Archives for January 2016

Inspiration to Leap and Rites of Passage

January 22, 2016 by influexwp Leave a Comment

If you've already introduced yourself, I've probably fallen in love with you. If you haven't written in, please tell me about you; let me fall in love with you too (alexis@eyeswideopenlife.com).

I'm gearing up for a BIG week next week and I'll be honest I've got a bit of pre-big things happening anxiety kicking in.

I leave for a secret retreat at Esalen on Sunday and get back on Thursday so I can immediately dive in to our first Money Map Masters in-person retreat here in Boulder. I'm super excited for all of it and a little anxious about being off the computer and away from my kids for pretty much the whole week before the in-person retreat.

Gratefully, I do believe both the businesses and the kids are ready for this kind of independence.

In some ways my kids and businesses are at the same stages, on the verge of adulthood and I'm being invited to let go more and more as they individuate from me, which has me on my edge, in the best way possible.

Learning to let go is one of the most valuable lessons we can receive in this lifetime, I think.

There's a time to micro-manage and infuse yourself into your kids and businesses and a time to let it all go and trust you've baked enough of you into the system that they will continue to operate at a high level even without you there.

Let go of trying to control the kids, but only after you know you've given them a solid foundation of learning to trust themselves and be trustworthy. Let them make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, grow and evolve.

Let go of control of the businesses, but only after you've established the systems and got a team in place that you know trusts itself to carry out the vision you've established.

One of my teams had an intervention with me last week and said “go, Ali. we've got this. You can be all of yourself out there in the world and know we're holding down the fort while you do. We love you, we accept you, now get the “F” out of here.” Well, it wasn't word for word like that, but that's how it felt.

And, I believed them. I felt so loved. We are creating a plan for them to buy the business so we can be partners and truly share the wealth that's being created here.

My kids' dad is in Thailand until Thursday and this is the first time ever I'm leaving the kids' for 4 nights without me or their dad here. We do have a house guest here to stay with them and they are 12 (almost 13) and 16, but this feels like a huge rite of passage. They've assured me they will work together to get Noah off to school each morning, go to bed at a decent time and eat healthfully throughout the week.

Trusting my children to become independent is the weirdest process in the world. It requires me to face all of my own insecurities and I look forward to sharing more of my process with you as I see the outcomes of a few experiments I'm running in the background while parenting radically differently than most.

I'll let you know how this 4-days away experiment went in the next Love Letter.

In the meantime …

I've been looking back over the many leaps I've made in my life to see if I can identify what most supported me during these times of great progress, so I can offer it back to you.

The leaps have been many …

From the security of the 6-figure paycheck into my own law practice. From the law practice into online business. From the online business to the farm and unwilling to do anything for money I wouldn't do for free. To the willingness to let it all go and file bankruptcy. To rebuilding everything from scratch using “share the wealth” business models in which everyone wins. To coming out publicly and living with two names and distinct personalities in the world.

And here's what I realize … I never would have even made the first leap if I had not seen someone else do it first. Just about every leap I've made has happened after I've seen someone else do it and said to myself “if she can do it, I can do it.”

When I first launched my own law practice, I had the courage to do it because I saw my friend Diedre successfully doing it. Then, when I decided to move it online, I had the courage to do it because I saw other women successfully creating lives of freedom and flexibility while sharing their work in the world.

Today, I am going beyond what I've seen anyone else do and I'm charting my own course. But, there's no way I would have even gotten to this point if I had not allowed myself to be inspired and guided by other women (and a couple of men) who had done what I wanted to do and supported those early leaps with their courageous jumps first.

I hope that watching me go first is inspiring you to more of what you truly desire in life. I hope that I'm giving you permission to live all of yourself and integrate your work with your life fully so that it's hard to tell the difference between work and play. I hope I'm the guiding light you need to know you can do this — you can make the leap and trust that the safety net you seek will be there to support you in the form of all the resources you need to experience the outcome you desire.

It does help to have a guide. It does help to have the support of someone who has already been there and done that. I've had a coach every step of the way. Each one perfectly keyed to guide me because they had already done what I wanted to do.

If you'd love inspiration to make the leap into an online business from a current bricks and mortar, on location reality, you may enjoy this post about how I made $117,000 in 67 minutes and transformed my business reality overnight (after a lot of not succeeding because I didn't have the right guidance and support). The links at the bottom of the post are no longer active, but the post itself will guide you to the 4 biggest mistakes I've seen people make when making this leap to the online world + the 4 best tips I have for smoothing the process out and doing it well.

If you'd love inspiration and support for something you know I've experienced, please write in and let me know so I can speak to it in a future video or one of these love letters here.

It's my absolute joy to share my experiences so you can learn, grow and evolve too because that brings us closer than ever to being able to play together.

With so much love,

Ali

PS — this is the last week for the Money Map Life Planning Series and the New Year's Clarity workshop. If you have not gotten into them yet, do it now because we'll be shutting it all down this coming week.

Money Map Life Planning Series is here.

Recording of New Year's Clarity Workshop is here.

Recording of Live Q&A Call With Me From Yesterday is here.

PPS — if you are ready to have my support on your vision and the build-out of your business over the next year, join us in the year-long Eyes Wide Open membership: use code BOGO500OFF athttp://www.eyeswideopenlife.com/membership and take $500 off your enrollment + fund a scholarship for someone else in serious need.

Here's some of what our new members are saying:

With her heart and Eyes Wide Open: a love letter to Ali and the Money Map

January 18, 2016 by influexwp Leave a Comment

This is no ordinary Love Letter; it is a Love Letter to Ali and the Money Map. A message to our community from a very dear, passionate and inspiring member of the Eyes Wide Open Collective:

In 2015, one of my biggest intentions was to create a career in alignment with my values and Soul-Purpose, one that created financial sovereignty while also being of service in a way that felt inspiring and nourishing. I heard about the Money Map Life Planning System through several friends who were going through the program and their feedback and reflections encouraged me to explore the possibility.

The Money Map is a system designed by Alexis Neely (artist name: Ali Shanti), a paradigm-shifting visionary entrepreneur and thought-leader in the field of Sacred Economics for the New Earth. This system guides participants to come into right relationship with time, money and how they get paid through a series of modules that are worked through at the individual's own pace.

I was touched by what felt like a “wholistic financial perspective” with which this work is held. I chose this program as the next step on my path to creating an empowered, congruent and financially sovereign life. I knew that an “accountability partner” would really support me through this process, and quickly found an inspiring and resonant partner in a Facebook community group that I’m a part of.

The first two modules in the program helped me get clear on how much money I need to be earning on an hourly and monthly basis to create a lifestyle that is aligned with my values, needs and self-care, so that I can be in service “from the overflow”. It felt so clarifying to discover my “monthly number”, which is $3567, and to have a clear goal for my monthly income to aim towards. I even made a visionary collage art-piece with my monthly number on it, to help crystallize the intention.

The third module was very illuminating in helping me get clear on how I choose to invest my time. I realized how key it is for me to create space for self care (visits with a naturopath, acupuncture, massage, restful sleep), so that I can really begin sharing my gifts from a foundation of wholistic ‘thrival'. I began ‘time-blocking‘: creating my own schedule, making space for my business, clients, relationships, creativity and Spirit.

The next two modules led me into greater awareness of what real resources are currently available to me, and how I can best put them to use for my business, based on my ‘Entrepreneurial Archetype’. It was very enheartening to unearth the many ways in which my immediate environment is already aligned to support my life and my work in the world. The diverse, pioneering path that Ali has taken in her life and career has cultivated her ability to mentor other visionary entrepreneurs with creativity, innovation and resourcefulness. As I worked through these modules, I felt empowered to begin creating my website, promotional materials and branding. Of the eight entrepreneurial archetypes, I aligned with ‘Sage Guide’, and was better able to understand how to grow my business in a way that supports me in doing what I do best.

The final step was to get clear on my purpose and complete any ‘incompletions' that are blocks on the path to creating the life that I really want. This included getting on track with loans and debt, clearing the air in challenging interpersonal dynamics and attending to health concerns that may have been swept under the rug. The intention of this module is to bring to light our blind spots and create an accountability system for us to begin bringing them to conscious completion.

Throughout this whole process, I regularly posted questions, reflections and intentions in the Facebook group, to have them witnessed and held by a supportive community. I attended the twice a month coaching calls, receiving guidance from Ali and her team, including the brilliant ‘Human Design' consultant, Christopher Power, who works with the ‘Eyes Wide Open Life Collective' to support people in understanding how their ‘Human Design Type' influences their business.

As I deepen the establishment of my business and it’s processes I intend to work through Phase Two of the Money Map, which will support me in ensuring I have the proper legal, insurance, financial and tax structures in place.

With this program, I got really clear on the direction I am choosing to take my business. I created promotional materials, began seeing new clients and received really great and encouraging feedback about my work. Creating ‘right-livelihood' through my skills and gifts has been a key component in creating a life that I love. It is definitely an ongoing journey, but having a resonant ‘tribe' of supporters and co-creators has been an invaluable support and for that I am truly grateful.

I recently came across a quote from Dr. Wayne Dyer that felt like a powerful reflection for this journey: “When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous.”
Join us in the pursuit of your life and income awake, aware and on your terms. We want to work to construct an income model that works with you and for you, to include all of your amazing skills and talents into one thriving system. Take some time to go through the Life & Income Planning Series right now (for FREE) and then listen to the fourth session, recorded on New Year's Eve. If you want to dive in with your Eyes Wide Open, join our Membership for a higher, deeper level of support from Ali and her team at the Eyes Wide Open Collective.

About Prema Gaia:

Prema Gaia brings over 13 years of intensive study and practice of the world's wisdom traditions & healing arts to her transformational coaching practice, workshops and retreats. Feeling called to dedicate her life to service, Prema gave away all of her possessions and traveled the world on a several-year ‘vision quest', writing about what she discovered, in magazines such as Spirituality & Health, Sage Woman & South Africa's Odyssey Magazine. To connect, please visit: www.facebook.com/premagaiawriter

Can’t we all just get along?

January 14, 2016 by influexwp Leave a Comment

I’m curious … are you feeling a massive shift since the start of the New Year? I am. All of the sudden the people and resources I have been dreaming of and envisioning for the past several years are showing up in my life with a full bodied yes to fully diving in together.

I’m experiencing this sense of “whaaaaattttt? this is all really happening. finally. dreams. coming. true.”

A new romantic partner who is blowing my mind and heart wide open.
An investor for the lawyer business.
An operations manager for the lawyer business with ten years of experience running Eben Pagan’s companies.
A partner for the Eyes Wide Open business who I’m not sure I could have even dreamed up, if I was making a list of my ideal partners

It’s all happening. And, I would really love to bring you with me, if it’s a match and you desire to create this kind of alignment in your life and income.

I sense a big part of the key is that I’ve finally accepted that we can’t all just get along because … we don’t. And that’s not only a-okay, but it’s valuable. I can stop fighting for what’s not a fit.

The people and situations that are not a 100% match are dropping away with ease, making space for those that are to fill in.

I didn’t always used to think this. I thought if I didn’t get along with everyone, there must be something wrong with me. And I would fight to get along.

Conflict was rampant in my life and my companies. It tore me apart. Trapped me in drama, self-judgment and tremendous doubt.

I often felt wrong. And bad. And sad. And frustrated beyond belief. I couldn’t understand where I was going wrong. I was trying so hard to do it all so right. And I was failing.

Over the past year, I’ve seen a massive shift in my experience.

Today, I see that my belief that we all need to “get along” was keeping me trapped. I see that I didn’t truly trust that if it didn’t feel good, I could walk away and make space for what does. I thought I was a bad person if I didn’t stick it out and make it work.

Today, there is harmony in my life and my companies. This harmony springs forth from within me and radiates out among those around me. Where harmony doesn’t exist, the relationships drop away with ease, making space for those with which I am in full resonance.

It’s so much easier than the way I did things before.

In the past, I struggled to fix things, sure I could make it better, I would hold on to situations, people and resources that I thought I needed or who I thought needed me. It was a scarcity mentality.

Not anymore.

My new mantra is show up as all of myself, and if it’s not a match, let it go. And fast.

Not to say that it’s always easy. I can still get hooked into patterns of wanting to save people (and thinking I can), believing if I just try a little harder, I can make it work, and wishing it could be different. I can still sometimes be tempted into the idea that compromising myself to “fit in” is necessary.

But now I can see when it happens quickly, come back to myself and let go of what doesn’t resonate much more rapidly.

I wish the same for you.

Because what will happen is when you let go of everything that is not a match, you’ll either find yourself surrounded by the most amazing people and relationships you can imagine or you’ll find yourself alone and having to face where you were not being the person you want to be and become that person before you begin to rebuild your relationships.

Either way, you are on the path to creating your own version of heaven on earth.

I desire that for you, whether we get along or not.

With love beyond the beyond,

Ali

PS — My son started cotillion today. I love that I am teaching him that he can be a suit and tie kind of guy and I can be a freaky feather wearing kind of gal and we can love each other fully and accept each other completely. Here’s a couple of pictures of his first night: me and him(Facebook); sparkle Noah (Instagram).

PPS — If you have not yet watched our New Year’s Eve Webinar and you want to work with me to fully align your life and income in 2016, this is the time to watch. We are 2/3 full in our program and if we are meant to work together, the time for me to get to know you is now. E-mail me at alexis@eyeswideopenlife.com

And watch the recording of the webinar here to determine if my support to align your life and income in 2016 is in the cards for you.

I’m in love…

January 14, 2016 by influexwp Leave a Comment

This is a long love letter, grab a cup of tea and settle in for a few minutes.

Yes, it's true, I am experiencing the beauty of new love. It's tender, and a wee bit frightening. I'm not quite ready to share the details, and it feels way too soon after my last relationship but, I'm a lover. It's my nature.

The truth is, now that my heart is open, I walk around feeling in love most of the time. Not just with humans, but with all of Life.

And, I've fallen in love with each and every one of you who has written to share the truth of your current reality and your vision for the future.

My guess is that if you haven't written in, that I'd fall in love with you too, if you did. (And, please do — I read everything and I become evermore inspired to keep sharing, even when it feels like a stretch for me to do so.)

Your stories of where you are now and what you want to create in your life are inspiring me to serve more widely than I ever have before.

Thank you for sharing them with me.

If you desire to work with me in the future, it's a good idea to write in, whether you are ready to get started now or you know it will be some time in the future because it allows me to begin to get to know you, which allows us to dive in deeper more quickly and support you with more precision right away when we do work together.

I have three things for you today:

1. You are likely investing your resources in ways that will not lead you to more of what you want in life — now, there's help.

I'm writing this on my way to San Francisco (now Oakland due to flight delays into SFO this am) for a 24-hour trip to support the launch of what I am calling the most rational book I've ever read on how we can invest our resources in the new economy for true safety.

I'm investing the time, money and energy to be in San Francisco for the launch because I know that the investment in tribe-building that comes along with my trip will be worth it — and that's part of what you'll come to understand creates real security, once you read the book.

I recorded an interview with the authors, Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg. Here's where you can hear it.

Read the book and change the way you think about how you are investing your resources, forever.

Check out my personal Facebook profile for some pictures from the day and the event itself.

2. How to become free to be all of yourself.

One of the questions I get asked the most by people who write in is — how did you go from being an uptight legal expert on TV to becoming free to be all of you?

Check out the live Facebook video I recorded this past weekend — on the process of becoming free to be all of yourself — here.

All I want to do lately is share what I've learned so you can build your life and income with your eyes and heart way more open than mine were.

3. The support for creating the life and income you really, really, really, REALLY want – not the one “they” want for you.

It's SO easy to get sucked into creating a life and income you don't actually want.

The pull toward safety, security and fitting in is strong for most of us, so we find ourselves making choices and decisions that lead to more of what we don't actually want.

We follow the “leader” (monkey see, monkey do style) only to discover we've created a life that doesn't feel right, dependent on an income that keeps us trapped in that life.

And the pressure to save, save, save so we can retire comfortably later.

Fahgeddabout that. It's time to wake up.

Please stop waiting for later, and take a step toward getting the support you need to step into the life that's waiting for you.

Watch the recording of my New Year's Eve Clarity Call and you'll hear about and from other people just like you who have done it, stepped into a life of freedom, liberated.

And you'll learn how you can have my support in doing just that.

I've revamped my own income model for 2016 and I'm done with big launches of my products, don't want this business to be a million dollar business, and I'm narrowing in on who and how I serve until I've freed up more time in my other business.

I promised myself last year that I was not going to go down the road of big launches, competition-based models, and enrolling as many people as possible in a short period of time.

It's a “successful” model that leaves me wanting to quit the business every time. Not sustainable for me and my life. And while I'm fairly good at it, I've been committed to discovering a new way.

Yet, this fall I hired a “launch manager” to help me build out my systems so that anyone can sign up for our programs at any time, so I can just focus on creating great new content, and I could feel myself getting pulled into the old model that I had sworn to myself I was not going to get caught up in again.

It's so alluring.

Blindly, again and again, I built my income model based on what others were doing “successfully” — but each time, I would get to the finish line and find I had created something I didn't want, based on conditioning I couldn't see.

This time, fortunately, I was awake enough to understand the road I was heading down wasn't going to lead me to where I really wanted to go, and if I didn't make a hard right, I'd be right back in the same place I had ended up in time and again.

So, at the 11th hour, I changed up the plan. I said no to the big launch, the affiliates, the million dollar business, and remembered what's most important to me.

Rather than strategizing my webinar to maximize sales, I read everything you wrote the night before and stayed up until 3:30a (it's when I often do my best work) and created a presentation that spoke directly to what you actually need.

If you haven't watched yet, you can still do so here.

I made the decision not to enroll as many people as possible, but to limit the offer to a container of just 50 people right now. A container me and my team can handle and serve well and deeply. And we are already half full.

It's enough. There's no need to go bigger right now.

What matters isn't how many people I can enroll, it's how many people I can love. And right now, I've got room for 50 in my inner circle attention field.

For so many years, my eyes were blind and my heart was closed.

Awakening these parts of myself has been both painful and ever so rewarding.

Coming into true alignment with the life I am here to live, and creating the space to live in my heart and share from the overflow could have been faster, if my own clarity had come sooner.

Of course, it couldn't come any sooner than it did. We are each in the evolution process of discovering what's true and that means someone has to take the long, circuitous route there.

I sense that I am in your life to ease the process for you. You are ready to see with clear eyes and to feel with an open heart.

You long for guidance as you step onto the road less traveled and I offer an outstretched hand with the other on my heart, welcoming you.

Welcome. And thank you for being on the journey with me.

With so much love today and everyday.

Ali

PS — for you skimmers, here's the three things:

1. Buy the book the Last Safe Investment and start re-allocating your resources today. Here's my FB message about it and an interview I recorded with the authors.

2. Check out the live video I made on Facebook: how you can become free to be all of yourself.

3. Watch the recording of the New Year's Clarity Call before it comes down for good.