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.

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.

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?