Blogger Mindset: Powerful Shifts To See Blogging Success [Ep.36]

Updated on March 24, 2024

Want to learn powerful blogger mindset shifts that can lead to huge results?

Then you’re in the right place, as that’s exactly what we’ll be covering in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast!

For this episode, we have special guest Molly Mandelberg of Wild Hearts Rise Up sharing her wisdom and helping listeners master the inner game of business through intentional actions.

Specifically, you’ll learn:

Mindset shifts that can help you see blogging success more easily
A new way to approach blogging that can make your work feel more natural and fun
Exercises for letting go of limiting beliefs and ideas that hold you back
How to create blogging workflows you truly enjoy
That there is no limit to what we can create when we’re willing to get out of our own way, both mentally and physically
And more!

Basically, if you’re interested in improving your blogging mindset to see success as a blogger in a way that feels good, you won’t want to miss this episode, as Molly shares some incredibly actionable advice.

Bonus:

She shares a free Thought Leader Quiz you can take to help put learning into practice.

Table of Contents

Blogger Mindset: Powerful Shifts To See Blogging Success – Podcast Episode Audio

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Cultivate A Growth Mindset As A Blogger – Episode Transcript

*Note: The following has been adapted from the original interview. Some parts may be omitted or edited. For the full raw interview, I highly recommend listening to the podcast episode or watching the YouTube video.

Thank you for taking the time to do this and talk to us about the inner game of business for bloggers, super excited to chat with you. To start, can you share a bit about yourself and your business?

My business is called Wild Hearts Rise Up. I work with coaches and holistic practitioners and emerging thought leaders — many of whom are also bloggers.

And I help them to craft their deep work into inspiring content and hot copy and also to tackle the technology necessary so that they can reach more people and make more money with less time spent.

I do that while traveling full time in my self converted self-converted Sprinter 3500. So I’m a little bit different than the average online marketer or content creator.

But it’s my dream life and that’s sort of what I help my clients do, is figure out what they really want to be doing and what level of freedom, time freedom, or financial freedom they really want to have and then help them figure out how to make their business work for them to make that happen.

Blogger Mindset: Powerful Shifts To See Blogging Success

I love that you travel in your van! This is a little off-topic, but I know it’s something people are curious about. How do you organize yourself while traveling in a van full time?

It takes a lot of motivation to have any kind of routine. And especially as entrepreneurs, there’s all the hours in the day that we could be either working or doing something else and definitely living on the road and making miles and crossing the country and doing that.

It’s harder to have a normal routine. It’s harder to have a normal morning routine when you aren’t sure where you need to be or how you need to move around in the world that day.

But it’s as with anything which we’re going to talk about more. It’s an inner game. It’s a mindset that we have to adopt and then keep practicing and keep pushing towards in order to have some semblance of normal when there’s nothing normal about our every day.

And then speaking of the idea of focusing on the inner game, just for people who maybe this is a new topic for them or who haven’t heard this term, can you just explain a little bit about what that is?

So when we talk about the inner game, we’re talking about your mindset, your motivation, and your ability to show up and do the work that you need to do. These are all important things to think about when starting a travel blog.

Basically, it’s less about the actions you’re taking and the strategies you’re inputting or implementing and more about who you are and how you’re taking care of who you are so that you can show up powerfully and keep doing the work that you need to do.

Do you have certain daily practices that you do to get into a place where you can work on the inner work?

Oh, absolutely. For me, I’m a writer, so I have morning pages. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Artist’s Way? I haven’t actually read the book, but my mom used to do morning pages. She’s a writer. And so I adopted that many, many years ago as a morning practice.

Before I even get out of bed, I write in my journal and before I go to sleep I write again. And those pages can be anything from just dumping what’s in my brain and self-processing and doing a little of my own unpacking and therapy.

And sometimes it’s spinning positive aspects, which is an Abraham Hicks tool, which is basically just listing all the things that are actually going pretty dang right about the world and about me or about my finances or about my love life or about my body or whatever.

And sometimes it’s gratitude lists. I’m very much obsessed with gratitude lists. Gratitude has saved me from deep depression many times in my life. And so it’s some combination of all those things.

Additionally, there’s a school of thought called Access Consciousness that I really love.

And so sometimes I’m just asking myself questions of what would it take to have this or to take to be this, what it takes to do this and that ritual of writing that and being with me and being with my mind every day is really the one thing that keeps me sane.

Honestly, I know when I’m not doing it because I start to get anxious and frantic and less solid and less grounded. So, that alone is the one thing I would give to people if I could tell everyone in the world what to do, it would be to write and to write just for you.

You don’t ever have to read it again. But write. Just to give yourself a moment with yourself once a day.

And then, of course, meditation and movement — I walk my dog as much as possible every day. That really gets me into a good headspace.

I do yoga as often as possible, which is again a challenge on the road. You have to find a place to lay a yoga mat out. But those couple practices really keep me with my head on straight.

I love that! I actually have a mindful morning routine that includes yoga, journaling, and meditating, and I do notice that if I don’t do it I feel more scattered. In terms of gratitude, I actually keep a folder of screenshots where I save everything from being mentioned in National Geographic to a student like saying I’ve helped them. I love looking back on these to see the impact I’m making.

I call that the “feel good file” and I totally have that, too!

I think sometimes our brains runaway with us and sometimes we need to remind ourselves with actual proof, like you said, that we’re making a difference, that what we’re creating is actually landing somewhere and being received.

And that is really good to check back into.

When your mind has run away with you and started convincing you that it’s not worthwhile or that you’re not worthwhile; to have that proof somewhere you can just check back in such a powerful tool.

Absolutely! So going back to the inner work, how has this helped you grow or transform your business? And what is different about the way that you do things in your business versus maybe a more traditional business approach?

It has helped me a million times in my business! The only reason that I’m still in business is that I focus on this inner work.

And for me, I’ve been nomadic for 12 years and I’ve been in the van for close to three now.

I used to have the archetype of starving artist. I used to believe that I had to struggle in order to create.

And I know a lot of poets and writers think that that has to go hand in hand, that we have to be alcoholics in order to create anything good, or we have to be struggling financially in order for anything to be worthwhile or in order for us to even be motivated to create something beautiful.

And I really had to give that up in order to stay in business. I had to give up the thought that it’s only worth it if I’m struggling.

I also had to give up the thought that if my healing work — because I do healing practice also — that if that mattered, then I shouldn’t charge money for it. And I see all my clients often come in with some semblance of that, that if my work is really that valuable, I’m supposed to give it away.

And that is the biggest myth, I think, in the holistic practitioner world, which I know is maybe not all the listeners here, but I think we all have some version of this that we’re supposed to be doing this for free.

If we’re really passionate about it, then we shouldn’t charge money for it. And in my opinion, if we’re really passionate about something and we’re really good at something and we allow that to not be the thing that’s supporting us financially, we are literally robbing the world of more of that because we have to go out and make a living some other way.

So I think it’s literally our job to find the thing that we really care about, the thing we’re really passionate about, and to figure out how that can make us our financial livelihood, because then we’re doing more of it, and that means we’re sharing more of our magic.

So I had to give up a lot of limiting beliefs and a lot of sort of limitation in order to stay in business.

I’ve had a few moments where I was really ready to quit, and luckily in those times I had mastermind groups, accountability, and support that was like, “Just wait, keep going. We see your value, just go.”

I had luckily enough trust in those people to believe them so that I didn’t give up and quit on my business. And that made all the difference in finding a place of success and having my first $5,000 and then $10,000 and then $20,000 month because I didn’t give up when things got hard.

For anyone listening, I would say, yes, cultivate your own inner practice, start looking at what those limiting beliefs are. Start looking at where you’re really stopping yourself and unpack that; figure out what that is so that you can truly pursue blogging full-time.

Is that actually true or is that something you adopted a long time ago that you’ve been making true? And instead of looking for proof that it’s true, look for proof that it’s not true and see if there’s another way to go about your life without believing that thing anymore and see if that frees you up to have more success or to create more prolifically or to follow through with this dream and this vision that you see as possible for you — and then find people who can support you in that because it’s often not going to be your spouse or your sister or your best friend from childhood that gets it.

I’m lucky to have a really great best friend from childhood, but not everyone has that. A lot of us have a group of friends and a community of people in a closest five that don’t get this kind of thing.

To go out and be an entrepreneur and believe in this being successful and fortuitous and coming to fruition is not normal. And most people won’t get it. And they’ll look for people who are doing something like what you want to be doing and surround yourself with them.

And when you come to that moment of “I think I might want to quit” then go to those people to look for support. Don’t go to the other people who are going to say, “Yeah, you should probably get a job now” because they don’t get it and they might never get it.

And that’s okay! Having people in our lives who can reflect back that they see where we’re going and they know that it’s possible for us is really, really helpful.

I agree that having these sorts of models that show you that something is possible is so important. With travel, because it’s fun bloggers often think they shouldn’t be paid for it. But, meanwhile, you’re working your butt off to build a community and brand and create amazing content.

You absolutely deserve to be compensated for your work. In my opinion, the more money you can make, the more people you can help, because if you’re making barely enough to get by and you’re not sleeping because you’re working around the clock, you’re not going to really be able to do much for people.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there comes a point in every solopreneur’s life where they realize that they’re doing it alone is the thing that is limiting them and recognizing being an entrepreneur as the root of enterprise.

And that means that there are other people helping. That’s a really big shift to start recognizing and choosing to move forward towards.

So you’ve mentioned that you teach magic and marketing. What is this exactly? And how can bloggers and entrepreneurs begin to add magic to their own businesses?

I started recognizing that I always played with magic — and by magic I mean being really intentional with our words and being really intentional with our energy and being really specific about what we’re desiring to create and sort of future casting and pulling what our vision is towards us through whatever means we can.

So some of that’s energetic and some of that’s action-oriented and that’s the being and the doing.

In my business, the being and the doing shows up as the magic and the marketing.

So Access Consciousness, which I mentioned before, is a lot like law of attraction — but on steroids.

The law of attraction is amazing and we can listen to it and get jazzed up about it; but a lot of people listen to Abraham Hicks, for example, and fall short on, “Okay, now what do I actually do to actually use this and how do I start adopting it and doing it?”

Access Consciousness is just fraught with tools and practices and questions to be asking and verbal processing to clear the energy that’s in the way.

There is, for instance, a hands-on energy practice on the head — though a lot of their tools are verbal processing. So I wouldn’t say I facilitate those verbal processes with people, but I share them and I use them in my group programs and I use them in my business and blogging courses.

And for me, that clears all the energy that’s in the way so that we can actually get down to what we’re creating and asking for what we’re creating really specifically. And then also taking the action to actualize what we want to see come about.

So that’s sort of the overarching gist of what I mean by magic. But magic is something we’re doing absolutely all the time. You don’t really have to believe in it for it to work. You can actually play with it and not know if it’s true or not and see magical, miraculous stuff happen in your life.

But the root of it is to be willing to ask questions. What is this? What can I do with it? How can I change it?

What would it take for me to have that $20k, $30k, $100k per month that I want to have?

And then instead of answering those questions with “I can’t. I don’t. It doesn’t get any better than this. I don’t know how,” just ask the question and see what comes up — because often the universe is wanting to show up and answer that question for us.

You’ll suddenly find new opportunities or new ideas or new projects pop up and start falling into your lap — or for some reason, you want to turn left instead of right on the way home and you come across something you might not have seen otherwise.

There’s beauty all around us and miracles abound if we’re willing to start asking for them and paying attention and acknowledging them when they show up.

So that’s sort of the basis of the magic part of it.

And that plays into business really dynamically if we’re willing to stop making it about vanity metrics and stressing if we published the best blog post.

Instead, start making it about what is right about what you did, what was needing to come forth, what magic can I imbue in the words that I sent out to the world so that people understand what I’m trying to say?

I love that. Personally, I write my goals out all of the time to remind myself of what I want to put out into the world. It helps me consider, “What do I need to do to get here? What would my next step be? Just as a reminder to take those actions. Is that magic?

Absolutely!

I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily Access Consciousness, but that is doing magic for your business and for your life.

And I would say we’ve talked about having a gratitude list and how how amazing it is to think about the positive aspects of our life. If you do that gratitude and get into the energy and the feeling of being grateful before you go into your visions and your goals and your targets or whatever your big asks of the universe, that energy of gratitude actually magnifies the actualization and the manifestation of the things that you’re asking for.

So to do those two things — like when I do my gratitude list at the bottom of my journal pages and then I do a vision right afterwards and pinpoint the thing I’m asking for — it just supercharges the manifestation of that.

Additionally, you want to be present to what your vision is now, because if we keep assuming that we want that thing we set as a goal 10 years ago, it might not be true anymore.

Sometimes it morphs and evolves and we need to be present to that. And the more we can future cast, it’s sort of like casting a spell when we imagine that future.

Who would I be that has that?
What energy would I have to embody for me to be someone who actualize?
Is that in my life?

When it comes to business, you’ve mentioned how the being is just as important as the doing. Can you share more about what this means exactly and what steps people can take to begin benefiting from this idea?

So doing is a grocery list or write that blog or put the piece of the puzzle together; you actually create and make things happen and publish them and share them and put them out into the world.

On the other hand, being is the part of you that allows you to do that. The part of you that gets out of the way so that you can channel those words or write those words on the page in the first place.

One really can’t happen with the other.

But if we get intentional about allowing ourselves to be, the creation can happen more effortlessly and more organically and be more lucrative or profitable or impactful on the way out, as well.

Can you share a bit about the creative cycle?

I talk about something called the creative cycle, which is Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, which are Hindu deities.

Brahma is the lightning strike of creativity. You have a new idea. You’re really inspired. You know what it is like. Many projects fall into your plate at the same time and you can’t wait to work on all of them. You’re excited.

Vishnu is the plugging along, the taking action, and moving forward towards an end goal. You’re not super inspired and lit up by the idea anymore, but you know where you’re going. You’re taking action.

And Shiva is the god of chaos and destruction and like vegetative on the couch, catatonic nothingness. And that’s the being. And I think in our society, we’ve sort of made that wrong. We’re supposed to be on all the time and create and create. Creating our value is based in how much we can create.

The truth is, if we don’t go through Shiva, we can’t get back to Brahma, we end up trying to slug out more Vishnu. But really, we can’t get back to Brahma until we take that pause. And that pause can happen through a vacation. It could happen through you getting sick and now you have to be on the couch for a few weeks.

But no matter what, in order for that creative cycle to stay alive and stay energized, the Shiva has to happen so you can plan for it.

You can meditate in the morning and take that break, or you can get slapped in the face with it when you’re like, I’m finally going on vacation and I’m going to go surfing and we’re going to go hiking and we’re going to do all this stuff and you get there and you get sick. It’s like, no, your body needs a break.

How do you build breaks into your business?

I see clients three days a week, three weeks a month. They don’t know that. I mean, some of them know that because I’ve been like, no, I don’t see clients on Mondays and Fridays, but I need that pause between the forced output for me to be in my creative zone.

And I’m often working those other four days a week. I’m often working my butt off on that fifth or fourth week a month.

But I’m not forced to and it’s not demanded of me. I get to show up and be in the creative zone and take breaks when I want to and go for more walks than I normally would.

It’s important that we build that in or it’s important that we account for it.

And it’s also important that we not beat ourselves up when it comes unexpectedly.

With that in mind, I’m curious if you like working in batches?

Yes! Mostly outside of the three days, I have calls, I mostly record my podcasts on Mondays as part of my podcast workflow and I’ll do a lot of my admin tasks. I’m not really running the show as much.

Then the other days of the week and that free week that I have with less calls, usually those entail finishing writing my book or writing the query letters so I can send my book out to people.

And I made an oracle deck last year with those extra days. I definitely am still producing content and creating things, but they’re more passion projects than other things like blog posts.

How do you feel like entrepreneurs get in their own way and then how can they begin getting out of their own way to experience more limitless possibilities in their business?

We all have a lot of judgments about ourselves. If you start looking at those and asking yourself if they’re true and unpacking them — whether it’s through therapy or neurolinguistic programming or EFT Tapping or journaling or whatever, there are so many tools out there to start changing how you see yourself.

That’s the biggest way we get in our way — we limit ourselves by what we believe is possible for us or what we believe is possible for our business.

And none of that has to be true if we start questioning it and looking at different possibilities.

Also, be willing to get that support and get mentorship. Sometimes that looks like getting a housekeeper so that you can work more hours in a day because you’re not cleaning your house every week.

Through your business, you offer a free Thought Leader Quiz that helps entrepreneurs understand how they can share their magic on a bigger scale. Can you share the five stages of business growth that you talk about in this?

I have started geeking out about how the major arcana of the tarot deck. This is magical stuff that relates to the Kabbalah or the Tree of Life. And I started noticing that the major arcana of the tarot is actually like a formula for how an idea becomes manifest — how a lightning strike of creativity, a brilliant thought, comes into physical reality and becomes an actual thing that we can touch and play with.

With that idea, I started recognizing how that relates to us unfolding as business owners and us getting out of our own way and starting to take action and create things and become more successful.

And so I sort of simplified that methodology and created a free personality quiz. The five stages are:

The Fool, which is really about being bold enough to believe you have something worthwhile here and to start moving towards it.
The Magician, which is about acquiring tools and learning what you need to learn to move forward.
The High Priestess, which is about intuition and coming back into alignment with who you are in this new way.
The Emperor, which is about creation and actually putting the pieces together and doing the work and making the magic.
The Hierophant, which is about becoming the leader, the facilitator, the guide, and being willing to go out and share that work now that you’ve created it.

So you can take the quiz, find out what level you’re at right now and how to start moving into the next level and becoming more of The Hierophant in your life.

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