What's Working Best from Q1 in 2026 PART 1

You're listening to the Mind Your Business Podcast. Today's episode, I do a deep dive, looking back into quarter one, and share with you what's working best right now in online business. This is part one. So stay tuned. [music] Hi, I'm James Wedmore, and with 17 years online, I've built my business to over $12 million years and sales per year. And this is the first non-business business podcast. It shows you how to apply the principles of spirituality, energy, and mindset to grow your business beyond your wildest dreams, all from the inside out. This is the Mind Your Business Podcast. What is up friends? I'm James Wedmore. And I'm Jennifer Wedmore. And this is the Mind Your Business Podcast. I was just thinking about this. I took my notes for this episode. I'm like, what's working best? 2026. I'm like, holy, cropoly, 10 years. 10 years I've been doing this podcast. 800 episodes. Is that what we're at now? Yeah, you know, I don't even keep track. I think this episode is 809 maybe? Yeah, over 800. Wow. I wanted to do this episode, and it's going to be a two-parter because everything I have so much to share, I have a lot we want to dive into. Grab your favorite coffee, mug, and beverage. Your favorite, bevy? Go for a walkie or a drivey. Do something and then lean back and enjoy. I'm going to talk about so many things. And I think this is important things to talk about. It's a sparked by many things. I first want to start with a story. But we're going to, well, let me give you the hook and the promise. I want to share with you a lot of what we've been doing the last three months, six months, whatever. And the fact that I'm tapped into so many different clients, it's so many different levels. Like what's working? And I want to bring that to you. Because number one, a lot has changed in the marketplace. Less than what you think, but there's the perception and experience that a lot has changed. There's a lot of paradigm shifting elements that we're going to talk about. Things are moving fast, but I really want to make a huge good news argument. It's a lot less than people think. But it has a lot of people in that fear and uncertainty. I think as an entrepreneur, you have to be more like me and just enjoy uncertainty and not get fed by fear. I had this quote come to me the other day. You might like it, Jenny, because it was an it was an in-tute. It was a download. I can't make him stop. Yeah, I know. Which is you can't be led by intuition if you're still driven by fear. It's just as simple as that. So you can't let your intuition guide you and drive the direction of your life. It leads you into the proper, a line path of your life if you're still driven by fear. So it's a choice right there. But what first inspired this episode was an experience we had a several weeks back now at this point, speaking at an event. When you speak at an event, it's really cool. You get on stage and you do your talks, your chitty chats. Then a lot of people want to talk to you afterwards. Often times when people want to talk to you, they have questions. I'm always paying attention to what people are asking and I'm always got the feelers out for like trends and observations and things that I notice. So I always love hearing from people in my audience, people in this industry, all of that. And you may have heard me say this at another point in this podcast. If you have a so it's back, but something so alarming and concerning, the questions that were people were asking and I'm not trying to be judgmental, but I just have to say it this way, were some of the worst questions I've ever heard in my entire 10 years of running this show. And what I mean by that is questions that seemed more like, I just have to be blunt for a moment. Like a lot of really ignorant questions, a lot of things that I'm like, wait, you don't know, how do you not know that? And I'm not trying to be judgmental or anything. I'm just like the contrast of the level of like lack of knowledge, lack of clarity. So questions that were invasive. Like a lack of foundational knowledge about email marketing or online business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was was like an apparent gap larger than I've ever seen. Now again, not trying to say that's bad. It is. I mean, it's concerning, but like I want to look into what's causing that. And I have a lot of my observations on that and seen that knowledge gap being bigger for especially a lot of the newer audience today more than ever before. And I want to share a lot of like, I want to give you guys some peace of mind. I want you to calm down the anxiety and the fears that you're having because there's a lot of noise and there's a lot of noise and it's a lot of fear. And you got to relate to the point where we were like, or courses dead and just relax because like that's the thing that gets me so excited. We have so many clients in every niche, in every market at every level and I see what they're doing and I see the results that they're getting. And I want to offer a lot of peace of mind. I want to offer a lot of what is working, a lot of what you should be paying attention to moving forward. Now a lot of businesses did struggle last year. Course did not and I have no problem saying that haters want to criticize or complain or say I'm unrelated. Well, I could give two shites about being relatable to anybody. I am weird and different. I'm not trying to relate to anybody but I'll share a fact that our business thrived last year and there's a lot of things that I've been teaching and preaching for years that I see most people don't follow. So there's a lot of things I'm going to bring in. That's why I wanted to do this two part episode because there's a lot of principle based stuff as well as a lot of like things that are changing that you need to pay attention to. But I really want everyone listening. If you're in the any type of online brand, online business space, hear me closely. It's a lot less is actually changing than people realize. And the best metaphor I can use here is like the ocean. So during a storm in the ocean, it's choppy at the top. The waves and the white water and the ups and downs and the tides and the current. But the deeper you go, the calmer it is. And what I've been teaching, whether it's inside business by design or on this podcast or anything for anyone who's followed me is stay out of the noise, stay out of the chop. And now it's just slop and go down to deeper principles and truths. And you realize that that stuff does not change. Yeah. And it hasn't. So what has changed is people change. So when people change like their opinions and perspectives, their moods, their feelings, then the messaging must change. But you also have to understand and Jenny, you let me know if this is making sense of that. When a new segment enters the marketplace, so a new tool arrives, a new topic. So like at one point in time, I've been doing this for so long and I can give an example that at one point in time, no one was doing video on the internet. I was teaching or like in the space before I wasn't teaching business back then I was teaching bartending back then. And then this thing called video came about all of a sudden people like myself were video experts. And this was this new tool. And then by like, I don't know, 2010 or something, 2009, the iPhone had been out for about two years. And if you remember the first generation or two of the iPhone didn't have cameras, right? Or didn't have a video camera or something like that. You couldn't you take photos but a video. And then all of a sudden you could. Yeah. So now there was a new topic, which was like how to make videos from your iPhone. So we've always had these examples of things of like a new technology emerge. And then all of a sudden there's someone who's teaching and talking about it. That will always happen. Now as AI has come out, that's what's happened to is it's a new topic, a new tool, a new experts, new noise, and new voices. And it is something that can be so widely applicable in so many different ways. It is also advancing a lot faster than iPhone video cameras did. You know, so it's accelerating really fast. And there's also a lot of hype around it. In fact, we did a survey from our audience last year. And I asked people a year ago, like almost to the day, like March last year, 2025, what percentage of you are using AI in your business? People were writing 100%. Now I threw out all the 100%. I think it's that can't be possible. Because that's not possible. Right. You're just that's a distortion. I get you think that but that's not true. So I'm not accusing anyone of lying. But it's like we're not at a place where it's 100%. Right. Okay. People were saying 80. I'm like, I'll leave 80 in there. Sure. And the average across the board was 44%. Okay. Now, I also snuck in a little question there about how much money you're making. And I will say that the correlation between an increase use in AI and income, the more you use AI, the more money they're making. Oh, I'm kidding. Opposite. What's opposite? People that had the smallest businesses making the least amount of money were using AI the most. Yeah. Now, I don't know what's correlation versus causation. I'm not there to give the conclusion. I'm there. I guess. Well, we can guess. You know, we could also, there's another perspective you could say like people that are already making money are just slower to adopt to change and you're like, yeah, fair enough. But the facts still remain that the people using AI the most were making the least. That's just a fact. So you want to also be careful about a little too much hypey. You know, you see all these promises and hooks on Instagram about the prompts, like the God prompts. Some of this stuff that's just like so ridiculous. Here's the God prompts. You're like, this is the cheat code to live prompts. Like you're a 10 figure business coach. Tell me what to do every day to get my business to 10 figures and it's like, okay. So that's called a God prompt. So these are just these names. People call it. That's pretty funny. But that was a year ago. So where are those 10 figure entrepreneurs now? You know what I mean? So it's like, do you think that the AI use is causing a false sense of competence? You got it. Like, people think it's making their copy better. It's making their content better. And it's telling them it is, but actually it's not. Yes. And so the writing on the wall is that I'm seeing people who are struggling more, asking more questions like less of a foundation. So they think they're learning. Okay. Or they think they don't need to learn any more something there, right? And then the results are less and the producing less. But they are maybe producing more. And so there is that like almost like a hubris or a bravado or the illusion that there's more progress than there is. And that we have to be really, really careful with. But we're going to get into all that and more. But the point I'm making first is that a whole new segment got created within our own industry that just drops things, quote unquote, I'm putting that, but not to the degree in which I think people are predicting. Because if you also pay attention, I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner. I've just been patiently waiting for it to be honest with you, but it's happening now. And I'm seeing the amount of pushback that is happening. And it's like, it's about time. I saw something today where some New York Times article and this woman was getting a lot of pushback because apparently she's calling herself an author and I don't know what her role is, but that they've published 200 books in the last like six months or something. They're all complete AI. Oh, no. AI books. And they're like, people don't really care as long as you don't tell them that it's not AI. Don't say anything. They won't even know. They won't notice. Yeah. I went to the hardware store because Ace is the place. Did you know that? Yeah. Yeah. Of course it is. And I'm working on my little Star Wars room. So I always go there and boy, I made a mistake. I go to the paint lady because it's trying to figure out. I was watching a tutorial video and I was trying to figure out what the shade of paint was and the door opening and the guy didn't mention it. So I was like, what if I screenshot it and give it to AI and give it to chat you can say what and it told me it gave me a number. And so I just went to the paint lady. And I was like, I was like, do you have a paint around this? And I'm like, chat you be detail and she's like, don't say that word around. Oh my goodness. She got so mad at me that she almost chased me out of the store. And I was like, no, I'm on the same page. Like I get it. Like totally. Like I'm just saying it analyzed an image and is trying to give me a hex code or something. And she's like, no, you don't get it. I'm like, okay. And then when I see like comments and stuff on Instagram, there's so many people upset about, you know, like I don't want your, you know, your AI slop and everything. And a lot of marketers or brands that are like, this is so great. It can just write my emails. Yeah. You're like, but did you ever stop and think for a moment? Is this what people actually want? Mm hmm. Did they want that? And so the pushback is happening. I said this in my, I think November or December episode, I said, you're going to start to see it in 2026. And I think it's going to get bigger and bigger. And what I'm about to say is people are not paying attention like they should or not seen things correctly. I am seen a massive opportunity that most people are not seen. And basically people are like, oh no, let's move towards AI and that's taking things away and it's like, it's going to be the opposite. And the person that, and we'll talk, we'll get into the specifics of this, but I think the person that doubles down with true authentic, real uniqueness, the opposite of artificial will be in short supply and demand. Yeah. And we're seeing that. And in all, in all the ways. So what I've been saying and what I said in that last episode toward the end of the year, which is a great accompaniment to this, is we need to understand that we are in the transformation business. You listening, you are here to solve problems and period. That's what we do. That's what I set out to do when I started this podcast. I built this business and I was like, I can help people do it. So when you're here to solve problems, you need to understand that how you solve those may change, but your role doesn't. And something like AI is much more in the information business. So it's here to just produce and connect dots on a bunch of information and assimilate and an average algorithmic approach to a bunch of different data that it's sorting, sifting, and making certain layers of thinking conclusions to it. Yeah. But not necessarily actually solving problems. By the way, I think I shared this guy. I forget his name. Oh, the one that says like, timey, I'm an Arunemile. It's so good. And then AI can't do it. It's so entertaining. No, it's not that it can't do it. It says it's 10 minutes and he was like three seconds long. Yeah, he has so many hilarious. You were 10 minutes. I love that he interrupts it all the time. He's like, no, shut up. I know. And then Sam Altman saw the video. I saw it at once. And like totally like, gas loaded the dude. And it was like, oh yeah, we're just working on that. And then he brought that video back. I saw that. Oh my gosh. That was really funny. Oh, good. But you got to like read the comments on how people are responding and feeling about that. And I just think that's, you know, it's really fascinating. So what we're talking here about is that, and like first who I'm talking to are personal brands that have a goal of like really building a sustainable long term healthy business, whether that's multi six or multi seven figures. Doesn't matter. It's like whatever your goals are, you know, more is in better, more is just different. But the first place I want you guys to start with is we need to stop seeing your business and I have been saying this for a long time and I just have to be really much more strong about it today as I'm just selling a course or gatekeeping some kind of how to content. I think that's the problem. And I think those people should be nervous. But understand that what you're actually building is a personal brand. And when you really get that and what that means, that changes the game. That means so much. I mean, we can make it very, very simple for today's purposes, but the focus should be to build something where you have a reputation and a relationship with a group of and a growing group of people. And that's the first thing that we do. And how that business can be monetized through irresistible offers, which we'll get into and how that is actually the thing we should look at changing the most. By the way, we are moving as we move into quarter two out of Q one and Q two. I want you to go ahead and save the date on your calendar for June 11th because we have signed very exciting and it's mostly exciting because it's very new. We have a entirely new, powerful, free live training workshop coming up this June 11th called the business breakthrough experience. I'm really, really excited about this because what I end up doing with a lot of my clients at all the different levels, whether it's at events or in our coaching calls is it's really what started this business was this whole idea of a breakthrough. And to understand that if business growth happens in phases that there is a level that you're at in front of you is your next battle, your next block or your next problem. What I've been able to be blessed and experience in my life are these catalytic shifts, these paradigm shifts in how I've viewed myself, viewed business and viewed the world around me and how that's caused quantum leaps and growth. And what we've really done is found a formulaic way to bring that to other people. This is a free experience. This is designed to do just that help you experience a breakthrough in your business that facilitates a quantum leap in results. When I went from 300 K, it was like 280 to over 1.2 million a one year, boom, quantum leap, 2 million to 10, boom. And then 10 to 12 in one year, boom, these are quantum leaps I've had and they don't happen by just pushing more, working harder and working longer. This is a powerful experiential process that does an entire deep dive audit and it's uncomfortable. It's going to force you to look at things you don't want to look at. It's going to cause you to audit, debrief, review, analyze and see the missing pieces of your business that people aren't showing you on Instagram in 30 second highlight reals. It's just be honest. And I think my vision for this training is it should be absolutely necessary. A prerequisite for every single person that wants to run a business at any level. So whether you're just starting out, want to get started or you've been doing this for some time, you're going to get a breakthrough at least one at this event. It's absolutely free. just head on over to businessbydesign.net, get on the wait list, you'll get all the details about this event. It's coming up. June will be here before you know it, so that's June 11th, okay? Plus, this week, this Wednesday to be exact, and I think we're going to do this every week, is that correct? There's one a week. We are varying the times and the days of the week, so. We're going to do a weekly Zoom coaching session. So basically, I pick a topic, I pick some exercises and prompts, have you guys do some self coaching, and then we coach some people live on Zoom. If you want to participate that on any level, even like come on live and get some coaching with me, just head on over to jameswebmore.com/breakthrough and register there. We're doing one, is it every Wednesday? They're varying times. They're varying days of the week. Okay, this one's on Wednesday. Yes, but when you are registered, you can see all of the different times that are available and there's going to be I think eight different opportunities to get coached by you. Love it. Well, this is the first time I'm doing this. This is the first one I'm doing. I hope you guys will join me. It'll be really fun. So we're going to start with that foundation of looking at the main target of what you're building as a personal brand business. And that hopefully for some of you will start to expand the vision and the horizon of what you're doing. I'm not here just trying to sell a course. And we're going to talk about that a little bit, but I want to go into some things. What's working, looking back in our quarter one, our clients quarter one, what is working for them and what you guys should have on the radar moving forward for yourself. So I want to continue this conversation a little bit, the AI conversation, what it's done. The first thing is for years now, I've been saying that content is running the risk of becoming a commodity. And what I mean by commodity is as simple as gold as a commodity. And so the metaphor I gave, I think last time on the podcast was if two people were selling gold, you wouldn't really know which person to buy it from other than price because the gold is the same here as it is there is at the same level of purity. Is it the same size is it the same cost per ounce? The spot price? Great. So the only thing that would have you choose one gold dealer over another is who has a cheaper premium. And when you have something that's a commodity, then you choose what's cheaper. And that's the problem. And that's what people aren't getting is that this has actually been happening before AI. This is actually the advent of a ever-decreasing barrier of entry. The more people that do something and the easier gets the harder it becomes if you're trying to sell something that everyone else is selling. Just to give another example, if you go to the farmers market and you go, I want to sell bananas. And then you get to the farmers market and there's 12 other people selling bananas. It's a lot harder to sell bananas. Right. Or I'm thinking of there's one time I went to my favorite bookstore and I couldn't believe that the book I wanted was priced at $35 and in the bookstore I logged on to Amazon. It was priced at 15. And it's like same exact products and you're going to then go with the cheaper because there's no barrier of like how do I get this anymore? In that example, the only difference other than price was I can have it now or in two days. Yes. Right. But that's the closest example is like it's the same product. Yeah. So if I created a unique banana that was grafted with strawberries, it was like, okay, all right, you're just invented something now. It's a banana with strawberries in it already. Well now I'm separating from the other banana stands. That's where the money is. You're in my friend if you got that reference. If you didn't get dead to me, but that's the example. So people are just trying to do what everyone else does. And then to make matters worse, they don't want to learn marketing. They want to like, I'll just have chat GPT do all my marketing. It's like, you're toast. Here's what I want you to write down. And this is what came to me this week too, is that you need to start seeing things clearly. What chat GPT or AI has actually doing is causing a higher demand for better marketing. If you're taking one thing away from them and people are not doing this, they're doing the opposite. And that's why people are struggling. So when more content comes out from more people that is more average flooding the marketplace, then what it is doing, it is demanding better marketing. And marketing is just great messaging. So it's demanding better, but you keep going, but it's so much easier if I just have my chat GPT do it. I understand it's easier. I totally get you. You are not wrong. You know what is hard though. Sh*t that don't work. Sales that don't come in. That's hard. So it's people just haven't connected that dot yet. It's demanding that you be better because when you're better than it, it's clear. It's apparent. How many of you here think listening to me that this is AI out of single person? How many of you think that this is just me going, hey, chat GPT, tell me what to say on my podcast. Nobody. And you're listening. Okay. But there are stats to back this up. Check this out. Some stat that just came out at the end of last year was a 250,000 user study by a company named Deloitte suggests 41% of Americans are actively trying to cut screen time right now. Consumer enthusiasm for AI content, by the way, has crashed from 60% down to 26%. People are over it already. And now there's, it's like, it's not just distrust. Like people like, oh, it's like a, it's like the trust economy. It's like, no, it's disdain. People are like angry. Like that woman almost chased me out of the store. With their little paints, she was like, get that word out of your mouth. I'm like, okay, sorry. I mean, like, I agree with you. Just like, you don't agree with me because you wouldn't have even brought it up. I was like, oh, okay. Oh, Ace, I thought was the place. Pushed a button. Yes, I surely did. And you're seeing this in other ways. Like just like on Instagram, like people are talking about how like reels are down. It's like, yeah, because people are flooding the marketplace or flooding the feed with a bunch of content, you know, and when things get easier, you got to look at it like that. Then things get harder. So your invitation first is to be like, I just need to be better. Yes, that's it. It's going to be so easy because everyone else, I'm sorry, I'm just going to be a jerk from it. Let me be a jerk for a moment. Okay. Everyone else is going to be an idiot. Everyone else is being an idiot. They're like, oh my god, it's so much easier now. I'll just, hey, I had and everything is average intelligence. Everything is general. Everything sounds the same. And then you're going to be this smart genius over here going, I'm going to spend a little bit more time and effort. I'm going to make it better. I'm just going to make it better. It's going to be easier to make things better because everyone else is distracted by what is easiest. I've just never had that in my DNA. It reminds me of that quote. The shortcut is always the longest route. Yes. It's that is so true. And people are like gravitated to it. Let me just do the easy, that you should be afraid of what is the easiest thing because that's where the masses go. Yeah. It's an illusion. And the Emma silent. It's a trap. So people are going to continue to become more intentional with their attention. And they will go to places actively to seek out what they want. So you have to understand the nature of content that sites like short form video, TikToks and Instagrams are distractionary. You open up an app and say entertain me, distract me, numb my mind. But then you go to like a podcast, you go to YouTube. And we're going to talk more about this in a moment. And it's not that way. I don't go to YouTube to go distract me. I've never opened up YouTube to say, let's just say what's at the top? It just doom's crawl. I can't even know. I go, man, my 3D printer isn't printing right. I need a better settings for my printer. Where do I go? YouTube. Hey, what are the top five printer settings? Or hey, what shade of paint is this? Or how do I do this tutorial? Or how do I? How do I? How do I? It's active. It's intentional. And I think we're going to see a massive resurgence of long form content. But the quality of user is going to be there. The quality of a student is going to be there. And that's something I want you guys all paying attention to because I'm not going to follow. Like I could get distracted by some numbed out AI 30 second slop crop. But you're not going to go watch some 20 minute tutorial video that's just like that low quality. Either you're going to talk to the person that's the personal brand that's walking you through the steps, giving the value and the process. So things to think about. But so much here. Okay. Bottom line. If there's one takeaway from this, make your competitive advantage that I will do the hard things that the average person will not do. And I will not use AI to replace you, you me, whoever's listening as the authority in the personal brand. The opportunity "Tunity here is massive. "Do the hard things. "This is where the power of the personal brand "is gonna be elevated even more. "People wanna connect with other people, "authentically real humans, "and it's gonna feel more and more like "people are frustrated and turned off. "This person doesn't care about me to take the time "to think about what they wanna say "or how it's gonna impact me. "They're just said, "Here, you write it, chat GPT. "And that's where people are really upset. "You see it and you feel it in the air. "It feels like a slap in the face "that people didn't know was coming." It's like you didn't take the time, and I was reading this article about, it was this response to this article, about how they pumped out 200 bucks in like several months, just a couple of months, all 100% AI, and this woman was a writer and she was responding to it, and she's like, "When I write, "every line I write, "I think about how will this impact my reader?" It's like, "Aye, I doesn't do that. "How will my reader receive this and feel about this "when I say this way versus that way?" And I'm like, "Yeah, that's beautiful. "That's our human spark of consciousness "and our connection and how we wanna make each other feel." And that's really beautiful. I mean, at this point, we might even wanna go as far, I was thinking about doing this, is like you should go as far as letting people know in your content that this is not generated by AI at all. I was thinking about adding either a footer or a header to say like none of this was written by AI. Just like let people know. 'Cause when I do say it, or when people know it, they're thanking me. They're thanking me for that. Like no one's, thank you for just having chat you be to write this for you. Thank you. No one's thanking you for that. But most importantly, guys, I see huge opportunities. The pendulum will swing. We are in very interesting times on the planet and you have to look at that. You have to be able to like connect all the dots. This is a time of massive awakening on the planet. And that means it's gonna be very challenging times. So there's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of nastiness and that puts people into a lot of fear and uncertainty. And then you bring in new paradigm shifting tools and it amplifies that uncertainty. And what you need to be is that rock that's stable lighthouse. You need to be that for your people. And I think that's more important than it ever has been. And what you'll see is like what I see, what I have been seeing a calling of the fold and a shaking of the tree, that people that just want quick and easy whiz-bang cash money are gonna fall away and continue to struggle. And you'll see it. You'll see the people that are admitting that they're struggling. That's them also admitting they were in for the wrong reasons. That the moment something was just not as easy as it once was for that. Like why does everything have, like can we just ask everything? Why does everything have to be easy? Like everything I'm doing that has been a tremendous fulfilling joy in my life has been some of the hardest things I've ever done. I was asked by Noah Kagan. He was, I think he was like number three at Facebook and he interviewed me for his podcast years ago. And he, what was the question? He was like, what is the thing you were, this is years ago, this is like 2019. And he said, what are you most proud of in your business? And I didn't even hesitate. I said, that's easy. The team I built. And he said, why? And he said, because building that team was the hardest thing I've ever done. And he said, isn't that interesting that the things that are the hardest for us to accomplish are the things that we're most proud of? Of course. Yeah. I can't help guys but use what I'm going through in my life because that's just my nature of my experiences in life as lessons and metaphors. And the Star Wars room build is pushing me every day. (laughs) It pushes my patience. It pushes my skills, my comfort zone. Like, I make mistakes and then I have to go redo it. I'm doing it all by myself. So it's like, I don't even know. I've like, sometimes I bug Jenny and I'm like, can you hold this for me? But-- I built it gribly. You built some grieblies. People like, what is it gribly? They don't even know. Those who, listening who do know, you're our people. You are our best friends. That's my word of the year is gribly. My birth, I want to have a birthday party this year and I want it to be a griebly party. Yes, I will start making arrangements here. And, have we talked about grieblies all on the podcast before? I do. Maybe somewhere we talk about it. Definitely we talk about it on Instagram. Yeah. But grieblies was a term coined by industrial light magic, George Lucas's company that he started in wonder to do the effects and stuff like that for Star Wars. And it's all the little background stuff. It's the best word for it. It's little gadgets. Yes, it's like-- And gives me the-- It's the raw-- And starts to start to start to start to start to universe. Yeah, so don't worry guys, I haven't lost my train of thought in case, just in case you have. But as I work on those projects down there, it takes me to my limits at times. And it's like, I have to sit there and be like, how am I going to-- I don't know how to do this. I've never done anything like this. How do I do it? So research videos and trial and error and test fit things. I'm like, let me make it three times. And then I do it. And I'm like, and it turns out great. And I'm proud of it. And then I'm like, I was so worth it. And I feel so accomplished. Yeah. And the joy in that. And I'm like, why can't we have that in our business? What's wrong with it? People then categorize that as wrong. Well, yeah. And I think there's a pervasive lie that staying comfortable is the secret to happiness. And that's couldn't be further from the truth. Everything that you want is outside of the limitations of what is known and familiar. Yeah. That your growth and expansion and tapping into more of who you are and what you're capable of and pushing past those limits. That's life. And that's what you sign up when you said you want to be an entrepreneur. And that's the thing is, so why do we have an expectation has to be instant and easy? And I think that's the thing that people need to get in what I was saying before is like, the more something is instant and easy, the more you should be really nervous because that's when everyone's going to do it. And most of the times it is too good to be true anyways. So I'm not too worried about that. But anyways, I see huge, huge opportunities. The pendulum will swing because, like I said, AI is just in the information business and not the transformation in connection business. And people are going to feel more star for that and you need that even more. And that really excites me. We're seeing that already, which is really interesting. So I kind of gave a little hint to this, but this takes me to my next piece, which is like, I would really consider if you're not already that you're doing something intentional with long form or search driven content. I'm going to kind of say those as one and the same. But if the studies and the sentiment in the air is like people are over the like the short form distraction content. I'm just like AI slop rage bait, just stuff, just inundating their feet all day. And a lot of it is like, just hear me out, guys. I know a lot of people won't agree with me. I get it. I'm what Alex, when he typed me and talked about my tab, he says, "James, the problem is he goes to you're a true teller because of the problem is a lot of the truths you have to tell people aren't ready to hear." And so people want to disagree with me a lot. They think I'm coming across as a contrarian. I'm just trying to disagree with them. And I'm just like, no, there's just things I see because when you've been doing this for 20 years, your pattern recognition abilities pick up really fast. Look at the very nature of what everyone tells you to do on social media. Focus on the hook. So the focus on the hook is just, is like, have a huge, great, amazing promise and don't worry about what comes next. And so that's as you have a lot of. You have a lot of people that have been like, wow, this person made this big, bold promise and couldn't deliver. And everywhere I go, I just keep hearing the promise and know it falls flat. There's no meat. There's no nothing to sink my teeth into. There's nothing to follow through on it. And they just constantly deflate it. And then, oh wait, here's another promise. Oh wait, another promise. That's not to say the hook is an important, it is. Chef dev something to bag it up. But no, I'm not saying that at all. Exactly. I'm saying when everyone says, it's all about the hook, it's all about the hook. People just go, oh, I'll just have a great hook. Doesn't even matter if I have anything worthwhile to say or anything of value, as long as I have a good hook. It's like saying the shoes make the outfit. You still got to get dressed. Yeah, you hang on around on your birthday suit. So pay attention to that next. When you see someone with really great hooks and just watch what, pay attention to what comes next, you're still hooked by the hook that you don't even notice that they're just fluffing you to death. You know what my favorite hook is at the moment? What's your favorite hook? People go on the thing of like a specific example, but it's like, okay, this is for all the girly so if you're not a girl, then just move along, scroll, scroll, scroll. Okay, I think call them in left. Okay, so here's what we're going to tell you. Ladies and head like I said, I love that. Of course, all the guys stay regardless. No, it's so funny when you see those strikes, I think those are really clever. So intentional content, search-driven content. The type of content where someone would actively go look for it. Podcast, YouTube, any type of like community type thing, like you're creating your own community. And of course, and I'm going to throw this in here 'cause I've been doing this for a year and I love it. Newsletter, email newsletter. I've loved doing our newsletter. I'm a big fan of newsletters. We can talk more about that coming up, but you should be subscribed to our newsletter because I just love to write, like whatever's on my mind, every single week. - That's really good every week too. - Thank you sweetheart. I really appreciate that. Now you should still be on short form. Don't get me wrong. But I believe your brand should be built on the long form for most businesses. And then you just use short form to promote that. - Can I ask you a question about that? - Yeah. - Okay. When people are beginning to create long form content, I have noticed that I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs shy away from doing long form because they don't understand how to distinguish not giving away too much in long form content. And so they go, "Why would love to do YouTube videos or a newsletter, but how do I make sure that I'm not giving away too much and that's not taking people out of my program?" And I know that you have like a really good filter for distinguishing and for you it's black and white and simple. But I wonder if that actually deters people, they're intimidated by long form because they're not able to distinguish this is in my course and this is gated versus providing value on a regular basis in the long form. - Yeah. Well, so the good news is in part two of this, we're gonna dive into the most successful ingredients and types of irresistible offers moving forward in 2026 and I'm gonna bring this up. But it actually connects back to what I was saying earlier, which is if you're thinking about your business, like I just gate-keep content, you will struggle. I can guarantee you that. If you're like, "I just have a bunch of how-to videos and there's a price tag for that." And I can't give any of that away for free, so I can't build an audience, so I can't create any type of content on the internet. You just gotta pay me for that. You're gonna struggle. That's how a lot of people do think about their business. I've never thought, I don't think I almost say never, but at least not this business in the last 10 years. I've never thought of it that way. - No, I don't think you think of it because whenever someone asks a question like that, your head cucks to the side and you go, "What do you mean?" You're like, "What does not compute?" - Yeah. So if you are thinking about your business and your offers wrong, you're in trouble with that. So we're gonna talk about that, and I think we get to that in part two because it's a really good conversation about how you should approach your offers and you should be clear on your offer first before anything. Okay, so there's probably other reasons why they're resistant to do long-form. Here's the reality. Longer-form content takes longer to build an audience. That's the appeal to short-form. But like I said, be wary of what's quick and easy. - Yeah, because it might not be converting to sales. - Yeah. - I mean, well, when you are, okay, so you go, "Wow, I got. " Here's the example. It's not impressive, but it sounds impressive. This Star Wars movie theater account, make sure to follow, I had Star Wars movie theater. (laughing) I got to over 16,000 followers in 45 days. One video, 2.2 million views. The account was viewed at one point, was viewed five million times in a 30, like 5.1 million times in a 30-day process. That's amazing. - Yeah. - That's incredible. Okay. And those numbers look super impressive. I would take a fraction of those eyeballs or attention or consciousness awareness in a podcast or YouTube channel any day. Any day. I would take a tenth of that any day because it's higher value. - Right. - Because here's the thing. First of all, they count of you, even if you just scroll through it. It's a view. It's like, it's what is a view today. Second of all, the question you got to really add, these are the things that people don't think about. I think about all the time. If someone who watched one of those videos, how many other videos did they watch in the same watch period? - Right. - And now here's where it gets really messed up. Like this really messes the brain. We could make a video right now and put it on Instagram and say, "Tell me what video you watched two videos ago." And I bet you can't tell me. So what's a view? What's it really worth? But then you have someone that goes, "I was walking the dog. I was doing the dishes. I was cleaning my office. I was on the road trip and I listened to three of your episodes back to back. I'll take one of those. Over 10,000 views." - Yeah. - We should not be approaching this as a quantity or vanity metrics over quality. And so that's the thing to be really thinking about. Is the frame or context cognitive lens at which someone is consuming your stuff is everything? Am I consuming it because my brain needs to be on brain rot or whatever these kids call it. They're like a doom scroll. And I just need a distraction right now or because I actually want to be in a student learning mode. - Right. - And the frame in which someone experiences your stuff matters and people just don't understand the psychology there. The frame in which they are experiencing your stuff matters. Now again, don't misconstrue what I'm saying. People have built wonderful businesses from Instagram and TikTok alike. That's wonderful. That's great. I just firmly believe that you should have a longer form, consumed platform to really build a long lasting powerful brand. And that's that. And it takes longer. It does take longer than 45 days to 16,000 followers. But that doesn't mean that's a bad thing. I think what we have to understand is we have paid an organic. Payed as you pay with your money. Organic as you pay with your time. And everyone wants things fast and now. But fast and now does not mean better. - Right. - Slow. Like, - Our relationship took 20 years. - Well, that was, I was about to use a metaphor with dating and relationships. It's like, it's not better to marry a stranger you met last night than it would be to be like, I've been with this person for two years, three years, and I know everything about him. I can't even imagine life without them now because I've gotten to know them. We've had so many shared experiences. So that's what your brand is. It's building relationships with people. And that takes time. - And patience. - Right. When you say it takes time, it would require, OK, so I need to be patient. - Yeah, it's sad when I see people not give themselves time in patience. Internalize that as no one wants what I have to offer, what I'm doing is invaluable. It's never going to work. And it's like, no, it just takes time in patience. - It takes time in patience and you have to go through the, it's a right of passage. It's a gauntlet. - Yeah. - And you have to survive the gauntlet. And some people get lucky. OK, great. You get lucky because you hate one. But you don't want to get lucky. OK, because the problem with, in this context, when we mean get lucky, it means you didn't know what you did right to do it right. - Which means you can't replicate it. - Bingo. You want to do it the long and slow way. I know this isn't sexy, but let me tell you, you know what's sexy? Growing your business every single year, by doing less and less every single year, it gets easier as you grow. And you're doing the same thing for the next 10 to 15 years. - Right. - And it continues that sexy. - Right. - There's a concept of the higher the rise, the faster they follow, whatever. It's the faster you rise, the faster you can fall. Because if you rise too fast, too quickly, are you built on a solid foundation? - Yeah, that reminds me of we're beginning the weekly Wednesday wins, again, this Wednesday. So, and the first four episodes coming out are monetized before you make it. - Oh, yeah. - Episodes. And what's so neat about each of the examples is they followed your beta launch process, exactly. Like all four of these people were like, I went through every step, I didn't skip anything. And they were very satisfied and excited by filling a beta, which for some of them, it was like eight people. Like that's, you know, like the offer sold. - That's interesting. - And there's eight. - Zero to eight. - Yes. But it wasn't. - In 30 days. - Oh, wow, I only sold eight. It was, I successfully validated this offer. Now, I have something. And then they maintained momentum and they went and got another process inside of business by design. They went into launch alignment. And now all four of them are in a completely different space now with their businesses because of that intentional, build it slowly, follow the process, trust the process, analyze your metrics, know what numbers to look at. That's the other thing is people look at the wrong number and they don't know how to analyze that number. And so they either have a false sense of success or a false sense of failure. There's a lot of, I thought it failed, but they're not looking at the right number. Like just recently, I was having a conversation with someone that said they were talking about wanting more people in the webinar. And why would you follow the process of only emailing the people? - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah. And it was like, because you want to know how the webinar converts. And if you want more people in the webinar, we got to work on leads and, you know, first 100 leads and acquisition and audience building and the funnel that brings them into the launch mechanism. The answer isn't just email more people. It's bring more people in intentionally through the sales process. And there's a process for that. There's a reason why it works. Yeah. So I think in the next coming week and those episodes, I think these ones that we're doing on the Monday will pair so well with the Wednesdays because you'll be able to hear what you're saying is working. And then you get to listen. into a real-time case study of someone who's implemented and listened to what they've done. - Yeah, so good. So the last thing I wanna say here with like focusing back on long form or search driven or intentional content and building a platform there, this is kinda obvious like how important and essential it'll be to bring you out to be more authentic and your uniqueness, your story, your energy. We make a huge emphasis inside our programs and we teach on this and we help our clients with this and multiple levels and stuff like this. But some of you guys aren't ready or in a place to hear how there is no room and no luxury for you wearing any masks whatsoever in your brand and how you show up in any way. If you are hiding, if you're trying to be someone else other than you, your toast, your dead in the water today. And that uniqueness and that authentic essence must must come through. Okay, so I wanna talk about two other things today and then we'll dive into part two for next week. So here's the other thing I've noticed and I see this as an opportunity as well as like, well, I'm just noticing trends and patterns. This kinda comes back to that story I was started with in this episode of the kinda questions people were asking. What it's led me to see as an observation and conclusion is that a lot of people have stopped learning and that's why I said like people are more lost and confused on like basic things. That is concerning, but you need to see the opportunities in that, okay? 'Cause like where I see is people think like with AI, they don't need to learn anything anymore or worse, they don't need to develop skills. It's like the blind leading the blind. They've started to atrophy and create like a dependence on AI and like you were saying before, it kinda gives us a illusion that you're making progress. They get this, maybe I'm getting what I need, but it's not working, but this is a gap. So number one, when you see this, just get really, really good. Like that's the opportunity to see for people get amazing at all the things that people are unwilling to get good at. And I'm always gonna come back to sales, messaging, copy. Like those are the first things that like if you're an astray-ab-gbt, what should I just outsource to you? It's like, I'll write your emails, I'll do your sales, it's like, get amazing at that. Understand words, direct response, influence, copy, persuasion, human psychology. Oh great, I don't need to because it'll do it now. And that's what everyone else is doing. And then you go make it punchier and it gives you another version, it's like, it must be good. I told it to make it punchier. - Make it better. It must have done it. - So, well, I told it make it better. So I must have a better version. It's like, wait, are you actually thinking that people? Come on you guys, but anyways, that's gonna be the gap. That's gonna be the gap, you can be like everyone else. It's like, I'm just gonna settle for whatever AI gives me or you can be better. If you are, that's what I'm trying to say here. If you are better than AI, you won't be quicker than it. Okay, don't get me wrong. I've thrown in like 20 page documents, I'm like, what do you think of this? And it's already responding and I was like, how did you read this that fast, right? Like I click submit and it's already reading it? That's so fast. You won't ever be faster. But when you are better, that means you're better than everybody else. - Right. That's what the market is demanding right now. I know that's tough. There's just no luxury for it. You do not have room for average, let alone bad. - I'll tell you what is proof that AI does not write well, a lot. I've put a document in or I've dictated something. You're just said like, give me an email. And then when I respond, this is terrible. And it goes, you're right Jennifer. It is not very good. And I love that you've pointed that out to me. Would you like me to try again? - Yes, yes, yes. Just try that sometime. This is horrible. But here's the thing. You'll also have people say, oh no, AI is beating my stuff. It's like, if either one of those, you're missing the point. The point is, is if you don't have the skills, you don't know what's good or bad. - Right, exactly. - Because you can't see it. - You can guide it. And then it's gonna give you something to be like, I don't know, is that good? I don't know. But when you be like that right there, I'll take that. Then you're back in the driver's seat. Anyways, okay. So that's the first opportunity there. When you see people of like stop learning is like get better at the things that everyone else is not doing. Do the hard things. That's my big message for you guys. I know you wanted to just be like, oh it's easy, go drink batteries on the beach and have AI build your million dollar business. Okay, but then the other thing is, and we'll talk more about this in part two, is a massive opportunity to improve the way in which your students get results. And this is gonna be, this is gonna be the most exciting development for people that are willing to like, open their mind a bit and change the way they approach their business. But the last thing I wanna say today, is with any like thing in people believing, okay, let's just say it this way. If anyone is telling you certain strategies are dead, you need to run away from that person fast. Because here's, I've been doing this now for 20 years. The strategies are not suddenly all dead. They all work. I have more data and proof on that than you would ever need in order to satiate that doubt within yourself. They all work. Okay, but people say, oh no, it's no longer working now and I'll tell you why that's happening. It's happening for two reasons. When I share the two reasons, you're gonna have this like huge earth shattering, the glass shatter moment from like, how I met your mother where it was like, oh my God, I've broke the seal and now I can never see that person anyway. The Kowashikup in visual suspects. Yes. Exactly. So the first reason why you hear that sentiment and it like lingers in the air is because people have egos. And egos don't let people be wrong. So they can't internalize or go within to see why something isn't working anymore. For them. For themselves. So they externalize the blame. So markets change. This is happening. A market is changing. And if you don't change your messaging, which goes back to my previous case, but you better be damn good at messaging because if the market changes, the message's gotta change too. Yeah. And you don't change the message, things stop working. And you go, I was doing a webinar and now my webinars aren't selling. Webinars must be the problem. No, you are the problem because the market has changed. You didn't change the message. Yes. You didn't change the message or the offer and you blame something external. Webinars are never the thing. The webinar is like a canvas. And if we go and decide we're gonna, this is a perfect metaphor. And we decide to be artists. And we create a bunch of art and no one likes the art. You don't blame the canvas as why no one liked the art. The canvas just held the art. And I knew canvas was wrong. It was your art. It was what you decided to put on the canvas that's the problem. But people go around and they blame the canvas. The webinar is just a container that holds the art. That's all it ever is or was. It's the medium for the message. No one cares about that. It plays such a small role in everything. Oh, I need it to be interactive and holograms. And I need you to have a smello vision factor to it where you pump fumes through the computer before I buy. Smello vision. Smello vision. Yeah. Okay. Interactive new technology, right? That plays such a small role in everything. So that's the first thing is people don't look within and say, wow, maybe my message needs to change. Maybe I don't know my audience as well as I thought I did. Or maybe my audience's perspective or needs has shifted. And I didn't shift with it. Right. I couldn't possibly be it. It's this external thing. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is that marketers need to sell you on the one thing. So in order to sell you on the one thing, you need to say everything else is dead. So you have those two together. Yeah. And it creates a nasty, wafty, smelly thing in the air that says everything is dead. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, and then you buy into the fear. So stop doing that. Stop doing that. Then 90%, 95% of the factor of the success of your business. It's going to come down to the offer you sell and the quality of messaging that you provide. Yeah. That's it. That's been the game forever. Period. Now, there's always wonderful new tactics and ways that we can deliver the message and stuff like that, but that will never change. Yeah. How you communicate the messaging the offer will need to change because those two variables are the most important things. Yeah. And people just don't see that. So please stop chasing new strategies. Like I'm just, if there's one thing you take away, there should be more from this episode. If you take that one thing away, you are going to hurt yourself so much more if you're just trying 100 different strategies every week to sell your stuff. And like one example is like, now people are saying, like, oh, only micro offer sell. So I have to sell something for like $17. Like, no, you don't. You can. If you want to do it that way, you totally can. But we have to understand the nature of the medium you're planning. If you're on Instagram, like I just laid out. So hopefully this just makes things make sense for people where everyone has the attention span of a net. And there's 1,000 other people with 1,000 other messages. And then if you engaged with one of them, or your audience engaged with one of them, the algorithm goes, give them more of that. So you just more noise that the only way that you're going to get someone to take the next step is if you do it quick and you can't. sell a thousand dollar product in a 10 second message. But you can sell something for like 27 bucks, maybe. - Right. - You know what I mean? So the medium must match the message and the offer, of course. But it doesn't mean those strategies are dead. - Right. - 'Cause we have clients at every level and every niche that are using every single one of them. - Right. - So if you keep getting pulled by that, then you're like that bag in the wind in American beauty. - Classic. - You just pulled by whatever someone who looks confident has a great hook on Instagram says to you today about what's dead and if you don't change your business is dead too. Guys, opt out of that. Be part of this growing percentage of people that's like taking back your attention. And anyone who's just telling you everything else is dead and then of course says, "Here's the only thing that isn't, come on." I mean, you fell for it, you kind of deserve what you got. But that's the whole reptilian brain. Like they've hijacked that it works. I hate to say it, it works for messaging. That's the reptilian brain. You know, you're looking for threats and in a state of fear, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I gotta listen to this person." I just want you to see that clearly and then not give your power away to it. Okay, I have so much more I wanna share with you guys on this. Here's a sneaky peaky. I'm gonna talk to you about the biggest opportunity to enhance and improve your offers to make them more irresistible in 2026. I think this is so incredibly valuable and important. We gotta talk about this and how we can improve just the delivery of our programs, the teaching of our program, the value that we provide inside our programs. We're also gonna talk a little bit about two exciting offers that we both knocked out of the park in Q1, Jenny's program and my own and how we did this with no launches. The easiest, breeziest, lightest and most fun launches we've ever done and I cannot wait to share that with you. Also, I'm gonna talk about ways how you should be using AI. So I'm not knocking AI. I'm knocking people that are using it ineffectively. How we get to incorporate AI into our businesses as well as some other cool strategies that we've been up to from the new Betamax strategy, upsells and downsells and like follow up post launch stuff. Things that are working that I want you guys keeping in your back pocket, keeping in mind as we move forward. I want you guys to save the date, June 11th. That's when we're gonna kick off this powerful breakthrough business experience that I just think is gonna be so needed right now. So needed because one of the core premises that I've been saying for years is it's actually building a business. Like I used to say, I always used to see myself as an entrepreneur but I didn't start making money until I actually saw myself as a business owner and that's such a key like tenant of this is seeing yourself less as an entrepreneur, seeing yourself less as a marketer and more as a business owner and building a business is going to serve you so much. How you build that business will determine what it gives you. And that's what we're gonna talk about and so much more. And that stuff isn't talked about because it isn't sexy. I get it but the results that it will get you absolutely are sexy business by design.net. And calm hang out with me this Wednesday. If you're listening to this on Monday, that's like in two days from now. Jamesover.com/breakthrough, co-register for one of my free breakthrough coaching sessions I'm gonna be doing this week. Be sharing exercises, distinctions, ways you can audit and coach yourself. And I'll be bringing people on live in coaching them which would be really fun. - Yeah, and it's totally free. - It's toads free. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I really appreciate you. Please make sure to shout out, say what's up over on the Instagrams, send me a DM, anything. Let us know, take away thoughts, feelings, and I can't wait for part two this episode more to cover. So we'll see you then. - On the Mind Your Business Podcast. - Take care. (upbeat music) - Several years ago, I took my online business from $280,000 in sales a year to 1.2 million. Then I took it from 2 million to 10 million a year. So anytime you can defy logic, reason, and go beyond linear clock time or effort, you are experiencing a quantum leap in your results. This happens when we have a paradigm shifting experience in how you view your business, yourself, your role, your purpose, and your vision. And that's exactly what we're gonna do together inside the business breakthrough experience. In this brand spanking new live virtual experience, I'll guide you through a powerful process that takes a deep dive look and audit into your business, your strategy and yourself, all with one very simple intention in mind to cause the next quantum leap in results for your business. So join the list now over at businessbydesign.net and save the date June 11th. I'll see you there. (upbeat music)