When Danielle Hagenrader, The Diabetes Dominator, stopped by the latest Fitnesspreneur’s Life Show podcast she shared some valuable advice about how she used her struggle with diabetes to become the Diabetes Dominator and create an Amazon Best Seller. 

 

Here’s her advice about the importance of taking your expertise to the next level within your own communities. Check it out!

 

1 - Change Your Mindset

 

The most important battle that may determine your success from the get-go happens inside your mind. Because things emanate from intention, if you don’t believe in your success, it’s unlikely that success will find you.

 

In Danielle’s case, this is very much a matter of life and death. 

 

You see, diabetics are often told the entire story of their disease taking over their body. Being told how your life will play out is enough to make you want to give up.

 

But Danielle didn’t give up she changed her mindset.

 

She reasoned that the outcome of her life would be significantly altered if she changed her mindset into a positive one. Rather than think of herself as this passive being having these things happen to her, she took charge of her destiny and decided to live a healthier happier life. 

 

How she did that became the backbone of her wellness system, The Diabetes Dominator. 

 

2) Become an expert in the community

 

It’s one thing to be told what to do by a doctor. It’s quite another to get advice from someone who’s living the experience. 

 

That’s exactly why Danielle realized that not only does she bring a lifetime of experience handling her diabetes to the table, but also that her experience gives her credibility within the diabetic community.

 

Communities are often built around shared struggles and that’s where niche markets spring up. You should look for opportunities to engage the very community of people that your programs help.

 

Danielle created a series of web interviews with thought leaders that helped her build credibility by leveraging their tribe. You should look for ways to establish your authority and expertise in similar markets.

 

3) Build Your Community

 

Once you’ve gained a foothold in the respective community that you’re trying to help, engage in the law of reciprocity. Basically, put out a lot so that you get a lot in return.

 

That help and desire to help will come back to you in the forms of everything from email addresses, cross promotion, to sounding boards for your new ideas.

 

Stay engaged and follow-up on your interactions. A year after her interviews, Danielle asks guests if they want to blog on her site. They jump at the opportunity. She exposes them to her followers and the guests bring their followers with them and that grows her list.

 

Communities grow in such ways. It’s up to you to capitalize on them. Nowadays with so many social media outlets, the chance to build your community is easier than ever!

 

You’ve got that good idea and now find the community that needs it and go from there!

It’s funny how life works. 

 

Just recently I was asked to give a presentation on how to build, maintain and sustain confidence, I’ll share with you some of the highlights of that process below.

 

Putting together that presentation got me thinking back to the first time I ever stepped on stage. 

 

That guy, way back in 2010, knew nothing about confidence. 

 

I can honestly say that I remember the feelings I had like it was yesterday because it was in front of five hundred people, my very first time, no easing onto things, huh, and I had very little clue what I was doing.

 

I got at least one thing right, that I would recommend you do from now on when you thrust yourself into the unknown- get a coach or mentor.

 

When I got the call to present and take this next leap in my career, I jumped first, looked for a parachute second.

 

I remember hanging up the phone with Bedros, there was excitement and nerves all at once, so I did the only thing I could think of; I called my mentor to get his advice. 

 

Alex gave me some really good instruction and I felt prepared, but the minute I took that stage most of that went out the window as I began to pace the stage like a caged lion. 

 

Somehow I survived that day and got some good feedback. I guess people hadn’t seen many presenters yet. HA!

 

I remember most this one thing Alex said to me after the talk. He asked: “how did you feel?” I responded that I “thought I was confident.” And he said something that has always stuck with me, he said” “Vito, don’t just say it, BE it.”

 

I don’t think it dawned on me until years later the difference between saying something and BEING something. One is momentary and can come and go, but being something means it’s who you have become, who you are.

 

I know from that day on I wanted to BE confident, not just think I was, feel I was, or hope I was- I wanted to BE it.

 

Flash forward to today and many years of study later working on how to master the art of confidence, I’ve put together a little blueprint for you how to generate the kind of confidence that kills every time.

 

That last part surprises people. Generating confidence? Isn’t confidence something that you’re born with? 

 

Doesn’t confidence come from money or good looks or some other thing that some are just lucky to have inherited? Nope.

 

Confidence, like any skill, requires work and practice. It’s like a muscle that you need to work on constantly. To build something that is going to constantly help your brand and business, you need to work at it. 

 

I’ve put together something I call the Confidence Ladder. 

 

It’s a series of steps that provide a framework for putting your confidence front and center.

 

Step One: Build and Decide.

 

This very first step of building confidence happens in the smallest synapses of our brain. It is a very basic thing, and yet so complex. It’s easier said than done…to build confidence we need to simply DECIDE to be more confident.

 

You’d be surprised at how effective and important that one belief becomes. Too many times, we go through life expecting bad things to happen or letting a negative thought derail our whole day. Let that go and embrace your confident future.

 

A simple exercise I have all my high performance students do is to set a daily reminder on their phone. 

 

Most people now live and die by their phone, so I have them put a little reminder in their calendar that is set to go off at 9am, everyday, with an alert, that reads ‘Be More Confident.”

 

This way no matter how bad the morning was going, they get a jolt, at 9am that snaps them back into their confidence and they can course correct the day and get a few more hours of productive living back in.

 

Little by little that daily reminder becomes the person.

 

It’s all about intention. 

 

It’s a crucial first step and one that determines your success moving forward.

 

Step Two: Sustain. Have a North Star.

 

It’s not enough to just decide to be confident. You have to be able to weather the storm of uncertainty and worry. That’s where many people fall or lose momentum.

 

And momentum is a confidence builder.

 

If you are constantly being derailed in life you can never get a full head of steam behind you to really push things through to heightened and sustained levels of action. Heightened and sustained levels of confidence are necessary if you want to achieve greater things in life and take your business to the next level.

 

The key to sustained confidence is an understanding of your purpose in life or what I like to simply call “Have a North Star.”

 

Which just means, have that thing that is up in the night sky always calling to you, beckoning you on, just out of your reach that is bigger than you. Something you might not ever attain, so that when the moments of doubt come, you can always remember you are living for something more important than doubt, worry, criticism, and fear. 

 

Aim Your Skills.

 

If you’re one of those people who sit around saying “I don’t know how to do that?” Or “I don’t know what to do.”

 

Have you heard of Google? 

 

If there’s something you’d like to know more about, look it up, take a course and work on your professional and personal development versus sitting there thinking you don’t know what to do or how to do something. That’s just the lazy man’s excuse today.

 

Anything can be learned, researched, and studied if it’s important to helping you achieve your dreams and marching towards that North Star.

 

Are you willing to create a learning plan? Stick to it? Invest in it?

 

Arm yourself with as much knowledge and professional experience as you can. Earn the skills that will take you to the next level. 

 

 

Step Three: Teach

 

Sharing is caring…and what better way to share your experience and knowledge than teaching?

 

Teaching, whether it’s online or in person, is a great way to showcase your confidence. It’s the natural culmination of your expertise and it, in turn, feeds your confidence further because your knowledge has now been tested.

 

Let today be the day that you assume the mantle of a confident leader. 

 

Build, sustain, and teach that confidence in order to keep the train of your life going. 

 

There is no telling where you will end up if you apply my framework. I can tell you this: you’ll leave behind any other fit pros that aren’t so sure of themselves. 

 

People that don’t invest in themselves and don’t put in the time to be the most advanced and confident fit pros in the market aren’t going to have clients or business gravitate toward them.

 

In today’s ever expanding marketplace, where time and money are getting scarcer by the day, clients will head towards the men and women who project confidence and value. 

 

Those people aren’t the ones who were born confident. They are the ones who work on themselves and ignore the negative frequencies that trip us up in our everyday lives. 

 

It’s inside you, so get to work on bringing it out to the world. There is no greater purpose.