For Business Owners who are in it for the long haul...

Whenever a person becomes an expert in something, lots of benefits follow. If you've been creating what matters to you most as a business owner, you know this is true. But one of the downsides to soaking yourself in expertise is that sometimes things can feel very stale. You may find yourself asking:

• Not THIS topic again


• Please don't hire me to do a repeat on THAT


• They shoot horses you know!

In all seriousness, one of the questions I frequently dust off when I feel at all stale goes something like this:

If I had one last chance to say something on this topic, and then that was it for me, what would I say? I wrote the answer to that very question as pertains to marketing in an article for Choice Magazine, the magazine of professional coaching.

The full article containing:

3 Advanced Marketing Tips and Tricks, for Coaches Who're In It For the Long Haul as well as the

call recording elaborating on the same topic are now available to you, dear reader, as a courtesy from Choice.

I'm not sure how long they'll be available so grab them while you can and enjoy.

Oh and yes, print magazines like Choice are notoriously difficult to keep afloat - like restaurants, they suffer from a very high bankruptcy rate, so let me take this opportunity to give Choice a hearty bravo for their work, now in their third year. Bravo team! Keep up the great work.

On this occasion they've offered a $4 off coupon for you to use towards a print subscription this year. Good only for readers of Creating What Matters, claim the discount by entering in the following code at checkout.

The code? Here tis: pinkspoon

Now where again are the Top Marketing Tips I'd share if it was my last chance on earth to do so? Go here...

TeleSeminar Title: Doing Less & Making More: How to 'Unwork'
Led by Andrea J. Lee and Suzanne Falter-Barns

From: Thursday, May 24th

In this ***30-minute*** burst of a call, you'll learn:

- How to lose the sense of 'drudgery' you can get from your heart-based work
- The idea behind how to earn twice the money in half the time
- How to assess your To Do list from an 'unwork' perspective
- Why 'unwork' is more than just delegating tasks to helpers
- How to maximize your energy to you surf through your day happily

Use the player below to listen to the audio now or use the MP3 link below the player to download the audio to your favorite player or computer:

With apologies to Byron Katie's important 'Work,' I've been using the phrase Unwork quite a bit lately to help foster the premise that working hard is NOT the way to riches or happiness.

For some people working hard is a license to feel justified about complaining. Or feeling self-important.

For others it's a way to pull the wool over their eyes about the fact they aren't succeeding - they're doing everything they can, aren't they? Exhaustion is the proof of this statement. It can't be their fault because they're trying so very hard.

Still others are subconsciously using hard work as a way to avoid something. Could it be fear of success? or almost any other fear/feeling?

I've been exposed to enough variations on the theme of hard work that I feel I can say with confidence:

The message "Work hard and you'll be rewarded" is MOST useful to people in authority (teachers, parents, church leaders, politicians, etc.) Tired people (adults and children) are less likely to act up.

What I know for sure is that it takes a certain amount of guts to think about Unworking. Hard work is a potent anesthetic that like any addiction numbs us to life. Time to wake up.

Let me be clear that Unwork isn't about being lazy. And it isn't some fancy way of talking about delegation or time management either. I hate to say it's a kind of 'consciousness' as that's just too floofy for many people to care about, but it is in fact what it is. And...there are specifics that can help you start 'doing' unwork in a concrete way so this isn't all just ethereal stuff.

Register for the no-fee Open House TeleSeminar on Unwork (post coming soon) if you'd prefer a more interactive version of this. But here are my notes in response to those of you who don't want to wait. ;) Remember - Suzanne Falter-Barns is spearheading the call so I'm sure she'll have much to contribute on her end too.

Or, check out the radio show Pam Slim did with me on 'Taking the Struggle out of building your business' over at VoiceAmericaBusiness. You can download the program here.

Now here are my notes on just what Unwork is and how you can start integrating some...

(1) What does Unwork mean?

The first step to understanding the concept of Unwork is noticing that for everything you do, there is a hard way and an easy way. Whether it's picking a photograph at IstockPhoto to illustrate your blog post; putting together your new TV stand or making ends meet this month, there IS a hard way to reach your goal. Perhaps it's the road you're most used to taking.

So the best way to help connect you with the concept of Unwork is to ask you to assume with me there IS an easier way to what you are doing. So pick a challenge you're working on this week. Or a long-standing obstacle in your life. My assumption is going to be that there is an easier way. If you were to play along, what comes up?

This is about practice because letting go of the habit of thinking life has to be hard isn't going to be an overnight thing. So practice challenging yourself. Gradually your way of 'being' in your business will become less onerous.

Just start with one thing. Go ahead, you can think of one thing that you're annoyed at that feels terribly hard...what is it?

Unwork = noun. Definition = a contrarian idea that for everything human beings seek to do or achieve in life there is a hard way and an easy way or unwork way. Especially applicable in entrepreneurial settings.

(2) What might be a useful metaphor that conveys the sensibility of Unwork?

Unwork can feel like a foreign concept the first time you hear it so I like to use metaphors to help us get intuitive about it. Here are two:

Metaphor #1: If you were hanging a calendar on your wall, you wouldn't go to the basement to get your power tool, right? Yet so many of us in our daily 'to dos' are doing just that - using a power tool to put in a tack.

We might be spending way too much time to complete something...or doing a menial task at the time of day when our brains are most creative...whatever it is, there is an ineffective use of energy to accomplish the task in front of us...using a power tool on a tack when just your thumb would do the trick.

How are you burning out a power tool doing something little in your business?

Is it possible you're giving a long lecture to your teenager when a small curfew reminder would do the trick?

Metaphor #2: The Sun and the Wind fable, excerpted from the book 'Money, Meaning & Beyond' and previously posted here.

Okay, I lied. There is another very colourful and slightly PG-13 metaphor that illustrates Unwork to a 'T'. I think it's the MOST effective metaphor there is for some people but I'm not going to post it here. I'm being a little coy here alright? Okay maybe a little chicken too. :-) So if you'd like me to post it I will, but encourage me a little would you? I'm not a prude (especially in 1-on-1 coaching sessions) but I'm still not sure how colourful to be here...

(3) What are some recent examples of how you apply Unwork in your life?

Example #1: After being self-employed nearly 10 years, I know there are two major activities that consistently generate income. For me, these are speaking and writing; they may be different for you. But speaking takes a proportionately HUGE amount of my time, effort, patience from husband and family, etc. in order to do. Not to mention health and other environmental costs.

By contrast, writing takes up much fewer resources and - important - does almost as good a job generating business as speaking does.

Unwork decision I made? Speak even less frequently than I do now, and make every speaking engagement really count. Net result: I have much more energy and time to spend writing. Ultimately this gives me better results (more money) for less work over the course of the year - exactly what was proven when I visited my accountant last week - gross income increased only 10-20% last year, but we had about the same amount of expenses and both partners worked about 40% less. That's a great raise as a result of unwork.

Example #2: Here's a smaller example.

When searching for a great photo to illustrate a blog post, I discovered a friend who was looking and looking on IstockPhoto. We all do the equivalent of something like this - go through all the bids on Elance for example, or researching an additional hour when you've already found a good link.

What if you were to stop? Meaning, stop when you find the first useable photo? When you find a decent bid on Elance that meets all your criteria?

We spend a lot of time looking for what could possibly might be a slightly better answer. But all the while we already have a serviceable solution.

Does this apply to you? If you haven't been able to think of a place to concretely apply Unwork, this should help. Make a list of things you work unnecessarily hard at now and practice letting your work go.

Insert a food-related Andrea-ism here: Like trimming the fat off the steak before you barbeque, you can trim wasted energy off many of your daily tasks, if only you start thinking the Unwork Way.

Remember...Hope is not a strategy. Neither is hard work.

In conclusion...do you know the saying 'work smart, not hard?' I don't know who said it originally but I have a huge dislike for it. Why? I just don't think it's a useful phrase when it comes to implementation.

The phrase 'work SMART' has the exact opposite effect...in fact already-smart people are the ones who are most guilty of working too hard in their businesses. Their try to 'smart' their way out of problems when simplicity would be better. Since smartness already gets them in trouble, more smart thinking isn't going to make things better.

So I say dare to be different. Embrace unwork instead by picking a few clear action steps that lesson what you do in order to get a result, today. Now that you understand just what Unwork is about...you have no excuses!

Now off to choose a photo for this post, or not. ;-)

Have you ever heard coaching done, live, on the spot?

I have a great deal of respect for Coach Barbara Sundquist, also founder of the 'Become a Certified Coach' program. She held a Coaching Demo class on September 20, 2006 which she recorded so you can hear.

What's a 'Coaching Demo' class, you ask? Click here to listen to the recording from the demo or click here to download the MP3 version.

How Do You Move From Just Thinking About Prosperity...
to Truly Creating Prosperity - from the Inside-Out?

Are you someone who believes things happen for a reason? That everything in our lives is the way it is because we chose it?

Some time ago, the Money & Meaning Blog was privileged to host Elyse Killoran, Founder of the Prosperity Partnership Program, in two telecalls. She has now completed her first energetic meditation CD, and will begin shipping very shortly.

Find out more about the Anchoring Prosperity CD - the First in the Touchstone Series of transformation CDs - at the links below, and order your copy today.

Will you allow me to put it to you this way? I'm quite certain I'll be playing my copy regularly...for the rest of my life.

Click here to access the CD purchase page: http://www.choosingprosperity.com/cd.htm

Or click here to read Elyse's latest article "Get off the Hedonic Treadmill."

Drumroll please...

The first winners in our book festival series of draws have now been determined! An admittedly very un-scientific yet absolutely fair process for determining the winners was used:

First, everyone who posted a comment as directed after our June 28 teleconference on 'How to Write a Book in 45 Days' had their name entered into a hat, like so:

For the purposes of this very special celebration of Money AND Meaning, we felt it appropriate to use my husband's new baseball cap, inscribed with 'Life is good.'

You can listen to the actual drawing process live via recording - and verify that contest rules and regulations were met to the letter, press the play button below and turn on your speakers. This is light-hearted 3 minutes with Tina and Andrea...pulling the winning names.

And of course, a hearty Congratulations to both winners!

Marcia Merrill, Career and Life Transitions Coach, who has won a 100% complimentary seat in 'My Book School' a 90-day program that supports you in the entire process of completing a book, including printing and logistics...as designed and hosted by Book Shepherd Extra-ordinaire Lynne Klippel (who lovingly shephered both our books to reality.) Approx $300 retail value.

For more information about My Book School, go to http://www.MyBookSchool.com


And Trudy Van Buskirk, Small Business Marketing Consultant who has won full tuition to the Multiple Streams Book-Writing Workgroup, a four week accountability and integrity workgroup focused on writing and completion, and begins on July 25. Retail Value $197 (or $157 for book readers and MSOCI members.)

We're truly privileged to have Andy Wibbels steer this group across the book-writing finish line this summer - many of you will know he is the esteemed author of Blog Wild! published by Portfolio.

Curious about joining Trudy in the Book-Writing Workgroup? Click here to find out more.

Trudy, Marcia, to claim your prizes, write to tina@onlinebusinessmanager.com and lynne@lynneklippel.com respectively and you will be presented with your next steps as well as a fistful of virtual confetti - we just know you're lives - post book-completion - are never going to be quite the same.

Here's looking forward to celebrating your books in the very near future! :-)

And now without further delay, let's move onto the second week of our 'Conference for the Price of a Book.' This Wednesday is call #2 of 5, and our topic is: Thirty Ways to Get Your Mailing List To Respond (To The Benefit of Your Bottom Line)

See you on the festival grounds...more prizes to come.

In honour of the launch of Kim George's new book "Coaching into Greatness," we held a 60 minute bonus call on the topic of how to apply abundance thinking to concrete situations in your business.

The lucky people who bought Kim's book were able to attend this call live, but if you weren't able to do that, and would like to view a list of the 60 items covered in the call, just click the link below the recording buttons. To listen directly to the list via audio, and hear additional comments on each point, you can turn on your speakers and press the play button, or download the MP3 link.

Which one of these concrete suggestions to tap into abundance most resonates with you?

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If you've ever had the inkling you struggle too much to get where you want to go, this post is for you.

You're likely here reading this blog because you are a service professional of some sort. In other words, you help others for a living. Many of you, I know, inspire and change lives for a living. This is phenomenal and I'm glad you're here.

Today I wanted to post a very special 55-minute audio for your listening pleasure (or at least your listening 'provocativeness,') because the concepts I cover in the call may be contrarian for you.

The topic is 'Receiving: The Overlooked Half of Successful Collaborations including Joint Ventures, Strategic Alliances, etc.'

The overarching theme of theme is this: That there are things in your business (money, help, the exact advice or insight you wish you had) that are there right now, that for whatever reason you are saying an unconscious 'no' to or at least 'not seeing clearly' because if you did see these things clearly, you would receive them with open arms.)

The fact of the matter is, I made a great personal shift in my own business - financially, yes - but even more so mentally and psychologically last year when I realized this.

I made a great leap forward in my ability to help more people, more deeply when I changed my mentality from being 'Athena, the Warrior Goddess' with my sword ready...to being what I call a 'bowl.' And it all came from stopping behaving like a sword in life, to being 'as a bowl'. Big difference.

A bowl receives, you see. Whatever it may be: rain, fresh ripe berries, grain, bread, wisdom, laughter...a bowl, inherent in its shape, exists to receive. For whatever reason I really resonated with this mental imagery after years of 'fighting' my way through life. And boy has it made a difference.

Does this resonate with you? Do you feel as though you fight your way through life too? Maybe your 'sword arm' is feeling a little worse for wear? Or you've wondered if there's a better way. Answer? Maybe there is. Maybe it's the way of the bowl. :-)

In any case, I don't just wax on about bowls here ;), there are actually 6 major points - both nutsy boltsy practice AND metaphysical - about Collaboration that we cover in this clip. Just hit the play button with your speakers on to hear it live, or click the 'Download MP3' link to save it to your hard drive to transfer to your MP3 player. No charge or obligation.

Oh, well, actually let me say this. After listening, it would be a gift to me to receive a comment from you about it.

As new online travellers visit this blog, your posts about what you found most useful in the audio help them decide whether it's worth listning to. Or, you can also post any notes you may have taken. In this way, we'll add new dimensions of richness together for future visitors. Kinda like a virtual stone soup!

Enjoy. It's one of my favorite clips this year, and I thank Lisa Wilder and Michael Port from over at the 'Think Big Revolution' Team for providing the clip - this call was held in their 'bailliwick' as a part of their regular series of Think Big calls, every Monday morning.

May I ask, as you put time into your business this month, have you thought about how you'll be able to make m'oney while taking a vacation this summer?
In fact, has anyone bothered to show you how you can take more time off, do less and earn more? Because if you don't know the answers, how are you going to take a truly stress-free, joy-filled time off this year?

This is such an important topic that affects your quality of life. If you can't spend time with your family enjoying the freedom of being self-employed, what's the point, right? (Keep reading to the bottom of this post for the skinny on the above photo - yep it's me - and our family holiday plans this summer.)

Well, here's something that you can put in your (proverbial) pipe and smoke, if you so desire. It's another in our line of 'Sixty in Sixty' offerings - a popular TeleSeminar format that covers 60 points on the given theme, in 60 fast minutes.

A complete bulleted list of the 60 items follows below, but be sure to access the recording as well. I really can't help myself sometimes and go into quite a bit of breakdown/detail on each point, time permitting.

Enjoy! And to join us on our next 'Sixty in Sixty' or other Open House TeleSeminar on the topic of Money and Meaning, go to http://www.makemoneyandmeaning.com to sign up for 'The 5 Keys to Money and Meaning, Sustainably.' We'll send you up-to-the minute invitations each month.

And now here's the list.

60 Ways to Do Less, Earn More and Have a Meaningful Summer Vacation, for Business Owners

1. Schedule your vacation in advance and make it stick.
2. Shift your mindset about summer and it being 'slow.' It's not - not necessarily. In fact it can be the peak of your revenue cycle.
3. Use the language of summer in your promotions.
4. Use the images of summer in your promotions.
5. Meet the objections of 'Summer is slow.' head on.
6. Offer a summer sale.
7. Look to your current list of people who've bought something and do a rollover-sale.
8. Offer a summer-themed version of your regular offering.
9. Partner with a summer-focussed event such as a carnival, street fair, summer camp, barbeque.
10. Partner with a summer-focussed business to offer something complementary.
11. Observe and pinpoint physical locations that are very busy during summer.
12. Revisit your list of 'problems my niche market is experiencing' and find the seasonal ones to target.
13. Do a promotion that has to do with kids, or otherwise engages the prospect/customer through one of the most important things in their life - family.
14. If your offering is hard to make 'relate' to summer especially well, consider a marketing campaign that focusses on clients in a place where it's not summer, like in Australia!
15. Decrease your expenses. Cut some out for summer.
16. Make more out of your current expenses.
17. Be stricter about your own workload - set summer hours for your office hours.
18. Delegate dramatically more to a second-in-command.
19. Incentivize word-of-mouth with summer-themed prizes. Summer is a great time to build referrals with all the 'extra' get-togethers that happen such as picnics, family get togethers.
20. Have an open house BBQ in the spirit of summer. (Recall the power of the perfect Pink Spoon...)
21. Add zip to your affiliate programs in summer.
22. Find another stream of income that's a tool that supports your clients in achieving the summer THEY want.
23. Repeat the proven result. Identify your most profitable endeavor and rejig and redo.
24. Create a fuss with other people. E.g. Have a 'community' sale.
25. Repeat #24 but online. Create a community 'fuss' online in your market for summer.
26. Test things fast in the summer...it's a great time to fail forward rapidly.
27. Sell someone else's stuff.
28. Cross promotion...obvious but proven way to increase the number of prospects/clients in your business funnel.
29. Pre-publish and set your autoresponders for the entire summer. Keep them short and sweet.
30. Reprint articles in your newsletters...the most popular ones that've driven results before.
31. If you haven't already done this, add teleseminars to your list as an upsell tool.
32. Don't complicate things. Critically examine your to-do list and ask..."what's somethign I've already done before that can be used to tick some of my to-dos off?"
33. Find the minimal level. Write less. Reply to fewer emails. Leave shorter voice messages. Keep the flyer at fifteen words, not fifty.
34. Cancel or shorten your meetings. Put fewer items on your agenda that are must-dos.
35. Find something very compelling to do this summer for fun. People do what they do because they have nothing more compelling to do. Get something compelling to do for fun, or you'll slip and slide into working more than you want.
36. Stop (or pause) any big, new projects. Start-up requires a special kind of intensity and energy. If you want to do less, make more and have a great summer vacation, reschedule big new launches for after September.
37. Focus your promotional efforts on your most profitable items.
38. Focus your promotional efforts on your fastest selling item.
39. Stop doing the silly stuff. Make a list of 5 things you commit to taking a vacation from doing for the next 3 months.
40. Kick start by decluttering your physical space. You'll waste less time finding things when you'd rather be having a water-fight outside.
41. Change the arrangement of your physical space. Earning more even while you're working LESS is a big mindset shift and these shifts are supported when you shake up your environment.
42. Raise your prices, especially if you've been 'meaning' to do this for a while.
43. Fire the bottom 10% of your clients. (Especially if you're a consulting or other service provider.)
44. Enrol your kids in helping with sundry, rote stuff to save money and share the experience of your business with them.
45. Declutter your brain by writing a vision for your summer. Decide on 3 broad-stroke strategies that you want to focus on for revenue generation. And three strategies to focus on expense reduction.
46. Buddy up on things. Halve the work by sharing the load, both big tasks and small.
47. Stop creating content from scratch this summer. Instead use stories and case studies.
48. Consider finding an apprentice or volunteer who will learn from you in exchange for their 'manual labour'.
49. Create habits to make meaning with family members. Quality experiences happen while you're doing other things.
50. Have somone else be a guest writer on your ezine.
51. Have someone else be guest host on your membership calls or teleseminars.
52. Ask, vigilantly, "What's closest to the money?" and follow through on the 'money path.'
53. Bundle existing products of yours into a new summer offering.
54. Help others make it easy to make money in the summer.
55. Target vacationers or tourists with your service. Summer naturally brings this new, significant traffic. Take advantage!
56. Piggyback a promotion on a big event in your town. E.g. The Calgary Stampede.
57. Partner with a true blue summer institution to generate traffic.
58. Chat with your current 3 biggest clients and ask them if they'd like to pilot something else in the summer. Especially good for your Corporate client accounts.
59. Make sure you use humor and tap into the five senses in the summer.
60. Sponsor a summer event.

Remember, to receive details about the next Open House call on the topic of Money, Meaning and Beyond, go to http://www.MakeMoneyandMeaning.com and submit your email address. We meet every second Wednesday at 3pm Eastern. See you next time on July 12!

And...in the spirit of going 'beyond'...here's a bonus item...so make that 61 ways to 61 Ways to Do Less, Earn More and Have a Meaningful Summer Vacation

61. Make sure you have an 'ice cream cone' product. Summer is statisticaly more of an impulse buy type of time. Small amounts of money are easier for people to spend because they are treating themselves. Take advantage by making sure you have a fun, low priced item for sale in your business funnel.

Enjoy! And post questions, comments or suggestions - which one of these will you use first/most/never? Just hit the 'comment' link below to talk back.

Oh and yes...as promised, if you're curious, the photo above is a self-taken shot in Antigua, our last Caribbean holiday. This year we're off to Vancouver and the Okanagan from June 30 to July 9, and then somewhere exotic that hubby gets to choose, last minute from August 3 to 15.

David Batstone is Author of 'Saving the Corporate Soul', President of Right Reality.com, as well as member of the Founding Editorial Team of Business 2.0. He currently also serves as Senior Editor, Worthwhile Magazine and Sojourners Magazine.

This was a perfectly delightful conversation about the meaning of worthwhile work, what it looks like to Dave, how to pursue it, or not, as well as commentary on 'the difference between religion and spirituality,' 'how to balance family with work,' and more, including his own background and how he came to find himself where he is today.

Thanks very much to Dave for sharing so generously and personally of himself and his sense of humor. This clip is highly recommended if you'd like an energetic boost for your day and a peek into the life of a leader in the 'worthwhile work' movement taking place today. So do set aside some time to listen, and sign up for Dave's weekly column in the WAG newsletter at www.RightReality.com.

Oh and yes, Dave invites us all to take part in a short and insightful online quiz at www.triplepquiz.com - of particular interest to coaches and others who mentor and make a difference in the lives of others.

Click below to listen to this 60 minute interview.

Click to read more if you'd like to hear the story behind what caused me to invite Dave to be a guest on 'Creating What Matters.' Also, as a thank you to Dave for his time, I invite you to comment after you've listened to the call at the link provided, and tell us one most 'forward moving thing' you heard on the call, and any other thoughts or comments. Enjoy!

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