“You have the right to work, but never to the fruits of your work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world as one established within oneself—without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind.” – Gita

My First Sales Job On A River…

When I was about 21 years old, living in Cambridge, England, I decided to get a job as a ‘river guide’ with Scudamores River Tour company. The job had two parts. The first involved trying to convince random people walking down the street to stop what they were doing and take a boat tour of the famous Cambridge colleges. We would stand on the pavement, wearing straw hats and company sweaters or shirts, holding laminated boards with pictures of the river and colleges. As passersby approached, we’d say: “River Tours?” “Would you like to come on a river tour?” “See the historic colleges,” and so on. We could basically say whatever we wanted, hoping the right people would feel compelled to show interest. If they did, we’d explain the tour, and if they were ready to join, I’d write them a slip with the number of people in their group and my initials. They would then take their slip to the boathouse to pay for their river tour. Not everyone made it to the boathouse, but for each person who did and paid for the tour, we earned a commission. If we didn’t sign up enough people, we’d only be paid minimum wage, which, I recall, was about $3.50 per hour.

To Work or Not to Work?

This commission-vs-minimum-wage structure meant we could either sit around and still get paid minimum wage, or work hard and earn more if we signed up more people. It was an interesting dichotomy: either do nothing and get paid a little, or work hard and possibly earn more—or end up with just minimum wage if we didn’t succeed. It was a test of faith and belief in the value of work and personal agency. Do we really influence our fate or not? Is extra effort worth it, or should we just sit on a bench, vaguely waving our board to pretend we’re working?

The second part of the job involved punting the boat down the river with 9-12 passengers while delivering a (mostly made-up) tour of the famous Cambridge colleges. At first, I couldn’t steer the boat straight and ended up dangerously swerving all over the river, hitting the banks and sometimes other boats. But over time, I got the hang of it. Once I could punt in a straight line while delivering my tour, I found it fun to come up with stories and see how the passengers reacted. That little stretch of river is truly magnificent—an impressive and beautiful slice of the planet filled with culture and history. Spending a couple of hours a day punting down the river became quite magical in its own way.

I took the job partly to overcome my inhibitions and fear of talking to strangers. I was a bit too shy and introverted, so I realized the best way to overcome this was by talking to strangers for 4-8 hours a day. When I started the job, I was very disappointed with my results. Most of the people I asked to join a river tour said no. Some ignored me; others had harsher words. Almost everyone said no. But then again, even the best river tour guides got far more no’s than yeses because, as you can imagine, most people walking by didn’t want to be interrupted. Many were locals on their way to work, and tourists may not have been in the mood for a tour right then and there. The job was, after all, a bit like being a door-to-door vacuum salesman—except we were selling tours instead of vacuums.

During the first couple of months, I barely signed anyone up. I didn’t quite know what to say, who to ask, or how to say it. I wasn’t alone in this. There were another 5-10 guys around the same age as me, doing the exact same job, often just a dozen feet away. Both sides of the street were packed with Scudamores salespeople, plus a handful of independent river guides hoping to get a piece of the action.

We were all there, like vultures, vying for the limited number of tourists wandering by, hoping for the big catch. And we were in direct competition with each other. If one of the other guides got to a group of tourists before me, they’d make the sale and get the commission, leaving the rest of us with nothing. Occasionally, a large group of tourists would appear, and whoever signed them up got the commission for all of them. The job started to feel like a cruel lottery.

I began to wonder what I was doing wrong, especially as I noticed other guides—standing just 5-20 feet away, wearing the exact same clothes—were getting far more customers than me. As weeks passed, I considered just sitting around for minimum wage. But at the same time, I was also learning meditation and discovering how to experience higher states of consciousness. In meditation, I learned about giving happiness to others, seeing them as spiritual beings, and letting go of attachment and expectations regarding results. When I arrived at work, I still had the desire to sign people up and get paid. This didn’t seem to fit, so I began thinking about how to apply these spiritual lessons to my work.

One day, after too many disappointing results, I decided something needed to change. Up until that point, when potential customers approached, I had an inner desire for them to join a tour. After all, it was my job to get people on the boat, so when I asked people if they wanted a river tour, I also wanted them to say yes.

It sounds obvious. Most of the others doing the same job also wanted people to buy tickets. But as time went on, I realized that my desire for the fruit of my work was actually blocking me from enjoying the job and doing well. So, I decided to do something radical: I gave up the wanting and craving and tried something new.

A New Approach

A little Starbucks coffee shop sat about 30 yards away from the boathouse. One morning, I ordered a large black coffee and decided to change my approach to work. Instead of trying to convince people to join the river tour, I focused on seeing everyone as a spiritual being and sending them happiness.

My goal shifted from selling river tours to giving happiness. After drinking my coffee, I went out on the street. I looked at each person walking by, not as a body, but as the eternal soul animating their body. I saw the jewel of light behind their eyes. I felt that each one was part of my spiritual family. These people walking past were divine souls, and I sent them love, blessings, and joy from my heart. My aim was simply to make a connection of happiness with each person, even if it lasted just a few seconds. I still played the part of a river tour guide and continued asking if they’d like a tour, but my real mission was to share love and light. This wasn’t a trick to get more sales; I did it from the heart. I was there to give happiness. I felt like an angel in disguise.

As a result of this shift in perception and intention, I also became less inhibited and more expressive in my offers. I don’t remember exactly what I said or did differently, but my general vibration and demeanor felt fun, light, joyful, and free. I didn’t expect any change in sales; I just hoped to share good vibes and enjoy myself in the process. It was all a game, so why not have fun and enjoy it? Either way, I would be alright.

Soon after this inner shift, I noticed several changes. First, I enjoyed myself much more. Since I no longer craved or needed anything from others, I felt more open and better able to connect with them. People smiled at me more often, and even those who weren’t interested in a river tour responded politely. I also became better at identifying who was a local and who was a tourist, so I stopped wasting time asking locals.

The fact that my workdays became more enjoyable was a huge upgrade. If that was the only change, it would have been enough. Instead of dreading work and feeling deflated, tired, and hopeless, I felt alive, inspired, and energized. The job became so fun and fulfilling that I’d have been happy to do it for free. I felt like I was in the right place at the right time.

Then, to my surprise, I noticed that as the good vibrations increased, so did the sales. This was not what I expected. More people than ever started saying yes to the tours. I began writing more and more tickets and making more money than before. Despite countless other tour guides on both sides of the street, the right people seemed to pass them by and come directly to me. I was amazed. At one point, I even broke the longstanding highest sales record. It seemed that the more I sent out good vibrations, the more people wanted to sign up.

Given that all other circumstances were the same—the same place, same time, same street, same people—I can only attribute this shift in sales to my attitude and vibrations. I went from craving and needing to letting go of selfish desires and focusing on giving love and joy. I wasn’t even interested in the product (the river tour). I just wanted to give people good vibes, and they seemed to feel it.

After this experience, I started to think about how this applies to life and, in particular, to sales jobs. Can this method help you make more money and have more fun? I believe it can.

How to have more fun
and make more sales

1. Aim to give happiness, not to get anything
   
   When we want something from people, we’re not coming from a place of giving. We’re coming from a place of taking, and that is not a good vibration. People pick up on it and don’t feel safe. So, instead of that, we need to aim to serve, shine, and bless those we come in contact with. We need to shift our attention away from getting, and focus on giving, from the heart. This shift in consciousness is profound, and it’s highly effective in creating a better situation for all involved.

First of all, when you focus on giving, it improves your own life right away because giving from the heart makes us feel happier. It also leads to more sales. However, ironically, we can only gain the benefit of this practice financially when we truly detach from the outcome and focus on creating vibrations of peace and joy, sharing them with others unconditionally. If we say to ourselves, “Okay, if I feel good vibrations and share them with others, then I’ll get paid more,” it won’t work. Or, it won’t work nearly as well. Why? Because the intention is not pure; it’s mixed. If our actions are driven by expectations about the results, we lose most of the power because we are doing something with the desire for the outcome. As a result, we become anxious about the results and are unable to fully show up and serve in the moment. It’s a subtle but tangible shift.

To truly give from the heart and desire to serve others, we need to emotionally let go of the outcome we want. We must simply focus on sharing good vibrations and giving happiness to the people in front of us, while considering what is in the highest good for all. When you really focus on them and surrender to the highest good, you feel happy, and they feel happy because you genuinely care. It’s important to serve the highest good and give good vibrations for their own sake. Do it for the joy of it. Do it for the love of others, for the love of God, or for the love of service if you prefer. But make sure you show up from the heart, for reasons other than trying to get something from your potential customer. The desire to take turns us into beggars. Energetically, we are craving, wanting, and desiring. When we feel full and satisfied inside ourselves, we give with a big heart, from the heart, and don’t need anything in return. This is the space that leads to maximum joy and impact.

So, how do you get into this space and stay there?

2. Find what brings you joy, bliss, peace, and makes you come alive.

When you feel alive and inspired, you can give to others in a powerful way. If you don’t feel inspired, how can you expect to inspire others? So, what lights up your soul?

For many, the easiest way to get into this space is through some kind of spiritual practice that fills you up. We have many guided meditations to support you in this way. Or, if you find that something else—like running, being in nature, dancing, or listening to music—makes you feel alive and inspired, then do that. Whatever it is—prayer, meditation, exercise, music—do more of it so you feel FULL. Aim to feel recharged and inspired, alive. Once you do, you are in a better position to serve others.

3. Prioritize your inner state
The more you give attention to your own good feelings, the more you can help others. This means putting your inner state at the TOP of the list in your life. Feel full yourself, then give to others.

4. Take JOY from helping others find joy.
If you develop the habit of helping people find what they want (even if it’s not your product), you’ll enjoy yourself, and people will want to pay you. You may have noticed that some customer service people seem to get a kick out of being uncooperative and not giving you what you need. This is probably due to some unresolved control issues or problems in their own lives that they are taking out on strangers. Then, there are the angels who actually care and want to help you find the fastest, easiest way to get what you want. Which one would you rather pay?

The more pleasure you find in helping others solve problems and find joy, the more fun you’ll have, and the more success you’ll achieve.

Ps. If you’d love to get access to our complete sales training – go here.

If you don’t have enough coaching clients – or you’re not making enough sales of your courses – there are 3 main reasons. Find out what you can change to get all the clients you want 🙂

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Full Transcription (not edited)

Would you love to have more clients so that you can make greater impact and have more money. And you’re maybe wondering, what am I doing wrong? And what can I change in this video? I’m gonna share with you the number one mistake. Most people make starting out. That’s blocks them from getting clients.

You’re gonna learn the most important thing you can start doing right now to increase your clients and the magic word that will improve your sales and people saying yes. My name’s Michael McIntosh and I’m the co-founder of awaken academy. And I’ve spent the last 15 years helping people to create the sort of lives and the success they want in their business.

And when I was starting out right at the beginning, I moved from England to Hawaii. I had $800 to my name and a backpack, and I had to figure out how am I gonna be able to stay here and make it work? I needed to figure out a way of making. What I did is I invested all the money I had into an online training business training about how do you make money online?

And I’m extremely grateful that I did that because I’ve learned something in that course that has completely changed my life. And I’m gonna share it with you since then, we’ve gone on to make millions of dollars and helped our students create the lives that they want. The biggest mistake that most of us make starting out is only thinking about ourselves and where we are coming from and not thinking.

What the people we are serving actually want. You might have wonderful ideas. I’m sure you do. You’ve got great ideas. You’ve got wonderful things you can do to help people. And that’s great, but the number one problem is only thinking from our point of view and not keeping in mind what other people want and what they’re gonna buy.

For example, There’s a true story of a guy who had this wonderful idea, what he thought was a wonderful idea to invent a remote control lawn mower, he thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful. You can just sit in your house and use a remote control and mow the lawn. So he spent two years and most of his savings.

Messing around in the garage, inventing this remote control lawn mower. Finally, after two years, he’d produced a bunch of them and was ready to sell them. So he put his remote control lawn mower up for sale. And guess what happened?

Nobody wanted one. Nobody wanted one because you don’t need a remote control lawn moer. So he wasted two years of his life. He would’ve been much better off figuring out if people wanted that before he spent those two years. Imagine I invented a remote control, bud. They could go around the room.

Oh no. Is it gonna be something that most people want? Yep. It goes like this. Imagine you are really thirsty. And all you actually want is some water. And I’ve prepared for you this 15 course meal with all these special fancy things. And it’s all really well done and it’s taken me 10 hours to produce it.

And I say, there you go. There’s this wonderful meal. You’ll say, just, can I have some water? That’s all I want right now. This is what we are often doing. We’re putting all this work into this. It’s taking so much time and energy and the other person just wants this simple thing. Please help me with this.

And we are not giving them that. So this is the biggest mistake. And if you could stop making that mistake, your success is just gonna go through the roof. It completely changes the trajectory of your whole life and your career and your success.

If you look into any successful people in the world, they have figured out how to give people. what they want. Ask your audience by sending out a survey or talking to them personally, ask them, what are your biggest challenges right now? What’s keeping you up at night. What do you really want?

Why is that important to you and really understand what they want and what they need. For example, I’m about to launch a new program, to help our coaches, to refine their offers, what they’re offering and to get more clients. And we send out a survey asking them, what are they done so far? What do they want, what do they need?

Why is it important? These sort of questions? And based on that we are designing the program to help them specifically with what they need. I didn’t start this saying, here are the 10 things that I wanted to share with you. I’m starting this with, what do you want? What do you need what’s on your mind and then designing everything around there.

One of the great things about doing surveys is that you can literally ask people what they want and then use their words. Because then it is exactly what they want. So I’m gonna show you exactly what I’m talking about. So you can email your mailing list or you can talk to people and get them to fill this in and you just asked them questions.

So for the questions we’ve asked in this little group, is what’s your vision for your business? What do you want to create? Why is that important to you? What have you done so far to move forward in your business? What are your biggest questions? What are your, what’s your greatest challenge? And what would you like to get out of the group?

Then I just go through the answers and see what people will say. So what’s your biggest question about marketing and sales? I wanna promote myself, but in a soft and welcoming way, I don’t wanna be pushy. I wanna know the most effective mark methods to stand out in a saturated world of coaches, healers and change makers.

How do I start attracting clients and keep them coming and growing? All right, so I’ve gone through the whole thing. You can do this yourself. And what you do is you take the words that people say, for example, propo, proposing, or making an offer. So I’m just gonna copy that and I’m gonna put it in here and this becomes the curriculum, how you can propose or make.

And offer, right? So all I’m doing is using what they want and making that the basis of the curriculum. So I’ve gone through the whole thing and what I’ve got here. This is all things that people have said. They said, I want to learn these things. So this is the curriculum I want effective methods to stand out in a saturated world of coaches, how you can make an offer.

People, pay you for how to start attracting clients and how to keep them coming in and grow. How to make people believe in what you offer them clarification on exactly what you can do to make people see that you’re gonna help them guidance of what you’re doing wrong and what you want to do. So when people see this, they read this, they’ll say, oh my God, this is exactly what I want because instead of just making it up, I am focused specifically on helping people get the things that they.

Want, so this is such an easy way and a compassionate way and an effective way to produce offers that people will pay you for. So this is the big shift. A lot of people, they focus on trying to make themselves so important. I’m so great. Look at me, look how cool I am.

That, that’s not what people want. People want someone who says you are great. I appreciate you. You have great work to do, and I want to support. In getting your work out to the world and I wanna make it as easy as possible for you, right? I’m here for service. When we come from that place that we are here to help somebody else sincerely, then people wanna work with you.

So if you can just make that shift, instead of thinking about what you have and what you want to do and how great you are and why you’ve got the best method in the world. Don’t worry about that. Just focus on who is this wonderful soul who you’re helping, what do they want? What do they need? and dedicate all of your energy to supporting them in getting what they want and the magic word, the number one magic word is going from I to you, right?

The people who say I me. That doesn’t work. You wanna say you, you are important. You have great work to do. This is gonna support you in your life and your work. This is gonna help you get more clients. This is gonna help you achieve the financial goals you have, so you can travel so you can have the freedom you want, so you can have a spiritual life.

So you can have all the things that you want and live your D and live your life on purpose. So you’re Chan you’re going from I to you. The more you use the word you in your copy and in your conversations and in your videos or whatever you do. And you’re talking to that wonderful soul, make them the star of the show, but yourself, over here, you’re in a humble service position.

I am here to serve, right? We wanna say I’m here to serve. Tell me what you need. Tell me what you want. I’m here to help. The more you think about this and the more you have that approach, everything becomes super easy.

So if you’re not getting the clients and the success you want, it’s probably to do with these three things. Number one is too focused on ourselves, not focused enough on others. This is the biggest problem. And it takes a lot of practice. To move out of that. The solution to this is to really, and truly focus on the other person.

What do they want, what do they need? Why is it important to them and have that humble perspective? I’m here to help you get what you need. And the magic word is the word. You are important. You are wonderful. and we are here to help you sincerely. And the more we do that from the heart, the better everything is.

So here’s a little challenge, a little fun challenge for you is to take the time to move away from your own thinking about what you do and what you want to do, focus on understanding your audience. they’re hot buttons. What are the emotional things that are important to them? What do they want, what are they stuck in?

What problems do they have? What are they trying to avoid? Really understand them. When do they get up in the morning? What do they have for breakfast? Get a real understanding of who is this person and what are they. Doing in their life. And then once you have understood them much better, then find out what is the one or two things that you could offer that are gonna solve a big problem that they have and design your coaching packages and your courses and your trainings around that.

Start with them, design everything around that. And then put it in front of people and say, is this something you are interested in and see what they say? If they go I’m not sure. Or yeah, that might be useful. Then you haven’t got it. If they say, oh my God, I can’t believe you’ve craved this.

This is absolutely amazing that you’ve got in my head. I’ve just thinking about this morning. And here it is, when you have that response then you’ve obviously got the right offer and then you are not gonna have any problems. getting clients. So this is a bit of a practice. It takes some time, but you will change your entire life, your work and your success.

And this is something to come back to again and again, the more you master the basics, the more everything else will be easy.

Many of our students ask us if it’s worth going to these events to network / hustle and find clients. This is what were found works best… Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Lots of love Arielle and Michael

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Full Transcription (not edited)

Oceans of love to a beautiful spiritually minded, empathic light worker leader teacher in our world.

Are you wondering if it’s worth it to go to an event that might be out of your comfort zone?

It might be some sort of, healing conference where you could set up a booth or some sort of festival where you could come and present and market your services.

I’d like to share some thoughts on this with you today, that I hope help you to really ground in with whatever the best most aligned decision for you is that will lead to your own greatest success and being of service to the greatest number of souls. My name is Ariel Hecht, and I am the co-founder of awakened academy, spiritual life coach certification.

I’ve been helping spiritually minded, empathic souls become life coaches, become authors and teachers for over a decade. Now having worked with a number. Of souls. Like you I’ve consistently found that, although there can certainly be some benefit and you meet some people and you do some networking and these events I’ve noticed that this type of atmosphere and context doesn’t tend to lead to you, connecting with the right clients, with your ideal clients and.

in worst case scenarios, I’ve noticed it can end up being very overwhelming for people. There can be a lot of energy. There, there are a lot of other practitioners and modalities, a lot of people coming in who. probably aren’t align with what you have to offer. And so that can be a lot to navigate.

What’s better ultimately, and more ideal is for you to really hone in and get really clear about who the souls are. You are here to serve and tune in with where are they? do those people go to these events, do these people, are they on a certain social media channel? And I’ll give you an example of a beautiful student of ours who really aligned with and called in her ideal client to her.

So it’s there’s a difference between going out to find them. And staying in and really being of magnet for your ideal clients to find you, and also being clear about where they’ll find you and making sure you have content, you have your presence, where it needs to be. So this one lovely client of hours, she had the intention to work with a woman who.

has plenty of money in her life. Plenty, plenty of success in her work career. However, she feels stressed. She feels out of alignment with herself. She doesn’t feel in touch with her heart. She doesn’t feel happy. She doesn’t feel connected to a higher power. So our student was really clear about who this woman was.

She wrote out in detail. Everything she could think of about this woman. She wrote out the coaching package. She would like to offer her the pricing and she set that price nice and high for a high paying client. And this particular student she’s quite active on Instagram. and I believe she must have put out a post, on Instagram about this offering.

And literally she told us that within 24 hours, this exact woman who she described on paper found her signed up to work with her that day. Anne left her a $444 tip for their intro session. so that’s an example of like less energy expenditure on your part and much greater result. There’s a spiritual slogan, less expenditure, more splendor, right?

You wanna. You wanna make yourself available in the spaces that your ideal clients are in a way that feels aligned for you rather than going into a space where you might feel overextended and drained and perhaps not aligned with the right people.

One easy thing you can do is simply to get a piece of paper and a pen.

And take a moment to really breathe in deep and visualize who is your ideal client? Who would you love to work with? And just write down whatever comes to mind. Like our student we’re telling you about she, she wrote down in great detail, this person on a piece of paper, we’ve been telling her to do this actually for a long time.

And she just had put it off. And once she finally did it, then all sorts of miracles and wonders happened. It makes such a big difference when you know, extremely clearly who you’re here to help and what you can do to help them. Very simple thing is just write it all down. And then you just hold that vision, just hold the vision.

Imagine that this person or these people perfect person for you to work with has come into your field, into your work. They’re grateful. They’re happy. They’re inspired. They’re paying you really. and it’s just a beautiful experience and you see them, transforming their life and you get to have that satisfaction that you are really making a difference in the world.

So you wanna tune in with where are these people, where are these souls who you’re here to serve and to align yourself with being present in those spaces, whether physical or online. that’s going to be the best use of your energy, rather than going into a space where there’s a whole mix of all types of people.

And as someone who’s sensitive as someone who’s empathic that can really just end up being too much end up being draining and even discourage you. And we certainly don’t want that. If you loved this video, please subscribe, share it with our divine family of other light workers, healers, coaches, teachers, leaders, we all are in this together, and we need each other in this time of this great awakening.

and subscribe. If you haven’t already, it is an honor to connect with you. Thank you for your courage, for your light, for your strength, and may every blessing be upon you and your sacred work in our world. Thank you.