Productivity – Small Business Odyssey

March 29, 2012

Eckhart Tolle: Aligning Outer Purpose with Inner Purpose

Eckhart Tolle discusses the need to align your outer purpose (taking action in everyday life) with your inner purpose. He describes this ‘awakened doing’ as a means to transforming your life and work. The secret to achieving the alignment is consciousness – in this way your daily activity can be infused with your inner purpose.

Aligning your outer purpose with your inner purpose through consciousness

Whether you are a small business owner engaged in small business marketing or an Internet marketer, the same principles apply. There are some clear lessons for small business marketing in Eckhart Tolle’s work. He specifically talks about the limitations of your thoughts and emotions (the EGO) on your capacity to take right action in any circumstance. Eckhart Tolle argues that creativity is released through consciousness.

In a previous article, I identified ways to develop consciousness while using technology. This article drew on Eckhart Tolle’s discussion with Google staff about Technology and Consciousness and provided some concrete recommendations for tapping into the energy of the present moment.

I have taken these recommendations further in another article where I describe five ways to develop consciousness. I also illustrate the power of consciousness through an example.

You might ask, ‘Why develop consciousness?’ The answer lies in the improved quality of life that you will experience. Not only will you be able to access your creativity but also be able to enjoy peace, tranquillity, joy and happiness. When you bring your outer purpose (your daily actions) into alignment with your inner purpose, you will also experience a renewed enjoyment and enthusiasm for what you are doing.

Awakened doing – the three ways to gain alignment with your inner purpose

Eckhart Tolle describes these three ways as ‘the three modalities of awakened doing’. While they represent ways to achieve alignment between your outer and inner purpose, they also represent states of being – ways of being in the world. I will describe each of the three ‘modalities’ below:

1. Acceptance – at peace in an unwanted situation

You will often find yourself in a situation that you do not enjoy. It may be a testy customer, a computer breakdown, spilt soup over your work, lost papers or any other situation that tries your patience. You can rant and rave, blame others for the situation or become frustrated and unfocused…or you can surrender to the situation and accept it with calmness. This alternative is what Eckhart Tolle calls acceptance. He argues that acceptance brings peace which has its own vibrational energy. Through acceptance, you are attaining consciousness in the moment and taking responsibility for your own life and its quality. I have found that this simple state of acceptance has enabled me to be at peace when I would otherwise be in turmoil because of my thoughts and attendant emotions. An associated benefit is that because acceptance requires you to access your consciousness, you are open to creative ways to handle your undesirable situation.

2. Enjoyment – the joy of being conscious

There is so much that you do that you may find boring or tedious. It could be social bookmarking, travelling to your work, taking out the rubbish, clearing the dirty dishes or even writing. You could focus on how life will be different in an ideal future or regret how much better it was in the past – and exacerbate your unease. Alternatively, you could develop consciousness in the moment and enjoy being fully present to what you are doing. Consciousness gives you access to joy – the joy of being fully present. So it is not the action that brings enjoyment but accessing the power of consciousness and enabling it to pervade what you are doing.

3. Enthusiasm – energy through realisation of your outer purpose

Have you ever found yourself highly enthusiastic in undertaking some task or project? What was driving you to renewed levels of energy? Eckhart Tolle suggests that if you continue to pursue the awakening of consciousness (your inner purpose), you will eventually gain a realisation of your outer purpose – what you are meant to achieve ethrough your life and work. Your activity then becomes infused with more meaning and you exude enthusiasm and new found levels of energy. At this stage, you have achieved an alignment between your inner purpose and your outer purpose and the outcome is renewed enthusiasm for, and creative pursuit of, your vision.

March 15, 2012

Small Business Marketing: Lessons from Eckhart Tolle

As far as I know, Eckhart Tolle does not write about small business marketing. However, his focus on creating a better life through consciousness has profound implications for small business owners and their marketing efforts. So profound, in fact, that I am unlikely to offer more than a surface exploration of Eckhart Tolle’s writing and its implications for small business marketing.

Photo credit: The birth of consciousness by Kevin Dooley

Small business marketing: Being controlled by your thoughts

A fundamental principle espoused by Eckhart Tolle is that you spend so little time in consciousness, if at all. He talks a lot about the tyranny of your mind and emotions – often the emotions are generated by your own thoughts.

So his proposition is that you are captive to your own thoughts and these, in turn, are driven by Ego – a hard proposition for anyone to swallow for sure. However, just reflect! – when was the last time that you were free from the tyranny of thinking about the past or the future? When are you just conscious of the present moment, your own existence, your breath, your surrounds (including the sounds)? Even when you see something or hear something, you immediately attempt to interpret it or categorise it.

The march of the Ego – non awareness

When Eckhart Tolle explains what he means by Ego and its impact, it is easy to understand and relate to what he is getting at. He suggests that much of your thoughts flow from the need to justify your actions, compare yourself with others, strengthen your perceived position relative to others or delude yourself by ignoring the hard realities.

It is a useful practice to just listen to your own thoughts – what messages are you giving yourself. Is it that you are not good enough or recognised enough? Is it that you cannot tolerate someone ‘junior’ pointing out mistakes or another way? Is it that you refuse to explore other options for marketing your small business because you ‘think’ that it might not turn out well and show you in a bad light?

It is very enlightening to listen to your own self-talk and to become aware of how your self-talk sabotages your own efforts. It is particularly instructive for you to listen to how you justify your actions and to identify what is the reference point for those justifications. It is even more instructive to explore why you ‘feel’ a need to justify yourself at all.

Small business marketing – the impact of Eckhart Tolle’s ‘being conscious’

Eckhart Tolle argues that you are not your thoughts, you just ARE! Your thoughts, along with your derived emotions, are part of your external reality – they are not ‘who you are’. Being conscious is a state of stillness – of awakening to your inner reality.

He offers you ways to be conscious, to awake to the power of your present moment – to break free of the limitations of your thoughts and emotions. Eckhart Tolle argues that it is only through being conscious that you can tap into your creative spirit. It takes but a moment to be conscious – and a series of conscious moments to start transforming the way you live.

Eckhart Tolle has some sobering lessons for small business marketing – it is not in frenetic activity or thought, but in conscious stillness, that true creative endeavour is realized.

March 2, 2012

Eckhart Tolle Talks to Google: Technology and Consciousness

Bradley Horowitz interviewed Eckhart Tolle at Google and discovered Tolle’s views on technology and consciousness. The interview in front of Google staff is available on YouTube or can be played directly from this blog (90 minutes – 60 minutes interview and 30 minutes Q & A).

It would be a bit of a stretch to call it an ‘interview’ – for example, Horowitz asked Tolle, “What is Wisdom?’ and 20 minutes later was able to ask another question.

The responses from Eckhart Tolle to a limited number of interview questions were both profound and practical. He started off by extolling the openness and transparency of the Google work environment and its conduciveness to creativity. However, he had a warning, ‘We are in danger of losing ourselves in technology’.

Eckhart Tolle’s Question: Are you losing yourself in technology?

A key point that Eckhart Tolle makes in the interview is that you are constantly bombarded by information and get sucked into the endless stream of new knowledge. The consequence, he suggests, is that you can lose yourself in technology. He argues that you end up living in your mind and not in your consciousness which fundamentally determines who you are. So if you are not connected to your real self, you can become confused, over-powered and disorientated by more and more information.

Tolle advances the idea that living in your mind all the time creates a number of core issues. You become preoccupied with problems and with the future or the past – you are not in the present. He maintains that it is only in the Power of the Now (the present moment) that you become truly creative. Being in the moment taps into your consciousness and your creative existence. It ultimately contributes to your productivity because you are able to better use your time.

Eckhart Tolle: The return to consciousness

Tolle suggests that you can stop yourself even for a minute or two (or 30 seconds) to tap into the present moment. You can do this on a number of levels:

your sensory perception – seeing and feeling your surroundings and the energy embedded in the objects in your environment
your inner body – getting in touch with your own body and inner sensations (e.g. how you feel in the moment)
your consciousness – the essential you.

Tolle offers a number of simple ways to access this consciousness and your essential self. He proposes a number of simple steps that you can take to still your mind and get in touch with your consciousness:

fix your gaze on something natural, e.g. a plant, the sky, the trees outside your window
look at some image on your computer screen that you have added to serve as a meditation reminder or catalyst
be conscious of your in-breath and your out-breath for a moment – conscious breathing.

He maintains that if you practise being in the moment often enough you will attain a new level of consciousness, increased creativity and a better quality of life – you will actually live, not just think. The other key benefit that Eckhart Tolle offers is that your problems will fall away because you will have new insights and perspectives that will help to dissolve your issues.

It is intriguing to watch Eckhart Tolle talk to managers and staff at Google (the epitomy of technology), about the dangers of technology and the need for a return to consciousness to maintain the quality of our human lives.

February 21, 2012February 21, 2012

Force Field Analysis: A Strategic Approach to Goal Planning

Force Field Analysis is one of many goal planning techniques that you can use as a small business owner or online marketer.

Often you will find that your approach to goal planning and goal achievement proves to be inadequate or incomplete (the evidence lies in the fact that you may not achieve your goals). The beauty of Force Field Analysis for goal planning is that it offers a strategic way to approach your goals. It is easy to use, but incredibly powerful. It can give you new insights into what is getting in the road of your goals, including lack of awareness of your strengths and the inability to capitalise on them. It will also help you identify the things that you need to work on and strategies you need to employ to achieve your goals.

I’ve used this approach, as an organizational consultant, since the early 1980’s with small business owners, managers in organisations (public and private sectors), university faculties and doctoral/masters students. I have also used Force Field Analysis with colleagues in action learning groups as we planned our career transitions.

[Image credit: Goal by Sean MacEntee]

How to use Force Field Analysis for goal planning

Force Field Analysis was first used by Kurt Lewin in 1946 when he was working with minority social groups. What struck him was how people were becoming stuck in their disadvantaged position in society. He needed a way to help them move beyond where they were now – to achieve their life goals.

Lewin was acutely aware that many things conspired to maintain the status quo. He realized that what gave effect to the current situation for these people was a group of hindering and helping forces that created the current equilibrium represented by the status quo. He recognized that if you analyzed these forces and put in place strategies to address them, you could change the equilibrium and move towards your goal. Hence the name, Force Field Analysis – analysis of the helping and hindering forces within a particular arena (field). Lewin was able to create major social change by using this method with people who were suffering social disadvantage.

So it is with any goal you wish to pursue, whether expanding your small business, developing your small business marketing online or improving personal productivity. Once you identify what is helping you move towards your goal (helping forces) and what is hindering you (hindering forces), you can plan concrete strategies to address these forces.

Specifically, you can work out ways to strengthen the helping forces and weaken the hindering forces – thus changing the equilibrium of the current situation and enabling you to move towards your goal. It’s this two-way approach that creates the major shift. So it is not enough just to work on the hindering forces, you also need to strengthen the helping forces.

Force Field Analysis: An Example of Goal Planning

Let’s assume that you have set a goal, “To be effective in small business marketing online”. I have developed an example Force Field Analysis based on an imaginary set of forces (helping and hindering) that are impacting on your goal achievement. Ideally, you would do this analysis with at least one other person, but you can definitely do it by yourself.

So what you have here is the second rung of goal planning – you have a goal in mind and now you have to establish sub-goals and strategies to move forward. Force Field Analysis helps you to do this as illustrated in the example below:

FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS

GOAL: To be effective in small business marketing online

Hindering Forces	Helping Forces
1. lack of time	1. good brand recognition
2. lack of knowledge	2. motivated
3. don’t know where to start	3. have a good speaking voice
4. not a good writer	4. have friends who are good at small business marketing
5. have no presence on social networks	5. access to good online resources
6. don’t know how to create a WordPress blog	6. prepared to have a go

So now you have to decide which helping forces you will strengthen and which hindering forces you will work to reduce. So some options might be:

In relation to the helping forces, you might employ two or more of these strategies to strengthen the things that are working for you:

develop a podcast blog (to build on your speaking capability)
set clear, achievable milestones to maintain your motivation
use specialists in online branding to strengthen your brand online
talk to your friends about what works for them
study up on your online resources with a particular focus and goal in mind
join a small business online forum or group on one of the social networks.

To reduce the impact of hindering forces you might decide to do two or more of the following:

work on improving your productivity
use your online resources to build your knowledge (in a focused way)
purchase a resource that covers “small business marketing online”
outsource your writing
start with one social network that you are comfortable using, e.g. Squidoo or LinkedIn, and build from there
outsource the design of your WordPress blog to a web design service.

Force Field Analysis has many applications including evaluation of outcomes and processes. MindTools.com explains how to use Force Field Analysis for decision making and offers a free worksheet for using the tool.

Force Field Analysis offers a comprehensive approach to goal planning and has been proven over many years to help small business organisations and individuals achieve their goals.

February 20, 2012February 20, 2012

Is Indecision Crippling Your Productivity?

Indecision has a major impact on productivity – in fact, it can cripple your productivity. When you are undecided, your cannot focus or gain momentum in a particular direction. You spend all your energy on the decision process rather than taking action.

Have you experienced yourself ‘going around in circles’ – unable to decide which direction to move in? Or have you sat there at your table endlessly tapping your pencil (as in the image above) – and becoming agitated by the pain of the decision process? Indecision can not only detract from our positive energy, it can also create negative energy and lead to exhaustion and depression. The best antidote for depression is action – but indecision prevents us taking action and becoming productive.

[Photo credit: Tapping Pencil by Rennett Stowe]

Dealing with indecision to improve your productivity

Sometimes indecision is a result of too many opportunities. If you try to pursue every opportunity, you will dissipate your energy and achieve very little on any front – you need to grasp the nettle and make a decision. Until you do decide, your indecision will erode your energy and your productivity. You will spend all day ‘tapping pencils’.

It’s always hard to make that decision – you are torn between too many alternatives. Your emotions tell you one thing and your mind another. Deciding is about making a choice between alternatives – in the process you not only decide what you will do, but also what you will not do. This exclusion process is the hard part of decision making. Often, we really don’t decide – we say that we are going to do one thing and then continue to do the other thing in our ‘spare’ time. The net result is that our productivity suffers and we are unable to give the one important thing our full focus.

Making the decision – a process to improve productivity and overcome indecision

There are many decision making processes you can use and sites like MindTools offer great advice and tools for decision making. One of the decision making approaches that I have used recently (and found very useful) is the cost/benefit analysis approach.

Basically, you look at the likely benefits (upsides) and costs (downsides) for each option you are considering and evaluate the overall net value of each option. You need to decide then which option will give you the greatest net value (benefits over costs). It pays to do this process with someone else and talk through your analysis and decision dilemmas. Often another person can offer an alternative perspective and help you make your decision.

While ever you are stuck in indecision, you can’t move forward and your productivity will definitely suffer.