When you are about to actually do something, the worry that it won’t work out and you won’t make the money you need has you fretting. Quite normal. Totally natural. Don’t judge yourself.

Unfortunately, what happens next is that the fretting turns into an endless tweaking before you actually carry out what your tweaking. As tweaking becomes endless tweaking, the first of the month gets closer… and your panic increases. Deer-in-headlights-syndrome sets in.

After lots of tweaking and not much accomplishing, you pull out your credit card, or whatever you do to squeak through another month.

That’s my story, although thankfully Heart of Business is past the years where I needed to pull strings in order to make it month-to-month. We’re moving toward launching our next course later this month, and we’re trying some new things. I’m nervous. Is it going to work? Am I doing it right? Am I betraying myself? After checking my heart, I know I’m not betraying myself.

Here’s what I want to tell both me and you. I’ve read this story before at least a 1000 times, and I’m betting you have, too. It still needs to sink in.

Business unfolds in iterations. You do something. It works maybe 20 percent as well as you’d like. You look at it, you try it again. It works 45 percent as well as you’d like. You look at it, you try it again, it works 70 percent as well as you’d like. Maybe that’s good enough. Seventy percent.

On to the next thing, until you have a hatfull of things functioning at 70% and you’re making a living. Then whew… you catch your breath. At this point you can really turn up the juice and get things going.

Yes, just a hat’s worth of things. A good list of responsive people, decent content that connects, a solid offer that your people want and need. They don’t have to be super-duper amazing. Just 70 percent effective.

Attitude is important. Spiritual alignment is important. Learning and understanding how others have been successful with various business-y things is incredibly helpful.

Our blog and Business Heart Toolkit are full of no-cost help on how to move your business forward. There are plenty of other people who also have incredible resources on moving your business forward. Molly, Charlie, Dave, Elizabeth, Naomi, Bill, Pam, Hiro, Andrea, and Suzanne, among many others, know what to do.

Bottom line? Take a step. Make a ton of mistakes. Mess up. Do it badly.

That Is So Uninspiring

We all have different approaches to this problem. Kate Williams, my compatriot here at Heart of Business, has a real love of quality. She told me when she read the first draft of this article, that it left her uninspired, somewhat deflated.

Let me be clear: 70 percent and “doing it badly” is not (necessarily) about sacrificing quality. Kate puts it this way, “I strive to do the best I can and take care of myself.”

The emphasis I want to bring is not to poor quality. When you are doing work that matters, of course you want to do it well. Your heart won’t let you do it badly.

The real emphasis is on the iterative process. When you do something for the third or tenth time, it has the opportunity to evolve, to become sharper, crisper, juicier, more effective.

If you aim for version 10.0 on the first try, you won’t do quality work, you won’t finish, and you won’t take care of yourself. When striving to do the truly impossible, that’s what happens.

Version 1.0 is Today

Don’t decide that the universe has given you the message that you’re doing the wrong thing simply because you’re getting version 1.0 results. Keep going. If you bounce around, you don’t get anywhere – you just start 1000 journeys.

I know. You’re wishing, as I have, that there was a magic formula, that someone could tell you to just do it this way and it will automatically be amazing and done. There are lots of folks who will promise you that, but the promises aren’t true.

Whatever you learn from someone else has to alchemically mix in the magic of your own heart and being and come out as your special sauce.

For the next few weeks, what is the 70 percent, the version 1.0 you’re aiming for?

p.s. Need practical help building your business from the heart?

I want to highlight our newest practitioner, Jason Stein. He’s an outstanding coach, who has this mysterious habit of helping people make money. He has a very deep commitment to spiritual practice and parenting. He’s an expert communicator, and his super-power is helping people ask for and receive help in their business.

If you’re ready to get your business moving and you’d like someone to roll up their sleeves and work with you, may I recommend checking out Jason? Read about our Organic Business Development Program, and schedule a time to speak with him.

“I’m just starting out, and I’m ready to start writing a blog, newsletters, twitter, etc., etc. But I’m stuck. I know who I’m writing for in generic terms, but I can’t ‘feel’ them as individuals. I’m trying to write for a whole group of people when I’m naturally someone who works best on a one-to-one basis. How on earth do I write in a way that will resonate with people when there’s no immediate feedback, no dialogue? Rather than feeling that I’m writing and my words are just being sent into the ether…”

Yes! I so totally get this. I can’t write to nobody, either. That’s why I asked someone to email me a question to answer.

In fact, that’s one of the Big Secrets to Great Writing—just write to one person. Even if you’re hoping that hundreds of thousands of people will read what you write, they probably aren’t all clustered around the same 17″ laptop screen. And even if they were elbowing each other out of the way, each pair of eyeballs is still taking in your words of wisdom individually.

So, there you go. Write.

“Ahem,” you say?

Still sitting there in front of a blank screen, wondering how to jump from the generic to the individual? Okay, aside from using Twitter, or The Business Oasis to get questions to answer, I’ll show you what I do with my heart.

But first, let me explain something about how help is delivered.

Help Is Drawn Towards Need

Stand up, with no prior preparation on a moment’s notice, in front of thirty-odd people and deliver a healing talk to them. That’s what we made our students do when I taught in the Teacher Internship Program at the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism.

Quite often the results were astounding. What would come forth from speakers would sometimes just send my heart flying, whoosh!

How did this work? There were a few principles involved:

First, everyone is needy. Our hearts are thirsting for love and Oneness in every moment. Always. Always. We can drink oceans dry and still not have our fill. As the Sufis say, “The aim isn’t to quench your thirst, the aim is to develop the perfect thirst so that you never stop drinking.”

This means that everyone in those classroom audiences was thirsting. This applies to you and your audience as well. No matter how big a kahuna anyone is, or how small and insignificant you feel, you can still be a conduit of love for them. And they still need the love.

Second, you are the conduit, not the Source. This means that when facing needy people, you don’t have to fill them up. However, you have an opportunity to be the bucket at the well, or the aqueduct, or whatever metaphor you choose.

Left-fielded question: what kind of conduit works best? An empty bucket, or a bucket full of sand? An empty pipe, or a pipe full of wadded up tissue paper? Yup, best to be empty.

Third, the Divine never fails to respond to true need. Call it trust, faith, or craziness, it’s just what happens. Even the Rolling Stones had it right on this one, “You don’t always get what you want…”

However, sometimes there’s a pause while we’re hooking up our conduit and letting it flow through. There’s no delay on the part of the Divine, but there can be a time-lag as we get in position to help.

It took some getting used to, but I’ve learned to love allowing “dead air” when I teach. Sometimes I’ll take what feels like an uncomfortably long time in silence to get connected, and then it flows through.

The mistake many of our Teacher Internship students made was rushing that connecting process. People sitting in front of you waiting expectantly, and you’re actually going to take an ENTIRE SIXTY SECONDS of silence to connect? OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod…

And when you spend the sixty seconds ohmyGod-ing, then it does become an uncomfortably long silence. But it’s not the silence, it’s the lack of connection.

And guess what? When you’re writing, there’s no one sitting in front of you, which is part of the problem. But it also means you can take as long an uncomfortable silence as you want.

Time to Connect

Try an experiment with me. First, think of a client or a friend, or someone else you know. Take a few moments to connect with your own heart (I suggest the Remembrance practice of course, but any heart-centering practice is good).

Now ask to connect with the heart of this other person. Don’t imagine. Don’t vision. Don’t make up pictures or stories. Just ask, with a willingness to be surprised. And take some time to notice what you notice, in your heart, in your mind, in your body.

There’s a connection. It’s there. It’s real. Trust it.

Use the Force, Luke

We started out with with the problem of knowing the kind of person you’re trying to reach, but not actually having any of them in front of you. You’re starting out at zero, brand new. No blog readers. No twitter followers. No current clients. Standing in the middle of a field, the breeze blowing through your hair, alone, you are.

There, bow your head. Touch into your humility. Let go of collapse and self-judgment, that’s not humility. Humility is when you realize how small you are, and that it’s okay.

Let go of everything you think you know. Connect with your heart. And ask to connect with the heart of someone your business is meant to serve. No name. No face. No personal knowledge. Just a heart connection. Ask for it. Be willing to be surprised.

Take some time with this. It may take a few minutes for you to connect, and for you to trust the connection.

Now ask to be made aware of their neediness, especially any neediness your heart can speak to. Be willing to be surprised.

Trust what comes in. Trust how your heart feels. Trust.

And then write. Write from that space of love and connection. Of compassion and humility. Of answering true need.

Okay, Let the Brain Back In

Once you have that connection, access the knowledge you have within your business. Answer some basic question people you help need answered. Continue to connect in with that neediness. Because you are writing to that one heart you were shown, you are giving to that one heart.

Try it. See what happens. And if you post it on a blog, come back here and post your link in a comment. I’d love to see what comes forth from your heart. Or, if you’re shy, you can email it to me.

p.s. Interested in having some one-on-one help for your business? Judy Murdoch is one of our Heart of Business practitioners, and she’s got a few client slots still open. She’d love the opportunity to open her heart and her deep knowledge of marketing, business and product creation to you. Organic Business Development Program.

Come share your thoughts in the Tent.

Exciting, isn’t it? Sure, exciting as a funeral.

If Your Business Isn’t Ready, This Could Be The End

It’s easy to want to hit it big. But the truth is rapid expansion is the most dangerous time for any business.

Am I against you succeeding? No way. I want you to flourish and thrive and enjoy your business. But I don’t want you to get flooded out.

Why Rapid Growth Is So Dangerous

When you grow, everything grows. I mean EVERYTHING. Your income grows, and so do the number of requests for help. Your database grows, and so do the number of complaints and negative feedback. The number of orders grow, and the number of mistakes you make grows, too.

Dealing with 1000 orders is very different than dealing with 10. Dealing with 20 clients is very different than dealing with 5.

A True Story

Once upon a time, there was someone who was excellent at what she did. Excellent. And naturally, the word spread.

What’s more, she accelerated her growth through really smart marketing. As has happened to many people, she even received so much traffic to her website that her servers were overwhelmed at one point.

Very cool, eh?

Then Things Started to Go South

Instead of answering emails cheerfully within a day, it was taking her two or three weeks to get back to people, simply because of the volume. She had more clients than she could handle, and they started to complain about her mistakes to each other, to people they knew, to everyone but her.

Plus there were hundreds of requests for services, requests she couldn’t fill, because it was just her.

And people started to drift away…

Do You See Where This Is Going?

It IS possible to turn a situation like this around. But it will definitely take some real effort and a new track record to get the good opinion of the marketplace back again.

What’s going on here spiritually? Well, it’s kind of like the old “hand in the cookie jar” story. You put your hand in the cookie jar, grab a bunch of cookies, but then your fist with all the cookies is too big for the neck of the jar. So you have to let go of all the cookies save one to get your hand out.

It’s about trusting that you’ll have what you need. When something seems too big to be true, it probably is. My experience is that the next right step always is something that feels real and grounded.

So are big jumps never permissible? When is it okay to blow the lid off and really “go for it”? Is there a way to grow rapidly, without risking your business?

Sure there is. Let’s take a look.

Keys to Safe and Rapid Growth

Because you care about your business so much, and probably really creative, you’ve most likely resisted implementing systems in your business, wanting to make sure that loving care is put into every detail.

For growth, you’ll want to start to identify where things are repetitive, and where the loving care can be put into a system that handles repetitive tasks. No, don’t put any less love and care into it. Just start to think about what details aren’t hurt when they are systematized.

The best time to do this is before you really need to. It helps to make sure that you have the time to put love into creating a system, instead of doing it in a panic with 100 upset customers breathing down your back.

You can’t do everything. A one-person successful business is a myth: every successful business requires the efforts of more than one person. And so you need to learn how to delegate, outsource, and hire people to help you, without breaking the bank.

This takes practice. Start practicing in small ways like hiring a virtual assistant for a few hours a month, just to get used to the idea. As you gain more experience, you’ll be able to outsource more and more. And eventually you’ll be comfortable hiring and allowing others to help you when you start to grow.

When you have thousands of people wanting help from you, the only sensible thing you can provide is a product. If you’re a service business, or even if you are creating things, but doing it in an old-fashioned, loving hand-crafted way, you’ll want to start to think “scalable.”

What kind of a product can you experiment with creating? Your first one probably won’t be a home run, so if you start creating your first information products now, you’ll get the hang of what your clients really want and need.

You may never want to grow to be really big. But even if you want to be moderately comfortable, these three steps: systems, hiring help, and having products are the foundational pieces you need in order to handle rapid growth.

Because it can happen. And instead of a prelude to your business’ funeral, it can be the joyous celebration it should be.