If you prefer listening over reading, you’ll be glad to know that this blog is also available in podcast format, and you can access it through this link. Make sure to subscribe to my channel so you never miss an episode again!
Those that know me know that I love Bali for all sorts of reasons, but it’s changed a little. If you’ve been to Bali, it’s a really interesting dynamic. They had a really difficult time during the Coronavirus pandemic. I have quite a number of really good friends in Bali and their families did it really tough.
They were selling their family antiques and wedding rings to keep their payments up on their vehicles so that when the pandemic ended, they could still drive or keep their kids in school, let alone food on the table. So, it was a really interesting time for them. And now coming out of it, the dynamic of the people that are going there has changed as well. It’s a real global mix of people rather than most of us who have hung out in Southeast Asia from particularly Australia and the US before. It’s really changed!
Some of the things that came up for me during my most recent visit is that business lessons are everywhere. But often, we’re used to seeing health lessons everywhere and I wanted to write a blog about what it looks like to shift your focus, put the glasses on for business and mindset lessons, rather than whatever you’re used to.
Whether you’re:
- A coach looking for leadership lessons
- A health practitioner and your go-to is health lessons
- An artist and some of your creative lessons are around colour and light and shadow and all that type of stuff
…how do we twist it and refocus on the other stuff? Let’s have a conversation!
How can you attune to your own curriculum when it comes to business? I get asked all the time, “Tammy, I have this particularly unique situation where I am ABCDEF, can you tell me what my next step is?”. And the truth is, everyone’s unique situation is unique to them and therefore the answers are inside you already and they’re very unique to you. Sorry if that answer disappoints you.
Me coming along is just literally giving a reflection of what’s happening there. But we have a reflection of that in our outside world all the time – it’s ongoing! The universe, our reticular activating system in our brain, our pattern recognition system is consistently showing us the next steps – it’s just we’re not attuned to it!
So, what does this look like? Well, I had some incredible experiences in Bali a few months ago. My husband and I booked an anniversary dinner for our 15th wedding anniversary. YAY! GO US! It was on sunset down near the river and there were 100 candles set up just for us. It was extraordinary and it ended up being a degustation. The service was above and beyond. The staff were consistently coming down and checking on us in our own little pavilion. We were looking at all these candles and there were flowers and petals everywhere created into the words ‘I love you’.
The level of service in Bali and the attention to detail is extraordinary. It’s truly second to none! Another example of this is when we stayed at a villa and I was absolutely famished after running an online retreat. I really needed something to eat, but I didn’t want to walk in the 34 degree heat on the road. So, I asked the manager if it was possible to get lunch (a nice big plate of Mie Goring, which is a local indonesion noodle dish) delivered to me instead and he very willingly hopped to it.
Now, I’m usually used to getting things in a little paper package and then opening it up and setting it up myself. But the manager looked after me so much that he came in with my meal presented on these beautiful dishes and had it set it up with the drinks that they had available. His staff had even garnished it, even though the food had come in takeaway containers! That level of service and that small tweak to presenting something in a higher quality kind of way with a little bit more attention, it caught my eye.
Guess what happened next? I started to wonder what the gold nugget was in this experience for me in my business. Specifically as practitioners, our brains are hardwired because of years of qualification and years of practice to recognise the patterns of health around you. But I think that there is an opportunity for all of us who are continuing to learn about mindset and business to notice the things around us that are happening in our day to day lives, because they’re being noticed by our reticular activating system for a reason.
Whether it’s:
- Going out to a restaurant
- Picking up your morning coffee
- Some type of interaction
…how does that apply to your business?
Thousands of people have bought my courses, especially practitioners, but I’ve never repackaged them up in a service driven way. Since I first released them, I’ve never repackaged them in a way that is beautiful, easy, and straight up, which is exactly what I got from this lunch and the level of attention to detail. But what if I could apply that to my business? Now this is where often we get tripped up!
Nice ideas are filed away in my brain as post-it notes that I never go back to. Do you find the same happens to you, too? We really have to start taking inspired action on these things. So, instead of making yet another post-it note in my brain, what I did was sent a message to my Virtual Assistant (VA) and she set up a system so that I was able to rejig what I already had produced for thousands and thousands of other people before.
It was a how-can-I-make-that-resource-beautiful-accessible-and-really-easy-and-with-a-garnish type of scenario.
I had to have a conversation with my VA to see whether or not it was a good idea. Spitballing an idea is really important way of actually making it a reality. It’s like the little step in between and it goes from being a thought in your mind and that post-it note that you’re going to file away and never come back to, versus something that’s real in the world.
After this conversation I then took the inspired action of setting up a system and asking my VA to set up the system and run a little experiment. This little experiment involved sharing it more with more people and then I made plans to come back and close the loop and have another conversation.
In your life, there will be virtual things that light up for you, around you. And there will also be certain conversations or sidelines or little things that you hear that might light you up, if you’re an audio learner. Similarly, if you’re an experiential learner, if you put yourself in a position to actually do some things, try some new things, things will stand out for you.
So, what is standing out for you if you look around your room right now? If you were to look for all the blue things around you right now, I want you to count how many you can see and stop. Now, what I want you to do, without looking anywhere else is count how many pink things are in the same area.
Now, this is the thing when our reticular activating system is so used to looking for health related things. The blue things, our brain goes, oh, yep, I can see all of those things. It’s really easy. I can count all those up. But it’s in training you to see outside of that for the business and mindset lessons, the pink stuff.
So what is it for you? I want you to train your mind into seeing it. Today or in the next couple of days, there will be an interaction around opportunities that you could see to change your business, to make small tweaks in:
- The service that you could provide
- The way in which you communicate
- The way in which you even live your life outside of business and in your business itself
…certain things will light up. So make sure you pay attention to them!
You got to keep digging for the gold nugget sometimes, and sometimes it’s the extra little mile that you go and you follow the little stream to find a stream of gold. It might be a little minuscule thing and then you end up finding a gold nugget that you can apply to your business. But it takes a little bit of work and it takes going through the dirt to get there. Shovelling through all of that and still keeping an eye out for the gold nugget for you is going to be the next step.
Once you’ve found your gold nugget, you need to have the conversations. For me, it was having a conversation initially with Murray about what an amazing experience I was having. Then it was having a conversation with my VA and asking her whether it was a good idea, how it could be applied and how difficult it would be to implement.
After this step, you want to take some inspired action in the form of running an experiment. I’ve spoken about this before. My background in science tells me to run experiments all the time and you’re not going to know unless you give it a go, right?! Think about the minimum viable amount of go you could give. In my case, it’s talking to my VA.
Setting up a new way of providing the same service in a way that’s more accessible and easy and then making sure that everyone knows about it, taking an inspired action. And then lastly, you have to go back and close the loop of conversation. It’s like having a half circle open, then you have to have a half circle that closes. Talk about what worked, what didn’t work, and what possibilities are there for the future.
I want you to put your business or mindset lenses on for interactions that you continue to have in your life, be it in real life, paying for services, going to restaurants, having dinner, watching TV shows. Find the gold nugget, have the conversation, take the inspired actions, and close the god damn loop. Give it a try and see where it takes you!
What’s your insight from a movie, piece of art, piece of music, or a recent book? What is your insight? It stood out to you for a reason. What’s the golden nugget in it? Could you have a conversation? Have the conversation with your partner. If they’re not qualified to have that conversation because they’re not in small business, go into a Facebook group and have a conversation about your insight or your idea for an experiment to run. Run that experiment, I dare you, and then see what happens on the other side.
If this blog has something in it for yourself or somebody else, please share it. I love hearing any takeaways that you’ve had, so feel free to contact me and let me know.
Leave A Comment