Believe

This year I received multiple cards that featured the classic animal rivals, dog, cat and mouse, as all living in harmony.  One was a card I got from my Dad (pictured below); the other was an interactive email card I got from a client where you help these animals build a snowman.

It may very well be that these cards appear every year around the holidays or that animals working together is just a general theme of cards in general. I'm not saying that it is not. But this is the first time I have noticed it and can't help but feel that now more than ever there is this message that we all ned to put down our predatory instincts and just get along.  We need to believe it can happen or else get swallowed in our own fear or someone else's.

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Note: This is how studying years of literature can affect one's perception of life as it presents itself.

Proof

Maybe instead I should title this post, "Poof!" because that was what it seemed like.

So, it's been a slow month business wise.  I hear I am not the only one, but I also know people that are thriving and so I refuse to get stuck in, "It's the economy..."  Maybe it is partly, but its also me.

I hadn't had bodywork in months, which was ridiculous because I work in the same building with therapists I trade with and had multiple credits with them.  I even had a few gentle nudges to complete the trades because they were ready for more bodywork.  But something was holding me back.

My rationale was that I didn't want to schedule something at a time that a client may then want...sounded reasonable.  Last week I finally got worked on by one of my trade buddies and expressed this to her and she immediately set me straight.

"No, you've got it backwards.  If you take the time out of your schedule to get worked on, then your clients will take time out of their schedule to get worked on.  And they will schedule around your sessions."

Oh yes, that makes since.  If I am not taking out time to get worked on (and when business is slow it is not like I don't have the time), then how do I expect my clients to do the same.

So that night, in a very determined fashion, I scheduled my remaining bodywork credits.  Within a few hours I had a new client on my books for that week. The next day I heard from a few returning clients and had more business call than I had had in a week.

Poof!

Jus' sayin...

Strategizing

I'm starting to get real serious about utilizing the internet for its full networking potential.  I'm posting more frequently on Facebook, started my LinkedIn profile, and even begun tweeting.  And I am not allowing myself to begrudge any of it (at least, not for consecutive moments).  I've started realizing that I better change my attitude if I want to keep my job.

An advertising professor friend of mine sat with me last week and gave me a list of questions to help me better understand how to create a campaign.  I already have a structure to work from but since I branched out a lot this year, creating three distinct companies under the Upward Spiral umbrella (see sidebar links), it was definitely time to regroup and strategize.

In a conversation with another friend of mine probably 6 months ago I was given some great insight into my business that is providing great inspiration for questions like, "What do I stand for?" or "What makes me stand out?" My friend explained to me that I'm not selling bodywork, or healing, or anything like that. I'm selling positivity. People come to see me because they want to feel good, because I help them believe that they can get better.

Since I started this business in 2009, my slogan has been: Embody Your Potential.  I say that I help others be more of who they really are.  But now I see that it is also about learning what we are capable of.  One of the reasons I decided on the name Upward Spiral is because the acronym is US.  I firmly believe that my work helping others to become more is directly related to myself becoming more.  I want my business to be a source of personal growth more me as well.  So far, it has.

And I guess while I am exploring all I am capable of, I might as well pursue my potential at online marketing.

The Game

I follow Seth's Blog and though I don't always read it, I did yesterday.  The title was, "Four stages of the game," and he writes:

• You don't even realize there's a game. (And any contest, market, project or engagement is at some level a game).
• You start getting involved and it feels like a matter of life or death. Every slight cuts deeply, every win feels permanent. "This is the most important meeting of my life..."
• You realize that it's a game and you play it with strategy. There's enough remove for you to realize that winning is important but that continuing to play is more important than that. And playing well is most important.
• You get bored with the game, because you've seen it before. Sometimes people at this stage quit, other times they sabotage their work merely to make the game feel the way it used to.
• And then a new, different game begins.

I love how it is titled "Four stages..." and he has 5 things listed. This connotes the cyclical nature of the game, similarly as explained by explained by Alan Watts in "Game of Black-and-White":

I have this saying, which was surely said by someone else before:

When we are all one, we've all won (the game, that is).  Remember, you must be present to win.