Santa, Archetype of Prosperity

December 25th is the day hundreds of millions of Christians celebrate the birth of their Redeemer. It’s also the day hundreds of millions celebrate the generosity of their Rewarder. He’s the bearded jolly chap known as St. Nicholas or Santa Claus (Sint Klaas as the Dutch settlers called him in Holland). I like to think of him as the quintessential archetype for prosperity. In a tough economy where you may be losing sleep over losing your job, an abundant elf like Santa is vital to our national health and imagination.

Known as the patron saint of giving, Santa might more aptly be known as the patron saint of rapid transit. He’s a veritable master of bilocation. In December, you’ll spot him at the Town Center in Boca Raton, Florida, at the same moment your friends spot him on Broadway in New York City, while others insist he’s also on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Bilocation, shmilocation… Superman may be fast, but Santa is downright omnipresent. He’s more than just a symbol of prosperity, he’s a veritable embodiment of all possibilities.

When I was a small boy, my Uncle Dave was vital to my sense of possibilities. A personification of prosperity, he’d give me the silver dollars he pulled out of my ears with his magic. Dave was a mortal man, so he had his limits, Santa is a myth so he has none. His huge sack full of wrapped goodies is a veritable storehouse of infinite generosity.

This red-suited jolly old guy gives unending presents from just one sack, sleds his way over the rooftops of the world, and shares his bounty with children, the most innocent beings on our planet.

Perhaps St. Nick’s miraculous feats of “sharing-do” are powered by the ever-present mantra he chants– “Ho-ho-ho.” Is this an ancient mantra from China or an esoteric meditation from the North Pole? That ringing bell of his sounds more at home in Tibet than at his snowy digs.

While the holiday season is about love and hope, the girth of St. Nicholas inspires abundance. In December’s endless flashing neon, long checkout lines, and out-of-control credit cards, this archetype of prosperity brings a much-needed smile to the harried shopping class. We shouldn’t even think of foregoing the wrappings and trappings of a saint like Nick, he’s our national symbol of prosperity. Our political leaders forever spout peace and prosperity; these are qualities embodied by Santa Claus.

As I once told students in a prosperity class I gave near the nation’s capital in Alexandria, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

Man’s best teacher

A dog is not only a man’s best friend, he may also be his best teacher. A dog embodies so many qualities of the Enlightenment described by the world’s great teachers–from Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed and Lao Tzu—that it’s hardly a coincidence that dog is god spelled backwards.

All spiritual teachers put love as critical for cultivating the highest state of consciousness we call Enlightenment. The family dog demonstrates a form of unconditional love that’s hard to find in our world. Many a husband who’s turned his head a little too long to gaze at the “hottie” in a mini-skirt, has discovered how quickly his spouse’s love is less than unconditional. What if a woman gains 75 pounds? Unfortunately, that has moved far too many men in our disposable culture to be on the lookout for a slimmer (and, while they’re at it, newer) model. What adult doesn’t like to think his parents love him unconditionally? Yet, break a few laws, and even the kindest of parents have been known to disown such a child, or even turn him in to the authorities.

But it doesn’t matter how much you weigh, how many hotties and hunks yo ogle, it doesn’t even matter how many other dogs you pet, your dog is your pal forever, loving you unconditionally to his dying breath. A dog will greet you with a wagging tail and endless licks and kisses. (Does your wife or husband do that? I didn’t think so.) You can yell at a dog in anger, and h may cower away in fear, but an hour later, he’s forgiven you of your cruelty. Most spouses are less forgiving.

Consciousness firmly awakened in the present is necessary for achieving the highest states of human development. In Eckhart Tolle’s best-selling The Power of Now, he elucidated the necessity for, and advantages of, keeping yourself in the present moment, as compared to looking over your shoulder at the past, or into the future that’s not yet come.

A dog never dwells in what once was, nor is he obsessed with what may be on its way. He’s focused on the present. Even when lying down to catch some shut-eye, he often keeps one eye open to the goings on around him.

Enthusiasm, from the Greek entheos or “in god,” is another attribute of higher consciousness. If a wagging tail doesn’t remind you to stay enthusiastic, nothing will. Retrievers of the Golden and Labrador type are perfect embodiments of an enthusiasm that’s hard to top in this world. A person can throw the same ball to the same Retriever over and over again but, while the person soon gets bored, the dog never does. Each new toss is a brand new ball to fetch. His presence in the moment and enthusiasm for chasing the same thing time and again display the freshness of an awakened state of being that our great teachers have both explained and embodied.

With all these things that dogs teach us, who really are the masters? Perhaps they love to awaken us so much that we’re like our teachers’ pets.

Thanksgiving 1621

]Recently, Thanksgiving has become a gluttonous day of turkey, parades and football, a long fall from its origin when grateful Pilgrims thanked God for the bounteous harvest that their helpful native American neighbors shared with them. Our Higher Power is also generous with His/Her bounty; blessing our every moment with the breath of life while keeping the heart in our chest beating. Rev. Ike spoke of the prospering power of an attitude of gratitude. I like to say that the more grateful I am for what I have, the more I have to be grateful for.

Whether you dine on turkey or a vegetarian equivalent, add consciousness to this Thanksgiving, the day that begins our end-of-year holiday season. Perhaps you can lead your gathering in a heartfelt thankful grace, or ask each person at the table to share something that s/he is truly grateful for. It will be a memorable holiday (as in holy day) for one and all.

Keeping your eye on your goals helps you achieve them.

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”

— Anthony Robbins

If you’re self-employed and worry about making rent or your mortgage to avoid foreclosure, you might think that establishing goals is a luxury you don’t have time for.  Quite the opposite.  Unless you set goals to stretch the way you market, and grow your income, you run the risk of being a casualty of this recession.

Tracking weekly goals makes use of the Law of Attraction, which states that energy goes where attention flows.  There’s a physical law paralleling this—the role that the observer plays in the process of observation: “You cannot separate the observer from the observed,” said David Bohm, the world-famous quantum physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb.  In the case of goal setting for your business, the observer is the entrepreneur and the observed is the business itself.  

To take advantage of this law of nature, create a variety of weekly goals for different aspects of your business.  These might include gross income, number of new clients gained, number of new prospective clients, hours spent on marketing, and so on. 

At the top of your paper going across the page, write Goal, Actual and Percentage.   Then, write your goals going down the page on the left margin. The first thing Monday morning, before your workweek begins, fill in your goals for the week.  As the week unfolds, tally your results as they develop in the category called Actual.  Then, the following Monday morning, total your results.  If your goal was to gain two new clients and you gained one, you did 50 percent.  Do this for each category weekly.

There’s great power in this process for, as Lee Iacocca put it, “The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”  Simply intending certain results and attending to these intentions daily helps bring them into manifestation.  That’s why it’s wise to display your weekly goal sheet where you can see them daily—remember the power of attention. “It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness,” said Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner.  The same can be said for the laws of quantum business growth.

Sometimes a new client is just a push of a button and a few questions away.

Many business development experts urge you to create an elevator speech of 30 to 60 seconds so you can tell anyone in a short trip that can elevate your business by adding your fellow passenger to your client roster http://www.creativekeys.net/PowerfulPresentations/article1024.html

http://www.quintcareers.com/elevator_speech_dos-donts.html

Once you’ve created an elevator speech, I suggest you create elevator questions.  I believe you can get more clients by asking provocative questions than lecturing someone on what he should do.  People are told what to do by bosses, spouses, commercials all day long.  When a person asks what you do, tell him, and if he shows interest, instead of telling him that he should get massaged, ask him, “Do you have pain in your body?”  When he says yes, which he will because–if he’s an adult in the 21^st century who commutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic, or is bumped around by straphangers in urban subways and railroad cars, or has a boss, a spouse, or a kid–he has pain in his body. Then ask, “Would you like to be free of pain in your body?”

If you ask him where the pain is, he’ll tell you.  The next step is to ask if he’d like to book a session to relieve that pain.  Of course, he would, although he may say that he needs to think about it.  Let him.  Give him your business card, then ask another two questions: namely for his card, and for permission to call within a week if he fails to call you.  Why?  So you can direct the matter instead of being reactive.  Then call seven days later if he forgets.  When you remind him who you are and how you met, ask him again if he’d like to be free of the specific pain that he mentioned.   As  Hamlet said, “That’s the question.”

The Greek 9 Muses who inspire creativity

Massage enhances creativity.  There are no ifs, and, or buts about it.  The relaxation that occurs stimulates inspiration, because a relaxed mind and body are more receptive to creative impulses than when you’re tense.

While receiving an Indonesian massage on a luxury yacht off the coast of Thailand, I gained inspiration for this blog, as well as for one on tuning in to what your massage clients experience from your treatments.  During previous massages, I’ve received ideas for other blogs, for new workshops that I’d eventually give, and for new books and mini-books that I’d write.

If you’d like to have more creative people on your client roster, talk to existing clients who are in the creative arts and ask them for testimonial quotes about how your massages awaken their creativity, both during a session as well as after.  Then, create a brochure on massage and creativity, and target local creative people: actors, directors and theater companies; dancers, choreographers, and their companies; writers and writer groups; painters, sculptors, and art schools; musicians, orchestras, and music schools.

Once you’ve completed the brochure—and had it edited and proofread by another pair of eyes—snail mail it to the heads of these organizations.  Tell them that massage is a great boon to creative people, as the enclosed brochure indicates.  Describe your background, and let them know you work with many creative people.  Finally, indicate that you’ll follow up with a phone call in a week.  Make a note to do just that.  Then, get ready for some fascinating new clients.

Forgiveness helps us to prosper

Anger costs you money. Forgiveness makes you money.  By not discussing the prospering power of forgiveness, The Wall Street Journal is derelict in its duties to its readers who wish to become richer.  Like Hebrew National, I answer to a higher authority.

Allow me a personal digression.  Many years ago, my then sister-in-law returned my letters to my nieces unopened.  I was deeply hurt, yet I took responsibility for our breakdown.  I was expecting her usual angry tirade.  Instead, she suggested we forget the past and create a whole new future.  You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather.  Within three days I landed my largest client ever, and four days later signed two more.  It typically took about three months to sign three clients; this time it took only seven days!   I also lost 7 pounds in that week without changing what I ate or how I exercised.

Following is a prospering process to “complete” with anyone for whom you have strong unresolved emotions.

1: Write the person a letter you’ll never send. Say how you feel about the horrible things done or said to you, what a terrible low life s/he is.  Don’t hold back, and don’t censor your language.  Release the toxic feelings inside you; if not, they’ll damage you.  Blame this person for everything awful that’s happened.  By the time you finish, you’ll feel lighter.  You’ll have lifted a great weight from your shoulders, a heavy burden from your heart.

2: In this next letter (which you won’t send either), you’re no longer the victim doing the blaming.  The great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  Find out how knowing this person had made you stronger.

3: Letter #3 is an integration of the two letters, and is intended to be sent. By now, you’ll have released the venom expressed in the first letter, and seen how you’ve grown in relationship with this person.  Describe the incident that caused the upset; then describe how you felt about what happened.  Avoid saying “you hurt me.”  The person did something—the hurt is how you reacted to what was done.  Then describe what you learned from what was done, and how you grew.  Finally, express your gratitude for their role in inspiring your growth.

The Course in Miracles talks about forgiveness and the creation of miracles. The Forgiveness Letter described above has brought miracles in communications, new clients, unexpected income and other wonderful new prosperity.  Be wise, and show it to a close friend, therapist or coach before sending so an objective pair of eyes can scour it and make sure that you are complete with the person you’ve written to, and forgiveness shows through.

The computer and database software are an LMT’s friends.

I’ve met countless massage therapists whose office files belong more in the 20^th century than in the 21^st.  I’m not suggesting that LMTs should have paperless offices.  I am suggesting, however, that electronic data be incorporated, as well.

Paper files for each session need no changing.  But as a business coach for massage therapists, I travel the country giving my CE workshop, “How to Build a $100,000 Massage Business,” and I’ve seen and heard about far too many intake forms that fail to ask for email addresses.  How can you communicate with clients by email if you don’t know their email address?  The answer is that you can’t.  And that’s a huge oversight.  I’ve also seen far too many LMTs who treat the computer as an enemy.  (I’ll save that topic for a future blog.)

So, go through your files and if you don’t have a client’s email address, pick up the phone—another invention that made people uncomfortable in the 19^th century when it was brought into the world—and ask for it.  If you’re not asking for an email address, correct the oversight.

Once you’ve collected email addresses from clients it’s time to build a database.  That’s a slightly high tech way of saying a mailing list.  Except the mailing list I’m talking about is electronic.  The days of massage therapists mailing out paper will soon go the way of the Edsel.

Your computer has database software.  If you don’t know how to find it and/or are reluctant to learn it, find a friend, a client, a colleague or a teenager to do it for you.  If you can’t afford to actually pay them for it, trade for it.

What you’re building is a newsletter of your very own.  And that’s a subject for a future blog, as well.

The relaxed Roger Federer present with the ball

I just came across one of the great Roger Federer’s secrets of success.  Drum roll…in a word: sleep.  Sleep?  That’s right.  The greatest tennis player ever, attributes success not just to his gorgeous array of shots, but to getting 10 hours of sleep per night.

So what’s this got to do with you?  Plenty.  Federer demonstrates an important principle of the Universe that you can take advantage of without having to get all those extra hours of Zs.  The Swiss net star stays cool because that extra shut-eye releases daily stress and strain.

You can release fatigue and deeper-rooted stress in a deeper way than sleep. The best way I know of is meditation.  As a former Transcendental Meditation (TM) practitioner and teacher since the ‘70s, who recently launched Higher Self Meditation, I’ve experienced so many times just how profound this phenomenon is. 

Deprive a person of sleep long enough and that person becomes unable to function properly.  He’ll be irritable, he’ll be unable to concentrate, and he’ll perform poorly. Nature lives by the law of rest as the basis of activity.  The more you align with this natural law, the more you thrive; the more you fight it (burn the candle at both ends, for example) the more you suffer. 

The orange ball that rises majestically from over the Atlantic Ocean every morning, while I sip hot water and lemon (Ayurvedic) rather than coffee (Colombian) demonstrates the point. With the exception of nocturnal creatures, most of Nature sleeps after the sun goes down. We’re told to make hay while the sun shines. The related maxim: make Z’s after the sun sets.  

The daily rest and activity cycle that Nature observes, and that we practice is mirrored by seasonal cycles of rest and activity, as well: much of Nature rests during the Winter, and then comes alive for a rebirth come Spring.  Bears hibernate for months—their deep rest enlivens them for vigorous activity when the weather gets warmer.

Scientific research on stress management indicates a myriad of benefits accruing from deep rest.  The research on TM I’m familiar with shows that a level of rest reached that’s twice as deep as the deepest point in a night’s sleep as measured by oxygen consumption.  A night’s sleep removes daily fatigue, the deeper rest gained during meditation releases deeper-rooted stress that’s accumulated over the years.  

So the next time you’re about to step out onto the tennis court, the basketball court, or a court of law, make sure you’ve gotten in your good night’s sleep—or better yet, your daily meditation.  It works for Federer, it works for the yogis, and it can work for you.

Virtually everyone is making buy one get one free offers.

Restaurants, shoe stores, bookstores… it’s hard not to find a “Buy one, get one free” offer.   Oh, sure, you don’t see such ads for medical practices, auto dealers, and massage therapists. It’s understandable why MDs, ill at ease about advertising, aren’t running such specials.  But massage therapists?  There’s no good reason why they’re not.

For a few hundred dollars worth of advertising, a number of LMTs employing this strategy received ongoing clients—some of whom might be worth many thousands of dollars during the course of their relationships with these therapists.  To make this promotion successful require the new client to receive that free session within a week of the first.

Consider the advantages of the offer: 

1. New people experience your work for half the price they normally would, particularly appealing during a recession.  

2. New clients pay full price for their first massage from you, which is psychologically important for you.

3. New clients get two massages from you in two weeks.

4. The second massage is free.  Human nature being what it is, the tendency to feel obligated to the therapist might inspire the client to book a third massage.

The peaceful state that accompanies a massage is far more subtle than a sloppy Big Mac or an eventual sweaty pair of Nikes, each of which can also be purchased on a buy-one-get-one-free basis, so some LMTs might feel odd compared to such multinational giants.  But for a massage therapist to be associated with the two most prominent logos in marketing history can only be a good thing.