Bpeace

Well, it’s really spelled B Peace, and it stands for Business Council for Peace. It’s an organization that helps mostly women in post conflict countries to expand business, and create employment.

It seems that many things around me have the “B” letter or the “Bee” symbolism (check out www.buzzen.us and you will see what I mean). The B Peace newsletter is even called the B Peace “Buzz”. I didn’t even see the obvious synchronicity until I started writing this.

Doors open and doors close, just like they do in everyone’s journey through life. Sometimes, I’ve have struggled to push open some doors and others have just opened with my breath. Sometimes I have been so busy pushing that I haven’t noticed the doors that are wide open. I understand now to look for doors that God and my guides are actually holding open for me.

This door was like that. After being offered the opportunity to go with my friend Vicki as a UN representative to the Commission on the Status of Women in March, I got a crash course in the challenges faced by women and girls around the world, especially in post conflict countries. When I came back from the UN, I felt what Jean Shinoda Bolen calls that “mother bear” passion, and I was called to do SOMETHING to help! I was waiting for my assignment and wondering what it was going to be. Should I push a door open or wait and look for one that was to be revealed?

About a month after the UN Trip, I had a guidance session with my friend and advisor, Rev. Angela Staub. She sent me to the Bpeace link and said, “Maybe this is what you are looking for.”

It made total sense to me. Here was an organization helping women in Rwanda and Afghanistan to start their businesses, grow their businesses, and be sustainable. Here was an organization that was giving women self worth, not just handouts. (A good thing, but charity is not empowerment, and it runs out…). As they say, more jobs mean less violence.

I joined as BPeace starts the Race to Innovation in Rwanda and Afghanistan. The goal is to spark entrepreneurial innovation among Afghans and Rwandans and to gain market intelligence on pockets of innovation in both countries. I am on the Inspiration Team and the PR Team. We had our first rally last Monday night. The women on the project are dynamic, intelligent, and as with many areas of contribution, I realize I will get as much as I give, or more. My education starts. Will keep you posted. And if you are interested, here is their website:
www.bpeace.org

In front of the UN

Buzzen at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Part 1 Vicki and I arrived at the UN yesterday for preregistration (having been warned of major lines on Monday morning). There were only a handful of women registering when we get there Sat afternoon and we went through security ( just like at the airport) and entered the UN. As we stood in line to get our photo taken and our badges I looked up and was a little teary at the impact of being here at the UN with what will probably be around 2000 + women on Monday from all around the world. There are already women in line with passports from Nigeria, young college age women, grey panthers, and it’s like a collage of diversity. This morning was our NGO ( non government organization) Consultation Day. We are here with an NGO supporting Jean Shinoda Bolen in her calling to have a 5th women’s world conference with UN blessing and find a host country. This is a preliminary meeting before the actual event starts. There is tremendous energy in the room and it is standing room only. They announce that in the balcony there are 75 girls who are attending this meetings. They will be our future as they learn about the process we undertake this week and the issues facing women around the world. I am sitting next to Afton Buetler, the Vice President of International Affairs, for the Worldwide Organization for Women. She has flown here from Geneva Switzerland and tells us that her organization has sponsored some women from Nigeria to attend the meetings starting tomorrow. She says before the women were able to get on their flight in Lagos, one of the women was kidnapped from her office by militants. My friend Vicki asked if she thought they would find the woman, and Afton replied, “possibly not”, as other women have been taken before and disappeared. The other Nigerian women are coming anyway. I asked if I could meet some of them. There are so many organizations here it is hard to keep track. Women are up to big things in this room, and it makes me feel a little uncomfortable to be manifesting things for myself when there is so much need. Themes under discussion are HIV/Aids and the equal sharing of caregiving, stereotypes of women and men (men are supposed to be the workers, women are supposed to be the care givers), how men can advocate for stopping violence against women and the spread of HIV/Aids, the emerging theme of women and the Global Financial Crisis, and much more… At break, Jean Bolen gives us 5WCW buttons to hand out and flyers. Soon the room is full of women where these blue buttons advocating for the 5th World Conference for Women. I see young men and women in uniform with “Young Marines” printed on them, I see a female Buddhist monk with her shaved head, I am behind two women from the Salvation Army, and next to a young Muslim woman who is with the Al-Khoei Foundation, the first young Muslim group giving a voice to women. There’s much more to tell, but it’s 10:15 and we have an event filled day tomorrow. Donna Fleetwood www.buzzen.us

Numbers and Numbness!

How many calls did you make? How many sales? How many hours did you spend contacting prospects? How many calls does it take to get a sale? Based on your past performance, predict your future. This is what I did every November for ten years with my business coach. I knew my numbers. I had a predictable business model and I could plug in the numbers to project my income and sales for the upcoming year. And it worked! Every day I kept a piece of paper with hatch marks for number of calls made, and I transferred them into a weekly spreadsheet which went into a larger spreadsheet so I could track what was happening. All it took was more numbers to do more business. My coach reiterated “It’s a number’s game”. And it was boring. It was like working on a never ending assembly line. If I wasn’t hitting my goal, the solution was to make more calls, put more pressure on myself, and the feeling that it would never ever be enough. I was a real estate drone. I felt that I wasn’t being myself; I was unfulfilled and had buried my true dreams and desires, telling myself I would get to them later. I started out as an artist, how did I get on this other path? How did having an artistic background fit with this sensible workhorse I had become.  

I started to notice how it felt when I was excited and happy about what I did and what rejuvenated me.  There was the glow of finding someone the perfect property that brought meaning to their life. There was synchronicity when I thought about calling someone and they called me before I could even pick up the phone. Or sometimes they would say, “It’s funny you called because…”  I noticed I had an intuitive way of sorting through people’s stories and picking up on what a person was really trying to tell me. I was happy when I was creating something new in my business. Ideas, new technology, novel marketing concepts captured my imagination. I started learning about neuro linguistic programming.  I learned that I could picture what I wanted my outcome to be in my mind and that appealed to my visual nature.  

My journey in business started to be less about the numbers and more about a personal journey to find out just who I was and how all the pieces fit together. Two months ago, I picked up a business book called “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink. In it I read that there is a shift underway in the world. Pink says “We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, and computer like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, The Conceptual Age.” Maybe it was time to let my right brain thinking come out and play with my left brain!

Plan on a Napkin

Intentions on a Napkin 

The right brain is not detail oriented, it is big picture thinking. The right brain is conceptual and interprets things simultaneously rather than the left brain style of numbers and charting. Intentions and manifestation come from the right brain.  Jill Bolte Taylor, PHD, the brain scientist who had a stroke essentially shutting down the left side of her brain says, “Our minds are highly sophisticated “seek and ye shall find” instruments. We are designed to focus on whatever we are looking for. If I seek red in the world, then I find it everywhere. Perhaps just a little in the beginning, but the longer I stay focused on looking for red, then before you know it, I see red everywhere.”

So if you can have anything you are seeking, what do you want to focus on? Can it be as simple as just looking for the color red and more appears?

A Study by Brian Tracy revealed that people who simply write down their WANTS and put the list away discovered a year later that 80% of what they wrote came true.

It seems far fetched, but you are going to need a napkin not a spreadsheet for this exercise.

And you will start by writing down one INTENTION, which is something you would like to be, do, or have. What you intend should have passion and scare you a little bit. Write at least three intentions for 2009 on your napkin, that’s it! Use numbers if you would like. If you are intending money, clearing state the amount.  You don’t have to share it, just write it down. One way to know what you want to focus on is to briefly look at the contrast with what you don’t want. For instance if you are stuck on what your intention would be, look at what you don’t want, like “ I don’t want to drive this junky car anymore.” That way you know your intention is to buy a new car.

HOW will it happen, WHEN will it happen?

 One of the most famous stories of intending money occurred one late evening in 1987, when a 25 year old Jim Carey drove up to Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood hills. Sitting there in his old Toyota, overlooking the City of Angels he set his intention. Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million. He dated it Thanksgiving 1995 and added the notation, “for acting services rendered.”

.By 1995, the actor had made movies that had yielded worldwide grosses of $550 million, and the new superstar’s asking price was up to $20 million per picture. But by that time, Carrey no longer had the check because in July 1994, he had placed it in his father’s pocket as Percy Carrey, who had once housed his family in a Volkswagen camper after losing his job as an accountant, lay in his coffin.

Note the intention that Jim Carey set, writing himself a check in the present moment as if the future Jim Carey had already happened.  He put a “By When” to the intention with the date of the check written in the future. He was acting “As If” it had already happened with the feeling of declaring the amount and acting as if he was already there. Clearly Jim Carey was not listening to the left side of the brain which would have been saying “How you gonna get there?”

Think about your Business/life as a Metaphor

 Right brain thinking is metaphor thinking.  A metaphor is a tale with a purpose. What is your business a metaphor for? A roller coaster ride? Does you business go up and down with lots of peaks and valleys? How about a stagnant pond? If your business is stuck and not moving forward that stagnant pond will suffocate your possibilities. Do you feel like a juggler with 5 balls in the air, and someone tosses you two more? Coming from a farming community, my metaphor is that my business is like growing crops:

First, I plant the seed. The seed is my napkin or wherever I have written my intentions.

The seed has to be watered to germinate and this would be my inspired action behind the intention. Anytime I don’t feel like watering the seed, I look again at my field of intentions and act “As If” it has already occurred, and review the “By When”. What are the inspired actions I can take in pursuit of my dream? Sometimes the field starts to grow and the good seeds are choked out by the weeds. The weeds are the stickers and the brambles that can form in my thoughts that will choke out any future for my field to grow. I can clear the weeds with meditation, mindfulness, and gratitude.  The last element for my business to grow is light and sunshine. Sunshine represents a light and sunny outlook that attracts and nurtures all there is to come. Metaphors are joyous ways to influence others and yourself.

 Watch for the part of your mind that may not be supporting you. The part that chatters and talks to you saying things like, “Don’t dream to big”, or “wait till you have the money” and on and on. Buddhists call this the monkey mind and Jody England, co-founder of Buzzen, calls it the “Funky Monkey” which adds a little fun to the image.   The Funky Monkey’s job is to sabotage your growth and keep you small. Be very clear, and check in with yourself. Is there any part of you saying, “This can’t happen, or I don’t deserve it?” If so, write these beliefs down and question them. Watch where you have resistance like “I can’t call people” or negative charge like,” The market is causing this”. Watch your patterns and cycles. Once you take care of the inner, it shows up in the outer. Being conscious of your thoughts with intention will take you places you never thought you could go.

Like most people, you might be waiting for an event in your life or business to make you happy. The motto is” When I get there, I will be happy” and that is not a productive mindset. As a matter of fact it is backwards because“Unless you are happy, you can’t get there. “

Be a Story Teller and a Story Seller

T. Barnum was a famous showman and he is buried in Bridgeport, Ct. On his simple concrete headstone are these words, words that Barnum used as his motto throughout his colorful life. “Not my will but thy will be done.” Those magic words helped him become one of America’s first millionaires. According to research done at Spindrift Foundation, the power of a prayer like, “Thy will be done” gets more than twice as many results as a “Give Me This” Prayer.  It’s called asking for what is in the highest and best good.  It’s important to end your request for anything you want with these words, “This or Something Better.”

Not only is this a powerful lesson, it is a great story. The human brain naturally relates to stories over logic. Stories give meaning and relationship to a business. It is a way of standing out in a business world overloaded with statistics and charts.  Daniel Pink has a great example of story in his book. He talks about receiving lots of postcards in the mail from real estate agents touting the latest sky high prices. One day in the mail he got a card that was different. Instead of the sales price in a 72 point type followed by exclamation points, it told the story of the house. How the house had been purchased by Florence Skretowicz in 1955. The card explained how she had loved the gardens and the leaded glass doors. And how at 91 Florence moved to a retirement home where her family and friends had contacted the agent to sell this jewel. At the end it said, “Please take a minute to welcome Scott Dresser and Christie Constantine, the new residents who love this house just as much and plan to be in it forever and ever.” There was no mention of sale price. The story created context and meaning in a new style conceptual marketing. It distinguished the agent by not only telling the story of this house, but created the story of her business. Is the story of your business about creating meaning for your clients? Practice telling the good stories of your business, they engage and get retold!  I frequently encounter people who are focused on the train wrecks, the disasters, and the challenges of their business. The stories, when repeated over and over become the self fulfilling prophecy.

Track your Highs, Lows, Frustrations and Rewards

 In place of numbers tracking, track how you feel. At the end of the day just assess how you feel. When you are feeling frustration, lack of energy, fear, or anger, you are not in alignment with being in the flow of life. There are many ways to get UN “stuck” when you are not in a place of feeling good. Gratitude and forgiveness are the simplest ways to get back to feeling good. Every thought and every feeling can be reframed. Look for the times you are out of alignment and welcome them as powerful lessons. I know when I am off track.  I get cranky, righteous, “busy”, and run over my phone. I cover it up many times by being cool and logical which is a mode of protecting me from being out of control. You can actually look at what is happening within your body to tell you when you need to shift. Remember that right brain controls left side of the body and left brain controls the right side. So when I feel my right should getting stiff, there is something on the left side of my brain that is getting stiff. Too much left brain working, striving, and pushing is usually the cause of it. My lows can be tracked when I start to binge eat sugar (I am a chocoholic) Time to realign and put Play and Humor back in my life. For my balance, I need a vacation or mini vacation every two months. So in my business plan, I am scheduling 6 vacations. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? And yet, as the saying goes, the day before you leave town is the most efficient day of the month. Having a healthy life is not avoiding the highs, lows, frustrations and rewards; a healthy life is being in the flow, and when you are not, learning your life lessons and realigning with what you know you want.

 Have a Crossover Hit!

 Pink talks about how our jobs require multi tasking. He says “While detailed knowledge of a single area once guaranteed success, today’s top rewards go to those who can operate with equal aplomb in starkly different realms. I call these people bounder crossers. They live multi lives – because that’s more interesting, and nowadays, more effective.” I have found my real estate career to be newly enjoyable in the last year while writing a book and coaching women, envisioning and implementing a company called Buzzen, and doing work with non profits. While I thought I was jumping from thing to thing, I was actually making myself happy, what do you know! At first I hid the fact that I had several vocations and avocations going. After all, I didn’t want my real estate clients to think I had other interests and did anything other than service them. It has taken a year for me to let go of the attachment and ask myself why my real estate clients would mind knowing about my other ventures and interests. The entrainment of these different realms has made me feel a more complete person. Look at your life. Is it one dimensional? It might be time to expand your horizons and follow those thoughts and other paths that you never considered possible.

Bob Procter says, “Learn to follow the quiet voice within that speaks in feelings rather than words; follow what you “hear” inside rather than what others may be telling you. Write your plan in that way that matters to you. Follow your own quiet voice, your feelings and check in. You’ll know if you are on the “right” path.

2009

Live Simply

Be Fearless

Help Others

All Inspired Action comes from these three intentions

For more support on your story, intentions and business, go to Get Your Business Buzzen at www.gybbnow.com.

If you believe the economy is bad, then you live in a state of fear, anxiety, and worry. No doubt you check the stock market regularly to see how low it can go. You talk about how bad it is to your friends and co-workers for more validation that it is bad. (And if you did a little “bee honest”, the worst story wins in the world of “woe is me”).

The conversation goes something like this: “I haven’t had any sales in a month! Can it get any worse? When will this economy turn around so I can get some money coming in? Did you read today’s paper? Layoffs, bank bailouts, foreclosures. No wonder my business is soo bad!”

Congratulations, you may win the prize. There is a partial payoff to worrying and bad news that is reinforcing to the habit. As Daniel Goleman says in Emotional Intelligence, “The work of worrying-when it suceeds, is to rehearse what dangers are, and to reflect on ways to deal with them. But worry doesn’t work well at all. New solutions and fresh ways of seeing a problem do not typically come from worrying, especially chronic worry. Chronic worriers worry about a wide range of things, most of which have no chance of happening; they read dangers into life’s journey,”

The common advice from others is “Stop Worrying” or “Get out there and do something about it”. By the very nature of the way the brain works, a lot of worry comes up unbidden, because it follows the reactive part of the mind or the low road of being unconscious.

You know about the self-fulfilling prophecy right? If you think and worry that business is bad, it can actually get worse. How can you get your brain and your business out of this loop?

 The first step is to “Bee Aware”. At Buzzen we teach women this crucial step in self-growth and business growth. When you can take a step back and be the observer of your business, your patterns and the impact of your thoughts, you can truly shift your thinking and create. Most of us have blind spots and it helps to have a support group to help you get a different perspective on what is not working.

The second step is to be part of a coaching program to help actively. When Jody England wrote “Attraction Actions, New “Bee”haviours for Creating the Life you Deserve” she realized that women needed principles and system of creating a life they deserve. The practices or “games” are fun and enlightening. Let me give you an example of the The Reframe Game.

Jody explains in her book, “The basic concept of the ReFrame/Something Better Game is that you turn something that doesn’t look good to you into something that does look good (and more importantly feels good to you. You do this by creating a story that changes your thought process around a particular situation.”

Let’s look at some examples of reframing thoughts around the real estate market.

Something that doesn’t look good-Homes are not selling and the market is bad

Something that does look good and feels better-Interest rates are below 6% and there are so many opportunities out there!

Which outlook will create more sales, more clients and more money? Make a list of places where you have judged this economy to be bad and play the reframe game today!

So this is a bit like reading an article on how to stay fit. You can read about it and your mind says “hmm, good ideas”. And yet, how do you follow a path to change your thoughts? Or maybe you are curious and want to hear more about creating new thoughts around your business that are incompatible with worry.

Jody and I are doing a free call on Oct 14 at noon (trust me, it’s a good use of a lunch hour) and we will be sharing more about the Buzzen process. You can do worry-work on Monday or create a new reality for your business. Here’s the link to “Get Your Business Buzzen, How to Create an Extraordinary, Profitable Business in any Economic Climate“

I also want to give a shout out to Michelle Oliver who will be doing an interview with us on Monday 10/13 at 11 AM on Blog Talk Radio. Michelle is also a member of Savor The Success and is with The Oliver Financial Group.