I wore a bathrobe on stage yesterday at the Social Media Marketing World conference in San Diego...

And apparently it was persuasive because numerous attendees told me they've decided to launch a podcast for their business and put it on YouTube.

(FYI the bathrobe did serve a purpose, but I shave to wait until next week's newsletter to share why).

If you're curious to learn about launching or growing a podcast on YouTube, grab this Podcasting Series (it's free right now).

Why we don't break through

This conference has been amazing (and there is still one day to go), but one of the downsides is we are seeing shiny objects EVERYWHERE.

It's like a tornado of distractions, with new-ish strategies, tactics and tools constantly swirling around us.

We mix that in with all of our own goals and it's a mess.

And you don't have to be at a conference for this to happen, you can spend 12 minutes on social media and get the same feeling of overwhelm.

On Sunday I watched an amazing talk from Rory Vaden, who has helped build some of the biggest personal brands in the world.

And he had a great analogy for why we don't break through...

Imagine there is a wall in front of you, and on the other side are the goals you're trying to reach for your business.

What most of us tend to do is take a sledge hammer to that wall and swing at it as hard as we can.

But nothing happens.

So then we swing it again as hard as we can, but at a different spot.

Nothing happens.

We repeat this over and over again, putting all our energy and might into new spots on the wall (each representing a different shiny object or goal)...

...but the wall never goes down.

Instead we need to swing that sledge hammer as hard as we can, but make sure we hit the same spot on that wall, over and over again.

Each time we take a swing, we start to break through more.

And eventually we do.

We need to decide what is MOST important in our business and whack at it over and over again.

And ignore the rest of the wall (everything else).

BEHIND THE SCENES 👀

Dealing With Haters

I got a frantic message from a client last week because she got some hateful comments on her YouTube channel.

Unfortunately growing your audience usually means this will happen at some point.

After messaging her back, I sat down in my hotel room and recorded a YouTube video with the same advice I gave her. It's not out yet, but I wanted to share 3 important points in case you have dealt with this (or for when you do in the future):

1. You don't have to reply. You can ignore, hide or delete - and move on. If a stranger yelled something cruel at you from across a parking lot, would you respond?
2. If you do reply, you aren't replying for them. Some people leave rude comments and never return. But even if they do, other people are more likely to see your reply then the person who left the comment. Keep that in mind when replying.
3. Hurt people, hurt people. When I was a radio personality and our show would get complaints, I had a tendency to try and win them over (I don't recommend this). The part I want to share is that most of the people who were upset later shared that hey were having a bad day, or that they were going through a rough spot in their life. In other words, their hateful comment was not personal.

More than anything else, don't let random strangers on the internet prevent you from helping the people who actually need you!

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