Email Marketing Mistakes That Can Doom

sales are just a meeting of the heart, and I’m there to share what I can offer to help people. The rest I’ve got to let go because I can’t force people.

Loving sales happened when I was a gracious, generous listener, then shared my ideas. Loving sales is just me thinking, “I’m going to talk to my best friend today. It’s just a meeting of the heart. It’s the warmth and the connection.” All I have to be is a generous listener and let them know that when they say yes to themselves, I will take care of them just like family. I’ll invite them to my home, I’ll cook with them, I’ll listen to them, I’ll hold their hand.

I know when you hit resistance, you want to pull back. I will hold your hand all the way and take care of you, so you feel heard and important and special and loved, and, to me, that’s what being a family is about.

Dennis: How did you deal with pushing yourself out of your comfort zone?

Izdihar: Being uncomfortable all the time is not a great place to be. But I feel that the more uncomfortable I am, the more successful I become, the more things I create, the more people I attract, because people are attracted to those who are committed, courageous, willing to do whatever it takes, and who have warmth and connection.

One of the biggest things people say about me is that they love my energy. That energy comes from being uncomfortable all the time. Sharing yourself and putting yourself out there every day is not easy. The main thing is touching people’s hearts. Whatever resistance that comes is part of the package that I have to go through.

I remember for my TED Talk, I was so scared of speaking onstage, I just couldn’t. I froze. I had to train myself a lot. Building that resistance, that resilience, training myself every single day, asking for help, and figuring out my story.

On the day of the talk, I was so nervous, I did jumping jacks in the green room. When the organizer announced me as the next speaker, I looked at her smile and I just prayed, “God, just let me be. Help them hear my heart. Help me touch their hearts. Help me help one person, and I’ll be so grateful.” And I walked up on the stage, said my first word and I don’t remember much else.

Then I cried on the stage because it’s a lot. Because of the spotlight, I could only see four people up front. When I said my last word, the first person stood up, then the second, then the third, until everyone stood. My husband, who could be biased, said, “You had the longest and loudest standing ovation.” I walked off the stage and after that, people’s husbands, people’s moms, people’s friends came over to me to say my words touched their hearts or made them cry.

That’s what I feel like when I push myself every single day, so uncomfortable, so scary, you don’t even want to do it—I would rather watch Netflix. But when you play the big game for others, you’ve got to see how it touches other people, and hopefully it plants a positive seed in people’s hearts.

Dennis: What was it like to prepare for the TED Talk?

Izdihar: Not everybody can be a TED speaker, and that’s why it’s so prestigious. With the TED talk, every word is scripted. I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, the first thing is that you have to know what your unique idea is—what you want to share with the world. It takes a lot of brainstorming.

You also can’t give up. I applied to ten different TEDx Talks. Ten. Six of those didn’t even get back to me, three said no, one said yes. I knew that was the best one for me, because I knew that when God says no to me, He’s just directing me to the best place.

Then it comes to crafting your story. There’s a particular way to craft a TED story—I had to learn it. It takes a lot to craft a story and put it into motion. Essentially, it’s twenty years of my life in that eight minutes.

Then comes the practice part, because I’m so scared of the stage, I had to learn from the best coach how to be so attractive onstage that people can’t look away from you, how to own your physicality, how to tell the story with all the emotions and just let yourself be, because that’s what the audience wants. They don’t want a stuckup, perfect kind of person. Relentless practice was my approach. As my coach, Bo Eason, said, “The key is when you have relentless practice, your life will be predictable. So practice every day, every moment, over and over and over and over again.”

When the day comes, it just goes out. You don’t even have to think anymore because on the day of the talk, all the hard work has been done.

Watch Izdihar on Motivation and Success TV where she hosts, “Yes, I Can.” You can find her book “Money Makers” on Amazon. You can also visit her at izdiharjamil.com.

Izdihar on Relationships:

“The currency to any business is relationships. When you find a good relationship, someone who understands you, someone who supports you, you hold on. You take care of that relationship. You nurture it. You give everything that you’ve got in that relationship.”