Passion, Purpose, Possibility!

I’ve been sitting here for the last hour trying to write this blog, getting angrier and angrier and now I’m wondering why? My plan was to write about the importance of finding your passion, living your purpose and realizing the possibilities for you, your life and your business, yet I sit here getting angry. Now this is no way to start a Monday morning surely….

So why the anger?

I like to sit with any emotion that is coming up from the inside and to distil its meaning for me right now. These emotions don’t just appear because the kids are ratty or that a few business deals didn’t go the right way; no they come up to help to guide us and move us in the right direction. Emotion is just energy in motion or the attempt of the body to get us moving in the right direction, sometimes any direction; just get moving! Now it is true that every now and then, seemingly worse over the school holidays, the kids will get on our nerves and the loss of a few important business deals can get us down but at the end of the day emotions can have great insights for us.

So why the anger, in this moment, for me? There would seem to be a pattern here that every time I get close to or nail my passion and purpose I derail myself, interesting! In this case it is anger that is rising to the surface, but what to tell me? Maybe it is the fear that if I were to live it fully that I may get rejected? Maybe I have been told time and time again that this part of me is not worth it and that conforming is the only way to receive acknowledgement and acceptance, mmmmm!

Now here is a scary thing, insight into the private world of Marcus Bird, deep into the dark chasms of my mind. But guess what, as I write this, the anger is subsiding, so maybe I’m onto something here. Generally when you get to the bottom of the emotion the emotion tends to go. The body has sent the message, it has been received and then understood and now its job is done and it can retire back to the deep dark subconscious world from which it came.

One of the hardest jobs for us on the planet is to do exactly this, to find our passion, live it on purpose and to realise the possibilities, the rewards of abundance that await. In some respects the lack of some or all of this leads one to becoming lost, confused, disheartened and in the worst-case scenario depressed. You see it is imperative that we all have something to live for, some reason for being. As we look into the night sky and see all those billions of stars it is easy to feel the insignificance of life here on planet earth. It is just as easy to look into the smallness of your life, doing the dishes, cleaning up after everyone, going to work same old same old and feel the same way. Once upon a time religion used to play an important part of human life. From the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mayans and Aztecs to the birth of modern religion, religion or the belief in something always played a key role. This belief in a lot of cases answered the question of what is life all about and why am I here. Now that many have moved away from faith the eternal question is not being answered or fulfilled in any meaningful way and finding the answer within has been hard. It is imperative however that we find this answer and give true meaning and purpose to our lives. But ‘why’? I hear me ask.

A few years ago one of my best friends died suddenly but not unexpectedly, you see he had been suffering from alcoholism. One night the drink got the better of him and he had a fatal accident and died alone in his apartment. It was a sad morning that morning but as I said not unexpected. We had tried so many things to get him over it, dragging him to rehab, rescuing him from himself too many times to mention and during these exchanges we had spoken of him dying from this disease and although he said the right things you could see it in his eyes that he had just given up. He had lost his passion, there was no more purpose and he could not see the possibility of getting out of this situation. Now I know there was a lot more to it than that, not being able to live up to others expectations, not being able to rationalize the Father wounding etc…. But his giving up and not being able to connect to these three essential ingredients of life played a role.

I think that finding your passion, living a life of purpose, answering that questions of why am I here and then realising the possibilities that you can be, do and have all you are meant to have is an important if not imperative part of life.

So what are you truly passionate about? What is it that stirs within you that is dying to come out and express itself in the world? Why did you start your business, what was the spark of passion?

I facilitated a planning day workshop for a wonderful client of mine last Friday and had a number of my own realizations during the process. One of these was that there is great importance at coming back to the reason that you started your business. To constantly remind yourself of the passion that ignited the desire to begin. The true purpose for beginning the journey and to see all the amazing possibilities that lay before you. It is so inspiring to see people and businesses connecting to this. Activating the power of this and leaving a workshop, like this one, motivated and excited at the future.

As ‘modern’ humans I think it is important that we all live with passion, know the purpose of our being here right now on the planet and to actualize and activate all the amazing possibilities that expressing this passion has.

I often talk about alignment with my clients and in fact my Double your Clients workshop gives a great deal of focus to this. I believe that when we align with our passion and live life on purpose the universe helps us out in abundance. My amazingly beautiful partner Stephanie is a shining example of this, this week. She has recently found her purpose and aligned herself with it. The interesting thing about finding our purpose is that most times it brings up great fear, “who me, no I couldn’t do all of that, little old me…..” But since she has aligned with her passion and her purpose all manner of things are coming to her. Stephanie is a Shamanic Midwife, Birth Attendant, Kinesiologist and an amazing Mother. It took a while for her to come to the realisation that helping couples, in particular women, get pregnant and give birth was her calling. Her business, Getting Pregnant Giving Birth, was launched recently and wow things are starting to happen. In fact one of her blogs has been quoted on the web site of a lady whose book she is reading at the moment, what a coincidence or maybe a clear sign. There are many more of these amazing signs for her, little confirmations that she is on the right track.

Anyway I think the message here is that identifying your passion, living it on purpose and seeing the possibilities allows us to have feel hope, experience true freedom and have a full life. It is not a replacement for faith, belief in something bigger than ourselves, but rather an awakening to the fact that we have meaning, purpose and value being here. Yes even little old me has a reason for being, a purpose that needs to be realised and expressed so that the rest of the people on the planet can be all they can be.

Like a forest ecosystem each animal, plant and organism only thrives because of the symbiotic relationship to the organism next to it. If any one of these organisms is not truly being everything that it can be then it affects every other organism. The old saying; ‘when you live your truth you give others permission to live there truth,’ highlights the importance of all of us thriving. Living passionately and on purpose is contagious. It has the ability to infect the person next to you. Maybe if we all lived this truth then the planet would be a very different place.

This is the now happy, relaxed and certainly no longer angry Marcus signing out.

 As they say, and to be a little kitsch, ‘go forth and prosper’ or as I say ‘live passionately, on purpose and see those amazing possibilities. You are an amazing, wonderful, incredible human being, now go express it in the world and make this world a better place for you and for all those you infect’. 

Overcoming the Sole Trader Blues!

Now every once and a while most solo entrepreneurs or sole traders, you know people like us with a staff of one, ourselves, or a small team, goes through the ‘Sole Trader Blues’.  Those times where you feel unmotivated procrastinate and feel less than inspired. Where you sit at your desk looking endlessly into the computer hoping something exciting will jump out at you and fire up that passion you had yesterday. Well believe it or not I had the sole trader blues last Thursday.

There I was sitting at my desk looking into the abyss feeling flat and low trying to find something to inspire me back into action. I know I had a lot of things to do as the day before I was flat out, but do you think I could think of any of them in this moment! Even though I had my action plan list, my sales funnel and my priority matrix I just sat there. In that moment of the blues I could not think of anything inspiring to do. As I scanned my list nothing seemed any fun, actually quite the opposite, everything seemed a chore. ‘Ring up some sales leads’ I thought but no I can’t call anyone when I feel like this and they will probably say no anyway…. ‘Write some more of the coaching program manual’ I mussed, oh God I cant be bothered…. So I just sat there! Maybe I’ll look at Facebook or Linkedin maybe that will inspire me…to no avail. Maybe if I play a computer game that might get me out of this rut….no that just made me feel guilty that I had lots to do and here I was procrastinating. So what to do?

In speaking to a few small business owners last week a number of them talked about being in this rut, maybe it was the full moon, or just a strange coincidence or maybe it was there so that I could write about it in my blog and pass on some handy tips to get you out of the Sole Trader Blues. 

Now the blues can be triggered by many things, a few negative sales calls, the moon cycle, your cycle, a brief moment where you loose hope or loose sight of the bigger picture of your vision or just because. So what did I do?

When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me... opps that's a beatles number no help here or is it? Now seriously when I find myself in this situation and I have the means to be conscious enough to realize the rut that I’m in, here are my top tips to beat the blues, and yes playing some beatles on my guitar is one of them:

1.   Get moving – when you feel flat, down or like you are in the blues the first thing to do is to get moving. Get up from your desk change the scenery and go for a walk, even if it is only down to the back of the garden. Pick up a musical instrument and play it outside. Go for a walk along a river or the beach or somewhere that makes you feel good. One of the causes of the blues can be the lack of movement. If you have been moving forward in your business and suddenly there is a hiccup, lick a few negative sales calls, then you can be placed in a space of non movement or procrastination. The best way to get moving again is to get moving, anywhere.

2.     Take an action – Once you have had a walk or moved from your desk the next step is to take an action. Any action no matter how small and preferably small, will have you moving once again. Get up and do the filling, clean your desk, go to Officeworks and buy that stationary you need or write a blog.

3.     Review hope – Often the place that we go to when we have the blues is that place of no hope, even if it is not conscious, a lack of hope will have us stop and loose sight of what we are trying to achieve. So write a list of all the positive things that are, will, or you want to have happen in your business. More often than not there are some great opportunities opening up and reminding yourself of them is a sure fire way of finding some inspiration to get moving.

4.     Call someone – Now call someone, make a business call that you need to make and talk to another human being. Sometimes as a sole trader, of just you or a few, you can get lost in your own mind. The best way out of this trap is to call someone. It is best to call someone who is going to give you a positive response, so not a sales call as yet, but rather someone you are doing business with who is a supporter of your work.

5.     Go do something - Now at worst if none of the above works go do something you love to do, kayaking on the river, playing tennis, reading a good book, gardening, riding a bike, going to the gym or visiting a friend. It does not matter what you do as long as the doing is something you love to do. This will often kick in the inspiration gene and have us get back on track.

6.     

      Positive affirmations – As you begin to move it is important that you tend to your mind and the thoughts you are having. Regardless of whether or not they started this whole blues thing you mind is a powerful tool, use it wisely. Begin to repeat positive affirmations over and over like a broken record. Some of my favorite affirmations are:

“I think positively only”

“I am totally self confidant”

“I am passionate, inspired and in action”

“I have an abundance of new customers/clients”

“I am totally self worthy”

7.     

      Communicate – At the end of the day the best thing you can do is communicate with someone you trust, love or look up to and ask for help. There is nothing like a comforting word or a strong kick up the backside to get you moving. Because the blues is just that, a lack of movement. This lack of movement could be due to any number of feelings from, its too hard, to I can’t be bothered and any number of negative untrue thoughts.

In my case it was the support of my love one, Stephanie, and a good dose of kick myself up the backside to get out into the world and get on with the job that got me moving again but not after spending most of Thursday morning mopping about. So get into action, get moving and know that what you are doing is important, real and of great value to all of those you touch. Oh and if you get stuck CALL ME!

These ‘Sole Trader Blues’ usually only last for a few hours or a day, however in some cases they can go on for days. If they happen to go on longer than a few hours or at most a day or two then call someone, me, a friend, a colleague, someone that can help inspire you out of the blues. If you feel that your blues are more than just blues and maybe depression please seek the advise of a qualified health care practitioner. The sooner you get onto it the sooner you will be back on top.

Managing for Intrinsic Success - A core human experience!

Being the manager is an essential part of ‘being’ in business regardless of whether you have employees, manage a team or as a sole trader. Managing others is what we all do on a daily basis. Be it getting the kids to school on time, directing a contractor to develop your next marketing brochure, managing suppliers to have your product delivered in a timely manner or managing ourselves to get into action. Managing others is part of our day-to-day life. So how can we be more effective at the managing process?

The most important attribute in being a more successful human lies in how we connect and engage with the world. In the managing process how we connect and engage with others has a great influence on how others will respond towards us and in turn how well they perform for us. Intrinsic success is not possible without the help and assistance of others, every part of our lives depends on it. So how you deal with the management process is going to have a lot to do with the ultimate success you have. Here are a few tips that I use with my clients to help them manage others.

A solid theory!

One of the first things I teach clients is Motion Theory. Motion Theory states that everything in the universe is constantly in motion, the planets, time, weather, our age pretty much everything. At a quantum molecular level even things that appear to be solid like rocks, walls, floors etc, are constantly in motion. In respect to people and in particular those that work for us, Motion Theory is prevalent in that people are either doing one of three things. They are either moving towards our business and engaging ‘advocates’, moving away from our business and disengaging ‘detractors’ or hovering somewhere in the middle ‘fence sitters’ and some what appearing to be undecided as to the way they will move. Now if these people are moving towards our business and engaging then we are more likely to get the most out of them. If they are moving away from our business and disengaging then we are not going to get the most out of the relationship. If they are in the middle or fence sitters then once again we are not going to get the best out of them. As employees the same is true, employees are either moving towards the business, away from the business or sitting on the fence. In reality it is only possible to be moving towards or away from as even fence sitters are moving in one direction or the other.

So if you have employees can you identify which way they are moving? If you have other people you work with, suppliers, contractors or yourself can you identify which way they are moving? In respect to yourself it maybe that there are particular parts of your business that you either move away from or towards. For example I find a lot of small business owners moving away from the finance area of their business.

When employees begin to move away from a business they begin to become disenchanted, discouraged and disappointed. The further they move away from the business the more disgruntled and disappointed they become and in some cases become destructive sharing negative thoughts, feeling and emotions. This they need to share with others to feel that they are not the only ones and will often try to recruit the fence sitters. In respect of the business owner who moves away from the finance aspect of their business we find that eventually money becomes a major issue in the business. So what is it that leads us to engage or disengage and how can we manage the engagement process and have others and ourselves move towards every aspect of our business?

Core Drivers

As humans we are intrinsically motivated to move towards things that make us feel better and away from those things that make us feel worse. In essence there are five core drivers that underpin the things that we want to feel and engage with; we want to feel safe, worthy, inspired, self fulfilled and loved. We are motivated towards moving in the direction of things that increase engagement with these core drivers and disengage with those things that have us feel less of the five core drivers. So how does your business fulfill one or more of these core drivers for you and your employees’ contractors or suppliers? Once you have connected with this you can begin the process of enhancing those core drivers. In this process you can assist your employees to connect with the business and connect with how it enhances core drivers for them.

As an example I was coaching a call center manager who had 15 line staff who manned the inbound calls of a large call centre for a major telecommunications organization. As you can imagine a majority of his staff where either fence sitters or detractors, moving away from the business. One of the tools I taught him was the ‘Leap Frog’ technique in which we help the detractors to connect a core driver being meet in the future with what they are doing now. As you can imagine most of the call centre staff are on their way to somewhere else. Most of them are working in the call centre to fund another passion, dream or desire. Therefore we needed to connect those employees with a future, passion, dream or desire to the current reality and show them how the ‘Leap Frog’ effect works. We identified how the current reality was giving them skills, money and experiences that would one day help them and assist them to actualize there passion, dreams and desires. We connected and leap frogged their journey to reaching their end goal. Now in a call center environment every possible statistic is scrutinized. Our experience and coaching lead to a near immediate 25% increase in engagement, which in turn helped this team to be one of the most successful in the whole, call centre.

What we had done is turned a group of individuals from being detractors, because they could not see core drivers being meet, to advocates in a very short period of time. Once they could see how their current reality was actually helping them to have their core driver’s meet, they began to become more engaged in what they where doing and therefore performance improved.

So how does what you are currently doing have your core drivers meet? How does it do this for your employees, contractors or suppliers? What will it take for you to move towards all those things in your business that you currently disengage from?

In our next blog on ‘Managing for Intrinsic Success’ we will provide more tips and practical solutions to the management process. If you need any help in the management process you know where I am!

One Sick Child - Leads to a clear plan for success?

Happy New Year to all of you and I hope you had a great Christmas break, if you got a break that is?

I want to start the year off with a more personal blog and to set a tone of letting you into my life and also into my business life. I want to lead more by example rather than just through knowledge and a façade that we all put on sometimes. I want to be a little more ‘naked’ with my blog. So I hope the following mutterings help.

There were two reasons that I became a business coach, the first is because it is the one thing that allows me to express all of my skills, from business to counseling through to healing. The second was because of lifestyle and a desire to be there for my family…

So here is a story of our New Years holiday that thankfully has a happy ending…

We had a fairly quiet Christmas break together with the traditional family get togethers; lots of wonderful food, great company and many laughs. Once the Christmas craziness was over, and the dishes had all been done and the house once again back to a more ‘normal’ mess as apposed to a ‘crazy’ Christmas mess we decided to get away for the New Year. Having a house up at Mt Buller and a number of friends choosing to spend their New Years eve celebrations at one of the highest points in Victoria we decided to get away.

So on the Thursday we decided to pack up the car and the kid, just Lucy as the other two were with their dad, and off we went.  Now those of you that don’t know me that well I have three children, two beautiful step children Claudia 10 and Brendan 7 and one of our own little Lucy 2. So with Lucy in the car we headed off with a scheduled stop at Lake Eildon to visit some friends who have a houseboat there. I was hoping to water ski for the first time in over ten years, unfortunately the water was too rough much to my disappointment. Anyway after a nice day on the water jet skiing and general splashing about, Lucy loves the water, we headed on up to Buller.

On the way up the mountain Lucy began to become sick and half way up the mountain she threw up. Now this is not the best of stories to start the year but it is what happened and the moral of the story makes all this worth while. By the time we got to the top of the mountain Lucy was quiet unwell. Now our history of going to Mt Buller over the last year has not been a good one. I think we have had at least one sick child on nearly ever trip, so you can imagine our delight at the prospects of another sick one.

After two days of no sleep, Lucy being very unwell and a less than enjoyable New Years Eve for all concerned we decided to head back home early on the Saturday. When we go home Lucy had some concerning symptoms that seemed to be getting worse not better. The poor little thing lay on the couch not talking looking so sad and sultry with a high fever and not wanting to drink or eat. Lucy is normally such an animated kid and loves to talk and play and talk and play… So once again we head off to the Royal Children’s Hospital. I say once again as we had Lucy at the hospital a couple of times during September for an unrelated illness. Now I am not good with my children being sick, which, is quiet different from my normal way of being around sick people. I have spent most of my life helping sick and injured people; be it with a physical or mental illness, get better. Especially in acute situations where I am the person you want around. However when it comes to my little girl I am a bit of a mess. I just hate seeing her suffering and my heart just cried that day. Anyway we sat in the hospital for five hours while they did tests, rehydrated and observed her. After some water a cool lemonade icepole, and don’t icepoles just cure anything, she thankfully seemed to pick up and we were allowed to go home. It was a little worrying for the next 24 hours but I am pleased to say that she has now made a full recovery and back to her normal happy, laughing, dancing and talkative self.

I believe that there are lessons in all of life’s challenges and I think this one highlighted a few. When things are going well we can sometimes forget the ‘specialness’ of life and of the lives of those around us. In some respect it is why I decided to start my own business, so that I could be nearer those that I love most. To be there to see all the little changes, the new words, the new expressions, but mostly to be present when I am truly needed. Now I know we often make the excuse of starting our own businesses to get out of the 9 to 5 rut, working for the ‘boss’ but at the end of the day isn’t it about being closer to the ones we love? Isn’t it about having the freedom to choose when and where we operate our business?

At the end of last year I was stressed, over working and driving myself too hard. I find that it is easy to get caught up in my business, giving it far to much emphasis and energy. I also understand that this is sometimes a difficult balancing act especially for a male as we have the primal hunter-gatherer gene driving us to provide for our families. Now this is not to undervalue the feminine contribution it is just a primal programming that males have, it’s not real in our modern world but unfortunately still affects some of us.

At the end of the day life is all about balance. The business aspect of that balance is driven by the ability to build something, to be the master of our own destiny but most importantly giving us the time and freedom to be with the people we love most. Now January is a great time to get organized and to plan the year ahead. To take stock of the past year, learn from the mistakes, to celebrate the wins and to take the learning’s of all that has been. To then set clear intentions for a wonderful, connected and successful year ahead.

So what I want us all to do is to list all the most important things in your life and to schedule them into your business plans and business calendar. To not forget the real reason you decided to get into your own business, whether that was because of wanting to be closer to your children, animals or friends. To be able to spend more time with your significant other. To be able to spend more time on yourself or just because you had a burning desire to prove your tenth grade teacher that he was wrong! So apart from the business essentials, marketing, networking, finance, sales, product development and admin, place some emphasis on all those other much more important things in your life. Make the most out of them through the ability to organize your business around your life. Remember that if you don’t design your business then your business will design you. It is the same with your life, if you don’t design your life then life will design you.

So take charge of what you truly want to have happen this year. Make a plan to make time for the most important things in your life, in my case my family. And build a solid business plan to have the most successful year of your life, in all areas and in all ways! Oh and if your business is not allowing you the opportunity to have more time, more money and a greater quality of life then maybe you need a business coach…..if I can help you or anyone else you know give me a call marcus@intrinsicsuccess.com.

Here’s to a great year…. CHEERS!

Even the best need a coach!

I was interested to receive the following video the other day where Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, talks about the need to have a business coach. It just goes to prove that even when your at your peak you still need a coach...

Regards Marcus