Michael Neeley is a podcaster and an entrepreneur. He's a business coach and he empowers other entrepreneurs to live the lives they've always dreamed of. He's the host of the podcast, 'Consciously Speaking', and also his new podcast, 'Buy This, Not That'. Michael used to be a knight in shining armor; he was an actor who spent a good portion of his career on horseback before starring in a couple of soap operas and some independent films. Michael's son, Tristan, was born back in 2002, and at that time Michael decided he wanted to leave the smog of Los Angeles and settle in an area with clean air and clear skies. So Michael made a transition and has moved to a role where he enlightens others as a mindfulness business coach. Contact Info Website: www.MichaelNeeley.com Podcast: Consciously Speaking Podcast: Buy This, Not That Event: Transformational Business Event - Your Authority Blueprint Live(Listen to the interview for a $100 Off Coupon Code) Conversation With Michael Bruce: How do you get grounded in your life, Michael? Michael: For me, meditation plays a big part in it and it's not about like sitting down on a cushion for 45 minutes at a time. It's more like, uh, you know, while I'm going for a walk, if I'm walking the dogs, I can use that as a meditation. It's a matter of fact. It was so cool. I walked them yesterday, I took them over to this little park area that we have here near my home and I unleashed them and let them run and I laid down on the grass and stared up at the sky and meditated for about five minutes. It was total bliss and just little things like that where you can relax the mind and let go of all of these crazy monkey mind thoughts that are running through our heads about our business constantly. If you're a solopreneur or even about life in general, you can get caught up in all this stuff instead of just, OK, here I am. I'm just a human being. Bruce: Your son Tristan was born in 2002. Has He inspired you to be mindful? Has He taught you anything about being grounded and being centered? Michael: Well, Tristan is my constant teacher every day and you know, he's my why. He's the why of what I'm up to in the world and that's the part that I've got to bring mindfulness back to. If I get too caught up in doing the work and I don't spend the time with him; he's the reason that I'm doing the work. And so if I don't take the breaks to spend the time with him, then it kind of defeats the purpose. And so yeah, he's a constant teacher to me. Bruce: How will mindfulness play a role in your upcoming event that you're doing? Michael: A lot of people look at business and they don't see the correlation of how mindfulness plays into that and I know maybe in larger corporations it's less relevant in the bigger picture. Certainly on the smaller scale and when we're talking about the people that I'm attracting for my event, which are visionary Solopreneurs, as I call them, people who are in business for themselves, the mindfulness piece is often the difference between success and failure. What I mean by that is that we get in our own way. We get caught up in either the minutia of the work or we get caught up doing the wrong things because we're looking for a sense of, you know, checking off the list, tick boxes instead of really being mindful about, OK, wait a minute, let me tune in here. What do I really want? What is going to be the best for my business and how can I move forward in a way that's conscious and fully present? Bruce: Tell us about some of the speakers that are going to be at your event. I know it's called, Your Authority Blueprint Live. Michael: It's going to be a rockin' event and we're going to have Jay Fiset there, another fellow Canadian. Jay does work with a Mastermind To Millions. I didn't realize how conscious Jay was and how mindful he was until recently when I had him on my show. He's just really a cool guy. So Jay's going to be there. We've got Brady Patterson from Success Road Academy, al