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The Money Marathon: Follow up and Practical Tools

23/2/2016

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I have just finished running a free coaching training called The Money Marathon, where participants for one week were given a virtual sum of money to spend every day. This helped them explore, what was in the way of getting as much money as they wanted. I'm sharing below some observations and tips that will hopefully be helpful to everyone who wants more financial abundance in the lives. These tips will be especially useful for you if you don't care much about money, and think there are more important things in life.

1. Money is NEVER a problem
Spending petty cash daily is easy, and this gives us an excuse that "we have no money to follow our dreams". However, when The Money Marathon participants were suggested to spend large sums (from 50,000 pounds and above) and the money suddenly stopped being a problem, most of them still felt very uncomfortable and ended up spending on things they didn't think they need or refused to spend it at all! What often blocks us from abundance is not money, but unwillingness to take the responsibility for our own decisions, to make choices, or the fear of making a mistake.

What to do about it: to identify your blockage around, train your imagination. Imagine you needed to spend a certain sum daily (without being able to save it for the next day), and multiply it by 2 every day. When do you get blocked?

2. Silence these voices
If you lack money, you most likely subconsciously associate it with problems. For instance, if you believe that "earning money means sacrificing my health", of course you would avoid any opportunity to earn a bit of cash, or only find those that actually make their life harder, making this belief a self-fulfilling prophecy. As absurd as it may sound, such beliefs often come from our family and often act on a subconscious level and are often difficult to identify.

What to do about it: make them conscious! Do an audit of your beliefs about money and check where these beliefs come from (most likely you inherited it from your close family members). Then decide if you still want to use it in your life, and if not, reformulate it into something better.
For example, if your belief is "earning money costs health", and this has got you to the place where you aren't earning anything and as a result you are constantly stressed and got sick because of it, this isn't a very good belief, is it? So you can consciously re-formulate it into something like "Earning money allows me to take of my health".

3. Use your body wisdom
Your body is the first to know whether you have any blocks around money. It will know that faster than your brain (no wonder, as it has millions of nerve cells perceiving information!). You will feel discomfort or a liberating sensation when thinking about spending it in a particular way.


How to use it
: If you need to make an important purchase (i.e. a new car, or a new house), but have no money for it, use your body to experience what it could be like to own this thing. Go to a test-drive, try on some really luxurious items in the shop or arrange a few viewings of flats (even though you don't currently have any cash in hand). Money may not fall out of nowhere, but when you use your body to experience what it's like to "own" the thing, you get more motivated to look for ways to earn/gain money. Many people who used this trick found ways to get credit/earn extra within weeks of engaging their body into the process.


4. Time IS money

Often people who struggle with earning or saving money also struggle with time management. Think about how you spend money and compare with how you spend time. What do you spend it? How do you talk to yourself when you procrastinate? Do you value your time, or are you happy to give it to anyone who asks for it at any point? Do you make "time investment" into some activities that are important to you? What are some patterns between spending money and time that you can identify?

I'd love to read how these tips make a difference - post them in the comments!

You can read the whole marathon tasks and do them here - Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 and Day 7.

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The Money Marathon: Day 6 (Saturday)

20/2/2016

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Well done everyone who passed the previous days! Only two days of the Marathon left, and here's your next task! Note: do not do this challenge unless you've done the previous ones, otherwise you will find it difficult.

1.    Today you’ve got £200,000 (or $290,000) to spend in any way you want to (spend all or partially, save etc).
  • What’s changing?
  • How are you feeling right now?
  • What will you spend it on?
  • Breath in and listen to yourself – any blocks in the body?

2.    Imagine I asked you to do something that feels very uncomfortable: i.e. go into an expensive restaurant, in a super luxurious shop, test-drive a car you would never ever be able to afford, ask for a business loan etc. It needs to be something that makes you scared and around what you have a belief “I will never be able to afford this to myself”.
  • What’s the feeling arising when I ask you to think about it?
  • What are you scared of?
  • How would you prepare yourself to doing this in stages?

Traditionally, post your answers in the comments!
​Previous challenges here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5.

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The Money Marathon: Day 5 (Friday)

19/2/2016

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We've done great work over the last few days. Today is the time to start doing a bit of reflection. I also encourage you to read other people's comments as we often find that we have some limitations while reading what others say.

1.    Look at your answers over the last 4 days. What are you noticing about your beliefs around money? Is there some part of yourself that seems to be afraid of money?
How does it do it (either by preventing you from earning or making you spend uncontrollably)? 
Imagine what this part may look like and talk to it. Ask it what it’s wanting for you and from you? Why is it trying to make you get rid of money/not earn any?

2.    Now (and only after you’ve talked to this part) get to your new spending: £10,000 (or $14,500) to spend today plus £50,000 to spend in any way to you want, not necessarily today.
​

What’s the feeling arising? Is this scary?
Do you feel like you’d like to stop following the marathon? Notice whatever is appearing, and identify where this resistance "sits" in your body.

Post your answers as comments here if you want feedback! 
If you are just joining, here are Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 of the marathon.


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The Money Marathon Day 4 (Thursday)

18/2/2016

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You've been doing great on spending money so far. It's getting more complicated now. Two tasks today:

1.    You get to spend £5,000 (or $7,250) today (and only today, all money will disappear at midnight unless spent). What will you spend it on (again, as before, be as specific as you can)?

​2.    Now second part – in addition to this part, you suddenly receive £25,000, which you can spend in any way you want (i.e. save, invest etc – it won’t disappear).
a) What do you do with this money?
b) What happens with your body and feelings when you read this task and when you are thinking how you'll spend it?

If you just joined the Money Marathon, here're Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 tasks.


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The Money Marathon: Day 2 (Tuesday)

16/2/2016

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Well done everyone who answered yesterday's questions! Today we continue to examine the patterns of your perception and behaviour in regards to money. 

Today, you get £3,000 (or $4,400) to spend under one condition: you MUST spend it before the end of the day. You cannot put it in the bank/save etc. - everything must be spent before Wednesday!

1. What will you spend it on? 
When writing an answer to this question, please be as specific as possible. I.e. do not generally write "I'll get a private tuition with a piano teacher, go to the restaurant, book a massage and buy a dress", but specify, what you will eat (study the menu!), what kind of dress it will be, where the massage will happen etc, and what it should cost.

For instance:
- Private class with a piano teacher in The Royal Opera House - 200 pounds
- Buy a beautiful long purple dress made of silk in Harvey Nichols - 850 pounds
- Buy a train ticket from London to Paris for 250 pounds to go out to Jules Verne restaurant, ordering the experience 6 course menu for 230 euro.


Got it? Really do your research, study the website or go out and check the place where you'd love to go!

2. What is the sensation in the body when you are working on this task?
Do you feel excitement, warmth, or are you short of breath, frozen etc? Are all parts of your body feeling the same? Where exactly do you have sensations you can identify?

Post your answers below and check this space later as I might ask you extra questions!

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Want to lose weight? Stop multitasking!

27/2/2015

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I am a business coach, not a health practitioner. However, I notice a strong correlation between how my clients treat their bodies, their state of mind and their business and career success. One thing that always strikes me is that people who try to do a lot of things simultaneously tend to be the least resilient to stress, suffer from low levels of energy and put more effort to achieve less. This is especially true for avid users of new technologies.

What science tells us

I like to base my work on solid scientific evidence and not just personal experience, so want to share with you some brilliant pieces of research about the negative impact of multitasking I’ve discovered. Scientists became concerned about media multitasking after a few fatal incidents with doctors who multitasked while treating their patients and made serious mistakes causing harm to their patients.

A research from Stanford University suggests that people constantly exposed to electronic information flow suffer from worsened memory and a lack of attention. They also have hard time switching from one job to another, even though they claim they are great at multitasking. Harvard scientists confirm that multitaskers are more likely to make mistakes, ignore important information or keep it in their working memory. As a result, their problem solving abilities and creativity can be diminished.

Yeah, but what can go wrong if I check my smartphone for a second? Everyone does that – and they are no dumb zombies!

True, nothing happens if you do it once in a while (unless you are a doctor working with a patient or in a similar responsible position). Problems arise when you keep doing this over and over again. Thing is, when you get distracted, your brain needs time to go back to what it was doing. The more often you distract it, the more time it needs to recover, and the worse your working memory gets. As a result, your mind doesn’t work anymore as good as it could be and you process relevant information at a slower pace.

Ok, but how does it impact my weight?

When you regularly multitask, you basically undermine your ability to filter information and pick what’s relevant for you right now. As a multitasker, you have harder time identifying when and what you need to eat, and whether you need to change your body posture or go do some exercise. If you have lunch in front of your computer, chances are you eat waaaaay more then you need (and chew worse, too!). If you want to control your craving, stick to your diet and keep exercising regularly, you need to have a well-organized and focused mind that is your ally and tells you what’s worthy of your attention.

I keep repeating it over and over again to all of my clients – you are a whole person, and if you want to be successful, you cannot separate your body from your mind or your actions. The way you behave impacts how you eat, the way you eat impacts the way you think, the way you think impacts how you behave! It’s all looped! (By the way, a perfect phrase to tweet, isn’t it? ;))

How to stop multitasking

So, how can one stop multitasking and make sure they are productive and healthy?

The authors of Organize your mind, organize your life suggest a whole series of steps, but the key one is to work in shifts. Concentrate only on one thing at a time, whether it is eating your lunch or reading your emails, and be fully immersed into what you do. When you switch to the next task, you need to abandon any thought about the previous task, until you get back to it, if you need to. What tends to happen is that we still process something that’s not related to what we are doing right now (i.e. in a meeting I keep on thinking of whether I’ve parked my car in a right place), therefore not making any of the two well! To be present, either go outside and re-park your car, or forget about it altogether.

Those who are part of a strong office culture might find it challenging to stop multitasking altogether, as in spite of strong evidence against multitasking many companies still expect their employees to do so, for example keep their email boxes opened all the time. It is also challenging not to multitask in an open office environment, where distractions are in abundance.

You don’t need though to openly fight against your employer or blame them for making you unproductive – instead of that, consider things you can control in your work vs things you cannot. If you are in control of organizing your communication most of the time, tell your boss and colleagues that you want to run a little experiment, and so will check your email at specific times. Make people feel curious and fun about your experiment, rather than guilty. If you are the boss, you can set up a specific hour when people can come and ask you questions, and agree that they don’t do it at other times (and if they do, they have to pay a symbolic fine that is used for the Friday pub crawl). Your whole day might not become instantly productive, but at least you can make the first steps to become less stressed and more efficient! And fit on top of that, too!


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Why every business person needs to dance tango

24/6/2014

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Welcome to anastasia.tips – a place where you learn to become successful in what you truly love to do!

Apart from being a coach, I am a passionate semi-professional tango dancer, and I use elements of this beautiful dance in my coaching, both with individuals and companies. So what does tango have to do with business?

As a coach (and a passionate tango dancer), I like to use elements of tango when I work with teams and groups of different individuals who have to learn to collaborate. It is an especially powerful tool to work with people or companies coming from a different culture. What do tango and business have in common?


Business is about relationships, and tango is about relationships, too. Tango dancers know like no other what a true partnership means. Here are four key principles of a successful tango partnership that will help you improve both your personal and business relationships.

1.       You are totally responsible for yourself and your role
In tango, staying balanced is your task, and not your partner’s. If you can’t keep your weight off your partner and try 'hanging' on him/her giving your ‘full self’, if your partner has to pull you across the dance floor, there’s no dance. If anything your partner does puts you off balance, there’s be no dance. To be able to dance together, both of you need first to stay stable on your feet and be connected to your core – and only then listen to where your partner is proposing to go.

Sounds obvious when we’re talking about a dance, doesn’t it? How about we apply the same principle to business?

Think about your difficult business relationship(s): where in your career or business do you go off your balance and give all your ‘weight’ to one particular business relationship? 

Another example of the same issue: how often do you go off balance when your business partner or client does something that you didn’t expect? Does it take minutes, hours or days for you to adjust?


An example from my life: in early days of setting up my coaching business I was making a classic mistake. Whenever I would get a potential client who promised to 'think about' working with me, I then would relax and wait for them to follow up without making extra moves in other directions. Of course, I were very disappointed if the client decided not to come on board eventually and it took me a while to get back into my confident self - because I had spent so many hours thinking about how it could work out and was counting so much! Do not make this mistake and make sure that you keep your balance in the relationship no matter what.

Think about where in your business relationship you become disconnected from your ‘core’. Do you perhaps accept a job or task that you don't really want to do? Do you agree to things that don't appeal to you just keep the client relationship going? Does it really improve your relationship? Usually, when you don't build the partnership and relationship from who you really are, from your core, remaining well-balanced, it's not long before you start experiencing problems.

2.       Leaning in means giving to each other as much as they give you

In a perfect tango alliance, both partners give each other an equal amount of weight. They lean towards each other while standing firmly on their feet (and staying connected to their core). If you do it right, you will almost fall forward on the floor if your partner moves out of your way. 


The same principle applies to any successful partnership: I am here for my partners' success and he is here for mine, and we both contribute evenly towards it. If each of us only thinks only about his/her personal performance, there will be no partnership (or dance). If one party gives less (or more) to the partnership, there's no dance (and the relationship isn't productive either).

Leaning in means that when one of you makes one step forward, your partner has to take one step backwards, and vice versa. If he decides to move forward instead, he’d land on your feet, not the most exciting experience (although somewhat unavoidable at the early stages of learning to dance or building a business relationship).

Unbalanced power frequently shows up in the relationships between investors and companies they finance. When something is going wrong, often investors overexercise their power and 'step' on the feet of an entrepreneur, instead of leading them to the desired direction.

It’s also happens often in service industries (my experience is with media and advertising agencies). When they don’t want to lose a powerful client, they often accept everything a client throws at them, instead of setting up some boundaries and giving their ‘weight’ back to the client and challenging his viewpoint and decisions.




3.       
3.       A good tango dancer knows both how to lead and to follow (and knows when to do both!)

In a classic tango, a man takes the role of a leader, a woman that of a follower. However, if you are an advanced dancer, you are likely to be able to do both roles. Also, in the dance sometimes a leader gives a follower an opportunity to lead, just to make it more fun. He also leaves some space to the follower to make her own embellishments. 

Same in business. Very often one wants to take a leadership role in a business alliance, and have everything done as and when they think is right. However, this approach doesn't leave our partner any opportunity to be creative and experiment, and makes the whole ‘dance’ far less spectacular.


Yet, sometimes one needs to focus only on the ‘core’ movement and leave any embellishment aside not to lose our partner or client. Question is, how can you find a balance between the two? How will you know you’ve found one?

4.       Don’t try to make complex steps with a beginner

When leaders first learn to tango, they get excited about being able to do fancy volcadas and boleos, and practice them with every single girl they invite to dance. Needless to say, not all girls know how to do fancy elements properly (and not all of them enjoy learning them under pressure). 

A good tango dancer matches his level with the level of his partner and tries to make even a basic dance can be pleasurable. A poor tango dancer keeps insisting or accusing the partner of not being able to make certain steps. As a result, instead of having a great dancing experience, both partners end up frustrated about each other and are likely not to dance together again anytime soon.

Someone who’s been a leader in their team or tried to delegate certain things to other people and failed will recognize this pattern immediately. You are all excited about things you know and want to do and think it’s really simple. However, when you ask others to do something that seems so simple to you, they mess everything up, because they don’t have your level of knowledge and experience. You get angry and start explaining them what needs to be done, and they mess up again (or ask you for a confirmation every five minutes). They get frustrated and make even more mistakes. Sounds familiar?


Having read what you've just read, what could you do differently if you were a tango dancer?

In the ideal world, you want to dance with somebody who is a little better than you are to learn something new. However, if that’s not always possible, so get people to do things they can do to make the experience pleasurable for both.

I will be delighted to hear about your business experience and how you think knowing the key principles of tango could help you improve it. Please, write about it in comments!

Best of luck - and venture into doing what you really love to do!
Anastasia

PS Want to know more about tango and business? I run workshops on tango for business for individual and corporate clients in London. If you want to know more, please get in touch and I’ll send you all information.

Photo source: Flickr

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    Who is Anastasia?

    Chief inspirator, start-up mentor, professional Co-Active life coach and career coach, systems worker and passionate tango dancer. Get to know me! 

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