Do you believe that the Universe is a loving place and that we create our own reality?
There is an amazing power in owning those beliefs. You see when you step into your power, you have the ability to change your reality.  If you are not especially happy with your current results, you get to take responsibility for what you have created and you get to CHOOSE something different.  It’s also important to understand that our future creates our present.

The problem is that most of us spend our time projecting a negative future, mostly because we are basing it on our current reality.  So, the more time we spend thinking and vibrating in our reality, the more of the same we create.

So how do we breakthrough an unwanted pattern?
It’s simple, we open ourselves up to possibilities and address our bright future.  We must be able to see where it is that we want to go.  Where we want to journey to.  It’s no secret that the connection to the future is what very successful people vibrate in.  And that connection to the future is real for them.  It drives them.  It’s what they talk about.  It’s what they think about.  It’s what they dream about.  It’s what they feel.  It takes a conscious effort to build a friendship or a connection with your future self.  If you put the time and energy into that friendship, it gets stronger and stronger because of the strong influence becomes more of something that you can rely on and trust. You can build that same relationship with your future self.

The idea is to look at your whole life and to be able to expand your whole life.  It’s not about working in one area of your life—maybe your physical issues, your financial issues, your career, family, etc.  If you work in one area, what tends to happen is you improve that area, but then the other areas compensate and there is a sense of unbalance.  You haven’t necessarily improved your whole life; you’ve just improved one area.  Frequently what happens is the other areas get neglected in the process.  The key to doing that is also paying attention as you’re looking at your different futures and your different possibilities and looking at all the details.

Have you heard the saying, “We’re not human beings having a spiritual experience; we’re spiritual beings having a human experience?”.  As spiritual beings what we ultimately deserve is having everything that we desire.  But because of the “programming” and many of the experiences that we endure, somewhere along the way we choose to not let abundance in.  We don’t allow that connection to the abundant universe.

The Good News?
By taking the time to connect with our future self, we can change all of this almost immediately.  Imagine your future, change your consiousness, change your reality.   It really is that simple.  Are you feeling compelled to take action and step into your bright future?  Are you at a crossroads and could really benefit from connecting to the abundance within you?  If so, I can help!  Let me guide you into meeting your future and creating a beautiful vision for your life and business.  Learn more about the Journey Into Your Future private session by clicking here.

Love and light,

Brenda Rivas is the founder & visionary of www.brendarivas.com, a lifestyle brand passionately dedicated to helping women attract the life of their dreams by designing an online business that supports it.  She is a certified business attraction coach who is in love with all things that help women connect with their true essence.  Brenda is currently working on her first book, “The Mogul Woman”.  Looking for a supportive community of fabulous women entrepreneurs? Join our Business Breakthrough Community.  Learn more here. 

When I ask someone if they are willing to be different,they usually laugh, look at me like I’m crazy and answer “Yes” without givingit a second thought.

Listen, here’s the truth – to have a differentlife, you have to be different than you have ever been before. You have to bethe person that has the life you want, and I can pretty much guarantee that isgoing to seriously push your comfort zone.

Life transformation doesn’t come from findingthe right business opportunity or falling in love or losing 20 pounds – lifetransformation comes in the person that we become as we create the life we desire.

So don’t be like most people.  Give this question a second thought and askyourself honestly…

“Am I willing to be different?”

To help you really get a handle on this, I wantto talk about what willingness really is. As I said before, willingness isn’t thesame as desire and that is where most of the confusion comes in.

When you look up ‘willing’ in the dictionarythis is what you find:

Willing inclined or favorably disposed in mind -ready prompt to act or respond done, borne, or accepted by choice or withoutreluctance of or relating to the will or power ofchoosing

Notice the key words here- Ready, Prompt to Act,Without Reluctance and Power of Choosing.

For our purposes, let’s come up with a morespecific definition of ‘Willing’:

Willing (the NEW definition)

1. Ready to use the power of choice to think,believe and act differently, quickly and without reluctance.

With our new definition, can you see how beingready is different than being willing?

So, are you willing to be different? Are youreally willing to let go of the attachment to the thoughts, situations, people,actions and more that are keeping you where you are?

When you know you desire something, you areready, but change doesn’t happen until we become willing.  I know this goes against every instinct. Iknow how easy and common it is to feel that if you just knew what to do tochange your life and live the life of your dreams then you would do it.

I know that because that used to be what I said- I said things like…         If I just knew the rightpeople         If I just knew what action totake         If I had more money         If I had the right connections

Then I would do whatever it took to make ithappen!

Let me share my journey into willingness. I wasready for years before I was willing. And it was only in the moment that Ibecame willing that my life finally started to transform.

The day I became willing was the day I realizedthat I was about to lose everything I valued, my relationship, all of my money(or what was left of it), my dignity, my performing career, my health – I wasgoing to lose everything if I didn’t find a way. And all I had was proof thatthere wasn’t a way.

All at once, when it seemed like it was allover, the strangest thing happened – in a single moment I decided. I didn’tdecide anything profound about what I would do or how I was going to change mylife, I just decided to become willing. Because if I didn’t become willing, ifI didn’t decide that even though there didn’t seem to be a way and even ifthere was I didn’t have the time, energy or resources to do it, I decided thatwasn’t an option. I decided to be willing to stop paying attention to thereasons I couldn’t. I decided to stop paying attention to how I wasn’t gettingwhat I wanted no matter how hard I tried and how much I worked and how much Iworried and tried to think of something else – and I decided to be willing toaccept that everything that seemed to be true wasn’t and that despite allappearances, if I just let go of what seemed to be true and accepted that Ididn’t really know what was going on, that a new way would be revealed to me.

Talk about a leap of faith. I literally decidedto not accept all of the things that were threatening my very survival as thetruth because they were the symptoms of the choices I had made so far in mylife and I needed to make different choices.

So I did…that night I sent an email to a guruwho lived in NY. I told him I was in NY as well and loved what he did and wantedto know if there was anything I could do to help him in any way.

This was an approach I had NEVER taken before…

To my surprise, he sent me an email back askingif he could call me. We spoke and he said, “I’ve never had someone ask me ifthey could help without asking for something in return…so, what’s in it foryou?”

I said, “To be honest, I have no idea, I knowthat I like what you teach and I know that if I keep doing things how I’vealways done them, I’m going to lose everything. I have a business of my ownthat I’ve started and I guess I thought if I could help you in some way, Imight get some ideas just be being around you that would help me grow mybusiness.”

He told me he was putting an event together inNY but he was having trouble finding a space -

I told him I would take care of everything. Keepin mind, I had no idea what I was going to do – but the long and the short ofit is that I ended up coordinating the whole event (and no, I had NO EXPERIENCEin anything like that) – it all happened in a dance studio and he was thrilled.

This isn’t a Cinderella story, I wasn’t amillionaire by the next weekend, in fact this is what happened – he thanked meand a week later he called me to bounce an idea off of me – it was a product hewas thinking of putting together and he wondered what I thought of it. By theend of the conversation I had bought into the program. With this program, hehad morning calls that he did with the people in the program – the calls lastedmaybe 10 minutes, but it was so people would start the day focused and on fire,the calls were at 6 am – 6 am for a performer is VERY EARLY!

I had no idea what I was doing, but I knewI needed to do things differently than I had before, so every morning I gotup and was on the call and I made sure he knew I was there. Eventually, he hadme on an afternoon call to tell people about the focus and determination ittakes to be successful as an actor – now that was something I knew about! Italked for a while and some people asked me questions and it was amazingbecause I knew I was helping them.

This whole time, more money was going out thanwas coming in – I was auditioning, but had recently decided to only accept leadroles so naturally slows things down – the bulk of my time and money was beingspent trying to build my online business.

Then came the night that the world almost camecrashing down – the straw had broken the camel’s back and I really was going tolose everything if I didn’t figure something out fast. I sent another email tomy guru/mentor but this time I was bold – I asked if he had anything I could dofor his company that could increase his revenue, but also increase mine. Hecalled me right away. He asked if I had any sales experience. “Nope, but I’m anactress, so I’m good with people and I know how to handle rejection.”

He said he could give me leads to call to see ifthey wanted to come into the program I was in. He told me he couldn’t train me, he didn’t have time, and we could testit for a week to see if it might be a good fit. He said if you do ok, we’ll figure out a good percentage, but I can’tpay you a salary.

I said, “Okay!”

I had NO IDEA what I was doing but I knew I needed to figure it out – and I did. Ultimately he asked me to come on and build and run hisentire sales floor and coaching program – and I did. And the rest is history…

The point to my story is this…

The day I became willing was the day I decided to do things differentlythan I had been doing them all along. I had to becamewilling to let go of everything I thought was true and realize that even thoughI had been saying I would do what it takes, there were many times that, if Iwas completely honest with myself, I would have to admit that I did know whatto do, but instead of finding a way to do it, I found a bunch of very realisticand understandable reasons why I couldn’t do what it took.

The reasons why you can’t do what it takes willalways be there – that’s the truth, so here are 4 steps you can take to helpyou starting right now!

1. Use Your History:

To helpme on my journey, I looked for a period of time when things had gone right andasked myself what I did differently and the answer was that I said “Yes” notyes to everything that someone asked me   to do, but yes to opportunity, even when Ididn’t know exactly what the opportunity was.

2. Stop looking at everything that is wrong:

There were a lot of things in my life that werewrong but constantly looking at them and saying, “See, it’s all wrong and nomatter what I do or how much time I spend it stays wrong” – wasn’t working.

3. Ask yourself 1 question over and over again until you have successfullystarted to transform:

Here’s the question I would ask: “What would Inormally do in this situation?” and then I did the opposite to make myself actdifferently and focus differently.

4. Give up trying to figure out how something is going to work and onlyfocus on WHY you desire it.

Once you open up your willingness to see andbelieve and act differently, your whole world will change.  And if you are wondering where you need to bewilling, you only need to look as far as where something isn’t working.  Start there and willingness will become yourway of being and so will abundance and prosperity and joy!

I received pretty good traffic last week. Typically Mondays through Thursdays are good days for traffic to my website and to most websites, but when I checked my statistics, I noticed something really interesting. As usual, my primary source of daily traffic came from the search engines (mostly Google), my secondary source of traffic came from WordPress.org because I have a WordPress plugin in the repository there that I created (which is in beta right now). Bloggers are downloading it, but I haven’t really promoted it yet because I’m still working all the kinks out. It’s called WordPress Guest Post.

BUT my 3rd primary source of traffic was from the new social media website Pinterest and I was pleasantly surprised, because there wasn’t much I had to do to earn that new traffic.

Now I am by no means a Pinterest expert (and really who is at this early stage?), but I believe that the results I have seen by using it for only about 10-15 days are really worth sharing. Therefore if you are a small business owner, solo professional, and your ideal clients are women then I’ve written this especially for you.

Pinterest Tutorial – Section 1

What the heck is Pinterest? Pinterest is a social media site that acts as a virtual online cork board. In my home office, I have about three different cork boards up. Two have lots of personal pictures of my kids, my friends, my hubby, my parents, as well as a few mementos from long ago like a few buttons from high school and college, and stuff that my kids have made me over the last few Mother’s Days:) So needless to say the whole cork board thing resonated with me. I mean it’s fun!

Also, Pinterest is experiencing huge growth especially among women of all age ranges (which is unique) in social media. So if your ideal client is a woman, then this is definitely the place to find her.

It took me a few minutes to “get it”, but the general point of Pinterest is to “pin” or “repin” images of things that you like from websites or from other Pinterest users and create your own virtual corkboards of items that you like. These items then get categorized with topic categories, titles, and descriptions of your choosing. As you can see, I have a mixture of business and personal boards from content marketing to handbags (my favorite accessory, no okay my drug of choice!). I think it’s a good idea to have a mixture of business and personal stuff.

You don’t want to blatantly promote yourself and you DO want to appear personable and authentic. But most of all, there is more to you than your business isn’t there? So why not express that visually over on Pinterest. Again, it’s a lot of fun:)

Pinterest Tutorial – Section 2

1. The first thing you need to do is create an account at Pinterest, and at the time of this writing you still need an “invite” to create an account. This isn’t really hard to obtain. You can request one directly from the home page and wait for it for a few days, or you can send me over your email address and I’ll add you to my list of “friends” to send invites to.

2. Once you are accepted into the fold, the first thing the site will ask you to do is to start pinning, but I wouldn’t do that. Like any major social site I join, I rather build out my profile first.

3. The first thing I would decide on is my Pinterest username. The great thing about this site is that you can change it if you need to, which I did. The best thing is to make your username consistent with the profiles of your other social media profiles. I use Lisa Angelettie everywhere so that is what my username is. Pick yours.

4. When you joined Pinterest you had a choice of logging in and setting up your account via Facebook, Twitter or a manual login. If you set up your account via Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest will automatically use your profile photo on that site as your photo on Pinterest.

5. Next you can add a brief description of who you are which will be located under your profile photo.

6. Then you can add a link to your website (very important!). Use the full url address. [http://LisaAngelettie.com]

7. Decide on whether or not you want to connect your account to your Facebook account & timeline (which I recommend).

Pinterest Tutorial – Section 3

Now that you’re all set up, it’s time to start pinning. Pinterest sets you up with several boards already such as Books That You Like, Stuff For The Home, etc. Very general stuff, but stuff to get you going. You can keep these boards or you can edit them. You can also create more. It’s really simple.

1. The easiest way to start pinning is by “repining” another Pinterest member’s photos. So you can conduct a basic search in Pinterest for a topic such as “dogs”. You will then see results for people who included dogs in their title or description of their photo. If you see a photo that you like, scroll over it and you’ll see 3 icons with which you can decide to:

>> REPIN IT so that you can add it to one of your boards

>> LIKE IT if you like the picture but don’t want to add it to your boards

>> COMMENT ON IT if the pic moves you to speak

2. You can also add a Pin It Bookmarklet to your web browser which will allow you to pin photos that you like as you cruise around on websites. How this works is that you click on Pin It, the bookmarklet will “pull” all the images it sees on that page and give you the option of selecting which photo you want to pin.

Pinterest Tutorial – Section 4

Followers

Like other social media sites, you can follow people on Pinterest, you can follow specific boards that they’ve made and of course they can follow you as well. There will be plenty of people who will want to follow you based on your boards and when you go to follow them back, you’ll see that they have zero boards created yet. So, a word to the wise is decide on what your strategy is going to be.

If you sign up via Facebook or Twitter (I signed up via Facebook), Pinterest found followers for me who were already my Facebook friends and automatically started following them. That’s fine, because I do want to cross promote and engage those friends through multiple platforms.

Will you follow everyone who follows you?

Will you seek others to follow?

*A great benefit to being an early adopter on Pinterest is that you can get in front of many of the leaders in your niche in a very unique way. Most people will take a few minutes to look at your boards regardless of who they are because this site is so new. They won’t ignore you. So it’s important to make sure you are pinning relevant images for your topic and get in front of people who you normally would have a tough time meeting.

Pinterest Tutorial – Section 5

Pinterest Marketing

The biggest question that entrepreneurs ask about Pinterest, is how on earth can it be beneficial to business owners. More importantly — is it a waste of time? We already spend so much time on other social media sites.

The reality is that Pinterest is so new, that no one can truly predict what impact it will have on business owners, but there is one obvious strategy that all business owners can take advantage of on Pinterest and that’s the fact that we know that an unprecedented amount of women are on the site AND that it is a chance to present and establish your brand in a unique way — visually.

A few Pinterest Marketing Ideas

1. Pin your logo.

2. Pin some of the more interesting images from your website.

3. Pin testimonial images.

4. Pin infographics (really big on Pinterest!)

5. Pin pictures of you and your family, you and your clients, or you speaking,

Pinterest Tutorial – Section 6

Search

Pinterest is gaining traction in the search engines, but it’s not what I call a Power Link yet, but it’s new and it needs time to grow. I did do a search for “I love purple” and a Pinterest I Love Purple board did end up high on page 2 of Google. That’s okay, but not great. So I wouldn’t expect any major search engine traffic from Pinterest at this time.

Social

Pinterest makes it very easy to share what you have recently pinned or liked with Facebook and Twitter making it a seamless and effortless visual/social conversation. I really like this about Pinterest. I also like that it adds something different and engaging to our timelines and newsfeeds, instead of just more of the same. Plus, this is where the traffic comes from. Facebook and Twitter. Someone sees something you’ve pinned on there and follows the path back to your board on Pinterest and then back to you and your website.

Engagement

While online engagement isn’t anything like Facebook or Twitter, there is an advantage to that. When someone comments, there is a probably some passion or meaning behind the exchanges that is worth reading. For example, I read a few comments made on a board that features extreme dog grooming hairdos. There are some people on there who are livid with these groomers, and there are other people who believe that it is “art” and that these groomers obviously love dogs. That was probably the only exchange in the form of comments I saw on Pinterest today and it was good! So you see there isn’t a lot of meaningless chatter or hyper-promotional crap on Pinterest – yet:)

So take advantage of the simplicity, quiet and beauty of it now!

Pinterest Articles For Further Reading

56 Ways To Market Your Business On Pinterest

What Marketers Can Learn From Whole Foods On Pinterest

Ideas For Marketing Your Business On Pinterest [Infographic]

Pinterest Infographic, an Infographic by Linchpin SEO

Business Breakthrough Community Teleclass:  Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Are you tired of meeting lovely people who need your help, but they stop short of hiring you?

Over 75% of entrepreneurs claim that your issues related to closing are major stumbling blocks when it comes to getting new clients.*

Whether it’s getting the appointment without sound pushy, unearthing your prospect’s core issues without feeling like you’re prying, or gracefully closing the business without sounding desperate — “sealing the deal” without feeling awkward is easier said than done for most entrepreneurs.

So we’re hosting a free training call just for you.

On this call you’ll learn:

➡     The #1 sales conversation glitch that’s pushing potential clients away—and Carolyn’s surefire fix for turning them around

➡     The top 3 reasons you don’t like talking about your fees or asking for the business—and 5 crazy simple steps for eliminating the funk factor once and for all

➡     The single most simple way evvverrrr to ask for the business—without squirming in your chair or putting pressure on your prospect

You’ll also learn about the Art of the Ask program—a brand new training course that elevates your confidence and doubles your conversions, putting more cash in your pocketbook and taking the pressure off of the stress you have around sales.  It’s ideal for the service-based, solo entrepreneur who loves what she does, but hates to sell.

 Call-in information for the live call is on your member teleclass archives page. Missed the live call? Get the audio download from the members area within 48 hours. If you do not have your password, email us at: info@brendarivas.com.

Not a Business Breakthrough Community Member? Click here to learn more and join us. It’s free.

After helping launch 100 businesses in seven years, Carolyn Herfurth felt helpless as she watched 80% of her clients struggle with sales and saw the havoc it wreaked on their personal, financial and business lives. It ticked her off enough that she walked away from her multiple six-figure business to start The Biztruth.

She now boosts the sales confidence of entrepreneurs who go on to earn an additional 4 to 5 (and sometimes 6) figures each month. Carolyn specializes in working with small business owners who are super talented, experienced great success in their past corporate career, and now need help figuring out how to sell their own services without manipulation.

She had to figure it out for herself when she made the transition from corporate America to starting her first business 10 years ago, so she “gets it” and shows you a way to simplify it.  Her playful style is a breath of fresh air to those who believe business, like life, is meant to be enjoyed!  Learn more about Carolyn by visiting: www.thebiztruth.com.

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Annemarie Cross host of the Ambitious Entrepreneur Show.  I had the opportunity to speak to Annemarie’s audience about expanding your visibility  by hosting Virtual Coffee’s.  I’de love to hear your comments!

Enjoy,

As an ambitious entrepreneur I’m sure that you already know about the concept of catching up with one of your contact face to face to have a coffee. This is a great way to see whether there are any potential business opportunities that you can develop.

However, how often would you love the opportunity to connect with someone but unfortunately they’re based in another town or overseas, making it logistically impossible. Or you catch up, spend hours chatting about everything other than business opportunities, and leave the meeting without finding ways where you might be able to help each other in your respective businesses.

Brenda Rivas joins me to talk about an innovative system that she’s developed that has helped her build her profile as well as lots of opportunities including new clients and join ventures. And today she’s going to share exactly how she has done this.

Download here

Find out more about the show here:

About the Show | Be A Guest | Be a Sponsor | Be a Supporter

Show Transcript: Want to grow your business? Have a virtual coffee!

“Welcome to the Ambitious Entrepreneur show brought to you by Get More Clients Booked free weekly webinars with must do business building topics to help you get more clients.

And I am your host Annemarie Cross. Today on the show online business strategist Brenda Reeves joined me to talk about a virtual coffee, what it is and why you should be doing these in your business should be sharing how virtual coffee can boost your profile, how it can open doors to amazing opportunities including joint ventures, new clients and expanding your network and much more, so stick around”

As an ambitious entrepreneur I am sure you already know about the concept of catching up with one of your contacts face to face to have a coffee. This is a great way to see whether there are any potential business opportunities that you can develop. However, how often you loved the opportunity to connect with someone but unfortunately they are based in another town or even overseas making it logistically impossible or if you do catch up with someone you spend hours chatting with that everything other that business opportunities and you leave the meeting without really finding out ways where you might be able to help each other in your respective businesses.

Brenda Reeves joins me to talk about the innovative system that she has developed that has helped her build her profile as well as gains lot of opportunities including your clients and joined ventures and today she is going to share how exactly she has done this. So welcome to the show Brenda!

Brenda: – Thank you so much for having me Annemarie, I am very excited to be with you and with your lovely audience.

Annemarie: – I know you got a lot of wisdom to share with us particularly around something which you developed which is very unique and that is virtual coffee. So do you want to just explain to our listeners, what is a virtual coffee?

Brenda: – Sure, Absolutely! It is my pleasure. Well virtual coffee concept really comes from the traditional live networking that so many of us are used to. So basically this concept came out of my very own frustration with attending a live event with my local area that you know while I was meeting amazing people and having a great opportunity to socialize with. I was finding that these conversations leading to nowhere and it was rather that frustration and you know it wasn’t just a frustration that was also my desire to connect with people and a virtual copy is an opportunity to connect with people across the world and very strategically manner.

Annemarie: – The technology we have at our fingertips now such as Skype are amazing. In fact that is how we are conducing this interview. To think that we are on the opposite ends of the earth, yet we can talk to one another. The sound is so clear – you really can connect with anyone anywhere in the world today.

Brenda: – Absolutely! And I actually do use Skype a lot and these conversations and I have had virtual coffee with people in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America and it is really just taking full advantage of the amazing technology that we have available to us today.

Annemarie: – You know you mentioned something about the live networking and I am sure we are very familiar with that. And I know myself when I first started networking and I am sure for many of our listeners it can be very daunting going to live networking event particularly if you don’t know anyone and so for your face with this great group of people yet it is quite difficult to talk with them all and you just really feel like you just one small person in this huge crowd. And I think what I am hearing when you talk about virtual coffee very much taking that relationship with one on one where you really can spend some quality time with people, yes?

Brenda: – Absolutely yes Annemarie! That is very true and what I love about the virtual coffee is that you have the opportunity to be very targeted and to really get in front of your ideal audience so whether you are looking for strategic partners, joint venture opportunities, whether you are looking to get in front of new clients and another really benefit of the virtual coffee is that you really get to uplift your circle of events for a bit and we as an entrepreneur go to the procedure where we really want be in the space of the people that sort of sharing mindset. And I notice a true for lot of entrepreneurs that once we decided to go through a networking event alot of times we find ourselves quite lonely because might be our friends don’t share the same ideas and thoughts that we now share so virtual coffee is an excellent opportunity also to up level your circle of event. I am really excited about that event.

Annemarie: – Absolutely! You know the one of the things that you say is that having a virtual coffee can also very quickly boost your visibility. Do you want to talk little bit more about that?

Brenda: – Sure Absolutely! I would love for our listeners to kind of thing like virtual coffee is a simply another channel. It is visibility channels that can really help you get as I mentioned a moment ago get in front of the ideal audience. And what happens is that you know people will start talking about you. People will you are know having this strategic conversation and you are meeting yourself memorable and definitely have a formula to help people become memorable having these conversation but happens is that you really start to expand that circle who you are and what really starts to happen overtime is that you really position yourself and certainly start to get known. So it is an amazing visibility channel.

Annemarie: – And I think with the tools again we are talking about social media it’s such a great way to listen, to observe, to see who may be someone that you want to connect with, you are talking about strategic conversation we can talk about in a moment but getting in front of your whether it would be your ideal client or you mentioned before potential joint venture personal just someone that you really do admire your respect that they have got great information, they seem to have the similar view point as yourself and you really just want to reach out and connect with them. So do you have any sort of advice or tips on some of the things that you do just keep an eye on it who you should reach out you do. The reason that I say because I know a lot of business owners that I speak to get very overwhelmed with social media particularly when they use tools such as Facebook and Twitter but there are so many people talking and sometimes I just can’t keep up with all the conversation and the chat are going on there. Can you give us some advance you on how you go about seeking out potential people that you want to talk too?

Brenda: – That is a great question. The one of the first thing that I love to do with the virtual coffee is that I really seeking out in my business primarily work with women entrepreneurs very much attracted to women that has already achieved what I am seeking to achieve in my business and in my life and so I am really inviting you know high level women that are really doing it sort of speak. So that is the person that I will invite in the virtual coffee not so much because you know have the hopes perhaps the creating a joint venture partnership or anything like that simply because I want that women to know what I mean. And some really great things have come about from having those conversations with the women that really admire so that is one thing that need to look who you want to know you, whether this person has person has already achieved what you are looking to achieve or whether it is just someone that you want to know again someone who you want to know exists and someone that you want to know what you are up to. So that is first criteria, the other thing is that who can help you extend your visibility and really great to gaze that to look for the people who already have your ideal client in front of them. You know invite them into a virtual conversation and see what can come out of them conversation, you know there are so many different possibilities, I have been invited on to guest blogger, to do a teleseminars and telesummits and things of that nature. So again who is already according your ideal client that could help you to expand your business visibility as well.

Annemarie: – Those are such great tips and I think just having an understanding of the process that you follow is going to be so helpful because there are millions of people and I am sure if we have millions of hours you know do a virtual coffee we would do that but you have to be targeted I think and you mentioned strategic conversations we can talk about that in a moment but really does have to be a strategy behind that because not so great coffee with the people and meeting with lots of people which is fantastic of course, you know we are in the business of business so we want to make that we set ourselves for success and that the end of the day can really align ourselves to some of those key people that we can build a really strong reciprocal relationship with.

Brenda: – Absolutely! And I am so glad that you mentioned that because it wasn’t just happening to me when I was meeting people for coffee locally. I always say that I am social butterfly at heart so what I usually intended to maybe 45 minutes or 60 minutes conversation what turn out to be like a 90 minute, 2 hour coffee break and when you factor in few time and all of the other things when going to meeting someone in person again I was meeting amazing people but I love what you said Annemarie we are in the business of being business so me personally I was very frustrated with the time that it was taking me and it really I wasn’t you know those conversations was not strategic. The same thing was happening time to time when I would have you know sort of like a regular telephone conversation with someone great conversation but that really did not lead to anything so I gave a lot of thought to this process and there are certain things that I seem while I am hosting a virtual coffee that will make the conversation very-2 strategic and not just to myself. One thing that I really wanted to say and stress about a virtual coffee it’s definitely not sets for being. You used a beautiful word a moment ago and it is a reciprocal relationship and that truly excites me as well as about having virtual coffees.

Annemarie: – I think so and what we were just talking about can often have two very separate outcomes if we do not plan ahead and I know that you got a formula that you will share and listeners will know how they can access your formula at the end of the call. If you don’t have a strategic plan and have an idea on some of the things that you would like to speak with that person you can talk for hours and hours and can have a fantastic chat just like what you were saying that you have many-2 ways to face which is fantastic or on the other end of the scale you can really come across as quite demanding and this is what I want happen and you really will know the women entrepreneurs heartened women entrepreneurs. We do not want to come across like that so that really needs to be middle ground but reciprocal so what can you gain from the call but of course most importantly how can you support them as well. What are just couples of things that you would say to people some of the things that they really need to consider about the conversation so that they can make it more strategic?

Brenda: – Absolutely very good question, one of the ways that I really maximize that conversation is that I am very-2 clear on what I like to refer to as my enrollment statements and what I mean by that is that I want to see you know in one to two sentences at the most I want to be very strategic about what I do and how I help people and who I am looking for. First of all, what I have said really resonates in other words statements identifies that keen of my virtual coffee partner then sort of that red flag goes off and typical person might say you know Brenda, I am struggling that myself so that is just a beautiful transition into separate rolling conversation with that person. The other thing is that when you make those powerful enrollment statements you know your virtual coffee partner is going to walk away with the clear understanding and how you help people and that is where the referrals come in. I have had people send amazing referrals recently because my enrollment statement was clear and precise. They clearly got what I do and I think that is problem for lot of entrepreneurs is just having that clarity.

Annemarie: -I think so and as you are talking about your enrollment statement it reminded me of how as business owners we attend with networking events, get up to introduce ourselves whether we have an opportunity to speak with group of people or even individually and if we don’t have the clarity around the statement and how we can introduce ourselves with very powerful we can lose that opportunity can’t we?

Brenda: – Yes, I totally agree. Actually I found that it is true for myself as well because I struggled with that clarity for quite some time. What happens is that become the source of hiding out. So I have had so many people say to me you know what I passed up on this great opportunity or that great opportunity simply because I didn’t want the attention on me because I was not even clear on how I see people. And even that is understandable and it is true that if you are not sure, you are not clear on what it is that you do and who you have and do you really want to be seen and so I have found that once you can create that clarity for yourself as I love to see the floodgates definitely open up. I am very kind attractive.

Annemarie: – It’s great because one of the things that I really love about this is that you really understand where ambitious entrepreneurs, you now the business owners where they are coming from because you live this, you have experienced having those conversations so great socially but at the end of the day think you know what I really gained from that when I look from business point of view how can we help one and another and so now you have created this great formula which is obviously making great-2 opportunities for you because you really being strategic in that. I know that you have mentioned that there is one thing that as an ambitious entrepreneur we must do in order to make ourselves memorable when hosting a virtual coffee. Do you want to share this secret with us?

Brenda: – Sure Absolutely! You know the secret with us that what I was talking a moment ago was that is creating your enrollment statement and again it is a two part process and typically it is what you are gaining clarity. As I mentioned what is that you do and you know we are helping. I typically like to say you want to create statement by starting I am in the business of and fill in the blank and second part of that statement is you know I am specifically looking for and very-2 powerful because you are very-2 clear on what you do and how you help people. And again as your virtual coffee partner can walk away with that understanding that it would be so easy for them refer your business to and remember you when another opportunities come up and I have found because I have that clarity that has really opened the doors to lot of for amazing opportunities.

Annemarie: – Brenda, I just love the entire concept around the virtual coffee and you know that this is going to be such a helpful process for many ambitious entrepreneurs hosting today. We are just going to take a very short break to hear a message from one of our sponsors and in turn we again find out how to conduct a virtual coffee.

“Are you struggling to get more clients and get paid what you worth for the amazing services that you offer or you feel like that you are the world’s best kept secret. You got amazing services that help people overcome this struggle yet hardly anyone knows about you. Have you just tried everything but nothing has worked. You know what having a successful six or more business does not have to be a possible dream. So why don’t you join me on one my business breakthroughs strategy session and I will show you how you can finally breakthrough to a six figure or more business. But hurry as I am going to only release a small amount of sessions every month and only few spots remaining or you need to do is go to bit.ly/breakthrough session and fill in your details and I will be in contact with you when I receive your information. So go ahead and do that now, I can’t wait to share on how you can start building your six figures or more business to your success and brilliance this is Annemarie”

Welcome back! Let’s rejoin our conversation with Brenda Reeves.

Annemarie:- So then if people are not clear really about who they are, what they are in the business of and who they really support and how and of course benefits that particular client achieve through and investing in them from what I am hearing you really do encourage people to spend some time and get some clarity on that first because otherwise if you are still confused about that your virtual coffee partner is probably going to leave the conversation simply not really knowing what is that you want. Is that correct?

Brenda: – That is very true and I have that client to me and say when you go to my website I don’t even know what is that do. If the business owner does not know then how are the rest of? So you are right that is a great point. You know just really work on getting really on that transformation you know what is the problem that you are solving, how does your company solve this particular problem, you know who is that you really enjoy working with and that is really great thing with also factor in when you are making those decisions and now you want to send who people to that thought process of you know what industry you are really passionate about helping. You know there is endless industry out there whether it is a real estate, wedding consultant, medical technology, coaches, consultants, it is just really important to get clear on who it is that you are helping and what you are helping them and when. And it really is that from there that I really believe that business is really strategic off.

Annemarie:- And I think that so is true because imagine if you have a conversation, having a virtual coffee where potential Joint Venture opportunity or even someone who can refer business too and you say I help everyone. My products and services can help everyone. It really doesn’t help them to narrow down the focus of that when they are talking to their ideal client they can all of us sudden think hey this person is really someone that I need to connect with obviously you. So the clear you get the more your virtual partners that you are having a coffee with can really keep an eye and ear out for the people you are having problems with that you said you help with your ideal client with. So the clear you get the more business you are getting to refer you because of that.

Brenda: – I totally agree and I am happy that you brought that up Annemarie because that is the exactly, that is just the byproduct of virtual coffee. That is exactly what happens. As I mentioned earlier, I am still so grateful to be offered with so many different opportunities and the thing is that these opportunities don’t always happen right then and there when I am having the virtual coffee. What it really happens is that because I have made myself clear and memorable, my virtual coffee partner really and truly keeps me in mind. And I have virtual coffee with actually recently I heard from someone that I had the virtual coffee with back in October last year. And she send me an email and she said I want to chat with you for few minutes about an opportunity, she remembered me and she remembered what it is that I do and how I help people. So that is the really-2 great point. Your virtual coffee partners will remember you if you make yourself memorable and in order to make yourself memorable you must be clear.

Annemarie: – And when you are thinking about networking as you said I loved the fact that you mentioned that this is the virtual coffee that you had with someone back on October, it very much is the whole relationship is that it just takes time, so just as you went to face to face networking event, you don’t really expect to walk out with tones of award it is not like that at all. That is really is the relationship building first because the stronger the relationship is, more likely that someone is going to referred to and of course vice and versa as well. You are going to want to refer to them. So what I want to do is just ask you how many virtual coffees you are having.

Brenda: -Yes, that is a great question. Actually you know I always make a rule to thumb to have anywhere from 5-10 virtual coffees per week and so i know that some of the listeners may be thinking oh my god that is a lot, so I recommend that if you are starting up may be set a goal of may be 3-5 per week. May be just has to be that number that stretches you and makes you feel comfortable. What I also wanted to say about that is that I also use this whole virtual coffee process to create great momentum in my business. So time to time I will have what I foundry refer to as virtual coffee bliss. So I kind of say yes this month I am going to have 60 conversations and I just really do the work to get the conversation booked and I have created some phenomenal results that you have I have the proof that turned into cash and great opportunities for me to seen and to be heard. So the virtual coffee bliss is another option as well when you want to create momentum.

Annemarie: – The reason why you are able to have so many virtual coffees, the virtual coffees my goodness is that there is a structure that you follow, there is a process and that process and structure that you follow allows you to have really great virtual coffees with the people so that both of you leave those meetings thinking wow and obviously the rest happens, the relationship building and so on and that is the reason why yes?

Brenda: – That is very true. Absolutely Annemarie! As I said earlier, I had those conversations, I think we all have where it was a great conversation but the when the conversation is all, you are kind of thinking yourself okay so that is going to lead to where. And it is really true that and seen that I really get to virtual coffee secrets because I talk to myself you know why it is going to better ways to really be organised and prepared with these conversations. Absolutely!

Annemarie: – Now how can people get access to virtual coffee secrets?

Brenda: – Well thank you so much for asking. And it really simple, your audience can visit virtualcoffeesecrets.com and they can read more on virtual coffee, system and process.

Annemarie: – Look Brenda, it is an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. I think just the whole conversation around the virtual coffee secrets. I think that it really just bring everything back to the relationship first and it is so excited to see that you develop the system that allows to have the strategic conversations, you generated so many not only success for your business but I am sure you got lot of now with people in your influence that you never had the opportunity to meet where or not for you to reach out on virtual basis. Yes?

Brenda: – That is very true and I definitely agree with that. And you know that is just looking at yet another visibility channel just as we have marketing channel, sales channel in our businesses, this is brilliant easy to implement channel of disability. The other thing to be that it really opens the door for servicing people globally and that truly excites me.

Annemarie: – That is very exciting. I think with women entrepreneurs we know how to have that conversation, we know how to check with girlfriends and however using Brenda system’s the virtual coffee secrets you will be able to take that conversations, leverage that strategic plan so that you can really create a reciprocal relationships that benefits you both. So that web address again is www.virtualcoffeesecrets.com. Again Brenda, it is an absolute pleasure with speaking you today.

Brenda: – Thank you as well. Thank you so much for having me on the show Annemarie.

“You have been listening to the Ambitious Entrepreneur. If you are struggling to get more clients and charge what you worth get our free 7 steps on how to get noticed, hired and paid what you worth at bit.ly/chargeyourworth”

Business Breakthrough Community Teleclass:  Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Pinterest, the current the darling of social media, has taken the visual world by storm. While it is very simple to use, you may be wondering ‘do I REALLY need another format to build relationships with my clients’?

I say YES!  Knowing how to use Pinterest will set you apart in your industry!

During our time together, you can expect to learn:

• What Pinterest is and why it is a fit for your business
• How it can help you build the know, like and trust factor with your potential clients
• How to generate income directly from your Pinterest page

Call-in information for the live call is on your member teleclass archives page. Missed the live call? Get the audio download from the members area within 48 hours. If you do not have your password, email us at: info@brendarivas.com.

Not a Business Breakthrough Community Member? Click here to learn more and join us. It’s free.

Angela Lomel’s fussy ‘title’ is the MAP Strategist for Women Solopreneurs, but her friends call her the Moxie MAP Girl!

She is the Founder of “Put Your M.O.X.I.E in Action”, a proprietary, step by step, mapping system that produces a customized Moxie Action Plan (M.A.P.) for clients. Using her MAP system, Angela takes her client’s ideas and turns them into monetizable assets that show up in the form of customized processes, info products and various other business deliverables.

Angela is a Certified Professional Success Coach, Certified Niche Breakthrough Secrets Trainer, has enjoyed over 10 years in the Direct Sales Industry, has a B.Ed in Exceptional Education, and lives gratefully and happily in South Florida with her hubby, Brian.

Oh, and she thinks she’s kinda funny, too…just play along.

Connect with Angela at www.AngelaLomel.com.

This has been a thought provoking subject that I’ve been sharing with clients and other’s recently as I unveil my new signature work of The Upward Spiral. 

As I evolve in my work, I’ve never been more excited and grounded.  This groundbreaking work is called The Upward Spiral: The Connection Between Your Intimate Relationships And Success In Business. So far I’ve gotten lots of head nodding as in “oh my gosh, we so need that!”  Lots of women especially, and I’m glad because the big idea behind this is my belief that the world needs women entrepreneurs unique contributions. Especially at this moment in time. It has been my experience that women really give their deepest of gifts when they are truly fulfilled in their intimate relationships. 

The big reveal!

My first opportunity to share this with the public is an interview I did with my friend Christine Kloser.  It was powerful and I love how inspired we both got about it! I just felt that it’s turning over a whole new part of me… as yet another bold courageous act of taking a stand in the evolution of my work and my business. Whew! 

I would love for you to listen it for sure!  Join me in The Upward Spiral Movement that’s about to break open.  Stay tuned!

 My interview will broadcast at 1pm EST Friday, March 16th; I invite you to check it out! 

Here’s how to get it. 

The interview is another beautiful gift that you get when you are a part of the Transformational Author’s Experience tribe with Christine.  She’s an amazing spiritual leader herself.  Christine is a business and author’s coach, and an award winning book publisher and author of many books. Join her at www.transfomationalauthortribe.com to gain access to my powerful interview with her.  It’s at no cost to you.  If you can’t make the call Friday, you have access to the recording for 72 hrs, so be sure to join her fast! 

Be the first of many to listen to the unveiling of The Upward Spiral Movement!  Here’s what you’ll discover on my interview call: 

• The tell-tale signs of a downward spiral.
• Why the energy of intimacy is the same energy that makes your business work.
• Are you “Waiting to Love”?
• The three illusions that sabotage your deepest dreams and desires.
• How to recognize your spiritual match and why you haven’t yet.
• What is “The Upward Spiral Movement” and why becoming aware of it will help you  

Be sure to join her community now and act fast so you don’t miss my new talk on The Upward Spiral.  I promise you that it’ll be insightful and powerful. 

Again, click to join here:  www.transformationalauthortribe.com. 

So, are you Waiting To Love? 

Truthfully, I had to ask that question myself over and over when I was waiting to unveil this heartfelt new Upward Spiral Movement to the masses.  I had to dig deep within myself, and now here I am!   You’ll find out on the call what I mean.  Consider that whatever you’re up to, it’s some form of waiting… a waiting to love. 

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this topic!  My coming out party, I guess.  It just feels so right and my heart is wide open and ready to receive what comes to me, it’s my truth. 

To Love and Success,
Brian

Brian McFadin is the creator of The Upward Spiral, a movement of women coaches, leaders and entrepreneurs succeeding in their work and thriving in their intimate relationships.

 Brian has discovered a powerful breakthrough in the play of intimate relationship and the fulfillment of your purpose: There is a powerful synergy that, when fully harnessed, elevates both way beyond the ordinary. He’s an author, speaker and frequent guest expert in demand worldwide.

To learn more about Brian, please visit: www.unleashyourspirit.com.

This guest post comes by way of  Life Coach, Maxine Hargreaves.  Maxine is a transparent blogger who is not afraid to share the ebbs and flow of her life.  I truly look forward to reading her thoughts and perspective about her experiences.  Experiences that many of us have endured as well.   She exudes the kind of courage and grace that one can only admire.

Enjoy,

Sometimes we have to acknowledge that there is something in our lives, which may have been what we wanted in the past, but it is no longer serving us. Having made that acknowledgement, it can then take us some time to take action to “let it go”.

I have been in a relationship with someone, on and off for a few years. He’s a wonderful man, and has been there for me, at my most difficult moments, offering companionship, support and fun. However, I have also known for a while, that I want something else.

One of the first aha moments I had was listening to an interview with Christine Arylo on the “Renew You 2010″ Seminar. Her topic was “Dare to be loved: get the love you want by loving yourself first”. One of the vows that she discussed was “I’m honest with me”. She says:

“We lie to ourselves not because we’re afraid of the truth, but because we’re afraid of the consequences, for example staying in a broken relationship because we’re afraid to be alone. A very common lie is: I can fix him or her. We try to marry or date someone’s potential. People tell you who they are, so believe them when they do”.

This struck a chord with me at the time. I was with a good man, but part of me was hoping that he’d change, and yet I knew from past experience with my husband, that you can spend a lifetime waiting for someone to change, and if they don’t want to, they never will.

Another quote that I came across at the same time was by Leo Buscaglia from his book “Love”

“If he desired to know about automobiles, he would, without question, study diligently about automobiles. If his wife desired to be a gourmet cook, she’d certainly study the art of cooking, perhaps even attending a cooking class. Yet, it never seems as obvious to him that if he wants to live in love, he must spend at least as much time as the auto mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.”

When I’d asked the man in my life if he loved me, he had answered; “I don’t know what love is”. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. So I ended it, because I want to be with someone who does know what love is.

Months went by, and I missed his friendship, so we got back together again, had some good times, but some time later, the old frustrations came up for me, and we split up again.

He had been my best friend for over 20 years and so we stayed friends, I didn’t want to lose that. This Xmas we got back together again. More good times and fun, but on Valentine’s Day, I realised yet again, that I’m just kidding myself and I have to let him go.

You can use the process “Clarity through Contrast” to write a list of what you really want in a relationship. But the difficulty with this process can be believing that you can have what you want. You write out a long list of all the things you want, and you can feel rather selfish, shallow maybe, when you read it back. Part of you also doubts that you will ever find someone that meets all your criteria. You ask yourself, who am I to be wanting so much? But it is ok to want what you want!! Your life is all about discovering what you don’t want, so that you can work out what you do want. You have to ask yourself another question:

If this is what I want, who do I need to be, to bring this into my life?

If I want a man who appreciates me, then I have to be someone who will appreciate my mate. If I want to attract someone who is generous with their time and their money, then I have to be generous too. This is where the fun starts.

What action do I need to take, to ensure that I am the type of person that will naturally attract the person I want?

I think I do have a a lot of the qualities I’m looking for, but we’re all a work in progress. We can all be a little bit better, a little more loving, a little more generous, a little more appreciative…

So where am I now? I’ve not spoken with this man for two weeks; I’ve written him a letter telling him I’m letting him go. There are lots of things that I will miss about him. It can be very hard being alone, not having someone to talk to, share your day with. But you can’t stay with someone because you’re afraid to be on your own. It’s not fair to either of you.

There is another process I use with my client which is “Create a void or vacuum”. A void or vacuum is always waiting to be filled. If you make space in your life, then you create the opportunity for something new to come in. Clear out your wardrobe of all those old clothes that you don’t like, and you give yourself the opportunity to fill the space with new ones that are more in line with who you are now. Clear out your old friendships and relationships that don’t serve you anymore, and you give yourself the space to attract ones that will serve you better.

I feel sadness at letting this man go, and I know there will be moments of loneliness, but I now have space in my life to attract someone more in line with what I want, and that is so exciting!!

So what are you holding onto that doesn’t serve you anymore? What steps could you take to become clearer on what you do want? Who do you need to be, to attract it into your life?

Maxine Hargreaves is a Life Coach, Helping Women Heal.  She helps women like you, who have suffered loss in their lives, and are living a life of mediocrity and pain as a result.  Through her VIP day retreats and six month program, she teaches women tools, including Law of Attraction processes,  to help them feel better, gain clarity on the amazing futures that they desire, and then live that dream. 

She shares much of her personal story to help others, and her clients appreciate her inspiring, heartfelt, authentic style.
www.MaxineHargreaves.com

A Classic Interview with Esther Hicks and Abraham
by Randy Peyser

Holding a book in hand, inspirational author, Wayne Dyer, stood in front of 3000 people in a San Francisco auditorium and said, “This is the one book I wish I had written. He was referring to “Ask And It is Given,” by Esther Hicks. Published by Hay House, this book, which has sold over 100,000 copies in less than four months, provides spot-on advice for attracting whatever it is that we desire to be, do or have into our lives.

In this interview on creating prosperity, I spoke primarily with Abraham, a non-physical entity who offers wisdom through Hicks. As Dyer advised his audience, “Whether you believe in channeling or not, please open yourself to this information because it is the most valuable information you can hear.”

Randy Peyser: Like many people, I’ve followed my dreams and risked everything to create what I feel most passionate about in life. But I’ve not yet achieved the financial level of success I dreamed I would achieve from having done all this work. They say, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” I’m wondering, how far behind is it following?

Abraham: It’s possible for you to hold yourself apart from money indefinitely, or it’s possible for you to begin to allow the money to flow in large sums almost immediately. While it does not take time for things to turn around, it does take making a vibrational shift. The universe responds to the vibration of your being.

Here is an easy way to understand this: You do not set your radio dial to 630 AM expecting to hear what is being broadcast on 98.7 FM. You know that the frequencies have to match up. We can feel that your vibrational frequency is set on ‘it’s not happening.’ Meanwhile, your desire is set to, ‘I really want this and I believe that I deserve for it to happen.’

So there is a contradiction happening vibrationally within you that needs to be soothed. Many people don’t realize when they’re making progress because quite a bit of vibrational alignment takes place before the physical evidence shows. For example, Esther and her husband, Jerry, often travel 400 miles from Phoenix to San Diego. If they travel west consistently, they will arrive in San Diego, even though during most of the 400 mile journey they cannot see San Diego. If they were to stop and take score, they would say, ‘We are not where we want to be,’ even though they were well along the way. Many people get to the halfway point and become so concerned that they are not yet there that they head back to Phoenix.

People do that relative to their financial gains in this way: they get hopeful, and vibrationally speaking, they are well along the way to their destination. But then a bill comes, or they get tired, or feel overwhelmed or overworked, or stop and take score. Then they turn around and head in the wrong direction.

To obtain vibrational alignment, you have to consistently keep the faith, focus upon what you want, and speak about it in ways that make you feel good about it. Disappointment, anger or frustration mean you are headed in the wrong direction. Feelings like hope or elation mean you are going in the right direction.

RP: You state that you have to focus for just 17 seconds on a new thought in order for a matching vibration to be activated.

A: That’s true, however, you can’t find hope or elation when you are feeling despair or disappointment. Sometimes when you try to reach for hopeful words, you find them but they are empty and hollow. The best thing to do is to work your way gradually up the emotional scale. Reach for something that feels just a little better, and then try to maintain that feeling. Then reach for something else that feels a little better still.

For example, let’s say you’ve worked hard, you feel like you’ve paid the price, but your money is still not flowing the way you want it to. The emotion you might then feel is discouragement or powerlessness. From there, you can’t find appreciation or hope Instead, try to find something that feels a little better than the feeling of having no control. This might feel like anger. You might say, ‘This doesn’t seem fair. There are many people who are making more money than I am who are not working nearly as hard.’ Even though it’s not where you want to stay, if these angry words feel slightly better to you than your words of powerlessness or despair, you are moving in the right direction.

Of course, you don’t want to stay in anger. You then want to reach for something that feels slightly better – like being frustrated. ‘I don’t understand why my efforts aren’t paying off. I should be able to make more money doing this.’ Can you feel in that frustration that you are in a slightly better place than that discouraged despair where you started?

Each time you reach for a slightly better feeling thought you leave a little of your resistance behind. You then come closer into vibrational alignment with your desires. Once you get to frustration, with not much effort you can find appreciation. Then you might say, ‘I like doing this work and I feel better when I do this than anything I’ve ever done. I was born to do it.’ Work your way up to appreciation and stay there more consistently. The vibration of appreciation is the vibration that lets the money flow in.

RP: Are there other exercises that we can do?

A: There is a game we encourage, and everyone we know who has played this game has had a financial turnaround without exception. If you play the game, you will see evidence immediately. The game is to put a $100 in your pocket or purse. Keep it with you. Throughout the day, notice how many things you could buy with that $100. Don’t spend it. Just spend it in your mind. Say to yourself, ‘I could have that. I could take my friends and eat there. I could buy those beautiful shoes. I could do this, or if I really wanted to, I could do that. As you move through the day, acknowledge how many things you could buy.
What is powerful about this exercise is that you really could buy all of these things. You’re not pretending that you could buy it. You’ve got the $100 in your pocket. The universe does not know the difference between reality or the perception of reality. The universe responds to your perception of reality. As you spend that $100 a thousand times today, think what you’ve done in terms of activating the abundance vibration within yourself.

RP: What do you think about using affirmations for increasing prosperity?

A: Affirmations are wonderful because it is much better to speak positively than to speak negatively. But the universe isn’t responding to your words; it responds to your vibration, and your vibration is being indicated to you by the way you feel. If you don’t believe what you’re saying, your vibration hasn’t shifted, so nothing changes for you.

The key to affirmations is to work yourself into a place where you really feel it. We have never talked about this before anywhere, but a very good application of an affirmation would be to affirm your way up the emotional scale. Start with an affirmation of where you are emotionally then keep reaching for a better feeling thought. Here’s how that might work:

I don’t have enough money. – That’s an affirmation.
I’m sick and tired of not having enough money. – A stronger affirmation going in the wrong direction.
I really would like to have more money. – A better affirmation.
I don’t know how I’m going to get more money. – Not as good an affirmation.
Maybe something will happen and I will break loose. – A better affirmation.
I’ve been waiting a long time and nothing has broken loose yet. – A worse affirmation.
Other things in my life work pretty well. – A better affirmation.
I’m going to start watching for the evidence of what I want financially. – A better affirmation.
I bet the evidence is there and I just haven’t seen it. – A better affirmation.
I’m looking forward to seeing the evidence of my improved vibration. – A better affirmation.
I think I’m going to figure this out. – A better affirmation.
I can hardly wait until something happens and I can say, I know that I did that. – A better affirmation.
Things are already turning around for me. I can feel it. – A better affirmation.

About then, 99% of your vibration is in place and the universe must show you manifestation.

Joseph Campbell spoke the best words we have ever heard when he said, ‘follow your bliss.’ For as you follow your bliss, you will be the true extension of who you really are. When you worry about money, you can’t get a whiff of bliss – it’s too far away on the vibrational scale.

So set an affirmation that says, ‘I will reach for the best feeling thought I have access to right now. And I’ll be proud of myself when I find even the slightest relief.’
When you try to feel better, you will. When you feel better, you’ve released resistance. When you’ve released resistance, you are on the trail to all of those things that you want. All those magnificent things that you desire, some of which were set into motion for you before you even got into this physical body, will be. It is law.

RP: There are many people, especially those who have felt called to be of service, who have never planned for retirement because they felt that the universe was going to take care of them. But now these baby boomers are getting older and they’re worrying about their financial future. How might you address this?

A: If they really believe they will always be taken care of then they will always be taken care of. So the question we ask is, ‘what’s happened that’s changed that attitude?’

Usually the answer is that they’re taking score of some physical evidence. When you are younger with a long future ahead of you, it’s easier to be more optimistic about the future bringing you things that you need than when you feel that your years are closing in on you. If you can maintain the belief that the universe is taking care of you, then the next door will open, and the door after that, and the door after that.

We would much rather see people believing in their well-being and trusting that the doors will always open, than those who are pessimistically expecting the doors to close and who are trying to flood their bank accounts with money in order to prepare for that. The truth is the universe will always take care of you.

Jerry used to be a fanatic fly-fisherman. One of his favorite things was, with rod and reel in hand, to go running down the rocks in a creek, and somehow, he always knew that the next rock would be there. He just jumped from rock, to rock, to rock, to rock. He came to trust that there would always be another rock, and that he would always be tuned in, tapped in, and turned on enough that he would be able to find it.

It’s that attitude that we want you to embrace – to skip through the rocks on the river of life. Feel the exhilaration of knowing that what you need will always be there for you. When that is your true belief, it will always be there for you. But when you start doubting and fearing, you will keep stepping in the water and it will get deeper and deeper. Your attitude is everything. What you came intending to focus upon in this life was your level of joy. When you click upon and set your tuner to wanting joy, everything else falls into alignment.

Esther Hicks holds workshops annually in cities across the country. For information on her upcoming  events, please visit www.abraham-hicks.com

Social media has forever changed the way that we network.  Don’t get me wrong….meeting people in person is obviously the quickest way to foster relationships.  But because of the multitude of social communities that exist today, becoming visible and connecting with ideal clients and colleagues has never been easier.  This means that we can shorten the cycle of getting in front of the people that can help us reach our goals of serving. 

When I started my business, I did a ton of local networking.  I belonged to the “breakfast” meeting.  I joined many of the biggest and most reputable groups in my area.  While I spent a lot of time connecting with really amazing people, I was not getting any traction.  I was feeling a lot of frustration with the lack of results that I was creating.  My breaking point came after driving into the city for a “high end” networking event that was very heavily promoted.  It was an evening event, which meant that I had to make child care arrangements and I also had to deal with a long commute.  But I was very excited for the  event.  I had some really great expectations of that evening. 

Well, when I got there I found myself in a room full of great people.  But they were not my ideal clients.  I was in a room full of men, who were predominantly insurance brokers.  I was upset.  I really was.  While I was driving home, I made the decision that I had to find a better way to get in front my ideal clients and colleagues.

So I started inviting people into Virtual Coffee’s with me.  These are strategic conversations that can lead to client enrollment conversations, joint ventures and strategic partnerships.  I have been referred many clients as a result of Virtual Coffee’s as well.  And because of these strategic conversations, I have up-leveled my circle of influence in a really big way!  Virtual Coffee’s are simply a visibility channel.  They are an easy and fun way to be seen and heard.  They also shorten the “time gap” significantly which means that you get to be in the trenches of doing your heart work versus being the space of frustration. 

Interested in learning more about how to expand your visibility with Virtual Coffee’s?  Visit www.virtualcoffeesecrets.com to learn more about this business altering strategy! 

 To your online success,

 
Brenda Rivas is an online business strategist. She teaches coaches how to design client attractive, online businesses so they can experience a fabulous lifestyle filled with an abundance of clients and income.   She is the creator of the Signature Style Client Attraction™ business transformation experience. The SSCA is designed to teach women the strategies & structures to go from low or no profits, to stepping into amazing opportunities to serve while creating financial freedom.