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Entrepreneurship is no walk in the park. Long days (especially during transitional periods). Countless obstacles. Unfulfilled objectives. Unexpected challenges. The list goes on…

The typical entrepreneur begins alone. Everything is riding on you. That’s why we often see lists of desirable “entrepreneurial traits.” You know – dedicated, intelligent, hard-working, creative, effective, efficient, tireless, resourceful, etc. The list goes on.

But how are these folks made? Or, can they be made at all? In other words, what does it take to become an entrepreneur and how do you get there?

Entrepreneurship – Do You Qualify?
Personally, I’m split on this question: who does qualify? While I do think some individuals are “natural” entrepreneurs, I also believe that these traits and skills can be developed. In fact, I don’t think there is a single entrepreneur who couldn’t benefit from personal development.

In my view of entrepreneurship, I put personal growth first. Since you the individual are the backbone of your business, you must have your ducks all in a row. Or… you must be in the process of getting those ducks lined up.

Here’s my vision of the ideal personal-business development plan:

Begin with Self Improvement
Start with you. This should be obvious enough. If you can’t get up in the morning because of depression, anxiety, or illness, you’re not going to be ready to build a business. And you’re definitely not going to be successful.

I identify five key areas for personal growth for entrepreneurs. Look this list over carefully and identify your weakest area. Be honest. Then, get to work!

• Self Worth

No one is going to be an advocate for you. You’ve got to be your own cheerleader! It’s not uncommon for other people to criticize your efforts. There are tons of reasons for their negative outlook on your plan for success. But with a strong sense of self worth, purpose, and direction, the way other people see things will matter very little. I put this area first because it fuels the remaining four.

• Health & Fitness

The mind-body connection is a reality. Go to the gym. Start a diet. Spend less time sitting at the desk and more time walking around and meeting people. Health and fitness is a strong second here since you would be useless without it!

• Time Management

Time is your most precious resource. Entrepreneurs succeed or fail by their use of time. If you’re still working a day job, you’ll need to be especially efficient. Learning about and applying time management strategies in your personal life will also impact your business in these early stages.

• Stress & Emotions

There are tons of tools out there for handling inevitable stress and emotional turbulence. Meditation. Progressive relaxation. Entrepreneurs who are often hard-working and tireless by nature often push the envelope well beyond even their limits. But, of course, we all have limits. Some of my closest friends do a great job of reminding me to have fun and enjoy life now regardless of how much I accomplish in a day.

• Positive Frame-of-Mind

Stay focused on the best things happening. Businesses – especially new ones – have a way of creating consistent problems or challenges. Use The Law of Attraction, Intention-Manifestation, and Creative Visualization to maintain a positive, uplifted attitude regardless of what’s going on. Keep your eyes on the prize and smile through the rough spots.

Watch Your Business Grow
If you setup a plan for personal development success that focuses on even one of these key areas, you will see much greater results in your business efforts. Your purpose will become clear. Customers will come flocking. Profits will soar.

I firmly believe the number one key to success for entrepreneurs is sense of purpose. Usually, when entrepreneurs get started their highest motivator is something abstract – financial freedom, time freedom, greater happiness, independence, etc. These are excellent goals to have but too vague to bring results.

Begin with personal growth, and you’ll find greater clarity about what it is you want to do. Once you achieve clarity, it is easy to apply the necessary steps to take action and make things happen!

Entrepreneurship itself is a form of personal development. Your current day job could be a major obstacle to your future growth. The typical workplace environment can be unfulfilling, negative, and demoralizing for many of us. If the average employee spends 8 hours or more at work every weekday, he or she will be drained and dejected by the weekend with little enthusiasm left for enjoying life.

Get Started Today
If you’re already an entrepreneur, set a personal development goal. Choose one of the areas listed above and start reading books, listening to audio, and attending seminars.

If you’re considering starting a business, take time out to examine how prepared you are for the challenge. You might want to take a week – or even a month – to focus exclusively on the personal development work before moving forward. Again, this will help clarify your sense of purpose. It may seem like a loss of time upfront, but the investment will reap huge rewards later!

If you’ve never even considered entrepreneurship, consider it now. I don’t mean to suggest that owning your own business is necessary for personal growth. You can pursue self improvement outside of entrepreneurship. But owning a business could be a great carrot to motivate your personal development. Set a time-specific goal and think in terms of financial reward for improving your self. For example: I will spend one month enhancing my sense of self worth and life purpose. At the end of the month, I will begin developing my business, which will bring great financial reward.

Whatever your path, start working at this today. Set your goal and begin with something simple. I guarantee the effort will pay off!

Related Articles:

• 7 Ways to Overcome a Personal Development Slump
• Introduction to The Law of Attraction
• The Mindful Entrepreneur’s Journey – Part 1
• 7 Mindful Business Practices
• The Entrepreneur's "Declaration of Independence"
• Articles on Getting Started for Entrepreneurs
• What is a Mindful Entrepreneur?
• Time Management for Internet Entrepreneurs

In my recent article about how to stop smoking, I identified three key areas for rising above an addiction or bad habit: focus on what you want, change your identity, and prepare for setbacks.

When developing my outline for that article, I wondered if “Prepare for Setbacks” would be an appropriate section to include. The idea that setbacks will develop along the way might suggest inevitable failure. Such an outlook contradicts the idea behind creating your world the way you want it and attracting into your life only those things that bring great satisfaction.

Even still, when we are moving towards new goals it is inevitable that obstacles will develop between Point A and Point B if we see the “obstacles” as obstacles. When a personal growth plan is unsuccessful, obstacles take on a great deal of power and control over our intentions. When we are successful, our goals and objectives have control over reality and the obstacles take a backseat.

What is Your Reality?
The ideas I have been exploring lately through some profound writers and thinkers – The Law of Attraction, Subjective Reality, Personal Creation – point right to the heart of the problems many people experience when implementing change in their lives. The fundamental principle is that change begins on the inside. Perhaps the idea is cliché and overworked, but it really is that simple.

In my view, the problem often is not that we don’t understand the idea. The concept of “personal creation” is an integral part of virtually every world religion, belief system, and personal growth paradigm. We get it! Yet really making creation happen requires more than just “getting it.” It takes real implementation.

I like Dr. Wayne Dyer’s analogy about implementing change: If you want to learn how to swim, you can’t just sit around reading books and thinking about swimming all day! You must get into the water and make it happen.

And to take Dyer’s idea a step further… as you’re learning how to swim, you may very likely struggle in the water – that is, you may have setbacks. But, to answer the overarching question here, you will create exactly the kind of world you want by responding to these setbacks (either as part of the path towards change, or as frustrating signs of your failure).

How Do You Change Your Reality?
To return to my example on quitting smoking, you alone decide what the “setbacks” are. You create your own reality. If you focus on the obstacle and give it power over you, you will continue to attract the obstacle into your reality. You will create that. If you focus on the goal and give power to it, you will attract the goal into your reality.

By preparing for setbacks, you’re disarming them. You take the lead by communicating with yourself ahead of time and during the moment when they arise about what it is you really want. The setbacks will pop up and entertain your old vision of reality. Since you are already a creator, you have to take responsibility for the things already present in your reality.

These changes that you create will generate more power with time. Think of all the time you have spent in the past creating the world you see today. If you’re new to this way of seeing, you may be beginning only now to see things consciously and embracing your control. Making the move from powerless actor and responder to powerful director and creator will take time and will require adjustment. But once you begin to embrace the change, you’ll begin to see exactly the world you want.

A few weeks ago I updated the inspirational-message board that hangs on the inside of my front door. It now reads…

The brief outline serves as a reminder to invert my expectations about achieving or getting happiness. We almost always think of happiness as existing at a distant point beyond initial desires, intentions, and finally… manifestations. The irony, of course, is that such a model really prevents you from ever becoming happy since happiness is forever connected to some outcome or goal. (Even once you’ve reached the goal, another replaces it.)

I decided to really start implementing the “Happiness First” model of living life after a strange but uplifting encounter with an old friend. I was visiting my hometown about one month ago and decided to stop in at a café. Inside, I ran into the friend. We had a brief conversation before parting ways. On his way out the door, quite unexpectedly, he looked at me with a sense of directness and said,

Seems obvious enough, right? Most of us would agree that this simple statement contains profound truth. Yet, in this moment, I reached a new level of understanding about the meaning of “accept happiness now.” There are likely many more similar realizations to come.

Happiness and The Law of Attraction
Much of my writing in the last few weeks has attempted to explain and interpret The Law of Attraction and the intention-manifestation model. These are great tools for inviting positive change into your life partly because they help clarify dreams and partly because they offer a taste or preview of those dreams today. This last component, I believe, is essential.

As a recent visitor expressed in his comment, we must improve our lives and situations from a position of strength. In other words, we must be happy now if we expect to be happy later after achieving a goal or reaching an objective.

I’ve titled this article “Manifest Your Dreams Today” to point out the real power each of us has to create what we want right now – to be happy right now. This is what The Law of Attraction and intention-manifestation is really about: creating a link between the present moment and our future desires.

The classic example for intention-manifestation is a new car. Let’s suppose you want to manifest a new car into your life. That is your dream. If you want to manifest your dream today, you can do so at anytime. Of course, there’s always visualization: Sit back and visualize the car you really want to have. See yourself driving it, feeling good, and looking good. Really focus on the feeling the new car brings into your life.

You may very well wish to have a new car. That can be part of your dream(s). But, in my view, the thing you really want is the feeling the new car will bring - the happiness it will deliver into your life. A big part of this is also having a sense of control. By getting the new car and experiencing the positive feelings, you will feel a sense of control in your life - a satisfying and empowering place to be.

My question is - Why wait until the new car arrives to start feeling good? Why put yourself in a position where you’re always living at Point A and only allowing happiness to exist at Point B? In a discussion about this concept last night, my girlfriend made an excellent point: Why not conceive of a path in terms of Point A, B, and C – where A is your point of departure, B your current position, and C your destination. At least that model illustrates some process or consistent growth.

Manifest Your Dreams NOW
I would take this idea a step further and package all three of these “points” in the present moment… in the NOW. This allows for a greater degree of congruence between all three and is consistent with the true nature of time. After all, where lies the past and future but inside the present moment? It’s wonderful to look back on the past and make out a narrative of progress and growth that led you here, and then to look out on the future and project a similar narrative of progress and growth that will take you further ahead. But the point of departure is always NOW.

Take this concept with you into today. Acknowledge where you’ve come from. Look out onto the road ahead. But remember to live your dreams today. Be happy today. Make that choice NOW.

Tags:now law of attraction manifest intention dreams dream today

In the previous post, I gave an introduction to The Law of Attraction – what it is and how it relates to intention and manifestation.

For today’s entry, I’m offering a spin-off of Steven Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (which I’m currently re-reading on audio). I wanted to offer a step-by-step guide for putting The Law of Attraction into action in your daily life. While listening to Covey talk about the 7 key habits for effectiveness, it dawned on me that there are some important relationships between being “effective” and being “attractive.”

Covey’s book is one of my favorites in the personal development genre because the author focuses so much on changing character – really looking at who we are in terms of what we believe about ourselves and other people. Yet Covey’s viewpoint is geared mostly towards really pushing for change in your life. He argues that we should “be proactive” and “put first things first” to make things happen. Don’t get me wrong: I do think these are good ways to bring about change.

But when looking again at Covey’s suggestions for “effectiveness,” I couldn’t help but see how his ideas - with some adjusting - fit quite well within paradigm of “attraction.” I began to realize that habits for effective people appealed more to conscious effort. The more I come to understand the true meaning behind The Law of Attraction, the more it seems to have far more to do with unconscious alignment or harmony with natural forces. I’m not suggesting that attraction and effectiveness are opposites. I think there are key similarities. My approach here is simply to offer a new interpretation of Covey’s classic model in terms of The Law of Attraction.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Attractive People
1. Meditate
While Covey’s list begins with action, I’m beginning mine with nonaction. Meditation is the cornerstone of attraction because it aids in silencing the ego-mind and tuning into a wider range of consciousness.

To harmonize with The Law of Attraction, you can use meditation in a variety of ways:

• Quiet the mind to let go of disruptive & negative thought-patterns
• Focus on a particular intention you wish to manifest
• Tune into the present moment and accept your reality

I’ve practiced meditation for several years now, but only recently started integrating these last two methods. These meditations provide an ideal way to communicate with your unconscious mind, especially if used regularly. Most intentions seem to require unconscious manifestations (which explains why you can’t intend most things right now).

Even by simply practicing meditation to still the mind, you will see results. The more reign your ego has in your life, the harder it may be to get the things you *really* want. (How do you even know what you *really* want if your ego is always getting in the way?)

2. Visualize.
My second habit here matches up nicely with Covey’s “Begin with the end in mind.” Through creative visualization, you can actually bring the end (your intention) into the present moment with your mind.

Next to meditation, visualization is an indispensable life-changing tool. Think about it: when there’s something you want in your life that you don’t have the problem simply lies in your current intention-manifestation model. If you want a new car but you’re not manifesting one, there’s something wrong with your intention. In short, you and the new car are not properly aligned.

When you visualize yourself in the new car, driving the new car, and loving the new car, you send a clear message to your unconscious that positively reinforces the intention.

There’s also a simple psychological benefit here. Many of us want, wish, and desire day-after-day only to find that what we manifest doesn’t actually deliver happiness. When you practice visualization, you begin to get very clear about what it is you want. Every day you’ll probably find the intentions adjusting somewhat as you continue “seeing” the manifestation. I love the new car example, because creative visualization really is a chance to “test drive” your intentions.

3. Put your reality first.
When Steven Covey says “Put First Things First,” he really means make your life important. My spin on this is to put your entire subjective reality first. By doing this, it becomes quite easy to prioritize since your priorities are the only ones that matter.

This isn’t supposed to be a joke. I don’t mean treat everybody in a lousy way and just defer to “Hey, this is my reality, right?” Well, actually you are right. But if you’re treating everyone else like dirt, you’re essentially treating yourself like dirt. After all, you’re creating the negative world which will ultimately begin to make you feel unhappy.

Putting your reality first is a really difficult habit to integrate initially. Blaming, complaining, and finger-pointing are habits deeply ingrained in our culture. But it’s truly remarkable how much the world changes when you change the way you see it. I know this is a cliché self-help maxim, but there’s no better way to express it. Why let other people create your reality for you? Step up to the plate of life and start creating your own world. Make this a daily habit and I guarantee you’ll find waking up in the morning a joyous event!

4. Embrace abundance.
I’m a huge fan of Covey’s Win-Win paradigm. The first time I really acknowledged the possibility of win-win arrangements in life, I began to realize the true meaning of cooperation, interdependence, and abundance.

When I started looking at The Law of Attraction and considering its viability, I had to reconsider my own ideas about competition and success. Like a lot of people, I was harboring really negative win-lose ideas about money, health, and general happiness. We tend to categorize people into the Haves and the Have-Nots. Each of these groups then develops its own attitudes about the other thereby reinforcing the division.

When you start thinking win-win, you become invested in everyone’s success, not just your own. More often than not, when other people find success it truly benefits you even in subtle ways.

5. Believe in attraction.
If you really want The Law of Attraction to work in your life, you have to start attracting it. That is, you have to start by attracting the law in the first place.

However you view reality, that is exactly how reality will manifest into your world. It takes much effort and time to make a Copernican revolution happen, even just in your own mind but the results are staggering.

My suggestion for this habit is to put it into action everyday by suspending your disbelief. Try one month of altering your way of seeing and see how it works. Then, keep applying it every day from there on.

6. Integrate all elements.
With time, I believe habit 6 will happen naturally. But in the beginning, some effort is required. Meditation, visualization, attraction, and abundance will all integrate into your reality paradigm in a manner Covey calls “synergy.”

Essentially, synergy is what The Law of Attraction is all about – lining up your consciousness with the universe and creating harmony between them.

7. Expand consciousness.
Covey’s final recommendation for effectiveness is “Sharpen the Saw” – continue to develop, learn, grow, enhance. Of course, the same applies to intention-manifestation.

Specific approaches to expanding your consciousness will depend upon you. Lucid dreaming might be a good way to work on transforming your vision of everyday life. Exercising and/or changing your diet could help enhance awareness levels. So on and so forth. Anything that moves you beyond the standard ego cockpit experience and into a wider, deeper, higher, more focused level of mind.
Tags: law of attraction | intention manifestation | attraction

Several days ago I finally watched The Secret video online. This was easily one of the best 90-minute experiences of my life. I knew the feature film was going to be good but, frankly, I was stunned.

What is “The Secret”?
“The Secret” of course is The Law of Attraction – a unique metaphysical idea that’s been getting a lot of attention lately. The Law of Attraction is the mechanism behind intention-manifestation. According to this law, you manifest absolutely everything into your existence all the time regardless of your conscious effort.

In short, “ask and you shall receive.”

In this article, I want to explore the ideas behind The Law of Attraction and share my own current approaches to integrating this model of reality into my own life. I’m fairly new to this way of thinking but have already found it inspiring and really breathtaking at times. I have no interest in “selling” anyone on this idea (or any other idea for that matter) but simply hope you will consider this truly revolutionary framework with an open mind.

Many of you are familiar with my discussion on how to manifest money. Judging by the popularity of that article, there is a wide interest in these ideas: intention, manifestation, visualization, attraction, etc. Initially, what’s appealing about The Law of Attraction is the apparent ease with which one can manifest something desirable into his/her life. What appears “easy” about intention-manifestation is at both what attracts us to *and* makes us skeptical of The Law of Attraction.

Why does attraction challenge our “way of seeing”?
The typical modern human’s way of seeing the world is through a strong work ethic model. Even if you don’t consider yourself successful, your ideas about what you can get (or what you already have) are based on what you think you deserve. To further complicate things, many people still see the world as a win-lose arrangement. For one person to win, someone else must lose.

But The Law of Attraction does not create the world in these terms. Instead of seeing acquisition in terms of what you deserve, it looks at gain, growth, and progress in terms of congruence. Instead of a win-lose model of competition, attraction & manifestation exists within a win-win model of abundance and prosperity.

If there is one “secret” of The Law of Attraction, I would point to the first of these two important points: congruence. A number of synonyms come to mind for this concept of congruence: correspondence, agreement, equivalence, harmony, etc. The idea of congruence is especially important. You cannot manifest your intentions until you are in harmony with the intention and you have integrated The Law of Attraction into your way of interpreting reality.

For example, this morning I wanted to manifest iced tea into my reality. I focused on the tea, visualized receiving the tea, and repeated the manifestation mantra in my mind (“In a relaxed and healthy manner and for the good of the universe, I will manifest iced tea into my reality”). I wanted to complete my morning writing at a local café and imagined the manifestation occurring there when I arrived.

Through this process of intention-manifestation, I consciously intended to get the iced tea for free at the coffee shop (I like to think of it as a donation). At this particular café, I often get freebies from the employees I have come to know. But some of the employees are not always so generous. Of course, I never expect the free items and am always quite grateful when they do manifest. I do expect, however, that some will charge and others will not. I’m usually surprised when freebies manifest outside of this range of expectations.
Needless to say, on this particular morning the person I found at the register was not on my usual list of “generous employees.” Immediately my intention seemed impossible. Unconsciously – that is, despite my conscious intent to manifest – I had already decided that it was not likely to happen. As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I paid for the iced tea. It’s not that my intention was ineffective or that The Law of Attraction was proven wrong. I simply was not congruent with the intention and was not really embracing The Law of Attraction.

We need to be in harmony with the intention and the law through conscious awareness and effort, but we also need to accept the idea on a deeper, subconscious level if we hope to see real results. Really making this part of your worldview takes time and effort and an initial suspension of disbelief.

Personally, I’m quite new to this way of thinking but already find it eye-opening. Listening to Steve Pavlina’s thorough exploration of subjective reality, I began to realize just how powerful such a “way of seeing” could really be for individuals and for the world. I’m compelled to begin applying this view of reality in my life just to test the waters. Perhaps you’re in this same boat: you know a little bit about The Law of Attraction and intention-manifestation and you’re interested in trying it out. I don’t think there’s any better way to really explore this particular idea than to try it on.

Take off your old reality lens and try seeing things in this new light – even if just for 30 days. I’d love to hear the results. In my next post about The Law of Attraction, I’ll provide a “getting started guide” for beginners based on my experiences to date. If you have something to contribute, feel free to leave a comment here or contact me directly through the link above.

Tags: law of attraction | intention | manifest