by Angella Johnson | May 29, 2014 | Biz Tips, How-tos |
You get the vision. You start down the path of making the vision come to life. It’s not coming together quite as you planned. You can choose to: Pursue it and keep going. Or quit in the vain of “It’s not meant to be.” Or give it some time to breathe and become what it really needs to be. What do you do when you know you want to move forward with your vision or a project or a launch but “it” isn’t ready yet? It’s not the quality you want…it’s not 100%. Maybe you’ve sabotaged it along the way and realize that so you are course correcting. Or “it” isn’t ready to be birthed yet. You know that if you settle for the 80/20 rule then you are settling into mediocrity. (80% works, 20% is the last little bit that you talk yourself into being okay.) How do you go for excellence without getting sucked into the trap of infinite perfectionism? How do you share the kind of message that people would hide under the covers for to listen to you? Let me explain… My favorite band of all time is U2. I remember when I was in high school they had a live concert from Ireland airing on the radio in the US. It was airing at some absurd hour in the US and I put my radio under the covers of my bed so I wouldn’t wake up my siblings in the next room or my parent. I stayed up all night and listened while being absolutely mesmerized until wee hours of the morning. I’ve been...
by Angella Johnson | May 27, 2014 | Biz Tips |
by Angella Johnson | May 22, 2014 | Biz Tips |
So there I was guiding my Inner Circle clients to get breakthroughs on their own willingness to show up and play a bigger game. …to be fierce about claiming their spotlight and not settling into the comfort of mediocrity…and it hit me. I was hiding behind my hair. Again. I have great hair. I love it. And energetically it was stifling my expression of who I was. I was too comfortable. Somehow I thought if I had long fabulous hair, it would cover up my discomfort about other parts of my body (mainly my @$$ and thighs, which have always been my greatest teacher of unconditionally loving my body.) So I set up the appointment to chop off my hair. And then I showed up and followed through. (Kind of interesting how that works: make the decision and SHOW UP.) When I was looking at the back of my new hair in the full length mirror at the salon, this was the first thought in my head… “Does this haircut make my butt look big?” Seriously, that was it. After all of the self love and self work, and THAT was the enlightened thought after chopping my hair off. Well crap. Am I BACK in that conversation again? And what the hell does that have to do with my business? Those default conversations are either building your business or draining it. There is no neutral. Have you noticed you have these conversations that are your safe default conversations you go to when you are uncomfortable? This can show up when things are going great and then WHAM, you pick...
by Angella Johnson | May 16, 2014 | Biz Tips, Mindset |
Do you want to be the go-to person in your field? Do you want people to refer you to their colleagues and even clients? Do you want to stand out from the crowd? Do you want to be known for something? Doing this is more than your brand…more than your marketing plan…more than what you charge…. It requires these three things: A solid brand based on your intrinsic values Willingness to make decisions quickly and honestly Commitment to be vulnerable Here are a few ways I’ve seen folks playing small: Maybe you change your mind consistently about your target market or your message. (After all, if you stay confused, you never have to really get in the game right?) Maybe you tell yourself that you are too busy to network with others because you have s#!t to do. It’s easier to keep yourself disconnected from others so no one knows what you are up to and if no one knows then you can let yourself off the hook. (Business building requires relationships folks, otherwise you have a hollow marketing plan that falls flat.) What do you want to be known for? One of the first exercises I took my clients through was asking them what they want to be known for in their business and how they want their loved ones to remember them after they are gone from this life. I get that can feel like a somber conversation. And doing this exercise shows you where your values are and what your BRAND is. Speaking of branding, I have a guest presenter sharing the stage with me at...
by Angella Johnson | May 7, 2014 | Biz Tips, How-tos, Speaking and Events |
I’ve been hosting women’s events since 2006. I started doing the math about how many events I’ve hosted and how many speakers I’ve hosted… Celebration #1: I did math and that is a big deal in my world (this girl took the minimum amount of math possible to still graduate from high school and college.) Celebration #2: I’ve hosted over 75 live events (doesn’t include any virtual events) and hosted over 100 speakers over the years. I know events. I know what makes a speaker stand out. I’ve looked through hundreds of speaker applications and speaker pages. Here’s the list of the big top 10 to get the gigs: 1. Be who you are on AND off stage. I’ve seen it all at live events. Nothing surprises me anymore. I’ve seen speakers have meltdowns moments before they go on stage because they are deep in a visibility breakthrough. I’ve seen speakers refuse to honor their contract and only speak for 30 minutes instead of the full 60 minutes that they have been paid for. I’ve also seen speakers go out of their way to be accommodating and real and genuine (Lisa Nichols, Andrrea Hess, Alexis Logan and MANY others fit that category.) I had a speaker once cuss out one of my staff members because we didn’t have her favorite kind of tea in the green room. Seriously…<insert eye roll here.> 2. Pay your split. If you are doing a revenue share of your sales, pay the percentage to the event host without them having to even ask, let alone ask twice. A client of mine is experiencing this...
by Angella Johnson | May 1, 2014 | Biz Tips, Create, Mindset, Money |
If I mention money several times in an email, the spam filters catch the email and don’t deliver it to your inbox. Interesting that our society has made money be the bad guy that emails talking about money are “spam.” I was raised in a household where Money was scarce. I saw patterns of “buy what you want first, then figure out how to pay your bills.” And if you were running short, then figure out who can loan you some money. So there was this pattern of borrowing from one person or thing to pay another. I have a long line of struggle on both sides of my family. My ancestors were farmers and pioneers…they worked hard for their food (sometimes very little food) and for a simple roof over their head. Even in recent generations, there wasn’t excess to buy nice clothes, go on fun trips or pay for college education. So it would make sense that Money has been one of my biggest (and hardest) life lessons. When I was in my 20s, I racked up credit card and student loan debt. I had no idea how credit worked, how minimum payments worked or how interest worked. I thought that everyone did this and everyone struggled with money because it’s what I had seen and experienced my entire life. To actually run into a person who had savings and retirement and a family who took vacations was surreal to me. To see people pay full price for clothing instead of ONLY buying what was at second-hand stores or on the clearance rack was just not a...
