Author: Anna Sun Choi

Why I love working with conscious entrepreneurs is because they are willing to be uncomfortable, take risks, fail, find their voice, and innovate ways to impact their communities and beyond.

As conscious entrepreneurs, you have an opportunity here to demonstrate real leadership in the face of the chaos.

The last two weeks I’ve been deep diving into learning about the Black Lives Matter movement. Being silent in my business was not a message I was willing to convey.

The entrepreneur traits of being willing to be uncomfortable, take risks, fail, and find their voice are what’s needed to lead the way in supporting the Black Lives Matters Movement.

Here are 4 entrepreneurial principles you can use to support #BlackLivesMatter:

1. Commit to taking a stand.

What are you committed to? What’s your why? How does engaging with the Black Lives Matter movement align with your values in your life and business?

For me, my mission is to empower the next generation of leaders to cause a tipping point in humanity’s consciousness. I cannot do that if such a large majority of humans in my country and neighborhoods are getting shot because the color of their skin. I also cannot do that if there are scared folks committing the acts of violence. A change of consciousness must first happen.

I committed to showing support and taking a stand (literally!) by attending a peaceful protest (outdoors with masks staying 6 feet apart).

I was recently asked by Forbes to give feedback on several questions readers are asking as part of the Forbes Coach’s Council.

With the global pandemic shutting down schools, I suddenly found myself with an 8 year old trying to now home school and run my full time business, while dealing with the emotional disappointments of a cancelled vacation to show my son the Grand Canyon and visit Grandparents in Arizona, TEDx cancelling their live event to 6000 viewers for which I was selected (a dream come true), and cancelling an event I spent 2 months promoting and was projected to make income for the next few months. Not to mention, after spending a quarter honing down on various marketing strategies to focus, I decided to double down on live speaking engagements, hiring a coach for several thousands to train me on selling high ticket programs from the front of the stage–which, well, wasn’t exactly going to happen now. Yes, I freaked out. Felt loss and disappointment. Wasn’t clear how or whether to pivot because frankly, virtual webinars just aren’t the same kind of impact as speaking to a room of real people.

Consider life has always been uncertain, in constant transition, and constantly changing.

However, with the global pandemic, stock market crash, closed schools, banned travel, and cities or countries going into lock down mode with physical distancing, life’s uncertainty is now in your face. It’s difficult to go anywhere, do anything, or talk with someone without  touching on this topic of how you’re faring in these uncertain times.

Institutions and systems from which humans have operated are no longer relevant as old models are breaking down and new models are already in motion to set the new norm for the next decade. 

Yet, now more than ever, is the perfect time to rise up and start to examine within yourself of what matters. 

Here are 3 steps to transform crisis into opportunity. 

1. Assess How You are Dealing with Fear 
There are four ways human beings typically face fear. None of them are better or worse, just different variations of response. Typically we can relate to more than one response.

In the last two weeks, which of the following responses did you experience? 

Fight: People who fight might be fighting reality by denying there’s any problem, talking about how people are freaking out unnecessarily, and maybe even making it known that this is all temporary. You might fight the facts by turning off the news, or not bothering to research the numbers and data, and just call all of it fear mongering without preparing for the long term future. 

The other way to fight is literally on the ground, providing relief and aid to hospitals, school lunches, doing food drop offs and more. You are exhausted by the end of the day but keep fighting through it,  living in the short term telling yourself, I’ll make it. I can survive this.

Flight: You take all the news to heart, paying heed, and reacting to the situation by running away, overstocking on supplies or masks just in case, with your attention mostly on you and your family needs, feeling panic, and maybe even getting sick from the stress. You prepare and are upset with anyone who doesn’t prepare the way you have.

When you talk with others, you might even spread the fear emotionally. But you can’t help it, you’re in panic mode.

Freeze: You are stunned by what’s happening and continue to watch and observe taking no new action. You simply wait it out trying to survive the situation. You suffer silently and are not in communication.  You don’t seek answers, new actions, and simply  watch everything around you. This too shall pass, expecting things to go their normal way hopefully in a few weeks. 

Flow: You feel afraid and face it by realizing the magnitude of impact of what’s happening and immediately start preparing life for the short and long term. Yes, you’re human and still have emotions to manage from others around you and within, and you keep allowing fear to be without trying to deny, fix, or indulge in it. Your are clear this is the opportunity of a lifetime to leverage as a leader who will stay calm in the eye of the storm and take actions now for both the short and long term. 

Now, honestly assess yourself in the last two weeks.

Did you fight, flight, freeze, or flow? Perhaps a mixture of all of them or some of them. 

Ask yourself is that the response you want?  Be sure to acknowledge and have compassion for yourself and your response.  This will help bring your consciousness or self-awareness up a notch.

If not, what kind of response do you want and what are new actions you can take to align with that response?

2. Take new action. 

While no one has a crystal ball, the data from World Health Organization is pointing to that this new normal will last for another 4 months optimistically if not 18 months to 2 years realistically. Don’t bury your head in the sand.

Some possible actions as a business owner or entrepreneur might include:

• Be in much more communication than normal. Consider we are in a time warp, where one day feels like one week which means you are either going to be leveraging that or letting it pass by. Call, not mass email, all your existing clients and be there for them. Listen for what they need, ask questions, and take notes. 
• Based on what you hear, reframe or repackage what you were selling IF it no longer applies to the concerns of today. You may not need to create something new at this time–instead, you might just pivot your messaging, grounded in what you offer, to what people need today.
• Stop operating alone as you were. Yes, you may have to cut costs, employees, contractors, or new projects. However, now is the time to collaborate with trusted partners to rise together. 

3. Embody certainty through magnifying your presence offline first, then online.
People follow confidence and flow towards certainty. Now is your time to shine. 

Yes, you’ll need to quickly determine what you are now offering, package, price, and market those offerings.

More importantly, you’ll need to create your daily practices to stay grounded and embody the confidence of your new direction.  By focusing first on your day to day energy management and double downing on your own well-being, this will be the natural fuel for you to shine from the inside out to develop strength and courage for reframing your business to then sell online. 

Here are a few ways to ground yourself day to day while physical distancing: 

• Create a morning ritual. What is the one thing that nourishes your soul?  That is like an energy shower, clearing out toxic energy, emotions, and thoughts? It might be walking in nature, or taking 1 minute of deep breathing. Make it something small and inspiring that you can stay consistent with for at least 7 days in a row. 
• After 7 days, pick a new action or extend doing the same one thing that nourishes your soul to 21 days. 
• Mindful eating. Every meal, do nothing else. Just breathe and eat, allowing yourself to be. Before eating, think about how your meal started from seeds in the earth, becoming produce, which then got harvested, sent to sold, shipped to a grocery store, for you to then prepare. Be grateful how many hands your food touched to be on your table. Then Focus on chewing 30x before swallowing. 
• Focus your mind’s awareness on your core while you talk and engage in normal activity. This is very difficult and requires super grounded energy. You can practice just be placing an object in front of you. Focus your attention on that object. Now, shift your attention on your body–notice and feel the difference. Now focus your attention on both your body and the object. This is called embodiment and an ideal state that allows you to stay grounded in your values, versus wrapped up in the agenda of what’s around you whether that be the news, another person’s mood, or work deadlines. 

Now is Your Time
If you picture fear and uncertainty like a huge tsunami wave, instead of fighting, running away, or freezing–what if you could surf the wave? What would that look like? What would be required of you to become to ride the wave?

This requires FACING the fear and utilizing that energy to flow above the noise and ultimately turn this time into the biggest opportunity where you look back and think, “Wow, that was worth my time.” Inquiring into and meditating on that question is a healthy way to channel all the energy arising from uncertainty, that can unlock your brain’s creative potential. 

You have a choice. Crisis is merely accelerating the next 6 weeks as a hyper window of opportunity. What might normally take years to dismantle as far as old institutional models are suddenly broken overnight as new models for business, schools, home life are now emerging creating the next billion dollar industries of our time. 

While you cannot control your environment or what’s outside of you, you can focus on creating certainty in yourself through facing your fear, choosing to flow, taking new actions, and embodiment by being present and grounded.

This will create resiliency and trust in yourself to adapt to a life that was always uncertain and unknown. Every time you make that choice, you become the leader this world  needs now more than ever. What makes this crisis an opportunity is how many chances you get to keep choosing to face the fear collectively and within–and instead, embody your values in co-creating a new future and a new decade on our planet earth. 

Immunity is a hot topic now! 

Whether it’s because of the flu season, allergies, or global epidemics, the strength of your immune system has become the focus for many. 

Here are 4 ways to boost your immunity and enhance its power:
 
1. Smile. Did you know in one study, one smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as receiving $25,000 in cash or eating 16,000 bars of chocolate? See the Hidden Power of Smiling TED talk here. 

2. Supercharge: Do Sleeping Tiger or Intestinals exercise (start at 9:40 min). In preparation for allergies and during this global epidemic, I’m doing Sleeping Tiger 20 minutes every day to supercharge and accumulate core energy, which raises my body temperature by 1 degree boosting white blood cell counts, circulating blood and oxygen more effectively to clear toxins out as well as 1000 intestinals. I recommend you just start doing 100. 

3. Embrace Stress. Stop trying to get to a state of low stress. Instead, find your rhythm when it comes to stress. Short-term stress can actually strengthen your immune system if you give yourself time to rest and relax! Then you can recharge your energy and get ready for tomorrow’s challenges.
 
4. Be Selfish. Own your needs and desires, but don’t let them rule you. By being a little selfish with what you need, you can develop ownership over your desires. Then, at critical moments, you won’t be overwhelmed by them. Watch the video below to learn how to be selfish, and help boost your immunity by feeding your brain healthy news.

As the purpose- and profit-driven business model becomes mainstream, your conscious business will need to focus on being more present as a measure for profitability. Why? In the last two years alone, sustainable, responsible and impact investing has become more mainstream where 26% or one out of every four dollars under professional management is now invested in SRI. The trend of SRI investing has also exponentially increased since 2012.

From a small business and conscious entrepreneur coach who once worked on Wall Street as an SRI advisor, here’s another piece of data to consider: In 2016, Morningstar, a company measuring a mutual fund’s risk-adjusted return, started integrating sustainability ratings based on a company’s ESG (environmental, social and governance) measures, alongside the traditional, profit-only performance indicators. Considering performance indicators that go beyond the bottom line is not a passing trend; it’s simply how business is now being done.

CEOs of nearly 200 companies recently shared a business roundtable statement saying that shareholder value is no longer their main objective. While their public commitment is commendable, and potentially a game-changer, continuing to track and measure the quadruple bottom line of people, planet, profit and presence will be critical in determining the future of business performance and success.

There have been several measures for the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit; however, in my experience, focusing just on those three bottom lines is unsustainable and can result in just a bunch of burned-out do-gooders. It’s critical to integrate a fourth bottom line of business: presence.

By integrating the fourth “P” of presence, your business has a shot at building an economy that lasts versus going bankrupt. How can you measure presence? First, ask yourself what presence means to you, both in your life and your business. Is it about well-being, being more self-aware, less toxicity and gossip or creating happier energy? Once you’ve answered that, you’ll have an easier time measuring success.

Three Ways You Can Measure Presence

1. Number of breaths per minute

With my clients, we measure presence by the number of breaths per minute. Just the exercise itself allows people to slow down, be in their body and pay attention to their breath, like a mini-meditation break. If after the one minute, there are still too many breaths being taken, that indicates a level of stress that won’t be as productive as energy that is more grounded.

2. Number of days offline, not working or on vacation

Like the seasons, you cannot expect a business to always be in spring and summer mode. It needs time to transition like fall and hibernate and reflect like winter. Despite knowing this intellectually, too many businesses try to outsmart nature through systems that never sleep. What you miss in the time off, is the ability to gain perspective on whether what you are doing is working or even relevant anymore, the ability to synthesize everything so far and more.

3. Scoring your energy state

You can take a free energy state quiz to get a baseline for how you are doing if you measure energy by health, happiness and peace of mind that corresponds to energy centers in your gut, heart and mind. This assessment will show you where you need to improve and what you are doing well at that you should maintain.

Measuring your breath, time off and energy state are just a few ways to measure presence. Depending on your definition of presence, there are other measures to experiment with as well — especially in the domain of happiness.

Happiness Resources 

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index includes a wholistic measure beyond subjective happiness that includes many facets of general well-being such as health, education and living standards.

Inspired by Bhutan, the Happiness Alliance is a nonprofit that has created a Happiness Index that incorporates western values on a basis of 13 domains from work, time balance and social support to the environment, government and education. The website shares an annual Happiness Impact Report, along with many free resources to utilize in creating measures for your business.

No matter how you choose to measure presence in your business, the first step is to start with you. Pick a measure to practice over a set period of time, observe and note the differences, then continue with the same measure for deeper practice or choose a new measure.

Committing to measuring presence will have far-reaching benefits beyond your profit, helping you connect with others and our planet and thereby creating a new normal, resilient global economy.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

As a mission-driven small business owner, one of the biggest investments you can make is in yourself and your business marketing strategy to make this year more profitable than before.

Once holidays hit, for many conscious entrepreneurs, it’s a time to be grateful and reflect on the past year, providing a space to create the new year through business planning.

While this sounds good in theory, more often than not, many small business owners and conscious entrepreneurs I’ve worked with don’t have or make the time to plan. They are too busy reacting, or randomly marketing by “shooting arrows everywhere” with a scattered approach.

The other half who do make a “plan” either limit it to simply setting annual goals and call that a plan, or they don’t regularly or consistently track progress on their plan. Many don’t even look at the plan until the following year!

The question is: How can you create a plan you will actually use? Here’s how you can create a simple framework to plan out this year.

First, create a picture in your mind’s eye of exactly what life and business you want to create. Close your eyes, and visualize the questions. Then jot down answers or a representative picture of what you saw in your journal afterward. You could also find a guided meditation or collage a vision board to gain clarity on what you really want to create that’s outside the box. Otherwise, you risk creating from the same place you were last year.

From there, create SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) goals that reflect the picture you felt, saw or heard in your one-year visualization.

Once you have your goals, you’re ready.

Three Simple Steps To Plan This Year

1. Map out your year in boxes. 
On a piece of paper, make a box, and divide it into four rows and three columns, creating an annual monthly calendar divided by quarter.

2. Block out your time off first. 

This includes your vacations, trips and other time off. Schedule that time off into the month you’ll be gone. I recommend taking a minimum of one week off per quarter to recharge.

Side note: Unlike America, many other countries enjoy thirty days off or more each year for holidays and statutory minimum paid leave (which means you have to take time off).

Rest helps you synthesize ideas, create new ones and get perspective, whether or not what you’re doing is working. Ignoring rest is like trying to have constant spring and summer with no fall or winter. All of life goes through cycles. You are no different, even if you try to be superhuman in your business.

3. Schedule in the rest of your commitments.

In order of high to low priority, block out the following in your calendar:

• Existing commitments you have already made, both personal and professional, such as speaking engagements, business conferences, networking events, children’s school events, graduations, weddings and so on

• Planned marketing campaigns or offerings for your business, such as holiday cards, client appreciation gifts, marketing webinars, learning programs you plan to offer and so on. This schedule needs to become your rhythm for the year. It will establish a baseline for retaining your customers and attracting a steady flow of new leads.

• New quarterly promotions you’ll focus on per quarter to drive new revenue growth. These are your sprints amid the marathon that is business.

Set Yourself Up For Success

After your first draft, make sure to inspect the plan to see if there are any unrealistic timelines. Be sure to add buffer times for the unexpected. Make sure that all your personal life important events, such as birthdays, kids’ soccer games and anniversary celebrations are included as well to gauge your bandwidth or capacity to actually fulfill on this.

Once you let your brain analyze feasibility, listen and feel with your heart and intuition if you’re inspired or excited by the plan. If not, go back to the drawing board. Take out what drains you energetically, and add in what would light you up and fuel your energy.

This is not a one-hour activity. Carve out a half day to a whole day to do this, aside from distractions and disruptions, preferably off-site from where you normally work. It takes your brain at least thirty minutes to settle into deeper thinking.

Get feedback from trusted peers, colleagues and coaches who have done this kind of planning and can point out any red flags, missed opportunities or unclear milestones. It’s critical to get outside perspectives that go beyond your individual, siloed thinking.

If you have a team, also run the plan, milestones and goals by your team, and get their perspective of what needs to be added, deleted or edited. Their perspectives are invaluable.

Now What? 

Knowing how to plan your year won’t make any difference unless you implement your plan.

You know this may be critical for your business success, so if you suspect you won’t make time for it, you can find or organize a group of at least three to four like-minded conscious business owners around your same revenue level to get feedback from. You can also attend a workshop or hire a business coach.

By taking a few hours to map this out, you’ll save yourself a ton of time and gain clarity, focus and more energy flowing into your new year.

Invest in yourself and your business. You’re worth it.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.

An emphasis on growth at any cost has decreased well-being and happiness levels individually and collectively. The long-accepted “hustle and grind” culture in business is fast becoming an antiquated model for today’s society.

Instead, imagine businesses where team members must report on well-being as a key performance indicator, like any other typical sales and marketing metric of profits. Where every purchase in the workplace has been responsibly sourced, and words like “gossip” and “toxicity” become extinct. Higher-level, more conscious words like “compassion” and “joy” dominate business vernacular as all business leaders focus first on themselves, not others, to make change.

This transformative energy impacts their surrounding teams and environment, in turn rippling out to a new normal for the global economy being both purpose- and profit-driven — igniting what I call a Presence Movement.

What Is The Presence Movement?

From a high-level view, it’s valuing being present in business and life. It’s being conscious, or highly self-aware, of fully living each moment, tending to one’s own well-being and happiness, aligning one’s mind, body, heart and soul.

However, most small business leaders face two major global trends that can hinder this.

Need For Constant Adaptation

What you learn today may become obsolete tomorrow. As technology outpaces our brain’s ability to adapt and keep up, the sheer impact of the data we encounter daily will continue to accelerate.

Some say 65% of preschoolers will be in jobs that don’t yet exist, and 90% of the entire world’s data was generated in the last few years. Technology is only accelerating to the point of singularity. Imagine what it will be like two years from today.

Decision Overwhelm

The ever-increasing, constant information overload causes too many options for our brains to sort, analyze and choose. On top of that, our brains are dealing with so many competing apps, and email inboxes are becoming storehouses for junk. Conscious entrepreneurs cannot keep up with the sheer volume to process.

Your brain endlessly multitasks with multiple tabs open, app notifications and message interruptions just sitting there unless you shut off all electronics and go totally offline.

On top of that, conflicting online advice makes it more difficult to discern and make choices aligned with your highest self. You can find whatever you want to believe online. But what is the best step to take right now, at this stage in business, that’s a fit for your strengths and your market?

How This Applies To Your Business

Shifting times call for shifts in business models. As I like to note, there are two critical questions to ask ourselves:

• To stay relevant in today’s constantly evolving market, how will you make decisions for your business from the inside out, amid all the noise?

• In what ways can your business integrate the quadruple bottom line of people, planet, profit and presence (the 4 P’s) to make a stronger impact in your community and beyond?

These questions are what catalyzed the Presence Movement.

My clients have inquired into these questions. Just by asking themselves these questions, they are able to make new choices, allowing themselves to be more present and more in flow during their day.

For example, one client has learned to breathe. They counted the number of breaths they took in a minute and discovered it was too high. They now set a timer labeled “breath” every hour that reminds them to pay attention to their body and notice their quality of breath.

With other clients, they are now ensuring they take a minimum of four weeks, if not six weeks, off a year, ideally a week per quarter, to allow a full recharge for the next quarter.

Once they realize that rest is not only more productive but required, it debunks any myth that working harder, longer or faster is more effective. Instead, they discover how going slower can actually be faster in creating more quality, long-term, sustainable progress.

Three Simple Steps To Ignite A Presence Movement

1. Commit 
Taking actions without commitment won’t work long term through the unexpected breakdowns that are likely to happen. By committing, you can navigate through challenges and obstacles. When the storms of life inevitably hit, your commitment acts as a beacon or guiding light of what direction to take next.

2. Calculate 
To calculate is to track and measure an intended action, or to design and plan. What is your baseline to measure your progress? Take an assessment, and then set a goal for where you want to go and what your focus will be for the next quarter.

3. Connect 
The key to making something be alive and to be held accountable is sharing this with others. Staying connected in a community online or in person is key to keeping your commitment alive through the conversations you have with like-minded folks who care about this, too.

The Presence Movement Starts With You

Being present is a choice you make each moment, every instant, right now.

By learning to listen to our breath, integrate our brain with our bodies and make more time to rest, we create an infinite wellspring of energy to draw from and circulate with others, elevating the consciousness of those around us and beyond.

By igniting the fourth P, or presence, in the quadruple bottom line of people, planet, profit and presence in your business, it allows an empty space to simply be, in wonder and awe of what will emerge.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com.