– Michael Norton, co-author, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending

A lot of us have grown up hearing that money can’t buy happiness. But what if money doesn’t make us happy because we’re spending it on the wrong things?

Recently, I’ve been studying a lot about behavioral economics (the science of social, cognitive, and emotional factors on our buying decisions) through Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke University, founder of the Center for Advanced Hindsight, and the author of Predictably Irrational. Through Dan, I came across the work of one of his former graduate students, Michael Norton, now a professor at Harvard Business School.

Mike and his colleagues ran a study at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. They gave students envelopes filled with money, ranging from $5-$20. Some of the envelopes had instructions to spend the money on themselves by 5 pm. Other envelopes instructed the volunteers to spend the money on someone else, such as buying something for a friend or donating it to a homeless person.

The researchers called each volunteer at the end of the day and asked them what they did with the money and their level of happiness, compared to how they started the day.

They found that the people who spent money on themselves weren’t any more or less happy than how they started the day, despite getting the free money.

Yet, the people who spent the money on somebody else actually became more happy by the end of the day.

Wanting to assure themselves that this wasn’t a fluke, Mike and his team repeated the study in Uganda and found similar results!

What’s the practical lesson? Give a part of your money away, even if it’s a small amount; you’re likely to be happier when you spend your money on someone else, rather than yourself!

Inspired by this idea, I’ve made donations to a couple of organizations that I learned about through Mike:

DonorsChoose is an online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need. Public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on our site, and you can give any amount to the project that most inspires you. I donated to a local school so they could purchase plastic models of human skeletons.

GlobalGiving is a charity fundraising web site that gives social entrepreneurs and non-profits from anywhere in the world a chance to raise the money that they need to improve their communities. I donated to a microlending program administered by students at Northwestern University.

Encouraged by my email dialogue with Mike, I was also inspired to begin offering one of my flagship training programs, Rapid Revenue Acceleration Mission Control, for “better than free.” I asked attendees of a recent webinar to make a donation of any amount to an organization of their choosing, send me a copy of their receipt, and then I’d give them access to my premiere training program. I didn’t know what to expect, but the response from participants has been uplifting. Some of them have made contributions ranging from $2.97 to $500 to organizations literally from around the world.

Want to learn more about making smarter spending decisions?
You can pre-order Mike’s forthcoming book, Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending, which is being released on May 14th (I placed my order already).

Better yet, why not buy the book and gift it away?!?

And, if you want immediate gratification, I also highly recommend taking in Mike’s 11-minute presentation at a TEDx event.

Happy (and Smarter) Spending!

Money Can Buy Happiness is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

Here’s a simple exercise that illustrates the point I want to make:

1. Get up from your chair right now and walk to the nearest set of stairs.
2. Now walk up the stairs, say 10 steps or so, then turn around and walk back down.

No big deal, right?
Now, lift your left foot so that your heel is nearly touching your buttocks and you are standing and balancing totally on your right foot.Okay, round 2:

1. While maintaining your balance, hop up the stairs as far as you can go (without hurting yourself!)

Totally different experience, almost ludicrous, isn’t it?

But you know, this isn’t much different from how many entrepreneurs attempt to build their businesses:
They focus so heavily on getting more clients, customers, and fans that they avoid keeping track of how much money they are bringing in and spending.

Many of you have heard me refer to my colleague, Joan Sotkin, who wrote a book called Build Your Money Muscles. I’ve read it, applied it, and recommend it highly. But let’s get back to your exercise of walking up the stairs with two, then one leg.

You see, muscle is composed of fast-twitch and slow-twitch fibers. When you walked up the stairs in exercise #1, your slow-twitch fibers were firing. If you sprinted up the stairs, your fast-twitch fibers would have kicked in. Both are important to use and develop. In exercise #2, you only had the benefit of the slow-twitch muscle fibers in only one leg, so you had less than half the power.

Similarly, there are two types of “money muscles” that every entrepreneur must train and develop:

1) Money-making muscles
2) Money-managing muscles

Let’s talk about “money-making muscles” first.

Making money is one of those urgent things that get in your face. It’s exciting and there are lots of training programs out there on how to make money faster, easier, with less work. (Heck, I just finished giving away my $600 program on “rapid revenue acceleration” for free to almost 300 entrepreneurs.) The prospect of making money with more intelligence and proficiency is alluring. It’s almost a “no-brainer” for us to continue working on our money-making muscles.

Now let’s address your “money-managing muscles.”

We all know managing our money is important, and yet this essential practice often gets overshadowed by the “instant gratification” of money-making tactics.

Have you heard the saying, “The universe will only give you as much money as you can handle?” Said differently, the universe will not give you more money than you can manage. I’ve seen the truth of that first-hand, repeatedly!

Therefore, if you are going to make more money (on a consistent basis), you must build your “money-managing muscles” and become an excellent money manager.

But Do I Really Have To?
Here’s the thing: When we lack confidence and comfort in managing money, we subconsciously (and consciously) won’t feel strong and capable of making more money.

The resulting self-doubt erodes the quality, quantity, and focus of the actions we must take to make more money, as well as the consistency and accuracy of how we manage it.

So yes, you really have to! Just like getting up a flight of stairs is easier using two legs, both making money and managing money are inextricably tied. It’s the yin/yang balance that’s needed in every business.

If you’re ready to start building your “money-managing muscles,” I invite you to join my business partner, Dan Bowser, and I in a conversation and exploration of what it takes to build your money management skills and habits.

We’ll share our collective experience of working with micro-businesses, multi-million dollar companies, and Fortune 50 giants. And we’ll help you get pointed in the right direction with your own business money managing systems and best practices.

Remember, few very entrepreneurs are doing this well or at all. This is your chance to strengthen your core, so both of your legs are available as you climb the stairs of success.

Register below and start building both sets of your “money muscles:” Money-making AND money-managing.

Building Your Business “Money Muscles” is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

(NOTE: This is a follow-up to a previous blog posts about business cash flow and money management; read the previous ones here)

In the pitch black of a cloudy, moonless night on October 2, 1996, a Boeing 757 with 70 passengers and crew took off from Lima, Peru.

Barely three minutes into the flight, the pilots recognized in horror that their basic flight instruments were behaving erratically, providing conflicting information about airspeed and altitude.

Over the Pacific Ocean without the benefit of moonlight or city lights, they had no ground reference for guidance. In the midst of the confusion, multiple alarms sounded, signaling problems with windshear (the winds were calm) and the airspeed (being both too high and too low.) Even the autopilot system was inoperative.

Back on land, the Lima control tower was unable to provide accurate, timely information about the plane’s airspeed or altitude. Before a chase plane could be dispatched to lead them to safety, the troubled plane’s left wing and engine hit the water. After the initial impact, the aircraft climbed 300 feet, inverted, and plummeted into the sea, sinking immediately with all crew and passengers aboard.

The post-crash investigation revealed that masking tape was covering the external ports that the cockpit instruments need to determine altitude and airspeed. During washing and polishing of the aircraft, a maintenance worker had placed adhesive tape over the ports and neglected to remove it. This resulted in catastrophic malfunctioning of the airspeed indicator and altimeter, which led to false and conflicting flight data. Since the control tower’s flight data came from the aircraft’s system, the tower was unable to assist the pilots effectively.

Confused, overwhelmed, and unable to properly determine their airspeed and altitude, the pilots were unaware that their plane was descending at a 10-degree angle when it first hit the water.

So what does this tragic story have to do with your business?
Think of your business as a high-performance jet, capable of flying at high speed and great altitude. After all, your business is your greatest asset and the easiest one to crash. With that metaphor in mind, you must ask yourself…

1. How high and how fast are you flying? From our experience in working with hundreds of entrepreneurs and small business owners, we know there are a lot of you who are flying your ‘business jet’ without a clue as to how high and how fast you are flying. You don’t even know in what direction you are headed. As a result, you might end up in a dive, headed for the mountain. And you won’t know it until it’s too late.
2. What are your fuel (cash) reserves? If you don’t know what your reserves really are, what your cash “burn rate” is, you aren’t really in control of your business.But you say, “Wait, I’ve got my book of business and good financial records.” Sure, you might know your income and expenses or your balance sheet and/or a cash flow analysis for a given time span.Yet chances are you’ve only got a part of your instrument dashboard working.
3. How are your engines revving? So you say, “I know how high and how fast I’m flying. And, I know where I’m headed! Just to prove it, I’m going to rev up my engines.”Hold on a minute. Before you touch that throttle, do you have the instruments that tell you how your engines are doing?The alternative to flying your business blindfolded is having financial dials and gauges that tell you where you are and where you are headed.

What we’re talking about here is the need for a Strategic Financial Dashboard.

A Strategic Financial Dashboard is a set of metrics, or indicators, that tell you about the health and performance of your business. They are also known as key performance indicators (“KPI”).

Here are examples of a few basic indicators:
Cash Flow. Cash flow is the movement of cash into, and out of, your business. Understanding the flow of cash in your business tells you when you will have the cash available to pay bills and to pay yourself. Cash often moves out before it moves in. Cash flow projections enable you to strategize on how you will cover the gap.

Revenue (actual and projected). Revenue or sales are the income that your business generates. Historic actual revenue tracking and forward-looking projections of revenue are important indicators for planning cash flow into your business.

Expenses (actual and projected). Tracking expenses provides a means for understanding where money is going. Anticipating expenses in advance enables planning of the cash flow out of your business.

Assets = What Your Business Owns. Assets take the form of 1) cash that is immediately available, 2) things that can be converted to cash, and 3) things that make you money.

Liabilities = What Your Business Owes. Liabilities take the form of 1) money owed to others or 2) obligations for which you are responsible, such as rent or advertising.

Equity. Sometimes referred to as “Net Worth” or “Net Wealth,” equity is the difference between assets and liabilities; that portion of your business that you actually own. In a healthy business, equity is positive and growing every year.

These are just some of the key performance indicators that show the true picture of how you are doing. There are three primary financial benefits from managing via your KPIs: First, profitability goes up; second, value goes up, way up; and third, risk goes down. In addition, your confidence increases because you are dealing with information, not guesses. In turn, your presentations and presence become stronger because your self-confidence is higher. Summing up, you and your business move to a higher level of performance.

Having shared all of this information with you, we must also offer a note of warning: These key performance indicators are nothing new. But far too many entrepreneurs don’t pay attention to them or know how to track them.

And, even if you do track them, most people aren’t financial types who can interpret what they mean.

When it comes to quantifying the variables and measuring the results, there are a number of assumptions that you need to make. There are also a host of limitations and pitfalls in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting the data. Nevertheless, used properly, these measures can mean the difference between a mediocre business (or worse, a failed one) and a phenomenally successful one.

The Bottom Line on Business Financial Performance:
The airline pilot must continually refer to and measure the fundamental indicators of engine, controls, and navigational performance if he or she is to arrive safely at the desired destination. The same is true of every business.

Measuring, tracking, and analyzing fundamental metrics gives you command and control over a critical part of your business. Doing so will help you to make the best strategic decisions to maximize your revenues and profit and increase value.

After all, when it comes to flying your “business jet,” we want you to reach your destination (goals) safely and successfully.

Rapid Revenue Acceleration and Wise Money Management Go Hand-In-Hand…

If you’re ready to explore fundamental principles and best practices of money management that entrepreneurs like you and I must know and use, please join us:

Tower, We Have No Instruments! Lessons About Business Finance from a Tragic Airliner Crash is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

Clearly, we need money for basic business purposes: turn on the lights, buy supplies, fix things, hire help, grow our clientele through marketing, pay taxes, and pay ourselves. These are all practical reasons to manage our finances carefully and intentionally.

Yet isn’t it strange how very few actually manage their money well?

I’ve been studying these types of phenomena for years, marveling at how we unconsciously struggle to eat better, workout more, and become organized with our finances.  And yet, the vast majority of people who want to adopt a healthier diet, who want to move their bodies regularly, who want to manage their business finances more effectively, can’t, don’t or won’t.

It takes someone with incredible fortitude, awareness, and humility to say, “I’m ready to tackle this mountain and I have no idea where to begin.”
This is what happened in my plastic surgery days. When I walked in the door each morning, I knew the rent and overhead for my office exceeded my revenue.

I feared looking at the numbers because I already knew it was ugly.

After amassing more than $350,000 in debt within a couple of years, creditors with nasty attitudes were harassing me, even paging me in the operating room. Naively, I didn’t know who to deal with first or how to “right the ship.” Family and friends sensed what was happening, but they didn’t know how to help. As much as I studied what to do, how to better manage the money that came in, it was clear I wasn’t going to get through this alone. At this point, the woman who became my wife, Denise, bravely stepped in and helped me manage the mess. I’m eternally grateful to her for doing that for me and our future.

Perhaps your story resembles mine. Perhaps, like me, you can muster the courage to face the numbers, but you aren’t confident about where to put your energy. Your biggest obstacles are probably: “where to begin,” “how to begin,” and “what to do”. Chances are you’d give anything for someone to bail you out!

In my previous blog post, I spoke about how the lack of financial clarity causes burnout and a sense of failure, even despite obvious successes. Here’s what else comes with being confused about your money: a debilitating sense of self-doubt.

Self-doubt leaks out in all kinds of ways and can be felt by those with whom we associate. When I pick up on self-doubt in one of my clients, I’ve learned that it means they’ve lost connection with their purpose. They forgot how to express their deepest values.

I’m here to tell you, this isn’t a life sentence. I’m living proof, along with countless colleagues and client entrepreneurs I’ve worked with, that we can take control of our financial health once and for all, without being at the mercy of circumstance and chance.

Taming the financial beast is possible! This victory will not only save our lives, it will refuel our mission and purpose like nothing else.

This leads me back to the beginning of this blog post.

We think we need better money management and cash flow to run the basics of a business. Does this old business saying sound familiar? “The primary purpose of a business is to make a profit.”

Undeniably, a business must turn a profit.

Yet, I believe that “turning on the lights,” “buying supplies,” “paying for help,” and so forth are accurate, yet superficial reasons for turning a profit and the root cause of why we continuously ignore this crucial crusade.

Instead, when we return to the WHY of our work (our reason for being, our vocational mission), guess what happens? — Motivation suddenly appears! We must clean up the financial health of our business for the sake of others and the importance of our passion.

Some believe that when they focus on their finances, it detracts from their mission.

If this is true for you, then THIS is where we should part ways. If you believe that fulfilling your mission means ignoring your money matters, then seriously, go directly to the unsubscribe link on any email I’ve ever sent to you.

But if this conversation stirs you up inside, then congratulations! Something is waking up inside of you.

If you’re interested in continuing this dialogue, then sometime in the next few days, I’m going to be asking for your help, your input, and your opinions. I’ll ask your thoughts on how my business partner, Dan, and I can best help you kick-start your journey to overcome “financial vagueness” and understand fundamental principles and best practices of cash flow and financial management.

Whether you’re avoiding the numbers altogether, unhappy with your current management system, or simply want to keep improving what isn’t quite yet perfect… stay tuned for some unprecedented guidance and simple tools.

Until next time, consider this: Think about what happens when we go into a grocery store without a shopping list and we’re starving. What happens? We wind up buying unnecessary items and spending way too much.

This is what the majority of us do every single day with our business finances: Without knowing where we stand with our money, it’s all too easy to justify buying another gadget, gizmo, doo-dad, or yet another business training program. Let’s stop the insanity together, unravel this intricate, financial knot, and find a practical cure for “financial vagueness syndrome*.”

*Thanks to my good friend and colleague, Joan Sotkin, who coined the phrase “financial vagueness syndrome.”

The Most Important (But Least Obvious) Reason to Become an Excellent Business Money Manager… is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

Yet there’s an elephant in the room that only a few are willing to acknowledge. He’s not as colorful as the images on Instagram, he doesn’t “LIKE” your quotes on Facebook and he certainly isn’t writing your next blog post.

I’m talking about the least sexy part of your business and also the most crucial to the vitality of your vocational bliss… your finances!

Every business person must pay attention to the numbers in order to thrive, but it seems much easier to avoid the pain of what we might find behind the curtain. Whether earning a health income or not, this kind of denial can be devastating mentally, emotionally and even physically.

This post is a “shout out” to those who no longer want to ignore their numbers or allow their finances to remain obscure, or a disorganized mess. It’s time for us to grow stronger roots and rise up with new financial strength on behalf of our vision, clients and the incredible passion we bring to our work every day.

When working with clients privately, I’ve seen those who don’t or can’t manage their numbers consistently (or intentionally). They don’t know what kind of financial production is enough or how many more clients they actually need.

They don’t have specific financial goals they’re shooting for or have a way to know when they’ve “arrived.” Consequently, they can’t ever relax because they think they continually have to be working on getting more clients and making more money. It’s a game that no one can win, not even the best of us. Inevitably, this causes serious burnout.
Entrepreneurs are notorious for choosing to “go with the flow.” We can’t be tied down. We want to live “in the now,” yet this flexibility often makes us choose poorly.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing information and training to help you understand foundational principles for cash flow and cash management and how to build money management best practices into your business (without pain or suffering). This is the kind of information every service oriented professional needs to have, yet very few actually do have it.

Clearly, those who take it on enjoy significant advantages!

This is such a critical topic that I’m bringing in Dan Bowser, my business partner in another endeavor (one that involves financial analytics with a Fortune 50 manufacturing company and its suppliers), to contribute his expertise and wisdom on this topic.

Here’s my promise to you: Nothing from us will be laced with complicated lingo. Entrepreneurial service businesses don’t need the kind of complexity or sophistication that Dan and I use when we’re analyzing multi-million dollar companies.

You need simple straight-forward and practical advice. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or plastic surgeon (wink wink). All that’s required is a commitment to fulfill the dream on which your business is built.

So if you’re ready to ramp up your game and take your business to another level of freedom, contribution, AND profitability, stay tuned. We’ll be back with more details in a couple of days.

Cash Flow Management: Every Entrepreneur Must Do This (But Few Actually Do) is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

The quirky thing is, you don’t know how things are really going to turn out until they do, right?

So instead of operating from a place of being worried, concerned that things will turn out, why not operate as if you knew things would indeed turn out, at least as good as, if not better than, expected?

After all, to turn the tables on you, you simply do not know how things will turn out. So why not expect that things “turning out” will be a desirable outcome? Expect the best without attachments, instead of fretting about failure, embarrassment, or shame.

When you come from this mindset, you have more freedom to be the best you can be.

Acting on True Power is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

All is going well.

You’re greeted at security and escorted through the campus to a beautiful large white building. You’re taken through the reception and you see a mix of people: scientists in lab coats, military personnel and men in suits. Everyone looks busy and focused on their mission.

With the impending launch, a feeling of excitement and national pride fills the air. You look around you as you are led through a set of double doors and down the corridor, marveling that here you are in the world’s most prestigious rocket launching facility, surrounded by the foremost experts and greatest minds your country has to offer.

After a few twists and turns and sets of doors, you eventually emerge at Mission Control: the place from where the launch will run. It’s a large room, humming with computers, and personnel alike, with a large screen which shows the launch site up close….

And this is where you have the most disorienting experience of your life.

At first you can’t quite put your finger on it. Something just doesn’t look quite right.

But as you look closer at the rocket, propped up against the crane, you realize one very fundamental error that jeopardizes the whole mission.

The rocket is upside down!

But surely not!?! This is NASA. These are the foremost experts in the world. The best minds the country has to offer.

You start to question your intuition. You start to question yourself. You start to question everything you’ve ever known.

Maybe they haven’t got it wrong. Maybe it’s meant to be like that. Maybe they’re doing a new type of launch. Maybe they’ll fix it before they go live. Maybe you eyes are playing tricks on you.

But as the visit wears on – no one mentions this upside-down rocket.

They carry on as if it is ‘business as usual.’

Your mind is racing. You have a responsibility to say something. But what if you’re wrong? Or what if they don’t agree with you? What kind of upheaval will this create?

(Can you see how this can apply to every “upside-down rocket” in your business right now?)

But what are the consequences of doing nothing?

What do you think is going to happen when launch day comes, and they try and launch that rocket?

Yes, you guessed it – there will be a big explosion on the launch pad and the rocket will not launch. It will be a very costly and embarrassing mistake.

The Emperor’s New Clothes
What makes matters worse is that everyone around you behaves as if the rocket is normal. They walk around oblivious to the fact that they have a problem. The best minds in the world hover around Mission Control and the launch site, planning the stages of the launch, examining and checking the minute detail of the engineering, never taking into account the current status of the rocket. Never acknowledging that in its current upside-down state, it’s never going to fly.

But the real question is: Where in your business do you have upside-down rockets that everyone else assumes are normal, or are oblivious to?

Do you have:

• Low conversion rates?
• A business partner that you know doesn’t have the best interests of the business at heart?
• A life partner who is undermining your efforts?
• Toxic friends?
• Products that aren’t aligned with your core message?
• Too much diffusion of focus?
• No real momentum?
• No real alignment with what you really want to spend your time doing?
• A core client process that people just don’t buy into?
• A serious lack of cash flow?
• Mounting bills and no way to pay them?
• No exit strategy?
• No automation/ scalability?
• No fallback position if you can’t get up every day and run the business?

None of these things leave you in a sustainable position.

Any one of these things is going to result at some point in business meltdown.

And the trouble is, doing more of what you are doing, isn’t going to address those upside-down rockets. You need to know what the rocket should look like and how to flip it over. You need to address the things that you deep down know are wrong – before it creates a financial disaster in your camp.

You see, in my experience, a failing business doesn’t just happen. Businesses fail as a result of the wrong actions being taken not once, not twice, but on a daily basis; wrong actions that end up taking us so far off course that reaching the target of our mission is flat-out impossible.

The thing is, when you have everyone else involved in your business carrying on as if everything is ‘business as usual’ and you have experts in to look at specific parts of the enterprise, and fix a bit here, or you outsource a little project there, they don’t get to see the full picture. And this can be disorienting for you, because you would think with all this external input someone would point out the obvious… wouldn’t you?

But the point is – in business, it’s not anyone else’s responsibility to address upside-down rockets in your business. In all likelihood, they are following your lead, or are oblivious, or don’t want to rock the boat, or don’t feel it’s their place to address it.

Ultimately, the buck has to stop somewhere.

And ultimately, because it is your business, it stops with you.

The question is, what are you going to do about it, now you know that these upside-down rockets absolutely must be addressed?

Here are two things to do right now to get this process under way:
Thing 1
Write down all the things now that are potential upside-down rockets in your business, and commit to seeing them, and treating them, as they really are. No more hoping it will just be okay on launch day. Commit to getting it fixed before something tragic happens.

Thing 2
Hit reply and share with me your upside-down rockets and what you are going to do to address them.

I have more on this coming very soon. There is help at hand. Just do the above two things first, and in a few days I’ll mail with some tips that will help you correct these problems, once and for all.

To freedom, contribution, and prosperity,

George
P.S. Stay tuned. I’m working away in the background to bring you something special in a few days time!

Finding (and Fixing) the Upside-Down Rockets in Your Business is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

The problem for big-hearted, inspired individuals though is that often the money situation doesn’t support or recognise your big goals and dreams, nor that store of wisdom waiting within you to aid humanity.

If this is you, read on, because what you are going to discover is how to unleash your inner money superhero, so that you can do what you love to do, help a huge number of people, and be handsomely rewarded for the value bring.

How to Remove the “Mind Trash” That Takes Us Out of the Game

As you’ve probably already recognised, winning the money game starts and ends between the ears. No matter how many strategies you learn, or how intelligent and logical you are, it may seem that there are other things at play that you just haven’t figured out how to operate – until now.

Maybe you’ve been frustrated in the past by learning loads of things that should have given you that massive increase in your revenue. Maybe you’ve worked incredibly hard, nearly burning yourself out in the process. Maybe you end most weeks exhausted and stressed, but still with that same nagging feeling that you’ve got a mission here on this planet, and if you can just get off the treadmill, then maybe you stand a chance of fulfilling it.

Often I find people with lots of inner value have a huge number of ideas of things they could do to help the world, and to make some cash. Often it is their inner genius that keeps them afloat against the odds.

But in the face of constant frustration and effort, sometimes it feels like the only option is to give up. Sometimes this is what we do – at least temporarily.

Sometimes the thought of stepping out of this struggle, as alluring as it might be, is a little bit scary. The identity of the struggling entrepreneur, or stay at home mom, or starving artist or energy healer is a much more comfortable place to be. And sometimes there are other things that scare the what-not out of us so much, that all we want to do is step back into our comfort zone and sabotage anything potentially life-changing that may be going on.

And when we accept all this, sometimes there is an overwhelming sense that we’re not like everyone else. How come no one else has this inner struggle? Maybe there is something wrong with me? Maybe I’m just not wired to be wealthy and successful?

Sound familiar?

Well, I’m here to tell you everyone goes through some struggle or another… There’s nothing wrong with you. You are talented, and gifted and you have a job to do on this world. You have the innate ability to change your wiring from the inside out. You have the power to drop the emotional baggage and what I call mind cabbage to think and feel in the way you should as a confident, worthy entrepreneur. All you need is a bit of insight, a few techniques and a bit of focus on your inner world, rather than just the outer world strategies.

“Winning the money game starts and ends between the ears.”

Discover the Five-Part Combination to Unlocking Your Own Inner Money Superhero

1. Do what you love
There is a study on university leavers which separated people into two groups. Group A said they were going to follow the money and later do what they loved, and Group B would follow their passion first. It turned out, those who followed their passion were 512% more likely to become a millionaire than those who followed the money. That’s five times more likely!

So the first key is to stack the odds in your favour, by doing what you love.

Doing what you love is absolutely paramount to being able to make large amounts of cash quickly, and for a number of reasons.

Firstly – you’ll work longer and harder at something you love.

Secondly – the universe just seems to get behind you when you’re in line with your calling, your purpose. Things get easier. Serendipitous and synchronicitous events occur to give you massive leaps in progress.

Thirdly – you become magnetic to other people. Other people are drawn to passion and certainty. And, you will need other peoples’ help to achieve what you want to do – no matter how smart or capable you are. It’s just one of those laws about being able to make money… Other people need to be involved for capacity and chemistry.

2. Do what is in alignment with your personal Money Genius type
Each of us has an inner money genius. You may already have an inkling of what this is. But you may not even believe me as I say this because you’ve never experienced any kind of inner genius being unleashed on your financial world. Either way, it’s ok.

There are eight different personality types… and eight different ways to make money (corresponding with each money genius personality). Every other strategy you can think of will fit into one or two of these basic eight. Now, depending on your money genius type, there will be things that you will excel at when it comes to converting your inner value into actual money in the bank. Knowing your money genius type will allow you do what you have the best chance of succeeding at: knowing your money genius type gives you your path of least resistance. More on this shortly.

3. Create a ‘Because I’m Worth It’ Map
Central to being able to make, receive and hold onto money is feeling worthy. If you don’t feel like you deserve it you will do everything in your power to get rid of it and keep it at arm’s length. This includes manifesting parking tickets, being ripped off, and having accidents that cost you financially. This is simply rectified by reinforcing your sense of self-esteem at the very deep level.. You can find an exercise on that here.

4. Drop the Emotional Baggage
As we grow up we take on all kinds of attitudes and emotions around money, which for better or worse affect our relationship with it. There are only three ways to deal with these emotions. You are probably familiar with the first two: either suppressing or expressing them.

Suppressing an emotion means you do everything not to feel it. This leads to over spending, over eating, and an inability to focus on what you need to when it comes to your business.

Expressing is where you make sure everyone else knows how you are feeling. When you experience anger – you scream and take it out on others. You become irritable, and snappy. When you’re exciting, you expel huge amounts of energy in telling everyone how excited you are…

But releasing is the only productive way of wielding these emotions and sensations to greater success in every area of your life. Letting go of them and allowing them to become part of your wisdom not only makes you a more powerful person, but will energetically increase your frequency so you can manifest more of what you want. Think of a hot air balloon carrying sandbags. As you turf out the sandbags (emotional baggage) you allow the balloon to rise higher and higher. You feel lighter and lighter and more energetic, and things become so much easier than when you were expressing and suppressing.

The more you let go, the more you also experience greater clarity, foresight and understanding.

During the Inner Game of Rapid Revenue Acceleration teleclass, (a special session of the Rapid Revenue Acceleration Summit), we’ll cover precisely how to release your own emotional baggage.

5. Create Outcomes… Consciously

There are lots of different things to consider when creating outcomes: from crafting your outcome from a space different from the space in which the problem inhabits, to turbo charging your manifesting ability by putting your brain into alpha patterns, to making sure you’ve cleared out the emotional baggage around the desired outcome… to picking something aligned with what you love, and actually want to create.

The upshot is though, if you follow these five steps in sequence, you will already have most of it figured out. We’ll be talking about these methods at length on a special Inner Game teleclass as part of the Rapid Revenue Acceleration Summit. I know you’re going to be blown away by the methods and techniques we will be sharing with you.

If this resonates with you, and you’d like to discover more, please feel free to join George and I on a very special session, Winning the Inner Game of Rapid Revenue Acceleration. It’s all part of the free Rapid Revenue Acceleration Summit. To find out more visit: www.rapidrevenueaccelerationsummit.com. We’ll be sharing everything we can possibly get through on the five parts  of winning the inner game of rapid revenue acceleration that make up  the combination to unlocking your own money superhero. We’d and would love to have you on the line. To Your Inevitable Success!

Laura Leigh Clarke works with solopreneurs who are on a mission to help them make more money through adapting their inner game. She is the author of the Hay House published her book on the inner game of business and money: Wire Yourself for Wealth.

How to Unleash Your Money Superhero and Win the Inner Game of Rapid Revenue Acceleration is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

After I retired as a board-certified plastic surgeon at the age of 40, I hung out my shingle as a professional business coach in 2005. But other than a “shingle,” I had no business cards, website, blog, business contacts, or success stories. Unwittingly, I became somewhat of a folk legend in some circles after I created an annualized six-figure revenue stream in 73 days and then doubled it by the end of the year.

It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I realized how exceptional this was. Even today, when speaking with coaches, consultants, and other service providers, I’m still shocked to hear so many of them aren’t earning what they are really worth.

With my guidance, along with my documented systems and strategies that I personally used to create a sustainable six-figure revenue stream, others have achieved the same. In fact, one of my clients bested my record; he achieved his annualized six-figure revenue stream in 71 days. Another recent client, who had never earned more than $250/month from his coaching services, achieved $8,500 month by his 99th day of working with me. But the end of the 12th month, he had reached $23,000/month. And I frequently forget to talk about my client did went the “slow” route – steady six-figure revenue stream by about 180 days.

I believe that when more people apply what I teach to their own businesses and accelerate their lead generation, conversion, value delivery, and revenue growth, these results could become the norm, rather than the exception. In this way, we can collectively better the world by sharing our gifts with those whom we are here to serve. And that’s the ultimate in freedom, contribution, and prosperity.

The theme for this event was inspired by my experience of creating an annualized, 6-figure revenue stream so quickly that many people, upon hearing my story, find it incredible to believe – all without a website, blog, social media, business cards, referrals, a list of prospects, or even a track record of client successes.

But clearly, my way isn’t the only way to do it. So I’ve hand-picked other experts who either have generated significant revenue rapidly themselves (six-figure revenue jump within one-two years) and/or coached others to do it, to share their own journeys, trials and tribulations, as they create their accelerated their revenues.

To join us for this free event, register here.

The Rapid Revenue Acceleration Summit – Now in session! is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.

You know, there’s a lot of information out there about what you should do to build your business rapidly. But before you realize it, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and paralyzed before taking any action.

One of you even wrote to me: “[how do I deal with] information overload, too many experts saying different things?”

And I’d have to agree: Whatever strategies or tactics you’ve been hearing about, well, they all work… And they all don’t work.

You see, what works and what doesn’t work is highly individual. Your particular circumstances, strengths, weaknesses, motivators, and resources dictate what you can (or can not) do.

Ever Tried Cooking a Gourmet Meal with Whatever You Have in the Refrigerator Right Now?

Whatever resources you have to work with, whether you judge that to be a little or a lot, the best advice I can give is for you to work with what you have available right now.

If you’ll stop worrying about what you wish you had and start using what you’ve got right here, right now, you’ll stand a better chance of achieving those things that are most important in your business.

Admittedly, the challenge in applying what I just recommended is that you may not believe that you have enough to work with.

And while you may be right, there’s a better chance that you have more than you realize, more than enough with which to get started. You just might not recognize it. And maybe what you have just needs a little tweaking.

What if you DID have more than enough to work with and you simply don’t recognize it? What if, with just a little help, you were able to recognize it? Then what could you do with that?

Stop Trying to Figure Things Out on Your Own
If you haven’t done something before, it’s pretty hard to sort out what you should focus on, and how to apply advice that you cobble together from a lot of different sources.

Likewise, if you don’t already have experience in creating a six-figure revenue stream within, say 180 to 365 days, how are you going to feel confident about where to start, what to listen to, and what specifically to do?

I can help you.

Get on the Phone with Me for 30 Minutes for FREE
What, the king of the paid strategic sessions, offering free consultations? Must be a typo!

Nah. You see, if you’ve studied my approach, you know that I am NOT against free sessions; there are appropriate times and places for them. Like right now.

Lately, I’ve be exploring ways to contribute my expertise by paying things forward. I’ve been studying and plotting. Along the way, I stumbled upon what I think is a really cool idea:

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to gift somewhere between 10 and 15 telephone consultations. That’s right, complimentary consultations. My gift to you.

I’ll get on the phone with you for 30 minutes, and you can tell me what’s troubling you (holding you back) in terms of accelerating your revenue.

I’ll then give you advice specifically customized for your exact situation.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m going to do it absolutely for free? Well, sort of. Actually, I’m not asking you to pay ME anything.

But wait a second, another reader sent this comment to me recently:
“Actually I prefer to pay for training; however, cash flow being limited, I would like enough action steps to begin generating cash that would allow me to engage your services.”

Fair enough. So if you feel better paying something, I invite you to make a donation in the amount of your choosing to the Living Wisdom School of Seattle, the tiny school where my two boys attend. But it’s not a requirement. In case you’re curious, you can read more about the philosophy of the school here: www.livingwisdomschoolseattle.org

To get the ball rolling, all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post, telling me your biggest frustration, problem, or challenge you have right now, related to building up your revenue quickly.

I’ll contact 10-15 of you by email, ask for a “snapshot” of your current situation, and then we’ll schedule a time to chat.

Then I’ll give you my ideas and insights about where I recommend you focus your attention, energy, time, and other resources. Sound good?

Great! Then together, we’ll get you pointed in the right direction in no time.

So start writing that comment below!

The Race to Sustainable 6-Figures: Wondering Where to Start? is an article from Freedompreneur Coaching & Consulting.