Amazing Things to Learn From a “Do It Yourself Jigsaw from Hell

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Amazing Things to Learn From a “Do It Yourself Jigsaw from Hell
By Margaret Gill

Have you ever tried to assemble a flat pack desk or shelf?

This week in a frenzy of de-cluttering I realised more shelves were in order at International Headquarters if I was ever going to have a back office that matched the same sense of order that my front of house business has.

These apparently “easy to assemble” flat packs are a nightmare of tiny bags of nuts and screws, instructions written by someone with any language other than English and more parts to hold together than hands to hold them.

Flat packs require a good repertoire of swear words if you ever hope to complete the task. Luckily my days in a rock and roll band, where bad language is the universal language, stood me in good stead for the task.

In the process of completing this “Do It Yourself Jigsaw from Hell” I was reminded of a valuable coaching concept I learnt years ago:

The difference between commitment and trying

The big thing you need to know about me is that I’m not at this time, nor ever do I seek to be, a Domestic Goddess and or DIY Warrior. But I’m always up for having a go at something new.

As I unpacked the boxes and gingerly set my pieces in place I started to only partly hammer the pieces into their respective slots.

I thought I was being clever by leaving space for me to easily fix an error if I’d inadvertently locked the wrong pieces together. In the end I found I got less than satisfactory results with this tactic.

My first attempt was very wonky. In fact in a loud clatter of metal on carpet, the whole thing fell apart the minute I let go.

After I picked up all the pieces and bent them back into shape, I changed tactic and attacked the thing with gusto. I hammered the pieces together like it was never going to need pulling apart and guess what! I got the desired results.

What was different? The first time I was “trying” to get it right. I doubted myself and my ability and I hesitated.

When I got “committed” and was prepared to go and buy a whole new flat pack if I did stuff it up – the thing came together almost with the ease quoted on the brochure.

I see so many natural therapists “trying” to build a business.

They are “trying” to get clients and they are “trying” to put themselves in places that they might get clients and they are “trying” to find a WHO and WHAT or niche that will make the difference to their business.

They are often thinking about signing up for a course but never quite getting there, or procrastinate so long that they find someone else has beaten them into the workshop that will change their life.

Committed people however attack their business head on.

They take committed action and get tangible results.

They turn up at workshops happy if they only take one new piece of information home with them because they know the value of turning up.

So are you committed or just trying?

In these new energy times where we are being asked to turn up 100% in our purpose and as ourselves, we have no room to sit on the fence anymore.

“The magic happens outside your discomfort zone”

Margaret Gill

If we want clients we need to find out where they hang out together and go to those places. We need to get into our discomfort zone and talk to people about what we do and in some instances YES we need to market and sell to people so they can work with us.

These types of action take a high level of commitment but they get results.

I’ve found the best and easiest way to get clients is to interact personally with them by using small workshops and talks to grow your business BUT that is not always possible. You could be limited by distance, time, confidence or the funds to start your first live workshop. Your message might still be too murky to speak in public, but what I’ve found is that everyone knows something about something.

So the second best way is to run a workshop or course that interacts with people on the phone.

They are called teleclasses and are basically “learning on the phone”.

Teleclasses take a lot of the pressure off because they are usually done at low cost which lowers the expectations of participants. So it makes it easy to dazzle your participants, add value to the call and have them leave with a really positive experience. It’s those positive experiences that convince people to work with you.

To do a teleclass you really only need a heap of enthusiasm and something you are confident presenting. We all have something we do well – so why not encourage someone who is thinking of learning that thing you do well and teach them how to do it on a teleclass. You can even do the first few without participants until you feel confident enough to invite attendees.

The great news is that you never have to leave home to do teleclasses. They are low cost, short in duration, you don’t need to download anything and you probably have all the resources and equipment you need right now. Like anything else you have had to master in your business, teleclasses are really easy to do once you have been given the right information and have done the first one in a supportive environment.

The great thing is that if you know anything about any topic you can run a teleclass and they are a great way to promote your live events and talks.

You can also use the technology to record your newsletters which will allow you to give your customers the option to listen to your newsletter on an mp3 they can download to their ipod.

Teleclasses also give you the confidence to speak and mastering the teleclass format (ie learning to talk into a void) also sets you up very nicely to start recording product. I can’t tell you how much teleclasses changed my business.

There is a big buzz around webinars at present but I just find there is way too much technology for most people to manage first up and I recommend you start with simple teleclasses that have far less to go wrong.

So to sum up:

Having a small business is a lot like assembling DIY products from hell:

• You have to implement all the parts or it just won’t work
  

• There are a lot of small pieces that make up the whole
  

• The instructions you give people have to be clear or it won’t work

• Just using one part of the puzzle won’t get the overall results you desire

• If you don’t get all the right parts in all the right places, then the thing won’t function correctly.
  

• There will always be a couple of left over screws you have no idea what to do with – but it was worth the effort to have them in mix, if only to find out they weren’t for you.

Speaking and teleclasses are only one of the small pieces that go into the small business jigsaw puzzle but the sooner you commit to at least trying new things and finding new ways to promote your business – you are going to spend less time swearing and picking pieces up off the floor and more time doing something that supports you and your business growth.

Many of you have been asking about how to teach teleclasses so I’ve decided to run a teleclass on that exact subject. There are more details on my website so get committed and click here

Amazing Things to Learn From a “Do It Yourself Jigsaw from Hell (Audio)

You can now listen to my newsletter article here or download the file to your favourite mp3 player - I trust you take me somewhere interesting :-)



MP3 File

I’ve found the best and easiest way to get clients is to interact personally with them by using small workshops and talks to grow your business BUT that is not always possible. You could be limited by distance, time, confidence or the funds to start your first live workshop. Your message might still be too murky to speak in public, but what I’ve found is that everyone knows something about something.

So the second best way is to run a workshop or course that interacts with people on the phone.

They are called teleclasses and are basically “learning on the phone”.

Read the full newsletter here

Have You Joined the Spectacularly Unsuccessful Club Yet?

Today two clients had the same experience – an event that had been a spectacular disaster.

They were licking their wounds and learning the lessons from the experience in stunning style.

Instead of the “build it and they will come” scenario they had planned, one basically would have been better at the beach on the day of the event and the other had to take a big bite of humble pie and cancel their event.

They entered the Spectacularly Unsuccessful Club with honours.

If you haven’t made the “Spectacularly Unsuccessful Club” many would say you just aren’t trying hard enough.

I’ve found the not trying hard enough concept, although harsh and hard, to be exactly true. If you aren’t pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and trying new things and new ways to present and promote your business then at best you are probably working within your comfort zone and are at worst in a rut.

I have found it to be 100% true that people who are prepared to have a go and accept failing as just an inevitable blimp on the path to success are the ones who get the most success in the long term.

Please don’t get me wrong I’m not saying set yourself up to fail and everything will be OK. What I am saying is be open to having a go at new things and if they don’t work out as well as you hoped they may, learn the lessons and gain the knowledge that will make it a success the next time.

Failing is only failure if you:

1. Don’t study and learn the lessons why the failure occurred.

2. You take the same actions or in-actions that got you in hot water the last time

So what went wrong?

As my clients and I discussed the finer details of their event implosion we got to the truth of why their efforts had less than bodacious outcomes. They both came up with exactly the same answer which was not enough targeted marketing action soon enough.

They both knew “the right actions” to take – they simply didn’t take them fast enough.

Lack of appropriate and timely marketing in anything you do will inevitably cause mediocre outcomes but when you put that in the event arena, no matter how big or small your event is - you are sure to have problems.

The reality of facing what really happened after all the “buts” and “ifs” were put to rest was enlightening for both parties. Both then dug a little deeper and realized there were messages for them at a much higher level. Both will have much more successful events in the future on every level because they got clear on their message and they got clear on what actions they had to take long before the event date was looming on the horizon.

The Magic Occurs Outside Your Comfort Zone

I celebrated both those gutsy women because I knew that they were truly “getting it” because they had set up events that really only got mediocre response. Does this mean I’ve gone completely barking mad? No, simply because I know they won’t do it again because they well and truly learned their lessons. It hurt so hard that the wisdom is now burnt in their brains.

Humans Are Drawn To A Lesson Like Bugs To A Flame

Sure there are sensible ways to learn our lessons. There are libraries full of books that tell us how to NOT do things a certain way and my website is full of things that will help you get it right the first time.

BUT humans tend to like to do things the hard way.

I from my own experiences have found that I’ve learnt my greatest lessons from my greatest times of darkness and my blatant need to express my stuff-up-ability at every turn. I reckon I’ve turned around and run straight back into the same fire many times until I finally learnt my lesson and stepped out of the fire and stepped up into my purpose.

Without Guts There Is No Glory

The “Kleenex Experiences” on my journey to make my dream of working positively with people come true have always been from gutsy moves. You know the ones that would have been better left alone and me following the tried and true path.

"Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail."
Muriel Strode

Frequently the mistakes outdid my triumphs twenty to one but when those triumphs finally came I’ve had something to meter them against and have truly revealed in the glory.

So if there is so much to learn in failure I have two questions:

1 Why do we feel so much shame when we make a mistake or have a go and don’t exactly get the desired outcome?

2. Why is the personal development industry so hell bent and setting expectations of perfection that most can never attain and if they do attain the perfection they can’t grow from it?

I don’t know the answer to those questions but they are worth us thinking about.

What I am doing is applauding loudly every time one of you does something that takes you outside your comfort zone even if the outcomes are less than perfect because I know you are putting yourself in a place where glory can find you. And who knows you might even get it right the first time!

The five key things I have learned about challenging situations are:

1. The sun comes up tomorrow and the situation never seems as bad as it was the day before

2. Take the hard decision as soon as you see the error of your ways

3. Make the error as “right” as you can as quickly as you can and then figure out how you can do better next time

4. Actually take the actions in step 2 & 3

5. Hang onto your hat because you are about to take a big leap forwards

As I’ve worked through the pain of some of my very memorable stuff ups my personal development has been gigantic to the point now where I seek to challenge myself at every chance. Sure I get myself in hot water from time to time but to date the world hasn’t ended. Instead awesome opportunities have always presented themselves once I understand and act on the lesson.

If you have joined the “Spectacularly Unsuccessful Club” why not leave a comment and share your story of how you grew from a not so pleasant experience.

The Top 5 Sizzling HOT Niches of 2010

I did a great teleclass this week with Kendall SummerHawk and Richard Shapiro and they shared what's Hot and What's NOT in niches or what my system calls YOUR WHO - the group of people you market to, so you can easily get more clients and make more money with love.

I was very interested in what they reported on the call from their research because I've found what they reported to be true from my own experiences and those of my clients.

The Top 5 Sizzling HOT Niches at the moment are products and services that meet needs in:

1. Small Business owners and Entrepreneurs

2. Marketing (Anything that genuinely helps people get more clients)

3. Relationships

4. Executive Coaching which is industry focused

5. Health, Wellness and Beauty

Their research, drawn from their experiences with clients and industry sources, has shown that people continuing to offer products and services in these five areas are doing the best out of everyone, even in a diminished economy.

Then they listed what areas are not doing well or are swamped with people offering vague results to people who don't want or need or won't pay for those offerings.

What's NOT HOT is

1. Life Balance

2. Services to teachers

3. Vague services offering more confidence, more joy

4. Mom-prenuers because they tend to spend money on everyone else but themselves

I was really interested to hear their findings because I've noticed very similar things. All the people I see that have been able to keep going and keep their businesses alive and often thriving in the last 12 months have been active in the top 5 categories WITH a highly defined WHO & WHAT.

Kendall and Richard said the real achievers are combining the top 5 to make powerhouse niches - the example they gave was a beauty therapist who offered high end beauty services to small business owners.

There are people who are doing well in the What's NOT HOT list but in general I find those people have specific products that solve very specific problems - one client had great luck getting into schools - others report its just a dead end because of time and budgetary constraints on the teaching industry in general. So if you are doing well in those areas - don't stop - if not maybe try to figure out how you can fit what you are already doing into the What's Hot list.

It was a great call and a warning to those who continue to offer flakey bakey service offerings to people who don't want and need what you have on offer.

Success awaits those who are prepared to own a niche, be shameless in their want and need to be successful and who are willing to do what it takes and take the actions that put you in front of your audience.

Lessons to be learnt from a Vege Casserole

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night with a flash of the bleeding obvious and I am still giggling.

Getting all your ducks in a row is an important part of business growth.

One of the biggest ducks to have lined up is your own personal health and vitality.

I’d have to say that I’ve let that slip since moving to the country. A recent trip to the fabulous Prahran Markets in Melbourne City (where I used to shop when I lived in this trendy inner city suburb) reminded me of the way I used to care of myself before I leapt into the dream.

Back then I had a corporate pay cheque that ensured I could walk out of that market with a shopping jeep full of organic food and vegetables without thinking twice about how much it had just cost me.

During my journey to build my dream there were times in the early days when all I had money for was what I’ve lovingly dubbed the 3P’s =

1. Porridge
2. Pasta
3. Peanut Butter Sandwiches

You could buy a lot of the 3P's for $10 when on welfare payments. There was one horrible week I remember, when the only reason I had peanut butter sandwiches was because the local Bakers Delight store put a voucher in my mail box for a free loaf of bread. I wrote in to thank them for that voucher some months later and the owner was blown away that they had made so much difference to my life that week.

So somewhere in the nightmare I created in the early days I lost touch with vibrantly healthy food and ate what I could fit into an impossible fiscal situation. That certainly didn’t include eating take out or Maccas or KFC –it hasn’t been that I’ve been eating badly, I just haven’t been eating optimally and I have lost touch with is the joy of healthy, vital organic food. Now I’m ready to get back to that place and only accept food made or grown with “love” because I know it’s the answer to my next step up the ladder of success.

Sometimes the answers are right in front of us and don’t require a lot of effort to change. I live in foodie heaven and many of our farm gates probably supply Prahran Market – I’ve just got to get back into the habit of making trips out to their on site stores and making vital food a priority.

Health Coach Susan Living has been helping me get back into appreciating vital health. Susan’s enthusiasm for vital health and zealous support of “anything green” has been getting me get back on track. Who thought you could put spinach in your morning juice!

Part of my “homework” this week has been creating and implementing a healthy eating plan that will fit into my sometimes manic schedule. So I had a lovely time over Easter at the Castlemaine Farmers Market purchasing organic veges from the incredibly passionate vegetable aficionado at the Fernleigh Farms stall. Surrounded by all this enthusiasm I was pumped up to come home and start my vegetable casserole, guaranteed to rid sluggish livers of bad vibes.

Any of you who have met me personally will know that I’m not a domestic goddess – I can cook if I put my mind to it – but my future preference is a butler who will take care of all that. But the vege casserole recipe was pretty idiot proof really and went something like chop up healthy veges and herbs – put it in a casserole dish, add homemade vege stock and put it in the oven (my kind of meal!).

Everything was going well until I was required to place 3 tablespoons of LSA (ground Linseed, Sunflower kernels and Almonds) into the bubbling aromatic mix.

It immediately went all gluggy. So gluggy in fact I just picked the big bits out and the compost bin got the rest.

I was highly perplexed by this because I’d made a smoothie a few weeks back and the same thing happened – add LSA – glutinous maximus mess! But LSA is only ground up nuts – it really shouldn’t do that ............ so what was I missing?

In business we need to become multi taskers and we are constantly asked to put in time saving measures and do things once – do them well – all those good pieces of advice. I am a master at finding ways I can save time and automate and do several things at once, but it seems you also need to have a good memory to avoid unexpected knock on effects.

Some time ago I had been enjoying fruit smoothies for lunch (note the chuck it all in at once process I’m so fond of) and in my infinite wisdom had cut down the processing time by adding my Psyllium Husk Fibers to my container of LSA to save time.

Psyllium (Sellium) Husks do many good things for the body but at base level they are a bulking agent which helps with constipation.

So there was the learning lesson in the vege casserole – if you are going to multi task – at least remember what you’ve multi’d or you’ll end up in the poo :-)

Luckily I just picked out the big bits and discarded the sauce part or I could have been in BIG trouble this morning – because a smoothie only requires ONE scoop – THREE tablespoons would have really messed with my system.

Mojo Wrecking Avalanches & Broke Down Puter Blues

Could it be called fate?

Call it be called divine intervention?

I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter what you call it but there is no doubt in my mind that there are times when we are forced to go inward and deeply look at what we are doing and why we are doing it.

I’ve had two weeks like that recently.

My laptop died the morning I was due to present in Noosa but the show went on (thanks to Sandy and Curly Harris for saving the day and letting me use their laptop).

Two weeks later, a couple of expensive visits to experts and my poor hard working laptop is still trying to restore all the files I’ve dutifully backed up. As they return back onto the hard drive it looks like they probably aren’t going to give me what I expected at the end of the day.

I’m grateful I’m still healthy and I know a lot of people have a lot worse problems than a broken computer but for someone who works with the internet this is like a builder trying to build a house without their tool box and a hairdresser trying to cut hair without their scissors, chefs without knives. In fact it’s a dream stopper because without the right tools we can’t make money and pay our bills. Things can get messy really fast!

This seemingly out of my control incident, along with a few other personal things (you know how everything comes at once) that have caused a great deal of angst have caused me to re-assess where I was with the earth the world and everything.

To be honest I have been close to the brink of giving up.

I’ve taken a fair bit of flack for admitting the fact publicly that sometimes the wheels fall off my life and things are far from “perfect”. I just see it as an honest response when “shift happens”.

I find this “perfect” illusion is created from those on the bottom of the ladder of success who are looking up - not the ones on the top looking down. In fact yesterday each speaker told of their “none to perfect” life before they figured out all the knowledge they needed and then how to get that knowledge and then implement it. After many big bumps they finally got their perfect life which sees them constantly travelling the world, working their butts off in between bouts of extreme luxury. But they are away from family a lot so nothing is ever perfect even at the top of the ladder.

It has been very important for me to not appear as one of those coaches who just pretend everything is lovely and beautiful and create an unrealistic bar for others to jump over. I like to tell it like it really is so you can learn from my journey and not beat yourself up when something goes pear shaped for you.

What you can’t do is just ignore it and pretend its ok – that’s just like waxing over a dirty floor. I find the best and quickest way to get out is to stop for a while and go inward. When you are prepared to go to the honest places, those deep recesses which any wise individual would stay well away from, a message eventually appears. Mine came while channel surfing Sunday morning TV in my pajamas (standard issue uniform for anyone contemplating their naval).

I was drawn into a story of two men who got stuck in a place called Avalanche Alley in North America, known funnily enough for its regular Avalanches. Long and short of the true story saw the two friends pushed to their absolutes limits, without food for days and trying to crawl for their lives. One of them had a broken hip, the other was dragging him out inch by inch through some of the worst terrain and weather conditions imaginable.

The upshot was yet another avalanche swept them into an ice crevice where the inquired man “luckily” was dumped on an ice shelf close to the exit but his buddy landed much further down. Most at that point would have given up because they were seriously stuck.

Instead of giving up he started to shout at the Universe “I CAN TAKE MORE” and he kept manically shouting out “I CAN TAKE MORE”. When his buddy awoke, confused and unsure if he was still alive all he heard was someone shouting “I CAN TAKE MORE!” It gave him the motivation to start climbing up to him.

This extreme reaction to the drastic situation they found themselves in made me realize I too could take more – hell mine was only a broken computer. I jumped up and started to pace up and down the hall shouting I CAN TAKE MORE!

The two men eventually dragged themselves out of a situation that would have defeated many simply by putting one foot in front of the other. Finally a rescue party found them and the real men who actually survived this event were interviewed and described how the ordeal has influenced their lives. Neither has lived their life in the same way once they left hospital because they believed they experienced a miracle that day.

Every time I’ve faced off a “bad” time I’ve also found things changed radically around me and nothing was ever the same again.

As I later thought about why this bizarre response helped spur them out of a place of hopelessness I realized why it probably works.

There is a saying one of my mentors taught me

“The Universe won’t give you more
until you can handle what you already have”

So when you find yourself in a place where you think you can’t handle any more, that’s what you get – nothing more. Our intrepid heroes were only getting avalanches and exhaustion so they kept getting more of that.

But by changing that energy and stating you can take more, suddenly the perspective shifts and new possibilities kick in. Their new possibility was being rescued because they had stated they had room for more.

I’m certainly not recommending this as a long term strategy but I guess the reason I tell you is because things aren’t always easy but the landscape can change quickly once you understand your message. In the climbers case they knew they had to get closer to spirit. In mine I have to "only work with the best" and have the very best tools and people I can.

The journey from good to great can sometimes feel like an avalanche is pushing you down a mountainside but that is just part of the perfection of imperfection.

Since that shouting moment I’ve had such clarity and had the energy to go and hang out with some mad people like me who push the boundaries and hear how sometimes the boundaries have pushed back on them. I’ve gone and inspected the Mac Book Pro and learnt more about what they do. I’ve learnt a new saying from Mac owners:

“when you have a Mac you never look back”

So if you get times when things haven’t been working out or when people upset you or it just all seems way too insurmountable, please know its part of the journey that gives deep meaning to the cliché

“it’s about the journey not the destination”

My puter is now limping along without the hoots and whistles and things aren’t looking as fancy as before but I now have the ability to make the cash flow again. Luckily all my work files are backed up so I haven’t lost anything but it is taking a very long time to get it back to where it used to be and sadly it may never be the same.

So I apologise if you’ve tried to contact me or if I’ve been grumpy or silent and haven’t got back to you or I'm using a dodgy template or if their are spellos. At least I'm back in action.

Just know I strongly believe another saying another mentor taught me

“as low as you can go is as high as you can go”

You can either decide to judge me for my honesty or learn from my experience but for now I’m just excited to see what’s on the up side of the next leg of the journey :-)

Why Do Natural Therapists Get Into Business in the First Place?

As I continue to work with Natural Therapists I’ve come to notice that it is no co-incidence that people have been drawn to natural healing modalities.

The one common thing that I’ve noticed is that natural therapists are often drawn to a modality because it helped them “heal” an aspect of themselves.

Often it’s a health challenge such as cancer or depression. Sometimes it may be the self esteem they lacked after years of physical, mental or emotional abuse. Substance abuse and eating disorders also features highly, often with natural therapies being their last resort before the long arm of the law caught up with them or worse they faced personal harm or death due to their habits.

As the person was “healed”, frequently after failing within the western medicine model before finding natural therapies, they were often inspired to go and learn more about the modality that helped them so much. The more they learned the more inspired they were to help others and hence commenced training, generally in the modality that helped them.

As yet there are no clear guide lines as to what drew them to a certain form of healing but most certainly most therapists I’ve encountered have a really interesting story to tell. Sometimes it takes a little digging to find it, but once unearthed it gives a whole new dimension to who they are and who they can help. It brings clarity and a clear message to everything they do.

I’ve noticed this more as I’ve begun to teach people to speak, specifically using their story as a way to gain credibility with an audience. As I get therapists sharing their story, often the heart wrenching details leave a bread trail right to the source of the reason why they got into natural therapies in the first place.

When that happens something magical kicks in because their story becomes their glory as they realise how much their personal story will cause people to attract to them, knowing they understand.

We all have a story and often the thing that has challenged us the most in life and in time have overcome is the thing we can most help others with.

Sore to SOAR is the program I have put together to help therapists get their message out. You can find out more here: Sore to SOAR