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 :
My 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].
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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.
Before embarking on another year, it pays dividends to reflect on the year just gone.
For me, 2016 was one amazing year and an example of how any formal goal setting can actually hamper our progress. So-called “SMART goals” are better than having no goals at all. Perhaps where they are not so smart after all is that they can lead us to manifesting the ego’s desires, rather than to follow the soul’s calling.
p.s. my two meditations, Just Imagine and Just Be, from my Meditations for Relaxation, lead us to a much better outcome all round.
This Was 2016
By way of example, this is what unfolded in 2016, all of which I had definitely not planned !
So, in retrospect, 2016 was one of my most successful and productive years yet. That said, and on reflection, I know now with hindsight I could have done things better. Knowing too that planning might not be ideal, how can I hope to improve on 2016 in 2017?
The key lies in setting goals based on what I’d like to learn, which is :
How to take my meditations to a wider audience with speaking engagements and virtual presentation opportunities
How to develop, deepen and mature the many co-creation opportunities that have come my way
How to create meditations that help specific groups of people and address specific issues
How to get my books on to the bestseller list
How to monetise my new found skills as an interviewer and take my podcast from 200k listens to 2 million and beyond
Having a Meta-strategy
When we set ourselves a meta-strategy, what I have found happens is that all the resources we need seems to pop along just when you need them. By sharing your strategy with others, the perfect co-creators seem to pop along just when you need them too. So here goes …
My meta-strategy is to help awaken humanity, and the planet as a whole, to the next level of consciousness
There, I have said it – now your turn – pop yours in by way of comment below. You never know who is reading this who might be able to help you achieve it !!
p.s. if achieving any of the above appeals to you and you want to know how, I’d be delighted to help, get in touch !!
In Autumn 2015, my meditations got discovered by the Insight Timer app, and its marvelous community of worldwide meditators. I discovered that people seemed to really like them.
Imagine my absolute joy this morning, a year later, when I got an email from Maddy Gerrard, the Inflow Manager at Insight Timer, telling me that my most popular meditation, Just for Today, is now available in six other languages.
Initiatives like this can only lead to a calmer, more gentle world. If you have any French, Spanish, Portugese (Brazilian), Norwegian, Czech or Chinese friends, point them here.
Note that this meditation and the app will always be free.
With the Insight Timer 365 Day meditation challenge, 2017 was already lining up to be a great year. Find out more about this challenge and opportunity in this podcast with Christopher Plowman, the CEO of Insight Timer.
I had the great pleasure of interviewing Master Charles Cannon on the Zone Show recently after reading his book, Living an Awakened Life. I highly recommend the book and you can listen to the podcast here.
Around 26m30s in you will hear me ask him what he meant by a lovely, evocative phrase that jumped out at me from the book …
“Meditation is your ally in transition”
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I’ve been musing on this phrase for a week or so and feel minded to explain and explore the nature of this transition … having been through it myself and being on ‘the other side’ for some years now.
The transition comes in three phases :
Phase 1 : Short Term Benefits
After meditating every day, for a couple of weeks and for just 10 minutes a day, we get pretty much an instant payback on our investment of time. We become more relaxed and our stress levels reduce. We become more tolerant of situations that would normally annoy us and, in turn, we become more pleasant to be around. We discover that meditation is a ‘nice addiction’ to have.
Phase 2 : Medium Term Realisations
After meditating for a month or two, new areas in our neurology become activated and our mind expands to a new level of capacity. We become more creative and more productive. We also begin to discover we get more done, of higher quality, in less time and that external events and serendipities begin to turn up just at the right time. In short, we stop pushing water uphill and start to go with the temporal flow.
Phase 3 : Long Term Awakenings
After about a year or so of practice, we look back on who we used to be and wonder how we got so stressed. At some point on our journey, we will have experienced examples of what look like magic. We live in a brighter and kinder world, with a glass which is not so much half full as it is over-brimming. At least one amazing change has unfolded within us and at least one life changing opportunity lands at our feet. We awaken our fully alive powers and become a force for change and transformation in whatever endeavour we apply ourselves to.
If you are intrigued and minded to make such a transition and to make meditation your ally, where do you start?
I am so passionate about sharing what I have learned and experienced, the first steps are free and the following steps inexpensive. Like planting a tree, the best time to start meditating is yesterday and the second best time is today. Here’s how to dip you toe into a new way to be.
Step 1 : Free
Download the free app Insight Timer and check out my free meditations – and those of the many other fabulous guides you will find there.
and hear from Chris Plowman, the CEO, on the 365 day meditation challenge in 2017 – a kind of collective transition
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Step 3 : Open Your Minds
For more experienced meditators, my Heart-full Living course takes you on a 15 day journey into another state of being. Your will awaken dormant and nascent mind centres and form a new relationship with your thoughts. As you open your Third Eye, and other mind centres, part of your investment will be donated to fund eye surgery for someone in the developing world. What goes around comes around.
Step 4 : Awaken Your Inner Magician
I have also developed a program for advanced explorers called Awaken Your Inner Magician. This program is available as a fully mentored or self-study course. It is like a software upgrade for the soul, or a death-less reincarnation. Only those who have taken steps 1, 2 and 3 will be invited to partake.
Further listening and reading
This podcast explains more about the applications for practical mindfulness
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… and, by way of example and illumination, here’s some more blogs on the kind of unfoldings that occur when you make the transition
The journey so far
The next 1/4 billion miles
