Extending Love In Business And Beyond

Happy New Year!

In this post, I’d like to show how you can deepen your new year resolutions from the superficial goals and to-do list level to the energetic level of who you want to be.  By doing this, you have better chance of achieving the goals you have in mind.  Further, if you have multiple resolutions and goals that may seem to be at conflict to one another partially, you will learn how to unify them at the deep level.

New year resolutions, old way

Well, not just new year resolutions, really.  We make resolutions year round because we have high hopes to improve our life and ourselves.

I was looking at my old vision board a few weeks ago.  Probably like yours, mine had a bunch of things I wanted.  Six figure income I want to make with my business.  Beautiful house to live in.  Mediterranean cruise vacation.  Time to nurture myself at a spa.  A great boyfriend. . . .

And I’d like to think I didn’t just put those inspiring pictures on the vision board.  I was resolved to take actions.  I started my business and did various marketing.  I started to make money.  I also made lots of friends online along the way by networking.

But there were problems.

1. I had so many things I wanted (success, money, time for myself, friendship, romance, etc. etc.) that I felt like I was trying to run in five directions at the same time.
2. So I felt like I had to choose one (or two, at most) of them to focus on even though they were all important to me.  This caused slight but undeniable resentment in me.  How can I ignore my own need to rest in order to achieve success in business?  Why do I have to sacrifice my social life to make money?  So many people seem to be doing it this way, but I couldn’t ignore my inner voice that something was wrong.
3. Further, the choice I was making for the one goal to focus on was not a very conscious one but was conditional.  See, if you are starting your own business, especially internet related business, it’s hard not to pay attention to what is going on with your business.  Everyone on the internet is shouting what you should be doing to promote your business, what the next new big thing is with the online marketing, and so on.  Even though I started my business thinking it’s okay to develop it in a slow and steady way, I was affected with all these screams and focused on business success rather than time for myself or for friendship.

The consequence of this approach?  If you are good, you achieve one of your goals.  Let’s hope that was something you genuinely desired.  If not, you are left out feeling like a failure. Not a wonderful scenario either way.

The energy flow under individual goals and resolutions.

Let’s keep using my case as an example and examine the goals at a deeper level.  What did I really want when I  wrote that $ mark on my vision board and started marketing my Akashic Record Reading service?  I wanted good things for myself, and I wanted to get them by doing good things to others.  It was about self love and service. In short, it was about love, in its big true meaning.

I didn’t want money for the sake of seeing big numbers on my bank account.  I didn’t want success for the sake of success.  And I didn’t want to exploit someone or trick my clients or anything in that line.  I want to make money by providing value, more value than the monetary value my clients pay me.  I want both me and my clients to be happy and prosperous.

Energetically, my goal was to align more fully with love and grow in love.  My business is a way I express my love to the world, and also a way I intend to care for myself.  Money is only one of the results that accompany this energy flow.

Now let’s look at my other goals as well.  Time for myself – it’s about self love again.  Friendship and romance – it’s about love in its various manifestations.  So all my goals were about love.

Despite the superficial conflicts in time management, all goals are really on one single flow of energy: love.

My new year resolutions, new way

This was quite an epiphany for me.  So with this new realization, I created a new vision board on Christmas Eve.  I was excited and when I completed it, it felt like I made the best Christmas wish ever.

My new vision board is about one goal: extending love.   It’s about extending love in many aspects of my life, to myself, to my clients, potential clients, my readers of this blog, my online friends, my local friends, and beyond.  It’s not about choosing business or social life. There is no such conflicts.  No one-or-the-other kind deprivation.  While my love may take different forms, it is all one love, and so my goal is well focused.  And I am the one who is consciously choosing this goal.

I didn’t put $ this time.  Not that I don’t want to make good money – I do.  But I feel that (and others like good health) will fall into place when I fully align with the big energy flow of love.

Every morning, I’ve been asking myself, “How can I extend love (through my work / daily life)?” When I am bothered with a problem, I ask myself, “How can I address this issue from the place of love?”  It seems to work.

How you can review and improve your new year resolutions

So my suggestion is to review your new year resolutions to dig deeper to the energetic level.  This is a good practice whether you have just one goal / resolution or many, like I did.  What do you really want?  What kind of energy does that goal signify to you?

For example, let’s say your goal was to lose weight and your resolution was to eat healthy and to exercise daily.    Is this about taking better care of yourself?  Then it’s about self love.  And if you also want to improve your relationships, there is no conflict – it’s also about love.  You don’t have to worry like “What would I do when my friends invite me for dinner?  Will I have to eat what they offer?  Would that break my diet? And . . .”  You can find solutions when you think from the point of love.

Or is it about creating the life you desire with your own power?  Perhaps you are tired of being a victim and you want to start doing things for yourself, and eating well and exercising are just ways to start doing so?  Then it’s about personal power.

There are many forms of energy, but in my practice, we talk about the five main energy flow in this Universe.  They are:

• Love
• Light (spiritual awareness)
• Truth
• Abundance
• Power

You may find it helpful to review your resolutions with these five energy flows in mind.  Of course, they are not mutually exclusive – rather, they work together to bring synergy.  In the beginning, however, you may find it easier to focus on one energy quality.

Our collective move to unity

As I often say, we are accelerating our spiritual growth these days.  I have heard people talk about moving beyond the level of polarity.  Polarity is about two opposing values, like good and bad, love and hate (or love and indifference), have and have-not.  Living in the energy of polarity is like riding the mental and emotional roller coaster of one extreme to another, and continuing this swinging ride.

In everyday life, this can be either-or thinking.  Do I choose success and no social life or non-success and loving relationship?  Do I make it or do I fail?

Stepping up beyond the level of polarity is new to most people.  For instance, the world of love, period.  Nothing that is not love exists in this world.  I have a vague idea what it’s like .  Perhaps my spirit is there but my physical and mental bodies are still caught up in this world of polarity that I’m so used to.  I’m picking up, however, that this is the direction we humans are evolving.

Your new year resolution can be a step forward to this collective movement to non-polarity / unity.  What one energy quality do you embrace this year?  How will you be totally in this energy flow to the point that you not being that energy is unthinkable?

Further reading:

Steve Pavlina just declared he is becoming polyamorous. Although this is not the direction I am choosing for myself at this time, I think it is a noteworthy evidence that we are moving toward non-polarity world.  Energetically, it’s about love, not about relative love that can be a choice of either-or. (Photo by serenithyme)

Coaching The Freedom Of Self-Employment: Tom Volkar

We continue to interview inspiring and successful entrepreneurs here at Yes to Me, and this time, I didn’t have to look far for the perfect interview guest. Tom Volkar, Career Coach from CoreU Coaching and Delightful Work has been a steady commenter at Yes to Me. Just like myself, he helps new and aspiring entrepreneurs to have the business of their dreams. He recently made a community call, which attracted many bloggers. (Photo by leefotos)

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

I began my career as a soloprenuer in 1998, first as an inspirational speaker and corporate vision consultant. This was soon after closing an earlier entrepreneurial, entertainment business that resulted in me losing everything, including my home. My marriage of 19 years ended then when I refused to go back to a 23-year career in sales.

Once again, on the trail of pursuing work that I loved, a guy came out of the audience, after a talk I’d given and asked if I’d ever done any coaching. I coached his wife on discovering career fulfillment and found it far more satisfying than speaking; thus my coaching business was born.

I started the speaking business because I valued doing what I loved more than anything. Yet if I hadn’t walked down the corridor of speaking, the coaching door may not have serendipitously opened.

CoreU Coaching was initially a life coaching business where I delivered every kind of coaching imaginable, including: corporate executives, relationship coaching and coaching for supervisors in manufacturing plants. But the clients, who always gave me the greatest thrills, were budding entrepreneurs who were preparing to make the leap to self-employment. So In September 07, I began writing my Delightful Work blog, which is dedicated to that community. I coach, write and create courses and programs to support those who want to be their own boss.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

My first entrepreneurial enterprise in 1992 was for a brick and mortar business. The challenges were different than for my coaching business. I successfully raised 2.5 million dollars, so it was necessary to get dozens of lenders, investors and vendors to buy into in my vision, since it was never done before. My biggest challenge in that business was in finding and presenting existing business models that gave these supporters confidence.

In my coaching business the challenges were more internal and consisted of trusting myself and working through the underlying fears that developed around the lack of time and money. In chronological order here were my biggest challenges.

1. Not completely following my core values, allowed me to be lured by projects that looked financially promising but were not authentically aligned with who I was.
2. I fought prevailing wisdom to niche myself for far too long because I thought it would limit the work I’d receive and cause me to earn less.
3. I allowed my fear of learning technology to get in the way of my business growth.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

Values Un-aligned Projects – I worked through this one the hard way, by continuing to say yes to opportunities that looked good but did not turn out well for me. If we beat our heads against the same wall long enough, the pain awakens us. Lesson learned: Not everything works for everyone in the same way. If you have to fight it to work it, the resistance will stop the money from flowing.

Committing to a Niche – After yet another misguided decision in challenge one, I finally said the hell with it and made a sacred vow to commit to marketing myself as an expert only in the area that brings me most alive. That is inspiring and encouraging the leap to the freedom of self-employment. Lesson learned: Committing to one niche does not limit the work we receive. I am still presented with opportunities to coach in other areas. But commitment allows us to approach mastery in the area we care about the most. And mastery leads to greater propsperity in fulfillment and in finances.

Fear of Technology – I worked through this fear using Emotional Freedom Technique and a decision-making technique that I learned in Eckhart Tolle’s, The Power of Now. Essentially I had to release limiting beliefs about my ability to learn technology, while at the same time accepting that the Internet had become an essential component of business building. Lesson Learned: Even though we are more naturally suited to learning some concepts than others. Our resistance is unnaturally created by fear not by original makeup.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

Total autonomy is the best part of being an entrepreneur. I view employment as mental and emotional slavery. Each of us holds the key to remove our own shackles. Having the total freedom to decide what I work on, the projects I create, the self-determination to work when I feel like working and to work in service to who I most want to serve: that is the liberty of entrepreneurship that I hold most dear.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

There are four essential realizations that are required understanding.

1). No one can build your unique business like you can. Your best guess about what that is, is far better than any outside expert’s opinion. Tap the expertise of those who have actually been in the arena, for their encouragement, methods and tools. But look to yourself in matters of decision-making.

2). Quit dreaming and thinking – instead act. Find a way to get into action, even if it’s part time. You cannot see what doors may open (like the doorway to my coaching) until you walk down the corridor. Get out of your own head and into action. You can always adapt on the fly. It may not seem comforting but no one ever figures it all out first. That’s a myth.

3). Carefully choose your sources of support. Advice from others, even from those who love you, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. They can’t see things from your perspective. They aren’t aware of your desires and strengths. No one else can intuitively understand what you know about yourself. For support, find a community of budding entrepreneurs who are feeling what you’re feeling.

4). Don’t let the search for the perfect pre-existing career slow you down. You may not find perfect, pre-existing, authentic work created by another. You may need to blend all of your special strengths, peculiarities and values together, to build your own empire.

My Takeaway

I totally agree with the importance of authenticity! I also like his advice on how to choose the supports and advice with care. The moral encouragement from friends and family is nice, but if they are not entrepreneurs themselves, do take it with a grain of salt. That kind of free advice can cost you a lot in terms of your time or missed opportunities. So thank them with grace, and find other entrepreneurs and real pros for advice.

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

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