Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Jack Canfield Monthly Phone Call

Interviewer: Alex Mondosian (sp?)

===========================
=== N O T E S ===
===========================

+ Bad economy: Can see it with fear, or as a chance for opportunity.
+ Holdays: Focus on what's important. Not necessarily money.
+ Can be giving your "presence" in addition to "presents".
+ Question: How do you get rid of fear?
+ F.E.A.R. = False Evidence Appearing Real,
Future Events Appearing Real,
Forget Everything And Run
+ Rather than thinking about catastrophe, assume things will turn out well.
No fear.
+ Exercise: Top of a skyscraper, on the edge, no railing. Most people
will assume the worst, and physically feel fear. If you believe you
can fly, you will have no fear, and imagine zooming around, landing
on a beautiful island, etc.
+ Exercise: Make a list of things "I'm afraid to...". After the list is
done, change the beginning to "I'd really like to, but I scare myself
into believing...". Replace fear of fantasy with positive outcome
fantasy. Then come up with a solution to get your ideal situation.
+ Another solution... stay in the present. Rather than going into the
future with positive or negative fantasies, ground yourself in the moment.
+ "Self confidence is the result of surviving a risk." Feel the fear, and
do it anyway.
+ emofree.com => tapping technique for releasing fear.
+ Question: Most important principles in this economic downturn...
+ Decide what you want. Okay to think (a little) about what you don't want.
But focus most of your attention on what you _DO_ want.
+ Challenge from Bob Proctor: Double your income in the next year.
+ Believe it's possible.
+ Stay focused.
+ Take action.
+ A lot of people get paralyzed by fear. Instead, make an action plan,
and break it down into action steps.
+ Answer the question "What's the greatest weakness I must overcome
to get what I want?"
+ Commit to constant and never-ending improvement.
+ Tighten all personal disciplines.
+ Find out what's needed by the people you serve, and provide what they need.
+ Keep focused on the vision.
+ 80/20 Rule: Determine what that 20% is that needs to be done to succeed.
+ REMINDER: Principle #1 = Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life
+ Question: Energy (how do you get more?)
+ "Your level of energy determines the quality of your life."
+ Sleep well.
+ Eat well.
+ Simple step... drink more water.
+ Exercise: Yogi breathing... 4 or 5 yogi breaths.
Yogi breath = Inhale 8 counts, Exhale 16 counts.
+ Question: How do you please others and stay true to yourself all the time?
+ Answer: You don't.
+ But the good news is that you'll please a lot of people while being true
to yourself. The ones you don't please... forget about it. Even when
you're not being true to yourself, people won't be pleased. So, which
option is best? Duh.
+ When people are upset with you... it's just noise.
+ Following your own joy is the way to attract the people and things you
need. You can't please everybody.
+ Exercise: For an entire week... do only what you want to do, for 16 hours
a day, 7 days a week. See what happens. You'll discover how many things
you're doing to please other people, and perhaps also how many more things
you will do for yourself that are also the best for those you love and
for the world.
+ This is for me, it's not against you, I'm just taking care of what I need to do.
+ Express yourself: What you want to express is coming up and trying to get out.
When you don't express it someway, that energy ferments itself in your body,
and becomes dis-ease.
+ Question: How do you determine what your services are worth?
+ Nobody knows what anything is worth.
+ You get what you think you're worth (or, better put, what you think you're
worth + what you ask for + what people are willing to pay).
+ Determine bottom and top (e.g., bottom = minimum I'm willing to leave my house for,
top = what I believe I'm worth when compared to others in the industry).
+ Example: A couple of therapists in La Jolla kept raising their fee by $25/hr
every month until people said, "Don't you think that's a bit much?"
+ Example: A musician had the idea that he wanted to work half as much, so he
doubled his fee and worked half as much.
+ Recommendation: Base fee on value rather than time.
+ Example: In his early days, Jack charged a daily fee (e.g., $3,000 / day).
A friend suggested charging a per person fee. When he did that, he wound
up making $20,000 / day.
+ Personal Example: Voiceover job for BigRock Studios. I agreed to an hourly
rate, and actually got "punished" for doing a good job. That is, it took
me 1 hour instead of 2. Had I agreed to a fixed price instead, or perhaps
a cost per minute of output, I would have made more money. Time was
irrelevant in this case.
+ Question: What self-esteem techniques or exercises for woman who's been raped or abused?
+ Answer: Complete the past to embrace the future.
+ "Total Truth Process".
+ Exercise: Release anger by banging a tennis racket against couch/bed/etc., while
yeling what's making you angry (e.g., "I'm angry that you made me feel powerless").
+ Answer the question, "Is there something you did that contributed to this?" (e.g.,
drinking too much and things got out of hand).
+ Release... however you get around to it, through the various stages, you eventually
have to release all of the baggage to get on with your life in a normal way.
+ If you keep beating yourself up over and over again by reliving the trauma, you're
doing more damage that the original perpetrators.
+ Closing Thoughts (from Jack and myself)...
+ Remember that money is only one facet of your life. There are so many things to
work on and appreciate that don't involve money. Sure, if you want more money...
you can have that, too. But don't let it consume you. The money will come.
Do what you love, do it with all of your heart, and the money will come.
But make sure to not let money control you and your situation. Live. Love.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Now on iTunes!


Joe Palen - Subject to Change

There's something special about being on iTunes. Yeah, I know there are thousands of musicians there already. And I'm not expecting to be a featured artist anytime soon. But that doesn't matter. This is iTunes we're talking about. It's special. I'm not going to try explaining it. All I know is that the first time I did a search and found myself there (only a couple of days ago), I got choked up. No exaggeration. While listening to the preview samples of my songs, I was brought to tears. Seeing my CD cover art, hearing the songs I've been mostly keeping to myself for all these years, and seeing the other artists linked to me by the "Listeners Also Bought" feature on the bottom of the screen... well, it all just washed over me in an overwhelming wave of emotion. There's no telling how many people will stumble into my songs while randomly roaming through the vast iTunes music library. But I do know one thing. There's a hell of a lot better chance of them finding me now than a couple of days ago. And an infinitely greater chance than a year ago... when all of my songs were stashed away in a bag in my closet.

Everybody Has An Audience (Yeah, I’m Talking to You!)

I've come to believe that everybody has an audience...

No matter what your craft might be.

It can be music, comedy, films... quilting, knitting, macrame... horse training, dog grooming, cat juggling...

Everybody has an audience.

You've just got to risk putting yourself out there...

Again and again...

And again...

And again.

Everybody has an audience.

It's a simple matter of mathematics.

I mean, there are over six billion people on the planet. And they're all looking for _something_.

Chances are, a lot of them are looking for you.

Not convinced? Then think about this...

You're on stage in a room with a hundred people in it. Do you think _one_ of those people would enjoy the results of your craft?

Just one in a hundred?

That's a real small percentage, isn't it? Just 1%, according to my calculations.

Well, that small percentage equates to 60 million people in the world.

I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty happy with an audience of that size.

In fact, I'd settle for half of that...

Which is only 1 in 200 people...

Or half of a person in 100...

But I digress...

Frequently.

The point is, you don't have to please everybody. In fact, you don't even have to please most people. Even pleasing 1% can lead to a pretty big audience...

If you put yourself out there enough.

So, don't get caught in the trap of "why would anybody be interested in what I do?". I'm speaking from experience. I was caught in that trap for years...

Got the scars to prove it.

Fresh scars.

I've only recently pulled myself out of that trap, and am finally starting to believe that maybe...

Just maybe...

Some of the six billion people strewn around this planet of ours might just enjoy whatever it is I'm putting out there.

It's not ego...

It's mathematics.

Sure, there's going to be a lot of people who don't like what you do. That's fine. They're just not "your people".

Don't worry about them. They're looking for somebody else. Don't take it personally.

In the meantime, your audience is looking for you.

Your audience is out there, somewhere, just dying to meet you.

And you're going to find that audience. Or, better yet, your audience is going to find you.

Everybody has an audience.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Music Anyone? (My Solo Debut)

Over thirty years in the making! Okay, so I haven't actually been working on it for thirty years, but I wrote some of the songs when I was a teenager. So technically, this project has been brewing for over 30 years.

Any day now, I'll finally be pushing this long-awaited debut over the goal-line by finishing the CD cover art... and officially releasing it into the wild (with the help of CD Baby, emusic, iTunes, MSN Music, MusicMatch, Napster, Rhapsody... etc., etc., etc.).

In the meantime, please check out the samples... and if you like any of them, I'd appreciate it if you'd help get the ball rolling by dropping some coins in the jukebox (so to speak)...