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Dating for Alpha Women

AoL 040: Understanding Alpha Women and Maintaining High Creative Performance with Moe DeCarlo

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Everyone has heard of the phrase Alpha Male. If you remember, they’re the type of guy who is normally thought of as a natural athlete and/or have everything going right in life, or just have many women around them at a given time. They’re a natural leader.

Have you ever heard of the phrase Alpha Female? There’s a good chance that you’ve heard that phrase too. When you think of the phrase, what kind of women come to mind? For me, I think of women in business, government, entertainment, and the military. All of them are leaders of some sort. And most of them probably don’t have time to be the center of a traditional family that society teaches us is the norm.

Personally, I’m married to an Alpha Female. I’m always joking with her that she’s 52% girl, 48% guy. Otherwise I don’t think she’d be able to have done as well in the military career as she has. Perhaps growing up with two brothers helps. But for the most part, I can joke with her like I joke with most guys – which is actually awesome. And for me, that’s normal.

Today’s guest, I imagine has married an Alpha Female as well. In fact, as he explains in the interview, he grew up with mainly women in his house. This forced him to learn how to think like the women in his life.

Today, Moe DeCarlo uses this power of his to be a translator for women and gets paid to do so as a woman’s social coach.

In this session, we’ll be talking about what got him into coaching in the first place, how he keeps up with all the work he does, and what he got out of his recent time at this past April’s Experts Academy.

If you feel like you have this special trait, or something similar, and not sure how to use it, perhaps Moe can help you learn how to utilize those skills in a way that you never thought you could!

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How Moe schedules his days and weeks to be masterful. 8:06
  • How Moe sees himself as a coach in relationships. 10:01
  • How Moe compares himself to Steve Harvey. 11:00
  • Why he works with women more so than he works with men. 12:28
  • 3 Ways that men and women are different. 15:10
  • When Moe realized he could be a Women’s Social Coach as a full time career. 20:01
  • Resources that Moe has used in getting better at coaching. 24:23
  • How he was able to secure his first paying client. 26:57
  • What Moe would have done differently as he was building his business. 30:45
  • What Moe believes will sap your energy quickly if you’re not careful. 35:19
  • How Moe gets past the societal label of a Player when it comes to him doing his work. 38:43
  • Why it’s important to start your business with boundaries and how you let others know that you have them. 43:09
  • Why Moe decided to go to Expert’s Academy vs buying a lease expensive online training. 46:33
  • Why he believes that the biggest take away that he got from the event was the new connection with other people. 49:28
  • Why you should market to aspirations, not demographics. 51:19
  • What Expert Academy helped him realize he should change in his future business. 56:12
  • 3 Life Truths He’d Want People to Know 1:02:12
  • 3 Favorite Teachers or Influencers 1:04:40
  • What Would He Tell the 20 Year Old Version of Himself 1:06:10

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 pick Alpha Girls out:

Dr. Gaby Cora’s TEDx Presentation on Alpha Women:

Finding out if you’re an Alpha Women through Astrology:

An example of what I imagine Moe does with his clients:

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.

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

Cheers!

The Importance of Why: Learning How to Get Going when the Going Gets Tough

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People wonder where I get inspired for my writing. Sometimes I get inspiration from the people I’m working with. Other times, it’s just to fill a knowledge gap in my content.

Yet, other times, it’s when I’m constantly berated by a subject and I need to make an account of all that is coming my way.

I mean, when the universe tells you to do something, you better be listening and be prepared to act, right?

Passion is Half the Battle:

In the last two blog posts, I wrote about building a website. While this might not necessarily be the most interesting to me, it is a question that I can answer and have a knack to help people get started on. It’s kinda like me and math. Can I teach it? Sure. Do I have a passion for it? Well, I have a passion that people are educated. So… in a way I guess? But not directly.

Same thing for building websites. Is it something that I can help people with? Sure. I had to figure it out on my own and if I can help someone else figure it out, then I’m happy.

Also, it’s a question that I’ve been meaning to respond to in a blog post form for awhile.

Today’s post has a little bit of both: “Something I want to make sure people get because it’s important” and something that I’m asked about quite a bit.

How did I find my Why?

The Secret is in the Why:

Pursuing your Passion with a definite Why, I believe, is one of the critical parts of being happy, building a successful life, and building a thriving business.

I share this belief with a well known author, Simon Sinek.

If you’re unfamiliar with Simon, there’s been a big TEDx speech of his out there on the web for several years now. Time and time again I recommend it to people if they’re having trouble finding their Why.

Good stuff, huh?

Bonus: He also just recently did an interview with Marie Forleo that came out last week about his newest book.

Don’t Forget about Being Happy:

As Simon was saying in that last video, many times we get so focused on the small details of a job that might actually be part of our Why, that we forget about why we started it in the first place. When this happens, we might actually become unhappy.

I was listening to a really interesting conversation between Jordan Harbinger and Raj Raghunathan that was paralleling this thought as well.

Among many of the great points that Raj talks about in the discussion, he points out that we all need three main things to be happy: Mastery, Belonging, and Autonomy.

  • Mastery: We need to feel that we’re good at something.
  • Belonging: We need to feel a sense of intimacy or connection with at least one other person.
  • Autonomy: We need to feel a sense of freedom in what we’re doing. (Not to be micromanaged.)

Just a note here: Mastery is another way of describing passion. Those that don’t have a passion in a particular subject rarely care to develop a mastery in or of it.

A Recent Example:

Say you’re interested in starting a podcast. You want to have really interesting conversations with people and get those out into the world and inspire others to take certain actions.

That focus – having really interesting conversations with others – might meet the three criteria of being happy.

However, when you start figuring out the details of where the host for the recordings might be and what the your site looks like that you’re posting the talks to, those might be things you don’t really want to deal with.

As you get lost in the details of getting technical things prepped to do the show, you might actually start asking yourself why you started thinking that you wanted to do podcasts in the first place.

Right?

Well, for starters – the two are not mutually related. Technical parts of doing a podcast aren’t the same as actually being the host. In fact, the only “technical” thing a host should do is hit the record button. In the ideal world, you’d have people to help you with all the other stuff.

You don’t necessarily have to pay those folks, either. There’s plenty of trading that goes on in the business world behind the scenes – both online and offline. Maybe you have a talent that they need as well? They help you, you help them.

And the other thing is that this is where the Why gets you through. Without a strong Why, you might just tap out early on in your endeavor of being a podcaster. There’s a saying that goes, “If you want something bad enough, the facts don’t matter!”.

More Resources to Help You Find Your Why, Your Passion, and Find What Makes You Happy:

If you’re wanting to make sure that you’re on the right path, that you’re on it for a good reason, and that you want to make sure you can make it all the way through to completion, then there’s a few resources that I think you should check.

  1. Pat Flynn’s Book: Will It Fly
  2. Cal Newport’s: So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
  3. Mark Nathan and David Anderson’s Book: The Delusion of Passion
  4. Raj Raghunathan’s HappySmarts Project

Action Steps:

As I was writing this post, I took a short break and ran across an interesting piece that I wanted to share with you guys:

When you think about this family – is it clear to you that Garrett knew his why when he was building his business? Do you think it was what he started with or did it grow over time? Or perhaps he realized it when he sold his business?

Regardless, the Why was deciding factor of the life that they have now.

The best thing you can do with yourself before you ever start your business is to figure out what really motivates you to start working and to keep going when it’s hard for you to do anything. Us solopreneurs, we have very wild emotional roller coasters. One day we feel like we’re on the top of the world, the next day we could feel like “meh”.

If you don’t get the books that I’ve mentioned in this post (which I think might be a mistake), I’d definitely check out interviews that they’ve done, and talks they’ve given across the web.

Also, another something that I think would help you is making a bucket list for yourself as well as a list of things that would be fun to do with your family (if you have one). Make each one at least 10 to 20 items. Let it be as wild as you want.

Now from there, start categorizing these into things that don’t cost anything or very little, all the way up to those that cost a fortune (like a prolonged trip, a boat, or a better house!)

Those that don’t cost anything or cost very little, you should plan to do them as rewards soon.

The more the something costs, the higher up on your success ladder you should place it. Think of it as a reward for getting to that level of success.

Now find some pictures of these rewards and place them on a bulletin board, tape them on the back of a door, or, put them up on a refrigerator. These are forms of what many people call Vision Boards. If you need help of what I’m talking about – here’s an example:

Vision Board

I’d love to see what you all come up with!

Getting Started on the Web

Getting Started on the Web: Choosing the Right Website Building Platform for Your New Business

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When starting an online brand or business you might be wondering one simple question that has a complex answer, “Where do I get started?”

There’s several parts to the answer of this question, but one of them is to start building your presence online in the shape of a website.

Back in the early days of website development and really even today, you had to have some tech prowess to do it on your own. However, I’d say that using digital devices in general takes a little bit of tech “can-do” attitude.

I think what it really breaks down into is this. What level are your own tech abilities? How much are you willing to pay to make up the difference between what you can make on your own vs what you visually see your site doing? The bigger and more functional the website, the more likely you’re going to have to hire some outside help.

Basic Techie Skills Needed:

I think the first thing to consider when you’re wanting to start your own online business is to ask yourself “how techie” am I? Because really, you’re going to be putting content onto something that REALLY is still based off of techie work. The internet is built on nerd power. Period.

Whether you have those techie skills yourself, or you have to hire them out is going to be a big question in what hats you’re going to be wearing in the early formation of your business.

So let’s look at some of the traits I think that you need possess in order to build a website:

Can See the Big Picture:

Have you seen a site that you really want to emulate? Perhaps you’ve seen a few that have different parts that you’d like to include into your own?

Unlike where you might have last worked, it’s up to you to think how you’re going to from nothing to something.

What’s that path look like? Have you created a roadmap for yourself? I’m strictly speaking about your site here.

You have to think with the end in mind. So, know what that ending looks for you.

Got it? Good.

Moving on…

Online Searching Skills:

Now that you have the target in front of you, you’ll have to figure out how to get there. In the world of the modern day entrepreneur, no one is going to tell you exactly what you need next as you’re getting your business off ground. That’s going to be up to you.

Personally, I didn’t have much of a reason to have website creation skills when I was in school. In fact, everything that I have ever learned about doing website stuff, I didn’t know at one time. Most of what I know now about website development I’ve learned as I’ve needed it since I graduated from college in late 2009.

How did I learn all this is such short of time? Well, for one, I had to utilize the skill set that I had going through school. Using Google and YouTube to find answers I had questions for. I also followed Pat Flynn as he built SPI to what it is today. I remember when he was still working on the site when he was holed up into the side of his apartment.

Figure out the Details:

Pat and people like him (including more recently the squad over at Fizzle) have helped me shape my roadmap. However, it’s up to me to figure out how I’m going to get from Point A to Point B. Can I walk? Can I take a car? Or do I need a plane?

As you build your roadmap back from the final target, you’ll need to figure out the mode of transportation that works best for you:

Highly detailed work – Mostly everyone can walk. But it’s going to be slowest option. Details that are at this level are usually reserved for those that are highly analytical and want control over every little piece of their project.

Detailed Work – Why walk when you can drive? This is about as fast as you can go on your own. However, just because you can drive doesn’t necessarily mean you should all the time.

Hire Someone Else – Most people can’t fly a plane – but you need a result faster than you could do it! In this case, you can call in a specialist to do the heavy lifting for you. But it’s going to cost you.

 

What type of “transportation” you’re going to use will be based off the next two traits…

Fortitude:

This trait is essential when working out the details on your own. You must realize that going into a project you’ve never done before will result in something that isn’t perfect. There’s a good chance you’re probably going to break something as you learn how to use it. The thing with software and most hardware, these days, is that you can always reset things if you start going in the wrong direction.

Also, as you learn from past attempts in doing something, you get a larger and larger picture of what it is that you need to do to make something do what you want it to do.

From something as complex as coding all the way up to something as simple as dropping in graphics to your site, all of these things need some amount of “I’ll try again if I screw this up” thinking.

 

Patience:

I think one the of biggest traits that goes hand in hand with fortitude is patience. Not only with the process, but with yourself. If you’ve never been a technical person, you have to give yourself the time to become one… at least to the level that your site is going to need you to be.

 

Take Consistent Action:

As your site starts to take form, you’ll need to keep working on it until it’s done. For me, it took me about a month or so to get New Inceptions exactly where I wanted it to before I started writing.

Likewise, if you’ve never touched the backend of a website, then you’re not going to know what you’re looking at. It’s going to take some time to figure out what you need to know versus what’s just extra. If you’re familiar with Cpanel, most of the things that are in there I haven’t touched. However, there are a few things that I’ve used plenty of times and know what they do.

Your ability to how much you can work on the site initially (and when things come up) along with the other traits listed above are the factors that you need to consider when choosing an actual solution to what you’re going to build your site’s foundation on.

Remember when choosing one of these solutions, you’re essentially going to have on one side a ton of flexibility to other side, a simple solution that you can simply just plug things into and call it a day.

 

Let’s look at some of those solutions real quick.

Website Development Solutions

HTML 5 Website Development:

“From scratch” sites (using HTML 5 , CSS, and PHP). This is definitely highly detailed work. To get a finished result, this is going to take a ton of all of the above traits. You’ll have to learn how to code or learn how to use a program like Dreamweaver (or something else) to do precisely what you have in mind. While this might give you all kinds of flexibility and is the backbone of today’s internet, it’s probably not going to be useful for you – unless your business is making websites for other people. Then you might want to get familiar with some of this.

Wix.com: If you want to use more of a drag and drop approach to building your website, I’d check out Wix. While I wasn’t a big fan of it back in 2008 when it was still using Flash, they’ve moved over to using HTML 5 as their base platform.

I will mention that Wix is a freemium solution, but you’ll have to pay for many of the features that you’d get free in CMS Solutions – such as WordPress.

Here’s the Wix Wikipedia page for more info.

 

Content Management System (CMS) Solutions:

WordPress: Ok, so you’re totally happy with giving up some flexibility so you don’t have to start from scratch. Cool. There’s plenty of solutions that will still give you tons of flexibility. Most of the time what you’ll find out there is in the realm of content management systems. Here’s a list of all the solutions that are out there.

Out of all of these, WordPress is by far and away the most used one out there. This is the option I chose. There are several reasons why:

  • Opensource
  • Flexible
  • Inexpensive
  • There’s information all over the net in how to use it.

That said, you’ll probably have to have a high level of all the previously mentioned traits to be successful at using WordPress. I will say that you’re interested in going down this path, it’ll take a bit of detailed work to get things done. In fact, it might take a month’s worth of time to design, create and master your site. If you have that kind of time, I highly recommend it. If you don’t, you’re in a rush, and have some money to spend, then I’d go to another solution.

 

Squarespace and Kajabi

Squarespace and Kajabi are also popular CMS solutions. However, I haven’t had the opportunity to play with them too much.

Both are much more expensive than WordPress in the long run (especially for business) and they might not have as much flexibility as you like. That said, if you want to get rolling quickly or are already making some kind of income doing what you’re planning to use them for, they might be good solutions for you to “just get on the web”.

For more info on Squarespace, you can check out this Wikipedia entry.

And here’s the entry for Kajabi.

 

Action Steps:

For you to figure out what you want for your website, you’re going to have to have a true conversation with yourself. If money is an issue, I’d go with WordPress and learn what you need to to get a basic site up.

If time is an issue and you want something up, but you don’t have the resources for something custom, I’d go with Kajabi, Wix, or Squarespace. (If you’re in the information industry, I’d go with Kajabi.)

If you’re wanting the cream of the crop, want something custom, or simply don’t have the time to build your own site, then you’re going to hire someone. If you don’t know a developer personally, the best place to do that is over at Upwork.com

If you already have a website up and going, let me know how you made the process in choosing the platform you’re using and some of the pros and cons of using it!

 

4 Quick, Simple, and Immediate Steps to Take Action in Your Work

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Whether you call it analysis paralysis or overthinking it, why is it that we spend so much time trying to do what we know that we should be doing? Many of us go to workshops, classes, and even big events to get over this issue.

Even when I was in college, I started realizing that I’d think about how I’d want to do something before I actually tried. In retrospect, it probably cost me some good opportunities here and there.

Here are some of the reasons that people might over think something:

  • Worried about what other people might think.
  • Don’t want to start something else that they believe they might fail.
  • Not sure what the next step is.
  • Don’t want to waste time that could be used more productively.
  • Know what many next steps might be.

Do these sound similar to thoughts you’ve had? I know that for me, I’ve struggled with all of them at different points and continue to at times.

Needless to say overthinking things can happen at any level. Let’s look at how we can hack ourselves out of these thoughts that keep us in our comfort zone.

 

Look Beyond Yourself.

This is one that most of us struggle with as teenagers and early 20 year olds. We wonder if we’re good enough to go on the date with the cool guy or the pretty girl. We wonder if we’re good enough to get on the team. We believe that if we aren’t perfect at school or whatever that we take seriously, that other people won’t take us seriously in the future – meaning that we won’t get into that great school or land that awesome first opportunity.

Personally, for me, I lived in this cage for a good part of my life. I think I started caring when I was constantly bullied in school. And I have to say that really made me worry what others thought of me until 2011.

 

Then I was given a task to do: make 100 cold calls a week.

That’s what it took to break me out of my mold.

 

When I was doing those calls, I stopped worrying about what others were going to think of me. What I started to think about was what I was going to be able to do for them.

Here’s the key. When you don’t want to care about what others think of you, you need to realize that you taking action can help others. Sure, it can be people you don’t know with products you believe in (that’s key). But it can also be your friends and family.

By setting the example to do something new, you’re being an example of what’s possible.

However, you might have a deeper issue than that. Sure, you want to be a speaker on a stage sometime, and you realize how many people that would help. But you don’t see yourself as a speaker. In fact, you might have a speech impediment that’s keeping you from getting your message out.

However, it’s still possible for you to become that speaker.

How?

Well, for one, there are some speakers and comedians that have overcome some major hurdles in their lives to do the role that they do. Some of my favorite personalities are those who don’t see their disability as a disability – they see it as a way that sets them apart from the crowd.

One example of a comedian who does this is Josh Blue who has cerebral palsy. (If you want more, he has a special on Netflix.)

Another comedian that I love is Zach Anner – check out his YouTube channel here.

Yet another example is a Christian motivational speaker that you possibly might have heard about is Nick Vujicic who doesn’t have any limbs.

How did these guys get over their hurdles?

  • First off, they realized that doing what they felt they were being called to do was more important than what others might think.
  • They also realized, as we talked about before, that doing this new activity would make a difference in people’s lives.
  • But I think the main thing is that they were able to ask themselves this question: “What’s the worst thing that can happen from this?” and realize that while they might get the occasional heckler, not many bad things can actually happen from doing what they love to do.

Another way that you might be able to get over what others think of you is to simply focus on doing things that you know you have control over that are related to the task that you’re wanting to do.

When I was trying to get over my fear of doing cold calls, I started doing something I knew I could do. Call people that I already knew. That got me used to talking with people.

From there, I would call warm leads that I didn’t know. People that responded to an email that had already been sent.

During that time, I realized that not all those people had actually seen the email. So after a few of those, I realized that essentially I was doing cold calls anyway.

Well from there, I just started cold calling using a line similar to “Hi, this is JC in response to the email that <insert name> showed an interest in. Are they available?” This usually got me past the gatekeeper. From there, if they didn’t know what I was talking about, I just simply said “Oh yeah. Well, basically it was talking about this <insert topic>. Do you know how knowing how to do that would impact your business?

If you’re looking to become a speaker, maybe you can become a member of a nearby Toastmasters group?

 

Get Help From Others

Perhaps your problem isn’t so much the fear of doing something, but you currently don’t have the knowledge to get the task accomplished on your own. You don’t know what to do next. Or maybe you just don’t have the time to get proficient at yet another skill. This is when you ask for some help.

The first thing you can do is simply see what other people in your situation have done. When it comes to New Inceptions, you guys know I usually seek help from Fizzle. If there’s no answer there, I’ll go on over to SPI. If Pat doesn’t have an answer, I’ll check elsewhere.

Chances are that whatever you’re wanting to do, someone has probably already done it and they’ve made their success available on the internet.

That said, John Maxwell regularly talks about knowing your strengths and bringing in people for your weaknesses. Sometimes you have to do that. You have to delegate for others to make the decision.

You already do this in your life. Like me, you probably already have a mechanic for your car. Why is that? Because you don’t know how to fix your car.

Do you have an IT guy to fix your computer? Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. Personally, I’m my own IT guy for the most part.

While I don’t have to pay anyone to do this, there’s a ton of down time when I have to put that hat on. When it comes to the website, while I might be able to figure out how to make it more robust, there’s a big chance that when we do add additional features that I’ll need to hire someone else to work on it.

 

Accomplish 3 – 5 Things Daily

In the last segment, we discussed getting help to do things you don’t know anything about. However, that’s only going to get you so far.

Perhaps you know everything you should be doing, but because you’re busy doing other work, you find yourself not getting to the core work you should be doing.

The fix here is to set priorities by identifying what your objectives are. Ask yourself these kinds of questions:

  • What does your ultimate outcome look like?
  • What does success look like along this path?
  • How will you know if you’ve reached a goal?

Now figure out what the process is to accomplish these.

John Maxwell says it’s helpful to have a Rule of 5.

Simply said, if you find yourself trying to do everything, then nothing you do is going to be done well.

To solve this problem (which Chris Ducker calls Superman Syndrome) there’s going to be a time when you have to ask someone to do some of the work you might enjoy doing.

For example, I know I enjoy getting out and doing yard work. I think it comes from all the years that my mom and I did it. However, I realize that as New Inceptions becomes more popular, that I’m not going to be able to do all the work that I need to around the house.  I know that while I do enjoy doing it, I’m going to have to delegate that work to a professional.

Similarly, I’m going to do the same with the editing of my podcast. While I love working on each talk, eventually I’m going to have to hire it out so I can get my main 3 to 5 things done.

 

Daily Practice

As the above segment says, you have to do things daily to reach your goal. It’s not so much that that you have to be perfect at your work (we never are), but you should focus on being “Highly Ok”.

Pick which activity you’re going to do until it gets done. Don’t look back after choosing that activity. Do it until you have a stopping point.

And above all else. Set a hard time limit to get your 3 to 5 tasks done. Give yourself “working hours”.

Unless you’re Gary V., don’t be busy for busy’s sake. Don’t worry about hustling… unless you love the chase. In fact, you might want to consider having an anti-hustle lifestyle.

For even more on Anti-Hustling, check out this episode of the Fizzle Show:

Action Steps

The next time that you find yourself overthinking about a specific subject. Remember that there is a resource (here) that might help you from stopping. Try out the recommendations that I’ve suggested. However, if it doesn’t help – I want you to come back and let me know where it’s failing. I’ll personally help you think of a strategy and then add to this resource about what we did!

martial arts academy

AoL 033: Building a Successful Martial Arts Academy with AJ Clingerman

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As we have found out, passion filled work comes in many forms. Just last week, we saw how David Picciuto helps others learn about woodworking online. He gets to utilize his past interests in art and design to aid in getting his new found passion of woodworking out into the world.

For me, I’ve recently come to realize that I love teaching, connecting people and ideas, tech, and entrepreneurship. These are topics that I’m constantly learning more about when I can. They are what I naturally gravitate towards.

Likewise, this session’s guest, AJ Clingerman, always knew that she wanted to have her own studio. While originally it was a dance studio, she was open to the idea of starting the Indiana Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy with her husband when she realized how deep his love of the martial art was.

In my opinion, they have a heck of a story and team going on. Able to capitalize on what they both do well. She does business, he focuses on training and training others.

In this session, we’ll get to know half of this partnership. Particularly we discuss with AJ what James told her about BJJ when they first started dating, where the idea of the academy came from, growing pains that she and James have held to deal with while growing the business, what experience she’s obtained from working with people like Scott Manning and Dan Kennedy, and where the idea for her two books came from.

If you’re interested in starting a athletic training academy, or simply want to expand online what you’re already doing, then I think you’ll get a ton out of this talk.

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How AJ got into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the first place.
  • How long AJ has envisioned herself running a business.
  • Why she chose not to pursue a college degree.
  • Where the idea for INDY EGO (Extreme Grappling Open) came from.
  • Where the idea for the Indiana Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy came from.
  • What kind of growing pains they had to go through when starting a business knowing little about actually running a business.
  • Where the idea for Indy Business Success came from and how this initiative is helping business owners around Indianapolis.
  • How she won Dan Kennedy’s Marketer of the Year award.
  • One thing you should definitely consider when starting a business based YouTube Channel.
  • What gave AJ the idea to write her books.
  • What she thinks about women in men’s fields – especially in martial arts.
  • …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:

AJ featured on Dan Kennedy’s YouTube Channel:

Marketing Methods Guerrilla Marketing Techniques with AJ Clingerman

How You Can Defend Yourself by Disarming a Gunman

7 Essential Kickboxing Techniques

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, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

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

Cheers!

backup a wordpress site

UpdraftPlus: A Simple Tool to Backup A WordPress Site

/by

One of the things that people struggle with all the time when it comes to hosting their own site is backups. How do you backup a WordPress site? Why do you need to? The simple answer is that for one reason or another, data can be lost or corrupted – even on big hosts.

In New Inceptions’ lifetime (which officially has been since 2010), I’ve had malware installed on the same server as mine before. That malware can affect everything and everyone on the storage space of the server.

I was reminded of this in the past week.

You might have noticed that I didn’t have a blog post last week. However, I did write one. It was 2000 words of awesomeness about the things I’ve been learning and relearning about email marketing.

Obviously, it wasn’t posted – and here’s why: after I made the post, I saved it as a draft. Well, something didn’t go right on my particular install at the time. So just as my screen was coming up from “saving”, I scrolled through to see if there wasn’t anything else that might need changed. As I did this, I realized that two-thirds of my post had disappeared!

Needless to say, I was somewhat furious.

I’ll probably eventually redo the post as I get more results from what I’ve been learning. However, in the meantime I’m just going to tell you that it’s going to become a primary focus of mine in the foreseeable future. Up to my first 10k Subscribers – at least!

Long Story Short

I don’t know if this has anything to do with with it, but the install of one of my clients had been hacked into last weekend. No traffic was getting to their site and that meant no revenue for me. Bad times!

In the meantime, I didn’t realize that this was going on. And the next thing I knew, malware started causing issues on my site as well. I didn’t have any idea that this was possible. I always thought that if it was a different install of WordPress, then we wouldn’t have that issue. Not so.

The particular issue that this malware was causing me was CRAZY amounts of traffic – at least for my site. This ended up being bot traffic, and to make matters worse, it was causing my site to call for a ton of Cron jobs. These particular kind of jobs eat at the number of how many “processes” that your host provides you. Hostgator usually limits each shared host customer to 25. Not bad – mainly because you can typically keep it under 10 if your site is humming along without any problems.

Well, as soon as I realized how many processes these jobs were taking up and in how slow my site was acting, I figured that it had been corrupted and I needed to take it offline. I did and thought to myself “well, looks like I’ll have to build the website back up from scratch”. Why? Because that’s what I had to do the last time my site got hacked. In fact, that was when I thought it was a great time to buy Enfold as my theme.

If you’ve never had that feeling, it’s a bad feeling to have. Hopefully what I’m about to say next will prevent you from having to feel that too many times yourself!

One Last Shot

It’s funny, but my engineering training always shows up one way or another. Especially when I have problems with technical things. Where many people might start panicking, my brain just flips to a logical step by step troubleshooting mode.

In this particular instance, when I realized I was going to have to shut down the site, I dropped in a maintenance plugin – actually one that collected emails to let people know when it was back up.

As soon as I activated that plugin, I noticed that the Cron Jobs were dropping and I was able to actually navigate around my site. (Even if this wasn’t the case I know that I can manually cancel processes by going into Cpanel and manually stopping each one. (This is why it’s good to have a large monitor or in my case, multiple monitors. You can do multiple things at once. In grad school it was research on one monitor and write on the other. In this case it was stop one process in Cpanel, and then move to another page. Stop a couple more and move to another page.)

Not too long ago, I had to move my site from its previous installation to where it is now on Hostgator. You’d think this would be somewhat easy. Just like people copy videos on YouTube or Facebook – download from one account and upload on another.

It’s not that simple when transferring a WordPress install.

What you have to do is actually download another plugin that will download all the pieces of WordPress. This includes the files that you upload, but it also takes in account the database (that keeps track of your posts and any links you have on them), the theme, AND the plugins.

Well, I knew I didn’t want to backup all that information. I wanted something that could save just the files I wanted. My old plugin put everything into one archive folder. That simply wasn’t going to do.

I wanted something that could separate the files apart. Because more than likely the affected files were going to be in the theme OR in the plugins.

I eventually found a solution that was going to give me this option.

My Solution for Malware

UpdraftPlus was the backup software that allowed me to separate all these files into compartments. Here’s how the restore went down.

  1. Installed UpdraftPlus.
  2. Create New Backups.
  3. Download the parts that I want. In my case it was the Database and Uploads parts. (FYI: Uploads houses the information for Enfold – so technically I’m keeping my theme settings!)
  4. Write down list of plugins being used.
  5. Create a new install of WordPress.
  6. Re-install UpdraftPlus.
  7. Restore (upload) the Database and Uploads which I just downloaded.
  8. Reinstall the theme and each plugin that was on my list.

And there you go.

This process took me a matter of 2+ hours with a site that part of the time was fighting me. However, I’d rather put in that time compared to having to redo the site again.

Action Steps

So that you’re prepared when your site gets hacked, install UpdraftPlus in your site right now. It’s free for what I used it for. You can have it save your backups on a number of remote servers – I’m pretty sure Dropbox and Google Drive are part of that selection. Not sure what the premium version does.

Also, make sure you install the plugin from McAfee so that your site is being scanned on a regular basis for malware. Even though it didn’t show up this particular time with McAfee, the last time I was hacked, McAfee saw it. Having the plugin installed alerts McAfee right away instead of them having to randomly access your site.

David Picciuto Podcast

AoL 032: Making It as a Full-Time Online Woodworker with David Picciuto

/by

There are multiple ways to make money online. Most people know of information entrepreneurs. These are your Thought Leaders, your Teachers, and your Mediapreneurs. Others might think of software makers – called engineers. Or even more, you might think of someone who has a store and sells other’s items – these are Retailers. These are all part of the 10 Archetypes.

One type that I didn’t know too much about was The Maker. How does someone that makes a living producing crafts get online besides selling their physical goods online?

That’s where today’s guest, David Picciuto, has been able to make the connection. He makes YouTube videos showing how to make stuff!

Rather fascinating guy that I’m glad I got to know more about him and his craft.

In this chat, we go into how he got into woodworking as an online business, explore his successful YouTube channel and podcast, and why he believes it’s necessary to diversify your brand online.

If you love working with your hands and have been wondering what might be a good idea for an online business, this talk is just for you. (If you’re like me and have other ideas, you’ll get plenty out of this talk too. David is actually a lot like many of us when he first began!!)

SPECIFICALLY, YOU’LL FIND OUT MORE ABOUT:

  • How David stumbled into woodworking as a business.
  • Where his creative flair came from.
  • One way to get through the imposter’s syndrome.
  • When he realized he had to “grow up” and get something other than a job at Target.
  • How he knew it was time to strike it out on his own from a great job as a developer/designer.
  • How he makes an income doing YouTube videos.
  • Why he changed the name of his business from Drunken Woodworker to MakeSomething.TV.
  • What lead David to write his Bandsaw Box book.
  • What David does with all the products he makes on his show.
  • Why it’s important to diversify your brand online.
  • How and why he has such nice looking videos.
  • How the podcast ended up coming together.
  • What he is or is not looking forward to in the future!
  • …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:

Ask Me Whatever #3

How to Price Your Work:

Checking Out David’s Shop – MTV Cribs Style:

Making It Podcast: $2000 to Start Over

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, Soundcloud, and/or Google Play Music. It’s absolutely free to do so.

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

Cheers!