Top Mistakes and Strategies for Successful Online Courses – Chris Kyle – ep 82

📢 Chris is a teacher, coach and eLearning expert who has helped thousands of authors, teachers, speakers and change agents launch successful online courses so they can impact more people while making a great living doing it.

He is the founder of Launch Academy, a deep-dive online training program that helps participants create and launch their ‘A-level’ online course to a global audience.

He is also an eLearning coach to some of the most well-known global teachers and mission-driven organizations. And his clients and students have generated over $4.5 million dollars in revenue from their online courses. And he’s a co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Internet Marketing Secrets.

 

To get access to Chris‘s E-book, 5 Things You Need to Know to Create a Successful Online Course, visit https://www.chriskyle.com/ebook/

Summary:

0:00 Chris’ introduction

  • Common mistakes course creators make.

1:17 Creating transformative online learning experiences

  • Generating $4.5M in course revenue

3:40 Career journey and personal growth

  • From big pharma to adventure travel
  • Discovering a passion for coaching and training

6:52 Common mistakes course creators make

  • Training 300,000 women in personal growth
  • Launching a company for online courses
  • Focus on transformational content, not just informational

12:51 Creating transformative online courses

  • Develop a step-by-step learning arc
  • Ensure cohesive and engaging experiences

16:35 Creating effective online courses with engagement

  • Keep it simple with clear steps
  • Include active learning like homework and live interactions

19:57 Creating an effective online course

  • Avoid overwhelming students with too much content
  • Focus on pacing and audience needs
  • Speak to your ideal student, not from personal opinions

27:08 Crafting messaging for course audiences

  • Speak to the needs of your target audience
  • Understand their challenges and goals

30:56 Course messaging and understanding the avatar

  • Focus on the customer’s perspective
  • Analyze demographics, fears, aspirations, and wants

33:41 Marketing strategies for online courses

  • Know your avatar before creating courses
  • Create a clear marketing plan
  • Use webinars and partnerships to drive traffic

39:49 Leveraging email lists and JV partnerships

  • Use JV partnerships and email lists for better results
  • Focus on email over social media for higher conversions

43:15 Creating valuable content and promoting courses

  • Deliver free content and promote paid offers
  • Solve problems with valuable content

46:53 Creating relatable content for social media and emails

  • Share vulnerability on social media
  • Use personal stories to connect with your audience

52:00 Creating successful online courses and personal growth

  • Free ebook on creating successful courses
  • Trying new experiences, like learning to surf

54:57 Impactful books and advice for growth

  • Recommended books: “The Starfish and the Spider,” “The Power of Now,” and “Rewilding”
  • Find balance in nature

58:04 Finding true path and purpose

  • Follow your intuition, not societal norms
  • Prioritize what moves and inspires you

1:04:57 Sharing wisdom and launching online courses

  • Tips for launching successful courses
  • Encouragement to share your message with the world

SHOW TRANSCRIPTS:

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Mostafa Hosseini  00:01

Hello and welcome to daily conference for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. And welcome to 2022. This is our first episode in 2022, we almost took a couple of months off just to relax and hang out, reflect and see what we need to do set our goals and you know, coming back, recharged, re energized then you know looking forward to the rest of the year. So, at data conference entrepreneurs, we share tips, strategies and actionable advice that you can use to boost your confidence when it comes to running in business on a daily basis.

 

And during the show and or after the show, please make sure to like subscribe, the show comments if you have any questions we do get back to you on social media and or on a podcast. If you have a friend that could benefit from the topic, tag them as a comment on any any platform and make sure that you share this knowledge and wisdom that my friend Chris is going to share today with them and or other episodes. And so today, we are talking about the four biggest mistakes course creators make. And my guest is Chris Kyle, and welcome, Chris.

 

Chris Kyle  01:17

Hey, good to see you Mostafa. Glad to be here with you. And

 

Mostafa Hosseini  01:21

thank you likewise, it’s great to have you. So today we’re talking about focusing on creating a transformative transformative learning experience how to truly knowing your course avatar, and or your, your ideal student writing copy that make it that speaks directly to your avatar, building part partner relationships to launch your course, and much, much, much more. So let me do the proper introduction to my friend Chris.

 

And we’re going to dive into a very interesting conversation here. And stay tuned, don’t leave and if you have any questions, put them in the chat box and we’ll make sure we answer your questions. Anyway. Chris is a teacher coach and elearning expert who has helped 1000s of authors, teachers, speakers, and change agents launched successful art online courses so they can impact more people while making a great living doing it. He is the founder of launch Academy, a deep dive online training program that helps participants create and launch their online courses to a global audience.

 

He’s also an elearning coach to some of the most well known global teachers and mission driven organization. And his clients and students have generated over four and a half million dollars in revenue from their online courses. And he is also the co author of the number one best selling book, internet marketing secrets. Welcome, Chris. Hey, yeah,

 

Chris Kyle  02:54

thank you. Great, great intro

 

Chris Kyle  02:56

hang out with you my friend. How are things?

 

Chris Kyle  02:58

Really well yeah, here we are in a new year, what heading into toward year three of the pandemic is, you know, navigate this. So it’s, you know, it’s a great time to be in the space of you know, the digital space digital learning space online learning space. Yeah, absolutely.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  03:12

It looks like pandemic is really not going anywhere. Right. They keep finding new variations and fast variation, slow variation and new vaccinations. And that’s

 

Chris Kyle  03:26

right, they’re gonna run out of Greek letters pretty soon. We’re gonna be at delta omega. You’re right. Alpha Omega, you know?

 

Chris Kyle  03:35

Absolutely. Yeah. Chris, we’re about are you? I’m in San Francisco. San Francisco. What’s it like out there right now?

 

Chris Kyle  03:41

It’s great. We have beautiful winter kind of winter clear weather cold kind of crisp and windy. But not a cloud in the sky. It’s just gorgeous out here right now.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  03:50

Love it. I love the ocean and the beach and you guys have like a hills and mountains too. So it’s

 

Chris Kyle  03:57

Yeah, Marin County is just known for the headlands. It’s a big recreation area. It’s just amazingly beautiful here Yeah.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  04:03

Love it. Love it. So Chris, what is your story?

 

Chris Kyle  04:06

My story we were just talking about this like how I started let’s see I was born in 90 Yeah, so I’ll tell a little bit the journey kind of my my work journey you know, and my and my sort of personal purpose journeys woven into that. So the story I like to tell and a lot of people might resonate with this as i right out of college, I went into big you know, fortune 500 company. I went to I went to work for big pharma I work for a company called Allergan in Southern California and in a couple other you know, pharmaceutical companies the first five years and if somebody can relate to this either in the first part of their career or late in their career as a burned out on corporate America, I kind of hated it.

 

I hated the kind of climbing the ladder energy, you know, not my creativity not really welcomed a lot or was like, No, we got to do it this way. I’m sure you know that to have talked to people that have been in that world. So I got down to venereal bug. And I created a, an adventure travel company with my ex wife, my wife at the time.

 

And it was doing soft adventure eco tours around the world. And we built this company up and grew it and grew to, you know, well over a $2 million a year company. And then I burned kind of burned out on that, too, you know, working hard, you know, entrepreneurial journey, right, you know, so like, sort of burnt burnout on corporate America, and then really put a lot of energy into this business, and stayed in the travel industry for a little while.

 

And then September 11th 2001, rolled around, and it really just decimated the travel industry, you know, for a year, a couple years, even really, and then that was really my chance, like many of the folks out here if they’re looking to shift their business or do something different or take their content in a different direction, or what’s that next great thing I took a year off, I took a year off and travelled the world and kind of went to the places that I sent a lot of people to, and and really had a chance to really think about the next chapter of my life.

 

And that was really about coaching and training and working with people directly to help them in their lives and in their business. And so I really went mostly into the entrepreneurial realm helping small businesses and startups here in the Bay Area in the Silicon Valley area, to scale their business to grow their business. And I’ve done some of that. And I’d helped not only grew my company, but for a few years after that, I helped a travel company go from zero to $120 million dollars in three years. And then it was like yeah, and was That was intense period of time, and then that they hit the buzzsaw of September 11.

 

And that was really, really tragic. But but then I was really realizing that I really just want to work with people directly to help them grow and scale. And, and that led me to one of my clients Mustapha that became a client to help them grow and scale their business. That company is called evolving wisdom. Claire Zammit and Craig Hamilton’s company, they’re kind of well known teachers in their space Claire created, they call it in the one program, and feminine power, which has something like 300,000 women that have gone through their, their training.

 

And I joined them full time as the chief marketing officer or chief development officer and really helping them grow the company. And that was my first entry into the world of elearning of online courses programs. And this is back in 2009 and 10, Mustapha, so for those out there, if you remember back that far, that was the type of stuff of literally like, teleseminars, we’d sit on the phone, and you just listen like it, you know, and there wasn’t a lot of tech, there wasn’t a lot going on. It was like a lot of things you had to create on your own.

 

 But Craig and Claire were really awesome teachers and they were committed and you’ll hear more of this, they were really committed to the idea of that we want to create transformative learning experiences in an online setting. That was Claire’s, like rallying cry for the company and others nobody was talking like that, then is how do we create kind of replicate what’s in the training room? You know, real transformative workshop?

 

 How do we do that online? What are the ways to do that? How do you craft the course and the content. So I loved it, you know, I left I left the company on good terms. And then I started my own company to help authors, teachers, experts, change agents, you know, coaches, consultants to create and launch their courses. And I worked with some big names early on. And then eventually, I created about five, six years ago now my flagship training program called Launch Academy, which took all the knowledge all this stuff that I learned through my time and evolving wisdom and fine tuning it on with my clients and created a model a really a really powerful course creation and launch model that I now teach to people all around the world.

 

And I still coach and consult with folks as well. And that’s really been the focus for the last few years and the you know, the pandemic is really tough and challenging for some folks, and some of my friends dear friends, businesses just kind of wiped out. But for people like you and I, it was a savior, you know, like, I feel very grateful, blessed that, you know, through the pandemic, I had some of the best years in my business, because people were wanting to create online courses, like I’m sure so many of the the audience listening here, and to do it well, and even people that created courses in the past that didn’t get the results they wanted.

 

They’re like, what am I doing wrong here? You know? So that’s really been my passion that my focus is really about kind of democratizing the course creation process. You know, making you know, somebody that’s new to the whole thing that they’re getting the best training as if it was Neale Donald Walsch, or Jean Houston or somebody else launching their course to their audience of, you know, 300,000 people, Hey, you don’t even have a list to launch a great course and do well with it.

 

So I really wanted to give people that opportunity to launch their course in a in a good way. Like in a US you read my bio in an A level way, not a quick and dirty way not I just throw it up there. Hey, you’ve launched your course. That’s awesome. You know, I don’t I don’t like I like helping people create quality experiences and do really well with it. Love it. So that’s it. It’s my story sticking to

 

Mostafa Hosseini  10:09

  1. So I know you touched on it briefly, but what do you do these days? And who do you serve?

 

Chris Kyle  10:15

Yeah, so these days, it’s mostly touched on it. So I’m the founder and CEO of launch Academy. So that is our flagship training program. And so people can come in, it’s a live program with access to me and our coaches and our team. And so that’s a real big focus of my work and my team’s work. But I also do a high end high end coaching for kind of a done for you programs with my team. Usually, for people that are, have a little bigger platform, or, you know, they have more resources to invest in that.

 

 

And then I’m also looking to be launching later this year, a mastermind prep brand new mastermind program, kind of a new, a new type of mastermind. So that’s sort of what what I’m up to now.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  10:56

Yeah. That’s exciting. Good stuff. All right. So let’s dive into our topic, which is biggest mistakes that cause course creators make. What are the biggest mistakes that aspiring course creators make these days? Well,

 

Chris Kyle  11:11

yeah. Do you want me to just list them? And then we’ll dive into him? Is that would you like to do that? Yeah, let’s do a kind of a high level, or we can do one at a time. So let’s just do however you want to roll. But this has come, you know, from my literally 12 plus years of in this field, particularly, which remember, those 12 plus years are like dog years Mustapha, right, so it’s been like, 70 years. But so the first key mistake that I see constantly that folks make, and it’s more of a mindset than anything, it’s not like it’s anything really wrong, but that most folks tend to focus on creating an informational experience, like an informational content, not transformational content, or structure.

 

So they’re focused on giving good information, hey, I’ve got a lot of cool stuff to share, here’s the information you should learn. And frankly, the big challenge there is that we have so much information at our fingertips, so many info products, and this and that, that it doesn’t really move the dial for people. And what really moves the dial for people in any field, any topic that you want to teach is to think from a transformative learning experience from transformative content. And that’s, that’s a key mistake thinking informational, rather than transformational.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  12:27

Alright, do you want to dive into that right now? Or you want to go? Oh, yeah, no,

 

Chris Kyle  12:30

let’s, let’s, let’s dive into that. And then we’ll

 

Mostafa Hosseini  12:34

Yeah, what I noticed a lot of people is that we have a lot of information, and we don’t know what to do with it. Yeah. Yep. So why don’t you tell us about the difference between transfer the informational experience versus the transformational experience? And then,

 

Chris Kyle  12:50

yeah, that’s key. And I hear that a lot, too. People have a lot of ideas or different content and things and certainly number one is to focus on what what you believe is your secret sauce of your topic, you know, like, what’s, what’s the thing, if you haven’t launched the course before, some people maybe have launched courses. But if you’re thinking about launching your first course, it should be your core, your core content that is your most savvy in and that might have the most kind of juice for the world out there to the audience at large.

 

And so once you have that more clarity, that focus because you know, some people say I could do this, and I could do that. And I can do this, I can do that. really figure out what’s the core, that in a way could open the door to other things that you teach, right? So think about it as your 101 course. But it’s your one on one course that is most unique to you, if possible, or that you have the most experience in. And then once you have that topic, then the key thing is to begin to think about really three things around creating more of a transformative experience.

 

First, is that you really want to have at what I call a step by step process, or a learning arc. This is critical, because information could just be thrown at you if you’re going to have a course that’s going to be five modules long or six modules or seven modules. It’s very common to see a seven week online course or a seven module online course for example, then with those modules, instead of just this random content, that piece who I like this one, I like that. It’s critical that you think about what’s the learning arc, the first place to start is the first place they need to start.

 

The second module builds off the first module, and then you really can’t get to module three until you’ve done one and two, so they all connect like little like little stepping stones across the creek, or like little breadcrumbs where somebody is following the so they’re going on a learning journey with you. What the arc of that should show is that as they go on that journey, it’s building and building so that by the end, something has shifted or transformed in their life that you know is possible if they all go through the course as a students Not F students, not D students, but a students, they’re going to have some transformational experience.

 

All that is simply said is they’re going to move from one place in their life to another place from A to B, that something is going to change in their life where they have more this more capacity to do this more clarity on that, that is now where they come out of that saying, Ooh, that really changed my life. Or I now I see how I can do this, or I feel more confident to do this or that or this. And that’s really key. Because when you create a transformative experience, you’re going to have raving fan students, they’re going to have a better experience in the course overall.

 

And then they’re going to be telling their friends, they’re going to be recommending you more than if you just put it together as a kind of an informational experience. You’re just throwing content there. So that’s really up to the teacher to think about what’s there step by step prep process, their brand, their uniquely branded system. And anybody can create that by just thinking about what are my five steps, what are my three steps, one of my 14 steps, and in any content area, any topic area, you can think of that. So in the course in launch Academy, I help people think through that arc.

 

And I teach around that how to shape it. And then the other most important thing, once you have that step by step knees, is and you’ll appreciate this, that you need, you need to have very clear teaching concepts and not too much content for each of those modules of steps. So here’s I know, you probably know this, I see it all the time, people think in their mind that more is better. And that’s problematic. Less is better, more, the idea of learn from Apple simplicity is harder to do. But way better, like kidding, more clear and simple.

 

I see so many another sub mistake of this is I see so many course creators putting too much content in their program, right, they have seven weeks, and they’ve really jammed in like 15 weeks of content or more. So the key thing is each module might only have one or two key teaching concepts and a practice or a homework assignment for every module, not 568 10. and Mexican that. So less is more less is better. And then but clear. So that each step is really clear and simple. And that the student in a given week of the course or so can finish it can complete it, that it’s not too much where they get then they sometimes get disheartened, right, if there’s too much content, people stopped going through the course.

 

So you want to do that. And that’s where I say to, you know, two, maybe three Max different teaching content pieces. And then then that should lead to the next module like, Oh, these two things you’re going to learn, we’ll open up for this next and that next. And then the final piece that really makes the difference for a transformative experience. And this is sort of a challenge of having a course that’s live like a live cohort course or having it kind of an evergreen pre recorded, and we can talk about that in a moment.

 

But that you really want to engage the students, where they’re actually sharing that there’s engagement happening. And there are practices to engage them around. So I still see Course Creators teaching a lot of stuff, and not having the person, the student do something for each module of what you’re teaching. And that do something as a homework assignment, a practice, an exercise, journaling, meditating, you know, filling out a sheet or a form, calling five people to do avatar interviews, whatever it is, you give them something to work with on the content so that they’re embedding the learning through that exercise.

 

And that’s actually a definition of transformative learning model is that you take the theory, and you actively put it in practice as much as you can get people working with it. And I see a lot of people don’t do that they or they don’t do it consistently, right, every module should have some aspect of a homework assignment, or a practice or an exercise. And then the engagement is that you’re having the students share with each other, either in a discussion forum or Facebook group, or on the live zoom calls of your course that get them talking to each other and sharing out how was that for you? And what did you learn? That is critical.

 

And it’s way better than an online online course, to give people have that juicy experience of doing it with other people and really being heard and asking questions and all that. And not everybody, a lot of you know, my stuff, a lot of people are in this mindset, I want to create my online course, I just want to record all these videos and then and then just put it up on my website. And then people are just going to come flocking to my course and I’ll be making money in my sleep. And frankly, that does not work until you get to the big, big company with a big list where you can do that.

 

It’s just hard to do that. So I do encourage people to create this more transformative as they start by doing live online courses. And then they can begin to get more creative with creating products and, you know, record pre recorded stuff and all that.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  19:57

Absolutely. So I have a quick question here. What happened? And I’m guilty of this of putting too much information into my courses. What happens when you put too much information into into the course? Yeah,

 

Chris Kyle  20:09

the biggest thing that happens in an online course different than let’s say, an in person workshop, where you’re watching everybody, you know, do the work in the workshop is that the too much content tends to people tend to not be able to get to it or get through it in a reasonable amount of time. And then if you have your seven week course, they start to feel that they’re behind, they get discouraged, and they just stop taking the course they stop moving through the course.

 

So the worst thing, if you have too much content, the worst thing is that lots of people more than you think, are feeling overwhelmed early on, and they don’t continue. And so you have that challenge that we all know about, which is completion rates. And online courses, in general are pretty low. But if you add too much content, it’ll be even lower than you expect, or

 

Mostafa Hosseini  20:55

hopeful. And like you said, that there’s a solution is to give them small pieces, look at breadcrumbs that you were shooting, you were saying, so that it’s like a weekly or daily feeding of information that they have time to understand digest, apply, and see the results of versus here’s a truckload of information. Good luck.

 

Chris Kyle  21:17

Yeah, right? Or here’s all these questions. Yeah, 20 documents that I’ve put up there, all that you know, so I’m giving away my kind of secret sauce here. But the best thing and at least seven week course is that you’re teaching 30 to 45 minutes max for each module, that’s your pure teaching, then you’re creating plenty of space for interactivity and q&a, so that you might have a half an hour. So if you’re doing a live call for your course, every week, and I recommend just one call a week, it could be 90 minutes, and you’re doing some teaching for 45 minutes or so you might do some interactive sharing for 15 minutes or so.

 

And then you’re doing about 30 minutes of pure, what I call group coaching, right? So it’s sort of like fishbowl coaching and q&a, simple q&a, just people asking questions and all that. That’s a very rich, that’s, that’s pretty common people get that. But then Pete, a lot of people tell me, why don’t I do a second class and that same week, and all, it’s too much. And people have busy lives. This is not like I go away to a two day workshop where I’m captured in the room. And I’m, you know, I’ve got kids and crazy schedules, and you know, all the stuff that I got to do. So you really have to make it accessible bite size.

 

And the challenge I see is some people tell me about their whole course structure. And what I typically see often Mustapha is there’s actually two courses in what they think is one course. And so that’s when you take half of that, say, just focus on this, and expand it out to seven weeks, a lot of people say, Oh, my God, that’s only like two weeks or three weeks of content. And I’d look at it and go No way. Again, you think that’s right, it’s not, it’s too much. So take that idea, stretch it out into six or seven weeks, and then you’ll have more space for people to move through it.

 

So you want to really make sure you’re pacing your course, well, taking them through those steps. And typically, people in an introductory course, are probably not going to put more than two to three hours a week into a program and stuff, that’s going to be max. So you got to think of that the exercise is going to take like an hour, you know, or it might be you know, 10 meditating for 10 or 15 minutes every day. That’s different. And so you don’t think about the time but you’re asking people to do something, to help shift things in their in their life. And it could be simple stuff or a single project that they do for that week, or exercise. So

 

Mostafa Hosseini  23:34

again, that is how you make the course transformational. Yep. And people walk back and listen to this section, probably five times to and take notes. Yeah, because

 

Chris Kyle  23:46

that’s a difference. And when you actually trust that you’re creating that, then as we get to the other mistakes, you’re going to actually have much more powerful messaging to your possible students to your ideal students than you’d ever thought versus thinking informational, hey, this, this course is great, you should take this course because it’s awesome.

 

And I’m in a great teacher. And, you know, you just your messaging is very watered down if you’re not thinking about a transformational experience for your students a transformative experience. So it’s going to be both the content itself, and they’re going to have a better experience. But we’ll get into mistake number two about how you message and talk about your course.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  24:22

So what are the what is the second mistake? All right,

 

Chris Kyle  24:26

so mistake number two, is that most course creators again, if they don’t following a process, or don’t have a model or a system, like what I teach, I don’t blame. I mean, people are just guessing, right? They’re just kind of looking out in the world and going oh, yeah, I’ll just put my info con. I’ll put my content out there informational.

 

So number two is what I see so often is that the messaging of their course you know, all the things that we write on the course page where people sign up so or even in the emails you send out, even the free webinar that you create all of that copy on all those pages. We call them the mess messaging, the messaging of your course. And so what happens so often is the teachers that don’t know the process of creating an effective, profitable, great course, they want to message from their own personal perspective. Mustapha, meaning I’m the teacher, I’ve been doing this content, I wrote this book, you know, I’ve worked with people in the past.

 

So I, I know, I kind of know how to talk about it. I think I know what people really want. And so they’re doing it all from their own mindset of what they think is cool to write about. And the messaging meaning like, here’s what this course is about, here’s what you’re gonna get from it. It’s too personal. And here’s the thing is they’re not thinking about spending the time and energy to come from the view of their ideal student, what I call their course avatar, the avatar for their course. And the avatar just means ideal student.

 

Or you could say, the personas, you know, the marketing world uses the personas, but it’s just this, this picture, this profile of your ideal students, you’re the AP course avatar, that changes everything. So it moves it from, I know everything. I’m the teacher, here’s how I’m going to talk about my course. And it’s so great, you know, and then people get into that place of like, how do I toot my horn? And oh, okay, so I guess I’m going to have to toot my horn, and then it feels so awkward, you know, I’ve done this, and this is so great.

 

And you’re going to have a great experience in this course. And so they miss it, they miss the opportunity to speak directly to their course avatar, like they’re having a conversation with their course avatar. So that’s the mistake and you want to expand on that a little bit. Do you have a question about it? Yeah,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  26:37

I have a question. And let’s move on to the next three or four. So we have time. Yeah. And if people have more questions about that, they could obviously reach out to you. And, and the link to reach out to you isn’t a descriptions, and I’m sure, we will talk about more how people get reached out to you later. Now, why do I want to care about writing in my prospects perspective, versus how awesome I am? And what I think?

 

Chris Kyle  27:07

That’s a great question. I know you’re just feeding that to me, because I know you know this well to is what’s most important. This is Psychology, this goes to core psychology, marketing, psychology, just psychology psychology, is that what’s most important is that you’re speaking to the needs, the aspirations, the problems, challenges, and the needs and wants, and desires of that student that you think will get the most out of your course.

 

So what that means the big why behind that Mustapha is you’ll get more people signing up for your course, you just will. And here’s the beauty, you’ll get the right people. So meaning that you’re not only getting more people excited about your course, because you’re speaking from their perspective. But you’re you’re also having the right students that are going to have I would say the better experience, it’s sort of like, you know, when somebody comes into a restaurant, they really want to McDonald’s, and they kind of stumbled in your restaurant, and you’re kind of making it look like fast food, but it’s really, really great high end quality food, that come person comes in and says, This is so expensive, just want a burger.

 

You’re you’re you’re making the disconnect of how you message, your market, what you’re doing. And then somebody’s in there going, this is not what I wanted. So if you think about their experience, what they want what’s important to them, your crafting the messaging and your course it’s really ideally suited to them.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  28:27

Absolutely. So what I’m thinking about is like, if I’m visiting your your page, Chris, I don’t care about your problems, I care about mine. Right? And I need help with, and it’s talking to me and my problems and needs and wants, like you said,

 

Chris Kyle  28:43

that’s the psychology and the psychology is that we’re speaking now we’re, we’re speaking directly from their felt experience. And I would take it even one step further, that really good messaging. And in launch Academy, I have a process that I call the authentic messaging blueprint. And the authentic messaging blueprint, and I’ll say this, they can you can replay this, I’m gonna say it kind of quickly, is it’s a flow of how you speak, how you message, what you’re doing to your avatar, to a kind of a conversation, and it goes like this is the aspiration that that person is holding the problem or challenges the diagnosis to that problem, that then what we call the solution, which is essentially your course and what you teach.

 

And then the promise promises you as a teacher to guide them through a process and then the desired future state, which is just the transformation that’s possible, or the outcomes coming out of your course. So that was a mouthful. It was a lot but that’s the authentic messaging blueprint. That’s all about them. And so I teach people to actually give their avatar name and that person could be Susie or Sam. And then they’re just literally writing to Susie or Sam and there’s a lot of people out there that think and feel like Susie and Sam and then they’re just literally saying Susie I know that you aspire to this you so want this in your life.

 

But the problem is Susie, is that here’s the struggles challenge issues that you might be facing. Why is that happening? Well, let me give you my, my expert opinion on why this is all happening for you and in your life. And then the solution is, hey, my program takes you through this process. And I’m going to be guiding you through it so that you can have this in this in this in this in your life that you can create this and this and have that.

 

And so that seems simple. But nobody does it unless they know it. They’re still writing from their own personal perspective versus saying, I’m really investigating what makes Susie tick in all of these areas. And we call that the avatar investigation process of actually doing that doing avatar interviews and things like that, that we teach in, in launch Academy, which, you know, the marketing world does it right, Mustapha, we just as individuals, solopreneurs, and teachers and authors and coaches and consultants, we don’t necessarily think like that we don’t it doesn’t necessarily come to us to think about crafting it toward our audience.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  30:55

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Very, very important. So messaging of the course, and coming from the customer’s perspective versus my perspective. Exactly. And what’s the third one,

 

Chris Kyle  31:09

your third mistake is, it’s a little bit of, it’s kind of taking off too, because it’s so too is so important, is not spending the critical time on understanding the avatar and the course messaging. And then the way I would say the mistake usually goes toward is spending way too much time and mental energy on the technology, and even the course content itself, which is important, but in a way, not as important as really understanding your avatar and how do you talk about it?

 

Because I trust your content, you’re going to figure out how to shape that. So people sweat over, oh, my God, I what platform should I use. And it’s like, somehow, the whole thing about an online course, this is the tech myth, I call it the myth of the tech platform is that if I just have the right tech platform, and I’ll do all this research, somehow, people will magically show up to my course. And folks, that tech platform is just what it is, is just the platform to support what you’re doing meaning to host your course or to send out emails, it is not what makes the difference between signing up, you know, 100 people for your course, or only getting 10 people for your course.

 

That’s the messaging, and how you shape your content into a transformative experience. So the critical thing is spending very little time on the messaging and understanding the avatar and way too much time in places that don’t matter. Or it don’t matter as much. I mean, they’re important still, but they don’t matter as much. Love it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  32:33

So just a quick tip, if I want to understand more about my avatar, what do I need to do? Yeah, so

 

Chris Kyle  32:41

yeah, so the exploration process I teach in launch Academy is twofold. One is that you do probably know people like if you’ve been coaching people around this or written a book or talk to folks about your topic, you probably have some sense of who might get the most out of it. So I encourage people to do an avatar exploration process like being a researcher, a social scientist, anthropologist, you dig into what makes Susie tick.

 

So we look at five, six categories, we look at the demographics of Suzy, which is important, but not that important. It’s only one of six categories, the psychographics, which just means mentally what Suzy worried about stressing on. And then four key emotional areas are kind of psycho emotional areas, which are the fears and frustrations that Susie has, and then aspirations and then wants and aspirations are more like the being states, I want to be more courageous, I want to have feel more purposeful I want versus having is I want an online course I want a relationship that works I want you know, it’s the happiness thing. So when you look at those six categories, you do your own thinking around that.

 

And you can also do part two of this is you can start looking around in your own network, your own community, even current clients that you may have an interview them from the perspective of you’ve got this course idea. And now I want to understand in my topic area, what are they afraid what’s what are their fears? What are their frustrations? What are their aspirations around your topic, it can’t be anything in their life, it has to be around your teaching topic, whether it’s teaching them around shamanism, or how to launch an online course or build your business. You’ve got to be thinking about that.

 

What are your fears around growing your business? What are your fears around launching an online course potentially? And so that’s and then other people have the personal development arena is very strong for this because people are going to be bound up they’re not happy they’re not feeling joy in their life. They’re stuck you know, they so these are things that you want to understand what’s making Susie tick, and that goes all into the messaging work.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  34:42

Love it. So so far, we’ve got three of them. First one was at information versus transformation. Second was messaging of the course and make sure that we’re writing and communicating through their perspective.

 

Chris Kyle  34:58

Yeah, not their personal teachers. to active Yep.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  35:01

And third one was not spending time to understand the avatar. Yeah. And who they are, where they come from where the problems and the worries are? Yep. And what’s the fourth one?

 

Chris Kyle  35:11

Okay. So the fourth and final one, pretty clear. And it’s pretty obvious in to you, and maybe to a lot of people here is that they don’t potential and aspiring course creators don’t have a clear strategy for marketing their course, before they get rolling. So what happens here is that you can be thinking about a marketing strategy well, before you’re launching your course. And most people, the mistake they make is I’ve got an idea, I want to teach this course, they go immediately into sort of content creation and thinking about the tech platform.

 

And that’s it, if as long as I have my content and a tech platform, I’m ready to roll. And they haven’t talked about messaging, they haven’t talked about their avatar, they haven’t thought about the marketing. So they don’t have a clear strategy for marketing, of course, and frankly, there’s other things they might think about which I consider bad strategies that don’t work for them, especially if people are kind of newer to the online learning space. Mustapha, this is where it gets really challenging, because everybody will look out there and go, well, I need to do social media, I got to build my Facebook page, I’m going to pay for Facebook ads, or LinkedIn ads, or Instagram ads.

 

And all of those I call literally, and I’ll put them in parentheses, those are bad strategies for most people. Those are all strategies when you’re significantly on your way to having a digital business and already have products and you already have money to spend on a whole budget marketing budget. But early on, there are some very specific strategies that work and that are essentially no cost.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  36:38

So Chris, what what is your definition of strategy? And what does it look like?

 

Chris Kyle  36:42

Yeah, strategy with you? What is it? What do I have? Yeah, marketing strategy. So this is like a strategy for marketing the courses like filling the course up. So the strategy is a marketing strategy, simply how do I get more people seen what I’m doing? And how do I convert those people. So you’ll recognize this, I know you know it, but for people out there that don’t know it in the online space in the online marketing, space, online products, online courses, when we’re marketing, we’re thinking of only two things, folks, we’re thinking of what we call traffic, and conversion, traffic and conversion.

 

So from a marketing strategy standpoint, we’re always only thinking of those two things, traffic just simply means more eyeballs, on something that you’re doing or offering where people go, Ooh, I like that. Or I want to sign up for that, or get this free thing or do a free webinar. And we call that in the world of marketing is this is the freemium model that’s dominating the marketing world as we have we offer these free things that you can get that then help move you to the next step with that person, hopefully, toward a paid thing.

 

So when I say a strategy, it’s like, what are you doing to drive traffic to your free thing. And what I teach simply, in launch Academy, which is so powerful, is a webinar marketing model, where you create a free, awesome webinar. And then you talk about your course at the end of the webinar, and people sign up. There’s lots of other models and marketing, funnel models and all that. And you can get better at that over time, if you want to do that.

 

But in the in the in the kind of early stages, this is still the most powerful, effective way, having a free webinar that you offer. And then you’ve got to get eyeballs on that free webinar. So the marketing strategy that I recommend for people in that I teach in launch Academy, and it’s really the first and primary one that you’ll build off of for other strategies as you get more sophisticated. And you and I know this because we’re in this realm is it’s about building what we call joint venture partners or marketing partnerships, where people are supporting each other.

 

And so for all of you listening like Mostafa and I are developing a new relationship and growing together and, and helping each other in our offerings. And so we are becoming partners, joint venture partners and already doing stuff together. And we’ll do more over time. And so this is what’s great about it is as you go out into the world and look in your network and find potential partners, it’s free, there’s no cost to develop those partnerships. The only cause typically on the back end with partners, which is not always the case in every partnership, but that we often pay commissions for anybody that comes from a partner who signs up for our paid program.

 

And that means that you’ve already collected money and you’re just paying a commission out to that person, you’re not having to pay for ads, or marketing cost upfront where you’re not getting any return or don’t know the return you’ll get. So that’s the only thing but it’s all free to develop those and then you know, then you pay you potentially if you want pay commissions on the back end of those partnerships. That’s a clear, simple, inexpensive, very successful strategy marketing strategy to fill up your courses. And my students coming out of launch Academy, love and love.

 

Many of them don’t have listed all they have a friends and family network and then they also understand from me that they’re going to be reaching out to who Whatever their close network is, to help them get to other folks and then find potential partners that are aligned with what they’re doing. And then they launch their courses with this, you know, a host of partners and their own community to launch their first course. So that’s it really works. Well. Yeah, yeah.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  40:16

I personally love the JV joint venture approach, which is, like you said, it’s free. It’s based on relationships. And for a guy like me, who loves and nurtures relationships, it works really well. Yeah. In my experience, I think people don’t give themselves enough credit for the lists that they already have, like their social media list.

 

And they, a lot of people have a list that they’ve never compiled and scattered, and they just need to put it on an Excel sheet, then they will be the opposite. They have 50 to 100 people on their list. And they could start with that. And basically, exactly,

 

Chris Kyle  40:54

they could start with that. And they can start with just a handful of partners that have bigger lists, and that are promoting to their free event. And all of a sudden, in a single launch. Some people might add 1000, or 2000 more people to their list. Even if only a small percentage of those sign up for the course, you’ve done a list build, plus inviting people to take your course.

 

And that’s what people just don’t grok that they’re like, Oh, I’ve got to just painfully put a little freebie on my homepage and hope that somebody signs up for that. And then, you know, so people are all bound up in like, I don’t know how to get more people. And you’re right, the first thing is, just start looking at your your current Google list your Gmail list, and friends and family, and throw that in there and your Facebook page and just start start kind of building your first level. And then the partners can be the second level, and then you’re often rolling.

 

As you start to get on podcasts. And people invite you to speak at things you can always then offer a free gift, where then people go and then sign up for your free gift coming out of anything you’re speaking and you start adding more and more, and you’ll get more partners. So it builds you know, it takes time to build it. But it can if you’re if you’re attentive to it, it can happen pretty quickly as well.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  42:04

Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

 

Chris Kyle  42:07

And most people are getting the crap they get in the trap. The I would make this a sub mistake of this. But the big trap is everybody keeps thinking because we live in the social media world that we do now is the fear comes up as I have to build out my Facebook or my Instagram, how do I do that to be successful? And you don’t, you don’t have to do that. In fact, what’s more important is actually being focused on building your email list because it’s so much more productive, it’s more effective, and you’ll have way more conversions from a good healthy email list than you will from your social media. And so that’s the better way to approach it. Yeah.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  42:46

So what do you have to say to people that they say, Oh, I don’t want to you lose my social media, or I don’t want to promote something to them. And or, you know, along those lines, yeah,

 

Chris Kyle  42:57

and even their lists, see, some people are like teachers that have done like, one email a month, you know, like a newsletter, or sometimes every two months. And they’re very, very protective of that, or there’s a certain way I’ve been with my social media, that’s really just telling these personal stories, I don’t want to sell anything. So what I tell people is, first of all, get over it. Bottom line is that you have something valuable if you feel like you have good content that’s going to help change people’s lives.

 

So we’re back to our transformative content, then it’s almost incumbent upon you to be willing and open to talking about that, yeah, to talking about that to your community getting the word out more. And then the other thing about just get over that is trust that you have something that might be valuable to people, not everybody and not everybody is going to be jumping for joy because you’re offering something, but you never know who.

 

And so the other thing is that you want to start be offering and creating opportunities to deliver free content to your growing community, whatever that is. Yeah. So you’re you’re doing a free Facebook Live with really good three steps to this and that, and people like That’s awesome. And then you’re doing a free webinar. And then at one point, your free webinar has an offer to your course at the end of your webinar, you’ve earned the right you’ve delivered great value, you’ve earned the right to tell people about your course.

 

And to keep posting it even like hey, don’t forget, the course is coming up in a few days. And so you just really have to own that you’ve got something valuable, really being willing to share it and know that so much of your role is to be thinking about delivering and giving free content as well as promoting paid stuff. So it’s both if you’re in the mindset that you’re you’re having to quote unquote, sell all the time. That’s an erroneous mindset.

 

You’re not You’re not selling anything, really. You’re offering your content for free at times. And then what I like to say is when you’re ready to talk about your course, you’re offering your course offer you’re not even selling your course you’re offering it and that’s what We call about even at the end of your webinar, we call that making the offer, making the offer. And then you can just get out of your own kind of weirdness about I’m trying to push my list or sell to my list or, you know, I only send one email out every two months, it’s not going to, it’s not going to cut it in this world. But if you’re giving good content, you might be able to do two emails a month, or even an email weekly.

 

If you’re strategic about it, and thoughtful about the kind of content you’re sending out. People will appreciate it. And those that don’t or don’t connect with you will opt out. And that’s okay, we have that all the time, opting in and opting out, opting in and opting out. And it just, it’s a flow ever, ever, never ending flow?

 

Mostafa Hosseini  45:38

Absolutely. To me, I mean, as long as I’m making a valuable offer, and if it’s something that people need, and it’s fixing an existing issue, or worry, I would prefer putting an offer out that it helps people with their problems versus them, or putting a useless picture or a video that doesn’t do anything for them.

 

Chris Kyle  45:59

Yeah, that’s right. That’s very good. Yeah. And a lot of people, they don’t even Yeah, if they don’t have the content, that’s the whole point of creating a course is now if you’re committed to creating a good, valuable course, you can feel proud of it and the stuff, that’s what I’m hearing you say, and you can feel confident to say this is really good. And I want to talk about it, rather than sheepishly like you said, put out some quote, and a photo over the quotes and somebody’s like, Okay, another quote from Lao Tzu or whatever, you know, like, Okay, another Rumi, quote, right, I love Rumi.

 

But are we just keep cycling these things? So we think that’s all cute and great. But in some levels, you’re right, you’re not willing to go deeper with your audience to say there’s this thing that you can go much deeper with me on this. And and that’s, that’s, I think, value that sometimes people think about, is it selling something, and so they get nervous about that, versus giving real value and offering something that can change people’s lives? Love

 

Mostafa Hosseini  46:53

  1. So speaking of putting stuff on our social media that people would like and love. We talked about going over writing copy that speaks directly to your avatar. Yeah, give us some tips on how you can approach that. So if I’m putting something on my social media, people are like, Yeah, I’m gonna stop looking at cat pictures and videos, I’m gonna pay attention to what’s a Christmas putting on face to face? Yeah,

 

Chris Kyle  47:20

yeah. And there’s, there’s similarities between doing emails in this way or social media. But there are some differences. Obviously, social media tends to be a little bit shorter and pithy, or a short video that you’re going to put up about something. I think the way I like to look at this stuff I’d love to hear your thoughts on it is I like to think of social media, your Facebook, your Instagram is trying to be more vulnerable, and personal, as it relates back to your topic. So your teaching topic, whatever you’re teaching, so there’s like a vulnerable share, there’s something that happened, or you’re working with a client, and you learn this and got that.

 

And it can be a little teaching moment, I call it a teaching moment. But people want to feel in relationship with you generally, through that medium. Emails, there’s a little bit of that it’s like a longer letter to somebody, but emails quickly have more space. to unpack what I consider more you as expert, you’re still giving value, but you’re gonna give a PDF and that email, you’re going to do the four I would do these four biggest I have done it, the four biggest mistakes course creators make would be a great content, email, right or in a blog post.

 

And then the email points to the blog post, right. So the email and the blog posting is more you as experts, social media is more you as sort of personal person, you know, having a personality that just wants to connect vulnerably. But in both cases, you really want to come from a place of your audience to create what we call the kind of grab, some people call it the hook or the grab. So people are scrolling through and it’s more like, God, I you know, the first line could be I see so many of the people that I’m working with struggle with this.

 

Yeah, boom, like, just start right with it. And you can go aspiration or problem I see so many people really wanting to create this in their life that’s aspiration. And then I see so many people I’ve been talking to lately are really struggling with this. That’s the problem or the challenge or the struggle, starting with either of those and social media is is key for engaging somebody right away. And then you talk about what is the one thing about that you want to talk about, and then in the email, you can unpack more around that you could just have three or four things that you’re gonna say around that that still pulls them in.

 

So for me, it still always comes back to my authentic messaging blueprint in almost every way form and fashion aspiration problem, diagnosis solution, you can just weave that in a very short thing, it can be a longer thing. So I’m always thinking about my audience, not not about me. Sometimes it’ll be about me to grab them like I’m having the worst day of my life today. You and I know that but then you’re going to turn that and saying can you relate to that and is have you had this kind of bad And here’s how I got through it. And then people see oh, that was a great tip of how Chris got through this weird, terrible thing or this difficult thing.

 

So I don’t know, that’s probably is that you’re kind of I’m curious your take is that?

 

Mostafa Hosseini  50:12

Absolutely. So going back to your messaging and how your messages from your, your customers perspective and your prospects perspective, saying, here’s something you might be experiencing, or here’s what I have a problem that I have, which I think in my in my mind, if you’re having problems, it makes you more human, and I want to connect with you, because I’m also having problems. Yeah, yep.

 

Chris Kyle  50:35

That’s vulnerability. That’s the vulnerability to Brene, brown stuff just be vulnerable upfront. Exactly.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  50:40

I was having these issues. Here’s how I fixed it. If that resonates with you, let’s have a chat.

 

Chris Kyle  50:45

Yep. Exactly. Yep. And that and it can either also be can you be like, Hey, are you having this challenge? I know, I went through this last year. So you can either do it from their perspective or from your own vulnerable sharing of that you’ve had and sometimes it’s hard, if you have it, you don’t want to make up a problem. You don’t want to make it up if it’s not true. So a lot of times, the easier way, if it’s if you don’t have all the things that have happened in your life, then you just point to, I’ve been talking with or through my clients, I’m hearing this as a big issue or a big challenge. Is that Is that true for you?

 

If it is, you know, and then then you’re just not having to always use yourself as a story. But anytime you can use your own personal story of something that happened that would relate to what you’re teaching, that’s great. That’s really,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  51:26

I mean, what exercise you could do is like, just sit down and write all the problems that you have experienced over the past five years.

 

Chris Kyle  51:33

Yeah, that’d be great. That would be a great content that would be literally would set up your marketing content schedule for six months. to two weeks. Yeah, it’s totally right. Because you just go through those, I face this. And two years ago, I did that. And then by early in my career, I struggle with this, I love it, that’s a great a great tip of just generating content based on your own your own journey, your own story. And you

 

Mostafa Hosseini  52:00

never know which one is going to work the best. So you just have to keep putting out the content until you get there. So Chris, you are graciously sharing a gift with our audience. Could you tell us about your ebook and what it is? Yeah, yeah. So

 

Chris Kyle  52:14

I’ve got a free gift for you all kind of modeling what I teach. And that gift is the five things you need to know about creating a successful online course. So it’s kind of my, my best information piffy you know, do five things you need to know some of that, you’ll notice that it goes a little deeper, but some of it’s what I’ve talked about here today and shared with, you know, most often with all of you. And so that’ll just give you kind of a flow of what are the things what are the key things I need to know to launch a successful, profitable online course.

 

So that’s my ebook. It’s a pretty easy read the link Yep, link is right there. Chris kyle.com forward slash ebook, just so you can also verbally hear it. And we’d love to you know, we’d love to have you have that and then certainly reach out to me. You’ll get a confirmation email and you can always reach out to us from from that email.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  53:02

Yep. So again, Chris’s ebook, five things you need to know. To create a successful online course you can download it at Chris cole.com. And I’m just going to spell it out real quick. It’s CH, RI s Kyle is KYL e.com forward slash ebook and ebook there is no hyphen in between just ebook go out there downloaded. Chris obviously knows his stuff. I I tend to bring in people on the show that they know what they’re talking about, otherwise, they probably wouldn’t be here.

 

And by just listening to him talk for an hour, that was just a massive value bomb. And I just learned a whole bunch here, which which is amazing. And I thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. So can I ask you a few quite personal questions? Sure. Now, you’re done going over four mistakes that people make when it comes to launching their course. Chris What is it a new thing that you have tried recently?

 

Chris Kyle  54:06

A new thing I’ve tried recently in anything in my life or like business

 

Mostafa Hosseini  54:11

you name it?

 

Chris Kyle  54:14

Well well the new thing that I’ve I’ve tried is I’m and I’m going to need to do this you know this about me is that I’m starting to serve. So I you know, he lives here in California but I’ve never really served because my wife and I are moving to Costa Rica full time. And we have an online business and we can be mobile anywhere in the world and we’re ready to create a great life in this awesome little town in Costa Rica.

 

So I’m going to have to learn how to surf dude because it’s it’s that’s the when it’s hot and sticky out you want to be in the water and all the cool people are in the water and so I don’t have any you know, quote I don’t have any aspirations of being some great surfer but I want to learn how to surf. So that’s that’s kind of the new thing on my on my plate and in my radar. Love

 

Mostafa Hosseini  54:57

  1. What are the top two are three books that have made a massive difference in your life? Or the top two, three books that you usually recommend people to read? Oh, yeah.

 

Chris Kyle  55:08

Great. The idea you’re gonna ask me that this and now there’s Hang on, I’m just grabbing these books that I have always by my side here. Oh, yeah. So here’s one that I highly recommend people read is the starfish and the spider. Have you heard about this one? Sort of writer Marie Brosnan? Yeah, no. It’s a great book, great book on the unstoppable power of leaders, leaderless organizations. And it’s a great read not only for, you know, people that are in the business world, but even for entrepreneurs that are starting to grow their business in their teams.

 

That’s a great book. And then, and then one of the one of my favorite this is kind of, you know, the spiritual side of me is the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. And then you could even put two, two of his together, which is the power of now and then the other one is the new a new earth, a new earth. That’s his that was his second book.

 

So the power of now is first book and then a new earth. And it’s just great. It’s just great lessons for life and living and for being more presence and for building your spiritual practice, if you will. And then, and then I’m going to say this, and this is kind of specific to me. And I’ve been loving this book me to my passion for nature and spend a lot of time in nature. And it’s a book called rewilding rewilding. Yep. rewilding by mica, matale, mica Portale.

 

 

And it’s all about just really helping us to reconnect with the natural world, that in our, in our digital culture, more and more, we’re more and more disconnected, we’re more and more online. And we forget the juice and the power and the beauty and the supportive quality of just spending more time in nature.

 

And really being spending more quality conscious time in nature, not just to walk around the block, but to really do that. And I really believe that in our, in our increasing technology, technological world and all the, the what the pandemic is brought is hours and hours hours in front of zoom. I feel it’s so critical that we also balanced that by spending more time outside and in nature and getting juiced up for that. So those are, those are some of my those are some of my books. There’s other I have so many others, but that’s that’s good enough for now.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  57:25

Love it. Love it. What’s one advice that made a massive change in your life or business?

 

Chris Kyle  57:33

Yeah, what’s one, one piece of advice? Yeah, I think, you know, I did a lot of work with evolving wisdom. I work with Neale Donald Walsch, you know, he’s famous for Conversations with God series, you know, written, had sold 35 million books over the last 20 years. So in the nail down, and that’s a great book Conversations with God, the first there’s three books in that one, two, and three. And Neil, you know, I was asking a lot in the URL, these are like fun, no, 10 years ago or so. And he was really awesome.

 

He’s this kind of really, wizard guy, but kind of like a crotchety to do that. I mean, he’s kind of like an old guy. And, you know, he’s got wisdom, but he’s also not going to, you’re not going to be too sweet about it sometimes. And his advice to me was saying that what I had to do, and what I encourage you to do is really follow what is true for you follow your true path, your own path, no matter how weird that might look, or how other people might think about it. Because he was frickin writing, you know, out on the streets penniless on a yellow pad writing what was coming to him that became the conversations with God books, he had no money down and out.

 

And he was just committed to getting this out of him and, and finding a way to get it out in the world and publish it. And people thought it was just crazy. I mean, totally whacked and crazy. And so I really took that to heart. And I’ve been following that as much as I can, throughout the last at least 10 plus years in my business, is really be true to yourself, be true to what your path is, no matter what people say, or how they look at you. While we’re at

 

Mostafa Hosseini  59:12

it as this like a question is how do you figure out what’s true to you? Is this like a feeling? Is this like a? That’s

 

Chris Kyle  59:19

a great question. Yeah, you got to ask. So this is where it all comes in what I think is then this idea of inner wisdom and inner clarity, clarity for your life, not what the world wants for you what your parents say should be where your friends or colleagues, it’s got to be unhooked from all that outward stuff, to spending the time checking in with yourself spending time with yourself asking the hard questions of yourself.

 

What really moves me what’s important to me? How do I want to give my gifts what are my gifts? What What brings me alive when I’m doing it? How do I want it what kind of lifestyle do I want to create for myself? How do I want to live? You know, and so but that is going against the conventional wisdom of the day, it might not look like it’s something that’s going to make you a lot of money, it may be scary to take on or it’s, it’s you’re not being the good performer or the good husband or the good father or the good wife or partner or whatever.

 

So it’s really it’s really about an inward inward journey to really get clarity on what is your path and I end early on, you know, my first teachings in the online world were all around purpose Mustapha, so I had my my my power of purpose global summits, my man on purpose course. And so I talked a lot about helping people really to delve deeply into their that inner landscape to really what is what is it here that I’m here to bring in what’s most important to me, that that kind of purpose and meaning journey, and that only you can tell yourself that right?

 

And so we tell ourselves so many stories of why we can’t do that. Now, if that thing that we really want and love. And that’s like, I’m getting a lot of flack from, like family a little bit, all the stuff about moving to Costa Rica, you know, that don’t understand that. It seems like why are you leaving the country and do this, you know, this other Central American country? And so we have to just keep following what’s you know, what’s true for us as things where we get a lot of other stuff? Yeah.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:18

Are you sure you just shared like probably seven or eight questions that will be like a really good start getting it was around the one hour mark, if you want to go back and list those questions and start answering to understand and get a get a better feel for who you are, what you want?

 

And what are you what is like the future that you will or the present that you want to build

 

Chris Kyle  1:01:37

for yourself? Yeah, that’s great.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:01:40

Chris, if you had a Facebook ad, or a Google ad, that everyone on the internet could see, what would be your message for people on earth?

 

Chris Kyle  1:01:51

For people live or the message for people of Earth, oh, my God, I this is one that you didn’t mention to me. This is great. That’s good. Let me check in

 

Chris Kyle  1:02:08

think it’s this, it’ll, it’ll all be okay. Don’t push so hard. Trust yourself, and care for each other.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:02:23

care for each other? It all be okay. Don’t push yourself. Don’t push too hard. Trust yourself and care for each other. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Now, here’s my last question. What advice would you give your 20 year old self? 20

 

Chris Kyle  1:02:39

year old self? Oh my god. Yeah, you know, it’s what we’re talking about right? Now I know exactly what I’d say it is my 20 yourself, trust your heart, trust your gut more and go and act on that. Because I was way up in my head about what I thought I should be. And that’s why I went into corporate America. Like that’s where the money is. That’s where the smarts are, I had a great degree from a great college, I should go to work for a company like this.

 

And you know, what I wanted to do my stuff at that time. And I’d actually been doing some work in college around this is I really wanted to go to film school, I really wanted to do, you know, create films, I wanted to be both kind of actor, director or director, writer, you know, something like that. And I was so close to quitting this corporate gig I had and then going there and to film school, but I wound up doing, you know, the travel business instead, which was still great.

 

But I feel like that’s a sliding door for me that if I really listened deeply, I think I would have had more fun and more creativity coming out of me in the process, you know, going out and making making films,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:03:41

you know, so love it, love it. And it’s that the second that’s a common thing that I hear from a lot of my guests, guests when it comes to these questions that is trusting your gut, trusting your feelings and just acting on it. It’s, I don’t know if it’s fortunate or unfortunate that people later in life come to that conclusion that you know what, I’m going to do what I want to do, and, and they’re a lot happier and a lot of misery door and it just,

 

Chris Kyle  1:04:11

yeah, it’s amazing how it takes it’s a life journey. I mean, sometimes it just takes that through a life developmental cycle for human beings. But I do see some younger people that know they want to be artists or they’re passionate about this or that and it’s great that they have the kind of resilience and the the wherewithal to say, I’m going to do it at 29 at 1920 2122. But so many also just fall into the trap of the job and the money and the work their way up.

 

And and then we have to unwind that over time. Like it’s crazy. I mean, there’s so many companies that you can go out there and work for but so many people don’t seem happy in those companies. You know, Mustapha, so, I don’t know. I guess it’s I guess it’s like we work through that we all kind of join all those companies and we get disillusioned and we do what we want, you know, in our Ford 30s 40s and 50s.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:04:57

Absolutely. Kratz, I I really appreciate your thank you for sure sharing your wisdom, and knowledge and you shared some of the stuff from your course. And I appreciate that. And so thank you very much. I still haven’t asked about half of my questions. And we’re almost out of time. So thank you very much. Get gang. If you’re watching or listening, do reach out to Chris Kyle, you can find him at Chris cole.com and go download his ebook, five things you need to know to create a successful online course. And that is Chris cole.com, forward slash ebook. Thank you. Is there anything that you’d like to add before we wrap up?

 

Chris Kyle  1:05:37

No, just just, it’s been such a great theme of just for those listening is just, again, you know what, whatever you’re feeling called to or feeling inspired to bring, don’t let the doubting voice or the messages or the world at large tell you you can’t do that and just go for it, you know, start bringing more of you forward into the world start bringing more of your message, you know, part of my purpose Mustapha, my purpose statement is that I’m really here and committed to helping people to light up the world with their message.

 

And so I want to, you know, I’d love to see a million points of light of people doing what they love and teaching other people and supporting others on their journey. So just do it. Just go for it. Love it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  1:06:17

Thank you gang. As usual, please, if you’re watching or listening, make sure to like the show, subscribe to whichever channel you’re watching. If you have any questions, put them on social media and or on the podcast platforms and we’ll get back to you.

 

And if you know any friends, which I’m sure you should know someone that is launching a course or an info marketing business that could use Chris’s help when it comes to marketing and launching their business, tag them and comment below and share this wisdom and knowledge with them. Thank you for joining us. My name is Mostafa Hosseini, and you just listened to episode number 82 of daily confidence for entrepreneurs. Thank you. Bye now

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