I chuckle now as I look back on my collegiate career. Convinced that I was "too poor" to be able to afford to hire a band, a graphic designer, or a business manager, I learned how to do all those things myself. I took classes in business, law, graphic design, and music. My first album (recorded during my time in college) features no other instrumentalists. Every track was laid down electronically. I mixed my own vocals, designed my own cover. I did have a friend shoot the pictures, but that was only because he had a camera and was willing to help.
Can you imagine the comic nature of me trying to set up a shot, run around to the back of the camera, set a timer, and run into the shot again? Don't laugh. I found myself doing exactly that in a recent photo shoot for The Sweet Browns - a vocal group I'm working with locally. I think we ended up taking that shot 4 or 5 times before I got situated in time for the flash.
In my family, it somehow meant we're weak, that we can't do "it" on our own... whatever "it" happens to be. I grew up in a family of strong, independent women, and had a pretty stubborn lineage of men in my life as well. We simply didn't ask for help. The downside to all that independence is that you pass it on. I watch my boys (8 and almost 18) think they have to have it all figured out. That they simply can't ask for help. They either have to wait for it to be offered, or they have to struggle through the frustration on their own.
(more…)About a year ago, my husband and I bought a Porsche. We call it "The Time Machine" because it's really a blast from the past.
When we bought it, we got the expected commentary from friends and family:
"A Porsche? Really? How can you afford that?"
"What are you going to do with a Porsche? It's way too small for your family."
"Mom, can I have it when I graduate from high school?"
... and on and on.
When they found out it was a Porsche 924 - a classic from 1977 - and we only paid about $1500 for it, the comments took a different turn:
"What are you going to do with an old beat up car?"
"Forget it! I don't want my friends seeing me in an OLD car!"
"That's $1500 more than I would have paid."
"Does it have seatbelts?"
"Regular or unleaded gas?"
... and my favorite: "Can you even fit in that thing?"
One guy I used to know - who owns a limited edition Porsche Panamera (valued around $75k) - liked to poke fun and ask me when we were going to get a real Porsche. He'd say to me "Don't you want to see yourself someday in a new Porsche?"
I wonder if he'd say that to his wife - who is about 20 years his junior. 🙂
Last summer was a rough one for us. After two years of trying to keep a failing business venture afloat, and some personal financial issues around the health of our kids, we made a tough decision (more…)
"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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I may be ill this week, but I'm not skipping my weekly video. It's time again for another musical medley mashup!
This time, it's the most well known Sunday song of all time (that classic Commodores hit, "Easy") with a little country thrown in for good measure (that Tim McGraw hit "Watch The Wind Blow By").
Lionel wrote his song as a breakup tune, while the other is just a feel good, kick back love song. Put the two together, and it's a fun little anthem about freedom and doing what you love on your own timetable. Enjoy!
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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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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…)
[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…)
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 20 of the Be Your Own Guru series. Teresa is a friend as well as a colleague. She's most effective at providing experiential examples around abundance and feelings of scarcity. I practically begged her to do a video so that you could get a very visual, experiential take on why doing/making"more" isn't always the answer to your "not enough" problem.]
Video Highlights (more…)
by Leela Sinha
[Editor's note: This is day 18 in the Be Your Own Guru series. Leela offers us a 7-minute audio that speaks out about the information our body sends us all day long - and how we need to stop ignoring it if we want to experience peace, pleasure, and balance in our lives.]
Highlights of the audio:
1:13 - The double edged sword of "letting go"
2:30 - Ways to achieve balance
3:10 - An exercise to connect to your true self
4:00 - The smartest part of you (hint: it's NOT your brain)
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Leela Sinha is a certified coach and ordained minister focused on helping you experience real pleasure. Following pleasure isn’t about shutting down everything else. It’s about having a way to find your heart again. Leela says it's "the most engaging, exhausting, invigorating play I’ve ever done. It certainly feels too good to be associated with 'work'. But it’s not exactly relaxing. It’s more like summiting a fabulous mountain with an amazing companion. (That would be you. The companion. Or maybe the companion is me. It’s all about perspective.)"
Want your own great things? Ready to have your body back? Visit Leela's website, BodyOfPleasure.com or connect with Leela on twitter or facebook.