• Business isn’t about you and your weird tastes. It’s about your customers. And if you want to be successful, you can’t talk about the far-out stuff that you happen to like. That just won’t fly.

    No, you must talk about handsome return on investment, the tangible benefits to their short-term goals, the problem your product will solve for them. You must talk about effectiveness and results.

    This is the language of business. More. Better. Faster.

    You must not talk about God, or destiny, or anal sex, or consciousness, or intimacy. These things are woo-woo, inappropriate, or irrelevant.

    This is how it has been for some time. This is business as we have known it.

    If you wanted to bring your weird stuff into this paradigm – spirituality, relationships, consciousness, art, sex – you couldn’t advertise it at the front door. You had to smuggle it in the back door.

    You had to ‘Trojan Horse’ it.

    The Trojan Horse marketer is the one who pretends he’s normal, professional, conventional, but is secretly doing something he fears you wouldn’t understand.

    She tells you she’ll teach you effective leadership strategy, when actually she’s doing deep transformational work with you. He tells you his course will help you pick up women, while he’s actually teaching you the art of authentic relating.

    It was the only way you could make a business out of consciousness.

    And many of us still believe that’s the way we’ve got to play it.

    The days of the Trojan Horse marketer are numbered

    People are dying for meaning, depth, originality, vulnerability. Authenticity.

    They don’t want to be sold to, by some faceless corporation. They don’t want dry perfunctory newsletters that advertise a bunch of discount offers. They don’t want business to feel like business.

    We want real connection. We want to feel someone’s heart, what they stand for, what they care about, where they’re afraid of, how they want to change things, why they give a shit about this weird and wonderful world of ours.

    The language of old business was effectiveness.

    The language of new business is connection and authenticity.

    The Trojan Horse strategy while necessary for so long, is fast becoming a liability. Because it’s based on a façade.

    You think you’re getting a gift from the Greeks. You’re actually getting an invasion force. You think you’re getting a normal business product. You’re actually getting something that you didn’t even know you needed.

    It’s the opposite of transparent authenticity. And the people who want your weird woo-woo consciousness products are far too wise to fall for your façade.

    The market wants the real you

    You don’t have to smuggle the weird stuff in any more.

    In fact, if you’re in the business of consciousness, and you’re still playing the Trojan Horse strategy, it’s probably hurting your business.

    The old strategies are dying. Fast. Their effectiveness is waning, on a monthly basis.

    You’ve got to switch it up.

    I know you’re hiding behind conventions because you’re afraid to get real. I get it. It’s totally understandable. But it’s not going to work. It’s probably already not working.

    Show yourself. Your real self.

    Into tantric monkey spanking? Come out. Despite the possibility of ostracism, you don’t get to choose your authentic fetishes.

    You’re a closet libertarian, you thinks the occupy Wall Street stuff was a crock of shit? Yes, your left wing liberal friends may accuse you of having sold your soul, but you may also discover that your true views aren’t as fringe as you thought.

    Inexplicably drawn to psychedelic rune reading? Yes, your more straight laced customers may beat a hasty retreat, but they’ll leave a space for a bunch of new folks who love themselves some rune action.

    Your Trojan Horse strategy may seem like it’s keeping your business afloat. More likely though, it’s actually protecting your ego from the discomfort of revealing something true and vulnerable.

    Time to get real

    I know you’re holding back. I know it.

    I know there are what seem like a whole bunch of good reasons to stay held back. I get it.

    And I know there’s something slowly twisting inside you. You’re not where you want to be. You’re not who you want to be. And you know it.

    And yet, you still hold back.

    I get it. There’s a lot at stake.

    It’s your identity. It’s the image you’ve been cultivating. It’s the story you’ve woven of who you are, and what you’re capable of. It’s fear of the consequences.

    And, you know it’s time.

    Time to tell it how it really is.

    That used to get you fired. Old business likes the predictable, secure stuff. They want the conveyer belt to keep chucking out the same safe thing day after day.

    Throw a spanner in the works. Break the rules.

    Show yourself.

    Your real customers will thank you for it. Profusely.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • It all just came to me, and I realized the truth. My world changed, the heavens opened up, I saw the light. It was beautiful. I was beautiful.

    It’s a mistaken story.

    Transformation is not the euphoria that we think it is.

    Realization can be exquisite. The alethic moment, when what was once hidden, is now revealed. What was once obscured, is now seen.

    “Aahhh.”

    And then there is the consequence of insight—the unpredictable roll of a great change released upon a static body.

    Transformation is not joyful insight. Transformation is what ensues from insight.

    Transformation is the painful shedding of an old skin that no longer fits. Transformation is the shocking realization of looking in the mirror, day after day, and not recognizing the one who stares back at you.

    Transformation is slow, and unpleasant.

    Can you submit to the deepest change?

    To transform is to go beyond your current form, your current shape. It is metamorphosis.

    When you change shape, you hurt.

    The old dies, the new grows.

    Who you considered yourself to be, is not someone you can find anymore. What you assumed would always be true is no longer true.

    “I’m struggling. I don’t really know where I am. It’s all so confusing. I’m anxious, and I don’t really know what’s going on. Nothing seems to be working anymore.”

    It’s not working anymore, because the old things can’t work anymore, when you realize they’re old.

    Transformation has this glittery idealistic reputation. A breakthrough at a weekend workshop. An epiphany during a heightened state. An intense moment of spiritual realization.

    The reality of transformation is dark, confusing and painful.

    Who are you?

    You think you’re this one? Ewan. Who was born in England and likes pecans? You think that’s you?

    You think you’re the eternal one? The one who was here before your parents were born? You think that’s you?

    You are this. This moment. You are the culmination of a thousand lives, brought into this body by a thousand desires. You are this one, a cacophony of selves, loosely tied together with a narrative we call ego.

    You are this one. The one who cannot choose his destiny. The one who does not choose her true name.

    You are a thousand voices, channeled through a single throat. You are a thousand hearts, held by a singular love.

    You think you are the same one as 10 years ago? A month ago? A second ago? You are the one that transforms in every single moment.

    And yet you resist this eternal transformation. You seek to categorize yourself, to define yourself. You form a picture frame around your form.

    “This is me. I’m like this. I’m not like that.”

    It’s a frame you create. One that helps you link together the past memories, with a future possibility. A frame that gives your ever changing nature a sense of sane continuity.

    And when one day, you see the frame you’ve been seeing through, when one day you see the eyes you’ve been seeing with, your security is shattered. You are enveloped by the visceral anxiety of impermanence.

    “I thought I knew who I was. I do not.”

    It is in that moment, that transformation starts to wind its ruthless will around your being. And you will realize you are not who you considered yourself to be…

    You cannot choose this

    The plague is coming. The dead are walking. What was once, will never be.

    And it is into this inevitability that you throw your sense of will.

    You believe you can choose to be transformed? You believe this is a ‘personal development’ that improves you, that gives you more of what you want?

    Transformation is not a choice. It is the great surrender.

    When she comes for you, you have two choices.

    Resist her power, fight for your right to choose, and suffer, immeasurably.

    Or you can bend over and spread your cheeks.

    It may or may not be gentle.

    Part of you is dying. You cannot cheat the reaper.

    Let God have you. You cannot choose his claim on you. You can only choose your acquiescence as He has His way with you.

    He does this from the greatest love you can imagine. He is not punishing you. God no. He is opening you. He is fucking you into the vulnerable and beautiful truth that you dare not admit.

    What are you going to do?

    Struggle? Or spit on your fingers, and help him enter you.

    You have one choice only

    The circle has turned. The rot is setting in.

    That identity you had, where you knew who you were? It’s breaking down. If you try and hold onto it, it will decompose between your very fingers.

    That idea of what was true is turning to dust and clogging up your throat.

    What dies is no longer you. Let yourself fall apart, and you will discover that from the composting remains of your former identity, springs the new shoots of a greater consciousness.

    This is the cycle. Life, into death, into ever changing life, into ever deeper death.

    You have one choice.

    Suffer. Or surrender.

    If you submit to His will, you cannot fuck it up.

    If you do not submit to His will, you cannot fuck it up.

    Yet resistance is optional.

    Where do you still cling to your outmoded sense of entitlement? Where do you still grasp to a concept of fairness, or rightness?

    These are human ideas. Beautiful ideas.

    But now you are in the realm of God. And here there is one choice only.

    How deeply will you allow Him to enter you?

    She loves you.

    Die to Him.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • You’re a brilliant practitioner. You have a gift. You have so much to give. But you’re compromised.

    You’re over-giving and under-funded.

    When you don’t create money in alignment with your practice, when you don’t fuel your business effectively, you suffer, and I suffer, because I’m deprived of the fullness of your offer.

    There have been times when I’ve been so short on money, that I really felt like I needed people to come along and pay me for stuff. I would over reach, over stretch. I’d come across as needy, despite my best efforts. And I came across needy because I felt needy.

    Working from that place did not help. I scared people away, who could have been served by me. It toxified my creativity, drawing my attention to need rather than desire. It sucked in my being, so that the world looked like a survival course, rather than a playground.

    As I wrote about in this previous piece (along with an examination of the nature of money) I realized something last year. I realized that the anxiety around money disappeared, not when I had ‘enough’ in the bank, or ‘enough’ clients lined up; but when I trusted in my capacity to create money when I wanted it.

    And so it is to the nature of that capacity that I’m going to speak. So you too can unlock your own innate capacity to create money.

    There are 4 keys that I’ve found fundamental in opening up the capacity.

    1. Serve the shit out of people
    2. Charge more than you’re comfortable with
    3. Learn how to sell (and receive) enjoyably
    4. Don’t chase the money

    There are also many more, but I want to really drill down into these four for you. Think of them as the minimum you need to start unlocking your own capacity to create money.

    1. Serve the shit out of people

    It all starts here. This is the heart of the matter. Without serving, for the sake of serving, you can’t unlock this capacity. Not truly.

    Money is an idea. It’s a measurement device that allows us to swap things more easily. What does it measure? Value. And how do we create value? We serve.

    So, at its root, money is an indicator of service.

    Go forth and serve. Serve because you want to serve. Give someone a gift, no strings attached. Help someone out, because you care about what they do. Offer someone your undivided presence for an hour.

    In whatever way you feel called to; serve.

    Service is what happens when we offer our devotion to another human being.

    “How can I help? I’m here for you.”

    Touch their heart. Open your heart. Serving others feels good. Enjoy the selfish gratification of doing something generous. Enjoy the selfless sacrifice of giving yourself unconditionally.

    Don’t serve them because you want something as a result. Don’t serve them so that…

    So that…they might hire me for a project.
    So that…they’ll like me.
    So that…I’m less stressed.
    So that…I’ll feel less unworthy.

    Service is an offer of the heart. I lay down my own agenda, to open you, to help you, to challenge you, to support you. I care about you.

    I was coaching someone a few days ago. She was having some frustration with her business. I’d said to her “you must let me help you.” So she did. I helped her because I wanted to help. I love her work. I love her. There was no other agenda.

    There are a whole host of people I like to help. I serve them when I can, because I can. Because I care about them. And then some of these people become my clients. They want to go really deep. They feel called to really invest in themselves. So we work together professionally. They give me money, I give them as much service as I can.

    Business is based on fundamental principles. One of them is service. Start there.

    Serve the shit out of folks.

    2. Charge more than you’re comfortable with

    Offering your services without charging money is called charity. Charity is awesome. And it’s also not business, or sustainable (usually). I see a lot of folks afraid to charge higher fees for their service. I see myself do it too sometimes.

    “Oh but, that’s an awful lot of money! I’m not worth that yet, and they definitely wouldn’t pay it. I’d rather play it safe, and over-deliver, then maybe I’ll put up my prices when I feel more confident. Anyway, I don’t want to be greedy.”

    When I design a new coaching package, I’ll write down a bunch of increasing price points for it on a big piece of paper. Then I’ll centre myself, and look at each price in turn for 20-30 seconds, really feeling what happens in my body when I imagine charging it.

    What I’ve discovered (and I’ve done this with clients too) is that the ‘low’ numbers don’t feel good in my body. I’m too relaxed, to the point of actually feeling flat. I can’t feel much vibrancy in my body. It doesn’t feel alive or animated.

    And the really high numbers? There’s a LOT of sensation – contraction in my belly, tightness in my throat. There’s so much vibrancy, I struggle to remain grounded and present.

    And then there’s this point in the upper middle. It’s the number just before the discomfort starts closing me down.

    It’s an uncomfortable number. It stretches me. It will stretch my client. But it feels right, fair, in alignment. It fills me with energy. It fills the imaginary relationship with energy.

    That’s my number. The one that brings it alive, and sets the space for creation.

    3. Learn to sell (and receive) enjoyably

    To create money, you have to ask for money. This means selling. And receiving.

    Selling has a shifty reputation. Snake-oil, life insurance, vacuum cleaners door to door. It has me think about pushiness, manipulation, things I don’t actually want.

    True selling is simply helping someone to make a decision.

    When I started The Realized Entrepreneur, I decided to offer coaching. And that meant I had to do sales. I had to talk, in real time, with a real human being, and tell them what it would cost to work with me, and have them say yes or no. And if they said yes, it meant I’d be in really close relationship to them for months.

    At first I felt scared to tell them numbers, so I’d say “I’ll send you a proposal”. Then I’d spent days writing and re-writing these things.

    Then I started working with my own coach. He helped me understand the nature of selling when it’s based on service.

    Here’s how I sell.

    I drop in deep with someone, and I serve them. If I feel intuitively, actually in my body, that I could serve this person further, I’ll offer.

    “Would you like to hear what working with me looks like?”

    I can serve someone far more deeply, who signs on to work with me for 6 months, than I can someone who spends an hour on the phone with me. But not everyone is ready, or appropriate.

    Selling is not about making money. It’s about finding the truth. Would this person be served by working with me? I consider it my job to be to help them make that decision.

    “Will I be served by working with Ewan? Am I ready to invest in myself?”

    Maybe I’m scared they’ll say no, because I really want to work with them. Maybe I’m scared they’ll say yes, because it’s going to challenge me.

    I put my fear aside, and I seek to uncover the truth.

    “Yes. Fuck yes.”

    “No. I don’t feel called.”

    It’s about truth. What’s the true decision? Uncover it.

    4. Don’t chase the money

    Money, like happiness, is hard to get if you go straight for it.

    Happiness opens to you when you live your life according to your own deep principles, when you follow your heart, when you do what fulfills you.

    Money’s like that too.

    I remember the times when I was really short, and I felt like I really needed money. I’d go hunting for it. Can I make money over here with this person? Can I weasel my way in over there?

    It felt tight. It felt desperate. I felt tight and desperate.

    It turned into a money grabbing crusade. It wasn’t greed, it was need. And the more I chased it, the harder it was to find.

    Remember, money isn’t a thing, it’s a measurement of service. So, when you want to create money, ask not “where can I find money?” but “where can I deeply serve?”

    Money is like a lover. Respect her. Caress her. Love her. Invite her. Don’t chase her, and she will come to you, more than willingly.

    What would be unleashed if you could create money?

    I create money, not because I want to buy shiny things (although I confess, I am excited about buying a new Macbook), but because I want to increase my capacity to create and to serve.

    I invested money into a trip across the US last month, visiting friends and clients, spending time with my mentor, writing in new and unusual places. It changed me.

    I just invested in a writing coach, and a 5-day silent meditation retreat with my new teacher, and two holidays for my darling woman who really needed some time and space away from the expectations of normality.

    I invested in three group coaching programs in the last 8 months.

    All these things were investments in the most important asset my business has: my own consciousness.

    As I grow, my service grows. As my service grows, the people I work with grow. As the people I work with grow, I grow. Ad infinitum.

    I know you have a lot to give. I know you have a lot to create. I know you have a lot of service to offer.

    Money empowers the powerful. Money enlightens the light bearers. Money teaches the wise. Money serve the servers.

    What would be unleashed, if you unlocked your capacity to create money?

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • You’re here for a reason. It’s not a mistake.

    You have to work to do. You have things to create, wisdom to convey, gifts to offer. Your work is just that. It is your Work. It is unique. And if you don’t create it, the world will never have it.

    Your work is something you did not ultimately choose. But it is something that if you commit to uncover and give it, will transform reality in ways you can’t imagine.

    Your work is to create the Work you were made for.

    And yet as we follow the path of living our work, reality tests us. God challenges us. We doubt it. We doubt ourselves. It’s inevitable.

    There are stories we so often tell ourselves, that stop us from offering our true work to the world. They’re stories I’ve told myself, they’re stories my clients tell themselves, they’re stories my friends have told themselves.

    The stories will always spin. But when you mistake them for the truth, the world is robbed of your genius, and you are robbed of your destiny.

    Here are 6 such stories. And how to re-frame them.

    1. Who am I to…

    Who am I to write about the spiritual nature of business? Who am I to coach people on business success? Who the fuck am I to call my brand The Realized Entrepreneur!?

    I doubted it all. I was terrified of arrogance. Of pretending a level of authority that I neither felt nor deserved.

    There’s a myth that we need to have mastered something in order to teach it. You train to become qualified, and then you teach.

    I train for 5 years to become an engineer, then I start engineering. I spend $12,000 on coach training, then I start being a coach.

    This myth relies on the notion of expertise; that I need a certain amount of knowledge to qualify as someone who can then practice. It’s a two-step process. Novice, expert. Student, teacher.

    On the deepest level however, we are each asked to teach that which we most need to learn. The very thing that we are afraid of, yet are attracted to, is our teaching. The very thing that we struggle with, yet are captivated by is our lesson.

    Do not wait until you feel qualified to teach it. Do not wait until it feels safe to give it.

    The journey into the unknown is anything but safe. The winding cosmic pathway toward expressing your God-given essence is littered with discomfort.

    But it is also imbued with light. Follow the light. It’s in you.

    It is you.

    2. I’ll be Judged

    They’ll say I’m arrogant, or delusional. They’ll condemn me, as worthless, or worse. They’ll dismiss me as a naïve narcissist. I’ll be judged.

    Yes. You will.

    People will judge you. They’ll judge you for sticking your head up above the safety line. They’ll dismiss you. They’ll attack you. They’ll ignore you. They’ll bad-mouth you.

    You can’t escape it.

    As Seth Godin says: “You can’t both fit in, and stand out.”

    If you offer your true work, you’ll stand out. And you’ll indirectly illuminate the fact that there are people who are scared, and who are hiding, and not giving their work, and they know it.

    When you shine, they’ll squirm. And the more they squirm, the more they’ll look for a source of the pain and discomfort. And if they don’t look at themselves, they might look at you.

    Your enlightened offerings, have illuminated their shadowed ambitions. Your piercing brilliance, has highlighted their dark desires.

    And if they aren’t vulnerable enough to burn in that discomfort, they’ll disperse the energy.

    The more you offer your true work, the more those who aren’t, will assess and judge you. It’s not a sign that you’re getting it wrong, it’s a sign that you’re getting it right.

    It’s nothing to do with you, or even them. It’s just God inviting us all deeper.

    3. This will ruin my reputation

    My family will never look at me the same way. I have a carefully created reputation with my community and customers, I don’t want to risk that by putting out this risky stuff. No-one will take me seriously if I say what I really think.

    When a relatively little known researcher on vulnerability decided to see what would happen if she presented her study findings while actually showing her own vulnerability, she was terrified it would ruin her professional reputation. 20 million video views later, and Brene Brown’s reputation as a global leader in vulnerability is well established.

    A reputation that is not based on your true work, is a reputation that insulates you from what you’re called to create.

    Something old needs to be broken down, before something new can be created.

    What is the box you have created for yourself? What is the label you’ve carefully applied to you and your work? Is it truly you? Truly you?

    Maybe not.

    4. I don’t know if it’s good enough

    I don’t know if it works. I don’t know if I like it, or if anyone else will like it. I don’t know if it’s good enough.

    Doubting quality means you’re in true creativity. Creativity comes from the frothy space of tension between success and failure. If it’s sure to work, it’s not creative.

    It is not your role to judge the value of what you create. That privilege lies with your tribe, those you’re serving.

    It’s not about perfecting it, then giving it. It’s about experimenting and then experimenting. It’s about the never ending dance, at the edges of your lived expression, as you offer what seems to be in your soul, and the world around you responds with peculiar originality.

    It’s about never knowing if it’s good enough. Because it’s not about good enough anymore, it’s about brave enough, or surrendered enough.

    I wrote a piece recently. I didn’t like it. I wanted to bin it and write something else, but I didn’t have time. So I threw it out, and people loved it. They wouldn’t have, if I’d have listened to my own judgement.

    Are you brave enough to share the work that you literally don’t know the quality of?

    Are you surrendered enough to discover who you are, and what your work is, as you continually give it, and the world continually responds, and you continually pivot and weave, and the world continues in its immeasurably beautiful dance?

    5. I don’t want to be seen

    A couple of months ago someone plagiarized one of my articles. And I don’t mean ripping off a few lines here and there, I mean the whole 1800 word thing, copied and pasted, under his own name.

    I swapped emails with the guy. I assumed good intent. He gave me some pseudo-spiritual justification for the deception. I asked him to attribute it to me. He refused. I decided to share about the episode on Facebook, as it was happening.

    The thread went crazy. My website traffic sky-rocketed. I felt delighted. I felt uncomfortable.

    The next morning, I sat down to journal about the experience. And I realized that the uncomfortable feeling was one of not wanting to be seen.

    I felt exposed. I felt illuminated. I felt witnessed. I wanted crawl back under the cover of obscurity.

    I knew this wouldn’t be the last time. It felt like a watershed moment. I knew I couldn’t go back. People were starting to see me. I was scared. And it was exactly what I wanted.

    I do want to be seen. I want my work to be seen. By thousands of people. Maybe millions. And I’m scared. And so are you.

    6. What if it’s not my true work?

    I’m just not sure this is my true calling. I’m just not sure that this is what I’m here to do. What if this isn’t my purpose? What if I’ve got the wrong thing?

    Your true work is not a thing. It’s an ever evolving expression. It’s not something you discover once, and then spend your life making. It’s something you continually deepen into, finding new edges, new delights and new expressions.

    Your true work is discovered by continually creating what you believe your true work to be, and weaving as you go, reflecting, adjusting, pivoting, embracing.

    To try and clarify and define it before you start creating it, is futile at best.

    If you don’t know what your true work is, then you have a huge open space within which to go and explore. Don’t deliberate. Create.

    A wonderful man taught me something recently. He said: “Ewan, just jam a stake in the ground and then fucking go at it. And if things change? Move the stake, and then fucking go at it.”

    It’s not about getting it right. It’s about going at it, and getting it wrong. It’s about the going, not the getting.

    Go create your work.

    Releasing yourself  from story

    Stories are like old soundtracks that you used to like listening to, but forgot to turn off. Can you hear them? They’re humming along in the background, drowning out the voice of your creative expression.

    Don’t shout louder. Get quieter. And when you really hear them, you can find the off switch.

    The world wants your work. And I know you want to give it.

    It begins with the smallest step imaginable.

    A whisper.

    “Yes. I want to create my true work.”

    Ewan Townhead

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