Truth and Consciousness

The Question That Stumped Taylor Swift (and Why I Cheered Her On)

beth — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 20:46:49 +0000

Friday night on ABC television, a special interview aired with Taylor Swift in advance of both her award nominations and the release of new album Red.

If you don’t know who Taylor Swift is, she is a 22-year-old recording artist who has won 6 Grammys and sold 20 million albums.

Katie Couric asked Taylor a question that positively stumped her. She stared at the floor, said, “That is a really hard question.” It was clear she had never even thought about it.

The question Katie asked might surprise you because it is so prevalent in the personal development business. It was, “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” Again, positively clueless. I was cheering when I saw her response.

See, Taylor Swift is in the NOW. She seems to have a Stratosphere Vision (that she has probably blown through multiple times by now) and she seems to have a 12-month plan. This is exactly what I teach my clients to do!

She fully self-expresses who she is. Then she brings that self-expression into the world in a way that it reaches the people who want it and so it brings her what she wants, too.

Taylor Swift honors herself. She takes the lemons in her life and makes them into lemonade.

She only does what’s FUN. She tweets because she loves twitter, for example. (So does her cat, Mildred.) She is actively involved in her strategy and her branding because she LIKES to be. She and her team brainstorm on all the fun ways they could promote her next album or things they could do on the tour. They see what makes them feel excited. 

Then they decide on a STRATEGY.

After they have a strategy, they create a PLAN.

Then they FOLLOW THROUGH on that plan with IMPLEMENTATION.

Taylor told Katie she loves being alone in her condo, just her and Mildred and a movie on TV. Therefore, she is not going to create a business where she has to be around people all the time.

Her life is all about:

Full self-expression
Dwelling in the NOW
Creating a strategy
Making a plan out of that strategy that sounds FUN.
And implementation.

Would you like some help making your life more like Taylor’s? Not that you want to win a Grammy (although I wouldn’t turn one down myself — writing songs is MY favorite way of being myself fully).

I’ll tell you what … let’s start here: Send me your Stratosphere Vision (if you don't know what that is, keep reading).

It can be about your business or it can be about something else. Type that baby out in a short paragraph and email it to me at beth (at) cashalignment (dot) com. I’ll reply to as many as I can, but I’ll read them all!

I LOVE hearing about people’s Stratosphere Visions — this will be FUN for me. (See how things work? That "fun" part?)

If you don’t know what a Stratosphere Vision is, it’s this: It’s your REAL dream, if you were to release all limits and fully self-express who you ARE. You probably dreamed about it as a child, but not necessarily. It is the thing that is so big you don’t see how it could ever really happen. It should bring you a feeling of awe and wonder and delight. It should make your soul bubble up with excitement. And if you feel any fear, doubt or worry … you’re not going high enough. Go higher!

Can’t wait to hear from you.

Beth A. Grant is a one-woman creative powerhouse, spiritual mentor, copywriter and marketing strategist based in Chicago. The creator of numerous personal growth and marketing tools, she helps clients align with their truth to bring their purpose into the world in a big way, with ease and joy. Explore further at http://www.truthandconsciousness.com.

I'd love to hear your comments below. Better yet, what is your Stratosphere Vision? Email it to me directly at beth (at) cashalignment (dot) com. Use the subject line "My Stratosphere Vision." I read every single one!

Why You Should Always Say YES

beth — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:01:43 +0000

Improv comedy is one of the toughest genres to master in the performing arts.

There is no script, and you play off the unique dynamic of the other performers to create something as an ensemble. It requires a keen in-the-moment awareness and a quick wit, and if done correctly, the result will be an over-the-top hilarious experience both for the performer and the audience.

Improv is truly one of the greatest exercises in being in the "now" you will ever witness.

One of the most basic rules in improv is to always say yes. That means you must always go with what is happening in the moment.

It's sort of like your partner says, "Oh, I see you've turned into a purple dinosaur who loves wearing jewelry!"

Your partner's worst case scenario right now is that you look at her and say, "No, I'm a lingerie-wearing pirate, remember?" Your partner cringes as you force her to keep going with a scene that wasn't going anywhere and abandon her brilliant idea.

But if you choose to go with what she is presenting you with, chances are you will create something magical together.

In your business, just like if you were on stage doing improv, you should always go with what is happening if you want to create the magic. You should always say yes to what is.

It's really about seeing the truth of the moment and always honoring it.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your business is that when things don't appear to be coming together, you continue down that same path and force it. Like saying, "This was my plan for the month, so I will just have to make it work."

Often saying yes to what's happening means saying no to what you thought was going to happen.

Recently I was planning a joint venture with a colleague. We'd been talking about co-leading a teleclass for months and when we started into the planning process, things just weren't coming together. She didn't want to let go of control, and the whole point in doing something together was that she could let go of teaching the class and I would let go of selling the class … we would both be having less responsibility than if we did something on our own. The further along through the planning process we got, I felt more and more that something was off. Plus, I kept running financial scenarios, but they just didn't make sense. I wasn't seeing how this arrangement would benefit either of us enough versus just marketing our own programs.

There was a time in my business when I would have thought telling her no would have been out of the question, especially three weeks before we were supposed to launch. But I have learned that forcing things just doesn't work.

We both went with what was happening and chose to abandon the plan.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and so did she. I chose to market my Platform to Profits teleclass on my own and it was a huge success. She chose to market her program, and I'm sure she did very well. We eliminated a lot of stress and increased our profits.

Remember, even when you have a plan, always say yes to what is happening. You can turn your business into that magical improv moment, but in the form of less work and more profits.

Can you think of a time when you should have said yes to what is, but you tried to force things instead? What was the result and what might have happened if you had allowed things to unfold naturally? I would love to read about your experiences below.

When My Higher Self Speaks to Me, It Sounds Like This

beth — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:15:47 +0000

Have you entered the world yet of clear divine guidance? We all have to some degree — whether it's an intuitive nudge or something more profound — but when you have an awareness of it, life becomes fascinating, effortless and easy.

It's the difference between receiving a perfect set of directions for your journey from Chicago to Nashville from a transportation engineer with knowledge of every detour and roadblock and rambling along the highway with a vague notion that Nashville must be east and south of here.

I recently learned from an energy healer I'm working with that one aspect of guidance I've been receiving for years is my Higher Self speaking to me. Before she clarified this, I was unclear whether it was some aspect of me, my intuition, an angel, God, a spirit guide … I really didn't know. By the way, I receive other guidance, too, but the guidance from my Higher Self takes on a particular style.

This particular guidance comes in the form of a phrase through my head, I actually hear it inside my head. It's in my voice, and it always comes in the form of a command: "Do this." "Go here." "Walk there."

It's how I wrote my first song. I was sitting on my sofa and I heard that voice say, "Go to the piano." So I did. The song came pouring out of me in 15 minutes.

It's how I saved $3,000 on a certification program I wanted to take. I could tell you a lot of stories.

This voice is right 100% of the time. I've learned that when she speaks, I don't ask questions. I move.

She often speaks to me when I'm in distress; when I'm bawling my eyes out or completely lost in the fear and misery of my ego.

Here's a recent example:

I was getting on the train to go to the suburbs and visit my best friend. She called me on my mobile and told me that because she had something urgent come up, I would have to wait at the train station for her for an hour. I had just been through a dating situation with a man who constantly left me waiting — sometimes for up to 90 minutes — and I just didn't want to hear one more time, "Something is more important than you." I reacted poorly and copped an attitude. (The reason she gave was absolutely legitimate … I was in the wrong in my response completely.)

Then she told me, "You know what? I don't like your attitude or your tone. I don't want you to come up here today after all."

I got very upset, mostly that I had disappointed her, that I had hurt her or made her feel bad. We've been friends for 15 years. She had triggered an old wound in me, though, and her "banishing me when I acted badly" triggered another. I was pretty much a mess at this point and got off at the next train stop so I could find a train back to the city. I felt alone, abandoned and upset.

By this time, I was sobbing. I looked at the train schedule board and didn't it just figure that the next train wasn't for two more hours? "I just want to go home!" I thought. I didn't much feel like having an emotional outburst like this in the middle of a train station.

I walked to the other side of the tracks, looking for a coffee shop. I had my laptop with me, so I figured I could at least get some work done. Well, once I stopped crying.

I looked right. I looked left. Nothing; just a sea of suburban houses.

I sat down on the bench and let it all out. I dug around in my purse for tissues and finally found some, which were quickly stained with mascara and soaked with tears.

And then I felt it: the first raindrop. "Oh great," I thought. "And now it's going to rain! This day just keeps getting better and better."

I didn't want to have to sit in the rain without an umbrella, and I especially didn't want to wait two freaking hours for a train home. I wanted to be in the comfort of my apartment, on my sofa, watching an old movie, feeling sorry for myself in private.

And then I heard my Higher Self speak to me, loud and clear: "Go look at the train schedule."

"I already did!" I wailed, my sobbing intensifying like a toddler who figures out that someone has noticed they're crying. "There isn't another train for two hours!"

I cried some more as the raindrops got more frequent. My hair frizzed.

"Well, if you won't look at the schedule, at least go to the correct side of the tracks."

I thought about this for a moment. This did make a lot of sense. "Okay," I said (*sniff sniff*). I packed up my shit, dried my tears and crossed the tracks. And two minutes later a train came to take me back to the city. I had read the wrong day's schedule.

Have you learned to decipher the communications from your HIgher Self, the part of you that's directly connected with the spiritual realm? I'd love to hear about your experience below.

Are You Doing Things in the Wrong Order?

beth — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 19:16:42 +0000

I see a lot of purpose-driven entrepreneurs become frustrated with the mentoring they're receiving. And a big part of that is because of the focus their coaches and consultants place on information products and leveraged programs (such as teleclasses) as the magic avenue to wealth.

Info products can be a great way to organize your process, leverage your time and earn passive or semi-passive income.

The challenge is in finding people to buy them. Most people in their first year or two of business simply don't have the online or offline audience numbers (prospects) to generate real income from leveraged products.

If you're not familiar with the terminology, leveraged income means creating more income in less time. It means you're "leveraging your time." An example would be for a coach to work with a small group and charge half as much per person, which might generate 3 times as much income per hour as one 1:1 client.

Passive income is where you work once, and get paid over and over. An example is a music royalty or in the case of transformation professionals, selling a self-study info product, where you are not involved at all with the customer.

There are natural phases with owning a transformation business, and to make the best use of your time, I'd recommend focusing as follows:

First 6-12 months: Learn the necessary how-tos, set up the infrastructure of your business, create a vision and strategy, hone your skills at your chosen profession (i.e. if you're a life coach, coach as many people as you can, whether or not they pay you) and gather detailed feedback from every person you work with. Begin to build a following.

Second year: Notice the process that's emerged naturally as you've worked with clients. (This is your future info product!) Notice who you've liked working with and who you didn't enjoy working with. Why? Notice the transformation your clients tend to have and at what point this tends to happen in your work with them. Notice why people refer others to you — what kinds of problems these people tend to have that someone thinks you can solve. Notice what processes you tend to do over and over with clients and what unique issues tend to emerge that they need your personal help solving (where an info product just wouldn't do).

Continue to gather feedback and formulate testimonials or case studies of your work with clients. Get specific feedback — very important. Continue to build a following and ramp this up! Create income solutions that leverage your time, but still involve you as the solution (like working with groups).

Third year: Position yourself as a top expert in your niche. Build a much larger following. Use the case studies to give you credibility. Get into the media and on stage, or publish your book. Take your process(es) that's emerged and see if any of it can be carved out to form self-study products or programs. Name it and organize it in a way people can understand. Create passive income solutions from this content, if you can. Offer it to your audience, either in book form, as a product, as a keynote talk or in classes. If you've built a substantial audience by this time, you should receive a nice cash injection!

Fourth year: Continue to build your audience and your momentum, and offer the product again. No need to re-invent the wheel! Leverage what you've already created. Go big! See what other processes or solutions could be carved out into fresh, new info products or leveraged solutions.

If you approach your business this way, you'll make better use of your time and you'll have realistic outcomes and far fewer disappointments. There's no need to spend time during your first year or two creating content-based programs, when you don't have an audience to buy them! Your job your first year is to learn how to run a business, hone your skills with clients and gather testimonials, or proof, that you do good work.

Believe it or not, your niche and your signature solutions will probably not even emerge until your second or third year. Let it happen organically. Only then does it make sense to invest the time in creating passive income solutions.

PS Don't buy into the hype about info products. They take a long time to create and you need big numbers to make the profits the gurus talk about. You will eventually be able to cash in, but make sure you aren't wasting your time doing this too early on in your business.

Why not share your ideas below about this blog post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

What Type of Solution Do You Provide?

beth — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:22:28 +0000

In a purpose-driven business, there tend to be three main ways that people generate revenue. It's essential to know what yours is so you know how to position what you do and you know what to offer your potential clients that will encourage them to respond to you.

While these same principles might apply to retail stores, musicians and others, right now I'm going to focus on people who are in the business of helping other people improve their lives, and also, who don't substantially do this through manufacturing a widget of some kind.

So, here is the big question for you today. Are you creative-based, how-to based or service-based?

Creative-based providers attract people because of their brilliant ideas or talents. You can think of them as thought leaders, visionaries or creatives. Examples of content-based providers are Danielle LaPorte, Wayne Dyer and Bruce Lipton.

How-to based providers teach people a skill or process they need to master (or at least gain some proficiency with) in order to move forward and achieve their desired outcome. A great example of a how-to provider is Jeff Walker, who teaches people how to plan and execute product launches. Other examples are people who teach you how to use social media, convert a prospect to a buyer, set up your email system, write an autoresponder series or manage your finances.

Service-based providers give their clients a transformational experience through the work they perform. They provide a service that brings something positive to the recipient, such as reiki healers, intuitives, reflexologists, yoga teachers, coaches and EFT practitioners.

Many successful purpose-driven entrepreneurs fall into more than one category. I certainly do!

Problems arise when you apply marketing methods or tools that are built for a different type of business than yours. For instance, how-to providers might do very well in selling info products, but if you are a service-based provider, people don't necessarily want this from you, even if there is a way to systemize what you do. Rather, they want YOU and won't respond to your offers for cookie cutter self-study solutions.

It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that a lot of your 7-figure earners are not going to fit into these categories, because many 7-figure earners are not really selling anything at all. They are selling you lightweight content, no tranformational service and not really teaching you how to do anything. Instead, they are selling you a lifestyle or the idea that you can have a certain lifestyle by doing very little. (Please note there are exceptions but this is generally what I see.)

Since you and I aren't aligned with that way of doing business, there is no need to focus on how those people find success.

If you are a creative-based provider, your main focus should be on creating! If you put this aside in favor of wearing other hats, your business is going to suffer big-time, and so is your well-being. It's essential that you carve out time for your brilliant mind to generate more of the content people crave from you and that you find ways to reach a mass audience.

It's essential to look at the transformation you provide and see where it falls in these categories. The way you market your solution will be totally different depending upon which cateogory(ies) your solution falls into. Even the way you provide your solution will be much different.

Why not share your ideas below about this blog post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Why I Love My Orange Duffel Bag (and You Will, Too)

beth — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 23:00:27 +0000

About 18 months ago I read a book called My Orange Duffel Bag that instantly became one of my favorites. Part memoir, part personal development, the book was written by Sam Bracken and co-written and illustrated by Echo Garrett.

This was an odd little book to be sure. For one thing, the cover was made out of orange canvas. And it actually zipped shut like a duffel bag!

Another thing odd about this book was its brevity. It said so much with so few words. In fact, by the twentieth page, I knew the author's entire life story. (You'll have to see the unique approach the co-authors took to appreciate how they accomplished this.)

For this reason alone, My Orange Duffel Bag stands apart: Young people will actually read this book from beginning to end because it's so darn short and easy to read.

But way cooler than the duffel bag cover or the way Echo uses images to help Sam say so much with so little is the content itself. I was so moved by what Sam had to say, I burst into tears on page five. (We empaths are like that.)

I went and got a box of tissues and cried some more. Then I felt overjoyed. Because in this memoir, you aren't left feeling emotionally drained, but uplifted, as you cheer for the young man who made a choice that changed the course of his life forever.

And choice is what it's all about. Moment to moment, week to week, year to year. We make choices that either empower us and shift our direction or repeat more of the same old, same old.

Even cooler than that was what Echo told me yesterday: young people are actually reading this book and it's changing their lives — especially troubled youth. For many of these youths, it has become their most prized possession – even more important than their iPod. They are carrying it in their backpacks to school. They're reading it constantly as they go through rehab and overcome their addictions and age out of foster care, facing a tough set of choices as they try to create a good life with very little to go on. Choices like Sam had to make.

This book was self-published in 2010. And Random House picked it up. Yes, Random House. That's what can happen when your book gets its legs in the world.

My Orange Duffel Bag officially re-releases on Tuesday. So if you have a teen, pre-teen, you love positive vibes, you like supporting your local library, you've ever known a kid in trouble, you lost a kid to suicide or addiction or you just plain love good books that influence the world in a positive way like I do, I encourage you to read a little more about this book — and maybe even buy a copy.

When you unzip the cover (yes, you'll actually unzip it!), have some tissues handy. (It won't take you long to read.) Then, for goodness sake, when you're done, give it away. (I gave mine away a few months ago to Alexis Neely, who I know will pass it along to someone when she's done, too.)

By the way, check out the awards this book garnered so far as a self-published book:

2011 Outstanding Book of the Year in Young Adult/Children's from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the first self-published book in the organization's 60-year history to win an award.

2011 Merit Award for Editorial Design from HOW Magazine

2011 Benjamin Franklin Book Award Silver Medalist in both Self Help and Juvenile/Young Adult Nonfiction categories from the Independent Book Publishers Association

2011 IPPY Gold Medal from Independent Publishers Book Awards for Most Outstanding Design out of 4,000 entries from 14 countries

2011 National Indie Excellence Book Awards Winner in these two categories: New Non-Fiction and Young Adult Non-Fiction

This is the kind of book that needs to circulate and reach the person who is longing for its message, not sit on a shelf gathering dust.

Even if it IS the only book you'll ever own made out of an orange duffel bag that you zip shut when you're through.

The Five Stages of Truth (or How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Gazpacho)

beth — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:42:24 +0000

Truth is the doorway to all that you want: more money, more happiness, more love, more peace. (These four things are the only things we ever want, when you think about it.)

The truth calls out to you in stages. Let's pretend the end result you are seeking is a really delicious bowl of gazpacho. The stages might go like this:

Stage 1: The first stage is a little voice that says, "Don't put the stock pot on the stove. What are you doing, my love? This is gazpacho and it's served cold. I'm really thinking that's not a good move, dear."

Stage 2: The slow simmer. You either face the truth — your gazpacho is warming up (any good chef will tell you this is not a good direction to go in), or you ignore it, hoping it will taste just as good if you pretend that gazpacho + heat doesn't equal bad gazpacho.

Stage 3: Rapid boil. You either face the truth or you put the lid on, because then you can't see it. (Unfortunately, putting a like on a boiling pot of soup only makes it heat up faster. But you think everything's fine, or will be, if you just ignore the facts long enough).

Stage 4: Gazpacho is now foaming and the lid is jumping off the pot — the pressure is building, things are rapidly changing and you can't deny things look different. You either put the lid back on, hoping you can contain it (a futile move), or you face the truth and go into crisis aversion. If you don't, you'll end up in …

Stage 5: The pot boils over. A big fat mess ensues. What used to be gazpacho is all over the stove. It's on the floor. It's inedible. And you are upset. You might even get burned as you try to contain the situation.

Which stage is your Truth in? (Hint: It's so much easier to listen to the little voice.)

Why not share your ideas below about this blog post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

The Secret World of Magical Marketing Finally Revealed!

beth — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:25:08 +0000

As a copywriter who breaks all the rules (like not playing on my audience's fears and hitting them where it hurts) I can't tell you how sick and tired I am of receiving marketing emails from gurus in my inbox using the canned "buying triggers" language they learned in some copywriting school. No doubt this school was offered by some marketing genius who had mastered the art of manipulation.

Phrases like, "Join me on this call, where I'm going to share my never-before-revealed secrets on how I made millions …"

"Secret" and "reveal" are huge marketing terms that trigger the psyche, evidently.

Three months after getting this email, I'll receive another email from the same marketer. And oddly enough, it will now claim that this newest piece of information is their biggest secret EVER revealed for how to make millions.

This makes me wonder: What's with all these secrets, anyway?

Do you have a lot of trouble revealing the truth?

Do you hold back this much in your marriage, keeping secrets from your spouse, or is it just with us?

Maybe you need a secretectomy?

If you are a reader of these people's marketing emails, at some point surely you have to ask yourself those questions!

Another issue I have with these folks is the incentuous loop they use with their success claims. Akin to "If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it made a sound?", we have, "If you made all your money selling people the idea they can make money, does that really count?" (The answer is NO.) Do you know any legitimate business that uses this tactic? Shoe designers, or car salesmen or attorneys or accountants or real-life business consultants?

The damage these folks have done to the legitimate marketing world sure is hefty. Week in and week out I hear things like, "I'm never buying another self-study program." (It's not the self-study format that's the problem. It was the "just follow my system" million-dollar promise you bought into … and that's your fault, too.)

Or how about this one, "I'm not spending another dollar on coaching. I invested my life savings in someone and it turned out to be a big disappointment." First of all, why did you spend everything you have with a coach? Does this really make good business sense? To turn over everything you have to someone so you can make quick money? Second, why did you buy into such a quick-return promise?

Here's one of the biggest lines of BS I've seen to date (and it's rampant!): A person has a business and is making decent money (say, $70,000 take home pay). They sign up for a "diamond level" mastermind, which I call a "mortgage your house" mastermind, with a price tag of $75,000-$100,000. They have no idea how they will pay for this beyond their first payment.

To pay the first installment, they max out all their credit cards, or take a mortgage on their home, or spend all their savings. They then take a huge leap in income over the next six months, to something like $500,000 or $1,000,000. WOW!

But what they fail to "reveal" when they make their overnight-success claims is the biggest reason they took that leap:

First, and most important, they were able to leap that quickly because the mastermind leader guaranteed to email out for them to their entire list with a big fat stamp of approval. And the mastermind leader's audience is THEIR audience. Sweet! Who wouldn't want a highly influential person recommending you to their email list of 50,000 ideal prospects? So they hold a teleseminar, and overnight, they get 10,000 new people on their email list; people who are eager to follow the advice of said guru.

Doing the math, one can expect a conversion rate of about 2% from that, or 200 people. Multiple that by a $1,000 program price tag and you get $200,000. They then offer their own big bucks mastermind (which is where the moolah is) and in just a few months' time, they're a million-dollar-success.

The first part I have no problem with. I think in some cases it makes a lot of sense to join one of these programs for just that reason: you are buying your way into a quantum leap. What I have a problem with is the way the participants' claims are presented to the public. They then claim that all they had to do was follow this guru's "system" and their business went from x to y in no time.

In reality, they could have followed just about any system and their business would have gone from x to y. After all, they had an injection of 10,000 ideal prospects overnight, with the endorsement of a highly influential person, and they offered an elite level program based on their new-found credibility as an overnight success!

Sorry for the rant. Or maybe I'm not sorry. I just had to "reveal" to you some "secrets" for making it big.

Why not share your ideas below about this blog post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Truth => Surrender => More Income, Less Effort

beth — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 19:37:59 +0000

Gloria Steinem once said, "The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off."

I couldn't agree more, because as they say, the truth hurts. Yep, it smarts — at least for a moment … after which you are FREE.

Here's the deal:

In your business, your relationships or your dream, Truth is the doorway to surrender. Surrender is the doorway to quick results on your terms — where you can be yourself and you aren't sacrificing your integrity, values or personal style in the name of financial security.

When you are out of alignment with your Truth, you are in struggle, pure and simple. It might be an internal struggle, where you experience dread, procrastination, you spend your time and energy tolerating something instead of freeing yourself or it might show up in some other way. It might be an external struggle, where you can't seem to generate the money you need, let alone want. You might experience a lot of rejection, or things might not fall into place for you and you're left feeing disillusioned, drained or discouraged.

If you're not in Surrender to what IS, you're in some form of Waiting, Striving or Wanting. While you can eventually generate income or opportunities in those states, it takes a LOT more work, effort or resources to make it happen.

In Surrender, you align with a consciousness that's loving, open, inviting and filled with higher solutions.

The quickest path to surrender is to get to the Truth.

Getting to the truth can be hard because the ego doesn't want the Truth. It wants to save face. It wants a guarantee that the path you've chosen is the going to produce the results you desire.

In fact, to the ego, being right is more important than being rich, being loved or being happy.

The ego will cling to this notion even when the truth is staring you in the face, waving its arms in front of you, shouting "Here I am! Here I am!" Meanwhile, instead of acknowledging the truth, you walk around it, close your eyes or push it aside, because to acknowledge it means you have to admit that things might not be as perfect as you tell yourself, or maybe that you're just plain scared (yet this is completely natural … to feel afraid).

So, how do you get to the truth?

Truth will be found in your behaviors, not your words.

It will call out to you in your patterns.

Truth will emerge in what IS, not what you wish would be or what was yesterday. It is in the now.

It will show itself in objective facts like numbers or events, not in subjective opinions.

Here are some ways the Truth might call out to you in your business:

You feel depleted or burned out.
You dread your client sessions.
No matter how much success you achieve, you never seem to have any more financial security.
Your cash flow is like a rollercoaster.
There's something you know you must do to generate more money, but week after week or month after month, you still don't do it, like setting up joint ventures, asking for referrals or seeking out speaking engagements.
You say one thing but do another, like stating, "I want to be a bestselling author" but you never write your book.
You never have enough money for the thing you say you value most.
Your marketing isn't converting clients but you keep doing it anyway. Hmmmm …

The thing about the truth is, getting there often requires a moment of pain — the pain related to the ego admitting it didn't have the right answer or it made a choice that didn't give you the results you wanted.

This "truth discovery moment" also contains an enormous amount of relief. In that moment, all stress is gone. It's a space of nothingness … where everything is possible. It's your effortless creation space.

Today, right now, ask yourself, "Where am I hiding from the Truth? What are my patterns that I'd like to see change? Where am I not getting what I say I want? What is begging to be acknowledged in my business?"

The first step in discovering your truth is simply to say, "I am willing to discover the truth and open to seeing things as they are."

Want help creating Cash Alignment in your business? Start your free trial in the Truth & Consciousness Membership Program today and get expert help + free access to Beth Grant's Internal Alignment program.

Why not share your ideas below about this blog post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

How To Earn More Money Immediately

beth — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:43:52 +0000

If I had a dollar for every person who has told me, "I have a block inside on that. I'm working on it. Then I'll be able to see more success," I'd be a very rich woman!

While there is definitely something substantial to the idea that we create our reality through our deep-seated beliefs, I see way too many brilliant, talented, big-hearted people using this as an excuse.

Instead of spending your capital learning the steps you need to take to be successful or hiring a good web designer or PR coach, you spend your money on promises that yet another modality will "fix" you or that you need more training to be ready to serve others.

So I want you to hear this loud and clear: You don't need to be fixed, because you aren't broken. You are ready right now to earn the money you desire. It might feel scary. It might make you uncomfortable. But you have everything you need inside of you to do it immediately. If you didn't, you wouldn't feel the desire in the first place.

Declaring you're too broken to earn income is like saying God made a mistake.

Have you seen what a mess some of the world's most successful people are? People with low self-esteem or a poor self-image or who came from poverty but made it big. People whose parents abused them or who were abandoned or who were told they would never make anything of themselves. I'd venture a guess that the vast majority of these people had never heard of healing or self-improvement or limiting beliefs or energy blocks.

They felt wounded but chose to live their dream anyway.

Look at the business, arts, spiritual and political leaders in world history … there are thousands of them to refute your belief that you aren't ready or that another now will be a better now.

Seriously, go to the Biography section in your local library and grab a book. Any book. And start reading. Lots of messed up people. Tons of successes.

I understand the value of healing modalities. They can be very beneficial. I use them myself regularly.

But there comes a point when buying yet another healing solution and going further down the rabbit hole becomes an excuse for avoiding the thing you really need to do: go out and offer your services to potential clients.

The past is a bottomless pit. You are never going to reach the end of the wounds in your psyche. You have trillions of bits of information in there. I think it's great that you're aware and awake and can see the root cause of your reality. And I think it's valuable and pays off to heal the wounds we have inside. It makes us feel better and it opens us up to bigger and better things in life.

And while you're working on healing your wounds and clearing your blocks, how about moving forward with the external part, too? Like printing up business cards and joining a networking group and reaching out to the people who comment on your posts on Facebook and having conversations with them on the phone?

If you have one talent, solution or service to offer others, you are ready to earn money. Not next year. Not when you're "fixed." NOW.

Maybe it's something you know how to do that they don't know how to do. Maybe it's a healing modality you learned (yes, just one is enough). Maybe it's holding them accountable for their promises. People will pay a lot of money for that.

Expanding your comfort zone by asking people to pay you money or by getting up and speaking to a group is scary. Feel the fear and do it anyway, as Susan Jeffers would say.

Everyone who ever got anywhere did it by embracing the terror they felt and being willing to go forward anyway.

Want to make more money immediately? Identify one thing you're good at, find one person who needs it and offer it at a price that makes sense. It's really that simple.

Why not share your ideas below about this blog post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.