Zenpreneur Success Talk is a series of weekly interviews with successful entrepreneurs. They share life lessons and business tips you can use to create your dreams of financial success and still stay true to you. 

This week I talk with Susan Anderson about  how business owners can maximize their results with less effort. Susan is an accountant living near Montreal  Canada. She got her start as an accountant  when she had to figure out a complicated tax return because of her handicapped daughter. She couldn't find the help she needed so she figured it out on her own. 

Challenges Can Be Your Greatest Opportunities

Entrepreneurs see opportunities where other people only see problems. Susan has always loved puzzles. And she enjoys figuring out complicated tax returns. The more complicated the better. Doing what she loves she's helping people file complex tax returns. And she's built a successful business from it. 

How much money could you making by turning your challenges into opportunities doing what you love? It could be hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. 

Use Awareness to Get Greater Results with Less Effort

Zenpreneur success is about achieving success while being authentic and staying true to you. By being more aware and conscious of your thoughts and actions you can stay honest and true to yourself. And be more effective in whatever you do. Susan and I talk about how you can use awareness techniques to get greater results from your business with less effort. One way is to continually ask questions so you can get be more aware of how you  can improve your business performance.

Listen in and get more tips that help you make more money and work fewer hours. 

Click the link below to listen to the show or right click to download to your computer. 

INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN ANDERSON

Has this post and the recording made you think of more innovative ways for you to make money?
I'd love to hear your feedback. 
Leave a comment below. 

This is the beginning of my Creative Edge Global Tour interviews with conscious entrepreneurs around the world.

Here is the audio recording of my interview with Hayley Amanda-Hammer, a certified Access Consciousness facilitator living in London. In this conversation we have a very frank discussion about what it really takes to get out of a rut and expand your Access Consciousness business dynamically. Or any business for that matter.

INTERVIEW WITH HAYLEY AMANDA HAMMER -8-28-12

We talk in depth about how you can create a huge shift for your business and generate powerful new possibilities with connectors and new clients coming to you.

The key choices are to:

•    Be totally present and face your deepest darkest fears
   
•    Be and have generosity of spirit for everyone including yourself

•    Contribute to others and receive the contribution they can be to you

•    Take action without being worried about how you win or how you lose

I would love to hear what you get from listening. You can leave your comments below. 

Whether you have your own business or would like to, or you work for
a corporation or small business, the infinite organizing power of
consciousness can flow through you to create far greater results
than trying to do everything from the daily limited mindset that so
many of us operate from on a daily basis.

A few weeks ago I experienced a profound shift in my awareness. In
the morning I felt strangely uncomfortable like something was off, but
I couldn't put my finger on it at all. It didn't feel like any 'normal' angst
or worry. I asked if it was mine and or not and it did lighten up, but still
the sense of strangeness persisted.  As the day passed I felt something
new and exciting moving in my spirit; almost like being born to a 
new freshness of spirit.

At a certain point as I walked along a pathway towards Mt. Tamalpais,
the central land mark in Marin County just north of San Francisco where
I live,  I felt something opening… consciousness started flowing throughout
me,  my body and my life. I felt a vast bliss and delight.

It kept flooding through me. It felt like nothing in the world could come close
to that experience. No material possessions or experiences, no cars, clothes,
houses, travel or personal relationships could come close to this experience of
consciousness flooding through and illuminating everything. Yet this is at the
very heart of far greater aliveness in all those areas of life.

The experience faded away over night. The next day I didn't have such a vast
sense of consciousness. Yet it had shifted something in me in a way that I knew
that my life would never be the same. Since then I've found that I am much more
aware of how I spend my time. Especially with my business. I have much a much
sharper focus and at the same time feeling more relaxed and having fun with
everything I do. I complete asks with far less effort and much more of a sense of
ease and expansiveness and being true to me.

My business has grown exponentially with very little effort. A few well
placed actions have created so much greater results than hours of
planning and activity. It's amazing what a difference having consciousness
working directly for you can make!

I've found that clients I work with also experience faster and easier
results with their business when they let go of limiting beliefs and
habit patterns and embrace more energy and awareness.

What's missing in so much of our lives is a deeper wholeness and
connection with everything. At the fundamental basis of everything we
choose and create is our awareness of Self – pure consciousness. All our
endeavors and all we desire to have things in the world can be enriched
with unsurpassable strength and ease and fullness. Consciousness is the
conduit for your talents and abilities to flow through and be magnified a
hundred fold.

When you get in touch with that vast consciousness that you truly are and
feel that flowing through your unique talents and strengths, then you know
that the universe can work for you and with you and allow far greater
things to show up for you than you can with just your mind alone.

Here's a meditation that will help you have more consciousness flowing "
through you and supporting you.

Close your eyes.
Take a long deep breath.
Now take another even bigger deep breath being aware of your whole body.
And another deep breath letting go of any sense of anxiety, fight or flight.

Put your awareness on any small or large sense of joy that you are aware of.
If you have a hard time feeling any joy, think of someone or something you
are grateful for. Allow yourself to bathe in that and keep expanding that
awareness to fill your whole body and beyond.

Keep expanding out and allow consciousness to flood your whole life.
Allow all this to quickly or all at once if it comes that way.

Now just be with all of that and allow yourself to fully bathe in it!

Are you willing to call forth  the power of consciousness to expand
your business?

I'd love to hear your comment.

Are you aware that there is a huge change in consciousness happening right now? And if you choose, you can help make the possibilities far greater? 

Being unique creates your success. Every success is unique because the power behind any success is not really a 'proven system'. Success requires unique strengths and personal power. In Seth Godin's blog post Every Successful Case is a Special Case, he talks about how all success is special. He asks us to see what attributes made people successful and how we can find those attributes in ourselves. That's a great insight. What qualities for instance made Richard Branson so successful? He saw opportunities to serve unmet needs and he had the courage to trust his intuition and go ahead when others said he was crazy. If you look at just about every success story, it's the vision, courage and effective action of those people who create from their personal power and integrity. What willingness to be unique and follow your vision can create success for you today?

What is conscious business? It's not what a lot of people think it is. There's a lot of talk about conscious business these days. It's often thought of as contributing to the planet, being green and paying a fair wage etc.

While these are all laudable goals for business. They are not necessarily conscious. Consciousness is actually not the appearance of the actions we do.

So what does  it really mean to be conscious? Consciousness, as my mentor Gary Douglas the founder of Access Consciousness says, consciousness includes all things and judges nothing.

Why is non-judgment so important to business? Well a lot of people think that judgment is a creative force. After all they use it all the time to live their lives thinking that they will be more powerful. In fact, judgment is a destructive force.We either judge ourselves or judge others. Judgment contracts our bodies and your personalities. It stops us from receiving anything that doesn't match our judgment. And that severely limits our lives and the lives of people we come into contact with. And so much of the time we're not even aware we're doing it.

Judgment is so pervasive and persistent, we do it all the time as second nature. Look around and watch the people you interact with everyday.. There's some good will and also a lot of judging going on. Envy, jealousy, prejudice, hatred. And the worst form of judgment is self-judgment because that's usually the cause of all judgment.

A conscious business leader doesn't  judge themselves, other people or events. They're open to greater possibilities and willing to be connected to everything and everybody.

A great example of a conscious business is Richard Branson and his Virgin companies. Richard Branson is amazingly non-self judging. He's willing to do just about anything and look ridiculous if it will promote the Virgin brand.

He's also an acutely savvy entrepreneur. He finds the best people and allows them to be self-determine their jobs. Richard Branson doesn't try to control them and hold back their creativity like so many corporations do.

That willingness to trust your own instincts and to trust your reading of people comes from not judging and being willing to be aware. It opens the doors to enormous creativity and generosity of spirit towards customers and the public.. That's what builds truly valuable good will and customer loyalty for a company.

And non-judgment is not just a lack of judgment. It's an overflowing generosity of spirit and invitation to being and doing more.

One of the greatest keys to not judging is gratitude. Gratitude for everything that happens in your life, the good, the bad and the ugly. When you are grateful, you let go of the charge you have on things that makes you want to judge it. That doesn't mean you don't choose to change what isn't working or that you're a doormat at the mercy of people who want to take advantage of you. . But in fact it's far easier to change things if you're in allowance of what is and

And when you're grateful, things can happen faster and a lot easier. When you're not judging

So gratitude and being willing to receive everything without judgment opens you and your business to being greater and to creating and receiving more enjoyment, satisfaction and money for you and your business.

Are you willing to let go of judgment?

We live in a world of endless problems. And endless new possibilities for a better life for more and more people. The question is are you choosing to be part of the problem, or part of the possibilities? Yesterday I saw so clearly how people empower and how people dis-empower. I saw the harshness of stressed out employers lashing out at their employees. And I saw the softness and tenderness of young mother smiling and beaming support to her children.

Empowering yourself and others is like blowing on the embers of a dying fire. It bursts into flame and gives light and warmth for those who gather round it. Honoring comes from our heart and creates endless possibilities. We see that life giving force that flows within us and know that we can trust it.  It grows in us and when we empower others, they catch that fire of awareness.

And the truth is, no one can empower or dis-empower you. You can choose to be empowered or dis-empowered no matter who or what you deal with. The way that we empower people is to show them different possibilities. It's a choice to uplift, encourage and support beyond words… with great energy, heart and fullness.

And the possibilities start by you empowering you and spread from there. Each person you empower in turn can empower others. Are you ready to empower your business…  your employees,  your clients and the community you live in?  

To grow your business happily and successfully, you have to use your talent and strengths at peak performance. To do that, you have to function with greater power and awareness.

In his latest blog post Jonathan Fields talks about the 4 qualities the Buddha promoted loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity and how they can grow your business.

That makes perfect sense. In order succeed, you have to have generosity of spirit, understand your customers, appreciate and learn from your competitors and not be afraid of success or failure.

Read Jonathan’s blog and start thinking about what that means for you and your business.. In my next post I’ll talk about how you can use those qualities to transform yourself and grow your business.

What's the latest in the world of accessing your creative
power? Well yesterday I had to go to Inverness in west
Marin County just north of San Francisco. I was delivering
a fictitious name listing to a local newspaper and took
advantage of the brisk but beautiful day to take some
photos and drive out to Point Reyes National Seashore.

I remembered some advice I gave to a client who found
it very fruitful. She said it was making a big contribution
to growing her business with greater potency and ease.

She reminded me of it yesterday morning. I don't always
remember what comes out of my mouth when I'm coaching
clients. So it was a timely reminder for me.

Ask the Power of Nature to Work for You
I had suggested she take some down time, to go out in
nature. And to be aware of the generative energies
around her and ask them to contribute their potent
energy to open up and bring to fruition the possibilities
for her business.

 Being out in nature frees you and nurtures you. John Muir
knew that and spread his gospel of going out and getting
Nature's glad tidings.

Touching the earth and being fed by her energies is
so necessary when you spend a lot of time in front of a
computer sitting in a chair for long stretches of time.

Beauty Harmony Potency and Being Creatively Alive
By going out into nature and experiencing the beauty of the
world, you not only feed your soul, you  can tap into energies
that can feed and grow your business. And you can request
and direct those energies of harmony, beauty, potency, creativity
and vibrant aliveness go to and strengthen and amplify the
possibilities for your business and  help them come to fruition.

Be The Potent Creator You Are
And in fact, nature doesn't just replenish you. It reminds you who you are. You are not separate from nature. You are in every part of nature and nature is in every  part of you. You are the beauty of the blossoming tree, the magnificent mountain rising up to the sky, the dancing ocean playing with the shore. When you forget who you are and separate from nature and use her and abuse her, you contribute to the tsunamis and the droughts and all the ways that nature works against you rather than working for you.

 So what energies of nature can you be with and request to expand
and grow your business? Every way in which you believed  that

you aren't the beauty and the wholeness and the potent creator
of possibilities in collaboration with the earth and the universe, would you destroy and uncreate all that?

You can see the beauty of spring at Point Reyes at

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=292950&id=518908045&l=b833c6336a

Have a fun potent weekend creating the things you love!

“Opportunities are like buses. There’s another one coming every few minutes.” ~ Sir Richard Branson.

Yes, but which bus? How do you choose the best opportunity?

Opportunities can come to you in many ways. Sometimes they come to you in quiet moments with a feather touch of awareness. Sometimes (but not too often) it’s a 2×4 across the head “This is an opportunity Dummy. Wake Up!”.

But much of the time these days, we’re faced with floods of information overload (especially on the internet). We get confronted with many different choices all coming together at once and pulling at us to choose them. It can be very confusing. How do you know which one to choose?

The key is to be on friendly terms with opportunities and know which ones will be the most expansive for your life. To do this, you have to open up to receive all possibilities without judgment. And then perceive and know which ones will take you on the most fun, rewarding ride. It all starts with receiving more of you. Your relationship with yourself and how you relate to the universe is your Grand Central Station for rendezvousing with greater possibilities. In fact, instead of being like buses, opportunities are probably more like trains with a long chain of other opportunities that follow behind. All you have to do is took around you to see that this is an abundant universe. It’s our limiting thoughts and beliefs that create scarcity.

Think of a large crowded railway station like the Gare du Nord in Paris or Waterloo Station in London. There are trains coming in and leaving every few minutes from many different tracks. How do you know which one to take. You have an idea of where you’d like to go, Venice let’s say or Athens.

But what if you suddenly see a train leaving for the French Riviera departing with just enough time for you to get on board. There’s a strong energy that gives you the sense that this is the trip will bring you much more joy and fulfillment. You’d like to play at the grand Monte Carlo Casino and explore the beautiful medieval hill towns of Grasse and Eze. And you know without a doubt that that’s where you’d like to go next. The magic of travel (rather than being a tourist on a fixed schedule), is to be completely open to what comes your way and follow the energy that feels most fun and rewarding.

Yes, I know, living your life and promoting your career or business require more long term planning, but if you aren’t willing to change your plans when a much better opportunity comes along, you take the road to a dull unappealing existence. Be open, alive, receptive! Let your senses and awareness be invited and informed by the unique opportunities all around you.

Let it all come to you and be aware of what’s most fruitful and expansive. Be curious, ask questions. Perceive and know which will create the greatest expansiveness for you in the future. Even in the humdrum of everyday life, there is magic and possibilities hidden in the sameness. Stay alert. Don’t fall into the judgments and crippling assumptions that limit your adventures. You don’t have to try to overcome anything. Choose instead to be the 4 year old kid who is alive with wonder at the simplest of things, ready to play and dance with life! “What would that be like?” “What if I got on that train?”

But what about life’s responsibilities you say. Yes, what about them. If you are truly open, you will perceive what will be most expansive in the future for all those involved in your choice. You will be surprised what is possible that you don’t think is possible.

As I said, the trick is to nurture your ability to perceive where your train of opportunity will take you. Ask! Your knowing and the universe will let you know. But you have to be willing to go on whatever journey opens up more for you.

Of course, life isn’t exactly like riding trains. You usually can’t just sit back and enjoy the scenery. Sometimes things will come to you without your having to do very much. But a great deal of the time, you have to make a strong demand of yourself to keep following through with specific actions (like sales prospecting if you own a business) before things start showing up for you.

Even so, new opportunities never stop coming. If you know the energy of what you’re choosing to have in your life, you will know which opportunities match that. They will be new and different and often won’t fit what your mind is used to. That’s the adventure, to be completely open to what you are unfamiliar with. If you are aware of the energy of things rather than your memories and expectations, you will be able to receive something far greater when it comes along.

Where would you like to go? What opportunities would you like to open up in your life; in your career or business? Is there anything blocking your ability to perceive or receive new possibilities?