Creative Warriors

Saving for your later years is the ultimate in making sure your hard work pays off. Yet oftentimes, the personal traits that make us great entrepreneurs are also traits which can make it difficult for us to save for retirement. In today’s conversation with guest Tara Nolan, we discuss retirement for the self-employed — perhaps not the sexiest of topics, but highly necessary! In this hopeful and judgement-free conversation, Tara and I talk about how we, as self-employed entrepreneurs, need to think about retirement and how to plan for it. We discuss topics including the importance of articulating your goals, having a vision vs. executing on that vision, managing shame about money management, and working with money management professionals. Tara also walks us through her 3-Step financial planning framework. As Tara says, “Where your money lives is more important than how much you have.”   Tara Nolan is a money strategist who supports women entrepreneurs and professionals (who have limited time due to business a

Imagine every week being a ‘winning week’ – a week in which you make real progress towards building the business and life of your dreams. Learn how to ‘win your week’ in this empowering conversation with Demir Bentley. We talk about avoiding a limiting mindset, leveraging a weekly plan, giving yourself flexibility, and most importantly, being productive in a humane way. So many of us chose to become self-employed in the first place to take control of the lifestyle we want to live. Productivity – humane productivity – helps us to sustain the lifestyle we want. Demir Bentley is a productivity expert as well as co-founder of the Lifehack Method. Through his multi-six figure productivity company, he serves as head coach, teaching clients hard-hitting efficiency techniques and proven accountability strategies that have helped clients generate millions in revenue while saving thousands of hours. In the past seven years, he’s helped more than 50,000 professionals, including executives from Facebook, Google, Uber and

Dealing with discounts is not easy but something we often face. Made more challenging by the fact that as self-employed business owners, we are often in one to one relationships. Here are some do and don't about discounts I think you'll find helpful.     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!     Take the Self-Employed Assessment! Ever feel like you're all over the place? Or frustrat

What does it mean to be truly fulfilled? And how does that differ from being happy? In this episode, featuring guest Tony Martignetti, we explore the notion of fulfillment. According to Tony, fulfillment is a mindset. As he says in his book, “Happiness and fulfillment are a place to come from, not a place to go to.” A pattern I’ve been noticing, especially post-pandemic and in the midst of the so-called “Great Resignation,” is people’s overarching desire to do substantial work. The desire to do substantial work ties directly to the desire to be fulfilled. Listen as Tony and I explore these topics in the context of our current environment. Tony Martignetti is a trusted advisor, coach, author, podcast host, and speaker. He brings together over 25 years of business and management experience to elevate leaders and equip them to navigate through change and unlock their true potential. He loves guiding people to find clarity in their lives, so they are energized, fully present, and fulfilled. When leaders unlock th

This episode is inspired by a wonderful quote by Wayne Dwyer - "Abundance is not something you acquire. It's something you tune into." In this episode, I share some strategies so that you can tune into all the abundance around you.     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!     Take the Self-Employed Assessment! Ever feel like you're all over the place? Or frustrated it seems like you

As self-employed business owners, we just keep going, and going, and going. But I don’t believe any of us is exempt from sometimes feeling stuck in a rut or drained of inspiration. In today’s episode, our guest Susie deVille helps us not only reclaim our sources of inspiration, but actually end up feeling buoyant! This buoyancy, resulting from inspiration, and which Susie describes as a “delicious lightness of being,” is actually something we can work at. And in being re-inspired, entrepreneurs like you and me can more fully enjoy our self-employed lives.   Susie deVille is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build wildly successful businesses by rediscovering their creativity and leveraging the power of their true nature. An author, coach, and entrepreneur who built and sold a highly profitable real estate firm, she has been researching innovation and creativity since 2005. She is the founder and CEO of the Innovation & Creativity Institute and trained as a coach with Dr. Martha Beck. Her first book, Buoy

Can you believe we're half way through the year already? It's a great time to check in and see where you're at as you enter the second half of the year. This has always been a valuable time of year for me to set forward a plan and I share four specific things for you to consider at this half year check-point.      Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!     Take the Self-Employed Assess

Ultimately, all business is about persuasion – persuading someone to choose your services, persuading someone to buy from you, etc. In fact, relationship-building in general is a form of persuasion. But persuasion does not have to be manipulative.  Rather, as today’s guest Karen Grill tells us, persuasion strategies allow us, as business owners, to effectively describe what our business offers, so that potential clients can see our products and services as solutions to their problems. As Karen says, “If you really believe in your product or service, you should be wanting to tell everybody what you do and how you can help them.” In this episode, Karen and I discuss the positive side of persuasion in business, and Karen teaches us the 8 Persuasion Levers.   Karen Grill is a Business Coach & Certified Persuasion Strategist.  Having started her first online business over 14 years ago, she knows the struggles of entrepreneurs and has created strategies to help businesses produce stellar results. She helps busi

We're not traditional businesses and rarely are we making a pitch to a bank to get funding for our businesses, so we tend to not need a traditional business model. But I keep getting asked for help with a business model. What most people really need is an action plan so I break it down into the four plans you need that collectively you could call it a business model. But more importantly, it's an action plan to get results for your business.     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Emp

I have always believed in the integration of mindset, purpose, and doing all the “inner work” as a main aspect of our self-employed business lives. I have always turned to personal development first in order to more effectively develop my business. Today’s episode is all about the importance of mindset…and about how the right mindset can help us to do the (seemingly) impossible. In my conversation with Jason Drees, we talk about strategy differences needed for “big” vs. “small” goals, how to adjust expectations, and the criticality of reframing your mindset.   Jason Drees is a husband, father of four boys, entrepreneur, author of Do the Impossible, speaker, and performance coach based in Austin, Texas. With over 10,000 hours of coaching sessions delivered in his career, Jason has an uncanny ability to rewire the mindsets of those he works with to achieve unprecedented results. Jason’s ever-expanding understanding of the power of mindset continues to push his clients to unlock their full potential and experien

Is it possible to decide that it is so, whatever it is that you imagine for yourself, and have it be true? I think it kind of is. But....it's very important to distinguish this idea of what our guest, Jason Drees describes in the next episode as Frame Shifting and "fake it till you make it." What I'm speaking about in this episode is not "fake it till you make it." Find out the difference and how you can shift into your real possibility.     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed

Maybe, like me, you have a love-hate relationship with email marketing, and yet as a small business owner, you acknowledge the importance of marketing emails. In this conversation with Rob and Kennedy, founders of EmailMarketingHeroes.com, we discuss how to make more sales and grow your business by sending out more emails…that people actually love receiving! In our discussion, we talk about the power of email marketing to build genuine relationships, the power of consistency, and the power of understanding what your customers really want to hear.    You might know Rob and Kennedy as hosts of the very entertaining podcast, The Email Marketing Show, or as the founders of the survey platform Response Suite. Red-haired Rob is a comedy stage hypnotist, and platinum-haired Kennedy is a psychological mind reader (or mentalist as they call it in the US). Rob and Kennedy have spent almost 18 years each relying on their skills of getting into other people's heads to carve out successful careers in show-business. Now as

Could it be that after all we've been through over the past couple of years that something positive can come of it? In a big way? In my experience, significant world events have always been followed by a shift in values in society that in hindsight, we realize was a really good thing. It's possible the shift we're seeing now is from mediocrity to substance.     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Chec

Self-employed individuals and small businesses are a critical part of the US economy. One important subset of self-employed businessperson, whose work uniquely impacts both the US economy and US lifestyle, is the “mompreneur.” In this episode, we’re joined by two mompreneurs who have founded their business specifically to support other mompreneurs and lifestyle brands. Join me in this invigorating and inspiring conversation with twins Dwayna Williams and Donna Morris, founders of TGND Consulting. In our conversation, we discuss the power of terminology, the challenges of overcoming stigmas, and the legitimacy and importance of mompreneur and lifestyle businesses as a specific type of self-employment.   TGND Consulting® is an agency providing public relations, brand imaging, and strategy to moms with lifestyle brands. With a passion for building a brand’s image through publicity, digital platforms, and style guides, twins Dwayna Williams and Donna Morris are taking over the PR industry! TGND’s mission is to gu

Today’s episode is a very special interview with my good friend and editor, AJ Harper, who has done more for raising the bar for writing good books than anyone I know. Generally, a ‘good’ book doesn’t simply function as a “better business card” or marketing tool for a personal brand or business. Rather, a ‘good’ book becomes a “must-read” that readers actively recommend to others. In this conversation, AJ shares her “reader-first” philosophy and her insights into how to write a perennial bestseller that truly serves your reading audience. Using her wealth of experience and knowledge, AJ talks us through how a book can become a “top three book” that changes lives (including your own!). She also gives us a sneak peek into her own new book, Write a Must Read.     AJ Harper is an editor and publishing strategist who helps authors write foundational books that enable them to build readership, grow their brand and make a significant impact on the world. As ghostwriter and as developmental editor, she has worked wit

There's no shortage of demands put on you between your personal life and owning your own business. The key is, can you get them to work together instead of in conflict? Here are some ideas to make it all easier and be at your best, delivering your peak performance. We need to think differently about this than those with traditional jobs. So here you go!     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it

Expounding on the theme of ‘creating your own good luck’ discussed in a recent episode, today my guest Jen Nash and I talk about how the things that so many of us want – career success, financial security, an exciting life, or just ‘getting lucky’ – may be achieved simply by the power of connection. If, like me, you don’t like “networking,” this enlightening conversation provides a helpful alternative. By looking at connection-building as a series of ordinary, everyday occurrences consisting of tiny connections – instead of as onerous “networking” activities – connecting with others to achieve big outcomes becomes unintimidating…and even fun!   Jen Nash helps us take a deeper look at how anyone can create deeper more powerful connections in modern life, one interaction at a time. She is an executive coach, facilitator, speaker, and author of The Big Power of Tiny Connections: How Small Interactions Spark Awesome Outcomes. Trained in the field of communication, Nash has a powerful grasp on what is required to

When you've been in business as long as I have and coached other business owners for 15+ years, you start to notice some cycles people get stuck in that are common and pretty predictable. I wonder if you'll recognize yourself in any one of these cycles. It might also help you to understand what's coming.     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!     Take the Self-Employed Assessment!

We may be given life, but life itself is not a given. It is to be earned. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith about what it means to live a deliberate life, avoid regret, and achieve an ‘earned life.’ For Dr. Goldsmith, an earned life occurs when our risks, efforts, and commitments are aligned with a higher purpose, regardless of the results. Those of us who are self-employed entrepreneurs are usually ambitious and focused on results. But in this fascinating conversation, Dr. Goldsmith wisely advises us to never base our self-worth on results, and never assume happiness comes from results. Rather, you can choose fulfillment, regardless of results.   Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a member of the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame. He is the only two-time Thinkers 50 #1 Leadership Thinker in the World. He has been ranked as the World’s #1 Executive Coach and Top Ten Business Thinker for eight years. Marshall was chosen as the inaugural winner of the Lifetime Award for Leadership by the Harvard Institute of

How do you even answer the question, "How do I get more customers?" That's a huge, open-ended question with many possible answers. So, I made a formula of it to help you see the big picture and break it down to actionable steps.     Contact Jeffrey –   Website Books Watch my TEDx LincolnSquare video and please share!       Valuable resources to help you –     The Self-Employed Business Institute You know you're really good at what you do. You're talented, you have a skill set. The problem is you're probably in a field where there is no business education. This is common amongst self-employed people! And, there's no business education out there for us! You also know that being self-employed is unique and you need better strategies, coaching, support, and accountability. The Self-Employed Business Institute, a five-month online education is exactly what you need. Check it out!     Take the Self-Employed Assessment! Ever feel like you're all over the place? Or frustrated it seems like you hav