Many coaches and other information-based business owners are not making the kind of income they would like to make.  But you don’t have to be one of them!   The following principles are a proven way to double (or more!) your income in the coming year – if you not only read them, but implement several of them in your business.  Some of the rewards will be increased revenues, increased number of clients, and even a greater enjoyment of the work you do.

I will assume, since you are working in the coaching field or another information business (or want to be), that you are doing work you love and want to share that with others in one way or another.  Whether you are a coach, consultant, author, speaker or other infopreneur, your business provides a service to others.  And unlike many fields, your service to clients fails to ring true unless you, too, are passionate about what you do.  Not making enough money can zap any passion you had when you started your business, fast!

So here are 3 of my proven ways to increase (by at least 100%) your income – while  actually working less time than you do now! 

 1. Choose to challenge any aspect of your life or business that is not what you want.  Even those of us who enjoy our work may have areas that we would like to change.  The best way to find these areas for yourself is to reflect on what you repeatedly feel frustrated or upset by (or ask your spouse what you complain about the most!).  While we can’t usually change our lives overnight, we can change one thing at a time.  How?  By choosing to do so!  If you don’t feel successful, what would have to happen to change that?  Consider this quote from Spiritual Economics:

“Success is the most natural thing in the world.  The person who does not succeed has placed himself in opposition to the laws of the Universe.”

When we feel that urge to make change, to improve, to get better (which is what New Years’ resolutions are all about, right?), author Eric Butterworth tells us that “your desire to get ahead, your urge to succeed, is your intuitive awareness of something within you that wants to succeed through you.”  And the factor that distinguishes someone who feels successful from someone similarly situated who does not is on the inside of the person.  It’s like the person who says “My job is not imaginative; there is no future in it.”  In fact, “there is no job with a future in it – the future is in the one who does the job!”

Question to Ponder: What one thing in your life or business, if you changed either the activity itself or your attitude about it, would make a significant difference in your coming year?

2. Give yourself the benefit of “recycling.”  No, I’m not talking about what you do with your newspapers and plastic containers!  In studies of more than 60,000 people over the past 15 years, psychologist Dr. James Prochaska and his associates have found that only 77 percent of New Year’s resolutions survive the first week. A month later, it’s 55 percent.  This may not surprise you…but the term we use for this experience of not fulfilling our resolutions can make a big difference in whether we “get back on the horse” after a fall and try to ride again. 

Prochaska has analyzed how people successfully make change, initially studying people trying to quit smoking to see what led to some people’s successful efforts. His resulting model of change doesn’t blame unsuccessful attempts at change on lack of willpower or motivation. Instead, it outlines six stages and contends that by identifying and understanding where we are in the process, we can gain control over the cycle of change and move through it more quickly, efficiently and with less pain.

His six stages are:  pre-contemplation (denial), contemplation (thinking about change), preparation (ready to change within 30 days), action (here we go!), maintenance (holding onto the new behavior despite challenges) and termination (when the old behavior or situation no longer beckons to us).  What’s interesting to note is that, although many of us expect to go from A to Z in a straightforward path, that is a rare feat!  He says that although it is possible to progress linearly from one stage to the next, only 5 percent of people have no setbacks.  Most successful self-changers go through the stages three or four times before they complete the cycle – and he calls these repeated cycles “recycling” rather than “relapsing,” maintaining the sense that a process is still in motion.

Question to Ponder:  How can you be kind to yourself as you begin to change what isn’t working, allowing more than one try at the new behavior before you throw up your hands in despair?

3. Leverage your “synchronous” time.  What is the most common response people give when you ask them how they are these days?  “Wow, I’m really busy!”  Right?  The fact is, each of us has 1440 minutes each day – and we also have many choices as to how we spend it!  People who seem to be on top of things don’t have more time than we do; they have simply learned how to honor their synchronous (or clock) time, and leverage it to create asynchronous systems that continue to work when they’re not!

 Here’s an example:  for years now, I have been teaching coaching, how to launch and build a coaching or consulting practice, and similar topics.  Most recently, many of my classes have been done via teleclass.  Those required that I be physically present, on the phone, in real time.  But in the past few months, I have consolidated this course content into a textbook and workbook format, recorded lectures and coaching demonstrations on CD’s, and radically altered my business model founded on this asynchronous, self-paced model.  What has that done for me as the developer of the materials?  Freed me to develop new products, do the marketing, and otherwise manage the business – while all the time students are signing up and learning the content “asynchronously,” i.e., without my real-time presence being required.  And students gain the benefits of greater flexibility and significantly lower costs for the training.  It’s a win-win proposition!

Questions to Ponder:  Think about the services you offer to clients, and the projects that you’ve spent inordinate amounts of time on (e.g., a narrative executive bio, a web portfolio, etc.).  How many other ways can you think of to use that same content or format with other clients?  In other media?  Spending just 30 minutes each day developing a system that will run asynchronously will free dozens of hours of your time over the course of a year.

 Here’s wishing you a prosperous and successful 2010!

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!!).

“Change always comes bearing gifts.” – Price Pritchett

You have heard it said that “the only constant in life is change.” But are you creating the change you need to become who you want to be in your life and business, or simply reacting to the external events that are happening?

We must do both to step fully into our Conscious Calling.™ When unexpected change happens to us – sudden job loss, health diagnosis, or a shift in a relationship – Shunryu Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, recommends that we embrace this reality rather than resisting it. “When we realize the everlasting truth of ‘everything changes’ and find our composure in it, we find ourselves in Nirvana…Because we cannot accept the truths of transiency, we suffer. So the cause of suffering is our non-acceptance of this truth.”

It is the season for New Year’s resolutions…and the experts tell us that by January 14 more than two-thirds of people have already abandoned the new behaviors they said they committed to January 1. Why does this happen?

I find there are two primary reasons:

1. Our subconscious rears its head and the momentum of our past, very familiar habits drags us back down to that way of being. To “do” different, we are really being called to “be” different…and that means shifting our mindset, our activities, our language, our surroundings – anything that would get in the way of the person we say we want to be.

One way we can change our surroundings is to create support systems for ourselves – whether we join a structured training program, hire a mentor, meet with like-minded friends on a regular basis, or post intention statements or a vision board where we can see it. These are reminders of what we have committed to, which we can use to reinforce the person we are becoming.

2. The second reason people abandon their resolutions is they would rather play small than really step into who they are. Perhaps others are doubting – or even directly ridiculing – their efforts to change. Or perhaps it just seems too hard to do things differently than most people around you. Knowing that less than 6% of the population reaches a $100,000 or higher income, you will definitely need to do things differently than the majority to reach ambitious income and impact goals for yourself!

What are you being called to shift today that will support you in becoming the person you want to be? Do you need to surround yourself with new support systems or structures to reinforce your new way of being?

Please feel free to share your responses as comments to this blog post, and we’ll look forward to reading them! Our series will continue next week.

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

My spiritual transformation began nearly 30 years ago when I explored Buddhism…and as we shed the excesses of the early part of this first decade of the 21st century, it is a perfect place to return to for the new year. This is the first of an 8-part series designed to help you find the “zen” of the new year 2010.

Zen in the traditional sense is the “teaching that contemplation of one’s essential nature to the exclusion of all else is the only way of achieving pure enlightenment.” For our purposes though, I am referring to the detachment from thinking that everything must lead somewhere, that all is about achievement and forward movement – because that Western mindset has us living in the future rather than the present. Our task, to be fully evolving and effective entrepreneurs, is to be fully present in this moment…uncluttered by the past or the future.

My guide for this journey is the classic, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (pick up a copy if you want to follow along).

Beginner’s Mind
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.” – Shunryu Suzuki

Consider all the things you have learned just this year…in the past 5 years…and in your life. You have accumulated a lot of knowledge…but how much of that knowledge do you use to block new experiences because you “know” that already?

Knowing and applying the knowledge in our daily lives are two different things. Zen – and purposeful business – begin with emptying our minds: “If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.” Ibid.

Think back to when you were a beginner at something – whether riding a bike, driving a car, or starting your business. Remember how hungry you were for new ideas? How open you were to possibilities? What if you approached your current business or life challenges with that same hunger and openness…what could you open to that you have been overlooking because you “know” that option or approach already?

“In the beginner’s mind there is no though, ‘I have attained something.’” Suzuki writes. “When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners.” That feels very strange to the Western mind…yet it is the secret to truly enjoying the moment.

Researchers have found that when we multi-task, we are only 40 percent as effective as when we focus on just one thing at a time. In the beginner’s mind, we do just that.

Finally, consider the spontaneity of a child as he plays. Is he thinking about what’s for lunch, or what he did yesterday, or whether he’ll get his allowance tomorrow? And yet as adults, Dr. Deepak Chopra tells us that 90 percent of the thoughts we think today are the same as the thoughts we thought yesterday. Why drag those problems, concerns and thoughts into the present moment?

In Buddhism there is the concept of satori, a sudden awakening. You can actually drop your personal history right now – as Wayne Dyer recommends in Your Sacred Self. What would that feel like – just to BE fully here and now?

I invite you to practice that this week, and post your comments below as to how it is going and what a difference it makes!

“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

Many entrepreneurs and coaches struggle today because they are so mired in “administrivia” that they can’t do the work they came to do. And as I’m fond of saying, the worst of both worlds is to “own a job” – where you can’t leave and you can’t fire yourself – instead of owning a business, and running it like one.

Three spiritual success principles will help you make this critical shift:

1. Recognize and step into the “New Time.”

Time as we have known it is changing. No longer is it a linear, set, solid perception shared by all. In fact, you have no doubt experienced some moments that were longer than others (waiting at the dentist for example?) and others that seemed to go by in the blink of an eye (sitting in a transformational seminar or reading a great book are examples). Time is becoming more elastic, more malleable, and more subject to our direction.

So if you find yourself sitting in your office and the day is dragging, send an intention that the time will speed up and that you will become more productive and work at a higher vibration. You can have that result instantly!

Also pay attention to the cycles and rhythms of your life. The Industrial Age is over, but our “Industrial Age Approach” to time has not fully dissolved. You are not designed to be a machine, punching keys all day on email or the internet or writing documents (even if writing is your profession!). You are designed to be an organism – or what Wayne Dyer calls an “enviro-organism” – and you constantly interact with your environment and the tasks you do. Begin to notice when you feel “stale” and take breaks throughout the day. Consciously seek activities that refresh and renew you – and balance those with any you are still doing (and in the process of letting go hopefully…) that drain you or feel difficult.

2. Take extraordinary care of yourself and gauge your Energy Thermometer.

You “know” that you need to engage in Extraordinary Self-Care, right? It is no longer a luxury to do so; it is a requirement for those of us who are Light Workers, leaders, healers, teachers and coaches in the New Era of Entrepreneurship.

I am practicing what I preach as I prepare for my 3-day live event this weekend: I am arriving two nights early, to give myself a day beforehand to rest, to settle into the venue, and to calm my mind and align my body. I have had my assistant schedule a massage before and after the event. And I am planning a renewing setting for each of the breaks I will take to keep my energy up throughout the event.

On a daily basis, you can ask yourself, what is my Energy Thermometer reading now? Are you a 10 – fully alive and engaged – or a 5 – neutral, on a downward spiral – or 0 to 1, completely drained and needing to go to bed? Awareness is the first step in change…and if you can begin to notice the energy lag starting – or that mental fuzziness as I experience it that means I have been too long in front of a screen (read: computer) – then you can renew yourself with a walk, a soothing drink, talk to a friend, meditate, sing, dance, or whatever revitalizes you.

3. Know that all the people and resources you need are available the moment you have the desire for them.

Finally, notice when you unconsciously “assume” that even though you want something – more mon_ey, a new car, a prettier office, new clothes, or more peace of mind – that you cannot have it. This insidious belief can cause us to settle for a life that we never really chose – we are acting on beliefs and thoughts of a prior generation, externally programmed, and never consciously adopted as our own.

It is a spiritual principle that no desire can be felt unless the way for it to manifest (read: resources, money, people) is also there. What if you did something radical and assumed you COULD have what you want, and now? Just engaging in that thought pattern, with an emotional commitment and anticipation, will bring it to you more quickly. You are not intended to go without; the Universe longs to give you the desires of your heart. But you must first ask, and expect them to come to you.

This week’s article articulates the final step in our 7-step Conscious Cash Creation Roadmap, which we are sharing at the Evolve Intensive (see past 6 weeks’ issues for the rest). To learn more about the New Era of Entrepreneurship and how you can align your business with it, click here to read the details about the Evolve Transformational Telesummit Nov. 30-Dec. 4 and get your preferred registration rate today.

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

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include the following with it:  “Spiritual Business Strategist and Coach Marcia Bench publishes the widely circulated ‘Purposeful Entrepreneur Times’ ezine biweekly to over 5,500 subscribers.  If you’re ready to start or grow a profitable business based on your life purpose and passion, get your F_REE tips now at www.purposefulentrepreneur.com“