We were lucky to catch up with Sean McNamara recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sean, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

My best investments have been my self-published books and online courses related to the consciousness-exploration work that I do. How is a book an investment? Let’s compare it to a property investor or a landlord. Depending on the market, they might cashflow (profit) a few hundred dollars each month from renting out a condo. It could be more for a larger/nicer property. But being a landlord with a mortgage has its risks and operating costs, and it’s not as easy as it sounds. But one successful book can profit the author as much as a condo can profit a landlord, without the risk and effort involved in maintaining a property. Once the book is written and published (or self-published in my case), the only work left to do is to market it. And that’s relatively easy to do if the author knows what they’re doing. I have several books out now, and each night I go to sleep only to wake up, look at my sales portal, and see how much money came in while I was asleep. The same thing goes for my online courses. Aside from money, books and online courses are like business cards or resumes, and they open a lot of doors. I’ve been invited to many interviews and podcasts and have also spoken at several conferences. My books also attract new students to my in-person classes and retreats. And by teaching myself how to self-publish, I keep all my royalties instead of losing the majority portion to a traditional publisher.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

You could say my “day job” is working as a clinical mental health counselor in private practice in Colorado (https://www.GoldenMeanCounseling.com). I help people dealing with grief, loss, trauma, and other life challenges. I’ve also begun offering self-publishing classes so I can pass on my years of experiences writing and publishing my books. I seek to empower creatives and entrepreneurs so they can get their message out to the world without having to jump through the hoops or face the obstacles set in place by traditional publishers and agents. But I’m most publicly known for my work in the field of consciousness research and exploration. I’m a spiritual person who left religion after being on the receiving end of psychological and spiritual abuse by my teachers, whom had also hurt many other students similarly. This was while I was part of particular Tibetan Buddhist tradition. I woke up to the idea that issues of power, control, hypocrisy, narcissism and false promises is inherent in many, if not all, religions. I’m not saying they’re all bad, of course. And, the same issues can occur in corporations, classrooms, and any other arena where humans engage in group dynamics. I also realized none of my deepest spiritual questions had been answered in the years I spent as a Buddhist. So I walked away from my teachers and that tradition and decided to find my own answers. I stopped identifying as a member of any religion. I began to explore psychic abilities because they’re the “wild west” of spirituality. There are no rules, no authority figures, and it’s available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort to explore the deeper aspects of consciousness. I learned how to have out-of-body experiences and was immediately relieved of my fear of death. That fear had been the main driver of my search for spiritual answers. I went on to learn how to move small objects with my mind (telekinesis), and began teaching it to people in the classroom. I went on to learn and teach remote viewing (clairvoyance) and telepathy. I’m not a woo-woo person either. Everything I do is evidence-based, aside from the out-of-body experiences, which are nearly impossible to validate scientifically. But clairvoyance and telepathy can easily be tested and measured for accuracy. I’m not a scientist, professionally speaking, but I do take a scientific approach. As soon as I began to teach students these abilities, I realized I could make my work more publicly available by writing how-to books and creating online content. I also needed a website, and its domain name “Mind Possible” (https://www.MindPossible.com) which became my brand. Many people seek a way to explore their minds and the nature of reality, and many of them have also been failed by their religion or its authorities. I periodically receive emails from people expressing gratitude for what they learned from my materials, and I regard that as my biggest success – that I have made a person’s life a little bit better and helped them make their own discoveries not by faith, but by lived experiences. After years of doing this kind of work, my main focus has changed. I still teach psychic abilities in the classroom in Denver, but my interest lately has been on psychedelics and their capacity for spiritual development. I’m currently leading a small group in using curated, non-religious meditation techniques to prepare for a psychedelic journey in order to enhance the spiritual opportunities available with plant medicine such as psilocybin. I’m also writing a book and creating an online course to make this meditation program broadly available.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

When I considered writing my first book, which at the time I thought would be my only book, I was afraid that it would cost a lot to produce. Would I need to hire an editor? Would I need to hire a graphic designer? And what about advertising and marketing? If I went with a traditional publisher and/or an agent, how big a chunk of my royalties would I have to give up? All I could do was move one step at a time, with the first step being writing a manuscript on my laptop using Microsoft Word. The only cost their was time and effort, and all the hair-pulling and insecurities inherent in being a writer. After that, anytime I believed I would have to spend money on a service or product to help me produce my book, I got scrappy. I took a lot of deep-dives into the countless “how to” videos available for free from YouTube. I downloaded free software. And of course, it’s absolutely free to create an author account on Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon’s self-publishing platform). The only time Amazon takes money from the author is when a reader buys a copy of the book. Amazon has to cover its print costs and of course make a small profit. But there are no up-front fees or deposits. It’s all free, and you set your book’s price. Amazon isn’t the only one, either. Many online book retailers have similar systems. When I decided to create audiobooks, I chose a distributor who also worked similarly, with no up-front-costs. I didn’t have to pay a narrator because I did it myself. I bought a cheap microphone and used freely available audio-editing software. For a sound booth, I lined one of my closets with thick blankets to minimize noise. For my online video courses, I initially used the free video-editing software that came with my laptop, and eventually upgraded to a paid product, although it wasn’t really necessary. Overall, I learned how to create, edit, and release content by watching how-to videos on YouTube. It’s all been a study in patience, creativity, courage, and a willingness to learn new skills. I can tell by the way people address their email message to me that they believe I have a team of people working for me as part of my brand Mind Possible. But I don’t. It’s just me. I’ve done it all on my own (save for when my wife and a close friend have helped me edit and improve my books). The point is, anyone can create and release a book, audiobook, and online course for almost no money. I can’t think of many other business with such a high ROI.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

The keystone of my social media presence is my YouTube channel. Before I wrote my first how-to book, I created videos for the public to learn what I had to teach. But I had to do more than just release videos on YouTube, even after carefully selecting keywords and writing sticky descriptions for web crawlers to index. I looked for and joined various Facebook groups related to my book’s topic, and posted my videos to those groups. The one big reason they were’t blocked as spam was I was offering something of value, for free, and not asking for anything back. Of course the video’s description included a clickable link back to my website. Combining the use of my YouTube videos and Facebook groups is probably the single most effective social media strategy I’ve ever used. And I didn’t even have to pay for ads. It’s all free. The cost is the courage to put myself out there, which any creative must do if they personally associate themselves with their brand. I do have a graphic logo, but don’t use it very much. My real logo is my face. Being genuine along with wearing a smile may be the most powerful force in social media advertising. It’s also more polarizing than using a logo when promoting a product or service. Viewers will love you or hate you, and few will remain neutral. I’ve found that the lovers usually don’t post many comments, but the haters will post a lot. There’s a psychological reason for that, which has been studied in the lab, and it concerns how humans behave when they know they’re anonymous. It’s not pretty. In the first few years, I had the comment section of my YouTube videos set so any comment was immediately posted for anyone to see. I’m a sensitive person, though, and really felt it when a hater posted a particularly bitter, aggressive, or ignorant remark, So I changed the setting so new remarks had to be reviewed and approved by me before being released. This created a more positive vibe in my comment section. But it still meant that I had to read every negative comment, which took its toll. The children’s rhyme “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is flat out wrong. We’re social creatures and our mental health is heavily reliant on felt acceptance and safety, even as mature adults. Eventually, I turned off all commenting on my YouTube videos. I decided my mental health was more important than hoping more comments would boost my search ranking. I also use Instagram and LinkedIn, and eventually I might do something on Tick Tock, which I hear has a lot of potential. Returning to the topic of Facebook, I’ve also created my own groups and pages. The advantage is that I attract the exact type of customer or fan that I prefer, and I can advertise my products and services to them as much as I can (without turning people off), without fear of my posts being rejected as spam or self-promotion. A lot of group moderators out there misunderstand their role, and consider all well-intentioned offerings of services to be spam, and block the post. I think many of those moderators just get off on the little power they feel in that role, and are doing their group a disservice by blocking what could be very helpful resources from appearing on their page. My advice to other creators is this – don’t be content to ask permission to post on other people’s platforms. Instead, create your own platform so you can be the boss. Create your own YouTube channel, Facebook group, Facebook page, etc, so you can have the control and freedom to promote yourself. Self-promotion is a good and necessary thing, and for some backward reason it’s looked down on in some online groups. How are we supposed to share and learn from each other when we’re not allowed to promote our offerings? Don’t waste your time fighting with groups that would have your arm tied behind your back. Create your own platform instead. Finally, every one of my books include front matter making my website and social media links very obvious. I also include discount codes to my online courses, and pictures of other books I’ve written. Every book is used to advertise all my other offerings, and to invite people to connect with me on social media. Every YouTube video description includes a clickable link to my website or a related book’s Amazon listing. And since you can include clickable links inside ebooks (like Kindle), you better believe my sites and offerings have clickable links inside my eBooks. It’s almost a self-sustaining advertising system.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.MindPossible.com (primary), www.GoldenMeanCounseling.com, and www.PathOfTheGoldenTeacher.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sean_mcnamara_mindpossible/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MindPossible
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-mcnamara-19bb30179/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWp1SWVQQZFOdTMyjAQCr7A
• Other: www.GoldenMeanCounseling.com www.PathOfTheGoldenTeacher.com www.LifeTending.net

Image Credits
Sean McNamara (all photos)