• “It’s not about you Ewan. It’s not about you! What right do you have to say people aren’t worthy of your help? That you aren’t worthy of theirs!? What right!? It’s blocking you. You’re not fully giving your gifts to the world.”

    Her words echoed around my consciousness for weeks.

    As any great friend would do, she’d let me have it. The loving sledgehammer applied with precision to a fragile pride. My heart felt the truth in her words immediately.

    My ego felt rather grumpy about the whole thing.

    “What the hell do you mean it’s not about me? I’m very special don’t you know!”

    When I think of ego I think of a small child. One who has just discovered their will, and power. I want does get.

    “Look at me mommy, I’m climbing really high, look at me, look at me!”

    Yes, dear.

    And we celebrate it don’t we? It’s new and fresh, and beautiful.

    But it doesn’t stop with children.

    “I just made $12,000 in a single phone call. It was so easy. This is the sign of progress, and really owning your power. All you need to do is just believe in yourself, just like I did, and you can have anything you want, whenever you want. Look, I’ve got 274 facebook likes on this already. Wow, it’s so simple!”

    It may be dressed up in adult drag, but it’s the same voice at the core. “Look at me, look at me! I’m a big boy!”

    At some point appropriateness kicks in.

    Just like it’s generally not appropriate to shit in our pants past the age of 3, it’s probably not the best idea to wave a 3 year old ego about when you’re 33 or 63.

    But hold on, let’s also put this in perspective.

    Getting an Ego is a Groundbreaking Move

    It’s a developmental stage.

    In child development, the development of the ego is paradigm shift in perspective. Groundbreaking. Suddenly you can see your own identity as distinct from everything around you. You’re no longer fused. You are you.

    “I’m TOM! And I like trains!”

    You can possess things, want things, have things, take things.

    The ego transformed culture too.

    It enabled people to determine want they did and did not want. To realize they could take it or defend it. They had their own power. It’s what enabled humanity to move from small tribes, to big powerful clans.

    It was a totally groundbreaking shift. And, it was also 10,000 years ago now.

    We don’t consider it particularly cool or honorable to just take other people’s stuff anymore. What was once paradigm-busting, is now hopelessly insufficient for our ideals.

    I Have an Ego Apparently

    And then it happened.

    I got hit over the head by a priestess.

    “It’s not about you Ewan. It’s not about you!”

    What? But surely it’s about me? I’m the one impacting people, blowing their minds, transforming their lives. I’m the one they’re paying a lot of money to, to coach them. What do you mean, it’s not about me!?

    Of course, my heart actually knows already. I’ve known all along. Much to the annoyance of my partner.

    “Stop being a moron Ewan, why do you always make it about you?”

    She’s a priestess too, and relentless in her teaching of me. I hazard to think what would happen to my ego without her.

    My ego thinks about what would happen without her a great deal.

    “Freedom! No more complaints! As much lazy, bullshit self delusion as I can stomach!”

    Today it sounds like hell. Sometimes, it still sounds like heaven.

    Apparently I need to be reminded. A lot.

    It’s not about me, or propping up some idea of who I need to be to feel worthy. It’s about answering the call, burning through the karma that is required, and serving those I’m sent to help.

    I forget that sometimes. So, thanks to the women, and two in particular, for reminding me.

    And What About You?

    This is the part where I want to not make it about me, and make it about you instead. Because then I’ll be ‘serving you’. Or something like that.

    But what I actually want to say is…

    You’re amazing, and beautiful, and powerful. You are worthy, by the grace of being alive. You are as worthy as worthy gets.

    It’s just that you have to open your heart wide to truly remember that. And there are a squillion reasons not to do that.

    For me, they’re all some variation on “Fuck that! I’m not going to show the real me, no-one will love that!”

    My coach said to me: “what would happen next week Ewan, if you just didn’t make it about you?”

    It felt like such a yummy question.

    So, I’m posting this blog…that’s about me. Except it’s not really. It’s about each and every one of us, and how we’re all scared to truly show up in one way or another.

    I know I’m outing myself, because my ego is begging me not to show it to you.

    It’s saying, “you can’t post something that’s almost all about you”.

    Ha, the irony.

    So, here’s to not making it about me. Or you.

    What would happen today if you didn’t make it about you?

    Ewan Townhead

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  • It was April. I’d recently stepped away from the business academy I’d co-founded the previous year. People were surprised.

    But I knew I had other work to do. Even if the details were sketchy.

    I had a concept. Something about integrating creativity, spirituality and business, and people actually living it as a practice.

    I’d created an accurate, yet cumbersome and unmemorable title for it.

    “I don’t think the name works Ewan.”

    I noticed a sinking feeling as soon as my friend said it. I’d asked him his opinion, and he’d duly delivered.

    “But it’s accurate. It says what it’s about, it’s not too definitive, it’s got movement in it. And it took me ages to come up with.”

    Despite being highly creative, I find names really hard to come up with.

    “Yeah, I understand. It doesn’t work though.”

    Shit.

    I called him back a little later.

    “Hey buddy, I have another name. In fact, it was the first one I came up with during the original idea birthing. But I dismissed it. I don’t want to call it this. It feels arrogant and presumptuous. I’m really uncomfortable about it.

    “What is it?” he replied.

    “The Realized Entrepreneur.”

    “Yes. That’s it. Call it that.”

    Shit. (Again).

    This is a Business, About a New Kind of Business

    This is my fourth, or seventh business, depending upon how you count. But in many ways it feels like my first.

    It was born from somewhere deeper, more essential, and I think it’s going to take someone deeper and more essential to manifest it.

    I think this is one of the powerful things about creating something from deep inside – it will ask everything of you. And if you embrace the challenge, and kneel to its will, it will deliver the exact realizations that you always needed, but could never see.

    For that, is what I see as the path of a Realized Entrepreneur. A mission manifested through business, that was born in the soul, and will be enacted by the integrated human being.

    Who is The Realized Entrepreneur?

    The real answer is, I don’t know. That’s why I created this space, to discover it, uncover it. And, it’s a question I’ve asked myself hundreds of times over the last few months.

    Who is the Realized Entrepreneur?

    “The one who, in submission to that which burns in his soul, sets out upon a spiritual journey to manifest the dreams of which she did not choose, but will always be answerable to.”

    Under whatever name, I believe this new way of being – the Realized Entrepreneur – will be one of the most revolutionary archetypes of this still young century.

    It’s a way of being that I can hear beckoning to many of us.

    Who is (s)he?

    He is one, I believe, who is dedicated with full surrender to his own inner journey, the facing of his own shadow, the owning of his own essential glory, the dissolution of his own pre-centauric-self-concept.

    And yet, she is one who is also, at the very same moment, fully invested in the creation of material value, the building of her business, the freeing of her enterprise, and the transformation of the souls she has been sent to serve.

    It is not a path of balance.

    tumblr_nbeu5vsN381qfirfao1_1280

    It is not about adjusting the expression of his inner world to match with her outer creation. It’s not about keeping them in harmony.

    It is about both of these being the expression of one Self, one soul.

    It is also, not about simply espousing some abstract philosophy with unnecessarily confusing terms like ‘pre-centauric-self-concept’.

    It’s about a lived practice, a living practice. Surrendering to your own unique expression of this universal way. Surrendering, with full commitment, to the one who is called.

    One whose quest for real business success, and deep self discovery, are the same journey.

    One who masters both meditation and marketing. One who is guided by strategy and soul. One who creates through product design and poetry. One who integrates business plans with being.

    One whose artistic expression is their business. One whose spiritual practice is their work.

    One. Not two.

    This is how I’m going to explore The Realized Entrepreneur

    Here are four ways (well, more like 3 plus a mystical miscellaneous) that I’m going to be exploring this way of being.

    Or, in other words, here’s how you can learn with me…

    1. The Podcast
    (a.k.a. Meandering conversations with fascinating friends on the path)

    The Realized Entrepreneur is a character who’s expressions are limitless, but who’s heart is universal. A path, not a person.

    Which means there are already amazing trailblazers out there, walking this path, even though they may not resonate with the name I’ve evoked.

    I’ve begun interviewing some of these extraordinary people, exploring with them what shapes and guides them, and how they’ve created their businesses, and discovered their own nature.

    And I will be sharing all of these conversations with you in The Realized Entrepreneur Podcast.

    2. The Blog
    (a.k.a. Self-revelatory musings and teachings on the living of the path)

    In one way, I see this business as a science experiment, with myself as the first guinea pig. What is it to walk the path of a Realized Entrepreneur, like, really?

    I see this way-of-being as one of radical authenticity. One of becoming more of yourself as you already are, through the creation of business and free enterprise. And not hiding either side of the journey, but having it be your marketing and brand strategy.

    So, I’ll be practicing this self-revelatory strategy, and sharing my own discoveries, understandings and advocacy, right here on The Realized Entrepreneur Blog.

    3. The Coaching
    (a.k.a Intimate and transformative in-person support on the path)

    None of us can walk this path alone. My own friends, coaches and mentors have enabled me to step into places I simply could not have reached were I a solo-traveler.

    And so I will be offering coaching and group programs where we can together, reach heights otherwise inaccessible.

    As I’ve begun to seriously teach and coach people over the last 12 months, I’ve seen how truly transformational it can be. I’ve seen people create programs and products that looked literally impossible at the start of the journey.

    So, this is what we can co-create together, through Coaching, when you’re called to a new level of yourself and your work in the world.

    4. The Unknown
    (a.k.a. Stuff I haven’t found the grace to discover yet)

    If I’ve learned anything over the last 3 years of my own entrepreneurial path, it’s been that true transformation and business creativity come from the field of The Unknown. That place beyond your history, beyond your imagination, beyond your strategic plans and well meant assumptions.

    And so, as I sit writing this first blog post, I’m smiling, as realize that I have no idea where this journey will take me, or you. But I’m grateful you’re here, and reading these words.

    I’m excited, and humbled that we get to play together.

    More soon…

    Ewan Townhead

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