Why Entrepreneurs Don’t Achieve Their Vision

Entrepreneurs need vision

A lot of, entrepreneurs, don't achieve their, vision, because they're working in the business, not on the business.  If you're a, small business owner, that's become the employee, and you're doing all the legwork, that means you don't have any time to become the CEO. You're just an employee. You're not looking at, vision, and you're not looking at the next steps. You're doing the legwork.

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Entrepreneurs should work on their business Not In their business

Myrna: I know that, entrepreneurs, wear a lot of hats.  I'm an, entrepreneur, and I do it all. You know what I mean? And I've always done it all. And I don't mind it. But I know that, entrepreneurs, tend to work hard in the business not working on the business. Robert Kiyosaki that if you work in your business, you are just like an employee, right, so how do you teach, entrepreneurs, to work on their business?

Curtis: A lot of, entrepreneurs, they put their heart and soul and their passion into it and work themselves into their jobs. So they went from a 40 hour a week job to an 80 hour week job because they're doing all these things. Being direct with the customers all the time. Being the one person that's collecting money, being the one person providing the service, or even if they have a team, the team doesn't do what you want them to do, so they say it's faster or easier for me to just do it myself. And you start training people to get paid for doing nothing because you're still always doing it.

Working on the business is taking a step back and looking at it. You have a business plan. Let's come up with an overall strategy, where we're trying to go, let's build the team. Let's put a budget together. Let's put, cashflow measures, in place that's going to teach us how our business is performing from a health perspective. Let's get all the measurements that we need: financial measurements, sales measurements, customer measurements and employee measurements and let start to look at the business holistically and start running it that way.

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Entrepreneurs should put systems in place

That way you start to focus more on how you get the right talent. How you move money in?  Whether you need additional capital to grow your business or not and you have a better way of seeing an entire business. But business owners that come to me are always talking about how they're trying to get to the next level and or legacy. How do I take this business and give it to my kids? Well, you're not teaching them how to run a business. We're teaching them to do all the crazy things that you do. And they don't want no part of it.

So, it's how you run a business with being with other like-minded business leaders and not working at the business every day. A good example is you walk into a McDonald's, you don't see the CEO or even the owner that McDonald's at that business you see, systems, being run by teenagers.

Myrna: Yes, we can always McDonalds model for, systems.

Curtis: If you're the, business owner, that's become the employee, and you're doing all the legwork, that means you don't have any time to become the CEO. You're just an employee. You're not looking at, vision, and you're not looking at the next steps. You're doing the legwork.

Myrna: So that's right, but, you know, a lot of times the reason that, entrepreneurs, do everything is because they don't have any money to pay people. So how do you teach them to hire people with no money to pay them?

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What's your fastest path to cash

Curtis: Yeah, and this one comes up a lot.  I ask them what's your, fastest path to cash? I recently became a business advisor for an organization where they only had just the two business partners. But they have a great product, a really great product. And so, they've spent a couple of years working with other organizations and they say, show me what's current. What's your current businesses, they had three contracts on the team.

They had two contracts that were very promising. And they had one contract that was going and lingering and I say, cut the contract that you're not going to see any cash and then focus on this cash or these two contracts. And when you do, you're going to have enough money to get your next employees, and that's exactly what they did. So, then they got the next employee and then got more contracts and then the next employee after that, and so even prior to them, getting employees we planned on who's going to be the next most effective employee to get this going to help us grow this business. And so now they have four employees.

They're growing the business, and you know, it took some time. So yeah, you got to be a, solopreneur, doing it all, but you got to find your, fastest path to cash. And think about as you get to that next level. What's the next most important person that you need to hire into your organization that's going to exponentially grow your business each time you add somebody else?

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Small business owners should add strategic employees

Myrna: So, when you're looking to add someone, you're not necessarily looking for a lay man help. You're looking for a strategic person that can help you make more money. That's a good plan.

Curtis: In this case, they needed somebody that was very, very technical, to help them build their model on an application that they can present to potential customers. So, it took their model and actually made it better for them to present and then made them more attractive. So, then the next person was a now doing all this running around. We need a project manager to help us and so again, just building off of that, and then let's get some salespeople. So, it really depends on the direction that you're going.

Myrna: Yeah, that makes sense. Instead of saying let me get a receptionist just answering the phone

Why do you think that most, entrepreneurs, don't achieve their, vision? They may have a goal of $100 million a year in sales and don't even get close.

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Sometimes the vision is monetary

Curtis: You're so right. A lot of times that, vision, is monetary and I'm okay with the, vision, being monetary. But I try to dive a little bit deeper into your why. Because your why is what's going to motivate you to even go after that number. Because one of the things I say in the book is the first million is the hardest. And the reason I'm saying that is because you don't have a, system. Once you've reached it reached a million dollars and have a system, you start working your system and improving on the, system.

So, then you get better at it. But, you know, I talk to people about, business plans. This is where I would say, my sweet spot is here, right? And that is because I'm a, project manager. I'm a planner. So, you need someone to help keep you accountable. Small business owners, one of the things I talk about is having a board of advisors, right? So, develop a strategy, develop a set of goals and targets to that $100 million. And tell me what does that look like?

  • What does it look like in terms of your customer mix?
  • Your demographics, where's your office located?
  • How many employees do you have?
  • Give me that vision that's going to be so crystal clear and that 100 million starts to look like real and then we're going to develop plans. We're going to develop plans that take us from daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly activities that service today.

Now, when I work with clients, the one thing I say is do it for a year. I don't care what happens because in our minds, when we create that, vision, we want a linear path. Everything we said we were going to do is just going to happen. That is not life. Life is going to throw you a bunch of curveballs, but you got to stick to it. I mean we do it every year right what happens in January. The gyms are full of people. They are full of people because these people have, visions, of the best bodies they can have in the summertime. And by March, the people that normally go to the gym, they're relieved because they get rid of all those people.

Myrna: I just heard a statistic that is actually worse than that. And I don't even know if I believe it. But the statistics says it most of those people that make New Year's resolution, they abandon them by Martin Luther King's birthday, and that's mid-January!

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Solopreneurs are always busy doing the wrong things

Curtis: You have to pivot. If your head is down all the time working on your business. I mean in your business. You can't work on your business by innovating and finding ways partnering with other people. So that's why it's important that if you want to grow, you have to get yourself out of your day-to-day operations.

And I know that's hard for a lot of, solopreneurs, because they always feel that they can do better than anybody and they want to do themselves. But yeah, because as a person, you've got a finite number of time.

Myrna: So, if we were to wrap what you are saying up in a bow, the reason that a lot of, entrepreneurs, don't achieve their, vision, is because they're working in the business, not on the business. They're basically they're busy doing the hamster wheel thing.

Curtis: Yes, we’ve glorify being busy. We always say how busy we are.

Myrna: That it's a badge of honor.

Curtis: Tim Ferriss had a great mix. One of the books that has inspired me, actually, about the Four-hour Workweek because it makes you start to think about how best to delegate and only focus on your value-added activities.  It's something that for me from a productivity perspective, one of the four things that I do, to implement that into my day-to-day life.

Myrna: A lot of, solopreneurs, the one man operations, they're dreaming of being on their laptops on the beach doing their work, because they don't have a brick and mortar. Tim Ferriss made that very popular. So, alright, so that's amazing, right. So now, you have developed a program called the “Realization Framework Experience.” What is that? Tell us about that?

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The realization framework experience

Curtis: Okay, so the, realization framework experience, is five steps and the five steps are:

  • Evaluate
  • Calculate,
  • Clarify and
  • Realize

I trademark the art and science of, vision to reality. And that was actually going to be the original title of my book. I was trying to figure out how, how can I help, small business owners, learn and behave like the large business owners with an easy to follow strategies. And so we've spent a little bit of time on the first one, visualize, and that's developing a compelling, vision, that inspires others to want to become a part.

One of the biggest things when I'm coaching is I'll ask a, business leader, what their goals are?  I say does your team know what your goals are? They say no, it doesn't make sense. Because the next part is, evaluate, your business ecosystem or, evaluate, your people. Well, with the goals that you have. You look at your team, can your team help you get there? Do they have a role? Because that's what employees want. And so, you got to make sure that your employees understand where you're going, your customers understand where you're going, your suppliers understand where you're going, and anybody else in your, business ecosystem.

So, putting together the right team, evaluating the difference between your, vision, and where you are, and then figuring out whether you need to upskill people, let some people go and get some new people or add new talent.  You need a plan for getting more people to help you reach that, vision. Then we go into, calculate, and this is all about, cash flow. When I ask people about their business, and I asked them about their books and their numbers, people aren't managing their, cash flow, very well. They're living payroll and payroll, and they're comfortable in that term. So, statistically, 82% of businesses fail, small businesses in particular, because they don't understand, cash flow. If, entrepreneurs, don't understand, cash flow, they don't have enough when there's a pandemic.

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Small business owners need to calculate measurements

Then there is, clarify.  I encourage, small business owners, to hire a financial professional to help them. When I work with large companies, there's always a quarterly meeting or even monthly meetings, weekly meetings on how are we doing with Financials.  But we don't do that as, small business owners. We need to be looking at our numbers, we need to be planning forward. I do an exercise where I'm planning, cash flow. I ask Do you know what happened last week? What's gonna happen the next two weeks?  I like to work with small business owners to get to an 80% predictability, especially with income.

Expenses are easy to predict, income is harder when it's erratic. So, you want to put in systems that make an erratic, you want to put in measures to help you collect your money faster. So, it's a whole thing around, evaluate, their cash flow, but you also want to create a budget that matches not only the people that you need to bring in, but the goals you have the, vision. Now you have the people, and then you have the budget. How are you going to manage?  Do you have $1 set aside or at least plan?

You clarify this with a plan, you put together a plan that has these objectives, that has every factor in your business. Evaluate, on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis that leads up to that, vision, so that when you're looking at how well you're doing, everybody's telling you their progress on their parts, right? But you mentioned the pandemic, so I do also, risk analysis. So, people do, SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. I like, SWOT analysis.

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Entrepreneurs need accountability measures

So, STEP stands for societal, technological, economical, environmental and political. So you saw our pandemic, now that you've seen one, you know that there's recessions that come inflation is here. So how are you going to behave? Let's go through some scenario planning. Let's put aside some reserves and get ourselves ready for the next disaster and that's the best insurance you can have. Right? And so, that's, that's the four steps. The first step we realize is to Component Measures, we talk about. financial measures, customer measures, employee measures, and what we're trying to get to 100 million we need to break that down.

I'll give you an example of a $5 million company that I'm working with, and you have to get sales of $96,000 a week. So, when we're having a weekly conversation, it's how are we going to get that $96,000 Some weeks are really bad. Some weeks are really good. It's not always linear, but you're driving your actions to meet that minimum.

So, the first one is measures. The second part is, accountability. We talked about this earlier. Where, small business owners, don't have, accountability measures.

You know, I advise the, small business owners, to get an advisory board not like a corporate board of directors because that it has a lot more structure and a lot more legal ramifications tied to it. But a group of people that have done this business before and or have a specialty.

You can't grow what you can't measure

Myrna: Tony Robbins, one of his sayings is that you can't grow what you don’t measure that, you know, you got to you've got to be able to measure your progress. Right. And a lot of people don't like measuring their progress. They just, fly by the seat of their pants. Putting measures in places is very good. I remember when I was in sales, my boss was always measuring my progress. I hated it!

Tell us where they can get a copy of it your book “Vision To Reality, Stop Working, Start Living” and your website.

Curtis: So, this is my second book. My first book I wrote was called “The Only Job Search Book You'll Ever Need.” And I had met with a marketing organization who's part of my marketing team now. And they started interviewing me and I thought we were talking about the next book, The career the next career. And I talked about, business coaching and they said, that's the book you should write. So, I said, Okay, so let me let me get all of this on paper. So, I started looking back at my computer files, all the people that I coached. Entrepreneurs, who won't try anything different. The ones that quit if it didn't work right away, the ones that said, I'm not going to do that.

The ones that don't trust nobody. Nobody can do this like me. So, I delved into the mindset, and basically say, hey, you gotta get out your own way.  This is hard, you don't want to give your baby to somebody or so you don’t get to develop these trust mechanisms. And so that's the first thing I do is try to develop rapport and trust with, business leaders, because I know your people have been naysaying you and telling you what you can't do and part of you believes it.

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Book Vision to Reality

Conclusion

The second part is how can I make it easy? bridge that gap. What can I do to put a formula in place to help you and that's the remedies, right? That's the, realization framework experience, the things that are the key that business owners can do with me, to develop the muscles, right? And then they can start to believe in themselves believe in the business and just keep going and believe in other people. And then the third part is okay, now that you're here, don't backslide. Right, don't go back. Let's put some things in place. And that's when I talk about the, accountability measures, and constantly training yourself to go after the, vision.

The book is available on Amazon, Barnes and noble or wherever books are sold. My website is www.cljassoc.com

Additional Resources

When The Vision Fails: Dealing with Failure

 

 

How To Use Visualization to Enhance Yoga Practice

Dianne Willging Yoga and visualization

Visualization, allows you to use your mind to alter your reality. In yoga you can use visualization to enhance your mind body connection. My, Yoga teacher, used to say, visualize, you're cracking a walnut between your shoulder blades. Standing in, Mountain Pose, or, tree pose, you can use, visualization, to imagine you're rooted down through your feet into the ground and bringing that energy back up through your legs and spreading it throughout your body.  This is how you use, visualization, to enhance your, yoga practice.

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Back pain led me to yoga 

Myrna:  Were you attracted to, yoga, because of back pain?

Dianne: Yes,  In my younger years, I was a little bit resistant to, yoga. I've always liked to work out as part of my, stress relief. A big part of my, stress relief, and I felt like you know, I had to be doing something a lot more intense than, Yoga. I hadn't had as many experiences with, yoga, because there's so many different types of, yoga, and so many ways to do it as you were describing one of many, so I was a little bit resistant.

Then yes, two things happened about simultaneously and one was, I started having, back pain, after the birth of my second child, and so I was looking for ways to manage that pain. There were periods of time when it would become more intense. So all I could do was either do walking or do, yoga, and I was kind of worried that I would start to gain weight and that I wouldn't have that, stress relief, that I craved.

But I found out that you know that that wasn't the case. I was keeping the weight off. And the, stress relief. There's so many different kinds of, yoga, which I hadn't realized in the past that it was working for me. And around that same time, the fitness center where I went had a new, yoga teacher, and everybody kept saying, you have to try her. She's so good and everything and I probably still resisted for about six months, I would say I don't know exactly how long but I did really connect with her.

Just the way that she approached it and was able to it was a little bit more of a, flow yoga, but she also teaches the breath practice because I hadn't ever learned how to breathe even with all this exercising. I had never learned correct, breathing techniques, for exercise. Or for life for that matter. So those those two events actually really started me on, yoga, then as kind of my Friday treat.

Just feel good for the weekend, reward myself and then you know, have a good start to the weekend and then with having to manage the, back pain, and became you know, more of a maybe not a daily practice then but at least a few times a week.

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Yoga allows connection to mind body spirit

Myrna: Yoga, Obviously one of the beautiful things about, yoga, is the breathing you know, combining, mind and body, and with the breath.  I just started doing, morning yoga, last week, and we're starting with some simple exercises. You're right I mean, if it's almost like if you're an old person that's sitting in a chair because we're doing things with our hands. Right, regular stuff like raising up your shoulder and, you know, doing your neck, things like I would do at the beginning of a workout. The warm up exercise.

But guess what, everything that you do, you're doing with the breath.  I'm breathing with the, yoga, actions, it's actually doing something for me, right. So, you know,  Sadhguru would say, you know, there's the mental thing about, yoga, and he's talking about the geometry of your body when you go in certain poses that connects to different things and, and all that stuff. So what kind of, yoga, do you teach? I know we're going to talk about, visualization, in a little bit, but set up your basic, yoga, that you that you teach.

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Dianne: So I'm not going to try to give it a name because probably a combination. There's so many kinds and for me, probably if I did a little exercise, we're matching the type of, yoga, with a definition I'm not sure how good I would do. But I my favorite, yoga, to teach and to do would be we call it 3030.

Where it's about 30 minutes of, yoga, where it's a little bit more active movement on the breath. A little bit more energetic and then 30 minutes of more relaxation and not necessarily the the 30 minutes first of the intense so you might do like, you know 10 or 15 minutes starting out with the stretches kind of like warm up like you were describing and then move into the flow or the physical aspects of it, and then wrap it up with you know, some more relaxation relaxing stretches.

That that that is just my personal preference. I have done all kinds of classes and there are some where you actually hold the poses for a long time and that's just to work, you know more deeply into the muscles and then there's, there's some types of yoga that are basically it's the same sequence each time and that's so that you can you're not thinking about the sequence but you're thinking about the other aspects of, yoga.

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Yoga allows you to experience deeper meditation

Myrna: Okay, something that I ran across that I thought was really interesting is way back when I don't want to say when, yoga, started, but they really started to do the poses so that people could sit in meditation longer. That was the whole purpose. It's like, you think of a child, a small child you burn off their energy so that they can sit for longer and that was the original intent. Behind, yoga, was was not the poses that was a vehicle to get into a deeper level of consciousness.

Well, that's the thing actually that you know, like I said, Sadhguru, was talking about, yoga, connects us with, higher consciousness. They connect with the, Yoga, and they're saying that, yoga at home, is not all of it dispatches that, yoga at home, is about, the breath and connection and what you just said, you're linking in the fact that maybe if you learn to hold your body in a certain way, then maybe you can sit and meditate for longer times.

Indians as you know, they incorporate, yoga, with, spirituality, and, higher consciousness, so that's awesome. And it all has to do with your right the, Mind Body Spirit connection, you know, the mind. Maybe with the, meditation, aspect, the body with the poses, and with, spirituality.

Dianne: I did have back surgery that was moderately successful, so after that I used, yoga, to help me recover. I had to be under the care of a physical therapist, so after that, it became more about managing my, back pain. And now I'm at a very good place, but yes, there's specific poses to benefit your back and your core, obviously, the opposite of your back is your core. So it's important to have a strong core.

If you have a lot of, lower back pain. There are certain poses that you shouldn't do or that you should modify. And the old me the younger me, especially in public would never have done that, but it was, yoga, has taught me it's some acceptance that way. I know that that doesn't feel good. And I'm not going to try to push it beyond or even sometimes doing, yoga, in the morning as opposed to at the end of the day.

Some, yoga poses, are not as accessible and I've learned to to accept that so a lot of, lower back pain, have learned us from the high tight hamstrings or sciatic nerve. And so there are specific, yoga poses, even sequences that focus on those specific specific muscle groups.

Benefits of visualization with yoga

Myrna: Let's talk about the, visualization, piece now.  What are the, benefits of visualization? And why is it beneficial to integrate, visualization with yoga?

Dianne:  So, benefits of visualization. They are there's a lot of them. And going back to what you said earlier about the brain and how it changes the brain. The brain responds to visual stimuli. And when you use, visualization, you can trick your brain into having the same physiological response. That you would have like let's say, if you're standing by a nice relaxing Lake, if you visualize that relaxing Lake, your body and your breath starts to show some of the same reactions you would have if you were actually standing right there by the lake or the relaxing waterfall.

So just an example of this real quick would be imagine that you have a lemon and you cut it in in four pieces. And you take the lemon and put it in your mouth and take a nice big bite down on it. So what happened when you did that?

Myrna: Saliva started coming out of my mouth and my saliva glands started to prickle.

Dianne: Yep, a lot of people will even start to pucker or make that sour face. So that just goes to show that even with that simple example, how you had that physiological response, and that was just a simple exercise. So that's what builds those those kind of neural pathways and then as you do that, like if you do that, I don't want to say the lemon, but let's just go back to the relaxing lake or waterfall or something.

The more you do, visualization, you do build those neural pathways where it becomes like you can access that quicker and that therefore have the physiological response quicker and be able to take yourself there it also becomes more automatic.  Oh, yeah, even like take a breath and it's like oh, yeah, I have to slow might slow my breathing down or I'm getting too too ahead of myself here.

So it really does build those neural pathways and change your brain. It also just like exercise releases, serotonin, that feel good hormone. So it very much is like a form of exercise that way. What you mentioned about the memory, the more ways that you're you can the more senses you can bring into something, then the easier.  It is to remember that so, visualization, is an is another tool for that.

Benefits of yoga

Oh, there's so many. Right now with our technological society. Anytime that you can unplug from technology, you're actually allowing your brain to unclutter and to that which promotes creativity, and positive feelings. Just all of those, benefits of visualization, just just being away just having a quiet moment. That's one thing that I always try to incorporate or give to people and that's what my, yoga teacher, explained to me.

I just want them to have a moment, a moment of quiet so just again to oh one other thing that I learned was kind of new to me but increase your immunity. If you are less stressed, you sleep better, those are two big factors in boosting your immune system. So, visualization, can help you whether you do it  while you're falling asleep or whether you do it in your, yoga practice. It can help you actually boost your immunity which we all need that too.

Myrna: I love, visualization, and you know is actually good to mention that the brain doesn't know the difference which is why we advise action is so powerful. Whether want to call it visualization or you to it imagination. The brain doesn't know the difference between, visualization, and reality. So yeah, I mean, if you were, you know, laying in your bed and you were thinking that you're in a beach and you're listening to the waves, like you said, bringing in all the different elements, you know, feeling the breeze on your face, hearing the waves crashing, seeing the palm trees swaying in the wind, and you're bringing in all those things, right? The brain doesn't know whether you're there or not.

So that's the beautiful thing about, visualization. Right? But it can also work the opposite way like you're laying in bed, and you're visualizing that  somebody is coming through your door to kill.

Dianne: Exactly. I was thinking as you were talking, if you don't believe it, because some people are like, Oh, I don't believe that, but if you think of the opposite, or how many times have you been worried about somebody driving or something and you're like, Oh, they've been in a car accident. I just know it your mind makes up images, your heart starts to beat faster, I think we've all experienced that. So you can use it either way. Yes, exactly. And we talked about anxiety and that was part of the reason some of it that I started doing, yoga with visualization.

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Benefits of Yoga

Dianne: Well, as you can tell, because we talked at the beginning about some of the, benefits of yoga, and then we just talked about some of the, benefits of visualization, and that is they overlap a lot but you know, the serotonin that benefits to your body, mind and soul and soul or spirit however you want to refer to it. So they really complement each other nicely.  If you've done, yoga, you probably have done some, visualizations.

My, Yoga teacher, used to say, visualize, you're cracking a walnut between your shoulder blades and that helps to, visualize, the, yoga pose, if you can't get the right. Even standing in Mountain Pose or, tree pose, use, visualization, to imagine you're rooted down through your feet and you bring that energy up through your legs and you're spreading it throughout your body and your shoulders.

So, I would say that you've probably experienced it a little bit that way. Sometimes in  Chaturanga they'll say imagine you're pushing away from the floor or you're pushing the floor away from from you. So there are those kinds of cues that are used in many, yoga classes. Also, a lot of times, they'll start with you know what is your intention, they'll either maybe give you an intention, like concentrate on being here now or you want to concentrate on peace.

So that was really when I started teaching, yoga, that I looked for a resource like the book that I wrote, and I couldn't find one. I begged borrowed and stole little bits of pieces from, meditations.  I wanted a resource like the one I wrote and I couldn't find one.

Myrna: Okay. All right your book have  20, visualizations, to enhance a, yoga practice, right?

Dianne: Okay, so yes, in the book, there are five chapters. There's self acceptance, awareness or confidence, gratitude, letting go or relaxation and focus and engagement. I'm going to walk you through just using a little bit of from one the mountain, the majestic mountain, if you will, and each, visualization, has specific parts and the first part is the setting the stage.

Starting with the breath and then having them with visualization. So I'm just gonna read like a short little snippet from what I wrote and then I'll move on to the next section.

Transform your Mind Stitcher
Transform your Mind Stitcher

Visualization with Yoga: The mountain pose

So at the base of your mountain, I've already gotten them into, Mountain Pose, are the waves of the ocean. Feel the coolness of the water and hear the lapping sounds. At times the waves are gentle and relaxing, barely touching your base. On other occasions, they're more turbulent hitting against you with more force, yet you remain strong. Sometimes the waves rise ferociously to your shins, your waist, and even your chest, but they don't knock you over.

Eventually, the turbulent waters pass and the gentle waves again lap at your base. There may be changes to the mountain surfaces, but not to the core. It's similar with yourself. Turbulence might cause changes, but you're strong and steady.

If you purchase the book, you get a journal entries with it, if you download them and so part of one of those for this particular, mountain pose, visualization, you would journal what are those turbulent things.  What are the unchanging parts of you, because we all you know, have to change as we go through more experiences and, and challenges but you know, what's at your core that you're not, you're not going to let go of, so just get started that way.

The core of the, mountain pose, or the core of yourself and then exhale, things that get in the way of that. But then there's also like some specific poses, that I'll give some cueing for, just to give some examples of how the cueing or how it could go with a specific pose. And this one actually has warrior and tree pose.

If you're using, visualization, with the,  tree pose, there's water lapping at you and threatening to knock you over, but you're gonna remain focused, because that's a big aspect with three poses. You have to look somewhere in front of you and maintain your focus. You're not going to let those things distract you from your goals or get in the way of your goals.

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Google Podcast Transform Your Mind

But you're going and like before you go into the relaxation and you come back to again, like the mountain so what's changed about yourself throughout this practice, like do you notice changes in your breath? What about your thought patterns? What about you know? How do How does your body feel?

And then the very last section is the affirmation which I call the booster and it just says, While I may be faced with turbulence, my core remains unwavering. So it's just something for them and sometimes I've printed them off and handed them to people as they walk out the door. Other times, it's just something you know, keep this in mind as you go forth through your day and kind of wraps it up that way. I do want to throw in that. If you if you didn't do, yoga, and you weren't interested in doing, yoga, you can still use the book as a, guided meditation.

 

Book pathway to peace: 20 visualizations to enhance you yoga practice
Book pathway to peace: 20 visualizations to enhance your yoga practice

20 visualizations to enhance your yoga practice

Myrna: Tell us about your book “Pathways to Peace: 20 Visualizations to Enhance Your Yoga Practice” What do you want the readers to walk away with after reading the book?

Dianne: Well, I want them to have a tool for self care. So, as we've talked about it, we're so busy, our lives are so cluttered and can be at times, very stressful. I think that is on the back cover on my book Life is stressful that not many people would argue that fat, but please, you know, take take a minute or however you don't take care of your body. Take care of your mind, take care of your spirit or your soul and you will be a better spouse, you'll be a better employee, you'll be a better parent, a better child. It everybody matters. And I want and it matters that you take care of yourself and I want this to be a tool for for helping you for helping you do that.

Visualization, is a tool for the,  mind body spirit connection. So that is what, yoga, promises,  and then when you incorporate the, visualization, into it,  it makes it a very powerful tool.

Myrna:  So, alright, so tell us how listeners can get a copy of your book. Tell us about your website, your social media handles and how people can connect with you. And I think you mentioned that you have an email address that you wanted anybody to, you know, contact you maybe regarding yoga and yoga practices or things like that. So go ahead and share that with us.

Dianne: Okay, so my book, Pathways to Peace is available on Amazon and it's a paperback or ebook.  In the book, there is a free gift and that would be some of the journal pages that I have referred to. And then I have a Facebook group called pathways to peace. If you have questions or comments email me @willgingdianneauthor@gmail.com.

Additional Resources

Master Lama Rasaji: Harmonizing Mind Body Spirit