Lessons From the Jungle: Part 1

About a month ago, I went on what has proven to be one of the most relevant adventures of my life. Just before Thanksgiving, I headed down to the Peruvian Rainforest to sit with Sacred Plant Medicine.

I wrote this first installment while enjoying an Americano (my first choice in coffee beverages!) in the Lima Airport, waiting to board my flight home.

It was a week of deep healing, profound insights, the deepening of relationships and the forging of new friendships.

As I have made my way back to "real life" and begun integrating the messages from the medicine into my every day life, many lessons are unfolding... and I've decided to share them here.

Raul (the kiddo in the cover photo) was our guide as we explored the jungle surrounding the EcoAmazonia nature lodge.

A young gentle soul with more sacred wisdom than you would expect a 25-year old to have.

Friend of the trees, the tarantulas and the spider monkeys… the experience with Raul taught me plenty about the flora and the fauna of the jungle… And something more…

Raul is not in the business of business. He’s just a kid who grew up in the jungle. A young man who has a deep relationship to this ecosystem.

And because of his intimate knowledge of the path, he was able to point out things we could have never seen on our own.

We stood unknowingly in the past of an army of tree-cutter ants… at least until Raul drew our attention to the jungle floor… and there they were, that army of ants, all carrying bits of leaves back to the hill.

He stripped a stick and tickled inside what was to us an invisible hole… and out popped a fuzzy little tarantula hoping that that tickle might be some food. (No, tarantulas do not eat humans… that’s a Hollywood thing!)

As we stood alongside the bank of the Cochita Caiman swamp, he pointed out the subtle movements of the vegetation that floated on top of the water — baby crocodiles. He called to them with a subtle grunt, imitating their momma, and they popped their heads out of the water for us to see.

On our own, we had missed all of the subtle cues that opened up a new world to us. It was only with Raul’s guidance and skill that we were able to see these amazing wonders up close.

And so it is in business.

How long do we wait to hire a guide?

Why do we hesitate to bring someone alongside us to point out the subtle cues that could help us unlock our possibilities and the potential we have to add value in the world?

We want to wait until our cashflow improves.

Until we have more time.

Until we know enough.

And the longer we wait, the more we struggle.

We’re trying to put the puzzle together, but we can’t even see that there are missing pieces keeping us from completing the picture.

In Peru, we could have walked every one of those trails and thought:

“Pretty flower. Interesting tree. Wonder what makes that sound.”

But because we had Raul, someone who had gone this way hundreds of times before, we saw the unseen. The missing bits that brought the jungle to life… that showed us the complete picture.

Investing in a guide to enhance our knowledge and enjoyment of the rain forest added intangible value to our experience. And the friendship we struck up with Raul is priceless.

In this same way, the decision to invest with a business mentor opens up unforeseen possibilities for us professionally and personally.

Here are a few tips for choosing your mentor inspired by John Lee Dumas in his book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success:

1. Make sure you choose a mentor who has ACTUALLY achieved what you are hoping to achieve. Lots of people can coach you on strategies and tactics, but if they haven’t materially used those strategies and tactics to accomplish the same thing you want for yourself and your business, they really aren’t qualified to take you there!
2. Make sure you use a mentor who is currently doing what you want to be doing! Someone who has been there, done that and moved on is more likely to take you where they are going than to show you how to get to where they’ve been.
3. Alignment matters. Make sure you are consuming and interacting with your potential mentor’s free content. Listen to their podcasts. Follow them on social media. Comment on their posts. See what their interaction with you looks like. Is it positive? If so, you can start to get a sense of who they are and if you might work well together.
4. Conduct an interview to see if you are the right kind of client for them. What is their vision of success for their clients? What kinds of challenges have they faced helping people co-create that vision? What is important to them in a client? What kind of clients to they prefer NOT to work with? This can tell you whether or not you’ll be successful with them.

Once you have chosen your mentor, reach out and let them know you would like to learn from them and create an agreement that works for you.

If you are looking for a mentor who can help you build a six-figure business that makes an impact using the power of strategic networking to build and ideal client community, I’d be honored to chat with you about being one of the 4 business owners that I’ll personally be mentoring this coming year.

Together, we’ll create the blueprint for the business of YOUR dreams.

We’ll design a custom action-plan that guarantees you actually have a LIFE while you are building your business.

And as we walk together in this sacred process of aligning business and life, I’ll help keep you on your path while calling in the strategic connections you need along the way so that your business grows and flourishes according to plan.

If you want to chat about working together, sacred medicine or any other topic of interest, I'm here for you! If I can't help, I guarantee I know someone who can!

Just DM me and let's connect!