[E4C35] Leverage the Power of Natural Laws to Achieve Your Worldchanging Mission – Nicola Grace

Ignite a Movement | Entrepreneurs for a Change with Lorna Li

There’s trouble in paradise, here in Thailand. After nearly 6 months of demonstrations and political stalemate in Bangkok, the Thai military took control of the government in a bloodless coup d’état. The military has opposed a night-time curfew – anyone out between 10pm and 5am could be shot. Though it’s amusing the number of people in Chiang Mai who don’t seem to care about being shot after 10pm. While this coup hasn’t really affected my life, except that now my WiFi café closes at 9pm rather than midnight, what it does make me reflect on is fragility of our global political and our financial systems, and how much we civilized humans depend on these systems to live.

Which is why my mission has been focused on the growth of organizations and businesses that have the ability to make a lasting, positive impact. Because, ya know what? We only have one Earth. And one humanity.

With that, I am honored to introduce our guest today – Nicola Grace, “The Mission Mentor”. She helps highly effective changemakers, social entrepreneurs and difference-makers create businesses on purpose, that create prosperity, and make a BIG difference.

Nicola Grace is an author, speaker, educator, and visionary strategist with over 20 years of teaching and speaking experience in the field of personal transformation. She’s a 3-time best-selling author, and was recently published in ‘More Better’ by Celebrity Press Publishing, which represents industry giants, like Brian Tracey, Jack Canfield, Arielle Ford, Michael Gerber, and Mike Koenigs. Her expert insights appear in the groundbreaking book, ‘Ready Aim Captivate – Put Magic in Your Message and a Fortune In Your Future’, alongside other world leading visionaries, like Deepak Chopra and Jim Stovall.

Her latest book, ‘Discover What You Are Here To Do’, explores the idea how by transitioning to making money by making a difference, we will create a better world through the ripple effect.

During this interview, we are going to get into what it takes to be a professional changemaker from the inside out. Nicola will share with us:

• 7 habits, 10 strategies, and 12 laws of nature that changemakers can leverage to become an unstoppable force for good.
• How to get into alignment with the laws of Nature, so that Nature works through you to fulfil your big, audacious goals.
• How to tell if you’re truly living your life purpose or not.
• How to know the difference between your intuition warning you of danger, versus your fears trying to sabotage your success.

And awesome tips on how to launch a signature, transformational program, without an email list.

Mentioned in this interview

Anita Moorjani- “Dying To Be Me”
Lisa Sasevich

Where to Find Nicola

www.nicolagrace.com
www.twitter.com/NicolaLGrace
www.facebook.com/NicolaGracePage

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Lorna: Hello there Nicola. I’m so happy to meet you virtually, and have you on my show, especially excited to meet yet another wisdompreneur, and one who is also on a mission to connect entrepreneurs with their life purpose.

So I would love if you would introduce yourself to the audience and tell our audience who you are, what you do and what inspired you to become an entrepreneur.

Nicola: Sure. Hi Lorna. It’s great to meet you and be speaking here in this forum. I love it and I love the work that you are doing as well.

My name is Nicola Grace and I’m called the “mission mentor” because I mentor change makers and social entrepreneurs who have vision to create a better world in some way, and help them take their idea into full fruition as well as really ascertaining [0:53] what it is that they are here to do.

I’m a bestselling author and a keynote speaker and a teacher for over 20 years. And I’ve been an entrepreneur for just about the same amount of time, a little bit longer as well doing a serial entrepreneur actually and trying my hand at many different things until I finally found my niche and my field and my own purpose and my own mission.

How that came about is that like I started out as a History teacher, so I’ve always had a really big interest in history but teaching in the education system just wasn’t really my thing. And long story short, going through a series of entrepreneurial adventures because I realized from a very early age that I was not employable. I needed to be creating ideas and bringing them into fruition for myself, and finally found my feet[1:48] in about 2006 that was when I’m a mission strategist and a visionary, intuitive visionary as well. I was working with the Metro Health Industry in New Zealand on a mission strategy for them to beat that legislation that was pretty much going to send most of the businesses into the wall.

So what was happening is Australia and New Zealand were working together to create a corporation that would regulate natural hMetro Health pProducts and that corporation was primarily, setup, run by, and funded by the pharmaceutical industry. So it’s a really anti-competitive move by both governments and the pharmaceutical industry. And for seven years the legislation hads been passing through parliament and it passed in Australia, was about to pass in New Zealand when I came along and offered my strategy. And within seven months, six months rather, we defeated the bill.

So for seven years they weren’t able to defeat the bill but within six months with my strategy, they were because I was working with laws of nature, the laws of physics and the strategy that ultimately was successful because I took a really holistic approach to what I was doing. And everybody says, “Oh, you’re on a mission. This is your mission.” And mission mentorship really came out of that which is my business now, just mentoring people and designing mission strategies for them for whatever their projects are.

Lorna: So Nicola, tell me what do you mean by “you were in alignment with the natural laws” and that was what helped you defeat this seven year legislation in only a short period of time that no one else was able to actually beat back.

Nicola: Yes, great question.

The laws of nature or the laws of physics are things that we, human beings can’t break. So there’s one law called the law of gravity. A really good popular law that people know about is the law of attraction. Although the law of attraction the way it’s called isn’t actually a law. It’s just a very a small part of the bigger law which is the law of gravity or the law of best attraction.

But there are other laws. There’s a law of synergy. There’s the law of purpose. Everything that is born has a purpose and through the ripple effect it creates the way our society, and our world, and our planet revolves.

And many laws, in fact there are 12 laws that when I dissected what I had done in hindsight to discover like, how come I had been successful because I actually made history with what I did. Nobody’s been able to do what I did since me and my country. And that’s something I want to change. I want to teach people how I did it with the strategy from these laws.

So these laws of nature, they govern our physical universe. We cannot change them. We cannot break them. They just exist with or without us. So I discovered that when we work in harmony with those laws then we create leverage and we also create astounding results. So to give you a really quick example of that, the law of mass attraction or also known as the law of gravity really crudely is that the bigger mass draws to it the smaller mass. So in my strategy to work with the Natural Health Industry the big mass were two governments and the pharmaceutical industry lobby group working together with an $18 million budget. That’s an officially reported budget. [5:42]

And that’s what they spent on it. So that’s a big mass. The Natural Health Industry, on the other hand, doesn’t that much of a budget to fight the legislation so they were the smaller mass. So what I had to do in my strategy is use this law to create less gravity on the side of the opposition and build the gravity on the side that I was working with, and with the missions strategy to make sure we reversed that situation. And that was just one of 12 laws that I worked with to change something in a really quick time.

You can achieve amazing, extraordinary results when you work with these laws.

Lorna: Well how did you increase the mass of the Natural Health Industry which is kind of a small market segment, so to speak, when you consider that segment compared to two governments, massive budget and the very powerful pharmaceutical industry? What were the things that you did that increased the mass of David against Goliath?

Nicola: Okay, you’re right, it was a David and Goliath story. We talked about that a lot. One of strategies that I had was that so called ‘circle the wagon strategy’. We did not rely on anyone thing. And here’s what I discovered that while reading through all the documents that the framework that the government did before they passed this bill, in that were the statistics that 8018% of New Zealand households take vitamins. So that means that 80% of the country were going to be affected because if the legislation went through most of the vitamins and minerals and stuff that they took would not be on the shelf for a number of reasons:,
1.) Some some of the ingredients would be made illegal without a permit
and
2.) The companies that manufacture them, because of the regulatory cost that would have been put on the businesses, they would go under and so they simply come off the shelf.

So that is a huge mass. Eighty percent of New Zealand household is a bigger mass than the pharmaceutical industry because they are the consumers of the product. So I reached to the consumer base and I started a not- for- profit that was a watchdog for consumers and I built my database.

I educated politicians. I spoke to politicians and I educated the people. I got all of the people to start speaking to the members of the parliament, which is relatively easy to do in New Zealand because we are one of the biggest participatory democracy in the world. We can’t pass legislation without puttinggoing through a lot of the information to the people. The people have got to be able to comment, at least that’s what’s supposed to happen.

So we had a system in place where we the people could be educated and then they could go and educate the employees. And I did lots of things. I was constantly thinking how we can increase our mass and most of it was educating, different methods of education.

We did a postcard campaign where we had a huge rally across the whole country where people got together and we educated people and spoke to them about what was going on and what the implications were. We had them write a postcard with our symbol which was a red umbrella so that that all got seen on the Saturday when we had the rally, so that on Tuesday when the parliamentarians went into parliament and they went to their boxes, they had thousands of these postcards with these little red umbrellas on them, and our slogan and on the back, a call to action on what we wanted them to do. Because up until that time, a lot of politicians who had voted for the legislation didn’t really know the full implications and ramifications of it.

So constantly thinking of – like really good marketing ideas to increase that mass. And then, what could I do to decrease the mass of the opposition? That was the really key component as well. How can you decrease their mass?

Lorna: And how did you decrease their mass?

Nicola: By discrediting their argument.

Lorna: Aaahhh…. Okay, yes, right.

Nicola: [laughs] That was one of them. One of them was I discredited by constantly educating the people on the truth and I was very well-referenced every time I said anything. There was always a reference that wasn’t made up sensational stuff. And also, another method I did was contact the database again that was growing and we did advertising and newspaper, talking about the ramifications but also warning people what this scenario of propaganda that was going to happen from the government and from the pharmaceutical industry every step of the way. So I put out this press release saying, “This is what the government is trying to do. This is why they are going to do it, and then they’re going to do that because of this.”

So everybody was forewarned that this huge propaganda storm was going to come out. So when there was a program on TV about vitamins can kill and when there was a whole backlash coming out from doctors in favor of the bill, my database were already warned this was going to happen so that gave me more credibility. People went, “Ah Nicola’s seen this going to happen. She said that”, you know, it was like they were expecting it so the sting or the element of surprise that the opposition felt that they might have by discrediting what the counter arguments and what-have-you wasn’t there because I’d already warned people that it was coming. And I told them why it was going to come.

Lorna: Wow, that’s very fascinating and really exciting too. I’m so glad you were able to help the consumers, like your average people be able to fight a really insidious bill that would really, seriously affect the health of so many people, especially the elderly.

When I think about our vitamin intake, did you know for example that an apple today has less nutrients than apple from the 1950s and that is because of our culture of mono-crop agrobusiness, basically relies on a lot of inputs in order to produce these particular crops and they tend to be bred so that they have attributes like they store for a really long time, their uniform color and size and they’re not really genetically cultivated for nutrition.

So in many ways modern day urban dwellers, we have to eat vitamins because we are not getting enough nutrients from our food. Even if we eat balanced meals, three times a day, we’re not getting these nutrients.

Nicola: The amount of Vitamin C that you need every day just to keep scurvy at bay is 20 oranges.

Lorna: Wow.

Nicola: Yup.

Lorna: Gosh, that’s a lot.

Nicola: That’s a lot. That’s the real depletion of soil. Yes, it is. That’s a whole other podcast, really. Talking about the lack of nutrients from the soil.

People who take supplements and people who really care about the longevity are people who are passionate about their health. And whenever you attack or weaken a large number of people who are passionate about something that has a really good benefit, it is going to be very difficult for you to win that battle. And that’s why I knew that the Natural Health Industry had not lobbied and rallied their consumers. They have been fighting the bill for seven years with money, talking to politicians, with writing submissions, with the wheeling and dealing which they do really well as business owners but that’s not where I knew it was going to be won, it was going to be won with the people who would actually the most – rising up with their passion for that and saying, “No, sorry. And remember we vote for you.” Luckily we were coming up to an election – we were a year out from an election so we started making it an election campaign focus so that it was something that people had in their minds when they went to the ballot box.

Lorna: That is a very smart strategy. So tell me, Nicola, how did you transition into becoming a mentor that helps people connect with their mission?

Nicola: A good question.

It was a journey. At the time that I was working with the Natural Health Industry, I actually had my own business at an organic day spa. And I was looking at wanting to really start teaching and speaking out a lot more about other things. So I was already in transition myself and my kids. But after that win, my brother said to me, “That is phenomenal. You need to learn more about what you did and how you did that and apply it to your business.” And then, I went with a Fortune 500 company strategist and he had a consulting business and he said to me, “You definitely need to pick that apart, piece by piece and find out what it was that made it so successful, and then teach that to other changemakers and social entrepreneurs, and campaigners, and non-government organizations, like anybody that’s on a mission to create some headway and creating a better world.” They need to know that.

So it came down to 7 Habits, 10 Strategies and 12 Laws of Nature. One of those habits was being in the habit of stepping up to your mission milestone and making sure you do step up to each and every little mission that is part of your journey within your life purpose.

One of the strategies also was to make sure that one part of our purpose that I talk about a lot is we are all here to expand via expression. So one other specific expression that you’re going to expand because when you express yourself that way, you are engaging the law of expansion that creates more mass so you create more extraordinary results. And for me, part of my mission, I did a lot of writing which is one of my life purpose expression modality.

I’m also a speaker and a teacher so I did a lot of speaking, teaching and writing. But there are other people who did speaking, teaching and writing but they did not have the same effect as me because it wasn’t their modality. That wasn’t part of their purpose to come and express themselves that way.

I had the mojo so-to-speak because it was part of my purpose. And then one of the laws of nature that I mentioned before is the law of purpose. And because this was my mission that it was mine, it was clearly, this was I was born to do. And it was part of my mission milestone that I was meeting.

That was the quintessential success point and I thought, if this is the quintessential success point, if it came down to one thing, it came down to the fact that this was my mission, and therefore, I have this invisible sort of mojo that’s within me that I tapped into to be able to perform such a phenomenal outcome. That has exist in everybody, and I discovered that it did so I started there.

That’s the most important key then that’s the step that we start with. There’s a lot of campaigners out there that beat themselves up against the brick wall, doing things because they’re not expressing themselves the way they should be and then not necessarily 100% on purpose.

And when we get the right people doing the right thing and taking the right angle, then we’re going to have greater successes around the world. And I discovered in doing that, in helping people that each of them had a mission blueprint, and the ripple effect of people really stepping up to what their mission is in living their purpose was that the world will just – everything will start being taken care of. It would start creating a better world and so, that’s my purpose.

Lorna: So, help me understand some definitions here. So, what is a purpose? Is that the same as life purpose? And how does one become on purpose?

Nicola: Really, really good questions.

Purpose is that thing that there was a reason for you to do something or to be something. So that’s different from life purpose, because you could have a purpose to go the shop or I’ve got a purpose in buying this drink.

Life purpose is the purpose of your life. Now because it’s life, life starts somewhere and it transitions at some point out of the body and on to whatever that is within your belief system. But there is a transition that happens and so life as we know it on planet earth so-to-speak has a moment of transition.

So within those two places, the transition moment and your birth moment, that’s the life purpose that gets expressed. So there isn’t really even one statement that you can come up with that says, this is what my life purpose is because your life is too long and purpose is too broad. But there are aspects of your purpose that you can know and that you can articulate verbally and that gives you some kind of a direction as to what the purpose is like for instance.

Part of my purpose for being here is to be somebody that creates clarity in certain things that helps people feel worthy of big projects. Another part of my purpose is to raise consciousness of life on the planet. And those are all part of what I would call a purpose web, like everything’s weaving together to get this big picture of what you are, of what your life is all about.

And what was the last part of how does one know one is on purpose? Is that the question?

Lorna: Yes. Okay, I’m glad that you clarified the life purpose question because I think a lot of people definitely feel deep down inside that they were meant to do something bigger than their job, what they are paid, a salary to do for a company for example. They know deep down inside that there’s some reason for their existence that goes beyond their role in the family as a father, mother, sister, daughter, you know.

I think the elusive thing for many individuals is how to clarify what their purpose is, especially since as you mentioned, people do live a good stretch of time, like 70, 80, 90 years and people evolve during those years. So I can say that when I was in my 20s, I was a very different person than who I am now. So I think people get hung up when they think that their life purpose has to be expressed in one sentence.

Nicola: Correct. And it’s not a job or a career or a business. It’s a big mistake people make. It’s an evolving thing. It evolves with you. It evolves all the time and as your interests change, it works within that.

In the work that I do, on purpose work, I narrowly focus on the mission of doing this and all the mission milestone. But also, this thing called ‘primary expression modalities’ because as souls that are animating our bodies, we have come here as I see it, with the sole purpose of expansion. We’re here to expand.

If you look at human history, you can see that we as a humanity have expanded. We’ve increased our consciousness. We’ve expanded our options. We’ve expanded our possibilities, expanded information and that is part of the evolution of the sole purpose of expansion. And the way we expand is through expression. The name of the game is all about expression.

Now when you think about it, Lorna, if you’ve ever a job or a new business that you really don’t like doing, that you have to do these tasks over and over again, you’re expressing yourself in a certain way. That isn’t really part of your purpose. The joy isn’t there. But the moment you start expressing yourself in a manner that is your purpose, the passion goes up, the joy goes up, the excitement goes up. You could do it for free. You could do it forever. Somebody has to drag you away from it because you’re so passionately involved in what you’re doing and how you’re expressing yourself. So we focus on what are you here to express and how are you going to express yourself.

In the work that I do, I teach that knowing what those expression modalities are gives you the greatest clarity of the direction for you to go and where you’re actually going to be able to achieve phenomenal success as well as expansion.

Lorna: Okay. It sounds like, then, Nicola, what you’re saying is, passion is the signal for whether or not you’re living on purpose. So if you’re living on purpose and you feel more passion in your life. You feel more joy. You feel more inspiration.

Nicola: Yes, the way I look at it is that when you’re on purpose and you don’t ask whether you’re on purpose or not [laughs] like you’re so involved and you’re so absorbed with what you’re doing. You’re not asking the question, “Am I on purpose?”

If you’re asking the question, “Am I on purpose?” then there’s probably a little bit of tweaking that needs to be done that may be – it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re off track but there needs to be tweaking because when you’re on, and you’re so focused then you’re just in that ‘being’ aspect of what it is that you are doing. But you’re not off-center to ask the question, “Hang on a second, am I on purpose?”

At some level you are. You know it. I’m getting a bit thin here, but that’s really… it’s the experience that there is just nothing else that you would do. This is it.

Lorna: Yes, I would say the moments in my life that I felt that way were characterized by a few things. The first thing is flow. Everything feels really easy and harmonious and moving along at a good pace and going in a direction that feels really, really good.

The second for me would be synchronicity, so I start meeting people that support my purpose or mission and seems like opportunities appear. And so there seems to be an increasing frequency or occurrence of synchronicity.

And the third thing is, if I would ask myself whether or not there’ll be something else I’d rather be doing, I would say that basically, the feeling is being exactly where I need to be at the moment. So if someone were to ask me, “Where would you rather be?” The answer would be, right here, right now, doing exactly what I’m doing.

Nicola: I love that. I love that, exactly. I love that and I love the synchronicity because that is a true thing. I mean, even in my business, I look at the flow all the time and if I do come up against something in the first place, I always do it with my mind and I go, “Am I on the right track? And is it my mind that’s getting in the way and it’s self-sabotaging?” So I always go in first, so take responsibility for the results that I’m getting or the results I’m not getting. And I go in first and I go fix that or deal with that, clear whatever I need to clear.

If the flow isn’t happening and the synchronicity isn’t happening, you’re absolutely right, it is an indication that there needs to be some tweaking. And for me, I’m constantly having to do that. Like as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, I’m checking myself to go… I love that question… is there something else I’d rather be doing because if that’s it, then that’s what I really need to tune my focus on my business and be sure.

Lorna: How do you know if it’s something that you’re doing to yourself, you’re self-sabotaging or if it’s the universe telling you, do not go this way? Do you have a little Spidey-sense that shows you one versus the other?

Nicola: Wow, that is awesome. You ask great questions. [laughs] These are life challenging.

Lorna: I want to know, Nicola [laughs] before I figure it out for myself.

Nicola: For me, it comes down to having developed a really good relationship with my soul and with my higher self that I ask the right questions and I look for the synchronicity and I hear the reasons, I feel the reason that’s in my own body to what that is. And that’s the good question to ask. In fact that’s a perfect question to ask. Is this… like when I’m up against the block, because sometimes those blocks are part of our purpose and part of our life challenges and that’s how we expand.

So I go, is this the universe saying I’m up against the block I need to turn left, I need to turn right, or I need to do a 180, right? Or Is this the moment for me to overcome the block?

And for me personally, I always start with looking within to see if that block is within and then the universe will correct me. So like, I don’t have to sit and wait for the universe to give me or my higher self give me a response. I go into action because this is what I discovered. And one of the things we haven’t talked about in my background is that I’ve had cancer twice now and both times I’ve had a really significant quantum healing that’s occurred.

The first time I had this amazing experience where I catapulted out of my body and into mind itself and discovered how we everything in form starts first in consciousness.

So if I’m up against the block, if I’m up against the pharmaceutical industry, if I’m up against anything, if I’m up against nothing… like, nothing’s happening regardless of what I do in my life there is consciousness behind that, whether I’m supposed to keep going or not, there’s still consciousness behind it. So, I use a process where I track back to go to where that consciousness is, correct the consciousness or transmute it and have a more, a better thought. It becomes a little easier for me to go, “Yeah, I’m getting feedback here. I’m getting feedback that I’m off track or I need to focus or tweak something here.”

Lorna: There’s an incredible book that I read, it’s called “Dying to be Me” and it’s written by a woman called Anita Moorjani who traced her cancer towards a very deep and longstanding self-hatred she had of herself because of having had a life of being pressured to be somebody else, from her family, from her culture, also some of her experiences that she had in secondary school which interestingly enough was the same secondary school I went to.

She and I both went to the Hong Kong International School and I found it astounding that she and I both experienced intense racism on a daily basis going to that school. And I would say that for myself, I’d really internalize a lot of that racism and she writes about in her book, how that was also another story-building block.

So her story of self-hatred or not accepting herself had many different building blocks and that was one of them. So, it was really interesting to see that discovery that she made during a near death experience of where her cancer actually originated from. It wasn’t toxins. It wasn’t food. It was from her consciousness and from her own self-loathing.

Nicola: Yes, I mean even if you do have toxicity and malnutrition and you’re eating the wrong food somewhat there’s consciousness behind why you do that. It’s consciousness in the food that you eat and there’s consciousness in the reason why some people can eat that and not get cancer but I can eat it and get cancer.

Everything comes down to consciousness and that with the relationship always there’s some consciousness. And for me it was, “I don’t want to be here.” I’m somebody who I feel the pain of the world really deeply. I actually read somewhere like, what is the definition of a social entrepreneur and a changemaker. Two different websites had this question on and both of them have a very similar answer that somebody who feels pain and suffering in some part of the world and has a calling to change that and make that part of their life mission. So that’s the definition of a social entrepreneur and changemaker. I like that definition. That’s definitely me.

So, I couldn’t be happy if there was… for the longest time, I could not be happy while we were suffering in the world and I’ve never been able to reconcile that up until very recently. So the first time I had cancer was like, “I don’t want to be here.” I wanted to get out and so my body was manifesting a way out.

The second time when I had to visit again it was a different cancer, Melanoma. I was like, “How come I’m here again?” [laughs]

And again, it was because I really didn’t want to be here. I was looking at the way the world was going and I was going, “I don’t want to live in this world.” And part of the solution this time, was really having to step up and be part of the solution. So, now I’m involved with working with people that have the most phenomenal mission they discover within them, something they always really loved to do and wanted to do and they just never knew how they were going to make money from it is the very thing that they were born for.

Everybody at this stage is born for something really grand because we are shifting history. We are going to a different age and we’re in a historic moment in human history right here. So, when you get in contact with that part of you that has “Yeah, there’s something big for me to do.” It’s phenomenal.

The ripple effect that has on creating the world into a better place, and so, I am with people who are solving the problem of the world and just ordinary, everyday people with great ideas and great hearts at making the difference that they know that they were born to make and that keeps me alive. It really does.

Lorna: Wow, thank you for sharing that story. I think it can be so challenging for people to really make a deep inner shift in a storyline or a deeply held belief that might have been with them for a long time. I mean, for Anita Moorjani, she went into spontaneous remission, like her cancer essentially vanished when she completely and fully embraced self-love. And so when you embraced your mission to be part of the solution, was that what helped you heal your cancer?

Nicola: It was part of it. The other part of it was, like I think when I stepped up to do the work with the Natural Health Industry, there was an energy that was flowing through me that was very regenerative. I could feel it. I could feel that instead of being tired, instead of feeling really like I just wanted crawl into bed at the end of the day, I was energized. And that was that energizing that was going through my body because I was passionately involved in my mission and this is my big life moment. I didn’t know it at that time. There was energy that was going through my body that I could feel that it was healing me. It was, I don’t know how to explain it better than that but hopefully that’s understandable. [laughs]

Lorna: Do you help your clients try to connect to that regenerative force? Because I can imagine, anyone who does really connect with their life purpose is connecting with that force.

Nicola: I do in a special way like, I teach meditation technique that take you into connecting with your heartfelt connection and then into what I call the ‘genius databank’, so I know that with your NLP work you know a lot about the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind interfaces with the collective conscious and with the super-conscious. So those are minds and there’s information and intelligence here that we can access. So I do teach methods of how you access that and that is where the regenerative energy and nature of the spirit that is animating through the soul and our body flowing through us. That’s how we access that and allow that to just open up the valve and race through your veins and your blood.

Lorna: What I find really fascinating is that some of the things that you are teaching seem pretty esoteric to the mainstream business world. I’m kind of curious as to how you are connecting with these people, these clients that are willing or even hungry to pay to discover their life purpose, to pay a professional like you to help them walk through this process that’s both strategic in a practical business sense, but also energetic and holistic.

So when you got started as a mentor, how did you get your first clients? And how do you get your clients now?

Nicola: Good questions, first, they like my branding strategy with spirit. So I brand myself as somebody that works holistically as you said, using spiritual principles as well as strategies. I tend to attract people who are spiritual-based entrepreneurs and there’s a lot of us. I mean, it is a growing voluminous niche of people who are really founded in spiritual principles and want to include them in their business life. So there is a niche out there for that.

At the very, very beginning I volunteered to do strategy planning for a number of not-for-profits and a couple of business people because I wanted to prove that when you work with the laws of nature, because these laws are universal, it means that you can apply them universally. Whether it’s a business, a not-for-profit, a non-government organization or a government.

It didn’t matter what industry that you applied it to, what mission strategy for what purpose, because these laws are universal, it would apply and you would get the same synergistic leverage results, regardless of what the industry is. So I set out to volunteer my services as a mission strategist for a number of not-for-profits, for a couple of business people, social entrepreneurs as well as individual solopreneurs to see if this is applicable. Can I get consistent results across these different platforms?

Before I actually re-massaged it to become a branding as The Mission Mentor, I found that people were getting good results. We were getting some traction and some really good synergies were happening across the board.

For the past three years, I’ve really been focusing on two different audiences. The first audience are people who feel like they’ve got a mission or there’s something that they want to do and they want to know what that is and then get them started so that they absolutely a 100% living true to their purpose and what they’re here to do. They monetize accurately, so it’s their focus. And the other audience are people who already know what their idea is, what their mission is but they’re struggling and they need some kind of a strategy going forward, especially if they are up against self sabotage; kind of that what my specialty is using the laws of nature to teaching how to use the laws of nature to overcome those obstacles. So, yes, that’s how I got started. I just volunteered.

Volunteering was really good and I was like, “Hey, I really like to help you.” Because then I got testimonials and I had confidence and I go wow, “This is what value for people and there’s some really good thing that are happening.” And for now with confidence and testimonial, you’ve got a base to then out and canvas for other clients.

In relation to how I built, how did I get my next lot of clients, I speak. I’m a public speaker. I do keynote speaking and I hold workshops and events. So a lot of the clients that I’ve got are they’re word of mouth referrals. They are from people that I have met personally and mean just recently in the last year and a half, I’ve taken my programs online so that people all over the world can participate that I do mission strategies for people in Europe, in Africa, in America, and Australia which is where I live. Everywhere now because it’s online. And so I do internet marketing for those purposes.

Lorna: So you got started pretty much offline in the beginning through pro bono offers and then word of mouth started to grow your clientele and then you were doing in person speaking events. How did you get those speaking events?

Nicola: Just knocking on doors. [laughs]

Lorna: Oh okay, so you did outreach and said, “Hey, I would love to offer my expertise, would you like a speaker?”

Nicola: Absolutely. And I have been speaking and teaching for, like I said, 20 years. So I’ve got contacts and I’ve got people I know and I one of my strategies I like to do is go mass action on the six degrees of separation. And that’s the whole idea of The Net movie that Will Smith was in where in anybody you want to get to or anything that you want to have, I would say, you are within six degrees of it by six contacts.

So within six contacts, somebody’s going to be able to connect you with what it is that you want and that’s what I do. I got a massive action. I’m calling everybody I know and asking them if they know somebody that they don’t know themselves and of course, connecting with what it is that you want as an outcome or a certain person is a lot easier with the internet. They say it’s like three degrees now. But I think it’s actually two degrees.

Lorna: Yes, I mean, we’re in an increasingly interconnected world. So it’s interesting that the path that you took because It’s certainly an organic path; a lot of people find themselves transitioning their offline business and really scaling up and going online. I’m kind of curious though, now that you have both, have had both in place, do you think that it is actually possible to completely launch with an online program, a group coaching program, for example, without prior clients for example?

So let’s say if you had someone who is just leaving their day job and they really wanted to become a life coach or some kind of a business coach but they haven’t actually built up their own coaching clientele… because coaching’s really hard to scale, specially one on one coaching because there’s only so many hours in the day that you could possibly offer to your clients. So if you’re offering an online course that has group QA calls, you can certainly serve more people and not necessarily take more time out of your day.

But do you think it’s actually possible for someone to start out that way or do you recommend that they start out the way that you went? Call people, reach out to your network, see if there’s anyone in your network who would like to try out your services for free and then hope that that turns into referrals. What do you think?

Nicola: Well, I always teach a “circle the wagon strategy” which is a strategy where you involve everything. I don’t think that you want to exclude anything and you definitely don’t want to exclude the internet for sure because there’s so much going online.

In the global market today, your local market isn’t necessarily got the economy that’s going to support and sustain you so you do need to go out to a wider audience. But if you were starting out, one of the things I always do with my work is, I don’t think there’s a one size fits all. We need to find out where you’re at so if you have a lot of confidence and you are ready to go then it’s not going to matter which way you go. You’re going to get there in the end anyway. But if you are somebody who’s just starting out on the internet and you don’t know your way around the browser, the time it’s going to take you… the learning curve is so steep, I wouldn’t recommend that you start that way.

Use your time that you got out of your computer course, first of all – that you know how to use your computer, and get started by networking and joining local meet-ups and business networking groups. And if you’re doing it online, and you got it all, you got the confidence, you know your way around the computer and what have you, if you’re doing it online what I would do immediately is I would do joint ventures because that’s how I get the most registrations from any of the online stuff that I teach, it’s all joint ventures. Leveraging off other coaches or other coaches list who services the same clientele and audience so you’re not having to start from scratch.

Lorna: So you think then that It’s through this joint venture referral partners, it’s entirely possible to launch with an online program without an existing audience or clients?

Nicola: Definitely, yes. In fact, that’s the best way to build your clients because you are building it off of less people who have already paid for coaching or paid for services with somebody else and now what you’re doing is offering a micro niche within their niche to service their clients really well.

And you know, getting joint venture partners is… again, it comes down to confidence. This is why, I would say I don’t think there’s a one size fits all – where are you at? If you don’t have the confidence then I would highly recommend that you go and volunteer your services and you get confidence. You get people saying, “Hey, you’re great.” And you say, “Oh, that’s fantastic, I’m glad you got a good result. How much do you think I should charge or how much was this worth it for you?”

And you do that at least four times. You volunteer to coach somebody or whatever it is that you are offering. Do that four times and you got four testimonials. You’re measuring your confidence, you’re making connections and you’re getting feedback from people who have worked with you so that each time you go to work with the next person and you get better and better and you just keep improving yourself. So by the time that you’re ready to offer to a bigger audience, you’ve already got those under your belt.

I wouldn’t ever sit around with no business. If I ever have a problem with bringing in more business, I go out and I give my service to somebody and then they refer me. I do it strategically, obviously. There’s somebody who’s going to refer me and if I do a good job for them and that’s what I do. I just keep going, keep in motion.

Lorna: So would you actually build your complete online course in advance of approaching joint venture partners or would you follow a strategy that many information marketers follow which is presell the course?

So let’s say you’re just starting off and you don’t actually have your own email list and you’ve got this course idea or an expertise that you would like to offer to your JV partners. Do you recommend that they actually complete the thing first or simply complete an outline and then have a really strong story and presentation and then presell the program until you get enough people to buy, to make it worth your time to build the course?

Nicola: Yes, that’s a good question and I know that there’s a lot of people out there that teach that idea, build the plane as you fly. [laughs]

Lorna: Ahh, yes, because it’s a lot of work.

Nicola: Lisa Sasevich taught me that, yes, it is. And again I would say, well I’ve got to come to asking the question, “Who are you? What are you capable of? Could you pull it off?” because if you’re doing something online and you don’t know much about the world of the Internet, and you don’t know how to put a website together or if you’re doing a teleseminar, you don’t know how to market it or you don’t know how to use a teleseminar software, you have a really huge learning curve.

Lorna: [laughs]

Nicola: You know it right?

Lorna: I know, I know. It makes me think about my first telesummit. [laughs] Wow. Yeah that was like, an intense trial by fire. It was a lot of work and I’m already pretty techy too, but it’s always the devil in the details, like something doesn’t work right or having to overcome the software learning curve in a short period of time. Like 1ShoppingCart, oh my god, that was not user friendly.

I remember just, you know, looking at that, I don’t have time to learn that. I have to find someone, hire someone, I’ll pay them anything. [laughs]

Nicola: Absolutely. That’s the big thing and the way I get around it is like, I don’t like stress. Stress isn’t good to me being a cancer survivor. I need not to have stress. And my hair falls out when I get really stressed. So how I do it is if I get to the second module, like say for instance, if you’re doing a course that’s got five modules, I get the second one under my belt down and up and that’s great so that I’ve got that done. And then, I’ll have time to do the other modules two weeks in advance. That gives me heaps of time.

And that’s just something I’ve learned myself. I just feel better about that. You most assuredly want to have an outline and if you’re a really good speaker and you’re really confident and you’re just doing a teleseminar series, where you’re just getting on the phone and you’re talking and you’re not creating PowerPoint and what-have-you, then I think you can do an outline and go to market.

But if you’re doing PowerPoints, you’re putting handouts together and you’re learning technology, I personally, it’s my personality type to do it two modules under my belt.

Lorna: Yes, I think that would be what I would do to for sure because there’s nothing more stressful than feeling like you’re behind schedule and you can’t meet what you promised your customers. That’s not a very fun place to be.

So how do you know how much to price these products because when I look at different online courses, I see everything from, oh my gosh, $297 for something that’s pretty well put together to $597 for something that had less content than the $297 course. And then I see courses that are like $2000 and I will admit that I purchased those courses too and specifically one that was about podcasting, only to discover podcasting’s really not a business.

Although they were positioning it as, “Oh start an online business, use podcasting.” I mean, I love podcasting. It’s great, I’m so glad I learned it. But when I look back on what I was willing to pay for the information that I received, I’m like, you know, knowing what I know now, I don’t know if I would pay almost $2000 to learn about podcasting.

So how do you know?

Nicola: I wouldn’t do that. I have a really good way of looking at what I spend my money on. I mean, to answer your question, how do I price my products and services and what have you.

My clients tell me how much I’m worth. When I Iaunch anything, I usually give it to a test market of loyal clients or loyal customers and subscribers and followers and people who’ve been with me for a long time. I gift it to them and I ask them to tell me how much it’s that worth. And then I’ll ask them another question, how much would you be willing to pay for it? Because that’s not the same. [laughs]

Because people say, “Oh, it was worth $10,000 and I’m like, yes but how much would you pay for it?” “$97”! [laughs] You got to follow up with that second question. And that is how I do it. And then you just slide it and as far as when I buy anything, I’m one of these people that likes as much as I possibly can get for my dollar. But I don’t want a whole lot of a junk. Like you don’t want a whole lot of bonuses that are worthless to me. If I’m going to be spending anything over say, $500, I wouldn’t do it to learn just one thing. I would want a system.

Lorna: Yes, Absolutely.

Nicola: I would want a system. At $500 or more, I would want a system. And I’d want community, a tribe. I want the possibility of networking and what have you. Because then I’m getting the biggest bang for my buck.

Lorna: If you are going to launch a course that is in excess of $500 or appraised at about $1000 would that include group question and answer calls?

Nicola: Always. Everything comes down to who are you? What’s your personality? And what really works for you. I’m an extremely hands on person. I had a doctor in Germany who’s now on my year-long mentoring business program with her mission. She did my Mission Blueprint Program and I found out what her big mission was and now we’re step-by-step keeping up.

When she first signed up for the program, she got an absolute shock. She got a personal email from me and so much support from me personally. She wasn’t expecting it. It was a $900 program and for that amount of money and with all of the other stuff she’s done, she was blown away with how much of me she got. Because that’s me. That’s my personality. You know it’s like, I’ve got a products that people buy. People will buy my book, but I get these notifications that somebody’s bought this product and that product, and the lower priced products don’t have me personally in them, and it is so hard for me not to email them and go, I want to know about you. How are you doing with your family? What makes you happy? I want to know them, and I mean, I literally don’t have the time to do that for every customer that I have but boy, it is hard for me to do that because I’m a touchy-feely person. I love to know who’s buying me, who’s working with me, who’s resonating with me. [laughs]

Lorna: Absolutely.

Nicola: So I always do Q&As

Lorna: Okay great. Is it weekly or bimonthly? How much of your time do you give?

Nicola: It depends on what the program is. It absolutely depends on what the program is. And it depends on how busy I am. But you know, I like the personal touch though. Whatever I can do to keep that. If I’ve got clients that are on my home study program, I do have a question and answer for them and I let them know in advance. I look at this forum on Mondays and Fridays, so they know that they’ve got an expectation that they’re going to hear from me on those days or don’t bother posting anything in between but you make sure you post the day before so by the time I go on it’s there for me to comment on.

Lorna: Okay, great. Well, hey, this has been such a wonderful conversation but we are coming to the close of the interview. So I’d love to leave you with the last three questions, okay.

So, knowing what you now, if you look back at your entrepreneurial journey, was there any huge mistake that you made that drained your time energy and money that you would do differently if you had the chance. What was that and how can we learn how to avoid that mistake?

Nicola: The huge mistake which I’ve actually made three times [laughs] I finally learned it. Taking on the wrong partner. When your gut feeling tells you that you know that they’re not going to perform or as soon as that shows up that they’re an underperformer, don’t hang around hoping that it’s going to get better because it probably isn’t, and get out as fast as possible. That’s been the biggest mistake. It’s taking on unproductive partners and not getting rid of them quick enough.

Lorna: Yes, I think I’ve learned from having disastrous partner relationships myself that even if you cannot explain it, if you have a Spidey-sense that there’s something off with that person, it’s best to just heed that Spidey-sense to heed your intuition. Even if you can’t explain it. You don’t know. It doesn’t make any logical sense. They seem totally fine, just back away.

Nicola: Yup, it’s like if you get a sense of something in a certain way and it’s not quite right, you’re right. It’s not quite right.

Lorna: Yes, Okay, so what do you think, given that you work with changemakers and social entrepreneurs, what do you think is the most effective way to change the world?

Nicola: Stay true to your mission. It comes down to that it’s because that’s where the soul and the spirit are giving you your power. You have power and mojo and extraordinariness within when you are 100% staying on your mission. And if everybody did that instead of just going to work to pay the bills, we will be transforming the world in super-speedy time.

Lorna: I love it. And I completely agree with you. Okay, Nicola, how can we best stay in touch with you?

Nicola: Well, my website is, nicolagrace.com. And over there you’ll find all of my social media places that you can see me. I’m on Facebook, I’m everywhere on social media except Instagram. I haven’t quite mastered Instagram yet.

Lorna: Okay, well yeah, there’s always yet another social media channel to get on. I’d say 80/20 rule.

Nicola: Yeah.

Lorna: Alright, thank you so much for sharing with us your really inspiring story and very sound practical business advice.

Nicola: You’re welcome, it’s been fun – thank you.
END OF RECORDING

Hire Me to Increase Your Online Visibility & Grow Your Tribe

I am available for one on one coaching to help you improve your online visibility and grow your tribe. I also provide “done for you” agency services for changemakers that have the budget to entrust their online marketing to experts.

Ask Me Questions or Share Your Feedback

• Comment in the show notes
• Leave a voicemail message by clicking on the Send a Voicemail Message tab on the right
• Leave a note on the Entrepreneurs for a Change Facebook Page

Please Connect with Us!

Connect with Lorna

Twitter: @lornali Facebook Page: Lorna Li

Connect with Entrepreneurs for a Change

Twitter: @entrepreneurs4C Facebook Page: Entrepreneurs for a Change

Please Review this Podcast

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes & a 5-star review in Stitcher!

This will help us reach and inspire more people with stories of entrepreneurs who are changing the world.

In Gratitude

Eric Smith of Monster Beach Studio for creating our Entrepreneurs for a Change Theme Song

Disclosure

This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship. I may receive commissions or bonuses from your actions on such links.

Join the Movement of Changemaking Entrepreneurs

Subscribe To My Channel

Click here to Instantly Subscribe to Lorna Li TV

The post [E4C35] Leverage the Power of Natural Laws to Achieve Your Worldchanging Mission – Nicola Grace appeared first on Ignite a Movement | Entrepreneurs for a Change with Lorna Li.