There are many reasons why less stuff is better.

But there are also lots of reasons why we have our stuff. And those reasons don’t make us bad people.

I’ve always wanted to have less stuff, but I’ve always struggled to achieve this ideal. After having the “you should have less stuff” argument with myself once again, I finally just said, “Fuck it. I have these books. I have these things. I have these attachments. I am going to accept that I still want these things around me.”

And then, gradually…something shifted.

It’s like something inside me could now trust that I wasn’t going to take a shovel to my stuff (something my father used to threaten when my room was especially messy).

Without the edge of fear, the natural inspiration to have a clear, clean house emerged. I felt a relaxed ease about letting go of the items I was truly ready to release. And there was no more internal battle if I felt like I wanted to keep something: I was allowed to.

What changed? I accepted that I have attachments to stuff.

Before: Look at a shelf of books. Feel guilty that I haven’t read them all. Feel bad that I don’t want to give them away. Fight with myself: “You haven’t read it! But I want to keep it! You’re just attached to this item that you will never use, what’s wrong with you! What if I need it in the future?!”.  Stress and fret until I get so frustrated that I go do something else. All the books still on the shelf.

Or: get rid of books in a fit of determination. Buy some of them back a few years later, and feel EXTRA-guilty when I still haven’t read them.

Now: Look at a shelf of books. Pick out the ones I’m actually ready to let go of. Put them in a box to leave the house (Goodwill, Powells, etc). While I’m taking the box to the car, see a few I still want to keep and take them back out. And then the box goes. And I remind myself: It’s OK to still be attached to the books I kept. It’s OK to do this a little at a time. It’s OK to let go of what I’m really ready to let go of, and not try to force myself past any resistance.

Forget the rules.

The rules say, “Don’t take anything back out of the get-rid-of box after it’s in it.”

“Don’t keep anything you don’t love or aren’t using”.

“Toss any book you haven’t read in the last year.”

DUDE. I can’t follow those rules. I just shut down.

Our stuff is DEAR to us. We are ATTACHED to it. Being strict with yourself is not necessary.

Start with acceptance.

Look around at your stuff and appreciate how much vitality and creativity you have, and how your stuff is part of that.

I have a lot of books, and art supplies, and stuff leftover from projects. These are evidence of my path through life, and all the things I’ve been interested in and experimented with. They aren’t bad. They are good. I don’t need to be ruthless and rid myself of them. I need to be appreciative, and just prune what I no longer need.

Before, I would read about decluttering, set some resolution-like goals (i.e. unrealistic and motivated by comparison rather than inspiration), go crazy with it for awhile, and then abandon the project altogether as guilt and frustration took over.

Now I am slowly going through my stuff, organizing and letting go of things, and I’m not stressed or unrealistic about it. It feels good.

And I can now finally read blogs like mnmlist and feel inspired instead of feeling bad about my not-entirely-streamlined existence.

Decluttering is a practice of relaxing attachments; forcing is counter-productive.

Letting go of stuff = letting go of attachments. This is something best done slowly, gently, and with a lot of permission to hang on until you are truly ready to let go.

When we force ourselves, it creates resistance and an atmosphere of fear. This just makes it harder to let go.

Over time, as you let go of the easy stuff, you’ll create a positive feedback loop around letting go. You will naturally relax more and feel OK about letting go of more things. And you’ll develop a habit of understanding your internal sense of when it’s right to let something go. This will create an internal clarity and trust which makes the whole process go smoother.

So forget the ideals and the rules. Accept your attachments. Focus on letting go of what you are ready to, and organize the rest so it is easier to access.

Comment Magic

What has your experience been with decluttering?

Have you tried too hard to be a Zen Master or some other ideal of clean/clear/minimalist/perfect?

What helps you move from guilt and feeling bad to inspiration and forward motion?

Right relationship is about balance, health, and sustainability. It’s also about service–how we help the world with the power we have.

I’m talking about our personal relationship to money–not how the world economies should treat money, but how we personally can come into alignment with the spiritual nature of money.

Money has a spiritual nature?

The truth is everything has a spiritual nature. What makes money magical is that it’s a unique form of condensed energy. As such, it can serve as a mirror, a teacher for us on our spiritual journey.

Beyond “Think and Grow Rich”

Getting in alignment or right-relationship is NOT a way to get rich overnight. “Think and grow rich” and the “Law of Attraction” are often ways to avoid looking at our deep fear of scarcity.

It’s true that as you grow in your understanding of money, creating it becomes much easier. As you learn to charge appropriately, market to the right people, and own the value of what you do, your business becomes much easier to run.

But that part’s not magical. That’s just about learning a system and getting better at it.

Right-relationship is about something deeper. It’s about that subtle inner tension we carry about money, which relates to our sense of power and security in the world.

Right-relationship means accepting that we don’t control everything about life.

Right-relationship means living in gratitude for what we have, being willing to use the power we have to do good, and the cheerful acceptance that we are not ultimately in charge of the Universe. Including our money.

Now this might sound funny coming from someone who advocates a weekly accounting practice, designing passive income schemes, and generally is known to fully enjoy the game of business.

All these things are true. I like the game, I love the game. But I know, in my heart, that I am only a player. Right-relationship to the game means knowing that you didn’t create it and you can’t control it. You can only play it, and play it well.

Is this getting too esoteric? Here are some practical ways right-relationship shows up:

How to get in right-relationship with money.

Stop avoiding. Face the reality, the truth of your present relationship with money. Stop looking for salvation. Stop spending money on overpriced programs that are going to solve all your money problems. Start accepting that the only way anything changes is by facing it on the internal plane.

Forgive yourself. Some people’s issues show up in relationships. Some show up in reckless behavior or addiction. Some show up in money. There is nothing wrong with having issues. We all have them. You’re just where you’re at.

Relax the grasping. Grasping is an instinctual response to fear. Think of a baby, latching on to its mother. Take a deep breathe. Notice when you get in sticky situations with clients and money, or overspend. Somewhere in there are attachments, deep unmet needs for safety and security that you are unconsciously trying to meet through your use (or avoidance) of money.  Get mindful. Breathe into the places that are afraid and dialog with them.

Start owning your own power. Money is a powerful thing in our culture. Knowing how to use it, knowing how it works, having practice and experience–these lead to real power. Let that be OK. Step out of the fear that you can’t, or that you’ll be corrupted by it. You won’t if you take responsibility and own your own choices.

Start using your money, your power, your will…for good. Right-relationship ultimately describes the relationship of the small and personal to the grand and majestic. To be in right-relationship with Source/God/etc means owning your power, and then letting that power be used as a tool for the larger good. Do what is right, regardless of the money. Play the game, but don’t be the game. Be a player in service of good.

These steps are roughly in order. The important thing to notice is you have to own your power before you can truly serve the world. Otherwise, you have nothing to offer. Without a solid vessel, you are useless as a tool. So work on yourself. Then let go of yourself.

Before I talk about “selling out”, I want to talk about the two sides of creativity, process and product.

Process: the internal work of uncovering something personally meaningful through creative output.

Product: a finished, cohesive work that other people can access and find value in.

Process and product are two sides of the same coin, and yet if you focus just on one or the other you lose something.

If you focus exclusively on process, you won’t produce something that others can access – your creation will hold personal meaning, but not universal meaning. The packaging is the bridge that lets others access it.

If you focus just on product, you will lose the heart of why you were creating in the first place. You will be selling just for the purpose of selling. You will be creative in order to be liked or rewarded, but your creations will be empty.

The fear of “selling out” is a fear that success will create a pull for product over process–and you won’t be able to stay true to your work.

Imagine if your internal greed or other people’s needs and desires pulled you from your authentic desire to serve or create. Imagine if you lost touch with the “process” side of creativity–the heart of what you have to offer.

That’s a scary thought.

For some people, it’s so scary that they never learn how to package their work and market it. They view all packaging as “selling out”, and have no discernment about which is serving the work by making it more widely accessible and which is hollow.

They solve the problem of having to be responsible with power by not having any power at all. In doing so, they fail to reach the audience they could have. The world doesn’t see what they had to offer.

That’s a real loss, for both the creator and the world.

The fear of selling out is a fear of owning your power in an ethical way.

Fear of selling out is one form of “fear of success” – the fear of losing touch with oneself. For people who have big hearts and big visions, this fear can be especially poignant.

It can also be unconsciously limiting you without you realizing it.

How to not be afraid of selling out:

Admit that there is part of you that is greedy, and afraid. There is part of you that wants to be liked and needed and rewarded, and is afraid of not having enough. It’s there. Be aware of it. Don’t make it wrong. But don’t pretend it’s not there either. Denial leads to unconscious behavior.

Make a conscious decision that you are going to work with your inner greediness, need for approval, and grasping when it comes up. Decide that you are opting for conscious awareness, not avoidance. Take time with your dark side–get to know it. Have fun with it. Laugh about it. Be OK with being human (and grounded in the knowledge that you have values). Having an ongoing and healthy relationship with this part of you means you’ll be in no danger of it taking over.

Discern greed from the desire to grow. Humans want to grow and create and serve in ever-expanding ways. It’s natural. That’s not greed–it’s your heart reaching for the stars. Learn to discern the difference between expansive desire and constricting fear-based greed. Cultivate that expansive desire–that comes from an abundant place of pure love for creating. It’s magnetic.

Package your work in ethical ways. Examine your marketing decisions both in the light of who they might reach, and if they are truthful. Base your business on openness and respect rather than fear, hoarding, and competition. Opt for developing quality and eschewing hype. Forget what other people do with their marketing. Decide that you package your work so people will be able to access it, not so they’ll like you and make you rich. Don’t market some way just because other people do it, if it doesn’t feel right to you. Create ways of speaking about what you do that feel right to you.

Don’t undersell yourself. Show up fully, honestly, and authentically in what you do. Cultivate a solid center in yourself that you market from–a center that knows your worth and doesn’t need to either undersell or oversell.

Relax. You are a good person. Trust yourself.

The biggest struggles I and many of my clients have had are around setting and navigating boundaries in business. The client that asks for extras–and you feel queasy inside as you say “Ok…I guess that wouldn’t be that big of a deal”. The person who wants to trade with you and you say yes…even though you don’t really want what they are offering all that much, but you don’t know how to say no. The person who asks for a discount and you reluctantly agree and then kick yourself later. The project that just keeps growing and growing, and you charged a flat fee. The client who always shows up late and you end up giving them a full hour session but part of you doesn’t want to but you didn’t know how to navigate the situation.

These situations all involve boundaries.

In every relationship, boundaries are what make it healthy and functional. Business is the same; you have to know who you are and who you are not, what you will do and what you will not. You need to know how to set, reset, and negotiate boundaries. Boundaries serve to keep your business functioning smoothly, and keep you from burning out.

Don’t underestimate how hard setting boundaries can be. A plan helps.

The clearer you can become internally, the more solid and clear you can be with your clients. I suggest writing down your boundaries in a “Boundaries Plan”.

Here are some examples of business boundaries:

• My minimum project fee is $2000.
• I customize WordPress blogs, but don’t work with other blog software.
• I’m not open to trades at this time or I only take on one trade client at a time.
• I see people for a minimum of six visits.
• I fix bugs in my software free for six months and then charge my normal hourly rate of $X.
• You must notify me 24 hours in advance to cancel, otherwise I will charge you for the session.

Your boundary plan can include more subtle boundaries as well.

• I will turn down clients who want a rush job; my project turnouround time is 4-6 weeks.
• I will turn down clients who ask me to sell myself to them; I let my work samples speak for themselves.
• I will gauge where people are in their process and suggest X if they are not at least at stage Y.
• I won’t work with people who communicate only via phone or who can’t provide a written spec for their project.

Your boundary plan can also include boundaries you make between your business and your life, such as:

• I don’t work on Sundays.
• My max client load is 3 active projects.
• I won’t answer the business phone line after 6pm, or if I’m eating lunch.
• I don’t do trade shows.

Some people will test your boundaries. Most just won’t know where they are until you tell them.

Most of the trouble people get into is not actually from someone pushing their boundaries. It’s the fear that comes before you even set them. That fear can keep you from spelling them out clearly enough to be understood. It can also lead to defensiveness when you state them–which muddies the water and makes people uncomfortable.

Sometimes people will push, but I’ve found that the stress and awkwardness of that is directly proportional to how clear you are in yourself. If you can stay neutral when you communicate your boundaries, then they will nearly always be respected.

Writing them down and really owning them for yourself will help you stay neutral and communicate them clearly without defensiveness or other sticky energy.

For tricky boundaries, create procedures and policies that you lead clients through.

When I did web design, I had a “Designer’s Readiness Checklist”. It outlined everything people needed to have in place before they contacted me. Then I had a worksheet people filled out that asked them key things about their project. In essence my boundary was, “I don’t take on strategy or organization, I just do the design part”. What my clients saw was a clear procedure they were led through that helped them get organized and think strategically.

My clients appreciated the structure and it served to weed out clients who were not organized or didn’t yet know what they wanted.

For in-person situations, practice your replies.

I spent several years learning how to say no to people who wanted to work with me but I didn’t for whatever reason. It was really hard for me, and then I got really good at it. What helped me the most was finding the right wording–the kind nobody can argue with and I didn’t have to explain:

After reviewing the details of your project, I don’t think we’re a good fit to work together. I recommend …

I had a few different wordings and list of recommendations for different occasions and I kept them stored as snippets in my email program.

Another area I practiced was not giving off-the-cuff project quotes over the phone. If someone asked how much they thought I would charge I would give my standard range (the same one listed on my website) and say I would have to review their project in more detail before I could give a more accurate quote. If they pressed, I would state that I made it a policy to not give quotes on the phone because I know from history that they are not accurate.

When you use the word “policy”, people usually get the hint. If you say in some way, “This isn’t about you, this is for everybody”, then it becomes much harder for them to take it personally.

Pay attention to queasiness, dread, procrastination: these can indicate a need for a boundary.

The more aware we are of what is going on, the more we can do about it. If you are not aware of your boundary, your unconscious will follow its usual patterns–procrastination and avoidance. These are not usually very clear or effective, and take a lot of energy.

Sometimes you have to find boundaries from the outside in. For example, I learned to notice that if I had a client inquiry email that I was procrastinating for more than a week on replying to, that meant that I probably didn’t want to do the project for some reason that wasn’t immediately obvious to me. Procrastination became an indicator to check in with myself , validate that it’s perfectly OK to be choosy, and make a decision that worked for me. (This was a much better strategy than letting it sit there for another week and have my subconscious struggle with it while I started to feel guilty about not getting back to them.) I learned to notice the early warning signs that I was feeling uncertain about setting a boundary, and then just get it over with.

Set boundaries early and often. And don’t hesitate to renegotiate.

When appropriate, work your boundaries into your website and client emails. Don’t assume people will know where they are, and don’t get offended if they assume a different boundary: just educate them in a calm, neutral way. Usually their response will be, “Oh, I didn’t know!”.

And if you forget or slip or are just having a bad boundaries day (stress can cause us to get weak about our boundaries), it’s always OK to say, “Hey, I apologize, I made a mistake when I said …. What I should have said was ….”.

Your boundaries are yours alone–they are what fit you.

Every industry and culture and family and human grouping in general has standards of behavior, and most people tend to assume they are shared. If you don’t share them, feelings of being wrong can get in the way of asking for what you need and setting up clear expectations.

It doesn’t matter what works for someone else, or what someone else expects. What matters is what works for you so you can serve your clients and stay happy. Get really honest with yourself–what do you need to feel nurtured and healthy in your business? What do your clients need to know so your work together goes smoothly and serves you both? It’s OK to ask for that.

Outer boundaries stem from inner boundaries.

Before you can clearly state to another what you want and need, you have to validate and own that your needs and wants are OK. If you don’t have that internal validation, you will not be able to communicate clearly to others.

If you struggle with this, invest in self-care, and evaluate your beliefs about what you have the right to ask for and expect from your life. Is it OK to be 100% happy and satisfied with your life and your work? Or does that make you selfish? What do you really believe, and does it support you?

Having clear boundaries will save you money, stress, and time.

Having a good niche is the first step in finding perfect customers: it’s the attractor.  Boundaries are the other side of the coin. They redirect the “not a good fit” customers and make it clearer who your ideal customers are. They provide your business with integrity and keep everything running smoothly. And they take care of the human vessel that is making all of this happen.

Boundaries also make your business more appealing, because you come across as professional, “together”, and have some structure for people to interact with. Think about interpersonal relationships–we are all wary around someone who is not clear on their boundaries. The same is true in business–the more clear, communicative, and neutral you are about your boundaries, the safer your clients will feel. They’ll know what to expect, and be able to make clean choices.

What kind of boundaries do you need to set?

Every successful business has at least one or two of these reliable methods of getting new clients that they consistently use. Otherwise you’re reinventing the wheel every month. It’s much better to go about it methodically, find something that works, and stick with it, refining as necessary.

Your best marketing formula is unique to you and your business.

The problem with a lot of marketing books and workshops is that they are just one person’s formula. It’s understandable–that person made it work really well for themselves, now they think it will work for everyone. But it won’t necessarily (but it might). Why?

The formula that works for you has to be both something that will actually work for your niche or market, and something that will actually work for you. Here is a Venn diagram showing the relationship:

When you hear about any new method of reaching people or staying engaged with them (like newsletters, ads, Facebook, SEO, Twitter), it helps to ask yourself these questions:

1. Would this reach my ideal clients where they are? Do they look for services that I offer in this way? (for example, do they use Twitter?)
2. Is this something I would enjoy engaging in on a regular basis? (For example, do I enjoy Twittering? Can I see myself doing it consistently?)

Know yourself.

Don’t create a marketing formula that is not really you. You won’t keep up with it, or if you do, you’ll become slowly unhappy and resentful.

I was in a marketing class once with a guy whose regimen is to spend an hour every day calling and keeping up with new and old contacts. It works great for him. It would never work for me. And that’s OK.

Do not beat yourself up or compare yourself to anyone else. It doesn’t matter what works for someone else. It only matters what works for you. Because in reality everyone is different, and there is no better or worse way of doing marketing. There is only what works for you and your business.

You don’t have to market to the whole world. You just need a sliver to have a good business.

Part of the fear that leads people to scattershot marketing (trying a new thing every week) is that there are so many people that could benefit from their services and they want to reach them all.

Don’t go for everybody.

I know it’s tempting to say “But everyone could benefit!” but here is the reality: if you try to do that, your business will struggle and you won’t serve very many people at all. Your perfect customers are people you can reasonably reach given who you are. Even if a lot more people could benefit or could potentially be your customers.

Here is an example from my web hosting business.

First, my Venn diagram:

I like marketing that I can set and forget–that doesn’t involve a lot of ongoing maintenance. I am easily distracted with new projects and don’t like having to keep up with things. So that goes on the right of the diagram. On the left there are potential clients that could find me on Google. And the natural overlap is to do search engine optimization and  make a site that is informative and lets people sign up online.

Now as you can imagine, there are a ton of people I’m not reaching. But that’s OK with me. I don’t want to have a giant company, and I’m guessing you might not either. My lifestyle goals are the most important to me, and having a smaller company works better for me (and, not coincidentally, for my customers).

So here’s what this looks like:

I have also created listings in various places like Green America to reach some of these other folks. But by far the biggest source of new customers (besides referrals) are from Google. It’s a formula that works.

Another example is a side project of mine which is a website about beading. Because it is a hobby site I don’t have a lot of time and energy to put into marketing. So the only way I market it is through SEO. I did create a Facebook and Twitter account, but only when I had automated feed content to put into it–I don’t use it to chat with folks. SEO works because lots of people search for beading patterns and such. Does it reach everyone who might be interested? No…but it reaches enough to give me a healthy AdSense check each month. It works for me and my business.

Here’s how to get started:

First, list all the potential ways you might reach people:

• Google/SEO
• Facebook
• Twitter
• newspaper ads
• fliers
• door hangers or coupons
• networking
• referral relationships with related businesses
• niche magazines
• blogging
• press releases

Research and ask your colleagues for more ideas.

Then start noticing which you are more drawn to. Do you like forging relationships and keeping up with people? Joining networking groups and going consistently might be a good fit. Facebook might be a good fit too. Do you like the phone? Or are you more of an introvert? If you don’t like going out and networking, but you are fine with learning technical stuff, try SEO.

Ask yourself this key question:

Which of these am I drawn to learning more about, working with, and really mastering?

Every single marketing method is going to require time, patience, and a willingness to learn and experiment. So pick one you want to spend that time learning about and devoting time to. Find the one that seems like a natural fit for you. Which might even be partnering with a person or service who does the marketing while you run the rest of the business.

Next, find out if there are enough people who use these methods to find the kind of thing you do to give you the number of clients you want.

Finding this out can either mean experimenting – running an ad for awhile – or doing research. For instance, you could use an SEO tool to figure out if anyone searches for the keywords you want to use (or use it to find the keywords people do use), or you can ask colleagues in similar-but-not-competing businesses what their experience has been.

Find your thing and stick with it.

Scattershot marketing doesn’t work. You will create much better results when you find and consistently apply a formula that works. Even when you are looking for your formula, you need to stick with each thing you try for awhile before trying something new. So start with your favorite and devote consistent time and attention to it for at least six months to see how it works for you.

In the first few years of your business, you might have to spend considerable time figuring out just what fits you and works for you on a consistent basis. Think of it as an investment. Once you have it in place, you can rely on it as a steady foundation as you work on the other areas of your business.

Write down your plan.

My final piece of advice is to create a written marketing plan. It’s one thing to know what you like to do and what works–but the results come when you keep up with it and build on your results. Running a business demands so much each day and it’s easy to lose track of things that have to be done a little bit over time regularly, like many marketing strategies.

Another reason to write it down is to have it in mind when you are writing web copy, articles, and posting on forums or Facebook–or when you are considering the lastest social media invite in your inbox. Do you really need to join? Your plan will remind you of what methods you are strongest in.

To make a plan, just write down what your core strengths are, what your marketing formula is, who you are trying to reach, and what you are going to do each day, week, and month to build on your results. Then put those activities in your calendar. Also mark a time to revisit your plan every so often to update it.

Your plan doesn’t have to be elaborate and have charts and graphs – it just has to remind you of what you are going for. Mine are always just one page. As always, there isn’t one right way to do it–the right plan is the one that works for you and keeps you motivated and on track with what you are doing.

Write a credo, a manifesto. Why are you in business? What matters to you?

And then demonstrate it.

For example, let’s say you do massage.

You credo might sound like this:

I believe massage should be empowering. People should feel completely at ease to speak up and ask for what they want during their massage. It’s THEIR time, and it’s most beneficial when they give feedback, know what they want, and ask for it.

Your stand could be anything, but it has to be you. It has to be something you truly believe.

The best credos make you cry. Or expand inside. They feel vulnerable and real.

You don’t have to share the credo itself with anyone. It’s for you. It’s what gives your business heart.

When you have it, then you can demonstra

te it through your website content and processes. For example:

I believe massage should be empowering. Before our first massage together, I’ll have a short form for you to fill out that asks you your preferences—do you like feedback about your muscles as I work, or do you prefer a quiet no-talking space? Do you prefer light pressure or deep? Which body parts would you like me to focus on?

Feeling unsure about disrobing, tipping, etc? I created this FAQ specifically around the questions people are often too shy to bring up.

You can also share your credo with your designer. Make all the parts of your business reflect it. Build y

our brand around what you truly believe.

Be a bigger presence by being different—and expanding on that difference.

Write articles about your stand. Make

your business about more than just getting customers and getting paid. Make it about saying something. Make it about changing the world in some small way that you care about.

For our massage example, start with the question:

“How can I help my customers feel empowered during their massage with me?”

Then expand the question:

“How can I help everyone on the planet feel empowered during massage?”

“What information might help people feel empowered during massage? How can I provide it?”

“What articles might I write that would help transform people’s relationship with massage?”

When you take a stand, you become part of something larger—the larger truth you are standing for.

Your presence becomes larger and more attractive, because you are not just you—you are part of that truth. You are part of an inspiring, cool thing. That makes you and your business attractive.

Bonus: you get more inspired about your marketing. You’re not just selling yourself anymore. You’re being a stand for healing the world in a way that matters to you. There’s a lot of energy in that.

We often live with daily emotional and spiritual scarcity.

We don’t feel good enough. We haven’t got enough done. We aren’t accomplished or important enough. We don’t feel like we are enough.

This scarcity runs through every sector of society. It infects us with doubts and stops us from pursuing our dreams and enjoying the dreams we have created.

It pushes us to achieve, overwork, and pretty soon we don’t have enough sleep, enough downtime, enough non-business social contact. It’s a constant nagging feeling of trying to catch up, trying to earn our place, trying to be good or do good.

At heart, it’s a spiritual scarcity.

The only true source of abundance, (the feeling of OKness deep in our bones), is in our connection to Source.

Spiritual scarcity means your connection to Source/God/etc is cut off or blocked or has just atrophied through disuse.

It doesn’t matter how much money or security you have, if you don’t have this connection on a daily basis, you will feel not enough. It’s just the way we are built. We can’t be fully satisfied except through that internal connection to Source.

When you try to create outer abundance, but you are doing it to shore up your inner sense of scarcity, it won’t work. Not really. You’ll create more and more evidence that you aren’t really worth it.

The only way to truly heal is to:

1. accept your faults, accept your neediness and mistakes and all your feelings and pain
2. let that connection to source grow anyway

Our connection to Source is the most abundant thing in the Universe. It never goes away. It does not judge, it does not withhold, it does not punish, it does not care who or what you are. It’s there. It’s there and you can access it at any time. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to deserve it. You don’t have to pay it back. You just have to accept it.

All you have to do is ask (and let in the response).

The hardest thing for most of us to do is ask for help. To truly admit that we cannot make it on our own. We cannot do everything. We cannot make ourselves feel OK. We just can’t. We rely on something outside of ourselves. Humans are never truly happy until they feel part of the larger Universe and feel they are in tune with it and here for a reason. We simply cannot be happy as islands.

When we try to do it on our own, it’s out of fear. What if we ask, and there’s nothing there? What if there is no answer? What if you open up your heart and then get burned? What if you find out that the world is an empty screaming void after all? What if God wants you to do something you don’t really want to do?

I can’t really answer those objections. Except to say that it’s not like that. Those objections come from a consciousness of fear. Accepting grace comes from a consciousness of love. When you are in that space, the objections no longer make sense.

And it’s kinda beyond words. But it works. Sincere prayers are answered. The answer comes, somehow. I’ve seen it happen over and over. If you pray to win the lottery, it doesn’t work. But if you sincerely need help and pray for help and hand it over, help comes.

But don’t stop there.

Praying only in emergencies is like staying at the Ritz Carlton and sleeping in the bathtub.

Many people, even ones that don’t “believe in God”, will pray when they are panicked. And they get solace from it. But then they go back to their “normal lives”. The ones with the nagging sense of not-enoughness.

To live a truly abundant life, you need to depend on Source.

That means recognizing that all abundance received from the Universe is received through this channel.

Receiving from Source/God is a blueprint and basis for every other kind of receiving.

The outer world reflects the inner world. Your material abundance depends on your spiritual abundance. It all starts inside.

And that’s where you start to build that connection.

How?

It’s a muscle. You exercise it. You change your mind, you change your stories, you change your beliefs. It’s a habit, a practice.

The bottom line is that it’s a choice.

You allow it to happen. You allow yourself to be enough. You allow yourself to feel OK. You allow that feeling of scarcity to disperse. You stop clinging to it. You find that inner stream of OKness and you nurture it and feed it. You find the things and people that help it grow. You choose every day, who you want to be and what you want to believe. You set your sights and you start walking.

Being OK with yourself in this day and age is a radical act.

It’s worth it. You are already OK. You are already enough. Believe it, feel it, choose it.

And the money?

When you know you are enough, when you know the Universe is on your side because you truly belong to it, it becomes a much bigger game than just making money. It becomes about living as a vehicle for Divine purpose.

And when that’s the game? The money figures itself out. Or you get what you need to figure it out. It works, somehow.

Not that you still don’t have to do work in the real world. It’s still a 50/50 proposition. “God helps those who help themselves” and all that. But it’s easier and it flows, and you have a source of support you can rely on. This isn’t about magic. This is about true support. We are truly not alone in our journey. We don’t have to make it on our own. We are here as part of something larger. And understanding that changes everything.

Or the other side: a skilled artist decides to work at a cafe to have free time/brain-space to pursue art. They never build up enough money to buy a house they long for and always feel like they are scraping by.

Some people make compromises like that and are OK with it, but I’m here to say you don’t have to.

The idea that these two are in opposition is a culturally reinforced myth.

It takes skill and planning to create a vehicle (like a business) that lets you have all the security and all the freedom that you want, but it is possible.

But first you have to believe it is.

Why your brain is afraid of creativity

First, we have this cultural story, lots of them, about “starving artists”.

Then, we have our brains. They are hard-wired to want to, uh, eat. Not starve.

So if you feed the average brain this cultural story about “starving artists”, what is it going to want to do? Not be an artist!!

And that’s not bad. That’s it’s job. There is nothing wrong with fear. It’s just important to examine it and correct the stories that it’s based on.

Stop believing the stories are predictive

The stories about “starving artists” range far and wide and cover many types of professions. There is a lot of fear behind them. And a lot of real people played out these stories.

But that doesn’t mean that YOU will, or that it ALWAYS happens that way.

Our brains have a way of making our stories come true. So what story do you want to live? A creative person who always struggles with money? A financially secure person who is never quite satisfied? Or a person who has defied the odds, and created a way to make a good living that supports their deepest creative yearnings?

Feed your brain something more useful

Find some new stories. Find people who have the lifestyle you want – BOTH creative and financial. Find people who didn’t listen to that story, didn’t give up either need, who had a vision for more and followed it.

The beautiful thing that happens when you really believe this is possible – and that neither energy has to be sacrificed for the other to come to fruition – is that these two powerful energies – the will to survive and the will to be creative and free – they combine and become the will to thrive. And harnessing that combination will give you the power to create a life that you truly enjoy.

(This post inspired by Sarah Dopp’s post Feed the Freak)

And I totally expected her next word to be “focus”. (It wasn’t.)

Focus was my breakthrough word/concept that helped me “get” marketing – you have a niche, you have a great product, you know who you are, you take a stand, you stay in one spot, you don’t try to be everything to everyone, and then your perfect customers recognize you and are attracted to you, and your non-perfect customers are repelled instead of becoming your worst headaches.

But no. Her next word was “relationships”.

“Marketing is just about relationships! And I know how to do that!”.

She was excited.

I was nonplussed.

(Can we pause to celebrate the awesomeness of the word “nonplussed”? It sounds like it is about math, but really it means “filled with bewilderment”. Ok, thank you. Word moment over.)

Relationships? Huh? How is marketing about relationships?

See, I think of marketing as a technical problem. You want to (a) get your product in front of your target customers and (b) induce warm fuzzy feelings in them about your company so they want to buy from you. (And of course (c) have an awesome product so they tell all their friends. But that should really go without saying.)

These are problems to be solved, to me. A series of tasks – getting clear on who you are, developing your unique offering, explaining it clearly so your perfect customers can recognize you, figuring out where your customers hang out or look for your services, and being a presence there.

It had never occurred to me to think of marketing as “relationship-building”.

But then after that, I saw it everywhere. “Building relationships with your customers”, “Marketing is all about relationships”.

And I would always think, “But, but, but…my company does alright, and I don’t think of it that way at all…”. Should I be?

Today I finally got some insight into what this is all about.

The common denominator between my idea (“it’s all about focus”) and my friend’s idea (“it’s is all about relationships”) is that they are both about communication.

Mine is about communicating ideas clearly, and hers is about communicating in a way that builds relationships.
Many personality systems make a basic distinction between a task-oriented communication style or personality vs a relationship-oriented communication style or personality.

Task-oriented means you primarily care about how things get done–do they meet expectations, are they on time and correct? You tend to give blunt, direct, and immediate feedback when something is wrong (because you care deeply about the task getting done well). No feedback means you did it right – you give praise if something exceeds expectations, but usually not if it was just the way it was supposed to be. If you make a mistake you correct it immediately and try to make sure it didn’t affect the project as a whole. Doing a good job and not making errors is of primary importance to you.

Relationship-oriented means you primarily care about the people getting things done, and the relationships between the people, and that everyone feels good and is OK with each other. You like to give and receive positive, affirmative feedback and tend to apologize when you make a mistake and worry that you have let the other person down. You are more mistake-tolerant in others and try to be very gentle when offering critical feedback (because you care deeply about the other persons feelings and the relationship being OK).

Now, like introversion vs extroversion and other personality factors, this is one of those “it’s a spectrum” thingies where there is a line going from one extreme to the other and a slider bar in the middle somewhere indicating your personal combination of styles. Also, you probably end up being more one or the other in certain situations or with certain people. It’s not black and white.

As you can probably guess, men tend to be more of the first and women more of the second. But that also depends a lot on the person’s culture and upbringing. For instance, I am female and way more of the first (but I was raised by my dad and two older brothers so I guess that explains that).

And. you can also probably guess that these two style differences lead to all kinds of conflicts and understanding them helps immensely with managing and training employees and interacting with people in general. As well as the whole, you know, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” thing.

But that’s not where I’m going with this.

I want to stick with how this applies to your own personal marketing style. Because the world is full of marketing gurus telling you “how it is” and making it seem really really urgent that you follow their advice. And read their book. And go to their seminars. But I think you can learn a lot by looking inside, understanding yourself and your natural inclinations, and affirming them. And that’s free.
Knowing where you are on the scale between task-oriented and relationship-oriented communication styles can clue you in to which marketing strategies would work best for you and how to approach them – and let you take some marketing advice with a grain of salt until you find the approach that feels natural to you and you can really run with.

For example, one of my main marketing strategies has been search engine optimization. I look at it as a technical problem – it works great for me because it matches my task-orientation.

However, you could also use relationship building skills in SEO.

I won’t deny that you need a technical person to do some on-page optimization or give you some hints about the technical side of things. But getting great incoming links by establishing relationships with other companies and other sites or by interacting with your customers on a blog – those are all great ways of building “link juice” which helps immensely with your rankings too.

On the other hand, if you are more of a task-oriented person, you could also start a blog for link juice, but you could focus more on making it a really interesting or useful resource that people are excited to link to all on their own, rather than being as focused on building relationships with your readers or other bloggers.

There are many different ways to market, and it’s working against yourself to try to do one that doesn’t fit your style.

Even if some marketing guru or another made a million doing it. Even if someone you respect says “It’s all about …”.

It’s never “all” about anything.

When people get excited about their strategies, marketing or otherwise, all it means is that they found something that worked really well for them. So celebrate with them! But remember that you are unique and something entirely different might be just the thing that works for you.

You might think: Couldn’t a bookkeeper do that better? Why don’t I have an accountant manage my money?

Isn’t my time better spent doing something that only I can do?

Sometimes, but not always.

There is this idea that you should outsource everything that you can and make the maximum use of your time doing only creative special things that only you can do to move your business forward.

And that’s true to a certain extent. It certainly wouldn’t make sense for me to try to learn how to build my computer myself, or for me to do my taxes manually. There are some really easy and simple ways to outsource or buy ready made solutions.

But really hiring someone to do something takes a lot of time and investment. You’ve got to train them and manage them. It’s not such a simple decision.

If my only goal was to grow a giant company, that would probably be good advice to outsource nearly everything I could. If you are on the growth path, it makes sense to have other people do anything you are inefficient at doing, and stick to your core strengths.

But my goal is not to grow a big company. My goal is to enjoy my life.

And I enjoy doing my own accounting. I enjoy having manual and menial tasks to do sometimes. Sure, I could hire a VA, etc. Sure the attitude of “I can do it myself” gets in the way of growth. But I don’t care.

There is no way in hell I’m handing my money over to someone else to manage. I like doing it myself. I’m always happy when Friday rolls around and it pops up on my to-do list. And I am very picky and want to know where my money is at all the time anyway. So it works for me.

Never forget the point of your business.

I didn’t start my business to be in business. I started my business to support myself to be lazy and do what I considered fun all day.

Along the way, I’ve had goals to serve my customers and clients in various ways I consider cool. But my goal has never been to “grow, grow, grow”.

That’s a backwards goal to me. What is the point of growth? If you have an answer to that, for you, then go for it. But I have never found a compelling reason for me why having a big company is better than having a small company.

Note: I don’t mean “big” as in “famous”, I mean “big” as in “employees, payroll, a bookkeeper”.

Keep your own goal in mind and make decisions accordingly.

Here are things that definitely are better to outsource:

• things you hate doing, especially to the point where you avoid them completely and they never get done
• things that are so complex you don’t understand them (for instance, if I ever decided to have real employees and do payroll, I would definitely outsource that)
• things that you don’t have the ability to do and aren’t interested in learning

Then there are a whole lot of activities that you may or may not want to outsource depending on how annoying and time-consuming they are on a daily basis:

• things that you could learn to do but don’t matter that much to you and someone else could do just as well
• things that you are only kinda good at doing and someone else could do better and you don’t have much interest in anyway

But here are things I actually do not outsource:

• things that other people could do better…but I actually like doing in my slow, semi-lame way where I get to learn as I go and have fun doing it
• things that don’t require much brain power and others could do without trouble, and not doing them would free me up to do more creative things…but that I actually like doing and provide a welcome relief from more brain-sucking tasks

Programming is good example of something I could but don’t outsource – I’m not a programming whiz, it takes me a long time to do, but I’m super-picky and I like the challenge. Could someone else do it better? Definitely. Could my business grow faster if I outsourced it? Without a doubt. Am I likely to outsource it anytime soon? I doubt it.

I’ve poked and prodded under the hood, tried out a half dozen different programmers, and diagnosed myself with trust issues, but the truth is I just don’t want to outsource it.

I want to figure it out myself. I like figuring things out myself. Part of what I love about business is that I get to figure things out myself.

The other part of it is, while I could outsource it, it would be expensive. And I’d have to do things I don’t enjoy – managing people, growing enough to pay for the programmer – in order for the privilege of letting someone else do the thing that I actually kinda like doing myself. Doesn’t seem like a good trade-off to me.

Am I wasting my time?

Possibly. I’m never going to become a whiz programmer. It’s not one of my core strengths.  And I don’t love it, I just like it.

But it’s my time to waste.

I’m not in business to be in business. I’m in business to be able to spend my time doing what I like to do.

Even if it seems inefficient and silly for me to do my own bookkeeping and my own programming, I’m much happier if I do it. And my happiness matters more to me than some ideal of outsourcing perfection.

There’s this ongoing storyline in Star Trek where Captain Kirk always ends up screwing things up so he doesn’t get a promotion to being an Admiral. But the thing is, he doesn’t want to be an Admiral. He wants to be the captain of his own ship. He wants to be out where the action is. So he’s not really self-sabotaging is he? He knows what he likes and wants to keep doing it.

Just because something is a good idea doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for you.

There are always standards and expectations that develop in anything, and business has plenty of them. There are always people saying what you should and shouldn’t do and what’s a good and bad way to run your business.

Don’t listen to them.

I mean, listen if they are saying something helpful to you, but always check in with yourself around if you really want to do what they are suggesting and if it makes sense for you.

If you are like me, you got into business to do things your way. You still get to do that.

If doing things your way is hurting your business, then look at that. But if it is just slowing it down, and you don’t really care to be a megacorp anyway, then you might consider just relaxing and enjoying yourself.

Tips for business DIY

It’s good to recognize when you need help learning how to do what you want to do yourself. I spend a lot of time researching various strategies on the Internet, but I also have a programming buddy to talk things over with. I talk to my business buddies about their accounting strategies and research things like S-corps vs LLCs.

Instead of hiring a bookkeeper, consider hiring an accountant for a few hours of consulting to go over your system and help you streamline it. Find mentors and tutors and advisers that can help you steer around the major pitfalls. Hire “consulting help” instead of “replacing-yourself help”.

Last but not least, affirm your choice:

• it’s OK for me to do my own ___ if I feel like it
• it’s OK for my company to grow as fast or as slow as I choose
• it’s OK for me to be picky about how this is done
• it’s OK for me to do it myself until I can afford someone who is as good at it as I am
• it’s OK for me to do it myself even if I can afford someone who is as good at it as I am
• my life and my happiness is more important than an ideal of business success
• I’d rather be happy than huge

Make your own affirmations if these don’t fit – it’s about affirming what is right for you, rather than going along with an established idea of what is right.