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SNM189: Why is mindfulness so important to your business success with Laura Van Den Berg-Sekac

• Jonathan Green : Bestselling Author, Tropical Island Entrepreneur, 7-Figure Blogger

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Are you aware of yourself? Have you ever experienced something deeper than your primal thoughts? Do you think you can be better, smarter, more productive, and eventually be more comfortable with yourself and be the best version of yourself? If you want to be a self-published writer, but something is interfering with your creative process we might have just the answers for you. Today, we are talking with Laura Van Der Berg-Sekac, an expert in the art of mindfulness. If you are ready to transfer your life and introduce mindfulness in business keep reading about life improvement and self-awareness strategies. 

Writing a book and having it published on Amazon is the first step in starting entrepreneurship. Writers are known for being creative and adventures, so diving into a new business is a deep transformation on a personal level. 

Because of the freedom that the authors always need to have it might get difficult for them to keep a focus on just one task, the world is always throwing some additional challenges and, who says that this next one is not better than the previous one? In their world there are no leaders to keep them on track, even if there were they would not accept their authority. So how can you become your own leader and achieve your goals at your own pace in your own time?

Learn why is mindfulness important to your business in today's episode.

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The post SNM189: Why Is mindfulness important to your business success with Laura Van Den Berg-Sekac appeared first on Serve No Master: Be Your Own Boss - Live Free

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The power personal development for authors with special guest - Laura Van Den Berg Sekac on today's episode. [00:00:05] Today's episode is brought to you by PayKickstart - the backbone of my entire business. Get 30 free days with this cutting edge shopping cart when you go to servenomaster.com\paykickstart - today. [00:00:17] Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now. Then you've come to the right place. Welcome to Serve No Master podcast where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep.[00:00:37] Presented live from a tropical Island in the South Pacific by bestselling author, Jonathan Green. Now - here's your host!  [00:00:47] Guys, I'm so excited to have Laura on today's episode. She's a really passionate expert on the art of mindfulness, which is something that's often called like - staying in the moment, or being present, and what mindfulness means is - paying attention to what you're doing. [00:00:58] We often get caught up thinking about what happened yesterday and regretting the things we didn't do, or what you need to work on tomorrow, but it's so critical to stay in the moment. The perfect example is: right now I'm recording this introduction and I could think about what I want to do with my kids. My son just went running by when he spoke to his homeschool teacher and I'm wondering what he's up to, and I can think about what I was working on last night and when I was doing a live coaching call with my extreme giving mastermind. But if I get distracted by either of those two things. well then this  introduction  will get broken. I'll have to rerecord it, or I'll have to fix it, and this moment will be lost.  [00:01:27] We want to stick in the moment and focus on what we're doing so that we can really have an influence on our lives. It's so important. It's easy to get caught up. In the building of our own business, if we don't pay attention to the other parts of our lives, whether it's our bodies, our minds, or our spirits - then the whole system can start to crumble. It doesn't matter if you build an amazing business, if you're sick and in the hospital - you won't care about it anymore. So we want to make sure that we take care of the four pillars of your life and your soul and our spirit [00:01:51] And that's what Laura has talked about today. She's going to talk about mindfulness for authors, why you should develop yourself as a person, parallel to developing your business, which is something I believe in as well. And she's going to talk about the personal transformation that entrepreneurs and authors go through while they're building their businesses and what they need to be aware of during this process. [00:02:05] She's going to warn you about some bumps on the road ahead of you, and it's so good to know about them now. So without further ado, let's let Laura take it away.  [00:02:12] Hello everyone. I'm really excited. We have Laura Van Den Berg Sekac here, and she's an amazing life improvement strategist with more than 20 years of coaching experience in the fields of self knowledge and personal transformation. [00:02:24] She's the author of the four year long bestseller Get Unstuck Now about how smart people gain clarity and solve a problem fast, and how you can too. She's also the coauthor of some amazing books with some really well known authors like Dan Kennedy. She's helped client after client to access their true potential gain self-awareness, alive their own nature, and live a life of integrity, clarity, and emotional freedom [00:02:45] If you're ready to transform your life, step more fully into the deeper you and experience greater joy and fulfillment - she is your go-to person. She's been living in the French countryside for the past 16 years, and her motto is - self growth as a necessity. As are attributes like optimism, creativity, innovation, freedom, and spirituality. [00:03:02] And I'm so excited to have you here, Laura. Thank you so much for joining us. Maybe you could tell us a little something about your work as an author and a coach and what came first for you - the book or the business?  [00:03:12] Thank you for having me. I very much appreciate it. I originally started in the Netherlands, the training center where we work with horses and other things for personal development in companies. And, after a couple of years, I started to long for having another method I could give to people instead of only working with groups or one-on-one, because it's much easier if people can read some things in advance and then we can go to the matter much, much deeper. [00:03:55] So I decided to give up or sell my business in Netherlands and move to France, and go to write and turn inside even more. So when the book was there, or some books before were there, I just thought that being in business and not only in writing - it's okay also, because I love the spirit of adventure and the spirit of being together and learning from each other. And being only on the internet - these books, it's great, but that little business aspect is great too.  [00:04:36] And not to forget that, these these days a writer is also more of an entrepreneur - publishing, sells, or even publishing with other companies, where you need to do lots of things - your own like marketing and selling and all those proposals and strategies. [00:04:58] So, actually - writing books is an entrepreneurship. It is having a business. You can not just think, 'I'm going to write a book and I'll put it on Amazon or Kobo or whatever, and it will find its own way.' It won't. You really need to do something. You really need to put it to the audience. And well, that's how I got to there, I think. [00:05:24] That's really interesting. A lot of authors don't realize that the work starts after you finished the book, that it's still like running a business, that it's still maintaining an audience, that you still have to work to sell those books. And so I love that you're saying that authorship and entrepreneurship have so much in common. Can you tell us about the mindset that someone should have when they're entering the field of entrepreneurship or when they're trying to start a business?  [00:05:47] It's very interesting, I think. But what I noticed for myself in my own process is that starting a business is not a just starting a business. It's a deep transformation that's going to occur on a personal and whatever level. And for authors, it's even deeper because authors are creative people. They are adventures, they are innovators, they are creative and exploring things, inventing things. Lots of things will be done for the first time.  [00:06:25] So the problem or the challenge with authors, or even with entrepreneurs is that they forget that sometimes the exploring is so important. And they forget by exploring to leave the old behind, and then a new adventure comes, and with the new adventure - our ego comes in. And what's interesting, especially with authors is that the authors are free spirits. They are creatives. It's just like that. Like entrepreneurs, it's very difficult for them to accept authority or leadership from other people because they love to be their own leaders. [00:07:17] And the thing is that they don't know how to be their own leaders because being an own leader is not running your company and having everything right. It's the inner game that is really, really important. And it's very important because when you write - you just pass your frontiers into the unknown and then if you don't have a compass that shows you where you want to be, where you want to go, steadily - doubts can come in, fear can come in,  and they start to hold themselves back or they start to procrastinate, or they are not assertive as they should be.  [00:08:08] And that's why it's important to understand that what comes first in entrepreneurship, in authorship -  it's the game, it is the inner work, your inner transformation, being aware that this will occurre inevitably and be prepared for it. Because if you are not prepared, if you resist change, if you resist inner change, then your ego will take over and then the doubts come in, the fears come in, and all that kind of things.  [00:08:46] That's interesting because I know that I have struggled with authority in my own life. I often say that I could never go back to working for someone else. I'm poisoned. I couldn't go back and sit in an office and have a boss cause I've been my own boss for a decade down. I've lost that ability to take orders from someone else because I like to lead. And what I'm interested in - you mentioned author and entrepreneur. Is there a big difference between them, like the self published authors on the road to building a business? And what advice would you give to the entrepreneur specifically?  [00:09:17] I would give them advice that they need to start to be in a transformation and in a relationship with themselves first, because they need to rely on themselves because writing is a creative process. As I said, you go into the innovation, into the creativity, into new things, and you need to feel really reliable on yourself, on your ideas, because nobody will confirm you. And you know how it is with authors - you get a bad review, then you are probably knocked out for a couple of days, weeks, or even months. [00:09:56] And you must be strong inside to deal with that and not to be afraid of experiments or failure or whatever, or even not calling it that. So the first thing is to know what you want,  what is important for you the values that I important for you, and have a system - you're in a system that you can rely on. A system where you know what is your own intuition, what is your own compass. And then if you have clarity in this and you know that you can rely on yourself, then the ego will not interfere as much, and you then have the clarity to see what you need to do and the structure, and you will not be so afraid to do some campaigns or marketing or whatever, because then it's a part of the game and not something that's scary. [00:11:01] Developing yourself as a person - that's so important before the development of the business. One thing that I've been going through right now is realizing that, as I grow, I have to become a leader for my team. When I was working by myself, it was one mindset, but now that I have multiple staff members, I'm having to learn how to communicate with them in a whole new way. And it's about me, it's not about them. Because if I don't give the leadership, they don't have to do their jobs right. And so, what I'm wondering about is - which part of a business or which part of my business it's going to be in the most trouble or suffer if I don't develop myself as a person? [00:11:36] If you don't develop yourself as a person... you know, when we evolve and we grow, also a road to cross for us is being the larger person, being the best we can be, the high version of ourselves, and with that comes also the value. And many people don't know that there's also an energetical level and there's a value of yourself - the way you value yourself or your work and what you are doing. It's the same as earning money. It's the same as selling a book. If I have doubts whether my book is good enough - my sales will drop.  [00:12:22] And I have seen this so many times, and sometimes I just experiment with it for fun to see if it really is like that. But if I doubt, if I say, 'Oh, that could be better and I'm not good enough and why I am thinking that I need to do this' -  the sales or comments or whatever will drop. But if I believe in myself, but not only believing in myself, but know it's important for me to give, to help others generate, because with your book you generate something with others - you help them to generate joy or trust or whatever. So if I am focused on that and I am very happy to do that - that will also translate in higher sales or better value in every single thing I do. And that's equal to my own value. So my inner value and out value is exactly the same.  [00:13:24] You mentioned at the beginning that you live in the French countryside, which is awesome. I live on a small Island in the middle of nowhere. One thing that I discovered is that people go from having a job to working part time, they have that first success, and when they switch to working totally for themselves, oftentimes the quality of the work can really drop off because suddenly they have too much free time. How do you tell people or advise people who would go there -  to suddenly have massive amounts of free time where they're used to working efficiently when they have one hour a day, and suddenly they have 8 or 10? [00:13:55] Well, then you have just the question of leadership, because if you cannot be the leader of yourself and trust yourself, or have the discipline or love and care and respect for yourself, for what you do, the respect for your business, then it will be difficult. So that's why it's important to be really in alignment inside with what you do, what you want to do.  [00:14:22] And the important thing is that you need to go to the essential. Because you know, everyday you can do 110 things and there are a lot of interesting things, and it looks like it's important, but there are only two or three things that are really important during the day or the month, or the year, that you are doing. And you need to be aligned to that - have that compass that you know that you will go there, that you'll do only essential.  [00:14:56] So when I am doing something, because I am an expert in deviation and I'm too curious about everything, and especially with the internet, you know how it goes, every time, anything I'm doing, is going through the essential and to see - what is the essential of what I'm doing now, the most essential. And often, it's only one thing that can be done very quickly. Because lots of blah, blah around it isn't really necessary.  [00:15:25] And another thing that helps them to focus on that essentiality is to have this organization in advance of what you want to do. So let's say, even if it's a small thing, because it doesn't take a lot of time to do it, let's say I want to write one or two pages or one chapter or whatever, then I make a visualisation of how I am writing, how everything goes smoothly and how I am done with it, in a positive way, and how I am very happy with it, and excited, and how I enjoy it. And then from that clear energy, I start to do things and that helps me to focus on the essential and helps me also to be more focused on what I am here to do. That is exactly what I want to generate for the readers - that joy or whatever it is. [00:16:30] So those would be two important things. And that's what helps me because - yes, we had a lot of time.  [00:16:37] That's some really wonderful advice. I've kind of been thinking about something that you said at the beginning, which is - you've co-written books with a lot of people, and I've done it a couple of times, but can you talk a little bit about that process and that journey? Because sometimes we want to partner with someone else because we're kind of afraid to do it on our own. I know that sometimes I have that temptation. I go, 'Oh, you know what? I'm afraid to do this whole process. Maybe if I partner with someone else or I co-write with someone else, they can fill in those gaps.' When is it the right time or the wrong time to co-write and what's the right mindset of working with another author? [00:17:07] I get you, I get you. For myself, it was the process that I was a hesitating a little bit to write my own book, by myself, my first book, and then do everything with that or give it to the editor, and then need to do everything that needs to be done. And you know, in the beginning when you write a book for yourself, you don't have a firm form, you don't have a lot of readers, and then, well, it's a little bit hard. So for me it was safe to start writing a book with other people. Then several people wrote their chapter and then it was a coherent - a whole, and that was very interesting. [00:17:49] So little by little, I came in that process and those books became best selling book. And it was a safe thing to use to be greater, to be larger than I was until then, you know? Because when you write a book, you transform, you grow, and then a lot of new things happen. But after a while, when I wrote those books with others, I wanted to see if it was possible to become a bestselling altar on my own. [00:18:30] And I think that writing books with other people first helped a lot in the confidence and in a preparedness to do it. And yes, it was a nice adventure. So I always think of the fun that writing a book with other people brings. That's very, very good for your trust, I think. But also to do it yourself. But then have a good compliment, a good help, good support, because those, and to plan your things like marketing and the cover choice and other things are really, really hard to do, if you do them really by yourself. Is that your question?  [00:19:21] Yes, that's exactly right. That's a really wonderful answer. So we've heard about where you're coming from and where people should begin their process, but what are we going to see from you next? What are you kind of working on towards, and what are you going to be working on for the rest of this year? What's coming next from Laura? [00:19:37] Well, for a long time I was on Get Unstuck Now, because lots of people ask obviously, and I really tried to study all the aspects they came across and to integrate them, and then the next step is leveling up. And that's an important thing to do because every time we - the creatives or entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurship is being graded also, but especially the authors, each time you do something, you transform and you go up. And then you need to honor some things, honor some rules, and know what to do because you then enter a new path, a new landscape where you don't know anything, you don't know where to go, you don't know what to expect - it's the first time you experience all those things, so you need to be extra strong inside, have really a strong inner foundation to expand from there. [00:20:54] So my next book that I'm writing just now, will be about this - going to the higher level of yourself, the next step, and be there, expand there, and then be able to go from there to the next level. Because we transform and we uplevel constantly, we grow constantly. And if you cannot grow, you will not be creative. But if you want to grow your ego bill and be satisfied. So it's, at the moment, I think that every author, at a certain moment in their life, came across this issue that everything is going right and then suddenly something happens. You stop, sabotage yourself or something happens that makes you unable to pursue. And those are the mechanisms inside that don't want us to evolve, they don't want to let us grow, especially this creativity especially the authors and other creatives. [00:22:02] Okay. Thank you some much for spending some special time with us. Do you have any last advice or message you'd like to share with people that are just starting their writing career or just starting their businesses? [00:22:11] It's a time right now where suddenly people are realizing that they have to take more control of their business and have the ability to work from home because you never know what might happen and how the world might change. So what's something that people can put into their minds as they are approaching this new reality?[00:22:26] They're important things to be focused on, positive things - the joy that can be there. And there always will be something that will try to pull us down, but focus on what will be next, because the future can be also very good. And if there is something you like to do, you wanted to do, you would like to do - just do it. Just go for it. Start to do it. Prepare well. Start working perhaps with the beta insights so you get strong insight and then get clarity about what you want to do and just go for it. Don't delay, don't delay, don't think about it for 10 years. It always will be fearful, you always will be scared. You'll always feel doubt. It doesn't matter. [00:23:14] The pleasure  of doing it is much, much more important than what you really think. And what helps you in that, to have a clear vision - make a vision of how you would like to do it. Even if you don't know how, try to have a vision so you can have something to hope for or to think about. And the more you can think about it - the more insights will come. And that's a nice process. [00:23:48] Thank you so much for spending time with us. I know your time is so precious and so we really appreciate it. Thank you so much for participating in this event.  [00:23:56] Yes, thank you very much. And perhaps I forgot to tell that if people want some resources, because in this time it's important, I think, to give people as many free resources as possible, they can always go to my website and see if they'll finding something that's going to help them to reinforce them to sell, to get more in touch with themselves and those kinds of things.  [00:24:19] Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here and we'll see you again next time.  [00:24:24] Thank you very much. A winderful time for you all and to do readers especially. Thank you.  [00:24:29] Thank you so much for listening to the today's episode. I appreciate you guys staying all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed Laura's interview as much as I did asking her those critical questions. You can find out more about Laura at essensense.com, that's E S S E N S E N S E dot com. I know it sounds like a bit of a tongue twister, but I did get that out on the very first try. [00:24:47] I encourage you to visit her website and of course if you're unsure of the spelling, it is a little bit tricky, then just visit our blog, our podcast feed, or the YouTube channel - I'll have the link right there. You can just click on it and head right over to her website. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and we're going to continue with one more episode in our continuing authorship series next week, and then after that we're going to launch a new mini series. [00:25:06] Thank you so much for your positive feedback about these interview series. Because you guys love them, I'm going to do more and more because I want to give you guys loads and loads of amazing content. And I'll see you guys in the next episode. [00:25:16] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss another episode. We'll be back next Tuesday with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race. Head over to servenomaster.com/podcast now for your chance to win a free copy of Jonathan's bestseller Serve No Master. All you have to do is leave a five star review of this podcast. [00:25:42] See you Tuesday. [00:25:47] Ready to turn your book into a bestseller? Find out what other authors don't want you to know at servenomaster.com/secrets.