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1: IT ALL STARTS HERE
‘If you can make it in New York,baby, you can make it...’
How to turn your knowledge and expertise into profits
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
— Steve Jobs
It was an assault on all my senses.
Jet-lagged and almost delirious after the long flight from Australia, I found myself in Times Square, in the heart of New York City, with 35 kilos of luggage in tow and no idea where I was staying.
It had just turned 9 pm on a Saturday night in October 2012, and the crowds were teeming under the bright city lights, as they do night after night. P. Diddy gazed down from a skyscraper-high billboard, flaunting his latest eau de toilette — that's French for ‘I don't give a damn'. I had more immediate things to worry about than smelling great, like getting on the Net and locating my accommodation for the next four weeks in a city I'd never been to before.
After 22 hours breathing in the fug of other people's air (and, dare I say, other vapours), I was disoriented, and the lights were blinding. My business partner at the time had given me the general location of where I was to stay, but the idea was that on my arrival I'd check my email … and voilà, I'd look up and be right there.
But my phone wouldn't connect … and that's when things quickly unravelled.
Into the vortex
Being new to the city, I was convinced I was going to get mugged. Clearly the two painful minutes of Law & Order I once watched were too much. That annoying sound they play at the start of every episode was on repeat in my head. According to IMDb.com, it ‘was created by combining close to a dozen sounds, including that of a group of monks stamping on a floor'. Keep it down, monks!
After dragging my luggage around for a couple of hours, hauling it out of the countless subway grates that lined every street, while I searched for a wifi connection, I finally found a Starbucks.
It was packed, with a lineup like you'd find at a Justin Bieber concert. I stood outside and attempted to connect through the glass.
What I didn't know then was that a little over a week later I'd find myself back in front of the very same Starbucks, on the same mission, but by then joined by many other visitors and New Yorkers looking for new accommodation after Hurricane Sandy had come barrelling down on the city. Great!
After ten minutes of trying I finally got a signal. I opened my email … to find that my accommodation had been cancelled in transit. Aaghh! Thankfully my (now ex) business partner had booked me in somewhere else, but only for one night.
You see, in two days' time I was booked to pitch to more than 70 of the world's top TV and radio producers. During my four-week stay I would conduct media interviews, sell truckloads of books and online products, shape the world we live in and then make my way back to Australia with a smile on my face after a massively successful media campaign. Not.
You know when things just don't go to plan?
You try to create a tipping point in your life and career, and however hard you try destiny has a different plan for you at that moment in time. And you get sucked up into this vortex that won't let you go. It could be a job, a relationship, or office cubicle walls that seem to be constantly closing in on you. You get paid peanuts to share your expertise and knowledge and it goes completely unappreciated and unnoticed. In fact, your stapler gets more attention than you do, and it's probably handled better too.
I had been sucked up into a vortex of massive proportions — and not in a good way! I was working my butt off 24/7 and wasn't being rewarded for it. Just before leaving for NYC, I'd come off an Australian speaking tour in which I'd spent more than eight hours on stage in all of the major cities over the course of two weeks, entertaining and educating. It's hard staying perky on stage when you've had only a few hours of broken sleep!
I was exhausted … and now, within less than 72 hours, I had to find a place to stay, print off all of my media material and prepare for a series of pitches — all with a big smile on my face, while fighting through some serious jetlag — along with keeping my business running and making money back home.
I felt like my eyes were going to roll back in my head at any second and I'd slow-motion fall onto my arse, Matrix style, at the most inopportune time.
I was at a key point in my life when I had to make some serious decisions..
These included:
- Was I going to continue down a path that clearly wasn't rewarding me financially or emotionally? I was constantly exhausted and was ageing horribly! The cash flow question was always knocking on the back door of my mind, and it was getting louder and louder.
- How was I going to dramatically increase my income and decrease my debt, both of which tasks seemed completely impossible within the required time frame?
- And when was I going to grow a pair and finally do what I wanted to do: make an impact on this world; create the legacy only I could; make more money; travel; have more fun; and hop, skip and jump right off this treadmill without falling on my face?
I've known from the age of ten that I was meant for something bigger than I knew was possible at the time. I just didn't know what. I knew I was meant to impact others' lives in ways that were emotionally rewarding for me and life changing for them. I wanted to share my stories and experiences with the world to help shape it in my own unique way with my own unique ability.
Maybe you've had a life-changing experience in business or life that you would love to share with others — an experience, or knowledge and expertise, that could have a profound impact on other people's lives, by solving a problem they have been struggling with for years, or making it easier for them in some way or another in business, career, love or life.
Or maybe you're a business or life coach, social media expert, personal trainer, health practitioner, psychologist, marketer, publicist, chiropractor, graphic designer, photographer, stylist, designer, copywriter, spiritual healer, project manager, architect, personal assistant, human resources manager, virtual assistant or organiser, website developer … or you're in sales.
Whatever your area of expertise or newfound interest, without a shadow of a doubt you already know in your heart of hearts that being an agent of influence and change, an author, speaker, coach, consultant or entrepreneur, is a path to creating meaning within your own and others' lives. A person who shapes others' opinions and empowers them to make better decisions in their lives because of the experience and knowledge you bring to the table.
I know you have skills, tools, strategies and techniques that could transform lives and inspire change in others on a global scale, and you have your own distinct take on it.
But how can you have this profound impact in the world when now the very idea seems unfathomable? How can you share your own stories, experiences, knowledge and expertise with the world in a way that has real reach and meaning? And how do you find your own confident voice and create a platform from which you can successfully package, market and monetise your message?
Turning your knowledge and expertise into profits: why my story is critical to your success
For years I was in the ‘expert' business. I started out as an accredited life coach and then transitioned to business coaching, engaging with various mentors along the way while adding layer upon layer to my skillset, including personal branding, marketing, social media, publicity, business growth and styling. I learned by putting my money where my mouth was. I didn't go to university. I entered the school of hard knocks.
I set my own curriculum based on the life I wanted to lead and my creative yearning to keep pushing myself further.
But with no real mentors to look up to and to model how I could market and monetise my message and share my stories and techniques in a profitable and automated way, I became incredibly frustrated.
I'd spent so much time helping my clients make millions when I could have been doing that myself. I was sick and tired of making other people money at my own expense. I knew I could be doing things a lot smarter with a lot less stress and a much bigger payoff. I could develop the flexibility and freedom to choose when I wanted to work and on what.
Does this sound familiar?
My clients' results weren't run of the mill, and they still aren't today … One of them became a best-selling author; another pulled in an extra $300 000 in revenue within the first three months; another took their database from 200 new opt-ins per week to more than 2000 per week, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in added revenue; for another I helped secure international media coverage, from Vogue to CLEO to major newspapers and online blogs all around the world, turning an unknown brand into one the world was suddenly following with bated breath.
But there was a problem. Their success was coming at my expense.
We're all great at what we do and most of us work our tails off to get results for others — at what always seems like a cost to our own success. For me, it was a matter of prioritising. My success had to rival or better that of my clients. The mantra ‘Their success is your success' is only relevant when helping others isn't sending you broke!
And that was what was happening to me. I'd landed in New York City, ready to share my expertise and knowledge and finally make some serious money, when everything fell to pieces … later to be reborn in a new and more profitable way.
New York was my catalyst for change — what's yours?
It only took a hurricane and a series of unfortunate events to create a serious tipping point in my life. That tipping point sparked something magnificent.
The total transformation ...
