Meet Joe Johnson, Entrepreneur, Career Coach, Speaker, Author, and Strategic-Optimist

A local Portlander, Joe Johnson loves to help people turn their biggest dreams into easy-to-follow roadmaps so that they can become their best selves. For as long as he can remember, Joe has been obsessed with the concept of unlocking human potential. Why do some people thrive and others struggle? And how many steps is the second person away from being successful? These questions are what drive him and get him excited about what he does.

To learn more about Joe and his work, check out this entry on job searching from his blog, and this entry on how to receive a salary increase.

1. How did you decide to start up the Earn More Academy website?

I decided to make Earn More Academy after I realized that my good fortune of finding great jobs wasn't luck at all--it was an invaluable skill.

I keep in contact with a lot of my friends from university; however, I noticed that many of them were really struggling to find a job. Sadly, some of them, now in their 30s, were forced to live with their parents because their current job wasn't helping them to move their lives forward.

A common thread was that each of them were both extremely unhappy with their jobs and severely underpaid. Then, after helping them with their resume, online profiles, and sharing some key career advice, they each landed a career in fields that made them happier and paid them more money.

Over the course of several years of privately coaching friends and colleagues, I finally decided to open the website EarnMoreAcademy.com to help a lot more people gain a better work life balance and financial independence.

2. Why are so many people earning less money than they would like to be earning--or even than what their skills should be worth in the current job market?

This is a BIG question. There are a lot of external factors both past and present that have affected the job market (ie: the economic slowdowns, company restructuring, layoffs, etc).

Despite this fact, I would say that the biggest thing that keeps people from earning more money, even though they may be overqualified, is they honestly don't know what they want from their own career path. Clarity is key forth finding the path to becoming a top-paid player in your industry. When you start to narrow down potential careers that leverage your real strengths and your unique talents, you can do some amazing stuff while at the right company.

Oftentimes, people suffer from job searching fatigue and grab ANY job that calls back after a long job search. However, it may not truly fit who you are and what you want to do. As a result, you will probably not excel nor be considered for a raise because your true potential will never be utilized.

3. What are some things people can do in the job they hold right now to improve their financial position/outlook?

This is a great question! We previously did a whole write-up dedicated to this exact question on our website. However, if a person is trying to improve their financial position at their current role, they are going to need to get on the same page with their employer. Here is a quick 3-part strategy for getting that salary increase that you deserve.

Stage One – Goal Setting

In the first stage, you need to approach your supervisor with the idea that you want to be considered for a raise in the near future and that you'd like to find out exactly what it would take to receive a raise. To your boss, it's going to be a refreshing change of pace that an employee is ambitious enough to go above and beyond for the company. It's very important that you get ultra-specific and repeat back exactly what they told you their needs are. Example: "So you're saying, if I were to do X, then it would make me the best candidate for a raise in the next 6 months?"

Stage Two – Execution & Recording

After you confirm your supervisor's needs, you want to make sure that you complete your new project on time and better than expected. Underpromise and overdeliver!

At the end of each week, make sure to document your efforts and show how you have either grown productivity or how your efforts have increased revenues. You will need this later, as it will be what you will use to position yourself for a raise.

Stage Three – Research & Rewards

Head over to one of the following salary comparison websites and research how much money other professionals in your industry are being paid:

Salary.com

PayScale.com

Aim to put yourself in the top 30% of professionals in your industry.

Next, you want to schedule a time to speak with your supervisor about the completion of the project and all of the benefits that have been the direct result of your work. This shouldn't be hard to do because your personal documentation serves to justify why you deserve the raise that you're requesting.

Finally, after you wrap up your project debrief session, smoothly transition into the money conversation by saying something like this, "Now several weeks ago, you mentioned that if I delivered on this project, we would discuss my salary. After researching on several payscale websites, I found the average compensation of people in similar industries was between Y and Z. Given my latest performance, I would like to request that my salary be moved from A to B."

4. What are some common mistakes people make or misconceptions people have when it comes to searching for jobs?

When it comes to the actual job interview, it can be very stressful. You basically have one shot to make an outstanding first impression. So many people have this misconception that you need to convince the employer that you are the best candidate by simply answering questions about yourself. This is huge mistake! If they wanted one sentence answers, then they would have read your resume and skipped the entire interview process.

The truth, is that every job interview is always about the company, and your answers should be crafted in such a way that it positions YOU as the best solution to their business problems. This is how you win more job interviews.

5. What else would you like readers to know about you and the services you offer through your site?

Just remember, EVERYONE has an 8-to-5. It's up to YOU to determine where you will spend that time! We have a full suite of tools to help you land a new job that will make you happier. We provide everything from eye-catching resume templates, to 1-on-1 coaching, and full job hunting online mastery courses.

Thanks, Joe!

Meet Debra Roberts, Honeybee Educator and Advocate

Debra Roberts is an international honeybee educator and advocate. She teaches natural, compassionate beekeeping, and sacred relationship with bees. She stewards her bee sanctuary in the Appalachian Mountains. Learn more about Debra and her Sacred Path of Bee series of classes by visiting her website, HolyBeePress.com.

1. How did you first become a beekeeper?

Beekeeping was never a plan, but it was clearly a call. I sort of stumbled into it in the remarkable way that life sometimes unfolds. In 2004, my health crashed and I took a six-months' sabbatical that changed the rest of my life. As I was recovering, I felt inspired to take a pilgrimage to Hopi to pay my respects to the family of Thomas Banyacya, an elder who had passed and had touched my life profoundly at an earlier time in my life. I had gotten guidance to bring honey as a gift to his family. I wasn't a beekeeper (and I wasn't thinking about being one at the time), but a neighbor of mine sold some honey to me. Off I went from North Carolina, across US Route 40, arriving days later at the Banyacya family door in Arizona, quart jars of honey in hand. Thomas' daughter-in-law, whom I had never met, greeted me at the door. I said I was Debra Roberts from North Carolina and I had just come to pay my respects because of how Thomas Sr. had touched my life. And I wanted to give them a gift. She welcomed me in, received the jars of honey I gave her, and said, "Why I was just telling my husband, Thomas Jr., that we were out of honey and I needed to go to the store to get some more..."

So when I look back, there was something about that moment that marks when bees came into my life... something bee-ish, full of grace, quietly slipped under my radar and into the heart of my life. By the end of that year, I ended up in bee school, and I have been at the feet of bees ever since.

2. What is your goal or intention with your honeybee sanctuary?

I am a honeybee educator, speaker, and advocate. I teach and travel around the world, and I am totally bee-sotted. I am not commercial and rarely harvest any honey. My bee sanctuary is right next to our house in the mountains of Western North Carolina. It is a place that is holy to me. I spend time there every day that I am in town. My path is to explore sacred relationship with the bees, to learn from them, and to inspire and support others in doing the same, and it is also to provide a safe place for bees to flourish in the world. The bee sanctuary is a place I express my respect, love, reverence, devotion, and gratitude for them. This place and space is also to honor others. The sanctuary is filled with precious objects that are meaningful to me and other people, placed mindfully around the bee sanctuary to represent prayers for the well being of the bees, particular people and animals, and for the benefit of all life. As I move around the yard daily, these prayers are regularly enlivened. More than anything, the bee sanctuary is place of expressing and sharing my love for these precious wing-ed ones and for creating a healthy place for them to thrive, especially in these times where their health and well-being is so challenged.

3. What inspired you to create your Sacred Path of Bee series of classes?

I fell into friendship years ago with a wonderful woman named Layne Redmond, who was a renowned frame drum teacher, musician, researcher, and artist. She and I discovered, in our unfolding friendship over the years, that many of the experiences I was having in my sacred-in-the-ordinary bee-tending life were resonant with some of the ancient ways of the bee priestesses that Layne had been exploring while researching what later became her seminal book, When the Drummers Were Women. Neither of us called ourselves bee priestesses, but nevertheless, those words help describe a sacred territory that was so enlivened in our lives. Layne invited me to share about bees and the sacred many times in her gatherings and conferences, and we went on to create a free public offering on bees and the sacred with the intention of later co-creating a multi-part online series. Unfortunately, Layne passed away in 2013 so I went on to create the series myself. I launched The Sacred Path of Bee in August of this year, and it is offered in her loving memory. The other source of inspiration for this series are the honeybees who have colonized my mind, heart and consciousness and inspire me every day of my life.

4. Who are some of your special guest collaborators in The Sacred Path of Bee?

I have invited ten remarkable people from around the world to join me in this series. Each are a world and a wonder. To describe just a few of them, I have invited Jacqueline Freeman to join me, a visionary who communicates with bees and who wrote the widely acclaimed book The Song of Increase, Returning to Our Sacred Partnership with Honeybees. Also invited is Horst Kornberger, who wrote Global Hive, Bee Crisis and Compassionate Ecology, who teaches at the Rudolf Steiner College in Perth, Australia. And there is Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees, an artist, educator, activist, and elder who has spent her life at the crossroads, where species, cultures, beliefs and the unknown intersect, collide, and evolve. All ten guests bring a unique perspective to our understanding of bees and their vast blessings in our lives.

5. Why is it important for us to forge more connections with bees in our world?

Since Colony Collapse Disorder reared its head in 2006, it is now much more widely and commonly known that we depend on honeybees for over a third of the food we eat (and I would add, food we really enjoy eating). From my years with the bees, I think the opportunity they bring in helping us to understand some of the deeper issues and opportunities in life is even more important. It is my belief that many of the challenges in this world stem from our disconnect with nature--both within us and outside of us. When we steward bees in a bee-centric rather than bee-business-centric way, there is an opportunity to learn about the interconnectedness we share with all life. A higher consciousness naturally is awakened and enlivened when we spend time with honeybees in a respectful way (rather than treating them as livestock). More women than ever have stepped into the world of bees in unprecedented numbers. This started around 2007, and I believe it represents a compassionate response to the challenges bees are facing. I see this compassionate expressed in both the men and women I teach in the world and who are participating in the Sacred Path of Bee series. I celebrate the growing numbers of beekeepers and bee appreciators that are taking an interest in the bees with a primary intent to help them. If there is any one simple thing I could say about my own life with the bees, it's realizing that love itself is the ultimate activism. The Sacred Path of Bee is my offering to the world and to the bees, in the hope that more love can come their way and spread around to the rest of life. For it is sorely needed... and it's time.

Thanks, Debra!

Meet Reggy of I Can Change It

Reggy is looking for people who are struggling with their current life and with their finances. With his tutorial, I Can Change It, he offers people the ability to change their life, become more energetic again, focus on their goals, set goals, and even know why they set the goals. With his tutorial, he says that people will expand their horizon and open their eyes; people will finally get out of their very comfortable box and be excited again to get out and to experience real life again. People who join Reggy will be able to break their old habits and create new ones which are very powerful to help people become very successful. Life can be very beautiful when you know what to do.

1. In the very beginning of your project, what inspired you to begin your work on I Can Change It?

I understood that challenges exist to be overcome!

I was struggling for four years in my life, and I even became very depressive. Nothing worked out anymore. I blamed myself, and I blamed other people for my unfulfilled life. I always have been a positive person. I enjoyed life a lot and I always could handle pressure and problems that would arise. However, these four years were very different. They were horrible and frustrating. I had to go through a labyrinth that only had one little exit. There were many challenges waiting for me that always tested my patience and strength. These challenges taught me that I should never ever give up on myself. These challenges, even if they had been horrible, they made me much stronger than I had been before. I learned a lot about pulling myself together after a defeat. I now accept the fact that I might fail from time to time, and I acknowledge it. In addition, to fail does not mean to give up. Each miserable experience or moment has a positive side as well. It is always important to look at it from a different perspective than from your own. In these four years, I learned so much and I gained a lot of experience about what it means to get up again and convince yourself that life can be very beautiful if you prefer it to be. It is really all in our own hands, and when you know the key to your success, then it is easy to discover the beauty of your own life. There is much more hidden in our life that we cannot see or even imagine. By taking the right steps, we are able to open closed doors and unleash the energy that will make life complete.

I know there are many people who are stuck right now and do not know what to do next or how to turn their life around. People who are desperate and want to give up. People that do not see light at the end of the tunnel anymore. People that have really atrocious thoughts about their future. I want to support these people by making a huge change in their lives. I do not just want to support them by becoming more motivated, energized, fascinated, and excited again, but I want to support them by reaching their financial goals as well.

The reason why I established ICanChangeIt is because of the fact that I really changed my whole life, and if I can do it, everyone else can do it as well. It is not a miracle--it is a life challenge to overcome. As soon as one has overcome this challenge, he or she will say--I made it--what is the next challenge for me! I am here, and I am ready for it!

2. What kinds of changes do people work on when they participate in your program?

I am going into many different topics that all have to do with changing oneself from within. There are many patterns in our life that we manifested that are not supporting us to become more successful. We adopted habits that are influencing us in a negative way. Therefore, we need to exchange these habits and beliefs we are using each day. It is crucial to vaporize these unproductive activities. Some we use although we are not even aware of it.

Thus, focus, setting goals, knowing why to set goals, controling feelings, being passionate, changing habits, being committed, finding the source of being stressed out, confronting f.e.a.r--False Evidence Appeal Real--using pain, being excited again, using music, doing sports, feeding your brain, and becoming financially free by following a step by step guide are just a few topics that I am covering in my tutorial. By attending my tutorial you will see that it is easy to live a life with passion and you will learn how to reach your goals. If you want to be successful in life you need to have strong fundamentals to build success on. The fundamentals are you and your whole body.

3. What has been your own experience with creating positive change in your own life?

Now that I passed these four years of struggle, I am glad I experienced them. Without these four years, I would not be where I am right now. I definitely reached already some of my goals, and I can feel that I will reach my other goals soon as well. The positive change I created in myself, around me, and in my environment make me proud. I feel much more relaxed, I am enjoying life again, I am very comfortable being myself, and I never stop dreaming and tackling new projects. My life got an upgrade, and I made it possible. I took my life in my own hands again and started to direct it with full passion! I enjoy looking back and saying to myself that I climbed out of the hole and made it.

4. What makes the online environment a good fit for your program?

Due to the fact that I want to support as many people as possible, I established this program online. People all around the world can easily access it and start changing their life as soon as they sign up. It is convenient for most people because they can decide when they start their course and when they want to take a break. The online environment gives me the possibility to give immediate feedback and stay in close touch with my members. I love to hear their results and share them with the rest of my community. I like to be here when people have additional questions about the program or have specific needs. To communicate with my members is very vital for me.

5. If you could say just three things to someone who is reading this and is struggling in his or her life, what would you say?

Believe in Yourself!

Thanks, Reggy!

Meet Lydia Evdoxiadi, Author and Relocation Expert

Lydia Evdoxiadi describes herself as a personal development material provider whose work focuses on making smart relocation choices. Her website, Relocate Smart, provides tools and tips for people who are considering a short-term or long-term move. Moving can be stressful under the best of circumstances, and Lydia wants to help people make the process as smooth as possible.

The author of a book called Relocate Smart, Lydia also offers an informational webinar series about relocating called Tuesday Evenings with Lydia.

1. What are some common difficulties people face when it comes to relocating?

Relocation involves tackling some important milestones. This means planning and syncing operations, and people are a bit tired of following another plan because it can feel like a routine. How do I know this? I also provide one-to-one coaching, and after hundreds of hours of personal work, I discovered it all boils down to setting strong foundations from the beginning.

The second most common challenge people face is dealing with "plateau periods." These come up during the mid-relocation planning phase where people have nailed everything down to the "T," and they are feeling that "nothing" is happening. Maybe they aren't getting the job they want or the best home, and something is stuck.

Actually, this is natural and should be welcomed. A plateau period is the time your thoughts and plans are maturing. It's waiting for the first results after sowing the field of life. It's the moment some people get a bit discouraged and may even cancel plans or worse, make really hasty decisions. Relocation is a form of growth, and growth happens best in spurts. It's like when we grow physically. We grow in spurts, and at some point the growth process finishes. When people give up quickly, it's like they stopped eating before they got taller because they didn't manage to grow as tall as they wished immediately.

2. Do you find that people face more complex issues with relocating when they are moving to another country and/or moving a great distance?

This is unique to every single relocation plan. I have seen people make phenomenal moves abroad and equally phenomenal moves cross-state or even cross-county.

Moving abroad is often advised for people who have a strong multi-cultural background. In practice, I have found this to be totally irrelevant. Successful relocation abroad is easier for people who have good coping mechanisms and advanced social skills, and know the importance of community. Generally put, people who know how to stay busy.

Community is the KEY to successful domestic and international relocation. Support groups are what most successful participants in this program report as the key to happiness, zero loneliness, and personal and professional growth. In my book, Relocate Smart, this is an integral part of the program and general advice.

3. Would you tell us about your Tuesday Evenings with Lydia video series and what the webinars offer?

It's really made me grow personally and the way I communicate this work. I chose to do the video series parallel to one-to-one coaching because some recurring questions come up, and I can only take so many people at a time. The video lectures are always fresh, and though we work on the basics, we can always spice up things by incorporating some more current questions.

The live webinar, I find, is a great tool, yet as people come to Relocate Smart from all over the world, summoning people to attend during early morning hours or midday working hours is less of a service to others and very unfair in many ways. It's about treating these questions globally and giving people fair chances to have access to this material at whatever time of the day.

I have a middle program where people who register for the video lectures get a few features of the live webinar, like shooting me questions before the week's video comes out, and I am happy to say that I honor every single question. These are all answered in the forthcoming video.

Our hottest topics are:

--Setting strong foundations for successful relocation
--Preserving cash-flow and increasing means to meet opportunities
--Ways to tackle housing and many alternatives to traditional housing
--Smart advice on evaluating work opportunities and how these can influence your relocation plans and your finances in the long-term.

For example, we really emphasize being cautious and skeptical about relocation offers by companies who are not willing to pay for moving expenses. We discovered that the cost of relocation for most cases--singles, families and young professionals, and our dear retirees--comes up to 3 months' salary, and that's a lot of money in today's economy and can result in debt. We want relocation to be at your advantage and growth. Quality companies would cover at least half your expenses.

4. What will readers find in your latest book, Relocate Smart?

Ten power sessions that will change the way you look at the process of relocation. It focuses on success based on the critical balance of health, love, and money. We need all these, and they must hold hands firmly--that's the way they grow and make our relocation worth the while.

Relocate Smart and The Complete Step-by-Step Relocation Calculator are excellent for studying on your own and also as teaching material. I have a church in Nigeria that ordered several copies through our site and an HR firm in Dubai who is really out to train their staff to understand relocation from the personal and practical side. We also have a community college in Spain that uses this material for people graduating and making these first decisions to move either for work or further education. It gives readers insight into how much people have to put into the relocation process. It makes them better bosses, community leaders. We are so happy with this dimension of the work that we offer and have discounts for quantity orders so that this material can be used in groups.

5. If you could offer just three pieces of advice to someone who is planning to relocate, what would you say?

1. Turn off the television. It really gets people too anxious and too worried about current politics the western world is facing. Do not allow media to influence your decisions or thrive on your misery by sharing bad news. Instead, opt for uplifting people, examples of people around you who are doing well, and think, "INSPIRATION."

2. Have faith in yourself, in your skills, and in the divine. Whatever your spiritual path may be, I see every day how people make it even in challenging times, and support from good spiritual communities helps tremendously.

3. Join Relocate Smart. It's a project with a strong culture of quality material that takes a bit of work, but nothing compared to the benefits. We've done the hardest part for you.

Thanks, Lydia!

An Introduction to Momdoulary

What is Momdoulary? It's a method of support for expectant moms- and dads-to-be. Founded by Laura Saba, who is an experienced doula, coach, childbirth educator, and author (and more!), the Momdoulary Method prepares a doula to not only provide the traditional assistance of a doula but to also integrate coaching support to offer, in the words of Laura on the Momdoulary website, "emotional, physical, and logistical preparation for parenthood as part of the labor preparation process, presented through a series of classes available to the birthing parents (and where not available as classroom experience, through individual educational and coaching support)."

For people who would like to become doulas, Momdoulary offers a training program which includes 200 hours of instruction and prepares students for a variety of careers in the area of birth and child-rearing. In addition to working as doulas who assist in the childbirth process, students work as parent educators, as breastfeeding coaches, as trainers for parents on the path toward adoption, and in many other roles.

In short, Momdoulary is a mission-driven business, focused on helping people create a solid career with flexibility and good income, where they can have a regular and positive impact on the lives of others around them and the community at large.

Interested students can learn more by looking at the inspiration catalog. Also, Laura and her colleagues are currently offering two scholarships to students in every state (one full scholarship which covers all training costs covered except for $300 in materials/licensing fees, and one half scholarship).

Jassen Bowman and TaxMarketingHQ.com

We've all heard people complain about taxes, and many of us have been guilty of our own share of complaints, but Jassen Bowman takes a more optimistic approach. He's an Enrolled Agent, which means that he's licensed directly by the IRS to represent taxpayers who have problems with the IRS. Jassen has been negotiating the resolution of tax debts for over five years now. He set up his website, TaxMarketingHQ.com, in order to teach other tax professionals (including CPAs, tax attorneys, and other Enrolled Agents) how to do the same thing.

Jassen's blog has an emphasis on providing excellent customer service, and he suggests a variety of useful tips that professionals can use to help market their tax business more effectively. He also draws from his own experience to offer ideas that professionals can apply today to make their businesses more efficient. The blog has a friendly and helpful tone.

Given the educational nature of the blog, it's not surprising that Jassen has developed other educational materials. In fact, he offers a full training course which teaches tax resolution. Tax resolution is a very lucrative field for tax professionals to be engaged in, and Jassen has written an ebook on the subject as well.

He also offers training courses teaching tax professionals how to market their services to grow their practices, and he writes a lot about "best practices" in actually operating their businesses. Anyone in the tax field or interested in entering it would do well to check out Jassen's informative site.

TypeKids.com, A Touch Typing Course for Kids

When I worked in a public library, I used to notice how easily kids navigated any new piece of computer equipment added to our branch. For example, when we received self-checkout machines with touchscreen functions, the kids just tapped away easily at the screen while the adults sometimes puzzled over what to do. But it's one thing to be able to intuit what to do on any interactive screen that comes your way, and it's another thing to be able to type accurately and efficiently. That's where TypeKids comes in with their fun online typing lessons.

TypeKids teaches touch typing by having kids play a game that involves joining a pirate captain on a treasure hunt. The game uses intelligent technology to adapt the exercises to the individual needs of each student; it can detect which letters need more practice and make adjustments to add more practice for those specific letters.

In short, TypeKids offers a fun way to learn typing at home. Who doesn't want to play a treasure hunt game with pirates? Sign up for a free trial to see if your kids like TypeKids, and soon they'll be typing with all ten fingers rather than hunting and pecking!

Meet Julia Buckley, Fitness Writer and Trainer

Julia Buckley is a fitness writer and trainer based in London, England. She writes for many top health and fitness magazines, and her first book, The Fat Burn Revolution, will be available in January 2014. For more about Julia and her work visit www.juliabuckley.co.uk. Julia also shares advice, tips and news on her fitness blog.

Photo credit: Ciaran Hanway

1. When did you first become interested in fitness training?

I hated sports at school, but when I was 16, I tried a Jane Fonda exercise video and loved it! I exercised fairly regularly after that with various at-home programs and then later in gyms. My passion for fitness gradually snowballed over the years until it became inevitable that I would dedicate my career to it.

2. Why did you decide to offer online fitness programs, and what do you think are the benefits of the online format?

I’ve been offering a 12 week fat loss fitness program online since October 2012 and am currently coaching the third group to do it. The internet allows me to share my passion for fitness and to help people all over the world get the bodies they want. It means I can reach them in their own homes (and anywhere they have internet access) and be available to them whenever they need me. For many people this works much better than only seeing their training for a few hours per week: it's a lot more affordable, and more convenient for people who can't get to gyms. Plus I can give them more detail on what I'm asking them to and why than you might be able to get with in-person PT sessions. I'm able to constantly support and encourage and remind them of what they need to do to reach their goals.

3. What has the response been to your programs from participants and from the media?

Oh gosh, it's hard to know where to start with this one. I don't want to sound boastful, but my program has transformed lots of people's bodies and lives and that's something I'm very proud of. Every single person who has completed my 12 week fat loss fitness program finished with fantastic reductions in excess body fat, outstanding levels of fitness, and heaps of healthy habits and training know-how that will help them continue to make progress with their fat loss and/or fitness training. I've been in tears many times while reading their "thank you" messages. It is immensely rewarding.

The program has received some excellent coverage in the media, locally, nationally, and internationally. Probably the article that got the most attention was this piece on the Daily Mail website.

4. How did your online programs and your fitness blog lead you to write a book?

I'd actually got the contract to write the book before I started offering the online program. I'd been researching and recommending the techniques and type of training for a long time, but it was getting the book deal that spurred me to create a structured program aimed specifically at people wanting to shed fat. The first online program I ran was a pilot project so I could test out and refine the regime based on the feedback and results of real people, but it was so successful that I've carried on offering it as an online course. The online program offers a rather different experience to what readers of the book will get because they have regular contact with me and I'm able to personalize the exercise a little more to suit their needs. Plus there's group support and they keep a journal on their training and diet which I check regularly, so there's that sense of "accountability" to keep them on track, too. But readers will be able to follow the same fitness program from the book, and obviously, it will be a much cheaper option for those that are not able to invest in personal coaching.

5. What would be your top three suggestions to someone who would like to burn more fat on a regular basis?

Lift heavy weights. A lot of people think that the best way to shed fat is by doing lots of steady cardio. You can lose fat that way, but it's not the optimal type of training for fat loss. By adding muscle to your body you will burn more fat all of the time as well as improving your shape.

Keep processed carbohydrates to a minimum. Sugary foods are the worst type of foods you can eat when fat loss is your aim. They are not only fattening, but also addictive and energy-sapping. Most people know that, but a lot don't realize how things like bread and pasta can inhibit fat loss. They are just "meal-bulkers" which offer very little in the way of nutrition (or taste) and act in a very similar way to sugar in the body. I recommend replacing them with lots of vegetables.

Exercise because you love your body, not because you hate it. Some people try to find motivation by beating themselves up about the condition of their bodies. This is usually actually demotivating and only makes them feel like crap! Once people get past this and start to feel good about the positive steps they're making towards their goals, they start getting fantastic results. The better they feel about their bodies, the more they want to train and the better eating choices they make. The more they train and the better eating choices they make, the better they feel about their bodies. And so it goes on. It's a wonderful thing!

Thanks, Julia!

Note: Julia also dispenses daily tips and advice on Twitter, follow her at: www.twitter.com/Julia_B.

Meet Marguerite Beaty, Photographer and Teacher

Marguerite Beaty lives in Miami, Florida, where she enjoys taking photos and teaching photography classes. She has an MFA in Photography from the University of Miami, and she worked as a stockbroker in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Learn more about Marguerite at her website, Crea8fotos. She offers a variety of classes in photography as well as business classes for artists. Her classes include in-person and online options.

1. As a photographer and photography teacher, how do you find a balance between fine art photography and commercial photography?

I do not think that I ever found a good balance between the commercial photography and the fine art photography. They contradict each other in every way! The commercial photography is all about another person's vision and will be used for marketing or advertising. In other words, it will be used to sell something. The fine art is about my vision. It's about my philosophy or the way that I see things and then somehow put it all together. I was able to use my vision in some commercial photography but it was more about how to do a photo session than the actual final product.

2. Your digital mastery program looks to be very comprehensive. Do students need to have any previous experience before taking these classes, and what are some of your goals for students to achieve in this program?

The Digital Mastery Program is created for the beginner: the person who just bought a camera and has no idea which button to press. This program is also good for the person who has a good idea about photography but wants to study it in depth. There is also the part II which is great for the advanced photographer. The idea is to understand the camera very well and to take control of the picture taking by making decisions. When you shoot in the auto mode, the camera will decide everything for you and there are many techniques that will not be very successful. So it will come down to this: do you want to create your photograph, or do you want your camera to create it?

3. For students who are located outside of the Miami area, what are some online learning options you offer?

For students who are from different states and countries, I teach via Skype! I love it and it has worked quite well. I am finishing a new series of classes that will be available online. Those will be for people who prefer to learn on their own.

4. What do students learn in your business classes, and are these online or in-person classes or a combination?

The photography business classes were designed after I met several self-taught photographers who asked me to teach specific techniques and began to ask about sales and marketing. As our conversation flowed, I saw that they needed a plan and to organize themselves so that they could actually create a profit while doing what they loved.

The business class are one-on-one online (via Skype). The students will do research and will have several assignments. So this has a large component of self-learning and the advantage of a number of real-time sessions to discuss things.

5. What inspired you to start teaching, and do you feel like your teaching influences your artwork (and vice versa)?

I have always enjoyed teaching. While I was working towards my MFA in photography, I did quite a bit of teaching-assisting or adjunct teaching. It is fun to exchange ideas and to be challenged creatively. I do not think that teaching has affected my artwork. It does make me think more and do a lot more research on photography--so maybe it has influenced me. I am not sure how!

Thanks, Marguerite!

Meet Aaron Sherman, Founder of Storyboard That

Storyboard That, founded by Aaron Sherman, is an innovative technology to rapidly and easily create storyboards online. Storyboards have countless applications in the business and educational world. They are also a lot of fun! Aaron has a BS in management, and an MS in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He worked for 9+ years in both technology and marketing across the globe in Boston, Barcelona, and Sydney and brings to the table a powerful vantage point of common problems regardless of location and an astute understanding of communication opportunities.

1. What is it about the combination of words and pictures used in storyboards that encourages creativity?

Research has long shown that most people learn and remember better with a visual aspect. At their core, people are storytellers, and we best communicate and engage in that fashion. Combing pictures and words gives you storyboards.

2. How have you found storyboards helpful in your own personal and professional work?

Having spent a fair amount of time in the corporate world, both as a technologist and a marketer, I have witnessed more times than I can count the two sides unable to easily communicate. For marketers, the 'problem" and therefore "solution" is so obvious they don't understand why the developers "don't get it." Meanwhile, on the technology side, the developers are juggling so many activities, they don't understand why a marketing request is important or how it fits into the bigger picture. By breaking down an idea into a very simple story, it lets both sides look at the same problem together, and I apologize for the pun, but be "on the same page" and then work together towards a joint solution.

On a personal side storyboards are just fun. I get tremendous pleasure reading and looking at the creativity of Storyboard That's global audience. It also gives me an excuse to practice my Spanish trying to understand some of my audience.

3. What makes storyboards useful in schools as well as in business settings?

Effective communication and communication via storytelling are critical skills in today's workplace. In order to be effective, authors need to figure out what they want to say, why they want to say it, and how they are going to say it. Storyboards are a very powerful framework for this because they force the author to be concise (3-6 cells), think in a linear fashion (storyboards force the questions of "what's next"), and clearly show context of who, when, and where.

When students create book reports via storyboards, they are practicing these critical skills without realizing it. As students mature and their storyboards become more sophisticated, again and again they are breaking down their thoughts into bite-sized, easily consumable chunks.

4. What are the benefits of using the tools on your website to share storyboards with other people, rather than just making storyboards for brainstorming (etc) and not sharing them?

In my entire life I cannot think of one example where I shared work with someone and did not leave with new ideas and a different perspective. I constantly share my own storyboards with my fiancé to get her opinion on dialog and imagery or even find out if I missed the point completely. People are social: we like to talk, and we love to criticize and give feedback. Every storyboard has its own URL, so it is easy to send it to a friend.

That being said there is nothing wrong with making a few storyboards just to privately organize your thoughts.

5. How do you see Storyboard That growing over the next few years?

Storyboard That and its parent company Clever Prototypes are at their infancy right now. Clever Prototypes' stated mission is to help develop solutions to make people enjoy their days more by improving communication, ideation, and looking for ways to take old tasks and make them more fun. The focus right now is on continuously making our storyboard creator the best technology out there and making it easier for people to access it.

Thanks, Aaron!

Meet Patrick of On Learning Point

On Learning Point is a website with free and useful information about online teaching and learning and the use of technology in online education. The training technology manager who runs On Learning Point, Patrick has a passion for training and training technology and has implemented and migrated several enterprise systems as well as small start-up sites; he specializes in creating cloud-based learning solutions that give the best training impact to the business.

1. What motivated you to start On Learning Point?

Our Learning Point is primarily an informational site about learning and e-learning and e-learning technology. I realized after being in the industry for 10 years that I had a lot of information and tribal knowledge that would be good to share and put out there to help others. And so, I created the site primarily as a resource site for people who are actually practitioners of implementing a learning solution, as well as to offer suggestions for solving everyday problems that people face.  

A lot of times, people face the same exact problems and ask me the same types of questions. Usually once a year, I get the same set of questions. These include: How do I set up a certification exam, if the requirements are "x"? Or, how many people can be included in this audience? What audience should be set up? It can be even simpler than that. Other questions include: How do I define my audience?  How do I build a training platform that I can use to deliver all kinds of different things?  

Some of the other things that I try to explore on the site are more the complexity of building an entire software stack, such as a platform as a service. This means that you'd have several different platforms all working together to provide a seamless experience. For example, with learning solutions, you may have a video delivery platform, a document delivery platform, as well as the LMS (learning management system), which does the tracking and the backend functions.  

That's primarily the focus of the site. It was an idea that I had been toying around with for many years, dating all the way back to 2003 when I was starting to get really heavy into the learning process.  

Back then, Moodle and some of the other open source LMSs were very immature. They had a multitude of issues. The issues were not being addressed particularly well. They were being addressed in a community manner, obviously, since this was sort of a side project for a lot of people. However, all of that changed in 2011 when they adopted a more formal development and a break fix model where people could actually pay for commercial support, as well as getting commercial grade fixes for the LMS when something broke. And this was a paradigm shift in the open source LMS market.  

There are other companies who did something similar, and they may have said that they were open source, but if you tried to access their code, you wouldn't have been able to do so. I think that's one of the major differences between an open source LMS provider and someone who's not. Technically, that's not part of the GPL license, that you have to provide the code on your website, but it really seems to be an indicator of whether the product is open source or not.

Some of those other products claim that they are open source, but if you were to go to their website, you can't find one piece of code. To me, that's not really an open source product when even though technically you are licensed, as you can't get a hold of the code, which means you can't fork it. It means you can't own it. It means you can't support it. You can't create derivative works from it. It's not an open source. It is a completely a whole different area of philosophy.  

The other thing that is really neat about the way learning management systems have come and the direction that they're going nowadays is the whole introduction of the cloud systems. Now you can create, without actually having to purchase a lot of heavy end equipment, products that are located right in the cloud and they can come and go and may have very short shelf life--maybe only one hour.  

You can spin up one instance and then deliver your training and then spin it back down. It'd be a strange scenario where you would want to do that, but there may be specific reasons for it, so it's a very interesting paramount change in the way things are now being done.  

2. What's the current role of technology when it comes to education/training programs?

The role of technology in training is ever-changing and ever-evolving. Right now, we're at a paradigm shift in the way training is being taught to everyone: everyone from high schools, preschoolers, and all the way up through post-secondary education, as well as corporate training as well. The ability to create video and deliver it anywhere ambiguously on any device is changing everything. Pretty soon, and you're already starting to see this, you will be able to do a little search for content and, on the spot, you will be able to learn anything that you need to know about anything, whether it is air conditioning repair, how to diagnose your car trouble, or how to apply for college credits.

It doesn't matter what it is. A lot of the institutions are realizing that as well, and so they've gone to a global learning reach where they've defined their audience as everybody in the world. Obviously, there are some language barriers with doing it this way, but the fact that you can actually deliver your learning content to any corner of the globe at any time, at any instance, is completely changing the way we do business.

Now, the similar technology needs to catch up and be able to track these types of delivering mechanisms, but at its simplest form. If you were to click on this website, I can track that you've launched the content. I don’t know if you finished the content, but I know that you clicked onto it and so I can track that click. The other thing I can do from a technology standpoint is that I can assess your knowledge very easily as well by creating quizzes after the fact.

So, whether or not you consume that content with me or you consume the content with some other provider, it doesn't really matter to me. The content most likely will be available to you, although maybe not always and then, by virtue of me assessing your knowledge and skill level, I can now say that indeed that you are certified. I can feel comfortable with certifying you remotely, without even having even seen you. This is great for me because I can charge you money to do so. And this is great for you because you may live in a rural area where these schools are not available except online.

The other thing that is quite revolutionary when it comes to learning is the use of video cameras and webcams. Through different services and virtual classrooms like Skype or Big Blue Button, you can now have a face-to-face meeting with one person or an entire class. And so you can take that traditional classroom environment and actually deliver it virtually anywhere in the world.

There are some technical limitations as far as bandwidth goes and you have to make sure that your video and audio is synced up, but that is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Some of the technology is going to need to catch up as far as tracking and recording as well.

But, at some point, there is no reason why anybody can't become an instructor. If you know something or you have a certain skill set or you have a certain knowledge area, you should be able to share that with the world and be able to resell that information. This is whether it's a recording or if it's actually a live class.

Some people start with doing a live class and, once they've done it a couple of times, and they feel like they've gotten good at it, they'll take that and actually record it. Once the recording is done, now you can sell that and repackage it as you want. Add a quiz and now you can certify someone: after someone reviews your content, heor she may be able to pass a quiz and now you have certification.

So, technology is changing everything by making everyone connected via the Internet.

3. How is mobile technology changing both learning and teaching?

To summarize, it's video and the ability to get that video anywhere. Anyone can learn and anyone can tach right from their mobile device, because let's not forget, they are all just little tiny computers. And they are perfect platforms to broadcast from.

It's an exciting time where things are really just spinning up and soon you will be able to learn things right at the point of needing to learn them. As an instructor taking a mobile device to the field will let you narrate and show the item being talked about. You can then wrap up the whole thing by making an assessment in the end and you will then have a full training module.

4. What is the cloud, and how is it affecting online learning?

Most people have heard of cloud computing by now, but just to reiterate, cloud computing is a shared computing platform that can be used to host and store learning content.

You can create a whole virtual machine or a server right in the cloud, using shared resources and you don't need to worry about any of the underlying infrastructure like:

Routers
Physical servers
Disks

All that stuff has been virtualized, so you just create an instance of your Moodle sites by going in through Amazon web services, create the server, and set it up, load your content and then you are in business. It can take as little as 5 minutes to get everything set up.  

This is incredible because this is a paramount shift in the way the speed of things can go to market in which you can bring things.  

Also, there is the ability to store items in the cloud, either as a student or as an instructor: if you have videos that you would like to store, if you have audio files, word documents, all your content can be stored up there on the servers, which are actually located in a secure location somewhere other than yours that can be accessed by any Internet-capable device.  

From a standpoint of creating content and hosting it and tracking it, it's never been an easier time in order to get that done.

It used to be, in the old days that you had to get a server.  

You had to size that server correctly, based on the amount of traffic that you were expecting.  

And then, perhaps you had to put a load balancer in front of it, and basically have to worry about a lot of different technical details such as:

What IP addresses you have.  
What are your DNS settings?  
How do you set all that stuff up?  
Do you run your own DNS server?  
Do you setup your own mail server?  

Anyway, all of that is not really an issue anymore thanks to cloud computing.  

There is one down side and thats privacy. You may lose the ability to have your items private--but anything that's out on the web, it's probably not going to be private anyway. So, unless it's secret content, it's probably going to be okay to have it on that server there in the cloud.  

5. What would you recommend to an entrepreneur without experience in new learning technologies who wants to start utilizing the online environment to offer trainings, seminars, and other interactive products?

I think, if you're an entrepreneur and you’re starting out today it's really a 3-step process.

1. The first thing you'd want to do is just create a base outline of the different courses that you're going to be offering.  

2. Next, you need to create that offering and start with the easiest thing you can start out with. So, whether it is a small, short PDF or a short video recording, you can start with that and get everything in place and start offering courses to people.

3. Set it up in the LMS, because it's so much easier to get started: you can be up and running the same day that the content is ready.

Often, it seems that people get stuck on the technology, and it becomes more and more this huge, great big thing.  

If you kind of have an outline of how you think it's going to look when it's done, start that vision and then break it down into little pieces and turn each one into an individual PDF.  

Sometimes people just get stuck on just creating that first PDF and when that happens, they find it hard to implement because it seems so massive.  

With each LMS that I've been involved with, they all started in the same place. They started with loading a single document, testing the ability to serve that document to other people and making sure that it was recorded and that the student had basic access to the content. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.  

The great thing is what you can do today:

You can very quickly create your content, and then very quickly set up in just an instance a learning site, and then launch it very quickly and get it out to the market, often within the same day of completing your content.  

So, there is no reason to make it overly complicated.  

One other problem area is that people will try to go through a whole LMS selection process trying to figure out which one is best. Most of the ones that are out there today generally do the same thing, just in slightly different ways, and so, depending upon what your goals are, it's probably pretty easy for you to achieve that goal.  

Get that content out there and start charging for it today. Validate that your business model is good and that the content is something that people would pay for before you invest many, many hours into the project.  

The other thing you can also do is you can use PLR content (Private Label Content), which is content that's already been written. You can take that content and rewrite it and put it up into your LMS immediately, making it a very fast turn-around.  

Depending on what area you're actually working in, you can get the LMS and the content pre-built for you and you can use that to turn-around your business model very quickly.  

Online webinars are also a great way to push content out quickly to the large groups of people. Software such as Big Blue Button and WebEx lets you talk and share your screen. Hold a monthly webinar, which is great for connecting to people and finding out exactly what the market needs.

To learn more about e-learning platforms, please visit On Learning Point. On Learning Point is a site dedicated to helping everyone learn about e-learning platforms and e-learning technology.

Thanks, Patrick!