I'm laying down a challenge for you today.
This week's post shares a quick tip and friendly reminder to clear out the clutter in your heart, your home, and your life. When you do, there's a gift that comes back to you. Clearing space always makes room for something new. What that "something"
What about you? What's the Key Area of Success where you could take a moment and create some space? When you've cleared space n the past, what was the "new" that showed up for you? Share your thoughts in the comments for our whole community to enjoy.
On the heels of last week's post about Comparison-itis, I was driving in the car with Hubby yesterday and this tune came on the radio. It reminded me that nobody's perfect, we all make mistakes, and that's how we learn.
Have you been beating yourself up because you're not perfect? This catchy little tune might help. 🙂
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"I am enjoying showing up as myself more completely."
That was the nugget of gold I rendered from my weekend intensive with my coach this past weekend. Once a quarter I sojourn in Minnesota for a few days to do deeper work to heal my "stuff" and open up blocks around my mindset. Because I'm a coach myself, I know the value of having a different perspective to help me open my eyes to my own hangups about success and how my life "should" be at this point in time.
This revelation came as a surprise as much as it came as a soothing realization. There's ease in showing up as myself - without worry or self-censorship. Granted, there are times when a little tact is recommended, but to just be myself fully - warts, sparkles, and all - is a gift I'm learning to give myself (and the world) more regularly.
Comparisonitis is a dreadful condition. It's a horrible inflammation of the ego, causing immense discomfort about who you are, and overall dissatisfaction with anything you've accomplished. When you suffer from Comparisonitis, everyone else is always farther along, doing better, making more money, living the life you believe "should" be yours. There's no sense of satisfaction, and often you feel guilt - like there's something wrong with you, or you need to be doing more.
Comparisonitis is fear in disuise. Instead of doing what we can where we're at, we're constantly comparing ourselves to every Tom, Dick, and Jane out there that appears to be in a better position than us.
One of my first (and admittedly worst) cases of Comparisonitis was with a contemporary colleague of mine. It was around 2008, and another coach was having what appeared to be way more success and making way more money than me. We both launched our businesses about the same time, and I was frustrated at how much exposure she was getting, how many "big name" people were talking her up, and how she looked like she was on the fast track to success.
What I didn't know was that all that surface shine came at a great cost to her personal life. She had taken out a second mortgage on her home so she could invest in all the programs that those "big names" were offering, which came with a promise of promoting her stuff to their audience. Ultimately, she ended up divorcing her husband and starting over on a much smaller scale. She tried to leapfrog and wasn't ready for the hard landing that comes from such a high jump.
You don't know what's going on in someone else's world. Stop comparing your success to theirs. (click to tweet)
There's a difference between Comparisonitis and benchmarking - which I'll get to in a minute - but for now, realize that your first step in moving beyond Comparisonitis is to stop "shoulding" on yourself.
I forget where I first heard the phrase, but if you've worked with me for any length of time, you've heard me use it. We get so caught up in the "shoulds" - instead of accepting (and maybe even embracing) where we are now. I think Mark Silver over at Heart of Business said it to me best:
"As long as you are in comparison, you are rejecting what is true [for yourself], and you are not able to be present to what is... People make up stories to protect themselves from having to surrender to what is currently true for them."
- Mark Silver"
When we're not focused on what is, we're focused on what we think should be happening, what we should be doing, what we should be experiencing. All that does is create more anxiety, more guilt, and more frustration about where we are not, instead of appreciating where we are.
Yet, if we stop comparing ourselves to anyone (except our past selves), we can see how far we've come in our lifetime, despite the obstacles, trials, fear, worry, doubt, and pressure to be something other than who and what we are.
When I look back on my life (instead of comparing that life to someone else), I'm really proud of what I've accomplished, who I've become, and what's on the radar for my future. I get a chance to appreciate my own awesomeness (without arrogance), instead of poo-pooing and downplaying my life because it's not "enough" compared to someone else.
My coach has helped me practice what she calls "AWOJAWA" - awareness without judgement, awareness with acceptance. We often think that pain, discomfort and other feelings of that ilk are "bad" and to be avoided. While it's true that I wouldn't want to live there all the time, sometimes pain can be a powerful tool for recognizing a need to change. Fear can be a powerful motivator to get stuff done. It's not good or bad, it just is.
Likewise, we think that happiness, pride, peace, joy and other feelings of that ilk are "good" and to be sought after. Yet, how much happiness is there in chasing joy? How healthy is it to be peacefully blissed out and completely unaware of the 8 year old setting fire to your kitchen?
It's not good or bad, it just is. We are the ones putting all the judgment labels on our emotions.
Comparisonitis still flares up in me from time to time, and I do my best to use a healthier way to track my growth and progress. Benchmarking is an idea that's used a lot in corporate worlds, and one that I think we can use beneficially in other ways. The idea is to look to a standard and measure our results compared to that standard.
But here's the kicker - you can't measure to some external standard. Take for example, my weight loss journey. If I constantly compared myself to every other woman that was more than 100 pounds overweight, observed the charts and "standards" that governing health agencies said were ideal, I'd be miserable.
My standard, instead, is consistency. What can I do consistently? I can run - if I'm pushed - but I can't sustain that. I hate running (for now anyway). What can I do - and do it consistently? I can get off my butt and dance around my house for 10 minutes a day. Will that cause me to lose 100 pounds overnight? Nope. But once I'm consistent at 10 minutes, I can increase it to 15, and so on.
So I benchmark my progress against my own reasonable standard. Will I get there as fast as I want to - as fast as I think I should?
Um nope. But I'll be making healthier choices more consistently... which eventually leads to the result I want.
Did you hear that? I'll let you take a minute for that to sink in. You are already a success. How's THAT grab ya?
In benchmarking, I'm allowed to see myself as already successful. Because I'm comparing myself now to what I've already done, and what's doable for me going forward. I can celebrate my wins NOW instead of waiting for "someday" in the great beyond.
Tomorrow never comes, yo. And yesterday is always gone. Insert cheesy cliches about embracing this moment here.
So in showing up fully as myself - as often as I can - I get to experience the grace and beauty of my own success. I get to draw closer to the Divine ideal of my life - whatever that is. I'm still figuring it out.
Here's another tidbit I gleaned from Mark - if we look at "excellence" (or "success" in this case) as a way to Master our world, we miss out on the other, more glorious result - we draw closer to the Divine.
So becoming myself more fully means I'm becoming excellent at being myself - instead of becoming something else that moves me farther and farther away from Divine Alignment.
Showing up as myself more completely means I own who I am, and I speak from my true voice - my truth - warts, sparkles, and all. Which, I think, is part of why I'm here on the planet in the first place. God doesn't make extra parts and pieces. We all have a gift and the only way we can share it is if we share it from our true self. I think Judy Garland said something about being a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of someone else. Why would you want to be a second rate version of anything?
It's so important that we understand how important we are - how important YOU are in this world. What do you see as your gifts? And what are you doing to share them with the world - fully as yourself?
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367One of my favorite Jim Brickman tunes is not just a great love song, it's a powerful reminder to own your dreams.
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"Let me be a lesson to you of what NOT to do."
When you're a celebrity on par with Jonah Hill, that's probably not the ideal phrase to be uttering to your fans. In this case, though, Jonah's sincere apology on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon after being caught on camera making a grossly inappropriate comment has done a lot to mend fences.
[I'll also go on the record as being ignorant, because I didn't realize the comment he made was now considered "a homophobic slur". I grew up hearing that phrase from men and women alike in my neighborhood. Not that it was a pleasant thing to hear, I was just a little surprised that it was a nuanced term.]
From the paparazzi video, it's hard to know exactly what was said, but Jonah indicated he and his family were being verbally attacked on a personal level by the photographer and "was genuinely hurt by this... and in response wanted to hurt him back".
To borrow a line from The Dixie Chicks: "There's your trouble!"
(more…)(Author's note: this post originally appeared in 2011 on one of my old blogs. I've freshened it up a bit for you today.)
One of the things that really annoys me are those folks that say they want change, but don't take action when answers are provided.
It dawned on me why they don't budge.
Picture a huge file room in your brain. There's a file clerk in there, taking in "evidence" for the various files in the "cabinets."
The file clerk never takes a break. He's contstantly filing away bits of information in the various files.
Let's say, in one cabinet, you have two files, one marked "I can't sing", the other marked "I'm a good singer."
Then let's say you're invited to sing in a local Karaoke contest.
Quickly, you run to the file clerk and say "pull out the files to help me decide what to do!"
The file clerk, never missing a beat, pulls out two files. One is significantly larger than the other. The one that says "I can't sing" weighs 100 pounds, while the other has only a few slips of paper inside.
(more…)
Each time I go to my coach's weekend intensives, I always walk away with lots of ideas that pop like "popcorn" over the coming weeks. Sometimes they come in the most unusual ways.
For example, I was back in my hotel room, kind of winding down for the night. After a weekend like this, you can be emotionally raw, which means I can cry at the drop of a hat.
This video took me over the edge. Not only is it a powerful display of courage, but also conviction, commitment, and to staying the course when it comes to owning your dreams. Watch (you might need tissue), and I'll share some key lessons after. (more…)
Every time my family and I make the trek to North Carolina to visit my in-laws, there's one place I have to stop.
It's called JR, and it claims to be "The World's Largest Cigar Store." I don't know if that's true or not, but every time we plan a trip to Statesville, I try to finagle my way to JR... but not for cigars.
To be clear, cigars don't do it for me. I don't smoke, never have, and can't see a time in my future when I ever will. Heck, my Dad died from lung cancer. After Mom's heart attack, her doctor told her to stop smoking. She didn't. She died. So I know that smoking is one dead end road I have no intention of travelling.
Like any good nerd, I'm there for the books. JR has an extensive selection of best selling books and a few out of print or hard to find titles, as well as books on tape, and other media. To a bookworm like me, it's like putting a $20 in the slot machine in Vegas and hitting the jackpot.
Unfortunately, this last time I was there, the selection of books was grossly diminished. The book section was maybe half the size it was a couple of years ago. I started grumbling to myself about how I was actually going to have money left in my pocket when I was done shopping. There are usually so many good books - hard to find, out of print, and best sellers - that I have to use decide which books to leave on the shelves because I just don't have enough money. I walked out with three titles to add to my bookshelf, and a whole lot of change from that $20 bill.
He was laying in that hospital bed for several days. Stubborn, cantankerous.
He'd had difficulty breathing when they admitted him, but this eighty year-old man was a fighter, and while he hadn't been eating well for the past few weeks, his strength was contagious. His children, gathered in the room, listened to him tell off the nurses, the doctors, and just about everyone that entered the room.
He talked about how he wasn't done living yet. He just bought a new house. He just celebrated his 80th birthday. He had a grandson he wanted to watch grow up. He was a vigorous "old dude" that didn't give up easily.
His vitals looked good, and no one knew what was causing the trouble. All signs pointed to stress, maybe from making that move, or not getting enough rest.
After a couple of days in the hospital, test results came back.
"You've got a tumor the size of a baseball on your lung. It's causing pressure on your stomach when you eat too much, which, is presumably why you're not eating." the doctor said.
"Cancer?" said the old man. "Well, I guess that's it."
(more…)[Note: I originally wrote this post a few years ago, for my Business Action Hero website. I've refreshed it here because it's still relevant - maybe now more than ever.]
"If you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.”
- Seth Godin
It hit me between the eyes. This painful, jarring sensation at far too early on a Sunday morning - on a holiday weekend no less. This strange need for safety that we all seem to crave - even go out of our way to re-inforce.
Even if the result is less comfortable than pursuing change.
We don't want to rock the boat and get people mad at us. So we stay in the comfort zone. Maybe we push a little here and there, but we're not really making true progress on our own path.
It's here where we have to choose:
Because safety is the ultimate risk. Hoping and praying that nothing will change. Images of ostriches with their heads in the sand come to mind. They can't see that tornado bearing down on them, but golly, they sure feel safe!
[tweet "When it comes to owning your dreams, safety is the ultimate risk."]
Back in 2010, I had the honor of interviewing best-selling author Jonathan Fields about the upside of being an entrepreneur. During that interview, he said something that has stayed with me:
"There is no sideways in life. It's an illusion. There's only up and down. Usually this is the most horrifying scenario of all."
- Jonathan Fields
At first, I didn't want to believe it, but my own experience has validated that there's no standing still. You're either moving forward (as you define it) or you're getting left behind. When I interviewed him again for his second book, "Uncertainty", he offered up this gem:
"If you want to do great things in the world, you have to go to a place where you don't know how it's going to end."
- Jonathan Fields
(You can listen to that interview here.)
Since then, he's launched the Good Life Project and Revolution U, all the while, going where he'd never gone before. It's been fascinating and fun to watch. Clearly, this is a guy that continues to choose "adventure" over "safety".
Safety is your nemesis.
I don't mean you should recklessly throw caution to the wind. We need to be smart about the risks we're taking. Safety and security is one thing most of us crave - it's the foundation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Without it, we don't feel like we can move forward.
But once we "have" it, we're less likely to move forward because of it. Safety means we don't have to push, strive, or work as hard because, well, we're safe, and nothing's going to happen to us in our safe space, right?
That's a wicked catch-22.
Safety works hard to keep you stuck - just as hard as you work to plow forward in your adventure.
"What if they don't like it?"
"What if they think I'm crazy?"
"What if it flops?"
"What will _____ say?"
"That's too hard/easy/fast/slow/tedious/tiresome/boring/good for me."
"I'd love to but I don't have enough ______ (or I am not ____ enough)."
We judge ourselves so harshly that we don't give ourselves a fighting chance. Let's change that!
Remember: perfection is an illusion. You're already as perfect as you're gonna get. You're human. To expect perfection 100% of the time will only cause more judgement (pain, resentment, frustration). Stuff happens that we call "failure". Big deal. Take a moment to celebrate the wins, stop staring at the door that closed, and look for your next steps.
The nature of a nemesis is that it has an equivalent level of power and sway. Think of The Joker and Batman, Prof. Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes. A nemesis is not easily defeated, but can be thwarted and often contained. It is when you underestimate your nemesis that it takes a foothold, and often wins a battle or two.
Simple, but not easy.
It can be a real challenge to find even a little piece of quiet during the day. But quiet stillness is a daily must-have if you want to stay sane and allow for the blessings that come from intuitive/divine guidance.
This week's Convo features Joanna Weston, a certified Martha Beck trained life coach. We talk about finding stillness, what coaching is (and what it isn't), as well as how she's helping her clients create space for the sacred.
Visit Joanna and learn more about her "Creating Space For The Sacred" program.
[Note: This isn't a topic I get to blog about much, because, well, my skin color is usually irrelevant to the work I'm doing in the world (funny how that works, huh?). I've been very fortunate that the bulk of the racist remarks I've dealt with in my life stemmed from ignorant classmates during my school days. There was that one dumb co-worker, but I'll just chalk that up to his old age and inability to grasp multi-ethnicity. Fortunately, he's part of a dying breed, and a relic of a by-gone era, that hopefully never returns.]
Growing up as a multi-racial kid in a blended family wasn't easy.
I was called all kinds of names every day on the school bus. My favorite?
Zebra. The black kids thought I was "too white to be black" and the white kids thought "I was too black to be white". It was the one term they could all agree on.
As a "Zebra" I was delightfully different (okay, it wasn't so delightful then, but I digress). Able to embrace both my white-ness and my black-ness - regardless of how derogatory the term was meant to be. It was certainly better than "honkey" or that "n" word that still floats around in certain circles.
So imagine my delight (and my surprise) when I found this (more…)
The Convo returns! This week's video is a segment from Module One of my Spotlight Sessions program. The program launched today, and it felt like this segment was important to share with you.
Where are you at in your 5 Key Areas? What could you be doing differently?
For some of us, there comes a time in life when it feels like everyone has given up on you.
You might even feel like giving up on yourself.
Don't.
As I write this, I've just returned from spending the day in the hospital with my oldest son. Suffice it to say he's on the brink of giving up on himself. He waffles, as I suspect many teenagers do, between thinking he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and seriously wondering why anyone "wastes" their time with him.
If you've followed me for any length of time, you know the trials (more…)
This was one of the hardest things I had to write. I didn't want to tell you to "be authentic," or to "become a rock star" nor come back with the witty "you're not special" missive.
Because I do believe that we can be authentic, become a rock star and be utterly special if we use our T.A.G.S. effectively.
Your talents, abilities, gifts and skills (otherwise known as T.A.G.S.) are your edge. It's that thing that makes you unique. Because you were fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image, you are indeed special.
The key to increasing your income isn't to invest in yet another "blueprint" or to uncover the hidden "secret." These will work only if you share the T.A.G.S. of the guru who's selling that program.
Instead, to find your money sweet spot, you need to uncover your strengths and stop focusing on your weaknesses. The easiest way to do this is to add your T.A.G.S. to your idea or business, as that will trigger a flow of income.
Yup, you heard me. Look back 10 or 20 years and you'll find a talent, ability, gift or skill that has laid forgotten and dormant.
Mine is music. I recently started playing the organ for a congregation. The last time I did so, I was still in university working towards a degree. That was 15-years ago.
To prepare for my debut on the organ, I went digging into a box in my basement for old song books.
What I discovered were pages and pages of unfinished compositions that I started writing in the mid-1990s. My side project is finishing those compositions and getting the choir at my church to sing them.
I now incorporate music and music training into my teachings. I help my clients find their voice when talking about money and there's no better way to teach this than through a song or by using voice exercises. This is what makes my teachings different from other money coaches out there. (more…)
[Editor's note: This is Day 22 of the Be Your Own Guru series, and we're continuing the them of "how-to's" this week. I met Winnie in an online class, and we teamed up to practice elevator pitches. Then we started talking about fear, love and God. Yep. Deep stuff. Winnie's got a great take on fear and how to get past it today.]
That famous social commentator, Anonymous, is quoted as saying “Owning a business is the best self- development program around.”
How right she is.
Whether you’re an accidental entrepreneur, fulfilling a lifelong dream of being on your own, or you’ve got talents and a passion you’re driven to share with the world, at some point as you build the business you come face-to-face with emotional baggage you either didn’t know you had or were sure you had unpacked when you were 18 and still knew everything.
Starting a business isn’t hard. Any child can tell you how to start a lemonade stand: Figure out what you’re selling, come up with a price, put up a sign, and collect the money.
[Note: This is Day 17 in the Be Your Own Guru series. Today is also the re-launch of Dr. Eldon Taylor's book "I Believe: When What You Believe Matters". This post contains excerpts from his book. It's also an exploration of our brain's "efficiency trap" that keeps us mired in self-limiting beliefs.]
When I was a kid, I looked up to my grandmother.
Grandma was a looker as a young lass. She even sang in a local nightclub with her sister. The story goes that one night, when her boyfriend couldn't come to pick her up from work at the club, he sent his brother to bring her home. That "brother" went on to be my grandfather. That's their wedding picture on the left.
Even though she was "old" by kid standards, Grandma was cool and refined. She knew how to put on makeup and wear a dress (something my mom NEVER did), after a day of working in the yard, getting her hands dirty... and it always looked effortless and matter-of-fact with Grandma.
Okay, I still aspire to (more…)
[Editor's note: This is Day 16 of the Be Your Own Guru series. This is Melanie's first adventure as a guest contributor to ANY blog, and I'm humbles to share her voice today. Melanie brings the perspective of an artist and an intuitive to this conversation. She reminds us that we all have our own guru inside ourselves - and it's time to let it shine.]
Guru: the act of being a pure, spiritually aligned wise one.
Are you your own guru, or is someone else? Do you feel that this thing they are is separate and nothing to do with your own existence? Are they teachers and gurus who convince you they’ve got it down and are perfect super uber spiritual beings? (& Perhaps you're not?)
Well perhaps they have it down.
BUT
Everyone is unique.
Everyone is diverse.
Everyone has a different life...
Culture...
Take on things...
Approach...
Awareness...
Gifts.
If we are all unique, so are (more…)
[Note: This is day 12 of the Be Your Own Guru blog series. Today's video offers you an opportunity to think about how perception works in real time, and how living your life according to your own perceptions can be both a blessing and a curse.]
We all walk through life with preconceived notions about our world.
We call them beliefs.
Often, these beliefs color every interaction we have - without us even realizing it.
If you carry a belief that strangers are dangerous, you'll behave differently than if you were raised to be cordial to strangers.
Neither belief is inherently good or bad. Neither belief guarantees a positive or negative outcome.
In the video below, you'll see a piece of paper. What color is it?
That question seems simple enough, right? I mean, you can look at it and easily see that it's pink, right?
Clearly, anyone with a fully functional ocular device can tell it's pink. Right?
Well, it all depends on what side of the paper you're standing on.
In the video, I challenge you to consider (more…)
[Note: This is Day 10 in the Be Your Own Guru blog series. And this is about the time when people start to feel overwhelmed, "behind" or they just feel like quitting in general. Is that you? If so, read on!]
There comes a point on every journey where you need to decide if you're going to stand up for what you say you believe, or quit.
"It's when things seem hardest that you must not quit." is the closing line of Whittier's famed poem "Don't Quit."
That's easier said than done sometimes.
Most of the time, actually.
See, there's a relief that comes in quitting... in letting something unravel so that you can walk away.
Maybe, like me, it's more than one of those things - or all of them at the same time. I've let things unravel a few times in my life. I moved across country when things were too lonely at college. I moved back home, cross country again, when things got too hard and lonely out West. Each time, I left stuff behind for other people to clean up. And don't get me started on the number of houses I've moved out of since I've been back in Michigan. I've left plenty of things behind I wasn't willing to deal with anymore. It was just to much/overwhelming/hard for me to sift through all those old things/memories, and decide what to keep. So I just let it all go.
I've even done it with a business or two. It got too hard. My heart wasn't in it. I was looking for relief.
But now, I'm standing in a space where hard is pressing in on all sides, and it's the kind of hard that tests my mettle. It's a situation (several, actually), where I've been called on the carpet and my beliefs are being put to the test. If I really believe in what I say I believe in, I must behave in a certain way, otherwise, I'm just paying lip service to what I say is my truth.
Ever been there?
Shoot! It's even hard to just quit - I mean you've already invested a ton of time, (more…)