Changing The Story With Lana Dingwall

What happens when we confuse validation for love?  ⁣ Is that opportunity really worth accepting? ⁣ Is that relationship really worth fighting for? ⁣ Is that friendship really worth the effort?   I ask these questions because it’s important to reflect on WHO is the person we become in the pursuit of approval and validation. Are we giving up parts of ourselves in this pursuit? Can we even recognize the person we’re becoming? ⁣ Nothing is worth abandoning ourselves for. We just need to be brave enough to know that we can pave a path that allows us to be who we yearn to be, while making room for who we already are.   I recently shared a poem I wrote on Instagram (shared below), inspired by a conversation that we had in my online community, The Lighthouse Collective, about how easy it is to confuse validation for love, Or the number of followers we have with the impact we’re creating in the world.   At the beginning of my business, I was making many concessions in who I truly am. It’s the moment I embraced my full

Selling and sales is quite literally the last step before we not only get paid and make a profit, but also before we get to do the thing we actually enjoy - the service we offer!   It’s also the step that people struggle with the most.   Not having a sales process that you feel confident in… Not charging what your service is actually worth… Not working through your money beliefs… Not being able to handle people's concerns and hesitations...   Without mastering selling, you will not only struggle to make money in your business, but you will constantly be doubting yourself and your abilities.   Selling with ease has nothing to do with how good you are at rendering your service.    Selling with ease has everything to do with how good you are at articulating the TRUE value of your work.   In selling, we often bring ourselves into the conversation, along with all of our insecurities. We make sales conversations about us (over explaining ourselves out of fear, justifying our prices, etc), when it should be about th

This week is all about how to tap into your creativity more so we can express ourselves in new ways.   You don’t have to find ways to grow your business through your creativity, but if you are a business owner and you do want to use it as part of your business, then this is for you.   Creativity and entrepreneurship are deeply connected. Everything that exists was once just a dream. When I work with clients on new marketing strategies, it’s often in their creativity that the best strategy lies. Having confidence in our creativity allows us to steer away from following cookie cutter marketing formulas and to embrace our own unique way of connecting with our audience.   I recently picked up writing poetry again, something that I was doing just for myself. Part of my resistance and for many others is that we don’t feel qualified to be creative because we’re not “good at it”. It’s giving ourselves permission to create without needing to be ‘good’. We forget that creativity, like anything else, requires practices

Marketing and sales can be a struggle for many of us.    You probably didn’t get into business because you love doing them, but because of the service you offer or product you sell. Because of this, we often resist marketing as a part of our business.   It is okay to not be great at marketing and sales.   What’s not okay is ignoring it and avoiding getting help.    You need to learn marketing and sales.    In order to create a successful business, you need to find a way to reach your intended audience, and how to build enough like, know and trust with them that they will want to purchase from you.    Which is why I want to share three marketing mistakes and some solutions that will help you understand marketing and sales.   The first mistake is only posting educational content and what might be missing.   The second mistake is prioritizing consistency over quality and managing your creation energy levels.    The third mistake is thinking it’ll be easier to sell something that is $100 vs $1,000 and how to sell

Life can be a lot sometimes. Business can be a lot sometimes.  It’s important for us to acknowledge that we are constantly living in cycles. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how many ideal clients you have, we are not invincible from the ebbs and flows of entrepreneurship. When we find ourselves in a cycle of overwhelm, it’s important to remember that we all go through this at one point or another. It’s not a reflection that we’re doing something wrong. We are never broken or doing something wrong in life or in business, we are simply in a cycle of our life where we need to support ourselves a little more. Instead of shaming ourselves for being in this cycle of overwhelm, we should accept that it’s happening and then give ourselves the compassion and support to move through it. Today, I wanted to share three things that you can do when you find yourself in this cycle of overwhelm, anxiety, and intense feelings of panic. Observe what you are feeling. Expand your perspective. Get to work (while bein

It’s easy to get distracted with all the marketing trends we see our peers jumping on, but you always want to make sure that your marketing strategy takes into consideration the back bone of your business. By the way, this can shift as your business model evolves.   The more time or money it takes for someone to invest in your service, or the more emotional resistance it takes to invest in your service. The more resistance there is around something working with you or buying your product, the more your marketing has to change.   The marketing strategy of someone selling lower priced products versus someone selling a higher end service is going to look very different. If your income is based on the size of your audience, then quantity is part of your strategy. Whereas if you sell a higher end product or service, that means there’s more resistance, then quantity is less important and quality becomes more important.   It is important for you to understand WHO is your ideal client, what are their habits and tende

We’ve all heard people talk about getting more done in less time, but is that actually possible?   I would say that it is, however, what that means for me is most likely very different from what that means for you.   It all comes down to learning to manage our energy and that will look different for each of us.    For this week’s podcast episode, I decided to release a private training I ran for my membership community, The Lighthouse Collective.   In this training, we covered energy and intuition and the idea that we’re much more in-tune with our intuition than we realize, we just don’t always know that’s what’s guiding us. When we’re better able to understand how this works for us individually, we are able to actually get more done, in less time - and in a way that feels good.    The more that we can reflect on how it feels when we’re following our intuitive knowing versus our ego, the easier it is for us to make empowered decisions for ourselves.   I also want to share some reflection questions that can he

With my coaching clients, I get to see varying levels of people in terms of how they feel about money and how they feel about their relationship with money.   Depending on your own relationship with money, it will manifest in different ways in how you approach making money, attracting your dreams clients, and growing your business.   Today, I want to cover two sides of the money “making” discussion.   Making money versus creating money.   It’s subtle, but there’s a difference between creating and making money.   When we talk about “creating” money, we are thinking about it in terms of actually cultivating it - nurturing a process that we know will require time and energy investments from us. We know we can’t snap our fingers and create a million dollars because we understand our part in the process and how it will require us to show up.   When talking about “making” money, we are also sometimes assigning value to it - our value. It feels more like snapping our fingers and we say things like, “I just want to m

Whether you’re working at a full-time job, debating your life purpose, you’ve just started a business, or you’ve been at it for many years, an existential crisis can, and will, hit us many times throughout our working lives. I have many of these existential thoughts and maybe you have them too. Something along the lines of “who the hell am I and what am I doing?!”.  When we think we’re aligned in our business and these thoughts still come up, we can start to second guess ourselves even more. Are we not on the right path? Have we not done the work on ourselves? It’s important to remember that even when we are fully in alignment with our business, we can still have these moments of an existential crisis. We are always growing and evolving, which means we’re always on the cusp of a new level. It doesn’t mean we’re out of alignment, it simply means we need a small adjustment. Add to all of this the current global climate that we have all been living through for a year now. When we feel like we’re in a crisis, we

With everything that I share, I always want to remind you there is never an absolute right or wrong way to do something. When we are listening to those around us, it’s important to root down and ground ourselves in our own power. When we are not grounded in our power, we are easily swayed by those we admire and blindly take their advice and strategies that perhaps is not the best one for us. When that strategy doesn’t work for you, it reinforces the idea that you don’t have what it takes to accomplish your dreams. All business strategies are relative. You will always be your best guide and mentor. Remember this when you are listening to advice from those around you. If your inner guidance is telling you a different story than even I am sharing, always remember that you know best for yourself. Your compass and my compass are being guided by so many different dependencies. You have immense power and your power is going to look and feel different than my power.   On the episode, I cover: How comparison keeps us

I wanted to share my 2021 theme with you, which is to become an adventurous creator. It’s all about building and cultivating new things that are exploratory in nature. I’m giving myself permission to fully step into adventurous creation. It’s something I’ve already been doing, but I haven’t owned it fully. When you’re an adventurer, you don’t always know where you’re going. That’s the joy of going on an adventure - not knowing exactly where you will end up. This is the kind of energy I want to bring more of into this year. To run more online workshops, to write more poetry, and share more behind the scenes of my own side projects and business ventures. I want to build more space for myself to create without everything having to be

Welcome to a new year!   With a new year comes a fresh energy of opportunity and hope.   Hope is a very important tool for us to have. Even more so in the world we live in today.   It doesn’t mean you should put pressure on yourself to be a “new year, new me”. What I invite you to focus on instead is on the essence of what you want this upcoming year to look like. Not the specific tactics, or strategies, or tasks… but the essence that you want to embody in yourself, in your relationships, in your business, and throughout your full life.   Essence is the energy we consciously choose to hold space for in our life.   If nothing else comes to fruition this year, what is the energy that you want to finish this year in.   Last year, I chose to embody compassion and I can genuinely say that, while the rest of my life looks completely different from what I had planned in early 2020, I have carried the essence of compassion with me.   On the episode, I cover: The value of choosing an essence word for yourself in 2021

The gift of 2020 for me was the extra space that appeared in my life and allowed me to explore other creative outlets for myself. I had big ambitions to travel and host in-person workshops, was set up to speak at multiple conferences across North America this year and as we know, that didn’t happen. Instead, I became curious about expressing myself in new ways. I’ve noticed how Instagram and my podcast and writing poetry have unlocked yet another facet of myself. I have begun expressing myself differently, and what is interesting is that every time I challenge myself to show up differently, I peel back a new layer of who I am. We are not one-dimensional and using different mediums and modes of communication and expression actually tap into different parts of ourselves.  Often, the typical social media strategies tell us to find a niche and share it across our channels. But what’s even more important is allowing yourself to show up without overthinking it and surprising yourself with how you show up. By doing

This year has left us feeling disconnected from many of the spaces that had previously inspired and supported our business journeys.   Often, when we are feeling stuck in life or business, all we need is a space to come together, be inspired, and get outside perspectives and insights into what we can do to take our next step forward.   I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to incorporating more collaboration and connection in 2021, which is why I created a monthly ritual where I can connect directly with all of you:   A monthly group coaching + Q&A fireside chat where I answer all of your questions. And last week, I hosted the first of these calls - something that I plan to run on the third Wednesday of every month in 2021.   I’m sharing the recording with you today so you can get an idea of what to expect and to invite you to join us in January.   Here are the questions I answered on the Q&A: How to be more authentic (and what that even means) online without following into the trap of wha

Beyond dealing with different situations in our life, we also have to face ourselves in response to the situation.   Whenever I hear others telling me that I’m brave for starting my business or showing up authentically online or sharing this weekly newsletter, I always remind them that if we recognize traits in others it means we have the ability to embody those traits ourselves.   If we notice bravery in others, it means we have bravery within us - whether or not we are choosing to fully embody it at this moment.   When we catch ourselves wishing we could be like someone else, it’s important to catch ourselves creating this divide between who they are and who we are. We are all capable of the traits we admire in others.   In relation to business and showing up online, we often have this fear of being seen in the pursuit of learning and fumbling through that process of honing our craft. We’re afraid of being seen in the raw beginning process. But even as we grow and expand in one area, we will be curious and

This year, I’m approaching the end of the year a little differently than in previous years. 2020 has been a ride. Some of us have experienced massive growth, some of us have faced massive struggles, and some of us are somewhere in between, but all of us have been affected in some way this year. Which is why I will be approaching my year-end planning in a different way this year... To remind ourselves that, despite what happened in 2020, there is no dream that is too big to achieve. That the version of you who will accomplish all of your wildest dreams already exists inside of you. ⁣ The fact that you can conceptualize that small seed of an idea shows that there is a version of you who can bring it to life. And maybe our purpose in life is simply to live out our deepest desires? One of the biggest things I work on with my clients (and personally), is creating a container big enough to call in and support our biggest dreams. ⁣ ⁣Because big dreams require a lot of work and responsibility.   We cannot hold our dr

It’s that time of year to reflect on the past 12 months and gain perspective on everything we went through and are still going through.   This week I went through my storage boxes, flipping through old letters and notes, and it was such a beautiful time to get reacquainted with all the different versions of myself that sometimes I’ve forgotten about.   We have all lived multiple lives in our current life, and this is the power of perspective. Often, we feel trapped because we can’t do something or we only see the reasons why we can’t have something or achieve something. It makes us feel defined and rigid, forgetting that we’ve been many different versions of ourselves and have evolved our mindsets and opinions and fears. Things we’ve been afraid of in the past which we can now do without a second thought.   Whatever we are struggling with today, we have overcome a variation of that struggle in the past. So quickly we forget how truly powerful we are.   Perspective can show us that we are becoming who we alway

One of the things we have to realize when talking about freedom is that it isn’t linear, it doesn’t look or feel the same for everyone, and is very multifaceted.    Freedom, by the very nature of the word, is free to mean different things to different people.    One of the topics we discussed on The Lighthouse Collective last week was the idea of intuition and how to strengthen our connection to it by uncovering our true authentic values.   Often what gets in the way of us making empowered choices for ourselves, is that we’re using someone else's definition of freedom and success as our measure of success.    Freedom is often the sales pitch that’s used to sell entrepreneurship. It’s also the script used to shame others for not wanting it.   The pairing of entrepreneurship and freedom can be misleading because freedom can be found anywhere: it can be found by breaking down the delusions we have about ourselves and everyone around us.   On the episode, I cover: Why popular entrepreneurship content can be lack

Whenever we find ourselves working towards something we should stop and ask ourselves…   What are we looking for? Why are we looking for it? Where are we looking for it?   Sometimes we get so caught up in the pursuit of something that we fail to realize we might be striving for something that we don’t actually want, or that we might already have it and we just haven’t realized it.    Let’s be taking the time to pause and check in with ourselves.    Entrepreneurship and what comes up while building our businesses is often a mirror for who we are. We can without question guarantee that our insecurities will show up.    So while business needs to be calculated and strategic, it also has to be intuitive.    There are certain things that you will do or talk about that make you feel alive. And then there will be things that exhaust and overwhelm us.   What creates calm for you might create chaos for me. We are all being guided by different forces. Even those with the best intentions in our life can’t know what’s be

Most businesses are created out of needing contrast. We have a desire or need for something new, and so we create it. We fill an empty space that exists in the world with our business. Contradictions and paradoxes are what make the world so abundant. When it comes to marketing and sales, we are afraid to contradict the standards in our industry. We censor ourselves because our unique approach might feel wrong or out of place. Even when something doesn’t feel right, we go along with it because we don’t stop to appreciate that maybe there is space for that contradiction. That maybe doing something your way will fill an empty space that needs to be filled and give someone else permission, too. Nothing is only just two things. Most things exist in a space in between. There is freedom here, to exist as you are without any should’s or would’s. Our business and life doesn’t have to be one or the other. We can live in the inbetween. We can run a business in the inbetween. Nothing in this world is static.   On the epi