Um, not so helpful.

With very little sleep and early morning meetings coming up, I got myself ready and guess what?!?  EVERY meeting I had went south, people were upset, random weird things kept happening and communication went haywire.  And I take full responsibility for what happened, because my own mind filters created the chaos (and stories in my head).

So why am I telling you this?  Simple.   The very thing that will cause you to make the money you want, have the peace and tranquility you seek, the productivity you need and the powerful relationships you desire has absolutely NOTHING to do with anything but your behavior.  And your behavior, lucky for you, is totally under your control.

It is your behavior that wastes time, energy and money. Period.

Sure you need tactical skills like how to manage your website, how to do Quickbooks and a myriad of other business skills.  Those are simple, really.  It’s the emotional you that wastes time – in procrastination, overwhelm, overload and frustration and worry.

I know you don’t always have a clear vision for your future.  And frankly, that’s okay.  It’s one of the things that causes you to waste time wondering “how” you’re going to do something when you don’t even know “what” that something is.  So here are five things you can consider to help you reclaim time:

1.  Set your targets first. Decide how much money you will make in a month and by when.  For example, if in 90 days you want to double your income, then start with your income on the 90 day mark and work backwards. What target do you need to hit in 60 days?  30 days?  2 weeks?  This Friday?   Then break it down even further to the tasks you have to do to hit those targets.  Not rocket science, but a hugely left out piece for most.

2.  Check in with your emotions. Your emotional body can wreak havoc on the best-laid plans, and stop you from reaching your goals in a timely (and stress free) fashion.  You do NOT have to live in overwhelm, frustration, fear, worry, about, greed, anger or a host of other negative emotions.   Here’s the thing:  YOU created the emotion by your thoughts.  Therefore, you can undo the emotion by alternative thoughts. For example, let’s say you’re worried about money and your thoughts are “I’m going to go broke”.  Yikes!  That’s not a great idea to plant in your subconscious mind, is it?  The brain will go to work and literally make it happen, as it will be tricked into thinking that’s what you really want.   Ask yourself, “do I really want to go broke?”  If the answer is no (and I assume it will be) then ask yourself to let go of that desire. You will feel a shift back to the now.

3.  Set aside focus time daily. Focus time (uninterrupted time) is imperative for your productivity.   Even if the fires are blazing all around you and there’s tons of “stuff to do”, a few minutes of focus time to achieve a task will create momentum in your brain and in your body, which will help you to be more confident and more focused.  Even if you set aside 30 minutes to clean up a pile of papers, the idea here is to actually accomplish something, so you can feel little bits of success.

4.  Be still. Quiet time is a fundamentally lacking element in most people’s lives.  We run from one thing to the next, gotta run, don’t have time in this crazy world.  Stop it. Right now. Seriously.  Your brain cannot do the work you have asked it to do if your conscious mind is in the way all  of the time. You cannot be creative, get new solutions to problems you are working to solve, or develop your intuition or gut instinct.

5.  Lose the To-Do list.   I have all my projects up on a big whiteboard in mindmap format. Everything I need to do for those projects are visible to me all the time.   Each day, I pick a few things and put them on my TODAY list. I get the things done I need to get done but fiercely protecting my focus time.  (Well, sometimes I make an appointment during focus time, but hey, we’re all human!)   Getting stuff done isn’t about the quantity – it’s about the quality. You need a today list that is no more than 6 items long. These are your promises to yourself of things you WILL get done.  And they don’t have to be big huge things together.  Today I changed the beneficiary on my life insurance.  Small thing but it was really nagging at me, causing me to waste time thinking about it.   So I did it and now I’ve reclaimed power in my mind.

Many gurus will tell you that reclaiming time is all about your calendar and your schedule and grouping tasks.  Sure, that’s part of it but it’s your internal behaviors that will make or break your commitment to time – and to your dreams.

More happiness!!!

…or so I thought.

But I had a problem I didn’t know how to deal with, and it required some help.

So like any Alpha, strong willed entrepreneur, I decided to deal with it head on.  I called a local psychologist and made an appointment.  Walked into the office on the day and time of my appointment and said “I’ve got a problem and I need to get past this emotional crap.  I give it 30 days and then I need to move on.”

Well bless her heart, because that woman introduced me to what has become the most important part of myself – my emotional body – and showed me not only how to get in touch with my emotions, but how to use them to my advantage.  To become more compassionate for other people, to “have a heart” so to speak.  In time, I learned that being all up in my head wasn’t working, and I slowly but surely learned to follow my heart and balance out the two.

A little strange for a hard-driving computer geek like me, but I decided to give it a try.

Three years later, I asked that same psychologist, “When does this end?”  She laughed gently and replied “The ladder has a neverending set of rungs.  This is lifetime work.”  Honestly, I didn’t understand it at the time – I didn’t want to commit to a lifetime of internal personal work – I wanted results NOW!  It frustrated me because I was used to DOING stuff, not BEING in the moment.  (and in the emotion)

Today, I am a very emotionally balanced, happy human being.  My business is thriving as I help others to build theirs.  Other hard driving Alpha types call me every day to begin the journey that I started.   Except today, I have shortcuts and lots of systems to help people get happier even faster than ever before (thanks to my computer and systemic patterning training for that!)

I’ve studied with masters of practical application of applied psychology, persuasion, linguistics, cognitive psychology and happiness.  Wow, what a transformation from computer geek to behaviorist.  But to me its all just patterns and systems.  People have patterns just like computers have patterns.  We just need a little reprogramming or upgrading from time to time…

So if you’re one of those Alpha types who thinks you are making decisions logically, without emotion, think again.  All decisions have emotion attached to them.  If you’re ready to figure out how to harness that, give me a call.  Your business (and life) will explode into new realms, and I promise, even though the ride is rocky, it’s blissful and stable on the other side.  Think you can stand the challenge?  (I bet you can…)

In case you haven’t seen it, the movie is about a guy who travels the country, 300 days per year, and fires people for a living. He loves every aspect of traveling, especially the parts that require him not to commit to any relationships – not family, not friends and certainly not a love interest.  He just doesn’t have time.

Then he meets someone and his life gets turned upside down.

Suddenly his heart is hooked on a love interest.  He decides to go to his sister’s wedding, even though the family has written him off.  After successfully facilitating a discussion with a very cold-footed  groom-to-be who doesn’t think he wants to get married anymore, it became obvious to me that this guy’s major strength was the very thing he’d been trying to avoid.  Relationships.  Communication.  He’s actually very masterful at it.

And so realizing his strength and starting to use it, things begin to change in his life.  First, he gets grounded due to some new technology that allows the company to fire people via the internet.  (not such a great idea).   He strengthens his relationship with family and his love interest and his co-workers.   Suddenly, life has meaning.  All because external forces forced him to really realize his strengths.

It is this way with many people – not working or living in your strengths.  Finding struggle at every turn.  Not admitting that maybe the work you’re doing just isn’t for you.   Making the changes necessary to “right” your life.

I’ve been making massive changes in my life lately to accommodate some big new ways to help you be more passionate and purposeful in your career.  In order to go to the next level, I’ve had to say goodbye to certain things I thought I wanted, and really being honest about my own personal blueprint has helped me to shed the things that were not my strengths and find new ways to get things done.

There are 6 things that you need to address to be able to move to the next level.  I’m going to be teaching you those 6 things in our upcoming Manifest Change Now! teleseminar series and helping you to find your own personal blueprint for success.  It’s an uber-affordable series to help you be your passionate, purposeful self starting out this new decade.

I know many of you have been going through things that have seemed difficult lately.  Isn’t it time to do something different?

Leave me a comment and let me know what you’ll let go of or do differently starting NOW.

The year was 1984 and Iwas a year out of high school.  Having decided that I was grown up enough to live in my own apartment, (even though I couldn’t really afford it), with a rusty old ugly green sedan for transportation, I muddled through.  Working a part time job and going to school part time, I spent most nights at home eating baked potatoes because they were cheap and filled me up.

During the day, my thoughts were constantly on worrying about what my future would hold.  In fact, I had such a stranglehold on my fear and worry that I would stay up awake at night, millions of thoughts in my head clouding my mind.

Then…just as I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did. 

It was an innocent move.  I had watched my then boyfriend start the engine on his motocross motorcycle plenty of times.  It looked so easy to do it myself.  I hopped up on the motorcycle, grabbed the handlebars and kicked down as hard as I could, expecting the engine to rev up and come to life. 

Instead, I felt the crunching of bones, my foot breaking in four places (I wouldn’t know that for sure for quite a while later).  Four surgeries, two years on crutches and lots of pain later, I could finally walk again. 

I made adjustments in school, moved into a new place with roommates, found new ways of coping with my situation and even found happiness and joy in what would be such a difficult time.  As the bills piled up from my surgeries, new challenges came up for me to deal with.  Set in my old anxious ways, I got scared.

Really scared.

My mother had been helpful all through this time, and she saw how scared I was.  Looking at me one day she said “Worry is a huge waste of energy and time.  You can only deal with what’s happening right now.  The future hasn’t happened and the past is gone.  So if you stay up at night filled with worry, you’ll just be tired and worried.”

It was a breakthrough moment for me.   That night, I decided that I would deal with my problems in the morning, after a good night’s sleep to clear my head.  I slept blissfully through the night.

Did the problems disappear?  No.  But my attitude changed. 

I learned that day that sometimes breakthroughs feel like breakdowns.  Things don’t go the way you planned.  People leave, projects stall, things get messy.  But when you keep trying to do the things that aren’t working, you just make yourself sick. 

I’m still having breakthroughs today, as I know you are too.  Lots of great things are happening and in the midst of it all, lots of things are changing, so it sometimes feels messy.   I want you to know that whatever is going on in your life today that seems messy, you are having a breakthrough.    It will all be okay. 

Leave a comment and let me know what breakthroughs you’re having…

Just as I thought we were finished, she looked over at me, her eyes softening and said “Let me ask you a question.  When you really want something, I mean REALLY want it, and you’ve tried everything to get it – visualization, inner work, negative beliefs, when do you know it’s just not going to happen and you give up?”

“I mean, I read your story about going to Alcatraz,” she continued.  “You were in San Francisco for a very short time for a speech and you really wanted to see Alcatraz.  You’d never been there.”

“Yes, I remember” I giggled, since she was telling me my own story, straight from the pages of The Accidental Millionaire.

“You only had one afternoon open so you decided to go to Alcatraz.  When you got to the ticket booth, they were sold out for a week.  Then, out of the blue, someone magically appeared with two tickets to Alcatraz and you got to go – that afternoon!  I really, REALLY, want to make this happen for me.”  she continued. “But every time I see a little bit of success, it just slips away.   I know what I want, but it always seems to elude me.   I’m really over the Law of Attraction – it just doesn’t work.”

“Hold on there,” I interrupted her  The Law of Attraction works REALLY well, IF you understand one fundamentally important and very crucial distinction.  Knowing what you want is only the beginning.  Nothing happens until you DECIDE to have what you want.”

“Huh?”  she said, cocking her head.

“Go back to Alcatraz.  You see, I didn’t just want to go to Alcatraz, I DECIDED to go to Alcatraz.  I did the most obvious thing to make that happen – buy tickets.  When they were sold out, I used the Law of Attraction to find a different way.  I never would have said to myself the way to get to Alcatraz is to walk into a T-shirt shop, notice a booth selling timeshares that was giving away two free tickets to Alcatraz if I viewed the presentation.  Which is exactly what I did, by the way.  Because I made the DECISION, possibilities opened up to me that I would not have noticed.”

“Waiting around for the Universe to deliver what you want is a waste of time.  Using the Law of Attraction to attract things to you requires that you stop waiting around and DECIDE to HAVE the thing you want.  Only then do you notice all of the abundance and possibility around you that will help you to reach that objective.”

“So wait a minute,” she continued, “I really want new hardwood floors.  I’ve picked them out, found someone to install them, even saved up the money.  Then something happened and I spent the money on something I probably didn’t even need.  What happened?  Why don’t I have the floors.  I really want them!”  she exclaimed loudly.

I smiled.  “Because you didn’t decide to have hardwood floors.  You had fun picking out the flooring, finding the people and saving the money.  But you still had never said to yourself  ‘I’m installing hardwood floors next year.’  Therefore, when something else came up and sounded good, you DECIDED to do that instead.”

“It’s like this,” I continued, her mouth now hanging open “If you’ve decided to lose weight and are presented with a plate of doughnuts, you’d probably choose something different.  But if you hadn’t made the decision to lose weight, you might not give eating the doughnut a second thought.”

“WOW!”  she exclaimed, jumping up from her seat, “I GET IT!  THIS IS HUGE!”

“Yes, it is” I said quietly, allowing the moment to fully unfold.

“I didn’t make the decision to have the floors.  I didn’t make the decision to be successful in my business.  I was just waiting around for opportunities to present themselves, waiting for IT to happen and never defining IT!”  she was on a roll.  “From now on, I will make DECISIONS to have what I want.  Thank you!.”

She hugged me tightly and it dawned on me that maybe I could revisit some decisions of my own (or maybe some non-decisions).  Always learning and growing, I’ve made some new decisions recently and almost magically, quickly and effortlessly, the object of my decision has shown up in my face.

So what decisions do you need to make to have the things you want?

More money?  DECIDE NOW to be a good money manager, salesperson, whatever.

More time?  DECIDE NOW to spend your time wisely and evaluate every action before you jump in.

Better relationships?  DECIDE NOW to have what you want in your relationship.  Get real if it’s not working.

I think you get the idea.  Leave a comment and let us know what you will DECIDE to have now.

Isn’t this fun?

Yet for so many, stuck seems to be a state that is stubbornly present, even defeating in the lives of so many.

You know, the web site tweak that just has to be done before you promote, the sales script that needs to have every word perfect before you make the call, the distraction of finding something new to create instead of focusing on the thing that’s in front of you.   And the worst of all – just not knowing what to do next.

It’s the Getting Ready to Get Ready syndrome.

And some of you have it… BAD!

I was talking with a client yesterday who is in a career transition.  But instead of hopping from one career to the next, he’s making an interim stop as a consultant while looking for the next path.  With a possible job that fell through, he was stuck.

“I think I’ll install some new tools on my computer so I’m ready when the next opportunity comes,” he told me firmly.

“Really?”  I asked.  “How do you know the next job will need those exact tools?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s kind of like home improvement projects.  You like to have a hammer around so you’ll be ready”  he said.

“What if the roof caves in?” I questioned jokingly.  “How is the hammer going to help you?”

He laughed quietly and said “Yeah, I see what you mean.  But what do I do?”

And therein lies the problem.  If you’re getting ready for the next opportunity but you haven’t defined or even decided what you want, you will never get the opportunity. It’s that simple.

“The first thing you must do is make a decision to get 1 consulting job.  Just one.”  I told him.   “Next, you must take imperfect action.  Start asking people about their challenges that you can help them with. Be in conversation.  It will lead to business.  I guarantee it.”

We talked then for a while about what to say to people and how to be in the conversation.  At the end of our session, he was not only unstuck, but actually excited about taking action – even imperfect action – to support his decision to move forward with this part of his transition.

No one is immune.  Recently, I was trying to make sure that our 2-Day Tuneup signature event was perfect.  In fact, I was working so hard to make sure the event was perfect that I almost forgot to tell you about it!  Just one more tweak to the website, one more segment of fun to get in there, one more…etc.   I was so engrossed in the “getting ready to get ready” to tell you that I finally had to make the decision to stop tweaking and start telling!  Duh.  But like I said – we’re not immune and we’re all in the process called LIFE.

So what do you need to make a decision to stop doing and what will you decide to start doing?  I’m curious.  Leave a comment and let’s get the energy moving!

In the movie, Dan, the main character, has a very busy life. He’s a young college student and athlete, bound for the Olympics, he trains hard, plays hard and gets good grades.  A certain feeling of uneasiness comes over him about his life, something he’s never had before.  He seeks the counsel of a wise elder who begins to show him the way.

At one point in the movie, they agree to meet at a bridge overlooking a shallow creek at the college for a lesson.  Dan, in his hurried world, totally forgets that he also has an athletic tryout at the same time he agreed to meet his mentor.  He tells his friend to hold a spot for him at the gym, and sprints to the bridge.  He catches up with his mentor Soc (short for Socrates) who is leaning on the bridge railing, quietly observing nature.

“Soc, I’m sorry,” Dan blurts out “I completely forgot I have tryouts in a few minutes.  Can we make this quick?”

“Sure,” says Soc.

And he throws Dan over the bridge, into the water.

“WHAAAAAAA!” yells Dan, as he jumps up, soaking wet.  “What did you do THAT for?”

“When you were falling, what were you thinking of?”  Soc said quietly.

Dan stared blankly, unable to answer.

“NOTHING” said Soc.  “You were totally in this moment.  You weren’t thinking of the tryout, you weren’t thinking of school you weren’t thinking about anything except what you were experiencing, right here, right now.  Slow down.  Be present.  Look at everything going on around you.”

“There’s nothing going on,” said Dan as he observed the people in the park.

“Look closer” said Soc.

Soon Dan began to notice things.  Little things at first.  The lovers smiling and kissing.  The dog grabbing a ball.  Then, as he got into the moment, he began to notice true beauty around him.  The leaves on the trees.  The sound of the wind blowing.  Laughter, insects and even the sound of the water running in the creek.

Slowing down is an important part of speeding up.  Do you spend time in observation, totally in silence, or are you racing through life trying to reach a destination?

My plan for this year is to slow down to speed up.  Huge things are happening for me that I’ll share in other posts, and in order to receive those huge gifts (and realize my dreams), slowing down must happen.  I’m even going to show you how if you join me in the upcoming 2-Day Tuneup Retreat.  It’s our signature event for 2010 and I know you’re going to love it.

So what do you think could happen for you if you slowed down a little bit?

Leave me a comment and let me know.

As the training went on, I discussed protocol, troubleshooting, hacking (oh excuse me, I meant to say “breaking down patterns to achieve entry into a network”) ARP, RARP, PING and a hundred other protocols.  We talked hexadecimal and binary numbering systems, packet loss and router tables.   Exciting stuff when you’re a geeky engineer.

But something was missing.

You could see it in their eyes.

While they were excited about the material, I could just tell that there were bigger things going on for these stoic (mostly) men and women.  They were in pain.  They were dealing with big things in life – divorce, stress, fear, worry and doubt about keeping their job, staying up on technology and running their businesses and departments.

So I read them a story.

Picking up a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, I quietly read a humorous and inspirational story with as much animation as I could muster.  The message hit them squarely in the heart – without hope, there is no life.   It was that small spark of hope in their eyes  from that tiny little story that my life changed that day.

Fast forward to today.

The Accidental Millionaire is currently experiencing a new surge of activity.  Why?  People want hope, purpose and passion in their lives.  We crave it.  But we don’t know how to get it.  It’s not taught in school, and I think that’s a shame.  That’s why I wrote the book.

You are here to learn and grow, to give your gifts to the world and become the authentic, beautiful you that you are. We all are.  I’m so glad to be on the journey with you.   (Sometimes it feels more like a roller coaster though, right?)

So tell me this:  as we head into the new year, what hopes and dreams do YOU have that you are ready to fulfill?  For me, it’s a much bigger platform and I’m ready to receive that.  What are YOU ready to receive?  Leave a comment below and let’s discuss..

After going in with much anticipation and knowing that I would need to keep a strong mind to be able to stay positive in the midst of so much chaos and negativity, I was astonished to find that in my own mind, I had created a massive dose of anxiety and fear in my mind and body.   How could that be?  After all, aren’t I some kind of new thought guru that understands how thoughts can create emotion?  Don’t I have control of my own thoughts?

Apparently not.

The “what if” monster got me good.   I found myself sitting in the theater, watching the Earth destruct in 2012 and thinking:

• What if it’s true?
• What if there is scientific data and I have been ignoring it?
• What if everything I’m doing is for nothing?
• What if the belief I have about 2012 being a spiritual new world is wrong?
• What if I don’t see my family before then?

And the biggest (and honestly most selfish) thought of all:

What if I’m not one of the survivors?

I needed to come back to the present moment and I needed to do it now.  But I couldn’t.  I decided to check it out a little more on the internet, just to calm my nerves.  Conspiracy theorists, propaganda, predictions galore.  (What was I expecting?)  My nerves got worse as I surfed.  I really wanted to stop, but I almost couldn’t.  It was kind of like picking a scab and expecting a cut to heal.  Finally, the anxiety got to a point where I couldn’t ignore it.

And I did this to MYSELF!

“Get away from the Internet”, my own voice told me.  “There is only this moment.  The future hasn’t happened.”

“Yes, I know,” I said to myself “but what if…”

“STOP IT!”

Leaning back in my chair, I felt powerful just clicking the little X to close the window on my browser.  Predictions be gone.  Whatever is going to happen is going to happen (or not happen) and that’s just the way it is.   Have you ever felt anxiety over a situation and obsessed about the negative outcome?  Of course you have.  But when you come back into the present moment, set up a step by step plan and get into action, there is no “what if”.  There is only NOW.

What do you need stop worrying about and get into the present about right now?  Leave me a comment and let’s stay present together.

All is ok.

I used to think that getting things done was all “mind over matter”, but not now.  You see, you already have inside of you all of the resources you need to get what you want, change what you want and be who you want.  (I know, it’s sometimes hard to believe, but it’s true).   

I’m on my way to Dallas in a couple of weeks to do two 2-Day Turnarounds with a man and a woman who are both having mental and emotional challenges around what’s next in their life and their career.  Helping them to see things in a different way, using a different perspective is essential to be able to get out of the rut.  

So what’s keeping you in the rut?  Is it a consistent, persistent negative thought pattern, negative emotion, physical or emotional pain?  Is it doing the same things that don’t work over and over instead of admitting it’s not working and finding a new way?  If you’re saying to yourself “I know there’s something stopping me but I don’t know what it is”, then there are a couple of things you need to do:

1.  Know that you’re in charge.  Yep, only YOU can control how you feel, think and act. 

2.  Consider a different perspective.  What would you problem seem like from a “fly on the wall” perspective?

3.  Rewrite your life.  At some point, you made a decision to have these problems, because you’re in charge.  Go back to the first time you can remember having it and ask yourself why you needed it then and how it was serving you.  (because it does have a purpose, even if it feels negative). 

4.  Get help.  It’s difficult to see the problem when you’re in the problem.  Ask someone else for help.

So how have you been in charge of your emotional states and what have you done to break yourself free from negativity?  Leave a comment below and let me know.