What prompted this article was a client who was unhappy with me. I had given them some feedback and it hit a nerve and they told me.

There’s a time when I would have simply responded with a very logical email explaining why I was right and suck it up and follow my instructions.

And I was wishing my clients would just be easier to work with and do what I tell them to do.

As I thought about how I could best respond, a line from Charles Dickens’ book, A Christmas Carol popped in my mind: Mankind is Our Business.

Mankind is Our Business

There’s a scene early in the book when Ebenezer Scrooge is confronted by the ghost of his recently deceased business partner, Jacob Marley.

Marley has come to warn Scrooge that unless Scrooge changes his ways; shifts his focus from making as much profit as possible to spending his wealth to help others, he’s doomed to an afterlife in chains and remorse.

Scrooge is terrified by Marley’s presence and tries to calm Marley and himself saying,

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob”

To which Marley replies, “Business… Mankind was my business … The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Coming Back to the Present

OK, so let me bring you back to how all this relates to my client situation.

I wasn’t very happy that my client didn’t like my advice and was telling me they weren’t going to do what I suggested.

It was frustrating for me and scary because this client was a referral from someone whose esteem I valued. It things didn’t work out I might lose not only a client but the trust of my referral source.

I sat and considered different ways to respond to my client’s email. In the past I would have sent a very professional and business like email explaining why I was right and the consequences of not following my advice.

And that approach might work but it wouldn’t work very well. What’s interesting is that my client wasn’t wanting my instructions and how tos even though it looked that way.

Because my client’s compliance would have come at the expense of trust. And trust is what makes us coaches and consultants able to help clients make real, sustainable advancements.

Sustainable advancement is how mankind is my business.

How I Handled the Situation

I emailed back to my client saying I got that they were feeling frustrated with my suggestions and rather than continue to hack away at creating a marketing message, let’s talk by phone about what they were wanting from me and how I could support them.

Is Mankind Your Business?

In most of my posts I offer some really specific steps you can apply in your own business.

In this post, the only step is to consider these two questions:

Is mankind your business? and

Why did you answer the way you did?

And if you feel like sharing your response with me, I’d really love to hear what you have to say.

Bottom Line

Saying that “Mankind is Our Business” sure sounds good what what exactly does that mean to you and I in our small businesses?

If you accept it as true for your own business, it means in addition to doing our trade: helping customers solve problems and get the results they want, we are in the business of helping our customers make lasting changes so they can see more good in the world and do more good in the world.

It’s really stunning watching a small child throw up, or “geysering” as we say around here. It’s David who’s doing it. Sam has other ways to register his discontent. David, when he doesn’t like something he’s put in his mouth, he’ll calmly get this inward focus, and then everything, everything comes out. Not just the little, teensy bit of whatever-was-horrible, but the entire contents of his stomach will spew forth.

Suffice it to say we’ve been doing a lot of laundry.

The real issue is not to pick on poor David, he’s doing the best he can to manage things. We trust it will mellow out as he gets older.

But, it’s interesting to see–when you don’t like something, throwing up EVERYTHING instead of just spitting out what you didn’t like.

Two things we’re learning from this. One, we’re seeing that he has an exquisite sense of knowing what he likes and doesn’t like. If we take the time to tune in, we can avoid pushing something on him that he has clearly, but subtly, refused. Result: no geyser.

The second is that we know David will grow out of it. We know he won’t be sitting down to lunch at age 34, take a bite of roasted beet salad, doesn’t he doesn’t like it, and geyser all over the restaurant. He just won’t eat any more.

The question for your heart: How finely attuned are you to what you like and dislike, or do you just eat what everyone else is eating? “Eat” is a metaphor here, folks.

The second question: When you take a bite of something you don’t like, do you get rid of everything that’s ever been associated with it? Or are you able to figure out the bit you didn’t like, and keep the rest? “Bite” is, you guessed it, another metaphor.

Translate these questions into your business, and see what you notice.

Thrown From the Holiday Train

In 1986 I was at the Boston University fencing club practicing lunges. I overlunged, meaning I threw my foot too far forward, overcompensated by pushing even harder off my back foot, and went forward-over. Only my forward foot was still planted.

I heard a “pop.” And then I said to myself, “That’s gonna hurt.” Six seconds later, it did.

That’s how I found myself with my ankle bandaged up, hobbling around on crutches my first winter in Boston, as the snow and ice started to cover everything.

It was, in some ways, one of the most pleasant experiences of my life. In other ways it sucked eggs. But, what was pleasant is that it renewed my faith in humanity. Because, you see, everyone was so helpful. Getting on and off the T, getting in and out of stores, getting to my classes and home again. Gracious and helpful, in that fantastically warm and curt way that New Englanders have.

That’s why what happened to my friend Arwen is so incredibly wrong. It involves trains, wheelchairs, and big guys. I know it’s not very NVC to judge things, but hey, sometimes I color outside the lines.

Arwen, however, is dedicated to restorative justice, and so she responded like this. She asked three things:

1. Watch the short story (it’s about five minutes long.)
2. Share it far and wide with everyone you know.
3. Let her know (by posting here- if you feel more connected to your Will to help people with disabilities be with the ones they love.

Arwen has dealt so eloquently with the question of access. I have a slightly different question for the heart of your business: How does your business deal with exceptions and special requests?

Birthdays Coming Up!

It’s one birthday, but two at once. Our boys, Sam and David, turn one year old this coming Wednesday. Amazing.

How old is your business? When is it’s birthday? Have you celebrated it’s development and growth so far?

And, don’t look for me being too quick on any online responses this Wednesday. I’ll be eating cake. And hopefully not cleaning up any geysers.

Opening the Moneyflow: A year-long course and community to making your business work.
Starts January. Early-bird deadline Dec 4. Limited spaces.

Being rich may be a nice thing, if it comes. But that’s not what you’re about.

You’ve got something really precious, or cool, or important to do. And it got wrapped up in a business because there’s no job description like that, and you have to make a living somehow. So you kinda need to figure out how to make it pay.

And make it pay significantly. Tens of thousands of dollars or Euros or pounds or… That’s a lot of moola. It may not be millions, but it’s still a lot. How can your thing really bring in that much money without compromising on something, like your heart, ethics, life…

Despite what you may read, there’s no certain “six steps to riches” available. Oh sure, people have cool systems, and they sometimes work for some people. But really, for most of us, business is a messy journey. Try something, it kinda works. Try it again, it works a little better. Try it again– oops, that bombed. What’s next?

There are some things that make it better.

What Makes The Journey Easier?

Well, there’s lots of things, like hot chocolate in the winter, and yoga classes and love from friends. But I’ve got three things in mind right now:

1. Information

It’s true, round wheels roll, square wheels don’t. There is information about business to learn, so your business can roll on round wheels.

Plus there’s this tricky thing–is something you’re doing not working because you aren’t doing it well, or is it working fine, but you’re missing some other piece of the puzzle, so the results don’t make it to you? Kinda like a bridge that’s missing a section. Is your business missing sections of the bridge so clients can’t get to you?

2. Community

Doing it alone is painful and, well, lonely. Plus, if you don’t have people around you offering compassionate, safe feedback and support, then you have to try everything for the first time in public.

Plus, how about self-care? It’s so easy to get into work-til-you-drop mode, but if everyone around you stops to integrate and rest, oh boy it’s easier to make that choice for yourself.

3. Dependable Feedback Loop

You read a book or listen to an audio. And you think you’ve understood it. Then you go do it. And it didn’t quite work. Why not?

Having a dependable feedback loop makes all the difference. It means that you learn something, try it out, and then get feedback not just from other friends who read the same book, but from someone who really knows, and who can give feedback that really helps.

Plus Some Secret Sauce

Okay, forget “secret sauce.” I’m just talking about spiritual practice that supports who you really are, deep in your heart. Spiritual practice and heart connection integrated into business work. What if you had weekly guided Remembrances? Or virtual retreats, where a few dozen compatriots were all doing spiritual practice all day once every two months to support the depth of connection?

What if you had support to do the healing, and not just learning and implementing? And what if there was time for it to unfold organically, and not be rushed to “make a breakthrough” on some artificial schedule?

A Year-Long Journey for Your Business

It’s crazy to think you can get from Point A to Point Z in “six simple steps” or just a few weeks. Common sense tells you it just takes some time to learn, implement, heal, and integrate in a way that’s really effective.

Opening the Moneyflow is meant to be just that- a year-long straight-forward holistic community/course/container for your business development.

I mean… What if you could really depend on your business?

Check it out, read it up, fill out an application. If it sounds like you, we’d love to have you.
Opening the Moneyflow 2010

If you have questions, please ask.

peace,

Mark

There is a LOT to do in a new business. And if you want to make a living sooner than later, you kinda have to do it quickly. I don’t want to panic anyone, or get you thinking that you’ve got to outrun your heart. That said, there is a time to get yer rear in gear.

Of course, the paralyzing factor is that because you really care about the folks you are trying to reach, you don’t want to look like a sloppy nebbish in the process. (Nebbish is from the Yiddish “nebekh” for someone who is “pitifully ineffectual.”)

So what’s the balance between “get’r'done” and letting it be imperfect versus polishing it to a high sheen? I was musing on this after reading a blog post at Ittybiz by JohnnyBTruant. Johnny talks about the evolution he’s gone through in a mere seven months of being in business and having a blog.

I gave a short answer in the comments, and more is coming here. But before I explore that middle ground further, I wonder, have you ever seen a child with a pile of crayons?

Crayon-Wielding Terrorists

That’s how a friend of mine used to refer to little kids. Give young children crayons and they’ll be writing everywhere BUT the paper. And even when they do use the paper, they are more aligned with the “inspirational” than the “realistic” school of art.

Let’s just say it how it is: sloppy.

But we don’t worry about kids being sloppy, do we? They are supposed to be. They are just figuring out how to use the tools. They’ll grow into it. In fact, if you’re too strict with kids when they are experimenting, they may never feel confident enough to become skillful.

The same goes for your business.

The Four Stages of Development

If you weren’t aware that small children grow up, you’d despair of the daily mess in the house. Businesses also grow up. For the self-employed and other micro-sized-businesses, I’ve learned there are definite stages of development you go through.

Stage One: Creation. In this stage you are just getting started. You don’t yet know what the heck you’re doing. You may know your skill set and have your expertise, but you may be unsure about a whole bunch of things, including who you’re trying to reach, what you’re trying to offer and what it looks like, where the money is coming from, how you want to present or talk about what you do, and the look and feel of your business.

Things will be a bit of a creative mess. You won’t have a lot of consistency. You may change things up quite a bit from day to day or week to week.

It’s okay, It’s appropriate even. You have to let children play.

Signs that you’re moving out of this stage:
1. You gain clarity about who you are trying to reach.
2. You find a way to present what you do so that people are hiring you, at least sometimes.
3. You find at least one method of marketing that is helping you consistently and effectively connect with clients.

Stage Two: Concentration. Now your business starts to feel more like, well, a business. There’s some solidity happening. Rather than just lurching from one thing to the next, drawing outside the lines, you start experiencing some clarity about what you’re doing and where you’re going. Things start to speed up.

The things you tend to struggle with in this phase include bringing in survival-level income consistently, although you’re still starting from zero each month, so you don’t have stability yet; balancing doing the work with marketing your business; settling into a solid look-and-feel for your business and website; losing remaining awkwardness in articulating your offer to folks; trying to get it all done.

Signs that you’re moving out of this stage:
1. You have one very solid offer and are experimenting with at least two other offers that  are in sequence to support having repeat clients.
2. You are experimenting with leveraged offers which don’t require as much of your presence, either through products or serving groups of people.
3. Your marketing efforts are gaining traction, and other people are noticing and spontaneously wanting to help you get the word out.
4. You are experimenting with outsourcing, hiring help where it’s needed so you can focus on what only you can do.

Stage Three: Momentum. Ahh, sweet stability! In this stage you have a sequence of offers so that you have repeat customers. You have some offers that leverage your time, so that you are working with many people at once, or you’re selling products where your personal time is hardly involved at all. You are outsourcing what you can, and focusing on what you do best. You’re marketing is running smoothly, and you have created recurring revenue so that your income has some predictability to it at a level somewhere above survival. You may not be rich, but the business is humming along.

The things you tend to struggle with here are: project management and managing a team, being smart managing your money so you don’t increase your spending too much as the revenue increases, complacency and staying connected to purpose and heart instead, overwhelm as the business becomes more complex, and learning leadership and delegation skills that free you from micro-managing.

Momentum is a great place to stop, there’s no need to go further. With good outsourcing, delegation and project management skills, and an attention to your heart, your business can hum along providing you with a comfortable living and some freedom.

There is a fourth stage, and it is radically different from the other three stages. I call it “Independence.”

Stage Four: Independence. This is where your little one-person with outsourced help micro-business becomes a company. You build a team of people who have an ownership stake in results and outcome, so that instead of just doing what you tell them to do, they are pro-actively helping to manage different aspects of the business.

I call this stage “Independence” because if done successfully, you can provide leadership, but remove yourself from day-to-day work.

I’m not going to write much more about this level because we’re still learning about it ourselves here at Heart of Business. We’re on a cusp, between Stage Three and Stage Four. I made the choice about two years ago that I wanted to grow to Stage Four, because I really wanted to learn about leadership, teamwork, and collaboration. As a result, my role here in the business has changed radically.

But all of that is for another time.

Let’s Return to Perfectionism

As you might imagine, attention to detail and perfectionism matter more as you develop along the stages. In Stage One, it’s far more important to get something imperfect out the door. Spending time perfecting anything is nearly useless, because you don’t even know if what you’re doing will work.

I’m not saying don’t run your writing through a spell checker for typos and such. It is, however, okay to show up as human with foibles and mistakes.

In Stage Two, perfectionism starts to be a bit more useful. And guess what? Since you aren’t spending so much time experimenting like you were in Stage One, you can put that effort into improving what does work.

In Stage Three, perfectionism becomes an asset, as long as it’s not paralyzing you. The better designed everything is, the more attention to detail is paid, the smoother your business will run, and the less time and money you’ll have to spend fixing problems, answering questions, or in general cleaning up after your mess.

Imperfection and Vulnerability Go Hand-In-Hand

The funny thing is, once you’ve been in business for some time, once you’ve gotten to stages two and three, you realize that mistakes don’t kill you. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to who has had success freely admits to their mistakes, almost proudly. “Hey, look at all the mistakes I’ve made!”

In contrast, when you’re new in business, feeling more vulnerable and lost, it’s easier to cling to perfectionism as a kind of protection, shielding you from all the uncertainty that is present in your business.

Of course you have a great thing going for you at this point- many fewer people know about you and your business, so when you’re sloppy, so many fewer people see it. Now if that’s not a gift of compassion from the Divine, I don’t know what is.

If you’re in Stage One, the best thing you can do is to embrace your vulnerability. Open your heart to the creative and sloppy imperfections in your business, and play with those crayons. Trust that the sloppiness and mistakes in this stage are not holding you back, just the opposite–they are making it possible for your business to move into the later stages of development.

This week is proving to be an interesting one, and I’m hardly into it. The final Momentum class happens tomorrow, and Kate and I are furiously finishing up the final class pdf all day today. And then, just as a I finish, early Wednesday morning I get to turn up for jury duty. I’m looking forward to it, and yet I could’ve potentially used a little more space.

So, here are some things for my heart and yours, while we both dig into our Mondays.

A Truly Non-Hypey Free Giveaway

That wacky New Zealander with the incisive mind for small business systems, Sean D’Souza of Pyschotactics, has been one of my business teachers. His mind just automatically sees how things are structured, and can break them down into simple metaphors that help you get it.

He’s one of those people who could be a big “guru” of marketing, but he’s not, by choice. He’s a big advocate for human-sized dreams and for having a relaxed life. I studied with him for two years learning details about marketing. He’s smart, he’s got a big heart, and…

He’s got a dream. A dream of a university for small business owners he calls Casa de Locos. He’s working towards it, and one of the early steps is giving away his stuff for free.

Today he’s giving away his three-day Masterclass seminar. He’s been selling it out for some years at $2500/seat. And now he’s giving it away.

He explains why here: Sean’s Free Brain Alchemy Masterclass

Question for your heart: What is the current role of generosity in your business? And what role does it truly want to play?

Just Something Cool: IdeaPaint

Finally, after trying to get three different carpet installers to come, one arrived and installed the roll of el cheapo but sturdy and actually decent-looking wool carpet over the concrete in our basement office. One down, two to go–there’s a second room down there waiting for the same treatment.

As our twin boys grow up, they turn one in Oh-My-God nine days, it’s clear that while my office with the nice open door looking out over the dining room and main play area in our home is a super way to stay connected to the family, it’s not always going to be the most productive decision to be sitting here.

Thus, the basement office.

At the same time, my associate Kate has been hammering me about leadership. She yelled at me the other day (well, okay, she didn’t yell) about how I’ve been really been thinking more like a marketing executive than a CEO. This was after we had a phone meeting with some folks, and she walked into it completely unprepared because I hadn’t prepped her.

I could go on and on about my s l o w l y shifting mindset, but instead I’ll just chatter about my office. And that’s why IdeaPaint. In terms of planning, I’m fairly monkey-see, monkey-do. If something’s not in front of my face, I sometimes don’t think of it. Plus, in a totally related aside, have you noticed the cost of whiteboards?

IdeaPaint is whiteboard paint. Yup, a whiteboard in a can. A BIG whiteboard. A whiteboard that can cover an entire wall, floor to ceiling.

Question for your heart: In your office, are the most important, critical things visible so they can remind you of their sweet selves?

Second question: Guess what I’m going to be putting in my basement office?

Sunday Morning Comics

One of the great things about growing up with The Washington Post was that they had three pages of comics on the weekdays! Not to mention a giant-mondo color comic section on Sundays.

But, one reason no doubt the paper is struggling is that they don’t have xkcd on their comic pages.

Question for your funny bone: When was the last time you had a good guffaw? I won’t go all Patch Adams on you, but hey, we’re going into winter here with weeks of gray forecast. We need as much laughter as we can get.

Another Monday

And time for me to dig back into content for the Momentum course. And dream about jury duty…

Three people died after participating in a sweat lodge at a nine thousand dollar “spiritual warrior” retreat led by James Arthur Ray, a self-appointed motivational speaker, who appeared in the law of attraction movie, “The Secret.” The allegations are that a culture of pressure from the leader to “break through limitations” coupled with a poorly constructed sauna they called a “sweat lodge” and too many participants contributed to the deaths.

I’ve been sitting with this incident for two weeks now, reading insightful commentary from folks like Duff McDuffee and responses from the Native American community. Various Native Americans have spoken out against the way the sweat lodge was performed, calling it “dangerous” both in the construction and in not encouraging people to make their own decisions about when they might need to exit.

My heart goes out to the families and all those involved in such a tragically misguided incident. There’s a lot to be said here, but I want to focus on only one thing in this article, because it’s relevant for your business.

The “Next” Level?

One of the most frequently heard phrases in the small business development and coaching arena is “get to the next level.” It’s become fairly common to want to “push through limitations” and “break out of limited thinking.”

Some of this quite naturally comes as survival reaction: if your business isn’t making enough money, then you don’t eat. If you’re in survival mode, of course you want to get to a place of stability where you can be fairly certain of food, clothing and shelter.

I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about this urge to have breakthroughs. So let’s talk about what defines breakthrough?

Breakthrough or Spiritual Rebirth?

The Oxford American Dictionary defines “breakthrough” as “a significant and dramatic overcoming of a perceived obstacle, allowing the completion of a process.” It sounds fairly innocuous, and the example the dictionary uses doesn’t sound so bad: “The union’s agreement was the key breakthrough on pay and conditions.”

But that’s not what the self-improvement gurus are talking about. Using a word like “breakthrough” that is applicable in so many situations can be misleading. The “breakthroughs” being referred to by folks like James Ray and others are really processes of spiritual death and rebirth. The participants of Ray’s retreat paid a high price to learn about wealth and abundance, and they were told they needed to enter a new reality through extreme rituals to accomplish it

Spiritual paths the world over have a way of talking about these kinds of experiences. Often words like “death” and “annihilation” are included. When the union gets you a pay hike, you have more money in your pocket. When you have a spiritual or existential rebirth, reality shifts and you suddenly experience it differently. Things falls away, other things come in. Worlds blur.

Spiritual death. Rebirth. Change on a major scale. Not something to be dealt with lightly.

Rebirth Is Not An Escape

One of the key teachings in Sufism is about surrender and acceptance. One quote from the teachings of my lineage says, “If you don’t love all of My creation, then you don’t truly love Me.” Another teaching present in many spiritual paths forbids suicide, because it is an ultimate act of rejecting the Divine gift of life.

As a paramedic, I responded to an accident on a lonely, windy two-lane road where a pickup truck had rolled over and the cab had been sheared off at the level of the hood. As we rolled up, I said to a firefighter already on the scene, “Well, I guess this is another DOA (dead on arrival.)”

“Nah, there’s the driver over there. We can’t get him to put down his cell phone.” I was shocked; everyone in the pickup survived without a scratch. That contrasted in my mind with all the seemingly minor accidents where someone, through an unlucky twist of fate, wasn’t so lucky..

I use these extreme examples to illustrate a point: no matter what we do, we’re not really in control of life or death.

This also applies to things like businesses and projects, as well as spiritual states, each of which has a life and a presence of its own.

Your Reality Is Alive

Whatever reality you are experiencing right now, it is invested with the Divine quality of life. This is reflected in the language of different spiritual paths when they refer to “dying to this life” or being “reborn” or having a “spiritual birth day.”

Let me make this really clear: trying to force a breakthrough such as a spiritual death and rebirth is akin to suicide. Are you sure you’re right about how long that reality needs to live or when it’s time for it die?

You can do a lot of work with your beliefs and understandings, you can prepare yourself for change. But the change itself, the death of your current reality and the “breakthrough” into a new reality is not in your hands.

Our culture is addicted to breakthroughs, because we have done so little work on concepts like acceptance and surrender.

Here’s a question: If you never did any better than you have to this point, how would that feel? Can you still find love, acceptance and contentment with that reality?

Copping To My Own Push

We’re in the process of further developing Heart of Business’ capacity to serve. We’ve gone through some major growth, and it looks like more is in store over the next couple of years.

This has required me to face all kinds of limitations, beliefs and understandings within myself. I’ve been working hard to help it grow.

However, what I’ve returned to again and again every time I come up against a limitation is this: acceptance. Surrender. Be where I am. Find the love right *here,* not somewhere else.

I’ve come to understand that the process of spiritual death and rebirth is not about getting you where you choose to go. It tends to come instead after reaching a profound acceptance and surrender to where you are right now. And sometimes it doesn’t come then either. The point is, you aren’t choosing where you are going and you aren’t choosing when it happens. You aren’t in control. You don’t “stick it out a little longer” because you have the power to make something to “happen.”

Thankfully when you find that profound acceptance, you don’t care. That is perhaps a more profound breakthrough than making it to any “next level” as our desires for success might define it.

Preparing the way for a breakthrough can be a useful practice as long as you aren’t trying to make it happen. Here are some pointers I’ve gleaned over the years from both my tradition and other spiritual teachers I respect.

Keys to Breakthrough Preparation

• Love the Plateau

George Leonard, in his beautiful little book Mastery, talks about the plateau in reference to his martial arts training. He explains how television shows have accustomed us to expect high-drama events every five to ten minutes, with a resolution at the end of an hour.

Life is a lot less exciting. He tells us that often you just “keep showing up on the [martial arts] mat” for months, even years, without seeing a high-drama event or a breakthrough. I had the same experience when I fenced competitively. And as a business person.

Question: How can you cultivate appreciation, acceptance and enjoyment for where you are in your life and business right now?

• Let Go of More

There’s a story of a rich merchant who was also a zen master. He spent every night imagining all of his wealth and belongs burning up in a fire, leaving him with nothing.

Breakthroughs are often sought in order to have more, but going through a death is about having less. Having nothing, in fact.

Question: What would it be like if everything you have worked for were to disappear? Imagine that? Can you find love even there?

• Work Your Business

Helping your business work better doesn’t have to include spiritual enlightenment or some big psychological breakthrough. Simply the spiritual container of love and acceptance can deepen your presence in what you’re doing.

The life and reality you are living right now is fueled by the Love and Life pouring in from its source, the Divine. Your business challenges are not evidence of a need for a breakthrough.

They are evidence of a need for love, compassion and surrender. And maybe to take a look at what your business is truly needing.

From the tragic deaths at the James Arthur Ray retreat, to the horrible fear-provoked stumbling of our economic systems, to the various wars and violences we have imposed on our environment and each other, it is more than evident that many of us are full with craving to escape our situations.

Your business can thrive. I ask that we all join together in supporting a culture of surrender and acceptance, rather than a culture seeking escape. May our businesses thrive in love, generosity, and the grounded practical work that makes up the sweet routine of our daily lives.

Two months! I can’t believe I’ve kept this Monday round-up going for two months. (Shakes head in wonderment.)

Yes, I know I shouldn’t start out talking about me, but sometimes me’s all I got. Thankfully, that’s not entirely true, or this would be a mighty short Monday Heart Stuff.

First up, a little music.

Ellis

Good friends of ours introduced us to a band called The Bills, and we’ve been looking for our socks every since. So, when they suggested we join them to see someone called “Ellis” we said, “Heck yeah!”

There’s lot of good things to say about Ellis–she’s warm, she’s funny, she’s humble, her music is both profound, simple, fun, and carries you away. But, beyond that, she’s on top of it. Check out her Song of the Month Club. Now, it’s becoming more and more common for indie music people to embrace alternate forms of distribution. There were two things noteworthy to me here, in a business-sense.

The first is that the premium version of the song of the month club includes Ellis recording one of her songs with a personal dedication to you.I think that’s genius, although she doesn’t charge enough for it, it’s barely forty dollars more per year than the simple $5/month option.

The second thing is that she didn’t mention her song-of-the-month club ONCE during the show. It’s true we left before the encore (babysitters waiting at home). But, she so clearly had a room full of raving fans. How many could she have signed up that night? How many shows would she have to do before her livelihood as an artist is covered entirely by song-of-the-month subscribers?

Question for Your Heart: Do you have some amazing offer people want to know about, but you aren’t letting them know? Are you finding venues to let your raving fans know what you have to offer?

Pricing to Save the World

Charlie Gilkey, world-famous philosophy and productivity anti-guru (well, call this a “foreshadowing prediction) wrote a post about selling happiness in the form of a $47 ebook. The discussion was quite robust, including some polite exchanges between myself and Duff McDuffee. Duff is a great guy, with a keen critical insight into the self-improvement industry. His writing was inspirational for the article coming out this Wednesday.

And, he spoke at length about how the digital info-product world is inflated, overpriced, and with little value. That there’s basically a lot of crap out there because people are being taught to get products out quickly and charge a lot for them.

I challenged him on this. Here are Duff’s comments: This one, and then this one, and then there’s my first response, then Duff’s response to me, then my next response. then Duff’s last response to me. And then my final (so far) response.

A polite, thoughtful, ping-pong match. Here’s the gist I’m getting at: we all have challenging experiences in life. Some of them truly suck. All of them have gifts, lessons and other silver linings, but please don’t mention that to me when I’m in the middle of it. When I’m in the middle, it just sucks. I’ll find the silver linings later.

But do you throw the gold out with the river mud? If you’ve had a bad experience, or even multiple miserable experiences, is it game over for anything in business that reminds you of those bad experiences?

Question for Your Heart: Are you avoiding aspects of business because you’re afraid of becoming the “bad guy?” Is there a way to look at those aspects of business with an open heart and a new mind?

Back To It

I love teaching my Heart of Business Momentum course, but it Lordy it takes up a lot of time on Monday and Tuesday prepping. While you’re pondering those questions, you may just think about whether you want to grab the homestudy version while we’re offering the pre-release price on it.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on either or both of these items.

I was just tweeting with my dear sister-friend Pam Slim about promoting on the blog. I was saying all like how comfortable I was sending emails to our list telling them about what we’ve got, but I’ve been a little more… shy? hesitant? forgetful? about posting the promotions to the blog.

It’s like I’ve got some kind of ping-pong match in my head: “but you’re in business, and this stuff is really great, and you worked really hard, and people have told you again and again that they want it,” and then, “But who wants to hear more about you? And your stuff? And take off that silly robe and put down those beads and dress like a normal person.”

And then I decided to get quiet in my heart and do Remembrance.… Much better. Back to center. Ahhh..

Come to think of it, what I just did was very similar to an exercise in class four of the Heart of Business Momentum. So let me be very clear, what I’m about to do is give you what I feel are very good reasons to buy something from us. If you agree with them, maybe you’ll buy. I’d like that.

A Tough Eight Hours

Once upon a time I taught a marketing course. This was back in 2001. It was called “Holiness in Business.” I know, a weirdo name. Still, a few people came. It was eight hours long, and I spent all eight hours sweating bullets with a stomach cramp of nervousness while a big-time corporate VP who had been dragged along by his wife, whom I knew from my Sufi community, challenged me on every point I was trying to make.

Oh, how I hated that workshop. The other participants all said nice things to me about it, and I’ll never know if they were just being nice to me.

Here’s the thing: I actually did know a thing or two. I had been teaching marketing and fundraising for a while already at that point, which started by accident when I helped some friends who were holistic practitioners and they actually got clients and made money from my advice. Strange. Odd. Weird.

The new strangeness was just my early attempts at mixing Sufi spiritual healing bizarrity in with the business stuff. Let’s just say I wasn’t too smooth with it yet.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzssssshhhppppppp! (That’s what fast-forwarding eight years sounds like.)

The Heart of Business Momentum Homestudy

Eight years later and I’ve had a lot of time under my belt. A lot of time with my Sufi teachers integrating it all. A lot of time with the business teachings. And thousands of individual sessions with clients. And facilitated dozens of courses.

In other words, we’ve worked out quite a few of the bumps.

We’ve got your spiritual teachings. We’ve got your practical, detailed, nitty-gritty how-to’s. And we’ve got the Big Picture so you don’t feel like you’re assembling a pastel puzzle in a dark room.

I’m teaching all of this right now to over 100 people in the Heart of Business Momentum. We’re recording it with high-quality, non-fuzzy audio. We’re creating a beautiful, full-color book. We’ve got interviews with guest experts who know more than I do.

In short, it’s meant to be pretty darn good.

The Pre-Release Special

I’ll give it to you straight up: the regular price on the home study will be $270 once we release it. But from now through Friday, October 30 the price is $195. That’s $75 off.

It’s a big bite. And it’s even bigger when you realize that we are making this a physical product–a full color book of probably about 200 pages with a CD that will hold all the mp3 and pdf files. It’s not cheap to print those-even a short print run of a couple hundred copies costs several thousand dollars.

We’re offering the pre-release special for a couple of reasons:

1. It’s much more inspiring to work like a dog putting a product like this together when it’s for real people. If you buy it, and Kate and I know we’re doing it for you, that feels great. Much different than working towards some arbitrary “launch” deadline and the nameless people who “might” buy it.
2. We’re going to be eating take-out food during this time. Who’s going to pay for all of that Chinese food and burritos? Seriously, it’s kind of like an advance that a publisher pays a writer. The advance is so the writer doesn’t starve before the book gets written. Kinda similar here.
3. It helps out environmentally, because we know how many to print. With advance orders, we won’t end up with a stack of unsold copies in the basement. Of course we’ll get extras for future sales, but it won’t be a complete shot in the dark.

So, that’s me laying my cards on the table. I don’t know if it’s helpful for you or not, but I hope it is.

Now, if you want the actual details on the product, what it includes, what it will do for you besides the general “help you make a different and a profit” there’s two things to look at:

One: The Heart of Business Momentum Homestudy Sales Page

Two: Comments from current participants in the live class.

Three: Sales Page for the Opening the Moneyflow Year-Long Program

(You’re not supposed to promote more than one thing on a sales page, but since the Momentum Homestudy is the foundation for the year-long program, I figured you might want to know about that, too, if you were already interested.)

If it already sounds good to you, go to the sales page, click “jump right to the price” (it’s in the side bar on the left) and you’ll jump to the bottom.

If you’re curious, then please read the sales page and check in with your heart.

And, as usual, if you have any questions, please ask.

(Is it okay? Did I do okay?)

I opened the diaper, but I already knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. I had just rolled the inside of Sam’s shirt up so that I as I peeled it off him his head would remain cleaner than his bottom. Suffice it to say that the clean-up took a little while, and involved a little wriggling, struggle, smearing, and washing up.

I was reminded of this when a reader emailed me this question about finally getting his business going:

“I don’t know if it’s fear or some other issue holding me back from really getting going or if it’s simply that I haven’t found something or the idea that really gets my blood pumping. I still carry around a notebook, jotting down ideas and thoughts, etc. when the logical part of my brain says I really should get my a** into gear and get going.

“Any thoughts or advice or perhaps resource pointers to really figure out my purpose, passion, the idea to surround my business with would be much appreciated.”

I have so much respect for this guy. From the rest of his letter (no, I’m not showing you the other bits) it’s really clear he has a tremendous amount of skill, integrity, sincerity and desire. And yet he’s waiting to get going. His best guess so far, as you can tell, is that he just hasn’t found a business idea that he’s passionate enough about.

He hasn’t found what he really wants to do.

There’s a reason he hasn’t found it. And he won’t.

The Question Is Not “What Do I Want To Do?”

First of all, let’s drop the whole blood-pumping passion thing. I mean, passion is great and all, and passion can certainly get you to work up a sweat. But passion is not going to carry you through.

Passion is a peak experience. Blood-pumping is a peak experience. If you’re looking for that as a reason to get you going in your business, you might wait a long time.

Or you might get going for a few weeks, months, maybe a year or two only to find it dribbling away. Too many expectations about passion are why twenty-year marriages are replaced with spouses from a younger generation, almost invariably leading to disappointment and regret.

Why Change Poopy Diapers?

You see, I love my kids. Right now as I type this my wife is giving love to one of them as he cries and fusses rather loudly. Sounds like his tired cry.

The point is that parenting is a practice of love and patience, and there are many bits of it that aren’t exactly fun. Rewarding, growth filled, worth it, yes, yes, yes. But not fun. The poopy diaper isn’t fun, and a crying child isn’t fun.

Some days your business is going to look like it pooped its diaper. Other days its going to be fussy. Sometimes they will be on the same day. You will probably not feel passionate or have your blood pumping.

But you’ll show up and do it. Not just because you’re hoping to pay your bills. But because you know people are counting on you.

The Only Reason A Business Exists

The only reason a business exists as a business is to help certain someones solve a certain problem they can’t easily solve for themselves. That’s why people are willing to pay their time and money, because they get help.

It can be big help, like facing terminal cancer. It can be smaller help, like getting your house painted just the right combination of colors. Whatever it is, it’s worthwhile if it’s helping people and not harming others.

The Question is: “Who Do I Want to Serve?”

I’m not passionate about any of the things that are involved in parenting, although there’s plenty of them that I love to do, but boy am I in love with my kids. I enjoy the heck out of small business and spiritual work, but I really care about the people who are trying to make a difference in the world and have chosen self-employment as their vehicle.

I can’t tell you how many things I’ve done for our clients that I would rather have not. Worked through dinner getting audio edited and uploaded. Working long hours getting a product ready that dozens of people have already purchased. Showing up every week, or more often, answering questions like this one.

I know the care I have for our clients is long-term because when I get on the phone with someone, and they need something explained that is new for them but old hat for me, I still come alive. It’s not because of the material. It’s because of them.

When my child need something, I’ll do things I’ve never done before, and push through all kinds of hesitancy because, hey, they need me. The same goes for my clients. Need a membership site? We did it not because it was a good income stream, but because we saw how much they needed a safe space. Need a year-long program? Sure, it’s good revenue flow, but first we saw that people really needed the spaciousness and personal support to actually take action on the teachings, so we needed to commit to caring for people for an entire year.

So there’s your question: Who do you want to serve? And for those of you who tend to be over-givers, I want you to take a breath and really hear the “you want” part of the question. What’s your answer?

Keys to Finding Your Answer

• What corner of the world would you particularly like to see better?

Of course we’d all like to see world peace descend and hunger eradicated and people meaningfully employed. But what catches your attention? Is it something in your local community? Is it in the realm of health? Relationship? Work? Something else?

Find your corner of the world.

• Who does your heart really go out to in that corner?

Is it single mothers in the workforce? Is it homeowners with kids dealing with toxic building materials in their homes? Is it people approaching the elder years and declining health?

Who are the people that really call to your heart? Who are the people for whom it would be worth the long hours and hard work it takes to run a business, including the equivalent of changing poopy diapers?

• How Can You Most Help Them?

Of all the problems they are facing, which one(s) can you help solve? Or if not solve completely, at least help them move a little further along towards healthy and functional?

You might have skills and expertise already. You may also need to learn more. Not in order to impress anyone, but because you see the need.

Mother Theresa, when she arrived in Calcutta wanting to help the poorest of the poor, found out that the poorest of the poor were often injured or sick. So she did something radical–she took a first aid course.

Some people get so attached to wanting to do what they do well. When you see people you’ve chosen to serve in need, those really needing your help, are you willing to learn new things in order to help them?

Find the corner of the world that you want to see improved by what you have to offer, identify which folks in that corner really touch your heart, and then see how you can or would want to learn how to help them.

That will keep your heart pumping through the late nights, early mornings, and long hours of service that are sometimes called for in a successful business.

Another Monday, another grab-bag of things that caught my attention. But first, I have to just celebrate with you that our twin boys graduated to being able to wear bicycle helmets. At 11 months, no they aren’t riding bicycles, but they are now riding in the Burley. There is very little I have to complain about being parent. Even the long nights and diapers and all just seem to be part of the job, and no really feathers ruffled.

What has been painful is that for the last year our car has become the only transportation choice, except for very limited walks around the neighborhood. Shopping? Errand? Take the car.

Before the boys came days would go by without me getting in the car. It’s one of the joys of living in a friendly, human-sized city like Portland. I would walk or bicycle to many places, even in the rain.

Now, we’re back in the bicycle business, and my needs around exercise, sustainability and nature are being met once more. I just couldn’t resist sharing that with you. It’s been an ecstatic experience.

Speaking of ecstatic experiences.

Is This Your Brain on God?

NPR has done a great interactive site for the book Fingerprints of God, which I subsequently ordered and started reading with great interest. I’m only partway through the book, but the website and the book cover that intersection between spirituality and science, which is so fascinating to me.

There’s been a line drawn for some decades, some would say centuries, between those who believe in a spiritual existence, and those who say “prove it.” While this book hasn’t proven anything in the scientific sense, it has raised questions and opened doors that weren’t open in the world of science.

There’s a lot to say and explore here about the spiritual experience. For today, what I’m interested in is the concept of “proof.”

People who are interested in your business are so because they need help with something. And, before they buy from you, they need trust. One of the ways trust is built is through proof. Proof is built in many ways. Some take testimonials, anecdotes and case studies are proof. Others take a history of past purchasers as proof. Others need numbers, statistics, and other hard “scientific” proof.

The tricky thing with proof is that it’s easy to slip over the fence into trying to “prove” yourself, rather than just caring for the heart of the client and helping them gain the trust they need to come in out of the rain.

For the heart of your business and the heart of your customer: what are all the ways you are providing “proof” of what you do?

The Dirty Little Secret About Patients as Partners in Health Care

This blog is all about healthcare, someone who calls herself “#1 Dinosaur” and whose bio reads “A Family Doctor in solo private practice; I may be going the way of the dinosaur, but I’m not dead yet.” She wrote a really insightful post about the Patients as Partners thing.

I’ll bottom-line it for you: patients can’t be partners, except in special circumstances, because they just don’t know enough. Patients can participate in decision-making. They can be educated and involved. But they can’t be full and equal partners because they just don’t have the background and experience to make an educated decision.

I know there will be people who will argue with this… I have my own arguments, although I can see both sides.

But, the reason I bring it up today is because of this issue of “partnering” and how it impacts you and your business, and your clients. You see, a lot of practitioners of all types don’t make strong recommendations to their clients because they don’t want to be pushy, and they don’t want to “take away” the power from their clients.

However, a client has come to you because they want support and guidance. They want your opinion. Of course it’s their decision, and most reasonable adults know that, especially if you haven’t used strange hype to manipulate them. Which I know you haven’t if we’re in the same heart-centered business tribe together.

However, I’m worried. I’m worried that you may be withholding the strength of your opinions from your clients. That you aren’t giving them strong and clear recommendations: “You know, if you want to really handle this, I want you to come in for ten sessions over the next four months.”

Yes, you do benefit. Yes, it could look manipulative and pushy and salesy. But if you are in your heart, and that’s your honest considered expert opinion of what your clients need, they give it to your them. Don’t give away your power because you don’t want to “steal” yours. They are leaning into you, and depending on you. Don’t let them down.

For your heart: Can you give a strong recommendation to your clients, even if it earns you more money, if it’s what they really need?

Sufi Council to Combat Extremism

Sufis are what I call “disciplined mystics.” Meaning they stick with things. And what you may not know is that they are organized, too.

Bikya Masr, a site devoted to watching news in the middle east and the Muslim world, especially Egypt it appears, reported that a Sufi council has been organized to combat extremist ideologies. In Islam there are two polar opposites: the Wahhabis and Salafist ideologies, which might be roughly analogous to certain sects of Christian literalistic fundamentalism in the West.

There is an interpretation of sacred texts that allow for no mystical elements, and there is a tyrannical application of very limited interpretations, not allowing for any latitude. This is the kind of extremism that has been behind the Taliban in Islam, and behind the folks in Christianity who bomb womens health centers and make death threats to doctors for providing abortion services.

This is a hot topic, and just talking about it hopefully won’t get this blog targeted by extremists, although as a Sufi I’m already in that territory.

But I’m not deliberately getting you involved in cultural and religious wars. The point I want to make is this: in every culture, every religion, every organization, every industry, there are people with strong opinions. Those strong opinions attract followers.

For many going into business the strong-opinion thing goes away, replaced by a fear of offending people, turning people off, or otherwise scaring off potential customers. The thing is, it doesn’t work.

Instead you become bland, no one shows up, and you don’t have any followers.

Of course, attracting followers is more than just holding strong opinions. But it’s part of it.

For your heart: What are your strong considered opinions in your industry? Do  you disagree with any of the common thinking by acknowledged leaders? I think you know what I’m going to suggest you do… But I’ll spell it out anyway. Can you find it in your heart to speak your opinions, strongly, powerfully?

Another Week, Another Monday.

I’m curious how all of this lands for you-proof, partnering, or opinions…