• I remember years ago, being in a room with a spiritual teacher. A friend and I had organized a workshop with him. He was a very wise man.

    Towards the end of our evening, a guy put up his hand to ask a question.

    “Terry, I wake up every morning, and I don’t really want to be alive. There’s so much pain. I was an alcoholic for many years, and I’ve been sober for many now. But I’m just so unhappy. I don’t know why I’m here. What do I do?”

    It was one of those questions that makes the room go deathly silent, as everyone reels from the depth they’ve just been plunged into.

    Terry paused a long time. And then he said.

    “I don’t know. I don’t have any advice for you. I don’t know what the answer is. But I will offer you a prayer.”

    And he did. And something entered the room as he did. I can still feel the shivers now.

    The question was too big to answer. And so he honoured it by opening his heart, and blessing this man, and his suffering, and all of us who are suffering, and don’t know what to do about it.

    And I’m glad he did. And I’ll never forget that moment.

    We’re taught to know the answers

    Because intelligent people know the answer. Successful people know the answer. Popular people know the answer.

    And if you confess that you don’t know, then it must mean that no one likes you. Or you’re a failure. Or dumb.

    And who wants to be dumb and alone?

    So we fake it.

    I fake it.

    It might be a small fake. Just brushing over the cracks lightly, and hope no-one noticed.

    “You know, like in that amazing film, ‘The Cross and the Armadillo’, you know the one I’m talking about right?”

    “Uh. Yeah of course.”

    Except you don’t.

    Or maybe it’s a big fake. Pretending to be this whole other person. The one you think you need to be to get the things you think you want. And it’s been happening for years.

    And at the bottom of it all, it just hurts.

    It hurts to fake it, because it robs us of the natural nutrition that we get from being real.

    But to be real we have to be vulnerable.

    “I don’t know.”

    And the more there is on the line, the less our pride wants us to confess to it.

    You’re the coach, you should know

    You’re expected to know the answer Ewan.

    You’re supposed to guide them through this with surety and confidence. You’re the coach.

    You’re expected to get them results, no matter who they are or what they do.

    So what’s the answer Ewan? Your client is in front of you, and they’re scared and stuck. They need your help. What are you going to do?

    I don’t know.

    But you should know! Oh man, you’ve got yourself into a sticky spot here haven’t you? You told them you could help them, and now they really need your help, and what do you have to say?

    I don’t know.

    Oh dude. You’re fucked. This is so far from being ok. Better fake it. And fast. Otherwise this whole house of cards is going to come crashing down. What’s the answer?

    I don’t know.

    Sometimes I wish I said it more often

    During an interview earlier this year, a woman asked me how my coaching was different to other business coaches out there.

    I was about to deliver some kind of elevator pitch. Because I thought it was a good question. And I thought a good coach would have a good answer to it. And I wanted to be seen as a good coach.

    But for some reason I paused long enough to find something more true.

    “I don’t know.”

    Because I didn’t really know how other business coaches worked.

    And sometimes I wish I said that more often.

    Because when I realize I don’t know, and also realize that my unawareness is real, and not an error, it opens up this huge space for my curiosity to flow into.

    Authentic ignorance.

    Saying “I don’t know”, because I truly don’t, even though the rules in my head say I should.

    Saying “I don’t know” because it’s infinitely more true than pretending I do.

    Saying “I don’t know” because it gives me a blank page to paint a new consciousness onto.

    Smash the statue and the pedestal

    Don’t hide your ignorance.

    No need to pretend you’re more than you are.

    Every time you try and fit in, you negate the way you stand out.

    You just keep propping up the crumbling statue of some fake guy, which you glued together from ideas of how you’re supposed to be, and what you’re supposed to know.

    It’s not real.

    Smash the statue. And smash the pedestal you’ve been trying to pretend you’re standing on.

    You are so wonderfully ignorant of how fucking beautiful you really are.

    Though that’s not a mistake.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • There’s a very old story.

    A shepherd boy is bored tending his sheep, and so to amuse himself, he shouts ‘Wolf, Wolf!” And the villagers come running to save him, and discover it was a ruse. And he laughs.

    And then he does it again, and they still fall for it, bitterly.

    The third time, an actual wolf shows up, but the villagers don’t. They don’t believe him when he cries ‘wolf’. And so the wolf eats all the sheep, and maybe it eats the shepherd boy too.

    And the moral of the tale is that no-one believes a liar, even when they’re telling the truth.

    Everyone is shouting for your attention

    I have a special folder in my gmail inbox.

    When I sign up to someone’s email list, I use an address that funnels all their emails into that folder. It’s a very full folder.

    I’m on some of the lists, because they’re people I like to read. Folks like Danielle LaPorte, Michael Ellsberg, James Altucher and Seth Godin.

    And the rest I’m on because they’re my peers, or my competitors, and I like to keep a track of my market and see what other people are doing.

    And for the most part, I fucking hate the marketing emails they send me.

    I’ll skim down the list and look at all the clever subject lines designed to hook me into opening them up. And it’s like 100 people at a party all shouting at the same time to get my attention.

    And it makes me want to click away and never come back.

    Just get as many people to open it as possible

    I studied online marketing, and email marketing for quite a while, then I practiced for quite a while, then I taught it a bit. Now I’m fucking with the ‘rules’.

    I know the tactics to get people to open emails.

    I look at all these mails in my special folder and I’m impressed, because some of these people are really good. Better than I am. The subject lines are persuasive and clever and enticing.

    And if you could get more people to open your email by using a good subject line, why not do it, right?

    That’s what the marketing aficionados teach. It’s all about the subject lines. Good ones get more people to open your email. Bad ones get less.

    Simple.

    Except I think the principle is (deeply) flawed. Because everyone is crying wolf.

    Subject: I’m dying. And this is the last email I’ll ever send to you

    It would work, right? People would open this in their droves.

    But what do you do with the next email?

    Subject: Only kidding. I’m not dead, but you can get a discount on my new thing

    I remember when we were selling our course at Waking Up the Workplace. I wanted as many people as possible to open the mail. So I used this.

    Subject: This is the most important email you’ll receive from us this year

    It worked!

    It also didn’t feel that good. But I was ok with that, since I wanted people to buy the thing, because it was a good course. And they did.

    But now I’m trying out a different approach.

    Don’t be persuasive

    “Hey buddy. Have you ever suffered from not finding your purpose? Well I was just like you too, until I discovered these 5 principles of living a successful life. And now I have a 6-figure business. Click here to learn the secret. But do it today, otherwise this message will self-destruct.”

    And maybe they do click the link, and maybe they’re underwhelmed.

    And maybe they never open your email again.

    And you wonder why your business is not really flowing.

    So you go even harder at your marketing…

    With this site, I decided to do things differently.

    I wanted my email list to be a quiet place. One where I didn’t shout for my reader’s attention.

    I wanted it to feel like I was sitting in a coffee house with a friend, and quietly leaning over…

    “Hey man. I’ve been working on this thing. It’s about slurpies. I just finished it, so if you’re interested, take a look. I hope you dig it.”

    And if people are interested, then they do check it out, and hopefully they like it.

    And then next time I let them know about something, they’ll check it out again, because they liked it last time.

    And then I don’t have to persuade them of anything. Because it’s like a friend making a recommendation. And they trust my word.

    It’s not a magic spade

    “It’s a spade. If you want to dig a hole, it will help you.”

    And if no-one’s interested in your spade, go make something else. Or find people who love holes.

    Don’t try and trick people into checking out your spade by telling them it’s magic. Or that it will help them discover their purpose. Or enlarge their penis.

    It’s a good spade. That’s enough.

    And if it’s actually not a good spade? Then get your priorities straight, and stop marketing junk, rather than creating great stuff.

    This is all very well, but does it work?

    A valid question. Ask me in another 4 years for the definitive answer.

    But what I can tell you, is that by focusing on my writing, not hyping shit, and aiming for trust, not email opens, I’ve consequently got a consistent email open rate that’s higher than any list I’ve ever seen.

    Now, my list is still small, and maybe this is front loaded goodwill, and I snaffled the loyal friends and followers early on, which massaged the numbers.

    Could be.

    Like I said, time will tell.

    But either way, I’m pretty sure that if you measure it over the long term, trust is going to beat the shit out of persuasion.

    Plus it just feels good.

     

    Ewan Townhead

    , ,

  • When people ask me what I do, I say “I’m a writer.”

    Though that declaration is relatively recent, my history of writing is not.

    I wrote my first poem at age 7. I posted it on facebook recently – it got more likes than my contemporary writing.

    I wrote songs for many years, though I didn’t share them with as many people as I wish I had.

    During my final year at university I discovered that I was really good at academic writing. I’d realized that essays could be a fun way to explore my new ideas around philosophy, rather than simply exhausting the word count as quickly as possible the night before the deadline.

    Four years ago I had a brief stint with my own blog. The tagline was “Living life’s big questions.” Though, looking back, I was probably better with the big questions than I was with the living.

    A few people really liked what I had to say. Then I had a massive confidence crumble over a rejection episode, and quietly took the thing down.

    I wrote a number of blogs for Waking Up the Workplace. My favorite being this one about business plans.

    I channeled most of my ability into copywriting (which is a whole different ball game). I spent years practicing it. When I coupled it with my strategic mind, I discovered I was good at marketing. It helped me build three small businesses.

    I would write for ‘real’ in private though. And occasionally, I’d read things to people, and they’d be really impressed. And I would be relieved, because I was scared of people not liking my precious creations.

    Then last year I decided to create what became this website – The Realized Entrepreneur. I didn’t know it was going to become a blog. I thought it would mainly be a podcast.

    And today marks 1 year since I published the first article on this site.

    So much has changed. So fucking much. I feel deeply grateful for the journey I’ve been on.

    So to celebrate, I decided to write honestly about my experiences. My wins, my stumbles, my hard-won wisdom.

    I hope firstly that it’s an entertaining read. I also hope it helps you. Especially if you’re a writer.

    These are my 5 lessons, from a year of writing.

    1.     Sentencing the Inner-Judge

    Before I launched this site, or told anyone I was launching it, I was writing for it.

    I was busily trying to script out the first podcast episode which would be just me talking about the project.

    I spent weeks and weeks on it.

    Writing, re-writing. Editing, re-editing. Doubting. Writing again. Throwing it away. Pulling it out of the trash. Editing some more.

    I would do extensive journaling while writing, exploring the struggles I was having with myself.

    Some days I would only get two sentences in before the inner dialogue would start up.

    “You need to sound like you know what you’re talking about Ewan. You need to sound authoritative, strong, and deeply wise, otherwise no-one will listen to you. Don’t put that vulnerable shit in there. That won’t work. Be impressive.”

    I’d try, but the clench in my gut would twist my words into empty shells of pretence.

    I tried going ultra-philosophical, the 40,000 foot view – the map of business as it could be in the coming decades.

    “Dude. You haven’t lived what you’re writing. You’re so out of integrity. You’re hiding behind big ideas aren’t you? Be real man, this isn’t working at all.”

    And then sometimes it would descend into self-abuse.

    “You piece of shit. This fucking sucks man. And you know it don’t you? Because you suck. What are you even doing here? Go home and cry like a little bitch.”

    I was so very hard on myself when I didn’t get it right.

    But really, I was afraid. Deeply afraid. I was afraid to start. I was afraid to put that ‘first thing’ out there.

    I’d launched a whole bunch of businesses and products before. But this time it was just me, and the things I really cared about.

    And I was afraid I’d be rejected.

    This is Lesson One. Starting is really hard, so do it before you’re ready.

    I was trying so hard to get it right before I launched. I really, really wanted to look competent, worthy and wise, like someone people would hire, or tell their friends about.

    I thought I needed to get it right before I shared it.

    I now know this is impossible.

    It’s never ‘right’. It’s art.

    Art is something that comes through you, from deep inside, or way high up. It’s your unique expression, it’s no more right than one person’s heart is more correct than another’s.

    It may not be right, but it is important. It matters. Deeply.

    And so, you never feel ready.

    I never felt ready. Because starting is like leaping into the unknown. And so far, I’ve never fully prepared for that.

    I ditched the script in the end, and started more simply, and after a few more false starts, I did release it into the world.

    And it was incredibly scary.

    And my hand shook as I pressed send on the email.

    And it was beautiful.

    And I’m so grateful I found the courage to do it.

    2.  The most powerful question I know

    Fast forward. It’s now December. I’ve got 2 months of writing and publishing under my belt (all four articles!). And I wanted to publish one last piece before the Christmas holidays.

    I had a title: ‘The most powerful question I know’. It was a question I’d spontaneously started asking myself the previous year during a very tough period.

    I’d been back at my parent’s house as a 30-something, my relationship on the rocks, wanting to get out of the work I was doing, not knowing how to make any money. I was in real crisis.

    Then during a cigarette smoking sessions in the garden shed this question emerged…

    “What is being asked of me?”

    I’d used it repeatedly, and it had helped me through some hugely challenging and anxiety inducing moments.

    I finished drafting the article at 3pm on Christmas Eve. I was short on time, so just read it through once, and then posted it.

    I shared it on facebook, closed my laptop and left the café.

    An hour of Christmas present shopping later and I pull out my phone to see if anyone has ‘liked’ my facebook status.

    I’m fully expecting my usual 3 likes (my mum, my girlfriend, and me), but today it’s different. People are really impacted by it.

    This is Lesson 2. Success is neither predictable nor controllable

    The article went ‘viral’. As in, it spread out well beyond my normal circle of friends and followers.

    Up until that point my most read article had about 300 hits. This post was read by 1,500 people in the first 2 days.

    It felt like it came from nowhere.

    This is what I learned: it’s almost impossible to predict what will be ‘successful’. Because if you’re committed to genuine art, you’re creating from the unknown.

    If you try and aim for success, you’ll just replicate what you think is successful.

    The next article I wrote after ‘The Most Powerful Question I Know’ was one where I tried to replicate its success.

    It duly bombed. It’s still my least popular article.

    In other words, the less sure we are about the quality of what we create, the more likely it is that we’re in the unknown. And that’s where creativity resides.

    If you’ve done it before, it’s not creative. If you’ve heard it before, it’s not creative. If it’s safe, it’s not creative.

    Some stuff works. Some doesn’t.

    And I’m not sure I’ll ever be done learning this lesson.

    3.  A commitment to regular inspiration

    I can’t remember exactly how it came about. I think I’d been reading a lot of Seth Godin and Steven Pressfield at the time.

    But a realization came to me. And somewhere towards the end of winter I decided to write every single morning.

    It changed the game for me.

    Radically.

    The power of that practice is now so obvious to me, but at the time it was a pretty scary commitment.

    Someone once asked the writer Somerset Maugham whether he wrote on a strict schedule.

    “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” ― W. Somerset Maugham

    I’d had this idea that inspiration and creativity were wild natural forces that could and should not be controlled.

    If I didn’t feel like writing? If I didn’t feel inspired? If the mojo wasn’t flowing? I wouldn’t write. And I continued to believe that I was a slave to the muse.

    Until I started to write every morning.

    I’d wake up, shower and meditate. I’d make a green smoothie and bike over to my favorite coffee house.

    I’d order a latte, and set my timer for an hour. And I’d write.

    And a lot of it sucked. And I allowed myself to journal sometimes instead. And it was hard, and I felt insecure a lot, and frustrated, and hopeless.

    And I’d still write.

    Every morning.

    And it changed everything for me.

    This is lesson 3. Make love to your muse, every day.

    Inspiration isn’t a finite and fickle resource, it’s what happens when you make love to your muse.

    Your muse is not a master that has enslaved you. And neither are you its master.

    Your muse is your lover. The creative spark that’s always already in you, and that ushers you toward new ideas, new moments.

    Make love with that place inside you every day.

    And you will grow to know one another ever more deeply.

    And your challenges will grow too.

    And so will the level of beauty you can tolerate, and the level of truth that you can speak.

    4.   Someone steals my work

    It was a new kind of article for me. I’d actually researched the topic (albeit spontaneously), that I had written about. Because it was a big topic.

    It was called Money Is Not What You Think It Is.

    I’d grown up with some pretty strong narratives around the nature of money, and I knew they were having a big effect on my work and business.

    I spent several thousand words exploring the whole topic, and the article got a really great response. Many people sent me messages about it.

    One was from a guy on LinekdIn – he said the article had really spoken to him in a time of struggle, and given him a sense of hope.

    The next day I was checking my messages again on LinkedIn and saw an alert about a new blog having been published earlier that day. It was called ‘Money Is Not What You Think It Is.’

    “That’s weird. That’s the name of my article.”

    Perplexed, I clicked through and discovered my own article, copied and pasted, word for word, under his own name.

    An interesting message exchange ensued, one that I decided to post on facebook, where my friends rallied around like the generous motherfuckers they are.

    The whole thing got a lot of attention.

    Lesson 4. I’m afraid of being seen.

    I really want me and my work to be recognized.

    The irony of the plagiarism episode was that my work got a lot of exposure. And while I was deeply touched, proud and grateful. I also got to feel how uncomfortable it was for me to be so exposed.

    Underneath all my adult strength, there’s still this really shy little boy who feels overwhelmed by big groups of people, and would rather sit inside on his own, following his curiosity.

    Writing is one half solitude and one half exposure.

    It doesn’t count if I don’t show anyone what I’ve written. And it doesn’t count if I only show the safe stuff.

    The truer I am to the work that wants to come through me, the more visible I’m going to become, and the deeper I’m going to have to face all the things I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding.

    5.  Turning up the publishing volume

    It’s the start of the summer. I’m in New York, and I’m on the phone with my men’s group. I’m about to make a commitment.

    I’d been putting a new piece out once or twice a month. But I’d decided I wanted to do it more regularly. As an experiment.

    I could think of two possible solutions. Either I upped the amount of time I was writing, in order to produce more articles to share.

    Or I dropped my standards, and published stuff that I didn’t think was good enough.

    I opted for the second one.

    “I’m going to publish a new article every week for the next 3 months.”

    The first week went by without a hitch. The second week got interesting.

    By this time I was in Texas spending some time with my mentor. I had an article half drafted, one on marketing. And I sat down to finish it.

    I read over it and something inside me said…

    “This is not good. It’s too markety, too superficial. I think I should be writing bigger philosophical pieces. People won’t like it.”

    I wanted to scrap it. That’s what I would have done before – bin it and write something new. But I didn’t have time, I had to publish today.

    So I finished it. And mailed it out to my list.

    Lesson 5. Don’t trust your own opinions.

    People really liked the article.

    I know a lot about marketing. And I also have a love-hate relationship with it. It doesn’t always fit my ‘creative writer’ persona very well.

    Which was why people’s reactions were an important lesson for me.

    If I’d have listened to my own ‘wisdom’ I wouldn’t have published anything at all on marketing, perhaps indefinitely.

    But by throwing it out I realized just how wrong I was. As a consequence, I also then got over of my marketing-snobbery and wrote some more marketing articles, and really enjoyed them.

    Travelling the courageous path

    These were 5 of my lessons. There are more lessons I’m in the midst of. Perhaps I’ll write about them another time.

    But for now I want to say this to you (and to myself, as perhaps all good writing is actually intended).

    You’re unique.

    Your voice is unique.

    Your writing is unique.

    But it’s probably buried under conventions, other people’s opinions and old stories. And the deeper you cut toward that core of your own authentic expression, the greater your discomfort will be.

    If something pours out, and you don’t know where it came from. Or you feel like you can’t possibly show it to anyone. Or you feel massively uncomfortable, and don’t like it. Or you’re really scared people will reject you. Or whatever it is that specifically tells you “YOU MUST NOT SHARE THIS!”

    That’s the one.

    That’s the moment of courage.

    That’s the decision to show your heart to the world, and become vulnerable to its response.

    That’s the moment that things will change. And it will be out of your hands.

    Because writing changes you.

    It changes me, every day I do it.

     

    Ewan Townhead

    , ,

  • Brene Brown said it best.

    “You can’t get to courage without walking through vulnerability.”

    If you go up to somebody who is in the midst of taking courageous action, and you ask “how do you feel?” they probably won’t say “I feel courageous”.

    They’ll probably say: “I feel vulnerable.”

    If you wilfully decide to ‘do courage’ you’re probably posturing, which is definitely not courageous, or vulnerable.

    But, if you feel where you’re afraid to look at yourself, you’ll probably find a beautiful vulnerability that requires genuine courage to reveal.

    The One in the Arena

    In January I met with my mentor in person for the first time in London.

    After a passionate and sprawling conversation over dinner, I took him to a classic English pub in Westminster. Over a pint over ale, he asked me if I knew the ‘The Man in the Arena’ quote by Theodore Roosevelt.

    It’s a quote that I now know intimately, one that he has sprawled over a wall in his offices. But at the time, I’d never heard it.

    I’ve read it numerous times since that evening, and each and every time I do it opens my heart and brings tears to my eyes.

    For I find myself on a path that consistently asks for a greater levels of courage than I knew I possessed.

    We are each called to show our Work to the world. It is the challenge of our time: to continually bare our truth in a world where promotion is free and criticism is bundled along with it.

    “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

    The Lonely Leader of Truth

    Several years ago, two friends and I created a (now somewhat heralded) interview series called Waking Up the Workplace. We spoke with many of our heroes in the conscious business field.

    I still listen to those recordings sometimes, I learn new things every time I do.

    Last spring I was doing precisely this. It was a recording of a class taught by the man who I would later ask to mentor me.

    During that class he spoke about an author that had had a huge impact on him, a rather unknown giant of the philosophy of business called Peter Koestenbaum.

    I went out and got myself a copy of Koestenbaum’s book Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness.

    I didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the beginning of my journey into the nature of courage.

    This is what Koestenbaum says…

    “To be courageous is to be prepared for the isolation of leadership. Thus to be a self-starter is to be autonomous, to have given up the helplessness and dependency that are so often fostered by the presumptive security of larger organizations. Autonomy is the ability to live in isolation and be comfortable with the feeling of aloneness. For the person who cherishes intimacy, isolation is as painful as it is fundamental to integrity, because intimacy without the courage to stand up for one’s rights is empty servitude.”

    In other words, courage is the decision to step out alone, and follow your own truth. To walk the unknown path, the one that leads to something you deeply year for, and that your mind cannot yet comprehend.

    To be courageous is to step out into the arena and show people what you’ve created.

    Seth Godin says “Here, I made this”, is one of the bravest and most vulnerable actions there is.

    And that is exactly the quest that the courageous one is entrusted with.

    To turn away from the safety of servitude, and the dependence of employment. To step out, alone, on the only path that is authentically yours; your path.

    To relinquish the right to determine what is good, and what is appropriate, and reveal what is truly in your heart.

    The Courageous Path is paved with Anxiety

    Just as you can’t get to courage without walking through vulnerability, you cannot take the path of courage without feeling the substance of the road you walk.

    “Anxiety is the key to courage, for courage is the decision to tolerate maximum amounts of anxiety.” – Peter Koustenbaum

    The path of courage is paved with anxiety.

    Courage is not the absence of fear, courage is the decision to immerse yourself in the very things that threaten your sense of safety.

    Courage is not something that strong people feel, courage is what every person feels when they embrace their vulnerability and step out into the unknown.

    I’ve become fascinated by anxiety over the last year or two. Perhaps because I’ve experienced so much of it. Perhaps because I had an unshakable sense that the way we often think about anxiety missed something huge.

    I still remember the first time I read about anxiety from an existential perspective. It was again in a book by Koestenbaum, but his notion of existential anxiety goes back to the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard.

    I covered this topic extensively in a previous piece. But I return to it, because you can’t get to the heart of courage without understanding anxiety.

     “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” – Soren Kierkegaard

    Anxiety, it seems, is not so much an emotion, but the existential mood of life. Its literal Latin root means the pain of passing through a narrow passage.

    What single experience is more existentially vulnerable than passing from the soft safety of our conception to the hard reality of birth? That formative moment, when before we even know how to think, we feel the reality of living. And it is anxiety.

    Yet anxiety is not a dysfunction in need of medication, or a negative emotion in need of releasing. No, no, it is the very fabric of freedom, as felt by our powerfully permeable human beingness.

    Kierkegaard continues…

    “Because it is possible to create — creating one’s self, willing to be one’s self… — one has anxiety. One would have no anxiety if there were no possibility whatever.”

    Anxiety is not simply the price we pay for being creative beings, it is the actual feeling of becoming who we are. It is the emotional mood of courageous self-authorship.

    It is the immense energy of our freedom that we have not yet found the courage to claim.

    Free to Choose Your Nakedness

    The root of the word courage is very old. It comes from an ancient language we know very little about.  At its core, courage means simply ‘heart’.

    Courage for me feels like nakedness – showing my inner heart to the outside world.

    It is opening my hand, and allowing my precious creations to be set free into a world who’s embracing or rejection of them, I cannot control.

    It is the opposite of comfort. It is the opposite of safe.

    And yet it is the path that leads to realization.

    You choose to come and live this life because you have a story to tell.

    It is your story.

    It is the story that no-one else can ever know.

    Except when you realize you are already free. Free to embrace your anxiety. Free to reveal your vulnerability. Free to show your naked heart to the world. Free to realize who you really are.

    This is the heart of courage.

    Ewan Townhead

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  • Ever since I decided to build a coaching business last year, I’ve had to learn to sell. I’d avoided it before. I got good at marketing, so I could let my writing do the selling for me.

    But as a coach, I had to learn to be with another human being, and sell my services.

    Selling has a bad reputation. Yet it’s probably the skill that has the single biggest impact on a small growing business.

    I was lying awake in bed a few nights ago. And I had an interesting thought…

    Selling is like kissing.

    It’s a two-way meeting.

    It may lead to a deeper relationship.

    It’s full of potential. For either expansion or contraction.

    You remember the bad experiences.

    Sales doesn’t have to be invasive and icky

    The connotation many of us have for selling is the vacuum cleaner salesman.

    The guy who doesn’t connect with you as a human, doesn’t listen or notice your reactions, and is only focused on getting what he wants – you buying his thing.

    It’s invasive.

    It’s disconnected.

    It’s highly unpleasant.

    If you’ve ever had a really bad first kiss, you may know that feeling is rather similar. Like the woman at the party who’s drunk, and without even noticing who you are, crashes through your boundaries and sticks her tongue down your throat (yes, this did happen to me years ago).

    But sales doesn’t have to be like this.

    Good sales and good kissing are based on connection

    A good first kiss is the result of connection. You’ve spent time with someone. You’re coming closer to one another. You’re creating shared reality. You’re feeling the pull to be closer.

    And then one of you initiates the kiss.

    They lean in, slowly, perhaps hesitant about whether they moved too early.

    You stare deeply into their eyes as their face tilts upward gently.

    They slide up from a neck nuzzle, as you turn your face down toward them.

    A good kiss is born from mutual want. You both want to go deeper. You both want to come closer. And the kiss seals the beginning of that deepening.

    A good sales conversation is like that too.

    You’ve spent time to get to know one another. You can feel the click, the flow between you. You’re in connection with one another, and are both wanting to know what happens next.

    One of you initiates the questions.

    “So, how do I work with you?”

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

    And then the sales conversation begins.

    Selling is a result of mutual desire

    You both want it.

    It’s not one person asserting their agenda unconsciously on the other. It’s not a pushing past boundaries. It’s mutual desire.

    “This has been so powerful. So, yes, I’d like to work with you more. What’s the next step?”

    “Yes, I think you’d be perfect for this program. I’ll send you the registration details.”

    I will never initiate a sales conversation with someone that I can’t feel desire with.

    It could be my desire to coach them. I think I could serve them so I ask whether they want to know more.

    It could be their desire to work with me. They’re really opened by our conversation, and want to hear about next steps.

    It could be that we’re both feeling the deep click.

    When you don’t pay attention to the felt sense of desire between you, and attempt to override a lack of desire with charm or pushiness, you’re entering vacuum cleaner territory.

    It can get icky. Fast.

    Follow the feeling of desire. Feel whether the conversation wants to go deeper.

    It’s not about getting to yes. It’s about getting to truth.

    “Yes, I would.”

    “No. Thank you.”

    Selling is the start of a deeper relationship

    When I offer my coaching services to someone, and they accept, I’m stepping into a deep relationship with them.

    I don’t take these things lightly. I’m going to be spending a lot of time with this person. We’re going to talk about the things they don’t talk about with other people. They’re going to grow. There will be challenging moments. Painful moments. Joyful moments. Intimate moments.

    I’m helping them as they step into a deeper commitment to their work, their business, their mission.

    I think about my clients when I’m not on the phone with them. I care about them. I only work with a handful at any one time, so that the depth is honoured and given space.

    Selling is about deciding whether you’re going to step into deeper relationship.

    And a deeper relationship requires deep connection, mutual desire and the willingness to step into the unknown together.

    Great selling is the same as great kissing.

    And remember it’s a metaphor, not a strategy.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • I finally said it.

    “I don’t want you to coach me any more. I don’t want your advice. I’m done with it. I’m going to do it my way from now on. You don’t get to tell me how I should do it any more.”

    When it did come, I kind of blurted it out, the pressure had been building for two years.

    Our business partnership was over.

    We both got vulnerable. I was able to soften my rebelliousness. He was able to let go of his need for control. It opened us into a closeness that was only possible now we were separating.

    I had spoken my truth. And a new chapter of my life begun.

    Truth speaking, what is it?

    It’s a horribly clichéd term for something powerfully beautiful.

    It’s saying what’s true in your heart. It’s saying something that feels risky. It’s saying something and not knowing what’s going to happen next.

    It’s saying something that disrupts normality.

    I remember those powerful moments when I spoke something I’d been reluctant to share. I’d been trying to avert the nightmare in my head by not saying it. I remember the sense of deep relaxation as the final echo of my words vanished into the moment just passed.

    It’s out.

    It’s not mine to leash any longer.

    God will take it from here.

    It’s a practice

    It’s a spiritual practice – discovering yourself through sharing your vulnerable experience.

    It’s a business practice – revealing who you are to those you can serve.

    It’s a powerful practice – one that can revolutionize your life and work.

    It’s also a practice that, like any practice, can be misunderstood.

    What we believe to be ‘our truth’ is not always true. What we believe to be authentic, is not always authentic.

    Here are four key distinctions that will help you avoid the traps of speaking your truth.

    1. Opening or Closing

    My friend Lisa first taught me this – will your share open or close people?

    The trap is thinking you can share whatever you want in service of authenticity.

    Will this open their heart, expand their mind or show them something more of what is possible? Will this expand their state, have them feel more, desire more, experience more?

    Or will this contract them, shrink them, close them? Will it trigger a state of anxiety, or defensiveness? Will they walk away from your share feeling less of the world, and less of themselves?

    Yes. It’s your truth. But are you conscious of the impact it will have on people you care about?

    You’re in the midst of a bout of existential depression and anxiety. Everything seems pointless, you seem pointless, your work looks completely meaningless. In a moment of lonely desperation, you tweet it to all your followers and clients.

    “What’s the point? Life is a joke. Don’t want to do any of this shit anymore. Thinking I’ll close down my business.”

    Is it true? Maybe.

    Have you opened them? Probably not.

    You probably freaked them out, and compromised your business and work.

    Are you conscious of the hearts of those you speak to? Can you feel them? Can you tune into where they are, how they are? Will this serve them? Will this open them or close them?

    Are you conscious of even making that judgement call?

    Truth speaking is not saying whatever the hell you want to whoever the hell you want, and expecting everything to turn out authentically.

    It’s a conscious act. You’re conscious of your heart, and their heart, and the connection between you, as you open your mouth, and say what’s there.

    2. Covert Neediness

    You say it like you’re just ‘speaking your experience’, all the while you’re actually hoping for people to meet the needs you haven’t actually confessed to having.

    Maybe you need them to commiserate with you and tell you they love you.

    Maybe you need them to congratulate you and tell you how amazing you are.

    Maybe you need some advice.

    You’re secretly hoping they’ll meet your needs, but you haven’t admitted it to yourself, or them, and it ends up giving your share this weird, creepy or disingenuous feel.

    It’s like those weird incomplete facebook posts.

    “Wow. It’s amazing. I never thought this would happen.”

    And then hopefully someone takes the bait asks what happened, and you get to have that need for attention and confirmation met.

    Except it feels covert, and unowned. And weird. Because it is.

    If you need something, own it.

    I saw a beautiful facebook post from someone recently. She’s a very successful coach and trainer. She was having a really hard time, really struggling. She shared what was going on, very honestly and vulnerably, and asked people to express some love toward her.

    Hundreds responded.

    3. Opinion dressed as truth

    “You didn’t do what you said you would. That’s why your business is not growing like you want. I feel like you’re unprofessional, and it’s never going to change. You should get a job instead. I know this might feel hurtful, but it’s just my truth.”

    No it’s not. It’s your opinion.

    Opinions are powerful, when you share them truthfully, which means sharing them as opinions.

    “You didn’t do what you said you would. I’m deeply questioning whether you actually want to grow this business of yours.”

    Too often, we throw out our assessments and analyses inside this box of ‘our truth’ which actually just squeezes truth out of the connection.

    When I offer my opinion as truth, I leave no room for your truth.

    “I hear you. I do really want this business. But I think I’m following a strategy that just doesn’t fit with my deeper vision. And I’ve felt ashamed about that.”

    Opinions are not true. But they are true opinions.

    4. Vulnerability not vomit

    Brene Brown says vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability.

    I agree. I think its vomit.

    It’s throwing up your unprocessed thoughts, feelings and stuff all over other people, without context or consciousness, and expecting them to sort the chunks of importance from the chaff of confusion.

    It’s unpleasant to receive.

    Sometimes our relationship to reality can get messy. And we don’t know how to make sense of it, or connect with it. Sometimes it feels good to splurge. It helps. My woman does it regularly. It helps her get it out of her system, and feel herself again.

    But don’t confuse vomiting for vulnerable truth.

    You’re on the phone with a client. They just asked you how you are.

    “Oh man. I’m feeling kind of funky this morning. I was up late last night. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I was rocking out on pot, porn and pistachios. I just don’t know how to kick these addictions, you know? Psshhht. To be honest, I’d rather not be doing this call now. I feel pretty shitty. But hey ho, here we are. How are you?”

    What you say may be true, but it’s not appropriate.

    Vomit is not vulnerability.

    Vulnerability is conscious. Vulnerability is choosing to share something you’d rather not, while maintaining conscious connection with the person or people you’re sharing with.

    Vomit is not even really noticing who’s in front of you, and just throwing up your undigested material all over their awkwardness.

    Your truth is real

    Rilke said…

    “Near here is a land they call life,
    You’ll know when you arrive by how real it is.”

    Truth is like life. It’s so real that those who hear it are moved by it, opened by it, enlarged by it.

    Are you being real? Or are you hiding behind ‘the truth’?

    Your heart always knows.

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • You have the ability to change time.

    You can change it, because you can think about it, and change the frame. No other creature we know about can do this.

    Our ability to think in time is one of the super-powers we are given as human beings. A lizard is perpetually stuck in the now. A complex adult can project their imagination billions of years in either direction.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about time-frames recently. I think they have significant implications for our work in the world and the way we go about realizing it.

    Let me explain.

    The entire expanse of history in a single map

    I remember when I first got interested (actually somewhat obsessed) with the work of integral philosopher Ken Wilber. His huge maps of reality saved me during a time of existential soul searching.

    One of the huge gifts that I got from his work, was that I started to think about human history in terms of epochs.

    Modern humans have been around for about 180,000 years, which is a stupendous amount of time, and hard to grasp. But when it was broken down into a handful of major paradigms, I could start to see the broad strokes of the evolution of human consciousness.

    It meant I could now look at the existential conundrums that had been plaguing me inside a huge context. It was not that I now had the answers, but rather that my frustration was dissolved inside a container big enough to hold the questions.

    Here’s another example of the power of time-frame manipulation.

    The earth has been around a while. It’s hard to grasp just how long. So let’s switch the time-frame.

    If the entire 4.5 billion year history of the earth were condensed into a single year, here’s what we see.

    Life arrives as single celled bacteria around the beginning of March. And things move pretty slowly for quite some time!

    In the middle of November we get the oceans filling up with multi-cell organisms.

    At the beginning of December, amphibians venture onto dry land.

    On December 13th Dinosaurs arrive on the scene, and stick around until 26th when they’re wiped out. Mammals come along the following day.

    It’s not until December 31st that the first hominids (apes on 2 legs) appear.

    Modern humans rock up at about 11:35 pm.

    And the industrial revolution happens in the last 2 seconds before midnight.

    Why are time-frames powerful?

    When you change the context of something, you simultaneously change the content.

    In other words, change the frame, and you can look at things in a completely different way.

    This is definitely true with time-frames.

    For example, let’s look at slavery. It can look like a very different issue if I change the time-frame.

    If I look at slavery through a 500 year time frame, I will see it as a horrific, barbaric thing that powerful white people did to defenseless black people.

    If I look at it through a 180,000 year time frame, I’ll see it as something that is common to every single human culture we know about, regardless of race, until the industrial revolution, when it was outlawed on a mass scale in a relatively short period of time.

    When I expand the time frame around a particular topic – when I stretch the edges to increase the canvas – I see a different picture.

    What time frame are you thinking about your work in?

    The next few hours of urgent to-dos you have to get through?

    The remaining few weeks until your next vacation?

    The 2 months until your big launch?

    The next 10 years as you build your legacy?

    The next 10 lifetimes as you unwind your evolutionary destiny?

    When I look at my business in the time-frame of the next product launch I’m performing, then success looks like nailing that launch. It looks like hitting the financial targets I have in mind, converting the right number of people into customers, persuading enough people of the value of my offer.

    When I look at my business in the time-frame of the next 30 years, it doesn’t matter if the next launch fails. In fact, I’ll learn much more from an abject failure than I will from a success.

    When I look at my business in the time-frame of the next 30 years, then I don’t want to persuade as many people as possible to buy my thing, I want to build relationships of intimacy and trust that will have people become customers and partners for decades to come.

    Stretch your frame

    You’re here for some particular work. It’s your work. It’s your life’s work. What happens if you examine that work in the context of the rest of your life?

    When you take things out of the context of financial success during this calendar year, and place them in the context of a lifetime of discovery and growth, what picture can be painted?

    Your dreams are big. Too big to hold sometimes. So put them in bigger hands. Put them in a time-frame of the rest of your life. What is possible now?

    Or go really creatively out there. Stretch the time frame beyond this life-time.

    What would happen to your work, if you knew that the mission would be taken up again, after you die, by a version of you that forgot all your memories, but retains all your implicit learning and ability? How would that change things?

    In other words, your work is so important, that you don’t have to rush to nail it all today, or this week, or this year.

    You have at least the rest of your life to work on it.

    Expand your frame. Give your dreams a big enough field to play in, and your stress a long enough journey to be belittled by.

    Now the frame is different.

    What picture do you see?

     

    Ewan Townhead

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  • 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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