Monthly Archives: March 2014

Episode 71: Overcoming Career Disaster | Melissa Krivachek from Briella Arion

Melissa Krivachek has had lots of ups and downs in her professional career. At a young age she was promoted quickly at the retail store she worked for, but when the recession hit, she lost her job. During that time she became homeless and even spent some time in jail. She rebounded nicely by creating her own business, Briella Arion, which she is running today. Learn how Melissa worked toward overcoming career disaster in episode 71 of the Defining Success Podcast.

Melissa Krivachek

Melissa Krivachek is the President of Briella Arion. She has been captivating, inspiring and motivating entrepreneurs across the globe since her early twenties. Chosen as Evolution Magazines 2013 Top Power Player Under 40, and featured on CNN, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, and receiving dozens of other accolades, Melissa’s passion for personal growth resonates with audiences looking for more fulfillment in all aspects of life and business. As the Author of Be Ballsy! How Not To Suck At Love, Success, & Happiness she loves teaching audiences how to break-thru limiting beliefs so they can have it all.

Briella Arion is a coaching company that works with six figure entrepreneurs so they can breakthrough the ceiling of complexity and have it all, all at the same time, love, success and happiness. Melissa has been with a six-figure salary and jobless.

In 2004, Melissa started at Walmart at 16 and the manager mentored her along the way. She exceeded his role in the company and became the store manager and in 2008, she was fired. Melissa bought a brand new car, a new home and eventually they took her car, her came and was $50,000 in debt.

She then began working for Family Dollar and Melissa got bored fairly easily and moved to Chicago where she began managing multiple stores. From 2004 to 2011 Melissa racked up a bunch of speeding tickets and ended up going to jail.

Melissa gravitated towards anything related to professional management. Melissa’s first client was a customer who was trying to get Melissa to sell her Visalis. He was having a really difficult time and she began coaching him. He’s a very passionate person, became a millionaire and is now doing extremely well.

Melissa’s Mastermind is a five-week program that holds people accountable to help you hit your goals. She does the program on Facebook so that you have accountability built into it.

Through her coaching Melissa tries to remove limiting beliefs from people to help them break through to more success.

Be Ballsy, written by Melissa Krivachek, focuses on helping people balance love, success and happiness and she has been able to maintain it.

Matt Lee was the first guest Melissa Krivachek had on her show. He’s actually the coach for Melissa and has helped her achieve phenomenal success.

The best thing Melissa is doing right now is working with lots of successful entrepreneurs and coaching them break through their limiting beliefs.

Melissa Krivachek

Engaging Discussion Questions:

Have you ever had to work at overcoming career disaster?

Success Quotes:

“Success is about the impact that you make, the money that you make and how clear your message is to the audience you’re reaching.”
“It’s more important to take small consistent action than it is to reach goals.”
“If your values and beliefs aren’t aligned with your values and results than you have a problem.”

Links to Great Stuff:

Briella Arion – I coach 6 figure entrepreneurs across the globe from my home in Marion, Iowa.

Be a Baller

Episode 70: Don’t Let Your Ego Get in the Way | Virgil Herring Author of The Golf Journal

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Don’t let your ego get in the way. Virgil Herring is one of the top teaching professionals in golf and when one of his best players, Brandt Snedeker became the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year, Virgil expected recognition. Brandt recognized another golf coach for his success and Virgil’s ego got in the way. Learn from Virgil in Episode 70 of the Defining Success Podcast.

Virgil Herring

Best-selling author Virgil Herring is Director of Instruction at the acclaimed Westhaven Golf Club and is founder of Higher Performance Golf Academy. Virgil received the 2003 Tennessee Section PGA Teacher of the Year Award and was named 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006 Middle TN Chapter PGA Teacher of the Year. He was named a 2009 U.S. Kids Golf Top 50 Instructor (source) by U.S. Kids Golf. And he also worked with PGA Tour player Brandt Snedeker.

Virgil got involved in golf after he injured his shoulder as a baseball pitcher at 16 years old. He then turned to golf. Virgil took up the sport by playing with his best friend at a young age. He knew that he wanted to be involved in sports in his entire life.

He went to college to learn how to become a part of golf management. Today, he plays as much as he possibly can, but he became an instructor at an early age. His first 1,000 hours of golf instruction were working with over-achieving collegiate golfers. Everyone who worked with him told him that he had a knack for teaching.

Virgil likes to help others. When he’s competing he’s too concerned about other people’s games. He says he’s coached about 22,000 golf lessons, and coached 1,500 to 1,600 people.

The most compelling story Virgil has working with students was a young female golfer who Virgil took from a golfer who was quitting and three months later, she became a professional golfer. And now, Megan Grehan is now a professional golfer.

Brandt Snedeker was another student of Virgil Herring’s who went on to do great things in golf. Virgil was Brandt’s golf instructor for eight years where he went from an unranked junior, to the #1 player in college golf, to the #1 amateur in the world, to a two-time Nationwide Tour Winner, to the PGA Rookie of the Year. He won the US Public Links and made the cut in the Masters as an amateur.

Brandt was never the best hitter of the golf ball, but he always ended up winning. Virgil remembers the first time playing with him and one thing that Brandt had was confidence. He knew how to hit the shot when he needed to hit it. Virgil has taught more than 20 people who hit the golf ball better than Brandt, but he’s been the best putter 3 out of the last 5 years.

When Virgil began teaching golf, he was a big believer in getting people to perform their best. He saw the little differences between the average golfers and the exceptional golfers. Virgil knew he wanted to be a competitive golf coach and his brand was helping golfers achieve their personal greatness.

When Brandt won his PGA Tour Event in 2007, he went on national TV and thanked another teacher. Virgil reacted in disbelief and shock. And they didn’t handle the situation very well and Virgil wish it hadn’t had bothered him as much as it did. They’re both members of the same club, but their relationship is nothing like what it used to be.

Virgil wrote The Golf Journal and Virgil believes this is the year for statistical data to help people track their statistics to help people understand what they need to do to get better. His book helps people understand their golfing trends and how they can make those trends better. Golf teaches honesty, and integrity.

Virgil likes the creativity of golf. There are a lot of different golf swings out there. Golf is a long contest that trains focus, concentration and how to re-focus.

Another story Virgil re-tells is the time when Brandt asked Davis Love III about how he could stay on the tour and Davis told him that if he thought he should be out on the PGA Tour than he shouldn’t worry about it. The guys who can miss a cut are ok, but those who treat it as life and death are in trouble.

The Golf Journal

Engaging Discussion Questions:

Name a time when your ego got in the way?
Have you ever worked with someone who was a world-class athlete or business person? What traits did they possess that others did not?

Success Quotes:

“Success is choosing what you’re life’s mission is and chasing after it with all of your zest.”
“Golf mirrors life … how you handle adversity on the golf course shows how you handle adversity in live.
“There’s no such think as perfect.”
“When your ego gets in the way, sometimes bad things happen.”
“I get the chance to do exactly what I wanted to do since I was 21 years old and I get to do it every day.”
“Brandt Snedeker has a killer instinct that most people don’t have.”

Links to Great Stuff:

Virgil Herring – Virgil worked with PGA Tour player Brandt Snedeker from 2000-2007 and Tour players Harry Taylor, Brad Fabel, Cliff Kresge, Vance Veazey, Garrett Willis, Bob Wolcott & Kim Williams. He works with 52 Division-1 College Players and 22 top TN Junior Players. In Nashville, hear Virgil 7-8 a.m. Saturday on 104.5 The Zone.

Virgil Herring

Episode 69: Evaluate Every Decision | Griffen Halko from Stay Designated

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As a DUI offender, Griffen Halko made a mistake that changed his life forever. In Episode 69 of the Defining Success Podcast, we discuss how important it is to evaluate every decision. Griffen’s decision resulted in the death of a good friend, sent him to jail and forever changed his future.

Griffin Halko Stay Designated Evaluate Every Decision

Griffen Halko

Stay Designated, Inc. was conceptualized in March of 2008, in a hospital bed located in the Intensive Care Unit at UCI Medical Center. While recovering from critical, life threatening injuries, Griffen Halko came face to face with reality.

Before the accident in March 2008, Griffen was working locally in Chino Hills an Diamond Bar. And, he was frequently involved in the night life scene, visiting bars. In March of 2008, Griffen had a night out with a good friend, Eric and his girlfriend at the time. They had a couple of drinks and Griffen drove home and his car was hit by a vehicle in Grand. Eric was killed in the crash. Griffen was transported to UCI Medical Center were he sustained serious injuries and was in a coma. Doctor’s believed he wouldn’t be able to walk. He came out of the coma and became healthy.

Griffen was charged with vehicular manslaughter, two counts of felony DUI and an enhancement with driving above a .15 BAC. While he was laying in his hospital bed, he decided he was going to take this opportunity to educate others about the danger of drinking and driving. He pled out to a felony DUI and started Stay Designated. Both the victim and the perpetrator struggle.

Griffen hopes to educate others so events like these don’t happen again. As a young man, Griffen identifies as an addict, but he does not identify as an alcoholic, but he does make poor decisions while drinking alcohol. Stay Designated has a few different programs. Griffen does a lot of mentoring and a lot of coaching with people who have substance abuse problems.

Stay Designated has a three-tier mission. The first is to educate others about the effects of alcohol and drug use. The second is victim advocacy for those affected and for perpetrators. The third tier, and the most important is to get hands-on in the community to create a designated driver program.

Chances for change brings an individual who fails a drug test at school or work they need to complete an out patient program. They work hands on with a treatment specialist. They have a bunch of courses they need to attend and once their course work is done they can go back to school or work.

Stay Designated is very new. They have weekly marketing meetings and they start working the streets. They work with attorneys, schools, the city, Psychology Today and the Yellow Pages. They also try to work in the community as much as possible. There have been individuals that Griffen has worked with who have achieved clean time and have been able to get their lives back together.

Six years after Griffen’s accident, but this year Griffen was granted an expungement by the courts that put an exclamation point on his success story. One of the most difficult things that Griffen has encountered is that Griffen is looked at as an offender. When Griffen started this program he had no idea what it would become and it has expanded greatly since then. Getting off the ground was probably the hardest thing for Griffen to do.

Stay Designated

Engaging Discussion Questions:

What’s a bad decision you have made that you wish you could take back?
How important do you think it is to evaluate every decision?

Success Quotes:

“When you’re getting in a vehicle, make sure you haven’t been drinking.”
“Think before you act.”
“If you have the emotional support and the drive, you can get it done.”
“If you can go to sleep at night and rest easy and have a good heart than you are successful.”

Links to Great Stuff:

Stay Designated – “To offer support to those struggling with alcohol as well as other substance abuses and destructive behaviors. With a focus on reducing driving under the influence injuries and fatalities, intoxicated driving, underage drinking, and drug abuse, we strive to offer education and other means of prevention, promote victim advocacy, as well as assist those both directly and indirectly affected. Ultimately, we aim to achieve positive rehabilitation for all parties involved.”

Griffen Halko

Episode 68: The Social Golf Course Part 1

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The Social Golf Course was written by Zeb Welborn and John Hakim.

The Social Golf Course

In Episode 68 of the Defining Success Podcast we go through our book chapter by chapter and discuss the ideas presented in the book. At the end of each chapter we present a question in our book, which we encourage readers to engage with on our website, SocialGolfCourse.com.

In Part 1, we discuss Chapters 1 – 8.

Chapter 1: The Death of the Traditional Golf Course. When I think of the glory days of golf, I think back to the time my grandfather played the game as the men’s club president at his local golf course. The times have changed and we must think about the game differently. The local golf course must take the responsibility for developing and enhancing their local communities — online and offline.

Question: When were the glory days of golf?

Chapter 2: An Industry in the Rough Golf has been in decline since 2005. It’s been a scary time in the golf course industry with more courses closing than opening and the outlook doesn’t look pretty. Golf courses need to take a much more active role in promoting the game.

What is the biggest problem facing golf today? How can we fix it?

Chapter 3: The St. Andrews Model St. Andrews is the undisputed home of golf, but it is not by luck. St. Andrews marketed themselves and their golf course to the world which has made St. Andrews the most recognizable golf course in golf. The most important thing golf courses can do is to market their golf course effectively.

What are some interesting ways you’ve seen golf courses market themselves? How do/would you market your golf course?

Chapter 4: The Mulligan Tee time wholesalers have been detrimental to the golf course industry. Social media has created an opportunity for local golf courses to eliminate the need for tee time wholesalers and create a strong personal brand for themselves.

Are tee time wholesalers good or bad for the golf course industry?

Chapter 5: Golf is a Social Game Golf is a social game. It’s a no brainer that social media and golf go together.

What makes golf special?

Chapter 6: Marketing in Today’s Economy Effective marketing methods change all the time. Right now, social media is outperforming all other forms of advertising methods. We all must learn how to market effectively as technology is changing the way we live and the way we consume information.

What is the future of marketing in the golf course industry?

Chapter 7: The Golf Niche Golfers are really easy to reach through social media. Targeting features on different social media platforms offer a great opportunity to connect with your target market.

Who is your ideal customer? How can you get them?

Chapter 8: How Being Social Can Increase Profits at Your Course The big question is, how can social media make money for your golf course. In this chapter we go in detail about how social media works and how you can profit from using social media at your golf course.

How has social media impacted your relationship with your customers?

Part 2 will complete our discussion on The Social Golf Course.

Episode 67: The Learning Experience | Fred Shoemaker from Extraordinary Golf

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In Episode 67 of the Defining Success Podcast, Fred discusses what he’s learned teaching golf and how people tend to learn best and enjoy the experience when they are allowed to learn for themselves. As a coach, Fred avoids passing judgement and simply guides his students to be more aware of their experience during the process. Learn how Fred Shoemaker cultivates the best learning experience.

Fred Shoemaker

Fred Shoemaker is the founder of Extraordinary Golf which provides an environment where golfers could know their remarkable ability and learn to unfold it moment to moment. The school has been named One of America’s Top 25 Golf Schools in America by Golf Magazine and has been a life-changing experience for many participants.

Fred has spent most of his career—over 42,000 lessons, and thousands of golf schools and workshops—helping people overcome the obstacles that prevent them from discovering and expressing their potential.

Fred fell in love with golf at an early age and at some point he realized that there was a lot more to the game than just the golf swing. He was a coach at UCSB in 1975 and has been involved in the game for a long time.

Fred’s Dad was in the military and they were stationed in Guam at an early age and he began visiting the golf course regularly where he fell in love with it. Fred was not fascinated in playing golf professionally, but he became fascinated with coaching the sport.

Sometimes golfers need to look at what they do before and after they get on the golf course to help improve their game.

Fred knows that his first ready-made answers don’t help people. Letting people experience the learning process is the real key to success in learning and education. Since 1950 human beings are not getting better at golf. The learning experience is a key component to learning and happiness.

Anybody who has developed anything has gone through a lot of failures along the way.

Extraordinary golf focuses on the individual and works with each golfer individually. Extraordinary golf helps to capture people when they do something that is extraordinary. The basis of extraordinary golf is awareness. Human beings are capable of accomplishing anything as long as they are aware.

Transformations are difficult. Fred has been a part of some remarkable transformations and to watch people undergo those transformations is profound. Fred has been able to change the way golfers think about their swing and how they respond to positive and negative thoughts. Through that he has witnessed many transformations.

Golf is a game where you can keep improving well into your seventies. We have a sport that can teach us something about life if we choose to learn from it.

One of the biggest mistakes Fred feels he has made is not acknowledging the people who have had an impact on his life. The connectivity of all of us is undeniable and he feels like he’s a link in a chain and he intends to be the strongest link in the chain he can be.

There are some people who have chosen a purpose to play golf and for those people who have found a reason to play golf that makes sense . . . they have won the game.

Fred Shoemaker

Discussion Questions:

Would you like a life of endless interest or endless boredom?

Links to Great Stuff:

Extraordinary Golf – “Extraordinary Golf challenges the cultural views on learning. We’ve come to see that golfers are far more able than they believe. But, they haven’t learned to develop–or access– what they have.”

Success Quotes:

“Success is to be up for something bigger than what your life is about . . . to have a cause that’s worth giving your life to.”
“There is no such thing as a bad day in gratitude and appreciation.”
“Really successful people always interpret the world in a way that empowers them.”
“How we interpret life . . . is what changes our world.”
“When one changes one’s language you actually physically change your body.”
“If you rob people of their failures, you rob them of their future.”
“The golf swing is the most analyzed human motion in recorded history.”
“Sometimes the questions make the difference and not the answers.”
“The way we do one thing is the way we do other things.”

Visit the website for our new book, The Social Golf Course.

Extraordinary Golf by Fred Shoemaker

Episode 66: Incorporate Mobile Marketing Into Your Business | Greg Hickman Host of Mobile Mixed

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The host of Mobile Mixed, Greg Hickman shares his insights into mobile marketing and how business owners must start to incorporate mobile strategies into their internet marketing campaign. Learn from the best when it comes to developing your mobile marketing strategy in Episode 66 of the Defining Success Podcast.

Greg Hickman

Greg Hickman is the Creator/Host of Mobile Mixed. He is a Mobile Marketing Consultant focused on retail. He is the Co-Founder of Thumbfound, Entrepreneur & Mountain Biker. He started off as an agency guy having the opportunity to work on brands like Pepsi, Lipton, and Walmart, creating and managing digital, in-store and grassroots initiatives.

Out of college, Greg started at an agency doing project management for a company that represented Pepsi so he got a full grasp on all aspects of marketing. His supervisor left his position and he pulled Greg over to help him at this new business in 2005. The company would make ring tones and wall papers for professional sports teams and he was able to see how engaged people were from their phone. When the iPhone came out, he knew the world was going to change and he knew that was where he wanted to be.

MobileMixed.com started in June 2012 while he was working with a company that represented 300 shopping centers around the country. He didn’t have any role models so he wanted to reach out to people who were doing mobile marketing really well and he started to reach out to them for his podcast show. He realized there was an audience following behind his show and he shifted his show from being interviews to solo episodes as well.

Through the podcast, Greg has developed relationships with a lot of the guests that have been on the show. He’s been able to find mentors and through his podcast he got offered a job at a business leading the mobile strategy of a large brand. Through the podcast, they found Greg and it was really an opportunity to work with those guys. Greg was able to work for the big brand for a year, but things kept growing with Mobile Mixed and although he enjoyed working for a big brand, he enjoyed growing his own business more.

Because of his podcast a big brand found him. When he stopped focusing on trying to work for a big brand and when he tried to make it a resource for mobile people, other people saw it. Since he started the podcast it’s been a great tool to land speaking gigs to share his knowledge about how to incorporate mobile marketing into your business.

Greg will be speaking at New Media Expo, Social Media Marketing World, Mobile Marketing Strategy Summit and the National Podcasters Conference.

By 2015 more people will access the internet on their phone than on their computer. More than 50% of all emails are opened on a mobile phone. 70% of Facebook users access their content from a mobile phone. 40% of global YouTube views are on a mobile phone. 61% of podcasts are listened to from a mobile phone.

To get started on mobile, make sure your website is mobile-friendly meaning you can use responsive design. You can also create a mobile optimized site.

50% of all email is opened on a mobile phone so you need to make sure your email is presentable on a mobile phone. The mobile phone has become a filtering device to even let emails into our inbox. Knowing that your customer is doing these things on their mobile phone, how does that impact them. Web to lead marketing is extremely important to businesses to ensure they sell products, if you want to find out more about how this can impact your business, visit https://www.salesforce.com/products/guide/lead-gen/web-to-lead/

Greg says the best mobile marketing company is Starbucks. They do the advanced stuff and they do the basic stuff and they always think about the full experience. They think everything through from start to finish.

One of the things Greg is using now is MMS which is muli-media messaging service. It’s text messaging with picture and video. In Greg’s podcast, he will have a text call to action. Through the messaging a person could record their question and they get a quick video in response to their question.

SMS messages have a 99% open rate and 90% of text messages are opened in less than 3 minutes. The average open rate for emails is 20 – 22%. You get a much higher open and click-through rate through text messages.

It’s just as easy to sign up on a text message list as it is to an email list.

If you realize that your website is not mobile friendly you should listen to Episode 49 of the Mobile Mixed Podcast titled, 6 Ways to Make Your Website Mobile Friendly, Episode 51: Email: The Most Overlooked Mobile Tool and 9 Tips to Get Started, Episode 65: 17 Mobile Marketing Mistakes You Want to Avoid.

Greg Hickman

Engaging Discussion Questions:

How important is having a mobile strategy in today’s economy?
Do you think mobile marketing can be done independently of a traditional marketing campaign?
What questions do you have about mobile marketing?

Success Quotes:

“Make sure that your definition is something that you own and is not based on someone else’s accomplishments.”
“Success means being happy every day, being vulnerable and not being worried about what other people think.”
“Your business objective is to sell more stuff. You need to think how can mobile help you cell more stuff.”
“How do I get my customer to do all these things I want them to do as easy as possible wherever they are at.”
“Responsive design is a great way to make sure your site is presentable on multiple devices.”
“74% of consumers will only wait three seconds for a website to load on their mobile phone before abandoning that site.”
“Starting the blog and the podcast were the best things I’ve ever done.”

Links to Great Stuff:

Mobile Mixed – Mobile Mixed is more than a web show, blog, resource and community of awesome mobile marketers (which it is of course)… Mobile Mixed is a freakin’ mission.
New Media Expo –
Social Media Marketing World – You’ll rub shoulders with the biggest names and brands in social media, soak up countless tips and new strategies, andenjoy extensive networking opportunities in San Diego, California.
Mobile Marketing Strategy Summit – GSMI is a leader in the industry of executive education, global conferences, summits, and training sessions that combine rich learning environments with the opportunity to network with today’s most relevant thought leaders, speakers and practitioners. GSMI’s annual events have reached 85% of the Fortune 500 companies, in over 30 countries, and cover topics that today’s leaders find most challenging and inspiring.
Podcast Movement: National Podcasters Conference – For podcasters, by podcasters. Come together for a weekend of learning, lessons, and living life. For podcasters of all skill levels!

Greg Hickman