Gratitude For Synchronicities, Online Gratitude Journal #16

Tapping into the power of synchronicity

I read two posts this week about synchronicity. One by Irene who firmly believes synchronicity is the meaningful coincidence that her spirit guides are placing in her life, another by Hunter who is not very sure and yet attracted a Lamborghini Gallardo. (Hunter, if color is a critical factor about your car choice, you need to say “I want a hunter green Lamborghini Gallardo.” not just “I want a Lamborghini Gallardo.” And don’t be too surprised how you would get it.) (Photo by Mr. Greenjeans)

I guess this is a synchronicity by itself. I don’t think there is a meaningless coincidence or mere accidents. Everything is organized – it’s just we don’t see the meaning most of the time. It takes high level of awareness to understand the meaning of synchronicity.

Synchronicities are gifts from the spirits. I met Neale Donald Walsch by synchonicity this year. That meeting let me start writing about spirituality on this Yes to Me blog. Also, I received two bouquets of flowers. I was just taking a walk that evening, and bam, I got flowers, and more importantly, a very nice friend.

Now it turns out (surprise, surprise) that this lady is on a sister city committee of our local city. I live in a small suburban city south of Portland, and it has a sister city program with a city in Japan called Kitakata. So she invited me to join when the Kitakata delegation visit our city this year.

What would be the chance to strike up a conversation with a friendly and committed pro-Japanese American just by taking a walk? And eventually being invited to an official lunch held at the Japanese consulate’s home? Well, that’s what’s happening tomorrow. It will be a big long day for me, so I’m posting this Gratitude Friday a bit early.

Are you open to the gifts of synchronicities? Or are you afraid of receiving such gifts? Do things that you don’t completely understand make you uncomfortable? If so, why do you need to be so in control?

Yes to Me has new tagline and design

I know I’ve been talking about the tagline of this blog for the last two months. I started Yes to Me to share tips about entrepreneurship as I learn and become more well-versed in my own business myself. I then realized that personal and spiritual development is the true foundation of successful entrepreneurship, and started writing about it (like this one about life purpose and illusion of self).

The challenge has been: How can I bridge the seemingly unrelated two concepts together, the material world success (including success as entrepreneur) and spiritual development? Within myself, it is seamless – but how can I help others see it? There are still many people who think money is dirty and spiritual people must live in clean poverty!

And then I noticed. Well, duh, that is the objective of this blog. So I changed the tagline to:

Yes to Me — Spiritual Healing and Growth for Greater Success

Do you like it? I also updated my About page, so please check it out

Yes to Me is also getting a new outfit. My web designer and I finally agreed on the new header, so she will be installing the new theme in a few days. I’m very excited about this – it is beautiful! Please pardon the dust while we work on the final cleaning up.

My Law of Attraction Dream Money Project, Week 15, $1,638,400

I’m taking a time out today. Honestly, I’ve been spending so much time in this design update work that I completely forgot that my dream money was waiting for me. I promise I will follow up.

Does anyone know a good way to use this much of money?

Inside Out Approach To Entrepreneurship, Part 5, Build Your System

This is the final post for the Inside Out Approach To Entrepreneurship series. In this series, we learned how to find your passion, developed it to a marketable niche, checked our readiness to make the leap, and made sure we are right on with our marketing. So you are close to start your own business, or maybe you already have started it. (Image by exper)

Take time to review the business plan

As you get into the task-overload stage of starting a new business, it’s critical to take time to remember the big picture of your business and review the business plan, whether it is written out or not. I know this is hard, but don’t get caught up in filling the orders or doing administrative work!

The key here and going forward is to build reliable business management system, rather than to address each and every single issue at a time.

There are many kinds of business systems. At Yes to Me, we have already talked about building efficient customer service systems (that require less of your time) and ways to find the ideas to build such systems. Marketing needs systematic approach, too. Also, you need reliable accounting system and HR system that cater to your specific needs – and if you are a home-based or small business owner, you probably want to hire outside service for these. You might need professional assistance from lawyers, web designers, and tech support, too.

In this post, we are going to talk about the kind of business systems that allow your business to grow. This is where I am now that I have been through the startup phase of my business.

How can you grow your business without spending more of your time?

I am currently the only person in my business. I do the actual work to fill orders while I also work on marketing and administrative tasks. I only have 24 hours a day (no, I haven’t yet figured out how to expand my time or travel the linear timeline ^_^ ), so as long as I stay in this I’m-the-only-service-provider condition, my business growth is limited. And I also know I’d eventually get bored.

Some possible solutions to this situation are:

1. Build the organizational system to hire other trained intuitives or contract them out so that my business can get more things done using my marketing channels. (Of course, there must be an excellent quality control system for this to work.)
2. Build other income-producing system, perhaps by developing products, such as books and CDs.
3. Partner up with other complimentary businesses to build synergetic business system. For example, partner up with hands-on energy healers so we can refer clients to each other and to start new programs that bring synergetic effects.

The point here is to keep or enhance the service quality, not compromise it, by building the system. Compromising the service quality is suicidal. There is no point in building a system that eventually loses clients and kills the business. Don’t make that mistake.

At this time, I’m only thinking up these options, and I’m confident this is exactly what I need to be doing now. It’s important to think several steps ahead when it comes to business.

How can you spot the opportunities to build business system that brings growth?

This, again, goes back to the first step of finding your love and passion. Now that you are in business, doing what you love day in and day out, you know more about it and how you relate to it. You know exactly which part you really love within that passion you identified in Part 1. The part that you are also strong at.

It may be marketing – talking about your beloved service or products, how they can help people (just like you!), and networking with like minded people. It may be learning and studying the subject even further and passing that expertise to larger audience. Or it may be thinking up new approaches, new combination of services, new possibilities.

Now dream up ways to let go of other parts of your business. I know this is scary. You just started your own business, you feel good to be your own boss and to be in control, why the heck would you want to let any tiny part of it, you’d say. But that is the only way to grow your business.

Of course, you don’t have to grow your business. You can keep it small and tidy. That is your choice.

But if you do want to grow your business, building reliable system is a must.

You may also want to hire a coach or consultant. Some people are just not very good at seeing patterns – they really just see individual cases as individual cases and address them as such without even thinking there may be a better system to address them. If this sounds like you, get help from someone who can see and think in terms of system.

Has this series been helpful to you?

I know this has been a fast, info-loaded series. Starting your own business takes a lot. Did I miss something that you want to know about starting a business? If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, what is your biggest challenge now? Let me know by leaving your comment!

And if you like this series, please link to me or stumble on the post. This Inside Out Approach To Entrepreneurship is the flagship series of my entrepreneur side. I appreciate your support very much

Inside Out Approach To Entrepreneurship, Part 4, Learn Marketing

Learn marketing or go bust

This is yet another thing I did wrong when I first started as a new entrepreneur, so learn from my mistakes. I didn’t fully understand the importance of marketing. I had the typical employee mindset – I thought if I offer excellent service, somehow the clients would show up, and I’d make money. Wrong. (Image by Patrick J Lynch)

Right now, there are tons of professionals who can offer outstanding services and yet have so few clients. Many are forced to go back to regular employment out of financial needs. I was pretty close to the low point. Gee, just remembering how I was feeling with that dim outlook makes me cringe.

If you can, start learning about marketing ASAP while you still have employment. It will save you a lot of heartache.

Get Clients Now! — marketing coach in a book

For me, there were two things that helped me to get clients. One, I hired Naomi Dunford and got her personalized advice. It was well worth the money. Two, I read several books on marketing, including Get Clients Now!

This book is like a marketing coach in a book. After briefly explaining the marketing theory, it shows the various approaches from which you are to choose and make your own specific action plan for the next 30 days. It is so practical. Many books talk about marketing ideas that sound nice, but after reading those books, I found myself saying to myself, “Okay . . . so what do I do?” With Get Clients Now! you are writing down your action plan by the time you are one-third way of the book.

It even shows the relative effectiveness of each marketing approach (Let me tell you, advertisement is low in the ranking) so you get to make informed choices. Then you make a checklist, and work on the plan day in day out. The book comes with daily encouragement, the author talking to you from the page as your marketing coach.

It’s important to choose the approach that utilizes your strengths. I like writing, so I blog and network through this platform, but there are other ways. For example, a friend of mine has made a strong connection with the local alternative health center, where people who are more open to spiritual healing gather. If you are like hands-on face-to-face communication, this kind of approach is great.

Regarding the 30 day plan I made according to the Get Clients Now!, I haven’t completed it honestly. It was so effective that I got plenty of clients somewhere in week 3 and forgot about filling the checklist. Now I know clients come in waves, so there may be times in the future when I need to do more marketing – but then I know what to do. I go back to this book, make a new plan, and work on it.

Marketing is about communicating your love for the work you do

Here is the surprising part: I now love marketing. I used to hate the idea of marketing and sales, to talk people into buying my service. I felt shallow when I had to do it. It didn’t fit into my philosophy of “Live and Let Live” And I usually didn’t make the sale, so that added to my negative feeling and hesitation about marketing.

I have a different idea about marketing now. Marketing is about introducing and educating people about the thing I love so much. I love it, I firmly believe it has lots of value, so I want to talk about it. Just like I want to talk about the great movie I saw. I don’t care all that much if my “marketing” results in immediate sales. If it does, it’s great, and I know my service has more value than the money my clients pay, so I feel good. If it doesn’t, I still feel good because I know I gave them valuable info.

Ironically, it seems to me that the less I care about the immediate results of my marketing, the more sales I make. By far, the best marketing gig I’ve done so far for my Akashic Record Reading was the interview Hunter Nuttall facilitated. I worked on that interview over the long Labor Day Weekend without expecting sales at all. I did the interview because Hunter is my friend, he had my reading and had lots of great questions that I found interesting too. It’s an interview, so there is really no sales talk. But the readers picked our enthusiasm, they asked many thought-provoking questions in the comments, and a good number of them contacted me directly ^_^ (And I’m sure the posts were great traffic attractor for Hunter, too. It was a win-win-win for Hunter, readers, and me. Now send a few more interviews like this my way, and I’ll be rich ^_^)

So again, it’s critical to choose your business niche based on what you love, as we discussed in part 1 of this Inside Out Approach To Entrepreneurship series. Your love and passion will show when you talk to people, and therefore it will affect your sales. And when you love what you do, you almost owe to deliver it to the appropriate audience. How can you possibly keep that goodie to yourself? Love is better shared, we all know that.

Do you like marketing? Do you have great marketing ideas? (I’m still learning, so I’m all ears if you do!)

Further reading: Learning to Love Networking Learn three practical techniques to make your great first move in networking that is critical in any marketing. Or read on to Part 5 of this series.

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