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?

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!

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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…”

Kim Santy, founder of “Soul Shui: Ageless Beauty”, helping you become more beautiful as you age: “PebbleStorm as a community is extremely powerful…PebbleStorm has been instrumental in really helping me get to the next place in my life, helping me transform and become the kind of person I want to be…”

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?

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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!

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The first five days of this 15-Day 100% Fruits & Veggies Cleanse were surprisingly easy – mostly because I and my amazing girlfriend Jessica are committed to supporting each other with the shopping, cooking and eating. It takes a lot of time to buy make all this food on your own! After the first couple days of no hunger cravings at all, I started to get a little hungrier – perhaps my body was getting used to the food shift.

How I’m Feeling: My Skin & Energy & Stuff

My girlfriend says the skin on my face is much clearer.  My body feels good -  about the same as before I began.  My energy is consistently high through the day, though I have noticed a few times when I got tired or yawned, which might be because I’m eating fewer calories.

It is partially because I’m running low on sleep the past couple of weeks, as I’m trying to do too much every day (both fun stuff and work stuff…our “Learn How To Create & Launch A Business In A Weekend Fun Immersion” is this coming Friday & weekend).

Exercise

I  worked out a couple of times (weights or yoga) in the first few days of the cleanse, and after a workout I would be starving. On the fifth day, after a weights workout, I cheated a bit and made my chocolate protein smoothie, which is pretty close to the cleanse diet (cacoa, flaxseed, banana, chia seeds, water, rice protein powder).

During the cleanse, I’ll continue to exercise, but will take it easier in each workout.  I’ll wait to push myself until at least after the 100% juice portion is done.

100% Juice For Five Days

Day 6 is the first day that is 100% juice, and we stick to this all week, Monday-Friday.  Here’s an example day:

• Morning: Green Lemonade: Kale, Cucumber, Celery, Green Apple, Lemon, Ginger
• Mid morning: Celery Cucumber Parsley Apple
• Early Afternoon: Carrot Romaine Hearts/OR Spinach (and Apple, when needed)
• Mid Afternoon: Coconut Water, fresh if possible
• Evening: Green Lemonade: Kale, Cucumber, Celery, Green Apple, Lemon, Ginger

On the first day, I’m surprised I’m not hungry or getting hunger cravings.  I’m not sure if this is because of the juicing itself, or because of the shift from eating to juicing, and in a few days my body / hunger will go back to what it was.

Juicing this much takes a LOT of time. Luckily, Jessica had a fancy-shmancy juicer already. We need about a gallon of juice per day per person – so for two people, if we did all the juicing ourselves, would be two gallons of juice per day. That would be hours of work in shopping, prep and juicing.  We just don’t have the time to do it all at home, so we’re buying about half of it fresh from the local Santa Monica co-op juice bar.

PebbleStorm “Learn How To Create & Launch A Business In A Weekend” Fun Immersion

I’m preparing this week for our upcoming PebbleStorm “Learn How To Create & Launch A Business In A Weekend” event, starting Friday (Jan 15). It’s actually two events: the first day is an open “learn how to do it”, and then for a smaller group of people, we’ll actually hold their hands in creating and launching businesses that weekend.  We still have a few open spots for the first day; the full 3-day event is sold out.

It’ll be interesting to see how the juicing affects, or doesn’t, my energy with the added work and mental load. Is this the optimal time to switch diet?  No, but when is anything ever the ‘perfect’ time?

[UPDATED] Some Questions & Answers

Q: What juicer do you use?

For this cleanse, we are using the Omega 8006.  I know nothing about juicers; it’s my girlfriend’s.  If I bought a new one for myself, I’ve heard Green Star is hard to beat.

If you’re going to buy either a blender or a juicer, I’d get a blender like a Vita-Mix or Blendtec.  I own a Vita-Mix TurboBlend 4500 (now they sell a VitaMix 5200), which I use to make my regular daily morning green smoothie (see point #10 on “My 10-Step Personal Success Routine“).  Juicing is much more labor intensive (in prep and cleanup) then just blending, so juicers often sit unused on the shelf.  I use my Vita-Mix every day.

Q: Where do you purchase your produce?

From the local, convenient grocery stores: Santa Monica Co-op, Whole Foods, and Albertsons.  We would/will purchase from farmers markets, but the timing hasn’t worked out yet.  We have been buying big batches of food at one time, and running into one big store is more convenient for long lists.

Q: Do you ever use  frozen fruit?

We aren’t using now during the current 15-day fruit and veggie cleanse, though I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I do use it frequently in my daily morning green smoothie (point #10 on “My 10-Step Personal Success Routine“).

Your Advice, Suggestions, Results, Questions?

Please leave a comment below on the post!

Coaching, Health & Making Money

Sustainable health is essential to your success and enjoyment.  While my business coaching focuses mostly on combining your passions with work to make money in ways that are meaningful to you, health always becomes a part of the conversation. You can get on my schedule for a no-cost trial coaching session at http://www.PebbleStorm.com/coaching.

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I just started a 15-day 100% fruit and vegetables cleanse with a group of friends. It’s not a pure juice cleanse – we eat the veggies ‘n’ froots as food for 10 out of the 15 days, and only five days in the middle of the program are all juice.

Why do it? Really, it’s just because they asked me to and it sounded interesting! I’ve often been a “eap and the net will appear” person, jumping into things because they sounded interesting before I fully understood what was required (like the Ironman and the 28-day surival course…)

I’ve always wanted to try something like this program, so when my friend emailed me about it I thought “Why not?” (Prior post: “The Power Of Why Not”)  How often do you avoid trying something adventurous – in work, love or eating – just because it’s different, unknown or outside your comfort zone?

Get The Junk Outta The Trunk!

I’ll use this program to clean up some junky eating habits of mine. Mainly, letting go of sugar and dairy (I love hot chocolate).

Why do I want to stop eating (almost all) dairy, as much as I love it? I’m not allergic to dairy, according to an allergy blood test, but when I have dairy I often get a bit of a runny nose – so something in my system reacts against it. But it tastes sooo good

The Big Difference I Felt On The First Day

Healthwise, I’ve been feeling really good the past couple of weeks. I’m also mostly vegetarian already, so it’s not a huge shift for me to spend 15 days just eating fruits and veggies.  I wasn’t expecting to feel any differences quickly.

However, I noticed one big difference today, this first day of the program: I wasn’t hungry between meals, and I didn’t have any sugar/junk food cravings at all.

We’ll see if this program keeps the hunger and junk food cravings away even as my body adapts to the regimen.

I’m Already Pretty Clean – No Alcohol, Coffee or Caffeine

I haven’t always been a healthy eater. But ever since my teens, I keep getting a littler better with my eating habits every year, and over the years it’s added up.

I had one single dramatic shift in my eating habits, which happened in late 2007. After working with an ayurvedic nutritionist, I learned that I am allergic to wheat gluten and soy. I also learned that while I’m not allergic to alcohol, coffee or caffeine, I should give them up because they aren’t good for my body type, my system. I immediately gave them up and felt MUCH better afterwards!

Alcohol was really easy to give up. Coffee has the been hardest to stay away from – I love it! But, it’s highly acidic. I never appreciated how hard it was on my body until I stopped drinking it and then went back and had it again. If I have some now, my whole body feels crappy and I’ll often get a light skin rash on my face.

Interestingly, after I gave up drinking I started to notice how omnipresent alcohol is in our lives, how many people depend on it in small and large ways in relationships, work, having fun and coping. You don’t notice it much because it’s so embedded into our culture.

The eating vices I still have had: excessive sugar, chocolate and dairy.

Why No Caffeine?

With diet (as with everything in life), there are no one-size-fits-all answers. Alcohol, wheat, soy, etc. don’t work for me and don’t work for many of you, but for some of you it might be an excellent and valuable part of your diet.

Why no caffeine? I’m an inherently energetic person, so stimulants like caffeine unbalance me, make me anxious, and I just don’t feel good.

When I used to drink coffee every day in the morning, I needed it to wake up (or feel like I was waking up). Coffee and caffeine became a crutch.

After I stopped drinking it, I stopped feeling like I needed it in the morning to wake up. My energy actually felt more even throughout the whole day, rather than spiky.

Are caffeine or coffee a crutch for you, or do they really enhance your performance? Do they make you feel better or worse? The only way to find out if it’s something that is good for you, or isn’t, is by experimenting. Try going without it for two weeks (or change what you drink or how much), and journal about the changes in your energy and how you feel.

Why Diets And Magic Business Solutions Don’t Work

Eating and health is a perfect analogy to business – there is no magic bullet or diet, and the only way to learn what works for you is to try different things and practice self-awareness. It doesn’t matter if a diet or business worked for your best friend – that’s them, not you. You have to figure out your system for yourself. You have to learn discernment and how to determine what works for you.

It’s worthwhile to try someone’s diet or business system, but don’t blindly follow it (even PebbleStorm’s upcoming “Learn, Build & Launch A Business In 3 Days Fun Immersion” in Los Angeles). Realize that you’ll need to tweak, customize and tailor anything to your own personality.

Should You Go Vegetarian, Vegan, Give Up Alchohol, or…?

Sure, go ahead and try something, such as giving up coffee, because someone you respect has done it.  But don’t blindly stick to it – pay attention to if it actually works for you or it doesn’t.  Only through your own personal experimentation and observation will you learn what works for you. This is true both in health and in business. This is why the second step of PebbleStorm is “Play”, which has two meanings: 1) to literally play and have fun and 2) to experiment.

The Power Of Community / If You Can Only Do One Thing…

Doing most anything is easier and more fun with other like-minded people. I know this cleanse will be much easier as part of a supportive group!

Likewise, designing, starting and evolving a business is much more enjoyable – and easier – with the support of others. That is the essence of PebbleStorm – a community of people having fun helping each other succeed.

Are the people around you supporting or draining you?  The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop spending time around energy vampires and dream killers, and spend as much time around people who accept, support and inspire you.

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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

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.

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.

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

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