Old structures are collapsing … the US economy is almost certainly headed for a deep dive, our food sources are compromised, our energy resources are sorely mishandled, and many of us are finding we can no do the things we used to be able and willing to do for a payday.

Perhaps that includes you.

As I have become present to this new reality that is emerging, I have come to believe that a return to living in community is our best hope for the future.

We have “evolved” into living in isolation and it seems along the way we have forgotten how to live together and get along.  It feels fairly clear to me that “[h]umans are social animals, and ill-equipped to live on their own.”

Though Maslow puts love & belonging in the third layer of human needs, relationship, community and connection feel to be as much a basic need as food, water, and shelter.  And yet, I/we do not seem to know how the heck to do it.

We tear each other down, push each other away, fight, look out for number one above all else and disconnect from each other.  It hurts.  It’s beyond painful.  We say we want world peace; but don’t we know that peace begins right here, in our homes, in our hearts, and in our ability to live together and get along?

Given all this, I have made the commitment to re-learn how to live — in connection to my self, the earth, Source and most challengingly of all — in community.

And it is really, really, really hard, so far.  It’s so challenging, in fact, that I am wondering if community is really sustainable.

Can this generation of independents, mis-fits, outcasts and distrusters of authority come together and create community?

I sure hope so.  Because if not, we are all screwed.  That, I believe in my heart.

So, I’m doing everything I can personally to learn how to live, work and love in community.  That’s why I am driving 3 days to Whidbey Island with my kids for the Next Step Integral community seminar, called “Evolving the We!” where Craig and I have been invited to learn and share August 9-14.

If you feel called to community, please learn along with us — come hang out with us this August on Whidbey.  Early bird rates expire Monday, the 18th, so get your ticket today.

Before you do, please leave me a comment about whether you think that our generation of independents, mis-fits, outcasts and distrusters of authority can come together and create community… because the online conversations we have here are as much a part of building our community as anything.

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.

I learned to appreciate business storytelling from my mentor, Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary’s Web 2.0 Expo speech back in 2008 reminded me about the value of living my life with passion and the importance of telling the “right” stories.

Building a business from the ground up, I found myself telling stories to keep me on the right path. I have always had a solid, well-crafted vision for my future, which has helped me become a successful entrepreneur. But telling my stories has helped remind me where I came from and guides me into the future. It is for this reason that I wanted to share this journey with you.

Think about this for a minute: What makes you get out of bed? If you are an entrepreneur, you might be driven by the passion to accomplish your life goals. In my life, I’ve created specific goals and developed stories to help overcome adversity, to encourage my employees and to inspire others. In creating a successful business, it’s the stories that have made the journey even more inspiring. For me, I want to create a life that I can pass onto my daughter. I’ve practiced the words in the mirror and it goes just like this: “Sienna, here is your empire, I have built this just for you!”

I am on this journey to create something that no one else will achieve. You have your own journey and you have your own stories. Starting today, make it a goal to be able to look at your journey and tell your stories.

Trust me, it will help you build your brand as an entrepreneur. By creating and telling the story of your journey, people will begin to connect with you and at the same time you are building your unique personal brand.

Do you have a leader story?

You should have an arsenal of stories as an entrepreneur. To get started, you can do what I do and practice your leader story in your bathroom mirror every day. This is not the story you tell your neighbor or a friend but the story you tell your next client or future investor. How will you explain your journey so they understand that you are the creator, the magician or the mentor?

People want to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been through. It makes you real and you’ll want to show some of your scars (not all of them, just the ones that are relevant and important for the occasion).  You’ll want to be able to tell what you’ve accomplished without bragging. You’ll want to show that you’ve learned from your successes and your setbacks, and even complete failures – and yes, I’ve had them too.

These are some questions that you can ask yourself as you begin to think about building your personal brand with storytelling:

• What story would you share that shows you are an expert in your field?
• What story would you tell to build trust with a new business partner?
• How would you inspire an employee about the future of your company?
• How would you introduce yourself to new client you meet for the first time?

Remember, branding is the perception that people have about you – and how people experience the real you – through what you do and whom you associate with. It’s also about the words you say and write, even your Tweets. As an entrepreneur, that means you need to live your passion. When your brand is authentic and you’re truly being yourself, people want to hear your stories.

Tony Hsieh Delivers Happiness

Here’s a great example: Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, discovered what he was really passionate about on his journey – it wasn’t just about selling shoes online. He was passionate about bringing happiness to work. He wanted to build a company where you could be yourself and in turn make others happy with a strong corporate culture and customer-driven service.

Tony delivers on his mantra of “Delivering Happiness.” He has created a business that keeps people happy. Employees have fun supported by their corporate culture. Even their ads reflect that. Storytelling is the spirit of the content that can breathe life into your public relations, social media and even your ads.

The lesson is simple: Always follow your passion and don’t forget the importance of telling your unique stories along your journey. People want to bring meaning to their work and as a leader you can facilitate that through your stories. Being a leader means you should be able to inspire others with your stories.

Los Silva  | @Los_Silva

As President of Catalyst Dynamic, Los is considered to be a highly influential new voice on the subject of new media for business and the humanization of corporations.  He is currently developing a new business venture, LaunchMob Media.com, a Social PR, New Media and Digital Storytelling agency in Orlando, Florida.

Heart. Based. Communication.

Three words that when linked together create the single greatest skill needed by an evolutionary entrepreneur.

Sure, there are many skill hats that an entrepreneur must wear: visionary, leader, manager, decision maker, problem solver, and all-around motivator.

But without heart-based communication, most of these hats won’t sit too straight on the head. In fact, they are apt to fall off.

Consumers are buying carefully, frugally, and in some cases, not at all. They’re shopping with intention and discretion. They research thoroughly before they even consider picking up the phone or clicking their mouse.

They are looking for companies that offer what they need at good prices and with high quality. They expect proven and reputable customer service.

But if you take an evolutionary leap and offer them a culture based on heart-based communication, they are most apt to go the distance with you.

Because you will converse collaboratively with respect, openness, passion, honesty, and empathy. You will listen and not interrupt. You will patiently answer their questions. You will follow up because it’s the right thing to do.

While your competitors are talking with their egos and their intellects and an agenda all their own….you will be talking with all the passion and excitement you feel for your business.

Can I assure you this works? You bet!

My sales team and I doubled the Sylvan Learning Center franchise system in the US and CN from 300 to 750+ locations over a 7 year period.

How did we do it? By communicating with our hearts.

Flo Schell runs the No. 1 Mentoring Agency and is a speaker, business coach and the author of Stop Selling: Start Clicking!  Thank you to Flo for stepping up and sharing this beautiful lesson of heart based communication. You can find her online at http://floschell.com and on Twitter @CoachFloSchell.

But, the great thing is … it can be if you want it to be! Or, it can be exactly the opposite.

When you are in business for yourself, especially as an evolutionary entrepreneur, YOU make the rules, set the schedule, decide how you want it to be.

And then sometimes you end up with something looking  like my next two weeks.  I am sitting here not yet packed and wondering if I am in total denial about how stressful it is going to be or if I have just gotten so good at flowing that it really will not be stressful at all.

Before I fill you in on what the heck I am talking about, I know some of you are waiting on an update from the first community meeting we had here at my home in CO the other night.

Short story: It rocked.  We are in action.  Momentum must keep going.  We have a little steering committee in place and will meet again in April.   I cannot think about it at all though for the next two weeks because of what you will read about below.  Longer story will have to come another time because I need to get into reality about the next two weeks of my life and go pack, which means I need to finish this post.

Four cities in two weeks.

First stop – Sunday: San Francisco for a 2-day business intensive with Tim Kelley’s True Purpose Institute.  They are ready to evolve in a big way and ramp up their business model so they can make an even bigger impact on the change agents they serve.  I’ll be there to lead them into the evolution of that model and the online and offline structures they need to build around it.  (We are having an impromptu community meeting in SFO on Sunday night, message me if you can make it.)

Second stop – Wednesday:  Down to Los Angeles where I’ll be hanging with my sister in West Hollywood and re-opening our Personal Family Lawyer and Creative Business Lawyer programs for the first time in more than a year.  Some of you may recall that I spent the past year deconstructing, nearly killing and reconstructing that business and it is now ready for it’s next evolution and to make a HUGE impact in the lives and businesses of many more lawyers.

While I’m in LA, I’ll be attending Cynthia Kersey’s big birthday bash/fundraiser to educate kids in Africa.  I’m super excited to spend time with great friends while supporting an amazing cause.  And I’m trying not to be too in awe of all the transformational leaders who will be in attendance.

At the same time that I am attending Cynthia’s party, one of my best girlfriends in the world JoAnne will be flying into LA from Denver with her kids and my son.

(My daughter was supposed to join us as well, but I made a MAJOR MOMMY SCREW UP and thought Spring Break was the week before it actually is.  I had booked tickets for all of us to hit the 2nd leg of my trip to the tune of $1800 worth of non-refundable tickets so I wouldn’t be away from my kids for two weeks while I did all this travel.  My ex-husband called me two days ago and said, “you know that they don’t have Spring Break until the following week, right?”  Um no.  CRAP! And, you may recall I’m under a truancy order not to take the kids out of school anymore, so I had to scramble for a solution.  Solution was: Approval to take 2nd grader out, but 5th grader has standardized tests that week, so she’ll stay behind.  2 weeks apart from her is a lot, but I think it will actually be great for her to have her dad to herself for a week and to give her and her brother time apart for the week.)

Third stop – Las Vegas: JoAnne and I are roadtripping from LA to Las Vegas with the kids where I am speaking at Ciara Daykin’s Rockstar Wedding Planner Live event.  Ciara is one of my dear friends and a client and I cannot wait to share business models, structures and legal goodness with her wedding planner community.

Fourth stop – San Diego: Finally, we will either drive from Las Vegas to San Diego to hit up Max Simon’s Your Big Launch Event, which is what we are scheduled to do OR we will head out to Santa Barbara for a meeting of transformational leaders that I just got an invite to and may not be able to pass up.  Feeling into that one still.

While all this is going on, my businesses will be running, serving clients, making a difference in the world, and generating profit.  At least I hope so!

This is a BIG test for me and my teams.

We’ve just finished up the Money Map to Freedom live program.  We are getting ready to launch the Money Map Home Study Course and the newly updated and upgraded LIFT Foundation System Get in the Know program, we are re-opening our Personal Family Lawyer and Creative Business Lawyer programs for the first time in over a year and we are designing our Money Map Masters program, which we created in Beta in January and are now readying for widespread enrollment.

And we have private clients to serve. (Whether I continue to take on private clients is a BIG question for me – I love working with evolutionaries on their businesses and I realize that with everything I have going on, I need to start charging more if I am going to continue to do it, but I struggle with that.  I already feel like my fees are high for a lot of the people I work with and yet they have to be in order to make sense for me to do it given the realities of my life and business.)

Hello, Money Map™!  It’s time for me to revisit my own Money Map again (its something you will do again and again as your business evolves) so I can honestly look at what is the least I can charge and still be sustainable.  (I see that as one of the greatest gifts of the Money Map – really understanding what the least you can charge for your time is without burning out and while giving your greatest gifts.)

That’s evolution.

And on top of all of this, Russell and I are in the exploration of what our relationship is going to look like.  We got married so quickly and while we love each other tremendously, we had no idea how mis-aligned we are about many things, including the way in which I do my work. More on that as it all unfolds.

So, can we (me, the teams, Russell, the kids) hold it all together with me doing all this traveling?

There is only one way to find out.  Stay tuned …

And in the meantime, I’d love for you to share with me what your evolutionary life will or does look like once you start or if you are making your own rules as an evolutionary entrepreneur.  Do you want this sort of variety in your life?  Would you prefer to have a more stationary, stable, consistent life?  Either way, it’s great!  Dream the dream, share your reality in the comments.

Are you thinking about starting a new business?  Or are you overwhelmed and overworked in your existing one?

Then, you need to meet my good friend and respected business strategist, Carol Roth.

Carol has a dynamic new book called The Entrepreneur Equation which I believe is essential reading if you want to thrive as an entrepreneur.  This is not the “same-old” re-hashed business B.S., but a no-nonsense book on how to stack the odds of business success in your favor and succeed in business for the long term. Check out the video above to see what I think about her new book (and see her amazing fashion doll – so cool!).

Carol has an amazing background in not only helping entrepreneurs like you, but she’s helped companies raise over $1 billion in capital.  She knows her stuff, which is why MSNBC, FOX Business and many other business outlets consistently feature Carol’s advice.

Because I believe this book should be required reading for both aspiring and existing business owners alike, I am giving away a Money Map to Freedom home study program as part of a creative pre-launch contest she’s put together:

http://theentrepreneurequation.com/special-offers/

By clicking on the link above, you’ll see some of the amazing bonus offers that Carol is giving away to readers who buy the book this week, including an exclusive 3-part Audio Series: Strategies for Getting Your Company, Your Product or Yourself on TV & Other Free Press! with Emmy award winners, TV anchors and PR veterans.  And, you’ll get the scoop on the generous prizes offered by entrepreneurs you respect and admire, including Liz Strauss, Les McKeown, Michael Port and many more.

Whether you win one of Carol’s amazing products or not, if you buy three copies of her book, you’ll receive access to an exclusive webinar and the first two modules of the Money Map to Freedom so you can begin truth-telling your way to the life you really want.

And, here’s the best part.  For every book purchased this week, Carol will be donating one book to SCORE.org, the national business non-profit, as a way to help as many entrepreneurs as possible to succeed.

So, I encourage you to grab one (or more) copies of Carol’s book to support your entrepreneurial goals and success while furthering a great cause:

http://theentrepreneurequation.com/special-offers/

By the way, if you want to donate the books to SCORE, you can still keep the entries and other bonuses for yourself, so be sure to check out the list of bonuses by clicking on the link above.

Carol’s contest expires on Friday, Feb 18 at 11:59 pm ET so go ahead and grab your bonuses today:

http://theentrepreneurequation.com/special-offers/

Oh, and if you’d love to see a behind the scenes evolutionary entrepreneur interview I did with Carol for my evolutionary entrepreneur series, you can get that here along with more than 30+ additional interviews with evolutionary entrepreneurs that will rock your world.

As I’m terming it, your Great Work is the divine combination of your inner work and your outer work.

Your inner work … the work you do on yourself to grow, to evolve your soul, to wake up to what’s real and true for you, to break free of the illusion.

You outer work … the way you put that work into service in the world.

Maybe you’ve heard the saying that is attributed to Richard Bach in Illusions and is well-illustrated by Mike Robbins personal life experience …  “we teach best what we most need to learn.”

And that my friend is where you find your Great Work.  The thing you were custom-designed to bring to the planet.

You find it in the lessons you most need to learn and continue to practice in your own life.

There is no better way to learn, evolve and grow from and with our most important lessons than by teaching those lessons and building a sustainable business model around doing it.

Every experience you’ve been given throughout your life – both “good” and “bad” – is  a gift to prepare you for what you are individually custom designed to bring.

Your Great Work incorporates what Gay Hendricks calls Your Zone of Genius in his book the Big Leap.  Dan Sullivan refers to it as your Unique Ability.  I’ve called it your Creative Genius.

When you are doing your Great Work, you are living all of that.

Are you ready to say yes to your Great Work? If so, do you know what it is yet? Have an inkling?  Or are you still just beginning to sense there may be something out there you were born to bring to the world?

I’d love to hear what it is for you and where you are with it.

====================================================

I’m hosting a free call on discovering and living your Great Work on Thursday, December 2, 2010.  Call details go out to those of you who are on my list, so please make sure to opt-in by requesting my Life and Business Growth Kit up in the upper right corner.  We’ll be sending the call-in details out everyday between now and Thursday AND sending the recording to those of you who couldn’t make it on Friday.  I’d love to “see” you there!  If you can be there live, do – I’ll be taking questions.

I can’t wait to share more with you about it!

In the meantime, it’s final call for the Powerful Feminine Leadership Mastermind for 2010 …

I am closing off the applications this weekend, so make sure to submit yours and get yourself in the running if you’re at all interested in joining this incredible group.

Here’s just a few of the powerful women who will be joining us …

* An entrepreneurial doctor who helps physicians become thriving entrepreneurs and is ready to build her business based on her lifestyle so she can spend more time with her child…

* A transformational relationship coach who is ready to stop building her business based on struggle and strain of trying to keep up with ego-driven constructs so she can really get to the heart of the matter …

* An online business consultant who helps women entrepreneurs transform their social media relationships into paying clients is ready to streamline and restructure her business model into a stand tall & go deep model that really serves her clients and her life so she can get beyond the flat on her back business model that’s keeping her on-call 24/7…

* A major support Goddess to many of the online thought leaders you know and love building a mini-empire and ready to do it with ease and grace ….

* A kickin’ conscious video producer who has produced videos for Reverend Michael Beckwith of Agape, the Black Eyed Peas, and me ready to serve other women with big heart-centered messages to get out into the world …

And those are just the women I’ve already confirmed are the right fit…

I’ve got vision calls with several other applicants on my calendar – including a personal finance expert, a real estate genius, an online support guru, and more.

Should I be talking with you before I finalize the group?

The group will be made up of a maximum of 10 women and I’ve priced it so it will be a stretch for the right women and at the same time allow me to be exceedingly choosy about who joins.

If you are ready to take your business to the next level this Fall and get seriously set to make 2011 your year of freedom with my hand-holding and the power of the an amazing group of women behind you, apply now.

Yours in feminine leadership,
Alexis

PS – some of the other benefits of working with me:

* I’m always looking out for ways to promote you through my social media list (25,000 on Twitter and thousands on Facebook)

* I send you periodic personal emails with things that need to be on your radar, such as websites to look at, articles to read, and media requests for you to respond to.

* I have a lot of contacts in the online business world and I open up my personal rolodex to you when we are working together.

* I’ve tried out just about every business model and resource there is for getting things done online and I can show you what will work, what won’t work and how best to leverage the power of who you are, how you want to serve and the people you serve to build a business that supports your lifestyle without wasting your valuable resources.

* Plus, I’ll point you in the direction of the very best, most reasonably priced resources for getting things done right – there’s a lot of crap out there and I’ve invested in a lot of it; I won’t let you make the mistakes I made.