MindfulMarketers

How Does A Mindful Marketer Deal With New Challenges?

2010-05-02T16:29:00.009-04:00

You can also watch this tip as a video on YouTube

I have taken on some interesting challenges and have had some interesting epiphanies related to the demise of inspiration in projects. In this post and related video I want to speak to my thought processes as a mindful marketer. The purpose is to describe the role of mindfulness in business, especially when dealing with challenges and changes. The post is discussed with reference to launching my new TV show AWEtv and how to promote your videos effectively.

Before I get into the how, I want to briefly touch upon what “mindful” means. First, a few definitions:

According to Jon Kabat Zinn, “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; On purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

Thich Nhat Hahn says, “To be mindful is to be truly alive, present and at one with those around you and with what you are doing.”

I like to describe mindfulness as a conscious awareness and non-judgmental acceptance of our thoughts, actions, and environment in the present moment. See Jan Frazier's Blog about insightful and profound writings on non judgmental observation.

A lot of research is being done on this construct in psychology. For purposes of this post I am looking at mindfulness as a multidimensional construct including observing, accepting without judgment, acting with awareness, and describing (Baer et al 2004). In addition, I add broader perspective.

I now discuss how each of these aspects of mindfulness played out in my new project of launching AWEtv.

I Observing:

This refers to the conscious awareness of what’s happening inside us and in our external environment. When starting a new project this is obviously a very good idea. Learning from our external environment is essential. Some of the resources I used to learn about promoting my new TV show on YouTube are:

1) Google: I always start any research with Google. I googled “viral marketing campaigns” and variances of this phrase.

2) Twitter/Hootsuite: I searched for conversations about viral campaigns on Twitter.

3) YouTube for dummies: This was not very useful as the information was really basic, like if you are just starting out.

4) Experts in my social networks: I spoke with my friends on Twitter and other social networks who have been producing videos or have engaged in viral marketing effectively. It was interesting to hear from the experts (e.g. Danny Brown) how long it took them to get where they are. It is certainly not an overnight thing.

5) YouTube Videos: I searched for videos on viral marketing and I also studied videos that have been viral successes. I tracked back their first comments (who was the first person to comment and how did they get to know about the videos) and found that it is generally people within their social networks or hired employees who start the initial conversation. I also looked for similarities in content and style across successful viral videos. I found that successful videos are generally short and clever or use sex in their content, tags, and titles. You can read the full post on what I found about viral videos here.

6) Online Forums: I realized that AWEtv is not going to be short, snappy videos and is more likely to be passed on by people interested in or passionate about the content and so need to search online forums that are related to topics like women entrepreneurs, local business, and conscious business.

Now for the more juicy part - what was going on inside of my head. While I was doing the external search, it was also interesting to observe my inner thoughts and reactions that ranged from excitement and enthusiasm to resentment and frustration. Many positive feelings because there is so much to learn and it is all so exciting. I love to learn new things (for some that may be challenging and that’s OK as you can see I had my own challenges).

For the not so positive feelings - I saw people using sex for very serious topics and even though I wasn’t shocked I knew that that is not something I would do and wondered if that leaves me at a disadvantage. Other successful videos were backed by a lot of money and power and I don’t have much of that, yet, and not in a tangible form at least. So, I can hear that little voice in me say, “That’s not fair.” But really, says who? Everyone is doing the best that they can, so on to my next point about non-judgmental acceptance.

II. Accepting without judgment:

This refers to a non-judgmental evaluation of the present situation. Observing the environment and what others are doing can bring up all kinds of emotions as I mentioned above. I started to judge things as good and bad, compare others with me, and all this can be draining or at least I started to feel caught up in my dramas, raising stress levels.

In addition to escalating stress, judging also narrows the lens through which one sees the world. What I mean is that because now I have strong opinions about why and how others have been successful, I start to only see that which confirms my beliefs – selective perception and seeing. I stopped learning.

But, I stopped learning only temporarily, because I am an awareness freak. And soon caught myself judging and getting caught up in the negativity. Something switched, and there was suddenly so much love and acceptance in my heart again. I felt so open again. Have you ever noticed that – when you are judging people negatively, how you start to shrink inside and feel closed and stressed? And when you feel love in your heart, you feel more expansive and open? And needless to say, one learns more in an open state.

III. Acting with awareness:

This refers to taking action with hundred percent attention and focus. It is the nature of the mind to oscillate between the past and the future. Very rarely are we right here, right now. Are you fully here as you read this, or are you also thinking of what you need to do next along with any number of other thoughts?

Anyhow, my last epiphany that no-thing is more important than what needs to be done in the present moment is still very much alive in me. So, for the most part I have been able to do what is needed with no resistance or struggle. It feels like I am moving so much slower than I anticipated, but I and breathe deeplydo what has to be done, joyfully. This mental state of operating where the person is fully immersed in the task at hand, has also been discussed as flow, a concept made popular by Csíkszentmihályi.

IV. Describing/clear communication:

This refers to the ability to articulate precisely what one is feeling or observing. This quality is very useful in so many ways – in my Blogging, workshops and presentations, in my interviews on AWEtv and so forth. Finding the right words to communicate is difficult when my mind has its own dialog going. I can feel the difference in my Blogs. When I write from the stillness within, words just flow. And when I am caught in some drama internally, writing and any kind of clear communication is such a struggle.

In fact, before I started my mindfulness practice, I disliked writing immensely. I always faced so much resistance when I had to write, which I had to as a PhD candidate. I justified that as an outcome of my Indian schooling, which did not involve lengthy writing of any kind. But ever since I have learned to find the stillness in myself, I can write, and write I do effortlessly :)

V. Broader Perspective:

I want to add one last aspect of mindfulness in business, which is a broader perspective. Conscious and non-judgmental awareness and actions make the lens through which we experience the world broader. I am not so quick to jump to conclusions any more, which leaves me open to learning new things and trying new challenges. I also feel the ability to integrate diverse pieces of information and come up with out of the box solutions.

What do you do to be more mindful in business? How has mindfulness helped you in your work?

Any comments, feedback, criticisms, please share…

Viral Campaigns Exposed. Other Ethical Options on Low Budget.

2010-04-26T00:27:00.015-04:00

(To see this post as a video you can visit the iAM Facebook Page)

What does Viral Marketing mean?
Viral marketing refers to tactics used in marketing that encourage people to pass on your message who will then forward it to their friends and your message spreads like a virus, with obviously positive outcomes like increasing your brand presence and popularity.

You may have seen some YouTube videos with more than 100,000 hits and that’s an example of a viral campaign. Now, you may have thought like most do that these videos got so many hits because of their cool content. Apparently that’s not what gets them to become viral. According to this article by Dan Greenberg, companies like his are hired to put in time, money, and people to make such videos go viral. A direct quote from him, “good content is not necessary to get 100,000 views if you follow these strategies.” Some of the strategies he talks about: “Make it shocking, Have fake headlines, and appeal to sex.”

Now, I will be launching AWEtv, a local TV show about being authentic and thriving, very soon. So, I am interested in learning everything there is about making YouTube videos go viral. When I read the article by Dan, I was a bit surprised because I had not thought about this before and yet it is not surprising that businesses would resort to these measures. But I am interested in finding alternative ways that are organic and more authentic to who I am in getting the message out. So, I started my investigation online and speaking to people that I know in my social networks about what they are doing.

Summary of 5 different categories of viral marketing

1. Appeal to sex: According to Dan, “if all else fails, hire the most attractive women available to be in the video” And yes this works. If you check out this video on peak oil with the title, “Porn. Peak Oil. Enjoy” and a sexy dance video on the side, it got more than 2,63,000 views and the clean version of the same video, “Oily Cassandra gets clean,” got only about 2,100 views.

2. Hired Bloggers and comments: Getting influencers and popular Bloggers to share and speak about your videos is another tactic discussed. Also, posting comments using multiple accounts is another way to stimulate action on your channel or site.

3. Affiliate marketing: This is a little more organic than other forms discussed in Dan’s article. I have found this tactic used a lot by coaches graduating from a common program. In many cases we don’t know that and it feels like people are promoting each other because they have used their services but it is only because they are actively promoting each other because of some un/spoken agreement. So again, be cautious of using this because if consumers find out they can become skeptical of your integrity.

4. Coupons and rewards: A common way to get people to share the message is by offering them an incentive. E.g. A free report is a good way to capture people’s email information (this tip was offered by Satish Jalan) so they can be part of your email list. But a not so good tactic is like the one on Facebook and for which I actually fell. The one that says become a fan of Ikea and you will get $1000 coupon from Ikea and to be eligible they ask you to share the message with all your fb friends. You can offer coupons etc but do not have hidden agendas like getting people to sign up and sell their information to telemarketing companies.

5. You are a celebrity: Celebrities draw a lot of attention, so if you are one, it will be fairly easy for you to get the attention online. If you have expertise in an area you can earn a celebrity status but it takes time and a lot of hard work. I asked Danny Brown on twitter what he thought about viral campaigns. He was really nice and answered back, unlike many celebrities who don’t. His reply, “Viral is very hit and miss. Needs to be mix of right product/service, timing and luck and skill together :)” It took him “Almost 2 years and just being yourself :)” to get to where he is now with a following of 21,463 followers. You can also watch Chris Brogan’s video on what it takes to become an overnight success to find out it is not overnight but a lot of hard work.

I believe we can make our ideas, good ideas go viral. Below is a list I will continue to add to as I learn more about viral marketing on small budgets with integrity:

1. Use social networks
Use all your social networks like Blogs, Facebook and events to launch your campaign or video, Friends, Twitter, and email lists. And don't be afraid to post duplicates as people are busy and may miss it the first time.
I asked David Pakman from the midweek politics show and in addition to all social networks he talked about forums: “Lately we’ve also been starting to post strategically to certain forums where we know that the combination of traffic level and visitor interests would drive traffic to our videos and also create interesting discussion.”

2. Title and Tags
Create a unique tag, use it everywhere, and use #tags on twitter. We know that using sex in titles works as we saw in Cassandra’s videos, In contrast, Kris B. has been consistently producing good content that is intelligent and with a very fun unique style on her show, KrisCan. She shares her views on tags she uses for her show on peak oil, “Tags get hits. There's no doubt. The question is, is one willing to go that route to achieve the desired effect? I have thought long and hard about this for myself, but since the kriscan show is me and I am the show, I don't wish to be associated with that type of marketing. I'd rather take my chances with the family friendly tags, such as renewable energy, fossil fuels, peak oil, resource depletion, etc. This is more in harmony with who I am.”

3. Thumbnail:
YouTube picks the 3 images from your video including the middle one for your thumbnail. So make sure the middle image in your video is a good one. You can also change the thumbnails to keep it fresh.

4. Easy to share:
Make sure that viewers have options to share the content easily by allowing them to email it to their friends or share it with one click on their social networks like Facebook, Digg, and Twitter.

5. Worthy of sharing:
Ensure that people get some benefit from watching and sharing. E.g. entertainment, inspiration, good cause, free information and as David Pakman said, "an advance/preview/exclusive opportunity before it’s on our program" can be special benefits being offered.

6. Build a community:
Build an on line and offline community around your cause, brand, and message.

7. Add caption:
To make your video accessible to an under served population comprising hard of hearing people you can add captions to your videos.

8. Strategic Alliances:
Another good suggestion by David, "We do strategic trades/partnership with other YouTube channels, exchanging their posting of our videos with links directly to our channel/website for us providing a 30 second advertisement for their channel or website on our radio program."

9. Social Bookmarks:
Using social bookmarks like Delicious and Digg also helps.

And remember to be patient (it took Danny Brown almost 2 years to get to where he is now), be yourself, and be smart - learn about the new technologies and ways to market effectively.

What suggestions do you have for viral campaigns with small budgets and integrity?

Honest Talk: The Demise of Inspiration & The BreakThrough

2010-04-22T14:19:00.013-04:00

This post shares my recognition of the natural progression in a project from inspiration to stress and struggle and the insight I had that released me from the stress so I can move with more ease.

The first part describes the natural progression in a project from inspiration to the demise of inspiration. And the second part describes the insight that set me free: No thing and no one is more or less important.

This post is relevant to you if you sometimes feel struggle and stress in your work and/or life in general. More importantly, this post will be of interest to you if you too are looking for answers that go beyond finding happiness as a temporary emotion; if you are looking to find the Truth that goes beyond positive stories spun by your mind.

The Natural Progression and The Demise of Inspiration

I have been feeling some stress recently. What started out as projects I am excited and passionate about started to feel stressful. This is the natural progression for my inspired project, which I am sure many of you identify will with:

1) Birth of an idea: Good ideas come from strategic thinking but great ideas are inspired. And I am talking about inspired ideas here. This is an exciting time as it presents an opportunity to engage creatively. There are endless possibilities and I am in the flow.

2) Initial stages of development: This is really exciting - collecting information, connecting with people, getting positive feedback from people. This is still an idea so I collect information that can help me make this dream a reality and I connect with people who can take it forward. Finding the right people and information escalates my excitement.

3) Taking the right actions: Now I have the people and information to carry forward the project and I need to start working on the project. I start to take the necessary actions and it feels good.

4) The Ego: All the positive feedback and my own imagination of how important this project is, how this can impact many lives and the culture at large is creating the Righteous ego in me – how this project deserves to be supported.

5) Feeling invested: I begin to realize there is more work than anticipated, because the project became bigger than I anticipated initially and just because life presents the usual obstacles. What started out as an organic idea that I was passionate about is now a big investment of my time and resources. Of course I will not settle for anything but the best.

6) The burden: I have created the highest expectation from myself now. And of course I have shared my excitement with so many people, so can feel the weight of their expectations (most if not all is my imagination). The project is no longer fuelled by inspiration but my drive to make this a success, by my expectations of making this a huge success. I have so many people involved, all the promises I have made. No this is really big and I am in charge here. So this is all my responsibility.

7) The demise of inspiration: Now all the creative juices have dried up with the weight of expectations and the righteous ego. All actions feel like a struggle and causing stress. A stressed out mind is not very helpful. It picks on all the negativity in the environment and makes it the only reality you experience and hence magnify.

I am left wondering, what happened to my inspired thinking, what about my mindfulness practice, all those years spent in understanding the deeper truths, why am I encountering struggle and negative thoughts about something I know to be fun and creative. If I don’t get it after all that I have experienced in my life (and lives if you believe in that), then what hope is there for me, especially when that is my work – mindful marketing? And if I am feeling stuck in my own mindful marketing, then how can I tell people about it. I feel fake.

Persistence

One thing I do have is persistence – the persistence to understand my own mind and know my Self. Once I started to feel the stress and have thoughts of self doubt, I started to observe my mind. Not to get into the discussion of who is observing who, lets just say, I started to stay with my feelings and not resist or try to find an escape through positive thinking, which I am very good at also. But I wanted to find out the nature and origins of my thoughts so I stayed with the discomfort of these thoughts (as did my husband and am grateful to him for letting me be).

The BreakThrough…

Today morning as I was multitasking to get done with my breakfast so I can move on with other "more important" activities, I dropped the honey bottle and there was sticky mess all over the kitchen shelves and floor. I wet a cloth and started cleaning. All the stress I had been feeling came out in this moment and I gave up resisting the stress. In that moment there was a Knowing - No thing is more or less important. No one is more or less important. There is only this moment Now.

Are you thinking, how can all actions and all people be equally important? For example is cleaning dropped honey from the floor as important as lets say working on my big project to change the whole business paradigm? And my answer is YES. Because in that moment what was needed is cleaning the floor or it would attract ants and the cats would be all over it and making the whole house dirty. So what was most important in that moment is cleaning and not the project to change the world. How we decide what is important is relative to what is needed Now, in the present moment. So no job is superior or inferior. And similarly, no person or identity is more desirable than others, because we are all needed at different times in our lives.

There was an immense release in that Knowing. The burden that we carry of doing something important, of becoming someone, it all went away. We are all the same, just doing what we need to be doing, going about our lives. As long as we stay with that reality as the only reality - of doing things to take on a desirable identity, we will go through the highs and lows that go with the game. And you may choose to stay in that game as long as you like.

I have lived through enough games and am bored and tired of these games. I am choosing out - I am choosing to see beyond the games our mind plays. I am choosing to See what Is beyond these mind games. I am choosing to relax and Be in this moment fully. Any desire to be an identity is relinquished because I know it is only an illusion I am chasing. I Know that I already Am just as every One is, That...

What Next?

This doesn’t mean that I don’t do what needs to be done. On the contrary, it only means I do what needs to be done NOW without any resistance and with more ease, because now there is no pressure to become someone or something. I am at peace with what Is.

I also understand that ego continues to exist as long as we have a physical form and it will try to take over from time to time, which is its nature. I accept that as part of my Self. And the next time that happens, I will listen to what else I need to learn about my Self and learn to move with even more ease.

What does this mean for you?

We are all the same and yet we each need to find our own Truth. Surrounding ourselves with wise people and wisdom is good, but not enough, if you want to break out of the mind games and move with more ease. You will need to do the work of really living and learning for yourselves. What I know is that where this is a will there is a way – even to finding your Self.

Should You Share Your Presentations Online & How?

2010-04-18T21:59:00.006-04:00

(You also see this post online as the iAM Tip of The Week on YouTube)

Should you share your cool content online?

Okay, so you are awesome and you worked really hard creating an awesome presentation. Now should you go and post it online for the whole world to see? YEAH! In case you are wondering if that is a good idea because people will copy your content, lets do a reality check here. You are not the only one producing good content, there are thousands of really cool people with way cool ideas and content sharing their work online. So if you don't you are really losing out the opportunity to share your cool ideas and connect with the world.

In addition, there are three other reasons why you should share your presentations online:

1) Sharing your presentation online is value addition for the audience at your workshops as they can go back and see it again. If there are any questions they have at a later point, they can come back to you and you can keep your connection alive with them, which is always a good idea.

2) You can share your presentation slides with other workshop organizers to give them an idea about your style and work. You have already put in the work so may as well share it and use it to get more presentation opportunities.

3) All those people who were not sure about your workshop can now take a look at the cool content they missed and will help them make a more informed decision in the future.

What is the best way to share your online presentations?

Mashable has a pretty cool list of 30+ sites to share presentations and slideshows but after trying several sites I found Slide Share and Slide Boom to be the best. They are both free and easy to use. Slide Share is suppose to allow Keynote uploads but mine didn't so I had to convert my keynote presentation to a powerpoint, which was actually very easy. Go to file, click export, and click powerpoint and it automatically converts it. You will loose some of the coolness factor because the fonts change but it is not so bad.

The main difference between the two sites is that Slide Boom keeps the transitions and Slide Share doesn't, so if you want to keep the effects Slide Boom is actually better.

To see how the slides look in both the sites you can see my presentation as an example. I would love to hear which format you preferred and why.

My social media presentation at the Mass. Small Business Development Corporation can be found here:

Social Media: What, Why, and How?

View more presentations from Shalini Bahl.

Social media: What, Why, and How

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Social Media: What, Why, and How?

2010-04-17T19:37:00.002-04:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Social Media: What, Why, and How?

View more presentations from Shalini Bahl.

Lived Truths & Paradoxes In Your Business

2010-04-06T15:22:00.021-04:00

What is Your Truth?

What are the Paradoxes you have experienced?

How do you Live your Truth in your work?

My writing and workshops often include my personal Truths that I have experienced and which make me who I am as a human being and mindful marketer. This post is a record of my lived truths and how they influence my business and I invite people to share their lived Truths.

Here area a few to start with and which I share in my website as the guiding beliefs of iAM Business Consulting:

We each have a unique combination of passions, skills, and experiences that can be channeled in meaningful and profitable ways.

Self-awareness is the foundation of authentic leadership

In addition to passion, there has to be laser beam focus on the purpose and 100% commitment to be successful

Our inner beliefs influence our external reality

Marketing can be mindful, authentic, and profitable, only if innovative

The only constant is change; we stop growing when we stop learning.

I loved the Paradoxes of Creativity post by Roger von Oech in which he quotes creativity thinker Michael Michalko:

To create, a person must

Have knowledge but forget the knowledge;
See unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder;
Work hard but spend time doing nothing;
Create many ideas yet most of them are useless;
Look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different;
Desire success but learn how to fail;
Be persistent but not stubborn; and,
Listen to experts but know how to disregard them.

I liked the idea of sharing paradoxical truths - ideas that seem contradictory but in fact co-exist. Here are a few paradoxes that I have experienced in my life:

1) Be aware of thinking patterns shaped in the past to be creative in the present

(I did not realize that the assumptions and beliefs that shaped the way I perceive the world limited what I saw and how I made sense of the world. It was after a breakthrough I had in a Shamanic ritual and now my meditation practice that I can see how my past beliefs impact my judgment of any situation. By seeing the assumptions, and not being tied to them I can choose to see things differently and be more creative. Continuously examine assumptions that limit you.)

2) Being mindful in business is profitable. Yes, for many this is paradoxical.

(I have written about mindfulness in business and why it is beneficial to be mindful in business.)

3) You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it (Einstein quote)

(I have found that some of my most successful ideas were not an outcome of strategic thinking but inspired thoughts, when I was meditating or engaged in an activity that has nothing to do with the situation for which I found the solution. So loosen up, meditate, and silent the mind obsessing with the problem so you can hear the answers.)

4) In order to live a life of abundance, be free from desire for abundance

(You can replace the word abundance with anything and this principle applies. This principle is one of the trickiest because you cannot fake it till you make it. Either you Know this as your Truth or you don't. It doesn't work if you know it intellectually - you have to live it from every cell of your body. However, what we can do is have a self awareness practice, because as we realize the true nature of Self we move from desiring to Being. It is a journey...we may have found freedom from some desires and others we continue to gain more awareness about.)

5) To be more productive, practice doing nothing regularly.

(All of the above points lead to this one. When we are busy we don't take out time for our selves and which is when we most need to find time for silence. By silencing the mind I have found the ability to have more control over my mind and choose my actions more mindfully, instead of running on auto pilot.)

6) Work done with playfulness and joy brings better results than when done seriously, all else being equal.

7) I get more done because I don't worry about what doesn't get done
I often get asked how I get so much done (and I don't know what that means because we don't know and can't compare how much we all get done but lets stay with people's perceptions). And I was thinking about this the last time someone said that and realized what helps me is that I am not attached to getting everything done. I am only one and am doing the best that I can, so what does get done YAY and what doesn't I will get to it when I can. I also write about dealing with stress and moving with ease in my other Blog. In addition points 5 and 6 also help. (Added on 4-19-10)

So, the purpose of this post is to create a list of lived truths along with the many paradoxes that we have experienced personally and which have greatly impacted who we are and therefore also our business. The main criterion here is that you should have experienced it for yourself. It may be a popular belief or proven by science, but has it been your personal experience? And if so, I hope you will share your Truth, the absolute truth that you believe with every cell of your body here.

Increasing Productivity Using Controlled Breathing

2010-03-28T23:10:00.004-04:00

You can read the iAM Tip of the week 3-29-10 below or watch the video here.

The iAM Tip of the week is about increasing productivity using controlled breathing. There are two things I want to highlight about the breath:

1) Did you know that if you are feeling anxious, for example, before giving a public talk, taking deep breaths in might actually increase your anxiety? Too much oxygen and not enough carbon dioxide can cause anxiety and an agitated stated. On the contrary too much carbon dioxide in the body can cause depression and fatigue. The solution is not deep breathing but controlled breathing. By slowing down the inhale and exhale you re-balance your system.

2) The second point is that the mind oscillates between the past and future. Our productivity and creativity is compromised when we are not living in the present moment. But how can we be present to what is when the mind is so busy? As rightly pointed out by Einstein, “you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” This is where the breath comes in. The breath is directly related to our emotions and mind. By controlling the breath we can control our mind and emotions.

There are many practices around breath work like the Sudarshan Kriya, which is what I do and highly recommend to everyone. But what I am demonstrating today is a very simple process for slowing your breathing that can be done easily any time that you feel stressed or the need to energize yourself.

THE SLOW BREATHING PROCESS

Sit in a comfortable position, with a straight back. Close your eyes or soften your gaze and observe the quality of your breath – are you breathing fast or slow, is it deep or shallow. Start to relax your body – your feet, legs, stomach, chest, arms, back, shoulders, neck, and face. Relax your eyes, your mouth, and jaw line, your forehead, simply let go and let any tension melt away.

Now start to slow your breathing – count to four as you inhale and count to four as you exhale. Let there be a natural pause at the end of each inhale and exhale – count to two at each pause if you like. If you are new to deep breathing, you can put your one hand on the chest and one on your stomach and as you breathe in make sure that your hand on the stomach is pushed forward and when you exhale your hand on stomach goes back in. Continue this slow breathing process for a few minutes or even a few rounds can be enough to slow down your mind.

ADVANTAGES OF SLOW BREATHING

1) Energizes the body

2) Helps to de-stress

3) Slows down the mind so you can think clearly

4) Helps you become more present to dealing with current situation

5) Become more mindful. (you can read more about mindfulness in business here).

6) Before public speaking practice slow deep breathing to feel more centered and don't feel out of breath when you speak.

7) If you have trouble sleeping at night practice slow breathing, emphasizing the slow exhale

If you feel any discomfort with slow breathing please discontinue and check with your doctor. The idea is to be able to make your breathing cycles become smooth, deep, and slow.

OTHER LINKS FOR RESEARCH & MINDFUL BREATHING

The Art of Living Foundation hosts published research articles related to benefits of breath work.

Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA

A Call to Be Zorba the Buddha: Mindful Actions

2010-03-25T15:06:00.009-04:00

A Call to Be Zorba the Buddha is inspired by my daily interactions with people who are either very active doers in the external world or very busy searching for meaning in their inner worlds. Could all our actions embody mindfulness and our search for meaning be woven into all our actions?

Many people are driven by actions and events external to who they are and don't spend any time knowing their inner worlds comprising their emotions, motivations, and conditioning. The outcome of continuous striving without resting and taking time to know your self results in stress, dissatisfaction, and inefficiencies. Inefficiencies because you can get caught in old thinking patterns if you are too busy to stop and take stock of the changing environment or have not broadened your perspective to notice things outside of the lens you are used to looking through.

On the other extreme, there are people who primarily dwell in their inner world with the purpose of understanding the nature of self and consciousness. These people are not driven to take actions like people in the first category. Such people are likely to feel frustrated because they are not able to share their gifts by taking the right actions and/or blame the world for not appreciating their inner gifts, which of course they have not shared enough so are quite hidden.

There is a third category of people who are active doers and also create time to develop their knowledge of self and consciousness. Yet, they keep the two aspects of their lives separate. When they go to work they are adhering to the expectations imposed on them from the dominant culture. Their inner work of self-discovery is a private practice that is not integrated into their daily work and actions.

Is it possible that our actions are inspired by who we are and our personal experience of Truth? Could we take out time from our busy schedules and train our busy minds to be silent so we can really listen to what Is? And then take necessary actions as easily as we breathe.

I guess my only point here is that all you people who have been too busy doing things STOP and listen to what is happening inside of you; and all you people who have spent too much time listening to your inner worlds TAKE ACTION.

Be Zorba the Buddha - Let your business be an authentic expression of who you are and let your inner world guide you to take mindful actions.

If You Cannot Blog Regularly, Then Should You?

2010-03-16T20:00:00.007-04:00

“We don’t want to start a Blog because we cannot keep up with it regularly.” I hear this from most of my clients, who are mostly small to medium businesses driven by a purpose or are non-profits. This post addresses the question, if you cannot post “regularly” should you have a Blog?

There are many posts out there addressing this question. For example, read the one by Liz for a decent perspective. And of course Seth Godin is always insightful.

Many of the popular posts consistently advice “Post only when you have something to say” (Godin) or “Do what works for you.” Yet, the experts do suggest a need for some kind of regularity and may make recommendations, “post at least three times a week.” (Liz). This can scare many people away from giving Blogging a shot at all.

I will make some points that may have been made by someone somewhere, but to the best of my knowledge, I have not seen anyone explain it this way. And yet, this is what I see as the most authentic way of doing business and all related activities, including Blogging.

The New Mindset for Blogging

1) What is the purpose of your Blog?

If you are blogging primarily with the purpose of driving traffic (we all want traffic but here I mean primarily for traffic) then regularity and frequency may be very important. But what if you were a doctor or a research scientist, whose insights and new discoveries were not as frequent as a wine connoisseur’s musings on which cheese goes with a particular wine or the top Blogger’s discoveries of the best video games in the market, should the doctor or scientist not have a Blog?

The point I am trying to make, in case it was not obvious, is that if you are inspired or have something valuable to share, then share. Don’t hide away because you cannot post regularly. I am sure people will understand if you did not have a new discovery to write about each week :)

Main point here: If you are a person who has cool ideas, insights, and inspirations that can uplift people and bring more awareness, then let the Blog be a channel for you to share your insights. Period.

2) The Two Boxes: Please step out

There is one group of people who reside in a box of “should” and “have to” Blog a minimum number of times a week or day or month. Then there is another box of people whose mantra is “I can’t” do it regularly so “I won’t” do it at all. Any kind of pre-conception, involving the like of “shoulds,” “have tos,” “can’t,” involves living in the past or the future and certainly not in the present moment.

So, if you are a person committed to writing a minimum number of posts a week, ask yourself the questions – Is the writing inspired and flowing? Is the process of Blogging enjoyable or a struggle, another task you need to tick off on your list? If you feel Blogging is a struggle, then you are probably not operating from the present moment. And consequently, when you write from a stressed place your audience will also not connect with your writing.

On the other hand, if you are a person who shies away from writing all together because you feel you don’t have the time to write regularly, let me ask you, what do you do when you have an inspired thought that could change the lives of many people? Do you just channel those thoughts in service of the few people you meet in the course of your work and deprive access to all the other people who don’t know you but could benefit from the same?

Main point here: Operate in the present moment. Don’t get boxed one way or the other. Stay open to the possibility of Blogging and Blog when you feel inspired.

3) I am Blogging now, but no one is reading

Okay, so you have come out of the box of “can’t” and “won’t” and have started to Blog when inspired. But you find that no one is visiting your Blog or leaving any comments. But wait, did you invite anyone to your Blog? Or does that feel intimidating or just plain wrong – isn’t that like hard core selling – asking people to come to your Blog?

Now think about it this way. You have prepared a great meal, nutritious and delicious, enough to feed a 100 people. So many people are going to be nourished by your meal. Just one problem, you did not invite anyone. There are so many starving people who could gain from what you have to offer, but they have no way of knowing that your home has this food to offer. So, what you could and would do, is let people you know spread the word that nutritious food will be available from time to time and let people who need it get in touch with you.

In the world of Blogging this would mean that you tell your personal contacts and social networks to spread the word to people who can benefit. You may use other social media tools like Facebook and Twitter as well. And people who are interested in your nurturing posts can stay in touch with you by subscribing to your Blog because they know that every now and then you will have something amazing to offer and they want to be there to receive it.

Main point here: When you have something valuable to offer, let people know about it.

4) Invitations have been sent, yet no one is coming or commenting

So you write an inspired post and even invite people and nothing happens. There are many reasons people don’t comment. Here is a good post on 10 reasons why people don’t leave any comments

Worse still, no one comes to your Blog. What do you do? Do you think this is a waste of your time? Should you stop Blogging? If you have such thoughts it is time to go back to point 1 above – If you are a person who has cool ideas, insights, and inspirations that can uplift people and bring more awareness, then let the Blog be a channel for you to share your insights. Period.

What this means is your being and doing is one and the same. You wrote because you were inspired to do so and you did it in the spirit of spreading awareness. Writing when inspired - that in itself is the goal and the reward.

Like the man who made beautiful statues of sand on the beach and watched them get washed away, enjoy the process of inspired creativity, with no other expectations.

Naming Your Business

2010-02-28T12:21:00.007-05:00

What is the perfect name for your business?
I get asked a lot to give feedback about names for new businesses. This post is inspired by all those people who have recently asked me to give them feedback for their names.

I came up with a name for my business that I am really happy with - iAM Business Consulting. iAM, besides being a very profound phrase embodying the infinite potential, also stands for innovative, authentic, and mindful, all of which are very important aspects of my consulting work.

I don't consider myself very creative with names but I can tell you when a name doesn't feel right. A good name should flow on your tongue and convey the right feelings about the business it personifies. A good name should embody the biggest and highest vision you have for your work in the future. So, you are not thinking of just right now but what is your highest potential in the future and that is the energy it needs to convey.

So some of the characteristics of a good name are:

1) It flows - when you say it and when you listen to it.
2) Its simple and easy to remember -
3) It conveys the highest vision of the work you will be doing
4) It includes words your customers are likely to look for
5) Check the legal angle with respect to domain names and trademarks to ensure it is not already taken

I think there is a myth, or atleast in my head it was, that some people are creative and can come up with good names very easily. Though there may be a few, very few people out there who can instantly come up with a cool name, for the most part, people have to work hard to come up with a good name and tag line. Sometimes, from a place of inspiration you may come upon the perfect name, but if it doesn't, don't be disheartened, because most people, even big branding companies come up with 100s of names and then find one that is perfect.

Here are some tips to help with coming up the perfect name for your business:

1) Make sure that you are very clear about your business purpose and mission. Write down your mission statement. You can read more about finding purpose and writing a good mission statement here.

2) Make 3 columns:

i. Action words: Write down what your business will be doing. For example, empowering, inspiring, inventing, training, bringing awareness, exploring etc

ii. Customer benefits: Write down what will be the benefits to customers from using your product or service. They will feel energized, healthy, happy, become creative, innovative solutions, be empowered, etc

iii. Unique skills & values: Write down values and skills that are unique to you. For example for me being innovative, authentic, and mindful laid the foundation for my consulting work. Other examples may be words like Green if you are working with renewable energy, Consciousness and mindfulness if you are working in healing arts, etc

Once you have made a list of words/phrases in the three columns you can mix and match between columns or even just within a column. My name mostly came from words within column iii - innovative, authentic, mindful and was combined with business consulting which is an action phrase describing what I do. And it also conveys the benefits my customers can expect.

3) If you find a name that has already been taken, you can try bringing in other languages like Latin or Sanskrit, provided the words are commonly used and convey the spirit of of your business. Like Om, Shanti, Shakti, and Metta are some common Sanskrit words that have been popularized by the sprouting of Yoga and associated terminologies borrowed from Sanskrit.

4) Sometimes it also helps to use a thesaurus to find alternative words that actually sound better

5) Have fun with it and loosen up

When you do come up with a good name, you will KNOW. There will be a YES! And you will not need to ask anyone if it is the right name. Instead you will want to immediately share your new business name with everyone.

How did you come up with your perfect name?

What is the “right” price for your services: Tips for Mindful Pricing

2010-01-24T18:42:00.005-05:00

Post Summary

Pricing for intangible services, especially in healing and sacred contexts is challenging. Here is a summary of the points discussed in more detail below:

1)Your inner beliefs create your outer reality: If you are not satisfied with the outcomes in your life, inspect your beliefs about your own value to your customers, about money, and your life. The world is just a mirror of your subconscious mind. What do you see in this mirror? Self awareness is an ongoing practice and I like to mention it first as it lays the foundation for outcomes in all aspects of your life.

2)You should feel good about your price. If you undercharge, just to get customers, you will not feel motivated to give your best and if you did give your best, you will not feel good about it. Very often well-wishers, coaches, and consultant will tell you that your price is too low and you should increase it and you do. But if you do not believe from inside that this is the right price for you that is the message you will send out and people will not be attracted to your products at that price. Consider the following factors in coming up at the right price and then arrive at the price that you know is right.

a.The cost of products, including your time. See below to calculate cost of time.

b.Your pricing objectives, making sure that your current pricing strategy is in alignment with long term goals.

c.Your desired livelihood.

d.Target market and positioning.

e.Competition. If you are providing better value than your competition, should you share competitors’ prices with potential customers? See what research suggests below.

f.The most important factor in determining the right price is the value you provide to customers in terms of solutions to improve their lives. Clarity in how you are improving your customers’ lives will give you confidence in asking for the right price. Think of different needs of people that your products can meet such as saving time or enhancing convenience, comfort, security, self esteem, career, social connections, entertainment, and creativity.

g.People pay for products to improve self esteem but studies show that mindfulness brings greater well being and satisfaction than self esteem. However, the marketplace brands improving self esteem command high prices and mindfulness services are expected to be free or available at low costs. If you are a marketer of healing arts or mindfulness practices, what are your perceptions about the price and value of the services you provide?

h.Very often people are not willing to pay not because your services are not valuable but because they are not confident that will be able to use your services or have the skills to take advantage of your services. It is important then to guide your customers to assess their skills and connect then with their potential and how your services will facilitate them reaching their highest potential.

Full Post

When I taught marketing how easy it was to describe the different pricing strategies. As an exporter of high fashion garments from India, pricing was again not too difficult after considering the costs and competition. Now as a marketer of services, pricing has been an interesting challenge. I realize I am not alone in this. Many people in my workshops and consulting have expressed confusion about pricing. The problem is magnified when what is being marketed is intangible and more so if it is considered sacred or has a spiritual connotation. What price can you set for something that is perceived to be sacred and whose benefits are priceless? Consumers and marketers of healing arts are often conflicted about marketing and pricing around such services.

The purpose of this Blog post is to provide some perspectives on pricing so you can arrive at a price that feels right to you. While it is important to be aware of the different pricing strategies, in the end you have to feel right about the price you are charging or else you will not get the results or feel good about the results you do get. If you charge a price higher than you believe you should be charging, you will subconsciously and consciously send that message out and people will not buy your services. If you under charge, you may find enough customers but you will not feel motivated to give your best because you are not being appropriately remunerated and customers may feel your dissatisfaction. At the right price – when you feel that the value you are providing is being appropriately remunerated – you will feel confident and happy to offer your services and people in contact who have a need for your services will also see the value they are getting.

Before discussing the factors influencing your pricing strategy, lets consider your inner beliefs that are creating your outer reality. If you are not satisfied with the outcomes in your life, inspect your beliefs about your own value to your customers, about money, and your life. The world is just a mirror of your subconscious mind. What do you see in this mirror? Self awareness is an ongoing practice and I like to mention it first as it lays the foundation for outcomes in all aspects of your life.

Factors to consider when pricing
To arrive at the right price, there are several factors you need to consider.

1)The cost
It is quite obvious that the price you set should cover the actual costs you incur. Costs include fixed and variable expenses. With respect to tangible goods these costs can be determined easily. If you are in the services industry, expenses like rent and employees salaries can be measured but how do you determine what is the cost of your time? One way to approximate that is to take the annual salary you are capable of getting if employed and divide that by the number of hours you will be putting in annually into the service you are providing. For an example showing how to calculate this, read the article on determining cost.

2)Your objectives
It is important to consider what are your marketing goals. For example, if your goal is to make your service popular, you may be willing to charge a lower price in order to get more customers. This pricing strategy is commonly known as penetration pricing, which introduces a new product at a low price in order to build market share. The other strategy, called skimming introduces new products at a relatively high price in order to recover sunk costs in innovation before competition enters the market. Well, to charge a higher price you have to have some cool or unique factor to justify the high price.

At different stages in your business development you may have different goals and as such your pricing strategy may also evolve accordingly. But do pay attention to your long term goals to make sure that the pricing you set today is not incompatible with pricing you will need to set for your long term goals. For example, you may offer a service at a cheap price to enter the market but may find that consumers gets used to your low price and you may find it hard to justify an increase in the future. So, if you do decide to enter at a low price, make sure you have a clear strategy around that and make it clear to your customers what that is. For example, you may introduce your products at the low price calling it an “introductory offer.”

3)Your desired livelihood
Different people have different income expectations based on their desired lifestyle. Assess your income requirements based on your desired lifestyle and calculate how much you would like to charge keeping in mind the number of hours of service you can offer and the demand for your service. The calculations can be done like we did in the cost of your time example.

4)Target market and positioning
The price would also vary based on the market you are targeting and the positioning you are creating for your brand. For example, if you are targeting affluent customers, naturally, you can charge a higher price, which will include all the frills along with the core service that this market can afford. On the other hand you may decide to service the less affluent market to which you can offer just the core product at a lower price and/or work with high turnovers.
A related point is that of positioning. Positioning is the perception you want your customers to have about your brand vis a vis your competition. The key areas around which you can create a unique distinction from other brands are pricing, service, delivery channels, product attributes, and image. Any or all of these areas would impact your pricing.

5)Competition
Knowing what your competitors are offering and at what price is necessary so you can be clear about the value you can provide. When looking at competitors’ prices, make sure you gauge their service attributes, what’s unique about the solutions they provide, and their specific skills in order to understand the value they provide. Also, adjust for different areas as some cities may have higher cost of living and can ask for higher prices.

Awareness of how your services provide value to your customers will give you more confidence in marketing your services. If you do a good job of specifying how you uniquely provide value, customers looking at competing services will come to you because you are providing value like no one else.

Should you explicitly ask potential customers to check out competing prices that are higher than you?

A word of caution though, if you explicitly ask customers to look at other competition to show that you are better, studies show that this makes customers cautious of the marketers’ intentions and likely to result in risk-averse behaviors (Dholakia and Simonson 2005). Only share competitors’ prices with your customers if your customers fully trust you and your intentions. Generally, it is better for customers to compare competing services and arrive at their own conclusions. You can only support them in the process by providing information about you clearly.

6)Value to customers
This is one of the most important points in determining your price and convincing buyers to invest in your services. In exchange for the money your customers give, you are providing them a solution to make their life better. For you and your customer to be convinced that this is the right price, you have to be very clear in your mind and your communication what is the specific benefit to the customer and how is it going to improve your customer’s life. The more specific you can be about the benefits, the better.

Dan Zambonini’s article provides a good list of consumer needs that your services can meet.
• Time: Convenience, Efficiency, Immediacy
• Scarcity
• Comfort
• Esteem: Id, Desirability, Self-Image, Ego
• Belonging: Relationships, Sex, Affection
• Survival: Health, Safety, Wellbeing
• Financial Security: Wealth, Success, Career
• Entertainment: Emotion, Experiences
• Intellectual Stimulation: Creativity, Learning, Expression

This is a good list to think about ways in which your services can help your customers. Your service can help people save time and enhance convenience comfort, self esteem, social interactions, survival, financial security, entertainment, and intellectual stimulation. Two insights inspired by this list:

- Image and self esteem related products: Products and brands command a price for enhancing our image and self esteem. In this regard I want to point out that research has shown that mindfulness is related with higher levels of well being and satisfaction than self esteem. Currently, consumers and marketers of mindfulness products feel that such products should come free or at low prices. If such products bring profound changes in consumers and businesses that can be sustained in the long run, they should command a higher price than products providing short term solutions. We need to change the perceptions in people’s minds about mindfulness and consciousness raising products. Before you set out to change your consumers’ perceptions, what are your beliefs about the work you do?

- Financial security and career: Products command a price for bringing financial security and professional advancements. The article points to research showing that higher the probability of and control we have over the desired outcome, the more we are willing to pay. This suggests that people will be more willing to pay for your services if you can show them how your services increase their probability of reaching their goals.

Very often people are not willing to pay not because your services are not valuable but because they are not confident that will be able to use your services or have the skills to take advantage of your services. It is important then to guide your customers to assess their skills and connect then with their potential and how your services will facilitate them reaching their highest potential.
Setting your own price model – loyalty and quality don’t drive higher prices. Setting a reference price and providing value help more.

I would love to hear what has guided you in determining your "right price."

References

Dholakia, Utpal M. and Itamar Simonson (2005), “The Effect of Explicit Reference Points on Consumer Choice and Online Bidding Behavior,” Marketing Science, Spring, 24: 206 - 217.

Kalyanaram, Gurumurthy and Russell S. Winer (1995), “Empirical generalizations from reference price research,’ Marketing Science, 14(3), G151–G160.

Ryan, R. M., & Brown, K. W. (2003), “Why we don't need self-esteem: On fundamental needs, contingent love, and mindfulness,” Psychological Inquiry, 14, 71-76.

Should our professional identities be kept separate from our social life?

2009-11-30T09:25:00.004-05:00

Should our professional identities be kept separate from our social life?

This question is definitely relevant within the domain of personal branding, but I would like to approach this question from a place of mindful inquiry.

When I linked my Twitter to my personal profile on Facebook, one of my friends made a comment suggesting that many of her friends on Twitter had chosen to keep the two separate. And more recently, I volunteered to help with the promotions of a community event for which I created really cool invites, which were sent out with my signature including my professional credentials. Again, I was asked by a colleague, if it wouldn't be better to send the invite out without my credentials as this was coming from my "casual, neighborhood personality and not business." A very good question.

What do you think? Do you keep your identities separate - is your professional persona different from your social one? When you volunteer are you one person and when you provide the same service in a professional setting are you a different person?

From personal branding perspective, you would want to promote your personal brand across all dimensions of your life and the answer is quite simple in that case - you keep your signature consistent in all your communications.

Assuming you do put your professional signature on all communications - even your social and personal ones - wouldn't that make you a pushy marketer?

Here in lies potential for inner conflict and fragmentation and choosing to go one way over the other without mindful inquiry would lead to a decision that is not authentic and optimal. I would encourage you too to meditate on this question and find what feels true to you. You may be amazed with what you find in yourself, beliefs that are holding you back from your highest expression of Self.

I will share my truth on this subject. I see my Self as compassionate, creative, and mindful and that is who I am across all aspects of my life and with all people in my life. Separating my identities into social and professional to me is creating false identifications and fragmentation, which is not my experience of who I am. I am innovative, authentic, mindful. Period.

Should I feel guilty in promoting my work when I volunteer in my community? In my head, letting people know who I am is not a bad things because I am providing valuable service and would like people to know what solutions I can provide to make their lives better. Of course, if promoting my work becomes the priority in my volunteer work, then I am not being true to the task at hand and would feel inauthentic to me. So, if doing my best job as a volunteer allows people to know what I have to offer professionally, I think we have a win win situation here :)

I believe our lives should rest on win win situations and that is only possible if we are mindful (not operating out of guilt and limiting beliefs), authentic, and innovative (because fining win win situations often requires thinking out of the box and getting out of our comfort zones.)

Voices of the Valley: Interview with Denise @WRNX

2009-11-08T15:43:00.003-05:00

To hear the interview click on link below:

zSHARE - DW_B0057.wav

The interview discusses how personal branding, social media, and mindfulness can be used to build a unique positioning for yourself as an employee or someone looking for a new job or if you are self employed.

The tools discussed in the interview can be found on my post on tools and resources to deal with unemployment.

Personal Branding Tools & Resources to Deal With Unemployment

2009-11-08T08:15:00.004-05:00

With unemployment and uncertainty on the rise, it is important now more than ever before, to build a strong personal brand. Personal branding is the process of clear and consistent communication of your unique skills and passions and how you use them to solve problems in unique ways. The idea is for you to be clear about your strengths and let everyone know what your unique problem solving skills are so you stand out as a distinct identity making valuable contributions instead of being invisible among the many employees of businesses.

Check your online presence and identity to see whether you are visible in meaningful and consistent ways.

Personal branding involves self-awareness, authentic differentiation, and effective communication and here are some tools and resources for each category.

1. Self awareness: Connecting with skills, passions, purpose, and experiences that make you unique.

•Finding inner purpose exercise

•Other ideas to connect with self

2 Authentic differentiation: Using your skills and passions to solve problems in unique ways.

•Learn from changing trends and your competition how you can contribute and solve problems in unique ways.

• Stay informed about changes in environment that are relevant to you by setting google alerts and set Twitter to listen to key words:
http://www.google.com/alerts
http://twitter.com/

3 Communicate and connect: Communicating your unique problem solving abilities in ways that are consistent, meaningful, and visible to your target audience.

• Find out how visible and meaningful your online identity is
• Create a free online resume using multi-media at visualcv.com
• Connect with companies and recruiters on Twitter using tweetmyjobs.com
• Create a google profile, LinkedIn, Blogs, etc and make sure they are integrated and consistent
• Prepare your elevator speech
• Create an authentic and strong presence by using your skills to Blog, teach, or speak. If you like to write, start a Blog; if you like to teach, hold workshops in your organization or in your community; if you are a good speaker, participate in panels.

Other resources
• Social media, marketing and mindfulness consultancy made affordable at iAM Business Consulting
• Perspectives on how the environment, your efforts, and your beliefs affect outcomes in your life.
•Cool article on How to find a job on Twitter
•Cool article on How to build the ultimate social media resume

Unemployed, Now What?

2009-11-07T08:32:00.008-05:00

When I left my fantastic job at the University of Utah to be with my family in MA, I trusted a job will miraculously open up for me and it didn’t. After acknowledging my disappointment and seeing through my own limiting beliefs that were responsible for my actions (which is the topic of another posting), I got down to recreating my career. This post speaks to three factors that impact the outcomes in our lives – the environment, our efforts, and our inner beliefs. If you are unemployed or face the threat of being unemployed, I encourage you to think about these three factors and how they are impacting the outcomes in your life.

The Changing Environment

Change is the only constant. Yet, we ignore changes in our environment until they hit us. Admittedly we do not have much influence over changes in our environment – social, political, economic, and technological, amongst others. But here are some suggestions for what we can do with respect to changing environment:

Anticipate: Stay aware of the changes taking place in your environment. Personally, I am not a big newspaper reader because most of the papers report depressing events that have already taken place. Instead I use google alerts, Twitter, and Blogs to stay informed. I do subscribe to the local newspaper to support them and stay tuned with local affairs.

There are other organizations providing trends that I wrote about in my article on environmental scan.

How do you stay informed?

Learn: I have learned so much post PhD. If I stayed attached to my accolades as a PhD I would not be able to succeed in my new business as a consultant. No doubt my research abilities and marketing knowledge are helpful, but I had to learn the new social media tools that are only beginning to be discussed in academia. We cannot bask in our past glory and need to continuously update our skills.

What are the changes in technology, your industry, your consumers, your competition, and in the economy that may require you to learn new skills? What do you do to update your skills?

Innovate: Related to the idea of updating our skills is the need to change our mindset and business paradigm. We may have done our work in a particular way, but the new environment may not support old working habits. We cannot continue to thrive as an employee or business if we are stuck to old thinking patters. Some suggestions to promote creativity:

1) Meditate – to break away from the mind oscillating between past and future to be more present and open to new opportunities. Watch Dr. Phillipe Goldin’s talk at Google on the effects of meditation on the brain leading to lower stress and higher creativity.

2) Try new activities – Research has shown that being exposed to new perspectives and disorienting experiences can push creativity. Try a new activity, or visit a new place, or event.

3) Observe yourself – When exposed to new ideas, do you automatically arrive at a conclusion or do you actually Listen. If you jump to conclusions, it probably means that you are acting based on past thinking patterns. At times like this breathe, and watch your thoughts. Allow new thoughts to emerge. Innovation is a way of being – if you are open to different perspectives, may not agree, but open to processing different points of view, you are likely to come up with novel ideas.

Are you innovative?

Your Efforts

In addition to having skills, efforts need to be driven by purpose, intensity, and hard work. If any one of the ingredients is missing you may not get the results you are looking for. There is nothing we cannot achieve if it skill is backed by purpose and accompanied by intensity and hard work. It is not going to be easy perhaps, and desired outcomes may not happen immediately, but you will start to feel right about it immediately – you will know.

Are you working with purpose, intensity, and giving it your 100%?

Inner Beliefs

If you are doing all of the above and more but still not finding results, then you need to reflect on your inner beliefs or hidden fears that may be limiting you from achieving the desired outcomes. Beliefs impact the life we create. This is not some wishy-washy fact but being supported by scientists, like Bruce Lipton, a cellular biologist. By changing beliefs I don’t mean just positive thinking – ‘oh its going to be a great day,’ but every cell of your body is screaming ‘its terrible, life sucks, I am doomed.’ Beliefs affect outcomes in many ways:

1) Impact our behavior – 90% of our communication is non verbal (Zaltman, a Harvard scholar). When you go for an interview and you say you can deliver the job or as a sales person you say this is the best product but inside you feel otherwise the other person knows

2) Not present to current opportunities - When we are caught up in our internal dramas from the past we are not present to the opportunities available to us. We speak about some people just being so lucky – how they were at the right place at the right time and got that job or made that sale. I believe we all are given similar opportunities the difference between the lucky and unlucky is that the lucky noticed the opportunities and went ahead while others did not even notice them because they were stuck in the past

You can read some suggestions that I made on discovering hidden beliefs and how to deal with hidden fears here.

Are you aware of your hidden beliefs that may be limiting your fullest experssion of higest potential?

Tools to Discover Your Digital Identity

2009-11-01T12:16:00.008-05:00

"Once we have connected with what we have to offer in terms of our skills & passions, then there will be people out there to receive as customers - we only need to connect with them"

Personal branding is about communicating who we are and what service we can provide in very clear ways. The purpose of this post is to list tools that you can use to check if you have a strong and meaningful online presence.

My approach to authentic personal branding includes three components:

1) Self awareness: Awareness of passions, skills, and experiences that make you unique.

2) Authentic differentiation: Clarify how you can use your personal strengths to solve problems in unique ways and different from everyone else doing what you do.

3) Effective communication: Once you have the first two figured out, then you have to find ways of communicating with customers in ways that are clear and consistent.

Here is a list of tools that I have found so far that can assist in gauging how you and your customers are faring in terms of building an online identity that is visible and what you want it to be:

1) Check your self on 123People.com: It is interesting to see all the information about your past and present that is there. This site does a good job of pulling out all the information that there is about you. A few things to take note of:

Are your pictures current?
Are your emails current?
Check your tag cloud and you can click on particular tags in the cloud to bring up info related to that term.
Overall what is showing up, is it conveying a meaningful and consistent picture of who you are?

2) The Online Identity Calculator is a very cool tool, which has you go through a couple of simple steps using google search and comes up with your online identity based on volume and relevance. The four categories along the two dimensions are Digitally Distinct, Digitally Dabbing, Digitally Dissed, and Digitally Disastrous.

3) If you use Twitter, the Twitter Grader is very interesting because it tells your grade based on criteria including number of followers, following, tweets, re-tweets, and the kind of people following you. It also ranks you in your location and has cool graphs to plot your progress on Twitter.

4) And then there is Identity Web 2.0 Applications and Tools that lists 35 different websites, literally, that can be used to build your online presence. I have used a few of them like TwitDir and PeekYou. I would love to hear from you if you have used any others on the list and what do they do.

5) What I also have my clients always do, is to look up their category of service in their area to see if their names or business show up in google search. For example, if you search for "marketing consultants Amherst, MA" my company's name iAM Business Consulting shows up. The idea, as if it is not obvious, is that if your potential clients are looking for a solution that you provide and they don't know about you then they will type in the problem or service for which they want a solution, so your company should show under those search words.

I would loooooove to learn from you, if you know of any tools to evaluate and even build strong personal brands.

Finding Inner Purpose and Writing an Authentic Mission Statement

2009-10-24T14:56:00.006-04:00

"More men fail through lack of purpose than through lack of talent"

- Billy Sunday

If you are clear about your inner purpose you can jump to step II right away. But if you are not clear about your purpose or need to revisit it, here are some steps to help you reflect on your past, present, and future as a guide to connecting with what is important to you and finding your inner purpose. Please also note that self awareness is a journey and you may find your purpose also changing as you get to know your self more. I have given suggestions for bringing self awareness as an ongoing process in my post what is missing in current discussions on personal branding.

This post describes an exercise, not in lieu of, but in addition to other practices for self awareness and purpose.

I Reflections on your past, present, and future to find inner purpose

The Past…

1) Make a list of activities you have participated in the past that you felt most inspired to do so at the time.

(Hint: Think about things you have done in the past, which made you push your comfort zone or extend yourself in ways that you normally do not and you were able to do this because you were inspired. These are activities that make you feel most energized and empowered. Inspiration here refers to an inner urge, belief, or drive and is not related to external motivations related to financial, social, or ego gains, even though the latter may be an outcome.)

2) List people who inspire you and what are the qualities in these people that inspire you.

(Hint: There are many inspiring people in this world but who inspires you tells a lot about what is meaningful to you. Specific traits and talents in these people are important to you because they reflect values that are important to you and are likely to be the ones that will influence your business practice.)

3) Think of the challenges in your life that have impacted you profoundly – what did you learn from those challenges?

(Hint: we learn most from challenging situations because it forces us to find new solutions to deal with them; they push our mental limits. Often the challenges have a recurring pattern because they are meant to teach us something of value that we can then share with others – what have you learned from your personal experiences that you would like to share with the world?)

The Present…

4) What are you naturally curious about?

(Hint: What are the things you enjoy learning about, what kind of documentaries do you enjoy, what kind of books do you read? Answers to these questions point to your natural inclinations and interests. Your ambitions can be influenced by external factors, but your natural curiosity is something inherent to you and it doesn’t lie.)

5) Make a list of things that you enjoy doing most. These could be related to your work or not.

(Hint: Be honest in describing what you enjoy doing with your time and resources. These could be activities completely unrelated to your current work. You could make a good livelihood out of activities you enjoy such as music, art, and cooking. But even if you did not pursue these activities as a career, a comparison across such activities will point to some underlying themes that reflect your inner purpose. For example, I love to read and learn about how the mind works, I love to help people find their purpose, I love to meditate, I love to create healthy and tasty foods, I enjoy finding solutions to unique business challenges, and I love my research. These activities do not seem to have much in common on the surface, but they involve creativity, mindfulness, self awareness, and problem solving and all of these feed into my work of inspiring purpose and finding profitable solutions that are mindful.)

6) What characteristics or traits do you love most about yourself?

(Hint: Ever so often we get intimidated by the accomplishments of others. At times like these, it is important to reconnect with what we love about ourselves and what we can uniquely bring to our work. Again, it is not important that these qualities do not seemingly relate with what we do at work. For example, you may be a nurturing mother, an adventurous cook, and innovative shopper. Now you can bring all those qualities of nurturing, adventure, and innovative thinking into your work Authentic entrepreneurs are integrated people and who you are at home and with your family is the same as who you are at work with your employees and customers.)

The Future…

7) What is the one change you would like to see in this world?

(Hint: What sort of things that you see or read about that make you angry, what is the change that you are most passionate about seeing in this world? The transformations that you want to see are opportunities for you to find your purpose.)

8) If money and any other limitations were not a problem, what work would you dedicate yourself to?

(Hint: Often we set artificial barriers to doing what we truly love. If you could imagine that none of these barriers exist and you are free to dedicate your life to doing one thing – what would it be?)

9) How do you want to be remembered?

(We postpone things that are important to us and before long it is too late. Use this time to reflect on what really matters. How do you want to be remembered as a partner, a parent, a friend, in your community, and as a human being? What difference did you make in the lives of others during your lifetime?)
Once you have answered these questions, highlight important terms and note them down. Look at the noted terms for patterns that reflect what is meaningful to you, what is unique about you, and what is your unique purpose. You are now ready to write your mission statement.

If there is anything that has helped you in finding your purpose or if you liked what you read, please leave a comment.

II Writing your mission statement

A good mission statement helps to build authentic communications with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. It provides a broad framework defining your purpose and values within which you run your business. It is particularly useful in challenging times as a reminder for what the business stands for so people don’t lose sight of what is important. It also provides a unified focus for all members in the organization to move towards a common goal. Communicating your mission statement clearly will help in attracting the right kind of people as your customers, employees, suppliers, and other collaborators.

In order to write down your mission statement, refer to the list you created of terms that reflect what is meaningful to you, what is unique about you, and your unique purpose. Use that list as a guide to write your mission statement. An authentic mission statement has five parts:

1) Your core purpose - the overall mission
2) How will you achieve your purpose - your products and services
3) Who will you benefit - your target market
4) How will you benefit them - specific benefits you provide
5) What is unique about you - your core competencies that make you unique

For a good example see Ben and Jerry’s comprehensive tripartite mission statement including social, product, and economic missions. For a more detailed example, I would like to use the mission statement that I am more intimately informed about because I wrote it for my consulting firm. The mission for iAM Business Consulting reads as follows:

The mission of iAM Business Consulting is to inspire people to recognize their highest potential and give it expression in ways that are meaningful, profitable, and enjoyable (1). We aspire to make innovative marketing and mindfulness tools accessible to all individuals, who may be self-employed or employees (3), so that they can build strong personal brands and market their unique potential in authentic ways (4). Our personal branding services emphasize self-awareness, authentic differentiation, and effective communication using traditional and innovative tools like social networks and social media (4).

Our workshops and consulting services (2) are founded on a combination of research in business, science, and mindfulness to provide new ways of thinking about business challenges (5). While we provide marketing solutions to navigate the external environment successfully, we also promote mindfulness to move with ease and grace in all aspects of our lives (5). We are interested in empowering individuals to live their highest potential (4).

In writing the mission statement, I addressed all five points that are necessary for an authentic and clear communication.

(1) Clearly, the over all purpose is to inspire people to find their purpose and express the purpose profitably.

(2) The specific products include consultancy and workshops.

(3) The target market comprises individuals who may be self-employed or employed in an organization.

(4) The specific benefits to the target market focus on building strong personal brands and marketing their unique potential in authentic ways. Our personal branding services emphasize self-awareness, authentic differentiation, and effective communication using traditional and innovative tools like social networks and social media. We empower individuals to live their highest potential.

(5) And our core competencies comprise an integrated approach founded on a combination of research in business, science, and mindfulness to provide new ways of thinking about business challenges While we provide marketing solutions to navigate the external environment successfully, we also promote mindfulness to move with ease and grace in all aspects of our lives.

What is missing in current discussions on authentic personal branding?

2009-10-16T16:22:00.020-04:00

In my recent tweeting past I have been reading so much about personal branding and there is much value in what is being said and taught in these forums. Yet, as I read some of this work, I have a strong feeling that something is missing in this discussion. The purpose of this posting is to reflect on what is missing in popular personal branding forums.

Many people have written about personal branding. The credit of spawning the personal branding movement perhaps goes to Tom Peters, who wrote in a famous article in Fast Company in 1997, “We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called 'You.'" Another contributor to this stream is Catherine Kaputa, author of the famous book, “U R a Brand!” and more recently articles like, “Top 10 Ways to Use Your Female Advantage in Business.”

Two speakers that I have been following on this subject in twittersphere are Hubert Rampershad and Dan Schwabel. While there is an overlap in their message, they do have unique personal brands. I love Hubert’s emphasis on authenticity and expressing the inner genius that each of us has. Hubert teaches social media for personal branding, yet his own tweets are repeats promoting his books or his workshops and lack originality and the spark, in my opinion. On the other hand, you have to love Dan for the activity he is generating around his Blogs, videos, and engaging people with social media. Dan speaks to authenticity but his focus, in building a personal brand is slightly different from Hubert's. His definition, “Personal branding is the process of how we market ourselves to others.” speaks to his emphasis on identifying and articulating your “unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal.”

So many tweets and blog posts about personal branding – what is missing in this stream of thoughts and voices? Even though personal branding is about authentic expression of your inner genius, why is the discussion dominated by managing external expression. Even posts dedicated to expressing our “real selves” describe superficial strategies that appear to be a forced attempt at being unique and different. For example, the post, “Break Out of the Social Media Prison,” on Dan’s Personal Branding Blog, is an attempt to get people to be their “real selves.” Let’s look at the author’s suggestions to be our authentic selves:

1) “ONLY leave a comment on a blog IF you completely disagree with the author’s point of view.” So we are talking about being real, but to be “real” we need to comment only when we disagree? What if I agree and love what the person is saying – would I be more real by acknowledging my appreciation or by not commenting so I can be unique?

2) “Go through your Facebook and Twitter profiles, and un-friend/unfollow people who you are not close friends with.” The author find this very liberating and good for him. But does it mean that everyone in order to be “real” needs to follow him? No, we all go to social media sites for different reasons, to learn, to share, to grow, and we can do all that without being “intimate” with each other.

3) “Find a topic in your niche that is HOT. Find one that is very biased towards one side of the argument and write a post arguing for the other side. It doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with the other point of view, as long as your argument is well thought out, coherent, and makes people want to debate with you. You’ll not only stir up a great conversation online with your post, but you’ll drive more traffic to your blog and gain a new readership.” Notice that the purpose of the post was to bring out the “real” self in readers and we end up with suggestions to increase readership by writing a controversial post that we may not necessarily agree with as long as it is coherent.

I do not mean to pick on this one post, there are ample examples with other leading writers on the subject who I am sure are also writing with good intentions, but I am amazed at the superficiality and even obvious contradictions in these writings. For another example, please also read, “Top 10 Ways to Use Your Female Advantage in Business” by Catehrine Kaputa.

If indeed personal branding is about clear articulation and expression of our unique selves, where is the discussion about the “self”? Who are you? And how do you get to know the real you? How do you go beyond what these Blogs, your parents, society, or anyone has every told you about you? Even if your personal brand is an expression of service and compassion to the world, how do you know that is who you really are or was that also a desirable identity imposed upon you? There are many blog posts, books, and workshops on using social media and technology to create a consistent brand identity, an impressive identity, and all of these things have their place, they are important tools, but what about the “unique you” that is dying to speak but has been thwarted by all the voices of personal branding gurus telling you how to be and what to say?

I meet people everyday who have something very unique to offer not only because of the natural gifts they were born with, but also the unique life experiences that have taught them many valuable lessons. I believe each of us has something very unique to offer but very often that gets hidden under many layers of conditioning, fears, and expectations. If we jump to a well-articulated and coherent expression of our personal brand without internal reflection of who we are, will we not be depriving ourselves of living our highest potential and a truly remarkable life?

There seems to be such a focus on our external worlds and appearances within these discussions. Reaching for our goals, a constant strife to get somewhere other than where we are right now is what we are taught. While goals are important and hard work is also important, after 40 years of an amazing life, which includes an amazing family, challenges, several academic qualifications including PhD, and professional success, I am realizing what is most important is self-awareness. As I have learnt to get more in touch with who I really am and get rid of who I am not, I am finding myself more peaceful and energized. I am learning that my inner world is creating my outer world. As I gain clarity internally I am able to more clearly manifest my external reality, not by doing, of course there is doing involved, but that doing is a natural outcome of who I am. I don’t mean to get philosophical on you but am speaking from a very practical, and even scientific perspective. If you are not familiar with the work of scientists like Bruce Lipton, I encourage you to do so because they are now showing scientifically how our inner worlds are shaping our outer worlds.

Suggestions to find Self and Purpose

Well, I hope to blog more about personal branding from this perspective of authenticity and mindfulness. In the meanwhile, I would like to leave you with some suggestions and invite suggestions from you as well, with respect to the important step in personal branding about finding your self. I understand this is a journey and not a destination. That being said, here are some ideas for your journey of self discovery:

1) Ignore everything I just said and everything else you have ever read about personal branding and listen to your own self – who are you? Not who you want to be, not what you want others to see, but who you are you?

2) I offer some suggestions to tap into your inner purpose in an exercise I have written about elsewhere. You are welcome to try that. Doing all the steps in that exercise should surface themes that are important to you in your life.

3) Devote some time (I like to spend at least 30 minutes) every day to being with your self alone – use this time to connect with your self through breathing, walking mindfully, sitting in nature, or anything else that preferably doesn’t involve much doing, but just being.

4) Devote some time to doing things that you love – could be cooking, dancing, sports, etc.

5) Try to bring some new activities in your life in the form of doing something new, or reading, or traveling to new places, or even doing the same thing but more mindfully this time.

6) Join a group that is built around mindfulness or study of the self. Being in the company of people interested in the topic will open up new doors for you to view the world and your self differently.

7) Non-judgmental acceptance and loving your self – We often hide away parts of our selves that are not perceived to be desirable by some standards. Being mindful of how we feel, listening to our body, and thoughts, without judging, just observing can be a powerful teacher about our selves. Next time you feel angry or have any negative emotion, do not rush to hide it, move to a quiet place and stay with your thoughts, simply observing and see what happens when you become the observer of your own thoughts.

These are some of the things I do to find myself a little more each day so I can express myself in ways that serve my highest purpose in authentic and mindful ways. This is my first post inspired to write about the missing element in our discussions on personal branding and I am sure there will be more thoughts about this in the future...

I would also love to hear what you do to find your authentic self....

Word Cloud for Mindful Marketers

2009-10-01T00:00:00.003-04:00

This is the word cloud for the Mindful Marketers Blog. You can create your own at:
http://www.wordle.net/create

Integrating Social Media into your Marketing Plan

2009-09-17T14:30:00.004-04:00

Many people are using social media tools without clearly understanding why it is important and how it contributes to the overall marketing strategy of the organization. This article lists seven questions you need to ask when developing your social media strategy. You can use social media to convey your authentic voice and build authentic relationships, if the social media strategy is integrated with your marketing strategy.

Social media can be defined as all Internet and web based technologies that allow mass scale communications among people. As oppose to broadcasts that went from one to many, this reflects a many to many format where there can be a dialog among many people. Social media (SM) is definitely not a fad and is here to stay. Especially, if you are a non-profit or a small business with a purpose, SM can be used very effectively to mobilize your cause, volunteers, and even funds to support your work.

You can continue to create ripples by engaging people in online communities. But many people are using it because everyone else is using it. Even though social media can be a powerful tool, it can also be a waste of resources and ineffective if not integrated into the over all marketing strategy. Here is a list of questions that are helpful when developing your social media strategy.

1) What is the organization’s purpose?
Every marketing plan needs to start with the company's main purpose or the corporate mission. If you do not have a clear purpose or corporate mission, there is a lot written on the subject, including suggestions in my article - translating inner purpose into a mission statement.

2) What is the purpose of Social Media?
The next question to ask is how SM can further the organization’s goals? What are the specific goals and objectives of the SM plan in order to support the overall company plan? Goals refer to the broader purpose of SM, which is typically ongoing and cannot be measured. Objectives are the measurable and specific outcomes you would like to achieve within the specified period.

You can define several goals that are consistent with the corporate mission. For example, MotherWoman, a non profit with the mission of empowering mothers to bring positive personal and social change, can use SM to create a social network to support mothers by sharing experiences, resources, and information to empower mothers and build a strong social presence using social media tools. Another goal can be to stay informed about changes in the environments in terms of new grants, new technologies, new research, etc.

The more specific objectives can be to connect with specific number of mothers during specified periods who can benefit from this program, to connect with new donors, increase website and Blog traffic, increase participation of workshop mothers in online sharing, etc.

3) How will Social Media reach its goals?

I recommend what I call the L.I.P. Approach - Listen, Inform, and Participate.
a. Listen: Social media is a powerful tool because it allows a dialog among many people. An essential aspect of dialog is listening. While traditional market research methods like focus groups, surveys, and interviews are still important ways to listen, a more active and continuous form of listening is possible using social media tools like Google Alerts, Facebook, and Twitter. You can now listen to what your customers are saying, people who believe in your cause are saying, learn from other organizations, and learn about changes in your environment. Make a list of people and organizations as well as topics of interest that you should be following and then figure out the channels you will use to follow.

b. Inform: The second powerful use of social media is with respect to informing the relevant stakeholders – like your benefactors, donors, and other organizations – about your services, ideas, and beliefs. Instead of paying millions of dollars to celebrities who have no interest in your product, to be in a ad that is very often blocked out by people, you can now speak from a place of passion and authenticity to people who care. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and YouTube are becoming very popular to get your message across to people in fun, creative, and yet meaningful ways. Make a list of things you need to get across to the relevant audiences, such as events, new service announcements, any media coverage, new ideas, and volunteering opportunities. And then identify the right channels to communicate the same. This will involve decisions like should you use Facebook Pages or Facebook Groups. Should you be on LinkedIn or MySpace or both?

c. Participate: The third aspect of a good SM plan is to create effective ways to participate. An important aspect of dialog is to reciprocate. If you find an interesting Blog, make comments. If you find an interesting Tweet, make sure to Re-tweet giving credit to the original tweeter. These are ways of recognizing and appreciating the contribution of people in your social network.

4) To whom is it targeted?
The choice of social media channels will depend upon where you think your target audience will be. Where do you think your customers go to connect or learn about the kind of product or service that you provide? Your choice of social media channels will depend upon where you can find potential donors, benefactors/customers, collaborators, and information to help you move towards your goals.

5) Who is responsible for implementing your Social Media strategy?
SM is time consuming but it can be integrated into your marketing strategy in a way that it feels more organic and natural to the people involved. While they may be one person overseeing SM, there are ways to integrate other employees, guest bloggers, customers, community members, and other people passionate about the product, cause, or service that your organization is promoting. Just ensure that you have clear rules around who and in what way each person will be involved.

6. Measuring impact periodically
The good news about many of the social media tools is that you can track some aspects of the impact you are making very easily. For example, in quantitative terms Twitter gives you statistics related to your Tweets on certain applications; Facebook pages gives you statistics; and the sheer number of followers and fans helps to some degree in telling about the response to your efforts. Some applications like stats counter can be added to Blogs to assess visitors. It is good to pay attention to the qualitative data related to your organization in terms of what people are saying about you. Over longer periods of time you can correlate the increase in SM statistics with increase in sales and traffic to better understand which channel is most productive for your goals. Very often, it is a combination of SM tools that will promote your goals and it may be hard to separate the effects of each.

7. What is the opportunity cost?
SM does take time and perhaps money away from what you could be doing with those resources instead. Make sure that your benefits in the long run exceed your costs before adopting a social media strategy. The key is to think long term.

Is Embracing Diversity In Spaghetti Sauce "The Surer Way To True Happiness"?

2009-07-26T00:49:00.002-04:00

This post is my initial reaction to a Ted's video featuring Malcolm Gladwell that I have posted on website.

In this talk, Malcolm Gladwell, author of the Tipping Point and Blink, acknowledges Howard Maskowitz for his contributions to business and to consumers. Howard Maskowitz was hired in the 80’s by Campbell to help with Prego, which was struggling against Ragu, the top brand in spaghetti sauce at the time. His market research revealed that there is no one best kind of product and instead the company needs to cluster their customers to understand what product will satisfy each group. Based on his advice Prego came up with the first extra chunky spaghetti sauce, which was an instant success and over the next 10 years they made over 600 million dollars selling super chunky spaghetti sauce.

“And that’s when you started getting seven different kinds of vinegar, and 14 different kinds of mustard, and 71 different kinds of olive oil…That’s Howard’s doing. That is Howard’s gift to the American people.” And from diversity in product offerings, Gladwell jumps to embracing diversity in people as a sure way to happiness. His whole talk at Ted’s is about variety in spaghetti sauce and all the products we find in the super market today to meet consumers’ diverse needs and that he believes is what will make people happy? It is not about the artificial ingredients and genetically modified ingredients put in the sauce to make it appealing to a particular cluster but it is about providing choice and doing what ever it takes to make your customer happy, in the short run at least. Because we all know in the long run, it takes more than spaghetti sauce made with artificial ingredients to keep you healthy and therfore happy.

Indeed, Howard had some remarkable insights about how consumers’ responses in surveys can be misleading. And yes, consumers can be clustered according to their preferences. But is the best we can do and talk about is how to sell more spaghetti sauce? Why do the innovators and great minds not use their insights to improve consumer health and well being? For example, how can we cluster people to make mindfulness practices more appealing? How can we ensure that the products we offer cater to the health of the customers and the environment? What kind of innovations in the distribution system can ensure that there is more equitable distribution so that both waste and scarcity are eliminated?

How can we use innovations in marketing to improve not only your business but also the well being of your customers, employees, suppliers, and the environment? I believe there is a way…

Do or die: Why you should learn the new social media technologies

2009-07-18T17:44:00.003-04:00

I posted a new video on my website and you can watch it by clicking here.

This video provides some powerful uses of social media in the context of bringing awareness to issues that would have eluded us in the absence of these powerful new technologies. If you are a business with a purpose, you are very lucky to be operating in an environment that has so many opportunities for you to reach out to your target audience with your authentic content on a very small budget.

It may be intimidating to try these new technologies or we may pledge that we are too busy. Yet it is important to note the resistence you have towards these new opportunities, because you may be using the same mindset of resistence to view other opportunities that surround you, but you miss them because of a closed mindset. On the other extreme you may be so excited about all these new technologies that you lose perspective of how they integrate with your overall purpose. Using these technologies without authentic content that is meaningful to your desired audience is a waste of time for everybody.

Stay open, learn, and then decide how to use these technologies mindfully to deliver content that is authentic and meaningful to your target audience.

Are You An Authentic Entrepreneur?

2009-07-09T12:01:00.002-04:00

"The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of man, is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happiness"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Finding and living in alignment with the inner purpose is the foundation for fulfilling your outer purpose. It is the basis for true success. Without that alignment, you can still achieve certain things through effort, struggle, determination and sheer hard work or cunning. But there is no joy in such an endeavor, and it invariably ends in some form of suffering".
- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

"Think of your life as a house, with a bedroom for your personal life, a study for your professional life, a family room for your family, and a living room to share with your friends. Can you knock down the walls between these rooms and be the same person in each of them?"
- Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, and Diana Mayer, Harvard Business Review

Living in alignment with your purpose is something that has been discussed by philosophers in the past and spiritual teachers today. Interestingly, this ideal is finding its way in business as well. Many successful entrepreneurs like Bill George (former CEO of Medtronics), Tami Simon (Founder of Sounds True), and John Mackie (CEO of Whole Foods) are beginning to describe an emerging business paradigm that is known by different names including authentic leadership, integral business, conscious capitalism, and mindful marketing.

What these emerging business models have in common is the idea of running a business that is inspired by a higher purpose that goes beyond making profits. While profits are necessary for business, they are not the raison d’être, just like food is necessary for humans to survive but is not the reason for living or at least that would be the hope. These alternative paradigms are becoming more relevant in the face of changing consumer sensibilities, new technologies, and failures of traditional business models based on the narrow vision of maximizing shareholder value.

So, what is purpose driven or authentic leadership? Heppner and Kernis (2007) provide a comprehensive definition of "authentic functioning as involving four distinct, yet interrelated components: awareness and knowledge of one’s self-aspects, unbiased processing of evaluative information, behavior that is aligned with one’s true self, and a relational orientation with close others that fosters openness and connectivity." Many of these components reflect ongoing activities rather than characteristic traits that can be acquired once and for all. For example, awareness of self is a continuous process of reflection and contemplation on the self; to be aligned with true self assumes that true self is knowable in one go and permanent, but in fact we know that just like everything else, self is ever changing and so is our knowledge of the self. As such, it is more constructive to think of authentic functioning as a process rather than a stable trait.

Authentic or purpose driven entrepreneurship includes other processes that are unique to the business context. In addition to the processes described under general authentic functioning, authentic entrepreneurs are driven by a higher purpose that contributes positively to the world. In addition, they are courageous, committed, and creative; open; and enjoy the many challenges of being authentic entrepreneurs. Each of these aspects of authentic entrepreneurs is described next:

1) Inspired
Authentic entrepreneurs are inspired by a purpose beyond profits. Inspiration is different from motivation. While motivation is driven by external factors like financial and social benefits, inspiration arises from individuals’ unique life experiences and passions. In a recent Harvard Business Review article Bill George and his colleagues describe the inspiration authentic leaders derive from their life stories and the transformative role of challenges in their lives. Inspired people are energized and empowered to do things that normally people are not able to accomplish. Dr. Larry Brilliant, epidemiologist, successful entrepreneur, technologist, author, philanthropist, and former executive director of Google.org, is a perfect example of an inspired leader. Because only an inspired person can spend six years traversing India, enduring floods and drought, sickness and fatigue to help the WHO eradicate small pox from this world.

What is your inspired purpose?
(Here is a post to help you reflect on your inner purpose if you need additional help)

2) Positive Contribution
An authentic entrepreneur is inspired by a higher purpose that makes a positive contribution to the world. John Mackie describes conscious businesses as benefiting all stakeholders rather than only shareholders. This does not mean that businesses in certain sectors like fashion or entertainment cannot make a positive contribution. For example, Bonnie Siefers, an eco-designer and owner of Sami Designs Inc. is inspired by her love for fashion and the environment. She designs and sources clothes that are environmentally friendly, cutting-edge, and providing fair wages to workers.

What is your positive contribution?

3) Integrated
The values and purpose guiding authentic entrepreneurs are not merely strategies to win a loyal customer following but are their natural way of being. Such people live their talk not only at work but also in their personal lives. It is easy for customers to assess when the values of authentic leaders are integrated fully into the company and when they are being used as a strategy. For example, when Starbucks says it is selling fair trade coffee, it refers to a small percentage of its entire coffee purchase (3.7% according to Organic Consumers Association) that is offered only once a week to its customers, where as when a company like Deans Beans says it is selling fair trade it means 100% of it’s purchase is fair trade because it is not a strategy but a well integrated value. Like Bill George et al, I believe life can be much simpler if we can be the same person in all aspects of our lives. Gandhi’s quote on happiness is relevant here: "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

How integrated are you across different aspects of your life?

4) Self awareness
"When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: self-awareness" (Bill George et al). While colleges and schools provide ample training in various skills and disciplines, they do not provide any training in self-awareness. However, many leading business people, like John Mackie (CEO of Whole Foods), Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia), Bill George (Former CEO of Medtronics), and Michael Rennie (McKinsey Managing Partner) are beginning to openly discuss the merits of practices like meditation and mindfulness. In addition, there is a lot of scientific research to provide evidence to support these practices. As an authentic entrepreneur managing your business mindfully and innovatively requires some time out of your daily routine to spend in silence to connect with your self and find your truth.

What do you do to get in touch with your self?

5) Courage, commitment, and creativity
Having a higher purpose is inspiring but can be challenging because there are many willing to take shortcuts that an authentic entrepreneur will not consider. Being an authentic entrepreneur is certainly not for the weak at heart. Neil Crofts (2005) has a very interesting quote in his book, Authentic Business, by Arthur Schopenhauer, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." If you are an authentic entrepreneur, be prepared to be challenged. You will need not only courage and commitment but also a huge dose of creativity to compete with others while balancing your purpose with profitability. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, provides a good example of an entrepreneur who followed his passion relentlessly for ten years without making a profit. Tim O'Reilly nicely captures this in a quote by Jeff Bezos, "There are a few prerequisites to inventing.... You have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to think long term. You have to be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time."

Are you courageous, committed, and creative?

6) Open and receptive
I love the quote by Gloria Steinem, "The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off." Authentic leaders are open to feedback - both positive and negative. They are humble enough to acknowledge mistakes and smart enough to recognize that there is much to be learned from them. The other dimension of being open is that they can deal with multiple perspectives and generally have wide-ranging experiences and expertise. This renders to their natural curiosity to learn and innovate.

How open are you to feedback and multiple perspectives?

7) Support teams and networks
Authentic leaders do not work alone but build effective networks by empowering people. Bill George et al describe support teams as necessary to authentic leadership. These should be mutually beneficial collaborations and include personal and professional relationships. Examples of such networks include family members, business groups sharing common purpose, and online network communities. They take years to build and the key to success is creating a platform for people to speak their minds honestly without fear of being judged.

Are you building strong support networks?

8) Enjoy
Last but not least, authentic entrepreneurs enjoy the journey as much as the destination. In fact, another way to know that you are following your inner purpose is by asking the question -

Do you really enjoy what you do?

References
Crofts, Neil (2005), "Authentic Business: How to Create and Run Your Perfect Business," Capstone

George, Bill, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, and Diana Mayer (2007), "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership," Harvard Business Review.

Heppner, Whitney L and Michael H. Kernis (2007), "Quiet Ego" Functioning: The Complementary Roles of Mindfulness, Authenticity, and Secure High Self-Esteem
Psychological Inquiry: An International Journal for the Advancement of Psychological Theory, 1532-7965, Volume 18, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 248 - 251

The Meeting of The Walmarts, The Whole Foods, And The CSA’s Of Academia:Transformative Consumer Research Shapes New Paradigm

2009-07-01T07:48:00.015-04:00

TCR: The Health Track

Be Do and Let Go

Driving back from the second Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) Conference at Villanova University, still buzzing with the excitement of a new paradigm that is emerging in marketing academia, I felt that the conference was like a meeting of the Walmarts, the Whole Foods, and the CSA’s of marketing academia. Before I explain what I mean by that I want to commend the leadership behind this conference for stimulating a new vision for consumer research. The conference brought together consumer researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds with the purpose of stimulating research and actions to alleviate the most pressing social and economic problems around the world. The sponsors of the conference, the Halloran Philanthropies and BeDo, posed three questions to the researchers:

1) Where are you now?
2) Where do you want to go?
3) How will you get there?

In the spirit of the questions posed by the sponsors, I am writing my thoughts to provoke readers to reflect on the following questions:

1) Who are you?
2) What impact do you have on this world?
3) What impact would you like to have on this world?
4) How will you have the desired impact on this world?

The purpose of writing this is to inspire self-reflection as researchers and the stimulation of a new marketing paradigm that is consistent with the purpose of TCR and Halloran Philanthropies of building “the world we all want.”

This conference to me was transformational because for the first time it brought together such a diverse group of people to engage in a dialog to better the world. Most marketing conferences are brief one-way presentations of a research project, followed by quick transitions in small clusters to bars for drinking. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against drinking, but I have always missed the two-way dialog between researchers passionate about a project that impacts the world in positive ways. The second unique feature in this conference was the bringing together of people who are doing similar purpose-driven work but would not have met in conventional conference style settings. Please also read what Craig Lefebvre, a colleague at the conference, also wrote to this effect.

Speaking of diversity, I use Walmarts, Whole Foods, and CSAs as metaphors to reflect the diversity among consumer researchers with respect to their purpose, research output, and impact in the real world. I use the metaphor of Walmarts to represent the high turnover but low impact researchers; In the Whole Foods,’ category, I include the academics who have created a balance between turnover and research that is meaningful, but is exclusive and limited to niche areas; And then there are the CSA’s, which metaphorically represents researchers who have high impact through meaningful research and high involvement in the classroom, but low turnover. I do not intend to see these as mutually exclusive categories but allowing for overlaps. There are advantages and disadvantages to each group and the TCR promises a new mindset that integrates the benefits of each group without the limitations. Each of these groups and the integrated paradigm are discussed next.

Wal-Mart Goes Green

The TCR conference drew many consumer researchers with impressive resumes including a long list of articles published in top marketing journals. This group of researchers comprised well-trained researchers trained by other well-trained researchers who have learned the skills and procedures for turning around research articles expeditiously, mostly using experimental design. Are these research articles read by anyone other than the elite circle of researchers themselves and whether they impact the world in any way are questions that may not be of interest to this group, as I discovered in my conversations with some of them. And if their work is not guided by the desire to make a difference, I wondered about their motivation to be at the conference. My conversations with some of my colleagues in this group reminded me of Wal-Mart’s growing interest in green and organic product lines. Certainly, when a retailer as big as Wal-Mart turns its attention to green and organic offerings, it has wide spread implications. This will force many big suppliers’ like Kellogg to create new organic lines and it will also bring down prices because of the economies in production and distribution afforded by Wal-Mart. Yet, as pointed out in a New York Times article, some organic food advocates fear that Wal-Mart is adopting organic product lines without embracing the principles underlying organic foods, which can have negative repercussions in the long run. For example, large-scale organic farmers will not use the crop-rotation practices of the small farms, hurting the fields and reducing the health benefits of organic food. Similarly, how the entry of consumer researchers into transformative research areas will impact academia and the world it seeks to change, without a change in their inner purpose and philosophical underpinnings of research and their role as academics, is something left to speculation.

Whole Foods No Longer Unique

With Wal-Mart’s entry into the organic array, Whole Foods is losing its unique positioning as a retailer of organic foods. Especially, in a recession Wal-Mart’s price advantage makes it more attractive. Whole Foods has been retaliating with cost-cutting initiatives and changing people’s perceptions that the store’s nickname shouldn’t be “whole check” (Business Week 2009). This phenomenon can be transferred to consumer research metaphorically to reflect an increasing focus in areas of research that are beneficial to society and are no longer niche areas. This has drawn more good researchers into public policy areas, which has improved the standards of research as reflected in journals like Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. So far policy researchers had been doing a good job of creating a balance between research that is meaningful and the quality of work, but with more people entering this area, there are more people with higher research standards and how the traditional policy researchers will defend their area of expertise remains to be seen.

What is a CSA anyway?

CSA stands for community supported agriculture. Over the last 20 years, CSA has become a popular way for consumers to buy local, seasonal food directly from the farmer. It typically involves an arrangement in which consumers pay the farmer in advance for their share in the produce which is harvested once a week for pick up during the season. A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune (2009) cites food activist Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, as saying, “We need more highly skilled small farmers in more places all across America - not as a matter of nostalgia for the agrarian past, but as a matter of national security.” I see a need for more consumer researchers passionate about making a difference in the world. Like CSA’s, these researchers work in complete harmony with their values, which are consistent and fully integrated with who they are. Their work is an outer manifestation of who are inside. They use a mindful approach, which is an authentic expression of who they are and not a strategy to get publications, and as such reflects in all aspects of their life. A potential shortcoming of this approach is that such researchers often work alone because it was hard to find other researchers who are equally impassioned by the same social cause. In the past, these researchers have encountered more challenges in publishing in the main marketing journals, because of they lack managerial implications, but this is changing rapidly.

Transformative Consumer Research: A New Paradigm in Marketing Academia

I believe this is a good time in history to stop and look at ourselves as academics – are you a Wal-Mart, a Whole Foods, or a CSA? As a Wal-Mart you have a lot to be proud of in terms of the sophistication and skills acquired to carry out research efficiently. But can these be used effectively to create the world we want without changing our inner worlds? As a CSA, your inner worlds are in complete alignment with the vision of a new equitable world, but alone it is hard to make a difference at the level we want. As a Whole Food you can only push your boundaries so far in doing research that is meaningful but in niche areas that cannot change the world at large. Each one of these groups has unique strengths and limitations.

What is needed is a new paradigm that combines the strengths of each group and this is possible through innovative thinking and a new mindset. A good example in the real world is that of Equal Exchange which has revolutionized the way coffee is traded. It has demonstrated through effective partnerships with farmer cooperatives that business can be profitable, equitable, and sustainable. The TCR initiative is a step in the right direction in that it has brought together the Wal-Marts, the Whole Foods, and the CSA’s to collaborate in ways that were not imagined earlier. Through dialog, common ground was shaped to take the first steps in using research skills and strengths of each group to move forward together towards a more equitable world for all.

My vision of transformative consumer research involves effective collaborations of diverse groups of researchers and non-researchers who are inspired to change the world. Such collaborative work will change the world through innovative research, education to spark wisdom and not mere knowledge (Also see David Mick), and effective implementation of the research in the real world. The new paradigm will be defined by passion, purpose, transparency, and innovation.

What is your vision of transformative consumer research?

Please take a few seconds to answer the poll questions who are you today and who would you like to be in the future. A quick reminder, Wal-Marts are those aspiring high turnover in good journals and not interested in impact; Whole Foods aspire a balance between turnover and meaningful research; CSAs have impact on society and meaningful research as the highest priority.
The poll can be found on the right side of the page when you scroll up to the title.

What does mindfulness have to do with business?

2009-06-29T22:36:00.010-04:00

In a society where doing is the mantra, stillness of the mind is a concept that still means to many anything from waste of time to a new age ideology. However, there is a growing body of research in business and scientific disciplines that is revealing the benefits of stilling the mind through practices like mindfulness. The rapid changes in the business environment and consumer culture are pushing companies towards new ways of marketing that are authentic and meaningful. I believe that mindfulness, which as a trait and practice has already shown to have many benefits in psychological domains, can also be useful in a business setting. In this posting, I discuss how mindfulness can help you in your business.

As a multidimensional construct, mindfulness includes observing, describing, acting with awareness, and accepting without judgment (Baer et al 2004). Let us see how each of these qualities can be useful in a business context.

Observing: This refers to being aware of what’s happening inside us and in our external environment. In the absence of stillness, our minds are racing. It is like looking out of a car window – do you notice the scenery better out of a still car or out of car driving at high speed? When the mind is still, you can be more cognizant of what is happening inside of you and make a note of the changes in your environment. As a businessperson, you have many responsibilities to get stuff done. But it is equally important to stop and look – really look at your customers, look at your competition, look at the changes in technology, your environment. In the second step of mindful marketing, I talked about learning from your environment. But to really learn from the environment, you have to first stop, and observe.

Acting with awareness: This refers to taking action with hundred percent attention and focus. It is the nature of the mind to be in the past or the future. Very rarely are we right here, right now. Are you fully here as you read this, or are you also thinking of what you need to do next along with any number of other thoughts? If our mind is oscillating between the past and the future, what we are doing right now does not have our full attention. This has many ramifications on our work and well-being. Most people go about their days and lives doing jobs with their minds busy doing its own thing. This reflects in the quality of job done but is also a cause of disillusionment, detachment, and stress related with our work. If we could do what ever it is we are doing right now with hundred percent attention and love, our work becomes worship, a joy. This mental state of operating where the person is fully immersed in the task at hand, has also been discussed as flow, a concept made popular by Csíkszentmihályi.

Accepting without judgment: This refers to a non-judgmental evaluation of the present situation. This is a very important aspect of mindfulness that allows us to be open to what is. The nature of the mind is to judge. Even before we have fully experienced the situation we are judging because our past experiences have shaped our perceptions of how we view the world. This means we are not seeing what is as is, but based on our perception of what is. Many of our struggles stem from our judgment of a situation as negative, which causes resistance in our mind. As business people, we resist competition, we resist changes in customers’ preferences, we resist resistance in our employees, we resist new technologies, and we resist anything perceived as a threat to our comfort zone. For a minute can you drop this resistance and just accept what is – move the energy from the mind to the heart. How do you feel? From this place of acceptance and openness, approaching any situation, however challenging it may be, becomes an interesting and enjoyable activity.

Describing: This refers to the ability to articulate precisely what one is feeling or observing. This is an important trait for managers or leaders in dealing with diverse groups of people and difficult situations. Finding the right words to communicate in a challenging situation can be difficult, especially if the mind has its own dialog going on. A still mind is in touch with what is happening and can find the right words to communicate effectively in any situation.

How mindfulness has helped me in my work
Does it not seem most natural for business leaders to possess the above qualities of keen observation, acting with awareness, non-judgmental acceptance, and ability for accurate description? And the good news is that these qualities can be nurtured through mindfulness practices like meditation, breath work, tai-chi, and yoga. There is a lot of research on the benefits of mindfulness (and you can find some of it on my website). In this posting I am interested in sharing my personal experience and listen to your experience with mindfulness as a practice and its benefits to your work.

I have been practicing the Sudarshan Kriya, a special yogic breathing technique (Pranayama) developed by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a world-renowned humanitarian and spiritual teacher. This 25 minutes of rhythmic breathing stills the mind and allows me to go deeper into my meditation practice. Over a period of time I have found that my mind has slowed down so I don’t react to situations immediately based on old patterns but can pause, assess the situation, and choose my response to the situation. The space created through breathing allows new ideas to emerge. It has certainly increased my creativity and response-ability.

I will share some specific examples of how this way of being has influenced my work.
Open to challenges with equanimity: Starting a new business in a slow economy is challenging. I hear people tell me this all the time. But I have never looked at it this way. I am doing what I love and to achieve my goals I am open to learning from my environment. When I started out as a consultant to bring mindfulness in business, I thought I am doing something very unique but I soon discovered there are many people doing this very successfully and for much longer than I have been. Why should people consider me when there are many experts to choose from? This question can be intimidating but I chose to stay open to what the situation has to teach me, and indeed it did. It helped me to develop a more focused vision of what I want to do and what are the unique attributes I bring to my work. In addition, staying open has taught me so many different ways to move forward and build energy around my work. Approaching people, emails, Google, Blogging, and in so many other ways, I am continuing to learn and move forward, one step at a time. Staying open also presents possibilities of collaboration with others with a similar purpose.

Staying present to what is: As a consultant facilitating corporate workshops, I have to be present to really listen to what participants are saying and find solutions or be able to guide them how to find solutions. This requires 100% attention and non-judgment of my own abilities. It is easy for the mind to start racing in a challenging situation and trigger counter-productive thoughts such as, ‘I have no clue what is going on.” But returning to the breath brings me back to the present moment and stay with what is happening without any judgment. I stay open and I trust, and I have always found there is a solution, a very logical action that is the next step. Sometimes the answers don’t come right away and I am comfortable saying I don’t know the answer and need more time. Very often this is the case when I don’t have enough information, so I go back and dig out more information and in that the answer appears.

Creativity happens: some of my most insightful ideas come to me during my meditation, even though I am not looking for them in my meditation. But they just pop up – creativity happens – it is not my doing. I have found that when I cease to struggle with a problem, when I stop resisting the problem, it is very simple, the solution is right there. Very often in the face of a problem our old patterns kick in, but again, breathe and come back to what is happening now, and it is very obvious what the next step should be.

Clarity and end of resistance: Writing is an important part of my work as a researcher and consultant. When I joined the PhD program I came in with the assumption that I cannot write and writing was a struggle. Each sentence was constructed with so much effort, which is the opposite of how I feel today. Now, I love writing, and it just flows (most of the time). Over time I have discovered two things. One, writing is hard in the absence of clarity. If you are not clear in your head, what you write will reflect that confusion. Regular breathing and mindfulness through the day helps me stay clear and focused and writing from that clear place is easy. Second, I found that much of struggle was a result of my resistance to writing. Once I dropped the resistance and simply wrote, I found that I could write. As simple as that, stop fighting and just do what needs to be done. Moving from the mental fight to the accepting heart has made all aspects of my job a joy.

Align with true purpose: It is said that if you work in alignment with your true purpose, you will be supported. This statement may be hard to prove scientifically but I have found in my life over and over again, that when I work in alignment with my purpose I move forward much faster – new ideas will emerge, or people will show up, or situations will open up such that I can move in the direction of my goals faster.

These are just some of the ways mindfulness is helping me in my business.

What do you do to be more mindful? How has that helped you in your business?