So what is this elusive “abundance” anyway?

In my opinion, the reason the so-called “law of attraction,” vision boards, manifestation meditation, visualization hypnosis and all the other tricks and magic spells so often fail is because of a basic misunderstanding of abundance.

The other day I cleared my whiteboard and began to list every person I needed to get in contact with either for business or just to ‘catch up.’ I’ve been remiss in keeping up with friends the last couple months and thought this list might help.

Names kept coming to me and the list kept getting longer and longer until it nearly filled up the board. My first thought upon looking at the list? “Fuck it, I’m only one person. How can I be expected to do all this??”

Whine, whine, whine.

Luckily that first thought only lasted a split second. Immediately after, my thoughts were shifted to what that list really illustrated: I am surrounded by SO many amazing, creative, generous, kind, caring, compassionate and otherwise awesome people.

I have an abundance of awesomes in my life!

So I decided to make some more lists. As it turns out, I also have an abundance of the following things:

• T shirts
• Jeans
• Knee socks in cool colors
• Foods that combine nuts and chocolate
• Books on the occult
• Crystals
• Magic markers
• Pillows
• Feathers found during long walks in the woods
• Special stones given to me by even more special children (not sure why but children, even ones I don’t know, are often compelled to give me rocks and stones…a magical gift, indeed)
• Letters and notes given to me by loved ones
• Memorabilia from special times (dinner napkins, theater tickets, etc.)
• Photos of my children
• Nail polish
• Emails!
• Sources of inspiration
• Happy memories
• Sad memories
• Recipes
• Chipmunks and squirrels (outside my window)
• Dreams
• Fantasies
• Hope

It is impossible to make abundance lists without letting some gratitude sneak in. And therein lies the secret to “the secret.”

Abundance is all around us. We merely need to turn our attention to it. Become aware of it. And suddenly the feeling of “need” is replaced by satisfaction.

Once we are able to come from this space of awareness and gratitude, we make room for all the other stuff the Universe wants us to have….like a new really special rock from an angel disguised as a child.

Start making a list or two and you’ll see what I mean. What do you have in abundance in your life? Let us know in the comments and inspire us all!

It’s impossible to take a holiday basking in the cold darkness of depression without coming back with some reflections and lessons. And all I’ve been able to think about these past few days is how skewed our perception of reality can be. Let me explain.

There is a tragic and not-so-uncommon anomaly in poker known as the “Bad Beat.”  As a one-time professional poker player, I’m all too familiar with it.

Picture this. You are dealt pocket aces and make a big bet before the flop. The donk sitting next to you calls with pocket twos. The flop comes 9, 10, J. Your odds of winning are overwhelming. You go all in. The donk calls, knowing he might already be drawing dead, knowing there are only two cards in the deck that can give him any hope of taking this hand, knowing there are only two more community cards to be dealt. But he calls. And he gets a two on the river to take you out.

This is a bad beat.

When I was the victim of one of these hands, it would mean the end of my playing. Not just for the night, but for days and sometimes weeks. I would have to cleanse myself of the experience and it’s not something that’s ever come easy for me. My habit is to hold onto the misery of that bad beat for as long as possible. Without active intervention on my part, I’d never get over it!

I believe my difficulty in shaking these moments off is a key lesson for me…and possibly for you, too.

The average weekly-poker-night-with-the-guys guy loves nothing more than to sit around and rehash his worst bad beats. I’ve seen people exchange stories of bad beats for hours like they were war wounds. Each one trying to top the other with the stakes lost and odds overcome to their ultimate demise.

I have never, ever, not once seen a group of poker players exchange stories of their good beats. The ones where they called on a whim with pocket twos and took down those aces. The ones where they were terribly short-stacked and went all-in as a last hope of staying in the tourney only to get lucky six more times and end up winning the game. No. We rarely ever talk about those hands.

Why? Because our perception of reality is disfigured, imbalanced. Most of us at some point in our early childhood got the message that we, in some way, “weren’t good enough.” We carry that story with us like a security blanket. Its truth becomes engrained in our psyche and our egoic minds believe that the only way we’ll be “safe” is if we continue to be “not good enough.” We only seek out and acknowledge evidence that supports this “truth” and ignore all the rest.

In my observations, the greatest poker players in the world have a firm rule to never discuss their bad beats. They want to remain in the moment, in the true reality of the situation, and not let the past affect their present. They strive for balance and train their minds to see reality for what it is.

They know that living in the land of bad beats means a life of regret and mediocrity.

The truth is, if I’m sitting at a table for four hours playing poker, I’ll play hundreds of hands and get lucky dozens of times before that bad beat ever comes. A truly balanced mind can see this for what it is and simply shrug off the bad beat as something that sometimes happens to everyone.

But our egos want to wrap around those few seconds and disregard the other countless hours lived. It wants to hold onto that proof that we are not good enough so that it can remain in a place of familiarity and safety.

The paradox is that the very parts of ourselves which can be the most self-destructive are also the parts working the hardest to keep us safe. Unless, that is, we take an active role in moving towards a state of balance and presence.

Our true freedom lies in that choice.

We are all seeking something. Abundance, prosperity, love, friendship, success, or even just a little luck. But are you certain these things do not already surround you?  Could you simply be missing it all by living in the land of bad beats?

And are you ready to join me in working towards a more balanced perception of reality where we see clearly and feel nothing but gratitude for all that we are given?

I want this to be the start of an ongoing conversation about this rather complex topic. I’d love it if you shared your thoughts, too.

I read or heard about a study recently which showed that multitasking does more damage to brain function than smoking cocaine. I cannot seem to find that study to cite, probably because I was talking on the phone while searching Google, but I’ve no doubt it’s true.

Multitasking became a household word during the 1980s when personal computers became commonplace. These new PCs ran on operating systems that were designed to run more than one program at a time, to multitask.

Suddenly everyone thought it’d be cool to be a multitasker too.

I can admit it. I was once a project manager who prided herself on her leet multitasking skills. Don’t judge, it was the 90s. You weren’t cool unless you were snorting cocaine whilst getting a manicure and making a conference call to your stock broker to tell him what’s what.

Cool? Not-so-much. The truth is, multitasking not only impairs your brain function at the time of said tasks, it can cause permanent and long term difficulty in concentration and learning.

It is reported that our children are such talented multitaskers they are able to consume 8 1/2 hours of media time in 6 1/2 hours of actual media usage. Perhaps the ADD epidemic’s answer lies not in amphetamines but in media/multitasking control.

There is no longer any doubt that humans are not wired for multitasking. When we attempt it, each task takes us longer to do and is performed with much less accuracy.

It’s one thing to send an email to the wrong recipient because you were also watching the evening news. It’s quite another thing to drive your SUV into a school bus because you were also sending a text message.

Today, as I adjust to life as a solopreneur, I have come to realize that there is no better approach to any task than sheer focus.

If not for focus and actively preventing myself from attempting anything remotely resembling multitasking, I would have no business of which to speak.

Are you an avid multitasker? What do you do to unwind and help you focus?

Then came time for her to return to college and me to my desk here in snowy Michigan. We cried, a lot, at the moment of our separation. Actually, I’m still crying even as I write this.

It’s been 25 days since I’ve been back. 25 days of battling the dark beast known as Depression. 25 days of going back on the medications I’d swore I’d never take again. 25 days of no productivity, missed opportunities and maybe even a friend or two who’ve given up on trying to stay in contact.

The holidays always get me but this year was much worse than most. The darkness wrapped its arms around me, whispering lies of slothful temptation into my ear. It pulled me down into its abyss and kept me hostage there, aided by the very pharmaceuticals intended to fight it.

The good news is, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, even through the tears. The darkness is passing and its grip weakening. I’m not going to lie, I’ve been very frightened. I thought I was rid of this scourge. I thought I was “cured.” Or maybe I just thought I was “better than that now.” For it to return with such vengeance took me completely off guard.

But it’s okay. I’ve made (or am making) peace with it. And I know that it’s a sign my life needs some major fucking restructuring in order to keep that darkness at bay. I’m now gratefully gathering the strength I’ll need to make those changes.

If you’ve been listening to the same dark lies as I this holiday season, please take these lessons to heart:

• The darkness cannot sustain itself forever. No matter what it tells you, it WILL go away. This too SHALL pass.
• Nothing is ever so bad that you cannot tolerate it for one more day. Tomorrow will come and bring with it renewed hope. Please, don’t leave before it gets here.
• There is nothing wrong with you other than the way you feel. Despite what your feelings tell you, you are perfect, whole and complete right now in this moment.

In just 3 days it will be a new year. I look forward to taking the lessons learned in 2011 with me through this next cycle. And I look forward to sharing it all with you.

They are not our target market or ideal demographic. They represent a new way of identifying our audience and are the reason so many of us have chosen the path we have.

In the previous perfect people finder exercise we talked about getting brutally honest with yourself about the types of people who you are instantly attracted to or turned off by. These are vital clues as to who your perfect people are.

Today we’re going to go a little bit deeper and figure out who really gets access to the Real You…the You that’s about to transform people’s lives.

Mentors

Hopefully you have met one or two special people in your life so far who influenced you in some positive way. It may have been a teacher, a family member, a spiritual leader, a sibling or that homeless guy you passed every day on the way to school. Angels come in many disguises.

Whether you have one such person or a dozen, take time to bring each of them back into the moment. Sit with their memory and remember how you felt when you were around them. Next, try to identify which traits endeared this person to you.

Why did you let them close to you?

Why did you open up to them?

What was it about them that made you receptive to the teachings they had to offer?

Instead of figuring out which age range, gender or socio-economic group make up your ideal market, spend some time meditating on this exercise. Begin to get crystal clear about who touches your soul and opens your mind.

Because if you can build your business around these people, your life will be richer than you have ever imagined.

Coming soon…how to turn this information into a Perfect People Magnet (using only your words). Sign up in the big yellow box on the right so you don’t miss it.

Watch the video, then stay tuned because this is going to be a week that may very well turn your business around. Let’s get to the bottom of what’s not working for you so you can start bringing IN money this holiday season instead of just watching it fly out the door.

 
If you haven’t already subscribed, this would be the week to do it! Plus, it’s the only way to get your own free Impact Assessment. Sign up in the big yellow box on the right, mmk?

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the video. Do you want to see more of these? Are there any specific points I discussed here that resonate with you?

I always donned well-manicured nails and wore low-cut cleavage-heavy blouses to distract the predominantly male tables. I’d shuffle my chips and act aloof hoping the men were paying more attention to thoughts of hitting on me than calling my bluffs. I wore dark sunglasses to hide my tell-tale eyes, my ability to keep a poker face ended with my pupils and one must know and cover their weaknesses wherever possible.

Here’s a few other invaluable lessons I learned:

The Only Person Who Can Beat You is You

As with golf and transcendental meditation, poker is a game you play against yourself. If you are able to accurately identify your weaknesses, address them head-on (with compassion for yourself!) and keep your cool, you will win more often than you will lose.

The same is true for entrepreneurs. You know you’re your own worst enemy. Embrace it. Use this to your advantage. Never stop growing, learning, and deepening your understanding of what makes you tick.

Take Calculated Risks

In a poker tournament, the clock is ticking. You start with a limited amount of chips and the game gets increasingly more expensive each round. If you sit there and wait for the perfect cards before making a move, you’ll be sure to be one of the first ones out.

Do not wait until you think you know everything there is to know before taking a risk and starting a new business. You’ll never know all that is needed until you jump in. If you sit and wait for that perfect moment to act (which rarely, if ever, comes) you’ll be swept aside by others’ success in no time.

Don’t Let Your Emotions Make Your Decisions

Poker players are a superstitious bunch. But most of the top players in the world have learned not to depend on these emotional crutches. In order to be a true champion, our emotions must be transcended. Those urges to throw your water bottle across the table at the donkey who called you down with pocket twos can mean a quick end to your game. Don’t let the donkey win!

It’s tough not to get emotionally attached to our businesses. They are our babies, our creations, and they are soaked with our blood, sweat and tears. But sometimes it’s best to walk away and start anew and I’ve seen so many clients unwilling to let go and move on. When making a major decision with your business, spend some time purging any emotional responses you have and approach the decision instead with logic sprinkled with a sense of adventure. This takes courage, so don’t forget to strap on a pair of ovaries first!

Never Assume You’re the Best

You’re not. No one is. Only strive to be the best you can be whether in poker, life or business. The moment you begin to believe you’re the best, keep your eyes open. Life is likely about to remind you otherwise. ‘Nuff said there.

Pay Attention to Everyone Around You

It’s not enough to battle our own demons and strive to be the best player we can be. We also have to keep close watch on how the other players are behaving. Are they on tilt because of that last big hand they lost? Do they have a tendency to always bet on the button? Have they gone all-in more than is reasonably believable? These clues can give us the information we need to make those calculated risks I spoke about earlier.

Always know what other people in your business’ niche are up to. Subscribe to their newsletters, engage them in social media discussions about how they do business. Take stock in everything that is working for them but play closer attention to what they’re doing wrong. Unlike in a game of poker, this information won’t be used to “beat your opponent,” but rather to lift your business up to new heights.

Suffer No Loss of Enthusiasm

I saved the most difficult two lessons for last and this is certainly one of them. When you lose a big hand in poker, it can be crushing. You were so certain you were going to win that hand, and yet Lady Luck had other plans. You feel your heart sink into your stomach and your blood pressure skyrocket. Staying in the emotion of disappointment and frustration is what is known in the poker world as being on “tilt” and it is deadly poison to your game.

The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who have failed the most. Ask them, they’ll tell you. Much like Jim Carrey (one of my favorite success stories), many of them started from meager beginnings and endured thousands of “no’s” before ever breaking through to success. What separates them from the rest of us who hear “no” all the time? They shook each one off, never lost faith in what they were doing and carried on with the same enthusiasm with which they started.

Stay Present (and Sober!)

Last but certainly not least, one must stay fully present. You must learn from your mistakes but not dwell in them. You must enjoy your victories but not take them for granted. The key to success is to stay fully present in the moment. It is quite Zen, truth be told, and vitally important but admittedly no easier than it sounds.

There are few pieces of advice more powerful than “be here now.” As an entrepreneur it is paramount to your winning. We cannot live in the past or future. Rather, we must be fully passionate about everything we are doing right here and now. As for the sober part…well, just take a lesson from Susie Q. and never tweet drunk.

What lessons have you learned through your entrepreneurial journey? Which of these, if any, do you struggle with the most?

Everyone has an inner critic. Much of the time this critic is telling us what we’re doing wrong, what we’re not doing enough or, simply, why we suck. There are ways to quiet this critic and these methods will be revealed in an upcoming ebook I’m working on. However today, we’re going to shine the light on that critic and let her take center stage.

Your inner critic also makes judgments about other people all the time. Good manners and the need for a serene life teach us to quell those judgments and keep an open mind about others. We learn to respect others, even when they make look, act or smell different from us.

In order to accurately identify your perfect people, I’m afraid you are going to have to let your critic speak openly…only for a short time…then you can go back to being all-loving and all-accepting, okay?

As we approach people in our daily lives, we begin making subconscious judgments about them almost immediately. Think of the last time you were in the grocery store. As you walked up to the check-out person you already made an unconscious decision about whether you were going to meet his eyes with a smile or whether you would keep your head down and try to get through the transaction making as little contact as possible.

Why do we diss some people and not others?

Sometimes it’s PMS, or that we’re in a rush, or that we’re particularly self-absorbed at the moment. But many times it is because something about that person turned us off. Whether it is their greasy hair, beady eyes or the wiff of Italian hoagie when the lift their arms, for whatever reason they are not someone we feel instantly connected to.

Yes, this is a shame. Yes, we are all interconnected. And yes, it is important to transcend these types of judgments if one is to live a life of virtue and compassion.

That said, this type of information about who turns you on and off is absolutely critical in determining who your perfect people are. The whole point of this is to identify the people who get you excited about meeting them. The people you want to invite over for lemon drop shots on Saturday night.

There is no one who feels this way about everyone on the planet. No one.

And that’s okay!

Over the next few days, allow your inner critic to speak about the people you encounter throughout your day. Take notes! Jot down your gut reactions to people and reflect on what, exactly, turned you on or off about them.

We’ve become used to not paying attention to, or arguing with, these types of judgments…and for good reason. But I promise you, you will uncover some extremely valuable clues as to who your perfect people are precisely if you follow this exercise for a week or two.

After you feel you have a good handle on the personality traits that you are most drawn to or disgusted by, go back to working on keeping that inner critic quiet. We don’t want to stay in this hyper-judgmental state for too long, just long enough to really take a look at what makes us tick with the people around us.

Return to a compassionate state of being and try to be as friendly as possible to everyone you meet.

You might even be surprised at how much easier this is once you’ve allowed yourself to honestly examine your subconscious reactions to others.

Please share some of your immediate reactions to what turns you on/off about people in the comments section below. It may very well help others open up this pathway to their perfect people!

We’ll be discussing your perfect people, your tribal dialect, email marketing, writing titles that get clicked, see through purple panties and SO MUCH MORE.

I want to start off by giving you a brief introduction into my philosophy of online marketing. Why it’s changed and why the tried-and-true methods of marketing no longer apply.

Let’s say you’re opening up a purple panties shop in a new neighborhood. You hire a marketing specialist to research your target market (women ages 18-50 who live within a 15 mile radius of the new store). Then, you send your mailers to only those people hoping they’ll take advantage of your grand opening sale.

You’ve done this so as not to waste a bunch of money sending mailers to frat houses and church rectories. You wanted to reach only women aged 18-50 who live within a 15 mile radius. Your target market.

Now, let’s try to fit that same model into marketing online today. You set up a site that sells purple panties as well as some female sexual aides. You blog about some racy topics that you find amusing and informative.

What happens if you only target women aged 18-50 who live in a 15 mile radius of you? Well, that just doesn’t make sense. We’re ONLINE, people. Sheesh.

So what if we just target women aged 18-50. Sounds easy enough. Except many of those women will not like the articles you write. Many have never seen a purple glow-in-the-dark nightstick dildo before and might be frightened away or even insulted. There’s just no accounting for taste in this world. None.

There are more than 3 billion women in the world.

Let’s just pretend half of them are 18-50 and half of THEM are online. This means you will be targeting 750 MILLION women using the old method. (Assuming my math’s correct…after six zeros my brain goes wonky.)

Do you NEED 750 million customers? Can you even handle them? Are you sensitive to all the cultural differences and personality variables in a sampling of 750 million women? Are your values in alignment with each of theirs?

Of course not. It’s impossible.

The old paradigm simply will not work in today’s market. Social media and the quiet revolution that followed has blown it all to hell. And I, for one, could not be happier.

What we are going to discuss in the coming weeks is the antithesis of the old ways of marketing. By that I don’t just mean redefining things like ‘target market’…I mean ALL of the old ways.

The sleazy marketing tactics, the elevator pitches, the rules of engagement for networking…all out the fucking window and not a moment too soon.

Are you getting excited? You should be. What you’re about to learn will change the way you do business online forever.

Don’t miss any of these upcoming posts. Everything I’ve learned in over a decade of marketing online will be revealed to you here in the next few weeks. If you haven’t already, sign up in the big yellow box below!

I struggle with it, and so does practically everyone I know. Recently I have been blessed with tons of conversations around this topic with several incredibly brilliant and awakened online solopreneurs. These conversations have led to some exciting breakthroughs and I’m eager to share them with you here.

My recent decision to jack up my coaching prices and offer pro bono coaching to those who need it was inspired, in no small part, by a series of discussions I had with the lovely Leslie of CrunchyBetty.com.

I want to pause here to make an important clarification about my decision:

Okay, now back to my future blog wife. That’s right, you heard it here first…I’ll be proposing to Leslie as soon as I can find the perfect virtual ring. It will mean hours spent on Pintrest but it’s so worth it. Please, mum’s the word. I want it to be a surprise.

Every once in awhile I get to witness a stroke of genius. It’s usually not mine, and that’s alright.

During our conversations, meditations and general meanderings about how to approach pricing in the most ethical way possible, Leslie came up with what I think is a truly inspired idea.

She developed the concept around the launch of her first ebook, Food on Your Face for Acne & Oily Skin and is calling it a 50/50 product. Half of all proceeds will be spent buying crunchy gifts for her community members:

“…from this very moment until December 20, 2011, 50% of all profits made from this book will be given back to participating members of Crunchy Betty through the purchase of gorgeous handmade goods and ingredients to use for natural beauty products and other homemade pursuits. – CrunchyBetty

First let me just say the book is fucking awesome. It contains tons of great info including 35 recipes, plus a switch-out chart that provides an infinite number of possible combinations…all from the crap (I mean…organic goodness) you already have in your kitchen.

None of the links here are affiliate in nature, I just thought you should know about what Leslie’s doing.

With her 50/50 program she is successfully supporting the work she does, giving back to her community and contributing to the crunchy-businesses she loves so much. She has formed a circle of giving to bring balance into her marketing and sales. Sheer brilliance!

If you think it might be right for you, go buy the book now (it’s only $7.99…more win). Check out her blog, too, and you’ll see why I adore her so much.