overcoming obstacles

Overcoming a broken microwave to enjoy my week alone

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Hello again;

Some of you know that me and my family used to own a carnival. While we don’t have any rides any more, we do still have contracts. Basically my dad built the kind of reputation that makes people want to continue using us. We still have a few festival and fair contracts that we fulfill by subcontracting with friends and family who are still in the business.

Two weeks ago was one of those weeks. My mom Patsy, brother Patrick, and Nephew Seth took off to manage the carnival area at the Newton County Fair in Newton Texas. This left me and Miss Penny here by ourselves.

Since I started working to help people sell amusement equipment, I prefer not to go with them to events like this. The truth is I never enjoyed watching other people make money. And it would mean a week in a cramped motel room with terrible wifi and my poor doggie penny in a kennel.

And with the news stories about this new mysterious respiratory disease called KIRD I was not thrilled with the idea of putting my buddy penny in with a bunch of strange dogs. I know at that time the illness was concentrated in Illinois and Indiana; but there had already been one case in Georgia. And most of us don’t take chances with our kids or pets. So we prepared for the week.

They did all the usual things washing clothes, packing their sales booth, buying me groceries. They loaded up the truck and took off on Tuesday Morning of that week. They left and like a good boy I locked the door and turned the dead bolt as they left the driveway.

So, I was looking forward to a week of peace and quiet. I was planning to get a lot of work done. Yes, we all tell ourselves that when we have time with no distractions or responsibilities. And things started off well.

The trouble started

The trouble started and the challenge began on Wednesday.

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Taking my own advice and asking for help with my intro video

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Hello again; I hope you are well. Today, instead of sharing wisdom, I’m here to ask for your opinions and suggestions.

While I know it takes time to establish a new business, and it has only been about eight months since I started offering coaching services; I still wonder if there is anything I could be doing to help bring myself to the attention of people needing my services. I want your help with my website.

Just like with my primary business site the midway marketplace I am always seeking ways to make my sites more appealing and engaging. I figure you can always find ways to improve. When I asked people what they thought of my new site, most said it wasn’t clear enough what my site was about.

The blind blogger homepage

Making my site’s message clearer

So, I went into the home page and added some text. I mentioned some of my accomplishments and told people that I believe that I can help them accomplish similar goals and dreams. I advised that life should be a thrill ride and suggested that it was time they bought a ticket.

Next, I recorded a video introducing myself. It starts with me singing the river by garth brooks. It is a very uplifting song in my mind, and it is becoming my unofficial theme song. Again I mentioned past successes and told people that I felt I was the ideal coach to help them walk their own path.

Then I shared all of this online. I was especially interested in getting feedback from people in groups focused on coaching and or marketing. And I got a lot of great responses. There were two suggestions I heard the most. One, break the video into three parts and have people click through from one to the next. And two, whatever I decided don’t take out the singing.

type of help needed

And that brings me to where you can help. I was encouraged to write out a script or at least a general outline of what would be in each of the three videos. I worked up some ideas and again asked for opinions. I got some great suggestions and have refined them even more. Now, I have three blocks of text I want you to review for me. I want help making them more powerful, persuasive, attention grabbing, whatever you call it. I want to make a better case for people hiring me to assist them on their journey.

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Start to star challenge improving my videos and myself part 2

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Hello again; I hope you have been well since my last post. Today, I’m going to update you on the conclusion to the start to star video challenge that I recently participated in.

 

I should have posted this last week, but I am still recovering from the ill effects of a malfunctioning cpap machine. I am feeling more energetic every day and hope to soon be back on schedule with my blog posts.

 

Last time I shared about week one of Holly Gillen’s start to star video challenge. I shared the videos I recorded each day as part of the event. And this time I have more short videos for you.

 

Just like last time I will include two links. The first one will be an embedded version that you can play without having to leave my site. The second will be a direct link to the youtube video.

 

Contest results

 

And now I guess you would like to know if I won or not. I did say that there was a free seat in Holly’s upcoming online course to the winner. Well, I didn’t win the contest. But if you have been folloiwng me long at all, you know I still feel like it was a success.

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Start2star challenge improving my videos and myself part 1

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Hello again; As you should know by now my number one or core belief is to do what you can as well as you can today and then do more or do it better tomorrow. I feel that this is the only way to love yourself and still make progress towards your goals and dreams.

My history with videos

And to that end today I want to talk about recording videos. I decided a few years ago that recording videos spotlighting the amusement equipment I am working to sell along with interviews of my clients and visits to sites of local interest would be very helpful to my amusement equipment brokering business.

However, as a blind person I had a lot of things to sort out. I understand that sighted people struggle with this too. But at least no one questions your right to want to do them or tries to tell you that you shouldn’t even make the effort.

I started by buying a video camera. I asked for it for christmas. It turned out that this didn’t really help because to use it meant getting someone else to help me record on it. And back then I was more about doing things on my own.

I still have it and we use it occasionally around the house. I am still hopeful that someday soon I will find the resources to start visiting my clients on location. And when that happens, I plan to get more use out of it.

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honored with guest post successfully migrated to word press and won OBSS contest 3rd prize

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Hello again; This week, I decided to share several pieces of good news for me and the website. In the last two weeks I had a guest post published on Harleena Singh’s site Aha Now I successfully transferred my site from blogger to word press, and I won third prize in the Online Business Superhero Summit Contest.

The contest

Its no secret that I love Adrienne Smith. She has taught me a lot about blogging especially the power of blog commenting and the value of building relationships. So when she has a new post I follow her suggestions. Back on July 10th she shared a post called How To Learn From A Superhero She explained that it was a two week long series of presentations from superheroes of the online marketing world. She included a link that would take us to their site and give us access to the line up of speakers, a way to watch previous broadcasts, and where to enter a contest to win some cool products or an opportunity to learn from one of the superheroes.

Why I entered

Well, upon visiting the link, I found out that you had to enter the contest in order to gain access to the webinars. So, I entered the contest not thinking anything about winning. I knew that some of my friends might also enjoy watching these broadcasts, so I shared the link on my social media networks. After that i went to listen to some of the replay shows and didn’t think any more about it. I did have some trouble getting started watching the replays, but Adrienne sent me a direct link to them, and I was off and running listening to these giants of the online marketing field. I had a full weekend where I learned some new concepts and began thinking in some new ways concerning how I market myself and my website.

surprising progress

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