A 21-Day Meditation Challenge

Another great free resource—this time to help you deepen your Practice of Presence (one of the 4 practices of Peaceful Productivity Now)…

The Chopra Center is offering 21 days of free guided meditations, starting on Dec. 1st. Click here to sign up.

I’m two-thirds of the way through my own 100 Days of Peace meditation challenge, so I won’t be participating per se, but I will be with you in spirit. Enjoy!

Peace & Passion,
Curtis

P.S. Check out Insight Timer, a really cool little app that helps you track and time your meditations. It even shows you who else is meditating with you all around the world. If you see me on there (usually 6:30 to 7:15 AM ET), make sure to friend me!

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Should You Spend Money to Achieve Your Goals?

This is the first in a series of “Biggest Blunders” articles I’m posting about avoiding key mistakes when it comes to getting what you want and achieving your biggest goals. To begin the series, I’m going to make a shocking statement:

Don’t spend your money on coaching!

You heard me right…

Mistake #1: Buying coaching

This may strike you as odd—with me being a coach and all. But that’s what qualifies me to make such a statement.

As someone who has coached very successful entrepreneurs, busy professionals, writers & filmmakers, and stay-at-home moms, I can tell you that I wouldn’t spend a dime on coaching.

BUT… here’s a list of things I would personally (and very happily) spend my money on:

• Doubling my business in 6 months
• Attracting a wonderful woman into my life as my romantic partner
• Getting “6-pack abs”
• Simplifying my life to eliminate physical and mental clutter
• Learning how to achieve deeper and deeper states of meditation and quiet my mind
• Taking my favorite hobbies (like yoga) to the next level
• Learning how to cook nutritious and delicious food that’s easy to prepare

You probably have a similar list of the kinds of results that you want in your life. And some of those goals are probably important enough for you to spend money on so you can achieve them, right?

Well, here’s my expert advice:

Never spend money on coaching—spend money on getting results.

Better yet, spend money getting the results that are most important to you so you can make your life richer and more rewarding.

Coaching is not bad. But the kind of coaching you get can be, especially when you haven’t first figured out what’s most important to you.

Done right and with a clear objective, coaching is still the most reliable and efficient way to help people achieve greater results.

Don’t believe me? Ask those who are the very best in their field how important coaching is to their success. Every super-successful athlete or business person or super-mom has key people in their lives—oftentimes, coaches—who help them break through obstacles and achieve incredible things. Sometimes it’s a parent or spouse…sometimes it’s a mentor…or sometimes it’s a “success partner” they hired (a tutor, a coach, a trainer, etc.).

But here’s the key distinction: These successful achievers aren’t paying money for coaching. They’re paying for results! And if they don’t get what they want, they move on very quickly and find someone else who can deliver results.

When we get clear on the results we want—and have a coach that understands his/her role in helping us achieve our goals—what can happen?

Here are some examples of results my one-on-one coaching clients wanted in their lives—and got:

• A business coaching client of mine is an entrepreneur who wanted $10,000 in new sales in 90 days. Instead, he sold $14,000 in contracts in that time!
• A life coaching client wanted to lose 30 lbs in one year. He lost 32 lbs in just 9 months—achieving his lowest weight in 10 years—and he’s kept it off!
• Another business coaching client wanted more customers. Together, we more than doubled her clientele (from 80 to 195 clients)!
• And another life coaching client wanted to eliminate her $15,000 debt. In just two years, she was not only debt-free but she’d saved an additional $20,000!

For these people, it was easy to make the decision to hire a coach…once they were clear on the results they wanted. Clarity made it easy to choose coaching as the best path to their goal—beyond their goal, in fact!

Coaching is the “how,” not the “what.”

People who aren’t clear on the “what” hire a coach too soon, and then get discouraged or disillusioned. Many even jump to the mistaken conclusion that “coaching is useless.” And then when they do get clear on what they want, they miss out on success because they don’t hire a coach who can guide them to their goal.

So knowing how important a coach can be to your success, are you ready to spend your money on coaching?

No! That was a trick question! Remember, you do not spend money on coaching. You spend money on getting results!

As long as you remember that one rule, you’re ready to move on and ask yourself two important questions:

1. What results do I want?
2. What are those results worth to me?

If the results you want are worth paying for, then start looking for a coach. I guarantee there’s a coach out there who has a track record of helping people just like you get the results you want!

Got it? Good.  🙂

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What do you want, and how important is it to you?

If you’re not clear on the answer to that question, or if you are clear and want to find out how to get results faster and easier than you think is possible, then it’s time to get AMP’d!

Contact me for a free Action|Momentum|Power Strategy Session. By the end of this 30-minute session you’ll have:

• A clear, written description of your top goal/results
• A 3-stage plan for achieving them
• A new awareness of the hidden challenges that slow you down or sabotage your progress
• A deep understanding of why your goals are important to you, so you can always generate the energy and motivation needed for success

These sessions are first-come first-served, so don’t wait. Click here to schedule your Strategy Session right now, and make your most important goal a reality.

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Introduction to Peaceful Productivity

Email me to schedule your free introductory session.

Feel More Peaceful & Love What You Do

In my own personal journey to feel more peaceful and love what I do, I’ve learned a few things that may help you in yours:

First, there is an inner wisdom in each of us that we can easily lose touch with. The culture we live in values celebrity over service, popularity over love and respect, and dollars over abundance. With this culture shouting in your face, it’s no mystery why you can’t hear the soft-spoken truth from your soul.

Second, there is no magic bullet. No one technique or tool will address every challenge you face. What is required is a willingness to stop and listen. Invite your soul to speak to you. Don’t require it to. Simply create space in your awareness for wisdom to show up.

Third, consistency trumps strategy every day of the week. A mediocre plan executed consistently will always beat the perfect plan never begun.

There are structures that can support your inner inquiry. If you have the willingness to ask questions and listen for answers, I recommend the eBook, Feel More Peaceful & Love What You Do.

Solemates

“She and I are soulmates,” my friend said.

Now before I continue, let’s look at what most people mean when they use the word “soulmate.” It’s that one special person in life you’re destined to meet and live happily ever after with.

A friend of my sister’s went even further. He believed that before you’re born, a soul splits in two. One half manifests in this world as you, the other as your soulmate. When you find each other, the soul is reunited.

Hogwash. Utter hogwash, I say.

Play Each Ball

“I suck!”

A few weeks ago, my friend, Quinton, was kicking my butt in tennis. And I was pissed. Not at him, but at myself.

We’d been playing almost every week since the beginning of summer. At first it was a rediscovery for both of us. Neither of us had played in a while–in my case it had been something like 10 years since I’d played.

The first couple of weeks were awesome. Sheer joy. It didn’t matter to us who won or lost. We were caught up in the fun of whacking tennis balls back and forth.

So what had changed?

200K

On Monday night, the odometer in my car flipped from 199,999 to 200,000 miles.

I’d been watching it for days, determined to see this milestone. Determined to not miss it like I’d missed all the others:

Now is NOW

Last weekend, I woke up early on Saturday morning to meet a friend for tennis. As I left my apartment, I didn’t give the beautiful tree outside my window a second glance, trusting that it was as fixed as the building itself…

When I returned in the early afternoon, the tree was gone.

Being Present – The Art of Paying Attention

For many of us, the phrase “pay attention” conjures up memories of parents, teachers, and maybe even bosses who would scold us for not being focused on what they felt we “should” be focused on. But paying attention has a much deeper and fundamental meaning. Paying attention is the equivalent of being present.

We’ve all had intense moments of presence. For example, someone driving in front of you brakes really hard and you almost hit them. You feel present then, don’t you? But it’s also possible to be present on a more regular basis. Before I explain how, let’s first discuss the rationale for being present.

Faith and Truth

This past weekend I went to church for the first time in many years (not counting weddings, baptisms, and funerals). One of my best friends invited me, and I said yes. I was curious for two reasons. First, this friend is a person I respect, and he had only good things to say about his church. Second, recently I’ve come to recognize the power of faith–not specifically religious faith, but faith in general.

Church was much as I’d remembered. I participated in singing the hymns and receiving Communion, but I was not especially moved by the experience. However, I did notice that I was feeling some resistance at times. Later that day I realized what it is about religion (or to be fair, the way that many people practice religion) that bothers me: The way that the believers tend to judge those who believe differently as being wrong.

And for the first time I saw where this tendency comes from. It comes from the idea of Truth.