Category Archives: Creativity

Life, marketing and sales made easy

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Amongst the many wild theories I am known to expound at length any time someone or something sets me off, is that everything is easy, and in many cases, things are far, far, far easier than they seem.

People seem to like this idea. They take enough interest to stay with me as I fizz with enthusiasm, and tell some of my stories of when this has been the case for me.

The vision of Project Flow Days

We did our first Project Flow Day on Saturday, a glorious day, filled with sparks and flashes of inspiration, of vision, and of seeing how those projects could be easy, too. For me, being in that beautiful room, with those beautiful people, being part of that flowering of life and purpose, was in itself a vision come true – I’d seen it, experienced it, in moments of daydream – to the point that I surprised myself when I remembered I had not actually lived such a day before.

Relative speed

I was also surprised when someone pointed out to me how quickly the day had come to fruition. “You were only talking about it three weeks ago, as an idea, and now here you are!” My head tilted to the side as I considered this. In my world three weeks is a long time, but their surprise that something could happen so quickly triggered curiosity in me. How had it happened? What made it so easy?

Well, it just was easy. We set a date, my co-host Dave Kibby called someone he knew who had a stately home library for hire, and we started inviting people.

First Project Flow Day, Library, Cobham Hall

What is it for you?

I already knew the idea captured people’s attention, because for the few weeks before, I’d been asking everyone I met: “What is it for you? What is that you know in your heart you need to be doing?” and seen their faces go pale, or light up, or their mouths drop open. I knew people knew what they wanted and needed to do, I was pretty sure the offer of space to do it would be attractive and I knew, deep down, it was a good thing to do.

And as soon as we started talking about the day online, people started taking notice, sharing it, talking about it, and then they started booking to come.

Vision unfolding

From there, what? My vision was of a day of space, for people to work on their projects away from their everyday lives. The plan of how the day would unfold came to me complete, easy. It took me five minutes to write it down. I had some thoughts of what to say at the start, about how life is easy for me, and had a chat to my friend Stuart, who knows about these things, about how to introduce Dave so that his genius and vision would flow easily from there. All easy.

Endless examples

I was going to talk here about other examples, of similar moments of ease, but I won’t, for now. There’s just one more point I’d like to make: for me it’s passion, excitement and clarity of vision that fuels my choices of what to do. It’s that light in the eyes of another that tells me, “Yes, this is it, this is the next thing, this is something that will make a difference.” When I feel that, I don’t even need to think, “how will I do this?” – it simply unfolds.

With thanks to Lucy Whittington for her wisdom on “doing your marketing Thing”.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Soul of a Nomad

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I wonder what it is that makes me happiest when I’m wandering from place to place.

The flow of the road or the waves or the tracks brings a sometimes ecstatic joy to my heart, which rises in a soaring movement in my chest that is an expression of pure joy.

The view through my car window of a familiar and unfamiliar landscape: sunshine on brilliant green foreground hills against a backdrop of thunderous sky; light through autumn leaves in a glowing, glorious display of colour; the sparkle of sunshine off water; the shifting pattern of cloud as the road worships a rising moon; the glimpse of a long snaking train as we round a curving bend, the transient view of the engine like the promise of infinity – all these things combine into one truth: that all that matters is that the view keeps shifting, keeps changing.

It is the constant change, the truth of now and the unknowability of the future that makes me feel so at home in the journey.

This week I’ve stopped and taken rest with some wonderful old friends. This, too, is part of the shifting view. I love to connect and reconnect, to ask the questions that only seem to get asked within a limited time-frame – the bigger questions of health and happiness and life.

The potential frictions of people living together are suspended when the visit is closely finite; an impertinent question brings a moment of surprise, the head of the person questioned pulling back a fraction; then comes the moment of magic: the eyes shift focus to a point not in the room; there is a pause of sacred anticipation, and then the answer comes, fresh, true, honest, enlightening. Reality may change or not from that moment, but somehow, their hearts and mine are touched and altered by the space of honesty and truth that is outside our normal, everyday experience.

For me, the epic journey requires being at the level of land or sea – it cannot be made by air. Perhaps it requires the physical connection the the medium of travel: up and down with waves or landscape. Perhaps it is that our eyes have evolved to make sense through a horizontal view, that looking down on something makes it unreal, unrelated to ourselves and our lives.

I recall the two great Australian train journeys I have made, one with each of my children at the sacred age of twelve: the Indian Pacific with my son, Perth to Sydney and with my daughter, the Ghan, Adelaide to Darwin, with a side trip to the nowhere-ness and everywhere-ness of Uluru.

I still have the sense with me of endless desert, not empty as I expected, but always dotted with scrubby trees, points of curious interest on which to momentarily rest my eyes  before the train whisks me on to the next view; that magical pattern allows me to be in two places, two worlds, on two planes at once, with the rich added dimension of the spirit of my children accompanying me. I am here on earth, and I am floating in the world of my imagination, free and connected simultaneously.

I look at my business card now and see it gives no location: there is no physical address, no country-based phone number; it is a virtual homing beacon, with web address, email address, Skype ID. With this I can be found and not found anywhere in the world. For the person wanting to connect, it doesn’t matter where I am, or rather, there is the illusion I am always in the same place… which I suppose, given that my heart is my home, is the truth.

My heart, in connection with the hearts of others: that’s home.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

The Illusion of Control

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I had a great conversation with my good friend, Yvette Lamidey, The Business Locksmith, on Monday, one of those conversations where prophetic things get said; we both heard Oracle statements for our futures.

In amongst a wide range of subjects, the idea of control of life came up. It’s an idea we like to cling to, that we can directly manipulate the objects and events in our lives, that things are stable, that the possessions and people we live with now will be with us forever.

But actually, we know that isn’t true. We know that things are temporary, that even the ground beneath our feet is less stable than it seems.

So what is going on here? Why do we ignore the evidence, and keep holding on tightly to what we know? Perhaps it’s the devil we know… that the things we can’t imagine look more frightening than the things we can. Perhaps it’s that we doubt our ability to handle something new. Perhaps it’s just the energy that it takes to run a hundred different scenarios, pre-planning contingencies, exploring the “what-ifs”. For lots of different reasons, it seems simplest to assume what has happened before will happen again, the same action will produce the same result… but we know, deep down, this isn’t always true.

So what then? What’s the alternative?

How about this? What if we were to surf life, moment by moment; watch the waves with a sense of the direction of movement, and trust in the thrill of the ride? What if we were to allow the roller coaster of emotions to freely move through us, bringing vivid experience, a continuous rush of beautiful, wild life, exhilarating?

There’s a lot to let go of to do this. Loosening the grip on possessions is the first, looking at everything we have around us, everything we hold in our hands, as a momentary thing that may or may not continue into our future. It requires letting go of thinking ahead with rigid expectation, of the sense of disappointment when things don’t go as planned, of judgement, comparing this moment to what it might have been; and then, once these are let go, living life this way consists of simply looking around the moment we have with wonder.

It also involves letting go of people: letting go of the picture we have of who they are or ought to be, and letting them be who they actually are, in the moment. None of us stay the same; we change powerfully from moment to moment: sometimes serious, sometimes sad, sometimes playful; but always, deep down, we are always love. We just bring that love in different forms, moment to moment.

It’s that truth that makes it safe to trust life, in the moment, and let go of the illusion of control.

(Thanks to inimitable Thinking Coach Dave Kibby: I can no longer tell which ideas are yours, and which are mine…)

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Are we ready for greatness?

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Are the problems we’re wrestling with too small?

Just as our fears shape us with their negative contours, so, too, the challenges we choose to conquer define our lives.

What questions fill our minds during most of our days? Is it

What will I make for dinner tonight?
When will I find time to tidy my desk?
Am I going to be late for my next appointment?
How will I make conversation at the family dinner on Sunday?

Is it

How can I motivate myself to go to the gym?
What car do I aspire to next?
Does that person like me?
or Is my best friend’s brother having an affair, and should I tell his wife?

Or is it

How can I use my enormous, God-given talents to change the world, to create a vision that no-one has conceived of before, and then live it into reality?

If we have to eat a little more simply, or live in a more modest home, would that matter if we were significantly changing the world?

When J.K. Rowling was asked how she found time to write Harry Potter, she answered (apologies if the quote is not 100% accurate – I’m open to correction) “I didn’t clean my house for four years”.

What are you going to not do, so you can do what you have to do?

Joan of Arc was 17 when she answered the call, left her home and led troops into battle for something she believed in.

Do you feel your purpose rising in your chest, undeniable?

Is it time for you to answer your call? I think it’s time for me to answer mine …

To get you in the mood for greatness, try Katy Perry’s “Who am I living for?”

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Finding your Flow

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Today I’m working on part two of my online course, Flow Your Book, and thinking about all the different ways people find their Flow.

For me personally, there are two ways it happens – it can be my own creative projects, usually writing, when I can go into that state where six hours later I look up and have to work to get the world back into focus. Or it can be sharing ideas, listening to someone who is speaking their truth.

That’s the magic of the work I do, every day – spending time with people who are in that space, who stay in it from the moment we connect to the moment we say goodbye, and hopefully beyond.

I don’t know if it’s just me, if it’s just that my eyes have recently opened, but there seem to be more and more people around me speaking from their hearts. It’s magical. It has a completely different feel to the way things were in the old life, where work was done for money and we were told people wanted to know “What’s in it for me?”

My new world isn’t like that – people give from their hearts, freely. Money might change hands, but that is no longer the central point; what they do and what they say comes from who they are.

I want to take this chance to say thank you to my inspired, inspiring clients, all of whom are living and speaking their truth through their work:

Lucy Whittington, BeingABusinessCelebrity.com

Dave Kibby, who speaks about the nature of reality, DaveKibby.com

Dr. Linda Mallory, TheWhyParent.com, for calm, connected and conscious parenting

Dave Gammon, gorgeous storyteller, regaling us about the ups and downs of dating in middle-age – I’ll update this with details when his new book is released

Sam Russell, The Facebook Oracle, SardineDesign.com

Dion Johnson, helping people love their paid work, FedUpAtWork.com

Sarah Christie, beautifully eloquent on the subject of compassionate leadership, EffectiveOutcomes.com

Thank you all. Working with you is a dream come true.

Jennifer Manson is an author and coach. Find out about Jennifer’s manifestation, goal-setting and future creation coaching…

Creativity from uncertainty

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Reading Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success this weekend, I was enveloped by the statement that creativity comes in a space of uncertainty.

When we create something entirely new, we can’t know in advance what it will be, or how it will come – by definition, if it’s new, it’s something neither we nor anyone else has ever seen or done before.

And the greater the uncertainty, the greater the possibility, creativity, opportunity.

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