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Insights Magazine brings you leading experts in coaching and empowerment,

sharing their wisdom, vision, secrets of success and personal defining moments of inspiration. We hope you will enjoy your new Insights.

In This Issue:

Rev. Chavah Aima, Founder, Enlightened Life Sanctuary, Author, Living Light

Spiritual alchemy - the art of transforming from the human into the divine. Page 4

Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant, Visionary, Best-Selling Author

The universal principles that govern all of our lives. Page `12

Kim Ades and Marc Manieri, Frame of Mind Coaching and JournalEngine™

Journaling to a deeper, personal transformation. Page 18

Angela Carr Patterson, Founder, Love Lifestyle Coaching System and Center

Embrace passion, purpose, and power. Your defining moment is when you’re willing to let go of who you’re not. Page 24

Dr. Ann Deaton, Founder , DaVinci Resources and Partner, Bounce Leadership

Use visual imagery to make big, positive changes in you life. Page 30

Donna Amos, Founder, International Association of Solopreneurs Losing a job could be the best thing that ever happened to you. Page 36

Jane Perdue, Founder, Braithwaite Innovation Group – Get Your BIG On!

Inspiring others to grow wings and embrace possibilities beyond what they dream, think, or hope for. Page 42

Lou Bortone, Online Branding Specialist and Video Pro

Leverage your time, effort and influence by creating video. Page 50

Insights Expert Directory, Events and Resources Pages 57-59

Special Invitation to You—The Coaches’ Edge Extravaganza Page 60

A special “Thank you” to Coach and Media Personality, Stacey Chadwell.

Reverend

Chavah

Aima When we

hear the word alchemy,

we may think of medie-val and Renaissance al-

chemists trying to turn metals into gold, but

alchemy has another meaning – magic that

transforms something common into something

of higher value. Cha-vah Aima is an ordained

minister and founder of the nonprofit Enlight-

ened Life Sanctuary in Austin, Texas. She is

also an expert of raw

foods, healthy lifestyles, and the secrets of eso-

teric traditions. Chavah has created what she

calls Alchemical Yoga and written a book, Liv-

ing Light: The 21-Day Alchemical Regenera-

tion Plan to share her knowledge.

I: You actually studied

12 years in a mystery school and have

founded your own. What are mystery

schools and what was their role in preserving

ancient esoteric knowl-edge?

CA: In ancient times,

people in every culture came together at regu-

lar intervals to acknowl-edge the hidden side of

life, the spiritual as-

pects of life...

CA: ...to undertake practices that would help them come more clearly into their spiri-

tual powers. Then, over a period of hundreds of years, the mystery schools partly faded away and were suppressed by the prevailing organized religions, so the mystery

schools went underground at that time.

In the 1800‘s when the churches didn‘t have quite the same power anymore, the mys-tery schools were able to come back and become available again. These would be

known as the modern mystery schools, and at that point, they had taken the informa-tion from its ancient forms, and framed it more in terms of human psychology. That‘s

where I got engaged in it, because when I started studying, I was already working as a psychotherapist, so I found these methods of spiritual psychology very intriguing and

very empowering.

I: I see. As an initiate, one who serves as a conduit for conscious of mystical tradi-tions, what prophecies do you predict for 2012 and the years afterward, and how have

these prophecies been revealed to you?

CA: That‘s a two-part question. In alchemy, and in the alchemical traditions, which is

one of the ancient spiritual traditions of Europe, they have had prophecies for centuries about the events of 2012. What they say is at that time, the sun of the earth will align

with the central star of the Universe. As that alignment comes closer and closer, the heat of the sun intensifies, and the heat on the planet intensifies – we‘re certainly see-

ing that – and then at 2012 you have the exact alignment of the sun with that central star of the Universe, which is like the light of our world aligning with the light of the di-

vine Universe.

It really represents an initiation for the earth, an intensification of light energy coming into the planet, and metaphysically it tells of a time of greater awakening, greater light,

less shadow. Then of course, the Universe, the solar system continues to move through its cycles, so that peak of light will then begin to fade from 2012 onward, but

what will be different will be the way that the human consciousness on earth looks at

life on earth.

I: What is the spiritual alchemy, and how did you rediscover what you have called a lost art?

CA: Spiritual alchemy is the art of transforming from the human into the divine. All of

the spiritual traditions talk about that the human is actually the child of God. Even the organized religions say that the human is created in the image of God. What this is all

pointing to is that we have a divine nature. We have spiritual powers that are dormant, that we are not accessing. Spiritual alchemy is one tradition, one collection of practices

that we can undertake; specific meditations, specific exercises, specific dietary pro-grams that we can take to spiritualize the body and bring ourselves into that divine

consciousness.

I: What is Alchemical Yoga, and how does it differ from the yoga that many people know?

-5- (Continued next page.)

Chavah Aima continued...

CA: Yoga as a whole derives from the Indian traditions, and India yoga means union, and so it is about attaining that union with God. What happens oftentimes in the West,

it‘s been limited to physical exercises, and that‘s probably the smallest part of the

whole tradition of yoga. The whole tradition of yoga is a way of life, a way of living your life in order to bring about that greater spiritual consciousness that I spoke of. I

call it Alchemical Yoga, the traditions that I teach, because it combines the powerful practices of spiritual alchemy from the West with the equally powerful practices of kun-

dalini and tantra yoga from the East.

I: That‘s fascinating that you put the two together.

CA: Yes. I have trained in both Western and Eastern schools and ashrams, and the goal is the same in any case. The methods are only

slightly different, and they‘re actually quite effective when they‘re used all together. That‘s what Alchemical Yoga does. It brings all of

these traditions together into practical mechanisms that anyone can access and use to enhance their awakening and bring about greater

peace, harmony, and success in their lives.

I: That makes sense. Well, you founded the Enlightened Life Sanc-

tuary in Austin, Texas, and all the work you do is focused on enlightenment. What does it mean to move from dualistic thinking to unified consciousness?

CA: In our normal everyday life, we're pulled all the time by the opposing forces of

manifestation. Light and dark. Good and bad. Right and wrong. All of these are part of the illusion of manifestation. In reality, there‘s only force, and that one force mani-

fests in these opposite projections or manifestations.

When we begin the path of enlightenment, we learn to let go of duality, to transcend duality, and to not get caught up in the ways of duality. So we‘re not thinking ―us and

them‖ or ―me and you‖ – we‘re thinking all of us are one together on this one earth, going in one direction to realize that we all come from one conscious source of energy.

To go from dualism is to go from ―I‖ into ―we‖ and to begin to see the oneness that connects everyone, and that also connects us to the earth. This is a really important

leap in consciousness that‘s happening more and more every day where people are re-alizing we‘re not separate from the earth. Whatever happens to the earth has a huge

impact on human life and indeed on all life.

I: I like that. You‘re considered an expert on raw foods. What are the physical and spiritual benefits of a raw vegan diet and how does it relate to spiritual alchemy as out-

lined in your book, Living Light: The 21-Day Alchemical Regeneration Plan?

CA: Alchemy, as I mentioned, includes certain dietary practices. Yoga also includes a period of time of using specific dietary practices to purify the body. Every day we‘re

eating food, we‘re breathing air, and we‘re drinking substances that carry a variety of different toxins, way more so than even the ancient alchemists did back in their day.

These practices are designed to remove those toxins and bring more light energy into the body.

CA: The alchemist is always after light, and solar light in particular. The plants of the

earth, and especially the green plants contain the most light, or the most chlorophyll, which is actually congealed sunlight. When we eat the raw living foods of the earth,

we‘re giving the body huge amounts of light, metaphysically speaking. On a strictly nu-tritional level, we‘re giving the body extremely high quality, high density nutrition that

it can absorb 100% and use 100% to do all of the housecleaning that it needs to do to get rid of all the toxins, get rid of all the shadows, and bring the body into greater

health and greater balance.

The alchemists use the living food diet and green juices very strategically to enhance their health, increase their spiritual awareness, and lengthen their lives. They were

known as the immortals, they lived for so many years. When asked how that was pos-sible, one of the most famous alchemists, Saint-Germain of France, replied, ―It is my

diet that does it.‖

You see when you do a program like the Living Light program of raw food, juices, fast-

ing and internal cleansing, it‘s not just your body that changes and gets better and loses weight and becomes healthier. It changes your consciousness as well. The body

is one aspect of our being that has the potential to block out the other aspects, or to have great effect on the other aspects such as our emotional nature, our mental na-

ture, and certainly our spiritual energy is affected by the quality of the health of the body and the radiance of the body or the purity of the body. That‘s why we undertake

a program such as Living Light.

I: If anybody is ever interested in raw foods, there‘s so many raw food restaurants out there now – we live near one – and it‘s amazing all the meals that can be prepared that

way.

CA: That‘s right. That‘s absolutely right. It‘s really wonderful food, too. It tastes great.

I: Your book, The Shadow of the Guru: Spiritual Empowerment and the Dark Side ex-plores how certain spiritual leaders recruit and retain their followers, and it seems espe-

cially relevant, given the deaths and injuries last year at the Arizona Sweat Lodge re-treat to ask how you to tell a real spiritual leader from a false guru.

CA: It‘s a very challenging thing to do that. Even the teachers that have their dark

side or have some shadow that they haven't dealt with, still can give things to the seeker that are useful and helpful. One thing that is really important when starting the

path, whether you‘re involved with good teachers or bad, is to remember what it is you‘re seeking when you first step out that door to go to a workshop or go through a

training or go to a presentation.

What you‘re seeking is the activation of your own power and your own authority. When you go to that presentation, keep that in mind, and if you see that the person is ma-

nipulating things and setting things up in a way to assert themselves as the authority, that would be a red flag. You want to be careful of any teacher that tries to control

your movements or asks you to disregard any signals from your body for food or for water or for a break from training.

-7- (Continued next page.)

Chavah Aima continued...

CA: Any teacher that sets it up in the beginning that, ―You can't take a break unless I tell you that you can‖ I would head for the door, the minute you hear something like

that. It‘s a beginning of a process of very subtle mind control to get you to give up the

ability to make those decisions for yourself based on the needs of your own body. It‘s not something that you should ever consider, not even for five minutes.

The other hint is that the bad teacher is not a humble person. They have quite a bit of

ego and they‘re usually surrounded by a little entourage of admirers; an inner circle, if you will. The true teacher, they‘re very accessible. You can talk to them, you can hug

them, they‘re usually on your same level in the presentation. They‘ll sit in a circle, or they‘ll at least sit in a way that everyone is on the same level. The negative teachers

tend toward a stage and a special chair, and they like to be elevated above the stu-dents. That‘s another thing to mark down as a potential red flag if you see that kind of

behavior.

Then there‘s the money question. I believe that a really good spiritual teacher de-serves to earn a really good living, so it‘s not so much the amount of money that a

teacher might charge or collect or make as they go about giving the teaching that they

give, it‘s what they do with that money that counts. Do they own a lot of different properties? Do they have a lot of cars? Do they travel extensively for vacation pur-

poses? Or are they involved in a nonprofit organization? Does their money go to sup-port charities, to helping those in need, helping those who don't have decent housing,

clothing, or food? These are the key top five markers, I would say, for judging a teacher.

I: I agree with you, and I would like to say that your first comment about ignoring

your body signals, etc.; in fact, the first two – having a small inner group and having followers – I have no idea if that had links to Arizona, but what I can say is from a psy-

chological point of view and with a special study into cults – I was very interested in cults – that‘s how cults operate. That‘s the start of the mind control, the brainwashing.

I‘m not saying that happened there, but I am saying that is the start of it; ignore your body signals, etc.

CA: Yes; as a former psychotherapist, I certainly saw a lot of people who were affected by cult-like behavior, and anyone is susceptible to it. The people who have trouble with

it, they‘re not any different than you or I. These methods can be used on anyone.

I: Exactly, and I thought it was very good that you mentioned if they start asking you or requiring you to ignore those body patterns or lack of food, lack of sleep, all those

things, please, please get out of there.

CA: Right; and they won't do all of that right away. The first thing they‘ll do is have you in a talk that‘s maybe a free talk, a free workshop, or maybe it‘s your first paid

workshop or seminar, and they‘ll just start out by saying, ―No one is going to leave the room unless it‘s a designated break, so you can't leave the room unless we tell you

that it‘s time for a break.‖ -8-

CA: I wouldn‘t participate in any such thing from the beginning, because that sounds

like a simple request in the beginning, but in reality that‘s the first hook. If they can get you to forego a break when you know you need a break, then it becomes easier to

ask you to give up other things as well. If you‘re hungry, we‘re going to fast. If you‘re thirsty, we‘re not going to have any water. It‘s cumulative, and it starts out with that

one very simple request.

The important thing to remember, like I said, on the spiritual path, is you‘re not looking for someone else to be your authority figure. You‘re looking to get somebody who can

help you wake up your own authority inside of you. You‘re looking for someone who is interested in you becoming the leader, not you continuing to be a follower.

I: You lived and studied in India to become a Yogini, and the whole Yogic tradition, go-

ing far beyond physical exercise. Tell us how these principles are integrated into the Alchemical Yoga.

CA: Like I said, yoga is about how you live

your life. It‘s about what consciousness you wake up with every day and what are your

goals, and in yoga, our goals are always spiri-tual goals. You would eat consciously, so you

wouldn‘t eat meat or if you ate dairy, it would

have to be very pure, maybe raw diary. You would eat an abundance of raw foods.

You would be seeking to live your life in the

most peaceful way, the most serene way, by doing right work in order to earn money, liv-

ing your life according to spiritual principles of love, compassion, unity, but also power and will and authority for yourself in your day-to-day life, increasing your awareness

again of your oneness with everyone else. You would probably do some physical yoga exercises. You would do specific alchemical meditations for different purposes to take

you into different states of consciousness.

It‘s a way of life. It‘s a way of looking at life and a way of living your life. That‘s really the truth of the yoga tradition. There‘s a big difference between a yoga teacher who

teaches yoga exercise, and a Yogini who lives life according to spiritual law and not ac-

cording to human conditioning.

I: People come to you for help with all kinds of problems, such as being depressed,

overweight, unhappy, or just plain unfulfilled. What tools do you use to assess a per-son‘s state of being and help them regain their health and happiness?

CA: The first thing that I do in a private consultation with people is I take a look at their Soul Analysis Profile. This is based on the month and day of birth. This tells me

the nature of their spiritual energy that they‘ve come into this life to manifest. It tells me the characteristics and the challenges, lessons, and karmas of the soul. It also tells

me the nature of the personality that they have taken on in this life, and it shows the connections or the challenges to connecting between those levels

(Continued next page.).

Chavah Aima continued...

CA: Once I can show a person their Soul Analysis Profile, they literally see themselves in a completely different way, and that alone starts to solve a lot of problems. When

we identify ourselves as the emotions that are in turmoil and the mind that is confused

and the personality that is sort of wandering alone without spiritual connection, then we have a case of mistaken identity. I help people shift the identify from that personal

level to the level of the soul in order for them to get a greater perspective on their eter-nal truth, the truth of their eternal existence, and that right away gives people greater

mastery in this particular life.

I: That‘s fascinating. What is the Soul Analysis, and how does it work?

CA: Soul analysis is where we look at those levels of your being that I just spoke of. The personality, the soul, and the spirit, and we look at the pathways in between and

we look at different challenges to being here. For some people, depending on their profile, they just have trouble even being on the earth. For other people, they may not

have as strong a connection to their soul energy as they would like, so the Soul Analy-sis Profile allows us to highlight which kinds of spiritual practices would be most helpful

for them to make that connection.

Soul Destiny Readings are where I look at your upcoming year, and I would collect all

the information about you, your birth date. I would get birth dates of all of your signifi-cant people in your life – your spouse, your children, your siblings, your coworkers,

your friends, partners, lovers, acquaintances, whoever is important in your life. I would be able to identify them in your upcoming year in terms of what role they‘re playing,

what are they doing, what you might be engaged in with various people in your life. Also, what kind of opportunities are coming, what kind of challenges are coming, and

what is the lesson that you need to learn for this particular year to help you go forward in the most successful way.

I: As an ordained minister, how many couples have you married, and how do you help

couples spiritually prepare for marriage?

CA: I have performed a lot of wedding ceremonies from Alaska to Hawaii to the

mainland U.S., and I do the Soul Analysis Profile with each person in the couple. Then we can look at how their energies interact, and what is the best way for them to master

any challenges that come along in the relationship. I typically will be involved in coun-seling the couple for a period of time before their ceremony takes place.

I help them design a ceremony that suits their spiritual beliefs and their preferences,

and then I marry the couple based on the fact that they love each other and not based on their gender, so I‘ve done same-sex couples unions as well as heterosexual unions.

I can create a variety of ceremonies from very simple to very elaborate, depending on what the couple would like to do to express what their relationship really means to

them. When I work with people and I teach people, I teach them in a very simple and direct way. Just because the practice is simple doesn‘t mean it‘s easy, or just because

a path is simple doesn‘t mean it‘s easy.

-10-

CA: You have to have dedication, discipline, devotion, desire, and determination to

make those changes in your life, and when you have that and then you use these key practices, you get tremendous acceleration in your consciousness, shifts in your en-

ergy, healing of old emotional wounds, greater serenity, more focus, more mastery, and more success. How could you go wrong?

I: On a personal level, what inspires you?

CA: What inspires me is the fact that so many people are awakening and turning to-

ward the spiritual level of life. They‘re going beyond the limitations of structured relig-ion and finding the courage and the power to step into their true spiritual life. It‘s also

inspiring to see it spread from person to person, group to group, and the changes that it's going to bring to this planet. It‘s very inspiring.

I: I think so too. It‘s interesting to watch all these people really starting to feel energy

and understand it, and stepping into a new spirituality.

CA: Yes. The new empowerment. It‘s so empowering to be able to say ―I have divine consciousness. I am a part of that divine consciousness.‖ Once you have that, then

you can get everything else you need.

I: How do you inspire others and change their lives?

CA: What I do is disrupt. I disrupt old ways of thinking by stating simple truths in a

powerful and direct way. I think that the thing that people find inspiring about the work I offer is that it is varied. There‘s a technique and a practice that is for anybody

and for everybody. It‘s about being healthy, so everybody feels better, and as soon as you feel better physically, you‘re naturally going to feel better emotionally, mentally,

and spiritually. I inspire and challenge, I would say, equally, but in that challenge lies the inspiration to grow and to improve.

I: What made you choose this arena for your life‘s great work?

CA: This arena … well, I think it chose me, or if I chose, I chose in ancient times long

ago and have only come back to continue to share the light. We don‘t study these prin-ciples for any reason other than to become a blessing to others, and once we have

made an attainment, then we turn around and offer it to our brothers and sisters.

Chavah is presently engaged in sharing instruction and initiation into the unique

and powerful practices she has created including the Living Light Plan.

In addition to providing educational lectures, workshops, and seminars on esoteric topics, she

also offers private spiritual consultation and healing services for conscious living. Chavah's

scheduled events are available on her web site: www.enlightenedlife.org

Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant

Her story reads like an epic adventure, filled with near misses, struggles, strength, courage, and triumphs. From her life experiences, she has uncov-

ered her life purpose, discovered the power that lies within, and recovered her spiritual self. Iyanla has emerged as a living testament to God, prevailing

peace, power, and presence.

Iyanla has received numerous awards and accolades for the power and impact

of her work. She is hailed as one of Halle Berry’s five ―sheros‖ in Glamour Magazine, 2006, and one of the country’s most influential African Americans.

She is among the country’s 100 Most Influential Women from Women’s Day magazine, 2003, and one of the most dynamic speakers in the United States.

She is a woman with passion, clear vision, and purpose.

I: You had quite a struggle to reach your life‘s purpose. Would you please share how you came to this arena for your life‘s great work?

IV: Well, I don‘t consider it a struggle. I mean, everybody else calls it a struggle. I

don‘t call it a struggle. I think that we‘re each born with a spiritual curriculum, things that we have to learn, things that we have to grow through, things that we have to em-

brace in order to get that place of understanding who we are, who we are in relation-ship to God, who God is in relationship with us. If you measure it by human terms, it

would look like a struggle, but it‘s no different than what people are going through to-day.

I had all sorts of challenges in my family, what years ago would just be called family

hardships; now we‘ve got all kinds of names for it. It‘s dysfunction, it‘s abuse, it‘s all

sorts of things. I didn‘t have the most stable home environment, which is not uncom-mon to many people today, or even back then. My mother died when I was two-and-a

-half, so I was raised by my paternal grandmother and my father. Ultimately he mar-ried, and his wife raised me. When they couldn‘t afford to take care of my brother and

I, they sent us to an aunt. There, we were the outside children, so that was quite chal-lenging.

What I think is important for people to understand is that the details of the story really

don‘t matter. What matters is what you learn, what you gain, and how you‘re able to grow through those experiences and ultimately apply them to your life in a powerful

way.

I: I see. What did you learn and gain?

IV: I learned first of all that God is so full of grace and mercy. As a child who was physically abused, I wasn‘t killed – that‘s God‘s grace. As a child who was emotionally

and verbally abused, I never stuck a needle in my arm and I don‘t drink – that‘s grace. I got through school – that‘s grace. I‘ve never been challenged by a physical illness of

any kind – that‘s grace.

That grace afforded to me was based on my spiritual curriculum, what I needed to learn

about freedom and about faith, and about integrity, responsibility, accountability.

IV: Those were the things that I needed

to learn, and so my curriculum was set up to teach me those things through ex-

periences. That‘s how we learn.

I: You help others understand these

spiritual principles. What are they, and

how can they help us?

IV: You know, it‘s different for every-body. There are universal principles

that I‘ve seen govern all of our lives when we talk about truth, when we talk

about love, when we talk about forgive-ness, integrity, responsibility, account-

ability. We each have to learn those things and live them in our lives.

How we learn them – that‘s set up by our experiences. Choice. We choose.

We choose to come into this life, we

choose at the level of our soul to come

into the body. We choose to come into the our families. We choose at the level

of the soul our race, our gender, every-thing. We choose.

Then we come into a body and we come

into life, and we forget that our soul has made these choices, and that there‘s

something here for us to learn. That‘s where the spiritual principles come into

play.

Who do I need to forgive? How do I demonstrate love?

What am I willing to accept responsi-bility for?

Am I being accountable for my thoughts, my words, my actions?

So the experiences we have are actually

the divine setups for us to learn what-ever it is that we came here to learn at

the soul level; but we forget that be-cause we get caught up in the details of

the story. (Continued next page.)

-13-

Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant continued… IV: I say we have to look at the story and tell the story from the position of, ―This is what I‘m growing through.‖

I: So what you‘re saying is that we have chosen this path and while we may not real-ize that we chose it, we are on it, and we‘re here to experience the things we‘re meant

to experience.

IV: Absolutely.

I: Fascinating. You and your daughter founded InnerVisions. What inspired you to create this, and what do you offer?

IV: I think what inspired me is what inspires everybody – you make your issue your

cause. My issue growing up was having a solid spiritual foundation and honoring, wor-shipping and being in relationship with the Creator and life and the Universe in a way

that supported me.

We started InnerVisions to create a place where people could come to fellowship, to

create community, and to learn about deepening their relationship with their Creator and intensifying the practices that would help them do that.

We offer workshops and classes. I developed a curriculum for life coaching based on

spiritual principles, so we train spiritual life coaches. We also train ministers to be min-isters of spiritual consciousness – not a specific theology, not a specific denomination –

but how do you as a person live your life in service to Universal Law and principle? That‘s what we train our ministers to do.

We have annual workshops for women, for men, for young people. Most of all, we cre-

ated spiritual community where people love each other, take care of each other, look out for one another as they grow and heal through their life experiences.

I: It‘s amazing that you‘re creating this community for others, because the more peo-

ple who can step into that, the more supported and loved they‘ll feel.

IV: Our community is 28 years old. We‘ve been in community for quite some time. I

think that if people are beginning to question their physical reality and their physical re-ality is shifting, it‘s no longer just about get a good education, get a good job and life

will be fine. As people are looking to connect more to earth and to one another and to God, they‘re looking for places beyond the traditional spiritual structures, whether

that‘s the church or the temple or the synagogue. They‘re looking for community be-yond that, because I‘m not clear that the traditional way, the dogma and the theology

is feeding the soul, the heart, the mind the way that people need it today.

I: You‘re right. You don‘t find it on the media, you don‘t find it in your reading – it‘s hard to find, so it‘s wonderful that you have created this, and that people have a place

to go to find this.

IV: Yes.

I: I understand you have a new book, Peace From Broken

Pieces: How To Get Through What You Are Going Through. Would you share with us a little bit about this new work?

IV: I can share with you the premise behind the work. I want

people to read it and get their own experience. The world that we live in today is changing so rapidly, people don‘t really know

what to do, because so much of what we have, what we thought was important is falling away. Whether it‘s your job, your home,

your relationships. Our relationships are shifting. It‘s very dis-concerting and disturbing to people. That‘s one level.

The other level is, what I discovered in my own life is much of

what I was experiencing on the less-than-pleasant side – not on the pleasant side, on the other side – was really a rehashing of

my family pattern. Each of us is born into a community or a family, and that family

carries a story. That family carries a tradition. That family carries an entire unseen and unspoken level of expectations that we inherit. We inherit them from our parents

and our grandparents. It creates a kind of pathology for how we live. We do certain things in a certain way and expect a certain thing to happen, unconsciously.

What I discovered in my own life, and particularly as the world is changing, I found my-

self in situations, circumstances, and experiences that were not what I would create consciously. I kept asking, ―Why is this happening around relationships? Why is this

happening around finances? What am I doing? What am I thinking?‖

What I discovered was a family pathology of difficulty in relationships, broken relation-ships, difficulty with finances, the inability to attain or obtain or amass finances, and

difficulties in childrearing. I had to stop and look at my life and remember, “This is what I experienced. Is this what I‘m passing on to my children? Is this what I want to

take into the world?‖

Peace From Broken Pieces looks at how you look at who you are and where you are to-

day, and stand in that understanding of the pieces that you inherited, the pieces that you created, and how to create the pieces you desire. It‘s really about understanding

who you are from the inside out at a very, very deep level, because it requires looking at every single aspect of your life that isn't working, and asking yourself, “What‘s going

on here?‖

I: That would be quite a journey.

IV: Yes, it is quite a journey. We do it anyway. We do it unconsciously. When you have a problem, we get busy trying to fix the problem, and as a spiritual technician, my

job is where did this problem come from? I don‘t want to fix the problem, I want to un-earth the cause, because unless we‘re working at the level of cause, then we‘re just go-

ing to continue to create the same thing over and over and over again.

(Continued next page.)

-15-

(Click on book to order)

Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant continued… I: It‘s like picking the same man over again.

IV: The same man, the same woman, the same job, the same friends, the same

chicken … everything we do, it‘s being motivated by a conscious or an unconscious thought, or a conscious or an unconscious belief.

I: I see. What would you recommend to others who

want or need to embrace these spiritual principles?

IV: First of all, learn what they are. Many of us don‘t understand that we live in a spiritual Universe that‘s

governed by spiritual principles. When I say spiritual, I mean energy, an energetic Universe that is governed

by principles that manifest, that control, that direct the energy. We‘ve got to learn what those principles are.

We have to learn what they are, and then we have to integrate them into our life.

I had a conversation with a student, and she was say-ing to me, ―Everything lined up. I really thought that

this was it and that God was blessing it, and every-thing lined up, and I was getting just what I desired...‖

I said, ―Okay, but you‘ve got to know that while it

looked like it was lining up and it was bringing you ex-actly what you desired, the principle in the foundation

wasn‘t there. It was out of integrity. You were doing something that was out of integrity, and now here you

sit on the other end of this and you didn‘t get what you want. You can't get what you want if you‘re out of integrity.‖

She just had such a difficult time seeing that. I always tell my students, ―If you want

to know the end, look at the beginning.‖ Whatever you take into an experience is go-

ing to determine what you get out of it.

You can't tell me that dating a married person who divorces their spouse and leaves their children to come be with you and you expect this to be a wonderful, marvelous re-

lationship. That‘s not going to work. Let the person get divorced, and then come be with you.

I: Yes, exactly.

IV: Let them get divorced, let them work that out, and then come be with you, be-

cause the truth of the matter is, if they‘re married and you‘re not, then you‘re sleeping with a married person – out of integrity.

-16-

I: Right. That‘s absolutely right, because if you allow that, then you should expect it

to happen to you.

IV: Well, if you want to know the end, look at the beginning.

I: Exactly. You nailed it right on the head. What inspires you?

IV: Trees. Water. The moon. Life. Scrapbooking. Reruns of ―Law & Order.‖ A good chocolate chip cookie. You find inspiration wherever you‘re looking for it. Sometimes I

get inspired just doing absolutely nothing, and the older I get, the more attractive ―nothing‖ becomes.

I: How do you inspire others to change their lives?

IV: I don‘t think I change anybody‘s life. I think that I offer people an opportunity to

do what brings them joy, let them know that it‘s okay to do what brings them joy, to remind them that joy is their birthright.

Rarely do people come to me when everything is going okay. They usually come when

there‘s a challenge or a discomfort of some kind. Your life doesn‘t have to be totally disintegrated before you seek support and help, but most people come to me because

there‘s a discomfort of some kind. I say the same thing to everybody, “What‘s the les-

son? What are you learning? Get the lesson and the experience will change.‖ I think one of the things that I‘m able to do is support people in recognizing that what-

ever it is they are going through, there‘s a blessing here. Let‘s look for it. Let‘s find the blessing.

I: I completely agree with you. I think that in everything we go through, no matter

what the challenge or struggle it is, there‘s a gift. There‘s a gift in it for you. You have to look for it. You really have to look for that gift.

IV: Sometimes you don‘t have to look for it; you just have to ask for it. ―Okay, what‘s

the gift here?‖ If you‘re looking with the wrong intention and if you‘re looking with poor vision, then you‘re not going to see it anyway. Sometimes you just have to ask,

―Please show me what the vision is here. Please show me what gift is here.‖

Learn more about Rev. Dr. Iyanla Vanzant:

http://www.innervisionsworldwide.com/Inner/About/about.htm

Kim Ades,

an MBA and President of Frame of Mind

Coaching, is one of North America’s fore-

most experts on per-

formance through thought management.

By using her unique process of coaching

through journaling, she works with hundreds of

clients yearly to unveil and switch their thought

patterns to ignite signifi-cant changes and life

transformations. She is now teaching this proc-

ess to coaches all over the world for use with

their clients.

I: You run a coaching

company. How many people do you coach

each year?

KA: We coach any-where from 200 to 250

people every single year.

I: That‘s an incredible

number. What makes your coaching program

so unique?

KA: First of all, the

coaching program that we run is called Frame

of Mind Coaching, and so what that means is

we‘re focusing on peo-ple‘s mindset as we‘re

going through the coaching process. The

way that we run our coaching program is

very interesting.

and Marc

Manieri, who leads the global ex-pansion of JournalEngine

software. JournalEngine is proprietary software devel-

oped by the Frame of Mind Coaching team that is an in-

tegral part of helping Frame

of Mind Coaching clients achieve amazing transfor-

mations in a very short pe-riod of time.

His journey in his current

role began in 2001 when he joined a Canadian sales

training and coaching firm. In five years, Marc helped

turn a five-person, half-million dollar business into

an 85-person, 10-million dollar business. During that

time, Kim met Marc for the

first time as she recruited him to help lead sales and

marketing. Their friendship flourished, and both went

their separate ways. Marc reunited with Kim in early

2008 to help grow Frame of Mind Coaching.

KA: We typically have 10-

week coaching periods. There‘s a call once a week

for 10 weeks.

Here‘s the part that makes it very unique. Every single

day for the duration of the coaching period, we ask our

clients to journal in an online journal every single

day. No days off. No week-

ends. No vacation. (Continued next page.)

-19-

Kim Ades and Marc Manieri continued…

KA: The journaling component allows us as coaches to really get a good view at what‘s going on behind the scenes in their thinking process and establish the patterns of

thoughts and behaviors that are really holding up their success and standing in the way

of getting what they want for themselves in their lives.

I: Why is journaling so important?

KA: Journaling helps us to see their beliefs, and it helps us to understand what it is that they tell themselves on an ongoing basis. It helps us to see what it is that they‘ve

been thinking and what they are infused with as far as their opinion of themselves. Really, that‘s the thing that leads. It‘s the way they think about themselves, they way

they see themselves, even though they‘re not aware of it, that really creates the out-comes that they get for themselves in their lives. Marc, how would you add to that?

MM: It‘s interesting. Kim, both you and I have coached a lot of peo-

ple over the last decade. We‘ve done coaching both with and without a journaling component integrated into the coaching process. I would

suggest that coaches who are coaching without a journal are simply

not providing the best experience they could provide for their clients. When you're coaching with a journal, you are getting access to a level

of information that is so extraordinary and so deep that in most cases, you don‘t get that deep without it. Coaching with a journal is so im-

portant for that reason. With that depth of information, you can now help a client get past their resistance to their goals with maximum speed.

KA: It‘s really quite a powerful tool. A lot of coaches use assessments, and they take

a snapshot of a person at one point in time. That‘s valuable, except you and I know that our moods change 60 times in a day, so that snapshot may not be completely ac-

curate. One moment we might not be feeling so great about ourselves, and the next minute we might be feeling fantastic.

The idea is to start to thread a pattern to understand the truly underlying beliefs that

lead the person through. That‘s why we ask them to do it every day, and really get a

very clear picture of what‘s going on.

I: Do clients demonstrate any resistance to journaling?

KA: First of all, when they start we make an agreement. The agreement is that the only way we‘ll coach you is if you‘ll journal, so they know the rules of the game. Some

people might feel a little intimidated by that, but what happens is, every single time they journal one of our coaches reads and responds to their journal, so it doesn‘t feel

so uncomfortable. It‘s like having a conversation. So imagine the journal that talks back.

It becomes a method of interaction between the coach and the client that creates a

deep sense of trust, loyalty, intensity, and has the person moving forward every single day, not just once a week. -20-

KA: There‘s no loss in momentum, and because of that, they‘ are eager to get back

and hear what the comment is or the response is to their journal.

Is there a bit of resistance? Maybe a little at first, and then they see the benefit, they feel the benefit, and they interact with their coach so frequently that it becomes some-

thing they look forward to.

I: What kind of results are people getting through this process?

KA: Oh, my goodness. Some people come in and they have an intention at the very beginning to achieve one set of goals. We uncover a whole set of issues or a whole set

of stumbling blocks that are stopping them from reaching that goal, which appear to have nothing to do with their goal in the first place. I‘ll give you a perfect example.

One of our clients came to us with a challenge. The challenge was he was in sales. He was very, very successful in sales. He owned a real estate company. He brought in

about $300,000 a year in sales and was in the red. It was terrible – he owed people money left, right, and center.

As a result of the journaling process, what we discovered was that his perception of

himself was that he only had a high school education and therefore he wasn‘t very smart, and people who weren‘t very smart didn‘t deserve to be wealthy.

What happened was, we didn‘t give him a formula or a plan for earning money or get-ting out of the red or budgeting his expenses more appropriately. What we did was

look at the fundamental beliefs that stopped him from thriving. The moment we were able to move that out of the way, this one gentleman as an example, changed his en-

tire financial situation and in the space of 10 weeks. He came in owing about $65,000, and left after 10 weeks in the green at about $40,000. That‘s a short period of time for

quite a significant change, and then it carried on.

People change in so many different ways. Their relationships change with their spouses, with their children, with their parents. Their productivity increases. Their fi-

nancial situation gets better.

One woman was going through a very, very tough divorce, and as a result of that di-vorce, she slept with the lights on for two years. For you and me, it‘s not a big deal,

but after a few weeks of coaching, she started to shut the lights off and get better rest.

For her, that was huge.

The results really vary from person to person, but for each person, it creates quite a dramatic transformation at a very deep level.

I: How can people learn more about the journaling process and start a journal for

themselves? Do you have any tips about how to get the most out of it?

KA: Marc, how did you start your journaling process, do you remember?

MM: Sure I remember. I was talking to you and you said, ―You‘ve got to start journal-ing.‖ My first reaction was, ―It‘s not for me. I‘m too busy.‖

(Continued next page.)

Kim Ades and Marc Manieri continued…

MM: Then we got into a coaching relationship together, Kim, and I started to write, and instantly when I started to write, I felt better. As I felt better, I started to become

more productive in everything that I was doing; not only in my business, but in my per-

sonal life, my relationships and all my communication.

Then, the feedback from the coach – that being you, Kim – that just perpetuated the writing process for me. I couldn‘t wait to see what my coach was going to write back.

For me, it was just getting encouraged to do it. I think for anyone just starting the writing process, you could start by going to our coaching company's web site and get

your own journal for free. Just signing up for your free journal, we‘re going to send you automatically weekly guided journaling prompts. You can get started right then

and there, without having to have any direct involvement with a coach. That‘s a great way to get your feet wet. Kim?

KA: A lot of people ask me, ―What‘s the best way for

me to journal? I know that I‘m supposed to be positive on this thing, but sometimes I don‘t feel all that posi-

tive.‖

I give them a little formula for journaling really effec-tively. This is how it works. It‘s called dump, dump,

and then dump the dump. Really, what that eludes to is, you have stuff sitting on your chest, you have stuff

you‘re thinking about, worried about, concerned about –

get it out. Write it on paper. When you think you‘re done, keep going. Just really, really unload everything

that‘s weighing you down. Unload, unload, unload, and then stop.

Then literally write these words down: ―It‘s time to turn myself around.‖ The moment

you do that, then you start dumping the dump, which is now you turn your attention to what you want for yourself, rather than what you don‘t want. You‘ve done a good job

of releasing all of that, and now it‘s time for your to create and start to imagine what it is that you‘d like to have in your world.

That‘s when someone journals just on their own. When you‘re journaling with a coach,

you want to go down the path of really understanding what it is that‘s getting in your way, that keeps repeating itself and popping up its head in a variety of manners. When

you‘re journaling for yourself, it‘s like a personal journey of release and keeping your-

self on track. It‘s absolutely amazing. It‘s an incredible tool.

For me, without the journaling platform, I absolutely could not coach. Period. Without journaling, I‘m a pretty good coach. With journaling, I‘m an absolutely over the top,

phenomenal coach, and it‘s because I have the information that I need to be able to go to places very fast.

The first part is that my clients experience a deep personal transformation. That‘s part

A. -22-

KA: Part B is that there‘s never a loss in momentum. Because they‘re journaling

every day, they are experiencing the feeling of being coached every day. When any-one pays attention to themselves that long and that intensely, they‘re going to experi-

ence a shift, and that‘s a tremendous kind of byproduct of it.

Over and above that, people journal, and at the end of their journaling period, it be-comes an intimate experience they don‘t want to leave. So for us, we take them into

the next coaching experience. We have very long-term clients who keep coming back for more and more and more, and that has impacted our coaching business tremen-

dously, because we have a huge amount of repeat and referral clients that absolutely love us. Our clients are raving fans. Maybe you can add to that, Marc?

MM: The journaling platform is Journal Engine, and what‘s interesting is the short

story behind that. When Kim launched Frame of Mind Coaching and I joined her shortly thereafter, we decided that all of our clients would experience journaling, and

it‘s become an extraordinary tool. We actually brought an in-house programming

team to build the software platform that is now known as JournalEngine. We never ac-tually intended for JournalEngine to be this tool that other coaches and other organiza-

tions all around the world are now using, but what happened was a whole bunch of other coaches saw how we were using JournalEngine in the Frame of Mind Coaching

business, and they just fell in love with it. They asked, ―Can we use it?‖ and we said, ―Sure!‖

They started to use it, and long story short is we rebuilt is so it could be customized

for other coaches to use it. There‘s another coaches that use it and now many other organizations, but to bring it back to Frame of Mind Coaching, as Kim mentioned, yes,

it‘s helped both she and I become much better coaches.

I‘ll speak for myself; I‘m a much more intuitive coach because of the journaling proc-ess. I get to see thoughts and beliefs and information that I would probably never get

to without the journaling process, so I‘m a better coach.

What happens is people fall in love with this journaling process, so after our paid

coaching relationship ends, we encourage our clients and they take us up on it. They stay inside the community, and we keep sending them guided journaling prompts and

information to journal around, and they keep writing and they keep collaborating and communicating and connecting with all of our other clients and members inside this

private Frame of Mind Coaching community.

So it‘s had a tremendously powerful impact on us, both on the coaching side in terms of being better coaches, as well as the business side.

Discover more about Journaling in Coaching with Kim and Marc:

http://www.frameofmindcoaching.com

Angela Carr

Patterson

is the owner of Oasis Promo-tions, LLC, a personal develop-

ment company dedicated to helping individuals transform

their world through empower-ment, entertainment, and en-

richment. Angela has helped

thousands of individuals to embrace passion, purpose, and

power in their personal and professional lives.

A global visionary, Angela has

launched the Love Lifestyle Center, and online resource center for fa-

therless daughters seeking to find love and success. She is also the

creator the Love Stories Women Circle, an online global community

of women inspiring to embrace love, celebration, and transforma-

tion.

As a transformation speaker, An-gela has inspired and encouraged

women to develop personal power for over two decades. With her

trademark teaching of, ―I‘m Not

That Woman … Your Journey To Be-ing‖ Angela empowers women to

love themselves, discover their pur-pose, and find their authentic voice.

Specializing in using a results-

based coaching system that she created, the Love Lifestyle Coaching

System, Angela has helped thou-sands of women – specifically fa-

therless daughters – begin to achieve success in both their pro-

fessional and personal lives.

Angela is known around the world

for her uncanny ability to inspire people to release a fear-based

mindset and shift towards a love-based mindset.

I: You call yourself the Love Lifestyle Coach. Why is that?

ACP: They say your passion is your pain, and for me, for years and years I didn‘t love

myself. I realized that love is a lifestyle; that it‘s about how you view yourself, how you see yourself. You see, no one ever teaches us how to love. They teach us how to

ride a bike, teach us how to tie our shoes, teach us how to drive a car, but can you really sit down and remember when someone taught you how to love, specifically

yourself?

Once I began to understand the true meaning of how to love myself, then it became a lifestyle for me. It‘s not just what I do, it‘s who I am. I teach other women to do the

same thing. Love is a lifestyle.

I: I understand that you specifically work with fatherless daughters. What is a ―fatherless daughter?‖

ACP: A fatherless daughter is a female who grew up without the direct contact or in-teraction with her father who was absent, either due to separation, divorce, death, or

abandonment, and it could be a father who lived in the same home with his daughter. You may also be considered a fatherless daughter, even though your father was there

with you, but he was absent emotionally because he wasn‘t available or didn‘t connect with you, or didn‘t play a major role in your development.

That‘s basically what a fatherless daughter is, and that absence of the day-to-day ex-

perience of having an attentive, caring, and loving interaction and relationship with an adult male would actually constitute you being fatherless.

I: What is fatherless daughter syndrome?

ACP: The fatherless daughter syndrome is basically a set of concurrent, identifiable

traits or patterns within the woman‘s life where we are able to identify a certain pattern

which falls into that category of having the fatherless daughter syndrome. We are able to identify this through a master questionnaire that I give women. She answers the

questions, and we‘re able to determine if she has that concurrent set pattern that con-stitutes her being a fatherless daughter and having that syndrome.

I: Why is this topic of such an interest to you?

ACP: Well, I was a fatherless daughter. My mother and father separated when she

was actually pregnant with me, and they later divorced. I‘ve never had my dad, my biological father, to live in the same home with me. They were in separate states, be-

cause she moved back to her hometown, and my father stayed in his hometown. He was not even active in my life. I think I saw my father when I was seven, and I didn‘t

see him again until I was 19 years old.

I did have a stepfather. Eventually my mother remarried when I was about 13-14 years old, but she married a military man, so after about seven months of them being

married, he was shipped off for about three years. I never really had that one-on-one interaction with a father or father figure in my life.

-25- (Continued next page.)

Angela Carr Patterson continued…

ACP: Because of that one missing key element in my life, I was able to identify why I struggled in so many areas. Once I began to see these things in my life happening, I

began to see a pattern and a trait in other women who did not have a father in their

life, or their father was there and he worked a lot, or he just was not hands on with them. There are significant things that show up in our lives that other women who had

the validation of a dad don‘t have to deal with and don‘t have to struggle with.

I: Other than obvious absence of a father, how would a woman know that she is a vic-tim of the fatherless daughter syndrome?

ACP: There are certain things that even research has proven. Fa-

therless daughters tend to grow up with a feeling of emptiness in-side and she struggles with abandonment and rejection issues. Dr.

Richard Horowitz says it like this, ―It leaves a hole in their soul that is extremely difficult to fill, and they carry this father hunger into

adulthood until it‘s dealt with.‖

You don‘t have any real concept of who you are, and you basically

see yourself inaccurately. You have a perception of yourself that is distorted. These distortions and beliefs become imbedded in our

subconscious mind, and they‘re buried very deep. So that self-image begins to control us, but it‘s false self-image, because you really have not had

that connection with the father who validates you and gives you that self-image.

I: That makes sense. What do you do to help these women?

ACP: I‘ve developed a coaching system called the Love Lifestyle Coaching System, and I specifically service women who are in empowerment professions such as life coaches,

speakers, or trainers – those people who help other folks.

I believe that we have to put our mask on first. As they tell us when we‘re on an air-plane, put your mask on first before you help other people. If you are dealing with the

fatherless daughter syndrome, you actually do see life from a tainted lens, and if we‘re

coaching other people, or training or empowering other people, we have to be very, very careful that we‘re not seeing life from a distorted view because of our fatherless

daughter syndrome.

I start off with a discovery and awareness assessment to see where you are. I‘ve de-veloped four fatherless daughter archetypes, and we identify which area you fall into,

and from that we have an eight-step process that I take you through. It‘s called ―Your Journey To Being.‖ You‘ll begin to break through the barriers of that syndrome to help

you reach that eighth step. When you reach that eighth step, which I‘ll call your State of Being, we actually come together and create a Love Lifestyle Success Plan that will

enable you to move forward without those barriers and those emotional walls that have kept you stuck.

I: Is this something anyone can become a part of?

-26-

ACP: Absolutely; any woman that feels that she may be struggling with that problem.

For me, I didn‘t even know that was an issue for me. I really did not, until I began to look at the pattern. How could my father not being in my life be the reason that I was

struggling? There was nothing to connect the dots until I really went into detail, into research, and found out that this really, really was my issue.

I: Yes. I can see where because he wasn‘t part of your life it wasn‘t something that

would be in front of you to say, ―This is the problem.‖

ACP: When you think of absence, you don‘t miss what you didn‘t have. That‘s what I used to tell myself, that my dad not being there wasn‘t an issue for me, but it was.

That one missing key element is the most important thing for a young girl, and you grow up feeling that sense of loneliness, isolation and wanting someone to love you.

You often feel that people don‘t show you enough love and appreciation. The people that are trying to love you often feel like it‘s never enough for you. It‘s just never

enough. When you hear people, your husband or your children or your friends, say,

―What is it going to take to make you happy? It‘s never enough!‖ You may be dealing with that fatherless daughter syndrome.

I: I didn‘t realize that would be a key phrase.

ACP: Yes. It‘s that hole that can never be filled unless you begin to get some help and

do the necessary work. You‘ve got this hole in your soul that you don‘t really know that it was stemming from that relationship, or the absence of that relationship with

your dad.

I: I could see where someone with this syndrome would have much difficulty forming basic relationships, like moving onto a partnership. I can't even imagine getting to the

part where you could have children. You would have to have a very understanding spouse.

ACP: Yes. Most fatherless daughters are not able to sustain really lasting relation-ships. Even if they are, the relationships are not fulfilling. I was divorced after 16-1/2

years of marriage. I could sit here and tell you all the things that my first husband did to me and play the victim, but on some level I didn‘t love myself, and on some level, he

felt that.

I say that it is a very unkind thing to ask someone to do for you what you are not will-ing to do for yourself. So how could I expect him to love me when I did not understand

how to love myself? On some level, he felt that distance. On some level, he felt that inability for me to connect with him.

I: I can imagine that was very difficult for both of you. That‘s base number one. They

always say you have to love yourself, and I could see where that would be a huge prob-lem.

ACP: But you don‘t know that. When I was going through the marriage and going

through the divorce, I didn‘t know that. (Continued next page.)

Angela Carr Patterson continued…

ACP: It was later as I began to deal with my fatherless daughter syndrome that I was able to believe that we‘ve got to be 100% responsible for our lives. We can play the

blame game and we could blame all of these things on everybody else, but we have got

to deal with it.

I was reading research not too long ago that once you reach 35, you can't continue to blame your parents, because somewhere you have got to start doing the necessary

work to heal what has happened in your life.

I: That‘s true, and I do think that it is very important that you make the choice. You might be making choices from a position of where you were when you were a child, and

then at some point you have to stop and say, ―Wait a minute – I can make other choices now.‖

ACP: Absolutely, and that‘s what I had to do. I said, ―Okay, here‘s what I know. I

was the victim of fatherless daughter syndrome, but what can I do to change that?‖ First of all, I had to realize that I‘m not that woman. I‘m not that woman anymore. I

can decide and I can choose who it is that I want to be.

Someone said that there is, in the mind of God, a perfect image of who you are. What

I did was discover that perfect image. We all know who we really are at a deeper level and it‘s that image that keeps coming back and won't go away. You push it back when

you would rather play small and play safe, but there‘s a bigger version of you. There‘s a bigger vision you hold for yourself. You just won't allow it to come alive, and so we

keep pressing it down and pressing it down. Your defining moment is when you‘re will-ing to let go of who you‘re not.

I decided that I‘m not a fatherless daughter. I do not fall prey to the fatherless daugh-

ter syndrome anymore. I was willing to let go of who I was not and step into my most powerful place and become the woman I was born to be. That‘s your defining moment.

I: I can see where it wouldn‘t just affect your familial relationships and personal rela-

tionships, but also I could see where it would affect you in business and your everyday

life as well.

ACP: Absolutely. When I break down the four archetypes of a fatherless daughter, I break it down according to your relationships and according to how you deal in your ca-

reer and business.

I help fatherless daughters find true love and success. Those are two of the major things that we want. We want to be loved. We want to be loved, and we want to be

secure Most often when that father left home or when he walked away, that young lady‘s lifestyle changed. A lot of times, it left the family bankrupt, so that‘s why a lot of

fatherless daughters are overachievers. They‘re going at it. They‘re running their busi-nesses. They have successful businesses or successful careers, but they don‘t really

have a lifestyle. -28-

I: You have an online community for women called The Love Story Women Circle?

ACP: The Love Story Women Circle is an online global community. It‘s a sacred place and a safe place for women to come together to connect, to transform, to grow, and get

information, transformation, and inspiration. It‘s just women from all over the country, and you don‘t have to be a fatherless daughter. It‘s free to join.

There are some phenomenal women who are just wanting to transcend their lives onto

the next level as far as learning to love themselves. Love is the governing force, the fuel that actually sets the tone for everything in your life. When you can truly love yourself

completely and honestly, then you can begin to create for yourself a life beyond your wildest dreams. I believe that love is the most powerful, powerful force in the Universe.

I: Sounds like a very nice site. What‘s next for you, Angela?

ACP: We are definitely getting ready for our annual event. It‘s called The Love Experi-ence.

The Love Experience is a three-day transformational event for women. It‘s one of those

events that once you attend, you‘ll come back and you‘ll say, ―Wow, I really can't put into words what just happened to me, but I do know that it was transforming.‖

I actually wrote a theater piece called ―A Lost Cry In The Dark.‖ It is an amazing piece that is really your story, my story, our mother‘s story, our daughter‘s story … you will

hear the voice of your soul speak to you during this theater piece. It is one of the most sacred and inspirational events that you would ever attend.

I have a new program that I‘m getting ready to launch, and it‘s called the Love Success

Club. It is a diamond group style coaching where I‘ve put together six step systems de-

signed to help you with your relationships.

I: Do you have any final words for our listeners or our fatherless daughters out there?

ACP: What I want to say to the fatherless daughters is that you can claim for yourself who you are. You can claim for yourself that you are more than who you think you are.

I am more than who they say I am. I‘m not that woman. I‘ve got a brand new destiny and a brand new me.

Claim for yourself who you want to

be, as a perfect image of God, as a perfect image of who you are in the

mind of God. Claim for yourself that image, and your defining mo-

ment will be when you‘re willing to let go of who you‘re not and step

into your most powerful place and become who you were born to be.

It‘s an undeletable file. Just go ahead and download the file. http://www.thelovelifestylecenter.com/

Dr. Ann Deaton

They say that a picture is worth a thou-

sand words and Ann Deaton believes it. She sees the power of visual imagery as

her coaching clients picture their chal-lenges and use the pictures to realize their

visions. Ann is a leadership coach and owner of DaVinci Resources, a coaching and consult-

ing company, and a partner in Bounce, a lead-ership development organization. In addition

to developing individual leaders and their

teams, Ann teaches coaching and facilitates leadership development programs for universi-

ties, government, corporations, and nonprofit clients. Ann is currently working on her first

book entitled Picture the Impact: Using Visual Imagery to Ease the Path of Change. The book

is scheduled for publication in February 2011.

I: I know you use visual images in your coach-ing. Can you give me an example of a client

who made significant changes in their life or work using visual imagery?

AD: Sure, absolutely. Let me share an exam-

ple that‘s changed a little bit to protect his con-fidentiality, although this particular client has

given me permission to share his story. Daniel is someone I had worked with for sev-

eral sessions. He came to coaching wanting to change his work. In the past, Daniel had en-

joyed what he did and had a strong sense of

achievement and contribution in his work. How-ever, at the time I met Daniel he was really

struggling. He had an unappreciative boss, was spending 70 to 80 hours a week at work, and

he had a direct report who he felt was sabotag-ing him behind his back. Daniel was anxious.

He openly shared how resentful he was and also his uncertainty about what to do about it.

The coaching conversation went something like this:

Ann: Daniel, you’ve done a great job describing

vividly what it’s like for you at work and I won-der is there an image or a picture that comes to

mind as you think about it? Would you be will-ing just to take a deep breath and close your

eyes for a moment and tell me what you see?

Daniel: Yes, that’s a good idea. Let me see. The picture I see is like I’m an eagle. I’m

returning to my nest and I’m expecting it to be the way I left it but it's been trashed by someone. It’s not a safe nest anymore.

Ann: So, Daniel, you’re flying above your nest and noticing this?

Daniel: Yes.

Ann: What will you do?

Daniel: I don’t want to go back to this nest. I need to find or build another one. I think

that’s what I need to do at work, too. I’ve been struggling to stay but it doesn’t feel safe or clean to do that.

Ann: When you say safe or clean, Daniel, what do you mean?

Daniel: It feels like it violates my integrity to stay, to accept the way I’m treated and the lack of support, that it’s soiling me by association.

Ann: Like the eagle?

Daniel: Yes, and I need to find a new nest or to build one.

Ann: What might that be?

AD: Daniel went on to discuss other jobs he‘d like to have, how he could move ahead

in exploring those. Though he moved quickly from his image of the eagle back to his work situation, he kept returning to that visual image in the subsequent sessions. The

eagle metaphor and image enabled Daniel to get some distance from his situation and to see it clearly. It also helped him to reconnect with his personal value of freedom and

its representation in the eagle, and to realize that he was in control of where he landed.

So with this image and metaphor, Daniel found that he gained the awareness that he could easily glide away from an unrewarding work environment instead of prying him-

self loose as he‘d been trying to do.

After this coaching session, Daniel decided to research eagles and how they locate and build their nests as a way that he could consider his job search from an entirely differ-

ent perspective. He told me he felt much more relaxed and optimistic about his future. He noted how readily he could access his eagle image whenever he felt stressed at

work, and in that way remain energized with his desire to move forward.

So I think Daniel‘s is a good example of a client that just kind of took the image and flew with it if you will. He made great use of imagery to make some big, big changes in

his life.

I: That‘s a very good image too, because once people are confident and doing well they can soar. I mean, they really soar. They can do whatever they want. That was

an excellent image.

-31- (Continued next page.)

Ann Deaton continued…

I: Ann, I understand you were a clinical psychologist for about 20 years before you be-came a leadership coach. How do you think that background contributed to your use of

imagery in your coaching?

AD: Great question. My own journey using imagery began when I was a clinical psy-

chologist. I was working mainly with medical patients helping them deal with pain and illness and found that imagery was really, really powerful in their treatment. Some-

times patients were able to visualize themselves as warriors fighting off an invader, (the illness), or to picture themselves holding a handful of helium balloons, for in-

stance, and rising above the pain. It made them feel more in control of their pain and they also relied less on medication when they had imagery as a tool they could use.

I also worked as a neuropsychologist, someone who treats persons who have injuries to

their brains. In this role, I really became very captivated by our differing brains and the ways that each of us learns and excels. In particular, I appreciated Howard Gardner‘s

concept of multiple intelligences, and the notion that some of us are primarily visual learners and almost all of us can easily understand pictures and images. When a person

has the opportunity to learn through the modality of visual imagery, the learning is of-

ten effortless and fun.

What I found was my patients were really passionate about learning how to use images and the learning stuck. So for many of my psychotherapy patients, visualizing proved

to be a really effective way to work through their challenges.

Then, when I moved to coaching, of course it was natural for me to bring that love of visual imagery with me. I often find myself using imagery with coaching clients to clar-

ify a vision they have. I also use pictures with workplace teams, often around a team‘s resistance to change where imagery can be really effective.

I: I could see where that would be very helpful to help what they are thinking.

AD: Sometimes when a client is confused about what the right image might be, obvi-

ously you might choose not to use imagery with that particular client. But sometimes it‘s just that they need a little bit more structure and then there are a couple of options.

One possible structure is to have the client do a Google search on the internet for the right picture. Almost everybody‘s done a Google search before, and what a lot of people

don‘t realize is you can click on ‗Images‘ and just search Google for images. So that particular client could type in confusion, hit Google Images search, and they‘d get I

think over 15 million images on confusion.

So there are plenty to choose from, and it‘s easier sometimes to recognize the right picture than to come up with it yourself. For the client who searches for images to cap-

ture his ―confusion‖, the images that come up include a floating question mark in the sky, a whirlpool, and an image of a crossroads with arrows pointing in every direction.

So a Google search is one really easy way that clients, even if they say ―I‘m not visual,

I can't really do this― can find the right picture. They often have a good time doing a search like that and then all the need to do is recognize the image that fits for them,

and that‘s the one we use in our coaching. -32-

AD: The other great thing about doing the Google search is if you‘re coaching on the

telephone as I do with a lot of my clients, the client can actually send you the picture the link to the picture they came up with and you can be looking at that image to-

gether. So a Google search is one way to discover an image, but there are other ways too. If a client says to me, ―Boy, I‘d like to try that imagery thing but just can't come

up with anything‖ I can provide a structure to help. For example, with the client who says he is confused, I might ask ‖Let‘s say your challenge is a kind of weather. What

kind of weather could it be? As you think about your confusion, and try to capture this place you‘re at in your life, what kind of weather might best represent it?‖

I: In my picture, it was sunny. There was no rain,

no problems; it‘s just time to make a decision, I guess, I don‘t know. No rain, no clouds, just a

blue, nice day.

AD: So it‘s an exciting decision point for you, de-

spite the confusion?

I: It‘s exciting and scary at the same time because it‘s like I‘m starting over, I guess brand new, so

yes.

AD: And another client at a confusing place in their life might say ―Oh, it‘s like a dense fog. I can't see

anything.‖ So it just depends on the client. I‘m al-ways going with the client‘s image and letting them

play with it and see where that takes them.

I: That makes sense. You know, you were talking about the individual. What would be the benefit of using images to lead a group, a team?

A: Yes, visualizing is a wonderful strategy for working with teams. For instance, lead-ers often talk about the challenges of getting everyone on the team on the same page

and images can be a wonderful way to do that. A leader might say to her team, ―Our goals this year are to surpass our competition. We want to be the best there is in

terms of our product, our service, and our sales volume.‖ To be even more inspiring, she might also share an image such as saying, ―Right now we‘re climbing the ladder

and right next to us is our competitor on another ladder. At this moment they‘ve climbed higher than us. They are ahead of us, but as I look up I can see that our lad-

der is much taller than theirs. We‘ve got much more room to grow. We‘ve got better products. We‘ve got better personnel, so it‘s just a matter of us taking the next steps

up the ladder.‖

When a leader uses a visual image like that, it‘s not unusual to see people on her team put pictures of ladders on their desktop computer wallpaper, and to hear people at

meetings using the image by asking, ―Is that going to take us up a rung or down a

rung?‖ The ladder image is so easy for everyone to retrieve and almost the language that the whole team shares as far as their vision for what they want.

(Continued next page.)

Ann Deaton continued…

AD: It can be a really powerful and easy way to get everyone fully engaged and also enables them to talk about even pretty heavy and stressful things that they can hold

more lightly when they have a picture. The ladder picture is a much easier concept for

people to hold than that notion that if we don‘t surpass our competitor then what‘s go-ing to happen to us? It lets people recall the goal easily and hold it more lightly, and

that helps them stay creative, motivated, and flexible.

I: Tell me more about staying power of pictures. How well do people remember and use pictures in the midst of change?

AD: Yes, great question. I think you‘re beginning to see as we talk how easy it is for

people to retrieve, create and use pictures. They really are worth a thousand words, and you can see a picture in just a moment. Like Daniel, the client we talked about

earlier, that eagle image was easy for him to retrieve anytime in just a second. If we‘d created a mantra for him to say to himself, that might have been a bit harder to re-

trieve. Pictures are kind of a shorthand for what can be a really complex vision or story. Pictures also tend to be stored in a different part of our brain than words, so

we‘re using a different kind of creativity and more of our brainpower when we combine

images with words.

I: I agree. From my studies, most people are visual and then you have auditory peo-ple at about five percent, is that right?

AD: Yes, people are visual beings.

I: Then there‘s aesthetic people. The majority of them are visual or at least that‘s

their secondary, so that‘s a stronger one to use I would think, than chants. Adding those two together would be perfect.

AD: Yes. You can use a verbal metaphor like ―free like the eagle‖ but you also have

the picture of an eagle you can retrieve in a second.

I: Well I‘m curious; do you walk your talk and use imagery yourself when you‘re trying

to accomplish a goal or overcome a challenge?

AD: Yes, it won't surprise you that I do. In fact, a couple of years ago I was thinking about how I want my business to develop. I looked at my business and though my in-

come level is fine and I like everything I‘m doing. But it was also clear to me that there was something else I wanted in my work that wasn‘t entirely clear to me. So I decided

to create a picture of my coaching business as it was at that point and then to come up with a second picture of what I wanted it to be.

The picture for my business at that point was lots and lots of little fires. I was doing

coaching, some speaking and teaching, writing, and leadership and team development -- lots of little fires. The second picture I created of what I wanted was to of this great,

rip-roaring bonfire, visible for miles around another little fire that I‘d be starting, and ―Yes‖ when it‘s clearly part of my big bonfire.

-34-

AD: Having those images for me over the last couple years has let me continually say

‖No‖ to business when it‘s another little fire that I‘d be starting, and ―Yes‖ when it‘s clearly part of my big bonfire.

That image has also has led me to having more partnerships with others. If you‘ve got a big bonfire you need big, big logs and you can't really carry them by yourself so it

also really helped me to realize that I needed partners and to develop those partner-

ships. So I absolutely walk my talk and it often helps me get unstuck to create an im-age for what I want.

I: If someone else wanted to learn to use imagery, even before your book comes out,

do you offer any other options to enable them to learn?

AD: Sure, absolutely. I have a short intro article on imagery and I‘d be happy to send that to anyone who wants to email me directly at ann@davinciresources.com. I also

teach a four-session teleclass from time to time, so when there are enough requests then I‘m happy to schedule one to start.

I: Well, excellent. I really appreciate you being with us Ann, thank you.

AD: Yes, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. As you can probably

tell, imagery is a real joy to me and I really appreciate your questions and your interest

in learning about it and letting me share it with your readers.

Bringing Out the Genius in You

http://www.davinciresources.com/

Donna Amos

is the founder and president of the International Association of Solopreneurs, creator of Simple Marketing Pro and owner of Infinite Possibilities Coaching--

all of her companies are under the umbrella of Solopreneur Solutions, LLC.

Donna has worked with solo business owners for nearly 25 years in the areas

of business planning, marketing, sales and strategizing. That experience has given herinsights into the unique challenges coaches face.

Her professional certifications include individual and organizational coaching from the International Coaching Academy and Integrity Coaching, as well as

extensive training in business management, sales and marketing.

I: What do you mean when you say you help solopreneurs learn how to love marketing and sales?

DA: Most business owners go into business because they‘re passionate about what

they do; the service or the product that they provide. They don‘t even necessarily

think about the fact that they‘re going to have to also be the salesperson for the busi-ness and the marketing director. When they realize that, they are usually not very

happy about it. They have a negative opinion about sales. They don‘t like the market-ing piece. What they love is to do what they do.

What I help them to learn is that sales and marketing does not have to be threatening.

It doesn‘t have to be something that you‘re afraid of. It really is about sharing your value, learning how to talk about what you do so that you get to share that passion,

and in doing so, people will automatically be attracted to do business with you.

It‘s helping them to break down those barriers and that tension and stress that they have around sales and having to ask for the business, which can be really scary for

some people. I help them to make that not so scary.

I: Why do you think it‘s actually a blessing that some people have lost their jobs?

DA: There are so many people working in Corporate America that really dislike what they‘re doing. They would love to venture out on their own, but they don‘t have the

courage to do so. A lot of these people that have been laid off. I know initially it‘s ex-tremely stressful and they‘re scared to death. But, when some of that fear settles and

they start thinking about the possibilities, (and they have a little bit of a cushion be-

cause they normally have some unemployment benefits), it really is the opportunity for them to do what they always thought they wanted to do, what they really love, and

what they‘re passionate about.

We‘ve been raised to think that working for someone else is security, and I think that

the economy has shown us that it couldn‘t be anything further from the truth. Cer-

tainly is not secure at all. Losing a job could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

I: You say that we all have an obligation to share our gifts with the world. What does that mean? -36-

DA: It means that every one of us has

things that we‘re really, really good at. We have gifts that have been given to us

that I believe is something that we‘re supposed to be sharing. We wouldn‘t

have those gifts if we were not supposed to put them into use and share them

with those around us.

If you believe in God or however you be-lieve, and you‘ve been given that gift by

God and you‘re not taking advantage of it, then you‘re really withholding it from

the world. I really feel like we have an obligation to share those things that

we‘re really good at and are really pas-

sionate about. I think that when we don‘t, when we keep pulling away from it

and doing something else instead, it will always keep coming up and smacking us

in the head.

I can tell you story after story of clients that would keep avoiding that thing.

Maybe initially they told me that they would really love to be an author, but in-

stead of doing that they kept doing other things, but that kept coming back up and

back up. They finally have to embrace it and go forth and do what they‘re really

supposed to be doing and share that

with the world and allow others to get joy from what they have to offer.

I: Why do you believe the best gift we

can give each other is a word of encour-agement?

DA: I think that is sometimes the only

thing that stands in the way of someone stepping out and doing something that

they‘re scared to death of doing. Is they‘re afraid they might fail. It‘s impor-

tant for someone else to believe in them, for someone else to say, ―You really are

good at that. You would be excellent. I

want to see you succeed at that. I know that you will.‖

(Continued next page.)

Donna Amos continued…

DA: Sometimes that‘s all another human being needs is for someone to believe in them and encourage them for them to have the strength and the courage to step for-

ward. So what better gift can we give to someone than to say, ―You‘re special. You

have everything you need. Go for it. We‘re right here cheering you on.‖

I just think it‘s the best thing that we can do for another person.

I: Can you tell me about applying the DBA formula and what that means?

DA: Yes. The DBA formula is Decide, Believe, and Act. By that, I mean if you have made a decision to go into business for yourself, then you have to make a decision to

do whatever it takes. It has to be a decision that you absolutely are going to create that business that you want to create, and once you‘ve made the decision, now you‘re

committed.

That means there‘s no plan B. ―I will do this unless, or until, or but …‖ there can't be any ―unless,‖ ―until,‖ or ―but.‖ You have to really be committed, because if you‘re com-

mitted, you will be willing to step out, to do things that make you maybe a little un-

comfortable, to get back up when you‘ve been knocked down. If you‘re not totally committed, if you have not made that decision, then you will allow that to get in your

way. So when things get a little tough, it‘s really easy to turn and walk away. So you have to totally decide, and once you‘ve made that decision, then you‘re committed.

Then you have to believe in it.

There‘s absolutely no way that we can hit a goal that we do not believe we can hit. I don‘t care how hard you try and how close you come, we will always get in our own

way and sabotage that success if we don‘t believe we can do it. We will find a way to get in the way.

You have to truly believe in yourself, and there are things you can do to strengthen

that belief and to help you continue to grow in that. You really have to check in with yourself and be honest with yourself. Do I really believe I can do this? If not, then

why not? What do I think is in my way? Get somebody to help you find the tools and

resources, the solutions you need to build that belief up stronger.

The final piece is taking the action. If you‘ve made the decision and you believe in it,

then you have to take action. There is a book called Ready, Aim, Fire that talks about don‘t wait to take action until everything is perfect, until there is no chance of failure,

because that day will never come. You have to be willing to take action, whether it‘s

perfect or not, and in the process you‘ll perfect things. Things will get better and you‘ll find solutions, but you have to be willing to take the action.

Think about companies like Microsoft. How many times have they rolled out a new ver-

sion of their software that wasn‘t perfect? It was filled with bugs and glitches, but they roll it out anyway. You really have to have that mentality. Then they fix it along the

way. That‘s what I mean by the DBA formula.

I: What is one of the biggest challenges for solo business owners?

DA: I‘d say one of the biggest challenges is we have a lot on our plates. We‘re doing

it all, and so the biggest challenge is staying consistent with our marketing and our sales, even when we‘re busy.

What happens is we get really busy, and then we slack off on

our marketing, and because we do that, when we complete the business that we currently have in the pipeline, we‘re out of

business, because we haven't been consistent in that market-ing. One of the things that‘s most important to any solo busi-

ness owner‘s business is to have systems in place to help them remain consistent in their marketing. Maybe they won't be per-

forming that marketing with the very same high levels they were before they got all the business that they have gathered,

but if they continue to do it at some level, they won't find them-selves out of business and creating that rollercoaster ride with

their income – what a stressful way to live. That is one of the

very biggest challenges that I‘ve seen any solo business owner has to encounter.

I: Tell me what you mean by marrying your business plan and marketing plan.

DA: I think that again, most solo business owners don‘t necessarily go into business with a business owner‘s mindset, so a lot of what they do is fly by the seat of their

pants. Sometimes that works really well. Sometimes it works very well until they hit a certain feeling, because they can't move beyond that, because they don‘t have things in

place.

By marrying your business plan and your marketing plan, you have to know what the numbers are. You have to know, where are you headed income wise? What kind of

sales revenues are you trying to generate? What does that mean as far as number of clients and number of products that you have to capture monthly, daily, weekly? What

marketing are you going to put in place to actually hit those numbers, so that you‘re

measuring the results you‘re getting from your marketing to make sure that you‘re hit-ting the numbers you need?

Once you‘ve done it for a short time, you‘ll start to see how many prospects do I need

to speak to before I get one sale? How many postcards do I have to mail before I get one response? Whatever the marketing strategy, knowing those numbers and being

able to make sure that you‘re marrying the two of them together – the business plan with the marketing plan – and making sure that that marketing plan is supporting the

numbers you‘re trying to generate in your business.

I: What kind of expectations of success should a new business owner have?

DA: That‘s one of the things when you‘re first getting started, many new business owners will think that they‘re going to create a lot of revenues right away, and the fact

is most times, that doesn‘t happen. You need to have a good buffer for yourself. Make

sure that you have six months of cash flow to protect your business and your personal life so that you don‘t have that stress buildup.

-39- (Continued next page.)

Donna Amos continued…

DA: It takes a while for you as a business owner to wrap your arms around everything that needs to be done, to put the systems in place that help you to be more consistent

again in your marketing and your sales. It takes a little bit of a ramp-up time. Abso-

lutely you‘ll have some level of success. Will it be what you initially think that you‘ll create? Most likely not.

Have the high expectations, but also have a Plan B. I don‘t mean a Plan B and what

you‘re going to do if it doesn‘t work, I mean what is the security net that you can put under your business so that you‘re protected? The ―what if‖ – what if that doesn‘t hap-

pen, then what can I do to make sure that I am protected? It can be as simple as making sure that you have a good insurance policy in

place so if your business burns down that you‘ve pro-tected all of your content, so you have another copy

of everything that you‘ve done in a fireproof safe, and you have an insurance policy that‘s going to pro-

tect the actual building.

Really thinking about what could happen – what if it

didn‘t work out the way that I think? How can I pro-tect myself? Create really high expectations for

yourself and think really big and go after it, but act responsible as a business owner and have those sales

safeties in place as well.

I: If you had to recommend one strategy for solo business owners, what would it be?

DA: It would be that they put at least one active

marketing strategy in place before anything else. By that, I mean that they‘re out there having conversa-

tions with people. Too often business owners get stuck behind the computer, and they‘re not actually interacting with their potential cli-

ent or with strategic partners that could drive traffic, drive business to them. Be out there having conversations. Whether that‘s virtual conversations over the phone or

face-to-face, you have to be communicating. If you‘re not communicating, you‘re not going to be attracting the business to yourself. Make sure that you have a good, active

strategy.

The second – I know you said one strategy, but there‘s a second strategy – that is,

having a really good follow-up system. Many, many business opportunities fall through the cracks because we don‘t have great follow-up systems in place.

I: I‘d like to ask you a few personal questions. What inspires you, Donna?

DA: What inspires me is helping others succeed. Helping somebody feel empowered

to take that next step when they were maybe afraid to. Helping them to see the possi-bilities and to believe in themselves and to move forward with their idea, with what

they really want to do – that to me is inspiring.

-40-

I: How do you inspire others and change their life?

DA: I inspire others by walking my talk. I like to encourage. I do the tough things

that I ask my clients to do or those around me to do. I don‘t just want to tell someone what to do. I want them to see that I‘m experiencing the same thing. That includes

doing the things that are scary and that I may not think that I can succeed at, but I think walking my talk actually inspires others.

I: What made you choose this arena for your life‘s great work?

DA: I‘ve been working with solo business owners for over 20 years, first starting off in

the marketing arena and then in the corporate arena. In the corporate arena, I was still working with solo business owners, because it was individual real estate agents

that were building their own practices, so helping them to do that. It just seems to be where I‘m naturally attracted.

There‘s this huge, high level of failure for entrepreneurs, and it doesn‘t have to be that way. I want to help many, many – not the 20% that typically survive (actually it

comes down to a lot less than that) but I‘d like to see 80%. I‘d like to switch it around and see 80% of people not just surviving, but thriving in their businesses. I believe

that they are the ones who today will turn our economy around.

Are you facing challenges like these in your business?

* I am overwhelmed with how much I must accomplish and don't know which way to turn first.

* I am not attracting enough prospects to reach my income goals.

* There are so many options being offered I don't know which one to choose.

* I don't know how to prepare and follow a business and marketing plan.

* I don't have any money to promote my business.

* I would love to hire a coach but can't afford one.

* I have been in business for a time now and am still not experiencing the results I would like.

* My business has hit a plateau and I don't know how to break through.

* I know what marketing strategies I want to use but don't know all that is involved to implement

them successfully.

Solopreneur Solutions has a roadmap to success for all of these challenges—regardless of your budget!

http://www.infinitepossibilitiescoaching.com/main.html

Jane

Perdue

delights in innovat-ing and inspiring

at the intersection of the art of lead-

ership and the sci-ence of business.

After taking off

what she called her ―corporate

charm bracelet‖ of success following

15 years as a For-tune 100 company

Vice President, Jane now gives

back as a sought-after consultant,

coach, speaker, and author.

Jane has been fea-

tured as an expert in

newspapers and magazines and has

appeared on local morning shows on

major TV networks, including NBC and

ABC. Jane is pas-sionate about helping

businesswomen, coaches, and indi-

viduals believe in and achieve their biggest

and best potential.

Jane‘s company, Get

Your Big On, pro-vides coaching ser-

vices as well as online training pro-

grams and webinars so people can think

big, sell big, dream big, give big, lead

big, and live big.

I: Your bio is intriguing. Did you really leave a VP job because your boss called you

―Aunt Polly?‖ Please say more about that.

JP: Well, it‘s a true story. The telecommunications firm that I had worked for had been acquired about six months earlier by a larger organization. My boss, who had

been with the acquiring company, was telling me about a discussion that he had had with the corporate CEO who had asked for a description of the executive team that re-

ported to my new boss.

I asked my boss what he said about me, and he said, ―Well, I described you as Aunt Polly.‖ I asked him what he meant by that, because I didn‘t have a clue. He replied,

―Well, I told the CEO that you‘re a soft round woman with big ideas who inspires peo-ple.‖

Now granted, I think there was a compliment in there, but to describe me by my size –

and I‘m going to be the first to admit that I‘m not a size 8 – instead of describing me

by my accomplishments annoyed me, upset me, disappointed me. It also made me start to think about working someplace else where positive outcomes, giving back, and

truly helping people would be more important than describing someone by their physi-cal appearance, so that‘s why I left.

I: Unfortunately, we see a lot of that in the media, etc. Like Hillary Clinton, what she‘s

wearing, even though she is Secretary of State. Nobody discusses the past Secretary of States, the males, by what they were wearing that morning.

JP: That‘s very true. People in business or the media rarely talk about a man‘s hair-

styles, makeup, jewelry, the height of their heels, or his clothes, but unfortunately women do get described by their appearance.

I: Tell us about your background. How did you move from Corporate America to a

coaching business entrepreneur? That‘s quite a big jump.

JP: It was an enormous jump, but it was the right thing to do at the time. When I was growing up, I was the oldest of three girls, no boys . My dad always told me that if I

put my heart and mind to it, there wasn‘t anything that a man could do that I couldn‘t do even better.

So buoyed and inspired by that message, I set out to tackle Corporate America, and I did. I spent 15 years as a Vice President in Fortune 100 telecommunications compa-

nies. While I was there I earned the nicknames ―The Iron Hand in the Velvet Glove‖ and ―The HR Goddess.‖ During those years, I put my MBA to good use. I like to say

that I earned my business chops by managing 25 million dollar budgets and thousands of employees. I developed and implemented strategy. I developed many, many lead-

ership programs for managers, directors, VP‘s, with some programs exclusively for-women – and I also amassed a staggering collection of handbags.

Throughout my career I‘ve seen good bosses and bad bosses. I‘ve seen bad bosses

who didn‘t know they were bad bosses, bad bosses who knew they were bad but didn‘t have any clue on how to get better; and then I‘ve also seen bad bosses who knew they

were bad bosses, but they just really didn‘t give a rip. (Continued next page.) -43-

Jane Perdue continued…

JP: I had had one frightful boss too many. I decided to follow my dream and start an organization where we help people to live to their biggest and best personal and

professional potential.

We do coaching as well as online training and elearning. Our whole foundation is helping people believe in themselves and then achieve the very best that they‘re

possible of doing.

I: Wow. HR Goddess – I love that nickname! What key facts about leadership and

coaching did you learn from being a female executive, and how can coaches put that learning to work for themselves and in their own practice?

JP: Great question because I think many of the qualities

that distinguish us as women leaders make us particularly well suited to coaching. As women, we typically think of

power as collaboration and networking. Man studies show that men typically think of power as rank and status, so

approaching it from a collaborativ and networking stand-point is very people-based.

As a coach, a spirit of partnering with our client is crucial

to establish that level of trust that we need to help the coachee map out his or her development plan.

Another thing I‘ve seen is that women are great at asking

questions. ―We seek first to understand,‖ to paraphrase Covey just a little bit. As a coach, it‘s really important to

ask a lot of questions so that we‘re really ferreting out the core issues, because we want to make sure that what we're doing with our client is

solving the right problem, and asking lots of questions is really the only way to make that happen.

The last area where I‘ve seen women‘s skills be particularly helpful with coaching is

that we know how to be persuasive, but do it in a nonthreatening manner. We take our interpersonal skills, something that women are just intrinsically good at – the

empathy, the flexibility, the sociability, and listening; those skills to work with our client to make something happen. As women, working in that collaborative,

nonthreatening way, we can really get to the heart of the matter with our client and put them on a path for success.

I: You say that you inspire and challenge at the intersection of the art of leadership

and science of business. Can you tell us more about what that means?

JP: I‘d be happy to. Real leaders use their head to manage and their heart to lead. That‘s a bit of a tricky intersection to navigate. In business, and as coaches, we

must deal with people and profits and principles to achieve our business outcomes.

What I‘ve discovered is that people typically get stuck on one side of that ledger or the other.

-44-

JP: They rely too much on their head and forget about or ignore people to the detri-

ment of morale and engagement, or they rely too much on their heart, and then fail to effectively manage issues and problems to the detriment of the organization.

Some people want to be better leaders and better people, and some just need guid-ance and an occasional nudge in the right direction. As coaches and consultants,

those are the people that we must inspire, for those who are stuck on one side or the others, we have to challenge them to improve.

I: For coaches to be successful, you say there has to be an emphasis on business re-

sults and relationships. What advice about that do you have for coaches?

JP: First, I really believe that relationships are the new currency of the workplace. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard professor and author, has this great phrase that I just

love, in which she references how, ―Circles of influence will replace the chains of com-mand.‖ I think that‘s a really powerful message. As coaches, we have to help our cli-

ents develop the skill sets for building relationships, alliances, and coalitions. Plus as

coaches, we want to have those skills ourselves.

We see that social media is bringing people together in ways that circumvent hierar-chies and establish processes, so people have to have the skills to operate effectively

in that kind of world.

Coming from Corporate America, all those 20+ years, I know all too well that success and results are important. Businesses measure themselves by the bottom line. A

coach might be the most likeable person. He or she might have the best possible coaching skills, but if they can't offer a solution to a business problem, then organiza-

tions aren‘t going to be interested in hiring them, because they need and want re-sults.

Individuals want results, too. Those results might be quantitative or they might be

qualitative, but either way they‘re measurable and/or observable.

As a coach, we have to ask our clients, ―What does success look like? How will they

know it when they see it? What metrics can we use? What metrics can we establish as our yardstick for success?‖

Then, use those measurements at the beginning of the coaching arrangement,

throughout the engagement, and then periodically step back, assess and review our progress towards those metrics, and make a course correction if we have to. A coach

simply has to monitor the whole results process.

I: You talk about the power of coaching people to make smarter mistakes. Isn't there a contradiction to the usual business outcomes where mistakes are to be

avoided?

JP: I wish I could have operated in my whole career without making a mistake, but I will self-disclose here that that absolutely was not the case. What I found is that if we

spend our lives looking to avoid mistakes or being fearful of making them, we get pre-cious little accomplished.

(Continued next page.)

Jane Perdue continued…

JP: I love quotes, and I use two of them to illustrate this point about not living our lives and avoiding mistakes or being fearful of them. One quote comes from Nathaniel

Beckett. He is an Irish writer, and he says, ―Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try

again. Fail again. Fail better.‖ I think that is really powerful.

The other one from the great Zig Zigler says, “Those who wait until all the lights are green before starting will never leave home.‖

I think there‘s a lot that we can learn from our mistakes, and that‘s where the power of

coaching comes into play. We can help our clients deconstruct the situation, look for places where the process, the system, the communications went wrong, and then ex-

plore going forward learnings that our clients can use to propel their career or their business in the right direction.

I like to say that mistakes are the great teachable moments that can transform our cli-

ents and as coaches, we‘re the ones who lead and manage them through those trans-formational moments.

I: You do a program called ―Get Your Big On.‖ Tell me more about it and what tips and pointers you have for coaches looking to Get Their Big On.

JP: Get Your Big On is an online elearning business that‘s based on a mindset – an at-

titude to life. Too often we let ourselves get boxed in by negative self-talk, and we start to build walls that separate us from our abilities and what we do.

We get ourselves into patterns where we say, ―I can't do something because …‖ instead

of saying, ―Sure, I can do whatever as soon as …‖ The first is an excuse. The second is an opportunity.

As humans, on average we have between 50,000 and 75,000 thoughts a day. That‘s a

lot of stuff going on in our head. If a lot of those thoughts are negative ones where we‘re thinking things like, ―I can't get any more coaching clients because I‘m not very

good at marketing myself.‖ That negative framing starts to undermine our ability to do

what we want to do and feel good about it.

Another area where we can get tripped up is that of perfectionism. We start thinking that we have to absolutely be flawless to be acceptable. Perfection is really an all-

black, all-white, either/or game way of looking at the world. Either you‘re perfect or you‘re a failure. Perfection is this learned attitude that‘s very different from wanting to

achieve excellence. Being perfect is outside our grasp, but achieving excellence is ab-solutely within our grasp.

Many coaches work independently running their businesses from home, and they don‘t

have this office full of colleagues to chat with over coffee or that proverbial water cooler. Without that immediate support, sometimes it can be easy to fall into that

negative mindset.

Ava Diamond, a friend and colleague of mine who is the President of Feisty Woman Pro-

ductions, asks this great question: ―Is your BUT too big?‖

JP: She spells but with just one ―t.‖ If you‘re looking for obstacles in life, you‘re going

to find them. The trick to getting your BIG ON is to believe that you can achieve and then making it so.

I: I like that. Why do you think self-development is important, and how can coaches benefit?

JP: Self-development is an investment that we make in ourselves. We perpetually have to embrace possibilities beyond what we think, dream, or believe is possible.

Continuing to learn and grow is foundational to our personal and professional success. I think it was Stephen Covey again who said, ―You have to sharpen the saw.‖ The

business world is changing fast. Everyone knows that. We‘re all learning what the new normal is, and so regardless of the focus of our coaching business or niche, we have to

personally own keeping our current skills fresh as well as own learning new ones. No one wants to be that one-trick pony or a one-hit wonder. In order to promote the re-

sults that we as coaches are going to deliver through our coaching programs and work, we have to understand management and leadership.

McKinsey, the management consulting firm, released a report late last year that says

that the desire for inspirational leadership is on the upswing. As coaches, we have to invest in our self-development so that we can walk that management and leadership

talk. We‘re positioning ourselves to help our clients take their careers, their business,

their whatever to the next level, while we as coaches are doing the same things for ourselves.

I: How does self-awareness and self-confidence impact coaches and people‘s personal

and professional lives?

JP: In a huge, huge way. Self-awareness I like to say is that sort of nonjudgmental understanding of how you respond, how you react, how you engage and interact with

others. It is the foundation for connecting with yourself.

Confidence is a learned ability, it‘s not something that we inherit. I think many clients and individuals wish there was a special sauce or a magic elixir but there isn't. There is

simply this willingness to get it right on the inside connect with who and what you are; really understand yourself from an emotional intelligence standpoint. Then, take that

self-knowledge and self-wisdom that you have on the inside and apply it on the outside

to connect with, lead, and inspire others. We learn to believe in ourselves, to have confidence in who we are and in what we do.

It‘s made up of two elements. One element is self-efficacy, and that‘s the belief that we‘re capable of mastering skills. The other is self-esteem, where we believe that

we‘re competent and worthy.

I think knowing ourselves, having that self-awareness and that self-confidence allows us to interact better with our clients. Many of the issues that we‘re working on with our

clients are behavioral, so if we want our clients to firmly believe that we‘re able to help them, they have to have confidence in our abilities. We have to walk the confidence

talk so to speak.

I: That makes sense. Tell us a little bit about the inner critic. (Continued next page.)

Jane Perdue continued…

JP: The inner critic – that naggy little voice that always says, ―You‘re not good enough. You‘re not smart enough. You‘re not pretty enough. You‘re not thin

enough. You‘re not important enough.‖ That little voice that tells us what‘s wrong

with us before others can do it.

The first thing that we have to accept is that the inner critic isn't going to go away,

and because it‘s not going to go away, we have to take responsibility for managing it, for learning to partner with it.

Secondly, we have to listen to what that inner critic is saying. What‘s it telling us? Whose voice do we hear? Look for patterns in what that little internal gremlin is say-

ing to us and act on it – of course, in a positive way.

It gives us an opportunity to use our coaching skills on our own inner critic. We can retrain that inner critic. When we catch ourselves through that little inner critic voice

putting ourselves down or giving us negative self-talk, we can challenge our inner critic to be more focused, more accurate, more positive. Reposition it so that it en-

courages and helps us, instead of allowing it to bring us down.

I: What tips for increasing power and influence do you have for all of us?

JP: I am absolutely passionate about positive influence and what I call ―power with.‖ I define ―power with‖ as collaborating and partnering with others to achieve outcomes

instead of what I call ―power over‖ which we see a lot in business, which is driving and manipulating through command and control. Influence is our ability to make an

appeal for action from someone, and that appeal is based on logic or emotion or a sense of cooperation, or some combination of all three.

As coaches, we have to influence people‘s behaviors all the time. A way to help build

our influence and power is to be a perceptive observer, where as a coach, we know what‘s going on. We watch, and then we validate what we see by asking questions.

We tune into the cultural dynamics if we‘re working with an organization, or we tune

in to the nonverbal communication that a client is giving to us one-on-one. We also then have to be able to comprehend the social situation when we‘re working with a

group of individuals and doing group coaching, or when we recognize that there‘s an elephant in the room. We have to be able to use our influence and our ―power with‖

to get that elephant addressed.

The last piece here that I think is really important to increasing power and influence for coaches, for individuals, for all of us is that we learn to put our preferences aside

and focus on resolving issues rather than trying to place blame or worse yet, destroy

an opponent.

Mary Parker Follett – she was an early pioneer in the field of organizational theory and organizational behavior – has some great counsel here with dealing with difference

that can be very helpful to coaches and individuals.

-48-

JP: She said that there‘s three ways that we can deal with difference – through domi-

nation, through compromise, or through integration. I think as we all know by domina-tion, one side gets what it wants and the other side doesn‘t get what it wants. When

we compromise, typically neither side gets what they want. It‘s only by integration where both sides get some element of what it is that they want.

So as coaches, when we‘re working towards integration, when we‘re being a perceptive

observer, those things really increase our ability to offer influence and to collaborate and network with our client to make things happen.

I: Jane, let me ask you a couple more questions on the personal level. What inspires

you and makes your heart sing?

JP: Great question. I‘m inspired when I see people living to their fullest potential, be-cause they‘ve got their BIG ON! I love to see people overcome the odds or people who

are committed to improving themselves succeed.

I also love to see people use their head to manage and their heart to lead. A couple

other things that make my heart sing would be good conversation, good people, good wine, and good chocolate!

I: I like that. How do you inspire others and change their lives?

JP: I work to inspire people by helping them first understand what is their purpose and

their mission in life. What is it that they want to do? What is it that they define as liv-ing to their biggest and best potential?

Together we partner and it becomes a journey of defining the action steps that the indi-

vidual needs to do to make that life purpose, that life mission come true. Typically, when people take the time to create that life purpose and life mission, there‘s a little

light that goes on in their head and their heart, and they feel inspired to live to their

purpose, and of course that‘s inspiring to me too.

I: What made you choose this arena for your life‘s great work?

JP: It offered a terrific opportunity to let me work one-on-one or one-to-many with people. The opportunity to work one to many has great appeal for me. That‘s why I do

webinars, online training and group coaching, so we have the opportunity to share with one another and to learn from each other. Being a personal development consult-

ant and coach, for me is that perfect life mission.

“I define my life as inspiring others to grow wings and embrace possibilities beyond what

they dream, think, or hope for.”

Jane Perdue

Contact Jane at: jane@getyourbigon.com

Lou Bortone

is an Online Branding Specialist and video pro who helps entrepreneurs and coaches build breakthrough brands on the Internet, so they can have more

visibility, credibility and profitability. Lou’s clients get more business and make more money, because Lou assists them with innovative online branding

strategies, including social media marketing and online video consulting.

Lou is a former television executive who worked for E! Entertainment Televi-

sion and Fox in Los Angeles. He is also an author and ghostwriter of six busi-ness books, a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and a Book Yourself Solid

Certified Coach. Lou’s signature programs include ―Online Branding Blue-print,‖ and ―Video in a Day!‖

I: What are some of the best uses of online videos to build and expand your brand?

LB: That‘s a good question. There‘s so many ways to do it, and I think one of the

problems that folks have is that they‘re overwhelmed. The possibilities are overwhelm-ing because they think that video is too technical or too complicated. What I hope to

do in the next few minutes is show folks that they can go after the low-hanging fruit and really get involved with online video as a marketing tool pretty easily.

Some of the ways that we can get started is by creating a welcome video for your web-site, so that when somebody comes to visit your site they actually see a face and a

real person there. It doesn‘t have to be a big, five-minute speech or anything. It can be a very brief 20 to 30 second little welcome. If folks want to dip their toes in the wa-

ter, they can tape a quick welcome message for their website.

One of the things that I do with video is I bring my flip video camera with me to confer-ences and events, and I trade client testimonials with folks that I‘ve worked with so

that I can bring those back and put those on my website. You can do a series of tips videos and record some expert tips and then upload those to YouTube. There‘s all

kinds of ways to get started and to wade in without getting overwhelmed by it all.

I: I see. How can I use video to leverage my time and reach more prospects?

LB: That‘s another fine question because one of the great things about video is that it

gives you a presence 24/7. Once you get a video up and out there, whether you put it on YouTube or Facebook, that video is basically working for you, even while you sleep.

One of the things that I hear often, because I do a lot of video are sweet words for an entrepreneur to hear. People say, ―I see you all over the place. I see you everywhere.

How do you get so visible, and how do you manage to be so many places at once?‖

Obviously, I‘m not in that many places at once. It‘s just because I‘ve got video out there, it‘s out there doing the work for me.

You can leverage your time and effort by creating video. You maybe create one video

and share it on YouTube, and from there you can send it to Facebook and you can tweet about it. There‘s a lot of ways to spread and share your message and let your

video do the work for you. -50-

I: How do you build trust and credibil-

ity with online video?

LB: That‘s another benefit of video. It does make you more familiar. Again,

when people say, ―I see you every-where, I feel like I already know you‖

it‘s because I do a lot of video, and when you start to put yourself out there

on video, you can share your content. You can share your expertise.

It‘s very much like social media, like

Facebook and Twitter. You start to build your social capital, you contribute

to the conversation, you engage with

your prospects, and all of that makes you familiar to your clients and pros-

pects. It makes you more likeable, and it makes you more visible. All of that

sets the stage for networking and for building relationships, which at the end

of the day is what it‘s all about – rela-tionships.

I: I see. I believe you. I completely

agree with you, because I have seen your videos and I‘ve seen you quite a

few times online, and I feel like I do know you. What are the biggest mis-

takes people make when marketing

video?

LB: One of the problems with video is that folks feel like there is a technical

hurdle, or they have trouble getting started. One of the things that they

don‘t realize is that there really are easy ways to get started and to jump in.

I know one of the mistakes people make

is thinking, ―Oh, that‘s way too technical for me or too complicated.‖ The truth is

– and I‘ll talk about this a little bit later – you don‘t even necessarily need to

own a camera to be doing video. You

don‘t even have to be on camera if you prefer not to be.

(Continued next page.)

Lou Bortone continued…

There are ways online that we‘ll talk about that you can create videos without even ap-pearing on camera. So one mistake is people thinking that it‘s too much of a technical

hurdle.

Another common mistake is once folks finally create that video, they do what I call ―one and done.‖ They think, “I did a video, I put it on YouTube, and I’m not rich and famous

yet – what’s the problem?”

It‘s like anything else that you do from a marketing standpoint. You‘ve got to have

consistency. You may not be able to hit it out of the park on the first one, so you want to do a handful of videos or do them every week, every month, whatever you‘re com-

fortable with. Don‘t just do one and call it a day, because that one video may not do that much for you. You really have to start to build a bit of a platform with it.

I think the final mistake that folks make with video is that they get so excited about

having this new marketing tool that they do too much promotion or too much selling before they have established rapport and before they have built trust in the market-

place. I always tell folks – and again, it‘s very similar to what you would do on Twitter or Facebook – you‘ve got to give before you take, and you‘ve got to contribute before

you ask for the sale.

I: That makes a lot of sense, it really does. What would you say to somebody, maybe somebody that is interested in creating a video, but they‘re afraid?

LB: I know a lot of folks are camera shy, myself included, believe it or not. There are ways to do video without having to necessarily appear on camera, which is kind of

neat. The other thing is, you don‘t necessarily have to post the first video that you do. If you want to take some time getting comfortable with it – you know, even the folks in

Hollywood do 20 or 30 takes of scenes sometimes, so don‘t feel like you have to get it right the first time.

If you are dead set against being on camera or you‘re just having a bad hair day and

you‘re just not into performing, you can use other resources without having to be on camera. It can be as simple as something like PowerPoint, and again, I‘ll talk a little bit

about that in more detail later on. Even a narrated PowerPoint is a video. Many folks these days are doing video by recording their presentations, narrating them, saving

them as a video, and then posting them online. They‘re not necessarily on camera, but their content is still getting out there.

I: That‘s some great advice. What are some of your personal favorite video re-sources?

LB: There‘s so many. I think probably the obvious one, because it‘s the biggest video

site out there, is YouTube. Other than the fact that it‘s free, you can also put as many videos as you want there and it‘s sort of like free hosting and free promotion. I think

it‘s a great resource. The other thing about YouTube is they make it very easy to share and spread your video.

-52-

LB: Once you‘ve uploaded a video to YouTube, you can send it to Facebook with one

click if you have a Facebook account. You can tweet about it. You can put that same video on your own website or blog using what they call ―imbed code‖ that YouTube

gives you. YouTube is a great place to start, and a great hub for your video activities, because they make it very easy for you.

There are a couple of the other video resources that I use quite a bit, and I count them

as my secret weapons.

One is www.animoto.com. I‘m sure you‘re probably familiar with this, but Animoto lets you create a video using pictures and music, so it‘s almost like a photo montage, but

Animoto does the work behind the scenes and makes your video very slick and profes-sional. You can have a really cool looking video within minutes, just having uploaded

some photos and selecting some music.

I: That‘s great!

LB: Another site that‘s similar to Animoto that I use quite a bit

is called www.onetruemedia.com. This is another site where again they make it very, very easy. You upload photos or your

own images. You can add text. You can select all different kinds of music. Basically, you put in these little ingredients and One True Media spits

out a very cool looking video for you that you can then upload to YouTube, Facebook, and various other places.

There‘s a lot of fun, free, really easy-to-use resources, and I refer to these as sort of a

low hanging fruit because they‘re very easy to start with.

The final resource that I tell folks, especially if people say, ―I‘m not really sure what to say‖ or ―I don‘t want to memorize a script‖ or ―I‘m just not quite sure what to do once I

put the camera on‖ is I ask them, ―Can you think of something to say for 12 seconds?‖

They say, ―Sure, I can figure out a 12-second script. I don‘t even need to write that down.‖

I tell them to go to a website called www.12seconds.tv, and 12 Seconds TV is kind of

like Twitter for video. They give you literally 12 seconds to say your piece, and that‘s it. If you can talk for 12 seconds, you can be on 12 Seconds TV. That‘s good for things

like little tips. Perhaps for whatever niche or area of expertise you may be in, you may want to do some quick tips. You can do quick tips on www.12seconds.tv. It‘s good for

quick little promotional announcements. You may say, ―Be sure to visit us on The Coach Exchange website …‖ and that‘s your 10 or 12 seconds, and you‘re all set.

There are a lot of fun resources. These are all free, they‘re all very easy to use, and they all make it pretty easy to get started with video.

I: Excellent. Well, how can we combine video and social media for maximum impact?

LB: Video and social media is a really powerful combination. When I tell folks YouTube is kind of a social media too, they ask, ―How is that social media?‖ I usually count

video as part of social media because it‘s interactive, it‘s dynamic, it‘s two-way, so it really is another type of social media. (Continued next page.)

Lou Bortone continued…

LB: If you can use video with social media, then you‘ve got a very powerful sort of one-two punch, because what happens is that video takes the popularity and power of so-

cial media and it makes it more personal. It brings the social media to life on screen.

We talked before about how video is a very personal medium and how it‘s familiar, so somebody may get to know you by watching you on Twitter, or somebody may get to

know you by seeing what you‘re doing on Facebook. When you combine video with that, they can really get to know you much more quickly, because it‘s so much more

familiar and dynamic and real.

Again, what I always come back to is the old adage that people buy from folks that they know, like, and trust, and video and social media are very, very good at building

your know, like, and trust factor.

I: It definitely does, and as you were saying, the video helps you take it on a much deeper level so people really get to know you, get to know what you‘re about, and are

able to see you. Seeing a picture is totally different from seeing a video of someone.

LB: Yes. Twitter and Facebook are great for connecting, and then video is even more

powerful than that in terms of being more personal. It really is sort of a cliché, but it is the next best thing to being there in person.

I: Tell us more about how can you create great videos without appearing on camera.

LB: Yes, there are actually a few other ones. We talked about PowerPoint, and these

days, there are even some of the so-called gurus doing PowerPoint videos and using that on their sales pages or using that on their website for demos and for instructional

videos. PowerPoint is one way.

There‘s another program out there that‘s free called Jing. You can find that at www.jingproject.com. That‘s another screen capture software that you can use online.

If you‘re trying to demonstrate a product or show someone something on your website, you can use Jing to capture the screen and capture what you‘re doing, and then use

that as your video. Again, it‘s a way to get video online without having to own a lot of

equipment or without having to be on camera.

There are a few other sites online that you can do that with as well. One‘s called www.Screenr.com. Screenr allows you to upload your slide presentations and your

PowerPoint presentations so that you can spread those online.

Another tool that folks are starting to use quite a bit more is Skype. Skype started as online calling, but now they also have online video chats and online video calling. I saw

a story last week where Skype gives you the ability to literally have 10 people and 10 videos on screen at once. It reminds me of the old Brady Bunch show where you had

all the pictures and squares. You‘ve got all these people and all of their images and videos onscreen and it can bring people together like never before, because you can lit-

erally have a meeting with 10 people, and all be present online via Skype.

There are all kinds of different ways to use this equipment in your business.

LB: Again, Skype is free. A lot of these resources are free and very easy to use. You

just sign up and you are ready to go.

I: Excellent. What easy and immediate action steps can we take right now to begin?

LB: One of the things that I tell folks is to start small or start with what they have. Many people today have webcams or they have

computers with webcams in them, and if that‘s what you have to start with, then start with that. Use your webcam. Start with a

couple of short videos.

If you want to use an inexpensive and easy-to-use camera that is not a webcam, you can look at the flip video cameras. They‘re

very small, pocket sized, inexpensive, and easy to use. You can take it literally anywhere and just shoot video on the fly.

Start where you are; don‘t feel like you have to invest a lot of time or energy or equipment. You can really start where you are.

Then, experiment a little bit. Open an account on YouTube, and you can upload a cou-

ple of videos and see what you think, and see how they look. You can even make those videos private on YouTube so that nobody can see them until you want them to.

Or, if you really just want to wade in or dip your toes in the water, try www.12seconds.tv, because that‘s very, very short and sweet.

Which brings up another point – people always ask me how long their video should be,

and sometimes I have sort of a wisecrack answer of, ―Only as long as it needs to be.‖ It‘s the truth. Really, videos don‘t need to be any longer than whatever your message

is, so I usually tell folks if you can say what you need to say and get your message across in under a minute, then keep it under a minute. If your message takes a little

bit longer than that, then take whatever time you need. People do have very short at-

tention spans on the internet, so you definitely want to keep it short and sweet.

I: Great advice. Let me ask you a few personal questions.

LB: Sure.

I: What inspires you, Lou?

LB: It‘s funny for me. I sort of have a skewed view of the world, and I have kind of a dry sense of humor, so when I see things, a lot of times I see a funny way to deliver

that, or an amusing way to deliver that message online. For me, I try and use humor whenever I can. I think it sort of disarms folks and makes people more apt to connect

with you, because you‘re being self-deprecating or you‘re showing folks I‘m just a regu-lar guy and I like to joke around as well. A lot of times, I‘m inspired by trying to take

something and finding what‘s funny about it or what‘s unique about it.

I: How do you inspire others and change their lives?

-55- (Continued next page.)

LB: That‘s a really good question. Again, what I try to do is teach and bring a mes-

sage, but do it in a very fun, easygoing, and humorous way.

For instance, I had a video where I had written out the Ten Commandments of Online Video. Basically, they were some guidelines for doing video right, but being that I am a

little but camera shy, I was trying to think of a fun way to deliver it. Naturally, I had to dress up as Moses and deliver the Ten Commandments of Online Video as Moses with

sound effects, the wig, and the whole thing. It was kind of wacky, but it‘s one of those things that says, ―Okay, here‘s a fun thing that I can do to get the message out and do

it in a different and amusing way.‖

I‘ve had folks call me up and say, ―I saw your Moses video and I want to hire you.‖ I kind of laugh and say, ―Oh, you still want to hire me, even though you saw the video?‖

It‘s funny, because I‘ve had people that have seen that on YouTube or Facebook, and I‘ve gotten some really wonderful business and clients out of it.

I: I‘m going to have to look that one up. What made you choose this arena for your life‘s great work?

LB: Like a lot of folks, I kind of fell into it. I had been involved in the television indus-

try pretty much all my life and worked in Los Angeles in the entertainment business. All that time, I was on the other side of the camera. I was doing marketing, branding

and advertising.

When I moved back to New England, I started experimenting. I have a Mac and web-cams and all of that, and I just got very intrigued with how easy it was becoming to use

video online. When I first started in Los Angeles many years ago, you needed an entire roomful of equipment in order to ―do television.‖ You needed all kinds of expensive

equipment. It was really a huge investment to try and do video.

Nowadays, people ask, ―What equipment do you use? What‘s your studio like?‖

I‘ll kind of giggle and say, ―My studio is a Mac and a webcam.‖ Basically we‘ve all got the same equipment now and the playing field has been leveled. With a $35 webcam

and an idea, you can go off and do video.

What inspired me to get involved was that it was getting so much easier, and yet it was

moving so fast that it was constantly interesting, constantly challenging.

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