I was sitting down with Wendy the other day and I asked her what she wanted from her situation.

For the next minute (until I stopped her) she told me what she didn’t want.

Wendy’s not  unusual. To be honest, I could have substituted Wendy for a dozen other names (and more) who have done the same, when asked that question.

We all notice what we don’t want and as long as we stay focussed on that, we keep getting it.

My son used to walk through the house with his muddy shoes and I told him not to do that, but still he did it. Yet the day I told him what I wanted him to do – i.e. take your shoes off before you come in the house, things improved.

When we notice what we don’t want, it usually comes from pain (in this case dirty carpets). But when we shift the instructions and programme our brain with desired results, changes materialise.

When one of my kids speaks to me in a rude way, it’s not something I desire. It’s very simple to say, “I can’t speak to you/help you until you speak to me with respect.”

They were more annoyed to begin with, then a little confused at my change, but now that sentence is met with a quick apology and usually an immediate change in how I get spoken too.

Asking for what you want is a lot easier than hinting or hoping. But often people struggle with being so clear on what they want, because they don’t know what they want.

Any situation in life that causes you to feel upset, annoyed, angry etc, is just an early warning signal that something you don’t like just happened. Use it to uncover what you want to happen and then ask for that to happen.

It’s so much easier than having the same thing happen over and over (which it inevitably will until you change it in some way).

It’s a lot easier to ask someone to pass the salt, rather than say, “I think my dinner needs a little salt…” and have 3 other people say, “Mine does to,” then wait while they all get the salt or go without because you didn’t want to burden anyone.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

As Dan Millman said during the Spirited Living Summit: “If you want to lose weight, you don’t need to go on a radical diet, just start eating from a smaller plate.”  And as Celebrity Coach, Michael Neill said when I interviewed him, “Change doesn’t have to be painful.”

When you want it to happen, the next logical thing is for it to happen!

We can take small steps and we can allow ourselves some enjoyment and fun.

It’s not always possible to immediately go from a situation in life to your desired result, but we can often get there by taking several easy and natural steps.

A few weeks ago I asked, “What would be better than this?” If asking this question can make things 10% better, then you can make things 10% better than that.

In personal development we’re often told to write down our goals. This is a useful exercise because we gain clarity and put a little more focus into what we write. This is a great first step.

If you draw it out, too, you deepen that connection and you also stimulate the other side of your brain. This is a great second step.

New age teachings recommend we visualise what we want – sitting down and imagining things as we want them to be. And this can be a lot of fun – especially when you let your imagination run riot with juicy possibilities!

But I’d like to offer you a step I add, which may spice things up a little…

When you can imagine what you want to happen now, as you go about your day, or as you make dinner, doze in bed or while you’re out walking or sitting down in front of the TV, you’ll find it coming to you easier and quicker.

We do this when we fall in love. While we’re eating, we’re thinking about the person we’re falling in love with. We imagine what our next date will be like… what we’ll say… how we’ll say it… what we’ll wear…

And you do this with your visualisation to the point where what you want to happen feels like the next logical thing to happen.

When you get to the point of positively expecting it to happen, it will.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

As you probably know by now, we’ve been helping people – people just like you and me – to live life with purpose, passion and spirit at work and in everyday life for around five years.

The word community means “coming into unity” and CommunitySoul was inspired by a vision of people coming into unity with your soul… expanding, gently growing, being all you can be… loving life… engaging with the adventure of life.

For a long time I’ve been aware that anger, frustration, pain, fear and the like are just pointers – reminders that we have become disconnected from what’s  most important in life.

I’ve had my fair share of the painful side of life and used it time and again to resolve what’s happening. I’ve also taught others how to do this and have seen their lives changed beyond belief in a short space of time.

It’s using the pain points in life that have helped me create a life I love. I’m living in a place that’s at the base of the Mendip hills in the south west of the UK. I’ve got horse paddocks behind me and hills all around, and in the distance I have what an estate agent would call sea glimpses.

Jo and I got married just over a year ago and and for that I took 6 weeks off. And that’s not something everyone can do.

I have two kids, with who I have great relationships, and I’m one of the blessed parents whose kids tell them what a great dad I am (and it’s not always preceding a request for money or a lift!).

I’m engaged in work that  I  adore and find inspiring, serving people who want to become more… and I love that as human beings we can always expand a little more.

I’m not ever-so wealthy, but I am debt-less, and I could take six months off work without worrying and it feels good to have that kind of security.

And I’m sharing this with you because…

I want you to know that whatever setbacks you have, whatever you go through, you can build the life you want to live, from whatever starting point you are at right now.

When you are unhappy with something, it’s evidence that something needs to change. And you are the one who has to… and who can… change it.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

“Ignorance is the night of the mind, a night without moon or star.” Confucius

Living on the outer edge of my comfort zone has helped me explore the mystery of life a little and I’d like to share some of the experience with you in the hope it provides an added source of inspiration to you.

Do you like to have a plan for the day?

When I used to wake up in the morning I wanted to feel certain about the day. I wanted to know where I had to be, how I would get there, how much everything cost, how much money I’d earn, even what I’d eat. I guess it was little wonder then that almost everyday began to follow a pattern, right down to turning off the TV news at bedtime.

After an horrific head injury in 1995 followed by a divorce, I came to understand that life had an impermanent quality and for several years I rebelled against much of the structure and certainties I’d previously created to feel secure.

It was then that I fell in step with a ‘What’s meant to be, will be’, philosophy.

After drifting for a time I began to wrestle with myself. My home was a mess, my car was in a state, my shoes had holes in them, my hair looked like the birds had been having an all night orgy in it. I was so overweight that my clothes were such a bad fit I looked like a sausage about to burst the skin!

In Honest Reflection…

My life reflected a lack of respect and gratitude for the comforts afforded to someone living within one of the most privileged cultures in the world. And here I was; not caring for my body – the vehicle gifted to me for my journey through this lifetime – and not keeping my home space a clutter-less void that left room for the magic of life, instead it was filled with the old and the battered.

But guess what I did?

Each day I made demands on the world, for more – more money, a better life, for unbounded success and love.

In my first novel Black Water, a Place of No Hope, the two main characters, a soldier and a missionary, are in the worst place on earth – a prison pen, held by terrorists, in a jungle full of cannibals on an island surrounded by sharks (and, before you ask, this place really does exist outside of my imagination). While the soldier is searching for an escape, the missionary is meditating, content she has all she needs in the world. The soldier finds her lack of attention on how to escape annoying and confronts her.

Yet she is focussed on the simplicities of life that are all too easily forgotten…

The missionary’s responds to him. She says she cannot ask God for more until she has honoured what she already has – in this case, air, water, sunlight and a few moments of peace from her captors.

From the small beginnings of honouring the simplicities of life, I have, a step at a time, learned to ‘return the favour’ for all I have, just by appreciating what I now have.

In reply for my gratitude I’ve been shown the world in greater wonder and realised I’ve been living an adventure.

When opportunity is put in my path – and sometimes this is quite scary – it somehow takes me to the edge of my comfort zone then flicks out a helping hand. If I want to hold my breath, take the hand and go with it, usually I’m blown away by what follows.

Life with a sort of plan…

These days when I wake up, I may have a few appointments or some work to get done, but I neither wake up to a regimented life or a ‘whatever will be’ attitude. These days I’ve found the balance – what “Might be and what is”.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

I want to give you an example of how, when you niche, you make it easy for people to find both you and what they need.

For a lot of people resistance to niching is what stands between you achieving what you want. Let’s look at it like this: if you don’t niche, you fail to stand out from the crowd and all the other white noise out there. What happens then is you go unnoticed.

When someone wants to increase their client base the first question out of my mouth will most likely be: ‘Who is this for?’ Often the answer I hear is words to the effect of: ‘Anyone who wants to buy my service.’

The problem with this answer is that while they ‘Could be anyone’… in ‘reality’, “they” are not ‘anyone’. “They” are “someone”.

The marketing message of  ‘Anyone can be my customer’ doesn’t speak to ‘anyone’. It doesn’t touch or move anyone. It’s plain and bland and as a result hardly anyone shows an interest and becomes a customer.

This is a point I’ve debated with lots of people who were struggling to find new clients. Their worry is that if they narrowed down who the customer might be too much, there would be even less chance of someone buying. This isn’t the case. In fact the opposite is true. Let me explain…

If you want to speak to ‘anyone in London’, you might be speaking to five million faceless unknowns who are busy in the City with countless distractions like: the hum and the buzz and of the City, catching a tube home, the stress and long hours of working in the City; or it might be about “Will I make the next connection?” or “Am I going to make my appointment?”

People in the City come from lots of cultural backgrounds and many of them will have moved to the City for work and come from different parts of the world  such as Germany. They might be struggling with the culture and just wishing they could be at home, say in Germany, and speaking their own language for five minutes and have a joke about how Londoners are. And they’re sitting there on the tube rubbing their neck and shoulders and really feeling that tension and feeling a bit lost, maybe a bit frightened, maybe slightly fed up, but maybe also okay with life and slightly enjoying the adventure they’re on working in London.

So, how do you get their attention when you’re say, a masseur?

If your marketing says: ‘anyone who wants me’ it just melds into the wallpaper of the City. But what happens when you bring it to life by saying: ‘Hello I help people from Germany who are busy, stressed and missing home. Come and see me, chill out, relax and let me drizzle the most fragrant oils in town over your tight shoulders… until London fades into the distance and all you can imagine is being back at home.’

You don’t need everyone to be your clients or customers, you just need a few… “someone’s” who love you and become raving fans. 50 clients as a masseur is probably worth around £2500-£3000 a month if you see your clients monthly. If you see them fortnightly then it’s double that. And all you need to find is just 50 people, not hundreds.

All the best, Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Andrea was 33 years old.

In 16 years she changed jobs nine times. She had two relationship break-ups during that time and was just starting to notice cracks in her third relationship.

She tried getting married once. She even had a baby. She had a nice home. She had a lovely car. She often went out for meals. She watched all the soaps on TV and even went on nice holidays.

But something was still missing…

She often woke up feeling empty. She sometimes felt that the day ahead had no meaning. She would often go for a long bath to try to get to the bottom of why her life felt like it had this void.

She wanted her life to have meaning and purpose…

And what about Tim…

Tim had stuck with the same company for more than a decade, working in a call centre for a bank. He’d been promoted a couple of times. He was married, semi-happy, but often arguing with his wife for no good reason and he felt a growing restlessness.
For almost 8 years, he had felt like life was passing him by. He described his life as a rut and at aged and 35, he knew it was time for life to change before it passed him by.

There are some things we all know…

We all know what we do for a living…

We know our exercise routine, hobbies, habits, things that list of things that needs our attention and even our behaviours.
These are the things that we “do” to try to give our life meaning and purpose.

But are they “who” we are?

Doing  is ‘man’s’ reality…

Doing a job in order to be comfortable in a chosen lifestyle…

Doing well at school so you can be told you are good and go on to University and then earns lots of money…

Doing in accordance with religious beliefs so you can be-long to a group of people..

Doing like your friends and peers so you can be accepted.

Doing so your spouse will be happy with you and continue to love you…

But there’s another reality and it seems to be the reality most people are really searching for…

This is the reality of being. If the words about the do always come before the be.

Below I’ve changed that round and it makes a subtle difference that makes a big difference.

We can Be a certain person or certain way so the job flows with comfort and ease…

Being conscientious so you do well in school; being your spiritual truth so you may do whatever action is of your highest; being who you really are and doing what we know benefits the world and the people who live in it.

We can choose to do our job tomorrow and do the gardening at the weekend or we can be at work during the day and be in the garden on our days off. The difference is subtle, but the change in our reality – in the way we perceive the world – is profound.

Here are a few things about being that I’ve observed:

• ‘Being’ sounds that bit more gentle, distinctively more pleasurable and a lot less like hard work than “doing”.

• Being is about living knowing we have the world inside ourselves and knowing we have the power to create what we want or destroy what we have

• Being is about allowing yourself to become an expression in the world rather than forcing a way

• Being recognises that we are responsible for creating everything in our world and changing what we don’t like

• Being allows us to co-create with God/Universe/Tao/(or what you like to call the greater force that joins everything together)

• Being allows us to exit from painful vicious circles and find solutions

By “being” first – taking the time to think, act and observe – we get the initial sense that life is slowing down. Yet when we look in more detail we see the most rapid movement of incidents and events all leading up to in the moment experiences. Access the information that comes in those in the moment experiences leads us to more desirable outcomes and a life more on purpose.

You can read more on discovering life purpose here:  http://www.communitysoul.co.uk/lifepurpose.htm

Good wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Every successful entrepreneur holds a vision. It’s a vision of what they want their business to become. Because of that vision they can analyse what’s going on, play to their strengths and then work out what else is needed.

A vision also helps your team know if they should even begin the task or take on an opportunity.

If you contrast that with someone who is keen to succeed, but who doesn’t have a vision and fails to look at opportunities… they simply can’t look at the bigger picture, because they don’t have one.

When you have no vision, your main focus when an opportunity comes your way is: “Here’s an opportunity. I can make money from this?”

Today it might be network marketing, tomorrow it’s google adwords and an Internet sales page. It’s just chasing after opportunities, rather than holding an intention – like an arrow in – tension, aiming for the bullseye.

Sir Richard Branson says: “If you make your little decisions based on the big picture, at the very least you’re always heading in the right direction.”

And that’s sound advice. And we know this because Sir Richard Branson is someone who makes a difference through his business and makes a lot of money too, because he has a habit of getting things done.

An entrepreneur knows his biggest opportunity lays within his business, not  something someone is claiming is the latest hot product. Sure entrepreneurs know what else is available to them and when they need someone or some thing that will save time or money, market them more effectively, or create income streams, they use the service available… but it’s only ever in line with the goal… and more often than not, it’s all planned in advance.

What are the things you are doing right now that you think are opportunities, but that are actually off your vision?

What must you give up to get you back on vision?

What are the services and who are the people who can put your business or project into the flow faster?

Best wishes

Neil

It was 8.45am, on a spring morning during the school run, when I discovered a philosophy that’s served me well ever since. It came courtesy of a conflict between a lorry driver and someone running late for work.

At that time in my life, I was getting things back on track after 6 years of getting things ‘wrong’ and, as I was walking home, I caught one of those perfect, transformative moments.

In life, we create history in every moment. Imagine that right now you’re printing your beliefs, values, understanding, hopes and fears onto a tapestry. And also imagine that what you think and feel about all of those things will create the next moment you live and how you live it.

Point in case….

As the lorry driver turned into a depot in a narrow, village street that was a cut through for rush hour commuters, a car driver got out of his car and began to give the lorry driver a piece of his mind as he reversed his forty tonne vehicle.

It was as the swearing and gesturing mounted that I realised how good my life was. I wasn’t uptight about being late for work. I wasn’t sitting in traffic getting angry. I had no stress in my life.

I worked for myself. I loved what I did and I gained a new appreciation for the pace my life was moving at.

So as the beefy lorry driver gestured from his cab, I walked on, smiling.

That’s when I noted I had no tension. I liked this feeling, and as the months went by, I began to make ‘Dropping tension’ a practice, whenever I felt it in my body.

Back then I didn’t know how I was changing my future when I dropped the tension. I just knew I felt better – more at peace.

During this time I was learning something.

What I began to understand was that you can’t beat the world into the shape you want it to be. Logically, the world is too big for that. So here is what happened…

I began to see that I was at my best when I didn’t feel tense. I made better decisions. I was kinder to myself and others. I began to enjoy the feeling of peace that flowed through me and I wanted more of that feeling.

So my life went on: feel tense, let go; find peace and love, be at my best; feel tense, let it go, and so on…

Then I began to pause at set times of the day to check in with how I felt. I’d find myself in the middle of something and say “breathe”, or “relax” and suddenly I’d find that feeling I was looking for.

My practice taught me that you can’t rush nature. But it also taught me something else – something more profound!

As I became more peaceful I became more in love with life. When this happened the things I’d been struggling to make happen, began to unfold.

What did this tell me?

It told me that and the quickest way to gain what I wanted was to become calmer, more peaceful, more loving.

We can all make our demands in life, like the man who got out of his car and berated the lorry driver. But when we do that, life – like the lorry driver – will gesture back at us.

If we get angry we’ll create a historical path of anger and that anger will ripple out and find more anger and more reasons to be angry and our future will become a reflection of this anger.

Yet if we catch our temper before it snaps in the traffic, or at the kids, or at a customer or bank clerk or at the insurance company, and if we can learn to drop the tension, we create a happier path and a ripple that changes everything we come into contact with.

With good wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

By dropping judgement we allow love. In fact, when we drop a lot of things, we allow love.

Dropping all the stresses and ‘have to’s’ allows the mind to relax. It lets the body yield and leaves room for the soul to manoeuvre into situations where it can grow.

When we drop judgements, we become more clear on who we are and what we are really doing. Let me give you an example:

When a parent tells a child off, one of the judgements a parent has is that, if I don’t tell them off they’re always going to do that naughty thing. Yet often when a child does that naughty thing, all they have is an unfulfilled need at that moment – and usually it’s a connection to love.

Whenever I successfully manage not to avoid judging my kids behaviour, love flows. Recently my daughter stuck her tongue out at me when I asked her to do something – bless her. I walked away, admiring her strong spirit and hiding a smile. Later, I asked her if I could stick my tongue out at her. She nodded. She then told me she didn’t like it very much.

We agreed, just for a moment – in the name of fun – we’d both give each other permission to stick our tongue out at each other. We ended up rolling around the floor laughing. She said, ‘But dad, dad, you haven’t seen my angriest face yet.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

So she pulled her angriest face and we both howled with laughter, tears rolling over our cheeks and clutching our tummies in a way we’ve probably never done before.

Had I judged her for sticking her tongue out, we’d have missed that wonderful opportunity. We’d also have missed moments when we’ve brought up the memories of that time when we stuck out our tongues.

I hasten to add, she’s not stuck her tongue out at me in anger since – fingers crossed for the future, eh?

What releasing judgement does is this: it takes us from a place of acting out a drama. It then puts us in a situation of knowing and understanding.

Releasing judgement is the difference between fighting the evils of our life and seeing them as opportunities to grow.

That might all sound easier said than done. But when we understand that each event in our life is a calling to return to who we really are, we become more conscious of why it’s happening. How we experience what happens shows us where we are on that journey.

Ultimately all any of us want is to feel love. Dropping judgment is a huge step.

With good wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

It’s no coincidence when you feel your best at work, you attract the best results and the better you feel the better it gets.

Having your business be lighthearted and fun often is going to mean your business is going to continually evolve into something better and better. And that adds more and more greatness to your life and to the hundreds or thousands of people you come into contact with.

When you set your intention for your business, make it fun and don’t inhibit yourself with reality. If you inhibit yourself, you may miss out on the opportunity to explore, understand and grow and you might then miss out on the fruits of being self-employed – which is just about the experience of learning and growing.

For example, when you can start to wonder how you go from £30 an hour  to £200 an hour in 12 months, for a moment you stop thinking about lacking confidence. And while you sense you may be dreaming, you can start to see some natural steps if you watch out for them. You’ll get your focus on how you grow and expand  and you’ll start to ask:  Where will I learn? Who will I learn from.

When I was out with my personal trainer, he said to me, “Don’t worry about winning the race. Just stay focussed on the guy in front. Imagine he has a target on his back and keep your eyes on him until you overtake.”

In business, we have a list of mentors we want to emulate and surpass in various fields and in various ways. Equalling and surpassing the mentor is a milestone on the way to the stars.

It keeps us focussed on a specific task and we don’t lower the focus where we might have questions about belief and confidence. We just stay focussed on what we need to do to surpass the mentor.

Any goal you set is not about the end result really, it’s really about the adventure the goal takes you on -  the research you do, the people you meet, the mistakes you make and learn from, the fun you have, the down days when you beat yourself up into a new shape that somehow makes you stronger and more resilient, and the up days that excite you.

Yes, goals provide a sense of direction or purpose, and yes we can perform better with them, but the learning along the way is what we can take on the rest of the journey with us.

And that’s what I want to focus on now… the journey and the experience and, in particular, self-acceptance.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk