This episode is a two-parter.

In the first part, recorded in the closet underneath the staircase in my house, I talk about stress patterns, modern day tigers, and the sympathetic nervous system.

We look at

• how you can make your life so much easier (and produce better work) when you break those patterns,
• what your Mellow Mama state actually is,
• how your amygdala gets in the way of serendipity and your creativity, and
• how you can use your attention and your breath as a major disruption tool.

(Note: While there is much discussion about cars careening into your lane on the highway, no accidents occurred in the creation of this content.)

Women’s Coach and Retreat Leader Megan Roop shares with us her Daily Welcoming practice.

What I love about her Daily Welcoming is that while there are so many angles to self-care, this one provides the umbrella for them all to be touched in with.

Since she actually does a full exercise here, I recommend that you listen to this episode in the morning, with paper and pen, in a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted.

(Note: there's a MP3 of just Megan's prompts for this exercise in the show notes at www.naturalprofessional.com/15/ )

Megan’s work with women began over 10 years ago in the Peace Corps and continued in the role of yoga and meditation teacher. She later received her training as a Behavior Change Specialist and Certified Integrative Health Coach at Duke Integrative Medicine. She’s also a Certified teacher of The Way of the Happy Woman.

She combines her knowledge of behavior change and seasonal self-care practices with perceptive insights to guide you in living a more bold, free, and connected life.

Enjoy!

Jake Jorgovan helps his clients make money in extremely creative ways. His approach is of the outbound marketing camp and is very personal and you might even say quirky. If you thought that old school tape player was just a relic, think again. That ‘ancient’ piece of machinery could land you your next big client.

In this episode we discuss:

• creating demand in a freelance economy and this helps you set higher rates
• traffic vs. values and other challenges of being committed to authenticity in business
• the single practice that influences his daily rhythm and serves as a tool for talking thru big decisions with himself
• pruning and other practices that support him in moving toward his desired direction in life

He also shares which influential book inspired him to make his bucket list desire to live in another country happen now instead of some time in the indeterminate future.

I first ran across Jake’s work through Todd Henry’s community and was immediately hooked. He has a great ebook called The Focused Creator that is so complimentary to the Natural Professional approach that I knew I wanted him as a guest asap.

The more I’ve learned, the more I dig his work. His outbound is approach so refreshing. Being one who hates waste, I love this uber-strategic approach that results in focused action for direct impact.

Enjoy!

To bike through southern France or not to bike through southern France, that is one tough decision for this wanderlust-chica to make! Someone else doing the planning, award points in the mileage account... it's a no-brainer, right?

In this shorty episode, I share my process for making significant decisions. I call it my Big Decision Protocol. This is a simplified version of the process--the full version will be in the Natural Professional Handbook that I'm working on.

While researching, talking with people, listing pros & cons is important and gives your head plenty of data to work with, the best final decisions come through mindful connection with your Wise Self.

You'll learn

• my four step process for making Big Decisions
• which step most people leave out when trying to follow their intuition (hint: it's step #4)

This was a spontaneous episode recorded over the fourth of July weekend. After being immersed in a family emergency for a week, and then in family vaykay mode for another week, I'd been putting off making a final decision. This meant that my friend was waiting ever-so-patiently for a response.

Feelings of unease began to settle in as I left my friend in limbo and had this decision hanging over me. These kinds of feelings are a huge signifier that I need to reach for my energy management toolkit.

Finally one morning, before anyone else was up, I knew what needed to happen--I remembered that I have the tools to resolve this. I took pen and paper and sat by the lake. The result of that session was to confidently settle on a decision.

Then there was the major bonus of documenting the process and recording this episode right then and there! Now that's some natural productivity kicking in!

The Body-Mind connection is so fascinating!

In this episode of the Authentic Success podcast, Nancy Shanteau, a Skills for Change Coach and Somatic Coach talks about a process she's developed to deal with the thoughts that otherwise clutter up the mind and bring us down.

Whether you think of these thoughts as from the inner critic, the voice of judgement or just straight up shame or guilt, they wield an inordinate amount of power over you.

You'll learn how

• the simple technique to weed out self-sabotaging thoughts,
• cleansing your thoughts leads to re-connecting with your wise-adult consciousness, and
• to stop sleepwalking through your life with old thought-patterns.

I've been fascinated by the Mind-Body connection for years now as I've come to understand that the body gives us so much information--that we ignore--every day. As a result, we waste huge amounts of energy.

One of the biggest energy drains results from the cluttered mind. It's not until you start paying attention to the quantity of inane thoughts that you begin to realize how much of a life-draining suck it is (sorry, ego, it's true and I'm not going to pretend that it isn't!)

Instead of analyzing which thoughts deserve to stay and which to go (which would 1) take a Huge amount of time, and 2) contribute to tons more thoughts!) Nancy tells us of her process that accesses the wisdom of the body to discern quickly.

She loves structure (a woman after my own heart!) and has created a systematic online program to lead people through her process, which results in tools that you can use on your own in the future.

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Show note links:

• Website NancyShanteau.com
• Skills for Change Thought Cleanse
• Youtube channel: Nancy Shanteau Coaching

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Music credit:

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)

• café connection by morgantj

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No one gets to the point of living the life of their dreams alone. When I talk with other successful business owners, one common theme is support systems.

What does support mean? I’m not talking family and friends here, I mean focused business support that keeps you and your business on track, beyond accountability and into the juicy realms of vision and intention.

• Have you ever lost focus in your business?

• Do everyday tasks dominate your work flow to the point you lose track of the big picture?

• Have you wondered how some entrepreneurs seem to know about everything, always trying something new?

• Are there fellow biz owners from whom you would love to learn?

The reality of being an entrepreneur (and really, of just being a person), is that you need support. This can mean so many different things, from a paid coach or class to a casual chat with a friend.

Masterminds have become a bit of a trend in the entrepreneurial world. Yahoo! I’m wholly in favor of any support system that helps biz owners do more of what they (we!) do best.

In episode 11 of Authentic Success, I have a quick chat with fellow biz owner Stacey Marolf with StudioOfDance.com. We clicked at World Domination Summit this year and started a mastermind group with 2 other women.

Stacey and I have each been in other masterminds. We share our perspectives on them and also discuss other forms of support that keep our big picture intentions in sight and our businesses moving in the right direction.

The scene: Burningman, the radical self expression festival that converges in an empty expanse of Nevada each year. In this episode of the Authentic Success podcast, I share 3 guiding principles + real world experience of putting them into action.

I spell out the concrete takeaways so you can:

• feel more momentum in your life and biz,

• appreciate sparks of inspiration when they arise,

• structure your day for accomplishment,

• understand your work/life needs so you are happy with results, and

• eliminate doubts that stall your progress.

When everything your life is centered around is absent, how will you respond? When there is absolutely nothing on your ToDo List, what will you do?

You really get to see the effects of this kind of experiment when all “everyday” routines, habits, structures, and tech toys are absent--left behind in the “default world.”

The main goal (for me, for you, for any Natural Professional) was to organize my energy around being happy, healthy, and whole. This kind of mindful awareness takes practice, and really, just remembering to come back to it once a day can be a success!

Guess what? In the 6 years I’ve been going to Burningman, this was one of the best years ever thanks to keeping these simple personal energy management principles in mind.

It was powerful to see the impact of these strategies outside of my regular life where sometimes it’s hard to discern the specific effect of these principles from all the other influences.

You don’t have to trek to the Nevada desert to try a new way of living and being. I hope these 3 takeaways inspire you to make some change in your life so it’s easier, more fluid, and even—in the spirit of Burningman—a little more magical.

Shea Smith, owner and founder of HAALo, a successful herb shop and alternative healing hub in Nevada City, California, didn’t start out wanting to be a business owner.

She identified a need in the community, and through conversations, networking, and guiding intuition, HAALo began to unfold. HAALo is a true grass roots, community effort that started with no initial seed money, no loans—and it has remained debt-free while continually growing.

In her conversation with Authentic Success podcast host Shawn Tuttle, Shea shares how deep spiritual learning and growth can happen anywhere, even at 30,000 feet delivering drinks and pillows as she did for more than two decades as an airline stewardess. Their conversation also includes:

• creating a culture of service in your life and business
• the power of story for learning and teaching
• building a business and making decisions guided by intuition
• having mentors and establishing yourself as a resource by being a mentor
• cultivating fertile growth for your own business while helping others do the same (Shea’s Win-Win M.O.)

Shea’s stories of creative problem solving as she stepped into her own power of business ownership are truly “think outside the box” examples. She’s had meetings in fields with farmers, pruning shears in hand to help harvest, and rented out part of a shop for housing.

Listen in for more inspiring examples that will turn “I can’t” thinking into a powerful entrepreneurial brainstorming session so you can bring your gifts to the world and do what you do best.

:::::::::::::::::Show note links for HAALo:

• Website and blog: HAALo
• Youtube channel: HAALo Herb Shoppe
• Facebook Follow: HAALo Nevada City

:::::::::::::::::Music credits:Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)

• café connection by morgantj
• Reverie (small theme) by _ghost
• Ave by Alex
• Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba
• Like A Sycamore by snowflake