Aim for service, rather than fame.

Famous. Well, I got a taste of fame just a little bit and I didn't like it. I'm here to tell you why and what might be a better path, something for you to aim for that might get you more of what you actually want. So in the first couple years of my business, I was learning from the marketers that you have probably seen out there who are selling us on how to become famous, get lots of followers, you know, get a six figure, seven figure business in short amount of time. They, the marketers out there, they often pray to our desperation, our exhaustion, we're exhausted about life, about our work, about our business. So we're. I'm just gonna, If I could just solve this money problem and get famous and get lots of money, then I could finally be a good person, then I could finally live the life of my dreams. I can travel, I can do the work that I love and make a great impact and give to charity and all that great stuff. So the first couple years I was following that kind of path and within three years I built up my Facebook fan base. I was successful at doing that kind of stuff. I built up my Facebook fan base to over 3,000 fans in the first three years and over 10,000 email subscribers. Yes, I had an email list of more than 10,000 people after three years of starting my business and doing it very successfully. And then what I discovered after all that was yes, I did get some business, I did get some clients. But what I got a lot more of, I got a lot more spam, I got a lot more requests for my time that was unpaid requests for my time, people asking me, can I help with this, can I help with that? And I got a lot. So it was just a lot of activity that actually led to burnout rather than to more of a joyful productivity type of business. And it was also a lot to keep up with. You know, all these fans, all these comments, all these things, it was simply exhausting. I felt like there's gotta be a better way because I saw this trajectory of if I keep getting more and more and more and more fans, right? If I keep aiming for fame even more. So I could see that, well, that means I have to start building a staff of people to manage all this stuff and losing my freedom, which I really, really prize flexibility and freedom. And so I, as I said, I kind of went on that I realized I was burned out from doing all that stuff. So I rebooted my business. I removed 90% of my email subscribers. So I went from 10,000 to about 1,000 removed 90% of my email subscribers, people who had not been opening my emails consistently. Anyway, and I just came to this. It was in part due to, like, a spiritual change within me, and I just decided to restart my business in a much humbler way instead of listening to those marketers who are saying, let's get famous, let's make lots of money. That's the focus, right? Focus is followers and money. And yes, they might say, well, you got to serve people, but they really. They really focus a lot on followers and money. And I said, I don't want that to be my focus anymore. I would like to have my calling be my focus. I would like to have serving other people be my focus. So I started over kind of wanting to be humbler, to be with the people. And that's. That really inspired me to start creating authentic content like you see today. This is the kind of content I started creating, and I started doing it consistently. That's the key. That's where. That's where a lot of people fall down, is they're not consistent. So that's why they don't create a loyal audience. Okay, so because of my consistent, authentic content, I noticed that one year after I started doing it, one year, okay, one year after I started being consistent with my authentic content, I started getting so many client inquiries that I no longer had to reach out and ask people to become my clients. I no longer had to do sales. I was now fielding calls and just kind of interviewing people to see if I should take them on as a client. This is before. This is different than before. Before, when I had lots of followers, I still had to push, push, push, try to convince people to become my clients. Because what happens is when we focus on fame and exposure, we tend to do things that are. We don't realize what we're doing, but we're actually giving away our power the whole time. We're trying to get more fame. Trying to get more exposure means trying to please people. There's a difference between serving people and pleasing people, right? Pleasing people is, hey, look at me. Look how. Look how great I am. Look how awesome I am. Look how attractive I am. Look how brilliant I am. I can help you. I promise you, I can help you. Blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. And so there's always this desperation underlying all of that. People who are going for fame. I'll say, in my experience, it was really underfounded by desperation. It was under. On a foundation, a bed of desperation. A bed of. Maybe desperation is too strong a word. Sometimes it's not too strong a word that describes some people, but I would say it's on a bed of insecurity. It's insecurity, I think, that leads a lot of people to pursue fame and money. Now, money does create some financial, obviously from physical security, but emotional insecurity leads to fame chasing for a lot of people. And so that creates an audience where you always have to push them to try to like or try to track them more, use hype or whatever to kind of get them to buy from me. Anyway, I was done with all that and I said, no, I'm going to just trust God and I'm going to serve the people as humbly as I can and as real as I can. I'm just gonna really try to understand people, to see what they would need and want and to try to humbly present what I have. If I really believe that I can help them, I'm going to be honest. I'm going to be authentic and see what happens. And if it doesn't work, I'm going to go get a job. It's okay, it's okay. I'll get the job. It's fine. There's lots of jobs out there if I'm willing to go for them. But I'm not willing to build an inauthentic business that is founded and creates greater feelings of insecurity and chasing. So a year after I started doing this consistent, authentic beingness on the Internet, I started to get enough inquiries where I didn't have to chase anymore. I didn't have to get out there and try to get people to like me and to buy from me and all that. And that was in 2015 that I started the authentic, consistent content. Now it's almost 2020 and I have had, I guess, five years now. What is it, 2016, 17. 2016 was when I stopped chasing clients because they were all coming to me now. So 2016, middle of 2016, middle to end of 2016. So a full year of 2017, 18, 19. So I've had three amazing years where I haven't had to chase clients. Now I have been selling my courses. That's a different thing where. But even my courses are kind of whisper. They're not really. They don't use the kind of hype that you see a lot of marketers out there use, which is why I don't get as many sales as people who use hype during their launches. I don't get as many sales, but I get enough sales, you know. But in terms of my clients, people who want to work with me one to one or be in my group, I have more than enough for three years now. I always have a waiting list. For three years I've had a waiting list. So I didn't have that waiting list before when I was popular. More, a lot more popular than I am now. Right. I didn't have a waiting list before. Now I'm trying to keep my email. I used to have an email list of 10,000 people. Now I'm trying to keep my email list to under 3,000 people. Under 3,000. So whenever I get to the 3,000 number, I'm like, okay, let me start removing the people who haven't opened my emails in a long time. I keep sending them emails, they're not opening, so I'm going to remove them now. What I do is I will, in fact, some of you may be getting this email from me. I'll be sending an email later, you know, later to say, hey, you haven't opened my emails in a while. I'm going to assume that you don't want anything. So I'm going to unsubscribe you. If you want to, you can resubscribe by going here and resubscribing yourself. So at least I'll send them one final message to let them know I'm unsubscribing them. So basically, I started over in 2015, and I am so grateful that I'm using this new model and I commend it. And the most important thing is the new model really is based on emotional security. And that's something that it's easy to say, like, are you emotionally secure? Right. Are you spiritually, psychologically secure? I mean, all of us to some extent are on a spectrum of insecurity and security, right? I think that's where spirituality plays in. I think that's where spiritual practices, that's one of the profound benefits of a spiritual path that feels right to you. If you have a genuine spiritual path, and I'm not talking, you know, spirituality has been hijacked by the gospel of wealth, which is the law of attraction. Law of attraction is fine, but when they start saying that it's a spiritual path to attract money to you, that's when I have big problems with it. Because spirituality is not about getting more money and it's not about getting less money. It's not about being poor, it's not about being poor, it's not about being rich. It's a separate realm and you can be spiritual Whether you're poor or rich or anywhere in between. So I really encourage you to. This is why I talk about spirituality, because I think that that is the foundation for authenticity. If you practice your spirituality, you'll come back to a security every day, a profound level of security that then allows you to not be afraid of other people not liking you, to not be afraid of being criticized. As long as you're not actively trying to offend people, you're not actively hating on people. Of course, I mean, a genuine spiritual path would turn you away from hurting other people. So you're not trying to hurt anybody else. You're trying to share something that's authentically real, true, and helpful. And so if you are connected to your spiritual path, you'll realize you don't have to worry about other people's criticisms of you, because only God's opinion matters or only your higher self's opinion matters about you. And you are completely loved. You are completely loved. Completely loved. And you cannot do anything to screw that up. It sounds glib to say that, but it's like only your own genuine spiritual path can help you feel that. It's not about taking my spiritual path. It might be borrowing some of my ideas. Sure, of course. I mean, humanity is not. Is. You know, to some extent, we all share some. Some common spiritual understanding that or some. Some common spiritual ideas can really help us. But it's you pursuing a genuine spirituality that helps you, and you know it's genuine. When you can come to your authenticity, that's when you know the spiritual path is genuine. It's like not afraid of people's criticism anymore. I'm not afraid of not being loved anymore because I am loved. I am loved forever. And I am loved today. And I'm loved when writing this article. I'm loved when doing this video. I'm loved when putting my offers out there. Even if nobody buys it, I'm still loved and I'm still going to be taken care of. So there's both an emotional security and a physical security. Knowing that God will always take care of you. Always, always, always. Now, God taking care of you doesn't mean you're sitting at home, you know, doing nothing, and suddenly you get checks in the mail, which is what sometimes. The secret and the law of attraction, the bad, the hype stuff tends to almost suggest that's possible. But no, no. God takes care of you through your own motivation. God takes care of you through just your own energy and your own inspiration and your own, like, oh, I got to get My butt to work. That's God too. I got to get my ass to work. That's God, right? Like saying get, get to work, right? Get to work. Serve people so you'll have money, right? Serve people in the ways they want and they will buy and you'll have money, right? And God speaks through me. God speaks through your other teachers, God speaks through your friends. God speaks through, you know, people around you, right? You'll hear what you need to hear to motivate you to get going. That's the whole process is higher self, God, source, right? So long story short, we don't, we can let go of pursuing fame now. Fame may come to us. I mean, I actually don't want fame because fame creates a lot of emails, a lot of messages, a lot of just, you know, the more people we have, right? But authentic engagement, authentic audience creates meaningful messages. Now the kinds of emails I'm getting now are no longer the kinds of emails that, you know, I used to get where because people saw me as being so successful and what I was putting myself forth as being very successful and all that stuff, I was getting a lot of desperate emails or emails of people who want my time unpaid. Whereas now with meaningful engagement, I get meaningful emails from people who are like kindred spirits, who are like soul mates, who I. Anyway, I just have to say I'm getting much better emails these days and much better messages and fewer of them, but just the ones I need to have a full time very happy business, very fulfilled and so not, not fame, but let's dive into deeper. And this, of course I need to say this because I need reminders too because it's so easy to be seduced by society, by the messages from other marketers that we need to chase certain things. It's very easy. So I, that's why I need to say these things for myself too. Not fame, but deeper service, more try to bring more love into the work we do every day and try to bring greater truth to what we do. So if we pursue that path, we'll know that we'll always be taken care of. Like I said, partially through our motivation because that is God too, and partially through other people's unexpected blessings. But we'll tend to have more authentic connections which tends to create, ironically, a more successful and stable business that's more sustainable for the long term without you having to pretend to be anybody other than who you are. I hope this helps and I look forward to your comments below and I'll give you a minute to add a comment While I look for any live comments from the people who are watching this live so I can bring any comments forward. So go ahead and comment below if you'd like. Great. And I got one comment here from Shweta who says another dangerous impact of the mainstream hyper entrepreneur focus of famous fame is that one can feel that if you aren't famous, you may not be serving effectively enough. Oh, wow, that's a really good one. Yes. That is so good. Absolutely. That is actually. Isn't that the connection? Right? It's like the false connection. Here's the false connection. Fame equals more impact. I was more famous before, but I feel like I'm making a lot more impact now. So what? Why? There is no. Fame just means that more people, you have the attention of more people. That's all it means. But the things that you do to get attention might actually be leading them astray, might actually be leading them away from their true selves and leading them away from authenticity. The ways that we get famous are usually through ways that are not really authentic because. And why is that? I think it's because, yeah, because I, you know, acting or hype gets attention because people pay attention to hype, you know, but at the same time, people who are wiser, who are more likely to be our kindred spirits, are tired of hype. And maybe it is true that people need to go for hype for a while before they realize, oh, that's really empty. It's not, you know, trying to please everybody just makes us feel empty and makes us, you know, not pursue our calling, I guess, or something. But. And then once they're tired of it, they come to us. So, like, really, I think I'm not in the danger of being famous because the vast majority of human beings still have to go through the stage of hype before they come to their authenticity, which if they want to build a business, they might find somebody like me. I'm not the only one saying these things. So thank you for saying that, Shweta. I think it is very important to say, I also want to thank those of you for joining me. Sandy, Alisa, Johannes, Delyse, Tucker, Sharon, Danielle, Felicity. Let's see here. Sandy also wrote that, you know, I simply couldn't do it with the marketing templates. You know, being essential is this. Being authentic is essential to me. Thanks for validating this. I was ready to give up on being entrepreneur. Now I feel hopeful. I'm so grateful. I'm so glad. Now some marketing templates can help you to explore and therefore find an Authentic voice. So. But it's when you, it's right, it's when we use marketing templates without that encouragement to experiment and explore and find our authenticity. That's when we think that we can somehow plug in some formula and make money from that. And unfortunately it is true to some extent because human beings are manipulatable. And so if you mindlessly follow a persuasion formula, you might get some sales, but you also start to work away from your soul. Right, so that's short term gain, long term loss, right? Yeah, yeah. And Shweta says, you know, the fame impact equation is really so not true because it sends good people down a path of low self esteem and can lead to poverty and quitting, etc. Yeah, it's, you know, and the problem I see a lot, I see in some of my peers is that they go on this the same path and they get, they get the taste of popularity which it becomes a substitute for their self esteem. Right? Popularity. Oh, if I'm popular then I must be worth, must be a worthwhile person. And they have to keep up that self esteem. They have to keep up that kind of audience and money, you know, now they're making, now they have to have staff. I mean, I see this is, I started 10, 11 years ago. Right. So I see, I've seen the trajectory. Some of my people out there that I, that were, I used to partner with and they have, now have the staff that they have to support and that there's more pressure in their business and it's just, it's just, I think it's not a very wise business model. That's why I love being an authentic solopreneur because I don't have staff to support. Okay. I love not having to have staff to support it really. That means I don't have to have under the pressure of making even more money. And anyway, so it's really be careful of that path. You see the, you see the thought leaders, the, you know, the people with a big audience and a big, they have, they have a lot of pressure, right? They have a lot of pressure. So it's not, it's not necessarily fun. Thanks Elizabeth for your comment there. And yeah, so thanks all. I'll let you go now and I hope that you will. This encourages you to reconnect with your genuine spirituality, knowing that you're going to be taken care of and that you're always loved and that your worth is infinite and that the greatest impact you make is really kind of one person at a time, not that you always have to do one on one. Like, I'm not really doing one on one much anymore, but still, I'm thinking of one person at a time in my impact. That's why I mentioned these comments. It's like, yes. If I make just a little bit of difference for each of you. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. All right. Take care. Until the next video. I wish you well, and I wish you fulfillment. Enjoy. All right. Be well.