WC 003: The Fear of Being Found Out

This week I struggled with what I wanted to share for this third installment of The Wizard's Chest.

After riding high through caffeine fueled writing sessions these past two weeks, along with having made a powerful and public declaration about this newsletter, this week I just felt stuck.

I began to ask myself if I had made a terrible decision.

After all, I don't identify as a writer, and sharing in this way definitely doesn't come naturally to me.

All the usual doubts started flooding into my head, things like ...

Who am I to be showing up in people's inbox?

What if all I'm doing is wasting people's precious attention?

What can I say that possibly hasn't been said before?

There's so many other people they could choose to be learning from right now ...

These internal narratives had me spinning out into paralysis from fear of being seen for what I was identifying as ... a fraud.

The fear of being found out.

Total. Imposter.

The feeling that for the past few year's I've been putting myself forward as some sort of "expert" or "guide" in the marketing space, and now I've got to somehow "back it up" in this newsletter.

Oh, the pressure.

And then I remembered something that a teacher once shared with me:

That it's better to accept that we'll never quite meet the expectations others have for us, and that if we just show up as we truly are, authentically, we can't be a fraud because we're just being who we are.

"I'm always changing, always learning, and that's the best any of us can hope for"

I had to remember this particular mantra as I went into our Automated Intimacy coaching call this past Tuesday, as I was feeling some apprehension that I might contradict something I had said in the pre-recorded videos, as they were created well over a year ago.

Offering a few encouraging words before the start of the call, Ry helped me to remember that if my perspective was stagnant, and nothing was changing, it wouldn't actually be in service of our community.

And that the best thing to do was to show up armed with what's true in this moment, listen deeply, and share from a place of deep service.

So here I am doing my best, with that same desire to connect, share, and support in my heart.

And if you ever feel like this when you sit down to write, or give voice to your unique expression -

Know you are not alone.

We're all in this together.

We've only got so much time, at least in this lifetime - so if not now, when?

It's a gift and privilege to share with you here today and I thank you friends for allowing me the honor :)

Here’s what I want to share this week:

1. Someone in our community asked about how to make sure their email subscriber's don't get duplicate emails when someone requests multiple lead magnets within a short period of time.

This is when we would all be well served to think a bit like a programmer.

When designing our automations, we want to think of them as reusable/swappable components or "variables" that we can put together to create a customized path or journey depending on the actions our people take.

If you have a standardized sequence (welcome/initiation/sales) that all of your new leads get, it's best to pull that out of your lead magnet delivery automation sequence.

Keep only the emails that are specific to the magnet in that lead magnet delivery sequence.

Your leads or "pre-customers" will only flow into the next sequence if they haven't been through it before.

There's always going to be some customization to the flow, so this may be a bit oversimplified, but here's a quick depiction of what this model looks like:

2. We're running an early-bird flash sale on one of our newest trainings, Minimum Viable Launch 2.0.

It's so new in fact, that we haven't even created the sales page yet lol.

MVL originally was created back in 2017 as a bonus inside 10X Launches, and has been credited with helping many entrepreneurs smash their monthly revenue goals while simplifying their process.

In this revised edition, Ry and I will walk you through the core email / offer post templates that make up the full MVL launch strategy -- including fresh updates on how we're rolling in out in 2022 to our clients for maximum effectiveness.

You'll receive:

• A collection of high-converting email templates to use across the four stages of every launch campaign (pre-launch, launch, sales, close)

• A high level of what each of the four stages of a launch are “coaching”; and how to use each email to focus on those conversion precursors.

• The one-click automation uploads that will pull this “minimum viable launch” funnel straight into your ActiveCampaign, saving you dozens of hours of work.

If you'd like to get early access to this standalone training, you can snag it this week only for $97 here.

Who We are Celebrating This Week:

This week we're celebrating Toni Ugueto for what's she creating with The Sew Sew Lounge, a place to learn how to sew and get past the overwhelm of sitting in front of the sewing machine and not knowing what to do.

A bit of background on Toni:

During our calls together, I've been so impressed with her approach to building her business with heart, and her commitment to acquiring new skills with a beginners mind.

When she told me her story of how she got started, I was even more inspired!

Toni was laid off from her corporate job on Friday the 13th of 2020, and took this as an opportunity to focus on a dream she has had since college when she majored in Textile and Apparel Design.

She signed up for Youtube in 2020, but didn't actually post her first video until January of last year.

By February, she had seven subscribers, 3 of which were her grandmother, mom, and and sister :)

Little by little grew, and with consistent effort and commitment to creating videos, Toni was up to 353 subscribers by the end of December.

As of today, Toni has over 400 subscribers, and has built a small but mighty email list by re-optimizing her videos to include links and CTA's for her free offers.

The momentum is starting to snowball!

Toni's goal for 2022 is to keep growing her YouTube channel and email list, while she completes her first course that she plans to release for her audience.

Toni is a great example of how steady, consistent effort and doing the "non-sexy" work of showing up for yourself and your community will create a compound effect, and I'm quite confident we'll be celebrating another big win in the near future with the release of her new course!

You can learn more about Toni at sewsewlounge.com, and subscribe to her Youtube Channel here.

This Week’s Curiosities:

The Milk Road (the link)

The newsletter that makes you smarter about Web3

Video Socks (the link)

A better way to say thank you.

Not sure if this is genius or terrifying, but always looking for fun new ways to show appreciation :)

Contrarian Thinking (the link)

Weekly, actionable cash flow ideas, in 10 minutes or less. Haven't pulled the trigger on the premium membership quite yet, but flirting with the idea :)

SketchWow (the link)

Create quick sketches like the one I shared earlier in this newsletter that allow you to demonstrate your workflows and processes.

I dig that it's a one-time fee, vs an ongoing subscription, and also love that their designs add a bit of fun and quirkiness to the visual presentation.

Here's another example:

with appreciation,

Phil

Co-Founder, Empire Engineering

"Learning is best done when one sets aside all that has been learned before, for what can be discovered in the moment."

- Jerry Stocking, How to Win by Quitting