Do you feel like you are always busy but still not getting the results you want? In this Expert Insight Interview, Meridith Alexander discusses the secret to unleash the epic you. Meridith Alexander is a mindset life coach, motivational speaker, and bestselling author.

The interview discusses:

• How to change your mindset after a tragedy
• How to maintain the mindset when reality hits
• How to sustain the mindset during hard times

Change the Mindset

What to do after receiving tragic news such as a boulder falling on your daughter? At that moment, you have two choices, to give up and cry over destiny or to get yourself together and find a way to turn a tragic event into something positive. Even though some things feel impossible to forgive them happening, they are also the key drivers to your internal search for resilience. When you feel powerless to change external factors, shift your focus to gain control internally. Find a starting point and make that to be one little but believable thing that will cause the authentic shift in your mindset.

Maintain the Mindset

From the moment when you give yourself that believable thought as your guide, there is a long way to cross from the feeling of despair to hope, reaching the little belief, and finally to arrive at that powerful feeling of knowing that now is the time to take action. This journey requires a balance of both inner and outer yourself because only their synergy makes them a powerful combination.

When we look back on the past, we realize that we were so much stronger than we thought and that some moments had to happen to create a difference. Thus, instead of being scared of boulders in our lives, we should learn how to embrace them, extract the gem values, and dare to pursue new and bigger dreams that arise from them. This mindset is contagious, so it impacts the people around us to strive for the impossible things as well.

Sustain the Mindset

In the moments when we do not know why something happened to us, we have to take ownership of what we will allow that to do for us in the future. Some events change how our life is going to look. But is it the narrow definition of happiness, the one that everybody tries to follow, the only way to happiness? Success and happiness in life is not a straight line, it consists of many bumps on the road, and everybody defines them on their terms. So instead of focusing on one big life victory and waiting years for it to happen, focus on celebrating many little wins that will eventually lead to the big one.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Dr. Joli Hamilton discusses how our marriages and committed relationships affect our business life, whether we like to admit it or not. The interview also focuses on specific entrepreneurial skills one can leverage to better their home life. Joli Hamilton has a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology, with a specialization in Jungian Archetypal Studies.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The duality of our personality when it comes to business and home life
• The importance of forging your own path
• How to create a stable framework for your relationship

Dual Personas

We all pattern our relationships on the models we’re faced within our early lives — parents and caregivers. However, we patter our career selves on a different set of role-models. This leads to a compartmentalization of our identity into the “work persona” and the “home persona.”

It is only when we integrate these personas and commit ourselves to become a unified personality that we can leverage all of our strengths.

Individuality

Many people feel a conflict between the values they had been brought up with and those they want to live into. This often means that we either demonize or idealize the values instilled in us by our parents. We either try to run as far away from our upbringing as possible or stay as close to it as we can in terms of values.

The truth, however, is somewhere in between, and only by reconciling the two sides of our personality can we find the balance. Individuality is our greatest gift, but it takes a lot of work to find your true self, without relying on comparing yourself with others.

Stable Framework

Purpose can create an overall framework for your relationship. This means that the fights that will inevitably come up are going to be much smaller and much more manageable because the overarching framework is there to support you.

The connection with business, in this case, is clear. When you’re looking to create a business, you start with your vision of what the business is going to focus on, its purpose, and its mission statement. This allows you to have a steady frame to fall back on when things get choppy. The same principles should be applied to a committed relationship.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Max Borges discusses… Max Borges is an entrepreneur and founder of the Max Borges Agency — a tech-focused public relations firm. He is also the author of How to Be Fan-F*cking-Tastic!: Practical advice on how to stop sucking at life and start being Fan-f*cking-tastic!

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The value of responsibility
• Seeking out inspiration
• Thinking outside the box

Responsibility

Realizing that your life belongs to you can be incredibly liberating. Even though you can’t always influence the circumstances you find yourself in, you can always control how you react to those circumstances and the choices that you make in response to them.

The more responsibility you take for every aspect of your life, the more control you’re going to have over where you are headed. This can even include things that seem like they are outside of your control. Think of each massive life challenge as a learning opportunity.

Inspiration

It’s not uncommon for each of us to embark on a journey of self-reflection and responsibility, but inevitably, we run into obstacles along the way, which often causes us to give up. In these situations, it is important to remember that success is not linear, and challenges are bound to happen.

As long as you take a small step toward your goals every day, you’ll eventually get where you want to go, but remember that the path to success is not a straight line. You’re not going to wake up every morning inspired and motivated, which is why you need to be actively looking for things that inspire you every day.

Crazy Ideas

If you want to succeed, you have to have the guts and the vision to see things that other people don’t. If everyone around you thinks that your business idea is terrible, you might be onto something. Great products and companies often start this way.
Don’t shy away from crazy ideas. Instead, consider them more closely and think about how you can make them great. Many groundbreaking inventions start as the most ridiculous ideas. Otherwise, somebody would have come up with them beforehand.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Your brand is of great importance for your business success. So, in this Expert Insight Interview, Jayzen Patria discusses how to lead with your brand. Jayzen Patria is an expert on personal branding, learning, and development in Fortune 100 companies, a speaker, and a facilitator.

The interview discusses:

• What is a brand?
• The most common mistakes
• How to find your “secret sauce”?

The Baseline

Your brand is a perception that your audience has about you, but the key thing to remember is that you control what perception your audience will have. Thus, your brand is the collection of all your information, experiences, and expectations. Everybody has a personal brand, but not everybody makes the right moves to lead that perception in the direction they want to.

The Mistakes

The biggest mistake you can make is to let your company or your job title define your brand. By allowing that, you become a commodity and easily replaceable. Your brand is the value that you bring to that company and job position. An excellent way to find out your brand attributes is to ask yourself if you were a car, which one would you be? For instance, by describing the characteristics of that car as sophisticated and practical, you actually list your brand attributes.

Another mistake people make is wanting to be like someone else. We all have our abilities and unique life experiences that shape our brand attributes, and we need to find a way to size up those attributes so that they can “talk” to the people about why they should hire us. When hiring, people want to hire people who make them excited. Finding a couple of projects that you are the proudest of and then finding a “secret sauce” that made all of them successful defines the qualities that you can bring to any project.

Find the “Secret Sauce”

To find the elements that make you you, talk to the people you love, and the words will come naturally. Another way is to ask for feedback from your raving fans. People are usually very generous in giving feedback. Asking people three simple questions can help you gain insights about yourself. The first one is to describe you in three words when you are at your best. The next one is to express a couple of characteristics that define you when you are stressed out. And the last one is to ask for what thing or issue they would turn to you for help. Use the reviews you get to your advantage by posting them on LinkedIn and other platforms because this is the first time in history that we can use our references upfront instead of at the end of a hiring interview.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How to define what success means to you? In this Expert Insight Interview, Sandra Francisco provides tips on how to define success and maximize your profit while experiencing joy and fulfillment. Sandra Francisco is a business coach and consultant that helps entrepreneurs go from idea to profit while balancing their personal growth.

The interview discusses:

• Definition of success
• Meaning of joy
• Intuitive questions
• Writing accomplishment journal

Defining Success

When it comes to a definition of success, nobody can be precise because it is a personal matter. The key is in perception and how we see things. Of great importance is to define what success means to you because our opinion is often biased and based on other’s people definition of success. Hence, it is unimportant what society believes or expects, but rather, does it bring personal satisfaction, pleasure, and happiness? Do not use somebody’s else definition of success is yours.

Meaning of Joy

People’s behavior is likely to be unconscious and quite conditioned. Thus, they have repetitive tasks, general expectations, and most concerning, they are always in a race against time. While doing your daily jobs, you should make a pause and think about its meaning. Do you experience fulfillment when you achieve your targets? And if you do not, go deeper in finding a cause of disappointment, stress, or anxiety. Creating small and pleasing rituals will boost your creativity and willingness for reorganization. Besides, outsourcing is a necessity for all things that you do not find joyful.

Asking Intuitive Questions

Personal growth and development are the core of human transformation. When developing, minds are often stuck with responsibility. That is why intuitive questions should help you in separating and researching your past in order to create an enjoyable future. If there is a blockage, it could be useless to go further when the mind is still stuck with responsibilities. When setting life goals, people often experience feelings like fear, anxiety, or even depression. Hence, breaking the plan into pieces, projecting, and imagining while taking baby steps will reduce your anxiety. Taking time for yourself could be priceless for minimizing stress and pressure.

Writing Accomplishment Journal

Defining and achieving your goals is the road to success. Often, we are overwhelmed with numerous information, news, or social media platforms. They are driving out our time and energy that we could redirect to self-questioning. It leads us to oversaturation, and we forget about our accomplishments while chasing the highest performances. Thus, an accomplishment journal is a necessity and guidance that we are using as a reminder of our accomplished goals. Journal is not there to list your achievements but also to question them. The retrospective is substantial for personal growth.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Did you know that the brain has a lesser-known component that plays a crucial role in consumer behavior? In this Expert Insight Interview, Felix Cao discusses neuromarketing. Felix Cao is a Founder at Happy Buying Brain, a neuromarketing and business growth strategist, and a speaker.

The interview discusses:

• What is neuromarketing?
• How to break a pattern?
• What is the process?
• How does neuromarketing apply to B2B?

The Baseline

Neuromarketing integrates neurosciences with marketing and sales strategies to overcome business challenges. Our brain consists of two parts, logical and primal part. The latter determines about 95 percent of our daily activities, including purchasing decisions. Many companies overlook this fact because it involves dealing with unconsciousness, but neuromarketing creates a strong emotional connection resulting in a deeper level of brand loyalty.

Break the Pattern

Our brains average around 60,000 thoughts daily, and the majority of those thoughts are repetitive. Thus, what brands need to do is to break the consumers’ thought patterns and introduce a level of newness. A brand that succeeded in this is Energizer. For years, this brand had the same commercial with the pink bunny marching on. But then, they made a commercial in which the same bunny stopped and turned around the camera, causing a change in orientation response. The new commercial intrigued the consumers and broke their patterns. This change registered subconsciously very deep with the consumers.

The Process

When a company decides to try a neuromarketing strategy, the first thing to do is a discovery call. Discovery call discovers if the company targets the right people, sets the tone for the core messaging, and shows how good is a current marketing strategy. It turns out that many companies did not find an ideal customer avatar yet. Instead, they either have a customer avatar being too vague or have wrong demographic targeting. The company needs to find out all the problems that prevent them from achieving success in these activities. The key is to change either the core messaging or an avatar.

Neuromarketing in B2B

Business owners also have primal part of the brain influencing their fears and anxiety. Thus, just like in B2C, in B2B, it is necessary to adjust the interactions and conversations to solve the problems for a business owner. In B2B, there are a lot of emotions involved in decision-making, especially now in a time of many social issues and uncertainties. Many people are in survival mode, thus showing that you understand and want to solve their problems will make them more prone to accept your help.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Many people used the extra free time they had in 2020 due to the lockdowns for self-reflection. So, in this Expert Insight Interview, Shauna Shapiro discusses the concept of mindfulness and self-compassion. Shauna Shapiro is a Ph.D. clinical psychologist, best-selling author, speaker, internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and self-compassion, and professor at Santa Clara University.

The interview discusses:

• What does it mean to be mindful?
• How to practice mindfulness?
• What does it mean to be self-compassionate?
• Mindfulness at work

Mindfulness

Being mindful means being present at the moment, thus learning how to train and stabilize our attention at the moment. When we pay attention to the things we care for and value the most, we realign with our internal compass. Moreover, we should always approach mindfulness with kindness and curiosity because that way, we turn on the learning centers in the brain, and we free up our creativity, memory, and best possibilities for everyday life.

Practice Mindfulness

People who practice mindfulness are happier, sleep better, and diet better. Firstly, we learn how to set an intention, which means asking ourselves why this is important for us. The second step focuses on training our attention to comes back in case if our mind wanders. And the last step is having the attitude of kindness, which means not getting mad at ourselves if our attention wanders off but bringing it back calmly. Mindfulness is a mental practice, and by the definition of neuroplasticity, anything we practice will go stronger.

Self-compassion

Self-compassion is the crucial factor for people to change because it breaks the cycle of judgment and shame. People with self-compassion are more likely to take accountability for their actions, more compassionate and forgiving towards others, thus have higher-quality relationships with others.

Mindfulness at Work

Our biggest distraction nowadays is our smartphone. People who practice mindfulness at work can pay attention better and actively listen to their customers when they talk, which is very beneficial for salespeople. By connecting to someone and paying attention to them, we make them feel validated. However, since this is a mental practice, we have to train to pay attention every day so that we do not get out of shape.

People do not really know what their true intentions are, so it is so easy to start doing things automatically, and that is why we need mindfulness to wake us up. By learning to listen, we connect our mind and body to do what is most valuable to us. And lastly, this practice does not need to take a lot of time from us. We can start by separating only 5 percent of our time during the day, and we will see the change within us.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season and thank you for your support during 2020 – it has been an amazing year of growth and we are truly grateful to all of our audience and contributors.

The whole team at Sales POP! is truly blessed to serve you and we look forward to serving you in more ways in 2021.