"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
~Benjamin Franklin

How do I find my freedom?

How do I find my purpose in life?

A lot of people ask that. In our club fearless we have lots of questions and answers and it's great fun to live and play at that level of intellectual freedom and inquiry.

Instead of being "safe" and asleep.

One question recently was, “How do I find my purpose in life?” So I can live a purpose-driven life? Where do I find it?

Purpose is whatever you say it is when you wake up in the morning.

It is not to be "found" anywhere.

It is a creation.

And purpose doesn't carry over from day to day. You have to create it fresh when you wake up. And that's good news because it puts you in complete control.

If we all had a purpose that we "found" in a dream or in our hearts or under a mossy stone in the forest, we wouldn't be creative.

We wouldn't get to do the most fun thing on the whole planet! And that is to create and then produce our own purposeful project we love working on that day.

* * * * *

My favorite Ayn Rand quote:

"Robin Hood is the man who became a symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don‘t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors."

 * * * * *

Recently a friend told me that his coach had asked him to check out the last lie, of the seventeen lies. To read the last of the 17. And so he contacted me and asked me what the last of the seventeen lies was. So I sent it to him. And it occurred to me that I might want to read that lie again to myself, so why not drop it into my blog. Then I'll have to read it again when I proofread the blog. Brilliant.

Lie Number Seventeen:

We are helpless

There are lies that make news: lies told by public figures and celebrities. There are also simple everyday lies, lies told by everyday people to avoid embarrassment.

And then there are lies to the soul.

A lie to the soul runs deeper than any other kind of lie. It is like a river. Like a river designed to chill something deep down inside us.

It's a lie whose unconscious mission is to kill the spirit. To remove the passion, and to deny our uniquely human power.

The lie is created to convince us that we have no power. That we are helpless.

But it is not true that we have no power. The truth is, we have so much power, it sometimes scares us.

As Nelson Mandela said in a speech, quoting Marianne Williamson, "Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

Because of that fear, we lie. We are powerful, but we lie and say we are not.

I, too, am a liar.

Not as much of a liar as I used to be. I don't lie as often. Not as bad. Not as deep. But still, I am a liar.

I lie to make myself feel helpless.

I lie to stay out of action.

I lie about the power of circumstances. I say "circumstances prevent me." I say circumstances and other people are more powerful than I am. I claim they are always favored over me. By as much as 20 points.

Then I turn the lying inward. I say that I am defective. So defective that I am helpless. More helpless than Neil Young at his most helpless.

Helpless, helpless, helpless.

On a dark and lazy level it seems to work for me. If I seem helpless enough, maybe someone will help me. Someone powerful. Someone with money. Someone with love.

I then become ashamed of how helpless I am.

That's when my friend Steve Hardison looks me in the eye and says, "You are in the habit of making yourself feel ashamed because it keeps you out of action. Shame keeps people out of action. You shame yourself in order to remain passive."

I am ashamed to admit that he is right.

And in the end, the "helpless" lie works. It chills the body. It works! The body curls up. The body goes to sleep. The mind follows suit.

Because I am a human, the main racket I run in my life is convincing myself and others that I am a victim. That circumstances hold me back. That other people don't appreciate me. They don't thank me enough. They don't pay me enough. They don't understand me.

In this practice, I am not alone. In this practice, I am joined by everybody else. All of us do this. Some of us do it all the time. Some of us do it some of the time.

The way out for me was to finally allow myself to listen in on my own conversations. To become a total eavesdropper on my own talks to myself. I became more and more aware of what I was doing to myself. Which felt good. Because awareness was the way out. It was the way out of the deception. Because awareness will always provide an opening for action.

The goal of self-honesty is just this awareness. Awareness first of the lies, and then awareness of the truth. I can say that there are 17 lies we tell in life but, underneath, there is just one lie. All lies to the soul are the same lie.

The lie is: we are helpless.

The truth is: we are powerful

* * * * *

My coaching prosperity school is filling up...email me if you want to be in it: stephendchandler@cs.com.  They always fill up and I always turn people away. I like to keep the school small and powerful so that the word "prosperity" really means something.

* * * * *

Many great people have applied to become my apprentice. Still time to get into the running, but the financial commitment is huge, and so is the time and effort you'll need to give it. Don't apply if you don't want to pay a lot of money and then work harder than you've ever worked on your career.

* * * * *

Club Fearless on the other hand costs next to nothing, and the benefits are bountiful.

 * * * * *

There are people on this planet who have never experienced the true joy of selling.

* * * * *

I will leave you with these wonderful words from Howard Thurman,

"Don’t ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

 "The idea is to take care of your family and have enough left
over to buy books and go to the movies once a week. As a goal in life,
getting rich strikes me as fairly ludicrous. The goal is to do what God
made you for and not hurt anyone if you can help it.

~Stephen King

   When I finished writing The Woman Who Attracted Money, the first in a series of 12 Robert Chance mysteries, I found a wonderful office in Chandler, Arizona, (I liked the name of the town, for some unknown reason), so I could get back to coaching people.

   My office complex has training rooms, conference rooms and is perfect for meeting with people in person and helping them learn to do what God made them for. What did God make them for?

   Certainly not to be obsequious. Or to polish apples or lick boots.

  Those are the first things to coach out of the system.

  Meanwhile people are writing from all over with strange questions about The Woman Who Attracted Money. Am I Robert Chance? Is Steve Hardison Robert Chance? Is Kathy Madison Kerr? And, what is the recipe for those wonderful orange almond cookies that Madison has on a plate on her front porch that night?

Orange and Almond Oatmeal Cookies

Makes 16 to 20 large cookies.

If you prefer a less sweet cookie, you can reduce the white sugar by one-quarter cup, but you will lose some crispness.

Do not over bake these cookies.

The edges should be brown but the rest of the cookie should still be very light in color. Parchment makes for easy cookie removal and cleanup, but it’s not a necessity. If you don’t use parchment, let the cookies cool directly on the baking sheet for two minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

    Ingredients

2 sticks unsalted butter (1/2 pound), softened but still firm
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
3 cups rolled oats
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
1 cup chopped almonds, toasted in a 350-degree oven for 5 minutes
Instructions

1. Adjust oven racks to low and middle positions; heat oven to 350 degrees. In bowl of electric mixer or by hand, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time. 

2. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg together, then stir them into butter-sugar mixture with wooden spoon or large rubber spatula. Stir in oats, orange zest, and almonds. 

3. Form dough into sixteen to twenty 2-inch balls, placing each dough round onto one of two parchment paper–covered, large cookie sheets. Bake until cookie edges turn golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes. (Halfway during baking, turn cookie sheets from front to back and also switch them from top to bottom.) Slide cookies on parchment onto cooling rack. Let cool at least 30 minutes before serving.

* * * * *

Coming Events and Open Opportunities:

1. Steve Chandler Apprentice: There is an opening for my next apprentice. For someone who wants to work with me for a year and learn everything, all the seminars, all the workshops, all the keynotes, all the coaching processes, all the intellectual properties (become the property of the apprentice, too.) You have to really want to work closely with me for a year, receive really in-depth coaching from me on How to Sell Yourself, so that you'll succeed when we are finished, and it would help if you had a book started or in mind that I could help you finish during this year.
Email me personally if you are interested: stephendchandler@cs.com.

2. The New Coaching Prosperity School in January. We will take seven coaches...four are already signed up so three spots remain. If you are a coach email me AND go here for further info:  http://www.stevechandler.com/CoachingSchool.html; (Move quickly.)

3. Come experience Steve Chandler speaking LIVE at a public event in Salt Lake City! Come and boldly step up and help take the lead in "Creating the New Economy! It's a day of transforming uncertainity into new possibilities (instead of cowering down to the economy). In addition to 3 the transformational speakers: Steve Chandler, Stephen McGhee and Darby Checketts, there are many Chandler fans (and coaching school grads) flying in from all over the country! Join us www.ThriveInUtah.com - contact Julie Blake for more details Julie@GotCourage.com. 

 "Transcending the limitations of mind is not possible for dreamers who are
addicted to concepts and intellectual abstractions - only to warriors and
lovers of truth who are ready to merge with the ecstatic fire of Now."

If there is to be a revolution that saves America from its angry stand-off between liberals and conservatives, it must occur in the individual, not through new legislation and grants. People think revolution has to be about an angry swollen mob storming the castle. It's best done inside one single human's mind.
  
    A mind shift is an internal revolution on a subtle level.  A person moves from one state of mind to another.

    Club Fearless is for people who want the shifting to happen continuously, and not just in those rare inspired moments:

   "One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive
everybody everything every night before you go to bed."

Bernard Baruch lived 94 fruitful, prosperous, energetic and happy years.

He was an American financier, statesman, and a consultant to public figures before they used the word coaching. After his success in business he devoted his time toward advising Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters.

Baruch was highly regarded as an elder statesman. He was a man of immense charm who enjoyed a larger-than-life reputation that matched his considerable fortune. Baruch is remembered as one of the most powerful men of the early 20th century!

When asked about his long life and success, Bernard Baruch said he discovered the key to freedom when he was younger. He said, "In the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves."

What? What about winning people over and dealing with outside obstacles?

I learned Baruch's lesson late in life. But what does late mean? Nothing! Because of coaching, I switched my whole life from the outside to the inside. I can't control the outside, but I can control the inside.

Imagine going to the airport with a huge suitcase. You don't even consider trying to take it onto the plane with you because you know it won't fit or be allowed. So you check this bag and let the airline take care of it.

But what if you tried to board a plane the same way I used to live my life? You'd be carrying all the baggage on to the plane! All your hurts and resentments and tiny betrayals would get carried on board with you. Imagine going through the airport and picking up other bags, not even your own, and trying to carry all of them onto the plane with you! Your spouse's baggage, your kids', and all your parents' baggage. Is there even room on this whole plane?

That sounds like a slapstick comedy, but it's how I lived my life. Until I found out about getting coached and how dramatically a human can change for the better.

By trying to carry all this baggage (by trying to remember who had done me wrong, who I don't trust, who disappointed me,) I was too burdened to fly.

The internal power that can lift you up through your career is more like the internal power that Superman had than the external power Rambo tried impose on events.  Rambo was a human being who could be brought down by a bullet. And if he were shot in the heart, he'd be dead; there'd be no more Rambo.

But Superman had the ability to have things bounce off of him.  So he had a power beyond Rambo.  Things would just glance off of him.  If someone fired a bullet, he'd just push it away with his hand and move on; it wouldn't affect who Superman was. That's why his archetype calls to us. That's why he endures and speaks to the inner hero in children and adults.

Or, again, as Bernard Baruch said, "One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything every night before you go to bed."

* * * * *

 Email me if you want to be in the next coaching prosperity school. StephenDchandler@cs.com. Four people have verbally committed so there are three spots left. Tell me if you want one. You'll have a specific financial goal to hit in your six month program with me. You'll have seven successful coaches coaching you toward hitting that goal. How could you not hit that goal?

One of the texts for the work we will do will be Larry Winget's book, You're Broke Because You Want To Be. Not that I think you're broke. But you get the point.

I used a novel and a coach I admire by the name of Robert Chance to dramatize an idea. This idea is this: we are seduced by the easier, softer way. We look to "attract abundance" because we think it's easier than just going out and serving people and earning money. We are wrong to think there's a mystical magical attractor factor when it comes to money. We are gullible.

But down inside, we are stronger than we know.

The direct route to wealth, as a coach or any other profession is the simplest and the most exciting way to go.

 
"We are all of us failures------at least,
the best of us are."

~James Barrie

James Barrie (who wrote the Peter Pan stories) has hit on something here.

It's a quote and a profound observation.

He has linked failure to being the best kind of person there is. And what he uncovers is that people who are not failures are people who have never tried much. Who have always kept things "safe." Who have figured out how to succeed within the narrow confines of their minimum "goals" and then just stayed there, like riding the luge through a narrow turn.

    Where else can you go but through that turn? Don't you know people with SAFE lives like that? Then they die. Nothing ventured. No big loss.

    Failure suggests that you fly into something UNKNOWN TO YOU! and risk being rudely rejected. Like Elvis was rejected by the Grand Ole Opry who, at first, told him to give up this singing career because he was just too weird for country. Elvis also failed early in his career to make an impact in Las Vegas. Vegas was used to the glitzy rat pack crowd, and when he first went there Elvis was down and dirty rhythm and blues and rockabilly. Failed.

One of the wonderful things about failing is that you can re-gather yourself, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and proceed to even higher ground! Now you know more. Now you're wiser and stronger. And now you are losing your fear of failure because you know you can take it. 

James Barrie identifies a deeply profound mind shift when he says, "We are all of us failures---at least, the best of us are." It's a major shift to think the best of us fail and the worst of us have never failed at anything.

In one of Cheri Huber's books there is a cartoon drawing of a woman with her head hung low, and on her shirt front are the words, "Sad but Safe."  Being a sad victim feels safe. We know others will always try to comfort and understand us. They will surely forgive us if we don't live our dreams and get into action. They will surely understand our sadness.

    I like what Byron Katie says about sadness. Sadness is a tantrum.

  * * * * *

NEW:  Advanced practice-building group

    I am doing an ADVANCED Coaching Prosperity School starting up in January 8 and 9 in Phoenix. This one has some interesting features.

1. Only coaches who have a successful practice will be a part of it, so one must apply and qualify to get in. The top billing graduates of the first three schools will be given first preference. This will raise the synergy and intensity of the experience together. We will ONLY have people participating who are serious about taking their work to very high levels of income. This will alter the conversation in a big way.

2. We will all meet for a booster catalyst day at the midpoint, three months in, to increase the velocity and accountability of our goal-reaching activities.

3. Each coach will be given a partner-coach each week for a mutual phone-coaching session, to strengthen the pace of billings-accountability and deepen the experience of being coached by successful coaches along the way.

4. We will all submit reports each week as in the previous school.

5. There will be only seven coaches this time and two apprentices in observation-mode only.

Please let me know ASAP if you have an interest in attending this school. You'd want to be ready to play bigger than you have ever played the game. Email me: stephendchandler@cs.com.

The Advanced Coaching Prosperity School will seat seven coaches around the table who are already successful.  One must apply to be accepted.  School begins in Phoenix January 8 and 9.

We will meet again in three months, April 9, for an upward mid-course correction.  That will be a one-day meeting.  Then in July, 9 and 10, we have one final two-day practice-building intensive.

This is a course for coaches who have successful practices but who feel they are in a comfort zone and want to take their billings to a whole new level.  Sometimes the habits that make you "successful" are the very habits that hold you back from quantum leaps to higher levels of success and prosperity.  We will confront and challenge those habits weekly.

In addition to our weekly email Billings and Proposals reports we seven (plus me) will pair off and do a phone session as well.  So every coach at the school will experience being coached (and coaching) every other coach in the school.  The weekly call will be an hour in duration, first half hour to coach and second half hour to be coached.

For those coaches entering this school who have not been in any of my three previous coaching schools I will send you upon request some sample weekly email reports for you to read. (With the coaches made anonymous.)  Each week you account for your week and I coach you based on your account.

There will be two apprentices of mine at this school in an observation-only mode, and you will enjoy them very much. They are already powerful coaches in their own right.
  
Sometimes what we're good at keeps us from being great.  Especially if we are sole practitioners of our own business-as most coaches are-we have no one to gently push us or challenge the status quo. By not ever being pushed we operate at the lowest levels of success for ourselves, even when those around us see us as super-achievers.

This school was set up to counter-balance that tendency, and to challenge us (myself included) to fresh new levels of performance.

For further information email me at stephendchandler@cs.com.
   

"In the last analysis, our only freedom
is the freedom to discipline ourselves."

~BERNARD BARUCH

 Anyway. Walter Breuning!
 
    "Life begins each morning, no matter whether we have succeeded or failed, or just muddled along," he said. Breuning said evidence of God can be seen everywhere, playing with children, in the clouds or flowers, or waving his hands in trees.
 
    Breuning urged people in the world to show more fellowship, forgiveness and gentleness. He commented that life is a school, and people should learn from it. Breuning, born in 1896, offered his words in a strong voice that was easy to hear.
 
    The retired railroad clerk said he believes life is intended "for instruction and discipline."
 
    One of the seventeen lies is "I'm too old for that!" There are people in their fifties today who think they are old!
 
    We are exactly as old as we think we are.  Everything is a creation.

* * * * *

     How do you become a public speaker? You go to Craig Zablocki's boot camp! I met Craig in Denver when I was up there speaking at one of Stephen McGhee's fabulous workshops. Craig is a dynamic public speaker (and a rather effective improvisational blues singer!) 

     I sang with him, laughed with him and connected to his passion and magic. I went to his website and saw clips of him speaking, and he's great. And funny. And always booked solid. His website is www.craigzablocki.com.

     And now he's putting on a boot camp for people who want to become public speakers, and please check it out here: http://www.craigzablocki.com/boot_camp_2009.htm.

*      *      *      *      *                 

     I was reading a book (and I remember avidly, voraciously) and I was reading a book by Napoleon Hill. And inside it he said, "I wanted to be a public speaker--I didn't know how to start, so I decided to give some free talks, and I had a friend that had a restaurant that was struggling and I said, I will help your restaurant by giving free talks at your restaurant that will attract people in there to hear me."

     The friend said, "Sure what do we have to lose, of course you can do that," and so Napoleon Hill, every Wednesday night (or whenever it was) would come to this little restaurant and would stand up there and give a free talk and people started coming to it, and he had a following and it got bigger and bigger and this restaurant started to thrive. The talk was free. Everybody wins.

     So I thought, well, that sounds great. That would be a way to start, and so I came to a company and said, "You've got this big meeting room here, and it's not being used in the evening, and what if I gave a free talk every Tuesday night? Could I use the meeting room, and could I bring people in here?" And they said, "Well, sure why not". "I'll promote your company, I'll hand out brochures about your company when they come in, and tell them what happens inside this building, so it'll be a win for you." And they thought, "What do we have to lose-we have nothing to lose-so sure you can do that."

     So I began to pass out flyers and let people know-Tuesday night-goal achievement meeting. Bring your goals, we'll talk about how to achieve them. Free-it won't cost you anything. So, the first Tuesday night meeting, two people show up and there I am in front of the room and there are two people. And I'm talking and passing out little sheets that I made, six months later, the place is packed. It's overrun with people.

     The word got out, and I got better, and now people started asking, "What do you charge to come into a company to do this?" And I began to give free talks at Rotary and free talks here… Now that's not the way to do it-there are other ways to do it-there are probably about a thousand different ways to do it, but once I really wanted to and once I had the desire to do it, then I just found that way in the Napoleon Hill book and I did it that way. You can do it any way, once your desire is strong enough.

I've had people say, "I just can't lose weight…I keep trying and I can't". And I know that if I said to them, "What if I gave you a million dollars if you lost the weight you wanted to lose this year? Do you think you could do it?" "Well, yeah, of course I'd do it. A million dollars? Yeah." "Well, what would you do? How do you know you'd lose that weight?" "Well, I'd put a chart up on the wall, I'd have a weight trainer, I'd have a nutritionist that I'd talk to, I'd measure my calories-I'd make sure I lost the weight."

     People don't understand that what I've done when I tell them 'what if I gave you a million dollars to do it', is they change their desire level in their mind when I do that, and they elevate it. The company I told you about earlier in this series, who came to me and said, "We cannot recruit good people, people don't want to work here, it's hard to get good people" and none of that was true, because they were trying to tell me, "we don't know how to bring good people in to work here. We don't know how to do it." And I asked them to show me in their day planner the time they had booked to recruit and do this. "Well, there's no time, we don't know how to do it" and so what was really missing was the want to.

     They didn't really want to create a great team. "Of course, we want to. Why wouldn't we want to?" "Well, you don't want to because you're not doing it-you're not devoting any time to it." So once they really got that, they found all kinds of unorthodox how to's. There's no one right how to in recruiting your great team, do it your way.

     Anytime you want something to happen, and you find yourself telling yourself and other people, "I don't know how to. I don't know how to get clients. I wouldn't know how to do that." That's never true.

     Don't fall for that. Don't allow yourself to be pulled into that pathetic position of telling yourself you would love to do it, but you don't know how. "I'd love to do that but I don't know how. I'd love to have a profitable business, but I don't know how."

     That's never true.

    What's true is you don't want to yet. And it doesn't really reflect badly that you don't want to yet. You can't want everything in life. You've got to decide. What do I really want? In other words people say, "Oh, no, does that mean I don't have a deep down desire to succeed? Does that mean something's wrong with me, if I don't really want to run the business, or if I don't really want to get good clients, or new clients? Does that mean there's something wrong with me?" No. It means you haven't chosen that yet. It's a choice. Your desire level. The level of want to, in any area, is a choice-you're not born with it. It's not a character defect. It's always a conscious choice.

     It's always a conscious choice.

*      *      *      *      *    

     Two new reviews on AMAZON for The Woman Who Attracted Money:

       "A suspenseful page turner!

     I could not put this book down! It is a great pager turner with philosophical purpose. A novel with romance and intellect."

     ~By Rohini Ross (Los Angeles, CA) 

*      *     *     *     

     "Richly Woven Mystery meets Personal Development.

     Steve Chandler has mastered the art of storytelling in this book. Not only does he tell a compelling story, but through the dialogue he delivers stellar coaching that readers can apply in their own life. Choosing an ex-cop turned personal coach as the main character was a brilliant move! The story unfolds with all the suspense of the best mystery novels, told in a conversational style that causes the reader to think of their own life. As a coach myself, I found nuggets in the book that served as training for situations that arise in my practice. The characters are interesting and lovable, and the story has just enough twists to make it difficult to put down. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good story and is interested in growing as a person."

     ~Charrise McCrorey

*     *     *     *     *

      If you've wondered how to keep your spirits and creativity up during these times of massive victimization, join the club.

       Click here to find out how to join:

     Brian Whetten was an apprentice of mine a couple years ago and now look at him. He is a huge success. And one of his many specialties is the course he teaches in how to do selling by Giving.
 
     We have a funny reluctance to sell or be sold.  We associate it with all kinds of nervous negative things. Many of us, who have perfectly wonderful services to offer, fail to sell them because of this superstition that selling is somehow a manipulation.
 
     Brian's work has found a way around all that. He has created a system for sales that makes it really fun and easy to communicate with people and let them experience the value of your service. Before you know it, they are selling you on the idea of working together.
 
     Like all great coaches, Brian is a devoted student. When he applied to be my apprentice I remember that the written portion of his application was such a feast for the eyes! His deep learnings at the University of Santa Monica and various other places (Brian is a PhD) were spelled out in his application. He then sent me a stunning book manuscript. He was a writer, too. The other applications did not stand up to his and those were the days when I worked with just one apprentice at a time. Today I work with three, and find even more value gets delivered that way because the three learn from each other, too.
 
      From the first day of our apprenticeship, Brian was amazing. He would attend a seminar of mine, and then meet with me for three hours afterward taking pages and pages of notes. During our year together I taught him everything I knew. I gave him the rights to all my content (as all apprentices receive) to deliver and teach as his own.
 
      Brian stepped up! His business grew faster than my own! My dream of passing my work on to younger generations of coaches and seminar leaders was being realized faster than I ever imagined. This is why I created the apprentice program to begin with. To pass things on. I wanted to make the financial commitment steep (it's $50,000 up front.) So that I'd only get extremely committed people. But I also knew that that fee was not steep when you factor in the use of all my 20 years of content.
 
     Brian now has an extremely prosperous coaching and training practice. He has two really good unpublished books that he is shopping to publishers. And his "selling by giving" course is changing the whole playing field of sales. He's teaching other coaches, consultants, therapists and practioners of all kinds to enjoy "selling" as much as they enjoy healing people. They now see it as the same thing.
 
     Check him out. Brian Whetten www.CoreCoaching.org & www.SellingbyGiving.net 

*     *     *     *     *

     And I'm taking applications now for the last remaining Apprentice opening. Just email me your level of interest and brief bio: stephendchandler@cs.com.

*     *     *     *     *

      You can now get the new murder mystery on Amazon. 

      "Steve Chandler has created a whole new genre of writing with his newest book The Woman Who Attracted Money - it's like a self-help mystery that you can't put down (kept me up til' 2am) and can't help but grow from. The murder mystery gets solved as Steve masterfully unmasks and demonstrates what transformational coaching is. If you are a coach, considering becoming a coach, or wondering what coaching is, this book is a MUST READ!"

~Julie Blake
 
      Of course club fearless members get a copy of The Woman Who Attracted Money mailed to them this week just for being in the club.
 
      So if you want a life focused on courage and creativity, join the club.
 

     The new book is out. It's called The Woman Who Attracted Money, and you can get it here if you want to buy it: rdrpublishers.com

     Or, if you're a member of Club Fearless you'll get the book sent to you free of charge just for being a member. Our club is in over 30 countries now, and it's an absolute joy to communicate with club members, do the webinars, mail out the CDs and reports, diaries and newsletters and feel the synergy of those who wish to rise up. Instead of shrink down. In the face of this temporary financial crisis.

     Members also get a copy of the book Shift Your Mind that I wrote as a sequel to Fearless. Just for being a member. In that book, not yet available to the general public, I open everything with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

     "A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."

     Ralph Waldo Emerson
     Self-Reliance

*     *     *     *     *

     Principles! How powerful they can be. And how shameful our politicians look when they don't have any.

     One very principled man is Jim Manton, an author and leadership coach. His book The Secret of Transitions is worth reading. He was one of the early reviewers of The Woman Who Attracted Money, and he said,

     "Steve Chandler has completely reinvented the mystery genre! Finally an author who has the creative courage to write a gripping suspense novel without dragging the reader through endless pages of low life sleaze, gratuitous violence, or an implausible hero with comic book super powers."

     "But wait, there even more. Chandler's protagonist, Robert Chance, is a character you will never forget. An ex-cop turned life coach will rock you with the best coaching dialogue ever written. No other book combines suspense and uncommon wisdom in a way that will at once entertain and elevate you. Without question, The Woman Who Attracted Money is the freshest and most contemporary crime story of the decade."

     Jim Manton, Author of The Secret of Transitions

*     *     *     *     *

      Early reviews in addition to Jim's are coming in:

     "If you're a coach, read this book. If you're a mystery buff, read this book. It you're a romance fan, read this book. If you want a great story filled with wisdom, humor, and intrigue, read this book. Steve Chandler does it again: delights and dazzles us with his generous insight and creativity! Great stuff and highly recommended."

     Robert Tallon, Co-author of Awareness to Action

*      *      *      *     *

     "Chandler has created a character to believe in, a 200 pound Buddha named Chance who can knock off 200 pushups and still admit he learned the hard way that, 'Real power was found in the simplest truth.'

     "A former police investigator and now a 'life coach,' Chance is the well-read Philip Marlowe who loves Emerson and trains in left brain/right brain martial arts with the mysterious Wu Li. Chance's first clue to solving the reported death of one of his clients is not a bloody glove but a grammar error in a suicide note. His final clue comes to him in a dream.

     "The Woman Who Attracted Money is an easily devoured book of fresh locales, delicious plot twists and spicy dialogue, topped with a generous helping of suspense, wisdom and romance."

     Jack Cooper, Author of Across My Silence

*      *     *     *      * 

     I love the Kevin Costner movie For The Love of the Game. I love the scene where his girlfriend says to him, "What if my face was all scraped off and I was totally disfigured and had no arms and legs and I was completely paralyzed. Would you still love me?"

     And he replies, "No. But we could still be friends."

     In my seminars and training sessions I used to have the hardest time teaching the value of coming from nothing. Of being neutral. Of not carrying the baggage of the past into a conversation. It always sounded too Eastern. Too Zen. Then came Costner and his Love of the Game baseball movie. In it his character, a pitcher, resurrects his career on the mound by learning to "clear the mechanism" before throwing a pitch. Emptying his mind. When I talk about it that way and cite the movie, people in the workshop start smiling and nodding their heads.

     Gotta love baseball. It's amazing how life imitates baseball.

*      *      *      *     *

     What? Are there any more early reviews? Here's another:

     "The Woman Who Attracted Money is a clever murder-mystery woven with psychological acuity. While highly entertaining, it subtly provides the key to unlocking our own success. Chandler has written yet another masterpiece."

Brenda Lee, Author of Out of the Cocoon: A Young Woman's Courageous Flight from the Grip of a Religious Cult

*      *      *     *     *

Join Club Fearless and get this book right away. Delivered right to your door.
(You'll get lots of other cool stuff, too.)

You must go after inspiration with a club.

"If the sun and moon should ever doubt,
they'd immediately go out."

~William Blake

       Once when my children were small I took them to a huge public park to play on a Saturday morning.  We had gone there a few times before, so my kids knew what the park was like: lots of people, softball fields everywhere, a mass of activity.  My daughter Stephanie was five years old at the time and she asked me if she could make lemonade and set up a stand at the park to sell it.  I said, sure, and she got busy making the lemonade and finding the card table in the garage.  Her younger sister Margie helped her make the signs that said, "Lemonade, 20 Cents a Glass!"

      They had seen this done before, so they knew the system.  You set up a table on a hot day, you put out your sign, and you stand behind the table and sell lemonade and you make money.

       It seemed to them that they had the right system for selling lemonade. But a sad thing began occurring once we got to the park and they were all set up to sell. . . .no one was going over to their table.  They had found a spot for their table in the far corner of the park under a tall and shady cottonwood tree, but no one was buying their lemonade. I was not far off, watching, but far enough away so that they couldn't see me and if they had seen me they could have seen by my face that I felt sorry for them.  They looked so tiny and vulnerable standing behind their table. Nobody was buying their lemonade. I didn't know what to do.

       Soon my attention was distracted by my little boy Bobby, who was a year old and in need of some cleaning up. So I momentarily forgot about the girls and their failed enterprise of selling lemonade.

       And that's when the noise started. I looked up quickly and heard it again. Other people started looking over toward the noise, too. It was impossible to ignore. From the far corner of the park there were two little girls' voices  taking turns yelling at the top of their lungs a single, blood-curdling word, "Lemonade!"  Again and again, the word came screaming across the park, "Lemonade! LemoNADE! LemoNADE!" First one little girl's voice, then the other, louder and louder. . . (there was something almost subhuman about it, as if the voices were coming from somewhere deeper than a little girl's body. It was bordering on a Stephen King scene.)  People in the park stopped in their tracks.  Even softball players stepped out of the batting box to see what the commotion was about. What kind of chaos would cause this outcry of noise?

       And then something strange and wonderful happened.  Two or three at a time, people started walking over to the table.  Soon a line was formed, and the girls' shouting had stopped. I could see Stephanie and Margery serving as fast as they could and gathering in money and making change.

       I stared in admiration.  I  realized that I had just seen something I was always going to remember.  I realized that the universe was showing me a glimpse of how people access their spirit to get what they want.

       It had startled me a little to hear those spirited voices when they yelled.  In my own youth, I never would have raised my voice to that volume in a park full of grown-ups.  I probably would have left the park that day finding fault with the system of selling lemonade.  "The sign was too hard to read. The table was hidden in the corner. There must be a better way."

      What I heard in my little daughters' voices was a discovery of the spirit. It was the word made flesh! In the beginning there was the word, lemonade, and in the end there was a line of real live flesh-and-blood customers for the lemonade.

      Our lives seem to keep giving us one lesson to learn: when you find the voice of your spirit, you can sell anything.

*     *     *     *     *

Audio!

     All of my audiobooks over the years have been recorded at LAMBCHOPS STUDIOS in Phoenix. My friend and fearless club member Jim Sherry says:

     Audio is a beautiful way to get your message across to your clients.

     Audio allows the listener to absorb at their own pace.

     Audio lets you absorb what you are listening to while thinking about what you just heard. The mind will file away sound for later recall.

     Have you ever had a song in your head that played over and over again without any effort from you at all? That is the beauty of how audio works with the mind. 

     Visuals don't have that effect. Visuals immediately get replaced with the next visual, they simply don't have the same, long lasting impact that audio has. The brain cannot add to what it sees. What you see is what you get. 

     However, what you hear is just the beginning. What you hear opens up the mind for continued thought and expansion. You are taken to a new level of understanding for a heightened experience. 

     The brain continually works on audio and comes up with more answers, more solutions, more realizations. And it happens subliminally, while you're working on other things. While you're driving. While you're cleaning out your garage or mowing the lawn or even watching TV! While you engage in such activities, a part of your mind is diligently thinking about that motivational CD you've been listening to. It's thinking about Club Fearless audio downloads. It's thinking about a Club Webinar question and answer that represents exactly what you have been struggling with in your career, in your life. And the realizations come. The answers come. While your working on other things.

     So if you are a business coach or a life coach or a motivational speakers, or someone who has a service that you know will solve your client's problem, give them that solution in a format that will take them to a level of heightened experience.
Audio.

     Go to www.lambchops.com and see what we can do to give your clients a greater, longer lasting experience of your message.

     Lambchops Studios has produced tens of thousands of spoken word projects for clients around the globe for more than 30 years. Known throughout the industry for its technical expertise, reliability and superb customer service, Lambchops is also one of the most beautiful recording facilities in the country. Just ask Steve.

and........

    Lambchops Studios has made some major changes recently:

Pro Tools HD

C/24 Control Surface

Conference Room open to the industry

Cool new website

New ownership to longtime employees

Visit our new website and sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Lambchops Studios

Jim Sherry
Principal/Chief Engineer

4612 N. 12th St. Phoenix, AZ 85014
602-279-0900
Lambchops Studios

*     *     *     *     *

   WRITER'S WORKSHOP FILLED UP AND SOLD OUT!!!!

   I am doing another one November 5! But I've had to turn a lot of people away from this one because it sold out and filled up very quickly. More details later on the next one.

*     *     *     *      *

     Rule one in successful business coaching is to get yourself a coach.  There are three good reasons you will want to do this.

     First Good Reason - Your coach will help your coaching business expand, multiply and prosper.  He (or she) will be able to show you perspectives and opportunities you can't see yourself because you're too close to the action.

    Second Good Reason - Your clients will be reassured that coaching is really the way to go.  Knowing you have a coach-and use a coach-will be the ultimate sales closer for you on the value of coaching.

   Third Good Reason - By experiencing coaching first-hand on a regular basis your own coaching will get better. You will have a role model. You will be a continuous apprentice, always learning and growing (and charging accordingly.)  You will be doing your own continuous improvement.  You will be learning at the feet of a master.

     SPEAKING of which my own apprentice program has room for one person who would like to work with me for a year. It's an expensive program, and only open to people truly committed to learning to do the work I do.

*     *     *     *     *

www.ClubFearless.net

     If you want a regular STIMULUS that actually delivers, join the club.

"The problem with socialism
is that eventually
you run out
of other people's money."

~ Margaret Thatcher

*     *     *     *     *

"Personalities don't love.
They want something."

~ Byron Katie

*     *     *     *     *

 

"Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness
should be waiting for us in our graves -
or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth."

~ Ayn Rand

*     *     *     *     *

"Life is either a great adventure or nothing."

~ Helen Keller

*     *     *     *     *

"I have learned over the years
that when one's mind is made up,
this diminishes fear;
knowing what must be done
does away with fear."

~ Rosa Parks

*     *     *     *     *

"So, how do you get back to heaven?
To begin with, just notice the thoughts that take you away from it.
You don't have to believe everything your thoughts tell you.
Just become familiar with the particular thoughts you use
to deprive yourself of happiness.
It may seem strange at first to get to know yourself in this way,
but becoming familiar with your stressful thoughts
will show you the way home to everything you need."

~ Byron Katie

*     *     *     *     *

WOW THE WRITERS' WORKSHOP IS ALMOST FULL

     My day-long, out-of-the-box AUTHORS WORKSHOP on September 12 in Phoenix is now already 2/3 full with a few seats remaining. Email me at SChandlerInc@Cox.net if you want to attend. CLICK HERE  or see the previous blog post for more details.

     It's for people who have written a book or are ABOUT TO write a book.

   

"I learned that you should feel when writing,
not like Lord Byron on a mountain top,
but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy,
absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another."

~ Brenda Ueland

*     *     *     *     *

     If people could become creative....live without a past, like Picasso in front of a blank canvas (it wasn't a canvas covered with past paintings), they would astonish themselves. Instead they see everything through their stories, the toxic, tangled webs of past hurts and disappointments. I wrote a book about the story people have about themselves called The Story of You and I quoted from Michael Lewis, who in his mesmerizing book about the future of technology called Next, concluded that, especially in the case of Nokia's takedown of Motorola, children enjoy a technological advantage over adults. What is the source of that advantage? They haven't decided who they are.
    
      They haven't decided who they are!
    
     "They haven't sunk a lot of psychological capital into a particular self," says Lewis. "When a technology comes along that rewards people who are willing to chuck overboard their old selves for new ones---and it isn't just the Internet that does this; biotechnology offers many promising self-altering possibilities---the people who aren't much invested in their old selves have an edge."
    
     People most willing to chuck overboard their old selves for new ones are young people. Nokia won because they understood how fresh and unfettered a young mind was. There was no story to drag a young mind down.
  
      And if there are older people willing to become unchained like this, it's often because they are at death's door!  Near-death experiences are just that strange and paradoxical. And instructive. Because all your old stories can evaporate in the face of death. And then the worst thing and the best thing start to look like the same thing. The same opportunity to wake up. Terminal illness is the worst thing, and yet for so many people it was the best thing.
   
     Because it gave them a chance to throw their stories overboard. To go to the edge of the boat and drop the story into the sea. How free they became once they did that. How creative. As creative as the children talking to Nokia about what would be "cool" to have on their cell phones.
   
     One day, when Gerard Barber was a clinical epidemiologist and researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, he was examining a terminally ill woman. All of a sudden she grabbed his lab coat. Barber said she "had a grip much, much stronger than I'd thought she could muster---and she instructed me to live my life, 'every delicious second of it.'"
    
     The story of your difficult life is made up. Because the story of you is made up. It's just a story. It's just what you say about yourself. It's what you say in self-defense when someone asks you who you are. But who you really are needs no story because it's too alive and awake and at play for that. Too busy living and loving. Too busy laughing and singing. Too busy dancing with life.
  
     Nietsche said, "And those who were dancing were thought to be insane."
    
     And when you are at your happiest, that just may happen to you. Your laughter and your tears may put people off. They may think you are insane.  Just like Nietsche said: "And those who were dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

*     *     *     *     *

If you've dreamed of a life that feels like a dance ...........   join the club.