Weekday Wisdom, Episode 33

Did you know that becoming an entrepreneur is its own Hero’s Journey? That’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s Weekday Wisdom.

In today’s episode and Monday’s episode, I’m going to explain to you what I call the Infopreneur Hero’s Journey. This is the five-step process that you go through from idea, “Oh, I can create an information product,” to getting it out into the world and into other people’s hands. Today I talk about the first four steps. And on Monday I’ll talk about the fifth step.

I’m going to start with a story. When I was in elementary school, starting about first grade and well into junior high, I was really into creating games. I remember one time, I was really sick and I created an entire Go Fish board and card game based on Dr. Seuss’s book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

In junior high, we were studying Greek mythology. So, for my project, I created this really fun board game, called Quest for the Golden Fleece. I organized it so that you started at one point, had to stop at a mid-point (the Golden Fleece) and then get to the end point to win the game. It is actually based on the mythical quest for the Golden Fleece. So, is you play the game, you learn about that particular story.

If you’re familiar with Joseph Campbell’s philosophy of the Hero’s Journey, this game follows the Hero’s Journey. And, if you really think about it, so do so many aspects of our lives. Therefore, it occurred to me while I was working on re-doing my brand, focused on helping people create information products, that the process of going from, “Huh! I could create an information product,” to actually getting it out there in the world and creating a side- to full-time business from that product was very similar to the Hero’s Journey, as well.

So, I’ve structured my coaching system into five-step Infopreneur Hero’s Journey. Today I’m going to cover the first four because that gets you to the Golden Fleece. And then the last one we’ll talk about on Monday, which is getting it out in the world.

The beginning of the Infopreneur’s Journey is the Call to Adventure. This is the point in your journey as an infopreneur where you get the idea, that you’, e got something you can share with the world. So you start looking, “Well, how do I get my message out to the world?” At this point, you find me. I’m your guide on this journey.

At this first step, I help you organize and understand what is awesome about you. Your awesome, in the context of this journey, is the knowledge, experience, and skills that you have around something that you’re really passionate about. And that could be anything from needlepoint to ancient Greek architecture, from collecting PEZ dispensers to studying the evolution of science fiction, which is something I geek about.

It’s a topic that you really geek about. You’re so into it. It can be a hobby. A lot of people turn there what they geek about into a hobby. Or it could just be something that you’re an armchair expert about. I help you hone that in and find out what part of that knowledge you can turn into a product.

And this is where you go to step two, which is Accepting Your Quest. This is your quest to create your information product. At this stage of Infopreneur Hero’s Journey, you are starting to outline your product and figure out what goes in and what goes out. You might even think larger picture, and think about what your sales funnel will look like, including what kind of freebee you will use to lead people into your funnel. Is this a high end product that you’re creating? Maybe smaller end?

All of these things lead people from not knowing who you are to wanting to buy what it is you have to share. You figure that all out in step two.

That leads to step three. This is Vanquishing the Mind Goblins, because at this point you’re going to start wanting to stop creating your product. You’ll have thoughts such as, “Oh, I’m not good enough,” “Oh, someone else could do this better,” “Oh, I don’t have time.” And so on. All these Mind Goblins are going to start going inside you and I help you vanquish them. Get them out of the way. Say, “Thank you for sharing. Now move along.”

My goal for you is to complete this project. Because completing a project that you started is one of the best ways to Vanquish Mind Goblins. If you start something and never finish it and you do that often, you’re going to feel bad about yourself. So, we’re going to complete this. And we’re going to do this together.

And now, we go to step four, which is the Golden Fleece. You’ve reached the middle of the map. Now you have your product. It’s there. It’s real. You’ve completed it. Time to celebrate! You have reached an amazing milestone.

But it’s not the end of the journey. You’ve got to get that Golden Fleece back home.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, like it on YouTube. Let me know you what think in the comments below. And, of course, if you have questions that you’d like to answer in a future episode, possibly starting Tuesday, please comment below. Give me your feedback. I want the Weekday Wisdom to be something you value and that you look forward to watching.

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