In The Pursuit of Money, Meaning & Beyond, Is It Time For Some Hair Of The Dog?

This thought-piece by Andrea J. Lee is excerpted here for the first time from the book, Money, Meaning and Beyond, Chapter 21

Ever feel like a fraud in your biz? Or, just stuck in a rut – again?? Whatever your business is, if you’re hesitant, embarrassed or shy about it, it’s just not going to work long term. Time for some hair of the dog.

Question: I’m totally stuck. I thought my business was going well, but I can’t seem to get anywhere these days. It’s like spinning my wheels in mud and getting deeper and deeper into ick. Plus, I have no energy anymore. When people ask me what I do, I just can’t seem to care enough to tell them. Please tell me what is up?

Whether you’re just starting out or been around the block a dozen times, the feeling of ‘I have no idea why but there is no energy around here’ is a common one to business owners of all stripes.

First things first. Remember, everything is energy. And when you’re stuck, experience tells us there’s something wrong inside – not something you’re doing – that is creating the block.

So here’s where the idea of Hair of the Dog comes in.

The phrase ‘Hair of the Dog’ originally comes from Medieval times when physicians of the time prescribed real hair from a dog to treat dog bites.

You know, someone would come into the surgery with a dog bite. And they would get a mouthful of tonic made from hair of the dog that actually bit them.

Now we don’t know if that worked from a medical perspective, but the phrase in modern times has come to characterize something more familiar, at least to some.

When you – or someone you know – has indulged a little too much in alcohol the night before, the morning after can be a bit of a trial.

And the phrase, “You need some hair of the dog” has come to mean, “Ya might wanna have another drink, buddy, it’ll take the edge off your headache this morning.”

It’s been a little while since I’ve tried this personally, but we seem to remember it works.

So what does all this have to do with your business? A lot, actually.

If you’re stuck in any way, or even if you’re not stuck but you want to amp up your flow of energy, ask yourself this:

“In what way could I be applying the things I sell, teach or stand for, to myself?”

“How could I – more thoroughly – be doing what it is I tell my clients they should be doing?”

The answers you come up with are…well…the things you must do to get unstuck.

Mini Case Studies:

• If you’re a massage therapist, how often are you yourself going to a therapist to reap the benefits of your trade? A grumbly massage therapist whose back hurts and forehead is wrinkled from low energy isn’t someone most people would go back to…
• If you’re a financial advisor, how are your finances? We’re not saying you have to be a millionaire to be a terrific financial advisor, but you must actively be pursuing what you believe is important in the realm of finances. If you aren’t, how can you do right by your clients?
• If you are a dentist, how are your own teeth?
• If you teach cold calling, how often are you picking up the phone?
• If you’re a coach or consultant, are you walking your own talk?

‘Nuff said.

It’s pretty simple really…albeit maybe a bit unexpected. When you start to apply the Hair of the Dog Principle, count on your energy starting to flow again. It’s like taking a little booster shot in exactly the right spot.

Wisdom nugget:

Make a list of why you think people should do business with you. Be thorough. Start with as many as you can write down, and come back a couple times as you think of more.

Example: They’ll save money. Or time. Or they’ll have a lot of fun. Or…whatever.

>>> Now make a list of ways YOU can live these things yourself.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Your 5 little snippets wisdom for this week are here, from the collection by Thomas Leonard and his R&D Team. We hope you’ll find a useful nugget or two to take with you this week.

• People can’t see what they’re too close to.
• People’s greatest strengths are at times their greatest weaknesses.
• People love to compare.
• People are overwhelmed by technology.
• People find it difficult to ask others for help.

To receive more snippets like these via email, we invite you to visit us at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and sign up.

Any thoughts about this week’s snippets?

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

Thomas Leonard in 2009: “What You See On This Table Represents An Entire Year’s Worth of Work”

Thomas Leonard, known to so many as the ‘father of modern professional coaching’ is also completely unknown to a multitude, as I found out in a rather rude awakening at the International Coach Federation (ICF) Annual Conference in December 2009. (Photos shown are from the exhibit hall there.)

Thomas was the first man to talk about this thing called ‘life coaching’ in a major magazine, Newsweek to be exact. And the first to be on a talk show about it, Donahue, in that case.

He formed the first coach training school, which is still now one of the largest and most well known. Indeed, he founded the first coaching association, the ICF itself. (Yet people attending the ICF conference had no idea.) He sold the first training school and opened another, which collided with the onset of the internet and grew like shrimp chips in hot oil. He personally led live training events in over 20 cities in less than a year. He even developed a coaching certification process through a second coaching association.

But what was the real secret behind all of these game-changing moves, in black and white? It only takes two words to tell you:

World-class content.

People who were part of Thomas Leonard’s world will recall that he often pushed aside compliments by saying ‘I’m just a fast typist.’

In other words, he was a writer.

He wrote incredibly, and if you haven’t yet experienced the impact of his writing, take a moment and go to www.BestofThomas.com and read just one thing for yourself.

For Thomas, really, the laptop was mightier than the sword.

I had the amazing good fortune to work with him. That experience left an indelible mark on me, and you could say that a little of his DNA rubbed off and stayed stuck.

So when I was given the opportunity to take the job of sifting through all his writing, all of his programs (all of his thoughts, really) and BECOME RESPONSIBLE for making THAT accessible to future generations (not just of coaches, but everyone) you would think it was an easy decision.

It wasn’t. Sometimes stepping forward to take a stand for something isn’t easy. It can be downright paralyzing in fact. I know this, first hand and in the marrow of my bones.

Sometimes, thought leadership means nothing more than doing the right thing, as it was, in this case, for me to do the work you see in these photos. What you see there, in fact, is all the materials that got packaged – with many hands on deck – using many hundreds of hours – over the course of an entire year.

It’s just the tip of the iceberg. And that, dear reader, is real grit in the oyster of MY life.

Thought leadership often means asking yourself ‘what can only I do?’ and without hubris or false humility, doing it, hopefully without too much whining.

What ‘right thing’ is sitting in your life, waiting for you to do?

What ‘thing that only you can do’ is evident in your business, waiting for you to wake up?

What is thought leadership, anyway?

On Thursday January 21, I’ll be holding a class on ‘Everyday Thought Leadership for Entrepreneurs‘…

It’s no-cost, and I’ll be using 3 example businesses to demonstrate the concepts.

The words ‘thought leadership’ may sound on the fancy side, but all they really mean is:

• thinking for yourself
• creating value in a fresh way for those around you
• daring to be even just 10% different

In business, it also means acting on those fresh ideas and creating a business structure that delivers value to your customers. By the way, if you’ve gotten hold of a truly ground-breaking idea that changes the game – and isn’t TOO ahead of its time – your business will more than ‘keep food on the table.’ This is where it gets really fun and rewarding.

And, it’s where the big success stories are going to come, in 2010.  Because years ago, when the internet was a baby, it was easy for every ezine, product, or offering to be fascinating and cool.  Heck, when TV was new, all the programs seemed worth watching too, right?  Well, the Wild West of the Internet is definitely gone, and quality is now rising to the top.

You get to choose what kind of TV program you and your business will be.  So, what will it be?

To learn more about everyday thought leadership for entrepreneurs…

Click here to register.

Learn to cultivate best-of-class ideas, then act on them. It’s a community (planetary!) service

I have a confession to make.

I feel like I’m doing penance.

(Okay, if not penance, then at least balancing the scales a little.)

And I’m doing it head-on, fighting the good battle of what I’m calling ‘Crap Creep.’

Crap Creep.

It’s a good term, isn’t it? Instantly, you know what I mean.

Really. Look over there…see that pile of crap? Old receipts, unsolicited mail, flyers, packaging of all kinds and oh lord, your collection of crap is really complete if any Styrofoam peanuts have taken up residence.

Let’s not go too far into the realm of the crap on TV, in the news, or flapping around in the yard…it’s everywhere, including, I think, online.

Online, the crap has crept so high I shudder to try and visualize it.

And I think to myself, what if we were to give up, roll over on our proverbial backs and submit to all this crap…?

What if there wasn’t that one favorite (and critically acclaimed) show each season…

That stellar new talent, be it artist, singer, poet, physicist?

What fresh hell would that be, eh?

Well, I’m not ready to roll over. In fact, that’s where my penance comes in.

You see, I’ve realized something about my book, Multiple Streams of Coaching Income, published more than 5 years ago.

It could be argued, and it has in fact, this very night over dinner, that that book has brought home the message of packaging, productizing, formatting and repurposing so well to so many people, that a visitor from another planet could easily get the impression ‘ideas and content are incidental, and even irrelevant.’

(I didn’t in fact write that, but an error of omission is still an error worth correcting, when possible.)

Effective today, I’m taking my stand on the other side of the conversation.

Think. Just think of one great thought that has changed your world view. Not even inventions, but thoughts. Thoughts like –

We become most like the 5 people we spend the most time with.

Love is the answer.

The world is awash in money.*

We must be the change we want to see in the world.**

Opportunities don’t knock, they whisper, so shut up and listen.***

The thing is, every single one of us has great thoughts, but the world is so noisy, and our brains so busy fending off the infocrap that the gems don’t even register before they fall to the floor of our skull, never to be seen again.

Over, and over and over.

What if, instead of remarking ‘How fascinating!’ it is that we only use SUCH A TINY PERCENT of our brains… we actively worked to seize territory and activate new gray matter a quadrant at a time?

What thoughts could we come up, ourselves? Together? As a country or planet?

People who’ve learned to pay attention to their best thoughts, and act on them, are doing a community service. Strike that, make it a planetary service. They should get paid stipends, or get reductions on their taxes, if they aren’t already talented entrepreneurs. Maybe free gas for a year?

What if Tim Berners-Lee had received a giant pile of junk mail the day he was meant to think the thought that led to the invention of the internet, for example? I wouldn’t be typing this, you wouldn’t be reading it, and that certainly qualifies as a tragedy!

Even the New York Times is getting in on the act, reporting that thinking critically – analytically and originally, bearing in mind opposing vantage points – has begun to find its way into MBA courses. Thank goodness for small miracles.

So what’s the average, ordinary business owner to do about all of this?

1. Cultivate opinions.

In a me-too world of ‘who cares’ and ‘whatever he’s having,’ individuals who speak their mind clearly, and have something in that mind worth sharing, will become the standouts. They are the ones who’ll be heard in the marketing din, and attract evangelists.

Let me put it this way: ‘I think it’s an excellent idea to practice having strong opinions, starting at dinner parties. It allows you to build a cultivating-opinion muscle that will transfer to your business.’

2. Say NO to ‘infocrap.’

Consuming it, certainly, straight away. But also creating it. What project are you working on this week and what is the real value of it? What will it contribute to your clients? If you’re not sure, you’re either uncertain about communicating the value (a cool thing, because NEW ways of generating value are born every day and sometimes they sit just outside the realm of articulation).

Or, you’re not sure it contributes anything and it’s just crap. Taking a stand against Crap Creep is a great start. It frees you up to think those great thoughts again.

3. Birth something new of value.

Entrepreneurialism at its best is an evolutionary urge. (There’s that opinion thing again.) As business owners, we create the future. With every offering, every home-study kit, every retreat or live event, we are expressing our ourselves, and yes, our humanity.

When we look at thought leaders among us – those entrepreneurs who’re doing something different, combining unexpected things, approaching things from upside-down, solving an unspoken problem

….we get galvanized, don’t we? We know when something exciting is afoot. We’re attracted, we want to be part of it, we want to spend money experiencing it more. And we get hope. We’re reminded that we, too, could create something that great.

Creating something of real value is an act of love and commitment to our clients, and a nod of respect, to ourselves. It’s worth it, even when it feels like it’s against all the odds.

*Abraham-Hicks **Mahatma Gandhi ***Thomas Leonard

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Here are your 5 little snippets wisdom for this week,  from the collection by Thomas Leonard and his R&D Team. We hope you’ll find something insightful and useful to take into your week.

• People never reach their limits, they only think they do.
• People’s personal and professional lives are integrated, even if they think they’re segregated.
• People usually believe that their actions and choices are right.
• People tend to seek help when they are in pain. Their motivation often wanes as soon as the pain diminishes.
• People want things to be simpler, even if their actions seem to be to the contrary.

If you would like to receive more snippets like these via email, please visit us at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and sign up.

And please let us know what you think!

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

Predictions and An Invitation for 2010: Why Higher Quality Content Is Needed at Higher (but not inflated) Price Points

2010 will be known for many things, but for entrepreneurs like us, some things are more sure than others.

1. Free is becoming freer. No longer is it the coolest thing to give something away for free and ask for an email in exchange. In some circles, that’s just not free enough, and the really engaging thing to do is to release your thing into the wild, no email needed. If your market is one of those circles, you’re going to want to know.
2. Free is becoming more expensive. On the other hand, delivering less is commanding more money. People want the perfect slice of information at exactly the right time, no more, no less. (More in this in ‘Excuse me, will you be my Google,’ a chapter in MSOCI. In an overwhelmed world of ‘infocrap’, filtering becomes of tremendous value and people will pay a premium for it. (Think Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Sugar-Free cookies.)
3. Critical thinking muscles will get stronger. We’ve been let down repeatedly by the establishment in recent years (Enron, Madoff, the financial markets, pension plans in Canada, spiritual leaders such as James Ray) and painful though it is, people are beginning to wake up. In the self-help world, balanced dialog is increasing bit by bit, and artificially-inflated price points aren’t selling as well as before, or are being closed down.

This is all good news, because it directs us to a greater level of integrity, forcing us to look at what we do and inquire deeply as to our value. Doing so, we can grab the opportunity to increase our value, express our value well, and charge well (and fairly) for it.

The answer to a lot of this is not complicated – start by practicing having a strong, well thought-out opinion. Choose for yourself what you feel is important. Help others do the same. Hold high standards for your product and service offerings. Charge well, using sound business models and ethics, to reward yourself for all of the above.

An invitation…

The Wealthy Thought Leader 3-Day live event is officially on the books – just 70 days away and the first time in 4 years you can interact with me face-to-face. This is simple to understand: it’s a coaching booster shot the equivalent to many months of coaching.

For some of you, it’s time to meet my literary agent in the flesh, and see if your best content passes muster.

And for others, it’s high time to crawl inside the mentality of high-end (top dollar) money models, leaving the agony of $19 ebooks behind. Smart people selling cheap ebooks is often a doorway to hell, I’ve noticed. Time to press reset.

Well, I’ll call dibs.. I predict that 2010 is going to be the year of quality content at higher prices, leaders digging deeply into their maturing markets. If your content, money model, plan or idea isn’t ready, now’s the time to get in the game.

I invite you to join me for “The Wealthy Thought Leader – Leveraging Your Business With Ideas Worth Selling.”

www.WealthyThoughtLeader.com <- for more info

(instalment pricing expires soon)

Think Big, Act Small. No-Fee Teleclass with Smart Folk

‘Take Your Creative Business to the Next Level’

Big ideas are great. But what do you do with them?

Never fear, help is here. In the form of actionable steps, one at. A time.

Pamela Slim (making big moves look easy) and Charlie Gilkey (polymath extraordinaire) are bringing their coaching chops to this call on Thursday, January 7 – that’s right away.

The call will cover many things, including:

How to take your intentions and translate them into action without becoming a slave to a plan or system.

Thanks Pam and Charlie for the low-key results you help clients achieve. For a dose of these guys — read more and sign up here.

A Course About People | 5 Little Things You Want To Know

Here are your 5 little snippets wisdom for the first week of 2010.  They’re from the collection by Thomas Leonard and his R&D Team. We hope they’ll kick off your year with some new insights.

Enjoy!

• People want to be loved, appreciated and carried gently in the hearts of others, even if they deny it.
• People express love when they feel safe.
• People enjoy learning except when there is a test.
• People extend their boundaries when they understand the limitations that are within them.
• People judge themselves too harshly.

If you would like to receive more snippets like these via email, please visit us at www.ThoughtsByEmail.com and sign up.

Any thoughts about this week’s snippets? We’d love to hear from you.

copyright 2002-2010, CoachVille, LLC all rights reserved.

A Crazy Name for a Sane Tool: CrazyEgg.com

Talk about hidden income! Each visitor at your website is bursting with potential income for you. But like holding a glass to a fire hose, we waste hundreds of potential paying clients, letting them spill all over.

When I’m in person, say at a speaking engagement, I try to acknowledge everyone who comes near, to say hello – it’s just rude, otherwise. I’d like to do the equivalent online, but tools like Google Analytics are just too much. Enter… Crazy Egg. Easy and only $9 a month.