AJV (00:02): Hey all, this is AJ Vaden and welcome to my recap episode of my conversation with my friend Laurie, harder. And y when I say go listen to this particular episode, I mean, go listen to this particular episode. It’s so, so good, so many nuggets. It’s so rich. We cover so many topics. It’s legit. I don’t care where you want your business, there is something in there for you. So without further ado, I’ll give you kind of like some of my key takeaways from this conversation, which quite honestly was just as impactful for me if it was, if it as it is going to be for any of you. It was so, so good. So here are a few things that I just pulled out that were phenomenally important to me that just hit me in a certain way, so hopefully they hit you the same way. AJV (00:56): So the first thing is we started the whole conversation of just remember that you have a choice. And I think that’s just a good reminder for anyone, no matter where you are in life, it’s, you have a choice of how you feel. You have a choice of your attitude. You have a choice of whether or not you’re happy today or you’re stressed today. And I’m not saying that we don’t have days where we’re stressed and overwhelmed. I have those days often, but those are also choices I make. And it’s, I think it, the difference is am I choosing to focus on the things that aren’t going well? Or am I choosing to focus on the things that are, and it’s not that you ignore the things that aren’t they need fixing, but it’s choosing to put your, your, your hope and your aspirations in the things that are working and not get bogged down by the things that aren’t. AJV (01:44): It’s, are you choosing little things that make you feel good versus choosing things that don’t make you feel good? I know for me it’s like, am I choosing to go on a walk or am I choosing a glass of wine? I need to choose a to go on a walk, right? And it’s like you have a choice. You have a choice about are you gonna be disciplined and do the things you know you’re supposed to do or are you not? Are you going to do it? Even if you think it doesn’t make a difference, even though it does or not. It’s like you have a choice and all the things, you have a choice. And I think that is just a good place, a good foundation to start for the rest of this conversation is we all have choices to make. How we spend our time, our attitudes, how we feel, how we treat people. AJV (02:31): Those are choices that we get to make. And we do have influence and control over those things so you have a choice. So that was the first thing I think that was really good. Second thing is similar to that is you have a choice in your environment. Now, sometimes we are temporarily stuck in an environment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create counter environment. So maybe you are temporarily in a, a job per se that isn’t healthy for you and you can’t just up and leave. You have bills to pay, you have a family to take care of, you have responsibilities, but there can be other environments that you surround yourself with i e community outside of work that help counter negative environment. So your environment is a really important part of your ability to make progress. And I love what Laurie said, and I’m totally just stealing this right out of her mouth. AJV (03:24): Your environment has a mental, emotional and physical impact on you. And if you are not consciously making decisions, choices to improve your environment, then your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing will suffer. So let’s all just take a second, take a step back and go, what environments am I in that are healthy and good and, you know, moving me in the right direction? And what environments may I be in that are not those things, and how do I have more of the good and less of the not so good? Right? And I think, again, it’s like environments can be places. They can be groups of people, they can be communities, they can be all different sorts of things. But I know for me, and I love what she said when she talks about her childhood and an environment she was used to seeing versus a new environment when she went to go stay with a family a a set of friends. AJV (04:23): And she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? I, I didn’t even know this existed. If we don’t create new environments, then we convince ourselves that things are just the way that they are. We don’t even know things are possible cuz we’ve never seen them be possible for anyone in our environment. So it’s, I think it’s just so incredibly important to have different and varying environments so that you see new patterns and new habits and new ways of living or thinking or acting or doing that create new possibilities for you. I don’t remember who said this first, but it’s like, you know, it’s like you are who you hang out with. Well, I think that’s probably true for most of us. It’s like we are the, you know, culmination of where we spend our time, energy, thinking resources, right? That begins to create who we are. AJV (05:12): So what environments are you in and what environments do you need to be in? I love this quote. This is so good. And she said that your environments are often stronger than your willpower. So if you know that you have a temptation to do things that you don’t want to do, then remove yourself from those environments, right? If you’re trying to eat healthy, then do not put yourself environments where it’s, you know, chips and dips and nachos and hamburgers and hot dogs, right? Remove yourself from those environments. If you hang out with a group of people who aren’t healthy and you’re trying to be healthy, remove yourself from those sorts of temptations, not from the people, from the environments, right? See them on a hike, see them doing something else. But you’ve got to know that if you’ve got struggles in the willpower discipline arena, then you’ve got to change the environment. AJV (06:09): So, so good. Oh my gosh, this isn’t like brand new, but such a new fresh context of looking at this really does hit it in a different way. And just remembering, it’s like your environment is often stronger than your willpower. So good. Love this. Okay, moving right along here. This next one is like same kind of quote where I’m like, this should just be all over lord’s social media. I don’t know why this isn’t everywhere she goes, but there is always a gift in what you just did. And if you have ever said to yourself, I just wasted so much time, or I just wasted so much money, or what a bunch of waste of time, resources, emotions, I would just encourage you to rephrase that and go, you wasted nothing. You learned a ton, a ton about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, what you want and what you don’t want. AJV (07:10): But there is a gift in what you just did. And a lot of times that gift comes in experience and it comes in knowledge and cl it comes in clarification. But there is an a, there is a gift in what you just did, whether it was a success or it was a temporary failure, whether it worked out or it didn’t. There was a gift in what you just did. You just have to make the choice to look for it. And that is so powerful because often we look at things that don’t work out as failures and we look at failures as a waste of time. And I’m currently reading a book right now called, called to Create by Jordan Rainer. And in this book he talks about something in Silicon Valley where they talk about the fail faster rule. And that’s just my my, my synopsis of what he is talking about. AJV (08:04): I don’t know if that’s really what he said in the book, but this is how I remember it anyways. But the fail, the fail faster role is like in Silicon Valley. It’s like if your startup fails fast, that means that you’re learning just as fast. So it’s like if you haven’t failed, then you haven’t tried hard enough, risked enough that there hasn’t been something that happened enough. And I think that’s both healthy and potentially not as long as we’re willing to express that. You know, failure does not, failures do not mean we are a failure. That means we did things that didn’t work. Welcome to life. , right? We off fail. That doesn’t mean we are fails, right? And I think this whole idea of fail faster, learn faster, get better faster, those are all part of just the life experience. It’s not, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just a part of the AJV (08:54): Experience. And so creating different ways of looking at this of like what are the lessons learned? What are the gifts I received from what I just did? Because nothing was a waste of time. There was something that was received, there was something that was learned. There was something that came out of it that is going to make you a better person, but you gotta make the choice to find it. So just, I thought that was such a good reminder of everything that we do, whether it was a, an investment loss or it was a business loss, a relationship loss. Where is in the, what is the gift in what you just did? Also in, in the wins, right? There’s clearly gifts in the wins. I think it’s easier for us to find those, but it’s, it’s a mental, a discipline to find the gifts and the things that we don’t consider wins. AJV (09:43): But there is always a gift in what you just did, I just thought was so good. Now, tactically speaking there were a few other things that I wanna share that I thought were equally as powerful here. So with courses we talked about the concept of less is more. The whole idea of this, it’s like you want to save, like this is what we say at brand builders all the time, is you wanna save the best for first. Because if you give, if you serve up the best first, if you give your audience the best first they feel accomplished faster, they feel more empowered faster, they feel more educated, more knowledgeable they feel like they can do things right up front. And so you wanna give them as much as you can as early as you can because that shows a very quick return on their investment. AJV (10:29): They don’t need to spend six hours and 66 pages to feel like they got their money’s worth. You want them to feel like they got their money, their money’s worth in the first hour. So how can you do less is more and help them feel accomplished way up front. Love that. Second thing about courses is just don’t forget that fundamentals never get old. We think we have to create some new twists and make new shiny objects and, you know, talk about a brand new way of doing something. And sometimes people don’t need a brand new way of doing something. They just need to hear it in a new way. They need to hear the solid, basic fundamentals in a way that hits them, right? The whole concept of there’s always a gift in what you just did. You could say that a hundred different ways, but the way that Lori said that hit me, right? AJV (11:17): The fact that she said, you know, your environments often are stronger than your willpower. It’s not like that has never been said before. She’s never been said that way. And so sometimes it’s not that you’re saying brand new stuff, you’re just saying in a way that your audience can relate to in a way that they don’t relate to the way someone else says it. So just don’t forget like fundamentals don’t get old. Just make sure to share it in your lens and your perspective and provide as much value as possible right up front. Now, when it comes to podcasts, Lori’s podcast now has more than 47 million downloads. So how do you go from a new podcast or a podcast that maybe has a few thousand downloads to millions of downloads? I thought this was really good. Keep it simple. It’s fundamentals, but talk about it everywhere you go. AJV (12:06): It’s be consistent. Don’t give up. It takes time. But talk about it everywhere you go. Ask people to share it. Ask people to rate it. Ask people to give reviews on it. But talk about it and then ask people to do what you want them to do. We talked about how it’s like if you never ask, the answer is always no. So you’ve got to ask, remind people, tell people this is how you can help talk about it everywhere you go and tell people what to do. That’s how you grow your podcast and need to do those two things consistently right. Now, last but not least, we also talked about stepping into the world of physical products, right? So that could be anything from t-shirt, shoes to water bottles, wine, food, snacks, nutritional supplements, the list goes on and on and on. AJV (12:58): Could be any sort of physical product going from an an educational and information product world to a physical product world. And what are some of the things that we need to know and what should we be looking for if we are considering making this transition or adding a physical product line to our business offering? So first, find some help , don’t do it by yourself. Please find someone who has actually, who has actually done what you want to do in the, you know, sector that you want to do it. So if you were trying to launch a nutritional supplements line, don’t talk to someone who has only done a clothing line. Actually talk to someone who has done what you want to do. So find some help. This is where you want to hire a coach, find a mentor, join a mastermind, go to a conference, read books, but find some expert help in exactly what it is that you want to do. AJV (13:53): That’s the first thing. Second is make sure that you’re just filling a need that you see in the market. Don’t think don’t, don’t create a product as you think there’s a need. Find a need and then create a product to fulfill that need, right? And if you’ve got a trusted audience, you can start by asking them that fill a need that you already see in the marketplace. Cuz there is there. Focus on why your product is different than competing products, right? So focus on what differentiate your products. How are you gonna market it differently? How does it help differently? How does it serve your audience differently? How is it made for your audience specifically? So focus on your differentiator. I love this one that this was so pa impactful. Avoid any sort of products as your first product that have lots of legal tape, right? So anything that would require like fda regulatory issues, anything that, you know, like beauty products, Speaker 3 (14:51): Food, beverage nutritional lines, anything that has lots and lots of legal take. What’s gonna happen is most of your investment money or your own money is going to be going to the lawyers versus product development, research and development marketing. Most of it’s actually just gonna go to the pockets of attorneys versus actually helping develop your product. So as your first product entry to market, avoid anything that has lots of legal red tape almost to the end of my list here, focus on one thing. In other words, don’t create a product line that has lots of s skews first. So if you’re gonna create a makeup line start with one thing, right? Is it a lip gloss? Then stick to that. Is it a mascara stick to that. Don’t go, here’s an entire makeup on, we’re gonna have this and this and this and this. Speaker 3 (15:42): It’s like, no, start with one thing. So you have centralized focus on what works. You do all of your checks and balances, all your trial and error, all of your market testing with one product. So you get the marketing right, you get the audience right, you get the pricing right? You get the packaging and the shipping and all the things right on one product, and then you expand from there. So start with one sku, one product and that will save you lots of time, lots of money, and actually help you generate revenue. So y’all, there’s so many things I could talk for another 20 minutes on this. But I’m looking at my timer and my time is up. So go check out this full interview. Catch us next time on the influential personal brand. And if this has been helpful to you, please go and like this episode, share this episode, comment on it, leave us a review, rate it. If this is helpful to you and you think it would be helpful to someone else, please share it with them. You get to be the conduit of sharing good information out into the world. So I’m asking for your help. If you like our podcast, the influential personal brand, please like it, share it, leave a review and get it out into the world and share it with a friend. So thank you so much. We’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand.