We made it!

Are we celebrating what’s behind us or are we getting focused and what lays ahead?

THAT is the F-word of the year: FOCUS. Start your day, your week, your month, your quarter, your year with a vision of what you want to create. What is the outcome you’d like for the year ahead?

It’s a surprisingly complex question: what outcomes will you create for yourself?

What makes that a complex question is that there are so many possibilities in so many areas of your life. 

What do you want to create for yourself and others in the areas of connection, finance, and fun? 

Will you create for yourself… a new car? a new career path? a new relationship? a new place to live? a new language? 

Will you create for others… an improved life in any number of avenues?

Can you see it, hear it, feel it, smell it, taste it and live into it?

There will be so many demands on each of us. There will be so many distractions. 

You know this; just look at the past couple of ...

YEAHHHHH!!!! 

We made it to the end of this odd, messed-up, exciting, wonderful, terrible, great year.

Think about the growth you’ve had this year. 

Through all of the tragedy and great division that we’ve seen, think about the love you’ve shared with others and the growth you’ve had for yourself.

You. Are. Different!

You’re not the same person today that you were one year ago. How could you be?

I’m not. I’ve grown in ways I didn’t know was possible. 

A year ago, living bi-coastally and being an international speaker were just distant dreams. But I’m that and so much more today.

So what are you setting your sights on for your dreams, ambitions, and goals for your beautiful future? Given what you’ve just come through – whether endured or enjoyed – how are you going to make this New Year the best yet? (People mangle that by saying the “best ever” and that means there’s no room for it being better in the future. Best YET means better than any other preceding this on...

That’s it.

Giving and Forgiving.

They’re both gifts that you benefit from.

All kinds of research has been done around the positive effects of giving.

And all kinds of research has been done about the effects of forgiving others, too.

Both acts result in a boost of endorphins and ultimately, a lightening of your psychic load.

Think about that person that wronged you a few years back.

Do you think that they’re sitting in their room somewhere reminiscing about how badly they screwed you over? Nope. 

They probably didn’t even intend the kind of transgression they inflicted at the time. And even if they did, they’ve moved on with their lives. They’re different than they were at the time it happened.

Think about a time you wronged someone. You might still feel guilty about it. 

If you do, think about whether it makes sense to reach out. 

Before you do, recognize two things: You’ve changed. The you of today wouldn’t do the thing you did a few years back. And, t...

A while back, there were “full-service” gas stations. You could pull up to a pump and out would run an attendant to pump your gas for you. He (almost always “he”) would ask whether you wanted your windows cleaned and to check under the hood.

The attendant would check your oil, washer level, and radiator water. If they were really thorough, they’d check your transmission fluid and brake fluid levels as well.

Then came self-service islands and you got to choose whether you wanted all of that to happen for a few cents more per gallon than to pump your own gas and check under your own hood.

And now we live in the self-service era where we’re pumping our own gas or finding charging stations for our EV. 

And we assume that everything under the hood is good. We’re running down the highway, aren’t we? Everything is juuuuuuussssstttt fine, isn’t it? It is, isn’t it?

We’re in mid-December, having come out of a few of the strangest years in history. Seriously, think about that...

Yikes! It’s December already. 

I know… I didn’t want to be reminded either. And yet, here we are!

This is the season of joy, of giving, of credit card debt, and overeating. It’s the season of forced family gatherings or happy get-togethers. Or maybe a mix of all of that. 

No one day or month or “season” is good or bad. No moment is good or bad. 

Do bad things happen? Yes.

Do wonderful things happen? Yes. 

Can you control the events that will happen this month and the emotional reactions you’ll invoke from being with certain people or giving just the right gift?

Nope. No, you can’t.

Can you control your response to absolutely everything?

Yes, yes you can!

Look, I know that A LOT of people look forward to this time of year. It’s also true that for many, this time of year evokes memories of hard times in the past. And there are many going through hard times now. 

What you have control over is you.

Someone pushes your buttons or triggers you? Your choice to re...

Landing between the holidays, we take a breath. We also gear up for last minute shopping and putting ourselves into debt we didn’t intend. And we eat and indulge because, hey, it’s the holidays. We promise ourselves that the New Year is coming, so we lighten up on our previous promises to ourselves.

You’re shaking your head. 

I’m not blaming here; I’m highlighting a broader issue that seems to plague the collective “we” year after year at this time.   

How is all of this about a success hack?

While it is absolutely normal and natural to live our lives in rhythms (think seasonal), we can also attune ourselves to think in harmonics. That is, as one cycle rises, we also can be planting and preparing for the dip of that cycle. 

Too often, February becomes a month of regret. 

The bills come in, the winter weight is noticed, and the New Year’s resolutions have fallen away. If you’re aware of patterns you can plan for them.

And that is the overlooked success hack: Awaren...

Living in Gratitude is truly amazing.

“Thank you” are the first two words out of my mouth every morning. Really. That’s the start of my morning ritual. And I do it deliberately with consciousness. 

And yet… does it ever feel like you’re being inundated with the notion that this is the month to give thanks? Maybe it’s starting to feel like a demand.

It IS November.  Tomorrow (in the U.S.) is Thanksgiving. We need to gather around a table and celebrate something that isn’t even historically accurate. 

Hey, I’m not being cynical. I’m inviting an awareness to a process that we all grew up in.

(Much like the 40-hour work week that began as a function of a law established pre-WWII, we get to question what works for us and what doesn’t.)

Personally, I’m not sick of being grateful. As I started this blog with, living in gratitude is truly amazing. And I really do begin each day with Thank You.

What we each need to pay attention to is the commercialization of that feeling....

I didn’t know how badly I needed a break. I’m pretty good being in GO mode. And I coach my clients to plan for a weekend away every few months.  Well, I’ve been reflecting on my birthday get-away that was a couple of months ago. After coming off of a multi-city tour of speaking, coaching, and business building, I spent four days in the land of play.

My wife picked me up at an awards ceremony. She, in her jeans and t-shirt, and I, in my formal wear, left the Beverly Hilton hotel for an adventure at… Disneyland. It’s an odd choice, perhaps. And, that’s what we (my wife and I) do. 

We’ll do weekend get-aways.

We’ll plan trips here and there. 

And somehow, I always seem to be working because there’s always something next. Had I not been living in alignment? No, not really.

I’m sharing this story because we often know what to do. And we find “reasons” (aka excuses) for doing just a little more/different/etc.

Between the private screening of and awards ceremony for The Trut...

“I’m right.” 

“No, I’m right!!!”

The shouting goes back and forth and there’s no exit to this “right-fighting.”

No one goes into a debate to be convinced by the other side. We’re each so ready to convince the others that our way is the only way, that we fail to see any sliver of possibility that there might be a different way. 

The truth is, we all miss something. 

In my most recent TEDx that has climbed past three-quarters of a million views, I spoke about the need for a Parallax Perspective. If you approach every situation with the knowledge that you’re missing something, then you’ll actually get further in influencing others. 

Right-fighting is like a bad game of eternal tug-of-war. And yet there is no tug of war if you’re not picking up the rope!

Getting people to do what you want or to believe the way you want them to is often mistakenly about control. 

Reaching agreement doesn’t have to be about dominance; in reality, it’s about engagement.

How might you a...

This is a big, personal share. 

The caterpillar creates a cocoon and then doesn’t automatically become a butterfly. Before that happens, the caterpillar turns into a gooey, oozing soup. It dissolves its caterpillar-ness. And a transformation happens. 

The transformation isn’t pretty.

And the transformation isn’t instantaneous.

We all have stories that came from rules we learned before we had a big, world perspective. We learned what it took to survive, to be loved, and to feel worthy.

I grew up with such a paradox of rules. 

On the one hand, my parents were fans of self-esteem and building that in their children. On the other hand, I learned that it wasn’t okay to feel too much self-esteem (and later learned that doing so would threaten the esteem of the dominant parent). As such, I ventured into the big world with unconscious rules that stopped me from pursuing BIG goals. 

I learned to go along to get along.

I also learned that I needed to achieve in order to...