The Stuggle Against Corporate Big Business - Survive and Thrive

So how does small independent business survive competing against bigger corporate business? And the short answer is - they don’t.

Bigger more established corporate business has access to more resources, money and technology, bigger and better venues, more and better advertising and more often than not cheaper prices, and they’re gobbling up the clients.

So how does a small yoga school in Hong Kong compete against Pure Yoga (in the words of a friend - ‘there is Pure Yoga and then then there is everyone else’). How does an independent pharmacy in South Africa compete against the big discount pharmacies like Clicks and Dischem.

It's Clear, Something Needs To Change, But What?

Dear Friends

This is the question that drives me to distraction. ‘ How may I best help and in helping, help myself?’

This is what I know

• We face unprecedented levels of stress, anxiety, frustration, hopelessness, depression, conflict and overwhelm.
• Most of us are seriously searching for meaning and purpose
• The vast bulk (let’s say 99%) of small business fail or fail to thrive
• The vast bulk (let’s say 99%) of relationships fail or fail to thrive
• The lack of financial resources is the #1 pain most of us experience
• Retirement is now a major source of stress. We are living longer and the cost of living is escalating daily.
• Humans have become a formidable negative global environmental influence
• At the leading edge, our cultural context is developing so fast, it makes our eye’s water

What’s going on, and is going to a spa or bar, or taking an anti-depressant really going to ‘solve the problem’?

It’s pretty clear than something more fundamental needs to change or happen.

But what needs to change?

Are you waiting to be told or do you have an opinion you would like to explore. Leave a comment ... for real :)

SuperFluid-Response-Ability

What could be more empowering than creating, developing and establishing your own personal and business relevance, and what could be more painful than facing the lack thereof.

Within the business imperative, if you and your business and it’s products are irrelevant or to the extent they are, means you and they are not needed, which means that in the opinion of others you serve no purpose and therefore have no importance.

Och...

I'm Afraid To Start My Own Business, What Should I Do?

This is a question I received the other day and my response - thought you may find it useful

Question: 

"I want to start my own business [private practice] and though I know what I need to do it, I still procrastinate and put it off until another day.

This is something that I want, but at the same time I think I'm also scared to take that next step."

Changing Behaviour And The Future, Naturally And Spontaneously

Standing where I am now, in this present moment, and looking into the future and anticipating the consequences of my behaviour in that future, which I neither like nor want, is not the same as saying that my behaviour now, is wrong or bad.

And accepting my behaviour now, without judgement, and which I can clearly anticipate will have unwanted consequences in the future, is not the same as saying that I should continue behaving in the way I am.

In Relevance We Find Self-Worth

I am of the opinion that within 10 years, with competent guidance, we can come to master any art we set our heart and minds to, be it the art of mathematics, music, businesses, architecture, communication, living or relationships.

The Challenge for the 'Spiritual' Entrepreneur & Small Business Owner

Do you remember the good old days, when two nations went to war, each convinced that they had God on their side?

So who won?

The Greeks, the Christians, the Muslims, maybe those Zen dudes?

The Need For Mindset Mastery Is Not Rocket Science

We all know that between athletes of comparable technical expertise, strength and fitness, those who have trained in mindset mastery will, without fail, consistently perform better, achieve greater success and get to enjoy that success more, than those who haven't.

What Do You Need To Believe In Order To Succeed

I would like to share with you a line of investigation which presented itself to me several weeks back and which has, and is, in the process of re-shaping my understanding of, and the way I related to, life.

The line of investigation is actually very simple

What is it that we really need to believe in order to live a deeply relevant, successful and meaningful life, and as a corollary to that, what is the most powerful personal practice we can engage in, to support and deepen an experience of that (a deeply relevant, successful and meaningful life)?

An Addiction to Impotence

Have you ever contemplated why so few people ever get around to mastering their mindset, yet most (of us) feel completely entitled to consistently and repetitively moan and groan about the problems and challenges in our life. We get it from others and we inflict it on others, and the sense of entitlement is overwhelming.

I mean, if we talk about the challenges in our lives, without simultaneously making an intelligent and creative inquiring into understanding them, and of developing meaningful solutions, which we act on. Then we are simply moaning and whining and spreading the virus of dis-ease and dis-empowerment.

Transformation Pt 2 - The Transition Stage

Transformation: Transform - TRANSITION - Embody

Unlike the transform stage, which is all about learning, contemplating, questioning, investigating, of dissolving and dismantling old mindset assumptions, beliefs and behaviour, and then of carefully, deliberately and intentionally developing new, better more functional ones to replace them (the unseen inner work). 

The transition stage is all about a radical shift in your external reality - relationships, work and environment.

Transformation Pt 1 - The Transform Stage

I received a big response to the last Success Secrets Ezine - Some Days, Life Just Sucks (Handling Transformation), - I guess many of us are going through the process - So I figured, it may be of value to dig deeper into the transformation process, because it's extraordinary, relevant and compelling.

Transformation: TRANSFORM - Transition - Embody

The transformation process itself is made up of 3 stages, or sub-processes, each with it's own unique characteristics, needs and techniques, for handling them. It makes managing the process much more challenging when we mix methodologies.

And the Single Most Important Personal Development Concept Is ... Maturity?

I'm playing my favorite game this morning.

The one where I try to discover and blog about the single most important concept in personal and spiritual growth, in living a meaningful, empowered, purposeful and relevant life, and in developing a successful business aligned with this.

The question as always, is. 'Is there one hook on which we can hang our hat, upon which all others depend?'

And I believe there is - it's called maturity.

Some Days, Life Just Sucks (Handling Transformation)

Image - www.sodahead.com

I have a friend who right now, is going through a very difficult time. This is an open letter to her, and the reason I'm doing this, is because, if you're on a path of personal transformation, you will face exactly the same thing at some point in your journey.

Hiya Jane
(obviously I have not used her real name)

I know right now life stings like hell, and you feel overwhelmed and almost helpless in the face of all that’s happening. But probably, what hurts more than that, is the knowledge that it's going to get a lot worse, before it starts getting any better.

So let's begin with what you do know, and is pretty obvious. 

What is the Truth (Video)

Is it necessary for me to position my ideas, beliefs and philosophy as the 'Truth', in order for it to be of value to me?

The Need to Evolve

Zeus - www.freethoughtpedia.com

There is no Abundant Mindset and benefits which flow from that, or Enlightened Business and the benefits which flow from that, without personal transformation, and as glamorous as 'personal transformation' may sound, the process itself is painful, messy and anything but.

I'm not sure how many people, including most women, have really observed the birthing process. I have, 3 times ;) - it's not a pretty sight - and although mothers talk about the pain, blood, guts and mess, it's soon forgotten in the joy of a new life. 

Personal transformation is much the same, but unfortunately there is this naive idea that the process is all rose petals and harps. Most are completely unprepared for the crisis that comes with personal transformation - and here we need to create a distinction between a 'stuck crisis' and a 'growth crisis' - they both feel the same, and without knowing the context, it would be almost impossible to tell them apart.

Do you Need a Certificate Before Starting Your Own Professional Business

No, 

... but your products and programs do need to solve the real problems of your clients, community and prospects, deliver the results you promise, and the faster the better.

How often do I hear this statement.


"Paul, I would love to coach, to share what I've learned to help others through the difficulties I myself have faced and found a way though, but first I need to get a coaching qualification or certificate."

Why is it that you feel you need to get a certificate or qualification?

Is it not enough that you've done something incredible in your own life, and now feel in a position to help others.

This is one of the reasons I love the coaching and informational industry - You don't need certifications or qualifications. You need to

7 Liberating Perspectives

It's the end of the year and it's Christmas and I want to leave you with some blessing, some love and 7 liberating perspectives to contemplate over the season.

So wishing you a blessed Christmas and the most prosperous and abundant New Year possible. I will be making extraordinary efforts next year to provide you with more information, more tools and more support to help you do just that.

Perspective One 

No matter who, or where you are, you're always at the your beginning. 

Is this true? Not sure, and does it matter? It's just a very helpful way of facing the uncertainty and complexity of living.

There's something liberating in acknowledging that you're at the beginning. It's exciting, challenging and a little scary, but it's also open and filled with potential and possibility and untarnished with the clutter and regret of yesterday.

Stressed and Frustrated? Switch on the Lights.

Your INTUITION provides you with the ability to

• Anticipate the future 
• Prioritise the present 
• Feel more empowered and confident 
• Make better, more aligned decision's. 

With intuition your future is approachable, the present has purpose and the past wisdom. Without it the future is frightening, the present confusing and the past overwhelming.

To some greater of lesser degree we all have a natural ability to develop our intuition. Some will have to work harder at it, for others it will come easily, and a few may have discovered a natural access to it. But with each comes it's own unique set of benefits and challenges.

Intuition alone, is not enough. Without developing your capacity to interpret and respond appropriately to the insights your intuition reveals, you'll simply end up more overwhelmed and confused than ever. It will become a burden rather than a very useful tool in the creative process.

I know, in my late twenties, that was my story. A victim of my own intuition.

Problem Solving, Enlightened Style

What if there are no problems to solve? 

What if the very idea that there are problems to solve is just another idea born in the Scarcity Mindset, devoid of any real, reality and sustained by the immaturity, unskilful means and irrational fear of the very mindset you use to participate?

What if the Scarcity Mindset itself is the 'problem' - sorry, just can't avoid paradox - and in solving that problem, the idea that there are problems to solve, evaporates.

Tension Deficit  - Germinal Ironworks

Tension is not a Problem 

Let’s create a distinction between PROBLEMS and TENSION and here, as all good researches are prone to doing, let’s get a common definition from Wikipedia.

Satisfying your needs is Your Life Purpose

The BIG picture 

Life evolves to satisfy it's own insatiable and evolving needs - and that's about as simple as it gets.

Imagine

Close your eyes and for just a moment give yourself permission to imagine how you would feel, if all your needs where completely satisfied, right now as we speak.

Of course this is somewhat misleading, because if this where the case new ones would already have developed. There is always going to be tension between where we are and were we would like to be.

I call this evolutionary tension or healthy stress. 

One of the reasons we're so cranky as a species is because we're permanently starving. Fulfilling your needs is much like eating a scrumptious meal after being deprived, for what feels like, forever.

And now imagine that your needs are being met as a consequence of your business products meeting the real needs of others.

What could feel better than that?

Vision is the Key to Your Business Success

Your business is a success and you're living the life you have always envisioned

So how did you get there?

Contrary to popular belief

You started at the end and worked backwards. This is important because popular belief has it all upside down, inside out and the wrong way round.

It's not about starting where you are and struggling to get where you want to be. I'll guarantee that this will only bring you more struggle, stress, tension and anxiety, followed by a string of failed and/or failing relationships.

The Traditional Mindset simply does not have the maturity to hold, reconcile and transcend these inherent contradictions, and this keeps us stuck.

Knowing your Priorities

So you do what’s important and is a priority and if it’s not you don’t and in seriously acknowledging this you can immediately let go of your artificial struggle against time, and you can breathe a sigh of relief and relax ... time is not the enemy.

So what is important to you and what are you priorities? 

You can answer this question by observing, without condemnation or justification, where you spent your time. If you notice you’re spending 4 hrs per day watching TV, then watching TV is a priority and if you spend 16 hrs per day working and 4 hrs per week with your family then your work is your priority and your family is not. 

This is a wonderful release, because then you can just let go of the need to keep telling your partner and family that you love and want to be with them, because you clearly don’t. 

It’s the pretence and the unconscious deceit that painfully suffocates our relationships, you say one thing and your partner wants to believe you, but your behaviour is communicating something quite different and it’s the inconsistency between your words and behaviour that erodes the trust and leads to the inevitable and often traumatic breakdown of the relationship.

Peace is not a consequence of control

We live in a global culture dominated by an idea that we are able to ‘get’ control over our own behaviour, and this leads us to believe that we can therefore ‘get’ control over the behaviour of others, and from this emerges the idea that though the process of ‘getting’ control, we can somehow ‘get’ control of our future.

Which of course leads us to believe that after we have managed to ‘get’ control of everything, we will begin creating and building a personal and global environment characterised by sustainable peace and our wholehearted participation for the common good.

And we live in a world culture of such denial, that few are even able to acknowledge that any and all of this is ‘pathologically irrational’.

Managing your time and priorities

If there’s a clock near you take a moment to look at it ... notice the second hand ticking away, is there anything you can do to make those seconds go any faster or slower, is there anything you can do to manage time?

There is just the relentless ticking of seconds, minutes and hours, which flow past impersonally, consistently and irrevocably.

It does not matter who you are or what you do, you have 24 hours in a day, and the idea that somehow you can make more time is debilitating, because you can’t and neither are you able to speed it along nor slow it down, all you have is the same 24 hours ticking along at the same pace, as everyone else.

I encourage you to let this in, because there is simply no way to manage time, there is no getting a handle on time and there is no secret time management tool, you have exactly the same 24 hours as everyone else.

Coping with crisis

So how does mindset help us cope and deal with, let’s say a home crisis where more than one family relationship has taken something more than a significantly toxic turn, and you feel violated, angry and resentful, and more than a little justified in your indignation and you see your life transforming into something resembling a second rate soap opera right before your eyes.

It’s hurts like hell and you’re in pain, you’re disappointed and angry and depending on the situation you may even feel persecuted.

No mindset cleverness, no philosophy and no spirituality is going to take that away, you need to own it, it’s your pain [anger, frustration, disappointment ...etc] and it simply does not matter who caused it or how they caused it, the pain you feel is yours. It may have been brutally intentional, woefully ignorant or devastatingly unskillful, but whatever the intention of those who hurt you, the pain they inflicted, is yours.

The NEW mindset means a new logic

Your behaviour which is simply your mindset in action, both holds and acts though a logic, and any logic emerges out of an already established assumption or belief, and then works very hard to prove that assumption true.

So you feel you’re working hard to achieve both material and relational success, simultaneously, not one or the other, not one now and then the other later, but both together, now. I need to be clear about this because I’m not so sure you are, I know you think you are, or at least you have an idea that you believe you are, but I’m pretty certain that you’re not.

I’m pretty sure that you’ve already made a very deep, unacknowledged, unrecognised and unconscious decision to pursue either one or the other, in the hope that the other will ‘somehow’ follow in due course, or you’ve reconciled yourself to the fact that they’re mutually irreconcilably and have therefore made your choice, or you’ve come to the decision that the whole thing is bollocks, and you’ve packed you bags and gone to live in the wild, on a diet of wild honey and locusts, in which case you’re probably not reading this.

What is a 'conscious consumer'?

As a consumer you have two powerful words at your disposal, ‘yes’ this product or service meets and fulfills a real need of mine or ‘no’ it doesn’t, and through the intentional application of these words you influence which products, services and businesses survive and which don’t, but more than that you determine which business practices (behaviour), values, visions and philosophies survive and which don’t.

Through this apparently asinine choice of saying either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a buying impulse you shape our tomorrow (yes, your choice now affects my quality of life) and influences the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the health of our planet and you even influence the probability of our survival (yes, your choice now affects the lives of my children and grandchildren)

And without money is it consistently possible to make solid, well thought out and integrated conscious consumer choices?

Is it reasonable to expect that an item manufactured to the highest green and socially responsible standards possible, land on the store shelf at bargain discount prices?

Relax

I wish people would stop telling me to relax and why is it that I need to relax anyway, what possible benefit could there be to relaxing? I need to be uptight in order to be motivated enough to get through today, and anyway isn’t it cool to be all stressed out, doesn’t that mean I’m ‘working’ ... NO

There’s relaxing and RELAXING.

The first...
... is a step into distraction and unconsciousness with its corresponding loss of awareness, in the desperate hope that your problems and challenges won’t weigh on you as heavily, and they won’t, except that tomorrow you’ll need to deal with the consequences of the unconscious and unskilful decisions you made today.

The second...
... is a very intentional relaxation of the self-contraction with a corresponding heightening of alertness and awareness and with the deliberate application of developed skilful means.

You make more aligned, integrated, creative and intelligent decisions and your quality of life improves when you’re relaxed, alert and wholeheartedly participating, and you’ll only be able to do this after you’ve learned to intentionally relax into the often demanding and unwanted, moment to moment circumstances of your life.

Who is the real you?

One of the most common questions I hear from my clients is ‘who is the real me?’ and it’s this question that sparked, over a decade ago, a pretty intense investigation, by yours truly.

The question itself though is a little misleading, because there’s some confusion around what the word REAL really means, so lets clear that up right away.

REAL and ‘unreal’ has nothing to do with existing and non-existing
The contemplative traditions use the word REAL to mean permanent and unchanging, not to mean existing or non-existing. A brick wall for example exists and trust me if you’ve ever run into one you’ll know for sure that it does, however according to the contemplative traditions, it’s not REAL, which simply means it’s not forever permanent and unchanging.

I can't commit to your deadline, sorry

I needed to call someone yesterday and give them some news which I knew they didn’t want to hear. They were expecting me to commit to a timetable I genuinely could not commit to, because my commitment depended on other connected circumstances ‘coming together’ over which I had very very little influence.

“They wanted a date and a very specific action which I sincerely could not commit to, given what I knew at the time”

So how do you handle a situation like this?

Let's recognise
The Scarcity Mindset needs to be liked and to be right more than it seeks to find a way to understand, establish or meet needs. It’s working from the assumption that failure is more inevitable than success and it’s working hard to prove that assumption.

The Abundant Mindset seeks to understand and create solutions (process) more than it needs to be either liked or right. It’s working from the assumption that needs can be creatively (unexpectedly) met and is working to prove that assumption.

Behaviour is mindset in action

I don't believe there is anything of more importance to our well-being and success than our mindset. And if learning to master our mindset does not quickly become our number one priority, I doubt a consistently better quality of life and relationships, with the ability to develop a sustainable and successful business in the face of global transformation, will be almost possible.

But what is mindset?
Mindset is the assumptive base of our psyche, the totality of our beliefs, values, knowledged, world-views, pathologies and assertions. It's formed in part by the depth of our presence (objectivity), shadow (unresolved past pain), maturity (ability to hold and access perspective), experience, education and personality.

Mindset is the frame upon which the narrative of our individual, communal and human life is hung. It informs our perceptions, guides our behaviour and determines the business and global systems we develop.

Behaviour is mindset in action

Behaviour is mindset responding and reacting to the provocations of events and circumstances, even our own thoughts and feelings (it's all external to mindset). Without mindset assumptions we'd have nothing to inform our behaviour, nothing to pull up on or push back against. To create sustainable behavioural change, our mindset assumptions at some point need to be either de-constructed, changed, transformed or created anew, depending on their degree of usefulness and accuracy. Many if not most of our mindset assumptions where passed onto us by our parents and our early influencers.

This is extremely helpful because it’s impossible to see mindset (our real inner beliefs and ideas) assumptions, they can only be inferred through behaviour, But in learning to observe our behaviour, without justification or condemnation, we soon come to learn everything we need to know about our mindset beliefs. And we need to know if we are to consciously participate in our own development and success.

Behaviour is a flow of logic
The word behaviour implies an isolated action, reaction or response but this is hardly ever the case. Almost everything we do involves a sequence of actions, from answering the phone (a simple short sequence) to building a successful business over many years (many multi-disciplined sequences over time). Now any sequence of actions holds an inherent logic, a reasoning be it conscious or sub-conscious, which emerges out of our mindset assumptive base, and then works to assert them.

In this way a sub-conscious belief may be that money is difficult to make. Then every strategy you create, which is just a flow of logic and behaviour, works to prove that assumption true. In other words the very strategies you create are designed to prove that money is difficult to make -- and yet you may think you are working very hard to prove just the opposite. 

Or you may believe you are not worthy and your partner will at some point abandon you. Your behaviour over time works to assert that deep sub-conscious belief true, by finding ways to drive or push them away. This ultimately proves and deepens the original assumption and a habit or pattern is born.

Mindset influences the stream
Imagine the circumstances of your life as a stream of events rather than isolated individual occurrences, this is closer to the truth and more helpful. Through our reactions and responses we influence sometimes more and sometimes less, the flow of this stream of events. Of course everything, and I do mean everything is also influencing that stream of events. It is therefore impossible to control that stream, and the idea of control itself is nothing more than a completely unhelpful idea that I would urge you to abandon.

Results are snapshots of the stream
There is no such thing as a permanent result (another unhelpful idea), there is simply the flow of events and circumstances. What we take to be a result is simply a snapshot, like a photo of that stream at any given moment. Mostly we forget or are not even aware of how we influenced that stream of events at an earlier stage, when we where less aware or had less personal mastery.

Where do we have more influence?
We have depending upon our degree of mastery an almost complete and uninterrupted influence over our mindset, and therefore upon our responses to the flow of circumstances. But we have very little influence over the flow itself, and therefore over the totality of the results we experience.

Mastery means growing our degree of influence
It’s not possible that we ever control the flow of events and therefore the results we experience, but we can grow our degree of influence. Now sometimes that influence is more and sometime less. For example my business may be doing well and my life peachy, but if a asteroid suddenly came hurtling toward the planet, my degree of influence over my business, life and the flow of results I'm experiencing would radically diminish to practically zero.

Or I may be talking to my partner, and in that moment either of us may be exerting a dominant influence over the other. But if a fire suddenly broke out, my dominant influence would radically diminish and the fire would then exert the dominant influence over the both my partner and myself, over our house, our stuff and our future.

Influence in everything except our mindset, is a very fluid, waxing and waning affair.

Mindset and our quality of life
This is much simpler and more complex to understand. Suffice it to say, that the direct, unwavering and permanent consequence of mastery over our state of consciousness is the real feeling of joy and wholehearted connectedness we experience.

Thus to the degree that I am able to hold my presence (and not loose the plot) is to the same degree I avoid the psychological contraction into fear, stress and anxiety. And the same degree to which I experience joy and respond more fluidly, intelligently and creatively to the flow of events I am continuously and irrevocably swimming in.

Now 3,000 years ago, presence was a very big deal and the result of a lifetime of intense spiritual practice. But today it’s been my consistent experience that the average person can learn to hold their presence in just a few months. Because without learning to do this, it becomes impossible to master mindset and therefore to have the degree of intentional influence we need over our behaviour, to adequately influence the flow of events and the results we experience.

We would literally be like a ship without a rudder, being blow from one place to another, a victim of the flow of events, and suffering.

The Scarcity Mindset has it's defences 
There is a significant difference between a lifetime of struggling against our behaviour and what feels like a barrage of isolated events, circumstances and results, and working fluidly, intelligently and creatively with our mindset and the flow of events and circumstances.

Because mindset is so subtle and because we're already inside the very mindset that is the cause of all your troubles, it’s almost impossible to find the intentionality to ‘do the work’ without deeply understanding that your mindset is our biggest problem and our most pressing priority.

Because the moment you finish reading this, there is the overwhelming compulsion to set it aside with the thought, I do need to look into this ... one-day, as soon as I’ve gained more control over my life or work, and I have the time and money I need.

In other words, I’ll look into learning to ‘master the heart of mindset’, when I don’t need to learn to ‘master my mindset’ ... and that day never arrives.