February 19, 2015 by Sharla Jacobs and Jesse Koren

How to Position Yourself (If You Don’t Feel Successful Yet)...

About seven years ago, I (Jesse) was at a party and my former life coach approached me and said, “I’ve heard that you and Sharla have become quite successful. Congratulations!”

I was speechless. Us? Successful? Really? Is that what people think about us?
Why was I so surprised and embarrassed?

Sure, we had made $732,000 that year (in our third year of business together), but it didn’t feel like we had arrived... not even close.

I knew our struggles so intimately. I knew how many people we wanted to reach.
We weren’t even close to where we wanted to be.

Four days after that party, I entertained the idea that we really were successful.

I realized that in comparison to some people we were successful and in comparison to others, we were failures.

I discovered that nobody had the power to determine whether we were successful or not.

So, if success isn’t an objective truth then what is it?

Success is a choice as to how you see yourself.

If you look for evidence that you’re successful, you will feel successful.

If you look for evidence that you haven’t “made it” yet, you will feel like a failure.

After that party, I CHOSE to start seeing Sharla and I as a success.
And we attracted more success to us.

Even if you just started your business, you can see yourself as a success.

Look back at your life and find tons of small successes that have made you the incredible human being that you are today.

No matter how unsuccessful you may think you are, you get to CHOOSE how you see yourself. And you get to choose how you describe yourself to other people.

No matter how unsuccessful you may think that you are, I guarantee that you are at least two steps ahead of many people on this planet who could use your help.

And two steps ahead of your people is ALL you need, if you want to be of service.

In last week’s blog post: How to Position Yourself as an Authority Without Sounding Arrogant, I wrote,

If you are trying to help someone get to the top of a mountain, would you rather get underneath them and push them up? Or stand above them and pull them up?
It’s a LOT easier to stand above them and pull them up to your level.

So as long as you are two steps ahead of the people you want to help, you are in a GREAT position to help them.

But how do you convey you are two steps ahead of them, without sounding arrogant, egotistical and full of yourself?

And what do you do if you’re just starting out or you’ve just been in business for a very short time? Or if you’ve been around for a while, but haven’t quite “made it” yet, then how do you position yourself?

As we shared in last week’s blog, if you just list your accomplishments or your expertise, with no humanity, you will sound arrogant.

So it’s important to share your humanity and your expertise.

Here are some true examples from our life that might spark ideas for how you can position yourself by sharing both your humanity AND expertise.

How many people we’ve helped:
(Humanity) We struggled a lot in the beginning, but we never gave up. And, because of our perseverance…
(Expertise) we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to help over 25,000 people.
The collective results of our clients:
(Humanity) While we have had some clients who have not gotten any results,
(Expertise) we do have a LOT of clients who are making six figures and attribute their success to what they learned from us. In fact, if you pooled all of our clients together, we could conservatively say that our clients have made tens of millions of dollars with what we have taught them.
Our personal results:
(Humanity)In our first two years of leading workshops, we gave our heart and soul to our participants, but never earned more than $1,000 for the workshop.
(Expertise) Recently, we led a live event that brought in over $500,000 in one weekend. We feel so blessed to have learned so much over the last 10 years.

If you’ve helped a lot of people, gotten great results for your clients, and had tremendous personal results, you can use the three ideas above to help you decide how to position yourself without being arrogant.

But how do you position yourself if you’re just starting out (or if you’ve been around for a while, but haven’t quite “made it” yet)?

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Use Your Personal Story.
Your personal story (we call it Your Hero’s Journey Story) is the story of how you faced something (and got through to the other side) that you now help your clients face. You can share how you walked through your own “dark night of the soul (humanity)” and are now living an amazing life (expertise). If you are someone who walks her/his talk, this also positions you in a way that has your Potential Clients believe that you can walk them through their dark night of the soul also.
Your Image.
We recommend you dress two notches higher than your potential clients. Many people make the mistake of continuing to dress how they do when they’re with friends when they’re doing business. We recommend you dress like you’re making 6 Figures. Dress in a way that is both elegant (expertise) and uniquely you (humanity).
How Long You Have Studied Your Profession (Personal Development PLUS Your Niche).
Here’s a great template that includes Humanity and Expertise:
“I’ve studied personal development and________ (your niche: health, money, beauty, or love) for many years. During this time, many people have been drawn to me, and asked for my support. Enough people have approached me that I decided quite some time ago, to dedicate my life to helping a LOT/hundreds/thousands of people overcome this problem.”

Here’s how to come up with your own Positioning Statements:

Step 1.
Make a list of all the different ways you can position yourself as an authority in your field (be truthful, of course). (If you are struggling with the six positioning strategies listed above, we are happy to give you 10 more in our Client Attraction Mastery Home Study Program (we’re launching on March 31^st, so stay tuned).

Step 2.
Write up phrases you can say in conversation, in your emails, or on your website that bring humanity and expertise to your communication.

Step 3.
Practice saying these phrases in a safe place. You can practice in front of the mirror or with a good friend. You can also come to the Client Attraction Summit, which is a very safe place to practice positioning yourself in a community of heart-based people.

We’d love to hear how you feel about this. Let us know in the comments below.

July 17, 2014 by Sharla Jacobs and Jesse Koren

How to Get Big Influencers to Promote You

Have you ever wanted someone with a large email list to introduce you to their people?

If so, you’re not alone (and you’ll get a TON of value from this article).

We’ve had hundreds of well-meaning people ask us to promote them.

And we can understand why. Because we’ve grown our email list to over 20,000 people and we get around 1,000 people coming to our Client Attraction Summit each year, we are in a position to double, triple, or even quadruple someone’s business, practically overnight.

But you may have noticed that we only promote 10-12 of our friends and colleagues to you each year via email.

We are extremely careful and highly selective about who we introduce to you.

We thought you would like a window into our thought process around…

How do we decide who to promote?

What are the 3 biggest mistakes we see people making when they ask big influencers to promote them?

And how can you avoid these mistakes to get big influencers to promote you?

We look for three things in the people we promote:

Value
Generosity
Integrity

Let’s start with Value…

Are your free giveaways and programs high-value and high-quality?

The mistake that some people make is that they ask big influencers to promote a program they don’t yet feel fully confident about.

Honestly, we are fans of launching “imperfect” programs that you improve over time (as one of our mentors once said, “Every master was once a disaster.)”

But if you ask a big influencer to share your work with the world, make sure you first feel very proud of what you’re asking them to promote…both the free giveaway AND any programs their people would purchase from you.

Quality really matters in this day and age of people being bombarded with so many offers. The last thing you want is someone coming back to the person who promoted you and saying they weren’t happy with what they signed up for.

As an example of high-value and high-quality, our friend, Callan Rush, wrote an ebook called “Wealth through Workshops.” I (Sharla) read it and even though we’ve had over 10,000 people sign up for our live events, I still got a TON of value from it.

So when they told us that they would let anyone on our email list have a free copy of their ebook, we got really excited and jumped on the opportunity to share it.

Your first step is to make sure you feel rock-solid about the value and quality of what you’re offering.

Next, let’s talk about Generosity…

Do you lead with what you can give or what you can get?

The second biggest mistake is to make the short term gain more important than the long term relationship.

Many people have emailed Thrive, asking us to promote them. They think that offering us commissions would be enough of an incentive for us to promote them. Honestly, that’s the last thing we think about when promoting someone.

Commissions are nice, but there is no amount of money we would take to promote someone we don’t know very well.

We only promote people who we have a relationship with. Our Joint Venture Partners are friends before they are partners. They are people we call when we are having a challenge in our business. They share their best advice, business systems, and resources with us. And we do the same for them.

Our best partners don’t do tit-for-tat. They lead with generosity. So much so, that they inspire us to be generous with them.

As an example, Callan and her business partner, Justin Livingston, have been friends for years. Callan served as a trainer for our company when our son Jacob was about to be born. And Justin was a big part of our marketing team during this same period. After working with us here at Thrive, they moved on to start their own company and we’ve stayed in touch all this time.

They know we offer high-value and high-quality work, so they have been endorsing us every other month at their “Magnetize Your Audience” live event. They share stories about how we recognized Callan’s talent and believed in her when she was getting started.

And she shares about who we are and the results our clients get. And then they offer our Client Attraction Summit to the people at their event. After the event, they have been sending us 50-70 registration forms, filled out by their participants who want to attend our live event.

How generous is that?

We don’t even have to travel to their event to speak. They make the offer for us. We love how easy they make it for us.

We recommend you lead with generosity and make the long term relationship important when trying to get other people to promote you.

Lastly, let’s talk about Integrity.

Do you follow through with your promises?

And if you break your word, do you find a way to get back into integrity?

If we introduce a joint venture partner who makes a promise they don’t keep, it damages trust.

And while we can’t control what our partners do, we can get to know the character of our partners so that we can make the best decision as to whether or not they’ll deliver on their promises to our clients.

This is why it’s important to get to know your partners before doing business with them. You get to witness whether they keep their promises or not.

Miscommunication happensand everyone breaks their word at some point. But not everyone takes the time to clean it up and make it right again.

We’ll use Callan and Justin as an example again:

Several months ago, they promised to promote us at one of their events and there was a misunderstanding and it didn’t happen as we expected.

Instead of just apologizing, Justin offered to send an email out to their entire email list of over 70,000 people, introducing us to them. This restoration of integrity actually had us trust them more, because we got how much they value our relationship and the keeping of their promises.

You know how relationships just get deeper and more solid as you deal with the tough stuff? It’s HOW people deal with the tough stuff that shows you how much they value the relationship.

You will certainly have misunderstandings with your joint venture partners. And how you deal with these places where it feels that the integrity is out of balance will determine whether or not you will continue to stay in partnership with them.

A bonus tip: Most joint venture partners care more about reciprocation than they do commissions.

Your ability to reciprocate is a key factor. So you’ll find that most of the people you “play with” in the realm of joint venture partners will have promotion power that matches what you have to offer.

But reciprocation can come in lots of different forms. So don’t overlook other ways to reciprocate.
What resources can you support them with (can also be personal resources)?
Who can you introduce them to?

The bottom line is this: It’s all about the relationship.

And most relationships start by meeting someone in person and leading with generosity.

We recommend you start attending more live events to get to know people you want to connect with. And lead with generosity whenever you can.

We want to model this for you now…Because we know Justin and Callan provide SO much value, they lead with SO much generosity, and because they are such high integrity people, we decided to surprise them by writing this entire article that showcases why they are one of the best partners we’ve ever had.

If you’re inspired by Justin and Callan and would like a free copy of their ebook, “Wealth through Workshops,”

Enjoy! And please let us know what you got from this article in the comments below.

Tell us what you think...

February 27, 2014 by Sharla Jacobs and Jesse Koren

The Secret to Business Success is the "C" Word

Sharla and I first met at a workshop (can you believe it?) on November 15, 2001. It was NOT love at first sight. I thought she was cute, but would only make a really great friend. She thought I was cute also, but a little too young (and too nice) for her taste. 🙂

Jesse and Sharla on their 12-year anniversary

Our first date was a workshop that I led at my home. I had desperately tried to fill this workshop with lots of people... but Sharla was the only one who showed up. I was totally embarrassed... But Sharla was so gracious and she suggested that I lead the workshop for her anyway.

Somehow, the workshop started to feel more like a first date. (Looking back, we think the Universe set this one up.)

Our first kiss was on January 5, 2002. Don't ask me why I still remember the date, because we dated for about a week after that. And then I broke up with her. But then, in Sharla's words, "You called me 10 times a day and wouldn't stay off my couch."

So we got back together again. And then broke up again. We were on again and off again for another 6 weeks when she finally got fed up with my antics and she said, "You need to sh*t or get off the pot!"

That night we were sitting in Yab Yum (for all of you Tantra people) and I sprung the "C word" on her.

I said, "I commit to you." (At least that's what Sharla remembers me saying.)

I don't remember anything about that night (and I was sober, I swear)... I must have subconsciously blocked it out, because in my world the "C" word meant being stuck, trapped and regretful for the rest of my life.

I moved into Sharla's small apartment a week later. And for the next year, I literally did not unpack. That's how not committed I was. It would have taken me less than an hour to pack up my Red Jeep Cherokee with all my stuff and head off to the land of freedom.

It took me a year to realized the "freedom game" I was playing was killing us. We argued more than we kissed and underneath every argument was, "Are we in this together or not?"

So we went on a retreat together and decided that we were either going to dive deeper together or break up. At the end of the retreat, I asked Sharla to marry me...for just one year. You might laugh; but this was a HUGE step for me! I really thought I'd regret it.

But instead a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Suddenly, I could dedicate my whole being to loving her (instead of holding out for another woman). It was like I saw her for the first time (and I really liked what I saw).

I thought I was cured of my commitment phobia... but it took me another 3 years until I finally had the courage to commit to her for life.

We had hiked far back into the South Fork of the Yuba River. We sat in Yab Yum again and after I proposed we cried together and laughed together, as we talked about the kids we would have and the life we would live together. I felt freer than I had felt since I was a little boy.

No one was more surprised than I was that the freedom I sought by avoiding the "C" word was the very freedom I found when I embraced it, by proposing to Sharla.

It's this same level of commitment that had us go from 0-$175,000 in our first year working together. And it's this level of commitment that has had us earn over $10 million dollars.

It's this level of commitment we see in our Thrive Academy Members who are making $10,000+ each month. And it's this level of commitment we see in our many friends who consistently earn 6-, 7- and 8-Figures each year.

Even though most people avoid it, Commitment is the secret that will fuel your success.

At the Client Attraction Summit, we do a process where you let go of the comfort-seeking part of you that would rather not commit to your business.

Instead, you'll commit to:

a) NOT do your business.

b) Kick the back door shut and commit to your business for 1 year.

c) Kick the back door shut and commit to your business for the rest of your life.

I've asked myself why so many people cry during this exercise...

What I've realized is that most people NEVER fully commit to their business.

They're in their business as a fair-weather friend. As long as it's comfortable, convenient and inspiring they do their business. But the moment it gets challenging (which it always does) they turn to Plan B (aka Plan "Back Door)," which usually involves a draining J-O-B (with no plan as to how to get your business thriving again).

This is the ordinary approach to being an entrepreneur. And it's the reason so many Coaches and Holistic Practitioners struggle. As I shared in last week's Blog Post, I know what it's like to work a draining job with no plan to fulfill my dream.

The reason I believe so many people cry during the Commitment Exercise at the Summit is the same reason I believe people cry during weddings. Because commitment is beautiful, inspiring, and an act of courage.

All of our members who are making more than $10,000 per month have committed deeply to themselves.They've kicked the back door shut and have chosen to honor their desire to contribute over any circumstance that would stop them from fulfilling their destiny.

Are you ready to kick YOUR back door shut and make this year the best year of your life?

If so, leave a comment below. We'd love to hear from you.

Tell us what you think...

February 13, 2014 by Sharla Jacobs and Jesse Koren

Valentine’s Day Holds the Secret to Avoiding Burnout

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Valentines inspired by our son Jacob's Kindergarten class

In the spirit of expressing our love and appreciation, we’ve spent the last week making Valentine's cards.

(And we are taking Friday away from the office to celebrate our own Love! You’ll get a full report next week. ☺)

Because we’ve seen too many coaches and holistic practitioners get sucked into the burnout vortex, we wrote a special Valentine’s blog post to help you use the spirit of Valentine ’s Day to avoid burnout in your own business.

We have seen too many coaches and holistic practitioners who are on their way to burnout, because they either have too many clients and no time for themselves.

Or they don’t have enough clients and their worry (and attempts to just make ends meet) burns them out.

However, YOU can steer clear of burnout.

The answer is hidden within the spirit of Valentine’s Day!

How do you know if you’re heading toward the Burnout Vortex?

On a scale from 1-10, how much do you LOVE your business? And we mean
REALLY LOVE your business.

To help you answer this question, here are some additional questions:

Does it light you up and excite you?
Do you dread the thought of getting up to go to "work?"
Does it worry you and stress you out?
Are you delighted with some parts of your business (like the actual
work of supporting others), but hate other parts (like the bookkeeping)?

Go ahead and answer the question now: On a scale from 1-10, how much do
you LOVE your business?

Here's the scale:

Score of 1-3 = The Burnout Vortex

Score of 4-7= Maintaining (but probably not feelin’ the love).

Score of 8-10 = Truly Thriving!

Everyone wants to be in the range of 8-10, but may not know HOW to get there.

So we want to make sure you have some distinctions and tips to move you away
from the Burnout Vortex and toward Truly Thriving!

First, let's talk about what it means to be Truly Thriving...

True success means consistently hanging out in the “Truly Thriving” range.

And when someone who is truly thriving dips into the 6’s or 7’s (which is inevitable),
they quickly ascend back up to at least an 8 by using some of their own pre-determined
structures.

This is WHY they are able to maintain the level of Truly Thriving.

Maintaining is really to just be going along, doing the day-to-day, but not really excited about it.

The last category is the Burnout Vortex. Unfortunately, too many coaches and holistic practitioners are either living in the Burnout Vortex or just on the edge (and some even believe becoming successful = burnout).

What’s the remedy to steer clear of the Burnout Vortex?

The secret is hidden within the spirit of Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year that is fully devoted to love.

Why?
Is it because Hallmark says so? ☺
Of course not!

Valentine's Day is a only a day devoted to love if YOU say so…if YOU make love important.

Whether you have someone you call your lover or whether you are single and your lover is you…

You get permission to devote the entire day to LOVE!
You get to indulge in whatever makes you feel and appreciate LOVE. It could be chocolate, baths with rose petals, candlelight dinners and beautiful music…

Or you could make it a regular day of your life.

The choice is yours.

But the truth is, as an entrepreneur, you have permission to make LOVE important EVERY DAY.
You can turn any day you want into Valentine’s Day.

And when you show YOURSELF a great deal of self-love by making self-care important, YOU will avoid the Burnout Vortex.

Here are a list of tips to help you avoid burnout:

Create clear office hours when you answer your phone and email. And then don't answer your phone when you're office isn't open. We take weekends off (unless we're leading an event, in which case, we take the Monday and Tuesday for our rest days). We also finish work by 4pm at the latest and devote this to family time.
Create structures for rest and rejuvenation.Studies show that one day away from screens is like seven days of rest! Make sure you have clear rest days to let your mind relax (which frees yourself up for more creativity!)Be sure to find a few things that REALLY rejuvenate your mind, body and soul.We have found that regular massage and bodywork is ESSENTIAL to our ongoing well-being. Without it, we find ourselves feeling a little cranky and not being as focused.(If you're still not quite making the money you want to make, you can always create a trade for bodywork with another practitioner who values your services as much as you value bodywork!)
Schedule 15-30 minute breaks every 90 minutes. Studies show short breaks every 90 minutes increase your productivity and creativity dramatically.You can take breaks to meditate, dance, go for a walk or whatever you need to rejuvenate yourself.

It’s YOUR life; you get to live it on YOUR terms.

The secret is to set aside the time AHEAD of time, so you don’t have to get burned out or exhausted in order to finally relax.

Okay, we’re off to take a short “Thrive Break” before our team meeting.

We hope you enjoyed this article.

Tell us what you think...

February 6, 2014 by Sharla Jacobs and Jesse Koren

How to Stop Sabotaging Yourself (In 2 minutes)

Are you ready to take what you’re doing to the next level? To deepen your confidence, your power, and your ability to attract more clients?

If you’re not saying “Yes, I'm ready!” right now – something may be stopping you?

After working with over 20,000 coaches and holistic practitioners, and we haven't met one person who didn't have at least a few negative beliefs that were stopping them from reaching their potential.

In fact, the reason we're so passionate about this topic is because over the last 10 years, we've had to take back our own power over and over again.

So, if you have some negative beliefs that are holding you back, you're not alone.

Rick Carson, author of Taming Your Gremlin™, calls these negative
beliefs Gremlins™. He says:

There is indeed a Gremlin™ in your head and he's out to make you miserable. Left to do his thing, he'll zap your health, foul up your relationships, ruin your disposition, dampen your creativity, hamper your productivity, drive you into low-down funks and wind you up into fits of anxiety.

So, it's time to stop sabotaging yourself and take back your power from your Gremlins™.

But how?

The Worst Thing You Can Do...

The worst thing you can do is go to war with your Gremlins™. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away. Drowning them out with food, alcohol, drugs, work, and other addictions won't make them go away. Telling them to go away doesn't work either.

The first step to stopping your Gremlins™ from sabotaging you is to see that they are on your side. No matter how mean they are, they are doing their best to keep you safe.

It turns out that your Gremlins™ prefer safe and familiar (read "boring") over exciting and amazing (read "scary to your gremlins".) This is true even if your Spirit is calling you to grow and contribute at the highest level.

In fact, the stronger your urge to grow and contribute, the louder and more powerful your gremlins need to be... Otherwise, how could they neutralize your efforts and keep you safe?

Should I try Positive Affirmations?
Hell no! Why don't positive affirmations work?

Because your Gremlins are far more powerful than your positive affirmations. If you say: "I'm good enough," or even "I'm amazing," your Gremlins™ will simply say: "NO, YOU'RE NOT!" And, so you're left feeling even worse than before you started "affirming yourself."

So, how do you stop your Gremlins™ in their tracks?

The Most Powerful Way to Stop Your Gremlins™ from sabotaging you (in 2 minutes)

Instead of trying to avoid, drown or resist your Gremlins™ (and instead of using positive affirmations), try this:

Harness the power of your Gremlins™ and then use your new level of power to inspire your greatness.

Here's a 2 minute exercise that will leave you feeling unstoppable:

Stand in front of the mirror. Set a timer for 1 minute. And for 1 minute, give your Gremlins voice. Without holding back, tell yourself why you're not good enough, not ready, why nobody wants what you have, what a F&*# up you are... Let yourself get as loud and mean and "Gremlin-y" as you possibly can.

At the end of 1 minute, take a deep breath and set your timer for 1 minute again. This time, with the same level of energy, tell yourself how amazing you are, why you will succeed and why your people need what you have.

Finally, take a deep breath into the aliveness and love that you feel for yourself and make a new commitment to share your gifts with the people who need what you have.

With this new level of energy, that comes from harnessing the power of your Gremlins™, you will be amazed at how much easier it is to attract new clients.

If you’d like more powerful ways you can stop your Gremlins and attract more clients, sign up for our weekly Thrive Ezine (delivered to your inbox every Thursday). We’ll send you tons of great tips and info via articles and videos to help you get more clients and reach more people.

Get your free videos and tips here: www.ClientAttractionSummit.com