THE NEW LEAF™

The Official Newsletter of Authentic Promotion®

Volume 4, No. 47, November 25, 2002
Circulation: more than 11,000!
U.S. Library of Congress ISSN: 1530-311X

REGISTER NOW for the Winter session of Authentic Promotion, the marketing process that shows you how promoting your business can be a path for personal and professional transformation as well as a means of creating prosperity. I expect this teleclass to fill rapidly as it is the only one I'll be offering before next summer. Click here for details:. Sign up before 12/15/02 to get the 10% pre-registration discount.

IN THIS ISSUE

1. Fast Focus: Clutter and Abundance (It's Not About Stuff)
2. Simple Gifts: The Jump Start Guide to Press Releases
3. Open for Business: Get on Top of the Rock
4. Best Practices: Be Yourself Marketing
5. Readers Write: When Chaos Is a Good Thing
6. The Bedside Table: Reading!
7. Copyright | Sponsors & Affiliates | [un]Subscribe
8. Quick Links: Guide to Recommended Products

1. FAST FOCUS: Clutter and Abundance (It's Not About Stuff)
I suspect there is a profound relationship between clutter and abundance, and that it's not just about stuff.

A wise friend once speculated that, while she felt she was quite solidly in an abundance consciousness with respect to money, she had more of a scarcity frame with respect to information. She was greedy for knowledge and tended to hoard information. As a result she had a glut of information cluttering her life. Sound familiar?

Something similar seems true about time. Perhaps one reason we create overly busy schedules is that we are greedy for experience and we fear that saying no will result in an irreversible lack or loss.

This week as we in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving, notice where there is clutter or glut in your life. Too much stuff? Too much information? To much to do? Can you sense an underlying greed or anxiety with respect to stuff, knowledge, or time? What would you have to believe in order to let go?

3. OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Get on Top of the Rock
One reason I love teaching the Authentic Promotion teleclasses is that new ideas and fresh understandings emerge in every session. In a recent class on how to dissolve obstacles to marketing, I experienced a huge "Aha!" around how big problems encode opportunities.

Imagine that a problem is like a rock, an obstruction in our chosen path. When we encounter a rock we typically focus on getting over, around, or through it so we can get on with what we started. Sometimes these rocks are trivial stones that we readily step over or kick out of the way. Sometimes they are boulders that we clamber over or tunnel through.

But sometimes a rock is so huge that getting past or through it depletes our resources so that we no longer have what it takes to continue the journey. How many times have you struggled to overcome just such an obstacle only to discover, when you get to the other side, that you lack the desire or stamina to finish what you started?

The "Aha!" I had is that such giant rocks offer a tremendously valuable opportunity, the chance to get on top of the rock not just for the sake of getting over or beyond it but also for the new view.

The view from the top of the rock offers not only a fresh perspective but also the possibility of seeing much further and in many more directions than we could see from ground level. From the top of the rock we will notice possibilities, opportunities, directions that were previously invisible to us. If we had not encountered the rock, we would never have seen this landscape.

So far, so good. But how do we know if it's worth getting on top of a specific rock? Sheer size and impenetrability is a clue. If conventional ways past an obstacle threaten to deplete our resources, it would be wise to get on top of the rock. Notice how the very size of the "problem" is what indicates that it holds a significant opportunity. There doesn't seem to be any particular advantage in standing on top of a pebble.

As for how to get on top of the rock, I have three suggestions:

Access alternative ways of knowing. Our everyday consciousness is skilled at meeting everyday challenges, but when it comes to giant rocks, it helps to bring in knowledge and imagery from other channels of awareness. Arnold Mindell has written extensively about some ways to access alternative ways of knowing.

Work with the wisdom of your body. Learn to observe and shift the patterns of movement and posture that shape your perceptions so that you can "get above" these patterns and begin to play with them to reveal previously hidden possibilities. Richard Heckler, Gabrielle Roth, Wendy Palmer, Ann Weiser Cornell, and George Leonard and Michael Murphy are among the authors who have developed ways to work with and through the body.

Learn to use language models to reveal your habitual patterns of thinking (the patterns that see rock as a problem rather than a platform for new possibilities) and to construct new patterns the generate new alternatives. Robert Kegan and Lisa Lakow Lahey have written an excellent book on this, and I use their work in the Authentic Promotion course to help get on top of the rock with respect to marketing and self promotion.

Finally, you are likely to get exponentially better results with any of these approaches when you work with someone else. After all, the way we see things is woven into our understanding of reality in thousands, if not millions, of ways. When it comes to getting on top of the rock, there's just no substitute for inviting a different observer along for the climb (or the flight, as the case may be). One way to think of coaching is as the quintessential response to the need to get on top of the rock.

For a free list of books referenced above, send a blank email to topofrock@mollygordon.com.

4. Best Practices: Be Yourself Marketing
MAKE SALES WITHOUT SELLING: I thought I was pretty comfortable talking about my business, but Kendall SummerHawk's three-tape series, "What to Say if You Hate to Sell," has taken me to a whole new level of ease and service. I am so impressed. Kendall shows exactly how to have a respectful, authentic, thoughtful conversation with prospects. She tells you exactly how to talk about your fees. She demonstrates how to have a conversation that results in people asking if they can hire you (how would you like that!?).

I've heard from numerous readers thanking me for turning them on to these tapes: Order here (Kendall guarantees your satisfaction, too!)

5. READERS WRITE: When Chaos Is a Good Thing
In last week's newsletter, I asked the question, "When is chaos a good thing?" Here's what a reader named Annet writes about that:

Until about a year ago chaos [could] drive me completely crazy. I wanted to keep control and (did I have control anyway??) of course I couldn't.

A year and a half ago I started dancing the five rhythms by Gabrielle Roth. In this dance the structure is in the music, not in steps you are taught. The five rhythms together form a wave...

There are many ways you can do a wave, e.g., in flowing find out how you feel, what's the message from your body right now, to bring it in contact in the staccato, let it go in chaos, see what's born in lyrical and in silence see where you are right then and love yourself!

What I have learned (experienced!) from dancing these rhythms is that...after the letting go in the chaos, following my body and the music, new things are born in the next rhythm- lyrical. And since I have experienced this in my dance, I am having more faith in the rest of my life when there is chaos. I am even starting to (sometimes) like chaos, trying to find and follow the flow of that chaos and wondering (like a child) what will be born after this.....

You can learn more about Gabrielle Roth's Five Rhythms in her book, "Sweat Your Prayers."

6. THE BEDSIDE TABLE

You may reprint or copy or distribute "The New Leaf(tm)" provided this copyright notice and a link to http://www.mollygordon.com is included.

Thank you for supporting "The New Leaf" by purchasing the products and services recommended here. Recommendations are based on my personal experience. I earn commissions on sales through some, but not all, of the links in this newsletter. If you are ever disappointed by a transaction with one of my affiliates, please let me know. If they don't make it right, I will!

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8. QUICK LINKS: Guide to Recommended Products

HOW TO PUBLISH AND PROMOTE AN E-ZINE that Attracts Business: I love writing, publishing, and promoting The New Leaf. It helps me prosper in every sense: it challenges me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to speak the truth as I understand it in the moment and to trust that being exactly who I am and where I am is the best way to serve and to thrive. It is a gift to you and a profit center for me. I am truly blessed.

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