Posts Tagged "God"

Firing Clients, Friends and Colleagues

Posted by LisaYoung in Big Ideas, Faith | 0 comments

It’s been a whirlwind week for me.

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.

Hope Is Not A Strategy (Part Four)

Posted by LisaYoung in Big Ideas, Faith | 0 comments

Yesterday, we discussed living what you believe. Today, we talk about superheroes and the childhood dreams we may have left behind when we “grew up”.

This could get messy.

So @Sarahrobinson tweets about her son’s super powers. Then my pals @LIPDesign and @DanaReeves get into the conversation, which ultimately leads me to the “distracted” tweet I shared a couple of days ago. The crux of the convo was that Sarah’s kid was using his special abilities, and she, as an adult, didn’t feel as though she had the same skills in her present evolution. I believe the hashtag she used was #themomomentsIfeeillequippedtobehismom.

I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been there as adults. But it’s our own darn fault.

And it’s time things changed.

We walk around so consumed by “worldly” stuff – to borrow a biblical term. Bills, friends’ drama, family drama, our drama…

Drama drama drama! Save it for somebody else’s Momma!

I’m not saying we shouldn’t deal with that “stuff” that pops up in our lives. We definitely should. And we should ask for help when we can’t deal with it ourselves.

What I AM saying is that we use that drama as an excuse. A crutch. We let ourselves get “distracted” from our original dreams.

When we wore Wonder Woman Underoos, and knew we were invincible. When we tied Dad’s bathrobe around our neck and tried to jump off the garage roof. When we dared to believe in the stuff that really mattered: our dreams and the things we wanted to be about in the world.

When we were kids – like Joan of Arc – we were loyal to our dreams, our ambitions and the beliefs we held dear. Even in impoverished communities, little girls still dream of being princesses and living a life of “happily ever after”. Little boys still dream of “making big bucks” or “being a fireman” and “saving the world”.

To be frank, our world could use a little saving right now. Mostly from the so-called “grown ups”

So many of those would-be firefighters, teachers, doctors and princesses traded in their dreams for a 9-5 at the liquor store, not because they couldn’t do it. But because they didn’t see the patterns, and got distracted into a new pattern of “baby daddy momma drama” and wound up flipping burgers, or at the local stop-and-rob.

The simple fact is that for most of us that aren’t living out our happily-ever-after end game, there comes a point when you have to stop blaming everyone but yourself and decide: “Is this really the end game I want for myself?”

Maybe if we showed our daughters that in order to become a princess, they’ve got to have a smaller end game of meeting a prince (it does happen). Maybe if we encouraged our kids to save the world, we’d have a few more like Saint Joan.

And, perhaps along the way, they’d decide that it’s more fun to be president, or write books, or pursue a different dream.

Instead, they’re scrubbing the whole idea of having a dream in the first place.

Scratch that. They’re scrubbing the whole idea of LIVING their dream. They still cling to their dreams like Lola, the showgirl in Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana”: Bitter. Maybe even remorseful. Loaded down with regret and perhaps anger. Sitting there with faded feathers, remembering what could have been.

Is THAT really the end game you want for yourself? Are you still clinging to “hope” as a strategy for getting your happily ever after? Living with a lottery ticket mentality.

My husband says you can’t win if you don’t play the game.

My Mom said the answer’s always no if you don’t ask.

Joan said live what you believe.

I say ask, with hope, backed by a belief in what you’re end game is. That’s where we’ll pick up our super hero mantle again.

And with it, our dreams.

Hope Is Not A Strategy (Part Three)

Posted by LisaYoung in Faith | 0 comments

Continuing down the loop today, we’re going to pick up the “end game” conversation from yesterday and run with it.

Since you’re still in the middle of my end game, you may be scratching your head yet, trying to piece all this together.

This is where Joan of Arc comes in. According to Wikipedia:

“Joan asserted that she had visions from God which instructed her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII’s coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.”

When people quote Joan, often it is “I am not afraid… I was born to do this.” But there are two other quotes that I offer today:

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” (emphasis mine)

“Act, and God will act”

Regardless of your religious persuasion (or lack thereof), you have to credit Joan with an incredibly powerful belief. She knew her end game. She even predicted her own injury on the battlefield.

She knew what she had come here for and to her dying breath, she did it without compromise.

Are you living your belief? In your life, your work, your coming and going, your “rising and resting” as some scriptures would say.

Do you even know what you believe?

Here’s a girl that’s been praying hard for years and finally her end game becomes clear. She figures out the steps in the cycle and makes her move. She achieves her end game.

It’s the same pattern you see in powerful leaders throughout history. The details  may be more personal, but the patterns are undeniable. I’ve remarked on more than one occasion about the similarities between the rise of Hitler and one of our more recent presidents. Both were charismatic speakers. Both wrote books about their life that outlined how they’d “change the world”. Both rose to power with a grassroots level of enthusiasm.

Patterns. Cycles.

More recently, you might have heard it called “modeling.” The idea that if you want to be a millionaire, find someone else that has done it, learn from them and model them.

The problem with modeling is that you are NOT them. Your set of beliefs, your core values are probably not the same. Modeling their successes may also mean modeling their failures. Or WORSE.

But finding the patterns… now that’s something that can benefit you. If you want to be a millionaire, don’t just look for one person that’s done it. Look at many people who have done it. What are the commonalities? Where are the patterns, similarities?

Take notes. Lots of them. Then find those commonalities in YOUR life and work.

Then ACT. Take action. Move the ball down the field and see what happens next. See the end game and move relentlessly towards it. If it’s your life’s end game, as it was for Joan, you’ve got to be willing to die for it.

What are you willing to die for?

Are you living that belief?

I Am What I Am

Posted by LisaYoung in Faith | 8 comments

Land ho!

My ship docked on Wednesday, and what a whirlwind it’s been since then. All doused with kerosene, I lit the match, and stood on the shore for the last couple of days making SURE it was cinders and ashes.

I’ve been sort of dreading this post, and sort of looking forward to it, because so much has happened in the last 60 days, but I wasn’t really sure how to best articulate it. While this blog talks a lot about my personal journey, I also mean for it to be a tool that you can use to live and grow by.

Then this morning, my youngest climbed into our bed and promptly pulled the covers off me. I took it as a sign to get moving.

I did my morning PEACE System practice, and as I opened my laptop, my eyes fell on an email from my first coach, EPW, with an assignment for an upcoming class. She encouraged us to watch a video she created outlining a process to help us determine our four words.

Meh. I already have my theme for the year, and was planning on sharing it in an upcoming post. But since it was only 25 minutes, it was too early to really do anything else, and I figured the noise might get my husband out of bed, too, I acquiesced.

Now, I can frame this post in a way that’s meaningful to you.

This 60 day journey has been about trying to figure out what in the world I’m really supposed to be up to on this rock we call Earth. I know many of you resonate with the “jack of all trades, master of none” concept, and I’ve grappled with that identity myself for years. People still ask me “what do you do?” and I have a horrible time painting a complete picture.

Then there’s the marriage. What the French? How can you stay married to a person who shows little emotional presence, claims to love you, and feels like he’s bending over backwards to serve your needs because he did a load of laundry and changed a diaper? I was at an incredible crossroads in my marriage. Part of this 60 day journey was spent working through The Love Dare – and meeting with frustration after frustration. Ultimately, it wasn’t about “fixing” our marriage. It was about coming to terms with who I am, and how to make a marriage work in light of that revelation.

And, of course, there’s the family, the business, and a litany of other “stuff” that came up during the past two months.

One blog post seemed almost ineffective, until EPW’s email today.

See, I’ve done the “theme words” thing before: Pick a few words that lay the foundation for the year ahead, and build your life/business on those qualities. It works, but I figured I already had it down for the year.

This wasn’t that kind of exercise.

One of the questions in the exercise was this:

“If you were a fairy godmother and could bestow states of being on the people you love most in the world, what  qualities would you grant them?”

Then, as the exercise ended, she asked us to prioritize everything and select only 4 words from the list of qualities we had created.

That wasn’t too hard.

Then the revelation: You ARE those four words. These are not aspirations, but you actually live and breathe them. They are your being. Not core values, mind you, but the very essence of you. Your birthright.

And suddenly, I knew how to translate this 60 day experience to you.

I am Faith. It paves the way to everything. I’m not talking about thumping a bible in someone’s face. I’m not necessarily even talking about God, although that’s my personal faith vehicle. I’m talking about the willingness in your spirit to take the next step on your own journey – without knowing the end game. Cheryl Richardson once said that “faith is doing without knowing the outcome first.”

I’ve struggled with wanting to know the end game from time to time, and yet I do a LOT of stuff without knowing for sure where it will take me, just trusting that everything will work out. On this journey, I’ve explored what faith really is – and what it’s not. I made some huge discoveries – well, huge to me – that I’ll be sharing in the coming weeks. The biggest is that faith pervades all I am.

It’s one of my 5 Key Areas of Success in The PEACE System. It’s one of the most populated categories on this blog. It underpins so much of who I am and what I do, that it never dawned on me that one of my reasons for being is to actually BRING faith to the world – or at least my part of it.

I am Enthusiasm. This was the theme I had selected for the year. It was a hard-won word. I wanted to find something that would encapsulate “going all in” and not “going through the motions” of my existence. It also resonates happiness, joy, mirth. And yes, there’s that whole “God inside” definition, and the zeal that goes with it.

For me, enthusiasm is about doing anything you do with vibrancy and commitment. Not being half-hearted, and being willing to burn the ships – with a smile, grit, determination, and a bit of duct tape for good measure. Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean you have to do it begrudgingly. Some of the sweetest rewards come from the most difficult harvest. To that end, my marriage is no longer a negotiable piece of my life. It IS. And I choose to be married with enthusiasm!

I am Clarity. Which sounds exceedingly antithetical to being Faith, I will confess. Yet, one of the things I am best known for is my ability to ask difficult questions and bring clarity to a situation that once seemed too foggy to navigate. I’ve been asking “why?” since I was a toddler, trying to get a grip on what the truth of a situation is. With my clients, I demand transparency and full disclosure so that I can make the best possible decisions for suggested courses of action. In as much as I know I can’t predict the future, I can get as clear as I possibly can, and step out in faith to see what comes next.

Asking questions has never been a big deal to me. I was taught to question and seek truth at a young age. Little did I know that seeking that kind of clarity was not only a part of who I am, but sharing and “bestowing” that kind of clarity for others is part of my mission in this world.

I am Passion. Believe it or not, this was the easiest for me to grasp. To me, passion and enthusiasm are not the same – nor are they mutually exclusive. They feed one another. Passion is a fuel, a fire, an intensity, a deep desire or love for something. It’s a modifier to life. It magnifies the moment. Sometimes we need a magnifier, sometimes not. Thus, it’s not my primary word, but it’s still a very necessary one.

When I was in high school, our swim team’s shirts read “Go Hard or Go Home!” That phrase has stuck with me ever since (even though I was NEVER on the swim team). To me, the idea of having an intense love or desire for the thing you’re about in the world makes it addictive – not just for you, but for the people around you. It becomes intoxicating. It starts movements. It incites people to action. This world would be far less interesting without the passionate people of the world. But if all you have is passion, you end up bumping into a lot of walls along the way.

So the last 60 days have been about connecting (or re-connecting) with who Lisa really is – at her core, as her birthright. I am what I am, and now, I have a better understanding of what that means. I also have a clearer view of what I do for my clients, and how I’m meant to bring that vision to a larger audience. I’m hard at work on a new business project that will serve that audience. More details to follow.

What say you? What are you about in this world? Where do you find yourself being called to serve? I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments!

God Bless The Revolutionaries

Posted by LisaYoung in Big Ideas, Faith | 6 comments

I’ve been feeling incredibly guilty lately, and if what I’ve read lately is any indication, I’m not the only one.

I saw it in a book I picked up the other day, and I cringed.

“God (or universe, or spirit, or whatever)“

Right there in black and white, the author was apologizing for believing in God. He didn’t outright say it, but I see it more and more as we strive for “correctness” and “tolerance” we’re watering down our own faith stance to accommodate others.

In fact, I’ve side-stepped it myself. Couching God in safe, generic terms like “universe” or “spirit” or something equally mundane.

Thus, the guilt.

Godly enough, I got my first pimp-slap of the year today from my new friend, Leesa Barnes. Her evolutionary post about ‘breaking a hinge‘ ends with a quote from the first book of Kings.

Yes, from the Bible.

It was not an intentional slap, I know, because we’ve talked recently about this almost unspoken undercurrent of unrest in the marketplace. In our conversations, we shared scriptures, ideas, rantings, complaints, and even some of our more personal beliefs about things like God. I shared my recent discovery of Bruce Barton and his writings about Jesus as one of the most accomplished businessmen in the world.

You can call God whatever you like, but for me, I specifically choose God, so please don’t ask me to use something else.

Reading that scripture was a holy awakening to me, and a reminder of our recent conversation.

Well-meaning colleagues and friends have strongly encouraged me to keep my faith to myself or at the very least “tone it down” for general consumption.

God isn’t for general consumption.

Not everyone can handle His message. Not everyone wants to hear that message. I get that.

For as many times as I’ve said “your business is an extension of who you are” it’s even more imperative that I vocalize that my faith is also an extension, if not the very definition, of who I am.

I’m not claiming perfection or blamelessness here, and I think anyone that knows me, knows this to be true.

I screw up a LOT.

I’m also open to God’s direction. Often doing things that don’t seem to make sense to other people because I feel called to serve in a particular capacity.

And I’m not the only one.

There’s a revolution happening. I hesitate to say “behind the scenes” because it’s not so behind the scenes lately. They’re coming out of the woodwork. Business owners tired of the lies, the fakery, the illusions of success gilt to a thin veneer – that crumble all too easily.

They’re tired of having to tip-toe around anyone not of their faith so as not to be seen as a Bible-thumping, teetotaling puritan in conservative clothing.

That ain’t me. I don’t force-feed anyone my truth. You have the option to bail any time you like.

But you DON’T have that option if I’ve never given it to you. So I’m extending it now.

My 60-day journey ends soon. Signs of land are approaching, and all the details are coming soon, I promise. Some things have been tortuous; others, miraculous. All of them necessary to pave the way for the big things God has planned for me in 2011.

And I’m not the only one. The revolutionaries are all around you. You may even be one of them. Trying to figure out how to cross the chasm between God and your message in the marketplace. Trying to figure out where to tread so that you tread lightly enough to not set off a few land mines along the way. I’m meeting more and more people with that same sticking point.

Screw it.

Stop “tippin on cotton” and lay it out there. That was the message I got today, so I lay it before you now. You’re going to make mistakes, people aren’t going to understand, and yes, a few people will probably even call you names.

Jesus had it a LOT worse than that, didn’t he?

As an intuitive coach (and that’s the first time I’ve publicly said that), I pray before every coaching session and ask God to guide me so that I can provide the best possible help to my clients when I am working with them. I don’t ask “universe” or “spirit” to channel through me, I ask for God’s help.

Why should I hide that from my clients? Kind of a pertinent detail, don’t you think?

Likewise, when I screw up, it’s God that I turn to for help, guidance, forgiveness and direction. And many of my clients do as well. Instead of it being a bone of contention, it actually becomes an endearing quality to those that work most closely with me. Why should I deny it?

There are those who have said to me that I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face – essentially eliminating a portion of my “target market” by making a public declaration of my faith.

Isn’t that the point of target marketing? If people don’t want to work with me as I am, then they’re NOT my target market, correct?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying God is a marketing ploy, a strategy, or a tactic to be “used” to grow my business.

I’m talking about transparency, ethics, and the truth that my clients deserve.

Maybe you don’t want to work with a coach that prays for you. You have a right to know that. Maybe you don’t want to hear stories of “divine downloads” or how putting God at the center of everything in my life (including my business) is radically changing everything in my world.

You have a right to know, before you invest your dollars with me, how I do what I do – and WHY I do what I do.

You don’t have to believe it, but if you don’t even know what it is in the first place, you have no idea what you’re paying for.

So tonight, as I lay my head down and wrap the first day of this new year, I’ll be offering up prayers, re-dedicating everything to God for 2011, and beyond.

Prayers that this year will be infinitely better than last year.

Prayers that abundance is something you truly feel, not just a buzz word that people banter around.

Prayers that your life will be enriched in more ways than you can count on all your phalanges.

Prayers to bless all the other revolutionaries making their leap across the chasm this year.

Prayers for my life, my faith, my business, clients, family, friends… and YOU.