What if what the experts have been telling you about their success formula is something that mostly only works for them?

What if successful marketing and business success strategy was totally unique to the individual?

I am a big fan of uniqueness.  It is no accident that we are all so distinct from one another.

What if that uniqueness came into play not only with the gifts and talents we have to give but also in how we operated our own small business?

I’m coming to see that truth more and more clearly.

Vocation is where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.   Frederich Buechner

That’s my favorite career coaching quote yet I now believe that there are two additional roads intersecting at that essential crossroads.

I believe that your core business calling can be found only at the intersection of these four paths.

1). the product or service that you are most eager to create.

2). the work activity that gives your deepest gladness.

3). who and what you care about the most right now.

4). what value point others most need from you offered how they want it.

Let’s look at eagerness in this article.

Just like fear cannot exist in the presence of love, resistance cannot exist in the presence of inspiration.

You can’t run out of inspiration either. I’m talking about a special vein of inspiration that is tied to right action.

I’m talking about eagerness.  Right now think of something that you are eager to do.  Does any resistance come up at all?  I didn’t think so.  Here’s a powerful distinction for you.

The relief or avoidance of resistance is, running away from what you want.

The inspiration of eagerness is, running towards what you want.

Nike is wrong! Inspiration works better than discipline. Just doing it is the old way. Attend this free teleseminar find your natural eagerness.

When you find and engage your natural eagerness it’s easier to get what you want because a natural flow takes over.  Here are my principles of eagerness that will tie it all together for you.

Eagerness leads to willingness which leads to action which leads to success.

Eagerness is a natural response to authentic desire and only exists in the absence of fear.

The fierce and passionate qualities of the heart are more prevalent when we are actually doing something, so the more active the experience the more authentic the desire.

Two of our most basic desires are to create and to connect.  When we are creating or connecting we have already moved from eagerness, through willingness and into action.

Can you see why the most certain route to success begins within?

Would you like me to coach you in the discovery of your eagerness free of charge?

Then join me on Thursday Jan. 19 at 4 PM Eastern for this powerfully effective Eagerness Teleseminar. 

To identify all four of your core calling paths you can turn them into a cash stream, click here.

In your comment please share which of your paths are the most underdeveloped?

I define a real business with two main qualifiers. One it’s authentic to you and two it pays you. Authentic business building is all about receiving money for providing value that fulfills you. That’s it.

As Steven Covey in his excellent book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People shared – Begin with the end in mind and put first things first.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Synopsis: Self-discover and clarify your deeply important character values and life goals. Envision the ideal characteristics for each of your various roles and relationships in life.

Habit 3: Put First Things First
Planning, prioritizing, and executing your week’s tasks based on importance rather than urgency. Evaluating if your efforts exemplify your desired character values, propel you towards goals, and enrich the roles and relationships elaborated in Habit 2.

This may surprise you but the first thing in turning your idea into a business is not incorporating or figuring out how to file your taxes. It’s not ordering business cards or putting up a website.

These things are all necessary but distracting steps, that can dilute your energy and cause you to avoid taking action.

No one has ever been paid for getting ready to be in business.

You aren’t really in business until you have a customer.

Are there preliminary steps that you must take to develop your idea into a business? Yes there are but they do not have to take you months to accomplish and you don’t have to write a traditional business plan.

Getting started in real business building activity is more important than writing a plan you may or may not ever follow.

Yet a written summary of the business is an essential focusing tool. Just write out what your business idea is, explain the product or service, define who you will be selling to and what aspect of your product, service, delivery or business model gives you a unique edge in the marketplace.

After you do that – then get busy building your business. A good place to start is by asking, answering and acting on these five questions.

1). What can I do now to move this idea forward into a business.

2). What are the next 90, 60 and 30 day milestones to set and hit to prove that I am doing so?

3). What are the three toughest questions I could get from someone who is testing my commitment and the idea’s validity?

4). What are my most enthusiastic and confident responses to each question?

5). How can I put myself in front of potential clients or customers now so I’m having real conversations about my real business?

Do these things first and you will create clarity and progress.

Go direct to what you want. Take action to get it and before you know it – you’ll have a real business.

Can you really find business startup success while being authentic? Yes, it’s really the only way to be happy and make money.

If I had only 15 minutes to share the best business startup advice I tell you to use these tips as your guide.

1).  Starting your own business can be challenging so you can’t play small. Don’t hold back or water down your desires. Go for the highest vision of what you can imagine, then you’ll have more energy and others will want to support you. Pioneers don’t compromise or conform. Business success comes from the energy of holding nothing back. Give it your all and prosper.

2). Hold a grand vision of what you want. See that vision daily. Get pumped if you can’t get pumped you’ve chosen too small. If I could wave the magic wand of outstanding success over you and your business, what would that look like? Imagine that.

3). Business startup success does not usually happen without massive, inspired action. Learn the language of marketing and how to ask for what you want. Then ask boldly and often.

4). Try lots of stuff and smile when you fail.  If that traditional advertising campaign composed of custom pens and business cards does not yield the results you expected, try something different — maybe an online advertising or social media campaign.  Love yourself for having the courage to make frequent mistakes. Mistake making is a normal part of the process. You will not succeed without missing the mark more often than not. Love yourself even more than you think is possible.

5). Place yourself compassionately in the shoes of your customers. Be vulnerable and connect. Be human and share how you are, like they are. Tell it like it is, authentically.

6). Enthusiastically love your work, yourself, your language, your marketing, your customers, your mistakes, your joy, your pain and your trials. Love it all deeply and completely. That’s the only way you’ll care enough to persist.

7). Hold frequent conversations. This is my best business startup advice. Conversations create opportunities. You’ll see things you couldn’t see previously, by listening and expressing authentically.

8). There is a deeper, purer river of meaningful service flowing within you and you must tap it in order to flourish and thrive. When faced with critical decision go deep within. Your heart knows the way. Your mind just wants to see what others will say.

9). Always look for the sunny side. It’s there. A new business startup will not succeed without sustained focus on what’s working well. Know, think about and talk about what you want. Leave the negativity to the nightly news. Only fools think and talk about what they don’t want. Park the self-judgment permanently.

10). Practice compassion, self-love and gratitude. Look for what you truly appreciate about yourself and your business. Be grateful and build on those.

Hope sometimes gets a bad rap in self-development circles.

Our culture is way too heavily influenced by parental programming, cautioning us not to get our hopes up.

I think that hope is an essential prerequisite for all new business creators.

Despair, disbelief, discouragement and pessimism are all antonyms for hope. Could you even consider starting a new business from that mindset? I know I couldn’t.

Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome. That’s what momma always says. She says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. Try to remember that when you find yourself at a new beginning. Just give hope a chance to float up. And it will… Sandra Bullock as Birdee Pruitt in the movie Hope Floats.

How glorious it would have been to have such an encouraging mom.

Her momma knew that hope provides a necessary lift of positive expectancy.

Hope is the glue that bonds ideas to action.

Hope is the bridge between authenticity and prosperity. In the early days of new business development there is little else to hold onto when actual results are scarce.

Yet you’ll starve if hope is the only staple in your encouragement diet. Hope by nature is fleeting and provides only temporary sustenance. At some point you must act in order to experience actual, not just imagined, movement.

Yes hope floats! Hope works because it stimulates our original inspiration. This gift is our natural desire of authentic expression within.

But inspiration must be harnessed within a certain period of time, before your “realistic” mind, begins over-thinking your lack of results and your dominant thought becomes self-doubt.

In my career and new business development coaching, this realization is missing for those folks who always feel as though they have too many interests to select one idea.

So they remain suffering within the safety of an endless loop of temporary inspiration and non-action, while hoping that the next idea will have enough lift to be their one true calling.

I’ve also seen this fruitless cycle perpetuated by long time self-help book readers, who mistake end of the book anxiety as the tension-relieving call to get lost within the next book.

But that anxiety is really your call to action. End-of-the-book anxiety is the same anxiety that calls you when your hope is about to expire. Right there, at that point of raw potential, you must act. It’s the only way to get what you want.

Everything in your mind and body is screaming run but right then only a charge will work.

It reminds me of this inspirational clip from the movie Gettysburg where Joshua Chamberlin lead the charge of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Hope is wasted if it doesn’t lead to action. Action leads to gems of original realization and these enlightening treasures are only granted to those who act.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best. 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 and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, 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 he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

If you’d like to find a point of original inspiration then join me on August 18, 2010, 3:00-4:00 p.m. ET for this free phone class.

Life Purpose + Self-Employment = Freedom, Prosperity & Fulfillment: How to Get Your Hopes Up & Remain Inspired About Succeeding In Your Own Business

Authentic inspiration is to procrastination what sunlight is to darkness.
Procrastination or any form of resistance just can’t coexist in the presence of authentic inspiration.

I’m going to go against the grain here and take a stand for inspiration.  Especially since Seth Godin came out with his excellent book, Linchpin, I’ve seen an awful lot written about battling resistance.  His marketing advice is topnotch and it always stretches my noodle.  But I think he’s missed the mark on resistance.

But Seth isn’t the only one.  Many authors and self-help gurus recommend taking a stand against resistance.  They say that you don’t have to feel good in order to create, follow-through and complete.  Seth goes so far as to recommend ignoring your feelings.

You’re familiar with this Nike-like philosophy of just sucking it up and doing it.   Use willpower and discipline they say.  Face the fear and do it anyway.  I used to spout this same rubbish until I stumbled on a better way.

More on that soon but first a confession; I’m a big tough guy and a talented, experienced coach but I’ve lost more battles with resistance than I’ve won.

Resistance is by definition self-sabotage. Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize.  Steven Pressfield

Resistance can also show up as distraction, obsession and avoidance.  Really any made up excuse or rationalization that keeps you from doing what you want to do, is resistance.

“Just Do It!” makes sense but why is it so damn hard to just do it? I understood that I get more done by diving right in but I more often run than dive.  Resistance is a sneaky bastard.  Sometimes you can trick it and sometimes not.

Sometimes accountability works and sometimes not.  Sometimes a sacred and honorable pledge will work and sometimes not. Sometimes looking at your deepest motivation  (why) for creating what you’re creating will work and sometimes not.

Have you had similar struggles with Resistance? Have you tried but found the “just do it” advice lacking?

I think that Seth and the boys assume that since willpower works for them it will work for everyone just as well.  Apparently not.

Self-control is an exhaustible resource.  Chip & Dan Heath from their book, Switch: How To Change When Change Is Hard.

Self-control is willpower, discipline, sucking it up and just doing it.  And we can run out of self-control.  I think traditional productivity experts have forgotten all about this oldie but goodie.

What we resist persists.  Perhaps resistance is so powerful because we keep fighting it. Ignoring feelings is resistance.  Sucking it up is resistance.  Standing up to resistance is resistance.

How about we try something that we can’t run out of?

Inspiration is inexhaustible as long as it’s authentic.

I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to work around resistance.  You don’t have to stand up to resistance.  You don’t have to suck it up and just do it.

Instead how about tapping into your naturally occurring flow of authentic aliveness?

How about working on something that naturally inspires you to feel really good?

I wonder what that might be?  Here’s a hint.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.  Howard Thurman

So my friend, what brings you alive with natural enthusiasm?  What brings joy to your heart and puts a spring in your step?  What work calls you?

One of my biggest challenges as a true calling coach is helping clients to see how they can transition into a true calling inspired business without putting everything at risk.

One of my biggest personal challenges used to be completing what I started.

So I’ve been experimenting with ways to serve my calling while at the same time finding a solution to my completion struggles.  I’m very excited to tell you that I’ve found the solution to both.

Today I’ve launched that solution in the form of a creation/completion product that you can use to Create Your Inspired Info Product In 5 Days. Purchase on or before Friday March 19, and save 50% off.

The easiest way to start a true calling inspired business is to create and sell an authentic product.   This guide inspires you every step of the way, as you complete not by sucking it up but by riding a wave of authentic aliveness.

Life doesn’t have to be one big struggle after another.  We were first built for joy.
I’ll close with a powerful video where Pamela Bruner takes us through a delightful EFT tapping session that uses fun instead of willpower to make challenging tasks easier.   This video is wonderful for creating a state of inspiration.

Get your copy of Create Your Inspired Info Product In 5 Days.

The old saying goes, he who hesitates is lost.  That’s true but the hesitator is more than lost – he’s lying to himself.

If you’ve wanted to identify and start a true calling inspired business and haven’t by now. What’s your excuse?

Really what are you waiting for?  I hope it’s not a small business idea that’s so brilliant that it arrives bathed in golden light on the wings of angels.  That’s a myth.  More good ideas come from observing mistakes than from epiphanies.

But to observe a mistake and extract the wisdom from it you’ve got to be willing to try lots of stuff so you make really good mistakes in the first place.

This post came from a mistake.  Yesterday I started a teleclass with 8 folks on the line.  It was called, Finding the Clarity and Confidence to Begin Your True Calling Inspired Business.

Halfway through the call all the participants got bumped off and I was talking to myself.   I thought that a couple may have dropped off and the remaining folks were just shy about participating.  I figured even if I were alone the recording would still take and I could send it out to folks.  Nope. Later I found out that I had no audience and no recording.

So I re-recorded the call and simplified it down to the three necessary ingredients for a true calling inspired business startup and five ways you can start up your business today.

You might think you need a perfect startup business plan or at least a completed idea of what your business will look like but that’s not true.  Believe that and you’ll never get started.

What you need for a successful business startup is to feel really good about it.  That good feeling comes from the clarity and confidence to begin.  If you’re through whining about risks and security and are ready to do something, listen to this recording and tell me what you think. Better yet – get started; humanity needs your expressed uniqueness.

[podcast]http://www.delightfulwork.com/audios/TruCallInspiredBiz.mp3[/podcast]

You really are brilliant, you know.  Out of 6 billion of us on the planet there is no one like you.

That’s not some cruel joke.  There is meaning to your being.

Your uniqueness is your greatest blessing.

Are you leveraging your uniqueness?

Are you expressing your authentic individuality?

If not what do you fear?

I know you’ve experienced flashes of your own brilliance.

I know you’ve felt authentic aliveness with the arrival of a bold new idea.

How many of those ideas have you had without even taking the next small step to acting on them?

How often do you set one half-completed project aside and jump to the momentary madness of yet another fresh idea that you’ll likely not complete?

What causes you to fear and not act?

What is it about the delicious inspiration in a brand new idea that causes you to momentarily lose your senses?

Is it because it carries with it an unconditioned and unspoiled promise?

Is it because you haven’t yet dishonored it by not acting?

Is it because it offers further relief from the discomfort of completing last week’s fresh idea?

I used to be affected by this kind of unproductive, uninspired behavior but ever since the Big Link Rally I’ve been experiencing creation differently.

So I’m curious, what do you think is missing from your creative productivity process?

There’s really nothing wrong with your brilliant bad ass self.

But if you can identify what’s missing – you can add it.

There’s a lot to be said for work habits and or inspiration that increase your speed to taking the first step.

What was missing for me was a real feeling of connection that inspires authentic aliveness.  I’m almost embarrassed to admit it but I think I’m one of those people who need to feel good about doing what I’m doing.

Some self-employed business owners develop the discipline to be productive regardless of their feelings.  But does creativity have to be a fight or can it be more of a flow?  It makes me wonder.

I wonder if for me and maybe others, a more effective approach is to generate good feelings about our ideas and projects so we are more authentically inspired to complete them.

Now generating good feelings of authentic aliveness is something that I know how to do.

It’s working so far.  Stay tuned for further developments.

In the meantime, lighten up and imagine how effective you might be if you regularly got unconditional supportive praise like the dude in my favorite commercial.

Too often the founders of start up businesses keep things to themselves for far too long. Without the willingness and ability to bounce ideas off the right people, would be entrepreneurs unnecessarily delay a successful business launch. 

In 1999 I’d been coaching for a little more than a year and a prospective client was interviewing me to determine how well we might work together.  I can still recall the conversation 10 years later, because Bob understood the value of paying for an objective truth.

Client Bob explaining, “I just want you to listen closely while I talk though my business challenges.  That will be invaluable to me because you’ll be the only trusted person in my life without an agenda.  My boss, my wife, my children and my co-workers all want something from me and thus they are all biased towards their own motivations.  I just want you to listen and to occasionally give me a straight, unbiased opinion.”

Bob and I worked well together for over a year because my only agenda was his success as he defined it.

The Value of Objectivity

The straight up truth is very rare and extremely valuable for business start up success. Yet it can be challenging to get someone to tell it like they really see it.

Where do you get your totally unbiased, independent feedback?

Is your source truly objective or do they have a hidden agenda of their own?

Closeness is not always a good indicator of objectivity as this post on spousal support suggests.  The closer one is to you the more difficult it is to remove their personal fears from the advice they offer.  Often unwillingness to leads to diluted, sugarcoated advice.

Survival fears also heavily influence what’s shared.  I’ve seen large organizations where everyone is afraid to tell the leader that he’s wearing no clothes.

Your Business Is Very Personal To You

You and your business start up ideas are separate.  Yet being able to really hear feedback and receive it without getting defensive requires that the source of the feedback be skilled in communicating it.

Truth can be personally challenging to accept, especially when it comes from a close friend or relative.

You Get What You Pay For

Trust and confidence needs to be unquestionable.  In matters of law we have no trouble hiring an attorney to present us with our options.

As a coach I am a fierce advocate for coaching because  I’ve seen so many potential entrepreneurs die with their music still in them.  Often the death of their initiative can be traced to fearful free advice offered by a friend or relative.

Paying for an environment conducive to start up success along with the trust and confidentiality that only a business coach can provide is essential when faced with crucial career and business start up decisions.

Consider your current source of business advice and ask these questions.

Can I be sure that they are putting my best interests first?

Have they demonstrated a capacity to tell the truth while at the same time unconditionally supporting my efforts?

Do I leave conversations feeling more inspired and much clearer about possibilities?

Am I inspired to confidence after these conversations because I’m now armed with methods to create what I want to create?

Coaching delivers all of this and much more.

Unbiased Feedback Presents Priorities

What’s the number one priority for any business?

Delivering a uniquely better product, profitably, to more clients.  That’s it.

But so many start up entrepreneurs in the planning and pre-startup stage are working on everything but that.   They’re spending weeks thinking about domain names, business names, tag lines, business plans, brochures, forms, etc, etc. etc.

Instead on concentrating on the main thing – a better service and happy clients.

Could straight up advice delivered in clearly supportive fashion be your missing link to start up success?

If you’d like to enjoy a truly stimulating exploratory conversation contact me to realize the possibilities.   Explore shaking things out in the true spirit of brainstorming, championing, encouragement and unconditional support.  Hire me as your coach.

Playing small does not create magnificence.

Deep down you know this.  Deep down you know that playing small serves no one.  Deep within you resides the spark of a big dream just waiting for your decision.

What’s your one thing that would change everything?

If you could make one thing come true that would change everything, what would that one thing be?

If you told the whole truth to yourself – you’d have to admit that you do have the capacity for greatness.

What is your big dream?

Can you at least admit that you’d be better off with one?

If you can, that’s where it all starts – imagining the possibilities.

What’s your overriding dream, objective or guiding desire?

Do you have a blog without a purpose?

Do you run a business without a clear path to how you want it to end up?

Do you have a desire to feel the freedom of owning your own business but lack the insight or courage to make it happen?

If you have no wish, how can it possibly come true? Seth Godin

Indeed, how can it?  After reading Seth’s Ruby Slippers post I am inspired to add to his thoughts.

You know that you’ll never hit a target you haven’t identified.  So what stops you?  Is it fear of failing or succeeding with something that really matters to you?

What could you be best in the world at?

I’m curious, what keeps you from deciding and declaring that thing?

What keeps you from even considering the possibilities?

What is your main thing?

What goal, objective or dream has you aglow in the possibilities?

Ponder that thing.

If you aren’t yet playing as big a game as you could be,  start here and answer these questions.

Who would I be most inspired to serve?

What realized dream would open my heart the widest?

What could I be doing that would make my life feel like one glorious joyful glide?

That’s my main thing, guiding you to discover and ride your joyful glide.  Contact me today to explore the possibilities.