How Your Mind Set Can Sabotage Your Dreams

One of my “Get Your Mind Set For Your Dreams” clients is someone whose specialty is coaching newly single women.  This coach is very expert at what she does, has studied extensively over many years to create her program, and isn’t afraid to market herself in the least….she has a radio show, frequently speaks, and has an active e-zine.  One day we were talking about her frustration at getting new customers to commit for more than a month of her program.  Her point to me was that no woman gets past such a significant life change as divorce or death in 30 days.  She really wanted her customers to work with her for a minimum of 3 months, knowing that it takes at least that long to truly benefit from her program.

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!

How Every Single Thought Has Its Own Energy

I love this 8-minute video with Wayne Dyer.  Using simple muscle testing technique, he illustrates how our thoughts literally make us weaker or stronger.  Thank you, Dr. Dyer, for sharing this through YouTube.

Can't Airline Customers Get a Little Love?

My opinion is that the United States long ago became a culture in which burdensome business practices underscore a stark, uncaring, cavalier attitude toward our citizens.  Today’s news brings, yet again, a call for Federal legislation that prevents airline passengers from being stuck inside planes for more than three hours on the tarmac.  This is in reaction to a Continental Express flight (2816) which kept its customers on board for six hours.  Instead of moving quickly to give their customers a little love, Continental first pointed its finger to Express Jet Airlines.  Express Jet Airlines pointed its finger, in turn, to the Rochester airport.

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

Tiger Woods – Soul or Sole Purpose?

To begin with total honestly, I play golf only on my Wii.  I don’t pretend to know a thing about it, and watching it to me is like watching grass grow.  But Tiger Woods fascinates me, because of all the golfers I’ve ever known of, I see such an amazing focus in him.  His complete surrender into his game, paired with his awesome talent, makes Tiger Woods one of the game’s greatest players.  I’d love to have a cup of coffee with Mr.Woods, and if I did here are the questions I would ask:

1. You are so committed to your sport, in such a disciplined, focused way, that it is literally visible in and around you, at least to me.  How did you come to grow such a great ability to focus?
2. When you are playing golf, it seems to me that each moment of the game is your sole purpose for being.  Focusing only on what you are about in that moment, giving it your sole attention and purpose, puts you into a space of heightened awareness that gives you an edge.  Would you agree?
3. When we know our soul purpose, we have the ability to step into that purpose with great energy and even love.  We feel a passion for what we do, and an ability to surrender to the flow.  It’s as if our soul takes over and runs things, is the driver (no pun intended, Tiger) until we step out to do something else.  What do you think about golf being your soul’s purpose?
4. When we surrender to our soul’s purpose, everything in our life comes into alignment to support what we have dedicated ourselves to.  I believe that healing from your surgery as well as you did, and coming back so strongly, is connected to your living in your purpose.  Instead of the surgery and your recuperation being the story, it was only a sidebar, a support to your main story of being one of the world’s greatest golfers, ever.  Your deeper focus was getting back to playing, and recuperation was just a part of staying in the game.  Do you see it that way, too?

Amazing things happen when we have the discipline and focus to follow through, to practice with sole purpose, and to let our work flow from our own soul’s purpose.  Mine isn’t golf, and probably yours isn’t, either.  But we both do have a soul purpose, and we can be just as great as Tiger Woods if we are dedicated and committed, like him.

(c)  Sue Painter

Harry Potter – A Guy Who Has His Purpose Down

I love the Harry Potter books and movies (I confess that the first movie is still my favorite one).  Harry grew up in circumstances that didn’t allow him much freedom to express who he really is, just as some of us less magical people do.  Sometimes, he had to act contrary to what he felt and believed just to survive in his uncle’s house.  Harry’s path toward learning his soul purpose started, as it does for most of us, with a little help from outsiders.  He was protected and whisked away to school, and there he learned more about himself and who he truly was.

When Harry goes back to his uncle’s house for school breaks he isn’t able resume his former way of being.  He goes back a changed young man.  He feels hemmed in at his uncle’s house, knowing that how he must live while there really doesn’t fit him.  His uncle, aunt, and cousin sense the changes in him and react with fear.  As the years go by, Harry’s understanding and knowledge of himself become stronger.  As we all know, he begins to fight with the forces that seek to destroy him and the life he has come to love at Hogwarts. He is willing to put himself on the line, even when his courage doesn’t match the situation.  He pulls energy and strength from his soul to face whatever comes up, and remains true to his purpose.  Harry is a great model for those of us who want to live from what is the truest place for us in life.

Harry uses his white magic to stand against black magic.  Harry has his soul purpose down.  He doesn’t get there without the wisdom, support, and love from people who help him find his path and his power, though.  In my experience, most of us need a pathfinder or two to help us find our way along the path, to find our own magic.  Good job, Harry!

(c) Sue Painter

What Keeps an Entrepreneur Down?

Doing the work of digging deeply for soul purpose is honorable and important.  It requires honesty and openness to thoughts, feelings, and emotions one may not have been open to before.  It requires the discipline of self-examination and questioning.  One of the symptoms of not knowing your way is “never getting around.”

Have you ever wondered why you just never get around to doing something that you absolutely know is important in your life?  It’s a rare person who can honestly answer no, LOL!   Here are some of  the things I see when someone asks for my help and who is working off their path:

• Boredom
• Irritation
• Whining
• Excuses
• Unhappiness
• Depression
• Frequent illness (headache, nausea, stomach ache, lack of energy)

It’s too daunting to ask directly “What is your soul’s purpose?”  We can’t approach finding the bare trace of your path in such a forced and quick way.  Instead, we have to search here and there, looking for the barest beginnings of an overgrown, hidden trail.  So here’s how I often start helping someone discover soul’s purpose.  We begin by understanding what it is NOT!  You’ll know what your soul purpose is not by building a list of tolerances.  I often begin my Soul Purpose workshops by having people do this, and we always get a few good surprises and laughs.  Here’s how to do it by yourself:

• Get a few sheets of blank paper or a large sheet of paper from a flip chart.
• Draw a vertical line down the center of the page(s).
• At the top of the left column write “I am tolerating these people and things.”
• List everything you can possibly think of that you put up with and really wish you didn’t have to – a low paycheck, a spouse who never takes out the garbage, a button off your shirt, clothing that is too tight, a snotty co-worker – no matter how big or small the issue is, write it down.  Close your eyes and let the list come, and when you think you are done close your eyes and do some more.  It often takes a while to prime the pump – sometimes people have been tolerating things for so long they are numb to it.
• Now, at the top of the second column (on the right) write “inspiration.”  Pick one or two of the things off your list that really bug you and think about how your life would be without them.  Think about how energizing it would be to quit tolerating these, once and for all.  Feel within yourself the tiny flame of excitement you get at the idea of freedom from these things.

That’s a short and quick version of what we often spend two days doing – questioning, puzzling, and talking our way through list after list of tolerations, and crafting in the opposite column a life based on inspiration instead.  Amazing things happen, one being that people get closer to their purpose.  The weeds and vines in their way begin to get rooted out, or moved aside.  With some commitment and humor and self-reflection a person starts down the path of finding her soul purpose.  And over time, we can take that soul purpose and create work that is financially successful, deeply satisfying, and often joyful.

I believe one of the most critical actions one can do is to find one’s soul purpose.  Taking that and crafting it into successful entrepreneurism is deliciously sweet, like the icing on your birthday cake.  May you find your way to both.

(c) Sue Painter

Finding Soul Purpose as a Solopreneur

If you’re a solopreneur you came into that status in one of two ways.

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