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Increase visibility — step out from behind your mask and be seen

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One of the commitments I made in the journey of upleveling my brand was to increase my visibility, online and in person.

I don’t like to be out of my comfort zone, which is about a half an inch wide. — Larry David

I’m stepping out of my comfort zone in many ways. I’m opening up to new ways to interacting — online and in person — that I haven’t done much with before. Mostly, to be honest, because scary. But I’ve learned, and been inspired into action by, the wisdom of others.

Increasing visibility in your business

First up is growing my local in-person presence.

I love hanging out at home, creating content, and connecting with friends and colleagues online. And yes, it feels safer than putting myself in front of a group. I’ve left my comfort zone behind and embraced something new, exciting, and a wee bit scary.

A man grows most tired while standing still.  — Chinese Proverb

I’m teaching a series of classes on Facebook Marketing for Small Business and Solopreneurs here in the East Bay.

This was easy to put together, and I think the easefulness is because I’m not doing this alone. I connected with a local marketing expert through a community group. We got together for tea and heartstorming, and decided to co-teach.

I do so well in partnership! I like collaboration. I just do — it’s refreshing and energizing and seems to bring out the best in me. When I’ve connected with a smart and inspiring gal like Lisa Cain, it feels like I’m having more fun than when I’m working alone. Well, maybe not more fun, let’s call it different fun. Variety rocks!

Facebook Marketing classesWe’re having three sessions. Come to any or all you need.

Join us for this hands-on series of workshops and bring your laptop so you leave with a whole new level of savvy and the ability to rock your Facebook marketing efforts like you never have before. Yes, you can make Facebook work for you and your business!

  • Facebook business pages, October 5th. Facebook business pages are the first step to growing your business with Facebook. They offer a great way to build your brand & audience through both the design and content you employ. Bring your questions and learn how to streamline the process and create the right mix of content for client engagement and profit while minimizing the overwhelm!
  • Facebook groups, October 19th. Creating and nurturing a Facebook group brings you a level of connection and exposure to your community that enhances the reach you have when you’re only working your Facebook business page. Grow a tribe of fans and create engagement (which becomes loyalty and referrals). Get your Facebook group questions answered so you can grow your reach, connect with your just-right clients and customers, and thrive.
  • Facebook ads and analytics, November 2nd. Data, data everywhere! Learn about your audience, size the market, target your ads in a way the folks on MadMen could only dream about…  We’ll walk through analytics and share wise ad creation and implementation tips so you can better target your ideal clients and spend your advertising dollars more efficiently. (Woohoo, I get to learn about this challenging-to-me-because-artist topic on my birthday!)

All classes take place in Oakland, 4–6:30 pm. If you’re in the East Bay, join us! Get your tickets here or by clicking on the photo above.

Video is another hugely popular way to increase visibility.

I’m sussing out the just-right video strategy for me (which means I’m looking at and working through my lingering reluctance to the medium). I’m a writer. And a reader (or a skimmer). Which creates sticking points when I’m consuming video as well as when I’m concepting and creating same.

Although video fits my online brand, and I’ll use it, I’m looking for the way to do so that fits with my nervous system and gives my readers and viewers the courtesy they deserve. Maybe I’ll provide transcripts, or at least written bullet points to accompany the video. But! If I’m waiting for a transcript, I will lose some immediacy and videos are good when they’re fresh.

Ack! Maybe you know the answer to this, or a good middle way. Please, feel free to talk with me in the comments about video creation for those who are still working through resistance to the artform.

It’s good to feel stupid sometimes and do things that are out of your comfort zone. — Mary-Louise Parker

I’m researching and lining up speaking engagements in my area, and after a few of those, I think my shyness (one of the issues that holds me back from videos) will be a thing of the past. I love stepping into my badass business priestess presenter self!

The year is winding down. Are you feeling the pull to review and set intentions?

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It’s getting darker and darker here in the north in this last month before the Solstice.

This is the time when your thoughts and your heart may turn to setting intentions for the year to come.

2015 year-end review. Completion. Release. Intention.

I’ve always thought that it’s more than just “resolutions” that are needed to make effective and lasting changes. I’ve written about resolutions and how by themselves they just don’t have enough energy attached to do the job. As you can see when you compare the crowds in the gym or at your local 12-step meeting in early January and a month later. Yup, resolutions in action. You can read a few of the articles I’ve written about this very thing here and here and here.

There’s so much to see every time you look back

  • You see and celebrate the good stuff: everything you completed and every risk you took.
  • Then you can assess what didn’t get completed: What needs to change to make this happen?
  • What needs to be released?

Once you have done this completion and release work, then your intentions (and resolutions) have a much stronger foundation and a much better chance of sustained success.

2015 Completion, Release, and Intention-Setting workbookI created this Year-End Completion and Release workbook a few years ago, and this year instead of selling it I’m giving it away. Because my birthday. Because I’m grateful. Because of you!

Every subscriber to my weekly loveletter will receive a free download link to the updated and revised workbook starting this week and going until the end of December. I’ve given a lot of gifts away this birthday month, and I’m closing it out with this gift from my heart to yours. It’s a beautiful and useful book. Set aside an hour or so and do some work that will help you set the foundation for changes for the coming year.

Look for the link in your copy of my loveletter in the coming weeks, and if you are not yet a subscriber, you can opt in right here.

I’m turning to three quotes from Mary Oliver to close this post. Because she really says it:

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”

I’d love it if you’d chime in in the comments; how’s your year-end ritual shaping up?

Solstice image courtesy Danny Pivato from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website

Stop! Wait! Before you start visioning and writing goals, do the completion and release work first

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This post was originally published in December of 2012. It’s been completely updated and brought up-to-date.

This is the time of year when your thoughts start to turn to your visions, goals, and intentions for the year ahead

It’s December, a natural time to start thinking about plans, and set intentions, to get clear about your visions for the coming year. You may even be thinking about those things right now.

2014 Year-End Completion and Release WorkbookBut before you start writing those goals for the coming year…Stop and breathe. There’s work to do first!

Honor yourself in the most sacred way and allow for closure for all the beautiful actions you took in 2014. Take the time to look back, and acknowledge your magnificent accomplishments of this past year. Give yourself the gift of completing and releasing the year that’s coming to an end before you begin looking ahead — when you do, you’ll be creating a firmer loving foundation for your intentions and visions.

Introducing the Magnolias West 2014 Completion and Release Workbook.

Here’s how to create a strong, workable, sustainable foundation for your vision, goals and intentions for an amazing 2014! In this workbook you can make note of what challenged you, and what may still be incomplete. Celebrate yourself for all the new, audacious, brave, risky things you’ve taken on, tried, and manifested. The actions that worked out as planned (or better!) and the ones that didn’t. Everything that was wonderful, everything that was challenging, and everything in between. When you get to gratitude for all of it, you are lovingly cutting the ties to what may hold you back from your magnificence in the New Year.

Read what a client, Christine Scudder, has to say about the Completion & Release Workbook

CSheadshot“When I started the workbook, I was feeling pretty down on my year that was ending, but in the process of reviewing the questions, I found that I actually took more risks — and some significant ones at that — in the past year, and that each risk, each action, was deserving of my mindful attention and gratitude. I found the overall “taking stock” to be helpful. The language was at once direct and empowering, serving as an invitation to reflect upon this year in a way that was forthright, yet kind to myself. This is new for me — previously I’ve found “year in review” type activities to bring out a serious amount of harsh, critical self-judgment. I left this activity with a sense of clear renewal.” —Christine Scudder, MSW.”

Even when your efforts fail, gorgeous, as long as you’re trying, you’re making progress.

They call it failing forward. I promise you, taking the time to do this completion work will remove the weeds and undergrowth from your path, so that your new start  —the goals, visions, blessings, and miracles you will bring to 2015 — will germinate, root, and flower beautifully for you.

How to buy the 2014 Year-End Completion and Release Workbook

It’s easy! All the information you need is right here.

Pricing, purchase links, more information, more testimonials, the whole megillah (yup, that’s Yiddish again — means the whole story). Check it out. Put yourself high on your gift list.
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How are you using those powerful New Year’s intentions?

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The holidays are over, and now…here you are, in life, back at work, with that powerful visioning and intention-setting you did during the Solstice–New Year.

What are you going to do with those visions and intentions now? How will you keep those intentions and prayers present in your daily life and work?

Did you write intentions? Resolutions? Did you make a treasure map or collage? Did you journal? I know for many years I would devote New Year’s Day to doing vision and intention work, and then I would hang the piece on a wall (if I had made art) or put my journal away, and the intentions would fade into memory as daily life resumed.

I’ve been on a long journey with yearly visioning and intention-setting. Last year the focus was aligning resolutions with your heart. The year before I told you why resolutions don’t work (they don’t!)

For me, this year, I was inspired by one of my Possibility Posse (that’s my Mastermind!) members, who mentioned Janet Connors’s mandala work. I watched one of Janet’s videos and was inspired to create two pieces, which you see here. And the thing I love so much about the way Janet teaches this is that I have these pieces set up at my inspiration altar, where I can see them when I work.

That’s the big and powerful difference…I’m using these pieces I created at the New Year in my daily prayer routine.

I’m making a conscious connection to these prayers and intentions every morning, keeping them alive as I go…As I light my candle each morning before beginning my work, I’m singing the seven prayers that are written on each piece.

soulmandala

The prayers on my 7-petaled lotus in the mandala are these:

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Distraction leads to procrastination

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This is a guest post, by the beautiful Renee Avard. Renee teaches others how to express their own “Unique-tivity”.

 

I have come into the awareness that I am easily distracted.

In the past, I could see and understand why. I had legitimate excuses to do anything I could to keep my mind occupied, and that included avoiding a job I hated, keeping busy so that my surroundings felt less harsh and having a health crisis that left me disabled.

But now, and after a lot of hard work, sweat, time, money and lessons learned, I am finally at the point in my life where I am exactly where I want to be. I have my own business. Writing is my passion and love and I am able to freelance and I am getting a book together. My son is nearly grown and is very independent so the challenge of having to entertain him is no longer there. I have been married nearly a decade and we are at the stage where work is not needing to be done all the time on the relationship. But, even though I have worked hard to get here and I love what I do, one word comes to mind that I must work on:

nowlaterProcrastination

Now, I am of the firm belief that you cannot rush inspiration. I know that if I do not feel creative at a moment, I do not need to attempt to write, draw or design anything because I know the job will not be done to the best of my ability.

But

My to-do lists are filled daily with things I absolutely want to do, there are still days, hours, weeks that I stare into space and fill my time doing other things (yes, still creative work, just not what I need at that moment).

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How to align your resolutions with your heart, so you get the results you crave…

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Happy new year, gorgeous.

If you’ve been a reader or subscriber for a while, you may remember my annual rant about resolutions. They start off so powerfully, don’t they?, in the Capricorn energy of the New Year (more about that below, in the section about the upcoming New Moon, the time when we are naturally drawn to our vision work, to our goals and intentions. Have you noticed how resolutions—commitments to wellness, more money, deeper love, more satisfying work—start off strong and evaporate over time? Is your gym more crowded this month than last? Check again in March and you will probably see that the attendance has returned to normal levels.

What happens to your beautiful resolutions, your powerful visions?

Say you had a powerful vision over the holidays, something you really want (I hope you did!). Maybe it’s a new deep loving long-term relationship. Or maybe it’s developing and launching a new product line for your business that will be of service to your tribe. Or maybe it’s having more financial abundance.

We’ll use increased financial abundance as an example. You had this beautiful vision over the holidays, and you know what you have to do to get there (some combination of raising your rates, growing your practice, or developing some new products to sell). And you get started. Just as in the past, you start taking actions toward that goal, but soon your actions begin to lessen, to the point where you eventually forget the vision altogether. What’s your relationship with the resolution?

peleheartFeel into your heart.

  • Do you have abundance in your heart, in your soul, right now?
  • Do you know you are taken care of, that your needs are met, that you have access to nourishing food, friends, and love?
  • Do you know in your heart that you are sheltered and clothed safely and beautifully?

When you believe that abundance is only available to you in the future—once you’ve attained your goal or manifested your vision—then an unresolvable dilemma arises, and your relationship to the resolution weakens. It gets to be too painful to hold onto, and eventually becomes forgotten.

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Gratitude challenge week 49

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“Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.” —Estonian Proverb

Oh, I’m starting to feel this in my heart, gorgeous!

Our year-long Gratitude Challenge is coming to an end, just three weeks to go. It’s been so powerful, so loving, so sacred, to read your gratitudes every week, to share mine with you, to spread gratitude in our worlds.

I am so grateful for this work we’ve done together. For the new people I’ve gotten to meet. For how some of the connections that have been made have deepened over the course of the year.

My own connection to my business has transformed in such a potent way this last year. I’ve been refining, clarifying and expanding my brand and offers, so that I can be of even better service to each and every one of you. I know you! I know you’re committed and passionate about integrating your most sacred heart’s mission and soul’s purpose with every action you take for your business, and I’m thrilled about our collaborations and co-creations.

I feel like I’ve been showered with wonderfulness!

  • I have love and gratitude for you that fill me with joy. Dancing in the gratitude space with you has made me a better woman! Hooray for authenticity, transparency, love and connection.
  • I want to personally invite you to stay connected with me, even after the year turns, because there’s so much new, juicy and sacred stuff I’m working on that I’m excited to be sharing with you. You’ll soon see the new website (woot!), which will launch as close to the first of the year as possible. And there’s more to come after that… Stay tuned!
  • Speaking of which, here’s something that I know you’ll love that’s ready for you right now! (The first product with my new branding: new logo, new colors, and the beautiful set of watercolors painted for me by Jennybach.) Ta da! Introducing…

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Venus transit, inspiration, choice and beauty

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Making time in business for the sacred. Better yet, being in touch with the sacred all the time…

You work hard. You feed, nurture and grow your business. You engage with your clients and prospects. You show up for your heart’s mission and your soul’s purpose. And yet, you keep telling me how hard it is to fold in, make time for, the sacred and important moments you want to observe. This has been a big week for moments, hasn’t it? With the Full Moon in Sagittarius on Monday, and yesterday’s Venus Transit and prayers for the Waters of the Earth, the last two days have been powerful, full of opportunity to honor our planet, make sacred commitment to our waters, to stand in the truth of what we want.

As my brilliant friend wrote in her Way of the Rabbit blog:

As Venus transits the Sun today, she asks us, “For what would you give up everything? For love? Money? What sacrifices are you willing to make? What risks are you willing to take in order to return this world to wholeness?”

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Retreat! It may sound like you’re giving up something, but instead….s-o-o-o-o-o good!

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Sigh. What a happy thing, to pack the car for an overnight and head south
to the redwoods for a retreat with my tribe.

We stayed at a retreat center in Ben Lomond and we were smack dab in the middle of a grove of tall second-growth redwoods, one of my two spiritual homes (the other being the ocean).

I renew my commitment to have these retreats more often. Just this month I’ve been to Harbin to soak in the waters and now to Ben Lomond to commune with my people, do some powerful rituals, and walk in this beautiful forest. A special bonus: walking the labyrinth in a redwood grove, hearing and seeing the ravens and hawks fly overhead.

What a powerful ally to all the daily at-home practices we take on that help us bring our best to everything we do, to our work, to our play, to our relationships.

Taking a sacred day or two away from home, in nature, in communion with spirit, soaking up the sunshine and oxygen, what a perfect way to restore, renew and rebalance.

And I love doing it in the spirit of frugal abundance. Packing my own food, staying on the cheap, sharing rooms, doing one-day trips, all keep costs down and still allow for powerful time in the magic.

What do you do to retreat? What do you do to take this powerful self-loving action?

  • Do you spend time by the water?
  • Do you go to the forest?
  • Do you go to a floatation center and have that sensory-dep experience?
  • Do you close the office for the day and go for a long walk?

Please share your techniques for retreating (limited only by your imagination: the only requirement is that you’re not checking email, tweeting, or making/returning business calls; it’s a retreat because you say it is!) I’d love to read what you have to say about this in the comments.

Need some support in taking loving action for yourself?
(an offer from my loving heart)

Please take a look at the new Self-Love coaching program here. The introductory pricing still applies and there are still two openings.

It’s a powerful way to get support in opening up the flow of juicy ease and audacious self-love in your life and your work.

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