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AoL 027: The Process of Reinventing Yourself and Your Business with Theresa French

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Sometimes, things just don’t work out, in life or in our businesses, the way we expect them to. Whether or not we really wanted to succeed simply does not compute at times. And it’s those times that we find ourselves having to quit the path we were on. Sometimes this can be really hard. Especially since most of us are taught from an early age that we’re not allowed to quit something. (Which, I talked about how to quit without regret in a recent blog post.)

When you do finally quit something, though, whether planned or not, you’ll be starting something again soon. Whether it’s a new job, a new career, or a new business, there’s a process of reinvention.

For me, 2015 was all about reinvention. I had to figure out what I was good at and then I had to choose a business that fit my interests, what I liked to do, and even more importantly, how I wanted to make income.

This session’s guest knows more about reinvention than she probably guessed she would during her college years. While she always had the makings of an entrepreneur, it was only recently that she felt that what she did was truly an extension of her inner self. Sure, she was good at other things, but that didn’t necessarily mean that it was her passion.

Today, Theresa French finds herself loving to work with people in training environments. Helping them be more successful in their work as well as their lives.

In the chat, we specifically talk about where her perseverance comes from, how she got into photography, how she eventually transitioned into speaking and training, and one important thing you need to do before you transition from one job or career to another.

If you have ever felt like you’re lost when building that new business or are simply tired with what you’re doing now, then you can learn a thing or two from what she’s gone through. Reinvention is definitely a process that we all have to go through from time to time.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • Where her business ownership inspiration came from.
  • Why she still went to college.
  • How she got into her first business after school.
  • How she was able to take advantage of multiples niches in that business.
  • Why many of us don’t like to see ourselves in pictures and/or videos.
  • What she learned when she had to hang up the keys on her first business.
  • How she eventually started her marketing firm and where FocusWorks Consulting came from.
  • The ONE thing that Theresa wants everyone to take away from this talk.
  • The path to how she got into graphic design.
  • The one important thing you need to do before you transition from one job (or career) to another.
  • How she plans on doing more speaking and training in 2016.
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Reinvent Yourself (Motivational Video) – a new favorite of mine?

Wesley Goo (Founder of Reinvention International) on Reinvention:

Robert Green shares the key of transforming ourselves and also talks on his own personal transformation.

Dr. Mario Alonso Puig talks about Reinvention

Steve Harvey talks about Chapter 13 of his book Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success (Amazon Link)

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

business idea

Getting Your Business Idea Ready for Flight: A Short Checklist

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As I’m continuing to catch up on some of my reading, one of the books that I find myself liking more and more is Pat Flynn’s Will It Fly?

I talked a little bit about this book in this post.  However, I must admit, I only skimmed over the book at the time because I was going over a couple of others.

I now find myself able to go over it in detail – including all the little activities he’s planned out for us as readers.

It has been a really enjoyable journey refining some of the thoughts I have about New Inceptions and what it’s potential is. (Which, as Donald Trump would say, is ‘UUGE! :))

If you’re just starting your online venture and you’re in the idea generation/clarity phase, I want to give you a few tips that I thought were really useful from the book… and even some that I’ve learned along the way as I’ve refined NI.

1. Write All Your Ideas Down – Yours and Others.

For the longest time, I would keep all my ideas in my head. If I had time, I would attempt to execute some of them, however over time, even the good ones would die.

When I went through The Foundation in 2012, one of the major things they taught was what I call niche product development. (I talk about this briefly in the podcast with Sharlotte Bouniol from last week.) Basically it means that you learn how to find the products you should be making from your audience. (Ryan Levesque also talks about this in his book, Ask).

If you dig so deep that you know a client’s problem more than they know it themselves. They’ll assume that you have the solution already.

In this process, if you tried to remember it all, I don’t believe you’d fully be able to. There’s simply way too much information collected during these interviews to remember all the issues

So I learned to write them down. Ever since, I’ve written ideas down that I’ve gotten from other people as well as those that I’ve thought up on my own.

If, for whatever reason, you feel like you shouldn’t write an idea down, do it anyway. For one, no one is going to see your list. Also, if you don’t know how to achieve everything right away with the idea, you can pack it away until you have a better idea of how to accomplish it. There’s a much more unlikely chance that it will disappear if written down than it would if you were to simply keep it in your head.

2. Don’t Cross Out an Idea Because It Already Exists

In the segment that I’m currently reading in Pat’s book, he talks about how most folks are looking for an idea that other people haven’t found yet. However, from this post, we should remember that this is nearly impossible. In fact, it’s good that it already exists. It will save you the time and resources to recreate the niche!

An example of this is with fast food restaurants and the nearby chain retail stores. Have you ever noticed that these chains all seem to be right on top of each other?

As far as the restaurants go, you’ll always see a Burger King near a McDonald’s, true. But have you ever seen a Burger King without a McDonald’s nearby? Personally, I can’t think of many instances. And there’s a reason for this. For the most part, early on, Burger King let McDonald’s determine all the good spots to set up shop.

Later, if there was good traffic to that particular area, you started to see other restaurants building on top of established chain locations AND even retail spots – such as Target and, later, Walmart. That’s the basis behind suburbs blowing up the way they have – and all of their “strips” looking very similar to the one in the nearby town.

You can read more about this phenomenon here.

Really, you should think of your niche in the same manner. Unless it’s a small niche, the more traffic in your niche the better.

However, that said, if there isn’t much substance to what you’re bringing, you won’t last long. So don’t expect to just succeed overnight. If there is already established traffic, you’ll have to spend some time learning how to tap into it – just like startup restaurants and stores have to in an established shopping area.

3. Do Something You Have Passion (or at least an Interest) In

If you’re going to be chasing money, you can only do that for so long before you burn out. Eventually, if you plan to stay self-employed for the foreseeable future, you’ll want to do something you feel is natural to you.

For me, I’m a catalyst of people – helping them explore what could be.

I’m a teacher.

I like tech, business strategy, leadership, and am a huge fan of self awareness and self improvement. Combine those all together and that’s what I want New Inceptions to reflect.

Ask yourself, what am I naturally interested in? What do I want to study or think about when no one is looking? Can I make that into a business that will support the things I want to do in life?

In the long run, your business has to reflect you, otherwise you’re going to grow tired of it. (Hell, you might even see it as a job that owns you!) However, your products (especially early on) should help people with very niche issues. Eventually you can add on to them and create suites. But start simple at first. Solve one pain at a time.

4. Fine Tune Your Idea

Another exercise that Pat shares in his book is all about starting out focused. In fact, he helps us do this by having us write a page about our business. Then, he has us break that down into a paragraph. Finally having us write a sentence that defines our business.

The sentence I ended up with from this exercise was this:

New Inceptions is a fiercely loyal online virtual resource hub that connects creative entrepreneurs (Renegades) with the insight, tools, motivation, and community to build a successful online business.

I’d highly recommend doing this exercise. I think it’s definitely going to help me get more focused in what I’m doing.

Action Steps

Here we are, already in March of 2016. It’s essentially been a year since I started on this new path. Personally, I’m starting to see some of my seeds from last year start to grow. For one, I’m helping Mark Nathan launch his book on a larger scale. On another, I’m starting the process of building my first product. And, I’m having some good thoughts on what I want to make my Opt-In in the future be. (Cause let’s face it… it’s so VAGUE right now!)

These are all things that I could not have imagined last year. Why? Because I really had no idea what I wanted to do last year. I couldn’t figure out exactly what I wanted to do. But I was attacking the problem incorrectly. At least for me.

The thing is, you don’t have to do one thing. You can totally do a theme for your site and business.

However, your products or services need to solve specific pains that your customers have.

In this next week, I want you to start thinking of your theme. What kinds of things do you like to do now and in the past? What do you see your ideal future looking like in 5 years?

Next week, we’ll start asking ourselves questions on whether or not the idea that we have is going to get us to where we want to be in the future.

girlboss

AoL 026: Crushing Graphic Design like a GirlBoss with Sharlotte Bouniol

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Many entrepreneurs start out as freelancers. They might call themselves consultants, but they’re really freelancers.

The difference, we learned in session 17 with Frank Forte, was that consultants are contracted for a much longer time. Maybe a year plus. Whereas a freelancer works per the project.

Either way, your services are for sale, and you live and die by each individual project.

Needless to say, you better have a natural gift or passion for what you’re going to be helping with. Otherwise you’re going to grow tired of the hustle to do jobs you don’t like doing really quick.

For me, the time that I spent at AMS you could have considered me a consultant. The IRS labeled me a contractor, but I definitely helped build the business… and continue to do so in different ways. Just today I was asked to take a look at something on the back end of the website and see if I could do something about it!

If you’re a freelancer, I’m sure you understand that feeling.

Today’s guest is someone that has a huge passion in what she does. In her past life, she’s been in various marketing positions including a Chief Marketing Officer. Eventually, though, she realized she liked helping Beach Body coaches with their branding. Word got out about her work, enough so that eventually she left the executive position to pursue her interest in branding and marketing.

In this session’s chat with Sharlotte Bouniol, we talk about a number of things including: how she became an intern for the Nielsen company, how she got a job at the #1 State Farm Agency in the US, why she started GirlBoss Graphix, and what inspires her creatively.

If you’re serious about becoming a freelancer, I think you’ll get a lot of inspiration from this chat. In reality it’s all about leveraging who you know so you can get referrals to do more work. Start in a niche, like Sharlotte, then work your way out!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How Sharlotte got into marketing.
  • How she became an intern for the Nielsen Company.
  • Why she sees the world differently after the experience there.
  • How she got a job at the #1 State Farm Agency in the US.
  • The difference between niche marketing and niche product design.
  • Why she finally started GirlBoss Graphix.
  • How she actually gets paid for the work she does.
  • How she was able to say goodbye to her last job and boss.
  • Why she chose to build an online business vs being a “brick and mortar” agency.
  • What inspires her creativity.
  • Why she believes that personal development is important.
  • Where her passion for helping special needs kids came from.
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

How to be a Freelance Artist (Dos and Dont’s)
In the video, Jazza talks about some of the hard learned lessons he’s had over the years

What Successful Freelancers Wish They’d Known from the the Start
(Just because it’s from the UK doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply EVERYWHERE!)

Is web design more your thing? Here’s John Morris on finding your first client on Upwork, Elance, and oDesk.

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

AoL 025: Exploring the Hidden Truth of Vibrant Health with David Sandstrom

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When it comes to our health, Americans are a fickle bunch. Some of us are very into it, and others, like I was, simply don’t even know where to start.

For me personally, health was never a big focus of mine growing up. I only went to a doctor when I was on death’s door. However, my mom, would go all the time. The more she went, however, the more they’d give her meds to deal with whatever issue she was dealing with at the time. I swear, by the time she passed suddenly in 2010, she probably was downing 8 pills daily? I’m sure you know someone like that.

Today, I still don’t go to the doctor regularly. Opting instead to treat myself for any ailments and hoping that I’m eating correctly. For one, I simply don’t want the possibility of them just covering up symptoms of underlying issue. For my mom, they could have simply said, “stop eating sugar” and/or “here are some alternate ideas”. Instead they decided that giving her (and many other Baby Boomers) a pill concoction will be much more welcome.

Secondly, most of the nutrition advice that I see others taking today still says that carbs are ok to eat, sugar is ok in moderation, and that fat is bad. Personally, I don’t subscribe to that info.

Today’s guest is someone that can shine a ton of light on this issue. During the day, David is flying for a major airlines. However, when it’s time to put on his other hat as a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, you can see him making a major push to get out the knowledge he has in preventing ailments. In this session’s interview with David, we talk about his passion in holistic health,  how he got into it, what his thought are some of the more popular diets out there, and how someone can embrace holistic health into their lifestyle.

If you’re serious about improving your health and not going through the same treatment that many of our parents and grandparents have gone through, then this chat with David should really benefit you. If you get a lot out of it, be sure to share it with others you care about!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How a pilot with an MBA got into Holistic Health.
  • Why he has a huge passion for holistic health and teaching others about it.
  • How holistic health differs and compliments traditional western medicine.
  • How cholesterol actually helps in the healing process.
  • What actually causes heart disease.
  • Why people get addicted to carbs.
  • His thoughts on the paleo diet, ketosis, and the book The China Study.
  • How someone can embrace holistic health into their lifestyle.
  • What 3 questions you should ask yourself when seeking to improve your health.
  • What your choice of words on social media says about your future health.
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Dr. Robert H. Lustig called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. Totally opened up my eyes. He talks about how bad sugar really is for you and how it’s basically in everything. Find it here:

Dr. Mark Hyman on Sugar and the Only Rules you Need to Eat Healthy:

Most of what David and Dr. Hayman say are similar. However they differ on Milk. David said that it’s good, Mark said it’s bad. Here are two videos talking about milk processing and why you might consider Raw Milk:

A farmer’s perspective on Raw Milk:

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

Understanding Passive Income as Organic Earnings

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In my last podcast session with Matt Bernstein, one of the nuggets of information he dropped (among MANY) was that he first heard of passive income from the same book I did, Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. The main difference was that he read it when he was young and I read it when I was starting college.

I was already heading towards getting my first degree when I read the book in 2002. My workload as an engineering student was pretty massive, but I’ve been in the search of ways for it to work ever since then. Why wouldn’t I be? To me, it’s the answer of old adage ‘What? Do you think that money grows on trees?’.

Actually…

Passive income should really be called “organic earnings”. Not because they’re earnings picked from a tree, mind you, but because they are earnings that are based on how well we set ourselves up to sell something automatically. We simply have to let either word of mouth and/or online business nature take it’s course. It doesn’t matter if we personally do an additional hour of work, we’re not going to be paid any more for that one hour directly. Indirectly, however, we might get paid over and over again.

What I’ve found through 13 years of investigation and research, are a few things I really want to share with you guys today.

Passive Income Creates Options

Working on developing passive income opens up the potential for a whole new lifestyle that most would only dream of living. As they say in LTD, eventually you can have 6 Saturdays and a Sunday every week if you work on your business like a business and not a hobby.

If you want to travel somewhere – you could, with no reservations (no pun intended). Get up, buy a ticket, and go without packing. Get some clothes when you get there!

If you have some work to do, you can simply do it from the internet. All you would need is your laptop (or just an internet cafe), and your online business could still be up and running. This is exactly what Cam (from session 8) and Ginger (from session 20) do on their travels.

If travel to travel isn’t your thing, then you have other options. Perhaps you simply want to be at the gym or out on the golf range at any time you want. Or maybe, you just want the opportunity to go to any sports games you’d want. If you’re big into entertainment, you can potentially create a man cave for a king!

Or, if you’re like my wife, Maria, you could work somewhere you love that maybe doesn’t pay you a supporting wage (or you could even volunteer), and your passive income could pick up the slack.

It really depends on you and your ambitions!

If you can Share it Online, it can be a Source of Passive Income.

Any business that you do online can help you create passive income. At AMS, one of the things I struggled to do was figure out how to create passive income for the company. While we were mainly online, our events were TOTALLY not. All registrations were online, true, but our registrants had to actually come to our events. So, just like a brick and mortar store, our ability to provide value to people was based on our geographical location.

In 2016, however, we have started implementing Virtual Races. In the first race we had being virtual as an option, we had 93 registrants from all over the US. While many might wonder, “What’s the point of doing a race if you’re not at the actual location of the event?” in 2016, we should realize that many people run for the gear they get from the event. It’s their proof that they did the event. Virtual Races are considered passive income sources because all you have to do is make the event and you can theoretically sell as many entries as possible.

Likewise, one of our upcoming guests, David Picciuto, is what many of us would consider a Maker. When we think of a Maker, we typically think physical products that are limited and typically sold in a geographical region. Typically, you’d be right. However, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case either. In fact, in our upcoming chat, we’ll explore how his site, makesomething.tv, where he shares with others how they can build things he’s built… and other topics related to doing what he’s done.

Another example of something that isn’t typically thought of being a passive income business, is being an artist. However, if you’re an artist and want to generate passive income, then one idea might be to do teach while they’re creating their work similar to how Bob Ross taught on his show for so many years. (And, in fact, whoever owns his brand now, has made a passive income site based on his teaching.)

Passive Income Doesn’t Come Cheap

However, let’s be clear that true passive income isn’t for free. In fact, earning a passive income simply isn’t a “get rich quick” idea. It takes some time, a bit of research and probably a little bit of luck too (although I like to say you can create your own luck), in order to get to a point where you’re comfortable saying you have a successful passive income creating business.

It’s about putting in the hard work now, so you can reap the benefits later. – Pat Flynn

Action Steps

Are you really serious about getting started on your path to developing passive income for yourself? If so, then you ought to think about what type of business you want and get on starting to make it. Not only that, but why?

Do you want it to…

  • Be side income on the side of your day job?
  • Be able to quit a job that you dislike?
  • Work On a project that you’re passionate about?
  • Be financially free?

This is part of what you should consider.

There are multiple resources around the web that I spoke of in this post. However, stay tuned for our very own resource that will combine the best thoughts of all these resources (and others) coming soon!

Comments are welcome below and check out Bob Ross’ site if you haven’t yet or not sure who he was. He was a great inspiration to my creativity as a kid!

udemy

AoL 024: Unlocking the Secrets of Success to Drop Shipping and uDemy with Matt Bernstein

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Online business comes in many forms. In fact, I’ve mentioned that there are 10 archetypes that people can utilize to do online business.

One of the types that I’ve had an interest in, and one that I think has a relatively low entry cost, is the Retail archetype. In session 13, our guests, Dennis and Claudia Haddix, talked about the lifestyle that their eCommerce business provided for them.

But we didn’t really get into how they do things. Heck, I didn’t even know until a few weeks ago when Dennis mentioned that he drop ships in our eCommerce meeting here in Indy.

Interestingly enough, I soon became a member of the Smart Passive Income Community on Facebook and bumped into today’s guest who has taught over 50,000 students on uDemy in various subjects, including drop shipping!

Nice!!

So, we got to talking and eventually, I learned that he was starting his own course platform called Skillhance.

Today’s guest, Matt Bernstein, is a wealth of information when it comes to building various types of businesses. Like Gary Vee, he started with baseball cards, and has worked his way up to where he is today.

In our today’s chat, we talk about how he became an entrepreneur at a young age, how the book 4 Hour Work Week changed his perspective on what and how he sold online, and how he transitioned to uDemy and how he’s managed his success on that platform.

Make sure you listen to today’s session ready to take notes as a lot of tactics will be dropped.

Also, stay tuned to the New Inceptions’ Resource Page in the future as I’ll be linking any of Matt’s courses that I think would add value to you guys.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How he started his first business.
  • Some of the first items he sold on eBay.
  • One the key things he got out of the 4 Hour Work Week.
  • How he got into drop shipping and how it works.
  • Some of the things to avoid when you’re working with sourcing from manufacturers.
  • Why Matt did drop shipping vs using Amazon and, particularly, FBA.
  • How he got banned from eBay.
  • Why he started doing course on uDemy.
  • How to use uDemy as a funnel to your main platform.
  • Types of courses he has on uDemy.
  • A brief overview of he makes a course.
  • How he uses social media platforms, including YouTube, Blab, and Instagram.
  • How to create content for each of those platforms. .
  • …and MUCH more.

Right click here and save-as to download this episode to your computer.

ITEMS and PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

SHOW NOTE EXTRAS:

Matt’s Course called “How I Made $50,000+ in Profits on Udemy”
Save half off and get it for $9 here!

Matt’s Interview with Dennis Smith:

Shopify Article: How I Imported Gaming Glasses With Alibaba and Made $2,416.51 in 5 Weeks

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining us again this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the top of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The AoL Podcast on iTunes! Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.

If you have any questions feel free to email them over via the email mentioned in the show or by our contact form.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher, and/or Podbean. It’s absolutely free to do so.

A huge thank-you to you guys for joining us!

Cheers!

Labeling Business Accomplishment: Find Your Place, Your Peers, and GROW Faster!

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With all the business training going around these days and the interaction of people at all levels of business, many business trainers have tried to label where people are by using a scale or other descriptive words to illustrate where people might be on the entrepreneurial path.

In Fizzle, for example, they have a roadmap to developing one’s business that contains three distinct phases that I chatted briefly about in this post few weeks ago. These 3 phases describe those who are starting their business:

  • Phase 1: Clarity stage (Figuring out what you want to do.)
  • Phase 2: Building Your Business (Building it enough that it replaces your day job financially).
  • Phase 3: Scaling (Fine tuning, adding paid team members, and growing larger than what you could do on your own)

 

While these three phases work out really well for Fizzle because they’re all about getting us from nothing to something, I believe it’s 3/4’s of the full story. Plus, as for the overall business world, there should be a description to describe those who have reached a high level of their own growth and are strictly focused on helping others grow. John Maxwell would call these Level 5 Leaders. Some of those folks might include serial entrepreneurs, gurus, angel investors, philanthropists, and advisors. Again, think more like Tim Ferriss, Pat Flynn, Gary Vee, on to someone like Oprah.

Essentially, people that wouldn’t be using Fizzle because they would have outgrown it.

For about a month, I’ve been trying to come up with a more generic ranking in helping people quickly understand where people are in the business world.

Finding the Solution

In a recent poll that I conducted on Facebook, I asked the members of a group where they fell in building their business. I wanted to find out where people were so that we could find out the makings of the group. This would lead us to reach out to those that were in similar levels and also figure out who we could reach up to for help.

 

Here was that poll:

business building

Where do you fall?

Besides the fact that I realized that I apparently don’t know how to use the alphabet (what happened to g and h?), I found out that all of these levels were being used to describe where people were in the group. Many were new and hadn’t started even building a platform (groups a and b), while a few were starting their business and had some success (groups c and d). Yet, others were having more success and scaling (groups e and f). Even more interesting, is that there are folks in the group that have had more than just success with online business, they’ve started a few businesses online and could be straight up veterans. It’s really hard to tell why those people are in the group. Networking? Sure.

Now, as far as the first three segments – I think you can describe those as the Clarity, Building, and Scaling segments from Fizzle. But what about that 4th group? I had to figure out something that could describe all 4 groups. And that’s when it hit me.

Why not use the labels that we’re all so familiar with when it comes to accomplishment in the scholastic world? I mean, it makes sense.

Let’s Look at Some Definitions:

Why does it make sense to use these terms that a lot of us might want to forget? Well it’s because they actually have appropriate meaning! Check this out:

The term Freshman dates back to the mid-16th century where it has invariably meant either “newcomer” or “novice.”

Sophomore is derived from two Greek terms, sophos, meaning “wise,” and moros, meaning “foolish” or “dull”. Meaning that the term Sophomore originally probably meant a wise moron! (I would definitely say I fit this rank right now. I know a lot of stuff, but I’m not exactly sure when to use it all!)

Junior simply means the younger of two. This is defined in relations to their more learned upperclassmen. Early on, juniors were called “Junior Soph,” and seniors were denoted with “Sophester”.

Senior has been used since the mid-14th century in English to denote either an older person or one of authority.

Cool, huh? Easily fits the different groups of folks in the group!

Check this Out

So here’s something else that I realized. When it comes to business, most people when they jump from one business to another have to start over again. As upcoming podcast guest Theresa French said in her interview, “going from one business to another type of business is just as hard as going from working a job to a business”. So, if that’s the case (which I’m pretty sure it is), then that would mean that those that start something new, are freshman again. (Makes sense, this is how college works.)

However, because they’ve already gotten their feet wet in business, I’d think that it’d be more suiting to call them sophomores again. They have skills, they just don’t know how exactly to apply them yet.

Grow Faster by Working with your Classmates!

Ok, so now that you’re familiar with these terms, why is it important? Because, it’s almost ALWAYS something that industries do – come up with their own words to describe something that might be complex to others outside of that industry.

Just like academia, the rules of business stay the same. What changes is the knowledge used for a particular business and how we execute in our industry. The catch is, as solopreneurs, we all have varying degrees in how well we’re doing both.

Typically speaking, the more experience we have, the more we’ll know how to wield both knowledge and execution. Labeling these levels of experience helps us determine whether we’ll be using our time effectively with the other person.

Freshman always want to learn from upperclassmen. However, working with seniors all the time might not be the best thing for them.

While it’s good for both parties to be around each other from time to time to expand each other’s point of view, there is a ton of work between a freshman and a senior. Just like in high school and college, the freshman gets frustrated that they can’t keep up and the senior gets frustrated when the freshman just doesn’t get it.

We have to learn from the upperclassmen, but practice with those who are our peers.

Action Steps

So this is a fairly simple activity. Figure out which level you’re at and connect with those that are close to you in experience. Perhaps even start a “study group” (aka mastermind) with them! (Just like when you’re studying, you’ll learn things much quicker from different perspectives than if you were to just go it alone.)

Are you a freshman? A sophomore? Maybe even a junior? Who are the seniors in your life? Are you learning from their path of success and how to apply things they’ve learned on your own journey?

Have you made already made a mastermind of peers that you can grow together with? If you have, that’s great! You know that iron sharpens iron. If you haven’t, think about who you’d want in that group. Freshman don’t tend to care who they study with, however, it might be best to start out with other freshmen or sophomores. Anything higher and you might find yourself drinking from a fire hose.

As a sophomore, a junior, or even a senior, you have to be picky not to get too many lowerclassmen in your group. Otherwise it doesn’t do YOU any good! Don’t let your niceness weigh you down. You’re not doing them or yourself any favors!