Life Success Strategies for Soulpreneurs®

The Choice is Yours

I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience,
and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me
I ask for and receive as I have asked.

- A Course in Miracles

For several months I had a "story" that I stuck to.  That story was, "I have acid reflux.  I need to take Pepcid every day".  This story began when I was taken to the emergency room because I didn't feel "right".  I had no idea what was wrong, I just knew it wasn't right.

After the normal check for heart problems, which I didn't have, the doctor gave me a milky substance to drink and had me rest for a while.  It worked like a charm, and so I became a person with acid reflux.  It didn't occur to me at the time that I had a choice in the matter.  I thought it was just something I had to learn to live with.  And so I did...

Eventually I learned to watch what I ate, took digestive enzymes, did internal cleanses occasionally, and went on with life -  Pepcid in tow wherever I went.

I can't say exactly when the change happened, but one day it occurred to me that I had a choice.  I could choose to be a person with acid reflux, or I could give up that image of myself and build a new one.  I chose the later.

Today I take digestive enzymes only, and I rarely have any problems with acid.  If I do, I know what I've done to cause it.

We all have choices about how we want to live our lives, how we want to see ourselves and our world.  You can see success or you can see a hard road before you.  The choice is yours.

What do you choose?

 

Seeing the Big Picture - Spirit at the Center of Business

"If that which is whole within itself were not already here, neither medicine, psychology, nor affirmative prayer could in any way benefit us physically. For whatever the medicine or manipulation or emotional adjustment or prayer of affirmation may do, it does not and cannot create life, it may only reveal it."

                                             - Ernest Holmes, Author of "The Science of Mind"

What is it that makes us move through life - that breathes us, that beats our hearts and allows us to create intuitively, naturally? Surely it is nothing we have created ourselves. There has to be a natural order of things, and we can only scratch the surface of understanding how it works. And so it is in all areas of our lives.

Ernest Holmes says that living within all of us is the essence of creation. We all have the ability to create to the extent that we believe we can. This applies to all aspects of life, for all of life is intertwined in the whole from which we came and will return at some point in our lives.

If we are all one, why do we make life so hard by trying to set ourselves apart, by being "different' or better than other people? We are conditioned from birth to be better than other people if possible - to compete and to win at all costs. Is this why we came here, to be unique and different, to shine in our own unique way? I believe it is, at least in part. We all have music in us that needs to be given to the world while we're here. And so it is with our businesses.  They are no more and no less than an extension of our selves, and are meant to be one more expression of those selves in the world.

So, what's the point? The point is that when you're creating and working in your business, an awareness of why you're doing what you're doing, at a deeper level, will help you succeed because it will help you formulate your advertising and marketing strategies so that they reflect your true values, which are at the heart of every Soulpreneur's business.

Always remembering that we all live in the Oneness of life, and that what you think, say and do affects all of us; will keep you in the state of right-mindedness as you think about and formulate your business strategies, and put them out into the world every day.

"Any job can become a ministry, as long as it is dedicated to love. Your career can be an empty canvas for God to write on. Whatever your talents or abilities, He can use them."

                                                                         - Marianne Williamson

One Soulpreneur's take on business, life, and spirit

How do you reconcile bringing your spiritual life into your business without losing the importance of your business being your source of income that can sustain you and allow you to have that which makes you happy? It's all in how you approach your life...

Since we are One with our Source, whatever you perceive that to be, it is natural, and innate, to use that Source, which you are, for everything. This leave nothing out - nothing...

Just like it's natural to use your hands to write, love, create; your mouth to eat, to speak, to drive; your legs to walk, to run, to skip, to move from here to there - all of life in you - all Laws of Life are meant to be used and shared and loved. Just as you have use of your body, you have use of the Laws of Life to use in all areas of your life.

In reality, there is no time you do not use these Laws, you just don't think about it as you go about your daily activities. You go to your job or your business and you tend to think you are separating your work from your home and spiritual life, when in reality that's not possible - ever!

So, this leads back to our question, how do you reconcile bringing your spiritual life into your business? By realizing it can be no other way, it's all One, it's all natural, so you may as well use all that it has to offer. In using it consciously and intentionally, you will find your awareness grows each day and opens your business and your personal endeavors up to a world of possibilities of which you were not even aware.

And so it is...

Is "Social Retailing" in Your Future?

Facebook has become a part of daily life for some 500 million people. So much so, that retailers are now searching for ways to tap into this mega social media platform and offer their wares. But this begs the question, do those of us on Facebook really want to be marketed to??

Reality is we are already receiving hundreds, if not thousands of marketing messages every day - some consciously and some unconsciously. It has gotten to the point that most people are tired of being marketed to continuously, in just about every form of communication available - unless they're looking for something specific... When they're looking for something specific, whether it be for their home, health, or for entertainment, they might look at these marketing messages as a gift, as part of the law of attraction in action... Of course, these messages have been there all along, they just haven't been paying attention, until they need what someone has to offer. The key is, of course, how do we marketers find the people who are ready to receive our messages?

This is a dilemma no matter what form of marketing you are using. And the answer is, we just have to get the message out there to as many targeted consumers as possible. We have to use intelligent marketing methods, such as using list services that help us find the people who are most likely going to use our product or service, and also target based on location, if our business is limited to specific locations. This brings us back around to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, both of which can be used for location specific marketing.

Yes, they can be used to find prospective customers, if you use the right strategy - one that shows you care about people, not just about what they can do for your business.

Here's an informative article that can give you food for thought, if you're considering expanding your marketing strategies to include Facebook.

Facebook Seen as Next Frontier for Online Sales

Should Facebook be used as a marketing tool to help our businesses, and our economy, recover a little faster?

I invite you to share your opinion on "social retailing".

The Divine Spirit within protects, but it doesn't interfere. It warns, but it doesn't intrude. It guides, but it doesn't impose. It waits for you... but it is patient.

- Sonia Choquette,

The Time Has Come... To Accept Your Intuitive Gifts!

How many times have you waited and waited and waited... to do something you knew you needed to do? Sometimes there's a reason for procrastination.

I spend a fair amount of time on direct mail for our business. I mail introductory letters and brochures to potential customers. Recently I had about 60 letters ready to be folded, stuffed, and mailed. Somehow I never got around to getting the job done...

My husband and I attend Glazer-Kennedy Insider Circle meetings monthly, so I decided to take one of our marketing letters to get comments and suggestions from other business owners attending the meeting. If you're not familiar with the Glazer-Kennedy organization, it's a major force in the marketing arena, with thousands of members and monthly newsletters, resources, etc. You can check them out at www.dankennedy.com .

Lo and behold, after our Chapter Advisor reviewed our marketing letter, we discovered a typo in the letter! Now I know we are human, still it would have been embarrassing if we had mailed out a letter meant to bring business that potentially demonstrated our lack of thoroughness...

Sometimes procrastination isn't all bad...

How to take back control of your business

"The time has come to elevate the status of the sixth sense, your inner wisdom and authentic knowing, from the lost, ignored sense to the first and most important of them all. No longer allow your intuition to be the "throwaway" or dispensable sense that disturbs your ego's tight control. To lose your instincts- or abandon them to the least important of influences- is an error for which you'll almost certainly pay dearly."

- Sonia Choquette, The Time Has Come to Accept Your Intuitive Gifts!

How many times have you heard that little voice telling you to do something that you ignored? How many times have you regretted not listening? If you're like me, it's every time.

Sometimes I do things just because I have a "feeling" I should do it, not having a clue why... Usually I find out later why, or maybe I don't necessarily see why, but I trust that there was a reason - something I avoided because I did listen.

I have quit keeping track of the number of times I have told my husband we needed to do something for a particular customer, and that customer called or emailed us within just a few hours. It happens over and over - and it's a gift, one we should never take for granted and learn to trust above all we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. It's a gift that has the ability to lead us to a better life than we could ever imagine with our limited physical senses.

I have learned to quit looking outside of me to find the answers. I went through the phase of having many coaches and they were helpful for the learning I needed to do. But there comes a time when you need to respect your own intuition and quit trying to make your business look like someone else's. It's that time for me. The time to step back and look at what's working for me and my lifestyle and what isn't. It's time to choose how I want my business to operate, whether someone else thinks it will work or not. Because sometimes people don't know what they don't know, and I'm willing to show them it's time to think for myself in my own authentic and unique way.

Maybe it's time for you to do the same?

From Business Owner to Life Owner

Being a business owner has many ups and downs. It's fun, exhilarating, and has the big perk of providing the freedom a job takes away. At the same time, you have to create your own income sources and become a "jack of all trades" as you are often the CEO, CFO, President, Chief Cook and bottle washer of everything. As any new business owner knows, you are really in the marketing game, no matter what business you are in because without clients, there is no business...

All the stress that comes along with building your own business can create a lot of self doubt and fear. What has kept me going for the last 15 years of being a co-owner and entrepreneur, in partnership with my husband, has been lots of learning from others who have "been there and done that", my innate common sense, and most of all faith that there is a Creator who is always guiding me to the best thing I can do every step of the way.

I have also been a student of A Course in Miracles for the last 15 years, which has kept my mind and path straight. Here's a couple of quotes that I love.

"Can your grandeur be arrogant when God Himself witnesses to it? And what can be real that has no witnesses? What good can come of it? And if no good can come of it the Holy Spirit cannot use it." (T.Ch9.VIII.9:1-4)

"You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill your part in it, and while you leave your part of it empty your eternal place merely waits for your return." (T.Ch9.VIII.10:1-2)

What these quotes say to me is we must give our gifts to the world to feel whole and complete. Until we do, no one else can fill our part the same way we do. Until you give your real self so that other beings can see, experience, and witness to its reality, your gifts don't feel real to you or anyone else.

There is a Voice inside showing you the way. Will you follow it in the expressions you give to the world through your interactions with life whether it be in your business or personal life? It's all the same. It's all about you and your relationship with life, no matter what form it takes.

You must give your gifts to the world, and only you know what they are. Until you do, you will feel like you're wandering around in a daze of unrest trying to figure out why nothing feels quite right...

Why not take one small step today to do what you know you came here to do?

"delay of joy is needless." - A Course in Miracles

We are starting to interview potential employees for our construction business today. I keep hearing about so many people unemployed and hurting right now. My husband and I are blessed to be building a thriving business using all the marketing techniques we can find. We are willing to get out there and do what it takes to be a "soulpreneur" - thriving as much as we can, allowing good stuff to come so we can help other people. That's our calling, to thrive and help others thrive. We help no one by sitting on the sidelines complaining, stressing, and waiting for life to give us what we think we are due.

My wish for you is that you find the joy of being a "soulpreneur" in charge of your life too!

Beware of businesses with free trials...

I recently decided to look into grants for women-owned businesses, so I looked online for legitimate companies that could help me track down grants.  That was my first mistake...  I found a company, which will remain nameless, that looked legitimate, so I sent them an email requesting a CD with information.  The CD was free, but they requested a credit card number to pay for shipping.  It sounded like a reasonable request at the time, but here's where the problems began. 

I printed out the information from the website, and upon further scrutiny I discovered that not only did I agree to pay shipping for the CD, the fine print stated that I would also be signed up with a wealth building company and charged $69.95 a month, if I didn't cancel within the first seven days of the free trial.   I, of course, cancelled this "free" offer right away.

Not long after this incident, I discovered an unidentified charge on my business charge card from a company selling diet pills.  After researching this on the internet, I found it was a large scam that has had numerous complaints from people who have never asked for these diet pills.  In this case, I not only called the company to have the charge removed, I also cancelled the credit card, since someone obviously used illegal means to obtain my credit card number. 

In a recent The Costco Connection magazine, an article was published about widespread online acai weight-loss double scams.  Some of these programs are set-up to charge ongoing monthly amounts, and they make it extremely difficult to contact the vendors involved to cancel.  Besides contacting your credit card company, the magazine's consumer advocate, David Horowitz, encouraged all consumers involved in these scams to also send the Federal Trade Commission a copy of any correspondence between you and your credit card company. 

Please be aware that scams seem to be more rampant in this struggling economy when people can least afford to loose money and/or time to fix these fraudulent charges.

Faith – the Key to Transforming Your Business

 

Faith is defined by Dr. Ernest Holmes, the founder of Science of Mind magazine, as “an idea so inwardly embodied that the mind can no longer conceive of its opposite.”   But what if your business is struggling and you feel like you are living its opposite right now?  What if no matter how hard you try, all you see is its opposite?  When you have faith, such as Dr. Holmes described, you don’t have to “try” to have faith – you just have it…  Here’s an example.

When you get up in the morning do you “try” to have faith that the electricity will work so you can have your morning coffee, or do you know and expect that it will?  When you go to bed at night, do you “try” to have faith that the sun will come up in the morning and you will have all the air you need to breathe, or do you know without a doubt and expect to have a normal day with the sun coming up and air to breathe?

That’s my definition of faith – a knowing, beyond a doubt, that whatever situation or circumstance you want in your life will be what you get.  And this knowing grows from the congruent actions you take, thoughts you think, and feelings you foster consciously.

We are living in a world of fear and doubt right now.  Businesses are closing, good people are having their lives turned upside down, and they’re running scared trying to make sense of life; and at the same time figure out what to “do” next.  Most of them probably believe that taking physical action is the first place to start. 

If you live a life based on faith, the first place to start is getting clear on your mindset, what you believe to be true, and what you are feeling and thinking on a daily basis.  If you’re constantly in a state of worry, fear, and you don’t see any way out of your situation, it’s going to be almost impossible for you to open your mind to receive the creative ideas and solutions that can be right under your nose, yet unseen…

Every night and morning I read something that helps me keep my mind open to what I believe to be true about life – that at its basis life is always good and that I am free to make choices about what I think and what I do to get access to this goodness.  No matter what appearances may be – I know people still have money (me included) and they are still spending it on what is important to them.  Just look around you and you will see this is true.

We all have limitless choices on what we can do to attract more customers to our businesses.  If you remain in an open and receptive state of mind, utilize the ideas that present themselves, and “expect” life to be your greatest champion, you will build a strong foundation of faith that will serve you and your business, no matter what is going on in the world.