If you do not have a list, the time to start building your list is now.  And that does not mean gathering the email addresses of everyone you know in Outlook and sending out mass emails using your bcc: function.

It does mean signing up with a CRM provider that specifically manages email lists, such as Infusionsoft (my chosen provider for advanced business owners who want to combine mailing list with ecommerce and affiliate tracking), iContact, or mailchimp.

Once you do that, you can then add people to your email list every time you speak, network, and via online landing pages and free giveaways created specifically for building your list.

You can see some examples of the free giveaways I have created for the legal community by checking out the free law practice management resources and video series teaching lawyers a new law business model I created.

For my business that serves entrepreneurs, I have done the same thing.

In my law firm, I did the same.  By the time I sold my law firm, I had 5,000 people I communicated with each week by email and each month by mail.  It was my relationship with these people that made my book on legal planning for parents a bestseller as soon as it was released and built my law firm into a million dollar a year enterprise in just three years.

Three days ago, I left Colorado in my RV and drove to LA.  Along the way, I stopped at Mystic Hot Springs, hosted the Whole Truth Show, listened to the entire Tina Fey Book Bossypants on my Kindle and thanks to my relationship with my email list enrolled 5 new lawyers in an $800 program (do the math, that’s $4,000 in new business, from an email, while I was driving).

This morning when I woke up, I sent out another email.  Very likely that email will bring in another 5 lawyers (and close out our offer because we are only allowing 10 lawyers in total to beta test our new program before we roll it out in a big way next year) and another $4,000.

Last week, I hosted my good friend Laura Roeder on a webinar about Creating Fame online.  I sent out two emails, spent 60 minutes with her on the webinar (actually 40 because I got my time zones messed up and was late!), and about 30 minutes doing some random follow up stuff and enrolled 8 or 9 people in her program, which will bring in another $2,600.

Now, these are not huge numbers, but relative to the time I invested in earning this money, they are massive returns on my time investment.

I am not telling you any of this to brag or make you feel bad for your lack of a list, but to impress upon you the importance of cultivating and nurturing a list, no matter what business you are in.  And, to have a relationship with your list (because a list without the relationship is totally not valuable).

Because I want you to be free and not trapped in the interminable slog of trying to earn money when it simply does not have to be as hard as most people are making it.

If you are a blogger, do not just communicate with your people on your blog, shift those who want a deeper relationship with you on to an email list and build a deeper relationship with your peeps there.  It’s these folks who will buy your stuff when you are ready to offer it.

(You can see exactly how I do this myself by checking out the free offer you can see at the top of my blog for evolutionary entrepreneurs to join our Eyes Wide Open Evolution and get a free book, series of interviews and other goodies. Having a blog without an opt-in offer on it is a mistake IF you want to monetize your blog.)

If you are a professional services provider (lawyer, doctor, coach, consultant, etc.), put out great content online and always have it lead back to a landing page (aka opt-in page, squeeze page) where you give away something super valuable and educational in exchange for people’s contact information so you can build a relationship with them.  Then, when you have a special offer on your services or an event that you are speaking at, you have a built in base of people ready to say yes.

(Check out this cool site I made for parents to name legal guardians for their kids for free as a way to build an email list for my law firm and now for those of our Personal Family Lawyers around the country or a far more simple example of the kind of page you could easily create like the one here for business owners who are ready to learn about legal, insurance, financial and tax strategies for their business.)

If you sell products, books, or anything else that is not related to your time, consider giving away a sample of your product in exchange for the contact information of the people who want that sample and then build a relationship with those folks, some of whom will want all you have to offer when you put it out there.

So, all that to say — after years of building all sorts of business on different models — bricks & mortar law firm, online information marketing businesses, membership business, subscription based models – the single most valuable asset has been, bar none, building myself a list of people interested in what I have to offer and creating an ongoing relationship with my list.

Do you have any questions about that?  If so, ask them here in the comments or apply to be on the Whole Truth Show where I can give you some live, FREE COACHING to help you have more freedom (more truth) in your life and business.  I’m committed to helping you build profitable freedom business that supports you to be who you really are without compromise without you having to invest millions of dollars (in coaching + mistakes), like I did.  So, ask for the help you need.

I emerged from the incubator pregnant with possibility, hope and a new project.

I’ll tell you more about the project here as time permits, but for now I want to focus on a couple of other things … 1) my new partner(!!!) (we are in a 3-month trial partnership while we engage in the agreement process) and 2) why you probably won’t see me as the sole owner of anything going forward.

(If you are champing at the bit to hear more about what Craig and I are giving birth to, you can subscribe to his Facebook using the new subscription function and check out the videos, pictures, and updates he has been posting about our process.)

In the meantime, drum roll please …. I have found the gal I think is the ideal partner for my LIFT, Money Map and Eyes Wide Open business!  I’m cautiously optimistic.

Her name is Rachel Rofe and as I was making my list of potential licensees/partners, she was one woman I hoped would show interest.

Lo and behold, Rachel’s email popped up in my inbox a few weeks ago after I wrote my post about the opportunity and now, just one month later, she has just about fully transitioned in her customer service team and moved our content onto her systems while we engage in this trial period partnership and dive into the agreement process.

And not a moment too soon, I tell ya!

When I look at the mess my company devolved into without the right leadership at the helm (I simply could not lead multiple businesses, be a mom, do my personal work, and maintain relationships with friends and family the way I want and the people I had in place unfortunately could not run things without me), it’s truly a miracle that it had the financial success and impact it did this year.

I have repeatedly experimented with exiting my businesses by leaving them in the hands of a team built to run the respective companies three times now and each time I have failed miserably.

While I so want to believe that a non-owner led team can carry on the work of the owner/founder (I mean they do it in the big companies, right?), that just has not proven to be the case for me.

People have said it’s because I have not been willing to fully trust and let go enough, but I don’t think that’s it because when I have fully trusted and let go, time and time again what I created crumbled without me driving things ahead.  This last debacle was a doozy.

And while I CAN drive, it’s simply not my zone of genius to do so.

So I’ve been on a mission to discover the source of my miss-takes.

When things go awry, I have been taught by one of my most favorite teachers, Reverend Michael Beckwith, that something is seeking to emerge and it’s my job to be aware of it and give birth to it.

So I have been asking myself for months what that might be and now that I have some hindsight, I believe it might be that what was pushing it’s way through and out was the realization that partnership is the evolutionary edge of the new paradigm.

Rather than trying to maintain a hierarchical structure in which I am the owner and people I pay are running the show, I am diving into a model in which I don’t need to be in control of anything except that which I am truly the very best at and instead choosing to bring in the right partners, so I can let go of the rest.

Yes, I’ll have to share the success.  And yes, partnership can be challenging and messy.  But, so is life.

So for now on, partnership in any and every business venture or endeavor I get into.  I feel zero draw to being the sole owner of anything anymore.

Entering into partnership can be scary.  Many folks will tell you to avoid it like the plague.

But I feel as if it’s the next phase of our (my) evolutionary development.

To be in partnership requires learning how to get along, work together, not have to own all of it, but instead sharing and together creating a bigger pie — it seems to me it’s what we need more than anything in this world right now.

And it’s not necessarily easy or even taught.

So here are a few things I’ve learned about partnership so far:

1. Partner with people who have proven results, not potential (I’m notorious for falling in love with potential, but I’m entering into this partnership with a broader view — Rachel is a proven internet marketer);
2. Partnership requires a high degree of self awareness, truthful communication with self and others and is best done with the support of a community, not in isolation (If you do not have a community to support your partnership, consider bringing in a third party advisor, such as a Creative Business Lawyer to support you);
3. Setting clear boundaries with an open heart is not to be taken lightly, it may very well be the key to a continuing healthy partnership (boundaries can be challenging, but without them, resentment will likely build);
4. Not only be willing to have the difficult conversations, demand it (the agreement process I’ve entered into with my new partner Rachel began with me inviting Rachel to share everything that might be hard to talk about);
5. Take all feedback, critique, and even criticism with an open mind; take nothing personally, and before reacting in defense to a perceived attack, really consider what’s there that could be true before responding (hard, but necessary).

If you have additional partnership tips, please add them in the comments.  I am committed to making this partnership a success and would love to know if there is anything I’m overlooking as we build it.  Oh, and if you have not already gotten the evolutionary interviews we give away free here, do it now because with Rachel on board they will disappear very soon to be replaced by our next evolution.

I think it’s probably most said in the context of love and relationship, but it’s equally true in every area of life, including business.

I first discovered the power of it after I created my first information product – the Kids Protection Planning Kit.

I invested $15,000 or so to make the Kit only to have it selling in dribs and drabs that were not going to get me the freedom or impact I had been hoping for when invested my time, energy and money in creating the thing.

I wanted so badly to make it work.  But then I hired a very expensive business coach who told me to drop it and focus on something that would make me money, so after much kicking, screaming and resisting, I did.

I let it go, redirected my energy and attention and instead created a program to teach lawyers how to engage more clients.

On my first teleseminar for that program, I did $117,000 in sales, went on to do about $225,000 total over the following six weeks and today that program is still my flagship, bestselling program in what eventually became a multi-million dollar business making a huge difference in the lives of the lawyers it serves.

That would not have happened if I had not let go of the kit for parents.

What’s interesting though is that the Kids Protection Planning Kit ultimately came back and became the foundation for my book on legal planning for parents and the licensing program in which we, in part, teach lawyers how to reach and serve families with young children.

None of that could have happened if I hadn’t set it aside.

What Can You Let Go of Today?

Let it go, if it comes back, it’s yours and will be far better than you could have imagined.

I heard this reinforced on a recent program by Andrea Lee of Wealthy Thought Leader when she suggested that the solution to overwhelm is to be willing to let go of that which is most precious.

Easier said then done. Especially when you love something or someone so much that you just want to cling to it so it never gets away. At least it is for me.  Can you relate?

I’ve been holding on to my businesses like this.  My babies, my Great Work.  Thinking that just because I created the work I also need to be the one to get it out into the world, build a team around it, manage that team, run the show, etc.

As a result, I’ve been running two businesses for several years and running myself into the ground along the way.

And I can see now how it has been holding me back and putting what I really want — health, happiness, freedom – at risk.

The truth is that I am a starter.  I love to start things, create amazing programs, offer them to the marketplace and sell them, but I am much less good at creating teams and systems around my work.  I’ve done it twice now (first in my law firm and then in my lawyer training business) and both times it was extremely painful.

I’ve come to accept that while I could do it a third time, I do not want to.  Not and also run my business that serves lawyers and the woman and mom I want to be.

I had to choose.

So I gave myself a break for the past few months.  I reduced my expenses, all but stopped taking on clients, stopped selling my programs and let it all go to see what would come back.

It became exceedingly clear that it’s time for me to let go of my work serving entrepreneurs, for now.  The Money Map and LIFT are amazing programs that can be integrated into someone else’s Great Work.

It’s funny to me that it’s the lawyers that came back.

But of course it makes sense in so many ways.  I am uniquely suited to serve lawyers even if I do freak many of them out with my progressive nature and hippie dippy lifestyle.

There are very few other lawyers (probably none) who can provide the tools I’ve developed for attracting, engaging, and retaining clients plus the same kind of insight into the crossover between the practice of law, entrepreneurship and client service in the context of a new law business model than I can.

In contrast, there are lots of amazing online business owners who can serve entrepreneurs.

So I’ve decided to find one who can integrate my Great Work, the Money Map and LIFT, into his or her Great Work.

And it’s super scary because it’s the ultimate in letting go.

In 2008, I sold my law firm to a man who ran it into the ground and virtually killed it within 6 months, stopped paying the bills, took care of the clients horribly and ruined what I had built.  From that experience I learned that the single most important part of this process is that I choose someone I will love to work with who I can trust to serve my clients and my work exceedingly well.

This is a huge opportunity for the right person to leverage everything I have created into their own business and get my strategic mind and sales ability on their business along with it. 

And this time I am holding out until I feel totally sure I have found the right person who can turn my work into legacy work that lasts well beyond my participation in it.

This time, I will not settle just to get it done.  I’ve gotten myself into a position where I can wait, if necessary.  It’s not ideal and opportunities will be lost if I do not find the right person soon, but I am letting go and trusting for the highest good.

Instead of naming a price and terms, I’m having a contest of sorts to find the right person and establish the terms of the transaction.  I will tell you this much — these programs brought in more than $800,000 in revenue over 18 months and because they are information products they do not require a massive overhead to sell or service them. They do require sales and marketing strategy and implementation.

If you have existing infrastructure, they can likely slide right in to your existing relationship pathway and enhance what you are already doing substantially.

All of that is outlined in a letter I wrote about the opportunity.

If you think you might be that person, email me at liftmybusiness@gmail.com and let me know why.  If I feel that there is real potential, I’ll send you the letter I put together fully detailing the opportunity and next steps.  If you think you might know the right person, please send hm or her this blog post.

I’m curious how all of this lands for you.  Please share in the comments — even if you have something negative or judgmental to say — because it helps me to keep the pulse of reality beyond my own personal experience.

“Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.” — Marianne Williamson

For years, I have blogged in the name of authenticity and transparency, knowing I had a deep dark secret I was not sharing.

I kept it to myself because I was afraid it would hurt my business.

I look back to posts in late 2009 and throughout 2010 when I was really going through it, questioning everything, uncertain about who and what to believe, and I am surprised to see how positive and upbeat my posts were.

I put on a happy face, looked at the bright side, and compromised the fullness of my expression because I didn’t want you to know how afraid I was, how uncertain I was, how often I found myself spiraling into the darkness.

I let it out a little bit.  But not nearly as much as I have just in these past several days. And rarely in real time.

All the while, I was hurting.  I wanted to share it all, as it was happening, raw and real.  But, I couldn’t do it.  I manifested people in my life who reflected back to me that it would be a very, very bad idea for me to tell so much.  So I would go long periods without writing when things felt the darkest.  And when I emerged, I would write about them with a white wash varnish of sparkle, love and light.

I’ve had to let go of everything I thought mattered to me — the big house, the fancy car, the Platinum American Express that got me into all the airport club lounges, the television appearances, the brand, and the image — so I could finally really share the truth of what’s going on here, in real time.  It was only when there was nothing left to lose that I could fully let you in to see all of me.  Now, you can begin to know who I really am.  Now, I can begin to know who I really am.

It’s not always pretty.

Please do not beat yourself up when you find yourself in darkness.  It’s normal.

Please do not question your worth when you feel as if you don’t know what to do, don’t understand what is happening, or think you cannot hold it together another minute.

Instead, dive into the darkness.  Feel it, expand it, become intimate with it.  Do not resist it.

Let it go, let it out, scream and shout  (preferably not at your children, partner or anyone else for that matter), but do let it rip.  Do not hide it, shame it, avoid it, shut it down, drug it or try to fix it.

Freedom is so close.

It’s normal.  You are okay.  I am too.  The darkness is not only  nothing to be afraid of, it’s a necessary component of our human existence for without it, we could not be aware of the light.

As Neale Donald Walsch says in my most favorite of all books, the Little Soul and the Sun “And so,” God concluded, “when you are surrounded by darkness, do not shake your first and raise your voice and curse the darkness. Rather be a Light unto the darkness …”

And to me that means to speak out in the midst of the darkness, to shine my light into its dark corners and share it with you here so you can share yours and together we can all be free.

Today, I am touching some of that darkness.  I feel a bit heavy and flat.  My chest feels constricted and tight.  My mind is spinning stories of unworthiness, shame, guilt and fear.  You wouldn’t know it by looking at me and I haven’t even spoken of it to anyone else today, not even Craig.  But, I can feel it inside of me.  And instead of recoiling from it as I have done in the past, I am sharing it here with you.

Instead of pushing myself this afternoon after my coaching calls to get more done, to send one more email, to make one more connection (as I would have done in the past), I went outside onto the trampoline and read a chapter in the book Midnights witht he Mystic, and fell asleep in the Sunshine.  A nap.  In the middle of the day.  That is a new one for me.

And now, here I am letting you in on this darkness.  I can feel more light pouring in already.

I am grateful for this freedom to share the real me, to take a nap in the middle of the day, to relax into truth.

In many ways, I have Dan Kennedy to thank for it (the freedom, not the darkness — although perhaps the darkness I am feeling today is related to having watched Dan’s new videos, who knows).

Though I feel quite repulsed by many of his teachings now (especially his advice regarding the “clever truth” and his intense focus on money + influence) I have to give Dan credit for so many things.

It’s through Dan that I met two of the most important men in my life – Dave and Craig (who I coincidentally met at the same marketing conference in August of 2006 in Cleveland, OH) – and it’s because of his guidance that I have a business where I can work from home, a business model in which I have recurring revenue coming in from membership programs that allow me to give my gifts to lots of people all at once instead of just one to one, and the time and space for this healing and transformation to take place without stressing about money.  I’ve taken what works for me and left the rest.

Dan is in the midst of releasing a video series that will lead to him selling some kind of product.  He’s calling it the DNA GameChanger.  This is my affiliate link to his videos.  I’m sharing it with you because he provided the foundation for my financial freedom and because if you are going to buy his course anyway, I’d love to earn the affiliate commission he is going to pay on it.

If you are a healer or a lightworker, don’t bother clicking the link.  You will be pained, I think, by a lot of what you see.  Well, I am anyway, these days.  But, if you are a more conventional business type and less sensitive about such things, Dan Kennedy could be exactly the game changer you have been looking for to take you from toiling away in an office to a highly leveraged, profitable, systematic business model.

And if you do end up buying his course, send me the receipt (you will need to opt-in to the videos using this link for me to get credit for anything you buy down the road) and we’ll book some private time in which I can help you apply what you learn in his course to your own business.

Now on to today’s Course practice (and yesterday’s since I didn’t get a chance to write then and tomorrow’s since I’ll be traveling to Rochester and won’t get to write).

Lessons 4, 5 and 6 are similar — they are re-training my mind to recognize that my thoughts are not real.  I know this probably sounds strange, especially if you have not been in contact with this sort of an idea before (and in that case your mind is probably very resistant to it because it does not like the suggestion that it is not real).  But, I know this is true.  I have had enough direct experiences of truth beyond my mind and found myself in the witness consciousness where I was able to recognize that I am not my mind, but instead the awareness that is aware that I have a mind and thoughts, to know in my heart and in my gut that my thoughts are not real.

My biggest challenge with these exercises is the part of my mind that already knows all of this does not want to practice it and is working really hard to sabotage me from actually integrating this knowing.  The transformation happens in the practice, not the knowing.

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying that “knowing is the booby prize.”  Well, it’s the truth.  I can know all day long, but if I’m not practicing, I am not going to experience the miracles that come with a full body and soul integration of that knowing into my being.

So, I am going to take a few days before I go on to the next lessons and repeatedly practice lessons 4, 5 and 6 instead of moving on.

I will practice the full body awareness (as applied to specific thoughts that arise) that the thoughts do not mean anything.  Each time I am upset, no matter how small, I will practice the awareness that I am not upset for the reason I think I am and I will not try to find a reason for the upset.  I will just relax into that awareness that it is not for the reason I think.

And finally, I will practice the awareness that I am upset because I am seeing something that is not there and will do my best not to judge whatever that may be or even try to inquire into what it is that I am seeing.  I will just practice the awareness that I am seeing something that is not there and let it be at that.

If you are practicing along with me, please share your experience.  And whether you are or not, please do share your experience of the darkness — where does it hold you back from shining your light?  How do you handle it when you find yourself deep into it?  Any ideas on how to keep showing up right through it or do you think that’s not healthy?   Share it up people, I love to hear from you.

I’ll be in Rochester with Craig this week, so you’ll be hearing from me less than you have here lately, but please do connect with me on Facebook and Twitter if you are enjoying the connection.

I live at the farm now, in community.  At least every other day, it feels as if I might die.

In so many ways, I am dying.  At least my identity is. And from a business/financial perspective this release of my identity feels like a huge error, a tremendous mistake … I’ve wondered more than once … “is this what failure looks like?”

My mind spins all sorts of stories: Am I somehow being punished for poor choices or because I am a bad person? How can this possibly “work?”  What the f*ck am I doing?  It screams “Alexis Martin Neely, Ali Shanti, whatever your name is, just take on some private coaching clients and stop this madness!”

And yet, some part of me is keenly aware …  this is a choice, possibly one I made even before incarnation depending on what you believe about that sort of thing.

In much the same way I knew I would graduate first in my law school class and have two kids before I turned 30, I have always known I would, at some point, have to (choose to) give up everything I worked so hard to create.  I often wonder “are these premonitions or self-fulfilling prophecies?” Regardless, they are what is happening.

I am choosing to break the matrix that I have so carefully constructed around me because it has kept me disconnected from what’s real — and honestly, in many respects, I don’t even know what “real” is yet.

What I do know is that I need to relearn how to live, how to care for myself, how to be in relationship, how to take care of my children, how to connect to source, the land, and the cycles, pulse of nature and … how to generate income in a way that supports all of this and my purpose for being here on this planet.

Yeah, I’ve made millions over the past several years.  Became known for it, even.  And I did it wholly unsustainably — lots of credit, insane amounts of time and energy, relying on systems and strategies rather than Source and authentic connections.  Launch after launch after launch after launch after launch.  Exhausting, workaholic, over-achieving, constantly mult-tasking … un.sus.tainable.

If I continue, I will die.  If I stop, I will die.

So, I am choosing the path I am most afraid of … death of my identity, so I can save my soul.

Everyone I talk to who has any sort of a clue about this process says I will come out the other side stronger, more radiant and more relatable.  Right now, it just feels like hell.  Literally.

I am confronting everything I have spent my entire life avoiding.

I am choosing this path so I can lead from a place of authenticity through the frustration that most of my community is experiencing — a strong desire to unplug, disconnect, and transform while at the same time staying financially supported, rooted in reality and making a big positive impact in the world.

How is it possible? I do not know, but I am determined to find out.

And share it with you.

It would help  me a whole heck of a lot to hear from those of you who are going through it.  Are you letting go of everything you worked so hard/invested everything in to create?  Confronting what you have spent your lifetime avoiding?  What does your deconstruction look like?  Let me know, I want to hear from you — it makes my process a whole lot easier to handle when I hear about yours. Please share in the comments.

Recently, an insidious compromise surfaced and the best way I know of to eradicate it is to call it out right here for all of us to see so that I won’t be tempted to keep it hidden in the shadows pretending it doesn’t exist.

Time and again I have made decisions about my business model and how I show up in the world based on the idea that I must focus my energy on reaching people who have money to pay me  ”what I’m worth” (i.e., $11,000 consulting day, $25,000 coaching program, $50,000 implementation package, etc.) instead of the more “mass” audience I have always felt I am here to serve.

Yes, this is great business advice — pick a very specific niche to reach (the narrower the better) and serve people with money.  I have made a lot of money following that advice and given that advice to many of my clients.

But, I can no longer live my life making my decisions this way.

When I choose the market I serve based on whether they can afford my fees, I am compromising for the money.  So I am doing everything I can to revamp my life and businesses to come from a place of sustainability, what Lynne Twist, author of the Soul of Money, calls sufficiency.

From a place of sufficiency, I can serve whoever I damn well please, regardless of how much money they have.

I know I am here to serve a mass audience — the millions of you out there who are under-resourced, creative, and long for something greater than what you are experiencing right now.

I was speaking with one of my business partners about this, and like the great business advisor he is, he reminded me “Alexis, you know that audience doesn’t have a lot of money, right? And that it’s too big to reach effectively without a huge investment of time, energy and effort?”

Yes, I know all those things. That’s why I have been compromising, playing smaller to reach the niche that could afford my services instead of serving at the broadest level the people I know I am here to reach.

I am not going to do it anymore though.  I am going to take all the energy and effort I have been putting into massive launches and campaigns designed to reach the narrow group of people who are already making great money and put it into developing programming that can reach and shift the mass audience I really want to serve.

Here’s an example of something we are testing right now … a “radio show” that we are broadcasting in everyway, BUT through the radio.  On the phone, via live web stream, and on twitter.

We call it The Whole Truth About Love + Money and sometimes, The Whole Truth Show.

On that page you can watch a clip of the show — it’s totally bootstrap, beta and we had a great time doing it.  In this clip, we get real about money and I want you to watch it so you can start to discover the truth.

I hope you love it!

Our team was there, community from Eden Unplugged, and a whole bunch of listeners who messaged us during and after the show with great support and encouragement.

Our ‘Proppa’ Implementation Ninja, iNRiel, thought we were nuts to want to be so transparent about our life, love and money dealings… until he experienced it.  He was sincerely moved and now I feel a quickening shift not only in our business model paradigm, but also in the way we get the word out about our offerings. This is a whole new world for me.

I know I have a lot to learn about how to serve a mass audience in this way, so if you have any suggestions, share your comments with me below.

Ali

ps – Be sure to tune in next week live and be one of the people to receive live coaching from me – for free – on your truth about love + money.

I did not care about the money if I could not have the freedom to be all of me.

In August of last year, I stopped resisting. I let go of any idea of what it or I was supposed to be and surrendered to what want’s to happen.

I began to refocus my energy and attention on the Great Work I was bringing through.  I paid attention to all the resources the Universe gave me and stopped rejecting those that seemed “too small” and instead focused on how being a lawyer and serving the legal community could serve my purpose for being on this planet.

I began to get out of the idea of what I “should” be and into gratitude about the gifts I had been given.

I used my Money Map process to look at where the business model I had created around this work was not serving my life and revamped my offer, prices, and packages so I would have a sustainable business that would allow me to be all of who I am – including a lawyer and (as Dave used to call me) a hippy California chick, a community builder, and would give me plenty of time to let my inner girl come out and play without fear.

I am thrilled beyond measure to report that I spent all day today working in my lawyer business absolutely LOVING it. The lawyers are reporting tremendous results (8 appointments from one of our marketing campaigns, 6 appointments from another, 100% engagement rates, and clients who are grateful for the experience with their lawyer just to name a few) and I am so grateful to be helping them attract, engage, serve and retain clients they love who love them by instituting my new paradigm business model in their practices.

And to think I almost gave this up.  What a shift a couple of years and a new business model can make.

Consider diving into what you are resisting with a new perspective – let go of attachment to what it should look like, get clear on what you want it to look like and give gratitude for all the gifts you have been given.

What you can do really well right now that is of service in the world, but you are not giving your full energy to because it feels “too small” or like you are so ready to leave it behind for the “next big thing?”  How can you say yes to more of that now in a way that feels great to you?  I invite you to consider that because it could be the acres of diamonds you have been looking everywhere for, right beneath your feet.

It has if …

You find yourself doing things that feel out of alignment with who you are and what you came here to do in the world.

It has if …

You are in a job doing work you are not 100% in alignment with.  You know you are not impacting the world in as powerful a way as you possibly could and yet you are convinced you have no other choice because you need the paycheck.

It has if …

You use “tactics and strategies” in your business that do not line up w/ how you like to be and who you really are because you believe you have to or you will not make enough money.

It has if …

You have plenty of money, more than you could ever spend in your lifetime, and yet, you are still using money to keep score of your success.  You make decisions based on what will bring in more money instead of making your decisions based on what you really want, the life you really want to live and the way you want to impact the world.

This is all money shadow and as long as it keeps running you, you are to some degree or another wasting the time you have left on this planet to make the kind of impact you want to make.  We need you to get free.

If you would like to stop being run by your money shadow, join me on my next live UStream I host on the Whole Truth About Love & Money.

For access to the UStream event, opt-in for my video training about the Money Shadow here and make sure to download my Money Shadow Worksheet so you can start getting free of your Money Shadow today.

If you are a corporate catch, with the right business model in place you can be a corporate renegade and make great money, without being tied down by the 9-5 job.

I’m working with a client right now who is definitely a corporate catch.  He builds sales teams that sell high ticket items.

And he was about to leave the corporate world altogether to pursue his dream of entrepreneurship.  Once we began working together to build out his sales and marketing systems, he began to think that maybe he was not cut out for entrepreneurship.  (Carol Roth, your book the Entrepreneur Equation was a real eye opener for him!)

Being an entrepreneur can be a major emotional roller coaster and my client discovered that he has a lot of internal work to do in order to hang on and have it feel good to be on the roller coaster.

At the same time, now that he had begun putting himself out there as an entrepreneur suddenly he was getting all sorts of calls from recruiters looking for someone with just his skillset.

So we decided that while he is still building his entrepreneurial venture he should go on a couple of job interviews.

Lo and behold, he discovered- he is quite the catch out there in the corporate world.  And that he may be able to have the benefits of the corporate world without being tied down, dependent or feeling trapped like he once did before.

Now, we are working on a business model in which he can take a job if it feels like a huge home run OR he can be a corporate entrepreneur and build his business model around serving these big corporations he once worked for.  And it can be a super simple business model that allows him to have a handful of clients he is doing great work with and getting paid handsomely for without having an employees.

Either way, he wins.

If you are in the corporate world and feeling trapped, I wonder if you may be able to shift your perspective one notch from where you are now and see a whole new possibility that allows you to integrate all of your experience in the corporate world with your strong desire for more freedom and possibility.

Or if you have recently left the corporate world and are not yet making it in your entrepreneurial venture, how you can leverage all of your knowledge and experience in that world to serve the freedom-based business you want now.

One of the things I am learning post-Eden is how to truly live the both/and of who I am.  I am finding the middle way of embracing all that I am and all that I am evolving to be — Alexis Neely, the strong lawyer, the powerhouse entrepreneur and Ali Shanti, the free spirit – all of me.

By the way, this is one of the ways the Money Shadow shows up in our lives – telling us we must pick, we cannot be all of ourselves.  I get it.  I struggle with it.  If you cannot see the money shadow in your life, you might want to watch this video training I made about the Money Shadow.

What would it look like to embrace all of you in the best, most delicious mash-up of all times?  What part of you are you currently leaving behind in your current reality and would love to integrate, if only you could?  I’d love to hear from you.