We’ve been nominated for Mind Body Spirit Blogger of the Year in the Kindred Spirit Magazine Awards! We LOVE this magazine, so this is a huge honour, and I am so grateful to the whole Do What You Love team, who works so hard to bring you fresh and inspiring content every week.
If you appreciate our blog please take a moment to vote for us here (under award number 3). Thank you so much!
PS Kindred Spirit are entering everyone who votes into a prize draw so you might even win a prize!
What a week it was last week. I am beyond grateful for all the love and support as I sent my book baby Freedom Seeker out into the world. But even more than that, I have been floored by the response. Here are a few of the words shared by readers all over the world already…
On Twitter:
On Facebook:
In our private group (name removed for privacy):
This book is not just a book, it’s an opportunity for real change, an invitation to a new version of your life. One where you feel free in every area of your life (and who doesn’t want that?). But the road isn’t always easy, and so I want to go a step further than just putting my thoughts, stories and transformational tools out there in Freedom Seeker. I want to connect you to other Freedom Seekers, and support your journey in person, through Facebook Live chats, and encouragement as you make bold moves in the direction of your dreams.
That’s why I have created a special private group for readers of Freedom Seeker. It’s totally free and I will be posting there regularly in the coming weeks and months, commenting on the things that come up as you read, and supporting you like a friend by your side.
In order to join you just need to fill in the simple form here with your receipt details, and you’ll get sent an invitation to join the group. (If you pre-ordered the book, this is the same group you already have access to. If you pre-ordered but haven’t yet joined, you are still very welcome!)
Because the journey of the Freedom Seeker isn’t always easy, but it is essential and it is urgent, for it is the path to coming alive again.
Much love,
Beth
PS If you missed the book launch last week, you can catch the online launch replay here, or check out the photos from our wonderful love-drenched In Real Life launch party here. Thank you so much to all of you who joined us!
PPS The winner of the giant giveaway in the online launch was Holly Rutten-Helgeson. We also gave bonus prizes to Lara Smith, Kenda-Lee Gaynham and Fran Armstrong. The winner of our mega draw at the In Real Life launch party was Rosie Gannaway. Congratulations all. Please drop us a line to [email protected] to claim your prize if you haven’t already!
PPS You can catch me on Hay House Radio (UK Spotlight) with Janey Lee Grace at:
[Health warning: There’s an AMAZING story in this video which might just blow your mind…]
Throughout the ages birds have been seen as a supernatural connection between humans and the gods. We have stitched their feathers into our folklore, and attached spiritual significance to their behaviour and movements.
Birds were on the earth long before us, so primitive humans looked upon them as powerful. Many early tribes and clans took a bird, whose characteristics they admired, as their totem.
And personally, I had the experience of birds appearing as signs in all sorts of guises (actual flocks, feathers on my path, feather jewellery, avian tattoos etc) while I was writing Freedom Seeker. When Hay House sent me a mock up of the book jacket to photograph, I discovered it was wrapped around a book by Teal Swan. Birds everywhere…
And it makes sense, for a book about freedom. But it wasn’t until I actually started researching and writing that I discovered some fascinating parallels between the mechanics of bird flight, and the human psyche. I even consulted an Oxford University Professor on the subject, who said he’d never seen those parallels recognised before, so it was all pretty exciting. You can read about those discoveries in Freedom Seeker, but for now I wanted to share a few thoughts on what we can learn from birds to help us navigate life. In this video I share a mindblowing story of someone I met on my travels whilst writing. I think you will love hearing it…
PS Monday is the LAST DAY to get the bonuses worth over $300 when you pre-order Freedom Seeker. Get yours here: www.bethkempton.com/book
As you may have noticed, I wrote a book, so it’s only right to have a big celebration when it launches very shortly! As a beloved member of my community I would like to invite you to the launch event. Below you will find details of the in-person main event in case you happen to be within visiting distance of Southampton, UK, and also of the virtual online party for everyone else! I really hope you will join me and celebrate. (Did I mention there will be lots of giveaways?)
We’ll have live music and a whole lot of inspiration. I’ll be hosting, and signing books, and I’ll be joined by three inspiring Freedom Seekers from the book, sharing their stories in real life.
This is a FREE event but you’ll need a ticket. You can get your ticket here.
Please share with anyone who might like to come along and meet other Freedom Seekers, get inspired and have some great conversations!
Freedom Seeker comes out on April 4th, which is also our 4th wedding anniversary, so it seems only right to have the party kick off at 4.44pm GMT! I’ll be online from 4.30pm so we can do a countdown. Mark your calendar and come and join me!
If you haven’t pre-ordered the book make sure you do that now to get your bonuses – worth over $300! All the details are here, and you can start connecting with other Freedom Seekers right away. Don’t miss this!
Thank you so much for being part of this amazing journey of life!
BethXx
I am curious, are you an extrovert or an introvert? If you think you are neither, perhaps you are a ‘kindrovert’. I am.
I used to think I was an extrovert. I like people, and I loved performing on stage when I was young. Parties were fun and I’d happily talk to strangers. But then I got older and wasn’t so keen to be caught up in crowds. I had no desire to be the centre of attention, and I found large gatherings quite draining. As I paid more attention to my stress triggers, I realized I needed quiet time more and more. I clearly wasn’t an extrovert after all.
Then it became trendy to come out as an introvert, so I tried that label on for a while, but it didn’t fit either. I needed time and space away from the noise to recover, but my ideas would come to life in conversation.
So I looked for an alternative and I discovered that there is a middle way called an ‘ambivert’: a bit of extrovert, a bit of introvert, not really sure about either. From the moment I heard the word I didn’t want to be one. It sounded like some kind of cleaning product and felt like a manufactured option to describe the space on the spectrum between extrovert and introvert. It didn’t work for me.
I thought about when I am at my most energized and creative, fizzing with potential, and realized I come alive in small gatherings of kindred spirits: people who are both practical and spiritual, challenging and yielding, gentle and strong. People who are smart and funny, but not ‘in your face’. People who listen and share, but don’t try too hard. People who’d rather say nothing than talk about nothing, but come alive in real conversation. And I know I’m not alone.
So I invented a new label for myself: I’m a ‘kindrovert’, and I suspect you might be one too. Find out more about what it means to be a kindrovert, and what difference it makes when you know you are one, in this short video:
I’d love to know if you are a kindrovert too – let me know on social media using #kindrovert.
Today we share Rebecca Temsen’s story. Rebecca is a writer, entrepreneur, wife and a mother of two who is passionate about helping people to reach their potential and not just settle for the norm. Here she explains how her hobby has become a way of life.
There is no telling how much you’ll grow or how strong your energy will become once you are truly dedicated to a personal ‘cause’ or ‘purpose’. This ‘cause’ or ‘purpose’ is also called happiness and it is well worth chasing.
This is my story in pursuit of happiness…
Last summer I went to Santa Fe to take a workshop with the very magical Gail Larsen. At the end of it, she invited us to write love letters to each of the people we had shared the workshop with, and to prompt us she played a song which captured the essence of that person. It was a beautiful exercise. When it came to my turn, instead of playing a song, she played a spoken word piece by John O’Donohue, reading aloud a passage from his breathtaking book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.
The coincidence didn’t escape me. Just a few weeks before I had discovered the same book by chance when researching my own book Freedom Seeker. In Anam Cara I found a paragraph that was almost word-for-word the same as something Mr K had written in an early love letter many years before, although he had never even heard of Anam Cara. It made my spine tingle.
In Celtic wisdom ‘anam cara’ means ‘soul friend’. It reflects the idea that our souls need love like our bodies need air, and this love can awaken new dimensions of ourselves. According to John O’Donohue in his beautiful book of the same name, an anam cara recognizes the real you without any pretence or disguise. Theirs is a deep spiritual friendship unaffected by geographical distance or time. Your anam cara understands you in a way that makes you feel you belong together, with your destinies intertwined. If you have an anam cara, take good care of that person, as they are precious indeed.
And whether or not you have an anam cara right now, I invite you to be your own. You have to practice self-love on an epic scale to feel truly free. You have to counter the negative voices in your head and hold your own hand through it all. In the end your free self is your greatest ally and truest friend, so treat them well.
This week I challenge you to do something kind for yourself, and be your own anam cara.
Much love
Beth
Drive traffic with these five killer social media hacks
As entrepreneurs we can often feel like the deck is stacked against us when it comes to the digital world. We don’t have the same budgets as our massive competitors, nor do we have the army of marketers that they can employ. So how can a small, or medium-sized business, drive traffic to its website or blog and carve out its piece of the market?
According to Payman Taei, an avid technologist and the founder of Visme and HindSite, the answer lies with social media. Here he shares a whole host of straight-to-the-point, actionable social media tips for marketers and business owners. While some of these strategies won’t be a quick fix, you may be surprised how quickly many of them start to generate results…
Image credit: Wilfred Iven | StockSnap.io
We use social media all the time; on our way to work, in our downtime, even early mornings. Naturally, businesses can take advantage of this; having your own Facebook page or Twitter feed can increase interest in your company and boost user interaction but as with all things, it’s not that simple. With all the different pages out there, it can be quite difficult to make yours stand out. These easy-to-follow social media hacks can help you gain — and keep — new followers, as well as spreading word about your product around the web.
Consistent Updates
Having high-quality updates is obviously a priority for any business. However, if those updates are few and far between, people will likely lose interest in the product.
Updating often is obviously a great way to generate interest and make sure your name and product is remembered, but you can easily go further than that.
Having specific days or times that you post content can help drive traffic, as well as giving potential customers something to look forward to. If posts are always made on a certain day or at a certain time, then followers will get into the habit of checking your social media to see if anything new has appeared, creating a more dedicated base.
What days and times you chose depends on your audience. If your audience is mostly made of standard shift workers, then try updating in the afternoon on weekdays, when they’ll just be getting home and wanting to spend more time on social media. Want to appeal to teenagers and young adults? Try mornings on the weekends, where they won’t have classes and will have more time to look at their feed upon waking up.
Scheduling when to post doesn’t have to be particularly rigid, either, as you can post a few random updates between the normal to surprise and delight your watchers.
Take it one step further: Using missinglettr
Ian Anderson Gray — as shared by Lisa D. Jenkins — provides a helpful tip for those who have trouble finding the time to schedule posts. “I used to create a series of tweets for each of my articles and schedule them in a scheduling tool,” he states. “This took a huge amount of time and to be honest, I rarely managed to get around to it.”
With the help of missingletr, Gray’s work is significantly decreased, while he still gets the benefits of consistent Twitter posts. Missinglettr creates several posts based on the content in an article connected to it. You can use the application to your advantage by allowing it to make several posts for you while you focus on other aspects of your work.
2. Maximize Your Use of Visual Content
It’s no secret that visual content attracts a potential follower’s attention quicker than text. While scrolling on Facebook, which are you more likely to scroll back to: a block of words, or a vibrant image?
Mastering visual content on social media can greatly increase traffic to your page, especially since users are significantly more likely to share pictures or videos.
A great way to use visuals in social media is to take a picture. Jay Baer points out that the use of photographs as visuals has greatly increased, and it provides a wonderful opportunity to show your product in action. Images of people using your product in real-life can increase viewers’ interest in the item. You can also create your own graphic for social media using an online visual tool such as Visme.
Take it Further: Link to Your Site
Since one of the purposes of adding images is to generate traffic, it’d be remiss not to leave a link with the image—or, if possible, make the image itself into a link.
Donna Moritz, in an article by Cindy King, points out how useful visual content can be as a “gateway” to the rest of your business world. Let the visual content catch interest, and leave longer posts to the site they lead to.
3. Master Hashtags
Hashtags first started with Twitter, and have quickly become one of the best ways to locate a specific sort of information. Businesses can benefit from this across social media by using them to their fullest extent.
Jumping on popular subjects to tag is a great way to attract outside attention. All the same, Peg Fitzpatrick warns that having a variety of random hashtags isn’t advisable, even if those tags are trending. “Use a good hashtag to tie all of the pieces of your campaign together,” she informs readers.
Using hashtags strategically — by tagging relevant popular items without random extraneous bits — can not only attract attention, but keep it.
Take it Further: Make Your Own
Having a unique hashtag can distinguish you from others who might have a similar product. Your audience will quickly be able to identify your brand from your tag, and will be able to tag experiences related to your company in turn.
One of the best ways to go about this is to create a short, easy-to-remember tag that sticks in people’s minds long after they log off. Clever use of alliteration or wordplay are great ways to go about this.
5. Engage Your Followers
Actively encouraging your audience to participate can not only help generate traffic, but can also be a way to endear you audience to you.
Showcasing the work of fans or followers automatically makes them more invested in talking about your product. For example, you might want to share posts you see when someone talks positively about your product.
Promoting contests is a great way to go about this. Offering a reward means that more individuals will be talking about your product and generally vying to get the prize. At visme we created a socially engaging contest called “Visualize Me” which was a perfect example of social engagement driven by an incentive.
Of course, taking the time to personally respond to those subscribed to your page can increase engagement, as well.
Take it one step further: Offer Private Streams
Many individuals would like to have personal relationships with the companies that provide for them. Having private boards or groups where you can converse with your customers is one way to provide that relationship.
Many Patreon users have taken this into account. The site has different reward tiers based on how much a patron pledges users each month. In turn, the owner of the individual campaign can offer specific incentives, one of which can be private streams where patrons can watch them work, or Q&As only available for pledges.
Of course, you don’t have to use Patreon to provide the same feature. Martin Shervington talks about having private hangouts on Google+, where you can talk individually to those invited to join. If you’re a Pinterest user, you can also use group boards to your advantage.
You can even combine private conversations with contests. Whoever wins for the company will get a private audience with different members.
5. Make a Safe Space
If followers appreciate having their work and words shown off, then they’ll be equally appreciative of having a space where they don’t have to worry about being looked down on for their opinions. Keeping watch over your social media to make sure everyone’s getting along can not only foster trust and appreciation for your company, but also make others more likely to visit your page and be honest with you. With how aggressive parts of the internet can be, it can be an immense relief to find anywhere that’s decidedly not.
Speaking to individual on a personal basis — as mentioned above — and answering them politely and with general concern is one way to help users feel more welcome.
Another great way — for Facebook, at least — is to ban inflammatory words. Holly Homer describes how to do this: simply go to Page Settings, Page Moderation, and type in any words that could be used to insult or attack another user. Any comments with those words will be hidden, preventing arguments before they happen.
This can also work for provocative comments towards your product or service, as well, if you’re worried about the words blowing up into a full-blown fight.
Take it one step further: Hide the Trolls
Guy Kawasaki explains his trouble with trolls on his Facebook feed — deleting the comment simply resulted in the trolls commenting again to complain about it, while banning the user resulted in angry emails about being banned.
The solution to the problem was actually relatively simple: hide the comment.
When comments are hidden, the posting individual can still see their comment, but no other fans can. Kawasaki explains how this works to his favor; not only has he not received any more angry emails, but the comments, even though they’re hidden, actually help to boost his post, meaning the trolls actually end up helping.
While using the word ban hack (mentioned above) can help for specific words, it also helps to search through comments and check for any other sort of inflammatory remark.
You can take this ‘safe space’ even further by talking to the individual’s specifically and trying to allay any complaints or concerns, but simply moving the conversation to a more private medium. Of course, with spam comments, you’re probably better off just hiding the comment and leaving the conversation.
To Recap
There are many, many different tips and tricks you can use to help boost your social media success. Some of the best include:
Here’s a challenge: take these hacks (or others) and try and twist them into something unique. Then, post the results in our comments section, to let us (and others!) know how you’ve put these tricks into action.
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About Payman Taei
Payman is an avid technologist and the Founder of Visme, a Do It Yourself platform allowing everyone to easily create, manage professional presentations & infographics right in their browser. He’s also the Founder of HindSite Interactive an award winning web design and web development company.
This is a guest post by Alastair Humphreys. Alastair is an adventurer, blogger, author and motivational speaker whose expeditions have included cycling round the world, walking across India and rowing the Atlantic. Alastair was named as a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year for his pioneering work on the concept of micro adventures. He has also written five books about his adventures. Find out more here.
I get asked regularly about how to publish a book, and whether it is best to find a publisher or to self-publish your story.