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Have you ever thought, “There’s gotta be more to life than this.”
There’s gotta be more to life than just working and getting that next paycheck.
There’s gotta be more to life than just grinding your days away for the benefit of someone else.
There’s gotta be more to life than just sticking through and doing all of these mundane routines.
If you have, then you are correct. There really is more to life than just that.
We believe that EVERYONE HAS A CALLING, a purpose, and we want you to believe in your purpose too!
YOU can change your fate.
YOU decide what to do.
Open yourself up to all the amazing possibilities because without knowing and understanding these possibilities, you can’t act on them.
When you do not act, you stay stuck where you are, always wondering what “more” feels like.
Find the courage to put yourself out there, follow that tug towards your life’s purpose, towards something amazing — something only YOU can do BECAUSE you are your own person, and no one else can ever be YOU.
Whether it be to create, to fix, to teach, to lead, or to listen…
We are ALL here to make a difference in the world, and that won’t happen unless you break free from your hesitations, the doubts, and the fears.
To help you find the inspiration to take your next step is an amazing woman who has gone through and has overcome so many struggles in order to pursue and act on her possibilities.
Joining us today is Flip Your Life community member, Wendy Zanders.
Wendy is the wearer of many, many hats.
She is a wife, mother, Ex-Unit Supply Specialist and Unit Armorer in the United States Army, Executive Assistant and Project Manager, who was diagnosed with ADD in her mid-thirties after recognizing some of the symptoms from her son’s ADHD assessment form.
From an outsider’s perspective, this highly driven, bubbly and resilient individual, is living what most people would call “a good life”.
But after an unexpected loss in the family, she fell into a deep depression and all of a sudden everything became a blur.
It took a while for her to recognize the symptoms, but she knew something was off. She knew she needed help, so she sought it.
The healing process wasn’t easy, the battle felt long and hard, but she did it. Nothing is going to hold her down, nothing will dim her light.
Wendy wanted to get her life back on track, she made a choice to do everything to make that happen.
Things started to fall into place, she learned so many things, and she eventually found her calling as a Professional Home Organizer, and this was how FunctionalOrganizingwithWendy.com was born.
Her mission is to share her functional organizing strategies with professional women struggling with ADD, depression, and anxiety so they can enjoy being with their family, love their homes and their careers — helping them collect memories and not things.
Her online business journey has just begun, so we’ll be helping her take her online business to the next level by sharing our insight on how to beat imposter syndrome, and how she can confidently embody her brand.
We enjoyed recording this interview and we’re sure you will too!
You will learn:
- How to transition your “real world” business online
- Advertising and marketing concepts
- How to deal and overcome “Imposter Syndrome”
- Being and building your brand
- Plus so much more!
Links and resources mentioned on today’s show:
Success Story of the Week:
Today’s success story is from Kevin.
Kevin says, “So far, this month we have added one monthly member and one annual member from our autoresponder. We ran a ‘Get Ready for Summer’ sale, which was my wife’s idea. We presented it as a story based on the story brand book saying, ‘Summer is just around the corner. It’s the perfect time to learn some new songs for those picnics, family reunions, and cookouts.’ We did a $1 30-day trial and we got five new monthly members with that sale. So far we have gotten seven new members. It’s our best sales month yet. We’re going to keep hammering that nail.”
Kevin’s website: https://www.relaxandlearnguitar.com/
Way to go, Kevin, we are so proud of you. You have been taking consistent action for a really long time and good things are happening. Keep up the great work!
We would love to help you write the success story for your online business.
At the end of today’s show, head over to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife where you can learn more about building and growing a successful online business with the help of our Flip Your Life community.
Can’t Miss Moment:
Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is heading to Cumberland Falls midweek with our dogs.
Not too long ago, Shane and I packed up our puppies, and we drove out to Cumberland Falls to spend the afternoon. We put them on a leash. We walked around the falls and it was a beautiful day. Not very many people out because it was the middle of the week. We pretty much had most of the state park to ourselves, which was really pretty cool.
We walked around and the dog sniffed stuff. They walked out onto– there’s like a little beach with the Cumberland River there. We had a great day, just didn’t really feel like doing work, so we headed on out to Cumberland Falls. So we’re just very thankful that we have the opportunity to do that.
Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what’s possible for your family!
Get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!
– https://flippedlifestyle.com/free
You can connect with S&J on social media too!
Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family! Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business. Help us by sharing the show!
If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Can’t listen to the podcast right now? Check out the transcript below.
Jocelyn: Hey y’all! On today’s podcast, we help Wendy take her home organizing business to the next level.
Shane: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams.
We’re a real family who figured out how to make our entire living online. And now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? Alright, let’s get started!
Shane: What’s going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to be back with you again this week. Super excited to help another member of the Flip Your Life community take their online business to the next level.
And this is going to be a really cool show because you know, every once in a while we get to have a guest on the show that one or both of us has actually met in person. Jocelyn has met our guests today in person. I have not, but I will be soon at Flip Your Life Live in Nashville.
Our guest today is Wendy Zanders.
Hey, Wendy! How are you doing?
Wendy: Hi, you guys! I’m doing well. Thank you!
Jocelyn: It is great to talk to you today. I love talking to people that I have met in real life. It just makes me happy. I remember when I saw you come through, when I saw that you had joined our community, I was really excited because I remember talking to you out in California. I knew that you had something special inside you and I just couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen.
Wendy: That is awesome. Thank you so much, Jocelyn, it was amazing meeting you as well!
Shane: I can’t wait to meet you in 10 weeks or something like that.
Wendy: Me, too! My husband and I are so excited.
Shane: It’s going to be absolutely amazing. We got over 100 people from the Flip Your Life community coming to Nashville.
Wendy: Awesome.
Jocelyn: Yeah, it’s really exciting. We cannot wait for that trip, and just to help people take their lives to another level and it’s awesome. So welcome to the show, we’re glad to have you. Tell us a little bit about you, your background and how you got here today, starting this online business.
Wendy: I was born in Trinidad and Tobago, and I came here to America when I was 14. I joined the military in the 11th grade and shipped off to basic training. I actually met my husband on the first day of basic training. It was amazing! We got married in that same year of 2000 in November. And then we shipped off to Germany. He had orders Poteau, Oklahoma, and I had orders for Germany. We got married and we went off to Germany. It was amazing, an amazing start to our lives.
We have two kids, and my daughter’s 4 and my son is 11. They are my ‘Why’ for taking my business online. He has ADHD. A couple of years ago when I was filling out his assessment form to see if he had ADD, just to get it confirmed, I recognize that a lot of the boxes that I was checking off for him for ADHD, I realized that I had the same symptoms, and I was in my mid-thirties.
I didn’t have to hyperactivity part, but I had ADD. I went and I got diagnosed formally. I was very unfocused as a child and you know, back in the 80’s, ADD and ADHD just wasn’t something that was diagnosed. But my dad, he went to a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher told him that you can’t even hear a pin drop. Wendy was so unfocused, she was turning around, but that was just something that… “Okay, she was distracted,” but nothing got done, it was just something that I lived with.
In college, I had to study, I had to learn how to memorize. I’ve had my own systems on how to deal with my ADD, and now that my son — he has his diagnosis– now I can really understand the struggles that I was going through. I couldn’t believe that I went through my military life. I did 8 years in the military having ADD symptoms and being undiagnosed. So even now when I’m saying I can’t do something, I go back to that strength that I had in the military to say, “You did 8 years with the military having ADD.”
Shane: This is an incredible story! When you came here from Trinidad and Tobago, I probably said that real wrong.
Wendy: No, that’s good.
Shane: In Kentucky, we might say, “To-bay-go,” you might say, “To-bah-go.” I don’t know what you’re saying over there. When you came here, did you speak English? It’s Spanish in Trinidad and Tobago, isn’t it?
Wendy: It’s broken English. We have a really heavy accent. So I went through ninth grade with that heavy accent.
Shane: And ADD, and didn’t know it.
Wendy: And ADD, and didn’t know it!
Shane: So that was probably really, really, really tough. I mean just like trying to understand everybody, and people try and understand you and then you’re not focused.
Wendy: I had a lot of friends on speed dial, saying, “What did the teacher say? What was the homework? I didn’t understand what he’s saying.”
Jocelyn: Exactly, yeah. So let’s fast forward a little bit. Okay, so you’re in Germany. What happens after Germany?
Wendy: So after Germany, we moved back. I got pregnant with my son and I left the military. For me, personally, it was really hard to raise a family just being married and being due in the military. That was really hard for my husband and I. When I got pregnant with my son, I actually left the military after 8 years.
We started raising our family outside of that. One thing that I added on to my ADD is I went through a phase of depression. About 2 years ago, I lost my 20-year-old nephew in a car accident around Christmas, it was December 22nd. The rest of that year was just such a blur.
Shane: It’s okay.
Wendy: Yeah, it was a real blur. And so, at that time, you know, I was working out and I was losing weight, I was doing what I needed to do and everything just came to a crashing halt. And you start to realize what is the real meaning of– you know, what are we here for? Are we here just to work day to day and just get a paycheck and keep running this wheel? Or are we supposed to live a life of purpose?
That very next year in January I didn’t realize that I had the depression symptoms. I would focus, I was functioning at work, and then I would get home and instead of me being my bubbly self, like as soon as I walk in the door, I drop my shoes, I wash my hands and I’m in the kitchen. There’s homework, there’s dinner, there’s bath, just like rapid fire. All right, let’s go, let’s go, we have three hours before bed. We were on a schedule because we will still busy, my husband and I.
And he noticed that something was wrong where I was coming home, functioning at work, coming home and then going straight to bed because I was so exhausted. And then after about 3 weeks of that I said, “I think something is wrong.” And he said, “Go see someone about that.” And I did. I went, and I was having therapy sessions and I started to get my life back on track.
I told my husband, I said, “Something has got to give. We have got to do something different in order to start living a life of purpose.” That’s how I started to get my house back on track. The house was falling apart, our bills was on automatic, thank goodness. The mortgage was getting paid. I mean I was the one doing the bills. But all of our bills were automated so I’m so grateful for that.
March of that year, we became debt-free thanks to Dave Ramsey’s program, and I couldn’t even celebrate. I was like, “Yay!” but it wasn’t doing the whole debt-free scream. I couldn’t believe we kind of blew over that part because I was still healing. I said, “You know what? I want to get our house back on track.” I started looking for ‘organizing things online’ and I found Lisa Woodruff, and I started following her along and getting our house back on track. I told him my husband during my healing process, I said, “You know, I’m going to go get a part time job so we can keep this snowball going.” And then I remember somebody told us, “Find something that you love and do it as a business.” And that is how my business, actually, got birthed.
Shane: Basically you got certified to be an in-home organizer. That was your first entrepreneurial thing, right? So you get hired to go into people’s houses. Are these like hoarder houses, like crazy owner — or is this more like normal people that are just disorganized?
Wendy: These are normal people that are working busy lives just like me, that are saying, “I want to have my career, I love my career, I love doing my own thing. And I want to be a great mom also, and I want to take care of my family and I want both. But I need a little bit of help to let go of the ‘perfectionism mentality'”, and just saying, “You know what? My house is going to be full of toys and it’s going to be toys everywhere, and it’s going to be messy and that is okay, but if it just takes us 30 minutes to reset the house, then that is what I want.”
There’s a difference between a cluttered home and a home that’s lived in. Right? Because if you have somebody that’s coming to your house and says, “Hey, I’ll be there in 30 minutes!” You can do a sweep and say, “Everybody, all hands on deck. You go pick up all the toys. You load the dishwasher,” your house is reset. And that is not dirty, that’s just a house that’s lived in, and that’s what people want to get to.
Jocelyn: Right now, you’re still working a regular job, too, though, right?
Wendy: I have a full-time job. I commute between two and a half hours to three hours a day.
Shane: Not like two hours there and two hours back.
Wendy: It’s like an hour and a half each way.
Shane: I got it. It’s still a long time.
Jocelyn: Yeah. I vividly remember discussing this at the event that we went to in October.
Shane: Your husband works, too, though. I saw in your form. People who had come on the podcast fill out this big form for us, so we really have a lot more background information. And he drove Uber, too, help you guys get out of debt or whatever?
Wendy: Yeah. So, this past December 22nd, I don’t know what it is, but December 22nd, but he lost his job. Before that, he had a job where he was at for 11 years and he came home and he said, “You know what, I’m really bored, the money’s great. But I’ve got to do something different.” And he took a jump. He took a leap, and he did this new job, but then after a month about being with this job, he failed the exam. So he was let go.
Shane: And that’s when he started doing the Uber stuff?
Wendy: Yeah, because we wanted to make sure we stay debt-free. We didn’t have any credit cards. We wanted to make whatever that choice was, we wanted to make sure that we were hustling to keep up with the bills and everything. I picked up more organizing jobs. I mean, normally, I would take the week after Christmas off. I was hustling, I was calling people, he was doing Uber. The kids didn’t know. I mean, he would be gone during the day and they’d be like, “Where’s Daddy?” and I’m like, “He went to work,” which he did.
Shane: He did. This story is amazing! Number one, it’s not even 10:00 yet. You already made me cry. I was sitting here crying a minute ago. Forget the online business stuff, we’re getting to that, but this is why we love the community and the people that we hang out with every day so much because it’s perseverance. And you used my favorite word on earth a second ago, and that’s ‘Choices.’ “We made choices. We made choices to get out of debt even though– this.” “We made choices to get married and take a risk. The only way we can be together was to go to Germany together,” right? So you did it!
You weren’t ready. You just said, “I love this person, I want to do this.” And you went, even like dealing with depression and being able to look yourself in the mirror. So many people would hide from their diagnosis. That happens all the time. You look down and you’re like, “Whoa, this might apply to me.” And you went and found out about it. And then you lost your job. You didn’t cry about it, you just got an Uber App the next day, and said, “This’ll work, let’s go!”
Wendy: We had no choice.
Shane: You had no choice, right? And you went forward. Man, what an awesome story to get you to this point. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next chapter because if you hustle this hard now, wait until online business gets in the mix. It’s going to change everything!
Jocelyn: All right. Let me recap just a little bit. Alright, you have a full-time job that you’re working on right now. Your husband lost his job, and is now filling in the gaps doing Uber. Is he still doing that?
Wendy: No, he’s working. He was down for about 2 months. 6 weeks to 2 months.
Shane: Okay, good.
Jocelyn: So your husband is working now, and you are doing some organizing on the side for extra income, is that right?
Wendy: Yes.
Jocelyn: Okay. Now I remember when we were in California back in October, we talked for a while, and I came up with what I perceived that you thought was kind of a crazy idea. And that idea was to see if you could go part-time at work. And so, how did that go? Because I remember when I suggested this to you, you were a little skeptical I think.
Wendy: I was, I was!
Shane: Wait a minute, hold on a second, because I know where this is going now. I just remembered this. So you suggested this to her last year?
Jocelyn: I did, yes.
Shane: Oh this is great! I did not know this part of the story.
Jocelyn: We chatted for a while, one night.
Shane: And you told her that she needs to try to go part-time.
Jocelyn: I did, and she kind of looked at me like I was a little bit crazy, which, you know, that happens from time to time. But tell us about what your plan is now.
Wendy: At the end of that conference, we went up to the mic and we were giving our affirmations, and saying what we thought of this conference. Something just came over me. I declared that by the time I came back next year, I think I said it was either, I want to go part-time, or I was going to be gone from the federal government. The thing is, or the fear that people put into your minds is that nobody leaves the federal government.
So that is a stigma that’s in the back of my mind is that here you are from Trinidad and Tobago, and for people, being in the federal government, is saying that you’ve made it. And for me to say, “I want more than this for my family,” getting 3 hours a day with my family is just not enough. We’re raising small children. My son is almost a teenager. There has to be more than just working a federal government job and saying, “I’ve made it!” There’s more to life than this. So yeah, I made a declaration and I was like, “Okay, you know, it’s coming up again in November. I gotta make these moves.” And I knew it was the right move. It’s not scary. I don’t know. I thought it was going to be scary, but it’s not.
Shane: So wait a minute. You recently posted this in the community. You went in and you actually requested to go part-time, right?
Wendy: I did.
Shane: And what’d they say?
Wendy: My supervisor was so onboard. He really was. He admires my strength. He’s like, “I don’t know how working moms do this,” because his wife was working at one point and he said, “You know what, you got to stay home. We can’t do this.” And he is like, for both parents to be working, and for me to be tackling the family like I do, he admired my strength inside. You’re going to make it work. So when the school year starts in September, September 2nd, I am going part-time.
Shane: Oh my gosh. That is incredible.
Wendy: It’s so amazing.
Shane: Isn’t it crazy? Look at that journey, just that right there. We might talk all morning. We’ve got another appointment here a little bit, but I might just have to move them on. Isn’t it amazing how you took a risk and went to a live event across the country? You’re in Maryland, right? You went from Maryland to California, you met this random girl from Kentucky, that you listened to a podcast or whatever, and then she’s like, “Why don’t you go part-time and you’re like, that’s crazy.” But then as you start thinking about it, you’re like, “Wait, why is that crazy?” It’s because society is telling me it’s crazy. It may not actually be crazy. Then you actually do the most important thing: you make a choice to go take action on your conversation you had with somebody else or something you heard, and it wasn’t the big deal you thought it was going be. They were just like, “Cool, I admire that. That’s amazing. You should do this,” and now that’s going to free up, not only time for that, but time for you to be able to take this thing, the things you’ve learned online, and maybe make something even better happen. Oh man, that is just such a good example for everybody listening to the show right now.
Jocelyn: And just a note: I’m not taking credit for this. I was just saying, I remember having that conversation.
Wendy: You got the wheels turning.
Jocelyn: Exactly, and that’s what we’re here for. That’s what we do. I feel like that’s really our job, is just to make people think and to make them see how there can be a different way.
Shane: If you’re not aware of the possibilities, you can’t act on the possibilities. People always ask us like, why do you do this? Why do you talk to people every week? Why do you go and have this community? Why didn’t you just do this other thing, or keep going the way you were? And we were like, because if people don’t know, they can’t change. That’s what we’re all here for.
Like Jocelyn said, all credit goes to you because it took guts to walk in and ask to go part-time. It took guts to look in the mirror and say, “I think there’s something wrong. I need help.” It took guts for your husband to walk in and say, “I lost that job,” and you looked at him and said, “Let’s go, let’s figure it out!” Right? And it’s going to take a lot of guts to do what you’re going to do next. So you’ve got it. I mean, if anybody’s got this, you do.
Jocelyn: Here’s the thing. You’ve already proven that you have what it takes. I mean, you’ve proven it over and over again. There’s really not a lot to be afraid of.
Shane: And also I want to point out. We get really deep into these stories on our podcasts. Everyone listening right now, everybody listening to this podcast, if you just go sit down and think about the last 10 years of your life, you’ve got a story like this where you’re overcoming things happening in your life that shouldn’t be happening in your life. And you are sitting there and you can look back and say, “I overcame that. I overcame this. Why can’t I do the next thing?” And everybody’s just got to embrace that fact. You can do this stuff unless you sit down and go to bed and give up.
That’s when people can’t do it, is when they make the choice to give up. So Kudos to you. Your story is incredible! I cannot wait to see what you do. I’ve got a feeling a year from now, Jocelyn, Wendy’s going to be back on the show and it’s going to be this huge success story, and we’re all going to be sitting here going, “What just happened in between 2018 and 2019?”
Jocelyn: Let’s make your big success date, like, December 22nd. Let’s make that a good date. How about that?
Wendy: Oh my goodness.
Shane: Yes, let’s take that day and that’s the day, man. You know, every year on that day, that’s your checkpoint for the good things that are happening around you.
Jocelyn: Let’s turn that around to something good because you can do that. Alright. Well, I love this story so much. I think that you’ve given hope to a lot of people out there who don’t even realize what a superhero they really are in everyday life, so that is super cool. Let’s jump into your online business question a little bit. So, you have this organizing certification, and you are wanting to take this online and make a business out of it, correct?
Wendy: Correct.
Jocelyn: Let’s jump into your question today. What can we help you with to help you take this thing online?
Wendy: Okay, so in the last couple of months, I have invested in a couple of programs. I’ve done my signature talk with Carol Cox. And you know, my avatar is empowering professional women that are struggling with ADD depression, overwhelm and anxiety, just helping them know that they could do this. They may have kids, zero to 12 years old that’s depending on them, and being able to take care of their family as well as doing their own thing in their career or running a business or whatever have you. I want to empower them to know that they can do it as well.
I have my signature talk, I teach workshops, I’m even taking some ICD which is Institute for Challenging Disorganization courses, as well as my in-home organizing. I want to bottle that up and see how can I move that into an online space. Is that webinars, is that virtual organizing, like what would you think in order to move it online? Right now I do in-home organizing with just people in the Maryland area that I can get to within 30 minutes to an hour, and I organize with them and they love when I’m working side-by-side with them. I want to be able to take that online.
Shane: How do you get clients now? Is it just word of mouth, or do you advertise or like what do you do? Like how do you get these clients within 30 minutes of your home or whatever?
Wendy: So I’ve done workshops at the library, where I’d I’ll talk about people organizing or I just do speaking engagements at the library of retirement homes, as well as just talk, just networking events as well.
Shane: Cool. Okay. So what you just explained to me is exactly like what you would do online, okay? You go to a group of people and tell them about what you do and then a percentage of those people hire you to come do it for them. Right? So the same concept applies if you want to advertise this. You start an ad, you get a group of people in a room– a webinar — you tell them how you organize people’s homes, and then you sell them a system for them to do it themselves, even though you’re not virtually there.
But like what I’m thinking here is, this is a really cool actually because you might be able to do some cool things like we do. I wonder if some of the people who you organize for would let you bring in a crew — when I say a crew, I mean, your husband with an iPhone. I wonder if he could film you do this stuff and you could actually cut these cool videos of you before and after in people’s homes, right?
Great marketing, great content. It’s an awesome way to have some YouTube videos and things like that. But also some ways that you could show people on webinars like, “This is what I can do for you. This is my system,” and your marketing is what explains. “I understand you because you’re a professional person. You’ve got ADD, and you got these things. I’m the person who can help you with all of these things so that you can declutter and get that done.” Then your product is more like a challenge-based thing, right?
Wendy: I actually have a challenge going on right now!
Shane: Exactly.
Jocelyn: That’s perfect!
Shane: And that’s how you get people into this system. But I’m almost thinking that you’ve got some virtual opportunities here for coaching, because I could right now FaceTime you if I wanted to or Skype you with video, and why do you have to necessarily be in the home? Why couldn’t even you do some coaching virtually so you can kill the 30-minute drives, and let them point and say, “Hey, do this, do that.” It’s just like you’re walking beside them. That would give everything a boost while you’re starting to build your digital product business, but also saves you time, saves you things and let you do that like virtually for people online.
Jocelyn: I would kind of break this down to an even more fundamental level because I feel like there’s another issue and it’s more of a mental issue. Here’s the thing. Like what I had perceived from you, what I’ve read and what you’ve said is that you want to become a personal brand, right? Like you want it to be Wendy’s brand and not someone else’s brand.
Wendy: Correct.
Shane: So right now you feel like you’re just certified for someone else, but what you really want is, “No, I’m Wendy. I’ve got some good ideas, too! I can make an impact with some people.”
Jocelyn: And that’s great. That’s what we want you to do. But I feel like you’re having a hard time wrapping your head around being the brand. Is that correct?
Wendy: Yes.
Jocelyn: Okay.
Wendy: And the imposter syndrome, can I really help people? I mean if I’m struggling with ADD, yes, I know there are pain points, but they are like, “How are you the expert?” But if I’ve gone through it, I know I can help them do it. But some days I get that little moment of, “Oh, maybe I can’t do this.” And then the rest of the day, I’m like, “Yes, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” you know?
Shane: So it’s the classic, “I know what to do. Heck, I’m doing some of it.” It’s just like giving yourself permission to almost do like more of it, right?
Jocelyn: Well, and just putting yourself out there, I can sense the hesitation about that. Stop hesitating, and here’s another thing. I want you to stop hiding behind courses and certifications. Stop it. You know what to do.
Shane: Here’s the funny thing. I love it when people come to us and they’re like, “Well, I’m a certified XYZ. I’m a certified home organizer.” There is not a federal government agency that governs home organizers. No one came to Washington and was like, “I’m here to apply for my US Official Home Organizing Certificate–“
Jocelyn: “No, sorry, you’re not certified!”
Shane: “I’m sorry, you can’t get that. You have to be a sergeant in the military to get that.” That person that you bought that course from, at some point, was not that person who you bought that course from. They were a normal person who went and said, “Dang, I’m good at cleaning up my house and getting it organized and we do all these things!” And they sat down, and they made a course, and they made a program and they figured out, “I could certify other people to do this so they could use my branding, and go out into the marketplace and make some money on their own.”
Jocelyn: I have no problem with that.
Shane: No problem with that.
Jocelyn: That’s what people do, but I know that you want something more.
Shane: They did it. So you can come out from the shadow of that person. Sometimes when we get like a course or certified, we feel like we’ve learned something from that person. Is it okay to move on? But everything evolves, everything changes. You know, first, there was Coke, and then Pepsi made a different flavor. And that’s just the way it is. That’s just the way life works. As long as you are teaching it from your methods, your personality, it’s okay to do that.
Jocelyn: And there are no regrets. I mean, this is part of your journey. All of these things are part of your journey. I’m not saying feel bad about what you’ve already done. I’m just saying stop hiding behind it. You are good enough, you know enough.
Shane: And that person that you got certified from, or that you learn your core fundamentals from, they don’t have ADD. They can’t possibly understand that niche, right? But you do understand that niche! So those people who are struggling with this need you. You have a responsibility to go lead them and you’ve got to go out and do that.
That’s what frustrates me sometimes about some people in the community, is they don’t realize the responsibility they have to pass on their knowledge. Like everybody’s like, “Am I really going to charge to teach people stuff?” Yes. What else do we charge for? You have to charge for that because you need those people to get that information to change their life. You’re just leaving people in the wilderness if you don’t go help them.
Jocelyn: And I feel like a lot of times people want to hide behind, “Oh, well I’m learning. I’m still learning. I have more learning to do.” No, you know enough. Go out into the world and show them what you know. Be the person that people need. People need you to be a leader in this space. They need you to go out and not be afraid.
Shane: And also, there’s a translation between online and offline. You’ve gotten people to let you have a workshop in a library. You’ve gotten a group of people in a room. You’ve gotten people to hire you. The only difference in doing that online is a PayPal button. There’s no difference. Setting up a webinar, and taking a payment for the online training that you give people in real life, that’s the only difference. You’re ready. You’re ready to do this. In fact, you should pretty much have this done before we get to the live event in Nashville. I’m going to throw it down there.
Jocelyn: The gauntlet has been thrown down, Wendy.
Wendy: Yes, challenge accepted.
Shane: Okay, good. Okay. Do you have any other kind of questions like technical questions to get you to that point? What’s holding you back from creating the online version of what you’re already doing in the real world?
Wendy: You know, I was telling my husband that I said I have the foundation, but I feel that my foundation has holes in them. The technology part, with my time being so limited, I have a VA. I give her about 10 hours a month, so she’s helping me with that. So just trying to make sure I plug up all of my holes. Actually, when I found your blueprint, I told my husband, I was like, “This is what I needed because I don’t need a course on sales, and of course over here, and something from this person. You have all the steps that I need, so as long as I can follow the steps, they go up where my holes are and plugged them up. Then I can really move forward.
But I don’t want to wait until I plugged those holes to move forward as well because I think that can hold me back too, to say, “Okay, I need to do all 40 of these courses,” you know what I mean? But get what I need and keep moving. I have a Wix website, and I know you’re big on WordPress. I know you say use what you have. Is that still true for Wix, or would Wix not be able to hold what I need?
Shane: It doesn’t matter. Here’s another fact of online business. You can always change it later. We say that all the time with domains, we say that all the time with websites. It’s always better to use what you have now. Last week, I had this calendar, we have this automated calendar scheduling, right? And I went in and we’re doing some very limited one-on-one coaching for some people who have requested it.
And I was like, “Okay, well I need to set up a scheduling.” I sent a link out, and I looked at it and I was like, I don’t think this is set up right. Like, it looked right. I actually bought it for myself and it kind of worked. But something was funny about it, and I was like, I don’t know. But you know what I did? I sent it to 100 people. I don’t care. I just sent it out and I was like, I’ll figure it out later.
And Lo and behold, people could pay, but when they pick their time, it didn’t put it on my calendar. We had some scheduling conflicts and Jocelyn looked at me like, “Did you seriously send that email out before I could check it?” And I was like, “Yes, I did.”
Jocelyn: So, that’s how it goes around here.
Shane: But I made a bunch of money. So there were some holes in my Swiss cheese when I sent that Swiss cheese out. And that’s okay because it’s still delicious.
Jocelyn: Just remember that nothing is irreversible. Even if you get started with Wix, if later on you decide, “Hey, I really need WordPress for whatever,” you can hire someone to move it over for you. Don’t stress about stuff like that.
Shane: And remember all these tools that say, “Hey, you better do it right the first time.” They’re really just saying, hey, you better buy my thing. There’s no right answer. There’s no perfect website. There’s no perfect sales page thing. There’s no perfect email thing. It’s just like, can people find you online? And can they give you money? If those two things are true, I don’t care what system you’re using, you just gotta make it happen.
Jocelyn: I feel like you have so many things in place. You are ready. All you’re looking for is affirmation and permission to move forward. You have permission. Go, do it.
Shane: So I want to challenge you. I know we usually wrap up the show with an action step, which we’re going to do. But I want to also challenge you. You know, we are only– I think when this was recorded, we’re about 10 weeks away from Flip Your Life Live Nashville. Okay? And I want to challenge you to have this thing. I want it to evolve from the challenge you’re having now into your program, into your brand by the time we get there.
Because when we get there, we’re going to show you how to market it. We’re going to teach you. We’re going to take that to the next level. But you’ve got to have this written out, ready to go. Someone could come to you right now and go to your online virtual webinar, learn what you do and then hire your program. Okay. So you’ve got 10 weeks. You can find the time to do this between now and then, especially since on September 2nd, you’re going part-time, right? Right?
You’ve got the time to do it, I want to challenge you to get that done before we meet live in person, okay?
Jocelyn: Alright, Wendy, it has been really fun talking to you today. We can’t wait to see what happens next. Before we go, we always like to ask, what is one thing that you are going to take action on in the next 24 hours or so based on what we talked about today?
Wendy: So one thing, I’m going to stop hiding behind the courses and get moving. This is day two of my paper organizing challenge, I am wrapping up and I’ll be rolling people into my workshop going forward, so I need to change my Friday sales pitch that I will do at the site of the fifth day of my challenge. I’m going to be changing that into, “I have a workshop, an online workshop,” you know, and funnel them through there. I have my PayPal button and get people through.
Shane: That’s it. There you go. Alright, well this was a great conversation. This was an inspiring conversation. I wanted to say, too, you have brightened up our lives today Wendy. I’m telling you. I woke up a little tired this morning, you know, made my call. We got up a little late, stayed up a little too late, and man, your story has really made a difference my life today. I know it’s making a difference in people out there that are listening to this, too. Thank you for being transparent and open in sharing, and we can’t wait to see what you do next.
Wendy: Yes, thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. I can’t wait to meet you guys again in September, Tennessee, Flipped Lifestyle.
Shane: Hey guys, thanks again for listening! We hope you enjoyed today’s podcast. If you still need more help with any of the topics that we discussed today, or maybe you have a question about something that we went over, we have all the training and support you need inside of the Flip Your Life community. With over 50 training courses on dozens of online business topics, active community forums, and live member calls with me and Jocelyn every single month, the Flip Your Life community is your opportunity to get the help and support you need to make your online dreams a reality.
And the best part is you can get started today for free. That’s right. All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/free, and you can get full unlimited access to everything we offer inside of the Flip Your Life community at no cost for 30 days. Your first month is absolutely free. If you sign up today, you can get unlimited access to all of the courses inside of our training area, unlimited access to all of our community discussion forums, and you’ll get to attend our next two live member calls with me and Jocelyn, where you can ask questions about your online business.
And it’s all free for the first month. All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/free and start your free month today. That’s flippedlifestyle.com/free. We can’t wait to see you inside.
Jocelyn: It is now time to move into our Can’t Miss Moment segment. These are moments that we were able to experience recently that we might have missed if we were still working at our normal 9-to-5 jobs.
Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is heading to Cumberland Falls midweek with our dogs.
Not too long ago, Shane and I packed up our puppies, and we drove out to Cumberland Falls to spend the afternoon. We put them on a leash. We walked around the falls and it was a beautiful day. Not very many people out because it was the middle of the week. We pretty much had most of the state park to ourselves, which was really pretty cool.
We walked around and the dog sniffed stuff. They walked out onto– there’s like a little beach with the Cumberland River there. We had a great day. Just didn’t really feel like doing work, so we headed on out to Cumberland Falls. I’m just very thankful that we have the opportunity to do that.
We love to share our Can’t Miss Moments with you each week on the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. But there’s one thing we love to share even more and that is a Success Story from our Flip Your Life community.
Jocelyn: Today’s success story is from Kevin.
Kevin says, “So far, this month we have added one monthly member and one annual member from our autoresponder. We ran a ‘Get Ready for Summer’ sale, which was my wife’s idea. We presented it as a story based on the story brand book saying, ‘Summer is just around the corner. It’s the perfect time to learn some new songs for those picnics, family reunions and cookouts.’ We did a $1 30-day trial and we got five new monthly members with that sale. So far we have gotten seven new members. It’s our best sales month yet. We’re going to keep hammering that nail.”
Way to go, Kevin, we are so proud of you. You have been taking consistent action for a really long time and good things are happening. Keep up the great work!
Shane: Before we go today, we’d like to close every show with a verse from the Bible.
Today’s Bible verse comes from Proverbs 21:5, and in the Bible, it says, “Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.”
What a great word, what a great promise from God. If we just get a good plan and we work hard, we can have prosperity. So find that good plan for you and your business. Work hard at it, and go claim that prosperity that God promises us in His word.
That’s all the time we have for this week. As always, guys, thanks for listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast and until next time, get out there, take action, do whatever it takes to flip your life. We will see you then!
Jocelyn: Bye!
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