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Posts Tagged ‘success dynamics’

It’s 3am and you can’t sleep.  You’re thinking about how you’re gonna shuffle the money around to keep gas in the car, food in the fridge and a roof over your head.

It’s not the first time you’ve had a night like this.  And you’re tired.  Of living.  Like this.

First let me say that I’ve had more money induced worries than your average person.  While I am VERY grateful for my steady business now, you could say that I spent several years in training to write this post. That said, here’s How to Say Goodbye to the 3am Money Worries:

1) Understand what the worry wants. In our modern culture, money is equated with both safety and comfort.  So, when you’re not easily paying your bills, the emotions can be intense.

Because it’s uncomfortable to feel emotions like worry and fear, the tendency is to try and push these feelings away.  This doesn’t work.  In fact, it’s setting yourself up for the next 3am worry attack.

Instead of seeing it as something bad or wrong, acknowledge that the worry has a purpose. It’s your nervous system saying, “Something needs to change.”  When you accept this need for change, your nervous system can start to relax.

2) Work on your Tailenders. I invite you to complete this sentance: “I want to change my money situation, but ___.”

In EFT lingo, everything after the word but is  called your tailender.   Your tailenders keep you stuck in the same belief systems and behaviors that have created your current money situation.

3) Polish your entreprenurial skills. Whether you own your own business or work for someone else, your income will grow faster when you recognize that there are always opportunities around you.  Entrepreneurs are people who say YES to the most exciting and aligned opportunities.

It’s time to say goodbye to spending your nights worrying.  Instead, refocus your energy on learning what you need to create high paying work that you enjoy.  I did it.  My clients are doing it.  You can do it too!

In one of my Mastermind groups today, someone asked “How do you keep coming up with inspired content?”   In today’s economy, clients expect to be able to “try before you buy.”  In other words, they aren’t going to plunk down their money for your services until AFTER they have become inspired by your free blog post, newsletter, video or ebook.

Is your content inspiring?

These free things that you offer to inspire someone into becoming a paying client are called content.  You only have to offer free content if you want paying clients.

5 Tips for Creating Inspired Content

I assume if you’re still reading this that you: 1) want paying clients and 2) are open to offering great content.  The question becomes, how do you regularly come up with content that inspires people to say our 6 favorite words, “Do you have room for me?”

When you put 6 vibrant spiritual people on a question like this, you get some high vibrational answers.  Thanks to the members of the Thursday Mastermind group for 5 Tips for Creating Inspired Content:

1) Increase the number of juicy connections in your life. Carolyn Myss said, “We evolve at the rate of the tribe we are plugged into.”  If you want to create highly attractive stuff, it’s a good idea to have plenty of affirming and creative people in your life.   Social media sites are one place to find LOTS of these kinds of connections.

2) Practice mindfulness in your everyday life. Reality check – a thriving conscious business doesn’t mean you only practice spirituality during business hours.  When you start appreciating your everyday life more, you will naturally start to notice inspiring imagery more often.

3) Believe that you have valuable things to share. There are things that you know that others don’t but want to.  Use your spirituals tools to clear the self-negating voices in your head that tell you that you don’t know enough.  As you clear these limiting messages, you’ll be able to share what you DO know in increasingly inspiring ways.

4) Use your FUN voice. For millennia, the best spiritual teachers have always had a sparkle in their eye.  Your prospective clients don’t want to hear from a mindless (or worse yet, grumpy) robot.  They want to hear from a unique, vibrant human being.  Preferably one wearing a smile.

5) Consciously eat inspired content by others. Almost every spiritual tradition counsels us to stop and appreciate before we eat.  With that same sacred intention, regularly find and enjoy tasty content that other people create.  Don’t limit yourself to only your field of interest – a diverse diet of sacred stuff is good for the soul.

Inspiration is a natural outgrowth of a strong  energetic foundation.  These 5 tips will support you in creating the kind of free content that will allow you to attract more business in a relaxed way.

I’d love to hear any additional tips or thoughts you have in the form of a comment below.  Thanks for reading!

In the early 1990’s, I was a psychology grad student in Cambridge, Mass. I didn’t get it at the time, but I was surrounded by a quiet revolution going on in the understanding of how humans work.  People like Hebert Benson at Harvard and Jon Kabat-Zinn at UMass – influenced by their experiences in meditation – started looking more deeply at the technology of the human nervous system.

The result of this work is that the word “STRESS” is now a part of our everyday vocabulary.  We have begun to understand the effect of stress on our physical and emotional well-being and it’s a topic of conversations everywhere.

Success and Your Wiring

In January 2010, the well known business blogger Seth Godin wrote a post called Quieting the Lizard Brain.  This was one of the first popular acknowledgments of the role our nervous system has in success.

As a reader of this blog, you know that what’s happening in your mind and spirit effects your success profoundly. So before you rush off to that latest training in how to grow your business (even the one that I’m offering), let’s take a look at the three parts of the human brain and what they mean for your success.

It’s All About Survival: The Lizard Brain

Right where your skull meets your spine, sits the oldest part of your brain.  It’s concerned with the basics like eating, mating, and avoiding getting killed.  It is wired for strong emotions like fear and rage. When it’s activated, it takes over everything.

When a person or a team is being run in this manner, they tend to be guarded, reactive and resistant to new ideas.  Change and challenges are cause for great alarm and often lead to attacking whoever brought them into awareness.  Do I have to say more about what this means for success seekers?

Placating Heirarchy: The Dog Brain

The next part of the brain is the cerebellum or mammalian brain.  We’ll call it the Dog Brain.  It’s organized around repeating pleasure and avoiding pain.

When the dog brain is leading, choices are focused on social acceptance and placating hierarchy.  Decisions tend to focus on things like what to wear (the blue or black suit?) to fit in and how to keep up a level of performance that is acceptable to others.   While there’s lots of talk about excellence and innovation in business, the reality is that dog brain thinking is the norm in most organizations and the people who work in them.

Engage and Innovate: The Human Brain

The most optimistic part of all this brain stuff is that researchers like Stephen Porges say that we are hard-wired to connect, engage and innovate.  This is the cortex, our very human brain.  It’s our natural state, how we are born into the world.  However, it gets trampled under stress by the earlier part of the brain parts.

When a person or a team is operating from the neocortex, engagement is natural (scientists call it “social engagement mode”) and innovating together so obvious it’s like talking to a fish about water.  With corporate values like “Embrace and Drive Change” and “Create Fun and A Little Weirdness”, Zappos is my favorite example of a highly successful business operating from this consciousness.  When this part of your brain is in charge, you will naturally find yourself co-creating innovative and valuable solutions.   This is the key to effortless success.

Neuro-tech: The Technology of the Future

Later this month, I’ll be joining key players from companies like Google, Twitter, Zappos and Facebook at a conference called Wisdom 2.0.  The conference is focused on the need for mindful use of today’s technology.  Today’s leading edge companies know that in a noisy market place, getting anyone to listen to your message requires RELATIONSHIP and ENGAGEMENT.

Many of you know I’m a big fan of energy psychology tools like EFT to create this foundation for success.  My friend Soren Gordhamer, organizer of Wisdom 2.0, teaches mindfulness practices for this purpose.  There are many ways of activating this neurology.  The one thing that tends not to work is ignoring it.  That’s a strategy best left to the lizards.

As I write this post from my favorite cafe, there’s snow coming down and the weather guy tells us were in for two more days of it. It has me thinking about my current lifestyle.  I’m one of those lucky folks that can work from anywhere. I almost never HAVE to go out.

It hasn’t always been this way.  8 years ago,  I was the director of a small, innovative non-profit.  While we were doing great work, the organization was barely making it financially and I was only earning about $30,000 per year.   Given my experience and my responsibilities as a new dad, this was source of great frustration.

Is staying stuck costing you?

Part of me was ready for a change.  I remember buying a book called, The Therapist as Life Coach. With my experience, I knew I had what it took to be a great coach.  However, I couldn’t wrap my brain around how to attract clients.  I started looking into coaching for this.  I realized it was going to take thousands of dollars plus time to learn what I needed to know.

Staying the Same Costs $100,000’s

At this point, I did what many people do – I said, “I don’t have the money or the time for this.“  I tried to put my dreams on the shelf and go on living the same small life.

When we really have a dream, it isn’t easy to sweep it under the rug.  My abandoned intentions of helping more people and making an authentic 6 figure income festered.  The energy came out in the form of frustration towards my then wife.  I turned into one very unhappy camper.

My ex soon got tired of living with this negative guy.  She kicked me out and started divorce proceedings.  Over a short period of time, I lost EVERYTHING. I found myself alone in an efficiency apartment in a new city.

From my new perspecitve, I realized that my limiting beliefs around money had been operating my entire adult life – more than 20 years.  I could see that if I had made a relatively small investment of money and time, I would likely have made a HUGE financial return in addition to the spiritual, physical and emotional ones.

In fact, multiplied over the period of my adult life, I could see that my decision to stay the same was the most expensive decision I had ever made.

What are the TRUE Costs?

Fortunately, the mess I describe above has had some incredible benefits.  For instance, I was introduced to energy psychology tools like EFT – I don’t know how I would have survived the divorce without it.  And, I finally sought out several coaches that helped me learn the mindset and marketing skills that I use in the work I do now.

In my work with clients today, I often hear about their thoughts and fears upon adding up the costs of what learning new skills are going to cost.  In truth, I want you to do this figuring. I don’t want you to blindly commit to a process that is a major investment of time and money.

At the same time, I also want to you to honestly ask yourself the question, “What will it cost me if I stay the same?“  Too many people add up the costs of change carefully while completely ignoring the fact that staying on the same track will also impact your life financially and otherwise.

How do the costs of change compare to the costs of staying on the same track you are on?  Five years from now where will you be if you stay on exactly the road you are on right now? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the form of a comment below.

Lately, I’ve been seeing the issue of impatience pop up in a number of sessions.  As in, “Why is it taking SO LONG for things to change?!?“  When a theme repeats like this, I know it’s time to write about it.  If you’ve ever felt like your success plan was taking too darn long, I encourage you to keep reading.

How Listening to A Park Bench Made One Man Wealthy

One of my favorite stories about the energy dynamics of change comes from the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle.  Today, many people know him as Oprah’s friend and best selling author.  Many people don’t know that before he became famous, Eckhart Tolle was stuck and confused.  He didn’t have a stable home or job.

Eckhart knew he wanted a different life, but he didn’t know how.  One day sitting on a park bench, Eckhart had a realization that changed his life and brought incredible success.  He realized that he was spending a great deal of energy fighting the circumstances of his life. Though he didn’t want to be confused and jobless, he was.

Eckhart understood that the only way things were going to really change is if he could “surrender” and “walk through the doorway of NOW”.  That insight lead to a feeling of profound well-being so strong that people started to approach him for guidance.  His career as a spiritual teacher was born.

What’s Your Park Bench?

You don’t have to have to be almost homeless to have this stuck energy operating in your life.  For me, it was being in position of going through a divorce and being “just over broke” doing work I didn’t like.

In fact, there is a basic energy equation when we are feeling frustrated.  It is:

I’m frustrated that I’m here (in a place I don’t want to be) when I want to be there (in a place I want to be more).

Wanting change and success is a good thing.  At the same time, it’s difficult for success to flow smoothly with this kind of tension in your system.

Easing Into Success with EFT

Energy intelligent people will recognize that being in this state of tension and having your focus on what’s not working is going to attract more tension into your life.  Let’s take a look at how to shift into a place of being more ready for change with EFT (if you want to learn EFT basics, click here).

Frustration Sequence – The Problem

Karate Chop: Even though it feels like things are taking too long to change and I’m feeling impatient, I’m willing to be a little kinder and gentler with myself anyway.

Eyebrow: I don’t know why things in my life aren’t changing faster.
Side of eye: I’m feeling impatient with the pace of change in my life.
Under the eye: I’ve been working on change for some time now.
Under the nose: Why aren’t I further along?
Chin: It’s taking SO long.
Collarbone: I feel lots of pressure to change things NOW.
Under the arm: I don’t like how long this is taking.

Take a deep breath and give a moment for this tapping sequence to settle.

Frustration Sequence – The Solution

Karate Chop: Even though in the past it feels like things weren’t changing fast enough, I’m choosing to find a more relaxed relationship with change now.

Eyebrow: In the past, I was focusing on what wasn’t going well in terms of change.
Side of the eye: No wonder I was feeling so frustrated.
Under the eye: What would happen if I could find a way to release that pressure?
Under the nose: What if I COULD relax about the pace of change in my life?
Chin: I wonder if I could actually change faster if I didn’t feel so much pressure?
Collarbone: I give myself permission to experiment with releasing this pressure.
Under the arm: I’m excited to work towards my success goals in more relaxed way.

Take a deep breath and give a moment for this tapping sequence to settle.

Summing it up

One of the great paradoxes about life changes is that they tend to happen the fastest when we are in a state that athletes call “The Zone”.  Pushing gets in the way of this.  Instead, use your favorite clearing tool to release the frustration and struggle patterns.

Next, allow yourself to experiment.   What would it be like to allow yourself to work from the Zone more?  How are you already doing this?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the form of a comment below.

One of my main goals for creating this site is to advocate for authenticity – I want you to believe in your bones that it is possible to be a fun, authentic and spiritual human and make plenty of money.  What does this have to do with sugar water?  Let me explain ..

This morning I met with Sejual Shah, a wonderful EFT practitioner – her site is www.healthyinmind.com – for our weekly Mastermind session.  It was my turn and I brought up fear I was feeling about a project I’ll be announcing soon.  This project is going to mean MUCH more visibility for me and my business.

Sugar Water, Money and Spirituality

I couldn’t quite put my finger on this fear.  Sejual helped me clarify and clear what was going on.

When I was a kid, we lived a few miles from the headquarters from one of the largest soft drink companies in the world.  Also as a child, my father worked in a company whose major source of income was tobacco products. Many of my friends parents worked in environments like this.

Even then, I felt strongly that making tons of money selling soda (yep, that’s the sugar water)  and other products that damaged peoples health was out of integrity.  Looking back from today’s vantage point, I realize that early in life I took a spiritual vow to value integrity over money.

While I have done LOTS of work on allowing money and my spiritual beliefs to live well together, this new venture I’m embarking on brought up this theme at a new level.  While most of me is excited and aligned with increased success, I realized that there was a part of me feeling afraid I might “step out of integrity as I step into the limelight.”

Four things I learned about the dynamics of increasing success from this experience:

1. At the threshold of each new level of success, we are likely to experience new issues. This is normal – when we come to the edge of our known world, it’s our nervous system’s job to send out a signal.  It’s a sign saying, “You are leaving the known, are you sure you want to do this?”
2. Spiritual people often take vows that impact our relationship with money. My mostly unconscious vow had been to value integrity more than I value money.  Thanks to today’s session, I now believe that I can continue to find more and more ways to make money with the power of my integrity.
3. Without clearing, #1 and #2 often sabotage our success. My own life story prior to energy psychology is a tale of good intentions sabotaged by the above.  Most of my clients have similar stories.
4. Support is essential. Tiger Woods had a coach before he became a golf sensation and having great support is significant part of why he became the golfer he is.   Successful people almost always have a combination of mentors, coaches, mastermind groups, prosperity buddies, etc.  I would like to invite you to explore the level of success support you have in your life.

No matter where you are in your success journey, understanding these 4 dynamics will increase your ability to manifest success.  I’d love to hear your thoughts about how you have seen these and other dynamics work in your life.  Please comment below and thank you in advance for sharing.