After a pause in our conversation I simply said to her “why not just eliminate your 1 month offer and let the entry into your program be a three month long offer?”  And this talented, go-get-it, savvy woman said to me, “Oh, I don’t think anyone would just jump into a three month program with me.”  There it was!  A mindset that created a huge stuck place in my client, making it harder for her to engage the type of woman she really wanted to work with the most.  Making it hard to think of her program as “worth” 3 months.  Making it hard for her to increase her income by cutting out a short program that wasn’t really profitable for her while raising her price for her 3 month program and justifying that with cleaner, more focused program descriptions and marketing.  Making it harder for her to attract the people who most need her service, only because she didn’t believe the worth of what she was offering.

Read that again…..you know….that part about “believe in the worth of what you are offering.”  That belief is the core of marketing that works.  For solo professionals and small business owners to have belief in their own products and services is 100% critical!  If your own mind is set to devalue and doubt what you most have to offer in service to others, you’re marketing with a strait jacket on.  Your mind wraps itself around false beliefs and your heart constricts.  Your “voice of unworthiness” starts screaming at the top of its lungs.  Nothing good comes from being in this state!

Your mind set can sabotage your dreams, even keeping you from fully allowing your dreams to become known to you.  That’s not only sad, it’s counterproductive for your life.  My advice…….listen to your dreams, no matter how outlandish they may seem at the time.  Just listen, give them space to be.  And monitor that your mind set doesn’t sabotage even the listening!

You might recall that this client decided to let self-sabotaging talk have free reign each morning after a quiet time of meditation, writing down each self-sabotaging thought and determining to let such thoughts go for the rest of the day. In the meditation itself, he began to ask for guidance about his life’s work. You also might remember that he is unemployed, having suddenly been laid off from a position due to funding cuts.

Stepping out, speaking your dreams, and taking concrete action will always lead to changes in circumstance and energy. Two months later, look at all that has happened!

• Freelance work (found by consistently talking to his contacts) has given him a small income of $2300 a month. It’s not enough, but it’s a solid start to beginning his own successful business. By acting in faith that he could create work rather than telling himself the economy is bad, he has manifested money.
  
• His meditation time has given him a certain knowledge that he wants to use the work experience and skills he has, but in his own business rather than working for others. He gets energy and passion from being around creative professionals, so his target market (which we are still narrowing down) is men who are established in the arts – painters, writers, silversmiths, independent filmmakers, and musicians. He feels completely enthused and passionate about serving this group.
  
• He is almost completely free of the self-sabotaging talk!   He reports, “I listen each morning for the voice, ready to write down what it says. I realized the other day that almost all the time now, nothing comes!”  He is both delighted and amazed.
  

Even more amazing things have come along.   He began to say that he wanted to attend a conference with other entrepreneurs, although he had no money to do so.   One of his friends offered him a ticket to a high -visibility event across the country, a ticket worth $2000.  The friend hooked him up with a roommate to cut hotel costs, and a family member heard of the opportunity and gave an early birthday gift of an airline ticket.  Off he went on a trip to somewhere he’d never been before (he wanted to travel, remember?).  As we talked about this trip and how it just opened up before him, I reminded him that speaking our desires always puts energy toward our desires into play.

The golden nugget he got from this event was believing that he could, in fact, create a six-figure business. With eyes glistening, he told me, “I was standing there talking to guys who were millionaires! And what I could not believe was that they were just like me!”   He got it that these men had all created their millions, not by being born rich but by actively working toward their dream.  He is so stoked up by seeing this!  His face is glowing, his energy is higher, even his dress and grooming are improved.

As for his dream of seeing Africa, he decided to search the Internet one night and found a volunteer program he that gives a week’s tour in South Africa in return for two weeks of volunteer work there.  His passport pictures are made, and he is applying for a spot. Instead of thinking it would be years or maybe never that he saw Africa, he may actually go within six months!

Stay tuned for more about this man and the amazing life he is creating – all because he was willing to open himself to guidance, coaching, and facing his fears.   To make a difference, BE different.  Even the smallest step will start you on your path.

(c) Sue Painter

Over the past few years I’ve consciously removed myself from exposure to blatantly violent images.  It’s interesting that once I did this, my senses became sharpened to lesser forms of violence, too.  For instance, I don’t want to watch arguments on TV, or constant sniping.  It doesn’t serve me to watch Judge Judy, for instance.  It doesn’t serve me to watch a sit-com where the women are always talking in degrading ways about their husbands, or the husbands are always treating their wives as people to be manipulated and lied to.  I’ve noticed that a lot of what is available to watch on TV is demeaning – as is much of reality TV.

The Law of Exposure states that over time, we become our thoughts and actions.  As I write this, it shocks me to suddenly recall that my father often repeated a quote that went something like “we will rise, fall, or remain the same according to our greatest thoughts and deeds.”  That’s not exact, and I can’t find the original quote or who said it, but whomever it was, long ago, understood the Law of Exposure.

It’s my experience in working with hundreds of clients that entrepreneurs need a very enriching and conscious diet for their brains.  The books we read, the movies we watch, the teachers we follow – these feed our gray matter, our spirits, and our souls.  We are, in my opinion, literally called to do our work.  If you are feeling sluggish, bored, unsuccessful, or otherwise stuck take 15 minutes to reflect on what you’ve lately been feeding your brain.  And while you are at it, reflect on what your own brain has been feeding others as you speak and act.  Trash in, trash out – that’s a powerful thought, no?

(c) Sue Painter

Finger pointing to wiggle out of responsibility for treating customers decently has long been a theme in American businesses.  We’ve been through the “trapped on the tarmac” routine before – two years ago the hue and cry for Federal legislation arose when passengers on a JetBlue flight waited an interminable eleven hours on the ground at JFK.  Two years later, it’s happened again for a long enough period of time to get media exposure.

Frankly, if businesses would decide to take responsibility for treating customers with care, politeness, and concern there wouldn’t be such pressure to legislate things like how long passengers must sit on a plane before the business that took their money treated them like humans instead of cogs in a machine.  Lest I be thought of as coming down too heavy on businesses, however, let me quickly point out that our government engages in the same reactive posturing.  Also in today’s news?  A call for “tighter airspace rules” around New York City after a small plane crashed into a helicopter carrying Italian tourists.  The story created yet another merry-go-round of opinions and finger-pointing.

I’ve come to call the onerous and unloving treatment of American consumers “citizen burden.”  We routinely display dismissive attitudes toward our own citizens, acting as if their money and their taxes buy them the barest minimum of tolerance.  Long lines at driver license renewal?  No eye contact in retail stores?  Operators who get snarly when someone asks them to please look again for the number of the nursing home their mom has been sent to three states away?  These are so common as to fall totally under the radar of news-worthy.

We may say we believe in the Golden Rule – we may teach it in our schools and churches.  But when it comes to putting it into action, we fall as fast as that helicopter hit the Hudson River.  Seems to me that whoever the big boss man at Continental is (or Continental Express, if you insist on still pointing the finger) might take on an attitude of constant awareness, unfailing politeness, deep concern, and – yes – even gratitude for each and every passenger that pays for a ticket.  We seem to have gained an awful ability to hide behind corporate structure and point fingers, as human beings suffer while sitting on planes or standing on line in government buildings.  This is not the attitude or behavior that fosters good will, understanding, or peace in our culture, much less elsewhere in the world.

We are called to compassion and love for our fellow beings.  We are called to care for our neighbors as ourselves.  We are called by our Constitution and our laws to treat each citizen with respect.  We have an opportunity to right wrongs right here in our own country, to open our hearts and give a little love.  Perhaps if we did that, we would not find it so difficult to take that model of behavior outside our borders into the rest of the world.

(c) Sue Painter

1. For whatever reason, you lost your job and are calling yourself a solopreneur while you look around for new employment.
2. You have dreamed (usually for a long time) about doing a particular type of work, you may have felt called to get out on your own to do this work, and you sincerely hope and believe that whatever you are doing is truly your life’s work.

That’s usually how it goes.  And whichever category you are in, finding your soul (sole) purpose is important, because you will become filled with fire and passion, find a commitment within yourself that fuels focus and action, be unstoppable.  Whether you do that working for someone else or for yourself, you will be adding value to the world.  You will be adding love to the world.  You will be courageously modeling for others what it is like to live from deeply rooted, certain knowledge about your soul (sole) purpose.

My soul purpose is to help those who are lost to their purpose find their way.  I encourage, help clear the weeds and vines that have long been overgrown, hold the light while someone searches for their path.  Eventually, with courage and stamina and humor and love, the way is found.

My experience is heavily weighted to entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, and my passion is there, too.  I believe that our culture and economy become stronger when we foster the growth of small businesses, when we support the folks who are willing to give up (or perhaps have never had) the cushioning of employment.  I believe that entrepreneurs need nurturing and community, and I want to be a provider.  My blog is one way I provide these things to you.

(c) Sue Painter