Another Quarter Billion Miles

Winter Solstice 2017The Earth travels over a half billion miles each year as it orbits around the Sun.

So today, on the Winter Solstice, you can think of as being the end of one orbit and the start of the next. It’s a good time to reflect on this orbit’s highlights and what’s coming up on the next spin around our home star.

Here’s what’s been happening since this blog I wrote at the Summer Solstice :

The journey so far:

  • Published the first illustrated Just for Today book with the most delightful and talented co-creator from Norway, Siri Stiklestad Opli
  • Created a 10 day meditation course for Insight Timer called The Art of Timefulness – due out Q1 2018
  • Passed an audition to become a Vistage speaker
  • Delivered two 30 minute keynote sessions as a paid speaker
  • Helped two first time authors, Penny Waite and Siobhán Mullan, publish their books
  • Wrote 35k words of my new novel – 15k to go by end of December!

Just for Today Speech bubbleWhat’s already planned for the next 1/4 billion miles:

  • Write another batch of Just for Today’s – with some differences!
  • Get at least four more authors out in print, ebook and audiobook
  • Rationalise and stream my products into three tiers – free, economical, premium
  • Start the Awakening process for some more Like Minds
  • Deliver the first of many Vistage presentations
  • Publish my novel to celebrate my 60th year
  • Lead the meditations at the Guildford Wellness event at GLive

p.s. If you want to know how to produce this volume of creative output, take the Mindfulness-based Time Management self-study course
mindfulness-based time management

Change Your Mind Change Your Time

Normal human mind and thought processesThe normal human mind is only capable of experiencing one thought at a time.

If you think about the past or the future, your attention is diverted from what you are focussing on at any one time.

As our mind is prone to wander, this tends to make us naturally inefficient. With a constant barrage of both internal and external interruptions, it is not surprising that some people’s efficiency can be as low as 10%.

One of the benefits to recognising a problem is that we can begin to find a solution. When I first started meditating, I noticed very quickly that I was much more efficient on days when I treated myself to 10 minutes of Me Time. If I didn’t get around to meditating, some days I would be pushing water up a temporal hill.

  • What I learned was that the practice of mindfulness meditation didn’t so much make the inner chatter and distractions go away but it made it easier to deal with them. When we meditate daily, it becomes easier to remain in the meditative state through the day. This doesn’t necessarily mean we have no thoughts at all but we forge a new relationship with our thoughts.
  • – – – – –
  • I discovered that it was an urban myth that the left brain was logical and the right brain creative. A more accurate model was that the left brain sat inside space and time, focusing on detail, while the right brain dealt with the Big Picture and sat everywhere and ‘everywhen’ else.
  • – – – – –
  • I came across the art of Mind Mapping and learned how it induces the Whole Brain State, where left and right brains work in harmony. I learned this state can also be induced by some yogic breathing techniques. When we get in this state, time seems to stretch so tasks get done in the time we allocate to them. I called it EMT – or Extended Me Time.
  • – – – – –
  • What’s more, when in the EMT state, we emit less thought forms so people external to us don’t pick them up and think to bother us. We create an Interruption Barrier.
  • – – – – –
  • I learned that the source of procrastination were thought forms that mainly emanated in our lower mind centres. If I became a busy fool, creatively getting on with everything else other that the task in hand, it was because a fear was in operation. Occasionally, it was also because my gut mind ‘knew’ there was a better way, or more optimal time, to carry out the task. A quiet mind allowed me to tune in to this source of intuition – or inner-tuition – and to acknowledge the fear but to do it anyway!
  • – – – – –
  • I learned too that neuroscientists had discovered that the gut mind operates ahead of time and this is a possible source of precognition. This I called IMT – or Inner Mind Time.
  • – – – – –
  • I started to research the nature of light bulb and aha moments. These flashes of inspiration, that arrive in ‘no time at all’, are massive time savers and can be accessed on demand while in the meditative state. They come from inside space and outside time. When we experience one, we have entered OMT – or Outer Mind Time – and we awaken our prescient ability.
  • – – – – –
  • After a while, these practical benefits become second nature and another amazing benefit emerges. With a quieter mind, we become better able to spot serendipities, coincidences and opportunities. They were probably there all along but a busy mind meant we missed them. With reduced fear and more focus, external events soon arrive Just in Time and we begin to live a charmed and magical existence.

Before I found myself immersed into the world of mindfulness and meditation, I was always quite good making the complexities of high technology understandable by technophobes. I have applied the same mindset into what I call timefulness and have created an accessible 8 week self-study course, with 21 day meditation re-treat bonus, that will change your relationship with time. I am also teaching it live inside businesses and teaching teachers how to teach it.

If you want more time in your days and weeks, check out Mindfulness-based Time Management.

mindfulness-based time management

21 Days of Meditation

21 day meditation retreatMy new 21 day meditation re-treat is a pebble I dropped in the pond a couple of months back. It is making some lovely ripples and waves.

Here’s a Tweet stream from Johan Falk in Sweden that describes the journey in a way much better than I ever could.

 

Day 9 Being Mindful and Day 10 Being Timeful missing, that happens !

A Quarter Billion Miles

A Quarter Billion Miles

Seasons

The Earth travels over a half billion miles each year as it orbits around the Sun.

So today, on the Summer Solstice, we’re 1/4 of a billion miles into that journey. It’s a good time to reflect on the journey so far and make some plans for the remainder of this year’s orbit.

Here’s mine … do feel free to share yours by way of comment below :

MBTMThe journey so far


Just for Today Speech bubbleThe next 1/4 billion miles

  • Write another 140 Just for Today’s
  • Publish the first in a series of illustrated Just for Today books, with Siri Sticklestad
  • Make Just for Today merchandise available
  • Get out a bit more as a speaker on mindfulness and timefulness
  • Finish writing my novel to be published on my 60th birthday next year

p.s. If you want to know how to produce this volume of creative output, take the Mindfulness-based Time Management self-study course

The Business of Mindfulness

The Business of Mindfulness

Practical MindfulnessMy book The Authority Guide to Mindfulness explores how we can use the practice of mindfulness meditation for real world outcomes. Being a practical book too, it doesn’t just talk about the subject but it comes with the 10 minute guided meditations so you actually experience the meditative state.

You will learn how mindfulness is not a box ticking exercise where you go on a course and that’s it. It is a way of life and a way to be which is less stressful, more graceful and easier all round.

When I finished the book, it got me thinking how I run my own business ‘mind-fully’ and how that has brought success my way without any associated stress. Here’s five tried and trusted aspects of how I go about it :

Method #1 : Give Stuff Away

It’s a general maxim in life that what goes around comes around. When we offer a free gift, the obvious bonus is the capture of an email address so we can market to people. With a little extra effort, there is a more subtle and mindful benefit to be had still. I have written a series of daily nuggets of mindfulness that appear in peoples’ In Boxes each week day. They are called Just for Today and a month’s worth takes me around an hour to write. As a result, you keep in your potential customer’s minds each and every day.

Method #2 : Shout Quietly

As mentioned in the new book, it’s not a good idea to market your products and services by being disparaging about your competitors. Neither is it a good strategy to push your products in peoples’ faces. A much better way is what I am doing here and that’s to share valuable content that others can use and then to mention your own products and services in passing and in context. So my way of ‘shouting quietly’ is by posting content on my blog and also by interviewing like minded people on my podcast. These days it is my main marketing tool and it seems to generate all the business I need. In addition, when on social media, my policy is to only be positive and to share wisdom, successes and celebrations.

Method #3 : Share Your Wisdom

The writing and publishing of my books has not only opened many doors for me but it has also opened the hearts and minds of many readers. As an unexpected spin off, it also lead to a career I didn’t plan as an author’s mentor. More importantly still, when you encapsulate your wisdom in a book, in a small way you immortalise yourself. It’s said, “The only thing you can take with you is your evolution and the only thing you can leave behind is your art”. It’s also a good idea to leave the world a better and wiser place than how you found it just in case you have to come back again.

Method #4 : Increase Your Promise

The way to get more money into your world is to make promises and keep them. Promise to deliver on time and within budget and clients will come back and refer others to you. Learn something new each day and you will increase your promise and be able to deliver more and more with increased value. This podcast from the Zone Show [an example of #Method 2 explains more].

[smart_track_player url=”https://audioboom.com/boos/5024925-the-promise-of-money.mp3″ title=”The Promise of Money” artist=”Extract from New Magic for a New Era” social=”true” image=”http://www.thezoneshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/PotofGold.jpg” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” social_gplus=”true” ]

Method #5 : Be Philanthropic

If you are living in the developed world and actually have a business, you are considerably better off that the vast majority of people on the planet. So one smart way to move money energy around is to align a relevant product or service with a ‘good cause’ and give a percentage of your earnings away. I had my cataracts removed this year and ended up starting a philanthropic initiative as a result of a light bulb moment I had on the operating table.

Find out what has happened since here …


Related Links

#0: The Authority Guide to Practical Mindfulness
#1: Sign up for Just for Today for free
#2: My Blog
#2: My Podcast
#3: My Books
#4: Read New Magic for a New Era
#4: The Abundant Thinking Self-study course
#5: Cataracts of the Third Eye
#5: The Magic of AHA
#5: Heart-full Living