Did you know that your brain is almost as active when you’re asleep as when you’re awake?

It’s also true when you’re “only” relaxing. Your brain is just as active. When you're not "focused" your brain is in what’s called diffuse mode. It’s still thinking for you, solving the problem you were focused on before, except in the background of consciousness.

If you’re only in “focused” mode all the time, you’re not effectively tapping the hugely creative power of your subconscious mind.

This is why I rest frequently throughout the day. Although my work hours on the calendar are between 7am and 7pm, I’m often resting and relaxing during those hours.

Each time I get away from my computer and do something else, I know I am going into the brain’s diffuse mode, and my consciousness is “working” on my project or problem in a different, more creative way… without my having to focus on it.

In other words, it’s a form of “productive” self-care.

Here are some different ways to do “frequent creative rest”... 

A client said: “I don’t want to be labeled as [specific type of service] because I do so much more than that!”

The problem is, if people don’t pigeonhole you, they probably don’t remember you at all.

You’d rather be pigeonholed as something useful or interesting to them, and then as they consume your content or work, they will be delighted to discover that you do even more.

Let me explain.

If you're not yet creating content consistently -- but you would like to -- perhaps you’re dealing with one of these thoughts:

"Who am I to write, or make videos?" 
"I don't have that much to say." 
"I'm not a good writer / I'm not good on videos." 

All three problems can be solved by one mindset shift:

Make your content for 1 person at a time.

In marketing, we usually learn about the importance of getting people’s attention. To try to stand out, be better looking, be more charming and/or more aggressive.

Yet, I’m not trying to stand out. If anything, I’m trying to blend in. I know that my ideal audience will spot me, even in a sea of social media posts. 

Being flashy tends to get unwanted attention, which makes it harder over time to be authentic, and to wade through the many people to find and connect with our true fans.

A client of mine showed me a marketer teaching us to use visual interruption to get an audience’s attention. Although it works, it's not something I want to do. I’d rather do the opposite: blend into the crowd so that only the ideal members of my audience will recognize a kindred spirit in me. ​

My new book -- The Principles of Authentic Business: Create a Sustainable Livelihood from the Heart -- describes the philosophy of how I do business differently than I used to... and differently from the mainstream.

Some people have asked me about the spiritual influences behind my work. In this video I reveal the books that have made the biggest difference for me. More importantly, it's the values resulting from those books and spiritual beliefs that inform my business today.

​Here's the video:

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