Back to the Seed * CONNECTED newsletter issue #1

The speaker discusses the importance of finding inner peace and coherence amidst the noise and stress of marketing and entrepreneurship. They guide the listener to focus on their heart, breathe deeply, and generate feelings of appreciation for their entrepreneurial journey. The speaker explains the concept of heart coherence and how it can positively impact our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. They also suggest reaching out to friends and family as a starting point for marketing and building trust. Lastly, they encourage the audience to reflect on their entrepreneurial desire and engage in a discussion about it. Hello everyone, Narnia Dawn here, and you're listening to Connected, the bi-weekly newsletter for guidance on growing your business in coherence. This is issue number one, and it's called Back to the Seed. There's so much external noise right now, so many different places where you could be marketing your business, so many different tactics to try, angles to take. You could have a lot of internal noise inside your brain as well. Fear of making the wrong choices, resistance around even having to market. Are you doing enough? Should you be doing more? Why isn't it easier? So just take a moment to take a break from all of that noise, all of that stress. Take a break from that overthinking. Don't worry, you can go back to it later if you want. Believe me, it'll still be there. But for now, focus your attention in the area of your heart. You might find it helpful to put your hand over your heart area, but it's not necessary. Just keep your attention there in the area of your heart, and imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area. Breathing just a little bit slower and deeper than usual. So go ahead and inhale five seconds into your heart, and exhale five seconds from your heart. And then find whatever rhythm is comfortable for you. As you slow your breathing down, putting your attention around the heart area helps you center and come into heart coherence. Now I'm going to ask you to focus on a feeling such as appreciation or care for someone or something in your life. So that could be focusing on a person or a pet. It may be a favorite place in nature. Just allow the feeling of appreciation for that thing to start to blossom into even more of that feeling. Again, keeping your attention in your heart area, breathing in and out of the heart. And focus for a moment on when you first wanted to become an entrepreneur. Now a specific memory or time may have immediately sprung to mind. There may have been a very specific moment at a certain point in your life when you knew that you wanted to be in business for yourself. If there wasn't a specific time, that's of course totally fine too. But at some point you knew that this was part of what you are being called to do, to be an entrepreneur, to be part of building and growing a successful business. So recall that now and start to generate some appreciation for that, for that spark, for that very first seed of wanting to be an entrepreneur. The impulse to build your own business, helping transform the lives of others either with your products or services. That first seed of creating and building something new for the greater good of all. Now as you focus on this feeling, is there any symbol or image that comes to mind for you? That's not necessary. I'm just curious and you can get curious too. I'm also wondering, what do you think would change if you start any marketing action from this place, from getting into this place of focusing on your heart, generating appreciation for that initial spark of entrepreneurship, starting any marketing action from this place of heart coherence? Does it add a sense of playfulness? Does it get you fired up? No matter what you're feeling right now, where are you feeling it in your body? Just notice for a moment what that feels like. And bring your attention now back to your heart. Again, focusing on that gratitude. Feeling appreciation for your desire to be a successful entrepreneur, having a powerful positive impact on the world. And you can allow this heart coherence to carry over into the rest of your day. Anchored in science. Coherence is defined as synchronized entrainment of your breathing, heart rate variability and blood pressure rhythm. In dynamic systems theory, coherence means connectedness, alignment, resonance and optimal energy utilization. If you're not already familiar with them, the HeartMath Institute has been researching the heart-brain connection and learning how the heart influences our perceptions, emotions, intuition and overall health since 1991. Their heart rhythm research has shown that generating feelings like appreciation, love or compassion creates a cascade of positive effects throughout the entire body. Our heart sends a smooth, coherent signal to the brain that brings all of our systems into alignment, creating clear thinking, more emotional stability and the ability to make more effective choices, says Dr. Rollin McCrady, the research director at HeartMath Institute. Again, activating your own coherence helps you relieve stress and anxiety, balance your mental and emotional energy and connects you with your higher creative potentials. I've included an image from the U.S. National Institute of Health PubMed site that shows measured coherence after using the HeartMath techniques like the one we just did. You can learn more about HeartMath and their ongoing coherence research at HeartMath.org. Next up, in the market. People do business with people they know, like and trust. If you are just starting your business, the best place to begin your marketing is often your friends and family. They already love and trust you. Send a quick personalized email or message checking in on them to see how they are doing and let them know what you're up to now. Craft a clear statement like this, I help blank get blank results with my blank. And then ask, do you know anyone who could benefit? If you've been in business for a while, reach back out and touch base with them again. They'll be excited to hear your updates. And of course, having some free, valuable new content to share always helps. Just started your newsletter? Make sure your inner circle knows about it and can help spread the word. I've included a diagram of the expanding circles of our audience that shows how immediate love and trust tend to diminish as you scale outward. Before you start networking in that larger circle, it helps to be crystal clear on who you are serving. More on that in the next issue, so stay tuned. And I'd love to hear from you. Do you remember the first time you felt the desire to be an entrepreneur? Click that link to comment and see what others are saying. I'm so grateful that I am here with you connected. Thanks for listening.