Finding a Way

Finding a Way

While I have been busy creating the Soulwaves book itself, I have consciously done nothing about publishing it, other than to observe what is happening in the industry. So rather than me having to find the way to get it published, I’ve been allowing the paths to publication and marketing to find me.

I had already used Ingram Spark last year for the Big U and am using them again but this time also publishing a hardback version. I wanted something other than just ACX and iTunes for the audiobook though.

Thanks mainly to the wonderful Creative Penn podcast, from the prolific and supremely knowledgeable Joanna Penn, I’m using a new way to distribute the audiobook version.

Findaway Voices not only submit your audiobook to ACX/Audible and iTunes but over 40 other audiobook platforms. Before submitting Soulwaves (at nearly 10 hours long), I tested the system out with the audiobook version of The Germinatrix (at less than 1 hour long).

I had the usual tech issues to fix with ACX, my fault for rushing, but pleased to see the book out on so many places it has never been heard before. Note, I serialised it on Insight Timer over the last two years – well that method worked for Charles Dickens and H.G. Wells!

Listen to Joanna’s podcast with Will Dages of Findaway Voices

Listen to my first audiobook distributed by them – The Germinatrix

Also this month, I had a lovely heart-to-heart with wordsmith, Mariëlle Smith …

 

 

Proofing the Pudding

Usually initial proof read and recording of audiobook catches 99% of errors. As the first sample print books of Soulwaves arrived this month, it was clear I only caught 95% or so!

Thank goodness for print on demand and setting a pre-order date.

Perhaps as this is so big and expansive in plot – over billions of years of time and 150,000 light years in space – I have learned a novel such as this needs an additional proof read after the recording of the audiobook.

So December will be spent ironing out the wrinkles. You can however safely pre-order the book in all good online bookstores and it will be perfect by the 10th Jan 2020.

PRE-ORDER SOULWAVES TODAY

 

Cogs Are Turning

Cogs Are Turning

This month I did something I have never done before in the middle of a big project. I took a month off. Well not exactly, I packed up a house I’d lived in for 20 years and had a week’s holiday on a wide beam 64 foot long canal boat on the Kennet & Avon.

Part of the reason for a break (or is that brake?) from the project is that Soulwaves is being edited. I did however get a new iPadPro and used iMovie to create the trailer below for Soulwaves.

So I took a dose of my own advice, taking the foot well of the gas has given time and space for so many doors to open – and to open fully wide.

Onwards & very much upwards … more on this next month 😎

How to Master Time

How to Master Time

Invest an hour of your time listening to this interview with Smita Joshi and I guarantee you will discover at least one tip which will give you that hour back …

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.
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  • 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.
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  • 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

A Year for Stepping Up

A Year for Stepping Up

Stepping Up in 2017Before 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 !

What’s Planned for 2017?

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 !!