• “We’ve reached such an incredible level of freedom that for the first time in history we have to manage our own mutation. It’s up to us to decide what it means to be a successful human being. That’s the philosophical task of the age.” – Peter Koestenbaum

    I’ve ruminated on that quote for well over a year now. It comes back periodically to tempt me with its invitation. This morning it came back again.

    What does it mean to be a successful human being?

    I care about success. Genuinely care. I’ve been ambitious for a long time, I have things to do, changes to bring.

    And yet success is something I’ve never felt on gentle terms with. It’s often felt like a black figure hanging over me, berating me for not achieving the level I’m supposed to. The hare of success disappearing over the hill, while I plod along, not measuring up.

    I’ve wrestled with my ambition, baulked at the images of success I was fed. Rebelled, dropped out, found inspiration, dived in.

    So I want to talk about success with you. Because I think Koestenbaum is right. There are few more pressing issues. And in a world where we don’t have to follow the old rules of success, I think it imperative to deconstruct the inherited definitions, and build a new an image that draws forth our ambition as a creative expression, rather than pressurizes it, as a milestone to attain.

    The prescribed rules of success

    My first ‘proper’ job was at a small marketing agency in Liverpool. I’d recently graduated and got the job as a temp, and they’d liked me so offered the position to me permanently.

    I was the receptionist. A job that is not supposed to be filled by a heterosexual male. I’d answer the phones, welcome clients to the office, make coffee, open mail, complete little admin tasks. Mostly I watched video clips, played on internet forums and worked on ideas for my first business.

    They saw I was over qualified and twice offered me a position as a junior account manager. It’s rather a sought after path in the marketing and PR field. I said no. I said I wasn’t interested. They were confused.

    The thought of diving deeper into the world of clever adverts, schmoozing clients and pouring over spreadsheets made my heart go dark. But they couldn’t understand it.

    I’d turned down advancement, to stay on the lowest rung of the ladder.

    According to their world, I’d broken one of their rules of success.

    Rule #1. You must climb higher

    You work your way up the ladder. Your pay cheque gets bigger and bigger. You have more impressive sounding job titles. The really successful people run entire companies.

    But I never wanted that kind of success. I always felt like an outsider in that game, though it took me a long time to come to peace with that feeling.

    Many years later, I dropped out of the corporate game all together. I started playing the online entrepreneur game instead. It was a big relief. I had a lot more room to express myself.

    Success here is building a brand for yourself, generating a big mailing list, doing 6-figure launches, being called a ‘world expert’ on someone’s tele-summit. The milestones look a different, but I realized the rule was the same. Climb higher, at any cost. And it was in this game that I really came face to face with the second rule.

    Rule #2. More money = more success

    How much revenue did you do on your product launch, how many thousands? 50? Good job. 100? Wonderful! You’re on the way toward real success now son.

    Money is great. I like money. I like having it, I like creating it. I like being able to invest it in things I want, things that enrich me. Training courses. A month in Bali. A new leather jacket. A box of Lego for my partner’s son.

    I remember early on in the entrepreneur game we did an affiliate deal with a big website. They were the trend setter in our field, the mother ship. We crafted a really clever marketing campaign, and it worked. We brought in over $50k in revenue. It was the most revenue I’d ever done. I got my own biggest pay day. $6k, which felt like an extraordinary amount of money.

    According to the rule, we’d succeeded. But I couldn’t feel the accomplishment. I didn’t hear people telling us how much the program had helped them, how appreciative and inspired they were. Mostly I heard silence, or grumbling about big marketing promises that weren’t delivered on. I felt ashamed. Uncomfortable.

    I’ve done countless product launches since then, some brought in more money, some less. The one’s that felt like a success were those that helped a lot of people. Which sometimes correlated with big revenue, and sometimes didn’t.

    Rule #3. Success is appearing successful

    This is an insidious little bugger of a rule. One I’ve only been starting to catch myself playing by recently.

    I’ve worked very hard to present myself as being successful. I’ll drop in little lines in my writing that demonstrate how successful I am. How much I charge (because money = success remember). How far I’ve come (because successful people always climb higher).

    “Do not doubt it dear reader. Despite my obvious vulnerability, I am very successful. And you are not. Never forget that. And if you want to be successful like me, then pay me a bunch of money for coaching and maybe you’ll win too.”

    That’s not success. That’s insecurity. I’ve done that more than I like. I’m sorry, I was doing what I thought was right.

    As the air fast escapes from the balloon, I realize it’s just another rule that I never consciously agreed to play by.

    The original nature of success

    The root of the word comes from Latin. To succeed means literally to “come after”. It’s a sequential thing. There’s one thing, and then it’s succeeded by another thing.

    There was an open field there once. Now there’s woodland.

    The original meaning is value neutral. It doesn’t mean the succession is good. It doesn’t mean the woodland is better. It just came after the field.

    The definition of the word changed in the late 1500s. It came to mean the accomplishment of a desired end. The neutral mechanic of succession had desire and preference added in. Success came to be defined by whether the outcome matches the desire.

    You start with one kingdom, do some invading and end up with two…success!

    You start with no money, and after it you still have no money…failure!

    You start with no qualifications, and end with a PhD…success!

    You start with people being in connection with mother earth, then technology distracts us from nature and we despoil the environment…failure!

    Certain ends are successful. Others are not.

    It is not the addition of desire and preference that I take issue with. Not at all. The problem is that so often we do not question the preference that gives the defined end.

    We mistake the end for the success itself without questioning whether the movement of succession is what we actually want.

    Success is becoming a celebrity, therefore if I too become a celebrity, I will be successful.

    But the end is not the point. The celebrity is not the point. The point is this…

    From whence does the desire come? And is it yours?

    Toward a new definition of success

    To my great grandparents, success was working the farm effectively, so they and their family had enough food to eat. It was a noble goal for the world they lived in. But that is not my world, or yours.

    In its most pure sense, success is succession. It is one step after another. It is the movement down the path of life. If you’re moving, you’re succeeding.

    The deeper cut however, is to truly choose the substance of the path. To truly tune into the deepest desire you are conscious of, and walk that path, wherever it ends.

    Because if we do not stop to consider that substance, that desire, we end up succeeding at someone else’s quest.

    We climb the rungs of the professional ladder, because our culture tells us that is what successful people do. We look at the artists or entrepreneurs we consider successful, and we try to emulate them. We carefully construct a mask of success, because that’s what we think will fill the hunger of our ambition.

    And then maybe we realize that it is all without substance – an idea of success that floats like a balloon filled with hot air. The tether, so easily cut, revealing the true desire that is not based on an idea, but on the very yearning of the soul.

    The successful path

    As I walk, one step succeeding the last, I become more intimate with the dirt under my feet, and the stars over my head. They whisper to me…

    Be true. So true it scares the life out of you.

    Show yourself, the good and the ill.

    Let the lessons of the universe be taught through the folly of the personal.

    Never forget your heart.

    Go first. Ignore the rules, except the one’s you find in yourself that are true because they feel true in the deepest part of you.

    Let others follow if they want to. Don’t persuade them, their following must be freely chosen.

    Light the way. Hold the torch of your truth as high as you dare.

    Ewan Townhead

    , , ,

  • Money is not what you think it is.

    It’s not what I thought it was. It used to be something that was hard to find, harder to keep, and very hard to talk about. It was unspiritual, a sign of selling out, or worse.

    Money is like a lover, and I must confess; she and I used to have a rather strained relationship. I resented her, and she avoided me.

    I think she found my judgement of her hard to swallow. I don’t blame her. I was pretty scathing sometimes. And self-involved.

    She left me completely once. It was only for a week, but it was a big wake-up call. I had to survive on cheese biscuits, Joni Mitchell records and cigarettes.

    We had some tough times with one another, but we’ve worked hard, and now we’re in a really good place together.

    I understand and appreciate her for who she is, and she brings increasing flow and juice to my life.

    So, this piece is all about money. What it is. What it isn’t.

    It’s in seven parts.

    1. Money is a Concept

    You can’t find it anywhere.

    It’s the pixels on a digital display. It’s the words on the paper “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £20.”

    Money used to be gold, which is a real thing. Money is a concept. It’s a signifier. An idea. A measurement.

    Money is like feet and inches, or liters and milliliters. It measures something. But while a measuring tape, or set of weighing scales measures stuff in the physical domain, money measures something else.

    Money measures value.

    Money is an arbitrary, yet universally agreed measuring scale for value. Value is what human beings create for one another.

    We want to help another, or get helped. So we collaborate with one another, exchanging the things we make, and the talents we’ve honed.

    2. Money is Flow

    Money is a form of currency. So, to understand money, you need to understand currency.

    Currency has been around a long time. A lot longer than money. Alternative forms of currency include:

    • Goats – “I’ll offer you 60 goats as a dowry for your son’s marriage to my daughter”
    • Cigarettes – Allied soldiers in Nazi prisoner of war camps would use cigarettes as an internal currency.
    • Salt – The Roman’s sometimes paid their soldiers in salt, which is where the word ‘salary’ comes from.

    Currency is what the world needs to make it easier for us human beings to share stuff and trade stuff.

    Currency literally means flow. It comes from Latin, from the same root as the word current, like the current of a river. Currency is a form of flow and circulation.

    A river’s flow is the flow of water. The flow of currency is the flow of mutual exchange.

    Money is a wonderfully clever form of currency. It’s a concept. It’s virtual. Which means it’s easily transferable, and universally recognizable.

    If goats were the global currency, the flow of service and exchange would be rather cumbersome. Think paying Amazon a quarter of a goat for a book.

    Money is the most elegant currency we’ve made so far. It’s incredibly powerful. And creates immense flow. If you recognize it for what it truly is.

    3. Money is a Story

    Money, like any concept, is defined by its narrative. It carries a story that gives it meaning. Without our stories around money, the paper notes in my wallet mean nothing, are worth nothing.

    Money has a universal story. The story of universal value. And because we all share an understanding of this story, we exchange money for real things.

    I can give the baker €2 and he will give me a freshly baked loaf. My client can give me $3000 and I’ll devote myself to coaching her deeply. I can give my landlord €1300 and he gives me permission to live in his apartment for a month.

    Money has many other stories that are not universally shared.

    Here’s the story I had of money growing up.

    “Money is the cause of the world’s problems. It is the lever that the rich use to keep themselves high, and the poor low. It is what corrupts good people, destroys equality, and feeds greed and oppression. To save the world, we must tear down the pillars of capitalism, and eradicate the disease of money.”

    I didn’t invent that story, or choose it. It was what was given to me by my sub-culture and my elders. I swallowed it as gospel.

    I carried it for many years, until I saw it as a story. And then I asked myself whether I believed the story. I found that I did not.

    Here’s another story about money that I discovered I carried.

    “Money is hard to find. It’s a scarce and limited resource. When I get it, I should be careful with it, save a bunch of it and feed it into a pension, so that I still have some when I get old.”

    My grandparents carried this story. They lived through the Second World War in England when food was nationally rationed. They had to scrimp and save to survive.

    I don’t live in a country at war. I live in one of the richest and most democratic countries the world has ever seen. But during the time I carried that story, I did ration my money. And as a consequence, I didn’t have very much. It was hard to find.

    4. Money is a Tool

    There’s a new field of study called neuroeconomics. It explores how our human brain makes decisions. One of the things that neuroeconomics has discovered, is that on a neuronal level, the brain apprehends money the same way it would apprehend a hammer, a fishing rod, or a plough.

    On an unconscious level, we see money as simply a tool.

    I don’t need to hammer metal into shape. I don’t need to catch fish to eat. I don’t need a tractor or a combine harvester.

    My trade is consciousness.

    The tools of my trade are my mind, my being, my relationships, my heart, my knowledge. So I use money as a tool of consciousness.

    I use it to ensure that the clients I work with are ready to commit to the deep work that I do with people.

    I use money as a tool to create enough time and space in my own working week so that I can read, muse, meditate and write.

    I use money as a tool to create experiences.

    5. Money is Fuel

    “The purpose of a business is to maximize profit for its shareholders.”

    Or so the old maxim used to go.

    The business that you and I create is different. The purpose is deep, creative. It is to bring forth something that doesn’t yet exist. It is to make things that the world wants. The purpose is to serve.

    Business is the vehicle from which we change things, create things and awaken things.

    And like any vehicle, business needs a fuel source to power its engine. The vehicle of business needs the fuel of money. A business without money doesn’t go very far, very fast.

    But, just like the purpose of a car is not to have fuel. The purpose of a business is not to have money.

    That would be idiotic.

    6. Money is a Terrible Thing

    “I’m worried. I’m worried that money and wealth will corrupt my meditation practice.”

    The student had just married a very rich woman, and was now wealthy. He was asking his teacher Suzuki Roshi what to do about it.

    “Yes, wealth is a terrible thing.” Roshi replied.

    “Yes, yes it is.” said the student.

    “And poverty is also a terrible thing.” Said Roshi, smiling.

    The student was perplexed for a moment, then smiled too.

    “I think I understand” he said.

    “Good, now that you understand, it is better to be rich.” said Roshi.

    I heard the philosopher Ken Wilber recount this story. He pointed out that money is not the crux of the issue, attachment is. And once you can transcend your own attachment to money (either having it or not having it), you are then freed to inhabit money and wealth with luminosity, and to serve the world in a much more powerful way.

    7. Money is Something We Create

    Last year, I earned rather a lot of money. More than I had in a long time, and certainly the most I’d earned since leaving the comfort of corporate employment.

    And yet my stress levels about having enough didn’t diminish.

    I would still wake up in the middle of the night, anxious about how I was going to earn more, desperately spinning different possibilities in my mind, trying to find the one that would pay well, with minimal effort, and tolerable compromise.

    I hired a coach, a wonderful man who helped me explore it all. The entire story is a long one, but I’ll give you the punchline.

    I thought my stress came from not having enough. It didn’t.

    I thought my stress would diminish when I had enough squirreled away in a savings account. Or when I secured enough contracts, and guaranteed enough income each month for a sustained period.

    But actually, my stress dissolved when I realized I had the capacity to create money when I wanted to.

    I create money when I serve. I create money when I offer help. I create money when my actions generate value that didn’t exist before.

    The game has changed for me.

    Money isn’t a scarce resource anymore. It’s not a corrupting influence. It’s not something I avoid relating to.

    Money is a measurement of how deeply I’m serving people. Money is a measurement of how well I know my tribe, and how well I’m helping them do what they’re here to do.

    Money is an indicator of how bravely and vulnerably I am devoting myself to the purpose for which I was born.

    Ewan Townhead

    , , , ,

  • I started asking myself this question just over a year ago.

    Last autumn I went through one of the toughest periods of my life.

    After returning from 7 months of traveling in June of 2013, things were on the up. I was full of audacious ideas, a new business partnership, renewed juju.

    And then it all started to crash.

    The woman I’d met in Bali, and for whom I’d returned from America to be with, was not happy with how I was being. Our relationship was really struggling. I was really struggling.

    While I was finding success in the work I was doing – the entrepreneurs academy I’d co-founded was doing really well – I was not happy.

    The new business partnership I’d started in San Francisco had petered out before it really got going. I knew I wasn’t doing what I actually wanted to do, but I couldn’t think of what that was. And I needed money.

    So, when my relationship hit crisis point, and I realized I didn’t have anywhere to retreat to (I’d been crashing with my woman in her room – big mistake), I had to take drastic action.

    I called my mum in tears.

    “Mum, things have got really bad here, and I don’t have anywhere else to go. can I come and stay with you for a little bit?”

    That ‘little bit’ ended up being 4 months, split between my parents houses (they’re separated). here I was, at 31, living back with my parents, my relationship on the rocks, my business ideals in tatters. My ego was crushed.

    My bright mind couldn’t get me out of the twisting maze.

    1. I’m not doing the work I’m supposed to.
    2. I don’t know what that is, or how to get paid from it.
    3. But I need money to get a house, and get myself grounded again.
    4. But I can’t do work that my heart isn’t in anymore.
    5. Repeat.

    I kept trying to strategize it – come up with the smart plan that would get me what I wanted, without stress, and without betraying my heart.

    But it just kept looping, around and around.

    So I turned to God.

    I don’t know why. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Even though I didn’t really know what that meant. And I still carried a bunch of Christian allergies. But I went in.

    I started reading Christian mysticism, and meditating and praying profusely.

    And somewhere in the tumult of swirling experiences, the question was given to me.

    What is being asked of me?

    It’s a question I’ve asked myself countless times since then. And one I’ve asked my clients, and friends too.

    I like it as a question. Deeply.

    It’s powerful. Fucking powerful. And yet, it doesn’t assume anything, except that something is possible. And that that possibility is greater than I am.

    It pulls at my edges. It pulls at what I consider possible. It pulls at the edges of my individuality, connecting me to a greater whole. A greater plan. A greater play.

    And so, as I sit back and reflect on this year, it is this question that has pulled and called me forth into things I could not have manifested alone.

    It’s the question I ask when things get confusing. It’s the question I ask when I’m freezing up in fear. It’s the question I ask when I want to connect with something infinitely wider than my mind.

    I could list so many things that this question has opened up for me.

    Here are 5 big ones.

    1. Quitting the Business Academy I Co-founded

    It wasn’t simply the academy that I stepped away from, but the business partnership I’d had for two and a half years.

    It was a huge decision.

    I didn’t know where money would come from afterwards. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do instead. I didn’t know whether I was being sensible or idiotic.

    But it was what was asked of me.

    I could feel the truth of it. And I could hear the truth of it from the mouths of loved ones around me.

    All the while my rational mind was going loopy. It couldn’t make sense of it. And my anxiety was spinning itself up, telling me what I was doing was ‘not safe’.

    I kept checking in. Is this what is being asked of me?

    “Yes.”

    It was the hardest decision I made this year. It was the best decision I made this year. It’s changed my life.

    2. Reaching out to a Mentor

    For about 3 months, I kept having intuitions about it.

    A voice kept saying: “Reach out to him, ask him to be your mentor.”

    I couldn’t make sense of it. He’s an incredibly busy guy. A leader of a big and successful business. I don’t even know him that well.

    So I’d let it go. And forget about it. And a few weeks later, it would pop up again.

    “Reach out to him. Ask him to be your mentor.”

    This is what’s being asked of me? To reach out?

    “Yes.”

    So I did. And he said yes.

    We meet every month. It’s incredibly powerful. I feel so blessed. Being with him and receiving his help has had profound effects on me and my business.

    3. Signing my First Long-term Coaching Clients

    They wanted to work with me.

    I’d coached them through the academy I’d just stepped out of. I’d gone way beyond the coaching they’d paid for, because I just loved them and their business.

    I’d coached people on and off for several years, but I’d never signed my own private clients to a long-term package deal before. I’d always done it on a session by session basis. But this needed something way bigger than that.

    I wrote them a proposal. It took me two days. The package and price I quoted them scared the shit out of me. It was big.

    Is this what I’m asked to do? Is this what I’m asked to quote them?

    “Yes.”

    Fuck.

    I sent it to them, and felt all the tension drip off me.

    I’d spoken my pure truth. I wasn’t anxious about what they would say. I’d spoken my heart. There was nothing more I could do.

    And then they said yes.

    And then I called them and checked their commitment level. I could feel some hesitancy in them, and I wanted it to be a full yes.

    They said that had them trust me even more.

    We did some fabulous work together. We learned a huge amount. They’re now some of my favorite people on the planet.

    4. Hiring a Coach I Couldn’t Afford

    I’d known for some time that I wanted to invest in a coach of my own. I knew it was time for me.

    I’d spoken to Steve Chandler, one of the biggest coaches around. He was an option. But it didn’t feel right. I half-approached another couple of people I knew, and sounded them out. But none of it felt right.

    Then my friend Lisa had an intuition I should reach out to Sam, a coach and good friend of hers. Which I did.

    We ended up talking for two and a half hours. It felt so right to be coached by him. And the price he quoted me scared the shit out of me.

    I slept on it, and went for a walk in the park early the next morning. I tuned in.

    Am I asked to sign up for this?

    “Yes.” Fuck. But I’m scared. I can’t afford this.

    I’m really asked to do this?

    “Yes.”

    So I biked over to a cafe, and sent him the money.

    The coaching with Sam has taken my business to another level. And it’s taken me to another level of myself.

    5. Publishing Things I Didn’t Want to Publish

    It must have been just before I finally launched this site (it took me over 7 months from sketch to launch, seriously). I was meditating, and could feel that there was something wanting to come through.

    I tuned in deeply, and cast my closed eyes upward. There were two guys sitting there in big stone chairs. One was old, un-attached, immovable. One was younger, fiery, charming. I trusted them completely, immediately.

    What’s being asked of me?

    The answer was instant.

    “Ewan. You must speak. You must speak.”

    I knew it was true. Truer than ideas or concepts. Truth in its rawest form.

    So I vowed to speak. To speak the things I felt in my heart, but was deeply resisting to utter with my lips.

    I published the blogs here on this site. And each and every time I could feel the counter-force fighting me. I’d squirm as I hit ‘share’ on facebook.

    But I trusted it. I knew it was what was being asked of me.

    What is being asked of you?

    It’s the most powerful question I know.

    It’s one you can’t get wrong. You can’t get it right either.

    But you can ask it. Deliberately. Resolutely. Faithfully. And you can feel the truth of what is asked in return. And you can make a choice. To listen.

    What is being asked of you?

    Really. Be with it. Now.

    What is being asked of you?

    It’s not a homework assignment. It’s the call of your being.

    What is being asked of you?

    It’s already there. The question is already in you. You just need to reach out and listen.

    What is being asked of you?

    Write it down. Breathe it in. Offer it up.

    Ewan Townhead

    , , , , ,