If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with your pricing then you might really like this. 

I’ve written a few blog posts about it but this is the most in depth you’ve likely ever heard me speak about it.

And let me be clear – I am speaking from considerable personal experience on the subject having run the vast majority of my weekend workshops over the past decade on a pay what you can model. I’ve led a weekend workshop on the topic and it’s been one of the main topics of discussion I’ve had with my colleagues over the past years.

What you’re about to watch is the condensed, Coles Notes version of the past ten years of my hard won learnings on the topic.

This video is my gift to you. Feel free to share it.

I hope you enjoy it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In my experience, story is everything in marketing. It’s both the means and the ends. Understanding our story and the journey we’ve been through helps us figure out so much about our business, our niche and what we have to offer. Sharing our story helps potential clients really feel into whether or not it’s a fit for them.

You can find out more about his free webinar, Attracting More Customers with Your Story, when you click here. 

It’s tailored specifically for small business owners whose online efforts aren’t attracting new or the “right” customer. If you have trouble answering your customers when they ask “why you?” If you’d like to get more warm leads from your online presence and if you wish your website could filter the “right” customers from the ones who aren’t . . . this will be worth your time.

He’s also leading a full seven-week course which starts May 14th, 2013 and you can check out here. There are only 16 spaces available. It’s really worth reading his sales letter just for some education on a great sales letter.

This isn’t an affiliate deal. I don’t make any money from spreading the word on it.

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Why story? More and more people are talking about the importance of storytelling in marketing – what’s your take on why this matters?

Oh wow, this is a loaded question. I could tell you a lot of things like… how human brains are hard wired to quickly understand and remember stories. 

Or I could even mention how stories tap into the emotional side of the brain, which essentially determines whether someone wants to buy or not.

But the truth is that marketing is generally… boring. It’s boring because, in most cases, it talks above, around, or through the audience rather than to the audience. Are you offering a solution without witnessing the problem? Are you speaking in terms your customer can relate to?

From the time of villagers sitting around the fire, stories are what have led people to move toward their vision.  Stories work because they are NOT boring… to the right people. 

When you use stories in your marketing you allow your customers to experience the need you’re trying to solve in a way that is easily understood and memorable. It is also safe because it creates enough distance between your reader and their problem that they are able to see it from an objective point of view. 

(Easily understood + memorable) * safety = a warm lead 

Why is telling our own story helpful for marketing? Can you give three real life mini examples of clients or people you know who had stories relevant to their work?

I’ll be blunt… chances are you’re not the only one offering a solution to the problem. And with a computer and Wi-Fi access, your customer can probably find a number of those other solutions. So what’s going to separate you from them?

The answer is You. 

Telling your own story accomplishes three things when talking to your audience. 

1. Communicates the purpose or the “why” you do what you do. 
2. Establishes credibility that is not dependent on being first or better than your competition.
3. Builds trust that you can help them solve their problem.

Tad, I think your story is a great example to start with (I’ll paraphrase):

You started out as a hippie that loved marketing. The journey of becoming a better marketer created a struggle between the love you wanted to share in your heart and the inauthentic or contrived approaches traditional marketers were teaching.

This led you to find ways of marketing that felt good to your heart and included working with the people you loved most in the world… other hippies. Now you help hippies all over market their products and services in a way that feels true to their roots.

Here is a recent client story:

My client’s mom was a very successful doctor, and it was always expected that she become a doctor too. The trouble was that she didn’t want to be a traditional doctor and so the internal struggle of balancing her own and others’ expectations began.

She spent years learning everything from psychology to hypnotherapy to help her deal with this inner struggle until she found her solution. Now she is a “doctor” who solves problems of a different kind by helping others who want to find joy but struggle with expectations.

A part of my own story:

I spent a great deal of my life achieving approval by modifying my image to gain acceptance from those around me. Those skills were invaluable in marketing my first business right up until the point when they weren’t. That’s when the struggle of surviving and changing with the whims of my customers and competitors became overwhelming. 

With my experience with storytelling in business, spiritual practices, and a willingness to look inward for my answers, I found a heart-centered branding solution that worked for me… and now I work with other small business owners to help them through that same transformation process.

You went through my Niching for Hippies program where we did a lot of exploring around this notion that your deepest wound is often a doorway to your truest niche. What’s your personal take on this? Is there anything you’d add or amend to that notion?

Definitely. I spend time exploring wounds in my course on “Attracting customers with your story” for a very similar reason.  

Who would you trust to help you with a problem? Someone who is certified to help you …or someone who has lived the problem and found a solution?

Your story of how you struggled with and solved the problem that you now help others with is the perfect way to share that experience with your customers in a way they can understand, remember and relate to.

If I were going to add anything to this concept it would be that it is also helpful to look at your early accomplishments. They can be windows to your niche since many times they are what reinforce your beliefs and expectations. 

What’s the connection between our story and our niche? 

You are sharing your story to help your customers determine that you can provide the right solution for them. 

In that way they work together. As you understand your niche, you are able to share the stories from your life that better serve your customers. Just as when you explore your story, you will find it can help you self-select your niche.

It seems like finding your story is also a sort of integrity and safety mechanism. Like, if you haven’t achieved a particular result, maybe you shouldn’t be teaching others about how to do it? Would you agree?

Yes I do agree, but more so for you than your customer. Let me explain with a story.

I remember being excited with all the possibilities that were in front of me. I had just left the company I worked for and was going to venture out to make a difference in the world. The trouble was… I didn’t know what difference I wanted to make.

A buddy of mine had an idea to create a web service that helped restaurants schedule their employees. It seemed like a great idea, and so I decided to join him in bringing the product to market. I found that marketing a service I didn’t use to an audience I wasn’t part of wasn’t the best business for me… 

My story never had a restaurant in it… the closest I got to working for a restaurant was helping them remove the food they put on my plate… by eating it. The trouble wasn’t that our solution didn’t work… it worked great. The issue was that I was out of integrity to my purpose, which left me unmotivated and wanting more.

I enjoyed working with my buddy… but I was still searching for the difference I wanted to make.

For me, finding my story actually created clarity around what I feel is my purpose. I guess I would call it less of a safety mechanism and more of a compass to guide me through the wilderness.

I’d also caution people with the word “result”. When I hear “result” it can sound like a destination, but in many cases it is really just part of the journey.

Do you have to have everything figured out in order to be able to help people? I don’t think so… you just have to be further along the path than they are.

You speak about five steps to your process. Can you walk us through them in case study of a client you’ve worked with?

Absolutely, I’ll use the same client above and share snippets of her story to add clarity. She helps adults living in NYC, who believe that life should be fun, but struggle with perfectionism, anxiety, frustration and stress.

1. Natural Authority: Your ability to do what you do comes from many aspects of your life beyond your business. Knowing those aspects is the first step to shift from comparison to story.

With a doctor and an engineer for parents, it wasn’t hard to see how she became a problem solver who wanted to help people.  The expectation for her to become a traditional doctor landed her in an internal struggle between her parents’ expectations and what her heart desired.

Notice how this sets the stage showing how she was groomed to help those struggling with perfectionism. Next she shares her journey to finding a solution…

2. Point of View: Knowing how to apply your natural authority to help your customers solve their problems will complete the shift. It will build trust with your customers. They will know that you understand what they’re going through and there is a solution.

She moved to Israel to study Psychology where she became aware that her issue was created in her mind; yet knowing it wasn’t enough to solve it.

Frustrated in her first attempt she tried yoga, meditation, energy healing, nutrition, all the body sciences, and about the body-mind connection at one of Tel-Aviv’s holistic colleges; yet doing wasn’t enough to solve it either.

She then spent the next 11 years learning everything from life coaching to Neuro-Linguistic Programming but it wasn’t until she became a board certified hypnotherapist and Past Life Regression practitioner that it all came together.

Finally, after years of pursuing freedom from the pressures to become something she wasn’t, she had found a solution that worked fully… it was a combination of knowing, doing, and working with the subconscious mind. 

Observe her point of view coming together… This part of the story shows her audience that she’s been through this before and come out the other side. It also tells about how she sees the solution coming together… “The combination of knowing, doing, and working with the subconscious mind.”

3. Reputation: Most people don’t want to be the first to cross a possibly rickety bridge. Sharing your external credibility in the right way can help build confidence that your bridge is safe. 

In her story you can see supporting external credibility in the schools she’s gone to, the years she’s been working, the certifications she has, etc. They show her customers that other people are verifying her ability to help them with this problem. 

4. Icebreakers: You can encourage your customers to begin a relationship with you by sharing some personal icebreakers. 

She works with the Brooklyn Animal Shelter to help heal cats so that they’re ready for adoption. She loves photography and walking barefoot when the sun’s out.

By sharing some personal details she has created an opportunity for people to know who she is and not only what she does… This reminds her customers that she is human too, not a business just trying to sell them something.

5. Audience: It’s your story, but it’s about your audience. Recognize how to get their attention, and remember what they need from you. It will make the difference between having them read your story — or not.

Note that these excerpts from her story are told because they answer questions that her customers might have… like: “Why should I pick you?” and “How do I know your solution works for me?”

Pick me because I’ve been through this before and have found a solution. I have certifications and experience that support and validate my story and life experiences that have prepared me to solve this problem.

What are the surprising benefits that people might not expect when they really begin to explore their own story?

I think my client above may have said it best:

“This course exceeded my expectations. I thought I would end up with a story on my “about me” page, and ended up with a whole new clarity about my purpose and the clients I wanted to work with.” 

I found that to be my experience as well. The process aligned my business with my heart… my purpose. That brought so much clarity to who my customer is, what I have to offer them, and created more compassion and understanding for what my customers are going through. 

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Here’s some info on Schuyler’s upcoming courses.

Attracting More Customers with Your Story

Tailored specifically for small business owners whose online efforts aren’t attracting new or the “right” customers.

1. Have trouble answering your customers when they ask “why you?”
2. Would you like to get more warm leads from your online presence?
3. Do you wish your website could filter the “right” customers from the ones who aren’t?

If you feel a resounding “yes” to these questions, then here are two opportunities starting at free that you’ll want to check out:

No-Cost Webinar see the details here:

http://www.t4execs.com/attracting-more-customers-with-your-story/no-cost-webinar

Full seven-week course see the details here:

http://www.t4execs.com/attracting-more-customers-with-your-story

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A Bit About Schuyler: Hi, I’m Schuyler Kaye. I help small business owners who want to make a difference and need to attract more customers through their online presence. I’ve been in the business of branding since I decided being a short, fat, nerdy high schooler wasn’t the way to start college. My experiences during my graduate work at Stanford University in conjunction with marketing my first business led to my heart-centered branding program. I love to travel, dance, play guitar, and eat more green chile than is generally advisable. For more info on my work: www.t4execs.com

Anastasia Netri (pictured right) recently asked me to be a part of her ‘Experts in the Raw: The Naked Truth About Success‘ telesummit. Her idea was to give people a very candid look at the truth of what it takes to grow a business in the real world, beyond the marketing hype of how easy it is. I loved the idea. And I loved her even more when she told me all the speakers needed to send her an ‘almost nude’ photo. You can see the photo I went with here.

So, I decided to interview her for my blog so you could get a taste of what this program is all about and who she is and how you can build deeper trust by weaving in more authenticity and vulnerability into your business.

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You speak a lot about needing to be real about how hard it is when you first start out. We’re often told: “You can make $10,000 a month in 2 days a week even if you’re just starting out!” or “Get to 6 figures in your first 3 months of business!” or “A million dollar business is easy!” And then, after trying really hard we’re left wondering, “What’s WRONG with me that I can’t do that?” Can you share what it was like for you when you started out?

This program you’re doing feels a lot like the Emperors New clothes. there’s an exposing, unveiling and truth telling energy to this. Why is this so important to you?

I spent so much of my own life “comparing” to everyone else. I thought people who had achieved success had it all together, and I always felt like I could never measure up. I think the spiral of negative self talk was the biggest thing in my way.

I know I’m not the only one that feels like that. I thought if I could show people that they are just the same as the people that they *think* have it all together, that we make mistakes, still have wounds and stuff, and can still “make it” then they can too.

What’s the response been so far? Is it hitting a nerve like you thought it would? Are people getting it?

People are not only “getting it” but they’re loving it. It seems to be speaking to those people that really WANT a peek behind the curtain. We’ve already built a community of nearly 4,000 amazing entrepreneurs, and it’s growing from there. Very cool.

One of the lessons I’m reminded of from this is the power of helping people remember that they’re not alone and they’re not crazy for having their experience. It’s painful to be trying to grow a business and feel like everyone is ahead of you and you should be further because some guru said so – when, in reality, you may be doing great but have a skewed set of expectations based on someone’s hype and marketing. Can you say anything more about this?

I agree totally. Expectations is everything. There is a lot of belief out there that we are all “falling behind” and it’s not true. The truth is – in ANY business, it takes 3-5 years to really turn a profit.

I really sum it up like this (I wrote this to a FB group of clients):

You see, it takes 3 years MINIMUM to really turn a profit in your business. In year 1 – EVERYTHING IS NEW. You can feel like a novice, no one knows you, you’re scared, you have to do 5 tele seminars until you get it right…all of that. You’re really a bad ass if you have a nice practice, and can pay some bills with the money you generated from your business.

Then, in year 2, you start to know a little more. You’re starting to figure this out. But, you reinvest all of your money. You hire your expensive coach, you get your nice pictures up. You upgrade your branding. And more.

Then, you go into year 3. Now, shit is starting to work. You’re getting the hang of this. You know some people. You have some attention. You have mastered sales conversations and now you can sell your bad ass $10,000 package (or more).

Year 4 comes. You got a profit. You’re a player in the industry. You’ve got a big ol’ list. And it just grows from there.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but this is how it is for 90% of entrepreneurs – not just coaches, but ANYONE.

SO KEEP GOING. TAKE CONSISTENT ACTION. Don’t give up. It DOES get easier.

If people knew this, perhaps they wouldn’t think they are FAILING. A quantum leap doesn’t necessarily mean 6 figures. It means that you’re still going, making leaps, and not giving up.

Here’s an example:

If you want to be a speaker, chances are…you may suck for your first few talks. However, if you want it enough and you’re driven to keep going, you ask questions, get some training, and practice – then lo and behold – you’re going to be an awesome speaker. It’s that simple. 

MOST (not all of course) but MOST “overnight successes” have more to them than what you see. I love to point people towards comedians – I think that’s got to be one of the hardest jobs out there. People have get up on stage, and get their timing just right, their bits refined, and most of the time, when they’re really funny – that’s the result of getting up OVER AND OVER night after night and getting everything right. It’s a journey of getting to really see who we are, what we’re capable of, and at the end of the day – your bank account is a measure of: how much you’re in your power, how much you allow yourself to be supported, and how much you’ve learned and grown.

Making money as an entrepreneur requires some skills. There’s marketing. Sales conversations. Technology. Relationship building. The list goes on and on. Growing a business will pull you out of your comfort zone in 25 different directions at once. But – when you take one step at a time, breathe, ask questions, get help, and just DO IT…at some point you will achieve mastery. (And, then you’ll be on to the next new and exciting thing!)

Being an entrepreneur is a spiritual, mental, and emotional bootcamp. It will train you to be at your best, know who you are, and embrace the unknown more than just about anything you’ll ever do.

You can be one of the 10% if you simply decide right now that you aren’t giving up. That’s what every successful person you know has in common. There was no “plan b”. They just made it work. It’s not because they are smarter, prettier, richer, or more popular. It’s because they kept going. YOU can do that too. Let today be the day you decide.

You speak about the importance of being sort of selectively vulnerable and sharing mistakes you’ve made that are relevant to them. What’s your feeling about sharing things you are currently struggling with?

I think it’s the truth. It is HARD to share that stuff though, quite honestly. But I’m found that in a past program that I lead, and even with current clients, when I share screw ups from “last week”, and turn it into a teaching moment, people see the real deal – which is mistakes happen, and the bigger you’re going, sometimes the bigger the mistake.

BUT, as long as you learn from them, APPLY your learning, and move on – then that’s what will guarantee your success.

In the beginning, I felt like everyone does, which is “if they knew how fu*ked up I was, no one would hire me.”

It was when I first started running group programs that I found myself sharing personal stuff, mistakes I made last week, and I found that people were feeling closer to me, trusting me more, and getting more empowered from feeling like they didn’t have to be perfect all the time.

So I kept doing it, and then started to share stuff more publicly in baby steps. I still get nervous about it, but I decided the best way to keep going with this was to invite a bunch of people to hang it out of the wind with me. And here we are.

Many entrepreneurs wonder how much to share with their clients, and for good reason.

When it comes to being authentic in your marketing and communication with your clients, you don’t have to share everything. Sometimes, it’s not in service of them to do so. It doesn’t mean you’re holding back if you don’t want to be public with everything. Private lives are okay!

However, being a little edgy with your sharing can really help your clients to relate to you, to know that you understand them, and to feel even more connected with your message.

Here are a couple of tips that will help you decide what to share:

Tip #1: Share things your clients can learn from

It is of great service of your clients to share mistakes you made, what you learned from it, and what you can teach them as a result of it.

For instance, let’s say you teach about how to maintain balance, and last week you worked 90 hours, never left your house, and didn’t shower for 4 days. (It happens.)

A great article or talk could tell your clients something like:

“Look, balance is not always on an every day basis. Last week I was in the middle of a huge project and worked super hard, but I realized that one week of “full steam ahead” would provide me with 2 weeks of lightening up my schedule.

So I finished my project, scheduled an entire day unplugged, got a massage, and curled up with ‘50 shades of gray’ for a few hours. It was awesome, and I had accomplished a lot. I celebrated myself.

It’s important to remember the first and most important quality of balance is to not beat up on yourself, know that at times you’ll get busy, and make sure to plan some down time. Then, return to your balanced life the following week.”

You’re sharing with them that they don’t have to be perfect and give them permission to fall off the horse from time to time. You can then, lovingly encourage them to keep getting back on track.

Tip #2: Share things your clients can relate to

Let’s take the same scenario. You teach about balance. In your “story” you may not want to share about the crack problem you had in 1983. This has nothing to do with them, and what their issues are.

But you CAN share about how you worked 90 hours a week for a year, burned yourself out, had to learn the skills you now teach, and how it helped you.

Remember to keep your shares relevant, turn your “mistakes” into teaching moments, and be open to showing them that if you don’t do things perfectly all the time, they can still have an amazing life!

What do you do when you get personally attacked by someone on your list for being ‘out of integrity’? And, if it hasn’t happened to you, what would you recommend people doing?

I’ll tell ya – the bigger your list and your following the MORE that people will come at you. I’ve had people tell me that I suck before (or they don’t like this or that about me), and it’s hard to hear. However, there is always something useful in it. So instead of blaming them, I listen. I will find places to get more clear, set better expectations, and be a better coach. There’s always juice in that feedback, and it’s hard not to take it to heart. I think the key is not staying there, and to keep getting back up.

Truth and integrity, and what they mean, varies from person to person. So that kind of stuff can be useful in deciding who YOU are. You get a thicker skin and realize that you’re going to trigger people at some point. I always tell my clients: “If you’re marketing is not repelling with the same energy that it’s attracting, then you may still be trying to please everyone.”

Not everyone likes the fact that I have Fu*k written on my facebook wall every other day. But the ones who love it are my peeps. I can’t please everyone and I’m exhausted trying, just like most people. Hence the whole “naked and raw” theme. The people I’m meant to serve get it. The other ones don’t, and they’re meant to be helped by someone else. It takes a village for sure – all of us coming together. And when you step into your voice, your people will love you for it.

Anastasia Netri is the creator of Experts in the Raw – the Naked Truth About Success global online event. She has brought 20 speakers together to share the behind the scenes look into the real life of an entrepreneur, (and share lots of teaching moments for you!) so that you feel empowered to keep going and create the life they dream about. Check it out here. 

PJ Van Hulle thinks that, while it might be lofty – with the right pieces in place, it’s not an unachievable goal.

I really love PJ. She’s one of the most genuine people but also so much smarter about online marketing than I will ever be.

She launching her List-a-Palooza telesummit at the end of May so I thought I’d interview her about the nuts and bolts of this strange beast of building one’s list. The telesummit is totally free to attend but I thought you might like to get the boiled down version of her point of view to see if it’s a fit for you worth exploring further.

Building your email list is a central piece of becoming a hub in the online world and moving from cold marketing (where you’re chasing strangers) to hot marketing (where your ideal clients are coming to you).

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Why grow your list? Why is this something worth focusing on as an entrepreneur? 

As an entrepreneur, your e-mail list is one of the greatest financial assets in your business.  I’ve even heard experts say “your list IS your business.”  

With a profitable e-mail list you can:

• Fill your seminars and programs
• Attract more clients and sales
• Turn current clients into repeat clients
• Promote other peoples’ programs that you believe in and earn $1,000?s in affiliate commissions

Having a big, profitable e-mail list provides entrepreneurs with an uncommon level of financial security because you can even out your cashflow and generate more income any time you need to, simply by sending out messages to your list.

Without a profitable e-mail list, being an entrepreneur can be so much of an uphill struggle that many lose steam and eventually throw in the towel.

So, YES!  This is something worth focusing on as an entrepreneur.  If you’re not focusing on growing your list, you’re setting yourself up to continue to work much harder than you need to.

Also, most of my clients care about making a bigger difference in the world, and having an e-mail list that you regularly provide value for allows you to expand your energy and your message to many more people and make a bigger impact, even if not all of them become your clients.

What’s the story of how you came up with this program? What was the need that you saw in our community around this? You’ve done if for a few years now it seems.

This is my second year hosting List-a-Palooza, even though I was planning on doing it only once.

In my Big List Big Profits program, I walk people step-by-step through how to automate their marketing and sales online, but there just wasn’t enough time to cover the plethora of traffic generation tactics out there.

My intention was to turn the recordings from List-a-Palooza into a product that I could bundle with the Big List Big Profits program so that once people had their marketing and sales infrastructure set up, they would have lots of great training on how to drive traffic into their automated system.

Well, List-a-Palooza ended up being even more of a hit than I imagined it would be, and I received a flood of requests to do it again.

I had a ton of fun doing List-a-Palooza last year, and this is a topic that I’m super passionate about, so I decided to go ahead and do it again.

I’ve seen how people get dramatically better results with specific training, accountability and the support of a community of like-minded people, so I’ve done my best to provide those key elements through List-a-Palooza.

Can you share the story of how you went about growing your own list? When did you start your business and what were the phases you went through in building your own list, where are you now?

When I first launched my business, I didn’t have an e-mail list or an Opt-In page or anything.  I manually sent e-mails to people I knew, asking them to spread the word about a live event I was doing.

I knew that growing an e-mail list was important so I invested in a program called Constant Contact, which had done-for-you newsletter templates.  

I hired someone to help me get my newsletter out, and I just couldn’t crank out content fast enough so it was hard to get the newsletter going out consistently, and eventually, I gave up on it.

My big breakthrough came when I created the Client Attraction Blueprint system that I now teach in my Big List Big Profits program.  I created it for my Platinum Mastermind clients to help them organize all of their marketing and sales ideas together in one simple document.

I immediately applied this system to my own business, and the results were life-changing!  I got more done in the next 4 months than I had in the past 4-5 years because that blueprint gave me a level of focus and clarity that I had never experienced before.

When an architect looks at a blueprint, they know what needs to be built in what order and how everything fits together.

Suddenly, I could see my business that way.  Once I saw how my e-mail newsletter fit in to my overall blueprint, I became more inspired and motivated than ever to build my e-mail list and consistently provide value.

I finally got really serious about list-building about 6 years after starting my business.  

I committed to consistently publishing my bi-weekly e-mail newsletter, Prosperity Express.  

Now that I knew that the people joining my list would be consistently receiving value from me, I felt confident in growing my list.

I grew my list from 300 people to over 15,000 using a lot of the tactics we cover in the List-a-Palooza training calls.

What are the biggest blunders people make in growing their list? What are the things you see that make you cringe in people’s list building efforts?

I think the #1 biggest mistake is waiting to get started.

Growing your list is like taking advantage of compound interest.  The earlier you start, the more consistently you make “deposits,” and the longer you nurture your list, the more profitable it will be.

NOT building your list is costing you every day, whether you realize it or not.

It took me 6 years to get serious about building my list… don’t make the same mistake I did.

The #2 biggest mistake is driving traffic only to a “Brochure” type website with a bunch of tabs (Home, About, Blog, Contact, etc.) instead of to an Opt-In Page.

The #3 biggest mistake is only sending out sales and promotions and never providing value for the people on their list.

Here are the things that most make me cringe:

• Seeing entrepreneurs invest $1,000’s on a “Brochure” type website that doesn’t even have an obvious Opt-In Box on it “above the fold” (where people can see it without having to scroll down).

• Receiving e-mails that address me in the second person plural.  For example:  “Hi everyone!  Hi All!  Hi Friends!”  This is obviously a mass e-mailing, and I’m unlikely to read the message. Instead, I recommend addressing people in the second person singular.  If you’re e-mail program can’t mail merge my first name in to the e-mail so that it says “Hi PJ!” at least write something that feels a bit more personal like “Hi there!” or just “Hello!”

• E-mails that are formatted as huge blocks of text all the way across the screen because they are very difficult to read.  I recommend formatting your e-mails in short columns for easy reading.

Your 90 day challenge has the claim of ‘add ten thousand people to your list in 90 days’. That seems very bold! I’m curious, what would already need to be in place for someone for that to be a doable goal?

I offer that specific challenge to inspire the participants and get them into action right away.

I was actually shocked how many people joined List-a-Palooza last year that were just getting started with their e-mail lists.

In that case, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll add 10,000 people in 90 days.  

However, many of the participants last year were still absolutely thrilled to have doubled, tripled or quadrupled their smaller lists.

In order to hit the goal of 10,000 new subscribers in 90 days, I believe that you need one or more of the following:

#1 – Time AND “Know How”: One of our List-a-Palooza speakers last year shared her exact strategy for adding 10,000 people to her list in only 45 days using Pinterest.  She knew what she was doing and invested a significant amount of time and energy in pulling this off. Another speaker last year talked about how to drive tons of traffic to your website for free with Deal Sites (like Groupon or Living Social).

#2 - Money to Invest in Paid Advertising: Over 1100 people joined List-a-Palooza last year from Facebook ads, and I’m challenging myself to add 15,000 people from paid advertising this year.

The key to paid advertising is TRACKING the results from each ad.  It’s amazing how wildly the results can vary from ad to ad.  I create a separate tracking link for each ad I run so that I can quickly increase the ad budget if it’s performing well or stop the ad if it’s not performing well.

It also helps to have something under $100 to sell right after people opt in so that you can calculate the ROI on your ads right away.

When people opt in for List-a-Palooza, I offer them the chance to get the List-Building Success Kit with all the recordings for an astounding 90% off.

Not only does this provide exceptional value for the investment and build tremendous good will, it also lets me know right away which ads are working and which aren’t.

When you do it this way, paid advertising doesn’t have to cost a lot.  You can start out with $5-$10 and go from there.

#3 - Powerful Relationships & Connections

If you are launching a new teleseminar or webinar or hosting a tele-summit (a series of interviews) and you have strong relationships with strategic alliances and or affiliates, you can add 10,000 people to your list in under 90 days by having them promote your launch.

For example, I just spoke on Vrinda Normand’s tele-summit, and over 11,000 people opted in for that event.

The point is…

Whether someone is just starting out or whether they already have a large list, I believe that “What you focus on expands,” and by focusing on building their lists for 90 days, especially with all of the resources they receive through List-a-Palooza, they’ll move forward MUCH FASTER!

And, then how do you do it? How does one go from adding a few people every week to thousands? What do you see as the most effective strategies for building ones list? 

Here are the 3 phases of list-building as I see them…

PHASE 1:  Getting Started

When you’re just starting out, I recommend reaching out to your sphere of influence and inviting them to receive your special newsletter or tips (whatever valuable free goody you offer on an ongoing basis). 

Here are some places to start:

• Stacks of business cards you’ve collected
• Contacts in Gmail (or whatever e-mail provider you have)
• People in your cell phone
• Facebook friends
• LinkedIn connections

Send them an e-mail message to reconnect, inviting them to opt in to your list.  I share some specific templates for this in my free report, “How to Jumpstart Your E-mail List.”

By the way, you need PERMISSION to add someone to your e-mail list.  Otherwise, it’s considered spam.  When someone gives you their business card, it does NOT mean they’ve opted in to your list (unless they specifically say, “Here’s my card… please add me to your list.”)

PHASE 2:  Launching

Just like a rocket uses most of its fuel to get off the ground, adding the first 1,000 people to your list is the hardest, in my opinion.

You can accelerate your results in this stage by asking for referrals, regularly posting on social media, public speaking, attending networking events, and investing in paid advertising, like Facebook ads. 

If you’re really ambitious, you can add hundreds or thousands of people to your list in a relatively short period of time by hosting a tele-summit where the speakers that you’re interviewing help promote the event. 

PHASE 3:  Leverage

As your list gets bigger and bigger, it’s easier to find strategic alliances and affiliates with bigger lists to promote you and vice versa.

Once you have an online sales funnel that converts well, it’s less scary to invest more money in paid advertising as well.

Who are the top three email lists (excluding our own) that you think really embody the principles you teach?

Tracey Lawton

I stumbled upon her website online and opted in to her list because she was offering a free goody that I thought was valuable.  Her e-mail newsletter captured my attention with good subject lines and useful articles, and I eventually purchased one of her programs.

She did a great job of building relationship with me through her e-mail newsletter, even though we had no previous connection. 

Since then, we’ve promoted each other to our respective lists with great results.

I was so impressed that I invited her to speak on List-a-Palooza.  

Kendall SummerHawk

http://www.kendallsummerhawk.com

She also does a great job of consistently providing a lot of value through her e-mail newsletter.

She spoke on List-a-Palooza last year and the training she offered was fabulous.

RC Peck

https://www.fearlesswealth.com/

It took me 10 years to find a financial planner that I could whole-heartedly recommend to my clients, and RC is it.  He has also built a large e-mail list and a very loyal following (he’s sharing about how he did it on List-a-Palooza this year).

I really appreciate his regular Market Situation Reports and that he provides them in both video and transcription form.

What would you consider to be a good open rate and click thru rate these days for emails?

I think a decent open rate to shoot for is 20%.  As for click thru rate, it really depends on the offer so I don’t have a specific rule for that.

Do you think that building an email list is where it’s at these days? It seems like there are so many email lists to be on and I know it’s overwhelming for me (and I’m in the business!). Where do you see email fitting into the larger picture of ‘staying in touch’ with clients? There are so many options for social media now too.

Yes, I do.  Many people change their physical address more often than their e-mail address these days.  They’re still opening and responding to e-mail.

And just because they’re on your e-mail list doesn’t mean that e-mail is the only way you can communicate with them.  I also use text messaging (for people who request it), voice broadcasts, and regular snail mail. 

Also, you can use your e-mail list to create a “Custom Audience” for Facebook ads so that only people on your e-mail list see that particular ad.

During List-a-Palooza, we do weekly “Power Hours” to help build each other’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest followings, too.

Ultimately, it’s not about e-mail specifically.  It’s about taking amazing care of and providing exceptional value for your “tribe” in a way that’s also scalable for you so that you can make a big difference without burning out in the process.

You’ve also built a pretty incredible following on Facebook, could you share anything about how you’ve gone about that?

It started with a shift in consciousness…  

Most people use their Fan Pages to talk about themselves and promote their stuff.  Until the middle of last year, my Facebook page was all about me… what I was up to, what events I had going on, and so on.

Then one of my mentors advised me to stop making my page about me, and start making it about THEM (the people who like my page).

People go on Facebook to feel connected and be entertained (not to find out about your latest teleclass).

Give them what they want with funny, cute, beautiful and interesting posts, and they’ll give you what you want (likes, comments, shares, opt-ins, and sales).

So a lot of my posts have nothing to do with my business.  I post pictures that make me laugh (like kittens in tea cups).  

I know that some social media experts out there teach exactly the opposite and would sneer at me for suggesting such a thing…

But this has made my Fan Page go viral, and these cute and funny posts keep my engagement high so that when I do post about my business, people actually see those posts.

What most people don’t know is that Facebook tracks the “Virality” of every single post and expresses it as a percentage of how many people liked, commented, or shared out of the total number of people that saw that post.

If even one post has under 2% virality, Facebook stops showing your posts to as many people, even though they’ve liked your page!

That’s why most Fan Pages in our industry have NOTHING going on… it’s like a graveyard, which is heartbreaking because the owners of these pages have put all this time, effort, and possibly even money into growing these pages, and it’s they’re not going anywhere.

If this has happened to your page, you can build the engagement and “Virality” back up by posting some viral images (feel free to recycle some of the images on my Fan Page) and investing a few dollars in promoting those posts (click “Promote Now” in the bottom right of the post). 

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To check out PJ’s upcoming List-a-Palooza click here.

It’s a good note to remember: the confused mind says no. And here’s another one: very few people will work very hard at all to understand you.

As I tried to understand it more, I found myself overwhelmed with jargon: permaculture, stacking functions, obtaining many yields from a single element in a system, systems analysis, Micro-Energy Generating Garage Assembly, Geodesic domes, Growing Dome, environmental footprint, Climate Battery, environmental impact, subterranean heating and cooling system (SHCS). closed-loop, zero-waste systems, aquaponics and aeroponics.

Some of those terms I understood. Some I didn’t. Taken in together it felt overwhelming. And I had no idea how it all tied together or what it even was.

Until we sat down together and he told me the URL: www.foodgarage.ca

Food Garage? Oh! Suddenly this was all beginning to click.

What do they do at the Food Garage? They turn your garage into a year round grocery store that could feed a family of four.

And a grocery store that is powered by green energy.

I immediately got it.

Now, the MEGGA Watt project had had a tagline: The Rise of the Food Garage but, amazingly, I totally didn’t catch that.

Lessons:

1) Choose a name that is simple for people to understand. If it’s not totally clear, at least make sure it doesn’t send a different message entirely. A nice thing about this name is that it names the two main things involved and it’s also an oxymoron – it combines two things that normally don’t go together which is often compelling for people and evokes curiousity. And the name also speaks to the result people get – your garage will produce food. Such a simple idea!

2) Make sure the relevance of what you’re offering is clear. Don’t get lost in the technicalities of HOW you deliver that result up front – first make sure they understand the result they’ll get and the problem you’ll solve if they work with you. See if you can sum it up in seven words or less. ‘Turning Your Garage into a Grocery Store’. Easy. Once they understand that, the details all just help to build the case of how you can get them where they want to go. If you read the top of their homepage, I think they’ve really nailed the result they’re offering: 

“You’re about to find out how to turn your garage into a veritable organic grocery store that can feed a family of four for an entire year, produce all of the renewable energy you’ll need to do it, learn practical skills that will amaze your friends and family, and seriously increase your property value, all in the comfort of your own backyard.”

3) Cut the Jargon. Whenever possible – eliminate jargon and write at a grade seven level. Get rid of big words in your sales copy. Eventually you’ll need to educate them and use those words. But that’s further down than the initial sales conversation where clarity matters more than anything.

4) Use metaphors. Turning your garage (a real thing) into a grocery store (the metaphor). We understand what a grocery store is and so it can help us picture what the thing is without needing to understand all the technical stuff. 

You can follow them on twitter, like them on facebook and check out their website here.

And you can check out a sweet video explaining the project here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

You have, no doubt, been told to ‘charge what you’re worth.’

No matter where I go, there is a conversation to be had on this. If you’re on many email lists you’ll see this idea being exhorted frequently. And I’d like to share my concerns with it.

First of all, let me say this: I am a big fan of right livelihood. I love seeing people be able to be paid for doing what they love and are gifted at. I hate seeing people charge so much less than they really need and struggling. I hate seeing people give away their work for free and then not being able to pay their bills. I think a lot of people need to raise their prices a bit (and some a lot).

And I hate seeing people charge so much more than they need to get the ‘maximum profit’.

So, you’d think I’d be a natural fan of ‘charging what we’re worth’.

But I’m really not. 

Here’s my take: I think that the notion of charging what you’re worth is bullshit.

We see this all over the place with statements of ‘Don’t you deserve to earn six figures?’ or ‘You work so hard! Don’t you deserve to take that trip to Hawaii?’ A sense of entitlement constantly being fed that we deserve more than we’re getting. If we’re not earning the kind of money we’d like to earn it’s often framed as evidence that we don’t believe in our worth enough. But this is where it gets sticky. We are all worthy of having our needs met. We all deserve that (and, sadly, a lot of people don’t believe they are entitled to having their needs met). But we don’t deserve whatever we want (including other people’s money) just because we feel good about ourselves.

But, for the most part, I want to suggest that the whole notion of connecting our worth to the amount of money we charge or earn is a mistake. I think it does far more harm than good. I think it make us neurotic because it reinforces the idea that our deepest worth as a person is, in any way, connected to the amount of money we should charge. It has us look constantly at our own reflection is the mirror vs. out into the real world and our impact on others.

After all, when you hire someone to do something for you, are you paying them for their inherent value as a person or for the self-serving results they bring to you?

Imagine a contractor doing a crap job of the renovations on your house and finishing way over budget and months late (and then leaving a huge mess behind him). You’re infuriated. You refuse to pay what he’s asking, and his response is, ‘Hey! I’m worth it.’ He’s missing the point. This isn’t about his value as a person. It’s about the value you did or did not receive. Period. That’s the only factor in what you pay him.

The Dalai Lama is a wonderful man. But I don’t think I’d hire him as my contractor.

And my contractor might be a miserable bastard . . . who’s so good that he’s worth every penny he charges. 

To go a cut deeper: The Dalai Lama isn’t worth any more as a person than that sonnovabitch contractor. 

So, any focus on our worth as a person misses, I think, the whole point of what we charge. 

Like most things in business, we tend to get caught up in looking at it from our own point of view, rather than the point of view of the client. From their point of view, they could care less about ‘your worth’. They just really don’t think about it that much. If at all. 

But it goes deeper.

After all, if someone charges more than you, does that make them worth three times more than you as a person?

I charge $300/hour for my personal coaching. Does that make my time inherently half as valuable as someone who charges $600/hour? Or is it just the amount that felt right for me to charge given my lifestyle, gut feeling and business model?

Terms of ‘financial net worth’ are often used in the financial industry. We hear news anchors report that, “Warren Buffett is worth $billions!” But is he worth that or is that simply his net financial assets. When we don’t have money, we say ‘I’m broke’ as if there were some relationship between our personal level of brokenness and money. When people work minimum wage jobs, they might be told, ‘you’re worth more than that!’

But are we actually worth more than the others working with us?

Is a person worth more because they’re wealthier? Is Donald Trump’s life worth more than Gandhi’s?

I imagine a modern day marketing guru speaking to Martin Luther King Jr’s mother and saying, ‘Why just be a stay at home mom? You’re thinking to small! Stop trading your time for dollars. You need leverage if you want to make a real difference in the world. Stop doing the one to one model of raising your son. What you really want to do is the one to many model. Don’t you value your time? Isn’t your time worth more than that? So, hire a nanny and start building your business so you can be an empowered woman. What if you started teaching workshops on how to be a social justice leader and converted the attendees into a high end coaching package on how to be more effective at social change? You could create info products and sell those via mail order and make millions! And think of how much bigger an impact you’d have on the world with all that money and with that size of following!’

Of course, sadly for all humanity, because she thought so small and didn’t value her time, all she did was raise up Martin Luther King Jr. to be the man he was.  So sad for all of us. 

Another way to look at this: if you stop doing work that pays money are you worth less? 

Even more so: if you have no money (or worse are deep in debt) are you worth any less as a person?

If you choose to take a path that has you earn less money than you could have – is that always a sign of low self esteem? Maybe you have the skill set to be a badass corporate CEO but you choose to spend your time on your art and running a non-profit doing radical work that challenges the basis of the economy and doesn’t pay you well. Is this a sign that you don’t value your time? Or is it a sign that, perhaps, you value something even more than your individual life?

What if your service is legitimately worth far more than people can afford to pay you?

Of course, this can get slippery. 

Some people tend to genuinely collapse emotionally and walk through life as if everyone else’s needs matter more than their own. They become doormats.

Other people posture and walk through life blind to the needs of others.

Neither of those is healthy.

Ideally, we are in a composed place of valuing the needs of others as well as our own equally. Isn’t that the heart of democracy and good relationships? That we all matter equally?

So, what is your time worth?

Imagine you had only a week to live. Could you put a pricetag on that time. If someone offered you a billion for a day – with the caveat that you had to spend it on yourself alone – would you take it? Isn’t our time on this planet invaluable? You don’t know how much longer you have on this planet.

And what about the gifts you have to offer. If you offer healing, isn’t that invaluable? Isn’t helping someone heal heartache, end their fights in their marriage become a better parent . . . isn’t that invaluable? How does one put a price tag on this? And yet, would you pay someone an infinity of money for ‘healing’? Just because the essence of something is profoundly worthy doesn’t mean that you can charge whatever you want.

If I offered you a billion dollars to remove all your memories of your time with your one true love – would you take it?

How on Earth do we put a price on these things?

This entire economy seems hell bent on putting a price tag on everything so we can profit from it. One could argue that the core of the economy (credit to Derrick Jensen on this notion) is about converting living things into dead thing. We turn mountain tops into pop cans, trees into paper and people into numbers. If we can kill it, we can control it which means we can sell it and profit from it. Life can’t be controlled so easily. But if we can’t control and own something and put a pricetag on it, does that mean it has no value?

Do the forests have no value on their own? Does land have no value unless it is developed? Does the work of mothers around the world have no economic value? Are the oceans only useful to us as long as they have fish? Is water only valuable so long as we can bottle it and sell it?

In Starhawk’s brilliant book The Fifth Sacred Thing she speaks to the notion of earth, air, fire/energy, water and spirit being the five things that no one can or should own because they are the forces that create and sustain all life. They are beyond any monetary value. After all, without them, what does the economy matter?

So, if your life, your time on this Earth and your unique gifts are invaluable . . . how does one put a price tag on them? How does one ascribe worth to something that is worthy beyond measure? There’s a difference between the value of the essence of what you’re doing and the particular form you offer it in. Healing might be priceless but I’m not paying you a million dollars for a massage. 

Outside of the essential economic and activist work of protecting ‘the commons’ (earth, air, fire/energy, water and spirit) and making sure that nobody ever owns them and nobody ever even tried to privatize or put a price tag on them,  it seems to me that we do it by taking inherent worth out of the picture entirely.

We stop trying to put a price tag on our value as a person and we start asking ourselves what price makes sense given the lifestyle we want to have, what our real needs are, the amount that would feel good and genuinely sustain us and be accessible to our ideal clients. It also takes into consideration what others are charging and how much demand there is for what you’re offering. 

What you charge has nothing (precisely zero) to do with what you’re worth as a person and everything (100%) to do with the value people perceive they’re getting in what you’re offering. Period. That’s it.

How to set your price is a topic for another blog, but I can promise that taking your inherent self worth out of the picture will make the process a lot clearer for you.

In my world, pricing is a practical consideration worth your time to deeply consider, but it’s got nothing to do with what you’re worth. 

And even fewer pleasures greater than when it’s two of the dearest people you know succeeding in one of the most beautiful projects.

My dear friend Ocean Robbins and his father John Robbins (author of Diet for a New America, The Food Revolution and many others) are now working together to create, for the second year in a row, The Food Revolution Summit – a tele-summit dedicated to exploring the cutting edge of what’s happening around food issues globally from the lenses of health, politics and philosophy (and from the most trusted advocates and experts of our time).

Ocean and I have worked together, on and off, for the past 18 years with the group he co-founded Youth for Environmental Sanity. He started out speaking to hundreds of thousands of students in high schools across North America, and then lead summer camps, and then gatherings of leading young changemakers and now is focusing almost entirely on growing this new social enterprise with his father. I couldn’t be happier for them.

This is a fine example of how to become a hub.

You can get more info on the summit here. 

And what follows is my interview with Ocean about The Food Revolution Summit from a marketing lense.

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What’s the response been so far?

More than 30,000 people from 100+ countries participated in the first Food Revolution Summit, and response was amazing. Our affiliates were thrilled with the results, too. One person mailed to his list of 50,000, and wound up earning more than $10,000. And since the summit, our list has continued to expand. Popular blog posts and an online petition calling for labeling of GMOs have drawn us lots of attention. Our list is now more than 80,000.

What’s the story of how this came about? What was the need you saw in the community that it emerged from?

Our food chain is in crisis. Big agribusiness has made profits more important than your health — more important than the environment — more important than your right to know how your food is produced. Large-scale industrial agribusiness is controlling an expanding share of the world’s food supply. They have huge advertising budgets to market highly processed, genetically engineered, chemical-laden, pesticide-contaminated pseudo-foods. Meanwhile, people keep getting sicker. Disease care is now eating up 20% of US GDP, and more and more people are chronically ill.

But beneath the surface, a revolution is growing.

From rural farms to urban dinner plates, from grocery store shelves to state ballot boxes, people are rising up and taking action. We’re reclaiming our food systems and our menus, and we’re taking responsibility for our health.

Today there’s a huge and growing demand for food that is organic, sustainable, fair trade, non-GMO, humane, and healthy. In cities around the world, we’re seeing more and more farmer’s markets, and more young people getting back into farming. Grocery stores (even big national chains) are displaying local, natural and organic foods with pride. The movements for healthy food are growing fast, and starting to become a political force.

Can you share a few examples of how your project works?

The Food Revolution Summit: Over the course of nine days, we gather together leading insights from some of the world’s brilliant scientists, doctors and nutritionists. We conduct 24 inspiring, galvanizing and deeply informative interviews, and broadcast those interviews worldwide. Folks can listen for free to the interviews, online or through teleconference. They can also purchase an optional Empowerment Package that gave them downloadable recordings, transcripts, and a whole collection of bonus items, for a fee. Sales of the Empowerment Package cover program costs and also inspire affiliates to promote the summit to their lists, since they can earn up to 50% of any resultant downstream sales. We offer a free service widely, we earn enough to make the program profitable and to make it a win for our promotional partners, and we offer real value every step of the way.

Who do you find it’s working best for?

A survey found that our 2012 Food Revolution Summit participants were highly motivated, and the majority were 40 and 50-something women. There was strong international representation, with a majority in the United States and Canada. Many of them already know that our food system is messed up, they’ve already eliminated most junk food, white bread, and trans fats from their diet. They already know that their food choices affect animals and the planet. But they’re frustrated with the world around them. They want to be armed with the facts so they can become effective spokespeople and advocates. They want to know how to influence people, how to help their families and loved ones be less sick, and even how to change government policy to stop tilting the playing field to favor the pesticide and junk food companies over family farms and healthy foods.

How did you promote this in the beginning? What were the top three most successful approaches at the start of it?

We lined up great speakers. That was enabled by the fact that my dad and colleague, John Robbins, is a bestselling author in this field, and literally wrote the book, “The Food Revolution”, in 2001. So we had strong content and some degree of prominence to start things off.

Then we created strong, authentic and effective landing page and sales copy. This is not something that came easily to me. I needed a lot of help, and was lucky enough to find good people who could offer it. It doesn’t matter how many people click on your page, if it doesn’t motivate them to sign up and to take the next steps. Also affiliates won’t want to promote a page unless they think it is well done.

Third, we reached out to affiliates who had shared values and big lists, and invited them into partnership. By offering them the chance to promote a great project, that was smartly presented, and giving them half of any resultant revenues while offering to do all the followup sales path work so they could just promote the free summit, we made it easy for them to say yes.

What are the top three most effective ways you’ve found to market this?

Affiliates.

Good copy.

Focusing mostly on content with our list, so we offer lots of stuff for free, and are clearly driven by mission first. This is our integrity, and it’s also building trust.

What are the three biggest lessons you’ve learned along the way?

Writing good sales copy is a skill set. There’s a lot that’s been learned about it. We aren’t born with it, and for most of us, it doesn’t come intuitively, either.

Combining awesome free content with a strong opt-in hook is a great way to build a list. A big list of engaged, inspired, and interested people is a powerful force for social change and for business success.

Affiliates represent an awesome way to turn the competition into partners.

At its heart, what is this project/business really about for you? (beyond money, status and such).

Large-scale industrialized food production is wreaking havoc on our forests, topsoil, air, water, and climate. Farm animals are being treated with tremendous cruelty, and farm workers are often exploited. Genetically engineered “Frankenfoods” are being released, inadequately tested, into the food supply on a vast scale. Meanwhile, people are eating more and more artificial food — and getting fatter and sicker. In fact, more people are chronically ill today than at any time in the history of the world.

Our goal is to offer a diverse, gourmet, tasty and nutrient-rich powerhouse of resources that’s designed to help people move from being medical time bombs to health superstars, and from frustrated spectators to empowered agents of change.

I’m also motived by the fact that I love food. I love eating it, I love preparing it, and I love sharing it with other people. Throughout the world, “breaking bread” together, or sharing a meal together, is an act of connection. Food bonds us to the world, to culture, and to one another.

When we bring more consciousness to our relationship with food, we improve our health, and we contribute to a more healthy, humane, sustainable and beautiful world.

What’s the next level for your project? What are you most excited about that’s coming up?

The 2013 Food Revolution Summit runs April 27-May 5, and it’s going to be our best one yet!

We’ve compiled a book of interviews from the Food Revolution Summit, and edited them to make for a strong and cohesive flow. Voices of the Food Revolution will be published in June, 2013.

We’re also developing online courses, and offering free weekly emails to our growing list, with action alerts, practical tools, inspiration and information to contribute to the food revolution.

If people want to find out more about your project, support it or get involved – what should they do?

Join us at http://www.foodrevolution.org, or sign up for our free 2013 Food Revolution Summit at http://www.foodrevolution.org/summit

Anything else you’d like to add?

We wish you radiant health, abundant joy, and a life filled with meaning. And we wish you good, delicious, nourishing food. If you’d like to become an affiliate and earn a modest amount of money while helping spread the word, you can sign up here: http://www.foodrevolution.org/affiliate

Bon Appetit, food revolutionaries!

And, one of the fastest and most powerful ways to become a hub in your community is to gather the existing hubs together.

When you do this, everyone wins. You win because you are now known by all your key hubs. Your hubs win because they get to connect with each other. The community wins because a community with well connected hubs works better. 

On October 20th, 2012 sixty of Edmonton’s baddest ass do gooders got together for a day of networking and community building at The Good Hundred Experiment (which was naturally followed by the Good Hundred Party).

It’s an event I was co-organizing with my colleague Nadine Riopel, author of The Savvy Do Gooder as a project of The Local Good (a project I co-run in Edmonton).

The Story of The Good Hundred Experiment . . .

Here’s how it came to be: In the spring of 2012, there was an election on in Alberta.

In early 2012, a group of young people in Edmonton decided they wanted their generation to be more informed and involved. They planned a viewing party for the leadership debate; something that many 20 and 30 somethings would be unlikely to check out on their own, and even less likely to discuss with friends.

By making it a social event at a bar, they got over 70 young people to show up, pay attention, and talk it over. They made it cool and easy to engage in the political process. They achieved their goal of creating more politically active young adults.

Seeing this, Nadine was inspired. It reminded her that there were many ways to do good, and many amazing people finding their own paths to the change they wanted to see in the world every day. She decided that she wanted to take a closer look at some of these folks, and at how they were generating such fantastic results.

So she started the Edmonton Do Gooder Project to profile several amazing local do-gooders and their work. One of the first people on her list was me.

Hearing about the project, I was struck by how many do gooders I’ve seen making positive things happen, in different sectors and using different approaches. But many of them don’t know each other. Living in the same city; sometimes even working on the same issues.

So many moments of, “how do you not know this person?!”

And I’ve seen how so many are struggling to get over the same hurdles; not enough money, volunteers or resources to get the work done; overwhelm; burnout; and such steep learning curves.

It’s so easy to get stuck in our various silos (e.g. anarchists hang out with anarchists, academics don’t tend to mix with entrepreneurs, etc.).

And I decided to approach Nadine with the idea of bringing these people together for a day of connecting, and of working together to make each do-gooder’s path a little smoother.

And the Good Hundred Project was born.

Seven Community Building Lessons

Lesson #1: Have a clear objective and perspective.

There are few things worse than bringing together a group of amazing people and saying, “We should all do something together. What you do you all think it should be?”

That way lies madness. You can get away with that move once. Maybe twice. But after that your credibility is gone. Those events are largely a waste of people’s time.

It’s far better for the convener to put out the word that, “We’d like to bring _____ kinds of people together to explore ________/ have ________ kind of experience/ learn how to _______.”

Something people can ‘get’ right away.

If no one responds then it’s probably because they didn’t experience that as a real need in their community. If there’s no need, then there’s no need for a gathering. In our case, we saw the need for people to connect outside of their silos to get fresh support and perspectives. It turns out that we weren’t the only ones feeling that need. And so sixty people responded that they were willing and excited to spend $40 and a Saturday to attend.

We wanted to support savvy do gooders in meeting each other. That was our promise.

Ever since I founded the Jams project in 1999, I become convinced of the power of bringing good people together in a good way and trusting that good things will come from that. The Jams started with the wondering of what would happen if we brought together 30 young people for a week (from around the world who were all up to good things and in leadership roles in their communities) without a lot of guest speakers. Just letting them connect with each other.

“What are your outcomes? What are the deliverables from this?” funders would ask us. “Will there be a declaration from the youth of the world? A statement of priorities? A new network?”

“Nope,” we replied. “Just friendships. And trust. And we trust that good things will come from that over time.”

And it did. There have no been over 100 Jams in many countries. Those week long gatherings have resulted in dozens of new projects, some new organizations and hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding going towards good things in communities that, formerly, had not had access to those resources.

We had a clear objective: help Edmonton’s savviest do gooders be even more effective in what they do by connecting them with each other. Simple. We knew that through conversations with each other and just knowing about each other’s work and the resources available to them, they’d be more effective in what they do. Our belief is that by having a more strongly and tightly woven community of do gooders that, over time, this would lead to more conversations and collaborations that could help more good to be done in Edmonton.

Lesson #2: Pick your people carefully.

Over the years, I’ve learned that, outside of a clear intention based on a need in the community, 90% of an events success is about who you invite.

A big reason is that, the major reason that people decide to come to any event is because of who will be there. Especially when you’re talking about bigger movers and shakers. The busier people get, the more jealously they guard their time. If someone’s a hub they do not want their time wasted. But, if they know that the event is going to be full of people they’re inspired by and want to hang out with, they’re more likely to come.

That’s why we created an RSVP page where folks could see the photos and bios of who was coming. We updated it regularly. We wanted people to know clearly with whom they’d be spending their precious day.

It’s important to be really clear about who your event is for and to not imagine that it’s for everyone. We kept the Good Hundred Experiment secret because we wanted to make sure that we were picking people we thought would be a fit for the event – people who would add something to the conversation, as well as gain something from it. We wanted people who either had a proven track record of do gooding or were onto a really good idea and pursuing it with a lot of hustle. We wanted the attendee list to be a list that had us feel inspired to show up.

This also has a lot to do with respect, I think. Respecting the time of the people you’re inviting. Inviting the right people sets up the day to be a success.

And so, after months and months of hand picking, inviting and following up with some of Edmonton’s finest – the day finally arrived.

Lesson #3: Have a Clear Schedule and Structure, But Don’t OverSchedule

This is the hardest thing to summarize.

If the focus of the day is clear, it’s much easier to create the schedule and flow of the event.

Our focus felt very clear: help savvy do gooders in Edmonton meet each other.

Period.

So, we created a schedule and structure of the day that we thought would best facilitate that.

We started at 9am (on a Saturday. #whatwasithinking?).

People arrived, got some tea and coffee and immediately began to look at the wall full of photos and bios of the participants we’d put up (pictured right). In fact, people kept coming back to it throughout the day. When you’re designing an event, it’s not always just about the ‘schedule’ but about the structural and environmental pieces you put in place for people to connect.

The wall of bios became a way people could learn about each other without having to talk directly to the person.

We created the #good100 hashtag for twitter which people used to tweet all day.

We made sure that people sat with new people regularly.

Think ‘structure’ not just ‘content’.

Throughout the day and afterwards I heard many people voice a feeling of intimidation, ‘how did I get invited here?’ That’s how you know you’ve got the right people – they’re so inspired by each other. #goodnews.

We began with some hello’s and welcomes from Nadine and myself and then immediately invited people to people into groups of six with people they didn’t know and then gave them three minutes each to introduce themselves answering five simple questions (name, project name, what your project does, what’s coming up next for you and what you want to talk about today). Simple.

After 15 minutes, they did it again with another group of six. After the second circle, someone tweeted, “only ninety minutes in to the event and I’ve already got my money’s worth”.

Remember: our stated goal was to help savvy do gooders network. People signed up for that promise. And then we delivered on that promise.

During the day I saw so many people, who’ve been doing good Edmonton for years and years, meeting each other for the first time. I heard important conversations that I know will lead to inspiring projects in the years to come. We’re building a fertile soil of trust and letting seeds be planted so that collaboration isn’t forced or pressured but happens organically.

After the small group introductions, participants got into groups of three and each member of the triad got 25 minutes of coaching from the other two participants. This was based on the metaphor of their project being like a boat taking their communities from Island A to Island B.

The two people coaching were under strict instructions to offer no advice to their colleague for the first 20 minutes. Their only job was to ask questions, be curious and listen. I think we often jump to advice too soon.

They asked questions like, “Why do you do what you do? What is your vision for your community (Island B)? Where is your community now (Island A)? What’s your project (the boat)? And why do you do your work the way you do it? (the map)”.

At the end of the 20 minutes they were left with a much clearer sense of the persons project. And then they had five minutes to share their very best, hard won wisdom from years of doing their own projects.

For a lot of the participants, this was the highlight of the day.

We then had lunch where people were invited to eat with some new people. They found those people by reaching into the brown paper bag which held their catered lunch and pulling out a small, wooden, puzzle piece sized toy. Some people had balls, some had butterflies, some had fishes. I had lunch with a cool bunch of fishes.

And, in the afternoon, we broke off into the themes of work that folks were most passionately working on (e.g. local food, community building, women’s empowerment). This was probably the least successful and most challenging part of the day as we didn’t give very clear instructions on how to have that conversation. That was a good reminder about the importance of giving a clear intention and structure. Our intention was vague and we gave no instructions on how to have the conversation. That ended up being frustrating for many.

That was followed by breaking out into groups based around ‘burning questions’ that people wanted to explore during the day with each other (see photo on right).

I joined in on the discussion around ‘how do we make our projects diverse and accessible’ which, for me, lifted up some excited ideas for the future of the Good Hundred Experiment.

Lesson #4: Uniqueness is not a weakness. Diversity makes us stronger.

To quote participant Waymatea Ellis, “Uniqueness is not a weakness.”

I worked as hard I could to make the event as diverse as possible (in terms of age, gender, ethnic background, type of work etc.).

I believe that diversity gives us more points of view. It makes us wiser and our solutions better. It helps complicate things in the most wonderful way. It gives our projects and perspective subtle nuances they would never have had before.

The group we had was amazing and fairly diverse and I’m excited about the possibility of have more young people, more ethnic diversity and also to have more funders, foundations and granting agencies present so we can start connect the people with access to the money to those who most need that money.

It’s easy to get trapped in our silos and have our events be only activists, only white people, only the hip hop scene . . . but our communities can be explicit without being exclusive. They can be clear in themselves and honour the unique gifts they have to bring and their unique natures but also build bridges with other communities.

I think that bridges make communities richer.

Lesson #5: Representative Leadership.

What’s clear to me is that, if we want the next event to be more diverse, we can’t simply invite a more diverse crowd, we have to have the leadership of the Good Hundred Experiment be representative of the communities we want to attract. They need to be involved in the design of the next event (which we hope will be a two day event) the selection of participants and the facilitation.

To have an all white facilitation team try to run an event for a group that’s majority people of colour, or an all male facilitation team running an event for women, or an all straight team running a healing workshop for the LGBTQ community, or a group of billionaires being the only facilitators of a program for those who are struggling financially . . . wouldn’t be optimal.

Recently in the United States there was a panel of women’s reproductive health issues . . . without a single woman on it.

Barack Obama is the first black president and that brought out people to vote who had never voted in their lives because they’d never seen their own interests or community represented.

When we started the Jams project, the first event was a fairly diverse mix of participants with four white, North American facilitators and one facilitator from Mali. But, after a few years, the groups are far more diverse and so are the organizing and facilitation teams. The facilitation seems to represent the people in the communities which makes everything easier. And the diversity adds an intelligence and richness to the design of the event – more heads are better than one.

I have consistently found that when I facilitated with others who came from different backgrounds of race, class, gender etc. – they noticed dynamics in the group that I was 100% oblivious to – hadn’t clocked it at all. But they caught it. Which allowed us to adapt and respond beautifully.

There’s nothing more welcoming than to see that the leadership of a group putting on your event has someone who looks like you, comes from your background and who represents you. It relaxes you.

In our table exploring this theme of diversity, we talked about how even the venue one chooses can affect how welcome and excited people are to come to your event. An organizer of the Latin American Film Festival had noticed that the Edmonton Latin Community wasn’t that excited about coming to the U of A for the festival, ‘It’s so far! I always get lost! I don’t know my way around!’ they would tell him. A member of the community is more likely to know these things and save you from expensive mistakes. 

It’s also one of the reasons that niching around your past wounds and struggles is so powerful. You’re a native to the territory, not a tourist. Whenever I see people choosing target markets they have no background in, I know they’re in for a steep learning curve. They will have to learn the language, tastes, values, point of view and so much more of the community they’ve chosen to serve before they get anywhere. If you want to be a in a position of leadership in a community, it helps if you’re from that community. If you’re wanting to create an event serving multiple communities – make sure that the leadership of the event is representative of that.

When your following looks at you and your team, they should be able to see themselves in you.

Lesson #6: Celebration!

It can be easy to get caught up in work, work, work.

But so much of the glue that holds communities together comes from informal socialization and celebration. Parties. Potlucks. Picnics. Gatherings with no agenda other than to enjoy each others company.

The evening of our event was the Good Hundred Party. While the day had been invite only – the evening was open to everyone to come. In the end, we had about 100 of Edmonton’s finest do gooders and community members.

I saw many good folks catching up after months of being out of touch and new connections being made.

By the end of the night, I had completely lost my voice and left while the party was still bumping knowing that folks were still weaving itself just fine without me.

It’s an exciting time for the Edmonton do gooding community. The more we get to know each other, the more possibilities there are for collaboration. And the more we work together, the happier we’ll be.

Lesson #7: Reflection – Bringing in the Harvest

Make sure you take time regularly to reflect on your event. What went well? What went poorly? Ask for feedback.

At the end of the Good Hundred Experiment, we passed out index cards and invited everyone to write down, on one side, any reflections they had one the day – what they loved, what they’d change, what they’d love to see next time etc. On the other side, we asked them to write down the specific names of everyone who they wanted to see there next time. Many of these names were completely new to us.

Sit down and reflect on your event and harvest the learnings from it to make sure your next event is even better. Write it all down and make clear outlines for activities so that you can give them to any facilitator in the future and have them run it succesfully. Reflection can allow you to scale what you’re doing so it doesn’t just rely on you. It allows you to create checklists, outlines and instructions so that others could step in and have a successful experience. That’s how things grow.

If you try to do it all yourself and you aren’t willing to learn from your experiences your efforts will become stale quickly and you will burn out.

For more reflections on the day . . .

To read reflections from other participants you can go to Nadine Riopel’s blog post You Are Not Alone, Deborah Merriam’s blog post or to the Natural Urban Mama’s blog post.

To see more photos from the day click here.

To read a storify account of the day from the point of view of Twitter click here.

To read a storify account of the party from the point of view of Twitter click here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’d been hearing about Kelly Tobey for years.

He’s a leading figure in the Calgary personal growth scene. And then recently, while preparing for my Niching for Hippies course I saw that he was leading a workshop called ‘Shifting From Wounds to Assets”. And it reminded me of the blog post I’d written about wounds as niche. People struggle for years with their niche and often discover that their best niche is a younger version of them.

What followed was an extended interview happening over the space of months via facebook messages. I hope you enjoy it.

*  

Tad: You’re leading a workshop called, “shifting from wounds to assets” what’s it all about?

Kelly: In my journey of working with people for over 20 years one thing has shown itself over and over. From reading some of your writings Tad it seems that you have come across similar patterns. 

The workshop gives people a chance to look at their past wounds with the purpose of getting conscious about what assets have developed from their experiences. Then looking at how they are actually using those assets now and how they can utilize them more in the future if they choose to. 

I have found that many people just view the points of trauma or difficulties in their lives as things they have to get past and do their best to forget about. Instead this approach is one of uncovering any value that was gained and using it, rather than burying the experience entirely.  

In the process of recovering from the places where we have been traumatized or wounded we develop inner strengths and gain wisdom. On a personal level these strengths become assets in our ability to take on life’s challenges that we are faced with. Not only do we now know that we can recover from hurts but we also have tools that can be used to help us move forward with more ease. 

On a relational level we can now offer support, feedback and encouragement to others that are going through similar challenges. Our opportunity to be in service in such a way feeds the soul. It gives a purposefulness to the hard times we have gone through. In studies done on how to create more happiness in our lives, one of the keys to happiness is to be in meaningful service to others. As well it builds a sense of self-value and esteem.  

Tad: What’s the story of this workshop? And what’s your personal connection to this material?

Kelly: I will give you an example from my own life that might bring grounding and clarity to the concepts I am referring to. 

In my family system I had a mother that was overly critical. How that wounded me was that I had very low esteem as I felt no matter how well I did it was never good enough. This led to two major dysfunctional behaviours in me. The first was to go into “people pleasing” always looking for ways to make other people happy in hopes that they would then like me and the criticism would stop. 

The major draw back with that approach to life was that it took me further and further away from my core self. I was not focused on what actions (or non-actions) were true for me at my essence. Instead I was focused on looking for what others wanted. As a result much of the time I was betraying what was true to me. So even when I was getting approval from others for doing what they wanted, my esteem was still being damaged because I was betraying myself. 

This inappropriate sacrifice for others was building an internal anger. Which I tried to bury because nice guy people pleasers were not allowed anger. Eventually this led to the second major dysfunctional behaviour. Tired of sacrificing myself and tired of still getting mother’s criticism no matter how hard I tried to be perfect for her, I flipped over into rebellion.

I attempted to bury my underlying desire to be loved by my mother by pretending that I did not care if she loved me and approved of me or not. And in an attempt to prove it I went into fierce rebellion. Doing anything that I knew would horrify my mother and threaten her good standing with her religious friends.

Again, like with my people pleasing behaviour, there was no discernment about what actions (or non-actions) would be congruent with my essence. My rebellion took me further and further into self-destruction eventually landing me in solitary confinement in prison. 

Eventually, dissatisfied with the results from both of the dysfunctional behaviours I went on a journey of seeking a different path. Gradually I learned new ways of being that were based in being true to the essence of who I am and living a purposeful life that reflects that to the best of my ability. To explain all the steps in that would take a book or two so I will just jump to the results. 

Healing from my own wounds and the resulting dysfunctions called on lots of inner strength and fortitude. I gained a lot of wisdom along the way. I learned tools that I have been able to apply in facing other personal challenges. 

I ended up working in Group Homes with “delinquent” youngsters that had been in trouble with the law or that their parents did not know how to handle. I now had assets to share with these youngsters because of coming out the other side from similar wounds. And I had a depth of compassion and understanding that “book learned” social workers in the Group Home system could only touch on. Plus I was a living example for them, that it is possible to change out of the rebellious behaviours and have a more satisfying life. So I had great results with the youngsters I was working with.

That is an example from one of the many traumas I experienced. 

Although each trauma was different, the layout of working through them was the same, examine how I was wounded, do the recovery work, look at the gifts that evolved, and then utilize those gifts in my life.

So that is my personal connection to this material and why I like to empower others with exploring their own process through these steps. 

Tad:  What is the connection you see between wounds and assets?

Kelly: I think in some ways I have already answered that question. To recap > if we do the work to heal from our wounds it calls up our inner gifts and strengths. Along the journey we pick up wisdom. So the wounds have the potential to lead us into developing assets. 

On the other hand if we just attempt to bury or ignore our wounds, not only do we not develop the potential assets but we are dooming ourselves to living out dysfunctional coping strategies that are driven by the subconscious mind because of the unwillingness to bring it all to conscious awareness for healing. 

For example if I did not have the courage to face the buried pain of being raised with criticism and receiving corporal punishment if I made a mistake, then I would still be running self-destructive people pleasing and/or rebellious behaviours.  

Tad:  Do you see a connection between our wounds and our work in the world?

Kelly: Certainly the assets we gain by working through our wounds can give us great tools to apply in our working lives. 

Here is an example that came out of a recent workshop. I wont use names as I want to respect privacy. 

When he went back to examine some of the old wounding, one of the men in the workshop remembered that he was not allowed to draw and create art because of his parents’ religious beliefs and their belief that art had no value. This set him up to suppress one of his great inner gifts. Eventually an uncle “smuggled” drawing materials to him and encouraged him to draw. So he began to draw again in secrecy late at night with a flashlight under his blankets. 

Through time he did enough work on breaking free of the wounding that as an adult he has been able to use the gained assets to make a living as an artist. Yet it is not in the field of art that he has the highest passion for. 

He was still carrying some of the old wounding when it came to expressing his talents in the field fine arts. Although highly talented in this area, for sometime he has been concerned that if he were to do his fine arts full time that he would then be depending on it for money. He was then concerned that it would cut into the spiritual flow and connection he has with the fine arts.

In the workshop he saw that as a result of the wounding, as a child he had learned that his full passion for art and the spiritual connection to it had to be kept secret (under the blankets). So far he had recovered enough to go into a branch of art that he could make a living at but the possibility of going fully into his fine arts raised subconscious fears planted by the initial wounding. 

How it played out was that so much time was spent on the art he was doing for income that his fine art kept being put aside. Then when he would finally start to spend time with his fine art, he was so hungry for the experience that he would lose sense of time and other commitments. He just loved his spiritually connected experience so much that nothing else would matter. Then when he would finally come out of the fine art experience he would face complaints from the people in his life that had been ignored. His ex-wife had even framed his fine arts as being his “mistress”. His wounded child self was taking the complaints as the same old message > that art was bad. 

So in his workshop exploration he became clearer that of course the fine art was not bad and did not need to get him “in trouble”. He was just unconsciously setting up a replaying of that scenario from his past wounding. The replaying was reinforcing the old message that embracing his fine art fully would lead to punishment. 

With this new found awareness, if he wanted he could use some time management. Portion feeding time for his ongoing desire for the fine arts. By not putting it off for extended periods he would not end up so starved for the experience that he would forget about his other time commitments. 

As a result of these awarenesses he has already started to unravel some of the limitations from the old wounding. Soon after the workshop he was fulfilling a contract to paint a fine art mural on an inside wall of a public building. And told me he was having a blissful experience doing it!! 

Another step towards opening to his fine art becoming more and more visible to the public rather than “hidden under a blanket”. And knowing that receiving acknowledgement and money does not have to take away from the sacred experience > that belief was just an old tape from the past. 

To address your question “Do you see a connection between our wounds and our work in the world?” I would suggest that some of the most deeply satisfying vocations can come from applying the assets we have gained out of the process of healing our wounds. That process can be seen as a training ground for developing our gifts. We are always going to deliver our best work when offering something that parallels our own personal experience. Sure we can bring value into the work place as a result of formal education yet by itself it pales in comparison.

So for example lets look at someone that went through the trauma of car crash and physically damaged their body. Then they were able to heal themselves through an array of nutrients and physical exercises. For them to transmute that experience into a job such as setting up a clinic that specializes in vehicle crash recovery could be very fulfilling. They could share their wisdom from the grounding of their own experience.  Who to relate better to the clients than someone who has travelled a similar path. Someone who can relate closely with empathy and understanding. Someone who can be encouraging through the difficult times and be a living example of the results.  

Tad:  What is the outline of the steps you think people need to go through in order to transform their wounds into gifts?

Kelly: I wont attempt to cover all the possible steps involved as there are a great variety and many of them are dependent on what the wounding was. 

I will touch on some. One is to not bury the wound. If it stays in the subconscious it will not heal. Like a physical cut, you may cover it with a bandage for a while but eventually you need to open the wound to air for it to complete it’s healing. 

Another is to seek help. We may be able to heal some wounds on our own but it is so much quicker when we reach out for help. 

Another key point that eluded me for years is that traumas are going to have an emotional component. For years I attempted to heal wounds in myself and in clients with mind alone. Assuming that we could think ourselves into full recovery. I couldn’t understand why dysfunctional patterns would persist even when we knew mentally that the patterns were not serving. Why did we not just stop the behaviour if we knew better? Finally I came to grips with the fact that traumas have an impact on our emotional body. And that emotions are involved in our behaviours behind the scenes. 

Example: If I wanted to create an intimate partnership but kept running behaviours that pushed people away. With my mind I could analyze the behaviours and see what ones do not work for creating partnership. I could tell myself that I am not going to keep running those behaviours. Yet I may find that try as I might, I could only temporarily stop the behaviours before they came back or they were replaced with other behaviours that pushed potential intimates away. 

If I were to look deeper I may call up memories of past relational traumas. Perhaps I had a break up that involved being betrayed. If I were to acknowledge the underlying emotions I would see that I was deeply hurt by the experience. But perhaps I was raised to not acknowledge feelings of grief. Maybe I got the message of keep a stiff upper lip and move on. So I never went into the feelings of grief, gave them full airtime, or allowed them to be expressed and healed. 

As a result, in the present even though I would consciously want an intimate relationship my subconscious would be doing its best to protect me from getting into another situation where I might fall in love but then be betrayed again and have to feel grief. So my subconscious would make sure that I kept acting out behaviours that would push a potential partner away. Because I had been trained to regard grief as something that needed to be suppressed and feared, I could not risk another event that might activate more grief to add to the grief I was already suppressing.

So without doing the required emotional work I would stay stuck in the effects of the wound.    

Tad:  Can you share three stories of people you’ve worked with and how their wounds were turned into gifts? and what was the impact of that?

Kelly: Hee hee, I guess I got ahead of you as I have given you a couple of examples while responding to earlier questions. But yes I can give you more examples. 

Of course one of the people I have worked with is myself so I will give another example from my own life that fits nicely into what I was just sharing about the importance of emotional work. 

Before I go into explaining the trauma I will give you some background. I had spent my life disengaged from my emotional body. I had trained myself in what I now refer to as spiritual bypassing. That was the art of telling myself that I did not need to feel grief over my losses because in spirit we are all one so nothing is ever lost anyway. At the time I did not realize it was just another tool for suppressing emotion.  

My partner Dianne, a friend of ours Verna and myself were out for a day of rock climbing. We made it to the top feeling the elation of completing a brand new route. We unroped from each other and sorted out our gear preparing to walk along the top of the cliff to a place were we could do the 300-foot rappel back to the base of the cliff. Verna walked in front, followed by myself and Dianne brought up the rear. At one point I heard from behind Dianne say “oh shit”. I turned around to see what she was expressing about. My brain could not compute at first because when I turned she was no where to be seen. Then with shock I realized what had happened. She had stumbled and fallen over the edge of the cliff. The cliff at that point was overhung so we could not see the part of the cliff directly below us. We called out but heard no replies from Dianne. 

We set up a repel station so we could drop over the cliff on our remaining rope and to find her. Dianne had the other rope over her shoulder when she fell. We were hoping that it might have caught on something. Because of the distance Verna and I had to continue to reset new repels as we continued our descent. With each passing one the dread loomed larger as it meant Dianne had fallen a greater and greater distance. 

It was dark by the time we finally reached the cliff base. We started walking a grid back and forth. Eventually we came across her lifeless body. As we sat beside Dianne under the starry sky I broke open emotionally. These feelings were much too big for me to suppress. 

So obviously that experience was a trauma point. As it turned out I reached out for support and found it in the form of a facilitator that was intimately familiar with the emotional body. He led me to see the importance of needing to heal the emotional body as one of the key components to a fuller recovery from trauma. Up until that point my work with people had only been based in psychology, spirituality and body care. I could facilitate some results but without recognizing it I was missing a key component to part of what we are as humans > our emotional bodies.  

So now that I saw the importance I veraciously studied the art of working with the emotions. In her death Dianne had given me one of the most important gifts of my life. Not only had she facilitated the opening of my emotional life, transforming me into a much more fulfilled human being, but she had instigated me into developing the integration of emotional intelligence into my healing practise. This grew the effectiveness of my working with people exponentially. Her death rippled out through my transformed worked to touch the heart and soul of many, many people since. I will be forever grateful to her. 

Here is another example, this time from a person that I have worked with. Her trauma came in the form of being scapegoated in her family. Not being seen or heard in the way she would have hoped. The isolation only grew when her parents separated. 

In the process of healing her own history she was drawn to doing rebirthing work with me. This led to further study of childhood traumas and to research into a variety of parenting techniques and birthing processes. She used these more organically natural techniques in birthing her own son. 

The healing of her trauma of being poorly parented has led her to learn many skills and now she works as a Dula in service to other families in the process of giving birth to their children. She approaches it with a huge heart full of loving care. 

Tad since you first invited me to do this interview with you, I have explored a bit of the work that you do. So I know that you too see the value of people doing work that flows out of their personal life experiences. You point out how much more connected one can be to their client when fulfilling a need that is based in a personal experience. 

I want to thank you for encouraging people in this manner as I feel it will bring both them and their customers more satisfaction. 

I realize that most of your clients are coming to you for help with their businesses, yet I want to add here that for anyone that has not yet figured out a way to turn your gifts into your vocation, I would still encourage you to find places where you can give them. Perhaps it is with friends, perhaps by volunteering on the side. But know that if you find a way to give from the gifts you have gained through personal experiences and that are connected to the essence of who you are, your life is going to be filled with even more fulfillment. 

Tad: When you speak about becoming a people pleaser and ‘nice guy’ it strikes me that you must have learned a great deal about building rapport with people, setting a relaxed vibe, diffusing conflict in that process. And I imagine those same skills that were a part of unhealthy patterns for you, now used consciously are part of what make you such a wonderful facilitator. Would you say that’s true?

Kelly: Yes I would agree to the truth of that and not just in myself. What I have come to see in working with people is that any trauma or wound that we are met with leads to us coming up with a coping strategy. Somewhat simplified, our copying strategy will have two sides to it. 

One is that it will be rooted in an inner strength and/or gift that will be creatively used to attempt to deal with the wounding and protect us from similar wounding. So using the example of the “people pleaser”, it has all the traits that you referred to such as rapport building, bringing calmness to situations, diffusing conflict, as well as ability to read people and intuit what they want or need.

The second part is that when the “gift” goes sideways it turns into a dysfunction. And it is quite likely that we will have some of these dysfunctions blended in to our behaviours because typically we are reacting to a trauma unconsciously as apposed to us consciously deciding how to cope. Because it is unconscious reaction we can have “sideways” behaviours mixed in without even knowing it. 

So for instance as a people pleaser, I had the gift of actually knowing how to please people and be in service to them BUT one of the ways it went sideways was that if any situation had elements of the original wounding, I would be acting out of a fear reaction rather than a conscious response. 

So for example one of the dysfunctions is to sacrifice what would be true to me in an attempt to make someone else happy (in unconscious hopes that if I was able to please them they would not wound me). But in the self-betrayal I would actually end up wounding myself. Because when I am not being true to my own integrity I am not in alignment with inner peace and harmony. 

This comes back to the importance of addressing and working through our wounds. In the process of healing the wounds we become conscious of what our unconscious coping mechanisms were. Now with the clarity of conscious awareness we can pick and choose between which behaviours are appropriate and which ones are not serving us.   

Tad: And it also seems like you really help people who struggle as you struggled to feel ‘enough’. That seems like a clear example of a direct connection between your wound and your ‘wand’ as they say.

Kelly: Hee hee I had never heard the term “your wound and your wand”, it has a nice ring to it. 

Yes, again I agree with your observation. Because I choose to work through the wounding of my self-worth and self-esteem, as I continue to learn how to heal the damage in myself, I continue to learn tools that have the possibilities of serving others as well. And all this gets amplified in a workshop setting because of the strength of intention. Participant’s intention to strengthen their acknowledgment of self-worth and my intention to share what I have learned along the path.  

Tad: And, related to that, do you feel like the gifts come from the compensating mechanisms or from the healing from them specifically?

Kelly: I suspect that the gifts are inherent in us, and that dealing with life’s challenges calls them to the forefront. As you have likely seen, different people can face almost identical challenges, yet the internal strengths they call on to face the challenge might be quite different. 

Perhaps in some cases the gifts would lay dormant until we are faced with a challenge that requires them to surface. As hard as it is to experience traumas, it might be that if we have the support and willingness to work through them, that they accelerate us coming into our wholeness. 

Tad: I’m wondering if you feel like the path of healing and connecting with our inner nature IS the gift we get from our wounds (and so the gift is always inherently about the discipline and dedication to healing in some way?) or if it’s the compensating mechanisms and defences we’ve created that we are now able to consciously redirect that is where the gifts come from in it – so that we look at how we dealt with our wounds (poorly) and find ways that those same poor behaviours can be ultimately used for good? I’m curious what your take on that is.

Kelly: Hmmm, looks like I jumped ahead with my previous response as I think your question was already answered. It seems to me that the gifts are inherent in us and can be developed whether we have trauma to stimulate them or not, yet it is only a theory, I am not 100% sure on that.  

Tad: I know for myself, I have had the wound of not feeling ‘cool’ for a lot of my life. And that had me try ‘too hard’ to be cool and come across as ‘try hard’ to people. And that felt painful. Which had me feel uncool. And made me try even harder. And part of being uncool was learning how to map rooms to see who the cool people were. Unconsciously, that was a disingenuous pattern. But now, as I work to build connections with key hubs around sustainability and local food and good things in Edmonton – those same skills of mapping out key players is actually a beautiful gift to the community. 

Kelly: Yes Tad, great example of what we are talking about. 

Tad: When you speak of the tragedy of your friend falling to her death – it strikes me that you found a beautiful meaning in it that honoured her life and its loss. Is this a core part of your work? Helping people find a meaning in it?

Kelly: I do not know if that can be considered the core of my work but yes it is safe to say that it is a core part. I think that it is great to find deeper levels of meaning when they are available to us. It can settle the hungry mind and in some situations reformulate the emotional impact of events. 

Yet there is also a lot to be said for standing in the middle of the mystery of life. I have noticed in myself and in some others that it is easy to get “addicted” to having answers, even to the point of being in discomfort or disarray if no answers are forth coming. I find that sometimes it serves me to invite in answers if they will serve the highest good, yet in the meantime to let go of the demand for answers and just bask in a space wonderment. The unfolding of the unpredictability of life can bring lots of “juice” to our experience. I notice that the more I trust myself to be able to deal with any of life’s challenges, the more relaxed I am with the unfolding. 

On the other hand if I don’t feel safe with life, then my search for meaning is fear based, full of angst, and with an underpinning of wanting to know in hopes that the knowledge will allow me to control things. Fear tells me that if I can control everything I can be safe. 

Trust tells me that I can call on inner and outer resources that will carry me through anything that arises, making it safe to flow through as the mystery reveals itself moment by moment.  

Tad: I’ve heard it said that our ideal niche is often a younger version of ourselves – does that feel true for you? Like, I felt uncool when I was a young man, but now, older and wiser, I might have a lot to offer to a young man who feels uncool. A woman who struggled with body issues as a teen might be the perfect person, once she’s grown and healed enough, to help other young women on the same journey. I did a lot of pushy sales stuff, and now I help people who are struggling with how to be authentic in sales and marketing. There’s this idea that much of the purpose of growing up is to become the adult whose support we were most needing when we were growing up. That, when we’re lost in our direction in life, we can often look back in time at who we used to be and where we used to be and offer help to those people.

Kelly: Thanks, now I am clearer on the point you were asking about. Yes, I am in agreement with that principal, in fact it ties into a healing process that often gets used in my work. I have notice that for our elder, present self to just have the knowledge of how we needed to be treated in our past times of crisis, is just part of the process of cleaning up the “damage”. Without further steps, the younger parts of ourselves can stay in a traumatized state even once our adult self knows better. So it can be useful for a person to go into a meditative state and call up the memory of the trauma point, including all the emotions that were activated. Once accessed they can use creative imagination to picture their wiser adult self travelling back through time and stepping in as an advocate for the younger self. 

So for example I have done this myself by using memory to go back to a time when my mother was beating me using corporal punishment. I saw that as a child I was traumatized by the pain. That I was confused that someone that supposedly loved me was using physical violence because of a mistake she assumed I made. I saw that in my young mind I was making up the story that I did not have any rights over my own sovereign space, my own body. I was being taught that if someone was angry at me, that they had the right to physically attack me, criticize me and shame me. And I saw that as a result my child self was feeling a mixture of helplessness, sadness and anger about what was happening. 

While still holding that image, it was overlaid with my present imagination. That imagination was of my adult self dropping into the scene, taking my younger self into my arms away from my mother, telling her she could no longer physically abuse this child, telling my younger self that I was going to be here and now stand up for Kelly, making openhearted boundaries whenever needed so no one gets to abuse us again. 

From this place of safety I visualized my child and adult self sending loving energy to the essence of my mother while at the same time saying no to her inappropriate behaviours. 

As I am doing this I am holding the consciousness of my adult self and child self at the same time and allowing them to both express through my present self. So here I am with all this going on internally while in present time I am weeping the tears of my child self. The tears he never got to cry while he was being violated, as well as his tears of relief that someone had finally seen him and cared enough to step in with the love and care that he had needed. 

So one might ask, what was the point of doing all that. Well the point is that prior to doing that kind of inner work, in my everyday life, if I ran into situations that had elements of what happened when I was a child, I would unconsciously go into that childhood assumption that I had to put up with aggression from other people. It wasn’t as extreme as me being physically hit, but it did manifest as me collapsing and not standing up for myself. Especially in the face of women that reminded me of my mother 

So I was stunted in a child state when facing situations that triggered associations to the past events. Because all this was playing out subconsciously below my awareness, all that I was seeing in my adult life was that I could be manipulated by people that showed aggression. That I lacked boundaries and would collapse into a passive state. Or if I were pushed too far I would flip to the other pole and become aggressive (unconsciously fuelled by the unresolved anger I had at my mother). 

So in present time, logically my adult self had the intellectual knowledge that I had the right to my sovereign space. My adult knew that no one had the right to be abusive towards me, BUT when triggered I unconsciously regressed to the unhealed child state. In a sense the adult was nowhere to be found when the child state took over. 

Once I did the healing work to go back in to the trauma and unify the connection between the child and adult Kelly > now my child self is not left disconnected internally. So if something arises presently that has elements of the past, even if the child is activated, he is not left alone, the adult steps in with him as an advocate and puts the needed boundaries in place.  

So this would be one of my personal examples that is an illustration of how we can become an advocate for our own internal child self. And then there is the option to extend that out to others as you were mentioning Tad.

So in my workshops a big thrust is in supporting people to learn how to empower themselves to make openhearted boundaries. Passing on what I have learned (or a better description would be – what I have embodied) and helping people find ways to embody that for themselves so they have more than just the head knowledge of physiological and spiritual ideals about self care.

Tad: If someone were to say to you, ‘My wounds are NOT a blessing!’ I’m curious how you might respond, or want to respond if they were open.

Kelly: I liked how you framed that Tad “or want to respond if they were open”. It shows me your sensitivity to care when addressing someone’s wounds. Discussion of wounds can initiate protectiveness, so unless there is a sincere openness, any attempt at communication can break down rapidly. 

If there is an opening then I would likely share my thoughts about the paradox of wounding. Receiving wounding is not a blessing. Receiving a wounding can be a blessing. Both ring true to me so I would not want to polarize to one statement or the other. Rather I would hold space for both of them. 

If I am stuck with just “it is not a blessing” then I am likely to stay stuck in a disempowered victim place around it. If I am stuck in “it is a blessing” then I may be prone to use positivity to suppress the grief that needs to be felt through. And to avoid looking squarely at the damage facilitated by the wounding. If I am not willing to fully look at the damage and emotional feel what that brings up, then I will be left with blind spots that will keep me stuck and unable to move forward into an empowered space. It is through the close observation and emotional work that I can sort out how to heal the wound and come back into an empowered place. That process is going to call forward my gifts, which in turn reveals the other side of the paradox > “my wounds are a blessing”. 

Hmmm, that feels like it may be a natural place to close on Tad, unless you have further questions, which I would be willing to answer.

Thanks again for your stimulating questions. 

May each of you that reads this be blessed on your journey. 

Kelly Tobey is an IntegrativeTransformational Processing Facilitator with StarTree Integration Adventures (founded 1991)

Kelly provides, Private Sessions, Workshops, Leadership Trainings, Retreats, across Canada  And in Calgary ongoing weekly drop-in seminars called Expanding Heartfelt Living evenings. For information contact Kelly Tobey at Phone: (403) 217-5533 Fax: (403) 217-0053 Website: www.kellytobey.com Facebook: Kelly Tobey YouTube: KellyTobey1