(Final installment – my story on how I created a multi-million dollar business)

Creating work you love is not difficult. It begins with loving the work you have.

“What!” I can hear some thinking, “But I don’t love my work now… in fact there are a lot of things I don’t love about it.”

That may be, but if you focus on what is good about it – the good will grow and the not-so-good will diminish. The next step is to ‘feel like you have’ the opposite of what you don’t like.

So let’s say you have a job at which you love the people and most of what you do but the pay sucks. To change what you don’t like (the pay), change your emotions around it (the pay) and increase the positive emotions you already feel (the people and the work). So, every day spend some time feeling gratitude about the people, and doing what you like, if not love. Also spend some time feeling like the pay doesn’t suck. Feel as if the pay is three times what it is.

“But it isn’t three times…”

Yeah, I know, but pretend it is. Just for a few moments even – maybe just on the drive to work and the drive home. Pretend, as you get in the car, you have all the money you could possibly want, and feel gratitude for the abundance. Drive to work pretending you are in a car that you would buy if you had that income, or pretend your car is paid off.

My point is, you need to start flowing the energy of abundance, if you want more of it. And your life will change. Be patient.

I know this stuff works folks – incredibly so. But you have to hold the resonance long enough to allow your reality to change.

I did it… and life became amazing.  And then it wasn’t. The dream manifested more than I could ever hope possible. But then I started to become bored. And my company began to falter.

Some would blame it on the mortgage crisis and the floundering economy. I knew better. Whether I made it happen or let it happen, my company started losing money.

Why? Because I wasn’t flowing energy to it in the form of new dreams, desires, intentions. I was focused on other aspects of my life and ignored it energetically.

Was that a failure? There is no such thing as failure. There is only feedback. When you drive your car and take your foot off the gas pedal do you take it personally that your car slows down? Of course not. It is simply feedback that you need to step on the gas if you want to move forward.

Reality is the same thing – simply a feedback mechanism. It is a bit more complex than a car but once you learn how to ‘drive’ it becomes much simpler.

So what did I do? I began to dream new dreams. I dreamt of writing, and teaching – the most exciting thing on the planet (to me). I changed the belief that said I couldn’t do both. And yes, my company began responding. It is back in the black now. And I’m thrilled to be writing from my new office (below).

The current view from my desk as I write.

Once you manifest your dreams, you simply dream more. Of course you will reach the limit on the trappings. One can only have so many cars, houses, clothes, until they become more burdensome than exciting. But there is never a limit as to the joy you can experience, the creativity to tap, the love to flow into what you do and the lives you can impact by that joy, creativity and love.

Your work (and your life) can be and should be amazing. No fine print. No exceptions.  Is your time now?

In joyous creation,

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(Part 6 of 7 – my story on how I created a multi-million dollar business)

I had no intention of creating a multi-million dollar company when I incorporated In Touch Today. The interesting thing about reality creation is if you put forth energy towards the heart of what you want (or the essence of it) you often times will receive a reality even greater (in form) than what you had imagined – however the essence will be very much like you had imagined.

Many would say creating a business like the one I created is impossible.  I put in only $50. I didn’t work long hours. I began it working two other jobs yet was profitable after 6 months and quit the other jobs. I never had a business plan or any sales goals. I never even had sales people.

The year prior to creating In Touch Today I filed for personal bankruptcy. If there is anything that makes you gun-shy about acquiring debt, it’s filing for bankruptcy. So when I did start In Touch Today, I vowed not to acquire debt in order to grow it. I put in that first $50, but every dollar invested after that was gleaned from the business itself, not from debt.

But because I wasn’t stressed out from borrowing money or finding angel investors, or leveraging my house or car in order to grow ITT, there was no opposing energy (of worry, doubt or fear) to stop the energy of success. My only goal was to have fun, be creative and (after the first 6 months) pay for my very pared-down living expenses. So nothing stopped the energy of success. In Touch Today kept growing and growing and growing.

Whenever you create anything in your world, consciously or not, once you establish a momentum it sort of takes on will of its own, and it is very easy to maintain and grow, if your beliefs are in agreement that it can be that easy.

Of course, not all of growing a business is that easy, until you change your beliefs to agree that it is. There were challenges for me growing a new company. But every challenge posed an opportunity to figure out what caused the challenge and how to shift something inside of me to allow the ease, elegance and fun I really wanted in my work.

One of the first challenges was running a business alone. I really disliked the idea of ‘managing’ people, so the thought of hiring a staff felt oppressive to me. I didn’t want to be responsible for the job other people did. And yet my ‘to file pile’ was nearing 3 feet high. And filing wasn’t on my list of fun things to do at work.

So what does one do when the only solution to a problem appears to be a negative one? One changes the belief about either needing the solution or the solution itself.

“What if,” I thought, “I could hire people who didn’t need managing? What if I hired people who were self-starters, who more or less managed themselves?”

And I changed the belief from:

Employees need my energy, management and direction to do a successful job.

To:

Employees need their own energy, excitement and self-direction to do a successful job.

And guess what happened? Of course, the universe responded. And I attracted people who wanted to self-manage, who had great work ethics and who aspired to excellence. The next thing I realized about myself was I didn’t like to interview. I made a choice not to interview any longer – except final interviews only. I let the managers do all the interviewing and any managers we needed I imagined just walking in the door. Again, once I decided that was possible, and changed any beliefs in opposition, that is exactly what happened.

My company kept growing and growing and it got to be more and more fun and profitable. But sometimes what happened in my reality seemed to be in opposition to what I wanted. Like the time a customer asked me for Thanksgiving greeting cards. Because they were a great client, I found some Thanksgiving greeting cards wholesale at a good price and ordered some for them. As Thanksgiving drew closer and closer, I began to wonder why the cards were not delivered to us (to then be imprinted, addressed and mailed on the client’s behalf).

I called the company only to discover they had discontinued the card – probably because it was so inexpensive, because there was not a comparable card to be found even close to the same price. I didn’t have many options. I could – disappoint the client or pay the increase myself and hope the client didn’t mind the change in design. I didn’t like either option. Then it hit me – have some greeting cards designed and try and sell them to the rest of my clients to cover the cost of printing.

Our greeting card product line was born! I probably wouldn’t have started this product line myself, but it fit in with what I wanted from the universe and in a very strange and seemingly negative way at first, the universe delivered. This type of thing (bad news turning into good news) happened over and over again in my business and I was never disappointed.

The key is not to take bad news as necessarily bad. Decide no matter what happens, you will ultimately end up substantially better off because of the supposed bad news! The universe is benevolent – it is us who has issues. Clear up your issues of receiving, being loved, deservability, etc., and sit back and enjoy a life you love to live.

Next, the last of the series, part 7 of 7 - The Universe Delivers – What Then?

In joyous creation,

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(Part 5 of 7 – my story on how I created a multi-million dollar business)

Just when I was finally creating work I really did love, I was faced with a tough decision, should I stick with the huge corporate conglomerate (they offered me a choice to move to headquarters in Dallas) or sign on with a start up?

Folks, the better you get at consciously creating your reality, the more often you will be faced with tough choices. You will wish you had a crystal ball to point out the more lucrative and expansive choices. It is during these times, that it is easy to forget that you are creating it all. You are creating the choices and the result of whichever choice you make!

So ultimately you can’t make a bad choice on the outside if you keep choosing joy, fun, creativity, freedom, fun, etc on the inside. Even if something looks like a good choice and it turns ‘bad’, you can choose again – and I do mean choose again on the inside, which will inevitably turn up on the outside.

I chose the start up. I was named vice-president of the new company (less than two years after I began temping). The power of conscious creation is amazing!! I worked non-stop to get the new company off the ground. Virtually everything had to be done at once and I had an absolute blast making it all happen.

We began with a contract to provide marketing for our old company, so we were successful immediately. My biggest challenge was finding balance in my life, because work was so much fun that was all I wanted to do.

Unfortunately, six months into the new company we lost the contract with the old company. And the owner closed the doors. Once again I was jobless and broke.  I had barely registered this information when my former boss approached me, “What if you and I began a new company that provides the same services? You could run it from your home and I’ll be the silent partner?”

I had nothing to lose. And no other prospects save two days a week working at the mortgage company she was managing. “Sounds good,” I replied.

And together we pooled our resources – $50 each towards the corporate papers which cost $100 to register. And In Touch Today was born.

My former boss (and new partner) was kind enough to set up a part time gig for me writing a newsletter for another local mortgage company. So between the two part time jobs I had enough to barely squeak by. This was good news, since In Touch Today did not make money the first few months.

I was ok with that for the time being, because I was having a ball. I loved working from home –  making the ‘long’ commute from my upstairs bedroom to my downstairs office with my hair in curlers wearing a t-shirt and cut-offs. I adored what I was doing. But I still kept up the metaphysical work – knowing it was working but unsure of what would show up next!

Because the money piece was so shaky, I began paying more attention to my beliefs around finances and prosperity. I was ready for it to start flowing easily and effortlessly. When I would observe my reality showing me a belief such as:

There is never enough money.

It is difficult to make money.

Money leaves as quickly as it comes.

I am insecure financially.

I would change them to:

There is always enough money.

It is easy to make money.

Money comes as quickly as it leaves.

I am secure financially.

And sure enough, money began to flow. Four months after starting the company, I began taking a salary. And just three months later, I quit my part time job and bought out my partner. I was the sole owner of In Touch Today!

The ride from there was amazing… read part 6!

In joyous creation,

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(Part 4 of 7 – my story on how I created a multi-million dollar business)

When the temping agency called to inquire whether I would take on an extra days work, I did make an exception to my one or two days only ‘temping’ experiment. I went in for the day to work in the marketing department of one of the top 10 mortgage companies in the country. It was great fun! I loved the department, the company and the job. I continued with my morning and nighttime exercises, and next week they called me back for two more days. At the end of those days, the manager said to me, “Would you ever consider coming to work full time?”

At this point, although a regular paycheck sounded great, I still had visions of being my own boss in my own company. Plus their offices were an hour drive from my home. “Thank you, but no, I don’t think it would work for me.”

I continued to temp for this mortgage company and continued to have great fun. I also continued to do my metaphysical work at home. So often, we are tempted to look at what isn’t happening fast enough in our lives, and become disheartened. If we can just look at the most positive aspects of everything that happens to us, and focus on those, it is amazing how more and more positive things magically come our way.

Just two weeks later, my manager again came to me. “I know you don’t want to be tied down to a job, and I know you don’t want to commute two hours a day to work and back. So I’ve been thinking, what if you came to work for us just until you want to do something else? We can call it temporary. And you don’t even have to come into the office more often than you do right now – just one or two days a week. The rest of the time you can work from home.”

She offered me a very healthy salary on top of that. “Wow,” I thought, “This stuff (conscious creation) really works!” And since I was having a lot of fun, I said yes!

It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there. My boss really liked to be in control. I liked her as a person. She taught me a lot about our industry. But Sue felt obliged to make every person in the company love her, which translated into over-promise and try-like-crazy to over-deliver. Needless to say, we were always running to the airport to drop off overnight packages and meet virtually impossible deadlines. It was a frenetic and stressful working environment.

I had to keep reminding myself, “Hey, I am creating this… by letting it happen or making it happen – so what am I going to do about it?” Just reminding myself that I wasn’t powerless went a long way towards shifting my energy. Sometimes the pressure got to me and I caught myself not enjoying my work and only focusing on how quickly I could get it done and how much more there remained to be completed. When I caught myself stressing out I would go to the ladies room and just sit and close my eyes, imagining the way I did want to feel… peaceful, centered, creative, accomplished, receptive, successful, prosperous… and soon, I did feel that way, and I returned to work.

I was amazed. I stayed positive, did not judge what the universe presented to me, and the opportunities continued to appear. It was just as I’d always hoped! Prior to this stage in my life, I had so much weight (read judgment and control) attached as to how I needed to succeed, I never let success happen.

In very short order, I was ghost writing articles for the president of this 9 billion dollar company, and making myself virtually indispensable to the team. We moved our offices into a new building and I had a blast with the design, build-out and move. I instituted lots of new ideas and directions, and soon a year had passed by and it was time for my review.

I imagined exiting the review meeting with my boss… I felt joyous, expansive, and of course, prosperous! The day of the actual meeting, my boss began, “Well, you have been doing an amazing job. I rated you the highest I’ve ever rated anyone. And I put you in for the highest raise possible, but corporate rejected it.”

I stared back, blinking. Was my creating not working? Or was my prosperity to come to me through another avenue? I was ok with that… I didn’t need to control it coming one way over another. I trusted it would continue to come. I settled back into my chair.

Then she smiled, “Corporate said if you truly did that great of a job, the standard raise was not enough, and they added 10% on top of my recommendation. Congratulations!”

I smiled at Sue, and I smiled internally too. And I thanked my guides and spirit helpers… what a phenomenal universe we live in.

I kept up the ‘creating’ work I was doing… and when I’d feel constricted or angry I would change the beliefs that stood in the way of what I wanted. The job continued to be creative and fun, and I continued to be grateful for my success and imagined even more success coming!

A few months later, the president of the company called the entire department in for a meeting. He announced he was leaving the company. He invited us all to go with him to form a new marketing company to service companies like ours across the country.

I faced a tough choice – how does one know what action to take when consciously creating one’s reality?

There is a fail proof way… and you’ll find out in part 5!

In joyous creation,

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(Part 3 of 7 – my story on how I created a multi-million dollar business)

Mary Mary quite contrary how does reality change?

Both day by day and in little ways

And sometimes it looks rather strange.

So there I was, broke, alone and about to be evicted from a home in foreclosure (back then foreclosure was an unusual and shameful thing).  I knew I could do great things and that my skills were valuable, but I had no idea what that thing would be. My big saving grace was, I gave up fear, worry and doubt for happiness. That is when things began to change.

My home was sold just before it was foreclosed upon. Yayyy (something seriously wonderful about not worrying folks)! And I actually netted over $3000 after closing costs and lawyer’s fees were paid. I had enough money for a rental that didn’t exceed $1000 a month assuming the landlord would ask for first and last month’s rent and a security deposit.

I had been used to living in rather large and definitely lovely homes. To move to a rental was a bit frightening. I felt the fear, and let it go. And then made a list of what I wanted to manifest in the rental. And a funny thing happened. Despite at first being skeptical that I could find a place that met my desires, the more I focused on those desires and stayed happy, the more I began to believe it was possible. And it was.

I found a townhome that a real estate agent owned, that she had just re-done on the inside. It was beautiful. Spacious, three bedrooms, vaulted ceilings, contemporary, attached garage and most exciting, a back deck overlooking a creek that was totally secluded, despite being in the center of a city.

I did worry that the landlord would do a credit report and turn me down. And so I proactively had a talk with her about my situation. And I met with my future self, in meditation – the one that lived in the townhome.

I got the place! And it was, of course, $1000 a month. That was a huge win! I was elated and celebrated and thanked my guides and owned I created it!

And yet, I was broke again, and still no direction or inspiration about what to do. I knew I needed to do something though. I didn’t want to take a job just to have a job, but I wanted to get out in the workforce. Temping seemed to be a great choice. I joined a temp agency and told them I’d work 1 or 2 days a week, giving me other days to process, program and go on interviews or start my own business.

Temping worked out great. I was called to answer phones for a property management company. I worked for a construction company graphically creating maps of Africa for a job they were working on. I worked for another company re-organizing their file room (actually this was fun – I love to organize!).

And as long as I began my day, with that little visualization (described in part 2) claiming a day of fun, creativity, etc, the day did turn out that way. Of course I was tempted to look at the negative side – hey you are temping for God’s sake, girl! You are wasting your time, your talent, your days on a $10 an hour gig that will last a day or two! You are out of your mind – this won’t even pay for groceries and gas let alone $1000 a month for rent!

But I refused to stay in that energy and forced myself to look at the positives – lucky you – you get to practice this new technique, every single day. And it’s working! You are having fun. (I was excited to see what each new company did and how I could help.) You are excited! You asked for these things and you are getting them!

I added another piece to the technique. I would do a short visualization at the end of the day as well. I would go over my list of requirements for the day, and give thanks for all the emotions the events of the day had brought me that I had requested. And if something fell short, I would explain why it fell short, and what the thing I wanted felt like.

So for instance, if I came home at night feeling like I wasted my day because it was boring, I sat down with my higher self and the rest of the gang and said, “Hey you guys, this morning I asked for being excited at work. You must not have understood exactly what excited feels like, so just for the record, it feels like this…..”  And I felt as excited as excited could feel!

I also took a long look at my beliefs. And I recorded what my reality was telling me about what my beliefs were and changed them to what I wanted them to be. For instance:

My reality was – I never had enough money.

The belief was: I never have enough money!

The belief I wanted (and changed it to) was: I always have more than enough money!

My reality was – It was hard to figure out what to do to make money.

The belief was: Finding one’s passion in life and making money at it is difficult.

The belief I wanted (and changed it to) was: Finding one’s passion in life and making money at it is easy.

And in less than a month, I received a call from the temp agency, offering me a temp position for the second time that week. “I know you said only two days a week,” the rep began, “but since you have a degree in marketing and this position is in a marketing department in a very large mortgage company, we thought you might make an exception…”

You will not believe what happens next! To find out, read part 4.

In joyous creation,

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(Part 2 of 7 – my story on how I created a multi-million dollar business)

I was destitute. Creditors were calling so often I finally shut the ringer off the phone. I had no direction, no definitive passion, and I still had to eat! And drive places, and keep warm and lay my head down someplace safe at night. It seemed for a long while; all I could focus on was the pain. The pain of losing the life I thought I should have. The loss of my marriage, my father, and my sons loomed in my thoughts and the sadness threatened to consume me.

And then one day, I woke up and clarity hit me like a ton of bricks. I was wasting the God (and Goddess)-given days of my life in self-pity and fear. Suddenly it hit me. I don’t care what happens to me, but I’m not throwing away another day of my life to feeling this way. I don’t even care if I become homeless. But I do care that I feel happy.

And Oh My God. It was that easy. Happiness… was a choice!

What I did not expect, was that that happiness, that choice, would have such a profound impact on my reality. It just kept getting better and better and better! Of course I did some other things too (outlined below) but the happiness choice was the biggest piece. I took control of my life with that choice.

And as it is with human nature, I wanted more. Happiness was wonderful, and the most important thing of all, no doubt. But I wanted success. Creativity. Abundance. Fun even!

And I did have some clue about how to go about manifesting those things. I had been studying the law of attraction and principles of manifestation for about a dozen years at that point. I figured, Hey, since it can’t get much worse than this, why not apply the principles I’ve learned?

One could question, what the heck took you so long? (No one said I was brilliant… just persistent.) You see I had tried before. And had some limited success. And I knew, in my heart of hearts, the concept of “you create your own reality” was not just a concept. It was truth.

My pervasiveness, my persistence, was the key to my success. No matter what happened in my life, and there have been many ups and downs (although thankfully folks, the downs do diminish), I never gave up knowing I had the power to create my reality and the determination to figure out how to do that consciously.

So back to my story… I decided to apply the principles. And what did I do?

Well, I:

1. Held onto happiness – like a dog with a bone.Since that day I decided my state of being was the most important thing in my world, I have done whatever it takes to stay happy. I have some techniques that I use to help with that. Sometimes it takes more than choosing. For instance one of my favorite techniques is Narrowing my Focus.It came to my attention that so much unhappiness is due to two things: 1. dwelling on the past 2. Worrying about the future. I could get in overwhelm easily when I had a busy day with lots to do, or dreams that required many steps to fulfill them. Or I headed the other way – allowing myself to focus on everything that went ‘wrong’ in my past, which would inevitably lead to fear of it happening again in the future. Narrowing my focus is simply taking one simple task at a time, and enjoying that for all it’s worth. It is a simple yet beautifully effective way to stay in the moment.Another crazy-easy technique for growing happy is Gushing with Gratitude. Everyone knows to do this but do you do it? We all have so many things to be grateful for. (You are reading this blog on a computer. You lucky thing – you have eyes, you can read and learn information about anything you desire, and more than likely you have a computer connected to the internet.) It really is easy. When gratitude becomes habitual life does get better. At the very least it gets happier, and when you combine it with energy directed towards what you desire, gratitude becomes fuel for your creations.
2. Spent 10 minutes every morning ordering up my day.This technique is hugely effective and fun. The best thing about this technique is, you don’t have to know what kind of job or business you want.
3. The technique will bring the job or business into your reality that is most suited to the energies of the technique!
4. Did you let that in? If you are not feeling overflowing elation right now, read those two sentences above over again! Even if you do know what job or business you want to create, this technique will draw to you circumstances, resources and opportunities that cause the state of being you put forth in the technique!
5. The technique is simple. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a meeting in a beautiful place. My meeting place was the South of France on the edge of a river at a bistro table with five chairs. Sitting with me at this table, were my higher self (the higher, non-physical aspect of me), my subconscious self (a personification of my subconscious mind- and she has the power to change my subconscious for me), my future self (this is the self from the future who is living my dream life), and my healthy ego (a part of me who brings me each day).
6. I called the meeting to order and asked for their help. 

And when something happened in my reality that I did not like, I scoured my subconscious for the reason it was there, and changed it.Now this by far is the toughest part. It takes work and determination. It takes courage and hope. I am not sure where I got those things, but I intend to pass them on to you… because once you know you can create a life you love, you don’t let anything stop you.And how to do this will be explained in the coming weeks. But suffice it to say, you pay close attention to what happens in your reality. And if it is not what you want, change the reason you are receiving what you don’t want – and there is always a reason and it is always changeable.I know this is easier said than done. I know for many it seems rather obscure and amorphous. But it does not have to be. You have, within your reach, every tool it will take to shift whatever you want to shift in your reality. You just need to know how. And that, my friend, I will teach you. I did it. And my world did a 180. It improved to ‘beyond my wildest dreams good’. And yours can too.

That is it. Over and over and over again, I did those four things. And variations on the themes too – for instance sometimes I did other techniques rather than ordering up my day – but the gist is the same – I stayed emotionally positive (happiness), put forth energy in the direction of my desire and continually looked deep within to see what was stopping me.

And exactly what happened, and when? See Part 3!

In joyful creation,

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