What’s the dream you’re working on right now?

You may know the answer to this straight away, but if you pause for more than 3 seconds to gather loose strands of thoughts about things you thought about days or weeks ago, you’re going to find this article the catalyst to moving the goal posts to a time, sometime sooner.

The first component is focus. You have to know clearly what you want long term. That long-term focus might break down into smaller steps.

Let’s say the long term focus is a great relationship that has thus far been illusive. That then might break down into daily tasks.

Each day I look at my 5 points of focus and decide what one thing I’m going to do on each of them. This means each day I move a step closer to my goal.

In the relationship example maybe the short-term goal is to do some self-work, book on a workshop, uncover what your ideal mate will be into, become a better kisser, dress better, feel better about yourself – whatever you feel is appropriate.

Once you have the clarity, the second thing to look at is your desire to make it happen. You’ve got to want it. It’s all fine and dandy thinking you’d like something, but do you really have a desire to have it happen. There’s little point in deciding you want something, then getting passive about it.

If the desire is there, then the third thing to look at is belief. You’ve got to believe you can do it. I believe I’m capable of pretty much anything I turn my mind to. I believe that when I come from a place of playfulness and fun, I double my chances.

Fourth element to consider is self-acceptance. Do you believe you’re worthy of what you want? To pull it off you have to believe this down to your core.

Be… do… have…

With clarity, desire, belief and self-acceptance in place, it’s easier to begin to “be” what you want – to act as if.

For example, if you want to earn £250,000 next year and you work that out, based on the hours you’d work during the next 12 months as roughly earning £200 per hour, you’d be clear on what you want.

When you look at why you want it, you build the desire. When you look for examples of where you are close to that value each hour, you build the belief. When you look at why you’re deserving of your goal, you build the references around you.

So when you begin to “do”, you’ll discover more evidence of when you’re earning your hourly rate. You may also notice when you’re not. When you start to move to lower then £200 an hour tasks from your way, you begin to get ever closer to the amount you want to earn.

When your focus, attention and behaviour have been honed long enough on what you want, your dream will come true.

Until next time

Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Sitting down, on the floor in my living room, with Jo and a dozen bits of scrap paper neatly placed around us, isn’t the way we always spend a Saturday night. But what a night it turned out to be…

I’d just spent the day with my favourite teacher, Dr. William Bloom, as he gave his take on Creating and Manifesting a great life. He’d been asking a question during his course: “Who is telling my story?”

I thought about some of my beliefs, behaviours and values and mulled over where those patterns had been instilled – at school, by parents, friends, work colleagues, sports team managers etc.

There were a few beliefs and behaviour’s that struck me, but one I particularly want to share with you, in case you have something similar to heal…

During my school days I was always picked for leadership – team captain, town, county and club, games captain and prefect. I loved lifting trophies, hated losing, and always led by example. In football – my favourite sport – it was a thrill to captain lads who went on to sign for Arsenal, West Ham and Northampton.

I missed out on trials for Leicester because of a back injury and never got another chance to fulfil my footballing dream. (Ahhh!)

I ended up playing for the second best semi-pro outfit in the town, doing a solid job at centre half, but hankering to play in my best position, fullback. When I asked the manager to switch me, he said he’d think about it. The next match, he gave me the only roasting a team manager ever gave me, and he did it in front of the rest of the team, just because I’d asked him to play me where I knew I’d deliver my best for the team.

If that humiliation wasn’t enough, he dropped me to the 3rd team reserves the following week.

Had I dug in, gritted my teeth and fought my way back, maybe I’d have eventually worked my way back into the team and gone on to fulfill my footballing dream… who knows? But it wasn’t to be…

So as a 17 year old, I chose not to roll up my sleeves and pull out the fire from within. My will broken, I gave up. Told the manger where to shove his team and entered a bitter loop.

With my old friends playing professionally, me missing my golden opportunity, ending up at semi-pro level and then being dropped to the 3rd team, I became trapped in the experience of “not feeling good enough” – a psychological drama that many people share, for lots of different reasons.

But what’s all this got to do with sitting on the living room floor with Jo on a Saturday night?

Well, I’d become interested with the differences that separate success from failure and I wanted to ensure I ditched this not-feeling-good-enough feeling. It was no longer serving me and the direction my life was going in.

So I wrote down, “not good enough and weak willed” on this scrap of paper. Then I sat back and wondered, if I turned this over to the Universe (God, the Tao, Spirit – or whatever you want to call it) how would this experience be used as a force for good.

The answer was simple. “By determination and excellence.”

When I read the life story of top football manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, I was left in no doubt that when he was faced with similar situations of being dropped as a footballer, he was tougher than me. Today, as a manager he buys only excellence and demands excellence from his team every time.

So I adopted his determination and pursuit of excellence and asked another question, “How would I express this determination and excellence?”

The answer: put in five times more effort. So I have.

I began by clearing space. I looked at habits and behaviours that were not determined and began changing them. When I do something that doesn’t match the new standard, I go back and do it again and again until it is.

You see, being in a flow of having more isn’t just about asking for more – it’s about matching up to what you want. Having more isn’t just about writing down a goal. It’s not making a wish. It’s about putting your soul into the thing you want and doing it with love, joy compassion and good grace that honours your journey and the new you that is emerging.

Who is telling your story? What holds you back? What would life be like if you changed that forever?

How about you change it?

With love

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

Over the years I’ve heard variations of the same phrase many times. I used to think these variations had wisdom. But now I’m not so convinced.

When someone is at a crossroads they’re often quite vulnerable. “This way or that way?” is their question. At this vulnerable junction what people are often looking for is evidence of what is right or wrong to do.

It’s not a crime to think that what shows up is evidence of the right direction to take, but I suspect there is a little more to it than that.

A friend once gave up a golden opportunity because an obstacle was put in their way that they viewed as evidence not to go forward. The pain of not having done what they wanted still irks them today and I suspect they know they could easily have moved that obstacle.

As a result, when something happens to me and I tell the story to others and someone sagely says, “Ah… maybe that’s evidence that you should (or shouldn’t) go for it,” I have an impulse to say “Please, don’t be so naive”.

Rather than have a one-off moment and become the judge and jury of your future, I believe there is far more depth to be explored. In life we have desires for specific outcomes all the time. “I want my partner to say this or that”. “I want the children to do x, y and z”.  “I want more clients”. “I want to be happy..”. I want… I want…

So we have desires all the time. When we think “I want to be happy” and something immediately happens that makes us unhappy, our mental hard drive might be wired to select this as further proof we’re unhappy, that life is the pits or that maybe we should turn our back on a dream and run a mile.

Maybe we should run a mile. There are plenty of life and death situations where a good pair of training shoes and a sprint are just perfect.

But crossroad situations are not usually like this, and emergency operating procedure really shouldn’t apply – and to apply it may be nuts… and nuts are for monkeys!

More important than taking physical evidence as a judgement, it might be far wiser to view it as a greater opportunity. If you do this you can take stock and choose, rather than react and make an unwise choice.

Let’s say you want to be happy, but don’t feel happy in your relationship. You’re crossroads might be “Do I go home or go for a drink?” Then a friend offers to buy you a drink.

At first glance you could judge this as evidence to have the drink. But more important than the circumstances that manifest is what you feel about what happened on the outside.

Whatever goes on outside, you always brings up feelings. In the drink example these feelings could be: the guilt of not going home to your spouse; the jealously you feel because the person who invited you is single; or the anger at yourself for not taking responsibility for the state of your relationship; or the pessimism you feel about your future.

I see the feelings as far, far more important than what is happening and the search for happiness is going to be found by becoming friends with these feelings rather than naively thinking you just had evidence you should stay and have a drink and then leave a relationship.

Of course there are times when it is absolutely right to leave a relationship and you will be clear enough when that occurs. But if you walk from one relationship to another without knowing your feelings and managing your actions, you’ll probably find yourself following the same cycle of events over and over again.

Something I’m enjoying right now is happiness and good, graceful energy flowing. But recently that was tested…

It was at my 40th birthday party. As maybe you have, too, I had those pre-party feelings of who will show? Will they enjoy it? etc

Mid evening a friend said they had to go. My immediate feeling was disappointment and I wanted to say, “Please stay.” But as I checked my own feeling of disappointment, I realised it was born from nothing more than the sadness of not circulating fast enough to spend more than this moment with them.

It would have been easy to have done one of several things to get them to stay longer. But I paused a moment and armed myself with knowing why I felt a pang of sorrow at their exit.

Years ago, feeling vulnerable at a party, I might have tried a number of tactics to get them to stay. But because the experience I want is happiness with graceful energy flowing, it was easy to walk my friend to the door and at least enjoy the moment I had with them and wish them well on their journey home.

When you want to be happy and something happens that makes you unhappy, please don’t just judge it as more evidence that life sucks. Please learn to see it as an opportunity to make it better. Notice what feeling rises for you and think about what tells you about who you are and where you are heading beyond this crossroads.

Love and best wishes
Neil

There’s a technique to building a business beyond your dreams and in this article I’m going to share that with you.

As you may know I love writing. In the past I took a create writing course and drafted several novels, before finally publishing one.

Writing novels taught me about the tapestry of life, especially how we can weave it.

In a novel, when you’re creating the character’s journey one thing you have to do in is create conflict and you do this by continually asking one question and  repeating it over and over.

That question is: what could be worse than that?

Someone loses their job. What could be worse? They lose their relationship too. What would be worse than that? They find out their partner was having an affair. Worse than that? They get drunk as a result. Worse than that? They walk out in front of a car…

When you are creating your dream business, you follow the technique, but ask a different question… “What would be even better than this?”

So you’re doing great, everything is going really well, you’re appreciating the great things that have happened to you so far and now you drop in that question: what would be even better than this?

You then repeat this question over and over. Using this technique helped me transform my mentoring process: it gave my clients a huge saving in their investment, gave me back 1 month per year in time and in the first 12 months grew my income by 25% (it’s grown several times that in year two).

You can do this with other areas of your business too. You can ask: how can I reduce my impact on the environment? How can I help my local community through my business? What can I do to surprise and delight my customers?

Growing a business using this question: “What would be even better than this?” will transform the way you approach your business. I promise you. It will also be a lot more fun that thinking just logically.

Best wishes

Neil

I don’t often look at the media stories, but over the last week I’ve been monitoring it, as research for a radio interview.

When I look at the natural disasters, and read about the terrorism, crimes and disease, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we stopped meddling with nature, forgot about geographic boundaries and put religion aside.

What would the world look like if governments didn’t impose themselves on the people or each other?

What if rivers didn’t have pollution pumped into them? If the air was respected, plants and trees honoured and cared for rather than just harvested? What if the ground wasn’t pumped with harmful insecticides and fertilizers? The list goes on…

A few years ago, overwhelmed with so many things I disagreed with in the world, I began CommunitySoul. I wanted an alternative to the negativity in the media, because I knew that for every story of conflict there was one of unity.

I’d become tired of commercialism. It had encouraged me to eat poorly and gain weight. It advertised things that encouraged me to do harm to the earth and myself, and it preyed on my weaknesses.

At the time when I was mulling over what I’d do someone said to me, “Yeah, Neil, but we can’t change the world single handedly.” Of course my friend was right, we can’t.

But his words made frustration rise up in me and made me want to do anything I could. What I did was this…

I immediately assumed responsibility for the part of the world I control. I created this newsletter which now reaches several thousand people. I often hear back from readers who want to express gratitude for something the newsletter helped them with.

On one level, that feeling of overwhelm I felt several years ago…that yearning for change I wanted to see in the world, created change in others I hadn’t anticipated. Closer to home, I buy less from the supermarkets. I learned to grow my own food and have a few chickens. It’s a small contribution to reducing our impact, but it is nonetheless a contribution.

With my wife, Jo, we set up a business which helps people who care about the world to get better at business and marketing, so people who care can have an even greater influence.

I’m not claiming what I have done is worthwhile by any means. I’m not saying it’s right or clever. What I am saying is that through the choices we make, we make an impact in changing the world for the better, because we are changing the part of it we control.

Going back to the question at the top of this article: Does it need powerful people to change the world? I’m not sure it does. What it needs is individual people who ask themselves good questions whenever they are faced with the important issues.

Right now, the changes I make at home can’t help the situation in Haiti. That said what I’m focussed on is that if me and you and enough people like us begin to make conscious decisions about what we do individually, then the collective mass increases and that can’t help but affect other people and have a positive impact on them too.

In the long run, this mass change in consciousness can’t help but bring about a change in consciousness at government level, and that will then impact things across the world that once upon a time were beyond our reach.

What would you most like to change in the world now? What decisions can you make now? Who do you know who should read this article? Forward it to them, Tweet, Facebook whatever inspires you.

With love and 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. Visit his website and register for his free newsletter at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

I knew Pete was homeless before I walked up to him and started the conversation. He was selling Big Issues.

For most of my life I’ve walked along streets and I’m ashamed to say I’ve ignored guys like Pete.

Then for a few years I took pity on homeless people, giving them some change when I had it, sometimes buying a Big Issue. But then one morning, six months ago something happened.

I woke from a dream in which I wasn’t feeling any pity at all for homeless people – I was talking to them with genuine interest and an eager want to understand how they ended up on the street.

The sun was shining and the high street was buzzing on a Devon lunchtime as I stood next to Homeless Pete outside a Lloyds TSB Bank.

He tells me he ended up on the street when his old relationship broke down. His GP put him on Prozac. He tells me Prozac wasn’t good for him.

I tell him I once left a relationship. I tell him my GP put me on Prozac too. I share a story with Pete about how a friend of mine called me every day to make sure I was okay until I was off the drug. I tell him how I reversed into a car while I was on it.

I ask Pete how selling the Big Issue has changed his life. He says it has saved him. It got him out amongst people – interacting. He’s been selling Big Issues now for 5 years. He says he enjoys starting before 9am and giving people a smile as they go to work. He says he’s helping them feel happier and that makes him feel good.

‘You feel you’re helping people smile?’ I ask. Amazed that without a home he is even considering anyone else.

‘Oh yeah,’ he smiles.

His dog – which I hadn’t noticed until then – barks at a passing terrier and Pete tells me his dog once belonged to a friend who died. He looks away and swallows. His friend’s death still affects him.

I ask what he’d like to be doing in five years. He says he’d like to live in his own home and get a job as a street cleaner. He says he’d also like to meet Graham Walker.

He tells me Graham used to sell the Big Issue and has now written a book called Unsettled. Pete hands me a Big Issue and shows me a picture of Graham. I can see a twinkle in Pete’s eye. Graham is clearly an idol.

I ask Pete where he sleeps and he tells me he sleeps in the car park, under a roof and that sometimes the police move him on at night. I can’t help wondering what that’s like. My bedroom sometimes feels cold in spring – what’s a winter night like for Pete?

He says he and a friend once saved up the deposit for a house, but he couldn’t find a landlord who would take a dog. I felt his frustration. He’s not going to compromise the dog. It’s a symbol of love. It’s his friend.

But he says the deposit got spent on a trip to his home town.

A lady buys a Big Issue. ‘Careful,’ Pete says, ‘There are some loose papers inside that might blow away.’

The lady thanks him and he turns to me. ‘It happened once before. Loads of paper blew down the street. I picked it up though. I have street cleaner in my blood,’ he boasts.

I talk to Pete about how he gets the house, where a landlord will let him keep the dog and how he finds the job to keep the roof over his head. He says he doesn’t really know, so I tell him what I’d try – simple things that don’t cost money, but that let people – and the Universe know Pete is looking.

He thanks me for my advice and I feel he genuinely means it.

As I walk away his words, ‘I have street cleaner in my blood,’ stick in my head. I turn back and look. His ambition isn’t a big ask – to have a house, a job as a street cleaner and meet Graham Walker – is it?

As I step forward again I wonder why I didn’t connect with homeless people before. Was I embarrassed by my life of luxury? Did I feel sorry because I didn’t know how to help? Was I scared they’d mug me? Did I think they were all druggies? And what else did I have in common with them… except being human?

And that’s it, isn’t it, really. We are all human. We’re all kin. And we’re as strong as a nation as our weakest and most vulnerable links.

It’s easy to send £50 to a victim of Tsunami or pay £10 a month for a child in Africa. We can send our good will gesture and not really get involved. But it is hard to face the man on the town centre high street who is a product of our culture and society.

Pete wants to smile at a passers-by – brighten their day. He wants a roof over his head. He wants a job cleaning the street. Though I bought a Big Issue from Pete, I’d like to think that the time we shared had greater value than the £1.50 a Big Issue costs.

The time he gave me certainly had value.

Neil

A girl looked in the mirror. Her friend sat behind her. “I spend hours in front of the mirror admiring my beauty,” she said, “Do you think that’s vanity?”

“No,” her friend replied, “that’s imagination.”

At first I saw this as a rather cutting joke by the friend, but after last week, I’ve begun to see her wisdom.

Confucius said, “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

In the last few days I’ve seen some beautiful things. I’m sure the beauty always existed, but maybe I just failed to welcome it into my reality.

Take my garden. In the past I had no objection to gardening, so long as it didn’t take more than an hour a week! But a few years ago with bad weather and a busy schedule, it became very challenging to get to grips with it. I toyed with the idea of getting someone in, but resisted the temptation.

Then on Sunday morning I looked out at the garden, all overgrown – and I sighed. Then I closed my eyes and imagined myself tidying parts of it. I imagined where I would work. I saw everything I touched turning gold and returning to beauty.

Then I watched a short clip of Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island on the Internet and kept the lovely music by Mandalay in my mind as I fetched the tools and began the transformation process outside. When I felt my energy drain, I paused, took in the art I’d been performing, returned to the short clip and then continued.

Loving beauty is a matter of taste. You can love someone because they look beautiful, but isn’t it amazing when they become more beautiful because of how you love them?

The creation of beauty is art, and art begins with imagination.

With imagination we can create more beauty. And everyone needs beauty, a place to play, a place to pray, a place to heal and a place to be inspired. With that imagination, the art and the inspiration, I created beauty in my garden.

And as I worked around my pond, I wondered about creating beauty in business. That stopped me in my tracks. I mean, beauty will capture attention, but the personality a business is built with can open hearts.

And opening the heart in business, where traditionally there is often a perceived lack of heart, has to have beauty. If the intention is to serve others, to build creative relationships, surprise and delight your customers, then that’s beauty.

Helen Keller said, “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.” So as I’m writing this note to you, I’m pausing to notice the lavender in my garden swaying in the breeze and the bees buzzing from stem to stem as they make their honey.

Last night we went to bed early. We did this so we could appreciate our garden even more, which might sound odd until you realise that our bedroom has huge windows that overlook the garden which was lit by flickering candle lights that I’d imagined were there when I began to transform the garden over the weekend.

Life can be hard, but by being artful with what you have, it can become beautiful.

Create blessing, and stand by for miracles!
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