Joyful Business Podcast - Escape from Cubicle Nation with Pam Slim

Don't miss another episode - subscribe today and be the first to know when a new podcast comes out - http://www.joyfulbusiness.com/subscribe.html

Here is the fourth episode of the Joyful Business Podcast featuring interviews with some of the most talented and joyful entrepreneurs on the Internet. Each interview is full of nuggets of wisdom about how being joyful and mindful in your business brings you the success you deserve. You'll find tips, stories, and real life ideas for keeping the joy, passion and creativity alive.

Join us every two weeks in Cafe Entrepreneur for a new interview.

If you enjoyed this Joyful Business Podcast then sign up for our free ezine. so you won't miss out on the announcements about upcoming podcast interviews. Click to subscribe...

Episode #4 features Pam Slim from Escape From Cubicle Nation and Ganas Consulting. In this episode, Pam shares how helping her clients get in touch with their authentic selves is a key to helping them escape the corporate world and start their own businesses. She also talks about how she tunes into her own different types of joy.

Listen to the Podcast:

En-JOY!

Laura

Signs of a spiritual crisis

We have gotten so that we only respond to a problem when it becomes pressing.  How do we know it's pressing?  Usually by the “check engine light” or the high cholesterol count, or the overdraft notices.

But what about when the problem is spiritual?  Even though our minds, our hearts, and bodies have been communicating with us all along. I would say our spirit has too, but that voice has been so faint or nonexistent in so many of us, and the loud hum of our life has been deafening, that I’m not sure we have ever heard the voice to know what it is, or if we heard it we’ve ignored it because we couldn't recognize the sound….of our spirit calling us.

How do you recognize it? 

There’s an ache. Kind of like a vague stomach ache that doesn't go away and is telling you something isn’t quite right.

Then it turns into a yearning – a deeper ache that moves to your heart....like you are yearning for something….you might not know what it is. So, you reach for the chocolate, a glass of wine, or you buy some more clothes or the newest ipod techno thingee.

But it doesn’t stop. It gets louder and louder.

It shows up as mental confusion. You blame it on having kids.

You forget birthdays. Other birthdays you remember, but you don’t have the energy to buy that card with the meaningful message and all the pretty wrappings anymore.

You lose your passion and then worry some more that you’ll never get it back.

You might get depressed.

All of the sudden you realize that all the women in the neighborhood are all depressed  and you're the last to join the crowd!  So, you join in the discussion on the latest anti-anxiety pills and anti-depression medication.

Even the happy events are shadowed by a dull irritation.

You turn your light out and go through the motions.

You get to the point where you can’t stand to have another idle conversation about nothing important… the football scores, or maybe that becomes the most important thing in your life because you are afraid to look past this week’s game because you might have to face the world and the chaos that’s taking place around you.

You start whining to your friends – all your friends, every conversation, whine, complain, nothing is right.

You start to not want to hang around those friends (and they don’t want to hang around you).  You don't even want to hang out with yourself!

You start dropping out of social conversations.

You see a therapist.

You think about selling your house and moving to a beach town. You think about buying that convertible. You consider an affair - you just want to feel alive!

You start hanging around Barnes & Noble in the self-help section. They know your name now.

You start going to lunch alone with your latest book searching for the magic paragraph, the 10 steps, the success strategy that will help you feel joy in your life again.

You start searching online for the answer….pills, vitamins, energy remedies, msn, more books, ebooks…

You might start wondering about going to church.  But the fear of your childhood memories of being shamed and the words “hell and damnation” come to mind...and the thought of adding more guilt to your life makes you stay home.

Maybe if you were out of the corporate environment where people are measured only by value of how much money you made or saved today matters.

Maybe you’ll start your own business.

You find this little voice in you that peeps and says....there's got to be a better way.

And you find the voice of hope inside you. 

.....Thanks for letting me share part of my journey.

(You didn’t think I was talking about you, did you?)

:)

Don't make the journey alone.  Find a trust advisor, coach, friend, healer, consultant who can help you find your "better way."

With love and compassion,

Laura

The New Mid Life Crisis

I just ran across an article that I loved from TIME Magazine from last May titled, The New Mid-Life Crisis - Bring It On!  A really great article about how women are hitting their 40's, and 50's and finding that their attitudes, their desires, where they want to spend their time - it all is starting to shift.......they have a yearning for something else in their life - that used to mean a mid life crisis. 

There's a developing trend that instead of that "something else" turning into an affair, a convertible, a divorce, etc...(or maybe after those lose their attractiveness) they are using their talents to create positive change in the world. They are discovering and using their talents, passions, and purpose and using those to create businesses, non-profit organizations and to support other women through their "mid-life shift".

If you are feeling like there has to be something more....this is an inspiring article to read. From creating a lite beer that women would enjoy drinking, to creating women's retreats, there's lots of ideas and inspiration here....

Here's the main article - there was also some great sideline artcles as well.

Download mid_life_crisis__bring_it_on.doc

Inspiring Minds Want to Know!

Laura

Meaningful Summer Read

I just finished a wonderfully inspiring book. It's biographical and a true pleasure if you are looking for something meaningful to read during the summer and would rather have something that reads more like a light novel.

It's call "A Walk on The Beach" by Joan Anderson.  Faced with a decision to move with her husband for a new job opportunity she choose to spend a year at her cottage on Cape Cod to find herself as a woman, a person and a wife. She actually wrote 3 books about this year in her life. I started with the 3rd one(that was all Barnes & Noble has in stock when I was desperately wanting a book for some beach time).This one is about her relationship with a 90 year old woman she met at the beach.  This woman, Joan Erikson (psychoanalyst Erik Erikson's wife) became her mentor, muse and coach during their friendship. This book is about their friendship and her introduction into Joan Erikson's unconventional wisdom like, "Dance beyond the breakers" and "Overdose on the senses".

I highly recommend it and in fact, have ordered her other two books.

I also read that she has women's retreats by the sea. Uh, wow!  I'll be checking that out. I've always dreamed of holding women's retreats by the sea and look forward to the day that happens....just by attracting this book into my life  and reconnecting to the energy I have around this idea....I know it's in motion and on it's way to me in some form or fashion.

Happy Wednesday! Hope you are enjoying your summer....

Laura