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Ikigai asks four questions: What do you LOVE? What are you GOOD at? What does the world NEED? What can you be PAID for? Where these intersect is your Ikigai - your reason for being. Like many Japanese words, there isn’t a direct translation into English, which I love as it gives us all room to decide for ourselves what it means to us. Iki is life, and the simplest translation of gai is value or worth. The value or worth you place on life could be one way to look at it. What makes you happy or brings you joy is another way. Think about all of the little things that come together to give your life meaning. This could be your work (whatever that means to you), your family, your spiritual life, or things you do for the greater good. Having a life of worth and value is great, but humans are wired for connection, and Ikigai needs somewhere for the energy to flow. That purpose is being of service to your community (family, friends, tribe, customers, animals, Mother Earth, etc.). Some people hate the word service, and if that’s you, think of it as sharing your gifts or your heart. Ikigai gives you a purpose because you share your gifts and are making a difference in others lives (what the world needs). The most confusing aspect of the model was the idea of what you can be paid for if Ikigai was about life value or life purpose. But paid can be translated in many ways. It might mean money, a reward, impact, happiness, fulfilment or how you invested your time or heart. Have a listen - find your Ikigai and let me know what you discover.

This week is all about confidence What is confidence and how to become more confident. The circle of confidence exercise can be found on my blog and in the following article Read more on the blog Happy To Be Me: Stepping Into Confidence

Do you have trust issues? Do you know what the roots of these are? Are they around certain things, kinds of people or situations? Listen in this week as I discuss trust. Trust sits in the root chakra and is one of our first level foundational things that we need to work on to create strong foundations for living a life of joy. When we don't trust we can slip into fear. We can become stressed as we anticipate what is going to happen and that eventually turns into anxiety. Accept where you are. You are now aware - this means you can create conscious changes Be willing to test the waters - to learn and explore Feel into the emotions and notice your behaviour - what do you learn? Now think of all the times that trust worked for you - explore why? What do you learn? How can you embrace that again? See the challenge, lesson and gift.  When you trust you, then you can trust others or more you will listen to your intuition and take good action based on that.

In this episode I talk about kindness. That's being kind to you and to others. Kindness starts within and is connected with the heart chakra. When we are kind to ourselves it opens up the heart. This also means talking to ourselves with loving kindness. Changing the I am narrative to I am feeling dot dot dot, but I am normally - you fill in the blanks. You may feel resistance. That's ok that's normal. That's when we can use Tonglen which I share in my overcoming anxiety toolkit. You breathe in the thing you are resisting and breath out love or loving kindness. The loving kindess will fill your energy field and will also travel energetically to those that need it and are open to receieving.  In this episode I also share the metta meditation, which is great for dropping into your heart and becoming aware of being kind to you. Remember to take breaks and just be kind to you, in whatever way that you can. Then there is kindness to others. Have a listen to the kindness chain story and learn how acts of kindness ripple out. And finally in the pursuit of kindness, my dogs ate a friends sausage rolls, especially made for tea. I walked away with some rioja which certainly ended my day well.

In this episode, I share a simple way to go through your day and being mindful about how you want to feel. Choose a word of the day - this is how you want your day to be Turn that into an affirmation Turn the affirmation into how can I...? Gratitude and appreciation My invitation is that you try this for at least 28 days and reflect on how this brings you greater inner peace.

I always feel safe and protected in the world The bodies natural call is to keep you safe, and this is fundamental to your wellbeing. You will have heard of flight, fright or freeze. This is where your brain decides what the best course of action is when it is faced with a perceived threat. For example, you may get triggered to use one of these responses when you feel unsafe or rejected, your finances are not stable, you are in a caught in a conflict, or when old feelings are surfaced when you face a similar situation from the past. What is important is to know what feeling safe means to you, and to know when you are heading for an emotional hijacking. Then understanding what you can do about it. Notice what happens in your body and work to ground and centre yourself. You may not be able to stop your emotions flaring up and from reacting to a perceived threat, but you can be aware of your physical state, your internal thoughts and respond productively. One way is to consider your own unproductive response from a past situation and replace it with a productive one. You’ll become more aware of these through journaling and reflective writing. Think of the tree again and how, when it has strong roots, it is unlikely to be ripped up from the ground and toppled over. Journal it: What is the one thing that will make you feel safe and secure right now. Set a timer for 10 minutes and explore

How does my book fit with my brand and my business I always talk about making your book, brand and business align. What does this mean? If you work with therapists on how to make better use of say LinkedIn or Facebook, then your book would be on this subject and would position you as an expert, In this way, the book is on brand and you could then leverage the book concept to build your business. You would then create a product roadmap around your book. This means you would have a coaching program, workshops, online course and a membership site, as examples. You would use your book to give away to your clients and constantly sell it on it's own and with your other products and service, You could also create add on products such as a journal and a planner. Want to know more about the 10 rules of a brilliant book, then please join me on Wednesday 10th. All of the details are here https://www.bookbrandbusiness.com/write-a-brilliant-book/

In this session, we are looking at books which are used by you to teach your proven process and you can sell it and your workshops,   and mastermind concept to other people to teach to their clients.   The two books are - Business Model Generation and Get Clients Now.  Take a look at the books and then look at what else the authors have produced to go with. Your imagination will be sparked - I guarantee.   We talk about things like this and other aspects of writing in the Big Book Inner Circle http://jo.my/bigbookinnercircle 

In this, we are asking what kind of book could I write. This book has been converted from a blog. Each chapter is a short piece of wisdom. The author sends out a daily email and has a daily brain tattoo, so he has maximised his content well. You could take some of your content and do the same or you could you plan it now and blog your book for later publication. I have done something similar.  I have something called 101 days of being me. It's a journaling adventure. You can sign up and get a daily email.  At the end of the 101 days I'll have a new journaling book.  This is a part of my sales funnel and my way to inspire people to start writing, explore themselves and possibly write a book. I can also use this as source content for a blog to promote the book later. Is this something you could do? Find me at www.bookbrandbusiness.com

Every two weeks, Esther and I talk about a subject that will be close to someone's heart. In this episode, we talk about letting go. One of the hardest things we have to learn to do in life is to let go and accept things as they are, rather than how we wish they would. Great stress and unhappiness comes from the times we push and try to force things to be the way we want them to be instead of accepting the way they are. There is great relief and peace to be found in this letting go, although it can be very hard to do.

 On Friday I took a good hard look at the books I am hoarding and asking why do I keep each of the books. I am not doing a Marie Kondo, I hasten to add. I was reviewing why did I buy this book and would I like to write a book like this?   I know, it all seems a bit deep, and possibly a lot of hard work, but I wanted to help the people in the Inner Circle think more deeply about why they might write a particular kind of book.   This is really an important and often overlooked aspect of creating a book.   But think about this why would you write a book in a style that you hate reading?   What do you like to read outside of novels? Here's what I like, perhaps you do too:-   * Factual books with no fluff that takes you through a process and make it simple for you  * Books with some of the writer's journey, some evidence (research of some kind or something the writer has discovered that lends weight to the story), key message and learning points and something for me to do - generally journaling and not too many things to journal about. I also like the journaling to be a journey * Short memoir with thinking/learning points * Dip in and out books that give me something to think about that day  * Fact-based books - think nutrition  * Oracle cards and associated books with something to think about   Most of the books that I own fall into these 6 categories. I've written a number of 1's and now writing in the style of 2. 2's are my favourite.   What about you?   Go and review your bookcase you'll be pleased that you did. You can now give away the books that are taking up space and you can review the structure of the books that you love.   You'll now have a better idea of what kind of book you might like to write.   When you want more of this support, you can find me in the Big Book Inner Circle. This is where I am creating a writing community for journaling, creative life writing and writing a book - basically writing...  http://jo.my/bigbook 

As you can imagine I get asked a lot about how long it will take to write a book. The answer is always it depends. That may sound like a cop-out. However, it depends on you, your commitment and the action you take. You can write a book to final draft in 90 days. Some people have been known to publish in this time as well. Personally, I am not sure how they have done it, but you never know other peoples commitment, work ethic, what support they have and what they have let go of to enable this to happen – do you? I know this. Once you have worked out how you are going to write a book in let’s say 90 days and started to write, it may feel like you are in a parallel universe, where time seems to be consumed by your writing. The cleaning gets left, you forget that the world exists outside, but be assured that when the journey is over, normal life can, and will, resume.  Listen to the recording and work out how long you will take. To chat about your book visit www.bookbrandbusiness.com

The idea of the first hundred days of leadership started with Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. It is said that as he put many things into action, he never displayed ‘fright, panic and rarely even a bad temper. He focused on the job in hand and what he could achieve. This is true for life as well, what we focus on we achieve, as long as you take action. We also have to move the story, change how we feel about things and write a new story.  That’s what 101 days is. If you read my story, you will know why I am doing this journaling experience with you. What will you get in 101 days? You will get 101 days of insight. I've hand-picked quotes which speak from my heart to the heart. These are designed to inspire deep reflection. Questions and food for thought to kick-start your musing and journaling. A group to share in - Writing for the Soul on Facebook Sign up here https://www.soulwritersacademy.com/101-days-of-being-me/

* WORD * Evernote * Scrivener * Dragon Naturally Speaking * iMindMap * Dictate to mobile phone * Rev.com for captions and transcribing * Pen and paper – notebooks/journals * Roll of brown paper/A3 pad and coloured pens Explore and try them out.

Journaling and writing help you to build the foundations of a relationship with you. This will as you progress become a trusted relationship, where you can explore the deeper aspects of you. If you start to journal it could lead to a book. If you journal as you are writing your book you will gain a much richer experience. My invitation is for you to consider journaling, before, during and after writing your book. Have a go. I'm sure you will find it very revealing. Ready to plan or productise your book? Ping me a message and let's chat. And take the 7 day challenge http://rcl.ink/Rt8 and get some clarity first. Dx

Read, be inspired and inspire with your book. Today I was going to start some business planning using the Business Model Canvas. But... I was still tired and catching up after a week of daily visits (up and down the mountain) to see my sick doggy, Marley. I picked up a book called The Call by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Casually I opened it and found myself at chapter six and the message made me stop. No longer did I just need to do this plan or should so it. The call was to be. So I be'd. Your book could have the same effect on someone. They may read some of it and feel called to do something, even if that something is nothing, nada, zilch. Books are healing. I feel better for watching a film and walking the dogs. When you feel called to write a book, give me a call... or if you are not ready please consider this 7 day plan your book challenge. At the end of 7 days you will know if writing a book is for you. http://rcl.ink/Rt8 #writeyourbook #writeabook #writing #reading

* Are you umming and rring about writing a book? * Do you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a huge body of work? * Do you keep putting it off because it feels impossible? * Do you even want to write a book? After you have examined why, then here are a few ideas for you:- Do you really want a book? Hire a ghost-writer Get interviewed and use a transcriber (person or a service like rev.com) Record and transcribe videos Speak your book with Dragon Naturally speaking Repurpose your blog or a workshop Make a course first, transcribe the videos and turn that into a book Take the 7 day challenge http://rcl.ink/Rt8

I don't know about you, but I really struggle with writing a book without a plan. With a plan I get clarity and when I can tick things off I can see progress. Every step of this process needs some thought and planning. Naturally, we need to think about how we like to work and how we do our best work. However, everyone I work with and every time I do this the best books are those that are planned. Message me if you have a book idea or if you are not ready, join the 7 day plan your book challenge. http://rcl.ink/Rt8

A behind the scenes look at how I write my first draft fairly quickly. I blog my book in 30 days. 1. Chunks - I write in small manageable bite-sized pieces - 1000 (ish) words a day 2. Clarity - I get clarity on my content 3. Feedback - I use the feedback to tighten my content for my ideal reader 4. Build a blog presence - which also builds my brand 5. Stimulate ideas for my marketing 6. Drive people to a lead page - so that they can sign up to know more about the book and to get a 'free' e-book If writing a book is on your maybe one day list and you'd like to move it to your right now list, then message me and let's chat. If you are not quite ready, enrol in the 7 day plan your book challenge http://rcl.ink/Rt8 #writing #publishing #blogging #branding

WHY DO YOU WANT TO WRITE A BOOK? “When you understand ‘what’, you will know ‘why’, and why you can work out ‘how’.” What is my book ‘why’? It is important to get clear about why you want to write, what you want to write about, how you will make it all happen and what if you and what if you didn’t/what if you did? Take the 7 day plan your book challenge and find out now. https://soulwritersacademy.teachable.com/p/7-day-plan-your-non-fiction-book-challenge/?product_id=723438&coupon_code=7DAYCHALLENGE&preview=logged_out