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

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

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

What I’m going to take you through in this article is a technique I use to constantly close the gap between where I am and where I want to get to. I’m sharing this so you can use it too.

When I sit down to write an article or I’m mapping out one of the Insiders Secrets webinars or training session I always start with a visualisation.

I imagine that I am looking beyond the page and seeing everyone taking notes, and magical golden fairy dust passing down the phone lines, enveloping you – and as a result of what I share, you become more prosperous.

And I appreciate that might all sound a bit fanciful, but it’s a technique that I know inspires me to create information that helps people and gets great feedback.

In the grand scheme of things this might seem small, but if something you take notes from becomes a way you do business, or helps you create something that changes lives or leads to your prosperity or the prosperity of one of your clients, then that’s a very cool ripple.

A vision I hold for CommunitySoul is that whoever walks with us becomes increasingly prosperous as a result of the association. Our aim is to help 12,000 business reach more than a million people and change their lives by the end of this year.

Part of the vision for these newsletters is that it’s fluff free, so let me ground what I’m saying here, before you accuse me of going off with the fairies!

Knowing the vision allows me to sit back after our events and evaluate. I’m looking at the details. What will help us to achieve our vision faster? Where don’t we match up to the vision? Are the presentations right? Did people learn all they could in the time we had? Who else can benefit from hearing this speaker? Could people listen in comfort? Is everyone moving forward? Timings? Overall message? The marketing? What needs to improve? Who will do it?

So, when you have a clear vision, you can see how easily you can begin to constantly close the gap between where you are now and where you want to get too.

It’s simple. Know your vision. Know your starting point. Close the gap.

Best wishes

Neil

www.communitysoul.co.uk

Making money is a measure.

It could be a measure for how many people you helped, how often you helped them and how much value you and they feel you bring to their life for what you do.

So making money could just be about the difference it makes to you and the people you love to help.

And we’ve all heard the saying that “the journey is more important that the end result”, so making money is just part of the journey.

Imagine for a moment that you set a goal to make £250,000 by 31st December and you have an idea that is incredible and can make a huge difference in the lives of others. As a result, the demand for how you help people grows.

In your efforts to make the quarter million, you learn so much about people and philosophy and the way the world works. You meet the wealthy and the poor and you understand more about how they became that way.

And in making your £250,000 you now make a new network of people. Other  opportunities naturally come your way and you now make a million.

And remember it’s not just about the money – the money is just a measure of how many people you’ve helped and how much value they and you put on what you do.

Maybe through the money you earn, or through your network, or both, you can help remove poverty and create more prosperity. Maybe you can help to remove damage to the environment and reduce pollution…

I was once taught how to Karate chop a board in half. I was doing this live, for the first time and in front of an audience of about 50 people.

I was instructed to focus beyond the board, where my hand would hit, once the board had broken in two. This style of vision creating is just like that – it’s putting your attention not just on having what you dream of, but on what is beyond and even better than that.

Look at what you think you want. Then consider the journey beyond it. The one that is even better than you dare dream of.

Best wishes
Neil

How many of your decisions are made based on your past?

In the insurance industry, they use the past to measure the future. It’s a predictable way to assess possible future risk, but even the experts can never account for the unpredictable storm that comes out of the blue.

And then there is us… human beings, doing stuff… going about life in a predictable way. We get up, shower, breakfast, travel to work, work, lunch, more work, travel home, eat, watch TV, bed, sleep and then do it all over again.

Week after week, on we go. Some are happy in the rhythm, others find it frustrating and struggle with breaking out from the spell of the routine.

If you’re caught in the spell and finding it frustrating to break, the key lies in understanding what you believe about your own capability.

The mindset that unbreaks the spell…

Rather than look at feeling trapped, I want to go straight to the mind set that unbreaks the spell and ask you: What would a person in your circumstances do, if he or she believed they were infinitely capable of making a difference?

First, they come from the mindset of being capable. If you took away a billionaire’s money, I’d bet they could return to financial wealth very quickly. They believe they can.

In life we don’t always have the resources such as education and money and when we lack those we have to create the resourcefulness.

Four months ago I was talking to Lynne, a single parent, who complained at being overweight and struggling with finances. She said she felt miserable, working part-time and struggling by, and she couldn’t afford a nutritionist, or a gym.

I asked Lynne what stopped her from getting a book from the library on nutrition and what stopped her from exercising by, say, walking with the kids. She said the kids didn’t like walking. So I asked her what would make it interesting for them. She said having friends along or maybe taking a bike.

I bumped into Lynne two weeks ago. She’d been reading, biking and walking, and she lost half a stone.

While none of us suffer from a faulty future, we do suffer from faulty thinking. That thinking is often caused by making mistakes in the past, or not having things turn out well. This creates a belief system that we’re not good at stuff and we therefore stop trying.

We all make mistakes, but we don’t have to continue to live that mistake years later. We can break that spell now.

Imagine you’re a superhero and you’ve just arrived at the situation of your current challenge. You have some special powers, but none of them are going to help you here. So you have to look for the natural resources around you – you have to be resourceful. What will you do?

Where do you start? What’s the next step?

Until next time

Neil

Have you ever set a goal and felt disappointed because you didn’t achieve it? Or have you set a goal and felt out of alignment with it immediately – or felt bad even if you did achieve it? Or have you ever set a goal and laughed at yourself when you set it?

I’ve done all of these at different times in my life. In fact, truth be known, I’ve done most of them more than once.

In the past goal-setting set me up for failure in one way or another, either because I didn’t achieve the goal or because I didn’t like myself while working towards the goal.

I had times when I’d begun working on my goals and felt physically sick. I’d get sweaty hands, have the shivers and go all dizzy. Funny thing was, when I backed off the goal, I suddenly felt better.

This shows the point I want to make about setting goals – and this point isn’t rocket science, but it is, unfortunately, something that can often be overlooked.

When setting a goal you must make sure that you are working towards something you really want – the desire has to be there 100%.

You have to make sure the goal excites you. I don’t mean logical, blokey, “That feels sort of right.” It can’t be “In the brain excitement.”

It has to be an in your cells, “Wow!” and the possibility of achieving the vision literally blows you away. Think back to when you fell in love for the first time and you couldn’t focus on anything else – that kind of excitement.

This kind of excitement will do a couple of things:

1. People around you will notice a transformation and will offer help, move out of your way or do something that helps you

2. You will want to start taking action sooner rather than later

When you feel excited things will begin to flow in your direction and you will start to take action that moves you towards your intention and your intention will begin to manifest in real life.

The more you practice this, the easier it gets. The less it feels like a “spiritual practice” and the more it feels like a part of the way you just do things and things you want and people you want materialise around you.

Best wishes
Neil

I know the title might sound odd – to aim beyond what you want, but I would prefer you to aim higher, rather than lower, and this article is about that.

Accepting lower than we aimed for is about an attitude of taking second best -  lowering standards, but I want to inspire you by talking about the amazing things that happen when you have a vision, take action that backs up the vision and then capitalise on the additional opportunities that come your way when you are in the dynamic flow of momentum.

Setting a vision is vital. Holding the vision is no less important. If you left the corporate world and set up on your own with just the skills, knowledge and qualifications earned, and a deep desire to do things your way and began your business with no more of a vision than that, you probably wouldn’t be the first.

I was 21 when I did that. After a faltering start – or more “stop” than “start” I did manage to get it to pay off.

The problem I had then was I had very little direction.

I like to look at direction as being intention – what we want to create. And I like to break the word in-tension down into two words and change a letter the “t” for and “s”– and create “in” and “tension”. And the kind of tension I’m talking about is the kind of tension an archer has when he’s aiming for the bullseye, rather than the kind of tension lots of people have when running a small business – which can often be caused by running around like a headless chicken because there was no real intention and therefore no idea of how to get from A to Z.

Let me start by giving you an example. Nicky Marshall, runs HolisticInsights.co.uk. Nicky had an idea of running events to help people with their well-being. Originally it was therapies and readings that might help people feel better and find some direction. That was her moon. But when she started taking action, she began to bump into opportunities that enhanced her intention and she moved beyond her original aims…

But let me give you another example. I used to be a business mentor passing on my knowledge. Then I started to dream beyond that.

I began by thinking I would pass on all my knowledge, then I thought, what’s better than that? Then I thought wouldn’t it be great to let other people hear what I’m learning about right now and what we are trying at the cutting edge of our business. Wouldn’t it also be great to be able to give people mentoring in a more cost effective way and wouldn’t it be great to create a community around it all? Here is what I created – http://www.insiderssecrets.co.uk/

So think about your business… what do you need to do to get the expertise in place that helps you aim higher? What can you offer your clients that meets their needs?

Best
Neil

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

If you’ve been in business a while you are more than likely aware that being your own boss is a very revealing personal journey. I liken it to being a hero in an adventure story, because business can, and does, bring to the surface challenges  we have to face, be they emotional, physical, spiritual, financial or mental.

Below are 10 things I’ve learnt from being my own boss. I should point out that this list isn’t everything and it’s not in any particular order.

In writing this list what I’ve noticed is how much I’ve learnt down the years.

1. Do it well whatever the cost – If you were on a mission and you could  hire a guide that knows the territory at £50 an hour or a guide who doesn’t know any better than you for a tenner, which would you go for?

In business you get what you pay for. A good example of this is when we had a new opening in our team. We thought it was a simple job a student could do. Even so, we checked in with an expert in the field before going ahead. She came back with some top draw questions which resulted in subtle changes to our strategy (and subtle changes make big differences – ask any golfer who hits the tree when they want to hit the green). This goes for assistants, coaches, web designers, marketing people. I’m not advocating: “Go to the highest bidder”. What I am saying is go to who can do the job you want doing the best and pay their fee.

2. Avoid isolation – Any business adventure will probably mean you coming face-to-face with things you don’t know, don’t understand or don’t know how to get round. At times like this it’s a blessing to have a network of informed people!

I used to try to do it alone. Not now. We now have a small team who are experts in web technology, coding, various shopping carts, admin, sales, project management, marketing and social media. Beyond that we have 2 mentors. We mastermind with 6 people who think like us. We meet up with other friends who are like us. We have a drink or lunch now and again with people we respect in our field. We have 60 partners – we help them, they help us and we have several thousand CommunitySoulers who are a lot like us and who we learn from as well as share with. A successful business in this era needs to build a tribe, so start to build one and stop trying to do it all alone.

3. Never fear spending on growth – We get one shot at this life adventure. Don’t spend it complaining you can’t afford this or that. If the best in the industry invest in their development then it’s arrogant to think you don’t need it. It took me too many years to discover this one!

It’s simple. To grow you must invest. To think you can grow a business without investing some money into your business development would be naïve. I realised I’d been lying to myself on this one a couple of years back. Never again! On your adventure if you work in isolation and don’t invest in yourself, it’s hard to know what to do when you meet a challenge, yet if you have a mentor who has done what you want to do, you don’t get stuck, you flow past the obstacle. When it comes to investment it’s NOT what a coach or mentor asks you to pay, it’s about what it will cost you if you don’t pay.

4. It’s never over… till it’s over – In the past I gave up on my intentions too soon. I remember when that changed. We would set a goal and with just 28 days left we still had 82% left to achieve. In the past I would give up. These days I do what it takes to achieve a goal. There’s always something else you can do to pull a result out of the bag – if the goal means enough to you. If it doesn’t you have to find a bigger why.

5. Know where your wealth value is -  I used to try to do it all – marketing, delivery, product creation, finances, websites, admin… and that was a big mistake. We all make money in various ways. This is the key to how we create our wealth. I’m into writing and speaking and opening doors for partners and clients who are developing to make a difference and a profit. My value comes from squeezing my time down into these projects and not getting involved in the other things that are not my area.

6. Start with what you want to earn – Sometimes someone new to business looks at how much to charge by looking at what the competition charges. I used to do this too. Not any more.

I now decide what I’d like to earn and then charge that. One thing you have to do with this approach is of course ensure your client gets up to 10 times the return on their investment. I enjoy this approach. It’s much more inspiring. When I changed how I did this my clients improved their results and our income rose.

7. Gather and keep momentum – Momentum is so important. Set a rhythm for your business to grow at. Many years ago I grew my business by spending 8 hours each week marketing it and the rest of the week delivering the service and managing my team. These days it’s a lot easier to market yourself as you have the Internet and lots of processes and systems available. So we automate many processes and I now spend maybe an hour a week on marketing, working with my team.

8. Income growth means just 3 things – To increase your income it simply comes down to getting new clients, having clients return and buy, and increasing your prices. The business hero just needs to know this and keep asking what needs to be done to achieve the goal. For too long I kept low prices thinking I was helping people, but if something is too cheap it has no value and is not respected. I learnt I was doing people more of a favour by charging a higher price, because people made sure they squeezed every drop out of something they paid a lot for.

9. Know you’re the enemy – Often we mascarade as the hero when we are really the villain. What I’ve learnt is that sometimes I’m the bottleneck or I’m the one resisting  changes that needs to happen. Many times, such as when you need to increase your prices, the first person you will need to convince is yourself. I can remember I once hung out for 6 months too long before cutting an income stream, when I finally agreed to cut it, our income doubled in 6 months! So holding on to a small income stream, had cost our business £1000′s.

10. Give yourself clear boundaries – I used to rush from a client meeting to marketing, from marketing to accounts and then back to working with a client, then back to marketing… Don’t do this. Block out time. I usually use afternoons for clients and block book them. Mornings are my creative times when I develop CommunitySoul.  Block book time for meetings and arrange them back-to-back. Put in buffers between home life and business. I’ll have 30 minutes to transition between the end of the day and being at home with the family. Sometimes when I’m working full out, I’ll make sure I have a day off in the week.

Please feel free to share your experiences in the comments box on the blog. We want to hear from you! Your age, sex, income or experiences don’t matter!

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

What I really enjoy is seeing people pull things together and seeing them start to pull off results. And what I’d LOVE to share with you today is the moment when business owners take a conscious approach to transform hard-work into heart-desired results.

The transformation happens at the point where the business owners has “expectation”. This is where the results come unconsciously. This is when your focus, awareness and behaviour start to work in synch.

It’s an exciting time.

It’s like when you learn to drive a car. You start off driving consciously, thinking of every gear change, brake, accelerator, clutch movement. Then, over time, it starts to becomes, fluent… natural… and effortless.

I’m sure you can imagine this… and maybe you are starting to recall times in your life when you did something and it unfolded, just as you wanted it too.

Business becomes just like that too when it runs with an unconscious, almost effortless flow.

Understand though, that expecting results is different from knowing. The knowing comes in the results – from the growing expectancy that you’re actually now succeeding naturally and you can literally see your business dream unfolding before you.

In driving, it’s when your movement becomes instinctive. In business, it’s when you have a system and process that unfolds effortlessly.

The expectancy comes in the signs that the results are coming. In business that might be signs that a product is right because the research checks out, or because sales start clocking up or the marketing campaign is working because it’s generating leads and sales.

But the decision to succeed and to create the expectancy comes through gaining the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t; and to get to that place, you have to put in the effort that makes the results a forgone conclusion.

The decision to succeed is made before the results come. It’s made first. It’s made when you commit to doing the things you need to do to succeed. It happens when you stop saying “I can’t” and start saying “I’ll find a way.”

So, what happens is there are no longer obstacles, everything is in alignment and working well, so the results come naturally and easily.

SO create a business that gains results smoothly, effortlessly and naturally. You have to create and discover the processes and systems that create that effortlessness.

Best wishes

Neil

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Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. To find out more, visit our website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk