Archives for June 2013

What does happy look like?

June 26, 2013 by influexwp Leave a Comment

Every time I would ask my husband what he wanted from life, he would say he wanted to be happy.

This was always a frustrating answer to me, but I couldn't identify why.

Now, I know. And my knowing is gonna help you get closer to having a life of true liberation.

I'm the kinda gal who loves to give to people around me.

In fact, my three core values (and the truth of who I am – more on this another time) are:

Generous
Loving
Free

That means I just want to give you what you want.

So when my hubby (back in the day) told me he just wanted to be happy, I felt flummoxed.

Because I knew he wasn't happy and I didn't know what else I could give him to make it so.

Reading Danielle La Porte's desire map this week, I got some clarity.

Happy looks totally different for everyone.

That's what she is getting to with this core desired feeling business.

What's your happy feel like on a daily basis?

From that place you can make decisions about things like what you want to do with your life and who you want to be in the world.

We get into all that in the money map, by the way.

But if you don't know that yet (or even if you do but you are coming at it from an angle that doesn't feel awesome), starting with the desire map is a damn good idea.

So, I'm working on my desire map because I'm really great at making things happen, but I'm not always awesome at feeling good about it along the way.

I tend to get impatient, snippy, and downright bitchy when I'm making shit happen (Craig calls me lizard girl) and that's no recipe for happy.

So, I'm on a quest to uplevel and that means going back to the fundamentals.

Danielle says to get aware of my Core Desired Feelings (CDFs), so that's what I'm doing.

And so far I can tell you they seem to center around my core values of being generous, loving and free.

That's all I know so far, but I'm going to dive back in and I'll post again when I've worked through the whole book.

In the meantime, try working through the map yourself (if you haven’t already) and share with me what you find along the way in the comments below. We all want to know you more.

Are You Driving Your Business with One Foot on the Brake?

June 9, 2013 by influexwp Leave a Comment

If you’re:

Holding back in your business …
Hoarding your resources of time, energy, and money instead of investing them into your business …
Unwilling to invest into the support and coaching that you know you need for yourself and your business to thrive …
Looking for someone to come along and save you and make all the investments for you …

You’re delusional!

Don’t feel too bad about it though, I was there once myself.

The only thing is that I didn't know it (and when people tried to tell me, I didn't believe them.)

I thought my business was so great that someone was just going to come along and take it to the next level for me — build my network, get my online marketing dialed in, pull together a strong financial team, and handle all the customer support.

In my dream, all I would have to do was just sit back and be me, the Star of the show.

I was delusional.

Stuck.

You see, if you are truly the Star archetype and a creator, like me, you might think that you can just be the Star and let the business rise up around you.

It's a fallacy. To build a successful business model around your Star archetype (or any of the archetypes, really), you need to be willing to build the business and get it to the place where you can do what only you can do.

But no one is going to do that for you.

If you’re wanting help but you’re unwilling to pay for it, you’re stuck.

If you have income, credit, or savings that you’re not investing in your business or using for your living expenses (and minimizing your living expenses so you can invest more into your business) you are simply not all in.

This is a bold statement, but I can tell you from my own experience and from hearing it again and again from others, it’s the exact reason you’re not moving forward.

Maybe you are happy where you are and the idea of moving to the next level (and risking it all) is too scary. Okay, so be it. At the very least, admit it.

But stop pretending you want to take things to the next level, if you don't.

Here's how this showed up for me …

I had the opportunity to hire a COO to run my company back in 2009, but I decided against it because it felt like too much money to invest.

$10,000 a month.

At the time, I thought there was no way I could afford it. So instead I kept my cobbled together team of virtual assistants with me managing the bunch (something I am HORRIBLE at) and ultimately nearly killed the whole business.

I had the money.

Hell, I even had the credit, but I just didn't want to invest it.

I was so scared of running out of money that I was unwilling to invest in the support I needed.

Here's the paradox — it was this kind of thinking that drove me into bankruptcy. My unwillingness to invest in the right things to support taking my business (and life) to the next level.

For me to finally get it, I had to hit rock bottom.

I had to get to a place where I had nothing to lose to finally and truly be All IN my business.

I kept telling myself I was all in when I wasn’t. But once I had nothing else to lose, there was nowhere else to go.

You can save yourself the trouble of hitting rock bottom if you learn how to let go of your stingy mentality, stop holding back and fully commit.

You’re either 100% in or you’re 100% out. Once you make the decision to be completely in, all of your decisions come from that place of 100% commitment.
If you don’t have the resources to invest, create them. I couldn’t make the $10,000 monthly investment in hiring the COO, not because I couldn’t afford it but because I simply wasn’t all in. If you’ve made the commitment to be fully invested in your business and you still don’t have what you need, you’ve got to go out there and make something happen. When you make the dedication to create the resources you need, they will show up.
Get clear on what you need, and ask for it. (Start here.) Once you are exceedingly clear about what you need, you will find it. So make a list of exactly how you want to invest in the growth of your business. If money was not a barrier, what would you do? Who would you hire? How would you grow? What support would you love to have? From who? What type of people? Then, list out what you'd be willing to give to attract all of that in. And here's a big shift: instead of looking to get as much as you possible can for as little as possible, look at how you can give as much as possible to create something even bigger.Being all in lets you see your business’ potential in a way that you weren’t able to before. It allows you to see the abundance of resources around you, because you’re not standing with one foot in the door and one foot out – you’re completely present.

Listen in on my conversation with Danielle, CEO of Eyes Wide Open Life, sparked by a strategy session we had with a gal who had inquired about receiving our support on growing her business.

All In Audio

Within the first five minutes of our dialogue, this gal who had taken the time to get us on the phone to tell us she wanted help building our her financial team, her internet marketing team and clarifying her business model, then, went on to say “I'm not willing to pay anything for it.”

Leave us a comment below telling us how you’re making your 100% commitment to being all in. Also, take a step towards commitment by taking advantage of our FREE gift to you… You're very own Emergency Rescue Kit.

Are You Selling Your Soul Just to Pay Your Bills?

June 4, 2013 by influexwp Leave a Comment

If you've been around these parts for a while, you've heard me talk about sovereignty, but you may not have a clear understanding of exactly what I meant.

When you are sovereign, you are fully responsible for your own life experience. You are not dependent on the government, a corporate job you secretly hate, your parents, or anyone else for your income.

When you are sovereign, you make your decisions from a place of desire, not fear.

When you are sovereign, you own yourself.

You are not a slave.

Except that, right now, you might be.

Many people today are slaves.

Slaves to a system you don't even believe in because we have allowed ourselves to become convinced that we need to do things that are not in alignment with who we are because otherwise we will … starve, be homeless, be outcast, die alone, not be able to educate our kids, not have enough to care for ourselves throughout life … fill in your own biggest fear.

I came across it blatantly this weekend.

We were on a camping trip with a new friend and got around to talking about her work. Turns out she works for big oil. She negotiates land leases on behalf of the companies that do fracking. She knows that fracking is destroying our water supply. She knows that the land leases she is entering into aren't good for the homeowners. Yet, she is investing her life doing it because it pays the bills.

It pays the bills.

She KNOWS it's hurting people, our water supply, our planet. But, she's stuck.

A slave.

Another friend works as a project manager for a major ad agency, working on ads for big pharma. She hates it. She hates that she's investing her life energy to persuade people to take medications she would never consider putting in her own body.

But, it pays the bills.

A third friend has a company she knows is spreading a message of half-truths and flat-out lies. She has convinced herself it's okay because it not only pays her bills, but the bills of 20 other people and the revenue will make it so she can repay her investors.

As if that makes it okay.

She's a slave too.

Even though she has her own company, she sold out to pay the bills.

Are you too working a job or doing business you not only hate, but you know (even if you wouldn't admit it to anyone out loud) is actually hurting our planet and your community?

Because it pays the bills? Because it feeds your ego? Because you think you have to?

If so, I imagine you want to break free, but you've convinced yourself you can't. It's too secure. It'd be too scary to let go.

I understand.

I was there myself once.

I had built a business I began to hate. I got disconnected from the reason I had started it in the first place and trapped by a business model that didn't serve.

I found myself on Nancy Grace gossiping about Tiger Woods' divorce and it hit me like a hard slap in the face, I not only wasn't impacting the world in the way I knew I could, I was actually adding more negativity.

I found myself frequently hiding. I repeatedly heard from members of my business team “Alexis … you can't do that. You can't say that. You can't write that. You can't wear that. You'll hurt the business.” And so I shut up.

I was a slave.

You didn't come here to slave away each day so you can pay the bills.

Your life is worth more than that.

YOU are worth more than that.

You have a unique gift to give that we are all missing out on when you sell your soul for so little.

If you are going to sell your soul, at the very least do it for something meaningful. Something worthy. Make it a game-changer.

But where do you start? Especially, when there is the reality of all those bills. And the people you support. And the debt you owe.

I faced exactly that question myself. Here's a three-step action plan you can begin on now:

Step 1: Discover how much money you really need NOW to live the life you want.

Drop the idea that you need to save for retirement because you know you aren't going to have enough saved up even if you keep doing exactly what you are doing … and instead shift into a vision of financial liberation, in which you know how to make what you need, when you need it, doing work you love that you can do until you die.

Stop focusing on paying off your debt and instead consider how you can use your good credit score to acquire more of the resources you need to build yourself that income stream and stop doing work you hate

-OR-

if your credit score is already bad, consider how you can deal with the debt you have with as much ease as possible without you continuing to let it hold you back from living your dreams right now. In any case, let go of the belief that your debt is keeping you stuck. It's not.

Get into right relationship with how much money you actually do need now and out of the false ideas of what you think you need that are keeping you stuck.

Step 2: Identify your entrepreneurial archetype and the business model that is right for you.

Get clear that you can be in business for yourself, no matter what kind of person you are (even if you've never thought of yourself as an entrepreneur), once you've identified your particular entrepreneurial archetype and the business model that fits.

Chances are, if you can't see yourself in business for yourself it's because you are comparing yourself to people with a different archetype than you and their business model isn't a match for you. And, if you are in business and do not LOVE your business, aren't making the kind of money you really need, and feel like it's a struggle, it's also probably an archetype/business model mismatch.

Once you've identified your personal archetype and the right business model for where you are right now, you can begin to learn from the people who have already done what you want to do and you'll discover it's actually not that hard.

In fact, continuing to do what you are doing and being out of alignment with the truth of who you really are is FAR HARDER than any business will be when you are in alignment.

Step 3: Learn from people who have done what you want to do.

You need to get yourself into relationship and community with people who are sovereign.

It's often been said by people far smarter than me that you are the sum of the 5 people you spend the most time with. And, while I've wanted to deny it, I've discovered for myself, it's true.

The more time I spend in the company of or learning from people who have what I want, the closer and closer I get to my dream life.

The more time I spend with people who don't have what I want, the more I find myself mired in drama, fear and doubt.

Look around and see where you are being held back and commit to yourself to find a connection this week with at least one person — a mentor, a friend or a community — that supports you taking one step closer to your own personal path to sovereignty.

If you do this, one day you will look back and wonder how you could have stayed for so long doing that thing that you hate, that you know is not what you came here to do, because it was too scary, comfortable, secure to do something else.

I invite you to comment below, I'd love to hear where you are on this path yourself and what else you need to bring you closer to the sovereignty you not only desire, but that you deserve.