Pebblestorm

My art was a talent that came out of nowhere in 2008 as I began to nurture PebbleStorm  and my own Unique Genius.  No one’s as surprised as I am about this.  (You can see a decent collection here: “Art of PebbleStorm  CEOFlow / Fall 09“.)

It still doesn’t feel comfortable for me to say I’m an artist, even though I am…only  because I never – as long as I can remember – thought of myself as one. Engineer,  business  person, entrepreneur, athlete…sure.

But “artist”?  Yep, though I’m still getting used to the idea.

So now I wonder whenever I meet people…

What talents are in you waiting to come out that would inspire yourself and others?  What stories do you tell yourself about what you can or can’t do that aren’t true?

I also wonder what other talents will come out of me in the future that I don’t even know about yet.

I guarantee this – if you let yourself dream BIG – your ideal work, your dream business – it would involve you playing with and sharing a lot more of yourself and your talents that you do today (both known or yet-undiscovered superpowers).

Mash Your Passions

Bringing those talents into your work is essential to find the money, enjoyment and meaning you crave. You will love your work more and it will make you more unique and interesting to customers.

So what passions or talents or interests do you have that you think wouldn’t be relevant to business?

Here’s a simple example: my great friend Yanitz Rubin had forgotten about his passion for entertainment and comedy until PebbleStorm. Now he’s creating an event called “Improv for Entrepreneurs” to help people unlock their creativity and ideas. His goal isn’t to design a billion-dollar business from day 1 – his goals are to create a FUN way (for him and others) to attract the perfect audience for his coaching and other businesses.  Yanitz will ultimately make tons of money at this while having tons of fun!  I’d be jealous, but I will get to go to his events 🙂

Try playing with ideas on mashing them up with your work – either your current work or a new business idea that lets you play with and envision work however you want.  This is a first step towards the freedom you want.

Listen To Yourself

What activities does your subconscious keeps bugging you to pursue that you don’t have time for or that you think aren’t for you?

(Shhh – don’t tell anyone and I promise nothing, but I’ve taken a few singing lessons recently. It’s an idea that has bugged me for months, even though I’ve NEVER thought I could sing.  I still can’t, but I’m not afraid to try it.  I even have some ideas on how to bring this into PebbleStorm that don’t include Karaoke.)

You can have fun with work, and part of that includes mixing your passions into it in ways that make it more fun for you and more interesting and fun for customers!

I hope this note gave you some food for thought. Even if you shift just one degree in course, you’ll end up in a better place in the future.

Enjoy!
Aaron Ross

Related blog posts:

The Sun Sketch and Unique Genius:
“What is your Unique Genius?”

The Treasure Map Sketch inspired its own event:
“Reinventing work with a PebbleStorm Treasure Map Hike”

Mashing your passions:
“Mash your passions!  How could you combine yoga and poetry and…?”

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Get the Unique Genius Worksheet (Playsheet!) for free by subscribing to PebbleStorm via email:
http://www.PebbleStorm.com/updates

If you resonate with what I’ve been sharing here on PebbleStorm (www.PebbleStorm.com/about) and how I live my own life, you are meant for more – to play a bigger game in life, to have more fun and success in work, to make more money and to make a huge impact in the world (mine: I’m helping 100 million people make money through enjoyment).

Do you feeling a yearning to experience more purpose and fulfillment while making more money? Do you feel a nagging sense that you’re NOT really making the kind of contribution and positive impact in the world that is possible?

• Perhaps you’re one of those accomplished people who doesn’t want to do only what you’ve been doing, yet you aren’t sure what you want to do next, what bigger mission is in store for you (there is one!)
• Or even if you’ve tapped into your purpose, your Unique Genius, you still think you can’t both make a lot of money from it AND have fun and freedom in work and life at the same time (wrong!)
• You find yourself depleted, stressed and overwhelmed by the demands of your work and the uncertainty of where you’re going (this is not the way you are meant to live.)
• You have core values (integrity, spirituality, meaning, enjoyment, fun, giving back…) that you struggle to integrate into your work (you can.)
• You still think that you can either do what you love and what helps others, OR make money – that combining the two is only for special people who lucked out (wrong!)

Perhaps the most frustrating is the sense that you’re just missing something – which you are…but the good news is it is possible to find it.

I know how you feel. I felt that way.  I’ve been through all of this and more in the past few years while transitioning from the stable-yet-unfulfilling-and-freedom-killing corporate life at Salesforce.com to creating my dream business, PebbleStorm.

Here’s one more issue I faced, a doozy: do you also have more ideas than you know what do with, creating confusion about what to do next?  (Figuring out how to do them all while having fun while “working,” as much as I want and from where I want, is what led to my own breakthroughs and vision for PebbleStorm.)

WAKE UP and STOP PLAYING SMALL

I want to grab your shirt and shake you and yell WAKE UP!!

Do you really want to wake up some morning in a year or two or TEN from now, still doing what you’re doing and making what you’re making?

• YOU are the only thing getting in your own way.
• Not a lack of money, time, education, contacts, whatever – those are all just excuses.
• Your vision board isn’t going to magically make it happen either.
• You can have it all f you stop playing small and stop compromising on what you want and accept in life and work.

While not everyone is meant for big things...YOU ARE if you’re reading this and you feel it, if it resonates.

Examples Of The Power I’ve Found Through Play & Purpose

The name PebbleStorm came from my intention to create an environment of work in which I, and others, can make big impacts with small amounts of effort (“small pebble, big wave”).  Play and Purpose have been the keys to discovering my Power:

• I created two profitable passive-income businesses (www.DataSalad.com and www.ColdCalling2.com)…in four hours each (well, ColdCalling2.com took 4:15). And I spent less than $100 to do it, each. They’ve generated more than $25,000 in passive income in the past twelve months – including $6,000 in July.
• I created and developed PebbleStorm into a $10,000-per-month attraction-based coaching, speaking and seminars business – going to $20,000 and then $50,000 per month next year – while spending less than 4 hours per week to found and launch it. (Now that it’s past the baby stage and is growing up, I can productively spend more fun time on it). And with no “selling”!
• I’ve spent less than $100 out-of-pocket to create and launch PebbleStorm – yes, I know it’s time to redo the website 🙂
• Without me asking, a top internet marketing guru offered to help me launch PebbleStorm, resulting in a first webinar of 1300 registrants and a sold-out first group mastermind program (a follow up one is coming in early 2010).
• I wrote a soon-to-be-published book (“CEOFlow: Turn Your Employees Into Mini-CEOs“) in one weekend – Nov 22-23, 2009 – yes TWO DAYS.
• I am designing a first-ever “PebbleStorm Immersion: Uncover, Build & Launch Your Business In 3 Days”. This will be an intimate event in January for my private coaching clients.  Even better – 1/3 of the time will be for playing, getting to know each other and building ongoing relationships!
• Over the past three years, while doing all this, I’ve lived and traveled overseas for four months in places like Bali, Argentina, China, Japan, Brazil, India, Nepal and Bhutan.

And that is just in the first year of PebbleStorm – 2010 will be crazy!

Most of these topics will be the subjects of their own blog posts in the coming months.

Until then, come to the event and learn how it works…

A New Kind Of Event With Nancy Dunn

For a couple of years, people would ask me “PebbleStorm sounds great, but what do I do? How can you help?”  This year, 2009, I’ve begun creating more ways to help people: Unique Genius Playshops, a six-month Mastermind program (a new one will begin early next year), private coaching, etc.

Now I’m doing something brand new with another PebbleStormy (yes, that is a word) entrepreneur, Nancy Dunn.

Nancy is the founder of TimePlayPowerAndPeace.com.  She’s an ex-Sony/MGM/Fox senior marketing executive who managed more than $1 billion in spend. She left that world to have a family and to discover her true purpose: to help women in leadership live a life of more time, more play, more power and more peace.  Oftentimes women in leadership have to play the corporate game to succeed, and in the process lose parts of themselves. Nancy’s truly mastered how to combine the power and action required to succeed in the business world with her feminine side and the conscious design of what she wants from life.

(Here’s how Nancy describes me: “My friend Aaron Ross, founder of PebbleStorm.com, ex-Silicon Valley CEO, adventure-seeker, and general awesome guy just found a way to combine all his various passions and crazy ideas into a single, meaningful business that he loves, that helps people, and that makes money.  Now he helps other people do this too.”)  Hey, thanks Nancy 🙂

We wanted to have fun doing something together that would help the kinds of people that resonate with what we do – professionals like you who have been successful at something, yet now are looking for more meaning, enjoyment and money in work. People who want to integrate their values and spirituality and life with their work, rather than having their work and life be disconncted.

So Nancy & I put our heads together to CREATE A REALLY FUN AND POWERFUL LIVE EVENT that will:

• Inspire you to step into the life, contribution and impact you know you came here to make.
• Teach you secrets and practical tools from two master teachers and successful ex-corporate executives, each of whom left their corner offices behind to find their true, authentic, dynamic calling – and are having the time of their lives doing it!
• Introduce you to a cool, community of like-minded people that will become playmates, workmates, clients and partners!  (The whole point of PebbleStorm is to expand our trusting community of people that has fun helping each other succeed.)

We are hosting a unique event called:

“PLAY, PURPOSE AND POWER: CHARTING YOUR COURSE FOR 2010 AND BEYOND”

* We’ll Play – Because it’ll be fun and it will open up your creativity and give you more access to what will make you happier and more successful!
* We’ll show you ways to tap into finding your Purpose – What are you meant to do?  What is your Unique Genius?
* We’ll reveal 3 ways to shift into exponentially greater levels of Power – How can you make a bigger difference and make more money?

You will also connect and build support for your goals and actions within a community of like-minded conscious leaders, high-level executives, and purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are authentically committed to helping each other succeed.

Whether you’re ready to take the leap into a career that has deeper meaning and fulfillment, OR primed to step up into greater levels of impact, purpose, and contribution doing what you’re already doing, you won’t want to miss this AWESOME event.

You will also connect and build support for your goals and actions within a community of like-minded leaders, high-level executives, and purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are authentically committed to helping each other succeed.

Come PLAY with us and design 2010 into the life of your dreams!

How To RSVP

Click here for the details and how to RSVP

So You Live Outside LA…Want Us To Host This Kind Of Event In Your City?

Leave a comment, you never know what you’ll get if you ask for it!  Especially if you live someplace fun or exotic 🙂  We’re always looking for excuses to travel and build the PebbleStorm community.

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One my essential entrepreneurial practices is a morning Personal Success Routine (“PSR”), that is my foundation for the day.  If you don’t have one or you never consciously designed it – you need one.  If you have one, I’d love to hear about yours in the comments.  I’ve found that when I don’t follow some kind of morning Personal Success Routine that includes some or all of various meditation, writing, exercise or happiness activities, I feel less healthy, less happy and less productive – both in the ways I have fun and in work.

Why I had to figure this out

When I left salesforce.com in late 2006, “my plan was to have no plan” –  I was “committed to being uncommitted”!  I wanted to have a bunch of different work and life adventures, for at least six months, before settling into a long-term direction. In work terms, that meant doing consulting projects for awhile rather than trying to start my own company right away.  I’ve seen that when I or others jump from one job/career to another, it’s impossible to get the mental space and clarity that helps you actually consciously know “is this really the right path/step for me, or am I doing it just because it’s the next rung on the ladder or it’s convenient?”   (Not unlike relationships.)

Whenever I was in a 9-to-5 job, it automatically forced me to create a morning routine – wakeup at 7a, eat oatmeal, shower, get dressed in a collared shirt, get coffee, read the paper, take the bus to work…etc.  (As I’m writing this, I’m noticing how much my morning consumptions changed – no coffee, oatmeal or newspapers.  I’m a little allergic/sensitive to coffee and oats, and I don’t read news anymore – online or offline.)

No daily structure can be as bad as too much structure

After I left the 9-to-5 world, I had to figure out a whole new morning routine for myself. I mean sure, it’s fun waking up to nothing for awhile…but it gets old.  When you have no morning or daily structure, it can be as irritating as having too much structure.  And even though I’d been an entrepreneur before, it was different because I was the CEO of a company…and thus had another 9-to-5 job.

• Side note for everyone who thinks being a CEO is automatically fun, enlivening and easy – it’s not. It can be the loneliest, most stressed role in a company, if you aren’t conscious in your design of your company or role.  It’s why I’m also doing CEOFlow: “Turn Your Employees Into Mini-CEOs”.

So now in my PebbleStormy (yes, that’s a word) world of “work on what I want, when I want, with whom I want, from where I want…” I’ve been experimenting for a long time on how to start my days off on the right foot.  Trust me, either lying in bed or doing nothing in the morning gets old fast – well, if I do it more than 1-2 days per week…

My routine that helps me feel healthier, happier and more focused and productive each day

1. Get enough sleep.  I’m actually working on getting more sleep. I’m only getting about 6 hours per night (last night I got 5).  I want 7 – 7.5 hours per night, which is perfect for me.  The whole “sleep when I’m dead” mentality is bullshizz.  What good is not sleeping if you don’t enjoy your days as much?  I feel like crap when I don’t get enough sleep after a few days, and am much less clear and productive.   Right now I set my alarm for 7am.
2. Drink water. 1-2 cups. I get dehydrated at night. It’s the best thing to have before anything else in the morning.
3. Get moving, I do either some jumping jacks, push ups and/or sit ups. This is both for the exercise and to wake up and get my blood moving.
4. Meditation. I do 10-30 minutes almost every morning.  It would be nice if I was more regular about meditating for 5 minutes before bed, too.  I did a blog post about my practice: A lifetime happiness and focus enhancer: Vipassana meditation. If you’ve never meditated before, you can start with 1-2 minutes: Meditation 101: How To Start.
   
5. The Artist Way “Morning Pages”. The essence of this: just write three pages of anything, even gibberish, every morning, and it will help you unlock your creativity.  I really like these as a way to do a brain chatter dump, and get some advice from myself. Sometimes I just do half a page, sometimes the full three pages.
   
6. 1-2 happiness/centering exercises. These days I’ll do some exercises from either the Hoffman Institute retreat I did or from the Abraham-Hicks book “Ask And It Is Given” (I love their Focus Wheel Process).  I HIGHLY recommend that book for both the content and all the great tools in the back!
7. A “3 goals” process. I ask myself the question, “if I can only get 3-5 things done today, what should they be?”  What are my top priorities?
8. Exercise: 4-5 days a week I do either running (20-45 min down to the Santa Monica beach) or yoga in the morning (I love Rudy at 9am at Power Yoga in Santa Monica).  If I run, I do it early – after I drink water, but before all the other stuff (before meditation, etc).  When I do yoga, it comes after my writing/meditation.
9. Skin brushing: I had a couple of trusted experts tell me about this, and now I do it most days before showering.  There are plenty of articles about skin brushing and why it’s good for you, but I’ll tell you the main reason I like it – it stimulates my skin and nerves and body like I’m getting a caffeine charge.  Very cool.
10. Good food: Almost every morning, I have a green smoothie (picture on Facebook).  I have a Vita-Mix blender, and dump in spinach (a lot!), an apple, berries, and all kinds of superfoods and goodies like ginger, lemon, mesquite, rice protein, flaxseed, hempseed, maca, goji berries and spirulina.  You can google “green smoothie” online for all kinds of suggestions.  I became religious about this after taking an amazing ‘uncooking’ class from June Louks in Malibu, who wrote a great book called  “Rawumptious Recipes: A Family’s Adventure to Healthy, Happy, Harmonious Living”.  I’m not a raw foodie, but can appreciate all the information and recipes.

I’m always experimenting with these steps, adding, subtracting, playing.  The order of steps often changes depending on the day and whether I’m running, doing yoga, am time-limited, etc.  I’m not too anal about it.

This might seem like a lot – and it is.  I set aside a couple of hours for all of this, not including the exercise.  That’s how important it is to me. I didn’t start here, I evolved this over the past three years, building on it step-by-step, then starting from scratch and trying other things. My travel still plays havoc with my PSR!

Take babysteps rather than jumping in too fast

You don’t need a lot of steps in the morning, or some complex routine.  Start with something simple, such as a green smoothie.  Or 1-2 minutes of meditation.  Create a plan to have a more exensive PSR over time, including good food, exercise, meditation, happiness awareness/practice and goal-setting.  If you try to do too much too quickly, you’ll be more likely to fall off track at some point and get discouraged.  Start with one thing at a time – take babysteps, and keep at them.   Keep it simple and add one new practice per month.  If you fall off track, just get back on when you can.

[Updated] Being kind to myself

I woke up Monday morning feeling run-down (it started Sunday night), and I needed a rest day. So my PSR for Monday was staying in bed sleeping and/or reading a fiction book until 11am 🙂   Being successful includes being kind/easy to myself in addition to pushing myself.  Too much of one or the other unbalances me.

How I Design My Week For Success

A follow up post about designing my week:
https://pebblestorm.com/2010/03/12/how-i-design-my-week-for-success/

“Productive Flourishing” Charley Gilkey’s PSR

If you really want to take this thinking to the next level, check out Charlie Gilkey:
How Heatmapping Your Productivity Can Make You More Productive

What’s your PSR?   Please share in the comments!

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In July I spoke at a Meeting Of The Minds event in Southern California. MOTMs was started by Kurt Daradics of FreedomSpeaks and Baron Miller, and is a great group of entrepreneurial people that meets monthly.  I had fun sharing with them last night!  The format was casual (more of an interview) and not a presentation, and so rather than a slide deck, I put together a collection of sketches I’ve done over the past year, and at different times during the talk I’d call one up to share with people.

Here is the collection…enjoy!

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This summer, a group of PebbleStorm entrepreneurs got together for a “Treasure Map Hike” in Topanga Canyon. We began the day with a guided visualization, then started hiking. Along the way we picked up pirate toys, new friends and great ideas!  Some lasting friendships and business partnerships have come from that one fun day.

The full Facebook photo album is on the PebbleStorm Fan Page.

Some people go straight for the enjoyment gold, some have to climb mountains before they get there (like me), and others wander through the desert, fight dragons and hike through volcanoes to get there.

If you’re a mountain climber or volcano-hiker and want some help…

Unique Genius Coaching – you can work like this too!

I am now doing individual coaching of clients.  I even have a client as far away as Copenhagen, Denmark. (Hi Simon!)

PebbleStorm is a community of people that have fun helping each other succeed – as you can see from the pictures and video below 🙂

In my own coaching, I help you get clear on what you are passionate about, how to find your Unique Genius, and show you how to make money from it in a way that aligns with your values and how you want work to make your life amazing!

Sign up for a “Let’s Get Acquainted Session” here.

And now…

Arrr!!!
And more fun 🙂

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If you could go back and give “yourself-of-six-months-ago” advice around working, and specifically around how to find your purpose while having more success and fun with work, what would you tell yourself?  What three pieces of advice would you share?

Yes, this is me around 4 years old. If I could only go back in time and give myself some advice that I’d actually listen to and obey… 🙂

I think you’ll know what I mean when I say I used to rush around in work so much that I never had a chance to pause, breathe and reflect on what was working and not working in, um, work.

How often do we stop and reflect?  (Or even just stop?)  Not enough!  Yet it was taking a pause (in the form of a trip to Asia waaaaaay back in mid-2007), that helped create the mental space for the vision of PebbleStorm.

The phrase that comes to mind is “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.”  Anything with the word “doom”, I want to avoid!

On October 28, we had a PebbleStorm webinar on “Lessons Learned” since PebbleStorm’s launch back in March.  Specifically, I’ve been thinking about “what advice would I give myself back then?”, what 3-5 pieces of advice would I share to help me be more successful with greater ease, clarity and fun?  I’ve been asking what advice the other PebbleStormers would give their prior selves too… so that we can all benefit from it.

What We Shared:

• I’ll share my own Top 5 Lessons Learned from doing this program over the past six months. What advice would I give my past self?
• Some other PebbleStormers will be sharing as well – what would advice would they give their past selves?
• The two most popular pieces of advice that people shared will surprise you!
• What works?  What have people accomplished?
• Funny enough, all these lessons learned are ones YOU can still learn from, that yourself of six months in the future would tell you now!

To Watch The Recording Or View The Slides, Register Here:

Once you register, you will receive an email with the links.  If you don’t get an email in your inbox right away, try it again – you might have misspelled your email.

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Yesterday the Amazing Onna and I had some fun recording video, which can be fun if you don’t take it too seriously 🙂

Have you ever felt blocked from doing something you felt you should do?  I mean, blocked for MONTHS?  I find that happens to me all the time, and rather than using discipline and willpower to push my way through, I practice using fun and enjoyment to sneak around the resistance.

For example, I know I ‘should’ have been doing more video over the past months to help people connect with me and PebbleStorm, but I’ve been resisting it – for no good reason. And the longer I waited, the more guilty I felt…

Finally I took my own advice – to redesign/reframe how doing more video could be fun, so that the blocks and resistance disappear. On Monday, Onna Young and I had some fun shooting video on Monday for PebbleStorm. The result?  The rest of this post…

We’ll keep playing with video – it’ll be fun to see how this evolves.

How have you had fun creating business (or personal) videos? Please share your tips in the comments!

Welcome to PebbleStorm”  Video Now On The “About” Page

Where did the name PebbleStorm come from?

Casey Berman Shares About The PebbleStorm Community

9 Ways To Have Fun Creating Videos For Your Business

1. Buy a simple and fun video recorder for under $200: like a Flip, a FlipHD, or even a handheld camera.  My pocket camera Canon PowerShot SD 780is takes high-definition video as well.  You don’t need an expensive camera.  If you have a Mac or a webcam than you already have one ready to go.
2. Do it with a fun person/people – apply this lesson to everything!  It makes all the difference in creating video, creating businesses, or creating your life 🙂
3. Keep it simple – yes you can create a fancy setting, background, etc… but you don’t need to.  For these videos, we just walked outside to my front yard and started shooting.
4. Play with the editing – I use iMovie on my mac. It’s simple and really is fun to play with the different settings, fades, etc.  I just make sure I don’t spend too much time trying to get it perfect.  I literally just play with it.
5. Practice…but don’t be a perfectionist. We took several takes of each, but overall perhaps spent 30 minutes to an hour on these and the other video shots we did.  And it will get easier over time.  Of course there are parts of the videos that aren’t perfect, like the sound quality or birds cawing, but so what?  We got them done and had fun!
6. Do it in a fun place – like from Cabo, or anyplace that would make you feel more fun, comfortable or inspired.  Sure the sound quality might be worse in a random place…but so what?
7. Be spontaneous – before Onna came over to my house (she comes over on Monday afternoons for these kind of PebbleStorm work/play sessions), I sent her a text “Today we’re doing some video!”…and we just did it.  It was fun because it wasn’t a huge, complicated project.  We jumped into it and did it.
8. Create a routine – Onna and I are going to do a video interview series, more questions like the “Where did the name PebbleStorm come from?”  As we keep up the weekly drumbeat of videos, it’ll get easier and more fun and smoother… until we decide we need to shake things up.
9. Don’t worry, be crappy – just grab a camera or turn on a webcam and just do it!!

P.S. – Coaching

I’m now doing one-on-one coaching, to help people take their professional experiences, mash them up with their life passions to create an exciting business that is meaningful and enjoyable…just as I did for myself with PebbleStorm.

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My First Burning Man

The Friday before last (Aug 31), I made an executive decision to go to Burning Man the next night – Sat Sept 1. I did the 24-hour mad scramble, and made it 🙂 I went up with an internet and legal entrepreneur Alexis Martin Neely and my marketing coach Max Simon.  It’s the kind of experience that could have been very challenging with the wrong people, and I’m glad I went with them and Alexis’ family and friends, because I had a great time both at Burning Man activities in general, and also in just getting to hang out with them personally.Burning Man is crazy! During the days I went to workshops or lectures on fun or just interesting topics like Acroyoga, Contact Dancing, Trance Dance, Group Singing, Polyamory, Shamanism, Conscious Business and…well, you get the idea. There’s all kinds of even crazier stuff for people to wander into or explore.  At night, we went out dancing at huge parties in the desert. A lot of people there are on drugs, but lots aren’t (like moi). It’s impossible to describe the environment – you have to go to “get” it.

I’m not sure about lessons learned yet, but I was exposed to all kinds of new ideas and experiences that stretched my awareness. I feel like it’ll take some time for everything to sink it and to see how it shapes me in the future. I’m still detoxing 🙂

More Pictures, Video n Stuff:

Pictures on Facebook
Video: Thunderdome fight:
Video: Burning The Man
What is Burning Man?

Next “Inner” Adventure: The Hoffman Institute

The more self-aware and conscious I become, the easier it is to see my blind spots – the ones I didn’t even know existed 🙂  Do you know what I mean?  Everyone has blind spots they don’t see – even you.  Yes even YOU, the person who’s been to every personal development course known to man! Anytime someone says “I’ve already done all the work, I don’t need anything else”…I call bullshit.  The work never stops, because there is always another layer to peel back.

This is critical for people developing their Unique Genius and dream business, because your success and happiness is a reflection, in big parts, of how authentic and open you are. It will be a lot harder for most people to achieve their dreams and goals without this kind of work – just as it’d be harder without mentors and coaches and partners.

Here’s Hoffman’s short homepage blurb: “The Process allows you to examine and better understand your life and reveals why you behave the way you do. Published scientific research demonstrates the Process’s long-term positive effects on relieving depression and anxiety. To date, more than 70,000 people worldwide have used the Hoffman Process to improve their quality of life and restore their relationships with friends and family.”

I’ve been excited for quite awhile to do the Hoffman Process, ever since Marni Battista (founder, Dating With Dignity) told me about it and how transformational it is.  So I’m going offline again on Friday for a week at the Hoffman Institute (www.HoffmanInstitute.org), a personal development retreat – no phone or email allowed.  Besdides Marni, another close friend, Yanitz Rubin here in PebbleStorm, has said it’s just amazing – totally transformational. For example, one of the main areas I’m interested in looking at and working through is being able to create more intimacy in relationships – friends, family, romantic, etc.  I feel like I tend to keep people at a distance, at least more than I’d like.

Their main essay introduction is “A Path To Personal Freedom And Love”

I’ll report back on this later in September!

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While people in PebbleStorm are working on all kinds of projects – internet, coaching and more (like George Kao’s “Effective Social Media Marketing with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn”), Erin and Hong-Anh here have created a couple of great images that I wanted to share first as a complement to their words tonight (Wed, Aug 19) on the “Invitation To Inspiration” call!

Erin Halling: Helping kids Play Into Love with themselves, their lives, and their dreams.

“I found my Unique Genius! Whoo! It was inside me all along. It bubbled out a couple weeks ago while I was going over some of Aaron’s PebbleStorm slides and writing in my journal. I noticed that Aaron’s Unique Genius is made of two parts. The first is part is something he is good at- helping people make money. The second part is something he is passionate about- making money through enjoyment. Put the two parts together, and you have his Unique Genius- helping people make money through enjoyment.

So I asked myself, “What am I good at?”  I’m good at playing. I enjoy crafts, finger painting, baking, laughing, running around, tickle fights, pillow fights…basically, playing.

Then I asked, “What am I passionate about?” I’m passionate about kids loving themselves and believing in their dreams. I want them to feel confident and know that their lives are filled with infinite possibilities.

After that I put them together and came up with my Unique Genius-

Helping kids Play Into Love with themselves, their lives, and their dreams.

It seems so simple now. Every time I look at it, read it, or think it I get a little zing in my heart. It’s like I want kids to fall in love with themselves, but that is way to passive and doesn’t sound like fun. No, I want kids to Play Into Love with themselves.…full blog post: on “Play Into Love”

Hong-Anh: “Helping People Manifest Their Heart-of-Hearts Vision”

Hong-An, who’s blog is “Miracles and Magic“, is an incredible gem 🙂  You’ll understand when you listen to her.  Part of her unique genius is helping others nurture their own unique genius…and the most recent visualization and explanation she’s come up with is this one…

“Helping People Manifest Their Heart-of-Hearts Vision”

She’s beginning with the intention and visualization here, and future steps will include fleshing it out in words or more images, and also how this will end up helping her make money 🙂   Actually – the making money part will be easy, since Hong-Anh is and will be a PebbleStorm leader in helping others with their own Unique Geniuses!

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Been wanting a taste of PebbleStorm or even just looking for some inspiration?  Join us on Wednesday for some inspiration! It’s a fun call on “Sharing Some Simple Success Stories”…

I have a PebbleStorm program running with about 15 people in it. I kicked it off at the PebbleStorm Launch (“Thanks For Making The World More Of The Place I Want To Live“) back in March.

Every month I hold a private teleseminar or webinar for the current PebbleStorm group. PebbleStorm’s a safe, accepting environment for people to play and experiment and culture their Unique Genius, which usually involves them exploring interests, passions and ideas that are new and even unfamiliar with…since they’ve been suppressing them for years or decades.

An Example – My Art

For example, until last year I had no idea that art is part of my own Unique Genius, until I started playing with sketching about a year ago.  At first I was embarrassed about them (my first two hilarious first sketches…yeesh), and sharing them with accepting friends helped me develop my art talents.  No one’s more surprised than me that my sketches are many people’s favorite part of PebbleStorm…after the people in it.

Opening Up The Call This Month To: You

Many people in the group have had great breakthroughs and progress in their clarity and are seeing their present and future plans crystallize. My own plans for the future are getting more and more clear as well.

I’m opening up the monthly private Pebblestorm group call this time to share with more friends (it’s f-ree of course).   This call is for any (current or aspiring) entrepreneurs seeking:

1. More clarity for their work or life purpose, or
2. More enjoyment in their work, or
3. More inspiration!

…and of course all three eventually lead to more money 🙂

Inspiration Guaranteed

Most of the call will be PebbleStormers sharing about what’s happened for them over the past four months, their breakthroughs, successes and what has worked /not worked for them.  It will be inspiring – guaranteed.  I’m inspired every time I talk with one of them!

Download the Call Recording:

…By subscribing to upates:

Know any CEOs juggling life, employees and the world, who are feeling overwhelmed and uncertain? I have a great opportunity for both you and the person that refers them to me…keep reading…

CEOFlow is my coaching program for CEOs. I saw, from being a CEO, working with them and knowing many of them, that it’s easy to create a business that traps you rather than works for you.  It’s also just lonely at the top.

While we begin by focusing first just on the CEO themself, because the CEO is the ‘pebble in the pond’ that creates every ripple within the business, the CEOFlow system is about turning your employees into mini-CEOs who can help you run and grow your business like high-level executives.

Here is what is possible for CEOs to experience:

• A peaceful and centered mind – stress is the enemy (of your and your company’s success)
• Manage & succeed by being yourself rather than stepping into a different CEO personality at work
• For women, find a path to power that doesn’t compromise your femininity
• More enjoyment of your business and your daily work
• Your ideal combination of money, freedom and adventure

F^ree CEOFlow Sessions For Five CEOs

I’m offering a free CEOFlow consult to five CEOs (each is a $375 value).  Again, for a sense of the specifics of the program and my approach, you can take a look at www.CEOFlow.com/mini-ceos.

How To Apply

Send an email to info at pebblestorm dot com, with answers these questions:

1. How many employees (including part-time or independent contractors) do you have?
2. If you could wave a magic wand and change 3 things in your business or life right now, what would they be?
3. What 3-4 things do you feel are holding back the potential of a) your business, and b) you within it?

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For people working on discovering their Unique Genius, this quote is so perfect:

“Make peace with outrageous abundance. You are more likely to have a pure vibration and attract more abundance if you leave money out of the equation. But it isn’t because money is the “root of all evil.” It’s because it messes up your vibration, usually.”
– Abraham-Hicks

The quote is perfect because worrying about money too early in the process of finding your Unique Genius will distort it, and stunt it.  Worrying about money (and status, and career) is why you don’t know what it is in the first place!

I wrote a blog post last year about while I knew PebbleStorm would make money sometime, I had no idea how it would happen: How will PebbleStorm [or insert your business here] make money?

This is the main reason why I tell people to keep their day job or some source of income while they work on their passion project part-time (as I have with PebbleStorm) – so they can be patient with how it manifests without needing to make money too soon.   Having said that – at some point you have to start making money from it, to actually make the idea and company healthy and grow it – money is like oxygen to a business.

It’s like a child growing up – you don’t want them to HAVE to work for money when they’re too young, although summer jobs can be good experience.  They can play with money and jobs, without ‘needing’ them.  And at some point, say in their teen years, holding more serious jobs part-time or in the summers can also tune their business sense.  You don’t want a 30 year old who’s never made money for themselves – that isn’t healthy either!  The trick is helping them learn how to be comfortable making money without letting “make money” become their main goal, something that distracts them from finding meaning in their life.

Although there are parts of PebbleStorm that I’ll still do free while I experiment, overall I am now shifting it to a money-making mode (over the next six months), because that is what will stimulate it’s ability to impact people (both more people and in more ways).

So:

FIRST get clear on what you want to do with your life,

THEN find ways to make money from it.

You literally can make money from anything now because of the internet…once you get clear on what you want and your Unique Genius.

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If you haven’t seen the updated PebbleStorm homepage links at the top of the blog – take a look.  It’s been really interesting leaving myself open to letting things evolve on their own, and then watching ideas and programs snap into place on their own!

The Programs & Roadmap

A) Feed Your Freedom “FYF”
I’ve found it’s almost impossible for people to access their Unique Genius if they are stressed because of either a lack of time/mental space or money.  This program is designeded for professionals who want a mix of regular income ($5k-$10k/mo) and freedom (work just 1-3 days/week):
www.PebbleStorm.com/feed-your-freedom

B) Unique Genius
For anyone wondering what they want to do next, or what their life purpose is:
www.PebbleStorm.com/uniquegenius

C) CEOFlow Freedom: “Turn your employees into mini-CEOs”
This is for business owners/CEOs with employees, who are feeling overwhelmed and that her business has trapped you…more details on CEOFlow Freedom.

CEOFlow Sales: “Create predictable revenue (CPR)”
“CPR” here underlies all the other programs, because it’s hard to enjoy making money if 1) you aren’t making it, or 2) it isn’t predictable.  This program for now is focused on sales coaching/consulting for companies who want to ramp up sales or make sales more predictable.  The concepts will be a part of Feed Your Freedom as well, but in that case it’s about creating predictable income 🙂
www.PebbleStorm.com/cpr

CEOFlow Adventure
(Coming)…once you have money and freedom, why not some adventure and more fun?  This gets your juices flowing and will stimulate ideas and your culture to keep your sales and inspiration going!

Unique Genius – Helping Yourself Through Others

Not coincidentally, all of this is the same path I’ve personally been on and will be on (did you know your Unique Genius is about solving your own problems, past/present/future, for others?). Yes, that’s my own roadmap above – I’m right at the beginning of the green area!

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PebbleStorm is about making work enjoyable in every way: what you do, how you do it, who you do it with… (and of course, how all that enjoyment translates into making more money more easily).  So while the most important part of making money through enjoyment is discovering your Unique Genius and translating it into your dream business, there are ways to bring enjoyment into ANY job you have now.

Adding Enjoyment To Any Job

Most of us don’t even know how to make our little daily tasks enjoyable.  It can be simple!  Whether or not you enjoy your job, coworkers or career…there are ALWAYS ways to add some enjoyment back into it every day – it just takes practice.  Here’s a slide from a past webinar with a few simple ways to add enjoyment and fun into your work:

Winning Enjoyment Points & Gold Stars

People need to train themselves to make work enjoyable, just as they need to train and practice the guitar, cooking, meditation or better communication in a relationship.  A simple way to help yourself play with this is by giving yourself “10 Enjoyment Points” whenever you enjoy something at work.  Even better is if you’re posting it on a wall with others!  It’s a form of awareness training.  What do you enjoy at work during the day?  What makes a meeting, phone call or presentation enjoyable vs. painful?  Whether you’re the one hosting it or an attendee?  This is about shifting your awareness and perspective.

Sample goal: win 10 Enjoyment Points every day.  Start small – babysteps!

Try to catch yourself in the moment next time you find yourself enjoying work. Give yourself a gold star if you want!  (A client literally does keep gold star stickers handy so that she or her employees can give them to each other as in-the-moment rewards/reminders).

How Enjoyment At Work Can Change Enjoyment In Life

As you get better at learning how you can enjoy work…you’re retraining your mind, so that it gets easier to enjoy whatever you do in life!  I’ve noticed that it’s much easier for me to have fun in any situation once I learned how I can make work more fun in any situation 🙂

More Blog Posts/Details On Enjoyment Points From PebbleStormers

• Katrina Wong (Katchme blog) has a great post about Enjoyment Points here: Winning Enjoyment Points
• Erin Halling (Happy Surprises blog) has a whole category on them…Erin’s posts on Enjoyment Points.

The Best And Easiest Way To Make Work Enjoyable

Do “it” (whatever ‘it’ is) with someone you like, whether you’re creating something together, or creating your own things separately.

My Weekly Meetups

I often meet up with friends here in Santa Monica for working sessions that might be on a common project, or we might have different projects.  My current favorite haunts tend to be Whole Foods Venice, Novel Cafe on Main Street, and Urth on Main Street (although I actually prefer Urth on Melrose, because their outdoor seating isn’t as crowded).

For example,Mondays at 10am I’m meeting with a few friends for an accountability session, Monday afternoons are usually a working session with Onna or others, Friday afternoons a session with Carenna Willmont…etc.

It’s more effective if each different meetup has a specific purpose: “produce stuff”, “brainstorm new ideas”, “accountability/planning”, “shoot the breeze/serendipity”…anything you want.  All are equally as valid, as long as you all know what the point is.

Practice Makes Perfect

Learning how to make daily work enjoyable is easy to forget!  Which is why it takes practice, and why playing with enjoyment with others makes it easier (you’re reminding/helping each other).  Keep practicing!  You’ll find that it gets easier in time.

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Lowell Winer (a very cool guy starting a very interesting happiness-related tech company) and I were talking about going someplace adventurous to work from for a couple of weeks, as some of us did last year in Kauai:

More Kauai pictures on Facebook

We threw around some ideas. and I think the middle east came up at #1 (Israel, Turkey, Egypt).  Here were some others…

• Kauai/Hawaii 
• Buenos Aires
• Bali
• Spain (especially Seville, Barcenlona, the beaches)
• Vancouver (I’ve heard it’s great, but I’ve never been)
• Madagascar (this would just be adventure, not work…I still want to go!)
• Where else would be fun to combine work and adventure?

Even though I’ve been to places like Buenos Aires (Pix from my 5 weeks there Dec-Jan 09), Spain and Bali (some pix), those were alone, without people who also intended to work, as we did in Kauai.   By the way, another reason I want people to make money through enjoyment is so that I can have more traveling and adventure partners 🙂

I tweeted out a note (which automatically is copied into my Facebook status) with the middle east idea, and got back a bunch of responses from people who loved Turkey…

Where would YOU want to go? (Comment below!)

Who wants to come when we figure it out?

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The picture is from a casual get together of some PebbleStormers in Northern California, at Cafe Gratitude in Potrero Hill (yum!!).  From the left, we have online marketing and relationships guru Paul “Irish” Hegarty, social media expert George “TwitterBiz” Kao, Erin “Big Cheese” Halling, Hong-Anh “Love Bug” Ha, and Katrina “Needs a Nickname” Wong (suggestions anyone?)

As much as everyone connects online these days, I find that in-person meetings become more and more important.  Small, local groups that can get together and support each other are a key part of my vision for the PebbleStorm community.

Inside the Heads Of Other PebbleStormers

Several PebbleStormers started their first blogs over the past couple of months, and you can clearly see their writing style evolving and maturing.  I, and everyone who reads them, appreciate their openness and willingness to share.  It’s inspiring!   One thing that you realize once you begin sharing both aspirations and fears…everyone around you shares similar feelings.  It’s not only you feeling inspired/scared/apathetic/motivated/tired/wired/fearful/confident/doubtful…

What differentitates successful people from the ones with unfulfilled dreams is a commitment to keep making progress, to keep taking babysteps, even in the face of fears large or small.

I will be to posting more and more excerpts from others’ blogs here on PebbleStorm among my own posts.  My vision for PebbleStorm is that I am just one member of a much bigger community based on trust; one strong voice among many other strong voices, because if I dominate the conversation it doesn’t leave much space for others!  I’m just getting the ball rolling 🙂

Some of the blogs I will share from are mostly about PebbleStorm-y topics, some have a wide mix of topics of which PebbleStorm is a small part. Either way, the people behind the blogs are just fascinating, wonderful people, so you can’t go wrong.

Onna “#1” Young

I met Onna about a year ago (May 08?), and Onna was the first PebbleStormer.  She ‘got it’ from the very beginning, and I have been grateful ever since for her support and partnership. My prediction for Onna is that 2009 and 2010 are ‘building years’, and 2011 will be her breakout year (at the latest). Patience!  Onna has several great ideas she’s developing as her Unique Genius unfolds, and one I particularly think will help transform her will be the enjoyment of interviewing 100 of the most inspiring women CEOs (how cool!)  This is also very aligned with my intention of focusing on helping women entrepreneurs and CEOs.

Blog: “Leaps And Bounds“

Excerpt from her post “Unique Genius – A Shift In Perspective“:

How do you help yourself find yourself.  Mat Boggs said, “It’s like looking for water from the bottom of the ocean.”  Yes, agreed, it’s hard to see yourself when you’re looking for yourself.

Aaron and I meet on Mondays for an hour or so go over PebbleStorm or PredictableRevenue.com.  This time he said we’d find my Unique Genius.  And with some excitement and nervousness, I realize as I’m walking toward the hot food aisle, in the Whole Foods where we meet sometimes, that my future is about to change just a little more.  There’s some trepidation though.  “A mind once expanded never regain its original dimension.”  A favorite quote of mine and it’s so true.  You cannot be untainted by new ideas and perspectives. You just cannot!  There’s no going back.  My direction and path are about to shift another degree and I know this is a poignant moment…continue on “Unique Genius – A Shift In Perspective”

Erin “Big Cheese” Halling

Erin found me through Yanik Silver when he helped launch PebbleStorm (“Thanks For Making The world More Of A Place I Want To Live“).  To me, it’s clear that her dayjob has no relation to her total power and potential.  It’s an intention, not an accident, that her email and nickname is “Big Cheese”!  I’m also particularly excited about the “Appreciation and Acknowledgment Call” that Erin and Hong-Anh are planning to begin with the PebbleStorm community.  Who couldn’t use doses of either one?

Blog: “Happy Surprises“

Excerpt from her post “Unique Genius“:

A few weeks ago, Aaron from PebbleStorm passed along the biggest compliment from a stranger, to me. It was awesome, and I have a feeling its going to be hugely instrumental in helping me change my life…

You know how sometimes you wonder if what you have to offer will be valuable to anyone else. What in the world could I possibly create that someone would want? Here I am trying to come up with an idea for my dream business, and I have a few vague ideas, but I haven’t really run with anything yet. Like somewhere inside me I don’t think I have what it takes. I look around at all the other PebbleStormers and I see how good their ideas are- part of me is really inspired. But part of me is intimidated. What if what I have to offer isn’t good enough?

I don’t think I’ve consciously had that thought, or maybe I have. Maybe it’s been hovering in my mind, slowing me down, permeating my thoughts about myself for a looooong while. In fact, it’s got a very familiar ‘ol’buddy’ feeling with it- like I’ve been living under it’s shadow since I was a kid.

And then Aaron sent me an email that changed everything…continue on “Unique Genius”

More Blogs

Here are a few other PebbleStormers with blogs that I’ll be excerpting from… feel free to explore if you can’t wait 🙂

• Katrina Wong
• Hong-Anh Ha
• Tony Wong

Gratitude

Thank you Onna, Erin, Katrina, Hong-Anh, Tony and everyone coming for sharing here and helping inspire myself and the people around you!

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(By the way, the picture is from a PebbleStorm Treasure Map Hike on Sunday in LA…hence the eyepatch!).

Below is an excerpt from an email I sent to the PebbleStorm group going through the “Come Play With Us” program.  I’m posting it for two reasons: to practice non-perfectionism (is that a word?), and to declare that I’m on a kick to let go of perfectionism, which is an  Enjoyment Enemy. Besides creating unneeded pressure, it just gets in the way of progress.  Ever heard the term “perfection is procrastination”?

“Perfectionism spells paralysis.”
— Winston Churchill

I, we, can’t be enjoying ourselves fully if we’re worrying about things being ‘perfect’.  How often does being perfect get in your way, either in life or work?

I’ve let go of a lot of perfectionism over the past couple of years (my father might say I never had it, after so many years of seeing messy rooms 🙂 ).  I didn’t even see it until recently, when I started helping people overcome their own perfectionism, both the progress that I’d made and how much farther I have to go.

When you’re in your own room for a long time, you get used to the dirt. Also, when your room is really dirty, a little more dirt doesn’t show up.  You see things in a new light when you visit a neighbor’s room. And when you leave your neighbor’s room, you carry a new perspective with you back to your room.  Seeing others’ perfectionism has made me more aware of my own, and how it gets in the way of enjoyment. It’s a new smudge to be aware of and let go of.  My room’s getting cleaner, so smaller smudges become much more obvious.  Of course, the room never(?) gets perfectly clean… there’s always another smudge to clean…

Hey, there’s a perfectionism lesson even here, in that we, to be happy, have to be accepting of having smudges, even as we work to clean them up!  ‘Cuz they’ll never completely go away.

Before I move on, here are a couple of ways I manage my perfectionism…throwing rocks, as I described in “Using rocks & babysteps to dodge the fear“, and “bursting” as I wrote about in the “Big Aaron Update…Bursting…”

[UPDATED] When perfectionism can be useful

Like anything in life, perfectionism can be helpful or hurtful, depending on your relationship with it.  When it prevents you from getting started or from finishing things, it’s an enemy!  When it can help you complete a project in a way that delivers an amazing experience, it can actually be a friend.  The key is noticing how it affects you, so that you can avoid getting trapped by it and instead can use it to help you with your goals.

———————————-

Hi everyone!

1) Teams Update
[yadda yadda yadda…]

2) Some great enhancement ideas from my 8p call tonight  (Thank you Jim Belden, Onna and Erin Halling!!):
i. A 1 day game” babystep. Erin Halling had a great idea to make it simpler to practice the “Play” concepts!  The example she used was to create a game out of moving, in which she’d win by finishing moving by a certain time, and an example rule would be having to stop to jump around and be silly every 2 hours 🙂  More to come… Reminder  – have fun with thinking of games, there is no reason to be ‘perfect’ here. Perfect is NOT fun – messy is fun!

ii. A Serendipity Board that lists the games and players, as they’re created. Thank you Onna!!!  Here’s an example from a local open house event we held last year:
https://pebblestorm.com/2008/09/08/a-serendipity-board/

iii. A “Design Your Game” template, that will be created as I work with the first few people in creating some games.  Thank you Onna!!!

iv. A “Meet Your PebbleStormers” call on the Wednesday between webinars, to give a chance for people who want to meet and connect with more people to do so (anyone have suggestions for icebreakers?).  Thank you Erin!!

3) Lastly  – I’m asking for help (and will continue to)
Whew!  By the way – I can see that there’s no way I’ll be able to create all this, and the other ideas that will come up, by myself (I can’t do it all myself – mental note).  Anyone interested in helping me with any particular pebble(s), in addition to Erin and Onna?   Or ones you might think of but I don’t have here?  You know it’d be fun to do together!!

My own perfectionism & ego
I have a hard time asking for help, which is related to both own perfectionism and ego (I don’t like looking bad as much as the next person).  I’m going to keep letting this go, and will appreciate your support in doing it!   Perfectionism is one of the worst enemies of PebbleStorm and enjoyment, and one I’m going to be paying attention to in myself, so that I can help others avoid it too.

🙂

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I just did a blog post for Genius.com touching on making money through enjoyment, leadgen and “Seeds, Nets & Spears”, ColdCalling2.com, and more…

Today I ask five questions of Aaron Ross. Aaron is an original and was one of the original sales guys at salesforce.com. While at salesforce.com, he invented
Cold Calling 2.0 for his inside sales team that sourced $100 million in recurring revenue. Aaron Ross founded PebbleStorm to help people and CEOs “make money through enjoyment.” Prior to founding PebbleStorm, Aaron Ross was an EIR (Entrepreneur-in-Residence) at Alloy Ventures, a venture capital firm with over $1 billion under management. He is an Ironman triathlete, graduate of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, and volunteer mentor at SCORE, “Counselors to America’s Small Business.”

As usual, Aaron has his hands in a lot of things.

PT: Aaron, you’re a busy guy with a lot of eclectic interests. What’s holding your attention these days?

AR: Great question! I can see how it appears to be an eclectic mix of projects and interests: sketching/art, CEO flow, having fun with work, travel, sales consulting / creating predictable revenue, self-managing teams, the 4-hour work week… However, everything I do and even how I live is ALL a part of PebbleStorm and helping people “make money through enjoyment”.
Work doesn’t have to be hard – we just make it hard on ourselves for no good reason. My mission is to help people and organizations unlock their “Unique Genius” and help them make work fun, more profitable and deeply gratifying (an example note I received when I launched said “Thanks for making the world more of the place I want to live”.)

With the economic turmoil, you’re seeing people finally waking up after being asleep in their careers for years or decades. Many have been plodding along making money and, meanwhile, forgetting their dreams. You can stand it while you thought it’d bring security…but that ended up being illusory. I recently wrote a blog post (“Using the Economic Trouble to Your Advantage”) on how the recession will be good for us in the long-term, because it’s forcing our economy to detox of bad habits and is getting people, many of whom have been asleep at the wheel of their work lives, to finally take a hard look at what they want to do with their lives.

So what the heck does all this have to do with my work in sales and creating predictable revenue? Well, “Make money through enjoyment” includes the phrase ‘make money’, and it’s hard to enjoy what you do if your revenue or income isn’t very predictable!

PT: You have an interesting way of categorizing types of leads: “Seeds”, “Nets” and “Spears”. Can you tell us more about these differences and why these are important?

…continue on for the full post on Genius.com: 5 Questions with Aaron Ross: How to Make $ and the Most Out of Life!

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My mind can’t process classic “business plans” (you know, the 20 page Word documents with marketing and sales plans, financing plans, planning the plan plans…)   About a year ago, I sketched out a Visual/Circular Business Plan.  Now, since I’m introducing the idea to my PebbleStorm “Come Play With Me” group, and now I’ve updated it…

One of the biggest differences in this plan, compared to a classic plan, is that there is no specific time line. You could add some rough time estimates in as rings (like tree rings). There is, more importantly, a logical progression of small projects and goals that lead to larger ones, like stepping stones.

Consider that you, today, are in the middle. The innermost ring is your first or next babystep.  The outermost rings are your vision.  It’s not meant to be perfect, accurate or a ‘project plan’ – it’s a simple way to have fun giving your vision a shape and substance that is easily explained both to yourself and others!

Oh – and if you do one, you have to share it with me 🙂   And most importantly: have fun with it!

And some video…

An Example By A Reader

From Todd Clark, of www.FireUnderEveryButt.com…

I recently stumbled onto your site and loved the creative business plan you developed.

I just sat down tonight to do the same because tomorrow, at my group mastermind session, we are to present our business plans for 2012. I’m gonna hav a good time with this one!   I am sharing it with you ’cause you said to do so on your planning page.

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I’m playing with video snippets to share on the blog…here are the first couple:

April 9, 2009: Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (Cabo Trip Pictures on Facebook)

Easter Sunday, April 12 2009: at home in Santa Monica, CA

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