Hello there blossom,

With only 5 days left for you to claim your space in the next round of the Practical Magic Business Circle, I wanted to share something - just with you. I've been writing a lot on the blog as we approach the day when I open the circle, but I wanted to write something exclusively for my newsletter subscribers, and so....

10 Ways To Make Your Business Practically Magic (Plus 1 Goddess-Given Tip!)
 

So, ok, what on earth does it mean to build and invest in a practical magic business? What does that even look like?

Well, I'd like to share with you 10 ways in which you can do business the practical magic way, plus 1 tip to bring clarity to your business finances, which comes direct from the goddess Lakshmi, who is the goddess of the day in my free Goddess Guidance group on FaceBook. 

Ready? Ok, here we go….

Date Your Business - Every Wednesday I treat my business to a date. Because, you see, we are having a mad passionate love affair. And for that to be sustainable, regular romancing is required. Me, my business journal, some quality red wine, and, of course, my red pen take a trip to one of my favourite wee pubs in Edinburgh, and we sit and reacquaint ourselves with one another. In my journal, I ask questions, my business asks me questions, and we work together to find the answers. Almost every single offering that I've ever delivered has either been conceived one of these dates. What can I say - we just can't keep our hands off one another.

Respond to Natural Rhythms - When you attend to the inherent cycles of nature, you find your way into the slipstream of creativity, productivity and ease. The opposite of rhythm is resistance. When you're not battling against your menstrual cycle, as our Practical Magic Business Circle sister guide Lisa Lister will share with us, you can reclaim the gifts that it's been offering you. When you're not struggling to launch in a month which feels like downtime - such as February or July - then you can capitalise on the collective uprush of enthusiasm for the bright, sparkly and new. And when you start to pay attention to the phases of the moon… well, let's just say that *everything* starts to make a whole lot more sense. 

Ritualise Your Business - One of my favourite writers on ritual, Emma Restall Orr, says that ritual "is a dance of our spirit's creativity as we manifest our reality and celebrate its beauty". Yep - who wouldn't want to incorporate that into the way they approach their business!? There are as many ways to practice ritual as there are people living in the world today. The trick is trusting yourself to find your own way with it. Luckily we've got Kathleen Prophet joining us in the Practical Magic Business Circle who's going to be talking to us about the importance of ritual, and giving us some ideas for how we might want to start weaving it into the way we practice our businesses.

Commit to a Devotional Business Practice - Your business is one of the ways in which you deliver your gifts to the world. Trust me, your business deserves your devotion. I have built a number of devotional practices into my week, which I'll be sharing in the Practical Magic Business Circle. However, I'll share one with you here and now - CELEBRATION. Making a point to celebrate your business on a regular basis is one way in which you ensure that you are aligning your perspective with the positive, honouring the value of JOY in your business (and who doesn't want JOY to be a central value of their business!), and signalling to the universe that you want more of *that*, thank you very much!

Practice Kind Approaches to Boundaries - Some people make the act of drawing our line in the sand sound easy. And yet, as Randi Buckley, another of our Practical Magic Business Circle sister guides, shares with me in our exclusive circle interview, it can be anything but easy - especially if you have a big heart and are invested in living in kindness. But, the truth is that, kind people need boundaries too - and we don't need to be brutal in our assertion of them. Oh, and honouring them for yourself? That's the first step. 

Join Business Circles - I've heard that safety comes in numbers - but so does support, so does inspiration, so does a rush of collective energy to boost you up to where you want to be. Magic happens in circles. Believe me. I see it happening over and over again in the circles I've been honoured to be a part of. And I've seen it in the circles I've had the privilege of holding for others. You can read more about that in this article I shared last week…

Trust Your Creativity - I firmly believe that our businesses are a vehicle for our self-expression. That which you choose to deliver through the medium of your business is your creative essence. When we listen to that, when we attend closely to the various ways in which that essence is longing to be expressed in the world, we create the most magic. In my interview with Julie Daley, the Practical Magic Business Circle sister guide who is exploring the theme of creativity with us, she shared such a powerful exercise for defining our essence which, in all honesty, blew me away. As you'll see in our video!

Move Beyond Compare - One of the ways in which we trip ourselves up in growing our businesses is through projection. We give our light away. And we give our shadow away. Both with the detrimental effect that we then prevent ourselves from embracing and expressing the brilliant fullness of what it means to be us in this lifetime. The way this shows up, especially in business, is through comparison. Talking us through this in the Practical Magic Business Circle is circle sister guides Tanya Geisler and Lauren Bacon. Which could not be more perfect, because have you seen this!?

Be Guided By Goddesses - Each of the goddesses reflect back to us a way of being in the world, and they invite us to reclaim this way for ourselves. They invite us back into a place of embodied wholeness by integrating the wisdom that exists in the beating of our own tender hearts. I am connecting each Practical Magic Business Circle sister to her very own business goddess guide - a goddess who will work with her, support her, inspire her and delight her. But more than all of that, she will invite her circle sister to fully own the essential qualities which belong to her - power, partnership, pleasure, to name but a few. 

Embody Your Business - For so long, it's been believed that business is something that involves your brain. And very little else. Your body was merely the container for your brain so that you could engage in mental manifestations and manipulations as you navigated what it meant to "be in business". Erm, yeah. So, your body actually has a whole lot to say about business. It has a whole lot to say about everything! But, with specific focus on business, we can explore our innate body wisdom so that we're bringing our whole selves into relationship with our business. Not just our brains. Helping us to navigate this in the Practical Magic Business Circle, is sister guide Lindsay McLeod. She'll be sharing her wisdom with us as a practitioner of Body Harmony, showing us how to embody our businesses - gently, lovingly, easily. 

And here's that 1 goddess-given tip from Lakshmi…. 

Lakshmi showed up as the goddess for the day in my free Goddess Guidance group on FaceBook, so I really felt compelled to share a wee tip from her with you today. Think of this as a wee example of what it might mean to be guided by goddesses in your business.

Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess who connects us to the vastness of the mystery - the divine all-that-is - while also showing us how we can bring an experience of that into our lives in really practical ways. The phrase 'the divine is in the details'? That, for me, is all Lakshmi. 

A few years ago, on a business date(!), I spent some time with my figures. My business asked me what figure would feel really delicious as an income from the next business year, and I felt into the question, and answered it from a place of grounded expansiveness. Then my business asked me to look at what I was currently offering, and assess whether that figure was feasible in relation to how my business was currently structured. No prizes for guessing that it wasn't. Not even close. 

So, I called in Lakshmi, and she showed me that the way I had structured my business was limiting my earning capacity, rather than opening up to allow financial flow. Sometimes this was because I was charging too low. Or I'd placed limitations on my capacity. Or I'd structured my offerings to be dependent on my time and/or physical presence, and not charged accordingly. It was, quite frankly, a revelation. 

And so, my lovelies, a tip from Lakshmi. Check in with your figures and ask yourself (and your business!), if your current structure supports the kind of financial flow that you would like to experience through your business offerings. Be specific. Run the numbers. Lay it all out on paper. Make appropriate changes. 

And there you have it! 10 ways to make your business practically magic (plus 1 goddess-given tip)! 

If you want to explore all of this and more over 13 weeks, starting Monday, in a group of women all invested in deepening their relationship with their business, then claim your space by clicking on the link below, and selecting the option that suits your budget and your desire for support best. 

There are now only 5 days left before the circle closes to new members, but I'll be unofficially opening the circle for some circle sister mingling and orientation later this week. If it's singing to your heart, then I look forward to welcoming you there....
 

PRACTICAL MAGIC BUSINESS CIRCLE

If you have any questions at all, please do just hit reply, and ask!

Sending you much love
Amy
xxxx