Fantastic Client News!

Mohamud Ali and Saido Jama founded Midwest Bakery & Café in 2019. I have been working with them to get their Halal whole wheat and white loaves of bread and whole wheat hoagie buns into Cub Foods on 28^th and Lake Street in Minneapolis to test the market. Guess what? We did it! Midwest Bakery & Café is now in its first Cub Foods grocery store. (For those of you outside of the midwest. Cub Foods is a supermarket chain of 45 stores.)

Congratulations to Mohamud and Saido and their family! On the first day, we sold out and rushed to refill the order. The two bottom shelves are now bread. The detergent was replaced. We moved so fast that I didn’t get a picture of Saido and their adult children working to fill the orders.

They have expanded their customer base from restaurants and daycare centers to Cub Foods customers. The demand for their loaves of bread and hoagie buns is growing. I am thrilled to collaborate with them to expand their bakery and evolve their businesses. They also own Midwest Auto Repairs. I’ll have them on the podcast soon so you can hear them describe their multi-venture entrepreneurial journey.

Among the many things I appreciate about Mohamud and Saido is that they reached out for mentoring so I could help them cross this particular finish line and set the next big goal. They knew they needed help getting their six types of loaves of bread and hoagies buns on the shelves at Cub Foods. I knew I could deliver.

In under a week, they have passed the market test. Now, we can work steadily to evolve with the needs of their customers and set new processes and systems in place to maintain efficiency as the demand continues to grow and the offerings expand to other locations.

 You can purchase their loaves of bread and hoagie buns at 28^th and Lake Street. I just had one for lunch after helping them fill orders; it was so good. The picture is Mohamud delivering their first order last week.

With fast growth, sustaining focus under pressure is critical. Today’s podcast meditation will help you sustain your focus with the pressures you are under.

How to Sustain Your Focus

Can you focus on the right things at the right time, most of the time? If so, you are practicing the first of four aspects connected with one mind skill: FOCUS. To start focusing, we need to direct our attention to what we want to think about. We then sustain attention as long as we need and want to, controlling impulses and noticing when our attention wanders and redirecting our mind back to its focal point. Once the task is complete, we can relax our attention, resting our minds for a few minutes before directing our attention to a new task. Sounds easy, right?

We resist so often what is good for us, especially when it comes to our minds. Sitting down for a few minutes to calm our thoughts and let go is difficult. Sometimes, I find it challenging to sit with myself, especially if I feel anxious or have nervous energy. This means something big lurks underneath all that nervousness, and I don’t know if I want to know what it is just yet. Giving myself permission to sit and see what happens takes the pressure off.

Last week we practiced Directing Focus. Today is the complimentary 6-minute meditation; How to Sustain Your Focus. I first aired this episode on March 7, 2022. Both meditations give your mind something to do while you sit. You can return to your focal point whenever you get distracted, or your thoughts drift.

Where does focus fit in the grand scheme of building a healthy mind? According to The Center for Healthy Minds, it is connected to awareness. The first place we start when we make a behavior change, we become self-aware and shift our focus. The four areas below are what a regular meditation practice helps us do after we open our eyes.

1. Awareness: means practicing presence, focus, and self-awareness.

2. Connection: means practicing appreciation, kindness, compassion, and widening the circle of influence to see how we are all connected.

3. Insight: the key to having a healthy sense of self is what scientists call “self-inquiry.” The ability to step back and examine our expectations and beliefs. Self-knowledge and transcendence. Transcendence is part of being whole or in a state of grace and developing a higher level of consciousness. Practicing insight means examining how our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs shape how we see the world.

4. Purpose: finding meaning in the mundane details of everyday life. “Deep purpose,” says Cortland Dahl (one of the speakers in the Healthy Minds APP), “gives us the ability to keep our most deeply held values front and center in our life, relationships, and at work. It helps us to see the bigger picture and focus on the most important things in our lives.” I call this our lifework. The reason we are here.

Now it is time to meditate. DOWNLOAD