feel like you have to do, do something you enjoy to do. One of my favorite things to do is to go for a long walk with my headphones while I listen to an audio book. Just a little bit more exercise combined with the smoothies will help change your energy levels drastically.

Do you have any energizing rituals that you do?

Photo Credit

Bonus of Engaging with Community

2011-11-10T02:08:26Z

Social media is all about engagement. There are many ways to engage and many different levels of engagement. One of the most effective ways to engage your audience/community is to sponsor a giveaway. You can engage your community while they help spread your name.

WPBeginner.com held a theme giveaway in conjunction with MOJO Themes. They promoted it on each website and with their respective Twitter and Facebook accounts. To enter a follower had to follow @WPBeginner on Twitter and post a comment on the WPBeginner post announcing the giveaway. Today WPBeginner announced the winners of the giveaway. I was one of those winners (@joeltgraphics). Thanks to their giveaway and me being a part of their community I have gotten a great item and they have been able to get more exposure.

This giveaway is a great example of engaging with the community. Both WPBeginner and MOJO Themes gave back to the community and received far more exposure because of it.

What can you give back to your online/offline community in exchange of more exposure? Do you have a creative way to get the word out?

IditaGrow

2010-10-25T23:01:03Z

IditaGrow is a business based in Haines, Alaska. The main function of IditaGrow Champion Compost is making compost from the waste of sled dogs. The owners of IditaGrow run multiple dog sled camps in Southeast Alaska (Alaska Icefield Expeditions and Gold Rush Dog Tours) for cruise ship passengers.

Coming Soon…

Coming Soon pages are nice to have up while the site is being worked on. It gives a portal for visitors to still find their way to your information. I developed the cartoon mascots for IditaGrow based on the owners’ ideas.

The Website

The site was designed by Badi Mibiuba of Court Vision Creative. The features needed were:

Landing page
Information Slider
Blog with Thumbnail Images in index

Court Vision Creative

2010-10-25T22:02:31Z

Court Vision Creative, LLC is a Denver based company specializing in web design, sports graphics, and video. Developing a site from scratch is a long, involved process. In order to ease the process on one person, the duties can be split up into what people do best. Badi Mibiuba from Court Vision Creative is a great designer who is quick and always on the tip of the curve. When he decided that he would like to do a new site for his company that was easy to update and could have the capability of multiple authors, posts, and pages I suggested WordPress.

Coming Soon…

Badi came up with a knockout design to show off his design talents and it was up to me to make this a living, breathing, interweb machine. We started off with a Coming Soon landing page that allowed visitors to sign up for the launch date email.

Website

The website needed a few features that would make it easier for Court Vision Creative to update and function. Here is a list of the planned features:

Home Page

Demo Reel video
News update feed

Portfolio pages needed to be galleries (using Shadowbox JS plugin)
Different sidebars on each page
Different headers on each page

Share Your Blog Posts

2010-06-10T21:26:00Z

Technorati asks that you post a short code in a new post so I thought I would take this opportunity to write about getting your blog out there for everyone to find. You’ll see the short code at the end of this post.

So you’ve written a post that is going to knock the world off its hinges. Or, at least, you just wrote a post that you want to share. Now what? Do you go to Twitter and let all your Tweeps know about your post? Do you go to Facebook and share it on there?

The simple answer is yes.

The long answer is with help (so much longer, huh?). When getting the word out you should use everything at your disposal. You can can shout it all you want but you need the help of others to shout it out to their followers and friends as well. Setting up the correct tools will help you save time and get the word out quickly.

The first thing I suggest is go to Feedburner and sign up for their feed service so you can track how many people subscribe to your blog.
Now go to TwitterFeed and setup your feed to go to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. You can have it check as many times a day as you’d like for your new posts.
One of the more powerful post directories is Technorati. You should go there, setup an account and claim your blog.
Make sure you have your social sharing links somewhere on your post so people who read your post can share it with their friends. The easier you make it for others to share, the more they will. Be creative and make it fun for them to share by throwing a small promotion, like a free hat, or session for one lucky sharer.

There are thousands of sites that will send everything you have out but this is a great start to get the word out. Remember to add your post tags and categorize your post before you publish it so it will have better search-ability for its subject.

R5TP9ESD6TGW