I’m curious: When did your vocational dreams and realities begin to diverge?
For me, it started in college.
I was a Journalism major, with minors in Creative Writing and Religion. I lived to get to the bottom of a story, and share that story with passion and craft. I grew up admiring courageous journalists who risked everything to get the story and tell the story.
Back then, I figured I’d go to school for four years and be set up for a job I loved. In my case, I was planning to be a newspaper reporter. I was good at it – at my campus newspaper, I took stories others deemed too controversial (like when the KKK rolled into town) or complex (like the Y2K computer bug – I’m dating myself). I won awards for my writing.
But then the turn of the century happened (the 21st, don’t get any ideas – I’m not that old!), and I came face-to-face with the ways college did not prepare me for the changing workplace.
It turned out, if I wanted to be a reporter, I couldn’t just start out at my city’s big newspaper; I’d have to do time at my small-town county newspaper. Which would have been fine, but starting pay – if you could even get in the door – was minimum wage. Pretty much fast-food workers’ pay.
I had dreams and bills and wanted to start a family – I was heartbroken.
I loved to find and tell stories – I lived to write – but there was no way entry-level conventional employment was going to sustain me.
And so, I did what I do: I adapted. I networked. I created. I took time to drill down to the essence of what I really wanted to do – communicate well – and re-imagined what this could look like in a world without limits.
In my case, I became an independent publishing consultant. I connected with editors and authors and agents, attended trade shows from Denver to New York City, read every how-to book I could get my hands on, and started:
- Writing
- Editing
- Marketing
…buidling a business as I went along, from the ground-up.
I’ve been on this journey for over 12 years now. It’s been quite the adventure – while friends of mine with “safer” jobs have experienced layoffs and daily frustration with their companies or bossess, I’ve been my own boss – doing my own work in some seasons, and choosing clients I love in other seasons.
I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Still…I wish I’d had a guide – something beyond a book – to help me navigate the ground beneath my feet. Because the road hasn’t always been smooth; I’ve made my fair share of mistakes.
Time-wasting, energy-draining, opportunity-missing mistakes.
But a guide to creating a life you love from the written word and an entreprenurial spirit didn’t exist – so I created one.
Enter The Buzz Seminar.
You may have heard me talk about the Buzz in an earlier email, and I’ll say more about it in a moment. But first, I want to tell you about two instant-access webinars that I’m giving away. I sat down with my friend and Buzz Seminar co-creator Frank Viola, interviewing him about the best-practices that have enabled him to hit 7 best-seller lists and have a top-rated blog in his genre, respectively.
The results are two webinars that are free to you:
Buzz Basics: Authors dives into what the “experts” never tell you about how to actually hit a best-seller list – and Frank’s key strategy to help you beat the odds.
Buzz Basics: Bloggers shows how Frank quadrupled his blog traffic in just 30 days, paving the way for him to earn a sustainable income through blogging alone.
I know you might not consider yourself a “writer” or a blogger; even so, if you run a business of any kind – or dream of doing so – I think there’s something in these for you. So feel free to download one or both of these – my gift to you.
And: If you get value from the webinars, I think you’ll love the full Buzz Seminar. You can find out everything about it on our site, so I won’t go into too much of it here – only the highligts. Your Buzz membership contains:
- 562 minutes of in-depth teaching from our four speakers (9.5 hours total), experts in our fields – we hold nothing back.
- A 120-page Buzz Workbook that operationalizes everything in the audio teachings so that you can implement a strategy that works for you.
- Lifetime access to our ever-growing Resource Page which keeps the course evergreen and up-to-date with the latest resources.
- Lifetime access to The Hive, our closed Facebook group that gives you access to your instructors plus a growing peer-learning group of business owners, authors, bloggers and entrepreneurs.
- And this time around, we’ve also included 5 bonus sessions by best-selling author and professional blogger Jeff Goins, renowned copywriter Ray Edwards, a publicist, a literary agent, and a successful blogger.
Here’s the thing, though: The Buzz Seminar goes away in 24 hours. Enrollment in this self-paced Seminar is limited; we only open it up for the public a few times a year.
My recommendation:
1.) Get one or both free Instant Webinars today – Authors and Bloggers.
2.) Actually take the time to watch them, today. Don’t put it off – see if the material we cover is valuable to you.
3.) Ask yourself: Is the webinar content enough, or could I learn alot and save years of trial-and-error by taking the full Buzz Seminar?
(By the way, I don’t think there’s an inherent right or wrong answer to #3. Only you know for sure, so I recommend you trust yourself and go with your gut. But give yourself the opportunity for a well-informed decision by watching the webinar you choose.)
Once again, here are the links:
Instant Blogger webinar
Instant Author webinar
Buzz Seminar – full course
If you’re ready for a change in your vocation, I hope my story encourages you to make the next steps to get to where you want to be. If the Buzz Seminar can help, please avail yourself of our complimentary webinars. And remember: the full course closes tomorrow (Thursday) night.
Thank you for everything you do – I look forward to hearing about your next adventures!
To your flourishing…
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