Be Skeptical, But Learn to Listen.

The Fifth Agreement, don Miguel Ruiz

Learn more about The Fifth Agreement by don Miguel Ruiz.

Buy The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery

You wake me
In the middle of the night
Whispering something beyond words
That sets my soul to dancing.

I lie here in the same bed
In the same room
Feeling not the same at all.

The air shimmers.
“I am alive.”
Stones start speaking.
Roses fall tumultuously
From the lips of saints.

My mind turns inside out.
I am lost inside my own bewilderment.
My heart whispers reassurance
And leaps toward total abandon.

You wake me
In the middle of the night
Calling me by my true name,
“Beloved”.

ecluksch

Please join me for a Solstice telegathering and poetry sharing on Monday evening, December 21st, 2009 from 8pm-9pm. We will savor poets musing on the mystical path of love and abandon presented by the likes of Hafiz, Rumi, Mary Oliver and some homegrown offerings of my own. The last 20 minutes is open for a poetry slam where anyone can offer a poem of their own or read one of their favorite inspirational poems from any spiritual tradition. Let’s get together and share some intoxicating verse to transport ourselves to sublime sweetness in preparation for our holiday gatherings and winter repose.

The cost is free except for the cost of the call to you. Dial 218-486-1600 and enter code 920454 and join our evening of divine inspiration!

Transformation through Reflection

The desire for transformation is evident as so many changes are upon us both inside & out. Our inner knowing tells us it is time but how do we do it?
In these wisdom groups we will explore tools of transformation that will bridge the gap of our desire to ‘break on through to the other side!’
We will use The Voice of Knowledge by don Miguel Ruiz , author of the best selling The Four Agreements, as our study guide.
Cost: Suggested donation $15.00/class. The class is open to new participants.

Grace Ventura Sardonicus, creator of EmBodyDream™, brings a wealth of wisdom as a healer and guide to transcend patterns that stifle vitality, joy and wellness. EmBodyDream™ offers the opportunity to nurture your self on a new level through group programs and one-on-one sessions in Health Counseling & Massage Therapy. Visit our website at http://www.embodydreamprograms.com/about.html

For more info please contact Grace at graceventura1@gmail.com or call 603-651-9642

Imagine combining the full power of your spiritual practice with your business life.

Imagine having a business that lets you focus on what you really enjoy and all the other aspects are handled for you. If you enjoy working with your clients, but don’t like marketing and getting new clients, imagine that a system exists that automatically and always brings to you your ideal clients.

Imagine being so energized and magnetized that the perfect opportunities and resources flow to you and that your business really works for you – versus that you really work for your business.

Energize Your Business! is a One-on-One and sometimes group program that provides

• Entreprenuer Coaching
• Strategic Consulting and
• Energetic Guidance

To get a flavor for some of the topics and teachings in this program, go to the following blog about The Four Agreements in the Workplace

To see a really cool MindMap (.pdf file) that highlights some of the program concepts – click here

To receive your Complimentary One Hour Session click here for the Session Preparation Form

For more information, you can email kevin@earthandlight.com or call Kevin Murray at 203.410.8150

Imagine combining the full power of your spiritual practice with your business life.

Imagine having a business that lets you focus on what you really enjoy and all the other aspects are handled for you. If you enjoy working with your clients, but don’t like marketing and getting new clients, imagine that a system exists that automatically and always brings to you your ideal clients.

Imagine being so energized and magnetized that the perfect opportunities and resources flow to you and that your business really works for you – versus that you really work for your business.

As an Energize Your Business! client, you will explore many tools and techniques to create a new business or re-create your existing business so that you are feeling highly energetic and developing serious business systems to let grow your business to support the dream of your life.

The Energize Your Business! program takes you  through energizing, insight-gathering exercises and processes to leverage your time, your money and your energy to create maximum joy and income given a minimum of time and effort.

The work is organized around various topics:

• The Toltec Masteries and The Four Agreements
• Business Systems Designed to minimize work and maximize energy and revenue
• Your Daily Energy Builders Daily Action Items
• Journaling Exercises, Projects and Outreach between calls

Click here for the program flyer (it’s almost ready, please come back)

For more information and to register, please email kevin@earthandlight.com or call Kevin Murray at 203.410.8150

Dream of the Heart Weekly Wisdom Groups

With Ellen Luksch, Rosemary Quade & Ana Mariza McGroarty

Every Tuesday at 5:30pm & 7:00pm, By Donation
Charlottesville Healing Arts Center, 355 W. Rio Road in Charlottesville, VA

Two groups are currently available at 5:30 pm and at 7:00 pm. The wisdom groups assist individuals in bringing the “Four Agreements of Don Miguel Ruiz” more fully into their daily lives.  Don Miguel shared a transformational vision supported by practical tools for building awareness.  The philosophy offers powerful guidance to move ourselves beyond the limiting beliefs and patterns that direct our lives so that we can reclaim our authentic nature and experience the full potential of our ability to dream our lives through our hearts with love, joy and abundance. New members are always welcome. Reading the books is not required but will greatly enhance your experience.

Please RSVP to: Ana Mariza McGroarty at 434-284-1733 or marizananda@hotmail.com. 
For more information, please visit http://dreamoftheheart.com/

Beliefs are alive, supported by a distinct emotional point of view, and without awareness they run our lives. For me there was always something to worry about, surprises out of left field, and disappointments to stop me in my tracks.

By my mid-20s I realized that others were taking risks, having fun and experiencing love, while I survived from outside the fishbowl, nose against the glass watching, waiting and fearing. The quest to overcome the pain of fear became my personal experiment, guiding me through the traditional process of self-discovery peppered with deep periods of introspection. Through marriage, motherhood and work, fear focused my perception, always lurking under the surface.

After a roller-coaster life of fear and not fear, I read The Four Agreements, by don Miguel Ruiz, Toltec Master and Shaman. I had found the key for me and was compelled to go deeper. As a Dreamer in the Toltec Mystery School, I learned that fear is a distortion of the mind whose job it is to keep us safe. I learned to quiet my mind, expunge cellular memory, and most important: to focus on gratitude as love in action.

Because the mind can only hold one thought at a time, focusing on gratitude replaces the fear, and consistent practice makes the master. The original Toltecs, who built the pyramid city of Teotihuacan 2,000 years ago, knew this. At Teotihuacan the physical representation of gratitude stands as an expression of beauty, universal connection through art, architecture and the structure of the city itself.

I imagine myself as an early Toltec, arriving in fear from a distant mountain village, giving up past constricting beliefs as I walk the Avenue of the Dead choosing a new focus of beauty and gratitude, knowing that everything is connected, living in trust. I know that I am always at the moment of choice, choosing between gratitude or fear. Knowing that fear is “false evidence appearing real” – a result of fear-based conditioning and limiting beliefs, I let go of fear and open the flood gates for more and more to be grateful for.

Join Michele Laub M-F for Your Gratitude Call at 7:00 and/or 10:00 A.M. (ET)Dial 218-486-3850 and enter PIN 51601#

It is a great way to start your day. Feel, express, and come together with others in the spirit of gratefulness. Put the universal laws in motion for yourself, while positively impacting the collective. We welcome participants from all over the world.

For more information visit www.HumanPotentialUnlimited.com and select Gratitude Call

 

 

The Heart Mind Wisdom Group, will be using the underlying wisdom of the Four Agreements as well as the ancient traditions of other modalities to clear a path to learn, use, and live from their “heart mind” in everyday life. Discussion and experiential activities will lead to a deeper understanding of the belief that by living life with awareness, we are creating the world in which we live. The objective of this gathering is to assist students in rediscovering their Divine authentic self – to reconnect with their core essence – that of unconditional love – where the heart is in direct communication with the soul.

Please RSVP to: Gayle at gayle@lifemasteryprograms.com  or call 203-265-2927 . For more information, please visit www.return2love.net

What are business systems? And where are they in your business? They are in everything, behind everything and everywhere all the time. Really.

Why are Business Systems important? Because all the results that you and your business create will flow from the systems you have. And results are Profitability, Employee retention, Client satisfaction etc. i.e. Big Important Results. I’d say that primary divisions of systems in any enterprise are systems that: 1) Generate Leads 2) Convert Leads to Clients and 3) Fulfill on whatever it is that your clients want you to do.

Sometimes it is hard to see the systems operating in your own business. As Mr. Deming said “A system can not understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside.” A fairly Toltec point of view, don’t you think? If you’d like to borrow an external point-of-view to look at your business, call me or email me, this is part of my Coaching practice.

One big distinction that helps is that these systems exist on a continuum from very informal to very formal. The way the phone is answered is a business system. If it is scripted and the same all the time no matter who answers, then it is likely a formal system. If the way the phone is answered changes depending on who answers or how they are feeling, it is a rather informal system, yet it is a system none the less.

If you chunk your business processes down to the things that happen between the time a prospective client first learns about you to the time you have a satisfied new client (providing referrals) then all of these little pieces are parts of the Overall system and can be systems in and of themselves. It may seem silly or busy work to try and define systems for minutiae like opening mail, checking phone messages etc, but much organizational energy is wasted by having the same things done different ways at different times by different people. And you aren’t going to maximize the results you want if your systems are informal and/or not adhered to. Let’s say that you do a mailer to 300 people once a month. A good system might include a checklist with how you print, copy, fold, where the forms are on the computer, database maintenance instructions etc. Another system might be to approach it like it’s a new task every time. Can you see that there might be, if not a “best” way, at least a “better” way to do this task that would benefit from systemization?

Another system example that is very big in my business is the Proposal System. If I didn’t have a solid system and process for reviewing project needs and itemizing costs, labor and material inputs, I wouldn’t have much control over project profitability. I don’t do this different ways. I have what is currently “the best” way to do it. I say “currently” because my systems are dynamic and changing and always being improved!!! [ wow 3 exclamation points-that must be really important]

I would not counsel you to break everything down this way, and it is usually best to let the people working “in” the system to work “on” the system – they’ll feel more ownership and system shifts will more likely stick. [for extra credit- say "Sticky System Shifts " 3 times out loud real fast - and send me a comment- you'll earn 10 Toltec points]

*Big System-Shifting Recommendation* – work on the systems that will yield big results quickly and that will reduce areas of upset. If we borrow the idea from Class 2 that says that personal upsets point to systems issues, follow this through to find where are the most upsets in the business. Is Shipping not shipping well and creating big headaches? Are there quality issues requiring costly rework? Are computer issues slowing down everyone’s productivity? Wherever there are big upsets, there’s a strong clue that a systems shift could be warranted.

Some shifts are very easy and quick and can implemented without any costs. A great example is a retail store with their informal greeting system. How many times have Sales Associates come up to you and said “Can I help you with anything?” Usually we say no, maybe yes, but this is a closed-end, yes or no question with a strong chance of ending the conversation. In a new more formal system, the Sales Associate might ask ” What brings you in to our store today?” This might begin a conversation to help this customer buy something they wanted. It’s a small system shift, but it could create a great difference over a volume of visitors.

Where do you see systems in your business that are causing you, your employees and clients distress? A great piece of homework [thanks to Joanne Dunleavy] is to look for and write down all the systems you see next time you go out for a meal. It’s quite eye opening. With just a small shift in your own attention, you can become a great Systems Thinker.

For Class 1 of this series- click here

For Class 2 of this series- click here – for “Don’t Take Anything Personally”

For Class 3 of this series- click here – for “Dont Make Assumptions”

The third of the Four Agreements is “Don’t Make Assumptions.” In the book by don Miguel Ruiz, the author tells us “The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth.” It is also a big, error-prone shortcut to communication. And here is where this agreements meets the workplace. If our habit of making assumptions is getting in the way of effective two-way communication, we are wasting a lot of energy in our places of work. Later in this page, I’ll share with you the “CURE*” to no longer making assumptions. Using this cure will make your time and energy much more effective in all areas of your business.

In our business day, when we speak, we assume that the other people know what we are talking about. We assume that they have the same background and knowledge that we do. The reality is that we are coming from two different worlds (if there are only two in this conversation) – the more people- the more worlds are coming together. What do I mean by “worlds?” We each create our own versions of life and reality. Based on all of our knowledge, and based on what has been recently happening in our lives. It’s as if we have been traveling to some strange and exotic locale on our own, and then we return to interact with others who have been off on their own journeys. We assume that people are on the same page with us, but that is rarely the case.

As we begin a new conversation, whether it’s a sales call, or a vendor communication or a meeting, we’ve been thinking about this and preparing for it – and they have not. The other has been involved with many other things, none of them having to do with us. There is a little bit of “taking things personally” here.

We launch in to whatever is on our agenda and it might take quite a few minutes, if ever, for the other person to be on the same track as us. The result is that we spend a lot of energy sending out communication that is not being received. Then we might either: have to repeat ourselves, wonder why we’re not getting our message across, or get upset that the other person is not paying attention. In all three cases, we were assuming that the other was open, willing and ready to be attentive simply because we were!

A more energy efficient approach is to check in, *ask questions, see how the other person is and see where they are at in this moment. This might take a little more time, and we may feel that is a little off-task. But if we can tee up a conversation or meeting this way, we spend more time on-purpose, there is more real relating going on, and our communications are much more effective.

*The cure to making assumptions is to ask questions. Be curious! The time will come in any conversation to address your agenda items. But if you adopt a stance of curiosity, and really demonstrate that through questions and listening, you’ll be amazed at what might happen. You’ll get your business done, but you’ll also get to know another human being a little better.

Try adopting Curiosity for your next call or meeting and let me know what shifts for you. Please use the comments to share this with other readers.

For Class 1 of this series- click here

For Class 2 of this series- click here – for “Don’t Take Anything Personally”

Thanks, Kevin