Salome Schillack:

Welcome to episode number 119 of The Shine Show. Today's episode is called How Your Online Course Will Change the World. And I think you'll find that today's episode is a little bit different. Enjoy.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

The purpose of this episode is to help you see that we online course creators are the leaders in social change in the world. That when we create our online courses and we can sell these courses to anyone anywhere in the world, that we then become able to take full control of our destiny by generating our own money in ways that support our lives. And also in ways that empowers us to put our money into places and into causes that matter and that lives up to the values we hold dear and the future that we want to see in the world.

Today's episode is not about Facebook ads. Today's episode is not about launch strategies. Today's episode is about freedom. But before we can talk about freedom and before we can unpack how having a successful online course business allows us to create freedom for ourselves and our family and our community and society as a whole, we need to backtrack a little bit. We need a little bit of a history lesson. We need to go back and see why is it that we are in this position where we crave freedom so much?

When I think back on the days when I was still in full-time employment and I hated every second of it, when I think about that day that I dropped my kids off at daycare and I couldn't go in and do the Mother's Day morning tea because all of the other mummies were there, but I had to catch a plane to go to a country town because someone somewhere had a spreadsheet that said on these days, I need to be in a country town. Before we can understand how our online courses helps us create freedom, we need to understand how we got to this place where we lack freedom. And so there's a bit of a history lesson here.

And before I dive into this history lesson, this lesson on what got us here and how we can change so that we can get there, I want to give full credit to somebody who started out as my student and now I have become her student. Her name is Daniela. And you can find Daniela at danielagrconsulting.ca. She has a course called The Work' 101. And what I loved so very much about going through this is if you're a history junkie like me, she's a bit of a history junkie too and she teaches the history of how we got where we're at in a very interesting way that kind of completely changed how I look at the social issues that we have today because now I understand where they come from and I have a far better context to put this in.

So I'm going to do my best to give you a little bit of a condensed version of the history of how we got where we're at right now. And this is important for you if you are craving more freedom in your life, if you are craving more money, if you are building an online courses business because somewhere along the line, you had enough of being an employee. You had enough of sitting in a cubicle. You had enough of a dude with a spreadsheet who tells you where you have to be and when you have to be there, or maybe you've already traded that dude with the spreadsheet for some coaching clients and now they are turning into dudes with spreadsheets. Maybe you've already traded your job for a coaching or a consulting business and now your clients have just turned into many bosses. So if you're craving freedom from that and you're paying attention to all the social things happening in the world right now, then I want to invite you to come on a bit of a history journey with me.

So let's start by looking at the history of how people made money, because let's face it, that's why we're here, right? But to where we're going, it's important that we know how we got here. And there were three main concepts that we need to look at to know how we got where we are today and to help us understand where we're going from here. I share these three concepts so that you can see how they have shaped the lack of freedom that brought us all here and the lack of financial empowerment, which is the exact thing that we as entrepreneurs crave so much right now. We are here because we want to make a bigger impact in the world, and we are here because we want to create more freedom. And that freedom shows up for us in terms of being in control of our own time, how we spend our time, but also being in control of our own ability to earn money.

The three history lessons, the three concepts that I'm going to talk about is capitalism, colonialism, and supremacy. Whoa, I bet those are three words you never thought you would hear on this podcast. You thought you were coming here for Facebook ads. No, this is Social Studies 101. So let's begin by looking at the history of capitalism. Capitalism is the way that money is run in most Western societies at the moment. Particularly, the US is probably... I think when I researched this, it says the US is the sixth most capitalist country. I don't know what that means, but Australia would be capitalist with a side dish of socialism. A country like Norway where all of their childcare, all of their healthcare, all of the education is paid for by the state is more leaning towards more socialism.

So what is capitalism? Capitalism, the underlying principle of capitalism was created in favor of the people, because what it aims to do is to put the power of creating money into the hands of the people more than the hands of the government. So in capitalism, private people own and control businesses and prices for the things that they buy and sell are set by the people, who are the market, based on supply and demand. The goal of capitalism is profit. One of the things that is beautiful about capitalism is it is designed to keep the money out of the hands of the government and in the hands of the people. The government is not meant to interfere with this free market.

Once somebody's in a perfect capitalist world creates a business fairly easily because they discovered the need for something, then that person can hire or purchase labor and people sell their labor in exchange for wages. So if you've ever had a job, that is exactly what you were doing. You were selling your labor in exchange for wages. One of the positive things of capitalism is that it is supposed to be a free market which is meant to promote entrepreneurship. And it's kind of the concept that the American Dream is built on. And I use the term American Dream loosely because even as a South African Australian, I'm familiar with the American Dream. I live in Australia because I wanted the American Dream, which is freedom to make money, right? So that's kind of the idea behind capitalism.

The problem with capitalism that we have at the moment is that, i.e., governments do interfere, the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. And the richer the rich gets, the more they can control the ruling bodies. If you think about the media and you think about who owns a lot of the media channels both in America and in Australia comes back to Rupert Murdoch. So Rupert Murdoch is a rich man who owns the media. The media tells us what to think and believe. And so wherever Rupert Murdoch puts his money, that is where the conversations of the day goes.

That's a very simplified version of where capitalism fails. The rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer to the point where the top 1% of the world owns 48% of the wealth. The next 9% own 39%. And the bottom 50% has to share less than 1%. We do not live in a world where there is a lack of resources. We do not live in a world where there is a lack of money. We live in a world where there is a lack of distribution of money.

And capitalism whilst it looked good on paper is horribly filing us all. The barriers to entry into markets, into bigger markets, gets harder and harder and harder as the rich build systems to protect their wealth and keep the labor force down. That is literally playing out in front of our very eyes. If you've been paying attention to any of the things that have been said about Amazon in the last few years, in the last few months, that is literally that playing out in front of our eyes.

The other part where capitalism fails us is that because it is a race for resources, it leads to extreme harm of the environment. When governments and the media can be bought and natural resources can be traded, kind of opens the door for a lot of bad stuff. So that is your history lesson on capitalism. Your lesson on what it is and how it contributes to some of the sticky situations we're dealing with in society today.

So from what you know about capitalism now, I wonder if you can see that if you have craved freedom, if you have craved giving your boss the finger, if you have craved having more power and more control over your time and having more power or control over your ability to create income, that it is a capitalism that you have butted your head against. But also in saying that, it is also capitalism that creates this free marketplace that we work and operate in. So we just have to know how we got here so that we can know why we're frustrated with what we have at the moment and then make decisions to take the power back.

Second ism that plays into all of these things is colonialism. And one of my favorite things that Daniela teaches that I've learned from her is how to live in a colonialist society, but become decolonized in our thinking and in our behavior. And I'm only literally starting to discover this and starting to learn this from her, but I love how it has just changed my entire perspective on all the social issues, racism, classism, everything. I'm just seeing how it all started with a bunch of white dudes that got in their boats, traveled around the world, stuck their flags in other people's lands and started oppressing people. And that is in a nutshell, colonialism.

Colonialism is when one society or one group of people dominate another group of people and where their sole purpose is to exploit the native people or the native resources in order to gain financial power or social power. Now, we can look at history lessons and say, like I make a joke about the white dudes who got in their boats and traveled everywhere. Yes, that is the start of a lot of it, but colonialism and the suppression of people from one group over another is as old as time. Think about the Vikings, think about Attila the Hun, think about... You can go back in history and find examples of one group of people invading another one's land and taking possession of what they own for as long as history.

We are today, still living and dealing with the consequences of this domination. And the destruction that it has caused, as a society, we are becoming more aware of the need and the urgency for change now. As a child, I grew up in a country that [inaudible 00:17:38] growing up in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s at the height of apartheid, my eyes have never been as open to the destruction that comes as a result of colonialism.

And while I lived there, when you're entrenched in all of the nitty-gritty day-to-day issues that it creates, you don't always have the right perspective, but I feel like the fact that I've not lived there for so long, I can now look at the country that is my home, that I grew up in, South Africa, and I can look at Australia, which is another colonialist society where horrible things have been done to the native people here and still continues to be done today, and I can look as an outsider at a country like America and Canada and the UK and I can see so clearly how it all started with some dude who got in a boat and stuck his flag in a land and called it his own. And today we have to deal with the falling out of that.

And we see how people are starting to stand up against it. We see it in the Black Lives Matter movement and in gender equality and in all of the movements that are working towards creating a less binary society, a less black and white society, a less male, female society. We see it where LGBTQIA people are now speaking up for their rights. And we as allies can stand with them and say, well, hang on. We didn't even know that these things are happening, but now we can stand up and we can say, this is not right. It is not normal to be white, straight, and male. What if normal is all the colors and things that are in between?

And so the reason I share this with you is because I want you to see that unless we start to learn the history of how we got where we're at today, we end up just feeling frustrated and disempowered. But as online course creators, we get to do something about that. We get to change that. We get to affect change in the world once we can see it for what it is, call it by the name that we call it, and then start living a different way and showing our students and showing our communities and showing our societies a different way, which we are incredibly lucky that we get to do that because we're on the forefront of the change as online course creators.

And that brings me to my last little history lesson or thing that I need to explain, provide context around so that we can understand how we got where we're at today. And that last thing is supremacy. Supremacy is the belief that one thing or one group of people is superior over another and therefore deserve to dominate the other. Now, I want to tell you that if that word is triggering for you because it's only ever being used in your social circles in the context of describing really bad people who did really bad things and you are triggered by the word because you do not associate with those really, really bad people, I want to tell you that that is quite normal. And that is okay.

But I also want to invite you to resist the urge to reject the word and throw the baby out with the bath water. I want to encourage you to resist the urge to reject the word and the concept as a whole, because it is actually in our rejecting of this word and it is in our denying the existence of supremacy inside us and inside the society that we move in that this horrible thing holds its power. And that we actually end up upholding the power of the systems of supremacy unless we can call this by [inaudible 00:22:33], see it for what it is and not steer away from it, not look away when we hear the word because it triggers us and it reminds us of really bad people doing really bad things. Because there are still today normal people turning a blind eye, a lot of normal people turning a blind eye to really bad things. And unless we can embrace this word, we cannot start seeing it for what it is.

So keep an open mind and embrace this word because it's important that we, as online course creators, understand how what we're doing in the world will break down the structures of supremacy. And when we start breaking down these structures of supremacy, that is when we can start to create real freedom. And when I say real freedom, I mean the freedom you're craving, the time freedom, the financial freedom, but I'm also talking about freedom for other people, freedom for people who have been suppressed under the supremacist societies, society in the systems of supremacy. Because I know it sounds cliche, but it is so true. It's cliche because it's true. If one of us isn't free, then none of us are free.

And if you've ever worried about being judged online or being intimidated online or being bullied, go and see what non-binary people have to go through. Go and see what black people have to go through. Educate yourself on all the things that other people have that infringe on their freedom that we might take for granted. Because that craving you have for freedom, financial freedom and time freedom, if we can create it for ourselves and we can create freedom for other people, then we will impact significantly in this world. We will create a significant impact.

Supremacy. Back to supremacy. Three types of supremacy you need to know about. White supremacy is the belief that white is more superior to anything else. That is prevalent in society everywhere. That needs to change. Male supremacy is the second one. It is the belief that men are superior to women, or even just that there are such a thing as male and female, and it is a dichotomy that everything else existing side of that dichotomy. And the third form of supremacy is human supremacy. And that comes to play in how we believe that we as humans dominate the earth and we can do with it what we want. And as a result of human supremacy, we are dealing with climate change, which is slowly killing us.

Okay, that is the end of my history lesson, my social studies lesson. I know you didn't come here for that. I know. And that's a bit heavy too. You need to know that where we're at in 2021 and where we are moving towards as a society, a global society, as the Western world, as humans who wants to lead the way of freedom, it's very important that we understand these things and that we know that we are the leaders in this change. Entrepreneurship will become the true key to financial freedom, emotional freedom, freedom from systems of oppression. It'll give you cubicle freedom that you're craving. And when you get out from the suppression of the labor force, you will be able to create more time freedom for yourself, and you take away the cap on your earning potential.

That is what happens when you truly embrace your role as an entrepreneur and as an online course creator in this world, because selling our knowledge is a resource every single one of us possess and it only takes a handful of skills that we need to learn so that we can create brand new economies that frees us from being laborers. And it also allows us to create new workforces that does not exploit workers, that pays people well, that allows our team and our workers to thrive and to have more freedom too. That freedom is not just for the entrepreneur. It is the entrepreneur who is going to change the way that the world works.

The market value of the online courses industry was valued in 2020 according to an article I found on Forbes as $250 billion in 2020. The projections are that by 2025, this industry will be around $350 billion. And another research article I found suggested that by 2027, it will surpass $1 trillion. So here's the bottom line. If you care about social change and about becoming a successful online course creator, then the fastest way to make the biggest impact in the world is to package up your knowledge, start selling it online. If other people's freedom matters to you, know that when you teach the thing that you know, the change that you've created in your life, the skill that you have, and you openly live your values and create student communities where you can demonstrate those values, the impact you have goes beyond just the skill you teach. It starts to create real social change.

If you want to take full control of your financial future and the financial future of your children and leave a legacy for your children, hand down generational wealth which creates power, then the fastest way to get there is to create an online course and sell your knowledge. We the online course creators, we are the leaders. We are the forerunners. This is only just beginning. This is the start. You are a pioneer. We get to make this up the way that we want to see it change our societies. The time to get started with your online course is now. The time to start building audiences and start selling courses to them and start creating communities where we create change is now.

And so I want to invite you, my friend and my mentor, Amy Porterfield, will be opening enrollment to her signature course, Digital Course Academy. Amy changed my life. Amy has taught me to build freedom for myself and my family, and I am learning how to create that for my community and for society. But if you want to take the first steps to learning how to package your knowledge up and start selling that as a digital course so that you can start creating the financial freedom for yourself, the time freedom for yourself, the impact freedom for your community, and the social freedom for people as a whole, then I want to invite you to check out Digital Course Academy. And you can go to https://shineandsucceed.com/dca if you want to sign up for Amy's 30-day bootcamp that's going to help you get started.

If you have any questions about today's episode, or if you want to share anything with me, I want to invite you to send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear your thoughts, and I would love to hear what you're doing to use your online courses to create social change and impact. Have a wonderful week. And I'll see you again next week. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week. And remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.