Softness is strength

Passion & Purpose, Self-Love & Self-TrustOctober 29, 2019 7 Comments

Softness is strength. But sometimes we forget.

Our world thrives on the critical. So much so, that when we’re real and soft with each other, it’s suspect.

Lies make all the good shows on TV. Think Preacher, Barry, Game of Thrones, Orange Is the New Black. All depend on lies to spin them forward.

Realness and vulnerability are so much harder to write, let alone act.

That means these are rare, and what’s rare is coveted. Which means you are coveted. Because you are not a lie.

Take this moment to feel how real and soft you are. It’s a rare and divine commodity these days. Forget what they say about being hard and tough. Hard and tough is easy. It’s walled, shielded, and thick. Bricks are easy to come by.

The truly strong let their softness walk through their front door, knowing the risk, and they still take it. And because you do that, you are truly strong.

I know you want to help someone to change. They aren’t going to. Now what?

Change & Transitions, Family, Love & PartnershipsOctober 23, 2019 9 Comments

How can you make someone change? You can’t. Honestly, you can’t. But there is something you can do.

You know that feeling when someone you love keeps telling you to act different, be different? Spend your money differently, show up at work differently, show up in bed differently? You know how annoying that is? How you just want to smack them?

You wonder where they get off thinking that not only do they get total control over their own life, but now they think they get control over yours too? No way buddy. You get your life, I get mine.

Well they think this same way about you, so if you won’t change for them, they’re not going to change for you either.

Now what?

There’s actually a way to make some movement on this.

I always see you loving yourself last

Healing, Self-Love & Self-TrustOctober 9, 2019 7 Comments

I always see you loving yourself last.

Why are you doing that? Loving yourself last, I mean. Who taught you that? It’s terrible. Stop doing it. Stop it so your own kids won’t learn that from you.

Oh someone told you that good people put themselves last? Do unto others before you do unto you?

You ever see those old Looney Tunes Chip and Dale cartoons?

The two chipmunks are so over-giving (“You first. No you first!”) that neither of them gets anything. They can’t receive. It’s a lose-lose. And we laugh at it since we get it so deeply somehow.

And forget that stuff about being a saintly martyr. You aren’t a martyr because you like it. You hate it. It boils your blood and makes you feel lonely and righteous. These are horrible feelings.

You put yourself last because you’re scared, baby. You’re scared that if you put yourself first, all those delicate relationships around you will get rocked. You think your family will suffer, your friends will call you braggy, and your boss will wonder why you’re no longer a team player.

You think that if you shine, and give yourself what you need first, you’ll be a selfish little pisspot like all those other selfish little pisspots you see and hate out there. Self-serving bitches.

Except, you could never be that. You don’t ever need to fear that.

Mining the dark

Change & Transitions, HealingOctober 2, 2019 15 Comments

Mining the Dark

Some periods in your life are just . . . slow. Like ol’ Greek Sisyphus, rolling a rock up a hill over and over, it feels like all the work we do nets no results, no rewards.

It feels like you’re laboring in the dark, and the results of our efforts are totally inscrutable.

You wonder if there is a point. Or if you’re even on the right track at all.

* * *

Yesterday I had lunch with my mom. I told her she sounded tired. She is. She’s been fighting rats in her attic. Rats that led her to a rat company that rips off seniors and sells them huge rat-reduction packages, then does no work.

She’s tired of rats, tired of rat companies, tired of patching holes and arguing for her money back, and lunch seemed like a much better idea.

Our pricey fish plates arrived. Eh, so-so. Undercooked, cold, and dry.

“Happy birthday,” she says to me, “This is your birthday lunch.”

Old rusty windmills and “Mom is always working!”

Born to Make, Entrepreneurs, Jobs & Work, Passion & Purpose, WealthAugust 22, 2019 1 Comment

Every one of us Makers who’s growing a dream, building a business, or trying to see our project turn into something rewarding knows the feeling of hitting a “stop point.” I call it flatlining.

We do everything to push things along, then as our returns start sagging, we slow down and eventually slide to a full, disappointed stop.

This is your dream, your baby, your idea or talent starting and stopping like an old rusty windmill.

You use all your resources. You Flowdream. You look up strategies on websites. You get a little lost and take a stab at a few things until again you slide to a halt.

• You have an email list that’s half built.

• You have ideas for a website, but no site (or the one you made yourself 4 years ago).

• You have flyers for your sessions but they sit on your desk undistributed.

• You have names of prospects for your business but you have phone-phobia and no one ever gets a call from you.

• You attended two conferences and three online summits to learn how to monetize your make, but now you don’t have time to implement anything you learned. You never open your notebook that you wrote so excitedly in all those days.