Creative Warriors

Does your work light you up? Do you feel energized and happy with every step you take? Have you thought about whether your work and actions are in alignment with your heart? Mary Tess Rooney is the founder of True Stride, a movement to help individuals unlock their Heart Value to elevate everything they do. Mary is a Heart Value expert, author, speaker, and empowerment coach. She helps people align their feelings, choices, and actions with walking purposefully in life.    Mary was a strategy and communications executive whose cumulative experience helped ignite her passion for inspiring people and achieving success by acting on what lights up their hearts. She is the author of Heart Value: Feel Appreciated in Ways That Matter and Discover Your True Stride. She is super excited about releasing this new book that outlines a path of self-discovery to help each reader find their Heart Value and walk in their True Stride.    Today, we dive into what finding your Heart Value and True Stride means. We talk about how

There's no doubt being self-employed is stressful. That's to be expected. But when stress, a busy season, or an overwhelming time goes on for more than three months, it's now a chronic problem and taking its toll on you. So, you need a strategic way to recover. Just waiting for it to end and then thinking you're going to easily heal is not enough. Here are some tips on how to strategically recover from stress.   Contact Jeffrey- Website Coaching Support My book, The Self-Employed Life is now available! Check out everything available for self-employed business owners Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!    Valuable resources to help you- The Self-Employed Business Institute- You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed i

Is your business ready for what’s around the corner or even to meet whatever challenges you face today? Being vigilant and not falling into the trap of complacency is the key to meeting challenges when they arise. Len Herstein is a brand strategist, speaker, and CEO & President of ManageCamp. He’s also the author of Be Vigilant!: Strategies to Stop Complacency, Improve Performance, and Safeguard Success. Your Business and Relationships Depend on It. He’s also in law enforcement.    After years of branding and life experience, Len decided to give back and become part of the law enforcement community to help this world become a better place. His book is relevant today because he talks about parallels of life, law enforcement, and business. He shares how being prepared and vigilant will not only prevent us from falling into the trap of complacency, but it will help us have a plan to fall back on when change and upheaval make things difficult. We have a heartfelt conversation about how to look beyond the mark

Entrepreneurs have a lot on their plates. Unfortunately, ideas, worries, excitement, and whatever else is on our minds can carry over to our evenings and nights, sometimes keeping us up at night or causing restlessness. Even though mulling these thoughts over can sometimes result in breakthroughs, not getting proper sleep can take its toll and prevent us from being and doing our best. If you struggle with sleep or want to perform better, you will love today’s conversation with Dr. Anne Bartolucci.  Dr. Anne Bartolucci is a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist. She is President and CEO of Atlanta Insomnia and Behavioral Health Services. She is also the author of Better Sleep for the Overachiever, which is about easing ambitious minds into a healthy, productive sleep pattern. Her goal is to help all of us achieve our waking dreams through better sleep.  Less sleep can make us less productive. Being conscientious can also create an environment where we get less

There's this thing called Parkinson's Law which is about time and productivity. It has so many applications in business, I'm surprised we don't hear about it more. In this episode, I share specific ways you can apply Parkinson's Law to grow your business. Be forewarned--there's a bit of magic to this fundamental truth.   Contact Jeffrey- Website Coaching Support My book, The Self-Employed Life is now available! Check out everything available for self-employed business owners Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!    Valuable resources to help you- The Self-Employed Business Institute- You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Empl

What’s the best marketing method for any business? It’s creating a remarkable customer experience. An experience that stands out from the crowd. An experience that is so amazing that your customers will share their experience with other potential customers without you even having to ask. Dan Gingiss is an author, podcaster, and international keynote speaker. He believes that creating a remarkable customer experience is the very best marketing method for large and small businesses.  Dan has led marketing teams in almost every marketing channel for the past 20 years. He has professional experience at brands like Discover, McDonald’s, and Humana. He is all about real-life examples of actionable customer experience solutions. He is the author of Winning at Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media, and his new book, The Experience Maker: How to Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can’t Wait to Share. We dive into why it's so important for customers to have a re

Best practices don’t always work for marketing. If you want to stand out and get noticed, don’t keep doing what everyone else is doing. That’s the advice from Mike Michalowicz, who is one of my favorite writers and my guest on today’s show. Mike is the author of a string of popular entrepreneurial books, including Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan, Clock Work, Fix This Next, and his latest book, Get Different. By his 35th birthday, Mike had founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. He then became a small business angel investor and lost it all.  Mike has since devoted his life to discovering and sharing the very best small business entrepreneurial strategies. Thousands of companies have used his advice to drive profit, run on automatic, and determine what moves to make next. We discuss some of the concepts in his new book on how to market and get noticed. We talk about how and why we need to be different from other businesses in our field when marketing. If we want to share our products, gifts, or kno

There’s a gap between what you want to tell your potential customers or audience and what they need to hear. Tamsen Webster is here to talk about bridging that gap or finding the Red Thread that makes your ideas irresistible. Tamsen is a keynote speaker and message strategist with 20 years in marketing, 13 years as a Weight Watchers leader, and four years as a TEDx Executive Producer. Her combined experience and focus have led her to become an expert at finding and building stories that customers will tell themselves and others.  She’s the author of Find Your Red Thread: Make Your Big Ideas Irresistible, a book about finding your Red Thread or throughline that connects your idea to the heart of your audience. It’s about the link between your customer’s problem and your actionable solution. We have a brilliant conversation about how this method can help all of us frame our business ideas in a way that customers and our audiences will understand and embrace.  If you’re ready to build a message that resonates wi

Contact Jeffrey- Website Coaching Support My book, The Self-Employed Life is now available! Check out everything available for self-employed business owners Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!    Valuable resources to help you- The Self-Employed Business Institute- You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!   Take The Self-Employed Assessment! Ever feel like you're all over the place? Or frustrated it seems like you have everything you need for your business success but it's somehow not coming together? Take this short quiz to di

Public speaking can be a huge stretch for most of us. Choosing to play it small isn't the best way to get your message out there. That's why I'm so excited about this conversation with Linda Ugelow. Linda is a speaker, TV host, and speaking empowerment coach. She is also the author of Delight in the Limelight: Overcome Your Fear of Being Seen and Realize Your Dreams, a book about overcoming our fears of public speaking and being seen, so we can share our message with the world and achieve true success.  We talk about how different mediums can create various forms of anxiety, yet the underlying causes are all very similar. We dive into how past experiences have led us to believe that we aren’t comfortable speaking in public. Was there a trigger from early on that made us feel like we weren't good enough? Podcasting is an excellent medium for preparing for public speaking. It allows you to be more comfortable speaking freestyle. We talk about being prepared and how the fear can still be there even with preparat

Many people talk about job transition, going from one job to another, or from a corporate job to being self-employed. But we self-employed also go through "job" transition. Times in our lives when we're managing the business we have while also wanting to transition into something else. Maybe a bigger message or impact. This episode will give you some tips on how to manage working with where you are and where you want to go. Contact Jeffrey- Website Coaching Support My book, The Self-Employed Life is no

Pamela Slim is here to talk about her new book, The Widest Net. This is such a timely episode because it’s all about a step-by-step method for finding customers and building a genuinely thriving business. These steps will allow you to discover untapped markets and new customers that you may have missed. Pam is also the author of Body of Work and Escape from Cubicle Nation, which was named Best Small Business and Entrepreneur book of 2009 from 800 CEO Read.  She is a community builder, consultant, and former corporate director of training at Barclays Global Investors. She has created and delivered training programs for large-scale companies and has advised thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses. In 2016, Pamela and her husband launched the Main Street Learning Lab in Mesa, Arizona. This is a small business incubator and community-based leadership development lab.  We talk about tiny steps you can take to expand your network and make connections. We discuss some of the actionable linear steps laid out

The idea of getting more business through social media is pretty standard, but statistics show that 87% of social media users do not get any direct return on investment. Kim Walsh Phillips uses productivity and ROI measurements for direct response social media marketing. Kim is the founder of Powerful Professionals, a business coaching and education company. She's an MBA-free self-made millionaire, and she's been named #475 in the Inc. 5000.   She's worked with big names like Kevin O'Leary, Dan Kennedy, and Mike Michalowicz. She's also the author of multiple books, including The Ultimate Guide to Instagram for Business and the No BS Guide To Direct Response Social Media Marketing. Kim kicks off this interview with a great analogy of how the three types of lousy marketing are like the three types of bad dates. Just like would-be dates, social media marketers often make the mistake of coming on too strong or not making the ask and staying in the friend zone.   Kim shares her strategy for creating impact with he

Join 18,000 subscribers looking to do "business with a soul" and sign up to receive The Self-Employed Life Nutshell Newsletter! Sign up here!   Contact Jeffrey- Website Coaching Support My book, The Self-Employed Life is now available! Check out everything available for self-employed business owners Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!    Valuable resources to help you- The Self-Employed Business Institute- You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!   Take The Self-Employed Assessment! Ever feel like you're all over the place

Different articles and statistics floating around say it costs 5% to 25% more to get a new customer than to retain an existing customer. Creating customers for life is a brilliant business practice. John Jantsch is here to share how we can create customers for life. His new book The Ultimate Marketing Engine is all about a framework that guides customers to where they are to where they need to be. It's about viewing customers as members and transforming the way we view marketing and customers.    John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, and his new book The Ultimate Marketing Engine. He started marketing consulting in the 1990s and developed a systematic approach that eventually became Duct Tape Marketing. He is super excited about his new book because it's a culmination of working and collaborating with thousands of businesses to create his new five-step marketing framework.    We talk about real-world marketing advice from someone who's done it

There are many terms we tend to call ourselves. Entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, small business, freelancers. Self-employed seems to be one of the least common. In this episode, I make a strong case as to why you want to call yourself self-employed starting NOW!   Join 18,000 subscribers looking to do "business with a soul" and sign up to receive The Self-Employed Life Nutshell Newsletter! Sign up here!   Contact Jeffrey- Website Coaching Support My book, The Self-Employed Life is now available! Check out everything available for self-employed business owners Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!    Valuable resources to help you- The Self-Employed Business Institute- You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is uni

Thinking about the customer experience is a huge part of building a successful business and brand. Sean and Thora Dowdell were able to take the customer experience to the next level and turn the tattoo and piercing model on its head. In 1995, Sean and Thora, along with their partner Chester Bennington started Club Tattoo. They now have six locations, two books, a consulting business called Business Game Changers, and are working on opening several bars in Las Vegas. Sean is the author of Tattooed Millionaire: Building the Club Tattoo Empire and Brand Renegades: The Fearless Path from Startup to Global Brand.    They decided to do things differently and create a new customer-focused experience at their elite tattoo and piercing studios. Every part of the customer experience has been planned out, from who greets the customers at the door to the art and music in the studio. They prioritized cleanliness and created their patented Interactive Tattoo™, touch screens that empower visitors to design their tattoos. Th