Evolution Magazine World Class Special Edition

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volution

Dr. Stuart A. Linder

Business, Tech and More

#WorldClass MD

e¡volve /i’ välv/ verb 1.. develop gradually, especially from a simple to a more complex form.

Innovative Marketing Solutions To EVOLVE Your Business

www.TheEvolveMediaGroupInc.com

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volution Business, Tech and More

Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

Published By Evolve Media Group Inc.

Evolve MEdia Group Inc. DARNELL G DAVIS - CEO Editor In Chief DONNIE BRYANT Photography EVOLUTION MAGAZINE Staff Editors DONNIE BRYANT TAREA WADLINGTON Graphic Designer EVOLUTION MAGAZINE

Evolution Contributors DONNIE BRYANT KATRINA STARZHYNSKAYA DEBI SILBER KEVIN WILSON DERICK JONES SLYVIA BROWDER

Evolution Magazine is a trademark of the Evolve Media Group Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or in full is strictly prohibited. Evolution Magazine is a monthly digital publication with limited print copies available in designated markets. Evolution Magazine welcomes all contributions.

Evolution Magazine assumes no responsibility for content or advertisement.

No representation is made as to the accuracy hereof and is produced subject to errors and omissions.

Questions and feedback:

Evolve Media Group Inc. 29 South Law Street - Allentown, PA 18105 Phone: (347) 669 2EVO Email: info@Evomag.co Online: www..Evomag.co 4 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

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featured articles

8 26 Lowercase Branding

#WorldClass Doctor Interview with dr. stuart linder

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Financing your business throughCrowdfunding www.evomag.co

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from the publisher Evolve Media is growing rapidly, and with great success comes great adversity. Over the past few months we have been working on “Team Development” and expanding our staff. The development of leadership skills are essential to the growth and health of any company – that includes yours.

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s we begin to head into a new season of life, I would like to walk with you into the new season of your business. I would like to leave you with four foundational stepping stones, answering this fundamental question: “How would you describe the perfect leader?”

You probably used words like control, insight, and poise in your description. The next question I want to ask is: “Is it possible that these qualities could actually hinder great leadership?” According to some leadership coaches, the answer is yes. So, in order to remain effective as a leader, it’s valuable for every leader to develop a repertoire of different leadership qualities.

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Stepping Stone #1 - Knowing When to Hold Them...

And When to Fold Them...

Stepping Stone #3 - Understand Your Own Strengths and Weaknesses

Ascertaining when to fight or when to let go is very important in laying a foundation in effective leadership. Often great people gain a position of influence but they fall into habit of micromanaging. The desire to control can be a leader’s largest temptation and can bankrupt your company if not properly dealt with.

Talk to most leaders and they will gladly tell you they have weaknesses. But most of them cannot tell you what they are. Most leaders don’t know their weaknesses because most leadership positions encourage managers to consider the weaknesses of others more than their own personal shortcomings. Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses will allow you to build a team that will support you and fill in the gaps.

Most control comes from fear: fear of the unknown and fear of the level of ability of those whom you lead. These fears will cripple your ability to make decisions that affect your business. For example, a business owner notices that a project is showing inherent weakness. However, instead of cutting his or her losses and moving forward, he or she begins to throw more resources towards it in hopes to MAKING it work. The end result is a frustrated staff and a financial loss.

Knowing when to hold and when to fold will do more than preserve sanity in the business environment; it will save money and allow growth simply because you stop paying attention to dead situations.

Stepping Stone #2- Consider Suggestions from Unlikely Sources Another trap leaders fall into is to assume they are the only ones within their organization with great ideas while overlooking the wealth of information available from their employees.

One of the worst things a business owner can do is to assume that their employees are incapable of making meaningful suggestions. Most problems that develop within your organization are experienced by those who are on the front line. These employees often see these issues with surprising clarity because they deal with them on a day to day basis.

Your team can be your greatest asset against problems and breakdowns. Listen to your employees and consider their insight. It could save you a lot of time and money.

Stepping Stone #4- Place The Right People in the Right Positions Your team plays a major part (if not the most important part) in how effective you are as a leader. The hardest part is getting to the point where you are able and willing to place the right people into key positions. As a business coach, I have seen companies with great business plans en route to total collapse because of failure to put the right people in the right place to carry out the plan.

Getting to know your employees individually and your team as an organic whole is essential to becoming an effective leader. It doesn’t make sense to have someone who is a great organizer working a sales position while your current administrator isn’t working out. You will never know that you are making this mistake unless you know your team. By taking the time to identify the right people for key positions, you can improve your company’s performance and eliminate the unnecessary cost of training people who don’t last.

Entire libraries have been filled with books written to help leaders be more effective. In my experience, many leaders want to learn the most advanced techniques while they’re still falling short in the basic fundamentals. These 4 stepping stones, if you really meditate on them and start to put them into practice, will create a strong foundation that will support an impressive organization.

Sincerely, Publisher Darnell G Davis CEO/ Evolve Media Group Inc. Publisher, www.evomag.co

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lower case branding Donnie Bryant

From branding consultants to howto books to home-study courses, there’s a lot of talk these days about branding. It’s a big business, and good brands can ensure the success of big businesses. That’s why everyone wants to get it right: Play this card right, they say, and your company will experience success like never before.

Let me get this out of the way: There is nothing wrong with branding. You absolutely should have a strong brand. In fact, you’re creating a brand whether you know it or not. You might as well be intentional about it and make a good one.

The point is this: My concern is that we’ll begin to focus on creating brands and messages rather than on doing great business. The customer should be “uppercase,” since they are who really matter. The business should be built around taking care of them.

The brand is “lowercase.” The brand doesn’t exist for its own pleasure; the brand is about the customer.

That said, there are important ways to establish or strengthen a company’s identity without forgetting a company’s main objectives.

What’s a Brand, Really?

A brand is simply the identity of a company, product or service as perceived by consumers. There are powerful brands like Nike. People around the world instantly recognize their logo,know their slogan by heart and value their products. In fact, it is the brand that gives the product its heightened perceived value.

Having shoes is nice; having Nikes is something special.

Why is Coca-Cola so popular? How can Starbucks charge so much more for coffee than the competition and still have “enthusiastically satisfied” (Starbucks’ own words) customers during hard economic times? And more importantly, how can you start to do the same thing?

8 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

Branding Rule #1: It’s Not About You. Sales and Marketing 101 teaches us that customers don’t want to buy drills; they want holes. Elmer Wheeler said, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” The same is true about building a brand.

You don’t create a world-class identity by trying to create a world-class identity.

Don’t focus on yourself or your business. Concentrate on the people you’re trying to influence. What do people desperately want? How can you give it to them? Can you associate your product with something that people already go crazy for?

Branding Rule #2: Admit Your Awesomeness.

Make the strongest statements you can about how your audience will benefit from buying from you. Why would you water down the truth about your awesomeness? If you follow

Branding Rule #3, you have a product or service that genuinely improves people’s lives. You have to get them to buy it for them to experience the improvement, though. You’re doing your prospects a serious disservice by downplaying the good you can do for them.

Never promise more than you can deliver, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot by under-promising either. If you don’t stand out as the best provider of what you sell, your customers might overlook you and buy from someone less committed to meeting their needs.

Don’t let that happen. It’s up to you to make the big promise.

Branding Rule #4: Do over-deliver.

Surprise your customers with how awesome their experience with your company, product or service is. If you promise that they’ll double their Mandarin vocabulary in 30 days by takingyour course, delight your patrons by tripling it.

When people get more than they ask for, they can’t wait to tell someone

about their experience, and your quest for worldrenown for your brand will take off. Commit to making a great product or giving a great service.

Don’t focus on getting what you can from your customers. If you want to be the next Mercedes-Benz, give 10 times more value than you plan to get back from your clients. You could probably make some good, fast money by shortchanging everyone and cutting corners on quality to maximize profits. However, you will never build a sustainable, respectable brand by doing business like that, and you will have traded in your integrity and good name for a quick buck.

Branding Rule #5: Make purposeful statements about who you are as a company.

Your brand is as much about how people identify with you as it is about who you actually are — maybe more.

Roy Williams wrote in one of his Monday Morning Memos, “Brands are identity reinforcement, just like art and architecture and music. Brands are a way of shouting ‘This is me!’”

There will never be one unified brand

identity; everyone will have their own interpretations of your company’s direction and message. In some cases, people may not come to the correct conclusions about your company.

Here are some thoughts to consider when drafting your brand messaging: • Always be truthful.

• Though you’re talking about yourself, you must identify with the customer.

• Tell them who you are and why it matters to them.

• Have one overall message: one thing you stand for, oppose, believe in or are working toward.

• Encourage interaction. Make your customers part of your “movement.”

• Never be boring. Be bold and unique.

• Find something only you can say, and say it.

www.evomag.co

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5

Ways Team Commitment Can Impact

Team Building

By Scott Siders

10 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

The importance of team commitment is often overlooked by managers when they’re developing teams. They bring together employees with the right skill sets and give them a task, set goals and expect the best. But they forget about the role commitment plays in building teams to achieve personal , departmental, and organizational success.

There are five questions managers should consider when evaluating the level of team commitment .

1 Do team members actually want to be part of the team?

Do the team members perceive that they had a choice in deciding whether to work with the team? Although the type and size of a company, department dynamics, project type, and team member skills are among the many factors that contribute to putting teams together making participation feel mandatory can reduce team commitment. Motivation is a key component of creating team commitment; give members a reason to want to engage by empowering them to help set the direction, define goals, and make decisions. Team members are almost always more committed to a project when they are encouraged to "own" it by a manager

who sets expectations and provides guidance then trusts the team to execute its own strategies.

be boosted by explicitly connecting individual performance with a shared expected outcome.

2 Do team members feel valued?

Another way to increase team commitment is to communicate an employee’s individual value to the team and the entire team’s value to the organization. Managers can also strengthen team commitment if each member sees the value of the team in the development of their skills and career.

5 Do team members receive recognition for accomplishing individual and team goals?

Even seemingly small amounts of recognition along the way can make a big impact on team commitment and give team members the confidence, encouragement, and motivation to continue working hard to reach the desired goals.

3 Do team members believe the mission, vision, and goals of the team are important?

Team members want to feel like they are part of something larger than themselves, and want to know how achieving the team’s goals fits into the overall mission of the organization.

They also want to know their individual skills and contributions to the team are critical to accomplishing its objectives.

Rewarding performance at significant project milestones also improves morale.

4 Do team members know their roles and responsibilities?

A manager must be able to clearly articulate expectations of team members and how fulfilling their specific roles and responsibilities will impact the success or failure of the team. Team commitment will

If you want to learn more about how team commitment impacts the process of building effective work teams, visit www.ThinkBlueThinking.com.

Managers who keep a pulse on the level of team commitment and ensure it always remains at a high level are rewarded by better productivity and greater success of the team and what they contribute to the entire organization.

www.evomag.co

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12 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

Win The Diet

WAR A #WorldClass Interview with Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin

Fads, diets, shakes and workout programs available all over the place and yet most still are not happy with their bodies or just cannot get rid of the unwanted pounds.

I had the awesome opportunity to sit down with Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin and our conversation will encourage you. Today you too can win the diet war.

Katrina: So, you just mentioned Dr. Nina, that you consult both men and women and I’m really curious what is the ratio because I have never met men struggling with binge eating and overeating. So, is it the same cycle problems for men and women?

Dr. Nina: I think that the ratio probably is the same, but a lot of men don’t want to come in and get help. They think that, as you just sort of put it, a woman’s, a chick thing as one guy said, “That’s a chick thing,” but actually, it’s a human thing because it’s a way of managing something inside and people have feelings and have conflicts and learn to express them in different ways. So yes, I think men are just as prevalent. They are just not coming forward although they are starting to come forward more and more.

Katrina: What is the main reason that lies behind binge eating, overeating, and compulsive eating?

Dr. Nina: Well I’d like to say, people say, ‘Dr. Nina, what’s it like to treat eating disorders?’ and I say, “I don’t treat eating disorders. I treat people and people develop eating disorders for all kinds of different reasons.” So, there are many different reasons.

So, there are a myriad of different reasons why people engage in this behavior, but the bottom line is it’s kind of a ‘friendemy’, it’s a friend as well as its an enemy. It’s a way of coping with something inside and it’s always about trying to resolve a psychological problem or conflict or emotion, through an action, Katrina: Do you find some common trend, maybe for women especially www.evomag.co

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Win The Diet

WAR A #WorldClass Interview with Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin

that most of them tend to overeat due to failure in relationships or in career; what is the biggest reason?

Dr. Nina: I wish I could answer that because it would make life easier for all people if there was one answer, but there is no one answer. It’s always different for each person and that’s why each person that comes in are, each person that works on my programs, it’s up to them to kind of discover why, you have to be a detective like, ‘ok, what’s the particular reason for that particular person? Why are they engaging in that behavior?’ and it’s different. For some people its loneliness. You know loneliness can register as emptiness which you fill up with food symbolically. For other people, I’ve heard people say, “Oh I ate until my stomach hurt, I was in pain,” and for them, they may be converting emotional pain. Now, when their feelings are hurt or something’s hurting them, they convert it into physical pain so because emotional pain is hard to deal with; physical pain from eating too much goes away. So, there are all different reasons.

Some people eat for comfort. Some people eat because, say they’re angry, but they’re, especially women and this is very true of women; women have a hard time with anger because were told, ‘oh you know girls aren’t angry, that’s not nice’ those messages. Guys are told don’t cry; girls are told don’t get mad, and so what I see a lot is people who, something will happen and they’ll get really mad and instead of talking about that thing, they’ll come in and say, “Oh I was so mad at myself for eating pizza.” So, they direct their

true feelings towards someone else, at themselves, by eating so it’s always different for everybody and for each person at different times.

Katrina: And you just mentioned that people start working with you or your programs. What kinds of programs do you have?

Dr. Nina: Well, right now, I have winthedietwar.com and everything is free. I have a podcast called ‘Win the Diet War with Dr. Nina’, and I have the Dr. Nina show on YouTube, and I have the ‘Make Peace with Food’ blog and then I’m going to be launching more interactive online programs where people can sort of opt in and get more one-on-one guidance.

Katrina: That’s fantastic especially if they can try it for free first and then see for themselves if it’s a good fit.

Dr. Nina: Yes. There is so much misinformation because a lot of people think that the problem is the overeating, the compulsive eating, the binge eating and that’s actually a symptom of the problem, not the problem. It’s like a weed and a root.

If you just take a weed out it’s going to grow back. You have to get to the root which is what’s underground and then people, it’s what’s unconscious; it might be out of awareness but not out of So, we seek to find out what’s really going on in the dark that’s brewing this weird misbehavior.

Katrina: Absolutely, and as I understand you had some kind of eating disorder too yourself. That’s why you came up with your program.

14 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

Would you tell us more please?

Dr. Nina: Well, I would be happy to.

I’m very candid about this because I really think that it’s helpful for people to know, not only do I treat this clinically as a psychoanalyst, but I know what it feels like to be struggling with it and I know that you can overcome it, and that there is hope.

So, when I was five years old, I suddenly, randomly decided that I was fat and I wasn’t fat. I decided my legs were fat, and if only my legs were thinner, life would be better. I was five years old. I wasn’t reading magazines.

I wasn’t watching TV. There was nothing about body image or anything that was affecting me and this started a cycle, that later became sort of a cycle anorexia and bulimia and binge eating, and I would just go through the cycle of restricting and starving and binging and purging and binging and it would just go around and around until caught; and I finally went to therapy but here is the thing, I did not tell my therapist what was going on with food.

Not once and I went to her for three years, once a week. I talked about my relationships; I talked about guys and school, all those things. Never once did I talk about anything to do with food and eating disorders and at the end of that three years my eating disorders were gone.

I realized it was never about what I thought it was about, and I didn’t talk to her about it because I was too ashamed. It was just too humiliating to talk to anyone about it and so I realized, wow, it was never about what

Win The Diet

WAR A #WorldClass Interview with Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin

I was eating, it was about what was eating at me, and it was bothering me that was getting with this behavior.

So that was a really pivotal time in my life and I really wanted to help other people who were struggling and help them understand it in a different way.

Katrina: Have you noticed the relationship between foods and the different emotions when people overeat?

Dr. Nina: It’s funny that you should say that because I, yes I have. I have this very anecdotal, very nonscientific ideas about relationship between what you are eating and what’s going on inside because a lot of people say, ‘I have no idea what’s going on inside,’ because they go right to food to distract from what’s going on inside. So, here is what I’ve basically noticed, that when people are seeking, like smooth, creamy food, like ice-cream or pudding, or anything smooth, they really want comfort.

When they, because everyone has a go-to food when they binge; and when people want pizza or pasta or cakes or breads, anything that’s really filling and bulky, that’s associated with filling a void, loneliness, emptiness, another sense of yearning. Anything with a crunch like chips or whatever like that, that is associated with anger; and again totally unscientific but absolutely almost to a person, exactly right so often I help people realize, ok, you may not know what’s going on inside but you’re an ice-cream person. That would indicate that maybe you need comfort so let’s find a different way for you to get that comfort other than ice-cream.

Win The Diet

WAR A #WorldClass Interview with Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin

Katrina: Dr. Nina, I also have heard that you once told your daughter that she can eat as many candies as she like for Halloween. What was that about?

Dr. Nina: People think I encourage my daughter to binge on Halloween candy but actually, it’s the reverse because deprivation, or the anticipation of deprivation, leads to binging. So, the example is that my daughter had a friend, let’s call her Lisa, and Lisa’s parents said, “You can only have two pieces of candy on Halloween and two pieces of candy everyday thereafter.”

They totally restricted her. So of course she wanted Halloween candy and she came to our house where, I’ll get to it later, where my thing was, ‘you know what, its Halloween have as much as you want.’ My daughter knows when she can have as much as she want, had like three or four pieces and then she knew she could have it so she didn’t want it. She knew when she was done. Lisa came over and because she was told two pieces, she must have, I don’t even know how much she ate but she got sick.

So you can’t regulate yourself if you’re told you can’t have something because what happens when you’re told, ‘oh you can’t have that,’, you want it right? You want more of it, so that’s why.

Katrina: Also, when people are addicted to something that’s not just food, but it could be even shopping or sometimes it’s over-exercising, or drinking. All kinds of addictions. What

do you think is the tendency to all of those addictions?

Dr. Nina: There is a difference between, I don’t really use the term addiction for myself, but it’s important to make between a process addiction and a substance addiction. So, the substance addiction is drugs and alcohol and it’s to the actual substance. A process addiction, a behavioral addiction is to the behavior of something that brings about distraction from what’s bothering you, but to answer your question, I believe that there is a problem in our culture that says ‘don’t feel anything, feelings are bad; you’re strong if you don’t feel anything.’ Our culture says if you’re angry, take an anger management class; if you’re sad or you’re depressed take a pill. If you’re anxious, there’s a pill for that too. Even if you’re happy it’s like, ‘oh maybe you’re too happy. Are you manic?”

So we get all these messages that our feelings are bad and don’t feel them and because of that people don’t know what to do when they start having human reactions, feelings or reactions to situations and so they use all different ways of coping because they don’t know how to nurture themselves, comfort themselves, talk to themselves, process what’s going on inside.

Katrina: How long it takes for a person to change their behaviors to find out the root cause and change that?

Dr. Nina: Well, finding it out and changing it are two separate things.

So, I tell people that it takes often

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three-to-six months before they start seeing changes, but often these changes are not to do with food. Their changes are to do with their relationship to themselves, to recognizing what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling. They start speaking up for themselves, standing up for themselves, and that’s the beginning of learning how to relate to themselves differently, which eventually changes, does change how they are with food.

One woman said to me, “I have been going to therapy”, she was in my group. She wasn’t someone I saw, she just came in my group and she said, “I have been going for a whole year” and she was in her 50’s. She said, “I’ve been going to therapy for a year and I am still binging,” and I said, “You are 55 years old. You’ve been dealing with this your whole life. Once a week in therapy is basically, with a couple weeks off for holidays, 50 hours that you have addressed this; two days accumulatively.” So, it does take longer than people would like.

I had a magic wand in my office and I liked to wave it and someone once told me, “You know that wand does work just very slowly,” but what I help people do is not just deal with the problem, but eliminate the problem.

That takes time to do that emotional gardening and get rid of the root.

Katrina: So, if somebody is out of town, how would they be able to work with you? They can fly in for a consultation and then is there something they can do at home or how does it work?

Win The Diet

WAR A #WorldClass Interview with Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin

Dr. Nina: This is why I have a book coming out next year about sort of a psychoanalytic self-help so that they can have me in their minds and I have a video program that’s coming up next year, where it’s sort of like, it’s not oneon-one because lots of people can access the videos, but I help guide people into the steps to identifying what’s going on. Figuring out their particular individual reasons for why they have this disrupted relationship to food and then how to seal it.

Katrina: That’s amazing. Do you have a name for your book, a title?

Dr. Nina: “Win the Diet War.” Katrina: Do you have any kind of other recommendations for them?

I mean sources, your blogs maybe some books? Something to start working on their eating disorders?

Dr. Nina: I have to say that I hear all the time, and I hear this from people all over the world, they write me and they say, “No one has ever, ever talked to me about this in this way. No one has ever presented this in this way.” Because I’m a psychoanalyst which really deals with how, which people think that’s Freud and all, that’s not Freud, its really recognizing on a much deeper level what’s going on inside and why. Unless you’re a trained psychoanalyst who is doing this work, you’re not going to be able to address it this way, so that’s why I created all my free things, I don’t know, 12 or 14 videos and I have a lot of stuff for free that people can watch. They can listen to my podcast

and I give them food for thought. I will say, “Think about this, think about this, ask yourself this question, this question, this question and people write me all the time and they say, ‘I’ve been listening, been watching and I feel transformed,’ and that is just so gratifying to me because this is my passion, just to help people understand themselves and mitigate the shame that comes from dealing with this.

Katrina: Do you have some words of wisdom to guys because as we just mentioned, guys don’t admit it. They think its female disorder so they just hide. How can they get help?

Dr. Nina: Well, this guy, John Bukenas, he has a podcast called ‘Lets Reverse Obesity’ and he had me on the show and was talking about this connection between feelings and behavior with food, and he said, “Well wait a minute, feelings are for, are for women. I’m a dude, I don’t have feelings,” and I said, “Well dude, you’re also human and human beings have feelings.”

I remind guys out there that they have gotten a lot of messages that it’s not masculine to feel things. It’s not masculine to cry or feel vulnerable feelings. That they are told ‘its ok to be mad’ and that’s it essentially. I would say guys embrace your humanity.

You’re just a person in pain or a person whose feeling something, and I have to tell you, as a woman and with most of my friends, we actually, I find that appealing when a man can

be in touch with his feelings and his humanity. So, that’s what I would say.

It’s sexy to feel your feelings guys. Go for it!

Katrina: That’s awesome, and a few words of wisdom for women, if somebody feels emotional and they reach in their fridge and taking our ice-cream and cookies. Is there anything they can do, maybe think about something else. Anything to stop that?

Dr. Nina: I would say they could think about what I just said. Certain foods to certain needs and wants and feelings and then ask themselves actually beforehand, ask themselves, ‘ok what else can I do when I need comfort? Now what do I really need?

What does comfort really look like?

What does it sound like?’ Often, people have no language for how to say to themselves, ‘oh you know this hurts and this is going to get better.

It’s hard right now but I’m going to get through it, I have before.’ So what I often tell people is, think about the way you talk to your friends because I find that people talk to their friends in a very lovely way, and they will say to their friends, ‘oh you know, you are wonderful and this will pass and it’s going to be ok, and I know this sucks but it’s all right,’ but they say to themselves, ‘you know, nothing, nothing.’ Treat yourself the way you treat a friend. Be a friend to yourself and you’ll see probably, as long as you’re a nice friend, and you’ll see the difference. www.evomag.co

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Win The Diet

WAR A #WorldClass Interview with Dr. Nina Savelle-Rocklin

Katrina: Is there anything else you would like to add or do you think we have covered main things?

Dr. Nina: I think we have. I’d also like to say, be curious, not critical because if you’re critical and you’re beating yourself up, you feel terrible. If you feel terrible, you’re more vulnerable to using food or something else to deal with those feelings. But if you’re critical and you say, ‘I can’t believe I ate that ice-cream! How could I have done that? I’m such a loser!’ then oh you feel terrible. Then comes more icecream. But if you say, ‘I’m going to be curious. Why did I eat that ice-cream?

What was going on with me?’

When you ask yourselves questions, you’re more likely to find answers and in answers, you find new ways of responding to yourself, because thoughts lead to feelings, lead to behavior. That’s why dealing with the behavior is a waste of time and willpower. You don’t want to be just like, ‘I’m going to wake up today and be good!’ You will not be able to deal with this so you wake up today and say, ‘what am I going to do today that’s fulfilling?’, and then lunch is lunch, not a battleground, and that’s how you win the diet war.

18 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

Acupressure Yoga mats provide all the benefits of acupressure including increased blo od circulation, improved mo od, stress relieve, muscle relaxation, weight loss, and overall feeling of well-being.

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Jump

the Gun:

Selling

Your New Idea

Derrick Jones www.presidentspilotsentrepreneurs.com

S

eth Godin once said the time to start selling your book is three years before writing it. Most writers and aspiring entrepreneurs come up with an idea, leap into the project, and try to figure out how to sell it after the fact. A far better approach is to build a platform of interest in advance and put out samples or snippets to get your fans salivating. Then, release the final product to large fanfare. “Build it and they will come” only works in Hollywood folks.

Henry Ford’s biggest problem with his first attempt at the automobile was spending all of his time on the engineering and mechanics of his new idea, while ignoring the need for marketing. Sound familiar? He failed because the general public was not ready for his approach. By the time he made his third attempt, he had primed the public. A group of investors swooped in at the crucial moment to keep the Ford Motor Company afloat. The rest, as they say, is history. More than 100 years later, entrepreneurs continue to make the same mistake. Some even keep their

projects secret on purpose. Ask a new entrepreneur why the secrecy and they often respond, “But what if someone steals my idea?”

Sigh.

all to himself, Oliver is everywhere talking about WeMontage, and his efforts are finally paying off. Had he opted to keep it all to himself, he would still be at his kitchen table struggling.

No One Wants to Steal Your Idea

Those Who Matter

Identify Weak Ideas Early

Most importantly, create a strong network for a product before introducing it. If you insist on building your wiz bang widget in an undisclosed location, do not be surprised when the world ignores you as you emerge triumphant from your cave.

This may come as a shock to many of you, but most ideas are crap. Why risk stealing a bad idea? Still, buried in this heap is a gem or two. If you have a genuinely good idea, you may not be the only one thinking about it. Secrecy stops you from receiving much-needed feedback. While you come up with new ways to protect your gem, another innovator may be across town talking up his or her own version.

One of the benefits of sharing your idea is the feedback you’ll receive. You may discover you are attempting to solve a problem that does not exist. Or, like my buddy James Oliver(@JamesOliver) over at WeMontage, you may receive validation that you are indeed on to something. Far from keeping his baby

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Spend your time getting feedback from potential investors, those in your market and other influencers. This is not the time to get the opinion of friends and relatives who do not understand your market.

Instead, interact with potential competitors and local business organizations. This is the opposite extreme of keeping everything to yourself.

How Email Marketing Can Improve Your Website Traffic Rebekah Henson

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any businesses treat email marketing as an outbound strategy; procuring a list and sending out messages with hopes for a good response. Ideally, email marketing should be inbound and offering clear value to customers encouraging them to come back for repeat business - as well as repeat website traffic. Inbound email marketing can effectively grow your site’s traffic in two ways: through attraction and retention. Getting into your prospects’ inboxes is the first step, and staying there seals the deal. Think of email marketing as a relationship with your customers to keep them engaging with your brand, clicking through to your site and sharing your content with others which generates the extra traffic that drives sales.

Attraction

YouTube videos aren’t the only online content that can go viral and generate traffic. Blog posts, articles and even your email content can spread to a wider audience if you’re delivering relevant value to the inbox. Making your emails shareable can increase your traffic growth as subscribers share your content with others, attracting new subscribers who will also convert to new site visitors.

Viral email content is about the value you send to the inbox. Don’t just pitch your product or service; engage subscribers in a conversation with information that’s relevant to their interests.

Survey subscribers about their interests to send targeted content they’ll want to share. Include sharing links for social networks in your emails in addition to encouraging subscribers to forward your

content to others. When your articles are worth reading or your deals are relevant, your subscribers can generate more traffic for you by sharing your content with their networks you may not have otherwise penetrated.

click through rates will measure your success at getting subscribers to return to your site. The trick is getting them to open your emails and click through to your site in your messages. Here are some tips to get them opening and clicking:

Retention

Spend time crafting your subject lines to get your emails opened. Ask a question or tease your message content to pique your readers’ curiosity.

More traffic means higher search ranking, and higher search ranking means more business. Repeat traffic is especially good for your site’s reputation. This is where email marketing comes in, encouraging repeat traffic to your site by placing you in your customers’ inboxes so they’ll remember who you are. Think about it: the average internet user visits at least 85 web pages in a day, according to data from Nielson. Once a visitor leaves your page, you’re as good as forgotten unless they bookmark you or remember to come back later. Email marketing increases your chances of being remembered by putting your name in their inboxes on a regular basis to jog their memory.

Sending a follow up series (auto responders) or a broadcast newsletter are proactive ways to start a conversation that keeps you in front of your subscribers and invites them back for more. They’ll likely visit your site again depending on the value your messages offer.Your emails’

Phrase your call to action to inspire subscribers to click to your site and make sure it’s placed visibly in your email. Don’t scare them off with your wording - a gentle nudge to “Find out more” often performs better than abrasive calls to “Buy now!”Need readers for your blog?

Turn your blog content into a newsletter sent as a weekly or monthly digest, but don’t publish full articles. Use a teasing lead instead to entice subscribers to click through for the full article.

Once you’re in the inbox, the trick is staying there to keep subscribers clicking and engaging with your content. Stumped on how to build the relationship? Here’s a hint: It’s all about the value. Value makes your emails worth reading and worth sharing; that will drive the traffic and it all starts with the relevance you send to the inbox www.evomag.co 23

To keep 5YouSecrets and Your

Business Healthy Through the Holiday Season

Sam Rafoss

Sam Rafoss, RHN is a speaker, author and Marketing Strategist for Nutrition and Holistic Practices. She has made it her mission to share her unique combination of spiritual & holistic marketing expertise to help the healers of the world attract their ideal clients and make money doing what they love to do. Sam is a member of CAPS (Canadian Association of Professional Speakers) Calgary, and is the co-author of two bestselling books.

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Many business owners both love and dread the holiday season. It is fun to celebrate the season and attend parties, yet on the other hand, there’s the rich foods, alcohol, lack of sleep, and often a dip in business being done and money being made. This causes a lot of stress for many business owners.

really want to have it. Include a handful of vegetables for their vitamins and minerals and to help keep you full. If you choose to drink a glass of wine or eggnog, decide how much first. Alcohol is full of sugar and empty calories. Five pounds can be gained in one week from two extra daily drinks.

# 3 Sleep: Combine party foods and alcohol with As a seasoned entrepreneur and networker, I’ve a lack of sleep and it is one of the fastest ways to been to my fair share of holiday parties and I’ve get run down, stressed, and sick. Make sure you learned a few critical secrets that help keep me get enough sleep throughout the holidays. This healthy and in the office during the holiday season. will help keep your immune system strong and ward off any of the cold and flu bugs going around.

As with all success, it starts with a plan. That’s why it is the first of five secrets: #4 Exercise: It can be hard to keep up to your regular routine during the holidays. Do something #1 Plan: Review your schedule and decide how active daily. Take a 10 minute walk and breathe many events or parties you are going to attend deeply to energize yourself. Take the stairs, park and add them to your calendar. Next, plan ahead at the end of parking lots. Get outside in the fresh for each event. Eat a snack with protein before air, breathe deeply, and do a few stretches. Whatyou go to help prevent overeating and overindulg- ever you can do to add activity into your day, do it. ing. Know the time you want to arrive and leave and do your best to stick to it. Remind yourself it’s #5 Follow Up: If you meet someone that could about “work,” not just a party, and you schedule be a potential client or referral, kindly request your work. their card and ask if you can follow up via email or phone at a specific date and time and then do it. # 2 Balance Your Food & Beverage Choices: Re- Often people do not expect to be contacted, esview your food and beverage choices before you pecially during the holiday season. This is a good start eating and drinking. You can better choose way for you to develop new business. a good balance of nutrient-dense foods to high calorie foods with little nutrition. Aim for two or By having a plan, staying healthy, and following three healthy choices and one indulgence if you through; you can still eat, drink, and be merry, and do business throughout the holiday season.

www.samrafoss.com www.evomag.co

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26 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

Dr. Stuart A. Linder #WorldClass MD

We are living in an age where it seems like everyone is extremely fascinated with self-image. Plastic surgery has been an option for many years. However, there are many things that you must consider before you decide to have a procedure. Our #WorldClass interview is with Dr. Stuart Linder, author and renowned plastic surgeon. I sat down with Dr. Linder and learned many great things regarding plastic surgery.

Katrina: In addition to being a surgeon you are also an author. Can you please tell me more about the book?

Dr. Stuart: The name of the book is ‘The Beverly Hills Shape – The Truth About Plastic Surgery.’ which was published in 2007. The reason I wrote it was because there were very few books that specifically told women when and when not to have plastic surgery. Sometimes it’s very important not to do plastic surgery.

“The truth about plastic surgery;” meaning not every procedure is right for every woman, especially upper body sculpting. There are times when a woman shouldn’t do a tummy tuck

or a breast lift. I talk about that in the book. Women should have an honest resource that helps them figure out whether the surgery is appropriate.

That is why I wrote the book. It was not written to brand me. The book was featured on Entertainment Tonight, on Extra, and Access Hollywood, but they did that when they used me as an expert in plastic surgery of the upper body, because it gives me credibility. However, I did not write this book to make money. I wrote this book to help women worldwide to understand body surgery.

Katrina: If someone is thinking about plastic surgery, what are some of the steps they should consider?

Dr. Stuart: Number one in the United States is you have to find a doctor who is Diplomat of the American Board of Plastic Surgery. There are no substitutes, period!

The first thing they need to do is to make sure the doctor is actually a plastic surgeon. A tremendous amount of doctors in the United States who are doing cosmetic surgery who are

not properly trained and the results are very scary.

The second thing, the doctor should specialize in the surgery you’re hoping to do. If you want to have a rhinoplasty procedure, you should not come here.

I don’t do rhinoplasty ever. I don’t care about the nose, I never enjoyed doing noses and so you would never want to come to me and I would not do it if you paid me any amount of money. You have to go to a doctor who specializes in the procedure you hope to do. If you want to do your breasts, you come see me. I’m the breast super specialist; I’ve done 11,000 breast implants, breast revisions, breast reconstruction surgeries in 17 years; that is my forte.

You don’t go to a doctor who does a few each year, you go to a doctor who does hundreds of that procedure every year.

The third thing is you need to make sure of, that the doctor has privileges at a major hospital in the city that you

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live in. If the doctor has the surgery and you have bleeding or an infection and you need to be in the hospital, the doctor needs to be there to take care of you. Then they need to make sure they are at a good hospital. I am an attending surgeon at the Cedar Sinai Medical Center, which is I believe the most prestigious hospital here in West Los Angeles. Other things you are looking for, you want to make sure that the doctor’s surgery center is licensed.

You want to make sure the ambulatory center has, for example, Medicare certification. My center is Medicare amd JCO certified. That means we’re equivalent to any hospital in the State of California with the same certification.

Finally, the anesthesiologist is very important. The doctor needs to be a Board Certified Anesthesiologist, not a nurse putting you to sleep. I believe there is no substitute, that if there is an emergency under anesthesia, you need to have a very well experienced

anesthesiologist to take care of you.

Katrina: So what makes you the best?

Dr. Stuart: I never like to say I’m the best because God doesn’t like you to brag or be an ego maniac or arrogant.

I don’t say I am the best at anything; I say I’m fortunate. I say I’m very well trained and I have many, many years of very intense experience of seeing thousands of surgical patients and operating on thousands of patients; and so experience and judgment allow you to make sure your patient gets the appropriate result. I believe I’m an excellent doctor. I take care of my patients. I am very caring to my patients, but I don’t ever like to say I am the best at anything because I think that’s a bad thing to do, like bad karma.

That’s the truth, that’s all I care about.

If your patients get great results, they say you’re very good. They say you’re the best. They praise you. So let your patients send good testimonials and

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praise you for your work, and they refer so many more patients because they believe you’re very good at what you do.

Katrina: Did you have role models or mentors and and who they?

Dr. Stuart: My first role model was my father. My father was an anesthesiologist, and when I was 13 years old, I knew I was going to be a plastic surgeon.

My father was a very well esteemed, very well established anesthesiologist.

He was chief of anesthesia at St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica back in the 60’s. He also was a professor of anesthesia at UCLA for 48 years. One day my father brought me into the operating room with a plastic surgeon.

I could not believe how amazing the surgery was that I was watching. I said “I want to do this father. I don’t want to do anesthesia.” That seemed a little boring to me. I wanted to be a plastic surgeon that I can sculpt and make things beautiful or normal.

Katrina: What do you do when a patient what a procedure that you do not recommend?

Dr. Stuart: I never ever do a surgery that I do not believe is going to be the right operation. We turn patients down every week. From the original consultation, we understand plastic surgery is intertwined with psychiatry.

Self-body image is psychological, self-esteem, emotional and that is intertwined with a woman’s appearance of her body; breast, lipo, tummy. You have to make sure you are doing the right surgery.

If they are not a good candidate for the procedure, I don’t do it. For example, a woman who has three children would like a little bit bigger breasts and wants them tighter and lifted. Ok, that’s usually a combination of a breast implant and a breast lift. Now the scarring on breast lifts can be horrible.

They can be very, very bad. Some women do not heal well from scars.

If they are not accepting of the scars, regardless of how good or bad they are. They are not a good candidate for my surgery and I’m not going to do the operation. So, they have to be realistic. If they’re going to get, ‘Oh my God if I get a scar on my breast I will kill myself,’ and they need a breast lift.

Obviously, I’m not going to operate on them and there is no compromise.

Katrina: How about men, do they also get surgeries in your office?

Dr. Stuart: Yes, we do male liposuction quite a bit, more than ever and we do quite a bit of gynecomastia surgery which is removing skin and breast tissue through a small incision under the nipple, called gynecomastia tissue and liposuction of the chest.

Katrina: I have noticed that you have your own line of products such as; sports attire, sports bras, and others.

Are they for women that already have breast implants or they are suitable for anyone?

Dr. Stuart: Yes I do. The first is called Dr. Linder bra. The Dr. Linder Bra is a post-surgical, patent- pending bra that I created because there were no good bras that I could find for my patients post-surgically. I looked at all the different bras the a patient could wear after surgery and none of them were really great. So, I created the Dr. Linder Bra specifically for post-surgy.

However, a lot of women enjoy it and it’s so comfortable enough for them to wear it as a sleep bra.

The front of the bra has a double-clip zipper mechanism. We call it the clipclip-zip and it’s easier for women who have surgery to double-clipper bra and then be able to zip it. The zip-alone bras are more difficult to put on and they are difficult when you just had cancer surgery, breast reconstruction, and breast lifts and all types of breast implant revision. So, double-clip-zip in the front. There is also the special padding along the middle of the chest that allows for comfort as well. The sides of the bras have straps that can be adjusted. There are adjustable straps that can be adjusted up to 1 ¼ inch, and that’s important, so early phases of post-operative swelling is going to be expansion of the lateral or outer chest. So, you want to put those clips at a further lateral position. As the swelling is resolving over the first two, three to four weeks, you can then clip the bras in closer on the sides so it tightens it up and it reduces edema.

It is more of a compressive bra as well ,as it reduces edema swelling and it’s extremely comfortable. The inner lining is cotton. The outer portion of the bra is spandex for stretchability.

The inner lining and the spandex allow breathability so that women who are perspiring don’t get infections on their incisions or they don’t end up with water-borne infections. We want to reduce infections. We also want to allow for breathability and stretchability. It has to be comfortable and it has to be something that women can put on easily and I’ve put all those little things on it. One last thing about the bra; the bra is fit specifically by chest diameter. It is not fit by cup size.

If a woman is a 32B or a 32D she will wear a the same bra. It has to do with the chest, not the cup size.

Katrina: What is your personal philosophy on success?

Dr. Stuart: Success, is something that you achieve by working hard at it every single day. It’s each doing the best you can on each patient.

It’s branding who you are and what you do. One thing I did very early on in 1999, two years after coming out of my fellowship of plastic surgery was I, gave up facial plastic surgery altogether.

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Katrina: Is there anything else you would like to add to your future patients?

Dr. Stuart: No, there is not a whole lot. I enjoy doing great surgery and taking care of my patients. They are number one. I am a family man.

I’m lucky. I’ve got a wonderful wife, and two kids. I just feel very thrilled, honored and blessed to be able to have the privilege to operate on the human body. It’s not a gift, it’s not given, it’s a privilege to be able to be a surgeon have the honor of opporating on the human body.

One thing you should remember about cosmetic surgery. A professor in San Francisco always told me, “Cosmetic surgery is the only field where you’re taking somebody that’s totally normal and you’re trying to make them look better.” There’s no other feeling in the world like that.

It takes a lot of integrity and a lot of backbone to try to take something that isn’t broken and make it look better. That’s what we’re doing as plastic surgeons. We have to have humility to do this for a living.

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Crowdfunding A Revolutionary Alternative Funding Source for Small Businesses Sylvia Browder

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revolutionary source of funding sweeping across the internet in droves is... crowdfunding!

According to Growthink.com, US $100m was pledged in 2011 on the crowdfunding site kickstarter.com alone, launching over 27,000 projects at a 46% success rate. Now that’s impressive!

Loan, Unsecured Line of Credit, or even a Credit Card to no avail, then perhaps your next step is to consider this hot new trend in financing.

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a cutting-edge way of raising the much needed money required by businesses to sustain themselves or to begin in the first place.

When you are starting or growing a Typically, a small group of investors small business, the main stumbling finds out about a project independently block typically comes down to capital. of one another. These investors want It's extremely difficult to have or find the project to succeed, and invest a the resources necessary to raise the particular amount of money (often amount of money you need to get your small, but can be very large) to build business off the ground. Funding is a the project's capital. If enough money is very important element to the success raised by the investors, the project can of any business remaining relevant in be implemented. Often investors receive a competitive marketplace. If you’ve perks like t-shirts, products related to applied for a traditional loan, SBA Micro the project, or an advanced release of 32 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

the project itself. Many platforms can take advantage of crowdfunding: from political campaigns, service- or product-based businesses, artists, scientific researchers and software developers.

3 Business Preparation Tips for Crowdfunding: Select the Best Platform: There are many crowdfunding platforms available, with new ones forming daily. It is important to choose the one that can best fit your project funding needs.

Create a ‘WIFM’ Reward Program: Remember “What’s In It For Me?” Well, if you want to have a successful campaign, you’d better come up with some juicy

rewards for prospective investors. The reward you create should be based on the type of campaign you are running.

For example, Crescent Theater was forced to upgrade its equipment and as a part of their reward program, the lowest reward offer is a free movie pass.

Design a Stellar Marketing Strategy: Consider multiple ways to connect with potential investors. The key is creating a diverse marketing campaign.

Many companies, Google included, favor videos. You can also add a slide presentation, a podcast or a simple written message

3 ways that Crowdfunding can help you:

Independence from Banking Institutions:

Banks are sitting on their cash and aren’t lending to start-up or small businesses that need capital. At a recent lecture at George Washington University, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke innocuously remarked that lately “small businesses have … found it difficult to get credit.”

Most banks have high unreachable expectations along with a daunting process. Crowdfunding offers a more realistic approach to funding.

Free Publicity: An opportunity to publicly raise funds for your business idea or existing company to myriad potential investors by way of the internet is astounding! Many entrepreneurs yearn for a chance to receive the type of publicity

crowdfunding offers. If well handled, the publicity can greatly catapult your business to immense success Validation: Validation of concept is empowering. People will generally invest in opportunities that are viable. So, every c your business idea is important. To know that there are people globally who believe in your contribution you receive from people simply means that they believe in the opportunity's validity!

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34 Evolution Magazine | #WorldClass Special Edition

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e路volve- to develop gradually, especially from a simple to a more complex form.