The Gold That We Avoid

Which of your gold is hardest for you to accept?

For so many of us, we have a hard time accepting and speaking about the characteristics within us that we are proud of.

Perhaps we were told that we shouldn’t think too highly of ourselves.
This is an interesting way of looking at things.

As Marianne Williamson said,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

That being said - if we use the gold within us - our positive characteristics - to change the world - how is this to be considered arrogant or thinking too highly of ourselves?

In that sense - it is not about whether or not we have gold within us - but rather - it is how we use it. Do we use it just for selfish gain - or do we use it in service of others?

So again I ask, which of your gold is hardest for you to accept?

What are those things within you, that if you accepted them fully, would spring forth more joy and fulfillment both in you and the world around you?

8 Ways to Stop Putting Out Fires

Have you ever met someone (or been someone) who used the phrase “putting out fires” regularly for, let’s say, 10 years?

I’ve definitely been in this mindset of “putting out fires” at seasons of my life.

Until I got tired of it.

And started asking myself: How am I setting my life up so that there are constantly fires?

I decided to hold myself responsible for the fires. NOTE: Not because it was necessarily “true” - but because it is more resourceful to see the world this way.

Seeing myself from a place of ownership allows me to see things I haven’t seen before. Here is a bit more about that and how to create a new system in your life with fewer fires.

1. Choose an ownership mindset. I.E. Stop using disempowered phrases such as “I need to go put out some fires.”

2. Utilize curiosity to explore and wonder about “if I am creating the fires, how am I doing this?” - and then write out 10 bullet points of how you might be creating these fires.

3. Get clear and frank feedback from people close to you (ask them to be 100% honest with you) - and ask them how you might be creating the fires.

4. Invest 2 hours pulling all of that data together and pull insights from it.

5. Implement the insights by creating commitments and actions to take.

6. Follow through on your commitments.

7. Do a “lab analysis” (like Chemistry class in high school) - ask yourself:

   1. What worked?

   2. What didn’t work?

   3. What could I continue to experiment with that might get new results?

8. Repeat all of the above steps on a regular basis until the fires are gone.

When Life Becomes Transactional

I’m not exactly sure where to start with this post, though I think it is an important topic as I see it quite often when working with clients.

People seem to keep life in a space that I find best described as “transactional.” What I mean more clearly by this is people attempt to keep some things at a distance and thus keep their emotions out of it completely.

The main issue with this shows up with the reality that we are (all of us) deeply emotional beings and many times situations call for us to be emotionally connected to what is happening.

Often I find people get overly transactional when they are attempting to avoid feelings or emotions that they label as painful or vulnerable. Hence keeping things at a distance - we don’t know how to sit with our pain and vulnerability and see the great strength in it.

I wonder what would happen if we learned to embrace emotions as they come. To honor them. To take care of them. My current metaphor for this would be to imagine the best dog ever. The dog that is well trained. It is clear that the owner is in charge of the dog, and not the other way around. This would be juxtaposed with the dog that runs away all the time, jumps on people, and slobbers all over you (regardless of how perfect a dog the owner swears this dog is).

Most people are afraid their emotions will be like the latter. They can’t control them and so it is best to keep them in the kennel.

But imagine that we train ourselves to be connected. Not only to our own emotions, but also to the emotions of others. The happiness and the sadness. The joy and the grief. Through all of the seasons of business and life.

5 Tips for Handling Conflict With Honor

Let’s pretend a conflict is happening between 2 people. I am person A and the other person is person B.

1. I must first and foremost be committed to treating person B with respect, honor, and curiosity. This is my responsibility. I must take ownership for how I am thinking about person B and the conflict.

2. If I approach the conflict as person A PLUS person B versus the conflict itself - that will be much more resourceful than seeing the conflict as person A versus person B.

3. I must remember to keep the overall vision in mind. I must do the homework ahead of time to get clear as to how I would like the conflict to go and request that person B do the same. At the beginning of the conversation - it is helpful to share this to see where there is overlap and where there is disagreement.

4. I must remember to go the "final 10%” as I refer to it. I must be willing to share with transparency, curiosity, respect, and honor - what it is that is actually going for me. And I must ask person B to do the same with me. (From my experience - this is something that dramatically increases the success of the outcome of the conflict).

5. When sharing my final 10% - I must remember to orient it to the vision of person B. This assumes I have done my work in understanding person B’s vision. If I know person B’s vision - that helps me contextualize the conversation and feedback towards anything that I think might get in the way of person B achieving their vision.

The Origin of the word "Worry"

Recently I have been putting an extra emphasis of focusing my thoughts on the future and the future I want to live into.

Part of that process has been for me to notice when I believe thoughts or entertain thoughts that aren't a part of my desired future.

For example, recently I decided to study the concept of worry (so that I could find antonyms of the word in which to redirect my thoughts). 

The word "worry" was in part developed from the concept of "to harass by rough or severe treatment (as of dogs or wolves attacking sheep)."

So, after understanding in more depth, I then went on to explore antonyms and I found this: calmness, certainty, cheer, comfort, confidence, happiness, joy, pleasure, sureness, trust, unconcern, advantage, contentment, peace, reassurance.

If we can choose to focus on either worry (wolves attacking sheep) or joy, which will we choose? 

If you could consistently shift your focus to joy, would you want to know?