Archive for the ‘Life Purpose’ Category

Danger #2: Underestimating the importance of meaning and purpose in today’s marketplace.

In 1980, John Naisbitt predicted in his blockbuster best seller Megatrends that the more technology became part of our lives, the more we would seek connection. He called this “high tech, high touch.” And was he ever right! People today are starving for meaning and purpose. Dan Pink also touched on this phenomenon as one of the 3 biggest factors in the new Conceptual Age today. Are you addressing it in your business?

One way of course is to offer services or products that directly help someone feel connected, discover their purpose, etc. But have you built your business mission and values around your own individual life purpose? If not, chances are that you will struggle to grow it in the new Entrepreneurial Renaissance – or perhaps not survive at all!

People want to hear your story – how did you come to be doing the work you do? If you can get them to be asking “how can I do what she’s done?” – then you have a purpose-based business!

But beware: you may need to be willing to discuss the “s” word (spirituality) – instead of holding back from fear that others will be offended! Part of meaning and purpose, for most people, is spirituality…and if it is part of your journey, don’t hesitate to mention it.

Question to ask yourself: Have I been afraid to share my purpose with my clients because of fear of rejection? If so, how can I begin to be even more authentic with them?

A quick question for you – Do you know the secret behind the 4 successful businesses generating as much as $400,000 I’ve built over the last few years?

The answer is simple: honing in on personal purpose and LEVERAGING it into multiple in_come streams!

It’s the heart of success in today’s information economy, and a CRUCIAL step if you want to get out of the trap of one-to-one, “dollars for hours” services. And yet, much of what we’ve been taught about how to do it is WRONG!

Now I’m ready to pull back the curtain and show you EXACTLY how I’ve managed to leverage my purpose into 23 books, more than 15 info products and certification programs, hundreds of teleclasses and presentations and tons of profits with my BRAND-NEW, F*R*E*E teleclass “Purposeful Branding Secrets: How to Quickly and Easily Turn Your Purpose into Multiple In_come Streams While Increasing Your Cash Flow, Clients and Consciousness” on May 6th.

On this ground-breaking call you’ll learn:

• The #1 thing you need to focus on to grow your business to the next level in TODAY’s climate (Most business owners over look this!)
• 4 simple steps to finding the essence of your brand so your clients will flock to you! (This is the EXACT same formula I have used to build my successful 6-figure businesses!)
• My secrets to creating dozens of programs and products from  a SINGLE idea (This is how I have managed to author so many books  and create dozens of programs – including coach certifications – using one simple tool.)
• Exactly how to structure your Product Funnel so that your clients become customers for life and keep on buying – so you can spend less time marketing.
• Why traditional marketing no longer works – and what you need to be doing instead (This is why so many solopreneurs are struggling now – they haven’t made this critical shift!)
• How I have created a freedom-based lifestyle that allows me  to work from anywhere while continuing to grow my business – and you can too!

Reserve your spot in this complimentary teleclass here:

http://www.PurposefulBranding.com

Blessed Mother, Sacred One
We celebrate you for the job you have done
Supporting us, nurturing us,
Providing for all of our needs.

Blessed Mother, Sacred One,
Forgive us for the things that we have done
Polluting you, trampling you
All in the name of human greed.

We feel your rhythm,
We hear your sounds,
We see your beauty
And it truly abounds.

Help us to heal you
Help us to see
That by caring for you
I’m really caring for me.

Blessed Mother, Sacred One,
Look at the potential in all we have done:
Technology, ceremony,
Restoring the wholeness – for now we can see.

Want some good news? Small business confidence is at its highest level in 16 months, according to a just-released study from the National Association of Independent Businesses.

Now that’s something to shout about! See full article here:  http://tinyurl.com/ycsy7bt

It use to be that to start a business, you simply decided on a name and a concept and hung out your shingle. Success was based on bottom-line revenues and numbers of items sold – period.

No more! Success in the new Entrepreneurial Renaissance requires that you look much more deeply at why you started (or want to start) your business, and who can benefit from what you are selling. Connecting with these ideal customers (what we call your “tribe”) is then the key that opens the door to long-term relationships, larger impact with your work, and ultimately more sales too.

In this series, we reveal the 12 factors that are required for a successful Purposeful Entrepreneur™ business, two each week.

1. Purpose: the Essence of Your Business

The first factor is Purpose. Every business has both an implicit and an explicit purpose, and ideally both need to be aligned and congruent. For example, if a business says it is committed to timely delivery of its programs, but every communication is late and deadlines are frequently missed, its implicit and explicit purposes are incongruent.

The foundation of a business that will succeed long-term is a commitment to center all of its decisions regarding which products or services to launch, which staff to hire, what policies to adopt, and which customers to serve around a cohesive business purpose, consistent with the owner’s life purpose. It is then clear to both internal staff and external customers what the essential benefit and purpose of the business is – and what values flow from it.

This factor answers the question “Who are we/what do we stand for?” for the new business.

2. Passion: Fueling Your Vision

Whether you are the only person working within your business or you have dozens of staff, how you each“feel” about the business, its products and services, and their role within it comes through on an energetic level in every business interaction. The level of passion in the business is indicated by such things as the “mood” of the owner and staff, how they communicate with customers, even facial expressions. Whether or not customers are valued and respected – or whether staff go the extra mile to ensure that the customer gets what he/she needs – are additional external indicators of the internal passion.

This factor answers the question, “How do we feel about what we do?” for the new business owner.

To assess your business on all 12 factors, take the Purposeful Entrepreneur Compass assessment here.

I have been reading Ken Dychtwald’s latest book With Purpose, exploring the shift in mindset from success to significance – getting off the “fast track” of what everyone says will lead to fulfillment, and going within to find out what means most to you as the ways to invest your life energy.

It is that very shift to which Shunryu Suzuki refers in his writings on quality of being:

“When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity. Movement is nothing but the quality of our being.”

By January 14 each year, most people have virtually forgotten about their New Years resolutions. But there is another way to move toward our goals without strain or struggle.

In the Western culture, we are taught to focus on the activity, not the quality of who we are being while we are doing it. But this is exactly how we get overwhelmed: we get into our head (and out of out body) and get caught up in the tasks instead of what we bring to the task – or what its ultimate effect and outcome will be.

True freedom and peace come when we relax into our activity and live totally in the current moment (versus thinking about a past similar experience or worrying about the future).

Here are 3 tips for bringing a full quality of being into everything you do – even as you resume your activities after the holiday season:

1. Before you begin doing something, breathe, focus your mind, and become intentional about what you are doing and how – as well as “who you are being” as you do it.
2. If your mind begins to wander, simply notice it and bring your attention back to the task – but stay conscious and intentional.
3. Don’t multitask! Once you have completed one task, take a moment to acknowledge your success, then consciously choose what is next. A great question to ask is either “What would bring me the most joy now?” or “What am I feeling led to do next?

Enjoy celebrating your being this week!

We just wanted to take a moment today to thank the DOZENS of you who submitted your names and background summary to be on the planning committee for the upcoming First Annual Purposeful Entrepreneurs Conference April 8-10 in Phoenix, AZ. We were overwhelmed (but grateful)!

We will be reviewing the applications on Monday and choosing our committee of approximately 12 people to help plan and create this wonderful, industry-leading event. (If you still want to be considered, email coaching@purposefulentrepreneur.com and tell us why you would be perfect for this.)

Meanwhile, be sure you submit your name to be among the FIRST to find out the advance details about this unique experience here: http://www.purposefulentrepreneur.com/conference.html

And if you have ideas for us on what we (or who) we should include for program topics, speakers, etc., please comment below – and the committee will carefully consider them!

We expect to have more details for you by February 1 at latest… (this is going to be so exciting!!).

It is no accident that this series is beginning during what is for may the busiest time of the year: the holidays. Our time gets filled with holiday parties and shopping, and our tummies get filled with all the wonderful treats and food-related events that are customary for the season.

In the midst of this hustle and bustle, consider this wisdom from our guide for this journey, Shunryu Suzuki:
“We say true existence comes from emptiness and goes back again into emptiness. What appears from emptiness is true existence. We have to go through the gate of emptiness…As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now…Each of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. This is the mystery.” (Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind)

There is an ancient story of a master offering to pour tea for his student. Once the cup was full, he kept pouring until the tea ran into the saucer and onto the floor. The lesson? You cannot keep pouring more and more into a full cup; there must come a time of emptying out.

This series continues in January 2010!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marcia Bench is a Spiritual Business Strategist and Coach for conscious entrepreneurs in service-, information- and professional businesses. She is the CEO of Purposeful Entrepreneur.com, as well as the Founder/Director of Career Coach Institute and other coach training companies, with more than 23 years of experience in coaching and consulting. She has authored 23 books including The Tao of Entrepreneurship and has given hundreds of live and teleclass presentations.

Copyright © 2009 Marcia Bench; All Rights Reserved

How much effort is just enough? That is the question we are examining today in the second installment of our series, Finding the Zen in 2010. I love the definition in the Urban Dictionary for zen: “a total state of focus that incorporates a total togetherness of body and mind. Zen is a way of being. It is also a state of mind. Zen involves dropping illusion and seeing things without distortion created by your own thoughts.”

We in the West have been taught that working harder and continually seeking more, more, more, is the standard to strive for. Working harder, we are told, will yield more and more results. But as Price Pritchett wisely points out in You2, “Sooner or later you’re going to reach the point where you can’t try any harder…Sometimes, in fact, intensifying your efforts produces nothing except bigger problems.”
If this sounds familiar, then what is the alternative? Surely we are not to simply sit back and wait for life to bring us what we want on a silver platter? No, that too is an extreme.

Zen offers us a third way, that of “right effort.” Here is what Suzuki says in our text for this series, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

“[J]ust to do something without any particular effort is enough. When you make some special effort to achieve something, some excessive quality, some extra element is involved in it…So you should get rid of that something which is extra…So try not to see something in particular; try not to achieve anything special. You already have everything in your own pure quality. If you understand this ultimate fact, there is no fear.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marcia Bench is a Spiritual Business Strategist and Coach for conscious entrepreneurs in service-, information- and professional businesses. She is the CEO of Purposeful Entrepreneur.com, as well as the Founder/Director of Career Coach Institute and other coach training companies, with more than 23 years of experience in coaching and consulting. She has authored 23 books including The Tao of Entrepreneurship and has given hundreds of live and teleclass presentations.
Copyright © 2009 Marcia Bench; All Rights Reserved

“Blessing” 

by Marcia Bench

Now is the time,
It can wait no longer.
Share your true message
As it’s growing stronger.

The earth is awakening
Its time has come
So contribute your blessing
And say “it is done.”

Your gifts are unique
And they’re needed right now.
Be clear on your vision
And don’t worry about “how.”

As millions wake up
They’re beginning to see
But they need your input
To interpret and “be.”

So rest in your spirit
Tune into your heart,
Your part is important
And it’s time to start.

Copyright © 2009 Marcia Bench; All Rights Reserved