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Yeah, so obviously we're going toe put this in practice but as a learner I always love learning from people's mistakes. So what are some of your biggest flops? Biggest failures are mistakes that we can learn from ahead of time since you brought it failure you know I have so many um I mean, there have been times when I have written stuff and I go this is genius this is perfect and then I have hundreds of people replying to me saying, how dare you? How could you say that? And there were times where I wanted to quit you know, I've called my wife and I'm crying complaining and you know, because because some sometimes I made a big mistake sometimes a mean anonymous person on the internet said I hate you this was stupid I go yeah, I guess it was stupid and you take those things the heart when you pour your heart into something and then somebody criticizes it eso what have been some of my biggest mistakes every time I've rushed to put something out there? I've almost always regretted it. So t...

he challenge to that is you have a deadline because I'm not saying we'll make it perfect, but when I have been sloppy, I'll pay the consequences meaning I didn't budget my time on, so I'll just do this in the last fifteen minutes of the day and I made a mistake I didn't I broke a link I said something offensive and I shouldn't have done it so that's one thing you know, the biggest mistake that I can remember I mean it's just it's immediately what came to mind when you ask that question was I I made my own experience somebody else's, which could be really powerful, but it can also be really dangerous and so I basically took something that I believed and I wrote about it in a way that was judgmental and so basically what I did was I talked about writers and how a lot of writers I knew we're divorced and I made this like, really general, terrible statement about how, you know if you're going to be a writer like you're probably not going to be able to hold your marriage together because I was like, I was seeing this in my own life and it came off really critical and judgmental and I regret it, you know, even to this day and it was stupid like sometimes you say stupid stuff sometimes I do uh you guys are probably better than I am the hard part when those things happen not if they happen is what do I do? You know, like that's the thing that I would share with you is I would say don't do stupid stuff because he do stupid stuff people do stupid stuff we make mistakes things don't always come out the way we intend to communicate them so the real question is what do you do when you mess up and what I try to do and I don't always do it perfectly as I try to own it and I try to affirm you know any anything that somebody might be feeling you know where I said you know I said something stupid I didn't really mean that the way I said it and I understand that it came off and sensitive I'm sorry um what's tough is when somebody criticizes you and there's some truth to it but there's not some truth at all to respond to criticism there have been times where I've been criticized for doing something I thought wow those people are idiots but that's you know that then you come off his defensive on dso I tryto own what's mind toe own without giving people opportunities to turn me into a punching bag and a firm how people are feeling on then recognize any truth in it and then move on and it's hard when you've disappointed your readers you know I've done done things have been done most most of the dumb things I've done I mean just have been a wire people still reading this because I spoke too soon or I spoke out of ignorance I thought I knew what this was about and I've no idea uh and yet that's where the intimacy I think has built that's where people start to really trust you is how you respond in those moments of imperfection and I've heard time and again and it's humbling where somebody says, you know, I was really mad when you wrote that but then when I saw how he responded and I saw that there was integrity and that you owned it you didn't blame shift and you didn't get defensive that made me respect you even more and you know about this period you know when one spouse is sometimes get in fights together uh it's not always good it's never really good but what happens afterwards can be really good you know? There is this closeness this intimacy because uh maybe our guards were up and when we took our guards down and we said all those mean things on then we apologize for a lot of it but some truth came out about how you really felt and how I really felt now we're closer I'm not advocating for fighting with your audience or your spouse, but there are times when tough things will happen when you will say or do something stupid and I wouldn't ignore it I would acknowledge and I would use that as an opportunity to allow your audience to draw a little bit closer to you to get to know you a little bit better and that was whether or not whether you're a person or a brand or an organization organizations do stupid stuff cos mess things up and we've seen companies screw things up and not I fully accept the blame and we go that was lame that was a lame apology and then we've seen people really mess things up and go we're really sorry we're going to make this right I have anyway and I respect those people because I know from experience I'm not perfect, and so when I meet another imperfecta person organization and they own it and they're going to learn from it, I'm still and I'm still following because I know I can trust you have any other questions? We have so many questions coming in, and I know we might not have time to get to all of them, but I want to throw a couple to you at least, um one that came in was from aaron w she says, what if you have several different passions and things that you like sharing? Do you need to focus on one and, well, having a few different types of content hurt you in the end? Great question, who doesn't have several passion, right? You know, on this is tough I mean, the question of what I write about is an important one, and if we don't fully touch it in this session I definitely want to in the next session where we talk about what kind of news letter you want to send uh but what I write about is a question that I hear a lot and I think that what you write about is not as important as how you write it now what I don't mean is to use big words lots of semi colon is that sort of thing what I mean is do you write in such a way that invites me into your story in dear perspective into the way you view the world? So we have a lot of passions or if your business is about a certain thing the way that you attract the most dedicated audience is not just by talking about a certain topic you know, I think the traditional way to build an audience online especially in the blogging community is to pick a topic and then to find like your your nation that topic here's here's how I'm going to have this unique spin on this topic and I'm going to be special I'm sorry, but I can't find a unique perspective on any topic on the internet it's the internet tried googling something that doesn't have a million search results you're not that unique in terms of what you know and how to do something and even the people that you would reach without information but that's the wrong question because you are unique in the sense that there is nobody else like you that has had exactly those same experiences that you've had and so what we need to do I think is when you are trying to enter this relationship with an audience is you have to engage them where you know it's relevant so I can't just say hey like I like all this stuff so you should listen to me because that's going to feel a relevant and so what we have to do is you have to find really an excuse to start a conversation and I like thinking of it as being a party you know, being a cocktail party or you know what somebody's home or something and you meet somebody and was the first thing you ask them what you asked me to meet them how are you what's your name what what else do you ask where you from? What do you do like there's so predictable there so cliche but we can't think of anything else to ask because that's also really informative where you come from, you know, determines in some ways who you are at least affects it and what do you do tells me a little bit about you what you're interested in what you probably good at and how you spend forty fifty sometimes sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week doing so that's a part of who you are but really, what you're doing when you ask those questions is what you're really asking is what do I have in common with you? Because when you're talking to somebody, you're searching for something to talk about and so when you tell me where from I want to ask you questions, I want to find out more about that really? I'm trying to find some common point of interest. Oh, you're from sacramento. Yeah, I was I was in sacramento a few years ago great how was that? While I was doing this and I play music, I play music and this is how conversation is built this is how our relationship is built, but eventually right at this party, we decide we like each other or we don't we move on, and if we run into each other enough and have enough conversations, we become friends, hopefully right? And at some point I'm going to invite my friend over to my house to watch the game hang out, have dinner, whatever, uh, and at that point I'm kind of controlling the conversation and we're not just talking about where you're from what'd you do today, I'm talking about the things that I care about, you're talking about the things that you care about because we're friends and we like each other and now we care about what we're passionate about or interested in and this is how I think you have a conversation they build an audience on the internet is you find a common point of interest, so a great way to do it is to write what you know to look back at your experience is I'm a writer, I think I could write about writing or I'm worship leader of the church and I've done that for so many years I'm gonna talk about that, but all of these topics are invitations into deeper conversation, which is all these passions. So what do you do? They have a lot of passions. I think a good way to start is you pick one with the understanding that you can begin to bridge those together and create more of a portfolio of experiences, that is your brand and I think a great example of somebody who has done that. In fact, he's taught here before his cresskill abo so chris has a lot of dough for passions. He's, an entrepreneur, he's been a business owner for most of his adult life. He loves to travel all around the world he's been to every country in the world and he, uh he loves to throw big parties. He loves to teach other business owners how to succeed. He loves to live on unconventional life, and he loves celebrating stories where people are doing something that isn't kind of, you know, the standard way of going to college, getting a job going and doing this, and all of those things are kind of different, but but there's this thread that's woven through all of them. And so, any day that you go to chris's blogger, get his newsletter, you might hear about travel hacking tips, or you might hear about how to start, you know, a business or you, unless a one hundred dollars or you might learn about a recent charity water project that he helped fund because that's a passion that he has as well, why do people listen to chris? Because they resonate with his world view because there is this threat of unconventional living woven throughout all of it. And so what you want to do with all of your passions is identify the thread and then find a top I think that you can begin talking about, and then you could start branching off from there. When chris started his blogged, he was kind of the travel guy, he was traveling to all these different places, doing these different things, and people wanted to read about that. They wanted to learn how he was doing that, but it has afforded him lots of other opportunities talk about other things that he's passionate about. And I'm the same way I don't just care about writing I care about marketing and business and I care about storytelling and making a difference in the world and for each of those topics that I talk about with my audience what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to earn their trust and then also earned permission to maybe as time goes on take the relationship take the conversation into a different direction but just like being friends with somebody you might not tell them about your marital struggles on the first time you hang out have coffee or you might not tell them about you know your life's dream now that you've had since you were ten years old but over time as they get to trust you and you trust them you can open up more to that fantastic we have one more question this is from alludes from brazil they do have a big list and they rely on they're saying organic links they don't want them to fail by shifting their online audience from going to their blogger or website two on ly reading their email is that going to have an effect on the s e o of their actual site itself that's a great question so you know you don't just have to if you have a blogger and you get a lot of organic traffic to your block and you think pushing all that content more to a newsletter is going toe detract from you know all of that traffic that's going to be the log and even you know how that's ranking in search engines I don't I don't think it has to be that way so one way that you could do that and this is what a lot of bloggers do is they have an email newsletter and they use the block to capture those contacts and then they use the newsletter to send people back to the block and so what they don't do is they don't send out all of their newsletter all of their blawg post in entirety to their email newsletter list but they do email their list when it's time to you know one of the new block post is ready and then that drives traffic back to the block and so it's kind of this virtuous circle where you're using the blawg to get people on the newsletter list and then you're using the newsletter to get people back on the block and that's that's totally a method you can do that great clarification thank you well I think oh well question direction very quick because it's on that topic if if somebody subscribes to your blogged now they're getting that notification to the email and then they're going to get your newsletter about the blogged the email potentially twitter I mean it seems like the same person could get bombarded a lot from a lot of different direct yeah, well I mean so when it comes your newsletter list you have to make some choices about how doe I combine all of this stuff and that's why I think it's good if you are sending out your block posts the email then you're not sending those notifications because they're getting the whole blonde post uh in terms of, you know, pushing out on social media and those sorts of things I think that's fine because that's just grabbing different parts of the audience different places where they're engaged but when you're creating the newsletter list you got to decide what are we going to do with this? Is this going toe just deliver content? Is it just going to send notifications that bring people back to the website? You know, there's some choices but that's why I recommend bringing all of you know if you've got an email newsletter email list over here and you want to do a newsletter and you've got something over here bringing all of that housed in one place like male chimp thousand all in under one piece of technology so that you you can't control who gets what and you can make sure that people aren't getting duplicate messages, which is why we're going to talk in this next section about what type of newsletter works well for you and howto how to make that work for your audience because it will depend