Everyday Bliss

Hey folks! I wanted to let you know that Tao Of Ka-Ching Adjunct Faculty member Andy Wibbels is giving his most amazing "Easy Bake Weblogs" class starting next week. This is the course that started me and many other coaches out blogging for our businesses and heck, just for fun. I can’t tell you how many business connections I’ve made since EasyBake, so if you’re looking to get started, this would be the class.

Go ahead and click here:  Easy Bake Weblogs to see what this is all about and why you NEED a blog to max your business potential. Or, keep reading to check out what you get:

EasyBake Is…

• A 4 part course with Andy Wibbels with 4 weekly 1-hour calls.
• Includes webcast.
• All calls are recorded. Audio archives from previous runs of the course are also available.
• Library of tutorials and Flash demos.
• Instant,
  anywhere, lifetime access. Archives are available forever from any
  internet connection on any browser. Free registration for future runs
  of the course.
• 60-day money back guarantee.

Main points covered:

• Creating your first blog (on your TypePad blog)
• Customizing your blog to suit your business
• Techniques for maximizing your business blog

Plus which I can tell you that it’s an awful lot of fun. And if you don’t know Andy yet, he’s a hoot! The thing I like is that you can keep on coming back again and again for life if you want. Andy’s always there to answer a question, and the Easy Bake community is really supportive. Easy Bake Weblogs for all your blogging needs!

From guest writer  Lisa Wilder, we have a timely piece for all you Energy Coaches and Therapists out there on how to Better Your Business. Lisa is a phenomenal coach and woman of great personal wisdom – I can recommend no one of greater integrity to you in teaching you how to run a superbly successful business. (to find out more about Lisa, read her bio at the end of the article)

I asked Lisa to write for our readers who have their own coaching, therapy or other service businesses as she is the very best. Lisa will be writing for us in the months to come and I have a recommendation: copy all her posts and put them in your "Business Development Tools" folder (what? you don’t have one? start one today!)

Welcome Lisa, to Sage Wisdom and the Quantum Flow Community.

How To Become An EXPERT…No Matter WHAT You Do! by Lisa Wilder

One of the greatest investments you can make to ensure your
business is wildly successful is in the area of your professional
development. It’s essential that you:

§ First become
an expert in your field.

§ Then become
known as an expert in your field.

While these two essentials sound like one and the same
thing, there’s an important distinction between the two. The first is about the
knowledge and skills you already possess, and the next is about increasing your
market’s awareness of the knowledge and skills you possess. You can’t become
known as an expert in your field without first being an expert in your field.

Choosing a very specific area of expertise for which you
want to become known has two big advantages:

• It
  will allow you to become known as an expert in your field much more quickly.
• It will make it much easier for you to hone in on what you already know so that you can begin to recognize the areas in which you need further development.

If you find the very idea of having to become an expert
intimidating or overwhelming, you’re not alone, but like anything else worth
doing in life or business, it’s much easier than it might appear: Just break it
down into doable steps.

Step 1: Become very clear about how you want to be
known in your field.

When I say “become very clear,” I
mean very clear. Get specific. Within
any field the possible areas of expertise are too numerous to count. Don’t try
to be everything to everyone. Trying to be everything to everyone, far from
helping you to become known as an expert, will only confuse your market and
frustrate you. Simply put, it’s much more effective to know a lot about one
thing than to know a little bit about many.

Steps 2 & 3: Identify and
acknowledge the expertise you already have, and identify the expertise you need
to gain.

This is not the time to be modest by undervaluing your knowledge and skill or
to inflate your ego by over-estimating your knowledge and skill. For this
process to work, you’ve got to be really honest with yourself. Have fun with
it. Give yourself a big pat on the back for all of the expertise you’ve already
got and let the possibilities for gaining new expertise inspire you.

Learning new things is exciting,
and when you’re always striving to learn new things, things you can share with
your market, that excitement shines through and is very attractive. You can’t
fake excitement and passion for what you do and how you can help your market,
and that excitement and passion will resonate with the market you’re meant to
serve.

Here’s a brief side-note for those
of you who are already experts in your field: I’d like to challenge you to
explore the ways in which you can expand on your current expertise. There is always more to learn.

Step 4: Look at all of the ways in
which you can gain the expertise you need.

Start by doing some research
online. Who in your field already has the expertise you’re looking to gain?
Gaining the knowledge and skill you need doesn’t have to be difficult. If
there’s someone in your field who can walk you through what you need to learn,
by all means, jump on the opportunity. Read any books or ebooks they’ve
written. Take a class or two or three. Enroll in an online program. Explore the
possibility of a mentor/apprentice relationship.

Learning what you need to learn will increase your
confidence in your ability to provide the best possible services and products
to your market—the first key to moving from being an expert to becoming known
as one. You have to be confident in your own expertise and ability in order to
instill that confidence in others.

When you really know your stuff and can demonstrate your
expertise to your market, you’ll be able to clearly distinguish yourself from
the many others who provide similar services, you’ll gain greater visibility,
and you’ll become known as the expert
in your particular field. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll earn the
reputation and trust necessary for a potential client to engage your services.
You’ll gain new clients, increase sales, and significantly improve your bottom
line.

Investing the time, energy, and money necessary to become an
expert or to gain additional expertise is one of the best investments you can
make to ensure the on-going success of your business. You’ll reap the rewards
of your investment many, many times over.

About The Author:

Lisa Wilder has over eighteen years in business management, and development,
and is passionate about helping service professionals to create lives and
businesses joyfully doing what they love. Lisa specializes in small business
development, including branding, marketing, and online systems and management.

With deep roots in energy systems management, Lisa ran and developed a Traditional
Chinese Feng Shui training and consulting business for many years. More recently, she co-facilitates
the Book Yourself Solid 15-week intensive with internet entrepreneur, Michael
Port.

Find Lisa at: “The Wilder Zone” http://www.thewilderzone.com
where she provides superior personal and professional coaching and support for service
professionals.

This just in from the Boston Globe:

The second annual BlogHer conference, with corporate sponsors like General Motors
and Johnson & Johnson, will be held July 28-29 in San Jose, Calif.
Attendance is expected to double from last year’s session, which was
supported by Yahoo
and Google and attracted more than 300 women from around the country.
Last year’s theme was “Where are the women bloggers?" The theme for
BlogHer ‘06 is “How is your blog changing your world?"

Indications
are that it’s changing it plenty for some women. Boston-based BlogHer
member Lisa Williams, who attended BlogHer ‘05, is the founder of
H2OTown.info, a community news blog for Watertown.

“What struck
me was how different the hallway noise was compared to other
professional conferences I’ve attended," she said. “The hallways
echoed with warm and excited `Ooohs’ as women met the women whose blogs
they had been reading."

Said Grier: “Face-to-face is very
important. Meeting another person makes what’s on the blog real. At
BlogHer I met people I’ve never known, but who really knew me because
they had been reading my blog."

In May, BlogHer launched an ad
network for its membership to channel economic benefits back to the
women who blog. The trick, BlogHer founder Des Jardins said, is to
“help bridge the gap and yet still maintain the sanctity of their
blogs." As a result, the ad network is totally voluntary. But the
economic benefit to women bloggers is not just in the few dollars they
may earn in ad revenue; it’s in the human connections they make through
their blogs. Increasingly, the conversations begun on blogs are
spawning opportunities…

Read the lot  and come participate if you can. Alas, I shall be at an NLP World Health graduate training during this time, but my thoughts are with you HerBloggers!

I was reading CJ’s blog today and found her wonderful post about increasing awareness of all the time we really have in our lives. I commented, and as its relevant to all of you, am repeating, here:

…I was buying into what I now believe is the myth of "not enough time". That is one of the Scarcity Myths that most bedevil our culture. I think, as you point out with Zig Ziglar’s quote, that what we do with our time is strongly linked to our perception OF time, ruled by choice. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that time is merely an illusion we have all agreed to participate in to order our world, and is subject to our shaping.

One of the challenges that I have taken up recently is to work progressively less, by one hour a day, and incrementing that each week, until stress relief is achieved. I now "work" four days a week, for eight and sometimes ten hours, by preference, with liberal lunches and breaks.

On only three of those four days, do I teach or see clients. I found I work much better using Day Four as an admin, marketing and product creation etc. day, where I can turn my extended focus on those activities exclusively. While I may do those things as-needed on the other days I work, I focus on them on Day Four, and have increased my productivity manyfold. As a consequence, I have much more leisure in my life, a three day weekend, and much MORE time for my family and other projects that interest me.

If anyone had told me this was possible at the outset of my coaching career, I would have said "Yeah, sure!" and walked away shaking my head thinking they were trying to scam me!  We truly do have to be *ready* for certain wisdom to sink in.

There are many things we can do to sculpt our lives into more heroic curves and folds. One of those things I believe is to first and foremostly be heroes in our own lives, by putting ourselves first, saying "no" more often and attending to our own energy needs as a prime directive. Not in a "bad selfish" way either – but in the most self-nurturing way possible…so we can be there in even more quality for others. Thank you CJ as always, for being such a wonderful exemplar!

I was on one of my regular reading runs through the blogs of friends and what Andy Wibbels calls "professional crushes" when I came across Andrea Lee’s post on travelling (we met up at her Power of Collaboration conference in New York a few weeks ago – such a fine time!) and the nature of rituals in our lives. I started a short little comment that turned into an essay I thought I’d repost here:

Blessings Andrea, What a beautiful essay here. So life-affirming – love the mendhi designs! When I was Muslim, many years ago, a bride would be hennaed from head to toe and all of her girlfriends would do their hands and feet as well, to "borrow the luck" of the bride. Group rituals such as this form the bedrock of culture.

Your comments on rituals got me to thinking. As a former spiritual circle leader, my life and those of people I coached in that community were all about rituals. Rituals for morning coffee, as well as the usual spirituality-based ones. Rituals bracketed our day – and there were rituals for every possible contingency that might happen during that day. Argue with your honey? There was a ritual for it. Burn the toast? A ritual. Apply for a new job? Another ritual. And I’m a card-carrying member of Curves myself – which is conveniently (or as part of a satanic plot, I can’t figure out which) located right next door to the Starbucks. And yep, a few times a week I treat myself to a venti iced decaf sugar-free vanilla Americano with extra room for a splash of half-’n-half (splash not to exceed two tablespoons!).

Rituals shape our lives. We wouldn’t know where we were or who we were without them. Joe Campbell says that while all animals practice ritualistic behavior, human beings are the only animals who need ritual to affirm identity. Alfred Korzybski observed that humans are the only animals who bind time, to ritualistically stop it, to preserve the moment. And this is where many of our clients get caught up – in memories of a gloried past or longings for a better future…while the present moment goes to heck in a handbag. Binding time is also one of the pitfalls in ritualistic behavior.

As I left that particular form of spiritual expression, I took comfort in the many personal rituals involved in my business, as I think many coaches do. Rituals such as lighting a candle or meditating before work can be so very helpful, but I notice they’re not the ones that make the most difference. What endures lies in the every day, that which is enjoined by others and repeated with regularity. Ritual expression of culture to a large degree, is communal. Coaching community culture is no exception.

Consider the following:

* The way we open coaching calls or in-person sessions is ritualistic, as are the ways in which we disengage and part company. I have a coach friend who says goodbye to clients exactly three times, in three different ways that always use the same verbiage. When asked, she’s said it’s to disengage "softly" to leave the client feeling well. It’s worthwhile to note she is a coach for Restorative clients. Those in other niches have completely different rituals for disengagement.

* The manner in which we relate to our clients is ritualistic – who knows coaches who are termed "ball breakers" or conversely, "nurturers"? Stereotypes such as these are observations of ritualistic behavior

* Our welcome packets or initial sets of coaching guidelines discussed in-session are expressions of ritual in and of themselves, and are a notification to the client not only of the rituals we will be engaging in with them, but also the ritualistic manner in which we prefer to communicate.

* The structure of the meat of the session itself takes on ritual overtones: first the welcome, then the celebration of wins, then what didn’t work and coaching on tightening up the process, goals tracking and checking benchmarks etc…one topic follows the next in pretty much similar format that forms our coaching "style".

Style, culture, blog posting, even making coffee – humans are never devoid of their rituals. Rituals enrich our lives and make us who we are. Birthing new ventures, the way we structure our partnerships – all a series of rituals and expressions of the sacred. It’s a blessing to notice that the sacred is never far away, only a turn of our attention. Which can be a ritual in and of itself.

Love and Blessings, Maryam Webster

PS: To share – my celebration song is Santana’s "Everything Is Goin’ Our Way"  It’s on the ole’ iPod on constant repeat some days…   

If you’re like me, you have a message you really, really want to get out to the world. Mine of course is being the original Energy Coaching Evangelist and the phenomenal and absolute success you can create when you use Quantum Flow Bioenergetic methods in your life. But you’ve heard me go on about that before… 

If you don’t already know my good friend and business buddy Andy Wibbels, I’d like to give you an introduction. He’s the original Blogging Evangelist and helps small business owners (like yours truly!) get our unique messages out to the public through blogging*.  There’s a free report here if you’re interested in learning how:

http://snipurl.com/GoBlogWild

Andy’s new book "Go BlogWild!" is coming out THIS THURSDAY the 6th of April. If you buy it through Amazon.com ON THURSDAY April 6th, you can coup a fantastic amount of freebies and added bonuses – including the ever-nifty "EFT For Writer’s Block" (including 12 page PDF and MP3 audio) from yours truly.

When you make your purchase at Amazon THIS THURSDAY, go back to the BlogWild website and rake in a whopping $50 off any of Andy’s amazing blogging  courses, plus get all the wonderful freebies available. Check it  all out here:

http://snipurl.com/GoBlogWild

I’ve taken many of Andy’s courses: Easybake Weblogs, Business Blogging Basics, Six Figure Blogging, RSS and Podcasting, and I’ll attest that they WORK! I’ve gotten clients, gotten the word out and sold my products through blogging. I’ve made money, friends, business contacts and had a lot of fun on the way.

What’s YOUR Urgent Message?

If you need more clients, want to be an information point to get the news out about some new idea, product, personal rant or school of thought – a blog is what you need. You don’t even have to run a business to greatly  benefit from this book! Again, check out the FREE EXCERPT here:

http://snipurl.com/GoBlogWild

Why do I recommend it? Unlike books that tell you how to write (you learned that in fourth grade) Go BlogWild! is the definitive word on USING your blog to get what you want – more exposure, more clients, more sales. Whatever your goal, Go BlogWild!  This phenomenal small business resource is not only an easy and pleasant read, but will get you up and blogging in no time and on to fun, friends and profits.

Even if you’re already blogging, YOU NEED the business savvy and ways to make your blog better than it ever could be on its own. Tons of tips, hints and little-known secrets on how to get your blog top ranked and push massive amounts of traffic to your website.

Just Click Here and BUY on THURSDAY, April 6th: 

http://snipurl.com/GoBlogWild

And enjoy the many benefits of blogging!

Donna Steinhorn has a tendency to create value wherever she goes. First as Dean of CoachVille’s Schools of Coaching and now as co-creator of the Association of Coaching Excellence. Donna has a myriad of great blogs to her credit, but one of them I want you to go see immediately is her Coaches Toolbox. In it today Donna gave a great resource for Free NeuroLinguistic Programming Software for coaches and others wishing to improve their communication. Interesting stuff, click here.

This just in from WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer, Thu Oct 27, 9:18 AM ET:  NEWARK, N.J. – Students at Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta appear to be heeding a directive from the principal, the Rev. Kieran McHugh, to remove personal postings about the school or themselves from Web sites like myspace.com or xanga.com, even if they were posted from the students’ home computers.

Officials with the Diocese of Paterson say the directive is a matter of safety, not censorship. But constitutional experts say the case raises interesting questions about the intersection of free speech and voluntary agreements with private institutions.

My Two Cents: This is where we are going wrong with our kids and have for centuries. "Ban them from action, straightaway!", rather than teach with love and high amount of family involvement in the child’s life. Which do you think kids would react to better? The ACLU has an opinion:

Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which champions the rights of bloggers, said there have been several attempts nationwide by private institutions to restrict or censor students’ Internet postings.

"But this is the first time we’ve heard of such an overreaction," he said. "It would be better if they taught students what they should and shouldn’t do online rather than take away the primary communication tool of their generation."

More spare change: I’ll extend that and say "teach them what to do and WHY" – the Why is so often left out and children are told "mind me!" without the reason they should mind. Such exercise of authority is destined to spark rebelliousness, even in the most placid teen. Trips to the morgue are being resorted to now with regard to teenage drunk driving – and with reason. After one of these court-ordered trips, kids rarely drink and drive again.

I wonder what generous amounts of communication, love and trust would get the diocese? Isn’t that what Jesus was all about? Love and trust – what a concept…

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051027/ap_on_hi_te/catholic_school_internet

Early October and already the trees are turning in Silicon Valley. In Los Altos, the oaks, madrones and Asian fruit trees are springing in colors of crimson and gold and the farmer’s market apples are the sweetest, fattest and most juicy. I’ve been thinking about what I have done in the summer and where I am taking stock of what still needs be planned for the winter. October is a precious place of both bustle and quiet and getting in the last light-filled nutrients of the summer. While you’re doing that, don’t forget the health of other places in your body and your life…first, the source of all nutrition from the moment we are born: the breasts.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As with my newsletter, The Catalyst, we are focusing this month in this blog on natural health strategies to prevent Breast Cancer. First, I’m going to point you towards a wonderful Breast Cancer blog, by an R.N. and Breast Cancer survivor, Lillie Shockney, of Johns Hopkins University. In her October 2 post, Lillie writes:

Now that it’s October, you won’t be able to turn on the television, open a woman’s magazine, or listen to the radio without hearing public service announcements related to breast cancer awareness. Forty years ago this was a hushed disease that was barely discussed in the privacy of one’s home, much less in public.

Today, breast cancer is front and center in the public eye. That’s good news. The more we educate women about this disease, the more women will be diagnosed early and become long-term survivors like myself.

I hope that during this month you will consider doing several things:

• Encourage someone you love to get her annual mammogram. (Include yourself!) Screening mammography facilities book fast, so call now and schedule yours. Take your sister or mom with you. Go to lunch afterwards knowing that you’ve done the right thing for your families by maintaining your breast health.

• Participate in a breast cancer awareness event. There are many to choose from: Race for the Cure, Avon’s 2 Day Walk, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Your local breast center may be planning some events that you could join. These events raise local awareness and funds for education and research.

• Donate to a breast cancer organization. The funds raised today will help us find the cure so our daughters won’t have to worry about this disease in the future.

• Wear a pink ribbon to promote awareness.

• Write to a friend or relative who is a breast cancer survivor and tell her how proud you are of her for having taken on this disease and overcome it.

• Write to a friend or relative who has lost a loved one to this disease to say that you are making a donation in her memory.

• Attend women’s health seminars that discuss breast cancer to empower yourself with information about this disease: early detection, prevention, and treatment.

The day will come when breast cancer appears in the textbooks in the chapter "Cured Diseases." Until then, we need to do the right thing for ourselves and those we love.

- From: http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/experts/breastcancer/109/october-is-breast-cancer-awareness-month

This is an excerpt. You can read more of this post by clicking the link above, or go to the homepage of Lillie’s blog here: http://blogs.health.yahoo.com/experts/breastcancer

As much as you enjoy, and have had your children and lovers enjoy the beauty and nurture of your breasts, remember to enjoy and appreciate "your girls" and do that self-check like clockwork.

And, I may be branded a heretic for saying this, but ONCE A MONTH IS NOT ENOUGH!

My mother, grandmother and auntie died of breast cancer….I do not intend to. If you don’t either, there are some simple things you can do to prevent it. Go along to Lillie’s blog and read her tips there and keep this one in mind as well: the more you handle your breasts, the better you will know them and be sensitised to even minute changes in them. That once a month breast-check doctors advocate is not enough to tell you this information for sure. When you give your breasts a healthy, loving daily massage, you’ll know right on the minute if and when something isn’t quite right.

I find it best to incorporate breast-massage into my daily routine, both when I first roll out of bed and before bed. This helps the lymphatic system to draw away toxins and any waste products the breast tissue might excrete, or toxins from other parts of the body that are naturally drawn to embed in fatty tissue like the breasts. Here’s how you can safely massage your breasts and create a mental "map" of them both in your head and fingertips so you will be aware of any changes as they occur, every day:

• Use the pads of your fingers to lift the breast tissue up and massage the crease beneath both breasts. This feels really good after taking your bra off, in addition to every morning and evening, when you want to make sure any sluggish bodily byproducts are massaged out of the breast tissue to be taken away by the lymph system.
• Speaking of bras, don’t wear bras with metal underwires. In addition to cutting off your natural flow of energy at the breast, they dig in and compress acupuncture points, which can have deleterious effects on the immune system, liver, spleen, chest and breast tissue.
• Take one breast in both hands and alternately compress the left and right hands around the tissue, working out towards the nipple from the chest wall. Move your hands into a slightly different position and continue until you feel "done". Repeat on the other breast. This feels really good, and will give you a good idea of where your natural "lumpiness" if any, lies.
• Take one hand and massage the entire breast surface (making small circles then moving on a few fingerwidths to the next spot) in a clockwise motion, going outward from the nipple towards the chest wall in an ever-widening spiral.
• Massage above the top of the breast, on the pectoral muscle. This as most of the above moves can be easily and quickly accomplished in the shower, with plenty of soap lather in lieu of massage oil, to ease friction on the sensitive breast tissue.
• Lift both breasts, especially if heavy, and allow to remain suspended as high as you can lift them, for several minutes. Standing on your head if you’re an accomplished yogini, is the best way to accomplish this. Failing that, less limber gals can hang torsos upside down, off the end of our beds. Breasts love to "hang out in reverse" – opposite to the way they fall when we are upright.

Most of us just ignore our two best girlfriends, because they hang out under our chins all day every day anyway. Why pay special attention to them?  Why indeed! Think of having this increased good relationship with your body not so much as "breast cancer prevention", but "Breast Awareness" and promoting "Best Breast Health". Love your breasts completely, even if they’re not as big or small as you want them to be, even if they’re not "perfect". Few people are perfect, but you have the most perfect breasts for you that there will ever be. Appreciate them.

Here’s to our breasts – not a one of us would be alive without their wonderful nurture!

Hiya! If you’re looking for Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), LIVE ENERGY COACHING or an opportunity to interact with me in person, I have harvest cornucopia of FANTASTIC FREEBIES for you! I’m teaching TWO wonderful Energy Coaching teleclasses (and one LIVE, in-person class) that are FREE to you, this week!

TODAY! 1. With Certified Energy Coach Program alumni C.J. Arnaudo and Martha Mayo (who incidentally are co-teaching for our upcoming CEC Program Autumn semester) I will be facilitating a class entitled:

‘Tap The Moment: EFT For Everyday Stress Relief’

Day: Tuesday August 30th, 2005 Time: 6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern Call in number: 1-605-528-8800, pin code 25241#

You’ll learn how to use Emotional Freedom Techniques ‘inline’ to eliminate the stresses of everyday life. Learn how to stop stress in a few easy minutes before it can pile up on you! Participants on the call will get a BONUS report on a powerful NLP technique for Changing Your Beliefs, plus a whole HOUR audio file of me leading you through the process, step by step! This resource will only be available to those who attend the call, or listen to it afterward. Be sure to be there!

2. Wednesday August 31st, I will be facilitating a LIVE demo of Energy Coaching using EFT and TAT at the Five Branches Acupuncture Institute at 200 7th Street in Santa Cruz, CA. We’re a go at 12:30pm in the Bamboo Room. If you’re a student of acupuncture in the area, get yourself in there!

3. Later in the day on Wednesday August 31st, I will be co-hosting a teleclass with my good buddy Andy Wibbels (the BlogFather: www.andywibbels.com).

‘EFT and Energy Coaching For Writer’s Block’  (and Anything Else that Prevents You From Making Your Blog, or anything about your life, A Raging Success)

Day: Wednesday August 31st, 2005 Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern

Get all the info, bridgelines and special bonus PDF’s here:

http://www.certifiedenergycoach.org/files/private/ec_expertcall_aw.html

See you on one or all of these calls and/or live classes – we’re gonna have a BLAST!