[youtube id=”u10VPsRwuys”]
Starting a new business or launching a new product can really wear you down. In this video you’ll learn why it’s important to take a break.
This one is a short one, so click the image above to check it out.
I am a huge fan of Michael Hyatt, his GetNoticed! theme, and Platform University. I really like how he is using the Smart Podcast Player, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work when using RSS with MailChimp.
I really enjoy watching how Michael and his team accomplish what seems to be the impossible each week.
Recently I have considered reviving my podcast, so I turned my attention to how Michael does it.
In particular I want to be able to use RSS to feed my blog posts and my podcasts to my reading list.
I really like the look of the audio player that Michael uses. I don’t get around much so I had never seen this player before, and I just assumed that this was one of the custom coded things that Michael does for his site.
Not so.
Turns out the player is the Smart Podcast Player available (for a small fee) by Pat Flynn.
I subscribed to this WordPress plugin to test out the player on my site. I was very surprised to learn that the player does NOT survive the transition through RSS to my MailChimp emails!
After installing the plugin and putting the player in a test post on my bl0g, I sent the post to MailChimp.
No Smart Podcast Player appeared in the ensuing email.
At all.
Not even a hint that a player ever existed in the original post.
At first I found this really hard to believe. I thought for certain that the plugin was some HTML5 player that does well in email.
I had tested HTML5 players before, and I did not experience this problem. They survived the same RSS-to-MailChimp test with ease as evidenced in the following screen capture.
I took a second look at Michael’s email that I was using as a baseline. Turns out the “player” that shows in this email is not a player at all.
It is just an image with a built-in link.
This was confirmed after hearing back from the tech support person (Ray) at the Smart Podcast Player Support Team.
So now I have a dilemma.
Why do emails sent through MailChimp via RSS from the website show an image that does not exist in the blog post?
I can’t tell you exactly how long I beat my brains out over this.
I’m not a coder, but I eventually figured out how to do it. At least this method works for me.
There are two parts – 1) the code that you’ll need, and 2) a clickable image that looks like the player
It turns out that you need to use something called a “fallback” image. Again, I’m not a coder, so I had never heard of this.
A fallback is your plan B in the event that something doesn’t load properly. In this case, if the player doesn’t load properly, then resort to plan B — our image that looks like the player.
I had to comb through the plugin code to learn how to call the plugin without using the shortcode. This is important because I could not figure out how to make the fallback image work while using the shortcode.
In the code snippet below you will notice that I do, however, start with the shortcode. Notice how the url field is empty and no other parameters are listed.
I had to do this to “wake up” the player to let it know I would be passing it some parameters. There must be some javascript here that calls the player to attention.
This is a critical step, so do not leave out this initial shortcode. I could not get the rest of this to work otherwise.
[smart_track_player url=" "] <object class="smart-track-player" width="300" height="150" data-url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/Your_Podcast_Name/Your_Podcast_Episode.mp3" data-download="true" data-speedcontrol="true" data-title="Your show title here" data-paid="true" data-social="true" data-social_twitter="true" data-social_facebook="true" data-social_gplus="true"> <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/Your_Podcast_Name/Your_Podcast_Episode.mp3"><img src="https://yourdomain.com/wp-content/uploads/20xx/yy/Your_Fallback_Image.png" alt="Click to hear Jason's Podcast" border="0" /></a> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/itunes_podcast_name/idXXXXXXXXX">Subscribe in iTunes</a></object>
In the event that you want to look for more parameters to pass in this html, try this:
I found all of the parameters I needed by going through this core.php file. Do a search on “<div” (yes, leave out the last “>”) and this should take you to about the middle of the file where the parameters live.
I created the image by creating an instance of the player and then simply taking a screen capture (on Macs, use command+shift+4).
You might be wondering how to get the player to look like the one that Michael uses. Notice how his player has only the arrow and the circle. The download icon, the speed icon, and the share icon are all missing.
If you want to create a version of this all you need to do is use the code above but strip out the parameters defining social and downloads, etc. Try pasting this code to your site.
<object class="smart-track-player" width="300" height="150" data-url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/YourPodcastShow/Your_Podcast_Episode.mp3" data-paid="true">
Just preview the post and then take a screen capture of the image.
Trim out the left half of the bar with a photo/image editor. Otherwise, you will get a long thin bar (above) instead of a shorter one (below) which looks better on mobile.
Upload this to your WordPress media library and then put the image url in the first code snippet I provided.
Now I have a podcast post that functions much the way Michael’s does in that I can pass the “player” in an email that is generated through RSS!
[reminder]If I can answer any questions for you, just drop them into the Disqus box below.[/reminder]
[youtube id=”UZlsygkWKxU”]
This short video will help you grow more than any single activity you do this year.
This quick exercise that you can do in less than a minute will lay the foundation to more success than you think possible.
Click now to get started.
I knew the documentary Blackfish was a powerful story when I first wrote about it two years ago.
What happened yesterday is yet one more reminder that people with a message can change the world.
I believe this world-changing ability is available to each and every one of us!
Blackfish director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, not only created an award winning documentary on the treatment of orcas at SeaWorld. It turns out she added fire to a movement.
While SeaWorld had been under pressure from environmentalists in the past, Blackfish was the spark that ignited the powder keg.
Blackfish caused a public backlash against SeaWorld (causing the company’s stock price to suffer), and the movie even inspired action by PETA.
[shareable cite=”Jason R Owens”]Each of us has the ability to change the world![/shareable]
Due to the relentless public pressure and mounting financial losses, the company had to take decisive action.
Yesterday SeaWorld announced the company is ending its orca breeding program which has drawn great criticism after the film.
SeaWorld has been listening and we’re changing…Society is changing and we’re changing with it. SeaWorld is finding new ways to continue to deliver on our purpose to inspire all our guests to take action to protect wild animals and wild places.
Cowperthwaite praised the announcement and added that she will continue to lobby for changes in the aquatic theme park industry.
Imagine what you can do.
Imagine the impact that your life can have.
[shareable cite=”Jason R Owens”]Who is going to change the world? YOU are![/shareable]
Keep dreaming.
Keep pressing.
Keep chasing.
Your efforts are going to lead somewhere.
Your work is going to change lives. In fact, your work is probably changing lives already!
We need you!
Keep fighting!
[reminder]How do you want to change the world? What cause do you want to champion, or what injustice do you want to see righted?[/reminder]
Life gave me one of those moments of clarity lately, the proverbial whack on the side of the head.
I’ve been teaching myself the ropes of online advertising off and on for the past 3 years. Truth is I’ve had limited success and could not figure out why for the longest time, but this week I had my breakthrough.
I had been following directions like…
Here is how you create a Facebook ad that will change your life:
Most of the time I end up spending money with nothing to show for it.
Facebook ads are working for everyone else, right? I usually spend 4-5 days trying to get traction before getting completely frustrated.
In the most basic sense there are 2 different types of learning.
The first are what I what I will call formulaic learning.
If you screw up installing your new starter, you’ll know right away. You can’t put it in backwards. You can’t even wire it backwards. The car will either work or it won’t.
Same goes for the sewing machine. If you route the thread incorrectly, it will snap or knot into a mess in short order.
Then there is the other type of learning — the type that tends more toward true art than paint-by-numbers. Like making a violin or making your own wine — this is a craft, not a formula.
[Tweet “The fast track to frustration is applying tips-and-techniques solutions to complex problems”]
My breakthrough this week is realizing I fell for something called Availability Bias. Here’s how it works:
If we have a personal experience with something, or hear about it often, or read about it often, then we are more likely to give these things more weight when we are making a decision.
The same way that most people guess that there are more deaths by auto accident than by emphysema (the opposite is true). Emphysema deaths aren’t in the news often, so they are not top of mind with most people.
When I start looking for a solution to my online marketing woes I go — online — where I find a hundred online programs that:
Since this is all I see, I inadvertently think one of these programs must hold the solution.
What I don’t see offered online is the more time-honored path. The path that is not paved with claims of instant anything.
I don’t see any offers for the path of apprenticeship within my community.
Turns out I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had just surrounded myself with people who are on the same journey I am.
I started sharing my roadblocks with several other people who are on the same path, a few are a little ahead of me. The insight they offered was simply…amazing!
[Tweet “We don’t need another online course. What we need is a group of peers to stick with us.”]
And the good news is that we are going to do it again!
Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks about a very unique type of group that I’m forming
[Tweet “I am ready to stop doing it all on my own!”]
[reminder]In what areas of your business have you been banging your head? Where could you use a Guide? Continue the conversation on facebook, twitter, or linkedin.[/reminder]
Something really surprising happened when I ran an event this week. I wasn’t looking to receive such a deep confirmation in my calling.
Just to provide some context — I run a ton of short 2-hour and 4-hour workshops each year. I rarely do full-day events. In fact, I’ve only run two so far this year.
The first was The Sales Workshop back in March, and the second was my first ever AEPC workshop for Authors, Experts, and Product Creators.
I want to contrast these two events for you.
The Sales Workshop is my flagship product. I deliver around 30 of these engagements per year across the southeast, plus I have built out this product with a 6 disc audio series plus an online training program.
The Authors, Experts, & Product Creators (AEPC) event was designed for my affiliate tribe. It is a one day annual planning event where I brought in 4 guest speakers and gave people plenty of workshop time to work on their businesses.
In short, we find ways to work together and cross-promote each other throughout the year.
[Tweet “To Be Vulnerable – To Really Put Yourself Out There…Is to Live Courageously @BreneBrown”]
When I ran the full-day version of The Sales Workshop it was a LOT of work. I set an aggressive target and worked with my team of affiliates to fill the room. We met our goal, but it took a tremendous toll on me.
For the AEPC event I vowed I would not push myself so close to burnout. The class was a prototype and I wanted to start small before pushing it to a larger audience.
Compared to The Sales Workshop I spent about 1/10th the time promoting the AEPC event and had 3x the fun.
Here’s what I didn’t expect.
The AEPC event was always billed as a once-a-year thing. Just me adding as much value as I can to my affiliates.
Toward the end one of the attendees said, “What now? I feel like we need to meet again. Otherwise I won’t know how his story turned out with the new business, and I won’t know how they are doing with their membership site.”
Several others agreed.
She was right. I had made no allowance for keeping the tribe connected to one another after the event.
One of the attendees said, “This — working with these types of people, authors and experts — this is your calling.
I was blown away.
Never in all my time running presentations and events have I had someone say these words to me.
Another great piece of news came when I reconnected with yet another AEPC attendee.
She said, “Hey, I mentioned you on my podcast yesterday. I hope you don’t mind.”
Do I mind? Are you kidding?
I’ve never had someone mention me on their podcast after one of my events.
What started out as a way to help my affiliates build their businesses has taken a surprisingly good turn.
I made no attempt to engineer these results. I don’t think I could have if I tried.
[Tweet “What started out as a way to help my affiliates has taken a surprisingly good turn.”]
Truth is I aimed for a goal, and reached it.
But I landed on something far greater than my initial goal.
I landed on a need within my community — a need that I can meet. Something that I can do to truly help people.
If you are looking for the “How To” from this post, here it is:
You have genius inside you.
Go find it!
[Tweet “You have genius inside you. Go find it!”]
[reminder]What surprising results have you found so far on your journey toward self-employment? Continue the conversation on facebook, twitter, or linkedin.[/reminder]
I picked up this Cannon Vixia HF R400 about 2 years ago on a Black Friday deal. It is the perfect entry-level camera and has more than enough features for me.
It records in full HD, has a 53X zoom, and has a memory card slot for easy file transfer.
I realize this is a small thing, but here’s one feature that I like the most about the camera: it has a standard microphone jack. So many of the other cameras I considered had special jacks that required an adapter from the manufacturer. Because it was going to be an additional hassle, I just skipped those models.
Years ago I bought this tripod for something like $90 from BestBuy. Now I see that Amazon is relabeling it under a house name and the price is incredibly low at less than $25.00! Check out the AmazonBasics 60-Inch Lightweight Tripod with Bag.
This is not one of those flimsy, dinky tripods. This thing has some meat to it and stands at 60 inches (5 feet) tall. I have had mine for years and I highly recommend it.
My friend had one of these Audio-Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier Omnidirectional Condenser Microphones, and it seemed to work well when we were shooting, so I picked up one for myself.
Love it and love the price.
Wistia
Lights
I purchased this light set about 5 months ago — StudioPRO (Set of 4) 4000 Watt Bright Softbox Lighting Kit – (4) 5 Socket Head, 20″x28″ Rectangle Softbox, 7’6″ Light Stands, (20) 45W 5500K Balanced Daylight Bulb & X-Large Carrying Case — and I absolutely LOVE it!
There are 4 light heads in all. Each head contains 5 bulbs. Bulbs are controlled with 3 on/off switches giving you the ability to light 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 lights at a time. You have total control.
Kit comes with bulbs, too!
I bought 4 lights because I wanted to have 2 lights on the background and 2 lights on me.
iMovie
Microphone
Microphone Stand
Garage Band
Papers 2
Infusionsoft
Tea Leaves
Mailchimp
WordPress
GoDaddy
HostGator
GetNoticed! Theme
Optimize Press
TimeTrade
GoToMeeting
GoToWebinar
1T Backup Drive
Presentations
Adapter
HDE® Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Female Adapter Cable for Macbook
to VGA Adapter
Fosmon Mini DisplayPort (Male) to VGA (Female) Adapter for Mac – White (Lifetime Warranty)
Presentation Clicker
Logitech Wireless Presenter R400
I want to break a myth.
Success does not come easy for most of us.
It takes hard work–lots of it.
From the outside we can watch someone land a big sale, come up with a new product that people love, and even create partnerships that seems to take off into the stratosphere.
All the while we watch them with stupor and envy over how they seemed to do it all without straining.
I recently picked up a copy of The Talent Code from my local Barnes & Noble. While I plan on doing a pretty thorough review on The Talent Code at a later time, I wanted today to focus on one concept — a key concept — that can unlock the path to your true talent.
I’m completely enthralled with deep practice.
Daniel Coyle’s superb writing and excellent research skills have landed us a rare glimpse into what it is like to develop our talent to a level of sheer mastery.
Deep practice is one of those keys. Sure, we have to have a good teacher. And we have to be passionate about what we’re doing. Consider these as foundations to your motivation.
Once we are motivated and have found a love for our craft, the manner in which we approach practice is a clear delineator between those whose path continues upward and those whose path grows stagnant.
[Tweet “Deep practice sets you free to be the entrepreneur you were created to be. @JasonROwens”]
The author provides us with this definition.
…struggling in certain targeted ways–operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes–makes you smarter. Or to put it a slightly different way, experiences where you are forced to slow down, make errors and correct them–as you would if you were walking up an ice covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go–end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it (p.18).
It is painful. It comes in fits and starts. For musicians it means playing a few notes and then starting over. Then playing a few more notes, getting further, and then stopping again to go back and look at the music.
For some athletes deep practice also looks like concentrated high speed practice like playing indoor soccer on something as small as a basketball court. The game moves fast. Players learn to improvise which is every bit as important as knowing basic ball handling skills.
Take a look here a this image of a student in the midst of deep practice. She is given a word problem (bottom of image) and tasked with finding the answer. Looks like 3 failed attempts before she gets on the right track.
The student starts, sets up the problem, and then gives it a try. She can tell she’s on the worng track, so she starts over. She sets up the problem again and realizes she’s on a dead end a second time. A third try ends in another wrong answer.
The fourth try is the one that finally produces the right answer.
You can see the teacher’s praise for the student’s effort.
This is the part that I think so many people miss.
You are not going to do well on your first venture just like you are going to do well when you are first learning to play a song on an instrument or learning to play your first sport.
These things take time.
Sure, at some level we all know this, but we all think that this applies to someone else.
The problem is that most of us don’t have time.
We don’t have unlimited resources either.We have to make hay while the sun is shining. We have to start making money.
[Tweet “What do I need to remove from my days so that I have more time for deep practice? @JasonROwens”]
You must be really good at your core activity–the thing you do, the widget you produce, or the service you perform.
Without displaying some level of proficiency here, nothing else matters because you won’t have a business.
The second answer is that you need deep practice at promoting your business. This doesn’t mean selling your product by going door-to-door. It means that you should be able to find a mix of 2-3 activities that consistently introduce you to people who could be in the market for your product either in the short term or over the long term.
This mix of 2-3 activities should have a track record of producing consistent revenue for you.
This track record does not have to be picture perfect. We aren’t looking for perfection. We are looking for something that has worked at least once and gives you some degree of energy for doing it again.
Once you’ve landed on these 2-3 activities, your path is golden. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Learn more and more from each time you reach out, talk about your sevices, and offer your goods.
Give yourself large blocks of time for both the activity, and then do the most important thing. Take a few minutes to make notes on what worked and what didn’t.
Without this, you won’t get any benefit from practicing. All you are doing is just going out and falling off your bike. You have to understand what worked and what didn’t work. If your instrument sounds off-key, go back and look at the sheet music.
And then try again.
[reminder]In what one or two areas should you begin deep practice to ensure that you build a level of genius into your work?[/reminder]
This exercise is designed to get you thinking about where you are and where you want to be in your life.
Let’s get started right away.
Take a few moments to write down in as much detail as possible where you are in your work life.
The first set of questions is designed to get us to simply open our eyes. We must first take a hard and objective look at where we are. Where things are good, we have to admit them and celebrate them. Where things are not so good. We have to admit that.
This isn’t to say that we have to fix all the bad things about our situation because some of them just are not fixable.
This is simply taking stock of our situation.
Likewise, let’s do the same exercise on the other end of the spectrum.
Where would you like to be with respect to your work life?
The second set of questions is designed to get us thinking in terms of possibilities, to paint our respective worlds anew with a magic brush. Given what we know about ourselves, where would we go from here?
Most of the time there is a huge difference between where we are and where we want to be. This is completely normal. You can begin taking steps toward a better future today. Want to learn more?
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There is a third set of questions that I will introduce here to get you thinking about what role, if any, that God plays in your work-related pursuits.
Do you feel God’s calling or wanting to speak with you regarding the current path you are on?
When I was first struggling between where I was and where I wanted to be, I had no idea what steps to take next.
It took me a lot of trial and error, but I finally found my way.
I am happy to share what I have learned. Just let me know you are interested by going to the page and confirming.