Neil Sattin.com

Hello and welcome to Neil Sattin.com.  This site is dedicated to Getting to the Heart of Personal Development - which means that my aim is to help you figure out who you are and what your dreams might be, and then to give you tools to assist you in making your dreams a reality.  However, figuring out who you are isn’t a mental exercise, it involves getting to know yourself at the deepest level possible.  The reason I talk about the “heart” of personal development is because living true to your core is an exercise in feeling with your whole self.  You will develop the ability to understand and trust your feelings and intuition, and you will learn how to use that understanding as a guide to making your dreams come true.  When you are living a life in alignment with your higher self and your passion(s), you will feel “right”.  I want to help you get there.

Do you want a life that feels balanced?  Do you want to wake up every day excited for what that day will bring?  Do you want the perfect balance of financial health, emotional health, physical health, mental health, spiritual health?  Finding that balance is a process that involves living with intention, and taking time to sense what you actually need in a given situation.  You can’t plan out your entire life!  But you can take the next right step, followed by the next right step, followed by the next right step - and your life, as a series of “right steps”, will coalesce into the kind of life that gives you what you want.  And I’m talking about what you really want - the desires that are contained within you, that are a unique expression of who you are and what you came to this world to create.

How you can use this site: 

I do believe that we each were born with a unique mission to fulfill.  As I uncover my own mission, my goal is to help you along with your own journey.  After all, no one succeeds alone.  Please be sure to bookmark this site or subscribe to my RSS feed, so that you can check in regularly and stay focused on the “heart” of your own personal development.

1. Personal Development Blog - The blog is THE place on NeilSattin.com where you will find articles on all sorts of Personal Development topics.  I write regularly, so there will always be something here to get you thinking, feeling, and - even better - acting!  The “Categories” section on the left-hand side of the screen will help you navigate through the articles if you have a specific question that you’d like to address.
2. Services  - Along with having a lifetime of experience in the field of Personal Development ( ), I have also worked professionally as a business/personal consultant for more than 9 years.  Visit the services page to find out more about how I can offer you more personalized assistance.
3. Music - I’ve been a musician for nearly as long as I’ve been alive, and I’ve written songs for the past 20 years.  With the birth of my son, Dashiell, I’ve experienced a resurgence of creativity and songwriting, and I am posting songs here as they’re recorded.  Visit my Music page, where you’ll find my original tunes presented for your listening pleasure - something for adults and kids alike.
4. Contact Me - I love hearing from my readers, so if you have a comment, question, or something specific that you’d like to see addressed on the blog, please drop by my contact page to let me know.

Who is this Neil Sattin character, anyway?!?

I’m a lucky person, because I was always encouraged by my family to follow my passions.  Over the course of my life, while my “careers” have been everything from software developer to clown’s apprentice, my overall purpose has been to live with intention, to stay true to myself, and to live courageously.  There have been tough times, and there have been amazing times.  With NeilSattin.com, my goal is to share a bit of myself with you, and to tell you all about what I’ve learned about being true to oneself.  If I can make it any easier for you to discover your dreams, pursue them, and make them happen, then I will have succeeded.  Feel free to visit my About page to find out even more about me.

If the information on this site helps you and you’d like to make a donation to NeilSattin.com please use one of the options below. The amount you donate is entirely up to you.

Why donate?

My goal with this website is to provide you with the best resource available on the internet for getting to the heart of your own personal development. This site is totally supported by your visits to the site’s sponsors - and through donations. I’d love to be able to spend the bulk of my time writing articles and responding to e-mail - always with the primary intention of being as helpful as I can be in facilitating your own progress towards living your dreams. Your contribution will help to ensure that I can spend as much time on this goal as possible.

Perhaps you’d like a personalized approach to your own personal development?  A workshop to help achieve alignment in a corporate setting?  Help with setting up your own Success Team?  A listening ear?  Some advice from a neutral 3rd party?  Here are some of the services that I offer, and I encourage you to contact me for more information.

Personalized coaching

Are you still trying to figure out what you want to do with your life?  Perhaps you know where you want to go, and you just aren’t sure how to get there?  Whether it’s ongoing assistance or a singular kick-in-the-ass, my personalized approach to coaching will help you get to where you want to be.  I’ll show you how to get centered, define your dreams, and create a practical plan for achieving them.  Do you need structure?  A sounding board?  Brainstorming?  Problem-solving?  Encouragement?  I will support you in your process so that you can successfully uncover your passions and follow them.

Corporate Alignment Events

Are you trying to take your company (or division) to a new level of productivity and alignment?  Could morale be a bit higher?  Is there a spirit of cooperation within your business?  Have you achieved the synergy of a community of employees who thrive in working together, or are there communication and trust issues that are getting in the way of everything functioning as smoothly as it could be?

I’ve worked in the private sector as a consultant for the past 9 years.  As a trained facilitator, I will help you achieve the internal alignment that you’re looking for in your organization.  A company can only be as successful as its employees are willing to make it.  Most thriving businesses recognize that through helping employees achieve internal self-actualization, they are also building a team of people dedicated to the success of the organization.

There are several different options available to you.  We can actually accomplish quite a bit in a “power lunch” - an hour (or less!) of INTENSE goal-searching, brainstorming, networking, and collaboration.  We can generate even more enthusiasm and collaborative energy in a full-day seminar (weekday or weekend, based on your preference).  Or, if you’d like to provide a more on-going structure, we can start an in-company Success Team (see section on Success Teams below) that will ultimately become a self-sustaining vehicle for the success of the members of your organization.  The Success Team can meet as regularly as makes sense for your company and the goals of its employees.  Finally, we can design a more customized approach to consulting to solve any issues of communication and trust that are holding your organization back from achieving its potential.  My goal is to make your organization as successful as it can be through focusing on the well-being, success, and collaborative energy of your employees - the key to any organization’s achievment.

Success Teams

No one succeeds alone, so why leave the “who’s going to help you” part up to chance?  Through setting up a Success Team, you are creating a structure to help you (and the other members of your group) achieve your most important goals, your deepest desires.  The Success Teams that I run are modeled after the format created by Barbara Sher, the author of Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want, and they are a group of 4-6 people who are united in the common purpose of helping each other make their dreams a reality.  Through your Success Team you will experience the everpresent support of people who care about each other’s success, and the synergy of how working together can make it happen.  You don’t have to have any special skills, other than the desire to live from your center, and the willingness to create positive change in your life to make your dreams happen.  I will give your team a structure, facilitate the early meetings of the group, and leave your Success Team prepared to continue on its own for as long as you’d like.  If necessary, I can help you with the initial steps of getting your team together as well.  note:  Success Teams within corporations are also a great way to maintain a collective spirit of cooperation and community within a business organization.

A Listening Ear - Advice if Desired

While I have studied psychology and group facilitation, I am not a “certified” therapist.  That being said, I am more than happy to discuss any specific issue that you’re facing, and to use my skills to help you examine the situation in a way that is meaningful for you.  I believe in the power of a listening ear, and I enjoy getting to the heart of whatever you’re thinking (and feeling) about.  My input is available if you desire, but my specialty is in facilitating your decision-making process, so that you can do whatever you need to do from a position of clarity and self-understanding.

For more information, please use my contact page to send me an inquiry.  We can discuss your specific needs and how I can be of service to you in addressing them.

I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember.  When I was a kid, my mother used to play the piano, and my sister and I would dance around the living room to the various classical pieces she knew.  She also played guitar and sang traditional folk tunes - quite a musical influence on me (along with all the other ways a mother influences her son).  While my father could be called upon for random barnyard sounds, I found out later on that he’s a pretty mean accordian player (and if you’re reading this, Dad, I want to hear more!). 

I started composing little ditties at a young age, and by high school I was writing tunes for the various bands in which I played.  A considerable amount of time was devoted to songwriting in college, but after several years of post-college musical stints, I decided to take a break from music.  Not a complete break, of course - but enough of a break to figure out what music really meant to me in my adult life. 

With the birth of my son Dash (see more about him on HappyDash, my wife’s site), I’ve been much more inspired to write music, and my desire to be putting music out there has increased.  I’m writing music for a children’s album, which will be released sometime during the first half of 2008.  Here are a couple of my earlier children’s tunes for your listening pleasure.

You can join my mailing list (see the upper left corner of the screen).  If you really dig, please feel free to throw some loose change in my mandolin case - this musician’s gotta feed his family! 

 You can click the little blue arrow in order to play the songs in your browser, or you can just right-click and download them to your computer for listening at your leisure.  Enjoy!

Song #1 - It’s Easy - a lullaby

Song #2 - Breakfast, please! - music for kids and the adults who feed them (but listen even if you don’t have kids)

Your feedback is very important to me, and if reading this blog has created some questions for you, I’d be happy to answer them. If you have some questions, comments, or just want to chat, please use the contact form below. That’ll send me an e-mail behind-the-scenes, and I’ll be able to get back to you quickly.

Thank you for your participation!

My name is Neil Sattin (you probably guessed that), and I’m a full-time blogger striving to share the wealth with blog readers from around the globe.

I have a passion for living life to its fullest, planning when it’s important, and being spontaneous when the mood strikes me.  I believe that everyone can be successful by being true to who they are, and that choosing to live your dream is the surest path to success.  In following that path, I hope to help others along the way as well.

Qualities in others that I cherish (in no particular order):

• Honesty
• A sense of humor
• Striving to know oneself better
• Compassion
• Awareness of the big picture
• Creativity
• Optimism
• Enthusiasm
• Centeredness
• The ability to blend the pragmatic with the fantastic
• Gratitude
• Kindness
• The courage to be true to yourself - in public
• Openness

Since I’m no hypocrite, those are also the qualities (among others) that I try to foster within myself.  And I write all about it here.

I also write a lot about dog training - in particular Natural Dog Training, a technique developed by Kevin Behan that utilizes a dog’s prey instinct and emotional interaction with the world to overcome issues and elicit obedient behavior.  While I initially had it all on this blog, I ended up moving all of my dog training oriented writing to NaturalDogBlog.com.  Meanwhile NeilSattin.com continues, with the mission of inspiring you to be yourself, live the well-rounded life that you want to live, and succeed in following your passion(s).  And to keep smiling, of course.

My wife Tonya writes over at HappyDash.com, and also has a vintage goods shop over at Etsy called the HappyDashery.  Our son’s name is Dashiell - so now you know why we’re a little “dash” obsessed.  He was born in January of 2007 - so we’re a little new at the parenthood thing, something you’ll get to hear all about as a topic of discussion on our blogs as well.

Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions - or to just say “hello”!  

E-mail neil at neilsattin dot com.