 So there are four layers of activity that every successful authentic business has. And I'm gonna walk you through these four layers in this video. The first layer, and this is where we all start as an authentic business, by the way, I should explain what an authentic business is for those of you who are new to the idea. An authentic business is a business is activity that you enjoy doing that feels aligned with your purpose that makes you money. That's it. It's activity that is aligned with your purpose that you enjoy doing and that makes you sustainable income. That's an authentic business, simple as that. And if you wanna build a successful authentic business, you need these four layers of activity. And the first layer, for those of you who have been watching my videos for a while, you're not gonna be surprised by this, but the first layer is consistent content, specifically authentic, relevant, consistent content. Why are these words important? Authentic is content that isn't a chore. If you think, my God, creating content is such a chore, I have to do this because George Cal said I had to do it or some other, read something, other marketing blogs that you have to create content, it's such a chore, I just have to do it so that I can reach people who are they gonna buy from me. If you think of content as a means to an end, content becomes a chore. I invite you instead to think of content as activity that is worthwhile in itself. In fact, all four layers are activities that are worthwhile in itself, which makes it much more meaningful and fulfilling to be building an authentic business. You're not just doing it so that you can finally make money, you're not doing it so that you can finally go on vacations and having to stop working. That's not an authentic business, that's a job. And there's nothing wrong with a job. You might need a job in order to support your authentic business for a while until it supports yourself. But the dream, the goal, what every one of us who needs a livelihood wants to achieve is can I do activity that I find worthwhile in itself and also sustains an income that I need? That's what we're all seeking, right? I believe that's what we're all seeking, those of us who do need it to make an income. All right, so content, how is content itself worth doing? Why is it worth? It's worth, I wrote a whole book on this, Authentic Content Marketing, you can look it up, but content itself is worth doing because content is how you explore and discover your authentic self in community with others. There is an old quote that I love by Frederick Buchner and he says, your calling is your soul's deep gladness meeting the world's great hunger. That's your calling. Your calling is an intersection between your soul's deep gladness. Just your soul's deep gladness is not your calling because you could be glad doing something, you could be so happy doing something that nobody cares about, that nobody wants to give you any money for, that nobody wants to give you any energy for, you're not helping anybody. That's just, that's a hobby, which is fine, which is fun and you can have hobbies, of course. You can enjoy doing things on your own, but your calling, your calling, the thing that you are called to be in the world for, the thing that can make you money is the intersection of your soul's gladness and the world's great hungers, okay? That is your calling. And that's what content is about. Content is that exploration. You figure out your calling by creating content in community and seeing how people respond to it. When you're creating the content, you are saying, this is what's true for me right now. This is what has been true about my life. This is what I believe at this time. This is how I view the world. This is how I view the current events. This is how I view my industry right now. This is what I think, this is what has been helpful for me. This is what has been helpful for my clients. What do you think? Content, authentic content in community is how you discover your calling. It's how you discover your purpose in life, in service. Your purpose in service, you discover that through content. Authentic, consistent content. And when you're authentic and consistent with your content, you discover over time what is relevant to your audience. So again, authentic, consistent, relevant content. The relevant comes from authentic consistency and noticing what's helping other people. Then you go, oh, that's what's relevant to other people. What that means also is that you've got to be willing to put content out there that is not relevant. And you're also experimenting with what's authentic to you. Is it authentic for you to talk in this way? Is it authentic for you to write in this way? Is it authentic to talk about this topic or that topic? You've got to experiment to figure it out. Who's gonna tell you? I'm not gonna tell you. No coach is smart or no coach or mentor or teacher is smart enough to tell you what your calling is. Because nobody can tell you what your calling is, what your purpose is. You have to discover it in community. You have to discover it by putting stuff out there, some of which will fail. I'm gonna put that in quotes. Some of it will not work because people, you know, you tried and it didn't work. And now you know, finding out what is your purpose, the path is to try lots of different things to find out what is not your purpose. I don't know if anyone's ever told you that or that maybe you don't understand this. We find our purpose and our calling and our true and right livelihood are most passionate and service oriented activities. By trying a bunch of stuff and seeing what doesn't work until we find the stuff that does work. That's the path. Life is an experiment says Ralph Waldo Emerson. The more experiments, the better. That's how we find truth. That's how you find your soul's calling. Okay, so content is not just, oh, I gotta do content so that I can get people to like me and trust me and know me and sell them my products. That is a chore. Now I don't wanna do that. I used to do that and I burned out and it wasn't fun and I just basically start over with, let me figure out who I am. I'm gonna figure out in community with you so that I can see who I am in relation to what is useful in the world. To what is useful for others because that's really my highest. That's the humanity's highest calling. A human being's highest calling is to be in service to another human being, to be in service to the world. Okay, not just to be in service to herself or himself. That's not a calling. That's just a hobby, right? So content, look at it as, oh my God, it's so worth it because I am figuring out who I am and the only way I figure out who I am is in relationship to other people. So that's the first layer of an authentic business. Authentic, consistent, relevant content. Okay, that's the first layer. And you do that by either by writing or by speaking through video or by creating a podcast or however you wanna do it. There's different ways of doing it, okay? But you've got to also not only create content but also you'd have to learn how to distribute the content and distributing the content. My favorite way, as you may have heard me say is through Facebook ads. It's the simplest way for anybody, everybody to distribute their content, okay? If you have $30 a month to spend on your business, I hope you have at least $30 a month to spend on your business for advertising, you can use Facebook ads to get your content out to the right people. So that's the simplest way of distributing, okay? That's the first layer of an authentic business, okay? You start there and then you make that a foundation and then after that, it's a foundation, you build on it with the second layer, okay? The second layer is audience research. If you don't know what your audience is buying and let me be clear, audience research is particularly about understanding your audience's buying patterns and their buying intent. What have they spent money on already? That's related to what you might wanna offer, okay? And what do they want to spend money on that they can't quite find the right solutions for? They've already bought certain things, they bought certain programs or coaching or healing or mentoring or products or services or whatever, they've been to certain events and it hasn't fully satisfied them. They're still wanting to improve, they're still wanting to solve certain problems, they're still wanting to reach certain goals in their life, they're still wanting to have certain experiences. So if you do audience research to understand their buying patterns and their buying intent, meaning, oh, I'm still looking for this. What I bought there wasn't quite the right fit. Okay, I thought I could achieve this goal or experience this thing or solve this problem, but it wasn't quite right. What is their buying pattern and their buying intent? You discovered this through conversations with them. How else will you discover this? Yeah, you can follow their social media and notice what they're sharing, what they're giving reviews on. Sure, that's helpful. But essentially, eventually you need to have a one-to-one heart-to-heart with them. Okay, as many people as you're willing to have a heart-to-heart with in your audience, how do you build an audience? You build an audience through authentic, relevant, consistent content, like I just said, right? That's the foundation. And once you build at least a bit of an audience, at least you have a few people that you can talk to that start to like who you are, like your explorations. By the way, the exploration never ends. Did you think that you were gonna get to some point where you figured out everything? You've gone through the rabbit hole to figure out everything. You have come to the truth of what you're gonna say for the rest of your life. My God, that would be so boring, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that be boring? To have known nothing new, to discover about the truth of what you're gonna say for the rest of your life? Then you're done. You're done learning? No, the exploration is forever. That's the soul's journey. So you never, don't ever try to, so this is something I say, and I have to say one more thing about the content thing. You don't get to clarity first and then create content. That's the wrong way of, not wrong, but it's not very productive way of looking at it because if you try to figure out clarity, you try to figure out, okay, this is the truth. I figured out everything about my industry. I figured out the truth that I'm gonna share with the world now. You're probably in your own head because I don't wanna go on this because I could go on this for hours and hours, but create content as an exploration in community and that's how you discover more truth, not the truth. You discover more truth. And over time, you're gonna discover through content that all what you thought was true before was just a shallow interpretation of the truth. Now you have a deeper interpretation. Now you have a wider interpretation. You have learned more now through explorations with other people. And that's what you do over time. But at every stage, your audience's following you. They're enjoying your uncovering of the truth in your own way. They're enjoying that and they're learning along with you. And if you have an aha moment, oh my God, this is so true. This is what I believe can help you. That's your snapshot of your truth at that moment. Five years, even five months from now, you're gonna have another aha moment that makes what your previous aha moment looked like. It was more shallow or it wasn't as true. So don't worry. You just gotta put out there. That's what authenticity means. This is true for me at this time, okay? You build an audience that way who naturally like who you are. You don't have to pretend to be anybody other than who you are. The internet is so big. There are billions and billions of people. And because there's so many people, there are inevitably, there are at least hundreds of thousands of people who will like you just for who you are. They'll like your face. They'll like how you look. They'll like the way you talk. And lots of people won't like how you look. Lots of people won't like how you talk. Lots of people won't like how you think. But you're not trying to please everybody. You're just trying to find the sliver of the human population who happens to be really resonant with just the way you are. And that's the authentic content, okay? So the second layer, audience research is now you get into one-on-one conversations with as many as you can in your audience. And you try to figure out, I'm trying to understand how I can serve someone like you better. So can you help me out by helping me tell me what you've bought before in this realm? Have you bought any, if you're a coach, oh, have you ever bought any coaching or any therapy? Oh, really? Oh, for what kinds of issues? Oh, that's interesting. Oh, did you buy any books on these issues? Oh, really? Oh, you wanted to learn about that? Oh, that's interesting. Oh, you were looking at that sub-issue. Oh, so you learn so much from audience research conversations. So that's the second layer. So you layer that on top of your authentic, that you continue doing your authentic, consistent, relevant content, and then you add on the second layer of activity. You continue doing audience research all the time. I'm doing audience research all the time. I still do it. You look at my business, hopefully I can be a model for you of a successful authentic business because I have all four layers. I have the authentic content, consistent content that I keep doing while I'm still here. Even though I'm success, I mean, for most people call me successful already. I have a full, I don't need any more clients. I'm always referring clients out now because I can't take any more clients. I have a waiting list. I've published four books. I basically can just whisper and I have enough sales. You know, I don't have to try to persuade anybody. So I have a successful business. So I have all four layers. So I have the authentic, consistent, relevant content layer. I have the audience research layer that I keep doing. I keep having conversations. I gift sessions. I gift like a free session every now and then to a super fan or someone who has bought my courses and I try to better understand them so I can provide even better stuff going forward. Okay, that's the second layer, audience research. Third layer after you've gotten the audience research down and you continue doing the content. The third layer, I call it launch to learn, launch to learn. And in this layer, you now understand at least a little bit. Again, it continues forever. This research stuff goes on. You understand at least a little bit, your audience is buying patterns and they're buying intent and now you're going to launch products and services that are relevant to them because you know something about them. So your launch, why do I call it launch to learn? Because when you launch something, and by launch, what I mean by launch is you have a concerted effort of announcing, creating and announcing a product or a service or a program or event or whatever you wanna call it. Whatever you wanna offer. Is it a service, is it a product? Whatever you wanna offer. You launch to learn, okay? Because every single time you announce, hey, based on what I know about you all, I'm gonna offer this to you, do you want it? You're not launching something because, oh my God, I better make at least $10,000 on this launch or otherwise I'm gonna be depressed and quit my business. Which is how so many people think of it. They work so dang hard on every single launch. I think they work too hard. I guess I have more of a Taoist take on business. It's more like I'm very gentle with my launches. I just say, hey, everyone, I do a pre-launch first, which those of you who follow me know this is my rhythm now. I first survey you all, audience research. So what do you want? Okay, that's what you want. Okay, great. And then I do a pre-launch where I very gently, very simply, without creating a fancy sales page and a Facebook event page, none of that stuff yet. I just, in a very simple Facebook post. All right, based on understanding you all, I'm gonna offer this next who wants to buy it at a discount before I officially launch it, who wants to buy it at a discount. Oh, okay. And then I observe during the pre-launch period that I get enough sales based on my history. Okay, I know that if during the pre-launch period, I don't get this number of sales, it's probably not worth my time. And you have to figure out what the history is for you, which is launch to learn. You're always learning for every single launch, but you've got to launch consistently so your audience gets to know, oh yeah, that's your rhythm now. Okay, so you launch to learn, pre-launch, launch, and then you deliver the product that you're offering or the service, whatever it is. Launch to learn, you keep a rhythm of launches, okay? And then finally, the top layer, the fourth layer is growing what works. And growing what works means noticing, oh, what content your audience is particularly liking. Great, use Facebook ads to boost it to a cold audience, to people who don't know you yet so that they can enjoy some of your best content, okay? Growing what works also means oh, which of your offerings is selling the best? Great, how can you launch that kind of offering more often or in a better way, in a bigger way? Because you know it works, growing what works rather than thinking everything you do has to be so serious, has to be so, oh God, this better work. No, everything is an experiment. Your launch is our experiment so that you can then grow what works, scale what works through ads, through partnerships, through paying for more graphic design, through paying for better editing of your writing, whatever it is, you grow what works, okay? So those are the four layers, authentic, consistent, relevant content, the first layer, and each layer you keep going. You don't just stop after you do one layer. No, you keep going. And then once that's, you know, and you've gotten into a rhythm for that, now you add in on the second layer which is audience research. Great, you've got a rhythm for that. Now you add a third layer, launch to learn. Okay, you've got a rhythm of launches. Great, add the fourth layer, growing what works. Okay, so that's how you can grow as big of a business as you want. You can make as much money as you want but all along the way, hopefully you're also doing it with joyful productivity. You're doing it like, you know, I think of it as a Dallas way of approaching work but it's a gentle, confident, joyful way of approaching all of these tasks because the way I think about it is all life is learning, all life is experimentation and personally I believe that all life is secure. Meaning no matter what, no matter what, if your mission on earth is not yet complete, you will not die, you will not starve. Money will always magically appear. It will, it will. Money will always magically appear when you need it. You will notice that in your life, haven't you? Haven't you noticed that? Money will always magically appear when you need it because there is a greater power that's taking care of you. While your mission is not yet complete, you will not die, you can't die. Money will appear, sustenance will appear. Sometimes the magic of magically appear means that you've got a sudden inspiration or sudden burst of motivation to go get a job. I don't know, I mean, but no matter what, man, money will appear, whether it's you're magically motivated now or magically got some ideas or it will come, someone else will give it to you or someone else will offer you an opportunity. Don't worry about it. Just trust in the greater process that you're taking care of and build your authentic business step by step with these four layers in mind, with joyful productivity as the whole process of how you go about it. So I hope that this is helpful. I look forward to any comments or any questions that you have. And at this point, I'm going to go ahead and look at whether or not there are any comments. And this is a live video on Facebook. So I'm just going to see if there are any comments. Go ahead and add any comments below or any questions and waiting for it to load to see if there's any comments here. Give me just a moment. So thanks for those who are joining me. Let's see, Janine and Mary, Miriam, Susan, Wendy, Dorota. Thank you all for joining me and for your comments. Thank you all. And I wish you a very good rest of your day remembering that you are always and forever taken care of. And it is therefore your opportunity and your privilege to play in this world. You're here to play and explore your calling, which is your passion in service to others in a way that really lifts them up. All right, be well.