It has been a crazy week here at the Authentically Awesome Business HQ. Beyond surreal. A week of huge celebrating but also major melt-downs. But with huge life lessons and now major changes afoot. Here’s what a week of meltdowns taught me about being authentic and manifesting.

In the past seven days I have experienced highs like:

• launching my long-awaited Authentically Awesome Business Blueprint & Mastermind (and getting SO excited each time someone makes the commitment to their future to join us)
• being interviewed for an in-depth feature by the BBC World Service (a long-time dream of mine)
• being booked by ITN for my first UK TV interview
• launching my ‘Let Your Light Shine‘ course
• having over 300 people join me for the Intuition Breakthrough Blueprint programme

It has been a week of celebrations.And lows, including:

• being publicly Trolled in two separate incidents by people I had respected and trusted
• being completely exhausted and overwhelmed with the amount of work that suddenly needs doing for the EU VAT Action campaign, let alone my current business launches
• having my eldest son find the Seville oranges we had in the cupboard to make his favourite marmalade had gone black, because we had kept putting off our marmalade-fest (Bad Mummy Award)
• a total breakdown of communication options with dodgy broadband connections, a defunct landline, a broken iPhone (even after Saturday’s repair in the Apple store) and my website going down mid-Mastermind-launch (due to a ‘level 3 outage’ which affected millions, worldwide)

I have to confess that these sometimes led to huge self-doubt and major meltdowns.

I’m not telling you this because I want sympathy (you know that’s not my style!). I’m sharing this because when this many highs and lows come together, it’s usually a sign that you’re getting into alignment with something really big (hooray) but that something very deep-rooted still needs to go to allow you to ride that wave (boo!). And I was seriously impressed by my manifesting abilities – it took a lot to be able to create such a total communication breakdown with so many different suppliers messing up at the same time!

So I eventually put aside my ‘to do’ list and accepted the inevitable. I was going to have to sit down with a cup of tea, with my favourite kick-ass shoes on and look in the mirror.

Which tent pegs did I need to pull out to be able to ride that wave?

When I talk about this with clients, I describe being ‘on mission’ or ‘in alignment’ as like riding a wave. It feels right when you ride it and things tend to flow. But if you have rammed tent pegs hard into the ground, with the guy ropes tied around you, like Gulliver in Lilliput, then you are pulled in both directions at once – riding that wave whilst being totally attached to that old block, excuse, limiting belief, painful habit or fear. That’s when you get a week like the one I just had.

And the funny thing is that as soon as you stop and ask yourself which tent pegs need to go, it’s incredibly easy to spot them and choose whether or not to pull them up and release them.

How?

Simple questions like:

• What’s keeping me stuck? e.g. I can’t ride this wave of {insert wave name here} because… {here are your tent pegs}
  I choose to let go of defending {tent pegs} today.
• What have I really had enough of? {tent pegs arrive here}
  And what do I want instead? {here’s how to remove those tent pegs}
• What am I afraid of? Which clever methods (aka excuses) am I using to protect myself? {here are your tent pegs}.
  And how could I either release this fear or protect myself in a more healthy way? {that’s how to pull up those tent pegs}

So for me this week, the big tent pegs were:

• fear of public humiliation and unfair criticism – and even having lies told about me (that was a biggie!)
• fear of overwhelm
• fear of being a bad Mum
• fed up with ‘having’ to do so much doing when things just kept going round in circles
• fear of success leading to more public criticism, massively more overwhelm, drowning in my inbox / voicemail and having to ‘do’ so much that I totally let down my kids and I cease to ‘be’.

That’s a pretty impressive tent peg combo.

But there’s one that’s even deeper that I didn’t want to admit to myself – I had to get very close to the mirror on this one. It was a very old fear that ‘nobody will love me unless I give everything I have for free’. Not ideal, when you’re running a business with a family to feed. Yet so many of us do it! 😉

So now I’m spending my time slowly unpicking the habits which had kept those tent pegs rammed in the ground, so I can ride the wave I love, without feeling stuck or scared.

It’s concrete action time – and some big decisions.

Please don’t be offended by any of these – they’re made with love in a way that will allow me to serve more deeply and authentically, as well as to practise a much-needed degree of self-care.

I realised I have been spending at least 90% of my time on entry-level stuff that helps people who want to ‘dabble at the surface’, but haven’t really made a commitment to change.

My heart is calling me to dive in much more deeply and to empower those who are hungry to create deep-acting transformations.

Which means that:

• I will be spending much more of my time working with my Mastermind group, rather than creating more and more free stuff for my website (there’s plenty there for everyone for quite a while!)

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• My main newsletter will now drop to being fortnightly, instead of weekly

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• My podcast is going to become subscriber-only, so that I can fund the admin support to mean I actually get to deliver it.

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• I will be focussing more on my face-to-face work (email me if you’d like to join my August UK retreat on reconnecting with your inner authentic awesomeness or my October Authentically Awesome Business Mastermind Retreat in Turkey)

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• And if people want to work with me, they are going to need to make a commitment to themselves first.

I realised today how much of my energy I have been giving to people who are ‘window shopping’ – who aren’t really ready to make changes and who just want to do some surface work to ease the pain.

There’s nothing wrong with that – at all. It’s a perfectly valid place to be! But I’ve already got so many articles, videos, podcast episodes and entry-level courses that will help with that. And it was as though a huge amount of my energy was being spent on subconsciously begging them to want to dive in more deeply, when they weren’t ready to do so.

My deep passion – my calling – my Dharma – my unique Inner Genius – is to dive in more deeply with those who want to make a difference in the world, who most want to connect with who they really are, and who will do whatever it takes to make the changes inside, so that they can make a difference outside.

And it’s time for me to give myself permission to pull out the tent pegs that were keeping me only being able to do that with my ‘leftover’ time.And I know this will upset quite a few people. I genuinely apologise for that. Sorry.

But there are those of you out there whose hearts will leap at all of this, because it resonates for you. And I would love to know:

• Which wave do you want to be riding?
• Which ‘tent pegs’ are stopping you from being in that flow?
• And what could you do about it, today?

For those of you who want to join me on the Mastermind (doors close on Monday 11th), you can still get the Early Bird bonuses. And for those who genuinely can’t manage the full donation for the programme, please apply for a scholarship. I keep a scholarship fund so that no one misses out based on their ability to pay. What matters most is your enthusiasm, your commitment, your passion and the fact that you want to take action.

So there we have it – what a week of meltdowns taught me – and how they are going to be changing my world.

I wish you an amazing week and I’ll be back soon with some more (hopefully!) inspiring goodies.

With love, Namaste,

Dear all,

I hope you have had a great couple of weeks – sorry there was no newsletter last week, but I was flying back from our Mastermind Retreat in Turkey.

I’ve got a slightly unusual newsletter today, because instead of the usual articles, videos and gift courses I share with you, I’m writing to you, from the Heart, asking you to do something for yourself.

Some of you are new to working with me, and others of you have been hanging around together for years. But one of the things I love about you all is that you have chosen to take action to make changes in your life.

Each time you read one of my articles or watch one of my videos or join in with one of my courses, the ‘Future You’ does a happy dance – because you know that you took action today that will create the ‘tomorrows’ you have been dreaming of. And I am so proud of you!

But there’s only so far we can get with incremental, step by step changes, which is all we can do when it’s just the occasional article, video or foundation course.

And I know that some of you want to dream bigger.

Although diving in and making breakthroughs can feel scary, if we work together, then it’s much easier than you might think. But then, I’m guessing you already know that, if you’ve ever tried out any of the techniques I have shared with you.

For a long time now I’ve felt called to work much more deeply, with a small group of you – those who are ready to really dive in and co-create the life you have been dreaming of. So for the past six months I have been working on a programme that will create breakthroughs for you and help you to truly release those old habits and hidden blocks that had been keeping you stuck.And (wow it makes me nervous and also excited!) today is the day it goes live.

I have created the Authentically Awesome Business Mastermind for you.

If you’re running your own business (whether you’re the next Steve Jobs or a part time yoga teacher), or just dreaming about it, or working as a manager in someone else’s business and you want to grow your career, success isn’t about what we do. It’s about releasing the age-old fears, limits, blocks and (dare I say it) excuses that keep us stuck dreaming big, but playing small.

In the Mastermind we’re going to dive in with a fresh topic each month to really clear out, let go and step up to the next level. And the members get to choose what we cover, so it will always be fresh, exciting and just what you need, right when you need it.

And to celebrate the launch, I wanted to do something really exciting – to throw a massive party. You see, over the decade or more I’ve spent working one-to-one with passionate business leaders, I realised some vital truths that no one else was talking about, but which made the critical difference.

1. You don’t need a new business ‘formula’ or ‘guru’ or ‘programme’ or ‘school’ – you already hold the answers you need, deep inside.
   And it’s my Big Passion to show people how to find them.
2. Most people (in fact, nearly everyone) build their business ‘upside down’. And if you turn the pyramid up the other way, it transforms your experience of working with your dream customers – and makes it much easier for them to find you.

Plus May Day celebration bonuses – ONLY until midnight on 4th May:

• The next 10 people who join us on an annual basis get a free breakthrough mentoring session with me, which is usually over £200
• Everyone who joins today (annually or monthly) gets gift access to my newest online course (not yet available to the public): Let Your Light Shine

www.ClareJosa.com/MastermindSo for the first 8 weeks of the Mastermind, I’m going to be leading you, step by step, through my Authentically Awesome Business Blueprint. In it, I share exactly how to achieve (1) and (2) above.

I have never shared this outside of VIP one-to-one before, but it’s all yours, in bite-sized chunks, to inspire you on your journey.

I know you’re going to love it and the people who have had a sneak peak are already describing it as ‘awesome’ and ‘revolutionary’ and a ‘game-changer’.

Doors are open today – and they close at 11am on Monday May 11th. If you want to be part of this, you need to take action now.

The Mastermind is already priced as affordably as I can make it, whilst still delivering the quality and service you deserve. When the doors open again (possibly later this year?), it is likely to be up to double the current membership rate. But if you join now, you get to keep this lowest-ever-rate for as long as you’re still a member.

And to encourage you to take that action today (rather than missing out because it got put onto the ‘mañana-list’, as I call it), I’m celebrating May Day.

 

The next 10 people who join us (before midnight on May 4th) for the annual membership of the Mastermind get a bonus breakthrough mentoring session with me, which would usually cost over £200.

And everyone who joins us before then (annual or monthly) gets gift access to my newest (and not yet publicly available) online course: Let Your Light Shine. It’s perfect if you’re running a secret fear of Trolls, Haters & Criticisers that has been stopping you from stepping up in your business. Once it goes public, it will be £97.

You don’t need to do anything special to claim these extra gifts. Simply register here: https://www.clarejosa.com/mastermind and your bonuses will automatically be added to your account.

I know this programme isn’t for everyone, but I know that it will resonate with many of you. So thank you for reading this heartfelt message and normal newsletter service will resume next week.

And if you know anyone who ought to be part of this, or are a member of any business networking groups, I would be honoured if you would consider sharing the registration link, so that those whose hearts are calling them to be part of this practical, down-to-earth, yet passionately potent and hugely fun Mastermind get a chance to join us:

https://www.clarejosa.com/mastermind

Thank you! Wishing you a wonderful week, with love, Namaste,

Clare x

P.S. If you register for my next Mastermind Retreat in Turkey (October 2015) before May 11th, you get the annual Mastermind programme for the next year as my gift. Reply email hello@clarejosa.com if you’re interested.