Why Belief, Not Information, Is What’s Actually Keeping You Stuck

Tracy Walker crossed the biggest financial milestone of her career inside Empower Network, walked off a stage in Miami five months pregnant, and then spent the next nine months with no idea what to do next. Not because the business stopped working. Because she’d spent years so focused on reaching that one marker that she never once planned for the morning after it happened. She stood in front of the Lake Las Vegas room and admitted it plainly: she didn’t have a next goal, and not knowing cost her most of a year.

What happens when you finally hit the goal and have nothing planned after it?

Walker’s timeline is specific enough to be useful. She reached the milestone on stage in front of a room full of witnesses, in what she calls one of the mystical moments, the kind that only counts, in her telling, because other people were there to see it happen and back the story up later. Her son was born that June. She gave herself a couple of months to focus on him, and by September she still hadn’t settled on her next niche or her angle. Two more months went by. Nothing published. Nothing pitched.

She names the actual mechanism plainly. Being unclear doesn’t just feel uncomfortable, it stops you from acting at all. If you don’t know where you’re going or how the pieces fit together, you do nothing, and the silence compounds. Her business kept paying her for a while on the strength of what she’d already built. But residual income only covers for you so long before the numbers start telling you the truth.

Why do we walk past the real opportunity to go pick up the ordinary one?

This is where she pulls out the image that carries the rest of the talk. Something genuinely rare doesn’t look like what people expect, so when it shows up, the instinct is to assume it’s fake and reach for the smaller, more familiar thing instead.

you saw a $10,000 bill what would your initial reaction be it’s fake

Walk a little further, she says, and you’d see an ordinary bill lying there too, and you’d step over the rare one to go pick up the familiar one, purely because you don’t believe the rare one could be real. That’s not really a comment about money. It’s a comment about belief, and about how many people already inside a legitimate opportunity still quietly treat it as too good to be true, and under-invest in it accordingly: skipping conversations, avoiding leaders, refusing to take the business as seriously as the results in front of them justify.

The reversal she’s pointing at is uncomfortable on purpose. The gap most people have isn’t information. It’s belief. And belief doesn’t show up because you finally read one more training. It shows up because you decide to act like the opportunity is real before you have full proof, which is the only way the proof ever arrives.

What do you do when your own success gets you labeled as something you never asked for?

Long before any of this, people had started calling Walker the blogging diva, and she resisted the label for reasons she still can’t fully explain. It bothered her even though blogging was, by her own account, the entire mechanism behind her leads, her recruiting, and the products she’d already built teaching other people to do it. She sat with the discomfort long enough to ask herself the harder question: what exactly was wrong with owning a skill she was visibly, demonstrably good at?

The answer she landed on is the real teaching underneath the story. Rejecting a label she’d earned was keeping her stuck in the exact uncertainty that was costing her income. So she made a decision. Whatever they wanted to call her, fine. She’d build her whole platform around the one skill she knew cold, and go teach it to rooms full of people, inside the business and out, who didn’t yet know enough to be embarrassed by their own gaps. Anyone in a room who knows even the basics of a blog, she points out, is already the expert compared to the people who don’t know what a blog is at all.

That reframe is worth keeping. Most people avoid claiming expertise because they’re quietly afraid someone in the audience already knows more. Walker’s answer is to stop measuring yourself against the room’s most advanced person and start measuring against the much larger room of people who haven’t started yet. That’s who actually needs to hear from you.

What actually has to be in place before you publish anything?

She closes with a simple structure, the four things a blog needs underneath it before any traffic tactic matters.

• A real foundation: a clear story, a defined niche, an actual point of view, so there’s something worth reading once someone arrives.
• A brand people recognize as yours: not a generic template, but your own images, your own header, your own voice, customized instead of copied.
• Content organized like a home, not a sales page: a place people can return to and get to know you, rather than a page built to extract an opt-in on the first visit.
• Visibility, earned last: the search terms, the guest posts, the syndication, the outreach, once the first three are actually true.

Skip a step and it shows. Chase visibility with no foundation and you attract attention with nothing behind it to hold someone’s interest. Build the foundation and skip the visibility and nobody ever finds the good work you did. As Walker puts it, “the amount of income that you generate is proportionate to the value that you deliver.” Value only compounds once all four pieces are actually in place, in that order.

The full session goes further than what’s above, including the full story of how she rebuilt her business the first time she lost nearly everything. Watch it in full, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

it is my distinct honor and pleasure to bring to the stage this morning to blow your mind the always amazing ever so powerful miss Tracy Walker have fun okay you can bring it down you have a seat how is everyone this morning now this is Vegas good thing we are in Lake Las Vegas but some of you have found a way to sneak over to that place called Las Vegas I know it so I hope you guys are awake you are aware and you're ready for what I'm gonna share this afternoon well this morning a couple of things can I have a whiteboard please and I don't know if my little video was there but we'll see Oh call for video when ready reading is fundamental all right so for those of you guys who don't know me my name is Tracy Walker I am a blogger I am a speaker I am the founder of well I can't give out any links so a Kalatu blog I am the creator of several marketing products trainings and programs I am the author of a book called the ultimate team building formula how many guys have that book and I've been featured on ABC News Chicago and Fox News Orlando and a couple of others they're all talking about what we're talking about in this room alright so it's my pleasure to be sharing with you over the next 45 to 60 minutes or so how I have been able to earn over seven figures in my first 27 months and empower network all through the power of what I'm an influencer all through what?

what blogging blogging you know blogging is one of those things that it's like it's like a $10,000 is there something as a $10,000 bill there is okay how often do you see them hardly ever right so if you were walking down you know the boulevard out there and and you saw a $10,000 bill what would your initial reaction be it's fake and if just a couple more feet beyond it you saw a $1 bill what would you think about that so do you realize that chances are you would step over the $10,000 bill to go and pick up the what $1 bill why because of your belief and I want to ask you how many of you are doing that every single day in your business avoiding people not connecting with different leaders not building are not pouring into relationships not taking your business seriously because you don't think it's real I don't know how much more real no blue still is right here that's not here Jake Ron call it that somebody they would blue still this little ring right here this thing is pretty real pretty real.

Right? And it's just ‑‑ it's just a symbol. A symbol of what can be. Right?

What is possible. So, I'm going to go over some things with you guys today in terms of how to structure ‑‑ how to structure your blogging. All right? I'm going to also share with you just a couple of stories as they come to me.

If you've ever heard me speak before, I do not ‑‑ or if you have, then you know that I do not, like, write this stuff out. I have a general frame of what I want to talk about. And then as I am led spiritually to deliver it, I do that. Okay?

So, I hope that's okay with you. I don't have a PowerPoint. But I do have a point. I have a point.

So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you guys a little bit of what I'm going to talk about today. So, I'm going to share with you guys a little bit of what I'm going to talk about today. The first one is I'm going to kind of bring this closer because I feel so far away from you guys with this over there. This time last year, I was five months pregnant.

And we were on a stage in Miami. And how many guys were there? Do you guys remember what happened in Miami? And do you remember I came out jumping all around?

And people were like, you can't my baby's gonna be okay. Now the irony is that he jumps all the time. He's constantly jumping and I wonder where he got that from. But that was a momentous occasion for me and for what I believe everyone who was physically in the room.

Because it was one of those mystical moments that Dave Wood talks about, right? A mystical moment where something that just doesn't seem like it could possibly happen does. And then not only does it happen, but there are others to bear witness to it. So if I write a blog about it, I have backup.

I have backup that it's true. And over this past year, can I be transparent with you guys? Over this past year, after making the accomplishment or reaching the accomplishment of crossing over a million dollars within Power Network, you know, I didn't have a next goal. I mean, I'm just gonna keep it real.

Right? This is what happens. And I'm probably not the only one. You guys let me know.

Usually we spend so much time focused on getting to this place. Right? Whatever this place is. And because we spend so much time thinking about, worrying about, considering, planning, hoping, wishing, praying, visualizing about this place, we almost get so consumed that we never even consider, well, what would I do once I reach that place?

What would be the next place? Right? So hit that point. And then it was like everything was like a blackout.

All of a sudden, I didn't really know how to fit in with my blogging. Right? I didn't know really what my USP was. My unique selling proposition.

You guys have heard of that? Okay. I really didn't know what my niche was really going to be at this point. Now, don't ask me why I think I needed to change it.

But all of this went through my head. Maybe it was because I had pregnant brain, too. Right? That's a possibility.

And so I really didn't worry about it. Right? Because I had a few more months and then Josiah was born in June. Right?

So then June, I'm like, well, I'm going to take a couple months off because clearly I need to focus on a newborn. So I did that. So now we're into September, which is obviously nine months past January. Right?

Or nine months into the year. And I still was not crystal clear on what I was going to do. Is there anybody in this room that has ever experienced not being crystal clear on something? Thank you for being so honest.

And what happened to me is that the result of being unclear caused me to not take action. You guys know what I'm talking about? So if you don't know where you're going, you're not sure where you fit in, you're not really certain on how this is all going to interlock together and how it's going to work, then ultimately you do nothing. So another two months go by.

right? And I'm like, oh, hell. Right? Something's got to happen.

Now, I will tell you that I aggressively built my business prior to all of this, right? So for me to not have to do a lot of active marketing for nine months, nine or ten months, I was still able to meet my obligations at home, still able to do the things I needed to do. And that's a phenomenal thing about having a residual income, is it not? But if you don't do something for long, it will start to decline and decline and decline and decline, right?

And then you get shaken up by the reality that your bank account numbers don't look like they used to look, right? And the income coming in doesn't look like it used to look. So I had this realization that I had to figure something out, and I had to figure it out quickly. Now, I'm going to tell you a little secret.

Prior to Empower Network, I was a blogger already, okay? Prior to. I knew David Wood before Empower Network, okay? And he was a blogger, and I was a blogger, too.

I generated 15 to 20 leads every single day from my blog prior to Empower Network. And I had to figure something out. Prior to Empower Network for a few years, okay? And I was able to stay on leader boards.

I was able to be on, you know, leadership teams inside of the different companies that I was in. And so I knew how to blog. But what happened is that people began to pin me as being like this blogging diva, right? And I didn't like that.

I don't know why. I just I felt like I was being boxed into a corner. So I resisted this branding people were giving me, right? Even though that's really how I made money, that's how I generated leads, that's how I recruited people, that's how I did everything.

I even taught people how to blog. I created a product all about blogging. But I didn't want anybody to call me the blogging diva. I don't know why.

So during this period of time where, you know, I was in, like, this nebulous cloud, I had to start asking myself some questions. What is the problem with being called the blogging diva? What is your issue? Right?

Like why are you tripping about that? Is there some type of negative connotation about that? What is wrong? And I had to accept that that was like a gift, a skill, I'll put it, that I had.

Right? And it was a skill that worked well for me and that I had to own it whether or not I wanted to be called something else. What else did I want to be called? I don't know.

I didn't have any suggestions. But I came to grips with, all right, what would happen if I embraced this? Because me rejecting it is causing me to remain in this state of uncertainty. And I'm not taking any action, let alone massive action.

Right? So I decided who cares if they call me the blogging diva. Whatever they want to call me, it's fine. I am going to focus on blogging.

I am going to create an entire fortress, I should say, around my team, around others who want to learn all about the power of blogging. And I'm going to do that. And then I am actually going to go out into different organizations, associations, corporate, whatever, and talk to people about the power of blogging. Now, here's what you may or may not know.

You guys, knowing as little or as much as you do about blogging, are experts compared to the people out there who don't even know what a blog is. Do you understand that? How many of you guys know what a blog is? All right.

Congratulations. You are now the expert. All right? And at the minimal amount, you're able to learn that for $25 a month.

Do you understand that? At the smallest level, you can learn that and you can build something for $25 a month. When you take that information that you're learning for $25 a month, and you put it aside into the other worlds, people are charging like $30,000 to teach this stuff. Right?

So everyone who moans and groans and bitches about, oh, it's $25. It'll work. It's this, it's that. I don't have time for that.

You know why? Because there are people that are willing, like corporations, organizations, associations, entrepreneurs, not struggling entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs who want to learn how to market and how to do it. And I know how to do it. And you do too.

So when you are faced with a situation where people are challenging what you're doing because the price point is low, you kind of have to just think about the people who need and desire what you have. Do you understand? Okay? There are people that need and desire what you have.

As a result of that, I made a decision. Right? I made a decision. And the decision was, they can call me the blogging diva if they want to.

They can do that. I even created a little sheet that when I send it out to people to go speak, I call myself that. Because I didn't know what else to call myself. Like a little fun term.

Okay. So that's what it was, right? Now there is some inherent risk with that. Right?

Some inherent risk is that what if now these are the games we play with ourselves, right? In our minds? What if I go out there to speak to these people and they already know everything I'm talking about? The chances of that are really slim.

First off, it's just a limiting self belief to cause you to remain s so that you don't go out there and do it because that's called risk. And if you have any level of risk intolerance . risk, intolerance risk, intolerance, risk, intolerance, right, or high level of risk intolerance, then you're going to resist going out, stepping out into new things, right? If you have a decent level of risk tolerance, you can very easily pose that question to yourself, but give yourself an answer that allows you to still move forward.

Understand that? There are going to always be times where you question things, but the ability to give yourself an answer that propels you forward and not leaves you standing still is what you want, is it not? You don't want to say, oh, my goodness, you know, what if everybody knows what I'm going to talk about? And then your response to yourself is, oh, then I just shouldn't do it because I don't want to look embarrassed.

The answer on the more optimistic side should be something like, well, if everybody knows what I'm talking about, then I can very easily ask them, hey, how many of you guys have made seven figures with your blog? Now, I doubt that the whole room is going to be able to honestly raise their hand, right? So there are people that know things, and there are people that think they know everything, and then there's you who are going to show them they don't know Jack, right? That's the power of what we have here, all right?

So I want you guys to take this information. I want you to utilize it, and then I don't want you to get stuck, right? I don't want you to get stuck. Don't worry about if people, you can't sign people up.

Don't worry about that. What you do is you produce. Producing means you blog. Producing means you generate.

Producing means you understand how to build your email list. Producing means you understand how to build rapport, build relationships with that list so that if you send out 15 emails in five minutes like Michelangelo, you too can have a sale, right? It means that you have to be competent in the area enough to know that if it can work for someone else, it can work for you, and there is value in that. And in due time, in due time, your value will be recognized in the marketplace, and you do need to be able to build relationships with that list.

So I want you guys to take this information, and I want you to know that the amount of income that you generate is proportionate to the value that you deliver where? To the marketplace. So if you're wondering why you don't have any money when it comes to your business, the question then is how much value are you giving to the marketplace? Are you sitting at home moaning and groaning, or are you actually getting out there after you get off of a hangout on Tuesday or Thursday, or after getting off of an Empower Hour call, blogging about it, putting a video together about it, or calling a group of people together in the form of an event to teach people what you just learned?

Which one are you doing? Right? Because I can promise you if you're sitting at home moaning and groaning, nobody wants to join that. And then if you do get a person on the phone, guess what they're going to do to you?

Moaning and groaning, you're going to be mad that they're moaning and groaning because you don't realize that you're moaning and groaning. And you attracted a moaner and a groaner. Right? It happens every time.

So when we talk about revolution, do you guys know what a revolution is? Well, it is happening now. When we talk about a revolution, there are things that we go through, right, that cause or create such a thing. Right?

And I talked to you about some of these phases already. I'll kind of go back and point them out to you. Remember before I had a realization about something, right? I was unclear and then I realized something.

After I realized this something, I had to make a decision about something. I had to come to a resolution, right? Realization, then resolution. Then after I decided this thing or to do this thing or take action on this thing, I had to understand that there is a certain level of risk.

risk. And upon a successful completion of the realization of the resolution of accepting the risk, thereby comes our revolution. Some of you guys got here and it was a risk. Right?

Some of you didn't have everything you needed, all the money, the hotel room, you didn't have the ticket, you didn't have your VIP ticket. Who's VIP for Sunday? Okay? Some of you guys didn't have your plane, you didn't have all these different things, and you viewed that as a perception of a lack of resources.

But if you live in this world that I live in where you know that there is an abundance of resources, then it's just about you locating them, not accepting or believing that there aren't any. Do you agree? Who does not agree? Because I was going to have you come up to the stage right now.

And we were going to duke it out. What happened? Furry don't start. So do we know the process of revolution?

Okay? Everybody usually goes through this process and I'm going over this with you because I want you to understand that if you find yourself in any of these phases you should smile and rejoice. Okay? You should smile and rejoice.

Because it is only… on the path to the revolution. And that is what you need, the change. Right?

You need the change. Now, what I'm going to do on this whiteboard is I'm going to talk about how you can do some things to possibly change your experience as you begin to blog. And I will tell you that it is not very difficult at all. What is required for you to generate the amount of income that you want, A, is your focus, and B, your consistency.

Here's an example. Oh, man, I want to lose 20 pounds. I'm going to start going to the gym on Monday. And today is Tuesday.

I'm going to start going to the gym on Monday. So, A, you're going to wait all the way until next week for what? Because in your mind, Monday is the beginning of the week, and it's a good benchmark. I mean, you know, people have all types of reasons.

Why not start the weight loss journey? Now. Because you still want to eat, eat, eat for the next seven days. That's why.

Right? You're not ready to take action. Right? So, we delay the inevitable.

Then Monday comes and something happens. Oh, my goodness. I didn't get up to go to the gym in the morning. My job called me in earlier, so I'm going to have to start next Monday.

Not Tuesday. Next Monday again. Okay. Okay.

I don't want you to be like that in your business. I want you to make a decision to do something, and then I want you to do it. Now, David says something very important, especially on a team hangout that he did with us a couple of weeks ago. Some of you guys were on that hangout.

Right? How many of you guys were on that hangout when Dave spoke to the dream team? Okay. So, one thing that he said, and he says it over and over, but it stood out in my mind then, more so than any other time.

He said, he doesn't keep making a decision. Right? He doesn't have to keep making a decision. If he makes the decision to be committed and follow the ACOR commitments, then he doesn't have to recommit on next Monday when it's time to get on Empower Hour Call.

There's a decision to make. The decision was already made to be committed to the ACOR commitments, which includes Empower Hour Call every Monday. So, I'm going to have to make a decision. So, if Empower Hour Call is every Monday, then you shouldn't be doing any or anything else outside of making sure that you can at least leverage the call.

Now, my stepdaughter has basketball games. She has basketball rehearsal. Rehearsal practice. Basketball rehearsal.

I grew up in dance. Right? So, it was dance rehearsal. Basketball practice.

And it happens on Mondays. Right? And sometimes I have to go to the game or go to the practice, and I have to listen to the Empower Hour in a very loud jump. But it is not an option for me to not listen to the call, because that would be a violation of my own commitment.

And if I violate my own commitment, inherently, it's hard for me to ask anybody on my team to remain committed, isn't it? It is like almost it's a tension within you, because you are not in full integrity. So, J. Crown mentioned building teams.

That's one of the things that's important to me in building a team is I don't ever ask my team to do anything that I have not already done or am not willing to go through the process with them on. At all. At all. I don't look at my team as my employees.

I don't look at them like I'm the boss and that they should be doing exactly what I say. What I do look at them is as a volunteer army and that they should be doing as I am doing. Now, if they don't do as I do, that's on them. Okay?

So, I want you to remain committed and focused and then remain consistent. When you start it, don't stop it in the middle because of resistance. If your goal is to blog for the 21-day blogging challenge, guess how many doggone days in a row you ought to be blogging without any excuses? God dog, what?

Oh, I didn't do my blog today, but I'm going to do seven tomorrow. No! See, this isn't about catch up. Like, there's no, nobody's grading you.

This isn't catch up work. This isn't I need to get all of my homework in so I can get my A. Like, where did you learn the catch up game? Right?

Think about your programming. Why are you trying to catch up if you missed three days of blogging? You start over. Because the challenge is about a consistent action every day over 21 days.

Not missing a day and trying to triple up on it to compensate for what you missed, that's not building the right habit. Do you understand that? Am I being, like, too harsh right now or something? Because I'm trying to explain to you that it's not hard.

What's hard is your willingness to follow through for various reasons amongst everyone here, right? And it doesn't really matter what the reasons are. to follow through. If you miss a day, the consequence of missing a day is you start over.

It's 21 days. It's blog every day for 21 days. Now, how many of you have done that and completed it in the first 21 days? Excellent.

Excellent. How many of you have started it then missed a day and like, oh, shoot, I got to start over? Be honest. How many of you have missed a day and then tried to catch up with four days?

Uh-huh. And how well does that work? Doesn't it put a little bit more pressure on you? And who's inflecting that pressure on you?

Yourself. Why are you doing that to yourself? Do you, listen, J. Cron doesn't play, but do you really think that he's going to come to your house, he's monitoring all the blogs, and because you missed a day, he is going to deactivate your blog account, he is going to cut you off from the commission genealogy.

And he is going to, he is going to reprimand you publicly at the next event. Right? There's all this stuff going on. Look, you start over.

Okay? That's my recommendation. Because until you build the muscle, it will remain weak. You got it?

Until you build the muscle, it will remain weak. You go to the gym two days and lift some weights, and you go home and your arm isn't buff, do you call the owner of the workout facility, or if you have a gym at home, do you call the manufacturer of the weight, and say, you know, I bought this 10 pound weight? And on the packaging of the weight, I saw a woman that was about 135 pounds. She was 5'6, her abs were ripped, her hair was pulled back in a pony tail with blond highlights.

And she was like, you know, Mar rien, life in my? And she had on, you know, Nike sneakers, and you promised me that if I bought this weight, I could be her. And because I did not manifest into her, I am going to write up a blog post, call your whole entity a scam, I'm going to go on a hangout about it, I'm going to call an event about it, I'm going to pull all the negative people who are still not looking like that woman on that box, I'm going to find them all, we're going to get together, and we're going to rally and have a revolution against you.

Now, here's the ironic thing about actions such as that. Before, when you didn't have the result, you were struggling to line up people to hear your story, weren't you? Before you didn't have the result, you were trying to figure out how you were going to get people to join your hangout. Now that you've decided…

Now that you've decided… Now that you've decided… decided to screw the owner of the company, you all of a sudden have this mouth, this voice that can post on Facebook, that can generate interest. You can invite people to an event, you can get people on a hangout, and you can get people to say all type of nasty things in which you make not one red cent from doing it.

But when you can make money with your own business on the exact same thing, you got scared. You didn't want to tell anybody about your business, but when you want to bash somebody else, you find a way to do it. Oh, excellent. Who said that?

Good. Do you understand? It's the same actions. It's just that when you're motivated to do it, all of a sudden it's simple.

When you're not motivated to do it because you think it's hard, you try to find all the little things outside of the simplicity of it to make it complex so that you won't do it anyway, so that you can then call it a scam and quit, and then round up everybody else on your Facebook thread. And now you guys are a little band of army that's broke all together. And do you think the people that are making money actually give a hoot? Because I see stuff like that at times.

Right? I see stuff like that, and, you know, I used to get really mad. I used to really, really, really get mad and want to defend what we have here. And then I had to recognize that there's no need to defend what we have.

It's crystal clear what we have. They know what we have, too. And that's what they're trying to round up. They're not afraid of other people because they're afraid that if other people catch on before them, then they'll be the lone soldier and they will look stupid.

Right? So all of that to say, it had nothing to do with anything. All of that to say, the consistency and the focus is what you want. Now, how many of you guys are going to agree to be focused starting next Monday?

Now. One, two, three. Now. Right.

It's now. It's not next Monday. All right. So we're going to talk about a couple things here really fast.

Oh, you know what? Let's do this. Can we show that video? Let's do the video real fast.

You guys want to see this short little video? Now, let me just kind of pre-frame this. Some of you may have experienced a video like this before. And if you have, keep your mouth shut.

Don't nudge your neighbor. Oh, look, what's going to happen? Right? Don't do that.

Right? Stop ruining everybody else's experience in life because you know everything. People have seen a movie you want to go see and they're telling you the movie. Shut up!

Don't tell me the movie. Just keep calm. Right? Be cool, calm, and collected.

And then for those of you that have not seen it, then I think it would be a wonderful little exercise. Okay. Let's roll the video. Do you guys like that?

Now, how many of you guys knew about the monkey before? What's that monkey business going on? How many guys knew about the monkey? Okay.

Now, of you guys that knew about the monkey, how many of you knew about the curtain? How many of you guys that knew about the curtain knew about the player on the black team leaving? And then those of you that it was completely brand new to, how many of you missed all of that? And you know what?

That is just a clear example of what I was just talking about, right? When you're focused on this over here so acutely, you're missing everything else. You're missing the reality that the $10,000 bill could actually be real. Like, you won't even pick up the $10,000 bill and the $1 bill just to be safe.

Like, what if it was real? You don't even wanna run the risk of being made fun of for having a $10,000 bill because you've never even seen one. You don't even know if it's real. So you don't even take the opportunity to pick up both bills.

You just skip, right? So I want you to be aware. So I wanted to do that with you, just kinda wake you up a little bit, kinda bring to reality that we miss things all the time. You know one thing, but you don't know other things.

Somebody sitting next to you might be a genius at something that you need help with, and if you just open your mouth and open your ears and listen, you might learn something. Do you guys agree? If you don't agree, then I'm sorry, too bad. All right, y'all got one more time with the monkey business.

Can you guys see that? What's that spell? What's that spell? What does that spell?

What's up? There you go. Now, we're gonna talk about each of these letters for a second. Gonna make it real easy for you.

Okay, I don't think I can get any more simpler than this. If you guys need it any more simpler than this, I don't know. I just can't make it any more simpler than this. Make it darker.

Come closer. Why I gotta be doing all that? Why you just can't come closer? I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding. Don't worry. You guys have to learn how to take jokes. Don't be so uptight.

Don't be such a blog. Is that a little better? Should I stick with the black market? What accent is that?

Is that the real accent from somewhere? I made it up. All right, all right. So, B.

B stands for booyah, my man Toby. Boo-yah. That was correct. No, I'm just kidding.

How did he know? What if it really did stand for that? You guys would think I was nuts. Okay, so B stands for building a strong foundation.

I don't care about how neat it is. Just get the point. You guys got it? Don't worry about the small things in life because the small things are what they are.

Small. Okay? Building a strong foundation. And this is all in relationship to blogging.

This is not about building a strong foundation in your life, your personal life, your kids. This is about blogging. So now, what are some things that you think you need to be, that you need to focus on to build a strong foundation in blogging? Consistency is about all of it.

Okay, I'm gonna keep it real. If you guys throw out something and it fits somewhere else, I'm gonna tell you it fits somewhere else. If I hear things that fit in the category, I'm gonna say that it goes in the category. Is that fair enough?

Okay, because we don't have time to yaki-daki around. Okay? Somebody said something over here. That's another category.

Okay, story, I heard that, right? We're talking about the foundation of the blog. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Story.

Target, did I hear that? Yes. Platform. Niche.

These are all correct. Passion, I like that. Nah, no, not yet. Brand, not yet.

Theme. Ah, not yet. These are all kind of like, and somebody said like grammar and all this stuff, right? That's true too.

Right, that's true too, but I am gonna assume that as a professional, that should be part of your life. I didn't say that it is executed properly. I said that I have to assume that you already should bring grammar and spelling and that, right? I'm not here to teach you how to spell.

You guys get that? Like, this is the problem that we have sometimes in Empower Network. People get started, they contact Toby as one of the leaders and they say, hey bro, can you just read over my blog and check it out, make sure it's okay for me? Mm, see, that's why I be super booyah.

That's not what we do here. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't help somebody out and do that, but that's not what I consider my role here. Okay, when it comes to foundation, I help people with that. I help people with these major things.

You need to work on your own grammar, spelling, get, hire you somebody off Elance to be an editor or proofreader for you. I'm not that. I'm not. Now, maybe your sponsor may be, I don't know.

I'm just telling you. These are the main things here. Vision, that's fine, yeah, that's good. Okay, so if you don't have anything to talk about, you don't have a story, you don't have anything of any relevance to anybody about anything, it's gonna be hard to blog, isn't it?

Some of you guys convinced yourself that's your problem, but that's really not your problem. You just don't wanna tell people what your true story is. You're afraid. Everybody in this room has a journey, has a story, and nobody has lived it any better than you.

Your target, your platform, your niche, your passion, your vision, right? These are the foundations of your blog. If your foundation is rocky and you start to create, right? If your foundation is rocky and you start to create, right?

If your foundation is rocky and you start to create, right? If your foundation is rocky and you start to create, right? Content with a lack of clarity in your niche, what happens? Content with a lack of clarity in your niche, what happens?

Not a clear message, right? One day you're writing about bees, and the next day you're writing about octopus. One day you're writing about State of the Union Address with President Obama, and then the next minute you're writing about monkey business, and somebody threw out consistency. Doesn't mean that you can't talk about different things.

It means that it needs to be structured in an orderly way. It means that it needs to be structured in an orderly way. But however, you need to have an idea of what these things are, the gist, so that you speak in a voice that resonates with the people that care about this stuff. You guys with me?

So I need you to get clear on this stuff. Who still needs to get clear on any of these things? Any of them? I want you tonight to get clear on it.

How do you get clear on it? Write it out. Real simple. You don't need a coach, you need to just do it.

What is your story? You wanna know my story? Here's the gist of my story. The gist of my story is this.

I am originally from Chicago, Illinois. I was born on the south side, right by the lake, South Shore Drive, 75th, you guys know. It's a little area, they call it TerraTown. It's the inner city, so they call it TerraTown.

Literally, okay? Now, I went to high school, a high-proc career academy. I graduated in the top 10 of my class. I went on to pursue my master's degree in business at Florida A&M University.

I attained a master's degree in business with a concentration in marketing in December of 1999. I did not have a job, but I had about $60,000 in loans and something I knew was not right. So I stayed in Tallahassee, Florida until I found a job. I moved up to Atlanta, Georgia.

I took on a position and after a year, they laid me off because September the 11th took place and my company went through a series of layoffs. Anybody ever been laid off before? How's that feel? So I took my severance pay.

And I started a real estate investment company. Here's the cool thing. My dad was introducing me to real estate during my graduate years and he would take me to these real estate conferences with him where I would learn about real estate on the side. And so when I was laid off, I took my severance and instead of just, you know, doing stupid stuff with it, I started investing into my real estate business.

So in 2002, started that company. And that was probably like May or June and then in August, I started doing some real estate. of 2002, that's not true, July of 2002, my mother called me. She was in Chicago.

She said that the doctor told her she had been diagnosed with stage four cancer. She had six months to live. August 2002, I packed up all my crap, drove back to Chicago indefinitely because I did not know what was going to happen. She lived longer than six months.

I think she lived like seven months or so, somewhere around there. And then March the 2nd of 2003, my mother passed away. The cool thing was that I held her hand. I was right there with her.

We had no regrets. And it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever experienced, although I miss her dearly. I took that time at that point to get even more serious about my real estate business. That business went on to grow where we were generating over $90,000 every single month in my business for about four years.

I built a house. I had several cars. We went on vacations and bought jewelry and did all this great stuff. And I was probably like 28, 29 years old.

I was like, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die.

So pretty young, right? And I did not anticipate the market doing its thing. 2006, it kind of went downward so that my income, my home went into foreclosure. My cars went into repossession.

I went into bankruptcy. I filed bankruptcy twice trying to save my home that I built and trying to spare my credit because, oh, my God, I love how many of you guys are attached to your credit score? Like, don't even lie. Right?

Oh, my God, my credit, my credit. And I was like that with my credit. Oh, don't mess with my credit. And then after foreclosure and bankruptcy and repossession, hell, you don't have no credit.

So why are you still worried about it? Screw the credit. I said, well, how about this? I'm going to get some money and not worry about the credit.

So I was introduced to home-based business network marketing in January of 2007 by a friend of mine who was a mortgage broker experiencing some of the same issues. So my first presentation, I signed up on a credit card, began doing presentations. That, I signed up on a Sunday. My sponsor put me in front of our team in Chicago in 48 hours, Tuesday.

And we had the largest growing team in the company. I was two days in. He threw me up there. We need you to present.

Why? Because nobody else knew how to present. Well, I didn't know the company, but I had to learn it and figure it out. And I presented every Tuesday, Thursday.

I did Saturday morning trainings for a year until I got burned out of driving all around Chicago, doing people's parties for them because they would tell me, oh, my God, you do this, you do that. You're so good. We could never do it like you. And I thought that that was a compliment.

Because I come from corporate. And then I realized in network marketing, oh, shit, that means you ain't never going to stop working. Because now everybody wants you to do their presentation and they won't learn it. So I'm driving all around Chicago trying to do these presentations and I got burned out.

Snow is up to my eyeballs. I'm sick and tired. It's cold. I'm putting on four layers of clothes to go get there.

It's a person, you, you're the only person in the room. You're drinking up all the drink. And then when I say it's $500, you got to wait until tax season, which is seven more months from now. And I'm just like, this is ridiculous.

Anybody know kind of what I'm talking about? I've been there, done it. Trust me. Several times.

Thus, 2008, I came to the internet and I said, there's got to be a way that I can record myself doing presentations and distribute this video as opposed to me driving all around. That was how I got introduced to the internet. I didn't come from a job. I came from a job.

I came from a job. I came from a job. I came from a job. I came from a job.

I came from a job. I came from a job. I came from a job. I came from a job.

I didn't come for leads. I didn't come for sales. I came for automation. And then I got stuck into the rabbit hole of leads and emails and all this stuff and getting on everybody's list and being confused as hell and not knowing what to do.

Anybody know that? Okay. Trust me. I got you.

So that's why I'm telling you right now. Well, you guys know the rest of the story. Like, you got it from there. Okay.

You got the gist. But if you don't have any of this stuff and you can't relate to people, it's going to be tough. So get clear on your foundation. Capisce?

All right. L stands for? Leverage. It says for who?

Love. I like that. But not for the blog formula. Leverage your brand.

Right? Or your and or your image. So people say, well, yeah, well, I got this thing, but I don't want to look like everybody else's. Well, now we got to show people how to customize it, don't we?

You guys know how to do that basic stuff? Do you realize people will pay you to do that? Not that you have to do that. I'm just saying you do understand that that skill is worth something.

Don't take it lightly. So now, what are some things about Kulatu that can help us leverage our brand and our image? Well, not really. I love the explanation, but no, not right here.

We're going to table that over to another category. Brand and image. Pictures. Come on, guys.

Don't make, this ain't rocket science. Some of y'all just so smart, just thinking simple sometimes is just like, okay. Okay. Video.

I heard logo. Header. Tagline. Guys, we are on brand and image.

Color. Theme. Do you guys have themes inside of Kulatu? Okay.

This is the gist. You get the gist, yes? You need to have this together. When you go to my blog, my blog does not look like anybody else's blog.

I'm sorry. It could be the same theme as the whole first row, but it doesn't look like anybody's in the first row. Right? It's about customization.

It's about taking a basic platform that you can build on and make your own without having to do it from scratch. So you understand that without themes that you can just plug into that you had to buy them generally before. If you want like the really good ones. You guys know that.

And the really good ones aren't like 50 cents. Even if you got a free blog. So don't get it twisted. You can have a free blog and you're going to pay for your theme.

And we don't have to do that in Kulatu. Do we? It's all included, right? Okay.

So. You guys know what you need to work on in terms of leveraging your brand and stuff, right? Oh, what does O stand for? What do you guys think?

Oh, now that nobody got nothing to say. Organize and create content. Come on, guys. It's the blog.

It's not a sales page. Like, I got to shift you guys a little bit. You guys, okay? You with me?

Your blog is your home. I said this a long time ago. Your blog is your home. Right?

And when someone comes to your home, do you make them an offer right away? Other than come in. If you want them there. You can make them an offer to beat it.

But my point is, we're building a place for people to come and get to know us. Yes? We're building a place for people to learn more about who we are, what we deliver, the value that we have. We're creating a location for people to find us anytime they want to, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Correct? We're building a place where people can interact with us through our videos, through our pictures, through our audio. They can look at… They can look at our family.

They can read our story. They can understand more about who we are. They might even be able to contact you via email or via your phone number. And when they call you or email you and they feel like they know you, then you'll be surprised when you're trying to figure out, well, I've never done it this easily before.

Right? Because you're so used to calling people and trying to beg people to join your deal. Organize and create content. So, what's her name?

Sandra. Can you please repeat what you were saying before? All right. We got it.

Sandra, we got it. You guys know 21 day blogging challenge, right? Now, there isn't another blog platform that I am aware of that has a little widget in there that pops up questions that you get to answer that then creates the crap for you. Come on now.

Stop acting like this is just some, you know, like you're used to this. Like you were born with a plug in like that. 21 day challenge helps most people who are new, get started, and even people that have been going for a while to maybe get recommitted, refocused, restructured, build a new habit, right? What else about organizing, creating content?

Categories. Keyword research. Keyword research. How many guys are not doing keyword research?

You're just kind of writing because you love to write. That's okay sometimes. But if you want people who you've never met to find you just randomly, make it worth your while. Make it worth your while.

Do some keyword research. Okay? So we'll say metadata. Somebody said analytics.

Kind of. But not really. What is it? Well, I'm going to go with keyword research for that because it's kind of like the same.

I like that. CTO. CTAs. Pages.

Indexing. Well, not really. Indexing. We'll save that one.

As if you don't know where it's going to go, we're going to get one more category. Okay. You guys got the gist. Yes?

Content. This is what you should be doing. Categories. Spelling and grammar, someone said, right?

My foundation. This is what you should be doing generally, okay? We can't do it all. You guys realize I only had an hour.

I don't have… I don't have seven days to stand up here and go through each of these things in detail with you. You got to do some elbow grease and some work on your own, okay? But I'm lining it out.

All right. G. I like that, but not right. Generate visibility.

Same thing, right? Generate visibility. We're going to generate leads. And we're going to generate sales here.

Right? Syndication. Social media. SEO.

Uh-huh. File sharing. Email marketing. Commenting.

What else? Guest blogging. There we go. You little pinger.

Uh-huh. Y'all going to make me get down low. Opt-in form. Who?

Oh, okay. Okay. So webinars. Okay.

Everything included in that. Who? Okay. Webinars, events, those type of things.

Okay. Gist. Yes. Okay.

Read them off. Syndication. Social media. SEO.

File sharing. Email marketing. Commenting. Guest blogging.

Indexing. Pinging. I put PPS. What the world is that?

PPC. Opt-in forms. Webinars. Live events.

Hangouts. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you see how this goes over here? Now, if you are trying to do this without this, people don't know who you are.

If you're trying to do this without this, your life is a living hell. If you try to do this without this, you have nothing to share. You guys get it? Amen.

You need all the pieces. Yes. in this order. That should be a breakthrough for some people.

B-L-O-G. Don't sign up and be like, oh, how do I get my blog out there? You don't even have a blog. You have nothing on it.

You have no branding. You have no content. What are you trying to hurry up and get out there and do? And attract who?

All the naysayers? Right? B-L-O-G. Does this help you guys just at least kind of pack it up a little bit?

Nice and neat. I want you guys to be blog savvy. Do you hear me? Be blog savvy.

All right. So, guys, listen. Here's the deal. This is a revolution, is it not?

Get on your feet. Get on your feet. Put your pens, pads down. It's over.

It's over. Let's decompress. Stand up. Fast.

Hurry. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

Now. Now. Now. Stand up.

Stand up. Stand up. One, two, three. One, two, three.

One, two, three. All right. Listen. This is what we're going to do.

I don't know what we're going to do. Oh, yes, I do. All right. So, guys, listen.

While you're standing on your feet, what I would like to do now, what I would like to do now is tell you a little story that I found. I found a little video. This person sent me a little video. And on this video, well, I met this person in person, right?

And it wasn't until after seeing the video that I learned something that I did not even know about the person as I stood right in their face. I learned that everybody has obstacles, right? Well, I knew that, but everyone's not willing to face them and overcome them. This gentleman has had some very tough trials and tribulations, as we all have in our own way.

But in this industry that we are in, we rely very heavily on our five senses, don't we? If you couldn't see the video, you would have to do it a different way. If you could not hear the Hangout or hear the audio or hear the video, you would have to do it a different way. And I want to hear what we're saying at the event.

Do you think it would be a little bit different how you would have to go about getting your business done? Well, this gentleman is what I discovered was a deaf missionary. And he is building this business after or before, during, and after having a surgery for his hearing. And this little video I put together, it was so awesome.

It says, if you're watching this video, then my surgery must have been a success. It must have been a success if you're watching it. And so we were sitting in the speaker's meeting the other day, and we sat across the hall or we sat across the aisle from one another. And upon looking at him, I had no idea.

I didn't even pay attention to the hearing device. It didn't even fade out. It didn't even fade out. It didn't even fade out.

It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out.

It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out.

It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out.

It didn't fade out. It didn't fade out. She said, Jocelyn. She said, Jocuckt!

It was likeśl excited yet to get up. 26 It was the Auricleic Answers Worldондl Montage. capacity where hearing was a challenge, meet the requirements to be an esteemed speaker on the Empower Network stage, and be as humble and as gracious as a gentle warrior, as the gentle warrior I believe that he really, really is. So if you guys could do me the honor of with as much energy, with as much passion, with as much love as you possibly can, please help me welcome to the stage Mr.

Miguel Borges.