Irrational Fear Destroyed a Family Vacation, How to Grow a Massive Newsletter Empire, and H.O.P.E.
How Just the Thought Of Marijuana Being in the Air Stopped a Man from Enjoying His Vacation… And What That Means For You.
Can you imagine spending time and money to plan a vacation, pack the whole family up, get in the car and head to your destination… only to end up so fearful about a concept that doesn’t even actually exist that you are too scared to leave your hotel room? Here’s a story about how irrational fears can dramatically affect our lives!
Here’s what happened:
We’re not going to mention any names here, but this is a true story.
A man and his family did just what we described above… however, as they were driving to their destination, he suddenly realized he was going into a state where marijuana was legal. This absolutely crippled him. We don’t know if he imagined clouds and clouds of smoky marijuana everywhere on the street or dark smoky restaurants and common rooms, but the thought of it terrified him so bad he wouldn’t leave his hotel room for days.
Why? ‘Cause it’s drugs?
Well, yes. But probably not why you think.
You see, he works for an agency that screens regularly for drugs in his system. He had this idea that if he was even around marijuana it could end up in a tox screen and cost him his job.
While most of us know this is a bit of a ridiculous concept, it had a very real impact on him, his nervous system… and subsequently his family and the vacation they were trying to enjoy.
In this situation, he completely lost his power and shut himself down over a false limiting belief.
This example is a little extreme, but it’s usually the extreme examples that enables us to see clearly that we are doing the exact same thing without realizing it!
Take a minute today and really think about where you may be shutting yourself down from reaching your full potential because of a limiting belief.
Look for labels you have put on yourself: “Well I am a school teacher so I could never be an influencer” or “people like me don’t become financially free” or “nobody in my family ever amounts to anything” type of things.
Once you come to the realization that these limiting beliefs are constructs of your own mind, you can leave your “hotel room” and create the life you desire and deserve!
Creating a Massive Newsletter Empire That 10x’s Content For 10x the Effectiveness
If you are reading or listening to this you are on the cutting edge of what we are literally up to in our business this week.
We have been writing this newsletter for about nine months and up until last week it has only been a newsletter.
As you may know from the last edition, we just launched an audible option. In addition to the audio of the newsletter, we also have a conversation around each bullet point. This allows us to deliver more information to you than we could within the confines of a written work (that would get waaaayyyyy too long)!
(Speaking of which: you can tune in and subscribe on Apple Podcasts here or on Spotify right here.)
So, we have this 5-Shot Friday newsletter and we can 10x all of the content within it for 10x the reach and effectiveness.
Here’s how:
First: We turned our newsletter into an audible version. This gives us another way to reach people who are not currently in our ecosystem and is also a way for people to get to know our personalities better.
Second: We are going to turn each newsletter into a blog post that will soon reside on a Bart & Sunny website. This gives our newsletter content SEO capabilities, a place for our content to live and be found forever, and offers another way for people to find and engage with us.
Third: We are going to create a big book at then end of the year with all our top performing value posts (voted on by you – the people who read or listen to the newsletter). This can then be a free + shipping offer or a bonus gift when people sign up for our programs, or simply a free lead magnet.
Fourth: We can repurpose all of the content in each of our newsletters for social media: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, YouTube shorts.
This structure is just the foundation for what is going to come next. Stay tuned next week as we talk about how to get people to opt-in to the free newsletter (how to get leads).
The week after that we will discuss how to monetize a newsletter!
Duende!! How A Greasy-Haired Old Woman With Veins in Her Legs Won the Flamenco Competition Against Young, Beautiful Women
Bright, beautifully colored dresses with young ladies primped and preened to perfection were dazzling to behold at the flamenco competition.
If you don’t know, flamenco is a type of dance where dancers try to express their deepest emotions by using body movements and facial expressions.
One by one the young ladies stepped up to compete. They stepped, turned, and stamped their feet with flair. Their movements were right on time with the rhythm of the music. Their dance was the dance of perfected technique and skill.
But then she walked into the competition: the old woman.
The old woman with the greasy hair and with veins showing in portions of her legs. The old woman who no longer stood as straight or looked as dazzling and perfect as the younger ladies she was surrounded by.
The old woman was soon called to take her turn in the competition.
She stepped out onto the stage. She stamped one foot, threw up her arms, threw back her head… and the house came down. The old woman had won the competition because she clearly had something none of the younger women had:
She had “duende.”
She had life. She had a creative, expressive force coursing through her entire body. Duende is the thing that gives you chills or makes you cry or smile. Duende is that spark that lights up the world around you. It is authenticity embodied within you and through you for what your life experiences have given you. It’s not the voice that sings, but the soul behind it.
As we search for purpose and meaning in our lives, let us remember that the great spark of creative life doesn’t come to just those who look perfectly. Who seem to act perfectly. Who spend hours and hours on technique alone.
It comes to those who welcome it – welcome life in all of its chaos, emotion, creativity, and messiness. Who accept life as is and become stronger through the scars they have been given. Who embrace the mystery of life to its fullest and then share what they have learned with empathy, intensity, and kindness just by “being.”
Here’s to Duende… and here’s to you!
H.O.P.E.and Finding The ONE Thing Every Day
Every single morning our members state their Passionate Why on the I Do Epic networking+accountability calls:
“To save children from a living hell”
“To financially set my family free and inspire anybody that comes from where I came from.”
“To empower those around me to ignite the magic within them by allowing my energy to flow fully and freely through everything that I do.”
“To joyfully embrace the journey of building my business so I can guide my kids through the process when they get there, to meaningfully enhance the motherhood experience for my generation and future generations.”
These are just a few of the WHY’s we get to hear every day and each and every one of them inspires us more than we can even begin to put into words.
Couple that with H.O.P.E.
We talked about this a few weeks ago, but our new initiative within I Do Epic is to Help One Person Every Day. As we live our our passionate WHYs of serving others, let us all remember that helping one person every day is a waterfall effect. It compounds as that person helps another who helps another and another, and so on.
It’s so easy to start small. Every Friday our members send five gratitude texts to the people in their lives. Just a simple text.
An example posted in our group:
“Hey bro, just wanted to tell ya that I love you.”
“I love you too I really needed to hear that today ❤️ ”
Our challenge to you today is to do the same thing. Take 10 minutes to send five gratitude texts to the people you are grateful for in your life!
Quick Bullet Updates of What We’re Up To:
• We are excited to announce that our little two-stoplight town just opened up our very own pickleball courts! There are four total courts – which isn’t nearly enough because they are already busy… but still better than none! This time of year is perfection for playing outside because the weather is absolutely perfect. Unfortunately, they haven’t hooked up the lights yet so we have to quit by about 6:30 PM or we’ll end up getting a ball to the eye!• We are celebrating the win of getting this newsletter live on Apple and Spotify! We have talked about having some sort of a podcast for over a year and it feels SO GOOD to have one up and running! More often than not we don’t stop to celebrate a milestone when one comes… so today we are!• Xander has his first band concert of the year coming up next week. Xander has been given an improvisation solo for jazz band. He is still new to improv so it does make him a little nervous, but we know he’ll crush it! It’s also the Halloween band concert, so all the students get to dress up in a costume. Last year Xander went as the famous baritone saxophone player Leo P. This year he is going as the Joker. We’ll post pics!• Our big Olde English Bulldogge, Dozer, turned nine on the 16th! He got to go out to the lake to sniff around and do some light walking. He got a big old bone from the store to enjoy. AND he got a steroid shot in his leg. Hopefully he will be walking better and enjoying his life to the fullest!
• Our daughter, Kenya (22) is coming home to visit this weekend! It will be Xander’s 14th birthday on the 23rd so she is coming to party with us. We are soooo excited to have her come home for a couple of days!
