Floating, Flooding, Ever-Budding

Once you start the force of planning or implement a phase of an existing plan, fresh forces will come into play to which adjustment has to be made. Whether business starts pouring in, your staff or life partner starts to sabotage, or the economy busts –fresh forces there will be.

The good news is that this is natural. Einstein stated that force never moves in a straight line, but in a curve that eventually returns from where it came and in a higher arc, because the universe has progressed since it started.

You can count on the curve of the force returning –the key to success is counting on the new factors that occur at the higher arc level. Plan on stabilizing and harnessing these factors.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads to fortune.” ~Shakespeare

There is a stage of business informally known as flood –this is when everything starts to work and comes together –the arc of your planning returns. It can seem overwhelming because with the flood comes debris –the new factors.

You can float when you routinely plan to revisit your key business success factors and proactively stabilize them. Incorporating a holistic system of measurement and communication will help to navigate the flood and turn debris into assets.

Keep forcefully planning!

Every phase of evolution commences by being in a state of unstable force and proceeds through organization to equilibrium. Equilibrium having been achieved, no further development is possible without once more oversetting the stability and passing though a phase of contending forces. As a friend of mine once said, it is about “floating, flooding, and ever-budding”.  Originally posted Love-is-the-Bottom-Line May 2010 & Strategy Stream March 2012

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Top 10 reasons to embark on a planning journey

Originally posted StrategyStream.com

You can’t discover new oceans unless you have the courage to leave the shore ~ Anonymous

It used to be that business planning fundamentally was about designing linear steps between a a current situation and a chosen future.

There are as many reasons why this idea seems ridiculous in today’s evolving world as there are numerous non-linear way’s to live into a chosen future.

Planning today has very little to do with a chosen destination – planning is an exciting, powerful journey in and of itself – a journey of BEING.

Evolving business planning concepts teach us to proactively interweave action and deep attention throughout our entire lives.

Ironically, planning today is ultimately about understanding we don’t need a plan after all.

Top 10 reasons to embark on a planning journey:

1. To allow you to access how powerful you are and to get to your true “highest-self” desires.

2. To communicate to others who may want to participate with you (as investors, lenders, partners, etc.) what your business is about and where it is going.

3. To create a structure that holds the flow of prosperity and leverages flood.

4. To design a tangible framework in which you invite spirit to co-create with you.

5. To encourage you to ask yourself and others the right questions –right questions include hard questions.

6. To get you to a place where, as much as possible, you are operating from love and projecting out the expansion of love.

7. To give you the “now” of the day-to-day tending of the business of your business, by getting ideas out of your head, “onto paper” and ultimately into a higher stream of consciousness.

8. To have you participate in a consciousness re-creation of how business is done.

9. To serve as a guide for the lifetime of your business by providing guideposts and tools to analyze growth, as well as exit points.

10. To learn how to powerfully negotiate the integrated space between the tangible, material world and the intangible, invisible world.

Whether your planning journey gives you  a formalized business plan for financing or 5-sheets of handwritten notes, embarking on the journey of attention-action planning is a conscious choice to step into the reality of the vast unknown.

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Commune with Your Customers

When you deliver a product or service, you are participating in a shared reality that exists between you and your customers. There is an intimate agreement about the shared reality.  There is trust and communication about the mutual benefits of your interchange.

This is communion; a sharing of spirit.

Within the space of communion, there is a natural evolution that is set in motion. It is a given that this evolution is a growth process for both you and your customers. Consider approaching the development and delivery of your products and services with a conscious commitment to evoke evolution and transformation.

Any evolution is a process; a growth pattern. You set the evolution in motion by fulfilling a specific need or desire for your customer. From that point forward, you are in a unique position to evoke evolution. When you evoke, you go beyond simply participating in the reality between you and your customer, to deeply influencing (impressing) upon the reality.

In order to evoke vs. participate, add an element to each and every one of your products & services that meets not only the immediate desire of your customer, but a “higher desire” as well.  Always reflect back to your customer a vision of their highest self.

Using Apple as an example, if you are selling “M” laptops (aka Macs), delivering with the clear message that your customer has everything to do with why this laptop is so fantastic, meets a higher-desire recognition that “M” laptop users are smart and savvy. When your “M” laptop customer configures their laptop, invite them to join an on-line community of smart and savvy “M” laptop users. These higher desire attributes impress upon the growth pattern of evolution –deepening the relationship with your customer, as well as evoking qualities of co-creation, self-esteem and community.

Think of your products & services as an invitation to an intimate interchange with your customer vs. an exchange –this is the access to communion. An interchange is spirit-to-spirit vs. an ego-to-ego exchange.

If you choose to hold and maintain the interchange of communion with sacred gloves, you impress upon the evolution implicit in communion. Impressing with loving consciousness is the opportunity to influence the highest evolution for business, the planet, and humanity. Originally posted 2010 LBL & 2012 Strategy Stream.

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So we began and will never cease ~Rumi

I stood before a silk worm one day. And that night my heart said to me,

“I can do things like that, I can spin skies, I can be woven into love that can bring warmth to people; I can be soft against a crying face, I can be wings that lift, and

I can travel on my thousand feet throughout the earth, my sacks filled with the sacred.”

And I replied to my heart, ”Dear, can you really do all those things?”

And it just nodded “Yes”

in silence.

So we began and will never cease.

Picture originally uploaded by BlueBirdBaby

More about the pics

Why Poetry?

Get Over It

Originally posted Strategy Stream 

Fundamentally, planning is about creating the steps between a current situation and a chosen future.

We intuitively know how to take creative energy and form it into a plan that has the potential to attract what we need and desire.

Often, frustration occurs when as soon as implementation commences we continue to expect specific linear results and we become lost and identified with goals and the structure itself.

How can we relax when there are bills to be paid and our plan requires x amount of perfect customers to purchase x amount of our perfect products and services?

One option is to go after targets no matter what – ignoring our health, stomping over competitors and employees, short-changing customers, destroying the planet and ignoring our values.  Or, we could simply give up. Or……not.

Another option is to recognize and get over the fact that after we plan what we want, the specific linear results from specific actions phase is over.

Growth will automatically occur once you put a plan in action. It is natural as well that external resistance, internal doubt, and ATTACHMENTS will arise.

Once your plan is intact and implementation begins, it is imperative to to be attentive, enthralled, fascinated, and non-judgmental about EVERYTHING that shows up.

We must then be willing to intervene if necessary and modify external actions with the feedback we receive both internally and externally.  The external is our environment, the internal is feedback we receive when we PAUSE, BREATH, let go and access a deeper knowing.

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Be Respons-able vs Respons-ible

Originally posted Strategy Stream 

If you are acting from feelings of responsibility in your business, more than likely you’re experiencing a sense of disconnection from joy. Being “ible” vs “able” implies a disconnect from the deep and essential internal Self: it implies a belief that empowers the external world more than your deep essential, authentic presence of being aka “I must, have, should do (fill in the blank), in order to (fill in the blank).”

When you act from motivations of obligation, like “I should, I must, I can, therefore I have to,” you act from inwardly contracting energies. A contraction inwardly most often results in feelings of despondency, and loss of energy.

As you come into a more profound state of being, whereby you honor your inner connection and authentic nature even more, the natural result is recognizing the “Responsibility Energy” as divisive and almost destructive rather than something that inspires you or any one else.  It is a very different energy than being response-able.

Being response-able in all areas of your business and life aligns more with motivations that are rooted in spontaneous expressions of loving kindness and true purposeful motivations. Being respons-able allows you to authentically “be”.

Don’t allow a habitual pattern of “Responsibility Energy” to dictate your actions. Be alive, present, aware and simply responsive in a pure and non-contrived manner.

Be present, joyful and response-able.

Reference Catherine Bean Weser and DK – One Life

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Shiny & New

A Beautiful Walk Inside You ~ Rumi

Through this blood veil, the lover sees a beautiful walk

Reason says, There are only six directions: north, east, south, west, up, and down.

There is no way out of those limits.

Love says, But I have many times escaped.

Reason comes to a marketplace and begins haggling prices.

Love wanders away with other business to transact, something to do with incomparable beauty.

There are secret things happening.

Hallaj listens to whispers and walks off the speaker’s platform onto a scaffold.

Dreg-drinkers have love perceptions that reasonable men fiercely deny.

They say, we cannot go barefooted in that courtyard. There is nothing but thorns through there.

Love answers, The thorns are inside you.

Be silent, and pull what hurts out of your loving’s foot.

Then you will see gardens with secluded rose bowers, and they will all be inside you.

Shams is the sun obscured by this cloud of words.

Maybe he will burn the overcast off and let love clear and brighten.

Why Poetry?

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Core Ideology : It’s a Big Deal

Originally posted Strategy Stream 8/25/11

Within each of us is the ability to influence and make the world a better place. 

Core Ideology typically means the Mission, Vision, & Values of a business entity.  The ideology then acts as a communication to stakeholders, from employees to investors, about what the company will always hold to –the guideposts from which to act.

The Mission, Vision & Values of an entity can be created by a solo-prenuer and then shared with others as his / her empire grows, or the ideology can be created by partners, board of directors and / or a mixture of who the business entity representatives are at this crucial setting down of the declaration of who the company is.

An influential study by Collins & Porras resulting in the book Built to Last written in 1994, makes the case that companies that go on beyond the founders have done so by standing by the initial core ideology.

It is noteworthy that in the majority of these company’s statements about ideology, there is a common thread of inspirational loftiness and intentional well-meaning.

There is a fundamental ideal or “knowing” of an ability to influence, adjust and make the world a better place.

At the core or essence of each of us is this knowing.  There is that center, that divine spark that has access to the infinite and the ability to master the material.

It is this essence, coupled with a business core ideology, that not only will drive your business to wild, fulfilling success,

the combo contains the unique ability to be a powerful Source of Good; championing a philosophy that positively influences.

Here’s Strategy Stream’s Core Ideology

Here’s Zappos’ Core Values

Here’s Whole Foods’ Core Values

Here’s an example of someone who has taken her philosophy and shared it in a simple, compelling, marketable way

Read more about creating a core ideology that makes a difference in the world in the eBook Becoming a Source of Good

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Update : the new Strategy Stream site is live!

Strategy Stream a heart-centered approach to designing and implementing strategy for small business, has transitioned to it’s own website!

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See you in the flow!

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy ~Rumi

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Hip-Hop, Yoga, and Being Super Rich

Guest post by Barbara Diane Beeler

Think of the “godfather of hip-hop” Russell Simmons and you definitely think RICH. He founded the music label Def Jam as well as clothing lines such as Phat Farm and American Classics. With a net worth estimate of $340 million, he is the third richest figure in hip-hop, only behind artists Diddy and Jay-Z. But do you also think of yoga and spirituality when you think of Russell Simmons?

Simmons is the author (along with Chris Morrow) of Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All. His business website www.rushcommunications.com relates his many business successes, which “have spanned music, film, television, fashion, video games, online and financial services” and his activism, which “has encompassed all of the areas touched by his businesses, including poverty, education, social justice and inclusion.”

It’s easy to daydream about being incredibly rich, but Simmons is more than just about having a lot of money. He grew up in a lower-middle class African-American community in Queens and recently was named one of the 25 most influential people of the last 25 years by USA Today. He has two beautiful daughters he adores (and a beautiful, well-known, and accomplished ex-wife Kimora Lee Simmons). Not only does he practice yoga, meditation, and philanthropy, he also eats no meat. He believes that there is a connection between his spiritual practices and his worldly success.

The title of his book Super Rich might make you think it’s all about accumulating money, but to Simmons that term means “the state of needing nothing.” That’s powerful! THE STATE OF NEEDING NOTHING. Imagine being in that state. Surely, you’d feel super rich. But how do you achieve that state? Simmons says that we have to “clear out the clutter and quiet the noise” that keeps us from “hearing” or connecting with the happiness…or the richness…that is already inside of us.

He says that we attract the world to us by giving until the world can’t live without what you have to offer. Huh? To get rich, you just give away what you have? YES! He quotes yogis: “You never lose what you have given” and says that if you “just show the world a fraction of the sweetness and honesty that’s in your heart, it’s going to come running after you.”

What else can you do to attain the STATE OF NEEDING NOTHING?

• Access stillness…that “quiet, peaceful mental state that allows you to be completely present in life.” Then you can become “totally connected with the inspiration and imagination that’s inside [you].”
• “Stay focused on your work without any expectations for, or concern with, the fruit of your labor” and “operate out of a zone of pure focus and clarity” like Michael Jordan did on the basketball court.
• Be a business yogi and “only do shit you believe in. Period!” Vegan Simmons, for example, says he would never invest in a restaurant that serves meat. If you are a yogi, you won’t do work that creates instability or suffering in the world. Let go of the results…and watch what happens!
• “Be reborn every day.” Simmons went from being a drug dealer to a mega-rich businessman, yogi, author (he previously penned the New York Times best seller Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success), and humanitarian. How did he do that? He “began moving away from [his] unconscious state and toward enlightenment.” He says it is important to “get open”…to be fluid and creative and never rigid.
• Build bridges…with people of other races, religions, beliefs, etc…that will bring people together. Recognize that we are all connected.
• Practice and realize the power of acceptance and love of others and what is.
• Enjoy and be grateful for the material things, but don’t become burdened by or attached to what you have. Instead, achieve balance in life.
• “Make a real commitment to being conscious and compassionate.”  He quotes the story of theBhagavad Gita and Arjuna’s final words to Lord Krishna: “Through your kind conversation, I’ve woken up and am conscious of who I really am.” Simmons says that even if you fall short in all the above things, if you are conscious and compassionate, you will…like Arjuna…become more awake, which is “central to all your success.”

Simmons says that, armed with the knowledge in the book, we can be like Arjuna and:

To fight not for what you can get for yourself, but what you can give to others.

To fight not for your own abundance, but for the abundance of others.

To fight not for your own security, but for the peace and safety of others.

To fight not for your own joy, but for the happiness of others.

To fight not for your own upliftment, but for the enlightenment of others.

Russell Simmons, hip-hop, fashion, and multi-business mogul, yogi, father, UN Goodwill Ambassador, vegan, and philanthropist, ends the book by saying:

When you are devoted to fighting for these things with a smile on your face and love radiating out of your heart, then all these things will be yours. You will have it all. You will be Super Rich.

How refreshing to see someone who truly is super rich in every way practice what he says. Thanks, Russell Simmons.

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