“Mindset” has certainly moved into the forefront of popular culture in today’s day and age, with many people advocating for mental health and the ability to totally take control of your own life via your thought processes. The definition seems to differ based on schools of thought and perceptions – to some ‘mindset’ is maintaining a positive attitude towards life. To others, it is a deeply personal inquiry into why they function and perceive the world in a certain way.

Indeed, mindset has become a buzzword; splashed all over Instagram accounts worldwide and a trending topic among speakers and entrepreneurs.

But what does ‘mindset’ actually deal with and how can we use it to our advantage? How can we create a ‘better’ mindset?

To Joe Trodden, who we caught up with on our latest podcast episode, mindset is the biggest factor of success in entrepreneurs. “Mindset for me is everything – your full cognitive function. It’s not just a positive mental attitude, it’s everything that’s going on inside your head.”

Joe is the mindset king – founder of Mindset Experts and has personally coached over 300 entrepreneurs over the past few years to figure out what their exact strategy to scale is.

According to Joe, “we are born with predispositions to particular ways of thinking and that’s part of what mindset is all about… when you understand your approach to life then you can understand and appreciate other people’s approaches much more… when you find what your groove is… how you think… understanding yourself at that level is what mindset means to me.”

We asked Joe to give us some tips on how to start a mindset overhaul for someone who has never really delved into this topic before.

Open the door

According to Joe, most people have never even stopped to reflect on their cognitive style, their personality type or why they behave the way they do. “At the base level a lot of people are not ever even asked those questions… people have not thought in any depth about their particular thinking style… their mission on this planet…”

The first step is simply opening an honest and open inquiry and starting to ask yourself some questions about yourself, how you think, what your personality strengths and weaknesses are.

Do some personality tests online and see what you learn about yourself. Ask yourself; who am I? How do I perceive the world? What archetype does my personality and way of thinking fall under? Myers-Briggs is a great place to start, Human Design for those of you who are also into astrology and Carl Jung’s archetypes.

 Get clear on your mission

Once you’ve established your current mindset, the next thing to do is to really hone in on what you want to create in this life. What is your personal mission or vision or direction that you want to go in? Who would you like to become ultimately? Map out this vision for yourself.

Now, look at the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. What sorts of actions do you need to take, what behaviors can you cut out, in order to be aligned?

Joe says, “when you’re clear on ‘I want to take another step’, then you’ll start looking, you’ll notice things that you didn’t notice before and you’ll take another little half step towards it.”

Call yourself out

Many people want to create a better mindset or a better life, but do not hold themselves accountable or have someone in their life to hold them accountable. This is where Joe works his magic with his clients, “being able to point out those blind spots that you just can’t see”.

In order to grow, you need to be prepared to acknowledge that you do not see the whole picture and to give someone else explicit permission to challenge you and question you. It’s important to take things personally, and enlisting the help of a friend or a coach is a great way to hold yourself accountable.

The next step is taking that information and reflecting on it, at the very least on a weekly basis -“when you look at the gaps of people reaching their next level, it’s the awareness first, to reflect on their behaviors…”

Giveaway!

Joe is offering one lucky reader (who is about 2-4 years into their entrepreneurial journey with a team of less than 20) a free coaching session to think about the strategic approach in your business as a leader and enabling you to take things to the next level in your business.

Get in touch with Joe:

Website or  Linkedin 

As the online space gets more and more saturated and consumers are spoilt for choice, marketing, and advertising has never been more relevant or important for entrepreneurs, brands and public figures.

Advertising campaigns can be the make or break of your business.

Cleverly executed marketing or a successful advertising campaign can drive thousands of leads to your product/website/page which equates to more revenue.

What makes a campaign successful?

What makes for clever marketing?

What is the difference between paid or organic marketing and which one is best for the stage your business is in?

We caught up with Travis Chambers, founder of Chamber  Media – a media agency whose work has had 40 million views over Facebook and other channels, to talk about everything ad-related.

Travis is certainly an authority when it comes to marketing – he has been listed in Forbes 30 Under 30, founder of Chamber media was a speaker at Vidcon and numerous other events along with being featured in many renowned publications for the work he has done with ad and content strategy on digital platforms.

Travis tells us about the growth of advertising and how starting out he pre-anticipated the boom – “when I first started as an intern in advertising only 3% of all spending was digital, and now it’s over 50% … ten years ago I knew that was going to happen, so I focused all my energy there.”

Reflecting on Travis’ stellar industry experience which we discussed in the interview, we have compiled four of his top tips for creating a successful marketing strategy.

Know the vehicle and the strategy

Travis tells us about how much time he and his team spent getting to know the medium or platform they were using for any given campaign before they even thought about getting stuck into the creative aspect.

You need to know the ins and outs, the algorithms (if any) and how the platform operates. For instance, Facebook Ads has several rules about what you can and cannot include in ads, which you will want to be familiar with before putting together a campaign – eg. you cannot address the viewer directly using ‘you’ or imply anything about their character, race, personal preferences, religion, sex etc.

Knowing what types of content is favored and how the algorithm works is going to heavily influence your potential reach.

Identify demand where there’s short supply

If you want to be a good artist or creative, according to Travis, you have to develop an ability to identify demand where there’s a short supply and know-how to create that ‘thing’ that everyone wants.

“There’s a lot of starving artists out there, and what I always say is that the best artists were greater marketers than they were artists…” says Travis.

Know that you can’t please everyone

Creative direction is one of those things that not everyone is going to agree on, as personal preference often comes into play and everyone has their own artistic sensibility. And that’s okay!

Travis says it’s important to not try to please everyone – “It’s understanding – I’m going to make this and a lot of people aren’t going to like it, but some people are going to like it, and then if there are people who do, it’s a success.”

Don’t pay for ad campaigns unless you have money to experiment with

Travis recommends that you do not throw money at Facebook ads (or other ads) unless you have at least $4000 to experiment with, because it takes a lot of testing before you can fine-tune the details and determine what is really working. It also takes a decent amount of ad spend before your ads are able to gain traction, due to the algorithms they have in place. So if you are strapped for cash, it is better to use organic or non-paid marketing.

Giveaway!

Travis is giving away one lucky reader a 30-minute strategy call to look into your ad account and give you some creative ideas on what sort of ads you should make to get a better return on ad spend.

Connect with Travis

Email him at <tc@chamber.media> or visit his website here

Connect with Travis on Linked In

For most of the guests we bring onto Unconventional Life Show, life doesn’t happen in a seemingly random and disconnected fashion. 

There is an intricate tapestry of events, of interconnecting synchronicities that seem to weave through their lives and bring about the major opportunities, business breakthroughs, and personal growth that they share with our readers.

While it is easy to brush off these events and attribute them to ‘fate’, ‘luck’ or ‘coincidence’, there is a commonality in how the events appear and it becomes clear that serendipity is not purely based on any of these factors. It involves a level of awareness of the force that is active, a level of openness to receive the set of events that catapult things into motion. It involves some level of action or willingness to participate from the individual to which it appears.

So how, then, do you harness the force of serendipity in your life, to bring you success, opportunities and help you to navigate the challenging global landscape we find ourselves in currently?  

We caught up with John Storyk to discuss the role of serendipity in his monumental success as a registered architect, musician, acoustician and founding partner of WFDG, and why right now, more than ever before, remaining open to serendipity is important.

John began as a musician who grew his toolbelt from designing his first blues club – never having prior experience – to now having designed some 3500+ world-class audio and visual venues. He attributes his ability to remain open to the forces of serendipity –  “making sure your antennas are absolutely out at all times, ready to receive the coincidental set of events that are constantly happening…”  

We are moving into uncertain territory, with that comes great opportunity

John says “I’m trying to find the excitement in these times, while at the same time like everyone else being somewhat nervous… nobody on the planet that’s alive has seen this playbook…”

There is no doubt that these times are incredibly volatile and uncertain – however, with that volatility and constant flux, there comes many opportunities – “we’re in uncharted territories here and this will have to be solved one person at a time… in their own way”.

Entire industries, jobs, and careers will come out of these times that never existed before – there is a huge push to move things online, for instance. We have the opportunity to be solving problems in creative ways and creating solutions – “this is a great time for creative people to get more creative” – and nobody can say they don’t have an abundance of free time on their hands!

It’s demonstrating how fast things can move

The fast-changing nature of this pandemic shows us how quickly life can change, seemingly overnight, and has highlighted the constant flux of the world. In the same way, it has shown us how quickly things have the potential to change for the better, too.

John believes that you must remain open to catching your big ‘break’, even in these uncertain times, however it may come. “I can’t tell you how to get started, but I can tell you that in the next hour you could be bumping into something that’s going to change your life if you’re ready to make the bump… if you’re ready to listen to somebody… it could happen in the most unexpected ways…” 

Serendipity works in mysterious ways so make sure you’re remaining open to all possibilities!

The current climate is demonstrating our interconnectedness and how we are all in this together

Never before have we had such a deep sense of belonging to a global ‘community’ – this virus does not discriminate based on gender, race, age. We are all in this together, facing the same pandemic. Therefore, humans are all connected to each other in a network and things have the potential to spread, quickly!  

John tells us a story about how one person in a question and answer session bumped ahead of the queue to flag the idea of purchasing a $25 gift card for restaurants affected by the pandemic, and the result of that one person raising that idea if every person in the audience was to go and tell 50 people- “think about the implications of that one serendipitous moment…”

If you consider the networks you now have the ability to reach, you can see how one serendipitous conversation could lead to huge leaps forward, success, or developments. Or to helping to affect and change the world positively right now, in a time we need it more than ever. 

In summary, make sure you are flowing with the changes and remembering that life is “this wild dialogue between planning… and the John Lennon moment where life is what you don’t plan… “