<cross posted from www.goodvibeblog.com>

Jeff, my technical guru who delivered the pray rain journaling ebook, sent me this article from Lisa Jiminez.  Jeff says she’s a “really cool chick,” which I’d have to agree with based on this article about what love and business have to do with each other. 

This quote from the end of the article told me the info was LOA relevant enough to share the entire piece with you: “Love is energy. When you love what you do and love the people you do it for you create the highest level of vibration. And that attracts riches beyond your imagination.”

Enjoy Lisa’s article in full below:

“What Does it Really Take to Build a Successful Business?

Does it take talent? A Business Degree? The Perfect Business Plan? Or, Relentless Hard Work?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject lately - especially since I spend so much of my work day coaching highly successful entrepreneurs. I get a front row seat into what makes people successful and what holds them back. It has been enlightening!

You know what I’ve noticed? I’ve discovered a great similarity between building a successful business and being in love. Yes, you read that right. I said, being in love. So, in this article I’m going to take you on a journey of LOVE. I want to explore the many parallels there are in building a business and being in love.

We’re going to take a close look at what causes one to be in love, what love really is - and what it’s not - and how to grow and maintain it. I believe at the end of this article, after taking this journey of love, you’ll have a blueprint for building and maintaining the business and the life of your dreams.

Let’s begin with a fundamental truth:

The one core ingredient needed to build and maintain a successful business is that you are IN LOVE with your business and the dream you have for it.

How do you know its love?

I recognize five steps to being in love. The first step is CHEMISTRY!

You can’t explain chemistry. You can’t manifest it. You can’t force it. It just is. You’re drawn to that person. Chemistry is like a Supernatural force that magnetizes you and pulls you in.

Chemistry is the initial ingredient to being in love and it is the first step in building your business. Answer the following questions to identify the chemistry in your business…

1. Are you drawn to your career by an unexplainable, powerful, magnetic force?

2. Did your career just kind of “find you”?

3. Does your business fulfill you in ways nothing else can?

4. Do you believe you are fulfilling your purpose through your career?

5. Do you find fulfillment in this career that extends beyond the monetary?

If you answered these questions in the affirmative, you’re on the right track. Chemistry will attract you to your soul mate and your soul career. Chemistry is the first step to being in love. Chemistry can be the most powerful force on the planet! It is the magnetic power that draws you to a certain person, a particular career, and specific dreams.

Don’t be afraid of that chemistry. However, you need to know the difference between love and lust. Lust is a craving or a need. It’s a “one night stand.” Lust never goes beyond the chemistry. It dies out. But love moves to the next step.

While both love and lust begin with chemistry, you’ll know it is love when three things are present. There are three evidences of love. These three evidences of love are steps 2, 3, and 4 in the “being in love” cycle. Step #1 is Chemistry. The next step is consistent preoccupation.

Step #2: Consistent Preoccupation

Remember when you first fell in love? Think back to when you first met your spouse or your life partner. Remember how you found yourself thinking of that person all the time! You’d wake up in the morning and think of them. You’d go to school or work and think of them. You’d find yourself thinking about their safety even before you’d think about your own. Your thoughts went something like this:

“I wonder what she’s doing today. I wonder how she got to work this morning. I wonder if her car started okay. I’m ‘gunna call her and see how she is.”

These thoughts of preoccupation might surely have been the first “self-less” thoughts of your life! You couldn’t help yourself. Your mind just thought about that person constantly.

This is the second stage of being in love and building a successful business. You don’t even have to try to think about the business. You just do - all the time! You’re in love with the concept. You’re consumed with the idea. It’s a consistent preoccupation! It creates PASSION!

Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Lisa, it sounds like you’re telling me to be out of balance.”

Yes, I am - for a season. I believe you need to be out of balance at times to find balance. This stage of complete and incredible PASSION is temporary but vital to the process of falling in love.

It takes this kind of intense and consistent preoccupation to build the bridge for the next step in the cycle of being in love.

Step # 3: Willingness to do the Outrageous

Again, think back when you first fell in love. You did crazy things. You were bold. You found untapped courage in you that you didn’t even know was there! You did things with and for that person that you’ve never done before. And doing these things was not a burden. Doing things for and with that person brought you pleasure!

It’s the same scenario when you’re in love with your business. It’s not a sacrifice to make calls. You can’t wait to pick up the phone and share your great product with someone. It’s not a burden to give opportunity presentations. You can’t wait to tell others about what you’ve got! It doesn’t drain you to learn and practice your craft. You’re learning about something that you love. It actually gives you energy!

Being in love changes your mind and transforms your heart. It’s like a deflated balloon that is finally being filled up with oxygen. It can expand and alter its shape. AND, that is exactly what it is meant to do.

What are you willing to do to help grow your business this month?

What are you willing to try to create a closer connection to your spouse or life partner?

What are you willing to give up that is not serving you in your love of building your business?

What are you willing to learn to build and maintain your love?

When you’re in love, you’ll do things that you never thought you would. You will surprise yourself. And these things are not burdens or sacrifice. You do them because doing them brings you joy.

Steps to being in love:

1. Chemistry
2. Consistent Preoccupation
3. Willingness to do the Outrageous

Love is energy. When you love what you do and love the people you do it for you create the highest level of vibration. And that attracts riches beyond your imagination.

These 3 steps of love is a blueprint for building a healthy, passion-filled, successful business ~ and relationship. I trust you will apply it to the loves of your life and let it grow you into the person you were always meant to be…

Rich in the spiritual. Rich in the material. Rich in character. Rich in love.

May you experience results that are beyond what you ever dreamed or imagined!

Richest blessings,

LISA!
Lisa Jimenez M.Ed.

P.S. This article is an excerpt from Lisa’s “Rich Life Kit”. This powerful 30-Day Course helps you create the mind-set that will grow your business ~ and your bottom line ~ exponentially! Go to: www.Rx-Success.com or call (800) 489-7391 to have your “Rich Life Kit!” rushed to you.

<cross posted from www.goodvibeblog.com>

While I’m out most of this week, I asked Love Coach Extraordinaire, Judy Kinney, if she’d be kind enough to offer a guest post. She delivered! Read on to learn more about what Judy’s up to these days:

Surfing in the Desert

One of my goals for this year is to learn to surf.  OHHHHH, I can feel myself in that zone where I am simultaneously connected AND free.  I imagine myself being centered in my body, like when I do yoga, and carried along with something powerful, as if in the front row in a roller coaster. Whew!  This is my kind of heaven!

I’ve surrounded myself with women surfers since making this goal in January.   I have a 2008 women’s surfing calendar, a woman surfing as my computer desktop background, and a picture of a woman surfing on my dream board with the words ‘hot damn’ in a bubble coming out of her mouth.  Yes!  2008 is the year Judy Kinney learns to surf.

It’s June and I’m well aware that I’ve yet to put any surfing plans in place. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had several messages about surfing cross my path. In my June monthly CD, Abraham uses a surfing metaphor to encourage all of us to enjoy the process.  Abe notes that the thrill of catching that one great wave is worth all the paddling, waiting, and falling that inevitably comes with surfing. 

It was about this time that I realized that I have been surfing this year.  Yes, even from my home in the Arizona desert, I’ve caught some sweet, fine waves.  Who needs a board and water?  I’m still riding a great curl as I welcome a sweet, hot, and fun love into my life. I’ve caught wave after wave of inspiration, support, and fun this past six months with my coaching business start up.  I’ve also jumped aboard many a wave with my family as my  90 year old mom ages on her terms.  

I’m not saying that the ride has been smooth sailing-that isn’t what I ordered. I want the thrill of feeling ME IN THE ZONE-connected AND free.  Since adopting this “life is surfing” metaphor, I am much more relaxed about those aspects of my life that feel like paddling, floating, waiting and falling.  These are integral facets to inevitably catching great waves, yes?

So, I wonder . . . who else is making a similar connection between a physical passion and your alignment.  Does your passion for riding your bike fast downhill, doing yoga, rock climbing, rafting, dancing, or walking help you understand and tap into your natural alignment?

Meanwhile, surf’s up in Tucson!

As the Chief Inspiration Officer for Dream and Flourish LLC, Judy Kinney is a Life Coach, Event Planner, and Inspirational Speaker supporting lesbian, bi and queer women to have the lives they dream of.  She is known for her relentless commitment to inspiring and supporting LBQ women to truly enjoy dating, love and romance exactly as they desire.

On the way in I coached myself not to go into a lengthy explanation about how I had so much to do, so little time to myself, because I was so busy, yada yada yada.  Because I know we live into the stories we tell, and “busyness” is not the story I want to live.

And yet, fifteen minutes into our lunch conversation there I was talking about how busy I was.  “Woe is me, I’m so busy.”  It was ridiculous.

What amazed me was how committed I obviously was to my “I’m so busy” story even though I had purposely coached myself to stay out of it.

(Perhaps I’m resisting busy, huh?  Hmm .. that resistance thing again!)

As I wondered why I repeated this pattern of talking about what I don’t want which I KNEW wasn’t serving me, I realized it was serving me.  That’s the only reason we do anything - we expect (subconsciously or consciously) some sort of benefit.

Some how, some way, I got a payoff from my “I’m so busy” story. 

I’ve noticed this habit with lots of folks, and actually get paid to spot it in clients.

When we continue doing something we say we want to stop or change, it’s often because there’s a hidden benefit in engaging the old habit.  Recognizing that payoff can help us break free from the behavior we don’t want.

So how do you identify the payoff? 

Just looking for it will likely reveal it.  Ask yourself “what am I getting out of this?” “How is this serving me?”

Or my favorite that my dad taught me: “What does this behavior/situation allow me to continue doing or keep me from having to do?”

For example, a friend kept complaining there were no work opportunities in her city.  Despite my pointing out to her that “it is as we speak,” she continued complaining.  I suspect her hidden payoff was that as long as she could blame the lack of opportunity on the area, she couldn’t be faulted for not being successful in her career.  She’s fault free; it’s her stupid town to blame for her unemployment.

My payoff with my I’m so busy story?  Maybe there’s an adrenal push happening.  Or perhaps it’s the belief that being busy staves off failure.  As if busyness and success are linked up in my mind.  Or maybe my ego just really likes being able to say “I’m so busy, because I’m so important, I’m in such high demand,” etc.

A gut check tells me it’s likely a combo of those factors.

But with this post I’ve outed myself, so it’s no longer a hidden payoff.  And because I’m so good at practicing what I preach (that’s a story I’m living into nicely!) I will practice my NEW story more than I tell this old one.

Before you pull the rug out from under yourself, it helps to set yourself up for getting the payoff in a healthier, more aligned way. 

So, if my payoff was to my ego, I can either find another way to feed it or let this be my chance to take over the reins.  If it’s that I get an adrenal high from staying occupied 24/7, I can withdraw and reset physiologically within 3-4 days.  If it’s that I have a deep seated belief that success means busy, I can create a new belief.  I know how to do that.

But for me, the awareness alone feels like it’s helping me disengage from the old habit. 

So now for the new story.  Gotta find the one that “clicks,” as Florence says.

The mantra “relax and enjoy” feels good, so I’ll work that into story format: “I know how to relax.”  I’ll go with that for one for a while, and when it feels right I’ll work up to “I’m really good at relaxing.” 

In fact, I can already see the writing on the bathroom wall: “For a relaxing time, call Jeannette.”  Or my boyfriend shaking his head at me as I take yet another afternoon off to leisurely look for four leaf clovers in the lawn.  (A favorite pasttime at grandparents’ Bear Lake cabin.)

Just typing those words and holding those pictures gives me a new vibe. 

Anyone else got a new story you want to tell?  Or a hidden payoff you’re willing to see?  Would love to hear from you, as always!

PS -  couldn’t resist getting The Love Tabby in on this.  You’ll get a kick out of this (click it).