Thrive Academy

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How to Create a Community of Leaders-Part I

In July, we flew to Sedona for Eben Pagan’s invitation-only event called MetaMind, with some of the biggest leaders in the fields of coaching, technology, and art. 

When Eben personally asked me (Jesse) to speak to this group of leaders about leadership, I was incredibly honored… and a bit nervous.

Within an hour of arriving, I was blown away by the caliber of the attendees.  One man had written a #1 NY Times Best Seller that had changed my life. Another had built and sold over 20 companies.  Another was one of the most well-known speakers in the UK.  And even the founder of CouchSurfing.com was there.

Jesse Koren Leading the Client Attraction Summit

As I prepared to speak, I couldn’t sit still.  I was sweating profusely.  
Okay... I was terrified. 

“What do I have to teach these people about leadership?” I thought to myself.  

But then it hit me... I wasn’t actually teaching leadership.  
  
Eben had asked me to teach a very specialized skill called “how to create a community of leaders.”  

While everyone in this group was a leader, very few of them had created a community of leaders. 

And this is something we have become known for...the Thrive Community IS a community of leaders.  

Many leaders in the coaching industry today (including many people who were invited to MetaMind) had their first 6-figure year after attending our Client Attraction Summit and joining the Thrive Community. 

Suddenly I realized, “I DO have something important to say!” 

Hot Tip: If you ever don’t think what you have to say is valuable, ask yourself: “What specialized skills do I have, that I have discovered from my hard-won experience?”

At the end of my talk, I was greeted with rousing applause... and over the two days following my talk, dozens of people approached me, sharing how helpful and inspiring my talk was for them.

In my talk, I shared 3 keys to Creating a Community of Leaders.

In today’s blog post, you’ll discover the first key. 

Key #1: Create a Fun Game for Your Clients to Play

There was a study found that 72.3% of the people who bought home study courses (many cost as much as $2,000) DID NOT EVEN OPEN their Home Study Course and begin their program.

We had heard about another study that showed that only 2% of seminar participants actually get results. 

We knew we couldn’t live with ourselves if we were teaching our best stuff, but our clients weren’t getting results.  

We imagine you feel the same way about wanting your clients to get great results.

But you can’t create a community of leaders if hardly anyone in the community is getting results.

So what is the best way to help your clients create results?
Create a Fun Game for Your Clients to Play

A game?  I thought getting clients was supposed to be serious!!!  
Yes, a game! ☺ You may want to consider creating a fun game for your clients to get results. 

Here’s an example of how our game works:

Our programs include two live events (3 days each) that are 1 month apart.  

For example, in our last Client Attraction Mastery program, we had a 3-day live event at the end of July and another 3-day live event at the end of August.

At the Launch Event in July, we shared some incredibly powerful Client Attraction secrets and strategies.

Then we invited them into a friendly game over the next month where they got points for all of the actions they took to attract clients.

One month later, at the 2nd 3-day Event, they added up all the points they got.  
The Top 10 Winners were recognized for their achievement.    

What was most inspiring was that nearly everyone in the group played the game (even the people who hated games and even the ones who were terrified of having Heartselling™ Conversations).

Over the month, we had front row seats to the game.  On our members-only Facebook group, people shared victories, asked for encouragement, requested feedback, and received a ton of support.  

Even though there was some “competition” to be in the top 10, our group of coaches and holistic practitioners championed each other to the very end. 

 

Here are the results:


The group of 56 people brought in $387,816 in new business in the month between the first and second event.

The average person brought in $6,925, which is more than the investment in the year-long 
Client Attraction Mastery Program.  

The average person had 12 Heartselling™ Conversations (less than 3 per week).

The average Heartselling Conversation brought in $564.51 in sales.

20% of the group made $10,000 or more.

34% of the group made $5,000 or more.

54% of the group made $2,000 or more.

84% of the group made at least some money.

Hopefully, this inspires you to create your own games for your clients, so that your clients step into the leaders they were meant to become.

(I’ll share the other two keys in upcoming articles.)

Leave us a comment below and tell us what you think...

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Do You Have To Sacrifice Family For Success?

My (Jesse) high school counselor said, “If there’s no tension between the time you invest in your work life and the time you invest in your family life, then you are living half-a-life.”  Today, this makes so much sense to me.

I know some fathers who leave for work before their kids are awake and arrive home just in time to tuck their kids in at night.  I honor these fathers for sacrificing themselves to provide for their family.  

But I also feel deeply sad about it.  

I can’t imagine not being around to see my kids grow up.  To watch them take their first steps... to watch them tie their shoe for the first time or do the happy dance after they pee in the toilet for the first time. 

And what about the kids?  …that gnawing hole in their heart that no amount of money, presents, or sorry can heal.  

This is particularly relevant for me today.  This morning our 6-year old, Jacob, woke up and asked, “Is the nanny coming today?”  

“Yes she is,” I said.

“Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!  I want you and Mommy!”

Sacrifice-Family-for-SuccessThe guilt sets in.  Am I becoming the father I swore I wouldn’t become?  I take an inventory of the last two months.  I was away from my boys around 20 days, speaking or leading events. 

I try to rationalize my guilt away...  

Our boys have fallen asleep in our arms nearly every day of their life (even when I am leading events, they sleep with Sharla). 

When I am away leading events, our boys are with nannies who love them as if they were their own children.
  
And, when I am not leading events, I spend at least three quality hours with them each day (and often more).    

It wasn’t like we were off in Vegas gambling away our family fortune.  

We led four profound events that dramatically changed people’s lives.  And I spoke at Eben Pagan’s exclusive Metamind event in front of over 100 thought leaders about what it takes to create a community of transformational leaders.  Dozens of people approached me after my 18-minute talk to tell me what a difference I made for them.

But the truth sets in.  I am about to leave for another three-day event tomorrow. The Client Attraction Summit.  Once I arrive, I will remember my passion.  I will remember why I love our people so much and why I care so deeply for each of our clients’ success.  And they will get an event worth travelling across the globe for.

But right now, I am deeply saddened.  I miss my boys.  And I miss the feeling of being the best father I know I can be.

So how do I prepare myself for the event when I am feeling so sad about leaving my boys?  I do what I tell all of our speakers to do in our Six-Figure Speaker program.  Bring all of you to the event.  

For those of you who I will see tomorrow at the Summit, I bring my sadness, which is fueled by my devotion to being the best father I can be.

I bring my fierceness.  Since we are all going to leave our lives at home, I will do everything in my God-Given power to make this the best Client Attraction Summit we’ve ever had.  None of us are going to return home the same (in a good way). ☺

And finally, I bring my integrity.  To be in integrity with myself, my boys, Sharla, our team, and the entire Thrive Community… it is time to finally make a change that has needed to happen for two years, even though I just recognized it the last month.

For the past 10 years, we’ve led at 18 or more events per year.  This is just what we did.  Next year we are going to lead 12 events.  This makes me so happy I want to do somersaults across the room!

This means that our family, our team and our clients can breathe more deeply, and enjoy more spaciousness in between the transformation they get at our events.

32 of our most invested “Lifetime” clients (our people who have a ticket to all of our programs for the rest of their lives) helped us come up with this new schedule and everyone in our community who has heard about the changes either gets excited or breathes a sigh of deep relief.  

You should know that next year, instead of leading six Client Attraction Summits, we will only be leading three Summits.  And we are making a few other changes that will bring greater alignment, integrity, and power to our programs.  

If you are already signed up for Thrive Academy Programs, you will get an email with our 2015 schedule next week.  

It’s time for us to move more deeply into the energy of Thrive... where everyone thrives and nobody sacrifices that which is most important.  

Being an entrepreneur means you get to set your own schedule and you get to live life on your terms.
Do you have to sacrifice family for success?  NO!!!!  
Your success is your gift to yourself, it’s not a sacrifice.

How can you change your schedule to bring you more freedom, creativity and power?  

Tell us what you think and leave a comment below

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Our Epic Failure

Our-Epic-FailureWhat separates successful people from the people who never quite make it?

It is what they do with their failure.

Do you learn from it? Or do you beat yourself up to the point where you never want to try again?

Successful people learn from their failures. And then they go for it again, equipped with more information that will help them succeed the second or the third or the fourth time.

Here's the short story of a recent epic failure:

Last week, we launched our brand new Client Attraction Mastery Home Study Course. And by our standards, it bombed. We've made over 10 Million Dollars in program sales over the years, so in our minds there is no reason we should have failed.

(And by failed, we mean that our results were 5% of what we projected.) Ouch!

It's been especially painful because Sharla poured her heart and soul into this Home Study Course. It's been her main project for the last several months.

Have you ever created something amazing and then felt so deflated when it wasn't received by the person/people you really wanted to share it with?

Nearly everything in this launch that could go wrong went wrong. There were about five major breakdowns, but the biggest breakdown happened during our webinar.

Our server couldn't handle the volume of people who were trying to get on the call and our participants were getting blocked from getting on the webinar and bumped off the webinar.

In the middle of our webinar, Sharla was furiously texting our team, but her texts were not going through... which distracted me so I was having a hard time forming congruent sentences and probably repeating myself... did I mention I was repeating myself a lot?

Even though we've led over 1,000 events and teleseminars, I STILL have a hard time concentrating when there are major distractions.

So here's what we learned:

1. Don't change everything at the last minute

Two days before the teleseminar, Sharla decided it would be more powerful to do this teleseminar as a webinar. She signed up for a new webinar service and promptly created about 90 powerpoint slides for the presentation. Our team scrambled to make the webinar happen, which led to our mistake of not having enough space on our server to handle the volume of people.

2. Be authentic about your breakdowns more quickly

When the breakdown with our server happened we didn't mention it until we had already lost our flow. Sharing the breakdown immediately would have allowed us to come up with a solution more quickly.

3. Take your launch as seriously as your content

Sharla took several months to make our Home Study Course impeccable. But we didn't put nearly the same amount of time, energy or attention to detail into the launch of the program.

We thought our passion would be enough and that the value would shine through. If we had it to do over again, I would have taken about five additional hours to go through our webinar notes to make sure the webinar was concise and highly valuable and that the offer was crisp and clear.

Bonus lesson: Never do a launch when Mercury is in retrograde. 🙂

We'd love to read your comments below... and if you've had an epic failure, we'd love to hear about it and what you learned from it.

Tell us what you think

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The First Steps To Getting Clients

One of the biggest questions people ask us is, “I’m just getting started. What should I do first to get clients?” 

People may tell you to do one of the following:

  • Create a website,
  • Try to get speaking gigs,
  • Create a business card,
  • Brand yourself or
  • Start building your email list, for example.

It can be totally overwhelming!

theFirstStepstoGettingClientsWhile all of these things are important to consider, these aren’t the first steps to getting clients. And you can spin your wheels for months (or even years) working on the list above and get little or no clients from all of your hard work.

We want to save you from the agony of working on the things that don’t really make much of a difference (contrary to popular belief) until you really understand what works to get clients fast. (BTW, the list above is an important list to consider…just wait to work on this stuff until you’re sure you have a sustainable business and you can count on yourself to attract the right clients.)

We’ve made millions in our business over the last 10 years and we know what it takes to get clients.
But 12 years ago, I thought that getting clients for my life coaching “business” meant hanging flyers all over town and waiting for my phone to ring.

This strategy worked.  My phone did ring.  The only problem was that on the other end of the line was my mom… suggesting I get a J-O-B.

Since I couldn’t even get one private client to pay me money, I took her advice.

As I sunk into my depressing, full-time J-O-B, I found myself getting jealous when Sharla’s business started to thrive.  But another part of me was fascinated.

Before my eyes, I saw a VERY simple, 3-step system to getting clients.

You may be RELIEVED to know that you can successfully work this 3-step system, WITHOUT the following 4 things that most business coaches will tell you are necessary.

You don’t need:

 

  • A fancy business card.

    In a Heartselling™ Conversation, it is MUCH more important to their card (so you can check in with them) than it is to give them yours.  After working with thousands of clients and making over 10 Million Dollars in our business, we STILL don’t have business cards.  If you don’t have business cards yet, and feel insecure about this, you can simply say, “I am in the process of creating a new card, but in the meantime I would love to get your card so I can check back in with you about ____________(something from your conversation that is check-in worthy).”

  • A fancy website.

    Unless you are driving people to look at your website, it will get lost in cyberspace.  The best thing websites do, when you’re just getting started, is to give you a tiny bit of credibility.  But you can get credibility in other ways (that don’t cost anything) when you master the art of positioning yourself (you’ll discover more on how to position yourself in next week’s blog and in our new Client Attraction Mastery Home-Study Course that we’ll be unveiling soon).

    If you don’t have a website yet, “I am in the process of creating a new website, but in the meantime I would be happy to answer any questions you have about how I might be able to help you.”

  • A fancy flyer or brochure.

    Brochures aren’t a bad thing.  But don’t expect your brochure to do anything big for your business.

  • Fancy branding.

    When you are first starting out, you have 2 main jobs:

    1. Get clients
    2. Discover what makes your services unique.

You will actually discover your unique brand BY working with clients, rather than the other way around.

Going through a branding process can speed up this discovery, but we would hate for you to brand yourself, only to discover that your business is different than what you thought it would be. 

After investing over $200,000 in total to re-brand our business, we can say that to go through a process like this when you’re first getting started might be premature.

A lot of people wait to get started until they have these 4 fancy things in place, not realizing whilst these 4 things are great, they are not necessary to attract clients.

The best way to discover what to write on your business card or brochure is through having conversations with potential clients and noticing what inspires you and has your potential clients say “YES!” to you.  We call these types of conversations, “Heartselling™ Conversations.”

This leads us to our simple 3-Step System:

  1. Have a Heartselling™ Conversation with a potential client and discover how you can help them
  2. Offer your Potential Client a Free Consultation
  3. At the end of the Free Consultation, invite them to sign up for a package of your services.

When I saw how easy this could be, I set a goal to get 10 clients in one month so I could quit my J-O-B.

I gave about 10 Free Consultations that month, and got 5 new paying clients.  I was so fired up and confident that I couldn’t wait another day to give notice.

I quit my J-O-B that month.  Shortly after that, I got 16 clients in one month.  That was when I knew I had mastered Heartselling™.

That was about 11 years ago.  I haven’t looked back since!

Let us know what you got from this article by leaving a comment below. And share with friends if you found this valuable.

"Want help with your free consultation?"

One of the first hurdles healers, coaches, and holistic practitioners face when they start doing free consultations is knowing what to do when someone whom you know in your bones you can help says, "I can't afford it."

If you've ever heard this then we invite you to join us for a free Masterclass, "Transform 'I can't afford it' Into a Deep 'Yes'".

Click here to register and you'll find out how to gracefully answer this question and much more.

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3 Keys to Accomplishing Your Goals

Today, we’re going to share a concept that our Personal Development mentors will disagree with.  Yet, if you follow our advice, you’ll find yourself not only feeling much better about yourself, but you’ll also be accomplishing your goals much more quickly.

I (Jesse) remember the day I became a Yellow Belt in Tae Kwon Do.  I was 10 years old. Kiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! I cracked that board in half.  I felt invincible.

Accomplishing Your Goals

Minutes later, I was changing back into my regular clothes and two younger kids came up to me: “You are SO strong!!! How did you get to be so strong???”  Insteadof taking in their compliments I said, “You think I’m strong now; wait until I’m 11.”

This was my first memory of the belief that has run my life:
“Nothing I do is EVER enough.”

On one hand, I’m grateful for this belief.  It’s one of the reasons we’ve been so successful.
Because we are constantly “aiming for the stars and hitting the moon.”

For example, we’ve led nearly 200 events and at least 50 of these events have produced $100,000 or more in sales (in one weekend).  Most people would be THRILLED with these stats.

But when this belief is running me, I won’t celebrate until we finally have a Million-Dollar Event.

The self-development industry has fed this belief that “Nothing I do is EVER enough.”

Many of my mentors told me:
“You’re not thinking BIG enough!” And, “You’re playing too small!”

So every day, I put way more on my To Do List than I could possibly accomplish.

And despite accomplishing more in my average day than most people accomplish in a week, I’ve ended many days with an unsatisfied sigh…

Often, I started the following day feeling overwhelmed by the insurmountable challenges I’ve established for myself.

This reminds me of when we used to play the Darien Blue Devils, one of the best soccer teams in the country.  When we took the field, we KNEW we had no chance.  We were playing an UNWINNABLE GAME.

Yet we took the field anyway.  And we played our little hearts out.  And we got creamed, 11-0.
Luckily, we only played them once per year.  Imagine how you would feel if you did this to yourself every day!

Most Coaches and Holistic Practitioners do one of two things:

1) They set themselves up with UNWINNABLE GAMES and expect themselves to do way more than they could possibly do.

OR

2) They don’t set goals at all and let life take them by storm.

Either approach is devastating because it completely knocks the wind out of you and makes you feel like you’re losingand will NEVER catch up.  ENOUGH!!

Fortunately, there is an alternative approach.  This paradigm shifting approach will lead you quickly and joyfully to your success in three Easy and LIBERATING steps.
It’s time to start playing a different type of game… a WINNABLE GAME!

Here are the 3 Keys to Accomplishing Your Goals:

1.Create a Clear, Winnable Game

Choose three specific things you want to accomplish every day.

They don’t need to be big, but they do need to be clear and specific.
You need to be able to evaluate whether you’ve succeeded or failed at accomplishing them at the end of your day.

And, if you’re having a Heartselling™ Conversation with a potential client, it’s a great idea to call it a WIN because you HAD the conversation, NOT only when you got a new client.  (Developing this habit alone will help you start attracting the right clients.)
 

“Three Accomplishments each day make your Negative Gremlins Go Away.”
-Jesse Koren

2.Be Willing to Lower Your Standards

I hope I don’t get banned by the personal development gurus for saying this:

If you’re continually losing your games, then LOWER YOUR STANDARDS.  The experience and feeling of losing will soon become a habit after a while.  The same goes for winning.
The main way to develop the habit of winning is to… WIN!!!

Winning will create it’s own momentum and soon you will be accomplishing things you’ve never imagined.

 

“Choose battles big enough to matter and small enough to win.”
–Jonathan Kozol

3.Celebrate Small Accomplishments like you just won an Olympic Gold Medal

At our Six Figure Speaker event this past weekend, one of our members, Scott Sargeant, shared his amazing story.

In 1999, Scott was ranked Top 10 in the US for the Hammer Throw and was on track to make it into the 2000 Olympics.  Just months before the Olympics, he fell down a flight of concrete stairs and was instantly paralyzed from the neck down.  His doctors said he would never walk again.  He literally couldn’t move a finger.  But, using the visualization techniques he used to become an elite athlete, he shocked his doctors and walked out of the hospital 6 weeks later.  You can learn more about Scott at www.formerquad.com

Compared to this victory he told us nothing he accomplishes feels big enough or worthy enough of celebration.  He keeps setting himself up with UNWINNABLE games and feeling like he is constantly losing.

I invited him to celebrate even the most ridiculously small victories in his life.  I challenged him to walk back to his chair, and if he made it successfully to his chair without tripping, to celebrate his success like he had just won a Gold Medal.

He walked back to his chair (and did not trip).

When he got there, he let out a loud “Whoop!”  And the entire group of Six Figure Speakers stood up and cheered and celebrated.

It was both totally ridiculous and totally freeing at the same time.  The freedom comes when you stop expecting yourself to be superhuman all the time and you celebrate your small victories.

Now it’s your turn to use these three keys for accomplishing your goals and set yourself up for success.

Will you try it?

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