Advertise on podcast: Changing The Story with Lana Dingwall

I am getting a lot of people in my dms saying they are very interested in learning more about web3 - blockchain - nfts - crypto, but have no idea where to start.  They are telling me they grasp that there is potential in this emerging space but truly do not understand most of it.  If you fall into this category, that is totally okay and let me tell you why. You do not need to understand on a fundamental level how this technology works, you only need to know how to use it.  Most of you are probably reading this email on your phone. If you listen to my podcast or follow me online, these forms of interacting with me are while using your phone. I am a big apple user - so I use an iphone. The smartphone was invented by apple and do you know what made it not only crush their competition in the cell phone industry, but also ushered in a whole new era of technology….. iOS.  Do you know how iOS works? I absolutely do not. I just know that without it everything we do on our phones would not be possible. Apps are built on top of iOS - uber + IG as an example exist because of iOS. Something that you and I use every single day is built using a technology that we don’t understand but are able to use. It birthed a new era of business. Blockchain (which is what will make the future of the internet different than it is today) is the foundation that many new applications and kinds of businesses are being build upon. Much like iOS this will usher in a new era of business AND better yet - this time we actually own our data (iOS tracks and sells our data because apple owns it not us).  This is just one of the many breakdown examples I give on this weeks podcast episode.  If you’re interested in learning more about web3 using examples that you are already familiar with to help build you knowledge, listen here.  If you are able to understand the basics, there are endless possibilities around what you could build, create or how you could integrate what you’re doing now into this.  In the coming years we won’t even think about how we’re using blockchain technology, the same way we don’t think about iOS software while using our phones.  The ways to use this technology though are only just beginning and it's a time to make your mark if you want to.  As always feel free to hit reply if you have any questions and you’re always welcome to book in a call if you want to brainstorm ideas.  Keep being awesome my friend.  Until next week,  Lana   If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways.   If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here

  A few weeks ago IG announced it was beta testing integrating NFTs onto its platform and so far things are going well.  Youtube, Meta (aka facebook), Amazon, Shopify, Stripe and other content hosting platforms and commerce based businesses now officially all have web3 teams who are using, building, and integrating blockchain technology.    What the heck does this mean?!   It means that many of the platforms, applications and tools we use in our businesses are taking web3 seriously - which means that we should too.    This doesn’t mean drop everything and go deep dive (unless you want to of course), but it does mean that starting to get curious and learn more about them is important.    If we look back on even just the last 5 years, a lot of social media platforms have shifted, content creation looks different, technology is more advanced and we can do cooler things and it's easier than ever to get paid online doing something you love.    It’s safe to say that the same will be true 5 years from now.    Web3 isn’t a destination, it's simply the evolution of the internet. We started with read only, then went to read and write (where we are now) and its moving to read, write, own. Ownership means we own our content, data etc the same way we do our email lists and websites, but not really anything else we create on the internet.    This week's podcast episode dives into some of what this will look like, how you can learn more and some ideas on how you might utilize some of this technology in your own business.    If you’re curious about learning more or even how to create your own NFT, social token or something else web3 related, my inbox is always open to help.    Just like we talked about last week, little steps add up. Learning even a little bit today, can help you tomorrow.    You’ve got this!    Until next week,    Lana   If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways.   If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here

It is very common for us to view ourselves as 3 separate people. There is our past self, our current self, and our future self. The reality though is there is only one us.    This isn’t to say we stay the same, we know we are constantly changing. What I mean though, is that without changing something today, nothing will change in the future - except that time itself has passed.    Sometimes by thinking our future self will somehow be more equipped, more motivated, more responsible than our current, self tricks us into forgetting who we are right now has to make the shifts needed for that to actually transpire.    I will not be able to retire in the future, if I don’t start saving today.    Right now inflation is at an all time high, stocks and crypto are crashing, housing prices (in Canada) are insanely high and outpacing people’s average income levels. These are stressful times - they are also times of opportunity.    What small things can be done today, to help set you up tomorrow?    How can delaying our desire for instant gratification, create an opportunity for us to think about the box in a way that will reward us in 5 years time?    I remember being younger and thinking about my ‘adult self’ and who I would become. I still think about this future self and who I will ‘become’ even though I already am the future self of younger 23 year old Lana. My current self, is my past selves, future self (try and figure that one out LOL).    I realize that today and everyday I have an opportunity to do small things that are in support of not just who I am now, but who I will inevitably become too - because we are one and the same.    I dive more into this topic on this weeks podcast episode. I also cover my take on the crypto/stock crash, what my gameplan is and how I personally am looking to hedge inflation, our current economic times and how I’m working on my future, today.    You’re doing better than you realize.    Until next week,    Lana   If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways.   If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here

Many of us can feel as though we’re in a race to reach ‘the finish line’ in our business and lives. We look to those around us to determine if we’re ahead or behind and this can create a sense of urgency. The reality is that we aren’t actually in a race, we will most likely never feel like we ‘crossed the finish line’ and we aren’t competing with anyone either.    When this feeling is used in a healthy way to motivate us it can be motivating, however many of us use it to stress ourselves out.    There are so many different ways to build out and get to where we want in life. Rushing through everything because we feel we’re behind or that someone else is going to get there before us leads us away from not only enjoying ourselves, but potentially not getting as much out of everything as we can.    When we slow down we’re able to make better decisions. When we give ourselves time for sweat equity we can often do incredible things at a fraction of the cost. We are able to explore new ways of creating and going about building whatever we’re building because we are more focused on the process rather than the imaginary race and finish line.    We explore this topic in more detail, including how slowing down and ‘taking the long road’ has helped me on this week's podcast episode.    You are not in a race, time is not running out and the only person you’re competing with is yourself - and even though it's actually better to just team up with yourself than anything else. Doing things today that help out your future self, allows you to build on what you’ve already created and done.    You are doing way better than you realize.

Have you ever found yourself working countless hours on something only to realize that you want to throw it away? Not because you don’t love the overarching thing you created, but because you feel so burnt out by the process and the idea of doing it again makes your heart sink. Sometimes how we build something affects our ability to do it long term. One of the most important things we can do, that most people struggle with, is creating systems that align with who we are and how we thrive vs what we think we’re supposed to do. How can one know what will work without first trying different things? The reality is we can’t fully know until we try. Which is why when you’re in those first few years of business you want to avoid putting all your eggs into one basket. I have seen so many entrepreneurs burnt out, wanting to throw in the towel because they are spinning their wheels going nowhere. The reason they’re stuck is because they are in the wrong gear and need to adjust. As an example I am someone who thrives with real time conversations, problem solving and coaching. Pre recorded coaching content (aside from my podcast because it's conversational) actually drains me because it is missing the key ingredient for me - interaction. I could spend a full week live working with people and feel I have more energy than if I spent that same week recording the exact same content solo. For some people it is the exact opposite. This is why we need to take ourselves into account when we build - we are the backbone of what we’re creating after all. This week's podcast episode we dive into how we have the choice to build in meaningful ways. That also means we have a responsibility to ourselves, to figure out what systems make sense for who we are and what allows us to thrive. At the end of the day if we thrive, our businesses thrive as well. You owe it to yourself to create something that makes sense for who you are. Keep being awesome and chat with you next week! Lana If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways. If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here

What if you could build out your content and business in a way that rewarded you AND your audience economically? With blockchain technology you can.   Technology has always had a huge impact on how businesses interacted with their audiences. Email, social media, youtube etc have all shifted the relationship between us and our customers over the last 15 years. Believe it or not, there was a time when people did not understand why they would need a website, or email address and why they would interact with their customers in that way.    Social tokens and NFTs could bring about a new shift in how we create and build our business. In 5 years it’s possible that they will be as common as email. NFTs can be used as coupons, tickets to VIP events, a membership pass to your community and more. Social tokens can be used to ‘cash in’ on certain things only available to holders (think mid way and how you would win tokens and cash them in for a prize), used to vote on what cities you host events in, what topics they want to learn about, or used to get 1 on 1 time with you, etc. There are new and creative ways of engaging with our audience emerging through blockchain technology that allows us to build wealth and create income AND can allow our audience to do the same (they can buy and sell your nft as an example).    I dive deeper into this topic this week on the podcast.    If you’ve been wanting to shake up how you currently offer some of your services or products and have an interest in learning more about web3, this could be a fun way to learn.    Artists, musicians, content creators and all sorts of creators are building with web3 tools (aka blockchain) to create new markets, offers and ways of relating with their audiences.    As always, there's no rush for you to learn more about this space. I want to keep dropping information here and there as I do believe it's really interesting with a lot of potential for us entrepreneurs and creators.    If you have any questions after listening to the podcast or want more resources hit reply and I’d be happy to help.   Remember that you’re doing a better job than you’re giving yourself credit for.    Chat with you next week!   Lana    If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways. If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here

How many times have you spent countless hours of your life stressing out about social media and having to learn something new, yet again, in order to keep up with its changing rules of engagement?   Since starting my coaching business about 6 years ago I feel like I have whiplash from having to learn something, create a new strategy around it, only to have it need to change within 6 months.    The reality is that running a successful business using social media requires us to be very agile.    That seems acceptable if the ONLY thing we had to worry about was in fact social media. But the reality is that most render services, or offer products that have NOTHING to do with social media. That means that we end up spending more time trying to figure out how to market ourselves than we do actually doing the things that have the biggest impact.    The reality is that social media platforms need content creators more than we need them. Social media is a tool, and has made running a business easier in a lot of ways, but we forget that there are other marketing strategies out there that don’t require as many pivots.    I dive deeper into this topic on this week's podcast episode. We also talk about how struggling with marketing doesn’t reflect the quality of what you do - it simply reflects how good you are at explaining it. Those aren’t the same things.    Social media is a tool, but many of us act as if it's the only real measure of success - that’s how good these platforms are at convincing us we need them. Just remember though that without content creators (aka anyone that posts or creates videos), well no one would really use these platforms…..   You are doing better than you’re giving yourself credit for.   You’ve got this and I’ll chat with you next week.    Lana    If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways.   If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here

What if there was a way to retain the autonomy, creativity, freedom and innovation of entrepreneurship, but also have the community, structure and support of others that we sometimes miss when running a business by ourselves?   This is what has me so intrigued with DAOs - decentralized, autonomous, organizations. Think of a startup business meeting a community driven project, meeting a bunch of self motivated people coming together to share resources to make money and achieve a goal.    They aren’t a new concept, in fact they first popped up in the 80s but because of limitations in banking, trusting each other with money and location limits they didn’t really catch fire. Enter blockchain technology, the internet, and things like zoom and now we have an opportunity to reshape how we work with each other, get paid and create change in whatever area interests us.    I sort of fell into working as a contributor with a DAO (Blu3DAO) simply because its mission aligned with mine (helping people make more money while having a greater impact) and was enjoying the community centric nature of what I was experiencing. Next thing I know I’m a governor (think board of directors), a contributor (think freelancer), my partner and I were given the power and funding to pick 35 strangers (and 3 people we met in Denver) to bring to Rio, Brazil. Once there those strangers quickly became friends and we helped many of them start their own DAOs and projects (NFTs etc) and helped secure funding for them to launch.    The best part was that no one there knew that I run my own coaching and consulting business (expect my partner Kate of course), but people kept telling me how good I was at coaching and consulting. LOL the power of doing what you love, and knowing you love it no matter what environment you’re in.    It’s one of the reasons I’m excited about the potential of DAOs. For many of us, we love what we do and we never want to be in a position where someone else is telling us what we need to do or how to do it, but we still miss getting to create with others.    DAOs are designed to reward self motivated, innovative, action takers. There is no CEO or ‘person in charge’. There might be leaders and core team members but they are simply people who have more responsibility on whatever goal your DAO is working towards - but that doesn't mean they have more power or authority - it does mean though they can have a greater impact on the project.    Being a serial entrepreneur, I know that some of the ideas and projects I want to bring to life will require me to work with others, but I also know that I don’t want to be a ‘CEO’. I want collaborators, co conspirators, not employees. DAOs are the first time I’ve felt that I could create those larger projects without having to do it alone, and without having to be the bottleneck CEO that is responsible for everything. Working with my amazing business partner for Astrid Park has taught me a lot about how nice it is to have a teammate.    It’s also worth mentioning that people often work in different DAOs, or like me, have whole other businesses that they run. The space is designed for cross pollination, it encourages people to be creative and do their own thing and you choose to work together because you have shared goals, not because you ‘need a job’.    If you’re interested in learning more, have questions (or concerns), as always feel free to hit reply. I also dive into this topic more on this week’s podcast episode. Check it out here.    Entrepreneurship for me has always been about innovation, expression, bringing ideas to life and getting to choose what and how I spend my time. If you’re the same, DAOs might be something fun to look into, even if it’s just to learn.    Keep being awesome my friend! 

The very first thing I need to make clear when talking about the metaverse, is that it is NOT owned by Facebook, nor are people that interested in what Facebook is building. Why?  Because most people in the web3 space, myself included, are most interested in decentralization. Meaning no one person, government, entity or company has full control or ownership.  The other reality is that we already live in the metaverse. I am writing this while in Rio, Brazil, and you will read it wherever you are. I host many workshops, Lighthouse Collective calls and sessions with clients via zoom. I take photos and videos of what's happening around me, post them on social media and you are able to see those regardless of where you are. The metaverse isn’t this official place you go to, it's simply the integration of technology into our lives, and that is already here.  On this week's episode I dive more into this, as well as why it's okay to resist and not want to partake, and also some reasons why I hope you remain curious.  The same way social media and email  has transformed the ways people run businesses from over a few decades ago, the metaverse (think more an evolution of tech than a place) will also transform how we run our businesses in the future.  Being aware of what's shifting isn’t to make us fomo into jumping on ‘the next thing’ as there will always be the next thing. It’s more about being open and curious, learning a bit here and there and when we feel ready exploring in a more serious and tangible way.  As always you’re doing far better than you’re giving yourself credit for.  You’ve got this and I’ll chat with you next week.  Lana  If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways. If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here

Many people (myself included) pursue the illusion of power, because under the surface what we desire is freedom and we think this is the only way to get it.    The only way I can be free is to have so much power, that no one can have authority (ie control) over me. Because we live in a world of haves and have nots, I need more power, money, status and things than other people to ensure I am one of the ‘haves’, someone at the top of the pecking order. *(having power and being empowered are not the same thing)   I am happy to say that years ago I gave up that ideology and way of relating with the world and others - but I'd be lying if I said it still doesn't creep up on me from time to time.    I believe that true freedom means freedom for all. This doesn’t mean getting to do whatever we want, whenever we want, without any regard for others and without consequences. We are so vastly interconnected in ways we can’t even comprehend, that we need to respect each other and part of that means understanding that I will have some peramatures where my freedom might bump into someone else's, and that freedom isn’t an all or nothing thing.    Power though, well now when I have power I don’t need to respect anyone, I can just squash bulldoze right on over them because I have more power.    You might be asking what the heck this has to do with entrepreneurship, and I would say everything.    Many of us (as I did) build out our businesses and lives wanting more power and often what can happen is it leads us off course. It leads us away from the things that bring us joy and instead have us focusing on accumulating more because more = power and we confuse power with freedom.    Freedom means the beautiful space to be you - to live the life you want, not the one others tell you to want - to be able to express yourself in ways that light you up vs the ones ‘you must do to grow your business’.    We dive deeper into this philosophical discussion on this week's podcast episode which you can listen to here.    I still want to be powerful (AND empowered), I just know that the power I seek comes with significant responsibility and I never want it to come at the expense of someone else ‘having to lose’.    I believe that pondering certain kinds of questions helps us better understand ourselves, what we desire and what we’re truly looking to create.    Are you potentially confusing power and freedom? Have you maybe been living in a paradigm where there needs to be losers in order for there to be winners? Or do you live in a world where we’re all able to win, we just need to work together to get there?   Keep being awesome my friend and together we can, will and already are creating a different world together.    Lana    THIS IS EPISODE 200 of the podcast?! That is crazy to me. Thank you so much for being a part of the journey.    If you enjoy these conversations, check out The Lighthouse Collective. It’s a community for socially and spiritually conscious entrepreneurs building a better world together. We talk about topics like this in even more interactive and supportive ways.   If you are interested in working 1-on-1 with me to help grow your business, I would love to connect with you on a free coaching call here. Learn more about my coaching services here