10 Ways to Relieve Stress on a Budget

Stress relief is something that is important for everyone to engage in from time to time. Our lives can introduce stress to us in many different ways. Sometimes stress can come from issues with money.

When stressing about finances, the last thing you would want to do is spend money on unnecessary things that you think you need in order to relieve stress. There are many ways to achieve stress relief without breaking the bank and causing more of a financial burden.

Relieving Stress Through Yoga

One of the best things you can do for stress relief is yoga. Yoga is a mentally and physically relaxing activity that has been practiced for many years. If you are trying to relieve stress without spending much money, yoga is a great option.

The main reason yoga relieves stress is because it relaxes your mind and your body. When your mind and body are relaxed, this attacks your high stress levels in order to make them lower.

On top of reducing stress levels, yoga is also extremely beneficial to your physical health. Yoga can improve heart health, increase flexibility and strength, and help with aches and pains.

Physical health is just as important as mental health when it comes to combating stress. If your physical health is declining, your mental health will follow, and vice versa. Practicing yoga improves both physical and mental health.

Yoga can also help you sleep better, which is a huge factor when it comes to stress relief. Not getting enough rest is detrimental to the physical and mental health of your body, which then causes stress.

This activity is easy to do on a budget. You don’t need any equipment to participate. All you would need is something to sit on top of, maybe a yoga mat if you have one or even a towel.

You can also go outside when doing yoga. Going outside is a great stress reliever by itself, but adding yoga to it would make your experience even more stress relieving.

Meditation for Stress Relief

Meditation is an easy and cost efficient option in stress relief. The reason meditation is great for those on a budget is because you don’t need any special equipment or materials to meditate.

You can meditate pretty much anywhere – your living room, your desk, your kitchen – even during your commute. Meditation consists of being mindful of the moment. This means letting go of thoughts about the future or past and just focusing on the present.

Focusing on the present moment is an amazing way to relieve stress because it clears your mind of unwanted thoughts about things like money problems or family issues that may be causing you a lot of worry.

Professionals recommend that you should spend forty minutes every day meditating. You could do this in twenty minute increments if you prefer. Just like yoga, you could also meditate outside for an extra boost of stress relief.

Limiting Technology Usage

Technology can easily become addicting. Scrolling mindlessly on social media apps for hours, playing games on the computer, and constantly checking up on the latest news can be a hard habit to break for most.

Using technology for pretty much everything has become very normalized in today’s world. However, some of the things you may come across online will do nothing but cause you stress.

There are a lot of depressing things online that can affect you mentally – even if you’re unaware of its detriment. Upsetting content can cause subconscious stress that is just as harmful as any other type of stress.

Limiting technology usage is also great for getting more sleep. Using your phone, computer, or TV before going to sleep can be appealing, but ultimately it can affect how much sleep you get and can lessen the quality of your sleep.

Technology reduces the amount of melatonin your body releases. Being able to naturally produce melatonin before bedtime is essential to making sure you get enough sleep at night.

Putting a limit on how much technology you use throughout the day is an easy way to relieve stress on a budget. Try to only use technology when necessary. If you use technology during relaxation, make sure you are mindful of what kind of content you’re exposing your mind to.

Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

Sleep is essential to keeping your stress levels down. It’s the only time your body can fully rest and recover from the activities you do during the day. Not getting enough quality sleep can severely affect your mood, judgement, memory, and stress levels.

The average adult needs seven or more hours of sleep every night. Some people may struggle with achieving this amount of sleep due to a variety of reasons. One way sleep is often lost is because of stress.

Stress can cause you to sleep less, but sleeping less can cause more stress. It can be a difficult balance to find for those who are dealing with stressful situations in their lives. One way you can try getting more sleep is by getting in bed earlier.

If you get in bed earlier than usual, you may be able to fall asleep at a time that would give you a beneficial amount of hours of sleep. For example, if you have to get up at 7, try getting in bed at 10 or 11. This would give you 1-2 hours to be able to fall asleep and still get 7 or more hours of rest.

Getting enough sleep reduces cortisol, the main stress hormone. Being on a good and healthy sleep schedule is a way to significantly reduce your stress levels without breaking the bank.

Reducing Stress by Going Outside

Going outdoors is a cheap and effective option in reducing stress levels. There’s a plethora of activities you can do outside that will all help significantly reduce stress in your life.

One thing you can do outside is take walks. Taking outdoor walks will be extremely cost efficient because you don’t need to go out of your way to buy any sort of special equipment.

Another thing you can do outside is swimming. Swimming is a great form of exercise, and exercise releases endorphins which reduces stress levels. You can swim in a pool, a nearby lake, or at a beach if you live near one.

If you have a bike, you can try looking for a bike trail in your area. Biking is a great form of outdoor exercise.

Decluttering and Organizing Your Space

When going through tough times, it can be easy to procrastinate tidying up your space. Stress is so physically and mentally draining that people often let their living or work space become extremely cluttered.

Letting your belongings pile up around you will do nothing but add loads of excess stress on top of whatever else you may be experiencing. Taking some time to organize your space will take some of that weight off of your shoulders.

Some may think that spending extra time decluttering could add more stress to an already stressful day. However, organizing is a short lived process that will only benefit you and decrease your stress levels in the long run.

When decluttering, try to break up your progress into parts. Taking on a bigger task without any sort of guide may easily become overwhelming and could cause you to not want to continue.

Make sure you only keep things you need. A helpful rule that many people use while getting rid of clutter is that if you haven’t used it in 6 months, it’s safe to toss that item out.

Organizing and decluttering your space is another budget friendly way to reduce stress, because it costs nothing to get rid of unneeded items that you have. If money is tight, you can also sell some of your own belongings.

How Writing Can Relieve Stress

Writing can be a great form of stress relief and self-expression that isn’t going to cost much. To write, you don’t need to buy materials that you don’t already have. You can write on a computer, your phone, or even just paper or a notepad.

Try writing about the things that are stressing you out. Putting your feelings down on paper may help you release that stress from your mind and clear all of the negative thoughts.

You can also try writing about things that you enjoy. Maybe you really love cooking. Write down some ideas for new recipes you could think of. Doing this will help you keep your mind focused on things that bring you joy, which will release endorphins and lower stress levels.

Spending Time with Others

When people get stressed and overwhelmed with things like projects for work, it can be easy to push spending time with those in their personal lives away. However, spending time with friends and family is crucial in decreasing stress levels.

Your personal life and relationships are just as important as your work life. Maybe you feel like you haven’t been spending enough time lately with the people in your life because you work too much or are out of town often.

Whenever you have free time, try to plan something fun and lighthearted you can do with your family or friends so that you can all spend time together doing those activities. This will help you keep your mind off of any stress and will also help strengthen relationships.

You could plan to do a movie night at home, a hike, going to a free museum, or going to a park. All of these things will cost little to no money, making them perfect options for spending time with loved ones without going out of your budget.

How to Create a Home Spa for Stress Relief

Many people turn to getting massages and facials at the spa when dealing with stress. However, going to the spa isn’t always the most budget friendly activity. Learning how to create your own at-home spa will save money while still giving you that self-care you need.

Set up your space to look spa-like. Making sure your surroundings are fit for relaxation is an important step in creating a home spa. Play some relaxing music and light some candles to really get that spa-like environment.

Next, whip up some DIY face masks. There are a ton of recipes out there including ingredients most people have at home such as avocado, oatmeal, yogurt, egg yolk, turmeric, honey, and even milk.

Another thing you can do for your home spa is to create a hair mask. Many people swear by using ingredients like coconut oil, mayonnaise, egg, apple cider vinegar, and yogurt in their hair to make it softer and promote hair growth.

You can also take a nice warm bath. Baths have been shown to reduce stress and anxiety by calming the nervous system. You can also throw in a bath bomb or some bath salts if you happen to have any lying around.

Deep Breathing to Relieve Stress

One form of stress relief is deep breathing. Practicing deep breathing can be done at any time, at any place. Professionals say that taking deep breaths has been shown to reduce stress levels significantly.

Deep breathing is so effective because it replicates the way you breathe when you are not stressed out. Feeling strong stress or anxiety, and even anger changes the patterns of your breathing.

Changing your breath pattern to longer inhales and exhales will trick your body into believing that you are already calm and free from any of the anger and anxiety you may be feeling during a stressful situation.

When doing deep breathing, it may help you more to be in a quiet environment where you can really just focus on getting your breathing right. Going outside, even for a short break, to practice deep breathing could help you even more with decreasing stress. Getting fresh air flowing through your lungs has been shown to reduce stress, and oxygen has been linked to increasing serotonin.

A Marketer’s Guide to Persuasion Profits

When you’re working to build an online empire as a marketer, you have many skills to learn – from technical steps to strategic ones. When it comes to technical issues, there’s little, if any wriggle room on how to do things.

But with strategy, you’ll find a wide range of views on what works best to do things like build a list, get someone to click a buy button, or follow through on some other call to action you desire.

One thing everyone can agree on, though, is that you need to master the art of persuasion. Whether you’re trying to convince someone to hand over their contact information in exchange for a free gift – or urging a consumer to buy your product before the price goes up, persuasion is what will make the endeavor a success or failure.

There are five primary things you need to understand when working on your ability to persuade your audience. Once you’re capable of grasping these issues, you’ll be able to put forth a formidable campaign that easily and quickly helps you convert your visitor with a specific action step.

Persuasion Starts with Credibility of the Source

The foundation of your ability to convince a stranger to do something with your online business lies in their opinion of the presence you have established on the Internet. If you have failed to create a brand, your visitor may not want to take the risk of spending money or investing in any way with you – even spending their time with you or giving their contact information to you.

If you have done the bare minimum to convince people of your niche expertise, they may decide to go with another leader who shows more commitment and dedication to their needs.

But if you have laid a strong foundation where you have showcased your knowledge, it will be easier for you to persuade your audience in whatever you want them to do. Consumers are always looking for credibility when they are considering spending money with someone.

Your credibility will be built with the things that you share in terms of content. But it’s also made up of other criteria. For example, the accuracy of the information you put out has to be high.

If you are guessing about things or slapping up content that is erroneous, your visitors will flee to another site because they won’t be able to trust your recommendations and advice.

Another thing they will be looking for is whether or not you are honest with them. There are many online marketers who engage in everything from telling little white lies to those who turn out to be complete scammers.

If you are creating a product or working as an affiliate marketer, it’s imperative that you learn how to persuade people without having to lie. Consumers can see through most lies and hype, and it will almost always backfire on you in the long run to be anything less than honest and ethical.

Another thing they will be looking for when trying to determine whether or not you are a credible resource is how well liked you are in the community. While it’s not a popularity contest, social proof gives consumers the peace of mind they need to go through with an action step that supports you.

Convert Visitors with a Targeted Message

One way you can connect with your visitors and persuade them to take action is to have a clear and concise message. Most of you who are reading this report have landed on a website or blog that was confusing, disorganized, and left you bewildered as to what you were supposed to do next.

Whether you are selling your own product or promoting something as an affiliate, you always want to start by conveying the benefits of the product or strategy before you cover the features.

People are almost always in a mindset of, “What’s in it for me?” They are focused on their own needs, and there is nothing wrong with that. So you want to paint the picture of how their life will improve if they take your advice.

When you get to the facts and key points to be made, you want to list them in order of importance to your prospective audience – like an inverted pyramid, with the biggest ones first.

You may even need to casually repeat certain main points that you want them to absorb to make sure the point gets across. If you’re writing sales copy, don’t focus on how long it needs to be, but rather what information your audience needs to know, which will be a mixture of details about a product and the emotional impact it will have on their life.

You always want to tap into the emotional response they will be focused on from the past, present, or future. You can convey empathy with them based on the emotions they have experienced that may include anger, frustration, sadness, confusion, fear, etc., but also where they are right in that moment – the split in the road where they get to possibly carve out a better future

When you are painting a picture for your audience, you want to ensure that you have a mixture of showcasing the pain you know they’re going through and what they will gain if they take your advice and follow through on the next step.

Keep in mind that many consumers can pick up on the tone that you are using in your content, whether it’s a blog post or sales copy. Make sure that your tone matches the goal that you have to persuade them to do something.

For example, if you want them to trust you and feel comfortable enough handing over their contact details to get on your list and be nurtured in their niche, then you don’t want to have a harsh and brutal tone that intimidates them.

There are some instances where a brutal and blunt tone of voice does work well. There are many people who want someone to not coddle them and instead push them toward their goals, such as weight loss.

You always want your content to come across as if you are writing to a friend, the reader. They should never feel that the content is for everyone, even though logically they know that it is.

Consumers Are Often Swayed By One Type of Medium

Persuasion is a strategic tool you can use in a variety of ways. In order to reach your audience, you have to be able to speak their language. In this case, it means conveying your message in a media format that they feel most comfortable with.

Different niche markets and demographics have different preferences, as do individuals within those groups. For example, people who have a short attention span often prefer to watch videos that are under three or 10 minutes in length.

There are some people who hate video, and instead prefer to read text so that they can skim at their own pace. You will also have those who prefer to see messages distilled in a single image, such as an infographic.

And others will turn to audio, such as a podcast or audiobook to hear the message without having to be focused on it visually at that time. Many people like to use audio to absorb information if they are multitasking, such as exercising, cleaning, commuting, or even relaxing in a bath.

Make sure that you take time to investigate the most common media formats for your niche. Not only will the niche itself often reflect a particular preference for video, text, images or audio, but you may find these preferences depend on where they are being placed.

For example, you may find that your target audience prefers and is more easily persuaded by text based content on your blog or on social media, but on sales pages, they convert higher with a video sales letter, or at least a hybrid version that includes text.

You’re going to need to analyze more than just the media format itself. For example, don’t just automatically assume that you can make a 20 minute video sales letter and have it convert as well as a text based sales letter.

It may turn out that your audience only responds positively to the persuasive efforts when the video is no more than 3 minutes total. If you are using text, many things can affect those conversions as well, including the font style that’s used, the size of the font and spacing, the length of your sentences and paragraphs, and more.

Positioning of Your Content Is Key to Conversions

The ability that you have to persuade people may depend on where you are trying to do it. For example, many people don’t like being persuaded to buy something directly in their email inbox.

They see it as spam in some cases. However, they may respond more positively if your email to them directs them to your blog, which is then shown to be a valuable piece of content that ultimately directs them to something for sale.

You’ll want to test the waters and see how your audience responds to your efforts of persuasion in many different places. For example, you’ll want to start by determining which social networking sites house your target audience.

You may find that you are able to create a thriving group on Facebook, and easily convince people on that site to take action on your advice. But when you go to Instagram and try to get the same reaction, it falls flat.

Persuasive content is used everywhere that you will be communicating with your audience online. You can start by practicing on your blog posts. Get in the habit of making sure you have generated a targeted message, as we previously discussed, and end each post with a call to action.

That doesn’t mean you have to be selling something in every blog post. But consumers like it when they walk away with a purpose after reading content that has inspired and motivated them to make changes.

Another place you can go to persuade your audience is on social sites and forums. Both of these platforms allow you to use relevant wording and connect with the audience in an emotional and factual manner.

It also allows you to enjoy what’s known as social proof. If you’re strictly trying to persuade people via email, there is no social proof that they can see that tells them others are following your leadership.

But on social media platforms, you will see like buttons, share buttons, and comments that all work to prove to your audience that others are taking your insight and advice seriously.

Leveling Up with an Analysis of Your Persuasive Efforts

As you begin methodically investing in your ability to persuade your target audience to take action, you want to make sure that you don’t ignore the results or assume you know the outcome.

You want to consistently tweak and alter what you are doing to see if you can improve your persuasion abilities. You may find that initially, everything you tried had a lackluster response.

But by split testing certain styles and strategies, you are able to begin gaining traction and getting the results that you want. You can do this with every aspect of your online communication.

From where you post to the tone of your content, the media format you choose and your own ability to grow your brand as a credible source – all of it will have a direct impact on whether your visitor walks away unimpressed or takes a leap of faith and engages with you as you requested.

You will find some things didn’t work at all, while others had a small, positive effect. You may have to abandon certain strategies, and take those that performed a little and tweak them until they are hitting it out of the ballpark for you.

You will have to track a variety of statistics, including bounce rates or heat maps of where your visitors are exiting your content so that you know what part of your sales copy or site is causing readers to abandon you.

Make sure you are always keeping an eye out for what your competitors are doing in the niche. You may find that some of them are utilizing a strategy, tone or slant that you had not considered yet.

That doesn’t mean you go and copy them. But it does give you insight into understanding what it is your target audience responds better to so that you can craft your own approach that is competitive in the marketplace.

Learning how to persuade people is something that may feel intimidating to newer online marketers. You may feel like an impostor trying to present yourself as a leading expert if you are just getting started.

However, unless you can muster up the confidence to put yourself out there as a competitive brand, and take the action steps needed to strategically improve your efforts, you will be unable to get the results that you want and need.

How to Persevere Through Setbacks as an Online Entrepreneur

All successful online entrepreneurs face setbacks. If you haven’t had one yet, it’s coming. The people who you discover once had an online business but quit after something negative happened, didn’t learn the power of perseverance.

You don’t have to be the entrepreneur with the most talent or knowledge. You just have to be someone who knows how to hang in there when setbacks hit. Being able to overcome obstacles, learn from mistakes and keep pursuing your dream is what will set you apart from those who fail.

Every Setback Can Become a Motivating Force

The problem with setbacks isn’t the situation itself. It’s how you respond to the situation. That’s why you’ll have some people who will endure many hard knocks when they start an online business and they go on to be wildly successful.

They learned to take that setback and allow it to motivate them. This goes back to the importance of a formidable mindset. If you think that a setback that occurs will stop you, then it will.

That’s because when many people have a setback, they just quit. They feel overwhelmed, don’t know what to try next or how to solve the problem. They might even feel shame or think the problem is insurmountable.

There’s no such thing as a problem that can’t be solved. It might not be solved the way you’d hoped it would, but it will reach a conclusion. But as an online entrepreneur, what you have to guard against is the fear.

As soon as a setback occurs a lot of people get scared. The fear sets in and they stop trying. Maybe they had a great idea for a product launch. So they went all in and set up the launch and were so excited when the day arrived that the product went live.

Then nothing happened. The product didn’t do well. Or, it got negative feedback. Maybe they announced their online business and were eagerly waiting for the hordes of people who would sign up for their list.

But when they checked the stats, they discovered that only one person signed up – and it was a relative or a friend. Or worse – not even family or friends signed up. That can make any entrepreneur feel like a failure.

If it happened to you, that setback can become your mountain. You suddenly don’t feel good enough. You feel like you can’t cross the street successfully, much less reach the top of this mountain that’s landed in the center of all your hopes as an entrepreneur.

There’s a reason why some roads in mountainous areas are tunneled through the mountain. It’s because there’s no way around the mountain, so the highway department went through it.

The mountain, which was the setback to travel progress, didn’t move – just the determination of the highway department did. The mountain motivated the people to find another way.

That’s how you need to look at every setback. So what if one setback happened and the idea or project didn’t work? Find another way. It’s okay if you don’t know what that way is right now.

You just need to forge ahead and concentrate on finding that other path instead of quitting. If you quit, you will never know how successful you could have been if you hadn’t.

Let the Setback Become Your Mentor

A setback never just happens. They’re not magically willed into existence and it’s not a matter of whether or not you were unlucky. There’s always a reason it occurs. As an entrepreneur, it’s up to you to find out why the setback happened.

When setbacks land in your lap and threaten to derail your progress, it’s due to an cumulative effect. For example, a project launch that flops isn’t because you launched on a Friday versus a Tuesday.

People still buy on Fridays. But if you were too busy to properly market the project then that could be the first step that headed toward a setback. Then if the designer, writer or ad manager you hired did a poor job working on or advertising the launch and it didn’t resonate well with the audience, that’s your second step.

If you throw in the towel because a setback happened, you need to take a hard look at your actions. You might feel that you did the best that you could. But did you really?

Examine the situation to see if you took shortcuts.

Did you accept that the product was good enough instead of doing your very best? Look to see if you actually knew what audience to gear the product launch toward. Setbacks aren’t your enemy.

They can become your mentor if you allow them to be. They can teach you to always have a plan B. If you’ve had a setback and it’s taught you how to be ready with another idea, another launch, another project, then the setback will have shown you that when one way doesn’t work, you adjust and move on.

When you experience a setback, it stings. It can feel awful. Setbacks can make you question your skills, your knowledge and your future as an entrepreneur. But they can also teach you that you will get through the emotions attached to a setback and be able to overcome the moment.

So the next time something goes wrong, you’ll be able to choose a path based on experience and you won’t be caught up in the emotional struggle. You’ll be able to look back and know that a setback doesn’t have to be the end.

Entrepreneurs will often associate failure with who they are personally but setbacks, when overcome, can show you how strong you are. They can test your level of determination, your motivation and your ability to think through hard things.

When you have a setback it can become a mentor that holds you accountable. They force you to look at every step to see what happened – what you shouldn’t have done as well as what you should have.

All of this helps you to be able to grow your business leadership. Setbacks help you learn to not make excuses when they happen, but to become the best leader that you can be. So allow yourself to learn from them.

Setbacks Make You a Better Entrepreneur

If you’re like most people, the thought of having to deal with a setback isn’t appealing in the least. That’s because no one likes trouble. Going through disappointment, failure and the stress it brings isn’t the number one item on anyone’s bucket list.

Once you let a setback be your mentor, a surprising thing will happen. It changes your character. You might have been someone who was always quick to hunt for reasons why a setback happened.

The reason you were searching was probably because you didn’t want to blame yourself. Avoiding the blame can allow you to have a pity party where you’re the guest of honor.

But here’s the thing about setbacks – they force you to make a decision. They make you discover what you’re made of. They disrupt your plans and shake you up. This is the fork in the road.

One way leads to giving up. The other way leads to digging in your heels, rolling up your sleeves and pushing back. You might think that this pushback is against the setback, but it’s not.

This fighting spirit that you discover during the hard situations is actually a refining process that’s building character. Every time a setback hits, you might not realize it, but you’re going through entrepreneurial growing pains.

These pains given to you by setbacks turn you into a better entrepreneur than you would have been without them. For example, an entrepreneur who’s never had to struggle with a lack of funding or income won’t know how to be as creative to get the job done as the person who has gone through that.

The entrepreneur who experienced a setback and didn’t get anyone to sign up for their list will take that failure and once they learn what went wrong, can go on to build a huge list of loyal customers who can hardly wait for the next launch.

You can’t prevent setbacks. That’s because there are no perfectly prepared entrepreneurs and there are no 100% foolproof business plans, ideas or launches. But it’s not the setback that gets in the way.

It’s your perspective on that setback. If you think that it’s the end of your online business, then it will be. The setback won’t argue with you. If, however, you have the right perspective, that setback can change the course of your business for the better.

For example, one launch flops. So you learn what went wrong, go back to the drawing board, make a new product and launch that. Because you applied the information you learned from the setback of the first launch, the second one is hugely successful.

So welcome the setbacks when they happen. Use them to improve going forward. This is often known as failing forward, in entrepreneurial circles. It’s a normal thing to fail, and nothing you should be ashamed of as long as you keep getting up to fight for your success.

Harness the Fear a Setback Brings

It’s perfectly normal for fear to develop when you have a setback. You put yourself out there and it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. Maybe your setback hit you hard financially.

Your online business is teetering on the edge of financial rock bottom. That can be scary – especially if you’ve poured every bit of your savings into it or if you left a good paying job to become your own boss.

When you’re fearful about money, the pressure starts to mount. It’s hard to think clearly and know what to do next. You may be afraid to take a new step because you’re scared that you’ll fail with that, too.

That’s the power of fear. It can bind you securely just like someone wrapped your body in ropes. You can’t move in any direction, and you just feel stuck. When this happens to some entrepreneurs, they hang in there, but they don’t take chances that could lead to success.

So they end up preventing their business from growing just because they’re afraid. Sometimes an entrepreneur will come up with an idea and they’ll spend a lot of time and effort turning that idea into a project or a resource.

But then a problem happens, and they start to doubt that their idea was any good to begin with. The setback has made them question whether they’re on the right track. Look at setbacks like this as opportunities to improve your idea.

If you quit on your idea because of a setback, there’s a good chance that later on, you might see someone with a similar idea who ends up becoming a success. A setback can hurt your self-esteem – make you question everything about yourself.

It can make you fearful that you don’t have what it takes. Harness that fear. Every time a setback occurs, find the strength in it. There’s always a strength in a setback. The problem itself isn’t the strength.

It’s the possibility of what it can do for you that contains the strength. Throughout history, there are countless people who harnessed the power of a setback. They’re in all walks of life – from sports to business ventures to people in the entertainment industry.

They’re not any better than you are. The only difference is when a setback happened, they turned fear into opportunity and used it to their advantage. The thing about a setback creating failure is that over time, you develop a tougher skin.

A setback becomes something that you’re able to shake off and the third or tenth or fiftieth time it happens, you’ve toughened up enough that you understand it’s just part of business and you no longer fear it.

Use Your Setback in a Positive Way for Your Business

When a setback happens, the first thing nearly everyone does is to focus on the negative. It becomes this big, sometimes life-altering thing that drags their emotions through the mud and leaves them wondering what to do now.

Rather than quitting when you’re faced with a setback, figure out how you’re going to make it a positive. This might be something that’s internal, such as it helps you with personal growth or it might be something that’s external – such as helping you make your business better.

Take the lessons that you learn from the setback and hold onto those. Let go of the negative side of a setback. You know the one. That nagging little voice that loves to say, “You failed” and instead switch that to, “Here’s something else I can try.”

Whenever a setback happens, it knocks your plan down temporarily, but what you might not realize is that it could very well be the exact thing that you need to change now so that your business is successful going forward.

For example, maybe the setback came along to teach you the power of not making excuses when things go wrong because in the future, it helps you to be a better leader. You may become someone who can accept responsibility and because of that, your entire team of employees knows how to not make excuses and instead, quickly corrects mistakes.

Setbacks can teach you to be honest. They force an entrepreneur to accept self-criticism or critiques about their business and not lie to themselves about their ability, knowledge or any of their efforts.

Before a setback happened, you may have been someone who made rash decisions – or you decided moves based on how you felt about something without knowing all the facts.

For example, some entrepreneurs hire family or friends just because of that relationship, even though the person may not be helpful for the business. A setback can teach you how to not make emotional choices, but instead to make choices that are determined by facts and to weigh the responsibility of those choices, so you do what’s best for your business.

Sometimes, a setback occurs because of a lacking talent or skill with the entrepreneur. For example, if you’re someone who’s terrible at record keeping and meeting deadlines, as an entrepreneur, that shortcoming can lead to disorganization and failure to meet launch deadlines.

You’ll get a reputation among your clients or customers as someone who can’t manage the business or as someone who can’t be relied on to deliver a product to market when you say you’re going to.

The setback in a situation like that can be used to teach you to keep better records and meet deadlines or to outsource that part of the business to someone else. Whatever setbacks occur in your business, learn to hang on through them no matter how difficult they might be.

They won’t last forever and you will come out on the other side a stronger, wiser entrepreneur. If it helps, take time to read the backstory of many famous entrepreneurs. You’ll usually find a pattern where they discuss the obstacles that almost held them back, but which they persevered through to their amazing success.

How Yoga Can Help with Your Physical and Mental Health

With just a little bit of research, you can find there are dozens of methods you can implement in your life that can improve your health. However, most of these methods are created so that they either help you physically or they help you mentally.

So you have to choose separate routines to find what you need. If you’re like most people, the thought of keeping up with one method is taxing enough, let alone trying to keep up with two different routines.

Most people are strapped for time, making this even more stressful. That’s why you need to give yoga a try. It works to improve both your physical and your mental health, and it can be done all in one sitting.

Yoga Has Long Been a Source of Relaxation and Stress Relief

Yoga isn’t anything new. It’s been around for many years and the origin of this practice comes from India. People in ancient times began to use it and as time went on, yoga became what it is today.

It’s a practice that can help the mind discover how to obtain better mental control and relief from the things that plague you. By bringing awareness, it allows the follower to develop a better inward observation that can be a source of relaxation and stress relief.

Eventually, yoga became more popular and in the late 1800s made an appearance in the United States, thanks to Swami Vivekananda. Today, it’s an effective method that works to help to ease anxiety.

When you feel anxious, it overwhelms you emotionally, and it affects you mentally. You’ll feel on edge like you have knots in your stomach. You may have trouble thinking clearly and struggle to stop worrisome thoughts from running wildly through your mind.

Yoga can help with anxiety because, as you perform the disciplines, it lowers the amount of stress you have. Whenever you feel anxious, you end up getting a flood of hormones which can make the anxiety that you feel worse.

But when you perform yoga, it lowers the hormones and calms you down. Yoga is also known as a great way to relieve stress. Many of the disciplines used in yoga are known to soothe the mind.

By learning the different actions, you gain the tools that you need to not only bring your stress back to a normal level, but you also learn how to bounce back quicker when you do experience stress.

Many of the methods used in yoga target both anxiety and stress. You can use these techniques to find relief. One of the methods that yoga teaches for this is breath control. It teaches users how to learn to breathe in deeply through the use of pranayama.

These breath control exercises can be the alternate nostril breathing, simhasana, kumbhaka and deep breathing yoga. These breathing exercises in yoga work well to clear the mind. After performing one of the breathing exercises, you’ll notice that the stress is gone and you feel more relaxed.

Physical Ailments Aided By the Use of Yoga

Mental health isn’t the only part of you that can benefit from the use of yoga. You can help what ails you physically as well. Practicing yoga can effectively help deal with medical conditions that are linked to stress or acerbated by stress.

It’s also known to help aid management and even prevention of diseases like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and more. Yoga is a good way to help lower weight, which is a known risk factor for developing certain medical conditions.

Because yoga is so effective at helping to alleviate stress, it can work to help deal with thyroid issues. Though it’s little, your thyroid gland is responsible for managing a great deal of how your body is able to function.

When it doesn’t work right, it can affect the entire body. Genetics play a role in thyroid problems and diseases, but so does stress. Many people don’t even know they have a thyroid condition because it’s such a silent physical ailment.

There are some physical symptoms – like weight gain or loss, hair loss, inability to tolerate cold, heart palpitations and more. By using yoga, you can boost the function of the thyroid by not only lessening the symptoms, but by relaxing the throat.

When you’re stressed and have thyroid issues, it can cause the thyroid to swell with inflammation and this puts pressure on the esophagus. Many people with thyroid problems complain that it’s difficult to sleep with the pressure they feel on their throat and yoga relieves that through stimulating the throat area.

There are many other conditions that yoga can help besides the thyroid. It’s known to help ease the pain associated with arthritis as well as help people who suffer from this with better mobility.

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome disease is something else that can be relieved through the use of yoga. People who have this condition tend to have a higher level of testosterone.

Practicing yoga lowers the amount of testosterone by nearly a third. Yoga can also help you improve ovulation that’s impeded by PCOS. Those who struggle with indigestion or acid reflux will find that yoga helps by improving flexibility of the abdominal muscles plus boosting digestion.

If you suffer from diabetes, yoga can help with that because it’s beneficial in aiding with blood sugar control. It does this by boosting the way that body deals with the disease. It can help regulate glucose and boost insulin receptors.

At the same time, regularly practicing yoga can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy BMI, which in turn helps improve many weight-related health issues such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and liver disease.

The disciplines of yoga can help your kidneys by boosting renal function. If you’re someone who suffers from headaches or migraines, yoga can help with that, too. Practicing the moves of yoga works to bring your blood pressure down, which is often one of the causes of headaches and migraines – even in people who usually have normal blood pressure levels.

Choosing the Best Type of Yoga for Your Health Needs

There are 13 different types of yoga that you can choose from for your health needs and each one is geared toward helping the body in a specific way. For example, one of the types is prenatal yoga.

This yoga was created just for pregnant women. If you’re expecting, you may want to choose this one because it can help not only keep you physically fit and relaxed before your child is born, but it also works to help stretch the body. If you’re not expecting, you don’t want this one because you don’t get the same level of poses because of the caution factor.

Hatha yoga is another yoga you might want to consider. The reason why you might want to pick this one is because it’s a good start for beginners. You don’t have to know any specific poses when you go in.

Plus, this one is good for people who may have some limited exercise ability because the moves aren’t as demanding as other types of yoga are. However, if you’re an advanced student of yoga, you may find this type is too easy for you.

Ashtanga yoga is a type that’s good for people who want to lose weight or get into shape. It can be used as an exercise program. However, because it’s more physically demanding, this type of yoga isn’t suitable for anyone who has joint problems in their ankles or knees. It’s also not a good choice for people who are couch potatoes.

Acro yoga is a form of yoga that was introduced in the early 2000s. It’s a mixture of yoga and aerobics. This type can be done with the help of another person, or you can perform the disciplines by yourself. You can choose this one if you’re a beginner, but you can also choose it if you’re more advanced.

Iyengar yoga is one that has an emphasis on holding a pose, doing poses in order and increasing the intensity of the pose. While it’s good for both beginners and the advanced, it’s not good for anyone with balance issues due to the length of time spent in holding each of the poses.

Aerial yoga is another one that’s a combination of yoga and something else. This one not only uses the exercises found in Pilates but also has a gymnastics flair. A suspended hammock type device is used to perform the poses.

What’s good about it is that the hammock can be used to support so it takes the strain off the back. People who should not use this type of yoga are those who have high blood pressure due to the postures used.

Yin Yoga is slower than some other types of yoga. When posing, the user will hold the pose for longer because the desired outcome of the discipline is not only mental relaxation, but to go further and aim for a full body relaxation.

If you’re someone who’s had lengthy struggles with anxiety or stress, this one is a good yoga choice. But if you have or have had problems with your back, you should avoid this one.

Jivamukti Yoga is one that not only focuses on exercise but also uses a more meditative approach that’s found in a spiritual style. This one is good for those who want to exercise, but want to do so by following specific tenets. It’s not good for those who don’t like meditation or a more spiritual slant.

Kundalini yoga is a yoga that taps into the energy you have and combines specific breathing exercises along with specific poses. Users will at times chant or sing while exercising and engaging in the poses.

While it’s good for those who are beginners, or advanced and for those looking for calmness and serenity, it’s not recommended for those who are not looking for a more physical yoga.

Anusara yoga isn’t one of the most used types of yoga. Though this form is helpful for flexibility, and can help with posture and strength, it’s not as disciplined as other forms of yoga. So those who are looking for a tougher workout won’t find it with this one.

Bikram yoga is also known by the label of hot yoga. These poses are performed in environments uses higher temperatures. The idea behind it is that it helps to relax the muscles and the body. It’s good for people who have stiff joints, but not for those who have trouble working out in higher temperatures.

Restorative yoga is one that’s great for people who struggle with stress or anxiety, especially if the stress is impacting your physical health. There are fewer poses to do and less physical effort. It’s great for people who aren’t used to working out, but should be avoided if your goal is building physical strength.

Vinyasa yoga is one that focuses on the flow of the postures. The movements are fluid and these poses are combined with breathing. You might want to choose this one if you’re looking to build your muscle strength but you would avoid it if you were looking for a form of yoga that ensures the moves are properly conducted.

Tips for Beginners Just Starting with Yoga

If you’re new to yoga, there are a few things you might want to keep in mind. It’s important that you make sure you’re comfortable while you’re doing the poses, but you also want to be sure that you’ve chosen the right one for you.

It’s okay to change if you get started and find that you don’t like one. Start by researching the various types of yoga and deciding if you’re going to do it at home or seek classes.

If you want a class, make sure you find a good teacher. Not everyone is qualified to teach yoga effectively. Know what you’re doing before you get started. It can be helpful if you familiarize yourself with some of the terms or the movements of whichever yoga you choose to do.

Make sure the clothes you wear for your workout fit comfortably without chafing. You’ll want to dress weather appropriate. When you first get started, you might find that you can’t do certain poses.

If you struggle to do so, then you’ll need to learn modifications. You can seek guidance from your yoga instructor or use helpful props to aid you. Go at your own pace. It’s not a race.

Take your time and learn the movements. Don’t do poses that you’re not physically comfortable doing. You don’t want to end up injuring yourself. Some people don’t view yoga as a way of working out.

It is, though – and just like traditional exercise routines, you have to make sure that you maintain proper electrolytes and stay hydrated. Know your limitations. Yoga isn’t about “pushing through” with any meditation or movement that bothers you physically or mentally. It’s okay to accept what works for you and let go of what doesn’t.

How to Shop for the Best Yoga Gear

It’s essential that you get the best yoga gear. The better the quality, the more durable the equipment will be. Not only that, but the better the gear is, the safer it will be for you to use.

Your clothing should be items that are breathable. You’ll need yoga pants or pants or shorts that are comfortable and allow for ease of movement. Avoid pants that are too tight or ones that have any type of protruding embellishments.

When choosing a yoga top, you’ll need one that’s not loose. Loose clothing worn as a shirt can be a hindrance when doing poses. Not only can the shirt rise up and impede your vision, but loose shirts can get tangled up in the movements and this can throw you off your movement or even block your vision if you’re upside down.

Make sure that you wear a form fitting bra so that you’re comfortable. You don’t want a loose bra that can chafe the skin and you also don’t want to wear an underwire. You can buy sports bras to use for yoga workouts.

You may also want to invest in a non-slip yoga headband to keep your hair out of your eyes and also to keep sweat from your forehead from running into your eyes. Yoga mats are an essential item regardless of the form of yoga you’re doing.

Not only do they provide padding, but they also can prevent you from falling. You’ll want a long lasting, nonslip mat. Pay attention to the length of use as well as traction feature of the mat that you purchase.

The type of foam that’s in the mat matters, too. You can find various thickness levels as well as various lengths. When making your choice, be sure to look for ones that are made of non-toxic materials.

Because you’ll be lying down for some yoga poses, you’ll also want to be sure your mat is long enough. Avoid cheap mats. To keep your mat neat and clean, you’ll want to either get a mat that comes with a carry bag or buy one separately.

One piece of equipment that helps with stability is a yoga block. These offer support when bending in certain poses like bending sideways or backwards. Another piece of equipment to consider is a yoga belt also known as a yoga strap. These can help you stretch and boost flexibility.

Engaging in yoga is a commitment to a form of exercise that can benefit you in many ways. It not only helps your body with mobility and other physical issues, but it works to calm your mind and bring peace to you on a daily basis.

You don’t need any fancy or expensive equipment, and you can do yoga routines that last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or more. Tailor it to your personal preferences and it will be something you look forward to regularly.

11 Ways to Make Money in the Metaverse

The Metaverse provides a way to bring virtual reality into socialization, gaming, and businesses around the world. Even though it’s fairly new, curiosity has driven more and more people into the many distinctive and entertaining aspects of the Metaverse.

Whether you love gaming, shopping, exploring, or creating, there is something for everyone to enjoy. As its popularity grows, the Metaverse has opened up new opportunities to make money from home.

Remote work is essential for many people, and there are many different paths to take in order to make a living from the Metaverse. You can make the most of your Metaverse experience by becoming a freelancer or entrepreneur in the virtual world.

Make Money as a Virtual Freelancer

The best part about freelancing is that your work is done on your time. With virtual reality added in, you can do your best work in the comfort of your own home. Since the Metaverse is constantly growing and expanding with new projects and ideas, you can rest assured knowing that there will always be a job for you to find.

Here are some of the most common freelance jobs that you’ll find in the Metaverse:

  • Coders

A world that is always expanding paves the way for an endless supply of coding jobs. If coding is easy for you to understand and you don’t mind completing hours of it, then there will always be a new job waiting for you.

The ability to code covers a smaller demographic of those involved in the Metaverse, so your knowledge and expertise will be needed by many people who need help, but don’t want to bring a fulltime employee onboard.

  • Graphic artists

As other entrepreneurs are creating Metaverse games and customizing their shops and advertisements, they will need graphic artists full of creativity and new ideas to make their virtual business stand out.

  • Interior designers

Virtual buildings and shops are being built and bought in the Metaverse, and these entrepreneurs may not have the time or the creativity to make their space look amazing. As a virtual interior designer, you can give them the ideas and a solid layout without even having to create props or build furniture yourself.

  • Architects

Virtual construction companies are getting involved in the creation of new buildings and terrains in the Metaverse. If you are an architect, you can guide them along the way and help businesses come up with unique ideas for the structure of their properties.

  • Writers

On any platform of social media on the Internet, content needs to be written. Information is supplied everywhere, and writers know how to shape sentences in order to make the content look the most appealing and have the greatest effect on their audience.

There are rules, subtitles, ads, articles, transcriptions, and ideas that all need to be edited or added into the Metaverse. For freelance writers, these smaller jobs are a great place to start.

  • Community managers

To keep things organized, community managers are always sought after. Their job is to engage with users, create events, engage with NFT communities to drive business, and create content for social media platforms that will drive users to the business or group that you work for.

Gain Money Gaming

Play to Earn (P2E) games give gamers the potential to make a living out of their time spent playing games in the Metaverse. The idea is simple: the more you play, the more you can earn.

In the Metaverse, gamers can embark on new quests or battles, find new treasures, and work together to fix any problems or issues that arise in the game. All of these different tasks can be rewarded with tokens that can be exchanged for real world money.

In the gaming section of the Metaverse, players have asset ownership, meaning they gain ownership over the unique collective items that they find or create in game. They can then coin these rare items as NFTs and exchange them for cryptocurrencies.

This allows the player to make a business out of collectibles and items they find along the quests or battles that they play. You can also earn money by investing in different guilds or general games with cryptocurrency.

These guilds will allow you to have access to rare and unique items found in gameplay that other people may have a more difficult time finding. If you are in the market to resell, this may be the route you want to take.

Spending time gaming is a fun way to make money, since gaming is already a hobby for many people in younger generations. But in order to make the most and be the most successful, you have to build a level of skill. In order to become a unique player and grow quickly in rank, you have to be the best of the best, which takes practice and time.

Generate Revenue Selling Art NFTs

As an artist, it can be a challenge to find ways to display and sell your art. It can be costly to get your artwork into different galleries and consignment shops, and you may not be able to make enough money in order to rely solely on your art as income.

In the Metaverse, you can create your own art gallery, and sell your artwork as NFTs. When you sell your artwork as an NFT, that person who digitally bought it becomes the sole owner of the digital piece.

If, over time, you become a well-known artist, the value of the digital piece you sold to that buyer will increase, almost as if they were an investor. And since the market for investors is always expanding, the idea of selling digital artwork has become popular throughout the Metaverse.

Since all of your art in the Metaverse would be digitally bought, you will be able to focus solely on graphic design and digital creation. This is also a great way to make a considerable amount of money through commissions.

Make a Profit Testing Products for the Metaverse

With so many new creators and entrepreneurs flooding into the Metaverse, there are beta versions that need to be tested consistently. Becoming a product or game tester in the Metaverse as a way to make money will be an interesting way to profit.

You won’t be as likely to get bored on the job, since you will constantly be testing new products and ideas. This also gives you an exclusive path into the Metaverse. You will know about new ideas and places before they officially go live, and you will be able to say that you were one of the first people to test things out.

Many different brands and businesses are testing out different ways to showcase their products and advertise their brand. You can supply your services as a pair of fresh eyes that can rate each appearance or advertisement.

Make Money Flipping Virtual Meta Real Estate

One of the fastest ways to make a larger sum of money is to flip virtual real estate. This method means that you purchase plots of virtual land and properties, and resell those plots at a higher price, or to the highest bidder.

Setting up an auction for the land you have acquired will help you accumulate the highest amount. If you want to hold on to your properties in the hopes that the market rises, you can consider renting out those properties to businesses or entrepreneurs in order to bring in a steady income.

And if you can become skilled and knowledgeable over the whole process of flipping virtual real estate, you will be able to get other companies and businesses to pay you to do the same thing for them, where you will get a percentage of the sale every time.

This is also a great method for those who are not willing to put as much money into the process. As a real estate broker, you can give out advice and tips to others who are looking to flip virtual real estate on their own.

Generate Revenue Creating Advertisements in the Metaverse

If you have already created a game or shop that does well in the Metaverse, different brands will pay well to have advertisements for their company displayed in your game or building.

The more popular your content is, the more you will be able to make. This is a great way to reap the benefits of your successful work by adding on an extra income. This is similar to how bloggers earn with ad revenue on their site.

You can also be an ad creator for other people. There will be all kinds of advertisements, from virtual billboards to interactive ads where the consumer is immersed in a situation with the brand and more.

Make Money Creating Virtual Clothing for Avatars

If you consider yourself a creative person and have an interest in fashion, creating virtual clothing is the job for you. You don’t have to have previous knowledge on sewing machines or knitting – you just have to have the ability to turn your ideas into virtual products.

You can make clothing for different games in the Metaverse, so that players can buy them from you as NFTs, and then customize their players in game. With so many different types of games in the Metaverse, you could fill your shop with themed outfits to match each game.

If you want to push for a more stylish approach, you could create fashionable items of clothing that you think would do well in the real world with today’s current trends. If they do well in your own personal store, you could try to sell them to bigger fashion companies and corporations that would test your clothing virtually.

This may lead to them creating the clothing in the real world and selling it, giving you a direct gateway into the fashion industry. The Metaverse holds many opportunities for creative individuals!

Earn a Living as a Virtual Tour Guide

You can earn money by helping businesses and entrepreneurs establish a virtual presence in the Metaverse. With a 360 camera, you can create virtual tours of different businesses and locations and share them in the Metaverse.

This will give people an immersive experience of different real world businesses before they decide to go to them. Different shops will pay you to take 360 photos and videos of their stores so that they can showcase their products in virtual reality.

Some businesses may own property in the Metaverse and want to create a shop in the area that they own or rent. If they want an exact replica of their real world shop, they will pay you to create a virtual tour using your camera, so that they can use it as their existing shop in the Metaverse.

If you are looking to branch away from promoting other businesses, you can take your 360 camera to different parks or landmarks, so that people can virtually embark on the same adventures as you.

You could even include advertisements (as mentioned earlier) in your virtual tours as another way to generate revenue.

Make Money Creating Games

In the Metaverse, there is a high demand for new games. As people burn through the smaller games and look toward more arcade-like ways to spend their time, the demand only grows.

The more interactive you can make the game, the more it will succeed. The Metaverse allows people from across the world to join together, so multiplayer games are often searched for as well.

Many gamers search for world building games that they can heavily invest their time in. Players like to immerse themselves into a game, almost as if they are a part of a completely different universe.

Gaining traction for your game requires advertisements and a community. People want to feel as though they are a part of something special, so try to build your game around a certain audience that is large enough to bring a wide variety of players in.

Gain Money Investing in Stock From a Specific Metaverse

You can invest in different stocks involved in the Metaverse. As always, this market can be unpredictable. Never invest more than what you are willing to lose. Here are some of the companies that are directly involved in worldbuilding in the Metaverse:

  • Microsoft

Microsoft’s goal is to link the professional world with the Metaverse. The company plans to release a version of their popular Microsoft Teams that includes lifelike avatars, so that you can meet virtually in a three dimensional setup.

  • Roblox

Roblox is a multiplayer Metaverse platform that has been online for years. Players of all ages can join a virtual reality world with a customized avatar. From pet simulators to arcade mini games, Roblox aims to “bring the world together through play” in the Metaverse.

  • Meta Platforms, Inc.

What was once known as Facebook Incorporated has now transformed into Meta Platforms. Since this complete rebranding, Meta Platforms has released a virtual reality Metaverse called Horizon Worlds, along with a new VR headset that has had a boost in sales recently.

  • Boeing

Boeing is planning on bridging the gap between humans and robots when it comes to communication in the workplace. They want to build airplanes in the virtual world, and bring innovation and ideas into a 3D atmosphere.

  • Autodesk Inc.

Autodesk covers the architectural side of the Metaverse. This company is coming up with new structures and concepts for buildings and businesses throughout the Metaverse.

Generate Revenue Streaming Your Metaverse Adventures

Content creation (especially if you already have a social media following) will be a great way to make money in the Metaverse. People are curious about the Metaverse, but a lot of them are unsure about what it is and how to participate in it.

As a content creator, you can provide a gateway for your viewers who are not quite ready to dive into the Metaverse. Here are a few ideas for topics that would draw viewers in:

  • Gaming

If you already have a gaming channel on Twitch or YouTube, then this is the route to take. You will be able to provide brand new content to your subscribers, and play new games with fun commentary.

There are plenty of unique games to try in the Metaverse, and each game will provide you with plenty of content for your live streams or uploads. If you are just getting started with gaming on social media, playing in the Metaverse will help you accumulate new views and subscribers quickly, since it is a new idea that many people are curious about.

  • Shopping

There are many different shops to explore, and you could tailor your content around the fashion industry in the Metaverse. You can try on fun clothing for your avatar, and create styling content to show off your creative fashion sense.

  • Traveling

There are many sights to see in the Metaverse. You can use your channel to show viewers some of the unique and incredible places to venture into. You can act as a sort of tour guide by giving highlights and locations for new users to find in the Metaverse.

  • Exploring Real Estate

Since there is an abundance of places for sale on the virtual real estate market, you can take your subscribers on a journey throughout the many buildings and businesses that the Metaverse has to offer.

You can build an audience of potential virtual real estate buyers this way. And many of your viewers will just be window shoppers who love to see what kind of real estate is out there.

The Metaverse, while exploding in popularity, is still in its infancy and is not yet a household name where everyone is familiar with it. This is the perfect time for you to pinpoint one or more ways you can earn from this platform and position yourself before it’s flooded with competitors.

You can even create info product courses that teach people how to use the Metaverse for fun, for profits as a business, or for educational purposes. You’ll have a hungry audience eager to learn, and you can put your course out in text or video format, or as a hybrid course that teaches people in multiple media formats.

Take time to get familiar with the Metaverse and find a niche service or product that best aligns with your skills and passions and you shouldn’t have any problem building a lucrative business there.

The Kentucky Derby Mint Julep Recipe

Kentucky Derby Mint Julep Recipe Blog Header

Wondering how to make a mint julep for the next Kentucky Derby? You’ve come to the right place! I’m sharing my Kentucky Derby Mint Julep recipe!

The History of the Mint Julep

It is thought that the Mint Julep is derived from the ancient Arabic and Persian drink called ‘Julab,’ meaning ‘rose water.’ 

Unsurprisingly that drink was made from crushed rose petals and water. When the recipe moved to the Mediterranean, the rose petals were replaced with the more commonly found and more economical mint leaves.

Soon after, an alcoholic version began to gain favor. Many spirits were used, such as vodka, rum, absinthe, the list was endless.

As the Mint Julep made it’s a voyage to America, the alcohol of choice was bourbon, and this is still the spirit most commonly thought of when requesting a Mint Julep. In the late 1700s, the average Southern planter would have a Mint Julep before breakfast as both a kick start and to ward off malaria. It is now the signature drink of the Kentucky Derby.

Mint Juleps have actually been made with just about every spirit there is. While the name changes with what is in it (mint mojito anyone?), an official mint julep like they serve at the Kentucky Derby is served with bourbon whiskey such as Woodford Reserve. Here’s how to make one!

How to Make a Mint Julep - Pinterest Pin

A Kentucky Derby Mint Julep Recipe

Here are the mint julep ingredients you’ll need:

  • Fresh mint leaves – 2 – 3 fresh leaves (increase if you like it more minty)
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar syrup – also known as simple syrup
  • 6 crushed ice cubes to make ice chips
  • 2-3 oz of bourbon whiskey – I would opt for the smoothest one possible!

Prep instructions:

  1. Put one sprig of mint leaves and sugar syrup in a small glass and mash together using a teaspoon. 
  2. For best results, you’ll want to leave the mixture to stand alone for about 5 minutes. This gives the mint and sugar syrup the chance to fully blend.
  3. Add the ice chips and bourbon. Decorate with the other sprig of mint.

That’s all there is to it! You now know how to make a mint julep for your next Kentucky Derby party!

Alternative Mint Julep Recipes

  • Frozen Mint Julep is a slush style drink. Put 6 mint leaves, 1 tablespoon of sugar syrup, 8 ice cubes, 2 measures of bourbon, and a tablespoon of lemon into a food processor and blend until slushy. Pour into a tall glass.
  • Brandy Julep: pour 2 measures of brandy, 1 teaspoon of sugar syrup, and 4 mint leaves over a tumbler of crushed ice.
  • Virgin Mint Julep: If you opt to make this a non alcoholic beverage you just need 1 sprig of mint along with a teaspoon or so of the simple syrup, a splash of lemon juice (about a teaspoon) and 3 oz or so of cola. Then, just add the ice chips, stir and serve

Final Touches

If you’re feeling fancy, you can add a little more to your Kentucky Derby Mint Julep Recipe. Here are a few examples of things you can decorate the glass with:

  • a sprig of mint
  • a slice of lemon
  • a slice of orange
  • a slice of pineapple
  • a slice of cucumber
  • raspberries
  • Strawberries

If you like Mint Juleps, you might also like Mojitos, another mint-based drink with a completely different history. But for now, if you dream of sitting in a rocking chair on a veranda in the Deep South as the sun sets at the end of a long, heady hot day, then my Mint Julep recipe should be your cocktail of choice.

Using Audio Social Media Apps in Your Online Business

As more and more people turn towards social media to socialize with others, popularity over the idea of sharing ideas and building a platform online has only grown. Socialization on the Internet started out with text based chats, and then grew when multimedia platforms like Facebook were launched.

People would share photos and captions that showcased their lives and personal thoughts about the world. Then, video creation grew in popularity and became a main form of content creation throughout many social media apps.

Each social site would adapt and come up with new features that focused on shorter video production. As more and more people begin to focus on becoming creators and entrepreneurs in the online world, they’ll have to learn how to evolve with content trends.

Audio social media sites enable people to take in new content and ideas while working on the things that they need to focus on, completing two tasks at once. This opens up a completely new world for content creators.

These audio sites have been bringing in a huge increase in traffic, which gives businesses and entrepreneurs a new platform to take on. While other niche marketers are still stuck on Facebook, you can position yourself as a top leader on audio socials that have a hungry target audience.

Use Social Audio to Conduct Market Research

When you join an audio social media app, you gain the opportunity to conduct market research in order to learn more about your target audience. You don’t even have to participate in the discussions.

Just join different rooms or groups that are talking about topics that pertain to your business and career. This is a free way to gather information about your audience, and to learn how to become as approachable and as efficient as you can be.

Taking advantage of the opportunities that audio social media apps produce will be rewarding for your business as an entrepreneur. Listen in on real time live conversations with those who fit your audience.

Take notes on their desires and dislikes, so that you can build your business into something that makes a majority of your target audience happy. Focus on what problems they have with products or ideas that are a part of your business, and work to cater to their needs.

This method requires patience. You may hear things you don’t want to hear, and it can be challenging to accept negative opinions about your own business or the niche that your content fits.

But the importance of this method is to observe and listen, and make sure your followers’ opinions are heard. You can ask questions, but spend some time gather information instead of entering an audio room just to hear yourself speak.

Build a Rapport with Your Audience

Building a solid rapport with your audience is essential when searching for a loyal audience that will always support you and your entrepreneurial endeavors. There are a few methods you can try in order to establish a relationship with your audience.

Personalize your brand. Your business and brand needs a human presence behind it, so that people can feel more connected to your goals and overall mission. Putting a voice out there and talking about your passions and goals will draw people in.

Everyone loves to see someone succeed when they have worked hard to get to where they are. Allow your viewers to see the full picture of why you do what you do. You can be transparent and share your previous struggles to show vulnerability and how strong you are now.

Build a bond with your followers. Interact with your followers to let them know that you care about what they think, so that they feel as if the relationship goes both ways. And if you show genuine kindness and support towards the people who support you, it will be a strong bond that won’t ever become one-sided.

It doesn’t hurt to become friends with those who want you to succeed, and you may find some people who can help you along the way that you wouldn’t have had by your side without the effort coming from you.

Share personal advice and experiences. If you have been working on your business and career for awhile, you will have insight on getting started and mistakes to avoid along the way.

You can share your journey with others and the things you have learned, which will likely inspire others and bring in an audience that admires you. You can earn other people’s respect when you show your credibility as a creator.

You can also use audio social media sites as a place to share experiences and advice with other creators in a type of collaboration. This is a great way to network for cross-promotion opportunities, guest blogging and even product partnerships.

Interact with your audience to answer their concerns. People will always have questions, and some may be skeptical about supporting a business or creator that they don’t know enough about.

When you work to answer your audience’s questions truthfully and informatively, it will give them more of a reason to give you their full support and attention. With audio social apps, it’s a live interaction, so you can have a back-and-forth conversation that really helps your listener.

Build a close-knit community. Establishing a type of exclusivity with your audience will make other people want to join in. Using live rooms to build unique experiences can make other members want to tune in so they don’t end up hearing how they “should have been there” to hear the funny jokes and interesting stories that you shared.

Make your audience feel like they are special and show them your appreciation so that they can feel as if they are a part of something incredible. Make your schedule known so people can set aside time to attend an audio event you’ve set up.

How to Use Clubhouse to Your Advantage

Clubhouse is an app that offers a space to discuss a wide variety of topics with people around the world, with only one major rule: you can only use your voice. With no camera or text option, you are left to improve your speech and communicate your thoughts and opinions as you would with in-person conversations.

This walkthrough will help you get things started so that you can make the most of social audio. First, get set up. You need to sign up as a creator through the app (which can be found for both Android and iOS) with your full name and phone number.

Customize your personal profile. In order to draw others in and grow your engagement, it’s recommended that you create a bio and include a friendly profile photo that will make you seem more personable.

Create a club. When you create your own club, you can begin to market and build on your brand. Make sure that you fully customize your club to show everything that your business or brand is about, so that the niche your business fits will be shown.

Once you’re set up, you’ll start using the app. Invite people to join your club that you’ve created. If you know of any members who may be interested in your business, or even have some friends or colleagues who are willing to join and set a base following for you, make sure to invite them.

Finding an initial following may be challenging at first. Set up your first meetup or show. Setting up a meetup will allow members to converse with you about your business and the topic of your creator niche.

This could be helpful with building a community and answering any frequently asked questions that may come up along the way. Setting up a show is a great way to build a following by talking about your product and giving members as much information on that topic as possible.

You will be able to host a show that will be informative and draw people into your business. Host more events, meetups, and shows over time. Don’t make it a one time occurrence.

Your members and guests will have something to look forward to when you schedule new events, meetups, and shows for them to attend and it gives them time to think of questions.

You can talk about products or different topics that go along with your business, so that you can reach a wider audience. You also need to consider strategies for the marketing aspect of Clubhouse.

Attend other events and join other creator’s clubs. This will allow you to market with other creators that may have similar businesses and goals in mind. You may be able to talk to other creators and learn strategies or helpful tips, and it could bring some valuable friendships or partnerships into your life.

As you communicate with others in the same industry, you’ll be able to gain a larger audience as well. Collaborate with other creators. If you join a room and get along well with the creator who has a business similar to yours, you may want to consider co-hosting some events or meetings.

This method will be beneficial for both of you, since you will be able to join your audiences together. Make sure you know and trust the other individual because you don’t want to be associated with someone consumers find untrustworthy.

Spotify’s Greenroom Isn’t Just for Musicians

Spotify’s Greenroom is another social media app that utilizes live audio feeds to bring people together based on their interests. Besides niche leader, this app is also targeted towards musicians who can use this addition of Spotify to connect with fans.

There was an app called Locker Room that focused more on sports, but Spotify bought it and used the original coding to develop Greenroom. This walkthrough will take you through the steps of getting set up, and reaping the full benefits of this audio social media app.

Get set up by connecting your Spotify account. If you have a Spotify account, you can easily login and continue on. Greenroom utilizes Spotify’s personalization strategies, so content you see will be chosen for you based on your history and interests.

Create an account. If you don’t have a Spotify account, that’s okay! You can simply sign up for a new account on the Greenroom app. Create a room. Anyone can create a room, and all you’ll need is a title and topic.

Once you’ve picked a topic, you will be able to go live and allow other people to join. Make sure to go with a topic that goes along with your content or business. Keep the recording.

Spotify records each room session for moderation purposes, but you can use that for your own benefit. You’re able to save the recording and edit it, and turn it into a podcast. This will give you more content for your other social media platforms.

Strategize your marketing of Spotify’s Greenroom. Select featured topics. Greenroom enables you to select specific topics to get notifications and updates about, so you can always stay educated about news in your niche or specific target audience.

These topics will also help creators listen in on other creators and work together by sharing ideas. If you can remain constant in some groups with specific creators, you may be able to work together to produce content for both of your businesses.

Fuel a Growing Audience with a Fireside Chat

Fireside Chat is an exclusive audio social media app that requires an invite in order for you to talk live. There is also an option to apply, and you will answer some questions to see if you qualify for now.

Mark Cuban’s podcasting platform is designed to showcase notable people and the stories and ideas that they have to share. Getting set up requires you to request access first.

In order to become a creator on this app, you have to fill out a questionnaire with some personal information and state your business on the app. Once you have been accepted, you can go forward to creating your profile and customizing your content space.

When you’ve been accepted and gained access to Fireside Chat, the rest of the journey is easy. You’ll just need to set up a fully customized profile, and then you’re ready to go. Start by picking a topic.

Select a topic that fits the industry you are involved in, get ready, and then go live. If you can schedule out a later date for your talk, you can build anticipation and future views by sharing it on other social media platforms and encouraging your followers to tune in.

Strategize your marketing and business building aspect of Fireside Chat by selling tickets to events. This app allows you to sell tickets for your live events to generate extra revenue.

If you can build a crowd of fans that anticipate your live shows and talks, then this will be a great way to make more money for your business. Stream your show to other platforms.

Fireside Chat enables the live stream to stream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. This allows you to reach a wider variety in audience, and expand your platform. Insert ad breaks to generate revenue.

If you’re looking to make some extra money to support your business, inserting ad breaks after you’ve gained a solid following will help you out. Embrace the app’s reputation.

Fireside Chat boasts about their drive for only quality content, so users are drawn to the app to listen. Since the app has less creators than others, your platform will appear more exclusive, which will draw in an audience.

Share Audio Snippets on Racket

Racket is an audio social media site that allows short micro podcasts that can last up to 99 seconds. This will keep viewers engaged and open up the opportunity to explore content from many different creators in one sitting.

The following walkthrough will give you an idea of what to expect from Racket, and how to make the most out of this option. Get set up by signing up first. You’ll have to come up with your own username and password, but getting signed up is simple.

Once you’ve signed up, you can customize and edit your profile. Creating a post that’s 99 seconds (early versions of the app gave you up to 9 minutes). Once you’ve created an audio file that you want to post, you just have to supply a cover photo and title, and then you can post it.

The whole process can be completed in less than a minute. Utilize tags. Like many other social media apps, tags are important in order to send yourself onto other people’s explore pages.

As long as you choose tags that fit your topics and industry, the right audience will find you. Strategize for the business building aspect of Racket. Much like TikTok, this app explores the idea of an algorithm that enables members to find many different unique content creators, by bringing the creators’ content to them.

You do have shorter times for content. By limiting the length of audio podcasting, users will be able to take in more content by different creators, instead of listening to an hour long podcast that is by one singular creator. This also makes the editing process simpler, which means you will be able to release more content that focuses over a wider variety of topics.

10 Tips for Online Coaching Success

The business model of coaching isn’t reserved for famous experts or those who have a PhD and can tout decades of experience and endless publications. Any niche leader who wants to utilize the Internet as their platform for working with groups and individuals can create and sell coaching programs.

It’s really not very different from putting out a digital info product, except in the way it can be delivered (and even then, sometimes there may be no difference). Don’t let the concept of becoming a coach intimidate you.

In order to thrive with this business model, though, you need to understand what decisions you’ll need to make, such as pricing and delivery – and learn what makes this a wonderful experience for your client so that they’ll continue buying coaching sessions from you and spread the word of your coaching to others.

Decide on Your Online Teaching Method

The first thing you want to do when planning your online coaching business is to select a teaching method that works best for you. There are a few different aspects to this decision.

First, you need to decide what type of coaching you will offer in terms of the number of participants. You can choose to have a one on one coaching arrangement with each client, or offer group coaching if the topic allows for it.

Next, you will need to decide how you want the coaching to proceed. You can develop coaching programs that are dripped out to your customers in a way where they are prerecorded or prewritten.

Or, you can choose to have a live coaching session with your client or group. If you choose to deliver your coaching advice in a live setting, then you can decide what kind of tool you would like to use to connect you with your customer.

There are a number of different types of tools, including Zoom, Skype, and more. Some of them are free and some of them have paid tiers. You may not need more than the free version – but if you do, make sure that the one you are paying for has all of the features that you require.

Set Up Your Coaching Workspace

Whether you are recording the coaching or conducting it live, you’ll want to have a workspace that not only reflects professionalism to your client in terms of background, but also gives you the proper surroundings to work free of clutter.

When you’re in a messy workspace, it serves as a distraction for both you and your client. You want to choose a space where you’ll be comfortable physically. Make sure you have ergonomic furniture and good lighting so that you don’t strain your eyes.

If you don’t feel as if your background is clean or nice enough looking, you can always buy a screen or room divider on a site like Amazon that has the look you want. Worst case scenario, just record or hold your session in front of a blank wall.

You may want to get a whiteboard with markers that you can hang on the wall and be able to jot things down for your coaching client, or draw something to showcase an idea or concept.

Position Yourself as a Go to Expert

When you are going to launch a coaching program where you recruit clients, you have to be confident enough to position yourself as an authority figure in your niche. You can’t be shy about your expertise.

It doesn’t matter if there are dozens of other leaders in that niche. You have to be willing and able to add your name to that list so that your prospective client has a choice about who they hire as an online coach.

You don’t have to go so far as to say you are the absolute best in the business. What you can do is be transparent with your site visitors about why you chose to be a coach, what you can do for them, etc.

Branding will be a benefit to you online because it gives you the opportunity to set yourself apart for what you want to be known for. You can develop a unique selling proposition (USP) that helps people differentiate you from what other coaches have to offer.

Price Your Offer Competitively and Professionally

Pricing is one sticking point that many online entrepreneurs struggle with, regardless of which business model they choose. You will have to put a number on your coaching sessions, no matter how intimidating the process seems.

Keep in mind that coaching, whether it is one on one or in a group setting, is a step above simply purchasing a digital info product and being left on your own to implement it.

With coaching, the client is able to have a little more handholding and feedback on what they should do as well as what they may be doing wrong. So it should be priced at more than what an info product would cost.

You can scout out coaching programs from your competitors and see what the going rate is in your niche. You have to make sure that the coaching is comparable. For example, if they are offering half an hour, and you plan to offer an hour, then that will affect the pricing plan.

If you are just starting out, you’ll want to be competitive with your pricing, yet still choose a professional number. Underpricing your coaching program doesn’t always impress the prospective client.

It may make them see you as a lesser coach. Sometimes, people are willing to pay a little more for someone who values their skill and talent. They may not want the bottom of the barrel, yet they still want a good deal.

Put Your Client at Ease Before Their Session

When you do have clients who have signed up for coaching, you will want to put them at ease before their session. For many of your customers, this will be their first experience in hiring a coach of any kind.

The first thing they need to know is that coaching with you will be conducted in confidentiality. They need to feel reassured that you will not create videos and discuss their problems and personal issues with the general public.

Another thing you need to do is make sure that you understand their expectations. Be sure and talk to them before they sign up for coaching about what they hope to see from your guidance.

That way, you’ll be able to meet their needs without having to guess at what they want to achieve. In most cases, coaching will be a hybrid of established lessons, mixed with those that are tailored for each individual.

You need to discuss with your coaching client the things they need to do ahead of time, before each session in order to be prepared. What do they need to show up with, or what do they need to be thinking about?

They don’t want to sit and waste a bunch of time brainstorming while on the coaching call. If they have these preliminary requirements mapped out, they will be able to show up and immediately begin discussing them with you without hesitation.

You also want to make sure that you, as a coach, are prepared before each session. Time is valuable for everyone, not just you. They need to know that they can get on a coaching call with you and you will not be searching for supplies or scripts that you want to work from.

Show Your Clients That You’re Present for Their Needs

Whenever someone signs up for coaching, it’s usually because they don’t want to take a journey alone. They need that extra handholding and guidance that comes from hiring a coach to tailor their mission for them.

You want to prove to your clients that you are there for them and that you are tuned into their needs. That means that there are moments where you will focus on listening to what they have to say, rather than speaking over them or interrupting them.

You don’t want to be multitasking during the coaching session. If you are constantly looking away from the camera at your computer to do something else, or otherwise not focused on them during the session, they will feel as if your attention is being misdirected and they aren’t getting their money’s worth.

Have Positive Energy That Motivates Your Client

The people who are hiring you to conduct coaching sessions with them may be coming to you in a state where they lack confidence or the right mindset to succeed with their goals.

It is imperative that you show up ready to serve them with an attitude that supports them when they are feeling down or unsure of themselves. Even if you have had a rough day, you should show up to your coaching sessions with an abundance of positive energy.

If you come to the coaching session feeling unsure of yourself as a coach or burdened by negativity, it will be visible and apparent to your client. They will be more apt to purchase additional coaching sessions from you if they leave feeling as if they are uplifted and ready to tackle the world.

Each of your coaching sessions should end on a good note. You want to boost their mood before they hang up with you so that they are armed with enough confidence and positivity to carry out the action steps that will put them closer to their goals.

Supplement Text with Images, Audios and Video Components

Regardless of whether you conduct live video coaching sessions or you create the coaching programs ahead of time, you want to use a variety of media formats. Using live video interaction does not replace supplemental learning materials.

You can use a mixture of image, audio, and video components to help explain a certain concept or simply give them something they can see, watch or listen to after the coaching session is over to reinforce the lesson.

You can use infographics, slide presentations, screen capture videos, podcast episodes and more to add additional elements to your coaching program. It’s really not very different from someone who signs up for a class where a professor teaches a lesson, but the student also has additional materials such as a textbook or workbook.

Sell More Sessions

When you attract a client to your coaching program, you don’t want to simply sell one coaching session. You want to have repeated business with each client or group. In order to achieve that, you have to have some way of enticing them to purchase more.

You can start by developing package deals for your coaching program. Instead of just charging $100 for a single coaching session, you could have a package deal where they get $50 off if they purchase five sessions.

You can have different tiers for this, too. For example, if you wanted to, you could have an even steeper discount if the client purchased a package of 10 coaching sessions. Or, you can have a deal where if they purchase a certain number of sessions, they get one free.

Another thing you can do in regards to increasing your profits in your coaching business is to develop certain upgrades for your coaching program. For example, you might have a coaching program where you help someone through the process of launching their own digital info product.

An upgrade idea for that might be for you to personally evaluate their product thoroughly and give feedback on what they could do different or better. You might be able to throw in certain services, such as copywriting or graphics for their site.

Prepare for Coaching Interruptions

Make sure that when you are getting ready for your coaching business, you’re also preparing for things that can get in the way of it. If you are writing an info product, interruptions aren’t as damaging.

But if you are on a live coaching call with one or more individuals, interruptions and delays can make it appear unprofessional. There are some things that you may not be able to avoid.

For example, if the Internet happens to go out in your area, you may not have a way around that. But if there’s anything you can do, such as getting on your smartphone and using data, you should do it to avoid missing a coaching call.

Some things, such as interruptions by family that lives with you or even pets, can be handled ahead of time so that you don’t have to deal with them in the middle of a call. You need to make sure that everyone understands the boundaries and that you have done everything possible, such as feeding or taking the dog out before your call so that they are not whining while you are on with a client.

Illness is another thing that can interrupt your coaching business. It’s inevitable that everyone will suffer from a minor or major illness at some time. If you are not feeling well, or need to take off for some reason, make sure you notify your client as soon as possible and make up the session with them.

A Senior Marketer’s Guide to Hosting a Challenge

In the world of online marketing, there are products and there are challenges. A challenge, in this regard, is not a negative thing such as an obstacle is. Instead, a challenge is an event where you are able to push yourself in order to achieve a goal.

For some people, having others lead them in a challenge where they can build camaraderie with others is very motivating. As a senior online marketer, you can use a challenge to your benefit in two different ways.

First, you can host a challenge in order to get more subscribers and to showcase your expertise. Second, you can host a paid challenge where you charge for entry and guidance.

One of the great things about hosting a challenge is that your lessons do not necessarily have to be completed ahead of time. So you could start today and work on the challenge as you go.

Challenges can have daily or even weekly content for participants to absorb. You can give them how-to tutorials, motivational tips and inspiration, and have check-ins to gauge how participants are coming along.

Challenges Increase Engagement and Excitement

When you are the host of a challenge event, it excites your core audience because it’s an opportunity for them to achieve something they’ve been struggling with. They know they won’t be alone and they know they will have an expert helping them along the way.

If you’re using this event to build a list, then you may want to host a free challenge so that you get more subscribers onboard to test out your leadership and knowledge. Your reputation will only grow as participants in the challenge exchange comments and share their successes and struggles.

In these moments, you will either have social proof that what you are teaching is working or the opportunity to help get a subscriber on the right track for all to see. This is a good way for nervous senior online entrepreneurs to build confidence in their ability to lead, too.

You can host your challenge publicly or privately. If you host it privately, others will not be able to see the engagement. However, it makes it more exclusive. It gives people a reason to get on your list to have access.

And just like a marathon where the streets are lined with others cheering them on, your participants will enjoy receiving the support of others who have joined in to have access to your guidance so they can meet their goals.

Get Them to Declare Their Goals and Hold Them Accountable

One thing you never want to do is leave a challenge wide open to where participants have no set finish line. You want them to have a measurable goal that can be attained through your leadership in this event.

Otherwise, they may not achieve the milestones they need to complete their goal, leaving them feeling disappointed in the challenge – and in you. Early on in the event, after you explain what the process will be and how it will work, you want to have each participant declare a specific goal.

They can do this publicly or privately with you, but you need to be able to see where they want to go so that you can help them get there. You’ll also be able to see if their goal is unrealistic or too easy.

Don’t let them set a vague goal. It need to be specific, like the completion of a 50-page eBook, the loss of 20 pounds, or 100 sales of their first fiction publication. It needs to be detailed.

Some will need you to help them set their goals for the timeframe within which they’ll be working. For example, if you are hosting a weight loss challenge, and they need to lose 100 pounds total, you would help them set a mini goal for the 60 day challenge.

Your challenge can be any length that you want. It can be a set number of days or a certain number of lessons. It can also be to achieve one specific goal without a timeframe, such as writing and publishing the first fiction novel.

They can always go at their own pace. Different participants will have different time available to devote to the challenge, so it’s best not to force them to stay on a certain timeline to complete the challenge lessons.

Once the reader has set their goal and conveyed it to you, you’ll need to hold them accountable as time goes on. This does not mean you routinely scold them to the point where they feel shame and guilt.

It simply means you are able to motivate them and remind them of what they want to achieve, and why. Knowing why they have set their goals is important for you to be able to tap in to the emotions that will help drive them.

Periodically within your challenge, you might have everyone check in with their current milestones to see who is struggling and who is ahead of the curve. Often, you will be able to use the participants who are succeeding as examples and even fellow leaders who can assist you with the needs of those who are being left behind.

Your challenge group will be like a community for them, rather than an individual journey. The camaraderie they will enjoy is part of what will make your blog feel like “home” to them online.

Showcase Your Expertise By Providing Guidance Throughout

As the challenge host, it will be your job to help them achieve a goal that they otherwise couldn’t do on their own. They may have taken courses, read books, and tested things that just didn’t work out.

They’ll be looking to you for the right information that holds the key to their success. Therefore, before you even get started with your challenge, you need to have your lesson plans mapped out.

You can create a course of your own for this challenge, curate lessons from other individuals who have given good advice to the public, or use a hybrid model of the two. Always make sure that you are giving credit to other leaders if you are pulling their advice (not their content) into your challenge.

This does not negate your own leadership and expertise. It merely shows that you are good at sourcing the best information for their needs. One thing you don’t want to do in a challenge situation is throw too much at your audience at once.

Your lessons should be bite sized and easy to implement. Because these people have struggled with their goal in the past, they will already have a mindset of defeat. You want to give them baby steps to absorb so that they accumulate many small successes along the way.

This will boost their confidence and allow them to reach the finish line easier. So for instance, if you were hosting a challenge about how to publish your first info product, you wouldn’t just have lessons for product creation, sales copy, affiliate recruitment, etc.

Each one of those topics would be broken down into miniature lessons for your participants. For info product creation, you would have one lesson on idea brainstorming.

You might even have multiple lessons on that if you have different methods of brainstorming, so they’re not all grouped into one. You would have another lesson on outlining your product.

Another lesson could talk about how to format the book or course. If there are multiple ways to do something, then you would split those ideas up into separate lessons rather than present a buffet of choices all at once.

You never want them to end a day in your challenge feeling overwhelmed and confused. Each lesson should be clear and concise. Don’t worry if the lesson seems short.

This is more doable for your audience than if you presented them with hour long lessons every day that they would find hard to work into their schedule. Every time your audience reaches out to you through the group or in a one on one email, you want to take account of what it is they’re asking for help with.

At times, you will realize that your lesson has missed the mark in some way. Maybe it wasn’t clear, or a question went left unanswered. These are opportunities for you to create additional bonus lessons to share with your audience.

This is one reason why it works to create your challenge as you go. If you did a lesson on brainstorming your info product, and received several questions about that topic, you would be able to create an additional lesson to send out the following day, rather than moving onto the next topic.

Then, after the challenge is complete, future participants would find everything laid out in a logical order. After the initial challenge is complete, you can bring on a second wave of participants, or leave it open for people to join at any time.

Make a Big Deal Out of the Winners and Participants

Whenever people sign up to participate in any event, they like to be recognized for their hard work. Even those who are shy and take a back seat to public engagement usually like to be acknowledged by the host.

Consider it like a dinner party where you would greet every guest upon arrival and thank them for coming at the end. It’s no different when hosting a challenge. You want to welcome everyone and individually get to know your participants so that you can offer personalized assistance.

Be sure to keep the confidentiality of each of your participants during the challenge. There will be some who feel more than comfortable sharing everything with the group. There will also be those who privately communicate with you because they are shy or simply don’t want their information put out there.

If someone asks a personal question they need help with via email, either ask them if it’s okay to share with the group – or, if the question needs to be turned into a complete lesson, make sure you do it anonymously.

Anytime a participant helps a fellow participant or answers a question that you feel is beneficial for the group, make sure you give them credit and thank them publicly for stepping in to lift up those who are struggling.

They will be the ones who are making your challenge that much more special. They will be cultivating the feeling of community that you want your challenge participants to experience.

At the end of the challenge, you may have people who have achieves their goals or won a competition, if you set your challenge up to have a leaderboard of some sort. Sometimes, having winners wouldn’t be feasible.

But other times, it might help push your audience to perform. For example, you could do one for the most pounds lost, the most sales for an info product creation, etc. But if you are in a niche like relationships, there’s no measurable goals you can use to determine who has won ahead of others.

You want to make a big deal out of those who win. You can have prizes, recognition, etc. If you’re teaching your participants how to publish their first fiction book, then you might pay for them to have some promotional graphics made or simply write a review blog post about their upcoming release.

It doesn’t have to be a monetary prize. Recognition and acknowledgment can go a long way, too. While you want to highlight those who have succeeded with your advice and pushed themselves to achieve their goals, you always want to make sure that others who failed in the task do not feel ashamed or left behind.

They may be suffering from guilt or frustration at their lack of being able to succeed when everyone else around them seems to have achieved their goal. Make sure you acknowledge the advances they have made toward their goal, and offer to stay in touch and help them until they reach the finish line.

Have an Ending That Leads to More Great Things

As your first challenge, and subsequent challenges come to an end, you want to snowball your success into something more. If you have hosted a free challenge, then you can parlay this expertise you have shared freely into sales of your paid, and more advanced courses.

This is one reason why it’s so important to share extreme value in your free gifts and free challenges. If you are willing to give a lot of value at no cost, customers will trust you and be willing to send you money for a paid product.

You now have a list of subscribers who have participated in your challenge. You can turn these into profits in the future by recommending courses and tools that others have put on the marketplace as well.

As an affiliate marketer, they will be able to trust your advice and want to spend money on things you recommend because you have stayed above the board throughout your challenge in guiding them previously.

Always make sure that you never stray from giving good advice, even after the challenge is complete. You don’t want to ruin your reputation after you have worked so hard to prove your worth to your target audience.

One thing you can do is continue rolling out more courses that are created as challenges. You don’t have to simply sell video modules or eBook courses for them to consume on their own.

Many people will love and appreciate the challenge format, where they are drip fed lessons along the way, and have the opportunity to engage with you and others who are on the same journey.

If this format works well for you, then you might want to leave your first challenge as a free option, and subsequent ones as paid challenges. You can even have tiers of challenge participants if you would like to.

For example, a top-tier entry into your challenge, which costs a little more, might include a phone or zoom consultation once a week. Instead of having winners who were acknowledged, you might offer some perks to different tiers.

For example, an upper tier participant who completed his or her goal might receive a set of five customized blog posts they can use, or a review of their product in its finished form.

What you don’t want to do is complete your hosted challenge, only to disappear into the background of your niche when it’s over. You want to stay at the forefront as a leader, always developing new lessons to help guide your audience.

You don’t have to do another challenge. You can create eBooks, courses, offer both individual and group coaching, and more. Keep the momentum going and you will develop a loyal fanbase who is eager to consume everything you put out.

Try to have a game plan for your follow up monetization strategy before you even create your first challenge. This first one can be used for list building and branding. But subsequent ones should deliver a monetary reward for you.

This can snowball into more online income if you create an entire line of challenges. Make sure you emphasize the personal care and consideration they will receive when they sign up, because this is one area often lacking in a consumer’s journey of learning how to do something.

10 Reasons Senior Marketers Fail at Blogging for Profit

10 Reasons Senior Marketers Fail at Blogging for Profit

If you have ever asked how to make money blogging, can you make money blogging, or how do you make money blogging – consider this a cautionary tale. In this post, we cover 10 reasons senior marketers FAIL at blogging for profit!

10 Reasons Senior Marketers Fail to Profit From Blogging

Blogging is one of the easiest online businesses that a senior entrepreneur can start. Not only is it affordable, with a simple dot com domain and hosting plan, but you can install WordPress by just entering some basic administrative information and clicking a button so the system can do all the work.

Unfortunately, many online entrepreneurs fail to earn a living with their blog because they make mistakes that get in the way of their profits. These are strategic blunders that may seem small, but which repel your audience or render their visit to your blog useless.

If you want to earn a living being a blogger on the Internet, you have to know how to run your blog in a way that adheres to the technical elements needed, but also meets the needs of your target audience.

There are 10 things you may be doing wrong that have stood in the way of you earning money from your blog until now. Once you are aware of them, it will be easy to turn things around and open yourself up to more profit opportunities.

You Failed to Make Navigation for Bots and Humans Easy

The first thing you need to do in order to succeed with your blog as a profitable venture is to start off on the right foot in terms of the setup and navigation of your site. Blogs are structural entities that have posts, pages, categories, and tags.

Not only will your human visitors be using your system to navigate your blog the information they need, but search engine bots will be dispatched to your blog to crawl it and identify the topic and relevancy of your content so that it can rank you for their users.

While setting up simple navigation is smart and will help people find the posts they’re looking for, which will in turn increase your profits, you don’t want to get bogged down in uploading too many automated tools on your blog that will slow it down or cause glitches along the way.

You want to have some simple navigation at the top of your blog which directs people to an About page, where they can learn a little about you. You should have a contact form so that they can reach out to you if they have a question or comment.

If you have products or services, you will want pages for those, too. Your sidebar can be a great source of navigation as well. You can have a list of your most recent blog posts as well as the most recent comments, which is a great show of social proof that others are turning to you as a niche leader.

Your Blog Posts Are All Over the Place and Many Irrelevant

Another thing that can harm you in terms of online profits with your blog is if you are scatterbrained with your content. Many people treat their blog almost like a diary or social networking profile, where they talk about anything and everything going on in their life.

A niche blog that is being built for profit purposes is not meant to be all over the place with your topics. You need to have a main slant for your blog and keep everything that is posted there related to it in some way.

Every time you write a new post, ask yourself if it is tide into the original topic in some way, shape, or form. If it is not, then you may want to take that piece of content and share it on your personal social media profile instead.

You’re the Kind of Blogger Who Ignores Engagement

Some bloggers fail to succeed with their site because they are unable to form a bond with their blog readers. Part of what makes bloggers successful is the community that is built around the content.

The community thrives when your audience engages with your post in the comments section, and yourself and others reply back. There are many bloggers who simply never check to see if someone has left a comment or question.

This makes the reader feel as if you don’t care about them. You want to set your blog up so that you get notifications to approve every comment that comes through on your blog. This gives you a great opportunity to reply and form a friendship with your reader.

You Never Promoted It But Expected a Following

Many senior marketers start out with blogging and become frustrated at the fact that no one is visiting. Instead of trying to pinpoint the reason why, they simply abandon the site and try a different niche topic, where the same thing happens all over again.

Instead of walking away, learn how to properly promote your blog so that it does pique the interest of your target audience and make them want to click through to your content.

It is your responsibility to generate traffic to your blog. Some of it will be pulled in organically through the use of strategic keyword phrases and valuable content that a search bot will use to rank your site and send targeted visitors to you.

But you will also want to socialize your blog by sharing the links to specific posts on sites like Facebook. You can also link to your blog home page in your profile on sites like Instagram and Tik Tok.

You’re Either Too Informative or Lack Substance

Another reason many people fail to earn a living with their blog in their senior years is that they perform on one end of an extreme spectrum. Some of them are so informative that they exhaust every bit of information in one blog post, which goes on and on and eventually bores the reader.

Your blog is not the place to thoroughly cover every bit of information on a single topic in one post. You can break that concept up into a series of blog posts that are shorter and easy to devour.

At the same time, you don’t want to be so brief that the reader walks away feeling as if they learned nothing from you. They have to gain substance from your message or they will turn to someone else in the marketplace who does a better job of leading them.

Every niche is different and every individual in your target audience will have personal preferences about how much information they want to consume in one sitting. Over time, you will learn what your audience prefers.

Keep an eye on the statistics for your engagement, which can be both comments as well as social media shares and likes. If your audience proves to prefer blog posts that are more in depth, then you will know what the sweet spot is to satisfy their needs.

You Don’t Stand for Anything in Particular

Readers who financially support bloggers by purchasing their products or taking the recommendations that they made as an affiliate marketer tend to prefer being loyal to those who take a stand on a topic.

There are some online entrepreneurs who will promote and back anyone and any product. As long as they are receiving some sort of monetary perk, they’re willing to sell out their audience.

It’s not only about the money, though. Readers like it when you have a solid opinion that will help them sort out their own confusion or inability to make a decision. If you are wishy washy about where you stand on an issue or strategy, you will leave them feeling alone and just as last as they were before they found you.

This doesn’t mean that you have to publish a bunch of rants or target your competitors online. In fact, that can backfire on you quickly. Just make sure that if there is anything where people have strong opinions, you take a side or at least fairly examine both sides.

You’re Easily Distracted and Abandon Your Readers

If you are a senior blogger who continually abandons your readers because you grow bored with your topic or can’t figure out what to say, only to return months later to try again, you will be destroying your ability to earn profits.

When consumers become loyal to a blogger, they expect to hear from them consistently and frequently. They are relying on you to help them get through their struggles and succeed with whatever problem you promised to help them with initially.

Look at your track record to date. If you have blogged before, write down the dates of the blog posts that you have published in the past and see if there are large gaps in time.

For example, if you blogged for three weeks in January, then quit for eight weeks, and came back to sporadically post every once in awhile, you will never achieve the level of success that dedicated bloggers have.

This is not just a human issue. While your target audience will be annoyed that you tend to disappear, it’s also assigned to search engine bots that you are not committed to keeping fresh content on your site, so they will bury you in the search engine results pages.

You Say a Lot But Never Monetize a Thing

Have you ever looked back at your blog to see if you have even tried to earn a living from it? It’s a serious question. It may seem silly, but go back and look at the various blog posts that you have published and see if you can spot a method of monetization in them.

There are many people, seniors and otherwise, who start a blog and consistently publish valuable information on it. They are confused when money does not begin to flow from their efforts.

However, if you go back and look at their posts, they may be lacking any links that would send visitors to products or recommendations that would help them earn money from their content.

There are different ways you can monetize your blog. First and foremost, you can link to the various digital info products that you have created for your niche readers. Another way you can profit from your content is by linking out as an affiliate to tangible and digital products that you recommend.

Some bloggers like to install a heavy amount of advertising, such as banner ads on their blog. You can do this, but you may be earning pennies compared to the type of money you would be making if you sent them to a sales page for a digital info product.

If you are an affiliate marketer, ask other vendors to send you a review copy of their product so that you can create a blog series where you implement it and conduct a case study about the product.

You Never Have Anything New to Say

One problem many bloggers have, especially after a certain amount of time, is that they fail to have anything new to say to their audience. If you are constantly repeating yourself, your audience will dwindle and your profits will dry up if they ever started at all.

If you’re struggling to find new content ideas, start by using a reliable keyword research tool that can tell you specifically what your audience is looking for online. You can also go to other web sites, such as news sites (depending on your niche), forums, etc., and see what trending topics are being discussed there that you can report on.

If you have older content, that you would like to discuss again, make sure that you put a new slant on it. There are many ways you can freshen up existing topics, such as creating a post that has alternate opinions about the topic, or new facts that back up your position on it.

You can subscribe to both consumer and trade magazines about your niche topic, stay on top of newly published YouTube videos, and join social media groups that continually discuss your niche blog topic.

Your Blog Is Boring to the Eyes

The last reason your blog may fail to turn a profit is if it is simply based on boring text. Today’s blog reader is interested in more than just the written word. While it is equally important, you also want to cater to those who prefer a multimedia approach.

Within the blocks of content of your blog post, make sure you are adding images that will break up long bits of text. You can also add video elements to your blog. If you put yourself on camera, it gives your visitors a chance to know you on a more personal level, but that’s not a necessity if you prefer to use a slide screen presentation.

The main thing you want to remember when trying to build a profitable blog platform is that you are serving the needs of your target audience. They need you to show up consistently, be interesting, and provide value to them and this, in turn, will help you monetize your content with ease.