I’m in the throes of the Small Biz Super Summit, along with a new client project, and preparing for the launch of a new division of my business.

And I get an email from a client, angry with me for “violating her privacy”.

The claim was unfounded, and after resolving the misunderstanding, I finally decided to let her go.

Yes, I fired my client.

You are FIRED!

See, there comes a time in your business life where enduring the stress and strain of some clients isn’t worth ANY sum of money. Some of you have heard me say this before, but I wanted to let you know that I still face this issue from time to time – despite my well-crafted Perfect-Fit Customer Profiles.

Not only did this client email me with false accusations, she also launched into a tirade in a group forum of her company, where other people could hear her rant (and later report back to me), but I could not offer the slightest commentary on the situation.

Instead of coming directly to the source of the issue (presumably me), she chose to make a spectacle of herself in front of other potential clients.

Let’s be clear: I have a loyalty to my clients. I also have a loyalty to my family. If you try to prevent me from earning a living to feed my family, my loyalty dries up like so much old paint.

There are a number of lessons from this event, which I’ll save for another post. But then, I had to fire a colleague.

At one time, this person and I traveled in relatively similar circles. I shared my book with her, and invited her into my community to share her wisdom. Over time, our paths diverged in the wilderness, but I still kept some contact with her and thought of her as a colleague I would refer business to.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

She “wrote” a post on her blog, and tweeted out the link. Because the title was a direct quote of something I say ALL the time, I thought it was worth checking out, and possibly sharing with my own audience.  It was a great post. She had pulled much of the content straight out of my book – with a few additions (presumably of her own) to make it her own.

I was shocked. Firstly because I knew this thief. Secondly, because I really didn’t think that much of myself that someone would want to steal my stuff (that’s another post all unto itself).

There are stories like this all over the place. The first one that comes to mind is Jeff Slutsky’s story about Office Depot using his “six dollar haircut” story in an ad that ran last year. Slutsky, however, had a happier ending than I believe I will.

Not only did this “colleague” plagiarize my work, but when I commented on her blog with a “great post” kind of remark, it was deleted.

So not only did she steal my stuff, she KNEW she was stealing it and, frankly, didn’t seem to care.

At first, I tried to relax and ignore it. But this nagging feeling wouldn’t go away. Especially since this same person had publicly remarked at an earlier point in our business lives that she felt that at some point everything she ever learned became “hers” to teach as her own.

I consulted my amazingly grounded and insightful coach, @SarahRobinson, who indicated that while she was not surprised at the person in question, that it was mostly sapping my energy in a way that wouldn’t give me resolution.

So I fired my “colleague”. Putting more distance between us, and spending as little energy as possible on the situation.

Tip: Nobody “just knows” everything. We all learn from someone. Give credit where credit is due, folks.

Thinking I was finished with all the firing for a single week, I then had to fire a friend.

This person was fairly close to me, and sadly, known to be a bit out of control emotionally. Their behavior could get pretty outrageous at times, and if alcohol was involved, well, let’s just say only the sober people in the room would remember what happened.

This person is an incredibly smart, insightful, enjoyable person, with an enormous heart and fiercely loyal – until their emotional issues rear their ugly head(s). It gets so bad that they start to believe their own lies as truths. It’s been going on for years – longer than I’ve even known them.

Well, the lies finally caught up this week. And I couldn’t be there to help fix the problem. The problem was really beyond fixing. All enabling had to stop, and the truth had to be revealed.

I had entrusted this friend with a special task, and that task remains undone. The good news is that I wasn’t counting on them to complete the task, and had a back-up plan in place. The bad news is that I wasn’t counting on this friend to complete the task, and had a back-up plan in place.

So when word got around that they were playing around doing other things instead of focusing on the task they committed to, I fired the friend.

Well, a temporary lay-off, anyway.

We can be as well-meaning as we want to be, but when you make a commitment, in my mind, you stick to it. Come Hell or high water.

And lest you see this as an incredibly downer post, I want to assure you that I firmly believe that God is nudging me to create space to accommodate newer, better, more constructive relationships in my life and work.

I can already see it happening. With the awesome help of my coach (did you see her Relationships project?), and the internal journey I’m travelling, there are new friends on the horizon, new clients on the books, and better colleagues to forge ahead with (ending a sentence with a preposition, ACK!).

Bring. It. On.

Just in writing that sentence, I have removed myself from the room repeatedly for tissues, water, and any other “logical ” distraction to keep me from posting “out loud” an experience that ultimately defines a big piece of who I am today.

Mind you, I didn’t know it was going to be so horrible when I signed up. Our church provides a women’s retreat for members of the church to come and walk closer to God, connect with other women of faith, and in general give them a better, perhaps deeper, spiritual connection in their busy, sometimes awkward lives.

One of the elements of this retreat is called “the box“. Participants in the retreat are not supposed to know about the box before hand. Before the retreat, letters are solicited (on the sly) from loved ones, friends, and “supporters” of the participants. They are collected in a box, along with letters from past participants and hosts of the retreat weekend.

Because I open the mail in our home, I found out about “the box“. I was eagerly waiting this part of the retreat all weekend. Surely my husband would encourage the boys to draw a picture, write a note, or he himself would offer some words of spiritual encouragement.

I spent most of the weekend anticipating the box. Frankly, most of the retreat was a blur for me because I just kept waiting for the box to arrive. I wanted to see what was in it for me.

And when, after much “spiritual and emotional work” we were probably at our lowest point as participants, out comes “the box“.

I was like a kid on Christmas morning for about 15 seconds. As I tore open the box, I was so excited, my hands were shaking.

I pulled out a form letter from a past participant. It was nice, had a pretty picture of Jesus on it, and said something about hoping I had a transformational weekend.

Then another one, it had a dove or something on it.

Then another, and another, and soon, I just started skipping over the “form letters” and digging through the box. I was watching other people around me reading letters from their family and friends. They were crying and rejoicing and sharing with each other.

I just kept digging – down, down, down… to the bottom of my box.

And there was nothing there (that I chose to see at that time – more on that in another post).

No letter from mom, or any of my friends. No funny pictures, words of encouragement from my spouse, or anything personal and meaningful from someone I actually KNEW.

Quite frankly, it sucked.

But I put on my “game face” and portrayed a happy participant that was encouraged and touched by the “outpouring of support” these form letters were supposed to provide. Inside, I was angry, hurt, jealous, and probably felt a bunch of other stuff I can’t put into words even now.

It got worse.

At the end of the retreat, the church hosts a reception, where all the participants gather one last time – this time with their family and their emotional support group – singing songs, eating cake, and generally closing the event on a positive note.

My husband had made other plans to be somewhere else that afternoon, so there was no one there for me. As people started all that hugging and carrying on, I slipped out into my car.

And I grieved. Heavily. Kind of like I am right now.

That gut-wrenching, body heaving crying that you do when you’ve lost a piece of yourself. When the tears come so hard that you can’t see to drive the car, so you just sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes a happy faces come and go outside your vehichle as the place starts to clear.

It was the most horrible experience I have ever endured. Worse than the death of either of my parents, it was the death of a truth I through I “knew”. It still hurts today.

But it’s a good kind of pain.

In the moment of my deepest, hurtingest, sob-filled wail (yeah, that sounds pathetic, no?) the voice of James Earl Jones, in his best Darth Vader impression, echoes through my head:

“Your ways are not my ways.”

“Screw you God! That doesn’t help me very much right now.”

Yeah, I’ll probably go to Hell for that, but that’s what I shouted at the top of my lungs in the church parking lot.

God just persisted (he’s funny like that).

“My ways are not your ways.”

And while I was recovering from the grieving, I uncovered a new truth. That this horrible, painful experience, was very necessary to move me to what comes next in my life. I eventually went on to host that same event, and made a point of staying up all night to write a personal note to each participant because I didn’t want them to feel the disconnected “emptiness” of expecting something that was pretty much a “sure thing” and not getting it.

Fast forward to Sarah Robinson’s Create Irresistible Presence event.

I came to Atlanta with a singular purpose: To help refine the voice of The Renaissance Mom and give clarity to the message and audience that we’re trying to reach. In short, I knew I blew a huge opportunity with the live event we “made virtual” earlier this fall, and believed that it was because I just didn’t do an effective job of honing my niche, crafting my message and getting it out fast enough to get butts in the seats.

At some point yesterday, I started feeling like I was blowing an opportunity. A big one. I felt like I knew stuff, I’d done most of the exercises we were learning, and while I was learning, I still felt very disconnected from everything. An awareness came to me at o’dark thirty this morning that I’ve spent most of my life “trying”: to be first, to be best, to be heard.

So today, trying to be all “self aware”, I decided it was a “no-mascara” day. That if I was going to “try”, I would try to be more patient, not be first, and to let others have space to “be” and be heard around me.

It is incredibly excruciating for a person like me to wait. It’s the worst kind of torture in the world. I want to hurry up and help people so they can get to what comes next.

“My ways are not your ways.” The stupid God-voice replies.

At the break, my head was pounding. I finally broke down before lunch and got some meds (Thanks, Lori!)

For me, a massive energy headache like this is a sign of big things to come (and probably a thunderstorm later today – you’ve been warned).

And I sit in the not-knowing right now. Because what I thought I knew isn’t true.

I mentioned during our session that I came to Atlanta looking for something, and expecting one thing – and I’m not getting it. Right now, nothing is what I through it was going to be. My assistant, Bonnie, will probably kill me if I tell her that, right now, I feel like scrapping everything and starting from scratch. We’ve been building this brand for 9 months. I still believe that God set this “mission” on my heart to serve these women, but I’m not feeling it, I’m not connecting to it.

I’m not getting it.

So I’m grieving and sobbing and mourning the loss of the thing I thought I was going to get. Because that thing, as important as I thought it was, is nothing compared to what God is trying to set in my hands right now (and I’m still not sure what “it” is).

His ways are not my ways, sometimes.

Sometimes, God can be unwieldy, and messy, dirty or cumbersome. God does his best work in the hardest situations, because that’s when we finally throw our hands up in the air and give Him the opportunity to grab hold of our (now open) hands and pull us to safety.

So today, my hands are up, as I grieve the loss of what I thought I knew about myself, my business(es), and the way I THOUGHT God wanted me to show up in the world.

It is horrifyingly painful, wretched, and excruciating. I wouldn’t will it on anyone.

And I couldn’t be happier.

I have been known to utter profanity. Sometimes very loudly, sometimes under my breath, and yes, it might be aimed at you.

Well, not you specifically, but you get the idea.

See, when you publicly declare your faith for all the world to see, suddenly every action and misdeed is under a microscope – kind of like the Hollywood A-listers. But unlike the a-listers, forgiveness is rarely found for the person who claims to be a Christian.

Like it or not, we’re humans first, Christians second, and while that observation does not excuse my behavior, it certainly illuminates it.

I don’t make a point of swearing, but yeah, I’ve been caught on video speaking an expletive or two. While I admit it’s not the most proper way to present myself, it’s also dishonest of me to pretend I’m someone I’m not. I’ve tried to live my entire life thus far as an open book. Don’t ask if you don’t want to know, and all that jazz.

But here’s the thing. I would prefer you know, like and trust the REAL me – not some phony facade I put on for work. There’s something horrifyingly dishonest about being less than myself. And it’s time to nip it in the bud.

And you know what? I couldn’t be happier about it. Dave Lakhani says that polarizing personalities sell – you either love them or you hate them. I’m not out to win any popularity contests, and I don’t seek to offend people, but really, if the occasional burst of vulgarity bothers you, we need to part company. Sooner rather than later.

My entire business is built around teaching people to build a life they love without being apologetic or making excuses for who they really are. How can I hold myself out in any other fashion?

Tomorrow we begin the 30 Days to Renaissance journey here on the blog. Many of you have already jumped on board the e-course, and I hope more of you will take me up on this challenge as well: To live your life in balance without apologies or excuses.

For many of you, it will be like getting a fresh start. For others it’s confirmation of a process you’ve been “working on” for a while. But here’s the situation: You must insist on being 100% yourself. Anything less is a ripoff.

So for those of you that are wondering, I’m clearing the air here:

1. I swear – usually when I’m incredibly upset or incredibly happy. In those moments, it’s generally because I’m speechless (yeah, me. go figure).

2. I love God. I was born and raised as a Christian and have no plans of changing anytime soon.

3. I believe science and God can co-exist. Was God an alien? Who knows? Does it really make God any less powerful? Do we have all the answers worked out yet? Nope. And that doesn’t prove or disprove the existence of God in my book.

4. I try to do right, but I still screw up. If my mom hadn’t already given me a middle name, “bad choices” might be mine.

5. You can be a mom, a wife, and a business owner. It’s freakin’ hard work, it’s not for everyone, but if you’re willing to do the work, the rewards are amazing.

6. Balance doesn’t look like the scales of justice. Very often, it looks more like a contortionist. Everyone has a different sense of and need for balance. Finding your balance point will ease much of the tension and stress in your life.

7. Helping you guys find success on your terms is my mission. I can’t NOT do this. I believe God planted this in my heart and until he uproots it, I’m not going anywhere. he gave me a gift to help you brainstorm, find solutions and hold you accountable. So here I am doing my darndest – with your permission, of course.

8. I can’t make you successful, just like I can’t make you like me, trust me, or buy from me. What I can do is offer suggestions, guidance and prayer for your situation. god gave us all free will, so the rest is up to you.

9. My life isn’t perfect, it will never be perfect, and whilst I may grumble from time to time, remember I am human just like you – regardless of my religious affiliations. I do the best I can with what I have.

So there. As we take this 30 day journey together, realize that not everything I say will make you happy. That’s not my role. My role is to open your mind, and offer you options you may not have considered before. Stop being reluctant in your own life and embrace the renaissance waiting for you.

We begin in the morrow.