How does your garden grow?

I spent the last weekend at the Thrive Academy’s Client Attraction Summit. It was So. Much. Fun. (When is the last time you had actual fun while building your business?)

What made it so much fun? Let me count the ways…

1. The leaders, Jesse and Sharla, have a great sense of humor. They include self-deprecation and humility. They get people to laugh in recognition of our shared humanity and fallibility.
2. The community is so warm and inviting! I feel like these are my people. They care about each other. Everyone wants to build each other up, not tear each other down. The community invites heart-centered businesses and warmhearted people.
3. The coaching was electrifying. (Not literally. We all stayed safe.) The breakthroughs people had were inspiring, and helped all of us stretch our comfort zones a bit more.
4. There was a lot of genuinely good advice for building your business given at a free three-day event. The sales pitch was presented with grace and a willingness for us to say no. They truly mean it when they say that connection and alignment matter more than sales and money.
5. The energy was clean. I’m usually afraid to talk about energy since it sounds a little California woo-woo. But the energy here was palpable. It was all in service of getting us to grow and thrive. People showed up more fully. Concerns were addressed openly and honestly. Integrity was the name of the game.
6. There was dancing! I love dancing. But people could sit out if they really didn’t love dancing. We learned the benefits of moving our bodies (so we could stuff more info into our heads) but were not made to feel bad if it didn’t work for us.

This is how I want to lead events. I hope the events I have lead have had the love and integrity that this event did. They will lead it again in May and September (go to http://www.clientattractionsummit.com if you are interested in more info). I will keep you posted for when I lead something open to the public! I’m sure it will happen. Just don’t know when.

Wishing you inspiration, admiration, and motivation in this new year. You rock!

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Flying Feelings

I wrote up an idea I have for a group exercise. However, sitting as I am alone in my living room, I have no one to test this idea. Want to give it a try? I’d love your feedback!

Flying Feelings
Instructions: Think about how you feel when you are the least charitable and the most cranky. When you are in that head space, think about what you assume other people’s priorities are, especially when they seem to conflict with yours. Write them on a piece of paper. Then make the paper into a paper airplane, and when everyone is ready, on my mark fly it into the middle of the room.

Pick up a few and read aloud. Then recycle all of them. These aren’t the attitudes we want to keep.

Instructions: Think about how you feel when you are the most charitable and generous. When you are in that head space, write down what you think the others in the group priorities are. Fly your planes all together into the middle of the room. Before we look at them, write a new page with what your own priorities are. Fly those into the middle of the room.

Mix them up and read a few. Read enough to see if the group can tell the difference between what people do care about, and what others think they care about.

Ask how this exercise feels to them. Does it feel better to have a generous attitude to others? Does it feel bad to know others think badly of them?

Brainstorm and write down general guiding principles of how people can assume the best of each other, and what to do if there is suspicion people are assuming the worst.

What do you think? Will it work? Did it work? Please let me know!!!

It’s Turning 2017 (I really think so)

So, it’s a new year. A lot of people take the new year as a chance to start anew. I feel decidedly mixed about this.

On the one hand, I love the sense of possibility that comes from new planners, blank books, and the feeling of turning over a new leaf. I imagine how organized, or creative, or both, I’ll be after I purchase a new book to write or draw in. (I can’t count the number of blank books I’ve purchased and either only wrote in the first few pages, because I couldn’t maintain the discipline I envisioned, or never wrote in at all, because I didn’t want to ruin the feeling of possibility.)

On the other hand, it’s just another day in winter. (Or summer, in the other hemisphere.) There’s nothing inherently new about January 1 as compared to December 31. Nothing will change if we don’t try to change, nothing will grow if we don’t plant the seeds.

A lot of people make resolutions at the new year to be different, to make changes, to be more organized or athletic or creative or somehow better. I feel mixed about this too. On the one hand, change won’t come if we don’t put intention and effort behind it. On the other hand, I personally hate the feeling that there’s something wrong with me that needs to be changed.

My best changes have come from following the things that make me feel good – aligned, alive, joyous and free. Not necessarily feel good as in it tastes good or feels soft on my skin, but feel good as in stronger, more myself, more content. Which means I’ve lost some weight. But if I went into the new year saying I am wrong for being the weight I am and I need to lose some weight in order to be acceptable, I would resist like a kid resists brushing teeth. No way are you putting that thing in my mouth lady!

Still, I can’t say the tendency to spend winter in contemplation of the past and planning the future is bad. We all need those fallow seasons where we are not actively planting or harvesting, where we let new ideas marinate til they are soft and ready to apply. Reviewing the year may be artificial, as opposed to reviewing the project that comes to a close, but it’s still better than not looking at it at all. It’s hard to learn from experience if we never look at the experience we have.

So I wish you all a very happy new year, and hope this season gives you greater understanding of the past and hope for the future.