Pebblestorm

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have created successful businesses around their purpose.

I love Amy Applebaum!  She is the force behind Amy Applebaum Inc. and “The Release Your Inner Millionairess” program designed to create life changing breakthroughs in her clients, mostly early stage women entrepreneurs.

Amy’s helped hundreds of thousands of female entrepreneurs across the globe and has been on ABC News, CNN, TLC, LX New York and Martha Stewart.

In 2009, Amy made a big evolution in her business to achieve Unique Genius Superhero status, and in the interview we talk about that change as well as other big work transitions over the past 15+ years that have led her here.

A great quote from this interview: “It’s ok to be afraid, just do it anyway”.

We covered…

• How Amy turned getting fired into freedom
• How Amy started her first company placing vending machines, and how her first disaster led her to changing her approach and making the business successful
• How Amy went from 1-1 life coaching to a business expert helping entrepreneurs all over the world
• How to make the most of your advisors & team
• Why having fun in work is so important & relevant
• How Amy gets out of a poopy mood

And more, of course!

Listen To Or Download The Interview

Want to download the interview?
Click here to download…

More About Amy Applebaum

• www.AmyApplebaum.com
• Amy’s Blog
• A Machu Picchu Unique Genius Superhero interview of Jodi Nelson, a client of Amy’s

About Unique Genius

Want to learn how to discover your purpose and answer the question “what do I want to do with my life?”  And learn how to combine all your interests, ideas and passions into a single successful business?  Find out more at www.UniqueGenius.com.

What Was Your Favorite Part Of The Interview?

Please leave a comment!

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

Have you caught the Unique Genius videos?  (You can see the full overview at www.UniqueGenius.com).

Now Unique Genius is your purpose, translated into a successful, exciting business.  So this free series of videos teaches you two mainly about the two most important starting points:

1. How to discover your purpose (or mission), and answer the question “What do I want to do with my life?”

2. Learn how to turn all your ideas, interests and passions into a single successful business.

Some comments include:

• “I watched the video this morning and got totally inspired. I have a fire lit under my ass!”
• “Aaron!!! THIS IS MAGNIFICENT and BRILLIANT. I love the video. It’s very authentic and genuine. I can’t wait to share it to my network. Keep lighting those fires!!”
• “One of the best videos and communication of both the problem, aspirations, and the steps toward making things happen”

In the video, learn:

• How to start a business that can’t fail
• 16 myths of what it takes to start a successful business
• 6 common mistakes people make in turning this purpose into (lots of) income
• A Unique Genius exercise
• Lessons from some PAINFUL life & business mistakes I’ve made, and how you can learn from & apply them yourself

The video’s based on what I’ve learned from starting two kinds of businesses:
1) A conventional start-up: Spending $5 Million & working full-time for two years
2) A Unique Genius business: Spending $20-$100 and working part-time (4 hours a week) for two years

Forgetting fulfillment, freedom & happiness for a moment, which type do you think made more money?

This will be controversial to many of you because it’s so counter to what you’ve been taught by conventional experts.

(Forget market research & business plans? Enjoyment? Babysteps? Patience?!?)

I’d love to hear your questions & “skepticisms” (yes, I’m allowed to create words!) in the comments section of the video.

Register here to watch Unique Genius Video #2:

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have discovered their purpose and turned it into a successful business.

Let me just say, this interview was awesome.  Even a client of mine said “the Brian Johnson interview was stupid good. I really liked the way he lives his life and enjoyed the interaction between the two of you. There is much in common.  Thanks for making the time for this. Best, Eliot.” And thanks Eliot for suggesting I interview him!

By the way, even if you don’t listen to the interview, take this bit of advice to heart: when Brian was 24 and “a train wreck” (his words), all he could do was follow his “single little bit of bliss” (wanting to to coach little league baseball).  That eventually led to the idea, growth and $13 million sale of his first company.

So what is your little bit of bliss, however small, that you’re not following because it’s not “practical”?

A little about Brian:

Brian lived for a year in Bali as part of figuring out what he wanted to do and coming up with PhilosophersNotes.com. Brian, like myself, comes from a technology-entrepreneurship background, but left it behind to start a Unique Genius business.

In his first venture, as a 24-year-old law-school-dropout-turned-CEO, Brian led the creation of eteamz – the world’s largest amateur sports site that was sold for over $13 million of stock and cash to The Active Network, Inc. in 2000 (and it still profitably serves more than 3 million team players in 120 countries around the world).  So the guy knows some stuff

Also, Brian will be a guest expert trainer in my upcoming Discover Your Unique Genius program.  When you listen to the interview, you’ll understand why I invited him to participate.

Things we discussed:

• How Brian dropped out of law school at age 24, terrified & “a train wreck”… and then by following his “single little bit of bliss” (wanting to to coach little league baseball) led to the idea, growth and $13 million sale of his first company.
• Why Brian feels that raising money from investors – which he’s done twice, almost $10 million worth – is overrated (and why I agree!)
• Why taking a 10-day silent vipassana meditation course, and starting to meditate, was one of the most significant things Brian’s ever done for himself (although it almost drove him crazy).
• Brian’s two main sources of stress, and how he manages them.
• What kind of environment and activities lead to the idea and vision of PhilosophersNotes.com
• What led Brian to realize that “he’s just not that into business” and what he REALLY cares about.

And so…

Listen To Or Download The Interview

Want to download the interview?
Click here to download…

More About Brian Johnson & Philosophers Notes

• www.PhilosophersNotes.com
• www,OptimalLiving101.com

Books & Sites Mentioned That We Both Recommend

• John Wooden & Steve Jamison’s “Wooden” (one of the best – if not the best – management books I’ve ever read)
• Gay Hendricks’ “The Big Leap”
• Tim Ferriss’ The 4 Hour Workweek
• Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
• David Daeda’s The Way of the Superior Man
• Vipassana Meditation: www.Dhamma.org, and my post about my 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat: “A lifetime focus & happiness enhancer: Vipassana meditation”
  .

About Unique Genius

Want to learn how to discover your purpose and answer the question “what do I want to do with my life?”  And learn how to combine all your interests, ideas and passions into a single successful business?  Find out more at www.UniqueGenius.com.

What Was Your Favorite Part Of The Interview?

Please leave a comment!

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

Look, if you’re going to do a video interview, it’s pretty hard to beat doing one at the top of Macchu Picchu.  Jodi Nelson started an amazing Unique Genius business called “Play It Forward Adventures“, integrating adventure travel with service work. She’s truly mashing her passions!

We talk about what she was doing before she started it, how she began, where the ideas came from, how her coach made a big difference, and what’s going on this year for her (her 4th year)…

The trip was awesome – we spent:

• A couple of days in Lima & Cusco,
• About three days volunteering in a local village school (building tables and chairs, planting trees, playing with kids),
• Three days trekking in the Andes, and
• A day in Machu Picchu.

The people on the trip were fantastic!  It was just awesome all around

Pictures of the Macchu Picchu trip on Facebook:

Peru & Machu Picchu Trip Pictures on Facebook

If this link doesn’t work, you can also just look them up on my Facebook profile www.Facebook.com/MotoCEO

How Would You Combine Your Passions Into A Business?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Forget for a minute the idea of figuring out and creating incredibly fulfilling work you enjoy.

Let’s say you’re in a career that you may or may not like, but either way you have to make some money to pay the bills.  Let’s say the thought of actually enjoying work is probably more along the lines of “once I have enough money, then I’ll figure out what I want to do with my life and I’ll do what I want.”

Do you think the career track will create financial freedom for you?  How free is your boss, or theirs?  How many people do you know that have achieved financial independence by working for other people?

Even the Silicon Valley equity and stock options system is, except for the founders, more of a white-collar lottery than an actual path to financial freedom.

You will never achieve financial independence through working for others – you must start your own business.

At some point you’re going to have to start your own business. Just having your own business isn’t some golden ticket to wealth, but it’s a hell of a lot more likely you’ll get there than by clocking a job. I’m not saying you should quit your job – you need the income!  But at least make a plan to start your own business.

If starting a business feels like a “big leap” or a big risk – it doesn’t have to be.  So many people still believe it takes a lot of time (per week) and money and energy to start a successful business…

…but what if it doesn’t?

What if you could start your own business without much money or time per week on it, in which competition didn’t matter, and you felt fulfilled by the work?

What if there is a way to discover your purpose and answer the question “What do I want to do with my life?”

And a way to combine all your ideas, interests and passions into a single successful business?

Upcoming Unique Genius Education & Training

My purpose is to help more and more people ‘make money through enjoyment’ by discovering your purpose and turning it into a successful business.  Part of this includes democratizing entrepreneurship, to make it easier and more practical for anyone to start a business with confidence.

I have some complimentary training videos (part of a prelude to a full Unique Genius course) coming in about a week to get you started on envisioning how this is possible.

The videos and course are for you even if you don’t have extra time because of a current job or family.  Being busy can make it that much harder to figure out what you want to do with your life or work, and then stay on track. So I’m designing the content into bite-sized chunks that you can study and apply at your own pace.

You’ll want to study the videos, if…

• You know that you are ‘meant for more’: to make more money, to make more of a difference in the world, and to have more fulfillment and enjoyment in work.
• You want to be able to work on what you want, when you want, from where you want and with whom you want.
• You want to align your interests, passions and values with your work, and become MORE successful because of it! You don’t have to make less money doing what you love.

I’m looking forward to getting these videos done and sharing them!

Subscribe To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have created businesses they love around their purpose. They’ve found ways to combine enjoyment, money and meaning in their work.

Here are some of the topics we covered…

• How he started his first business part-time (while working in medical sales), and turned it into a $8,000-$10,000 per month business before jumping ship to work full time on it
• The 2×2 matrix he uses to plan moving into new markets or building new products
• How Yanik’s money motivation shifted with success (away from Rolex watches and cars)
• The two things that REALLY matter in life
• How he manages his time with multiple businesses and a family

And more, of course! This interview was longer than usual, because we had such a good time and covered so many interesting areas

Listen To Or Download The Interview

Want to download the interview?
Click here to download…

More about Yanik Silver

• www.YanikSilver.com
• www.InternetLifeStyle.com/blog
• www.MaverickBusinessAdventures.com

Some of his blog posts that I highly recommend starting with or that we mentioned in the interview:

• 5 Unusual Ways To Motivate Yourself“
• GREAT example of laying out a company’s values and vision: “2012: A Maverick Space Odyssey, Painted Picture and Lessons Learned” blog post
• Example of PDA (“Public Display of Action”) Yanik used to get himself to launch a new company: “Maverick Business Adventures – A Startup Journal“
• About money and motivation: “Do Your Wants Create Your Ultimate Success?”   – you can see the early influence of my PebbleStorm diagrams

What of these resonated with you? Let me know!

About Unique Genius

There’s a process to discovering your purpose and turning it into a business you love. Find out the latest at www.UniqueGenius.com.

What Was Your Favorite Part Of The Interview?

Please leave a comment!

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

I’ve been doing a whole series of Unique Genius Superhero Interviews (including some new ones coming in the next several weeks of people like Yanik Silver, George Kao, Clay Collins & Amy Applebaum), but now it was my turn to be interviewed, this time by Ali Berlin.

Ali Berlin (a life coach in San Francisco with a Saturday morning radio show) interviewed me recently about topics like:

• Why I started PebbleStorm
• Where the inspiration came from
• How and why I broke away from the corporate world
• the inspiration for Unique Genius,
• tips and advice on finding your own Unique Genius (even if you have a full-time job and family and have little free time and energy)

The interview is a great first introduction to my own story and what PebbleStorm and Unique Genius is all about…including some practical tips

Listen To Or Download The Audio Interview

Or Download The Interview

Ali Berlin’s Original Post

On AliBerlin.com: “Make Money Through Enjoyment with Aaron Ross”

Have More Questions For Me?

Leave a comment and I’ll answer them!

.

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

What’s it like to be in the PebbleStorm community? What’s my ‘perfect world’ vision?  Here’s how I’ve painted & sketched it…

I did the above painting while at a cool walk-in painting studio in Santa Monica called PaintLab, at an event my friend Elliot Lemberger put together.

Sketched Version

More PebbleStorm Art

You can see that many of the individual components of the painting (like the rainbow, treasure chest, tree, sun…) started as individual sketches.  You can see ‘em in the “Art Of PebbleStorm/CEOFlow” past blog post.

What’s Your Dream World/Work/Life?

Your dream work gets more real the more specific you describe it to yourself and others, and the more you declare it to the world. You can do this through writing, drawing, video or any other number of ways.

Here’s my original “Small Pebble, Big Wave” Self-Manifesto that remapped my mind and was the beginning of the vision for PebbleStorm. I did it before the sketches started coming to me.

Want to make your vision more concrete? Leave a comment below about 1-3 things that describe your dream business (or life)…declare it to yourself, me and the world!

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have created businesses they love around their purpose. They’ve found ways to combine enjoyment, money and meaning in their work!

If you think all the productivity & life direction advice sounds the same out there (except for mine, of course), meet Jonathan Mead, founder of Illuminated Mind & Body (or just “Illuminated Mind”).

Jon’s a really interesting guy who has fun turning “success/life advice” on its head with attention-grabbing blog posts such as “If It’s A Good Idea, Don’t Do It“, “The Best Way To Solve A Problem: Give Up“, and “The Lie Of The Four Hour Workweek“.

Jon’s a precocious 24-year old entrepreneur, author, blogger, martial artist, general seeker adventure and husband who bailed on his 9-5 job in 2009 once he could support himself on his Illuminated Mind business. It’s not yet making him rich – it’s under six figures (for now) – but he supports himself on it and he’s living and working his purpose. And the money will keep coming & growing as he keeps this up.  He’s “got it”.

Jonathan started simply – as a part-time blogger  – and his unique take on topics and no-nonsense writing style…if you’re turned off by the terms ‘ass-kicking’ & ‘kicking ass’, stay away

Here are some of the topics we covered…

• How Jon juggled creating Illuminated Mind while working full time and being married
• What Jon sacrificed to start and grow Illuminated Mind
• How he got to making about $4k per month working part time (before he quit his job)
• Two methods Jon uses to be hyper-productive
• The REAL value of blogging (it’s not all about building an audience)
• How to make success or a goal “inevitable”
• An unforeseen challenges of being his own boss

And more, of course!

Listen To Or Download The Interview

Want to download the interview?
Click here to download…

More About Jonathan Mead

• www.IlluminatedMind.net
• Bodyweight Renegade
• Follow Jon on Twitter

Here is the Steve Pavlina post that he refers to in the interview: 10 Reasons To Not Get A Job

More About Unique Genius

There’s a process to discovering your purpose and turning it into a business you love. Find out the latest at www.UniqueGenius.com.

What Was Your Favorite Part Of The Interview?

Please leave a comment!

Do you hold other people up on pedestals?  Do you think you should always be clear and happy, and feel guilty when you aren’t?  Everyone is human, and perfect in their imperfections.

I can feel confused. I can be overwhelmed.  I get anxious.  I feel all the same stuff you do. The fear comes up…but I don’t let it stop me from moving forward, even if ‘forward’ is a babystep.

Babysteps, no matter how small, are one of my main “get unstuck” practices. I LOVE babysteps!

Here’s a two minute video of me sharing about what I did when I was feeling totally overwhelmed last week:

What I Created

In the video I share the next step that gave me a real sense of relief.  Below is the landing page I drafted in Powerpoint.

If you haven’t done one before, or anything like it, it might look like a lot of work.  It wasn’t – I’d already written much of this content up in different places, or in my Unique Genius webinars and invitations.  For me, the challenge was removing content to leave behind the least, best stuff (click on it to enlarge it):

Related Posts

• Using Rocks & Babysteps To Overcome The Fear
• Fear is Natural – Just Get Started

Do you worry about being transparent with clients and friends? It’s much easier to be this way and BE YOURSELF…rather than putting on a mask of perfection.

What Do You Do When You Feel Like This?

Please leave a comment, I and others would love to hear from you and get your advice!

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have created businesses they love around their purpose. They’ve found ways to combine enjoyment, money and meaning in their work.

Interested in learning more about someone who wants to “infect 1 billion people with the possibility virus”? Meet Michael Bungay Stanier.

Michael is the founder of Box of Crayons, a company that works with organizations around the world to help them “do less Good Work and more Great Work”. Michael was the 2006 Canadian Coach of the Year & is the author of Do More Great Work.

I found him last year, after he released the viral video “The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun” and loved his work and the style he brings to it!  Michael’s “Do More Great Work” has a lot in common with my own Unique Genius work.

Here are some of the topics we covered…

• The 3 things you need to do more great work (and less good work)
• How Michael secured a part-time contract to support himself for a whole year while he got started
• How long it took him to “stumble along” to get clarity on his own Great Work (Unique Genius)
• Michael’s “portfolio approach” of having a mix of paying projects + visionary projects
• How his “8 principles of fun” movie helped him skyrocket him (after nobody cared for it)
• How Michael organizes his environment & days to maximize his Great Work
• Michael’s support systems he’s established to help him succeed & get through rough spots

And more, of course

Listen To Or Download The Interview

Want to download the interview?
Click here to download…

More About Michael Bungay Stanier

* You can buy “Do More Great Work” Book On Amazon
* www.DoMoreGreatWork.com
* Box Of Crayons (His consulting company)

About Unique Genius

There’s a process to discovering your purpose and turning it into a business you love. Find out the latest at www.UniqueGenius.com.

What Was Your Favorite Part Of The Interview?

Please leave a comment!

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have created businesses they love around their purpose.

Everyone has a purpose (or “calling”), and there are always ways to turn your purpose, any purpose, into a business you love. It’s easier to live your purpose daily when you do it for work!

Chip Conley is the founder & CEO of Joie de Vivre, the largest boutique hotel group in California. He’s also the bestselling author of “Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow”.

Chip’s found his calling twice in his life, and I was fascinated to find out if there were patterns between the two.

At 26, Chip left a highly successful career in commercial real estate to become a rebellious boutique hotel entrepreneur, and create a successful business through inspired employees.  In the past few years, Chip’s recent calling to teach companies & people how to become more successful is manifesting through his books and a PeakOrganizations.com seminars business.

One of the many things that I admire about Chip Conley is how he created a corporate culture of success at Joie de Vivre by focusing on his employees, and helping them find their own meaning at work. Chip believes that the success of a company depends highly on the emotional well being of the employees. Enjoyment at work creates happier employees, who create happier customers which leads to higher revenue growth & lower service costs!

Here’s some of what we covered in the interview:

• The differences between a job, career & calling
• How he’s found TWO callings in his life
• How, before Chip was famous, he convinced Richard Branson to write a foreword to one of his books
• How to create a corporate culture of recognition that juices employee morale & motivation
• And more!

Chip also gives us a couple of examples of the “Emotional Equations” that are the basis of an upcoming book.

Listen To Or Download The Interview

Want to download the interview?
Click here to download…

More About Chip Conley

• ChipConley.com
• PeakOrganizations.com “Transforming the Way Business Is Done”
• On Amazon: Chip’s “PEAK” book

About Unique Genius

There’s a process to discovering your purpose and turning it into a business. Find out the latest at www.UniqueGenius.com.

What Was Your Favorite Part Of The Interview?

Please leave a comment!

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have created businesses they love around their purpose. I recently had the privilege of interviewing Marc Allen, an internationally renowned author and president and publisher of the multi-million dollar company New World Library.

I wanted to interview Marc for two reasons:

1) Marc Allen and I think almost exactly alike! In many ways his writings follow similar principles to PebbleStorm, including (“Visionary Business,” “The Millionaire Course,” and “The Type-Z Guide to Success: A Lazy Person’s Manifesto to Wealth and Fulfillment.”)

2) Marc loves writing books that have an impact in the world and change peoples lives, and part of his work includes guidance on helping people find their purpose.

While much of the interview delves into both how he found his purpose and it led him to financial independence, we covered a lot of related ground, including:

• What happened on the morning of his 30th bday that shifted the direction of his life 180 degrees.
• How his “Ideal Scene” practice works (it was his single most important tool he used to change his core beliefs around life, work and money).
• How he avoided bankruptcy at 35 and turned his finances around.
• Why, in creating and building his multi-million dollar company, he never worked at it more than 30 hours per week.
• His take on the three things a business needs to succeed.
• Why he shares 50% of his profits with employees (I’m going to have to do a follow up CEOFlow interview with him!)
• How being generous is the smart way to be selfish
  .

Listen To Or Download The Interview

Want to download the interview?
Click here to download the interview…

More About Marc

You can find out more about Marc at www.MarcAllen.com and www.NewWorldLibrary.com.

Thank you George Kao for the introduction to Marc!

Coming Soon…

There’s a process to discovering your purpose. Register for a sneak peak of it at www.UniqueGenius.com.

Of course, once you find purpose, how do you turn it into a business you love?  That’s what the upcoming “Feed Your Freedom Mastermind” will be about, a six-month group coaching program that will be announced soon.  Click here for more details.

What Did You Learn From This Interview?

Please leave a comment!

Subscribe For Free To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

If I could share only one thing with you to make the biggest impact on your success, it would be to have you look closely at the people you spend your time with. You are a reflection of them and their attitudes and values – for good, numbness or toxicity – rub off on you!

After spending time with friends, family or coworkers – do you feel energized, powerful and inspired – or drained and exhausted?

The people you spend time with are like the soil to the dreams, business and life seeds you’re planting.

Optimistic, supportive, accepting people will help your Unique Genius bloom (along with your income, enjoyment and freedom).

Pessimistic, discouraging and judgmental people (including the ones we love) will crush your dreams, energy and success – or at least make it feel like you’re moving through molasses.

Valerie Young left a particularly insightful comment on why the people we love can be so discouraging: “The people who are least likely to support our dreams are the people who love us the most. Why? Because they love us. And taking chances like following a dream is scary to them and they want you to be safe.”

So:

• Which of your close friends, coworkers or family members are energy vampires that leave you drained? How can you limit your exposure to toxic or discouraging energy?
• Which of them are inspirational and encouraging, and how can you spend more time with them?

It’s important to know this, because it has an enormouse affect on your own chances of enjoyment and success.

Don’t let people kill your dreams!!  Spend time with people that will support you, no matter how crazy you want to be

Dear Parents…

Parents are usually the first dream killers people experience in life (luckily, mine weren’t).

Did your parents support your aspirations, or discourage you from dreaming?  Please encourage your children’s dreams of what they want to be or do – even if those dreams aren’t ‘practical’.

A Quick PebbleStorm People Exercise

Here’s a simple worksheet (a sample from more upcoming www.UniqueGenius.com materials) you can look through and print:

PebbleStorm People Exercise

Do You Agree? What’s Worked For You?

Has changing who you spend time with affected your business?

Sometimes it’s hard cutting off or limiting energy vampires – what’s succeeded for you?

Please leave a comment!

The Unique Genius Superheroes Interview Series is about ordinary people who have created businesses they love around their purpose. Tricia McEntee didn’t create Esalen, but after she found her own purpose, she was promoted to the CEO role there.

Esalen Institute is an amazing retreat spot on the California coast, in Big Sur. It’s gorgeous and a place that holds all kinds of personal development workshops. If you’re from California, you’ve likely heard of it and how influential it’s been in the development of new ideas.  If you haven’t heard of Esalen, chances are you will in the coming years!

When I met Tricia McEntee, she was kind enough to share her story on camera (<5 minutes) about how she found her purpose in 2009:

Tricia’s Steps To Finding Clarity

1. She was frustrated with work and wanted to make a bigger difference, creating a strong desire to find more of herself to give.
2. She played, opening herself up.
3. She spent time questioning, studying purpose and inspirational leadership at a workshop.
4. She had a ‘trigger event’ to activate her purpose: a serious conversation with the chairman of the Esalen board about her future was scheduled.
5. In preparing for the meeting, she was inspired over a weekend to create a collage of her passions and interests (activating it)…and as she completed it, her purpose came to her in about a minute!

How Did Finding Her Purpose Help Her Succeed?

1) She felt clarity in life and in how she could contribute in a bigger way to her own and Esalen’s future.
2) Four months later they promoted her from CFO to it to CEO when the position suddenly became available.

I’d bet that if Tricia hadn’t found this clarity of purpose it’s unlikely the CEO role wouldn’t have been offered to her…or at least that quickly.

Coming Soon…

There’s a process to discovering your purpose. Register for a sneak peak of it at www.UniqueGenius.com.

Of course, once you find purpose, how do you turn it into a business you love?  That’s what the upcoming “Feed Your Freedom Mastermind” will be about, a six-month group coaching program that will be announced soon.  Click here for more details.

How Did You Find Your Purpose?

Leave a Comment!

.

Subscribe To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

The My 10-Step Personal Success Routine post has been one of my most popular.  This post builds on it with the idea of designing your week.

A b2b sales consulting client of mine is FreedomSpeaks/CitySourced, and Kurt Daradics (“KurtyD”) is the CEO. KurtyD’s a great guy – he’s very purpose-driven and has a lot of character.  Not to mention he also does improv comedy

We recently sat down for a private session to help him make progress on building his sales machine.  Interestingly, one of the things that he took away wasn’t about sales process – but about how designing your week can be a huge help in staying focused, balanced and productive.

KurtyD’s suffering from success – CitySourced is getting great press, leads, attention, funding, etc…and he’s working on amping his own organizational game to keep up.

Here’s an excerpt from his post “Fight The Resistance“:

“Lord knows I’ve been busy, but even though we’re seeing traction, I still don’t feel like I’m really getting that much done, sorta spinning my wheels.  Even lately I’ve been feeling a bit paralyzed and at the end of the day my focus and concentration has been toast. I’m terribly behind on some personal correspondence and taking care of personal business. The start up has officially consumed my life.

I was starting to get a bit concerned and burned out, and regardless that my diet has been good, I’m getting enough sleep and exercise, I still wasn’t performing at my peak.  Also, I truly sense that we’re on the right about to break through and deliver some major game changing technology, and that little voice inside my head that tries to tell me I ‘don’t deserve it’ or that I ’should go back to bed” has been really trying to throw me under the bus. Seth Godin calls this voice “the resistance“. That little voice has been really confusing me lately, reminding me of all the things that need to be done, and it’s been causing me some anxiety and tempting me to work from a place of desperation rather than inspiration.

Today I had a cool breakthrough. My pal and coach Aaron Ross aka @MotoCeo really helped me break  some things down. Aaron has been helping us think through our sales process and we’re currently getting ready to launch our sales efforts using Salesforce.com, where Aaron used to be Sr. Director of Sales.

Aaron showed me how he manages his calendar and as cliche as this may sound, this was a big ‘aha’ for me, and something I’m implementing immediately.

• His Mondays are for planning and thinking about the “non-urgent & important”.
• Tues are for new clients calls and meetings.
• Weds are reserved for existing accounts and clients.
• Thurs is a ‘catch all’ day. [Aaron: I normally use these days for one-off coaching sessions/workshops]
  
• Friday is errands, bookkeeping and some ‘catch all’. [Aaron: clean the clutter, get organized for next week]
  

Aaron helped me focus on the fact that if I want my business to catch a fire that I really need to get the “magnifying glass” positioned in the right place and hold it steady so that it burns the leaf, that’s the spark that catches fire.

I have a strong sense that the calendar trick is to work really well for me. For example, the tools I need and documents I have open for new sales calls is much different that what I need for existing clients. By batching the work in a focused fashion I can dive deeper and batch all the work. Then I can deliver a list to my asst or project manager in a bunch, rather than piecemeal through out the week, which delivers better process and efficiency to my team and saves them time too.”

Thanks Kurt for sharing!

Other Tips & A Screenshot Of My Calendar

I block out time for my Personal Success Routine (“PSR”), meditation, exercise, etc. first, and then schedule work time around those blocks.  In the shot below, that time is all the aqua color.  You can see the morning blocks for my PSR.  (Side note: the 10-Step PSR I wrote about in 2009 has been mostly out the window for awhile, since I got into a serious relationship.  But – what’s cool is we are creating a new “Mutual/Couples PSR”. I promise to share it when it stops evolving.)

I use Google Calendar and have multiple calendars to color-code my work.  I don’t get too fancy/complicated. I use a few basics:

• Aqua is “personal time” like exercise, meditation.
• Purple is client time (prospective or current).
• Red is “get stuff done” – usually I’m on computer creating something.  ‘Pay the bills’ would also fit into this.
• Yellow is Team/Visioning time (with partners/employees).
• Green is travel (not on this screenshot).

(Click on the image to expand it)

If You Want An Exercise Routine That Makes It Easy To Get Your Butt Kicked

You see my Tuesday and Thursday mornings are blocked out for CrossFit / exercise.  If you’re looking for a badass exercise routine that will get you in shape without a huge amount of time, check out CrossFit.  I started a month ago and it’s awesome! I like that it’s done in small groups (this is key for me), there’s lots of variety, and it’s tough.

How Do You Design Your Week?

Leave a comment and share the wealth!

Subscribe to PebbleStorm via email

Kurt Daradics’ blog

Is your website a source of frustration or enjoyment for you?

Dare I say you can ENJOY (re)building a site??  I do dare!

Websites are big sources of uncertainty, stress and excuses for not moving forward – but they don’t have to be. With a little help and guidance, you can actually have fun building a great one in a weekend…without spending as much time, money or energy as you think it takes…and without worrying about all the technical stuff.  That’s right – even if you’re a techno-phobe

I and Simon Carstensen have a new PebbleStorm teleclass next Wednesday on how to “Build Your Website in a Weekend”.  In it Simon (the brains of this website operation stuff) will explain how to enjoy building your website without having to:

• Spend lots of time figuring out how to set it up
• Spend $3000-5000 to have someone do it for you
• Struggle to attract customers once it’s up

So if you need a new website or need to redo one, this teleclass is one you don’t want to miss.

How To Register

http://simoncarstensen.com/weekendwebsite

In addition to sharing the steps of how to do this on your own, the call will give you a sense of how Simon’s upcoming group program will work if you want a) a Simon’s personal help and b) the support of a bunch of other people (like me) who are doing the upcoming weekend program together.

I And My Mom Are In The Boat With Ya

That’s right – I will be doing this call and his weekend course with you, as I update my janky 5-year old www.BuildASalesMachine.com site in preparation for an upcoming sales book launch

My mom’s signed up as well, so she can finally turn www.MardeRoss.com into a site about her passions.

Your Horror Stories – Leave A Comment

We’d love to hear from you if you have any horror stories about spending way too much time or money on your site. Please leave a comment about it!  Or, what worked really well for you?

Everyone who reads this blog (this means YOU) wants to help others or make a difference in some way – whether it’s before, during or after you make a pile of money.  There’s greatness & happiness in you.  So is your current work exposing that greatness and happiness, or discouraging it?  Does your work make you “more of who you really are” or “less of who you really are”?  Take five minutes for this handy-dandy sanity check.

FIRST: Your Positive (Light) Side. How Often Does Work Bring Out Your Best?

How do you see yourself?  What are your values?  How do you want to feel and move through life?

STEP ONE (1 Minute)

Write down five values or feelings or ways of being that you are, such as Creative, Appreciative, Happy, Growing, Healing, Supportive, Patient, Fun, Accepting, Gracious, Wealthy, Valuable, Trusting, Inspiring, Making A Difference, etc. The don’t need to be your perfect top five, just write down five that come to mind.  This should not take you more than 30 seconds.

Here are five that just came to my mind – though I have thought about this quite a bit over the past 1-2 years :

1. Playful
2. Adventurous
3. Loving
4. Patient
5. Trusting

STEP TWO (1 Minute)

Now stop and reflect – does your work help you be more of these values each day?  Does it make you, for example, more playful, more adventurous, more loving, more patient, more trusting?  (If you’re not sure, the answer is no.)

For me, the answer in general is yes-yes-yes-yes-yes…though it ebbs and flows day by day or week by week.  I am always working on being/feeling more of these values more of the time each day.  Although I have my ups and downs some hours/days/weeks/etc, overall I clearly live my life along those values much more now than I did a couple of years ago, B.P. (Before PebbleStorm).

SECOND: Your Negative (Dark) Side. How Often Does Work Bring Out Your Worst?

STEP ONE (1 Minute)

Write down five negative patterns / feelings / ways of being that you see in yourself that you don’t like. Being honest with yourself, what negative aspects of you come out in your work – can you be fearful? Stressed? Mean? Inconsiderate? Busy? Abrupt? Forgetful? Late? Dream killing? Discouraging? Selfish? Jealous? Unhealthy?

This should not take you more than 30 seconds.  You are allowed to ask coworkers and spouses for their suggestions…though you may not be able to stop them at five, heh!

Here are five that just came to my mind that I notice in myself (plus some extra notes about each for context):

1. Impatience – While I am vastly more patient than I used to be, this pattern does come up. Impatience (as distinct from urgency) is a form of unhappiness. To me, impatience = arbitrary dissatisfaction with your present moment or situation when you can’t do anything about it except change your attitude…like a child in October who’s unhappy that Xmas is two months away.
2. Workaholic-ism – I can easily slip back to the pattern of “more work creates more results”, which is only true in the short term (days, weeks, months).  Throwing more hours at something is a crutch for lacks of creativity, clarity or patience.
3. Stress – Stress is the true enemy and a killer. The irony of my expanding self-awareness is that while I am less stressed than I used to be, I am more aware of when I have any stress at all.  The cleaner you make a room, the more any little dust ball stands out.
4. Don’t listen – When I’m impatient, stressed, etc, I can stop listening to partners, clients, employees. Not good!
5. Lack of clarity – Right now I am ‘focusing’ on just four active businesses/lines of thinking (PebbleStorm, CEOFlow, Build A Sales Machine, DataSalad), and it can be challenging creating and updating clear visions for each regular, both long-term visions and short-term plans.

In general I am not impatient, or stressed, or unfocused. But these are darkside patterns that I tend to slip back into if I get off track,  too busy or even when I travel (travel can throw my whole routine off) and I stop or slack on my 10-Step Morning Personal Success Routine.

Step TWO (1 Minute)

Take a minute to reflect: in your work now, today, this past week…how many and how much of these negative patterns came up?  Do you feel them every day, or infrequently?

Does your work bring up more of your positive attributes or more negative patterns?  What’s ‘winning’?

This exercise does not help if you lie to yourself about your work – and I’m not just talking here to the lawyers, investment bankers and bail bondsmen out there.  CEOs and executives can often more unhappy and stressed than say, a factory worker, because the responsibility and pressure gets to you over time without you realizing it. You don’t even notice it until you stop and look back in moments like now.

THIRD: Whatcha Gonna Do About It?

Whether your work sucks or you don’t love it – don’t quit your day job if you need income!  But at a minimum decide you deserve better, and that you will do something about it.  Create a plan for how and when you want to escape – even if it’s years away. Don’t let yourself look back five years from now and think, “how did five more years go by so fast?”

Here are three places to start to stir things up in your noggin (the “Make a list” step is the 5th minute of the “5 Minute Sanity Check”):

1. Make a list (1 Minute): Quick! Brainstorm 10 things you can do tomorrow or next week to help work bring out more of the good stuff, and keep away more of the bad stuff?  Of the 10, pick out 2-3 are the best ideas you are going to try right away – and get a buddy to support each other in doing them!
2. The Unique Genius Worksheet: To get some of your creative juices flowing, you can get (for the first time or re-download) our Unique Genius worksheet from: http://www.PebbleStorm.com/updates (On that same page, you can also download and listen to the “Invitation To Inspiration” call recording, to hear what being a part of an inspirational community feels like.)
3. “14 Simple Ways To Inject Enjoyment Into Work”: No matter what your work is, you can ALWAYS find ways to make it more enjoyable right now: http://pebblestorm.com/2009/07/11/14-simple-ways-to-inject-enjoyment

FOUR: Leave A Comment Below And Share Some Wisdom

How did the sanity check work for you?  What are you going to do differently now?  Or what worked for you that you’d recommend to others? Please leave a comment!

Subscribe To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

Can just three days with the PebbleStorm community, such as in the recent PebbleStorm Immersion, change your life?

In January we held an in-person event here in LA, the PebbleStorm “Learn, Create & Launch Your Business In A Weekend” Fun Immersion.  20 people attended the first day of the event (“Learn”), and 10 of us continued on through the entire three day Immersion “(Create & Launch”). The videos and stories here from three people are a small sample of the amazing energy, support and progress of the group.

Jared Krause, a social entrepreneur focused on directing group energy and action at direct solutions to global problems:

Jared wrote a blog post about the PebbleStorm Immersion three weeks after it ended:

“I went into the immersion not knowing what to expect. I’d gotten to know Aaron very briefly and frankly if I wasn’t at my wits end I probably wouldn’t have done it. I saw a video he did for a smaller event (that ended up attending and liking) and thought, what the hell. I remember thinking that Aaron seemed like he was actually enjoying his life. A guy who’d built a hundred million dollar per year sales team actually enjoying his life. Amazing.

My company has been death rattling for months and I’ve been looking for what’s next. It’s really hard letting go of something you give your all and believe in and I felt relatively fragile going in to something where I was going to not only think about next steps but really expose my situation to strangers. The fact that Aaron was so open and honest about having been through a failed startup, then a very successful traditional technology track and come out on the other side climbing mountains, riding motorcycles and meditating gave me enough confidence in him to give myself over his process.

Really, it could hardly have been better. What I’ve told people about him since is that Aaron’s totally excellent at figuring out not just what you’re great at, passionate about and excited to do, but also how to package that in a way that you can sell without feeling like you’re selling. And for a lot more money that at least I had imagined. He leveraged his skills and the collective experience and knowledge of the group to help me focus on what I could do to get started quickly, use the resources I had and really start to hone in on how to live the life of my dreams. That’s a big claim, but I feel more capable than I ever of have of getting there. I’ve been actively looking for that path for the last 4 years and in many ways I got more focus and direction out of the 3-day immersion than I had in the previous 4 years.

One of the biggest takeaways, perhaps the biggest, is the idea and practice of baby steps. Frankly, when I first heard him talk about it I was almost annoyed. I never take baby steps. I start running then move directly into flying before (often) falling and starting over. It’s not that my ideas aren’t strong or my ability to execute isn’t there, it’s that I didn’t realize that the way to actually go where I want to go is to break the huge task into little steps that I’m comfortable taking. And then to actually take them. One after another without skipping any.

Since the immersion I can’t say that I’ve conquered the world or made $1,000,000 (it’s been 3 weeks), but I can say that I’ve started to speak to people from the heart about what I care about and am getting tremendous response. In fact, as I’ve started to talk about it, I’ve started to attract clients quickly and easily. It’s not earth shattering, but within 3 weeks and with no more than 4 hours/week I’ve attracted a small handful of folks who are serious about paying me to do something I’ve dreamt of doing for years.

I’m having my first event tomorrow. It’s a gathering of 12 friends and partners getting together to talk about what we can do together. What’s happening in their lives and how we might work together to support each other and take focus on creating positive solutions to some major problems. I can say that I’ve been totally shocked by how many people not only said they wanted to come to the meeting, but were really, genuinely excited about it and wanted to bring people with them.

I’m looking forward to it and looking forward to keeping engaged with the PebbleStorm community. Aaron has attracted an absolutely amazing group of people. Dynamic, supportive, brilliant, passionate and engaged. Really, one of greatest advantages of the immersion was getting connected to such a fantastic group of folks. For anyone considering it, I would highly recommend it particularly if you’re looking for a real, practical and actionable way to start moving toward the life/work situation that you really want. Aaron is living proof that what he’s doing is working.

Thanks Aaron and thanks PebbleStorm!”

Onna Young, founder of Life After Debt: “A place for people to empower themselves financially, get debt free, and life a life they love and that inspires them”: “We’ve all created a business in a weekend, and it was nothing short of stunning and amazing and quite powerful experience for everyone in the room…”

And Even After The Event Ends…

Jared: “…the further I get from the Immersion the more value it’s having to me.”

Phil Gascoyne, business coach & mentor: “4 weeks after the event when the hype is gone but the practical wisdom and community encouragement are just as powerful.   There hasn’t been a day gone by since the event that PebbleStorm hasn’t affected my life in some tangible way…and it is continuing to have even more impact as I take action on the ideas I have learned.   Thanks Aaron and the PebbleStorm Community.”

Thank you Phil for being such a positive and encouraging member of the group – I know people got as much help from you as you did from them.

It’s All About The Community

My vision for PebbleStorm has always (since July 2007) been to create a community of trusting people that have fun helping each other succeed. I was (and am) clear that my favorite part of work is creating things with people I trust and like – and I wanted to be able to do that all the time, and make money at it. What’s your favorite part of work?

Whether it’s in PebbleStorm or another group that more closely fits you – communities do exist that want to help you succeed and be happy. You don’t have to go it alone – and in fact, it’s a lot more fun and easier to succeed with a group of like-minded people. If you can’t find a group that you connect with, create one!

Next Up: A PebbleStorm Group Program/Mastermind

In the coming weeks we will be announcing the details of our next group program/Mastermind, which will be a group of people from around the world (including from LA, SF Bay Area, DC, NY, Dallas, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Paris, Copenhagen, Buenos Aires, Australia, Brussels…) coming together to support each other in:

1. Making as much money as you authentically want.
2. Aligning your work with your life values and passions.
3. Creating fulfilling work that makes a difference.
4. Feeling powerful, valuable and capable of making an impact.
5. Having the peace of mind & freedom that comes with having all the support you want from people that you trust and respect.

Don’t want to wait?

Subscribe To PebbleStorm Updates By Email

One of the keys to getting clear on your purpose and dream work is to be more selfish than you’ve ever been before – stop holding yourself back by playing small!  You can small in all kinds of ways, such as the amount of money you want to make, the freedom you can have, or in the impact you can make in the world.

I don’t mean be selfish in a negative or greedy way that harms from others.  I mean be selfish in a way that preserves and sustains you, so that you can live the way you want to…and thus have the energy and ideas to make a bigger difference to others.  Are you being unselfish, or are you actually self-sacrificing yourself and your dreams?

By living and working smaller than you deserve, you limit your ability to make a difference in the world and to others. It’s the same reason that airlines tell you to put the oxygen mask on first before you do it for a child.

The following coaching exercise is a favorite of mine, and only takes two or three minutes. Give it a shot, and please leave a comment below about what you think or learned!

The Unique Genius “Ego Indulgement Exercise”

• Get ready to be more selfish than you’ve ever been before…
• If you had more money than you could ever spend…
• And all the friends and love and houses and travel and stuff and family and ___ and ___ you ever wanted…
• There is nothing you want or need that you don’t have…
• Imagine spending a couple of years ‘on the beach’ just relaxing, until you then get bored and know it’s time to create something…
• You don’t need to work but want to do something meaningful…
• What do you do/create?

Ironically, it is the kind of work or business you create at that point in the end, when you don’t “need” anything or to work at all, that will create the possibility of you getting all the other goods (money, freedom, success, etc.) with ease.

Here’s why it works:

1) By first satisfying your ego‘s ‘needs and wants’, it lets your ego chill out while you get clear on what you authentically are meant to do.  When you feel needy and stressed (“I need more money, time…”), it blocks your creativity, intuition and self-awareness, and thus access to Unique Genius insights.

2) Being more selfish than you’ve ever been means taking care of yourself and inspiring yourself first, so that you can help even more people / make an even bigger difference. It means dream bigger.  How many non-profit workers do you know who are making a difference, but are totally drained in doing it?  Couldn’t they make a bigger difference if they found ways to truly take care of themselves at the same time?

Want More? Three More Unique Genius Questions…

1. What are you already doing for free to help people? (Or what would you do for free?)
2. If you could be successful at anything (beyond or in addition to your current career or being a parent), what would it be?
3. What’d you want to be when you were 8, and why?

With question #3, the “why” is the interesting part…what is behind it?  My personal example: I wanted to be a pilot – not because I wanted to fly planes, but because of the freedom.  So it’s no coincidence that freedom is so important to me today and to PebbleStorm!  Another example: a common answer for people who wanted to be doctors is because they wanted to be able to help people.

You don’t have to be a pilot to have freedom within your work, or a doctor to help people in your work.

How can you bring in those childhood desires or passions into what you’re doing today?

P.S.: Coming Soon

A 21-Day Unique Genius Self-Study Program – keep an eye out!

Subscribe To PebbleStorm Updates By Email