How to Run Your Online Business Like an 8-Figure Entrepreneur with James Wedmore

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 69.

What does it take to build a successful business? Aside from a whole lot of guts, my special guest today happens to be my trusted and beloved Business Coach James Wedmore. He is here today to give you an in depth look at how much personal development work is required for you to show up in the way you need to to have a thriving business, you're going to learn from him a critical component, it's actually a way of being that will allow you to nurture your business and to see challenges and pathways that are ahead of you very clearly. I encourage you to listen to this episode, even if you're not a business owner or an aspiring business owner, because there's so many great lessons about living a good life in this episode. For 10 years, James taught entrepreneurs and online business owners how to leverage the power of online video, and YouTube marketing to reach more people share their message and convert more customers. In 2016. James made a massive shift to focus on a big gap missing in the marketplace, the mindset needed for entrepreneurship. He launched a totally woowoo podcast, one that I loved, it's called the Mind Your Business podcast. And he also launched his signature program Business by Design. Today, he helps coaches experts, content creators and authors not only to craft better marketing messages, but also how to ditch the hustle mentality and create success from the inside out. James shares great insights throughout this episode as well as real life and real time examples of how we can never really fully avoid problems, but we can learn how to become a master at dealing with them. I encourage you to keep listening to the end of the episode, where James shares a special offer to join him in a live workshop called Nail Your Niche where he will teach you how to discover the specific audience that you want to address and impact. You'll hear the partner length that I share at the end of the episode, which will enable you to register for the nail your niche live workshop. Let's go listen to the episode now you're going to love it.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. 

Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. Hi everyone, it is Dr. Christine Li. Today is a very special day for me actually, because I have my business coach and mentor and colleague, James Wedmore on the show. He is actually someone that I need to thank over and over again. I just thanked him a couple times in preparing for this recording. But I want to do this publicly also, because working with him learning from him listening to his podcast has really changed my life has changed my business has changed my outlook on a lot of things. And I feel like I continue to learn from him. And by the way, dear podcast listener, oh, most, I would say a good 50% of the guests that you've heard on this show, I have met through James's community of students and colleagues and collaborators. And I'm grateful for that, too. So James, welcome to the show.

James Wedmore  4:07  
Wow. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited. This is gonna be great.

Christine Li  4:10  
This is gonna be great. Okay, can you start our listeners off with a description of how you came to be the business owner that you are and how you develop the type of business that you're running. Now, if you could just describe?

James Wedmore  4:26  
Yeah, yeah, I'll do it in the shortest version I can because we'll carefully open up a whole can of worms of that because I've been a serial entrepreneur my whole life, like starting businesses as a little kid. Even by the time I was 15. Back in the late 90s. I had an online business, partying out classic motorcycles, you know, selling it on eBay. And so I was always drawn to business and I was always drawn to the internet. And

my first foray into what I'm doing today happened about 15 years ago, I was a bartender by day at a restaurant and then at night on the weekends I would private parties

bartender for private clients like like someone who's having their 50th birthday for their wife, or that wedding, you know, and I would show up with a bar. And I would mix the drinks all night. And I was like, I'm in business. And I was reading voraciously every book I could get my hands on about business, about marketing, anything to learn. And I started realizing the people that were I was learning from were teaching and getting paid to teach their writing books. They had programs you could buy. And I was like, I just had a lightbulb moment. This is November of 2007, I'll never forget it. I was like, I want to do that. That's what I want to do. Because I found myself, always loving teaching growing up, like people would pay me to be a tutor, or do their math homework or write their essays for them, and they'd pay me and I was like, This is great. I love learning. I love teaching. So my first digital product was an online online bartending school, because it was all I knew. And I had the idea in 2007. It's called bartender for profit. And I created it, I launched it, I've made every single mistake you could possibly imagine. And lo and behold, I made my first very first sale on the internet for my bartending school for 200 bucks on April 18 2008, the day that would forever change my life. Because it was in that moment, that it was like, first of all, it validated all the hard work, everything I'd put into. And it was like that just the sweetest moment of joy. And I had a thought, a little seed planted in my mind that said, Well, if I could get one sale, I could get a second, I could get a third. And that was that was 15 years ago. And today I have an eight figure your company. And it's same but different. I'm getting paid to teach what I know, to teach to coach to offer my methodologies and my frameworks. And I've done it in multiple niches over the years. And today, with that level of experience, you know, comes some form of mastery. I teach others how to get started and get going with their own digital products. Yes, and

Christine Li  7:04  
you've helped me and so many people, it just very interesting to see people, learn from their mistakes, be aware of their mistakes, and then try something new. And I think you're very creative with just using your background, your years of experience to give the students a new way to look at things. And it doesn't have to be more work. I think part of your years of experience involves periods of working yourself too much. You were worrying too much. You were making a lot of mistakes. Could you describe a few mistakes that you notice? People getting into getting themselves into because they want to succeed online or in business?

James Wedmore  7:49  
Absolutely. Yeah. And I was guilty of all of these. So when I speak from these, I'm speaking from experience. I mean, it's kind of like it's hard because there's like a whole category. And then I can go into the specifics. But I would say at first is the moment you say you have a business, there's a change. But we don't notice the change. And that's the mistake. And because we don't notice the change, we make the mistake of operating and acting from the programming have an employee. So if anyone listening if I hired you, I said, Well, you come work for me. You know, I'd give you some training, I give you some direction, I'd give you a job description, and, and I'd help you along the way, and you'd get to work and you do it, you do what you're told, and you'd work hard. You know, you put in your 100%. And no matter what you get paid. People start a business and they think it works the same way. If I just Well, no one's telling me what to do. So I guess I'll just tell myself what to do. And I'll just work hard. I'll put in the time and I'll get paid. And then they're not getting paid. And so they go well, maybe I need to work harder. And I need to do more things, and they're still not getting paid. And so underneath that is a lot of mistakes of what's happening. The first of which is understanding that the moment you have a business and people still argue with me with this, this is really funny, but that's like it's a massive business blindspot. The moment you have a business, you have an entity, you have an organization that's what really a business is. It's an entity, an organization that consists of actually multiple roles. No, no, James, I don't have multiple roles. It's just me. Oh, I know it's just you. But there are multiple roles in every single business. I've never found a business that has one role. For example, even my bartending business, someone had to do the marketing. Someone had to be the CEO. Someone had to answer the phone calls when a prospective client called about I saw your website I saw your flyer And someone had to show up at the events, someone had to take the checks to the bank, someone had to clean the bar equipment after the parties. I did all of that, myself. But there were multiple roles because a role is a function that exists in the company. And so we go into business, and there could be 510 15 roles, and you fill them all. But then the problem really occurs when you spend the majority of your time, effort and energy in the roles that produce the least amount of value for your business. We tend to spend when we're new in business, spend more time, effort and energy in the things that are urgent, reactive, and seemingly important, but tend to actually be low value when it comes to the overall growth of the business, which means we avoid the high value activities, the revenue generating activities, the things that make a sale. And so people have to say it bluntly, Christine, to say it in a kind of crude way, because I can be a bit of a contrarian and a tough love coach, but it's all coming from love. It's all coming from please don't do what I did, please don't experience what I went through, please. Five years, I got addicted to Adderall. I was working 14 hours a day, I dropped down to 140 pounds, I had to move back in with mom and dad, it wasn't making $1 like all my friends, my girlfriend left me all my friends didn't want anything to do with me. I became this crazy, unhealthy workaholic and still had nothing to show for it. I'm like, I'll prove them all wrong. And I just kept digging a hole deeper and deeper and deeper. And I don't want that for people. But the reality is, is most people are playing business, just like we played dress up or pretend as a kid. And they're playing business. Well, maybe if I work on my logo, maybe if I do another photoshoot and maybe change my branding around and I need a new website. What about this about me page and boobity boo, Boo Boo Boo boop. And I need a business plan or any new business cards, and I need all these little things that is like you're playing business. And the fact is, you ain't actually in business until there's a transaction. Right? Like, if I sent you a check for your first mount of money for your building, like now I'm in business correct. And until then you ain't in business. So the big mistake people are doing is they're working and working and working, working and pushing and pushing and grinding and grinding, grinding, and they're not doing anything, or the vast majority of the things are not putting them into revenue generating activities that actually produce revenue, that revenue that you need to start fueling the rest of the growth of your business is this making sense?

Christine Li  12:35  
It makes a lot of sense. It also reminds me of a lot of mistakes that I've made. My business owner so I'm sitting here and absorbing this as usual. And I absolutely agree that you need the transactions to be occurring to have the business but what I found is that the hurdles seem to be popping up. Even when the transactions are occurring. You know that we can make excuses for things we our energy can drop lower towards the end of a product launch, we could delay in really crafting our message so that it really attracts the right people. I think the areas for procrastination and delay and avoidance are all over the place. Even though I also find this to be really fun and exciting and interesting and like a challenge. So I'm wondering how you yourself and how you how you coach, other people? How do you keep the discipline of saying, let's keep this a business? Let's keep this going strong. And let's not allow our personal stories and drama, sabotage our business?

James Wedmore  14:02  
Yeah, I have a simple 90% Delete key solution to every symptom that you described. And then I can go into nuanced specifics beyond that. And it's one word is one concept. And of course, saying it I risk it being disregarded by most listeners as too simple. Because people want complicated, you know, like, Oh, is there some magical routine you do and, you know, whatever, that magically makes you more productive and higher performing. And, and then they hear something very simple, which will do that. And then they go, Oh, that's too. Yeah, I've heard that before. Okay. And so I'm worried that when I share that, that's what people will say. So I hope people listening will not do that because there's a big difference between what I'm going to share with you, which some people already know, versus living your life that way. And the answer in one word is integrity. That is delete key for all the symptoms that you just described. And that is my delete key integrity means whole and complete. And you are your word who you are is your word. So it means you are whole and complete with your word. So integrity, and self integrity means to honor your word, it means it's time to look back, and take back your power, and see how powerful you are. And that your word has power. And if we treated our word and what we give our word to, as the most powerful thing in our lives, it would change everything in an instant. And it was a Harvard business professor, I think it's Dr. Steve Jensen, and another individual Warner Earhart that began speaking about this. And they said, If you treated integrity, like every time you were out of integrity, it's kind of like a weird kind of way to look at this, but this is what they started doing. As every time you are out of integrity. And what that means, by the way, is unmet Promises, promises to yourself to your company to your team. But definitely starting with yourself, that you would lose a finger. Because that's the level of severity it is, it would be about two or three fingers before you get that this is the most important thing right? Now, obviously, no one here is going to actually cut their fingers off. No one's asking you to do that. But it's one of these things. That unfortunately, for so many people, even when they hear it, they go, they say what does that have to do with what we're talking about? Or? Yeah, yeah, I've heard this before. And that's really unfortunate. But for me, I made honoring my word. Now, let me say like this, I made my word, the most important and powerful thing in my life. And what I choose to give my word to, and that means I'm still out of integrity, a lot of times, okay, and that's not a bad thing. Just like if the lights are on, or the lights are off in your house, that's not a good or bad thing. It's just binary on or off. So you're either in integrity, or out of integrity. And when you're aware of it, you do what you can to clean it up. You do what you can to restore it to be your word, and honor your word when you can't, like I was doing something else before this call. And I had to stop doing that. Because I gave my word to be on this call at the top of the hour. And it would have been helpful to say, you know, I could just tell them this other video right now and edited it out and said no, because I got to be on this call, right at the top of the hour. And here it was right. And when that matters in your life, it changes everything. Don't believe me, there are countless studies done of companies that have seen anywhere from 200 to 400% increase in productivity and output without any increase in costs, or labor or anything, simply because they made integrity, their number one core value in their company. And that's it. I cannot stress enough that is 90% of it, which is I say I'm going to do something my team says they're going to do something, and we just do it and the sentence. And it becomes simple today, right? It's always so simple when we start. But to go down that route for people, what you want to do is you want to begin to become present and aware of where the integrity issues in your life are.

And begin to note already in this moment in time, where you have given your word to yourself and others and not fallen through and aligned with that action. And just begin to become aware of it. And then continue to be present. When you give your word to something I'll call you tomorrow, Christine, or let's do lunch. And we just throw it around like it doesn't matter. And that's the problem because it does matter. And we have to make it matter. Don't say you're going to do it if you're not going to do it. Tell people let me get back to you on that. I do that all the time today. If you said like, Hey, I'm gonna be in Sedona tomorrow. Let's hang out get lunch. Well, like I don't know my schedule. I don't know my calendar right now. And I'm traveling in two days. So I'm gonna say, You know what, that sounds amazing. Let me get back to you on that. Let me let me see what I got going on and what it's on the to do list and what's on my counter. before I commit to that. People don't do that. They just say sure. Okay, and then they don't follow up. They don't call or they're late or whatever, right. And that has an impact in other people's lives, but it's impacting your own life the most. Because we create with our word. Everything is created because we speak it into existence. First we declare it, we speak it, we share it. And when we keep talking about things that we never do, we stopped believing our own BS like we just don't believe ourselves anymore. That's why people stop setting goals. Right? That's why people don't share their goals, you know, and that's fine. And we stopped believing. And that's and that's a problem. Now I'm gonna say the last piece This, okay, maybe two pieces. When I bring this up, I also run the risk of people then getting into a guilt and shame spiral. Don't do that that's when make it worse. That's out of integrity because you should have given your word to yourself to be nothing but kind and loving yourself. So now you beat yourself up, you're out of integrity again. Okay, it's binary, it's neutral. It's the lights are on or the lights are off. This is either in integrity or out of integrity. It's not bad. It's not wrong. You're not inferior. It's nothing like that. You have to approach this with absolute neutrality. You know, someone says, James, you told me to do this yesterday, and you didn't. We have an integrity issue. I get to say, You're absolutely right. They're not mad at me. They're not. You're a loser. Just like, Hey, you gave your word to something you didn't do? You're right. I did. Let me clean that up. It's no big deal. Let's get our egos out of the way with it. Okay, so we can't go into that. And then the last thing is, I'm just gonna warn people, there's this concept of the veil of invisibility, which is some people hearing this are like, Well, I'm always in integrity, what are you talking about? But your ego, which we all have one does not like being out of integrity. So a part of you will experience integrity issues as really good, logical reasons. We don't see the integrity issue, we see the reason. So if you're having an experience where someone was late to lunch or meeting up with you, and you're like, hey, you were late, like, No, I wasn't late, I was stuck in traffic. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I was busy. I got delayed, someone grabbed my attention. So the phone rang. I don't know, these are all reasons. And they're justifiable reasons. They're legitimate. It doesn't mean it's not an integrity issue. So here's an example of this, let's say, Christina, I mean, this is so simple, but it's it's everything. It's everything. I wouldn't be spending this much time on it. If it wasn't, you know, we just mentioned it move on. Like it was a little thing. It's a big thing. Because let's say, Christina, and I say we're going to be on this call at one o'clock my time. And then an important phone call comes in. And I look right before and I go, Oh, my goodness, I'm going to be late for her call. For this podcast. I would tell the personal phone, hey, listen, I know this is an emergency. We got to deals but I had a one o'clock let me tell them, I'm gonna be late. Boom, that's all takes. Hey, Christina had an emergency someone called me, I need 20 minutes. Is that okay with you? Or do you want to reschedule what you want to do, you know, just text me what you want to do. I gotta take this as an emergency. And we're not doing that. We just don't show up, or we forget, or we have an excuse, we have a reason. And we're doing that with others. We're doing it with ourselves the most.

Christine Li  22:51  
And that is what you mean by the veil of invisibility that these other logical reasons, are preventing us from saying, actually, this is an integrity issue for me.

James Wedmore  23:02  
Yeah, I just didn't do what I said I was going to do period. Well, but I just don't know how or whatever. Like I got, I got this remodel situation, that I mean, that's why I'm recording in my, in my camper van. And part of the big problem is some of these guys are completely out of integrity. And I see it all the time. And it's it's the number one cause for performance breakdowns in a team and an organization. And one of these guys wants to blame me. You know, I say, Hey, you said you were going to do this and you didn't, a you said, you'd be here at this time. You didn't. And he just comes back. And I'm just pointing it out is like, you keep giving your word to me. And you keep breaking your word. And everything is met with excuses. Yeah, but bla bla bla bla bla bla, bla, bla, bla bla, and he can't see that it's merely an integrity issue. All he can experience is an excuse, or a reason or a justification. And it's like, those can still be valid, and hey, there was a ton of traffic, or I forgot my sprayer or whatever. Sure. But I sat here waiting. You didn't call you didn't tax you didn't communicate. You didn't let me know. Nothing. So you broke your word to me. And he just sees excuses and reasons. And here's the problem with that, folks, is in order to change or shift anything in your life, you have to see clearly and get to the bottom of it and get to truth. Get to facts. Most people are dealing with distortions. So they have a really hard time solving anything because they're not dealing with reality. And that's where this conversation and distinction around. Integrity is so powerful, because it's facts. It's, I will be there at one o'clock. And you either are or you're not. I'm going to go live today for my first training at 11 o'clock. You either do it or you don't. Doesn't matter. It's like well, there was a an emergency. Yeah, exactly. It's still out of integrity. It's not bad or wrong. It's just you said you're gonna do something you didn't period, you know, and then we're dealing with that. Now we're dealing with that. Okay, well, you know, how do we clean that up? How do we fix that? How do we restore it? You know what I mean? Most people are not doing that I was not doing that for a long time, I kept talking about what I wanted to do you hear it in people's language? Well, I want to, it would be nice to I wish I could, if I would. And today, everything I do is when I decide I'm going to do it, it's I will, this is going to happen. And when you make your word, your most important thing is more important than the things that are preventing you from being your word. Like, what if they don't like it? What if it's not perfect? What if this what if that, and I've chosen to prioritize the power of My Word over any of those? And it causes me to do the thing I said I was going to do? Is that is that hope? Does that make sense?

Christine Li  25:56  
It's beautiful. First of all, I have so many thoughts. One is that you're a fantastic teacher. And you've just demonstrated, the power of having a good teacher being a good teacher is that you can explain from all the different vantage points in a way. And I think I'm going to emphasize one thing that you've said that I don't want our audience to miss. And that is that you also have to be kind and loving to yourself.

James Wedmore  26:24  
The first time Yeah, the first thing you should say is I am committed to loving myself and honoring myself. And then if you say that to yourself, then you are out of integrity. If you treat yourself with anything but kindness, I kind of put Yeah, trap there. It's like a little double bar and you're stuck. You have to love yourself, it has to start with you is so important.

Christine Li  26:46  
Yes. And from my work with my clients, I think that's so much of what I focus on, because people are coming in hating themselves feeling guilty, feeling ashamed to feeling like they can't do things. And that essential relationship with their healthy, vibrant, awesome self is not fully something that they rely on something that they believe in something that they use actively to take action in the world. And I think there are tremendous costs to treating yourself in that way treating yourself so badly. And so I just wanted to double emphasize that.

James Wedmore  27:27  
I think it's because people are using that as a motivation strategy. Yes. Right. It's almost like to use a crude example, it's like, you know, when someone you see in the movies, like someone whipping the horse to go faster, like Yeah, yeah. And it's like, we just do that to ourselves, thinking that's gonna get you to go faster. And it's not because you might be HIPAA yourself, but you also have the brakes on. So it's like, trying to get the gas on the car, by whipping it within yourself. But you also have the parking brake on. So now you're just beating yourself up to change moving. And then you're beating yourself up even more than beating yourself up and not moving didn't work. And that's never my motivation strategy. And I'm a very productive high performance individual. And the secret is, the brakes aren't on, for starters. So there's like, no counter resistance for me. And I use positive motivation to move me towards not negative to push me away. And we're all wired differently. But I do what I do, because I love doing it. And so it's like a vacuum, it's always pulling me forward. And so you might want to ask, you know, I talking to your listeners, like, you may want to ask yourself, like, what drives me? What am I driven by? What am I moving towards? What lights me up, and naturally propels me into action? You should be when it comes to your work, especially as if you're self employed your own business. You should have it. I mean, there's always things we have to do that we don't want to do like taxes. You know, if you have to fire someone, I never look forward to firing someone. Okay? Yeah. The 90% of your day, and your work should have this feeling like you can't not do it, you're compelled to do it. You have to stop yourself from doing it, you know, because it just lights you up and excites you so much. And it's really sad because there's a lot of people that can't get there because for whatever reason, they've decided that life needs to be a struggle. And it needs to be painful and sacrifice. And you have to do all these things in order to be deserving and worthy of it. And those are very dangerous, slippery slopes to go down. Because if you're being driven by this, this core programming of I have to sacrifice and work a certain amount to deserving of this, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen because it happened to me, you are going to put the work in, and then wait one day, you're going to wake up and you're realize, no matter how much work and effort and sacrifice it, I'll still never feel enough. It's like chasing a mirage in the desert, you keep walking closer to it, and it keeps backing up. And that happened to me. And I fell into a really, really deep depression. Just I burned out, I couldn't move because I was putting on I mean, I got addicted to Adderall. That's like, legal speed. That stuff is nasty. And I took it so I could work harder. That's so bad. And I was popping 20 milligrams a day, looked like a skeleton, I was putting 10 1214 hours a day. And I was I had nothing to show for it, you know. So I'm not doing my work and the work that I do as a survival strategy to compensate for some sense of a lack of worthiness, or deservingness. I do what I do, because obviously, I love what I do. So there's the enjoyment, the fine in what I do. The purpose fulfillment aspect of it is that it helps people. And part of my context for life is I'm all about growth. So everything I do is an opportunity for me to continue to grow. Let me see if I can do this. Now. Let's see what else I can do. Let's see if I have have it within me, you know, and it's this fun journey.

Christine Li  31:36  
Thank you for saying that. Because I wanted to note that working with you and learning from you is super fun. We get to see you building a van and renovating homes and surfing and whatever it is, that lights you up, we get to see and we get to see the right mood for building growth, that it does not have to involve suffering, it actually shouldn't. And I think suffering is really valorized I think I definitely grew up with that feeling like I just need to push more, I just need to stay up all night, I just need to figure some way out. You know, you can't give up. So. So what are you going to do right, and there were there was illness, there was stress, there was lost sleep, there were lost years for me. And I'm so grateful that now I don't do that stuff. And that I have enjoyed so much more fun and so much more productivity. Because I've straightened out a few things that needed to get straightened out. And entrepreneurship has been one of the vehicles that has been useful for me to learn even more about myself, I'll share one more story. And that is when I entered your program, which is called business by design. One of the first modules was about 100% responsibility. And really, that is very much connected to the integrity idea. And for me, it was a total lightbulb moment because I totally just got the message right, as I saw the module because I was just like, oh, well, if everything is up to me, and I'm responsible for everything that I do, then that just makes everything clear. It just makes everything easier. Because I can't fault other people, I can't be worried about what other people are doing. Yeah, related to me, my responsibility is to take care of what I'm doing. And I think I was just a little bit fuzzy about that. Maybe in my business, maybe in my life. And now since learning that the integrity lesson, I just feel so much better. It just feels like things are super clear. Right? I might not do like us like you honestly admitted. I might not always be in integrity, but I know when I am and I'm not because I have that as a framework inside.

James Wedmore  34:05  
Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, the responsibility is a it's a it's a powerful distinction and conversation. Because you know, look things are always going to happen. Like this remodel disaster Am I what I love to Christine knows this about me, but I love to take whatever I'm going through my life and use it to first teach myself what is this teaching me. But then also, I love to pass that on to my students. So I use my real life examples in my life to share as powerful stories and metaphors. And the short version of a story is I had a guy that I basically gave the reins to the responsibility to and he messed up big time. And he damaged the second story of the house to the point where it was sinking in on the first storey destroying the structural integrity of the home. And that's not okay what he did. Okay, you know, he caused that That's a fact. I mean, I even went to him. I said, this looks bad. I don't think we should be doing this. Should we stop? And he said, No, trust me, everything's okay. And he kept going. And then someone else came in and said, What have you done here? You guys have to stop. He was wrong, and I trusted him. And in that, I can sit there and and blame, blame, blame all I want, that's fine. But I also choose, and this is this is what it is, is a choice to see what role did I play in causing this? What was my role in this? And the reality is, is I chose to bring him on, I chose to hire him. I chose this individual. And the more I got present to that, the more I saw that there were red flags and warnings along the way that I ignored and didn't pay attention to. And so responsibility isn't so much about blame. Okay? Blame takes you out of the game. Okay? If all you want to do is blame and complain, nothing's gonna good is gonna come out of that. Yes. He told me this is okay, and kept going. And those are facts. And it was not okay. And he shouldn't have got going. And, you know, that's that. But if I just sat there and cried in the corner and complain and blame and says everyone else's fault, I wouldn't have been able to deal with it powerfully. So responsibility is a choice, not a fact. It's a choice to choose to see your life and your business as something that you choose to be 100% responsible for. I am choosing to be 100% responsible. Again, still other people and exterior external factors and variables can play a role. But because I stayed in that responsibility, I stayed in cars. So there's a very powerful distinction between cause and effect. And when you choose 100%, responsibility, you are choosing to be at cause in your life. So I cause a new solution, I cause a new opportunity, I caused a solution. Instead of going, there's nothing I can do. And I'm hopeless and helpless and doted on another day, I said, Well, here's what we're going to do. Now. I'm taken back over. And here's how we're going to solve this. And I solved it. And as I get on this call, it's been a week and four days. It's all done. It's all saved my whole house. I mean, it was, it was touching go. It was nasty. It was very scary. Because I was living underneath, so it's like the ceilings gonna cave in on me. It was bad, solved, all fixed. You know, we're not the details of how I brought another crew is irrelevant to the point of the story. But I stayed at cause. And when it comes to your business, no one else is going to be responsible for your sales, your revenue, your income, your profit, but you start blaming other people, that's fine. Maybe someone else did play a role in it. But blaming someone doesn't change the facts of the situation of the matter. So choosing responsibility is a powerful, and not easy thing to do. But when you do it, it's like this. I tell my students, to the degree in which you accept what is is the degree in which you have the power to deal with what is to the degree in which you accept what is. So you can't accept what is when it's everyone else's fault. And you're just blaming, blaming, blaming, because that's a form of resistance.

She noticed the difference when you blame when you're angry, and you're allowed to be angry, okay, we're all humans having a human experience here. You're allowed to be those things, okay? You're allowed to do that I had my freakout moment I was very angry. But then I had to go into solution mode. That's why Einstein said you can't solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it. So now I did my little I had my little tip, I had my little pity party, a dust myself off. And now I gotta handle this. And the problem is people stay stuck in that more, you know, victim blame and complain mode. And I had to pull myself out of that. And I had to deal with what is I had to accept Well, this is what it is now. I had to be at peace with that. This is what the situation is. It is what it is. It's very powerful, simple thing. I just Well, this is what it is now. And now I got to handle this. Don't the complaints are done. The the angers done now I got to navigate to get to work. And when we're in business that's endless. I think there's a silly notion that people have that. It's like Disney might have implanted us in our young little minds that everything's supposed to be happily ever after. I have a very successful business. It generates a lot of revenue and has a very healthy profit margin margin. My CFO consultant is like, your numbers are incredible. I can't believe you have that big of a profit margin. And I still have problems all the time. There's always problems. There's always something and people think that you're not supposed to have problems. Business owners aren't supposed to have problems like what? No, that's endless. That's it as normal, and so people then try to resist that. No, that's wrong. It's bad. I shouldn't be dealing with stuff. It's like no. If you're growing, if you're up to big things expect problems. The difference is the successful entrepreneurs, like the truly successful ones, have simply shifted how they are being with a problem. And there's a lot of I mean, this is a whole nother conversation you're seeing, but what I tell people is, the things that I deal with in a week in my business today would have crushed the James from 10 to 14 years ago, the level of problems that I can handle today would have crushed me then that's, that's just because I've built up a resilience, emotional mental maturity, a new context for life, then it's okay, it's everything's okay, don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff, even when your house is falling apart, right. And that takes time to cultivate and develop that. But I tell people today that your business will grow to the level of problems that you can handle, and not an inch further. And so people want to change everything outside, I want no problems, I want it all go away, and I want more money. But the greatest changes are the ones that come from within. Because your business will grow to the level of problems that you can handle. And no further. And when you have haters or critics and issues and stuff right now and you're like this is too much i Can't you think your business is going to take on more? No, because problems don't go away. When you grow your business. They're just different problems. And problems aren't a bad thing at all. And every problem. This is law, this is fact this is ancient wisdom. Every problem comes with a solution. There is no problem that doesn't have a solution. We live in a dualistic universe. So you can't have hot without cold left without right good without evil. You can't have problem without solution doesn't exist. It's law in the universe. We are dualistic. You know, law of polarity. can't have one without the other. It's up to us to find it. And that's up to us, but it exists. So you know, I go on tangents for seeing so sorry.

Christine Li  42:16  
No apologies needed. These are great lessons, I'm absorbing them all. Another thought that I was thinking was that our body knows. So it's not just the logical brain. It's like our feelings. And we know when we're not really sticking to our word, we know when something feels off, we know that, uh, that registered as a red flag, but I'm walking past the red flag. Yeah. And I think just the other thought I'm having is that it's just so useful to feel like you're supported, and that you're with people who understand the struggles that you're going through. And I'm talking about the community that you have built, and the atmosphere that you've set up inside the community that there is no feeling of competition, which is really interesting, because you have some very high flying entrepreneurs in there. And successful people, but it's just a very giving fact base, but also warm community of people. So again, thank you are in order, because that's a safe place to grow. That's a place to experiment with different parts of your identity that you haven't yet revealed that may be are are just part of your vision board right now. But you want to see how did somebody else do that. And while they look kind of like my age, or they kind of talk like me, these kinds of things are really important to it's, I found, it's not just a self journey, it just helps to know that you're not alone, and that this is not insane what you're doing, trying to put yourself out as an entrepreneur as an authority figure, as a leader of your own tribe. It takes guts, and it takes this being kind of mostly in order I'm for those of you not looking at the video, I just made a circle around my body and my face because there's so much involved in putting yourself forward in a courageous way and building something brand new, just because you thought it was a good idea.

James Wedmore  44:29  
And the thing is with that really quickly, is you should take that on as something that drives you. Because you're absolutely right. It is a lot is confronting. It's challenging. It's scary, and 90% of it is outside your comfort zone. But what I got a long time ago, and what I remind myself every day is like life is so short and precious. And it's it's happening now we tend to have this kind of Hum in the background of our lives that like, this is an actually life, we're getting ready for it. And this is it, it's happening right now. This is our life. And it goes by so fast. I mean COVID And 2020 is already two years ago. I bring that up because it just like people are reflecting on that as like, wow, that was already it's been two years. And I know so many people that have quit their jobs and follow their passion or started their business in that time. And I know a lot of people are still thinking about it, still waiting, getting ready to get ready. And like this is our frickin life you're in the game is happening. And to be an entrepreneur, we need to be driven by that unknown. That's what needs to drive us that this is going to be the most challenging, scary thing in my life that I've ever done, should be driving us. Because what that means is that when you finally do it, who you will have become in the process is everything. Who you grow into, is undeniable. And that should be the most exciting driving thing. Because I look back at the 14, your prior version of me and I look at myself now and I look at who I become. And I'm so grateful. I'm so like, proud and so content and so satisfied, because all of it was discovering more about who I am. What else can I do? Who am I really what am I capable of? Can I do this? I don't know, let's find out. And I'm pushing myself not in a not in a efforting forceful way. But I'm, it's like I'm, I'm venturing a little bit further into the Amazon of the unknown, and making the unknown unknown, and discovering more and learning more and learning most about who I am. That should excite everybody here. To see, let me see if I can do it. Let's find out.

Christine Li  47:03  
salutely Absolutely, I think I'm just going to add again, like not just self development, it's also James's teaching and style of teaching has also transformed my way of being a psychologist and how I work with my clients. Because I think now I really look at all of the different potential ways of explaining and things happening, that there's so many different ways that a single event or problem can play out that it's almost not worth stressing out about because we're just gonna, you know, we have a role, but we're not the only ones involved, the universe has a role to play, pass has a role to play, and just chance has a role to play. But then it kind of highlights how important it is for us to be aware of what we want to have happen that we need to be driving the vision for the outcome, we might be experiencing a pretty nasty problem, like second story about to cave in the first story. But you know, at a certain point, like you described, you just got calm with yourself and decided, okay, like how do I want this to resolve? How do I get myself to the end vision that's beneficial to me. So, really, to my listeners, you know, my general spiel, which is, you know, reduce the stress so that you can see more clearly, and go for it, you know, go for the dream, build the dream, even as you're building is going to get bigger, but know that there are people like James and me out here to support you. James, can you now describe the kinds of ways you help people who are wanting to get into a business online? And what you have available for them?

James Wedmore  48:59  
Yeah, of course. Absolutely. So you know, today I, I teach what I've built in done and that is a business around your your knowledge and your expertise, whether you want to put that in an online course, you want to take on one on one clients, you want to create a membership or group coaching or anything of that nature. I've done it all. I've seen it all. And I've gotten really good at doing it and teaching others how to do it because as you kind of alluded to, it can be challenging. It's a whole new world to get ourselves into and for people just getting started. It's like this rite of passage. This is this first step that you cannot go around. You cannot skip. You can't do the others and come back to this. It is the first step and is a pretty crucial step. And it's the step of which direction you're going to go in which niche you're going to choose. You know again doing this for so long I've seen so many changes in the marketplace. I've seen so many people come in and build incredible businesses. I just interviewed someone for my podcast. Her name is Christine Shea. She's also in the next level community. And she had offline workshops that she was doing teaching photography, and COVID hit so she couldn't do these workshops anymore. So she took them online, and create an online course. And in two years, the first year was like all testing it out, she did her first launched it $6,000 Then did $10,000. And already was making more money than she was doing the offline workshops with like a fraction of the work last year, she did 290 something $1,000 in sales with this program. Two years, I mean, that's unbelievable, shy of two years, like 18 months. And one of the things that attributed to her success, is she knew I'm not the only fog photographer out there. So I need to get specific, because when I get specific, I'm specialized, and I stand out. So her program is milkyway photography, how to take photos of Night of the Milky Way, and created a 490 $7 program and sold it out like you wouldn't believe. And that's the power of choosing your niche, and choosing the right niche. And I want to help people with that. First step is the most important step. And I do a two day training. So $300 training, and it's aptly called nail your niche is a two day process. I've been doing this for like three or four years now we've had 1000s of students go through it. And I walk you through a process, which really gives you this experience of your niche been revealed to you. Like it was there all along. Like this is the thing I was meant to do. And it was so obvious who's right under my nose, and getting the permission, the validation, the confidence, the clarity and certainty to move forward. And that gets so many people into action once they have that locked in. And there's things I can share with my students that join on how to validate the niche, how to prove that it's going to be profitable, and how to really take the next steps from there. But it's so important. Now we're running this April 19, and 20th 2022 live training, you get the access to the recordings and a couple of resources that I have available to you until April 19, I'm doing a special deal. It's just $97. After that, it goes back up to 300 bucks, it's $97. But here's the best part for anybody that wants to do this. Anyone that knows they need to nail your niche. Like I just ask people, if you don't know on a level of nine or 1010 being high, the level of confidence and certainty and clarity that you have the right niche. Like if I if I asked you and you're like oh, that's like a five, you got to be in this training, you got it, you got to fix this. Because if you don't know what you're known for, if you don't feel confident for what you're known for, then no one else is going to know what you're known for. And if they don't know what you're known for, they're not going to want to work with you. It starts with you always. So here's the deal. For anyone here who joins, if you don't actually nail your niche, like get it to a nine or a 10. By the end of the training, I'll give you your money back. For a lot of you listening is the first time working with me. And you may be weary, skeptical, that's totally fine. So if you don't get the result that I'm promising you here in this training, I'll give you your money back. And you get to keep the trainings, you get to keep the recordings you get to keep the resources I give you. There's no risk whatsoever. Okay. So, Christina, I think you have a link for your listeners. Yes, I

Christine Li  53:33  
do. And I want to encourage our listeners that if you have, like a dream inside, you know, if you have an expertise that you've been thinking throughout the COVID years, oh, I really should get something online, I should really just test this out and see if I like doing this, if this would help people online, I really recommend that you start learning from James, and also that you sign up for this program. I found that James's programs are incredibly generous because they give you strategy, they give you the reasoning, they give you the layouts for the steps that you might need to take. They give you the language that you might borrow or try out for yourself if you're feeling like this is I've never done anything online before. That really James is the complete teacher and very generous with what he shares. So I just want to back up that nail your niche is a great way to start and I hope those of you who feel the calling to do that really join and here's the link that we've made it's make time for success podcast.com/growth I chose the word growth because I thought Nisha is kind of a funky word. So again is make time for success. podcast.com/growth If you go to that link, you will see James's page about the program, a reminder about the dates, which are April 19, and 20th, where he's going to be doing this full out live training. Again, I encourage you to join and start learning from James in this kind of way.

James Wedmore  55:19  
And then you might want to mark your calendars for June 2, because June 2 is when we kick off a three part live training that is absolutely free, on where to go, once you have your niche. This is how I've been teaching 1000s of students how to hit the ground running and grow their digital product based business the right way, we call it the rise of the digital CEO. Because your business, online digital needs you in that CEO role, because it's the role that you fill in your business that will determine the results that you receive. And in this three part training, I'm going to give you the entire process strategy, the mechanics of how we're able to run scale, launch a digital product based business and how our students been able to do it in like, any niche, any market imaginable. And so you're gonna walk away with a whole plan of like, how to actually do this. It's not just like, Oh, I just now create a product or I create some content or stuff like that. That's what a lot of people are doing. There is a process, any strategy for marketing, for building an audience, and for getting people to actually pay you for your stuff, for your knowledge, for your expertise, for your mastery. And I'm going to show you how that's done. That starts June second.

Christine Li  56:47  
Yes, at James loves doing live events, he's awesome at presenting, sending the right vibe, bringing on amazing guest teaching great content. And I just want to thank you again, James, I gotta wrap it up. By encouraging our listeners to stay in touch with you keep learning from you, you have a beautiful podcast, that is how I got connected with you in the first place. And, you know, I oftentimes when I'm recording teasers for this, say, the mind your business podcast, because it has the kind of phrasing of make time for success. But it's also just my go to podcast for learning about business, but also learning about the mind the body, different philosophies of getting things done, really. So I want to tell my listeners that there's this awesome trove of information that James has built up in his podcast, mind your business to Yeah, thank you so much. You're very welcome. So we're about done with this beautiful conversation. Thank you for all the lessons here and elsewhere for me and for my listeners. Thank you so much, James.

James Wedmore  58:02  
Yeah, thank you. I had a blast. Okay,

Christine Li  58:05  
Terrific. And thank you listeners for being here for your loyal listenership. And I will see you next Thursday when the next episode drops by.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.

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