 So I'm Alexis Neely and you might know me as Ali Shanti and I'm here today with my friend George Cowell and We're here having this conversation because there's been a lot of dialogue in the online world about business models and what is really the best business model for each person and how do we choose that business model and You know George and I had a conversation some time ago because I Noticed that the business model that George has chosen Was one that oftentimes calls to me and I'll see him posting about how he left the internet marketing world and he gave up promoting his programs and courses just you know to work with people one-on-one and It's something that I've been resistant to myself I've invested so much time and energy and attention and building my business models online and Then ultimately even building a program to help people choose the right business model for them and yet as I built these big teams I noticed this draw to do what George has done and let it all go and just work with people one-on-one and so I wanted to have a conversation with George because Really I wanted to explore that and what led into his decision to leave the world of online marketing or you know leverage and Selling you know online programs and courses and instead give of his time in this one-to-one way really as a way of Helping me to get more clear on Whether that might be something that I wanted to do and I really respect George He and I have done work together over the years and I've just seen that the way that George serves his community is really heartfelt and I Specifically didn't use the word heart centered because I think that that word has gotten watered down and Doesn't really mean a lot anymore But but I feel George's heart. So I say heartfelt and I'm really excited to be here with you George having this conversation That we can share with more people who might be in this inquiry for themselves about how do I choose the right income model for me? How do I know if I should invest in the program that's gonna teach me how to do a product launch and should I create a course and you know really what is my next level and I think that this is a great space for us to have a an open and honest conversation that can help a lot of people who are considering going down the path that we have and We've chosen different things and Also, maybe I can help to give me more clarity on What I'm continuing to choose and maybe give you more clarity on what you're continuing to choose. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you That was great so I am excited about this conversation because Ali you and I like you mentioned we've known each other for years. We first got to Working together because I was in the internet marketing world of joint ventures Doing big webinars selling big ticket Programs, you know two thousand dollars a piece, you know, where people didn't even have one-to-one access to me $2,000 they had some group access and Then I so admired you and I still do because you have been so successful in that world You've built a successful You've built you have more businesses and I think I understand but you have a successful business in law and You have a successful business teaching lawyers How to build their practice and succeed there and then you have had a successful business teaching business owners How to relate to the legal piece in their business whether they should incorporate and why and all that good stuff And then you went and developed a whole program that was successful called the money map, right? And you help people discover what the different models were for sharing their gifts online and how to relate to the money piece of it and I've seen you over the years Become more of a spiritual leader, I might say to your community anyway Even though it's not your product or your service I feel like you are a It is it's spiritual leadership into into a way of authenticity Is what I would is what I felt is like how do we become more radically? Aligned with what what the what the heart really wants to express through our business so I kind of saw that more and more from you and Recently we reconnected because I saw a posting that you had made on Facebook about how you are writing a new book about money in the context of what is enough and You're creating a program around that and interestingly I saw it because I was visiting James Altichur's profile and he's a He's a blogger and podcaster. I think that we both admire. I really like his podcast and You attacked him he had liked your post You had also tagged several people including Charles Eisen Einstein you mentioned him and Lynn twist and these are both people I admire for their You might say radical way of thinking about money in this world But I think it's radical only because the way that we do it right now. I think it's pretty screwed up the way that the economy is Designed really designed or it keeps funneling Money more more and more money and more power to the people at the top And leaving a lot of people Including many of the people that that we know our clients and our colleagues and sometimes ourselves as well lacking because Community you know the sense of community has Largely disappeared unless we create our own and I know that you've been Quite effective at creating your own community and network And I think that that is partly that I think that's part of this conversation too is in order for us to be able to Thrive in a new economy, which is what the term you've been using in a new economy. I think it requires us to Be especially cognizant about how we are building community again In a way that even though we don't live with each other in a village. We don't we don't live in neighborhood together. How can we? Really diligently and actively Maintain and deepen these bonds that we have Virtually you and I have never met in person. How can we do this in a way that we can truly be supportive of each other and We can build a an ecosystem where No, you know Spiritual entrepreneur you might say gets left behind Yeah, you know so anyway I kind of want to preface that with with this idea of community Yeah, well, I love that about our last conversation and I'd love to Explore that a little bit more because one of the things that you had said is you you know as you've gone into doing more of this One-on-one work with people You also wonder how we can Still come together to support each other and I'd love to just give people some insight into the way That it has happened in the past. Yes, the thing that that you stopped doing You know participating in these big joint venture launches and these big like partnership networks and Because in a way you might say that those are communities of people who are coming together To support each other Bringing their programs and products out to the world but I think probably what you might have noticed There and wanted to pull away from and consciously pulled away from and something that I personally have also struggled with and Might be why my work isn't more out in the world is That what I've seen with those communities is that they First of all, they're they're exclusive. Yeah They're very exclusive. You can like only get into them if you have a certain list size, right? Yeah, and then the the way that the community exists that's been painful to me personally is That it's really based on this competition mentality Right, and if you get into the back end of these joint venture launches What you'll see is that the way that the the joint venture partners are incentivized Email their list and to support the launch is by setting up these competitions Among the partners and I will be honest I have gotten pulled into those sure and my competition self has gotten Activated in a way that I would email my list more because I wanted to win or I wanted to be on the leaderboard Yes, yes, and ultimately I began to recognize that that was actually painful me The part of me that was activated Mm-hmm participating in those launches wasn't the part of me that I love the most It wasn't the part of me that I feel Where I feel my heart the most where I was really making a choice about whether to send an email or not. Yeah done Do I really think that this thing is the best thing out there in the world? Or do I just want to win this competition and so I pulled away from it But it's hurt my business Yes, right to do it, you know in many ways and I and you changed your whole business model You said okay. Well, I'm gonna serve people one-on-one. I'm not gonna I'm not even gonna participate in this more anymore I have not I kept my business model Serving people with my courses and programs and products and we can talk more about why we each, you know chose that Yeah, I'd love to hear what your experience has been with these kinds of communities Why that didn't work for you and what you would prefer to say? Yeah, so great I'm you said you it described that world so well It's very masculine very it's almost like you can imagine sports teams or You know sort of everyone's showing off their muscles or something like that, you know Their muscles being their list and their ability to write copy that converts so It's Yeah, and I'm thinking you know back to the masculine It's kind of like people have list envy like what you have a hundred thousand people on your list and oh your conversion rate is this You know and I think why what no longer worked for me about it was the I think myopic focus on certain numbers It was list size it was can you know how much you sold and that's pretty much it To the exclusion of Was your like you said what your audience truly served by this do you really believe in it in other words to the exclusion of the heart To the exclusion of the heart of service and also the authentic Endorsement from our from our intrinsic motivation instead of the extrinsic motivation so I and Also You couldn't the other thing is you can't be part of that community unless you're essentially scratching each other's back It's like well, you know Ali. I'm only gonna promote you if you promote me war No matter if my thing is right for your audience or not Maybe your thing is right for my audience, but you got to promote me regardless, you know, and if that and so I Could no longer Tolerate promoting things to my audience that I felt were basically taking their money and Not really giving the average buyer What the hype was promising I Think that was the key the there along this journey, there have been a couple of Models that have been that have been people that have been Have shocked me by their sincerity In the way they do their business and I would say by the way you said it's hurt your business And I would say it's only hurt your business Maybe in one way which is maybe some of the numbers but in another way you might say that it's helped Your business maybe for the longer term in that you are drawing More of the people to you that you actually want to be with long-term In terms of clients customers and partners Right and maybe right now in the short term the business numbers are not as great But if we are able to look at the long game I do believe that we'll look back and say that was the right choice Or that was the choice that I'm so glad that I made Even though it was scary at the time But one of the models I want to bring up and I also want to hear about the models of the people that kind of inspired you along the way One of the folks is Leo Babalta Zen habits net I remember reading One of there's several of his postings which if I can find it all included in the notes of this of this episode one of the Posts he wrote was Basically giving advice on how he was able to to do so well in his business. I mean he has over a million Readers of his blog regularly Subscribers probably in the hundreds of thousands in terms of email. He lives in San Francisco supports a family of six and He barely sells on his blog He does sell don't do launches every now and then but his his his words in his contact are very much aligned and he Says basically Shockingly to me Don't worry about SEO Like ignores ignore social media ignore SEO Do what is right for the audience for your audience? Does it help your reader make all your decisions based on that question? When when I read that I was still in the JB world and I was shocked by that I'm like, how is This guy able to create such a successful business with that kind of with that kind of mandate and Eventually and I am starting to see that to be honest. I mean Ali I feel like I just started my business over again in the past year or two From scratch and I feel like my audience. I'm it's like I'm developing relationships with a new group of people There were some from the from my old life My old business life that I've now seen my transformation and are interested in participating, but I feel like I'm really creating a new tribe and I have Never before seen this kind of loyalty From my audience before and I feel like it's an intrinsically motivated loyalty They're not trying to get to me and and try to get me to promote them or something like that It's a wow. I really connect with you in your heart I believe in what you're doing and that's why I'm supporting you Yeah, but what what have you? What have you seen in the transformation in your transformation in terms of how you're relating to your audience. Have you seen Any difference there? Yeah Yeah, I Biggest challenge for me George has been my In congruence Yeah, and What what I what I notice And this does come back to really knowing Knowing your audience like you're saying but that starts with knowing yourself And as I've gone through my own personal transformation. I haven't always known myself. I've been Torn between these two worlds of Alexis Neely and Ali Shanti and it's only been really recently I would say in the past year that I have felt an Integration between these two parts of me that are allowing A sense of congruence so when I'm speaking to my audience Sometimes I'm speaking really clearly about the heart Sometimes I'm still speaking a lot about money. Yeah, and I got an email message Recently which I shared with you the last time we talked from a man who is on my email list and he said Please unsubscribe me I don't feel your heart in these emails. These emails are all about money and freedom being the path to Success and I don't believe that is the path to success and I want to hear from Ali Who you know, I believe knows that love and truth are the path to success And I want you to show us a model where we can just give everything away for free And we don't need to charge for anything and we can trust that we're going to have what we need and this email was the perfect reflection of my own internal In congruence on these issues. Hmm. I agree with him in so many ways Yeah I want to live in a world where we can all just give our gifts for free and trust that we're going to receive Everything that we need back in return but we don't live in that world right now and The part the Alexis Neely part of me knows that I would be leading people or at least feels that I would be leading people astray if I were to say Hey, just give everything that you have away for free and don't charge for your services And if I wasn't showing people ways That they can give their gifts and ask for what they need back in return Yeah, that is actually truly what they need and so you know this idea of Speak to your audience and always only write to your audience Right begins Really with you truly knowing who is that audience? Who are you to begin with? You know like really knowing yourself deeply and Then coming from the most congruent place that you can in each moment That's really been my biggest challenge is that I have an internal conflict. Yeah, I'm wrestling with yeah, I'm not hiding it You know, I'm not like well I'm gonna hide this internal conflict and I've resolved it one of the things that I longed for 10 15 years ago Was I wanted to see people in process and not just after they've become successful I wanted to see like what was it like when they were, you know still figuring things out and so I share that and For some people and I guess I just have to trust that the people who don't respond well to that aren't my people but I think that the more congruent you can get with the truth of who you are and then speak from that place The more you are going to find that audience and so I I guess the question that I have for you, George is Who is your audience? You know you say that you've you've gotten into this clarity around this new tribe that you're creating and One of the first things that of course we teach whenever we're teaching someone to build their business is Know who you're serving right? It's the hardest thing for most people because we want to serve the world Yeah, you know when I was doing a state planning like I serve everybody because everybody needs a state planning But the truth is is when I went through Michael Port's programs way back when and I got really clear that no I'm gonna serve families with young children And I was willing to make the commitment to that and build a business around serving families with young children Even though all the other lawyers said Alexis don't do that You're gonna starve families with young children don't want to do a state planning. They don't want to think about that They don't want to pay for it, but I knew as a mom. Yes, they do You just haven't been talking to them in the right way and I went for it. That's when my business exploded So this is the right question to ask. Yeah, who is your audience? Yes, and I'm curious for you George what you've discovered in this kind of rebuilding of your business and discovering this new tribe Who is your audience? Yeah, oh my gosh, it is such an ongoing inquiry for me, too in fact, I I always tell people that listen, you don't define your audience once and then you're done I think that you're continually Hopefully having conversations with them to discover What is it? What's what stage are there at are they at that you can best help them? What is it that they are? Well in conflict with in their own hearts right and Not even I feel like I used to I used to think that my audience was a particular Well, it's either women or men or people of a particular gender particular age range rather And I feel like my new audience is not it's confusing to me I and I think in part Ali is I am not quite sure who my new audience is yet You know because I feel like I just started my business over again after five six years like new business Same kind of stuff. I'm talking about but talking about in the new with it with a new heart And essentially with a new therefore with and I'm talking with a new heart. I'm connecting with With it with it from a different place and so I'm connecting with new people I do I do notice that I think maybe it's because we're in this political season right now that My audience tends to Connect with certain, you know political values And we can kind of connect there or maybe it's the love of animals or and at the same time They really love and I'm so glad that Facebook now has this like love, you know different reactions to our posts They love When I talk about the things that we're talking about here Yeah, and so I'm getting a sense that that is my audience and and I think that that encourages me to keep talking about it Not shy away from it You know and so on this question of business model Yeah, on this question of could we give everything away and still be taken care of I am now experimenting I Don't know if you saw my thread on this yet in wisdom printers, but I'm experimenting with patreon I am now moving all my client billing over to patreon in a radical move You know it's still early. I don't know if it's gonna pan out. You know, we'll have to check in on this experiment in six months Thus far I've gotten about a thousand dollars moved a month moved over to patreon and Which is interesting because it's more money than most people are making on patreon But my the idea for those of you who don't know patreon is a platform where content creators can Ask their audience can be supported financially by their audience So if you saw a youtube a youtube video creator, you know, maybe this sort of the the Traditional way of thinking about patreon is this person, you know sing songs on youtube. You love it so much You want to support their next song because they're a poor musician and they said, okay I've set up my patreon page. Please go and support me there Maybe you can chip in $2 per song that I upload or the other model on patreon is a monthly support And the monthly support is what I'm using right so because I work with clients on a month to month basis And you know certain number of sessions per month that kind of thing so I Told I actually took the I was proactive in cancelling my clock my current clients PayPal subscriptions Without asking them first. I should cancel their PayPal subscriptions and I said, please do me a favor Click this link instead and let's move our billing over there So the ones I canceled actually did move over there I had some clients that have already paid me lump sum so those are not reflected on my monthly amount, but it's it's very interesting that There's some Amazing clarity. I'm getting from wow. I'm making a thousand dollars a month recurring and my clients, you know I'm still serving them the same way just the billing is different, but The the framing of the the money is different too. It's not it's now framed as I'm Financially supporting George at a certain level and on patreon There is you can set up reward rewards for certain levels Like if you chip in seventy five dollars a month you get access to this you chip in 350 a month you get access to that and so it's like oh, I'm now supporting George financially because the way my patreon pages is Framed is that I'm creating free courses to help people build their authentic business So that's my mission on my patreon pages. I'm giving away all my content away for free That's my commitment to them and if they want to support me they support me But really the majority of the money has been from my clients I've just moved the building over there, but I'm starting to see people support me because they want to even though They don't get any of the reward levels. So my Experiment in hope is that this will work and I think that if this works Maybe it'll work for Others who want to pursue this path to that could we Eventually I want the money my money mainly to be from people who just love my content and wanted to want to chip in I mean in the meantime, I think the compromise the middle solution is well I'm still mainly making money doing the one-to-one service But the dream of course just like the email you mentioned is could we eventually just be sharing our brilliant gifts? I mean Ali, I think if you had a patreon page, I would pledge You know because I think you're I think you're your spirit and The way that you want to transform the world is amazing, right? And I imagine there's others who Love your your your message who love who you are and would love to do that as well, right? That's a that's an experiment. I'm always experimenting and and I'm just interested to see where it goes from here So what I'm what I'm hearing is that even though you left the online world where you were you didn't leave the online world Obviously here we are online And we reconnected on Facebook So you are in the online world But you left this world of internet marketing hardcore sales joint venture partnerships And transitioned into serving people on a one-to-one basis What you really would like is a reality where you are creating Consistent content that can serve more people than you can serve one-to-one. Yes, you do want that Yeah, so so similar to what you're So you're you're also wishing to Have a positive impact on more people's lives because you believe in your message and the same thing with me is that that's what I want as Well, I think when it comes to content, there's I mean, I guess there's kind of three things that I know I need to work on one, of course is the quality of the message itself So the efficacy of the tools processes, etc. Second one is the well the production value or the entertainment value of the message And the third one is really the distribution relationships That that's I think part of the ecosystem idea that I'm talking about is if we can form an Ecosystem of people who believe in each other then it's much easier for our message to spread and help the people that it needs to help Right, and I feel like I have a long way to go in in all three of these areas No, and I feel like I'm just starting again Wow and But I think that if if we all work on these things for ourselves We have a message that's out there. That's really helping people That's easy to consume because it's it's good production value or it's entertaining and it's being distributed to us from people we trust Okay, because maybe it's someone else we hadn't heard of and now now we get to we get that message from someone we trust and if everyone is kind of Getting their lives benefit in this way And they are supporting and that's why I talk about reciprocal gratitude, you know I mean that there's sustainable generosity and then there's reciprocal gratitude. I think about it this way like sustainable generosity is We are recording this video. We're hoping that it'll help many people But we don't have to have the same conversation with a thousand people We can have this conversation once, right? I think that's sustainable generosity, right? And reciprocal gratitude is if the person who is watching and listening Truly benefits from it and feels an overflow in their heart and saying gosh I want this overflow to benefit the people that I've just received the benefit from And they know that okay, they can go support you Ali. They can go support me At whatever level is Comfortable for them Then truly everybody wins They win They win because they receive the generosity from us But they win also because they get to give back. It doesn't just it's like a river that gets to go somewhere Yeah, for that heart to go and then the world wins because of this model of um mutual support Yeah, that's kind of my dream and It's gonna take us a while. I think to get there Well, this is this is one step closer and and here's what I want to identify because What you identified about the efficacy of the message The production value and then the community supporting each other You might look at these preeminent marketers Yeah, the brennan brashards the ebb and peg and police the sasvitches the jeff walkers You guys have seen them all in your inboxes, right? And you might say that the reason they are the preeminent Because they have mastered Yeah, those three things. Yeah the efficacy of their message They've mastered the production value. They all have really good production value and they have created this network among themselves to Um promote each other But there's a reason that both you and I I haven't fully opted out. I want to I want to say that I haven't fully opted out I still do promote the things that feel really congruent. Yes With where I am if I personally benefited from it If I really do believe that my audience is going to benefit from it And if the affiliate commission is sufficient for me to be willing to email my list Um, because we have a business that does uh rely on making, you know, a certain amount of money for each time We send out an email you have a team. I have a team. I have a big team to support, right? So it's not just you know me. It's it's this whole team that i'm supporting Um, but there's something about That version of it. Yeah that had you opt out and not want to Play in that sandbox anymore. Yeah, and i'm curious What specifically? Yeah, it was. Yeah that you see is addressed or could be addressed By what you're talking about here with sustainable generosity and reciprocal gratitude. Yeah I think that there is something that will get us closer to the world. We want to live in so great What a great question. Um Yeah, I I think you're right that identifying the fact that The big inner marketers do have efficacy of message Um production value and the community of distribution distributing their messages and products The thing I think maybe there's a fourth one. I realize I'm not sure if it's really part of efficacy or if it's fourth one, which is The efficacy The impact of their message on the world for the longer term The effect that their tools have on the The holistic nature of the world and kind of where society needs to go that was what's missing for me And that's what is missing for me. Whenever I Sometimes I mean My job like part of my job is I have to keep learning about marketing right for the sake of my clients Yeah, and it's hard. It's funny because it's hard for me to I can almost sometimes not stomach reading yet another blog post that is so profit driven Listening to another podcast. That's all about building our list Yeah, because that's that that piece of I don't even know how we can call it. It's almost um the Well, we could say the heart Heart intention Is missing is missing, you know, and I want to listen to podcasts or I want to read blog posts where Essentially, I mean I mean when I read it from you, for example, I feel the heart there And so therefore it's much easier for me to learn That that's the piece that I want to bring So maybe that and I feel like maybe the the three things I talked about working on are the things I feel like I need to work on because I think that the piece of the heart intention Has been so transformed for me that that is where It's much easier for me to bring that now And I think that's much and that heart intention is what is so come so easily to a lot of the people in our audience Like you said, you know the spiritual entrepreneurs They just want to give everything away from a pure heart intention but they haven't instituted systematized A way of doing business that is going to support them financially And I think you know what I'll have to say this I think a lot of heart entrepreneurs spiritual entrepreneurs They do need to work on the efficacy of their of their tools and their message They need to work on their production value and they need to work on their community of support And all of that though takes financial resource to do Yeah, you know what what what I'm what I'm finding is that You know a lot of the people that I work with don't have a lot of money And and it is oftentimes because they are coming so much from their hearts and they do just want to give it all away And they don't necessarily have the ability to ask for what they need Because they've been so much in this mindset of just well, let's just give it all away And maybe not always valuing their time appropriately, right And I only know these things by the way because As I made this transformation myself into My own heart. I noticed how It's almost in a way that I rejected the money piece for some time And What I and it's really the same message that this that this man gave me in the email You know, it was like the pendulum swing away from Well, we need to reject money In order to live love and truth and what I'm seeing as I integrate into my own being Is that it's not a rejection. We don't want to reject anything that in fact as we evolve our consciousness We want to transcend and include as ken wilber says in the integral studies. We want to we want to utilize money For its right purpose put money in its right place Yes, it's been, you know, so much of of my work is discovering. Well, what is its right place? and what I'm discovering for myself is that Its right place is as a fuel Fuel our creative dreams and our heart projects rather than being a compass Telling us where to go and I think what you are helping me to identify right now Is that part of why I think that you pulled out of that industry and part of what has had me be like Uh, is that money is the compass? Right driving these communities and what you and I are both wanting to see more of Is how can we allow money to be the tool the fuel? That fuels the engine But isn't the compass telling us where to go or how to make our choices? Um that instead we're allowing our hearts to lead and allowing money and the mind to support the mission of the heart All right, that's beautiful. And now I'd love to hear an example if you if you can think of one whether it's something that you've recently had to decide on Money being not no longer, you know no longer being a compass being a tool Has there been a situation In your business right now that you've had to make that decision or can you imagine? That decision Yeah, it's happening every day actually as I enter into this Inquiry about whether to work with people one on one again as an example Yeah, um before when I was making my decisions based on money with money as my compass It was a much easier analysis for me to say well, I'll just you know choose the business model that will make me the most money Right, which is which is actually what we're continually every day being inundated with from The blogs we read from the corporate media Is that that is supposed to be the compass profit for business right right? and so as I have um Shifted my orientation from money as the compass to money as the fuel It's had to become this reorientation inside of me where I am first Have to be really clear about the life that I want How much time do I have? for Work for earning money um and for Bringing my message into the world, but none of that can happen until I'm first engaged in the self-care That I need to engage in to support myself Which by the way that you know 15 years ago. I think I hired my first coach. I was uh earning a six figure income as an associate in a law firm Dream job and yet I was you know, it's like 27 years old success, you know, and I was miserable and I remember being really confused. I went to law school. I graduated first in my class I got the job at the best law firm in the country and making the six-figure paycheck bought a house Have a baby. I'm married. How could I be miserable? What is wrong with me? Yeah, the american dream. I'm living it. Yeah, and I hired this coach Even though back then coaching was really weird and the voice in my head was like You don't need no stinking coach. You're You graduated first in your class from georgetown. What's this coach going to be able to tell you and I was like, well That you're not happy. So you know, give this a shot and the very first thing that she had me focused on when we were coaching She's like When's the last time you went to the dentist? When's the last time you got your hair cut? When's the last time you got a massage? When's the last time you got a pedicure and I was pissed I was like, I did not hire you and by the way, I was spending I think at the time $350 a month Which even though is making a six figure paycheck was a huge amount of money for me. Yeah. Oh, yeah Because I never spent $350 a month on me Yeah on my house on my house and on my baby on you know taxes all the things But to spend that much money on me was unheard of. Yeah And now she's talking to me about pedicures and massages And I was really angry and I was like, okay I am this is not what I'm paying you for. Yeah, she's like Actually, it is what you're paying me for because if you don't take care of yourself first You're never going to be happy in your job. It doesn't matter what you're doing You're simply not going to be happy and Once I actually started doing that. I started working out and I went to the dentist and got my first pedicure I'd never actually had a pedicure before I found That this creative channel opened up inside of me that ultimately led to me starting my omap practice That had never been on my horizon before I couldn't even see any of that Because the truth was is I I wasn't needing my needs for self-care I wasn't my inner self was actually not taken care of and and so as I go into the inquiry of Should I work with clients one-on-one which you know, by the way when I when I do work with clients one-on-one You know, they pay me a lot of money To do that It has to start and it is it's continuously starting not with this question of how much money I can make but this question of What really fits into my life? And how does it feel for me to do that? and What I notice is that I'm doing a lot of one-on-one work with people for free You know funds and yeah things like that because it feels good. I I really do like working with people one-on-one. It's it's super rewarding um What I also notice though is that when I charge for it and I feel the obligation Yes to deliver in a certain way. It's yeah specific times. It actually doesn't feel good to me Interesting. I start feeling resentful that I have to show up at a specific time in a certain way I start to feel them being like is this really valuable and I'm testing my value and Because they are paying me so much because my my money map number Which is the amount of money that I need to receive for each hour that I'm getting paid to deliver a service Just based on what my companies need for me is really high But I start to feel this feeling of like oh god. I got to really deliver. Oh god I start taking personal responsibility for their results in a way that doesn't feel good And that's what has me not wanting to Serve in the one-on-one In that's fascinating. Yeah, and I think it's Yeah, it's it's really having me inquire about that dynamic Right now I've got um I could say three types of client relationships The first type is the traditional they pay me upfront Either lump sum or monthly and we have a set number of sessions over the over the course of a year great You know everyone understands that model the second model is the Complete reverse which is the people that I support for free Because they're my loyal fans and they ask me questions on facebook Like they comment on one of my videos saying oh, george. What a great video. I love this so much But what do you think about this? I mean, how does that work? Right and I out of an outpouring of wow, they're they like my video. They're engaged with my content and they have further questions And we we all know that you know, well, we all should know that questions from our loyal audience are like gold because it tells us It's a signal. I believe from the universe Through the market for what we should be Creating and focusing on more of so I'm very happy to support them there. That's free And just do it in a sustainable way You know, I think that's that's key and then now I'm experimenting with third relationship Which is deferred payment coaching is what I call it and it's where I'm very clear with the people I'm working with in this way My fee Percession is actually double The fee for what people would pay if they were prepaying for coaching But they don't there's deferred payment coaching clients. They don't pay that fee Until their business is at a level that supports them fully And and then they're able to make that payment without financial hardship. Wow Ali it has been a I have been having a blast with these clients I love it. You're really invested in them Totally invested and also I make them go through a very lengthy application Well, it's just in filling out a form online, but it's It's one person after filling out. So that was harder than filling it out for Harvard You're gonna get the actual results. Yeah, that's that's a little bit of a exaggeration But I have them in the application think through What are your income? What is your current income? What are your expenses? How much would you need to make in order to be able to pay for coaching? What is your idea right now just based on before our coaching? What is your strategy right now for making that much and all that stuff? So that they have to think through things and then and then I tell them also that We don't have a set number of sessions We only meet when you need to meet when you have made real progress based on what we talked about last time And so they're really They're really valuing of my time I'm really valuing of that precious session because we may or may not have another session And it's great. Everyone it seems to be now we're I'm just starting so I don't know if people are going to pay me yet That's far They've been so appreciative that they're saying I I'm gonna and and I see them making Interestingly more progress in one session after one session that my prepaid clients are in first second even third session You are giving me a huge idea here. I I love this I really love it because I do get you know people who message me they're like Well, let me pay you after I'm successful But I've had this feeling of Knowing that there have been times when I wouldn't have been successful if I didn't have money on the line I wouldn't have pushed through my resistance if I didn't have money on the line And so that's been a bit of a challenge for me and well, okay How can I how can I make that work? And one of the things that I one of the things that I do is I train money map masters And so these are people who are trained in the money map process To take other people through the money map process since I'm not doing it one on one And people do really need to go through it one on one often And in order to become a trained money map master, you need to make a big payment upfront $5,000 is what it was last time And I've noticed that I want to be able to train money map masters Who don't necessarily have that $5,000 up front And I've been thinking about how how could I do this in a way that has Then be able to pay upon success right in a way that's also sustainable for the business because There is a lot of giving of my time of our resources My one concern Is that if they don't have money on the line That when the resistance comes up, they won't push through it And I saw this with one of the money map masters that I have in the program now She might be one of the most resistant people that I've ever met and if she watches this she'll be able to identify herself And at each juncture where I have seen her say I want to quit I have coached her Through the resistance To keep moving forward Recognizing that everything that she's going through that has her want to quit and give up is what she's going to be supporting her clients with And I'm curious if she would have pushed through the resistance Yes, if she wasn't financially invested and what we could Create as a replica of that Yeah If not, you know, because we want them to have the intrinsic motivation that you're talking about And not be an extrinsic not reinforce this idea of having to have extrinsic motivation So how can we create this? Sustainable generosity. Yeah with the reciprocal gratitude that you're talking about and ensure that people keep showing up Through the resistance, even if they don't have money on the line Yeah, that's it. That's the question yeah the idea that came to me as you were as you were asking this is Well, one is a deadline For when they would pay that money back um one of my clients uh Really dislikes the word deadline and she replaces it with lifeline And I think that that's so appropriate because it is it is a lifeline to pull them into a higher life, right? So Deadline is one. It's like, okay the second one is I think there needs to be a serious application process Yeah, it's not just anybody can sign up and pay later But they have to go through a long application Not not long for its own sake but really detailed having them think through Whether am I the right am I the right fit for this kind of deferred payment situation? And why am I the right fit and what what am I willing to give? Yeah, and what am I going to do when I'm stuck and when that resistance comes up I mean have them answer that question right and maybe there's interviews or whatever but Because I mean your your money map masters program is Higher price than it's kind of my deferred payment. So I think there needs to be a more serious application and third I think that um There is something strange. I've noticed when people pay money for for a program It's like their brain says I've just completed something. I've accomplished something Mm-hmm. And sometimes it means They actually have less motivation To do the stuff because they're like, oh, I bought the program Yeah, you know and so like did I Then I have to keep telling the clients just because you bought the program doesn't mean that you did the program Yeah So so so I've noticed with my deferred payment clients. It's kind of the opposite dynamic Which is that they haven't paid the money, but they know they need to pay the money And so they're gonna work hard. I feel like they're working harder to make sure they they can pay the money back Well, here's what I feel that you're doing George and I feel like you're doing it In a way that I hope is going to pull people into their higher selves and um One of the things that I once heard Lisa sassovich say that was really has really stuck with me She said when people are looking to get out of something They're going to find all the reasons to make you wrong And you don't want to set that dynamic up with your clients where they're looking for reasons to make you wrong or um and and And when she said that The way that I internalized it Is that I I took that um to mean That when people pay me they are often going And their resistance comes up. They're often going to find reasons to make me wrong To maybe you know, they get scared and they Are in a money crisis moment and they want to get a refund or something like that I don't want to set up that dynamic and I I had a private coaching client I worked with about a year ago And she said to me she said oh, yeah All of my students have to go through this process of wanting to kill the teacher kill the guru and uh, and and she just knows that that's going to happen But I I would like to shift that dynamic And and and I think that what you are offering here is the potentiality To shift that dynamic and that if you set it up right from the beginning like you're saying with a really good application process Where you're really believing in their work And you actually want to partner with them because that's what I get is you're partnering with them You you are becoming their partner in their business Um, and you preemptively address the potentiality for resistance for them wanting to kill you You know metaphorically Um, and for them wanting to sabotage so they don't have to pay the money And I think that's one big risk that you have to look for You don't know yet what's going to happen But one big risk I want you to look for ahead of time and mitigate Is the potentiality that as they get closer to success And having to pay you yeah Some of their old behaviors might come in That if you pre proactively and preemptively address those behaviors Call them out bring them from shadow into light That you can head that off at the pass And really that's something that a good partner would do anyway Right And so I'll just you know suggest that maybe you can incorporate that into the model And I I do notice that we are uh at the top of the hour and I wanted to keep this an hour I want to keep this series going. I think that this is Um, I hope it's really valuable for people who are in this conversation in their own heads To be able to hear us talking about it Yeah, we've got we've got some answers not not all of them. We're we're still in And I think even the answers are experimental That's right That's right and you know george's His model is more one-on-one. He wants to find a way to offer his content in The sustainable generosity reciprocal gratitude model that he's laid out I'm not doing any one-on-one. Everything I do is big group programs Memberships coaching selling products that range from $500 now up to you know, let's say 2,500 for a product. Although I did just create my first $47 product, which I'm excited about see how that goes I've never sold low-priced products. So we'll see how that goes. Um, and I'm I'm curious to see how over this series we influence each other perhaps come More towards each other and find a sustainable way to give our joint gifts in the world We each have our gifts in a way that can allow more people to have efficacy of message Recognize that maybe you don't really need the high production value. I mean here we are with zero Product I'm in my bedroom. Yeah in his office. Yeah, uh, and um, and then ultimately be able to build a community of heartfelt people Who do know how to ask for what they need in exchange for what they have to give in a really clean way That doesn't just put profit first, but does understand that money is a fuel. Yeah For our creative teams and our heart projects. I am so looking forward to this This has been such a rich hour I think I'm going to be listening to this again myself so that I can Let let the inquiry Swin around and bring me bring my Way of doing business to a to a higher level. Like you said Transcend and include Yes Great. Well, we'll be back again With another one of these no production value conversations But hopefully lots of really great Inquiry for you content to help you choose ultimately the right income model for your life and and and Do the very best you can to um Make the right choices not because you were sold something Right, um, that's not right for you But because you truly know yourself and the life that you want to live and the way that you want to deliver your worth in the world Yeah, beautiful. Thank you George. This is so great and I look forward to next time sounds good