“I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.” When we were kids, life was so fun and fresh. Maybe it’s because we dived straight into adventure. Because we didn’t think of success or failure in …
When Life Changes, Success Puts on Different Clothes Read More »
I spent a lot of my childhood in single-wide trailer that we shared for bit with a family of opossums. More on the opossums in a bit. My parents got divorced when I was 7 and after my …
What Growing Up In A Trailer Park Taught Me About Success and Opossums Read More »
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” – Stephen King A few years ago, I started writing again. I badly needed it. It was …
In 2007, I left my finance job as a VP and opted for an entrepreneurial career as a Business/Life Coach, Speaker, and author. This meant saying goodbye to a good salary, bi-monthly pay checks, a life in New York City and living 15 minutes away from my mom and brother. I moved to California in 2009, wrote a book, Living in YOUR Top 1%, and this past week spoke to over 400 people at three different companies ranging from real estate to a Fortune 500 company in healthcare to an investment company. I never regret my decision because I wake up the majority of mornings being excited about my work and the opportunity to make a difference.
As an entrepreneur and the CEO of my own business (like every entrepreneur), I am in charge and directly responsible for developing new coaching programs, marketing, business development, giving talks to various companies and every other area. Some days are great and other moments are frustrating but I know this is my path. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way both from my experiences and coaching other entrepreneurs and companies to help them excel.
Let’s say you want to become more productive. You Google “productivity tips”, and 46 million links appear. Click on a couple, and you notice most of them are lists of information, usually bullet-points like “use an organizer”, “keep your desk clean”, or “don’t take ‘Facebook breaks’ while you’re working!”.
So you try to use an organizer, keep your desk clean, and decide not to look at Facebook once every 2.8 minutes. Do you know what happens next? It’s what happens to most people. You slowly forget…forget that you wanted to be more productive, and that you made these little promises to yourself about using an organizer. And you’re back to where you started, except this time, you probably think you “can’t” become more productive.
Isn’t that what usually happens? Why is that what usually happens?
“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” – Naguib Mahfouz, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988
I often see the question What would love do? or What would kindness do?
I love these questions because they help to guide us forward with compassion and truth. Let me add one more powerful question to the mix…
“One of the main weaknesses of mankind is the average person’s familiarity with the word ‘impossible.’ He knows all the rules that will not work. He knows all the things that cannot be done.” ~ Napoleon Hill
I was in NYC with my mom and had a short conversation with a woman during our bus ride. She was about 55 years old, used a cane, and was at least 75 pounds overweight. As a result of being hit by a drunk driver several years ago, she told us, “she was limitedphysically.” I listened to her story and understood her challenges. However, a different story flashed in my mind of Anthony Robles who won the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championships in the 125-pound weight division. He also was limited physically because he was born with one leg but still managed to become a champion athlete and one of the most accomplished wrestlers in Arizona State history. Two people with limiting factors in their life, yet two very different outcomes.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein
Have you ever had an important project or goal not turn out as well as you had hoped? Don’t worry, we all have! It’s time to reverse this trend by re-evaluating the actions we are taking in our lives to see if they are setting us up for success. Here’s what we know:
As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a writer. I kept a journal faithfully throughout my school years and entered every story writing competition I could. I’d write short poems in the margins of my science lecture notes and even penned comic book stories about all my friends being superheroes. With good grades and stacks of finished stories, I felt like nothing could stand between me and a promising career as a writer.
Except that life interfered. Despite my best intentions, I ended up curtailing my dream once I hit college. Studies overrode novel writing. I picked up a boyfriend, who took up most of my time. I did try to keep writing by submitting short stories every now and again to collegiate magazines, but none of them were accepted. After several rejection letters, I shelved my writing dream in lieu of other pursuits. Once in a while I would find an old 3.5” floppy filled with story ideas and imagine “what if,” but things didn’t get much farther than that. I was unhappy about it, but I felt I should spend my time doing “adult things.” At the tender age of 23, I felt I had failed at writing.
