Blog Archives

Amnesia, anyone?

Posted on November 7, 2011 by sheryl

I’ve been fascinated with movies about people who wake up, usually in the hospital and don’t know their name, and don’t remember their roles (wife, husband, employee) or their habits (happy guy, quiet person, music lover).  While on the one hand, that seems like a nightmare that you’d want to wake up from, my fantasy is that it would be the most freeing day of the year.  What if you could start tomorrow on an absolutely clean slate – what would you create for your life?

An important part of creating your life is the ability to dream that life in a new way.  So often yesterday’s definitions about who you are, what you can do, and how you act keep yanking you out of your day.  Especially when recovering from a traumatic even, it is easy to allow that event to define you. But, you can choose what your reaction to that event in your past will be, and that decision will help define your future.

How about beginning with as blank a slate as you can, as best you can, and breathing into the present moment.  Take as small a step as you can to move forward into your day. 

Here’s to a brilliant new day, dawning just the way you want in just the right way.

Posted in Frozen in Fear, Just Stuck, PTSD, Trauma | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Event + Response = Outcome

Posted on September 27, 2011 by sheryl

I’m in the creek, and I need a paddle. I’m up to my ankles in water actually, and having an interesting time with the response part of the formula.

Here’s my story. I had planned a delightful virtual birthday party with friends from all over the country. I purchased a lovely birthday bouquet of flowers and balloons to make the event festive, and showed up at my office, where I wanted to make that call at 9am, Sunday morning, 9/11/11. When I walked through the door, my toilet had malfunctioned, and had delivered gallons and gallons of clean water (thank goodness) to my office, to my neighbor’s office and to the courtyard out front.

Keeping my priorities straight, I continued with my friends, never letting them know that I was standing in water.  We had a wonderful virtual party, which I’m looking forward to doing again.

My insurance company has been wonderful (Hartford, if you need a good commercial policy), I’ll get a new carpet, freshly painted walls, new linoleum in the bathroom, a new toilet and a new start when the repairs are complete.  I’m choosing colors that match my branding and doing a lot of clearing out of old debris, both physical and emotional in the process.

What’s been interesting for me is how people are so sympathetic, so sorry, so eager to join what they assume is my own pity party, but, I’m just not there.

Yes, there were many intense hours, trying to salvage my furniture, files and equipment from damage, lining up contractors, evaluating my business vision going forward, and finding ways to meet the needs of my clients while I’m out of business.

The biggest gift is that I have to trust the universe to be orchestrating all that is needed to create the life of my dreams – a life that is full of opportunities to fulfill my mission which is to inspire and empower people to live from their deepest selves. Right now, the most important “people” I have to inspire and empower is me.

In retrospect, the events following my own private 9/11 are strangely shamanic, and, were I to describe each piece, it sounds like a dream with its own meaning.

What events in your life demanded a powerful response?  Is that response the one you really want to use to create the outcome you desire?  Sometimes a response is reactive and habitual as in “Why me, Lord?” “It can’t get worse than this, maybe I’ll quit my business” and, my personal best “#$%^@,   @#$%@,   &*@%#”  (of course anger and swearing help oh so little!).

Do leave a comment and let us know what events you have responded to recently and how that worked out for you.  I’m turning this birthday party turned pity party into my celebration party of a brand new beginning, care to join me?

Posted in Business Strategy, Create your Business, Law of Attraction | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

“Dem Bones, Dem Bones”

Posted on August 3, 2011 by sheryl

Remember those cute minnows swirling around your feet as you wade out into the ocean? They have intact backbones and really aren’t succeeding. Neither are the jellyfish stranded on the sand in the outgoing tide. Many people understand that BACKBONE, will, drive, Hard Work and discipline are critical to success.

As we look at obstacles to business success, consider the obstacle of no WISHBONE – no time to set vision, create focus and intention. Yes, we talk about annually an quarterly stepping back to create vision and specific strategies, but have you considered bringiing that practice into the month, the week, the day, or even the next hour?  Setting vision for the day or the hour, is more like setting your intention for this day to be _______(productive, nurturing, energized, giving, fulfilling – fill in the blank) and holding that intention as you take on your action steps for that day.

What I see happening so often, is sitting down at my desk, with a carefully prepared list of action steps that may or may not match my strategy, then working very HARD with all my drive, will, discipline until my neck hurts, I’m cranky and I know, from my work on professional burn-out, that I’m on my way down that path, fighting the tide and finally ending up as food for the big players. [OK, that's a little dramatice, but you get the point].

To bring joy, success, as well as long term contribution in my field, I engage both bones. Here’s my check list:

  • Is what I’m about to do consistent with my intention for the day?
  • Is what I’m about to do consistent with my strategy for the quarter?
  • Do I have the energy to do this with my full attention and my full heart?
  • Can I do this from a place of power and energy, or from a place of just surviving?

No to any one of these questions may suggest that I’m driving and striving, just like those little minnows and maybe I’ll still be fighting the ocean when the day is done.  As you look at what obstacles may be limiting your success, consider the marriage of both your will and your self-discipline (BACKBONE) with your visioning, your intentions, and your heart (WISHBONE). This is the essence of linking the Law of Attraction to the Law of Action – and that marriage real Olympic Gold.

Posted in Business Strategy, Create your Business, Just Stuck, Law of Attraction | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

No Loopholes in Intention

Posted on July 1, 2011 by sheryl

One of the Laws of Attraction that I attend to is the awareness that wherever I put my attention, I’m also placing my energy and thereby, my power. I also know that any words that I speak are filled with my energy and become powerful in my life. Since I know there are are no loopholes, no way around this law, I was shocked to hear what came out of my own mouth this morning as I looked at the scales – which haven’t moved in a month or so – and said “I just can’t lose this weight, what’s wrong with me, anyway”.

Based on this Law of Attraction, I just set in motion a self fulfilling prophecy.

OH RATS!!

I’m also the strengths based coach, so taking energy to discover what is wrong with me, might not be the best use of my focus. Here are my notes-to-self that I thought you might appreciate, too:

  1. What has actually improved over the last month that represents my real priority?
  2. What strengths do I have that will support my intention to be healthy and smaller?
  3. Assuming, I’ve been living On Purpose, what has the purpose of the past month been?
  4. What is the intention for this month?
  5. What is the one thing I desire independence from and what is the one dream I desire to celebrate at the end of July?

OK, world, here are my answers:

  1. What has improved? I’ve added walking regularly to my habits and am beginning to feel more energy.
  2. What are my strengths? My strength this month is my loyalty to the health of my puppy, who needs to walk every day.
  3. My true purpose? My true purpose for this last month has been to adapt to Sammy, and to survive getting up a couple times in the night to let him visit his favorite puppy-pee places.
  4. My intention for this month is to keep my focus on my business, to continue healthy walks, to find a way to be alpha dog while protecting the puppyhood of His Littleness.
  5. I want independence from a preconceived idea of how my body wants to return to health and vitality and I want to celebrate comfortably zipping up my favorite shorts.

As we move into a new month, and the third quarter of the year, remember, there are no loopholes in the link between your intentions and your results. Thoughts and words are things – chose the good ones.

Posted in Create your Business, Create your Career, Just Stuck | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Making a Life or just Making Living

Posted on May 19, 2011 by sheryl

There’s a bumper sticker that I see around that says “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go”. It just breaks my heart, and I find myself wanting to pull over the driver and, in my fantasy, be that altruistic millionaire from the TV show, and invite them off that hook with a big fat check. I shortly snap myself back to reality, though, and realize that it’s really all about intention, and a million dollars won’t help someone whose intention is to just go to work and drudge through the day.

If the intention is to make a living, create enough cash flow to stay out of debt and to put a roof over your head, then the way you get out of bed and the creative energy you use is specific to that intention. In this mode, you may get out of bed with an alarm clock to help you punch in at work on time. You get out of bed grumbly and drag yourself to work. Your creativity and joy are buried under a heap of that gumbling and you have very few areas of your life that are energizing or fun.

If your intention is to make a life, you may very well go to exactly the same job in the previous scenario. You still get up with the alarm clock, but, since this is the life your are creating, you might enjoy a morning walk with your tunes, your dog, or even a friend. On the way to work, if finding joy at work is the life you intend, then you may be thinking about the day’s projects and the day’s contacts and how you can enjoy them. If not, you may be thinking about your lunch plans, and crafting in your mind how to teach your young-in to catch better or memorize history lessons.

You can make a life while making a living, and some people make a life out of making a living (those career focused people – of whom I am one). If, however, you find those times when you’re just making a living and not loving it – that might be a good time to revisit your intentions.

  1. When you were 16 or 18, before you began your adult life, what did you dream it might be?
  2. What part of that dream might you incorporate into this day?
  3. Is it time to step back and ask what it is you really want in your life?
  4. What values do you live by that need to be expressed in your life?
  5. What brings you joy, and how can that be incorporated into your day?

I’m inviting you to examine your deepest intentions, and explore how they might be expressed.

Posted in Create your Business, Create your Career | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Start with WHAT, HOW comes later

Posted on April 27, 2011 by sheryl

I ran across a quote of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week which really caught my eye -

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

This is especially appropriate when we look at getting unstuck and moving forward to create your business and your career. So many times, our choice of a goal gets dumbed-down because we can’t figure out how it’s going to happen, or, as Dr. King said, we can’t see all the steps between here and there. Part of the art of setting intention is just setting it and having trust in your own inner courage and power to move in that direction, knowing that there is a way, and your feet will find it – maybe even in spite of your mind which is wildly trying to think up HOW.

Years ago I used to write down everything I wanted in my life as a New Year’s day activity. Since I was flying private airplanes at the time, one of those things was to have a home that backed onto a private airstrip so I could just pull my plane out of the hanger next to my house and take off. Of course I couldn’t see the end of that staircase, but it went on my list anyway. Same with the swimming pool I thought would be lovely in my backyard, and the business I wanted to start. None of those dreams came with a how, they were just MY DREAM. Truth be told, a year or two later, I wasn’t interested in the pool (too much to clean, and too risky for my children’s safety) or in the home on an airstrip (too noisy and isolated from the city) and I’ve run my business successfully now for 18 years even though I put that on my “Dream” list 30 years ago.

WHAT intentions would you set if you didn’t have to come up with the HOW first?

Posted in Create your Business, Create your Career, Just Stuck | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments