Like Minded People – World Internet Summit

Today, I attended day one of The World Internet Summit here in Atlanta. Matt Bacak is one of the organizers and I took action and attended the event. Guess what? It was free! Four days filled with Internet Marketing.

Tomorrow, I get to meet Carrie Wilkerson, the Barefoot Executive whom I have known online since last year but have never met her in person. Some of the other names that I am familiar with that I get to meet in person are Perry Belcher, Howie Schwartz, and Dave Lakhani

Guys, keep your ear to the ground. It is so important that you realize that opportunities about all around you and sometimes, all it costs is $8.00 for parking.

Why is this so important?

1. When I go to events like this, I meet lots of people who are doing many different things. I get energized by connecting with other human beings who are in the flow of their life purpose. Benefit to me: I get energized and focused.

2. In addition to meeting lots of wonderful amazing people, I learn so much. The Internet is my business home. Clients find me online and I use the Internet as my primary tool of communication with my community. Twitter, Facebook, email, newsletters ~ these are all communication tools and of course, there is the telephone. Benefit to me: I learn so many new things and I apply them.

2. It is an opportunity to be around like minded people. These are all people that are part of my community, my support network and they may not even know it. Benefit to me: I get tremendous business ideas.

3. You expand your mental concepts. Like the guy that hitched hiked from Nebraska just to attend this event or the Truck Driver who drove 13 hours from New Jersey just to attend this event. In my old life, I may not have appreciated that I may have something significant to learn from a truck driver. I would have treated them with courtesy and respect but I may never have sat down to have a non legal conversation with a hitch-hiker. I receive incredible  energy from such people as I see their determination and share and interact with them.

Benefit to me: I understand that members of my community may not look like me, yet they inspire me and I learn more and more not to judge a book by its cover.

If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know that I absolutely believe in the human potential capital. I love people as I see them as having an idea just waiting to get out there and help other people. I see them as precious and as having capacity within them to live extraordinary lives.  Benefit to me: I am with like minded people.

What opportunities are right under your nose that you are not connected to?

How do you connect with like minded people?

Who are the members of your community and how do you connect with them?

Understanding your business energy.

We all understand that as humans, we require energy. We say things like, “I have no energy.” “My energy is sky high.”

However, most of us do not realize that our businesses also have energy. You see, your business is a living thing. Your business is not just an expression of your skills and talents. It has its very own life force and so it will be wise to look at its energy component.

Let us take a closer look at energy.

Here is what I know about energy. It is not much but it is all I know.

Quantum physics says we are 100% energy. Everything is energy. The Dictionary defines energy as “the ability or capacity to do work.” It is “life force.” More energy equals more ability or capacity to do work.

Energy can never be created or destroyed. It can only be transmuted or changed from one form to another. Think of it this way: Water can change from liquid to steam to ice. The same matter but in different states.

Bearing in mind that matter is energy, energy is constantly in motion. It moves. Its movement is called vibration.

Vibration is the measurement of a particle of matter or energy as it oscillates between states periodically.

When it comes to us human beings, I teach my clients that we are concerned with three types of energy: Receptive, Active and Magnetic.

You have to go through each of these cycles periodically both personally and in your business.

Inspired action is Active Energy.  After a time of being receptive and taking in what it is that you want, you act from a place of inspiration and deliberately use your magnetic energy to guide you and move you forward with active energy.

Often times, receptive energy is considered feminine energy and active energy is considered masculine energy. I have never heard anyone say it before, but I consider magnetic energy the glue that ties the other two energies together.

In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin and yang is used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn.  This is also the receptive and active energies at work.  According to the philosophy, yin and yang are complementary opposites within a greater whole. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, which constantly interact, never existing in absolute stasis. (Wikipedia).

Understanding ying and yang also helps us understand our natural energy cycles. It is natural to be receptive and natural to be active.

As humans, we require a complex set of energies to operate optimally. Each cell in our bodies are designed to do work. They have a specific function. Our energy is multi-dimensional and you have to use all four sources of energy to function optimally.

Physical: If you do not have physical energy nothing else works. Our physical capacity has four components: nutrition, fitness, sleep and recovery or renewal.

Emotional: The quality of your energy. This is about your emotions. How you feel profoundly affects your energy.

Mental: Focus of energy is mental and we do our best work when we focus on one thing.

Spiritual: The energy of the human spirit. This the energy derived from the experience of purpose and from an alignment between what you say is important in your life and how you live. The better that alignment, the more powerful the source of energy available to you. ~ Tony Schwartz

The Spiritual energy is the “why” energy and the others are “how” energy. The “how” energies are fuel for the spiritual “why” energy.

The key is to build your business around “why” energy and keep the “hows” functioning smoothly. Also, as you take Inspired Action in your business, make sure you are offsetting  it with being receptive and taking in support for your business. Coaching is a very effective way to activate your business receptive energy.

What is the energy of your business?

What is your “how” energy?

How do you experience receptivity in your business?

Twitter and The Green Pizza Box

Never underestimate the power of online social networking, especially Twitter. Sometimes it is easier to connect with other people when it is only in 140 characters and not a long drawn out conversation.

Kudos to Ashton Kutcher for taking the time to tell, @greenboxyny on Twitter of Environmentally Conscious Organization (e.c.o.), Incorporated, that her disposable pizza box that is perforated and breaks into four serving plates was “smart.”

What I loved about this story that I heard on ABC’s 20/20 TV show, is that e.c.o., Incorporated is innovative. One of the owners, a recent MBA graduate, could not get a job on wall street and so, she got creative and designed this pizza box and is thriving in this this economy. Why did you and I both not think of that before she did?

And using Twitter? From that single tweet, she got a lot of attention and now The Green Box has been the subject of various news segments and newspaper articles, and has been featured in hundreds of internet blogs and has been the talk of social networking sites around the world. The video has also been viewed half a million times on youtube.

That could be you? How are you using social networking to redefine your values and the way you approach your entrepreneurship?

Job, Career or Calling

I found this video from the Institute of Neotic Sciences. I absolutely loved it.

Now tell me, are you working at a job, a career or a calling? Please let me know. How can you transform your job into a calling? How can you transform your career into a calling? I went through the complete transformation of job as a lawyer to a career as I opened and maintained my own private law firm for fourteen years. Now, that I am a life coach, I truly experience my calling daily. I could not answer this question years ago like I can now. Are you in a career that does not feel fully satisfying? Do you feel there is something more? Have you even considered that your career and your calling may have absolutely nothing to do with each other?

Ride the wave!

Check out this awesome wave! I am struck by how far people will go to pursue their own passion and genius.

Please leave a comment.

Thanks,

Iyabo

Bill Gates

One of the main coaching areas for my clients are building their lives around their core values. Values like justice, creating relationships, family time, creativity, etc. do not do well when they are ignored or pushed to the back burner.

It has been an interesting study of visible people and their successes. When Bill Gates spoke at the TED conference this year, I realized that his core values must be around enabling the masses: Influencing massive amounts of people. He created a company that wants to put computers in every home and now, his philanthropic work is geared towards eradicating childhood diseases that cause high infant mortality in third world countries.

Bill Gates

Many lovely coaching points in this video. He says, “There is no tough problem that does not have a solution.” I love it.

How has your business success helped you be creative in other areas of your life?

U S Airways: Tragedy?

The crash of United Airlines U.S. Airways flight 1549 last week could have been a true disaster. 155 people on the plane and none of them endured any significant harm.

What made the difference in such an event?

The pilot, Captain Chesley B Sullenberger, III saved the day. Years of experience and training prepared him for that very moment. His skill kicked in and his ability to stay calm in the face of a potential catastrophe saved the day. However, one addition to his skill is his talent. His skill was his training to be a pilot and avert disaster. His talent, his natural ability to think in a solution oriented manner, is what saved the day.

We all have skills that we have learned and talents that naturally bubble up in us.

Very few of us realize that these two things can compliment each other and create profound wealth and passion in our lives. I call it wealth because when you are in the flow of doing what you have natural talent for and you add knowledgeable skill to it, you feel powerful and you create new and wonderful opportunities.

That is wealth. That is how you follow your passion and create wonderful opportunities in your life.

What else would you say is a proclamation of wealth in your life today?

Isabel Allende and Passion

I loved this description of passion and the insight into this wonderful and prolific writer. She is passionate about the depth of character of women she has encountered. I love that. I love how true she is to herself.Truly, this is my definition of authentic living – such depth!

Isabel Allende

Midlife Career Change

If you have noticed your inner being screaming at you about wanting to change careers, not just your job, Congratulations!

We humans have wonderful directional emotions that can help us reap fantastic rewards. We just have to learn to listen to those emotions. When your emotions speak to you that loudly, listen to hear clearly what emotional needs are surfacing. You gain great awareness and insight of yourself when you pay attention to what your emotions are saying.

Many midlifers and baby boomers are experiencing yearnings about career changes or have already made the decision to make a career change. There is a reason this time of life is called mid-life. You are half way there, you have worked so hard and you realize you want to capitalize on the lessons learned in the first half of your life to make the second half, happier and more fulfilling.

Career burnout, job dissatisfaction, yearning to make career changes are all indications of your inner being screaming at you that you desire something more congruent with who you have become. You may have decided to make that career change, taken all the assessments available to tell you which direction you should go in, yet you feel hesitant. Something is missing.

The tug of war between job security of your current situation and income uncertainty of a new career can unearth many fears and unpleasant feeling emotions. Perfect! Your emotions serve as a phenomenal guidance system to warn you of potential perils ahead. Planning, creative brainstorming, networking, confidence and determination are all within you to rise up to meet those fears and bypass inertia that can cripple you from making the changes your heart yearns for.

In addition, at midlife it may seem harder to make a career change because you have accumulated responsibilities, mortgages, children, and you have probably experiences a taste of success. Many times, you have also fulfilled that goal that our parents gave us about having a good job.

By asking these questions and taking the time to listen to your inner being’s response, you are creating space in your psyche for the answers to take shape and form and communicate to you clearly what your next step should be.

Is your dissatisfaction an indication that your values are not aligned with your actions?

Do you invest your non-working time in activities that actually feel rewarding?

Are you constantly exhausted, mentally and physically?

Do you feel as if you are a failure although you know that you have achieved success by the standards of others?

Authentic Internet Marketing

It has been an exciting journey for me becoming a coach that depends almost exclusively on my internet based presence to find clients and create a wonderful income. I have learned so much as it has been a huge perspective shift for me. As an attorney, I did not even have a website. My business relied solely on word of mouth. However, as a coach, the most important tool I have is my internet presence. It is all very exciting.

I have been trying to listen to my own personal authentic gauge meter to see what fits for me. Sometimes, I find myself struggling between what everyone suggests I should do and what feels authentic to me. I do not like pushing products on people even though making money is very important to me. It is important to me that my web presence delivers value independent of the money that may be involved.  It is important to me that my web presence is about my potential clients and the value that I can offer them.

So, as I observe what others are doing, I gauge how it feels to me. After all, my feelings are of paramount importance to me! And nothing is more important than that I feel good. Lately I have been seeing a lot of hard sells and a lot of newsletters that sell only product or the person behind the newsletter. I actually see very little value being delivered. Let me clarify on the issue of value here. Of course the product that the person is selling is valuable. I have no problems with that. But usually, they are not giving away any of their core information.

A coach may sell you a product but in the newsletter selling you the product, they have not told you anything that you can use to improve your life. No nuggets, no take aways, nothing that lets you know that this person knows their stuff. Nothing that builds trust and displays genuine competence
So, I have said this is not how I want to be. That is not authentic to me. My product has value whether I put a dollar amount on it or not. Value is a lot more than money to me.

So, I started getting emails from Angela at www.Harmonyharbor.com. I do not know anything about this company. I do not even know how I found her. I stumbled upon her and asked to get her emails as she talks about weight loss and as I started getting her emails, I discovered I love the tone and love that comes across in her emails. She was absolutely lovely. I feel that I know her. She delivers value and I will continue to follow her. It is a weight loss website with no hard sell – Imagine that. Now, I am ranting and raving about this person after only reading about 4 or 5 of her emails! I have had no personal communication with her outside of this!

Please check her out.

Now, my coach and mentor Jeanette Maw also does the same thing. I must have learned this concept from her. She is the most generous, clear-energied, (is that a word?), loving person that I know. Check out her blog at www.goodvibeblog.com and you will see what I mean. She is very successful as a coach. She walks her talk and she is truly the law of attraction guru. I have coached with her for years and I know this for a fact.

She has a whole lotta good vibes flowing. We are at the present having a ball with her post about love. It has caused such a controversy. On every piece of writing she does, she teaches what she knows about the law of attraction. You know what, I just realized something writing this. I said “she teaches.” Teaching resonates with me. Maybe that is the difference. I enjoy teaching and sharing and showing. Other coaches, other people, have skills that may not include teaching and they are selling a product so their newsletters do not teach. Maybe that is the difference.

What do you think?

So today’s Dolphin awards to to Jeanette Maw and Angela at Harmony Harbor.

Check out my previous post on Dolphin awards to see what that is.

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