Holding Back the Fears: Conquering Fears — Part 16

fear1The only thing normally holding many people back—and away from their dreams—is themselves. They suffer from terrible fears when they try to better their lives. Inner fears like frustration, failure and lack of confidence allow some to be talked out of success by their own demons. These fears control the lives of many people but can be conquered. This new series of blog articles is all about fears that will hold you back—and how to conquer them. This week we are going to take a look at six fears that stop would-be entrepreneurs from succeeding.

Where Do You Begin

Most entrepreneurs don’t actually know where to start when first setting their ideas in motion. Start out by finding someone who achieved the goal you’ve set for yourself.

Read about the person, the structure of her business, and reach out to see if she can offer advice or information. Even if the businessperson doesn’t have the time or an interest in speaking with you, you’ll know that she has achieved success so it’s possible for you. Just take a first step forward, and do what makes sense. The path will unfold as you continue to walk.

Apparently, You’re An Expert…

You probably know enough about your product or service to answer the lion’s share of questions and solve most issues that may arise. So don’t worry if you don’t feel like a complete expert in the field yet.

For the things you don’t yet know, you can find answers. There is no shame in continuing to learn. In fact, this is a requirement for continued growth. You will never be finished learning: Wear the “expert” label anyway, and commit yourself to excellence.

Too Crazy

Some people will think that you’re crazy to start a new business, and they will be correct. The safe and rational thing to do would be to never take a risk and work for someone else for the rest of your life.

Believe you are a bit crazy to step out on a limb, believe in your talents and convince others to believe in them, too. Accept your craziness, and then appreciate that it’s the crazy ones who end up making a difference in the world.

Not Having Any Money

Being a business owner would be so easy if every person with an idea could wander into a bank and receive a loan straight away. Since this is not a dream world, entrepreneurs without investors must jump-start their businesses anyway. Even if you don’t have the necessary capital at first, you’ll soon learn that a slow and steady process of building the business may be the best thing, after all.

No Belief

Even if you have doubts that people won’t react well to your business because of your credentials (or lack of them), skin color or gender, show up anyway and deliver outstanding service. People might be influenced by a physical appearance, but no one can argue with a solid work ethic. Even if at first no one believes in you, people will believe in your results.

No Customers

It’s terrifying to take the risk of offering your skills to the world, wondering if they’ll be valued. Unless you start your business with an established audience of people ready to throw money at you, a bunch of would-be customers won’t immediately swarm to knock your door down.

If you approach your business with joy, you may very well experience a turn of the tide. In the meantime, work your marketing plan feverishly, study to increase your level of expertise and be kind to yourself because you’ve already made it further than most.

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Publishing Your Book: Covers: Part Nine

fear1After writing a book, many people want to know how one goes about publishing a book. A well-known author once said recently that “it’s no great feat to get one’s book published—it’s no great mountain to climb.” He is right, but his opinion is subjective. To you, reading this blog, it is a huge mountain to climb to get your book published. There are many paths you can take up that mountain, but it is still a huge feat.

This week we are going to look at getting your paperback onto the market. In the modern publishing world, it has become common for authors to forget all about paperbacks—but whatever form of publishing you take, the good, old-fashioned paperback will be available to you. Let’s take a look at two of the major platforms.

Createspace

Createspace is actually the easiest platform you can use to get paperbacks onto the market for free. All you need to do is carefully look at their formatting guidelines and follow their cover design rules. It is possible to upload your book to Createspace within a few hours and have it on the market 12 hours later. The book will be made available on Amazon worldwide, and the quality of Createspace books rates well. Createspace also take care of ISBNs and barcodes, so you won’t need to buy them separately. It is possible to print picture books using Createspace, and through creative formatting, you can find a template on Createspace to fit almost any style of book you can think of.

IngramSpark

A more difficult platform than Createspace, IngramSpark allows you to upload your book, and for a fee, you can make it available for purchase through a multitude of platforms. Ingram is one of the easiest of the professional book platforms—but people new to it may want to track down a formatting expert to help them upload their book. With IngramSpark, you will need to purchase your own ISBN and your own barcode. Books cannot be published without them. You can do a variety of books through Ingramspark including picture books, cook books, and their image print quality is extremely high. One of the major downsides to Ingram is that you will need to pay a fee each time you re-upload the book, so it is advisable for you to carefully check your book before you upload it so you don’t incur more fees than necessary.

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Let Your Worries Go with the Wind on Warrior Wednesday…

fear11“Let it all go and just look to achieve… look be at peace with yourself, make your warrior Wednesday the best day of your week!”

Living in the modern world isn’t easy. Your whole life may feel like it is exploding around you on a daily basis. The constant demands on your time, energy and finances can be more than you can bear. Obstacles, roadblocks, arguments, problems and people are all things that lead to stress. This week, I want to talk about ways to relieve yourself of these everyday stresses that will stop you from achieving your dreams.  Kick back, forget about the world and its problems, and indulge in the things you love.

Become Addicted to Reading

Picking up a book allows you to get away — without even leaving your room. Take this time to learn about any topic you wish, including whatever it is that’s causing your current stress. You can gain insight, advice and peace of mind by reading. If you need some good suggestions, check out this list.

Write Off Your Stress

Writing is something that many of us don’t do on a daily basis anymore. Yet many people believe that it’s one of the most powerful exercises to success.  Experts believe that writing can help you better understand any dilemma or situation. Why don’t you pick up a diary and start jotting down your problems? You may find that the answers come to you easier with the problem on paper.

Exercise Yourself to Health

You’ve probably been told this a thousand times. Exercise is a good way to relieve stress. You can literally lose yourself in something so consuming. Time can fly when you are at the gym. From working moms to billionaires, the gym has been a proven stress reliever for everyone.

Relaxation and Meditation

One of the most amazing ways to destress is to meditate. You can remove yourself from everything going on around you and truly relax. Meditation has been proven to help remove stress, focus your mind and to help you see clearly. Give it a try!

Dump Technology

Every single person on this planet seems to be obsessed with their email, Facebook, Twitter, and the internet. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to really relieve yourself from stress until you remove technology from the equation. Try to switch off all the devices and spend some time in the real world, away from problems, clients and all the other things that stress you out. You’ll find yourself unwinding soon after unplugging!

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Holding Back the Fears: Conquering Fears — Part 15

fear11The only thing normally holding many people back—and away from their dreams—is themselves. They suffer from terrible fears when they try to better their lives. Inner fears like frustration, failure and lack of confidence allow some to be talked out of success by their own demons. These fears control the lives of many people but can be conquered. This new series of blog articles is all about fears that will hold you back—and how to conquer them. This week we are going to take a look at Hypnophobia, a crippling fear that can stop you reaching your full potential, and can even stop you from living a normal, everyday life.

Hypnophobia, clinophobia or somniphobia, as the condition is often called, is the irrational and excessive fear of sleep. It may result from a feeling of loss of control, or from repeating nightmares or anxiety over the loss of time that could be spent accomplishing tasks or maximizing leisure time instead of sleeping.

Recognizing Your Phobia

Hypnophobia, known as fear of sleep and fear of being hypnotized, can significantly impact the quality of life. It can cause panic attacks and is often defined as an abnormal, persistent and unwarranted fear of sleep or being hypnotized. Rapid breathing, shortness of breath, sweating, feelings of dread and nausea are all symptoms of hypnophobia. Every year, hypnophobia causes distress to countless people. Most hypnophobia therapies take months or years, and sometimes require the patient to be exposed repeatedly to their fear. Therefore, it makes the condition even worse.

Focus

Focusing on your mind can tell you a lot about your fears. The way you describe things that happen to yourself inside your own head can be very telling. What really scares you about sleep? Try to focus and discover what the problem is. Are you afraid of nightmares? Do you think you won’t wake up? Do you feel it’s wasted time? Once you know the problem, you can start to fix it.

Relax and Breathe

Try heading to bed with a book. Lie on your bed until you begin to get drowsy and linger in a state of drowsiness. You are not asleep, yet not awake. But is there anything scaring you? Try to take notice of the world around you while you are in that state. If you start to feel uncomfortable—open your eyes. You can leave at any time.

The Positive

Singing your favorite song, watching your favorite movie, spending time with your friends, family and loved ones can all put you in a positive frame of mind. Perhaps organize a sleepover with friends who will be at your side throughout the process of sleep. If you can’t do it alone, do it with others—that is, after all, what friends are for.

A Positive Spin

Waking up all refreshed, relaxed and happy can be the end result of sleep—you know that. Why don’t you try giving sleep a positive spin? Tell yourself all the reasons why you should enjoy sleep, and try to keep them in mind—sleep is an enjoyable thing. Just try telling yourself that it is.

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Publishing Your Book: Covers: Part Eight

fear1After writing a book, many people want to know how one goes about publishing a book. A well-known author once said recently that “it’s no great feat to get one’s book published—it’s no great mountain to climb.” He is right, but his opinion is subjective. To you, reading this blog, it is a huge mountain to climb to get your book published. There are many paths you can take up that mountain, but it is still a huge feat.

This week we are going to look at some pointers about cover design. Covers are a selling tool like no other. They are usually the first thing people see, and they are usually the thing that makes someone buy or not buy. Covers capture interest—so it’s important for you to have the right one.

The wrong cover can be devastating to your sales. A poor cover can turn off readers and can even cause your book to be returned by customers. Bad covers can also lead to poor reviews. But what do I mean by a bad cover? Let’s look at the four biggest problems we see on covers. You can see covers that have these problems all over Amazon.

• Spelling errors on the cover
• Poor punctuation
• Pixelated images
• Poor name and title placement

But these are not the only things you have to think about when putting your cover together. You also have to become an ad-man and create a cover that looks good as a thumbnail. I bet you didn’t think about that! Yes, your cover has to stand out as a thumbnail on Amazon. So keep that in mind and test your covers. Shrink your cover in size and spend some time looking at it. Can you still make out the image on the front? Does it still look as attractive? Would you buy that book?

Give it a try—and see for yourself!

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Holding Back the Fears: Conquering Fears — Part 14

fear1The only thing normally holding many people back—and away from their dreams—is themselves. They suffer from terrible fears when they try to better their lives. Inner fears like frustration, failure and lack of confidence allow some to be talked out of success by their own demons. These fears control the lives of many people but can be conquered.

This new series of blog articles is all about fears that will hold you back—and how to conquer them. This week we are going to take a look at sociophobia, a crippling fear that can stop you reaching your full potential, and can even stop you from living a normal, everyday life.

Sociophobia is the fear of society or people. People with this phobia find it hard to even have or maintain friendships.

The origin of the word socio is Latin (meaning interpersonal relationships) and phobia is Greek (meaning fear). Sociophobia is considered to be a social phobia, which is discussed on the home page. Sociophobia is also known as anthropophobia and related to phobanthropy, which is a morbid dread of being around other people and of human society in general.

Recognizing Your Phobia

The symptoms of sociophobia can vary greatly by person depending on their level of fear. The symptoms typically include extreme anxiety, dread and anything associated with panic such as shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, nausea, inability to articulate words or sentences, dry mouth and shaking. If you are finding you’re sweating with an increased heartbeat when in the presence of people, you may well be suffering from sociophobia.

Overcoming Your Phobia

Recognizing Negative Thoughts

The first step is to identify the automatic negative thoughts that underlie your fear of social situations. For example, if you’re worried about an upcoming work presentation, the underlying negative thought might be: “I’m going to blow it. Everyone will think I’m completely incompetent.”

Challenge Everything!

It helps to ask yourself questions about the negative thoughts: “Do I know for sure that I’m going to blow the presentation?” or “Even if I’m nervous, will people necessarily think I’m incompetent?” Through this logical evaluation of your negative thoughts, you can gradually replace them with more realistic and positive ways of looking at social situations that trigger your anxiety.

Feel No Fear

It can be incredibly frightening to think about why you feel and think the way you do about social situations, but understanding the reasons for your anxieties will help lessen their negative impact on your life.

Look Around You!

In order to reduce self-focus, pay attention to what is happening around you, rather than monitoring yourself or focusing on symptoms of anxiety in your body. Try looking at those around you, the sky, trees, plants or anything else that is going on in your vicinity. Focus on the world at large.

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Publishing Your Book: Amazon Free Giveaways: Part Seven

once uponAfter writing a book, many people want to know how one goes about publishing a book. A well-known author once said recently that “it’s no great feat to get one’s book published—it’s no great mountain to climb.” He is right, but his opinion is subjective. To you, reading this blog, it is a huge mountain to climb to get your book published. There are many paths you can take up that mountain, but it is still a huge feat.

One of the basic things you can do to raise awareness of your book on Amazon is to set up a free giveaway through the KDP system. This is an opt-in system that you can choose to join. KDP allows you five days per enrolment period. You can use those five days together or separately; and during each day of free giveaway, your book will be available for people to download for free from Amazon. It’s pretty simple, eh? Well not entirely. There are still problems, the chief one being that you still need to drive traffic to the Amazon page and encourage people to download the book.

The upside to this is that if the promotion is done properly, you will get a huge dose of publicity and a run of strong paid sales. These paid sales will drive your rankings and will turn into more sales. It takes some time to set up a successful giveaway—but it can pay off in a big way.

Free Doesn’t Mean Desirable

There are thousands of books available for free download every single month. Just because you have your book available for free, it doesn’t mean that thousands of people will automatically download it. You have to ask yourself a few questions. The first is: Does my book have an audience? The second is: Where are the people who like my book spending their time online? The third is: How am I going to reach that audience? Don’t just rely on a book being free to drive interest—try to actually seek out your audience and present them with the opportunity to download your book.

Using Freebooksy and Other Free Book Mailing Lists

There are a lot of aids to help you drive your book to a bigger audience. One of the biggest is a mailing list called Freebooksy. This is a large mailing list that goes out to readers via email. You can get your book placed on the list, if you meet their criteria, and you will find that their subscribers will start downloading your book. There are other services like this—Bookbub, etc. that perform the same job.

Rankings

Being the number one free downloaded book doesn’t mean you will necessarily become the number one paid book. It’s easier to gain a number one when the book is free, but you may find it more of a struggle to reach the paid number one position. Don’t be concerned when your free giveaway ends and you go back into the paid rankings—you may be ranked far lower—but the chances are that your ranking will climb due to the publicity you’ve received from the free giveaway.

Banners

Some authors like to add a banner to the front of their book cover. The banner can draw attention to the fact the book is free, or will be free, and people who see the book on Amazon will see the banner. Little techniques like this can really help boost your free giveaway and draw attention to your book.

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It’s Warrior Wednesday. How do you feel today, friend?

fear11Knowing that you are thriving, achieving, loving and lasting is what keeps me going!

Have you ever wondered why some people prosper, and some just never seem to make their goals reality? I think everyone has, but the truth is that it really doesn’t matter. Some of us have an easy road to success—and others have to work at it. But all success should be celebrated and congratulated because the success of one human being means that our success is just as achievable.

Think for a second about the people you meet in your everyday life. Don’t you sometimes meet negative folk who just seem to tear others down? What do you think makes them so unhappy? Is their own lack of self-achievement really that painful? Then sometimes you meet people who are vibrant, happy, optimistic and open to achievement. How different can two groups of people be? Very different. But the question is: Who are you?

Are you the negative hater of achievement, or are you the happy-go-lucky, lover of life? One of these paths will lead you to your goals. The other will destroy your dreams and make you a slave to misery. Maybe today is the day to choose which way you are going to go.

Love…

A super-successful person loves people. He/she can spend hours around people and can overlook the problems that people put in their way. Love is such a jaded word today—but a truly successful person loves everyone.

Desire

What do you truly want from life? That’s the biggest question you can ask yourself. What do you desire? How can you make that desire a reality? How can the way you treat others better your life? How can helping others reach their desired goal in life help yourself? These are questions to ponder on your way through life. Will helping others help you? A large percentage of successful people would say that it will.

Forget Everything You Know

Sometimes the pre-programming we all have makes us angry, disappointed, jaded. Sometimes we just need to forget all that we know and relearn how to live, love and work. Sometimes all it takes is a casual reminder to yourself to forget the old ways—learn the new ways. Embrace positivity.

Life Is Always Fun

Every single day, we all go through changes, problems and journeys that change the way we look at the world around us. Sometimes all we need to realize is that the world we live in is controlled by us. We control and experience every single kind of situation. Have you ever considered trying to just spend your day marvelling at the things that go on around you? Try it—you will be amazed.

Forget Worry

Worry is the root of all evil. Worrying about losing your job, losing your house, losing your wife, losing your husband. Worry is all the things that hold us back. Try to forget all of the things that make you upset, tired or that drain your energy. Try to focus on all of the good that happens every single day. Because every single day something good DOES happen to you! You can bet your life on it.

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Publishing Your Book: Amazon: Part Six

once uponAfter writing a book, many people want to know how one goes about publishing a book. A well-known author once said recently that “it’s no great feat to get one’s book published—it’s no great mountain to climb.” He is right, but his opinion is subjective. To you, reading this blog, it is a huge mountain to climb to get your book published. There are many paths you can take up that mountain, but it is still a huge feat.

Amazon is a huge online seller, who have recently moved into brick and mortar stores. Sales take place on Amazon every single second of every single day. For an author, it’s almost essential for you to have your book placed on Amazon, and those authors who ignore Amazon are making things much harder for themselves. In this article, I’d like to go over some of the details of working with Amazon. We will begin with rankings.

Rankings

As soon as you make your first sale on Amazon, your book will gain a ranking. The ranking shows how well your book is selling. The slower your sales, the further your ranking will fall. There are many millions of books on Amazon, so your ranking can, quite easily, be in the millions. As you sell more books, your ranking will climb. Several sales an hour will see your book inch slowly up the bestseller charts. When your book reaches a high enough position with its ranking, it will start to figure in the category’s top 100s. These are the 100 bestselling books in your chosen categories. Featuring in those top 100s will give you more exposure and more sales.

Searching for Books

The keywords you choose when you upload your book to Amazon will feature heavily when it comes to having your book found by readers. So think carefully about the way people search for books in your genre. Do they search for “action-thrillers,” or do they search for “books like Ben Hur?” How do people find the books? Get out your pen and paper and list how you personally find the books you read, but be aware you can’t use the names of famous people in your keywords—so don’t get caught with “books with John Wayne” as you are highly likely to get a warning from Amazon about using such terms.

Pricing

Pricing is key to selling books. Look at the other books in your genre and see how they are priced. Also make sure to note the length of your book. If you have a short, 30-page book, it may be best to price it at 99 cents. If your book is a huge bonanza—try $3.99, and don’t be afraid to try price promotions, either.

Cover

Be sure to look at the cover you’ve put together for your book, and remember that people will only see it as a little thumbnail. Does your cover stand out when it’s a third of its size as a thumbnail? Some authors put together exceptional covers without ever realizing that browsing readers will only ever see a small image of their cover. If it doesn’t stand out, people aren’t going to buy the book.

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It’s Warrior Wednesday, and You Make Your Own Music

fear11“The rhythm of life beats every single day… can’t you just feel it?”

Have you ever had a day where things just seem to work so well you can’t believe your luck? That’s the rhythm of life, and that rhythm is beating every single day—it’s just that on certain days it beats louder—and clearer—than on others. When it’s at its loudest, it will propel you through your day and allow you to meet objectives with ease.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could feed off the rhythm of life every single day? Can you imagine how unstoppable you would be? You would be like a human cannonball shooting through your days, making achievement after achievement count, and having the world hanging from your every word. The way many people tap into this rhythm is through meditation. So this week, I am going to share a meditation with you that may very well help you tap into that magic rhythm.

Choose your mantra

A mantra is a word or phrase that you silently repeat to yourself during meditation. The purpose of the mantra is to give you something to put your attention on other than your thoughts. You may use any phrase you like.

Find a comfortable place to sit

It’s best to find a quiet location where you won’t be disturbed. There is no need to sit cross-legged on the floor unless that is comfortable for you. You can sit on a chair or sofa or on the floor with your back against a wall. You may support yourself with cushions, pillows or blankets. The goal is to sit as upright as possible while still remaining comfortable.

Close your eyes

Once your eyes are closed, you can begin your meditation. Simply start by taking some deep breaths. Try taking a few “cleansing breaths” by inhaling slowly through your nose and then exhaling out your mouth. After a few cleansing breaths, continue to breathe at a normal, relaxed pace through your nose with your lips closed.

Slipping into your meditation

Allow yourself to slip into your meditation by repeating your mantra silently to yourself without moving your tongue or lips. The repetition of your mantra is always relaxed. The mantra does not need to correlate with the breath, though some people prefer to do so. As your meditation continues, allow the breath to fall away into its own rhythm. The repetition of your mantra should be next to effortless. Sometimes it is helpful to imagine that rather than repeating the mantra to yourself, you are actually listening to it being whispered in your ear.

No need to clear your mind

You will inevitably find that you drift away from the mantra. It is human nature for the mind to wander. Just allow your mind to go wherever it wishes, and find the rhythm of life. The further you get into your meditation, the more ideas will spring out at you; and as the ideas flow, you will hopefully start to feel rejuvenated and excited about the future.

Dr. Princess Fumi Hancock, DNP, MA, BSN
Your Vision Midwife, Lifestyle Entrepreneur
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